TREATY. In international Law, A treaty is a compact made between two or more independent nations with a view to the public welfare. Treaties are for a perpetuity, or for a considerable time. Those matters which are accomplished by a single aot and are at once perfected in their execution are called agreements, conventions, and pactions.
Personal treaties relate exclusively to the persons of the contracting parties, such as family alliances, and treaties guaranteeing the throne to a particular sovereign and his family. As they relate to the persons, they expire of course on the death of the sovereign or the extinction of his family.
Real treaties relate solely to the subject, matters of the convention, independently of the persons of the contracting parties, and continue to bind the state although there may be changes in its constitution or in the persons of its rulers. Vattel, Law of Nat.
b. 2, c. 12, N 183-197.
2. On the part of the United States, tava ties are made by the president, by and with the consent of title senate, provided two-thirds of the senators present, concur. Const. art. 2,
s. 2, n. 2.
No state shall enter into any treaty, alli ance, or confederation, Const. art.,1, s. 10, n. 1 ; nor shall any state, without the consent of congress, enter into any agreement or com pact with another state or with a foreign power. Id. art. 1, sec. 10, n. 2; 3 Story, Const.
1395.
3. A treaty is declared to be the supreme law of the land, and is, therefore, obligatory on courts, 1 Cranch, 103; 1 Wash. C. C. 322 ; 1 Paine, C. C. 55, whenever it operates of itself without the aid of a legislative pro vision ; but when the terms of the stipula tion import a contract, and either of the par ties engages to perform a particplar act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, pot to the judicial, department, and the legislature must execute the contract before it can be come zi rule of the court. 2 Pet. 314. See Story, Const. Index ; Sergeant, Const. Law, Index ; 4 Hall, Law Journ. 461 ; 6 Wheat. 161 ; 3 Dall. 199 ; 1 Kent, Comm. 165, 284.