11 found among the family pictures of the House of Orleans one which commemorated the visit of Franklin to the Palais Royale, and among the illustrations of the national glory at Versailles, one that celebrated the surrender of Cornwallis. The failure of Louis XVI as a King resulted from his attempting, like Nerva in ancient Rome, and Pio Nono in modern Rome, to combine the two incompatible things, the enlargement of popular freedom with the maintenance of regal power. Nor may we undervalue the aid received from France. It decided the contest. It cost her more than three hundred millions of dollars, and hurried her into a Revolution more exhausting than any other State, in the tide of time, has endured. . Thus it appears that France fulfilled faithfully and completely her chief engagements in the treaties of 1778, while it is admitted that she failed afterwards in less essential obligations, but with protestations of adherence and promises of reparation. 2. Did the United States completely and absolutely fulfil their reciprocal obligations? When the war of 1793 broke out, France held all the posses? sions in America which they had guarantied to her forever, and they were all exposed. Yet the United States never defended nor attempted to defend them ; never devoted a life nor even a dollar to than end. Thus, instead of standing on fulfilment, we are at once brought to the necessity of justifying a non-performance of the engagements.' The justification has been placed on several grounds, viz : 1. That France did not demand fulfilment. Such an inference is warranted by some of the papers before us, but there are others which leave the fact very doubtful: “ I beg you to lay before the President of the United States, as soon as possible, the decree and the enclosed note, and to obtain from him the Cabinet decision, either as to the guaranty that I have claimed the fulfilment of for our colonies, &c.”—E, C. Genet’s Letter of November 14, 1793. But if France did not demand the performance of the guaranty in the war, she insisted on its obligation. The United States practically disavowed and renounced it. The proposition is self-evident. The treaty stipulated Alliance, when France should demand it. The United States assumed Neutrality in every event. 2. The non-performance by the United States has been justified on the ground that the casus foederis of the stipulated guaranty was a defensive war. and that the war of 1793 was not of that character. In reply to this argument, I observe, in the first place, that the terms of the Treaty of Alliance stipulated for the execution of the guaranty in the case of “ war to break out:” Any war, offensive or defensive. But the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Hunter] overpowers us with an argument w’hich by me is irresistible. He says that only a defensive war must have been contemplated, because a stipulation for aid and alliance in an aggressive war would be immoral, unjust, and therefore void. Sir, I acknowledge that higher law of universal and eternal justice. And I admit that all laws of States, and all treaties and compacts between States, which contravene its sacred provisions, are utterly void and of no effect. I accept therefore the Senator’s definition of the casus foederis; that it was a defen- ;sive war. I controvert, and I rest my'cause upon controverting, his assumption, that the war of 1793, between the Allied Powers and France, was on her part an aggressive and not a defensive war. The very proclamation of neutrality implies a denial of that assumption. The war therein described is a war “ between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, -Great Britain, and the United Netherlands, of the one part, and France, on •the other.” Why was the aggressor the last party to be named ? But
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