states to enter into any treaty; that, by this, that instrument must
have intended, that the assent of nine states should be necessary, as
well to the completion as to the commencement of the treaty, its object
having been to guard the rights of the Union in all those important
cases, where nine states are called for; that by the contrary
construction, seven states, containing less than one third of our whole
citizens, might rivet on us a treaty, commenced indeed under commission
and instructions from nine states, but formed by the minister in express
contradiction to such instructions, and in direct sacrifice of the
interests of so great a majority; that the definitive treaty was
admitted not to be a verbal copy of the provisional one, and whether the
departures from it were of substance, or not, was a question on which
nine states alone were competent to decide; that the circumstances
of the ratification of the provisional articles by nine states, the
instructions to our ministers to form a definitive one by them, and
their actual agreement in substance, do not render us competent to
ratify in the present instance; if these circumstances are in themselves
a ratification, nothing further is requisite than to give attested
copies of them, in exchange for the British ratification; if they are
not, we remain where we were, without a ratification by nine states,
and incompetent ourselves to ratify; that it was but four days since the
seven states, now present, unanimously concurred in a resolution to be
forwarded to the Governors of the absent states, in which they stated,
as a cause for urging on their delegates, that nine states were
necessary to ratify the treaty; that in the case of the Dutch
ratification, Great Britain had courted it, and therefore was glad to
accept it as it was; that they knew our Constitution, and would object
to a ratification by seven; that, if that circumstance was kept back,
it would be known hereafter, and would give them ground to deny the
validity of a ratification, into which they should have been surprised