in 1778. The aid which France extended under this treaty to our
revolutionary ancestors in men, money, and ships enabled them to
establish the independence of our country. A few years later came the
French Revolution, the establishment of the French Republic followed by
the execution of Louis XVI, and in 1793 the war between England and
France. With the arrival in this country of Genet, the minister of the
newly established French Republic, there began a heated debate in the
newspapers throughout the country as to our obligations under the
treaty of alliance and the commercial treaty of 1778. President
Washington requested the opinions in writing of the members of his
cabinet as to whether Genet should be received and the new government
which had been set up in France recognized, as to whether the treaties
were still binding, and as to whether a proclamation of neutrality
should be issued. Hamilton and Jefferson replied at great length,
taking as usual opposite sides, particularly on the question as to the
binding force of the treaties. Hamilton took the view that as the
government of Louis XVI, with which the treaties had been negotiated,
had been overthrown, we were under no obligations to fulfill their
stipulations and had a perfect right to renounce them. Jefferson took
the correct view that the treaties were with the French nation and that
they were binding under whatever government the French people chose to
set up. This principle, which is now one of the fundamental doctrines
of international law, was so ably expounded by Jefferson that his words
are well worth quoting.

"I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the source
of all authority in that nation, as free to transact their common
concerns by any agents they think proper, to change these agents
individually, or the organization of them in form or function whenever
they please: that all the acts done by those agents under the authority