Ware V. Hylton
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''Ware v. Hylton'', 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199 (1796), also known as the British Debt Case, was a decision of the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
holding that
treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...
take precedence over
state law State law refers to the law of a federated state, as distinguished from the law of the federation of which it is a part. It is used when the constituent components of a federation are themselves called states. Federations made up of provinces, cant ...
under the U.S. Constitution. It was the first Supreme Court case concerned with treaties, the first to rule that treaty provisions were as binding as domestic U.S. law, and the first to affirm the supremacy of federal law over state law. ''Ware'' is also notable for articulating the
legal doctrine A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, Procedural law, procedural steps, or Test (law), test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. For example, a doctrine ...
that would later be known as
judicial review Judicial review is a process under which a government's executive, legislative, or administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. In a judicial review, a court may invalidate laws, acts, or governmental actions that are in ...
, whereby federal courts have the authority to settle conflicts of law.


Background

The Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the United States, provided that creditors of both countries should "meet no lawful impediment" when recovering "bona fide" debts from one another. A resident of the state of
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
owed a debt to a British subject; the state had enacted a law allowing debtors to British creditors to discharge their debts, on the grounds that the debt was owed to an alien enemy. The administrator of the British creditor sued in federal court to recover what was owed, citing the relevant provisions of the treaty.


Decision

The Supreme Court struck down the Virginia law primarily on the grounds that it violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes that federal laws and treaties are the supreme law of the land. The Treaty of Paris, which was ratified pursuant to the Constitution, therefore had the force of domestic federal law and superseded the conflicting state law; this was the first time the clause had been explicitly cited by the court. Four justices released their opinions '' seriatim'' (one after another) with no majority opinion, a practice that would continue until the Marshall Court. Justice James Iredell delivered the controlling opinion of the Court, which is often the most cited:
The treaty of peace concluded between the United States and Great Britain, in 1783, enabled British creditors to recover debts previously owing to them by American citizens, notwithstanding a payment into a state treasury, under a state law of sequestration. An individual citizen of one state cannot set up the violation of a public treaty, by the other contracting party, to avoid an obligation arising under such treaty; the power to declare a treaty void, for such cause, rests solely with the government, which may, or may not, exercise its option in the premises.
The Court decision was among the earliest to discuss U.S. obligations under international law, then called the law of nations. Justice James Wilson asserted that upon becoming a sovereign state, the U.S. was "bound to receive the law of nations, in its modern state of purity and refinement"; thus, Virginia's law was void since it did not conform to the international custom of honoring treaties. Wilson further held that even private citizens had a duty to fulfill treaty obligations, so that even if the confiscation of debts was customary in international law, it would have been precluded by the Treaty of Paris. Justice Samuel Chase concurred, holding that all state laws in conflict with federal treaties were "prostrate" before them. Chase's opinion featured the earliest articulation of international law in U.S. federal court, drawing from the writings of Swiss jurist and international lawyer
Emer de Vattel Emmerich de Vattel ( 25 April 171428 December 1767) was a philosopher, diplomat, and jurist. Vattel's work profoundly influenced the development of international law. He is most famous for his 1758 work ''The Law of Nations''. This work was his ...
:
The first eneral lawis universal, or established by the general consent of mankind, and binds all nations. The second onventional lawis founded on express consent, and is not universal, and only binds those nations that have assented to it. The third ustomary lawis founded on TACIT consent; and is only obligatory on those nations, who have adopted it.
''Ware'' is also notable for having been argued on both sides by several prominent legal minds of the time, including
Patrick Henry Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 ld Style and New Style dates, O.S. May 18, 1736une 6, 1799) was an American politician, planter and orator who declared to the Virginia Conventions, Second Virginia Convention (1775): "Give me liberty or give m ...
, John Wickham, and
John Marshall John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American statesman, jurist, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remai ...
, who would later become Chief Justice of the Court. Although he represented the losing side
Marshall's argument
won him great admiration at the time of its delivery, increasing his reputation as a lawyer and legal scholar.


Legacy

The oral argument in the case was reenacted at
Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is the former residence and plantation of George Washington, a Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States, and his wife, Martha. An American landmar ...
in 2011, with U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice
Samuel Alito Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was Samuel Alito Supreme Court ...
presiding. Historic Mount Vernon and the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society cosponsored the event.Bookout, Ann, "Annual Report of the Regent," ''Mount Vernon Ladies' Association Annual Report, Two Thousand Ten'' (Mount Vernon, Va. 2011), pp. 15-16.


See also

*'' Hylton v. United States'' *'' Clerke v. Harwood''


References


External links

* {{caselaw source , case = {{ussc, name=Ware v. Hylton, volume=3, page=199, year=1796, reporter=Dall., reporter-volume=3, el=no , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/3/199/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep003/usrep003199/usrep003199.pdf
Reports of Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Several Courts of the United States and of Pennsylvania Held at the Seat of the Federal Government, Volume III, edited by Dallas, Alexander J, Banks Law Publishing, New York, 1905
United States Supreme Court cases 1796 in United States case law United States foreign relations case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Ellsworth Court John Marshall Patrick Henry Supremacy Clause case law Legal history of Virginia