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8525. TREATIES, Binding force of.—

The moral duties which exist between individual
and individual in a state of nature,
accompany them into a state of society,
and the aggregate of the duties of all the individuals
composing the society constitutes
the duties of that society towards any other;
so that between society and society the same
moral duties exist as did between the individuals
composing them, while in an unassociated
state, and their Maker not having
released them from those duties on their


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forming themselves into a nation.—
Opinion on French Treaties. Washington ed. vii, 613. Ford ed., vi, 220.
(
1793)