RESOLUTIONS. 1831.

any time promptly and with good faith to settle that single
question, by all the means within her power, that duly and
moral obligation is yet in force, and cannot be repealed
without the consent of both states. Vattel, in his chapter
upon the observance of justice between nations, has declar-
ed, "that justice is the basis of all society, the sure bond
of all commerce; human society, far from being an inter-
course of assistance and good offices, would be no longer
any thing but a vast scene of robbery, if no respect were
paid to this virtue, which secures to every one his own.—
It is still more necessary between nations, than between in-
dividuals, because injustice produces more dreadful conse-
quences in the quarrels of these powerful bodies. All na-
tions are therefore under a strict obligation to cultivate jus-
tice towards each other, to observe it scrupulously, and
carefully to abstain from every thing that may violate it.—
Each ought to render to the other what belongs to them,
to respect their rights, and to leave them in the peaceable
enjoyment of them." Vattel, book 2nd, chap. 5.

There are some conquerors who aspire after nothing more
then extending their dominions, but it was not expected
that states who struggled together through the pangs of a
revolution, would, at any time, endeavor to over-reach and
out bargain each other in the settlement of their limits,
when the whole matter to be first ascertained was nothing
more than the first fountain of a river flowing from a moun-
tain, which could be seen by any one sincerely disposed to
understand the whole truth of the matter. To the doctrines
so well settled and defined by Vattel, all civilised communi-
ties, as separate states, without any common bond of union,
are bound to yield; and much mort two states, being neigh-
bours, who are cemented by that bond of union, which holds
together our whole confederacy.

4th. In regard to the information sought by the fourth re-
solution, your committee further report, that they have ex-
amined the constitution of Virginia, and find the territorial
limits of this State referred to, in the twenty-first section, in
the following words: "The territories contained within the
charters erecting the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania,
North and South Carolina, are hereby ceded, released, and
forever confirmed to the people of those colonies respec-
tively, with all the rights of property, jurisdiction and go-
vernment, and all other rights whatsoever, which might at
any time heretofore have been claimed by Virginia, except
the free navigation and use of the rivers Potomac and
Pocomoke, with the property of Virginia shores or strands
bordering on either of the said rivers; and all improvements