The preamble of the
act recites that the--
Treaties concluded between the United States and France have been
repeatedly violated on the part of the French Government, and the
just claims of the United States for reparation of the injuries
so committed have been refused, and their attempts to negotiate an
amicable adjustment of all complaints between the two nations have
been repelled with indignity.
And that--
Under authority of the French Government there is yet pursued against
the United States a system of predatory violence, infracting the said
treaties and hostile to the rights of a free and independent nation.
The enactment, as a logical consequence of these recited facts,
declares--
That the United States are of right freed and exonerated from the
stipulations of the treaties and of the consular convention heretofore
concluded between the United States and France, and that the same
shall not henceforth be regarded as legally obligatory on the
Government or citizens of the United States.
The history of the Government shows no other instance of an abrogation
of a treaty by Congress.
Instances have sometimes occurred where the ordinary legislation
of Congress has, by its conflict with some treaty obligation of the
Government toward a foreign power, taken effect as an _infraction_
of the treaty, and been judicially declared to be operative to that
result; but neither such legislation nor such judicial sanction of the
same has been regarded as an _abrogation_, even for the moment, of
the treaty.
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