Ware v. Hylton

Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. (3 U.S.) 199 (1796), argued 6–12 Feb. 1796, decided 7 March 1796 by vote of 4 to 0; Chase, Paterson, Wilson, and Cushing delivered seriatim opinions; Ellsworth and Iredell not participating (Iredell later submitted an opinion for the record). Ware established the supremacy of national treaties over conflicting state laws. It was representative of numerous cases brought by British creditors to recover pre–Revolutionary War debts owed them by Americans. The Treaty of Paris (1783) provided that creditors should meet with no legal impediment to the recovery of such debts. Virginia, however, enacted legislation enabling its citizens to pay debts owed to British subjects into the state treasury in depreciated currency and thereby obtain a certificate of discharge.

In losing the only case he argued before the Supreme Court, future Chief Justice John Marshall, then an attorney representing a Virginia debtor, contended that the state had a “sovereign right” to confiscate British debts during the war, that the debtor's payment into the state treasury was a lawful discharge of the debt, and that the peace treaty could not revive the debt without violating the “plighted” faith of the state and destroying vested rights accruing under state law. The Supreme Court rejected his arguments, holding that the treaty nullified the inconsistent state statute. Justice Samuel Chase set forth a sweeping nationalist interpretation of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI as operating retrospectively to “prostrate” all state laws in conflict with national treaties.

See also State Sovereignty and States' Rights; Treaties and Treaty Power.

Charles F. Hobson