## Facts

- A British creditor partnership held a Virginia debtor’s bond executed in 1774 for a substantial sterling sum.
- During the Revolutionary War, Virginia enacted statutes allowing debtors owing British subjects to pay amounts into a state loan office or treasury and purportedly obtain a discharge.
- After the war, the 1783 Treaty of Paris provided that creditors on each side would “meet no lawful impediment” to recovering bona fide debts.
- The British creditor (later represented by an administrator after the creditor’s death) sued the Virginia debtors to recover on the bond.
- The debtors defended on payment and on special pleas asserting that wartime Virginia sequestration legislation and the creditor’s status as an “alien enemy” during the war barred or discharged liability.
- The lower court entered judgment for the Virginia debtors, and the creditor’s representative sought Supreme Court review by writ of error.

## Issues

1. Whether the Treaty of Paris provision protecting the recovery of bona fide debts preempted Virginia statutes that authorized payment into the state treasury as a discharge of debts owed to British creditors.
2. Whether federal courts may refuse to apply a state statute that conflicts with a treaty made under the authority of the United States.
3. Whether a private litigant may avoid treaty-based obligations by asserting that the other treaty party violated the treaty.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed, issuing seriatim opinions with a majority concluding the treaty controlled.
- The Court held that the Treaty of Paris superseded conflicting Virginia sequestration and confiscation measures as applied to bona fide pre-war debts.
- Payment into the Virginia loan office or treasury under the state statutes did not discharge the debt after the treaty; the British creditor could maintain suit on the bond.
- The Court recognized the judicial authority to disregard state laws that conflict with controlling federal treaties.
- The Court rejected the defense that alleged treaty violations by Great Britain could be invoked by individual debtors to avoid obligations while the treaty remained in force.

## Legal Principles

- Treaties made under the authority of the United States are part of the “supreme Law of the Land” and override conflicting state statutes.
- Federal courts may decline to enforce state laws that are inconsistent with a controlling treaty.
- State wartime sequestration schemes permitting payment to the state in purported discharge cannot bar post-treaty suits by protected foreign creditors for bona fide debts.
- Determinations that a treaty is void or suspended due to breach are committed to the national government, not private parties in litigation.

## Conclusion

Ware v. Hylton held that the Treaty of Paris displaced Virginia laws that attempted to discharge debts to British creditors through state payments, and it confirmed that federal courts may set aside conflicting state enactments when a treaty governs.


Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199 (1796)