XII. If one of the parties violates a treaty, such a violation releases the other from its engagements. For every clause has the binding force of a condition. And as an example of this, a passage from Thucydides may be quoted, where that historian says that "for one power to accede to a new confederacy, and to desert an ally who has neglected to fulfil his engagements, is no breach of a treaty; but not to assist another power in conformity to sworn engagements amounts to a violation thereof." And this is generally true, except where it has been agreed to the contrary, that a treaty shall not be null and relinquished for trifling disgusts and miscarriages. XIII. Conventions are as various and numerous as treaties, and the distinction made between them is owing more to the difference of power in those by whom they are made, than to any real difference in their own nature. But there are two particular points of inquiry materially connected with all conventions, the first of which relates to the extent of the negotiator's obligation, when the sovereign or the state refuses to ratify a convention, whether he is bound to make an indemnity to the other party for the disappointment, to restore things to the situation they were in before he treated, or to deliver up his own person. The first opinion seems conformable to the Roman civil law, the second to equity as it was urged by the tribunes of the people, L. Livius, and J. Melius, in the dispute about the peace of Caudium;[43] but the third is that most generally adopted, as was done respecting the two famous conventions of Caudium and Numantia. But there is one caution particularly to be observed, and that is, that the sovereign is no way bound by such unauthorised conventions, until he has ratified them. In the convention alluded to, if the Samnites had intended to bind the Roman people, they should have retained the army at Caudium, and sent ambassadors to the senate and people at Rome, to discuss the treaty, and learn upon what terms they chose to redeem their army. XIV. Another question is, whether the knowledge and silence of the sovereign bind him to the observance of a convention. But here it is necessary to make a distinction between an absolute convention, and one made upon condition of its being ratified by the sovereign. For as all conditions ought to be literally fulfilled, such a condition, on failure of fulfilment, becomes void. This principle was very properly observed in the convention made between Luctatius and the Carthaginians; to which the people refused to accede, as it had been made without their consent.[44] A new treaty therefore was made by public authority.