Validity

Legal sufficiency in contradistinction to mere regularity. An official sale, an order, judgment, or decree may be regular; the whole practice in reference to its entry may be correct, but it may still be invalid for reasons going behind the regularity of its forms. Sharpleigh v. Surdam, 1 Flipp. 487, Fed. Cas. No. 12,711. “The term ‘validity,’ as applied to treaties, admits of two descriptions — necessary and voluntary. By the former is meant that which results from the treaties having been made by persons authorized by, and for purposes consistent with, the constitution. By voluntary validity is meant that validity which a treaty, voidable by reason of violation by the other party, still continues to retain by the silent acquiescence and will of the nation. It is voluntary, because it is at the will of the nation to let it remain or to extinguish it. The principles which govern and decide the necessary validity of a treaty are of a judicial nature, while those on which its voluntary validity depends are of a political nature.”

2 Paine 688, as paraphrased in 5 Moore, Int. L. Dig. 183.