THE TREATY-MAKING POWER OF THE UNITED 

 STATES AND THE METHODS OF ITS ENFORCE- 

 MENT AS AFFECTING THE POLICE 

 POWERS OF THE STATES. 



By CHARLES H. BURR, Esq., 



OF PHILADELPHIA. 



(Read April 20, 1912.) 



The Crowned Essay for zvhich the Henry M. Phillips Prise 

 of tivo thotisand dollars zcas azvarded, on April 20, 1912, by the 

 American Philosophical Society. 



" Sovereignty can only be an unit, and must remain an unit." — Bismarck. 



To the treaty-making power, the United States owes the posses- 

 sion of three-fourths of its territory. Yet, the very President who 

 negotiated the first acquisition, denied the constitutional right he 

 assumed to exercise when Louisiana was purchased, and justified 

 by considerations of national expediency, the provisions of a treaty 

 which he had declared to be an unwarranted usurpation of power. ^ 

 In more recent history, when, following the Mafia riots, Italy with- 

 drew her minister, the Secretary of State declared to that country 

 and to the world, the powerlessness of the Federal government to 

 afford redress for a violated treaty.- Again, but a few years since, 

 when Japanese treaty rights seemed about to be ignored by Cali- 

 fornia authorities, the then Secretary of State enunciated the 

 supremacy of treaty provision over State law in uncompromising 

 terms. ^ 



Only with these and similar instances in mind, can one appre- 

 ciate at once the far-reaching magnitude of the treaty-making power, 

 and the confusion of ideas by the people and by publicists alike, con- 



^ See note i. 

 'Infra, pp. 204-208. 

 ^ Infra, pp. 207-209. 



271 



