328 BURR— THE TREATY-MAKING POWER [April 20, 



rounding the creation of that instrument must first be analyzed and 

 understood before an attempt be made to follow the judicial inter- 

 pretation thereof. 



The language of the Constitution is as follows: 



" All treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the 

 United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every 

 State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any 

 State to the contrary notwithstanding."^^" 



These plain and precise words of the Constitution have not sufficed 

 to impress their apparent meaning upon the minds of many. Ac- 

 cordingly the essayist already quoted thus concludes his discussion 

 of the question now before us: The doctrine that the treaty-power 

 " is supreme over the reserved rights of the States is by no means 

 established in our jurisprudence."^*'" 



One may venture the surmise that were the question free from 

 political significance, no such effort to escape the evident meaning of 

 English words would be conceived to be possible. Eu: the question 

 lias its political aspect, has always had it ; and the doubt of political 

 opponents born of their wishes has again been utiered. 



It is easy for the lawyer to fall into the error of regarding the 

 Constitution as a neutral document susceptible of diverse interpreta- 

 tion according as its critic be a States-right advocate or a Federalist. 

 Any document viewed through political eyes is susceptible of such 

 treatment : the political critic is capable in the interests of party of 

 any brutality of interpretation. And it is true that the existence of 

 a political aspect to all constitutional questions has always and 

 necessarily been realized by the Supreme Court. But what is not 

 always borne in mind is the historical fact that the advocates and 

 opponents of an effective Federal government, superior within the 

 scope of its activities to the State governments, fought out their 

 differences at the time of the creation of the Constitution, and the 

 advocates won. Here and there through the Constitution are con- 

 cessions made to the opponents : the Senate with its equality of State 

 representation guaranteed to be inviolable, the slavery clauses, the 

 first ten amendments. But in its fundamental essentials the Consti- 



'=" Article VI., Clause 2. 



'^'^ American Lazv Register, Vol. 57, P- 554- 



