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



Supreme Court of the United States in Worcester vs. State of 

 Georgia was insulted and ignored. -^^ And the Federal government 

 stood by silently assenting. Of that Federal government, Calhoun 

 was vice-president, and Roger B. Taney, attorney general. With the 

 death of John Marshall, that attorney general, a citizen of a slave 

 State, was created the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court In' the 

 very President who had permitted Georgia to defy that Court. Is 

 it a cause for wonder that doubt as to the supreme efficacy of treaty 

 provision over State law crept into the Court over whom presided 

 ]\Ir. Chief Justice Taney? But today, a half-century after the Civil 

 War, that doubt is a survival which, Professor Mikell must permit 

 one to say, has no function to perform and has outlived its reason 

 for existence. 



V. 



There is, however, a further consideration which lies before us. 

 We have come to realize that, born in times of stress, and intended 

 as a firm anchorage in future storms, the Constitution is pervaded 

 and inspired by that intention. We have come to appreciate the 

 memorable words of Marshall : 



" As men, whose intentions require no concealment, generally employ the 

 words which most directly and aptly express the ideas they intend to convey, 

 the enlightened patriots who framed our Constitution, and the people who 

 adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural 

 sense, and to have intended what they have said.""^" 



We have seen the Supreme Court of the United States interpret 

 the Sixth Article of the Constitution in accordance with the pur- 

 poses for which it was adopted and the plain meaning of its words. 

 To the candid and informed mind, the supremacy of treaty provision 

 has been placed by those decisions beyond the region of contro- 

 versy. But now the question becomes relevant: Grant the suprem- 

 acy, hozv is it to be enforced? It is apprehended that a series of 

 decided cases in the Supreme Court of the United States has deter- 

 mined all the applicable principles of constitutional law, and pointed 

 out the methods by which is to be enforced any treaty provision. 



^^ Supra, pp. 1 58-16 1. 



^''"Gibbons vs. Ogden, 9 Wheat., p. 188. 



