110 WRIGHT— NATURE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS POWER. 



to the various organs controlling foreign relations, according as 

 they have approached the subject from the constitutional or from 

 the international point of view. 



3. The International Point of View. 



If the international point of view were adopted in full it would 

 result that an international commitment made by the proper con- 

 stitutional authority would bind all organs of the government. 

 Thus Secretary of State Livingston wrote the French government 

 in 1833: 



" The government of the United States presumes that whenever a treaty 

 has been concluded and ratified by the acknowledged authorities competent 

 for that purpose, an obligation is thereby imposed upon each and every de- 

 partment of the government to carry it into complete effect, according to its 

 terms, and that on the performance of this obligation consists the due ob- 

 servance of good faith among nations." ^ 



But constitutions, acting by tradition and convenience, if indeed 

 not practical necessity, have ordinarily vested the power of inter- 

 national negotiation in a single individual, the chief executive, 

 acting Avith or without the advice of a council.* Now the inter- 



3 Wharton. Int. Law Digest, 2 : 67. See also Gushing, At. Gen. 1854, 6 Op. 

 291; Duer, Outlines of Constitutional Jurisprudence, 138; Wheaton, Ele- 

 ments of Int. Law, Dana ed. Sec. 543 ; Moore, Int. Law Digest, 5 : 230, 370 ; 

 Willoughby, Constitutional Law, i : 515, infra, sec. 2>7- This doctrine seems 

 to be an implication of Art. VI, sec. 2 of the Constitution of the United 

 States — " all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of 

 the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land " — but it must be 

 admitted that the L^nited States has been more insistent upon applying it to 

 other nations than to itself. {Infra, sec. 39.) Nations usually adopt the 

 international point of view in discussing the powers and responsibilities of 

 other nations, the constitutional point of view in discussing their own powers 

 and responsibilities. 



* " The necessity of such caution and secrecy was one cogent reason for 

 vesting the power of making treaties in the President, with the advice and 

 consent of the Senate, the principle on which that body was formed con- 

 fining it to a small number of members." Washington, Message to House 

 of Representatives, March 30, 1796, Richardson, Messages and Papers of the 

 President, i : 195. " The reason why we trust one man, rather than many, is 

 because one man can negotiate and many men can't. Two masses of people 

 have no way of dealing directly with each other. . . . The very qualities 

 which are needed for negotiation — quickness of mind, direct contact, adap- 

 tiveness, invention, the right proportion of give and take — are the very 

 qualities which masses of people do not possess." Lippmann, The Stakes 

 of Diplomacy, N. Y., 1915, pp. 26, 29. 



