112 WRIGHT— NATURE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS POWER. 



of the nation, international negotiation would be unfruitful and 

 international anarchy would prevail.'' 



5. Methods of Reconciling these Points of View. 



In practice modern states have avoided both alternatives by 

 compromises, partly of a legal and partly of a conventional char- 

 acter.' There has been a tendency for constitutions to multiply the 

 organs whose concurrence is necessary to bring foreign negotiations 

 to a valid conclusion. Thus many constitutions now vest power 

 to make the most important decision in foreign affairs, such as 

 declarations of war and the ratification of treaties, in the legislative 

 body." So far as this is done, there is no difficulty in giving inter- 

 national commitments the force of law. However, a practical 

 difficulty is here met. The legislative body is usually large, slow 

 moving and ill informed on foreign relations. Many international 

 situations must, under present conditions, be met by personal nego- 

 tiation and immediate decision for which such a body is ill 

 adapted.^" Consequently many types of international commitment 

 are still made by executive authority. In these cases, and in fact 

 they are still the majority, the difficulty is solved either by con- 

 stitutional understandings, whereby the executive power is in fact 

 if not in law expected to act in such a way that the other organs 

 of government will approve its action; or by international under- 

 standings whereby the other states of the world consider commit- 

 ments formally concluded by the executive authority merely pro- 



'^ " Others, though consenting that treaties should be made in the mode pro- 

 posed, are averse to their being the supreme law of the land. They insist 

 and profess to believe that treaties, like acts of assembly, should be repealable 

 at pleasure. This idea seems to be new and peculiar to this country, but 

 new errors as well as new truths often appear. These gentlemen would do 

 well to reflect that a treaty is only another name for a bargain, and that 

 it would be impossible to find a nation who would make any bargain with 

 us which should be binding on them absolutely, but on us only so long and 

 so far as we may think proper to be bound by it." Jay, Federalist No. 64, 

 Ford ed., p. 431. _ See also Washington, message cited supra, note 4. 



8 See Dicey, The Law of the Constitution, 8th ed., p. 23, for this dis- 

 tinction. 



Wright, The Legal Nature of Treaties, Am. Jl. of Int. Laiv, 10: 711 

 et seq. 



10 Supra, note 4. 



