POWER UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW. 129 



it also implies: (a) that they can communicate with the nation 

 through him alone and (b) that they may take cognizance of all his 

 official acts. Efforts of foreign governments to communicate with 

 organs of the United States other than the President or his re- 

 presentatives, with private American citizens or with the American 

 people directly have been protested by the President, while efforts 

 of American organs of government or self-constituted missions to 

 communicate with foreign nations have been vetoed or prohibited 

 by law. Thus in 1793 when Citizen Genet sought to obtain an 

 exequatur for a consul whose commission was addressed to the 

 " Congress of the United States," Secretary of State Jefferson told 

 him that " the President was the only channel of communication 

 between the United States and foreign nations " and refused to 

 issue an exequatur until the commission was correctly addressed.^ 

 In 1833 Secretary of State Livingston sent letters to the 

 Charges of the United States in various capitals instructing them to 

 notify the foreign minister that " all communication made directly 

 to the head of our Executive Government should be addressed * to 

 the President of the United States of America' without any other 

 addition." He referred to the fact that the style of address " to 

 the President and Congress of the United States " which had 

 been continued since the old Confederation was no longer proper.^ 

 In 1874 Congress itself passed a resolution refusing to consider 

 foreign claims, " there being a department of the government in 

 which most questions of an international character may be con- 

 sidered."^ Political correspondence with American citizens by the 



law, by their ostensible authority. But in the Trumbull case (Chile v. 

 U. S., Aug. 7, 1892, Moore, Int. Arb. 3569) the apparent authority of a 

 diplomatic officer to contract was held sufficient to bind his government, and in 

 the Metzger case (U. S. z: Haiti, Oct. 18, 1899, For. Rel. 262) Judge Day 

 expressed the opinion that the ' limitations upon official authority, undisclosed 

 at the time to the other government,' do not ' prevent the enforcement of a 

 diplomatic agreement.'" See also Wright, Columbia Lazv Rev., 20: 121-122. 

 Infra, sec. 24. 



^^ For treaty provisions designating other organs of government as 

 responsible, see Wright, Columbia Law Rev., 20: 123-124. 



1 Moore, Digest, 4 : 680. 



~ Corwin, op. cit., p. 48, citing S4th Cong., 2d Sess., Sen. Doc. No. 56, 

 p. 9, footnote, and J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, 4 : 17-18. 



3 Magoon, Reports, 1902, p. 340, Moore, Digest, 6: 608. See also supra, 

 Chap. II, note 21. 



