134 POWER UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW. 



true of legislative resolutions not law. Thus resolutions of a single 

 house of congress or concurrent resolutions not submitted to the 

 President are not law according to the Constitution and have not 

 been noticed by foreign nations.-^ This has been expressly held 

 by the courts with reference to such resolutions purporting to 

 interpret treaties.^- Thus the houses of Congress have been able 

 to pass resolutions on such questions as Irish independence without 



^1 Secretary of State Seward wrote Mr. Dayton, the minister to France, 

 with reference to a House Resolution declaring " that it does not accord 

 with the policy of the United States to acknowledge a monarchical govern- 

 ment erected on the ruins of any Republican government in America, under 

 the auspices of any European power," reference being to the Maximilian 

 government in Mexico : " This is a practical and purely Executive question, 

 and the decision of it constitutionally belongs not to the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, nor even to Congress, but to the President of the United States, 

 . . . While the President receives the declaration of the House of Repre- 

 ■sentatives with the profound respect to which it is entitled, as an exposition 

 <of it's sentiments upon a grave and important subject, he directs that you 

 ■inform the government of France that he does not at present contemplate 

 any departure from the policy which this government has hitherto pursued in 

 regard to the war which exists between France and Mexico. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that the proceeding of the House of Representatives was 

 adopted upon suggestions arising within itself, and not upon any com- 

 munication of the Executive department; and that the French Government 

 would be seasonably appraised of any change of policy upon this subject 

 which the President might at any future time think it proper to adopt." 

 Corwin, op. cit., p. 42, citing McPherson's History of the Rebellion, pp. 

 M9-350. 



22 " There is," said the Supreme Court in refusing to apply an amend- 

 ment to which the Indians had not consented, " something which shocks 

 the conscience in the idea that a treaty can be put forth as embodying the 

 terms of an arrangement with a foreign power or an Indian tribe, a material 

 provision of which is unknown to one of the contracting parties, and is kept 

 in the background to be used by the other only when the exigency of a 

 particular case may demand it." N. Y. Indians v. U. S., 170 U. S. i (1898). 

 The Supreme Court said in reference to a joint resolution passed by a 

 majority of the Senate stating the purpose of the Senate in ratifying the 

 treaty annexing the Philippines : " We need not consider the force and effect 

 of a resolution of this sort. . . . The meaning of the treaty cannot be con- 

 trolled by subsequent explanations of some of those who may have voted 

 to ratify it." Justice Brown concurring said : " It cannot be regarded as 

 part of the treaty since it received neither the approval of the President nor 

 the consent of the other contracting power." Fourteen Diamond Rings v. 

 U. S., 183 U. S. 176 (1901), Moore, Digest. 5: 210. 



