POWER UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW. 137 



former case President Jackson seems to have admitted the French 

 demand for retraction by explanations in a later message.^^ In 

 the last year of the World War Executive messages to the legisla- 

 ture became the regular medium of communication between Ger- 

 many and the United States. ^^ 



20. President Presumed to Speak for the Nation. 



Finally, from the President's representative character, foreign 

 nations are entitled to presume that his voice is the voice of the 

 nation. Secretary of State Jefferson told French minister Genet 

 that whatever the President communicated as such, foreign nations 

 had a right and were bound to consider " as the expression of the 

 nation's will " and that no foreign agent could be " allowed to 

 question it." ^* As we shall see, this presumption becomes absolute 

 with reference to the facts of action taken by national organs in 

 the United States and practically so with reference to decisions of 

 fact and policy by the nation,^^ but with reference to the constitu- 

 tional law governing the treaty-making power, the foreign nation 

 may in certain cases have to go back of the President's assertions.^* 



We thus find that, aside from their cognizance of state and 

 national laws, foreign nations can officially communicate with the 

 United States only through the President. Communication of gov- 

 ernments with private individuals on claims and with representatives 

 of de facto or belligerent governments are of an unofficial character- 

 Furthermore, all official utterances of the President are of interna- 

 tional cognizance and are presumed to be authoritative. 



Government, lest that Government should construe our silence into approba- 

 tion, or toleration even, of the principles which appear to have guided its 

 action and the means it has adopted." Moore, Digest, i : 222. 



32 Message, Dec. 7, 1835, Moore, Digest, 7: 125. 



33 See speeches of President Wilson, Premier Lloyd George of Great 

 Britain, Count Czernin of Austria and Count Hertling of Germany before 

 their respective legislative bodies in 1918, printed in Dickinson, ed., Docu- 

 ment's and Statements relating to Peace Proposals and War Aims, London, 

 1919. 



3* Moore, Digest, 4: 680; Corwin, op. cit., p. 47. 



35 Infra, sec. 21. 



3*5 Infra, sec. 24 et seq. 



