138 WRIGHT— CONCLUSIVENESS OF THE ACTS 



CHAPTER IV. 



Conclusiveness of the Acts and Utterances of National 



Organs Under International Law. 



To how great an extent are foreign governments expected to 

 know American constitutional law defining the competence of 

 governmental organs? The answer varies according as the issue 

 relates to (a) the making of a national decision on fact or policy, 

 (b) the making of a treaty or agreement, (c) the meeting of an 

 international responsibility. 



A. With Reference to the Making of National Decisions. 



21. Acts of the President. 



Foreign nations need not know and they are not entitled to dis- 

 cuss the constitutional competence of organs of the United States 

 making national decisions on fact or policy. They must accept 

 the assertion of the President as final. Thus in a conversation 

 with Citizen Genet in 1793, Secretary of State Jefferson refused to 

 discuss the question of whether it belonged to the President under 

 the constitution to admit or exclude foreign agents. " I inform 

 you of the fact," he said, " by authority of the President." ^ This 

 principle was also illustrated by the prompt acceptance by foreign 

 nations of President Lincoln's proclamation of blockade on April 

 19, 1861, as a proclamation that war existed.^ The power of the 

 President to thus proclaim war without authority of Congress was 

 questioned in the United States and in the decision finally given 

 by the Supreme Court sustaining the President's act, three justices 

 out of seven vigorously dissented.^ However, since the fact of war 

 was a matter subject to foreign cognizance, foreign nations would 



1 Moore, Digest, 4 : 680. 



2 " It was, on the contrary, your own government which, in assuming the 

 belligerent right of blockade, recognized the Southern States as Belligerents. 

 Had they not been belligerents the armed ships of the United States would 

 have had no right to stop a single British ship upon the high seas." Earl 

 Russell, British Foreign Minister, note, May 4, 1865. Moore, Digest, i : 190. 



3 The Prize Cases, 2 Black 635 ; Moore, Digest, i : 190, 7 : 172 ; Wil- 

 loughby. Constitutional Law, 2 : 1210. 



