160 AND UTTERANCES OF NATIONAL ORGANS. 



if a representative of the President should sit in the Council of the 

 League of Nations and admit that a guarantee undertaken by- 

 treaty by the United States required the use of armed forces in a 

 specific manner under existing circumstances, the United States 

 would be bound to carry out the treaty in that precise manner/^ 

 The proposed Hitchcock reservation to Article X of the Covenant, 

 while not impairing the obligation of the United States to fulfill 

 the guarantee, transferred the representative powers of the Pres- 

 ident to Congress in this respect, by indicating that the representative 

 on the Council was not competent to acknowledge an obligation 

 owed by the United States and expressly stating that Congress 

 remained free to interpret the obligation according to its own 

 "conscience and judgment." ''^ The same result could of course 

 be obtained by transferring control of the American representative 

 in the Council to the Congress, but this, as proved by the experience 

 of congressional control of diplomats during the revolutionary- 

 period, would hardly be expedient.'-* 



''^ This interpretation of the Covenant is contained in the Swiss official 

 commentary. " The Council may formulate obligatory advice unanimously 

 only and solely for its own members and for other states invited in the 

 specific instance to be represented on the Council, Art. 4, par. 5." This im- 

 plies that for states whose representatives have consented, the advice is 

 obligatory. See the League of Nations, pviblished by the World Peace 

 Foundation, III, No. 3, p. 125. 



"•^ Article X reads : " The members of the League undertake to respect 

 and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and 

 existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any 

 such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this 

 obligation shall be fulfilled." The proposed Hitchcock reservation reads : 

 " That the advice, mentioned in Article X of the Covenant of the League, 

 which the Council may give to the member nations as to the employment of 

 their naval and military forces, is merely advice, which each member nation 

 is free to accept or reject, according to the conscience and judgment of its 

 then existing government, and in the United States this advice can be ac- 

 cepted only by action of the Congress at the time, it being Congress alone, 

 under the Constitution of the United States, having the power to declare 

 war." The proposed Lodge reservation to Article X did not affect merely 

 the authority to interpret Article X, but under it the United States refused 

 to accept the guarantee of Article X altogether. For text of these reserva- 

 tions and notes upon the votes received in the Senate, see The League of 

 Nations, III, No. 4 (August, 1920). 



7* See Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 22, Ford ed., p. 141 ; and Fish, 

 American Diplomacy, N. Y., 1916, pp. 60, yy; "The experience of the 



