WRIGHT— POWER TO MEET RESPONSIBILITIES. 205 



sume to interpret the force and effect of the convention, we might hereafter 

 have the spectacle, when Congress acted, of an Executive interpretation of 

 one purport and a different congressional interpretation, and this in a matter 

 not of Executive cognizance." 



144. By National Political Organs: The Senate. 



The Senate, in consenting to the ratification of treaties, has 

 decided upon the action necessary to meet responsibilities created 

 by preliminaries of peace, protocols and other agreements requiring 

 the negotiation of subsequent treaties. So the Senate assumed the 

 right to decide whether or not ratification of the Treaty of Ver- 

 sailles was required in fulfillment of the responsibilities under- 

 taken by the President's exchange of notes with the Allied powers 

 of November 5. 191 8, and. the armistice with Germany of Novem- 

 ber II.'** So also the Senate has asserted its right to decide 

 whether a particular controversy is within the scope of a general 

 arbitration treaty, and has therefore insisted upon a voice in the 

 conclusion of the compromis submitting a particular case to 

 arbitration. The latter claim has not been admitted by Presidents 

 or supported by the better authorities, who have held that the 

 power to apply a general treaty to particular cases is not a political 

 question and may be delegated.*^ With reference to general and 

 permanent interpretations of treaties or agreements, however, the 

 President has admitted the Senate's claim. 



" Had the protocol varied the treaty, as amended by the Senate of the 

 United States," wrote President Polk in reference to a protocol explaining 

 the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo with Mexico, " it would have no binding 

 effect." 46 



Apparently the presumption that the President speaks for the 

 nation would generally be superseded in such a case by the duty 

 of foreign nations to acquaint themselves with the authority in the 

 United States competent to make international agreements, and 

 the United States would not be bound by such general interpreta- 



*3 Note cited, supra, note 41. 

 ** Supra, sec. 30, note 53. 

 45 Supra, sec. 62. 



■*6 Moore, Digest, 5 : 208 ; see also supra, sees. 27, 28, 38, and infra, sec. 

 177. 



