WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE AGREEMENTS. 319 



by the National Government during negotiation of the Webster- 

 Ashburton treaty of 1842, which finally settled the boundary." 

 " Agreements or compacts " with other states of the Union have 

 often been made by states with the consent of Congress' and there 

 is no doubt but that the same power applies to foreign states as 

 was, in fact, admitted by Chief Justice Taney in the case referred 

 to. 



157. Power of the States to Make Agreements Independently. 



Although dicta in the Rauscher case asserted that " There is 

 no necessity for the States to enter upon the relations with foreign 

 nations which are necessarily implied in the extradition of fugitives," 

 and that "at this time of day, and after the repeated examinations 

 which have been made by this court, into the powers of the Federal 

 Government, to deal with all such international questions exclu- 

 sively," such a state power cannot be admitted, yet it appears that 

 there may be a small field within which states can agree with for- 

 eign nations even without consent of Congress. Such a field exists 

 in relations between the states of the Union. 



" There are many matters," said the Supreme Court, " upon which 

 different States may agree, that can, in no respect, concern the United 

 States. If, for example, Virginia should come into possession and ownership 

 of a small parcel of land in New York, which the latter State might desire 

 to acquire as a site for a public building, it would hardly be deemed essen- 

 tial for the latter state to obtain the consent of Congress before it could 

 make a valid agreement with Virginia for the purchase of the land. If 

 Massachusetts, in forwarding its exhibits to the World's Fair at Chicago, 

 should desire to transport them a part of the distance over the Erie Canal, 

 it would hardly be deemed essential for that State to obtain the consent of 

 Congress before it could contract with New York for the transportation of 

 the exhibits through the State in that way. If the bordering line of the 

 two States should cross some malarious and disease producing district, there 

 could be no possible reason, on any conceivable grounds, to obtain the 

 consent of Congress for the bordering States to agree to unite in removing 

 the cause of the disease. So, in the case of threatened invasion of cholera, 

 plague or other causes of sickness and death, it would be the height of 

 absurdity to hold that the threatened States could not unite in providing 

 means to prevent and repel the invasion of the pestilence without obtaining 

 the consent of Congress, which might not be in session. 



^ Infra, sec. 50. 



'■ Green z: Biddle, 8 Wheat i ; Crandall, op. cit., p. 145 ; Willoughby, 

 op. cit., p. 235. 



