WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE AGREEMENTS. 331 



the power to make armistices and preliminaries of peace may re- 

 quire cooperation of the treaty power. An agreement of permanent 

 character, and limiting Congress as well as the President ought, 

 doubtless, to be by treaty, as was ultimately decided of the Great 

 Lakes disarmament agreement of 1817. 



170. Pozi'cr to Make Diplomatic Agreements. 



Because of his power to " receive ambassadors and other public 

 ministers " and to negotiate treaties, the President is the repre- 

 sentative organ of the government and the sole organ of foreign 

 communication. As such he has certain powers of agreement mak- 

 ing. Thus agreements, usually by exchange of notes, defining ex- 

 ecutive policy have often been concluded. The Hay open door 

 policy of 1 899-1900, the Root-Takahira and Lansing-Ishii agree- 

 ments of 1908 and 1917, defining American policy in the Far East, 

 and the Gentlemen's agreement of 1907, relating to Japanese im- 

 migration, are of this character. Such agreements are in strictness 

 binding only on the President under whose authority they are made, 

 but if not repudiated would be presumed to have been accepted by a 

 succeeding President. Thus Secretar}^ Lansing in publishing the 

 Lansing-Ishii agreement stated that it was a reaffirmation of the 

 " open door " policy.''^ 



Of similar character are agreements to conclude treaties. We 

 have referred to preliminaries of peace made under the President's 

 power as Commander-in-Chief. From his power as representative 

 organ, the President has agreed to negotiate treaties on specified 

 subjects. Thus an agreement preliminary to the treaty submitting 

 the Behring Sea case to arbitration and agreements for negotiating 

 canal treaties with Costa Rica and Nicaragua have been made.'*^ 

 Such agreements merely require that treaty negotiations be at- 

 tempted. They would seem to impose no obligation upon the 

 Senate to accept the treaty or at most an extremely attenuated obli- 

 gation. 



*' League of Nations (World Peace Foundation, Boston), I, No. 8, p. 



459- 



*^ Crandall, op. cit., p. iii. 



