346 WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE AGREEMENTS. 



and the actual treaty of 1901 upon the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 



i85o.^o<' 



184. Denunciation by Congress. 



Finally a treaty may be terminated by denunciation, according 

 to its own terms. A period of six months' to a year's notice is 

 usually required. There has been question whether notice should 

 be given by Congress, by the treaty-making power or by the Presi- 

 dent, and examples can be found of each practice. Congress has 

 frequently passed resolutions of denunciation as it did of the Brit- 

 ish treaties of 1827 in 1846; of 1854 in 1866; and of 1871 in 1885 

 as to certain articles. The President has usually carried out such 

 resolutions, but in 1865, even though he had signed a congressional 

 resolution which " adopted " and " ratified " his notice for termi- 

 nating the Great Lakes disarmament agreement of 181 7, President 

 Lincoln withdrew the notice and the treaty continued effective.^"'^ 

 President Hayes doubted the competence of Congress to direct the 

 President to negotiate modifications of an existing treaty and pointed 

 out that unless a treaty expressly provided for partial denuncia- 

 tion such a step would be impossible.^°^ 



" As the other high contracting party has entered into no treaty obli- 

 gations except such as include the part denounced, the denunciation by one 

 party of the part necessarily liberates the other party from the whole 

 treaty." 



President Wilson, however, conducted negotiations for modifica- 

 tion of all treaty provisions in conflict with the La FoUette Sea- 

 man's Act of March 191 5 as directed by Section 16 of that Act. He, 

 however, refused to act under the like direction of Article 34 of the 

 Jones Merchant Marine Act of June 5, 1920. It would seem, there- 

 fore, that the President is the final authority to denounce a treaty, 



1"^ Moore, Digest, 3 : 212 ct scq. Sir Edward Grey, British Sec. of 

 State for Foreign Affairs, to British Ambassador Bryce, Nov. 14, 1912, Diplo- 

 matic History of the Panama Canal, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., Sen. Doc. 474, 

 pp. 85-86. 



107 Fifty-sixth Cong., ist Sess., House Doc, No. 471, pp. 32-34; Crandall, 

 of>. cit., p. 462. 



108 Richardson, Messages, 7: 519. 



