366 WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 



"He would recapitulate only his objections to this amendment. It was 

 unprecedented, nothing of the kind having been attempted before. It was, 

 in his opinion, unconstitutional, as it was taking the proper responsibility 

 from the Executive and exercising, ourselves, a power which, from its nature, 

 belongs to the Executive, and not to us. It was prescribing, by the House, 

 the instructions for a Minister abroad. It was nugatory, as it attached con- 

 ditions which might be complied with, or might not. And lastly, if gentlemen 

 thought it important to express the sense of the House on these subjects, or 

 any of them, the regular and customary way was by resolution. At present 

 it seemed to him that we must make the appropriation without conditions, or 

 refuse it. The President had laid the case before us. If our opinion of the 

 character of the meeting, or its objects, led us to withhold the appropriation, 

 we had the power to do so. If we had not so much confidence in the Execu- 

 tive as to render us willing to trust to the constitutional exercise of the 

 Executive power, we have power to refuse the money. It is a direct question 

 of aye or no. If the Ministers to be sent to Panama may not be trusted to 

 act, like other Ministers, under the instructions of the Executive, they ought 

 not to go at all." 



203. President Not Bound by Congressional Resolutions on Foreign 

 Affairs. 



The Executive has never hesitated to ignore resolutions or acts 



of this kind, even when passed. Thus a resohition of 1864 declared, 



with reference to the Maximillian Government of Mexico, that : 



" It does not accord with the policy of the United States to acknowledge 

 a monarchical government, erected on the ruins of any republican government 

 in America, under the auspices of any European power." 



Secretary of State Seward explained to the minister in France : 



"This is a practical and purely Executive question, and the decision of 

 its constitutionality belongs not to the House of Representatives nor even to 

 Congress, but to the President of the United States. . . . While the President 

 receives the declaration of the House of Representatives with the profound 

 respect to which it is entitled, as an exposition of its sentiments upon a grave 

 and important subject, he directs that you inform the Government of France 

 that he does not at the present contemplate any departure from the policy 

 which this Government has hitherto pursued in regard to the war which exists 

 between France and Mexico. It is hardly necessary to say that the proceed- 

 ing of the House of Representatives was adopted upon suggestions arising 

 within itself, and that the French Government would be seasonably apprised 

 of any change of policy upon this subject which the President might at any 

 future time think it proper to adopt." 



1871 criticizing President Grant's eflfort to annex Santo Domingo (Cong. 

 Globe, 426. Cong., ist sess., pt. i, p. 294) ; McLemore's resolution of March, 

 1916, " to warn all citizens of the United States to refrain from traveling on 

 armed vessels" {Cong. Rcc, 1916, pp. 3700-4). 



I 



