INSTRUMENTALITIES FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS. 413 



fund or relied upon a subsequent appropriation."*' Here also the 

 Congress has sought to intervene, though its power is less than in 

 the case of permanent missions, requiring steady appropriations. 

 By an act of March 4. 1913, it provided:*'^ 



" Hereafter the Executive shall not extend or accept any invitation to 

 participate in any international congress, conference, or like event without 

 first having specific authority of law to do so." 



Congress has undoubtedly gone beyond its powders in thus at- 

 tempting to control the President's foreign negotiations and the 

 President has ignored the act, notably at the Versailles Peace Con- 

 gress. The actual influence of Congress in this field depends upon 

 the necessity for appropriations. If international conferences be- 

 come frequent, this necessity would doubtless be controUing."- 



238. Pozver of President to Appoint Diplomatic Agents. 



Finally, the Senate has often criticized the President's practice 

 of appointing agents, sometimes with the titles of diplomatic 

 officers, without gaining its consent. This practice began almost 

 immediately after ratification of the Constitution when President 

 Washington by a letter of October 13, 1789, requested Gouverneur 

 Morris, then in Paris, to go to London as private agent, and " on 

 the authority and credit " of the letter to " converse with His Bri- 

 tannic Majesty's Ministers as to certain matters affecting the rela- 

 tions between the two countries." In 1792 John Paul Jones, then 

 an admiral in the United States Navy, was appointed as commis- 

 sioner to treat with Algiers. In 1816 President Monroe sent three 

 commissioners to investigate affairs in the revolting Spanish-Amer- 

 ican colonies and in the same year he sent Isaac Chauncey, a naval 

 captain, to act with Consul William Shaler to negotiate a treaty 

 with Algiers."^ 



60 Crandall, op. cit.. p. 76. This was also true of the conference on 

 limitation of armament, 1921, though provisions in the Naval appropriation 

 acts of 1916 and 1921 authorized the calling of such a conference, supra, sec. 

 204. 



'^^ 37 Stat. 913; Comp. Stat., 7686. 



62 Report on Foreign Service, supra, note 55, pp. 225-228. 



63 Moore, Digest, 4 : 452-453. 



