INSTRUMENTALITIES FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS. 415 



ing authorized Ellis Loring Dresel to negotiate a separate peace treaty 

 with Germany. In the same year President Harding appointed Sec- 

 retary of State Hughes, Elihu Root, Senators Lodge and Underwood 

 American delegates to the Conference on Limitation of Armament.*'* 

 A minority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported 

 in i< 



" The whole number of persons appointed or recognized bj' the Presi- 

 dent, without the concurrence or advice of the Senate, or the express au- 

 thority of Congress, as agents to conduct negotiations and conclude treaties 

 (prior to June 25, 1887) is four hundred and thirty-eight. Three have been 

 appointed by the Secretary of State and thirty-two have been appointed by 

 the President with the advice and consent of the Senate." 



Apparently the only appointments to special missions which have 

 been confirmed by the Senate since 181 5 are the commissioners to 

 the Panama Congress of 1825, those to negotiate with China in 

 1880, and the five commissioners to negotiate the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington with Great Britain in 1871.^^ 



240. Controversies with Respect to Presidential Agents. 



In spite of the habitual practice, the Senate has often protested. 



Its objection to the interim appointments by President Madison in 



181 3 would extend a fortiori to purely presidential commissioners. 



President Jackson's mission appointed to treat with Turkey in 1829 



was criticized in the Senate in 1831, though Senator Tazewell, of 



Virginia, the principal critic, admitted "the power of the President 



to appoint secret agents when and how he pleases." '^'' 



" But," he continued, " as a Senator, I do claim for the Senate, in the 

 language of the Constitution, the right of advising and consenting to the 

 appointment of any and every officer of the United States, no matter what 



^*Ibid., 4: 440, 446, 456; Crandall, op. cit., p. 78; Foster, Diplomatic 

 Practice, chap. X; Corwin, op. cit., pp. 62, 64; Henry Adams, Education, 

 p. 146; J. M. Forbes, Letters and Recollections, 1899, 2: 32; Paullin, Diplo- 

 matic Negotiation of American Naval Officers, passim; Gerard, My Four 

 Years in Germany, p. 197 ; Lansing, The Peace Negotiations, Chap. II ; Root, 

 The United States and the War, 1918, p. 92; Lodge, Remarks in the Senate, 

 September 26, 1921, Cong. Rec, 61 : 6458. 



65 Fiftieth Cong., 2d Sess., Sen. Doc. No. 231, VIII, 332. 



66 Crandall, op. cit., p. 77. 



6' Benton, Abridgment, 11 : 207. 



