WRIGHT— CONTROL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS. 447 



" The reason why we trust one man, rather than many, is because one 

 man can negotiate and many men can't. Two masses of people have no 

 way of dealing with each other. . . . The American people cannot all seize 

 the same pen and indite a note to sixty-five million people living within 

 the German Empire. . . . The very qualities which are needed for negoti- 

 ation — quickness of mind, direct contact, adaptiveness, invention, the right 

 proportion of give and take — are the very qualities which masses of people 

 do not possess." 



264. Practice in American History. 



As practice is the best evidence of what Constitutions are, so 

 history is the best evidence of what institutions must become, if 

 they are to perform their functions. " Even democratic countries 

 Hke France and England," says Bryce, " are forced to leave foreign 

 afifairs to a far greater degree than home afit'airs to the discretion 

 of the ministry of the day." ^^ The Greek city states in which diplo- 

 macy by mass meeting led to disaster when confronted by the as- 

 tuteness of Philip of Macedon are the exception which proves the 

 rule.^^ Thus, in the United States when foreign problems have 

 come to the front, concentrated authority has been developed to cope 

 with them. In the first period from 1789 to 1829 foreign relations 

 were complex. Presidents were chosen because of their experience 

 in diplomacy, and they displayed competence and leadership. There 

 was friction but in all cases until the last, — John Quincy Adams's 

 policy with reference to the Panama congress, — the President's pol- 

 icy prevailed. In the second period which extended from 1829 to 

 1898 our problems were mainly domestic. In these Congress as- 

 sumed a leadership and though Presidents continued to assert their 

 prerogative in foreign afifairs, opportunities were only occasional 

 and defeats were frequent. Presidents were chosen for political 



of action may be demanded tonight, another in the morning. It requires 

 also secrecy; and that element is not omitted by the commentators on the 

 Constitution as having been deemed by the framers of the most vital im- 

 portance. It is too obvious to make elaboration pardonable." {Cong. 

 Rec, 40: 1420; quoted Corwin, op. cif., p. 176.) See also Sen. Doc. No. 56, 

 S4th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 6-18; Reinsch, World Politics, 1900, p. 334; Heatley, 

 op. cit., p. 71. 



18 American Commonwealth, 2d ed., i : 218. See also Reinsch, World 

 Politics, p. 329. 



^^ Ibid., 1 : 217. 



