For these, the President will find no difficulty to
provide; and should any circumstance occur which requires the advice and
consent of the Senate, he may at any time convene them. Thus we see that
the Constitution provides that our negotiations for treaties shall have
every advantage which can be derived from talents, information,
integrity, and deliberate investigations, on the one hand, and from
secrecy and despatch on the other.
But to this plan, as to most others that have ever appeared, objections
are contrived and urged.
Some are displeased with it, not on account of any errors or defects in
it, but because, as the treaties, when made, are to have the force of
laws, they should be made only by men invested with legislative
authority. These gentlemen seem not to consider that the judgments of
our courts, and the commissions constitutionally given by our governor,
are as valid and as binding on all persons whom they concern, as the
laws passed by our legislature. All constitutional acts of power,
whether in the executive or in the judicial department, have as much
legal validity and obligation as if they proceeded from the legislature;
and therefore, whatever name be given to the power of making treaties,
or however obligatory they may be when made, certain it is, that the
people may, with much propriety, commit the power to a distinct body
from the legislature, the executive, or the judicial.
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