The
essence of the legislative authority is to enact laws, or, in other
words, to prescribe rules for the regulation of the society; while the
execution of the laws, and the employment of the common strength, either
for this purpose or for the common defense, seem to comprise all the
functions of the executive magistrate. The power of making treaties is,
plainly, neither the one nor the other. It relates neither to the
execution of the subsisting laws, nor to the enaction of new ones; and
still less to an exertion of the common strength. Its objects are
CONTRACTS with foreign nations, which have the force of law, but derive
it from the obligations of good faith. They are not rules prescribed by
the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and
sovereign. The power in question seems therefore to form a distinct
department, and to belong, properly, neither to the legislative nor to
the executive. The qualities elsewhere detailed as indispensable in the
management of foreign negotiations, point out the Executive as the most
fit agent in those transactions; while the vast importance of the trust,
and the operation of treaties as laws, plead strongly for the
participation of the whole or a portion of the legislative body in the
office of making them.
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