The history of human conduct
does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make
it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a
kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world,
to the sole disposal of a magistrate created and circumstanced as would
be a President of the United States.
To have intrusted the power of making treaties to the Senate alone,
would have been to relinquish the benefits of the constitutional agency
of the President in the conduct of foreign negotiations. It is true that
the Senate would, in that case, have the option of employing him in this
capacity, but they would also have the option of letting it alone, and
pique or cabal might induce the latter rather than the former. Besides
this, the ministerial servant of the Senate could not be expected to
enjoy the confidence and respect of foreign powers in the same degree
with the constitutional representatives of the nation, and, of course,
would not be able to act with an equal degree of weight or efficacy.
While the Union would, from this cause, lose a considerable advantage in
the management of its external concerns, the people would lose the
additional security which would result from the co-operation of the
Executive.
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