A foreign government calls for the interference of these departments to redeem the national faith, pledged through executive instrumentality, and for the redemption of which the executive, and the legislature, where necessary, are the agents designated by the Constitution. They see and feel their duty, but have been rendered powerless. The Supreme Court has decided the treaty to be unconstitutional. No matter how obscure the parties by whom its interference was asked, no matter how unimportant the interest in respect to which the decision was made, from the moment it is promulgated, it becomes a rule of action for every department of the government, and every public functionary as well as every citizen. If the national legislature passes a law to carry into effect the void treaty its law becomes a nullity. If the executive issues an order for its execution, or toward the performance of the treaty in any way to his subordinates, they are not bound to obey it, and the Supreme Court will sustain them in their contumacy. If he take measures to enforce his authority, he makes himself amenable to that tribunal. Acting in such a matter as a ministerial officer only, without a right to employ his own discretion, he subjects himself to impeachment if he persists. Alexander Hamilton--who, if he was not the one who suggested the latitudinarian doctrine of "implied powers," was certainly its most effective supporter, and through life its watchful guardian--in No. 1 of Pacificus, has said that though the judiciary department is charged with the interpretation of treaties, "it exercises this function only where contending parties bring before it a specific controversy;" that "it has no concern with pronouncing upon the external political relation of treaties between government and government;" that "this proposition is too plain to need being insisted upon;" that "it belongs to the executive department to exercise the function in question, when a proper case for it occurs," "as the _interpreter_ of the national treaties, in those cases in which the judiciary is not competent,--that is, between government and government; as the _power_ which is charged with the execution of the laws, of which treaties form a part; as that which is charged with the command and disposition of the public force."