It was said that it would be necessary to refer again to the subject of the relations of the General Government to the several States, as illustrated by the New Orleans incident and the treatment of the Japanese on the Pacific Coast; and the first thing to be said is that no well-wisher of the United States living in Europe can help deploring the fact that the General Government has not the power to compel all parties to the Union to observe the treaties to which the faith of the nation as a whole has been pledged. It is a matter on which the apologist for the United States abroad has, when challenged, no defence. Few people in other countries do not consider the present situation unworthy of the United States; and I believe that a large majority of the American people--certainly a majority of the people east of the Rocky Mountains--is of the same opinion. It is no excuse to urge that when another Power enters into treaty relations with the United States it does so with its eyes open and with a knowledge of the peculiarities of the American Constitution. This is an argument which belongs to the backwoods stage of American statesmanship. In the past, it is true, the United States has been in a measure the spoilt child among the nations and has been permitted to sit somewhat loosely to the observance of those formalities which other Powers have recognised as binding on themselves; but the time has gone by when the United States can claim, or ought to be willing to accept, any especial indulgences. It cannot at once assert its right to rank as one of the Great Powers and affect to enter into treaties on equal terms with other nations, and at the same time admit that it is unable to honour its signature to those treaties. This, I say, is the general opinion of thinking men in other countries; but, however desirable it may be that the General Government should have the power to compel the individual States to comply with the requirements of the national undertakings, it is difficult, so long as the several States continue jealous of their sovereignty without regard to the national honour, to see how the end is to be arrived at. The first obvious fact is that all treaties are made by the President "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate" and no treaty is valid until ratified by a vote of the Senate in which "two thirds of the Senators present concur." The Senate occupies a peculiar position in the scheme of government. It does not represent either the nation as a whole nor, like the House of Representatives, the people as a whole. The Senate represents the individual States each acting in its sovereign capacity[287:1]; and the voice of the Senate is the voice of those States as separate entities. When the Senate passes upon any question it has been passed upon by each several State and it is not easy to see how any particular State can claim to be exempt from the responsibility of any vote of the Senate as a whole.