Thirty Years' View (Vol. 1 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850 — John Shaqi
Thirty Years' View (Vol. 1 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850Benton, Thomas Hart
History
Thirty Years' View (Vol. 1 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850
Benton, Thomas Hart
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
5. The boundaries between the treaty-making and the legislative
departments of the government, became a subject of examination after
the war, and gave rise to questions deeply affecting the working
of these two departments. A treaty is the supreme law of the land,
and as such it becomes obligatory on the House of Representatives
to vote the money which it stipulates, and to co-operate in forming
the laws necessary to carry it into effect. That is the broad
proposition. The qualification is in the question whether the treaty
is confined to the business of the treaty-making power? to the
subjects which fall under its jurisdiction? and does not encroach
upon the legislative power of Congress? This is the qualification,
and a vital one: for if the President and Senate, by a treaty with
a foreign power, or a tribe of Indians, could exercise ordinary
legislation, and make it supreme, a double injury would have been
done, and to the prejudice of that branch of the government which
lies closest to the people, and emanates most directly from them.
Confinement to their separate jurisdictions is the duty of each; but
if encroachments take place, which is to judge? If the President and
Senate invade the legislative field of Congress, which is to judge?
or who is to judge between them? or is each to judge for itself?
The House of Representatives, and the Senate in its legislative
capacity, but especially the House, as the great constitutional
depository of the legislative power, becomes its natural guardian
and defender, and is entitled to deference, in the event of a
difference of opinion between the two branches of the government.
The discussions in Congress between 1815 and 1820 greatly elucidated
this question; and while leaving unimpugned the obligation of the
House to carry into effect a treaty duly made by the President and
Senate within the limits of the treaty making power--upon matters
subject to treaty regulation--yet it belongs to the House to judge
when these limits have been transcended, and to preserve inviolate
the field of legislation which the constitution has intrusted to the
immediate representatives of the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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