The Constitution and Arbitration Treaties
RECENTLY the United States Senate manifested great concern for the preservation of the integrity of the United States Constitution, which of late years has not received high honor at the hands of many statesmen and newspaper editors of note in this country. The occasion arose from the consideration of arbitration treaties between the United States and a number of foreign powers, which were taken up by the Senate in executive session on February 10. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations insisted on amending these treaties by substituting in them the word “treaty” for the word “agreement,” thus requiring that each separate case selected for arbitration shall be submitted to the Senate for approval, as a separate treaty, instead of being considered and provided for by the President and his advisers alone, as would have been impliedly permissible if the word “agreement” had been retained. The Senate felt that there was danger of an assumption of power by the chief executive which would be in violation of that provision of the Constitution which states that the President shall conclude treaties with foreign powers “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” Where a seeming violation of the Constitution touches only a foreign race across the sea, it is not regarded by the government as a matter of great concern, and the Constitution can even be treated as an outgrown document not suited to present-day requirements of the nation; but it is a very different matter when it is a branch of Congress that is to feel the effect of a seeming unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. It would be well if the provisions of the Constitution were always as jealously guarded by the national legislature.