Section 2: Powers and Duties of the President
Constitution of the United States (Annotated) (2000)
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Clause 1. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he...
Text
Clause 1. Commander-in-Chiefship; Presidential Advisers; Pardons
Commander-in-Chief
Development of the Concept
The Limited View
The Prize Cases
Impact of the Prize Cases on World Wars I and II
Presidential Theory of the Commander-in-Chiefship in World War II-And Beyond
Presidential War Agencies
Constitutional Status of Presidential Agencies
Evacuation of the West Coast Japanese
Presidential Government of Labor Regulations
Sanctions Implementing Presidential Directives
The Postwar Period
The Cold War and After: Presidential Power To Use Troops Overseas Without Congressional Authorization
The Historic Use of Force Abroad
The Theory of Presidential Power
The Power of Congress to Control the President's Discretion
The President as Commander of the Armed Forces
The Commander-in-Chief a Civilian Officer
Martial Law and Constitutional Limitations
Martial Law in Hawaii
Articles of War: The Nazi Saboteurs
Articles of War: World War II Crimes
Articles of War: Response to the Attacks of September 11, 2001
Martial Law and Domestic Disorder
Presidential Advisers
The Cabinet
Pardons and Reprieves
The Legal Nature of a Pardon
Scope of the Power
Offenses Against the United States; Contempt of Court
Effects of a Pardon: Ex parte Garland
Limits to the Efficacy of a Pardon
Congress and Amnesty
Clause 2. Treaties and Appointment of Officers
The Treaty-Making Power
President and Senate
Negotiation, a Presidential Monopoly
Treaties as Law of the Land
Origin of the Conception
Treaties and the States
Treaties and Congress
Congressional Repeal of Treaties
Treaties Versus Prior Acts of Congress
When Is a Treaty Self-Executing
Treaties and the Necessary and Proper Clause
Constitutional Limitations on the Treaty Power
Interpretation and Termination of Treaties as International Compacts
Termination of Treaties by Notice
Determination Whether a Treaty Has Lapsed
Status of a Treaty a Political Question
Indian Treaties
Present Status of Indian Treaties
International Agreements without Senate Approval
Executive Agreements by Authorization of Congress
Reciprocal Trade Agreements
The Constitutionality of Trade Agreements
The Lend-Lease Act
International Organizations
Executive Agreements Authorized by Treaties
Arbitration Agreements
Agreements Under the United Nations Charter
Status of Forces Agreements
Executive Agreements on the Sole Constitutional Authority of the President
The Litvinov Agreement
The Hull-Lothian Agreement
The Post-War Years
The Domestic Obligation of Executive Agreements
State Laws Affecting Foreign Relations-Dormant Federal Power and Preemption
The Executive Establishment
Office
Ambassadors and Other Public Ministers
Presidential Diplomatic Agents
Appointments and Congressional Regulation of Offices
Congressional Regulation of Conduct in Office
The Loyalty Issue
Financial Disclosure and Limitations
Legislation Increasing Duties of an Officer
Stages of Appointment Process
Nomination
Senate Approval
When Senate Consent Is Complete
The Removal Power
The Myers Case
The Humphrey Case
The Wiener Case
The Watergate Controversy
The Removal Power Rationalized
Other Phases of Presidential Removal Power
The Presidential Aegis: Demands for Papers
Private Access to Government Information
Prosecutorial and Grand Jury Access to Presidential Documents
Congressional Access to Executive Branch Information
Clause 3. Vacancies during Recess of Senate
Recess Appointments
Judicial Appointments
Ad Interim Designations
Clause 1. Commander-in-Chiefship; Presidential Advisers; Pardons
Clause 1. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Office, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Commander-in-Chief
Development of the Concept
Surprisingly little discussion of the Commander-in-Chief clause is found in the Convention or in the ratifying debates. From the evidence available, it appears that the Framers vested the duty in the President because experience in the Continental Congress had disclosed the inexpediency of vesting command in a group and because the lesson of English history was that danger lurked in vesting command in a person separate from the responsible political leaders.[111] But the principal concern here is the nature of the power granted by the clause.
The Limited View
The purely military aspects of the Commander-in-Chiefship were those that were originally stressed. Hamilton said the office "would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the Military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy."[112] Story wrote in his Commentaries: "The propriety of admitting the president to be commander in chief, so far as to give orders, and have a general superintendency, was admitted. But it was urged, that it would be dangerous to let him command in person, without any restraint, as he might make a bad use of it. The consent of both houses of Congress ought, therefore, to be required, before he should take the actual command. The answer then given was, that though the president might, there was no necessity that he should, take the command in person; and there was no probability that he would do so, except in extraordinary emergencies, and when he was possessed of superior military talents."[113] In 1850, Chief Justice Taney, for the Court, said: "His duty and his power are purely military. As commander-in-chief, he is authorized to direct the movements of the naval and military forces placed by law at his command, and to employ them in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy. He may invade the hostile country, and subject it to the sovereignty and authority of the United States. But his conquests do not enlarge the boundaries of this Union, nor extend the operation of our institutions and laws beyond the limits before assigned to them by the legislative power."
". . . But in the distribution of political power between the great departments of government, there is such a wide difference between the power conferred on the President of the United States, and the authority and sovereignty which belong to the English crown, that it would be altogether unsafe to reason from any supposed resemblance between them, either as regards conquest in war, or any other subject where the rights and powers of the executive arm of the government are brought into question."[114] Even after the Civil War, a powerful minority of the Court described the role of President as Commander-in-Chief simply as "the command of the forces and the conduct of campaigns."[115]
The Prize Cases
The basis for a broader conception was laid in certain early acts of Congress authorizing the President to employ military force in the execution of the laws.[116]In his famous message to Congress of July 4, 1861,[117] Lincoln advanced the claim that the "war power" was his for the purpose of suppressing rebellion, and in the Prize Cases[118] of 1863 a divided Court sustained this theory. The immediate issue was the validity of the blockade which the President, following the attack on Fort Sumter, had proclaimed of the Southern ports.[119] The argument was advanced that a blockade to be valid must be an incident of a "public war" validly declared, and that only Congress could, by virtue of its power "to declare war," constitutionally impart to a military situation this character and scope. Speaking for the majority of the Court, Justice Grier answered: "If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority. And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war, although the declaration of it be 'unilateral.' Lord Stowell (1 Dodson, 247) observes, 'It is not the less a war on that account, for war may exist without a declaration on either side. It is so laid down by the best writers of the law of nations. A declaration of war by one country only is not a mere challenge to be accepted or refused at pleasure by the other."'
"The battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma had been fought before the passage of the act of Congress of May 13, 1846, which recognized 'a state of war as existing by the act of the Republic of Mexico.' This act not only provided for the future prosecution of the war, but was itself a vindication and ratification of the Act of the President in accepting the challenge without a previous formal declaration of war by Congress."
"This greatest of civil wars was not gradually developed by popular commotion, tumultuous assemblies, or local unorganized insurrections. However long may have been its previous conception, it nevertheless sprung forth suddenly from the parent brain, a Minerva in the full panoply of war. The President was bound to meet it in the shape it presented itself, without waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name; and no name given to it by him or them could change the fact."
". . . Whether the President in fulfilling his duties, as Commander-in-Chief, in suppressing an insurrection, has met with such armed hostile resistance, and a civil war of such alarming proportions as will compel him to accord to them the character of belligerents, is a question to be decided by him, and this Court must be governed by the decisions and acts of the political department of the Government to which this power was entrusted. 'He must determine what degree of force the crisis demands.' The proclamation of blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the Court that a state of war existed which demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure, under the circumstances peculiar to the case."[120]
Impact of the Prize Cases on World Wars I and II
In brief, the powers claimable for the President under the Commander-in-Chief clause at a time of wide-spread insurrection were equated with his powers under the clause at a time when the United States is engaged in a formally declared foreign war.[121] And since Lincoln performed various acts especially in the early months of the Civil War which, like increasing the Army and Navy, admittedly fell within the constitutional provinces of Congress, it seems to have been assumed during World Wars I and II that the Commander-in-Chiefship carried with it the power to exercise like powers practically at discretion, not merely in wartime but even at a time when war became a strong possibility. No attention was given the fact that Lincoln had asked Congress to ratify and confirm his acts, which Congress promptly did,[122] with the exception of his suspension of the habeas corpus privilege, which was regarded by many as attributable to the President in the situation then existing, by virtue of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.[123] Nor was this the only respect in which war or the approach of war was deemed to operate to enlarge the scope of power claimable by the President as Commander-in-Chief in wartime.[124]
Presidential Theory of the Commander-in-Chiefship in World War II-And Beyond
In his message to Congress of September 7, 1942, in which he demanded that Congress forthwith repeal certain provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of the previous January 30th,[125] President Roosevelt formulated his conception of his powers as "Commander in Chief in wartime" as follows:
"I ask the Congress to take this action by the first of October. Inaction on your part by that date will leave me with an inescapable responsibility to the people of this country to see to it that the war effort is no longer imperiled by threat of economic chaos."
"In the event that the Congress should fail to act, and act adequately, I shall accept the responsibility, and I will act."
"At the same time that farm prices are stabilized, wages can and will be stabilized also. This I will do."
"The President has the powers, under the Constitution and under Congressional acts, to take measures necessary to avert a disaster which would interfere with the winning of the war."
"I have given the most thoughtful consideration to meeting this issue without further reference to the Congress. I have determined, however, on this vital matter to consult with the Congress... ."
"The American people can be sure that I will use my powers with a full sense of my responsibility to the Constitution and to my country. The American people can also be sure that I shall not hesitate to use every power vested in me to accomplish the defeat of our enemies in any part of the world where our own safety demands such defeat."
"When the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically revert to the people-to whom they belong."[126]
Presidential War Agencies
While congressional compliance with the President's demand rendered unnecessary an effort on his part to amend the Price Control Act, there were other matters as to which he repeatedly took action within the normal field of congressional powers, not only during the war, but in some instances prior to it. Thus, in exercising both the powers which he claimed as Commander-in-Chief and those which Congress conferred upon him to meet the emergency, Mr. Roosevelt employed new emergency agencies, created by himself and responsible directly to him, rather than the established departments or existing independent regulatory agencies.[127]
Constitutional Status of Presidential Agencies
The question of the legal status of the presidential agencies was dealt with judicially but once. This was in the decision of the United States Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in Employers Group v. National War Labor Board,[128] which was a suit to annul and enjoin a "directive order" of the War Labor Board. The Court refused the injunction on the ground that the time when the directive was issued any action of the Board was "informatory," "at most advisory." In support of this view the Court quoted approvingly a statement by the chairman of the Board itself: "These orders are in reality mere declarations of the equities of each industrial dispute, as determined by a tripartite body in which industry, labor, and the public share equal responsibility; and the appeal of the Board is to the moral obligation of employers and workers to abide by the nonstrike, no-lock-out agreement and . . . to carry out the directives of the tribunal created under that agreement by the Commander in Chief."[129]Nor, the Court continued, had the later War Labor Disputes Act vested War Labor Board orders with any greater authority, with the result that they were still judicially unenforceable and unreviewable. Following this theory, the War Labor Board was not an office wielding power, but a purely advisory body, such as Presidents have frequently created in the past without the aid or consent of Congress. Congress itself, nevertheless, both in its appropriation acts and in other legislation, treated the presidential agencies as in all respects offices.[130]
Evacuation of the West Coast Japanese
On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order, "by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy," providing, as a safeguard against subversion and sabotage, power for his military commanders to designate areas from which "any person" could be excluded or removed and to set up facilities for such persons elsewhere.[131] Pursuant to this order, more than 112,000 residents of the Western States, all of Japanese descent and more than two out of every three of whom were natural- born citizens, were removed from their homes and herded into temporary camps and later into "relocation centers" in several States.
It was apparently the original intention of the Administration to rely on the general principle of military necessity and the power of the Commander-in-Chief in wartime as authority for the relocations. But before any action of importance was taken under the order, Congress ratified and adopted it by the Act of March 21, 1942,[132] by which it was made a misdemeanor to knowingly enter, remain in, or leave prescribed military areas contrary to the orders of the Secretary of War or of the commanding officer of the area. The cases which subsequently arose in consequence of the order were decided under the order plus the Act. The question at issue, said Chief Justice Stone for the Court, "is not one of Congressional power to delegate to the President the promulgation of the Executive Order, but whether, acting in cooperation, Congress and the Executive have constitutional . . . [power] to impose the curfew restriction here complained of."[133] This question was answered in the affirmative, as was the similar question later raised by an exclusion order.[134]
Presidential Government of Labor Regulations
The most important segment of the home front regulated by what were in effect presidential edicts was the field of labor relations. Exactly six months before Pearl Harbor, on June 7, 1941, Mr. Roosevelt, citing his proclamation thirteen days earlier of an unlimited national emergency, issued an Executive Order seizing the North American Aviation Plant at Inglewood, California, where, on account of a strike, production was at a standstill.[135] Attorney General Jackson justified the seizure as growing out of the "duty constitutionally and inherently rested upon the President to exert his civil and military as well as his moral authority to keep the defense efforts of the United States a going concern," as well as "to obtain supplies for which Congress has appropriated the money, and which it has directed the President to obtain."[136] Other seizures followed, and on January 12, 1942, Mr. Roosevelt, by Executive Order 9017, created the National War Labor Board. "Whereas," the order read in part, "by reason of the state of war declared to exist by joint resolutions of Congress, . . . the national interest demands that there shall be no interruption of any work which contributes to the effective prosecution of the war; and Whereas as a result of a conference of representatives of labor and industry which met at the call of the President on December 17, 1941, it has been agreed that for the duration of the war there shall be no strikes or lockouts, and that all labor disputes shall be settled by peaceful means, and that a National War Labor Board be established for a peaceful adjustment of such disputes. Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States, it is hereby ordered: 1. There is hereby created in the Office for Emergency Management a National War Labor Board . . . ."[137] In this field, too, Congress intervened by means of the War Labor Disputes Act of June 25, 1943,[138] which, however, still left ample basis for presidential activity of a legislative character.[139]
Sanctions Implementing Presidential Directives
To implement his directives as Commander-in-Chief in wartime, and especially those which he issued in governing labor disputes, President Roosevelt often resorted to "sanctions," which may be described as penalties lacking statutory authorization. Ultimately, the President sought to put sanctions in this field on a systematic basis. The order empowered the Director of Economic Stabilization, on receiving a report from the National War Labor Board that someone was not complying with its orders, to issue "directives" to the appropriate department or agency requiring that privileges, benefits, rights, or preferences enjoyed by the noncomplying party be withdrawn.[140]
Sanctions were also occasionally employed by statutory agencies, such as OPA, to supplement the penal provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of January 30, 1942.[141] In Steuart & Bro. v. Bowles,[142] the Supreme Court had the opportunity to regularize this type of executive emergency legislation. Here, a retail dealer in fuel oil was charged with having violated a rationing order of OPA by obtaining large quantities of oil from its supplier without surrendering ration coupons, by delivering many thousands of gallons of fuel oil without requiring ration coupons, and so on, and was prohibited by the agency from receiving oil for resale or transfer for the ensuing year. The offender conceded the validity of the rationing order in support of which the suspension order was issued but challenged the validity of the latter as imposing a penalty that Congress had not enacted and asked the district court to enjoin it.
The court refused to do so and was sustained by the Supreme Court in its position. Said Justice Douglas, speaking for the Court: "Without rationing, the fuel tanks of a few would be full; the fuel tanks of many would be empty. Some localities would have plenty; communities less favorably situated would suffer. Allocation or rationing is designed to eliminate such inequalities and to treat all alike who are similarly situated.... But middlemen -wholesalers and retailers-bent on defying the rationing system could raise havoc with it.... These middlemen are the chief if not the only conduits between the source of limited supplies and the consumers. From the viewpoint of a rationing system a middleman who distributes the product in violation and disregard of the prescribed quotas is an inefficient and wasteful conduit.... Certainly we could not say that the President would lack the power under this Act to take away from a wasteful factory and route to an efficient one a previous supply of material needed for the manufacture of articles of war.... From the point of view of the factory owner from whom the materials were diverted the action would be harsh....
But in time of war the national interest cannot wait on individual claims to preference. Yet if the President has the power to channel raw materials into the most efficient industrial units and thus save scarce materials from wastage it is difficult to see why the same principle is not applicable to the distribution of fuel oil."[143] Sanctions were, therefore, constitutional when the deprivations they wrought were a reasonably implied amplification of the substantive power which they supported and were directly conservative of the interests which this power was created to protect and advance. It is certain, however, that sanctions not uncommonly exceeded this pattern.[144]
The Postwar Period
The end of active hostilities did not terminate either the emergency or the federal-governmental response to it. President Truman proclaimed the termination of hostilities on December 31, 1946,[145] and Congress enacted a joint resolution which repealed a great variety of wartime statutes and set termination dates for others in July, 1947.[146] Signing the resolution, the President said that the emergencies declared in 1939 and 1940 continued to exist and that it was "not possible at this time to provide for terminating all war and emergency powers."[147] The hot war was giving way to the Cold War.
Congress thereafter enacted a new Housing and Rent Act to continue the controls begun in 1942[148] and continued the military draft.[149] With the outbreak of the Korean War, legislation was enacted establishing general presidential control over the economy again,[150] and by executive order the President created agencies to exercise the power.[151] The Court continued to assume the existence of a state of wartime emergency prior to Korea, but with misgivings. In Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co.,[152] the Court held constitutional the new rent control law on the ground that cessation of hostilities did not conclude the Government's powers but that the power continued to remedy the evil arising out of the emergency. Yet, Justice Douglas noted for the Court that "We recognize the force of the argument that the effects of war under modern conditions may be felt in the economy for years and years, and that if the war power can be used in days of peace to treat all the wounds which war inflicts on our society, it may not only swallow up all other powers of Congress but largely obliterate the Ninth and Tenth Amendments as well. There are no such implications in today's decision."[153] Justice Jackson, while concurring, noted that he found the war power "the most dangerous one to free government in the whole catalogue of powers" and cautioned that its exercise should "be scrutinized with care."[154] And in Ludecke v. Watkins,[155] four Justices were prepared to hold that the presumption in the statute under review of continued war with Germany was fiction and not to be utilized.
But the postwar was a time of reaction against the wartime exercise of power by President Roosevelt, and President Truman was not permitted the same liberties. The Twenty-second Amendment, writing into permanent law the two-term custom, the "Great Debate" about our participation in NATO, the attempt to limit the treaty-making power, and other actions, bespoke the reaction.[156] The Supreme Court signalized this reaction when it struck down the President's action in seizing the steel industry while it was struck during the Korean War.[157]
Nonetheless, the long period of the Cold War and of active hostilities in Korea and Indochina, in addition to the issue of the use of troops in the absence of congressional authorization, further created conditions for consolidation of powers in the President. In particular, a string of declarations of national emergencies, most, in whole or part, under the Trading with the Enemy Act,[158] under-girded the exercise of much presidential power. In the storm of response to the Vietnamese conflict, here, too, Congress reasserted legislative power to curtail what it viewed as excessive executive power, repealing the Trading with the Enemy Act and enacting in its place the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,[159] which did not alter most of the range of powers delegated to the President but which did change the scope of the power delegated to declare national emergencies.[160] Congress also passed the National Emergencies Act, prescribing procedures for the declaration of national emergencies, for their termination, and for presidential reporting to Congress in connection with national emergencies. To end the practice of declaring national emergencies for an indefinite duration, Congress provided that any emergency not otherwise terminated would expire one year after its declaration unless the President published in the Federal Register and transmitted to Congress a notice that the emergency would continue in effect.[161] Whether the balance of power between President and Congress shifted at all is not really a debatable question.
The Cold War and After: Presidential Power To Use Troops Overseas Without Congressional Authorization
Reaction after World War II did not persist, but soon ran its course, and the necessities, real and only perceived, of the United States' role as world power and chief guarantor of the peace operated to expand the powers of the President and to diminish congressional powers in the foreign relations arena. President Truman did not seek congressional authorization before sending troops to Korea, and subsequent Presidents similarly acted on their own in putting troops into many foreign countries, including the Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, and the Persian Gulf, and most notably Indochina.[162] Eventually, public opposition precipitated another constitutional debate whether the President had the authority to commit troops to foreign combat without the approval of Congress, a debate that went on inconclusively between Congress and Executive[163] and one which the courts were content generally to consign to the exclusive consideration of those two bodies. The substance of the debate concerns many facets of the President's powers and responsibilities, including his obligations to protect the lives and property of United States citizens abroad, to execute the treaty obligations of the Nation, to further the national security interests of the Nation, and to deal with aggression and threats of aggression as they confront him. Defying neat summarization, the considerations nevertheless merit at least an historical survey and an attempted categorization of the arguments.
The Historic Use of Force Abroad
In 1912, the Department of State published a memorandum prepared by its Solicitor which set out to justify the Right to Protect Citizens in Foreign Countries by Landing Forces.[164] In addition to the justification, the memorandum summarized 47 instances in which force had been used, in most of them without any congressional authorization. Twice revised and reissued, the memorandum was joined by a 1928 independent study and a 1945 work by a former government official in supporting conclusions that drifted away from the original justification of the use of United States forces abroad to the use of such forces at the discretion of the President and free from control by Congress.[165]
New lists and revised arguments were published to support the actions of President Truman in sending troops to Korea and of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in sending troops first to Vietnam and then to Indochina generally,[166] and new lists have been propounded.[167] The great majority of the instances cited involved fights with pirates, landings of small naval contingents on barbarous or semibarbarous coasts to protect commerce, the dispatch of small bodies of troops to chase bandits across the Mexican border, and the like, and some incidents supposedly without authorization from Congress did in fact have underlying statutory or other legislative authorization. Some instances, e.g., President Polk's use of troops to precipitate war with Mexico in 1846, President Grant's attempt to annex the Dominican Republic, President McKinley's dispatch of troops into China during the Boxer Rebellion, involved considerable exercises of presidential power, but in general purposes were limited and congressional authority was sought for the use of troops against a sovereign state or in such a way as to constitute war. The early years of this century saw the expansion in the Caribbean and Latin America both of the use of troops for the furthering of what was perceived to be our national interests and of the power of the President to deploy the military force of the United States without congressional authorization.[168]
The pre-war actions of Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt advanced in substantial degrees the fact of presidential initiative, although the theory did not begin to catch up with the fact until the "Great Debate" over the commitment of troops by the United States to Europe under the Atlantic Pact. While congressional authorization was obtained, that debate, the debate over the United Nations charter, and the debate over Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, declaring that "armed attack" against one signatory was to be considered as "an attack" against all signatories, provided the occasion for the formulation of a theory of independent presidential power to use the armed forces in the national interest at his discretion.[169] Thus, Secretary of State Acheson told Congress: "Not only has the President the authority to use the armed forces in carrying out the broad foreign policy of the United States implementing treaties, but it is equally clear that this authority may not be interfered with by the Congress in the exercise of powers which it has under the Constitution."[170]
The Theory of Presidential Power
The fullest expression of the presidential power proponents has been in defense of the course followed in Indochina. Thus, the Legal Adviser of the State Department, in a widely circulated document, contended: "Under the Constitution, the President, in addition to being Chief Executive, is Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. He holds the prime responsibility for the conduct of United States foreign relations. These duties carry very broad powers, including the power to deploy American forces abroad and commit them to military operations when the President deems such action necessary to maintain the security and defense of the United States... ."
"In 1787 the world was a far larger place, and the framers probably had in mind attacks upon the United States. In the 20th century, the world has grown much smaller. An attack on a country far from our shores can impinge directly on the nation's security. In the SEATO treaty, for example, it is formally declared that an armed attack against Viet Nam would endanger the peace and security of the United States."
"Under our Constitution it is the President who must decide when an armed attack has occurred. He has also the constitutional responsibility for determining what measures of defense are required when the peace and safety of the United States are endangered. If he considers that deployment of U.S. forces to South Viet Nam is required, and that military measures against the source of Communist aggression in North Viet Nam are necessary, he is constitutionally empowered to take those measures."[171]
Opponents of such expanded presidential powers have contended, however, that the authority to initiate war was not divided between the Executive and Congress but was vested exclusively in Congress. The President had the duty and the power to repeal sudden attacks and act in other emergencies, and in his role as Commander-in-Chief he was empowered to direct the armed forces for any purpose specified by Congress.[172] Though Congress asserted itself in some respects, it never really managed to confront the President's power with any sort of effective limitation, until recently.
The Power of Congress to Control the President's Discretion
Over the President's veto, Congress enacted the War Powers Resolution,[173] designed to redistribute the war powers between the President and Congress. Although ambiguous in some respects, the Resolution appears to define restrictively the President's powers, to require him to report fully to Congress upon the introduction of troops into foreign areas, to specify a maximum time limitation on the engagement of hostilities absent affirmative congressional action, and to provide a means for Congress to require cessation of hostilities in advance of the time set. The Resolution states that the President's power to commit United States troops into hostilities, or into situations of imminent involvement in hostilities, is limited to instances of (1) a declaration of war, (2) a specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by an attack on the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.[174] In the absence of a declaration of war, a President must within 48 hours report to Congress whenever he introduces troops (1) into hostilities or situations of imminent hostilities, (2) into a foreign nation while equipped for combat, except in certain nonhostile situations, or (3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States troops equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation.[175] The President is required to terminate the use of troops in the reported situation within 60 days of reporting, unless Congress (1) has declared war, (2) has extended the period, or (3) is unable to meet as a result of an attack on the United States, but the period can be extended another 30 days by the President's certification to Congress of unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of the troops.[176] Congress may through the passage of a concurrent resolution require the President to remove the troops sooner.[177] The Resolution further states that no legislation, whether enacted prior to or subsequent to passage of the Resolution will be taken to empower the President to use troops abroad unless the legislation specifically does so and that no treaty may so empower the President unless it is supplemented by implementing legislation specifically addressed to the issue.[178]
Aside from its use as a rhetorical device, the War Powers Resolution has been of little worth in reordering presidential-congressional relations in the years since its enactment. All Presidents operating under it have expressly or implicitly considered it to be an unconstitutional infringement on presidential powers, and on each occasion of use abroad of United States troops the President in reporting to Congress has done so "consistent[ly] with" the reporting section but not pursuant to the provision.[179] Upon the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops in 1990, President Bush sought not congressional authorization but a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force by member Nations. Only at the last moment did the President seek authorization from Congress, he and his officials contending he had the power to act unilater-ally.[180] Congress after intensive debate voted, 250 to 183 in the House of Representatives and 53 to 46 in the Senate, to authorize the President to use United States troops pursuant to the U. N. resolution and purporting to bring the act within the context of the War Powers Resolution.[181]
Although there is recurrent talk within Congress and without with regard to amending the War Powers Resolution to strengthen it, no consensus has emerged, and there is little evidence that there exists within Congress the resolve to exercise the responsibility concomitant with strengthening it.[182]
The President as Commander of the Armed Forces
While the President customarily delegates supreme command of the forces in active service, there is no constitutional reason why he should do so, and he has been known to resolve personally important questions of military policy. Lincoln early in 1862 issued orders for a general advance in the hopes of stimulating McClellan to action; Wilson in 1918 settled the question of an independent American command on the Western Front; Truman in 1945 ordered that the bomb be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[183] As against an enemy in the field, the President possesses all the powers which are accorded by international law to any supreme commander. "He may invade the hostile country, and subject it to the sovereignty and authority of the United States."[184] In the absence of attempts by Congress to limit his power, he may establish and prescribe the jurisdiction and procedure of military commissions, and of tribunals in the nature of such commissions, in territory occupied by Armed Forces of the United States, and his authority to do this sometimes survives cessation of hostilities.[185] He may employ secret agents to enter the enemy's lines and obtain information as to its strength, resources, and movements.[186] He may, at least with the assent of Congress, authorize commercial intercourse with the enemy.[187] He may also requisition property and compel services from American citizens and friendly aliens who are situated within the theatre of military operations when necessity requires, thereby incurring for the United States the obligation to render "just compensation."[188] By the same warrant, he may bring hostilities to a conclusion by arranging an armistice, stipulating conditions which may determine to a great extent the ensuing peace.[189] He may not, however, affect a permanent acquisition of territory,[190]though he may govern recently acquired territory until Congress sets up a more permanent regime.[191]
The President is the ultimate tribunal for the enforcement of the rules and regulations which Congress adopts for the government of the forces, and which are enforced through courts- martial.[192] Indeed, until 1830, courts-martial were convened solely on the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief.[193] Such rules and regulations are, moreover, it would seem, subject in wartime to his amendment at discretion.[194] Similarly, the power of Congress to "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces" (Art. I, § 8, cl. 14) did not prevent President Lincoln from promulgating in April, 1863, a code of rules to govern the conduct in the field of the armies of the United States which was prepared at his instance by a commission headed by Francis Lieber and which later became the basis of all similar codifications both here and abroad.[195] One important power that the President lacks is that of choosing his subordinates, whose grades and qualifications are determined by Congress and whose appointment is ordinarily made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, though undoubtedly Congress could if it wished vest their appointment in "the President alone."[196] Also, the President's power to dismiss an officer from the service, once unlimited, is today confined by statute in time of peace to dismissal "in pursuance of the sentence of a general court-martial or in mitigation thereof."[197] But the provision is not regarded by the Court as preventing the President from displacing an officer of the Army or Navy by appointing with the advice and consent of the Senate another person in his place.[198] The President's power of dismissal in time of war Congress has never attempted to limit.
The Commander-in-Chief a Civilian Officer
Is the Commander-in-Chiefship a military or a civilian office in the contemplation of the Constitution? Unquestionably the latter. An opinion by a New York surrogate deals adequately, though not authoritatively, with the subject: "The President receives his compensation for his services, rendered as Chief Executive of the Nation, not for the individual parts of his duties. No part of his compensation is paid from sums appropriated for the military or naval forces; and it is equally clear under the Constitution that the President's duties as Commander in Chief represent only a part of duties ex officio as Chief Executive [Article II, sections 2 and 3 of the Constitution] and that the latter's office is a civil office. [Article II, section 1 of the Constitution ... .] The President does not enlist in, and he is not inducted or drafted into, the armed forces. Nor, is he subject to court-martial or other military discipline. On the contrary, Article II, section 4 of the Constitution provides that 'The President, [Vice President] and All Civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.' . . . The last two War Presidents, President Wilson and President Roosevelt, both clearly recognized the civilian nature of the President's position as Commander in Chief. President Roosevelt, in his Navy Day Campaign speech at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, on October 27, 1944, pronounced this principle as follows:-'It was due to no accident and no oversight that the framers of our Constitution put the command of our armed forces under civilian authority. It is the duty of the Commander in Chief to appoint the Secretaries of War and Navy and the Chiefs of Staff.' It is also to be noted that the Secretary of War, who is the regularly constituted organ of the President for the administration of the military establishment of the Nation, has been held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be merely a civilian officer, not in military service. (United States v. Burns,
Martial Law and Constitutional Limitations
Two theories of martial law are reflected in decisions of the Supreme Court. The first, which stems from the Petition of Right, 1628, provides that the common law knows no such thing as martial law;[200] that is to say, martial law is not established by official authority of any sort, but arises from the nature of things, being the law of paramount necessity, leaving the civil courts to be the final judges of necessity.[201] By the second theory, martial law can be validly and constitutionally established by supreme political authority in wartime. In the early years of the Supreme Court, the American judiciary embraced the latter theory as it held in Luther v. Borden[202] that state declarations of martial law were conclusive and therefore not subject to judicial review.[203] In this case, the Court found that the Rhode Island legislature had been within its rights in resorting to the rights and usages of war in combating insurrection in that State. The decision in the Prize Cases,[204] while not dealing directly with the subject of martial law, gave national scope to the same general principle in 1863.
The Civil War being safely over, however, a divided Court, in the elaborately argued Milligan case,[205] reverting to the older doctrine, pronounced void President Lincoln's action, following his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in September, 1863, in ordering the trial by military commission of persons held in custody as "spies" and "abettors of the enemy." The salient passage of the Court's opinion bearing on this point is the following: "If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."[206] Four Justices, speaking by Chief Justice Chase, while holding Milligan's trial to have been void because violative of the Act of March 3, 1863, governing the custody and trial of persons who had been deprived of the habeas corpus privilege, declared their belief that Congress could have authorized Milligan's trial. Said the Chief Justice: "Congress has the power not only to raise and support and govern armies but to declare war. It has, therefore, the power to provide by law for carrying on war. This power necessarily extends to all legislation essential to the prosecution of war with vigor and success, except such as interferes with the command of the forces and the conduct of campaigns. That power and duty belong to the President and Commander-in-Chief. Both these powers are derived from the Constitution, but neither is defined by that instrument. Their extent must be determined by their nature, and by the principles of our institutions."
". . . We by no means assert that Congress can establish and apply the laws of war where no war has been declared or exists."
"Where peace exists the laws of peace must prevail. What we do maintain is, that when the nation is involved in war, and some portions of the country are invaded, and all are exposed to invasion, it is within the power of Congress to determine in what States or districts such great and imminent public danger exists as justifies the authorization of military tribunals for the trial of crimes and offenses against the discipline or security of the army or against the public safety."[207] In short, only Congress can authorize the substitution of military tribunals for civil tribunals for the trial of offenses; and Congress can do so only in wartime.
At the turn of the century, however, the Court appears to have retreated from its stand in Milligan insofar as it held in Moyer v. Peabody[208] that "the Governor's declaration that a state of insurrection existed is conclusive of that fact.... The plaintiff's position is that he has been deprived of his liberty without due process of law. But it is familiar that what is due process of law depends on circumstances.... So long as such arrests are made in good faith and in honest belief that they are needed in order to head the insurrection off, the Governor is the final judge and cannot be subjected to an action after he is out of office on the ground that he had not reasonable ground for his belief."[209] The "good faith" test of Moyer, however, was superseded by the "direct relation" test of Sterling v. Constantin,[210]where the Court made it very clear that "[i]t does not follow . . . that every sort of action the Governor may take, no matter how justified by the exigency or subversive of private right and the jurisdiction of the courts, otherwise available, is conclusively supported by mere executive fiat.... What are the allowable limits of military discretion, and whether or not they have been overstepped in a particular case, are judicial questions."[211]
Martial Law in Hawaii
The question of the constitutional status of martial law was raised again in World War II by the proclamation of Governor Poindexter of Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, suspending the writ of habeas corpus and conferring on the local commanding General of the Army all his own powers as governor and also "all of the powers normally exercised by the judicial officers . . . of this territory . . . during the present emergency and until the danger of invasion is removed." Two days later the Governor's action was approved by President Roosevelt. The regime which the proclamation set up continued with certain abatements until October 24, 1944.
By section 67 of the Organic Act of April 30, 1900,[212] the Territorial Governor was authorized "in case of rebellion or invasion, or imminent danger thereof, when the public safety requires it, [to] suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or place the Territory, or any part thereof, under martial law until communication can be had with the President and his decision thereon made known." By section 5 of the Organic Act, "the Constitution . . . shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory as elsewhere in the United States." In a brace of cases which reached it in February 1945, but which it contrived to postpone deciding till February 1946,[213] the Court, speaking by Justice Black, held that the term "martial law" as employed in the Organic Act, "while intended to authorize the military to act vigorously for the maintenance of an orderly civil government and for the defense of the Islands against actual or threatened rebellion or invasion, was not intended to authorize the supplanting of courts by military tribunals."[214]
The Court relied on the majority opinion in Ex parte Milligan. Chief Justice Stone concurred in the result. "I assume also," he said, "that there could be circumstances in which the public safety requires, and the Constitution permits, substitution of trials by military tribunals for trials in the civil courts,"[215] but added that the military authorities themselves had failed to show justifying facts in this instance. Justice Burton, speaking for himself and Justice Frankfurter, dissented. He stressed the importance of Hawaii as a military outpost and its constant exposure to the danger of fresh invasion. He warned that "courts must guard themselves with special care against judging past military action too closely by the inapplicable standards of judicial, or even military, hindsight."[216]
Articles of War: The Nazi Saboteurs
In 1942 eight youths, seven Germans and one an American, all of whom had received training in sabotage in Berlin, were brought to this country aboard two German submarines and put ashore, one group on the Florida coast, the other on Long Island, with the idea that they would proceed forthwith to practice their art on American factories, military equipment, and installations. Making their way inland, the saboteurs were soon picked up by the FBI, some in New York, others in Chicago, and turned over to the Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia. On July 2, the President appointed a military commission to try them for violation of the laws of war, to wit: for not wearing fixed emblems to indicate their combatant status. In the midst of the trial, the accused petitioned the Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for leave to bring habeas corpus proceedings. Their argument embraced the contentions: (1) that the offense charged against them was not known to the laws of the United States; (2) that it was not one arising in the land and naval forces; and (3) that the tribunal trying them had not been constituted in accordance with the requirements of the Articles of War.
The first argument the Court met as follows: The act of Congress in providing for the trial before military tribunals of offenses against the law of war is sufficiently definite, although Congress has not undertaken to codify or mark the precise boundaries of the law of war, or to enumerate or define by statute all the acts which that law condemns. ". . . [T]hose who during time of war pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into . . . [that of the United States], discarding their uniforms upon entry, for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property, have the status of unlawful combatants punishable as such by military commission."[217] The second argument it disposed of by showing that petitioners' case was of a kind that was never deemed to be within the terms of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, citing in confirmation of this position the trial of Major Andre.[218]The third contention the Court overruled by declining to draw the line between the powers of Congress and the President in the premises,[219] thereby, in effect, attributing to the President the right to amend the Articles of War in a case of the kind before the Court ad libitum.
The decision might well have rested on the ground that the Constitution is without restrictive force in wartime in a situation of this sort. The saboteurs were invaders; their penetration of the boundary of the country, projected from units of a hostile fleet, was essentially a military operation, their capture was a continuation of that operation. Punishment of the saboteurs was therefore within the President's purely martial powers as Commander-in-Chief. Moreover, seven of the petitioners were enemy aliens, and so, strictly speaking, without constitutional status. Even had they been civilians properly domiciled in the United States at the outbreak of the war, they would have been subject under the statutes to restraint and other disciplinary action by the President without appeals to the courts.
Articles of War: World War II Crimes
As a matter of fact, in General Yamashita's case,[220] which was brought after the termination of hostilities for alleged "war crimes," the Court abandoned its restrictive conception altogether. In the words of Justice Rutledge's dissenting opinion in this case: "The difference between the Court's view of this proceeding and my own comes down in the end to the view, on the one hand, that there is no law restrictive upon these proceedings other than whatever rules and regulations may be prescribed for their government by the executive authority or the military and, on the other hand, that the provisions of the Articles of War, of the Geneva Convention and the Fifth Amendment apply."[221] And the adherence of the United States to the Charter of London in August 1945, under which the Nazi leaders were brought to trial, is explicable by the same theory. These individuals were charged with the crime of instigating aggressive war, which at the time of its commission was not a crime either under international law or under the laws of the prosecuting governments. It must be presumed that the President is not in his capacity as Supreme Commander bound by the prohibition in the Constitution of ex post facto laws, nor does international law forbid ex post facto laws.[222]
Articles of War: Response to the Attacks of September 11, 2001
.-In response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force,[1] which provided that the President may use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks [or] harbored such organizations or persons." During a miliary action in Afghanistan pursuant to this authorization, a United States citizen, Yaser Hamdi, was taken prisoner. The Executive Branch argued that it had plenary authority under Article II to hold such an "enemy combatant" for the duration of hostilities, and to deny him meaningful recourse to the federal courts. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Court agreed that the President was authorized to detain a United States citizen seized in Afghanistan, although a majority of the Court appeared to reject the notion that such power was inherent in the Presidency, relying instead on statutory grounds.[2] However, the Court did find that the Government may not detain the petitioner indefinitely for purposes of interrogation, without giving him the opportunity to offer evidence that he is not an enemy combatant.[3]
In Rasul v. Bush,[4] the Court rejected an Executive Branch argument that foreign prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were outside of federal court jurisdiction. The Court distinguished earlier case law arising during World War II which denied habeas corpus petitions from German citizens who had been captured and tried overseas by United States military tribunals.[5] In Rasul, the Court noted that the Guantanamo petitioners were not citizens of a country at war with the United States,[6] had not been afforded any form of tribunal, and were being held in a territory over which the United States exercised exclusive jurisdiction and control.[7] In addition, the Court found that statutory grounds existed for the extension of habeas corpus to these prisoners.[8]
Martial Law and Domestic Disorder
President Washington himself took command of state militia called into federal service to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, but there were not too many occasions subsequently in which federal troops or state militia called into federal service were required.[223] Since World War II, however, the President, by virtue of his own powers and the authority vested in him by Congress,[224] has utilized federal troops on nine occasions, five of them involving resistance to desegregation decrees in the South.[225] In 1957, Governor Faubus employed the Arkansas National Guard to resist court-ordered desegregation in Little Rock, and President Eisenhower dispatched federal soldiers and brought the Guard under federal authority.[226] In 1962, President Kennedy dispatched federal troops to Oxford, Mississippi, when federal marshals were unable to control with rioting that broke out upon the admission of an African American student to the University of Mississippi.[227] In June and September of 1964, President Johnson sent troops into Alabama to enforce court decrees opening schools to blacks.[228] And in 1965, the President used federal troops and federalized local Guardsmen to protect participants in a civil rights march. The President justified his action on the ground that there was a substantial likelihood of domestic violence because state authorities were refusing to protect the marchers.[229]
Presidential Advisers
The Cabinet
The authority in Article II, § 2, cl. 1 to require the written opinion of the heads of executive departments is the meager residue from a persistent effort in the Federal Convention to impose a council on the President.[230] The idea ultimately failed, partly because of the diversity of ideas concerning the council's make-up. One member wished it to consist of "members of the two houses," another wished it to comprise two representatives from each of three sections, "with a rotation and duration of office similar to those of the Senate." The proposal with the strongest backing was that it should consist of the heads of departments and the Chief Justice, who should preside when the President was absent. Of this proposal the only part to survive was the above cited provision. The consultative relation here contemplated is an entirely one-sided affair, is to be conducted with each principal officer separately and in writing, and is to relate only to the duties of their respective offices.[231]The Cabinet, as we know it today, that is to say, the Cabinet meeting, was brought about solely on the initiative of the first President,[232] and may be dispensed with on presidential initiative at any time, being totally unknown to the Constitution. Several Presidents have in fact reduced the Cabinet meeting to little more than a ceremony with social trimmings.[233]
Pardons and Reprieves
The Legal Nature of a Pardon
In the first case to be decided concerning the pardoning power, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court, said: "As this power had been exercised from time immemorial by the executive of that nation whose language is our language, and to whose judicial institution ours bear a close resemblance; we adopt their principles respecting the operation and effect of a pardon, and look into their books for the rules prescribing the manner in which it is to be used by the person who would avail himself of it. A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual, on whom it is bestowed, from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It is the private, though official act of the executive magistrate, delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended, and not communicated officially to the Court.... A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him." Marshall continued to hold that to be noticed judicially this deed must be pleaded, like any private instrument.[234]
In the case of Burdick v. United States,[235] Marshall's doctrine was put to a test that seems to have overtaxed it, perhaps fatally. Burdick, having declined to testify before a federal grand jury on the ground that his testimony would tend to incriminate him, was proffered by President Wilson "a full and unconditional pardon for all offenses against the United States," which he might have committed or participated in in connection with the matter he had been questioned about. Burdick, nevertheless, refused to accept the pardon and persisted in his contumacy with the unanimous support of the Supreme Court. "The grace of a pardon," remarked Justice McKenna sententiously, "may be only a pretense . . . involving consequences of even greater disgrace than those from which it purports to relieve. Circumstances may be made to bring innocence under the penalties of the law. If so brought, escape by confession of guilt implied in the acceptance of a pardon may be rejected ...."[236] Nor did the Court give any attention to the fact that the President had accompanied his proffer to Burdick with a proclamation, although a similar procedure had been held to bring President Johnson's amnesties to the Court's notice.[237] In 1927, however, in sustaining the right of the President to commute a sentence of death to one of life imprisonment, against the will of the prisoner, the Court abandoned this view. "A pardon in our days," it said, "is not a private act of grace from an individual happening to possess power. It is a part of the constitutional scheme. When granted it is the determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by inflicting less than what the judgment fixed."[238] Whether these words sound the death knell of the acceptance doctrine is perhaps doubtful.[239] They seem clearly to indicate that by substituting a commutation order for a deed of pardon, a President can always have his way in such matters, provided the substituted penalty is authorized by law and does not in common understanding exceed the original penalty.[240]
Scope of the Power
The power embraces all "offences against the United States," except cases of impeachment, and includes the power to remit fines, penalties, and forfeitures, except as to money covered into the Treasury or paid an informer,[241] the power to pardon absolutely or conditionally, and the power to commute sentences, which, as seen above, is effective without the convict's consent.[242] It has been held, moreover, in face of earlier English practice, that indefinite suspension of sentence by a court of the United States is an invasion of the presidential prerogative, amounting as it does to a condonation of the offense.[243] It was early assumed that the power included the power to pardon specified classes or communities wholesale, in short, the power to amnesty, which is usually exercised by proclamation. General amnesties were issued by Washington in 1795, by Adams in 1800, by Madison in 1815, by Lincoln in 1863, by Johnson in 1865, 1867, and 1868, and by the first Roosevelt-to Aguinaldo's followers-in 1902.[244] Not, however, till after the Civil War was the point adjudicated, when it was decided in favor of presidential prerogative.[245]
Offenses Against the United States; Contempt of Court
In the first place, contempt of court offenses are not offenses against the United States. In the second place, they are completed offenses.[246] The President cannot pardon by anticipation, otherwise he would be invested with the power to dispense with the laws, his claim to which was the principal cause of James II's forced abdication.[247] Lastly, the term has been held to include criminal contempts of court. Such was the holding in Ex parte Grossman,[248] where Chief Justice Taft, speaking for the Court, resorted once more to English conceptions as being authoritative in construing this clause of the Constitution. Said he: "The King of England before our Revolution, in the exercise of his prerogative, had always exercised the power to pardon contempts of court, just as he did ordinary crimes and misdemeanors and as he has done to the present day. In the mind of a common law lawyer of the eighteenth century the word pardon included within its scope the ending by the King's grace of the punishment of such derelictions, whether it was imposed by the court without a jury or upon indictment, for both forms of trial for contempts were had. [Citing cases.] These cases also show that, long before our Constitution, a distinction had been recognized at common law between the effect of the King's pardon to wipe out the effect of a sentence for contempt insofar as it had been imposed to punish the contemnor for violating the dignity of the court and the King, in the public interest, and its inefficacy to halt or interfere with the remedial part of the court's order necessary to secure the rights of the injured suitor. Blackstone IV, 285, 397, 398; Hawkins Pleas of the Crown, 6th Ed. (1787), Vol. 2, 553. The same distinction, nowadays referred to as the difference between civil and criminal contempts, is still maintained in English law."[249] Nor was any new or special danger to be apprehended from this view of the pardoning power. "If," said the Chief Justice, "we could conjure up in our minds a President willing to paralyze courts by pardoning all criminal contempts, why not a President ordering a general jail delivery?" Indeed, he queried further, in view of the peculiarities of procedure in contempt cases, "may it not be fairly said that in order to avoid possible mistake, undue prejudice or needless severity, the chance of pardon should exist at least as much in favor of a person convicted by a judge without a jury as in favor of one convicted in a jury trial?"[250]
Effects of a Pardon: Ex parte Garland
The great leading case is Ex parte Garland,[251]which was decided shortly after the Civil War. By an act passed in 1865, Congress had prescribed that before any person should be permitted to practice in a federal court he must take oath asserting that he had never voluntarily borne arms against the United States, had never given aid or comfort to enemies of the United States, and so on. Garland, who had been a Confederate sympathizer and so was unable to take the oath, had however received from President Johnson the same year "a full pardon 'for all offences by him committed, arising from participation, direct or implied, in the Rebellion,' . . ." The question before the Court was whether, armed with this pardon, Garland was entitled to practice in the federal courts despite the act of Congress just mentioned. Said Justice Field for a divided Court: "The inquiry arises as to the effect and operation of a pardon, and on this point all the authorities concur. A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offence. If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching [thereto]; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity."[252]
Justice Miller, speaking for the minority, protested that the act of Congress involved was not penal in character, but merely laid down an appropriate test of fitness to practice law. "The man who, by counterfeiting, by theft, by murder, or by treason, is rendered unfit to exercise the functions of an attorney or counsellor at law, may be saved by the executive pardon from the penitentiary or the gallows, but he is not thereby restored to the qualifications which are essential to admission to the bar."[253] Justice Field's language must today be regarded as much too sweeping in light of a decision rendered in 1914 in the case of Carlesi v. New York.[254] Carlesi had been convicted several years before of committing a federal offense. In the instant case, the prisoner was being tried for a subsequent offense committed in New York. He was convicted as a second offender, although the President had pardoned him for the earlier federal offense. In other words, the fact of prior conviction by a federal court was considered in determining the punishment for a subsequent state offense. This conviction and sentence were upheld by the Supreme Court. While this case involved offenses against different sovereignties, the Court declared by way of dictum that its decision "must not be understood as in the slightest degree intimating that a pardon would operate to limit the power of the United States in punishing crimes against its authority to provide for taking into consideration past offenses committed by the accused as a circumstance of aggravation even although for such past offenses there had been a pardon granted."[255]
Limits to the Efficacy of a Pardon
But Justice Field's latitudinarian view of the effect of a pardon undoubtedly still applies ordinarily where the pardon is issued before conviction. He is also correct in saying that a full pardon restores a convict to his "civil rights," and this is so even though simple completion of the convict's sentence would not have had that effect. One such right is the right to testify in court, and in Boyd v. United States, the Court held that the disability to testify being a consequence, according to principles of the common law, of the judgment of conviction, the pardon obliterated that effect.[256] But a pardon cannot "make amends for the past. It affords no relief for what has been suffered by the offender in his person by imprisonment, forced labor, or otherwise; it does not give compensation for what has been done or suffered, nor does it impose upon the government any obligation to give it. The offence being established by judicial proceedings, that which has been done or suffered while they were in force is presumed to have been rightfully done and justly suffered, and no satisfaction for it can be required. Neither does the pardon affect any rights which have vested in others directly by the execution of the judgment for the offence, or which have been acquired by others whilst that judgment was in force. If, for example, by the judgment a sale of the offender's property has been had, the purchaser will hold the property notwithstanding the subsequent pardon. And if the proceeds of the sale have been paid to a party to whom the law has assigned them, they cannot be subsequently reached and recovered by the offender. The rights of the parties have become vested, and are as complete as if they were acquired in any other legal way. So, also, if the proceeds have been paid into the treasury, the right to them has so far become vested in the United States that they can only be secured to the former owner of the property through an act of Congress. Moneys once in the treasury can only be withdrawn by an appropriation by law."[257]
Congress and Amnesty
Congress cannot limit the effects of a presidential amnesty. Thus the act of July 12, 1870, making proof of loyalty necessary to recover property abandoned and sold by the Government during the Civil War, notwithstanding any executive proclamation, pardon, amnesty, or other act of condonation or oblivion, was pronounced void. Said Chief Justice Chase for the majority: "[T]he legislature cannot change the effect of such a pardon any more than the executive can change a law. Yet this is attempted by the provision under consideration. The Court is required to receive special pardons as evidence of guilt and to treat them as null and void. It is required to disregard pardons granted by proclamation on condition, though the condition has been fulfilled, and to deny them their legal effect. This certainly impairs the executive authority and directs the Court to be instrumental to that end."[258] On the other hand, Congress itself, under the necessary and proper clause, may enact amnesty laws remitting penalties incurred under the national statutes.[259]
Clause 2. Treaties and Appointment of Officers
Clause 2. He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Court of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The Treaty-Making Power
President and Senate
The plan which the Committee of Detail reported to the Federal Convention on August 6, 1787 provided that "the Senate of the United States shall have power to make treaties, and to appoint Ambassadors, and Judges of the Supreme Court."[260] Not until September 7, ten days before the Convention's final adjournment, was the President made a participant in these powers.[261] The constitutional clause evidently assumes that the President and Senate will be associated throughout the entire process of making a treaty, although Jay, writing in The Federalist, foresaw that the initiative must often be seized by the President without benefit of senatorial counsel.[262] Yet, so late as 1818 Rufus King, Senator from New York, who had been a member of the Convention, declared on the floor of the Senate: "In these concerns the Senate are the Constitutional and the only responsible counsellors of the President. And in this capacity the Senate may, and ought to, look into and watch over every branch of the foreign affairs of the nation; they may, therefore, at any time call for full and exact information respecting the foreign affairs, and express their opinion and advice to the President respecting the same, when, and under whatever other circumstances, they may think such advice expedient."[263]
Negotiation, a Presidential Monopoly
Actually, the negotiation of treaties had long since been taken over by the President; the Senate's role in relation to treaties is today essentially legislative in character.[264] "He alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation, the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it," declared Justice Sutherland for the Court in 1936.[265] The Senate must, moreover, content itself with such information as the President chooses to furnish it.[266] In performing the function that remains to it, however, it has several options. It may consent unconditionally to a proposed treaty, it may refuse its consent, or it may stipulate conditions in the form of amendments to the treaty, of reservations to the act of ratification, or of statements of understanding or other declarations, the formal difference between the first two and the third being that amendments and reservations, if accepted by the President must be communicated to the other parties to the treaty, and, at least with respect to amendments and often reservations as well, require reopening negotiations and changes, whereas the other actions may have more problematic results.[267] The act of ratification for the United States is the President's act, but it may not be forthcoming unless the Senate has consented to it by the required two-thirds of the Senators present, which signifies two-thirds of a quorum, otherwise the consent rendered would not be that of the Senate as organized under the Constitution to do business.[268] Conversely, the President may, if dissatisfied with amendments which have been affixed by the Senate to a proposed treaty or with the conditions stipulated by it to ratification, decide to abandon the negotiation, which he is entirely free to do.[269]
Treaties as Law of the Land
Treaty commitments of the United States are of two kinds. In the language of Chief Justice Marshall in 1829: "A treaty is, in its nature, a contract between two nations, not a legislative act. It does not generally effect, of itself, the object to be accomplished; especially, so far as its operation is intraterritorial; but is carried into execution by the sovereign power of the respective parties to the instrument."
"In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is, consequently, to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision. But when the terms of the stipulation import a contract-when either of the parties engages to perform a particular act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, not the judicial department; and the legislature must execute the contract, before it can become a rule for the Court."[270] To the same effect, but more accurate, is Justice Miller's language for the Court a half century later, in the Head Money Cases: "A treaty is primarily a compact between independent nations. It depends for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and the honor of the governments which are parties of it.... But a treaty may also contain provisions which confer certain rights upon the citizens or subjects of one of the nations residing in the territorial limits of the other, which partake of the nature of municipal law, and which are capable of enforcement as between private parties in the courts of the country."[271]
Origin of the Conception
How did this distinctive feature of the Constitution come about, by virtue of which the treaty-making authority is enabled to stamp upon its promises the quality of municipal law, thereby rendering them enforceable by the courts without further action? The short answer is that Article VI, paragraph 2, makes treaties the supreme law of the land on the same footing with acts of Congress. The clause was a direct result of one of the major weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Although the Articles entrusted the treaty-making power to Congress, fulfillment of Congress' promises was dependent on the state legislatures.[272] Particularly with regard to provisions of the Treaty of Peace of 1783,[273] in which Congress stipulated to protect the property rights of British creditors of American citizens and of the former Loyalists,[274] the promises were not only ignored but were deliberately flouted by many legislatures.[275] Upon repeated British protests, John Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, suggested to Congress that it request state legislatures to repeal all legislation repugnant to the Treaty of Peace and to authorize their courts to carry the treaty into effect.[276] Although seven States did comply to some extent, the impotency of Congress to effectuate its treaty guarantees was obvious to the Framers who devised Article VI, paragraph 2, to take care of the situation.[277]
Treaties and the States
As it so happened, the first case in which the Supreme Court dealt with the question of the effect of treaties on state laws involved the same issue that had prompted the drafting of Article VI, paragraph 2. During the Revolutionary War, the Virginia legislature provided that the Common-wealth's paper money, which was depreciating rapidly, was to be legal currency for the payment of debts and to confound creditors who would not accept the currency provided that Virginia citizens could pay into the state treasury debts owed by them to subjects of Great Britain, which money was to be used to prosecute the war, and that the auditor would give the debtor a certificate of payment which would discharge the debtor of all future obligations to the creditor.[278] The Virginia scheme directly contradicted the assurances in the peace treaty that no bars to collection by British creditors would be raised, and in Ware v. Hylton[279] the Court struck down the state law as violative of the treaty that Article VI, paragraph 2, made superior. Said Justice Chase: "A treaty cannot be the Supreme law of the land, that is of all the United States, if any act of a State Legislature can stand in its way. If the constitution of a State . . . must give way to a treaty, and fall before it; can it be questioned, whether the less power, an act of the state legislature, must not be prostrate? It is the declared will of the people of the United States that every treaty made, by the authority of the United States shall be superior to the Constitution and laws of any individual State; and their will alone is to decide."[280]
In Hopkirk v. Bell,[281] the Court further held that this same treaty provision prevented the operation of a Virginia statute of limitation to bar collection of antecedent debts. In numerous subsequent cases, the Court invariably ruled that treaty provisions superseded inconsistent state laws governing the right of aliens to inherit real estate.[282] Such a case was Hauenstein v. Lynham,[283] in which the Court upheld the right of a citizen of the Swiss Republic, under the treaty of 1850 with that country, to recover the estate of a relative dying intestate in Virginia, to sell the same, and to export the proceeds of the sale.[284]
Certain more recent cases stem from California legislation, most of it directed against Japanese immigrants. A statute which excluded aliens ineligible to American citizenship from owning real estate was upheld in 1923 on the ground that the treaty in question did not secure the rights claimed.[285] But in Oyama v. California,[286] a majority of the Court indicated a strongly held opinion that this legislation conflicted with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a view which has since received the endorsement of the California Supreme Court by a narrow majority.[287] Meantime, California was informed that the rights of German nationals, under the Treaty of December 8, 1923, between the United States and the Reich, to whom real property in the United States had descended or been devised, to dispose of it, had survived the recent war and certain war legislation, and accordingly prevailed over conflicting state legislation.[288]
Treaties and Congress
In the Convention, a proposal to require the adoption of treaties through enactment of a law before they should be binding was rejected.[289] But the years since have seen numerous controversies with regard to the duties and obligations of Congress, the necessity for congressional action, and the effects of statutes, in connection with the treaty power. For purposes of this section, the question is whether entry into and ratification of a treaty is sufficient in all cases to make the treaty provisions the "law of the land" or whether there are some types of treaty provisions which only a subsequent act of Congress can put into effect? The language quoted above[290] from Foster v. Neilson[291]early established that not all treaties are self-executing, for as Marshall there said, a treaty is "to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision."[292]
Leaving aside the question when a treaty is and is not self-executing,[293] the issue of the necessity of congressional implementation and the obligation to implement has frequently roiled congressional debates. The matter arose initially in 1796 in connection with the Jay Treaty,[294] certain provisions of which required appropriations to carry them into effect. In view of the third clause of Article I, § 9, which says that "no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law . . .", it seems to have been universally conceded that Congress must be applied to if the treaty provisions were to be executed.[295] A bill was introduced into the House to appropriate the needed funds and its supporters, within and without Congress, offered the contention that inasmuch as the treaty was now the law of the land the legislative branch was bound to enact the bill without further ado; opponents led by Madison and Gallatin contended that the House had complete discretion whether or not to carry into effect treaty provisions.[296] At the conclusion of the debate, the House voted not only the money but a resolution offered by Madison stating that it did not claim any agency in the treaty-making process, "but that when a treaty stipulates regulations on any of the subjects submitted by the Constitution to the power of Congress, it must depend for its execution as to such stipulations on a law or laws to be passed by Congress, and it is the constitutional right and duty of the House of Representatives in all such cases to deliberate on the expediency or inexpediency of carrying such treaty into effect, and to determine and act thereon as in their judgment may be most conducive to the public good."[297] This early precedent with regard to appropriations has apparently been uniformly adhered to.[298]
Similarly, with regard to treaties which modify and change commercial tariff arrangements, the practice has been that the House always insisted on and the Senate acquiesced in legislation to carry into effect the provisions of such treaties.[299] The earliest congressional dispute came over an 1815 Convention with Great Britain,[300] which provided for reciprocal reduction of duties. President Madison thereupon recommended to Congress such legislation as the convention might require for effectuation. The Senate and some members of the House were of the view that no implementing legislation was necessary because of a statute, which already permitted the President to reduce duties on goods of nations that did not discriminate against United States goods; the House majority felt otherwise and compromise legislation was finally enacted acceptable to both points of view.[301] But subsequent cases have seen legislation enacted,[302] the Senate once refused ratification of a treaty, which purported to reduce statutorily-determined duties,[303] and congressional enactment of authority for the President to negotiate reciprocal trade agreements all seem to point to the necessity of some form of congressional implementation.
What other treaty provisions need congressional implementation is subject to argument. In a 1907 memorandum approved by the Secretary of State, it is said, in summary of the practice and reasoning from the text of the Constitution, that the limitations on the treaty power which necessitate legislative implementation may "be found in the provisions of the Constitution which expressly confide in Congress or in other branches of the Federal Government the exercise of certain of the delegated powers...."[304] The same thought has been expressed in Congress[305] and by commentators.[306] Resolution of the issue seems particularly one for the attention of the legislative and executive branches rather than for the courts.
Congressional Repeal of Treaties
It is in respect to his contention that, when it is asked to carry a treaty into effect, Congress has the constitutional right, and indeed the duty, to determine the matter according to its own ideas of what is expedient, that Madison has been most completely vindicated by developments. This is seen in the answer which the Court has returned to the question: What happens when a treaty provision and an act of Congress conflict? The answer is, that neither has any intrinsic superiority over the other and that therefore the one of later date will prevail leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant. In short, the treaty commitments of the United States do not diminish Congress' constitutional powers. To be sure, legislative repeal of a treaty as law of the land may amount to a violation of it as an international contract in the judgment of the other party to it. In such case, as the Court has said: "Its infraction becomes the subject of international negotiations and reclamations, so far as the injured party chooses to seek redress, which may in the end be enforced by actual war. It is obvious that with all this the judicial courts have nothing to do and can give no redress."[307]
Treaties Versus Prior Acts of Congress
The cases are numerous in which the Court has enforced statutory provisions which were recognized by it as superseding prior treaty engagements. Chief Justice Marshall early asserted that the converse would be true as well,[308] that a treaty which is self-executing is the law of the land and prevails over an earlier inconsistent statute, a proposition repeated many times in dicta.[309] But there is dispute whether in fact a treaty has ever been held to have repealed or superseded an inconsistent statute. Willoughby, for example, says: "In fact, however, there have been few (the writer is not certain that there has been any) instances in which a treaty inconsistent with a prior act of Congress has been given full force and effect as law in this country without the assent of Congress. There may indeed have been cases in which, by treaty, certain action has been taken without reference to existing Federal laws, as, for example, where by treaty certain populations have been collectively naturalized, but such treaty action has not operated to repeal or annul the existing law upon the subject."[310]
The one instance that may be an exception[311] is Cook v. United States.[312] There, a divided Court held that a 1924 treaty with Great Britain, allowing the inspection of English vessels for contraband liquor and seizure if any was found only if such vessels were within the distance from the coast that could be traversed in one hour by the vessel suspecting of endeavoring to violate the prohibition laws, had superseded the authority conferred by a section of the Tariff Act of 1922[313] for Coast Guard officers to inspect and seize any vessel within four leagues-12 miles-of the coast under like circumstances. The difficulty with the case is that the Tariff Act provision had been reenacted in 1930,[314] so that a simple application of the rule of the later governing should have caused a different result. It may be suspected that the low estate to which Prohibition had fallen and a desire to avoid a diplomatic controversy should the seizure at issue have been upheld were more than slightly influential in the Court's decision.
When Is a Treaty Self-Executing
Several references have been made above to a distinction between treaties as self-executing and as merely executory. But what is it about a treaty that makes it the law of the land and which gives a private citizen the right to rely on it in a court of law? As early as 1801, the Supreme Court took notice of a treaty, and finding it applicable to the situation before it, gave judgment for the petitioner based on it.[315] In Foster v. Neilson,[316] Chief Justice Marshall explained that a treaty is to be regarded in courts "as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision." It appears thus that the Court has had in mind two characteristics of treaties which keep them from being self-executing. First, "when the terms of the stipulation import a contract-when either of the parties engages to perform a particular act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, not the judicial department; and the legislature must execute the contract, before it can become a rule for the Court."[317] In other words, the treaty itself may by its terms require implementation, as by an express stipulation for legislative execution.[318]
Second, the nature of the stipulation may require legislative execution. That is, with regard to the issue discussed above, whether the delegated powers of Congress impose any limitation on the treaty power, it may be that a treaty provision will be incapable of execution without legislative action. As one authority says: "Practically this distinction depends upon whether or not the courts and the executive are able to enforce the provision without enabling legislation. Fundamentally it depends upon whether the obligation is imposed on private individuals or on public authorities... ."
"Treaty provisions which define the rights and obligations of private individuals and lay down general principles for the guidance of military, naval or administrative officials in relation thereto are usually considered self-executing. Thus treaty provisions assuring aliens equal civil rights with citizens, defining the limits of national jurisdiction, and prescribing rules of prize, war and neutrality, have been so considered ... ."
"On the other hand certain treaty obligations are addressed solely to public authorities, of which may be mentioned those requiring the payment of money, the cession of territory, the guarantee of territory or independence, the conclusion of subsequent treaties on described subjects, the participation in international organizations, the collection and supplying of information, and direction of postal, telegraphic or other services, the construction of buildings, bridges, lighthouses, etc."[319] It may well be that these two characteristics merge with each other at many points and the language of the Court is not always helpful in distinguishing them.[320]
Treaties and the Necessary and Proper Clause
What power, or powers, does Congress exercise when it enacts legislation for the purpose of carrying treaties of the United States into effect? When the subject matter of the treaty falls within the ambit of Congress' enumerated powers, then it is these powers which it exercises in carrying such treaty into effect. But if the treaty deals with a subject which falls within the national jurisdiction because of its international character, then recourse is had to the necessary and proper clause. Thus, of itself, Congress would have had no power to confer judicial powers upon foreign consuls in the United States, but the treaty-power can do this and has done it repeatedly and Congress has supplemented these treaties by appropriate legislation.[321]Congress could not confer judicial power upon American consuls abroad to be there exercised over American citizens, but the treaty-power can and has, and Congress has passed legislation perfecting such agreements, and such legislation has been upheld.[322]
Again, Congress of itself could not provide for the extradition of fugitives from justice, but the treaty-power can and has done so scores of times, and Congress has passed legislation carrying our extradition treaties into effect.[323] And Congress could not ordinarily penalize private acts of violence within a State, but it can punish such acts if they deprive aliens of their rights under a treaty.[324] Referring to such legislation, the Court has said: "The power of Congress to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution as well the powers enumerated in section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, as all others vested in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or the officers thereof, includes the power to enact such legislation as is appropriate to give efficacy to any stipulations which it is competent for the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to insert in a treaty with foreign power."[325] In a word, the treaty-power cannot purport to amend the Constitution by adding to the list of Congress' enumerated powers, but having acted, the consequence will often be that it has provided Congress with an opportunity to enact measures which independently of a treaty Congress could not pass; the only question that can be raised as to such measures is whether they are "necessary and proper" measures for the carrying of the treaty in question into operation.
The foremost example of this interpretation is Missouri v. Holland.[326] There, the United States and Great Britain had entered into a treaty for the protection of migratory birds,[327]and Congress had enacted legislation pursuant to the treaty to effectuate it.[328] The State objected that such regulation was reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment and that the statute infringed on this reservation, pointing to lower court decisions voiding an earlier act not based on a treaty.[329] Noting that treaties "are declared the supreme law of the land," Justice Holmes for the Court said: "If the treaty is valid there can be no dispute about the validity of the statute under Article I, § 8, as a necessary and proper means to execute the powers of the Government."[330] "It is obvious," he continued, "that there may be matters of the sharpest exigency for the national well being that an act of Congress could not deal with but that a treaty followed by such an act could, and it is not lightly to be assumed that, in matters requiring national action, 'a power which must belong to and somewhere reside in every civilized government' is not to be found."[331] Since the treaty and thus the statute dealt with a matter of national and international concern, the treaty was proper and the statute was one "necessary and proper" to effectuate the treaty.
Constitutional Limitations on the Treaty Power
A question growing out of the discussion above is whether the treaty power is bounded by constitutional limitations. By the supremacy clause, both statutes and treaties "are declared . . . to be the supreme law of the land, and no superior efficacy is given to either over the other."[332] As statutes may be held void because they contravene the Constitution, it should follow that treaties may be held void, the Constitution being superior to both. And indeed the Court has numerous times so stated.[333] It does not appear that the Court has ever held a treaty unconstitutional,[334] although there are examples in which decision was seemingly based on a reading compelled by constitutional considerations.[335] In fact, there would be little argument with regard to the general point were it not for certain dicta in Justice Holmes' opinion in Missouri v. Holland.[336] "Acts of Congress," he said, "are the supreme law of the land only when made in pursuance of the Constitution, while treaties are declared to be so when made under the authority of the United States. It is open to question whether the authority of the United States means more than the formal acts prescribed to make the convention." Although he immediately followed this passage with a cautionary " [w]e do not mean to imply that there are no qualifications to the treaty-making power . . . ,"[337] the Justice's language and the holding by which it appeared that the reserved rights of the States could be invaded through the treaty power led in the 1950s to an abortive effort to amend the Constitution to restrict the treaty power.[338]
Controversy over the Holmes language apparently led Justice Black in Reid v. Covert[339] to deny that the difference in language of the supremacy clause with regard to statutes and with regard to treaties was relevant to the status of treaties as inferior to the Constitution. "There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result. These debates as well as the history that surrounds the adoption of the treaty provision in Article VI make it clear that the reason treaties were not limited to those made in 'pursuance' of the Constitution was so that agreements made by the United States under the Articles of Confederation, including the important treaties which concluded the Revolutionary War, would remain in effect. It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights-let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition-to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V."[340]
Establishment of the general principle, however, is but the beginning; there is no readily agreed-upon standard for determining what the limitations are. The most persistently urged proposition in limitation has been that the treaty power must not invade the reserved powers of the States. In view of the sweeping language of the supremacy clause, it is hardly surprising that this argument has not prevailed.[341] Nevertheless, the issue, in the context of Congress' power under the necessary and proper clause to effectuate a treaty dealing with a subject arguably within the domain of the States, was presented as recently as 1920, when the Court upheld a treaty and implementing statute providing for the protection of migratory birds.[342] "The treaty in question does not contravene any prohibitory words to be found in the Constitution. The only question is whether it is forbidden by some invisible radiation from the general terms of the Tenth Amendment."[343] The gist of the holding followed. "Here a national interest of very nearly the first magnitude is involved. It can be protected only by national action in concert with that of another power. The subject-matter is only transitorily within the State and has no permanent habitat therein. But for the treaty and the statute there soon might be no birds for any powers to deal with. We see nothing in the Constitution that compels the Government to sit by while a food supply is cut off and the protectors of our forests and our crops are destroyed."[344]
The doctrine which seems deducible from this case and others is "that in all that properly relates to matters of international rights and obligations, whether these rights and obligations rest upon the general principles of international law or have been conventionally created by specific treaties, the United States possesses all the powers of a constitutionally centralized sovereign State; and, therefore, that when the necessity from the international standpoint arises the treaty power may be exercised, even though thereby the rights ordinarily reserved to the States are invaded."[345] It is not, in other words, the treaty power which enlarges either the federal power or the congressional power, but the international character of the interest concerned which might be acted upon.
Dicta in some of the cases lend support to the argument that the treaty power is limited by the delegation of powers among the branches of the National Government[346] and especially by the delegated powers of Congress, although it is not clear what the limitation means. If it is meant that no international agreement could be constitutionally entered into by the United States within the sphere of such powers, the practice from the beginning has been to the contrary;[347] if it is meant that treaty provisions dealing with matters delegated to Congress must, in order to become the law of the land, receive the assent of Congress through implementing legislation, it states not a limitation on the power of making treaties as international conventions but rather a necessary procedure before certain conventions are cognizable by the courts in the enforcement of rights under them.
It has also been suggested that the prohibitions against governmental action contained in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights particularly, limit the exercise of the treaty power. No doubt this is true, though again there are no cases which so hold.[348]
One other limitation of sorts may be contained in the language of certain court decisions which seem to say that only matters of "international concern" may be the subject of treaty negotiations.[349] While this may appear to be a limitation, it does not take account of the elasticity of the concept of "international concern" by which the subject matter of treaties has constantly expanded over the years.[350] At best, any attempted resolution of the issue of limitations must be an uneasy one.[351]
In brief, the fact that all the foreign relations power is vested in the National Government and that no formal restriction is imposed on the treaty-making power in the international context[352] leaves little room for the notion of a limited treaty-making power with regard to the reserved rights of the States or in regard to the choice of matters concerning which the Federal Government may treat with other nations; protected individual rights appear to be sheltered by specific constitutional guarantees from the domestic effects of treaties, and the separation of powers at the federal level may require legislative action to give municipal effect to international agreements.
Interpretation and Termination of Treaties as International Compacts
The repeal by Congress of the "self-executing" clauses of a treaty as "law of the land" does not of itself terminate the treaty as an international contract, although it may very well provoke the other party to the treaty to do so. Hence, the questions arise where the Constitution lodges this power and where it lodges the power to interpret the contractual provisions of treaties. The first case of outright abrogation of a treaty by the United States occurred in 1798, when Congress by the Act of July 7 of that year, pronounced the United States freed and exonerated from the stipulations of the Treaties of 1778 with France.[353]This act was followed two days later by one authorizing limited hostilities against the same country; in the case of Bas v. Tingy,[354] the Supreme Court treated the act of abrogation as simply one of a bundle of acts declaring "public war" upon the French Republic.
Termination of Treaties by Notice
Typically, a treaty provides for its termination by notice of one of the parties, usually after a prescribed time from the date of notice. Of course, treaties may also be terminated by agreement of the parties, or by breach by one of the parties, or by some other means. But it is in the instance of termination by notice that the issue has frequently been raised: where in the Government of the United States does the Constitution lodge the power to unmake treaties?[355] Reasonable arguments may be made locating the power in the President alone, in the President and Senate, or in the Congress. Presidents generally have asserted the foreign relations power reposed in them under Article II and the inherent powers argument made in Curtiss-Wright. Because the Constitution requires the consent of the Senate for making a treaty, one can logically argue that its consent is as well required for terminating it. Finally, because treaties are, like statutes, the supreme law of the land, it may well be argued that, again like statutes, they may be undone only through law-making by the entire Congress; additionally, since Congress may be required to implement treaties and may displace them through legislation, this argument is reenforced.
Definitive resolution of this argument appears only remotely possible. Historical practice provides support for all three arguments and the judicial branch seems unlikely to essay any answer.
While abrogation of the French treaty, mentioned above, is apparently the only example of termination by Congress through a public law, many instances may be cited of congressional actions mandating terminations by notice of the President or changing the legal environment so that the President is required to terminate. The initial precedent in the instance of termination by notice pursuant to congressional action appears to have occurred in 1846,[356] when by joint resolution Congress authorized the President at his discretion to notify the British government of the abrogation of the Convention of August 6, 1827, relative to the joint occupation of the Oregon Territory. As the President himself had requested the resolution, the episode is often cited to support the theory that international conventions to which the United States is a party, even those terminable on notice, are terminable only through action of Congress.[357] Subsequently, Congress has often passed resolutions denouncing treaties or treaty provisions, which by their own terms were terminable on notice, and Presidents have usually, though not invariably, carried out such resolutions.[358] By the La FolletteFuruseth Seaman's Act,[359] President Wilson was directed, "within ninety days after the passage of the act, to give notice to foreign governments that so much of any treaties as might be in conflict with the provisions of the act would terminate on the expiration of the periods of notice provided for in such treaties," and the required notice was given.[360] When, however, by section 34 of the Jones Merchant Marine Act of 1920, the same President was authorized and directed within ninety days to give notice to the other parties to certain treaties, with which the Act was not in conflict but which might restrict Congress in the future from enacting discriminatory tonnage duties, President Wilson refused to comply, asserting that he "did not deem the direction contained in section 34 ... an exercise of any constitutional power possessed by Congress."[361] The same attitude toward section 34 was continued by Presidents Harding and Coolidge.[362]
Very few precedents exist in which the President terminated a treaty after obtaining the approval of the Senate alone. The first occurred in 1854-1855, when President Pierce requested and received Senate approval to terminate a treaty with Denmark.[363] When the validity of this action was questioned in the Senate, the Committee on Foreign Relations reported that the procedure was correct, that prior full-Congress actions were incorrect, and that the right to terminate resides in the treaty-making authorities, the President and the Senate.[364]
Examples of treaty terminations in which the President acted alone are much disputed with respect both to facts and to the underlying legal circumstances.[365] Apparently, President Lincoln was the first to give notice of termination in the absence of prior congressional authorization or direction, and Congress shortly thereafter by joint resolution ratified his action.[366] The first such action by the President, with no such subsequent congressional action, appears to be that of President McKinley in 1899, in terminating an 1850 treaty with Switzerland, but the action may be explainable as the treaty being inconsistent with a subsequently enacted law.[367] Other such renunciations by the President acting on his own have been similarly explained and similarly the explanations have been controverted. While the Department of State, in setting forth legal justification for President Carter's notice of termination of the treaty with Taiwan, cited many examples of the President acting alone, many of these are ambiguous and may be explained away by, i.e., conflicts with later statutes, changed circumstances, or the like.[368]
No such ambiguity accompanied President Carter's action on the Taiwan treaty,[369] and a somewhat lengthy Senate debate was provoked. In the end, the Senate on a preliminary vote approved a "sense of the Senate" resolution claiming for itself a consenting role in the termination of treaties, but no final vote was ever taken and the Senate thus did not place itself in conflict with the President.[370] However, several Members of Congress went to court to contest the termination, apparently the first time a judicial resolution of the question had been sought. A divided Court of Appeals, on the merits, held that presidential action was sufficient by itself to terminate treaties, but the Supreme Court, no majority agreeing on a common ground, vacated that decision and instructed the trial court to dismiss the suit.[371] While no opinion of the Court bars future litigation, it appears that the political question doctrine or some other rule of judicial restraint will leave such disputes to the contending forces of the political branches.[372]
Determination Whether a Treaty Has Lapsed
There is clear judicial recognition that the President may without consulting Congress validly determine the question whether specific treaty provisions have lapsed. The following passage from Justice Lurton's opinion in Charlton v. Kelly[373] is pertinent: "If the attitude of Italy was, as contended, a violation of the obligation of the treaty, which, in international law, would have justified the United States in denouncing the treaty as no longer obligatory, it did not automatically have that effect. If the United States elected not to declare its abrogation, or come to a rupture, the treaty would remain in force. It was only voidable, not void; and if the United States should prefer, it might waive any breach which in its judgment had occurred and conform to its own obligation as if there had been no such breach.... That the political branch of the Government recognizes the treaty obligation as still existing is evidenced by its action in this case.... The executive department having thus elected to waive any right to free itself from the obligation to deliver up its own citizens, it is the plain duty of this court to recognize the obligation to surrender the appellant as one imposed by the treaty as the supreme law of the land as affording authority for the warrant of extradition."[374] So also it is primarily for the political departments to determine whether certain provisions of a treaty have survived a war in which the other contracting state ceased to exist as a member of the international community.[375]
Status of a Treaty a Political Question
It is clear that many questions which arise concerning a treaty are of a political nature and will not be decided by the courts. In the words of Justice Curtis in Taylor v. Morton:[376] It is not "a judicial question, whether a treaty with a foreign sovereign has been violated by him; whether the consideration of a particular stipulation in a treaty, has been voluntarily withdrawn by one party, so that it is no longer obligatory on the other; whether the views and acts of a foreign sovereign, manifested through his representative have given just occasion to the political departments of our government to withhold the execution of a promise contained in a treaty, or to act in direct contravention of such promise.... These powers have not been confided by the people to the judiciary, which has no suitable means to exercise them; but to the executive and the legislative departments of our government. They belong to diplomacy and legislation, and not to the administration of existing laws and it necessarily follows that if they are denied to Congress and the Executive, in the exercise of their legislative power, they can be found nowhere, in our system of government." Chief Justice Marshall's language in Foster v. Neilson[377] is to the same effect.
Indian Treaties
In the early cases of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia,[378] and Worcester v. Georgia,[379] the Court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, held, first, that the Cherokee Nation was not a sovereign state within the meaning of that clause of the Constitution which extends the judicial power of the United States to controversies "between a State or the citizens thereof and foreign states, citizens or subjects." Second, it held: "The Constitution, by declaring treaties already made, as well as those to be made, to be the supreme law of the land, had adopted and sanctioned the previous treaties with the Indian nations, and consequently admits their rank among those powers who are capable of making treaties. The words 'treaty' and 'nation' are words of our own language, selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings, by ourselves, having each a definite and well understood meaning. We have applied them to Indians, as we have applied them to the other nations of the earth. They are applied to all in the same sense."[380]
Later cases established that the power to make treaties with the Indian tribes was coextensive with the power to make treaties with foreign nations,[381] that the States were incompetent to interfere with rights created by such treaties,[382] that as long as the United States recognized the national character of a tribe, its members were under the protection of treaties and of the laws of Congress and their property immune from taxation by a State,[383]that a stipulation in an Indian treaty that laws forbidding the introduction, of liquors into Indian territory was operative without legislation, and binding on the courts although the territory was within an organized county of a State,[384] and that an act of Congress contrary to a prior Indian treaty repealed it.[385]
Present Status of Indian Treaties
Today, the subject of Indian treaties is a closed account in the constitutional law ledger. By a rider inserted in the Indian Appropriation Act of March 3, 1871, it was provided "That hereafter no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty: Provided, further, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to invalidate or impair the obligation of any treaty heretofore lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe."[386] Subsequently, the power of Congress to withdraw or modify tribal rights previously granted by treaty has been invariably upheld.[387] Statutes modifying rights of members in tribal lands,[388] granting a right of way for a railroad through lands ceded by treaty to an Indian tribe,[389] or extending the application of revenue laws respecting liquor and tobacco over Indian territories, despite an earlier treaty exemption,[390] have been sustained.
When, on the other hand, definite property rights have been conferred upon individual Native Americans, whether by treaty or under an act of Congress, they are protected by the Constitution to the same extent and in the same way as the private rights of other residents or citizens of the United States. Hence it was held that certain Indian allottees under an agreement according to which, in part consideration of their relinquishment of all their claim to tribal property, they were to receive in severalty allotments of lands which were to be nontaxable for a specified period, acquired vested rights of exemption from State taxation which were protected by the Fifth Amendment against abrogation by Congress.[391]
A regular staple of each Term's docket of the Court is one or two cases calling for an interpretation of the rights of Native Americans under some treaty arrangement vis-a-vis the Federal Government or the States. Thus, though no treaties have been negotiated for decades and none presumably ever will again, litigation concerning old treaties seemingly will go on.
International Agreements without Senate Approval
The capacity of the United States to enter into agreements with other nations is not exhausted in the treaty-making power. The Constitution recognizes a distinction between "treaties" and "agreements" or "compacts" but does not indicate what the difference is.[392]The differences, which once may have been clearer, have been seriously blurred in practice within recent decades. Once a stepchild in the family in which treaties were the preferred off-spring, the executive agreement has surpassed in number and perhaps in international influence the treaty formally signed, submitted for ratification to the Senate, and proclaimed upon ratification.
During the first half-century of its independence, the United States was party to sixty treaties but to only twenty-seven published executive agreements. By the beginning of World War II, there had been concluded approximately 800 treaties and 1,200 executive agreements. In the period 1940-1989, the Nation entered into 759 treaties and into 13,016 published executive agreements. Cumulatively, in 1989, the United states was a party to 890 treaties and 5,117 executive agreements. To phrase it comparatively, in the first 50 years of its history, the United States concluded twice as many treaties as executive agreements. In the 50-year period from 1839 to 1889, a few more executive agreements than treaties were entered into. From 1889 to 1939, almost twice as many executive agreements as treaties were concluded. Between 1939 and 1993, executive agreements comprised more than 90% of the international agreements concluded.[393]
One must, of course, interpret the raw figures carefully. Only a very small minority of all the executive agreements entered into were based solely on the powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief and organ of foreign relations; the remainder were authorized in advance by Congress by statute or by treaty provisions ratified by the Senate.[394] Thus, consideration of the constitutional significance of executive agreements must begin with a differentiation among the kinds of agreements which are classed under this single heading.[395]
Executive Agreements by Authorization of Congress
Congress early authorized officers of the executive branch to enter into negotiations and to conclude agreements with foreign governments, authorizing the borrowing of money from foreign countries[396] and appropriating money to pay off the government of Algiers to prevent pirate attacks on United States shipping.[397] Perhaps the first formal authorization in advance of an executive agreement was enactment of a statute that permitted the Postmaster General to "make arrangements with the Postmasters in any foreign country for the reciprocal receipt and delivery of letters and packets, through the post offices."[398] Congress has also approved, usually by resolution, other executive agreements, such as the annexing of Texas and Hawaii and the acquisition of Samoa.[399] A prolific source of executive agreements has been the authorization of reciprocal arrangements between the United States and other countries for the securing of protection for patents, copyrights, and trademarks.[400]
Reciprocal Trade Agreements
The most copious source of executive agreements has been legislation which provided authority for entering into reciprocal trade agreements with other nations.[401] Such agreements in the form of treaties providing for the reciprocal reduction of duties subject to implementation by Congress were frequently entered into,[402]but beginning with the Tariff Act of 1890,[403] Congress began to insert provisions authorizing the Executive to bargain over reciprocity with no necessity of subsequent legislative action. The authority was widened in successive acts.[404] Then, in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934,[405] Congress authorized the President to enter into agreements with other nations for reductions of tariffs and other impediments to international trade and to put the reductions into effect through proclamation.[406]
The Constitutionality of Trade Agreements
In Field v. Clark,[407] legislation conferring authority on the President to conclude trade agreements was sustained against the objection that it attempted an unconstitutional delegation "of both legislative and treaty-making powers." The Court met the first objection with an extensive review of similar legislation from the inauguration of government under the Constitution. The second objection it met with a curt rejection: "What has been said is equally applicable to the objection that the third section of the act invests the President with treaty-making power. The Court is of opinion that the third section of the act of October 1, 1890, is not liable to the objection that it transfers legislative and treaty-making power to the President."[408] Although two Justices disagreed, the question has never been revived. However, in B. Altman & Co. v. United States,[409] decided twenty years later, a collateral question was passed upon. This was whether an act of Congress which gave the federal circuit courts of appeal jurisdiction of cases in which "the validity or construction of any treaty . . . was drawn in question" embraced a case involving a trade agreement which had been made under the sanction of the Tariff Act of 1897. Said the Court: "While it may be true that this commercial agreement, made under authority of the Tariff Act of 1897, § 3, was not a treaty possessing the dignity of one requiring ratification by the Senate of the United States, it was an international compact, negotiated between the representatives of two sovereign nations and made in the name and on behalf of the contracting countries, and dealing with important commercial relations between the two countries, and was proclaimed by the President. If not technically a treaty requiring ratification, nevertheless, it was a compact authorized by the Congress of the United States, negotiated and proclaimed under the authority of its President. We think such a compact is a treaty under the Circuit Court of Appeals Act, and, where its construction is directly involved, as it is here, there is a right of review by direct appeal to this court."[410]
The Lend-Lease Act
The most extensive delegation of authority ever made by Congress to the President to enter into executive agreements occurred within the field of the cognate powers of the two departments, the field of foreign relations, and took place at a time when war appeared to be in the offing and was in fact only a few months away. The legislation referred to is the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941,[411] by which the President was empowered for over two years-and subsequently for additional periods whenever he deemed it in the interest of the national defense to do so-to authorize "the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the head of any other department or agency of the Government," to manufacture in the government arsenals, factories, and shipyards, or "otherwise procure," to the extent that available funds made possible, "defense articles"- later amended to include foodstuffs and industrial products-and "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of," the same to the "government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States," and on any terms that he "deems satisfactory." Under this authorization the United States entered into Mutual Aid Agreements whereby the Government furnished its allies in World War II forty billions of dollars worth of munitions of war and other supplies.
International Organizations
Overlapping of the treaty-making power through congressional-executive cooperation in international agreements is also demonstrated by the use of resolutions approving the United States joining of international organizations[412]and participating in international conventions.[413]
Executive Agreements Authorized by Treaties
Arbitration Agreements
In 1904 and 1905, Secretary of State John Hay negotiated a series of treaties providing for the general arbitration of international disputes. Article II of the treaty with Great Britain, for example, provided as follows: "In each individual case the High Contracting Parties, before appealing to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, shall conclude a special Agreement defining clearly the matter in dispute and the scope of the powers of the Arbitrators, and fixing the periods for the formation of the Arbitral Tribunal and the several stages of the procedure."[414] The Senate approved the British treaty by the constitutional majority having, however, first amended it by substituting the word "treaty" for "agreement." President Theodore Roosevelt, characterizing the "ratification" as equivalent to rejection, sent the treaties to repose in the archives. "As a matter of historical practice," Dr. McClure comments, "the compromis under which disputes have been arbitrated include both treaties and executive agreements in goodly numbers,"[415] a statement supported by both Willoughby and Moore.[416]
Agreements Under the United Nations Charter
Article 43 of the United Nations Charter provides: "1. All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. 2. Such agreement or agreements shall govern the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities and assistance to be provided. 3. The agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council. They shall be concluded between the Security Council and Members or between the Security Council and groups of Members and shall be subject to ratification by the signatory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes."[417] This time the Senate did not boggle over the word "agreement."
The United Nations Participation Act of December 20, 1945, implements these provisions as follows: "The President is authorized to negotiate a special agreement or agreements with the Security Council which shall be subject to the approval of the Congress by appropriate Act or joint resolution, providing for the numbers and types of armed forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of facilities and assistance, including rights of passage, to be made available to the Security Council on its call for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security in accordance with article 43 of said Charter. The President shall not be deemed to require the authorization of the Congress to make available to the Security Council on its call in order to take action under article 42 of said Charter and pursuant to such special agreement or agreements the armed forces, facilities, or assistance provided for therein: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as an authorization to the President by the Congress to make available to the Security Council for such purpose armed forces, facilities, or assistance in addition to the forces, facilities, and assistance provided for in such special agreement or agreements."[418]
Status of Forces Agreements
Status of Forces Agreements, negotiated pursuant to authorizations contained in treaties between the United States and foreign nations in the territory of which American troops and their dependents are stationed, afford the United States a qualified privilege, which may be waived, of trying by court martial soldiers and their dependents charged with commission of offenses normally within the exclusive criminal jurisdiction of the foreign signatory power. When the United States, in conformity with the waiver clause in such an Agreement, consented to the trial in a Japanese court of a soldier charged with causing the death of a Japanese woman on a firing range in that country, the Court could "find no constitutional barrier" to such action.[419] However, at least five of the Supreme Court Justices were persuaded to reject at length the contention that such Agreements could sustain, as necessary and proper for their effectuation, implementing legislation subsequently found by the Court to contravene constitutional guaranties set forth in the Bill of Rights.[420]
Executive Agreements on the Sole Constitutional Authority of the President
Many types of executive agreements comprise the ordinary daily grist of the diplomatic mill. Among these are such as apply to minor territorial adjustments, boundary rectifications, the policing of boundaries, the regulation of fishing rights, private pecuniary claims against another government or its nationals, in Story's words, "the mere private rights of sovereignty."[421] Crandall lists scores of such agreements entered into with other governments by the authorization of the President.[422] Such agreements were ordinarily directed to particular and comparatively trivial disputes and by the settlement they effect of these cease ipso facto to be operative. Also, there are such time-honored diplomatic devices as the "protocol" which marks a stage in the negotiation of a treaty, and the modus vivendi, which is designed to serve as a temporary substitute for one. Executive agreements become of constitutional significance when they constitute a determinative factor of future foreign policy and hence of the country's destiny. In consequence particularly of our participation in World War II and our immersion in the conditions of international tension which prevailed both before and after the war, Presidents have entered into agreements with other governments some of which have approximated temporary alliances. It cannot be justly said, however, that in so doing they have acted without considerable support from precedent.
An early instance of executive treaty-making was the agreement by which President Monroe in 1817 brought about a delimitation of armaments on the Great Lakes. The arrangement was effected by an exchange of notes, which nearly a year later were laid before the Senate with a query as to whether it was within the President's power, or whether advice and consent of the Senate was required. The Senate approved the agreement by the required two-thirds vote, and it was forthwith proclaimed by the President without there having been a formal exchange of ratifications.[423] Of a kindred type, and owing much to the President's capacity as Commander-in-Chief, was a series of agreements entered into with Mexico between 1882 and 1896 according each country the right to pursue marauding Indians across the common border.[424] Commenting on such an agreement, the Court remarked, a bit uncertainly: "While no act of Congress authorizes the executive department to permit the introduction of foreign troops, the power to give such permission without legislative assent was probably assumed to exist from the authority of the President as commander in chief of the military and naval forces of the United States. It may be doubted, however, whether such power could be extended to the apprehension of deserters [from foreign vessels] in the absence of positive legislation to that effect."[425] Justice Gray and three other Justices were of the opinion that such action by the President must rest upon express treaty or statute.[426]
Notable expansion of presidential power in this field first became manifest in the administration of President McKinley. At the outset of war with Spain, the President proclaimed that the United States would consider itself bound for the duration by the last three principles of the Declaration of Paris, a course which, as Professor Wright observes, "would doubtless go far toward establishing these three principles as international law obligatory upon the United States in future wars."[427] Hostilities with Spain were brought to an end in August, 1898, by an armistice the conditions of which largely determined the succeeding treaty of peace,[428] just as did the Armistice of November 11, 1918, determine in great measure the conditions of the final peace with Germany in 1918. It was also President McKinley who in 1900, relying on his own sole authority as Commander-in-Chief, contributed a land force of 5,000 men and a naval force to cooperate with similar contingents from other Powers to rescue the legations in Peking from the Boxers; a year later, again without consulting either Congress or the Senate, he accepted for the United States the Boxer Indemnity Protocol between China and the intervening Powers.[429]Commenting on the Peking protocol, Willoughby quotes with approval the following remark: "This case is interesting, because it shows how the force of circumstances compelled us to adopt the European practice with reference to an international agreement, which, aside from the indemnity question, was almost entirely political in character ... purely political treaties are, under constitutional practice in Europe, usually made by the executive alone. The situation in China, however, abundantly justified President McKinley in not submitting the protocol to the Senate. The remoteness of Peking, the jealousies between the allies, and the shifting evasive tactics of the Chinese Government, would have made impossible anything but an agreement on the spot."[430]
It was during this period, too, that John Hay, as McKinley's Secretary of State, initiated his "Open Door" policy, by notes to Great Britain, Germany, and Russia, which were soon followed by similar notes to France, Italy and Japan. These in substance asked the recipients to declare formally that they would not seek to enlarge their respective interests in China at the expense of any of the others; and all responded favorably.[431] Then, in 1905, the first Roosevelt, seeking to arrive at a diplomatic understanding with Japan, instigated an exchange of opinions between Secretary of War Taft, then in the Far East, and Count Katsura, amounting to a secret treaty, by which the Roosevelt administration assented to the establishment by Japan of a military protectorate in Korea.[432] Three years later, Secretary of State Root and the Japanese ambassador at Washington entered into the Root-Takahira Agreement to uphold the status quo in the Pacific and maintain the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China.[433] Meantime, in 1907, by a "Gentleman's Agreement," the Mikado's government had agreed to curb the emigration of Japanese subjects to the United States, thereby relieving the Washington government from the necessity of taking action that would have cost Japan loss of face. The final result of this series of executive agreements touching American relations in and with the Far East was the product of President Wilson's diplomacy. This was the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, embodied in an exchange of letters dated November 2, 1917, by which the United States recognized Japan's "special interests" in China, and Japan assented to the principle of the Open Door in that country.[434]
The Litvinov Agreement
The executive agreement attained its modern development as an instrument of foreign policy under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at times threatening to replace the treaty-making power, not formally but in effect, as a determinative element in the field of foreign policy. The President's first important utilization of the executive agreement device took the form of an exchange of notes on November 16, 1933, with Maxim M. Litvinov, the USSR Commissar for Foreign Affairs, whereby American recognition was extended to the Soviet Union and certain pledges made by each official.[435]
The Hull-Lothian Agreement
With the fall of France in June, 1940, President Roosevelt entered into two executive agreements the total effect of which was to transform the role of the United States from one of strict neutrality toward the European war to one of semi- belligerency. The first agreement was with Canada and provided for the creation of a Permanent Joint Board on Defense which would "consider in the broad sense the defense of the north half of the Western Hemisphere."[436] Second, and more important than the first, was the Hull-Lothian Agreement of September 2, 1940, under which, in return for the lease for ninety-nine years of certain sites for naval bases in the British West Atlantic, the United States handed over to the British Government fifty over-age destroyers which had been reconditioned and recommissioned.[437] And on April 9, 1941, the State Department, in consideration of the just-completed German occupation of Denmark, entered into an executive agreement with the Danish minister in Washington, whereby the United States acquired the right to occupy Greenland for purposes of defense.[438]
The Post-War Years
Post-war diplomacy of the United States was greatly influenced by the executive agreements entered into at Cairo, Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam.[439] For a period, the formal treaty-the signing of the United Nations Charter and the entry into the multinational defense pacts, like NATO, SEATO, CENTRO, and the like-reestablished itself, but soon the executive agreement, as an adjunct of treaty arrangement or solely through presidential initiative, again became the principal instrument of United States foreign policy, so that it became apparent in the 1960s that the Nation was committed in one way or another to assisting over half the countries of the world protect themselves.[440]Congressional disquietitude did not result in anything more substantial than passage of a "sense of the Senate" resolution expressing a desire that "national commitments" be made more solemnly in the future than in the past.[441]
The Domestic Obligation of Executive Agreements
When the President enters into an executive agreement, what sort of obligation is thereby imposed upon the United States? That international obligations of potentially serious consequences may be imposed is obvious and that such obligations may linger for long periods of time is equally obvious.[442] But the question is more directly pointed to the domestic obligations imposed by such agreements; are treaties and executive agreements interchangeable insofar as domestic effect is concerned?[443] Executive agreements entered into pursuant to congressional authorization and probably through treaty obligations present little doctrinal problem; those arrangements by which the President purports to bind the Nation solely on the basis of his constitutional powers, however, do raise serious questions.
Initially, it was the view of most judges and scholars that executive agreements based solely on presidential power did not become the "law of the land" pursuant to the Supremacy Clause because such agreements are not "treaties" ratified by the Senate.[9] The Supreme Court, however, found another basis for holding state laws to be preempted by executive agreements, ultimately relying on the Constitution's vesting of foreign relations power in the national government. A different view seemed to underlie the Supreme Court decision in B. Altman & Co. v. United States,[445] in which it was concluded that a jurisdictional statute reference to "treaty" encompassed an executive agreement. The idea flowered in United States v. Belmont,[446] where the Court, in an opinion by Justice Sutherland, following on his Curtiss-Wright[447] opinion, gave domestic effect to the Litvinov Agreement. At issue was whether a district court of the United States was correct in dismissing an action by the United States, as assignee of the Soviet Union, for certain moneys which had once been the property of a Russian metal corporation the assets of which had been appropriated by the Soviet government. The lower court had erred, the Court ruled. The President's act in recognizing the Soviet government, and the accompanying agreements, constituted, said the Justice, an international compact which the President, "as the sole organ" of international relations for the United States, was authorized to enter upon without consulting the Senate. Nor did state laws and policies make any difference in such a situation, for while the supremacy of treaties is established by the Constitution in express terms, yet the same rule holds "in the case of all international compacts and agreements from the very fact that complete power over international affairs is in the National Government and is not and cannot be subject to any curtailment or interference on the part of the several States."[448]
In United States v. Pink,[449] decided five years later, the same course of reasoning was reiterated with added emphasis. The question here involved was whether the United States was entitled under the Executive Agreement of 1933 to recover the assets of the New York branch of a Russian insurance company. The company argued that the decrees of confiscation of the Soviet Government did not apply to its property in New York and could not consistently with the Constitution of the United States and that of New York. The Court, speaking by Justice Douglas, brushed these arguments aside. An official declaration of the Russian government itself settled the question of the extraterritorial operation of the Russian decree of nationalization and was binding on American courts. The power to remove such obstacles to full recognition as settlement of claims of our nationals was "a modest implied power of the President who is the 'sole organ of the Federal Government in the field of international relations'.... It was the judgment of the political department that full recognition of the Soviet Government required the settlement of outstanding problems including the claims of our nationals.... We would usurp the executive function if we held that the decision was not final and conclusive on the courts."
"It is, of course, true that even treaties with foreign nations will be carefully construed so as not to derogate from the authority and jurisdiction of the States of this nation unless clearly necessary to effectuate the national policy.... But state law must yield when it is inconsistent with, or impairs the policy or provisions of, a treaty or of an international compact or agreement.... Then, the power of a State to refuse enforcement of rights based on foreign law which runs counter to the public policy of the forum . . . must give way before the superior Federal policy evidenced by a treaty or international compact or agreement... ."
"The action of New York in this case amounts in substance to a rejection of a part of the policy underlying recognition by this nation of Soviet Russia. Such power is not accorded a State in our constitutional system. To permit it would be to sanction a dangerous invasion of Federal authority. For it would 'imperil the amicable relations between governments and vex the peace of nations.' ... It would tend to disturb that equilibrium in our foreign relations which the political departments of our national government has diligently endeavored to establish... ."
"No State can rewrite our foreign policy to conform to its own domestic policies. Power over external affairs is not shared by the States; it is vested in the national government exclusively. It need not be so exercised as to conform to State laws or State policies, whether they be expressed in constitutions, statutes, or judicial decrees. And the policies of the States become wholly irrelevant to judicial inquiry when the United States, acting within its constitutional sphere, seeks enforcement of its foreign policy in the courts."[450]
Belmont and Pink were reinforced in American Insurance Association v. Garamendi.[10] In holding that California's Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act was preempted as interfering with the Federal Government's conduct of foreign relations, as expressed in executive agreements, the Court reiterated that "valid executive agreements are fit to preempt state law, just as treaties are." [11] The preemptive reach of executive agreements stems from "the Constitution's allocation of the foreign relations power to the National Government." [12] Because there was a "clear conflict" between the California law and policies adopted through the valid exercise of federal executive authority (settlement of Holocaust-era insurance claims being "well within the Executive's responsibility for foreign affairs"), the state law was preempted.[13]
State Laws Affecting Foreign Relations-Dormant Federal Power and Preemption
If the foreign relations power is truly an exclusive federal power, with no role for the states, a logical consequence is that some state laws impinging on foreign relations are invalid even in the absence of already-established federal policy. The Supreme Court has so stated and so held. There is, in effect, a "dormant" foreign relations power. The scope of this power remains undefined, however, and its constitutional basis is debated by scholars.
The exclusive nature of the federal foreign relations power has long been asserted by the Supreme Court. In 1840, for example, the Court declared that "it was one of the main objects of the constitution to make us, so far as regarded our foreign relations, one people, and one nation; and to cut off all communications between foreign governments, and the several state authorities." [14] A hundred years later the Court remained emphatic about federal exclusivity. "No State can rewrite our foreign policy to conform to its own domestic policies. Power over external affairs is not shared by the States; it is vested in the national government exclusively. It need not be so exercised as to conform to State laws or State policies, whether they be expressed in constitutions, statutes, or judicial decrees. And the policies of the States become wholly irrelevant to judicial inquiry when the United States, acting within its constitutional sphere, seeks enforcement of its foreign policy in the courts." [15]
It was not until 1968, however, that the Court applied the general principle to invalidate a state law for impinging on the nation's foreign policy interests in the absence of an established federal policy. In Zschernig v. Miller,[16] the Court invalidated an Oregon escheat law that operated to prevent inheritance by citizens of Communist countries. The law conditioned inheritance by non-resident aliens on a showing that U.S. citizens would be allowed to inherit estates in the alien's country, and that the alien heir would be allowed to receive payments from the Oregon estate "without confiscation." [17] Although a Justice Department amicus brief asserted that application of the Oregon law in this one case would not cause any "undu[e] interfer[ence] with the United States' conduct of foreign relations," the Court saw a "persistent and subtle" effect on international relations stemming from the "notorious" practice of state probate courts in denying payments to persons from Communist countries.[18] Regulation of descent and distribution of estates is an area traditionally regulated by states, but such "state regulations must give way if they impair the effective exercise of the Nation's foreign policy." If there are to be travel, probate, or other restraints on citizens of Communist countries, the Court concluded, such restraints "must be provided by the Federal Government." [19]
Zschernig lay dormant for some time, and, although it has been addressed recently by the Court, it remains the only holding in which the Court has applied a dormant foreign relations power to strike down state law. There was renewed academic interest in Zschernig in the 1990s, as some state and local governments sought ways to express dissatisfaction with human rights policies of foreign governments or to curtail trade with out-of-favor countries.[20] In 1999 the Court struck down Massachusetts' Burma sanctions law on the basis of statutory preemption, and declined to address the appeals court's alternative holding applying Zschernig.[21] Similarly, in 2003 the Court held that California's Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act was preempted as interfering with federal foreign policy reflected in executive agreements, and, although it discussed Zschernig at some length, saw no need to resolve issues relating to its scope.[22]
Dictum in Garamendi recognizes some of the questions that can be raised about Zschernig. The Zschernig Court did not identify what language in the Constitution mandates preemption, and commentators have observed that a respectable argument can be made that the Constitution does not require a general foreign affairs preemption not tied to the Supremacy Clause, and broader than and independent of the Constitution's specific prohibitions[23] and grants of power.[24] The Garamendi Court raised "a fair question whether respect for the executive foreign relations power requires a categorical choice between the contrasting theories of field and conflict preemption evident in the Zschernig opinions." Instead, Justice Souter suggested for the Court in Garamendi, field preemption may be appropriate if a state legislates "simply to take a position on a matter of foreign policy with no serious claim to be addressing a traditional state responsibility," and conflict preemption may be appropriate if a state legislates within an area of traditional responsibility, "but in a way that affects foreign relations." [25] We must await further litigation to see whether the Court employs this distinction.[26]
The Executive Establishment
Office
"An office is a public station, or employment, conferred by the appointment of government. The term embraces the ideas of tenure, duration, emolument, and duties."[454]
Ambassadors and Other Public Ministers
The term "ambassadors and other public ministers," comprehends "all officers having diplomatic functions, whatever their title or designation."[455] It was originally assumed that such offices were established by the Constitution itself, by reference to the Law of Nations, with the consequence that appointments might be made to them whenever the appointing authority-the President and Senate-deemed desirable.[456] During the first sixty-five years of the Government, Congress passed no act purporting to create any diplomatic rank, the entire question of grades being left with the President. Indeed, during the administrations of Washington, Adams and Jefferson, and the first term of Madison, no mention occurs in any appropriation, even of ministers of a specified rank at this or that place, but the provision for the diplomatic corps consisted of so much money "for the expenses of foreign intercourse," to be expended at the discretion of the President. In Madison's second term, the practice was introduced of allocating special sums to the several foreign missions maintained by the Government, but even then the legislative provisions did not purport to curtail the discretion of the President in any way in the choice of diplomatic agents.
In 1814, however, when President Madison appointed, during a recess of the Senate, the Commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, the theory on which the above legislation was based was drawn into question. Inasmuch, it was argued, as these offices had never been established by law, no vacancy existed to which the President could constitutionally make a recess appointment. To this argument, it was answered that the Constitution recognizes "two descriptions of offices altogether different in their nature, authorized by the constitution-one to be created by law, and the other depending for their existence and continuance upon contingencies. Of the first kind, are judicial, revenue, and similar offices. Of the second, are Ambassadors, other public Ministers, and Consuls. The first descriptions organize the Government and give it efficacy. They form the internal system, and are susceptible of precise enumeration. When and how they are created, and when and how they become vacant, may always be ascertained with perfect precision. Not so with the second description. They depend for their original existence upon the law, but are the offspring of the state of our relations with foreign nations, and must necessarily be governed by distinct rules. As an independent power, the United States have relations with all other independent powers; and the management of those relations is vested in the Executive."[457]
By the opening section of the act of March 1, 1855, it was provided that "from and after the thirtieth day of June next, the President of the United States shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint representatives of the grade of envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary," with a specified annual compensation for each, "to the following countries... ." In the body of the act was also this provision: "The President shall appoint no other than citizens of the United States, who are residents thereof, or who shall be abroad in the employment of the Government at the time of their appointment. . . ."[458] The question of the interpretation of the act having been referred to Attorney General Cushing, he ruled that its total effect, aside from its salary provisions, was recommendatory only. It was "to say, that if, and whenever, the President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, or to Sweden, the compensation of that minister shall be so much and no more."[459]
This line of reasoning is only partially descriptive of the facts. The Foreign Service Act of 1946,[460] pertaining to the organization of the foreign service, diplomatic as well as consular, contains detailed provisions as to grades, salaries, promotions, and, in part, as to duties. Under the terms thereof the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints ambassadors, ministers, foreign service officers, and consuls, but in practice the vast proportion of the selections are made in conformance to recommendations of a Board of the Foreign Service.
Presidential Diplomatic Agents
What the President may have lost in consequence of the intervention of Congress in this field of diplomatic appointments, he has made good through his early conceded right to employ, in the discharge of his diplomatic function, so- called "special," "personal," or "secret" agents without consulting the Senate. When President Jackson's right to resort to this practice was challenged in the Senate in 1831, it was defended by Edward Livingston, Senator from Louisiana, to such good purpose that Jackson made him Secretary of State. "The practice of appointing secret agents," said Livingston, "is coeval with our existence as a nation, and goes beyond our acknowledgement as such by other powers. All those great men who have figured in the history of our diplomacy, began their career, and performed some of their most important services in the capacity of secret agents, with full powers. Franklin, Adams, Lee, were only commissioners; and in negotiating a treaty with the Emperor of Morocco, the selection of the secret agent was left to the Ministers appointed to make the treaty; and, accordingly, in the year 1785, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson appointed Thomas Barclay, who went to Morocco and made a treaty, which was ratified by the Ministers at Paris."
"These instances show that, even prior to the establishment of the Federal Government, secret plenipotentiaries were known, as well in the practice of our own country as in the general law of nations: and that these secret agents were not on a level with messengers, letter carriers, or spies, to whom it has been found necessary in argument to assimilate them. On the 30th March, 1795, in the recess of the Senate, by letters patent under the great broad seal of the United States, and the signature of their President, (that President being George Washington,) countersigned by the Secretary of State, David Humphreys was appointed commissioner plenipotentiary for negotiating a treaty of peace with Algiers. By instructions from the President, he was afterwards authorized to employ Joseph Donaldson as agent in that business. In May, of the same year, he did appoint Donaldson, who went to Algiers, and in September of the same year concluded a treaty with the Dey and Divan, which was confirmed by Humphreys, at Lisbon, on the 28th November in the same year, and afterwards ratified by the Senate, and an act passed both Houses on 6th May, 1796, appropriating a large sum, twenty-five thousand dollars annually, for carrying it into effect."[461]
The precedent afforded by Humphreys' appointment without reference to the Senate has since been multiplied many times,[462] as witness the mission of A. Dudley Mann to Hanover and other German states in 1846, of the same gentleman to Hungary in 1849, of Nicholas Trist to Mexico in 1848, of Commodore Perry to Japan in 1852, of J. H. Blount to Hawaii in 1893. The last named case is perhaps the most extreme of all. Blount, who was appointed while the Senate was in session but without its advice and consent, was given "paramount authority" over the American resident minister at Hawaii and was further empowered to employ the military and naval forces of the United States, if necessary to protect American lives and interests. His mission raised a vigorous storm of protest in the Senate, but the majority report of the committee which was created to investigate the constitutional question vindicated the President in the following terms: "A question has been made as to the right of the President of the United States to dispatch Mr. Blount to Hawaii as his personal representative for the purpose of seeking the further information which the President believed was necessary in order to arrive at a just conclusion regarding the state of affairs in Hawaii. Many precedents could be quoted to show that such power has been exercised by the President on various occasions, without dissent on the part of Congress or the people of the United States.... These precedents also show that the Senate of the United States, though in session, need not be consulted as to the appointment of such agents, . . . ."[463] The continued vitality of the practice is attested by such names as Colonel House, the late Norman H. Davis, who filled the role of "ambassador at large" for a succession of administrations of both parties, Professor Philip Jessup, Mr. Averell Harriman, and other "ambassadors at large" of the Truman Administration, and Professor Henry Kissinger of the Nixon Administration.
How is the practice to be squared with the express words of the Constitution? Apparently, by stressing the fact that such appointments or designations are ordinarily merely temporary and for special tasks, and hence do not fulfill the tests of "office" in the strict sense. In the same way the not infrequent practice of Presidents of appointing Members of Congress as commissioners to negotiate treaties and agreements with foreign governments may be regularized, notwithstanding the provision of Article I, § 6, clause 2 of the Constitution, which provides that "no Senator or Representative shall . . . be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created," during his term; and no officer of the United States, "shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."[464] The Treaty of Peace with Spain, the treaty to settle the Bering Sea controversy, the treaty establishing the boundary line between Canada and Alaska, were negotated by commissions containing Senators and Representatives.
Appointments and Congressional Regulation of Offices
That the Constitution distinguishes between the creation of an office and appointment thereto for the generality of national offices has never been questioned. The former is by law and takes place by virtue of Congress' power to pass all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers which the Constitution confers upon the government of the United States and its departments and officers.[465] As an incident to the establishment of an office, Congress has also the power to determine the qualifications of the officer and in so doing necessarily limits the range of choice of the appointing power. First and last, it has laid down a great variety of qualifications, depending on citizenship, residence, professional attainments, occupational experience, age, race, property, sound habits, and so on. It has required that appointees be representative of a political party, of an industry, of a geographic region, or of a particular branch of the Government. It has confined the President's selection to a small number of persons to be named by others.[466] Indeed, it has contrived at times to designate a definite eligibility, thereby virtually usurping the appointing power.[467] Despite the record of the past, however, it is not at all clear that Congress may cabin the President's discretion, at least for offices that he considers important, by, for example, requiring him to choose from lists compiled by others. To be sure, there are examples, but they are not free of ambiguity.[468]
But when Congress contrived actually to participate in the appointment and administrative process and provided for selection of the members of the Federal Election Commission, two by the President, two by the Senate, and two by the House, with confirmation of all six members vested in both the House and the Senate, the Court unanimously held the scheme to violate the appointments clause and the principle of separation of powers. The term "officers of the United States" is a substantive one requiring that any appointee exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States be appointed in the manner prescribed by the appointments clause.[469] The Court did hold, however, that the Commission so appointed and confirmed could be delegated the powers Congress itself could exercise, that is, those investigative and informative functions that congressional committees carry out were properly vested in this body.
Congress is authorized by the appointments clause to vest the appointment of "inferior Officers," at its discretion, "in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments." Principal questions arising under this portion of the clause are "Who are 'inferior officers,"' and "what are the 'Departments"' whose heads may be given appointing power?[470] "[A]ny appointee exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States is an 'Officer of the United States,' and must, therefore, be appointed in the manner prescribed by § 2, cl. 2, of [Article II]."[471] "The Constitution for purposes of appointment very clearly divides all its officers into two classes. The primary class requires a nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. But foreseeing that when offices became numerous, and sudden removals necessary, this mode might be inconvenient, it was provided that, in regard to officers inferior to those specially mentioned, Congress might by law vest their appointment in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. That all persons who can be said to hold an office under the government about to be established under the Constitution were intended to be included within one or the other of these modes of appointment there can be but little doubt."[472] The Court, in Edmond v. United States,[473] reviewed its pronouncements regarding the definition of "inferior officer" and, disregarding some implications of its prior decisions, seemingly settled, unanimously, on a pragmatic characterization. Thus, the importance of the responsibilities assigned an officer, the fact that duties were limited, that jurisdiction was narrow, and that tenure was limited, are only factors but are not definitive.[474] "Generally speaking, the term 'inferior officer' connotes a relationship with some higher ranking officer or officers below the President: Whether one is an 'inferior' officer depends on whether he has a superior. It is not enough that other officers may be identified who formally maintain a higher rank, or possess responsibilities of a greater magnitude. If that were the intention, the Constitution might have used the phrase 'lesser officer.' Rather, in the context of a Clause designed to preserve political accountability relative to important Government assignments, we think it evident that 'inferior officers' are officers whose work is directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate."[475]
Thus, officers who are not "inferior Officers" are principal officers who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate in order to make sure that all the business of the Executive will be conducted under the supervision of officers appointed by the President with Senate approval.[476] Further, the Framers intended to limit the "diffusion" of the appointing power with respect to inferior officers in order to promote accountability. "The Framers understood . . . that by limiting the appointment power, they could ensure that those who wielded it were accountable to political force and the will of the people....
The Appointments Clause prevents Congress from distributing power too widely by limiting the actors in whom Congress may vest the power to appoint. The Clause reflects our Framers' conclusion that widely distributed appointment power subverts democratic government. Given the inexorable presence of the administrative state, a holding that every organ in the executive Branch is a department would multiply the number of actors eligible to appoint."[477]
Yet, even agreed on the principle, the Freytag Court split 5-to-4 on the reason for the permissibility of the Chief Judge of the Tax Court to appoint special trial judges. The entire Court agreed that the Tax Court had to be either a "department" or a "court of law" in order for the authority to be exercised by the Chief Judge, and it unanimously agreed that the statutory provision was constitutional. But there agreement ended. The majority was of the opinion that the Tax Court could not be a department, but it was unclear what those Justices thought a department comprehended. Seemingly, it started from the premise that departments were those parts of the executive establishment called departments and headed by a cabinet officer.[478] Yet, the Court continued immediately to say: "Confining the term 'Heads of Departments' in the Appointments Clause to executive divisions like the Cabinet- level departments constrains the distribution of the appointment power just as the [IRS] Commissioner's interpretation, in contrast, would diffuse it. The Cabinet-level departments are limited in number and easily identified. The heads are subject to the exercise of political oversight and share the President's accountability to the people".[479] The use of the word "like" in this passage suggests that it is not just Cabinet-headed departments that are departments but also entities that are similar to them in some way, and its reservation of the validity of investing appointing power in the heads of some unnamed entities, as well as its observation that the term "Heads of Departments" does not embrace "inferior commissioners and bureau officers" all contribute to an amorphous conception of the term.[480] In the end, the Court sustained the challenged provision by holding that the Tax Court as an Article I court was a "Court of Law" within the meaning of the appointments clause.[481] The other four Justices concluded that the Tax Court, as an independent establishment in the executive branch, was a "department" for purposes of the appointments clause. In their view, in the context of text and practice, the term meant, not Cabinet-level departments, but "all independent executive establishments," so that "'Heads of Departments' includes the heads of all agencies immediately below the President in the organizational structure of the Executive Branch."[482]
The Freytag decision must be considered a tentative rather than a settled construction.[483]
The close division of the Court means that new Court appointments, some of which have already occurred, could change the construction.
As noted, the appointments clause also authorizes Congress to vest the power in "Courts of Law." Must the power to appoint when lodged in courts be limited to those officers acting in the judicial branch, as the Court first suggested?[484] No, the Court has said more recently. In Ex parte Siebold,[485] the Court sustained Congress' decision to vest in courts the appointment of federal election supervisors, charged with preventing fraud and rights violations in congressional elections in the South, and disavowed any thought that interbranch appointments could not be authorized under the clause. A special judicial division was authorized to appoint independent counsels to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute charges of corruption in the executive, and the Court, in near unanimity, sustained the law, denying that interbranch appointments, in and of themselves, and leaving aside more precise separation-of-powers claims, were improper under the clause.[486]
Congressional Regulation of Conduct in Office
Congress has very broad powers in regulating the conduct in office of officers and employees of the United States, and this authority extends to regulation of political activities. By an act passed in 1876, it prohibited "all executive officers or employees of the United States not appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, . . . from requesting, giving to, or receiving from, any other officer or employee of the Government, any money or property or other thing of value for political purposes."[487] The validity of this measure having been sustained,[488] the substance of it, with some elaborations, was incorporated in the Civil Service Act of 1883.[489] The Lloyd-La Follette Act in 1912 began the process of protecting civil servants from unwarranted or abusive removal by codifying "just cause" standards previously embodied in presidential orders, defining "just causes" as those that would promote the "efficiency of the service."[490] Substantial changes in the civil service system were instituted by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which abolished the Civil Service Commission, and divided its responsibilities, its management and administrative duties to the Office of Personnel Management and its review and protective functions to the Merit Systems Protection Board.[491]
By the Hatch Act,[492] all persons in the executive branch of the Government, or any department or agency thereof, except the President and Vice President and certain "policy determining" officers, were forbidden to "take an active part in political management or political campaigns," although they were still permitted to "express their opinions on all political subjects and candidates." In United Public Workers v. Mitchell,[493] these provisions were upheld as "reasonable" against objections based on the First, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments.
The Loyalty Issue
By section 9A of the Hatch Act of 1939, federal employees were disqualified from accepting or holding any position in the Government or the District of Columbia if they belonged to an organization that they knew advocated the overthrow of our constitutional form of government.[494] The 79th Congress followed up this provision with a rider to its appropriation acts forbidding the use of any appropriated funds to pay the salary of any person who advocated, or belonged to an organization which advocated the overthrow of the Government by force, or of any person who engaged in a strike or who belonged to an organization which asserted the right to strike against the Government.[495]These provisos ultimately wound up in permanent law requiring all government employees to take oaths disclaiming either disloyalty or strikes as a device for dealing with the Government as an employer.[496] Along with the loyalty-security programs initiated by President Truman[497] and carried forward by President Eisenhower,[498] these measures reflected the Cold War era and the fear of subversion and espionage following the disclosures of several such instances here and abroad.[499]
Financial Disclosure and Limitations
By the Ethics in Government Act of 1978,[500]Congress required high-level federal personnel to make detailed, annual disclosures of their personal financial affairs.[501] The aims of the legislation are to enhance public confidence in government, to demonstrate the high level of integrity of government employees, to deter and detect conflicts of interest, to discourage individuals with questionable sources of income from entering government, and to facilitate public appraisal of government employees' performance in light of their personal financial interests.[502] Despite the assertions of some that employee privacy interests are needlessly invaded by the breadth of disclosures, to date judicial challenges have been unsuccessful, absent even a Supreme Court review.[503] One provision, however, generated much opposition, and was invalidated. Under § 501(b) of the Ethics in Government Act,[504] there is imposed a ban on Members of Congress or any officer or employee of the Government, regardless of salary level, taking any "honorarium," which is defined as "a payment of money or anything of value for an appearance, speech or article (including a series of appearances, speeches, or articles if the subject matter is directly related to the individual's official duties or the payment is made because of the individual's status with the Government) . . . ."[505] The statute, even interpreted in accordance with the standards applicable to speech restrictions on government employees, has been held to be overbroad and not sufficiently tailored to serve the governmental interest to be promoted by it.[506]
Legislation Increasing Duties of an Officer
Finally, Congress may "increase the powers and duties of an existing office without thereby rendering it necessary that the incumbent should be again nominated and appointed." Such legislation does not constitute an attempt by Congress to seize the appointing power.[507]
Stages of Appointment Process
Nomination
The Constitution appears to distinguish three stages in appointments by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The first is the "nomination" of the candidate by the President alone; the second is the assent of the Senate to the candidate's "appointment;" and the third is the final appointment and commissioning of the appointee, by the President.[508]
Senate Approval
The fact that the power of nomination belongs to the President alone prevents the Senate from attaching conditions to its approval of an appointment, such as it may do to its approval of a treaty. In the words of an early opinion of the Attorney General: "The Senate cannot originate an appointment. Its constitutional action is confined to the simple affirmation or rejection of the President's nominations, and such nominations fail whenever it rejects them. The Senate may suggest conditions and limitations to the President, but it cannot vary those submitted by him, for no appointment can be made except on his nomination, agreed to without qualifications or alteration."[509] This view is borne out by early opinion,[510] as well as by the record of practice under the Constitution.
When Senate Consent Is Complete
Early in January, 1931, the Senate requested President Hoover to return its resolution notifying him that it advised and consented to certain nominations to the Federal Power Commission. In support of its action the Senate invoked a long-standing rule permitting a motion to reconsider a resolution confirming a nomination within "the next two days of actual executive session of the Senate" and the recall of the notification to the President of the confirmation. The nominees involved having meantime taken the oath of office and entered upon the discharge of their duties, the President responded with a refusal, saying: "I cannot admit the power in the Senate to encroach upon the executive functions by removal of a duly appointed executive officer under the guise of reconsideration of his nomination." The Senate thereupon voted to reconsider the nominations in question, again approving two of the nominees, but rejecting the third, against whom it instructed the District Attorney of the District of Columbia to institute quo warranto proceedings in the Supreme Court of the District. In United States v. Smith,[511] the Supreme Court overruled the proceedings on the ground that the Senate had never before attempted to apply its rule in the case of an appointee who had already been installed in office on the faith of the Senate's initial consent and notification to the President. In 1939, President Roosevelt rejected a similar demand by the Senate, an action that went unchallenged.[512]
The Removal Power
The Myers Case
Save for the provision which it makes for a power of impeachment of "civil officers of the United States," the Constitution contains no reference to a power to remove from office, and until its decision in Myers v. United States,[513] on October 25, 1926, the Supreme Court had contrived to sidestep every occasion for a decisive pronouncement regarding the removal power, its extent, and location. The point immediately at issue in the Myers case was the effectiveness of an order of the Postmaster General, acting by direction of the President, to remove from office a first-class postmaster, in the face of the following provision of an act of Congress passed in 1876: "Postmasters of the first, second, and third classes shall be appointed and may be removed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and shall hold their offices for four years unless sooner removed or suspended according to law."[514]
A divided Court, speaking through Chief Justice Taft, held the order of removal valid and the statutory provision just quoted void. The Chief Justice's main reliance was on the so- called "decision of 1789," the reference being to Congress' course that year in inserting in the act establishing the Department of State a proviso which was meant to imply recognition that the Secretary would be removable by the President at will. The proviso was especially urged by Madison, who invoked in support of it the opening words of Article II and the President's duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Succeeding passages of the Chief Justice's opinion erected on this basis a highly selective account of doctrine and practice regarding the removal power down to the Civil War, which was held to yield the following results: "That article II grants to the President the executive power of the Government, i.e., the general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officers-a conclusion confirmed by his obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed; that article II excludes the exercise of legislative power by Congress to provide for appointments and removals, except only as granted therein to Congress in the matter of inferior offices; that Congress is only given power to provide for appointments and removals of inferior officers after it has vested, and on condition that it does vest, their appointment in other authority than the President with the Senate's consent; that the provisions of the second section of Article II, which blend action by the legislative branch, or by part of it, in the work of the executive, are limitations to be strictly construed and not to be extended by implication; that the President's power of removal is further established as an incident to his specifically enumerated function of appointment by and with the advice of the Senate, but that such incident does not by implication extend to removals the Senate's power of checking appointments; and finally that to hold otherwise would make it impossible for the President, in case of political or other differences with the Senate or Congress, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed."[515]
The holding in the Myers case boils down to the proposition that the Constitution endows the President with an illimitable power to remove all officers in whose appointment he has participated with the exception of judges of the United States. The motivation of the holding was not, it may be assumed, any ambition on the Chief Justice's part to set history aright-or awry.[516] Rather, it was the concern that he voiced in the following passage in his opinion: "There is nothing in the Constitution which permits a distinction between the removal of the head of a department or a bureau, when he discharges a political duty of the President or exercises his discretion, and the removal of executive officers engaged in the discharge of their other normal duties. The imperative reasons requiring an unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates in their most important duties must, therefore, control the interpretation of the Constitution as to all appointed by him."[517]Thus spoke the former President Taft, and the result of his prepossession was a rule which, as was immediately pointed out, exposed the so-called "independent agencies," the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the like, to presidential domination. Unfortunately, the Chief Justice, while professing to follow Madison's leadership, had omitted to weigh properly the very important observation which the latter had made at the time regarding the office of Comptroller of the Treasury. "The Committee," said Madison, "has gone through the bill without making any provision respecting the tenure by which the comptroller is to hold his office. I think it is a point worthy of consideration, and shall, therefore, submit a few observations upon it. It will be necessary to consider the nature of this office, to enable us to come to a right decision on the subject; in analyzing its properties, we shall easily discover they are of a judiciary quality as well as the executive; perhaps the latter obtains in the greatest degree. The principal duty seems to be deciding upon the lawfulness and justice of the claims and accounts subsisting between the United States and particular citizens: this partakes strongly of the judicial character, and there may be strong reasons why an officer of this kind should not hold his office at the pleasure of the executive branch of the government."[518] In Humphrey's Executor v. United States,[519] the Court seized upon "the nature of the office" concept and applied it as a corrective to the overbroad Myers holding.
The Humphrey Case
The material element of Humphrey's Executor was that Humphrey, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, was on October 7, 1933, notified by President Roosevelt that he was "removed" from office, the reason being their divergent views of public policy. In due course, Humphrey sued for salary. Distinguishing the Myers case, Justice Sutherland, speaking for the unanimous Court, said: "A postmaster is an executive officer restricted to the performance of executive functions. He is charged with no duty at all related to either the legislative or judicial power. The actual decision in the Myers case finds support in the theory that such an office is merely one of the units in the executive department and, hence, inherently subject to the exclusive and illimitable power of removal by the Chief Executive, whose subordinate and aide he is.... It goes no farther; much less does it include an officer who occupies no place in the executive department and who exercises no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President."
"The Federal Trade Commission is an administrative body created by Congress to carry into effect legislative policies embodied in the statute.... Such a body cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or eye of the executive. Its duties are performed without executive leave and, in the contemplation of the statute, must be free from executive control.... We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President in respect of officers of the character of those just named, [the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Court of Claims]. The authority of Congress, in creating quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies, to require them to act in discharge of their duties independently of executive control cannot well be doubted; and that authority includes, as an appropriate incident, power to fix the period during which they shall continue in office, and to forbid their removal except for cause in the meantime. For it is quite evident that one who holds his office only during the pleasure of another, cannot be depended upon to maintain an attitude of independence against the latter's will... ."
"The result of what we now have said is this: Whether the power of the President to remove an officer shall prevail over the authority of Congress to condition the power by fixing a definite term and precluding a removal except for cause, will depend upon the character of the office; the Myers decision, affirming the power of the President alone to make the removal, is confined to purely executive officers; and as to officers of the kind here under consideration, we hold that no removal can be made during the prescribed term for which the officer is appointed, except for one or more of the causes named in the applicable statute."[520]
The Wiener Case
Curtailment of the President's power of removal, so liberally delineated in the Myers decision, was not to end with the Humphrey case. Unresolved by the latter was the question whether the President, absent a provision expressly delimiting his authority in the statute creating an agency endowed with quasi-judicial functions, remained competent to remove members serving thereon. To this query the Court supplied a negative answer in Wiener v. United States.[521] Emphasizing therein that the duties of the War Claims Commission were wholly adjudicatory and its determinations, final and exempt from review by any other official or judicial body, the Court unanimously concluded that inasmuch as the President was unable to supervise its activities, he lacked the power, independently of statutory authorization, to remove a commissioner serving thereon whose term expired with the life of that agency.
The Watergate Controversy
A dispute arose regarding the discharge of the Special Prosecutor appointed to investigate and prosecute violations of law in the Watergate matter. Congress vested in the Attorney General the power to conduct the criminal litigation of the Federal Government,[522] and it further authorized him to appoint subordinate officers to assist him in the discharge of his duties.[523] Pursuant to presidential direction, the Attorney General designated a Watergate Special Prosecutor with broad power to investigate and prosecute offenses arising out of the Watergate break-in, the 1972 presidential election, and allegations involving the President, members of the White House staff, or presidential appointees. He was to remain in office until a date mutually agreed upon between the Attorney General and himself, and the regulations provided that the Special Prosecutor "will not be removed from his duties except for extraordinary improprieties on his part."[524]On October 20, following the resignations of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, the Solicitor General as Acting Attorney General formally dismissed the Special Prosecutor[525] and three days later rescinded the regulation establishing the office.[526] In subsequent litigation, a federal district court held that the firing by the Acting Attorney General had violated the regulations, which were in force at the time and which had to be followed until they were rescinded.[527] The Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon[528]seemed to confirm this analysis by the district court in upholding the authority of the new Special Prosecutor to take the President to court to obtain evidence in the President's possession. Left unsettled were two questions, the power of the President himself to go over the heads of his subordinates and to fire the Special Prosecutor himself, whatever the regulations said, and the power of Congress to enact legislation establishing an Office of Special Prosecutor free from direction and control of the President.[529] When Congress acted to create an office, first called the Special Prosecutor and then the Independent Counsel, resolution of the question became necessary.
The Removal Power Rationalized
The tension that had long been noticed between Myers and Humphrey's Executor, at least in terms of the language used in those cases but also to some extent in their holdings, appears to have been ameliorated by two decisions, which purport to reconcile the cases but, more important, purport to establish, in the latter case, a mode of analysis for resolving separation-of-powers disputes respecting the removal of persons appointed under the Appointments Clause.[530] Myers actually struck down only a law involving the Senate in the removal of postmasters, but the broad-ranging opinion had long stood for the proposition that inherent in the President's obligation to see to the faithful execution of the laws was his right to remove any executive officer as a means of discipline. Humphrey's Executor had qualified this proposition by upholding "for cause" removal restrictions for members of independent regulatory agencies, at least in part on the assertion that they exercised "quasi-" legislative and adjudicative functions as well as some form of executive function. Maintaining the holding of the latter case was essential to retaining the independent agencies, but the emphasis upon the execution of the laws as a core executive function in recent cases had cast considerable doubt on the continuing validity of Humphrey's Executor.
In Bowsher v. Synar,[531] the Court held that when Congress itself retains the power to remove an official it could not vest him with the exercise of executive power. Invalidated in Synar were provisions of the l985 "Gramm-Rudman-Hollings" Deficit Control Act[532]vesting in the Comptroller General authority to prepare a detailed report on projected federal revenue and expenditures and to determine mandatory across-the-board cuts in federal expenditures necessary to reduce the projected budget deficit by statutory targets. By a l921 statute, the Comptroller General was removable by joint congressional resolution for, inter alia, "inefficiency," "neglect of duty," or "malfeasance." "These terms are very broad," the Court noted, and "could sustain removal of a Comptroller General for any number of actual or perceived transgressions of the legislative will." Consequently, the Court determined, "the removal powers over the Comptroller General's office dictate that he will be subservient to Congress."[533]
Relying expressly upon Myers, the Court concluded that "Congress cannot reserve for itself the power of removal of an officer charged with the execution of the laws except by impeachment."[534] But Humphrey's Executor was also cited with approval, and to the contention that invalidation of this law would cast doubt on the status of the independent agencies the Court rejoined that the statutory measure of the independence of those agencies was the assurance of "for cause" removal by the President rather than congressional involvement as in the instance of the Comptroller General.[535] This reconciliation of Myers and Humphrey's Executor was made clear and express in Morrison v. Olson.[536]
That case sustained the independent counsel statute.[537] Under that law, the independent counsel, appointed by a special court upon application by the Attorney General, may be removed by the Attorney General "only for good cause, physical disability, mental incapacity, or any other condition that substantially impairs the performance of such independent counsel's duties." Inasmuch as the counsel was clearly exercising "purely" executive duties, in the sense that term was used in Myers, it was urged that Myers governed and required the invalidation of the statute. But, said the Court, Myers stood only for the proposition that Congress could not involve itself in the removal of executive officers. Its broad dicta that the President must be able to remove at will officers performing "purely" executive functions had not survived Humphrey's Executor. It was true, the Court admitted, that, in the latter case, it had distinguished between "purely" executive officers and officers who exercise "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial" powers in marking the line between officials who may be presidentially removed at will and officials who can be protected through some form of good cause removal limits. "[B]ut our present considered view is that the determination of whether the Constitution allows Congress to impose a 'good cause'-type restriction on the President's power to remove an official cannot be made to turn on whether or not that official is classified as 'purely executive.' The analysis contained in our removal cases is designed not to define rigid categories of those officials who may or may not be removed at will by the President, but to ensure that Congress does not interfere with the President's exercise of the 'executive power' and his constitutionally appointed duty to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed' under Article II. Myers was undoubtedly correct in its holding, and in its broader suggestion that there are some 'purely executive' officials who must be removable by the President at will if he is to be able to accomplish his constitutional role.... At the other end of the spectrum from Myers, the characterization of the agencies in Humphrey's Executor and Wiener as 'quasi- legislative' or 'quasi-judicial' in large part reflected our judgment that it was not essential to the President's proper execution of his Article II powers that these agencies be headed up by individuals who were removable at will. We do not mean to suggest that an analysis of the functions served by the officials at issue is irrelevant. But the real question is whether the removal restrictions are of such a nature that they impede the President's ability to perform his constitutional duty, and the functions of the officials in question must be analyzed in that light."[538]
The Court discerned no compelling reason to find the good cause limit to interfere with the President's performance of his duties. The independent counsel did exercise executive, law- enforcement functions, but the jurisdiction and tenure of each counsel were limited in scope and policymaking, or significant administrative authority was lacking. On the other hand, the removal authority did afford the President through the Attorney General power to ensure the "faithful execution" of the laws by assuring that the counsel is competently performing the statutory duties of the office.
It is now thus reaffirmed that Congress may not involve itself in the removal of officials performing executive functions. It is also established that, in creating offices in the executive branch and in creating independent agencies, Congress has considerable discretion in statutorily limiting the power to remove of the President or another appointing authority. It is evident on the face of the opinion that the discretion is not unbounded, that there are offices which may be essential to the President's performance of his constitutionally assigned powers and duties, so that limits on removal would be impermissible. There are no bright lines marking off one office from the other, but decision requires close analysis.[539]
As a result of these cases, the long-running controversy with respect to the legitimacy of the independent agencies appears to have been settled,[540] although it appears likely that the controversies with respect to congressional-presidential assertions of power in executive agency matters are only beginning.
Other Phases of Presidential Removal Power
Congress may "limit and restrict the power of removal as it deems best for the public interest" in the case of inferior officers.[541]However, in the absence of specific legislative provision to the contrary, the President may remove at his discretion an inferior officer whose term is limited by statute,[542] or one appointed with the consent of the Senate.[543] He may remove an officer of the army or navy at any time by nominating to the Senate the officer's successor, provided the Senate approves the nomination.[544] In 1940, the President was sustained in removing Dr. E. A. Morgan from the chairmanship of TVA for refusal to produce evidence in substantiation of charges which he had levelled at his fellow directors.[545] Although no such cause of removal by the President was stated in the act creating TVA, the President's action, being reasonably required to promote the smooth functioning of TVA, was within his duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." So interpreted, the removal did not violate the principle of administrative independence.
The Presidential Aegis: Demands for Papers
Presidents have more than once had occasion to stand in a protective relation to their subordinates, assuming their defense in litigation brought against them[546] or pressing litigation in their behalf,[547] refusing a congressional call for papers which might be used, in their absence from the seat of government, to their disadvantage,[548] challenging the constitutional validity of legislation deemed detrimental to their interests.[549] Presidents throughout our history have attempted to spread their own official immunity to their subordinates by resisting actions of the courts or of congressional committees to require subordinates to divulge communications from or to the President that Presidents choose to regard as confidential. Only recently, however, has the focus of the controversy shifted from protection of presidential or executive interests to protection of the President himself, and the locus of the dispute shifted to the courts.
Following years in which claims of executive privilege were resolved in primarily interbranch disputes on the basis of the political strengths of the parties, the issue finally became subject to judicial elaboration. The doctrine of executive privilege was at once recognized as existing and having a constitutional foundation while at the same time it was definitely bounded in its assertion by the principle of judicial review. Because of these cases, because of the intensified congressional-presidential dispute, and especially because of the introduction of the issue into an impeachment proceeding, a somewhat lengthy treatment of the doctrine is called for.
Conceptually, the doctrine of executive privilege may well reflect different considerations in different factual situations. Congress may seek information within the possession of the President, either in effectuation of its investigatory powers to oversee the conduct of officials of the Executive Branch or in effectuation of its power to impeach the President, Vice President, or civil officers of the Government. Private parties may seek information in the possession of the President either in civil litigation with the Government or in a criminal proceeding brought by government prosecutors. Generally, the categories of executive privilege have been the same whether it is Congress or a private individual seeking the information, but it is possible that the congressional assertion of need may over-balance the presidential claim to a greater degree than that of a private individual. The judicial precedents are so meager yet that it is not possible so to state, however.
The doctrine of executive privilege defines the authority of the President to withhold documents or information in his possession or in the possession of the executive branch from compulsory process of the legislative or judicial branch of the government. The Constitution does not expressly confer upon the Executive Branch any such privilege, but it has been claimed that the privilege derives from the constitutional provision of separation of powers and from a necessary and proper concept respecting the carrying out of the duties of the presidency imposed by the Constitution. Historically, assertion of the doctrine has been largely confined to the areas of foreign relations, military affairs, pending investigations, and intragovernmental discussions.[550] During the Nixon Administration, the litigation involved, of course, the claim of confidentiality of conversations between the President and his aides.
Private Access to Government Information
Private parties may seek to obtain information from the Government either to assist in defense to criminal charges brought by the Government or in civil cases to use in either a plaintiff's or defendant's capacity in suits with the Government or between private parties.[551] In criminal cases, a defendant is guaranteed compulsory process to obtain witnesses by the Sixth Amendment and by the due process clause is guaranteed access to relevant exculpatory information in the possession of the prosecution.[552] Generally speaking, when the prosecution is confronted with a judicial order to turn over information to a defendant that it does not wish to make available, the prosecution has the option of dropping the prosecution and thus avoiding disclosure,[553] but that alternative may not always be available; in the Watergate prosecution, only by revoking the authority of the Special Prosecutor and bringing the cases back into the confines of the Department of Justice could this possibility have been realized.[554]
The civil type of case is illustrated in United States v. Reynolds,[555] a tort claim brought against the United States for compensation for the deaths of civilians in the crash of an Air Force plane testing secret electronics equipment. Plaintiffs sought discovery of the Air Force's investigation report on the accident, and the Government resisted on a claim of privilege as to the nondisclosure of military secrets. The Court accepted the Government's claim, holding that courts must determine whether under the circumstances the claim of privilege was appropriate without going so far as to force disclosure of the thing the privilege is designed to protect. The showing of necessity of the private litigant for the information should govern in each case how far the trial court should probe; where the necessity is strong, the court should require a strong showing of the appropriateness of the privilege claim but once satisfied of the appropriateness no matter how compelling the need the privilege prevails.[556]
Prosecutorial and Grand Jury Access to Presidential Documents
Rarely will there be situations when federal prosecutors or grand juries seek information under the control of the President, since he has ultimate direction of federal prosecuting agencies, but the Watergate Special Prosecutor, being in a unique legal situation, was held able to take the President to court to enforce subpoenas for tape recordings of presidential conversations and other documents relating to the commission of criminal actions.[557] While holding that the subpoenas were valid and should be obeyed, the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional status of executive privilege, insofar as the assertion of that privilege relates to presidential conversations and indirectly to other areas as well.
Presidential communications, the Court said, have "a presumptive privilege." "The privilege is fundamental to the operation of government and inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution." The operation of government is furthered by the protection accorded communications between high government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their duties. "A President and those who assist him must be free to explore alternatives in the process of shaping policies and making decisions and to do so in a way many would be unwilling to express except privately." The separation of powers basis derives from the conferral upon each of the branches of the Federal Government of powers to be exercised by each of them in great measure independent of the other branches. The confidentiality of presidential conversations flows then from the effectuation of enumerated powers.[558]
However, the Court continued, the privilege is not absolute. The federal courts have the power to construe and delineate claims arising under express and implied powers. Deference is owed the constitutional decisions of the other branches, but it is the function of the courts to exercise the judicial power, "to say what the law is." The Judicial Branch has the obligation to do justice in criminal prosecutions, which involves the employment of an adversary system of criminal justice in which all the probative facts, save those clearly privileged, are to be made available. Thus, while the President's claim of privilege is entitled to deference, the courts must balance two sets of interests when the claim depends solely on a broad, undifferentiated claim of confidentiality.
"In this case we must weigh the importance of the general privilege of confidentiality of presidential communications in performance of his responsibilities against the inroads of such a privilege on the fair administration of criminal justice. The interest in preserving confidentiality is weighty indeed and entitled to great respect. However we cannot conclude that advisers will be moved to temper the candor of their remarks by the infrequent occasions of disclosure because of the possibility that such conversations will be called for in the context of a criminal prosecution."
"On the other hand, the allowance of the privilege to withhold evidence that is demonstrably relevant in a criminal trial would cut deeply into the guarantee of due process of law and gravely impair the basic function of the courts. A President's acknowledged need for confidentiality in the communications of his office is general in nature, whereas the constitutional need for production of relevant evidence in a criminal proceeding is specific and central to the fair adjudication of a particular criminal case in the administration of justice. ..."
"We conclude that when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice."[559]
Obviously, this decision leaves much unresolved. It does recognize the constitutional status of executive privilege as a doctrine. It does affirm the power of the courts to resolve disputes over claims of the privilege. But it leaves unsettled just how much power the courts have to review claims of privilege to protect what are claimed to be military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets. It does not indicate what the status of the claim of confidentiality of conversations is when it is raised in civil cases; nor does it touch upon denial of information to Congress.
Neither does the Court's decision in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services[560]elucidate any of these or other questions that may be raised to any great degree. In upholding the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, which directed the Government to take custody of former President Nixon's records to be screened, catalogued, and processed by professional archivists in GSA, the Court viewed the assertion of privilege as directed only to the facial validity of the requirement of screening by executive branch professionals and not at all related to the possible public disclosure of some of the records. The decision does go beyond the first decision's recognition of the overbalancing force of the necessity for disclosure in criminal trials to find "comparable" "adequate justifications" for congressional enactment of the law, including the preservation of the materials for legitimate historical and governmental purposes, the rationalization of preservation and access to public needs as well as each President's wishes, the preservation of the materials as a source for facilitating a full airing of the events leading to the former President's resignation for public and congressional understanding, and preservation for the light shed upon issues in civil or criminal litigation. While interestingly instructive, the decision may be so attuned to the narrow factual circumstances that led to the Act's passage as to leave the case of little value as precedent.
Public disclosure was at issue in 2004 when the Court weighed a claim of executive privilege asserted as a bar to discovery orders for information disclosing the identities of individuals who served on an energy task force chaired by the Vice President.[27] Although the case was remanded on narrow technical grounds, the Court distinguished United States v. Nixon,[28] and, in instructing the appeals court on how to proceed, emphasized the importance of confidentiality for advice tendered the President.[29]
Congressional Access to Executive Branch Information
Presidents and Congresses have engaged in protracted disputes over provision of information from the former to the latter, but the basic thing to know is that most congressional requests for information are complied with. The disputes, however, have been colorful and varied.[561] The basic premise of the concept of executive privilege, as it is applied to resist requests for information from Congress as from private parties with or without the assistance of the courts, is found in the doctrine of separation of powers, the prerogative of each coequal branch to operate within its own sphere independent of control or direction of the other branches. In this context, the President then asserts that phase of the claim of privilege relevant to the moment, such as confidentiality of communications, protection of diplomatic and military secrets, or preservation of investigative records. Counterposed against this assertion of presidential privilege is the power of Congress to obtain information upon which to legislate, to oversee the carrying out of its legislation, to check and root out corruption and wrongdoing in the Executive Branch, involving both the legislating and appropriating function of Congress, and in the final analysis to impeach the President, the Vice President, and all civil officers of the Federal Government.
Until quite recently, all disputes between the President and Congress with regard to requests for information were settled in the political arena, with the result that few if any lasting precedents were created and only disputed claims were left to future argument. The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, however, elected to seek a declaratory judgment in the courts with respect to the President's obligations to obey its subpoenas. The Committee lost its case, but the courts based their rulings upon prudential considerations rather than upon questions of basic power, inasmuch as by the time the case was considered impeachment proceedings were pending in the House of Representatives.[562] The House Judiciary Committee subpoenas were similarly rejected by the President, but instead of going to the courts for enforcement, the Committee adopted as one of its Articles of Impeachment the refusal of the President to honor its subpoenas.[563]Congress has considered bills by which Congress would authorize congressional committees to go to court to enforce their subpoenas; the bills did not purport to define executive privilege, although some indicate a standard by which the federal court is to determine whether the material sought is lawfully being withheld from Congress.[564] The controversy gives little indication at the present time of abating, and it may be assumed that whenever the Executive and Congress are controlled by different political parties there will be persistent conflicts. One may similarly assume that the alteration of this situation would only reduce but not remove the disagreements.
Clause 3. Vacancies during Recess of Senate
Clause 3. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Recess Appointments
Setting out from the proposition that the very nature of the executive power requires that it shall always be "in capacity for action," Attorneys General early came to interpret the word "happen" in the phrase "all vacancies that may happen" to mean "happen to exist," and long continued practice securely establishes this construction. It results that whenever a vacancy may have occurred in the first instance, or for whatever reason, if it still continues after the Senate has ceased to sit and so cannot be consulted, the President may fill it in the way described.[565] But a Senate "recess" does not include holidays, or very brief temporary adjournments,[566] while by an act of Congress, if the vacancy existed when the Senate was in session, the ad interim appointee, subject to certain exemptions, may receive no salary until he has been confirmed by the Senate.[567]
Judicial Appointments
Federal judges clearly fall within the terms of the recess-appointments clause. But, unlike with other offices, a problem exists. Article III judges are appointed "during good behavior," subject only to removal through impeachment. A judge, however, who is given a recess appointment may be "removed" by the Senate's failure to advise and consent to his appointment; moreover, on the bench, prior to Senate confirmation, she may be subject to influence not felt by other judges. Nonetheless, a constitutional attack upon the status of a federal district judge, given a recess appointment and then withdrawn as a nominee, was rejected by a federal court.[568]
Ad Interim Designations
To be distinguished from the power to make recess appointments is the power of the President to make temporary or ad interim designations of officials to perform the duties of other absent officials. Usually such a situation is provided for in advance by a statute which designates the inferior officer who is to act in place of his immediate superior. But in the lack of such provision, both theory and practice concede the President the power to make the designation.[569]
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[111] May, The President Shall Be Commander in Chief, in THE ULTIMATE DECISION-THE PRESIDENT AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF (E. May ed., 1960), 1. In the Virginia ratifying convention, Madison, replying to Patrick Henry's objection that danger lurked in giving the President control of the military, said: "Would the honorable member say that the sword ought to be put in the hands of the representatives of the people, or in other hands independent of the government altogether?" 3 J. ELLIOT, THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS ON THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 393 (1836). In the North Carolina convention, Iredell said: "From the nature of the thing, the command of armies ought to be delegated to one person only. The secrecy, dispatch, and decision, which are necessary in military operations can only be expected from one person." 4 id. at 107.
[112] THE FEDERALIST, No. 69 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 465.
[113] 3 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1486 (1833).
[114] Fleming v. Page, 50 U.S. (9 How.) 603 , 615 , 618 (1850).
[115] Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 , 139 (1866).
[116] 1 Stat. 424 (1795): 2 Stat. 443 (1807), now 10 U.S.C. §§ 331-334. See also Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 19 , 32 -33 (1827), asserting the finality of the President's judgment of the existence of a state of facts requiring his exercise of the powers conferred by the act of 1795.
[117] 7 J. Richardson, supra at 3221, 3232.
[118] 67 U.S. (2 Bl.) 635 (1863).
[119] 7 J. Richardson, supra at 3215, 3216, 3481.
[120] 67 U.S. (2 Bl.) at 668-70.
[121] See generally, E. CORWIN, TOTAL WAR AND THE CONSTITUTION (1946).
[122] 12 Stat. 326 (1861).
[123] J. RANDALL, CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS UNDER LINCOLN 118-139 (rev. ed. 1951).
[124] E.g., Attorney General Biddle's justification of seizure of a plant during World War II: "As Chief Executive and as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, the President possesses an aggregate of powers that are derived from the Constitution and from various statutes enacted by the Congress for the purpose of carrying on the war.... In time of war when the existence of the nation is at stake, this aggregate of powers includes authority to take reasonable steps to prevent nation-wide labor disturbances that threaten to interfere seriously with the conduct of the war. The fact that the initial impact of these disturbances is on the production or distribution of essential civilian goods is not a reason for denying the Chief Executive and the Commander-in- Chief of the Army and Navy the power to take steps to protect the nation's war effort." 40 Ops. Atty. Gen. 312, 319-320 (1944). Prior to the actual beginning of hostilities, Attorney General Jackson asserted the same justification upon seizure of an aviation plant. E. CORWIN, TOTAL WAR AND THE CONSTITUTION 47-48 (1946).
[125] 56 Stat. 23 (1942).
[126] 88 CONG. REC. 7044 (1942). Congress promptly complied, 56 Stat. 765 (1942), so that the President was not required to act on his own. But see E. Corwin, supra, 65-66.
[127] For a listing of the agencies and an account of their creation to the close of 1942, see Vanderbilt, War Powers and Their Administration, in 1942 ANNUAL SURVEY OF AMERICAN LAW 106 (New York Univ.).
[128] 143 F.2d 145 (D.C. Cir. 1944).
[129] 143 F.2d at 149.
[130] E. Corwin, supra at 244, 245, 459.
[131] E.O. 9066, 7 FED. REG. 1407 (1942).
[132] 56 Stat. 173 (1942).
[133] Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 , 91 -92 (1943).
[134] Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). Long afterward, in 1984, a federal court granted a writ of coram nobis and overturned Korematsu's conviction, Korematsu v. United States, 584 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D.Cal. 1984), and in 1986, a federal court vacated Hirabayashi's conviction for failing to register for evacuation but let stand the conviction for curfew violations. Hirabayashi v. United States, 627 F. Supp. 1445 (W.D.Wash. 1986). Other cases were pending, but Congress then implemented the recommendations of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians by acknowledging "the fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation and internment," and apologizing on behalf of the people of the United States. P. L. 100-383, 102 Stat. 903, 50 U.S.C. App. § 1989 et seq. Reparations were approved, and each living survivor of the internment was to be compensated in an amount roughly approximating $20,000.
[135] E.O. 8773, 6 Fed. Reg. 2777 (1941).
[136] E. CORWIN, TOTAL WAR AND THE CONSTITUTION 47-48 (1946).
[137] 7 Fed. Reg. 237 (1942).
[138] 57 Stat. 163 (1943).
[139] See Vanderbilt, War Powers and their Administration, in 1945 ANNUAL SURVEY OF AMERICAN LAW 254, 271-273 (N.Y. Univ.).
[140] E.O. 9370, 8 Fed. Reg. 11463 (1943).
[141] 56 Stat. 23 (1942).
[142] 322 U.S. 398 (1944).
[143] 322 U.S. at 404-05.
[144] E. Corwin, supra at 249-250.
[145] Proc. 2714, 12 Fed. Reg. 1 (1947).
[146] S.J. Res. 123, 61 Stat. 449 (1947).
[147] Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co., 333 U.S. 138 , 140 n.3 (1948).
[148] 61 Stat. 193 (1947).
[149] 62 Stat. 604 (1948).
[150] Defense Production Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 798.
[151] E.O. 10161, 15 Fed. Reg. 6105 (1950).
[152] 333 U.S. 138 (1948).
[153] 333 U.S. at 143-44.
[154] 333 U.S. at 146-47.
[155] 335 U.S. 160 (1948).
[156] See A. KELLY & W. HARBISON, THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION-ITS ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT ch. 31 (4th ed. 1970).
[157] Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).
[158] § 301(1), 55 Stat. 838, 839-840 (1941).
[159] 91 Stat. 1626, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701-1706.
[160] Congress authorized the declaration of a national emergency based only on "any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or the economy of the United States ... ." 50 U.S.C. § 1701.
[161] P. L. 94-412, 90 Stat. 1255 (1976).
[162] See the discussion in National Commitments Resolution, Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, S. Rep. No. 91-129, 91st Congress, 1st sess. (1969); U.S. Commitments to Foreign Powers: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 90th Congress, 1st sess. (1967), 16-19 (Professor Bartlett).
[163] See under Article I, § 8, cls. 11-14.
[164] J. Clark, Memorandum by the Solicitor for the Department of State, in RIGHT TO PROTECT CITIZENS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES BY LANDING FORCES (1912).
[165] Id., (Washington: 1929; 1934); M. OFFUTT, THE PROTECTION OF CITIZENS ABROAD BY THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES (1928); J. ROGERS, WORLD POLICING AND THE CONSTITUTION (1945). The burden of the last cited volume was to establish that the President was empowered to participate in United Nations peacekeeping actions without having to seek congressional authorization on each occasion; it may be said to be one of the earliest, if not the earliest, propoundings of the doctrine of inherent presidential powers to use troops abroad outside the narrow compass traditionally accorded those powers.
[166] E.g., H. Rep. No. 127, 82d Congress, 1st Sess. (1951), 55-62; Corwin, Who Has the Power to Make War? NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (July 31, 1949), 11; Authority of the President to Repel the Attack in Korea, 23 DEPT. STATE BULL. 173 (1950); Department of State, Historical Studies Division, Armed Actions Taken by the United States Without a Declaration of War, 1789-1967 (Res. Proj. No. 806A (Washington: 1967)). That the compilation of such lists was more than a defense against public criticism can be gleaned from a revealing discussion in Secretary of State Acheson's memoirs detailing why the President did not seek congressional sanction for sending troops to Korea. "There has never, I believe, been any serious doubt-in the sense of non politically inspired doubt-of the President's constitutional authority to do what he did. The basis for this conclusion in legal theory and historical precedent was fully set out in the State Department's memorandum of July 3, 1950, extensively published. But the wisdom of the decision not to ask for congressional approval has been doubted... ."
After discussing several reasons establishing the wisdom of the decision, the Secretary continued: "The President agreed, moved also, I think, by another passionately held conviction. His great office was to him a sacred and temporary trust, which he was determined to pass on unimpaired by the slightest loss of power or prestige. This attitude would incline him strongly against any attempt to divert criticism from himself by action that might establish a precedent in derogation of presidential power to send our forces into battle. The memorandum that we prepared listed eighty-seven instances in the past century in which his predecessors had done this. And thus yet another decision was made." D. ACHESON, PRESENT AT THE CREATION 414, 415 (1969).
[167] War Powers Legislation: Hearings Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 92d Congress, 1st Sess. (1971), 347, 354-355, 359-379 (Senator Goldwater); Emerson, War Powers Legislation, 74 W. VA. L. REV. 53 (1972). The most complete list as of the time prepared is Collier, Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-1989, CONG. RES. SERV. (1989), which was cited for its numerical total in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 , 273 (1990). For an effort to reconstruct the development and continuation of the listings, see F. WORMUTH & E. FIRMAGE, TO CHAIN THE DOG OF WAR 142-145 (2d ed. 1989).
[168] Of course, considerable debate continues with respect to the meaning of the historical record. For reflections of the narrow reading, see National Commitments Resolution, Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, S. Rep. No. 91-129, 1st Sess. (1969); J. ELY, WAR AND RESPONSIBILITY: CONSTITUTIONAL LESSONS OF VIETNAM AND ITS AFTERMATH (1993). On the broader reading and finding great presidential power, see A. SOFAER, WAR, FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND CONSTITUTIONAL POWER: THE ORIGINS (1976); Emerson, Making War Without a Declaration, 17 J. LEGIS. 23 (1990).
[169] For some popular defenses of presidential power during the "Great Debate," see Corwin, Who Has the Power to Make War? NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (July 31, 1949), 11; Commager, Presidential Power: The Issue Analyzed, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (January 14, 1951), 11. Cf. Douglas, The Constitutional and Legal Basis for the President's Action in Using Armed Forces to Repel the Invasion of South Korea, 96 CONG. REC. 9647 (1950). President Truman and Secretary Acheson utilized the argument from the U. N. Charter in defending the United States actions in Korea, and the Charter defense has been made much of since. See, e.g., Stromseth, Rethinking War Powers: Congress, the President, and the United Nations, 81 GEO. L. J. 597 (1993).
[170] Assignment of Ground Forces of the United States to Duty in the European Area: Hearings Before the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, 82d Congress, 1st sess. (1951), 92.
[171] Meeker, The Legality of United States Participation in the Defense of Viet Nam, 54 DEPT. STATE BULL. 474, 484-485 (1966). See also Moore, The National Executive and the Use of the Armed Forces Abroad, 21 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REV. 28 (1969); Wright, The Power of the Executive to Use Military Forces Abroad, 10 VA. J. INT. L. 43 (1969); Documents Relating to the War Powers of Congress, The President's Authority as Commander-in-Chief and the War in Indochina, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 91st Congress, 2d sess. (Comm. Print) (1970), 1 (Under Secretary of State Katzenbach), 90 (J. Stevenson, Legal Adviser, Department of State), 120 (Professor Moore), 175 (Assistant Attorney General Rehnquist).
[172] E.g., F. WORMUTH & E. FIRMAGE, TO CHAIN THE DOG OF WAR (2d ed. 1989), F.; J. ELY, WAR AND RESPONSIBILITY: CONSTITUTIONAL LESSONS OF VIETNAM AND ITS AFTERMATH (1993); U.S. Commitments to Foreign Powers: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 90th Congress, 1st sess. (1967), 9 (Professor Bartlett); War Powers Legislation: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 92d Cong., 1st sess. (1971), 7 (Professor Commager), 75 (Professor Morris), 251 (Professor Mason).
[173] P.L. 93-148, 87 Stat. 555, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1541-1548. For the congressional intent and explanation, see H. Rep. No. 93-287, S. Rep. No. 93-220, and H. Rep. No. 93-547 (Conference Report), all 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973). The President's veto message is H. Doc. No. 93-171, 93d Congress. 1st Sess. (1973). All this material is collected in The War Powers Resolution-Relevant Documents, Reports, Correspondence, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. (Comm. Print) (GPO: 1994), 1-46. For a narrative account of passage and an assessment of the disputed compliance to date, from the congressional point of view, see The War Powers Resolution, A Special Study of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. (Comm. Print) (GPO: 1982).
[174] 87 Stat. 554, 2(c), 50 U.S.C. § 1541(c).
[175] Id. at § 1543(a).
[176] Id. at § 1544(b).
[177] Id. at § 1544(c). It is the general consensus that, following INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), this provision of the Resolution is unconstitutional.
[178] 50 U.S.C. § 1547(a).
[179] See the text of the reports in The War Powers Resolution-Relevant Documents, Reports, Correspondence, supra at 47 (Pres. Ford on transport of refugees from Danang), 55 (Pres. Carter on attempted rescue of Iranian hostages), 73 (Pres. Reagan on use of troops in Lebanon), 113 (Pres. Reagan on Grenada), 144 (Pres. Bush on Panama), 147, 149 (Pres. Bush on Persian Gulf), 189 (Pres. Bush on Somalia), 262 (Pres. Clinton on Haiti).
[180] See Crisis in the Persian Gulf Region: U. S. Policy Options and Implications: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 101st Cong., 2d Sess. (1990), 701 (Secretary Cheney) (President did not require "any additional authorization from the Congress" before attacking Iraq). On the day following his request for supporting legislation from Congress, President Bush, in answer to a question about the requested action, stated: "I don't think I need it.... I feel that I have the authority to fully implement the United Nations resolutions." 27 WEEKLY COMP. PRES. DOC. 25 (Jan. 8, 1991).
[181] P. L. 102-1, 105 Stat. 3.
[182] See, on proposals to amend and on congressional responsibility, J. ELY, WAR AND RESPONSIBILITY: CONSTITUTIONAL LESSONS OF VIETNAM AND ITS AFTERMATH (1993).
[183] For a review of how several wartime Presidents have operated in this sphere, see THE ULTIMATE DECISION-THE PRESIDENT AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF (E. May ed., 1960).
[184] Fleming v. Page, 50 U.S. (9 How.) 603 , 615 (1850).
[185] Madsen v. Kinsella, 343 U.S. 341 , 348 (1952). See also Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 , 789 (1950).
[186] Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105 (1876).
[187] Hamilton v. Dillin, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 73 (1875); Haver v. Yaker, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 32 (1869).
[188] Mitchell v. Harmony, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 115 (1852); United States v. Russell, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 623 (1871); Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105 (1876); 40 Ops. Atty. Gen. 250, 253 (1942).
[189] Cf. the Protocol of August 12, 1898, which largely foreshadowed the Peace of Paris, 30 Stat. 1742 and President Wilson's Fourteen Points, which were incorporated in the Armistice of November 11, 1918.
[190] Fleming v. Page, 50 U.S. (9 How.) 603 , 615 (1850).
[191] Santiago v. Nogueras, 214 U.S. 260 (1909). As to temporarily occupied territory, see Dooley v. United States, 182 U.S. 222 , 230 -231 (1901).
[192] Swaim v. United States, 165 U.S. 553 (1897); and cases there reviewed. See also Givens v. Zerbst, 255 U.S. 11 (1921).
[193] 15 Ops. Atty. Gen. 297, n; cf. 1 Ops. Atty. Gen. 233, 234, where the contrary view is stated by Attorney General Wirt.
[194] Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 , 28 -29 (1942).
[195] General Orders, No. 100, Official Records, War Rebellion, ser. III, vol. III; April 24, 1863.
[196] See, e.g., Mimmack v. United States, 97 U.S. 426 , 437 (1878); United States v. Corson, 114 U.S. 619 (1885).
[197] 10 U.S.C. § 804.
[198] Mullan v. United States, 140 U.S. 240 (1891); Wallace v. United States, 257 U.S. 541 (1922).
[199] Surrogate's Court, Duchess County, New York, ruling July 25, 1950, that the estate of Franklin D. Roosevelt was not entitled to tax benefits under sections 421 and 939 of the Internal Revenue Code, which extends certain tax benefits to persons dying in the military services of the United States. New York Times, July 26, 1950, p. 27, col. 1.
[200] C. FAIRMAN, THE LAW OF MARTIAL RULE 20-22 (1930); A. DICEY, INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION 283, 290 (5th ed. 1923).
[201] Id. at 539-44.
[202] 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1 (1849). See also Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 19 , 32 -33 (1827).
[203] 48 U.S. (7 How.) at 45.
[204] 67 U.S. (2 Bl.) 635 (1863).
[205] Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 (1866).
[206] 71 U.S. at 127.
[207] 71 U.S. at 139-40. In Ex parte Vallandigham, 68 U.S. (1 Wall.) 243 (1864), the Court had held while war was still flagrant that it had no power to review by certiorari the proceedings of a military commission ordered by a general officer of the Army, commanding a military department.
[208] 212 U.S. 78 (1909).
[209] 212 U.S. at 83-85.
[210] 287 U.S. 378 (1932). "The nature of the power also necessarily implies that there is a permitted range of honest judgment as to the measures to be taken in meeting force with force, in suppressing violence and restoring order, for without such liberty to make immediate decision, the power itself would be useless. Such measures, conceived in good faith, in the face of the emergency and directly related to the quelling of the disorder or the prevention of its continuance, fall within the discretion of the Executive in the exercise of his authority to maintain peace" Id. at 399-400.
[211] 287 U.S. at 400-01. This holding has been ignored by States on numerous occasions. E.g., Allen v. Oklahoma City, 175 Okla. 421, 52 P.2d 1054 (1935); Hearon v. Calus, 178 S.C. 381, 183 S.E. 13 (1935); and Joyner v. Browning, 30 F. Supp. 512 (W.D. Tenn. 1939).
[212] 31 Stat. 141, 153 (1900).
[213] Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U.S. 304 (1946).
[214] 327 U.S. at 324.
[215] 327 U.S. at 336.
[216] 327 U.S. at 343.
[217] Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 , 29 -30, 35 (1942).
[218] 317 U.S. at 41-42.
[219] 317 U.S. at 28-29.
[220] In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1946).
[221] 327 U.S. at 81.
[222] See Gross, The Criminality of Aggressive War, 41 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 205 (1947).
[1] Pub. L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001).
[2] Hamdi v. Rumsfel d, 124 S. Ct. 2633 (2004). There was no opinion of the Court. Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Kennedy and Justice Breyer, avoided ruling on the Executive Branch argument that such detentions could be authorized by its Article II powers alone, and relied instead on the "Authorization for Use of Military Force" passed by Congress. Justice Thomas also found that the Executive Branch had the power to detain the petitioner, although his dissenting opinion found that such detentions were authorized by Article II. Justice Souter, joined by Justice Ginsberg, rejected the argument that the Congress had authorized such detentions, while Justice Scalia, joined with Justice Stevens, denied that such congressional authorization was possible without a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
[3] At a minimum, the petitioner must be given notice of the asserted factual basis for holding him, must be given a fair chance to rebut that evidence before a neutral decision maker, and must be allowed to consult an attorney. 124 S. Ct. at 2648, 2652 (2004).
[4] 124 S. Ct. 2686 (2004).
[5] Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 , 789 (1950).
[6] The petitioners were Australians and Kuwaitis.
[7] 124 S. Ct. at 2983 (2004).
[8] The Court found that 28 U.S.C. § 2241, which had previously been construed to require the presence of a petitioner in a district court's jurisdiction, was now satisfied by the presence of a jailor-custodian. See Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Ky., 410 U.S. 484 (1973). Another "enemy combatant" case, this one involving an American citizen arrested on American soil, was remanded after the Court found that a federal court's habeas jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 was limited to jurisdiction over the immediate custodian of a petitioner. Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 124 S. Ct. 2711 (2004) (federal court's jurisdiction over Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was not sufficient to satisfy the presence requirement under 28 U.S.C. § 2241).
[223] United States Adjutant-General, Federal Aid in Domestic Disturbances 1787-1903, S. Doc. No. 209, 57th Congress, 2d sess. (1903); Pollitt, Presidential Use of Troops to Enforce Federal Laws: A Brief History, 36 N.C. L. REV. 117 (1958). United States Marshals were also used on approximately 30 occasions. United States Commission on Civil Rights, Law Enforcement-A Report on Equal Protection in the South (Washington: 1965), 155-159.
[224] 10 U.S.C. §§ 331-334, 3500, 8500, deriving from laws of 1795, 1 Stat. 424 1861, 12 Stat. 281, and 1871 17 Stat. 14.
[225] The other instances were in domestic disturbances at the request of state Governors.
[226] Proc. No. 3204, 22 Fed. Reg. 7628 (1957); E.O. 10730, 22 Fed. Reg. 7628. See 41 Ops. Atty. Gen. 313 (1957); see also, Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958); Aaron v. McKinley, 173 F. Supp. 944 (E.D. Ark. 1959), aff'd sub nom Faubus v. Aaron, 361 U.S. 197 (1959); Faubus v. United States, 254 F.2d 797 (8th Cir. 1958), cert. denied,
[227] Proc. No. 3497, 27 Fed. Reg. 9681 (1962); E.O. 11053, 27 Fed. Reg. 9693 (1962). See United States v. Barnett, 346 F.2d 99 (5th Cir. 1965).
[228] Proc. 3542, 28 Fed. Reg. 5707 (1963); E.O. 11111, 28 Fed. Reg. 5709 (1963); Proc. No. 3554, 28 Fed. Reg. 9861; E.O. 11118, 28 Fed. Reg. 9863(1963). See Alabama v. United States,
[229] Proc. No. 3645, 30 Fed. Reg. 3739 (1965); E.O. 11207, 30 Fed. Reg. 2743 (1965). See Williams v. Wallace, 240 F. Supp. 100 (M.D. Ala. 1965).
[230] 1 M. FARRAND, THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787 70, 97, 110 (rev. ed. 1937); 2 id. at 285, 328, 335-37, 367, 537-42. Debate on the issue in the Convention is reviewed in C. THACH, THE CREATION OF THE PRESIDENCY 1775-1789 82, 83, 84, 85, 109, 126 (1923).
[231] E. Corwin, supra at 82.
[232] L. WHITE, THE FEDERALISTS-A STUDY IN ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY ch. 4 (1948).
[233] E. Corwin, supra at 19, 61, 79-85, 211, 295-99, 312, 320-23, 490-93.
[234] United States v. Wilson, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 150 , 160 -61 (1833).
[235]
[236] 236 U.S. at 90-91.
[237] Armstrong v. United States, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 154 , 156 (1872). In Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591 (1896), the Court had said: "It is almost a necessary corollary of the above propositions that, if the witness has already received a pardon, he cannot longer set up his privilege, since he stands with respect to such offence as if it had never been committed." Id. at 599, citing British cases.
[238] Biddle v. Perovich, 274 U.S. 480 , 486 (1927).
[239] Cf. W. HUMBERT, THE PARDONING POWER OF THE PRESIDENT 73 (1941).
[240] Biddle v. Perovich, 274 U.S. 480 , 486 (1927). In Schick v. Reed,
[241] 23 Ops. Atty. Gen. 360, 363 (1901); Illinois Cent. R.R. v. Bosworth, 133 U. S. 92 (1890).
[242] Ex parte William Wells, 59 U.S. (18 How.) 307 (1856). For the contrary view, see some early opinions of the Attorney General, 1 Ops. Atty. Gen. 341 (1820); 2 Ops. Atty. Gen. 275 (1829); 5 Ops. Atty. Gen. 687 (1795); cf. 4 Ops. Atty. Gen. 458 (1845); United States v. Wilson, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 150 , 161 (1833).
[243] Ex parte United States, 242 U.S. 27 (1916). Amendment of sentence, however, within the same term of court, by shortening the term of imprisonment, although defendant had already been committed, is a judicial act and no infringement of the pardoning power. United States v. Benz, 282 U.S. 304 (1931).
[244] See 1 J. Richardson, supra at 173, 293; 2 id. at 543; 7 id. at 3414, 3508; 8 id. at 3853; 14 id. at 6690.
[245] United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128 , 147 (1872). See also United States v. Padelford, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 531 (1870).
[246] Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333 , 380 (1867).
[247] F. MAITLAND, CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND 302-306 (1920); 1 Ops. Atty. Gen. 342 (1820). That is, the pardon may not be in anticipation of the commission of the offense. A pardon may precede the indictment or other beginning of the criminal proceeding, Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333, 380 (1867), as indeed President Ford's pardon of former President Nixon preceded institution of any action. On the Nixon pardon controversy, see Pardon of Richard M. Nixon and Related Matters: Hearings Before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, 93d Congress 2d Sess. (1974).
[248] 267 U.S. 87 (1925).
[249] 267 U.S. at 110-11.
[250] 267 U.S. at 121, 122.
[251] 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 33 3, 381 (1867).
[252] 71 U.S. at 380.
[253] 71 U.S. at 396-97.
[254] 233 U.S. 51 (1914).
[255] 233 U.S. at 59.
[256] 142 U.S. 450 (1892).
[257] Knote v. United States, 95 U.S. 149 , 153 -154 (1877).
[258] United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128 , 143 , 148 (1872).
[259] The Laura, 114 U.S. 411 (1885).
[260] 2 M. FARRAND, THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787 183 (rev. ed. 1937).
[261] Id. at 538-39.
[262] No. 64 (J. Cooke ed., 1961), 435-436.
[263] 31 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 106 (1818).
[264] Washington sought to use the Senate as a council, but the effort proved futile, principally because the Senate balked. For the details see E. Corwin, supra, at 207-217.
[265] United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304 , 319 (1936).
[266] E. Corwin, supra, at 428-429.
[267] Treaties and Other International Agreements: The Role of the United States Senate, A Study Prepared for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations by the Congressional Research Service, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (Comm. Print) (1993), 96-98 (hereinafter CRS Study); see also AMERICAN LAW INSTITUTE, RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF THE LAW, THE FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 314 (hereinafter Restatement, Foreign Relations) (1987). See Fourteen Diamond Rings v. United States, 183 U.S. 176 , 183 (1901).
[268] Cf. Art. I, § 5, cl. 1; see also Missouri Pac. Ry. v. Kansas, 248 U.S. 276 , 283 -84 (1919).
[269] For instance, see S. CRANDALL, TREATIES, THEIR MAKING AND ENFORCEMENT 53 (2d ed. 1916); CRS Study, supra, 109-120.
[270] Foster v. Neilson, 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 253 , 314 (1829). See THE FEDERALIST No. 75 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 504-505.
[271]
[272] S. CRANDALL, TREATIES, THEIR MAKING AND ENFORCEMENT ch. 3. (2d ed. 1916)
[273] Id. at 30-32. For the text of the Treaty, see 1 Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements Between the United States of America and Other Powers (1776-1909), 586 S. DOC. NO. 357, 61st Congress, 2d sess. (W. Malloy ed., 1910).
[274] Id. at 588.
[275] R. MORRIS, JOHN JAY, THE NATION, AND THE COURT 73-84 (1967).
[276] S. Crandall, supra, at 36-40.
[277] The Convention at first leaned toward giving Congress a negative over state laws which were contrary to federal statutes or treaties, 1 M. Farrand, supra, at 47, 54, and then adopted the Paterson Plan which made treaties the supreme law of the land, binding on state judges, and authorized the Executive to use force to compel observance when such treaties were resisted. Id. at 245, 316, 2 id. at 27-29. In the draft reported by the Committee on Detail, the language thus adopted was close to the present supremacy clause; the draft omitted the authorization of force from the clause, id. at 183, but in another clause the legislative branch was authorized to call out the militia to, inter alia, "enforce treaties". Id. at 182. The two words were struck subsequently "as being superfluous" in view of the supremacy clause. Id. at 389-90.
[278] 9 W. HENING, STATUTES OF VIRGINIA 377-380 (1821).
[279] 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199 (1796).
[280] 3 U.S. at 236-37 (emphasis by Court).
[281] 7 U.S. (3 Cr.) 454 (1806).
[282] See the discussion and cases cited in Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U.S. 483 , 489 -90 (1880).
[283] 100 U.S. 483 (1880). In Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 187 , 197 -98 (1961), the International Monetary Fund (Bretton Woods) Agreement of 1945, to which the United States and Yugoslavia were parties, and an Agreement of 1948 between these two nations, coupled with continued American observance of an 1881 treaty granting reciprocal rights of inheritance to Yugoslavian and American nations, were held to preclude Oregon from denying Yugoslavian aliens their treaty rights because of a fear that Yugoslavian currency laws implementing such Agreements prevented American nationals from withdrawing the proceeds from the sale of property inherited in the latter country.
[284] See also Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 (1890); Sullivan v. Kidd, 254 U.S. 433 (1921); Nielsen v. Johnson, 279 U.S. 47 (1929); Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 187 (1961). But a right under treaty to acquire and dispose of property does not except aliens from the operation of a state statute prohibiting conveyances of homestead property by any instrument not executed by both husband and wife. Todok v. Union State Bank, 281 U.S. 449 (1930). Nor was a treaty stipulation guaranteeing to the citizens of each country, in the territory of the other, equality with the natives of rights and privileges in respect to protection and security of person and property, violated by a state statute which denied to a non-resident alien wife of a person killed within the State, the right to sue for wrongful death. Such right was afforded to native resident relatives. Maiorano v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R.,
[285] Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197 (1923).
[286] 332 U.S. 633 (1948). See also Takahashi v. Fish Comm'n, 334 U.S. 410 (1948), in which a California statute prohibiting the issuance of fishing licenses to persons ineligible to citizenship was disallowed, both on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment and on the ground that the statute invaded a field of power reserved to the National Government, namely, the determination of the conditions on which aliens may be admitted, naturalized, and permitted to reside in the United States. For the latter proposition, Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52 , 66 (1941), was relied upon.
[287] This occurred in the much advertised case of Sei Fujii v. State, 38 Cal. 2d 718, 242 P. 2d 617 (1952). A lower California court had held that the legislation involved was void under the United Nations Charter, but the California Supreme Court was unanimous in rejecting this view. The Charter provisions invoked in this connection [Arts. 1, 55 and 56], said Chief Justice Gibson, "[w]e are satisfied . . . were not intended to supersede domestic legislation." That is, the Charter provisions were not self-executing.
Restatement, Foreign Relations, supra, § 701, Reporters' Note 5, pp. 155-56.
[288] Clark v. Allen, 331 U.S. 503 (1947). See also Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 187 (1961).
[289] 2 M. FARRAND, THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787 392-394 (rev. ed. 1937).
[290] Supra, "Treaties as Law of the Land ".
[291] 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 25 3, 314 (1829).
[292] Cf. Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190 , 194 (1888): "When the stipulations are not self-executing they can only be enforced pursuant to legislation to carry them into effect .... If the treaty contains stipulations which are self-executing that is, require no legislation to make them operative, to that extent they have the force and effect of a legislative enactment." S. Crandall, supra, chs. 11-15.
[293] See infra, "When Is a Treaty Self-Executing".
[294] 8 Stat. 116 (1794).
[295] The story is told in numerous sources. E.g., S. Crandall, supra, at 165-171. For Washington's message refusing to submit papers relating to the treaty to the House, see J. Richardson, supra at 123.
[296] Debate in the House ran for more than a month. It was excerpted from the ANNALS separately published as DEBATES IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, DURING THE FIRST SESSION OF THE FOURTH CONGRESS UPON THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS OF THE HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO TREATIES (1796). A source of much valuable information on the views of the Framers and those who came after them on the treaty power, the debates are analyzed in detail in E. BYRD, TREATIES AND EXECUTIVE AGREEMENTS IN THE UNITES STATES 35-59 (1960).
[297] 5 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 771, 782 (1796). A resolution similar in language was adopted by the House in 1871. CONG. GLOBE, 42d Congress, 1st sess. (1871), 835.
[298] S. Crandall, supra, at 171-182; 1 W. WILLOUGHBY, THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF THE UNITED STATES 549-552 (2d ed. 1929); but see RESTATEMENT, FOREIGN RELATIONS, supra, § 111, Reporters' Note 7, p. 57. See also H. Rep. 4177, 49th Congress, 2d Sess. (1887). Cf. De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 , 198 (1901).
[299] S. Crandall, supra, at 183-199.
[300] 8 Stat. 228.
[301] 3 Stat. 255 (1816). See S. Crandall, supra, at 184-188.
[302] Id. at 188-195; 1 W. Willoughby, supra, at 555-560.
[303] S. Crandall, supra, at 189-190.
[304] Anderson, The Extent and Limitations of the Treaty-Making Power, 1 AM. J. INT'L L. 636, 641 (1907).
[305] At the conclusion of the 1815 debate, the Senate conferees noted in their report that some treaties might need legislative implementation, which Congress was bound to provide, but did not indicate what in their opinion made some treaties self-executing and others not. 29 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 160 (1816). The House conferees observed that they thought, and that in their opinion the Senate conferees agreed, that legislative implementation was necessary to carry into effect all treaties which contained "stipulations requiring appropriations, or which might bind the nation to lay taxes, to raise armies, to support navies, to grant subsidies, to create States, or to cede territory... ." Id. at 1019. Much the same language was included in a later report, H. Rep. No. 37, 40th Congress, 2d Sess. (1868). Controversy with respect to the sufficiency of Senate ratification of the Panama Canal treaties to dispose of United States property therein to Panama was extensive. A divided Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reached the question and held that Senate approval of the treaty alone was sufficient. Edwards v. Carter, 580 F.2d 1055 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied,
[306] T. COOLEY, GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 175 (3d ed. 1898); Q. WRIGHT, THE CONTROL OF AMERICAN FOREIGN RELATIONS 353- 356 (1922).
[307] Head Money Cases, 112 U.S. 580 , 598 -599 (1884). The repealability of treaties by act of Congress was first asserted in an opinion of the Attorney General in 1854. 6 Ops. Atty. Gen. 291. The year following the doctrine was adopted judicially in a lengthy and cogently argued opinion of Justice Curtis, speaking for a United States circuit court in Taylor v. Morton, 23 Fed. Cas. 784 (No. 13,799) (C.C.D. Mass 1855). See also The Cherokee Tobacco, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 616 (1871); United States v. Forty-Three Gallons of Whiskey, 108 U.S. 491 , 496 (1883); Botiller v. Dominguez, 130 U.S. 238 (1889); The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U.S. 581 , 600 (1889); Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190 , 194 (1888); Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698 , 721 (1893). "Congress by legislation, and so far as the people and authorities of the United States are concerned, could abrogate a treaty made between this country and another country which had been negotiated by the President and approved by the Senate." La Abra Silver Mining Co. v. United States, 175 U.S. 423 , 460 (1899). Cf. Reichart v. Felps, 73 U.S. (6 Wall.) 160 , 165 -166 (1868), wherein it is stated obiter that "Congress is bound to regard the public treaties, and it had no power . . . to nullify [Indian] titles confirmed many years before... ."
[308] Foster v. Neilson, 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 253 , 314 -315 (1829). In a later case, it was determined in a different situation that by its terms the treaty in issue, which had been assumed to be executory in the earlier case, was self-executing. United States v. Percheman, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 51 (1833).
[309] E.g., United States v. Lee Yen Tai, 185 U.S. 213 , 220 -221 (1902); The Cherokee Tobacco, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 616 , 621 (1871); Johnson v. Browne, 205 U.S. 309 , 320 -321 (1907); Whitney v. Roberston, 124 U.S. 190 , 194 (1888).
[310] 1 W. Willoughby, supra, at 555.
[311] Other cases, which are cited in some sources, appear distinguishable. United States v. Schooner Peggy, 5 U.S. (1 Cr.) 103 (1801), applied a treaty entered into subsequent to enactment of a statute abrogating all treaties then in effect between the United States and France, so that it is inaccurate to refer to the treaty as superseding a prior statute. In United States v. Forty-Three Gallons of Whiskey, 93 U.S. 188 (1876), the treaty with an Indian tribe in which the tribe ceded certain territory, later included in a State, provided that a federal law restricting the sale of liquor on the reservation would continue in effect in the territory ceded; the Court found the stipulation an appropriate subject for settlement by treaty and the provision binding. And see Charlton v. Kelly, 229 U.S. 447 (1913).
[312] 288 U.S. 102 (1933).
[313] 42 Stat. 858, 979, § 581.
[314] 46 Stat. 590, 747, § 581.
[315] United States v. Schooner Peggy, 5 U.S. (1 Cr.) 103 (1801).
[316] 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 25 3, 314 -15 (1829).
[317] Id.
[318] Generally, the qualifications may have been inserted in treaties out of a belief in their constitutional necessity or because of some policy reason. In regard to the former, it has always apparently been the practice to insert in treaties affecting the revenue laws of the United States a proviso that they should not be deemed effective until the necessary laws to carry them into operation should be enacted by Congress. 1 W. Willoughby, supra, at 558. Perhaps of the same nature was a qualification that cession of certain property in the Canal Zone should be dependent upon action by Congress inserted in Article V of the 1955 Treaty with Panama. TIAS 3297, 6 U.S.T. 2273, 2278. In regard to the latter, it may be noted that Article V of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 8 Stat. 572, 575 (1842), providing for the transfer to Canada of land in Maine and Massachusetts was conditioned upon assent by the two States and payment to them of compensation. S. Crandall, supra, at 222-224.
[319] Q. Wright, supra, at 207-208. See also L. HENKIN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE CONSTITUTION 156-162 (1972).
[320] Thus, compare Foster v. Neilson, 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 253 , 314 -315 (1829), with Cook v. United States, 288 U.S. 102 , 118 -19 (1933).
[321] Acts of March 2, 1829, 4 Stat. 359 and of February 24, 1855, 10 Stat. 614.
[322] See In re Ross, 140 U.S. 453 (1891), where the treaty provisions involved are given. The supplementary legislation, later reenacted at Rev. Stat. 4083- 4091, was repealed by the Joint Res. of August 1, 1956, 70 Stat. 774. The validity of the Ross case was subsequently questioned. See Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 , 12 , 64, 75 (1957).
[323] 18 U.S.C. §§ 3181-3195.
[324] Baldwin v. Franks, 120 U.S. 678 , 683 (1887).
[325] Neely v. Henkel, 180 U.S. 109 , 121 (1901). A different theory is offered by Justice Story in his opinion for the court in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842), in the following words: "Treaties made between the United States and foreign powers, often contain special provisions, which do not execute themselves, but require the interposition of Congress to carry them into effect, and Congress has constantly, in such cases, legislated on the subject; yet, although the power is given to the executive, with the consent of the senate, to make treaties, the power is nowhere in positive terms conferred upon Congress to make laws to carry the stipulations of treaties into effect. It has been supposed to result from the duty of the national government to fulfill all the obligations of treaties." Id. at 619. Story was here in quest of arguments to prove that Congress had power to enact a fugitive slave law, which he based on its power "to carry into effect rights expressly given and duties expressly enjoined" by the Constitution. Id. at 618-19. However, the treaty-making power is neither a right nor a duty, but one of the powers "vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States." Art. I, § 8, cl. 18.
[326] 252 U.S. 416 (1920).
[327] 39 Stat. 1702 (1916).
[328] 40 Stat. 755 (1918).
[329] United States v. Shauver, 214 F. 154 (E.D. Ark. 1914); United States v. McCullagh, 221 F. 288 (D. Kan. 1915). The Court did not purport to decide whether those cases were correctly decided. Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 , 433 (1920). Today, there seems no doubt that Congress' power under the commerce clause would be deemed more than adequate, but at that time a majority of the Court had a very restrictive view of the commerce power. Cf. Hammer v. Dagenhart,
[330] Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 , 432 (1920).
[331] 252 U.S. at 433. The internal quotation is from Andrews v. Andrews, 188 U. S. 14 , 33 (1903).
[332] Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190 , 194 (1888).
[333] "The treaty is ... a law made by the proper authority, and the courts of justice have no right to annul or disregard any of its provisions, unless they violate the Constitution of the United States." Doe v. Braden, 57 U.S. (16 How.) 635 , 656 (1853). "It need hardly be said that a treaty cannot change the Constitution or be held valid if it be in violation of that instrument." The Cherokee Tobacco, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.), 616, 620 (1871). See also Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 , 267 (1890); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 , 700 (1898); Asakura v. City of Seattle, 265 U.S. 332 , 341 (1924).
[334] 1 W. Willoughby, supra, at 561; L. Henkin, supra, at 137. In Power Authority of New York v. FPC, 247 F.2d 538 (2d Cir. 1957), a reservation attached by the Senate to a 1950 treaty with Canada was held invalid. The court observed that the reservation was properly not a part of the treaty but that if it were it would still be void as an attempt to circumvent constitutional procedures for enacting amendments to existing federal laws. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment on mootness grounds. 355 U.S. 64 (1957). In United States v. Guy W. Capps, Inc., 204 F.2d 655 (4th Cir. 1953), an executive agreement with Canada was held void as conflicting with existing legislation. The Supreme Court affirmed on nonconstitutional grounds. 348 U. S. 296 (1955).
[335] Cf. City of New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. (10 Pet.) 662 (1836); Rocca v. Thompson, 223 U.S. 317 (1912).
[336] 252 U.S. 416 (1920).
[337] 252 U.S. at 433. Subsequently, he also observed: "The treaty in question does not contravene any prohibitory words to be found in the Constitution." Id.
[338] The attempt, the so-called "Bricker Amendment," was aimed at the expansion into reserved state powers through treaties as well as executive agreements. The key provision read: "A treaty shall become effective as internal law in the United States only through legislation which would be valid in the absence of treaty." S.J. Res. 43, 82d Congress, 1st Sess. (1953), § 2. See also S.J. Res. 1, 84th Congress, 1st Sess. (1955), § 2. Extensive hearings developed the issues thoroughly but not always clearly. Hearings on S.J. Res. 130: Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 82d Congress, 2d Sess. (1952). Hearings on S.J. Res. 1 & 43: Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 83d Congress, 1st Sess. (1953); Hearings on S.J. Res. 1: Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 84th Congress, 1st Sess. (1955). See L. Henkin, supra, at 383-85.
[339] 354 U.S. 1 (1957) (plurality opinion).
[340] 354 U.S. at 16-17. For discussions of the issue, see Restatement, Foreign Relations, § 302; Nowak & Rotunda, A Comment on the Creation and Resolution of a 'Non-Problem:' Dames & Moore v. Regan, the Foreign Affairs Power, and the Role of the Courts, 29 UCLA L. REV. 1129 (1982); L. Henkin, supra, at 137-156.
[341] Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199 (1796); Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee, 11 U.S. (7 Cr.) 603 (1813); Chirac v. Chirac, 15 U.S. (2 Wheat.) 259 (1817); Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U.S. 483 (1880). Jefferson, in his list of exceptions to the treaty power, thought the Constitution "must have meant to except out of these the rights reserved to the States, for surely the President and Senate cannot do by treaty what the whole Government is interdicted from doing in any way." Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice, § 594, reprinted in THE RULES AND MANUAL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, H. Doc. 102-405, 102d Congress, 2d Sess. (1993), 298-299. But this view has always been the minority one. Q. Wright, supra, at 92 n. 97. The nearest the Court ever came to supporting this argument appears to be Frederickson v. Louisiana, 64 U.S. (23 How.) 445 , 448 (1860).
[342] Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920).
[343] 252 U.S. at 433.
[344] 252 U.S. at 435.
[345] 1 W. Willoughby, supra, at 569. And see L. Henkin, supra, at 143-148; Restatement, Foreign Relations, § 302, Comment d, & Reporters' Note 3, pp. 154-157.
[346] E.g., Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 , 266 -267 (1890); Holden v. Joy, 84 U. S. (17 Wall.) 211 , 243 (1872). Jefferson listed as an exception from the treaty power "those subjects of legislation in which [the Constitution] gave a participation to the House of Representatives," although he admitted "that it would leave very little matter for the treaty power to work on." Jefferson's Manual, supra, at 299.
[347] Q. Wright, supra, at 101-103. See also, L. Henkin, supra, at 148-151.
[348] Cf. Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957). And see Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 , 267 (1890).
[349] "[I]t must be assumed that the framers of the Constitution intended that [the treaty power] should extend to all those objects which in the intercourse of nations had usually been regarded as the proper subjects of negotiation and treaty... ." Holden v. Joy, 84 U.S. (17 Wall.) 211 , 243 (1872). With the exceptions noted, "it is not perceived that there is any limit to the questions which can be adjusted touching any matter which is properly the subject of negotiation with a foreign country." Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 , 267 (1890). "The treatymaking power of the United States . . . does extend to all proper subjects of negotiation between our government and other nations." Asakura v. City of Seattle, 265 U.S. 332 , 341 (1924).
[350] Cf. L. Henkin, supra, at 151-56.
[351] Other reservations which have been expressed may be briefly noted. It has been contended that the territory of a State could not be ceded without such State's consent. Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 , 267 (1890), citing Fort Leavenworth R.R. v. Lowe, 114 U.S. 525 , 541 (1885). Cf. the Webster- Ashburton Treaty, Article V, 8 Stat. 572, 575. But see S. Crandall, supra, at 220-229; 1 W. Willoughby, supra, at 572-576.
A further contention is that while foreign territory can be annexed to the United States by the treaty power, it could not be incorporated with the United States except with the consent of Congress. Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 , 310 - 344 (1901) (four Justices dissenting). This argument appears to be a variation of the one in regard to the correct procedure to give domestic effect to treaties.
Another argument grew out the XII Hague Convention of 1907, proposing an International Prize Court with appellate jurisdiction from national courts in prize cases. President Taft objected that no treaty could transfer to a tribunal not known to the Constitution any part of the judicial power of the United States and a compromise was arranged. Q. Wright, supra, at 117-118; H. REP. NO. 1569, 68th Congress, 2d Sess. (1925).
[352] Cf. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304 , 318 (1936); Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Pet.) 540 , 575 -576 (1840).
[353] 1 Stat. 578 (1798).
[354] 4 U.S. (4 Dall.) 37 (1800). See also Gray v. United States, 21 Ct. Cl. 340 (1886), with respect to claims arising out of this situation.
[355] The matter was most extensively canvassed in the debate with respect to President Carter's termination of the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954 with the Republic of China (Taiwan). See, e.g., the various views argued in Treaty Termination: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 96th Congress, 1st Sess. (1979). On the issue generally, see Restatement, Foreign Relations, § 339; CRS Study, supra, 158-167; L. Henkin, supra, at 167- 171; Bestor, Respective Roles of Senate and President in the Making and Abrogation of Treaties-The Original Intent of the Framers of the Constitution Historically Examined, 55 WASH. L. REV. 1 (1979); Berger, The President's Unilateral Termination of the Taiwan Treaty, 75 NW. U. L. REV. 577 (1980).
[356] Compare the different views of the 1846 action in Treaty Termination: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 96th Congress, 1st Sess. (1979), 160-162 (memorandum of Hon. Herbert Hansell, Legal Advisor, Department of State), and in Taiwan: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 96th Congress, 1st Sess. (1979), 300 (memorandum of Senator Goldwater).
[357] S. Crandall, supra, at 458-459.
[358] Id. at 459-62; Q. Wright, supra, at 258.
[359] 38 Stat. 1164 (1915).
[360] S. Crandall, supra, at 460. See Van der Weyde v. Ocean Transp. Co., 297 U. S. 114 (1936).
[361] 41 Stat. 1007. See Reeves, The Jones Act and the Denunciation of Treaties, 15 AM. J. INT'L. L. 33 (1921). In 1879, Congress passed a resolution requiring the President to abrogate a treaty with China, but President Hayes vetoed it, partly on the ground that Congress as an entity had no role to play in ending treaties, only the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. 9 J. Richardson, supra at 4466, 4470-4471. For the views of President Taft on the matter in context, see W. TAFT, THE PRESIDENCY, ITS DUTIES, ITS POWERS, ITS OPPORTUNITIES AND ITS LIMITATIONS 112-113 (1916).
[362] Since this time, very few instances appear in which Congress has requested or directed termination by notice, but they have resulted in compliance. E.g., 65 Stat. 72 (1951) (directing termination of most-favored-nation provisions with certain Communist countries in commercial treaties); 70 Stat. 773 (1956) (requesting renunciation of treaty rights of extraterritoriality in Morroco). The most recent example appears to be § 313 of the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which required the Secretary of State to terminate immediately, in accordance with its terms, the tax treaty and protocol with South Africa that had been concluded on Decemberr 13, 1946. P. L. 99-440, 100 Stat. 3515, 22 U.S.C. § 5063.
[363] 5 J. Richardson, supra at 279, 334.
[364] S. Rep. No. 97, 34th Congress, 1st Sess. (1856), 6-7. The other instance was President Wilson's request, which the Senate endorsed, for termination of the International Sanitary Convention of 1903. See 61 CONG. REC. 1793-1794 (1921). See CRS Study, supra at 161-62.
[365] Compare, e.g., Treaty Termination: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 96th Congress, 1st Sess. (1979), 156-191 (memorandum of Hon. Herbert Hansell, Legal Advisor, Department of State), with Taiwan: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 96th Congress, 1st Sess. (1979), 300-307 (memorandum of Senator Goldwater). See CRS Study, supra at 164-66.
[366] 13 Stat. 568 (1865).
[367] The treaty, see 11 C. BEVANS, TREATIES AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 894 (1970), was probably at odds with the Tariff Act of 1897. 30 Stat. 151.
[368] Compare the views expressed in the Hansell and Goldwater memoranda, supra. For expressions of views preceding the immediate controversy, see, e.g., Riesenfeld, The Power of Congress and the President in International Relations, 25 CALIF. L. REV. 643, 658-665 (1937); Nelson, The Termination of Treaties and Executive Agreements by the United States, 42 MINN. L. REV. 879 (1958).
[369] Note that the President terminated the treaty in the face of an expression of the sense of Congress that prior consultation between President and Congress should occur. 92 Stat. 730, 746 (1978).
[370] Originally, S. Res. 15 had disapproved presidential action alone, but it was amended and reported by the Foreign Relations Committee to recognize at least 14 bases of presidential termination. S. Rep. No. 119, 96th Congress, 1st Sess. (1979). In turn, this resolution was amended to state the described sense of the Senate view, but the matter was never brought to final action. See 125 CONG. REC. 13672, 13696, 13711, 15209, 15859 (1979).
[371] Goldwater v. Carter, 617 F.2d 697 (D.C. Cir.) (en banc), vacated and remanded,
[372] Cf. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 , 211 -13, 217 (1962).
[373] 229 U.S. 447 (1913).
[374] 229 U.S. at 473-76.
[375] Clark v. Allen, 331 U.S. 503 (1947).
[376] 23 Fed. Cas. 784 (No. 13,799) (C.C.D. Mass. 1855).
[377] 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 25 3, 309 (1829). Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), qualifies this certainty considerably, and Goldwater v. Carter,
[378] 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1 (1831).
[379] 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832).
[380] 31 U.S. at 558.
[381] Holden v. Joy, 84 U.S. (17 Wall.) 211 , 242 (1872); United States v. Forty-Three Gallons of Whiskey, 93 U.S. 188 , 192 (1876); Dick v. United States, 208 U.S. 340 , 355 -56 (1908).
[382] The New York Indians, 72 U.S. (5 Wall.) 761 (1867).
[383] The Kansas Indians, 72 U.S. (5 Wall.) 737 , 757 (1867).
[384] United States v. Forty-Three Gallons of Whiskey, 93 U.S. 188 , 196 (1876).
[385] The Cherokee Tobacco, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 616 (1871). See also Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U.S. 504 , 511 (1896); Thomas v. Gay, 169 U.S. 264 , 270 (1898).
[386] 16 Stat. 566; Rev. Stat. § 2079, now contained in 25 U.S.C. § 71.
[387] Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U.S. 504 (1896).
[388] Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553 (1903).
[389] Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas Ry., 135 U.S. 641 (1890).
[390] The Cherokee Tobacco, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 616 , 621 (1871).
[391] Choate v. Trapp, 224 U.S. 665 , 677 -78 (1912); Jones v. Meehan, 175 U.S. 1 (1899). See also Hodel v. Irving, 481 U.S. 704 (1987) (section of law providing for escheat to tribe of fractionated interests in land representing less than 2% of a tract's total acreage violates Fifth Amendment's taking clause by completely abrogating rights of intestacy and devise).
[392] Compare Article II, § 2, cl. 2, and Article VI, cl. 2, with Article I, 10, cls. 1 and 3. Cf. Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Pet.) 540 , 570 -572 (1840). And note the discussion in Weinberger v. Rossi, 456 U.S. 25 , 28 -32 (1982).
[393] CRS Study, xxxiv-xxxv, supra, 13-16. Not all such agreements, of course, are published, either because of national-security/secrecy considerations or because the subject matter is trivial. In a 1953 hearing exchange, Secretary of State Dulles estimated that about 10,000 executive agreements had been entered into in connection with the NATO treaty. "Every time we open a new privy, we have to have an executive agreement." Hearing on S.J. Res. 1 and S. J. Res. 43: Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 83d Congress, 1st Sess. (1953), 877.
[394] One authority concluded that of the executive agreements entered into between 1938 and 1957, only 5.9 percent were based exclusively on the President's constitutional authority. McLaughlin, The Scope of the Treaty Power in the United States-II, 43 MINN. L. REV. 651, 721 (1959). Another, somewhat overlapping study found that in the period 1946-1972, 88.3% of executive agreements were based at least in part on statutory authority; 6.2% were based on treaties, and 5.5% were based solely on executive authority. International Agreements: An Analysis of Executive Regulations and Practices, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (Comm. Print) (1977), 22 (prepared by CRS).
[395] "[T]he distinction between so-called 'executive agreements' and 'treaties' is purely a constitutional one and has no international significance." Harvard Research in International Law, Draft Convention on the Law of Treaties, 29 AMER. J. INT. L. 697 (Supp.) (1935). See E. Byrd, supra at 148-151. Many scholars have aggressively promoted the use of executive agreements, in contrast to treaties, as a means of enhancing the role of the United States, especially the role of the President, in the international system. See McDougal & Lans, Treaties and Congressional-Executive or Presidential Agreements: Interchangeable Instruments of National Policy (Pts. I & II), 54 YALE L. J. 181, 534 (1945).
[396] 1 Stat. 138 (1790). See E. Byrd, supra at 53 n.146.
[397] W. MCCLURE, INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE AGREEMENTS 41 (1941).
[398] Id. at 38-40. The statute was 1 Stat. 232, 239, 26 (1792).
[399] McClure at 62-70.
[400] Id. at 78-81; S. Crandall, supra at 127-31; see CRS Study, supra at 52-55.
[401] Id. at 121-27; W. McClure, supra at 83-92, 173-89.
[402] Id. at 8, 59-60.
[403] § 3, 26 Stat. 567, 612.
[404] Tariff Act of 1897, § 3, 30 Stat. 15, 203; Tariff Act of 1909, 36 Stat. 11, 82.
[405] 48 Stat. 943, § 350(a), 19 U.S.C. §§ 1351-1354.
[406] See the continued expansion of the authority. Trade Expansion Act of 1962, 76 Stat. 872, § 201, 19 U.S.C. § 1821; Trade Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 1982, as amended, 19 U.S.C. §§ 2111, 2115, 2131(b), 2435. Congress has, with respect to the authorization to the President to negotiate multilateral trade agreements under the auspices of GATT, constrained itself in considering implementing legislation, creating a "fast-track" procedure under which legislation is brought up under a tight timetable and without the possibility of amendment. 19 U.S.C. §§ 2191-2194.
[407] 143 U.S. 649 (1892).
[408] 143 U.S. at 694. See also Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654 (1981), in which the Court sustained a series of implementing actions by the President pursuant to executive agreements with Iran in order to settle the hostage crisis. The Court found that Congress had delegated to the President certain economic powers underlying the agreements and that his suspension of claims powers had been implicitly ratified over time by Congress' failure to set aside the asserted power. Also see Weinberger v. Rossi, 456 U.S. 25 , 29 -30 n.6 (1982).
[409] 224 U.S. 583 (1912).
[410] 224 U.S. at 601.
[411] 55 Stat. 31.
[412] E.g., 48 Stat. 1182 (1934), authorizing the President to accept membership for the United States in the International Labor Organization.
[413] See E. Corwin, supra at 216.
[414] W. McClure, supra at 13-14.
[415] Id. at 14.
[416] 1 W. Willoughby, supra at 543.
[417] A Decade of American Foreign Policy, S. Doc. No. 123, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 126 (1950).
[418] Id. at 158.
[419] Wilson v. Girard, 354 U.S. 524 (1957).
[420] Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 , 16 -17 (1957) (plurality opinion); id. at 66 (Justice Harlan concurring).
[421] 3 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1397 (1833).
[422] S. Crandall, supra, ch. 8; see also W. McClure, supra, chs. 1, 2.
[423] Id. at 49-50.
[424] Id. at 81-82.
[425] Tucker v. Alexandroff, 183 U.S. 424 , 435 (1902).
[426] Id. at 467. The first of these conventions, signed July 29, 1882, had asserted its constitutionality in very positive terms. Q. Wright, supra at 239 (quoting Watts v. United States, 1 Wash. Terr. 288, 294 (1870)).
[427] Id. at 245.
[428] S. Crandall, supra at 103-04.
[429] Id. at 104.
[430] 1 W. Willoughby, supra at 539.
[431] W. McClure, supra at 98.
[432] Id. at 96-97.
[433] Id. at 98-99.
[434] Id. at 99-100.
[435] Id. at 140-44.
[436] Id. at 391.
[437] Id. at 391-93. Attorney General Jackson's defense of the presidential power to enter into the arrangement placed great reliance on the President's "inherent" powers under the Commander-in-Chief clause and as sole organ of foreign relations but ultimately found adequate statutory authority to take the steps deemed desirable. 39 Ops. Atty. Gen. 484 (1940).
[438] 4 Dept. State Bull. 443 (1941).
[439] See A Decade of American Foreign Policy, Basic Documents 1941-1949, S. Doc. No. 123, 81st Congress, 1st Sess. (1950), pt. 1.
[440] For a congressional attempt to evaluate the extent of such commitments, see United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 91st Congress, 1st Sess. (1969), 10 pts.; see also U.S. Commitments to Foreign Powers: Hearings on S. Res. 151 Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 90th Congress, 1st Sess. (1967).
[441] The "National Commitments Resolution," S. Res. 85, 91st Congress, 1st Sess., passed by the Senate June 25, 1969. See also S. Rep. No. 797, 90th Congress, 1st Sess. (1967). See the discussion of these years in CRS study, supra at 169-202.
[442] In 1918, Secretary of State Lansing assured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Lansing-Ishii Agreement had no binding force on the United States, that it was simply a declaration of American policy so long as the President and State Department might choose to continue it. 1 W. Willoughby, supra at 547. In fact, it took the Washington Conference of 1921, two formal treaties, and an exchange of notes to eradicate it, while the "Gentlemen's Agreement" was finally ended after 17 years only by an act of Congress. W. McClure, supra at 97, 100.
[443] See E. Byrd, supra at 151-57.
[9] E.g., United States v. One Bag of Paradise Feathers, 256 F. 301, 306 (2d Cir. 1919); 1 W. WILLOUGHBY, supra, at 589. The State Department held the same view. 5 G. HACKWORTH, DIGEST OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 426 (1944).
[445] 224 U.S. 583 (1912).
[446] 301 U.S. 324 (1937).
[447] United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304 (1936).
[448] 299 U.S. at 330-32.
[449] 315 U.S. 203 (1942).
[450] 315 U.S. at 229-34. Chief Justice Stone and Justice Roberts dissented.
[11] 539 U.S. at 416.
[12] 539 U.S. at 413.
[13] 539 U.S. at 420.
[14] Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Pet.) 540 , 575 -76 (1840). See also United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 324 , 331 (1937) ("The external powers of the United States are to be exercised without regard to state laws or policies. . . . [I] n respect of our foreign relations generally, state lines disappear"); The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U.S. 581 , 606 (1889) ("For local interests the several States of the Union exist; but for national purposes, embracing our relations with foreign nations, we are but one people, one nation, one power"); Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52 , 63 (1941) ("Our system of government . . . requires that federal power in the field affecting foreign relations be left entirely free from local interference").
[15] United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203 , 233 -34 (1942). Chief Justice Stone and Justice Roberts dissented.
[16] 389 U.S. 429 (1968).
[17] In Clark v. Allen, 331 U.S. 503 (1947), the Court had upheld a simple reciprocity requirement that did not have the additional requirement relating to confiscation.
[18] 389 U.S. at 440.
[19] 389 U.S. at 440, 441.
[20] See, e.g., Michael D. Ramsey, The Power of the States in Foreign Affairs: The Original Understanding of Foreign Policy Federalism, 75 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 341 (1999); Carlos Manuel Vazquez, Whither Zschernig? 46 VILL. L. REV. 1259 (2001); Jack L. Goldsmith, Federal Courts, Foreign Affairs, and Federalism, 83 VA. L. REV. 1617 (1997); Peter J. Spiro, Foreign Relations Federalism, 70 U. COLO. L. REV. 1223 (1999). See also LOUIS HENKIN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE CONSTITUTION 149-69 (2d ed. 1996).
[21] Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council,
[22] American Insurance Association v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. at 419 & n.11 (2003).
[23] It is contended, for example, that Article I, § 10's specific prohibitions against states engaging in war, making treaties, keeping troops in peacetime, and issuing letters of marque and reprisal would have been unnecessary if a more general, dormant foreign relations power had been intended. Similarly, there would have been no need to declare treaties to be the supreme law of the land if a more generalized foreign affairs preemptive power existed outside of the Supremacy Clause. See Ramsey, supra n.20.
[24] Arguably, part of the "executive power" vested in the President by Art. II, § 1 is a power to conduct foreign relations.
[25] 539 U.S. at 419 n.11.
[26] Justice Ginsburg's dissent in Garamendi, joined by the other three dissenters, suggested limiting Zschernig in a manner generally consistent with Justice Souter's distinction. Zschernig preemption, Justice Ginsburg asserted, "resonates most audibly when a state action 'reflects a state policy critical of foreign governments and involve[s] sitting in judgment on them.' " 539 U.S. at 439 (quoting HENKIN, supra n.20, at 164). But Justice Ginsburg also voiced more general misgivings with judges becoming "the expositors of the Nation's foreign policy." Id. at 442. In this context, see Goldsmith, supra n.20, at 1631, describing Zschernig preemption as "a form of the federal common law of foreign relations."
[454] United States v. Hartwell, 73 U.S. (6 Wall.) 385 , 393 (1868).
[455] 7 Ops. Atty. Gen. 168 (1855).
[456] It was so assumed by Senator William Maclay. THE JOURNAL OF WILLIAM MACLAY 109-10 (E. Maclay ed., 1890).
[457] 26 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 694-722 (1814) (quotation appearing at 699); 4 LETTERS AND OTHER WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON 350-353 (1865).
[458] 10 Stat. 619, 623.
[459] 7 Ops. Atty. Gen. 186, 220 (1855).
[460] 60 Stat. 999, superseded by the Foreign Service Act of 1980, P. L. 96-465, 94 Stat. 2071, 22 U.S.C. § 3901 et seq.
[461] 11 T. BENTON, ABRIDGEMENT OF THE DEBATES OF CONGRESS 221 (1860).
[462] S. Misc. Doc, 109, 50th Congress, 1st Sess. (1888), 104.
[463] S. Rep. No. 227, 53d Congress, 2d Sess. (1894), 25. At the outset of our entrance into World War I President Wilson dispatched a mission to "Petrograd," as it was then called, without nominating the Members of it to the Senate. It was headed by Mr. Elihu Root, with "the rank of ambassador," while some of his associates bore "the rank of envoy extraordinary."
[464] See 2 G. HOAR, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY YEARS 48-51 (1903).
[465] However, "Congress' power . . . is inevitably bounded by the express language of Article II, cl. 2, and unless the method it provides comports with the latter, the holders of those offices will not be 'Officers of the United States."' Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 , 138 -139 (1976) (quoted in Freytag v. Commissioner,
[466] See Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 , 264 -274 (1926) (Justice Brandeis dissenting). Chief Justice Taft in the opinion of the Court in Myers readily recognized the legislative power of Congress to establish offices, determine their functions and jurisdiction, fix the terms of office, and prescribe reasonable and relevant qualifications and rules of eligibility of appointees, always provided "that the qualifications do not so limit selection and so trench upon executive choice as to be in effect legislative designation." Id. at 128-29. For reiteration of Congress' general powers, see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 , 134 -35 (1976); Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 , 673 -77 (1988). And see United States v. Ferriera, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 40 , 51 (1851).
[467] See data in E. Corwin, supra at 363-65. Congress has repeatedly designated individuals, sometimes by name, more frequently by reference to a particular office, for the performance of specified acts or for posts of a nongovernmental character; e.g., to paint a picture (Johnathan Trumbull), to lay out a town, to act as Regents of Smithsonian Institution, to be managers of Howard Institute, to select a site for a post office or a prison, to restore the manuscript of the Declaration of Independence, to erect a monument at Yorktown, to erect a statue of Hamilton, and so on and so forth. Note, Power of Appointment to Public Office under the Federal Constitution, 42 HARV. L. REV. 426, 430-31 (1929). In his message of April 13, 1822, President Monroe stated the thesis that, "as a general principle, . . . Congress have no right under the Constitution to impose any restraint by law on the power granted to the President so as to prevent his making a free selection of proper persons for these [newly created] offices from the whole body of his fellow-citizens." 2 J. Richardson supra at 698, 701. The statement is ambiguous, but its apparent intention is to claim for the President unrestricted power in determining who are proper persons to fill newly created offices. See the distinction drawn in Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 , 128 -29 (1926), quoted supra. And note that in Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U.S. 440 , 482 -89 (1989) (concurring), Justice Kennedy suggested the President has sole and unconfined discretion in appointing).
[468] The Sentencing Commission, upheld in Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361 (1989), numbered among its members three federal judges; the President was to select them "after considering a list of six judges recommended to the President by the Judicial Conference of the United States." Id. at 397 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 991(a)). The Comptroller General is nominated by the President from a list of three individuals recommended by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate. Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714 , 727 (1986) (citing 31 U.S.C. § 703(a)(2)). In Metropolitan Washington Airports Auth. v. Citizens for the Abatement of Aircraft Noise, Inc.,
[469] Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 , 109 -143 (1976). The Court took pains to observe that the clause was violated not only by the appointing process but by the confirming process, inclusion of the House of Representatives, as well. Id. at 137. See also Metropolitan Washington Airports Auth. v. Citizens for the Abatement of Aircraft Noise, Inc.,
[470] Concurrently, of course, although it may seem odd, the question of what is a "Court[] of Law" for purposes of the appointments clause is unsettled. See Freytag v. CIR,
[471] Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U.S.868, 881 (1991) (quoting Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 , 126 (1976)).
[472] United States v. Germaine, 99 U.S. 508 , 509 -510 (1879) (quoted in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 , 125 (1976)). The constitutional definition of an "inferior" officer is wondrously imprecise. See Freytag v. Commissioner,
[473] 520 U.S. 651 (1997).
[474] 520 U.S. at 661-62.
[475] 520 U.S. at 662-63. The case concerned whether the Secretary of Transportation, a presidential appointee with the advice and consent of the Senate, could appoint judges of the Coast Guard Court of Military Appeals; necessarily, the judges had to be "inferior" officers. In related cases, the Court held that designation or appointment of military judges, who are "officers of the United States," does not violate the appointments clause. The judges are selected by the Judge Advocate General of their respective branch of the Armed Forces. These military judges, however, were already commissioned officers who had been appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, so that their designation simply and permissibly was an assignment to them of additional duties that did not need a second formal appointment. Weiss v. United States, 510 U.S. 163 (1994). However, the appointment of civilian judges to the Coast Guard Court of Military Review by the same method was impermissible; they had either to be appointed by an officer who could exercise appointment-clause authority or by the President, and their actions were not salvageable under the de facto officer doctrine. Ryder v. United States, 515 U.S. 177 (1995).
[476] Freytag v. Commissioner,
[477] Freytag v. Commissioner,
[478] 501 U.S. at 886 (citing Germaine and Burnap, the opinion clause, Article II, §2, and the 25th Amendment, which, in its § 4, referred to "executive departments" in a manner that reached only cabinet-level entities). But compare id. at 915-22 (Justice Scalia concurring).
[479] 501U.S. at 886 (emphasis supplied).
[480] 501 U.S. at 886-88. Compare id. at 915-19 (Justice Scalia concurring).
[481] 501 U.S. at 888-92. This holding was vigorously controverted by the other four Justices. Id. at 901-14 (Justice Scalia concurring).
[482] 501 U.S. at 918, 919 (Justice Scalia concurring).
[483] As the text suggested, Freytag seemed to be a tentative decision, and Edmond v. United States, 520 U.S. 651 (1997), a unanimous decision written by Justice Scalia, whose concurring opinion in Freytag challenged the Court's analysis, may easily be read as retreating considerably from it.
[484] In re Hennen, 38 U.S. (13 Pet.) 230 (1839). The suggestion was that inferior officers are intended to be subordinate to those in whom their appointment is vested. Id. at 257-58; United States v. Germaine, 99 U.S. 508 , 509 (1879).
[485] 100 U.S. 371 (1880).
[486] Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 , 673 -77 (1988). See also Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton, 481 U.S. 787 (1987) (appointment of private attorneys to act as prosecutors for judicial contempt judgments); Freytag v. Commissioner,
[487] 19 Stat. 143, 169 (1876).
[488] Ex parte Curtis, 106 U.S. 371 (1882). Chief Justice Waite's opinion extensively reviews early congressional legislation regulative of conduct in office. Id. at 372-73.
[489] 22 Stat. 403 (the Pendeleton Act). On this law and subsequent enactments that created the civil service as a professional cadre of bureaucrats insulated from politics, see Developments in the Law - Public Employment, 97 HARV. L. REV. 1611, 1619-1676 (1984).
[490] Act of Aug. 24, 1912, § 6, 37 Stat. 539, 555, codified as amended at 5 U.S.C. § 7513. The protection was circumscribed by the limited enforcement mechanisms under the Civil Service Commission, which were gradually strengthened. See Developments, supra, 97 HARV. L. REV., 1630-31.
[491] 92 Stat. 1111 (codified in scattered sections of titles 5, 10, 15, 28, 31, 38, 39, and 42 U.S.C.). For the long development, see Developments, supra, 97 HARV. L. REV., 1632-1650.
[492] 54 Stat. 767 (1940), then 5 U.S.C. § 7324(a). By P. L. 103-94, §§ 2(a), 12, 107 Stat. 1001, 1011, to be codified at 5 U.S.C. §§ 7321-7325, Congress liberalized the restrictions of the Act, allowing employees to take an active part in political management or in political campaigns, subject to specific exceptions. The 1940 law, § 12(a), 54 Stat. 767-768, also applied the same broad ban to employees of federally funded state and local agencies, but this provision was amended in 1974 to bar state and local government employees only from running for public office in partisan elections. Act of Oct. 15, 1974, P. L. 93-443, § 401(a), 88 Stat. 1290, 5 U.S.C. § 1502.
[493] 330 U.S. 75 (1947). See also Civil Serv. Corp. v. National Ass'n of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548 (1973), in which the constitutional attack was renewed, in large part based on the Court's expanding jurisprudence of First Amendment speech, but the Act was again sustained. A "little Hatch Act" of a State, applying to its employees, was sustained in Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601 (1973).
[494] 53 Stat. 1147, 5 U.S.C. § 7311.
[495] See Report of the Special Committee on The Federal Loyalty-Security Program, The Association of the Bar of the City of New York (New York: 1956), 60.
[496] 5 U.S.C. § 3333. The loyalty disclaimer oath was declared unconstitutional in Stewart v. Washington, 301 F. Supp. 610 (D.D.C. 1969), and the Government elected not to appeal. The strike disclaimer oath was voided in National Ass'n of Letter Carriers v. Blount, 305 F. Supp. 546 (D.D.C. 1969); after noting probable jurisdiction,
[497] E.O. 9835, 12 Fed. Reg. 1935 (1947).
[498] E.O. 10450, 18 Fed. Reg. 2489 (1953).
[499] See generally, Report of the Special Committee on The Federal Loyalty- Security Program, The Association of the Bar of the City of New York (New York: 1956).
[500] P. L. 95-521, tits. I-III, 92 Stat. 1824-1861. The Act was originally codified in three different titles, 2, 5, and 28, corresponding to legislative, executive, and judicial branch personel, but by P. L. 101-194, title II, 103 Stat. 1725 (1989), one comprehensive title, as amended, applying to all covered federal personnel was enacted. 5 U.S.C.App. §§ 101-111.
[501] See Developments, supra, 97 HARV. L. REV., 1660-1669.
[502] Id. at 1661 (citing S. Rep. 170, 95th Cong., 2d sess. (1978), 21-22.
[503] Id. at 1664-69. The Ethics Act also expanded restrictions on postemployment by imposing bans on employment, varying from a brief period to an out-and-out lifetime ban in certain cases. Id. at 1669-76. The 1989 revision enlarged and expanded on these provisions. 103 Stat. 1716-1724, amending 18 U.S.C. § 207.
[504] 92 Stat. 1864 (1978), as amended, 103 Stat. 1760 (1989), as amended, 5 U. S.C.App. §§ 501-505.
[505] 5 U.S.C.App. § 505(3).
[506] NTEU v. United States, 990 F.2d 1271 (D.C. Cir.), pet. for reh. en banc den., 3 F.3d 1555 (D.C. Cir. 1993). The Supreme Court held this provision unconstitutional in United States v. NTEU, 513 U.S. 454 (1995).
[507] Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U.S. 282 , 301 (1893). The Court noted that the additional duties at issue were "germane" to the offices. Id.
[508] Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cr.) 137 , 155 -156 (1803) (Chief Justice Marshall). Marshall's statement that the appointment "is the act of the President," conflicts with the more generally held and sensible view that when an appointment is made with its consent, the Senate shares the appointing power. 3 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1525 (1833); In re Hennen, 38 U.S. (13 Pet.) 230 , 259 (1839).
[509] 3 Ops. Atty. Gen. 188 (1837).
[510] 3 J. Story, supra at 1525-26; 5 WORKS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 161-62 (P. Ford ed., 1904); 9 WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON 111-13 (G. Hunt ed., 1910).
[511] 286 U.S. 6 (1932).
[512] E. Corwin, supra at 77.
[513] 272 U.S. 52 (1926).
[514] 19 Stat. 78, 80.
[515] 272 U.S. at 163-64.
[516] The reticence of the Constitution respecting removal left room for four possibilities: first, the one suggested by the common law doctrine of "estate in office," from which the conclusion followed that the impeachment power was the only power of removal intended by the Constitution; second, that the power of removal was an incident of the power of appointment and hence belonged, at any rate in the absence of legal or other provision to the contrary, to the appointing authority; third, that Congress could, by virtue of its power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper," etc., determine the location of the removal power; fourth, that the President by virtue of his "executive power" and his duty "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," possesses the power of removal over all officers of the United States except judges. In the course of the debate on the act to establish a Department of Foreign Affairs (later changed to Department of State) all of these views were put forward, with the final result that a clause was incorporated in the measure that implied, as pointed out above, that the head of the department would be removable by the President at his discretion. Contemporaneously, and indeed until after the Civil War, this action by Congress, in other words "the decision of 1789," was interpreted as establishing "a practical construction of the Constitution" with respect to executive officers appointed without stated terms. However, in the dominant opinion of those best authorized to speak on the subject, the "correct interpretation" of the Constitution was that the power of removal was always an incident of the power of appointment, and that therefore in the case of officers appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate the removal power was exercisable by the President only with the advice and consent of the Senate. For an extensive review of the issue at the time of Myers, see Corwin, The President's Removal Power Under the Constitution, in 4 SELECTED ESSAYS ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 1467 (1938).
[517] 272 U.S. at 134. Note the parallelism of the arguments from separation-of- powers and the President's ability to enforce the laws in the decision rendered on Congress' effort to obtain a role in the actual appointment of executive officers in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 , 109 -43 (1976), and in many of the subsequent separation-of-powers decisions.
[518] ANNALS OF CONGRESS 611-612 (1789).
[519] 295 U.S. 602 (1935). The case is also styled Rathbun, Executor v. United States, Humphrey having, like Myers before him, died in the course of his suit for salary. Proponents of strong presidential powers long argued that Humphrey's Executor, like A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), both cases argued and decided contemporaneously, reflected the anti-New Deal views of a conservative Court and wrongfully departed from Myers. See Scalia, Historical Anomalies in Administrative Law, 1985 YEARBOOK OF THE SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY 103, 106- 10. Now-Justice Scalia continues to adhere to his views and to Myers. Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 , 697 , 707-11, 723-27 (1988) (dissenting).
[520] 295 U.S. at 627-29, 631-32. Justice Sutherland's statement, quoted above, that a Federal Trade Commissioner "occupies no place in the executive department" was not necessary to the decision of the case, was altogether out of line with the same Justice's reasoning in Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U.S. 189 , 201 -202 (1928), and seems later to have caused the author of it much perplexity. See R. CUSHMAN, THE INDEPENDENT REGULATORY COMMISSION 447-48 (1941). As Professor Cushman adds: "Every officer and agency created by Congress to carry laws into effect is an arm of Congress....
The term may be a synonym; it is not an argument." Id. at 451.
[521] 357 U.S. 349 (1958).
[522] 28 U.S.C. § 516.
[523] 28 U.S.C. §§ 509, 510, 515, 533.
[524] 38 Fed. Reg. 14688 (1973). The Special Prosecutor's status and duties were the subject of negotiation between the Administration and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Nomination of Elliot L. Richardson to be Attorney General: Hearings Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973), 143 passim.
[525] The formal documents effectuating the result are set out in 9 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 1271-1272 (1973).
[526] 38 Fed. Reg. 29466 (1973). The Office was shortly recreated and a new Special Prosecutor appointed. 38 Fed. Reg. 30739, as amended by 38 Fed. Reg. 32805. See Nomination of William B. Saxbe to be Attorney General: Hearings Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973).
[527] Nader v. Bork, 366 F. Supp. 104 (D.D.C. 1973).
[528]
[529] The first question remained unstated, but the second issue was extensively debated in Special Prosecutor: Hearings Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973); Special Prosecutor and Watergate Grand Jury Legislation: Hearings Before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973).
[530] Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714 (1986); Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988). This is not to say that the language and analytical approach of Synar are not in conflict with that of Morrison; it is to say that the results are consistent and the analytical basis of the latter case does resolve the ambiguity present in some of the reservations in Synar.
[531] 478 U.S. 714 (1986).
[532] The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, Pub. L. 99-177, 99 Stat. 1038.
[533] 478 U.S. at 729, 730. "By placing the responsibility for execution of the . . . Act in the hands of an officer who is subject to removal only by itself, Congress in effect has retained control over the execution of the Act and has §intruded into the executive function." Id. at 734. Because the Act contained contingency procedures for implementing the budget reductions in the event that the primary mechanism was invalidated, the Court rejected the suggestion that it should invalidate the l921 removal provision rather than the Deficit Act's conferral of executive power in the Comptroller General. To do so would frustrate congressional intention and significantly alter the Comptroller General's office. Id. at 734-36.
[534] 478 U.S. at 726.
[535] 478 U.S. at 725 n. 4.
[536] 487 U.S. 654 (1988).
[537] Pub. L. 95-521, title VI, 92 Stat. 1867, as amended by Pub. L. 97-409, 96 Stat. 2039, and Pub. L. 100-191, 101 Stat. 1293, 28 U.S.C. §§ 49, 591 et seq.
[538] 487 U.S. at 685-93.
[539] But notice the analysis followed by three Justices in Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U.S. 440 , 467 , 482-89 (1989) (concurring), and consider the possible meaning of the recurrence to formalist reasoning in Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg, 492 U.S. 33 , (1989). And see Justice Scalia's utilization of the "take care" clause in pronouncing limits on Congress' constitutional power to confer citizen standing in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,
[540] Indeed, the Court explicitly analogized the civil enforcement powers of the independent agencies to the prosecutorial powers wielded by the independent counsel. Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 , 692 n.31 (1988).
[541] United States v. Perkins, 116 U.S. 483 (1886), cited with approval in Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 , 161 -163, 164 (1926), and Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 , 689 n. 27 (1988).
[542] Parsons v. United States, 167 U.S. 324 (1897).
[543] Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U.S. 311 (1903).
[544] Blake v. United States, 103 U.S. 227 (1881); Quackenbush v. United States, 177 U.S. 20 (1900); Wallace v. United States, 257 U.S. 541 (1922).
[545] Morgan v. TVA, 28 F. Supp. 732 (E.D. Tenn. 1939), aff'd, 115 F.2d 990 (6th Cir. 1940), cert. denied,
[546] E.g., 6 Ops. Atty. Gen. 220 (1853); In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1 (1890).
[547] United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946).
[548] E.g., 2 J. Richardson, supra at 847.
[549] United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 , 313 (1946).
[550] For a good statement of the basis of the doctrine, the areas in which it is asserted, and historical examples, see Executive Privilege: The Withholding of Information by the Executive: Hearings Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 92d Congress, 1st Sess. (1971), 420- 43, (then-Assistant Attorney General Rehnquist). Former Attorney General Rogers, in stating the position of the Eisenhower Administration, identified five categories of executive privilege: (1) military and diplomatic secrets and foreign affairs, (2) information made confidential by statute, (3) information relating to pending litigation, and investigative files and reports, (4) information relating to internal government affairs privileged from disclosure in the public interest, and (5) records incidental to the making of policy, including interdepartmental memoranda, advisory opinions, recommendations of subordinates, and informal working papers. The Power of the President To Withhold Information from the Congress, Memorandum of the Attorney General, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, 85th Congress, 2d Sess. (Comm. Print) (1958), reprinted as Rogers, Constitutional Law: The Papers of the Executive Branch, 44 A.B.A.J. 941 (1958). In the most expansive version of the doctrine, Attorney General Kleindeinst argued that the President could assert the privilege as to any employee of the Federal Government to keep secret any information at all. Executive Privilege, Secrecy in Government, Freedom of Information: Hearings Before the Senate Government Operations Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973), I:18 passim. For a strong argument that the doctrine lacks any constitutional or other legal basis, see R. BERGER, EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: A CONSTITUTIONAL MYTH (1974). The book, however, precedes the Court decision in Nixon.
[551] There are also, of course, instances of claimed access for other purposes, for which the Freedom of Information Act, 80 Stat. 383 (1966), 5 U.S.C. § 552, provides generally for public access to governmental documents. In 522(b), however, nine types of information are exempted from coverage, several of which relate to the types as to which executive privilege has been asserted, such as matter classified pursuant to executive order, interagency or intra- agency memoranda or letters, and law enforcement investigatory files. See, e. g., EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73 (1973); FTC v. Grolier, Inc., 462 U.S. 19 (1983); CIA v. Sims, 471 U.S. 159 (1985); John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 493 U. S. 146 (1989); Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C. Cir. 1973), cert. denied,
[552] See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and Rule 16, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The earliest judicial dispute involving what later became known as executive privilege arose in United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 30 and 187 (C.C.D. Va. 1807), in which defendant sought certain exculpatory material from President Jefferson. Dispute continues with regard to the extent of presidential compliance, but it appears that the President was in substantial compliance with outstanding orders if not in full compliance.
[553] E.g., Alderman v. United States,
[554] Thus, defendant in United States v. Ehrlichman, 376 F. Supp. 29 (D.D.C. 1974), was held entitled to access to material in the custody of the President wherein the President's decision to dismiss the prosecution would probably have been unavailing.
[555] 345 U.S. 1 (1953).
[556] 345 U.S. at 7-8, 9-10, 11. Withholding of information relating to governmental employees' clearances, disciplines, or discharges often raise claims of such privilege. E.g., Webster v. Doe, 486 U.S. 592 (1988); Department of the Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988). After the Court approved and implemented a governmental secrecy agreement with some of its employees, Snepp v. United States, 444 U.S. 507 (1980), the Government expanded its secrecy program with respect to classified and "classifiable" information. When Congress sought to curb this policy, the Reagan Administration convinced a federal district judge to declare the restrictions void as invasive of the President's constitutional power to manage the executive. National Fed'n of Fed. Employees v. United States, 688 F. Supp. 671 (D.D.C. 1988), vacated and remanded sub nom., American Foreign Service Ass'n v. Garfinkel, 490 U.S. 153 (1989). For similar assertions in the context of plaintiffs suing the Government for interference with their civil and political rights during the protests against the Vietnam War, in which the plaintiffs were generally denied the information in the possession of the Government under the state-secrets privilege, see Halkin v. Helms, 598 F.2d 1 (D.C. Cir. 1978); Ellsberg v. Mitchell, 709 F.2d 51 (D.C. Cir. 1983). For review and analysis, see Quint, The Separation of Powers Under Carter, 62 TEX. L. REV. 785, 875-80 (1984). And see Totten v. United States,
[557] United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 , 692 -97 (1974).
[558] 418 U.S.at 707-708. Presumably, the opinion recognizes a similar power existent in the federal courts to preserve the confidentiality of judicial deliberations, cf. New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 , 752 n.3 (1971) (Chief Justice Burger dissenting), and in each House of Congress to treat many of its papers and documents as privileged. Cf. Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d 1067, 1080, 1081-1982 (C.A.D.C. 1971) (Judge Wilkey concurring); Military Cold War Escalation and Speech Review Policies: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 87th Congress, 2d Sess. (1962), 512 (Senator Stennis). See Calley v. Callaway, 519 F.2d 184 (5th Cir. 1975) (en banc), cert. denied,
[559] 418 U.S. 68 3, 711 -13. Essentially the same decision had been arrived at in the context of subpoenas of tapes and documentary evidence for use before a grand jury in Nixon v. Sirica, 487 F.2d 700 (D.C. Cir. 1973).
[560]
[27] Cheney v. United States District Cour t, 124 S. Ct. 2576 (2004).
[28] While the information sought in Nixon was important to "the constitutional need for production of evidence in a criminal proceeding," the suit against the Vice President was civil, and withholding the information "does not hamper another branch's ability to perform its 'essential functions.' " 124 S. Ct. at 2580, 2589.
[29] The Court recognized "the paramount necessity of protecting the Executive Branch from vexatious litigation that might distract it from the energetic performance of its constitutional duties." 124 S. Ct. at 2580. But cf. Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 , 702 (1997).
[561] See the extensive discussion in Shane, Legal Disagreement and Negotiation in a Government of Laws: The Case of Executive Privilege Claims Against Congress, 71 MINN. L. REV. 461 (1987).
[562] Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities v. Nixon, 370 F. Supp. 521 (D.D.C.), aff'd, 498 F.2d 725 (D.C. Cir. 1974).
[563] President Nixon's position was set out in a June 9, 1974, letter to the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. 10 Wkly. Comp. Pres. Docs. 592 (1974). The impeachment article and supporting material are set out in H. Rep. No. 93-1305, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. (1974).
[564] For consideration of various proposals by which Congress might proceed, see Hamilton & Grabow, A Legislative Proposal for Resolving Executive Privilege Disputes Precipitated by Congressional Subpoenas, 21 HARV. J. LEGIS. 145 (1984); Brand & Connelly, Constitutional Confrontations: Preserving a Prompt and Orderly Means by Which Congress May Enforce Investigative Demands Against Executive Branch Officials, 36 CATH. U. L. REV. 71 (1986); Note, The Conflict Between Executive Privilege and Congressional Oversight: The Gorsuch Controversy, 1983 DUKE L. J. 1333.
[565] See the following Ops. Atty. Gen.: 1:631 (1823); 2:525 (1832); 3:673 (1841); 4:523 (1846); 10:356 (1862); 11:179 (1865); 12:32 (1866); 12:455 (1868); 14:563 (1875); 15:207 (1877); 16:523 (1880); 18:28 (1884); 19:261 (1889); 26:234 (1907); 30:314 (1914); 33:20 (1921). In 4 Ops. Atty. Gen. 361, 363 (1845), the general doctrine was held not to apply to a yet unfilled office which was created during the previous session of Congress, but this distinction was rejected in the following Ops. Atty. Gen.: 12:455 (1868); 18:28 (1884); and 19:261 (1889). In harmony with the opinions is United States v. Allocco, 305 F.2d 704 (2d Cir. 1962). For the early practice with reference to recess appointments, see 2 G. HAYNES, THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 772- 78 (1938).
[566] 23 Ops. Atty. Gen. 599 (1901); 22 Ops. Atty. Gen. 82 (1898). How long a "recess" must be to be actually a recess, a question here as in the pocket veto area, is uncertain. 3 O. L. C. 311, 314 (1979). A "recess," however, may be merely "constructive," as when a regular session succeeds immediately upon a special session. It was this kind of situation that gave rise to the once famous Crum incident. See 3 W. Willoughby, supra at 1508-1509.
[567] 5 U.S.C. § 5503. The provision has been on the books, in somewhat stricter form, since 12 Stat. 646 (1863).
[568] United States v. Woodley, 751 F.2d 1008 (9th Cir. 1985) (en banc), cert. denied,
[569] See the following Ops. Atty. Gen.: 6:358 (1854); 12:32, 41 (1866); 25:258 (1904); 28:95 (1909); 38:298 (1935).
This document cites
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- U.S. Code - Title 18: Crimes and Criminal Procedure - 18 USC 3181 - Sec. 3181. Scope and limitation of chapter
- U.S. Code - Title 19: Customs Duties - 19 USC 2191 - Sec. 2191. Bills implementing trade agreements on nontariff barriers and resolutions approving commercial agreements with Communist countries
- U.S. Code - Title 19: Customs Duties - 19 USC 2111 - Sec. 2111. Basic authority for trade agreements
- U.S. Code - Title 19: Customs Duties - 19 USC 1821 - Sec. 1821. Basic authority for trade agreements
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