Federalist Papers on Limits of Presidential Authority wrt Treaty Making

[BurtWorm]

The Federalist Papers were written to convince reluctant Americans to accept a strong constitutional government that would cohere the states without subjecting them. The Federalist No. 69 sought to assure New Yorkers that the American Executive would differ from the British monarch in a number of significant ways, mainly through a number of limitations on his power.

What would the Bushists make of this passage, which seems to me to offer a severe indictment of their whole posture toward international agreements?


http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa69.htm


The President is to have power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur. The king of Great Britain is the sole and absolute representative of the nation in all foreign transactions. He can of his own accord make treaties of peace, commerce, alliance, and of every other description. It has been insinuated, that his authority in this respect is not conclusive, and that his conventions with foreign powers are subject to the revision, and stand in need of the ratification, of Parliament. But I believe this doctrine was never heard of, until it was broached upon the present occasion. Every jurist2 of that kingdom, and every other man acquainted with its Constitution, knows, as an established fact, that the prerogative of making treaties exists in the crown in its utomst plentitude; and that the compacts entered into by the royal authority have the most complete legal validity and perfection, independent of any other sanction. The Parliament, it is true, is sometimes seen employing itself in altering the existing laws to conform them to the stipulations in a new treaty; and this may have possibly given birth to the imagination, that its co-operation was necessary to the obligatory efficacy of the treaty. But this parliamentary interposition proceeds from a different cause: from the necessity of adjusting a most artificial and intricate system of revenue and commercial laws, to the changes made in them by the operation of the treaty; and of adapting new provisions and precautions to the new state of things, to keep the machine from running into disorder. In this respect, therefore, there is no comparison between the intended power of the President and the actual power of the British sovereign. The one can perform alone what the other can do only with the concurrence of a branch of the legislature.

[BurtWorm]

1. kick

[BurtWorm]

5. kick

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Great post.

[Bandit]

3. The Federalist Papers have no authority what-so-ever

They are just a bunch of ideas presented for/in the forming of our Constitution. Only the Constitution is law. I repeat Only the US Constitution is Law These "Papers" are just how the bologna is made. I realize the GOP believes they are what we should follow instead of the Constitution but it ain't so.

[BurtWorm]

4. No shit?

;)

I cite them because they explain the thinking behind the creation of the Consitutional Republic. I was wondering how a lawyer could make a claim, as the Ashcroftians apparently did with the Torture memo, that Bush's ability to okay torture, in spite of the US's signing on to the Geneva conventions, is justified by "inherent constitutional authority." Where do they get this "inherent constitutional authority" bullshit? Not in the Constitution, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." I wondered what the thinking about presidential authority was when they actually wrote the Constitution. Maybe there's something in there about the "commander in chief" being above the law. Nope. So where do they get this "inherent constitutional authority" crap? Any ideas?