minister in England, May 21, 1860, in answer to a question by Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, "Is there in the making of leagues or treaties a clearly defined line between the prerogative of the crown and the power of Parliament ?" Mr. Dallas replies:

"Without undertaking a full and minute course of discrimination, let me give you my impressions.

"What is called 'the tendency of the age' shows itself strikingly on this subject. The great commentator of last century may have been accurate; he would require liberalization now. He told us that whatever international contracts the sovereign engaged in, no other power in the kingdom can legally delay, resist, or annul.' That dictum, in its broad import, has ceased to be true. The impeachment of a bad minister is no longer the only recognized escape or remedy of an injurious treaty.

"The commercial convention recently entered into with France contains an express declaration that it shall not be valid unless her Britannic Majesty shall be authorized by the assent of her Parlia ment to execute the engagements contracted by her in its several articles.' Such a clause is, I am assured, always introduced in modern treaties of this kind: and before the present occasion its exigency was met by the adoption of a joint address to the Queen approving comprehensively the diplomatic programme.

"I believe it safe to say, nowadays, that a treaty which calls for a law in order to be executed, may be constitutionally nullified by the refusal of either house, the Commons or the Lords, to enact that law. If it be necessary to assent, it is competent to dissent. Treaties requiring appropriations of money; treaties establishing tariffs or mutual terms of interchanging products; and treaties relinquishing territorial dominions, perhaps,

sink into the power of Parliament. In the olden time, Blackstone would have been shocked if the executive, bent upon fulfilling an international engagement, had thought it worth while to say more than Pass the bill.' • Stet pro ratione voluntas!

"It may be doubted whether the check upon executive discretion be not, in this sphere of public agency, better ascertained here than with us. Chancellor Kent, I think, expressed astonishment and regret that a resolution, founded on the incidents of Jay's Treaty, was passed by the House of Representatives in 1796, declaring what is now understood to be settled English law and practice; that is, if a treaty depend for the execution of any of its stipulations upon a legislative act, the House could and should determine on the expediency of carrying it into effect or letting it abort. Whether the principle of that resolution was abandoned, or only pretermitted on the emergency of 1816, may be questioned. It disappoints expectation, but in reality is not illogical, that the treaty-making power, when in the hands of a hereditary monarch, should be more trammelled and restricted than when in the hands of an elective chief magistrate and senate. I trust, however, that, should the controversy revive, our representatives may feel themselves, maugre Chancellor Kent, free to be at least as democratic as the British Commons. It is noticeable that the precedent of a parliamentary stand against a treaty was made during the ministry of Pitt, almost contemporaneously with Jay's; and that while on this side of the Atlantic the popular resistance triumphed, by leading to the withdrawal and abandonment of the measure, on our side, notwithstanding an agitation alike universal and violent, we were compelled to swallow, pure and undiluted, the strong concoction of the venerable chief jus

tice." Dallas's Letters from London, II. 208.

Mr. Todd, in his valuable work on Parliamentary Government in England, I. 610, states the rule as follows: "The constitutional power appertaining to Parliament in respect to treaties is limited. It does not require their formal sanction or ratification by Parliament as a condition of their validity. The proper jurisdiction of Parliament in such matters may be thus defined: First, it has the right to give or withhold its sanction to those parts of a treaty that require a legislative enactment to give it force and effect, as, for example, when it provides for an alteration in the criminal or municipal law, or proposes to change existing tariffs or commercial regulations. Secondly, either house has the right to express to the crown, by means of an address, its opinion in regard to any treaty or part of a treaty that has been laid before Parliament. Thirdly, it is in the power of either house, if it disapproves of a convention or treaty, to visit the ministers of the crown who are responsible for the same with censure or impeachment, as the case may be.

"If a treaty requires legislative action, in order to carry it out, it should be sub

jected to the fullest discussion in Parlia ment, and especially in the House of Commons, with a view to enable the government to promote effectually the impor tant interests at stake in their proposed alterations in the foreign policy of the nation. But while Parliament may refuse to agree to measures submitted to them for the purpose of giving effect to any treaty, they have no power to change or modify in any way a treaty itself."

Very much may be said on both sides of this question; but if the House, which, under the Constitution, is to originate appropriations, is under a moral obligation to pass acts to carry into effect all treaties, it is easy to conceive of cases in which the President and Senate, by agreeing in treaties to appropriations which ought to be made in the ordinary way, may encroach seriously upon the power of the House.

Though a treaty is the "law of the land," it is as much subject to repeal as any legis lative act, and a subsequent act of Congress conflicting with it has the effect to repeal it pro tanto. Taylor v. Morton, 2 Curt. C. C. 454; Ropes v. Church, 8 Blatch. 304; Gray v. Clinton Bridge, 1 Woolw. 150; United States v. Tobacco Factory, 1 Dillon, 264, affirmed sub nom. The Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wall. 616. C.