another Power enters into treaty
relations with the United States it does so with its eyes open and with
a knowledge of the peculiarities of the American Constitution. This is
an argument which belongs to the backwoods stage of American
statesmanship. In the past, it is true, the United States has been in a
measure the spoilt child among the nations and has been permitted to sit
somewhat loosely to the observance of those formalities which other
Powers have recognised as binding on themselves; but the time has gone
by when the United States can claim, or ought to be willing to accept,
any especial indulgences. It cannot at once assert its right to rank as
one of the Great Powers and affect to enter into treaties on equal terms
with other nations, and at the same time admit that it is unable to
honour its signature to those treaties.

This, I say, is the general opinion of thinking men in other countries;
but, however desirable it may be that the General Government should have
the power to compel the individual States to comply with the
requirements of the national undertakings, it is difficult, so long as
the several States continue jealous of their sovereignty without regard
to the national honour, to see how the end is to be arrived at.

The first obvious fact is that all treaties are made by the President
"by and with the advice and consent of the Senate" and no treaty is
valid until ratified by a vote of the Senate in which "two thirds of the
Senators present concur." The Senate occupies a peculiar position in the
scheme of government. It does not represent either the nation as a whole
nor, like the House of Representatives, the people as a whole. The
Senate represents the individual States each acting in its sovereign
capacity[287:1]; and the voice of the Senate is the voice of those
States as separate entities. When the Senate passes upon any question it
has been passed upon by each several State and it is not easy to see how
any particular State can claim to be exempt from the responsibility of
any vote of the Senate as a whole.

It would appear to follow of necessity that when the Senate has by a
formal two-thirds vote ratified a treaty, every State is bound to accept
all the obligations of that treaty, not merely as part of the nation but
as a separate unit. The provision in the Constitution which makes the
vote of the Senate on any treaty necessary can have no other intent than
to bind the several States the