to the Executive, with the advice and consent of the Senate,
the right to negotiate treaties. We have been negotiating commercial
treaties continuously prior and subsequent to the adoption of the
Constitution, and those treaties have been sustained as the supreme
law of the land.

"It is said that the Constitution has given to Congress the right
to regulate commerce with foreign nations, to lay and collect taxes,
duties, and imposts, and to the House of Representatives the right
to originate bills for raising revenues, and to the President and
Senate the right to make and ratify treaties. These are all co-
equal and independent powers. One does not interfere with the
other. One is not exclusive of the other. A law passed in any of
the ways provided by the Constitution is the supreme law of the
land until it is changed or repealed. A treaty made by the Executive
and ratified by the Senate is the supreme law of the land as well
as an act of Congress. If the Congress is not satisfied with the
treaty, it has a perfect right to repeal it, as it has any other
law; but until such action is taken, the treaty remains as a part
of the supreme law of the land; and I cannot see any distinction
between treaties which affect the tariff laws, and treaties affecting
any other law."

The subject was very seriously and carefully considered, but it
was thought expedient that the committee should not take any position
either for or against the unlimited power of the Senate over
reciprocity treaties. It was Senator Spooner who suggested that
each of the treaties be amended by inserting therein a provision
that "the treaty not take effect until the same shall have been
approved by the Congress."

The merits of the question were not considered; but my position
was, and still is, that amending the treaties in the manner suggested
by Senator Spooner, by inference indicated that if such a provision
had not been inserted, the treaties would go into effect immediately
without any Congressional action.

Aside from the reciprocity treaty with France, none of the treaties
was considered by the Senate itself. I pressed them as best I
could, but Senator Aldrich, Senator Hanna, and other advocates of
high protection, were so bitterly opposed to them--no one in the
Senate aside from myself seeming to have much interest in them--
that they were dropped and allowed to expire by their own terms.
I particularly regretted that the Kasson treati