stions which can be adjusted
touching any matter which is properly the subject of negotiation with a
foreign country."[200] The fact is none the less, that no treaty of the
United States nor any provision thereof has ever been found by the Court
to be unconstitutional. The most persistently urged proposition in
limitation of the treaty-making power has been that it must not invade
certain 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.[201] Nevertheless, the Court was forced to answer it as
recently as 1923. This was in the case of Missouri _v._ Holland,[202] in
which the Court sustained a treaty between the United States and Great
Britain providing for the reciprocal protection of migratory birds which
make seasonal flights from Canada into the United States and vice versa,
and an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof which authorized the
Department of Agriculture to draw up regulations to govern the hunting
of such birds, subject to the penalties specified by the act. To the
objection that the treaty and implementing legislation invaded the
acknowledged police power of the State in the protection of game within
its borders, Justice Holmes, speaking for the Court, answered: "Acts of
Congress 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. We do not mean to imply that there
are no qualifications to the treaty-making power; but they must be
ascertained in a different way. It is obvious 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. (Andrews _v._ Andrews,
188 U.S. 14, 33 (1903)). What was said in that case with regard to the
powers of the States applies with equal force to the powers of the
nation in cases where the States individually are incompetent to act.
* * * The treaty in question does not contravene any prohibitory words
to be found in the Constitution. The