among modern nations; by
pointing out the department of the government, most proper for the
ceremony of admitting public ministers, of examining their credentials,
and of authenticating their title to the privileges annexed to their
character by the law of nations. This being the apparent design of the
constitution, it would be highly improper to magnify the function into
an important prerogative, even when no rights of other departments could
be affected by it."[342]

THE PRESIDENT'S DIPLOMATIC ROLE

Hamilton, although he had expressed substantially the same view in The
Federalist regarding the power of reception,[343] adopted a very
different conception of it in defense of Washington's proclamation.
Writing over the pseudonym "Pacificus," he said: "The right of the
executive to receive ambassadors and other public ministers, may serve
to illustrate the relative duties of the executive and legislative
departments. This right includes that of judging, in the case of a
revolution of government in a foreign country, whether the new rulers
are competent organs of the national will, and ought to be recognized,
or not; which, where a treaty antecedently exists between the United
States and such nation, involves the power of continuing or suspending
its operation. For until the new government is _acknowledged_, the
treaties between the nations, so far at least as regards _public_
rights, are of course suspended. This power of determining virtually
upon the operation of national treaties, as a consequence of the power
to receive public ministers, is an important instance of the right of
the executive, to decide upon the obligations of the country with regard
to foreign nations. To apply it to the case of France, if there had been
a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between the United States
and that country, the unqualified acknowledgment of the new government
would have put the United States in a condition to become an associate
in the war with France, and would have laid the legislature under an
obligation, if required, and there was otherwise no valid excuse, of
exercising its power of declaring war. This serves as an example of the
right of the executive, in certain cases, to determine the condition of
the nation, though it may, in its consequences, affect the exercise of
the power of the legislature to declare war. Nevertheless, the executive
cannot thereby control the exercise of that power. The legislatur