"As the Executive head
of the nation, the President is made the only legitimate organ of the
General Government, to open and carry on correspondence or negotiations
with foreign nations, in matters concerning the interests of the country
or of its citizens. It is to him, also, the citizens abroad must look
for protection of person and of property, and for the faithful execution
of the laws existing and intended for their protection. For this
purpose, the whole Executive power of the country is placed in his
hands, under the Constitution, and the laws passed in pursuance thereof;
and different Departments of government have been organized, through
which this power may be most conveniently executed, whether by
negotiation or by force--a Department of State and a Department of the
Navy.

"Now, as it respects the interposition of the Executive abroad, for the
protection of the lives or property of the citizen, the duty must, of
necessity, rest in the discretion of the President. Acts of lawless
violence, or of threatened violence to the citizen or his property,
cannot be anticipated and provided for; and the protection, to be
effectual or of any avail, may, not unfrequently, require the most
prompt and decided action. Under our system of Government, the citizen
abroad is as much entitled to protection as the citizen at home. The
great object and duty of Government is the protection of the lives,
liberty, and property of the people composing it, whether abroad or at
home; and any Government failing in the accomplishment of the object, or
the performance of the duty, is not worth preserving."[415]

PRESIDENTIAL WORLD POLICING

In his little volume on World Policing and the Constitution[416] Mr.
James Grafton Rogers lists 149 episodes similar to the Greytown affair,
stretching between the undeclared war with France in 1798 and Pearl
Harbor. While inviting some pruning, the list demonstrates beyond
peradventure the existence in the President, as Chief Executive and
Commander in Chief, of power to judge whether a situation requires the
use of available forces to protect American rights of person and
property outside the United States and to take action in harmony with
his decision. Such employment of the forces have, it is true, been
usually justifiable acts of self defense rather than acts of war, but
the countries where they occurred were entitled to treat them as acts of
war nevertheless, although they have generally bee