mselves. As a matter of historical
accuracy it had no other intent when it was framed.

In the particular case of the Japanese treaty, the time for the State of
California to have made its attitude known was surely when the treaty
passed the Senate. The California Senators, or the people of the State,
had then two honest courses open to them. They could have let it be
known unequivocally that they did not propose to hold themselves bound
by the action of the Senate but would, if any attempt were made to force
them to comply with the terms of the treaty, secede from the Union; or
they could have determined there and then to abide loyally by the terms
of the treaty and no matter at what cost to the State, or at what
sacrifice of their _amour propre_, to see that all the rights provided
in the treaty were accorded to Japanese within the State. Either of
these courses would have been honest; and Japanese who came to
California would have come with their eyes open. The course which was
followed, of allowing them to settle in the State in the expectation of
receiving that treatment to which the faith of the United States was
pledged, and then denying them that treatment, was distinctly dishonest.

If, however, the State of California, or any other individual State,
refuses to acknowledge the responsibilities which it has assumed by the
vote of the Chamber of which its representatives are members, there
appears no way in which the Federal Government can compel such
acknowledgment except those of force and what the believers in the
extreme doctrine of State Sovereignty consider Constitutional
Usurpation.

It has in many cases been necessary as the conditions of the country
have changed so to interpret the phrases of the Constitution as to give
to the General Government powers which cannot have been contemplated by
the framers of that instrument. In this case there is every evidence,
however, that the framers did intend that the General Government should
have precisely those powers which it now desires--or that the individual
States should be subject to precisely those responsibilities which they
now seek to evade--and if any sentence in the Constitution can be so
interpreted as to give to the General Government the power to compel
States to respect the treaties made by the nation, it seems unnecessary
to shrink from putting such interpretation upon it.

Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to "regulate commerce
wi