nd advice.

The course which the debate has taken on the resolution of the House
leads to some observations on the mode of making treaties under the
Constitution of the United States.

Having been a member of the General Convention, and knowing the
principles on which the Constitution was formed, I have ever entertained
but one opinion on this subject; and from the first establishment of the
Government to this moment my conduct has exemplified that opinion--that
the power of making treaties is exclusively vested in the President,
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds
of the Senators present concur; and that every treaty so made and
promulgated thenceforward became the law of the land. It is thus that
the treaty-making power has been understood by foreign nations, and
in all the treaties made with them _we_ have declared and _they_ have
believed that, when ratified by the President, with the advice and
consent of the Senate, they became obligatory. In this construction
of the Constitution every House of Representatives has heretofore
acquiesced, and until the present time not a doubt or suspicion has
appeared, to my knowledge, that this construction was not the true one.
Nay, they have more than acquiesced; for till now, without controverting
the obligation of such treaties, they have made all the requisite
provisions for carrying them into effect.

There is also reason to believe that this construction agrees with
the opinions entertained by the State conventions when they were
deliberating on the Constitution, especially by those who objected to it
because there was not required in _commercial treaties_ the consent of
two-thirds of the whole number of the members of the Senate instead of
two-thirds of the Senators present, and because in treaties respecting
territorial and certain other rights and claims the concurrence of
three-fourths of the whole number of the members of both Houses,
respectively, was not made necessary.

It is a fact declared by the General Convention and universally
understood that the Constitution of the United States was the result
of a spirit of amity and mutual concession; and it is well known
that under this influence the smaller States were admitted to an equal
representation in the Senate with the larger States, and that this
branch of the Government was invested with great powers, for on the
equal participation of those powers the sovereignty and politic