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16 

BOND v. UNITED STATES 

SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment 

they  can  enter  into  a  treaty  with  “stipulations”  specific
enough  that  they  “require  no  legislation  to  make  them
operative,”  Whitney  v.  Robertson,  124  U. S.  190,  194 
(1888), which would mean in this example something like 
a comprehensive probate code.  But for that to succeed, the 
President and a supermajority of the Senate would need to 
reach  agreement  on  all  the  details—which,  when  once
embodied in the treaty, could not be altered or superseded 
by ordinary legislation.  The second option—far the better 
one—is  for  Congress  to  gain  lasting  and  flexible  control 
over the law of intestacy by means of a non-self-executing 
treaty.  “[Implementing]  legislation  is  as  much  subject  to 
modification  and  repeal  by  Congress  as  legislation  upon 
any other subject.”  Ibid.  And to make such a treaty, the 
President  and  Senate  would  need  to  agree  only  that  they 
desire power over the law of intestacy.

The famous scholar and jurist Henry St. George Tucker
saw  clearly  the  danger  of  Holland’s  ipse  dixit  five  years 
before it was written: 

“[The  statement  is  made  that]  if  the  treaty-making
power,  composed  of  the  President  and  Senate,  in  dis-
charging  its  functions  under  the  government,  finds
that  it  needs  certain  legislative  powers  which  Con-
gress does not possess to carry out its desires, it may 
. . .  infuse  into  Congress  such  powers,  although  the
Framers of the Constitution omitted to grant them to
Congress. . . .  Every  reputable  commentator  upon  the
Constitution from Story down to the present day, has 
held  that  the  legislative  powers  of  Congress  lie  in
grant and are limited by such grant. . . . [S]hould such 
a construction as that asserted in the above statement 
obtain  through  judicial  endorsement,  our  system  of 
government  would  soon  topple  and  fall.”    Limitations 
on  the  Treaty-Making  Power  Under  the  Constitution 
of the United States §113, pp. 129–130 (1915).