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Page Number: 49

8 

BOND v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

over all aspects of domestic life. 

B 
It  did  not  escape  the  attention  of  the  Framers  that  the
Treaty  Power  was  drafted  without  explicitly  enumerated
limits on what sorts of treaties are permissible.  See, e.g.,
Hamilton,  The  Defence  No.  XXXVI,  in  20  Papers  of  Alex-
ander Hamilton 6 (H. Syrett ed. 1974) (“A power ‘to make 
treaties,’  granted  in  these  indefinite  terms,  extends  to  all 
kinds  of  treaties  and  with  all  the  latitude  which  such  a 
power  under  any  form  of  Government  can  possess”).    The 
Articles  of  Confederation  had,  for  example,  explicitly 
restricted  certain  categories  of  treaties.  See  Art. IX 
(“[N]o treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legis-
lative  power  of  the  respective  States  shall  be  restrained 
from  imposing  such  imposts  and  duties  on  foreigners,  as 
their own people are subjected to, or from prohibiting the 
exportation or importation of any species of goods or com-
modities  whatsoever”).  The  Constitution  omitted  those 
restrictions. 

That  decision  was  not  a  grant  of  unlimited  power,  but 
rather  a  grant  of  flexibility;  the  Federal  Government 
needed the ability to respond to unforeseeable varieties of 
intercourse  with  other  nations.  James  Madison,  for  ex-
ample, did “not think it possible to enumerate all the cases 
in which such external regulations would be necessary.”  3 
Elliot’s  Debates  514;  see  also  id.,  at  363  (E.  Randolph) 
(“The  various  contingencies  which  may  form  the  object  of
treaties,  are,  in  the  nature  of  things,  incapable  of  defini-
tion”).  But  Madison  nevertheless  recognized  that  any
exercise of the Treaty Power “must be consistent with the 
object of the delegation,” which is “the regulation of inter-
course  with  foreign  nations.”    Id., at  514;  see also  Hamil-
ton,  The  Defence,  supra,  at  6  (“[W]hatever  is  a  proper 
subject  of  compact  between  Nation  &  Nation  may  be  em-
braced by a Treaty” (emphasis added)).  That understand-