Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-158_6579.pdf
Page Number: 37

Cite as:  572 U. S. ____ (2014) 

13 

SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment 

Amendment . . . does not limit the power to make treaties 
or  other  agreements,”  Restatement  (Third)  of  Foreign 
Relations  Law  of  the  United  States  §302,  Comment  d,  p.
154  (1986),  and  the  treaty  power  can  be  used  to  regulate
matters  of  strictly  domestic  concern,  see  id.,  at  Comment 
c, p. 153; but see post, at 3–16 (THOMAS, J., concurring in 
judgment).

If that is true, then the possibilities of what the Federal
Government  may  accomplish,  with  the  right  treaty  in
hand, are endless and hardly farfetched.  It could begin, as
some  scholars  have  suggested,  with  abrogation  of  this 
Court’s  constitutional  rulings.    For  example,  the  holding 
that  a  statute  prohibiting  the  carrying  of  firearms  near 
schools  went  beyond  Congress’s  enumerated  powers, 
United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 551 (1995), could be
reversed  by  negotiating  a  treaty  with  Latvia  providing 
that  neither  sovereign  would  permit  the  carrying  of  guns 
near schools.  Similarly, Congress could reenact the inval-
idated  part  of  the  Violence  Against  Women  Act  of  1994
that  provided  a  civil  remedy  for  victims  of  gender-
motivated violence, just so long as there were a treaty on
point—and  some  authors  think  there  already  is,  see 
MacKinnon,  The  Supreme  Court,  1999  Term,  Comment,
114 Harv. L. Rev. 135, 167 (2000).

But reversing some of this Court’s decisions is the least
of the problem.  Imagine the United States’ entry into an
Antipolygamy Convention, which called for—and Congress 
enacted—legislation  providing  that,  when  a  spouse  of  a 
man  with  more  than  one  wife  dies  intestate,  the  surviv- 
ing  husband  may  inherit  no  part  of  the  estate.    Constitu-
tional?  The  Federalist  answers  with  a  rhetorical  ques-
tion: “Suppose by some forced constructions of its authority 
(which  indeed  cannot  easily  be  imagined)  the  Federal
Legislature  should  attempt  to  vary  the  law  of  descent  in
any State; would it not be evident that . . . it had exceeded
its jurisdiction and infringed upon that of the State?”  The