Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-158_6579.pdf
Page Number: 48.0

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

7 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

discussion  of  the  proposed  Treaty  Power  occurred,  see
Bradley  410;  Golove,  Treaty-Making  and  the  Nation,  98
Mich. L. Rev. 1075, 1141–1142 (2000) (hereinafter Golove).
There, Anti-Federalists leveled the charge that the Treaty 
Power  gave  the  Federal  Government  excessive  power. 
See,  e.g.,  3  Debates  on  the  Federal  Constitution  509  (J. 
Elliot  2d  ed.  1876)  (hereinafter  Elliot’s  Debates)  (G.  Ma-
son)  (“The  President  and  Senate  can  make  any  treaty 
whatsoever”);  id.,  at  513  (P.  Henry)  (“To  me  this  power 
appears  still  destructive;  for  they  can  make  any  treaty”).
But  Madison  insisted  that  just  “because  this  power  is 
given to Congress,” it did not follow that the Treaty Power
was “absolute and unlimited.”  Id., at 514.  The President 
and  the  Senate  lacked  the  power  “to  dismember  the  em-
pire,”  for  example,  because  “[t]he  exercise  of  the  power 
must be consistent with the object of the delegation.”  Ibid. 
“The object of treaties,” in Madison’s oft-repeated formula-
tion, “is the regulation of intercourse with foreign nations,
and is external.”  Ibid. 

Although  Alexander  Hamilton  undoubtedly  believed 
that the Treaty Power was broad within its proper sphere, 
see infra, at 8, the view he expressed in essays during the
New York ratification campaign is entirely consistent with
Madison’s.  After noting that the Treaty Power was one of 
the  “most  unexceptionable  parts”  of  the  proposed  Consti-
tution, Hamilton distinguished the Treaty Power from the 
legislative  power  “to  prescribe  rules  for  the  regulation  of
the society” and from the executive power to “execut[e] . . .
the laws.”  The Federalist No. 75, at 503–504.  “The power 
of  making  treaties,”  he  concluded,  “is  plainly  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other.”  Id.,  at  504.  Rather,  Hamilton  ex-
plained  that  treaties  “are  not  rules  prescribed  by  the
sovereign  to  the  subject,  but  agreements  between  sover-
eign and sovereign.”  Id., at 504–505.  That description is 
difficult  to  square  with  a  view  of  the  Treaty  Power  that
would  allow  the  Federal  Government  to  prescribe  rules