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Page Number: 55

14 

BOND v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

gests  that  the  Treaty  Power  conceals  a  police  power  over 
domestic affairs. 

Whatever  its  other  defects,  Missouri  v.  Holland,  252 
U. S. 416 (1920), is consistent with that view.  There, the 
Court  addressed  the  constitutionality  of  a  treaty  that
regulated  the  capture  of  birds  that  migrated  between
Canada  and  the  United  States.    Convention  with  Great 
Britain  for  the  Protection  of  Migratory  Birds,  Aug.  16,
1916,  39  Stat.  1702,  T.  S.  No.  628.    Although  the  Court
upheld  a  statute  implementing  that  treaty  based  on  an
improperly  broad  view  of  the  Necessary  and  Proper 
Clause, see ante, at 12–14 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judg-
ment),  Holland  did  not  conclude  that  the  Treaty  Power
itself  was  unlimited.    See  252  U. S.,  at  433  (“We  do  not 
mean  to  imply  that  there  are  no  qualifications  to  the 
treaty-making power . . .”).  To the contrary, the holding in 
Holland is consistent with the understanding that treaties 
are  limited  to  matters  of  international  intercourse.    The 
Court  observed  that  the  treaty  at  issue  addressed  mi- 
gratory birds that were “only transitorily within the State
and ha[d] no permanent habitat therein.”  Id., at 435; see 
also  id.,  at  434  (“[T]he  treaty  deals  with  creatures  that
[only]  for  the  moment  are  within  the  state  borders”).    As 
such,  the  birds  were  naturally  a  matter  of  international
intercourse  because  they  were  creatures  in  international 
transit.2 
—————— 

2 The Solicitor General also defended the treaty in Holland on a basis 
that recognized the limited scope of the Treaty Power.  Acknowledging
that  the  Treaty  Power  addressed  “matters  in  which  a  foreign  govern-
ment  may  have  an  interest,  and  which  may  properly  be  the  subject  of
negotiations  with  that  Government,”  Brief  for  Appellee  in  Missouri  v. 
Holland,  O. T.  1919,  No.  609,  p. 41,  the  Solicitor  General  expressly
reserved the question “[w]hether a treaty . . . for the protection of game
which remains permanently within the United States would be a valid
exercise of the treaty-making power.”  Id., at 42.  Because the treaty at
issue  focused  on  creatures  in  international  transit—it  was  “limited  to