Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-158_6579.pdf
Page Number: 50.0

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

9 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

ing of the Treaty Power did not permit the President and 
the  Senate  to  exercise  domestic  authority  commensurate
with their substantial power over external affairs. 

C 
The understanding that treaties are limited to, in Madi-
son’s  words,  “the  regulation  of  intercourse  with  foreign 
nations,”  endured  in  the  years  after  the  Constitution  was
ratified. 

In 1796, an extended debate regarding the proper scope
of the Treaty Power arose in the aftermath of a controver-
sial treaty  with Great  Britain that addressed the validity 
of  prerevolutionary  debts  and  the  property  rights  of  Brit-
ish subjects.  Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation, 
Nov. 19, 1794, 8 Stat. 116, T. S. No. 105.  When President 
Washington  requested  appropriations  to  implement  that 
so-called “Jay Treaty” (after its chief negotiator, John Jay), 
the  House  of  Representatives  engaged  in  a  month-long
floor debate over its own role in the process of implement-
ing treaties.  See 5 Annals of Cong. 426 (1796); see gener-
ally  D.  Currie,  The  Constitution  in  Congress:  The  Fed-
eralist  Period  1789–1801,  pp.  211–217  (1997).    Some 
Congressmen  argued  that  the  House  had  a  right  to  inde-
pendently  review  the  merits  of  the  treaty.   See,  e.g.,  5 
Annals  of  Cong.  427–428  (remarks  of  Rep.  Livingston) 
(“[T]he  House  w[as]  vested  with  a  discretionary  power  of
carrying  the  Treaty  into  effect,  or  refusing  it  their  sanc-
tion”).  Others  insisted  that  “if  the  Treaty  was  the  su-
preme  law  of  the  land,  then  there  was  no  discretionary 
power in the House, except on the question of its constitu-
tionality.”  Id., at 436–437 (Rep. Murray).

That latter group relied in part on the observation that
the Treaty Power was limited by its nature, and thus the
Constitution’s  failure  to  specify  a  role  for  the  House  did 
not  pose  a  mortal  threat  to  that  Chamber’s  legislative 
prerogatives.  Representative James Hillhouse of Connect-