Speech #490019383

The act of Congress must prevail as if the treaty were not an element to be considered. If a wrong has been done the power of redress is with Congress. not with the judiciary. This doctrine. so well settled that it is a matter of amazement that any one. much less the constitutional expounders of great metropolitan journals. should assert to the contrary. was fully recognized by President Hayes in his veto message of March 1. 1879. wherein he gave his reasons for withholding his approval of the bill passed both Houses of that Congress restricting the immigration of Chinese to the United States. although on the ground of policy solely he vetoed the bill. he in terms recognized the power of Congress to abrogate the Burlingame treaty in these words: The authority of Congress to terminate a treaty with a foreign power. by exprssing the will of the nation no longer to adhere to it. is as free from controversy under our Constitution as is the further proposition that the power of making new treaties or modifying existing treaties is not lodged by the Constitution in Congress. butin the President. by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. as shown by the concurrence of twothirds of that body. A farther declaration is made in this message: A denunciation of any treaty by any government is confessedly justifiable only upon some reason. both of the higest justice and of the highest necessity. And in this connection it may not be out of place to attract attention to the fact that in the passage of the bill in the Fortyfifth Congress abrogating the Burlingame treaty the two Houses of Congress by amost decided vote declared not only in favor of the power of Congress to abrogate a treaty with a foreign power. but did actually in that particular instance. in so far as the Congress could do it in the absence of executive approval. absolutely abrogate. set aside. and repeal the Burlingame treaty.