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“It has been said we cannot have a world-state without a surrender of some of our sovereignty. This is probably true. But
if and when we come to the surrender of that sovereignty, it must be done by an amendment to our Constitution authorizing it,
the amendment to be made in the form and manner that we the sovereign people have prescribed in the Constitution itself. Let us not surrender our sovereignty by
illegal usurpations by our treaty-making agents.
I am speaking of voluntary surrender of sovereignty.…
“It cannot be too often repeated that any suggestion of any doctrine such as this at the time of the Convention, would not only have broken up the Constitutional Convention itself (it would have been treated with…scorn…) but would, having in mind the then temper of the people, also have made the formation of the United States of America under the Constitution an impossibility.…
“The whole of the discussions in the Constitutional Convention itself, in the State Conventions considering the adoption of the Constitution, and in
The Federalist
, all join in what seems
a unanimous voice that the treaty-making power was to extend to the normal incidents of the intercourse and relationship of sovereign nations, and no further.
”
(
J. Reuben Clark
, May 29, 1959.)
Related Categories
Constitution: Treaties