I therefore contend, that although to Congress a power is given in the clause alluded to, to regulate commerce, yet this power is in part, as I have before endeavored to show, given to the President and Senate in their treaty-making capacity—­the truth of which position is admitted by the friends of the bill to a certain extent.  The fact is, that the only difference between us is to ascertain the precise point where legislative aid is necessary to the execution of the treaty, and where not.  To fix this point is to settle the question.  After the most mature reflection which I have been able to give this subject, my mind has been brought to the following results; Whenever the President and Senate, within the acknowledged range of their treaty-making power, ratify a treaty upon extraterritorial subjects, then it is binding without any auxiliary law.  Again, if from the nature of the treaty self-executory, no legislative aid is necessary.  If on the contrary, the treaty from its nature cannot be carried into effect but by the agency of the legislature, that is, if some municipal regulation be necessary, then the legislature must act not as participating in the treaty-making power, but in its proper character as a legislative body.

BARNAVE (1761-1793)

Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave was born at Grenoble, France, in 1761.  He was the son of an advocate, who gave him a careful education.  His first work of a public character, a pamphlet against the Feudal system, led to his election to the States-General in 1789.  He advocated the Proclamation of the Rights of Man and identified himself with those enthusiastic young Republicans of whom Lafayette is the best type.  The emancipation of the Jews from all civil and religious disabilities and the abolition of slavery throughout French territory owed much to his efforts.  He also opposed the Absolute Veto and led the fight for the sequestration of the property of the Church.  This course made him a popular idol and in the early days of the Revolution he was the leader of the extreme wing of the Republicans.  When he saw, however, that mob law was about to usurp the place of the Republican institutions for which he had striven, he leaned towards the court and advocated the sacrosanctity of the King’s person.  Denounced as a renegade, with his life threatened and his influence lost, he retired to his native province.  In August 1792 he was impeached for correspondence with the King, and on November 26th, 1793. he was guillotined.  The specimens of his eloquence here given were translated for this Library from the Paris edition of his works, published in 1843.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY AGAINST MAJORITY ABSOLUTISM
(Delivered in the National Assembly, August 11th, 1791)