This very Act of Congress originated in the Senate, which at that day undertook to exercise no such power as is now claimed. It was not passed hastily, or without debate. The subject of our relations with France was referred to a committee of that body on the 29th of November, 1797. After the lapse of months, on the 21st of June, 1798, Mr. Goodhue, from that committee, reported a bill to abrogate existing treaties with that nation, which passed the Senate on the 23d of June, by a vote of thirteen yeas to five nays. On the 25th it was carried to the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, fully debated, and finally passed on the 6th of July. In the course of the debate, _treaties were recognized as laws, to be abrogated only by Act of Congress_. A Representative from Massachusetts, afterwards an eminent judicial character, Mr. Sewall, put this point in these words:--
“It is certainly a novel doctrine to pass a law declaring a treaty void; but the necessity arose from the peculiar situation of this country. In most countries it is in the power of the Chief Magistrate to suspend a treaty, whenever he thinks proper. _Here Congress only has that power._”[56]
This view was in no respect controverted or questioned. On the contrary, it was recognized by the whole debate. Mr. Dana, of Connecticut, said:--
“France has violated the faith pledged by her treaties with America. This, by the Law of Nations, _puts it within the option of the Legislature to decide_, as a question of expediency, whether the United States shall any longer continue to observe their stipulations.”[57]
Mr. Gallatin, whose position in our public affairs was afterwards so justly distinguished, employed the very language applicable to laws, when he spoke of the proposed abrogation of the treaty as a _repeal_.
“He knew of no precedent of a Legislature _repealing a treaty_. It is therefore an act of a peculiar kind, and it appeared to him necessary that _Congress_ should justify it by a declaration of their reasons.… It is not sufficient to say, that, because a treaty has been violated, _we will repeal it_.”[58]
Such is the first and leading precedent in our history. The next is more recent, and of hardly less importance. It was the notice to Great Britain of the termination of the convention of 1827, relating to the joint occupancy of certain parts of Oregon. This was not done by the President, with the advice of the Senate in secret session, but by Act of Congress. President Polk, in his annual message of 2d December, 1845, called upon Congress to act. These are his words:--