To allow
correspondence or interchange between states to be conducted by or with
more than one such agency would necessarily lead to confusion, and
possibly to contradictory presentation of views and to international
complications.
The Constitution of the United States, following the established usage
of nations, has indicated the President as the agent to represent the
national sovereignty in its intercourse with foreign powers and to
receive all official communications from them. It gives him the power,
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties and
to appoint embassadors and other public ministers; it intrusts to him
solely "to receive embassadors and other public ministers," thus vesting
in him the origination of negotiations and the reception and conduct of
all correspondence with foreign states, making him, in the language of
one of the most eminent writers on constitutional law, "the
constitutional organ of communication with foreign states."
No copy of the addresses which it is proposed to acknowledge is
furnished. I have no knowledge of their tone, language, or purport. From
the tenor of the two joint resolutions it is to be inferred that these
communications are probably purely congratulatory.
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