8. February 2, 1954. Perfecting amendment offered by Senator Ferguson during debate.

9. February 2, 1954. Proposal by Senator Case, South Dakota, made during debate, to substitute a new Section 3 for Section 3 of the Ferguson amendment.

10. February 4, 1954. Additional amendment to the Judiciary Committee text offered by Senator Bricker, which was the same as the Ferguson proposal except for an added section which read as follows:

"A treaty or other international agreement shall become effective as internal law in the United States only through legislation by the Congress unless in advising and consenting to a treaty the Senate, by a vote of twothirds of the Senators present and voting, shall provide that such treaty may become effective as internal law without legislation by the Congress."

On February 15, 1954, the first section of the Ferguson proposal was adopted by a vote of 62 to 20. This read:

“A provision of a treaty or other international agreement which conflicts with this Constitution shall not be of any force or effect.”

On February 16th, the third section of Senator Ferguson's proposal was approved by a vote of 72 to 16. This provided:

"On the question of advising and consenting to the ratification of a treaty, the vote shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for or against shall be entered in the Journal of the Senate."

The next day, February 17th, by a vote of 44 to 43, the second section of Senator Ferguson's proposal was voted and Section 2 of the Senate Judiciary Committee text, containing the "which" clause, as well as Sections 3 and 4 thereof, were eliminated, thus completing the substitution of the Ferguson proposal for the Judiciary Committee's language and eliminating not only the

"which" clause, but also the "non-self-executing" clause. The second section of Senator Ferguson's proposal provided that Clause 2 of Article VI of the Constitution (the supremacy clause) be amended by the addition of the following:

"Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this clause, no treaty made after the establishment of this Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land unless made in pursuance of this Constitution."

On February 25, 1954, the Senate rejected Senator Bricker's additional amendment quoted above by vote of 50 to 42.

On February 26, 1954, the Senate voted 61 to go to substitute Senator George's substitute amendment for the Senate Judiciary Committee text. The "which" clause was thereby eliminated for all purposes. Thereupon on final passage, the George substitute failed, by a vote of 60-31, to obtain the necessary two-thirds vote. 11. August 5, 1954, S.J. Res. 181 (83:2), introduced by Senator Bricker.

12. January 6, 1955. S.J. Res. 1 (84:1), introduced by Senator Bricker. Hearings were held during eight days in April and May on S.J. Res. 1 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. These are bound in a volume of 1,016 printed pages.

13. March 27, 1956. Wholly-new revised version of S.J. Res. 1 (84:1) was proposed by the Committee on the Judiciary.

14. January 7, 1957. S.J. Res. 3 (85:1), introduced by Senator Bricker. This is the joint resolution now up for consideration, the text of which is set forth on page 2 of this report.

Persons who testified on prior versions of the Bricker amendment

Mr. WILEY. Mr. President, while we are approaching the conclusion of the debate and voting on the vital mutual security bill, it is well to note that an important step a well-merited step-was taken this week on behalf of sound constitutional principle and sound foreign policy. The Supreme Court dealt another well-merited blow against unwise attempts to tamper with the Constitution by needlessly and dangerously amending the treatymaking provisions. The Court once more affirmed the Constitution and its Bill of Rights as the supreme law of the land.

I send to the desk a brief statement on this subject, and ask unanimous consent that it be printed at this point in the body of the Record.

(There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the Record as follows:)

SUPPLEMENTARY VIEWS OF SENATOR WILEY

Once more the case for opposition to what has come to be known as the Bricker amendment has been completely confirmed.

On Monday of this week, Justice Black, in an opinion on the case of two service wives overseas who had killed their husbands, fully backed up contentions which I and others have made down through the years. The Court's opinion freed the two wives, declaring that they had been denied their constitutional right to a jury trial.

NO AGREEMENT CAN VOID CONSTITUTION

Justice Black rejected the Government's claim that military trials for the two women were authorized by agreements with Great Britain and Japan. "The obvious and decisive answer to this," Justice Black wrote, "is that no agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any

other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution."

This is precisely what we who opposed the Bricker amendment have con. tended all along.

As a matter of fact, it is precisely what the Supreme Court has ruled in every single case involving this treaty-Constitution issue throughout the entire length of American history.

Never has the Court held otherwise.

I note, however, that my good friend, the senior Senator from Ohio, now asserts that somehow the Court's comment allegedly help chances for passing his proposed constitutional amendment to limit the President's treatymaking power.

Senator Bricker asserts that while he approves Justice Black's language, it is not binding for all time on the Supreme Court. My industrious colleague maintains, therefore, that the Congress must enact his amendment in order to clarify the supremacy of the Constitution over treaties.

SHALL WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION WITH 1,000 AMENDMENTS?

Actually, no further clarification is one bit necessary. For my friend of Ohio to contend that some day the Supreme Court might possibly reverse itself would be equivalent of saying that "some day a thousand other types of legal events might indeed occur," and that, therefore, we must write a constitutional amendment so as to cover every one of these contingencies.

Some day, someone might propose (for example) that the Congress cut off appropriations from the judicial branch because of pique at some particular Court decision. But that is no excuse to write a constitutional amendment against that very improbable danger.

On the contrary, far from being unusual, the long unbroken line of past Supreme Court decisions is in complete conformity with what Justice Black, writing the Court decision, held on this particular issue on Monday.

The Justice rightly pointed out that if the Congress doesn't like some provision of a treaty of executive agreement, it can nullify it simply by passing a superseding law.

What more do we need? Actually, we have a whole series of other legal protections, as well, against abuse of the treaty power.

I repeat-if we were to try to write a constitutional amendment so as to cover the possibility that the Supreme Court might reverse itself on various constitutional issues, we might end up with a Constitution 1,000 amendments long. Actually, one of the great strengths of our Constitution is that it is so comparatively short and flexible. We have wisely resisted the tendency to encumber the Constitution with dozens of unneeded amendments.

In the last few Congresses, there have been an average of 125 new constitutional amendments proposed. But, fortunately, Congress has had the wisdom to refuse to tamper with the supreme law of the land and needlessly extend its length. In effect, the Supreme Court's decision on Monday says: The Bricker amendment is not necessary.

It was not necessary before the decision Monday. It is not necessary now. And I doubt if it will ever be necessary in the future.

The amendment should not be brought up on the Senate floor for consideration, because there is no need for it.

WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL

As the Washington Post said in its Wednesday, June 12 editorial:

"In some respect the most significant pronouncement of the four Justices was an assertion that no treaty adhered to by the United States may encroach upon the Constitution. The Government unwisely contended that the act permitting military trials for the dependents of servicemen could be defended as legislation which is necessary and proper to carry out this country's obligations under the status of forces treaties with Japan and Great Britain. To this the four Justices emphatically replied that 'no agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution.'

"For several years Senator Bricker has been attempting to drive through Congress an amendment to the Constitution limiting the President's treatymaking powers with the argument that treaties may override the Constitution.

At least four Justices say emphatically that there is no such danger. No doubt other Justices would have joined in this conclusion if they had thought the issue was properly before the Court, for the Court has made similar pronouncements in the past."

Let the treaty-paralysis amendment remain, therefore, in committee, rather than take up more time on the Senate floor-time which had best be reserved for genuine, not imaginary or hypothetical, issues.

IN THE NATION

(By Arthur Krock)

A SIMPLE REMEDY FOR THE BRICKERITES' CONCERN

WASHINGTON, June 17.-The statement of its understanding with the Executive that the Senate is about to include in its resolution approving the treaty by which the United States is to become a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency is the first employment of a simple method whereby the causes for loading down treaties with reservations and the principal argument for the Bricker amendment are simultaneously removed.

This legislative instrument has always been available to the Senate. The attachment of formal reservations to treaties can cause their rejection by other nations which are parties to the compact. And the Bricker amendment in its successive forms would hamstring the Executive in the conduct of foreign policy. But a statement by the Senate to the Executive of its understanding of the scope of a treaty in approving it has neither of these damaging effects. If accepted by the Executive in advance of Senate action (as in the instance of the Atomic Energy Treaty), the limitations of a treaty are agreed on at the outset. And if the Executive declines to accept the Senate's interpretation, that body can approve or reject the treaty with full knowledge of the meaning of its action. One of the principal arguments that have won support for the Bricker amendment proposal is that treaties have been interpreted and enforced by the Executive as self-executing in internal law when that was not the Senate's understanding in approving them. But if the resolutions of advice and consent had included a stated condition that the treaties were not to be self-executing in internal law, this would have prevented the Executive from interpreting and enforcing them as such.

THE COMMITTEE TEXT

The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has now applied this simple principle to the Atomic Energy Treaty as follows:

"Resolved (two-thirds of the Senate concurring therein), That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of Executive I, 85th Congress, first session * * * subject to the interpretation and understanding that (1) any amendment to the statute [treaty] shall be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent as in the case of the statute itself, and (2) the United States will not remain a member of the Agency in the event of an amendment to the statute being adopted to which the Senate by a formal vote shall refuse its advice and consent."

The purpose is, in the words of the committee report by Chairman Green, to foreclose in advance "a legal possibility that the Nation might find itself bound by a treaty obligation which had failed upon submission to the Senate. ***To the committee it appears essential that no uncertainty be permitted to subsist as to whether the United States, through continued participation in the agency, would be obligated by some amendment which the Senate saw fit to reject."

By this method the main contention for the Bricker amendment is met. The resolution does not dispose of the part of the Bricker proposal that is designed to prevent the enforcement in internal law of compacts made with other nations by the Executive and, on the ground that they are agreements, not treaties, are not submitted to the Senate. But, as Senator Kennedy noted, there are 11 existing safeguards Congress can impose against excesses by Presidents in the agreement area.