500.A15A4 Steering Committee/150: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the American Delegate (Wilson)
240. Your 438, November 7, noon, and 446, November 11, 11 a.m.
Should such an explanation as you suggest appear to be necessary or eminently desirable you might speak extemporaneously substantially as follows:
“The reservation which my delegation has heretofore maintained in regard to the supervision and control of the private manufacture of arms has been withdrawn.
As has frequently been stated here, the relations between the Federal Government and the several states of the American Union are peculiar in that the Federal Government can exercise only those powers which are specifically or by implication conferred upon it by [Page 373] the Constitution. Constitutional interpretation has occupied the minds and employed the talents of many of our greatest scholars and most eminent statesmen. When, as in this case, a new question arises on which the courts have not specifically ruled, it is sometimes difficult to determine with full confidence the extent of the powers of the Federal Government in the premises. My Government has made a new and thorough study of the constitutional question involved in the proposal to establish supervision and control of the private manufacture of arms by conventional agreement, and it now believes that a formula can be found to accomplish the aim desired which will be within the constitutional powers of the Federal Government and as to which my Government would be justified in entering into a treaty.
The American Delegation will, henceforth, discuss the question of the private manufacture of arms solely from the point of view of expediency and practical policy.”
For your information. Article 1, section 8, paragraph 1, of the Constitution refers to the legislative powers of the Federal Government. The treaty making power, conferred in Article 2, section 2, paragraph 2, unlike the legislative powers “is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the Government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the Government and of that of the States.”—Geofroy v. Riggs (1890) 133 U. S. 258.267.—(In this connection see the Second Amendment). Article 1, section 8, paragraph 18 vests in the Federal Government the power to enforce treaties by appropriate legislation.