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Article
Foreign Affairs and the Jeffersonian
Executive: A Defense
Saikrishna B. Prakasht and Michael D. Ramseyi
Introduction ............................................................................
Conceptual Difficulties of the Case Against Residual
I.
Executive Pow er ...........................................................
A. The Lack of a Plausible Alternative Theory .........
B. The Exaggeration of the Residual Power ..............
C. The Essentialist Red Herring ................................
1. Inherent vs. Historical Definitions ..................
2. The Relevance (and Irrelevance) of
Separation of Powers Theorists .......................
Textual and Historical Difficulties of the Case
II.
Against Residual Executive Power ..............................
A. Textual Confusion ..................................................
1. The Claim that the Vesting Clause Vests
No Power ...........................................................
2. The Claim that the Vesting Clause Does Not
Vest Foreign Affairs Power ..............................
B. The Separation of Powers Theorists and the
Meaning of Executive Power .................................
1. Locke .................................................................
2. M ontesquieu .....................................................
3. B lackstone .........................................................
4. Other Theorists ................................................
C. The Road to Philadelphia and the
Executive Pow er .....................................................
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t Professor of Law, University of San Diego.
#t Professor of Law, University of San Diego. The authors thank Curtis
Bradley, Brannon Denning, and John Yoo for helpful conversations and comments. Thanks also to Curtis Bradley, Martin Flaherty, and the editors of the
Michigan Law Review for sharing early drafts of Professors Bradley and
Flaherty's article. The authors acknowledge the generous research support of
the University of San Diego Law School.
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1. The Executive Congress ...................................
2. The Executive Power in the
State Constitutions ..........................................
D. Drafting and Ratifying the Constitution's
Executive Power .....................................................
E. The Washington Administration and the
Executive Pow er .....................................................
1. Statesmen Explain the Executive Power ........
2. Practice Under the Washington
Adm inistration .................................................
a. The Sole Organ of Communication ............
b. Treaty Termination and Removal of
Foreign Diplomats ......................................
c. Control of the Instruments of Diplomacy..
d. Sum m ary .....................................................
Conclu sion ...............................................................................
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A superficial reading of the Constitution might lead to the
conclusion that the President has relatively few foreign affairs
powers and duties. The President is commander-in-chief of the
armed forces, "shall" receive foreign ambassadors, and can
make treaties and appoint ambassadors with the Senate's advice and consent.1 The Constitution's text assigns no other specific foreign affairs authorities to the presidency. Yet from the
Constitution's creation, Presidents have exercised far more extensive foreign affairs powers. With little or no controversy,
Presidents have acted as the sole organ of foreign communication, formulated and enunciated nonbinding (yet nonetheless
significant) foreign policy, and controlled the instruments of diplomacy. 2 It seems fair to say that Presidents typically have
controlled those aspects of foreign affairs that the Constitution
did not specifically allocate to Congress or require that he share
with the Senate.
In The Executive Power over Foreign Affairs, we argued
that the Constitution's grant of "executive Power" to the President provided a textual basis for the powers that Presidents
have exercised for over two centuries. 3 The "executive Power"
vested in the President by Article II, Section 1 encompassed
1.
2.
U.S. CONST. art. II, §§ 2-3.
See LouIs HENKIN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
34-45 (2d ed. 1996).
3. Saikrishna B. Prakash & Michael D. Ramsey, The Executive Power
over ForeignAffairs, 111 YALE L.J. 231 (2001).
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THE JEFFERSONIAN EXECUTIVE
1593
foreign affairs functions, because in eighteenth-century terminology foreign affairs powers were classified as part of the "ex4
ecutive" functions of government. However, because the Constitution specifically allocated some executive powers to
Congress and required that others be shared with the Senate,
the President's executive power over foreign affairs is residual
in nature; the President has unilateral control only of those executive foreign affairs powers that are not otherwise allocated
or shared. 5 Our residual theory showed that the foreign affairs
Constitution need not be seen as strangely laconic or remarkably incomplete. In advancing the residual theory, we relied
upon, among others, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who
wrote in 1790:
The Constitution ....
has declared that "the Executive powers shall
be vested in the President".... The transaction of business with foreign nations is Executive altogether. It belongs then to the head of
that department, except as to such portions of it as are specifically
6
submitted to the Senate. Exceptions are to be construed strictly.
This Article considers the leading objections to the Jeffersonian or residual theory of executive power. In particular, we
take as our principal counterpoint the engaging and wideranging article by Professors Curtis Bradley and Martin
Flaherty, which is the most thoughtful, comprehensive, and
ambitious effort to date.7 Critics such as Bradley and Flaherty
dispute the central proposition that the Article II Vesting
Clause vests any executive power and the derivative proposition that the executive power encompasses a residual foreign
4. Id. at 265-72.
5. Id. at 252-65.
6. Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Powers of the Senate Respecting
Diplomatic Appointments (Apr. 24, 1790), in 16 THE PAPERS OF THOMAS
JEFFERSON 378, 378-79 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1961) (emphasis omitted). The
theory is perhaps more commonly identified with Alexander Hamilton, who
articulated it in his 1793 Pacificus essays. See ALEXANDER HAMILTON,
LETTERS OF PACIFICUs NO. 1 (June 29, 1793), reprinted in 15 THE PAPERS OF
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 33, 39 (Harold C. Syrett & Jacob E. Cooke eds., 1969)
("The general doctrine then of our constitution is, that the Executive Power of
the Nation is vested in the President; subject only to the exceptions and qualifications which are expressed in the instrument." (emphasis omitted)). We
emphasize its Jeffersonian articulation both because Jefferson said it first and
because Jefferson is not thought to suffer from pro-executive bias. But as we
discuss below, the theory is not truly Jeffersonian or Hamiltonian; its roots
extend well before the founding and it was expressed by many other leaders
(like Washington) in the post-ratification period. See infra Part II.E.
7. Curtis A. Bradley & Martin S. Flaherty, Executive Power Essentialism
and ForeignAffairs, 102 MICH. L. REV. 545 (2004).
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affairs power. These objections to the residual theory suffer
from a series of conceptual and historical difficulties that
greatly undermine their persuasiveness.
First, opponents of the Jeffersonian theory offer no competing view of the Constitution's text. Bradley and Flaherty spend
over 100 pages disputing the residual theory of foreign affairs
powers, but do not develop a coherent and plausible alternative. Instead, they flirt with mutually inconsistent theories
without fully endorsing any of them.8 Their article leaves the
reader with no understanding of how (or even whether) the
Constitution fully allocates foreign affairs authority. We did not
(and do not) regard our earlier treatment as the final word, nor
do we suppose that no alternative explanations can exist. But
we do believe that a complete response to our theory must answer two basic questions: Did the Constitution completely allocate foreign affairs powers, and if so, how? It is telling that the
most ambitious response to our proposal-that of Bradley and
Flaherty-makes no effort to answer these questions.
Second, opponents of the Jeffersonian theory rhetorically
inflate the powers it would give the President. The typical critique of executive power quickly degenerates into complaints
that the Framers could not have meant to constitute the President as a king. Of course the Framers did not give the President despotic powers; the residual theory does not assert that
they did. To the contrary, the eighteenth-century definition of
executive power had reasonably clear boundaries, and the Constitution further tamed the executive power of foreign affairs by
granting some important executive powers to Congress and
sharing others with the Senate. The result is not an allpowerful autocrat, but a republican President with important,
though constrained, independent powers. It is worth remembering that Jefferson was no advocate of an unconstrained executive. Yet Bradley and Flaherty, for example, persist in
pummeling the bogeyman of executive supremacy, insisting
that the residual theory yields broad and undefined presidential authority that defies the concept of enumerated and delegated powers. 9 Opponents of the residual theory would do better, we suggest, to abandon rhetorical excesses and acknowledge that the residual power theory envisions a division of foreign affairs power, not a presidential monopoly.
8. See, e.g., id. at 551-52, 679-88.
9. See id. at 643.
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Third, critics associate the Jeffersonian theory with claims
of ill-defined historical or logical inevitability. By their very title, Bradley and Flaherty set themselves against "executive
power essentialism," without explaining what this means. The
implication, we suppose, is that champions of the residual theory believe that "executive power" naturally or inevitably encompasses foreign affairs power, and that the President "inherently" or "essentially" must have foreign affairs powers simply
by virtue of being the nation's chief magistrate. This argument
has been made elsewhere, 10 but it is not our argument. Nor was
it Jefferson's. To the contrary, we reject claims of inherent and
undefined executive power, and rest our argument upon the
original meaning of the Constitution's text: that the text
"vest[s]" the President with "executive Power"; that the phrase
"executive power" in the late eighteenth century meant a set of
governmental functions that included foreign affairs powers;
and that the founding generation, before and after ratification,
appeared to read the Constitution in this manner. This is not
exotic "essentialism," but garden-variety constitutional interpretation.
To the extent critics engage the textual and historical
claims we actually did make, their objections and arguments
rest on faulty foundations. Bradley and Flaherty argue that the
phrase "executive power" was not understood to encompass foreign affairs powers in late eighteenth-century political writing,
and that the Continental Congress was not understood to exercise executive power.11 Their stance gainsays an array of eighteenth-century writing, as well as the views of leading histori12
ans and political scientists who have studied the period. It
also contradicts Professor Flaherty himself, whose prior writings endorse the propositions that "executive power" was understood to encompass foreign affairs functions and that the
English king and the Continental Congress both exercised the
executive power over foreign affairs. 13 Bradley and Flaherty
also avow that the President's specific foreign affairs powers
10.
11.
United States v. Curtiss-Wright Exp. Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 319 (1936).
See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 579.
12. See infra Part II.B.
13. See, e.g., Martin S. Flaherty, History Right?: Historical Scholarship,
Original Understanding, and Treaties as "Supreme Law of the Land," 99
COLUM. L. REV. 2095, 2112-15 (1999) [hereinafter Flaherty, History Right?];
Martin S. Flaherty, The Most DangerousBranch, 105 YALE L.J. 1725, 1771-82
(1996) [hereinafter Flaherty, The Most Dangerous Branch].
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can better explain the Washington administration's foreign affairs practices than can the residual theory, and that contemporaries actually defended the Washington administration's
control over foreign affairs by reference to the President's specific foreign affairs powers. Both claims are mistaken.
Our defense of the Jeffersonian Executive proceeds in two
parts. In Part I, we highlight the conceptual difficulties common to much criticism of executive foreign affairs power, with
special emphasis on Bradley and Flaherty's recent article. Specifically, we highlight three problems: the lack of a plausible alternative, the exaggeration of the President's residual power,
and the misleading theme of essentialism. Part II addresses the
specific textual and historical claims advanced in Bradley and
Flaherty's critique-in particular, their reading of eighteenthcentury political theory, their discussion of the Continental
Congress, and their claims regarding the Washington administration's control of foreign affairs.
I. CONCEPTUAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE CASE AGAINST
RESIDUAL EXECUTIVE POWER
A. THE LACK OF A PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE THEORY
We begin with a simple yet surprising observation: no
competing theory explains how the Constitution's text allocates
foreign affairs power. Instead, there is a long-standing scholarly assumption that the Constitution's text does not allocate
all foreign affairs powers, and that its significant gaps must be
filled by reference to extratextual materials. 14 As we argued,
that assumption is based on nothing more than a quick read of
the text that finds many powers seemingly missing. A more
careful approach yields a plausible reading of Article II, Section
1 that does fully allocate foreign affairs powers. Our opponents
may still argue, of course, that the best reading of the historical
record as a whole is that the Framers-intentionally or notfailed to allocate important foreign affairs powers. Such a claim
must be sustained by historical evidence, however, and we are
unaware of any support for such a proposition.
In particular,
there seems to be no evidence that anyone during either the
ratification debates or the Washington administration understood the Constitution as incompletely vesting foreign affairs
14.
See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 236-52.
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15
powers. The "strange, laconic" Constitution is an invention of
modern commentary.
Yet if the Constitution's text completely allocates foreign
affairs powers, how does it do so? Perhaps its specific grants of
power actually do vest a complete array of foreign affairs authorities. That is surely not evident from the face of the document, and generations of modern academics have assumed otherwise. 16 An argument may exist-we simply have not seen it.
On the other hand, if the specific grants of power do not allocate key foreign affairs powers, there must be a residual grant
to some branch, encompassing the foreign affairs powers not
specifically allocated. We think Article II, Section 1 plays this
role. Perhaps someone could argue that some other clause
serves this function, but no one has tried their hand at developing an alternative residual theory.
Further, because our prior work asserted that Article II,
Section l's grant of the "executive Power" encompasses a foreign affairs power, an alternative theory must advance a competing explanation of Article II, Section 1. Two might be available. One is that Article II, Section 1 is merely decorative: it
says that there will be one President, but does not convey any
substantive powers. A second is that Article II, Section 1 conveys some substantive power-namely, the power to execute
the law-but does not vest foreign affairs powers. Each claim
has serious drawbacks (and they are, of course, mutually inconsistent).
Opponents of executive foreign affairs power tend not to
choose among these competing theories or make a sustained
argument for any of them. Rather, they assert pieces of them as
convenient, as part of a purely negative strategy. This in turn
allows them to avoid dealing with the key difficulties of each
theory, and also with the central difficulty of all of them-that
none has an adequate and historically grounded affirmative
explanation for how the Framers allocated foreign affairs powers.
Our project is to find the best available original meaning of
the Constitution's text in foreign affairs. Contrary to the intimations of some critics, such an inquiry does not claim absolute
certainty, or perfect knowledge about historical events. We are
15.
The phrase is from HENKIN, supra note 2, at 13.
16.
See id.; EDWARD S. CORWIN, THE PRESIDENT: OFFICE AND POWERS,
1787-1984, at 201-02 (Randall W. Bland et al. eds., 5th ed. 1984).
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well aware that history is often obscure, contradictory, nuanced, and perhaps unknowable. The originalist interpretive
project is not to find a perfect theory, but to select the best alternative available. Hence, the question is not whether the residual theory has blemishes-it certainly does-but whether
the residual theory offers the best rendition of the Constitution's original meaning. That question cannot be answered except in comparison to other theories. We persist in the belief
that our theory is the best available reading, in no small part
because no one has advanced a complete alternative.
Bradley and Flaherty's recent work illustrates the foregoing general observations. Theirs is a prodigious undertaking,
ranging across the entire textual and historical debate over executive foreign affairs powers. Yet at the end of it, the reader is
left with no alternative theory of how the Constitution's text allocates foreign affairs authorities.
Bradley and Flaherty equivocate on all of the fundamental
questions. With respect to the meaning of Article II, Section 1,
much of the time Bradley and Flaherty follow a long academic
tradition in suggesting that it does not vest any power independent of those powers specified in Sections 2 and 3 of Article
11.17 At other times, bowing to the serious textual and historical
problems with that position, Bradley and Flaherty appear to
admit that the Vesting Clause likely vested a power to execute
the laws.1 8 This seems to establish them as unenthusiastic proponents of the "Vesting Clause Thesis" that they disparagei.e., the thesis that Article II, Section 1 vests powers independent of the rest of Article II, based on the eighteenth-century
meaning of "executive power." 19 Thus, Bradley and Flaherty try
to have it both ways, simultaneously arguing that the Vesting
Clause vests nothing and that it vests a power to execute the
laws.
Bradley and Flaherty are equally opaque on whether the
President has only the limited and specific powers enumerated
in Sections 2 and 3 of Article II. Sometimes they write as if the
President only has specific powers 20 because state constitutions
of the era supposedly granted only specific powers, and because
a broader reading would concentrate too much power in the
17.
18.
19.
20.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 553-57, 589, 598, 600-01.
Id. at 552, 557, 560, 564-65, 573.
Id. at 546.
Id. at 554, 598, 630.
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President. 21 This seems to suggest that the President can only
appoint ambassadors, not instruct them; that he can receive
ambassadors, but not send them home; and that he can only
make treaties, not establish nonbinding foreign policy. Yet in
their section on Washington's practices, Bradley and Flaherty
champion readings of the supposedly limited and specific powers that would make even a non-interpretivist blush. 22 By
stretching the specific powers, Bradley and Flaherty not only
generate a theory of presidential authority that differs little
from ours, they inadvertently cast doubt on the depth of their
devotion to the notion that the President only has the foreign
affairs powers specifically listed in the Constitution.
Finally, Bradley and Flaherty never say whether the Constitution fully allocates foreign affairs powers. In particular,
they say little about whether the Constitution vests important
foreign affairs powers, such as the powers to monopolize the
communications of the United States, to terminate treaties,
and to formulate nonbinding foreign policy. Sometimes they
seem to suggest that Congress has residual foreign affairs powers. 23 But they never offer any textual hook for what would be a
novel claim, let alone mount a sustained defense of it. Their
reticence is understandable because the Constitution's supposedly unallocated powers, such as communication with foreign
nations, formation and enunciation of foreign policy, and treaty
termination authority, would be difficult to locate within any
24
congressional power.
At other points Bradley and Flaherty hint that the Constitution lacks a complete allocation of foreign affairs authorities. 25 This too seems implausible. One expects small mistakes
in a Constitution resulting from many votes and composed over
several months. Still, it seems highly unlikely that the Framers
simply forgot to allocate key foreign affairs authorities. Foreign
21. Id. at 581-82, 584.
22. See, e.g., id. at 636-37, 666-67.
23. Id. at 585-86.
24. Had Bradley and Flaherty made a sustained argument for a residual
power in Congress, they would have faced a difficult textual choice. As we discuss later, they charge that reading the Article II Vesting Clause as vesting
power would make some clauses in Article II redundant. See infra Part II.A.
We contest this claim. But even if they are right, the redundancy charge would
apply even more sharply to any residual power that might be thought to be
vested in Congress, for Congress has numerous specified foreign affairs powers.
25. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 678-79.
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affairs matters were at the forefront of their thinking, and diplomacy would be crucial to the future of the grand enterprise
on which they were embarking. Having fought a war of independence against England and secured the assistance of allies,
we find it hard to believe that the Framers lost sight of the importance of complete foreign affairs authority. Bradley and
Flaherty find no one in the ratification debates who complained
or even observed that the Constitution failed to allocate crucial
foreign affairs powers. Nor do they find anyone during the
Washington years who judged the Constitution incomplete in
its foreign affairs allocation, or who claimed that the allocation
of foreign affairs authority would be worked out in practice, in
26
a hit or miss fashion.
In sum, Bradley and Flaherty's Executive Power Essentialism is the most thorough, comprehensive, and ambitious scholarly criticism of Jefferson's foreign affairs Executive. Yet despite all their admirable energy and research, they are unable
to advance any competing theory of the Constitution's original
meaning. The fact that they do not offer an alternative suggests
to us that no good one is available.
To be sure, Bradley and Flaherty's announced aim is to
tear down the Jeffersonian theory, not to build up an alternative. 27 This purely destructive approach makes sense only if
they prove that the residual theory is implausible on its own
terms, even in the absence of alternatives. Thus Bradley and
Flaherty are driven to claim that the residual theory "lacks any
substantial historical basis."28 Yet Bradley and Flaherty fall far
short of backing up (let alone proving) their assertion. As dis-
26. Given their invocation of the enumerated powers doctrine, id. at 558,
Bradley and Flaherty seem to reject Curtiss-Wright's notion that the federal
government simply must have certain powers by virtue of being the federal
government. See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Exp. Corp., 299 U.S. 304,
318 (1936). Yet if they believe there are missing foreign affairs powers and if
they believe the federal government can exercise them nonetheless, they
would be in the unenviable position of simultaneously embracing the enumerated powers doctrine and Curtiss-Wright's theory of inherent powers. In any
event, we adhere to our prior view that Curtiss-Wrightis wrong. See Prakash
& Ramsey, supra note 3, at 238-39. The President's residual foreign affairs
authorities cannot arise out of the supposedly inherent attributes of a national
government-a result precluded, among other things, by the plain language of
the Tenth Amendment. U.S. CONST. amend X ("The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.").
27. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 551-52, 687-88.
28. Id. at 687.
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cussed below, Montesquieu and Blackstone defined "executive
power" to include foreign affairs powers, and statesmen such as
Jefferson, Washington, and Hamilton (among others) embraced
the residual theory. Hence it is well-nigh impossible to insist
that the Jeffersonian theory "lacks any substantial historical
basis." The relevant question must be whether any competing
theory better explains constitutional text and history-a question Bradley and Flaherty simply do not address.
B. THE EXAGGERATION OF THE RESIDUAL POWER
Opponents of the Jeffersonian theory often raise the specter of unchecked, monarchical power. The picture painted is
one of regal trappings and kingly excess, where the President
would exercise unknown and unbridled power. Reading such
arguments, one almost imagines that if the Vesting Clause is
read as a power grant, we are but a few steps from laying a
crown upon the President's brow.
Bradley and Flaherty are firmly in this tradition, greatly
inflating the power that advocates of residual foreign affairs
power say resides with the President under Article II, Section
1. Bradley and Flaherty say that residual power proponents
claim a "broad and undefined" power for the President; they
depict the residual theory as giving the President total or neartotal control over foreign affairs, and assert that it is inconsis(particutent with the textual grants of foreign affairs powers
29
larly treaty power and war power) to other branches.
The residual theory's claims are far more modest than its
opponents suggest. As we explained, the President's foreign affairs powers are defined and limited in two important ways.
First, the President has only those foreign affairs powers that
were called "executive powers" in eighteenth-century discourse.
This definition excludes key powers such as appropriations and
lawmaking. 30 Second, the President lacks unilateral authority
over all those crucial foreign affairs powers that the Constitution distributes to Congress or requires that he share with the
Senate. 3 1 What remains with the President are modest, but still
significant, residual foreign affairs powers, such as control of
American diplomacy and a monopoly on foreign affairs communications.
29.
30.
31.
See id. at 643, 546-48.
Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 254-55, 263-72.
Id. at 253-54.
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Consider, for example, five key foreign affairs powers: making treaties, appointing diplomatic personnel, initiating hostilities, approving expenditures, and making law in support of foreign affairs objectives. The President cannot unilaterally
exercise at least four and, depending on one's view, perhaps all
five of these powers, despite the President's residual executive
foreign affairs authority. Making treaties and diplomatic appointments-called "executive" powers in eighteenth-century
terminology-are specifically shared between the President and
Senate by the Constitution's text.3 2 Depending on one's view of
the much-debated power to declare war, the power to initiate
hostilities-also called an executive power-is (or may be) assigned to Congress by the text. 33 The power to approve expenditures and the power to make foreign affairs-related law were,
as a general matter, not "executive" functions in eighteenthcentury theory or practice, and thus are not vested with the
34
President.
In contrast, the powers we identified as belonging to the
President are, for the most part, ones that Presidents have long
exercised, and that do not seem to give the President disproportionate control over foreign affairs. 35 As we pointed out, one of
the principal merits of our theory is that it provides a textual
basis for many of the powers that the President already and
non-controversially exercises. 36 The ability to monopolize communications with foreign nations, to instruct and recall U.S.
diplomats, to issue passports, to announce the foreign policy of
the United States, to enter into executive agreements, and to
terminate treaties-which we identified as examples of the
President's executive power in foreign affairs-do not yield
complete control over foreign affairs or a radical extension of
presidential power.
32.
U.S. CONST. art. II,
§
2; see Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 286-
87.
33. See Michael D. Ramsey, Textualism and War Powers, 69 U. CHI. L.
REV. 1543 (2002) (rejecting presidential power over war initiation derived
from the executive power in foreign affairs). For a broader view of presidential
war powers based upon a narrow reading of the power to "declare war," see
John C. Yoo, The Continuationof Politics by Other Means: The Original Understanding of War Powers, 84 CAL. L. REV. 167 (1996).
34. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 254-55, 263-65.
35. See HENKIN, supra note 2, at 34-45 (discussing the conventional view
of presidential foreign affairs powers).
36. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 262-63.
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Rather than acknowledging the residual theory's constraints on presidential foreign affairs power, 37 Bradley and
Flaherty leap to the conclusion that the residual theory vests
the President with "broad and undefined" power incompatible
with a system of checks and balances. 38 Yet they never say
which powers the residual theory ascribes to the executive give
the President disproportionate control over foreign affairs. In
fact, of the residual powers mentioned above, Bradley and
Flaherty do not dispute that the President has the first four
powers, and has exercised them since the very beginning of
constitutional history. 39 They grumble about executive agreements and treaty termination, 40 but we think those are fairly
minor powers that cannot compare to the war and treaty41
making powers that the Constitution denies the President. If
37. Bradley and Flaherty's discussion also ignores that we explicitly advanced our theory as a counterpoint to two textually unsupported positions in
modern foreign affairs scholarship: the tendency to assign too little power to
the President, and the tendency to assign too much. See id. at 236-41. Our
theory exalts neither the President nor Congress (nor the Senate) as the
"dominant" force in foreign affairs; rather, each branch has powers that balance the role of the others. See id. at 252-56. We agree with Bradley and
Flaherty that abstract claims of presidential "supremacy" or "primacy" in foreign affairs have no foundation in the Constitution's text.
38. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 642-43.
39. See id. at 626-55. Indeed, their discussion of practice seems to agree
that the President has many of the powers that we assign to him. See id.
40. See id. at 550. Characteristically, Bradley and Flaherty do not mount
a sustained critique of the President's power of treaty termination or executive
agreements, nor say forthrightly that the President lacks these powers.
41. That is especially so because, as we explained, the executive power
over foreign affairs only gives the President the power to make executive
agreements without domestic legal effect and on subjects of minor importance,
and to terminate treaties in accordance with their express or implied terms
(that is, not to violate or abrogate treaties). Anything more would be to mistakenly regard the executive power as including the legislative power to make
foreign affairs law. See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 264-65; see also
Michael D. Ramsey, Executive Agreements and the (Non)Treaty Power, 77 N.C.
L. REV. 133 (1998) (arguing for a narrow reading of executive agreements consistent with our theory). Wider presidential powers in these areas might be
claimed, but are hardly inevitable.
Among other exaggerations, Bradley and Flaherty suggest that our theory
supports a presidential power to preempt state law. Bradley & Flaherty, supra
note 7, at 551 n.23 (citing Am. Ins. Ass'n v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396 (2003)).
But as Professor Ramsey has expressly argued, our theory does not support
giving this legislative power to the President. See Brannon P. Denning & Michael D. Ramsey, American Insurance Association v. Garamendi and Executive Preemption in Foreign Affairs, 46 WM. & MARY L. REV. 825, 906-15
(2004). Relatedly, Bradley and Flaherty imply that we disagree with the
Court's decision in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579
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they agree with most of the allocations that result from the residual theory, one is left to wonder how they can regard it as
generating "broad and undefined" power.
To be sure, we do not purport to have identified all of the
President's executive powers in foreign affairs. Nor do we think
that the question whether a particular power is or is not included will always be an easy one. It may be, as Bradley and
Flaherty imply, that some of the powers claimed by the President in today's war on terror can be defended as part of the
President's executive power over foreign affairs. 42 But if Bradley and Flaherty are worried about the residual theory's potential breadth, they ought to identify powers they think it might
wrongly cede to the President, rather than proceeding by shadowy insinuation.
Bradley and Flaherty's misrepresentation of the scope of
the Jeffersonian theory is important, for it enables them to
draw support from several non-controversial and irrelevant
propositions. First, they belabor the obvious point that various
Founders opposed giving the war and treaty powers to the
President. 43 This evidence is presented as if it somehow undercuts our theory, but plainly it does not. Once again, the President's executive foreign affairs power does not extend to matters assigned elsewhere by the Constitution, such as declaring
war and making treaties. That is why we called the President's
power "residual"-it is what remained after the Framers distributed to the other branches the executive foreign affairs
powers they thought should not lie with the President. It is perfectly consistent with our theory that the Framers assigned
war declarations and foreign commercial regulation to Congress and required that treaty making and diplomatic appointments be shared with the Senate. 44 In similar vein, Bradley and Flaherty dwell on quotes from Framers and ratifiers
who said that the President's power should not be modeled on
the prerogative powers of the king, or that the President should
not have complete direction of foreign affairs. 45 Again, these
(1952). See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 547-48. We do not. Prakash &
Ramsey, supra note 3, at 263 n.125.
42. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 546, 548 n.13.
43. See, e.g., id. at 590-91, 598-600, 602-04, 608-09, 614-15.
44. As noted, this is exactly how Jefferson and Hamilton described the re-
sidual theory. See supranote 6 and accompanying text.
45. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 598-600, 602-04, 614-15,
620.
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views are entirely consistent with our theory, and in our prior
work we emphasized that the Constitution sharply departs
from the unified model of executive foreign affairs powers found
46
in English theory and practice. Bradley and Flaherty can get
mileage out of these founding-era statements only by distorting
the residual theory.
In addition, much of Bradley and Flaherty's historical evidence is of the dog-did-not-bark variety. No one objected, they
say, that the Constitution gave the President executive foreign
affairs power. 47 They assign importance to this silence because
they claim that the residual theory would convey open-ended
authority inconsistent with the idea of delegated powers;
surely, they say, Anti-Federalists would have objected if that
had been the understanding, leading to the conclusion that it
was not. 48 But this conclusion again depends on radically overstating the consequences of the residual theory. The President's
foreign affairs powers, as we describe them, probably were not
controversial. Most people of the time likely recognized, from
49
the bad experiences of the Articles of Confederation, that the
nation needed a single 50individual to superintend at least some
foreign affairs matters.
Reading only Bradley and Flaherty's critique, one might
suppose that we had advanced a nebulous idea of overarching
presidential control over foreign affairs, a kind of scholarly defense of the Curtiss-Wrightcase. 51 In fact, our prior article sin-
46. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 285-87.
47. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 608.
48. See id. at 608, 613-14, 625-26.
49. On the difficulties resulting from the lack of a unitary executive under
the Articles of Confederation, see Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 272-78;
FREDERICK W. MARKS III, INDEPENDENCE ON TRIAL: FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND
THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 52-95 (1973); JACK N. RAKOVE, THE
BEGINNINGS OF NATIONAL POLITICS 243-74 (1979).
50. After insisting that our theory, if correct, would have raised storms of
protest in the ratifying conventions, Bradley and Flaherty then abruptly
about-face in their final section, and more-or-less concede that many of the
powers we locate within Article II, Section 1 can be explained as emanations
from the President's specific textual powers. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7,
at 626-55. But any dogs that should have barked at our theory should also
have been disturbed about these penumbral powers as well. Again, Bradley
and Flaherty are trying to have it both ways: our theory overstates presidential power and is superfluous because all of the powers it gives the President
can be derived from specific powers. Their refusal to pick an alternative theory
allows them to advance these two inconsistent propositions.
51. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Exp. Corp., 299 U.S. 304 (1936).
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gled out Curtiss-Wright for criticism. 52 Mischaracterizing the
Jeffersonian theory in this way allows Bradley and Flaherty to
rely on historical and textual evidence and rhetorical excesses
that may help refute Curtiss-Wright, but have nothing to do
with the textually grounded residual theory.
C. THE ESSENTIALIST RED HERRING
One often hears that the idea of executive foreign affairs
power (and the notion of a strong federal executive more generally) depends upon an inherent meaning of the word "executive," upon the natural and essential powers of a chief executive, or upon a historical continuity between the powers of the
English king and the beliefs of the American Framers. In this
vein, Bradley and Flaherty misunderstand the residual theory's
actual foundations. If one only read their critique, one might
suppose that the Jeffersonian theory rests on the following "essentialist" propositions: first, that the phrase executive power
has a natural, essential, or inherent meaning that necessarily
includes foreign affairs functions; second, that everyone in the
eighteenth century assumed that "by definition" foreign affairs
powers had to be exercised by a chief magistrate; third, that an
unbroken line of continuity runs from eighteenth-century political writing and English practice through all of eighteenthcentury American thought and practice, and hence the Constitution's Framers granted the President all the Crown's foreign
affairs functions; fourth, that the Founders relied exclusively
on "essentialist" propositions, never making "functional" or
normative arguments about the proper allocation of foreign affairs powers; and finally, that as a result the Constitution inevitably granted the President all foreign affairs powers. This,
we think, is what Bradley and Flaherty intend to capture with
their unexplained shorthand "executive essentialism": a claim
that the Constitution must have allocated all foreign affairs
powers to the President because of a supposed universal mantra that a nation's chief magistrate simply had to have such
power.
We agree with much, if not all, of Bradley and Flaherty's
critique of these "essentialist claims." We agree that the Framers made functional allocations of foreign affairs power that
52. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 238-39 (discussing CurtissWright); see Michael D. Ramsey, The Myth of ExtraconstitutionalForeign Affairs Power, 42 WM. & MARY L. REV. 379 (2000) (providing a detailed critique
of Curtiss-Wright).
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departed from English practice and the recommendations of
eighteenth-century political theorists. We agree that neither
historical practices nor definitions bound the Framers to vest
foreign affairs powers in the President, and that they considered many contrary allocations. This is why none of Bradley
and Flaherty's "essentialist" account forms a part, let alone an
"essential" part, of the residual theory.
From the Constitution's earliest days, the residual theory
has rested on a few simple components. First, the phrase "executive power" was generally understood in the late eighteenth
century to define a set of powers that included, among other
things, foreign affairs functions. Second, because the Constitution "vest[s]" the "executive Power" with the President, the
Constitution assigns foreign affairs functions to the President. 53 Third, the President may not exercise those executive
foreign affairs functions that the Constitution allocates elsewhere. This exactly captures the structure of Jefferson's argument in 1790, and it is all that we claim for the executive residual.
Apart from misunderstanding the residual theory's foundations, Bradley and Flaherty's discussion suffers from a series of
common mistakes. First, they conflate governmental powers
with governmental branches. More precisely, they conflate the
"the executive branch" with "executive functions." They also
conflate the presence or absence of a "chief magistrate" with
the presence or absence of an "executive." These missteps lead
them to believe that in any system of government, there can be
only one institution with executive powers. They also seem to
believe that if a government lacks a chief magistrate, it lacks
an executive institution, and that if a function is not vested
with the chief magistrate, it cannot be considered an executive
power.
None of this comports with common eighteenth-century
understanding. As explained below, "executive" functions were
a set of powers which were said to exist in every government,
no matter what type of entity exercised them. The "executive
branch" was a shorthand for the part of government, in a separated-power system, that exercised most (if not all) of the executive functions. Article II, Section l's grant of executive
power refers to executive functions, which in general it gives to
a particular entity, the President. Because some executive
53.
U.S. CONST. art. II, § 1.
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functions are granted to the Senate and Congress, however,
Congress and the Senate have some portions of the executive
power even though they are not the executive branch. Consistent with how people in the eighteenth century spoke, because
the President enjoys most of the executive powers, the President was understood to head the executive branch. Because the
Senate had a share of certain executive powers, people of the
era regarded the Senate as being partly executive. 54 Our Constitution has multiple executive institutions precisely because
it split up the eighteenth-century category of executive power.
1. Inherent vs. Historical Definitions
By labeling us "essentialists," Bradley and Flaherty suggest that we believe that the executive power simply must include foreign affairs powers. 55 Yet the residual theory does not
insist that the phrase "executive power". "naturally" or "essentially" includes foreign affairs powers. As we said, "[w]ords do
not have inherent meanings, as words can come to mean what54. Similar claims could be made about other powers and branches. For
example, Congress enjoys most of the Constitution's legislative power and
thus is called the legislative branch even though it also has judicial powers
with respect to impeachment. Id. art. I, § 3. Likewise, the President heads the
executive branch and also has a share of the legislative power in the form of
the veto. Id. art. II, § 7.
55. Bradley and Flaherty awkwardly disclaim that they are implying that
advocates of the Vesting Clause Thesis are making a "Platonic claim about the
meaning of executive power." Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 552 n.24.
But one footnote cannot trump their entire article, which does caricature their
opponents as adopting some kind of Platonic claim about the meaning of executive power. Indeed, their article's title itself suggests that we (and others)
think that the phrase executive power must encompass foreign affairs powers.
Moreover, the caricature re-emerges in the same footnote, when they claim
that we believe that foreign affairs powers "naturally or essentially belong[ ] to
the executive." Id.
Bradley and Flaherty may have derived the phrase "executive power essentialism" from another article by Professor Prakash, which argued that the
"essential meaning" of executive power was the power to execute the
laws.
Saikrishna Prakash, The Essential Meaning of Executive Power, 2003 U. ILL.
L. REV. 701, 745. That article approvingly cited M.J.C. Vile for the proposition
that the "executive" branch gets its name from "one of its major functions, that
of putting the law[s] into effect." Id. (quoting M.J.C. VILE, CONSTITUTIONALISM AND THE SEPARATION OF POWERS 67 (2d ed. 1998) (emphasis omitted)). As
is clear from that article, all it intended by the "essential meaning of executive
power" is that an institution could not be called "executive" in the eighteenthcentury sense of that term if it lacked law execution power. See id. at 752.
Once again, this is not a claim about what executive power must "naturally" or
"essentially" mean in the abstract. It is a claim about what a phrase meant at
a particular time.
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ever we would have them mean." 56 The question is what "ex-
ecutive power" actually did mean in the 1780s, not what it inherently or naturally means. We are not exotic executive power
essentialists, but rather garden-variety originalists trying to
discern the historical meaning of the words that appear in the
Constitution.
Relatedly, we do not believe that the President has executive power (or foreign affairs power) inherently, by virtue of being the President. Other than perhaps the power to "preside,"
presidents have no inherent powers. 57 The "president" of Congress under the Articles of Confederation, for example, had no
material powers. 58 The U.S. President only has the powers conveyed by the Constitution's text. Moreover, the fact that the
President is a single person does not mean the President must
be an "executive" or must have "executive power." The Articles'
"president" was a single person, but did not have executive
power. Indeed, absolutely nothing can be deduced about the
in the abstract, without reading the ConstiPresident's powers
59
text.
tution's
Nor does the residual theory rest on the claim that in
eighteenth-century discourse foreign affairs powers had to be
vested in a single magistrate, either for definitional reasons or
because of the English experience with unified executive foreign affairs power. As we recounted, Americans described the
Continental Congress, a multi-member body, as having executive power, though many thought this was a bad idea as a policy matter. 60 Americans also knew that Montesquieu had described the Roman Republic as allocating executive foreign
affairs powers across three different institutions-the consuls,
the senate, and the popular assembly. 6 1 Although Montesquieu
56. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 253 n.91.
57. See id. (making this point specifically and stating that "[w]e emphatically reject the notion that our arguments amount to a claim that the President has inherent rights").
58.
59.
See ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION art. IX, cl. 2 (U.S. 1781).
The same can be said of Congress: the mere fact that Congress, under
the Constitution, is a multi-member body says nothing about the type of powers it can exercise. The Articles' "Congress" was also a multi-member institution, but it exercised executive and judicial powers while having little lawmaking authority. See infra Part II.B.2.
60. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 272-78.
61.
1 BARON DE MONTESQUIEU, THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 172-74 (Thomas Nu-
gent trans., rev. ed., The Colonial Press 1899) (1751).
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thought this was bad policy, 62 the Constitution adopted an allo-
cation that notably resembles it, and we never claimed that
this allocation somehow violated the eighteenth-century definition of executive power.
Rather than making claims about the "natural" meaning of
executive power, the President's "natural" powers, or the inherently proper and inevitable allocation of foreign affairs powers,
we made concrete claims based on text and history. Our consistent claim is that writers in the eighteenth century gave the
phrase "executive power" a definition that included foreign affairs powers. 63 We do not argue that this made it inevitable
that the President would get foreign affairs power at the Federal Convention. Our claim depends upon Article II, Section 1,
which gives the President "executive Power." If the President
did not have the grant of power in Article II, Section 1 (as
Madison proposed, and as was true for a good part of the Convention), 64 the President would have no claim to residual foreign affairs power, and could only claim the specific powers
granted in the text. Since the final version of the Constitution's
text does have a grant of executive power under Article II, Section 1, though, anyone who wants to know the original meaning
of the text must work out what the phrase "executive power"
meant in the eighteenth century. 6 5
2. The Relevance (and Irrelevance) of Separation of
Powers Theorists
In one sense the separation of powers theorists of the
eighteenth century are central to our inquiry, while in another
sense they are not. Bradley and Flaherty do not distinguish between the two, and thus misunderstand what we are trying to
accomplish by appealing to the political writings of the eighteenth century. They dispute that there was, as they put it, "a
consensus that the domestic executive by definition had to conduct foreign affairs," or a "continuity between the views of the
62. 1 id. at 156.
63. See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 265-95.
64. See id. at 282-84 (discussing the development of the draft Constitution at the Convention).
65. Again, our approach parallels Jefferson's. According to Jefferson, the
"transaction of business with foreign nations" is "executive" (a definition), and
"executive" power is given to the President by the Constitution subject to
certain exceptions (a normative allocation). See Jefferson, supra note 6, at 37879.
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seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theorists concerning the
proper scope of executive power and the intent of the constitutional Founders." 66 This conflates two distinct aspects of separation of powers theory, one of which we rely on and one we do
67
not.
As scholars of the period have explained,68 eighteenthcentury writing on separation of powers had at least two key
elements, one descriptive (or definitional) and the other prescriptive. The descriptive element sought to classify or categorize the different powers or "functions"6 9 of government. The
prescriptive or normative element made claims about how
these functions should be allocated among the various governmental institutions. Of course, these two projects were related,
for it was an axiom of separation of powers theory that the
functions of government should be "separated-meaning that
they should, at least to some extent, be exercised by separate
institutions.
As a descriptive matter, the project ultimately settled on
the now-familiar trinity of executive, legislative, and judicial
power. This descriptive division was not obvious, as it was uncommon before the end of the seventeenth century (when writers tended to speak only of legislative and executive powers),
and later modern versions have proposed adding a fourth "ad-
66. Bradley & Flaherty, supranote 7, at 560, 571.
67. As explained below, we do not claim, and indeed emphatically reject,
that there was "continuity" in terms of the allocation of powers, although we
do think there was continuity in definition. See infra notes 79-80 and accompanying text. Relatedly, Bradley and Flaherty say that the question is
whether "foreign relations powers are inherently executive in nature." Bradley
& Flaherty, supra note 7, at 560. Again, this could mean either that foreign
affairs powers were defined as "executive" functions (our point) or that foreign
affairs powers inherently had to be assigned to a single "executive" magistrate
(not our point).
68. We rely in large part upon the writings of W.B. Gwyn and M.J.C. Vile,
whose studies of the evolution of separation of powers theory are vital to understanding its eighteenth-century versions, but which gain only glancing and
unhelpful references in Bradley and Flaherty's critique. See W.B. GWYN, THE
MEANING OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE DOCTRINE
FROM ITS ORIGINS TO THE ADOPTION OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
(1965); VILE, supra note 55; cf. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 563 n.79,
564 n.81.
69. Both Vile and Gwyn use the word "functions" in this context and, for
reasons explained below, we think it may convey the concept more clearly than
"powers," which is the word we have used. We do not intend any substance behind the different phrases.
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ministrative" power. 70 Even within the time on which we focus,
there was some instability. Locke, as we described, identified a
"federative" power, while other writers spoke of the judicial
power as a subset of the executive.7 1 But the mid-eighteenth
century stood firmly in favor of a three-part division. Montesquieu wrote that "[i]n every government there are three sorts of
power"-meaning legislative, executive, and judicial. 72 John
Adams agreed that "[a] legislative, an executive, and a judicial
power comprehend the whole of what is meant and understood
by government." 73
As the comments of Montesquieu and Adams suggest,
these categories of power did not refer, in the first instance, to
what type of institution exercised the power in question. Modern American discourse often speaks in terms of branches,
sometimes calling everything the President does "executive,"
everything Congress does "legislative," and everything courts
do "judicial." But as Montesquieu said, every government exercised the three types of powers, even if they were all exercised
by a single person (as in a dictatorship). 74 The description of
the power (or "function"), therefore, did not depend upon the
qualities of the institution that happened to exercise it-The
"legislative" function, for example, consisted of establishing the
rights and duties of members of the community through general laws. 75 Acting in this way was exercising "legislative"
power, regardless of what body did it-it
could be done, for example, by a prince (ruling by decree), by an oligarchy (like the
Roman senate), or by a popular assembly. 76 Classification de77
pended on what was done, not on what type of entity did it.
70. VILE, supra note 55, at 23-82, 289-322.
71. See JOHN LOCKE, Two TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT 382-83 (Peter
Laslett ed., Cambridge Univ. Press 1963) (1690) (describing the functions of
government as executive, legislative, and federative); 2 THOMAS RUTHERFORTH, INSTITUTES OF NATURAL LAW 54 (Cambridge, J. Bentham 1756) (de-
scribing the functions of government as executive and legislative, with judicial
functions included within executive functions).
72. 1 MONTESQUIEU, supra note 61, at 151.
73. John Adams, Letter to Richard Henry Lee (Nov. 15, 1775), in 4 THE
WORKS OF ADAMS 185, 186 (Charles C. Little & James Brown eds., 1851).
74. 1 MONTESQUIEU, supra note 61, at 151.
75. See generally Larry Alexander & Saikrishna Prakash, Reports of the
Nondelegation Doctrine's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated, 70 U. CHI. L. REV.
1297 (2003) (advancing this definition of legislative power).
76. See id. at 1305-06.
77. Of course, the discourse did not always agree on how a particular
power should be classified-the classifications were, as Vile says, "extremely
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Bradley and Flaherty conflate this classification vocabulary with a second part of separation of powers theory that was
not (or at least not necessarily) categorical in this sense. Having identified the different functions of government, political
theory sought to allocate them among different institutions of
government to produce the best structure for securing rights
and maintaining an effective government. This was the normative aspect of eighteenth-century political theory. Here again
there was a fair degree of consensus, at least at the broadest
level, that there should be branches of government that
tracked, at least roughly, the categories of functions. Lawmaking, for example, should be done by an assembly, which could
represent the people and which could deliberate. Law execution
should be handled by a single magistrate, who could act swiftly,
decisively, and consistently. And dispute resolution should be
done by independent courts. This second aspect was not "essentialist," since it did not follow from any definitions. Rather, it
depended on what allocations would create the best government, which is, we suppose, what Bradley and Flaherty mean
by "functionalist."
These two aspects of eighteenth-century thought are captured succinctly by the great separation of powers scholar
M.J.C. Vile:
The second element in the doctrine [of separation of powers] is the assertion that there are three specific "functions" of government. Unlike
the first element, which recommends that there should be three
branches of government, this second part of the doctrine asserts a sociological truth or "law," that there are in all governmental situations
three necessary functions to be performed, whether or not they are in
fact all performed by one person or group, or whether there is a division among two or more agencies of government. All governmental
as an exercise of the legislative,
acts, it is claimed, can be classified
78
executive, or judicial functions.
abstract" and could pose definitional problems in specific application. VILE,
supra note 55, at 18. The discourse was also complicated by a related tendency
to refer to an institution by the name of the powers it predominantly exercised. Thus, for example, the king was called "the executive" because he principally exercised executive powers (although he also exercised some legislative
and judicial powers). See id. at 147. This usage should not obscure the fact
that "executive power" referred to a set of functions, not to a type of institution.
78. Id. at 17.
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As Vile says elsewhere, separation of powers theory "depended
heavily upon an abstract formulation of the powers of government and the allocation of these functions." 79
It is absolutely crucial to separate these two strands of
separation of powers theory, to see what we are relying on and
what we are not. Our claim is that in defining executive power,
legislative power, and judicial power, the common eighteenthcentury view was that foreign affairs functions were considered
part of the "executive power." Our further claim is that when
someone in the eighteenth century maintained that a particular entity should exercise the "executive power," they believed
that the entity should exercise (among other things) foreign affairs power.
In contrast, the residual theory does not rely upon the allocational strains of eighteenth-century separation of powers theory. Hence we do not rely upon some supposed continuity between the actual or recommended structures of government in
mid-eighteenth-century theory or practice and the choices made
by the Founders. It does not matter to us that executive power
was allocated in various ways in the decades leading up to the
Constitution, because we draw no conclusions about the Constitution from the theorists' normative views. Americans never
embraced a single magistrate with all of the Crown's powers.
Instead, using the vocabulary of the political theorists, Americans made normative ("functional") arguments about how to
best allocate executive and other powers that did not always
mirror English practice or the theorists' recommendations.
Early on they gave almost all-encompassing power to multimember institutions. By 1787, however, Americans came to believe that good governmental structure demanded a magistrate
with somewhat greater powers than they had at first supposed,
though still well short of the powers of the king. 0 None of this
renders it inevitable that the Constitution would or would not
vest the President with foreign affairs functions.
It is true that in the mid-eighteenth century the king, as
England's single magistrate, exercised almost complete control
over the diplomatic and military aspects of foreign affairs, and
that as a prescriptive matter, the leading theoretical writers of
79.
80.
Id. at 43 (emphasis added).
Leading accounts of these developments include FORREST MCDONALD,
Novus ORDO SECLORUM: THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF THE CONSTITUTION
80-82 (1985); VILE, supra note 55, at 131-92; and GORDON S. WOOD, THE
CREATION OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, 1776-1787 (2d ed. 1998).
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the time-Montesquieu, Blackstone, etc.-argued that a chief
magistrate should have this control, in the interest of effective
government.8 1 The Founders' failure to adopt the allocational
advice of the theorists, however, does not show that the Founders thought foreign affairs powers were not "executive." Instead, it only suggests that many Founders believed these executive functions should be divided among many institutions.
Hence the Constitution allocates some executive foreign affairs
powers, such as war declarations, to Congress, and requires the
President to share others, such as treaty making, with the Sen82
ate.
It is also true that some people, especially in the seventeenth century, saw an absolute prescriptive identity between
the type of powers exercised and the branch that should exercise them. In this vision of what M.J.C. Vile calls "pure" separation of powers, a well-functioning and just government
should have an executive branch that exercised only executive
powers, and a legislative branch that exercised only legislative
powers-that is, "each of these functions should be entrusted
solely to the appropriate, or 'proper,' branch of the govern-
ment."8 3 Such a view would, for example, likely reject the
presidential veto, because this would involve the executive
branch exercising a legislative function,8 4 and would reject the
idea of a popular lawmaking assembly (or part of a popular
lawmaking assembly) also acting as a council to restrain the
President, since this would involve the legislative branch exer5
cising executive functions.8
But this "pure" view of separation of powers lost favor
among eighteenth-century theorists and constitution makers.
The principal institutions of English government-the king,
lords, and commons-did not map precisely onto the three functions of government, partly because each had a role in legislation. This suggested a different prescriptive version, in which
each branch generally exercised its respective functions, but
with some overlap to assure what came to be called checks and
balances.8 6 The combination of separation of powers and checks
81. See infra Part II.B.
82. U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 11; id. art. II, § 2, cl. 2.
83. VILE, supra note 55, at 17 (emphasis added); see also id. at 13-14 (defining "pure" doctrine of separation of powers).
84. See id. at 47.
85. See id. at 48-49.
86. As Vile explains, see id. at 83-168, and as we later discuss, see infra
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and balances proved highly influential on the Framers, who
embraced some mixing of different types of power in the same
branch, and some distribution of types of power across several
branches.8 7 How these allocations would be made was a question of constitutional architecture, combining considerations of
efficiency (which branch could best exercise the function) and
balance (what allocation would provide an adequate check).
These developments left the Framers with a vocabulary of governmental functions derived from separation of powers theory,
and a general three-part structure of government, but considerable prescriptive flexibility as to how particular powers
should be allocated.
Because they do not fully explore these developments,
Bradley and Flaherty spend most of their time contesting
propositions we do not advance. We do not say that defining a
power as "executive" meant (to either the political theorists or
the Founders) that "by definition" it had to be exercised by a
single magistrate.8 8 We do not say that the Framers must have
Part II.B, Montesquieu and Blackstone are important parts of this shift.
87. As Vile observes, "[b]y the time the Convention met, important sections of opinion among its members had already accepted the two central positions of modern American constitutional thought," namely separation of powers and the idea of checks and balances, which was "considered an essential
constitutional weapon to keep all branches of government, and especially the
legislature, within bounds." VILE, supra note 55, at 168. This was the point of
Madison's Federalist 47-48, in which he famously defended the Constitution
against charges that it violated the doctrine of separation of powers. Madison
agreed that "[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judicial, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many.. . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." THE FEDERALIST NO. 47, at 303
(James Madison) (Isaac Kramnick ed., 1987). Thus, he accepts the definitional
part of separation of powers theory-that "all powers" can be classified, not
according to what branch exercises them, but abstractly, as legislative, executive, or judicial. Id. He also accepts part of the prescriptive element of separation of powers-that is, that these functions should not all be exercised by one
body. But Madison goes on to reject the "pure" separation of powers position
that there must be absolute identity between the branches and the powers. Id.
Rather, he says that the branches may have "a partial agency" in the functions
of the others. Id. at 304. Ihdeed, he says, "unless these departments be so far
connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others," boundaries between the branches "can never in practice be duly maintained." THE FEDERALIST No. 48, supra,at 308 (James Madison). As he points
out, this view was entirely consistent with the eighteenth-century English
constitution, as Montesquieu explained it, and with the post-revolution state
constitutions. THE FEDERALIST NO. 47, supra, at 304-05 (James Madison).
88. Bradley and Flaherty argue against the proposition that theorists
such as Montesquieu thought that foreign affairs power "by definition" (Bradley and Flaherty's phrase) had to be exercised by a single magistrate called
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adopted the system of unified foreign affairs powers advocated
by the political writers as a prescriptive matter; we agree with
Bradley and Flaherty that they did not. We do say that the
Framers used the same vocabulary as the great political writers on whom they relied, and we have traced evidence of that
usage through the discourse of the early republic. Clearly,
adopting the same vocabulary does not mean adopting the
same allocational prescriptions. The Framers might have said,
for example, that the "executive power" should be exercised by
a rotating council of ten members of the Senate. That would be
an allocation quite contrary to the suggestions of the political
writers. But we think that a council empowered in such a way
is what it
would have foreign affairs powers, because that
89
meant to say that the council had executive power.
At the heart of Bradley and Flaherty's article is a modernist and functionalist disdain for what they call "essentialist"
reasoning, which we take to mean, at least in part, the classification of different functions of government into these three abstract categories-legislative, executive, and judicial. But
whether or not they are right to be disdainful, their views on
the matter are beside the point. This categorical approach was
at the heart of eighteenth-century political theory; its vocabulary was embraced by eighteenth-century Americans, and it
was written into the first sections of Articles I, II, and III.
Whether we like it or not, this is part of the Constitution's linguistic background, and to understand the Constitution as it
was written, we must work within it.
We think there are two coherent (though ultimately unpersuasive) responses: one might deny that eighteenth-century
"the executive." See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 571. That is not what
Montesquieu meant, and we do not claim otherwise. Montesquieu knew that
in many governments "executive" foreign affairs power was exercised, at least
in part, by assemblies or councils. (The most obvious example is the Roman
senate, which Montesquieu discussed at some length.) See 1 MONTESQUIEU,
supra note 61, at 172-74. Montesquieu did think that as a policy matter, foreign affairs power should be exercised by a single magistrate, see id. at 156,
but the only thing he thought true "by definition" was that whatever body exercised foreign affairs power had at least part of the "executive power." When
we say that the Framers adopted Montesquieu's definitions, the latter point is
all that we mean.
89. Similarly, if the Constitution had not said that the President had executive power, or had said that the President had executive power but that all
foreign affairs powers were lodged in Congress, then the President would not
have foreign affairs power even though the President was the chief magistrate.
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discourse engaged in a classification of governmental functions
along the lines we have suggested, or one might deny that it
assigned foreign affairs power to the executive category. Bradley and Flaherty do neither. Their principal claim in this regard is that not everyone thought foreign affairs power should
be exercised by a single magistrate. 90 We agree, but this has
nothing to do with making sense of the vocabulary of the eighteenth century. The key is how speakers used the phrase "executive power," not what allocations of executive power they
preferred as a policy matter.
II. TEXTUAL AND HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE
CASE AGAINST RESIDUAL EXECUTIVE POWER
This section addresses specific textual and historical claims
made by those who disparage the Jeffersonian theory. We again
focus on the extensive arguments made by Bradley and
Flaherty. Because they do not advocate a consistent reading of
constitutional text as an alternative to the residual theory,
their argument must be that the residual theory is untenable
no matter the alternatives. To succeed, they must have concrete evidence contravening the residual theory (or at least evidence that the sources we claim in support do not in fact support it). We think they entirely fail in this endeavor. Their
discussion of the Constitution's text confirms that the critical
question is what the phrase "executive power" meant in the
eighteenth century. As we elaborate, they ignore the conclusions of leading historians and separation of powers scholars
who agree that in the eighteenth century "executive power" was
understood to include foreign affairs functions, both in the writings of theorists such as Montesquieu and Blackstone and in
the discourse in America during the confederation period. Bradley and Flaherty's descriptions of the Federal Convention and
the ratification debates, while largely accurate, do little to advance their argument because they are unable to identify anyone who claimed that the Vesting Clause meant nothing. Finally, while they argue that the discourse and practice of the
Washington administration supports a theory of specific presidential powers rather than the residual theory, here they are
simply mistaken.
90.
See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 560-71.
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A. TEXTUAL CONFUSION
Our textual claim is simple. Article II, Section 1 "vest[s]"
91
the President with "the executive Power." If the "executive
Power" referred to a set of functions, Article II, Section 1 would
seem to assign these functions to the President (subject, of
course, to other provisions in the document). This is all we
claim for the text standing alone. To dispute it, one might deny
that the Vesting Clause grants the President any power (that
is, that the "executive power" does not refer to a set of functions), or one might say that whatever power it does vest does
not include foreign affairs power. In modern discourse, most
opponents of presidential power take the first course, claiming
that there shall be one
that the Vesting Clause only establishes
92
"President."
of
title
the
with
executive
Bradley and Flaherty seem unable to decide which line of
attack to pursue. They begin their textual discussion with an
admission that the Vesting Clause may convey a power to execute the law. 93 They try to use this common understanding as a
shield against a broader conception of executive power that includes foreign affairs powers. 94 Yet in spite of this seeming concession, most of their textual and historical discussion is premised on the claim that the President has "specific" powers only,
95
and that the Vesting Clause vests nothing. Indeed, they declare that they mean to "challenge" the Vesting Clause Thesis, 96 i.e., the thesis that the Vesting Clause "grants the President a broad array of residual powers not specified in the
remainder of Article IJ."97
We grasp the basis of their discomfort. If they agreed that
the Vesting Clause grants law execution power, they would
have to forfeit many of their textual and historical arguments.
In particular, this would make them executive power "essentialists" and proponents of the Vesting Clause Thesis, at least
in the sense of admitting that "executive power" referred to a
set of functions that the Framers intended to vest with the
President. As a result they would all but admit that if the
91. U.S. CONST. art. II, § 1.
92. See, e.g., Lawrence Lessig & Cass R. Sunstein, The President and the
Administration, 94 COLUM. L. REV. 1 (1994).
93. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 553.
94. See id. at 557-71.
95. See id. at 553-59.
96. Id. at 551.
97. Id. at 546.
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common eighteenth-century understanding of "executive
power" included foreign affairs power (as it did include the law
execution power), the Vesting Clause would vest this power
with the President. In sum, their textual discussion would have
ended with the observation that to discern whether "executive
power" had a foreign affairs component requires resort to its
historical definition-which is exactly our point. 98
On the other hand, if they consistently assumed the role of
executive power nihilists, denying that the Vesting Clause
vests substantive powers, they would have to confront powerful
arguments that the clause, at minimum, vests law execution
power. First, there is much historical evidence that the Framers understood executive power to encompass a law execution
power, and that the President was not merely supposed to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed but was to superintend all those who execute the laws. 99 As Bradley and Flaherty
seem to admit, one can justify these understandings only by
reference to the Vesting Clause. Second, the structure of the
Constitution's first three Articles indicates that the Vesting
Clause vests substantive power. Article III's Vesting Clause,
which vests the judicial power in the Supreme Court and any
inferior courts that Congress might create, 0 0 has always been
read as granting power to the Article III judiciary, in particular
the power to decide cases and controversies. 0 1 In contrast, Article I's Vesting Clause makes clear that it vests only those
powers "herein granted."'102 This has always been understood to
mean that Congress lacked general legislative powers of the
98. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 234 n.1 (arguing that the meaning of executive power could not be resolved merely by citing the Constitution's
text and that resort to history was absolutely necessary).
99. See generally Prakash, supra note 55 (examining the historical meaning of executive power).
100. U.S. CONST. art. III, § 1 ("The judicial power of the United States,
shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may ...
establish.").
101. Though the rest of Article III spells out the cases and controversies to
which the judicial power extends, see id. art. III, § 2 (stating that the "judicial
power shall extend to" numerous classes of cases), it does not grant any power.
To say that the judicial power extends to cases involving the Constitution,
laws, and treaties of the United States is not to grant any power, but to make
clear the judicial power already granted. If the Article III Vesting Clause does
not grant any powers, Article III courts lack constitutional power, for no other
provision grants them authority.
102. Id. art. I, § 1 ("All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in
a Congress ... ").
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type granted to state legislatures under the state constitutions.
Instead, Congress was limited to its specific enumeration. The
Article II Vesting Clause reads like a fraternal twin of the Article III Vesting Clause and is in contradistinction to its Article I
counterpart. The Article II Vesting Clause provides that "[t]he
10 3
executive Power shall be vested in a President."' To "vest" a
10 4
Indeed, that is the way the
power is to convey that power.
verb is understood in every other place in the original Constitu-
tion,10 5 including Article III.
Bradley and Flaherty avoid dealing with these difficulties
by declining to endorse either alternative theory. As a result,
they must show that the Jeffersonian theory is simply implau-
sible. Their textual discussion falls well short of this goal.
1.
The Claim that the Vesting Clause Vests No Power
Bradley and Flaherty carefully disclaim any fixed view of
the Vesting Clause, but try to raise doubts about whether the
Vesting Clause conveys substantive powers. Most of their
points are not new,10 6 and have been adequately addressed
10 7
We
elsewhere-mostly outside of the foreign affairs context.
103. Id. art. II, § 1, cl. 1.
104. See generally Steven G. Calabresi, The Vesting Clauses as Power
Grants, 88 NW. U. L. REV. 1377 (1994) (arguing that the Vesting Clauses are
power grants that gain content from later provisions in Articles II and III).
105. See U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 18 ("[Congress may] make all Laws
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing
Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of
the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." (emphasis
added)); id. art. II, § 2, cl. 2 ("Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of
such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the
Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments." (emphasis added)).
106. Bradley and Flaherty draw upon a rich tradition of criticism of the
view that the Article II Vesting Clause vests power. See, e.g., Flaherty, The
Most Dangerous Branch, supra note 13, at 1778; Lessig & Sunstein, supra
note 92, at 47-48; A. Michael Froomkin, The Imperial Presidency'sNew Vestments, 88 Nw. U. L. REV. 1346, 1363 (1994).
107. See generally Prakash, supra note 55 (offering an overview of the Vesting Clause's impact on the scope of executive power); see also Steven G.
Calabresi, The Vesting Clauses as Power Grants, 88 NW. U. L. REV. 1377
(1994); Steven G. Calabresi & Saikrishna B. Prakash, The President'sPower to
Execute the Laws, 104 YALE L.J. 541, 572-74 (1994).
In a forthcoming piece in the University of IllinoisLaw Review, Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman add powerful arguments in favor of reading the Vesting
Clause as if it actually vested power. They assert that all presidential powers
flow from the Article II Vesting Clause, with the remainder of Article II
merely qualifying or elaborating on the broad Vesting Clause grant. See Gary
Lawson & Guy Seidman, The Jeffersonian Treaty Clause, 2006 U. ILL. L. REV.
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address a few points that they add to the prior debate.
Bradley and Flaherty offer three readings of Article II: that
the omission of "herein granted" from Article II could have been
an accident; that "herein granted" was understood to be implicit in Articles II and III for the new executive and judicial
branches, but needed to be made explicit in Article I to deny
Congress any carryover powers from the Articles of Confederation; and that the Vesting Clause delineated where the executive power lies but did not establish its scope. 108 All of these
readings are unsound. As to the first, of course the Constitution
contains scrivener's errors. But Bradley and Flaherty contend
that the Constitution contains the conspicuous blunder of incorporating a key phrase in the Article I Vesting Clause while
accidentally omitting the same phrase in Articles II and III. If
this was a slip-up, it was one of major proportions, not one of
those tucked away in some nook or cranny. These introductory
clauses inaugurate the three great Articles; it is unlikely that
the Constitution's drafters made so conspicuous an error. 109
Bradley and Flaherty's second reading seeks to show why
the phrase "herein granted" was necessary in one clause but
unnecessary in the other two Vesting Clauses. But their claim
based on the Continental Congress is infirm. When the Framers meant to vest Congress with a power granted to the Continental Congress, the Constitution specifically grants that
power. 110 By listing some powers of the Continental Congress in
Article I, Section 8 and omitting others, the Framers made
clear that the new Congress would not enjoy all of the Continental Congress's powers.
Their third argument-that the Vesting Clause merely
makes clear "where the executive power is being vested"1 1' but
does not specify the scope of the "executive power"-is odd. If
this reading is just another way of claiming that "herein
granted" is implicit, it is subject to the objections listed above.
(forthcoming).
108. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 554-55.
109. In any event, even if we were to concede that the Framers mistakenly
granted the executive power to the President, the falsity of the residual theory
of foreign affairs certainly does not follow, as Bradley and Flaherty recognize.
As they concede, it is not obvious why a "mistake" at the Convention matters.
Id. Most people believe the Constitution is the supreme law of the land not because of who wrote it, but because of how it was ratified.
110. Saikrishna B. Prakash, Field Office Federalism, 79 VA. L. REV. 1957,
1972 (1993).
111. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 555 (emphasis omitted).
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If instead Bradley and Flaherty mean that the Vesting Clause
does not, by itself, delineate the scope of executive power, this
is true. To say that someone has the "executive power" does
not, in itself, convey what "executive power" encompasses. But
this is true of all constitutional provisions. One could similarly
say that the First Amendment does not define its own scope.
Constitutional provisions use certain words and not others because they convey certain meanings and not others. Our claim
is not that the Vesting Clause helps define itself, for no clause
does this. Instead, our claim is that the scope of executive
power comes from the common usage of that phrase in the
as does the scope of every other constitueighteenth century,
112
tional clause.
Apart from their doubtful readings of Article II's Vesting
Clause, Bradley and Flaherty invoke two interpretive canons
meant to show that Jefferson's residual thesis has "significant
textual problems": they claim that the thesis violates the expressio unius canon because it suggests that the Article II's list
of powers is illustrative rather than complete, and they claim
contrary to
the thesis makes the rest of Article II redundant,
13
redundancy."'
against
presumption
the "general
Bradley and Flaherty's invocation of the expressio unius
canon is misplaced because they suppose that it somehow counsels that the listing of powers in Article II, Sections 2 and 3
must be "complete."'114 The expressio unius canon cannot be applied to enumerated powers, including the enumerated "executive power," because these are express powers. It can be applied
only to claims about implied or inherent powers where one can
say that the enumeration of certain powers excludes those not
enumerated.1 5 Arguing that the expressio unius canon suggests that the Vesting Clause must lack meaning is like assert112. If "executive power" did not have a common meaning, or if it did not
refer to a set of powers, we agree this would raise difficulties for our argument. But as we previously discussed, and reiterate in subsequent sections, it
did. Bradley and Flaherty concede as much by admitting that executive power
may have referred, at minimum, to law execution power. Id. at 558.
113. Id. at 555.
114. Id.
115. Bradley and Flaherty might respond that our claim about executive
power does involve recourse to implied or inherent powers. But as we have explained, we are making a claim about an express clause, the Vesting Clause.
Though they disagree with our reading of this clause and though they may regard the clause as not granting any power at all, they are not entitled to invoke a canon about implied powers and thereby assume that our argument is
based on an implied presidential power.
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ing that the power to lay and collect taxes1 16 cannot grant any
,power, because application of the expressio unius canon to the
remainder of the Article I, Section 8 powers somehow means
that the remainder must be read as a complete enumeration of
congressional power. The granting of other powers in other portions of Article II is no argument against reading the Vesting
117
Clause as a grant of power.
The second canon invoked by Bradley and Flaherty, the
presumption against redundant readings, actually cuts against
the theory that the Vesting Clause merely establishes where
the executive powers granted by the specific clauses will rest.
This reading makes part of the Vesting Clause redundant and
renders other portions meaningless. Every clause granting
power to the President in Article II or elsewhere already makes
clear who has those powers. 118 There was no need to repeat
that in the Article II Vesting Clause. Moreover, Bradley and
Flaherty would read the introductory clause as providing
merely that "[tjhere shall be a President." This reading omits
the words "[tihe executive Power shall be vested in,"' 19 thus
supposing that they are superfluous and do not mean to vest
any power.
In contrast, any redundancies of reading the Vesting
Clause as vesting power are inconsequential and exaggerated.
We have already shown that much of the language in Article II
can be explained as necessary to share powers that would have
been granted to the executive in toto had specific exceptions
been lacking. 120 Other language was necessary to make clear
116. U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 1.
117. Bradley and Flaherty's reliance on the expressio unius canon is also
inconsistent with their own arguments. Their alternative readings of Articles
I, II, and III ignore the selective placement of "herein granted." Though that
phrase is present only in Article I and absent elsewhere, they seem to favor
reading this limitation into the other two Articles. See Bradley & Flaherty,
supra note 7, at 554-55.
118. Prakash, supra note 55, at 716 n.61.
119. U.S. CONST. art. II, § 1, cl. 1.
120. Bradley and Flaherty complain that we do not provide nonredundant
readings of several specific powers vested with the President, such as the pardon power or the Opinions Clause. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at
555. But they have conceded the possibility that the executive power grants a
law execution power, a reading that also raises the specter of redundant
clauses. See id. at 558. Moreover, our prior article only sought to advance our
residual theory of foreign affairs. See generally Prakash & Ramsey, supra note
3. Though we mentioned that the Vesting Clause also granted law execution
powers, id. at 253, our article was not meant to provide a comprehensive account of all the meanings of executive power. Professor Prakash elsewhere
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the scope of powers that presumably were part of the executive
power.121 And still other language likely was redundant or perhaps included out of abundance of caution.122
This all seems too messy and implausible for Bradley and
Flaherty. What a bizarre way to construct Article II, they seem
to exclaim-to grant a general power and explain, qualify, and
constrain it in the remainder. Yet there is nothing odd or unfamiliar with this draftsmanship. Writing as Publius, Madison
said "[n]othing is more natural [ ]or common than first to use a
general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of
particulars."'123 Hamilton wrote of Article II that it would be inconsistent "with the rules of sound construction to consider [its]
enumeration of particular authorities as derogating from1 the
24
more comprehensive grant contained in the general clause."'
Bradley and Flaherty also maintain that the Vesting
Clause Thesis is "in tension with the enumerated powers" doctrine. 25 Contrary to their suggestion, the enumerated powers
doctrine does not provide that the federal government only has
powers with clear boundaries. Instead, the enumerated powers
doctrine holds that the federal government only has the powers
enumerated in the Constitution. Our theory is entirely consistent with the actual enumerated powers doctrine. We claim
that the Constitution contains an enumerated grant of power to
the President-the executive power. We reject arguments about
inherent or unenumerated foreign affairs power-indeed, this
was one of our principal complaints about existing theories of
the allocation of foreign affairs authority. While there may be
uncertainty at the fringes of the clause, that is true for almost
every clause. Few would dispute that the Commerce Clause
grants powers to Congress merely because there are controversupplied nonredundant readings for many of the other non-foreign affairs
powers in Article II, Sections 2 and 3. See Prakash, supra note 55, at 720-40
(analyzing the meanings of, inter alia, the Faithful Execution Clause, the
Opinions Clause, and the Commander-in-Chief Clause).
121. See, e.g., U.S. CONST. art. II, § 2, cl. 1 ('The President shall be 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia
of the several States,' when called into [federal] Service."). Hence, the Constitution makes clear that the President does not head the state militias at all
times.
122. See, e.g., U.S. CONST. art. II, § 2, cl. 1 ("[The President] may require
the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments.").
123. THE FEDERALIST NO. 41, supra note 87, at 272 (James Madison).
124. HAMILTON, supra note 6, at 39.
125. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 558-59.
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sies about that clause's peripheries. We do not see how disagreements about the scope of executive power become a reason
to deny that the Vesting Clause vests power.
Finally, Bradley and Flaherty do not even begin to address
the most serious problem of the vesting-clause-vests-nothing
hypothesis-the historical evidence that the Founders understood the clause to vest law execution power. In any event,
their discussion surely does not show that it is implausible to
read the Vesting Clause as vesting substantive power, especially since they do not identify any viable alternatives to the
Vesting Clause Thesis.
2. The Claim that the Vesting Clause Does Not Vest Foreign
Affairs Power
Whatever one thinks of Bradley and Flaherty's elaborate
arguments about the emptiness of the Vesting Clause, the crucial point is that Bradley and Flaherty themselves do not find
them persuasive. Although they devote much space to arguing
against a substantive reading of the Vesting Clause, Bradley
and Flaherty end up admitting that the clause may vest law
execution power. 126 Their ultimate argument, therefore, is that
even if the clause vests law execution power, it does not vest
foreign affairs power. Textual support for this proposition is
almost nonexistent.
Bradley and Flaherty try to trade on the common modern
association of the phrase "executive power" with the power to
execute the law, thus implying that it likely did not mean more
than this to the Framers. But surely "executive power" meant
to the Framers what it meant in ordinary eighteenth-century
discourse, whatever that was. Modern intuitions are completely
unhelpful in resolving this question. It can be answered only by
looking at how the phrase was used in writings of the time.
Beyond intuitive appeals, Bradley and Flaherty have only
one serious textual argument to limit "executive power" to the
power to execute the laws. Extending it to foreign affairs, they
say, would create redundancies, because some foreign affairs
powers are specifically assigned to the President in Article II,
Sections 2 and 3, and yet would also be included in the Vesting
Clause if it included foreign affairs powers. 127
126.
127.
See id. at 558.
See id. at 555.
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We think only one of these powers-the power to receive
ambassadors-merits discussion. The other powers in Sections
2 and 3 are obviously allocations of power between the President and another branch of government. 128 The role of the Ambassadors Clause seems more troublesome, but we think it can
be explained on three grounds, none of which Bradley and
Flaherty consider. First, it could indeed be redundant, included
by mistake. The Constitution surely has mistakes and redundancies. In the Convention, the delegates began with the idea
of a general grant of executive power; they then shifted to a
drafting strategy of trying to enumerate foreign affairs powers.
They added the Ambassadors Clause during this phase. Then,
in the Committee of Detail, they shifted back to a general grant
of executive power (albeit greatly qualified by specific grants to
other branches). 129 Thus, the Framers might simply have neglected to delete the formerly non-redundant Ambassadors
Clause when they returned to the idea of a general grant of executive power.
Alternatively, the clause may have served two other purposes. It may have imposed a duty on the President: he "shall"
receive ambassadors-that is, he must formally greet foreign
officials and receive their credentials, a tedious duty necessi128. Bradley and Flaherty claim that the Senate's treaty and appointments
roles were not written as if they were exceptions to the executive power. See
id. But the fact that the Founders choose to reiterate the executive nature of
these powers, while also qualifying them, does not help their argument. They
also claim that "it is not clear why delineation was needed even of divided
powers, since whatever was not given to the Senate or to Congress would presumptively remain with the President." Id. This argument entirely misses the
point. Delineation was necessary precisely because the Framers wanted the
President's executive power qualified and because language was necessary to
accomplish the Senate check. Without delineation, these powers would have
rested solely with the President by virtue of the Vesting Clause.
Bradley and Flaherty also claim that the residual theory makes the commander-in-chief power redundant. Id. But as discussed earlier, the Vesting
Clause makes it clear that the President's power over the militia only exists
when it is called into service, and as discussed in our prior article, the clause
makes clear that despite Congress's broad powers over the creation and disciplining of the armed forces, Congress cannot decide who shall command the
nation's armed forces. See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 259-60.
129. See 1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 65-67
(Max Farrand ed., 1966) (shifting away from a general grant); 2 id. at 145-46
(including reception of ambassadors as a presidential power along with other
specific enumerations and without a general grant of executive powers in the
Randolph draft of the Committee of Detail report); 2 id. at 171 (adding grant
of executive power but retaining power to receive ambassadors in the Wilson
draft of the Committee of Detail report).
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The clause's presence in Sec-
tion 3 supports this interpretation, for while Section 2 generally lists powers, 131 Section 3 is sometimes understood to list
duties. 13 2 In addition, the clause may have been intended to
preclude states from receiving ambassadors and other public
ministers. Absent this clause, it would be less clear that the
states lacked this power. States could not receive ambassadors
on behalf of the United States (since that was an aspect of the
executive power of the United States), but states might have
otherwise thought that they could receive ambassadors on their
own behalf-and might be particularly tempted to do so (or
even feel arf obligation to do so) since the ambassadors might be
physically present in the state. Thus the clause might emphasize that the President has an exclusive duty to receive ambassadors. This reading is supported by the Constitution's omission of the Articles of Confederation's prohibition on states
receiving ambassadors. 133 This clause may have been omitted
precisely because the Ambassadors Clause made it unnecessary. The exclusive duty reading is also supported by the omission of consuls from the Ambassadors Clause, even though the
Constitution includes consuls on every other occasion that it refers to ambassadors.1 34 It makes sense that the President
would not be obligated to receive minor officials like consuls,
and that the states would be able to interact with them.
Whatever the correct reading, we think that the Ambassadors Clause is too uncertain to decide the meaning of the Vesting Clause. We do not deny that the clause raises issues about
the residual theory, but we think the better approach is to examine what the phrase "executive power" actually meant in
eighteenth-century writings, rather than to guess what it
130. U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3.
131. Id. art. II, § 2 (listing the commander-in-chief, pardon, treaty, and appointment powers).
132. Id. art. II, § 3 (requiring the President to faithfully execute the laws
and to commission all officers of the United States).
133.
ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION art. VI, cl. 1 (U.S. 1781) ("No State,
without the consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, shall send
any embassy to, or receive any embassy from... any king, prince or State.").
134. Compare U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3 ("[The President] shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers."), with id. art. II, § 2, cl. 2 ("[The President can appoint] Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls."), id. art.
III, § 2, cl. 1 ("[Judicial power extends to all cases concerning] Ambassadors,
other public Ministers and Consuls."), and id. art. III, § 2, cl. 2 ("[The Supreme
Court has original jurisdiction over cases concerning] Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls.").
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meant based on a fairly obscure clause capable of multiple
meanings.
In any event, we think that Bradley and Flaherty have
given up the entire textual game by conceding that the Vesting
135
Clause may vest the President with law execution power.
The only way the clause could do that is if the ordinary eighteenth-century understanding of "executive power" included the
power to execute the law, and if the clause was intended to
convey to the President the powers ordinarily termed executive
(subject, of course, to constraints and exceptions found in other
provisions). 36 This is all we claim for the text standing alone. It
remains to ask what else the "executive power" might have
meant in the eighteenth century. That question can be answered only by looking at the phrase's historical definition.
Bradley and Flaherty's arguments about the text fail to undermine the possibility that the Vesting Clause conveys the executive power of foreign affairs.
B. THE SEPARATION OF POWERS THEORISTS AND THE MEANING
OF EXECUTIVE POWER
We now turn to the historical meaning of the phrase "executive power," beginning with the eighteenth-century separation of powers theorists. We briefly reiterate the claims underlying the residual theory. First, eighteenth-century political
theory classified the powers of all governments as legislative,
135. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 558.
136. Ironically, elements of Bradley and Flaherty's textual arguments are
"essentialist." Specifically, the phantom "herein granted" theory seems essentialist, for it contemplates that the President's specific powers are "executive."
Rather than merely vesting "the power herein granted," their reconstructed
clause must provide that the "executive powers herein granted shall be vested
in a President." Id. at 554. The only reason to refer to the Article II list of powers as "executive" is because one believes that these powers share something
in common-they, unlike other powers, are executive powers. Bradley and
Flaherty might respond that these powers are regarded as part of the "executive power" under the Vesting Clause because they are given to a single chief
magistrate and, under their conception, a single chief magistrate is necessarily
an "executive." But since they admit that councils could be "executive" as well,
id. at 582, the adjective "executive" cannot turn on the presence or absence of
a chief magistrate. As we explained, the concept of executive power refers to a
category of powers, a category independent of the type of institution that
might exercise those powers. See supra Part I.C.2. In our view, executive powers can be exercised by a small council, an assembly, or a single magistrate.
Unless Bradley and Flaherty are willing to add (the phrase "herein granted")
and subtract (the adjective "executive") words, the "herein granted" theory
makes them unwitting proponents of executive essentialism.
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executive, and judicial. This classification was a matter of abstract definition that referred to types of powers (functions), not
to the types of institutions that exercised them. Second, eighteenth-century political theory classified the diplomatic and
military aspects of foreign affairs as part of the "executive"
functions of government, even though these functions were distinct from the principal "executive" power of law execution.
Third, as a matter of policy, many eighteenth-century theorists
claimed that in a sound government executive functions, including the foreign affairs power, were assigned to a single
magistrate and legislative powers were exercised by an assembly. Nonetheless, theorists recognized that the functions were
often assigned in other ways in actual practice. Fourth, the
Framers of the Constitution used the vocabulary of eighteenthcentury theory, referring to legislative, executive, and judicial
powers; but to some extent they rejected the prescriptive elements of that theory because they thought some "executive"
foreign affairs functions should be allocated across various institutions rather than concentrated in a single magistrate. 137
According to Bradley and Flaherty, the eighteenth-century
separation of powers theorists "provide no more than weak
support" for the residual theory.13 8 Yet in reviewing the political theorists, Bradley and Flaherty never spell out their aims.
Without explaining their terms, they set up a supposed contrast between an "essentialist" view and a "functional" view,
claim that the residual theory requires "essentialist" evidence,
and purport to find little such evidence. This does little either
to explain eighteenth-century discourse or to test the residual
theory. The simple question is whether the theorists classified
foreign affairs powers as "executive" functions of government.
Once the matter is put this way, we think it plain that they did.
1. Locke
We agree with Bradley and Flaherty's description of John
Locke, which parallels our own. 139 But Bradley and Flaherty do
not see why Locke is important. Our point is not that Locke
called foreign affairs powers "executive powers"-for the most
part, he did not. The key is that Locke recognized government's
137. See supra Part I.C.
138. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 560.
139. LOCKE, supra note 71, at 364-66; cf. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3,
at 267-68; Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 560-61.
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foreign affairs functions as something other than pure lawmaking or pure law execution. These functions involved neither establishing rights and duties within the society nor carrying into
effect "antecedent, standing, positive laws," but rather resolving "[c]ontroversies that happen between any Man of the Society with those that are out of
it."140
Much of foreign affairs,
Locke said, could not be regulated by antecedent law, since
"what is to be done in reference to Foreigners, depending much
upon their actions, and the variation of designs and interests,
must be left in great part to the Prudence of those who have
this Power committed to them."141 This was neither lawmaking
nor law execution; as M.J.C. Vile notes, Locke insisted that
conducting foreign affairs "is carrying out quite a distinct function."
142
Locke's discussion is important in two ways. First, it illustrates the project of dividing governmental functions into abstract categories, independent of which institution(s) exercised
them. 14 3 Second, it called attention to the question of how foreign affairs functions fit into the classification scheme, in a way
not previously appreciated. Prior writing had addressed mostly
domestic matters, with the familiar division between lawmaking and law execution functions. When writers did mention foreign affairs, they tended to identify it with the executive monarch (not surprisingly, given the practicalities of the English
system), without much explanation.1 44 Locke pointed out that
foreign affairs functions stood somewhat apart from the usual
idea of law execution, such that (in his view) it constituted a
separate category. He called these functions "federative powers," a term that did not survive into the eighteenth century.
But he closely associated federative powers with law execution
powers-so closely, in fact, that he sometimes wrote impre-
140. LOCKE, supra note 71, at 383-84.
141. Id. at 384 (emphasis omitted).
142. VILE, supra note 55, at 67.
143. As a matter of definition, Locke calls foreign affairs powers "federative
powers"; as a matter of prescription, he says that those powers should be
lodged with whomever has the executive power. See LOCKE, supra note 71, at
382-84. Contra Bradley and Flaherty, this is neither "essentialist" nor "functional"; it is a definition followed by a policy argument. See Bradley &
Flaherty, supra note 7, at 561.
144. See VILE, supra note 55, at 23-63; id. at 60-62 (discussing the seventeenth-century writings of George Lawson, who identified an internal and external component to "executive power").
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cisely and conflated the two.145 This "set the stage" (as we said)
for the eighteenth-century idea that foreign affairs functions
did not depend on antecedent law but still should be classified
as executive.
2. Montesquieu
Our historical argument centers not on Locke, but on Montesquieu and Blackstone, 146 theorists who dominated American
political thought during the founding period. 147 Bradley and
Flaherty concede that Montesquieu called foreign relations
powers "executive," but they caution that "even here the picture
is complicated and uncertain."1 48 They go on to claim that Montesquieu was "confusing"' 149 and that he only made isolated ref15 0
erences to foreign affairs as an executive power.
Leading separation of powers scholars such as W.B. Gwyn
and M.J.C. Vile are not confused by Montesquieu's treatment of
foreign affairs powers. According to Gwyn, 'Montesquieu did
not.., adopt Locke's terminology but decided to call the conduct of foreign affairs 'executive power' and the execution of
domestic law 'judicial power."' 15 1 Later, Gwyn states, "[t]he
meaning Montesquieu attributed to 'executive power' in the
opening paragraphs of Book XI, Chapter Six, is broadened in
the rest of the chapter to include both domestic and foreign affairs," although 'Montesquieu, like most writers of his time,
was inclined to think of the executive branch of government as
145. See LOCKE, supra note 71, at 343, 371.
146. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 265-72.
147. See DONALD S. LUTz, THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM
136-49 (1988) (demonstrating that Montesquieu and Blackstone were the
most commonly cited political theorists in America during the founding period).
148. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 563.
149. Id. Bradley and Flaherty's claim seems to rest in large part on the fact
that Montesquieu early in his discussion could be read to use "executive
power" only to mean foreign affairs powers, while later he broadened it to include internal law execution as well. Id. This may appear to be a superficial
oddity, but we do not see how it undermines our conclusion that Montesquieu
defined executive power to include foreign affairs power.
150. Bradley and Flaherty also say that Montesquieu's "essentialism primarily concerns the abstract classification of power rather than the proper institutional assignment of power." Id. That is precisely correct-and precisely
our point. That Bradley and Flaherty fail to see this shows their misunderstanding of our theory.
151. GWYN, supra note 68, at 101.
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being concerned nearly entirely with foreign affairs." 152 Likewise, Vile writes:
Montesquieu... affirms [at the outset of his discussion] that he intends to use the term "executive power" exclusively to cover the function of the magistrates to make peace or war, send or receive embassies, establish the public security, and provide against invasions. He
now seems to wish to confine the term "executive power" to foreign affairs, for he does not make it at all clear that the power to "establish
other words, for
the public security" has any internal connotation-in
15 3
Locke's "federative power" read "executive power."'
Nonetheless, says Vile, Montesquieu's later usage "clearly includ[es] internal as well as external affairs in the executive
power. It is in this final sense that Montesquieu discusses the
relationships between the powers of government ... "154
Although Bradley and Flaherty cite Vile and Gwyn in passing, 155 they do not acknowledge that our reading of Montesquieu tracks Vile and Gwyn while theirs does not. 156 Moreover,
if there was any doubt about Montesquieu's association of executive power and foreign affairs power in his opening discussion, it seems wholly laid to rest-as even Bradley and
Flaherty appear to concede 157-by Montesquieu's description of
Rome. In his chapter "Of the executive Power in the [Roman]
Republic," Montesquieu begins:
Jealous as the people were of their legislative power, they had no
great uneasiness about the executive. This they left almost entirely to
the senate and to the consuls, reserving scarcely anything more to
themselves than the right of choosing the magistrates, and of confirm158
ing the acts of the senate and of the generals.
He then makes clear that the "executive power" exercised by
the senate and the consuls was principally foreign affairs
power-the senate "determined war or peace," "fixed the number of the Roman and of the allied troops," "received and sent
embassies," and "nominated, rewarded, punished, and were
judges of kings, declared them allies of the Roman people, or
152. Id. at 103.
153. VILE, supra note 55, at 95.
154. Id.
155. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 563 n.79, 564 n.81.
156. Bradley and Flaherty do not cite any historian or political scientist
who shares their view of Montesquieu (or Blackstone). See id. at 560-65.
157. See id. at 564 ("Obviously, Montesquieu is here assigning foreign relations powers to his executive category ....").
158. 1 MONTESQUIEU, supra note 61, at 172.
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stripped them of that title." 15 9 The consuls' executive powers
also had, in Montesquieu's description, foreign affairs aspects:
The consuls levied the troops which they were to carry into the field;
had the command of the forces by sea and by land; disposed of the
forces of the allies; were invested with the whole power of the republic
in the provinces; gave peace to the vanquished nations, imposed conditions on them, or referred them to the senate. 160
And the "people" (by which Montesquieu presumably meant the
popular assembly), "growing wanton in their prosperity,... increased their executive power. Thus they created the
military tribunes, the nomination of whom till then had belonged to the generals; and ...they decreed that only their own
161
body should have the right of declaring war."
Like many writers on complicated subjects, Montesquieu
was not entirely clear in every detail. But as numerous sources
confirm, Montesquieu was clear enough in his fundamental
points to become the most important theoretical work on the
structure of government during the founding era. 16 2 And scholars of separation of powers have had little difficulty reaching
the same conclusion we do with respect to foreign affairs powers. In fact, to the extent their accounts identify "confusion," it
is that Montesquieu at times seems to focus too much on the
159. 1 id. at 173.
160. 1 id.
161. 1 id. at 173-74. Montesquieu's description of Rome illustrates a misconception that pervades Bradley and Flaherty's discussion. As a descriptive
matter, Montesquieu thought that in Rome the category of executive power
was allocated across several different institutions (the senate, consuls, and assembly). As a normative matter, he thought this was a mistake: "[tihe executive power ought to be in the hands of a monarch, because this branch of government, having need of despatch, is better administered by one than by
many." 1 id. at 156. It is critical to see this underlying structure to Montesquieu's argument, for it shows how the Framers adopted Montesquieu's vocabulary without adopting all of his policy prescriptions. As we have described,
the Framers embraced Montesquieu's definitional category "executive power"
as including foreign affairs powers; they did not embrace Montesquieu's prescription that all executive powers be concentrated in a single magistrate; to
the contrary, they preferred an allocation akin to the Roman system, with executive foreign affairs powers fragmented across several institutions. See su-
pra Part I.C.
162. As Madison said, Montesquieu was "the oracle who is always consulted and cited" on separation of powers. THE FEDERALIST NO. 47, supra note
87, at 303 (James Madison). On Montesquieu's influence, see, for example,
BERNARD BAILYN, THE IDEOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
27 (1967); LUTZ, supra note 147, at 136-49; MCDONALD, supra note 80, at 8082.
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foreign affairs aspects of executive power, at the expense of its
163
domestic components.
In an earlier article, Professor Flaherty succinctly described Montesquieu and his influence in America:
Perhaps the best that can be said is that by the 1770s, Americans who
invoked the separation of powers doctrine generally agreed that it
turned on three now-familiar types of governmental power: legisla-
tive, executive, and judicial. According to Montesquieu, to whom such
Americans usually turned, legislative power comprised the enactment, amendment, or abrogation of permanent or temporary laws;
executive authority included the power to make peace or war and to
punishing criminals
establish public security; judicial power entailed
6
and resolving disputes between individuals.1 4
We agree with this assessment.
3.
Blackstone
Bradley and Flaherty also try to diminish the importance
of Blackstone. Blackstone, they say, spoke of the royal "prerogative," a phrase common in the theory of mixed government,
and while he "on occasion refers generally to the Crown as exercising executive power, he makes no effort to define the
meaning of executive power."'16 5 Moreover, in their view, Blackstone does not support our reading of executive power because
he was not really a separation of powers theorist, but instead
166
an expositor of the English system of "mixed government."'
Contrary to Bradley and Flaherty's claim, Blackstone repeatedly and centrally says that the Crown exercises executive
power. The first sentence of his chapter on the monarch deis
clares that "[t]he supreme executive power of these kingdoms 167
vested by our laws in a single person, the king or queen."'
Bradley and Flaherty argue that Blackstone uses the term
"prerogative" to describe royal powers. But Blackstone associates "prerogative," at least in part, with Montesquieu's executive power, as shown in his opening sentence of his discussion
of royal power: 'Weare next to consider those branches of the
royal prerogative, which invest this our sovereign lord. . . with
a number of authorities and powers; in the exertion whereof
163.
164.
tations
165.
166.
167.
See GWYN, supra note 68, at 101-03; VILE, supra note 55, at 95.
Flaherty, The Most Dangerous Branch, supra note 13, at 1764-65 (ciomitted).
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 562.
Id. at 561-62.
1 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND
183 (photo. reprint, Univ. of Chi. Press 1979) (1765).
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consists the executive part of government."' 168 Discussing these
parts of the royal prerogative-that is, the parts that are the
"executive part of government"-Blackstone next says
that
"[t]he prerogatives of the crown (in the sense under which we
are now considering them) respect either this nation's intercourse with foreign nations, or it's own domestic government
and civil polity."' 6 9 There follows the long discussion of the
monarch's foreign affairs powers, quoted in our prior article. 170
Plainly, then, Blackstone means that these foreign affairs powers are part of the "royal prerogative ...in the exertion whereof
171
consists the executive part of government."'
According to Bradley and Flaherty, our previous article
"quote[s] some of Blackstone's references to the foreign relations prerogatives of the King as if they were definitions by
Blackstone of 'executive power'... but Blackstone does not
himself use that phrase when referring to the prerogatives." 172
To the contrary, Blackstone does use the phrase "executive
power" when referring to the king's foreign affairs prerogatives,
at the outset of his discussion. He does not use the phrase "executive power" on the same page that lists the king's foreign affairs prerogatives, but it should be clear from the chapter as a
whole that Blackstone begins by saying that he will list aspects
of the prerogative that constitute the executive powers, and
then lists (among other things) the foreign affairs powers. As
Professor Flaherty rightly said in a previous article, "Blackstone saw foreign affairs authority as quintessentially execu73
tive."1
Blackstone's view is not at all surprising if one considers
(as Bradley and Flaherty do not) Blackstone's immense debt to
168. 1 id. at 242.
169. 1 id. at 245.
170. 1 id. at 245-53.
171. lid. at 242.
172. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 562-63 n.73.
173. Flaherty, History Right?, supra note 13, at 2106. Contra Bradley &
Flaherty, supra note 7, at 561 ("Blackstone provides even less support than
Locke for the proposition that foreign relations powers are inherently executive in nature.").
Professor Arthur Bestor, a historian upon whom Bradley and Flaherty
rely in their discussion of the ratification debates and the Washington administration, similarly understood that Blackstone discussed "the conduct of foreign affairs" as an aspect of "the executive part of government." Arthur Bestor,
Respective Roles of Senate and President in the Making and Abrogation of
Treaties-The Original Intent of the Framers of the Constitution Historically
Examined, 55 WASH. L. REV. 1, 76 (1979).
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Montesquieu. As discussed, Montesquieu categorized foreign
affairs powers as executive powers. Blackstone, who on constiso closely as to be called
tutional matters followed Montesquieu
"a disciple and plagiarist," 174 adopted that classification, and
looking at the English system thought it plain that executive
powers equated to royal powers. One might think Blackstone
called these powers executive because they were exercised by
the monarch. Blackstone, however, thought other powers of the
monarch (such as the veto) were legislative, exercised by the
175
Someking in his capacity as one "branch" of the legislature.
thing else made him think that foreign affairs powers were executive-presumably because that is how Montesquieu, and
other writers, had previously defined them. 176
Thus, Bradley and Flaherty's discussion of Blackstone, like
their discussion of Montesquieu, ends up being mostly cheap
shots: Montesquieu is a poor source because he is "confusing";
Blackstone is a poor source because he is not really a separation of powers theorist. Neither description accords with what
those writers actually said, nor with what subsequent scholars
have said about them. Bradley and Flaherty do not undermine
the basic proposition that Blackstone and Montesquieuprobably the two most important separation of powers sources
relied upon by the Framers-called foreign affairs powers "executive" powers.
174. VILE, supra note 55, at 115.
175. 1 BLACKSTONE, supra note 167, at 143.
176. Bradley and Flaherty also dwell on a red herring, discussing whether
Blackstone was a true separation of powers theorist. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 561-62. For our purposes, it is irrelevant what type of theorist
Blackstone was. Blackstone was immensely influential in America and he confirmed Montesquieu's definition that executive power included foreign affairs
authority. Yet we cannot help noting that Bradley and Flaherty misstate
Blackstone's importance as a writer on separation of powers. Vile says that
"Blackstone was not a very original thinker" and owed a great debt to Montesquieu, but he also cautions against taking this view too far, as "it would be
quite wrong to suggest that Blackstone's exposition of the [English] constitution differed in no important respects from that of Montesquieu." VILE, supra
note 55, at 111-12. Blackstone's key contribution, Vile argues, was reconciling
Montesquieu's idea of separation of powers with the English idea of mixed
government. Id. at 112. As a result, Bradley and Flaherty shortchange Blackstone in treating him only as a theorist of mixed government and ignoring his
contribution to separation of powers theory. He discussed both and as such
was a vital influence on the American Framers, who embraced both separation
of powers and a version of mixed government that came to be called checks
and balances. Id.
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4.
Other Theorists
Bradley and Flaherty discuss several other eighteenthcentury theorists, some of whom we relied on and some we did
not, without showing any reason to doubt the basic categorization established by Blackstone and Montesquieu. They direct
some insults at Jean de Lolme, describing him as "at best cursory and at worst garbled," "uncritical," and "cloud[ed]." 17 7 Like
Blackstone, de Lolme used "executive power" and "prerogative"
somewhat interchangeably, but (as we explained with respect
to Blackstone) that does not undermine our point. 178 Bradley
and Flaherty concede that de Lolme called the king's foreign affairs powers "executive powers" and are reduced to speculating
that de Lolme, despite being "among leading eighteenthcentury thinkers whom Americans frequently cited," had doubtful influence upon the Framers because his vision of royal authority was too expansive. 179 We do not claim that de Lolme's
view of royal power was persuasive, as a prescriptive matter, to
the Framers-obviously in many respects it was not. All we
claim is that de Lolme is further evidence of a general tendency
among eighteenth-century writers to define executive power as
including foreign affairs power.
Bradley and Flaherty claim a little more for the "unique"
Thomas Rutherforth. 18 0 What Bradley and Flaherty find
"unique" in Rutherforth is actually quite conventional: he classifies power as "legislative" (defining rights and duties, i.e.,
lawmaking) or "executive" (acting for defense and security), and
classifies the principal branches of executive power as "external" (foreign affairs) and "internal" (law enforcement, including
"judicial power").8l1 This is only a slight variation on Montesquieu, and is an echo of earlier systems that had seen adjudicative functions not as a separate set of powers but as part of the
executive.' 8 2 Rutherforth thus confirms the conventional description of powers, and the conventional definition of foreign
affairs powers as executive. Rutherforth went a bit further
than others in emphasizing the propriety of the legislature controlling foreign affairs functions and in doubting that some for177.
178.
Gaunt,
179.
180.
181.
182.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 567-68.
J.L. DE LOLME, THE CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND 50 (revised ed. 1816,
Inc. reprint 1998) (1775).
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 568.
Id. at 565.
2 RUTHERFORTH, supra note 71, at 54-61.
See VILE, supra note 55, at 55.
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eign affairs powers were, despite the conventional classification, truly executive.1 83 None of this undermines the basic point
that Rutherforth confirms the conventional definition.
Bradley and Flaherty finally point to "great international
law publicists" such as Grotius, Vattel, and Burlamaqui, whom
they say with some hyperbole were "comparable" in influence to
84
As Bradley and
Locke, Blackstone, and Montesquieu.'
Flaherty acknowledge, however, these writers said little about
the internal classifications or allocations of the functions of
government. Bradley and Flaherty say this silence is significant, because "if there existed a consensus that the domestic
executive by definition had to conduct foreign affairs, one would
18 5
We think that one
expect some mention of this assumption."
would expect little mention of any aspect of domestic separation
of powers in works that mostly discussed the relationships between nations rather than the structure of government within
particular nations. Neither Grotius, Vattel, nor Burlamaqui
has much to say about any aspect of separation of powers-it
simply was not their subject.' 8 6 There is, for example, no mention in these works of even the most fundamental principle of
separation of powers-that the legislative and executive powers
should be in different hands. The Framers cited them on the
183. 2 RUTHERFORTH, supra note 71, at 54-57; see Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 556. We noted Rutherforth's focus on ultimate legislative control. See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 270 n.166.
184. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 570. Bernard Bailyn, whom
Bradley and Flaherty cite for this point, says that Locke, Blackstone, and
Montesquieu were influential on the structure of government and Grotius et
al. were influential on the law of nations, but he does not say their influence
was comparable. BAILYN, supra note 162, at 27; see LUTZ, supra note 147, at
140 (identifying Blackstone and Montesquieu as the most cited sources by the
Framers).
185. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 226.
186. Burlamaqui spoke of a single "sovereign" power without suggesting
any divisions of it, and without using the phrase executive power. See 1 J.J.
BURLAMAQUI, THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL AND POLITIC LAW 110-20 (Thomas Nugent trans., 5th ed. 1807, Arno Press reprint 1972) (1748). Vattel said
that the question of separation of powers was not part of his subject but instead "belongs to... public law and politics." 3 EMMERICH DE VATTEL, THE
LAW OF NATIONS OR THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL LAW, reprinted in 4 THE
CLASSICS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 17 (Charles G. Fenwick trans., James
Brown Scott ed., 1916) (1758). Grotius published his principal work in 1625,
before separation of powers became a well-articulated theory in the midseventeenth century, and said little about it. See 2 HUGO GROTIUS, DE JURE
BELLI AC PACIS LIBRI TRES, reprinted in 3 THE CLASSICS OF INTERNATIONAL
LAW (Francis W. Kelsey trans., James Brown Scott ed., 1925) (1646).
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law of nations (that is, international law), not separation of
87
powers. 1
Bradley and Flaherty's key statement here again betrays a
fundamental misunderstanding of our thesis. We do not claim
that there was a "consensus that the domestic executive by
definition had to conduct foreign affairs."' 8 8 We do think, and
have endeavored to demonstrate, that there was a consensus
that foreign affairs functions were, as a matter of definition,
part of the executive functions of government. That does not
mean that foreign affairs powers "by definition" had to be conducted by a single magistrate-to the contrary, everyone knew
from the Roman Republic that executive foreign affairs functions could be fragmented across several branches, each of
which was described as having "a share of" the executive
power. 189 Standing alone, the definition said nothing about how
187.
Bradley and Flaherty mention only one writer on the law of nations
who had any material discussion of internal structures of governmentSamuel Pufendorf, a seventeenth-century German. Pufendorf followed the
usual practice in separation of powers theory of identifying "functions" of government (what he called "parts of supreme sovereignty"), but instead of three,
he proposed seven. In addition to legislative, vindicative (meaning law execution), and judicial, he added a foreign affairs function, appointments, revenue,
and power over religion. See 2 SAMUEL PUFENDORF, DE JURE NATURAE ET
GENTIUM LIBRI OCTO, reprinted in 3 THE CLASSICS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
1010-22 (C.H. Oldfather & W.A. Oldfather trans., James Brown Scott ed.,
1934) (1688). But Pufendorf denied the very core of separation of powers theory: "[S]o close is the union between all the parts of supreme sovereignty, that
one cannot be torn from another without destroying the regular form of a
state ....
" Id. at 1017. As he continued by way of example: "[To enact laws
which you cannot enforce is arrant folly. And it partakes of the character of a
mere minister and executor to have strength with which you may compel others, but which can be exerted actually only upon another's decision." Id.
"Therefore," he concluded, "each power must necessarily depend upon one and
the same will." Id. Pufendorf, in short, was entirely out of the mainstream of
Anglo-French thought, both in identifying seven functions of government instead of three and in denying that they should be allocated to different
branches. While the Framers may have looked to other parts of Pufendorf's
work on the relationships among nations, it seems most unlikely that they
paid much attention to his comments on internal structures of government,
since by 1787 they had, in the Framers' minds, been conclusively rejected.
188. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 571.
189. To be sure, there was also a consensus among many of the most important writers that the executive functions of government, including foreign
affairs powers, should as a policy matter (not "by definition") be located in a
single magistrate, because of the capacity of a single person to take decisive
action. We note in passing that Bradley and Flaherty wholly obscure this consensus. Blackstone, de Lolme, Locke, and Montesquieu argued unequivocally
that a single magistrate was best suited to exercise executive foreign affairs
functions, and Rutherforth agreed that this was the usual arrangement. 1
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executive powers had to be allocated. They could be given to a
single magistrate (as in England), given to an assembly (as in
America under the Articles of Confederation), or distributed
across several branches (as in the Roman Republic). It is only
when combined with the Constitution's text that the abstract
definition is meaningful.
Bradley and Flaherty do not identify any eighteenthcentury political theorist who denied that foreign affairs power
should be classified as part of the "executive" functions of government. We did not claim that the definition of executive
power was universal (and we are a little surprised by Bradley
and Flaherty's inability to identify even one counterexample).
We do maintain, however, that the political theorists most familiar to the Framers-Blackstone and Montesquieuclassified foreign affairs power in this way, and that their classification was part of a broader usage among writers on separation of powers. Bradley and Flaherty do nothing to undermine
these conclusions. 190
C. THE ROAD TO PHILADELPHIA AND THE EXECUTIVE POWER
We now turn to the period leading up to the Convention.
Bradley and Flaherty argue that because the Articles of Confederation allocated foreign affairs authority to the Continental
Congress, Americans must not have thought that foreign affairs functions were "inherently associated with an executive." 191 They also say that "the state constitutions reflect a
sharp break from the royal prerogative model" after the RevoBLACKSTONE, supra note 167, at 249; DE LOLME, supra note 178, at 72-73;
LOCKE, supra note 71, at 384; 1 MONTESQUIEU, supra note 61, at 156; 2
RUTHERFORTH, supra note 71, at 54-57.
190. Bradley and Flaherty also include a long description of the mechanics
of eighteenth-century English government, explaining how royal power came
to be exercised through a council of ministers (the forerunner of the modern
system of parliamentary government). As with many of Bradley and Flaherty's
erudite and well-phrased detours, we are at a loss to see how this affects our
theory. We do not doubt that royal power was exercised through ministers. We
also do not doubt that, when exercised in this way, it was called an exercise of
executive power. And, whether as a practical matter the ministers controlled
the king or the king controlled the ministers, it surely was considered an exercise of royal power. See Flaherty, History Right?, supra note 13, at 2109
(speaking of eighteenth-century practice and concluding that "[p]assing references do not fully convey the extent to which foreign affairs remained a last
bastion of the royal authority"); id. at 2112 (referring to "the Crown's 'executive' foreign affairs monopoly").
191. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 586.
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lution.192 We do not dispute these propositions, but they have
no bearing upon our view of the eighteenth-century meaning of
executive power. For us, the central question is whether Americans adopted the Montesquieu/Blackstone foreign affairs definition of executive power. We think the evidence shows that
they did, and Bradley and Flaherty provide little reason to
think otherwise.
1. The Executive Congress
Bradley and Flaherty think that the Continental Congress's exercise of foreign affairs authority counts as evidence
against the Montesquieu/Blackstone definition of executive
power. The Congress, they claim, was a legislative body which
lacked an express grant of executive power. 193 Because the "national government did not have an executive branch prior to
the Constitution,"'194 and this "legislative" body exercised foreign affairs authority, they conclude that foreign affairs power
must not have been regarded as "inherently associated with an
executive." 195 Finally, they assert that the Articles of Confederation did not confer general powers, only specific ones. 196
Bradley and Flaherty's discussion of the Continental Congress is a microcosm of the problems with their entire article,
for they fail to understand that the Congress, despite being a
large group of delegates, exercised executive power and thus
was, in part, an executive institution. Modern Americans identify the word "Congress" with a legislative body. Bradley and
Flaherty implicitly trade ofn-this understanding in making their
claim. But modern usage says nothing about how "Congress"
was viewed in the 1770s and 1780s. Instead, we must look to
historical evidence of how phrases were actually used at that
time. Consistent with our theory, contemporaries regarded the
Continental Congress as having legislative, judicial, and executive powers. Among others, James Madison, 197 James Wilson, 198
192.
193.
194.
195.
196.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
at
at
at
at
at
584.
585-87.
585.
586.
584-85.
197. 5 THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS ON THE
ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 104 (Jonathan Elliott ed., 1845)
[hereinafter THE DEBATES] (citing Madison as noting that Congress had executive councils, "which are involved in the constitution of Congress, and particularly in military operations and negotiations"); James Madison, Notes of
Debates (Feb. 21, 1783), in 19 LETTERS OF DELEGATES TO CONGRESS, 1774-
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20 1
and
John Jay, 199 Edmund Randolph, 20 0 George Washington,
20 2
an
as
regarded the Continental Congress
Thomas Jefferson
Inexecutive institution and/or as having executive powers.
deed, the famous Virginia Plan presented at the Federal Con"enjoy the
vention provided that a national executive would
20 3
Executive rights" of the Continental Congress.
Our explanation for why Congress was thought to have executive powers is simple. Though the Articles did not use the
words "legislative," "judicial," or "executive," Congress had authorities that fell within each of the general categories. Because
Congress could pass laws in a handful of areas, it had some legislative power. Because Congress could decide certain interstate disputes, it had some judicial power. And because Congress could control foreign affairs and the execution of its laws,
it had some executive power.
That Americans had adopted a foreign affairs meaning for
the phrase "executive power" and that the Continental Congress was, in part, an executive institution is apparent from the
Essex Result, an influential 1778 tract which Bradley and
1789, at 720-23 (Paul H. Smith ed., 1992) (showing Madison denying that
Congress was merely an executive body).
198. 2 THE DEBATES, supra note 197, at 458 (Jonathan Elliott ed., 1836).
199. Letter from John Jay to Thomas Jefferson (Dec. 14, 1786), in 3 THE
CORRESPONDENCE AND PUBLIC PAPERS OF JOHN JAY, 1782-1793, at 222, 223
(Henry P. Johnston ed., 1891) (stating that "government should be divided into
executive, legislative, and judicial departments"); Letter from John Jay to
Thomas Jefferson (Aug. 18, 1786), in 10 THE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON
271, 272 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1954) (criticizing the Articles and saying that
"[t]o vest legislative, judicial and executive Powers in one and the same Body
of Men. . . can never be wise").
200. 3 THE DEBATES, supra note 197, at 83 (Jonathan Elliott ed., 1836)
(listing three existing powers of Congress).
201. Letter from George Washington to Henry Knox (Feb. 3, 1787), in 29
THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 151, 153 (John C. Fitzpatrick ed.,
1939) (claiming that legislative, executive, and judicial departments were
"concentered" in the Articles); Letter from George Washington to James
Duane (Dec. 26, 1780), in 21 THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 13, 14
(John C. Fitzpatrick ed., 1937) (claiming that Congress needed more permanency in its executive bodies); Letter from George Washington to Robert
Livingston (Jan. 31, 1781), in 21 THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, supra, at 163, 164 (claiming that Congress's executive business must be placed
with responsible and able men).
202. Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in 1 THE WORKS OF THOMAS
JEFFERSON (H.A. Washington ed., 1884) (claiming that Congress took care of
executive business and that the Articles never separated executive, judicial,
and legislative functions).
203. 1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, supra note
129, at 21.
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Flaherty all but ignore. The Result argued against adoption of
the proposed Massachusetts Constitution, in part on separation
of powers grounds. 204 As we explained in our prior article, the
Result noted that law execution was one type of executive
power and also observed that the Articles had vested "external"
executive power over foreign affairs in the Continental Congress. 2 05 This shows that Americans adopted the vocabulary of
Montesquieu and Blackstone, using "executive power" to refer
to a set of powers, including foreign affairs powers; it also confirms that Congress exercised executive power because of its
foreign affairs authority. Bradley and Flaherty relegate this
seminal pamphlet to a footnote, and claim that it supports their
thesis because it confirms that the "external executive power"
could be "exercised by a legislature" such as the Continental
Congress. 20 6 Their claim again reflects the mistaken view that
because the Congress was a multi-member institution, it could
only be a legislative institution and not an executive one as
well.
Similarly, in 1785 James Madison wrote that the state executives were of lesser importance because "all the great powers which are properly executive [were] transfer[red] to the
Federal Government" by the Articles of Confederation. 207 Historian Jack Rakove confirms that Madison was referring here
to "the matters of war and diplomacy which were prerogatives
of the British Crown."208 Professor Rakove further illustrates
that Americans called the Continental Congress a "deliberating
Executive assembly," the "Supreme Executive," or the "Supreme Executive Council"; as he explains, "[tihe idea that Congress was essentially an executive body persisted because its
principal functions, war and diplomacy, were traditionally associated with the crown, 'whose executive, political prerogatives, b[ore] a very striking resemblance to the powers of Con-
204.
THEOPHILIUS PARSONS, THE ESSEX RESULT (1778), reprinted in 1
AMERICAN POLITICAL WRITINGS DURING THE FOUNDING ERA, 1760-1805, at
489-96 (Charles S. Hyneman & Donald S. Lutz eds., 1983).
205.
206.
207.
PAPERS
Id. at 494.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 591 n.191.
Letter from James Madison to Caleb Wallace (Aug. 23, 1785), in 8 THE
OF JAMES MADISON 352 (Robert A. Rutland et al. eds., 1973).
208.
JACK N. RAKOVE, ORIGINAL MEANINGS: POLITICS AND IDEAS IN THE
MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 253 (1996). Madison must have meant foreign
affairs powers, because the Articles of Confederation did not vest the Congress
with much law execution power; that power remained primarily with the state
executives.
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gress."' 209 Indeed, historians generally refer to the Continental
Congress as an "executive" body, as has Professor Flaherty in a
2 10
prior article.
In their quest to deny that the executive power referred to
a set of functions, Bradley and Flaherty conjoin the concept of
executive power with the idea of a single chief magistrate. Because the Articles had no chief magistrate, they think the Articles had no executive institutions. But that is not how contemporaries viewed the Articles. As these statesmen understood,
the presence or absence of executive power did not turn on the
presence or absence of a chief magistrate. Rather, executive
power referred to a set of functions. Institutions (such as the
Congress) that controlled these functions had executive power
and were, in part, executive institutions.
Bradley and Flaherty also have problems making sense of
the executive Department of Foreign Affairs. In our earlier article, we noted that the original Department of Foreign Affairs
was widely regarded as an executive department, supporting
our notion that executive power had a foreign affairs component. 211 Bradley and Flaherty respond that it (along with the
other departments of the Continental Congress) was called executive merely because the department's personnel executed
congressional directions, and thus its executive label had nothing to do with the fact that the department handled foreign af2 12
fairs.
First, we note the "essentialist" overtones in this claim-a
department is executive if it carries out congressional directives
(laws). What makes this an "executive" function is the common
eighteenth-century definition of "executive." Bradley and
Flaherty try to claim at various points that "executive" did not
refer to a defined set of functions, but this usage was so ingrained that they are forced to adopt it. More importantly, their
response cannot account for the creation of an "executive" Department of Foreign Affairs under the Constitution. The second
209.
RAKOVE, supra note 49, at 383.
210.
See, e.g., JERRILYN GREENE MARSTON, KING AND CONGRESS 8, 205
(1987) (describing Congress as primarily executive); CHARLES C. THACH JR.,
THE CREATION OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY, 1775-1789, at 56 (1923) (calling the Continental Congress a "plural ... executive body"); see also Flaherty,
History Right?, supra note 13, at 2117 (calling Congress a "plural executive"
and noting that historians of the period agree that Congress had all three
powers of government).
211. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 275-76.
212. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 591.
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Foreign Affairs Department was labeled "executive" even
though it carried out no congressional directives. Rather than
spell out functions by law, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs was
supposed to handle only those foreign affairs tasks the President delegated to him. 2 13 For Bradley and Flaherty's theory to
be correct, the two Departments of Foreign Affairs had to be labeled executive for entirely different reasons; the reason they
supply for the first label cannot account for the second. We
doubt that people regarded the two departments as executive
for two different reasons. Instead, both versions were regarded
as executive because they handled the executive power of foreign affairs-one under a plural executive, Congress, and the
other under a single executive, the President.
Finally, Bradley and Flaherty are wrong to say that the
Articles reflect their theory of specification. 214 The specification
theory is correct as a general matter, they say, because fundamental documents (like the state constitutions and the Articles)
adopted it. The Articles, we are told, explicitly adopted the theory because the Articles reserved all powers to the states that
were not expressly granted to the Congress. 2 15 They insist that
the Articles "specified" all the foreign affairs powers, "including
powers claimed by the Vesting Clause Thesis proponents to be
'executive' in nature. 2 1 6
They are mistaken. Contrary to their claim, several significant foreign affairs powers were not "specified" in the Articles.
The power to abrogate treaties was not "specified"; nor was the
power to formulate nonbinding foreign policy or the power to
serve as the sole organ of communication for the nation. 217
Bradley and Flaherty assume a level of specificity in the Articles that the Articles clearly lacked.
This poses no problem for us because we find a residual executive power in the power to "manag[e] the general affairs of
the United States under" the Congress's direction. 218 All the
unallocated foreign affairs powers resided with the Continental
Congress under this power. 21 9 Because Bradley and Flaherty
213. An Act for Establishing an Executive Department, To Be Denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs, ch. 4, § 1, 1 Stat. 28, 28-29 (1789).
214. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 587-89.
215. Id. at 587.
216. Id. at 557.
217.
See ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION (U.S. 1781).
218.
219.
Id. art. IX, cl. 5.
If we are correct that the grant of the power to manage all the general
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reject our residual claim and the residual theory more generally, 22 0 however, the lack of foreign affairs specification poses
severe problems for them. They must either admit that the Articles failed to grant many significant powers or offer an alternative residual theory. But no contemporary ever argued that
the Continental Congress lacked these (or other) foreign affairs
authorities. To make sense of the Articles, Bradley and
221
Flaherty must abandon the specification theory.
In sum, Bradley and Flaherty's long discussion of the Continental Congress is premised on a historical error-the idea
that Americans of the time viewed the Congress solely as a legislative body. To the contrary, Americans recognized Congress
as having (among other powers) the executive power over foreign affairs. This usage is solid evidence that Americans had
adopted the Montesquieu/Blackstone vocabulary-which is all
we claim for the confederation period.
2. The Executive Power in the State Constitutions
Opponents of the residual theory typically make much of
the weakness of the state executives during the confederation
period. Bradley and Flaherty continue that tradition. 222 Yet the
notorious frailty of these executives has little to do with
whether the state constitutions granted them foreign affairs
authority. Almost all of them had grants of "executive power" or
the parallel "executive authority."223 The relevant question is
affairs of the United States included a residual foreign affairs power, then this
was a power "expressly" conveyed to the Congress and thus not disallowed by
the notorious reservation to the states. Contrary to Bradley and Flaherty's
claim, a power that is granted in general terms is still granted "expressly."
220. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 587-88 & n.173.
221. Contrary to their claims, the Articles' reservation of authority for the
states does not preclude grants of general authority. That provision requires
that grants of authority be express, not that they be specific or narrow. General grants of authority are express even though they are not specific. Hence
this provision of the Articles did not prevent the Articles from containing general grants of power.
222. See, e.g., id. at 615-16.
223. See DEL. CONST. of 1776, art. 7, reprinted in 1 THE FEDERAL AND
STATE CONSTITUTIONS, COLONIAL CHARTERS, AND OTHER ORGANIC LAWS OF
THE STATES, TERRITORIES, AND COLONIES Now OR HERETOFORE FORMING THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 562, 563 (Francis Newton Thorpe ed., 1909) [hereinafter STATE CONSTITUTIONS] (granting the president "all the other executive
powers of government"); GA. CONST. of 1777, art. XIX, reprinted in 2 STATE
CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 777, 781 ("The governor shall, with the advice of the
executive council, exercise the executive powers of government, according to
the laws of this State and the constitution thereof .. ");MD. CONST. of 1776,
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whether in granting the executive power, the state constitutions granted foreign affairs authority. On this crucial subject,
Bradley and Flaherty say little that is germane.
Bradley and Flaherty argue that "nothing in the state constitutions indicates that American constitution makers sought
to vest executive officials with broad powers that were not otherwise specified." 224 Hence, they say, it follows that the grants
of executive power did not encompass foreign affairs authority.
Indeed, they insist that "none of the constitutions ... simply
granted the 'executive power'. . . [and] proceeded to specify
what inherently executive powers would be shared with other
branches."2 25 State constitutions, in their view, had adopted a
"republican" understanding of executive authority22 6 that in227
cluded at most a power over law execution.
There are at least four problems with these claims. First,
as in other areas, Bradley and Flaherty shift between inconsistent positions. They admit that "[g]eneral language was used to
art. XXXIII, reprinted in 3 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 1686, 1696 ("[Ihe
Governor ... may alone exercise all the other executive powers of government...."); N.C. CONST. of 1776, art. XIX, reprinted in 5 STATE
CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 2787, 2791-92 ("[T]he Governor... may exercise all
"); N.J. CONST. of 1776, art.
the other executive powers of government ..
VIII, reprinted in 5 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 2594, 2596 ("[Ihe Governor, or, in his absence, the Vice-President of the Council, shall have the supreme executive power...."); N.Y. CONST. of 1777, art. XVII, reprinted in 5
STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 2623, 2632 ("[Ihe supreme executive power
); PA. CONST. of
and authority of this State shall be vested in a governor ....
1776, § 3, reprinted in 5 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 3081, 3084 ("The supreme executive power shall be vested in a president and council."); S.C.
CONST. of 1778, art. XI, reprinted in 6 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 3248,
3250 ("[The executive authority be vested in the governor and commander-inchief, in [the] manner herein mentioned."); S.C. CONST. of 1776, art. XXX, reprinted in 6 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 3241, 3247 ("[T]he executive authority be vested in the president and commander-in-chief, limited and restrained as aforesaid."); VA. CONST. of 1776, para. 29, reprinted in 7 STATE
CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 3812, 3816 ("A Governor, or chief magistrate.., shall, with the advice of a Council of State, exercise the executive
powers of government according to the laws of this Commonwealth .... "); VT.
CONST. of 1786, ch. 2, § III, reprinted in 6 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at
3749, 3754 ("The supreme executive power shall be vested in a Governor, (or,
in his absence, a Lieutenant-Governor) and Council."); VT. CONST. of 1777, ch.
2, § III, reprinted in 6 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra, at 3737, 3742 ('The supreme executive power shall be vested in a Governor and Council.").
224. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 581.
225. Id. at 579.
226. Id. at 578.
227. Id. at 579-80.
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delegate only the power to implement the laws" 228 and yet simultaneously claim that the state constitutions never granted
229
broad powers but only ceded specific ones.
Second, Bradley and Flaherty declare that the state constitutional grants of executive power did not grant foreign affairs
powers. But the question whether the phrase "executive power"
or its analogues included foreign affairs authority cannot be
answered by reference to the texts of the state constitutions
alone. To discern the meaning of "executive power" in the state
constitutions, one must examine the events leading up to the
ratification, the actual practices under the state constitutions,
and the writings of European and American political theorists.
Bradley and Flaherty provide no evidence on this point. All
they can muster in favor of executive power nihilism are recycled textual arguments supporting the view that vesting
clauses must vest nothing. To read the executive power clauses
in the state constitutions as granting authority is to make
these constitutions' specific grants of executive authority superfluous, we are told. 230 Whereas before such arguments only
showed textual uncertainty in the federal Constitution, now
they and other unadorned textual assertions somehow prove
that the state constitutions did not grant foreign affairs authority to the state executives. Given their claim's lack of historical
foundation, Bradley and Flaherty's argument in favor of executive power nihilism at the state level is pure assertion. And, of
course, their claim on this point is at odds with their admission
elsewhere that the state executive power grants vested the
power to execute the law.
Third, Bradley and Flaherty are wrong about the texts of
the state constitutions. Several state constitutions list specific
powers and then provide that the executive "may exercise all
the other executive powers of government, limited and restrained as by this constitution is mentioned, and according to
228. Id. at 580.
229. Id. at 580-81 (claiming that nothing indicates that American constitution makers sought to grant broad powers not otherwise specified).
230. Id. at 579. This redundancy argument is subject to the same criticisms
we outlined above. See supra Part II.A. Alternative readings of the executive
power clauses yield even worse redundancies. And, once again, neither Madison nor Hamilton thought it odd to grant a general power and then qualify it.
See text accompanying notes 123-24. Furthermore, since most executives had
few specific foreign affairs powers, see infra text accompanying notes 234-38,
the redundancy argument cannot carry much weight in the foreign affairs
realm.
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the laws of the State."23 1 In referring to "other executive pow-
ers," these constitutions contemplate that the enumeration is
not exhaustive; otherwise, there was no need to speak of "other"
executive powers. 2 32 Although Bradley and Flaherty cite these
constitutions, they do not see how these constitutions devastate
their claims. Why speak of "other" powers if all the powers that
were granted were already specified? Unless Bradley and
Flaherty believe that each of these constitutions contain the
same mistake, they must admit that at least some state constitutions did not limit the state executives to specified authorities.
233
Finally, Bradley and Flaherty's discussion of the state constitutions suffers from another textual embarrassment: they
cannot explain how the state constitutions vested foreign affairs authority. In complaining that we say little about the
state constitutions, they argue that the states must have been
assumed to have at least some foreign affairs powers. 234 We
agree. The Declaration of Independence claimed as much for
the "free and independent states,"23 5 and the Articles of Con231. DEL. CONST. of 1776, art. 7, reprinted in 1 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra note 223, at 562, 563 (granting other executive power); see also MD.
CONST. of 1776, art. XXXIII, reprinted in 3 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra note
223, at 1686, 1696 (same); N.C. CONST. of 1776, art. XIX, reprinted in 5 STATE
CONSTITUTIONS, supra note 223, at 2787, 2791-92 (same).
232. Perhaps recognizing that these constitutions pose grave difficulties for
their preference for specified powers, Bradley and Flaherty emphasize that
under most state constitutions executive authority had to be exercised consistent with the constitution and laws. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 58081. While this is correct, it does not detract from the clear import of these constitutions that the list of specified executive powers was not complete. This
language only meant that whatever other executive powers were granted had
to be exercised consistent with the constitution and the laws; it does not negate the clear grant of other executive powers.
233. Bradley and Flaherty are also flatly wrong about the relevant structure of the state constitutions, for these constitutions contain many powersharing provisions. State constitutions contained many provisions that qualified and divided powers considered executive by the political theorists. Indeed,
Bradley and Flaherty's article is.replete with examples of state constitutions
that specified that executive powers would be shared with other institutions.
They note with approval that the commander-in-chief authority was sometimes constrained by the need to seek approval of an executive council or the
state legislatures. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 582. They also cite
state constitutional provisions granting the chief executives the power to lay
embargoes with the consent of executive councils. Id. at 582 n.150. In sum,
Bradley and Flaherty emphatically deny what they affirm elsewhere.
234. Id. at 581-82.
235. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776) (asserting that the "Free and
Independent States ... have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract
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federation at minimum assumed that the states possessed foreign affairs authorities that could be exercised subject to congressional approval. 236 Yet because Bradley and Flaherty insist
that all powers must be specified (rather than being granted in
general terms and then qualified, as Madison and Hamilton
said was appropriate), they cannot explain how the state constitutions vested foreign affairs authority. The Articles of Confederation, for example, allowed states to make treaties and
send and receive emissaries with the approval of the Continental Congress.
23 7
Who exercised these authorities at the state
level? Under Bradley and Flaherty's specification theory, the
vast majority of state governments did not enjoy these (and
other foreign affairs) authorities because they were not "speci238
fied."
In contrast, the residual theory suggests, at least with respect to constitutions that granted a general executive power,
that these powers likely resided with the state executives. A definitive conclusion must await more detailed research into
practice, but we draw support from various sources. First, we
rely upon the definition of executive power used by the American and European political theorists. 2 39 Second, we rely on the
example of the South Carolina Constitution, which after granting the state President the executive authority, also specifically
denied him the power to make war or peace, or enter into any
final treaty without the consent of the general assembly and
legislative council. 240 Had it been understood that the President
only enjoyed specific powers, this language would have been
superfluous. Instead, this language suggests that the South
Carolina President could take foreign affairs actions short of
Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do").
236. ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION art. IX, cls. 1-2 (U.S. 1781) (providing
that states may make treaties and send and receive ambassadors with congressional approval).
237. Id. art. VI, cl. 1.
238. The one exception was South Carolina, which provided that the executive could make treaties with the legislature's consent. S.C. CONST. of 1778,
art. XXXIII, reprinted in 6 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra note 223, at 3248,
3255 (requiring legislative consent for final treaties); see also S.C. CONST. of
1776, art. XXVI, reprinted in 6 STATE CONSTITUTIONS, supra note 223, at
3241, 3247 (providing the same). No other state constitution specifically assigned the treaty-making power.
239. See supra Part II.B.
240. S.C. CONST. of 1776, art. XXVI, reprinted in 6 STATE CONSTITUTIONS,
supra note 223, at 3241, 3247.
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peace and war, including negotiating treaties. Third, we note
that Alexander Hamilton suggested that in the absence of a
federal treaty-making power, that power would devolve to the
state executives. 24 1 Hamilton apparently understood that the
grant of executive authority to the state executives meant that
they could engage in treaty making on behalf of their states.
Finally, Jefferson's proposed Virginia Constitution supports our
view that the executive power included foreign affairs authority.242 Though Jefferson wished to withhold such powers from
his "Administrator," the fact that he granted the Administrator
the "executive powers" of government and then proceeded to
prohibit the exercise of a long list of functions indicates that
Jefferson understood that "executive powers" would ordinarily
be understood to include, among other things, foreign affairs
authority. 243 To believe that Jefferson rejected a broad and
general understanding of executive power, Bradley and
Flaherty must believe that Jefferson's extended list of nineteen
excepted powers was unnecessary. Yet Jefferson embraced the
residual theory when he served as Secretary of State. 244 Accordingly, it is much more likely that in drafting the Virginia Constitution he had the same idea in mind, and wished to limit the
Virginia executive in the same way that he later understood
the U.S. Constitution to limit the federal executive: the federal
Constitution contains specific exceptions from a general grant.
In sum, nothing in Bradley and Flaherty's long discussion
of state constitutions undermines the residual theory. Again,
all that matters to us is whether the phrase "executive power"
included foreign affairs functions. Bradley and Flaherty identify no discussions or practice in the context of the states contrary to common understanding of executive power. We reiterate what we said about the state constitutions: "Although more
research and a careful reading of the state constitutions would
be necessary in order to reach firm conclusions, we presume
that the ordinary understanding of executive power established
by Locke, Montesquieu, and Blackstone should be used to con2)245
strue the analogous phrases in state constitutions ....
241. THE FEDERALIST No. 69, supra note 87, at 400 (Alexander Hamilton).
242. See Thomas Jefferson, Draft Constitution for Virginia (June, 1776), in
THOMAS JEFFERSON, WRITINGS 340 (Merrill D. Peterson ed., 1984).
243. See id. at 340-41.
244.
245.
See supra note 6 and accompanying text.
Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 279 n.209.
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While the fruits of such research might cast doubt upon the residual theory, Bradley and Flaherty's arguments do not.
D. DRAFTING AND RATIFYING THE CONSTITUTION'S
EXECUTIVE POWER
When it came to the Constitution, Americans did not invent and adopt a newfangled vocabulary of government.
Rather, they continued to rely upon the tripartite classification
of governmental functions as legislative, executive, and judicial. In particular, they continued to employ Montesquieu's
definition of executive power, a power with domestic law enforcement and foreign affairs strands. At the same time, not all
shared Montesquieu's prescription that all executive powers
over foreign affairs should be vested in a chief magistrate. Opponents of the residual theory erroneously treat the Constitution's rejection of the traditional allocation of executive power
as a simultaneous rejection of the traditional definition of executive power.
Bradley and Flaherty contend, for example, that the PhilaLocke/
delphia "delegates sharply rejected the purported
247
246
agree.
We
powers."
of
assignment
Montesquieu/Blackstone
Rather than granting a chief magistrate unilateral control over
all foreign affairs powers, as the English system did, the Constitution divides foreign affairs powers in a number of ways.
Bradley and Flaherty err, though, in claiming that as a result,
the "records of the Federal Convention all but devastate [the
Vesting Clause Thesis]. '"248 That delegates allocated some executive powers to Congress and gave a share of others to the
Senate says nothing about whether they intended other unallocated executive powers to remain with the President by virtue
of the executive power. While the Convention records, standing
alone, do not prove our theory, they are supportive when taken
together with the other evidence we adduce. In any event,
Bradley and Flaherty point to nothing in the debates that is inconsistent with the residual theory.
Bradley and Flaherty agree that the Virginia Plan, offered
at the outset of the Federal Convention, incorporated the Montesquieu/Blackstone/Essex Result definition of executive power,
and that if adopted it likely would have had the effect we
246.
247.
248.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 594.
Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 286.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 592.
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claim-that is, giving the President foreign affairs power. 249
This is a key concession. The Virginia Plan sought the creation
of an executive who, "besides a general authority to execute the
National laws .... ought to enjoy the Executive rights vested in
Congress by the Confederation. 250 This language confirms,
contrary to Bradley and Flaherty's earlier claims, that Americans thought the Continental Congress had executive power.
And because the Virginia Plan already provided the power to
execute the law, the reference to "executive rights" must have
meant the Continental Congress's foreign affairs authorities.
Bradley and Flaherty do not dispute any of this.
Discussion of the Virginia Plan confirms that executive
rights or powers referred to foreign affairs powers. Charles
Pinkney objected that the "Executive powers of [the existing]
Congress might extend to peace [and] war [and] which would
render the Executive a Monarchy." 251 John Rutledge said "he
was not for giving him the power of war and peace." 252 And
James Wilson did not "consider the [p]rerogatives of the British
Monarch as a proper guide in defining the Executive powers.
Some of these prerogatives were of a Legislative nature. Among
others that of war [and] peace ... ,"253 Oddly, Bradley and
Flaherty believe it "clear" that these speakers "did not
equate ... executive power with an accepted bundle of foreign
relations powers." 254 But these delegates would not have objected to granting "executive rights" unless that language was
understood as granting the foreign affairs powers such as war
and treaty making. If Bradley and Flaherty are right, this discussion should never have taken place, for the phrases "executive powers" and "executive rights" referred to nothing (or, at
least, did not refer to foreign affairs power). There is little
doubt that these delegates did not wish the President to have
unilateral control over some of the most important foreign affairs powers, as Bradley and Flaherty emphasize. There is also
little doubt that these delegates equated the "executive rights"
and the "executive powers" of the Continental Congress with
249.
250.
129, at
251.
252.
253.
254.
Id.
1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, supra note
21.
1 id. at 64-65.
1 id.
1 id. at 65-66.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 593.
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foreign affairs powers. That is precisely why they objected to
this portion of the Virginia Plan.
For Bradley and Flaherty, the key point is that the delegates never adopted the "executive rights" language from the
Virginia Plan, and they initially approved a narrow description
of the President's authority. 255 We agree with their account of
events, but think they draw the wrong conclusions. Bradley
and Flaherty argue that these developments demonstrate that
when the delegates restored the "executive power" language to
Article II later in the Convention, they could not have intended
it to convey foreign affairs power. 256 No one at the time made
any statements supporting Bradley and Flaherty's reading of
the Vesting Clause, though, and we think there is a better explanation of what happened.
Given their initial decision, why did the delegates approve
the executive power language towards the end of the Convention?257 There is nothing mysterious about it. The delegates had
not rejected the definition of executive power-they objected to
the allocationof some of these powers to a chief magistrate (or
chief magistrates). The Framers put to rest their allocational
fears by granting some executive powers to Congress and requiring that the Senate have a share of others. Unlike the British monarch, the President would not have a unilateral right to
declare war or commit the nation by treaty. The executive powers left to the President's sole control (such as the power to
serve as the sole organ of communication), while significant,
were not as momentous in the life of a nation. Hence, the delegates did not revive the allocation of powers found in the Virginia Plan or embrace the LockefMontesquieu/Blackstone assignment of powers; they adopted the idea of granting a chief
255. Id. at 594.
256. See id. at 550, 597-99.
257. Much of Bradley and Flaherty's discussion of the Convention concerns
the period before the delegates adopted the Vesting Clause. We agree that
some of these discussions contemplated granting foreign affairs authority to
the Senate, although the plans presented by Hamilton and Charles Pinkney
would have granted the executive power or authority to the President. Consistent with their concession that "executive rights" referred to foreign affairs
powers, we do not see how Bradley and Flaherty can regard these discussions
as excluding foreign affairs powers. In any event, our point is that these plans
were rejected in favor of granting important foreign affairs powers to Congress, sharing others with the Senate, and granting the President unilateral
control of a third residual category.
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magistrate the executive power, subject to the Constitution's
numerous exceptions and constraints.
Bradley and Flaherty mistakenly treat the earlier failure
to adopt the Virginia Plan's reference to executive rights as a
rejection of the foreign affairs meaning of executive power. But
since they admit that the Virginia Plan adopted the traditional
reading of executive power and since they know that the executive rights language was opposed by some on the ground that it
would vest foreign affairs authority, 258 the Constitution's return to the executive power language poses grave difficulties
for them. 259 It is hard to concede that "executive rights" in the
Virginia Plan referred to foreign affairs powers but insist that
"executive power" in the Constitution does
not.
Bradley and Flaherty also find little support in the ratification debates, despite heavy reliance upon them. For example,
they point to the Federalist Papers as demonstrating that the
President would only have specified foreign affairs powers. 260
These references, though, only support unremarkable, uncontroverted propositions: that the President's powers are limited;
that the President has less executive power than the king; and
that Congress has greater powers than the President and is to
be feared more. 261 None of these conclusions bears on the question whether the President has a residual, limited foreign af-
258. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 594.
259. James Wilson appears to have been the only person who, in the course
of denying that the national executive ought to have foreign affairs authorities, simultaneously rejected the executive power as encompassing foreign affairs authority. 1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, supra
note 129, at 65-69. But one must remember that Wilson made his comments
in the context of the Virginia Plan. Hence, he seemed to understand that most
others would regard the "executive rights" of the Continental Congress as encompassing foreign affairs authority. See id. In other words, Wilson's comments indicate that his view was a minority position, else there was no need to
reject the Virginia language. Had Wilson's view been the majority understanding, he ought not to have objected to the Virginia Plan.
260. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 602.
261. Bradley and Flaherty attempt to make hay out of inconclusive statements from Madison and Hamilton. See id. at 602-04. In Federalist48, Madison said that the "executive magistracy is carefully limited" in a representative republic. THE FEDERALIST NO. 48, supra note 87, at 309 (James Madison).
In Federalist 67, Hamilton denied that the President's powers approached the
English Crown's. THE FEDERALIST NO. 67, supra note 87, at 392 (Alexander
Hamilton). These statements are fully consistent with our views. As we repeatedly emphasized, the President's foreign affairs powers are carefully limited and do not approach those of the Crown-the President cannot declare
war and cannot unilaterally make treaties.
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fairs power by virtue of the Constitution's enumeration of executive power. Similar problems plague their treatment of the
state conventions. Again, the vast majority of their discussion
concerns points not in dispute: the President would be weaker
than either the king or Congress, the federal government is one
262
of enumerated powers, etc.
At the same time, Bradley and Flaherty admit that many
people during the ratification period spoke of the "executive
power" as if it were something more than just the specific powers listed in Article II. They note that in almost every convention they discuss, there were those who said that the President
had executive power and/or complained that the Constitution
improperly vested the Senate with an unwarranted share of the
26 3
We think they
executive power by virtue of its treaty role.
have underestimated the instances in which the "executive
power" was regarded as a distinct set of powers. In any event, it
is hard to escape the conclusion that the ratification materials
confirm that "executive power" was understood as a general
power. As Professor Prakash has documented elsewhere, the
Federalist Papers and the ratification records are replete with
references to law execution power, a power not derivable from
the specific grants and one that can be explained only by the
262. Unfortunately, a few of their arguments are just tendentious. For instance, they point out that Pennsylvania Anti-Federalists claimed that the
President would be weak rather than a "monarch" and somehow believe that
this undermines the claim that the Vesting Clause granted power. Bradley &
Flaherty, supra note 7, at 592-93, 602. However, the fact that a small section
of Anti-Federalists complained about the lack of presidential power does not
harm the residual theory. As we have tried to make clear, the residual theory
is not a normative theory about the benefits of monarchy. It is a positive theory about the meaning of executive power as applied to the federal Constitution and as supported by historical materials. As Bradley and Flaherty well
know, many Anti-Federalists complained that the President would be a monarch. Later, when discussing Massachusetts, they note that nothing in that
state's ratification debates supports the notion that foreign affairs powers "inherently had" to be vested with the executive. Id. at 618. Once again, though
there were clearly some people who believed that foreign affairs powers were
executive in nature, our only claim is that foreign affairs authorities were regarded as part of the executive power as a matter of historical fact, not as a
matter of linguistic or historical necessity.
263. In Virginia, they cite "Cassius," "A Native of Virginia," "Republicus,"
Joseph Jones, Arthur Lee, and George Mason. Id. at 605-12. In Pennsylvania,
they cite William Findley, John Smilie, and James Wilson. Id. at 612-16. In
Massachusetts, they cite Elbridge Gerry, John DeWitt, James Bowdoin, and
Daniel Taylor. Id. at 616-18. In North Carolina, they cite Richard Spaight,
Archibald McClaine, James Iredell, and Samuel Spender. Id. at 621-24.
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Vesting Clause. 2 64 As we discussed in our earlier article, there
are references to foreign affairs powers being executive, such as
265
the power to direct foreign negotiations.
Bradley and Flaherty also do not explain why numerous
participants in the ratification debates said that the Senate
had a portion of the executive power due to its treaty role. For
instance, the minority of the Pennsylvania Convention complained that "the senate has, moreover, various and great executive powers, viz. in concurrence with the president-general,
they form treaties with foreign nations, that may controul and
abrogate the constitutions and laws of the several states." 266
These arguments were so powerful that Hamilton responded in
the Federalist Papers. 26 7 We argued that these complaints confirmed the definition of executive power as including foreign affairs powers, because to regard the Senate's role in treaties as a
division of the executive power was to adhere to Montesquieu's
classification of the treaty power as one of the "executive" functions of government. 268 Bradley and Flaherty's failure to explain why the Senate was regarded as vested with important
executive powers strongly suggests that this usage is a problem
for their claim.
Seeking to blunt the sting of the "essentialist" comments in
the ratification debates (that is, comments that ascribed meaning to the phrase "executive power"), Bradley and Flaherty
claim that some Federalists expressly rejected "executive power
essentialism," and that some of the "essentialist" comments
also had functionalist elements. 269 As to the first point, despite
264. See Prakash, supra note 55, at 728, 741, 758.
265. For instance, in Federalist 72, Hamilton declared that "actual conduct
of foreign negotiations" lies "peculiarly within the province of the executive."
THE FEDERALIST No. 72, supra note 87, at 412 (Alexander Hamilton). Hamilton also noted that the state executives would have the power to negotiate
treaties in the absence of the Articles of Confederation. THE FEDERALIST No.
69, supra note 87, at 400 (Alexander Hamilton).
266. The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention
of Pennsylvania to Their Constituents, PENNSYLVANIA PACKET & DAILY
ADVERTISER, Dec. 18, 1787, reprinted in 3 THE COMPLETE ANTI-FEDERALIST
145, 161 (Herbert Storing ed., 1981).
267. See THE FEDERALIST No. 75, supra note 87, at 425-26 (Alexander
Hamilton).
268. Prakash & Ramsey, supranote 3, at 290.
269. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 611 (citing 8 DOCUMENTARY
HISTORY OF THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 47 (John P. Kaminski &
Gaspare J. Saladino eds., 1988-90) [hereinafter DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF
THE RATIFICATION]).
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what Bradley and Flaherty say, we are not aware of anyone in
the ratification debates who denied that the Vesting Clause
granted authority to the President. Their only authorities for
the contrary conclusion are two statements made by Edmund
Pendleton in private letters. Pendleton noted that the President had no "latent prerogatives," but instead had only such
powers "as are defined and given him by law." 270 We agree that
the President lacks latent or hidden powers. Our claim is not
that the President has a latent power, but that the President
has an express power, the executive power. Moreover, our claim
is that the Constitution-a law-grants the President residual
foreign affairs powers. Finally, the Constitution defines the
"executive power" the same way it defines "commerce" or
"bankruptcy": by adopting the common meaning of those words.
In contrast to their claims about Pendleton, Bradley and
Flaherty generally are far more tentative in claiming support
for their vesting-clause-vests-nothing theory. Various discus272
sions "at least implicitly suggest[ ],"271 "seem[ ] to envision,"
273
that the President
or were "premised on the assumption"
lacks a general, residual executive power. The continuous hedging betrays the infirmity of the claims. In over thirty pages discussing founding material, they lack any clear authority for the
proposition that the President has no powers by virtue of the
Vesting Clause. Rather, they think that any discussion of the
President's specific powers implies that the President has no
power arising out of the Vesting Clause. Routine discussions
about the veto somehow end up confirming their vestingclause-vests-nothing theory because the speaker or writer did
not discuss the meaning of the Vesting Clause. Failures to dis-
270. See 10 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RATIFICATION, supra note 269,
at 1627. Bradley and Flaherty also cite a speech by Edmund Randolph about
incidental powers of the President, charging that if he had them, the Necessary and Proper Clause would be a "tautology." Bradley & Flaherty, supra
note 7, at 611 (citing 10 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RATIFICATION, supra
note 269, at 1348). We do not see how Randolph's discussion of incidental
presidential powers affects our claim that an express grant of authority (the
executive power) includes foreign affairs authority. Assuming that we are correct that the executive power includes foreign affairs powers, there would still
be an open question about whether the President had incidental powers, such
as executive privilege.
271. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 613.
272. Id.
273. Id. at 602.
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cuss the Vesting Clause, by themselves, neither confirm nor re2 74
fute our theory.
Bradley and Flaherty also attempt to undercut the various
"essentialist" statements with functionalist red herrings. They
repeatedly mention that some of the people who recognized
that foreign affairs powers were executive powers also made
functionalist arguments about the proper allocation of power. 275
We agree that participants made normative claims about how
to best allocate executive powers. But we do not see the relevance of these claims. For our purposes, it does not matter why
people thought the President (or the Senate) ought to have
some executive power. All that matters is how participants
used the phrase "executive power" in discussing the allocation
of foreign affairs power. Indeed, it would have been surprising
if people had not made normative claims about the best allocation of executive power. Those who argued that the Senate
ought not have any role in treaties merely because the function
was part of the executive power (and there were a few) committed the same conceptual mistake that trips up Bradley and
Flaherty (albeit a mistake that confirms the meaning of executive power). These participants conflated the definition of executive power with what type of institution should exercise it.
As we have made clear, the residual theory says nothing about
what type of institution ought to exercise the executive power.
Nor does the residual theory assert that people never made
normative claims in the course of the Constitution's creation.
The residual theory merely posits that for various "functional"
reasons, the Founders drafted a Constitution that grants the
President a residual executive power over foreign affairs. 276
274. As we said in our prior article, we think that the ratification debates
had relatively little to say on the specific subject of the President's residual
foreign affairs powers. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 288-95. We believe this is because those powers were not controversial or seriously disputed.
We do think the debates confirm our theory, because speakers consistently
thought that the Vesting Clause conveyed some power to the President, that
the President would have a material role in foreign affairs that seemed to go
beyond his specific powers, and that executive power, in the abstract, referred
in part to foreign affairs powers such as treaty making. See id. Bradley and
Flaherty's arguments do not undermine any of these propositions.
275. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 607, 613, 617.
276. Bradley and Flaherty also seem to advance a dog-did-not-bark claim:
the Anti-Federalists never complained about any residual power, id. at 619,
621, yet they should have if our theory were correct. If the residual power were
as they describe it-amorphous, vast, and controversial-then there would
have been much cause for complaint. See id. at 598, 616. But the residual
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Bradley and Flaherty complain that we say little about the
foreign affairs discussions during the drafting and ratification
phases of the Constitution. 277 But the criticism is unwarranted,
for despite saying so much, they say little about matters in actual dispute. We sympathize because we share their plight. The
truth is that little was said during these phases about supposedly "unallocated" foreign affairs powers. The Founders did not
seem focused on powers such as treaty termination, control of
American diplomats, or the formation of nonbinding foreign
policy. This silence does not undermine our theory, because a
constitutional provision can grant a particular power even
when there was no specific discussion of that particular
278
power.
Thus, while Bradley and Flaherty devote much energy to
the Constitution's creation, most of their discussion has little
relevance to the residual theory. On the most important points
they either concede our view, make only conclusory statements,
or say nothing. They admit that the Virginia Plan adopted the
Montesquieu/Essex Result understanding of executive power
(and by extension that the Continental Congress was understood to exercise the executive power over foreign affairs); they
admit that there were numerous participants who made "essentialist" comments-i.e., ascribed meaning to the phrase executive power; they offer no concrete support for their view that
the drafters of the Vesting Clause thought it lacked foreign affairs substance; they do not address the fact that participants
in the ratification struggle believed that the Senate had a share
power we defend does not have such features. Congress has important foreign
affairs powers, and others are shared by the President and the Senate. What
is left is not some unknown, enormous grant of power but an altogether tolerable and constrained, though significant, residual. The Anti-Federalists' failure to criticize the constrained grant of residual power likely reflects nothing
more than a judgment that the residual executive powers left to the President
were simply not worth criticizing.
277. Id. at 605.
278. Those who believe that the Constitution does not completely allocate
all foreign affairs authorities might cite the apparent lack of discussion of
supposedly unallocated powers as bolstering their claims. But this theory has
far worse evidentiary problems. If one regards the "unallocated" powers as
significant but uncontroversial powers, as we do, one would not expect people
to discuss them at length. People were just not alarmed by the President's limited residual executive power. On the other hand, if one thinks the Constitution failed to allocate these significant powers, one would expect that the Constitution's many opponents would have objected to the Constitution's gaping
holes. No one during the pre- or post-Constitutional era ever argued that the
Constitution failed to allocate all foreign affairs authority.
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of the executive power due to its role in treaties; and they cannot find anyone from the Convention or the ratification fight
who denied that the Vesting Clause vests power or voiced the
vesting-clause-vests-nothing theory. 279
E. THE WASHINGTON ADMINISTRATION AND THE
EXECUTIVE POWER
In our prior article, we made two central claims about the
Washington administration. First, we argued that Washington
exercised a number of foreign affairs powers not granted by the
specific powers of Article II, Sections 2 and 3. The residual theory, we concluded, provided these powers a solid textual foundation. Second, we showed that key statesmen of the time, including Jefferson, Hamilton, and Washington, explained the
President's exercise of foreign affairs powers as an aspect of the
executive power granted by the Constitution. 280
On our first point, Bradley and Flaherty neither materially
challenge our description of the foreign affairs powers Washington exercised nor appreciably contest our view of the correct
allocation of powers. They agree that Washington exercised
control over U.S. diplomats, expelled foreign representatives,
and established foreign policy (and they seem to feel this was
mostly appropriate); their main strategy is to stretch the Constitution's specific textual grants to cover the array of foreign
affairs powers they agree Washington exercised. 28 1 Bradley and
Flaherty vigorously dispute our second point, claiming that
statesmen of the period relied on the Article II Vesting Clause
282
"almost not at all"
279.
in defending the President's broad foreign
Bradley and Flaherty try to enlist Madison's notes in their cause of
reading the Vesting Clause as containing a "herein granted," Bradley &
Flaherty, supra note 7, at 611, but Madison's notes reveal that there was
unanimous support for "vesting the [executive] power in a single person." 2
THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, supra note 129, at 401.
These notes are entirely consistent with our reading of the clause as actually
granting a power. After all, Madison said that people supported vesting the
executive power. He did not merely claim that there was unanimous support
for a single person. Moreover, Madison notoriously read the clause as granting
power throughout his congressional career. See infra notes 288, 307, and accompanying text.
280. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 295-340.
281. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 636.
282. Id. at 637.
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affairs powers, while instead looking to the President's specific
28 3
powers to justify his foreign affairs actions.
Bradley and Flaherty's attempt to inflate the supposedly
"specific" powers falls flat. Statesmen of the era did not rely
upon the Appointments, Treaty-Making, or Ambassadors
Clauses to justify Washington's control over U.S. diplomats, his
monopoly on communications with foreign governments, or his
formulating and announcing the foreign policy of the United
States. Rather, as we discuss below, statesmen explained the
President's wide-ranging authority by citing the President's executive power. And this makes good sense, because despite
Bradley and Flaherty's best efforts, the specific powers simply
cannot be stretched as far as they wish.
1. Statesmen Explain the Executive Power
We start with Thomas Jefferson, someone generally not regarded as suffering from a pro-executive bias. In his 1790 opinion addressing which branch could set diplomatic grades and
destinations, Jefferson concluded that these authorities were
executive powers:
The Constitution ... has declared that 'the Executive powers shall be
vested in the President'..... The transaction of business with foreign
nations is Executive altogether. It belongs then to the head of that
283. Bradley and Flaherty open their discussion of the Washington administration with an extended account of the exercise of the treaty-making
power, focusing on the question whether the Senate's "advice and consent"
power implies a continuing involvement in treaty negotiation, or only comment upon and approval or rejection of the President's final product. See id. at
629-31. They claim that the Constitution requires the former, but practice
under the Washington administration evolved into the latter. See id. at 626.
Even if we were inclined to accept this reading of the Constitution (their arguments for it hardly seem conclusive), we are at a loss to see how this affects
the residual theory. First, we claim only that the President has "executive"
treaty functions, subject to the "advice and consent" of the Senate-whatever
that may mean-for treaty making. Whether this requires a broad or narrow
role for the Senate in treaty making is a question answered by Article II, Section 2, not by Section 1. (By the same token, we claim that the President has
executive war powers, subject to Congress's power to declare war. That claim
is consistent with either a broad or a narrow definition of "declare war," a
question that can only be answered by examining the meaning of declaring
war.) Second, to the extent Bradley and Flaherty's account implies that Washington sometimes deviated from the Constitution's text, we do not claim Washington always followed the Constitution in every respect. (For example, we
have some reservations about his appointment of "private" diplomatic agents
without the approval of the Senate.) We only claim that in general one should
prefer a reading of the Constitution that comports with early practice to one
that does not.
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department, except as to such portion of it as are specially submitted
28 4
to the Senate. Exceptions are to be construed strictly.
Consistent with this view, Jefferson insisted upon the executive's monopoly over foreign communication. Writing to French
Ambassador Edmond Genet, for example, Jefferson argued that
the Constitution had made the President the "only channel of
communication" between America and foreign countries, an argument that necessarily relied upon the Vesting Clause for no
specific presidential power could justify the President's com285
munications monopoly.
Jefferson was not alone in voicing the residual theory.
Washington and Foreign Secretary John Jay both referred to
the President's "executive authority" in explaining Washington's monopoly over foreign communications. 28 6 Oliver Ellsworth voiced it on the Senate floor, saying that the Constitution
"positively placed" a communications monopoly with the President. 287 In his diary, Washington noted that James Madison
and John Jay concurred with Jefferson's view that the Senate
had a narrow advice and consent role, and that setting diplomatic grades and destinations were "Executive and vested in
the President."28 8 Madison (and a number of others) relied on
284. Jefferson, supra note 6, at 378-79 (emphasis omitted).
285. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to the French Minister Edmond Charles
Genet (Nov. 22, 1793), in 6 THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 451 (Paul
Leicester Ford ed., 1895).
286. See infra text accompanying notes 344-47.
287. 5 ANNALS OF CONG. 32 (1795) (statement of Sen. Ellsworth). Though
Ellsworth does not explicitly cite the Vesting Clause here, it is clear he is referring to it because no other clause can be read as "positively plac[ing]" a
communications monopoly with the President.
288. 6 THE DIARIES OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 68 (Donald Jackson & Dorothy Twohig eds., 1979). Washington's diary noted these three gentlemen were
of the view
that [the Senate] have no Constitutional right to interfere with either
[destination or grade, and] that it might be impolitic to draw it into a
precedent their powers extending no farther than to an approbation
or disapprobation of the person nominated by the President all the
rest being Executive and vested in the President by the Constitution.
6 id.
Bradley and Flaherty suggest that perhaps Madison and Jay relied on the
Appointments Clause. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 656 n.539. But
Washington's diary entry says that Madison's opinion coincided with Jefferson's, see 6 THE DIARIES OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, supra, at 68, and as we
have seen, Jefferson said that setting the destination and grade preceded
nomination and appointment and hence was granted as part of the executive
power. Jefferson, supra note 6, at 378-79. Moreover, Washington describes
their position as being that "all the rest being Executive and vested in the
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the residual theory in the removal debate, in arguing that the
President's executive power gave the President the power to
remove the Secretary of Foreign Affairs. 289 Hamilton provided a
detailed explanation and defense of the executive foreign af290
fairs residual in his Pacificus essay.
Though Bradley and Flaherty claim that early statesmen
rarely relied on the residual theory, they make little progress in
disputing these authorities. They contend that Jefferson's opinion relied not upon a residual theory, but upon the President's
specific powers to nominate, appoint, and commission U.S. diplomats. 29 1 Jefferson's opinion cannot bear this reading. As we
noted, Jefferson begins by quoting the Vesting Clause as
"vest[ing]" the "executive powers" in the President, 292 and then
repeating the common understanding that foreign affairs powers are "executive altogether." He goes on to declare that while
the Constitution specifically grants the powers of appointment,
nomination, and commissioning, the powers of setting destinations and grades are not part of these "specifically enumerated"
powers. 293 As Jefferson put it,
[t]o nominate must be to propose: appointment seems that act of the
will which constitutes or makes the Agent: and the Commission is the
public evidence of it. But there are still other acts previous to these,
not specially enumerated in the Constitution; to wit 1. the destination
of a mission to the particular country where the public service calls
for it: and 2. the character, or grade to be employed in it. The natural
order of all these is 1. destination. 2. grade. 3. nomination. 4. appointment. 5. commission. If appointment does not comprehend the
neighboring acts of nomination, or commission, (and the constitution
says it shall not, by giving them exclusively to the President) still less
those previous and more remote of descan it pretend to comprehend
294
tination and grade.
And Jefferson repeated in conclusion, "[t]he Constitution, analyzing the three last [i.e., nomination, appointment, and comPresident," language that clearly echoes Article II, Section l's vesting of executive power. 6 THE DIARIES OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, supra, at 68.
289. See infra Part II.E.2.d.
290. HAMILTON, supra note 6, at 39.
291. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 574.
292. As Bradley and Flaherty point out, Jefferson actually misquoted the
Vesting Clause as vesting "executive powers" rather than "executive power."
Id. at 654. We do not attach any significance to the minor error. In either
event, Jefferson was relying on the Vesting Clause to convey power (or "powers") he said were not contained within the President's specific powers. See
Jefferson, supra note 6, at 379.
293. See Jefferson, supra note 6, at 379.
294. Id. (emphasis omitted).
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missioning], shews they do not comprehend the two first [i.e.,
setting destination and grade] ."295
Jefferson's articulation of the residual theory could not be
clearer. He noted that the Constitution vests the President
with executive powers; that the transaction of business with
foreign nations is executive, except as has been conveyed elsewhere; and that the powers to set grade and destination are not
part of the specifically enumerated powers of nomination, appointment, and commissioning, and therefore they are part of
the President's executive power. 296 Bradley and Flaherty's
claim that Jefferson relied on the President's specifically enumerated powers is belied by Jefferson's own language.
Bradley and Flaherty do not dispute (or even discuss) the
fact that Washington and Jay referred to the executive power
as the source of Washington's monopoly power over foreign
communications. These references are crucial, though, because
there is no other explanation for the power Washington asserted (and Bradley and Flaherty do not suggest one). In particular, it could not come from the appointments powerBradley and Flaherty's frequent claim in other areas-because
this correspondence occurred at the very beginning of Washington's term, before he had made any of his own appointments.
295. Id. (emphasis added). Jefferson's opinion also illustrates why some
executive foreign affairs powers needed to be listed in Article II, Sections 2
and 3, despite the grant of residual executive power. Because the Senate's consent is necessary to appoint, one might have argued that this implied a share
of the power to nominate, notwithstanding the grant of residual executive
power. Article II, Section 2 makes clear that the Senate's advice and consent
role in appointments does not include a role in nominations, and that the latter remains with the President. And, as Jefferson said, this also shows that all
powers preceding nomination (and, we would add, all powers that come after
commissioning, such as instructing and recalling), are all beyond the Senate's
advice and consent role in appointments. They are, as a result, part of the executive residual, just as Jefferson said.
296. See DAVID N. MAYER, THE CONSTITUTIONAL THOUGHT OF THOMAS
JEFFERSON 230-31 (1994) (discussing Jefferson's opinion in similar terms and
calling it one of a number of "broad statements regarding the executive nature
of ... foreign affairs" made by Jefferson). In particular, Professor Mayer associates Jefferson's later statements to Genet regarding the President's communications monopoly with Jefferson's view of residual executive power. Id. at
231. As he further points out, Jefferson thought (consistent with our theory)
that the residual foreign affairs power was limited by the Constitution's specific grants to other branches, especially the war and treaty-making powers.
Id. at 231-32.
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Bradley and Flaherty devote much energy to Hamilton's
Pacificus.297 They do not dispute that Hamilton read the Vesting Clause to give the President "executive power," which includes foreign affairs powers traditionally defined as "executive," less powers assigned to other branches by the
Constitution's text. But they think Pacificus counts for little,
because he also relied upon the Faithful Execution Clause, and
because (they say) he defended only the narrow power to issue
not a broad view of presidential
the Neutrality Proclamation,
298
affairs.
foreign
in
power
In addition to relying on the Vesting Clause, Hamilton did
claim that in carrying out foreign affairs functions the President was "executing" the law of nations, and thus the power
also arose from the Faithful Execution Clause. 299 Despite Bradley and Flaherty's implication, however, the Vesting Clause argument was central to Hamilton's essay; he made this argument first, so presumably he thought he was making a
powerful claim for a residual power. And, as we have pointed
out, his argument was consistent with the vocabulary of the
time and with Jefferson's prior legal opinion. All we claim for
Pacificus is that it shows Hamilton endorsed the residual theory. This proposition is not undermined because Hamilton reon an extrapolied on both the Vesting Clause and, secondarily,
30 0
lation from the Faithful Execution Clause.
Nor is it true that Pacificus defended only a narrow view of
executive power. According to Bradley and Flaherty, Hamilton
297. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 679-86. Contrary to Bradley
and Flaherty's implications, we do not claim that Hamilton's Pacificus essays,
standing alone, establish the validity of the residual theory. Rather, we argue
that the Neutrality Proclamation and Hamilton's defense of it fit a broader
pattern: Washington exercised foreign affairs powers not traceable to specific
constitutional powers, and political leaders of the time explained these powers
as being part of "[t]he executive Power."
298. Id. at 680-82.
299. See id. at 681-82.
300. To the extent Bradley and Flaherty mean to imply that Hamilton's
secondary argument was the better one, we are unpersuaded. As we discussed
in our previous article, the law of nations did not requirethe Proclamation, nor
did Hamilton as "Pacificus" claim otherwise. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3,
at 328-34. We would need more proof of its common usage to find the Faithful
Execution Clause preferable to the Vesting Clause. In any event, Hamilton's
Faithful Execution Clause argument effectively claims for the President under
the Faithful Execution Clause what we would give the President under the
Vesting Clause. We are not sure why Bradley and Flaherty would prefer that
explanation, though we would be happy to consider a complete argument for
it.
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referred only to the power to declare the nation's position under
the law of nations, and did not justify (for example) treaty termination or lawmaking in support of the Proclamation. 30 ' In
fact, Hamilton wrote broadly of the executive power to conduct
relations with foreign nations. All matters involving foreign affairs, he said, were given to the executive exclusively by the
Vesting Clause (save those given to or shared with other
branches). 302 Hence, the Proclamation was justifiable by the
executive power because it involved foreign affairs and was an
authority not allocated elsewhere.3 03 To claim that Hamilton
defended only a narrow foreign affairs power is to ignore what
Hamilton said, including his broad rationale. 304
It is noteworthy that Bradley and Flaherty place little
weight on the most common objection to reliance on Pacificus:
the fact that Jefferson (in private letters) and Madison (in his
Helvidius essays) disagreed with it.305 As we discussed, Jefferson disagreed with parts of Pacificus, but not with its exposition of the residual theory; 306 Bradley and Flaherty do not
301. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 681-82.
302. See HAMILTON, supra note 6, at 39-40.
303. It is true, as Bradley and Flaherty say, that Pacificus does not support
executive lawmaking in support of foreign affairs objectives. See Bradley &
Flaherty, supra note 7, at 679-86. We do not claim otherwise, and the residual
theory does not claim this power for the President. Prakash & Ramsey, supra
note 3, at 262-65. With respect to treaty termination, Hamilton likely thought
that the residual reading of executive power gave the President treaty termination power. Indeed, he urged Washington to suspend the treaties of alliance
with France. Id. at 324-27.
304. Even had Hamilton offered only a narrow defense of the Proclamation,
Bradley and Flaherty understate the Proclamation's importance. The President unilaterally declared the policy of the United States in a manner that
was bound to (and did) excite passion amongst Americans and tension with
the great powers at war. See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 332-34. If
all Hamilton had done was successfully defend a presidential power to create
nonbinding foreign policy, he still would have accomplished quite a bit.
305. See id. at 334-39; Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
(June 29, 1793), in 6 THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, supra note 285,
at 325; Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (July 7, 1793), in 6
THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, supra note 285, at 338; JAMES
MADISON, LETTERS OF HELVIDIUS NO. 1 (Apr. 22, 1793), reprinted in 1
LETTERS AND OTHER WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON 612 (J.B. Lippincott & Co.
1865).
306. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 335. Specifically, Jefferson took a
broad view of Congress's power to decide whether to go to war in support of
France, and wanted to be sure that the Proclamation did not constrain Congress's future decision making. Although Washington did not purport to bind
Congress, Hamilton seemed to say otherwise, and this was Jefferson's principal objection. See MAYER, supra note 296, at 232-33.
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claim otherwise. As we also discussed, Madison's Helvidius
agreed that the Vesting Clause vested law execution authority,
but denied that it vested any foreign affairs powers. But in denying residual foreign affairs powers, Madison--one of the
most articulate constitutional theorists of his generationsounded strained and unconvincing. 30 7 As Edward Corwin observed, Helvidius's "great shortcoming.
. .
is its negative char-
acter, its failure to suggest either a logical or practicable construction of the Constitution to take the place of the one it
combats" 308-a comment that applies equally to Bradley and
Flaherty's argument.
Bradley and Flaherty markedly distance themselves from
Helvidius, agreeing that Madison's response is structurally
flawed, incomplete, and unpersuasive. 30 9 They also do not dispute that the Helvidius essay was inconsistent with the position that Madison had previously taken while advising Washington in less partisan moments. The best they can say is that
Jefferson suspected that [Hamilton] wanted to bind the future conduct of the country-to ensure that the United States would not go to
war against Britain-by executive act ....Jefferson's constitutional
position [was] that because the power to decide between war and
peace was assigned by the Constitution to Congress, the president
could not initiate a policy which would confront Congress with a fait
accompli.
Id. Whether or not Jefferson's position on this point is correct, it is obviously
consistent with the residual theory; it depends upon one's view of the Declare
War Clause.
307. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 334-39. It is not merely our observation that Pacificus was well-received while Helvidius was not: this is the
view of respected historians of the period. See, e.g., STANLEY ELKINS & ERIC
McKiTRICK, THE AGE OF FEDERALISM 361-62 (1993) (noting that Helvidius
proved unpersuasive while Pacificus "was a strong performance, and seems to
have been generally so recognized").
308. EDWARD CORWIN, THE PRESIDENT'S CONTROL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS
28 (1917). In discussing the Neutrality Proclamation, Madison said the authority arose from Congress's war power. MADISON, supra note 305, at 612-13.
But that was a fortuity of the Neutrality Proclamation: many aspects of foreign policy do not relate to war (or to other enumerated congressional powers),
and Madison provided no way to approach such matters. Similarly, Bradley
and Flaherty barely mention the Proclamation or the power to establish foreign policy more broadly, and plainly have no explanation for it. To repeat an
example we used earlier, what should one make of the power to announce the
Monroe Doctrine (that is, that the United States opposed any recolonization of
Latin America)? See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 246.
309. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 685 ('There are a number of
weaknesses in Madison's analysis."); id. at 683 (acknowledging "weaknesses"
as well as admitting that Helvidius "may have been less than convincing," and
noting that Madison "apparently was dissatisfied with his performance").
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Madison "may have simply failed to make the best arguments,"
without saying what the better arguments would have been. 310
While only weakly disputing our authorities, Bradley and
Flaherty also assert that specific powers were more often cited
than the Vesting Clause in explaining presidential power and
that some people denied that the Vesting Clause vested anything. 311 Neither point undermines the residual theory. As to
the first, of course Americans cited the specific powers in defending presidential powers closely related to the specific powers; this does not suggest the absence of residual power. The
question is how Americans of the time justified presidential actions not closely tethered to the specific powers. Though Bradley and Flaherty argue that the President's specific foreign affairs powers can be stretched to justify, among other things,
Washington's control of U.S. diplomats and his ability to expel
foreign emissaries, they never cite anyone who actually made
such claims. It appears that in the early years, no one endorsed
Bradley and Flaherty's capacious readings of supposedly spe3 12
cific powers.
As to denials of the substantive reading of the Vesting
Clause, Bradley and Flaherty's only authority comes from the
well-known removal debates of 1789 (Helvidius is no source for
the vesting-clause-vests-nothing view because Helvidius admits
that the Vesting Clause vests a law execution power). It is true
that during the removal debates some members of the House
denied that the Vesting Clause conveyed any power, and in
particular argued that it did not vest the power to remove executive officers. 31 3 But we think these statements count for little. The idea that the Vesting Clause conveys nothing has a
host of textual and historical difficulties, the speakers Bradley
and Flaherty cite were not prominent constitutional thinkers,
and the statements were made by the losing side in a debate
310. Id.
311. See id. at 636-37.
312. To be clear, we do not deny that when a specific power was available
to justify executive action, people appealed to it. The executive power residual
only comes into play when no specific foreign affairs power exists. As should be
obvious, reliance on a specific power says nothing about what the speaker
thinks regarding the existence of a residual to justify seemingly unallocated
powers. True, if speakers always relied on specific power and never referred to
a residual, that would weaken our theory. But as we have shown, that clearly
was not the case.
313. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 660-61.
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over a distinct power, removal. 3 14 In any event, we never
314. For the most part, we regard their treatment of the removal debates
as credible. But they do make a critical mistake, one that greatly undercuts
their ultimate conclusion. As Bradley and Flaherty note, on June 22, 1789, the
House voted on two amendments designed to reflect the view that the Constitution granted the President a removal power. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra
note 7, at 656. The first provided that the clerk in the Office of Foreign Affairs
would assume the secretary's duties "when ever the said principal officer shall
be removed from office by the president of the United States" and the second
removed language that could be read to suggest that the statute itself granted
a removal power. 11 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FIRST FEDERAL
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 1789-1791: DEBATES IN THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1028 (Charlene Bangs Bickford et al. eds., 1992)
[hereinafter DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FIRST FEDERAL CONGRESS]. Both
amendments passed, but with different majority coalitions. According to Bradley and Flaherty, "one cannot infer majority support from this [second] vote for
the Vesting Clause Thesis" for some of those who voted for the second amendment were openly opposed to the Vesting Clause Thesis. Bradley & Flaherty,
supra note 7, at 663. Bradley and Flaherty then claim that the House sent the
bill to the Senate. Id.
Bradley and Flaherty seem unaware that the vote on the second amendment was not the final House action on the bill. Votes on amendments are
never final action; one always must vote on the amendment and then vote on
the bill. Before the actual final vote, which took place two days later, 4
DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FIRST FEDERAL CONGRESS, supra, at 692
(Charlene Bangs Bickford & Helen E. Veit eds., 1986), it was obvious what
was at stake and the opponents of the constitutional grant theory had a
chance to take a stand. If there truly was a majority that opposed the constitutional grant theory, as Bradley and Flaherty contend, this majority ought to
have defeated the bill. Because there were no pressing foreign crises, the supposed majority should have defeated the bill and drafted a new one that made
it clear that the Constitution did not grant the President a removal power.
This never happened. In the House, the bill that assumed a constitutional
removal power passed by a 29 to 22 margin. 4 id. at 692. This vote shows that
a sizable majority accepted the constitutional grant theory. As Charles Thach
noted, the final vote was a "clear-cut test of [Constitutional] strength," because
the bill assumed that the President had a constitutionally based removal
power. THACH, supra note 210, at 154. The same must be said of the far closer
vote in the Senate. On two occasions, Vice President Adams cast a tiebreaking vote to defeat amendments that would have defeated the reference to
removal by the President. See 4 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FIRST
FEDERAL CONGRESS, supra, at 697 n.4. 'There can, then, be no question that
the matter of removal was voted upon by the Senate with a full knowledge of
what it signified in all its aspects. The issue was crystal clear .. " THACH,
supra note 210, at 157.
That Congress passed three bills (the acts creating the three great departments), each of which assumed that the President (an institutional rival)
had a removal power arising out of the executive power itself, plainly supports
the residual theory. Rather than undermining our claim, we think the removal
debate further validates Jefferson's residual theory. In any event, it plainly
does not undermine it, for it is clear that many (though not all) participants
endorsed it. By themselves, the debates refute Bradley and Flaherty's assertion that people of the era relied on the Vesting Clause "almost not at all."
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claimed that everyone in the 1790s endorsed our theory-only
that many of the most prominent figures did.
In sum, we argued that key figures such as Hamilton, Jefferson, Washington, Jay, and Madison endorsed the residual
theory. Bradley and Flaherty do nothing to undermine these
authorities or our claims about them. We also claimed that no
one in the 1790s advanced a coherent theory of foreign affairs
authority to rival the Jeffersonian theory. Bradley and Flaherty
do not seriously dispute that. Though they maintain that early
statesmen relied upon specific grants of power to explain presidential foreign affairs powers, they find no one who actually
used the President's specific constitutional grants to explain
the exercise of foreign affairs powers that are remote from any
specific power, such as the President's monopoly on foreign
communications and his ability to establish the foreign policy of
the United States.
2.
Practice Under the Washington Administration
Bradley and Flaherty devote much attention to the actual
practices of the Washington administration. Rather than contesting our account of the historical practices or their relevance,
they contest the rationales for these practices, disputing our
claim that the residual executive power is the best means of
explaining Washington's foreign affairs actions. 3 15 They argue
instead that specific grants of authority-such as the powers to
appoint ambassadors, make treaties, and require opinions of
the heads of the executive departments-can explain the Presi3 16
dent's actions.
In making these claims, Bradley and Flaherty effectively
discard their specification theory. Whereas before they argued
that the President only had the specific powers in Sections 2
and 3 of Article II, they now are open to the idea of general
powers emanating from the supposedly specific ones. They read
each of the specific powers to have an implausibly generous penumbra and, in so doing, abandon their previous argument
that general powers were contrary to the doctrine of enumerated powers. The power to appoint ambassadors is somehow
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 637.
For an extended examination of these momentous debates, see Saikrishna
Prakash, New Light on the Decision of 1789, 91 CORNELL L. REV. (forthcoming
2006).
315. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 556, 636.
316. Id. at 636.
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read as the power to control and remove them. 317 The power3 to
18
receive ambassadors is read as the power to send them home.
We hold no brief for the specification theory, and we are
glad to see that they abandon it. But even a theory of generous
emanations and penumbras cannot explain all of Washington's
actions. What accounts for Washington's sole control of foreign
communications? What permitted Washington to establish
nonbinding foreign policy, such as the Neutrality Proclamation? Why did members of the Washington administration believe that the President could withdraw from treaties? One
needs a residual theory to justify the Washington administration's practices, and the theory of Jefferson, Washington, and
Hamilton is the only viable one available.
a. The Sole Organ of Communication
Washington asserted and enjoyed a monopoly on foreign
communications. Communications addressed to the former executive power (the Continental Congress) were routed to the
new chief executive. 319 Foreign ministers who wished to communicate with Congress were required to submit the documents to the President, and the President decided which documents, if any, he would send to Congress. 320 Rather than
communicating with foreign nations and ministers directly,
Congress requested that the President forward its sentiments
and resolutions, and those resolutions made clear that the particular chamber was not speaking on behalf of the United
3 21
States, but was only speaking for itself.
Bradley and Flaherty say virtually nothing about this
widely accepted presidential power. They neither discuss the
practices nor provide specific textual support for any monopoly.
They do consider some limited communicative powers in their
discussion of the Act for Establishing the Executive Department of Foreign Affairs. 322 The Act permitted the President to
delegate certain tasks to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, including the power of communicating with U.S. diplomats and
receiving memorials and applications from foreign diplomats
317.
318.
319.
320.
321.
322.
See id. at 647.
See id. at 664-79.
Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 317.
See id. at 321-22.
See id. at 318-20.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 642-43.
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and foreigners. 323 Bradley and Flaherty claim that the power to
communicate with U.S. diplomats "finds a provenance" in the
power to appoint diplomats, while the power to receive applications and memorials "echoes" the duty to receive ambassadors
and foreign ministers. 324 Neither claim withstands scrutiny.
The power to appoint does not encompass a power to communicate. And to say that the ability to receive memorials and applications "echoes" the duty to receive ambassadors is to admit
that the President's specific powers do not encompass the
power to receive applications from others, for "echoes" do not
grant power.
Even were we to concede their dubious derivation of the
narrow communicative powers listed in the Act, they still cannot account for the scope of the President's communications
monopoly. The Act merely permitted the President to delegate
his constitutional authorities to communicate with U.S. diplomats and to receive documents from foreign ministers and foreigners. 325 Yet Washington exercised a monopoly on foreign
communication. Neither the Act nor any specific constitutional
power can account for the fact that Congress, U.S. diplomats,
and other countries all channeled their foreign affairs communications through the President. The power to appoint diplomats (with the Senate's advice and consent) cannot ensure that
only the President could communicate with them on behalf of
the United States. The duty to receive diplomats cannot grant a
monopoly on any foreign nation's communications with the
United States. Nor can the Ambassadors Clause encompass a
right to serve as the sole means of expressing the foreign policy
of the United States to foreign countries. The question remains:
why did the President have a foreign affairs communications
monopoly?
b.
Treaty Terminationand Removal of ForeignDiplomats
Bradley and Flaherty also tiptoe around two other powers
assumed to lie with the President in the 1790s: the power to
withdraw from or suspend treaties and the power to expel foreign diplomats. 326 Again, that casts doubt on their claim that
323. An Act for Establishing an Executive Department, To Be Denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs, ch. 4, § 1, 1 Stat. 28, 28-29 (1789).
324. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 643-44.
325. See An Act for Establishing an Executive Department, To Be Denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs, ch. 4, § 1, 1 Stat. 28, 28-29 (1789).
326. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 661, 664-79.
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the President was understood to only possess specific foreign
affairs powers.
In our previous article, we discussed how, in conjunction
with a decision whether to receive French Ambassador Edmond
Genet, Washington requested opinions about whether to suspend or renounce two Franco-American treaties from 1778.
Based on that episode, we concluded that Washington and
members of his administration believed that he could suspend
or renounce treaties unilaterally. Washington wanted to make
a quick decision because he wanted to announce any suspension or withdrawal upon receiving Genet. He had already decided that there was no need to call Congress into session, suggesting that he thought he could make the suspension/
withdrawal decision himself. Consistent with that reading,
Washington did not seek any opinion on whether he had the
authority to withdraw or suspend; he sought opinions on
whether he ought to withdraw or suspend-indicating that he
thought he had these powers. Neither Hamilton nor Jefferson
counseled the President that he lacked constitutional authority
to suspend or withdraw. While Hamilton urged the President to
suspend, Jefferson argued that doing so would violate the laws
of nations. Given that Jefferson thought that the President
should adhere to the treaties, his failure to argue that the Constitution did not permit presidential withdrawal or suspension
suggests that Jefferson understood that the President327could
withdraw or suspend when the law of nations permitted.
While noting that Washington sought opinions about suspension and withdrawal, 328 Bradley and Flaherty do not take a
position on whether Washington could withdraw or suspend.
Instead they note that no one discussed the constitutional
questions involved, and no one focused on which institution
could suspend or withdraw. 329 We agree, but do not see how
that matters. The circumstances indicate that Washington,
Hamilton, and Jefferson thought that the President could
withdraw or suspend-that is why none of them discussed
these matters. Because the question was whether to renounce
the treaties upon Genet's reception and because Washington
327. Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 324-27. The conclusion that Jefferson thought the President could withdraw from treaties is supported by Jefferson's view, expressed three years earlier, that "[t]he transaction of business
with foreign nations is executive altogether." Jefferson, supra note 6, at 378.
328. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 666-67.
329. See id. at 667-68.
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already had decided not to call Congress back into session before Genet's reception, all three must have thought that Washington could unilaterally withdraw from the French treaties. 330
Bradley and Flaherty also gingerly sidestep the question of
expelling foreign representatives. With respect to ambassadors,
they point out that Washington never actually expelled Genet,
but only requested that France withdraw him. 331 But Washing-
ton and his administration clearly thought the President had
the power to dismiss Genet. Jefferson told Genet that the executive had the power to admit and interdict foreign representatives, and specifically threatened that the executive would
expel Genet if the latter did not obey the law and did not comport himself as a diplomat should. 332 Washington only refrained
from expelling Genet because he thought it was better for
France to recall its own emissary. Further, Washington made
the withdrawal demand on his own authority, even though he
lacked specific constitutional authority to make such requests.
It is hard to believe that Washington thought he could unilaterally demand that France withdraw Genet but could not expel
him outright.
In discussing Washington's expulsion of consuls, Bradley
and Flaherty admit that Washington's actions may have
"strained" the bounds of specific constitutional text (presumably because consuls are omitted from the Ambassadors
Clause). 333 Even were we to regard the omission of consuls from
the Reception Clause as a sort of scrivener's error, the Recep330.
331.
332.
Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 324-27.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 670-71.
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edmond Genet (Sept. 15, 1793), in
THE THOMAS JEFFERSON PAPERS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1606-1827:
SERIES 1 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 1651-1827, http://memory.loc.gov/
ammemcollections/jefferson-papers/mtjserl.html, image 653 (displaying letter in which Jefferson wrote that the President would "admit the continuance
of [Genet's] functions so long as they shall be restrained within the limits of
the law").
333. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 677. We note that they do a
commendable job of adding to the evidence that the omission of consuls from
the President's reception duty was purposeful. Id. at 678-79. We would add
that a 1794 opinion of Attorney General William Bradford supports the notion
that consuls are distinguishable from foreign ministers. 1 Op. Att'y Gen. 22,
23 (1794). Based on his reading of judicial precedent, the law of nations, and
the branch of federal court jurisdiction pertaining to ambassadors, other foreign ministers, and consuls, Bradford concluded that a 1790 statute did not
cover offenses committed against a consul because the statute only covered
violence committed on a public minister or ambassador. Id. at 22-23. According to Bradford, consuls were not public ministers. Id. at 23.
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tion Clause is not an expulsion clause. It nowhere permits the
President to expel existing foreign officials, a power that when
exercised may lead to a diplomatic firestorm. To believe that
the President has a right to expel consuls by virtue of the power
to receive ambassadors and other public ministers is to move
from the realm of scrivener's error to the realm of constitutional rewrite. We do not think that the "specific" constitutional
clauses can be "strained" so far. Washington's actions must be
explained some other way or cited as usurpation. We think the
best explanation is the one we have offered: that the power to
expel ambassadors and consuls arises from the President's executive power.
Hence Bradley and Flaherty fail to explain the following:
why Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson apparently thought
that the President could withdraw from or suspend treaties;
why Washington could request that foreign governments recall
their diplomats; and why Washington could expel foreign
agents. As with the sole communication power, one simply cannot inflate the President's specific foreign affairs grants to justify these powers. Indeed, it appears that under the specification theory, no branch of the federal government has these
powers.
c.
Control of the Instruments of Diplomacy
In our previous article, we showed that Washington controlled John Jay, Congress's holdover foreign affairs secretary;
directed Thomas Jefferson, the new Secretary of Foreign Af334
fairs; and superintended and recalled American diplomats.
We also showed that Congress, his institutional rival, assumed
that the President had diplomatic powers beyond those specified in Sections 2 and 3 of Article 11.335 We claimed that only
the Jeffersonian theory could justify Washington's exercise of
these nonspecified powers.
Bradley and Flaherty deny that Washington controlled
John Jay, claiming that their relationship was "informal and ad
hoc."33 6 Somewhat paradoxically, however, they admit that
337
SpecifiWashington controlled diplomacy and the diplomats.
cally, they contend that
334.
335.
336.
337.
Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 298-311.
Id. at 311.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 640.
Id. at 644-48.
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reasonable constructions of specific foreign affairs clauses, such as
those authorizing the President to appoint and receive ambassadors,
make treaties, and require opinions from the heads of executive departments, support accepted assertions of presidential authority more
II Vesting Clause as a general
plausibly than treating the Article
338
source of foreign affairs authority.
They later claim that the Foreign Affairs Act "can be understood as a function of discrete statutory allocations tracking
specific constitutional grants,"339 and that "[tihe history of the
period ...indicates that contemporaries both inside and out-
side of the administration followed this more modest interpretive strategy. '340 These arguments are unpersuasive.
In support of their claim that the Washington-Jay relationship was informal, Bradley and Flaherty cite Washington's letter to Jay requesting documents and analysis of America's forWashington explicitly declined to make an
eign affairs in which
"official[ ]" request.3 4 1 Though they admit that there are some
letters where both Washington and Jay speak of "order[s]" and
342 They even
"direct[ions]," these were likely slips of language.
because it is not obvious that
say that "directions" is ambiguous
3 43
this word refers to a command.
Bradley and Flaherty are wrong on each of these points.
First, there are at least a dozen letters where Jay and Washington speak of orders and directions.3 44 It is impossible to believe that both men made repeated mistakes about the nature
of their relationship. Second, Bradley and Flaherty treat the
338.
Id. at 636.
339. Id. at 644.
340. Id. at 636.
341. Letter from George Washington to the Acting Secretary for Foreign
Affairs (June 8, 1789), in 30 THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 343, 343
(John C. Fitzpatrick ed., 1939).
342. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 639 & n.459.
343. See id. at 640.
344. See, e.g., Letter from John Jay to George Washington (July 15, 1789),
in 28 GEORGE WASHINGTON PAPERS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1741-
1799: SERIES 2 LETTERBOOKS 92, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/
gwseries2.html, images 57-58 (last modified Feb. 16, 1999) (showing Jay seeking Washington's instructions regarding an application from a Canadian and
proposing that Washington order Jay to send a letter to the Canadian); Letter
from John Jay to Phineas Bond (Aug. 24, 1789), in 28 GEORGE WASHINGTON
PAPERS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1741-1799: SERIES 2 LETTERBOOKS 92,
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwseries2.html, image 53 (last modified
Feb. 16, 1999) (showing Jay writing to Phineas Bond on orders of Washington).
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Continental Congress's "orders" to Jay as actual orders. 345 They
never justify their decision to treat some orders as mistakes
and approvingly cite others as intentional. Third, we are unsure why they believe that "directions" are not commands.
Washington was directing Jay to undertake certain foreign affairs tasks and in this context, to "direct" means to order.
Lastly, the letter Bradley and Flaherty claim proves or suggests that Washington could not direct Jay does nothing of the
sort. In that letter, Washington did not deem it "expedient" to
call for documents officially, so he made an informal request to
Jay.346 This was a decision not to exercise power, not an admission that Washington lacked formal power over Jay; otherwise
Washington would not have claimed it was inexpedient to make
an official request. Indeed, the letter is replete with Washington's requests for documents and a report on America's foreign
relations-materials Washington believed he would need in his
role as (residual) superintendent of America's foreign affairs.
Consistent with the repeated language of orders and directions
to Jay (where Washington clearly did act "officially") and with
the rest of Washington's letter, one should not read Washington's isolated decision not to make an official request as some
indication he harbored doubts about his constitutional power to
direct Jay. In supposing that the entire relationship between
Jay and Washington was "informal and ad hoc," 347 Bradley and
Flaherty misread and embellish a single letter.
Perhaps sensing the weakness of their claims, Bradley and
Flaherty also insist that the President's specific foreign affairs
powers (for example, treaty negotiation and ambassadorial reception) can account for Washington's orders to Jay. 348 While
these powers may account for the orders that Bradley and
Flaherty discuss, there are many more orders and directions
that cannot be so justified. For instance, Washington ordered
Jay to correspond with foreign petitioners who sought the assistance of the federal government and ordered Jay to corre349
spond with U.S. agents stationed overseas.
345. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 640.
346. Letter from George Washington to the Acting Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, supra note 341, at 343.
347. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 640.
348. Id. at 641.
349. See Letter from George Washington to the Acting Secretary for Foreign Affairs, supra note 341, at 343-44.
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Given that Jay was charged by the old Department of Foreign Affairs statute with obeying congressional orders, the
question remains: why did Jay act as if he were Washington's
subordinate? Both Jay and Washington provided the answer:
the grant of executive power. In a letter to Francisco Chiappe,
Jay noted he was writing pursuant to Washington's order, for
Washington now had "supreme executive authority" (we would
say the executive power) and hence Washington was the one
who would superintend America's agents and communicate
with foreign potentates. 350 Later, in a letter to Giuseppe
Chiappe (Francisco's brother), Jay stated that the President
had powers and prerogatives of the type held by monarchs and
that the Congress no longer had the "great executive powers,"
implying that Washington had them. 351 Finally, Washington
wrote to the Emperor of Morocco observing that he now possessed the "supreme executive authority" and thus had the
pleasure of responding to the emperor's letter. 352 Bradley and
Flaherty say nothing about these letters.
Consistent with our claims, Washington not only directed
Jay, but also assumed control of the diplomatic corps while Jay
served as acting secretary. On his own, he appointed a special
envoy to England and issued instructions to America's diplomats through Jay. 353 These actions leave little doubt that
Washington's control of the foreign affairs apparatus was secure from the beginning of his administration. 354 Thus, unless
one subscribes to a residual theory, one must regard Washington as having usurped power (and believe that Jay was his will-
350. Letter from John Jay to Francisco Chiappe (Dec. 1, 1789), in 28
GEORGE WASHINGTON PAPERS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1741-1799:
SERIES 2 LETTERBOOKS 92, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwseries2.
html, images 110-12 (last modified Feb. 16, 1999).
351. Letter from John Jay to Giuseppe Chiappe (Dec. 1, 1789), in 28
GEORGE WASHINGTON PAPERS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1741-1799:
SERIES 2 LETTERBOOKS 92, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwseries2.
html, images 112-16 (last modified Feb. 16, 1999).
352. Letter from George Washington to King of Morocco (Dec. 1, 1789), in
30 THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, supra note 341, at 474, 474-75.
353. See Prakash & Ramsey, supra note 3, at 299.
354. Washington's control of Jay cannot be a function of the specific powers
delegable to the foreign secretary under the Foreign Affairs Act, because
Washington directed Jay even before the enactment of the Act. See, e.g., Letter
from John Jay to George Washington (July 15, 1789), in 28 GEORGE
WASHINGTON PAPERS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1741-1799: SERIES 2
LETTERBOOKS 92, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwseries2.html,
ages 57-58 (last modified Feb. 16, 1999).
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ing accomplice). The President's specific powers cannot explain
Washington's control of an officer statutorily charged to follow
Congress's direction, and neither Washington nor Jay cited the
specific powers as proof of Washington's foreign affairs authority. Instead, each cited the President's executive power.
Bradley and Flaherty agree that Jefferson, as Secretary of
State, was Washington's subordinate, but they think this arose
from the Foreign Affairs Act, which established the new Department of Foreign Affairs.3 55 They also assert that the President's specific foreign affairs authorities explain all the powers
that Congress assumed that the President had and could delegate to the secretary. For instance, Bradley and Flaherty contend that the President's power to instruct diplomats "finds a
provenance" in the power to appoint ambassadors and other
public ministers. 56 Yet their oblique language betrays the textual infirmity of this claim: no one supposes that the President's power to appoint federal judges gives (or even suggests)
a power to instruct them. 357 Neither can the appointment
power somehow justify the President's monopoly on communications with foreign nations and with America's diplomats. The
Act also permitted the President to delegate the ability to receive memorials and applications from foreigners. Bradley and
Flaherty half-heartedly claim that this power "echoes" the duty
to receive ambassadors, 358 but it seems an entirely distinct
function. Because the Act did not purport to give the President
any powers (it only allowed him to delegate powers), and because the President's specific foreign affairs powers cannot be
stretched to cover the authorities that Congress assumed the
President possessed, Congress must have believed that the
President had a residual executive power over foreign affairs.
Finally, the Act permitted the President to delegate to the
secretary "other Matters relating to foreign affairs." 359 Bradley
and Flaherty do not comment on what those matters could be.
To stay true to their theory of specific powers, however, they
355. See Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 637-38, 643.
356. Id. at 643.
357. Federal judges are appointed in the same manner as diplomats and
there is no express prohibition on presidential direction. Presumably, Bradley
and Flaherty also do not think that the President can direct every nonjudicial,
noninferior officer merely because the President nominates, appoints, and
commissions them.
358. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 643.
359. An Act for Establishing an Executive Department, To Be Denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs, ch. 4, § 1, 1 Stat. 28, 28-29 (1789).
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must treat this language as superfluous, because no other specific powers relatingto foreign affairs remain. In explaining the
Act, they cite the duty to receive foreign ambassadors, the
power to appoint U.S. diplomats and consuls, and the power to
make treaties. According to their theory of specification, no
other presidential foreign affairs powers remain. The residual
theory allows us to make sense of this statutory language and
render it meaningful. The President could transfer to Jefferson
those residual foreign affairs authorities that rested with the
President pursuant to the Vesting Clause, including the power
to issue passports, the power to enunciate and formulate nonbinding foreign policy, etc.
Beyond their inability to explain the Act, Bradley and
Flaherty have difficulty accounting for diplomatic practices. For
instance, Bradley and Flaherty cannot explain Washington's
ability to remove Ambassadors Gouverneur Morris and James
Monroe from their postings in France. They claim that this removal power was "a corollary of the President's superior authority to remove the Secretary of State himself, something expressly contemplated by the Foreign Affairs Act."3 60 But the Act
was not some mathematical theory from which one could derive
additional powers by resort to postulates or corollaries. The Act
did not mention an ability to remove diplomats. Even if it did,
Bradley and Flaherty believe that the Act is defensible by resort to the specific constitutional powers. Yet there is no specific constitutional power to remove diplomats. Finally, the Act
did not grant power to remove-it assumed that the President
361
had a pre-existing executive power to remove.
When one steps back and examines Bradley and Flaherty's
textual claims as a whole, a pattern emerges. Many of their
claims focus on the object of a power clause and ignore the verb.
Hence the power to appoint ambassadors becomes the power to
instruct and remove them; the power to receive ambassadors
becomes the power to expel them and includes a power to receive their communications. By using words and phrases like
"finds a provenance," "echoes," and "corollary," they all but concede that the specific powers do not authorize either the powers
that Congress permitted the President to delegate in the Act or
all the diplomatic powers that Washington actually exercised.
360. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 647.
361. An Act for Establishing an Executive Department, To Be Denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs, ch. 4, § 1, 1 Stat. 28, 28-29 (1789).
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Perhaps sensing the difficulties with their textual claims, they
3 62
ultimately admit that these are not "conclusive arguments."
We agree and would go further-these textual claims are just
implausible, because no one apparently voiced them at the time
and because the claims do not take constitutional text seriously.
In relying upon penumbral readings of specific foreign affairs powers to justify Washington's control of diplomacy, Bradley and Flaherty stretch the Constitution's specific powers beyond their tensile points while also abandoning their
specification theory. Instead of consistently arguing that the
President does not enjoy general powers, they now read the
Constitution as granting him general powers around each of
the supposedly specific ones. And by adopting "general" readings of the supposedly specific powers, they also abandon their
claim that general powers somehow violate the doctrine of
enumerated powers.
Finally, we note the ironic consequences of Bradley and
Flaherty's penumbral theory. In the hands of advocates of
presidential power, it likely leads to far greater presidential
control of foreign affairs than would our theory. For example,
the power to negotiate treaties might imply a power to terminate them, either in accordance with or in violation of their
terms; the President's control over ambassadors might imply a
power to use those ambassadors to negotiate executive agreements, including agreements preemptive of state law. The
President's control over war making might imply a power to
seize steel mills in support of the war effort. Though we do not
approve of these readings (and we doubt that Bradley and
Flaherty do either), they are at least as plausible as the readings Bradley and Flaherty half-heartedly advance. If one embraces Bradley and Flaherty's textual stretching and straining,
363
it is difficult to know when to stop.
d. Summary
Washington assumed control of many different aspects of
foreign policy, a control that cannot be justified by reference to
the President's specific foreign affairs powers. Along with Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, and Washington himself, we
362. Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 644.
363. As we have explained, our theory, in contrast, contains its own limits.
See supra Part I.B.
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believe that the grant of executive power justified his general
superintendence. The only viable alternative to the Jeffersonian theory is the usurpation thesis-Washington usurped foreign affairs authority not granted to him by the Constitution
while Congress stood by without a murmur. America's Cincinnatus does not fit the role of usurper.
Bradley and Flaherty reject the residual theory, and they
seem uncomfortable calling Washington a usurper. They believe they can transcend this quandary by asserting that "specific" constitutional provisions authorized Washington's actions. This turns out to be mostly rhetoric. They say almost
nothing about a series of uncontroversial powers assumed to lie
with the President: the right to serve as the sole organ of communication, the right to formulate nonbinding foreign policy,
and the right to expel foreign ambassadors. Many of the powers
they do discuss, such as the power to instruct and remove U.S.
diplomats and the power to instruct and remove the Secretary
of Foreign Affairs, cannot arise out of the President's specific
powers to appoint and receive ambassadors, and to make treaties with the Senate's advice and consent. Indeed, they cite no
one who actually justified the President's control of diplomacy
by reference to the President's specific foreign affairs powers.
Ultimately, despite insisting that their novel textual claims are
plausible, even Bradley and Flaherty never fully embrace them.
CONCLUSION
In Executive Power Essentialism and Foreign Affairs, Professors Curtis Bradley and Martin Flaherty have produced a
rhetorical masterpiece challenging the idea that the Vesting
Clause vests the President with foreign affairs power. They do
not advance any alternative theory of the Constitution's original meaning in foreign affairs but instead argue that the Jeffersonian theory is simply implausible on its own terms.
Yet despite the volume and artfulness of their writing,
Bradley and Flaherty make little headway in refuting the
propositions central to the Jeffersonian theory. Our first proposition is that the great political writers of the eighteenth century who most influenced the Framers, especially Montesquieu
and Blackstone, classified foreign affairs powers among the executive powers of government. Professor Flaherty previously
agreed: he has written that "[a]ccording to Montesquieu, to
whom... Americans usually turned[,] ... executive authority
included the power to make peace or war and to establish pub-
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lic security,"364 and that "Blackstone saw foreign affairs authority as quintessentially executive." 36 5 More importantly, leading
separation of powers scholars such as W.B. Gwyn and M.J.C.
366
Brad-7
Vile read the political writers in the same way we do.
36
readings.
settled
these
disturb
to
nothing
do
ley and Flaherty
Our second proposition is that the vocabulary of the political writers, classifying foreign affairs powers as executive, carried over into American political discourse. For example,
Americans thought the Continental Congress had executive
powers in part because it had foreign affairs powers. Again,
Professor Flaherty previously agreed:
As the sole repository of national power, Congress performed legislative, executive, and judicial functions-imprecise as those terms remained-as well as duties that were less easily categorized. The Articles gave Congress what were considered core legislative powers, such
as regulating financial matters, establishing post offices, and fixing
weights and measures. But they also gave Congress the power to
make war and appoint and commission all military officers serving
368
the nation-authority usually thought to be executive in nature.
Yet Bradley and Flaherty now argue that under the Articles, Congress was purely a legislative body and that the
United States had no executive. This is not how contemporaries
described the Continental Congress. Nor is it how modern
scholars (including Professor Flaherty in prior articles) have
described it: Congress had a "jumble of all three powers" and
"[t]here is no doubt that [the Continental] Congress of necessity
assumed a monopoly over 'executive' foreign affairs authority."
36 9
Our most important proposition is that Article II, Section
1, vesting the President with "the executive Power," incorporates the late eighteenth-century meaning typically ascribed to
364. Flaherty, The Most DangerousBranch, supra note 13, at 1765.
365. Flaherty, History Right?, supra note 13, at 2106.
366. GWYN, supra note 68, at 103 ('Montesquieu, like most writers of his
time, was inclined to think of the executive branch of government as being
concerned nearly entirely with foreign affairs."); VILE, supra note 55, at 95.
367. Despite various quibbles, Bradley and Flaherty admit that Montesquieu equated executive power with foreign affairs power. Bradley & Flaherty,
supra note 7, at 563. They claim that Blackstone did not share this view, but
this assertion is based on an incomplete reading of Blackstone. See supra Part
II.B.3.
368. Flaherty, The Most Dangerous Branch, supra note 13, at 1771-72.
369. Flaherty, History Right?, supra note 13, at 2117. It is true, of course,
that under the Articles there was no separate executive branch at the national
level, but (as Bradley and Flaherty thoroughly misunderstand) this does not
mean that there were no executive powers exercised at the national level.
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"executive power." As we demonstrated, at the Federal Convention some delegates initially proposed granting the new President the executive powers previously vested in the Continental
Congress, and delegates plainly understood this to include foreign affairs powers. Bradley and Flaherty admit that the initial
Convention proposal would have given the President foreign affairs powers (which effectively concedes our two prior propositions).37 0 But they conclude that subsequent events show that
the Constitution did not concentrate all foreign affairs powers
in the President; for example, the final document gave important powers to other branches, while comments made during
the drafting and ratifying process confirm that the Founders
rejected the foreign affairs powers of the king as a model for the
foreign affairs powers of the President.
These well-accepted points do nothing to undermine the
Jeffersonian theory. The Framers objected to the king as a
model, and as a result rejected the initial proposal to vest all
executive powers in the President. The Framers believed that
many executive foreign affairs powers should be exercised, in
whole or part, by some body other than a chief magistrate-a
result they accomplished by making specific textual assignments of those powers. But that does not undermine the claim
that foreign affairs powers not specifically assigned to or shared
with other branches remained part of the general grant of executive power, consistent with the vocabulary of contemporary
political discourse. We have never argued that the President
enjoys all (or even most) foreign affairs powers, or that there
was complete "continuity" between the English king and the
Constitution's President.
Our final proposition is that reading Article II, Section l's
executive power to include a foreign affairs residual comports
with the way the Washington administration exercised foreign
affairs authority, and with the way its leading members explained their actions. Bradley and Flaherty devote almost half
of their article to the Washington administration, but fail to refute either claim. They agree that Washington exercised most
of the powers we say he did, but struggle to justify the exercise
of such powers by reference to "specific" powers in the Constitution's text. But they make no attempt to explain Washington's
exercise of key foreign affairs powers, such as the sole communication power, and justify others, like Washington's control of
370.
Bradley & Flaherty, supra note 7, at 592.
HeinOnline -- 89 Minn. L. Rev. 1686 2004-2005
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diplomacy, by an unconvincing recourse to penumbras, emanations, and other stretches of supposedly "specific" text. This latter tactic betrays the impossibility of their textual task, so
much so that they never seem convinced of their own efforts.
Finally, they never effectively dispute that Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, etc. relied on the residual theory, nor do they
identify a single leading speaker who denied the residual theory of foreign affairs (other than "Helvidius," whom they admit
is unpersuasive).
We do not say that we have proven beyond all doubt that
Article II, Section 1 vests the President with foreign affairs
powers (nor, certainly, that the Jeffersonian theory provides an
easy answer to all foreign affairs controversies). We remain
convinced, however, that the Jeffersonian theory is a sound,
historically supported reading of the Constitution's text that
provides an explanation for the puzzle of supposedly "missing"
foreign affairs powers and remains superior to any textual
reading of the Constitution's foreign affairs powers yet advanced.
HeinOnline -- 89 Minn. L. Rev. 1687 2004-2005
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