Binding upon the United States even when Congress has Refused the Legislation Necessary to put Them into full Force and Effect, or when it Has Abrogated Them by Subsequent Legislation, or when the Supreme Court Has Declared them Unconstitutional. It is a principle of international law that one Nation in its dealings with another Nation is not required to know, and, therefore, is not held to be bound by, the peculiar constitutional structure of that other Nation. It is required, indeed, to know what is the governmental organ through which treaties are to be ratified. But further than this it need not examine, for each State is conclusively presumed to be able to carry into full force and effect any international engagement which it, through its treaty-making power, may enter upon.

In Dana's edition of Wheaton's International Law, it is declared: "If a treaty requires the payment of money, or any other special act, which cannot be done without legislation, the treaty is still binding on the nation; and it is the duty of the nation to pass the necessary laws. If that duty is not performed, the result is a breach of the treaty by the nation, just as much as if the breach had been an affirmative act by any other department of the Government. Each nation is responsible for the right working of the internal system, by which it distributes its sovereign functions; and, as foreign nations dealing with it cannot be permitted to interfere with or control these, so they are not to be affected or concluded by them to their own injury."35

This principle the United States has not hesitated upon occasion to assert. Mr. Blaine, when Secretary of State, wrote to our minister to Hawaii, in 1881, with reference to a treaty which thai country had concluded with the United States, as follows: " I am not aware whether or not a treaty, according to the Hawaiian constitntion is, as with us, a supreme law of the land, upon the construction of which - the proper case occurring - everv citizen would hare the right to the judgment of the courts. But, even if it be so, and if the judicial department is entirely independent of the executive authority of the Hawaiian government, then the decision of the court would be the authorized interpretation of the Hawaiian government, and however binding upon that government would be none the less a violation of the treaty. In the event, therefore, that a judicial construction of the treaty should annul the privileges stipulated, and be carried into practical execution, this government would have no alternative and would be compelled to consider such action as the violation by the Hawaiian government of the express terms and conditions of the treaty, and, with whatever regret, would be forced to consider what course in reference to its own interests had become necessary upon the manifestation of such unfriendly feeling."

And in 1835 with reference to the refusal of the French Chamber of Deputies to make an appropriation called for by a treaty concluded between France and this country, Mr. Wheaton wrote: "Neither government [France nor the United States] has anything to do with the auxiliary legislative measures necessary, on the part of the other State, to give effect to the treaty. The nation is responsible to the government of the other nation for its non-execution, whether the failure to fulfil it proceeds from the omission of one or other of the departments of its government to perforin its duty in respect to it. The omission here is on the part of the legislature; but it might have been on the part of the judicial department - the curt of cassation might have refused to render some judgment necessary to give effect to the treaty. The King cannot compel the Chambers, neither can he compel the courts; but the nation is none the less responsible for the breach of faith thus arising out of the discordant action of the internal machinery of its constitution."36

35 Dana's Wheaton, § 543, note 250, citing 1 Kent, 165-6; Heffter, § 84; Vattel, fib. IV, c. 2, § 14; Halleck, 854.