Word: bricker
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...most momentous constitutional issue since President Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court," said the Washington Post, and argued that the Bricker Amendment should be defeated to protect the Union from dire peril...
This week the U.S., quietly and in measured tones, is in the midst of a constitutional great debate. Ohio's junior Senator, Republican John William Bricker, touched it off by proposing a constitutional amendment. Its main aim: to restrict the making of U.S. domestic law by international treaty. Earnest Lawyer Bricker argues that his amendment would plug "a dangerous constitutional loophole." Members of President Eisenhower's Cabinet argue that it would "damage [the] balance of power" between Congress and the President and "completely hamstring" the conduct of foreign relations, and Wisconsin's Senator Alexander Wiley calls...
...Deliberate Step. Advocates of the Bricker Resolution argue that such broad interpretations of the treaty power as Missouri v. Holland go beyond what the Constitution's authors intended-and can do untold damage in fields far more important than bird legislation. But history indicates that the authors of the Constitution knew what they were doing and had good reasons for doing it. The Articles of Confederation had foundered largely because the national government had no power to make the states observe treaties. The 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain provided that property rights of Britons and loyalists would...
...year later, testifying against the Bricker Amendment, Secretary Dulles said that though the treaty power was indeed "liable to abuse," it had not in fact been abused. The U.S. has made some unwise arrangements with foreign countries, but the Government's power to make domestic law by treaty has not led to grave oppression or any obvious violations of the Bill of Rights...
What alarms Bricker & Co. is the possibility that, in this era of statism and the reform-by-treaty urge, the U.S. might enter into treaties that sooner or later could be used to enlarge the power of the Federal Government or even to dilute or undermine the Bill of Rights. Says Illinois' Senator Everett Dirksen, a red-hot supporter of the Bricker Amendment: "We are in a new era of international organizations. They are grinding out treaties like so many eager beavers which will have effect on the rights of American citizens...