Select Original Dialogues (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN 1919-1920. II THE CONSTITUTIONAL DECISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE OCTOBER TERM, 1919 EDWARD S. CORWIN Princeton University IV. THE TREATY-MAKING POWER From the historical point of view no more interesting case was decided last term than that of Missouri v. Holland,43 in which a bill in equity brought by the state of Missouri to prevent a game warden of the United States from attempting to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918,44 and the regulations made by the secretary of agriculture in pursuance of this act was finally dismissed, Justices Van Devanter and Pitney dissenting without opinion. The -objectors to the statute and the underlying treaty based their argument upon the Tenth Amendment,45 supplemented by the proposition that the control of migratory birds within their respective limits is a power reserved to the states,48 and from these premises they proceeded to draw the conclusion that "what an act of Congress could not do unaided, in derogation of the powers reserved to the states, a treaty cannot do." But, Justice Holmes answers in his opinion for the 252 U. S. 416. 44 The act gives effect to the Treaty of August 16, 1916, between the United States and Great Britain, which pledges this government and the Canadian government reciprocally to protect certain game birds making seasonal migrations from the United States into Canada and vice versa. Earlier than this Congress had, by the Act of March 4, 1913, attempted to extend the protection of the national government over migratory game birds, but the act had been held void by a state and one or two federal courts, passing muster, however, in another. It was before the Supreme Court in Cary v. So. Dak., 250 U. S. 118, but for construction...