Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/373

 CH. XXXVII.] confiding it to the collected wisdom of the national councils. It requires one party only to declare war; but it requires the co-operation and consent of both belligerents to make peace. No negotiations are necessary in the former case; in the latter, they are indispensable. Every reason, therefore, for entrusting the treaty-making power to the president and senate in common negotiations, applies a fortiori to a treaty of peace. Indeed, peace is so important to the welfare of a republic, and so suited to all its truest interests, as well as to its liberties, that it can scarcely be made too facile. While, on the other hand, war is at all times so great an evil, that it can scarcely be made too difficult. The power to make peace can never be unsafe for the nation in the hands of the president and two thirds of the senate. The power to prevent it, may not be without hazard in the hands of the house of representatives, who may be too much under the control of popular excitement, or legislative rivalry, to act at all times with the same degree of impartiality and caution. In the convention, a proposition to. except treaties of peace from the treaty-making power was, at one time, inserted, but was afterwards deliberately abandoned.

§ 1513. In regard to the objection, that the arrangement is a violation of the fundamental rule, that the legislative and executive departments ought to be kept separate; it might be sufficient to advert to the considerations stated in another place, which show, that the true sense of the rule does not require a total separation. But, in truth, the nature of the power of making treaties indicates a peculiar propriety in the Union of the executive and the senate in the exercise of it.