(5 of 5)
The Administration does not argue that the Bricker Amendment is totally pointless. It recognizes the same danger that worries Bricker and his supporters. But it contends that the present scope of the treaty-making power is necessary and that the nation has a safeguard in the requirement that treaties must be approved by the President and two-thirds of the Senators. As Secretary Dulles said in his testimony: "It takes quite an artist to amend the Constitution . . . The men who wrote it did a very good job."
*An arrangement the authors rejected in 1787, voting down a motion—the Bricker Amendment of its day—that no treaty would be binding "which is not ratified by law."