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The Bricker-Dirksen Amendment

The President has referred the new (Dirksen version) Bricker Amendment to his lawyers — a decision that probably precludes congressional efforts this year to limit the treaty power. For those who are anxious to put effective limitations on the treaty power, this is a lucky break. The new Dirksen version of the amendment is evidently ambiguous enough to disturb Mr. Eisenhower’s advisors in the executive branch; but they are not likely to balk forever. For the original Bricker language is sufficiently emasculated to make the amendment a thoroughly undependable bulwark against the evils the Bricker school has been warning of for these many years. The danger here is obvious: if an ineffective amendment is passed, the advocates of treaty-power limitation will have lost their talking point; and will thus be immobilized for as long as it takes the courts to prove, in two or three solid cases, that they failed to accomplish their objective.

LB

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L. Brent Bozell Jr.

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The Bricker-Dirksen Amendment

The President has referred the new (Dirksen version) Bricker Amendment to his lawyers — a decision that probably precludes congressional efforts this year to limit the treaty power. For those who are anxious to put effective limitations on the treaty power, this is a lucky break. The new Dirksen version of the amendment is evidently ambiguous enough to disturb Mr. Eisenhower’s advisors in the executive branch; but they are not likely to balk forever. For the original Bricker language is sufficiently emasculated to make the amendment a thoroughly undependable bulwark against the evils the Bricker school has been warning of for these many years. The danger here is obvious: if an ineffective amendment is passed, the advocates of treaty-power limitation will have lost their talking point; and will thus be immobilized for as long as it takes the courts to prove, in two or three solid cases, that they failed to accomplish their objective.