The history of how the federal judiciary shaped American sovereignty has long been hidden, obscured by two often-told stories about the courts and the nation. One tells us that judges historically have ceded authority to the president in foreign affairs, and therefore have had little influence on the United States’ international relations. The other asserts that the Marshall Court’s constitutional rulings laid the foundation for federal sovereignty under the Constitution. Both of these accounts have elements of truth, but only because of developments a century later. The claim that Marshall’s constitutional decisions shaped the nation projects backward into the past an importance those rulings did not have when they were made. And the notion that the courts have historically had little to do with foreign affairs ignores that early judges were central participants in a cooperative effort among the three branches of government to secure the United States’ place in the world. It is that legacy of judicial nation-building, rather than the stories we have inherited, that can help us think about the courts’ role today.

This chapter recapitulates the dual institutional framework and the empirical findings of this book. It then discusses how the findings contribute to ongoing policy and theoretical debates.

Australian relations with the United States were broadly peripheral in 1939. Commercial contacts were very old, dating to the beginnings of Australian settlement when Thomas Patrickson put in to Port Jackson with the Philadelphia in 1792. Yet the expansion of Australian-American trade had been gradual, and in 1939 the United States ranked only as Australia’s sixth customer, although substantial American imports made her an important source of supply. Cultural contacts, except for the films, were relatively few, and only a handful of Australians attempted post-graduate work at American universities: the main stream of students was directed towards Britain, following the well-trodden paths of Australian senior academics. Press links were primarily with London: Reuters and Australian Associated Press supplied by far the greatest volume of news, even of the Pacific and North America. American periodicals trickled through by sea mail on direct subscription. Direct cable services and information centres in New York, Chicago and San Francisco were still at the infant stage.

Explains that term “civil officers” impeachable under the constitution was commonly thought to include senators until the Senate decided otherwise in 1798 case of Senator William Blount. Inferior executive branch appointees of the President have always been impeachable, but only one such official, Secretary of War William Belknap, whose case is detailed here, has been. Also addresses impeachment of former officers.

The PRC’s foreign affairs power had, briefly, been described in the previous chapter, together with the power in the realm of defence. These powers impose together important and at times anxious limitations on Hong Kong’s autonomy, not just on Hong Kong’s external affairs and foreign treaty relations but also on the judicial function of the courts. In the ‘Twelve Points’ which became the Joint Declaration, the sixth was that Hong Kong will manage its own affairs except in defence and foreign affairs. That qualification is often forgotten or dismissed, but it cannot be so easily brushed aside.

The Court dealt with the relation between the president and administrative agencies in several cases. It endorsed the Progressive view that agencies had to be substantially independent of the president by limiting the president’s power to remove agency members, but applied the nonfdelegatin doctrine generously in upholding a broad delegation in the field of foreign affairs and in doing the same in connection wh legal challenges to FDR’s recognition of the Soviet Union.

Solicitation of foreign interference in an election represents a betrayal of public trust because it threatens to undermine the people’s right of self-determination – a foundational norm of our constitutional order. Section 1 of the chapter focuses on candidate Trump’s solicitation of Russian email hacking during his speech in Florida in July of 2016 – a speech that set the tone for much of what was to come during the Trump presidency. Likewise, Section 2 focuses on an even more daring solicitation: President Trump’s solicitation of interference from Ukraine during a call with its President, Volodymyr Zelensky. Section 3 looks at the legal status of the domestic norm against soliciting foreign interference. This chapter argues that, for the removal of all doubt, Congress should pass a new statute criminalizing the solicitation of foreign involvement in elections. Section 4 responds to the argument that such a statute could not be applied against the President because doing so would conflict with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations. Finally, Section 5 examines the ultimate remedy of impeachment as a tool for sanctioning a President who solicits foreign involvement in an election.