Suchergebnisse

A major purpose of the Constitution was to place control of foreign relations firmly in the hands of the national Government. In 1788 James Madison wrote in The Federalist: "If we are to be one nation in any respect, it clearly ought to be in respect to other nations." Yet a recent article, 200 years later, reports approvingly that "more than 1000 U.S. state and local governments of all political stripes are participating in foreign affairs, and their numbers are expanding." Criticizing this development, another recent article comments: "The national interest demands that local interference in foreign and defense policy be curtailed before the federal government finds itself hamstrung by hundreds of would-be secretaries of state touting their own parochial agendas. … Foreign policy must be made in Washington and not in the citizens' backyards." My intent here is briefly to describe the current situation, and to indicate some of the legal and policy factors relevant to assessing the propriety of state and local government involvement in foreign affairs.