“The President may do anything the Constitution does not say he may not do.”

—- misattributed to Theodore Roosevelt

       Commander-in-Chief Theodore “Robber Baron” Roosevelt invokes the “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, agreeing with the Dominican Republic to collect that nation’s customs duties, and pay off the DR’s European creditors.  The treaty goes into effect in eleven days—not enough time for the Senate to deliberate before a ratification vote.  Roosevelt gets around the Constitution’s ratification requirement by inventing an extra-constitutional device he calls an “executive agreement,” which, because it is not mentioned in the Constitution, does not have to be ratified by the Senate.

       Postscript: After he left office, Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography, “I went ahead and administered the proposed treaty anyhow, considering it as a simple agreement on the part of the Executive which could be converted into a treaty whenever the Senate acted.”

       [added 5/29/2022]