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Manuscript Collections - Bricker Amendment Collection
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BRICKER AMENDMENT COLLECTION, 1952-1956 HISTORICAL NOTE The Bricker Amendment is the name of a series of proposed amendments to the Constitution considered by the Senate in the 1950s designed to limit the scope and ratification of treaties and executive agreements entered into by the United States. They are named for their sponsor, Republican Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio. Although Bricker first introduced an amendment in 1951, the best known version was considered by the Senate in 1953–1954. It declared that no treaty could be made by the United States that conflicted with the Constitution, would not require passage of enabling legislation through Congress, and limited the president's power to enter into executive agreements with foreign powers. Bricker's proposal was a source of conflict between the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Old Right faction of conservative Republican senators. The Bricker Amendment was blocked by the intervention of Eisenhower and failed in the Senate by one vote in 1954. Three years later the Supreme Court ruled in Reid v. Covert that the Bill of Rights cannot be abrogated by agreements with foreign powers and that such agreements cannot extend the powers of Congress beyond those permitted by the Constitution. SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE The Bricker Amendment Collection contains reports, memoranda, pamphlets, speeches, hearings, notes, statements, and clippings regarding the public debate on the amendment. FOLDER LIST Box Contents 1 Congressional Record Account of the Bricker Amendment – Indexed, 1953‑Feb 1954 2 Notes – Proposed Constitutional Amendment, 1952‑1955 3 Statements and Speeches A – H (2 vols, bound) 4 Statements and Speeches I – Z (bound)
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