Foreign Affairs And the Constitution in the Age of Fighting Sail

Setting his examination of the Neutrality Crisis of 1793 against the fiery backdrop of marauding French privateers, the French foreign minister's diplomatic fiasco, and pro-French rallies in the port of Charleston, South Carolina, William R. Casto brings to life the first test of President George Washington's administration to establish a national foreign policy and to implement the separation-of-powers principles of the U.S. Constitution. Casto's "Foreign Affairs and the Constitution in the Age of Fighting Sail" recounts the efforts of the French revolutionary republic to obtain support from the United States in its war with Great Britain. This situation forced Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and other founding fathers to wrestle for the first time with many of the problems inherent in the Constitution's allocation of powers between states and nation and among the three branches of government. Casto argues that the insights of the nation's founders into about the Constitution and international affairs are as valuable and instructive today as they were in 1793. Concentrating on the legal issues generated by the French maritime campaign - especially those rooted in constitutional debate - Casto illumines the continuing contest between Hamilton and Jefferson, two men who personified the conflict over the definition of neutrality rights. Casto offers close readings of Hamilton's "Pacificus" and Madison's "Helvidius" papers and of the Supreme Court's legendary refusal to advise the president. Bridging legal, political, and diplomatic history, Casto maps the rough processes by which the founders moved from abstract theorizing to an implementation of the Constitution in the context of specific and highly controversial international incidents.