Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 28, 2006



The Bricker Amendment is the collective name of a series of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution considered by the United States Senate in the 1950s. Named for their sponsor, Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio, the best-known version of the Bricker Amendment declared that no treaty could be made by the United States that conflicted with the Constitution, was self-executing without the passage of separate enabling legislation through Congress, or which granted Congress legislative powers beyond those specified in the Constitution. It also limited the president's power to enter into executive agreements with foreign powers. Bricker's proposal attracted broad bipartisan support across the ideological spectrum and was a focal point of intra-party conflict between the Eisenhower Administration and the Old Right faction of conservative Republican senators. Despite the initial support, the Bricker Amendment was blocked through the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and failed in the Senate by a single vote in 1954. Three years later, the United States Supreme Court explicitly ruled in Reid v. Covert that the Bill of Rights cannot be abrogated by agreements with foreign powers. (more...)

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