Treaties, Executive Agreements, and the Panama Joint Resolution of 1943

A recent Congressional debate appears to have been one of the opening skirmishes on the question of whether the postwar commitments of the United States should be accepted by treaty or by unfettered executive discretion. On August 13, 1942, President Roosevelt transmitted to Congress a request for the passage of an enclosed draft joint resolution ostensibly “authorizing the execution of certain obligations under the treaties of 1903 and 1936 with Panama, and other commitments.” The President's message, after referring to the “thoroughly coöperative” attitude of the Panamanian Government in the present crisis and stating that “on March 5, 1941, the President of the Republic of Panama issued a manifesto making available for use by the United States certain defense sites in the territory of that Republic,” added that the time had come to make certain concessions long desired by the Republic of Panama. “Accordingly,” continued the message, “I deem it advisable that this Government convey to Panama the water and sewerage systems in the cities of Panama and Colon; that it relinquish its extensive real-estate holdings in the cities of Colon and Panama, so far as these holdings are not essential to the operation and protection of the Canal; and that it liquidate the credit of two and a half million dollars made available to the Republic of Panama by the Export-Import Bank for the construction of Panama's share of the Chorrera-Rio Hato Highway, a road essential to our defense requirements and constructed in accordance with standards made essential by these requirements.”