Definition
A commission of treaty with foreign princes refers to the formal authority granted to ambassadors, ministers, or other diplomatic agents to negotiate and conclude leagues, alliances, and arrangements between sovereign states or kingdoms. The term encompasses both the instrument of authorization itself and the act of entering into such agreements on behalf of a sovereign or state. In practice, a diplomat acting under such a commission was empowered to bind the principal sovereign to mutual obligations covering matters such as trade, peace, defense, or territorial arrangement.
The phrase "foreign princes" in historical usage denotes foreign sovereign powers generally — not merely monarchs — and the term was used broadly to cover any recognized independent state or ruling authority with which formal diplomatic arrangements could be made.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears primarily in older legal literature and historical sources dealing with the law of nations, diplomatic law, and the constitutional allocation of treaty-making power. Researchers should be aware of several navigational considerations:
First, the term is archaic. Modern sources do not use "commission of treaty with foreign princes" as a term of art. It has been absorbed into the broader vocabulary of treaty power, executive agreements, and diplomatic authority. Searching historical corpus materials using this phrase will surface sources from roughly the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries; post-1900 materials will typically use successor terminology.
Second, the word "commission" here does not refer to a governmental agency, a fee-based compensation arrangement, or a legislative commission — meanings that dominate modern usage and that will produce significant noise in keyword searches across a mixed-era corpus.
Third, the historical sources in the Law Mind corpus that use this phrase are drawing heavily on the law of nations tradition (Vattel, Grotius, Pufendorf) and on Wharton's digest of international law. Researchers following citations from Black's or Rapalje & Lawrence will find that the underlying authority is Wharton's A Digest of the International Law of the United States, a real and important nineteenth-century treatise. This is the appropriate next source to consult for elaboration on the concept.
Fourth, this term connects directly to constitutional debates in American law about the scope of the President's treaty-making power under Article II and the distinction between formal treaties (requiring Senate consent) and executive agreements. The historical literature does not always sharply distinguish these categories, which can create interpretive traps when reading older sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Rapalje & Lawrence give virtually identical definitions, both attributing the formulation to Wharton. The definitions are brief and functional: leagues and arrangements made by ambassadors and ministers for the mutual advantage of allied kingdoms. Neither source elaborates on the constitutional mechanics of authorization, the limits of a commissioner's authority to bind a sovereign, or the distinction between preliminary negotiations and concluded treaties.
This brevity reflects the period's assumption that readers would be familiar with the law of nations framework underlying diplomatic authority. What the historical dictionaries do not address — and what researchers should seek elsewhere — is the question of when a commission was sufficient to bind a state internationally, and when ratification by the home sovereign was additionally required. That doctrine developed substantially in international law treatises outside the dictionary tradition.
Both sources use "foreign princes" as a conventional term of art drawn from earlier legal writing. The phrasing was standard in English legal and diplomatic literature and carried no implication that the arrangement was limited to monarchical governments. Republican and constitutional states were equally covered.
Jurisdictional Note
In American constitutional law, the power to commission diplomatic agents and conclude treaties is vested in the federal government. State governments are constitutionally prohibited from entering into treaties, alliances, or confederations. The scope of executive power to make binding international arrangements without Senate approval — through executive agreements rather than formal treaties — has been a significant area of constitutional development that this historical terminology predates.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia: The Treaty Power and Congressional-Executive Agreements (constitutional_23)
The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia: Tax Treaties Individual Application (tax_193)