In another covenant case , the Michigan Supreme Court discounted efforts to use the Charter , saying " these pronouncements are merely indicative of a desirable social trend and an objective devoutly to be desired by all well-thinking peoples . " These words were quoted with approval by the Iowa Supreme Court in overturning a lower court decision that relied on the Charter , noting the Charter 's principles " do not have the force or effect of superseding our laws . " Historian Stephen Ambrose described the suspicions of Americans : " Southern leaders feared that the U.N. commitment to human rights would imperil segregation ; the American Medical Association feared it would bring about socialized medicine . " It was , the American Bar Association declared , " one of the greatest constitutional crises the country has ever faced . " Conservatives were worried that these treaties could be used to expand the power of the Federal government at the expense of the people and the states . In a speech to the American Bar Association 's regional meeting at Louisville , Kentucky on April 11 , 1952 , John Foster Dulles , an American delegate to the United Nations , said , " Treaties make international law and they also make domestic law . Under our Constitution , treaties become the Supreme Law of the Land . They are indeed more supreme than ordinary laws , for Congressional laws are invalid if they do not conform to the Constitution , whereas treaty laws can override the Constitution . " Dulles said the power to make treaties " is an extraordinary power liable to abuse . " Senator Everett Dirksen , a Republican of Illinois , declared , " we are in a new era of international organizations . They are grinding out treaties like so many eager beavers which will have effects on the rights of American citizens . " Eisenhower 's Attorney General Herbert Brownell admitted executive agreements " had sometimes been abused in the past . " Frank E. Holman wrote Secretary of State George Marshall in November 1948 regarding the dangers of the Human Rights Declaration , receiving the dismissive reply that the agreement was " merely declaratory in character " and had no legal effect . The conservative ABA called for a Constitutional amendment to address what they perceived to be a potential abuse of executive power . Holman described the threat : More or less coincident with the organization of the United Nations a '' new form '' of internationalism arose which undertook to enlarge the historical concept of international law and treaties to have them include and deal with the domestic affairs and internal laws of independent nations . Senator Bricker thought the " one world " movement advocated by those such as Wendell Willkie , Roosevelt 's Republican challenger in the 1940 election , would attempt to use treaties to undermine American liberties . Conservatives cited as evidence the statement of John P. Humphrey , the first director of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights : What the United Nations is trying to do is revolutionary in character . Human rights are largely a matter of the relationship between the State and individuals , and therefore a matter which has been traditionally regarded as being within the domestic jurisdiction of states . What is now being proposed is , in effect , the creation of some super national supervision of this relationship . Frank E. Holman testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Bricker Amendment was needed " to eliminate the risk that through ' treaty law ' our basic American rights may be bargained away in attempts to show our good neighborliness and to indicate to the rest of the world our spirit of brotherhood . " W.L. McGrath , president of the Williamson Heater Company in Cincinnati , Ohio , told the Senate that the International Labour Organization , to which he had been an American delegate , was " seeking to set itself up as a sort of international legislature to formulate socialistic laws which it hopes , by the vehicle of treaty ratification , can essentially be imposed upon most of the countries of the world . " President Eisenhower disagreed about the necessity of the Amendment , writing in his diary in April 1953 , " Senator Bricker wants to amend the Constitution . . . By and large the logic of the case is all against Senator Bricker , but he has gotten almost psychopathic on the subject , and a great many lawyers have taken his side of the case . This fact does not impress me very much . Lawyers have been trained to take either side of any case and make the most intelligent and impassioned defense of their adopted viewpoint . " Historians describe the Bricker Amendment as " the high water mark of the non-interventionist surge in the 1950s " and " the embodiment of the Old Guard 's rage at what it viewed as twenty years of presidential usurpation of Congress 's constitutional powers " which " grew out of sentiment both anti-Democrat and anti-presidential . " Bricker 's pressing the issue , wrote '' Time '' just before the climactic vote , was " a time-bomb threat to both G.O.P. unity and White House-Congressional accord . " Senator Bricker warned " the constitutional power of Congress to determine American foreign policy is at stake . " In the 82nd Congress , Senator Bricker introduced the first version of his amendment , S.J. Res . 102 , drafted by Bricker and his staff . The American Bar Association was still studying the issue of how to prevent an abuse of " treaty law " when Bricker introduced his resolution on July 17 , 1951 , without the ABA 's involvement , but the Senator wanted to begin immediate debate on an issue he considered vital . Bricker was not trying to reverse the Yalta Agreement , in contrast to the goals of some of his conservative colleagues ; he was worried most about what might be done by the United Nations or under an executive agreement . A second proposal , S.J. Res 130 , was introduced by Bricker on February 7 , 1952 , with fifty-eight co-sponsors , including every Republican except Eugene Millikin of Colorado
Yalta Agreement
Yalta Conference
Bricker Amendment