Written By:
Brian Duignan
Source: www.britannica.com
he emoluments clause, also called the foreign emoluments clause, is a provision of the U.S. Constitution
(Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8) that generally prohibits federal
officeholders from receiving any gift, payment, or other thing of value
from a foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives. The clause provides that:No
Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person
holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the
Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or
Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
The
Constitution also contains a “domestic emoluments clause” (Article II,
Section 1, Paragraph 7), which prohibits the president from receiving
any “Emolument” from the federal government or the states beyond “a
Compensation” for his “Services” as chief executive.
The
plain purpose of the foreign emoluments clause was to ensure that the
country’s leaders would not be improperly influenced, even
unconsciously, through gift giving, then a common and generally corrupt
practice among European rulers and diplomats. An early version
of the clause, modeled on a rule adopted by the Dutch Republic in 1651
that forbade its foreign ministers from receiving “any presents,
directly or indirectly, in any manner or way whatever,” was incorporated
into the Articles of Confederation (1781) as Article VI, Paragraph I: Nor
shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United
States, or any of them, accept any present, emolument, office or title
of any kind whatever from any King, Prince or foreign State; nor shall
the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title
of nobility.
All but the prohibition of titles of nobility
was dropped from the initial draft of the Constitution but eventually
restored at the request of Charles Pinckney, who argued at the Constitutional Convention
for “the necessity of preserving foreign Ministers & other officers
of the U.S. independent of foreign influence.” The final text of the
clause included a provision that permitted acceptance of foreign gifts
with the explicit approval of Congress, perhaps reflecting the awkward experience of Benjamin Franklin, who as American minister to France had been presented with a bejeweled snuff box by Louis XVI and, not wishing to offend the king, asked Congress for permission to keep it (permission was granted).
Although
there has been some debate regarding the exact meaning and scope of the
foreign emoluments clause, nearly all scholars agree that it applies
broadly to all federal officeholders, appointed or elected, up to and
including the president.
That interpretation is supported by the historical record, such as it
is, of the Constitution’s drafting as well as by the past practice of
presidential administrations and Congresses. Thus Edmund Jennings Randolph,
one of the Framers, remarked at the Virginia ratifying convention that
the clause protected against the danger of “the President receiving
Emoluments from foreign powers,” even asserting that a president who
violates the clause “may be impeached.” There was no recorded dissent
from Randolph’s view. From at least the early 19th century, presidents
who were offered gifts by foreign states routinely requested Congress’s
permission to accept them, and foreign rulers were politely informed
(sometimes by the president himself) of the constitutional restriction
regarding gifts. (The sole exception seems to have been George Washington, who accepted a print from the French ambassador without consulting Congress.)
The
foreign emoluments clause also broadly encompasses any kind of profit,
benefit, advantage, or service, not merely gifts of money or valuable
objects. Thus, it would prohibit a federal officeholder from
receiving special consideration in business transactions with a foreign
state (or with a corporation owned or managed by a foreign state) that
gave the officeholder a competitive advantage over other businesses.
Arguably, as the legal scholar Laurence Tribe and others have suggested,
the clause would forbid even competitively fair transactions with
foreign states, because the profit accruing to the officeholder would
fall within the ordinary meaning of “emolument,” and because such
arrangements would threaten exactly the kind of improper influence that
the clause was intended to prevent.
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