of contract provisions is required. In particular, no federal executive may anticipate specific provisions of any contract or may insist on one interpretation of a contract, even as a method of achieving an otherwise appropriate goal, such as providing for the common defense.
It is perfectly true that Article I prohibits states (and by extension subsidiary government entities within states) from impairing contractual obligations and from conducting independent foreign policy (O'Brien 598). In this case, we have a city that made and then unilaterally rescinded a contract with a foreign entity, thus blurring the distinction between what it was competent to do contractually on one hand and where the difference lies between civil contracts with foreign entities and civil contracts as foreign policy. And alas, the consequences of dispute between the parties were to be visited on the whole of the country (indeed, the earth) as a palpable military threat calling for competent defense. But the fact that the federal government has the power to compel lower gov
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