In one short, succinct statement Justice George Sutherland altered the relationship between Congress and the executive branch. “The President [operates] as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations,” he wrote in the United States Supreme Court’s decision of U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation<span>. Whereas the Constitution lays out distinct, delegated powers to Congress, such as the power to declare war and the power to ratify treaties, and to the executive, primarily the role of the president as Commander-in-Chief, Justice Sutherland’s statement altered the relationship between the two aforementioned branches. Suddenly, the executive branch had a legal precedent with which to become the leading force in foreign policy and upon which it could fall back on if actions are legally challenged.</span>
Neutralists in the American Revolution were people who did not want to partake in the American Revolution and held neutral opinions about the independence of the United States. This included people such as Quakers, whose religion forbade them from fighting, people like shopkeepers and tavern owners who might lose business due to war or some Native American tribes who chose to stay neutral.
