I'm trying to find out about the United States Senate's procedures for
voting and passing a certain type of bill.  In the hypothetical
situation that a bill allocating a certain amount of money to purchase
land (such as the US purchase of Alaska for 7 million dollars in
1867), what is the process?  I imagine the senate must ratify a treaty
with whichever foreign power they're buying the land from.  Can
someone please illustrate the entire process?  How is the actual vote
carried out?

Hi syrith-ga,

thank you for asking this very interesting question. Especially the
research on the acquisition of Alaska was a lot of fun and I came up
with many interesting resources.
In general, the process of purchasing land from a foreign power (such
as Alaska from Russia in 1867) requires an agreement between the US on
the one side and the other foreign country on the other. This is done
by means of a treaty. According to the Vienna Convention On The Law of
Treaties, said term is defined as follows: "An international agreement
concluded between States in written form and governed by international
law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related
instruments and whatever its particular designation." [1]
In the United States, authority to set up treaties comes from the
Constitution. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 states that the
President "...…shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of
the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators
present concur." [2]. So an important power in the treaty making
process is indeed the Senate as you already suspected. The overall
process of treaty making can be subdivided into several steps [3]:

- Negotiation between the parties
- Signing (the act of signing does not necessarily bind the parties
yet)
- Ratification
- Exchange of the instruments of ratification
- Publication

This site gives further valuable information on the nature of treaties
[3]:

"The treaty making power is vested solely with the federal government
(U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 1), and a treaty to which the U.S. is a
party is considered the supreme law of the land. (U.S. Const. art. VI,
cl. 2.).

As supreme law of the land, treaties are binding on each state, and
will supersede any inconsistent state legislation.

Although the Constitution grants the President the power to enter into
treaties, it does not explain what constitutes a treaty. Because the
Constitution requires that both the President and Senate be involved
in the treaty-making process, U.S. courts have developed a narrow
definition of the term "treaty" - the generally accepted definition is
any formal instrument which creates reciprocal rights and obligations
between nation-states. It is now well settled under U.S. law that the
term "treaty" applies only to those international agreements
(including protocols, accords, pacts, etc.) entered into by the
federal government which are ratified by the President after receiving
the advice and consent of the Senate."

Another form of international agreement would be a so-called
"executive agreement":

"However, the President can also enter the U.S. into certain types of
international agreements, known as executive agreements. Treaties and
U.S. executive agreements have the same effect in international law,
but executive agreements inconsistent with a federal statute are not
valid as against the statute. In the U.S., there are more executive
agreements than "treaties" which have gone through the full, formal
ratification process." [3]

Ssince both terms -- agreement and treaty -- are used across various
sources, I'm not quite sure whether the 1867 treaty should rather
referred to as an agreement. However, the practical consequences seem
to merely differ slightly between the two forms.

Now let's apply what we have learned to the Alaska purchase:
Negotiation and signing of the treaty took place between Secretary of
State William H. Seward and Baron Edouard Stoeckl, the Russian
Minister to the United States. Since the acquisition of Alaska was not
a very popular move at that time -- it was then referred to as
"Seward's folly", Alaska itself as "Seward's icebox"  -- he had a hard
time convincing the senate of the actual need of this treaty: it
passed  by just one vote.

The full text treaty can be accessed here:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/russia/treatywi.htm

However, it should take 92 more years until Alaska finally and
officially became the 49th state of the Union. A very nice article on
Alaska statehood can be found at this URL:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/BARTLETT/49state.html

The facsimile of the admission of Alaska to the Union can also be
accessed online:

http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/alaska_migration/statehood.html

Thanks again for such an interesting piece of question. I hope my
answer was satisfactory to you.

Have a good day,
searchbot-ga

Quotes/Sources:

[1] http://www.fletcher.tufts.edu/multi/texts/BH538.txt 
[2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articleii.html#section2
[3] http://www.infoctr.edu/tutorial/international/About_Treaties.htm

---

Clarification of Answer by searchbot-ga on 16 Jun 2002 07:53 PDT

I forgot to mention this interesting resource. It discusses the actual
dimension of the area referred to in the 1867 Russia-US treaty.

http://inform.sir.edu/news/2001/story2.htm
(Scroll down to the english version, there is a passage on the history
of Alaska about halfway down the whole page)

---

Clarification of Answer by searchbot-ga on 16 Jun 2002 08:52 PDT

And as if this wasn't enough, I also forgot to mention my search
strategy. Here it comes. Sorry about that.

Google search on:
"treaty making process" president
ratification treaties usa
+what +is agreement
seward 1867 senate process alaska

Tremendous answer.  Detailed, informative, and even (much to my
surprise) enthusiastic!  This was very helpful.

This link should answer all your questions :

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/enactment/enactlawtoc.html is about law
enactment in the senate.

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.toc.html is about law enactment in
the house.

You can follow the life of bills which have been passed or are in the
process of being passed at http://thomas.loc.gov/

Hope this helps.

CP

This is how a vote takes place in the Senate:

First, the clerk will read off the names of the 100 senators in
alphabetical order ("Mr. Adams, Mr. Atkinson, etc."), stopping after
each one for an answer. If the senator is in the room, he will answer
"Aye" or "Nay." The clerk will then repeat the name of the senator and
say either "aye" or "nay."

Usually, most senators are not in the chamber when the voting starts,
so there is time allowed (around 15 minutes I think) for senators to
show up after the clerk finishes the roll call. If a senator wants to
vote after the roll call, he makes his intentions known by approaching
the clerk's desk and raising his hand. The clerk then says the
senator's name ("Mr. Smith"). The senator then can say "Aye" or "Nay"
or give a thumbs up or down. The clerk repeats the senator's name and
says "aye" or "nay," as in "Mr. Smith, nay."

When they're done voting, the clerk will announce the total of ayes
and nays and what the result means (for example, "the motion passes").

Like just about everything else in the Senate, voting procedure is
long and boring.