The 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.