tions, or produce immediate inconveniences, perhaps danger and mischief, in relation to other powers. The necessity of such caution and secrecy was one cogent reason for vesting the power of making treaties in the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, the principle on which that body was formed confining it to a small number of members. To admit, then, a right in the House of Representatives to demand and to have as a matter of course all the papers respecting a negotiation with a foreign power would be to establish a dangerous precedent.

It does not occur that the inspection of the papers asked for can be relative to any purpose under the cognizance of the House of Representatives, except that of an impeachment, which the resolution has not expressed. I repeat that I have no disposition to withhold any information which the duty of my station will permit or the public good shall require to be disclosed; and, in fact, all the papers affecting the negotiation with Great Britain were laid before the Senate when the treaty itself was communicated for their consideration and advice.

The course which the debate has taken on the resolution of the House leads to some observations on the mode of making treaties under the Constitution of the United States.

Having been a member of the General Convention, and knowing the principles on which the Constitution was formed, I have ever entertained but one opinion on this subject; and from the first establishment of the Government to this moment my conduct has exemplified that opinionthat the power of making treaties is exclusively vested in the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and that every treaty so made and promulgated thenceforward became the law of the land. It is thus that the treaty-making power has been understood by foreign nations, and in all the treaties made with them we have declared and they have believed that, when ratified by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, they became obligatory. In this construction of the Constitution every House of Representatives has heretofore acquiesced, and until the present time not a doubt or suspicion has appeared, to my knowledge, that this construction was not the true one. Nay, they have more than acquiesced; for till now, without controverting the obligation of such treaties, they have made all the requisite provisions for carrying them into effect.

There is also reason to believe that this construction agrees with the opinions entertained by the State conventions when they were deliberating on the Constitution, especially by those who objected to it because there was not required in commercial treaties the consent of two-thirds of the whole number of the members of the Senate instead of two-thirds of the Senators present, and because in treaties respecting territorial and certain other rights and claims the concurrence of three-fourths of the whole number of the members of both Houses, respectively, was not made necessary.

It is a fact declared by the General Convention and universally understood that the Constitution of the United States was the result of a spirit of amity and mutual concession; and it is well known that under this influence the smaller States were admitted to an equal representation in the Senate with the larger States, and that this branch of the Government was invested with great powers, for on the equal participation of those powers the sovereignty and political safety of the smaller States were deemed essentially to depend.

If other proofs than these and the plain letter of the Constitution itself be necessary to ascertain the point under consideration, they may be found in the journals of the General Convention, which I have deposited in the office of the Department of State. In those journals it will appear that a proposition was made "that no treaty should be binding on the United States which was not ratified by a law," and that the proposition was explicitly rejected.

As, therefore, it is perfectly clear to my understanding that the assent of the House of Representatives is not necessary to the validity of a treaty; as the treaty with Great Britain exhibits in itself all the objects requiring legislative provision, and on these the papers called for can throw no light, and as it is essential to the due administration of the Government that the boundaries fixed by the Constitution between the different departments should be preserved, a just regard to the Constitution and to the duty of my office, under all the circumstances of this case, forbids a compliance with your request.

GO WASHINGTON.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

UNITED STATES, March 31, 1796.

The treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and Great Britain requiring that commissioners should be appointed to fix certain boundaries between the territories of the contracting parties, and to ascertain the losses and damages represented to have been sustained by their respective citizens and subjects, as set forth in the fifth, sixth, and seventh articles of the treaty, in order to carry those articles into execution I nominate as commissioners on the part of the United States:

For the purpose mentioned in the fifth article, Henry Knox, of Massachusetts;

For the purpose mentioned in the sixth article, Thomas Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania, and James Innes, of Virginia; and

For the purposes mentioned in the seventh article, Christopher Gore, of Massachusetts, and William Pinckney, of Maryland.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, April 8, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

By an act of Congress passed on the 26th of May, 1790, it was declared that the inhabitants of the territory of the United States south of the river Ohio should enjoy all the privileges, benefits, and advantages set forth in the ordinance of Congress for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, and that the government of the said territory south of the Ohio should be similar to that which was then exercised in the territory northwest of the Ohio, except so far as was otherwise provided in the conditions expressed in an act of Congress passed the 2d of April, 1790, entitled "An act to accept a cession of the claims of the State of North Carolina to a certain district of western territory."

Among the privileges, benefits, and advantages thus secured to the inhabitants of the territory south of the river Ohio appear to be the right of forming a permanent constitution and State government, and of admission as a State, by its Delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, when it should have therein 60,000 free inhabitants; provided the constitution and government so to be formed should be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in the articles of the said ordinance.

As proofs of the several requisites to entitle the territory south of the river Ohio to be admitted as a State into the Union, Governor Blount has transmitted a return of the enumeration of its inhabitants and a printed copy of the constitution and form of government on which they have agreed, which, with his letters accompanying the same, are herewith laid before Congress.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, April 28, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

Herewith I lay before you a letter from the Attorney-General of the United States, relative to compensation to the attorneys of the United States in the several districts, which is recommended to your consideration.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, May 2, 1796.

Some time last year Jeremiah Wadsworth was authorized to hold a treaty with the Cohnawaga Indians, styling themselves the Seven Nations of Canada, to enable the State of New York to extinguish, by purchase, a claim which the said Indians had set up to a parcel of land lying within that State. The negotiation having issued without effecting its object,

and the State of New York having requested a renewal of the negotiation, and the Indians having come forward with an application on the same subject, I now nominate Jeremiah Wadsworth to be a commissioner to hold a treaty with the Cohnawaga Indians, styling themselves the Seven Nations of Canada, for the purpose of enabling the State of New York to extinguish the aforesaid claim.

GO WASHINGTON.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

UNITED STATES, May 5, 1796.

I lay before you, for your consideration and advice, an explanatory article proposed to be added to the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and Great Britain, together with a copy of the full power to the Secretary of State to negotiate the same.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, May 25, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

The measures now in operation for taking possession of the posts of Detroit and Michilimackinac render it proper that provision should be made for extending to these places and any others alike circumstanced the civil authority of the Northwestern Territory. To do this will require an expense to defray which the ordinary salaries of the governor and secretary of that Territory appear to be incompetent.

The forming of a new county, or new counties, and the appointment of the various officers, which the just exercise of government must require, will oblige the governor and secretary to visit those places, and to spend considerable time in making the arrangements necessary for introducing and establishing the Government of the United States. Congress will consider what provision will in this case be proper.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, May 28, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

The extraordinary expenses to be incurred in the present year in supporting our foreign intercourse I find will require a provision beyond the ordinary appropriation and the additional $20,000 already granted.

I have directed an estimate to be made, which is sent herewith, and will exhibit the deficiency for which an appropriation appears to be

necessary.

GO WASHINGTON.

EIGHTH ANNUAL ADDRESS.

UNITED STATES, December 7, 1796.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

In recurring to the internal situation of our country since I had last the pleasure to address you, I find ample reason for a renewed expression of that gratitude to the Ruler of the Universe which a continued series of prosperity has so often and so justly called forth.

The acts of the last session which required special arrangements have been as far as circumstances would admit carried into operation.

Measures calculated to insure a continuance of the friendship of the Indians and to preserve peace along the extent of our interior frontier have been digested and adopted. In the framing of these care has been taken to guard on the one hand our advanced settlements from the predatory incursions of those unruly individuals who can not be restrained by their tribes, and on the other hand to protect the rights secured to the Indians by treaty-to draw them nearer to the civilized state and inspire them with correct conceptions of the power as well as justice of the Government.

The meeting of the deputies from the Creek Nation at Colerain, in the State of Georgia, which had for a principal object the purchase of a parcel of their land by that State, broke up without its being accomplished, the nation having previous to their departure instructed them against making any sale. The occasion, however, has been improved to confirm by a new treaty with the Creeks their preexisting engagements with the United States, and to obtain their consent to the establishment of trading houses and military posts within their boundary, by means of which their friendship and the general peace may be more effectually secured.

The period during the late session at which the appropriation was passed for carrying into effect the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and His Britannic Majesty necessarily procrastinated the reception of the posts stipulated to be delivered beyond the date assigned for that event. As soon, however, as the Governor-General of Canada could be addressed with propriety on the subject, arrangements were cordially and promptly concluded for their evacuation, and the United States took possession of the principal of them, comprehending Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac, and Fort Miami, where such repairs and additions have been ordered to be made as appeared indispensable.

The commissioners appointed on the part of the United States and of Great Britain to determine which is the river St. Croix mentioned in the treaty of peace of 1783, agreed in the choice of Egbert Benson, esq., of New York, for the third commissioner. The whole met at St. Andrews, in Passamaquoddy Bay, in the beginning of October, and directed surveys