tions equivalent to a declaration of war we are bound to consider as a legislative act also. Thus then, although the president is invested with the executive power, and although he is to receive foreign ministers, yet, not having the power to declare war, he cannot possess that of ordering away a foreign minister for causes of national difference, because that is a virtual declaration of war. He is authorized to receive foreign ministers, and by this grant of power he must be authorized to determine when, how, and whom he will receive as such. He must be considered as possessing the power to determine upon all those cases when a man, coming as an accredited minister, may by the laws of nations be denied a reception; and he must also be allowed to determine when he will cease to receive a man in that capacity, after he has been admitted. This includes, as it appears to me, the right to request his recal, and even to intimate the wish to a foreign minister that he would depart. But whether it also includes the power positively to order his departure, and still more, to send him home by constraint, is pot in my mind absolutely beyond a doubt. Ceasing to receive him as a publick minister, is not ordering him away; much less is it sending him home. It is clear the constitution did not intend the president should have the power to send home a foreign minister in some cases; it has not, in express terms, given him the power in any case. Whether he has it by implication, in the case of a minister's misconduct, seems to me not absolutely beyond a doubt, and I believe the very doubt in a point of this magnitude would operate to prevent its exercise in a case of the utmost need. That doubt it

was my purpose by this bill to remove. To remove it, if it exists, is unquestionably within the power of congress, and the occasion calls loudly for their interposition. The doubt appears the more rational from the fact that the power has never been exercised. The revocations of exequaturs of two foreign consuls by president Washington have been mentioned as cases in point, but are not applicable: for, in the first place, consuls are not entitled to the privileges or immunities of foreign ministers; and in the next, the revocation of an exequatur is barely equivalent by analogy to the cessation to receive a mínister. It neither sends the man away, nor even orders him to depart.

But it has been the fortune of this bill to be attacked from quarters in direct opposition to each other; and while, on the one hand, it has been censured as vesting in the president a power which beyond all question he possesses already; on the other it has been blamed as putting in his hands a power which beyond all question he has not, and which the constitution never intended he should have. This construction of our constitution has been laid down, Sir, for our edification and improvement, by a foreign minister, in his correspondence with our secretary of state, which I speak of as a matter of publick notoriety, because it has been published in all our newspapers, and remains uncontradicted. I must however observe, that at the time when this bill was introduced I had never seen, and had no knowledge of this learned Spanish commentary upon the constitution of the United States.

I had not imagined that the true intent and meaning of our our great national compact was to be settled by a foreign minister ; neither did it enter my heart to conceive that the government of the United States was to receive lessons from a Spaniard upon the extent ofits constitutional powers. Yet, Sir, so it is. The Spanish minister has first chosen to construe into an order, what he was expressly told was not an order; and next to tell the secretary of state that this order is contrary to the spirit of the constitution and government of this country. I find however that there are even American citizens, who think, with this diplomatick expounder of our laws, that the president in no case has the power to order a foreign minister to depart from our territories. I have myself always inclined to the opinion, that, for these cases of personal misconduct, the power of removal was given by the spirit of the constitution, though not perhaps by its letter. That he ought to possess it, is not in my mind a subject of doubt at all; for considering the nature of a foreign minister's privileges, and the danger and urgency of the cases wherein men invested with that character most frequently abuse them, to deny the president the exercise of the only means which can control them, is to deny the nation itself the means of self defence at the most perilous extremities. It may be asked whether this argument would not apply, with equal force, to the cases in which I deny the president's power to expel a foreign minister, and in which the bill does not propose to give it. To this, I answer, No. In every possible case, when a publick minister could be ordered home on account of national differences, congress must be in session, or must be sum

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moned for the purpose. state of things cannot suddenly arise. It is a measure never to be resorted to, unless with the settled determination of war; and its exercise never can be necessary for the president to the execution of his constitutional powers.

But the personal misconduct of a minister may happen at any time, when congress is not in session as probably as when it is. It would certainly happen more frequently in the former case than in the latter, if during the recess no power of restraint upon him could be used. These are offences, the detection of which would often be accidental, sudden, unexpected; calling for the instantaneous interposition of a vigorous arm to rescue the country from its danger. Suppose a conspiracy like that of Tarquin's ambassadors, or that of Catiline at Rome, like that of Bedmar at Venice, like that of Cellamare in France: To say that the president should have no weapon of defence within his reach, until congress should be assembled, would give the conspiring minister the power to execute at full leisure such orders as Cellamare received from Cardinal Alberoni, and enable him, before his hand could be arrested, to set fire to all the mines. It is therefore as clear to me, that the president ought to possess the power of expulsion for personal offences, as that he ought not to possess the same power for causes of national controversy. And if the constitution by its silence has left it questionable, it seems to me incumbent upon congress to remove every shadow of doubt from the case.

Among the other objections which I have heard alledged against any legislative act upon this

legalized organs of carrying it into effect, as to all purposes of publick benefit, the case is the same as if he had it not. It is, on this supposition, one of those authorities which require an organick law to render it practical. Nor is this the only instance in which the con. stitution has left it in the discretion of congress to prescribe the man. ner of carrying its injunctions into effect. The very first law in your statute book is an example of the same description. The constitution had enjoined that all civil officers of the United States, and of the several states, should be sworn to its support, but had not particularized the manner of administering the oath; and the first act of the first congress under our present constitution was to provide the necessary regulation.

It may now perhaps be expected, Sir, that I should give some explanation of the more immediate circumstances in which the bill originated. And here, I am sensible that I tread upon delicate ground. So highly honourable and respectable is the office of a foreign minister, that to treat him with disrespect in common dise course, and still more in legislative deliberation, would be without ex cuse, were his own conduct altogether unexceptionable. Should the occasion ever happen that a foreign minister, by his own violation of all the common decencies of social intercourse towards the government to which he was accredited, should forfeit every right to personal respect or esteem, still I hope, Sir, I should not forget the consideration due to the credentials of his sovereign; still I should think myself bound to observe all that moderation of expression which can be consistent with the sentiments o f indignation, involuntarily excited in my breast by an insult

upon the government of my country.

Within a few days after the message of the president, at the commencement of the present session of congress was made publick, the Spanish minister addressed to the secretary of state a letter couched in terms which it cannot be necessary for me to particular ize; and containing, not only strictures of the most extraordinary nature upon all the parts of that message respecting Spain, but complaints no less extraordinary at what it did not contain. Consider this procedure in its real light Sir, and what is it? A foreign minister takes to task the president of the United States, for the manner in which he has executed one of the most important funetions enjoined upon him by the constitution. He not only charges him with misrepresentation in what he did say, but he presumes to dictate to him what he should have said. I forbear all comment upon this conduct, as it relates to the present chief magistrate. I ask you, Sir, and I intreat every member of this senate to ask himself, what is its tendency as it relates to our country? The constitution of the United States makes it one of the president's most solemn duties to communicate to congress correct information relating to the state of our publick affairs. In every possible case of disputes and controversies of right between the United States and any foreign nation, the minister of that nation must have an interest, and the strongest interest to give a gloss and colouring to the objects in litigation, opposite to the inter est of our country. If, whenever the president of the United States, upon the high and solemn respon sibility which weighs upon every act of his official duty, gives to congress that account of our foreign relations, which is necessary to enable them to adapt their measures to the circumstances for the general welfare of the Union, if a foreign minister, under colour of his official privileges, is to contradict every part of his statements, to impeach the correctness of his facts, and to chide him even for his omissions, to what an abyss of abasement is the first magistrate of this Union to be degraded? The freedom which a Spanish minister, unreproved, can take to-day, a French minister would claim as a right to-morrow, and a British minister would exercise, without ceremony, the next day. A diplomatick censorship would be established over the supreme executive of this nation, and the president would not dare to exhibit to congress the statement of our national concerns, without previously submitting his message for approbation to a cabinet council of for eign ministers. Under the British constitution, the speeches of the sovereign to his parliament are all settled in his privy council, and the royal lips are understood to give utterance only to the words of the minister. The reason of this is, that by the forms of their constitution the sovereign himself is above all responsibility, and the minister is the person accountable to the nation for the substance of the discourse, delivered by his master. In their practice, therefore, the speech is made by bim on whom the responsibility rests. But if this new assumption of the Spanish minister is submitted to, our practice will be an improvement on the British theory, of a singular cast indeed; for, while the responsibility will rest upon the president who delivers the message, its contents will be

dictated by persons, not only loosed from all responsibility to our country, but bound in allegiance, in zeal, in duty, to the very princes with whom we have to contend. The same control, which by this measure is attempted to be usurped over the acts of the president, will, at the next step, and by an easy transition, be extended to the legislature; and instead of parcelling out the message among several committees for their consideration, we shall have to appoint committees upon every part of the message relating to any foreign power, to wait upon the minister of that power and inquire what it is the pleasure of his master that we should do.

That such is the inevitable tendency, and the real intention of this proceeding will appear, not only from a due consideration of the act itself, but from a proper estimate of its avowed motive, and from the subsequent conduct of the same minister. He addressed this letter to the secretary of state, not for the purpose of asking any explanation, not for the purpose of giving any satisfaction, not for any of the usual and proper purposes of a diplomatick communication, but, as he himself declares, for our government to publish, with a view to counteract the statements of the president's message. It was a challenge to the president, to en. ter the lists of a pamphleteering war against him, for the instruction of the American people, and the amusement of foreign courts; and, having failed in this laudable project, he addresses, after the expiration of forty days, a circular letter to the other foreign ministers residing in the United States, with copies of his letter to the secretary of state, as if these foreign ministers were the regular umpires