solemnity of the occasion, will announce to the world a solicitude for the friendly adjustment of our complaints, and a reluctance to hostility. Going immediately from the United States, such an envoy will carry with him a full knowledge of the existing temper and sensibility of our country; and will thus be taught to vindicate our rights with firmness, and to cultivate peace with sincerity."

To those who believed the interests of the nation to require a rupture with England, and a still closer connexion with France, nothing could be more unlooked for, or more unwelcome, than this decisive measure. That it would influence the proceedings of Congress could not be doubted; and that it would materially affect the public mind was probable. Evincing the opinion of the Executive that negotiation, not legislative hostility, was still the proper medium for accommodating differences with Great Britain, it threw on the legislature a great responsibility, if they should persist in a system calculated to defeat that negotiation. By showing to the people that their President did not yet believe war to be necessary, it turned the attention of many to peace; and, by suggesting the probability, rekindled the almost extinguished desire, of preserving that blessing.

Scarcely has any public act of the President drawn upon his administration a greater degree of censure than this. That such would be its effect, could not be doubted by a person who had observed the ardour with which opinions that it thwarted were embraced, or the extremity to which the passions and contests of the moment had carried all orders of men. But it is the province of real patriotism to consult the utility, more than the popularity of a measure; and to pursue the path of duty, although it may be rugged.

In the senate, the nomination was approved by a majority of ten voices; and, in the house of representatives, it was urged as an argu. ment against persevering in the system which had been commenced. On the 18th of April, a motion for taking up the report of the committee of the whole house on the resolution for cutting off all commercial intercourse with Great Britain, was opposed, chiefly on the ground that, as an envoy had been nominated to the court of that country, no obstacle ought to be thrown in his way. The adoption of the resolution would be a bar to negotiation, because it used the language of menace, and manifested a partiality to one of the belligerents which was incompatible with neutrality. It was also an objection to the resolution that it prescribed the terms on which alone a treaty should be made, and was consequently an infringement of the right of the Executive to negotiate, and an indelicacy to that department.

In support of the motion, it was said, that the measure was strictly within the duty of the legislature, they having solely the right to regu⚫ late commerce. That, if there was any indelicacy in the clashing of the proceedings of the legislature and executive, it was to the latter, not to the former, that this indelicacy was to be imputed. The resolution which was the subject of debate had been several days depending in the house, before the nomination of an envoy extraordinary had been made. America having a right, as an independent nation, to regulate her own commerce, the resolution could not lead to war; on the contrary, it was the best means of bringing the negotiation to a happy issue.

The motion for taking up the report was carried in the affirmative. Some embarrassment was produced by an amendment offered by Mr. Smith of South Carolina, who proposed to add another condition to the restoration of intercourse between the two countries. This was, compensation for the negroes carried away in violation of the treaty of peace. The house avoided this proposition by modifying the resolutions so as to expunge all that part of it which prescribed the conditions on which the intercourse might be restored. A bill was brought in conforming to this resolution, and carried by a considerable majority. In the senate, it was lost by the casting vote of the Vice President. The system which had been taken up in the house of representatives was pressed no further.

The altercations between the executive and the minister of the French republic, had given birth to many questions which had been warmly agitated in the United States, and on which a great diversity of sentiment prevailed.

The opinion of the administration that the relations produced by existing treaties, and indeed by a state of peace independent of treaty, imposed certain obligations on the United States, an observance of which it was the duty of the executive to enforce, had been reprobated with extreme severity. It was contended, certainly by the most active, perhaps by the most numerous part of the community, not only that the treaties had been grossly misconstrued, but also that, under any construction of them, the interference of the executive acquired the sanction of legislative authority; that, until the legislature should interpose and annex certain punishments to infractions of neutrality, the natural right possessed by every individual to do any act not forbidden by express law, would furnish a secure protection against those prosecutions which a tyrannical executive might direct for the crime of disregarding its illegal mandates. The right of the President to call out the militia for the detention of privateers about to violate the rules he had established, was, in some instances denied; attempts to punish those who had engaged, within the

United States, to carry on expeditions against foreign nations, were unsuccessful; and a grand jury had refused to find a bill of indictment against Mr. Duplaine, for having rescued, with an armed force, a vessel which had been taken into custody by an officer of justice. Of consequence, however decided the opinion of the executive might be with respect to its constitutional powers and duties, it was desirable to diminish -the difficulties to be encountered in performing those duties, by obtaining the sanction of the legislature to the rules which had been established for the preservation of neutrality. The propriety of legislative provision for the case was suggested by the President at the commencement of the session, and a bill was brought into the senate, " in addition to the act for punishing certain crimes against the United States." This bill prohibited the exercise, within the American territory, of those various rights of sovereignty which had been claimed by Mr. Genet, and subjected any citizen of the United States who should be convicted of committing any of the offences therein enumerated, to fine and imprisonment. It also prohibited the condemnation and sale within the United States, of prizes made from the citizens or subjects of nations with whom they were at peace.

Necessary as this measure was, the whole strength of the opposition in the senate was exerted to defeat it. Motions to strike out the most essential clause were successively repeated, and each motion was nega tived by the casting vote of the Vice President. It was only by his voice that the bill finally passed.*

In the house of representatives also, this bill encountered a serious opposition. The sections which prohibited the sale of prizes in the United States, and that which declared it to be a misdemeanour to accept a commission from a foreign power within the territory of the United States, to serve against a nation with whom they were at peace, were struck out; but that which respected the acceptance of commissions was afterwards reinstated.

In the course of the session, several other party questions were brought forward, which demonstrated, at the same time, the strength, and the zeal of the opposition. The subject of amending the constitution was revived; and a resolution was agreed to in both houses for altering that instrument, so far as to exempt states from the suits of individuals. While

* Previous to taking the question on this bill, a petition had been received against Mr. Gallatin, a senator from the state of Pennsylvania, who was determined not to have been a citizen a sufficient time to qualify him under the constitution for a seat ir. the senate. This casual circumstance divided the senate, or the bill would probably have been lost.

this resolution was before the senate, it was also proposed to render the officers of the bank, and the holders of stock, ineligible to either branch of the legislature; and this proposition, so far as respected officers in the bank, was negatived by a majority of only one vote.* A bill to sell the shares of the United States in the bank was negatived by the same majority.

In both houses inquiries were set on foot respecting the treasury department, which obviously originated in the hope of finding some foundation for censuring that officer, but which failed entirely. In a similar hope, as respected the minister of the United States at Paris, the senate passed a vote requesting the President to lay before that body, his correspondence with the French republic, and also with the department of state.t

The preparations for an eventual war, which the aspect of public affairs rendered it imprudent to omit, and a heavy appropriation of a million, which, under the title of foreign intercourse, was made for the purpose of purchasing peace from Algiers, and liberating the Americans who were in captivity, created demands upon the treasury which the ordinary revenues were insufficient to satisfy.

That the imposition of additional taxes had become indispensable, was a truth too obvious to be controverted with the semblance of reason; but the subjects of taxation afforded at all times an ample field for discussion.

The committee of ways and means reported several resolutions for extending the internal duties to various objects which were supposed capable of bearing them, and also proposed an augmentation of the impost on foreign goods imported into the United States, and a direct tax. It was proposed to lay a tax on licenses to sell wines and spirituous liquors, on sales at auction, on pleasure carriages, on snuff manufac tured, and on sugar refined in the United States, and also to lay a stamp duty.

The direct tax was not even supported by the committee. Only thirteen members voted in its favour. The augmentation of the duty on imports met with no opposition. The internal duties were introduced in separate bills, that each might encounter only those objections which could be made to itself; and that the loss of one might not involve the loss of others. The resolution in favour of stamps was rejected: the others were carried, after repeated and obstinate debates. The members

A clause in the resolution as proposed, which was understood to imply that the act for incorporating the bank was unconstitutional, was previously struck out by the same majority.

See note, No. XVI. at the end of the volume.

of the opposition were in favour of raising the whole sum required by additional burdens on trade, and by direct taxes.

While these measures were depending before Congress, memorials and resolutions against them were presented by the manufacturers, which were expressed in terms of disrespect that evidenced the sense in which numbers understood the doctrine, that the people were sovereign, and those who administered the government, their servants. This opportunity for charging the governinent with tyranny and oppression, with partiality and injustice, was too favourable not to be embraced by the democratic societies, those self proclaimed watchful sentinels over the rights of the people. A person unacquainted with those motives which, in the struggle of party, too often influence the conduct of men, would have supposed a direct tax to be not only in itself more eligible, but to be more acceptable to the community than those which were proposed. To the more judicious observers of the springs of human action, the reverse was known to be the fact.

The friends of the administration supported the proposed system against every objection to it, because they believed it to be more produc-. tive, and less unpopular, than a direct tax. It is not impossible that what recommended the system to one party, might constitute a real objection to it with those who believed that the public interest required a* change in the public councils.

On the ninth of June, this active and stormy session was closed by an adjournment to the first Monday in the succeeding November.

The public was not less agitated than the legislature had been, by those interesting questions which had occasioned some of the most animated and eloquent discussions that had ever taken place on the floor of the house of representatives. Mr. Madison's resolutions especially, continued to be the theme of general conversation; and, for a long time, divided parties throughout the United States. The struggle for public opinion was ardent; and each party supported its pretensions, not only with those arguments which each deemed conclusive, but also by those reciprocal criminations which, perhaps, each, in part, believed.

The opposition declared that the friends of the administration were an aristocratic and corrupt faction, who, from a desire to introduce monarchy, were hostile to France, and under the influence of Britain; that they sought every occasion to increase expense, to augment debt, to

* The declaration was not unfrequently made that the people could only be roused to a proper attention to the violation of their rights, and to the prodigal waste of their money, by perceiving the weight of their taxes. This was concealed from them by the indirect, and would be disclosed to them by the direct, system of taxation.