“Never was there a time when I so much desired the full use of my faculties, and it is the very moment when I am prohibited even attention. To be silent, neutral, useless, is a situation not to be envied. I almost wish ***** was here, and I at home, sorting squash and pumpkin seeds for planting.
“It is a new post for me to be in. I am not a sentry, not in the ranks, not in the staff. I am thrown into the wagon as part of the baggage. I am like an old gun that is spiked or the trunnions knocked off, and yet am carted off, not for the worth of the old iron, but to balk the enemy of a trophy. My political life is ended, and I am the survivor of myself, or rather the troubled ghost of a politician, that am condemned to haunt the field of battle where I fell. Whether the government will long outlive me is doubtful. I know it is sick, and, many of the physicians say, of a mortal disease. A crisis now exists, the most serious I ever witnessed, and the more dangerous because it is not dreaded. Yet, I confess, if we should navigate the federal ship through this strait, and get out again into the open sea, we shall have a right to consider the chance of our government as mended. We shall have a lease for years—say four or five; not a freehold—certainly not a fee simple.
“How will the Yankees feel and act when the day of trial comes? It is not, I fear, many weeks off. Will they let the casuists quibble away the very words, and adulterate the generous spirit of the constitution? When a measure passes by the proper authorities, shall it be stopped by force? Sophistry may change the form of the question, may hide some of the consequences, and may dupe some into an opinion of its moderation when triumphant; yet the fact will speak for itself. The government can not go to the halves. It would be another, a worse government, if the mob, or the leaders of the mob in Congress,[92] can stop the lawful acts of the president, and unmake a treaty. It would be, either no government, or instantly a government of usurpation and wrong.... I think we shall beat our opponents in the end, but the conflict will light up a fierce war.”
Ames grew stronger; and at length, in the final debate in Congress upon the subject of the treaty, his eloquence was heard, like the tones of a trumpet, and with great effect, as we shall presently observe.
Livingston's motion was carried, on the twenty-fourth of March, by the decisive vote of sixty-two to thirty-seven. A committee of the house, deputed for the purpose, carried the vote to the president, who replied that he would take the request into consideration. He immediately summoned a cabinet council, and laid the matter before them in the form of two queries; first, on the right of the house, under the circumstances, to make such a call; and secondly, whether it would be expedient to furnish the papers, even though the belief might be entertained that the house had no right to call for them. He also referred the matter to Colonel Hamilton for his opinion.
The cabinet members were unanimous in opinion, that he ought not to comply with the requisitions of the house. Each of them stated, in writing, the grounds of his opinion; and Chief-Justice Ellsworth, who had lately been appointed to the bench of the supreme court of the United States, had, while the debate was in progress, drawn up an opinion coincident with the views of Washington and his cabinet. Hamilton also transmitted to the president a long and able paper, in which, with his usual force of unanswerable logic, he sustained the action of the cabinet, and fortified the president's views. In acknowledging the receipt of this paper on the thirty-first of March, the president said:—
“I had from the first moment, and from the fullest conviction in my own mind, resolved to resist the principle, which was evidently intended to be established by the call of the house of representatives; and only deliberated on the manner in which this could be done with the least bad consequences. To effect this, three modes presented themselves. First, a denial of the papers in toto, assigning concise but cogent reasons for that denial; secondly, to grant them in whole; or, thirdly, in part; accompanied in both the last-mentioned cases with a pointed protest against the right of the house to control treaties, or to call for papers without specifying their object, and against the compliance being drawn into a precedent.
“I had as little hesitation in deciding that the first was the most tenable ground; but, from the peculiar circumstances of the case, it merited consideration, if the principle could be saved, whether facility in the provision might not result from a compliance. An attentive examination of the subject and papers, however, soon convinced me that to furnish all the papers would be highly improper, and that a partial delivery of them would leave the door open for as much calumny as a refusal of them altogether; perhaps more, as it might, and I have no doubt would, be said that all such as were essential to the purposes of the house were withheld.
“Under these impressions, I proceeded, with the heads of departments and the attorney-general, to collect materials, and to prepare an answer, subject, however, to revision and change according to circumstances. This was ready on Monday, and proposed to be sent in on Tuesday; but it was delayed until I should hear from you, which happened on that day about noon. This induced a further postponement until yesterday, notwithstanding the apparent and anxious solicitude, which was visible in all quarters, to learn the result of the application.
“Finding that the draft which I had prepared embraced the most if not all the principles, which were detailed in yours of yesterday, though not the reasonings; that it would take considerable time to copy yours; and, above all, having understood that if the papers were refused, a fresh demand with strictures on my conduct was to be expected, I sent in the answer, which was ready, and have reserved yours, as a copious resource, in case the matter should go any further.”[93]