Mr. Genet, not content with using our force, whether we will or not, in the military line against nations with whom we are at peace, undertakes also to direct the civil government; and particularly, for the executive and legislative bodies, to pronounce what powers may or may not be exercised by the one or the other. Thus in his letter of June the 8th, he promises to respect the political opinions of the President, till the Representatives shall have confirmed or rejected them; as if the President had undertaken to decide what belonged to the decision of Congress. In his letter of June the 4th, he says more openly, that the President ought not to have taken on himself to decide on the subject of the letter, but that it was of importance enough to have consulted Congress thereon; and in that of June the 22nd, he tells the President in direct terms, that Congress ought already to have been occupied on certain questions which he had been too hasty in deciding: thus making himself, and not the President, the judge of the powers ascribed by the constitution to the executive, and dictating to him the occasion when he should exercise the power of convening Congress at an earlier day than their own act had prescribed.
On the following expressions no commentary shall be made.
July 9. ‘Les principes philosophiques proclames par le Président.’
June 22. ‘Les opinions privées ou publiques de M. le Président, et cette égide ne paroissant pas suffisante.’
June 22. ‘Le gouvernement fédéral s’est empressé, poussé par je ne se gais quelle influence.’
June 22. ‘Je ne puis attribuer des démarches de cette nature qu’a des impressions étrangeres dont le terns et la vérité triompheront.’
June 25. ‘On poursuit avec acharnement, en vertu des instructions de M. le Président, les armateurs Francais.’
June 14. ‘Ce refus tend a accomplir le système infernal du roi d’Angleterre, et des autres rois ses accomplices, pour faire perir par la famine les Républicans Francais avec la liberté.
June 8. ‘La lache abandon de ses amis.’
July 25. ‘En vain le desirde conserver la paix fait-il sacrifier les interets de la France a cet interêt du moment; en vain la soif des richesses l’emporte-t-elle sur l’honneur dans la balance politique de l’Amérique. Tous ces menagemens, toute cette condescendance, toute cette humilité n’aboutissent a rien: nos ennemis en rient, et les Francais trop confiants sont punis pour avoir cru que la nation Américaine avoit un pavilion, qu’elle avoit quelque egard pours ses loix, quelque conviction de ses forces, et qu’elle tenoit au sentiment de sa dignité. Il ne m’est pas possible de peindre toute ma sensibilité sur ce scandale, qui tend à la diminution de votre commerce, à l’oppression du notre, et à l’abaissement, à l’avilissement des republiques. Si nos concitoyens ont été trompes, si vous n’êtes point en état de soutenir la souveraineté de votre peuple, parlez; nous l’avons garantie quand nous étions esclaves, nous saurons la rendre rédoubtable étant devenus libres.’ We draw a veil over the sensations which these expressions excite. No words can render them; but they will not escape the sensibility of a friendly and magnanimous nation, who will do us justice. We see in them neither the portrait of ourselves, nor the pencil of our friends; but an attempt to embroil both; to add still another nation to the enemies of his country, and to draw on both a reproach, which it is hoped will never stain the history of either. The written proofs, of which Mr. Genet was himself the bearer, were too unequivocal to leave a doubt that the French nation are constant in their friendship to us. The resolves of their National Convention, the letters of their Executive Council attest this truth, in terms which render it necessary to seek in some other hypothesis, the solution of Mr. Genet’s machinations against our peace and friendship.