Dear Sir,—I now return you the manuscript history of Bacon's rebellion, with many thanks for the communication. It is really a valuable morsel in the history of Virginia. That transaction is the more marked, as it was the only rebellion or insurrection which had ever taken place in the colony before the American Revolution. Neither its cause nor course have been well understood, the public records containing little on the subject. It is very long since I read the several histories of Virginia, but the impression remaining on my mind was not at all that which the writer gives; and it is impossible to refuse assent to the candor and simplicity of history. I have taken the liberty of copying it, which has been the reason of the detention of it. I had an opportunity, too, of communicating it to a person who was just putting into the press a history of Virginia, but all in a situation to be corrected. I think it possible that among the ancient manuscripts I possess at Monticello, I may be able to trace the author. I shall endeavor to do it the first visit I make to that place, and if with success, I will do myself the pleasure of communicating it to you. From the public records there is no hope, as they were destroyed by the British, I believe, very completely, during their invasion of Virginia. Accept my salutations, and assurances of high consideration and respect.
TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY.
February 19, 1804.
Doctor Stevens having been sent by the preceding administration, in 1798, to St. Domingo, with the commission of consul-general, and also with authorities as an agent additional to the consular powers, under a stipulation that his expenses should be borne; an account of these is now exhibited to the Secretary of State, and the questions arise whether the payment can be authorized by the Executive, and out of what fund?
The Constitution has made the Executive the organ for managing our intercourse with foreign nations. It authorizes him to appoint and receive ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls. The term minister being applicable to other agents as well as diplomatic, the constant practice of the government, considered as a commentary, established this broad meaning; and the public interest approves it; because it would be extravagant to employ a diplomatic minister for a business which a mere rider would execute. The Executive being thus charged with the foreign intercourse, no law has undertaken to prescribe its specific duties. The permanent act of 1801, however, first, where he uses the agency of a minister plenipotentiary, or chargé, restricts him in the sums to be allowed for outfit, salary, return, and a secretary; and second, when any law has appropriated a sum for the contingent expenses of foreign intercourse, leaves to his discretion to dispense with the exhibition of the vouchers of its expenditure in the public offices. Under these two standing provisions there is annually a sum appropriated for the expenses of intercourse with foreign nations. The purposes of the appropriation being expressed by the law, in terms as general as the duties are by the Constitution, the application of the money is left as much to the discretion of the Executive, as the performance of the duties, saving always the provisions of 1801.
It is true that this appropriation is usually made on an estimate, given by the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Treasury, and by him reported to Congress. But Congress, aware that too minute a specification has its evil as well as a too general one, does not make the estimate a part of their law, but gives a sum in gross, trusting the Executive discretion for that year and that sum only; so in other departments, as of war for instance, the estimate of the Secretary specifies all the items of clothing, subsistence, pay, &c., of the army. And Congress throws this into such masses as they think best, to wit, a sum in gross for clothing, another for subsistence, a third for pay, &c., binding up the Executive discretion only by the sum, and the object generalized to a certain degree. The minute details of the estimate are thus dispensed with in point of obligation, and the discretion of the officer is enlarged to the limits of the classification, which Congress thinks it best for the public interest to make. In the case before us, then, the sum appropriated may be applied to any agency with a foreign nation, which the Constitution has made a part of the duty of the President, as the organ of foreign intercourse.
The sum appropriated is generally the exact amount of the estimate, but not always. In the present instance the estimate, being for 1803, was only of $62,550, (including two outfits,) and the appropriation was of $75,562, leaving a difference of $13,012. If indeed, there be not enough of this appropriation left to pay Dr. Stevens' just demands, they cannot be paid until Congress shall make some appropriation applicable to them. I say his just demands, because by the undertaking of the then administration to pay his expenses, justice as well as law will understand his reasonable expenses. These must be tried by the scale which law and usage have established, whereon the Minister, Chargé, and Secretary, are given as fixed terms of comparison. The undefined agency of Dr. Stevens must be placed opposite to that term of the scale, with which it may fairly be thought to correspond; and if he has gone beyond that, his expenses should be reduced to it. I think them beyond it, and suppose that Dr. Stevens, viewing himself as a merchant, as well as a public agent, found it answer his purposes as a merchant to apply a part of his receipts in that character in addition to what he might reasonably expect from the public, not then meaning to charge to his public character the extraordinary style of expense which he believed at the time he could afford out of his mercantile profits.
[Statement of Dr. Stevens' case, referred to in preceding letter.]
The Constitution having provided that the President should appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and all other officers which shall be established by law, the first Congress which met passed a law (July 1, 1790) authorizing him to draw from the treasury $40,000 annually for the support of such persons as he shall commission to serve the United States in foreign parts, and for the expense incident to the business in which they may be employed; with a proviso that, exclusive of an outfit to a Minister Plenipotentiary or Chargé, not exceeding a year's salary, he should allow to any Minister Plenipotentiary not more than $9,000 a year, for all his personal services and other expenses; to a Chargé not more than $4,500; to a Secretary not more than $1,350; and with a second proviso as to the mode of settlement. This act, which was temporary, was continued by those of 1793, February 9, 1794, March 20, 1796, May 30, 1798, March 19, till 1800, May 10, when they turned the two provisos into enacting clauses, and made them permanent, and the appropriating clause which made the body of the law before, is now annually inserted in the general appropriating law. See 1800, May 7, 1801, March 3, 1802, May 1, 1803, March 2, and 1804, March —. As Congress, in order to limit the discretion of officers as far as is safe, is in the practice of throwing the objects of appropriations into groups, e. g. to the Secretary of State, and clerks, and other persons in that department so much; Secretary of Treasury, &c., so much; clothing for the army so much; subsistence so much; pay so much, &c. So they might have analysed the foreign appropriation by allowing for outfits of ministers so much; salaries of ministers so much; contingent expenses so much, &c. But they chose to throw it all into one mass, only providing that no outfit should exceed a year's salary, and no salary of a minister be more than $9,000; of a Chargé $4,500; Secretary $1,350, &c.; leaving the President free to give them less if he chose, and to give to Ambassadors, Envoys, and other agents, what he thought proper. From the origin of the present government to this day, the construction of the laws, and the practice under them, has been to consider the whole fund (with only the limitations before mentioned) as under the discretion of the President as to the persons he should commission to serve the United States in foreign parts, and all the expenses incident to the business in which they may be employed. The grade consequently or character in which they should be employed, their allowance, &c. Thus Governor Morris was appointed by General Washington informally and without a commission to confer with the British ministers, and was allowed for eight months (I think) $1,000. Colonel Humphreys was appointed in 1790, to go as an agent to Madrid, and was allowed at the rate of $2,250 per annum. Dumas was kept at the Hague many years as an agent at $1,300 a year. Mr. Cutting was allowed disbursements for sailors in London in 1791, $233 33. Presents were made to the Chevalier Luzerne, on taking leave, worth $1,062. Van Berkel $697. Du Moustier $555, in 1791. Mr. Short was sent to Amsterdam as an agent in 1792, and allowed $444 43. James Blake was sent as agent to Madrid in 1793, and received an advance of $800. I know not how much afterwards, as I left the office of Secretary of State at the close of that year. In 1794, Mr. Jay was appointed Envoy Extraordinary, a grade not particularly named in the Constitution, or any law, yet General Washington fixed his allowance. During the present administration Mr. Dawson and Lieutenant Leonard have been sent on special agencies. From the beginning of the government it has been the rule when one of our ministers is ordered to another place on a special business, to allow his expenses on that special mission, his salary going on at his residence where his family remains. Mr. Short's mission from Paris to Amsterdam, from Paris to Madrid; Mr. Pinckney from London to Madrid; Mr. Murray's from the Hague to Paris, and others not recollected by me, are instances of this. These facts are stated to show that it has been the uniform opinion and practice that the whole foreign fund was placed by the Legislature on the footing of a contingent fund, in which they undertake no specifications, but leave the whole to the discretion of the President. The whole is but from forty to sixty or seventy thousand dollars. After the establishment of the general fund for foreign intercourse, Congress found it necessary to make a separate branch for the Barbary powers. This was done covertly in the beginning, to wit, in 1792, they gave $50,000 additional to the foreign fund, in 1794, $1,000,000 additional without limiting it to Barbary. Yet it was secretly understood by the President, and his discretion was trusted. In 1796, they gave $260,000 for treaties with the Mediterranean powers, in 1797, $280,259 03, for the expenses of negotiation with Algiers. They did not undertake a more minute analysis or specification, but left it to the President. The laws of 1796, May 6, 1797, March 3, 1799, March 2, give sums for specific purposes because these purposes were simple and understood by the Legislature. But in general, in this branch of the foreign expenses, as in the former one, the Legislature has thought that to cramp the public service by too minute specifications in cases which they could not foresee, might do more evil than a temporary trust to the President, which could be put an end to if abused.
In our western governments, heretofore established, they were so well understood by Congress, that they could and did specify every item of expense, except a very small residuum for which they made contingent appropriations. But when they came to provide at this session for the Louisiana government, with which they were not acquainted, they gave twenty thousand dollars for compensation to the officers of the government employed by the President, and for other civil expenses under the direction of the President. And their first step towards the acquisition of that country was to confide to the President two millions of dollars under the general appropriation for foreign intercourse. These facts show that so far from having experienced evil from confiding the forty thousand dollars foreign fund to the discretion of the executive without a specific analysis of its application, they have continued it on that footing, and in many other great cases where analysis was difficult or inexpedient they have given the sums in mass, and left the analysis to him, only requiring an account to be rendered.