ciples of the Federal Government will permit; and that, if it is unconstitutional, it is void; and, in that case, we ought to carry into effect the Constitutional part.

To this, I answer, if it is a promise only to admit into the Union, and this promise is unconstitutional, while I agree it is void, it must be agreed on the other side that it makes the whole treaty void; and that one article in a treaty being void, either from an unconstitutional or any other impossibility to carry it into effect, puts it in the power of either party to stay a fulfilment of any and every part of it. No principle in the law of nations respecting the construction of treaties, is better settled, than that every article of a treaty is a consideration for every other article: and if any one article shall be expunged, or its performance becomes impossible, the other party is released from a performance. And my opinion is, that a new negotiation upon the subject of this very article, and an agreement, on the side of the French Government, to release us from a compliance with this article, can alone render us safe in paying the money. After we have paid the money-the $15,000,000-and have fulfilled with ever so much conscientious punctuality every other part of the treaty, yet, if we refuse an admission of these people into our Union, the French may, and probably will, say that, to give the people of Louisiana the full and complete rights of citizens of the United States, was the great and leading motive in ceding to us the territory, and if we deny them that, the treaty is void, and they will take them back again, and give them the enjoyment of real liberty under the First Consul. They will be justified by the law of nations if they do so; but how shall we stand justified if we pay the money, which, with the interest, amounts to twenty-six or twenty-seven millions of dollars, and finally, get nothing for it; unless we call a breach of faith, and war with France, an acquisition ?

The seventh article admits for twelve years the ships of France and Spain into the ceded territory, free of foreign duty-this is giving a commercial preference to those ports over the other ports of the United States; because, it is well known that a duty of forty-four cents on tonnage, and ten per cent. on duties, are paid by all foreig

foreign ships

or vessels in all the ports of the United States. If it be said we must repeal those laws, and then the preference will cease, the answer is, that this seventh article gives the exclusive right of entering the ports of Louisiana to the ships of France and Spain, and if our discriminating duties were repealed this day, the preference would be given to the ports of the United States against those of Louisiana, so that the preference, by any regulation of commerce or revenue, which the Constitution expressly prohibits from being given to the ports of one State over those of another, would be given by this treaty, in violation of the Constitution. I acknowledge, if Louisiana is not admitted into the Union, and that if there is no promise to admit her, then this part of our argument will not apply; but, in declaring these to

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be facts, my opponents are driven to acknowledge that the third article of this treaty is void, which answers every purpose which I wish to establish, that this treaty is unconstitutional and void, and that I have, consequently, a right to withhold my vote from any bill which shall be introduced to carry it into effect. I acknowledge, sir, that my opinion ever has been, and still is, that when a treaty is ratified by the constituted authorities, and is a Constitutional treaty, every member of the community is bound by it, as a law of the land; but not so by a treaty which is unconstitutional. The terms of this treaty may be extravagant and unwise, yet, in my legislative capacity, that can form no excuse for an opposition; we may have no title, we may have given an enormous sum, we may have made a silly attempt to destroy the discriminating duties, yet, if the treaty be not unconstitutional, every member of the Government is bound to carry it into effect.

I shall be asked, sir, what can be done? To this question I have two answers: one is, that nothing unconstitutional can or ought to be done; and if it be ever so desirable that we acquire foreign States, and the navigation of the Mississippi, &c., no excuse can be formed for violating the Constitution; and if all those desirable effects cannot take place without violating it, they must be given up. But another and more satisfactory answer can be given. I have no doubt but we can obtain territory either by conquest or compact, and hold it, even all Louisiana, and a thousand times more, if you please, without violating the Constitution. We can hold territory; but to admit the inhabitants into the Union, to make citizens of them, and States, by treaty, we cannot constitutionally do; and no subsequent act of legislation, or even ordinary amendment to our Constitution, can legalize such measures. If done at all, they must be done by universal consent of all the States or partners to our political association. And this universal consent I am positive can never be obtained to such a pernicious measure as the admission of Louisiana, of a world, and such a world, into our Union. This would be absorbing the Northern States, and rendering them as insignificant in the Union as they ought to be, if, by their own consent, the measure should be adopted.

Mr. RECKENRIDGE observed, that he little expected a proceeding so much out of order would have been attempted, as a re-discussion of the merits of the treaty on the passage of this bill; but as the gentlemen in the opposition had urged it, he would, exhausted as the subject was, claim the indulgence of the Senate in replying to some of their remarks.

No gentleman, continued he, has yet ventured to deny, that it is incumbent on the United States to secure to the citizens of the western waters, the uninterrupted use of the Mississippi. Under this impression of duty, what has been the conduct of the General Government, and particularly of the gentlemen now in the opposition, for the last eight months? When the right of deposit was violated by a Spanish officer without

authority from his Government, these gentlemen considered our national honor so deeply implicated, and the rights of the western people so wantonly violated, that no atonement or redress was admissible, except through the medium of the bayonet. Negotiation was scouted at. It was deemed pusillanimous, and was said to exhibit a want of fellow-feeling for the Western people, and a disregard to their essential rights. Fortunately for their country, the counsel of these gentlemen was rejected, and their war measures negatived. The so much scouted process of negotiation was, however, persisted in, and instead of restoring the right of of deposit, and securing more effectually for the future our right to navigate the Mississippi, the Mississippi itself was acquired, and everything which appertained to it. I did suppose that those gentlemen, who, at the last session so strongly urged war measures for the attainment of this object, upon an avowal that it was too important to trust to the tardy and less effectual process of negotiation, would have stood foremost in carrying the treaty into effect, and that the peaceful mode by which it was acquired would not lessen with them the importance of the acquisition. But it seems to me, sir, that the opinions of a certain portion of the United States with respect to this ill-fated Mississippi, have varied as often as the fashions. [Here Mr. B. made some remarks on the attempts which were made in the old Congress, and which had nearly proved successful, to cede this river to Spain for twentyfive years.] But, I trust, continued he, these opinions, schemes, and projects will forever be silenced and crushed by the vote which we are this evening about to pass.

Permit me to examine some of the principal reasons which are deemed so powerful by gentlemen as to induce them to vote for the destruction of this treaty. Unfortunately for the gentlemen, no two of them can agree on the same set of objections; and what is still more unfortunate, I believe there is no two of them concur in any one objection. In one thing only they seem to agree, and that is to vote against the bill. An honorable gentleman from Delaware (Mr WHITE) considers the price to be enormous. An honorablegentleman from Connecticut, who has just sat down, (Mr. TRACY,) says he has no objection whatever to the price; it is, he supposes, not too much. An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. PICKERING) says that France acquired no title from Spain, and therefore our title is bad. The same gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. TRACY) says, he has no objection to the title of France; he thinks it a good one. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. PICKERING) contends that the United States cannot under the Constitution acquire foreign territory. The gentleman from Connecticut is of a different opinion, and has no doubt but that the United States can acquire and hold foreign territory; but that Congress alone have the power of incorporating that territory into the Union. Of what weight, therefore, ought all their lesser objections be entitled to, when they are at war among themselves on the greater one?

NOVEMBER, 1803.

As to the enormity of price, I would ask that gentleman, would his mode of acquiring it through fifty thousand men have cost nothing? Is he so confident of this as to be able to pronounce positively that the price is enormous? Does he make no calculation on the hazard attending this conflict? Is he sure the God of battles was enlisted on his side? Were France and Spain, under the auspices of Bonaparte, contemptible adversaries? Good as the cause was, and great as my confidence is in the courage of my countrymen, sure I am, that I shall never regret, as the gentleman seems to do, that the experiment was not made. I am not in the habit Mr. President, on this floor, of panegyrizing those who administer the Government of this country. Their good works are their best panegyrists, and of these my fellow-citizens are as competent to judge as I am; but if my opinion were of any consequence, I should be free to declare, that this transaction from its commencement to its close, not only as to the mode in which it was pursued, but as to the object achieved, is one of the most splendid which the annals of any nation can produce. To acquire an empire of perhaps half the extent of the one we possessed, from the most powerful and warlike nation on earth, without bloodshed, without the oppression of a single individual, without in the least embarrassing the ordinary operations of your finances, and all this through the peaceful forms of negotiation, and in despite tao of the opposition of a considerable portion of the community, is an achievement of which the archives of the predecessors, at least, of those now in office, cannot furnish a parallel.

The same gentleman has told us, that this acquisition will, from its extent, soon prove destructive to the Confederacy.

This, continued Mr. B., is an old and hackneyed doctrine; that a Republic ought not to be too extensive. But the gentleman has assumed two facts, and then reasoned from them. First, that the extent is too great; and secondly, that the country will be soon populated. I would ask, sir, what is his standard extent for a Republic? How does he come at that standard? Our boundary is already extensive. Would his standard extent be violated by including the island of Orleans and the Floridas? I presume not, as all parties seem to think their acquisition, in part or in whole, essential. Why not then acquire territory on the west, as well as on the east side of the Mississippi? Is the Goddess of Liberty restrained by water courses? Is she governed by geographical limits? Is her dominion on this continent confined to the east side of the Mississippi? So far from believing in the doctrine that a Republic ought to be confined within narrow limits, I believe, on the contrary, that the more extensive its dominion the more safe and more durable it will be. In proportion to the number of hands you intrust the precious blessings of a free government to, in the same proportion do you multiply the chances for their preservation. I entertain, therefore, no fears for the Confederacy on account of its extent. The American NOVEMBER, 1803.

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of being governed, to become the victims of party factions or of domestic tyranny. They not only understand the true theory of a free government, but as well understand a much rarer thing, the true art of practising it. Had a great nation beyond the Atlantic, so often alluded to by some gentlemen on this floor, understood the practice but half as well as she did the theory, a very different result would have been produced by her revolution. I believe, sir, there are a set of general causes which operate in every Government, and either exalt and support it, or else involve it in ruin. If any particular cause has destroyed the Government of a country, some general cause has existed and produced the ruin. Whenever that general cause shall exist, it matters little whether the extent of the Republic be great or small, for its destruction is equally inevitable.

But is the immediate population of that country, even admitting its extent were too great, a necessary consequence? Cannot the General Government restrain the population within such -bounds as may be judged proper? Will gentlemen say that this impracticable? Let us not then, sir, assume to ourselves so much wisdom and foresight in attempting to decide upon things which properly belong to those who are to succeed us. It is enough for us to make the acquisition: the time and manner of disposing of it, must be left to posterity. If they do not improve the means of national prosperity and greatness which we have placed in their hands, the fault or the folly will lie with them. But nothing so remote is more clear to me, than that this acquisition will tend to strengthen the Confederacy. (It is evident, as this country had passed out of the hands of Spain, that whether it remained with France, or should be acquired by England, its population would have been attempted. Such is the policy of all nations but Spain. From whence would that population come? Certainly not from Europe. It would come almost exclusively from the United States. The question, then, would simply be, "Is the Confederacy more in danger from Louisiana, when colonized by American people under American jurisdiction, than when populated by Americans under the control of some foreign, powerful, and rival nation?" Or, in other words, whether it would be safer for the United States to populate this country when and how she pleased, or permit some foreign nation to do it at her expense?)

The gentlemen from Delaware and Massachusetts both contend, that the third article of the treaty is unconstitutional, and our consent to its ratification a nullity, because the United States cannot acquire foreign territory. I am really at a loss how to understand gentlemen. They admit, if I do understand them, that the acquisition of a part at least of this country is essential to the United States, and must be made. That this acquisition must extend to the soil; and to use the words of their resolutions last session, "that it is not consistent with the dignity of the Union to

tain." How, I ask, is this "certain tenure" to be acquired, but by conquest, or a purchase of the soil? Did not gentlemen intend, when they urged its seizure, that the United States, if successful, should hold it in absolute sovereignty? Were any Constitutional difficulties then in the way? And will they now be so good as to point out that part of the Constitution which authorizes us to acquire territory by conquest, but forbids us to acquire it by treaty? But if gentlemen are not satisfied with any of the expositions which have been given of the third article of the treaty, is there not one way, at least, by which this territory can be held? Cannot the Constitution be so amended, (if it should be necessary) as to embrace this territory? If the authority to acquire foreign territory be not included in the treaty-making power, it remains with the people; and in that way all the doubts and difficulties of gentlemen may be completely removed; and that, too, without affording France the smallest ground of exception to the literal execution on our part of that article of the treaty.

Suppose, continues the same gentleman, we should discover before the end of the session that France had acquired from Spain no title to Louisiana; would you not put it out of your power to withhold the stock, by passing this bill? If such a discovery had any possibility of existence, there would be some force in the objection; but with the information before us, such discovery is impossible. By the treaty, France declares and covenants that she has an "incontestable title." Spain has sanctioned that covenant by a similar declaration that the right is in France, and has parted, so far as is in her power, with the possession, by the delivery to France of the royal order for its surrender. It would, therefore, be a strange discovery now to make, that France had no title, nevertheless the declarations and the acts of Spain to the contrary. But how could we reconcile such conduct to ourselves and to the world, after what has passed? A purchase has been made from France, and no exception taken during the negotiation to her title. The treaty has been ratified and proclaimed by the President; Congress have passed an act authorizing him to take possession. He has no doubt made the arrangements, and is at this moment carrying into execution the injunction of that act; but when we are about to fulfil the only stipulation which is important to France we are called on to hold our hands, and examine if we cannot discover some flaw in the title we have purchased. Is this a candid, a becoming, an honorable course of proceeding? Would it not rather be a diplomatic and Legislative coup de main, to avail ourselves of the possession of this country, which France and the world might justly call perfidy? It certainly would; and the rejection or even postponement of this bill on such grounds would, in my opinion, afford France no trifling pretext for the non-execution of the treaty on her part.

It is said that there is something mysterious in the very face of the treaty, for no consideration

despair? If you reject this treaty, with what face can you open another negotiation? What President would venture another mission, or what Minister could be prevailed on to be made the instrument of another negotiation? You adopt the treaty, direct possession to be taken of the country, and then refuse to pay for it!

What palliation can we offer to our Western citizens for a conduct like this? Will they be content with the refined and metaphysical reasonings and constructions upon which gentlemen have bottomed their opposition to-day? Will it be satisfactory to them to be told that the title is good, the price low, the finances competent, and the authority, tv. at least to purchase, Constitutional; but that the country is too extensive, and that the admission of these people to all the privileges we

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that it may mean nothing more than the delivery of a twig, or of the knob of a door. That, from sources of the authenticity of which we have no reason to doubt, we are informed that Spain is very far from acquiescing in the cession of this territory to us; that probably the Spanish officers will not deliver peaceable possession'; and that we ought not to put out of our own hands the power of withholding the payment of this money, until it shall be ascertained, beyond all question, that the territory, for which it is the consideration, is in our hands. But, sir, admitting that the word possession were of itself not sufficiently precise, I think, with the gentleman last up that the fourth and fifth articles of the treaty, read by him, render itso in this instance. The fourth, stipulating that the French commissary shall do every act necessa

tion? It will not, sir.

Without disparagement, Mr. President, to any portion of America, I hesitate not to declare that I believe the people of the Western States are as sincerely attached to the Confederacy, and to the true principles of the Constitution, as any other quarter of the Union. A great portion of them have emigrated from the Atlantic States, and are attached to them by all those ties which so strongly bind societies together. The present generation may therefore possibly be disposed to endure much. But can you hope that those attachments, or dispositions to acquiesce in wrongs, will descend to our sons? Let no such calculations, I pray you, be made either upon us, or on those who are to succeed us. They will prove fallacious. There is a point of endurance beyond which even the advocates for passive obedience and non-resistance cannot expect men to pass. That point is at once reached the moment you solemnly declare, by your vote, that a part of your citizens shall not enjoy those natural rights and advantages of which they are unjustly deprived, and which you have not the complete power to restore to them. Then it is that gentlemen may talk of danger to the Union; then it is I shall begin to tremble for my country; and then it is, and not till then, I shall agree with gentlemen that the Confederacy is in danger.

Mr. ADAMS.-It is not my intention to trespass long upon the patience of the Senate, on a subject which has already been debated almost to satiety; but, as objections on Constitutional grounds have been raised against the bill under discussion, I wish to say a very few words in justification of the vote which I think it my duty to give.

The objections against the passage of the bill, as far as my recollection serves me, are two: the first, started by the honorable gentleman from Delaware who opened this debate; the second, urged by several of the other members who have spoken upon the question.

The gentleman from Delaware admits the necessity of making the provision for carrying into execution, on our part, the treaty which has been duly ratified by the Senate, provided we can ohtain complete and undoubted possession of the territory ceded us by France, in that treaty. But he observes, that the term possession is indefinite;

cers, and transmit it to the agent of the United States-and the fifth, providing, not only that all the military posts shall be delivered to us; and that the troops, whether of France or Spain, shall cease to occupy them, but that those troops shall all be embarked, within three months after the ratification of the treaty. Now, when the country has been formally surrendered to us, when all the military posts are in our hands, and when all the troops, French or Spanish, have been embarked, what possible adverse possession can there be to contend against ours? Until all these conditions shall have been fulfilled on the part of France, neither the convention nor the bill before us requires the payment of money on ours; and we may safely trust the execution of the law to the discretion of the President of the United States. For, even if I could see any reason for distrusting him in the exercise of such a power, under different circumstances, which I certainly do not, still, in the present case, his own interest, and the weight of responsibility resting upon him, are ample security to us, against any undue precipitation on his part, in the payment of the money. On the other hand, I am extremely solicitous that every tittle of the engagements on our part in these conventions should be performed with the most scrupulous good faith, and I see no purpose of utility that can be answered by postponing the determination on the passage of this bill.

But it has been argued that the bill ought not to pass, because the treaty itself is an unconstitutional, or to use the words of the gentleman from Connecticut, an extra constitutional act; because it contains engagements which the powers of the Senate were not competent to ratify, the powers of Congress not competent to confirm, and, as two of the gentlemen have contended, not even the Legislatures of the number of States requisite to effect an amendment of the Constitution are adequate to sanction. It is therefore, say they, a nullity; we cannot fulfil our part of its conditions, and on our failure in the performance of any one stipulation, France may consider herself as absolved from the obligations of the whole treaty on her. I do not conceive it necessary to enter into the merits of the treaty at this time. The proper occasion for that discussion is past. But, allowing