Note 8 — FIRST CONGRESS.—FIRST SESSION.

These proceedings of President Washington and the Senate, in fixing on the mode of communication between them when treaties were to be formed, or appointments to be made, was their interpretation of the clause in the constitution which requires the advice and consent of the Senate on such occasions. Their interpretation was (according to the obvious meaning of language) that the advice and consent should be obtained beforehand; and the practice was in conformity to that interpretation, as will be seen in the proceedings of the next day, when the President and Secretary at War attended the Senate, and the President gave in a statement of facts, which, in his opinion, rendered treaties with the Southern Indian tribes necessary, and asked the advice and consent of the Senate upon their formation. These proceedings will be read with interest by all who study the working of our government, and observe the changes which its practice has undergone. The change has been great in the mode of obtaining this advice and consent, and greatly to the prejudice of the free and independent action of the Senate in such cases. Instead of consultation and concurrence beforehand, as the words of the constitution imply, and as the practice under Washington required (even to the minute provisions of an Indian treaty), the most important, and even unusual and extraordinary treaties, and with foreign powers, have come to be negotiated (oftentimes) without even the knowledge of the Senate, concealed from it until concluded, and then laid before the body for ratification, as an administration measure—the ratification to be pressed under all the influences of an executive measure, and upon all the considerations of inconvenience and danger to attend the rejection of a measure executively concluded with a foreign power. Under such circumstances treaties are often ratified, and appointments often confirmed, under a moral duress of the Senate, the weight of the executive and the inconveniences of rejection leaving no chance for the free action of the body. President Polk revived the Washingtonian mode of consulting the Senate, in the formation of the Oregon Treaty in 1846, asking the advice of the Senate beforehand on the point of establishing the boundary line with Great Britain on the parallel of 49 degrees; whereof the secret as well as the public history may be seen in the "Thirty Years' View," under the proper year. The personal attendance of the President and Secretaries being found to be inconvenient, that part of the mode of communication was dispensed with in Washington's time.