Note 78 — FOURTH CONGRESS.—FIRST SESSION. (continued 10)

This vote of the House to carry the Treaty into effect, was no abandonment of the right it had asserted to judge its merits, and to grant or withhold the appropriation according to its discretion. The discussion sufficiently shows this, and that many members took care to save their votes from any misconstruction on this head. A sense of expediency, and not the force of obligation, carried the vote; and certainly the inducements to let the Treaty stand were very great. Marshall sums them up thus: "If Congress refused to perform the Treaty on the part of the United States, a compliance on the part of Great Britain could not be expected. The posts on the great lakes would still be occupied by British garrisons: no compensation would be made for American vessels illegally captured: the hostile dispositions which had been excited, would be restored with increased aggravation: and that these dispositions must infallibly lead to war, was implicitly believed." The amount to be appropriated was only $90,000, a sum entirely insignificant, and only to be contested on account of the principle its appropriation would involve. Yet the insignificance of the sum, and with all the inducements to let the Treaty stand, and under such a President as Washington, barely saved it from defeat! so jealous was the Democratic party of that day of the rights of Congress, and so determined was the House to remain master of the public purse. Ninety thousand dollars was all the money at stake; but what has since been seen? An Executive offering fifty millions for a slip of territory! and one hundred millions, and afterwards two hundred, for an island! Actually negotiating a Treaty of twenty millions, which the Senate reduced to ten! and all, not only without the sanction, but without the knowledge of the Legislative power. To admit that Congress would be bound to appropriate such sums if the offers had ripened into Treaty stipulations, would be to admit that the President, Senate, and a foreign potentate were masters of the appropriating power; and, of course, of the taxing and borrowing power, and of all the means by which money was to be raised. Even a discretionary power over the appropriation, after the Treaty has been made, is but a slight defence for the treasury, there being always in Congress, as in all public bodies, men to yield to circumstances,—good easy men to be persuaded; timid men to be scared; venal men to be purchased. And out of these classes enough are usually found to turn the scale, when upright men divide upon a large measure. The only safe way is that of consultation beforehand, as practised by Washington in the early part of his Administration, and by the Presidents under whom Louisiana, Florida, and California were acquired.