pressed. In a letter to Wilson C. Nicholas, Sept. 7, 1803, he said:

"Whatever Congress shall think it necessary to do, should be done with as little debate as possible, and particularly so far as respects the constitutional difficulty. I am aware of the force of the observations you make on the power given by the Constitution to Congress, to admit new States into the Union, without restraining the subject to the territory then constituting the United States. But when I consider that the limits of the United States are precisely fixed by the treaty of 1783, that the Constitution expressly declares itself to be made for the United States, I cannot help believing the intention was not to permit Congress to admit into the Union new States, which should be formed out of the territory for which, and under whose authority alone, they were then acting. I do not believe it was meant that they might receive England, Ireland, Holland, &c. into it, which would be the case on your construction. When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe and precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution. If it has bounds, they can be no others than the definitions of the powers which that instrument gives. It specifies and delineates the operations permitted to the federal government, and gives all the powers necessary to carry these into execution. I confess, then, I think

it important, in the present case, to set an example against broad construction, by appealing for new power to the people. If, however, our friends shall think differently, certainly I shall acquiesce with satisfaction; confiding, that the good sense of our country will correct the evil of construction when it shall produce ill effects.”

Other letters written by him are to the same effect.

The treaty was ratified by the Senate, at a special session of Congress, Oct. 20, 1803. The ratification was in executive session, and I have found no sketch of the debate. The

subject came before the Senate soon after, on a bill to authorize a creation of stock, for the purpose of carrying the treaty into effect. A few extracts from that debate will show the opinion upon this subject.

Mr. Pickering said :—

"Neither the President and Senate, nor the President and Congress, are competent to such an act of incorporation. He believed that our administration admitted that this incorporation could not be effected without an amendment of the Constitution; and he conceived that this necessary amendment could not be made in the ordinary mode by the concurrence of two thirds of both Houses of Congress, and the ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States. He believed the assent of each individual State to be necessary for the admission of a foreign country as an associate in the Union; in like manner as in a commercial house, the consent of each member would be necessary to admit a new partner into the company; and whether the assent of every State to such an indispensable amendment were attainable, was uncertain."

Mr. Tracy:

Congress have no power to admit new foreign States into the Union, without the consent of the old partners. The article of the Constitution, if any person will take the trouble to examine it, refers to domestic States only, and not at all to foreign States; and it is unreasonable to suppose that Congress should, by a majority only, admit new foreign States, and swallow up, by it, the old partners, when two thirds of all the members are made requisite for the least alteration in the Constitution. The words of the Constitution are completely satisfied, by a construction which shall include only the admission of domestic States, who were all parties to the Revolutionary war, and to the compact; and the spirit of the association seems to embrace no other.

"But it is said, that this third article of the treaty only promises an introduction of the inhabitants of Louisiana into this Union, as soon as the principles of the federal government will admit; and that, if it is unconstitutional, it is void; and, in that case, we ought to carry into effect the constitutional part.

"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. John Quincy Adams:

"For my own part, I am free to confess that the third article, and more especially the seventh, contain engagements placing us in a dilemma, from which I see no possible mode of extricating ourselves but by an amendment, or rather an addition to the Constitution. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Tracy), both on a former occasion, and in this day's debate, appears to me to have shown this to demonstration. But what is this more than saying that the President and Senate have bound the nation to engagements which require the coöperation of more extensive powers than theirs, to carry them into execution? Nothing is more common in the negotiations between nation and nation, than for a minister to agree to and sign articles beyond the extent of his powers. This is what your ministers, in the very case before you, have confessedly done. It is well known that their powers did not authorize them to conclude this treaty; but they acted for the benefit of their country; and this House, by a large majority, has advised to the ratification of their proceedings."

Mr. Taylor, of North Carolina, who was in favor of the treaty, said:

"The territory is ceded by the first article of the treaty. It will no longer be denied that the United States may constitutionally acquire terri tory. The third article declares that the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States.' And these words are said to require the territory to be erected into a State. This they do not express, and the words are literally satisfied by incorporating them into the Union as a territory, and not as a State. The Constitution recognizes, and the practice warrants, an incorporation of a territory and its inhabitants into the Union, without admitting either as a State.”

Mr. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, who also supported the 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."

Mr. Wilson C. Nicholas, of Virginia, to whom the letter of Mr. Jefferson was addressed, did not venture, against the opinion there expressed, to contend that Louisiana could be admitted as a State, without an amendment of the Constitution. He said:

'If, as some gentlemen suppose, Congress possesses this power, they are free to exercise it in the manner that they may think most conducive to the public good. If it can only be done by an amendment to the Constitution, it is a matter of discretion with the States whether they will do it or not;

!

for it cannot be done according to the principles of the federal Constitution,' if the Congress or the States are deprived of that discretion which is given to the first, and secured to the last by the Constitution. In the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, it is said, 'new States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.' If Congress have the power, it is derived from this source; for there are no other words in the Constitution that can, by any construction that can be given to them, be considered as conveying this power. If Congress have not this power, the constitutional mode would be by an amendment to the Constitution."

The treaty had been the subject of a debate in the House, a few days before. The constitutional right to acquire territory by purchase, was more strenuously questioned in the House than in the Senate. The right to admit territory, if acquired, was also denied.

Mr. Griswold, of New York, said:

“It was not consistent with the spirit of the Constitution that territory other than that attached to the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution should be admitted; because at that time the persons who formed the Constitution of the United States had a particular respect to the then subsisting territory. They carried their ideas to the time when there might be an extended population; but they did not carry them forward to the time when addition might be made to the Union of a territory equal to the whole United States, which additional territory might overbalance the existing territory, and thereby the rights of the present citizens of the United States be swallowed up and lost. Such a measure could not be consistent either with the spirit or the genius of the government."

Mr. Griswold, of Connecticut:

"The government of the United States was not formed for the purpose of distributing its principles and advantages to foreign nations. It was formed with the sole view of securing those blessings to ourselves and our posterity. It follows from these principles that no power can reside in any