Читать книгу The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9) - Томас Джефферсон, Thomas Jefferson - Страница 71

Monticello, March 21, 1796.

Dear Sir,—I wrote you on the 2d instant, and now take the liberty of troubling you, in order to have the enclosed letter to M. Gautier safely handed to him. I will thank you for information that it gets safely to hand, as it is of considerable importance to him, to the United States, to the State of Virginia, and to myself, by conveying to him the final arrangement of the accounts of Grand and Company with all those parties.

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The British treaty has been formally, at length, laid before Congress. All America is a tiptoe to see what the House of Representatives will decide on it. We conceive the constitutional doctrine to be, that though the President and Senate have the general power of making treaties, yet wherever they include in a treaty matters confided by the Constitution to the three branches of Legislature, an act of legislation will be requisite to confirm these articles, and that the House of Representatives, as one branch of the Legislature, are perfectly free to pass the act or to refuse it, governing themselves by their own judgment whether it is for the good of their constituents to let the treaty go into effect or not. On the precedent now to be set will depend the future construction of our Constitution, and whether the powers of legislation shall be transferred from the President, Senate, and House of Representatives, to the President and Senate, and Piamingo or any other Indian, Algerine, or other chief. It is fortunate that the first decision is to be in a case so palpably atrocious, as to have been predetermined by all America. The appointment of Elsworth Chief Justice, and Chase one of the judges, is doubtless communicated to you. My friendly respects to Mrs. Monroe. Adieu affectionately.