CHAPTER CLIX.

CONGRESS assembled on the seventh of December. In each branch there was a Democratic majority.* Macon of North Carolina, was chosen Speaker-and Beckley, Jefferson's favored instrument, was restored to the clerkship of the House. The President, stating as his motives -a regard to the convenience of the legislature, economy of time, and a discontinuance of the practice of immediate answers on subjects not fully before them, communicated to them a MESSAGE.

Having mentioned the general peace of Europe and the quiet "among our Indian neighbors," he stated, that Tripoli had declared war in form against the United States, and had enforced it by actual hostility; yet as there was not power, without the sanction of Congress, to capture and detain her cruizers with their crews, one of them, which was captured, had been liberated! The recent census was referred to as showing a duplication of numbers in little more than a period of twenty-two years; -and "the augmentation of the revenue" was such as induced him to recommend a repeal of all of the internal "This reduction of burthens" was founded on a contemplated reduction of expenditures—a system which,

taxes.

• In the House-Democrats, 61; Federalists, 37.

it was represented, he had already commenced, and which it was indicated might be extended to that part of the judiciary system recently established, the utility of which he proposed to measure by the number of causes decided since its establishment. In connection with this economy, it was proposed "to multiply barriers against the dissipation of the public contributions by appropriating specific sums to every specific purpose, susceptible of definition; by disallowing all applications of money varying from the appropriation in object, or transcending it in amount; by reducing the undefined field of contingencies, and circumscribing discretionary powers over money; and by bringing back to a single department all accountabilities for it." A reduction of the then inadequate military establishment was suggested, it being neither “needful nor safe, that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace," for the purpose of defence against invasion. The navy he would permit to remain on its existing establishment. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, thriving most when left free to individual enterprise," he observed, only required protection from casual embarrassments, but a relief of the carrying trade was deemed worthy of consideration. The mode of selecting juries and the protection of the Habeas Corpus were also indicated as meriting legislative care. The message concluded with a proposal to revise the laws of naturalization, so as to abolish ALL restrictions requiring a previous residence.

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It has been seen, that Hamilton, with true magnanimity, rising above every personal feeling, had determined to give, and had publicly urged, a decided support to Jefferson's Administration, provided he fulfilled the pledges as to his policy he had made to the Federalists. But his recent conduct alarmed his adversaries, and this Message

left no doubt of his intention to violate those pledges. Each contemplated change being connected in this document with an imputation on the former Administrations, it was freely and widely canvassed. The most important review of it was in a series of numbers entitled "THE EXAMINATION," under the signature of "LUCIUS CRASSUS," from the pen of Hamilton. Having, through his friends in Congress, obtained from Jefferson the pledges he gave as to the course of his administration in respect to the great cardinal objects of the previous policy of the Government; and foreseeing in the abuse of the Constitution, by the removal and substitution of subordinate civil officers, the dangers which have since ensued, he the more felt the violation of those pledges and the duty and necessity of an early exposure of it.

These Essays embraced a searching analysis of the Message, a comprehensive and enlarged comparison of its policy with that of the past Administrations; an interpretation of some of the chief provisions in the Constitution, of which a violation was deprecated, and a scornful exposure of the gross inconsistency of its author. It has many bursts of high eloquence, much taunting sarcasm, stern reproof, and piercing irony. Hamilton declared, that the Message made or aimed at "making a most prodigal sacrifice of Constitutional energy, of sound principle, and of public interest to the popularity of one man." The scruple as to the right to seize and detain the armed vessel of an open and avowed foe, vanquished in battle, was pronounced "one of the most singular paradoxes, ever advanced by a man claiming the character of a statesman," that "between two nations there may exist a state of complete war on the one side,-of peace on the other." The requested "sanction of Congress' was shown to be unnecessary. The Constitution deleVOL. VII.-33

gating to it the power of declaring war when the nation is at peace, such a declaration, when a foreign nation had declared or made war, was wholly unnecessary. The doctrine of the Message also included the strange absurdity that, without a declaration of War, the public force may destroy the life, but may not restrain the liberty or seize the property of an enemy-the very absurdity under which the Tripolitan corsair was liberated—involving the consequence, that an enemy's force may be beaten but not captured, and leading to the result of his necessary total destruction or of his being permitted to repair and renew his hostilities. "Who," Hamilton asks, “could restrain the laugh of derision at positions so preposterous, were it not for the reflection that in the First Magistrate of our Country, they cast a blemish on our National Character? What will the world think of the fold when such is the shepherd?"

Aware of the advantages they had heretofore derived from being always the assailants, the leaders of the Democratic party resolved still to pursue this course. It was for this reason that Jefferson, abandoning the dignity belonging to his station, and which marked all the public acts of Washington, had made his Message the channel of censure upon his defeated adversaries. He indicated the matters which it was preconcerted were to become the objects of attack in the House.

On the second day of the Session, a call was made for a statement of the accounts of Colonel Pickering, the late Secretary of State. This, it has been seen, had been one of the subjects of much crimination during the canvass for President. Broad and unqualified as the charges against this valuable officer were, the mover of the Resolution, a leading Democrat, announced that he did not entertain the least suspicion that Pickering had ever ap

propriated to his own use or defrauded the public of a single dollar; he believed him to be a man of irreproachable honesty and integrity. The motive of this inquiry was avowed to be, to ascertain whether he had not appropriated more money than he was allowed, and sometimes to purposes, though public purposes, otherwise than ordered. This procedure was in conformity with the suggestions in the Message of Jefferson as to specific appropriations.

Hamilton devoted one number of his " Examination" to this subject. He pronounced "the censure intended to be conveyed as unjust, as the conceptions which dictated it were crude and chimerical." 66 Nothing," he observed, "was more just and proper than the position that the Legislature ought to appropriate specific sums for specific purposes, but nothing more wild or of more inconvenient tendency than to attempt to appropriate a specific sum for each specific purpose, susceptible of definition, as the Message preposterously recommends. In providing for the transportation of an army, oats and hay are each susceptible of a definition and an estimate, and a precise sum may be appropriated for each separately; yet more than sufficient of one article may be obtained, and not enough of another. If the appropriation be distinct, and the fund may not be diverted from one of these objects to another, as the Message implies, the horses may starve, the movements of the army be arrested, even its supplies be kept back. If it should be said, this may be avoided by an appropriation for forage, by blending different things, this would be an abandonment of the principle of the Message, and would be only a partial cure for the mischiefs incident to that rigorous principle."

"Nothing more," he said, "can safely or reasonably be attempted, than to distribute the public expenses, into