The same thing was notified to Mr. Genet in my letter of August the 7th,
and that he might not conclude the promise of compensation to be of no
concern to him, and go on in his courses, he was reminded that it would
be a fair article of account against his nation.
Mr. Genet, not content with using our force, whether we will or not, in
the military line against nations with whom we are at peace, undertakes
also to direct the civil government; and particularly, for the executive
and legislative bodies, to pronounce what powers may or may not be
exercised by the one or the other. Thus in his letter of June the 8th,
he promises to respect the political opinions of the President, till
the Representatives shall have confirmed or rejected them; as if the
President had undertaken to decide what belonged to the decision of
Congress. In his letter of June the 4th, he says more openly, that the
President ought not to have taken on himself to decide on the subject
of the letter, but that it was of importance enough to have consulted
Congress thereon; and in that of June the 22nd, he tells the President
in direct terms, that Congress ought already to have been occupied on
certain questions which he had been too hasty in deciding: thus making
himself, and not the President, the judge of the powers ascribed by the
constitution to the executive, and dictating to him the occasion when he
should exercise the power of convening Congress at an earlier day than
their own act had prescribed.
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