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.
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