of the whole ground, points certainly
occurred, and were submitted to the consideration of the cabinet, on
which neither the chief magistrate nor his ministers felt any doubt.
But the introduction of questions relative to these points, among
others with which they were intimately connected, would present a more
full view of the subject, and was incapable of producing any
mischievous effect, while they were confined to those for whom alone
they were intended.

In the meeting of the heads of departments and the attorney general,
which was held in consequence of this letter, it was unanimously
agreed, that a proclamation ought to issue, forbidding the citizens of
the United States to take part in any hostilities on the seas, with,
or against, any of the belligerent powers; warning them against
carrying to any of those powers articles deemed contraband according
to the modern usages of nations; and enjoining them from all acts
inconsistent with the duties of a friendly nation towards those at
war.

With the same unanimity, the President was advised to receive a
minister from the republic of France; but, on the question respecting
a qualification to his reception, a division was perceived. The
secretary of state and the attorney general were of opinion, that no
cause existed for departing in the present instance from the usual
mode of acting on such occasions. The revolution in France, they
conceived, had produced no change in the relations between the two
nations; nor was there any thing in the alteration of government, or
in the character of the war, which would impair the right of France to
demand, or weaken the duty of the United States faithfully to comply
with the engagements which had been solemnly formed.

The secretaries of the treasury, and of war, held a different opinion.
Admitting in its fullest latitude the right of a nation to change its
political institutions according to its own will, they denied its
right to involve other nations, _absolutely and unconditionally_, in
the consequences of the changes which it may think proper to make.
They maintained the right of a nation to absolve itself from the
obligations even of real treaties, when such a change of circumstances
takes place in the internal situation of the other contracting party,
as so essentially to alter the existing state of things, that it may
with good faith be pronounced to render a continuance of the connexion
which results from them, disadv