of all the measures, demands, or eventual concessions
which may have been proposed or contemplated would be extremely
impolitic; for this might have a pernicious influence on future
negotiations, or produce immediate inconveniences, perhaps danger and
mischief, in relation to other powers. The necessity of such caution and
secrecy was one cogent reason for vesting the power of making treaties
in the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, the
principle on which that body was formed confining it to a small number
of members. To admit, then, a right in the House of Representatives to
demand and to have as a matter of course all the papers respecting a
negotiation with a foreign power would be to establish a dangerous
precedent.

In that case the instructions and documents called for related to a
treaty which had been concluded and ratified by the President and
Senate, and the negotiations in relation to it had been terminated.
There was an express reservation, too, "excepting" from the call all
such papers as related to "any existing negotiations" which it might be
improper to disclose. In that case President Washington deemed it to be
a violation of an important principle, the establishment of a "dangerous
precedent," and prejudicial to the public interests to comply with the
call of the House. Without deeming it to be necessary on the present
occasion to examine or decide upon the other reasons assigned by him for
his refusal to communicate the information requested by the House, the
one which is herein recited is in my judgment conclusive in the case
under consideration.

Indeed, the objections to complying with the request of the House
contained in the resolution before me are much stronger than those which
existed in the case of the resolution in 1796. This resolution calls for
the "instructions and orders" to the minister of the United States to
Mexico which relate to negotiations which have not been terminated, and
which may be resumed. The information called for respects negotiations
which the United States offered to open with Mexico immediately
preceding the commencement of the existing war. The instructions given
to the minister of the United States relate to the differences between
the two countries out of which the war grew and the terms of adjustment
which we were prepared to offer to Mexico in our anxiety to prevent the
war. These differences still remain unsettled, a