declined to enter into any discussion of the question as to whether it
belonged to the President under the Constitution to admit or exclude
foreign agents. 'I inform you of the fact,' he said, 'by authority from
the President.' Mr. Jefferson therefore returned the consul's commission
and declared that the President would issue no exequatur to a consul
except upon a commission correctly addressed."[337]

"THE LOGAN ACT"

When in 1798 a Philadelphia Quaker named Logan went to Paris on his own
to undertake a negotiation with the French Government with a view to
averting war between France and the United States his enterprise
stimulated Congress to pass "An Act to Prevent Usurpation of Executive
Functions,"[338] which, "more honored in the breach than the
observance," still survives on the statute books.[339] The year
following John Marshall, then a Member of the House of Representatives,
defended President John Adams for delivering a fugitive from justice to
Great Britain under the 27th article of the Jay Treaty, instead of
leaving the business to the courts. He said: "The President is the sole
organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole
representative with foreign nations. Of consequence, the demand of a
foreign nation can only be made on him. He possesses the whole Executive
power. He holds and directs the force of the nation. Of consequence, any
act to be performed by the force of the nation is to be performed
through him."[340] Ninety-nine years later a Senate Foreign Relations
Committee took occasion to reiterate Marshall's doctrine with
elaboration.[341]

A FORMAL OR A FORMATIVE POWER?

In his attack, instigated by Jefferson, upon Washington's Proclamation
of Neutrality in 1793, at the outbreak of war between France and Great
Britain, Madison advanced the argument that all large questions of
foreign policy fell within the ambit of Congress, by virtue of its power
"to declare war," and in support of this proposition he disparaged the
Presidential function of reception, in the following words: "I shall not
undertake to examine, what would be the precise extent and effect of
this function in various cases which fancy may suggest, or which time
may produce. It will be more proper to observe, in general, and every
candid reader will second the observation, that little, if anything,
more was intended by the clause, than to provide for a particular mode
of communication, _almost_ grown into a right