r own limits, and the latter assigned to a separate set of
functionaries, constituting what may be called the, foreign branch,
which, instead of a federal basis, is established as a distinct
government _quo ad hoc_, acting as the domestic branch does on the
citizens directly and coercively; that these departments have distinct
directories, co-ordinate, and equally independent and supreme, each
within its own sphere of action. Whenever a doubt arises to which of
these branches a power belongs, I try it by this test. I recollect no
case where a question simply between citizens of the same State has been
transferred to the foreign department, except that of inhibiting tenders
but of metallic money, and _ex post facto_ legislation. The causes of
these singularities are well remembered.

I thank you for the copy of your speech on the question of national
improvement, which I have read with great pleasure, and recognise in it
those powers of reasoning and persuasion of which I had formerly seen
from you so many proofs. Yet, in candor, I must say it has not removed,
in my mind, all the difficulties of the question. And I should really be
alarmed at a difference of opinion with you, and suspicious of my own,
were it not that I have, as companions in sentiment, the Madisons, the
Monroes, the Randolphs, the Macons, all good men and true, of primitive
principles. In one sentiment of the speech I particularly concur. 'If we
have a doubt relative to any power, we ought not to exercise it.' When
we consider the extensive and deep-seated opposition to this assumption,
the conviction entertained by so many, that this deduction of powers by
elaborate construction prostrates the rights reserved to the States, the
difficulties with which it will rub along in the course of its exercise;
that changes of majorities will be changing the system backwards and
forwards, so that no undertaking under it will be safe; that there is
not a State in the Union which would not give the power willingly, by
way of amendment, with some little guard, perhaps, against abuse; I
cannot but think it would be the wisest course to ask an express grant
of the power. A government held together by the bands of reason only,
requires much compromise of opinion; that things even salutary should
not be crammed down the throats of dissenting brethren, especially when
they may be put into a form to be willingly swallowed, and that a great
deal of indulgence is necessary to