ry may change the form of the
question, may hide some of the consequences, and may dupe some into
an opinion of its moderation when triumphant; yet the fact will
speak for itself. The government can not go to the halves. It would
be another, a worse government, if the mob, or the leaders of the
mob in Congress,[92] can stop the lawful acts of the president, and
unmake a treaty. It would be, either no government, or instantly a
government of usurpation and wrong.... I think we shall beat our
opponents in the end, but the conflict will light up a fierce war."

Ames grew stronger; and at length, in the final debate in Congress upon
the subject of the treaty, his eloquence was heard, like the tones of a
trumpet, and with great effect, as we shall presently observe.

Livingston's motion was carried, on the twenty-fourth of March, by the
decisive vote of sixty-two to thirty-seven. A committee of the house,
deputed for the purpose, carried the vote to the president, who replied
that he would take the request into consideration. He immediately
summoned a cabinet council, and laid the matter before them in the form
of two queries; first, on the right of the house, under the
circumstances, to make such a call; and secondly, whether it would be
expedient to furnish the papers, even though the belief might be
entertained that the house had no right to call for them. He also
referred the matter to Colonel Hamilton for his opinion.

The cabinet members were unanimous in opinion, that he ought not to
comply with the requisitions of the house. Each of them stated, in
writing, the grounds of his opinion; and Chief-Justice Ellsworth, who
had lately been appointed to the bench of the supreme court of the
United States, had, while the debate was in progress, drawn up an
opinion coincident with the views of Washington and his cabinet.
Hamilton also transmitted to the president a long and able paper, in
which, with his usual force of unanswerable logic, he sustained the
action of the cabinet, and fortified the president's views. In
acknowledging the receipt of this paper on the thirty-first of March,
the president said:--

"I had from the first moment, and from the fullest conviction in my
own mind, resolved to _resist the principle_, which was evidently
intended to be established by the call of the house of
representatives; and only deliberated on the manner in which this