e treaty into
effect is a breach of the public faith which they conceive as being
pledged by the President and Senate. This has been the ground on which a
difference of opinion has existed since the beginning of the discussion.
It is because the House thinks that the faith of the nation cannot, on
those subjects submitted to the power of Congress, be pledged by any
constituted authority other than the legislature, that they resolved
that in all such cases it is their right and duty to consider the
expediency of carrying a treaty into effect. If the House think the
faith of the nation already pledged they can not claim any discretion;
there is no room left to deliberate upon the expediency of the thing.
The resolution now under consideration is merely "that it is expedient
to carry the British treaty into effect," and not whether we are bound
by national faith to do it. I will therefore consider the question of
expediency alone; and thinking as I do that the House has full
discretion on this subject, I conceive that there is as much
responsibility in deciding in the affirmative as in rejecting the
resolution, and that we shall be equally answerable for the consequences
that may follow from either.

It is true, however, that there was a great difference between the
situation of this country in the year 1794, when a negotiator was
appointed, and that in which we are at present; and that consequences
will follow the refusal to carry into effect the treaty in its present
stage, which would not have attended a refusal to negotiate and to enter
into such a treaty. The question of expediency, therefore, assumes
before us a different and more complex shape than when before the
negotiator, the Senate, or the President. The treaty, in itself and
abstractedly considered, may be injurious; it may be such an instrument
as in the opinion of the House ought not to have been adopted by the
Executive; and yet such as it is we may think it expedient under the
present circumstances to carry it into effect. I will therefore first
take a view of the provisions of the treaty itself, and in the next
place, supposing it is injurious, consider, in case it is not carried
into effect, what will be the natural consequences of such refusal.

The provisions of the treaty relate either to the adjustment of past
differences, or to the future intercourse of the two nations. The
differences now existing between Great Britain and this country arose
eith