xtremely sound. In a letter to
Carrington he gave the reasons for his action, and no better statement
of the argument in a general way has ever been made. He wrote:--

"No candid man in the least degree acquainted with the progress
of this business will believe for a moment that the _ostensible_
dispute was about papers, or whether the British treaty was a good
one or a bad one, but whether there should be a treaty at all
without the concurrence of the House of Representatives. This
was striking at once, and that boldly, too, at the fundamental
principles of the Constitution; and, if it were established, would
render the treaty-making power not only a nullity, but such an
absolute absurdity as to reflect disgrace on the framers of it.
For will any one suppose that they who framed, or those who
adopted, that instrument ever intended to give the power to the
President and Senate to make treaties, and, declaring that when
made and ratified they should be the supreme law of the land,
would in the same breath place it in the power of the House of
Representatives to fix their vote on them, unless apparent marks
of fraud or corruption (which in equity would set aside any
contract) accompanied the measure, or such striking evidence of
national injury attended their adoption as to make a war or any
other evil preferable? Every unbiased mind will answer in the
negative.

"What the source and what the object of all this struggle is, I
submit to my fellow-citizens. Charity would lead me to hope that
the motives to it would be pure. Suspicions, however, speak
a different language, and my tongue for the present shall be
silent."

No man who has ever held high office in this country had a more real
deference for the popular will than Washington. But he also had always
a keen sensitiveness to the dignity and the prerogatives of the office
which he happened to hold, whether it was that of president or general
of the armies. This arose from no personal feeling, for he was too
great a man ever to worry about his own dignity; but he esteemed the
great offices to which he was called to be trusts, which were to
suffer no injury while in his hands. He regarded the attempt of the
House of Representatives to demand the papers as a matter of right
as an encroachment on the rights of the Executive Department, and he
therefore resisted it at onc