answer is, that this 7th article gives the exclusive right of entering the ports of Louisiana to the ships of France and Spain; and if our discriminating duties were repealed this day, the preference would be given to the ports of the United States to those of Louisiana; so that the preference, by any regulation of commerce or revenue, which the Constitution expressly forbids from being given to the ports of one state over those of another, would be given by this treaty, in violation of the Constitution.
We can hold territory; but to admit the inhabitants into the Union, to make citizens of them, and states, by treaty, we cannot constitutionally do, and no subsequent act of legislation, or even ordinary amendment to our Constitution, can legalize such measures.
Mr. ADAMS. It has been argued that the bill ought not to pass, because the treaty itself is an unconstitutional, or, to use the words of the gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. Tracy,) an extra-constitutional act, because it contains engagements which the powers of the Senate were not competent to ratify, the powers of Congress not competent to confirm; and, as two of the gentlemen have contended, not even the legislatures of the number of states requisite to effect an amendment of the Constitution, are adequate to sanction. It is, therefore, they say, a nullity. We cannot fulfil our part of its conditions; and on our failure in the performance of any one stipulation, France may consider herself as absolved from the obligations of the whole treaty on hers. I do not conceive it necessary to enter into the merits of the treaty at this time. The proper occasion for that discussion is past. But allowing even that this is a case for which the Constitution has not provided, it does not, in my mind, follow that the treaty is a nullity, or that its obligations, either on us or on France, must necessarily be cancelled. For my own part, I am free to confess, that the 3d article, and more especially the 7th, contain engagements placing us in a dilemma, from which I see no possible mode of extricating ourselves but by an amendment, or rather an addition, to the Constitution.
The gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. Tracy,) both on a former occasion and in this day's debate, appears to me to have shown this to demonstration. But what is this more than saying that the President and Senate have bound the nation to engagements which require the coöperation of more extensive powers than theirs to carry them into execution? Nothing is more common, in the negotiations between nation and nation, than for a minister to agree to and sign articles beyond the extent of his powers. This is what your ministers, in the very case before you, have confessedly done. It is well known that their powers did not authorize them to conclude this treaty; but they acted for the benefit of their country, and this house, by a large majority, has advised to the ratification of their proceedings. Suppose, then, not only that the ministers who signed, but the President and Senate who ratified, this compact, have exceeded their powers; suppose that the other house of Congress, who have given their assent by passing this and other bills for the fulfilment of the obligations it imposes on us, have exceeded their powers; nay, suppose even that the majority of the states competent to amend the Constitution in other cases, could not amend it in this, without exceeding their powers,—and this is the extremest point to which any gentleman on this floor has extended his scruples;—suppose all this, and there still remains in the country a power competent to adopt and sanction every part of our engagements, and to carry them entirely into execution; for, notwithstand-
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