Page:The Federalist (1818).djvu/626

which is an express right vested by the constitution; it could be no proof, that the same or a similiar effect could be produced by the direct operation of a constructive power.

Hence the embarrassments and gross contradictions of the writer in defining, and applying his ultimate inference from the operation of the executive power with regard to public ministers.

At first it exhibits an

"important instance of the right of the executive to decide the obligation of the nation with regard to foreign nations."

Rising from that, it confers on the executive, a right

"to put the United States in a condition to become an associate in war."

And, at its full height authorizes the executive

"to lay the legislature under an obligation of declaring war."

From this towering prerogative, it suddenly brings down the executive to the right of

"consequentially affecting the proper or improper exercise of the power of the legislature to declare war."

And then, by a caprice as unexpected as it is sudden, it espouses the cause of the legislature; rescues it from the executive right "to lay it under an obligation of declaring war;" and asserts it to be "free to perform its own duties, according to its own sense of them," without any other controul than what it is liable to, in every other legislative act.

The point at which it finally seems to rest, is, that

"the executive in the exercise of its constitutional powers, may establish an antecedent state of things, which ought to weigh in the legislative decisions;"

a prerogative which will import a great deal, or nothing, according to the handle by which you take it; and which, at the same time, you can take by no handle that does not clash with some inference preceding.

If "by weighing in the legislative decisions" be meant having an influence on the expediency of this or that decision, in the opinion of the legislature; this is no more than what every antecedent state of things ought