1667. CONSTITUTION (The Federal), Construction of.—[continued].
Our peculiar security is
in the possession of a written Constitution.
Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.
I say the same as to the opinion of those
who consider the grant of the treaty-making
power as boundless. If it is, then we have
no Constitution. If it has bounds, they can
be no others than the definitions of the powers
which that instrument gives. It specifies and
delineates the operations permitted to the
Federal Government, and gives all the powers
necessary to carry these into execution. Whatever
of these enumerated objects is proper for
a law, Congress may make the law; whatever
is proper to be executed by way of a treaty,
the President and Senate may enter into the
treaty; whatever is to be done by a judicial
sentence, the Judges may pass the sentence.
Nothing is more likely than that their enumeration
of powers is defective. This is the
ordinary case of all human works. Let us then
go on perfecting it, by adding, by way of
amendment to the Constitution those powers
which time and trial show are still wanting.—
To Wilson C. Nicholas. Washington ed. iv, 505.
Ford ed., viii, 247.
(M.
Sep. 1803)
