The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
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REMARKS ON AN EXTRACT FROM HAMILTON'S REPORT
PUBLISHED IN THE RICHMOND ENQUIRER. |
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 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
REMARKS ON AN EXTRACT FROM HAMILTON'S REPORT
PUBLISHED IN THE RICHMOND ENQUIRER.
In the Richmond Enquirer of the 21st is an Extract from
the Report of Secretary Hamilton, on the Constitutionality
of the Bank, in which he opposes a resort, in expounding
the Constitution, to the rejection of a proposition in the Convention,
not advise, if not draw up, the Message refusing to the House
of Reps. the papers relating to Jay's Treaty, in which President
Washington combats the right of their Call by appealing to his
personal knowledge of the intention of the Convention,
having been himself a member of it, to the authority of a
rejected proposition appearing on the Journals of the Convention,
and to the opinions entertained in the State Conventions?
Unfortunately the President had forgotten his
sanction to the Bank, which disregarded a rejected proposition
on that subject. This case too was far more in point,
than the proposition in that of the Treaty papers. Whatever
may be the degree of force in some of the remarks of the
between the Report & the message are palpable.
The extract was as follows:
"The Secretary of State will not deny that, whatever may have
been the intentions of the framers of a constitution or of a law; that
intention is to be sought for in the instrument itself, according to the
usual and established rules of construction. Nothing is more common
than for laws to express and effect more or less than was intended.
If, then, a power to erect a corporation in any case, be deducible by
fair inference from the whole, or any part, of the numerous provisions
of the constitution of the U. States, arguments drawn from extrinsic
circumstances regarding the intention of the convention, must be
rejected."
Washington's message of March 24, 1796, said:
"Having been a member of the General Convention, and knowing
the principles on which the Constitution was formed, I have ever
entertained but one opinion on this subject. . . .
"There is also reason to believe that this construction agrees with
the opinions entertained by the State Conventions, when they were
deliberating on the Constitution. . . .
"If other proofs than these, and the plain letter of the Constitution
itself, be necessary to ascertain the point under consideration, they
may be found in the Journals of the General Convention, which I
have deposited in the office of the Department of State. In those
Journals it will appear, that a proposition was made 'that no treaty
should be binding on the United States which was not ratified by a
law,' and that the proposition was explicitly rejected."—Annals of
Cong., 4th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 761.
| The writings of James Madison, | |