5247. MINISTERS (Foreign), Appointment and grade.—[continued].
The Secretary of State
recapitulated [to a committee of the Senate]
the circumstances which justified the President's
having continued the grade of Minister
Plenipotentiary [at The Hague]; but added,
that whenever the biennial bill should come on,
each House would have a constitutional right
to review the establishment again, and whenever
it should appear that either House thought
any part of it might be reduced, on giving to
the Executive time to avail themselves of the
first convenient occasion to reduce it, the Executive
could not but do it; but that it would
be extremely injurious * * * to do it so
abruptly as to occasion the recall of ministers,
or unfriendly sensations in any of those
countries with which our commerce is interesting.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 422.
Ford ed., i, 172.
(Jan. 1792)
