5895. NEUTRALITY PROCLAMATION, History of.—[further continued].
You will see a piece signed “Pacificus” [Alexander Hamilton] in
defence of the proclamation. You will readily
know the pen. I know it the more readily because
it is an amplification only of the topics
urged in discussing the question [in cabinet]
when first proposed. The right of the Executive
to declare that we are not bound to execute
the guarantee [to France] was then advanced
by him and denied by me. No other opinion
was expressed on it. In this paper he repeats
it, and even considers the proclamation as such
a declaration; but if anybody intended it as
such (except himself) they did not then say
so. The passage beginning with the words,
“the answer to this is,” &c., is precisely the
answer he gave at the time to my objection,
that the Executive had no authority to issue
a declaration of neutrality, nor to do more than
declare the actual state of things to be that of
peace. “For until the new government is
acknowledged the treaties, &c., are, of course,
suspended.” This, also, is the sum of his arguments
the same day on the great question
which followed that of the proclamation, to wit,
whether the Executive might not, and ought
not to declare the [French] treaties suspended.
* * * Upon the whole, my objections to the
competence of the Executive to declare neutrality
(that being understood to respect the
future) were supposed to be got over by avoiding
the use of that term. The declaration of
the disposition of the United States can hardly
be called illegal, though it was certainly officious
and improper. The truth of the fact
lent it some cover. My objections to the
impolicy of a premature declaration were answered
by such arguments as timidity would
reasonably suggest. I now think it extremely
possible that Hammond might have been instructed
to have asked it, and to offer the
broadest neutral privileges, as the price, which
was exactly the price I wanted that we should
contend for. But is it not a miserable thing
that the three heresies I have quoted from
this paper, should pass unnoticed and unanswered,
as these certainly will, for none but
mere bunglers and brawlers have for some
time past taken the trouble to answer anything?—
To James Madison.
Ford ed., vi, 327.
(June. 1793)
