But let us compare the responsibility in this government to that of the British government. If there be an abuse of this royal prerogative, the minister who advises him is liable to impeachment. This is the only restraint on the sovereign. Now, sir, is not the minister of the United States under restraint? Who is the minister? The President himself, who is liable to impeachment. He is responsible in person. But for the abuse of the power of the king, the responsibility is in his advisers. Suppose the Constitution had said, that this minister alone could make treaties, and, when he violated the interest of the nation, he would be impeached by the Senate; then the comparison would hold good between the two governments. But is there not an additional security by adding to him the representatives and guardians of the political interest of the states? If he should seduce a part of the Senate to a participation in his crimes, those who were not seduced would pronounce sentence against him; and there is this supplementary security, that he may be convicted and punished afterwards, when other members come into the Senate, one third being excluded every second year; so that there is a twofold security—the security of impeachment and conviction by those senators that may be innocent, should no more than one third be engaged with the President in the plot; and should there be more of them engaged in it, he may be tried and convicted by the succeeding senators, and the upright senators who were in the Senate before.
As to the case of the Russian ambassador, I shall say nothing. It is as inapplicable as many other quotations made by the gentleman. I conceive that, as far as the bills of rights in the states do not express any thing foreign to the nature of such things, and express fundamental principles essential to liberty, and those privileges which are declared necessary to all free people, these rights are not encroached on by this government. [Mr. Madison added other remarks, which could not be heard.]
Mr. CORBIN begged leave to explain what he had said. He acknowledged that an act of Parliament passed, acknowledging the independence of America: but though there was nothing in that act respecting the Newfoundland fishery, and we were, by the treaty, to enjoy a right to that fishery unmolested, yet that part of the treaty was binding on the nation.
