purchase be extending the executive power father, and be more alarming, and improvable by the opposition and the Eastern States, than the proposed indirect mode?"
Jefferson sent this letter to Gallatin, who treated it without favor.[1]
- "If the acquisition of territory is not warranted by the Constitution," said he, "it is not more legal to acquire for one State than for the United States. . . . What could, on his construction, prevent the President and Senate, by treaty, annexing Cuba to Massachusetts, or Bengal to Rhode Island, if ever the acquirement of colonies should become a favorite object with governemnts, and colonies should be acquired? But does any constitutional objection really exist? . . . To me it would appear, (1) that the United States, as a nation, have an inherent right to acquire territory; (2) that whenever that acquisition is by treaty, the same constituted authorities in whom the treaty-making power is vested have a constitutional right to sanction the acquisition."
Gallatin not only advanced Federal doctrine, but used also what the Virginians always denounced as Federalist play on words. "The United States as a nation" had an inherent right to do whatever the States in union cared to do; but the Republican party, with Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin at their head, had again and again maintained that the United States government had the inherent right to do no act whatever, but was the creature of the States in union; and its acts, if not resulting from an expressly granted
- ↑ Gallatin to Jefferson, Jan. 13, 1803; Gallatin's Works, i. 112.
