brought in conforming to this resolution, and carried by a
considerable majority. In the senate, it was lost by the casting vote
of the Vice President. The system which had been taken up in the house
of representatives was pressed no further.

The altercations between the executive and the minister of the French
republic, had given birth to many questions which had been warmly
agitated in the United States, and on which a great diversity of
sentiment prevailed.

The opinion of the administration that the relations produced by
existing treaties, and indeed by a state of peace independent of
treaty, imposed certain obligations on the United States, an
observance of which it was the duty of the executive to enforce, had
been reprobated with extreme severity. It was contended, certainly by
the most active, perhaps by the most numerous part of the community,
not only that the treaties had been grossly misconstrued, but also
that, under any construction of them, the interference of the
executive acquired the sanction of legislative authority; that, until
the legislature should interpose and annex certain punishments to
infractions of neutrality, the natural right possessed by every
individual to do any act not forbidden by express law, would furnish a
secure protection against those prosecutions which a tyrannical
executive might direct for the crime of disregarding its illegal
mandates. The right of the President to call out the militia for the
detention of privateers about to violate the rules he had established,
was, in some instances, denied; attempts to punish those who had
engaged, within the United States, to carry on expeditions against
foreign nations, were unsuccessful; and a grand jury had refused to
find a bill of indictment against Mr. Duplaine, for having rescued,
with an armed force, a vessel which had been taken into custody by an
officer of justice. Of consequence, however decided the opinion of the
executive might be with respect to its constitutional powers and
duties, it was desirable to diminish the difficulties to be
encountered in performing those duties, by obtaining the sanction of
the legislature to the rules which had been established for the
preservation of neutrality. The propriety of legislative provision for
the case was suggested by the President at the commencement of the
session, and a bill was brought into the senate, "in addition to the
act for punishing certain crimes against the United