His own words reveal his anomalous
situation: "The Constitution has made no provision for our holding
foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our
Union. The executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so
much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the
Constitution. The Legislature, in casting behind metaphysical subtleties
and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay
for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for them
unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had they
been in a position to do it." "Doing for them unauthorized what we know
they would have done for themselves" was the policy of the Federalists,
and the very ground upon which Mr. Jefferson had denounced their policy
and defeated them. The purchase was, in fact, quite within those implied
powers of the Constitution which had always been contended for by the
Federalists, and such leaders as Hamilton and Morris acknowledged
this. Under the strict construction theory, not only could there be no
authority for such an acquisition of territory without the consent of
the several States denominated "part of the original compact," but the
manifest and necessary consequences of this accession, in its effects
upon the Union and upon the balance of power within the Government, were
overwhelming to such an extent as to amount almost to a revolution.
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