The same gentleman, in reply to the observations which fell from the gentleman from South Carolina, as to the admission of new States, observes, that although Congress may admit new States, the President and Senate, who are but a component part, cannot. Apply this doctrine to the case before us. How could Congress by any mode of legislation admit this country into the Union until it was acquired? And how can this acquisition be made except through the treaty-making power? Could the gentleman rise in his place and move for leave to bring in a bill for the purchase of Louisiana and its admission into the Union? I take it that no transaction of this or any other kind with a foreign power can take place except through the Executive Department, and that in the form of a treaty, agreement, or convention. When the acquisition is made, Congress can then make such disposition of it as may be expedient.
Mr. ADAMS.--It is not my intention to trespass long upon the patience of the Senate, on a subject which has already been debated almost to satiety; but, as objections on constitutional grounds have been raised against the bill under discussion, I wish to say a very few words in justification of the vote which I think it my duty to give.
The objections against the passage of the bill, as far as my recollection serves me, are two: the first, started by the honorable gentleman from Delaware who opened this debate; the second, urged by several of the other members who have spoken upon the question.
The gentleman from Delaware admits the necessity of making the provision for carrying into execution, on our part, the treaty which has been duly ratified by the Senate, _provided_ we can obtain complete and undoubted possession of the territory ceded us by France, in that treaty. But he observes, that the term possession is indefinite; that it may mean nothing more than the delivery of a twig, or of the knob of a door. That, from sources of the authenticity of which we have no reason to doubt, we are informed that Spain is very far from acquiescing in the cession of this territory to us; that probably the Spanish officers will not deliver peaceable possession; and that we ought not to put out of our own hands the power of withholding the payment of this money, until it shall be ascertained, beyond all question, that the territory, for which it is the consideration, is in our hands. But, sir, admitting that the word possession were of itself not sufficiently precise, I think, with the gentleman last up, that the fourth and fifth articles of the treaty, read by him, render it so in this instance. The fourth, stipulating that the French commissary shall do _every act necessary_ to receive the country from the Spanish officers, and transmit it to the agent of the United States--and the fifth, providing, not only that all the _military posts_ shall be delivered to us, and that the troops, whether of France or Spain, shall cease to occupy them, but that those troops shall all be embarked within three months after the ratification of the treaty. Now, when the country has been formally surrendered to us, when all the military posts are in our hands, and when all the troops, French or Spanish, have been embarked, what possible adverse possession can there be to contend against ours? Until all these conditions shall have been fulfilled on the part of France, neither the convention nor the bill before us requires the payment of money on ours; and we may safely trust the execution of the law to the discretion of the President of the United States. For, even if I could see any reason for distrusting him in the exercise of such a power, under different circumstances, which I certainly do not, still, in the present case, his own interest, and the weight of responsibility resting upon him, are ample security to us, against any undue precipitation on his part, in the payment of the money. On the other hand, I am extremely solicitous that every tittle of the engagements on our part in these conventions should be performed with the most scrupulous good faith, and I see no purpose of utility that can be answered by postponing the determination on the passage of this bill.