within the "constitutional competency" of the President, aided even as before by a majority of the senate, to appoint an officer, or officers, to exercise all or either of these functions? The proposition is believed to be too clear for argument.

Within the United States, the office must be created by law, before the appointing power can be called into action. Why should a different rule prevail without? The law of nations operates on this government in its intercourse with other sovereignties, as the municipal law does in its action on its own citizens. In this case, then, the law of nations, as in the other. the municipal law, must have created the office, before the power of appointment can exist. Now the law of nations does recognize ambassadors and other ministers, in the intercourse between sovereigns. But this law does nowhere recognize the right of a Congress of ministers to receive an embassy. The right to receive, and the right to send a minister, are correlative. The one does not exist without the other. A Congress of ministers is not authorized to receive an ambassador, unless it is authorized to send one. Who will assert for the Congress of Panama, the right to exercise the latter power?

A sovereign cannot, then, be represented in a Congress of ministers, otherwise than by a deputy, who becomes a member of that Congress. He is not an ambassador to that Congress, but is himself a constituent part of it. He is not accredited to any particular power, but is commissioned as one of a number of deputies, who are collectively to compose the Congress. How are these deputies created? The answer is obvious. From the necessity of the thing, it must be, by conventions of treaties between the respective powers who are to be represented by those deputies. In this manner, the Congress at Verona was created by the treaty of Paris. The deputies who appeared there, were called into existence by the express stipulations of that treaty. So, too, in the Congress of Panama, the office of deputy to that Con

gress, is created by the special provisions of the treaties, between the several powers who are to be represented there.

The result of what has been said is this: the office of a deputy to an international Congress, does not exist permanently under the law of nations, but is the offspring of particular convention; and this, of necessity, because the Congress itself is not pre-existing, but is the creature of treaty; and the treaty which creates the Congress, stipulates also for the appointment of the deputies of whom it is to be composed. Then the clause of the constitution, which authorizes the appointment of ambassadors, or other ministers, cannot be invoked to sustain this nomination, because a deputy to a Congress, is not a minister existing by force of the law of nations, but created by particular conventions between the powers represented in that Congress; and we have no such conventions with the powers represented in the Congress of Panama. sequently, as to us, the office of minister or deputy to that Congress does not exist, not being derived from the law of nations, nor provided for by any convention. A very simple view of the subject seems to be decisive. Could the President have sent ministers to the Congress of Panama, uninvited by the powers represented there? Could he, without such invitation, have required such ministers to be accredited by that Congress? Would a refusal to receive them have furnished just ground of complaint? If these questions are answered in the negative, as I presume they must be, the conclusion is obvious, the office exists only by force of the invitation.

Con

Unless, then, the mere invitation of a foreign nation is competent to create an office, and thus to call into action the appointing power of the President, or unless this appointing power includes the power to create the office which we have seen that it does not. the appointment by the President of ministers to the Congress of Panama cannot be valid, nor can it be rendered so by the advice and consent of a majority of

the senate, nor by any power short of that, which is competent to create the office, and that we have seen is the treaty-making power. The President can appoint a minister to the republic of Colombia, because such an office exists under the law of nations, and is, therefore, a legitimate object of the appointing power; and he may instruct such minister to communicate with the Congress of Panama; but he cannot appoint a minister to take a seat in that Congress, because we have no conventions with the powers represented there, by which, as to us, the office is created; nor can he send a minister as an ambassador or legate to that Congress, because the Congress, as such, has not the rights of embassy. If it be said that this is mere form, the answer is obvious; form becomes substance in this case, by force of the constitutional provision which requires the assent of two thirds of the senate to the ratification of a treaty, while a bare majority is sufficient to give effect to an exercise of the appointing power.

Let us consider this question for a moment, freed from the prejudices which operate in favor of the Spanish American republics. If the states represented in the Congress of Vienna, or Verona, or the holy alliance, had given us an invitation to be represented there, apart from the expediency of the measure, would it have been within the constitutional competency" of the President to have sent ministers to take their seats in either of those assemblies? If the nations of Europe should, by treaties, provide for a Congress to devise the means of abolishing the slave trade, of resisting the extortions of the Barbary powers, or of suppressing the piracies of the West Indian seas, would the President, the United States not being parties to those treaties, of his own mere will, make us members of that Congress, by sending deputies to represent us there? The question is proposed in this form, because our ministers would, of necessity, if received at all, be members, and not ambassadors, since

such a Congress is neither competent to send or to receive an embassy.

Why, then, in the creation of this office of deputy or minister to the Congress of Panama, was not the constitutional organ, the treaty-making power resorted to? What would have been the result of such a course, is obvious, I think, in the recorded votes of the senate, on the preliminary questions which have arisen. The object could not have been effected. The office would not have had existence, or the senate, in the exercise of their legitimate powers, would have so modified the treaty, as to have limited the functions of the ministers to those objects of which they would have approved.

Such, sir, are some of the views which I have taken of this very interesting question. I will not fatigue the senate by a recapitulation of them. They are, perhaps, erroneous. If this measure is to be adopted, I sincerely hope they may be so. Such as they are, however, they are respectfully submitted to the senate, as the result of patient inquiry, and a sincere disposition to arrive at truth. It has not been my purpose to arraign the motives which have produced this nomination; but of the measure itself, I have spoken with the freedom which I thought became me. All that remains is, that I should record my vote, and that duty I am now ready to perform.

SPEECH OF DANIEL WEBSTER,

ON

THE PANAMA MISSION,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE

UNITED STATES, APRIL 14, 1826.*

MR. CHAIRMAN,

I AM not ambitious of amplifying this discussion. On the contrary, it is my anxious wish to confine the debate, so far as I partake in it, to the real and material questions before us.

The following Resolution being under consideration, in committee of the whole House upon the state of the union, viz:

"Resolved, That in the opinion of the House, it is expedient to appropriate the funds necessary to enable the President of the United States to send ministers to the Congress of Panama.”

Mr. M'Lane, of Delaware, submitted the following amendment thereto, viz :

"It being understood as the opinion of this House, that, as it has always been the settled policy of this government, in extending our commercial relations with foreign nations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible, to preserve peace, commerce, and friendship, with all nations, and to form entangling alliances with none: the ministers who may be sent shall attend at the said Congress in a diplomatic character merely; and ought not to be authorized to discuss, consider, or consult, upon any proposition of alliance, offensive or defensive, between this country and any of the Spanish American governments, or any stipulation, compact, or declaration, binding the United States in any way, or to any extent, to resist interference from abroad, with the domestic concerns of the aforesaid governments; or any measure which shall commit the present or future neutral rights or duties of these United States, either as may regard European nations, or between the several states of Mexico and South America: leaving the United States free to adopt, in any event which may happen, affecting the relations of the South American governments, with each other, or with foreign nations, such measures as the friendly disposition cherished by the American people towards the people of those states, and the honor and interest of this nation may require ;"