If the principle I contest is just,
the charge d'affaires is right. He has done his duty as a vigilant
supervisor of the President's correspondence. If the principle is
admitted, every diplomatic agent at Washington will do the same, and we
shall have twenty censors of the correspondence of the Government and of
the public press. If the principle is correct, every communication which
the President makes in relation to our foreign affairs, either to the
Congress or to the public, ought in prudence to be previously submitted
to these ministers, in order to avoid disputes and troublesome and
humiliating explanations. If the principle be submitted to, neither
dignity nor independence is left to the nation. To submit even to
a discreet exercise of such a privilege would be troublesome and
degrading, and the inevitable abuse of it could not be borne. It must
therefore be resisted at the threshold, and its entrance forbidden
into the sanctuary of domestic consultations. But whatever may be the
principles of other governments, those of the United States are fixed;
the right will never be acknowledged, and any attempt to enforce it
will be repelled by the undivided energy of the nation.
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