They said, too, that
if the particular sum was noted by the Representatives, it would not be
a secret. The President had no confidence in the secrecy of the Senate,
and did not choose to take money from the treasury or to borrow. But he
agreed he would enter into provisional treaties with the Algerines,
not to be binding on us till ratified here. I prepared questions for
consultation with the Senate, and added, that the Senate were to be
apprized, that on the return of the provisional treaty, and after they
should advise the ratification, he would not have the seal put to it
till the two Houses should vote the money. He asked me, if the treaty
stipulating a sum and ratified by him, with the advice of the Senate,
would not be good under the constitution, and obligatory on the
Representatives to furnish the money. I answered, it certainly would,
and that it would be the duty of the Representatives to raise the money;
but that they might decline to do what was their duty, and I thought it
might be incautious to commit himself by a ratification with a foreign
nation, where he might be left in the lurch in the execution: it was
possible too, to conceive a treaty, which it would not be their duty
to provide for. He said that he did not like throwing too much into
democratic hands, that if they would not do what the constitution called
on them to do, the government would be at an end, and must then assume
another form.
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