John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

17. IV:30. Mrs Adams continues unwell; confined to her chamber, and this morning was again bled. I went at noon with George to Brown’s Hotel, and saw the models of the Capitol, and of the Baltimore Exchange. Mr Shaler called this morning at my Office, and spent the Evening with me at my house. E. Wyer was also at the Office— I took to Mr Wirt the Attorney General the Note I had received last Evening from Mr Canning, and a Volume of Burlamaqui containing precisely the same passage relating to the delivery of fugitive criminals as that in Vattel—both these writers, as well as Grotius do in very explicit terms assert the moral obligation of Nations, to deliver up fugitives guilty of heinous crimes. Mr. Wirt had the English translation of Grotius with a part of Barbeyrac’s Notes, and I had sent him the French Edition of Barbeyrac; which we compared together; but Wirt did not seem to be satisfied with the authorities— He wanted a Latin Grotius; but finally came to the denial of the President’s authority to deliver up. I told him that was the ground I had alledged to Mr Canning, though I was not entirely satisfied that there was a want of authority— It was made by the Constitution the Duty of the President to take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, by which may be understood the Laws of Nations as well as the Laws of Congress— Now if it were clearly and unquestionably the Law of Nations that fugitives charged with heinous crimes should be delivered up, it would be the duty of the President to take care that that Law should be faithfully executed as well as others—and he could not be bound by the duty without possessing the authority necessary for its discharge— He said that doctrine was too bold for him: he was 139too much of a Virginian for that. I told him that Virginian Constitutional scruples were accommodating things, whenever the exercise of a power did not happen to suit them, they would allow of nothing but powers expressly written; but when it did, they had no aversion to implied powers— Where was there in the Constitution a Power to purchase Louisiana?— He said there was a power to make Treaties— Ay! a Treaty to abolish the Constitution of the United States?— “Oh! No! No!”— But the Louisiana purchase was in substance a dissolution, and recomposition of the whole Union— It made a Union totally different from that for which the Constitution had been formed— It gives despotic powers over the territories purchased— It naturalizes foreign Nations in a mass. It makes French and Spanish Laws a part of the Laws of the Union— It introduces whole systems of Legislation, abhorrent to the Spirit and character of our Institutions; and all this done by an Administration which came in, blowing a Trumpet against implied powers. After this, to nibble at a Bank, a Road, a Canal, the mere mint and cummin of the Law, was but glorious inconsistency— He said the People had sanctioned it— How the People?— By their Representatives in Congress; they were the People— Oh! said I, that doctrine is too bold for me . But as to this power of the President to take care that the Laws of Nations be faithfully executed, without waiting for an act of Congress; it had been exercised by President Washington, by seizing and restoring vessels illegally captured at the commencement of the Wars of the French Revolution, before any Act of Congress upon the subject; and it was now exercised continually by the admission duty free of baggage and Articles imported by foreign Ministers— All this seemed to make little impression upon Mr Wirt, and I asked him whether he thought the Governors of the States had the power to deliver up fugitive criminals— He thought they had— I said it was no more delegated to them than to the President; and they no more, than he possessed any other than delegated powers— They were certainly not specially charged to take care that the Laws of Nations should be faithfully executed in their respective States, nor had they any power to arrest or detain any individual otherwise than conformably to the Laws of the Land. Wirt mentioned the Treaty of 1794, by which it was stipulated that persons charged with murder and forgery should be delivered up, from which he drew two inferences—first that it proved the sense of both parties that without the Treaty, there would be no obligation to deliver up criminals of any description; and secondly that even in making the Stipulation, the specification of those two crimes, was equivalent to an agreement that they would deliver up no others— I objected to both these conclusions; at least in their entire Latitude— I said that Stipulations in Treaties were often only in affirmance of principles which would without them be binding, and that the specification might only be of the two crimes for which the refuge would be most likely to be sought, and would be reciprocally most dangerous to bordering Countries. We both agreed that it was a subject deserving the attention of Congress— There was this Evening a party at Dr Thornton’s, which George only attended. Mrs. Lewis once a Miss Custis, with her Daughter, and General J. P. Van Ness’s family were there.