[The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) by John Marshall]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) CHAPTER I 38/49
The censure merited by the expressions themselves fell, not upon the person who had used them, but upon those who had communicated them to the public. Writers of considerable political eminence, charged them as being members of a powerful faction who were desirous of separating America from France, and connecting her with England, for the purpose of introducing the British constitution. As if no sin could equal the crime of disclosing to the people a truth which, by inducing reflection, might check the flood of that passion for France which was deemed the surest test of patriotism, the darkest motives were assigned for the disclosure, and the reputation of those who made it has scarcely been rescued by a lapse of years, and by a change of the subjects of controversy, from the peculiar party odium with which they were at the time overwhelmed. Sentiments of a still more extraordinary nature were openly avowed.
In a republican country, it was said, the people alone were the basis of government.
All powers being derived from them, might, by them, be withdrawn at pleasure.
They alone were the authors of the law, and to them alone, must the ultimate decision on the interpretation belong. From these delicate and popular truths, it was inferred, that the doctrine that the sovereignty of the nation resided in the departments of government was incompatible with the principles of liberty; and that, if Mr.Genet dissented from the interpretation given by the President to existing treaties, he might rightfully appeal to the real sovereign whose agent the President was, and to whom he was responsible for his conduct.
Is the President, it was asked, a _consecrated_ character, that an appeal from his decisions must be considered criminal? or are the people in such a state of monarchical degradation, that to speak of consulting them is an offence as great, as if America groaned under a dominion equally tyrannical with the old monarchy of France? It was soon ascertained that Mr.Dallas, to whom this threat of appealing to the people had been delivered, did not admit that the precise words had been used.
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