Those gentlemen who did not participate in these feelings would have an opportunity to record their names with their opinions.

But those who did participate in them ought not to be restrained from expressing them.
The motion to strike out was lost; after which the words "the spectacle of a whole nation, the freest and most enlightened in the world," were amended, so as to read, "the spectacle of a free and enlightened nation," and the answer was carried by a great majority.
{1797} Early in the session, the President communicated to congress in a special message, the complaints alleged by the representative of the French republic against the government of the United States.

These complaints embracing most of the transactions of the legislative and executive departments, in relation to the belligerent powers, a particular and careful review of almost every act of the administration, which could affect those powers, became indispensable.
The principal object for the mission of General Pinckney to Paris, having been to make full and fair explanations of the principles and conduct of the American government, this review was addressed to that minister.

It presented a minute and comprehensive detail of all the points of controversy which had arisen between the two nations; and defended the measures which had been adopted in America, with a clearness, and a strength of argument, believed to be irresistible.

To place the subject in a point of view, admitting of no possible misunderstanding, the secretary of state had annexed to his own full and demonstrative reasoning, documents, establishing the real fact in each particular case, and the correspondence relating to it.
This letter, with its accompanying documents, was laid before congress.
Those who read these valuable papers will not be surprised, that the President should have relied upon their efficacy in removing from the government of France, all impressions unfavourable to the fairness of intention which had influenced the conduct of the United States; and in effacing from the bosoms of the great body of the American people, all those unjust and injurious suspicions which had been entertained against their own administration.