It is true, that where treaties of commerce stipulate for the mutual
appointment of consuls, whose functions are connected with commerce, the
admission of foreign consuls may fall within the power of making
commercial treaties; and that where no such treaties exist, the mission
of American consuls into foreign countries may PERHAPS be covered under
the authority, given by the ninth article of the Confederation, to
appoint all such civil officers as may be necessary for managing the
general affairs of the United States. But the admission of consuls into
the United States, where no previous treaty has stipulated it, seems to
have been nowhere provided for. A supply of the omission is one of the
lesser instances in which the convention have improved on the model
before them. But the most minute provisions become important when they
tend to obviate the necessity or the pretext for gradual and unobserved
usurpations of power. A list of the cases in which Congress have been
betrayed, or forced by the defects of the Confederation, into violations
of their chartered authorities, would not a little surprise those who
have paid no attention to the subject; and would be no inconsiderable
argument in favor of the new Constitution, which seems to have provided
no less studiously for the lesser, than the more obvious and striking
defects of the old.
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