Accurate and comprehensive knowledge of foreign politics;
a steady and systematic adherence to the same views; a nice and uniform
sensibility to national character; decision, secrecy, and despatch, are
incompatible with the genius of a body so variable and so numerous. The
very complication of the business, by introducing a necessity of the
concurrence of so many different bodies, would of itself afford a solid
objection. The greater frequency of the calls upon the House of
Representatives, and the greater length of time which it would often be
necessary to keep them together when convened, to obtain their sanction
in the progressive stages of a treaty, would be a source of so great
inconvenience and expense as alone ought to condemn the project.
The only objection which remains to be canvassed, is that which would
substitute the proportion of two thirds of all the members composing the
senatorial body, to that of two thirds of the members present. It has
been shown, under the second head of our inquiries, that all provisions
which require more than the majority of any body to its resolutions,
have a direct tendency to embarrass the operations of the government,
and an indirect one to subject the sense of the majority to that of the
minority.
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