Group #1

Source:  Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, a future member of Jefferson's  cabinet, 13 August  1800.

I believe  [we] shall obtain. . . a majority in the legislature of the  United  States,  attached to the preservation of the  federal  Constitution,  according to its obvious principles and those  on  which  it  was known to be received;  attached  equally to the  preservation to the  states of those  rights  unquestionably remaining with them;. . . in  short, a majority  firm in  all those  principles which we have espoused, and the  Federalists have opposed  uniformly. . . . It [our country]  can never  be harmonious  and  solid while so respectable a portion of its citizens  support principles which go directly to a change of the federal Constitution, to  sink the  state governments, consolidate  them into one, and  to monarchise that.

Our country is too large to have all its  affairs  directed by a single government. . . . The true theory of our Constitution  is surely  the  wisest  and best  that  the  states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as  to everything  respecting  foreign  nations.

Group #2 

Source: Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, 23 February 1791.

Every power vested in a government … includes … a right to employ all the means requisite, and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power, and which are not precluded by restrictions and exceptions specified in the Constitution, or not immoral, or not contrary to the ends of political society…

The whole turn of the [necessary and proper] clause indicates, that it was the intent of the convention, by that clause to give a liberal latitude to the exercise of the specified powers. The expressions have peculiar comprehensiveness. They are, ‘to make all laws, necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by the constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof…

The powers contained in a constitution of government, especially those which concern the general administration of the affairs of a country, its finances, trade, defence etc. ought to be construed liberally, in advancement of the public good. The means by which national exigencies are to be provided for [and] national prosperity promoted, are of such infinite variety, extent and complexity that there must, of necessity be great latitude of discretion in the selection and application of those means.

Group #3

Source: Treaty between the United States of America and the French Republic, 30 April 1803.

The President of the United States of America and the First Consul of the French Republic in the name of the French People desiring to remove all Source of misunderstanding relative to objects of discussion mentioned in the Second and fifth articles of the Convention of the 8th Vendmiaire on 9/30 September 1800 relative to the rights claimed by the United States in virtue of the Treaty concluded at Madrid the 27 of October 1795, between His Catholic Majesty & the Said United States, & willing to Strengthen the union and friendship which at the time of the Said Convention was happily reestablished between the two nations...have agreed to the following Articles.

Article I

...And whereas in pursuance of the Treaty and particularly of the third article the French Republic has an incontestible title to the domain and to the possession of the said [Louisiana] Territory--The First Consul of the French Republic desiring to give to the United States a strong proof of his friendship doth hereby cede to the United States in the name of the French Republic for ever and in full Sovereignty the said territory with all its rights and appurtenances as fully and in the Same manner as they have been acquired by the French Republic in virtue of the above mentioned Treaty concluded with his Catholic Majesty.

Article II

In the cession made by the preceeding article are included the adjacent Islands belonging to Louisiana all public lots and Squares, vacant lands and all public buildings, fortifications, barracks and other edifices which are not private property.--The Archives, papers & documents relative to the domain and Sovereignty of Louisiana and its dependances will be left in the possession of the Commissaries of the United States, and copies will be afterwards given in due form to the Magistrates and Municipal officers of such of the said papers and documents as may be necessary to them.

Group #4

Source: Supreme Court opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Marshall on the Marbury v. Madison case, 1803.

Note:

Definition of mandamus: “a judicial writ issued as a command to an inferior court or ordering a person to perform a public or statutory duty”

The act to establish the judicial courts of the United States authorizes the Supreme Court "to issue writs of mandamus in cases warranted by the principles and usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons holding office, under the authority of the United States."

The Secretary of State, being a person holding an office under the authority of the United States, is precisely within the letter of the description; and if this court is not authorized to issue a writ of mandamus to such an officer, it must be because the law is unconstitutional, and therefore incapable of conferring the authority, and assigning the duties which its words purport to confer and assign.

The constitution vests the whole judicial power of the United States in one Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as congress shall, from time to time, ordain and establish. This power is expressly extended to all cases arising under the laws of the United States; and, consequently, in some form, may be exercised over the present case; because the right claimed is given by a law of the United States.

In the distribution of this power it is declared that "the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party. In all other cases, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction.”

Group #5 

Congressional Vote for War of 1812

Source: Tennessee Democratic-Republican Congressman Felix Grundy to the House of Representatives, 1811.

What, Mr. Speaker, are we now called on to decide? It is, whether we will resist by force the attempt, made by that Government, to subject our maritime rights to the arbitrary and capricious rule of her will; for my part I am not prepared to say that this country shall submit to have her commerce interdicted or regulated, by any foreign nation. Sir, I prefer war to submission.

Over and above these unjust pretensions of the British Government, for many years past, they have been in the practice of impressing our seamen, from merchant vessels; this unjust and lawless invasion of personal liberty, calls loudly for the interposition of this Government. To those better acquainted with the facts in relation to it, I leave it to fill up the picture. My mind is irresistibly drawn to the West.

Although others may not strongly feel the bearing, which the late transactions in that quarter have on this subject, upon my mind they have great influence. It cannot be believed by any many who will reflect, that the savage tribes, uninfluenced by other Powers, would think of making war on the United States. They understand too well their own weakness, and our strength. They have already felt the weight of our arms; they know they hold the very soil on which they live as tenants at sufferance. How, then, sir, are we to account for their late conduct? In one way only; some powerful nation must have intrigued with them, and turned their peaceful disposition towards us into hostilities. Great Britain alone has intercourse with those Northern tribes; I therefore infer, that if British gold has not been employed, their baubles and trinkets, and the promise of support and a place of refuge if necessary, have had their effect.

If I am right in this conjecture, war is not to commence by sea or land, it is already begun: and some of the richest blood of our country has already been shed…

This war, if carried on successfully, will have its advantages. We shall drive the British from our Continent – they will no longer have an opportunity of intriguing with our Indian neighbors, and setting on the ruthless savage to tomahawk our women and children...

Group #6

Source: Virginia Democratic-Republican Congressman John Randolph to the House of Representatives, 1811.

An insinuation has fallen from the gentleman from Tennessee, that the late massacre of our brethren on the Wabash had been instigated by the British Government. Has the President given any such information? Has the gentleman received any such, even informally, from an officer of this government? Is it so believed by the Administration? He had cause to think the contrary to be the fact; that such was not their opinion. This insinuation was of the grossest kind – a presumption the most rash, the most unjustifiable. Show buy good ground for it, he would give up the question at the threshold – he was ready to march to Canada. It was indeed well calculated to excite the feelings of the Western people particularly, who were not quite so tenderly attached to our red brethren as some modern philosophers; but it was destitute of any foundation, beyond mere surmise and suspicion….

He could but smile at the liberality of the gentleman, in giving Canada to New York, in order to strengthen the Northern balance of power, while at the same time he forewarned her that Western scale must preponderate...

What, sir, is the situation of the slaveholding states? … should we therefore be unobservant spectators of the progress of society within the last 20 years—of that silent but powerful change wrought by time and chance, upon its compositions and temper? When the fountains of the great deep of abomination were broken up, even the poor slaves had not escaped the general deluge. The French revolution had polluted even them. Nay, there had not been wanting men in that house witness to their legislative Legendre, the butcher who once held a seat there, to preach upon that flood these imprescriptible rights to a crowded audience of blacks in the galleries—teaching them that they are equal to their masters; in other words, advising them to cut their throats. Similar doctrines were disseminated by peddlers from New England and elsewhere throughout the southern country… While talking of taking Canada, some of us were shuddering for our own safety at home.”

…Name, however, but England, and all our antipathies are up in arms against her. Against whom? Against those whose blood runs in our veins; in common with whom we claim Shakespeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for our countrymen; whose form of government is the freest on earth, our own only excepted, from whom every valuable principle of our institutions had been borrowed – representation, jury trial, voting the supplies, writ of habeas corpus – our whole civil and criminal jurisprudence – against our fellow Protestants identified in blood, in language, in religion with ourselves…

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