Mr. Madison once more rose to the constitutional question. He said that, if the passages of the Constitution be taken literally, they must clash. The word _supreme_, as applied to treaties, meant as over the state Constitutions, and not over the Constitution and laws of the United States. He supported Mr. Gallatin's view of the congressional power as cooeperative with the treaty power. A construction which made the treaty power omnipotent he thought utterly inadmissible in a constitution marked throughout with limitations and checks. Mr. Gallatin again claimed the attention of the House, as the original question of a call for papers had resolved itself into a discussion on the treaty-making power. In the treaty of peace of 1783 there were three articles which might be supposed to interfere with the legislative powers of the several States: 1st, that which related to the payment of debts; 2d, the provision for no future confiscations; 3d, the restitution of estates already confiscated. The first could not be denied. "Those," he said, "might be branded with the epithet of disorganizers, who threatened a dissolution of the Union in case the measures they dictated were not obeyed; and he knew, although he did not ascribe it to any member of the House, that men high in office and reputation had industriously spread an alarm that the Union would be dissolved if the present motion was carried." He took the ground that a treaty is not valid, and does not bind the nation as such, till it has received the sanction of the House of Representatives. Mr. Harper closed the argument on the Federal side. On March 24 the resolution calling for the papers was carried by a vote of yeas 62, nays 37, absent 5, the speaker 1 (105). Livingston and Gallatin were appointed to present the request to the President. On March 30 the President returned answer to the effect that he considered it a dangerous precedent to admit this right in the House; that the assent of the House was not necessary to the validity of a treaty; and he absolutely refused compliance with the request. The letter of instructions to Jay would bear the closest examination, but the cabinet scorned to take shelter behind it, and it was on their recommendation that the President's refusal was explicit. This message, in spite of the opposition of the Federalists, was referred, by a vote of 55 yeas to 37 nays, to the committee of the whole. This reference involved debate. In his opposition to this motion, Mr. Harper said that the motives of the friends of the resolution had been avowed by the "gentleman who led the business, from Pennsylvania;" whereby it appears that Mr. Gallatin led the Republicans in the first debate. During this his first session he shared this distinction with Mr. Madison. At the next he became the acknowledged leader of the Republican party.