Congress found more satisfaction in Gallatin’s Annual Report, sent to Congress a week afterward, than they could draw from Madison’s Message, for Gallatin told them that he had succeeded in bringing the current expenses within the annual income; and only in case they should decide to prohibit the importation of British goods after Feb. 2, 1811, should he need further legislation both to make good the revenue and to enforce the prohibition. Congress lost no time. West Florida called first for attention; and Senator Giles, December 18, reported a bill extending the territory of Orleans to the river Perdido, in accordance with the President’s measures. In the debate which followed, Federalist senators attacked the President for exceeding the law and violating the Constitution. Their argument was founded on the facts already told, and required nothing more to support it; but the defence had greater interest, for no one could foretell with certainty by what expedient senators would cover an Executive act which, like the purchase of Louisiana itself, had best be accepted in silence as plainly beyond the Constitution. Henry Clay acted as the President’s champion, and explained on his behalf that the Act of Oct. 31, 1803, authorizing the President to occupy the ceded territory of Louisiana, was still in force, although regular possession to the Iberville had been taken, Dec. 20, 1803, in pursuance of that Act, without further demand on the part of the United States, and although the Act of March 20, 1804, providing for the temporary government of the territory, declared that “the Act passed the 31st day of October ... shall continue in force until the 1st day of October, 1804.” In face of this double difficulty,--the exhaustion of the power and its express limitation,--Clay asserted that the power had not been exhausted, and that the limitation, though apparently general, was intended only for the provisional government established by another portion of the Act of 1803. He produced in his support the Act of Feb. 24, 1804, empowering the President, to erect West Florida into a collection district whenever he deemed it expedient. “These laws,” continued Clay, “furnish a legislative construction of the treaty correspondent with that given by the Executive, and they vest in this branch of the government indisputably a power to take possession of the country whenever it might be proper in his discretion.”