This dissatisfaction was not concealed. On the 2d of March, Mr. Livingston laid upon the table a resolution, requesting the President "to lay before the house a copy of the instructions to the minister of the United States, who negotiated the treaty with the king of Great Britain, communicated by his message of the 1st of March, together with the correspondence and other documents relative to the said treaty." On the 7th of March, he amended this resolution by adding the words, "excepting such of the said papers as any existing negotiation may render improper to be disclosed." After some debate, Mr. Madison proposed to modify the amendment of Mr. Livingston, so as to except such papers, as in the judgment of the President, it might be inconsistent with the interest of the United States at this time to disclose. This proposition was rejected by a majority of ten voices, and the discussion of the original resolution was resumed. The debate soon glided into an argument on the nature and extent of the treaty making power. The friends of the administration maintained, that a treaty was a contract between two nations, which, under the constitution, the President, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, had a right to make; and that it was made when, by and with such advice and consent, it had received his final act. Its obligations then became complete on the United States; and to refuse to comply with its stipulations, was to break the treaty, and to violate the faith of the nation. The opposition contended, that the power to make treaties, if applicable to every object, conflicted with powers which were vested exclusively in congress. That either the treaty making power must be limited in its operation, so as not to touch objects committed by the constitution to congress, or the assent and co-operation of the house of representatives must be required to give validity to any compact, so far as it might comprehend those objects. A treaty, therefore, which required an appropriation of money, or any act of congress to carry it into effect, had not acquired its obligatory force until the house of representatives had exercised its powers in the case. They were at full liberty to make, or to withhold, such appropriation, or other law, without incurring the imputation of violating any existing obligation, or of breaking the faith of the nation. The debate on this question was animated, vehement, and argumentative; all the party passions were enlisted in it; and it was protracted until the 24th of March, when the resolution was carried in the affirmative by sixty-two to thirty-seven voices. The next day, the committee appointed to present it to the chief magistrate reported his answer, which was, "that he would take the resolution into consideration."