Unexpected as the acquisition of Louisiana was to the Administration, President Jefferson was quick to appreciate the vast importance of the province to the United States. "Giving us the sole dominion of the Mississippi," he wrote, "it excludes those bickerings with foreign powers, which we know of a certainty would have put us at war with France immediately: and it secures to us the course of a peaceable nation." At the same time he was equally quick to see that the acquisition would give "a handle to the malcontents." To his intimates he avowed with the utmost frankness that the Administration had exceeded its constitutional powers. The Constitution, he conceived, did not contemplate the acquisition of territory not included within the limits fixed by the Treaty of 1783. Yet he was firmly convinced of the practical necessity of ratifying the treaty of purchase. The only way out of the dilemma, he thought, was frankly "to rely on the nation to sanction an act done for its great good, without its previous authority." Never doubting that so benevolent a purpose would be cordially approved, Jefferson drafted an amendment to the Constitution authorizing the acquisition of Louisiana and providing for its government. To his surprise, leading Republicans received his proposal with indifference, not to say with coolness. Nicholas thought that the power to acquire territory by treaty might fairly be inferred from the Constitution, and advised the President not to run the risk of turning the Senate against the treaty by raising constitutional scruples. In much distress of spirit Jefferson replied that to assume by free construction the power to acquire territory was to make blank paper of the Constitution. If the treaty-making power could be stretched in this fashion, then there was no limit to its extent. But finding that his party did not share his scruples, Jefferson abandoned his amendment to the Constitution, "confiding that the good sense of our country will correct the evil of construction when it shall produce ill effects." Hamilton in all the pride of triumphant Federalism had never gone further than this.