WRIGHT— POWER TO AIAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 373 



merce against the threatened attack. The measure was seasonable and 

 salutary. The Bey had already declared war. His cruisers were out. . . . 

 One of the Tripolitan cruisers having fallen in with and engaged the small 

 schooner Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Sterret, which had gone as 

 a tender to our larger vessels, was captured, after a heavy slaughter of her 

 men, without the loss of a single one on our part. . . . unauthorized by the 

 Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of 

 Defense, the vessel, being disabled from committing further hostilities, was 

 liberated with its crew. The legislature will doubtles consider whether, by 

 authorizing measures of offense also, they will place our force on an equal 

 footing with that of our adversaries." 



Congress made the requisite authorization by resolution of Febru- 

 ary 6, 1802,^^ but Hamilton, as " Lucius Crassus," could not restrain 

 a comment on the message : ^^ 



" The first thing in it, which excites our surprise, is the very extra- 

 ordinary position, that though Tripoli had declared war in form against the 

 United States, and had enforced it by actual hostility, yet that there was not 

 power, for want of the sanction of Congress, to capture and detain her 

 crews. . . . When analyzed it amounts to nothing less than this, that 

 between two nations there may exist a state of complete war on the one 

 side — of peace on the other. . . . 



" The principle avowed in the Message would authorize our troops to 

 kill those of the invader, if they should come within reach of their bayonets, 

 perhaps to drive them into the sea, and drown them ; but not to disable them 

 from doing harm, by the milder process of making them prisoners, and 

 sending them into confinement. Perhaps it may be replied, that the same 

 end would be answered by disarming, and leaving them to starve. The 

 merit of such an argument would be complete by adding, that should they 

 not be famished, before the arrival of their ships with a fresh supply of 

 arms, we might then, if able, disarm them a second time, and send them 

 on board their fleet, to return safely home. . . . 



" Who could restrain the laugh of derision at positions so preposterous, 

 were it not for the reflection that in the first magistrate of our country, 

 they cast a blemish on our national character? What will the world think 

 of the fold when such is the shepherd?" 



President Polk approached the position of Hamilton when he 



met the Mexican " invasion " of disputed American territory by 



authorizing the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Fol- 



low^ing these engagements he said in his message of May ii, 



1846:^* 



122 Stat. 129. 



13 Hamilton, Works, Hamilton, ed., 7 : 745-748. 



1* Richardson, Messages, 4 : 442-443. 



