The consequences of this decision have been so vast that it is worth while making an inquiry into motive, although the materials upon which judgment must rest are scant.  No one can read the record of this discussion without noting that Madison’s approval of the original clause was lukewarm as compared with the ardor he had shown when the question was whether Washington should be allowed to remove his subordinates.  This contrast suggests that Madison’s behavior was affected by fear of Hamilton’s influence.  Would it be prudent for him to give Hamilton the advantage of being able to appear in person before the House, and probably to supplant Madison himself as the spokesman of the Administration?  Divergence between the two men had already begun in details.  At the time the vote on the powers of the Secretary of the Treasury was taken, the tariff bill and the tonnage bill were still pending, and Hamilton’s influence operated against Madison’s views on some points.  Moreover, the question of the permanent residence of the federal government was coming forward and was apparently overshadowing everything else in the minds of members.  Ames several times in his correspondence at this period remarks upon Madison’s timidity, which was due to his concern about Virginia State politics.  Any arrangement that might enable Hamilton to cross swords with an opponent on the floor of the House could not be attractive to Madison, who was a lucid reasoner but not an impressive speaker.  Hamilton was both of these, and he possessed an intellectual brilliancy which Madison lacked.  Ames, who respected Madison’s abilities and who regarded him as the leading member of the House, wrote that “he speaks low, his person is little and ordinary; he speaks decently as to manner, and no more; his language is very pure, perspicuous, and to the point.”  Why Fitzsimmons should be opposed to the appearance of the Secretary in person in the House, as had been Robert Morris’s practice when he was Superintendent of Finance, is plain enough.  Maclay’s diary has many references to Fitzsimmons’s negotiations with members on tariff rates.  It was not to the advantage of private diplomacy to allow the Secretary to shape and define issues on the floor of the House.  But Fitzsimmons could not have had his way about the matter without Madison’s help.

Gibbon remarks that the greatest of theological controversies which racked the Roman Empire and affected the peace of millions turned on the question whether a certain word should be spelled with one diphthong or another.  A like disproportion between the vastness of results and the minuteness of verbal distinction is exhibited in this decision by the House.  The change of “report” into “prepare” threw up a ridge in the field of constitutional development that has affected the trend of American politics ever since.  This is the explanation of a problem of comparative politics that has often excited much wondering notice:  why it is that alone among modern representative assemblies the American House of Representatives tends to decline in prestige and authority.  The original expectation was that the House of Representatives would take a dominant position like that of the House of Commons, but its degradation began so soon that Fisher Ames noted it as early as 1797.  Writing to Hamilton he observed: