We make appropriations for the army, and we understand what we are doing, because it is “the army,” that is to say, the army established by law.  We make appropriations for the navy; they, too, are for “the navy,” as provided for and established by law.  We make appropriations for fortifications, but we say what fortifications, and we assign to each its intended amount of the whole sum.  This is the usual course of Congress on such subjects; and why should it be departed from?  Are we ready to say that the power of fixing the places for new fortifications, and the sum allotted to each; the power of ordering new ships to be built, and fixing the number of such new ships; the power of laying out money to raise men for the army; in short, every power, great or small, respecting the military and naval service, shall be vested in the President, without specification of object or purpose, to the entire exclusion of the exercise of all judgment on the part of Congress?  For one, I am not prepared.  The honorable member from Ohio, near me, has said, that if the enemy had been on our shores he would not have agreed to this vote.  And I say, if the proposition were now before us, and the guns of the enemy were pointed against the walls of the Capitol, I would not agree to it.

The people of this country have an interest, a property, an inheritance, in this INSTRUMENT, against the value of which forty capitols do not weigh the twentieth part of one poor scruple.  There can never be any necessity for such proceedings, but a feigned and false necessity; a mere idle and hollow pretence of necessity; least of all can it be said that any such necessity actually existed on the 3d of March.  There was no enemy on our shores; there were no guns pointed against the Capitol; we were in no war, nor was there a reasonable probability that we should have war, unless we made it ourselves.

But whatever was the state of our foreign relations, is it not preposterous to say, that it was necessary for Congress to adopt this measure, and yet not necessary for the President to recommend it?  Why should we thus run in advance of all our own duties, and leave the President completely shielded from his just responsibility?  Why should there be nothing but trust and confidence on our side, and nothing but discretion and power on his?

Sir, if there be any philosophy in history, if human blood still runs in human veins, if man still conforms to the identity of his nature, the institutions which secure constitutional liberty can never stand long against this excessive personal confidence, against this devotion to men, in utter disregard both of principle and experience, which seem to me to be strongly characteristic of our times.  This vote came to us, Sir, from the popular branch of the legislature; and that such a vote should come from such a branch of the legislature was amongst the circumstances which excited in me the greatest surprise and the deepest concern.