To W. C. Rives.

DEAR SIR,—Your favor of the 31st ult. was duly received. You have not mistaken my idea of the constitutional power of Congress to regulate trade; and it gives me pleasure that you take the same view of it.

The power to regulate trade is a compound technical phrase, to be expounded by the sense in which it has been usually taken, as shewn by the purposes to which it has been usually applied. To interpret it with a literal strictness, excluding whatever is not specified, would exclude even the retaliating and extorting power against the unequal policy of other nations, which is not specified, yet is admitted by all to be included. The custom-house has, in fact, been more generally used as the instrument for establishing and protecting domestic manufactures, than for enforcing liberality or reciprocity abroad.

You make a very pertinent enquiry as to the object and history of the publication in 1801 subscribed "The danger not over." A lapse of nearly thirty years would account for failures of a memory more tenacious than mine. I have certainly no recollections favoring the supposition that it referred to any questions then agitated concerning the constitutional power of Congress to encourage manufactures by regulations of trade, and must believe that the passage grew out of the broad and ductile rules of construction advanced at an earlier period by Mr. Hamilton on that and other subjects, and to hypothetical abuses of the power, not less oppressive than usurpation. The language of Mr. Pendleton shows that his ideas were neither very definite nor very positive.

On what authority

^* See Richmond Enquirer of ——, in the winter of 29-’30, for a certified proof that neither Mr. Jefferson nor J. M. had any connexion with the paper of Mr. Pendleton. Mr. Ritchie was misled by his friend, who acknowledged that he had misapprehended his informer.

* it is given out that Mr. Jefferson and myself were associated in the preparation of the piece, I cannot divine. For myself, I hold it to be impossible. I do not remember even more than that it excited much attention as coming from such a source. The spirit and style would denote the pen of Mr. Pendleton, and of him singly. It is possible that Mr. Jefferson, in corresponding with him, might, at that crisis, have exhorted him to take up that weapon in order to kill the snake, which had perhaps been skotched only; and that, not doubting my political sentiments, he might have alluded to me, in known friendship with Mr. Pendleton, as sure to have the same wish with himself. I have looked over all my correspondence of that period with Mr. Jefferson, and others with whom it was constant and confidential, without finding a ray of light. If Mr. Pendleton wrote in communion with any one, my conjecture would point to his kinsman and eleve, Col. J. Taylor, with whom he was always very intheate, and who had almost an antipathy to Federal powers. It is much more probable that he concurred in all the opinions expressed by Mr. Pendleton than that both Mr. Jefferson and myself should have done so in some of them. I will renew the search into my files, and if I make any discovery will let you know it.

The authority of Col. Hamilton, I observe, is cited against the power in question. If his language in the Federalist was so intended, which is not probable, he must have changed his opinion at a very early day, as is proved by his official reports, which go into the opposite extreme. Such a change, if real, would not, indeed, be without his own example. In the Federalist, he had so explained the removal from office as to deny the power to the President. In an edition of the work at New York, there was a marginal note to the passage that "Mr. H. had changed his view of the Constitution on that point."

Mrs. Rives being now with you, Mrs. Madison joins in the offer of cordial regards and good wishes to you both.

I must ask an excuse for the marks of haste, which I could not avoid without losing a mail.