Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/280

270 that State necessity might justify a limited embargo, or suspension of all foreign commerce; but if Congress have the power, for purposes of safety, of preparation, or counteraction, to suspend commercial intercourse with foreign nations, where do we find them limited as to the duration more than as to the manner and extent of the measure?"

Against this remarkable decision Dexter did not venture to appeal. Strong as his own convictions were, he knew the character of Chief-Justice Marshall's law too well to hope for success at Washington. One of Marshall's earliest constitutional decisions had deduced from the power of Congress to pay debts the right for government to assume a preference over all other creditors in satisfying its claims on the assets of a bankrupt. Constructive power could hardly go further; and the habit of mind which led to such a conclusion would hardly shrink from sustaining Judge Davis's law.

Yet the embargo, in spite of Executive, Legislative, Judicial, and State authorities, rankled in the side of the Constitution. Even Joseph Story, though in after life a convert to Marshall's doctrines, could never wholly reconcile himself to the legislation of 1808.


 * "I have ever," he wrote, "considered the embargo a measure which went to the utmost limit of constructive power under the Constitution. It stands upon the