177
PAPERS OF :MIRABEAU BuONAPARTE LA:llfAR
head. The propriety of adopting a course of this kind and circum- scribing the duties of the State Department to our foreign relations, unincumbered with the local concerns of the country, and all its com- plicated details, is as obvious to my mind as the policy of keeping the business of the other Departments of the. Government separate and dis- tinct. I am aware that in the United States, from which we haVC' borrowed the outlines of our Government, the duties of the State De- partment are in many respects, analagous to i.hose assigned to our own. Yet the performance of those duties are less onerous there, than here; because it will be recollected that such as grow out of the domestic relations of the nation, by far the most numerous and burthensome, belong in that country, principally to the state governments, and are transacted within their respective limits; while here the entire mass is thrown into one department, the head of which is and must remain unaided in his efforts to discharge them, except so far as relates to th~ mere mechanical duties of the office. If the same Department in the United States, in addition to its foreign and diplomatic duties, requir- ing the highest order of attainments, were also called upon to superin- tend the commissioning of every Justice of the Peace, Judge, Sheriff, and all county officers, throughout the entire Republic, and to assume the whole extended correspondence growing out of the civil operations of the country, unaided by the state authorities, which now perform them, I have no hesitancy in saying that such an organization would be found upon a short experiment to produce such delays and embara~s- ments in the ndministration of the affairs of GoYernment, as to render it absolutely indispepsable to make some such separation and classifica- tion of its duties, as that which it is my present design to invite Con- gress to make in the corresponding department of our Government. The science of diplomacy, like all other sciences dependant upon mental effort, must be fully understood to be practised successfully; and it is impossible that the mind ,vhich is continually abstracted from its contemplation by other duties, differing most materially in their character, ever can become sufficiently imbued with its principles to carry them out with full advantage in practical negotiation. The diplomatist must have time for research, and leisure for reflection; while he who is intrusted with the more mechanical branches of public business, required but few qualifications beyond industrious habits and practical experience. 'l'he very habits and pursuits which prepare the mind for the skillful discharge of the first order of these duties, have the opposite tendency of disqualifying it for the prompt performance of the others; and to have both classes assigned, as they now are in the State Department to one individual, is only to ensure a want of despatch and efficiency in the execution of both. Hence the se,·erance of the duties at present pertaining to that department, is not only necessary to an able direction of onr foreign relations, but is of equal importance • to the successful management and prosperity of our domestic ones. Without this se,·erance there will be delavs and embarassments in the transaction of public business, continually· arising- greatly to the injury of individal interests; ancl fruitful of discontent. Our entire system of civil policy is founded upon principles and actions so intimately interwoven and blended with each other, that the suspension of one, almost unavoidably weakens and impairs the operations of the rest.
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