colony not blockaded by British ships, provided such goods were American property, and had previously been landed in the United States, paying a duty of at least one per cent above what was refunded on reexportation. The produce of such colonies also, by the same proposal, might, if not contraband of war, be brought into the United States, and, if it had paid a duty of two per cent above drawback, be exported to European belligerent nonblockaded ports. "When the treaty arrived at Washington Mr. Jefferson was for a time in doubt as to the position to take. He had been vehemently attacked for his peace tendencies." His associations, either personal or political, had not been with the shipping interests, and for this very reason he felt himself peculiarly distrustful of any measures which might sanction a claim so odious to those interests as was that of impressment. Before he received information that the American envoys had agreed to the treaty, while they were supposed at Washington to be still hesitating as to its acceptance, Mr. Madison wrote to them, both officially and confidentially, not to hazard the concession. The concession was made, and Mr. Madison's private correspondence shows how reluctant both he and Mr. Jefferson were to overrule it. Mr. Jefferson, in his subsequent letters to Mr. Monroe, speaks of his final nonacceptance of the treaty as an act peculiarly painful to himself. No one can study Mr. Monroe's unpublished writings without seeing that the scar remained with him through his whole life, and that the remembrance of his action in 1807 in agreeing to what he believed to be the dropping of impressment by ignoring it, was vivid in his memory when he submitted to the same method of disposing of the question by the commissioners at Ghent in 1814. But there in this distinction: In 1807 impressment was impliedly recognized in the British proposals by the very restrictions placed on it. In 1814 it was dropped out of sight. "The apparent acquiescence in impressment was the controlling reason-aside from the fact that the treaty was in conflict with instructions-in Mr. Jefferson's mind for its rejection. It was said at the time that the treaty was killed by Mr. Madison from his jealousy of Mr. Monroe. The correspondence, unpublished as well as published, of Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe gives no trace of such jealousy. Mr. Madison's letters show throughout the greatest anxiety that Mr. Monroe's mission should succeed. Mr. a“ I have been for a long time,' said Mr. Quincy, then the leading representative of New England federalism, in a speech on January 19, 1809, a close observer of what has been done and said by the majority of this House; and, for one, I am satisfied that no insult, however gross, offered to us by either France or Great Britain, could force this majority into the declaration of war. To use a strong but common expression, it could not be kicked into such a declaration by either nation.' (Quincy's Speeches, 143.) Jefferson, in withholding the treaty from the Senate, followed, as the papers show, his own counsels, and it is impossible, on reading the correspondence, not to see that, so far from desiring to injure Mr. Monroe being one of his motives, his peculiar affection for Mr. Monroe was one of the chief grounds for his hesitancy. "Mr. Jefferson, in his annual message in October, 1807, gave the following reasons for nonacceptance of the treaty: Some of the articles might have been admitted on a principle of compromise, but others were too highly disadvantageous; and no sufficient provision was made against the principal source of the contentions and collisions which were constantly endangering the peace of the two nations."" Note by Dr. Francis Wharton, Wharton's Int. Law Digest, § 150b, II. 163. Am. State Papers, For. Rel. 119, 133 et seq. At pp. 142, 160, 173 of the The question is discussed in 2 Lyman's Dip. of the United States, chap. i. As to impressment and the Monroe-Pinkney negotiations, see supra, § 317. That the treaty was rejected, not because it failed to provide that free ships should make free goods, but because it contained provisions that seemed to sanction the claim of impressment, see President Madison to Mr. Joy (unofficial), Jan. 17, 1810, 2 Madison's Works, 467, and President Jefferson to Mr. Bowdoin, April 2, 1807, 5 Jefferson's Works, 63. Among the MS. Monroe Papers there is a letter from Mr. Bowdoin to Mr. Monroe of Feb. 27, 1807, expressing a general but qualified approval of the treaty. As to the negotiations of Messrs. Erskine and Jackson, see supra, § 640; 3 Am. State Pap. For. Rel. 300 et seq. For correspondence between Mr. Foster, British minister at Washington. In a private letter from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Monroe, May 29, 1807, whether it was my purpose to detain them on account of the treaty. My answer was, that it was not that the treaty containing no provision against the impressment of our seamen, and being accompanied by a kind of protestation of the British ministers, which would leave that Government free to consider it as a treaty or no treaty, according to their own convenience, I should not give them the trouble of deliberating on it.' This was substantially, and almost verbally, what I said whenever spoken to about it, and I never failed, when the occasion would admit of it, to justify yourself and Mr. Pinkney, by expressing my conviction, that it was all that could be obtained from the British Government; that you had told their commissioners that your Government could not be pledged to ratify, because it was contrary to their instructions; of course, that it should be considered but as a project; and in this light I stated it publicly in my message to Congress on the opening of the session." (President Jefferson to Mr. Monroe, Mar. 10, 1808, 5 Jefferson's Works, 254.) "It has been sometimes assumed that the President's rejection of the treaty formed by Monroe and Pinkney was the origin of all the hostile feeling in England against us, and the foundation of the war of 1812. Canning did afterwards complain that the President had no right to approve what he pleased and condemn what he pleased in the treaty, and instruct the American ministers to attempt to procure amendments in the latter points and consider the former settled. He required that the whole subject be reopened from the beginning, if any part of it was reopened. But in glancing through Monroe's correspondence until he asked his audience of leave, we do not observe an intimation that the rejection of the treaty was complained of or treated as an offensive and much less a hostile act." 3 Randall's Life of Jefferson, 235. 4. TREATY OF GHENT. § 829. June 1, 1812, President Madison sent to Congress a confidential message concerning relations with Great Britain. While it did not in terms recommend a declaration of war against Great Britain, it directly pointed to the adoption by Congress of such a measure. The principal grounds of complaint which it specified were the practice of impressment, the violation by British cruisers of the peace of the American coasts, and the enforcement of fictitious blockades under the guise of the orders in council. In concluding his review, President Madison exclaimed: "We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States; and on the side of the United States, a state of peace towards Great Britain." With regard to France, he abstained, as he said, from recommending definitive measures, in the expectation that the result of pending discussions with that country would speedily enable Congress to decide with greater advantage on the course demanded by the rights, interests, and honor of the United States. The message was received and considered in both Houses of Congress with closed doors. On the 3d of June Mr. Calhoun, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, presented to the House of Representatives a report recommending "an immediate appeal to arms." The House adopted a declaration of war, and on the 5th of June communicated it to the Senate, with a request that it be considered confidentially. The Senate passed it, with amendments, on the 17th of June. On the 18th of June the House informed the Senate that the amendments were concurred in. and on the same day the act was signed by the President and became a law. On the 26th of June Mr. Monroe, as Secretary of State, instructed Jonathan Russell, chargé d'affaires ad interim in London, that, although there were "many just and weighty causes of complaint against Great Britain," the orders in council and other illegal measures of blockade and the impressment of American seamen were "considered to be of the highest importance;" that if the orders in council were repealed and no illegal blockade substituted for them, and the practice of impressment discontinued, with the restoration of persons already impressed, there was "no reason why hostilities should not immediately cease," and that he might stipulate for an armistice on that basis. Subsequently the Emperor of Russia offered to mediate between the two countries, and on April 15, 1813, Messrs. James A. Bayard, Albert Gallatin, and John Quincy Adams were authorized and instructed as plenipotentiaries on the part of the United States to enter into negotiations at St. Petersburg, for the purpose of arranging a peace. The Russian mediation was declined by Great Britain, but Lord Castlereagh suggested to the Department of State a direct negotiation. Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell were added to the commission, and arrangements were made for a negotiation at Göttenburg. It was afterwards suggested on behalf of the British Government that the conferences should be held at Ghent. This proposal was accepted. The first conference at Ghent took place on August 8, 1814. The British commissioners brought forward the subjects of (1) impressment, (2) the pacification and definite territorial location of the Indians, and (3) the revision of the boundary line between the United States and Great Britain, including the control of the Great Lakes by the latter power. The American commissioners presented the subjects of (1) blockade, (2) indemnity for illegal captures and seizures, and (3) various other points. On the 4th of October Mr. Monroe, as Secretary of State. sent his last instructions to the American commissioners. By these instructions they were authorized, if they could not make any better arrangement, to agree to the status quo ante bellum as the basis of negotiation. The great change in the European situation, the pros pect of a more durable peace between Great Britain and the continental powers, and the consequent greater security for maritime rights were given as the justification for "this change of our ultimatum." added that the right of the United States to the fisheries, as defined in the treaty of 1783, and the right to trade with all other independent nations were not to be relinquished, nor was anything to be done which would sanction the claim of impressment or that of paper blockades. With these explanations, the American commissioners were authorized to make such a treaty as their own judgments should approve, subject to the usual requisite of ratification. A treaty was signed at Ghent on December 24, 1814. The plenipotentiaries on the part of Great Britain were Admiral Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams. The treaty of Ghent was based upon the status quo ante bellum. All places taken by the one country from the other during the war were to be restored, and provision was made for determining, as far as possible, the international boundary. It was also stipulated that Indian hostilities should cease. The high contracting parties were to use their best endeavors to put an end to the slave trade. Of the subjects of illegal blockades and impressment the treaty made no mention. Neither was the question of the fisheries nor that of the navigation of the Mississippi referred to in that instrument. Indeed, the plenipotentiaries, having failed to reach a decision as to the latter two questions, agreed to postpone them for the further consideration of their governments. In connection with the foregoing, the following references may be noted: Calhoun's report from the Committee on Foreign Relations of the House Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State, to Mr. Russell, chargé, June 26, 1812, Am. Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State, to Messrs. Bayard, Gallatin, and Adams, April Davis's Notes, Treaty Volume (1776–1887), 1325–1328. Proceedings of the commissioners under Art. V. of the treaty of Ghent, Proceedings of the commissioners under Art. VI. of the treaty of Ghent, relating to the boundary through the river St. Lawrence and lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron, 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, 162-170. |