Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Pennsylvania – Joseph B. Anthony, Michael W. Ash, John Banks, Andrew Beaumont, Andrew Buchanan, George Chambers, William P. Clark, Edward Darlington, Harmar Denny, Jacob Fry, jr., John Galbraith, James Harper, Samuel S. Harrison, Joseph Henderson, William Hiester, Edward B. Hubley, Joseph R. Ingersoll, John Klingensmith, jr., John Laporte, Henry Logan, Job Mann, Thomas M. T. McKennan, Jesse Miller, Matthias Morris, Henry A. Muhlenberg, David Potts, jr., Joel B. Sutherland, David D. Wagener. – 28.

Delaware. – John J. Milligan. – 1.

Maryland. – Benjamin C. Howard, Daniel Jenifer, Isaac McKim, James A. Pearce, John N. Steele, Francis Thomas, James Turner, George C. Washington. – 8.

Virginia. – James M. H. Beale, James W. Bouldin, Nathaniel H. Claiborne, Walter Coles, Robert Craig, George C. Dromgoole, James Garland, G. W. Hopkins, Joseph Johnson, John W. Jones, George Loyall, Edward Lucas, John Y. Mason, William McComas, Charles F. Mercer, William S. Morgan, John M. Patton, John Roane, John Robertson, John Taliaferro, Henry A. Wise. – 21.

North Carolina. – Jesse A. Bynum, Henry W. Connor, Edmund Deberry, James Graham, Micajah T. Hawkins, James J. McKay, William Montgomery, Ebenezer Pettigrew, Abraham Rencher, William B. Shepard, Augustine H. Shepperd, Jesse Speight, Lewis Williams. – 13.

South Carolina. – Robert B. Campbell, William J. Grayson, John K. Griffin, James H. Hammond, Richard J. Manning, Francis W. Pickens, Henry L. Pinckney, James Rogers, Waddy Thompson, jr. – 9.

Georgia. – Jesse F. Cleveland, John Coffee, Thomas Glasscock, Seaton Grantland, Charles E. Haynes, Hopkins Holsey, Jabez Jackson, George W. Owens, George W. B. Towns. – 9.

Alabama. – Reuben Chapman, Joab Lawler, Dixon H. Lewis, Francis S. Lyon, Joshua L. Martin. – 5.

Mississippi. – David Dickson, J. F. H. Claiborne. – 2.

Louisiana. – Rice Garland, Henry Johnson, Eleazer W. Ripley. – 3.

Tennessee. – John Bell, Samuel Bunch, William B. Carter, William C. Dunlap, John B. Forester, Adam Huntsman, Cave Johnson, Luke Lea, Abram P. Maury, Balie Peyton, James K. Polk, E. J. Shields, James Standefer. – 13.

Kentucky. – Chilton Allan, Lynn Boyd, John Calhoun, John Chambers, Richard French, Wm. J. Graves, Benjamin Hardin, James Harlan, Albert G. Hawes, Richard M. Johnson, Joseph R. Underwood, John White, Sherrod Williams. – 13.

Missouri. – Wm. H. Ashley, Albert G. Harrison. – 2.

Illinois. – Zadok Casey, William L. May, John Reynolds. – 3.

Indiana. – Ratliff Boon, John Carr, John W. Davis, Edward A. Hannegan, George L. Kinnard, Amos Lane, Jonathan McCarty. – 7.

Ohio. – William K. Bond, John Chaney, Thomas Corwin, Joseph H. Crane, Thomas L. Hamer, Elias Howell, Benjamin Jones, William Kennon, Daniel Kilgore, Sampson Mason, Jeremiah McLene, William Patterson, Jonathan Sloane, David Spangler, Bellamy Storer, John Thompson, Samuel F. Vinton, Taylor Webster, Elisha Whittlesey. – 19.

DELEGATES

Arkansas Territory. – Ambrose H. Sevier.

Florida Territory. – Joseph M. White.

Michigan Territory. – George W. Jones.

Mr. James K. Polk of Tennessee, was elected speaker of the House, and by a large majority over the late speaker, Mr. John Bell of the same State. The vote stood one hundred and thirty-two to eighty-four, and was considered a test of the administration strength, Mr. Polk being supported by that party, and Mr. Bell having become identified with those who, in siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a candidate for the presidency, were considered as having divided from the democratic party. Among the eminent names missed from the list of the House of Representatives, were: Mr. Wayne of Georgia, appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States; and Mr. Edward Everett of Massachusetts, who declined a re-election.

The state of our relations with France, in the continued non-payment of the stipulated indemnity, was the prominent feature in the President's message; and the subject itself becoming more serious in the apparent indisposition in Congress to sustain his views, manifested in the loss of the fortification bill, through the disagreement of the two Houses. The obligation to pay was admitted, and the money even voted for that purpose; but offence was taken at the President's message, and payment refused until an apology should be made. The President had already shown, on its first intimation, that no offence was intended, nor any disrespect justly deducible from the language that he had used; and he was now peremptory in refusing to make the required apology; and had instructed the United States' chargé d'affaires to demand the money; and, if not paid, to leave France immediately. The ministers of both countries had previously withdrawn, and the last link in the chain of diplomatic communication was upon the point of being broken. The question having narrowed down to this small point, the President deemed it proper to give a retrospective view of it, to justify his determination, neither to apologize nor to negotiate further. He said:

"On entering upon the duties of my station, I found the United States an unsuccessful applicant to the justice of France, for the satisfaction of claims, the validity of which was never questionable, and has now been most solemnly admitted by France herself. The antiquity of these claims, their high justice, and the aggravating circumstances out of which they arose, are too familiar to the American people to require description. It is sufficient to say, that, for a period of ten years and upwards, our commerce was, with but little interruption, the subject of constant aggressions, on the part of France – aggressions, the ordinary features of which were condemnations of vessels and cargoes, under arbitrary decrees, adopted in contravention, as well of the laws of nations as of treaty stipulations, burnings on the high seas, and seizures and confiscations, under special imperial rescripts, in the ports of other nations occupied by the armies, or under the control of France. Such, it is now conceded, is the character of the wrongs we suffered; wrongs, in many cases, so flagrant that even their authors never denied our right to reparation. Of the extent of these injuries, some conception may be formed from the fact that, after the burning of a large amount at sea, and the necessary deterioration in other cases, by long detention, the American property so seized and sacrificed at forced sales, excluding what was adjudged to privateers, before or without condemnation, brought into the French treasury upwards of twenty-four millions of francs, besides large custom-house duties.

"The subject had already been an affair of twenty years' uninterrupted negotiation, except for a short time, when France was overwhelmed by the military power of united Europe. During this period, whilst other nations were extorting from her payment of their claims at the point of the bayonet, the United States intermitted their demand for justice, out of respect to the oppressed condition of a gallant people, to whom they felt under obligations for fraternal assistance in their own days of suffering and of peril. The bad effects of these protracted and unavailing discussions, as well upon our relations with France as upon our national character, were obvious; and the line of duty was, to my mind, equally so. This was, either to insist upon the adjustment of our claims, within a reasonable period, or to abandon them altogether. I could not doubt that, by this course, the interest and honor of both countries would be best consulted. Instructions were, therefore, given in this spirit to the minister, who was sent out once more to demand reparation. Upon the meeting of Congress, in December, 1829, I felt it my duty to speak of these claims; and the delays of France, in terms calculated to call the serious attention of both countries to the subject. The then French Ministry took exception to the message, on the ground of its containing a menace, under which it was not agreeable to the French government to negotiate. The American minister, of his own accord, refuted the construction which was attempted to be put upon the message, and, at the same time, called to the recollection of the French ministry, that the President's message was a communication addressed, not to foreign governments, but to the Congress of the United States, in which it was enjoined upon him, by the constitution, to lay before that body information of the state of the Union, comprehending its foreign as well as its domestic relations; and that if, in the discharge of this duty, he felt it incumbent upon him to summon the attention of Congress in due time to what might be the possible consequences of existing difficulties with any foreign government, he might fairly be supposed to do so, under a sense of what was due from him in a frank communication with another branch of his own government, and not from any intention of holding a menace over a foreign power. The views taken by him received my approbation, the French government was satisfied, and the negotiation was continued. It terminated in the treaty of July 4, 1831, recognizing the justice of our claims, in part, and promising payment to the amount of twenty-five millions of francs, in six annual instalments.

"The ratifications of this treaty were exchanged at Washington, on the 2d of February, 1832; and, in five days thereafter, it was laid before Congress, who immediately passed the acts necessary, on our part, to secure to France the commercial advantages conceded to her in the compact. The treaty had previously been solemnly ratified by the King of the French, in terms which are certainly not mere matters of form, and of which the translation is as follows: 'We, approving the above convention, in all and each of the depositions which are contained in it, do declare by ourselves, as well as by our heirs and successors, that it is accepted, approved, ratified, and confirmed; and by these presents, signed by our hand, we do accept, approve, ratify, and confirm it; promising, on the faith and word of a king, to observe it, and to cause it to be observed inviolably, without ever contravening it, or suffering it to be contravened, directly or indirectly, for any cause, or under any pretence whatsoever.'

"Official information of the exchange of ratifications in the United States reached Paris, whilst the Chambers were in session. The extraordinary, and, to us, injurious delays of the French government, in their action upon the subject of its fulfilment, have been heretofore stated to Congress, and I have no disposition to enlarge upon them here. It is sufficient to observe that the then pending session was allowed to expire, without even an effort to obtain the necessary appropriations – that the two succeeding ones were also suffered to pass away without any thing like a serious attempt to obtain a decision upon the subject; and that it was not until the fourth session – almost three years after the conclusion of the treaty, and more than two years after the exchange of ratifications – that the bill for the execution of the treaty was pressed to a vote, and rejected. In the mean time, the government of the United States, having full confidence that a treaty entered into and so solemnly ratified by the French king, would be executed in good faith, and not doubting that provision would be made for the payment of the first instalment, which was to become due on the second day of February, 1833, negotiated a draft for the amount through the Bank of the United States. When this draft was presented by the holder, with the credentials required by the treaty to authorize him to receive the money, the government of France allowed it to be protested. In addition to the injury in the non-payment of the money by France, conformably to her engagement, the United States were exposed to a heavy claim on the part of the bank, under pretence of damages, in satisfaction of which, that institution seized upon, and still retains, an equal amount of the public moneys. Congress was in session when the decision of the Chambers reached Washington; and an immediate communication of this apparently final decision of France not to fulfil the stipulations of the treaty, was the course naturally to be expected from the President. The deep tone of dissatisfaction which pervaded the public mind, and the correspondent excitement produced in Congress by only a general knowledge of the result, rendered it more than probable, that a resort to immediate measures of redress would be the consequence of calling the attention of that body to the subject. Sincerely desirous of preserving the pacific relations which had so long existed between the two countries, I was anxious to avoid this course if I could be satisfied that, by doing so, neither the interests nor the honor of my country would be compromitted. Without the fullest assurances upon that point, I could not hope to acquit myself of the responsibility to be incurred in suffering Congress to adjourn without laying the subject before them. Those received by me were believed to be of that character.

"The expectations justly founded upon the promises thus solemnly made to this government by that of France, were not realized. The French Chambers met on the 31st of July, 1834, soon after the election, and although our minister in Paris urged the French ministry to press the subject before them, they declined doing so. He next insisted that the Chambers, if prorogued without acting on the subject, should be reassembled at a period so early that their action on the treaty might be known in Washington prior to the meeting of Congress. This reasonable request was not only declined, but the Chambers were prorogued on the 29th of December; a day so late, that their decision, however urgently pressed, could not, in all probability, be obtained in time to reach Washington before the necessary adjournment of Congress by the constitution. The reasons given by the ministry for refusing to convoke the Chambers, at an earlier period, were afterwards shown not to be insuperable, by their actual convocation, on the first of December, under a special call for domestic purposes, which fact, however, did not become known to this Government until after the commencement of the last session of Congress.

"Thus disappointed in our just expectations, it became my imperative duty to consult with Congress in regard to the expediency of a resort to retaliatory measures, in case the stipulations of the treaty should not be speedily complied with; and to recommend such as, in my judgment, the occasion called for. To this end, an unreserved communication of the case, in all its aspects, became indispensable. To have shrunk, in making it, from saying all that was necessary to its correct understanding, and that the truth would justify, for fear of giving offence to others, would have been unworthy of us. To have gone, on the other hand, a single step further, for the purpose of wounding the pride of a government and people with whom we had so many motives of cultivating relations of amity and reciprocal advantage, would have been unwise and improper. Admonished by the past of the difficulty of making even the simplest statement of our wrongs, without disturbing the sensibilities of those who had, by their position, become responsible for their redress, and earnestly desirous of preventing further obstacles from that source, I went out of my way to preclude a construction of the message, by which the recommendation that was made to Congress might be regarded as a menace to France, in not only disavowing such a design, but in declaring that her pride and her power were too well known to expect any thing from her fears. The message did not reach Paris until more than a month after the Chambers had been in session; and such was the insensibility of the ministry to our rightful claims and just expectations, that our minister had been informed that the matter, when introduced, would not be pressed as a cabinet measure.

"Although the message was not officially communicated to the French government, and notwithstanding the declaration to the contrary which it contained, the French ministry decided to consider the conditional recommendation of reprisals a menace and an insult, which the honor of the nation made it incumbent on them to resent. The measures resorted to by them to evince their sense of the supposed indignity were, the immediate recall of their minister at Washington, the offer of passports to the American minister at Paris, and a public notice to the legislative chambers that all diplomatic intercourse with the United States had been suspended.

"Having, in this manner, vindicated the dignity of France, they next proceeded to illustrate her justice. To this end a bill was immediately introduced into the Chamber of Deputies, proposing to make the appropriations necessary to carry into effect the treaty. As this bill subsequently passed into a law, the provisions of which now constitute the main subject of difficulty between the two nations, it becomes my duty, in order to place the subject before you in a clear light, to trace the history of its passage, and to refer, with some particularity, to the proceedings and discussions in regard to it. The Minister of Finance, in his opening speech, alluded to the measures which had been adopted to resent the supposed indignity, and recommended the execution of the treaty as a measure required by the honor and justice of France. He, as the organ of the ministry, declared the message, so long as it had not received the sanction of Congress, a mere expression of the personal opinion of the President, for which neither the government nor people of the United States were responsible; and that an engagement had been entered into, for the fulfilment of which the honor of France was pledged. Entertaining these views, the single condition which the French ministry proposed to annex to the payment of the money was, that it should not be made until it was ascertained that the government of the United States had done nothing to injure the interests of France; or, in other words, that no steps had been authorized by Congress of a hostile character towards France.

"What the disposition or action of Congress might be, was then unknown to the French Cabinet. But, on the 14th of January, the Senate resolved that it was, at that time inexpedient to adopt any legislative measures in regard to the state of affairs between the United States and France, and no action on the subject had occurred in the House of Representatives. These facts were known in Paris prior to the 28th of March, 1835, when the committee, to whom the bill of indemnification had been referred, reported it to the Chamber of Deputies. That committee substantially re-echoed the sentiments of the ministry, declared that Congress had set aside the proposition of the President, and recommended the passage of the bill, without any other restriction than that originally proposed. Thus was it known to the French ministry and chambers that if the position assumed by them, and which had been so frequently and solemnly announced as the only one compatible with the honor of France, was maintained, and the bill passed as originally proposed, the money would be paid, and there would be an end of this unfortunate controversy.

"But this cheering prospect was soon destroyed by an amendment introduced into the bill at the moment of its passage, providing that the money should not be paid until the French government had received satisfactory explanations of the President's message of the 2d December, 1834; and, what is still more extraordinary, the president of the council of ministers adopted this amendment, and consented to its incorporation in the bill. In regard to a supposed insult which had been formally resented by the recall of their minister, and the offer of passports to ours, they now, for the first time, proposed to ask explanations. Sentiments and propositions, which they had declared could not justly be imputed to the government or people of the United States, are set up as obstacles to the performance of an act of conceded justice to that government and people. They had declared that the honor of France required the fulfilment of the engagement into which the King had entered, unless Congress adopted the recommendations of the message. They ascertained that Congress did not adopt them, and yet that fulfilment is refused, unless they first obtain from the President explanations of an opinion characterized by themselves as personal and inoperative."

Having thus traced the controversy down to the point on which it hung – no payment without an apology first made – the President took up this condition as a new feature in the case – presenting national degradation on one side, and twenty-five millions of francs on the other – and declared his determination to submit to no dishonor, and repulsed the apology as a stain upon the national character; and concluded this head of his message with saying:

"In any event, however, the principle involved in the new aspect which has been given to the controversy is so vitally important to the independent administration of the government, that it can neither be surrendered nor compromitted without national degradation. I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that such a sacrifice will not be made through any agency of mine. The honor of my country shall never be stained by an apology from me for the statement of truth and the performance of duty; nor can I give any explanation of my official acts, except such as is due to integrity and justice, and consistent with the principles on which our institutions have been framed. This determination will, I am confident, be approved by my constituents. I have indeed studied their character to but little purpose, if the sum of twenty-five millions of francs will have the weight of a feather in the estimation of what appertains to their national independence: and if, unhappily, a different impression should at any time obtain, in any quarter, they will, I am sure, rally round the government of their choice with alacrity and unanimity, and silence for ever the degrading imputation."

The loss of the fortification bill at the previous session, had been a serious interruption to our system of defences, and an injury to the country in that point of view, independently of its effect upon our relations with France. A system of general and permanent fortification of the coasts and harbors had been adopted at the close of the war of 1812; and throughout our extended frontier were many works in different degrees of completion, the stoppage of which involved loss and destruction, as well as delay, in this indispensable work. Looking at the loss of the bill in this point of view, the President said:

"Much loss and inconvenience have been experienced, in consequence of the failure of the bill containing the ordinary appropriations for fortifications which passed one branch of the national legislature at the last session, but was lost in the other. This failure was the more regretted, not only because it necessarily interrupted and delayed the progress of a system of national defence, projected immediately after the last war, and since steadily pursued, but also because it contained a contingent appropriation, inserted in accordance with the views of the Executive, in aid of this important object, and other branches of the national defence, some portions of which might have been most usefully applied during the past season. I invite your early attention to that part of the report of the Secretary of War which relates to this subject, and recommend an appropriation sufficiently liberal to accelerate the armament of the fortifications agreeably to the proposition submitted by him, and to place our whole Atlantic seaboard in a complete state of defence. A just regard to the permanent interests of the country evidently requires this measure. But there are also other reasons which at the present juncture give it peculiar force, and make it my duty to call the subject to your special consideration."

The plan for the removal of the Indians to the west of the Mississippi being now in successful progress and having well nigh reached its consummation, the President took the occasion, while communicating that gratifying fact, to make an authentic exposition of the humane policy which had governed the United States in adopting this policy. He showed that it was still more for the benefit of the Indians than that of the white population who were relieved of their presence – that besides being fully paid for all the lands they abandoned, and receiving annuities often amounting to thirty dollars a head, and being inducted into the arts of civilized life, they also received in every instance more land than they abandoned, of better quality, better situated for them from its frontier situation, and in the same parallels of latitude. This portion of his message will be read with particular gratification by all persons of humane dispositions, and especially so by all candid persons who had been deluded into the belief of injustice and oppression practised upon these people. He said: