CHAPTER C.

At the close of the extra session, a vigorous effort was made to detach the whig party from Mr. Clay. Mr. Webster in his published letter, in justification of his course in remaining in the cabinet when his colleagues left it, gave as a reason the expected unity of the party under a new administration. "A whig president, a whig Congress, and a whig people," was the vision that dazzled and seduced him. Mr. Cushing published his address, convoking the whigs to the support of Mr. Tyler. Mr. Claywas stigmatized as a dictator, setting himself up against the real President. Inducements as well as arguments were addressed to the whig ranks to obtain recruits: all that came received high reward. The arrival of the regular session was to show the fruit of these efforts, and whether the whig party was to become a unity under Mr. Tyler, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Cushing, or to remain embodied under Mr. Clay. It remained so embodied. Only a few, and they chiefly who had served an apprenticeship to party mutation in previous changes, were seen to join him: the body of the party remained firm, and militant—angry and armed; and giving to President Tyler incessant proofs of their resentment. His legislative recommendations were thwarted, as most of them deserved to be: his name was habitually vituperated or ridiculed. Even reports of committees, and legislative votes, went the length of grave censure and sharp rebuke. The select committee of thirteen, to whom the consideration of the second tariff, in a report signed by nine of its members, Mr. Adams at their head, suggested impeachment as due to him:

"The majority of the committee believe that the case has occurred, in the annals of our Union, contemplated by the founders of the constitution by the grant to the House of Representatives of the power to impeach the President of the United States; but they are aware that the resort to that expedient might, in the present condition of public affairs, prove abortive. They see that the irreconcilable difference of opinion and of action between the legislative and executive departments of the government is but sympathetic with the same discordant views and feelings among the people."

A rebuking resolve, and of a retributive nature, was adopted by the House. It has been related (Vol. I.) that when President Jackson sent to the Senate a protest against the senatorial condemnation pronounced upon him in 1835, the Senate refused to receive it, and adopted resolutions declaring the protest to be a breach of the privileges of the body in interfering with the discharge of their duties. The resolves so adopted were untrue, and the reverse of the truth—the whole point of the protest being that the condemnation was extra-judicial and void, coming under no division of power which belonged to the Senate: not legislative, for it proposed no act of legislation: not executive, for it applied to no treaty or nomination: not judicial, for it was founded in no articles of impeachment from the House, and without forming the Senate into a court of impeachment. The protest considered the condemnatory sentence, and justly, as the act of a town meeting, done in the Senate-chamber, and by senators; but of no higher character than if done by the same number of citizens in a voluntary town meeting. This was the point, and whole complaint of the protest; but the Senate, avoiding to meet it in that form, put a different face upon it, as an interference with the constitutional action of the Senate, attacking its independence; and, therefore, a breach of its privileges. Irritated by the conduct of the House in its reports upon his tariff-veto messages, Mr. Tyler sent in a protest also, as President Jackson had done, but without attending to the difference of the cases, and that, in its action upon the veto messages, the House was clearly acting within its sphere—within its constitutional legislative capacity; and, consequently, however disagreeable to him this action might be, it was still legislative and constitutional, and such as the House had a legalrightto adopt, whether just or unjust. Overlooking this difference, Mr. Tyler sent in his protest also: but the House took the distinction; and applied legitimately to the conduct of Mr. Tyler what had been illegally applied to General Jackson, with the aggravation of turning against himself his own votes on that occasion—Mr. Tyler being one of the senators who voted in favor of the three resolves against President Jackson's protest. When this protest of Mr. Tyler was read in the House, Mr. Adams stood up, and said:

"There seemed to be an expectation on the part of some gentlemen that he should propose to the House some measure suitable to be adopted on the present occasion. Mr. A. knew of no reason for such an expectation, but the fact that he had been the mover of the resolution for the appointment of the committee which had made the report referred to in the message; had been appointed by the Speaker, chairman of the committee; and that the report against which the President of the United States had sent to the House such a multitude of protests, was written by him. So far as it had been so written, Mr. A. held himself responsible to the House, to the country, to the world, and to posterity; and, so far as he was the author of the report, he held himself responsibleto the President also. The President should hear from him elsewhere than here on that subject. Mr. A. went on to say that it was because the report had been adopted by the House, and not because it had been written by him, that the President had sent such a bundle of protests; and therefore Mr. A. felt no necessity or obligation upon himself to propose what measures the House ought to adopt for the vindication of its own dignity and honor; and perhaps, from considerations of delicacy, he was indeed the very last man in the House who should propose any measure, under the circumstances."

Mr. Botts, of Virginia, a member of the committee which had made the report, after some introductory remarks, went on to say:

"In 1834 the Senate had adopted certain resolutions, condemning the course of President Jackson in the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States to the State banks. In consequence of this movement on the part of the Senate, President Jackson sent to that body aprotestagainst the right of the Senate to express any opinion censuring his public course; and, what made the case then stronger than the present case, was, that the Senate constituted the jury by whom he was to be tried, should any impeachment be brought against him. The Senate, after a long, elaborate discussion of the whole matter, and the most eloquent and overpowering torrent of debate that ever was listened to in this country, adopted the three following resolutions:'1.Resolved, That, while the Senate is, and ever will be, ready to receive from the President all such messages and communications as the constitution and laws, and the usual course of business, authorize him to transmit to it; yet it cannot recognize any right in him to make a formal protest against votes and proceedings of the Senate, declaring such votes and proceedings to be illegal and unconstitutional, and requesting the Senate to enter such protests on its journal.'"On this resolution the yeas and nays were taken; and it was adopted, by a vote of 27 to 16: and, among the recorded votes in its favor, stood the names of John Tyler, now acting President of the United States, and Daniel Webster, now his prime minister."The second resolution was as follows:'2.Resolved, That the aforesaid protest is a breach of the privileges of the Senate, and that it be not entered on the journal.'"The same vote, numerically, was given in favor of this resolution; and among the yeas stood the names of John Tyler, now acting President of the United States, and of Daniel Webster, now his prime minister."The third resolutions read as follows:'3.Resolved, That the President of the United States has no right to send a protest to the Senate against any of its proceedings.'"And in sanction of this resolution also, the record shows the names of the same John Tyler and Daniel Webster."

'1.Resolved, That, while the Senate is, and ever will be, ready to receive from the President all such messages and communications as the constitution and laws, and the usual course of business, authorize him to transmit to it; yet it cannot recognize any right in him to make a formal protest against votes and proceedings of the Senate, declaring such votes and proceedings to be illegal and unconstitutional, and requesting the Senate to enter such protests on its journal.'

"On this resolution the yeas and nays were taken; and it was adopted, by a vote of 27 to 16: and, among the recorded votes in its favor, stood the names of John Tyler, now acting President of the United States, and Daniel Webster, now his prime minister.

"The second resolution was as follows:

'2.Resolved, That the aforesaid protest is a breach of the privileges of the Senate, and that it be not entered on the journal.'

"The same vote, numerically, was given in favor of this resolution; and among the yeas stood the names of John Tyler, now acting President of the United States, and of Daniel Webster, now his prime minister.

"The third resolutions read as follows:

'3.Resolved, That the President of the United States has no right to send a protest to the Senate against any of its proceedings.'

"And in sanction of this resolution also, the record shows the names of the same John Tyler and Daniel Webster."

Mr. Botts forbore to make any remarks of his own in support of the adoption of these resolutions, but read copious extracts from the speech of Mr. Webster in support of the same resolutions when offered in the Senate; and, adopting them as his own, called for the previous question; which call was sustained; and the main question being put, and the vote taken on the resolutions separately, they were all carried by large majorities. The yeas and nays on the first resolve, were:

"Yeas—Messrs. Adams, Landaff W. Andrews, Arnold, Babcock, Barnard, Birdseye, Blair, Boardman, Borden, Botts, Brockway, Jeremiah Brown, Calhoun, William B. Campbell, Thomas J. Campbell, Caruthers, Chittenden, John C. Clark, Cowen, Garrett Davis, John Edwards, Everett, Fillmore, Gamble, Gentry, Graham, Granger, Green, Habersham, Hall, Halsted, Howard, Hudson, Joseph R. Ingersoll, Isaac D. Jones, John P. Kennedy, King, Linn, McKennan, S. Mason, Mathiot, Mattocks, Maxwell, Maynard, Mitchell, Moore, Morrow, Osborne, Owsley, Pope, Powell, Ramsey, Benj. Randall, A. Randall, Randolph, Rayner, Ridgway, Rodney, William Russell, James M. Russell, Saltonstall, Shepperd, Simonton, Slade, Truman Smith, Sprigg, Stanly, Stratton, Summers, Taliaferro, John B. Thompson, Richard W. Thompson, Tillinghast, Toland, Tomlinson, Triplett, Trumbull, Underwood, Van Rensselaer, Wallace, Warren, Washington, Thomas W. Williams, Joseph L. Williams, Yorke, and Augustus Young—87."Nays—Messrs. Arrington, Atherton, Black, Boyd, Aaron V. Brown, Burke, Wm. O. Butler, P. C. Caldwell, Casey, Coles, Cross, Cushing, Richard D. Davis, Dawson, Gordon, Harris, Hastings, Hays, Hopkins, Hubbard, William W. Irwin, Cave Johnson, John W. Jones, Abraham McClellan, Mallory, Medill, Newhard, Oliver, Parmenter, Payne, Proffit, Read, Reding, Reynolds, Riggs, Rogers, Shaw, Shields, Steenrod, Jacob Thompson, Van Buren, Ward, Weller, James W. Williams, Wise, and Wood—46."

"Nays—Messrs. Arrington, Atherton, Black, Boyd, Aaron V. Brown, Burke, Wm. O. Butler, P. C. Caldwell, Casey, Coles, Cross, Cushing, Richard D. Davis, Dawson, Gordon, Harris, Hastings, Hays, Hopkins, Hubbard, William W. Irwin, Cave Johnson, John W. Jones, Abraham McClellan, Mallory, Medill, Newhard, Oliver, Parmenter, Payne, Proffit, Read, Reding, Reynolds, Riggs, Rogers, Shaw, Shields, Steenrod, Jacob Thompson, Van Buren, Ward, Weller, James W. Williams, Wise, and Wood—46."

The other two resolves were adopted by, substantially, the same vote—the whole body of the whigs voting for the adoption. And this may be considered, so far as Congress was concerned, as the authoritative answer to that idea of whig unity which had induced Mr. Webster to remain in the cabinet. General Jackson was then alive, and it must have looked to him like retributive justice to see two of those (Mr. Tyler and Mr. Webster) who had voted his protest to be a breach of privilege, when it wasnot, now receiving the same vote from their own party; and that in a case where the breach of privilege was real.

Sixty years had elapsed since the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain which terminated the war of the revolution, and established the boundaries between the revolted colonies, now independent States, and the remaining British possessions in North America. A part of these boundaries, agreed upon in the treaty of peace, remained without acknowledgment and without sanction on the part of the British government: it was the part that divided the (now) State of Maine from Lower Canada, and was fixed by the words of the treaty, "along the highlands which divide the waters which empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean." Nothing could be more simple, or of more easy ascertainment than this line. Any man that knew his right hand from his left, and who could follow a ridge, and not get off of it to cross any water flowing to the right or the left, could trace the boundary, and establish it in the very words of the treaty. In fact there was no tangible dispute about it. The British government had agreed to it under a misapprehension as to the course of these highlands; and as soon as their true course was found out, that government refused to carry that part of the treaty into effect, and for a reason which was very frankly told,after the treaty of 1842, by a British civil engineer who had been employed by his government to search out the course of the boundary along those highlands. He said:

"The treaty of 1783 proposed to establish the boundary between the two countries along certain highlands. The Americans claimed these highlands to run in a northeasterly direction from the head of the Connecticut River, in a course which would have brought the boundary within the distance of twenty miles from the river St. Lawrence, and which, besides cutting off the posts and military routes leading from the province of New Brunswick to Quebec, would have given them various military positions to command and overawe that river and the fortress of Quebec."

This was the objection to the highland boundary. It brought the United States frontier within twenty miles of Quebec, and went one degree and a half north of Quebec! skirting and overlooking Lower Canada all the way, and cutting off all communication between that inland province and the two Atlantic provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and between Quebec and Halifax. It was a boundary which commanded the capital of British North America, and which flanked and dominated the principal British province for one hundred and fifty miles. Military considerations rendered such a boundary just as repugnant to the British as the same considerations rendered it acceptable to us; and from the moment it was seen that the State of Maine was projected far north of Quebec and brought up to the long line of heights which looked down upon that capital, the resolution was not to abide that boundary. Negotiation began immediately, and continued, without fruit, for thirty years. That brought the parties to the Ghent Treaty, at the end of the war of 1812, where all attempts to settle the boundary ended in making provision for referring the question to the arbitrament of a friendly sovereign. This was done, the king of the Netherlands being agreed upon as the arbiter. He accepted the trust—executed it—and made an award nearly satisfactory to the British government because it cut off a part of the northern projection of Maine, and so admitted a communication, although circuitous, between Halifax and Quebec; but still leaving the highland boundary opposite that capital. The United States rejected the award because it gave up a part of the boundary of 1783; and thus the question remained for near thirty years longer—until the treaty of 1842—Great Britain demanding the execution of the award—the United States refusing it. And thus the question stood when the special mission arrived in the United States. That mission was well constituted for its purposes. Lord Ashburton, as Mr. Alexander Baring, and head of the great banking house of Baring and Brothers, had been known for more than a generation for his friendly sentiments towards the United States,and business connection with the people and the government; and was, besides, married to an American lady. The affability of his manners was a further help to his mission, the whole of which was so composed (Mr. Mildmay, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Stepping, all gentlemen of mind, tact, and pleasing deportment) as to be real auxiliaries in accomplishing the object of his mission. It was a special mission, sent to settle questions, and return; and so confined to its character of special, that Mr. Fox, the resident minister, although entirely agreeable to the United States and his own government, was not joined in it. It was the first time the United States had been so honored by Great Britain, and the mission took the character of beneficent, in professing to come to settle all questions between the two governments; but ended in only settling such as suited Great Britain, and in the way that suited her. At the head of those questions was the northeastern boundary, which was settled by giving up the line of 1783, retiring the whole line from the heights which flanked Lower Canada, cutting off as much of Maine as admitted of a pretty direct communication between Halifax and Quebec; and thus granting to Great Britain far more than the award gave her, and with which she had been content. The treaty also made a new boundary in the northwest, from Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods, also to the prejudice of the United States, retiring the line to the south, and depriving the United States' fur traders of the great line of transportation between these two lakes, which the treaty of 1783 gave to them. The treaty also bound the United States to pay for Rouse's Point, at the outlet of Lake Champlain, which the treaty of '83 and the award of the king of the Netherlands gave to us as a matter of right. It also bound the United States to keep up a squadron, in conjunction with the British, on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave trade—nominally for five years, but in reality indefinitely, by the addition of that clause (so seductive and insidious, and so potent in saddling an onerous measure permanently upon a people) which is always resorted to when perpetuity is intended, and cannot be stipulated—the clause which continues the provision in force, after its limited term, until one of the parties give notice to the contrary. An extradition clause was also wanted by Great Britain, and she got it—broad enough to cover the recapture of her subjects whether innocent or guilty, and to include political offenders while professing to take only common felons. These were the points Great Britain wished settled; and she got them all arranged according to her own wishes: others which the United States wished settled, were omitted, and indefinitely adjourned. At the head of these was the boundary beyond the Rocky Mountains. Oregon was in dispute. The United States wished it settled: Great Britain wished that question to remain as it was, as she had the possession, and every day was ripening her title. Oregon was adjourned. The same of the Caroline, the Schlosser outrage—the liberation of slaves at Bermuda and Nassau—the refusal to shelter fugitive slaves in Canada: all were laid over, and for ever. Every thing that the United States wished settled was left unsettled, especially Oregon—a question afterwards pregnant with "inevitable war." Besides obtaining all she wished by treaty, Great Britain also made a great acquisition by statute law. An act of Congress was passed to fit the case of McLeod (in future), and to take such offenders out of the hands of the States.

Notwithstanding its manifold objections the treaty was so framed as to secure its ratification, and to command acquiescence in the United States while crowned with the greatest applause in Great Britain. Lord Ashburton received the formal thanks of parliament for his meritorious labors. Ministers and orators united in declaring that he had accomplished every object that Great Britain desired, and in the way she desired it—and left undone every thing which she wished to remain as it was. The northeastern boundary being altered to suit her, they made a laugh, even in parliament, of the manner in which they had served us. It had so happened, immediately after the peace of '83, that the king's geographer made a map of the United States and the Canadas, to show their respective boundaries; and on that map the line of '83 was laid down correctly, along the highlands, overlooking and going beyond Quebec; and had marked it with a broad red line. He made it for the king, George the Third, who wrote upon it with his own hand—This is Oswald's line.(Mr. Richard Oswaldbeing the British negotiator of the provisional treaty of peace of '82 which established that boundary, and which was adopted in the definitive treaty of peace in '83.) This map disappeared from its accustomed place about the time Lord Ashburton's mission was resolved upon, not to be brought over to America by him to assist in finding the true line, but to be hid until the negotiation was over. Some member of parliament hinted at this removal and hiding, during the discussion on the motion of thanks, with an intimation that he thought British honor would have been better consulted by showing this map to the American negotiator: Lord Brougham, the mover of the motion, amused himself at this conception, and thought it would have been carrying frankness a little too far, in such a negotiation, for the British negotiator to have set out with showing, "that he had no case"—"that he had not a leg to stand on." His lordship's speech on the occasion, which was more amusing to himself and the parliament than it can be to an American, nevertheless deserves a place in this history of the British treaty of 1842; and, accordingly, here it is:

"It does so happen that there was a map published by the King's geographer in this country in the reign of his Majesty George III., and here I could appeal to an illustrious Duke whom I now see, whether that monarch was not as little likely to err from any fulness of attachment towards America, as any one of his faithful subjects? [The Duke ofCambridge.] Because he well knows that there was no one thing which his reverend parent had so much at heart as the separation from America, and there was nothing he deplored so much as that separation having taken place. The King's geographer, Mr. Faden, published his map 1783, which contains, not the British, but the American line. Why did not my noble friend take over a copy of that map? My noble friend opposite (Lord Aberdeen) is a candid man; he is an experienced diplomatist, both abroad and at home; he is not unlettered, but thoroughly conversant in all the craft of diplomacy and statesmanship. Why did he conceal this map? We have a right to complain of that; and I, on the part of America, complain of that. You ought to have sent out the map of Mr. Faden, and said, 'this is George the Third's map.' But it never occurred to my noble friend to do so. Then, two years after Mr. Faden published that map, another was published, and that took the British line. This, however, came out after the boundary had become matter of controversypost litem motam. But, at all events, my noble friend had to contend with the force of the argument against Mr. Webster, and America had a right to the benefit of both maps. My noble friend opposite never sent it over, and nobody ever blamed him for it. But that was not all. What if there was another map containing the American line, and never corrected at all by any subsequent chart coming from the same custody? And what if that map came out of the custody of a person high in office in this country—nay, what if it came out of the custody of the highest functionary of all—of George III. himself? I know that map—I know a map which I can trace to the custody of George III., and on which there is the American line and not the English line, and upon which there is a note, that from the handwriting, as it has been described to me, makes me think it was the note of George III. himself: 'This is the line of Mr. Oswald's treaty in 1783,' written three or four times upon the face of it. Now, suppose this should occur—I do not say that it has happened—but it may occur to a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,—either to my noble friend or Lord Palmerston, who, I understand by common report, takes a great interest in the question; and though he may not altogether approve of the treaty, he may peradventure envy the success which attended it, for it was a success which did not attend any of his own American negotiations. But it is possible that my noble friend, or Lord Palmerston, may have discovered that there was this map, because George III.'s library by the munificence of George IV. was given to the British Museum, and this map must have been there; but it is a curious circumstance that it is no longer there. I suppose it must have been taken out of the British Museum for the purpose of being sent over to my noble friend in America; and that, according to the new doctrines of diplomacy, he was bound to have used it when there, in order to show that he had no case—that he had not a leg to stand upon. Why did he not take it over with him? Probably he did not know of its existence. I am told that it is not now in the British Museum, but that it is in the Foreign Office. Probably it was known to exist; but somehow or other that map, which entirely destroys our contention and gives all to the Americans, has been removed from the British Museum, and is now to be found at the Foreign Office. Explain it as you will, that is the simple fact, that this important map was removed from the Museum to the Office, and not in the time of my noble friend (Lord Aberdeen)."

Thus did our simplicity, and their own dexterity, or ambi-dexterity, as the case may be, furnish sport for the British parliament: and thus, "without a case," and, "without aleg to stand upon," was Lord Ashburton an overmatch for our Secretary-negotiator, with a good case to show, and two good legs to rest on. This map with its red line, and the King's autographic inscription upon it, was afterwards shown to Mr. Everett, upon his request, by Lord Aberdeen; and the fact communicated by him to the Department of State. But the effect of the altered line was graphically stated at a public dinner in honor of it by the same gentleman (Mr. Featherstonhaugh), whose view of the old boundary has already been given.

"Now, gentlemen, if you will divert your attention for a moment from the conflicting statements you may have read in regard to the merits of the compromise which has been made, I will explain them to you in a few words. The American claim, instead of being maintained, has been altogether withdrawn and abandoned; the territory has been divided into equal moieties, as nearly as possible; we have retained that moiety which secures to us every object that was essential to the welfare of our colonies; all our communications, military and civil, are for ever placed beyond hostile reach; and all the military positions on the highlands claimed by America are, without exception, secured for ever to Great Britain."

So spoke a person who had searched the country under the orders of the British government—who knew what he said—and who says there was a compromise, in which our territory (for that is the English of it) was divided into two equal parts, and the part that contained every thing that gave value to the whole, was retained by Great Britain for her share. But there were some members of the American Senate, as will be seen in the sequel, who had no occasion to wait for parliamentary revelations, or dinner-table exultations, in order to understand the merits of this treaty of 1842; and who put their opinions in a form and place, while the treaty was undergoing ratification, to speak for themselves in after time.

Many anomalies attended the conducting of the negotiations which ended in the production of the treaty. As far as could be seen there was no negotiation—none in the diplomatic sense of the term. There were no protocols, minutes, or record to show the progress of things—to show what was demanded, what was offered, and what was agreed upon. Articles came forth ripe and complete, without a trace of their progression; and when thus produced a letter would be drawn up to recommend it—not to the British government, who needed no recommendation of any part of it—but to the American people, who otherwise might not have perceived its advantages. In the next place the treaty was made by a single negotiator on each side, Mr. Fox the resident minister not having been joined with Lord Ashburton, and no one on the American side joined with Mr. Webster, and he left without instructions from the President. On this point Mr. Benton remarked in the debate on the treaty:

"In this case the employment of a single negotiator was unjustifiable. The occasion was great, and required several, both for safety and for satisfaction. The negotiation was here. Our country is full of able men. Two other negotiators might have been joined without delay, without trouble, and almost without expense. The British also had another negotiator here (Mr. Fox); a minister of whom I can say without disparagement to any other, that, in the two and twenty years which I have sat in this Senate, and had occasion to know the foreign ministers, I have never known his superior for intelligence, dignity, attention to his business, fidelity to his own Government, and decorum to ours. Why not add Mr. Fox to Lord Ashburton, unless to prevent an associate from being given to Mr. Webster? Was it arranged in London that the whole negotiation should be between two, and that these two should act without a witness, and without notes or minutes of their conferences? Be this as it may, the effect is the same; and all must condemn this solitary business between two ministers, when the occasion so imperiously demanded several."

The want of instructions was also animadverted upon by Mr. Benton, as a departure from the constitutional action of the government, and injurious in this case, as the three great sections of the Union had each its peculiar question to get settled, and the Secretary-negotiator belonged to one only of these sections, and the only one whose questions had been settled.

"By the theory of our government, the President is the head of the Executive Department, and must treat, through his agents and ministers, with foreign powers. He must tell them what to do, and should tell that in unequivocal language, that there may be no mistake about it. He must command and direct the negotiation; he must order what is done. This is the theory of our government, and this has been its practice from the beginning of Washington's to the end of Mr. Van Buren'sadministration; and never was it more necessary than now. Being but one negotiator, and he not approved by the Senate for that purpose, and being from an interested State, it was the bounden duty of the President to have guided and directed every thing. He is the head of the Union, and should have attended to the interest of the whole Union; on the contrary, he abandons every thing to his Secretary, and this Secretary takes care of one section of the Union, and of his own State, and of Great Britain; and leaves the other two sections of the Union out of the treaty. The Northern States, coterminous with Canada, get their boundaries adjusted; Massachusetts gets money, which her sister States are to pay; and Great Britain takes two slices, and all her military frontiers, from the State of Maine! the Southern and Western States are left as they were."

It was known that certain senators were consulted as the treaty went along, not publicly, but privately, visiting the negotiators upon request for that purpose, agreeing to it in these conferences; and thus forestalling their official action. This anomaly Mr. Benton thus exposed:

"The irregular manner in which the ratification of this treaty has been sought, by consultations with individual members, before it was submitted to the Senate. Here I tread upon delicate ground; and if I am wrong, this is the time and the place to correct me. I speak in the hearing of those who must know whether I am mistaken. I have reason to believe that the treaty has been privately submitted to senators—their opinions obtained—the judgment of the body forestalled; and then sent here for the forms of ratification. [One senator said he had not been consulted.] Mr. B. in continuation: Certainly not, as the senator says so; and so of any other gentleman who will say the same. I interrogate no one. I have no right to interrogate any one. I do not pretend to say that all were consulted; that would have been unnecessary; and besides, I know I was not consulted myself; and I know many others who were not. All that I intend to say is, that I have reason to think that this treaty has been ratified out of doors! and that this is a great irregularity, and bespeaks an undue solicitude for it on the part of its authors, arising from a consciousness of its indefensible character."

The war argument was also pressed into the service of the ratification, and vehemently relied upon as one of the most cogent arguments in its favor. The treaty, or war! was the constant alternative presented, and not without effect upon all persons of gentle and temporizing spirit. Mr. Benton also exposed the folly and mischief of yielding to such a threat—declaring it to be groundless, and not to be yielded to if it was not.

"The fear of war. This Walpole argument is heavily pressed upon us, and we are constantly told that the alternatives lie between this treaty—the whole of it, just as it is—or war! This is a degrading argument, if true; and infamous, if false! and false it is: and more than that, it is as shameless as it is unfounded! What! thepeacemission come to make war! It is no such thing. It comes to take advantage of our deplorable condition—to take what it pleases, and to repulse the rest. Great Britain is in no condition to go to war with us, and every child knows it. But I do not limit myself to argument, and general considerations, to disprove this war argument. I refer to the fact which stamps it with untruth. Look to the notes of Sir Charles Vaughan and Mr. Bankhead, demanding the execution of the award, and declaring thatits execution would remove every impediment to the harmony of the two countries. After that, and while holding these authentic declarations in our hands, are we to be told that the peace mission requires more than the award? requires one hundred and ten miles more of boundary? requires $500,000 for Rouse's Point, which the award gave us without money? requires a naval and diplomatic alliance, which she dared not mention in the time of Jackson or Van Buren? requires the surrender of 'rebels' under the name of criminals? and puts the South and West at defiance, while conciliating the non-slaveholding States? and gives us war, if we do not consent to all this degradation, insult, and outrage? Are we to be told this? No, sir, no! There is no danger of war; but this treaty may make a war, if it is ratified. It gives up all advantages; leaves us with great questions unsettled; increases the audacity of the British; weakens and degrades us; and leaves us no alternative but war to save the Columbia, to prevent impressment, to resist search, to repel Schlosser invasions, and to avoid a San Domingo insurrection in the South, excited from London, from Canada, and from Nassau."

The mission had been heralded as one of peace—as a beneficent overture for a universal settlement of all difficulties—and as a plan to establish the two countries on a footing of friendship and cordiality, which was to leave each without a grievance, and to launch both into a career of mutual felicity. On the contrary only a few were settled, and those few the only ones which concerned Great Britain and the northern States: the rest which peculiarly concerned the South and the West, were adjourned to London—thatis to say, to the Greek calends. On this point Mr. Benton said:

"We were led to believe, on the arrival of the special minister, that he came as a messenger of peace, and clothed with full powers to settle every thing; and believing this, his arrival was hailed with universal joy. But here is a disappointment—a great disappointment. On receiving the treaty and the papers which accompany it, we find thatallthe subjects in dispute have not been settled; that, in fact, only three out of seven are settled; and that the minister has returned to his country, leaving four of the contested subjects unadjusted. This is a disappointment; and the greater, because the papers communicated confirm the report that the minister came with full powers to settle every thing. The very first note of the American negotiator—and that in its very first sentence, confirms this belief, and leaves us to wonder how a mission that promised so much, has performed so little. Mr. Webster's first note runs thus: 'Lord Ashburton having been charged by the Queen's government with full powers to negotiate and settle all matters in discussion between the United States and England, and having on his arrival at Washington announced,' &c., &c. Here is a declaration of full power to settle every thing; and yet, after this, only part is settled, and the minister has returned home. This is unexpected, and inconsistent. It contradicts the character of the mission, balks our hopes, and frustrates our policy. As a confederacy of States, our policy is to settle every thing or nothing; and having received the minister for that purpose, this complete and universal settlement, or nothing, should have been thesine qua nonof the American negotiator."From the message of the President which accompanies the treaty, we learn that the questions in discussion between the two countries were: 1. The Northern boundary. 2. The right of search in the African seas, and the suppression of the African slave trade. 3. The surrender of fugitives from justice. 4. The title to the Columbia River. 5. Impressment. 6. The attack on the Caroline. 7. The case of the Creole, and of other American vessels which had shared the same fate. These are the subjects (seven in number) which the President enumerates, and which he informs us occupied the attention of the negotiators. He does not say whether these were all the subjects which occupied their attention. He does not tell us whether they discussed any others. He does not say whether the British negotiator opened the question of the State debts, and their assumption or guarantee by the Federal government! or whether the American negotiator mentioned the point of the Canadian asylum for fugitive slaves (of which twelve thousand have already gone there) seduced by the honors and rewards which they receive, and by the protection which is extended to them. The message is silent upon these further subjects of difference if not of discussion, between the two countries; and, following the lead of the President, and confining ourselves (for the present) to the seven subjects of dispute named by him, and we find three of them provided for in the treaty—four of them not: and this constitutes a great objection to the treaty—an objection which is aggravated by the nature of the subjects settled, or not settled. For it so happens that, of the subjects in discussion, some were general, and affected the whole Union; others were local, and affected sections. Of these general subjects, those which Great Britain had most at heart are provided for; those which most concerned the United States are omitted: and of the three sections of the Union which had each its peculiar grievance, one section is quieted, and two are left as they were. This gives Great Britain an advantage over us as a nation: it gives one section of the Union an advantage over the two others, sectionally. This is all wrong, unjust, unwise, and impolitic. It is wrong to give a foreign power an advantage over us: it is wrong to give one section of the Union an advantage over the others. In their differences with foreign powers, the States should be kept united: their peculiar grievances should not be separately settled, so as to disunite their several complaints. This is a view of the objection which commends itself most gravely to the Senate. We are a confederacy of States, and a confederacy in which States classify themselves sectionally, and in which each section has its local feelings and its peculiar interests. We are classed in three sections; and each of these sections had a peculiar grievance against Great Britain; and here is a treaty to adjust the grievances of one, and but one, of these three sections. To all intents and purposes, we have a separate treaty—a treaty between the Northern States and Great Britain; for it is a treaty in which the North is provided for, and the South and West left out. Virtually, it is a separate treaty with a part of the States; and this forms a grave objection to it in my eyes."Of the nine Northern States whose territories are coterminous with the dominions of her Britannic Majesty, six of them had questions of boundary or of territory, to adjust; and all of these are adjusted. The twelve Southern slaveholding States had a question in which they were all interested—that of the protection and liberation of fugitive or criminal slaves in Canada and the West Indies: this great question finds no place in the treaty, and is put off with phrases in an arranged correspondence. The whole great West takes a deep interest in the fate of the Columbia River, and demands the withdrawal of the British from it: this large subject finds no place in the treaty, nor even in the correspondence which took place between the negotiators. The South and West must go to London with their complaints: the North has been accommodatedhere. The mission of peace has found its benevolence circumscribed by the metes and boundaries of the sectional divisions in the Union. The peace-treaty is for one section: for the other two sections there is no peace. The non-slaveholding States, coterminous with the British dominions are pacified and satisfied: the slaveholding and the Western States, remote from the British dominions, are to suffer and complain as heretofore. As a friend to the Union—a friend to justice—and as an inhabitant of the section which is both slaveholding and Western, I object to the treaty which makes this injurious distinction amongst the States."

"From the message of the President which accompanies the treaty, we learn that the questions in discussion between the two countries were: 1. The Northern boundary. 2. The right of search in the African seas, and the suppression of the African slave trade. 3. The surrender of fugitives from justice. 4. The title to the Columbia River. 5. Impressment. 6. The attack on the Caroline. 7. The case of the Creole, and of other American vessels which had shared the same fate. These are the subjects (seven in number) which the President enumerates, and which he informs us occupied the attention of the negotiators. He does not say whether these were all the subjects which occupied their attention. He does not tell us whether they discussed any others. He does not say whether the British negotiator opened the question of the State debts, and their assumption or guarantee by the Federal government! or whether the American negotiator mentioned the point of the Canadian asylum for fugitive slaves (of which twelve thousand have already gone there) seduced by the honors and rewards which they receive, and by the protection which is extended to them. The message is silent upon these further subjects of difference if not of discussion, between the two countries; and, following the lead of the President, and confining ourselves (for the present) to the seven subjects of dispute named by him, and we find three of them provided for in the treaty—four of them not: and this constitutes a great objection to the treaty—an objection which is aggravated by the nature of the subjects settled, or not settled. For it so happens that, of the subjects in discussion, some were general, and affected the whole Union; others were local, and affected sections. Of these general subjects, those which Great Britain had most at heart are provided for; those which most concerned the United States are omitted: and of the three sections of the Union which had each its peculiar grievance, one section is quieted, and two are left as they were. This gives Great Britain an advantage over us as a nation: it gives one section of the Union an advantage over the two others, sectionally. This is all wrong, unjust, unwise, and impolitic. It is wrong to give a foreign power an advantage over us: it is wrong to give one section of the Union an advantage over the others. In their differences with foreign powers, the States should be kept united: their peculiar grievances should not be separately settled, so as to disunite their several complaints. This is a view of the objection which commends itself most gravely to the Senate. We are a confederacy of States, and a confederacy in which States classify themselves sectionally, and in which each section has its local feelings and its peculiar interests. We are classed in three sections; and each of these sections had a peculiar grievance against Great Britain; and here is a treaty to adjust the grievances of one, and but one, of these three sections. To all intents and purposes, we have a separate treaty—a treaty between the Northern States and Great Britain; for it is a treaty in which the North is provided for, and the South and West left out. Virtually, it is a separate treaty with a part of the States; and this forms a grave objection to it in my eyes.

"Of the nine Northern States whose territories are coterminous with the dominions of her Britannic Majesty, six of them had questions of boundary or of territory, to adjust; and all of these are adjusted. The twelve Southern slaveholding States had a question in which they were all interested—that of the protection and liberation of fugitive or criminal slaves in Canada and the West Indies: this great question finds no place in the treaty, and is put off with phrases in an arranged correspondence. The whole great West takes a deep interest in the fate of the Columbia River, and demands the withdrawal of the British from it: this large subject finds no place in the treaty, nor even in the correspondence which took place between the negotiators. The South and West must go to London with their complaints: the North has been accommodatedhere. The mission of peace has found its benevolence circumscribed by the metes and boundaries of the sectional divisions in the Union. The peace-treaty is for one section: for the other two sections there is no peace. The non-slaveholding States, coterminous with the British dominions are pacified and satisfied: the slaveholding and the Western States, remote from the British dominions, are to suffer and complain as heretofore. As a friend to the Union—a friend to justice—and as an inhabitant of the section which is both slaveholding and Western, I object to the treaty which makes this injurious distinction amongst the States."

The merits of the different stipulations in the treaty were fully spoken to by several senators—among others, by Mr. Benton—some extracts from whose speech will constitute some ensuing chapters.

I.The Columbia River and its valley.

The omitted or pretermitted subjects are four: the Columbia River—impressment—the outrage on the Caroline—and the liberation of American slaves, carried by violence or misfortune into the British West India islands, or enticed into Canada. Of these, I begin with the Columbia, because equal in importance to any, and, from position, more particularly demanding my attention. The country on this great river is ours: diplomacy has endangered its title: the British have the possession and have repulsed us from the whole extent of its northern shore, and from all the fur region on both sides of the river, and up into all the valleys and gorges of the Rocky Mountains. Our citizens are beginning to go there; and the seeds of national contestation between the British and Americans are deeply and thickly sown in that quarter. From the moment that we discovered it, Great Britain has claimed this country; and for thirty years past this claim has been a point of contested and deferred diplomacy, in which every step taken has been a step for the benefit of her claim, and for the injury of ours. The germ of a war lies there; and this mission of peace should have eradicated that germ. On the contrary, it does not notice it! Neither the treaty nor the correspondence names or notices it! and if it were not for a meagre and stinted paragraph in the President's message, communicating and recommending the treaty, we should not know that the name of the Oregon had occurred to the negotiators. That paragraph is in these words:

"After sundry informal communications with the British minister upon the subject of the claims of the two countries to territory west of the Rocky Mountains, so little probability was found to exist of coming to any agreement on that subject at present, that it was not thought expedient to make it one of the subjects of formal negotiation, to be entered upon between this government and the British minister, as part of his duties under his special mission."

This is all that appears in relation to a disputed country, equal in extent to the Atlantic portion of the old thirteen United States; superior to them in climate, soil, and configuration; adjacent to the valley of the Mississippi; fronting Asia; holding the key to the North Pacific Ocean; the only country fit for colonization on the extended coast of Northwest America; a country which belongs to the United States by a title as clear as their title to the District of Columbia; which a resolve of Congress, during Mr. Monroe's administration, declared to be occluded against European colonization; which Great Britain is now colonizing; and the title to which has been a subject of diplomatic discussion for thirty years. This is all that is heard of such a country, and such a dispute, in this mission of peace, which was to settle every thing. To supply this omission, and to erect some barrier against the dangers of improvident, indifferent, ignorant, or treacherous diplomacy in future negotiations in relation to this great country, it is my purpose at present to state our title to it; and, in doing so, to expose the fallacy of the British pretensions; and thus to leave in the bosom of the Senate, and on the page of our legislative history, the faithful evidences of our right, and which shall attest our title to all succeeding generations.

(Here Mr. Benton went into a full derivation of the American title to the Columbia River and its valley, between the parallels of 42 and 49 degrees of north latitude—taking the latter boundary from the tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht, and the former from the second articleof the Florida treaty of 1819, with Spain.)

The treaty of Utrecht between France and England, as all the world knows, was the treaty which put an end to the wars of Queen Anne and Louis XIV., and settled their differences in America as well as in Europe. Both England and France were at that time large territorial possessors in North America—the English holding Hudson's Bay and New Britain, beyond Canada, and her Atlantic colonies on this side of it; and France holding Canada and Louisiana. These were vast possessions, with unfixed boundaries. The tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht provided for fixing these boundaries. Under this article, British and French commissioners were appointed to define the possessions of the two nations; and by these commissioners two great points were fixed (not to speak of others), which have become landmarks in the definition of boundaries in North America, namely: the Lake of the Woods, and the 49th parallel of north latitude west of that lake. These two points were established above a century and a quarter ago, as dividing the French and British dominions in that quarter. As successful rebels, we acquired one of these points at the end of the Revolution. The treaty of Independence of 1783 gave us the Lake of the Woods as a landmark in the (then) north-west corner of the Union. As successors to the French in the ownership of Louisiana, we acquired the other; the treaty of 1803 having given us that province as France and Spain had held it; and that was, on the north, by the parallel of 49 degrees. Beginning in the Lake of the Woods, our northern Louisiana boundary followed the 49th parallel to the west. How far? is now the important question; and I repeat the words of the report of the commissioners, accepted by their respective nations, when I answer—"INDEFINITELY!" I quote the words of the report when I answer (omitting all the previous parts of the line), "to the latitude of 49 degrees north of the equator, and along that parallel indefinitely to the west." [A senator asked where all this was found.] Mr.Benton. I find it in the state papers of France and England above an hundred years ago, and in those of the United States since the acquisition of Louisiana. I quote now from Mr. Madison's instructions, when Secretary of State under Mr. Jefferson in 1804, to Mr. Monroe, then our minister in London; and given to him to fortify him in his defence of our new acquisition. The cardinal word in this report of the commissioners is the word "indefinitely;" and that word it was the object of the British to expunge, from the moment that we discovered the Columbia, and acquired Louisiana—events which were of the same era in our history, and almost contemporaneous. In the negotiations with Mr. Monroe (which ended in a treaty, rejected by Mr. Jefferson without communication to the Senate), the effort was to limit the line, and to terminate it at the Rocky Mountains; well knowing that if this line was suffered to continueindefinitelyto the west, it would deprive them of all they wanted; for it would strike the ocean three degrees north of the mouth of the Columbia. Without giving us what we were entitled to by right of discoveries, and as successors to Spain, it would still take from Great Britain all that she wanted—which was the mouth of the river, its harbor, the position which commanded it, and its right bank, in the rich and timbered region of tide-water. The line on the 49th parallel would cut her off from all these advantages; and, therefore, to mutilate that line, and stop it at the Rocky Mountains, immediately became her inexorable policy. At Ghent, in 1814, the effort was renewed. The commissioners of the United States and those of Great Britain could not agree; and nothing was done. At London, in 1818, the effort was successful; and in the convention then signed in that city, the line of the treaty of Utrecht was stopped at the Rocky Mountains. The country on the Columbia was laid open for ten years to the joint occupation of the citizens and subjects of both powers; and, afterwards, by a renewed convention at London, this joint occupation was renewed indefinitely, and until one of the parties should give notice for its termination. It is under this privilege of joint occupation that Great Britain has taken exclusive possession of the right bank of the river, from its head to its mouth, and also exclusive possession of the fur trade on both sides of the river, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains. My friend and colleague [Mr.Linn] has submitted a motion to require the President to give the stipulated notice for the termination of this convention—a convention so unequal in its operation, from the inequality of title between the two parties, and from the organized powerof the British in that quarter under the powerful direction of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company. Thus our title as far as latitude 49, so valid under the single guarantee of the treaty of Utrecht, without looking to other sources, has been jeoparded by this improvident convention; and the longer it stands, the worse it is for us.

A great fault of the treaty of 1818 was in admitting an organized and powerful portion of the British people to come into possession of our territories jointly with individual and disconnected possessors on our part. The Hudson's Bay Company held dominion there on the north of our territories. They were powerful in themselves, perfectly organized, protected by their government, united with it in policy, and controlling all the Indians from Canada and the Rocky Mountains out to the Pacific Ocean, and north to Baffin's Bay. This company was admitted, by the convention of 1818, to a joint possession with us of all our territories on the Columbia River. The effect was soon seen. Their joint possession immediately became exclusive on the north bank of the river. Our fur-traders were all driven from beyond the Rocky Mountains; then driven out of the mountains; more than a thousand of them killed: forts were built; a chain of posts established to communicate with Canada and Hudson's Bay; settlers introduced; a colony planted; firm possession acquired; and, at the end of the ten years when thejointpossession was to cease, the intrusive possessors, protected by their government, refused to go—began to set up title—and obtained a renewal of the convention, without limit of time, and until they shall receive notice to quit. This renewed convention was made in 1828; and, instead of joint possession with us for ten years, while we should have joint possession with them of their rivers, bays, creeks and harbors, for the same time—instead of this, they have had exclusive possession of our territory, our river, our harbor, and our creeks and inlets, for above a quarter of a century. They are establishing themselves as in a permanent possession—making the fort Vancouver, at the confluence of the Multnomah and Columbia, in tide-water, the seat of their power and operations. The notice required never will be given while the present administration is in power; nor obeyed when given, unless men are in power who will protect the rights and the honor of their country. The fate of Maine has doubled the dangers of the Columbia, and nearly placed us in a position to choose between war andINFAMY, in relation to that river.

Another great fault in the convention was, in admitting aclaimon the part of Great Britain to any portion of these territories. Before that convention, she stated no claim; but asked a favor—the favor of joint possession for ten years: now she sets up title. That title is backed by possession. Possession among nations, as well as among individuals, is eleven points out of twelve; and the bold policy of Great Britain well knows how to avail itself of these eleven points. The Madawaska settlement has read us a lesson on that head; and the success there must lead to still greater boldness elsewhere. The London convention of 1818 is to the Columbia, what the Ghent treaty of 1814 was to Maine; that is to say, the first false step in a game in which we furnish the whole stake, and then play for it. In Maine the game is up. The bold hand of Great Britain has clutched the stake; and nothing but the courage of our people will save the Columbia from the same catastrophe.

I proceed with more satisfaction to our title under the Nootka Sound treaty, and can state it in a few words. All the world knows the commotion which was excited in 1790 by the Nootka Sound controversy between Great Britain and Spain. It was a case in which the bullying of England and the courage of Spain were both tried to thene plus ultrapoint, and in which Spanish courage gained the victory. Of course, the British writers relate the story in their own way; but the debates of the Parliament, and the terms of the treaty in which all ended, show things as they were. The British, presuming on the voyages of Captain Cook, took possession of Nootka; the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico sent a force to fetch the English away, and placed them in the fortress of Acapulco. Pitt demanded the release of his English, their restoration to Nootka, and an apology for the insult to the British Crown, in the violation of its territory and the persons of its subjects; the Spaniard refused to release, refused the restoration, and the apology, on the ground that Nootka was Spanish territory, and declared that they would fight for its possession. Then both parties prepared for war. The preparations fixedthe attention of all Europe. Great Britain bullied to the point of holding the match over the touch-hole of the cannon; but the Spaniards remaining firm, she relaxed, and entered into a convention which abnegated her claim. She accepted from the Spaniards the privilege of landing and building huts on the unoccupied parts of the coast, for the purpose of fishing and trading; and while this acceptance nullified her claim, yet she took nothing under it—not even temporary use—never having built a hut, erected a tent, or commenced any sort of settlement on any part of the coast. Mr. Fox keenly reproached Mr. Pitt with the terms of this convention, being, as he showed, a limitation instead of an acquisition of rights.

Our title is clear: that of the British is null. She sets up none—that is, she states no derivation of title. There is not a paper upon the face of the earth, in which a British minister has stated a title, or even a claim. They have endeavored to obtain the country by the arts of diplomacy; but never have stated a title, and never can state one. The fur-trader, Sir Alexander McKenzie, prompted the acquisition, gave the reason for it, and never pretended a title. His own discoveries gave no title. They were subsequent to the discovery of Captain Gray, and far to the north of the Columbia. He never saw that river. He missed the head sources of it, fell upon theTacouche Tesse, and struck the Pacific in a latitude 500 miles (by the coast) to the north of the Columbia. His subsequent discoveries were all north of that point. He was looking for a communication with the sea—for a river, a harbor, and a place for a colony—within the dominions of Great Britain; and, not finding any, he boldly recommended his government to seize the Columbia River, to hold it, and to expel the Americans from the whole country west of the Rocky Mountains. And upon these pretensions the British claim has rested, until possession has made them bold enough to exclude it from the subjects of formal negotiation between the two countries. The peace-mission refused us peace on that point. The President tells us that there is "no probability of coming to any agreement at present!" Then when can the agreement be made? If refused now, when is it to come? Never, until we show that we prefer war to ignominious peace.

This is the British title to the Columbia, and the only one that she wants for any thing. It suits her to have that river: it is her interest to have it: it strengthens her, and weakens others, for her to have it; and, therefore, have it she will. This is her title, and this her argument. Upon this title and argument, she gets a slice from Maine, and gains the mountain barrier which covers Quebec; and, upon this title and argument, she means to have the Columbia River. The events of the late war, and the application of steam power to ocean navigation, begat her title to the country between Halifax and Quebec: the suggestions of McKenzie begat her title to the Columbia. Improvident diplomacy on our part, a war countenance on her part, and this strange treaty, have given success to her pretensions in Maine: the same diplomacy, and the same countenance, have given her a foothold on the Columbia. It is for the Great West to see that no traitorous treaty shall abandon it to her. The President, in his message, says that there was no chance for any "agreement" about it at present; that it would not be made the subject of a "formal negotiation" at present; that it could not be included in the duties of the "special mission." Why so? The mission was one of peace, and to settle every thing; and why omit this pregnant question? Was this a war question, and therefore not to be settled by the peace mission? Why not come to an agreement now, if agreement is ever intended? The answer is evident. No agreement is ever intended. Contented with her possession, Great Britain wants delay, thattimemay ripenpossessionintotitle, and fortunate events facilitate her designs. My colleague and myself were sounded on this point: our answers forbade the belief that we would compromise or sacrifice the rights and interests of our country; and this may have been the reason why there were no "formal" negotiations in relation to it. Had we been "soft enough," there might have been an agreement to divide our country by the river, or, to refer the whole title to the decision of a friendly sovereign! We were notsoft enoughfor that; and if such a paper, marked B, and identified with the initials of our Secretary, had been sent to the Missouri delegation, as was sent to theMaine commissioners, instead of subduing us to the purposes of Great Britain, it would have received from the whole delegation the answer due to treason, to cowardice, and to insolence.

But, it is demanded, what do we want with this country, so far off from us? I answer by asking, in my turn, what do the British want with it, who are so much further off? They want it for the fur trade; for a colony; for an outlet to the sea; for the communication across the continent; for a road to Asia; for the command of one hundred and forty thousand Indians against us; for the port and naval station which is to command the commerce and navigation of the North Pacific Ocean, and open new channels of trade with China, Japan, Polynesia, and the great East. They want it for these reasons; and we want it for the same; and because it adjoins us, and belongs to us, and should be possessed by our descendants, who will be our friends; and not by aliens, who will be our enemies.

Forty years ago, it was written by Humboldt that the valley of the Columbia invited Europeans to found a fine colony there; and, twenty years ago, the American Congress adopted a resolve,that no part of this continent was open to European colonization. The remark of Humboldt was that of a sagacious European; the resolve of Congress was the work of patriotic Americans. It remains to be seen which will prevail. The convention of 1818 has done us the mischief; it put the European power in possession: and possession with nations, still more than with individuals, is the main point in the contest. It will require the western pioneers to recover the lost ground; and they must be encouraged in the enterprise by liberal grants of lands, by military protection, and by governmental authority. It is time for the bill of my colleague to pass. The first session of the first Congress under the new census should pass it. The majority will be democratic, and the democracy will demand that great work at their hands. I put no faith in negotiation. I expect nothing but loss and shame from any negotiation in London. Our safety is in the energy of our people; in their prompt occupation of the country; and in their invincible determination to maintain their rights.

I do not dilate upon the value and extent of this great country. A word suffices to display both. In extent, it is larger than the Atlantic portion of the old thirteen United States; in climate, softer; in fertility, greater; in salubrity, superior; in position, better, because fronting Asia, and washed by a tranquil sea. In all these particulars, the western slope of our continent is far more happy than the eastern. In configuration, it is inexpressibly fine and grand—a vast oblong square, with natural boundaries, and a single gateway into the sea. The snow-capped Rocky Mountains enclose it to the east, an iron-bound coast on the west: a frozen desert on the north, and sandy plains on the south. All its rivers, rising on the segment of a vast circumference, run to meet each other in the centre; and then flow together into the ocean, through a gap in the mountain, where the heats of summer and the colds of winter are never felt; and where southern and northern diseases are equally unknown. This is the valley of the Columbia—a country whose every advantage is crowned by the advantages of position and configuration: by the unity of all its parts—the inaccessibility of its borders—and its single introgression to the sea. Such a country is formed for union, wealth, and strength. It can have but one capital, and that will be a Thebes; but one commercial emporium, and that will be Tyre, queen of cities. Such a country can have but one people, one interest, one government: and that people should be American—that interest ours—and that government republican. Great Britain plays for the whole valley: failing in that, she is willing to divide by the river. Accursed and infamous be the man that divides or alienates it!

II.—Impressment.

Impressment is another of the omitted subjects. This having been a cause of war in 1812, and being now declared, by the American negotiator, to be a sufficient cause for future wars, it would naturally, to my mind, have been included in the labors of a special mission, dedicated to peace, and extolled for its benevolent conception. We would have expected to find such a subject, after such a declaration, included in the labors of such a mission. Not so the fact. The treaty does not mention impressment. A brief paragraph in the President's message informs us that there was a correspondence on this point; and, on turning to this correspondence, we actually find two letterson the subject: one from Mr. Webster to Lord Ashburton—one from Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster: both showing, from their dates, that they were written after the treaty was signed; and, from their character, that they were written for the public, and not for the negotiators. The treaty was signed on the 9th of August; the letters were written on the 8th and 9th of the same month. They are a plea, and a reply; and they leave the subject precisely where they found it. From their date and character, they seem to be what the lawyers call thepostea—that is to say, theafterwards; and are very properly postponed to the end of the document containing the correspondence, where they find place on the 120th page. They lookex post factothere; and, putting all things together, it would seem as if the American negotiator had said to the British lord (after the negotiation was over): 'My Lord, here is impressment—a pretty subject for a composition; the people will love to read something about it; so let us compose.' To which, it would seem, his lordship had answered: 'You may compose as much as you please for your people; I leave that field to you: and when you are done, I will write three lines for my own government, to let it know that I stick to impressment.' In about this manner, it would seem to me that the two letters were got up; and that the American negotiator in this little business has committed a couple of the largest faults:first, in naming the subject of impressment at all!next, in ever signing a treaty, after having named it, without an unqualified renunciation of the pretension!

Sir, the same thing is not always equally proper. Time and circumstances qualify the proprieties of international, as well as of individual intercourse; and what was proper and commendable at one time, may become improper, reprehensible, and derogatory at another. When George the Third, in the first article of his first treaty with the United States, at the end of a seven years' war, acknowledged them to be free, sovereign, and independent States, and renounced all dominion over them, this was a proud and glorious consummation for us, and the crowning mercy of a victorious rebellion. The same acknowledgment and renunciation from Queen Victoria, at present, would be an insult for her to offer—a degradation for us to accept. So of this question of impressment. It was right in all the administrations previous to the late war, to negotiate for its renunciation. But after having gone to war for this cause; after having suppressed the practice by war; after near thirty years' exemption from it—after all this, for our negotiator to put the question in discussion, was to compromise our rights! To sign a treaty without its renunciation, after having proposed to treat about it, was to relinquish them! Our negotiator should not have mentioned the subject. If mentioned to him by the British negotiator, he should have replied, that the answer to that pretension was in the cannon's mouth!

But to name it himself, and then sign without renunciation, and to be invited to London to treat about it—to do this, was to descend from our position; to lose the benefit of the late war; to revive the question; to invite the renewal of the practice, by admitting it to be an unsettled question—and to degrade the present generation, by admitting that they would negotiate where their ancestors had fought. These are fair inferences; and inferences not counteracted by the euphonious declaration that the American government is "prepared to say" that the practice of impressment cannot hereafter be allowed to take place!—as if, after great study, we had just arrived at that conclusion! and as if we had not declared much more courageously in the case of the Maine boundary, the Schlosser massacre, and the Creole mutiny and murder! The British, after the experience they have had, will know how to value our courageous declaration, and must pay due respect to our flag! For one, I never liked these declarations, and never made a speech in favor of any one of them; and now I like them less than ever, and ampreparedto put no further faith in the declarations of gentlemen who were for going to war for the smallest part of the Maine boundary in 1838, and now surrender three hundred miles of that boundary for fear of war, when there is no danger of war. I amprepared to saythat I care not a straw for the heroic declarations of such gentlemen. I want actions, not phrases. I want Mr. Jefferson's act in 1806—rejection of any treaty with Great Britain that does not renounce impressment! And after having declared, by law, black impressmenton the coast of Africa to be piracy; after stipulating to send a fleet there, to enforce our law against that impressment—after this, I am ready to do the same thing against white impressment on our own coasts, and on the high seas. I am ready to enact that the impressment of my white fellow-citizens out of an American ship is an act of piracy; and then to follow out that enactment in its every consequence.

The correspondence between our Secretary negotiator and Lord Ashburton on this subject, has been read to you—that correspondence which was drawn up after the treaty was finished, and intended for the American public: and what a correspondence it is! What an exchange of phrases! One denies the right of impressment: the other affirms it. Both wish for an amicable agreement; but neither attempts to agree. Both declare the season of peace to be the proper time to settle this question; and both agree that the present season of peace is not the convenient one. Our Secretary rises so high as to declare that the administration "is now prepared" to put its veto on the practice: theBritish negotiatorshows that his Government is still prepared to resume the practice whenever her interest requires it. Our negotiator hopes that his communication will be received in the spirit of peace: the British minister replies, that it will. Our secretary then persuades himself that the British minister will communicate his sentiments in this respect, to his own government: his Lordship promises it faithfully. And, thereupon, they shake hands and part.

How different this holiday scene from the firm and virile language of Mr. Jefferson: "No treaty to be signed without a provision against impressment;" and this language backed by the fact of the instant rejection of a treaty so signed! Lord Chatham said ofMagna Chartathat it was homely Latin, but worth all the classics. So say I of this reply of Mr. Jefferson: it is plain English, but worth all the phrases which rhetoric could ever expend upon the subject. It is the only answer which our secretary negotiator should have given, after committing the fault of broaching the subject. Instead of that, he commences rhetorician, new vamps old arguments, writes largely and prettily; and loses the question by making it debatable. His adversary sees his advantage, and seizes it. He abandons the field of rhetoric to the lawyer negotiator; puts in a fresh claim to impressment; saves the question from being lost by a non-user; re-establishes the debate, and adjourns it to London. He keeps alive the pretension of impressment against us, the white race, while binding us to go to Africa to fight it down for the black race; and has actually left us on lower ground in relation to this question, than we stood upon before the late war. If this treaty is ratified, we must begin where we were in 1806, when Mr. Monroe and Mr. Pinckney went to London to negotiate against impressment; we must begin where they did, with the disadvantage of having yielded to Great Britain all that she wanted, and having lost all our vantage-ground in the negotiation. We must go to London, engage in a humiliating negotiation, become the spectacle of nations, and the sport of diplomacy; and wear out years in begging to be spared from British seizure, when sitting under our own flag, and sailing in our own ship: we must submit to all this degradation, shame and outrage, unless Congress redeems us from the condition into which we have fallen, and provides for the liberty of our people on the seas, by placing American impressment where African impressment has already been placed—piracy by law! For one, I am ready to vote the act—to execute it—and to abide its every consequence.

III.—The liberated slaves.

The case of the Creole, as it is called, is another of the omitted subjects. It is only one of a number of cases (differing in degree, but the same in character) which have occurred within a few years, and are becoming more frequent and violent. It is the case of American vessels, having American slaves on board, and pursuing a lawful voyage, and being driven by storms or carried by violence into a British port, and their slaves liberated by British law. This is the nature of the wrong. It is a general outrage liable to occur in any part of the British dominions, but happens most usually in the British West India islands, which line the passage round the Florida reefs in a voyage between New Orleans and the Atlantic ports. I do not speak of the 12,000 slaves (worth at a moderate computation, considering they must be all grown, and in youth or middle life, atleast $6,000,000) enticed into Canada, and received with the honors and advantages due to the first class of emigrants. I do not speak of these, nor of the liberation of slaves carried voluntarily by their owners into British ports: the man who exposes his property wilfully to the operation of a known law, should abide the consequences to which he has subjected it. I confine myself to cases of the class mentioned—such as the Encomium, the Comet, the Enterprise, the Creole, and the Hermosa—cases in which wreck, tempest, violence, mutiny and murder were the means of carrying the vessel into the interdicted port; and in which the slave property, after being saved to the owners from revolt and tempests, became the victim and the prey of British law. It is of such cases that I complain, and of which I say that they furnish no subject for the operation of injurious laws, and that each of these vessels should have been received with the hospitality due to misfortune, and allowed to depart with all convenient despatch, and with all her contents of persons and property. This is the law of nations: it is what the civilization of the age requires. And it is not to be tolerated in this nineteenth century that an American citizen, passing from one port to another of his own country, with property protected by the laws of his country, should encounter the perils of an unfortunate navigator in the dark ages, shipwrecked on a rude and barbarian coast. This is not to be tolerated in this age, and by such a power as the United States, and after sending a fleet to Africa to protect the negroes. Justice, like charity, should begin at home; and protection should be given where allegiance is exacted. We cannot tolerate the spoil and pillage of our own citizens, within sight of our own coasts, after sending 4,000 miles to redress the wrongs of the black race. But if this treaty is ratified it seems that we shall have to endure it, or seek redress by other means than negotiation. The previous cases were at least ameliorated by compensation to their owners for the liberation of the slaves; but in the more recent and most atrocious case of the Creole, there is no indemnity of any kind—neither compensation to the owners whose property has been taken; nor apology to the Government, whose flag has been insulted; nor security for the future, by giving up the practice. A treaty is signed without a stipulation of any kind on the subject; and as it would seem, to the satisfaction of those who made it, and of the President, who sends it to us. A correspondence has been had; the negotiators have exchanged diplomatic notes on the subject; and these notes are expected to be as satisfactory to the country as to those who now have the rule of it. The President in his message says:

"On the subject of the interference of the British authorities in the West Indies, a confident hope is entertained that the correspondence which has taken place, showing thegroundstaken by this government, and theengagementsentered into by the British minister, will be found such as to satisfy the just expectation of the people of the United States."—Message, August 9.

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