[AT this session, the situation of affairs between the United
States and France having become serious and alarming, Mr. Clay
offered resolutions, calling upon the president for information,
which, although generally known to the public, he had not then
communicated to congress.]
IT must be obvious to every observer of passing events, that our
affairs with France are becoming every day more and more serious
in their character, and are rapidly tending to a crisis. Mutual
irritations are daily occurring, from the animadversions of the public
press, and among individuals, in and out of office, in both countries.
And a state of feeling, greatly to be deprecated, if we are to preserve
the relations of peace, must certainly be the consequence.
According to the theory of our constitution, our diplomatic
concerns with foreign countries are intrusted to the president of
the United States, until they reach a certain point involving the
question of peace or war, and then congress is to determine on
that momentous question. In other words, the president conducts our
foreign intercourse; congress alone can change that intercourse from
a peaceable to a belligerent one. This right, to decide the question
of war, carries along with it the right to know whatever has passed
between our own executive and the government of any foreign power. No
matter what may be the nature of the correspondence, whether official
or not, whether formal or informal, congress has the right to any and
all information whatever, which may be in the possession of the other
branch of the government. No senator here could have failed to have
been acquainted with the fact, that the contents of a most important
despatch or document has been discussed, and a most important overture
canvassed in the different newspapers, in private and political circles,
by individuals; every body, in fact, knows what has taken place,
except the congress of the United States. The papers friendly to the
administration――indeed, the whole circle of the American press――are
in possession of the contents of a paper which this body has not been
yet allowed to see; and I have one journal, a southern administration
journal, before me, which states a new and important fact in reference
to it. I have said that our situation with France grows every day more
embarrassing; the aspect of our relations with her more and more dark
and threatening. I could not, therefore, longer delay in making the
following motion. I should have done so before, but for a prevalent
rumor that the president would soon make a communication to congress,
which would do away the necessity of the resolutions which I now submit,
by laying before congress the information, which is the object of my
motion. He has not, however, done so, and probably will not, without a
call from the senate.
Mr. Clay then offered the following resolutions, which were adopted
next day.
Resolved, that the president be requested to communicate to
the senate (if it be not, in his opinion, incompatible with
the public interest,) whether, since the termination of the
last congress, any overture, formal or informal, official
or unofficial, has been made by the French government to the
executive of the United States, to accommodate the difficulties
between the two governments, respecting the execution of the
convention of the fourth day of July, 1831; and, particularly,
whether a despatch from the duc de Broglie, the French minister
of foreign affairs, to the _chargé d’affaires_ at Washington,
was read, and a copy of it furnished by him to the secretary
of state, for the purpose of indicating a mode in which these
difficulties might be removed.
Resolved, also, under the resolution above mentioned, in the
event of any such overture having been made, that the president
be requested to inform the senate what answer was given to it;
and, if a copy of any such despatch was received, that he be
further requested to communicate a copy of it to the senate.