LORD ASHBURTON'S MISSION, AND THE BRITISH TREATY.
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 Oswald being 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 of _Cambridge_.] 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 controversy _post 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 a leg 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's administration;
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! the _peace_ mission 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 that _its 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--that is 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 that _all_ the 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 the _sine qua non_ of 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 accommodated here. 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.