BRITISH TREATY: NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY ARTICLE: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH:
EXTRACT.
The establishment of the low-land boundary in place of the mountain
boundary, and parallel to it. This new line is 110 miles long. It
is on this side of the awarded line--not a continuation of it, but
a deflection from it; and evidently contrived for the purpose of
weakening our boundary, and retiring it further from Quebec. It will
be called in history the Webster line. It begins on the awarded
line, at a lake in the St. Francis River; breaks off at right angles
to the south, passes over the valley of the St. John in a straight
line, and equidistant from that river and the mountain, until it
reaches the north-west branch of the St. John, when approaching
within forbidden distance of Quebec, it deflects to the east; and
then holds on its course to the gorge in the mountain at the head
of Metjarmette creek. A view of the map will show the character
of this new line; the words of the treaty show how cautiously it
was guarded; and the want of protocols hides its paternity from
our view. The character of the line is apparent; and it requires
no military man, or military woman, or military child, to say to
whose benefit it enures. A man of any sort--a woman of any kind--a
child of any age--can tell that! It is a British line, made for the
security of Quebec. Follow its calls on the map, and every eye will
see this design.
The surrender of the mountain boundary between the United States
and Great Britain on the frontiers of Maine. This is a distinct
question from the surrender of territory. The latter belonged to
Maine: the former to the United States. They were national, and not
State boundaries--established by the war of the Revolution, and
not by a State law or an act of Congress; and involving all the
considerations which apply to the attack and defence of nations. So
far as a State boundary is coterminous with another State, it is
a State question, and may be left to the discretion of the States
interested: so far as it is coterminous with a foreign power, it
is a national question, and belongs to the national authority. A
State cannot be permitted to weaken and endanger the nation by
dismembering herself in favor of a foreigner; by demolishing a
strong frontier, delivering the gates and keys of a country into
the hands of a neighboring nation, and giving them roads and passes
into the country. The boundaries in question were national, not
State; and the consent of Maine, even if given, availed nothing.
Her defence belongs to the Union; is to be made by the blood and
treasure of the Union; and it was not for her, even if she had been
willing, to make this defence more difficult, more costly, and
more bloody, by giving up the strong, and substituting the weak
line of defence. Near three hundred miles of this strong national
frontier have been surrendered by this treaty--being double as much
as was given up by the rejected award. The King of the Netherlands,
although on the list of British generals, and in the pay of the
British Crown, was a man of too much honor to deprive us of the
commanding mountain frontier opposite to Quebec; and besides,
Jackson would have scouted the award if he had attempted it. The
King only gave up the old line to the north of the head of the St.
Francis River; and for this he had some reason, as the mountain
there subsided into a plain, and the ridge of the highlands (in
that part) was difficult to follow: our negotiator gives up the
boundary for one hundred and fifty miles on this side the head of
the St. Francis, and without pretext; for the mountain ridge was
there three thousand feet high. The new part given up, from the
head of the St. Francis to Metjarmette portage, is invaluable
to Great Britain. It covers her new road to Quebec, removes us
further from that city, places a mountain between us, and brings
her into Maine. To comprehend the value of this new boundary to
Great Britain, and its injury to us, it is only necessary to follow
it on a map--to see its form--know its height, the depth of its
gorges, and its rough and rocky sides. The report of Capt. Talcott
will show its character--three thousand feet high: any map will
show its form. The gorge at the head of the Metjarmette creek--a
water of the St. Lawrence--is made the _terminus ad quem_ of the
new conventional lowland line: beyond that gorge, the mountain
barrier is yielded to Great Britain. Now take up a map. Begin at
the head of the Metjarmette creek, within a degree and a half of
the New Hampshire line--follow the mountain north--see how it bears
in upon Quebec--approaching within two marches of that great city,
and skirting the St. Lawrence for some hundred miles. All this is
given up. One hundred and fifty miles of this boundary is given
up on this side the awarded line; and the country left to guess
and wonder at the enormity and fatuity of the sacrifice. Look at
the new military road from Halifax to Quebec--that part of it
which approaches Quebec and lies between the mountain and the St.
Lawrence. Even by the awarded line, this road was forced to cross
the mountain at or beyond the head of the St. Francis, and then to
follow the base of the mountain for near one hundred miles; with all
the disadvantages of crossing the spurs and gorges of the mountain,
and the creeks and ravines, and commanded in its whole extent by the
power on the mountain. See how this is changed by the new boundary!
the road permitted to take either side of the mountain--to cross
where it pleases--and covered and protected in its whole extent by
the mountain heights, now exclusively British. Why this new way, and
this security for the road, unless to give the British still greater
advantages over us than the awarded boundary gave? A palliation
is attempted for it. It is said that the mountain is unfit for
cultivation; and the line along it could not be ascertained; and
that Maine consented. These are the palliations--insignificant if
true, but not true in their essential parts. And, first, as to the
poverty of the mountain, and the slip along its base, constituting
this area of 893 square miles surrendered on this side the awarded
line: Captain Talcott certifies it to be poor, and unfit for
cultivation. I say so much the better for a frontier. As to the
height of the mountains, and the difficulty of finding the dividing
ridge, and the necessity of adopting a conventional line: I say all
this has no application to the surrendered boundary on this side
the awarded line at the head of the St. Francis. On this side of
that point, the mountain ridge is lofty, the heights attain three
thousand feet; and navigable rivers rise in them, and flow to the
east and to the west--to the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. Hear
Captain Talcott, in his letter to Mr. Webster: (The letter read.)
This letter was evidently obtained for the purpose of depreciating
the lost boundary, by showing it to be unfit for cultivation. The
note of the Secretary-negotiator which drew it forth is not given,
but the answer of Captain Talcott shows its character; and its date
(that of the 14th of July) classes it with the testimony which was
hunted up to justify a foregone conclusion. The letter of Captain
Talcott is good for the Secretary's purpose, and for a great deal
more. It is good for the overthrow of all the arguments on which
the plea for a conventional boundary stood. What was that plea?
Simply, that the highlands in the neighborhood of the north-west
corner of Nova Scotia could not be traced; and that it was necessary
to substitute a conventional line in their place. And it is the
one on which the award of the King of the Netherlands turned, and
was, to the extent of a part of his award, a valid one. But it was
no reason for the American Secretary to give one hundred and fifty
miles of mountain line on this side the awarded line, where the
highlands attained three thousand feet of elevation, and turned
navigable rivers to the right and left. Lord Ashburton, in his
letter of the 13th of June, commences with this idea: that the
highlands described in the treaty could not be found, and had been
so admitted by American statesmen; and quotes a part of a despatch
from Mr. Secretary Madison in 1802 to Mr. Rufus King, then U. S.
Minister in London. I quote the whole despatch, and from this it
appears--1. That the part at which the treaty could not be executed,
for want of finding the highlands, was the _point_ to be constituted
by the intersection of the due north line from the head of the St.
Croix with the _line_ drawn along the highlands. 2. That this
_point_ might be substituted by a conventional one agreed upon by
the three commissioners. 3. That from this _point_, so agreed upon,
the _line_ was to go to the _highlands_, and to follow them wherever
they could be ascertained, to the head of the Connecticut River.
This is the clear sense of Mr. Madison's letter and Mr. Jefferson's
message; and it is to be very careless to confound this _point_
(which they admitted to be dubious, for want of highlands at that
place) with the _line_ itself, which was to run near 300 miles on
the elevations of a mountain reaching 3,000 feet high. The King
of the Netherlands took a great liberty with this _point_ when he
brought it to the St. John's River: our Secretary-negotiator took a
far greater liberty with it when he brought it to the head of the
Metjarmette creek; for it is only at the head of this creek that our
_line_ under the new treaty begins to climb the highlands. The King
of the Netherlands had some apology for his conventional _point_
and conventional _line_ to the head of the St. Francis--for the
highlands were sunk into table-land where the _point_ ought to be,
and which was the _terminus a quo_ of his conventional line: but
our negotiator had no apology at all for turning this conventional
line south, and extending it 110 miles through the level lands of
Maine, where the mountain highlands were all along in sight to
the west. It is impossible to plead the difficulty of finding the
highlands for this substitution of the lowland boundary, in the
whole distance from the head of the St. Francis, where the King of
the Netherlands fixed the commencement of our mountain line, to the
head of the Metjarmette, where our Secretary fixed its commencement.
Lord Ashburton's quotation from Mr. Madison's letter is partial and
incomplete: he quotes what answers his purpose, and is justifiable
in so doing. But what must we think of our Secretary-negotiator,
who neglected to quote the remainder of that letter, and show that
it was a conventional _point_, and not a conventional _line_, that
Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison proposed? and that this conventional
_point_ was merely to fix the north-west angle of Nova Scotia,
where, in fact, there were no highlands; after which, the line was
to proceed to the elevated ground dividing the waters, &c., and then
follow the highlands to the head of the Connecticut? Why did our
Secretary omit this correction of the British minister's quotation,
and thus enable him to use American names against us?
To mitigate the enormity of this barefaced sacrifice, our
Secretary-negotiator enters into a description of the soil, and
avers it to be unfit for cultivation. What if it were so? It is
still rich enough to bear cannon, and to carry the smuggler's
cart; and that is the crop Great Britain wishes to plant upon it.
Gibraltar and Malta are rocks; yet Great Britain would not exchange
them for the deltas of the Nile and of the Ganges. It is not for
growing potatoes and cabbages that she has fixed her eye, since
the late war, on this slice of Maine; but for trade and war--to
consolidate her power on our north-eastern border, and to realize
all the advantages which steam power gives to her new military
and naval, and commercial station, in Passamaquoddy Bay; and her
new route for trade and war through Halifax and Maine to Quebec.
She wants it for great military and commercial purposes; and it
is pitiful and contemptible in our negotiator to depreciate the
sacrifice as being poor land, unfit for cultivation, when power and
dominion, not potatoes and cabbages, is the object at stake. But
the fact is, that much of this land is good; so that the excuse for
surrendering it without compensation is unfounded as well as absurd.
I do not argue the question of title to the territory and boundaries
surrendered. That work has been done in the masterly report of the
senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. BUCHANAN], and in the resolve of the
Senate, unanimously adopted, which sanctioned it. That report and
that resolve were made and adopted in the year 1838--seven years
after the award of the King of the Netherlands--and vindicated our
title to the whole extent of the disputed territory. After this
vindication, it is not for me to argue the question of title. I
remit that task to abler and more appropriate hands--to the author
of the report of 1838. It will be for him to show the clearness
of our title under the treaty of 1783--how it was submitted to in
Mr. Jay's treaty of 1794, in Mr. Liston's correspondence of 1798,
in Mr. King's treaty of 1803, in Mr. Monroe's treaty of 1807, and
in the conferences at Ghent--where, after the late war had shown
the value of a military communication between Quebec and Halifax,
a variation of the line was solicited as a favor, by the British
commissioners, to establish that communication. It will be for him
also to show the progress of the British claim, from the solicited
favor of a road, to the assertion of title to half the territory,
and all the mountain frontier of Maine; and it will further be for
him to show how he is deserted now by those who stood by him then.
It will be for him to expose the fatal blunder at Ghent, in leaving
our question of title to the arbitration of a European sovereign,
instead of confiding the marking of the line to three commissioners,
as proposed in all the previous treaties, and agreed to in several
of them. To him, also, it will belong to expose the contradiction
between rejecting the award for adopting a conventional line, and
giving up part of the territory of Maine; and now negotiating a
treaty which adopts two conventional lines, gives up all that the
award did, and more too, and a mountain frontier besides; and then
pays money for Rouse's Point, which came to us without money under
the award. It will be for him to do these things. For what purpose?
some one will say. I answer, for the purpose of vindicating our
honor, our intelligence, and our good faith, in all this affair
with Great Britain; for the purpose of showing how we are wronged
in character and in rights by this treaty; and for the purpose of
preventing similar wrongs and blunders in time to come. Maine may
be dismembered, and her boundaries lost, and a great military power
established on three sides of her; but the Columbia is yet to be
saved? There we have a repetition of the Northeastern comedy of
errors on our part, and of groundless pretension on the British
part, growing up from a petition for joint possession for fishing
and hunting, to an assertion of title and threat of war; this
groundless pretension dignified into a claim by the lamentable
blunder of the convention of London in 1818. We may save the
Columbia by showing the folly, or worse, which has dismembered Maine.
The award of the King of the Netherlands was acceptable to the
British, and that award was infinitely better for us; and it was
not only accepted by the British, but insisted upon; and its
non-execution on our part was made a subject of remonstrance and
complaint against us. After this, can any one believe that the
"_peace mission_" was sent out to make war upon us if we did not
yield up near double as much as she then demanded? No, sir! there
is no truth in this cry of war. It is only a phantom conjured
up for the occasion. From Jackson and Van Buren the British
would gladly have accepted the awarded boundary: the federalists
prevented it, and even refused a new negotiation. Now, the same
federalists have yielded double as much, and are thanking God that
the British condescend to accept it. Such is federalism: and the
British well knew their time, and their men, when they selected
the present moment to send their special mission; to double their
demands; and to use arguments successfully, which would have been
indignantly repelled when a Jackson or a Van Buren was at the head
of the government--or, rather, would never have been used to such
Presidents. The conduct of our Secretary-negotiator is inexplicable.
He rejects the award, because it dismembers Maine; votes against new
negotiations with England; and announces himself ready to shoulder a
musket and march to the highland boundary, and there fight his death
for it. This was under Jackson's administration. He now becomes
negotiator himself; gives up the highland boundary in the first
note; gives up all that was awarded by the King of the Netherlands;
gives up 110 miles on this side of that award; gives up the mountain
barrier which covered Maine, and commanded the Halifax road to
Quebec; gives $500,000 for Rouse's Point, which the King of the
Netherland's allotted us as our right.