_July 28, 1837_.
His Excellency MARTIN VAN BUREN,
_President of the United States_.
SIR: Impelled by a sense of duty arising from the oversight committed to
me of the rights and interests of this State, I beg leave to invite the
attention of Your Excellency to the subject of the northeastern boundary
of Maine. By the federal compact the obligation of defending each State
against foreign invasion and of protecting it in the exercise of its
jurisdictional rights up to its extreme line of boundary is devolved
upon the National Government. Permit me respectfully to inform the
President that in the opinion of the people of Maine the justice due
to this State in this respect has not been rendered.
Let it not be suspected that the discontents which are moving strongly
and deeply through the public mind flow from any deficiency of
attachment or practical adhesion to our National Government. Without
appealing to the blood so freely poured out in war by the citizens of
Maine, to the privations so cheerfully endured while the restrictive
measures of the Government were prostrating the most important interests
of this commercial people, or to the support of the Union so cordially
given through every vicissitude up to the present hour, such a
suspicion, if it could arise, would be sufficiently refuted by merely
adverting to the forbearance with which they have so long endured the
aggressions by a foreign government upon their sovereignty, their
citizens, and their soil.
It would be easy to prove that the territory of Maine extends to the
highlands north of the St. John; but that point, having been not only
admitted, but successful; demonstrated, by the Federal Government,
needs not now to be discussed. Candor, however, requires me to say that
this conceded and undeniable position ill accords with the proceedings
in which the British authorities have for many years been indulged, and
by which the rightful jurisdiction of Maine has been subverted, her
lands ravaged of their most valuable products, and her citizens dragged
beyond the limits of the State to undergo the sufferings and ignominies
of a foreign jail. These outrages have been made known to the Federal
Government; they have been the subject of repeated remonstrances by the
State, and these remonstrances seem as often to have been contemned. It
can not be deemed irrelevant for me here to ask, amid all these various
impositions, and while Maine has been vigorously employed in sustaining
the Union and in training her children to the same high standard of
devotion to the political institutions of the country, what relief has
been brought to us by the Federal Government. The invaders have not been
expelled. The sovereignty and soil of the State are yet stained by the
hostile machinations of resident emissaries of a foreign government. The
territory and the jurisdiction of 6,000,000 acres, our title to which
the Government of the United States has pronounced to be perfect, have,
without the knowledge of Maine, been once put entirely at hazard. Grave
discussions, treaty arrangements, and sovereign arbitration have been
resorted to, in which Maine was not permitted to speak, and they have
resulted not in removing the fictitious pretensions, but in supplying
new encouragements to the aggressors. Diplomatic ingenuity, the only
foundation of the British claim, has been arrayed against the perfect
right. In the meantime a stipulation made by the Executive of the
nation, without the knowledge of Maine, purported to preclude her
from reclaiming her rightful jurisdiction until the slow process of a
negotiation should be brought to a close. Whatever the real force of
that stipulation might be, made as it was without the concurrence of the
two branches of the treaty-making power, it was hoped when it expired
by the closing up of that negotiation that a measure fraught with such
hurtful consequences to Maine would not again be attempted; but that
hope was to be disappointed, and now, by a compact of similar character,
a writ of protection appears to have been spread by our own Government
over the whole mass of British aggressions. What, then, has the Federal
Government done for this State? May it not be said, in the language of
another, "Maine has not been treated as she endeavored to deserve"?
On the 22d day of April last I had the honor to transmit to Your
Excellency certain resolves passed by the legislature of this State
relative to the northeastern boundary, and in behalf of the State to
call upon the President of the United States to cause the line to be
explored and surveyed and monuments thereof erected. That this call,
made by direction of the legislature, did not extend to the expulsion
of invaders, but merely to the ascertainment of the treaty line, will,
I trust, be viewed as it was designed to be, not only as an evidence
of the continued forbearance of Maine, but as a testimonial of the
confidence she cherished that the Federal Executive would protect
the territory after its limitation should be ascertained. That this
application would meet with favor from the Federal Executive was
expected, more especially as Congress had made a specific appropriation
for the purpose. I will not attempt to conceal the mortification I have
realized that no reply has been made to that communication nor any
measures taken, so far as my information extends, for effecting the
object proposed.
It now remains that in the exercise of that faithfulness for which
I stand solemnly pledged to the people of Maine I should again commend
to the attention of the National Executive this apparently unwelcome but
really important subject.
I have, therefore, the honor again to request that the President will
cause the treaty line upon the northeastern limits of Maine to be run
and marked, and I can not but hope that on a reexamination of the
subject Your Excellency will concur with this State in relation to the
rightfulness and the necessity of the measure proposed, as well as to
all the remedies to be adopted for restoring to Maine the invaluable
rights from which she has so long been debarred.