_Paris, January 13, 1835_.
Hon. EDWARD LIVINGSTON, etc.
SIR: You have well comprehended the nature of the impressions produced
upon the King's Government by the message which His Excellency President
Jackson addressed on the 1st of December to the Congress of the United
States. Nothing certainly could have prepared us for it. Even though
the complaints expressed in it had been as just as they are in reality
unjust, we should still have had a right to be astonished on receiving
the first communication of them in such a form.
In the explanations which I am now about to make I can not enter upon
the consideration of any facts other than those occurring subsequently
to the vote by which the last Chamber of Deputies refused the
appropriation necessary for the payment stipulated in the treaty of July
4. However this vote may have been regarded by the Government of the
United States, it is evident that by accepting (_accueillant_) the
promise of the King's Government to bring on a second deliberation
before the new legislature it had in fact postponed all discussion and
all recrimination on the subject of this first refusal until another
decision should have either repealed or confirmed it. This postponement
therefore sets aside for the time all difficulties arising either justly
or unjustly from the rejection of the treaty or from the delay by which
it had been preceded; and although the message begins by enumerating
them, I think proper, in order to confine myself to the matter in
question, only to reply to the imputations made on account of subsequent
occurrences.
The reproaches which President Jackson considers himself authorized to
address to France may be summed up in a few words. The King's Government
promised to present the treaty of July 4 again to the Chambers as soon
as they could be assembled. They were assembled on the 31st of July, and
the treaty has not yet been presented to them. Such is exactly the whole
substance of the President's argumentation, and nothing can be easier
than to refute it.
I may first observe that the assembling of the Chambers on the 31st of
July, in obedience to a legal prescription that they should be called
together within a stated period after a dissolution of the Chamber of
Deputies, was nothing more than a piece of formality, and if President
Jackson had attended to the internal mechanism of our administrative
system he would have been convinced that the session of 1835 could not
have really commenced at that session of 1834. Everyone knew beforehand
that after a fortnight spent in the forms of installation it would be
adjourned.
The President of the United States considers that the bill relative to
the American claims should have been presented to the Chamber within
that fortnight. I can not understand the propriety of this reproach. The
bill was explicitly announced in the speech from the throne on the very
day on which the Chambers met. This was all that was required to make
known the opinion and design of the Government, and to prevent that
species of moral proscription to which absolute silence would have given
authority. With regard to the mere act of presentation so long before
discussion could possibly take place, this proceeding would have been so
unusual and extraordinary that it might have increased the unfavorable
prepossessions of the public, already too numerous, without producing
any real advantage in return. Above all, the result which the President
had in view, of being able to announce the new vote of the Chamber of
Deputies in his message, would not have been attained.
President Jackson expresses his regrets that your solicitations
(_instances_) had not determined the King's Government to call the
Chambers together at an earlier day. How soon soever they may have been
called, the simplest calculation will serve to shew that the discussions
in our Chambers could not have been known in the United States at the
opening of Congress, and the President's regret is therefore unfounded.
Moreover, the same obstacles and the same administrative reasons which
rendered a real session impossible during the months of July or August
were almost equally opposed to its taking place before the last weeks
of the year. The head of a government like that of the United States
should be able to comprehend more clearly than anyone else those moral
impossibilities which arise from the fixed character of the principles
of a constitutional régime, and to see that in such a system the
administration is subject to constant and regular forms, from which
no special interest, however important, can authorize a deviation.
It is, then, evident that far from meriting the reproach of failing
to comply with its engagements, far from having deferred, either
voluntarily or from negligence, the accomplishment of its promises, the
King's Government, ever occupied in the design of fulfilling them, was
only arrested for a moment by insurmountable obstacles. This appears
from the explanations now given, and I must add that the greater part of
them have already been presented by M. Sérurier to the Government of the
United States, which by its silence seemed to acknowledge their full
value.
It is worthy of remark that on the 1st of December, the day on which
President Jackson signed the message to Congress, and remarked with
severity that nearly a month was to elapse before the assembling of
the Chambers, they were in reality assembled in virtue of a royal
ordinance calling them together at a period earlier than that first
proposed. Their assemblage was not indeed immediately followed by the
presentment of the bill relative to the American claims, but you, sir,
know better than any other person the causes of this new delay. You
yourself requested us not to endanger the success of this important
affair by mingling its discussion with debates of a different nature,
as their mere coincidence might have the effect of bringing other
influences into play than those by which it should naturally be
governed. By this request, sir, you clearly shewed that you had with
your judicious spirit correctly appreciated the situation of things and
the means of advancing the cause which you were called to defend. And
permit me to add that the course which you have thought proper to adopt
on this point is the best justification of that which we ourselves have
for some months been pursuing in obedience to the necessities inherent
in our political organization, and in order to insure as far as lies in
our power the success of the new attempt which we were preparing to make
in the Chamber.
However this may be, the King's Government, freed from the internal
difficulties the force of which you have yourself so formally admitted,
was preparing to present the bill for giving sanction to the treaty of
July 4, when the strange message of December 1 came and obliged it again
to deliberate on the course which it should pursue.
The King's Government, though deeply wounded by imputations to which
I will not give a name, having demonstrated their purely gratuitous
character, still does not wish to retreat absolutely from a
determination already taken in a spirit of good faith and justice. How
great soever may be the difficulties caused by the provocation which
President Jackson has given, and by the irritation which it has produced
in the public mind, it will ask the Chambers for an appropriation of
twenty-five millions in order to meet the engagements of July 4; but at
the same time His Majesty has considered it due to his own dignity no
longer to leave his minister exposed to hear language so offensive to
France. M. Sérurier will receive orders to return to France.
Such, sir, are the determinations of which I am charged immediately to
inform you, in order that you may make them known to the Government of
the United States and that you may yourself take those measures which
may seem to you to be the natural consequences of this communication.
The passports which you may desire are therefore at your disposition.
Accept, sir, the assurance of my high consideration.