_Paris, January 29, 1835_.
His Excellency COUNT DE RIGNY,
_Minister Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs_.
SIR: Having already had occasion to acknowledge the receipt of your
excellency's letter of the 13th instant, and to answer that part of it
which most urgently required my attention, I proceed to a consideration
of the other matters which it contains. I shall do this with a sincere
desire to avoid everything that may excite irritation or increase
difficulties which already unfortunately exist. Guided by this
disposition, I shall confine myself to an examination of your note,
considered only as an exposition of the causes which His Majesty's
Government thinks it has to complain of in the message sent by the
President of the United States to Congress at the opening of its present
session.
Your excellency begins by observing that nothing could have prepared
His Majesty's Government for the impressions made upon it by the
President's message, and that if the complaints he makes were as just as
you think them unfounded, still you would have reason to be astonished
at receiving _the first communication of them in such a form_. If His
Majesty's Government was not prepared to receive complaints on the part
of the United States for nonexecution of the treaty, everything I have
said and written since I have had the honor of communicating with your
excellency and your predecessors in office must have been misunderstood
or forgotten. I can scarcely suppose the first, for if my whole
correspondence is referred to and my verbal representations
recollected they will be found in the most unequivocal language to
express an extreme solicitude for the execution of the treaty, a
deep disappointment at the several delays which have intervened, and
emphatically the necessity which the President would be under of laying
the matter before Congress at the time when in fact he has done so if
before that period he did not receive notice that the law had passed for
giving effect to the treaty. To urge the obligation of the treaty, to
prepare His Majesty's Government for the serious consequences that must
result from its breach or an unnecessary delay in executing it, was my
duty, and it has been faithfully and unremittingly executed. To my own
official representation on the 26th I added on the 29th July last the
precise instructions I had received, to inform His Majesty's Government
that "the President could not avoid laying before Congress on the 1st of
December a full statement of the position of affairs on this interesting
subject, or permit the session to end, as it must do on the 3d March,
without recommending such measures as the justice and the honor of the
country may require."
In this alone, then, there was sufficient, independently of my numerous
applications and remonstrances, to prepare His Majesty's Government
for the just complaints of the United States and for the "impression"
they ought to produce, as well as for the "_mode_" in which they were
communicated, a mode clearly pointed out in the passage I have quoted
from my note of the 29th of July--that is to say, by the annual message
from the President to Congress, which, as I have already had occasion
to observe, His Majesty's ministers have erroneously considered as
addressed directly to them, and, viewing it in that light, have
arraigned this document as containing groundless complaints, couched in
language not called for by the occasion, and offering for consideration
means of redress offensive to the dignity of France. I shall endeavor by
a plain exposition of facts to repel those charges. I shall examine them
with the freedom the occasion requires, but, suppressing the feelings
which some parts of your excellency's letter naturally excite, will, as
far as possible, avoid all those topics for recrimination which press
upon my mind. The observation I am about to make will not be deemed a
departure from this rule, because it is intended to convey information
which seems to have been wanted by His Majesty's minister when on a late
occasion he presented a law to the Chamber of Deputies. It is proper,
therefore, to state that although the military title of general was
gloriously acquired by the present head of the American Government,
he is not in official language designated as _General Jackson_, but as
"the President of the United States," and that his communication was
made in that character.
I proceed now to the examination of that portion of your excellency's
letter which attempts to show that the complaints set forth in the
President's message are groundless.
It begins by assuming as a principle of argument that after the Chamber
of Deputies had rejected the law and His Majesty's Government had
promised to present it anew the United States had by receiving that
promise given up all right to complain of any anterior delays. I have
vainly endeavored, sir, to find any rule of reasoning by which this
argument can be supported. It would undoubtedly be much easier to strike
off from the case the delays of two years in proposing the law than to
justify them.
It is true that the United States, with a moderation and forbearance
for which they receive no credit, waited two years, almost without
complaint, for the performance of a treaty which engaged the faith of
the French nation to pay a just indemnity, for which they had already
waited more than twenty years. It is true that His Majesty's Government
offered solemn assurances that as soon as the constitution of the
country would permit a new attempt would be made to redeem the national
pledge given by the treaty. It is true also that the President of the
United States gave credit to those assurances; but it is also true--and
your excellency seems to lose sight of that important uncontested
fact--that formal notice was given that the performance of those
promises would be expected according to their letter, and that he
could delay no longer than the 1st of December the execution of a duty
which those assurances had induced him to postpone. Whatever reasons
His Majesty's Government had for not complying with Mr. Sérurier's
engagement, or however they may have interpreted it, the President could
not be precluded from considering the whole case as open and adding to
his statement the wrongs occasioned by the delays anterior to the vote
of rejection. Those delays are still unaccounted for, and are rendered
more questionable by the preference given to another treaty, although
subsequently made, for the guarantee of the Greek loan.
Confining your observations to this second period, you say that the
reproaches which the President thinks himself authorized in making to
France may be comprised in the following words:
"The Government of the King had promised to present the treaty of July
anew to the Chambers as soon as they could be assembled; but they have
been assembled on the 31st of July of the last year and the treaty has
not yet been presented."
Stating this as the whole of the complaint, you proceed, sir, in your
endeavor to refute it.
I am obliged, reluctantly, here to make use of arguments which in the
course of this discussion have been often repeated, but which seem to
have made no impression on His Majesty's Government. I am obliged, in
repelling the reproaches addressed to the President, to bring to your
recollection the terms of the promise on which he relied, the
circumstances attending it, and the object for which it was given. These
must be fully understood and fully waived before the question between us
can be resolved.
The circumstances under which Mr. Sérurier's note was written are
material in considering its true import. The payment stipulated by a
treaty duly ratified on both sides had just been formally refused by a
vote of the Chamber of Deputies. More than two years had passed since
it had been proclaimed as the law of the land in the United States,
and ever since the articles favorable to France had been in constant
operation. Notice of this refusal had some time before been received by
the President. It would have been his duty, had nothing else occurred,
to communicate to Congress this event, so unexpected and so injurious to
the interest of the country. One circumstance prevented the performance
of this duty and justified the omission. The notice of the rejection was
accompanied by information that the minister of France was instructed to
make explanations and engagements on the subject, and that a ship of
war would be dispatched with his instructions. The President had waited
a month for the arrival of this ship. An unusually long session of
Congress still afforded an opportunity for making the communication,
even after her arrival. If made it would undoubtedly have produced
consequences the nature of which may be imagined by considering the
events that have since occurred. It was necessary, then, to prevent an
interruption of the friendly relations between the two countries, that
this communication should be postponed until the subsequent session
of Congress; longer than that it was well known that it could not be
deferred. This was clearly and explicitly stated in a conference between
Mr. Sérurier and the Secretary of State of the United States, in which
the former gave the promise in question. But the President desired to
have the engagement in a written and official form (and as Mr. Sérurier
expresses it in his letter), "_pour des causes prises dans les
nécessités de votre Gouvernement_" What governmental necessity does he
allude to? Clearly that which obliged the President to communicate these
engagements to Congress at the next session.
Here, then, we have a stipulation made under special orders, sent
out by a ship dispatched for that express purpose, communicated first
verbally in an official conference, afterwards reduced to writing and
delivered to the proper officers, for the double purpose of justifying
the President for not making an immediate communication at their then
session and also to serve as a pledge which he might exhibit if
unredeemed at their next. These objects are well stated by Mr. Sérurier
to be "that the Government of the Republic may avoid, with a
providential solicitude, _in this unsettled state of things_ all that
may become a cause of new irritation between the two countries, endanger
the treaty, and raise obstacles that may become insurmountable to the
views of conciliation and harmony which animate the councils of the
King." It was, then, to avoid a communication to Congress, which Mr.
Sérurier saw would endanger the peace of the two countries, that this
engagement was made. Surely, then, every word of a stipulation made
under such circumstances and for such important purposes must have been
duly considered and its import properly weighed, first by the cabinet
who directed, afterwards by the minister who delivered and the
Government which received it.
What, then, was this engagement? First, that the Government of the King
will use every legal and constitutional effort which its persevering
persuasion of the justice and advantages of the treaty authorize
the United States to expect from it. "Son intention est" (I quote
literally), "_en outre_" (that is, besides using those endeavors above
mentioned), "de faire tout ce que _not re constitution permet_ pour
rapprocher autant que possible l'époque de la presentation nouvelle de
la loi rejettée." Your excellency can not fail to have observed two
distinct parts in this engagement--one relating to the endeavors the
ministry promise to make in order to induce the Chambers to pass the
law, for the success of which they could not answer; another relating
to the time of presentation of the law, a matter which depended on
them alone, restricted only by constitutional forms.
The promise on this point, then, was precise, and could not be
misunderstood. Whatever the _constitution of France permitted_, the
Government of France promised to do in order to hasten the presentation
of the law. What was the cause of this desire to bring the business
before the Chambers at an early day? No one can doubt it who knows
the situation of the two countries, still less anyone who has read the
correspondence. It was to enable the President to make those statements
to the next Congress which, relying on the engagements of the French
minister, he had omitted to make to this.
It was clear, therefore, that more was required than the expression of a
desire on the part of His Majesty's ministers to execute the treaty--a
desire the sincerity of which was not doubted, but which might be
unavailing, as its accomplishment depended on the vote of the Chambers.
For the President's satisfaction, and for his justification too, an
engagement was offered and accepted for the performance of an act which
depended on His Majesty's Government alone. This engagement was couched
in the unequivocal terms I have literally quoted.
This, sir, is not all. That there might be no misunderstanding on the
subject, this promise, with the sense in which it was understood, the
important object for which it was given, and the serious consequences
that might attend a failure to comply with it, were urged in
conversation, and repeated in my official letters, particularly those
of the 26th and 29th of July and 3d and 9th of August last, in which
its performance was strongly pressed.
The answers to these letters left no hope that the question would be
submitted to the Chambers in time to have the result known before the
adjournment of Congress, and by the refusal to hasten the convocation of
the Chambers before the last of December showed unequivocally that, so
far from taking all measures permitted by the constitution to _hasten_
the period of presenting the law, it was to be left to the most remote
period of the ordinary course of legislation.
This decision of His Majesty's Government, contained in your
excellency's note to me of the 7th August, was duly transmitted to the
President, and it naturally produced upon his mind the impressions which
I anticipated in my letters to your excellency that it would produce.
He saw with the deepest regret that a positive assurance for convening
the Chambers as soon as the constitution would permit was construed to
mean only a disposition to do so, and that this disposition had yielded
to objections which he could not think of sufficient force to justify a
delay even if there had intervened no promise, especially as the serious
consequences of that delay had been earnestly and repeatedly brought to
the consideration of His Majesty's Government. In fact, sir, what were
those objections? I do not speak of those which were made to presenting
the law in the session of July last, for although no constitutional
impediment offered itself, yet it was not strongly insisted on, because
an early session in the autumn, would have the same effect; and the
President, for the same reason, says that it might have been overlooked
if an early call of the Chambers had been made. They are the objections
to this call, then, which immediately demand our attention. What, in
fact, were they? None derived from the constitutional charter have been
or could have been asserted. What, then, were they? Your excellency's
letter of the 3d of August to me contains none but this: "His Majesty's
Government finds it impossible to make any positive engagement on that
point." In that of the 7th of August there are two reasons assigned:
First, the general inconvenience to the members. This the President
could surely not think of alleging to Congress as a sufficient reason
for omitting to lay the matter before them. The next, I confess, has
a little more weight, and might have excused a delay if the assurance
given by Mr. Sérurier had been, as your excellency construes it,
merely of a _disposition_ to hasten the presentation of the law.
If the engagement had amounted to no more than this, and His Majesty's
ministers thought that an early call would endanger the passage of
the law, it might possibly justify _them_ in not making it. But the
President, who relied on the promise he had received, who in consequence
of it had deferred the performance of an important duty; the President,
who had given timely and official notice that this duty must be
performed at the opening of the next Congress; the President, who could
see no greater prospect of the passage of the law in a winter than in an
autumnal session--how was _he_ to justify himself and redeem the pledge
_he_ had made to his country? He did it in the way he always does--by a
strict performance.
From this detail your excellency will, I hope, see that the President's
causes of complaint can not, as you suppose, be confined within the
narrow limit you have assigned to them. The failure to present the law
in the session of July was not the only, nor even the principal, point
in which he thought the engagement of Mr. Sérurier uncomplied with;
for although he saw no reason for the omission that could be called
a constitutional one, yet he expressly says that might have been
overlooked. He always (it can not too often be repeated) looked to the
promise of Mr. Sérurier as it was given at Washington, not as it was
interpreted at Paris, and he had a right to believe that as on previous
occasions the Legislature had, in the years 1819, 1822, 1825, and 1830,
held their sessions for the transaction of the ordinary business in
the months of July and August, he had a right, I say, to believe that
there was no insurmountable objection to the consideration of this
extraordinary case, enforced by a positive promise. Yet, as I have
remarked, he did not make this his principal cause of complaint; it
was the omission to call the Chambers at an earlier period than the
very end of the year.
On this head your excellency is pleased to observe that the same
reasons, drawn from the usual course of administration, which rendered
the presentation of the law in the session of July impossible applied
with nearly the same force to a call before the end of the year; and
you appeal to the President's knowledge of the "fixed principles of a
constitutional system" to prove that the administration under such a
government is subject to regular and permanent forms, "from which no
special interest, however important, should induce it to deviate." For
this branch of the argument it unfortunately happens that no regular
form of administration, no fixed principle, no usage whatever, would
have opposed a call of the Chambers at an early day, and the rule which
your excellency states would not be broken "in favor of any interest,
however important," has actually been made to yield to one of domestic
occurrence. _The Chambers have just been convened before the period
which was declared to be the soonest at which they could possibly meet_.
Your excellency will also excuse me for remarking that since the first
institution of the Chambers, in 1814, there have been convocations
for every month of the year, without exception, which I will take the
liberty of bringing to your recollection by enumerating the different
dates. The Chambers were summoned for the month of January in the years
1823, 1826, and 1829; for February, in the years 1827 and 1829; for
March, in 1815, 1824, and 1830; for April, in 1833; for May, in 1814;
for June, in 1815, 1822, and 1825; for July, in 1834; for August,
in 1830 and 1831; for September, in 1815; for October, in 1816; for
November, in 1817, 1818, 1819, 1821, and 1832; and for December, in
1820, 1824, 1826, and 1833. It is, then, clear to demonstration that
neither constitutional impediment nor stern, inflexible usage prevented
such a call of the Chambers as would have complied with the letter of
Mr. Sérurier's engagement. Since I have alluded to the actual meeting of
the Chambers on the 1st of December, it is but candid to allow that even
this period would not have enabled the President to have attained one
of his objects--the presenting of the result of their deliberations to
Congress in his opening message. But even that slight concession, if
it had been made to my unceasing applications, might have given an
opportunity of conveying their decision to Congress before the 4th
of March, when they must adjourn, because, had that day been then
determined on, everything would have been ready to lay before the
Chambers on the opening of the session; but a meeting a month or six
weeks earlier would have given ample time for deliberation and decision
in season to have it known at Washington on the 1st of December.
The necessity of giving time to the new members to inform themselves
of the nature of the question and the old ones to recover from the
impression which erroneous statements had made upon their minds I
understand to be the remaining motive of His Majesty's ministers for
delaying the meeting; but this was a precaution which, relying on the
plain obligation of the treaty, the President could not appreciate, and
he must, moreover, have thought that if a long discussion was necessary
to understand the merits of the question it was an additional reason for
hastening the meeting where those merits were to be discussed. The delay
that occurred between the meeting of the Chambers and the 1st of January
need not have entered into the discussion, because, not long known at
Washington, it could not have had any influence on the message. It is
referred to, I presume, in order to show that it was produced by a
desire on the part of His Majesty's ministers the better to assure the
passage of the law. Of this, sir, I never had a doubt, and immediately
so advised my Government, and informed it (as was the fact) that I
perfectly acquiesced in the delay; first, because of the circumstance to
which you allude; secondly, because the statements originally intended
to be ready by the 1st of January were not yet prepared. There is a
slight error in this part of your excellency's letter; the delay was
not made at my request, but was fully approved of, for the reasons
which I have stated.
I have entered into this detail, sir, not for the purpose of
recrimination, which, in most cases useless, would in this be worse, but
with the object, as was my duty, of showing that although the ministers
of the King, under the interpretation they seem to have given to Mr.
Sérurier's promise, may have considered themselves at liberty to defer
the presentation of the law until the period which they thought would
best secure its success, yet the President, interpreting that promise
differently, feeling that in consequence of it he had forborne to do
what might be strictly called a duty, and seeing that its performance
had not taken place, could not avoid stating the whole case clearly and
distinctly to Congress and detailing to them all the remedies which the
law of nations would allow to be applied to the case, leaving to them
the choice, leaving to their wisdom and prudence the option, of the
alternative of further delay or conditional action. Could he have said
less in this branch of his message? If he alluded to the subject at
all, he was obliged to detail the circumstances of the case. It is
not pretended that this is not done with fidelity as to facts. The
ratification of the treaty, its effect in pledging the faith of the
nation, the fidelity with which the United States have executed it,
the delay that intervened before it was brought before the Chambers,
their rejection of the law, the assurances made by Mr. Sérurier, the
forbearance of the President to make a communication to Congress in
consequence of those assurances, and the adjournment of the question by
His Majesty's Government to the end of the year--none of these have ever
been denied, and all this the President was obliged to bring before
Congress if, as I have said, he spoke on the subject. But he was obliged
by a solemn duty to speak of it, and he had given timely and repeated
notice of this obligation. The propositions which he submitted to
Congress in consequence of those facts were a part of his duty. They
were, as I have stated, exclusively addressed to that body, and in
offering them he felt and expressed a proper regret, and, doing justice
to the character and high feeling of the French nation, he explicitly
disavowed any intention of influencing it by a menace.
I have no mission, sir, to offer any modification of the President's
communication to Congress, and I beg that what I have said may be
considered with the reserve that I do not acknowledge any right to
demand or any obligation to give explanations of a document of that
nature. But the relations which previously existed between the two
countries, a desire that no unnecessary misunderstanding should
interrupt them, and the tenor of your excellency's letter (evidently
written under excited feeling) all convinced me that it was not
incompatible with self-respect and the dignity of my country to enter
into the detail I have done. The same reasons induced me to add that the
idea erroneously entertained that an injurious menace is contained in
the message has prevented your excellency from giving a proper attention
to its language. A cooler examination will show that although the
President was obliged, as I have demonstrated, to state to Congress
the engagements which had been made, and that in his opinion they had
not been complied with, yet in a communication not addressed to His
Majesty's Government not a disrespectful term is employed, nor a phrase
that his own sense of propriety, as well as the regard which one
nation owes to another, would induce him to disavow. On the contrary,
expressions of sincere regret that circumstances obliged him to complain
of acts that disturbed the harmony he wished to preserve with a nation
and Government to the high characters of which he did ample justice.
An honorable susceptibility to everything that may in the remotest
degree affect the honor of the country is a national sentiment in
France; but you will allow, sir, that it is carried too far when it
becomes impatient of just complaint, when it will allow none of its
acts to be arraigned and considers as an offense a simple and correct
examination of injuries received and as an insult a deliberation on the
means of redress. If it is forbidden, under the penalties of giving just
cause of offense, for the different branches of a foreign government to
consult together on the nature of wrongs it has received and review the
several remedies which the law of nations present and circumstances
justify, then no such consultation can take place in a government like
that of the United States, where all the proceedings are public, without
at once incurring the risk of war, which it would be the very object of
that consultation to avoid.
The measures announced in the close of your letter, as well as the
correspondence that it has occasioned between us, have been transmitted
to my Government, and I wait the instructions which that communication
will produce.
I pray your excellency to receive the renewed assurance of the high
consideration with which I have the honor to be, your most obedient,
humble servant,