_Washington, February 3, 1836_.
CHARLES BANKHEAD, Esq.:
The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has had the
honor to receive the note of the 27th ultimo of Mr. Charles Bankhead,
His Britannic Majesty's chargé d'affaires, offering to the Government of
the United States the mediation of His Britannic Majesty's Government
for the settlement of the differences unhappily existing between the
United States and France. That communication having been submitted
to the President, and considered with all the care belonging to the
importance of the subject and the source from which it emanated,
the undersigned has been instructed to assure Mr. Bankhead that the
disinterested and honorable motives which have dictated the proposal are
fully appreciated. The pacific policy of His Britannic Majesty's cabinet
and their efforts to heal dissensions arising among nations are worthy
of the character and commanding influence of Great Britain, and the
success of those efforts is as honorable to the Government by whose
instrumentality it was secured as it has been beneficial to the parties
more immediately interested and to the world at large.
The sentiments upon which this policy is founded, and which are so
forcibly displayed in the offer that has been made, are deeply impressed
upon the mind of the President. They are congenial with the institutions
and principles as well as with the interests and habits of the people of
the United States, and it has been the constant aim of their Government
in its conduct toward other powers to observe and illustrate them.
Cordially approving the general views of His Britannic Majesty's
Government, the President regards with peculiar satisfaction the
enlightened and disinterested solicitude manifested by it for the
welfare of the nations to whom its good offices are now tendered, and
has seen with great sensibility, in the exhibition of that feeling, the
recognition of that community of interests and those ties of kindred by
which the United States and Great Britain are united.
If circumstances did not render it certain, it would have been obvious
from the language of Mr. Bankhead's note to the undersigned that the
Government of His Britannic Majesty, when the instructions under which
it was prepared were given, could not have been apprised of all the
steps taken in the controversy between the United States and France.
It was necessarily ignorant of the tenor of the two recent messages of
the President to Congress--the first communicated at the commencement of
the present session, under date of the 7th of December, 1835, and the
second under that of the 15th of January, 1836. Could these documents
have been within the knowledge of His Britannic Majesty's Government,
the President does not doubt that it would have been fully satisfied
that the disposition of the United States, notwithstanding their
well-grounded and serious causes of complaint against France, to
restore friendly relations and cultivate a good understanding with the
Government of that country was undiminished, and that all had already
been done on their part that could in reason be expected of them to
secure that result. The first of these documents, although it gave such
a history of the origin and progress of the claims of the United States
and of the proceedings of France before and since the treaty of 1831
as to vindicate the statements and recommendations of the message of
the 1st of December, 1834, yet expressly disclaimed the offensive
interpretation put upon it by the Government of France, and while
it insisted on the acknowledged rights of the United States and the
obligations of the treaty and maintained the honor and independence
of the American Government, evinced an anxious desire to do all that
constitutional duty and strict justice would permit to remove every
cause of irritation and excitement. The special message of the 15th
January last being called for by the extraordinary and inadmissible
demands of the Government of France as defined in the last official
communications at Paris, and by the continued refusal of France to
execute a treaty from the faithful performance of which by the United
States it was tranquilly enjoying important advantages, it became the
duty of the President to recommend such measures as might be adapted
to the exigencies of the occasion. Unwilling to believe that a nation
distinguished for honor and intelligence could have determined
permanently to maintain a ground so indefensible, and anxious still to
leave open the door of reconciliation, the President contented himself
with proposing to Congress the mildest of the remedies given by the law
and practice of nations in connection with such propositions for defense
as were evidently required by the condition of the United States and
the attitude assumed by France. In all these proceedings, as well as
in every stage of these difficulties with France, it is confidently
believed that the course of the United States, when duly considered
by other Governments and the world, will be found to have been marked
not only by a pacific disposition, but by a spirit of forbearance and
conciliation.
For a further illustration of this point, as well as for the purpose of
presenting a lucid view of the whole subject, the undersigned has the
honor to transmit to Mr. Bankhead copies of all that part of the message
of December 7, 1835, which relates to it and of the correspondence
referred to therein, and also copies of the message and accompanying
documents of the 15th of January, 1836, and of another message of the
18th of the same month, transmitting a report of the Secretary of State
and certain documents connected with the subject.
These papers, while they will bring down the history of the
misunderstanding between the United States and France to the present
date, will also remove an erroneous impression which appears to be
entertained by His Britannic Majesty's Government. It is suggested in
Mr. Bankhead's note that there is no question of national interest
at issue between France and the United States, and that there is no
demand of justice made by the one party and denied by the other. This
suggestion appears to be founded on the facts that the claims of the
United States have been admitted by a treaty concluded between the two
Governments and that the money due by France has been provided by the
Chambers and placed at the disposal of the French Government for the
purpose of being paid to the United States. But it is to be observed
that the payment of the money thus appropriated is refused by the French
Government unless the United States will first comply with a condition
not contained in the treaty and not assented to by them. This refusal to
make payment is, in the view of the United States, a denial of justice,
and has not only been accompanied by acts and language of which they
have great reason to complain, but the delay of payment is highly
injurious to those American citizens who are entitled to share in the
indemnification provided by the treaty and to the interests of the
United States, inasmuch as the reduction of the duties levied on French
wines in pursuance of that treaty has diminished the public revenue,
and has been and yet is enjoyed by France, with all the other benefits
of the treaty, without the consideration and equivalents for which
they were granted. But there are other national interests, and, in the
judgment of this Government, national interests of the highest order,
involved in the condition prescribed and insisted on by France which
it has been by the President made the duty of the undersigned to bring
distinctly into view. That condition proceeds on the assumption that a
foreign power whose acts are spoken of by the President of the United
States in a message to Congress, transmitted in obedience to his
constitutional duties, and which deems itself aggrieved by the language
thus held by him, may as a matter of right require from the Government
of the United States a direct official explanation of such language,
to be given in such form and expressed in such terms as shall meet the
requirements and satisfy the feelings of the offended party, and may
in default of such explanation annul or suspend a solemn treaty duly
executed by its constitutional organ. Whatever may be the responsibility
of those nations whose executives possess the power of declaring war
and of adopting other coercive remedies without the intervention of
the legislative department, for the language held by the Executive in
addressing that department, it is obvious that under the Constitution
of the United States, which gives to the Executive no such powers, but
vests them exclusively in the Legislature, whilst at the same time it
imposes on the Executive the duty of laying before the Legislature the
state of the nation, with such recommendations as he may deem proper,
no such responsibility can be admitted without impairing that freedom
of intercommunication which is essential to the system and without
surrendering in this important particular the right of self-government.
In accordance with this view of the Federal Constitution has been the
practice under it. The statements and recommendations of the President
to Congress are regarded by this Government as a part of the purely
domestic consultations held by its different departments--consultations
in which nothing is addressed to foreign powers, and in which they can
not be permitted to interfere, and for which, until consummated and
carried out by acts emanating from the proper constitutional organs,
the nation is not responsible and the Government not liable to account
to other States.
It will be seen from the accompanying correspondence that when the
condition referred to was first proposed in the Chamber of Deputies the
insuperable objections to it were fully communicated by the American
minister at Paris to the French Government, and that he distinctly
informed it that the condition, if prescribed, could never be complied
with. The views expressed by him were approved by the President, and
have been since twice asserted and enforced by him in his messages to
Congress in terms proportioned in their explicitness and solemnity to
the conviction he entertains of the importance and inviolability of the
principle involved.
The United States can not yield this principle, nor can they do or
consent to any measure by which its influence in the action of their
political system can be obstructed or diminished. Under these
circumstances the President feels that he may rely on the intelligence
and liberality of His Britannic Majesty's Government for a correct
estimation of the imperative obligations which leave him no power to
subject this point to the control of any foreign state, whatever may be
his confidence in its justice and impartiality--a confidence which he
has taken pleasure in instructing the undersigned to state is fully
reposed by him in the Government of His Britannic Majesty.
So great, however, is the desire of the President for the restoration of
a good understanding with the Government of France, provided it can be
effected on terms compatible with the honor and independence of the
United States, that if, after the frank avowal of his sentiments upon
the point last referred to and the explicit reservation of that point,
the Government of His Britannic Majesty shall believe that its mediation
can be useful in adjusting the differences which exist between the two
countries and in restoring all their relations to a friendly footing, he
instructs the undersigned to inform Mr. Bankhead that in such case the
offer of mediation made in his note is cheerfully accepted.
The United States desire nothing but equal and exact justice, and they
can not but hope that the good offices of a third power, friendly to
both parties, and prompted by the elevated considerations manifested
in Mr. Bankhead's note, may promote the attainment of this end.
Influenced by these motives, the President will cordially cooperate,
so far as his constitutional powers may enable him, in such steps as
may be requisite on the part of the United States to give effect to the
proposed mediation. He trusts that no unnecessary delay will be allowed
to occur, and instructs the undersigned to request that the earliest
information of the measures taken by Great Britain and of their result
may be communicated to this Government.
The undersigned avails himself of the occasion to renew to Mr. Bankhead
the assurances of his distinguished consideration.