LEWIS CASS, ESQ., &c., &c., &c.
* * * * *
_Mr. Webster to General Cass._
Department of State, Washington,
December 20, 1842.
Sir,--Your letter of the 11th instant has been submitted to the
President. He directs me to say, in reply, that he continues to regard
your correspondence, of which this letter is part, as being quite
irregular from the beginning. You had asked leave to retire from your
mission; the leave was granted by the President, with kind and friendly
remarks upon the manner in which you had discharged its duties. Having
asked for this honorable recall, which was promptly given, you afterward
addressed to this department your letter of the 3d of October, which,
however it may appear to you, the President cannot but consider as a
remonstrance, a protest, against the treaty of the 9th of August; in
other words, an attack upon his administration for the negotiation and
conclusion of that treaty. He certainly was not prepared for this. It
came upon him with no small surprise, and he still feels that you must
have been, at the moment, under the influence of temporary impressions,
which he cannot but hope have ere now worn away.
A few remarks upon some of the points of your last letter must now close
the correspondence.
In the first place, you object to my having called your letter of
October 3d a "protest or remonstrance" against a transaction of the
government, and observe that you must have been unhappy in the mode of
expressing yourself, if you were liable to this charge.
What other construction your letter will bear, I cannot perceive. The
transaction was _finished_. No letter or remarks of yourself, or any one
else, could undo it, if desirable. Your opinions were unsolicited. If
given as a citizen, then it was altogether unusual to address them to
this department in an official despatch; if as a public functionary, the
whole subject-matter was quite aside from the duties of your particular
station. In your letter you did not propose any thing _to be done_, but
objected to what had been done. You did not suggest any method of
remedying what you were pleased to consider a defect, but stated what
you thought to be reasons for fearing its consequences. You declared
that there had been, in your opinion, an omission to assert American
rights; to which omission you gave the department to understand that you
would never have consented.
In all this there is nothing but protest and remonstrance; and, though
your letter be not formally entitled such, I cannot see that it can be
construed, in effect, as any thing else; and I must continue to think,
therefore, that the terms used are entirely applicable and proper.
In the next place, you say: "You give me to understand that the
communications which have passed between us on this subject are to be
published, and submitted to the great tribunal of public opinion."
It would have been better if you had quoted my remark with entire
correctness. What I said was, not that the communications which have
passed between us _are to be_ published, or _must_ be published, but
that "it may become necessary hereafter to publish your letter, in
connection with other correspondence of the mission; and, although it is
not to be presumed that you looked to such publication, because such a
presumption would impute to you a claim to put forth your private
opinions upon the conduct of the President and Senate, in a transaction
finished and concluded, through the imposing form of a public despatch,
yet, if published, it cannot be foreseen how far England might hereafter
rely on your authority for a construction favorable to her own
pretensions, and inconsistent with the interest and honor of the United
States."
In another part of your letter you observe: "The publication of my
letter, which is to produce this result, is to be the act of the
government, and not my act. But if the President should think that the
slightest injury to the public interest would ensue from the disclosure
of my views, the letter may be buried in the archives of the department,
and thus forgotten and rendered harmless."
To this I have to remark, in the first place, that instances have
occurred in other times, not unknown to you, in which highly important
letters from ministers of the United States, in Europe, to their own
government, have found their way into the newspapers of Europe, when
that government itself held it to be inconsistent with the interest of
the United States to make such letters public.
But it is hardly worth while to pursue a topic like this.
You are pleased to ask: "Is it the duty of a diplomatic agent to receive
all the communications of his government, and to carry into effect their
instructions _sub silentio_, whatever may be his own sentiments in
relation to them; or is he not bound, as a faithful representative, to
communicate freely, but respectfully, his own views, that these may be
considered, and receive their due weight, in that particular case, or in
other circumstances involving similar considerations? It seems to me
that the bare enunciation of the principle is all that is necessary for
my justification. I am speaking now of the propriety of my action, not
of the manner in which it was performed. I may have executed the task
well or ill. I may have introduced topics unadvisedly, and urged them
indiscreetly. All this I leave without remark. I am only endeavoring
here to free myself from the serious charge which you bring against me.
If I have misapprehended the duties of an American diplomatic agent upon
this subject, I am well satisfied to have withdrawn, by a timely
resignation, from a position in which my own self-respect would not
permit me to remain. And I may express the conviction, that there is no
government, certainly none this side of Constantinople, which would not
encourage rather than rebuke the free expression of the views of their
representatives in foreign countries."
I answer, certainly not. In the letter to which you were replying it was
fully stated, that, "in common with every other citizen of the republic,
you have an unquestionable right to form opinions upon public
transactions and the conduct of public men. But it will hardly be
thought to be among either the duties or the privileges of a minister
abroad to make formal remonstrances and protests against proceedings of
the various branches of the government at home, upon subjects in
relation to which he himself has not been charged with any duty, or
partaken any responsibility."
You have not been requested to bestow your approbation upon the treaty,
however gratifying it would have been to the President to see that, in
that respect, you united with other distinguished public agents abroad.
Like all citizens of the republic, you are quite at liberty to exercise
your own judgment upon that as upon other transactions. But neither your
observations nor this concession cover the case. They do not show, that,
as a public minister abroad, it is a part of your official functions, in
a public despatch, to remonstrate against the conduct of the government
at home in relation to a transaction in which you bore no part, and for
which you were in no way answerable. The President and Senate must be
permitted to judge for themselves in a matter solely within their
control. Nor do I know that, in complaining of your protest against
their proceedings in a case of this kind, any thing has been done to
warrant, on your part, an invidious and unjust reference to
Constantinople. If you could show, by the general practice of diplomatic
functionaries in the civilized part of the world, and more especially,
if you could show by any precedent drawn from the conduct of the many
distinguished men who have represented the government of the United
States abroad, that your letter of the 3d of October was, in its general
object, tone, and character, within the usual limits of diplomatic
correspondence, you may be quite assured that the President would not
have recourse to the code of Turkey in order to find precedents the
other way.
You complain that, in the letter from this department of the 14th of
November, a statement contained in yours of the 3d of October is called
a tissue of mistakes, and you attempt to show the impropriety of this
appellation. Let the point be distinctly stated, and what you say in
reply be then considered.
In your letter of October 3d you remark, that "England then urged the
United States to enter into a conventional arrangement, by which we
might be pledged to concur with her in measures for the suppression of
the slave-trade. Until then, we had executed our own laws in our own
way; but, yielding to this application, and departing from our former
principle of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American,
we stipulated in a solemn treaty that we would carry into effect our own
laws, and fixed the minimum force we would employ for that purpose."
The letter of this department of the 14th of November, having quoted
this passage, proceeds to observe, that "the President cannot conceive
how you should have been led to adventure upon such a statement as this.
It is but a tissue of mistakes. England did not urge the United States
to enter into this conventional arrangement. The United States yielded
to no application from England. The proposition for abolishing the
slave-trade, as it stands in the treaty, was an American proposition; it
originated with the executive government of the United States, which
cheerfully assumes all its responsibility. It stands upon it as its own
mode of fulfilling its duties and accomplishing its objects. Nor have
the United States departed in the slightest degree from their former
principles of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American;
because the abolition of the African slave-trade is an American subject
as emphatically as it is a European subject, and, indeed, more so,
inasmuch as the government of the United States took the first great
step in declaring that trade unlawful, and in attempting its extinction.
The abolition of this traffic is an object of the highest interest to
the American people and the American government; and you seem strangely
to have overlooked altogether the important fact, that nearly thirty
years ago, by the treaty of Ghent, the United States bound themselves,
by solemn compact with England, to continue their efforts to promote its
entire abolition; both parties pledging themselves by that treaty to use
their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object."
Now, in answer to this, you observe in your last letter: "That the
particular mode in which the governments should act in concert, as
finally arranged in the treaty, was suggested by yourself, I never
doubted. And if this is the construction I am to give to your denial of
my correctness, there is no difficulty upon the subject. The question
between us is untouched. All I said was, that England continued to
prosecute the matter; that she presented it for negotiation, and that we
thereupon consented to its introduction. And if Lord Ashburton did not
come out with instructions from his government to endeavor to effect
some arrangement upon this subject, the world has strangely
misunderstood one of the great objects of his mission, and I have
misunderstood that paragraph in your first note, where you say that Lord
Ashburton comes with full powers to negotiate and settle all matters in
discussion between England and the United States. But the very fact of
his coming here, and of his acceding to any stipulations respecting the
slave-trade, is conclusive proof that his government were desirous to
obtain the co-operation of the United States. I had supposed that our
government would scarcely take the initiative in this matter, and urge
it upon that of Great Britain, either in Washington or in London. If it
did so, I can only express my regret, and confess that I have been led
inadvertently into an error."
It would appear from all this, that that which, in your first letter,
appeared as a direct statement of facts, of which you would naturally be
presumed to have had knowledge, sinks at last into inferences and
conjectures. But, in attempting to escape from some of the mistakes of
this tissue, you have fallen into others. "All I said was," you observe,
"that England continued to prosecute the matter; that she presented it
for negotiation, and that we thereupon consented to its introduction."
Now the English minister no more presented this subject for negotiation
than the government of the United States presented it. Nor can it be
said that the United States consented to its introduction in any other
sense than it may be said that the British minister consented to it.
Will you be good enough to review the series of your own assertions on
this subject, and see whether they can possibly be regarded merely as a
statement of your own inferences? Your only authentic fact is a general
one, that the British minister came clothed with full power to negotiate
and settle all matters in discussion. This, you say, is conclusive proof
that his government was desirous to obtain the co-operation of the
United States respecting the slave-trade; and then you infer that
England continued to prosecute this matter, and presented it for
negotiation, and that the United States consented to its introduction;
and give to this inference the shape of a direct statement of a fact.
You might have made the same remarks, and with the same propriety, in
relation to the subject of the "Creole," that of impressment, the
extradition of fugitive criminals, or any thing else embraced in the
treaty or in the correspondence, and then have converted these
inferences of your own into so many facts. And it is upon conjectures
like these, it is upon such inferences of your own, that you make the
direct and formal statement in your letter of the 3d of October, that
"England then urged the United States to enter into a conventional
arrangement, by which we might be pledged to concur with her in measures
for the suppression of the slave-trade. Until then, we had executed our
own laws in our own way; but, yielding to this application, and
departing from our former principle of avoiding European combinations
upon subjects not American, we stipulated in a solemn treaty that we
would carry into effect our own laws, and fixed the minimum force we
would employ for that purpose."
The President was well warranted, therefore, in requesting your serious
reconsideration and review of that statement.
Suppose your letter to go before the public unanswered and
uncontradicted; suppose it to mingle itself with the general political
history of the country, as an official letter among the archives of the
Department of State, would not the general mass of readers understand
you as reciting facts, rather than as drawing your own conclusions? as
stating history, rather than as presenting an argument? It is of an
incorrect narrative that the President complains. It is that, in your
hotel at Paris, you should undertake to write a history of a very
delicate part of a negotiation carried on at Washington, with which you
had nothing to do, and of the history of which you had no authentic
information; and which history, as you narrate it, reflects not a little
on the independence, wisdom, and public spirit of the administration.
As of the history of this part of the negotiation you were not well
informed, the President cannot but think it would have been more just in
you to have refrained from any attempt to give an account of it.
You observe, further: "I never mentioned in my despatch to you, nor in
any manner whatever, that our government had conceded to that of England
the right to search our ships. That idea, however, pervades your letter,
and is very apparent in that part of it which brings to my observation
the possible effect of my views upon the English government. But in this
you do me, though I am sure unintentionally, great injustice. I
repeatedly state that the recent treaty leaves the rights of the parties
as it found them. My difficulty is not that we have made a positive
concession, but that we have acted unadvisedly in not making the
abandonment of this pretension a previous condition to any conventional
arrangement upon the general subject."
On this part of your letter I must be allowed to make two remarks.
The first is, inasmuch as the treaty gives no color or pretext whatever
to any right of searching our ships, a declaration against such a right
would have been no more suitable to this treaty than a declaration
against the right of sacking our towns in time of peace, or any other
outrage.
The rights of merchant-vessels of the United States on the high seas, as
understood by this government, have been clearly and fully asserted. As
asserted, they will be maintained; nor would a declaration such as you
propose have increased either its resolution or its ability in this
respect. The government of the United States relies on its own power,
and on the effective support of the people, to assert successfully all
the rights of all its citizens, on the sea as well as on the land; and
it asks respect for these rights not as a boon or favor from any nation.
The President's message, most certainly, is a clear declaration of what
the country understands to be its rights, and his determination to
maintain them; not a mere promise to negotiate for these rights, or to
endeavor to bring other powers into an acknowledgment of them, either
express or implied. Whereas, if I understand the meaning of this part of
your letter, you would have advised that something should have been
offered to England which she might have regarded as a benefit, but
coupled with such a declaration or condition as that, if she received
the boon, it would have been a recognition by her of a claim which we
make as matter of right. The President's view of the proper duty of the
government has certainly been quite different. Being convinced that the
doctrine asserted by this government is the true doctrine of the law of
nations, and feeling the competency of the government to uphold and
enforce it for itself, he has not sought, but, on the contrary, has
sedulously avoided, to change this ground, and to place the just rights
of the country upon the assent, express or implied, of any power
whatever.
The government thought no skilfully extorted promises necessary in any
such cases. It asks no such pledges of any nation. If its character for
ability and readiness to protect and defend its own rights and dignity
is not sufficient to preserve them from violation, no interpolation of
promise to respect them, ingeniously woven into treaties, would be
likely to afford such protection. And as our rights and liberties depend
for existence upon our power to maintain them, general and vague
protests are not likely to be more effectual than the Chinese method of
defending their towns, by painting grotesque and hideous figures on the
walls to fright away assailing foes.