Part 49

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,

EDW. LIVINGSTON.

This letter was referred to in my message of the 7th of December last, and ought to have been then transmitted with that of the 25th of April, but by some oversight it was omitted.

A.J.

WASHINGTON, January 18, 1836.

To the Senate of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 12th instant, I transmit a report of the Secretary of State, with the papers therein referred to, which, with those accompanying the special message this day sent to Congress, are believed to contain all the information requested. The papers relative to the letter of the late minister of France have been added to those called for, that the subject may be fully understood.

ANDREW JACKSON.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, January 13, 1836.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

The Secretary of State has the honor to lay before the President a copy of a report made to him in June last, and of a letter addressed to this Department by the late minister of the Government of France, with the correspondence connected with that communication, which, together with a late correspondence between the Secretary of State and the French chargé d'affaires and a recent correspondence between the chargé d'affaires of the United States at Paris and the Duke de Broglie, already transmitted to the President to be communicated to Congress with his special message relative thereto, are the only papers in the Department of State supposed to be called for by the resolutions of the Senate of the 12th instant.

It will be seen by the correspondence with the chargé d'affaires of France that a dispatch to him from the Duke de Broglie was read to the Secretary at the Department in September last. It concluded with an authority to permit a copy to be taken if it was desired. That dispatch being an argumentative answer to the last letter of Mr. Livingston to the French Government, and in affirmance of the right of France to expect explanations of the message of the President, which France had been distinctly and timely informed could not be given without a disregard by the Chief Magistrate of his constitutional obligations, no desire was expressed to obtain a copy, it being obviously improper to receive an argument in a form which admitted of no reply, and necessarily unavailing to inquire how much or how little would satisfy France, when her right to any such explanation had been beforehand so distinctly and formally denied.

All which is respectfully submitted.

JOHN FORSYTH.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, June 18, 1835.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: