Mm Whole JVo. Turborough, (lulgecombe County, X. C.) Saturday, December 19, 1835, Vol. XI X0 51. ';iC iTarh trough I'ress." i;V fiKOKCK HOW V'Jl). ,. nM l.l . kly. at ' ). anrf r'v'T.i'tP-' vrar. if " vH.ue Marf.al il ,.:rH....ioMlir Vc !,.: h'"r ""' ",rI,Ml 'T ' , TWy-fire Cf"f ' "' ! (n, n.i ffivine ..o'"'- 'I'euf ami 'V r ai.,P.,r 'tr.se r-i'i:2 a ls f.'' invarwMv pay .lvi.c. 01 '"V, r,sionitl" reformer i thi .finily. ,TiuMi :s.in-iin. .mIi'-,1'P ,rt lil,rs-j.,rf-ii atoOcPM's t!. ri. t mscr ?' v, -VjtVfiK rut-li OMUiniiHiiCH. I." f "' at tliat rate it evi-ry 1 li". ?Lf,iemes mtut le marked the num f "li'erlion require.!, r ihv will be J"lliinl,d umil otherwise or.lerrd, ami .imd ccor.linply. ' Lo"ner a-f.Ir-.! t. the Kd. tor rr.mt he tpiiil.nr they miv nm nr ..v.. PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE, jjoir ci'izeus of the. Senate ; A- i'J5C of Representatives: j Jj the discharge of my official llv t,e ik again devolves upon jeol'cDtnnrmicatinir with a new Cmi'Tess. The1 reflection that libe representation of the Union lias been recently renewed, and tintllie constitutional term of its irvice will expire with tny own, kichtens the solicitude with ihich I stiaM attempt to lay before it the state of our national con irii5.and the devout hope which riierUIi,tlal 'ls labors to improve tiem may be crowned with suc- ct. J Von are assembled at a period of profound interest to the Amer ican patriot. The unexampled growth and prosperity of our country having given us a rank in the scale of nations which removes all apprehension of danger to our ."integrity and independence from external foe?; the career of freedom is before us, with an earnest from die past, th.it, if true to ourselves, there can be no formidable obsta cle in the future to its peaceful id uninterrupted pursuit. Yet in jfropurtion to the disappearance of those apprehensions which at tended our weakness, as once contrasted with the power of Some of tiic states of the old world, stauldwe now be solicitous as to thoe which belong to the convic tion thnt it is to our ow n conduct ternust look for the preservation those causes-oil which depend tie excellence and the duration of ar happy system of government. ? lathi example of other sys fjunded on the will of the People, we trace to internal dis nntlie influences which have often blasted the hopes of the friends of freedom. The social e'm?iitS which were strong and socrcssfui u1el, itt,( against ex Jfaal dajrer, failed in the more JulCUit tak of nrnnprlv rwlitictino .t ; . r i "J" ---0 jC; leif Mia intpi linl firrrnnWif irui mi thus gave way the great jMiiciple of self-government. f ,l us "st that this admonition jjil never be forgotten by the wernment or the People ol the U,lllp'l States: and that the testi tpoay w,ich our experience thus rhol(js,illo lhe Kreal humall py,oftl,e practicability and the ;fi!izs of foe government will confirmed in all time to come. . We have but to look at the of our agriculture, manufac res and commerce, and the tin ppled increase ofourpopula JVofeel t(e magnitude of the committed to us. Never, in rrner perio( of our history, . tla,j greater reason than jj "nv have, io be thankful to "e rovidence for the bless- health and general pros i ry branl, 0f labor l,ed with ,h most a T'lant reward. : . 4. . rewards: ui evprv plpn.oni national indr 'rces and wealtli ",,jividual comfort, we wit the ?rov nosi rapid and solid im- e,nerits. WiU, 1,1 his plt no luterrtip- lf.,. . l P'asiim nronect ai h " harmony and goodwill, lrf,Slr,n,"t?,y Pervads " l"e People i every quar- 1 ter, amidst all the diversity of in terest and pursuits to which they are attached; and with no cause of solicitude in regard to our ex ternal affairs, which will not, it is hopd disappear before the prin eiples of simple justice and the forbearance that mark our inter course with foreign powers, -we have every reason to feel proud of our beloved country. The general state of our Fo reign Relations has not materially changed since tny la?l annual mes sage. The President then gives a brief skrtch ' f our Fortin relations, and continues as follows: iSince the last session of Con gress, the validity of our Claims upon France, as liquidated by the treaty of 18:31, has been acknowl egded by both branches of her Legislature, and the money has been appropriated fur. their dis charge, but the payment is, I re gret to inform you, still withheld. A brief recapitulation of the most important incidents in this protracted controversy, will show how utterly untenable are the grounds upon w hich this course is attempted to be justified. On entering upon the duties of my station, I found the United States an unsuccessful applicant to the justice of France, for the satisfaction of claims, the validity of which was never questionable and has now been most solemnly admitted by France herself. The antiquity of those claims, their; high justice, and the aggavaling circumstances out of which they arose, are to familiar to the A- merican People to require des cription. It is suflicicnt to say, that, for a period of ten years and '. upwards, our commerce was, with but little interruption, the subject of, constant aggression on the part of France aggressions, the ordina-' ry features of which w ere condem- j nations of vessels and cargoes un-i tier arbitrary decrees, adopted in, contravention, as well of the laws of nations, as of treaty stipula- tions; burnings on the high seas, and seizures and confiscations un der special imperial rescripts, in the ports of. other nations occu pied by the armies, or under the control of France. Such, it is now conceded, is the character of the wrongs we suffered; wrongs, in many cases, so flagrant that even their authors never denied our right to reparation. Of the extent of these injuries, some con ception may be formed from the fact, that after the burning of a large amount at sea, and the ne cessary deterioration in other ca ses, by long detention, the Amer ican property so seized and sacri ficed at forced sales, excluding what was adjudged to privateers, before or without condemnation, brought into the French treasury upwards of twenty-four millions of francs, besides large custom-house duties. The subject had already been' an affair of twenty years' uninter rupted negotiation, except for a short time, when France was over whelmed by the military power, of united Europe. During this period, whilst other nations were extorting from her, payment of their claims at the point of the bayonet, the United States inter-; mitted their demand for justice, out of respect to the oppressed condition of a gallant people, to i whom they felt under obligations for fraternal assistance in their own days of suffering and of peril. The bad effects of these protracted and unavailing discussions, as well upon our relations with France as upon our national character, were obvious; and the line of duty was in mv mind eauallv so. This was, either to insist upon the adjust ment of our claims, within a rea sonable period, or to abandon them altogether. I could not doubt that, by this course, the in terest and honor of both countries would be best consulted. Instruc tions were, therefore, given in this spirit, to the Minister who was sent out once more to demand reparation. Upon the meeting ol Congress, in December, 1829, I felt it my duty to speak of these claims, and the delays of France, in terms calculated to call the se rious attention of both countries to the subject. The French Min istry took exception to the mes sage, on the ground of its con taining a menace, under which it was not agreeable to the French Government to negotiate. The American .Minister, of his own accord, refuted the construction which was attempted to be put ttpon the message, and at the same time called to the recollection of j the French Ministry, that the' President's message was a commu- j nication addressed, not to Foreign governments, but to the Congress j of the United States, in which itj enjoined upon him, by theconsti-; lution, to lay before that body information of the slate of the Un ion, comprehending its foreign as! well as its domestic relations; and that if, in the discharge of this: duty, he felt it incumbent upon; him to summon the attention ofi Conpress in due time to what might be the possible consequen ces of existing difficulties with any foreign Government, he might fairly be supposed to do so, under a sense of w hat was due from him in a frank communication with another branch of his own Gov ernment, and not from any inten tion of holding a menace over a foreign power. The views taken by him received tny approbation, the French Goveuiment was satis lied, and the negotiation was con tinned. It terminated, in the treaty of July 4, 1 S3 1 , recogniing the justice of our claims in part, and promising payment to the a- mount of twenty-five millions of frmirs. iti ;ix annual instalments. ! The ratifications of this treaty were exchanged at Washington onj the 2d of February, 1832, audio five days thereafter was laid be fore Congress, who immediately passed the acts necessary, on our pait. to secure to France the com mercial advantages conceded to her in the compact. The treaty had previously been solemnly rat ified by the King of the French in terms which are certainly not mere matters of form, and of which the translation is as follows: ''We, approving the above con vention in all and each of the dis positions which are contained in it, do declare by ourselves, as well as by our heirs and successor, that it is accepted, approved, rat ified, and confirmed; and by these presents, signed by our hand, we do accept, approve, ratify, and confirm it; promising, on the faith and word of a King, to observe it, and to cause it to be observed in violably, without ever contraven ing it, or suffering it to be con travened, directly or indirectly, for any cause, or under any pre tence whatsoever." Official information of the ex change of ratifications in the United States reached Paris whilst the Chambers were in session. The extraordinary, and to us injurious, delays of the French Government in their action upon the subject ofj its fulfilment, have been heretofore staled to Congress, and 1 have no disposition to enlarge upon them here. It is sufficient to observe that the then pending session was qllowed to expire, without even an effort to obtain the necessary ap propriations that the two suc ceeding ones were also sufTered to pass away without any thing like a serious attempt to obtain a deci sion upon the subject and that it was not until the fourth session almost three years after the con clusion of the treaty, and more than two years after the exchange of ratifications that the bill for the execution of the treaty was pressed to a vote, and "rejected. In the mean time, the Government of the United States, having full confidence that a treaty entered into and so solemnly ratified by the French King, would be exe- cuieu in gooa latin, and not doubting that provision would be made for the payment of the first instalment which was to become due on the second day of Februa ry, 1833, negotiated a draft for the amount through the Bank of the United States. When this draft was presented by the holder, with the credentials required by the treaty to authorize him to re ceive the. money the Government of France allowed it to be protes ted. In addition to the injury in the nonpayment of the money by France, conformably to her en gagement, the United Sthtes were exposed to a heavy claim on the part of the Bank, under pretence of damages, m satisfaction of which, that institution seized upon, and still retains, an equal amount of the public moneys. Congress was in session when the decision of the Chambers reached Wash ington, and an immediate commu nication of this apparently final decision of France not to fulfil the stipulations of the treaty, w as the course naturally to be expected from the President. The deep lone of disalisfaction which per vaded the public mind, and the correspondent excitement produc ed in Congress by only a general knowledge of the result, rendered it more than probable, that a re sort to immediate measures of redress would be the consequence of calling the attention of that ho tly to the subject. Sincerely desirous of preserving the pacific relations w hich had so long existed between the two countries, I was anxious to avoid this course if 1 could be satisfied that, by doing I so. neither the interests nor the honor of my country would be compromitled. Without the ful lest assurances upon that point, I could not hope to acquit myself of the responsibility to be incurred in suffering Congress to adjourn without laying the subject before them. Those received by me were believed to be that charac ter. That the feelings produced in the United States by the nei of the rejection of the appropriation, would be such as I have described them to have been, was foreseen by the French Government, and prompt measures were taken by it to prevent the consequences. The King, in person, expressed, through our Minister at Paris, his profound regret at the decision of the Chambers, and promised to send, forthwith, a national ship, with despatches to his Minister here, authorizing him to give such assurances as would satisfy the Government and people of the United States that the treaty would yet be faithfully executed by France. The national ship arrived, and the Minister received his instructions. Claiming to act under the authority derived from them, he gave to this Government, in the name of hir, the most so lemn assurances, that, as snpn af ter the new elections as the charter would permit, the French Cham bers would be convened, and the attempt to procure the necessary appropriations renewed: that all the constitutional powers of the King and his Ministers should be put iii-requisition to accomplish the object: and he was understood, and so expressly informed by this Government, at the time, to en gage that the question should be pressed to a decision, at a period sufficiently early to permit infor mation of the result to be commu nicated to Congress at the com mencement of their next session Relying upon these assurances, I incurred the responsibilby, great as I regarded it to be, of suffering Congress to separate without com municating with them upon the subject. The expectations justly founded upon the promises thus solemnly made to this Government by that of France, were not realized. The French Chambers met on the 3 1st of July, IS34, scon after the elec tion, and although our Minister in Parrs urged the French Ministry to press the subject before them, they declined doing so. He next insisted that the Chambers, if pro rogued without acting on the sub ject, should be reassembled at a period so early, that their action on the treaty might be known in Washington prior to the meeting of Congress. This reasonable re quest was not only declined, hut the Chambers were prorogued to the 29th of Uecember, a day so late, that their decision, however ur gently pressed, could not, in all probability, be obtained in time to reach Washington before the ne cessary adjournment of Congress by the constitution. The reasons given by the Ministry for refusing io convoke ttie Chambers at an earlier period.' were aftcrvrards hown not to be insuperable, by their actual convocation on the 1st of December, under a special call for domestic purposes, which fact however did not become known to this Government until after the commencement of the last session of Congress. Thus disappointed in our just expectations, it became tny impo rative duty to consult with Con gress in regard to the expedhncv of a resort to retaliatory measures, in case the stipulations of the trea ty should not be speedily complied with; and to recommend sncb s, in my judgment, tin; occasion called or. To this ene an unre served communication of the case, in all its aspects, become indispen sable. To have shrunk, in mak ing it, from saying all that was necessary to its correct under standing, and that the truth would ' justify , for fear of giving offence to others, would have been unwor thy of us. To have gone, on the ether hand, a single step further, for the purpose of wounding the pride of a Gover nment and people with whom we had so many mo- lives for cultivating relations cfj amity and reciprocal advantage,' r. would nave oeen unwise ana im i.i i i . i proper. Admonished uy the past, of the difficulty of makinir even the simplest statement of our wrongs without disturbing the sensibilities of those who had, by their position, become responsi ble for their redress, and earnestly desirous of preventing further ob stacles from that source, I went out of my way to preclude a con struction ol the message, by which the recommendation that was made to Congress might be rc-i garded as a menace to France, in not only disavowing such a de sign, but in declaring (hat her pride and her power were too well! jjaiible. wiih the honor of France, known to expect any thing from I was maintained, r.nd the bill pass her fears. The message did not ed as originally proposed, the reach Paris until more than month after the Chambers had been in session, and such was the insensibility of the Ministry to our rightful claims and just expecta tions, that oui Minister has been informed, that the mailers, when introduced, would not be pressed as a Cabinet measure. Although the message was not officially communicated to the French Government, and notwith standing the declaration to dtp contrary which it contained, the French Ministry decided to con sider the conditional recommend ation of reprisals, menace and an insult, which the honor of the na tion made it incumbent on them to resent. The measures resorted toby them to evince their sense ofj the supposed indignity, were, the immediate recall of their Minister at Washington, the otTer of pass ports to the American Minister at Paris, and a public notice to the Legislative Chambers, that all diplomatic intercourse with the United States had been suspended. Having in this manner, vindica ted the dignity of France, they flext proceeded to illustrate her . -r- . 1 I'll lustire. Io this end. a mil was immediately introduced into the Chamber of Deputies, proposing to make the appropriations neces sary to rarry into effect the treaty. As this bill subsequently pased into a law, the provisions of which now constitute the main subject of difficulty between the two nations, it becomes my duty, in order to place the subject before you in a clear light, to trace the history of its pasage, and. to refer, with some particularity, to the proceed ings and discussions in regard to it. The Minister of Finance, in his opening speech, alltn.'ed to the measures which had been adopted to resent the supposed indignity, and recommended the execution of the treaty as a measure required by the honor and justice of France. He, as the organ of the Ministry, declared the message, so long as it bad not received the sanction of Congress, a mere expression of the personal opinion ol the Presi dent, for which neither the Gov ern ineut nor the people c-f the Uni ted Slates were responsible, and that an engagement bad been en tered into, for the fultihneot of which the honor of France was pledged. Entertaining these views, the single condition which the French ministry proposed to an nex to the payment of the money, was, thnt it should not be made until it was ascertained that the Govt rumenl of the United States. s had done nothing to injure the in terests of Fiance; or, in other words, that no steps had been au thorized by Congress of a hostile character towards France. Vh3t the disposition or action of Congress might be, w as then unknown to the French Cabinet. ; But on the 14th of January the Senate resolved, thai it was at that time inexpedient to adopt any leg islative measures in regard to the state of affairs between ti e United States and France, and no action on the subject had occurred in the House of Representatives, lnese frets were known in Paris prior to the 2Gth of March, 1835, when the committee to whom the bill of indemnification bad been referred, reported it to the Chamber of Deputies. That committee sub stantially re-echoed the sentiments of the Ministry, declared that Con gress bad set aside the proposition of the President, and recommend ed the passage of the bill without any other restriction than that ob jgmally proposed. 1 hus was it known to the French Ministry and Chambers, that if the position as- sumed by them, and which had been so frequently and solemnly announced as the only one coui- mo'.ey would be paid, and there WMild be an cod of this unforLu- nate controversy. Hut this cheering prospect was soon des; roved Ly an amendment introduced into the bill at lb mo ment of its passage, providing that the money should not be paid until the Frem h Govprnmt ti-t bad received satisfactory explanations of the President's inessag' of the 2d December, 1834; nn'J w? at is still more extranidinasy, ihe Pre sident of the Court' i cf Minsters adopted this amendirenJ, 7.?wl con sented to its incorporation in the bill. In regard to a supposed in sult which hud been formally re suited by the recall of their Min ister, end the offer of passports to j.urs, they now, for tb- bVi time, proposed to ask explanations.

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view