Rosenfeld Susan. Encyclopedia of American Historical Documents

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office. Vain provisions! ineffectual restrictions! vile profa-

nation of oaths! miserable mockery of legislation! if a bare

majority of the voters in any one State may, on a real or

supposed knowledge of the intent with which a law has

been passed, declare themselves free from its operation;

say, here it gives too little, there, too much, and operates

unequally; here it suffers articles to be free that ought to

be taxed; there it taxes those that ought to be free; in this

case the proceeds are intended to be applied to purposes

which we do not approve; in that, the amount raised is

more than is wanted. Congress, it is true, are invested by

the Constitution with the right of deciding these questions

according to their sound discretion. Congress is composed

of the representatives of all the States and of all the people

of all the States. But we, part of the people of one State, to

whom the Constitution has given no power on the subject,

from whom it has expressly taken it away: we, who have

solemnly agreed that this Constitution shall be our law; we,

most of whom have sworn to support it— we now abrogate

this law and swear, and force others to swear, that it shall

not be obeyed; and we do this not because Congress have

no right to pass such laws—this we do not allege—but

because they have passed them with improper views. They

are unconstitutional from the motives of those who passed

them, which we can never with certainty know; from their

unequal operation, although it is impossible, from the

nature of things, that they should be equal; and from the

disposition which we presume may be made of their pro-

ceeds, although that disposition has not been declared.

This is the plain meaning of the ordinance in relation to

laws which it abrogates for alleged unconstitutionality.

But it does not stop there. It repeals in express terms an

important part of the Constitution itself and of laws passed

to give it effect, which have never been alleged to be

unconstitutional.

The Constitution declares that the judicial powers of

the United States extend to cases arising under the laws of

the United States, and that such laws, the Constitution,

and treaties shall be paramount to the State constitutions

and laws. The judiciary act prescribes the mode by which

the case may be brought before a court of the United

States by appeal when a State tribunal shall decide against

this provision of the Constitution. The ordinance declares

there shall be no appeal—makes the State law paramount

to the Constitution and laws of the United States, forces

judges and jurors to swear that they will disregard their

provisions, and even makes it penal in a suitor to attempt

relief by appeal. It further declares that it shall not be law-

ful for the authorities of the United States or of that State

to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the revenue

laws within its limits.

Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended

to be unconstitutional, repealed by the authority of a small

majority of the voters of a single State. Here is a provision

of the Constitution which is solemnly abrogated by the

same authority.

On such expositions and reasonings the ordinance

grounds not only an assertion of the right to annual the

laws of which it complains, but to enforce it by a threat of

seceding from the Union if any attempt is made to execute

them.

This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the

Constitution, which, they say, is a compact between

sovereign States who have preserved their whole

sovereignty and therefore are subject to no superior; that

because they made the compact they can break it when in

their opinion it has been departed from by the other

States. Fallacious as this course of reasoning is, it enlists

State pride and finds advocates in the honest prejudices of

those who have not studied the nature of our Government

sufficiently to see the radical error on which it rests.

The people of the United States formed the Constitu-

tion, acting through the State legislatures in making the

compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in

separate conventions when they ratified those provisions;

but the terms used in its construction show it to be a Gov-

ernment in which the people of all the States, collectively,

are represented. We are one people in the choice of Presi-

dent and Vice-President. Here the States have no other

agency than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be

given. The candidates having the majority of all the votes

are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may have

given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may

be chosen. The people, then, and not the States, are rep-

resented in the executive branch.

In the House of Representatives there is this differ-

ence, that the people of one State do not, as in the case

of President and Vice-President, all vote for the same

officers. The people of all the States do not vote for all

the members, each State electing only its own represen-

tatives. But this creates no material distinction. When

chosen, they are all representatives of the United States,

not representatives of the particular State from which

they come. They are paid by the United States, not by

the State; nor are they accountable to it for any act done

in the performance of their legislative functions; and

however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do,

consult and prefer the interests of their particular con-

stituents when they come in conflict with any other par-

tial or local interest, yet it is their first and highest duty,

as representatives of the United States, to promote the

general good.

The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a

government, not a league; and whether it be formed by

compact between the States or in any other manner, its

character is the same. It is a Government in which all the

622 ERA 4: Expansion and Reform

people are represented, which operates directly on the

people individually, not upon the States; they retained all

the power they did not grant. But each State, having

expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute,

jointly with the other States, a single nation, cannot, from

that period, possess any right to secede, because such

secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity

of a nation; and any injury to that unity is not only a

breach which would result from the contravention of a

compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To

say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union

is to say that the United States are not a nation, because it

would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation

might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their

injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession,

like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified

by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitu-

tional right is confounding the meaning of terms, and can

only be done through gross error or to deceive those who

are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they

made a revolution or incur the penalties consequent on a

failure.

Because the Union was formed by a compact, it is said

the parties to that compact may, when they feel themselves

aggrieved, depart from it; but it is precisely because it is a

compact that they cannot. A compact is an agreement or

binding obligation. It may by its terms have a sanction or

penalty for its breach, or it may not. If it contains no sanc-

tion, it may be broken with no other consequence than

moral guilt; if it have a sanction, then the breach incurs the

designated or implied penalty. A league between indepen-

dent nations generally has no sanction other than a moral

one; or if it should contain a penalty, as there is no com-

mon superior it cannot be enforced. A government, on the

contrary, always has a sanction, express or implied; and in

our case it is both necessarily implied and expressly given.

An attempt, by force of arms, to destroy a government is

an offense, by whatever means the constitutional compact

may have been formed; and such government has the right

by the law of self-defense to pass acts for punishing the

offender, unless that right is modified, restrained, or

resumed by the constitutional act. In our system, although

it is modified in the case of treason, yet authority is

expressly given to pass all laws necessary to carry its pow-

ers into effect, and under this grant provision has been

made for punishing acts which obstruct the due adminis-

tration of the laws.

It would seem superfluous to add anything to

show the nature of that union which connects us, but as

erroneous opinions on this subject are the foundation of

doctrines the most destructive to our peace, I must

give some further development to my views on this sub-

ject. No one, fellow-citizens, has a higher reverence for

the reserved rights of the States than the Magistrate who

now addresses you. No one would make greater personal

sacrifices or official exertions to defend them from viola-

tion; but equal care must be taken to prevent, on their

part, an improper interference with or resumption of the

rights they have vested in the nation. The line has not

been so distinctly drawn as to avoid doubts in some cases

of the exercise of power. Men of the best intentions and

soundest views may differ in their construction of some

parts of the Constitution; but there are others on which

dispassionate reflection can leave no doubt. Of this

nature appears to be the assumed right of secession. It

rests, as we have seen, on the alleged undivided

sovereignty of the States and on their having formed in

this sovereign capacity a compact which is called the

Constitution, from which, because they made it, they

have the right to secede. Both of these positions are erro-

neous, and some of the arguments to prove them have

been anticipated.

The States severally have not retained their entire

sovereignty. It has been shown that in becoming parts of a

nation, not members of a league, they surrendered many

of their essential parts of sovereignty. The right to make

treaties, declare war, levy taxes, exercise exclusive judicial

and legislative powers, were all of them functions of

sovereign power. The States, then, for all these important

purposes were no longer sovereign. The allegiance of their

citizens was transferred, in the first instance, to the Gov-

ernment of the United States; they became American cit-

izens and owed obedience to the Constitution of the

United States and to laws made in conformity with the

powers it vested in Congress. This last position has not

been and cannot be denied. How, then, can that State be

said to be sovereign and independent whose citizens owe

obedience to laws not made by it and whose magistrates

are sworn to disregard those laws when they come in con-

flict with those passed by another? What shows conclu-

sively that the States cannot be said to have reserved an

undivided sovereignty is that they expressly ceded the

right to punish treason—not treason against their separate

power, but treason against the United States. Treason is an

offense against sovereignty, and sovereignty must reside

with the power to punish it. But the reserved rights of the

States are not less sacred because they have, for their com-

mon interest, made the General Government the deposi-

tory of these powers. The unity of our political character

(as has been shown for another purpose) commenced with

its very existence. Under the royal Government we had no

separate character; our opposition to its oppressions began

as united colonies. We were the United States under the

Confederation, and the name was perpetuated and the

Union rendered more perfect by the Federal Constitu-

tion. In none of these stages did we consider ourselves in

Territorial Expansion, Political and Economic Developments, and International Relations 623

any other light as forming one nation. Treaties and al-

liances were made in the name of all. Troops were raised

for the joint defense. How, then, with all these proofs that

under all changes of our position we had, for designated

purposes and with defined powers, created national gov-

ernments, how is it that the most perfect of those several

modes of union should now be considered as a mere

league that may be dissolved at pleasure? It is from an

abuse of terms. Compact is used as synonymous with

league, although the true term is not employed, because it

would at once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would

not do to say that our Constitution was only a league, but

it is labored to prove it a compact (which in one sense it is)

and then to argue that as a league is a compact every com-

pact between nations must of course be a league, and that

from such an engagement every sovereign power has a

right to secede. But it has been shown that in this sense

the States are not sovereign, and that even if they were,

and the national Constitution had been formed by com-

pact, there would be no right in any one State to exoner-

ate itself from its obligations.

So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession

that it is necessary only to allude to them. The Union was

formed for the benefit of all. It was produced by mutual

sacrifices of interests and opinions. Can those sacrifices be

recalled? Can the States who magnanimously surrendered

their title to the territories of the West recall the grant?

Will the inhabitants of the inland States agree to pay the

duties that may be imposed without their assent by those

on the Atlantic or the Gulf for their own benefit? Shall

there be a free port in one State and onerous duties in

another? No one believes that any right exists in a single

State to involve all the others in these and countless other

evils contrary to engagements solemnly made. Everyone

must see that the other States, in self-defense, must

oppose it at all hazards.

These are the alternatives that are presented by the

convention—a repeal of all the acts for raising revenue,

leaving the Government without the means of support, or

an acquiescence in the dissolution of our Union by the

secession of one of its members. When the first was pro-

posed, it was known that it could not be listened to for a

moment. It was known, if force was applied to oppose the

execution of the laws, that it must be repelled by force;

that Congress could not, without involving itself in dis-

grace and the country in ruin, accede to the proposition;

and yet if this is not done in a given day, or if any attempt

is made to execute the laws, the State is by the ordinance

declared to be out of the Union. The majority of a con-

vention assembled for the purpose have dictated these

terms, or rather this rejection of all terms, in the name of

the people of South Carolina. It is true that the governor

of the State speaks of the submission of their grievances to

a convention of all the States, which, he says, they “sin-

cerely and anxiously seek and desire.” Yet this obvious and

constitutional mode of obtaining the sense of the other

States on the construction of the federal compact, and

amending it if necessary, has never been attempted by

those who have urged the State on to this destructive mea-

sure. The State might have proposed the call for a general

convention to the other States, and Congress, if a sufficient

number of them concurred, must have called it. But the

first magistrate of South Carolina, when he expressed a

hope that “on a review by Congress and the functionaries

of the General Government of the merits of the contro-

versy” such a convention will be accorded to them, must

have known that neither Congress nor any functionary of

the General Government has authority to call such a con-

vention unless it be demanded by two-thirds of the States.

This suggestion, then, is another instance of the reckless

inattention to the provisions of the Constitution with

which this crisis has been madly hurried on, or of the

attempt to persuade the people that a constitutional rem-

edy had been sought and refused. If the legislature of

South Carolina “anxiously desire” a general convention to

consider their complaints, why have they not made appli-

cation for it in the way the Constitution points out? The

assertion that they “earnestly seek” it is completely nega-

tived by the omission.

This, then, is the position in which we stand: A small

majority of the citizens of one State in the Union have

elected delegates to a State convention; that convention

has ordained that all the revenue laws of the United States

must be repealed, or that they are no longer a member of

the Union. The governor of that State has recommended

to the legislature the raising of an army to carry the seces-

sion into effect, and that he may be empowered to give

clearances to vessels in the name of the State. No act of

violent opposition to the laws has yet been committed, but

such a state of things is hourly apprehended. And it is the

intent of this instrument to proclaim, not only that the

duty imposed on me by the Constitution “to take care that

the laws be faithfully executed” shall be performed to the

extent of the powers already vested in me by law, or of

such others as the wisdom of Congress shall devise and

intrust to me for that purpose, but to warn the citizens of

South Carolina who have been deluded into an opposition

to the laws of the danger they will incur by obedience to

the illegal and disorganizing ordinance of the convention;

to exhort those who have refused to support it to preserve

in their determination to uphold the Constitution and laws

of their country; and to point out to all the perilous situa-

tion into which the good people of that State have been

led, and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of

ruin disgrace to the very State whose rights they affect to

support.

624 ERA 4: Expansion and Reform

Fellow-citizens of my native State, let me not only admon-

ish you, as the First Magistrate of our common country,

not to incur the penalty of its laws, but use the influence

that a father would over his children whom he saw rushing

to certain ruin. In that paternal language, with that pater-

nal feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are

deluded by men who are either deceived themselves or

wish to deceive you. Mark under what pretenses you have

been led on to the brink of insurrection and treason on

which you stand. First, a diminution of the value of your

staple commodity, lowered by overproduction in other

quarters, and the consequent diminution in the value of

your lands were the sole effect of the tariff laws. The effect

of those laws was confessedly injurious, but the evil was

greatly exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were

taught to believe—that its burthens were in proportion to

your exports, not to your consumption of imported articles.

Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to

those laws was a state of vassalage and that resistance to

them was equal in patriotic merit to the opposition our

fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You

were told that this opposition might be peaceably, might

be constitutionally, made; that you might enjoy all the

advantages of the Union and bear none of its burthens.

Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your State pride, to

your native courage, to your sense of real injury, were used

to prepare you for the period when the mask which con-

cealed the hideous features of disunion should be taken

off. It fell, and you were made to look with complacency

on objects which not long since you would have regarded

with horror. Look back to the arts which have brought you

to this state; look forward to the consequences to which it

must inevitably lead! Look back to what was first told you

as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course. The

great political truth was repeated to you that you had the

revolutionary right of resisting all laws that were palpably

unconstitutional and intolerably oppressive. It was added

that the right to nullify a law rested on the same principle,

but that it was a peaceable remedy. This character which

was given to it made you receive with too much confidence

the assertions that were made of the unconstitutionality of

the law and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citi-

zens, that by the admission of your leaders the unconstitu-

tionality must be palpable, or it will not justify either

resistance or nullification. What is the meaning of the

word palpable in the sense in which it is here used? That

which is apparent to everyone; that which no man or ordi-

nary intellect will fail to perceive. Is the unconstitutional-

ity of these laws of that description? Let those among your

leaders who once approved and advocated the principle of

protective duties answer the question; and let them choose

whether they will be considered as incapable then of per-

ceiving that which must have been apparent to every man

of common understanding, or as imposing upon your con-

fidence and endeavoring to mislead you now. In either

case they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they urge

you to tread.

Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will know

how to appreciate the exaggerated language they address

to you. They are not champions of liberty, emulating the

fame of our Revolutionary fathers, nor are you an

oppressed people, contending, as they repeat to you,

against worse than colonial vassalage. You are free mem-

bers of a flourishing and happy Union. There is no settled

design to oppress you. You have indeed felt the unequal

operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not

unconstitutionally, passed; but that inequality must neces-

sarily be removed. At the very moment when you were

madly urged on to the unfortunate course you have begun,

a change in public opinion had commenced. The nearly

approaching payment of the public debt and the conse-

quent necessity of a dimunition of duties had already pro-

duced a considerable reduction, and that, too, on some

articles of general consumption in your State. The impor-

tance of this change was underrated, and you were author-

itatively told that no further alleviation of your burthens

was to be expected at the very time when the condition of

the country imperiously demanded such a modification of

the duties as should reduce them to a just and equitable

scale. But, as if apprehensive of the effect of this change in

allaying your discontents, you were precipitated into the

fearful state in which you now find yourselves.

I have urged you to look back to the means that were

used to hurry you on to the position you have now assumed

and forward to the consequences it will produce. Some-

thing more is necessary. Contemplate the condition of that

country of which you still form an important part. Con-

sider its Government, uniting in one bond of common

interest and general protection so many different States,

giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American

citizen, protecting their commerce, securing their litera-

ture and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication,

defending their frontiers, and making their name

respected in the remotest parts of the earth. Consider the

extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population,

its advance in arts which render life agreeable, and the sci-

ences which elevate the mind! See education spreading

the lights of religion, morality, and general information

into every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories and

States. Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the

oppressed find a refuge and support. Look on this picture

of happiness and honor and say, We too are citizens of

America. Carolina is one of these proud States; her arms

have defended, her best blood has cemented, this happy

Union. And then add, if you can, without horror and

Territorial Expansion, Political and Economic Developments, and International Relations 625

remorse, This happy Union we will dissolve; this picture of

peace and prosperity we will deface; this free intercourse

we will interrupt; these fertile fields we will deluge with

blood; the protection of that glorious flag we renounce; the

very name of Americans we discard.

And for what, mistaken men? For what do you throw

away these inestimable blessings? For what would you

exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the

Union? For the dream of a separate independence—a

dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neigh-

bors and a vile dependence on a foreign power? If your

leaders could succeed in establishing a separation, what

would be your situation? Are you united at home? Are you

free from the apprehension of civil discord, with all its

fearful consequences? Do our neighboring republics,

every day suffering some new revolution or contending

with some new insurrection, do they excite your envy?

But the dictates of a high duty oblige me solemnly to

announce that you can not succeed. The laws of the

United States must be executed. I have no discretionary

power on the subject; my duty is emphatically pro-

nounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you

might peaceably prevent their execution deceived you;

they could not have been deceived themselves. They

know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the

execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition

must be repelled. Their object is disunion. But be not

deceived by names. Disunion by armed force is treason.

Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the

heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful conse-

quences; on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may

fall the punishment. On your unhappy State will

inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon

the Government of your country. It can not accede to the

mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first

victims. Its First Magistrate can not, if he would, avoid the

performance of his duty.

The consequence must be fearful for you, distressing

to your fellow-citizens here and to the friends of good gov-

ernment throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld

our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal; it

was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and

they will point to our discord with the triumph of malig-

nant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them. There

is yet time to show that the descendants of the Pinckneys,

the Sumpters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other

names which adorn the pages of your Revolutionary his-

tory will not abandon that Union to support which so many

of them fought and bled and died. I adjure you, as you

honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom, to

which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of

your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair

name, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of

your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid its

members to reassemble and promulgate the decided

expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone

can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell them

that compared to disunion all other evils are light, because

that brings with it an accumulation of all. Declare that you

will never take the field unless the star-spangled banner of

your country shall float over you; that you will not be stig-

matized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while

you live, as the authors of the first attack on the Constitu-

tion of your country. Its destroyers you cannot be. You may

disturb its peace, you may interrupt the course of its pros-

perity, you may cloud its reputation for stability; but its

tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity will return, and

the stain upon its national character will be transferred and

remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused

the disorder.

Fellow-citizens of the United States, the threat of

unhallowed disunion, the names of those once respected

by whom it is uttered, the array of military force to sup-

port it, denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs on

which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our

political existence, and perhaps that of all free govern-

ments may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a

full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions,

but of my principles of action; and as the claim was

asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the

Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank

exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and

form of our Government and construction I give to the

instrument by which it was created seemed to be proper.

Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal

and constitutional opinion of my duties which has been

expressed, I rely with equal confidence on your undivided

support in my determination to execute the laws, to pre-

serve the Union by all constitutional means, to arrest, if

possible, by moderate and firm measures the necessity of

a recourse to force; and if it be the will of Heaven that the

recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding

of a brother’s blood should fall upon our land, that it be

not called down by any offensive act on the part of the

United States.

Fellow-citizens, the momentous case is before you.

On your undivided support of your Government depends

the decision of the great question it involves—whether

your sacred Union will be preserved and the blessings it

secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one

can doubt that the unanimity with which that decision will

be expressed will be such as to inspire new confidence in

republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wis-

dom, and the courage which it will bring to their defense

will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our

children.

626 ERA 4: Expansion and Reform

May the Great Ruler of Nations grant that the signal

blessings with which He has favored ours may not, by the

madness of party or personal ambition, be disregarded and

lost; and may His wise providence bring those who have

produced this crisis to see the folly before they feel the

misery of civil strife, and inspire a returning veneration for

that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs,

He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high des-

tinies to which we may reasonably aspire.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the

United States to be hereunto affixed, having signed the

same with my hand.

Source:

John Scott, ed. Living Documents in American History. New

York: Washington Square Press, 1964-68.

Andrew Jackson, Message on

Removal of Southern Indians, 1835

Section of President Andrew Jackson’s seventh annual mes-

sage to Congress, delivered on December 7, 1835, promoting

the removal of the Cherokee and other Native tribes from

their lands in the southern United States and proposing their

resettlement west of the Mississippi. Jackson’s support for

Native American removal was evident when he refused to

enforce the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in

Worcester v.

Georgia,

which ruled that the Cherokee were subject to fed-

eral, not state, jurisdiction. In order to convince the people

that he was justified in removing the Native Americans from

their homes so that their desirable land could be settled by

whites, Jackson claimed that the removal of the Native Amer-

icans was “dictated by a spirit of enlarged liberality,” and

falsely stated that his aim was to “protect and . . . preserve

and perpetuate the scattered remnants of this race.” A more

accurate reason was probably the discovery of gold on Chero-

kee land in Georgia.

The removal was codified in the Treaty of New Echota.

With this agreement, signed on December 29, 1835, the

Cherokee gave up their capital at New Echota, Georgia, and

ceded all their lands east of the Mississippi River to the United

States in exchange for $5 million and seven million acres of

land in the Indian Territory. The treaty, although signed by only

a small faction of the Cherokee and repudiated by the major-

ity, bound the entire nation to move west of the Mississippi

within three years. Thousands of Cherokee perished during the

removal, which was accomplished by military force in 1838

and 1839 and became known as the “Trail of Tears.”

________________________

_______________________

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representa-

tives:

In the discharge of my official duty the task again

devolves upon me of communicating with a new Congress.

The reflection that the representation of the Union has

been recently renewed, and that the constitutional term of

its service will expire with my own, heightens the solici-

tude with which I shall attempt to lay before it the state of

our national concerns and the devout hope which I cher-

ish that its labors to improve them may be crowned with

success.

You are assembled at a period of profound interest to

the American patriot. The unexampled growth and pros-

perity 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 foes, the career

of freedom is before us, with an earnest from the past that

if true to ourselves there can be no formidable obstacle

in the future to its peaceful and uninterrupted pursuit.

Yet, in proportion to the disappearance of those apprehen-

sions which attended our weakness, as once contrasted

with the power of some of the States of the Old World,

should we now be solicitous as to those which belong

to the conviction that it is to our own conduct we must

look for the preservation of those causes on which depend

the excellence and the duration of our happy system of

government.

In the example of other systems founded on the will of

the people we trace to internal dissension the influences

which have so often blasted the hopes of the friends of

freedom. The social elements, which were strong and suc-

cessful when united against external danger, failed in the

more difficult task of properly adjusting their own internal

organization, and thus gave way the great principle of self-

government. Let us trust that this admonition will never be

forgotten by the Government or the people of the United

States, and that the testimony which our experience thus

far holds out to the great human family of the practicabil-

ity and the blessings of free government will be confirmed

in all time to come.

We have but to look at the state of our agriculture,

manufactures, and commerce and the unexampled

increase of our population to feel the magnitude of the

trust committed to us. Never in any former period of our

history have we had greater reason than we now have to be

thankful to Divine Providence for the blessings of health

and general prosperity. Every branch of labor we see

crowned with the most abundant rewards. In every ele-

ment of national resources and wealth and of individual

comfort we witness the most rapid and solid improve-

ments. With no interruptions to this pleasing prospect at

home which will not yield to the spirit of harmony and

good will that so strikingly pervades the mass of the people

in every quarter, amidst all the diversity of interest and

pursuits to which they are attached, and with no cause of

Territorial Expansion, Political and Economic Developments, and International Relations 627

solicitude in regard to our external affairs which will not, it

is hoped, disappear before the principles of simple justice

and the forbearance that mark our intercourse with foreign

powers, we have every reason to feel proud of our beloved

country.

The general state of our foreign relations has not

materially changed since my last annual message. In the

settlement of the question of the northeastern, boundary

little progress has been made. Great Britain has declined

acceding to the proposition of the United States, pre-

sented in accordance with the resolution of the Senate,

unless certain preliminary conditions were admitted,

which I deemed incompatible with a satisfactory and right-

ful adjustment of the controversy. Waiting for some dis-

tinct proposal from the Government of Great Britain,

which has been invited, I can only repeat the expression of

my confidence that, with the strong mutual disposition

which I believe exists to make a just arrangement, this per-

plexing question can be settled with a due regard to the

well-founded pretensions and pacific policy of all the par-

ties to it. Events are frequently occurring on the north-

eastern frontier of a character to impress upon all the

necessity of a speedy and definitive termination of the dis-

pute. This consideration, added to the desire common to

both to relieve the liberal and friendly relations so happily

existing between the two countries from all embarrass-

ment, will no doubt have its just influence upon both.

Our diplomatic intercourse with Portugal has been

renewed, and it is expected that the claims of our citizens,

partially paid, will be fully satisfied as soon as the condi-

tion of the Queen’s Government will permit the proper

attention to the subject of them. That Government has, I

am happy to inform you, manifested a determination to

act upon the liberal principles which have marked our

commercial policy. The happiest effects upon the future

trade between the United States and Portugal are antici-

pated from it, and the time is not thought to be remote

when a system of perfect reciprocity will be established.

The installments due under the convention with the King

of the Two Sicilies have been paid with that scrupulous

fidelity by which his whole conduct has been character-

ized, and the hope is indulged that the adjustment of the

vexed question of our claims will be followed by a more

extended and mutually beneficial intercourse between the

two countries.

The internal contest still continues in Spain. Distin-

guished as this struggle has unhappily been by incidents of

the most sanguinary character, the obligations of the late

treaty of indemnification with us have been nevertheless,

faithfully executed by the Spanish Government.

No provision having been made at the last session of

Congress for the ascertainment of the claims to be paid

and the apportionment of the funds under the convention

made with Spain, I invite your early attention to the sub-

ject. The public evidences of the debt have, according to

the terms of the convention and in the forms prescribed by

it, been placed in the possession of the United States, and

the interest as it fell due has been regularly paid upon

them. Our commercial intercourse with Cuba stands as

regulated by the act of Congress. No recent information

has been received as to the disposition of the Government

of Madrid on this subject, and the lamented death of our

recently appointed minister on his way to Spain, with the

pressure of their affairs at home, renders it scarcely prob-

able that any change is to be looked for during the coming

year. Further portions of the Florida archives have been

sent to the United States, although the death of one of the

commissioners at a critical moment embarrassed the

progress of the delivery of them. The higher officers of the

local government have recently shewn an anxious desire, in

compliance with the orders from the parent Government,

to facilitate the selection and delivery of all we have a right

to claim.

Negotiations have been opened at Madrid for the

establishment of a lasting peace between Spain and such of

the Spanish American Governments of this hemisphere as

have availed themselves of the intimation given to all of

them of the disposition of Spain to treat upon the basis of

their entire independence. It is to be regretted that simul-

taneous appointments by all of ministers to negotiate with

Spain had not been made. The negotiation itself would

have been simplified, and this long-standing dispute,

spreading over a large portion of the world, would have

been brought to a more speedy conclusion.

Our political and commercial relations with Austria,

Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark stand on the usual favor-

able bases. One of the articles of our treaty with Russia in

relation to the trade on the northwest coast of America

having expired, instructions have been given to our minis-

ter at St. Petersburg to negotiate a renewal of it. The long

and unbroken amity between the two Governments gives

every reason for supposing the article will be renewed, if

stronger motives do not exist to prevent it than with our

view of the subject can be anticipated here.

I ask your attention to the message of my predecessor

at the opening of the second session of the Nineteenth

Congress, relative to our commercial intercourse with

Holland, and to the documents connected with that sub-

ject, communicated to the House of Representatives on

the 10th of January, 1825, and 18th of January, 1827. Coin-

ciding in the opinion of my predecessor that Holland is

not, under the regulations of her present system, entitled

to have her vessels and their cargoes received into the

United States on the footing of American vessels and car-

goes as regards duties of tonnage and impost, a respect for

his reference of it to the Legislature has alone prevented

628 ERA 4: Expansion and Reform

me from acting on the subject. I should still have waited

without comment for the action of Congress, but recently

a claim has been made by Belgian subjects to admission

into our ports for their ships and cargoes on the same foot-

ing as American, with the allegation we could not dispute

that our vessels received in their ports the identical treat-

ment shewn to them in the ports of Holland, upon whose

vessels no discrimination is made in the ports of the United

States. Giving the same privileges the Belgians expected

the same benefits—benefits that were, in fact, enjoyed

when Belgium and Holland were united under one Gov-

ernment. Satisfied with the justice of their pretension to

be placed on the same footing with Holland, I could not,

nevertheless, without disregard to the principle of our

laws, admit their claim to be treated as Americans, and at

the same time a respect for Congress, to whom the subject

had long since been referred, has prevented me from pro-

ducing a just equality by taking from the vessels of Holland

privileges conditionally granted by acts of Congress,

although the condition upon which the grant was made

has, in my judgment, failed since 1822. I recommend,

therefore, a review of the act of 1824, and such a modifi-

cation of it as will produce an equality on such terms as

Congress shall think best comports with our settled policy

and the obligations of justice to two friendly powers.

With the Sublime Porte and all the Governments on

the coast of Barbary our relations continue to be friendly.

The proper steps have been taken to renew our treaty with

Morocco.

The Argentine Republic has again promised to send

within the current year a minister to the United States. A

convention with Mexico for extending the time for the

appointment of commissioners to run the boundary line

has been concluded and will be submitted to the Senate.

Recent events in that country have awakened the liveliest

solicitude in the United States. Aware of the strong temp-

tations existing and powerful inducements held out to the

citizens of the United States to mingle in the dissensions of

our immediate neighbors, instructions have been given to

the district attorneys of the United States where indica-

tions warranted it to prosecute without respect to persons

all who might attempt to violate the obligations of our neu-

trality, while at the same time it has been thought neces-

sary to apprise the Government of Mexico that we should

require the integrity of our territory to be scrupulously

respected by both parties.

From our diplomatic agents in Brazil, Chile, Peru,

Central America, Venezuela, and New Granada constant

assurances are received of the continued good under-

standing with the Governments to which they are severally

accredited. With those Governments upon which our citi-

zens have valid and accumulating claims, scarcely an

advance toward a settlement of them is made, owing

mainly to their distracted state or to the pressure of imper-

ative domestic questions. Our patience has been and will

probably be still further severely tried, but our fellow-citi-

zens whose interests are involved may confide in the deter-

mination of the Government to obtain for them eventually

ample retribution.

Unfortunately, many of the nations of this hemisphere

are still self-tormented by domestic dissensions. Revolu-

tion succeeds revolution; injuries are committed upon for-

eigners engaged in lawful pursuits; much time elapses

before a government sufficiently stable is erected to justify

expectation of redress; ministers are sent and received,

and before the discussions of past injuries are fairly begun

fresh troubles arise; but too frequently new injuries are

added to the old, to be discussed together with the existing

government after it has proved its ability to sustain the

assaults made upon it, or with its successor if overthrown.

If this unhappy condition of things continues much longer,

other nations will be under the painful necessity of decid-

ing whether justice to their suffering citizens does not

require a prompt redress of injuries by their own power,

without waiting for the establishment of a government

competent and enduring enough to discuss and to make

satisfaction for them.

Since the last session of Congress the validity of our

claims upon France, as liquidated by the treaty of 1831,

has been acknowledged by both branches of her legisla-

ture, and the money has been appropriated for their dis-

charge; but the payment is, I regret to inform you, still

withheld.

A brief recapitulation of the most important incidents

in this protracted controversy will shew how utterly unten-

able are the grounds upon which 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 these claims,

their high justice, and the aggravating circumstances out of

which they arose are too familiar to the American people

to require description. It is sufficient to say that for a

period of ten years and upward our commerce was, with

but little interruption, the subject of constant aggressions

on the part of France—aggressions the ordinary features

of which were condemnations of vessels and cargoes under

arbitrary decrees, adopted in contravention as well of the

laws of nations as of treaty stipulations, burnings on the

high seas, and seizures and confiscations under special

imperial rescripts in the ports of other nations occupied 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

Territorial Expansion, Political and Economic Developments, and International Relations 629

never denied our right to reparation. Of the extent of these

injuries some conception may be formed from the fact that

after the burning of a large amount at sea and the neces-

sary deterioration in other cases by long detention the

American property so seized and sacrificed at forced sales,

excluding what was adjudged to privateers before or with-

out condemnation, brought into the French treasury

upward of 24,000,000 francs, besides large custom-house

duties.

The subject had already been an affair of twenty years’

uninterrupted negotiation, except for a short time when

France was overwhelmed 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 intermitted their demand

for justice out of respect to the oppressed condition of a

gallant people to whom they felt under obligations for fra-

ternal assistance in their own days of suffering and of peril.

The bad effects of these protracted and unavailing discus-

sions, as well upon our relations with France as upon our

national character, were obvious, and the line of duty was

to my mind equally so. This was either to insist upon the

adjustment of our claims within a reasonable period or to

abandon them altogether. I could not doubt that by this

course the interests and honor of both countries would be

best consulted. Instructions were therefore given in this

spirit to the minister who was sent out once more to

demand reparation. Upon the meeting of 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

serious attention of both countries to the subject. The then

French ministry took exception to the message on the

ground of its containing a menace, under which it was not

agreeable to the French Government to negotiate. The

American minister of his own accord refuted the construc-

tion which was attempted to be put upon the message and

at the same time called to the recollection of the French

ministry that the President’s message was a communica-

tion addressed, not to foreign governments, but to the

Congress of the United States, in which it was enjoined

upon him by the Constitution to lay before that body infor-

mation of the state of the Union, comprehending its for-

eign 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 of Congress in due time to what

might be the possible consequences of existing difficulties

with any foreign government, he might fairly be supposed

to do so under a sense of what was due from him in a frank

communication with another branch of his own Govern-

ment, and not from any intention of holding a menace over

a foreign power. The views taken by him received my

approbation, the French Government was satisfied, and

the negotiation was continued. It terminated in the treaty

of July 4, 1831, recognizing the justice of our claims in part

and promising payment to the amount of 25,000,000

francs in six annual installments.

The ratifications of this treaty were exchanged at

Washington on the 2d of February, 1832, and in five days

thereafter it was laid before Congress, who immediately

passed the acts necessary on our part to secure to France

the commercial advantages conceded to her in the com-

pact. The treaty had previously been solemnly ratified 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 convention in all and each of

the dispositions which are contained in it, do declare, by

ourselves as well as by our heirs and successors, that it is

accepted, approved, ratified, and confirmed, and by these

presents, signed by our hand, we do accept, approve, rat-

ify, and confirm it; promising, on the faith and word of a

king, to observe it and to cause it to be observed inviolably,

without ever contravening it or suffering it to be contra-

vened, directly or indirectly, for any cause or under any

pretense whatsoever.

Official information of the exchange 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 of

its fulfillment have been heretofore stated to Congress,

and I have no disposition to enlarge upon them here. It is

sufficient to observe that the then pending session was

allowed to expire without even an effort to obtain the nec-

essary appropriations; that the two succeeding ones were

also suffered to pass away without anything like a serious

attempt to obtain a decision upon the subject, and that it

was not until the fourth session, almost three years after

the conclusion 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 meantime the Government of the United

States, having full confidence that a treaty entered into and

so solemnly ratified by the French King would be executed

in good faith, and not doubting that provision would be

made for the payment of the first installment which was to

become due on the 2d day of February, 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

receive the money, the Government of France allowed it

to be protested. In addition to the injury in the nonpay-

ment of the money by France, conformably to her engage-

ment, the United States were exposed to a heavy claim on

the part of the bank under pretense of damages, in satis-

faction of which that institution seized upon and still

retains an equal amount of the public money. Congress

630 ERA 4: Expansion and Reform

was in session when the decision of the Chambers reached

Washington, and an immediate communication of this

apparently final decision of France not to fulfill the stipu-

lations of the treaty was the course naturally to be expected

from the President. The deep tone of dissatisfaction which

pervaded the public mind and the correspondent excite-

ment produced in Congress by only a general knowledge

of the result rendered it more than probable that a resort

to immediate measures of redress would be the conse-

quence of calling the attention of that body to the subject.

Sincerely desirous of preserving the pacific relations which

had so long existed between the two countries, I was anx-

ious to avoid this course if I could be satisfied that by doing

so neither the interests nor the honor of my country would

be compromitted. Without the fullest assurances upon that

point, I could not hope to acquit myself of the responsibil-

ity to be incurred suffering Congress to adjourn without

laying the subject before them. Those received by me were

believed to be of that character.

That the feelings produced in the United States by the

news 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 dispatches to his minis-

ter 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 his

the most solemn assurances that as soon after 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 constitu-

tional powers of the King and his ministers should be put

in requisition to accomplish the object, and he was under-

stood, and so expressly informed by this Government at

the time, to engage that the question should be pressed to

a decision at a period sufficiently early to permit informa-

tion of the result to be communicated to Congress at the

commencement of their next session. Relying upon these

assurances, I incurred the responsibility, great as I

regarded it to be, of suffering Congress to separate with-

out communicating 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 31st

of July, 1834, soon after the election, and although our

minister in Paris urged the French ministry to bring the

subject before them, they declined doing so. He next

insisted that the Chambers, if prorogued without acting on

the subject, 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 request

was not only declined, but the Chambers were prorogued

to the 29th of December, a day so late that their decision,

however urgently pressed, could not in all probability be

obtained in time to reach Washington before the necessary

adjournment of Congress by the Constitution. The reasons

given by the ministry for refusing to convoke the Cham-

bers at an earlier period were afterwards shewn 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 Gov-

ernment until after the commencement of the last session

of Congress.

Thus disappointed in our just expectations, it became

my imperative duty to consult with Congress in regard to

the expediency of a resort to retaliatory measures in case

the stipulations of the treaty should not be speedily com-

plied with, and to recommend such as in my judgment the

occasion called for. To this end all unreserved communica-

tion of the case in all its aspects became indispensable. To

have shrunk in making it from saying all that was necessary

to its correct understanding, and that the truth would jus-

tify, for fear of giving offense to others, would have been

unworthy of us. To have gone, on the other hand, a single

step further for the purpose of wounding the pride of a

Government and people with whom we had so many

motives for cultivating relations of amity and reciprocal

advantage would have been unwise and improper. Admon-

ished by the past of the difficulty of making even the sim-

plest statement of our wrongs without disturbing the

sensibilities of those who had by their position become

responsible for their redress, and earnestly desirous of pre-

venting further obstacles from that source, I went out of

my way to preclude a construction of the message by

which the recommendation that was made to Congress

might be regarded as a menace to France in not only dis-

avowing such a design, but in declaring that her pride and

her power were too well known to expect anything from

her fears. The message did not reach Paris until more than

a month after the Chambers had been in session, and such

was the insensibility of the ministry to our rightful claims

and just expectations that our minister had been informed

that the matter when introduced would not be pressed as

a cabinet measure.

Although the message was not officially communi-

cated to the French Government, and notwithstanding

the declaration to the contrary which it contained, the

French ministry decided to consider the conditional rec-

ommendation of reprisals a menace and an insult which

the honor of the nation made it incumbent on them to

Territorial Expansion, Political and Economic Developments, and International Relations 631