Chapter 27

I will not seek, sir, to disguise from you the astonishment produced in me by the return of a document so very important in the present state of the relations between the two countries; neither will I undertake to reply to the reasons on which this determination of yours is based. My intention in communicating this document to you in a form not only sanctioned by the diplomatic usages of all nations and all ages, but also the most direct which I could possibly have chosen, was to make known the real dispositions of my Government to the President of the United States, and through him to Congress and the American people, conceiving that in the existing situation of the two countries it was essential that each Government should fully comprehend the intentions of the other. This consideration appeared to me paramount to all others. You have judged otherwise, sir, and you have thought that whatever might be the importance of a communication it was proper before receiving it to examine whether the form in which it came to you were strictly accordant with the usages necessary, in your opinion, to be observed in diplomatic transactions with the Government of the Republic. I will not insist further. I have fulfilled all the duties which appeared to be prescribed for me by the spirit of reconciliation, in conjunction with the respect due by me to all communications from my Government, and nothing more remains for me than to express my deep regret that the misunderstanding between the two Governments, already so serious, should be kept up, not by weighty difficulties which involve the interests and the dignity of the two countries, but by questions of form as uncertain in their principles as doubtful in their application.

I have the honor to renew to you, sir, the assurances of my high consideration.

A. PAGEOT.

No. 12.

_Mr. Pageot to Mr. Forsyth_.

[Translation.]

WASHINGTON, _January 2, 1836_.

_ Hon. JOHN FORSYTH_,

_Secretary of State of the United States_.

SIR: I have the honor to announce to you that, in consequence of the recall of Mr. Barton, the King's Government has given me orders to lay down the character of chargé d'affaires of His Majesty near the Government of the United States. I shall therefore immediately begin the preparations for my return to France; but in the meantime I think proper to claim the protection of the Federal Government during the period which I may consider it necessary to remain in the United States.

I have the honor to be, with the most distinguished consideration, sir, your most humble and obedient servant,

A. PAGEOT.

No. 13.

_Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Pageot_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

_Washington, January 2, 1836_.

_M. ALPHONSE PAGEOT, etc._

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge your note of this day's date, in which you announce that you have the orders of your Government, given in consequence of the recall of Mr. Barton, to lay aside the character of chargé d'affaires of the King of France near the Government of the United States. The protection of the Federal Government is due and will of course be extended to you during the time necessary for your preparations to return to France.

I am, sir, with great consideration, your obedient servant,

JOHN FORSYTH.

C.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

_Paris, January 29, 1835_.

His Excellency COUNT DE RIGNY,

_Minister Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs_.

SIR: Having already had occasion to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency's letter of the 13th instant, and to answer that part of it which most urgently required my attention, I proceed to a consideration of the other matters which it contains. I shall do this with a sincere desire to avoid everything that may excite irritation or increase difficulties which already unfortunately exist. Guided by this disposition, I shall confine myself to an examination of your note, considered only as an exposition of the causes which His Majesty's Government thinks it has to complain of in the message sent by the President of the United States to Congress at the opening of its present session.

Your excellency begins by observing that nothing could have prepared His Majesty's Government for the impressions made upon it by the President's message, and that if the complaints he makes were as just as you think them unfounded, still you would have reason to be astonished at receiving _the first communication of them in such a form_. If His Majesty's Government was not prepared to receive complaints on the part of the United States for nonexecution of the treaty, everything I have said and written since I have had the honor of communicating with your excellency and your predecessors in office must have been misunderstood or forgotten. I can scarcely suppose the first, for if my whole correspondence is referred to and my verbal representations recollected they will be found in the most unequivocal language to express an extreme solicitude for the execution of the treaty, a deep disappointment at the several delays which have intervened, and emphatically the necessity which the President would be under of laying the matter before Congress at the time when in fact he has done so if before that period he did not receive notice that the law had passed for giving effect to the treaty. To urge the obligation of the treaty, to prepare His Majesty's Government for the serious consequences that must result from its breach or an unnecessary delay in executing it, was my duty, and it has been faithfully and unremittingly executed. To my own official representation on the 26th I added on the 29th July last the precise instructions I had received, to inform His Majesty's Government that "the President could not avoid laying before Congress on the 1st of December a full statement of the position of affairs on this interesting subject, or permit the session to end, as it must do on the 3d March, without recommending such measures as the justice and the honor of the country may require."

In this alone, then, there was sufficient, independently of my numerous applications and remonstrances, to prepare His Majesty's Government for the just complaints of the United States and for the "impression" they ought to produce, as well as for the "_mode_" in which they were communicated, a mode clearly pointed out in the passage I have quoted from my note of the 29th of July--that is to say, by the annual message from the President to Congress, which, as I have already had occasion to observe, His Majesty's ministers have erroneously considered as addressed directly to them, and, viewing it in that light, have arraigned this document as containing groundless complaints, couched in language not called for by the occasion, and offering for consideration means of redress offensive to the dignity of France. I shall endeavor by a plain exposition of facts to repel those charges. I shall examine them with the freedom the occasion requires, but, suppressing the feelings which some parts of your excellency's letter naturally excite, will, as far as possible, avoid all those topics for recrimination which press upon my mind. The observation I am about to make will not be deemed a departure from this rule, because it is intended to convey information which seems to have been wanted by His Majesty's minister when on a late occasion he presented a law to the Chamber of Deputies. It is proper, therefore, to state that although the military title of general was gloriously acquired by the present head of the American Government, he is not in official language designated as _General Jackson_, but as "the President of the United States," and that his communication was made in that character.

I proceed now to the examination of that portion of your excellency's letter which attempts to show that the complaints set forth in the President's message are groundless.

It begins by assuming as a principle of argument that after the Chamber of Deputies had rejected the law and His Majesty's Government had promised to present it anew the United States had by receiving that promise given up all right to complain of any anterior delays. I have vainly endeavored, sir, to find any rule of reasoning by which this argument can be supported. It would undoubtedly be much easier to strike off from the case the delays of two years in proposing the law than to justify them.

It is true that the United States, with a moderation and forbearance for which they receive no credit, waited two years, almost without complaint, for the performance of a treaty which engaged the faith of the French nation to pay a just indemnity, for which they had already waited more than twenty years. It is true that His Majesty's Government offered solemn assurances that as soon as the constitution of the country would permit a new attempt would be made to redeem the national pledge given by the treaty. It is true also that the President of the United States gave credit to those assurances; but it is also true--and your excellency seems to lose sight of that important uncontested fact--that formal notice was given that the performance of those promises would be expected according to their letter, and that he could delay no longer than the 1st of December the execution of a duty which those assurances had induced him to postpone. Whatever reasons His Majesty's Government had for not complying with Mr. Sérurier's engagement, or however they may have interpreted it, the President could not be precluded from considering the whole case as open and adding to his statement the wrongs occasioned by the delays anterior to the vote of rejection. Those delays are still unaccounted for, and are rendered more questionable by the preference given to another treaty, although subsequently made, for the guarantee of the Greek loan.

Confining your observations to this second period, you say that the reproaches which the President thinks himself authorized in making to France may be comprised in the following words:

"The Government of the King had promised to present the treaty of July anew to the Chambers as soon as they could be assembled; but they have been assembled on the 31st of July of the last year and the treaty has not yet been presented."

Stating this as the whole of the complaint, you proceed, sir, in your endeavor to refute it.

I am obliged, reluctantly, here to make use of arguments which in the course of this discussion have been often repeated, but which seem to have made no impression on His Majesty's Government. I am obliged, in repelling the reproaches addressed to the President, to bring to your recollection the terms of the promise on which he relied, the circumstances attending it, and the object for which it was given. These must be fully understood and fully waived before the question between us can be resolved.

The circumstances under which Mr. Sérurier's note was written are material in considering its true import. The payment stipulated by a treaty duly ratified on both sides had just been formally refused by a vote of the Chamber of Deputies. More than two years had passed since it had been proclaimed as the law of the land in the United States, and ever since the articles favorable to France had been in constant operation. Notice of this refusal had some time before been received by the President. It would have been his duty, had nothing else occurred, to communicate to Congress this event, so unexpected and so injurious to the interest of the country. One circumstance prevented the performance of this duty and justified the omission. The notice of the rejection was accompanied by information that the minister of France was instructed to make explanations and engagements on the subject, and that a ship of war would be dispatched with his instructions. The President had waited a month for the arrival of this ship. An unusually long session of Congress still afforded an opportunity for making the communication, even after her arrival. If made it would undoubtedly have produced consequences the nature of which may be imagined by considering the events that have since occurred. It was necessary, then, to prevent an interruption of the friendly relations between the two countries, that this communication should be postponed until the subsequent session of Congress; longer than that it was well known that it could not be deferred. This was clearly and explicitly stated in a conference between Mr. Sérurier and the Secretary of State of the United States, in which the former gave the promise in question. But the President desired to have the engagement in a written and official form (and as Mr. Sérurier expresses it in his letter), "_pour des causes prises dans les nécessités de votre Gouvernement_" What governmental necessity does he allude to? Clearly that which obliged the President to communicate these engagements to Congress at the next session.

Here, then, we have a stipulation made under special orders, sent out by a ship dispatched for that express purpose, communicated first verbally in an official conference, afterwards reduced to writing and delivered to the proper officers, for the double purpose of justifying the President for not making an immediate communication at their then session and also to serve as a pledge which he might exhibit if unredeemed at their next. These objects are well stated by Mr. Sérurier to be "that the Government of the Republic may avoid, with a providential solicitude, _in this unsettled state of things_ all that may become a cause of new irritation between the two countries, endanger the treaty, and raise obstacles that may become insurmountable to the views of conciliation and harmony which animate the councils of the King." It was, then, to avoid a communication to Congress, which Mr. Sérurier saw would endanger the peace of the two countries, that this engagement was made. Surely, then, every word of a stipulation made under such circumstances and for such important purposes must have been duly considered and its import properly weighed, first by the cabinet who directed, afterwards by the minister who delivered and the Government which received it.

What, then, was this engagement? First, that the Government of the King will use every legal and constitutional effort which its persevering persuasion of the justice and advantages of the treaty authorize the United States to expect from it. "Son intention est" (I quote literally), "_en outre_" (that is, besides using those endeavors above mentioned), "de faire tout ce que _not re constitution permet_ pour rapprocher autant que possible l'époque de la presentation nouvelle de la loi rejettée." Your excellency can not fail to have observed two distinct parts in this engagement--one relating to the endeavors the ministry promise to make in order to induce the Chambers to pass the law, for the success of which they could not answer; another relating to the time of presentation of the law, a matter which depended on them alone, restricted only by constitutional forms.

The promise on this point, then, was precise, and could not be misunderstood. Whatever the _constitution of France permitted_, the Government of France promised to do in order to hasten the presentation of the law. What was the cause of this desire to bring the business before the Chambers at an early day? No one can doubt it who knows the situation of the two countries, still less anyone who has read the correspondence. It was to enable the President to make those statements to the next Congress which, relying on the engagements of the French minister, he had omitted to make to this.

It was clear, therefore, that more was required than the expression of a desire on the part of His Majesty's ministers to execute the treaty--a desire the sincerity of which was not doubted, but which might be unavailing, as its accomplishment depended on the vote of the Chambers. For the President's satisfaction, and for his justification too, an engagement was offered and accepted for the performance of an act which depended on His Majesty's Government alone. This engagement was couched in the unequivocal terms I have literally quoted.

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.