XIX. Jefferson in favor of its acceptance and ratification. The CHAPTER mutual relations of the two countries were very much the same as at the time of Jay's treaty, and now, as then, 1807. the question of ratifying or rejecting was, in fact, a question of peace or war. The arguments, however, in favor of ratifying were far more powerful than in the case of Jay's treaty. In giving to it his signature, the president would not have been obliged to encounter any violent popular prejudice or popular clamor. The merchants would have been perfectly satisfied, the treaty having granted all they could have expected; while the great body of the back-country Democrats, looking up to Jefferson with a sort of idolatrous reverence, were ready to submit implicitly to his judgment, whatever it might be. It had been a strong objection to Jay's treaty, at least in the minds of a large portion of the people, that it tended to infringe the rights of France; that it was, in fact, a sacrifice of our only sympathetic ally, the great champion of liberty and republicanism, at the shrine of the conspiracy of kings. No such objection could be urged to the present treaty. By the relinquishment of a great mass of private claims for cruel and piratical spoliations, a release from the obligations, whatever they might be, of the French treaty of alliance, had been purchased at a heavy price; and the conduct of France as to that affair, and, more recently, as to the Spanish negotiation and the boundaries of Louisiana, had extinguished all claims she might ever have had on the national gratitude. Bo The French republic, once the object, with many Americans, of such devoted affection, no longer existed. naparte was an emperor, and two of his brothers had lately been made kings. He had even ceased to be a republican emperor, for he had lately surrounded his throne by a whole host of hereditary nobles. Nobody could any XIX. CHAPTER longer pretend to see in him the champion of liberty. In fact, the tables were now completely turned, the late 1807. kingly and aristocratic conspirators against the rights of man now appearing as the champions of national independence against a terrible military adventurer who evidently aimed at universal empire. Nor had Bonaparte any longer any claim to be regarded as the champion of neutral rights and of the freedom of the seas. The Berlin decree was a deadly blow at the very existence of neutral commerce, and, in fact, of international commerce of any kind. Notwithstanding the correspondence submitted to Congress between Armstrong and Champagny, the American government already had information of the capture, in the West India seas, of many American vessels, under the pretense of having British merchandise on board; and of the seizure in Europe of British merchandise belonging to Americans, under color of the Berlin decree, put under sequestration, as it was called, to await the emperor's final decision, to an amount so great as to leave, so Armstrong wrote, very little hope of its release. Such being the precarious condition of American commerce with Europe, the greater reason existed for preserving a good understanding with Great Britain, especially since in case of a breach France no longer possessed the power, stripped as she was of her navy, to afford the United States the least direct assistance. Yet, in spite of all these powerful arguments, and apparently without giving them the least consideration, Jefferson and Madison-for it does not appear that any other member of the cabinet was consulted-obstinately adhered to the same views which they had so zealously advocated at the time of Jay's treaty. Monroe's diplomatic ideas thanks, probably, to his protracted resi XIX. dence in Europe-had greatly expanded. But Jefferson CHAPTER and Madison, obstinately adhering to their originally narrow and mistaken views, had, before the new treaty ar- 1807. rived in America, made up their minds that it should not be ratified. Immediately on the receipt of information from Monroe and Pinkney of the disposition made of the question of impressment, and of their determination to go on with the treaty, Madison had dispatched Feb. 3. an official letter to inform them that it did not comport with the president's ideas of the sentiments of the nation, popular or legislative, that any treaty should be entered into with Great Britain in which the question of impressment was not settled agreeably to their instructions; and directing them, in case such a treaty had been concluded, at once to notify the British government that it could not be ratified, and to propose a recommencement of the negotiation. Considering that Congress was at this time in session; that in the matter of treaties the Senate is the constitutional adviser of the president; and that, according to Jefferson's doctrine, even the House had a right to be consulted, it is not a little remarkable that, without any reference to either of those bodies, in fact, without any cabinet consultation, the president and his Secretary of State should thus have taken it upon themselves to pronounce upon the legislative policy and public sentiment of the nation; and in a case in which not commerce only, but peace itself, was at stake, should thus have made up their minds, upon the single question of impressment, to reject the treaty, however it might be in other respects advantageous. This precipitate and most disastrous resolution, involving a high exertion of executive authority without parallel in our history, and which would have subjected any CHAPTER other president to the charge of monarchical usurpation, XIX. was carried out in the same peremptory spirit in which 1807. it had been originally conceived. Within three days March 18. after the arrival of the treaty, the resolution not to ratify it was reiterated to the commissioners-a step placed, in another more formal letter two months afterward, upon the ground that the president's duty, and his sensibility to the sovereignty of the nation," would not allow him, even constructively, to recognize a principle which exposed the liberty of his seafaring fellow-citizens on the high seas to the interested, at least the capricious decision of the naval officers of a foreign government, not entitled by any law or usage to decide upon the ownership of even the slightest article of property a statement of the case artfully adapted to touch the popular feeling by a display of great regard for the personal rights of American citizens. To this view of the case. Monroe afterward ably replied, that the rejected treaty did by no means require any such recognition, either actual or constructive, as had been assumed. The tacit understanding on the subject of impressments, entered into cotemporaneously with the treaty, was not intended to operate as a bar to future discussions having in view a positive and distinct arrangement; on the contrary, by directly tending to a gradual abandonment of impressments from American vessels, it highly favored a definite arrangement such as the United States desired. The question of impressments having been placed on the best temporary basis that the conflicting sensibilities and prejudices of the two nations would admit, reserving to each its original claims in the fullest extent, with the right to push them by negotiation or by any other arbitrament, nothing, so Monroe conclusively argued, could justify the refusal to ratify, except a fixed determina tion, in case the matter were not speedily arranged by CHAPTER negotiation, to press it to a decision by arms. XIX. But any intention of appealing to arms Jefferson was 1807. far from avowing or entertaining. Indeed, the very letter in which it had been first announced to the commissioners that their conduct on the subject of impressments was not satisfactory, and that the treaty would not be ratified, had also suggested that the negotiation might be made to terminate without any formal compact, in a mutual understanding that the practice of the two nations, with a view to peace and good neighborhood, should be made to conform to the stipulations agreed upon as the basis of the treaty. Thus the very terms which the president and his Secretary of State could not reconcile it to their duty-perhaps they might more correctly have said to their antipathies and their commitments to accept by formal stipulation, they were still anxious to secure by an informal understanding! The Federalists had long regarded Jefferson with habitual and incurable distrust. They placed no more confidence in his word than the English Roundheads had been accustomed to do in that of Charles I. They refused to believe, in spite of his protestations, that either he or his Secretary of State really wished any adjustment with England. Hatred of England was the common bond of sympathy that held the discordant elements of the Democratic party together. Take away occasions of clamor against England, and what was there to keep up the spirit of the party? They were, therefore, inclined to regard the rejection of the treaty as a deliberate maneuver for cherishing popular passions, and thus strengthening the party hold of the president and his destined successor on the masses; to which, in Madison's case at least, there was an additional temptation |