Kitabı oku: «Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)», sayfa 76

And so ends the case of the Caroline and McLeod. The humiliation of this conclusion, and the contempt and future danger which it brings upon the country, demand a pause, and a moment's reflection upon the catastrophe of this episode in the negotiation. The whole negotiation has been one of shame and injury; but this catastrophe of the McLeod and Caroline affair puts the finishing hand to our disgrace. I do not speak of the individuals who have done this work, but of the national honor which has been tarnished in their hands. Up to the end of Mr. Van Buren's administration, all was safe for the honor of the country. Redress for the outrage at Schlosser had been demanded; interference to release McLeod had been refused; the false application of the laws of war to a state of peace had been scouted. On the 4th day of March, 1841, the national honor was safe; but on that day its degradation commenced. Timing their movements with a calculated precision, the British government transmitted their assumption of the Schlosser outrage, their formal demand for the release of McLeod, and their threat in the event of refusal, so as to arrive here on the evening of the day on which the new administration received the reins of government. Their assumption, demand, and threat, arrived in Washington on the evening of the 4th day of March, a few hours after the inauguration of the new powers was over. It seemed as if the British had said to themselves: This is the time – our friends are in power – we helped to elect them – now is the time to begin. And begin they did. On the 8th day of March, Mr. Fox delivered to Mr. Webster the formal notification of the assumption, made the demand, and delivered the threat. Then the disgraceful scene began. They reverse the decision of Mr. Van Buren's administration, and determine to interfere in behalf of McLeod, and to extricate him by all means from the New York courts. To mask the ignominy of this interference, they pretend it is to get at a nobler antagonist; and that they are going to act the Romans, in sparing the humble and subduing the proud. It is with Queen Victoria with whom they will deal! McLeod is too humble game for them. McLeod released, the next thing is to get out of the scrape with the Queen; and for that purpose they invent a false reading of the law of nations, and apply the laws of war to a state of peace. The jus belli, and not the jus gentium, then becomes their resort. And here ends their grand imitation of the Roman character. To assume the laws of war in time of peace, in order to cover a craven retreat, is the nearest approach which they make to war. Then the special minister comes. They accept from him private and verbal explanations, in full satisfaction to themselves of all the outrage at Schlosser: but beg the minister to write them a little apology, which they can show to the people. The minister refuses; and thereupon they assume that they have received it, and proclaim the apology to the world. To finish this scene, to complete the propitiation of the Queen, and to send her minister home with legal and parchment evidence in his hand of our humiliation, the expression of regret for the arrest and detention of McLeod is officiously and gratuitously renewed; the prospect of a like detention of any of her Majesty's subjects in future is pathetically deplored; and, to expedite their delivery from State courts when they again invade our soil, murder our citizens, and burn our vessels, the minister is informed that Congress has been "called" upon to pass a law to protect them from these courts. And here "a most serious fact" presents itself. Congress has actually obeyed the "call" – passed the act – secured her Majesty's subjects in future – and given the legal parchment evidence of his success to her minister before he departs for his home. The infamous act – the habeas corpus against the States – squeamishly called the "remedial justice act" – is now on the statute-book; the original polluting our code of law, the copy lying at the footstool of the British Queen. And this is the point we have reached. In the short space of a year and a half, the national character has been run down, from the pinnacle of honor to the abyss of disgrace. I limit myself now to the affair of McLeod and the Caroline alone; and say that, in this business, exclusive of other disgraces, the national character has been brought to the lowest point of contempt. It required the Walpole administration five-and-twenty long years of cowardly submission to France and Spain to complete the degradation of Great Britain: our present rulers have completed the same work for their own country in the short space of eighteen months. And this is the state of our America! that America which Jackson and Van Buren left so proud! that America which, with three millions of people fought and worsted the British empire – with seven millions fought it, and worsted it again – and now, with eighteen millions, truckles to the British Queen, and invents all sorts of propitiatory apologies for her, when the most ample atonement is due to itself. Are we the people of the Revolution? – of the war of 1812? – of the year 1834, when Jackson electrified Europe by threatening the King of France with reprisals!

McLeod is given up because he is too weak; the Queen is excused, because she is too strong; propitiation is lavished where atonement is due; an apology accepted where none was offered; the statute of limitations pleaded against an insult, by the party which received it! And the miserable performers in all this drama of national degradation expect to be applauded for magnanimity, when the laws of honor and the code of nations, stamp their conduct with the brand of cowardice.

CHAPTER CIII.
BRITISH TREATY: NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY ARTICLE: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACT

The establishment of the low-land boundary in place of the mountain boundary, and parallel to it. This new line is 110 miles long. It is on this side of the awarded line – not a continuation of it, but a deflection from it; and evidently contrived for the purpose of weakening our boundary, and retiring it further from Quebec. It will be called in history the Webster line. It begins on the awarded line, at a lake in the St. Francis River; breaks off at right angles to the south, passes over the valley of the St. John in a straight line, and equidistant from that river and the mountain, until it reaches the north-west branch of the St. John, when approaching within forbidden distance of Quebec, it deflects to the east; and then holds on its course to the gorge in the mountain at the head of Metjarmette creek. A view of the map will show the character of this new line; the words of the treaty show how cautiously it was guarded; and the want of protocols hides its paternity from our view. The character of the line is apparent; and it requires no military man, or military woman, or military child, to say to whose benefit it enures. A man of any sort – a woman of any kind – a child of any age – can tell that! It is a British line, made for the security of Quebec. Follow its calls on the map, and every eye will see this design.

The surrender of the mountain boundary between the United States and Great Britain on the frontiers of Maine. This is a distinct question from the surrender of territory. The latter belonged to Maine: the former to the United States. They were national, and not State boundaries – established by the war of the Revolution, and not by a State law or an act of Congress; and involving all the considerations which apply to the attack and defence of nations. So far as a State boundary is coterminous with another State, it is a State question, and may be left to the discretion of the States interested: so far as it is coterminous with a foreign power, it is a national question, and belongs to the national authority. A State cannot be permitted to weaken and endanger the nation by dismembering herself in favor of a foreigner; by demolishing a strong frontier, delivering the gates and keys of a country into the hands of a neighboring nation, and giving them roads and passes into the country. The boundaries in question were national, not State; and the consent of Maine, even if given, availed nothing. Her defence belongs to the Union; is to be made by the blood and treasure of the Union; and it was not for her, even if she had been willing, to make this defence more difficult, more costly, and more bloody, by giving up the strong, and substituting the weak line of defence. Near three hundred miles of this strong national frontier have been surrendered by this treaty – being double as much as was given up by the rejected award. The King of the Netherlands, although on the list of British generals, and in the pay of the British Crown, was a man of too much honor to deprive us of the commanding mountain frontier opposite to Quebec; and besides, Jackson would have scouted the award if he had attempted it. The King only gave up the old line to the north of the head of the St. Francis River; and for this he had some reason, as the mountain there subsided into a plain, and the ridge of the highlands (in that part) was difficult to follow: our negotiator gives up the boundary for one hundred and fifty miles on this side the head of the St. Francis, and without pretext; for the mountain ridge was there three thousand feet high. The new part given up, from the head of the St. Francis to Metjarmette portage, is invaluable to Great Britain. It covers her new road to Quebec, removes us further from that city, places a mountain between us, and brings her into Maine. To comprehend the value of this new boundary to Great Britain, and its injury to us, it is only necessary to follow it on a map – to see its form – know its height, the depth of its gorges, and its rough and rocky sides. The report of Capt. Talcott will show its character – three thousand feet high: any map will show its form. The gorge at the head of the Metjarmette creek – a water of the St. Lawrence – is made the terminus ad quem of the new conventional lowland line: beyond that gorge, the mountain barrier is yielded to Great Britain. Now take up a map. Begin at the head of the Metjarmette creek, within a degree and a half of the New Hampshire line – follow the mountain north – see how it bears in upon Quebec – approaching within two marches of that great city, and skirting the St. Lawrence for some hundred miles. All this is given up. One hundred and fifty miles of this boundary is given up on this side the awarded line; and the country left to guess and wonder at the enormity and fatuity of the sacrifice. Look at the new military road from Halifax to Quebec – that part of it which approaches Quebec and lies between the mountain and the St. Lawrence. Even by the awarded line, this road was forced to cross the mountain at or beyond the head of the St. Francis, and then to follow the base of the mountain for near one hundred miles; with all the disadvantages of crossing the spurs and gorges of the mountain, and the creeks and ravines, and commanded in its whole extent by the power on the mountain. See how this is changed by the new boundary! the road permitted to take either side of the mountain – to cross where it pleases – and covered and protected in its whole extent by the mountain heights, now exclusively British. Why this new way, and this security for the road, unless to give the British still greater advantages over us than the awarded boundary gave? A palliation is attempted for it. It is said that the mountain is unfit for cultivation; and the line along it could not be ascertained; and that Maine consented. These are the palliations – insignificant if true, but not true in their essential parts. And, first, as to the poverty of the mountain, and the slip along its base, constituting this area of 893 square miles surrendered on this side the awarded line: Captain Talcott certifies it to be poor, and unfit for cultivation. I say so much the better for a frontier. As to the height of the mountains, and the difficulty of finding the dividing ridge, and the necessity of adopting a conventional line: I say all this has no application to the surrendered boundary on this side the awarded line at the head of the St. Francis. On this side of that point, the mountain ridge is lofty, the heights attain three thousand feet; and navigable rivers rise in them, and flow to the east and to the west – to the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. Hear Captain Talcott, in his letter to Mr. Webster: (The letter read.)

This letter was evidently obtained for the purpose of depreciating the lost boundary, by showing it to be unfit for cultivation. The note of the Secretary-negotiator which drew it forth is not given, but the answer of Captain Talcott shows its character; and its date (that of the 14th of July) classes it with the testimony which was hunted up to justify a foregone conclusion. The letter of Captain Talcott is good for the Secretary's purpose, and for a great deal more. It is good for the overthrow of all the arguments on which the plea for a conventional boundary stood. What was that plea? Simply, that the highlands in the neighborhood of the north-west corner of Nova Scotia could not be traced; and that it was necessary to substitute a conventional line in their place. And it is the one on which the award of the King of the Netherlands turned, and was, to the extent of a part of his award, a valid one. But it was no reason for the American Secretary to give one hundred and fifty miles of mountain line on this side the awarded line, where the highlands attained three thousand feet of elevation, and turned navigable rivers to the right and left. Lord Ashburton, in his letter of the 13th of June, commences with this idea: that the highlands described in the treaty could not be found, and had been so admitted by American statesmen; and quotes a part of a despatch from Mr. Secretary Madison in 1802 to Mr. Rufus King, then U. S. Minister in London. I quote the whole despatch, and from this it appears – 1. That the part at which the treaty could not be executed, for want of finding the highlands, was the point to be constituted by the intersection of the due north line from the head of the St. Croix with the line drawn along the highlands. 2. That this point might be substituted by a conventional one agreed upon by the three commissioners. 3. That from this point, so agreed upon, the line was to go to the highlands, and to follow them wherever they could be ascertained, to the head of the Connecticut River. This is the clear sense of Mr. Madison's letter and Mr. Jefferson's message; and it is to be very careless to confound this point (which they admitted to be dubious, for want of highlands at that place) with the line itself, which was to run near 300 miles on the elevations of a mountain reaching 3,000 feet high. The King of the Netherlands took a great liberty with this point when he brought it to the St. John's River: our Secretary-negotiator took a far greater liberty with it when he brought it to the head of the Metjarmette creek; for it is only at the head of this creek that our line under the new treaty begins to climb the highlands. The King of the Netherlands had some apology for his conventional point and conventional line to the head of the St. Francis – for the highlands were sunk into table-land where the point ought to be, and which was the terminus a quo of his conventional line: but our negotiator had no apology at all for turning this conventional line south, and extending it 110 miles through the level lands of Maine, where the mountain highlands were all along in sight to the west. It is impossible to plead the difficulty of finding the highlands for this substitution of the lowland boundary, in the whole distance from the head of the St. Francis, where the King of the Netherlands fixed the commencement of our mountain line, to the head of the Metjarmette, where our Secretary fixed its commencement. Lord Ashburton's quotation from Mr. Madison's letter is partial and incomplete: he quotes what answers his purpose, and is justifiable in so doing. But what must we think of our Secretary-negotiator, who neglected to quote the remainder of that letter, and show that it was a conventional point, and not a conventional line, that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison proposed? and that this conventional point was merely to fix the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, where, in fact, there were no highlands; after which, the line was to proceed to the elevated ground dividing the waters, &c., and then follow the highlands to the head of the Connecticut? Why did our Secretary omit this correction of the British minister's quotation, and thus enable him to use American names against us?

To mitigate the enormity of this barefaced sacrifice, our Secretary-negotiator enters into a description of the soil, and avers it to be unfit for cultivation. What if it were so? It is still rich enough to bear cannon, and to carry the smuggler's cart; and that is the crop Great Britain wishes to plant upon it. Gibraltar and Malta are rocks; yet Great Britain would not exchange them for the deltas of the Nile and of the Ganges. It is not for growing potatoes and cabbages that she has fixed her eye, since the late war, on this slice of Maine; but for trade and war – to consolidate her power on our north-eastern border, and to realize all the advantages which steam power gives to her new military and naval, and commercial station, in Passamaquoddy Bay; and her new route for trade and war through Halifax and Maine to Quebec. She wants it for great military and commercial purposes; and it is pitiful and contemptible in our negotiator to depreciate the sacrifice as being poor land, unfit for cultivation, when power and dominion, not potatoes and cabbages, is the object at stake. But the fact is, that much of this land is good; so that the excuse for surrendering it without compensation is unfounded as well as absurd.

I do not argue the question of title to the territory and boundaries surrendered. That work has been done in the masterly report of the senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Buchanan], and in the resolve of the Senate, unanimously adopted, which sanctioned it. That report and that resolve were made and adopted in the year 1838 – seven years after the award of the King of the Netherlands – and vindicated our title to the whole extent of the disputed territory. After this vindication, it is not for me to argue the question of title. I remit that task to abler and more appropriate hands – to the author of the report of 1838. It will be for him to show the clearness of our title under the treaty of 1783 – how it was submitted to in Mr. Jay's treaty of 1794, in Mr. Liston's correspondence of 1798, in Mr. King's treaty of 1803, in Mr. Monroe's treaty of 1807, and in the conferences at Ghent – where, after the late war had shown the value of a military communication between Quebec and Halifax, a variation of the line was solicited as a favor, by the British commissioners, to establish that communication. It will be for him also to show the progress of the British claim, from the solicited favor of a road, to the assertion of title to half the territory, and all the mountain frontier of Maine; and it will further be for him to show how he is deserted now by those who stood by him then. It will be for him to expose the fatal blunder at Ghent, in leaving our question of title to the arbitration of a European sovereign, instead of confiding the marking of the line to three commissioners, as proposed in all the previous treaties, and agreed to in several of them. To him, also, it will belong to expose the contradiction between rejecting the award for adopting a conventional line, and giving up part of the territory of Maine; and now negotiating a treaty which adopts two conventional lines, gives up all that the award did, and more too, and a mountain frontier besides; and then pays money for Rouse's Point, which came to us without money under the award. It will be for him to do these things. For what purpose? some one will say. I answer, for the purpose of vindicating our honor, our intelligence, and our good faith, in all this affair with Great Britain; for the purpose of showing how we are wronged in character and in rights by this treaty; and for the purpose of preventing similar wrongs and blunders in time to come. Maine may be dismembered, and her boundaries lost, and a great military power established on three sides of her; but the Columbia is yet to be saved? There we have a repetition of the Northeastern comedy of errors on our part, and of groundless pretension on the British part, growing up from a petition for joint possession for fishing and hunting, to an assertion of title and threat of war; this groundless pretension dignified into a claim by the lamentable blunder of the convention of London in 1818. We may save the Columbia by showing the folly, or worse, which has dismembered Maine.

The award of the King of the Netherlands was acceptable to the British, and that award was infinitely better for us; and it was not only accepted by the British, but insisted upon; and its non-execution on our part was made a subject of remonstrance and complaint against us. After this, can any one believe that the "peace mission" was sent out to make war upon us if we did not yield up near double as much as she then demanded? No, sir! there is no truth in this cry of war. It is only a phantom conjured up for the occasion. From Jackson and Van Buren the British would gladly have accepted the awarded boundary: the federalists prevented it, and even refused a new negotiation. Now, the same federalists have yielded double as much, and are thanking God that the British condescend to accept it. Such is federalism: and the British well knew their time, and their men, when they selected the present moment to send their special mission; to double their demands; and to use arguments successfully, which would have been indignantly repelled when a Jackson or a Van Buren was at the head of the government – or, rather, would never have been used to such Presidents. The conduct of our Secretary-negotiator is inexplicable. He rejects the award, because it dismembers Maine; votes against new negotiations with England; and announces himself ready to shoulder a musket and march to the highland boundary, and there fight his death for it. This was under Jackson's administration. He now becomes negotiator himself; gives up the highland boundary in the first note; gives up all that was awarded by the King of the Netherlands; gives up 110 miles on this side of that award; gives up the mountain barrier which covered Maine, and commanded the Halifax road to Quebec; gives $500,000 for Rouse's Point, which the King of the Netherland's allotted us as our right.