The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1. Daniel Webster
a decent pretext for procrastination.
The report of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, erroneously believed, in England, to rest upon the results of actual exploration, had been sanctioned by the ministry, and seemed to extinguish the last hope that England would agree to any terms of settlement which the United States would deem reasonable. The danger of collision on the frontier became daily more imminent, and troops to the amount of seventeen regiments had been poured into the British Provinces. The arrest of McLeod, as we have already observed, had brought matters to a point at which the public sensibility of England would not have allowed a minister to blink the question. Lord Palmerston is known to have written to Mr. Fox, that the arrest of McLeod, under the authority of the State of New York, was universally regarded in England as a direct affront to the British government, and that such was the excitement caused by it, that, if McLeod should be condemned and executed, it would not be in the power either of ministers or opposition, or of the leading men of both parties, to prevent immediate war.
While this was the state of affairs with reference to the immediate relations of the two countries, Lord Palmerston was urging France into a coöperation with the four other leading powers of Europe in the adoption of a policy, by the negotiation of the quintuple treaty, which would have left the United States in a position of dangerous insulation on the subject of the great maritime question of the day.
At this juncture, a change of administration occurred in England, subsequent but by a few months to that which had taken place in the government of the United States. Lord Melbourne’s government gave way to that of Sir Robert Peel in the summer of 1841; it remained to be seen with what influence on the relations of the two countries. Some circumstances cxxiii occurred to put at risk the tendency toward an accommodation, which might naturally be hoped for from a change of administration nearly simultaneous on both sides of the water. A note of a very uncompromising character, on the subject of the search of American vessels on the coast of Africa, had been addressed to Mr. Stevenson by Lord Palmerston on the 27th of August, 1841, a day only before the expiration of Lord Melbourne’s ministry. To this note Mr. Stevenson replied in the same strain. The answer of Lord Aberdeen, who had succeeded Lord Palmerston as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, bears date the 10th of October, 1841, and an elaborate rejoinder was returned by Mr. Stevenson on the very day of his departure from London. Lord Aberdeen’s reply to this note was of necessity addressed to Mr. Everett, who had succeeded Mr. Stevenson. It was dated on the 20th of December, the day on which the quintuple treaty was signed at London by the representatives of the five powers, and it contained an announcement of that fact.
Happily, however, affairs were already taking a turn auspicious of better results. From his first entrance on office as Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, long familiar with the perplexed history of the negotiation relative to the boundary, had perceived the necessity of taking a “new departure.” The negotiation had broken down under its own weight. It was like one of those lawsuits which, to the opprobrium of tribunals, descend from age to age; a disease of the body politic not merely chronic, but hereditary. Early in the summer of 1841, Mr. Webster had intimated to Mr. Fox, the British Minister at Washington, that the American government was prepared to consider, and, if practicable, adopt, a conventional line, as the only mode of cutting the Gordian knot of the controversy. This overture was, of course, conveyed to London. Though not leading to any result on the part of the ministry just going out of office, it was embraced by their successors in the same wise and conciliatory spirit in which it had been made. On the 26th of December, 1841, a note was addressed by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett, inviting him to an interview on the following day, when he communicated the purpose of the British government to send a special mission to the United States, Lord Ashburton being the person selected as minister, and furnished with full powers to settle every question in controversy.
This step on the part of the British government was as bold as it was wise. It met the difficulty in the face. It justly assumed the existence of a corresponding spirit of conciliation on the part of the United States, and of a desire to bring matters to a practical result. It was bold, because it was the last expedient for an amicable adjustment, and because its failure must necessarily lead to very serious and immediate consequences.
In his choice of a minister, Lord Aberdeen was not less fortunate than he had been wise in proposing the measure. Lord Ashburton was above the reach of the motives which influence politicians of an ordinary stamp, and unencumbered by the habits of routine which belong to men regularly trained in a career. He possessed a weight of character at home which made him independent of the vulgar resorts of popularity. He was animated by a kindly feeling, and bound by kindly associations to this country. There was certainly no public man in England who united in an equal degree the confidence of his own government and country with those claims to the good-will of the opposite party, which were scarcely less essential to success. The relations of personal friendship contracted by Mr. Webster with Lord Ashburton in 1839 have already been alluded to, as influencing the selection. They decided Lord Ashburton in accepting the appointment. The writer was informed by Lord Ashburton himself, that he should have despaired of bringing matters to a settlement advantageous to both countries, but for his reliance on the upright and honorable character of the American Secretary.
With the appointment of Lord Ashburton, the discussion of the main questions in controversy between the two countries, as far as it had been carried on in London, was transferred to Washington. But as an earnest of the conciliatory spirit which bore sway in the British counsels, Lord Aberdeen had announced to Mr. Everett, in the interval which elapsed between Lord Ashburton’s appointment and his arrival at his place of destination, that the Queen’s government admitted the wrong done by the detention of the “Tigris” and “Seamew” in the African waters, and was prepared to indemnify their owners for the losses sustained.
Notwithstanding the favorable circumstances under which cxxv the mission of Lord Ashburton was instituted, the great difficulties to be overcome soon disclosed themselves. The points in dispute in reference to the boundary had for years been the subject of discussion, more or less, throughout the country, but especially in Massachusetts and Maine (the States having an immediate territorial interest in its decision), and, above all, in the last-named State. Parties differing on all other great questions emulated each other in the zeal with which they asserted the American side of this dispute. So strong and unanimous was the feeling, that, when the award of the King of the Netherlands arrived, the firm purpose of General Jackson to accept it was subdued. The writer of these pages was informed by the late Mr. Forsyth, while Secretary of State, that, when the award reached this country, General Jackson regarded it as definitive, and was disposed, without consulting the Senate, to issue his proclamation announcing it as such; and that he was driven from this course by the representations of his friends in Maine, that it would change the politics of the State. He was accustomed to add, in reference to the inconveniences caused by the rejection of the award, and the still more serious evils to be anticipated, that “it was somewhat singular that the only occasion of importance in his life in which he had allowed himself to be overruled by his friends, was one of all others in which he ought to have adhered to his own opinions.”
From the diplomatic papers contained in the sixth volume of the present edition of Mr. Webster’s works it appears that the first step taken by Mr. Webster, after receiving the directions of the President in reference to the negotiation, was to invite the coöperation of Massachusetts and Maine, the territory in dispute being the property of the two States, and under the jurisdiction of the latter. The extent of the treaty-making power of the United States, in a matter of such delicacy as the cession of territory claimed by a State to be within its limits, belongs to the more difficult class of constitutional doctrines. We have just seen both the theory and practice of General Jackson on this point. The administration of Mr. Tyler took for granted that the full consent of Massachusetts and Maine was necessary to any adjustment of this great dispute on the principle of mutual cession and equivalents, or any other principle than that of the ascertainment of the true, original line of boundary by cxxvi agreement, mutual commission, or arbitration. Communications were accordingly addressed to the governors of the two States. Massachusetts had anticipated the necessity of the measure, and made provision for the appointment of commissioners. The legislature of Maine was promptly convened for the same purpose by the late Governor Fairfield. Four parties were thus in presence at Washington for the management of the negotiation: the United