A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Part 10

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 18th day of September, A.D. 1830, and the fifty-fifth of the Independence of the United States.

ANDREW JACKSON.

By the President: M. VAN BUREN, _Secretary of State_.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by an act of the Congress of the United States pa.s.sed on the 29th day of May, 1830, it is provided that whenever the President of the United States shall receive satisfactory evidence that the Government of Great Britain will open the ports in its colonial possessions in the West Indies, on the continent of South America, the Bahama Islands, the Caicos, and the Bermuda or Somer Islands to the vessels of the United States for an indefinite or for a limited term; that the vessels of the United States, and their cargoes, on entering the colonial ports aforesaid, shall not be subject to other or higher duties of tonnage or impost or charges of any other description than would be imposed on British vessels or their cargoes arriving in the said colonial possessions from the United States; that the vessels of the United States may import into the said colonial possessions from the United States any article or articles which could be imported in a British vessel into the said possessions from the United States; and that the vessels of the United States may export from the British colonies aforementioned, to any country whatever other than the dominions or possessions of Great Britain, any article or articles that can be exported therefrom in a British vessel to any country other than the British dominions or possessions as aforesaid, leaving the commercial intercourse of the United States with all other parts of the British dominions or possessions on a footing not less favorable to the United States than it now is--that then, and in such case, the President of the United States shall be authorized, at any time before the next session of Congress, to issue his proclamation declaring that he has received such evidence, and that thereupon, and from the date of such proclamation, the ports of the United States shall be opened indefinitely or for a term fixed, as the case may be, to British vessels coming from the said British colonial possessions, and their cargoes, subject to no other or higher duty of tonnage or impost or charge of any description whatever than would be levied on the vessels of the United States or their cargoes arriving from the said British possessions; and that it shall be lawful for the said British vessels to import into the United States and to export therefrom any article or articles which may be imported or exported in vessels of the United States; and that the act ent.i.tled "An act concerning navigation," pa.s.sed on the 18th day of April, 1818, an act supplementary thereto, pa.s.sed the 15th day of May, 1820, and an act ent.i.tled "An act to regulate the commercial intercourse between the United States and certain British ports," pa.s.sed on the 1st day of March, 1823, shall in such case be suspended or absolutely repealed, as the case may require; and

Whereas by the said act it is further provided that whenever the ports of the United States shall have been opened under the authority thereby given, British vessels and their cargoes shall be admitted to an entry in the ports of the United States from the islands, provinces, or colonies of Great Britain on or near the North American continent and north or east of the United States; and

Whereas satisfactory evidence has been received by the President of the United States that whenever he shall give effect to the provisions of the act aforesaid the Government of Great Britain will open for an indefinite period the ports in its colonial possessions in the West Indies, on the continent of South America, the Bahama Islands, the Caicos, and the Bermuda or Somer Islands to the vessels of the United States, and their cargoes, upon the terms and according to the requisitions of the aforesaid act of Congress:

Now, therefore, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that such evidence has been received by me, and that by the operation of the act of Congress pa.s.sed on the 29th day of May, 1830, the ports of the United States are from the date of this proclamation open to British vessels coming from the said British possessions, and their cargoes, upon the terms set forth in the said act. The act ent.i.tled "An act concerning navigation," pa.s.sed on the 18th day of April, 1818, the act supplementary thereto, pa.s.sed the 15th day of May, 1820, and the act ent.i.tled "An act to regulate the commercial intercourse between the United States and certain British ports," pa.s.sed the 1st day of March, 1823, are absolutely repealed, and British vessels and their cargoes are admitted to an entry in the ports of the United States from the islands, provinces, and colonies of Great Britain on or near the North American continent and north or east of the United States.

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 5th day of October, A.D. 1830, and the fifty-fifth of the Independence of the United States.

ANDREW JACKSON.

By the President: M. VAN BUREN, _Secretary of State_.

EXECUTIVE ORDER.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, _Washington, June 12, 1830_.

ORDER 29.

The following general order has been received from the War Department.

It is published for the information of all concerned:

DEPARTMENT OF WAR, _Washington, June 12, 1830_.

GENERAL ORDER.

Congress at their last session pa.s.sed an act repealing so much of the military law as imposes the penalty of death on those who "in time of peace" shall be found guilty of the crime of desertion. To give complete effect to the benevolent designs of said act, and that the Army may be correctly informed, it is hereby proclaimed that a free and full pardon is extended to those who at the date of this order stand in the character of deserters. All who are under arrest for this offense at the different posts and garrisons will be forthwith liberated, and return to their duty. Such as are roaming at large and those who are under sentence of death are discharged, and are not again to be permitted to enter the Army, nor at any time hereafter to be enlisted in the service of the country. It is desirable and highly important that the ranks of the Army should be composed of respectable, not degraded, materials.

Those who can be so lost to the obligations of a soldier as to abandon a country which morally they are bound to defend, and which solemnly they have sworn to serve, are unworthy, and should be confided in no more. By order of the President of the United States:

JOHN H. EATON, _Secretary of War_.

Communicated by order of Alexander Macomb, Major-General Commanding the Army.

R. JONES, _Adjutant-General._

SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.

_December 6, 1830_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

The pleasure I have in congratulating you upon your return to your const.i.tutional duties is much heightened by the satisfaction which the condition of our beloved country at this period justly inspires. The beneficent Author of All Good has granted to us during the present year health, peace, and plenty, and numerous causes for joy in the wonderful success which attends the progress of our free inst.i.tutions.

With a population unparalleled in its increase, and possessing a character which combines the hardihood of enterprise with the considerateness of wisdom, we see in every section of our happy country a steady improvement in the means of social intercourse, and correspondent effects upon the genius and laws of our extended Republic.

The apparent exceptions to the harmony of the prospect are to be referred rather to inevitable diversities in the various interests which enter into the composition of so extensive a whole than to any want of attachment to the Union--interests whose collisions serve only in the end to foster the spirit of conciliation and patriotism so essential to the preservation of that Union which I most devoutly hope is destined to prove imperishable.

In the midst of these blessings we have recently witnessed changes in the condition of other nations which may in their consequences call for the utmost vigilance, wisdom, and unanimity in our councils, and the exercise of all the moderation and patriotism of our people.

The important modifications of their Government, effected with so much courage and wisdom by the people of France, afford a happy presage of their future course, and have naturally elicited from the kindred feelings of this nation that spontaneous and universal burst of applause in which you have partic.i.p.ated. In congratulating you, my fellow-citizens, upon an event so auspicious to the dearest interests of mankind I do no more than respond to the voice of my country, without transcending in the slightest degree that salutary maxim of the ill.u.s.trious Washington which enjoins an abstinence from all interference with the internal affairs of other nations. From a people exercising in the most unlimited degree the right of self-government, and enjoying, as derived from this proud characteristic, under the favor of Heaven, much of the happiness with which they are blessed; a people who can point in triumph to their free inst.i.tutions and challenge comparison with the fruits they bear, as well as with the moderation, intelligence, and energy with which they are administered--from such a people the deepest sympathy was to be expected in a struggle for the sacred principles of liberty, conducted in a spirit every way worthy of the cause, and crowned by a heroic moderation which has disarmed revolution of its terrors. Notwithstanding the strong a.s.surances which the man whom we so sincerely love and justly admire has given to the world of the high character of the present King of the French, and which if sustained to the end will secure to him the proud appellation of Patriot King, it is not in his success, but in that of the great principle which has borne him to the throne--the paramount authority of the public will--that the American people rejoice.

I am happy to inform you that the antic.i.p.ations which were indulged at the date of my last communication on the subject of our foreign affairs have been fully realized in several important particulars.

An arrangement has been effected with Great Britain in relation to the trade between the United States and her West India and North American colonies which has settled a question that has for years afforded matter for contention and almost uninterrupted discussion, and has been the subject of no less than six negotiations, in a manner which promises results highly favorable to the parties.

The abstract right of Great Britain to monopolize the trade with her colonies or to exclude us from a partic.i.p.ation therein has never been denied by the United States. But we have contended, and with reason, that if at any time Great Britain may desire the productions of this country as necessary to her colonies they must be received upon principles of just reciprocity, and, further, that it is making an invidious and unfriendly distinction to open her colonial ports to the vessels of other nations and close them against those of the United States.

Antecedently to 1794 a portion of our productions was admitted into the colonial islands of Great Britain by particular concessions, limited to the term of one year, but renewed from year to year. In the transportation of these productions, however, our vessels were not allowed to engage, this being a privilege reserved to British shipping, by which alone our produce could be taken to the islands and theirs brought to us in return. From Newfoundland and her continental possessions all our productions, as well as our vessels, were excluded, with occasional relaxations, by which, in seasons of distress, the former were admitted in British bottoms.

By the treaty of 1794 she offered to concede to us for a limited time the right of carrying to her West India possessions in our vessels not exceeding 70 tons burthen, and upon the same terms as British vessels, any productions of the United States which British vessels might import therefrom. But this privilege was coupled with conditions which are supposed to have led to its rejection by the Senate; that is, that American vessels should land their return cargoes in the United States only, and, moreover, that they should during the continuance of the privilege be precluded from carrying mola.s.ses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton either from those islands or from the United States to any other part of the world. Great Britain readily consented to expunge this article from the treaty, and subsequent attempts to arrange the terms of the trade either by treaty stipulations or concerted legislation having failed, it has been successively suspended and allowed according to the varying legislation of the parties.

The following are the prominent points which have in later years separated the two Governments: Besides a restriction whereby all importations into her colonies in American vessels are confined to our own products carried hence, a restriction to which it does not appear that we have ever objected, a leading object on the part of Great Britain has been to prevent us from becoming the carriers of British West India commodities to any other country than our own. On the part of the United States it has been contended, first, that the subject should be regulated by treaty stipulation in preference to separate legislation; second, that our productions, when imported into the colonies in question, should not be subject to higher duties than the productions of the mother country or of her other colonial possessions, and, third, that our vessels should be allowed to partic.i.p.ate in the circuitous trade between the United States and different parts of the British dominions.

The first point, after having been for a long time strenuously insisted upon by Great Britain, was given up by the act of Parliament of July, 1825, all vessels suffered to trade with the colonies being permitted to clear from thence with any articles which British vessels might export and proceed to any part of the world, Great Britain and her dependencies alone excepted. On our part each of the above points had in succession been explicitly abandoned in negotiations preceding that of which the result is now announced.

This arrangement secures to the United States every advantage asked by them, and which the state of the negotiation allowed us to insist upon.

The trade will be placed upon a footing decidedly more favorable to this country than any on which it ever stood, and our commerce and navigation will enjoy in the colonial ports of Great Britain every privilege allowed to other nations.

That the prosperity of the country so far as it depends on this trade will be greatly promoted by the new arrangement there can be no doubt.

Independently of the more obvious advantages of an open and direct intercourse, its establishment will be attended with other consequences of a higher value. That which has been carried on since the mutual interdict under all the expense and inconvenience unavoidably incident to it would have been insupportably onerous had it not been in a great degree lightened by concerted evasions in the mode of making the trans-shipments at what are called the neutral ports. These indirections are inconsistent with the dignity of nations that have so many motives not only to cherish feelings of mutual friendship, but to maintain such relations as will stimulate their respective citizens and subjects to efforts of direct, open, and honorable compet.i.tion only, and preserve them from the influence of seductive and vitiating circ.u.mstances.

When your preliminary interposition was asked at the close of the last session, a copy of the instructions under which Mr. McLane has acted, together with the communications which had at that time pa.s.sed between him and the British Government, was laid before you. Although there has not been anything in the acts of the two Governments which requires secrecy, it was thought most proper in the then state of the negotiation to make that communication a confidential one. So soon, however, as the evidence of execution on the part of Great Britain is received the whole matter shall be laid before you, when it will be seen that the apprehension which appears to have suggested one of the provisions of the act pa.s.sed at your last session, that the restoration of the trade in question might be connected with other subjects and was sought to be obtained at the sacrifice of the public interest in other particulars, was wholly unfounded, and that the change which has taken place in the views of the British Government has been induced by considerations as honorable to both parties as I trust the result will prove beneficial.

This desirable result was, it will be seen, greatly promoted by the liberal and confiding provisions of the act of Congress of the last session, by which our ports were upon the reception and annunciation by the President of the required a.s.surance on the part of Great Britain forthwith opened to her vessels before the arrangement could be carried into effect on her part, pursuing in this act of prospective legislation a similar course to that adopted by Great Britain in abolishing, by her act of Parliament in 1825, a restriction then existing and permitting our vessels to clear from the colonies on their return voyages for any foreign country whatever before British vessels had been relieved from the restriction imposed by our law of returning directly from the United States to the colonies, a restriction which she required and expected that we should abolish. Upon each occasion a limited and temporary advantage has been given to the opposite party, but an advantage of no importance in comparison with the restoration of mutual confidence and good feeling, and the ultimate establishment of the trade upon fair principles.

It gives me unfeigned pleasure to a.s.sure you that this negotiation has been throughout characterized by the most frank and friendly spirit on the part of Great Britain, and concluded in a manner strongly indicative of a sincere desire to cultivate the best relations with the United States. To reciprocate this disposition to the fullest extent of my ability is a duty which I shall deem it a privilege to discharge.

Although the result is itself the best commentary on the services rendered to his country by our minister at the Court of St. James, it would be doing violence to my feelings were I to dismiss the subject without expressing the very high sense I entertain of the talent and exertion which have been displayed by him on the occasion.

The injury to the commerce of the United States resulting from the exclusion of our vessels from the Black Sea and the previous footing of mere sufferance upon which even the limited trade enjoyed by us with Turkey has. .h.i.therto been placed have for a long time been a source of much solicitude to this Government, and several endeavors have been made to obtain a better state of things. Sensible of the importance of the object, I felt it my duty to leave no proper means unemployed to acquire for our flag the same privileges that are enjoyed by the princ.i.p.al powers of Europe. Commissioners were consequently appointed to open a negotiation with the Sublime Porte. Not long after the member of the commission who went directly from the United States had sailed, the account of the treaty of Adrianople, by which one of the objects in view was supposed to be secured, reached this country. The Black Sea was understood to be opened to us. Under the supposition that this was the case, the additional facilities to be derived from the establishment of commercial regulations with the Porte were deemed of sufficient importance to require a prosecution of the negotiation as originally contemplated. It was therefore persevered in, and resulted in a treaty, which will be forthwith laid before the Senate.

By its provisions a free pa.s.sage is secured, without limitation of time, to the vessels of the United States to and from the Black Sea, including the navigation thereof, and our trade with Turkey is placed on the footing of the most favored nation. The latter is an arrangement wholly independent of the treaty of Adrianople, and the former derives much value, not only from the increased security which under any circ.u.mstances it would give to the right in question, but from the fact, ascertained in the course of the negotiation, that by the construction put upon that treaty by Turkey the article relating to the pa.s.sage of the Bosphorus is confined to nations having treaties with the Porte. The most friendly feelings appear to be entertained by the Sultan, and an enlightened disposition is evinced by him to foster the intercourse between the two countries by the most liberal arrangements. This disposition it will be our duty and interest to cherish.