Jay Treaty

“ The two subjects to which Judge Jay's efforts were chiefly devoted were those of war and slavery. His writings on the first, both before and after he became president of the American peace society, had no little influence at home and abroad. In his volume entitled “War and Peace; the Evils of the First, with a Plan for securing the Last” (New York, 1848) , he suggested stipulation by treaty referring international disputes to arbitration, as a plan based upon obvious principles of national policy, and adapted to the existing state of civilized society. ”

“ Threatening relations with Great Britain. The Jay Treaty. "The daily increasing 'love-frenzy for France,' and the intemperate language of the Democratic press, naturally emphasized in England that reaction against America which set in with the treaty of peace. On the other hand, the retention of the frontier posts in violation of that treaty was a thorn in the side of the young Republic. In the course of the war England had adopted, by successive Orders in Council, a policy ruinous to the commerce of neutral nations, especially of the United States. ”

“ Not until June did Jay reach England. A treaty was negotiated on November 19, but was not received by Washington until after the adjournment of Congress in March, 1795. The treaty had indeed removed some old grievances: the posts were to be evacuated; commissions were to settle the northeast boundary, and to adjust the claims for the British debts; but Jay got no indemnity for the negroes carried away by the British in 1783. The commercial clauses were far less favorable: the discriminating taxes against American shipping were at last withdrawn ”

“ Not quite a year later, when the Jay treaty was still agitating the public mind in regard to our relations with France, he wrote to Pickering:—
"The Executive has a plain road to pursue, namely, to fulfill all the engagements which duty requires; be influenced beyond this by none of the contending parties; maintain a strict neutrality unless obliged by imperious circumstances to depart from it; do justice to all, and never forget that we are Americans, the remembrance of which will convince us that we ought not to be French or English." ”

“ As a member of the greatest commercial nation in the world, and of a company long renowned for their extent of connections and greatness of views, you cannot be ignorant of the rigor of the laws of the duties on imports of a foreign power.
Mr. Jay's treaty, it is true, gave the right of trade with the savages to British subjects in the United States territories, but by no means exempted them from paying the duties, obtaining licenses, and subscribing unto all the rules and restrictions of our laws. ”

“ The commerce of America is, by Jay's treaty, put under foreign dominion. The sea is not free for her. Her right to navigate it is reduced to the right of escaping; that is, until some ship of England or France stops her vessels, and carries them into port. Every article of American produce, whether from the sea or the sand, fish, flesh, vegetable, or manufacture, is, by Jay's treaty, made either contraband or seizable. Nothing is exempt. ”

“ If the United States could only have time without making undue sacrifice, they could pass beyond the stage when a foreign war with its consequent suffering and debt would endanger our national existence. If they could only have time to grow into a nation, there would be no difficulty in settling all their disputes with other people satisfactorily, either by war or negotiation. But if the national bonds were loosened, then all was lost. It was in this spirit that Washington signed the Jay treaty ”

“ Advices from the American minister in London representing that the British cabinet was disposed to settle the differences between the two countries amicably, Washington nominated Mr. Jay to the Senate as Envoy-extraordinary to the court of Great Britain. The nomination, though strenuously opposed by the Democratic party, was confirmed in the Senate by a majority of two to one. The treaty negotiated by Jay was received at the seat of government in March, 1795, soon after the session of Congress closed. The president summoned the Senate to meet in June to ratify it. The treaty was ratified. ”

“ So numerous were the infractions of the stipulation prohibiting the carrying off of the Negroes and so fruitless were the discussions resulting from the non-fulfillment of the articles in the treaty that several diplomatic representatives were sent on missions to Great Britain, the last of which ended with the Jay Treaty of 1794. Obviously, no satisfactory settlement as to the Negro could then be reached. ”

“ How can our government make a treaty with a foreign nation? With this question we bring our pupils face to face with the first type-element in the Jay Treaty lesson. The class has not long since taken up the story of the making of our Constitution, and may be assumed to realize its significance as the “fundamental law.” What has the Constitution to say on the subject of treaty-making? The President “shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” ”

“ Spain had best abide by the treaty which has overturned all my plans and rendered ten years’ labor useless.”
As is known, the Jay treaty came very near causing war between France and the United States. Many Kentuckians felt that France had good reason for declaring war. Her charge against this government was that by the concessions made to Great Britain, America had disregarded her commercial and defensive allegiance with France. ”

“ It was in this treaty that Mr. Jay proposed to insert a clause “that if it should unfortunately happen that Great Britain and the United States should be at war, there shall be no privateers commissioned by them against each other.” Unhappily the clause was considered inadmissible by Lord Grenville, and in fact, although the proposition is embraced in Mr. Jay’s original instructions, the American government have receded from the views they then propounded unless other nations exempt private property from capture at sea. ”

“ The mingling, in the Republican mind, of the Jay Treaty, Neutrality, unfriendliness to France, and the Federalist Party is illustrated in a toast at a dinner in Lexington, Virginia, to Senator Brown, who had voted against the treaty: "The French Republic—May every power or party who would attempt to throw any obstacle in the way of its independence or happiness receive the reward due to corruption." ”

“ In fact, the events which make up the greater part of the story of the Jay Treaty are by no means typical of treaties in general. It must be borne in mind, however, that to them attach a value and an interest of their own. Local color, objective reality, in a word, everything which makes history actual and living depends on the proper use of specific, characteristic, but not necessarily typical, details. The teacher’s task is to make such use of this auxiliary material as will bring into strong relief the type-elements. ”

“ Gallatin prepared, and put before the world, a statement of the facts in the case. This, revised, together with the speech of Mr. Webster, a copy of the Jay treaty, and eight maps, he published at his own expense in 1840.
At this time conflicts on the Maine frontier brought the subject up in a manner not to be ignored. Popular feeling was at high pitch. In this condition of affairs Alexander Baring, who [Pg 350] had been raised to the peerage as Lord Ashburton, was sent to America on a mission of friendship and peace. As a young man he had listened to the debate on Jay's treaty in 1795. ”

“ Neither were they restrained by the President's proclamation. The Constitution assigned the duty of negotiating and ratifying treaties to the President and Senate; but to the perfervid Anti-Britishers the Constitution was no more than an old cobweb to be brushed away at pleasure. The Jay Treaty could not be put into effect without money for expenses; all bills involving money must pass the House of Representatives; therefore, the House would actually control the operation of the Treaty.
The House at this time was Republican by a marked majority. ”

“ As a negotiator he had always gained marked success by acting upon his own principle that "a little good-natured wisdom often does more in politics than much slippery craft." Jay showed fine patriotism in accepting the appointment. He remarked to his friends that no man could frame a treaty with Great Britain without making himself unpopular and odious and he accepted the mission under "a conviction that to refuse it would be to desert my duty for the sake of my ease and domestic concerns and comforts." ”

“ President Washington appointed him Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, an office which he soon resigned. The most noted of all his public services was the negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain in 1794. The terms of this treaty were revolting in the extreme, both to the pride of Americans and to their sense of justice; and Mr. Jay was overwhelmed with the bitterest reproaches from the party opposed to his own. No man, however, has ever been able to show that better terms were attainable ”

“ In this summary view of the state of the British nation for the last ten years, a treaty with England was not a very desirable object in the eyes of many of the most judicious statesmen in America. Perhaps no man was better qualified than Mr. Jay to undertake to negotiate a business of so much delicacy and responsibility. He was a gentleman of strict integrity, amiable manners, and complacent disposition; whose talents for negotiation had been evinced by his firmness in conjunction with his colleagues, when they effected a treaty of peace at Paris, in 1783. ”

“ We cannot give American statesmen the credit for removing the restrictions on our commerce, described above, and so enabling it to expand uncramped. In spite of all their persistence and ingenuity they secured only slight and partial concessions. The treaty with England, negotiated by John Jay in 1794, removed some of our grievances, but proposed to open the West India trade on such humiliating conditions that the offer was indignantly refused. A treaty with Spain gave us merely the right to navigate the lower Mississippi River, without other commercial privileges ”

“ In June, 1785, Don Gardoqui was sent by the Spanish [130] government to treat with the American government on any subject of dispute. The Honorable John Jay was commissioned to meet him, but the far-seeing members of Congress fortunately put the following check upon Mr. Jay: "That he enter into no treaty, compact, nor convention whatever with the said representative of Spain, which did not stipulate the right of the United States to the navigation of the Mississippi and boundaries as established by their treaty with Great Britain." ”

“ Britain as the most faithless and corrupt in the world, and denounced the result of Jay's mission as a surrender of every just claim upon a rapacious enemy for restitution on account of great wrongs.
These denunciations had great immediate effect. All acknowledged that the treaty was not as favorable to the United States as the latter had a right to expect; and “public opinion did receive a considerable shock,” says Marshall. Men unaffected by the spirit of faction felt some disappointment on its first appearance ”

“ Although paying, so long as Jay's treaty was in force, for certain
invasions of our commerce, Great Britain had never adopted a just
attitude toward neutral trade. She persisted in loosely defining
contraband and blockade, and in denouncing as unlawful all commerce
which was opened to us as neutrals merely by war or carried on by us
between France and French colonies through our own ports.
The far more flagrant abuse of impressment, the forcible seizure of
American citizens for service in the British navy, became intolerably
prevalent during Jefferson's administration. ”

“ Jay, however, in a letter written to the president of Congress from Spain, had expressed in strong terms his disapproval of such dependence upon France, and, on arriving in Paris, he demanded that Great Britain should treat with his country on an equal footing by first recognizing its independence, although the French minister, Count de Vergennes, contended that an acknowledgment of independence as an effect of the treaty was as much as could reasonably be expected. ”

“ The people and Inhabitants of the Two Countries respectively, shall have liberty, freely and securely, and without hindrance and molestation, to come with their Ships and Cargoes to the Lands, Countries, Cities, Ports Places and Rivers within the Dominions and Territories aforesaid, to enter into the same, to resort there, and to remain and reside there, without any limitation of Time: also to hire and possess, Houses and ware houses for the purposes of their Commerce; and generally the Merchants and Traders on each side, shall enjoy the most complete protection and Security for their Commerce ”

“ Jay and Pinckney were then negotiating a treaty between Great Britain and the United States, who immediately admitted him to their deliberations. Concerning this treaty, which occasioned, soon after, such unexampled fury of opposition in the United States, Mr. Adams, at the time, thus expressed his opinion: "The treaty is far from being satisfactory to either Mr. Jay or Mr. Pinckney. It is far below the standard which would be advantageous to the country. It is probable, however, the negotiators will consent to it, as it is, in their opinion, preferable to a war. ”