to the mouth of the Pigeon River; thence along the line of the Grand Portage by land and water to Lac La Pluie. The treaty provided that all the water communications embraced in the boundary line and all the various channels in the St. Lawrence and Detroit Rivers should be free and open to the citizens of both countries.59 The Webster-Ashburton treaty completed the last of the boundary arrangements provided in the treaty of Ghent, and with this settlement all the provisions of that treaty were completely executed, after a lapse of nearly thirty years. 59 Malloy, Treaties and Conventions, I., 652. CHAPTER XI SETTLEMENT OF CONTROVERTED QUESTIONS OMITTED IN THE TREATY OF GHENT The statement has often been made that the war of 1812 secured none of the objects for which it was fought. This is true if one looks to the treaty of peace alone to discover results, for that treaty contains not a word as to the settlement of the avowed causes of the war. The commissioners of peace, in order to secure what was most essential, that is, the restoration of the blessings of peace, left to the adjustment of time the questions upon which agreement then was impossible. Has time justified their action? Let us consider the subsequent arrangements upon the leading questions in dispute in 1814. Impressment, which was the principal cause of the war, occupied, as has been seen, comparatively little time in the negotiations at Ghent. It was brought forward in the first conference of the American and British commissioners, but the discussions, soon turning upon Indian territory, disarmament on the lakes, and boundaries, and later upon the fisheries and navigation of the Mississippi, left the more abstract ques tions in abeyance. However, in the projet of the treaty proposed by the American commissioners there was an article providing for the abolition of impressment, but this was rejected by the British commissioners. The American commissioners consented to waive the article, with the understanding that the omission of a specific proposition in the treaty of peace on the subject of impressment should not impair the right of either Power. The treaty, therefore, was signed with no provision upon this subject. The American commissioners believed that impressment would receive a more favorable consideration after the war was over, when the two countries came to arrange other questions not included in the treaty of peace. Eight days after the ratification of the treaty of Ghent, President Madison sent a message to Congress recommending the passage of a law to permit the employment upon American vessels of only native American citizens and persons already naturalized. The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom this message was referred, reported favorably upon the recommendation of the President, but advised that the question be postponed until the next session of Congress. Such a law was never passed, the general paci 1 American to British Commissioners, Nov. 30, 1814; American State Papers, For. Rel., III., 741. 2 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, I., 555. fication of Europe obviating the necessity for such action. When entering upon the negotiations for a commercial treaty with Great Britain the American commissioners stated to the British that they were instructed by their Government upon two general subjects which might properly be discussed: commercial regulations applicable to a state of peace as well as of war, and the rights and duties of states when one was at war and the other at peace. In connection with the second subject the American commissioners mentioned impressment as being the most important question. They called the attention of the British commissioners to the law that had been passed by Congress' March 3, 1813, which, after the war, excluded the employment of foreign seamen on American vessels. They also mentioned the recommendation of the President in respect to the passage of a more rigid law on the subject. It was pointed out that such action by the American Government, should it result in an absolute exclusion of British seamen, would remove all ground for the claim of impressment; and that this method would be more satisfactory to Great Britain inasmuch as it would operate upon every American vessel, and not merely upon those with which a British warship might come in contact. The American commissioners contented themselves with this explanation, and did not 4 United States Statutes at Large, II., 809–810. insist upon the inclusion of an article upon impressment in the commercial treaty which was signed July 3, 1815. All the more disputable questions which endangered the success of a commercial treaty were eliminated and reserved for future negotiation. Jefferson, in writing to Madison March 23, 1815, had advised a convention upon impressment apart from the commercial treaty. If included in such a treaty, he thought, it might be at the price of injurious concessions.5 After the signing of the commercial treaty, Adams, American minister at London, was engaged in a protracted correspondence with the British Government upon the questions of the restoration of slaves, the abolition of the slave trade, and the reciprocal rights to the Newfoundland fisheries and to the navigation of the Mississippi. On January 25, 1816, Adams, proposing to the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs that a negotiation be entered upon to secure an additional convention, was asked upon what subjects he wished to treat. He replied that impressment was the first and most important question. When the American minister adverted to the President's policy of confining the navigation of American vessels to American seamen, and the solicitude of the President that such a law might lead to a total discontinuance of the prac 5 Jefferson to Madison, March 23, 1815; Writings of Jeffer |