ON OUR RELATIONS WITH FRANCE.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 11, 1836.
[AT this session, the situation of affairs between the United States and France having become serious and alarming, Mr. Clay offered resolutions, calling upon the president for information, which, although generally known to the public, he had not then communicated to congress.]
IT must be obvious to every observer of passing events, that our affairs with France are becoming every day more and more serious in their character, and are rapidly tending to a crisis. Mutual irritations are daily occurring, from the animadversions of the public press, and among individuals, in and out of office, in both countries. And a state of feeling, greatly to be deprecated, if we are to preserve the relations of peace, must certainly be the consequence.
According to the theory of our constitution, our diplomatic concerns with foreign countries are intrusted to the president of the United States, until they reach a certain point involving the question of peace or war, and then congress is to determine on that momentous question. In other words, the president conducts our foreign intercourse; congress alone can change that intercourse from a peaceable to a belligerent one. This right, to decide the question of war, carries along with it the right to know whatever has passed between our own executive and the government of any foreign power. No matter what may be the nature of the correspondence, whether official or not, whether formal or informal, congress has the right to any and all information whatever, which may be in the possession of the other branch of the government. No senator here could have failed to have been acquainted with the fact, that the contents of a most important despatch or document has been discussed, and a most important overture canvassed in the different newspapers, in private and political circles, by individuals; every body, in fact, knows what has taken place, except the congress of the United States. The papers friendly to the administration—indeed, the whole circle of the American press—are in possession of the contents of a paper which thisbody has not been yet allowed to see; and I have one journal, a southern administration journal, before me, which states a new and important fact in reference to it. I have said that our situation with France grows every day more embarrassing; the aspect of our relations with her more and more dark and threatening. I could not, therefore, longer delay in making the following motion. I should have done so before, but for a prevalent rumor that the president would soon make a communication to congress, which would do away the necessity of the resolutions which I now submit, by laying before congress the information, which is the object of my motion. He has not, however, done so, and probably will not, without a call from the senate.
Mr. Clay then offered the following resolutions, which were adopted next day.
Resolved, that the president be requested to communicate to the senate (if it be not, in his opinion, incompatible with the public interest,) whether, since the termination of the last congress, any overture, formal or informal, official or unofficial, has been made by the French government to the executive of the United States, to accommodate the difficulties between the two governments, respecting the execution of the convention of the fourth day of July, 1831; and, particularly, whether a despatch from the duc de Broglie, the French minister of foreign affairs, to the chargé d’affaires at Washington, was read, and a copy of it furnished by him to the secretary of state, for the purpose of indicating a mode in which these difficulties might be removed.
Resolved, also, under the resolution above mentioned, in the event of any such overture having been made, that the president be requested to inform the senate what answer was given to it; and, if a copy of any such despatch was received, that he be further requested to communicate a copy of it to the senate.