History in the Grades
ARMAND J. GERSON, Editor.
THE JAY TREATY.
A TYPE LESSON.
Since treaties, unlike explorers and land-claims, are not peculiar to any one period of our history, the selection of a particular treaty for our type-lesson presents more difficulty than we met in the case of our earlier lessons on Columbus and the Spanish claim. At first glance the mere matter of priority in time might seem to decide the question for us. Why not take the first treaty that comes into our story and use it as the topic of our treaty lesson?
To this basis of selection there are two serious objections. In the first place, treaties find their way into our history narrative at an early stage of the child’s mental development, at a time, that is to say, when he is neither best fitted for, nor most interested in, the constitutional points involved in a real understanding of the making of a treaty. The study of the treaties that closed the inter-colonial wars, for example, would constitute an unwarranted interruption of the narrative which at that time should be occupying the pupil’s whole attention.
A still graver objection, however, to the use of any of these early treaties for our type-lesson lies in the fact that they are in no sense typical. While they, of course, concerned the colonists very directly, they were nevertheless treaties between foreign nations; our country was not a party to them. Neither can we consider as typical the early treaties into which we entered in the first days of our national existence,—that with France in 1778, and that with England in 1783. Both of these were negotiated under authority of a constitution widely different from that which prescribes the treaty-making process in our nation to-day.
Our treaty with England in 1794 was the first important treaty (important, that is, from the point of view of our elementary course of study) to which the American nation in the present significance of that term was a party. It answers admirably the purpose of a type-lesson. Here are to be found all the important elements necessary for the proper grasp of later treaties. Moreover, the history work in most of our elementary schools is so graded that pupils come to the study of the post-Revolutionary period with sufficient maturity of mind to grasp and to enjoy the international and constitutional questions around which the story of the Jay Treaty develops.
The topic of our type-lesson having been selected, the mode of presentation next demands the teacher’s attention. We must keep clearly in mind that our purpose is the development of a type-idea, a regulating concept which will help in the firm and instant comprehension of later treaties when they shall find their way into our story. It becomes necessary, therefore, to select with great care and present with special emphasis those elements which have most real and far-reaching significance. The following questions may help us in our selection: What should the pupil’s notion of a treaty include when he leaves the elementary school? How much of this desired understanding can be developed by means of our lesson on the Jay Treaty? In a word, what are the type-elements of our lesson?
The essential elements of the idea we are striving to develop through our type-lesson fall naturally under two heads:
1. The pupil should receive from the study of the Jay Treaty a clear notion of the treaty-making process as prescribed by the Constitution. He should further have some idea of the way in which the constitutional provision has worked out in practice.
2. The pupil should gain from the lesson a definite knowledge of the essential, significant, or typical parts of a treaty. This knowledge should include some idea of the general form and arrangement of the document.
Our type-lesson should be developed with the purpose of impressing these two type-elements.
A lesson, however, which concerned itself exclusively with type-elements would be a very dull and lifeless affair. 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. He must strive to effect a combination of the typical and the specific, the general and the particular, so that in the end he shall have developed in his pupil’s mind a consistent and complete type-idea, vivified and enriched by a wealth of local incident and illuminating detail. The introductory stage of the Jay Treaty lesson should consist of a brief review of our relations with Great Britain since the Revolutionary War. The treaty which closed that war, besides recognizing the independence of the United States, had placed both countries under certain definite mutual obligations. There is no real inconsistency in this reference to the treaty of 1783 before the full development of our type-lesson on the Jay Treaty. We are not assuming that the pupil has the sort of grasp which the type-lesson aims to secure; we are simply taking for granted his general understanding of a treaty as a formal agreement between nations, a simple enough notion and one which can hardly fail to have been developed incidentally in the earlier course of the work. To return, then, to our preparatory consideration of the treaty of 1783, it should be pointed out that certain articles of that treaty[7] had provided for the payment of debts contracted before the war, for the restitution of all confiscated Tory estates, and, on the other side, for the withdrawal of English troops from United States territory. These provisions had not been carried out. Hard feeling between the two countries was further aggravated by England’s serious interference with our commerce. Her vessels persisted in searching our ships and impressing our seamen. The limit of patient endurance seemed reached when in 1793 the English government ordered the seizure of all neutral vessels carrying provisions to French ports. What was to be done? Clearly either one of two things: resort to war or enter into a new agreement. The class is presumably familiar with the fact that in spite of the advocacy of an alliance with France by certain of our leaders and their insistence on a renewal of the war with England, our government had definitely decided on a policy of neutrality and peace. Since we were not to fight England, it remained to settle our difficulties by means of a new treaty.
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.” The significance of this provision can easily be cleared up by a brief explanation of the organization of Congress, the chief general powers of that body, and the most important points of difference between the functions of the two houses.
We are now ready to resume consideration of the situation in 1794. Washington’s policy of peace necessitated definite negotiations with England. He accordingly looked about for an agent specially fitted to carry on the difficult task. He decided upon John Jay, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Washington’s choice was approved by the Senate, and Jay set sail for England as envoy extraordinary of the United States. It is important that the class should realize that this sending of a special ambassador is not necessarily typical of treaty-making. Washington might have used as his agent our regular minister to England. On the other hand, the negotiations might have taken place in Philadelphia, our Secretary of State taking up the matter with the English minister to this country. In other words, the selection of Jay is not a type-element, and must not be so regarded by our pupils.
The details of Jay’s negotiations in London should not be presented to an elementary class. They are of little value or interest for young pupils and have practically no bearing on the treaty-making process. Suffice it to say that Great Britain was represented by Lord Grenville (“His Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,” and son of the Grenville of pre-Revolutionary notoriety), and that Jay found it impossible to secure all the concessions he desired. On November 19, 1794, after five months of negotiation, the articles were signed by the two plenipotentiaries.
The class is now ready to give some time and attention to the treaty itself with a view to noting its typical or significant parts.[8] Attention should first be directed to the preamble, which, as typical of modern treaties, should receive considerable emphasis. It should be read at length (it is not very long), and the wording carefully noted. The preamble serves three purposes: (1) It names the contracting parties, (2) it specifies the object of the negotiations, and (3) it names the agents of both countries and indicates their mode of appointment.
The general arrangement of the document, that is to say, the division into articles taking up the special points covered by the treaty, should next be pointed out. The teacher might rapidly run through some of the chief topics considered, in the twenty-eight articles of the treaty. Finally, the formal dating and signing at the end of the document should receive passing notice.
The special provisions, in so far as they need be taken up in an elementary treatment of our topic, next call for attention. In no sense do these constitute a type-element. They should be given to the class in their simplest form and without any undue detail. The general statement that most of the difficulties between the two nations were adjusted by the treaty of 1794, but that nothing was settled on the disturbing question of impressment, comprises about all that we can expect an elementary pupil to retain concerning the special provisions of this treaty.
When, however, we come to the subsequent history of the treaty in the Senate, we reach a more essential part of the story. Ratification by the Senate has already been pointed out as part of the constitutional provision on treaty-making, and here we come upon our first typical instance of its application. The Senate was called into special session, and took up the matter of the treaty on June 8, 1795. The two-thirds vote is both interesting and important as typical of the treaty-making process. The teacher should impress it by reviewing the number of states in the Union at the time, the consequent membership of the Senate, and the vote necessary for the ratification of the treaty. It is well here to work with actual numbers so as to lend vividness to the presentation. The final ratification took place June 24, 1795.
The reservation in regard to Article XII, which the Senate refused to confirm, and the later struggle for an appropriation in the House obviously will find no place in an elementary lesson. They are in themselves far too complicated for the purpose of history teaching in the grades. Moreover, they are in no sense typical of treaties in general and would tend to confuse rather than clarify the notion we are seeking to develop.
Having taken the class through the process of treaty-making as exemplified in the Jay Treaty, and having developed an adequate notion of the nature of a treaty, it will be advisable for the teacher to formulate with his pupils an outline or synopsis of the most important points of the lesson. This type-lesson is different in character from the lessons we have previously considered on explorers and claims in that it does not typify an epoch. As before mentioned, treaties are not peculiar to any one period of our history. It is, therefore, of importance that the results of the lesson should be put into some concise, permanent form to which the pupil may easily refer when, now and again in the course of his history work, various treaties are under discussion. While the lesson as here outlined may seem to enter into an undue amount of detail, it is our thought that the effort expended will be more than repaid by the definiteness of the notion which we have developed and by the greater ease of comprehension with which our pupils will approach the treaties lying in wait for them later in the course.