So crowded and interesting were the two years of Van Buren's life in the cabinet with matters apart from the special duties of his office, that it is only at the last, and briefly, that an account can be given of his career as secretary of state. His conduct of foreign affairs was firm, adroit, dignified, and highly successful. It utterly broke the ideal of turbulent and menacing incompetence which the Whigs set up for Jackson's presidency. He had to solve no difficulty of the very first order; for the United States were in profound peace with the whole world. He performed, however, with skill and success two diplomatic services of real importance, services which brought deserved and most valuable strength to Jackson's administration. The American claims for French spoliations upon American ships during the operation of Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees had been under discussion for many years. They were now resolutely pressed. In his message of December, 1829, Jackson, doubtless under Van Buren's advice, paid some compliments to "France, our ancient ally;" but then said very plainly that these claims, unless satisfied, would continue "a subject of unpleasant discussion and possible collision between the two governments." He politely referred to "the known integrity of the French monarch," Charles X., as an assurance that the claims would be paid. A few months afterwards this Bourbon was tumbled off the French throne; and in December, 1830, Jackson with increased courtliness, and with a flattering allusion to Lafayette, conspicuous in this milder revolution as he had been in 1789, rejoiced in "the high voucher we possess for the enlarged views and pure integrity" of Louis Philippe. The new American vigor, doubtless aided by the liberal change in France, brought a treaty on July 4, 1831, under which $5,000,000 was to be paid by France, a result which Jackson, with pardonable boasting, said in his message of December, 1831, was an encouragement "for perseverance in the demands of justice," and would admonish other powers, if any, inclined to evade those demands, that they would never be abandoned. The French treaty came so soon after Van Buren's retirement from the state department, and followed so naturally upon the methods of his negotiation, and his instructions to William C. Rives, our minister at Paris, that much of its credit belonged to him. In March, 1830, a treaty was made with Denmark requiring the payment of $650,000 for Danish spoliations on American commerce. The effective pressing of these claims was justly one of the most popular performances of the administration. Commercial treaties were concluded with Austria in August, 1829; with Turkey in May, 1830; and with Mexico in April, 1831.
But the chief transaction of Van Buren's foreign administration was the opening of trade in American vessels between the United States and the British West Indian colonies. This commerce was then relatively much more important to the United States than in later times; and it was chiefly by American shipping that American commerce was carried on with foreign countries. The absurd and odious restrictions upon intercourse so highly natural and advantageous to the people of our seaboard and of the British West Indian islands had led to smuggling on a large scale, and were fruitful of international irritations. Retaliatory acts of Congress and Parliament, prohibitive proclamations of our presidents, and British orders in council, had at different times, since the close of the second British war in 1815, oppressed or prevented honest and profitable trade between neighbors who ought to have been friendly traders. Van Buren found the immediate position to be as follows. In July, 1825, an act of Parliament had allowed foreign vessels to trade to the British colonies upon conditions. To secure for American vessels the benefit of this act, it was necessary that within one year American ports should be open to British vessels bringing the same kind of British or colonial produce as could be imported in American vessels; that British and American vessels in the trade should pay the same government charges; that alien duties on British vessels and cargoes, that is, duties not imposed on the like vessels and cargoes owned by Americans, should be suspended; and that the provision of an American law of 1823 limiting the privileges of the colonial trade to British vessels carrying colonial produce to American ports directly from the colonies exporting it, and without stopping at intermediate ports, should be repealed. John Quincy Adams's administration had failed within the year to comply with the conditions imposed by the British law of 1825. In 1826, therefore, Great Britain forbade this trade and intercourse in American vessels. Adams retorted with a counter prohibition in March, 1827. And in this unfortunate position Van Buren found our commercial relations with the West Indian, Bahama, and South American colonies of England. The situation was aggravated by a claim made by the American government in 1823 that American goods should pay in the colonial ports no higher duties than British goods, a protest against British protection to British industry in the British colonies coming with little grace from a country itself maintaining the protective system. Adams had sent Gallatin to England to remedy the difficulty, but without success.
Van Buren adopted a different method of negotiation. A more conciliatory bearing was assumed towards our traditional adversary. Jackson, in language sounding strangely from his imperious mouth, was made to say in his first message that "with Great Britain, alike distinguished in peace and war, we may look forward to years of peaceful, honorable, and elevated competition; that it is their policy to preserve the most cordial relations." These, he said, were his own views; and such were "the prevailing sentiments of our constituents." In his instructions to McLane, the minister at London, Van Buren, departing widely from conventional diplomacy, expressly conceded that the American government had been wrong in its claim that England should admit to its colonies American goods on as favorable terms as British goods; that it had been wrong in requiring British ships bringing colonial produce to come and go directly from and to the producing colonies; and that it had been wrong in refusing the privileges offered by the British law of 1825. This frank surrender of untenable positions showed the highest skill in negotiation, a business for which Van Buren was perhaps better equipped than any American of his time. In these points we were "assailable;" we had "too long and too tenaciously" resisted British rights. After these admissions, it would, he said, be improper for Great Britain to suffer "any feelings that find their origin in the past pretensions of this government to have an adverse influence upon the present conduct of Great Britain." McLane was to tell the Earl of Aberdeen that "to set up the act of the late administration as the cause of forfeiture of privileges which would otherwise be extended to the people of the United States would, under existing circumstances, be unjust in itself, and could not fail to excite their deepest sensibility." McLane was also to allude to the parts taken by the members of Jackson's administration in the former treatment of the question under discussion. And here Van Buren used the objectionable sentence which led to his subsequent rejection by the Senate as minister to England, and which through that, such are the curious caprices of politics, led, or at least helped to lead, him to the presidency. He said, "Their views upon that point have been submitted to the people of the United States; and the counsels by which your conduct is now directed are the result of the judgment expressed by the only earthly tribunal to which the late administration was amenable for its acts."
In Van Buren's sagacious desire to emphasize the abandonment of claims preventing the negotiation, he here introduced to a foreign nation the American people as a judge that had condemned the assertion of such claims by Jackson's predecessor. The statement was at least an exaggeration. There was little reason to suppose that Adams's failure in the negotiation over colonial trade had much, if at all, influenced the election of 1828. Nor was it dignified to officially expose our party contests to foreign eyes. But Van Buren was intent upon success in the negotiation. He could succeed where others had failed, only by a strong assertion of a change in American policy. His fault was at most one of taste in the manner of an assertion right enough and wise enough in itself. Nor were these celebrated instructions lacking in firmness or dignity. Great Britain was clearly warned that she must then decide for all time whether the hardships from which her West Indian planters suffered should continue; and that the United States would not "in expiation of supposed past encroachments" repeal their laws, leaving themselves "wholly dependent upon the indulgence of Great Britain," and not knowing in advance what course she would follow. In his speech in the Senate in February, 1827, Van Buren had clearly stated the general positions which he took in this famous dispatch. It is rather curious, however, that he found occasion then to say upon this very subject what he seemed afterwards to forget, that "in the collisions which may arise between the United States and a foreign power, it is our duty to present an unbroken front; domestic differences, if they tend to give encouragement to unjust pretensions, should be extinguished or deferred; and the cause of our government must be considered as the cause of our country." So easy it is to advise other men to be bold and firm.
McLane's long and very able letter to the British foreign secretary closely followed his instructions. Lord Aberdeen was frankly told that the United States had committed "mistakes" in the past; and that the "American pretensions" which had prevented a former arrangement would not be revived. The negotiation was entirely successful. In October, 1830, the President, with the authorization of Congress, declared American ports open to British vessels and their cargoes coming from the colonies, and that they should be subject to the same charges as American vessels coming from the same colonies. In November a British order in council gave to American vessels corresponding privileges. On January 3, 1831, Jackson sent to the Senate the papers, including Van Buren's letter of instructions. No criticism was made upon their tenor; and the public, heedless of the phrases used in reaching the end, rejoiced in a most beneficent opening of commerce.
CHAPTER VII
MINISTER TO ENGLAND.—VICE-PRESIDENT.—ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY
In the summer of 1831 Van Buren knew very well the strong hold he had upon his party, the entire and almost affectionate confidence which he enjoyed from Jackson, and the prestige which his political and official success had brought him. But to the country, as he was well aware, he seemed also to be, as he was, a politician, obviously skilled in the art, and an avowed candidate for the presidency. His conciliatory bearing, his abstinence from personal abuse, his freedom from personal animosities, all were widely declared to be the mere incidents of constant duplicity and intrigue. The absence of proof, and his own explicit denial and appeal to those who knew the facts, did not protect him from the belief of his adversaries—a belief which, without examination, has since been widely adopted—that to prostrate a dangerous rival he had promoted the quarrel between Jackson and Calhoun. McLane, the minister at London, wished to come home, and was to be the new secretary of the treasury. Van Buren gladly seized the opportunity. He would leave the field of political management. Three thousand miles in distance and a month in time away from Washington or New York, there could, he thought, be little pretense of personal manœuvres on his part. He would thus plainly submit his candidacy to popular judgment upon his public career, without interference from himself. He would escape the many embarrassments of every politician upon whom demands are continually made,—demands whose rejection or allowance alike brings offense. The English mission was prominently in the public service, but out of its difficulties; and it was made particularly grateful to him by his success in the recent negotiation over colonial trade. He therefore accepted the post, for which in almost every respect he had extraordinary equipment. He finally left the State Department in June, 1831; and on his departure from Washington Jackson conspicuously rode with him out of the city. On August 1, he was formally appointed minister to Great Britain; and in September he arrived in London, accompanied by his son John.
Van Buren found Washington Irving presiding over the London legation in McLane's absence as chargé d'affaires. Irving's appointment to be secretary of legation under McLane had been one of Van Buren's early acts,—a proof, Irving wrote, "of the odd way in which this mad world is governed, when a secretary of state of a stern republic gives away offices of the kind at the recommendation of a jovial little man of the seas like Jack Nicholson." But this was jocose. When the appointment was suggested, it was particularly pleasant to Van Buren that this graceful and gentle bit of patronage should be given by so grim a figure as Jackson. Irving had come on from Spain, his "Columbus" just finished, and his "Alhambra Tales" ready for writing. His extraordinary popularity in England and his old familiarity with its life made him highly useful to the American minister, as Van Buren himself soon found. It was not the last time that Englishmen respected the republic of the west the more because the respect carried with it an homage to the republic of letters. Irving's was an early one of the appointments which established the agreeable tradition of the American diplomatic and consular service, that literary men should always hold some of its places of honor and profit. When Van Buren arrived, Irving was already weary of his post and had resigned. He remained, however, with the new minister until he too surrendered his office. The two men became warm and lifelong friends. The day after Van Buren's arrival Irving wrote: "I have just seen Mr. Van Buren, and do not wonder you should all be so fond of him. His manners are most amiable and ingratiating; and I have no doubt he will become a favorite at this court." After an intimacy of several months he wrote: "The more I see of Mr. Van Buren, the more I feel confirmed in a strong personal regard for him. He is one of the gentlest and most amiable men I have ever met with; with an affectionate disposition that attaches itself to those around him, and wins their kindness in return."