It was known that certain senators were consulted as the treaty went along, not publicly, but privately, visiting the negotiators upon request for that purpose, agreeing to it in these conferences; and thus forestalling their official action. This anomaly Mr. Benton thus exposed:
"The irregular manner in which the ratification of this treaty has been sought, by consultations with individual members, before it was submitted to the Senate. Here I tread upon delicate ground; and if I am wrong, this is the time and the place to correct me. I speak in the hearing of those who must know whether I am mistaken. I have reason to believe that the treaty has been privately submitted to senators—their opinions obtained—the judgment of the body forestalled; and then sent here for the forms of ratification. [One senator said he had not been consulted.] Mr. B. in continuation: Certainly not, as the senator says so; and so of any other gentleman who will say the same. I interrogate no one. I have no right to interrogate any one. I do not pretend to say that all were consulted; that would have been unnecessary; and besides, I know I was not consulted myself; and I know many others who were not. All that I intend to say is, that I have reason to think that this treaty has been ratified out of doors! and that this is a great irregularity, and bespeaks an undue solicitude for it on the part of its authors, arising from a consciousness of its indefensible character."
The war argument was also pressed into the service of the ratification, and vehemently relied upon as one of the most cogent arguments in its favor. The treaty, or war! was the constant alternative presented, and not without effect upon all persons of gentle and temporizing spirit. Mr. Benton also exposed the folly and mischief of yielding to such a threat—declaring it to be groundless, and not to be yielded to if it was not.
"The fear of war. This Walpole argument is heavily pressed upon us, and we are constantly told that the alternatives lie between this treaty—the whole of it, just as it is—or war! This is a degrading argument, if true; and infamous, if false! and false it is: and more than that, it is as shameless as it is unfounded! What! the peace mission come to make war! It is no such thing. It comes to take advantage of our deplorable condition—to take what it pleases, and to repulse the rest. Great Britain is in no condition to go to war with us, and every child knows it. But I do not limit myself to argument, and general considerations, to disprove this war argument. I refer to the fact which stamps it with untruth. Look to the notes of Sir Charles Vaughan and Mr. Bankhead, demanding the execution of the award, and declaring that its execution would remove every impediment to the harmony of the two countries. After that, and while holding these authentic declarations in our hands, are we to be told that the peace mission requires more than the award? requires one hundred and ten miles more of boundary? requires $500,000 for Rouse's Point, which the award gave us without money? requires a naval and diplomatic alliance, which she dared not mention in the time of Jackson or Van Buren? requires the surrender of 'rebels' under the name of criminals? and puts the South and West at defiance, while conciliating the non-slaveholding States? and gives us war, if we do not consent to all this degradation, insult, and outrage? Are we to be told this? No, sir, no! There is no danger of war; but this treaty may make a war, if it is ratified. It gives up all advantages; leaves us with great questions unsettled; increases the audacity of the British; weakens and degrades us; and leaves us no alternative but war to save the Columbia, to prevent impressment, to resist search, to repel Schlosser invasions, and to avoid a San Domingo insurrection in the South, excited from London, from Canada, and from Nassau."
The mission had been heralded as one of peace—as a beneficent overture for a universal settlement of all difficulties—and as a plan to establish the two countries on a footing of friendship and cordiality, which was to leave each without a grievance, and to launch both into a career of mutual felicity. On the contrary only a few were settled, and those few the only ones which concerned Great Britain and the northern States: the rest which peculiarly concerned the South and the West, were adjourned to London—that is to say, to the Greek calends. On this point Mr. Benton said:
"We were led to believe, on the arrival of the special minister, that he came as a messenger of peace, and clothed with full powers to settle every thing; and believing this, his arrival was hailed with universal joy. But here is a disappointment—a great disappointment. On receiving the treaty and the papers which accompany it, we find that all the subjects in dispute have not been settled; that, in fact, only three out of seven are settled; and that the minister has returned to his country, leaving four of the contested subjects unadjusted. This is a disappointment; and the greater, because the papers communicated confirm the report that the minister came with full powers to settle every thing. The very first note of the American negotiator—and that in its very first sentence, confirms this belief, and leaves us to wonder how a mission that promised so much, has performed so little. Mr. Webster's first note runs thus: 'Lord Ashburton having been charged by the Queen's government with full powers to negotiate and settle all matters in discussion between the United States and England, and having on his arrival at Washington announced,' &c., &c. Here is a declaration of full power to settle every thing; and yet, after this, only part is settled, and the minister has returned home. This is unexpected, and inconsistent. It contradicts the character of the mission, balks our hopes, and frustrates our policy. As a confederacy of States, our policy is to settle every thing or nothing; and having received the minister for that purpose, this complete and universal settlement, or nothing, should have been the sine qua non of the American negotiator.
"From the message of the President which accompanies the treaty, we learn that the questions in discussion between the two countries were: 1. The Northern boundary. 2. The right of search in the African seas, and the suppression of the African slave trade. 3. The surrender of fugitives from justice. 4. The title to the Columbia River. 5. Impressment. 6. The attack on the Caroline. 7. The case of the Creole, and of other American vessels which had shared the same fate. These are the subjects (seven in number) which the President enumerates, and which he informs us occupied the attention of the negotiators. He does not say whether these were all the subjects which occupied their attention. He does not tell us whether they discussed any others. He does not say whether the British negotiator opened the question of the State debts, and their assumption or guarantee by the Federal government! or whether the American negotiator mentioned the point of the Canadian asylum for fugitive slaves (of which twelve thousand have already gone there) seduced by the honors and rewards which they receive, and by the protection which is extended to them. The message is silent upon these further subjects of difference if not of discussion, between the two countries; and, following the lead of the President, and confining ourselves (for the present) to the seven subjects of dispute named by him, and we find three of them provided for in the treaty—four of them not: and this constitutes a great objection to the treaty—an objection which is aggravated by the nature of the subjects settled, or not settled. For it so happens that, of the subjects in discussion, some were general, and affected the whole Union; others were local, and affected sections. Of these general subjects, those which Great Britain had most at heart are provided for; those which most concerned the United States are omitted: and of the three sections of the Union which had each its peculiar grievance, one section is quieted, and two are left as they were. This gives Great Britain an advantage over us as a nation: it gives one section of the Union an advantage over the two others, sectionally. This is all wrong, unjust, unwise, and impolitic. It is wrong to give a foreign power an advantage over us: it is wrong to give one section of the Union an advantage over the others. In their differences with foreign powers, the States should be kept united: their peculiar grievances should not be separately settled, so as to disunite their several complaints. This is a view of the objection which commends itself most gravely to the Senate. We are a confederacy of States, and a confederacy in which States classify themselves sectionally, and in which each section has its local feelings and its peculiar interests. We are classed in three sections; and each of these sections had a peculiar grievance against Great Britain; and here is a treaty to adjust the grievances of one, and but one, of these three sections. To all intents and purposes, we have a separate treaty—a treaty between the Northern States and Great Britain; for it is a treaty in which the North is provided for, and the South and West left out. Virtually, it is a separate treaty with a part of the States; and this forms a grave objection to it in my eyes.
"Of the nine Northern States whose territories are coterminous with the dominions of her Britannic Majesty, six of them had questions of boundary or of territory, to adjust; and all of these are adjusted. The twelve Southern slaveholding States had a question in which they were all interested—that of the protection and liberation of fugitive or criminal slaves in Canada and the West Indies: this great question finds no place in the treaty, and is put off with phrases in an arranged correspondence. The whole great West takes a deep interest in the fate of the Columbia River, and demands the withdrawal of the British from it: this large subject finds no place in the treaty, nor even in the correspondence which took place between the negotiators. The South and West must go to London with their complaints: the North has been accommodated here. The mission of peace has found its benevolence circumscribed by the metes and boundaries of the sectional divisions in the Union. The peace-treaty is for one section: for the other two sections there is no peace. The non-slaveholding States, coterminous with the British dominions are pacified and satisfied: the slaveholding and the Western States, remote from the British dominions, are to suffer and complain as heretofore. As a friend to the Union—a friend to justice—and as an inhabitant of the section which is both slaveholding and Western, I object to the treaty which makes this injurious distinction amongst the States."
The merits of the different stipulations in the treaty were fully spoken to by several senators—among others, by Mr. Benton—some extracts from whose speech will constitute some ensuing chapters.