Monday, April 18.
Treaty with Great Britain.
The House then resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union; when the resolution for carrying the British Treaty into effect being under consideration—
Mr. Giles said it was much to be regretted that all the information which could throw light upon the subject of discussion should not be before the committee. A sense of responsibility arising from the peculiarly delicate nature of the question had induced the House to take every step with more than a common degree of caution. Before they proceeded to deliberate upon the expediency or inexpediency of providing for carrying the Treaty into effect, they made a request to the President for the papers which attended the negotiation. This request has been refused; not because the call itself contained any thing unconstitutional; not because the contents of the papers called for were of such a nature as to render the disclosure thereof at this time improper. Neither of these causes being intimated in the Message, but because principles were advocated by individual gentlemen in the course of the argument inducing the call which the President thought not warranted by the constitution. Mr. G. said, he did not propose to animadvert upon the conduct of the Executive in departing from the resolution itself, and in noticing the arguments of individual members, nor upon any other part of the proceedings of the Executive relative to the call of the House and his refusal. He only meant to remark, that being perfectly convinced of the propriety of the call itself, of the utility of the information embraced by it, and not being satisfied by the arguments of the President of the propriety of withholding the papers called for, he should have been willing to have suspended all further proceeding respecting the provision for the Treaty, until the papers should be laid before the House. He would have firmly placed himself on that ground, and in that position hazarded his responsibility. The extreme sensibility excited on the public mind by the agitation of the Treaty question, he had supposed, would have furnished an irresistible argument in favor of complying with the request of the House, provided no inconvenience would have attended the disclosure; and in his opinion, under all the circumstances of the case, the House would have been completely justified in suspending all further proceeding upon the question of providing for the Treaty, until they received that information which they deemed necessary to guide their deliberations. But as the House had thought proper to take a different course, and had proceeded to the consideration of the question, with such lights as they possessed, he would explain the motives which would probably finally influence his vote.
Mr. G. said he should discuss the subject in two points of view. He would first examine the contents of the Treaty itself, and then the probable consequences of refusing or of giving it efficacy.
In examining the contents of the instrument itself, he proposed to go through it article by article, unless the task prescribed to himself should exceed the bounds usually allowed to members for the delivery of their sentiments. He should do this, because he wished to treat the subject with the utmost candor, and to avoid any possible imputation of intending to exhibit the bad and avoid the good parts of the Treaty, if any such there were. He meant, however, to state merely the purport of many of the articles, without any animadversion, and to dwell only upon such as appeared to him the most material.
The first object of the negotiation respected the inexecution of the Treaty of Peace.
On the part of Great Britain, two articles had been unexecuted: The restoration of certain property in possession of the British at the close of the war, and the surrender of the Western posts. On the part of the United States, one article was suggested to remain unfulfilled; it respected the promise that no legal impediment should be thrown in the way to the recovery of debts due to British subjects.
The claim of compensation for the property carried away in contravention of the Treaty of Peace is wholly abandoned, and the value of the surrender of the posts very much lessened by the annexation of conditions which made no part of the stipulations of surrender in the Treaty of Peace. The United States are more than bound to fulfil the article heretofore unfulfilled by them; for instead of continuing the courts open for the recovery of debts in the usual way, as was the promise in the Treaty of Peace, they are made to assume the payment of all debts, interests, and damages in cases of insolvencies, and a mode of adjustment is proposed for ascertaining the amount which furnishes the greatest latitude for frauds against the United States which could be devised. This will appear in the future examination of the subject. Hence it is obvious that the stipulations of the Treaty abandoned the very principle of adjustment assumed by a gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Swift.)
Mr. G. would first premise, that if the article did not intend the restoration of property mentioned in it, the insertion of it in the Treaty was not only unnecessary, but mischievous, as it would necessarily produce embarrassment to the parties to the instrument.