Hence the conclusion that the United States did not sacrifice private rights or property to get rid of public obligations, but only refused to reassume public obligations for the purpose of obtaining the recognition of the claims of American citizens on the part of France.
All those claims which the French Government was willing to admit were carefully provided for elsewhere in the convention, and the declaration of the First Consul, which was appended in his additional note, had no other application than to the claims which had been mutually made by the Governments, but on which they had never approximated to an adjustment. In confirmation of the fact that our Government did not intend to cease from the prosecution of the just claims of our citizens against France, reference is here made to the annual message of President Jefferson of December 8, 1801, which opens with expressions of his gratification at the restoration of peace among sister nations; and, after speaking of the assurances received from all nations with whom we had principal relations and of the confidence thus inspired that our peace with them would not have been disturbed if they had continued at war with each other, he proceeds to say:
But a cessation of irregularities which had affected the commerce of neutral nations, and of the irritations and injuries produced by them, can not but add to this confidence, and strengthens at the same time the hope that wrongs committed on unoffending friends under a pressure of circumstances will now be reviewed with candor, and will be considered as founding just claims of retribution for the past and new assurance for the future.
The zeal and diligence with which the claims of our citizens against France were prosecuted appear in the diplomatic correspondence of the three years next succeeding the convention of 1800, and the effect of these efforts is made manifest in the convention of 1803, in which provision was made for payment of a class of cases the consideration of which France had at all previous periods refused to entertain, and which are of that very class which it has been often assumed were released by striking out the second article of the convention of 1800. This is shown by reference to the preamble and to the fourth and fifth articles of the convention of 1803, by which were admitted among the debts due by France to citizens of the United States the amounts chargeable for "prizes made at sea in which the appeal has been properly lodged within the time mentioned in the said convention of the 30th of September, 1800;" and this class was further defined to be only "captures of which the council of prizes shall have ordered restitution, it being well understood that the claimant can not have recourse to the United States otherwise than he might have had to the French Republic, and only in case of the insufficiency of the captors."
If, as was affirmed on all hands, the convention of 1803 was intended to close all questions between the Governments of France and the United States, and 20,000,000 francs were set apart as a sum which might exceed, but could not fall short of, the debts due by France to the citizens of the United States, how are we to reconcile the claim now presented with the estimates made by those who were of the time and immediately connected with the events, and whose intelligence and integrity have in no small degree contributed to the character and prosperity of the country in which we live? Is it rational to assume that the claimants who now present themselves for indemnity by the United States represent debts which would have been admitted and paid by France but for the intervention of the United States? And is it possible to escape from the effect of the voluminous evidence tending to establish the fact that France resisted all these claims; that it was only after long and skillful negotiation that the agents of the United States obtained the recognition of such of the claims as were provided for in the conventions of 1800 and 1803? And is it not conclusive against any pretensions of possible success on the part of the claimants, if left unaided to make their applications to France, that the only debts due to American citizens which have been paid by France are those which were assumed by the United States as part of the consideration in the purchase of Louisiana?
There is little which is creditable either to the judgment or patriotism of those of our fellow-citizens who at this day arraign the justice, the fidelity, or love of country of the men who founded the Republic in representing them as having bartered away the property of individuals to escape from public obligations, and then to have withheld from them just compensation. It has been gratifying to me in tracing the history of these claims to find that ample evidence exists to refute an accusation which would impeach the purity, the justice, and the magnanimity of the illustrious men who guided and controlled the early destinies of the Republic.
I pass from this review of the history of the subject, and, omitting many substantial objections to these claims, proceed to examine somewhat more closely the only grounds upon which they can by possibility be maintained.
Before entering on this it may be proper to state distinctly certain propositions which it is admitted on all hands are essential to prove the obligations of the Government.
First. That at the date of the treaty of September 30, 1800, these claims were valid and subsisting as against France.
Second. That they were released or extinguished by the United States in that treaty and by the manner of its ratification.