A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 3, part 1: Andrew Jackson (Second Term)
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 3, part 1: Andrew Jackson (Second Term)
Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
The King's Government is far from supposing that the measures
recommended in this message to the attention of Congress can be
adopted (_votées_) by that assembly; but even considering the document
in question as a mere manifestation of the opinion which the President
wishes to express with regard to the course taken in this affair, it is
impossible not to consider its publication as a fact of a most serious
nature.
The complaints brought forward by the President on account of the
pretended nonfulfillment of the engagements entered into by the King's
Government after the vote of the 1st of April are strange, not only from
the total inaccuracy of the allegations on which they are based, but
also because the explanations received by Mr. Livingston at Paris and
those which the undersigned has given directly to the Cabinet of
Washington seemed not to leave the slightest possibility of
misunderstanding on points so delicate.
It appeared, indeed, from these explanations that although the session
of the French Chambers, which was opened on the 31st of July last in
compliance with an express provision of the charter, was prorogued at
the end of a fortnight, before the bill relative to the American claims,
announced in the discourse from the throne, could be placed under
discussion, this prorogation arose (_tendit_) entirely from the absolute
impossibility of commencing at so premature a period the legislative
labors belonging to the year 1835.
It also appeared that the motives which had hindered the formal
presentation to the Chambers of the bill in question during the first
space of a fortnight originated chiefly in the desire more effectually
to secure the success of this important affair by choosing the most
opportune moment of offering it to the deliberations of the deputies
newly elected, who, perhaps, might have been unfavorably impressed by
this unusual haste in submitting it to them so long before the period
at which they could enter upon an examination of it.
The undersigned will add that it is, moreover, difficult to comprehend
what advantage could have resulted from such a measure, since it could
not evidently have produced the effect which the President declares that
he had in view, of enabling him to state at the opening of Congress that
these long-pending negotiations were definitively closed. The President
supposes, it is true, that the Chambers might have been called together
anew before the last month of 1834; but even though the session had been
opened some months earlier--which for several reasons would have been
impossible--the simplest calculation will serve to shew that in no case
could the decision of the Chambers have been taken, much less made known
at Washington, before the 1st of December.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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