In the meantime, although it was asserted on behalf of Switzerland that the discriminations which it insisted upon were only “a precautionary measure ... a safeguard against the immense itinerant (Jewish) population of Alsace,” the two Cantons of Basle vigorously executed a decree of banishment against the Jews which was promulgated November 17, 1851. The law was suspended for a few months because of a note sent by Emperor Napoleon III. to the Council of the Federation, in which he said “That France will expel all Swiss citizens established in France in case the two Cantons should insist on carrying out this law against the Jews.” But while the negotiations were pending, the two Cantons carried out the law of expulsion, and no further steps were taken by France. About this time there was set on foot in this country a movement to procure religious toleration abroad for American citizens generally. It appears to have been aimed at the persecution of American Protestants in Catholic countries, and the movement to secure redress in this direction culminated in a resolution introduced in the House of Representatives, December 13, 1852, by John A. Wilcox, of Mississippi, which declared “that the representatives of this Government at foreign courts be instructed to urge such amendments of all existing treaties between the United States and the other powers of the world as will secure the same liberty of religious worship to all American citizens residing under foreign flags which is guaranteed to all citizens of every nation of the whole world who reside under the flag of our Union.” Objection was made to this resolution as an encroachment upon the powers of the Executive, and action was delayed for a long time. A resolution of a similar nature, which was reported to the Senate from the Committee on Foreign Relations, February 17, 1853, met the same fate. But all these discussions had the effect of the Senate refusing to ratify the treaty with Switzerland in the form in which it was sent to it. Mr. Mann thereupon proceeded to negotiate another treaty which, while striking from it the clause objected to by the President and the other notable men mentioned above, yet in another form inserted a clause, the effect of which was the same as that of the clause which had been stricken out. Article I of this new treaty read as follows: The citizens of the United States of America and the citizens of Switzerland shall be admitted and treated upon a footing of reciprocal equality in the two countries, where such admission and treatment shall not conflict with the constitutional or legal provisions, as well Federal as State and Cantonal of the contracting parties.