State of the Union Addresses (1790-2008)United States. Presidents
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State of the Union Addresses (1790-2008)
United States. Presidents
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The trade with the British colonies in the West Indies has not as yet
been arranged, by treaty or otherwise, to our satisfaction. An approach
to that result has been made by legislative acts, whereby many serious
impediments which had been raised by the parties in defense of their
respective claims were removed. An earnest desire exists, and has been
manifested on the part of this Government, to place the commerce with
the colonies, likewise, on a footing of reciprocal advantage, and it is
hoped that the British Government, seeing the justice of the proposal
and its importance to the colonies, will ere long accede to it.
The commissioners who were appointed for the adjustment of the boundary
between the territories of the United States and those of Great Britain,
specified in the 5th article of the treaty of Ghent, having disagreed in
their decision, and both Governments having agreed to establish that
boundary by amicable negotiation between them, it is hoped that it may
be satisfactorily adjusted in that mode. The boundary specified by the
6th article has been established by the decision of the commissioners.
From the progress made in that provided for by the 7th, according to a
report recently received, there is good cause to presume that it will be
settled in the course of the ensuing year.
It is a cause of serious regret that no arrangement has yet been finally
concluded between the two Governments to secure by joint cooperation the
suppression of the slave trade. It was the object of the British
Government in the early stages of the negotiation to adopt a plan for
the suppression which should include the concession of the mutual right
of search by the ships of war of each party of the vessels of the other
for suspected offenders. This was objected to by this Government on the
principle that as the right of search was a right of war of a
belligerent toward a neutral power it might have an ill effect to extend
it by treaty, to an offense which had been made comparatively mild, to a
time of peace.
Anxious, however, for the suppression of this trade, it was thought
advisable, in compliance with a resolution of the House of
Representatives, founded on an act of Congress, to propose to the
British Government an expedient which should be free from that objection
and more effectual for the object, by making it piratical. In that mode
the enormity of the crime would place the offenders out of the
protection of their Government, and involve no question of search or
other question between the parties touching their respective rights. It
was believed, also, that it would completely suppress the trade in the
vessels of both parties, and by their respective citizens and subjects
in those of other powers, with whom it was hoped that the odium which
would thereby be attached to it would produce a corresponding
arrangement, and by means thereof its entire extirpation forever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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