Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
I regret to say that the pledges made through the minister of France
have not been redeemed. The new Chambers met on July 31st, 1834, and
although the subject of fulfilling treaties was alluded to in the
speech from the throne, no attempt was made by the King or his cabinet
to procure an appropriation to carry it into execution. The reasons
given for this omission, although they might be considered sufficient
in an ordinary case, are not consistent with the expectations founded
upon the assurances given here, for there is no constitutional obstacle
to entering into legislative business at the first meeting of the
Chambers. This point, however, might have been over-looked had not the
Chambers, instead of being called to meet at so early a day that the
result of their deliberations might be communicated to me before the
meeting of Congress, been prorogued to December 29th, 1834--a period so
late that their decision can scarcely be made known to the present
Congress prior to its dissolution. To avoid this delay our minister in
Paris, in virtue of the assurance given by the French minister in the
United States, strongly urged the convocation of the Chambers at an
earlier day, but without success. It is proper to remark, however, that
this refusal has been accompanied with the most positive assurances on
the part of the executive government of France of their intention to
press the appropriation at the ensuing session of the Chambers.
The executive branch of this Government has, as matters stand,
exhausted all the authority upon the subject with which it is invested
and which it had any reason to believe could be beneficially employed.
The idea of acquiescing in the refusal to execute the treaty will not,
I am confident, be for a moment entertained by any branch of this
Government, and further negotiation upon the subject is equally out of
the question.
If it shall be the pleasure of Congress to await the further action of
the French Chambers, no further consideration of the subject will at
this session probably be required at your hands. But if from the
original delay in asking for an appropriation, from the refusal of the
Chambers to grant it when asked, from the omission to bring the subject
before the Chambers at their last session, from the fact that,
including that session, there have been five different occasions when
the appropriation might have been made, and from the delay in convoking
the Chambers until some weeks after the meeting of Congress, when it
was well known that a communication of the whole subject to Congress at
the last session was prevented by assurances that it should be disposed
of before its present meeting, you should feel yourselves constrained
to doubt whether it be the intention of the French Government, in all
its branches, to carry the treaty into effect, and think that such
measures as the occasion may be deemed to call for should be now
adopted, the important question arises what those measures shall be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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