Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
From Great Britain I have the satisfaction to inform you that I
continue to receive assurances of the most amicable disposition, which
have on my part on all proper occasions been promptly and sincerely
reciprocated. The attention of that Government has latterly been so
much engrossed by matters of a deeply interesting domestic character
that we could not press upon it the renewal of negotiations which had
been unfortunately broken off by the unexpected recall of our minister,
who had commenced them with some hopes of success. My great object was
the settlement of questions which, though now dormant, might here-after
be revived under circumstances that would endanger the good
understanding which it is the interest of both parties to preserve
inviolate, cemented as it is by a community of language, manners, and
social habits, and by the high obligations we owe to our British
ancestors for many of our most valuable institutions and for that
system of representative government which has enabled us to preserve
and improve them. The question of our North-East boundary still
remains unsettled. In my last annual message I explained to you the
situation in which I found that business on my coming into office, and
the measures I thought it my duty to pursue for asserting the rights of
the United States before the sovereign who had been chosen by my
predecessor to determine the question, and also the manner in which he
had disposed of it. A special message to the Senate in their executive
capacity afterwards brought before them to the question whether they
would advise a submission to the opinion of the sovereign arbiter. That
body having considered the award as not obligatory and advised me to
open a further negotiation, the proposition was immediately made to the
British Government, but the circumstances to which I have alluded have
hitherto prevented any answer being given to the overture. Early
attention, however, has been promised to the subject, and every effort
on my part will be made for a satisfactory settlement of this question,
interesting to the Union generally, and particularly so to one of its
members.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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