The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: 1638-1870Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
History
The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: 1638-1870
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
Slave trade -- United States -- History
While the ratification of this treaty was pending, the United States
minister to France, Lewis Cass, addressed an official note to Guizot at
the French foreign office, protesting against the institution of an
international Right of Search, and rather grandiloquently warning the
powers against the use of force to accomplish their ends.[59] This
extraordinary epistle, issued on the minister's own responsibility,
brought a reply denying that the creation of any "new principle of
international law, whereby the vessels even of those powers which have
not participated in the arrangement should be subjected to the right of
search," was ever intended, and affirming that no such extraordinary
interpretation could be deduced from the Convention. Moreover, M. Guizot
hoped that the United States, by agreeing to this treaty, would "aid, by
its most sincere endeavors, in the definitive abolition of the
trade."[60] Cass's theatrical protest was, consciously or unconsciously,
the manifesto of that growing class in the United States who wanted no
further measures taken for the suppression of the slave-trade; toward
that, as toward the institution of slavery, this party favored a policy
of strict _laissez-faire_.
73. ~Final Concerted Measures, 1842-1862.~ The Treaty of Washington, in
1842, made the first effective compromise in the matter and broke the
unpleasant dead-lock, by substituting joint cruising by English and
American squadrons for the proposed grant of a Right of Search. In
submitting this treaty, Tyler said: "The treaty which I now submit to
you proposes no alteration, mitigation, or modification of the rules of
the law of nations. It provides simply that each of the two Governments
shall maintain on the coast of Africa a sufficient squadron to enforce
separately and respectively the laws, rights, and obligations of the two
countries for the suppression of the slave trade."[61] This provision
was a part of the treaty to settle the boundary disputes with England.
In the Senate, Benton moved to strike out this article; but the attempt
was defeated by a vote of 37 to 12, and the treaty was ratified.[62]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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