strued the presidential office in its immediate bearings, and how he addressed himself to its immediate and personal duties. We turn now to the public questions and measures of his first administration.

CHAPTER VIII

PUBLIC QUESTIONS OF JACKSON'S FIRST ADMINIS

TRATION

I. The trade between the United States and the British West Indies had been a source of irritation and dissatisfaction ever since the United States had been independent. After independence the United States desired to obtain a commercial treaty which would enable them to trade with the British West Indies as they always had done. This the English resented as an effort to retain the benefits of being in the empire after leaving it. The Americans therefore employed in that trade the illicit methods which they had developed into a high art in trade with the non-British West Indies before the Revolution. After the second war the question was reopened. The English had hardly yet lost faith in the Navigation System, and the Americans had adopted it as far as it would apply to a State with no colonies beyond the sea. As the diplomatic efforts for a treaty failed, resort was had by the United States to retaliatory measures. These had their inevitable effect. The two countries, respectively, advanced step by step into a dead-lock, from which the only issue was that

one side or the other must recede. This point was reached in 1827. The opposition in the United States made capital out of the entanglement. In the mean time the illicit trade went merrily on, and the smuggler rectified, in his way, the folly of Thus the matter stood when Jackson was elected. Gallatin said that "if he had hinted to the Canning ministry that their course concerning the colonial trade would promote the election of Jackson, they would have given up the point."

statesmen.

"1

One of his first acts was to send McLane to England to reopen negotiations. This he was to do by pointing to the result of the election as a rebuke to the former administration, which had brought about the dead-lock. Pending the negotiations an act of Congress was passed, May 29, 1830, authorizing the President to declare the retaliatory acts of 1818, 1820, and 1823 repealed, whenever American ships should be allowed in the West Indies on the same terms as British ships arriving there from the United States, and when they should be allowed to carry goods from the colonies to any non-British ports to which British ships might go. This act was sent to England. Lord Aberdeen said that it was all that England had ever demanded.2 The colonial duties were increased, a differential duty in favor of the North American colonies was laid, and the trade was opened. The President issued his proclamation October 5, 1830. The administration boasted of this diplomatic achievement. The truth 1 8 Adams, 326. 2 39 Niles, 390 et seq.

was that the United States set out to force England to let American goods come into the West Indies on the same footing as British North American goods. England was coerced by the acts of 1818 and 1820. Canning said, in 1826, that England had yielded to coercion, but that she escaped from it as soon as she could. By way of escape she opened her trade to all the world. The countervailing system of the United States, then, no longer exercised any coercion, and the United States, to get the trade reopened, abandoned the demands with which it had started on the experiment of countervailing. This last step was what the Jackson administration had accomplished. Niles and the other protectionists scoffed at the new arrangement. They said that the illicit trade was better than the new arrangement.1 A proof that this was true is found in the fact that the illicit trade went on. The laws forced products of the United States to reach the islands through Canada and Nova Scotia, and this offered just so much premium to illicit trade.

II. The claims of the United States for spoliations against France and against all those states of Europe which had been drawn by Napoleon into his continental system, had been a subject of fruitless negotiation ever since 1815,2 Jackson

1 39 Niles, 298; 42 Niles, 148. N. Y. Advertiser in 2 Pol. Reg. 444.

2 For succinct statements of the origin and history of these claims, see the report of a minority of the committee of the House, 48 Niles, 6, and the article 47 Niles, 455.

took up these claims with new energy and spirit. He sent W. C. Rives to France in 1829, under instructions which covered the whole history of the claims, to try to get a settlement. In his message of 1829, while these negotiations were pending, Jackson referred to the claims as likely to “furnish a subject of unpleasant discussion and possible collision." This reference was not of a kind to help the negotiations. In 1830 a revolution put Louis Philippe on the throne under a Constitution. New hopes of a settlement of the claims were raised by this turn in affairs. A treaty was finally signed at Paris, July 4, 1831, by which France agreed to pay twenty-five million francs, and the United States agreed to pay one and a half million francs, in final settlement of all outstanding claims of citizens of one country against the government of the other country. The treaty was ratified February 2, 1832. The first instalment became due February 2, 1833. Claims against the other states of the old continental league of Napoleon's time were likewise liquidated, and payment was secured during Jackson's administration. The administration derived great credit from these settlements. There was a great deal more in the matter than the money. European nations, which had similar claims against France, had secured payment soon after the peace, but the claims of the United States had been neglected. Payment now meant a concession of consideration and respect to the United States, and