2. Criticism on the Policy of By JAMES MADISON A dissent from the principle that the president decides on the neutral status of the country. I OBSERVE that the newspapers continue to criticise the President's proclamation, and I find that some of the criticisms excite the attention of dispassionate and judicious individuals here. I have heard it remarked by such, with some surprise, that the President should have declared the United States to be neutral in the unqualified terms used, when we were so notoriously and unequivocally under eventual engagements to defend the American possessions of France. I have heard it remarked, also, that the impartiality enjoined on the people was as little reconcilable with their moral obligations as the unconditional neutrality proclaimed by the government is with the express articles of the Treaty. It has been asked, also, whether the authority of the Executive extended by any part of the Constitution to a declaration of the Disposition of the United States on the subject of war and peace? have been mortified that on these points I could offer no bona fide explanations that ought to be satisfactory. On the last point, I must own my surprise that such a prerogative should have been I exercised. Perhaps I may have not attended to some parts of the Constitution with sufficient care, or may have misapprehended its meaning. But, as I have always supposed and still conceive, a proclamation on the subject could not properly go beyond a declaration of the fact that the United States were at war or peace, and an injunction of a suitable conduct on the citizens. The right to decide the question whether the duty and interest of the United States require war or peace under any given circumstances, and whether their disposition be towards the one or the other, seems to be essentially and exclusively involved in the right vested in the Legislature of declaring war in time of peace, and in the President and Senate of making peace in time of war. Did no such view of the subject present itself in the discussions of the Cabinet? I am extremely afraid that the President may not be sufficiently aware of the snares that may be laid for his good intentions by men whose politics at bottom are very different from his own. James Madison, Letters and Other Writings (N. Y., 1884), I. 581-582. 3. Objection to an Interdict of By THOMAS JEFFERSON Discussion of an oft-repeated plan for coercing foreign nations which do not observe our neutral rights. THE idea seems to gain credit that the naval powers combining against France, will prohibit supplies, even of provisions, to that country. Should this be formally notified, I should suppose Congress would be called, because it is a justifiable cause of war, and as the Executive cannot decide the question of war on the affirmative side, neither ought it to do so on the negative side, by preventing the competent body from deliberating on the question. But I should hope that war would not be their choice. I think it will furnish us a happy opportunity of setting another precious example to the world, by showing that nations may be brought to do justice by appeals to their interests as well as by appeals to arms. I should hope that Congress, instead of a denunciation of war, would instantly exclude from our ports all the manufactures, produče, vessels and subjects of the nations committing this aggression, during the continuance of the aggression, and till full satisfaction made. for it. This would work well in many ways, safely in all, and introduce between nations another umpire than arms. It would relieve us, too, from the risks and the horrors of cutting throats. The death of the King of France has not produced as open condemnations from the monocrats as I expected. In one of your letters of March the 13th, you express your apprehension that some of the belligerent powers may stop our vessels going with grain to the ports of their enemies, and ask instructions which may meet the question in various points of view, intending, however, in the meantime, to contend for the amplest freedom of neutral nations. Your intention in this is perfectly proper, and coincides with the ideas of our own government in the particular case you put, as in general cases. Such a stoppage to an unblockaded port would be so unequivocal an infringement of the neutral rights, that we cannot conceive it will be attempted. With respect to our conduct as a neutral nation, it is marked out in our treaties with France and Holland, two of the belligerent powers; and as the duties of neutrality require an equal conduct to both parties, we should, on that ground, act on the same principles toward Great Britain. We presume that this would be satisfactory to her because of its equality, and because she too has sanctioned the same principles in her treaty with France. Even our seventeenth article with France, which might be disagreeable, as from its nature it is unequal, is adopted exactly by Great Britain in her fortieth article with the same power, and would have laid her, in a like case, under the same unequal obligations against us. We wish then, that it could be arranged with Great Britain, that our treaties with France and Holland, and that of France and Great Britain (which agree in what respects neutral nations), should form the line of conduct for us all, in the present war, in the cases for which they provide. Where they are silent, the general principles of the law of nations must give the rule, as the principles of that law have been liberalized in latter times by the refinement of manners and morals, and evidenced by the declarations, stipulations, and practice of every civilized nation. In our treaty with Prussia, indeed, we have gone ahead of other nations, in doing away restraints on the commerce of peaceful nations. . . . For in truth, in the present improved state of the arts, when every country has such ample means of procuring arms within and without itself, the regulations of contraband answer no other end than to draw other nations into the war. However, as other nations have not given sanction to this improvement, we claim it at present with Prussia alone. Thomas Jefferson, Works (N. Y., 1856), III. 519, 551-552 passim. |