* * held at Berlin last winter to discuss methods whereby the Congo Basin might be kept open to the world's trade. Delegates attended on behalf of the United States on the understanding that their part should be merely deliberative, without imparting to the results any binding character so far as the United States were concerned. Notwithstanding the reservation under which the delegates of the United States attended, their signatures were attached to the general act in the same manner as those of the plenipotentiaries of other Governments, thus making the United States appear, without reserve or qualification, as signatories to a joint international engagement imposing on the signers the conservation of the territorial integrity of distant regions where we have no established interests or control. "This Government does not, however, regard its reservation of liberty of action in the premises as at all impaired; and holding that an engagement to share in the obligation of enforcing neutrality in the remote valley of the Congo would be an alliance whose responsibilities we are not in a position to assume, I abstain from asking the sanction of the Senate to that general act.” Annual message, Dec. 8, 1885. See, generally, as to the Berlin conference, the volume entitled "Affairs of the Corea. January 27, 1868, Mr. George F. Seward, consul-general at Shanghai, was empowered to negotiate a commercial and claims. convention with the King of Chosen, or Corea." No treaty was made with the country, however, till March 22, 1882, when Commodore Shufeldt signed on the part of the United States the treaty of amity and commerce of that date." III. RECOGNITION OF NEW GOVERNMENTS. 1. FRANCE. $ 43. August 16, 1792, Gouverneur Morris, then American minister at Paris, wrote to his Government that another revoluRevolution of 1792. tion had been effected in that capital, and that "it was bloody." He referred in this statement to the deposition of the King on the 10th of the month and the events that attended it. He asked a Sen. Doc. 40, 54 Cong. 2 sess. 8. "Your action in refusing to recognize that Corean independence dates from the 6th of June, 1895, is approved. The position assumed by this Government toward Corea since contracting a treaty with it in 1882 has in no wise been affected by recent events. Corea's treaty independence since then has been for us an established fact." (Mr. Adee, Acting Sec. of State, to Mr. Sill, minister to Corea, July 9, 1895, For. Rel. 1895, II, 971.) for instructions as to the conduct he should pursue "in the circumstances about to arise." The present executive was, he said, just born, and might be stifled in the cradle; and he found himself "in a state of contingent responsibility of the most delicate kind." a Mr. Jefferson, as Secretary of State, November 7, 1792, replied: "It accords with our principles to acknowledge any Government to be rightful which is formed by the will of the nation, substantially declared. The late Government was of this kind, and was accordingly acknowledged by all the branches of ours; so any alteration of it which shall be made by the will of the nation, substantially declared, will doubtless be acknowledged in like manner. With such a Government every kind of business may be done. But there are some matters which I conceive might be transacted with a Government de facto, such, for instance, as the reforming the unfriendly restrictions on our commerce and navigation, such as you will readily distinguish as they occur." Writing to Morris again, March 12, 1793, in an instruction which has often been cited as a fundamental authority, Mr. Jefferson said: Jefferson to Morris, "I am sensible that your situation must have been difficult during the transition from the late form of government to the reestablishment of some other legitimate authority, and that you may have been at a loss to determine with whom business might be done. Nevertheless when principles are well understood their application is less embarrassing. We surely can not deny to any nation that right whereon our own Government is founded-that every one may govern itself according to whatever form it pleases, and change these forms at its own will; and that it may transact its business with foreign nations through whatever organ it thinks proper, whether king, convention, assembly, committee, president, or anything else it may choose. The will of the nation is the only thing essential to be regarded. On the dissolution of the late constitution in France, by removing so integral a part of it as the King, the National Assembly, to whom a part only of the public authority had been delegated, appear to have considered themselves as incompetent to transact the affairs of the nation legitimately. They invited their fellow citizens therefore to appoint a national convention. In conformity with this their idea of the defective state of the national authority, you were desired from hence to suspend further payments of our debt to France till new orders, with an assurance however to the acting power that the suspension should not be continued a moment longer than should be necessary for us to see the reestablishment of some person or body of persons authorized a Am. St. Pap. For. Rel., I. 333, 334. Jefferson's Works, ed. by Washington, III. 489. to receive payment and give us a good acquittal (if you should find it necessary to give any assurance or explanation at all). In the mean time we went on paying up the four millions of livres which had been destined by the last constituted authorities to the relief of St. Domingo. Before this was completed we received information that a national assembly had met, with full powers to transact the affairs of the nation, and soon after the minister of France here presented an application for three millions of livres to be laid out in provisions to be sent to France. Urged by the strongest attachments to that country, and thinking it even providential that monies lent to us in distress could be repaid under like circumstances, we had no hesitation to comply with the application, and arrangements are accordingly taken for furnishing this sum at epochs accommodated to the demand and our means of paying it." a nant. February 17, 1793, M. Ternant, the French minister at Philadelphia, notified the United States, in the name of the ProviResponse to M. Ter- sional Executive Council, that the French nation had constituted itself into a Republic. This notification was acknowledged by Mr. Jefferson, in the name of the Président, on the 23d of the same month. He stated that the President had received "with great satisfaction this attention of the Executive Council," in making known the resolution entered into by the National Convention, even before "a definitive regulation of their new establishment could take place;" that the Government and citizens of the United States viewed with the most sincere pleasure every advance of the French nation "towards its happiness, an object essentially connected with its liberty;" that the "genuine and general effusions of joy" that had overspread the United States on seeing the liberties of France "rise superior to foreign invasion and domestic trouble" had proved that the "sympathies" of the American people were "great and sincere," and that it was hoped that these mutual dispositions might be improved by placing the commercial intercourse between the two countries on principles "as friendly to natural right and freedom" as were those of their Governments." April 18, 1793, Washington submitted to the various members of his Cabinet a series of questions touching the relaReception of Genet. tions between the United States and France. Among these were the questions whether a minister from the Republic of France should be received; and, if so, whether he should be received absolutely or with qualifications. It was unanimously agreed that he should be received; but Hamilton, supported by Knox, the Secretary a Writings of Thomas Jefferson, by Ford, VI. 199. For Washington's comments on this letter, see Ford's Writings of Washington, XII. 269. Mr. Jefferson's letter is engrossed in Instructions to U. States Ministers, I. 235. MS. Dom. Let. V. 64. of War, thought that his reception should be qualified by a previous declaration to the effect that the United States reserved the question whether the treaties, by which the relations between the two countries were formed, were not to be deemed temporarily and provisionally suspended. Jefferson, however, supported by Randolph, the Attor ney-General, maintained that he should be received without reservation; and when, in the following May, M. Genet, the minister of the French Republic, arrived in Philadelphia, the President immediately gave him an unqualified reception." "The recognition of Napoleon as Emperor of the French was effected by new credentials to Mr. Armstrong, the American minister at Paris. In order that the action of the The Empire and the Monarchy. United States might be prompt and proper a blank form of credence signed by the President was sent to Mr. Armstrong, to fill out in the form and style required by the new Government, and to present when satisfied that the Empire was in possession and control of the governmental power and the territory of the nation-the usual conditions precedent in all cases of recognition by the United States Government. (See MSS., Instructions to France, U. S. Dept. of State, vol. 6, p. 253, Aug. 21, 1804.) "A similar course was followed upon the abdication of Napoleon and the restoration of the Monarchy (Louis XVIII.), 1814. A blank form of credence was sent to Mr. Crawford, to be properly filled out at Paris and presented as required. (See Ibid., vol. 7, p. 371, June 27, 1814.)" Report of Mr. Allen, Chief of Bureau of Rolls and Library, Jan. 1, 1897, S. Ex. * * * "The royal family left Paris on the 19th instant, at midnight, and took the Revolution of 1830- July 26, 1830, in the midst of public expectation of the meeting of the legislative chambers, which had been summoned to meet on the 3rd of August, the King of France, after holding a royal council, promulgated certain ordinances which announced the dissolution of the new Chamber of Deputies, made radical changes in the system of elections, a Writings of Washington, Sparks' ed., X. 553; Jefferson's Works, Washington's ed., IX. 140; Hamilton's Works, Lodge's ed., IV. 74-79; Jefferson's Works, Ford's ed., VI. 219, 220; Jefferson's Works, Washington's ed., III. 563. 66 suspended the liberty of the press, and suppressed all the journals of the opposition. On the following day large assemblages of the people took place in the streets, and several collisions occurred with the military, who attempted to disperse them. On the 28th of July Paris was declared by the King to be in a state of siege, but the popular forces increased and the contest assumed a more serious and sanguinary character. On Thursday, the 29th, the people took the Louvre and the Tuileries, to which the military had retired, and the remnant of the troops, many of whom had joined the people, retired beyond the city walls. A civil government was immediately organized, with the general assent of the people, by the deputies who happened to be in the city. Thus came about what Mr. Rives, then minister of the United States at Paris, describes as one of the most wonderful revolutions which have ever occurred in the history of the world." "At this moment," said Mr. Rives, "the tricolored flag waves over the palace of the Tuileries, and the city of Paris, after passing through three days of commotion and bloodshed, is now as tranquil, under its provisional government, as I have ever seen it under the royal authority. The King, who, with all his ministers, remained at St. Cloud's during the troubles here, has, it is said, abandoned St. Cloud and taken the route to the Netherlands." a Referring to Louis Philippe, who had been installed as King, and whose Government was duly recognized, President Jackson, in his annual message of December 6, 1830, declared that the American people, while assured of "the high character of the present King of the French," a character which, if sustained to the end, would "secure to him the proud appellation of the Patriot King," yet rejoiced "not in his success, but in that of the great principle which has borne him to the throne the paramount authority of the public will.” February 24, 1848, Mr. Rush, United States minister at Paris, The Republic, 1848. wrote that the attempt of the Government to enforce with troops an interdict forbidding a "reform banquet," which was to have been held by the opposition members of the Chamber of Deputies and others, had produced a state of things "little short of revolutionary." Even as he wrote cavalry were hastily passing through the streets within his hearing, and rumors were flying that the King had abdicated and that the Count of Paris was proclaimed. Scarcely had he folded his dispatch, when the revolution was accomplished and the monarchy overthrown. The King abdicated and fled with the royal family, and all attempts to establish a regency, with the Count of Paris as successor to the throne, a Mr. Rives, minister to France, to Mr.Van Buren, Sec. of State, July 30, 1830, H. Ex. Doc. 147, 22 Cong. 2 sess. 138. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, II: 501. CS. Ex. Doc. 53, 30 Cong. 1 sess. 2. |