The constructive outcome of the mission of Poinsett was a boundary treaty with Mexico not ratified, however, until later, and also a commercial treaty, which the Mexicans would not accept, because one of its clauses stipulated "that all persons bound to labor taking refuge in Mexico should be given up to their legal claimants." Mexico indeed displayed a proper pride in rejecting what was nothing more nor less than a fugitive slave bill. Poinsett himself returned to the United States in 1829, where he actively opposed the movement for nullification in his native South Carolina. Thus terminated a mission which is of interest as already foreshadowing the delicacy which has ever since attended on our Mexican relations. The growing complexity of these relations under Jackson, Van Buren, and Tyler, culminating under Polk in war, traces back to certain tendencies already manifested under Adams.""

The diplomacy of Adams was transitional. It lacked the vigor which he himself manifested as Secretary of State. It lacked the variety and impulsiveness which Jackson soon afterward imposed. It is an irony, moreover, that the President was thwarted in his Latin-American relations, the field which by his identification with the Monroe Doctrine he had made peculiarly his own. Still the debate of 1826 identifies John Quincy Adams more closely than before with the Latin-American policies of the United States.

27 Rippy, J. Fred, The United States and Mexico (New York, 1926), 5-7.

Τ'

CHAPTER XI

JACKSON AND VAN BUREN

UNEXPECTED Moderation

HE administration of Andrew Jackson marked a revolution in the internal government of the coun

try. Power passed from the classes to the masses, from the commercial and manufacturing East to the agricultural West, from the respectable “dynasties" of Virginia and Massachusetts, to the rough exponents of frontier democracy. But this revolution for the most part terminated at the water's edge. In foreign relations existing policies were maintained, and their underlying spirit was urbane.

1

The inaugural address, however, was done in Jackson's earlier manner and accorded rather with what the world expected than with what really followed. The President announced a purpose "to ask nothing that is not clearly right and to submit to nothing that is wrong.": Such sentiments from a President with Jackson's past created quite a flurry among the foreign ministers. In contemplating the previous record of the General, his reckless executions of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, his violence in Florida, they anticipated dealing with a swashbuckler. Instead they found a gentleman of the old school, sensitive to honor but courteous to all.

For his Secretary of State the President chose Martin Van Buren, who, as Jackson frequently assured him, received the mandate to the office quite as much from the party as from its head, for Jackson's staunchest friends mistrusted his impetuosity, and looked to his suave and tactful henchman for the necessary make-weight. Such was Van Buren's own interpretation of his office. An interesting passage in

1 Richardson, James D., Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. II, pp. 436-438.

his autobiography explains his reasons for retaining office in face of what at the very outset seemed an invitation to relinquish it. Van Buren felt himself entitled to a voice in the patronage for New York, and when Jackson offered the greatest plum of all, the collectorship of the port, to Samuel Swartwout against the Secretary's most earnest protests, the latter contemplated resignation. But reflecting on the good intentions of the General, his right to appoint whomever he chose, and his need of just the abilities Van Buren possessed, the Secretary concluded to ignore the slight. That Van Buren possessed high qualities of tact appears in his forbearing to declare "I told you so" when Swartwout's peculations came afterwards to light.2

3

The Secretary occupied himself at once in developing an atmosphere of conciliation favorable to the conduct of negotiations. He made a point of calling on Baron Huygens, the minister from Holland, and Sir Charles R. Vaughan, who represented Great Britain, to assure them of the pacific disposition of the new administration. He also arranged a meeting of the entire diplomatic corps at which Jackson enlarged upon certain friendly allusions in his message and expressed his good will toward all the nations with which we had relations. As the Secretary reports the occasion, "The simple yet kindly old-school manners of the host with the amicable assurances of his address and the unexceptionable quality of his banquet made the most favorable impressions upon the guests which they took no pains to conceal, and thus the anxieties of these gentlemen were completely relieved and their prejudices materially softened by the most approved diplomatic machinery."

This disposition to conciliate was manifested in Van Buren's treatment of the Ex-President. Jackson and John Quincy Adams could not be reconciled. But Van Buren called on Adams in due form, and was amiably received. From his long experience, Adams assured his guest that he

2 Fitzpatrick, John C. (Ed.) "Autobiography of Martin Van Buren," Am. Hist. Assn. Ann. Rept., 1918, vol. II, pp. 262-269.

8 Ibid., 261.

4 Ibid. 262.

need never count on secrecy in the State Department. Foreign nations invariably obtained whatever information they desired. Van Buren took the hint and kept in his own room the documents bearing on the first negotiation of the new administration-a commercial treaty with the Sublime Porte. The progress and consummation of this treaty he politely communicated to Adams, whose interest in negotiations of this sort was evident in his own administration, during which more treaties of commerce were concluded than in all preceding years of the Republic."

THE WEST INDIES

Among the issues confronting Jacksonian diplomacy at its outset, the negotiations with Great Britain concerning the West Indies detain us first by reason of their importance and success, and also of the attacks to which they exposed the Secretary of State. Ever since the Jay Treaty, and for that matter long before, the West Indies were an important object of diplomacy. Their commerce was restricted according to the approved methods of the mercantilists, and artificial barriers hindered the natural trade connections between America and her economic satellite. Under Adams, notwithstanding his commercial interest, conditions did not improve.

In 1825, Great Britain proclaimed terms under which all foreigners might trade with the West Indies, subject to the grant by them of equivalent concessions to Great Britain. These terms the United States, because of reluctance to reduce its high protective tariff, did not accept. A supplementary Order in Council extended time for our acceptance, beyond which we should otherwise be excluded wholly. Again the United States did not accept, and the forfeit was declared. Feeling the inconvenience of this, the President sent Albert Gallatin on a special mission, and promised to accept the British terms. It was now the turn of Britain to refuse. America alone of nations might not trade in the West Indies. Again the emissary presented the case. A second time he was refused. Whereupon Congress by an

5. Ibid. 269-270.

act of 1827 retaliated on British trade. This interdict, and the depressing effect of the tariff of 1828, disposed Great Britain to accommodation. At the accession of Jackson, the opening was ripe for a diplomatic settlement."

McLane, the new minister, renewed the overtures of Gallatin with the important exception that under the instructions of Van Buren he agreed to accept as a privilege what previously we claimed as a right. Friendly references in the inaugural address furthered the cause. At the same time, in the event of failure, Congress was urged to revive nonintercourse with Canada. But in the event of reciprocal concessions, Congress enacted in May, 1830, that our ports should open to West Indian commerce. Between conciliation and coercion, the will of the United States prevailed, and in October, 1830, Jackson was able to announce most favorable terms. American vessels in the West Indian trade henceforth enjoyed equal rights with British in traffic to their own ports or to continental Europe, save that the immediate trade from the islands to Great Britain was still confined to British ships."

The concession profited our merchants and gratified our self-esteem. In one respect, however, it sowed the seed of future trouble. For Van Buren needlessly involved the issue by reference to domestic politics. He declared that the election of 1828 was a protest against Adams and all his policies, West Indian included. "Their views," he observed in his instructions to McLane, "upon that point have been submitted to the people of the United States; and the counsels by which your conduct is now directed are the result of the judgment expressed by the only earthly tribunal to which the late administration was answerable for its acts." This attitude was new and far from dignified in a Secretary of State. Soon afterward it cost Van Buren his ratification as minister to England.

"8

• Turner, Frederick Jackson, Rise of the New West, 294-298 and footnotes.

7 MacDonald, William, Jacksonian Democracy (New York and London, 1906), 201-204.

8 Senate Documents, 21 Cong., 2 Session, No. 20, pp. 1-64.