During
Daniel
Webster’s first term as Secretary of State (1841-1843), the primary
foreign policy issues involved Great Britain. These included the northeast
borders of the United States, the involvement of American citizens in the
Canadian rebellion of 1837, and the suppression of the international slave
trade. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 1842, resolved these
frictions in Anglo-American relations. On April 4, 1842, British Foreign
Secretary Lord Ashburton arrived in Washington at the head of a special mission
to the United States. The first order of business was settling the border
between the United States and Canada.
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty
Several disputes had arisen from differing interpretations of the
1783 Treaty of Paris that ended
the Revolutionary War. When these differences led New Brunswick officials to
arrest some Americans in disputed areas, Maine called out the militia and seized
the territory in question, the so-called Aroostock War. The incident dramatized
the need for a border settlement. Webster and Ashburton agreed on a division of
disputed territory, giving 7,015 square miles to the United States and 5,012 to
Great Britain; agreed on the boundary line through the Great Lakes to the Lake
of the Woods; and agreed on provisions for open navigation in several bodies of
water. The issue of the Oregon border was left to a later date. After the
suppression of the Canadian Rebellion of 1837, several participants fled to the
United States where some American adventurers joined them. This band seized a
Canadian island in the Niagara River and engaged a U.S. ship, the
Caroline, to re-supply them. Canadian troops seized the
Caroline in a New York port, killing one crewman in
the process, and set the ship free to drift over Niagara Falls. Later,
Alexander McLeod crossed into New York, bragging that
he had participated in the seizure of the Caroline, and had killed the crewman.
McLeod was arrested. Great Britain maintained that McLeod had acted as a member
the British forces and that it would take responsibility for his actions. Should
he be executed, it would mean war.
The U.S. Government agreed that McLeod could not be tried for actions committed
under orders of the British Government, but it was legally incapable of
compelling the State of New York to release him. New York would not back down
and tried McLeod. He was acquitted, but hard feelings remained. Webster and
Ashburton agreed on the principles of international law involved and exchanged
conciliatory statements. The United States enacted a law allowing Federal judges
to discharge any person proved to have acted under instruction of a foreign
power. The United States and Canada later concluded an extradition treaty.
Secretary Webster would not agree to British inspection of U.S. ships suspected
of carrying slaves, but did agree that U.S. warships would be maintained off the
coast of Africa to search suspected slavers flying the American flag.
Unfortunately, the United States did not implement this agreement very
vigorously until the Civil War began. Webster and Ashburton also settled the
case of the
Creole, although it was not mentioned in the
treaty. The
Creole was sailing to New Orleans with 135
slaves, when a mutiny resulted in the death of one of the owners. The ship
sailed to the
Bahamas where the slaves were freed.
Great Britain eventually paid $110,330 to the United
States on the grounds that forcible seizure of a ship did not suspend the
operation of U.S. law. Also, outside of the treaty, Great Britain agreed to end
the impressment of American sailors.
Posts
