International Negotiations in the United States
Negotiations of 1823–1825, and the International Status of the Slave-Trade (1783–1863)
In the book “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1), W. E. B. Du Bois explained the following: England did not, however, lose hope of gaining some concession from the United States. Another House committee had, in 1822, reported that the only method of suppressing the trade was by granting a Right of Search.34 The House agreed, February 28, 1823, to request the President to enter into negotiations with the maritime powers of Europe to denounce the slave-trade as piracy; an amendment “that we agree to a qualified right of search” was, however, lost.35Meantime, the English minister was continually pressing the matter upon Adams, who proposed in turn to denounce the trade as piracy. Canning agreed to this, but only on condition that it be piracy under the Law of Nations and not merely by statute law. Such an agreement, he said, would involve a Right of Search for its enforcement; he proposed strictly to limit and define this right, to allow captured ships to be tried in their own courts, and not to commit the United States in any way to the question of the belligerent Right of Search. Adams finally sent a draft of a proposed treaty to England, and agreed to recognize the slave-traffic “as piracy under the law of nations, namely: that, although seizable by the officers and authorities of every nation, they should be triable only by the tribunals of the country of the 141slave trading vessel.”36
Rush presented this project to the government in January, 1824. England agreed to all the points insisted on by the United States; viz., that she herself should denounce the trade as piracy; that slavers should be tried in their own country; that the captor should be laid under the most effective responsibility for his conduct; and that vessels under convoy of a ship of war of their own country should be exempt from search. In addition, England demanded that citizens of either country captured under the flag of a third power should be sent home for trial, and that citizens of either country chartering vessels of a third country should come under these stipulations.37
This convention was laid before the Senate April 30, 1824, but was not acted upon until May 21, when it was so amended as to make it terminable at six months’ notice. The same day, President Monroe, “apprehending, from the delay in the decision, that some difficulty exists,” sent a special message to the Senate, giving at length the reasons for signing the treaty, and saying that “should this Convention be adopted, there is every reason to believe, that it will be the commencement of a system destined to accomplish the entire Abolition of the Slave Trade.” It was, however, a time of great political pot-boiling, and consequently an unfortunate occasion to ask senators to settle any great question. A systematic attack, led by Johnson of Louisiana, was made on all the vital provisions of the treaty: the waters of America were excepted from its application, and those of the West Indies barely escaped exception; the provision which, perhaps, aimed the deadliest blow at American slave-trade interests was likewise struck out; namely, the application of the Right of Search to citizens chartering the vessels of a third nation.38
The convention thus mutilated was not signed by England, who demanded as the least concession the application of the Right of Search to American waters. Meantime the United States had invited nearly all nations to denounce the t142rade as piracy; and the President, the Secretary of the Navy, and a House committee had urgently favored the granting of the Right of Search. The bad faith of Congress, however, in the matter of the Colombian treaty broke off for a time further negotiations with England.39