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Jay Treaty

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The Jay Treaty, also known as the Treaty of London of 1794,[1] between the United States and Great Britain averted war, solved many issues left over from the American Revolution, and opened ten years of largely peaceful trade in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars. It was highly contested by Jeffersonians but passed Congress and became a central issue in the formation of the First Party System. The treaty was signed in November 1794, but was not proclaimed in effect until February 29, 1796.

The terms were designed primarily by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton with strong support from President George Washington and chief negotiator John Jay. The treaty averted war and increased trade, which pleased both sides. Jay obtained the primary American requirements: British withdrawal from the posts that they occupied in the Northwest Territory of the United States, which they had promised to abandon in 1783. Wartime debts and the US-Canada boundary were sent to arbitration — one of the first major uses of arbitration in diplomatic history. The British also granted some rights to trade with British possessions in India and the Caribbean in exchange for American limits on the export of cotton. The treaty averted possible war but immediately became one of the central issues in domestic American politics, with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison leading the opposition. They feared that closer economic ties with Britain would strengthen the Federalists. The treaty encouraged trade between the two nations for a decade, but it broke down after 1803. Efforts to agree on a replacement treaty failed in 1807, as tensions escalated to the War of 1812.[2]

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Treaty terms

Both sides achieved many objectives. The British agreed to vacate the six western forts by June 1796 (which was done), and to compensate American ship owners (the British paid $10,345,200 by 1802).[3] In return, the United States gave most favored nation trading status to Britain, and acquiesced in British anti-French maritime policies. The United States guaranteed the payment of private prewar debts owed by Americans to British merchants that could not be collected in U.S. courts (the U.S. paid £600,000 in 1802). Two joint boundary commissions were set up to establish correctly the boundary line in the northeast (it agreed on the Saint Croix River) and in the northwest (this one never met). Jay, a strong opponent of slavery, dropped the issue of compensation for slaves, which angered Southern slaveowners. Jay was unsuccessful in negotiating an end to the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy, which later became one of the key issues that led to the War of 1812.

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Approval and dissent

Washington submitted the treaty to the United States Senate for ratification in June 1795. The treaty was unpopular at first, and gave the Jeffersonians a platform to rally new supporters. As Paul Varg explains, "The Jay Treaty was a reasonable give-and-take compromise of the issues between the two countries. What rendered it so assailable was not the compromise spelled out between the two nations but the fact that it was not a compromise between the two political parties at home. Embodying the views of the Federalists, the treaty repudiated the foreign policy of the opposing party."[4] The Jeffersonians were opposed to Britain, preferring support for France in the French Revolutionary Wars, and arguing the treaty with France from 1778 was still in effect. They looked at Britain as the center of aristocracy and the main threat to America's republican values. Therefore they denounced Hamilton and Jay (and even Washington) as monarchists who betrayed American values. They organized public protests against Jay and his treaty; one of their rallying cries went: Damn John Jay! Damn everyone that won't damn John Jay! Damn every one that won't put lights in his window and sit up all night damning John Jay![5]

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison strongly opposed the Treaty — they favored France — thus setting up foreign policy as a major dispute between the new Federalist and Republican parties. Furthermore they had a counterproposal designed to establish "a direct system of commercial hostility with Great Britain," even at the risk of war. The Jeffersonians raised public opinion to fever pitch by accusing the British of promoting Indian atrocities on the frontier.[6] The fierce debates over the Treaty in 1794–95, according to one historian, "transformed the Republican movement into a Republican party." To fight the treaty the Jeffersonians "established coordination in activity between leaders at the capital, and leaders, actives and popular followings in the states, counties and towns."[7] Jay's failure to obtain compensation for "lost" slaves galvanized the South into opposition.[8]

The Federalists fought back and Congress rejected the Jefferson-Madison counterproposals. Washington threw his enormous prestige behind the treaty, and Federalists rallied public opinion more effectively than the opponents.[9] Hamilton convinced President Washington it was the best treaty that could be expected. Washington, who insisted the U.S. must remain neutral in the European wars then raging, signed it and his prestige carried the day in Congress. The Federalists made a strong, systematic appeal to public opinion which rallied their own supporters and shifted the debate. Washington and Hamilton outmaneuvered Madison as opposition leader.[10] Hamilton, now out of the government, was the dominant figure who helped secure its approval by the needed 2/3 vote. The Senate passed a resolution in June, advising the president to amend the treaty by suspending the 12th article, which concerned trade between the U.S. and the West Indies. In mid-August, the Senate ratified the treaty 20-10, with the condition that the treaty contain specific language regarding the June 24 resolution. President Washington signed it in late August. The Treaty was proclaimed in effect on February 29, 1796 and in the series of close votes after another bitter fight the House funded the Treaty in April 1796.[11]

James Madison, then a member of the House of Representatives, argued that the treaty could not, under Constitutional law, take effect without approval of the House, since it regulated commerce and exercised legislative powers granted to Congress. The debate which followed was an early example of originalism which Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," ironically lost.[12]

After defeat in Congress, the Jeffersonian Republicans fought and lost the 1796 presidential election on the issue.

When Jefferson became president in 1801 he did not repudiate the treaty, and instead kept the Federalist minister in London Rufus King to negotiate a successful resolution to outstanding issues regarding cash payments and boundaries. The amity broke down finally in 1805, as relations turned hostile, leading to the War of 1812. In 1815, the Jay treaty was replaced by the Treaty of Ghent.

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Notes

  1. ^ Olson, James Stuart (1991). James S. Olsen (ed.). Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism. Robert Shadle, Ross Marlay, Willam G. Ratliff, Joseph M. Rowe, Jr. Greenwood Press. p. 332. ISBN 0313262578. Retrieved 2007-11-19. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Marshall Smelser, The Democratic Republic: 1801–1815 (1968) pp. 139, 145, 155–56.
  3. ^ Wayne S. Cole, An Interpretive History of American Foreign Relations, (1974) p. 55.
  4. ^ Varg, 1963 p. 95.
  5. ^ William Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, p. 23.
  6. ^ Elkins and McKitrick, p. 405.
  7. ^ William Nisbet Chambers. Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience, 1776–1809 (1963), p. 80.
  8. ^ Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy (2006) 67–68.
  9. ^ Estes 2001.
  10. ^ Estes pp. 398–99.
  11. ^ Jay’s Treaty, American Foreign Relations.
  12. ^ Rakove, pgs 355-365

References

  • Bemis, Samuel Flagg. Jay's Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy (1923) remains the standard narrative of how treaty was written
  • Charles, Joseph. "The Jay Treaty: The Origins of the American Party System," in William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 12, No. 4. (Oct., 1955), pp. 581-630.
  • Combs, Jerald. A. The Jay Treaty: Political Background of Founding Fathers (1970) (ISBN 0-520-01573-8) Focusing on the domestic and ideological aspects, Combs dislikes Hamilton's quest for national power and a "heroic state" dominating the Western Hemisphere, but concludes the Federalists "followed the proper policy" because the treaty preserved peace with Britain
  • Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800. (1994), ch. 9
  • Estes, Todd, "The Art of Presidential Leadership: George Washington and the Jay Treaty," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 2001, vol 109, no. 2.
  • Estes, Todd, "Shaping the Politics of Public Opinion: Federalists and the Jay Treaty Debate." Journal of the Early Republic (2000) 20(3): 393-422. ISSN 0275-1275;
  • Estes, Todd. The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, And the Evolution of Early American Political Culture (2006)
  • Farrell, James M. "Fisher Ames and Political Judgment: Reason, Passion, and Vehement Style in the Jay Treaty Speech," Quarterly Journal of Speech 1990 76(4): 415-434.
  • Fewster, Joseph M. "The Jay Treaty and British Ship Seizures: the Martinique Cases." William and Mary Quarterly 1988 45(3): 426-452. ISSN 0043-5597 22:09,
  • Perkins, Bradford. The First Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1795–1805 1955.
  • Perkins, Bradford. "Lord Hawkesbury and the Jay-Grenville Negotiations," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 40, No. 2. (Sep., 1953), pp. 291-304.
  • Rakove, Jack N. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1997. ISBN 0-394-57858-9
  • Varg, Paul A; Foreign Policies of the Founding Fathers. 1963.
  • American Indian Law Alliance. "Border Crossing Rights."

See also

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