lways be a
matter of difficulty between states as between individuals, the question
which seemed to threaten the greatest embarrassment was that connected
with the African slave trade.

By the tenth article of the treaty of Ghent it was expressly declared
that--

Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles
of humanity and justice, and whereas both His Majesty and the United
States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire
abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties
shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.

In the enforcement of the laws and treaty stipulations of Great Britain
a practice had threatened to grow up on the part of its cruisers of
subjecting to visitation ships sailing under the American flag, which,
while it seriously involved our maritime rights, would subject to
vexation a branch of our trade which was daily increasing, and which
required the fostering care of Government. And although Lord Aberdeen
in his correspondence with the American envoys at London expressly
disclaimed all right to detain an American ship on the high seas, even
if found with a cargo of slaves on board, and restricted the British
pretension to a mere claim to visit and inquire, yet it could not well
be discerned by the Executive of the United States how such visit and
inquiry could be made without detention on the voyage and consequent
interruption to the trade. It was regarded as the right of search
presented only in a new form and expressed in different words, and
I therefore felt it to be my duty distinctly to declare in my annual
message to Congress that no such concession could be made, and that the
United States had both the will and the ability to enforce their own
laws and to protect their flag from being used for purposes wholly
forbidden by those laws and obnoxious to the moral censure of the world.
Taking the message as his letter of instructions, our then minister at
Paris felt himself required to assume the same ground in a remonstrance
which he felt it to be his duty to present to Mr. Guizot, and through
him to the King of the French, against what has been called the
"quintuple treaty;" and his conduct in this respect met with the
approval of this Government. In close conformity with these views the
eighth article of the treaty was framed, which provides "that each
nation shall keep afloat in the African seas