ceipt on the 22d ultimo of
the communication addressed to this Department by your excellency on
the 28th of March last, transmitting a printed copy of your message of
the 14th of the same month to the legislature of Maine, together with
certain resolves passed by that body, in relation to the northeastern
boundary of the State.

Although the answer thus given to the application made to you, by
direction of the President, under date of the 1st of March last, to
ascertain the sense of the State of Maine in regard to a conventional
line of boundary may be regarded as conclusive, I still deem it proper,
with reference to your excellency's message, to mark a misconception
which appears to have existed on your part when communicating to the
legislature the letter and documents received from this Department. This
is done with the greater freedom since the frank and liberal manner in
which your excellency invited the attention of that body to the subject
is highly appreciated by the President. The question therein presented
for consideration was not, as your excellency supposed, whether the
State of Maine should "take the lead in abandoning the treaty and
volunteer propositions for a conventional line," but simply whether the
government of Maine would consent that the General Government should
entertain a direct negotiation with the British Government for a
conventional line of boundary on the northeastern frontier of the United
States. Had that consent been given it would have been reasonable to
expect the proposition of a line from Great Britain, as it was that
power which particularly desired the resort to that mode of settling the
controversy. It was also the intention of the President so to arrange
the negotiation that the approbation of Maine to the boundary line
agreed upon should have been secured. It was with this view that in the
application to the State of Maine for its assent to a negotiation for a
conventional line express reference was made to such conditions as she
might think proper to prescribe. To all such as were, in the opinion of
the President, required by a proper regard for the security of Maine and
consistent with the Constitution he would have yielded a ready assent.
Of that character was he disposed to regard a condition that in a
negotiation for the final establishment of a new line, with power on the
part of the negotiators to stipulate for the cession or exchange of
territory as the interests and co