Provided, That the second article be expunged, and that the following article be added or inserted:  It is agreed that the present convention shall be in force for the term of eight years from the time of the exchange of ratifications.

The spirit and purpose of this change are apparent and unmistakable.  The convention as signed by the respective plenipotentiaries did not adjust all the points of controversy.  Both nations, however, desired the restoration of peace.  Accordingly, as to those matters in the relations of the two countries concerning which they could agree, they did agree for the time being; and as to the rest, concerning which they could not agree, they suspended and postponed further negotiation.

They abandoned no pretensions, they relinquished no right on either side, but simply adjourned the question until “a convenient time.”  Meanwhile, and until the arrival of such convenient time, the relations of the two countries were to be regulated by the stipulations of the convention.

Of course the convention was on its face a temporary and provisional one, but in the worst possible form of prospective termination.  It was to cease at a convenient time.  But how should that convenient time be ascertained?  It is plain that such a stipulation, while professedly not disposing of the present controversy, had within itself the germ of a fresh one, for the two Governments might at any moment fall into dispute on the question whether that convenient time had or had not arrived.  The Senate of the United States anticipated and prevented this question by the only possible expedient; that is, the designation of a precise date.  This being done, the remaining parts of the second article became superfluous and useless, for as all the provisions of the convention would expire in eight years, it would necessarily follow that negotiations must be renewed within that period, more especially as the operation of the amendment which covered the whole convention was that even the stipulation of peace in the first article became temporary and expired in eight years, whereas that article, and that article alone, was permanent according to the original tenor of the convention.

The convention thus amended, being submitted to the First Consul, was ratified by him, his act of acceptance being accompanied with the following declaratory note: 

The Government of the United States having added in its ratification that the convention should be in force for the space of eight years, and having omitted the second article, the Government of the French Republic consents to accept, ratify, and confirm the above convention with the addition importing that the convention shall be in force for the space of eight years and with the retrenchment of the second article:  Provided, That by this retrenchment the two States renounce the respective pretensions which are the object of the said article.

The convention, as thus ratified by the First Consul, having been again submitted to the Senate of the United States, that body resolved that “they considered the convention as fully ratified,” and returned the same to the President for promulgation, and it was accordingly promulgated in the usual form by President Jefferson.