Having demonstrated that the United States can not in any case permit their Chief Magistrate to be questioned by any foreign government in relation to his communications with the coordinate branches of his own, it is scarcely necessary to consider the case of such an explanation being required as the condition on which the fulfillment of a treaty or any pecuniary advantage was to depend.  The terms of such a proposition need only be stated to show that it would be not only inadmissible, but rejected as offensive to the nation to which it might be addressed.  In this case it would be unnecessary as well as inadmissible.  France has already received, by the voluntary act of the President, every explanation the nicest sense of national honor could desire.  That which could not have been given to a demand, that which can never be given on the condition now under discussion, a fortunate succession of circumstances, as I shall proceed to shew, has brought about.  Earnestly desirous of restoring the good understanding between the two nations, as soon as a dissatisfaction with the President’s message was shewn I suppressed every feeling which the mode of expressing that dissatisfaction was calculated to produce, and without waiting for instructions I hastened on my own responsibility to make a communication to your predecessor in office on the subject.  In this, under the reserve that the President could not be called on for an explanation, I did in fact give one that I thought would have removed all injurious impressions.

This is the first of the fortunate circumstances to which I have alluded—­fortunate in being made before any demand implying a right to require it; fortunate in its containing, without any knowledge of the precise parts of the message which gave offense, answers to all that have since come to my knowledge.  I can easily conceive that the communication of which I speak, made, as I expressly stated, without previous authority from my Government, might not have had the effect which its matter was intended to produce, but it has since (as I have now the honor to inform your excellency) received from the President his full and unqualified approbation; but it is necessary to add that this was given before he had any intimation of an intention to attach it as a condition to the payment of the indemnity due by the treaty, given not only when he was ignorant of any such intent, but when he was informed by France that she intended to execute the treaty and saw by the law which was introduced that it was not to be fettered by any such condition.  Thus that is already done by a voluntary act which could not have been done when required as a right, still less when made, what will unquestionably in the United States be considered degrading, as a condition.  At this time, sir, I would for no consideration enter into the details I then did.  If I could now so far forget what under present circumstances would be due to the dignity of my country, I should be disavowed,