“In my message at the commencement of the present session of Congress, I endeavored to state the principles which this government supports respecting the right of search and the immunity of flags.  Desirous of maintaining those principles fully, at the same time that existing obligations should be fulfilled, I have thought it most consistent with the dignity and honor of the country that it should execute its own laws and perform its own obligations by its own means and its own power.  The examination or visitation of the merchant-vessels of one nation by the cruisers of another, for any purposes except those known and acknowledged by the law of nations, under whatever restraints or regulations it may take place, may lead to dangerous results.  It is far better by other means to supersede any supposed necessity, or any motive, for such examination or visit.  Interference with a merchant-vessel by an armed cruiser is always a delicate proceeding, apt to touch the point of national honor, as well as to affect the interests of individuals.  It has been thought, therefore, expedient, not only in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty of Ghent, but at the same time as removing all pretext on the part of others for violating the immunities of the American flag upon the seas, as they exist and are defined by the law of nations, to enter into the articles now submitted to the Senate.

“The treaty which I now submit to you proposes no alteration, mitigation, or modification of the rules of the law of nations.  It provides simply, that each of the two governments shall maintain on the coast of Africa a sufficient squadron to enforce, separately and respectively, the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries for the suppression of the slave-trade.”

In the actual posture of things, the President thought that the government of the United States, standing on its own rights and its own solemn declarations, would only weaken its position by making such a demand as appears to you to have been expedient.  We maintain the public law of the world as we receive it and understand it to be established.  We defend our own rights and our own honor, meeting all aggression at the boundary.  Here we may well stop.

You are pleased to observe, that “under the circumstances of the assertion of the British claim, in the correspondence of the British secretaries, and of its denial by the President of the United States, the eyes of Europe were upon these two great naval powers; one of which had advanced a pretension, and avowed her determination to enforce it, which might at any moment bring them into collision.”