He repeated and called the attention of the French Government to the
disavowal contained in the message itself of any intention to intimidate
by menace; he truly declared that it contained and was intended to
contain no charge of ill faith against the King of the French, and
properly distinguished between the right to complain in unexceptionable
terms of the omission to execute an agreement and an accusation of
bad motives in withholding such execution, and demonstrated that the
necessary use of that right ought not to be considered as an offensive
imputation. Although this communication was made without instructions
and entirely on the minister's own responsibility, yet it was afterwards
made the act of this Government by my full approbation, and that
approbation was officially made known on the 25th of April, 1835, to
the French Government. It, however, failed to have any effect. The law,
after this friendly explanation, passed with the obnoxious amendment,
supported by the King's ministers, and was finally approved by the King.
The people of the United States are justly attached to a pacific
system in their intercourse with foreign nations.
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