The necessity of giving time to the new members to inform themselves
of the nature of the question and the old ones to recover from the
impression which erroneous statements had made upon their minds I
understand to be the remaining motive of His Majesty's ministers for
delaying the meeting; but this was a precaution which, relying on the
plain obligation of the treaty, the President could not appreciate, and
he must, moreover, have thought that if a long discussion was necessary
to understand the merits of the question it was an additional reason for
hastening the meeting where those merits were to be discussed. The delay
that occurred between the meeting of the Chambers and the 1st of January
need not have entered into the discussion, because, not long known at
Washington, it could not have had any influence on the message. It is
referred to, I presume, in order to show that it was produced by a
desire on the part of His Majesty's ministers the better to assure the
passage of the law. Of this, sir, I never had a doubt, and immediately
so advised my Government, and informed it (as was the fact) that I
perfectly acquiesced in the delay; first, because of the circumstance to
which you allude; secondly, because the statements originally intended
to be ready by the 1st of January were not yet prepared.
Pages:
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504