satisfaction to perform this duty, and I feel quite confident that Congress will bestow upon these resolutions the careful consideration to which they are eminently entitled on account of the distinguished and patriotic source from which they proceed, as well as the great importance of the subject which they involve. JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, February 8, 1861.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I deemed it a duty to transmit to Congress with my message of the 8th of January the correspondence which occurred in December last between the "commissioners" of South Carolina and myself.

Since that period, on the 14th of January, Colonel Isaac W. Hayne, the attorney-general of South Carolina, called and informed me that he was the bearer of a letter from Governor Pickens to myself which he would deliver the next day. He was, however, induced by the interposition of Hon. Jefferson Davis and nine other Senators from the seceded and seceding States not to deliver it on the day appointed, nor was it communicated to me until the 31st of January, with his letter of that date. Their letter to him urging this delay bears date January 15, and was the commencement of a correspondence, the whole of which in my possession I now submit to Congress. A reference to each letter of the series in proper order accompanies this message.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON CITY, February 12, 1861.

To the Senate of the United States:

I herewith submit to the Senate, for their advice, the proceedings and award of the commissioners under the convention between the United States of America and the Republic of Paraguay, proclaimed by the President on the 12th of March, 1860. It is decided by the award of these commissioners that "the United States and Paraguay Navigation Company have not proved or established any right to damages upon their said claim against the Government of the Republic of Paraguay, and that upon the proofs aforesaid the said Government is not responsible to the said company in any damages or pecuniary compensation whatever in all the premises.

The question arises, Had the commissioners authority under the convention to make such an award, or were they not confined to the assessment of damages which the company had sustained from the Government of Paraguay?

Our relations with that Republic had for years been of a most unsatisfactory character. They had been investigated by the preceding and by the present Administration. The latter came to the conclusion that both the interest and honor of the country required that our rights against that Government for their attack on the Water Witch and for

the injuries they had inflicted on this company should, if necessary, be enforced. Accordingly, the President in his annual message of December, 1857, called the attention of Congress to the subject in the following language:

A demand for these purposes will be made in a firm but conciliatory spirit. This will the more probably be granted if the Executive shall have authority to use other means in the event of a refusal. This is accordingly recommended.

After due deliberation, Congress, on the 2d of June, 1858, authorized the President "to adopt such measures and use such force as in his judgment may be necessary and advisable" in the premises. A commissioner was accordingly appointed and a force fitted out and dispatched to Paraguay for the purpose, if necessary, of enforcing atonement for these

wrongs.

The expedition appeared in the waters of the La Plata and our commissioner succeeded in concluding a treaty and convention embracing both branches of our demand. The convention of indemnity was signed on the 4th of February, 1859. The preamble of this convention refers. to the interruption for a time of the good understanding and harmony between the two nations which has rendered that distant armament necessary. By the first article the Government of Paraguay "binds itself for the responsibility in favor of the United States and Paraguay Navigation Company which may result from the decree of commissioners." to be appointed in the manner provided by article 2. This was in accordance with the instructions to our commissioner, who was told that an indispensable preliminary to the negotiation would, "of course, be an acknowledgment on the part of the Paraguayan Government of its liability to the company." The first paragraph of this second article clearly specifies the object of the convention. This was not to ascertain whether the claim was just, to enforce which we had sent a fleet to Paraguay, but to constitute a commission to "determine," not the existence, but "the amount, of said reclamations." The final paragraph provides that "the two commissioners named in the said manner shall meet in the city of Washington to investigate, adjust, and determine the amount of the claims of the abovementioned company upon sufficient proofs of the charges and defenses of the contending parties." By the fifth article the Government of Paraguay "binds itself to pay to the Government of the United States of America, in the city of Assumption, Paraguay, thirty days after presentation to the Government of the Republic, the draft which that of the United States of America shall issue for the amount for which the two commissioners concurring, or by the umpire, shall declare it responsible to the said company."

The act of Congress of May 16, 1860, employs the same language that is used in the convention, "to investigate, adjust, and determine the amount" of the claims against Paraguay. Congress, not doubting that an award would be made in favor of the company for some certain

amount of damages, in the sixth section of the act referred to provides that the money paid out of the Treasury for the expenses of the commission "shall be retained by the United States out of the money" (not any money) "that may, pursuant to the terms of said convention, be received from Paraguay."

After all this had been done, after we had fitted out a warlike expedition in part to obtain satisfaction for this very claim, after these solemn acts had been performed by the two Republics, the commissioners have felt themselves competent to decide that they could go behind the action of the legislative and executive branches of this Government and determine that there was no justice in the original claim. A commissioner of Paraguay might have been a proper person to act merely in assessing the amount of damages when an arbiter had been provided to decide between him and the commissioner on the part of the United States, but to have authorized him to decide upon the original justice of the claim against his own Government would have been a novelty. The American commissioner is as pure and honest a man as I have ever known, but I think he took a wrong view of his powers under the convention.

The principle of the liability of Paraguay having been established by the highest political acts of the United States and that Republic in their sovereign capacity, the commissioners, who would seem to have misapprehended their powers, have investigated and undertaken to decide whether the Government of the United States was right or wrong in the authority which they gave to make war if necessary to secure the indemnity. Governments may be, and doubtless often have been, wrong in going to war to enforce claims; but after this has been done, and the inquiry which led to the reclamations has been acknowledged by the Government that inflicted it, it does not appear to me to be competent for commissioners authorized to ascertain the indemnity for the injury to go behind their authority and decide upon the original merits of the claim for which the war was made. If a commissioner were appointed under a convention to ascertain the damage sustained by an American citizen in consequence of the capture of a vessel admitted by the foreign government to be illegal, and he should go behind the convention and decide that the original capture was a lawful prize, it would certainly be regarded as an extraordinary assumption of authority.

The present appears to me to be a case of this character, and for these reasons I have deemed it advisable to submit the whole subject for the consideration of the Senate.

To the Senate of the United States:

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, February 21, 1861.

The treaty concluded between Great Britain and the United States on the 15th of June, 1846, provided in its first article that the line of bound

mary between the territories of Her Britannic Majesty and those of the United States from the point on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude up to which it had already been ascertained should be continued westward along the said parallel "to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouvers Island, and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of Fucas Straits to the Pacific Ocean." When the commissioners appointed by the two Governments to mark the boundary line came to that point of it which is required to run southerly through the channel which divides the continent from Vancouvers Island, they differed entirely in their opinions, not only concerning the true point of deflection from the forty-ninth parallel, but also as to the channel intended to be designated in the treaty. After a longcontinued and very able discussion of the subject, which produced no result, they reported their disagreement to their respective Governments. Since that time the two Governments, through their ministers here and at London, have had a voluminous correspondence on the point in controversy, each sustaining the view of its own commissioner and neither yielding in any degree to the claims of the other. In the meantime the unsettled condition of this affair has produced some serious local disturbances, and on one occasion at least has threatened to destroy the harmonious relations existing between Great Britain and the United States. The island of San Juan will fall to the United States if our construction of the treaty be right, while if the British interpretation be adopted it will be on their side of the line. That island is an important possession to this country, and valuable for agricultural as well as military purposes. I am convinced that it is ours by the treaty fairly and impartially construed. But argument has been exhausted on both sides without increasing the probability of final adjustment. On the contrary, each party seems now to be more convinced than at first of the justice of its own demands. There is but one mode left of settling the dispute, and that is by submitting it to the arbitration of some friendly and impartial power. Unless this be done, the two countries are exposed to the constant danger of a collision which may end in war.

It is under these circumstances that the British Government, through its minister here, has proposed the reference of the matter in controversy to the King of Sweden and Norway, the King of the Netherlands, or to the Republic of the Swiss Confederation. Before accepting this proposition I have thought it right to take the advice of the Senate.

The precise questions which I submit are these: Will the Senate approve a treaty referring to either of the sovereign powers above named the dispute now existing between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain concerning the boundary line between Vancouvers Island and the American continent? In case the referee shall find himself unable to decide where the line is by the description of it in the treaty of 15th June, 1846, shall he be authorized to establish a line according to

the treaty as nearly as possible? Which of the three powers named by Great Britain as an arbiter shall be chosen by the United States?

All important papers bearing on the questions are herewith communicated in the originals. Their return to the Department of State is requested when the Senate shall have disposed of the subject.

To the Senate of the United States:

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, February 23, 1861.

In compliance with the resolutions of the Senate of the 17th and 18th February, 1858, requesting information upon the subject of the Aves Island, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents which accompanied it.

Hon. JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, February 23, 1861.

President of the Senate.

SIR: Herewith I inclose, for constitutional action of the Senate thereon should it approve the same, supplemental articles of agreement made and concluded with the authorities of the Delaware Indians on the 21st July last, with a view to the abrogation of the sixth article of the treaty of May 30, 1860.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, February 23, 1861.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives adopted on the 11th instant, respecting the seizure of the mint at New Orleans, with a large amount of money therein, by the authorities of the State of Louisiana, the refusal of the branch mint to pay drafts of the United States, etc., I have to state that all the information within my possession or power on these subjects was communicated to the House by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 21st instant, and was prepared under the resolution above referred to and a resolution of the same date addressed to himself.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

To the Senate of the United States:

WASHINGTON, February 26, 1861.

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 25th instant, requesting information relative to the extradition of one Anderson, a man of color, charged with the commission of murder in the State of Missouri,