The Treaty That Made America a World Power

College of William & Mary Law School William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository Popular Media Faculty and Deans 1983 The rT eaty That Made America a World Power William F. Swindler William & Mary Law School Repository Citation Swindler, William F., "The rT eaty That Made America a World Power" (1983). Popular Media. 261. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/popular_media/261 Copyright c 1983 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/popular_media , jl 4- 4 I The Trealy That Made America a World Power Concord-demanded virtually all of the By William F. Swindler energies of the Founding Fathers. The Treaty of Paris, The French maneuver signed 200 THE extended bicentennial period from A preliminary treaty had been con- years ago 1976 to 1987-89 is highlighted by at least cluded in Paris the previous November this month, recognized two developments. The first occurred and ratified by Congress on April 15, the United States as a on March I, 1781, when the first instru- 1783. These articles, as their text made ment of national government, the Arti- clear, were "to be inserted in, and to nation and gave rise cles of Confederation, went into effect. constitute, the treaty of peace," but the to our unusual (See "Our First Constitution: The Arti- formal instrument was not to be con- cles of Confederation," ABA Journal, cluded "until terms . shall be agreed constitutional provision February 1981, page 166.) The second upon between Great Britain and on treaties. was the Treaty of Paris signed Sept. 3, France." 1783, which gave the formal sanction of The maneuverings for advantage of international law to the Declaration of the French negotiators, particularly the Independence. minister of state, le comte de Ver- The treaty of 1783 was an essential gennes, had dragged on for almost a step toward the Constitution itself. In year. The American representatives in enrolling the fledgling American govern- Paris-John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, ment into the society of nations, the John Jay and Henry Laurens-had diffi- treaty formally vested the United States culties enough with their British coun- under the Articles of Confederation with terparts, who finally left details to a all the responsibilities that those nations single commissioner, Robert Oswald. assumed and expected of one another. Laurens was a prisoner in the Tower of Whether the tentative republic would be London when peace conversations capable of discharging these respon- began, having been captured on the high sibilities was, at the time, an open ques- seas en route to Holland in 1780. He tion. arrived in Paris only two days before the Already the shaky internal authority preliminary articles were agreed to. nominally established by the articles was being subjected to severe strains as Meet the Americans the necessities of defense against hostile The four American negotiators were armies now were removed. The equally perhaps the most experienced of all their pressing necessities of establishing a countrymen in foreign affairs. complete organization of state govern- In 1778 Adams arrived in France with ments to replace the former colonial his 10-year-old son, John Quincy, as governments-a matter dealt with ad commissioner to the Bourbon court, on hoc or provisionally since Lexington and the heels of French diplomatic recogni- Artist Chuck Slack visualizes Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens and John Adams, who represented the incipient United States of America in negotiating the Treaty of Paris. v, .,,w . v September, 1983 a Volume 69 1247 tion of the independence of the Amer- came in 1778. The commercial treaty Florida from the British, and perhaps ican states. He took up residence in the with the Netherlands came in 1782, and Gibraltar as well. Finally, there was the same house with Benjamin Franklin, another with Sweden in 1783 before the Netherlands, which had gone to war who had spent a number of years in settlement in Paris. with England in 1780 for its unneutral England as a representative of Pennsyl- Congress also would conclude several American sympathies and its commer- vania and several other colonies and treaties with Indian nations and other cial treaty with the United States in who had held a royal commission as continental powers before it was suc- 1782. An Anglo-Dutch preliminary postmaster general for North America. ceeded by the government created by treaty of peace was signed in Paris on Franklin had gone to Paris as one of the Constitution. It is significant that Sept. 2, the day before the definitive the members of the wartime commission Article VI of that instrument- "This treaty with the other powers. of the Continental Congress, and his Constitution, and the laws of the United The new American nation was thus enjoyment of the court life there, where States which shall be made in pursuance getting its feet wet in international poli- he was a popular favorite of many of the thereof; and all treaties made, or which' tics as well as international law. The men in high office and an even greater shall be made, under the authority of the Anglo-American preliminary agreement favorite of the women of the court, United States, shall be the supreme law of 1782, in fact, had contained a secret made him a less than critical observer of of the land"-recognized and continued provision that if Florida remained in French intrigue. He may have influ- in force these agreements made by the British hands, the southern border of the enced Adams unduly, before the future Continental Congress. independent United States would be at second president learned enough to the latitude of present-day Vicksburg. make his own judgments. In any case, International politicking Although this provision was not Adams had learned enough by the clos- Ending the state of war was a compli- included in the 1783 treaty because ing years of the war to keep some of his Spain got Florida as a trade-off for aban- judgments to himself, as in opening the doning its efforts to get Gibraltar, this prolonged negotiations for a Dutch com- essentially converted the Anglo-His- mercial treaty. panic disputes into a foreign relations John Jay, the former chief justice of The Gallic imagination problem between Spain and the new New York and future chief justice of the would not overlook nation, not to be settled fully until 1819 United States, had served in 1779 as a when the United States acquired Florida member of a secret committee of corre- the fact that 1783 from Spain by treaty. spondence, appointed by the Continen- marked the anniversary There were other important issues left tal Congress to contact potential Eur- unsettled by the 1783 instrument. Most opean allies. The following year he had of another peace pressing was the question of pre-Revolu- been sent to Spain in the hope of gaining treaty depriving her tionary debts owed British creditors by diplomatic recognition. The best Jay of major possessions. erstwhile colonials, which at last was was able to do was to secure some disposed of by Jay's Treaty of 1795. In secret supply of materiel and money for the same year Pinckney's Treaty (the the American government. Treaty of San Lorenzo) settled other Laurens, who like Franklin had spent Spanish questions, such as the status of much of his youth as a colonial in cated business. It involved directly or "West Florida" (the Gulf Coast near England, was a Charleston merchant indirectly five different countries. The New Orleans) and the right of free navi- whose export-import business had United States and Great Britain were gation on the Mississippi. developed many European commercial the principal high contracting parties. contacts. His diplomatic mission to Hol- But France-the Gallic imagination Questions of quorum land, to assist Adams in trying for a would not overlook the fact that 1783 Ratification of the Treaty of Paris was Dutch loan, had resulted in his capture marked the 20th anniversary of another delayed for a number of months, largely on the high seas by the British and a peace treaty signed in Paris that because of the slowness of trans-Atlan- British declaration of war against the deprived her of her major North Amer- tic communications and the fact that Netherlands. ican possessions in Canada at the end of most delegates to the Continental Con- the French and Indian War-had sepa- gress had gone home indefinitely to par- It wasn't the first rate matters to settle with Britain. ticipate in state affairs. On Jan. 3, 1784, Although the definitive treaty, when France intended to maintain a sphere of a committee including Jefferson, finally ratified in London and in the influence in the newly independent Elbridge Gerry and others reported the United States, formally removed all United States and see to it that postwar lack of a quorum. Only seven of the 13 legal question of the legitimacy of the trade agreements did not freeze her out states were represented and "these dif- American claims to sovereignty, it was of commercial advantages as the Amer- fer in opinion." Some pointed to the not the only international agreement ican resources were developed. stipulation in the Articles of Con- negotiated by the Continental Congress. French imperial politics had led her to federation that nine states were to be The military alliance with France and an alliance with Spain, with France hav- represented when Congress ratified a the concurrent treaty of commerce both ing promised assistance in recovering treaty, while others argued that since 1248 American Bar Association Journal nine had been present the previous win- Simplistic isn't good tive.

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