Details of American law.
Both parties in truth exaggerated the difficulties
of their opponent's scheme, being attached to their
own. The real question at issue was, which country
should take the initiative in a Free-trade policy. Mr.
Wilson, as an extreme Free-trader, insisted that the
law of America sanctioned reciprocity on their part,
without having recourse to Congress, which the
members of the Shipowners' Society controverted.
There can be no doubt that the American Law of
1828 did so authorize the President to reciprocate
any relaxation of the Navigation Laws we might on
our part resolve on. But when Mr. Buchanan had
so recently reserved the American coasting trade,
repudiating the unauthorized pledge previously given
by the American envoy, and had further frankly
stated to Mr. Crampton,[1] that "it was probable some
difference of opinion would manifest itself in Congress
upon this question, from the unwillingness felt in
some quarters to throw open the ship-building business
in the United States to the competition of British
shipbuilders, and more particularly to that of the
shipbuilders of the British North American colonies;"
we might have been quite sure that Congress
would, if necessary, interfere, and, by some special
law, annul the liberal principle of the American Law
of 1828.
Mr. Wilson and the Free-traders, affecting to be better informed on the state of American law than the Shipowners, went into the opposite extreme, and expressed their entire confidence in the complete reciprocity of the Americans; asserting further, that without going to Congress, the Executive could
- ↑ Vide Letter of Mr. Crampton, 18th February, already referred to.
