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Louis McLane
United States Minister to England (1829)
just rules of free intercourse; reserving withal to each party the liberty of admitting at its pleasure other nations to a participation of the same advantages." John Quincy Adams, in 1823, while avowing the belief that this preamble was "the first instance on the diplomatic record of nations upon which the true principles of all fair commercial negotiation between independent states were laid down and proclaimed to the world," at the same time declared that it "was, to the foundation of our commercial intercourse with the rest of mankind, what the Declaration of Independence was to that of our internal government."
The progress of the United States, in the contest thus early begun with commercial restrictions, was painful and slow. Soon after the establishment of independence, Congress took into consideration the entire subject of commercial relations, and on May 7, 1784, adopted a series of resolutions in which, the principles by which American negotiators should be guided were set forth. By the first of these resolutions it was declared that, in any arrangements that might be effected, each party should have the right to carry its own produce, manufactures, and merchandise in its own vessels to the ports of the other, and to bring thence the produce and merchandise of the other, paying in each case only such duties as were paid by the most favored nation. The second resolution, which re-
