Marc Liebman's Blog, page 12

Congressional Pay Has Always Been an Issue

One of the thorny issues set aside during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was the subject of pay for the members of the House and Senate. And, if so, by whom?

Under the Articles of Confederation, the individual states paid the salaries of their representatives sent to the Continental Congress. FYI, after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, the Continental Congress changed its name to the Confederation Congress to reflect the country’s governing agreement. Under the Articles of Confederation, the individual states paid their representative. The theory was that if the voters in the state were unhappy with their representative, the state legislature could simply stop paying the individual.

However, when the Constitution was written, it was clear that the framers wanted to reduce the powers of the states. The majority believed the new central government should be legally “superior” to those of the states. One way to do this was to ensure that the salaries of Senators and Representatives would be paid by the Federal government. Hence, the first sentence in Article I, Section 6 states The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services to be ascertained by law and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.

Culture, precedent, and history played a role in the debate over how much we the people should pay our legislators. Many of the framers of the Constitution thought that members of the Senate would come from the “upper” or wealthier citizens and the members of the House would come from the masses a.k.a. the common people. This was a holdover from the British Parliament which has an upper house, the House of Lords, made up of members of the nobility, and the lower House of Commons, in which any citizen can run for office.

Some members of the Constitutional Convention contended that Senators and Representatives should not be paid. Others like James Madison suggested that Senators should be paid more than Representatives because they had more “responsibilities.” His position was ignored.

One of the first orders of business of the Congress was to set the pay of $6 which is the equivalent of $204.30 in 2023. Amid contentious debates around establishing government departments, cabinet positions, where the government should be located, and creating the Bill of Rights, Pennsylvania’s Robert Morris tried to slip through a bill that would pay Senators $2 more as a condition for approving the $6 salary.

The House rebelled. In an odd compromise, the Senate agreed to $1 more, but it wouldn’t start for six years and would be valid for only that year. As it turned out, Senators did get their dollar, but it was only for a temporary session in 1793 to decide whether to ratify a treaty.

Since 1787, Senators and Representatives have been paid the same salary except for a two-month period in 1983, when members of the House were paid slightly more than their Senate counterparts. It took 187 years, but finally, the House got its revenge.

Image is the spine of the pay and per diem records of the Senate from 1790 to 1881.

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Jim Blythe’s Veteran’s Impact Show

Marc and Jim talk about how Russia, Putin, NATO and Ukraine are at a crossroad and what may come next.

Watch the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/live/YyJZSfX4vvM?si=e_-xkcnoYw86thMj

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America’s First Swiss Banker

Few Americans realize Swiss-born Albert Gallatin’s impact on U.S. foreign and fiscal policy. He was born in 1761 to wealthy parents – Jean and Sophie Gallatin in Geneva, in the Republic of Geneva (now part of Switzerland), orphaned at 14 and sent to live with the Pictets (the family that later started the Swiss Bank Pictet et Cie in 1805).

While at the Academy of Geneva (now the University of Geneva), Gallatin became enamored with the teachings of Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and other Age of Enlightenment philosophers. At 29, Gallatin was fascinated with the political experiment known as the United States of America and emigrated.

Gallatin was noticed by leaders of the Democratic-Republican Party when he vehemently opposed some of Alexander Hamilton’s fiscal policies. He won election to the Senate in 1793 but could not take his seat since he had been a citizen for the required nine years. Undeterred, he successfully ran for a Pennsylvania seat in the House of Representatives on a platform that opposed the Whiskey Tax, the ensuing rebellion, and Washington’s military response.

Jefferson wanted Gallatin to be his Secretary of the Treasury. When he gave Gallatin a recess appointment on May 14th, 1801, Jefferson is reputed to have said, “He is the only man in the United States who understands, through all the labyrinths Hamilton involved it, the precise state of the Treasury.”

Immediately, Gallatin began to dismantle the financial structure that Alexander Hamilton had created. Gallatin’s primary goal was to reduce the national debt that had ballooned to $83M. By 1812, he had cut it to $45.2M. Much of the savings came from cutting programs to support Revolutionary War veterans, reducing the spending on the Army and Navy, and increasing duties on imported goods.

Another one of his accomplishments was that when he supported Jefferson’s desire to acquire the land around the mouth of the Mississippi River, he urged Jefferson to accept the French offer to sell the U.S. all their land in North America. The purchase created two problems for Jefferson – one, how to pay for it without raising taxes, and two, how to get it approved.

Gallatin played a major role in that he helped the U.S. team led by Robert Livingston and James Monroe negotiate a deal with British banker Francis Barings (see August 4th, 2021 post Financing the Louisiana Purchase https://marcliebman.com/financing-the-louisiana-purchase/ ). Monroe was Jefferson’s Secretary of State and was sent by Jefferson to France to help speed up the purchase before the French changed their mind.

The other problem the purchase created was that Jefferson believed that the purchase would require an amendment to the Constitution. Gallatin and John Jay, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, convinced Jefferson to get the treaty ratified by the Senate. (See August 21, 2022, Jefferson’s Constitutional Gamble

https://marcliebman.com/jeffersons-constitutional-gamble/ ).

Once Jefferson was out of office, Gallatin changed positions on some issues. One of which was the need for a central bank. In 1811, there was strong opposition by the Democratic-Republicans in both the House and Senate to renewing the Bank of the United States’ charter. Gallatin wanted to create a fund of $20 million that the bank could loan to businesses to help jumpstart the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. The Democratic-Republicans, over the vociferous objections of Gallatin, Madison, and the Federalists in the Congress, refused.

Fast forward, Madison’s June 1812 declaration of war on Great Britain sent Gallatin scrambling to raise money for an army and a navy. Without a central bank to guarantee loans, Gallatin tried to get state banks to lend money to the Federal government, but they refused.

Gallatin then turned to wealthy individuals who, given the experience of the American Revolution in which families loaned money to support the war and either didn’t get repaid or was paid in worthless Continental dollars, Gallatin was forced to accept high-interest rates for these securities and make guarantees that the Federal Government would pay the lenders (primarily John Astor, Stephen Girard, and David Parish) back.

During the War of 1812, the national debt jumped from ~$45M to $127M in 1816. Gallatin’s public service didn’t end when he resigned as the Secretary of the Treasury in 1814. After the war, he helped create the Second Bank of the United States in 1816. Gallatin served as the Ambassador to France and later to Great Britain before he died in 1849.

David Monack 2006 photo of Albert Gallatin’s statue in front of the Department of the Treasury building in Washington, D.C.

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Napoleon Plays Madison

Trying to stay neutral in a world at war was a delicate balancing act. Since President Washington issued his Neutrality Proclamation in 1793, President Adams and President Jefferson continued the policy focused on keeping the U.S. out of another global war between England and its allies and the French and theirs.

What made it more complicated was that the alliances kept changing as European monarchies tried to defeat France to put the House of Bourbon back on their throne. These failed, leading to a coup on November 19th, 1799, that put Napoleon in power as the First Consul of France. The French, Spanish, Dutch, and British said the right things when they signed the 1803 Treaty of Amiens on March 25th, 1802, bringing peace to Europe after 11 years of war.

But it didn’t last long. Napoleon’s actions in Europe to isolate Britain and to expand French hegemony over the smaller nation-states in Europe led to a declaration of war by England on May 14th, 1803. Peace had lasted barely 13 months.

The French Revolutionary Wars were good for the American economy which grew about 300% between 1792 and 1800. Without an effective, sea-going navy, Jefferson was in a bind. He needed to protect American ships, but philosophically, he did not want either a strong army or navy. See Blog posts Jefferson’s complicated relationship with the U.S. Navy (1/23/22) https://marcliebman.com/jeffersons-complicated-relationship-with-the-u-s-navy/ and Jefferson takes a budget Axe to the New U.S. Navy – https://marcliebman.com/jefferson-takes-a-budget-axe-to-the-new-u-s-navy/ (1/30/22).

So, Jefferson sent James Pickney and James Monroe to London to negotiate an end to British impressment of U.S. seamen and seizing U.S. ships. They fail.

British harassment of U.S. shipping bound for European ports continued, and after Napoleon issued his Berlin Decree in 1806, the British announced a formal blockade of all European ports.

Jefferson responded with the Non-Importation Act of 1806, which banned imports of any goods from Britain. Besides being unenforceable, it caused the U.S. economy to contract. Still not done, Jefferson forced the Embargo Act of 1807 through Congress, and between the two pieces of legislation, the U.S. economy contracted by about 10%.

Realizing that he created an economic mess for his successor to go along with the foreign policy problems, Jefferson got Congress to repeal the Embargo Act of 1807 before he left office. Not only did Jefferson leave Madison with a foreign policy in tatters as is covered in the 12/10/23 post – Madison Inherited a Foreign Policy and National Security Mess – https://marcliebman.com/madisons-inherited-foreign-policy-mess-and-national-security-mess/, he also left him with a major recession.

Madison urged Congress to pass what is known as Macon’s Bill #2 which lifted the U.S. embargo on ships going to countries at war for 90 days. And it contained a provision that if a country lifted its embargo on U.S. goods, the U.S. would embargo those of their enemy.

Napoleon saw an opportunity and immediately agreed to lift any restrictions on U.S. goods coming into France or any countries either conquered by or allied with France. Madison, who helped push Macon’s Bill #2 through Congress, had no choice but to agree, knowing that 70 – 80% of U.S. trade was with England. The bill is named after North Carolinian Nathaniel Bacon, the 5th Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Brits threatened to attack the U.S. if the Madison Administration enforced the provisions of Macon’s Bill #2. The souring relations between the U.S. and the U.K. worsened. Luckily, Napoleon got President Madison off the hook by reneging on his commitment, but the French leader had achieved his real goal of pushing the U.S. and Great Britain closer to war.

Image is Peter Pencil’s 1809 cartoon showing both Napoleon and King George III taking money from President Jefferson’s pocket.

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Madison’s Inherited Foreign Policy and National Security Mess

When James Madison took his oath of office in March 1809, he inherited a foreign policy mess and a national security crisis. He had been elected by an overwhelming majority of the electoral votes, and voters had given his Democratic-Republicans substantial majorities in the 11th Congress. In the House, there were now 106 Democratic-Republicans Representatives to 36 Federalists, and in the Senate, 28 Democratic-Republicans to 6 Federalist Senators.

For eight years, Jefferson had done his level best to minimize defense expenditures. (See Blog Post #169 posted on7/17/2022 – Jefferson’s National Defense Conundrum – https://marcliebman.com/jeffersons-national-defense-conundrum/ ) The U.S. Army was horribly underfunded, which meant it was also undertrained, poorly equipped, and badly led. It was also scattered in the Northwest Territories trying to defend settlers from the Native Americans.

The Navy faced a similar problem, and rather than scatter what few dollars were given to the sea service on many ships, it decided to fully man a few vessels to keep them mission-capable and rotate crews. Those not assigned to ships were put on half-pay or not re-enlisted.

In the U.K., many British political leaders resented the new, upstart nation. They saw the 1783 Treaty of Paris as a humiliation as well as a military defeat. These men resented the fact that the U.S. did not want to be part of the British Commonwealth, not to be confused with the modern Commonwealth of Nations. And, if pressed, they believed that Britain should have never let the U.S. become independent. On the floor of Parliament, some urged the British government to invade the U.S. and force it to again become a British colony.

Their behavior manifested itself in policies that were an attempt to punish the U.S. and oddly enough, align itself with the Mother Country. In trade, Great Britain required ships going to European nations to stop in England and pay a tax. American ships were being stopped in international waters and our seamen impressed. In the American West, the British instigated and armed the Native Americans with the promise that should the Americans be defeated, they would enable an independent nation to be created under the protection of Britain.

Jefferson desperately wanted to side with Napoleon. He was a Francophile and had a hand in fomenting the French Revolution. The French Foreign Ministry was willing to do whatever it took to encourage the U.S. to ally with France and prevent the U.S. from siding with the British.

As President, Jefferson tried appeasement, embargoes on British goods, and taxes on raw materials from British colonies to encourage U.S. businesses to buy them elsewhere, i.e., from France or Spain or their respective colonies. None of these measures worked, and in 1807, Jefferson forced the Embargo Act through Congress, which caused the U.S. economy to immediately contract. (See Blog Post #172 posted on 8/7/2022 – The 1807 Tale of Ograbme #https://marcliebman.com/the-1807-tale-of-ograbme/ ).

Britain was the U.S.’s largest trading partner, and European nations as a group were a distant second. What was Madison to do? Jefferson was revered by his Democratic-Republican colleagues in the House and Senate a clear majority and reversing his predecessor’s policies would meet opposition and enable the hated Federalists to say, “I told you so.”

Recognizing that the Embargo Act of 1807 was a total failure, Jefferson encouraged his fellow Democratic-Republicans in the Congress to pass the Non-Intercourse Act in the last 16 days of his presidency. The legislation, opposed by all the Federalists in the House and Senate maintained the embargos on goods going to British and French ports but lifted them for cargo going anywhere else. It was, and Jefferson knew it when it was passed, unenforceable.

When Madison took office, he led a country that was being bullied by the British, and as you will see in next week’s post, manipulated by the French.

Image is a map that shows the electoral votes in the 1808 Presidential Election by cgrealms.

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The Uneforceable Logan Act of 1799

In 1798, U.S./French relations were in disarray. The U.S. was late, as in delinquent, in paying its debts from the American Revolution. In retaliation, the French ordered the French Navy and issued letters of marque to privateers authorizing them to seize U.S. ships. Add in that the French were more than annoyed that the U.S. didn’t take its side in the French Revolutionary Wars that started in 1792.

Our contention was that we borrowed the money from Louis XVI and his government which had been overthrown, and therefore, the debts were invalid. Neither President Adams nor President Washington wanted the U.S. involved in a European war.

The Founding Fathers knew that during the 18th Century, European powers spent far more time at war than at peace, something they had witnessed before and after the American Revolution. Washington’s April 1793 Neutrality Proclamation clearly stated the U.S. position. (See link – https://marcliebman.com/laffaire-genet-and-the-washingtons-1793-neutrality-proclamation/ )

Adams had sent a three-man delegation to France to negotiate a settlement with the French, but they failed. Dr. George Logan, a pacifist and a member of the Democratic-Republican Party decided that he, as a private citizen, would travel to France and negotiate an end to the Quasi-War and bring home the U.S. citizens being held captive by the French.

The newly ratified Constitution gave the Federal government the sole power to conduct foreign relations. The Federalist majority in both the House and the Senate looked at Logan’s effort as usurping the power of the newly formed Federal government.

The French leaders of the new French Republic listened politely but understood the American Constitution well. Jefferson had used it as a basis of the documents he helped the Marquis de Lafayette propose first to King Louis XVI and then later to the leaders of the French Revolution. Logan’s effort came to naught.

Back in the U.S., the Federalists passed what is known as the Logan Act of 1799 which states: “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.”

Adam’s government couldn’t prosecute Dr. Logan because his actions took place before the passage of the Logan Act. Logan was elected to the House and served six years as a representative from Pennsylvania. In each term, he tried to get the act bearing his name repealed but failed.

The Logan Act of 1799 is still part of the U.S. Code – Title 18 Section 953. The law was modified in 1994 to remove the amount of the fine set in 1799 at $5,000/violation. However, in its history, despite a long list of violations, only twice has the U.S. Government attempted to prosecute citizens for violating the Logan Act. Both efforts failed.

Despite clear violations, the U.S. Government has been reluctant to prosecute individuals for violating the logan act. For example, H. Ross Perot’s attempt in December 1969 to bring humanitarian aid to North Vietnam in exchange for POWs failed. Jesse Jackson’s trip to Syria in December 1983 which brought Navy LT Robert Goodman back was a private venture by several religious leaders.

In 2018, former Secretary of State and now private citizen, John Kerry visited Iran during the Trump administration to urge them to comply with the agreement he had negotiated. At the time, the Department of Justice encouraged its Southern District of New York to prosecute Kerry. The office also declined, as did the District of Maryland.

Image is an Associated Press photo of Dr. Jesse Jackson and LT Robert Goodman shortly after the Syrian’s released Goodman.

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The First Amendment Has Limits

Once the draft of the U.S. Constitution was ready to go out to the individual states, the state assemblies of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island signaled that they would only ratify the Constitution as written if there was a Bill of Rights. Rather than go back to the drawing board and redraft a document approved by the representatives of all thirteen states, James Madison agreed to draft a Bill of Rights.

Madison relied heavily on Virginia’s Declaration of Rights written by George Mason in his original draft of the Bill of Rights. In his first draft to be debated, Madison’s draft contained 19 amendments. They were eventually whittled down to the 10, which became the Bill of Rights.

To those men who led a bitter eight-year war against the British to win our independence, the rights were listed in order of importance to the members of the Continental (Confederation) Congress and the Constitutional Convention.

The First Amendment reads Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The words in the Constitution have been open to interpretation, and the ultimate and final arbiter of any law or policy is the Supreme Court. Over the 235 years, the Supreme Court has placed very clear limits on what is and what is not “free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom to assemble.”

With each ruling, the court establishes boundaries on what is free speech and what is not. It has made rulings on a laundry list of topics in nine broad categories that include:

When the government can and cannot regulate free speechDefamation and false statementsWhat corporations can and cannot sayRules campaign finance and campaign ads in the electoral processChild pornographyFighting words, hostile audiences, and true threatsObscenityRights of criminals in prisonsStudents

Space does not allow a discussion of the rulings in each of these categories, but the one that seems to continually push the boundaries of free speech are protests. Under the First Amendment, we are guaranteed the right to assemble, protest, and express our opinion.

However, the Supreme Court has made it very, very clear that if someone threatens another individual either directly or indirectly or if one encourages someone to commit a crime, one’s First Amendment protection evaporates immediately. The struggle the court has in its ruling is that statements made by the protestor may be his opinion, but the listener may take it as a threat.

The court has been forced to dig into the implications of a threat and determine if, in fact, a threat has been implied or made. Historically, the Supreme Court has been reluctant to limit First Amendment rights knowing that the legal precedent that it sets can be used by later Supreme Court justices to further limit one of our most precious freedoms.

So, the next time you see a protest with whom you disagree, remember it is their right to do so. However, if the protestors incite others to commit a crime or use what the court calls “fighting words” or uses obscenities, then their First Amendment rights evaporate instantly, and they can be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Image is of George Mason whose Virginia Declaration of Rights became the basis of the U.S. Bill of Rights.

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Rejection of the First Recess Appointment

In 1795, even though the United States had been a nation for 12 years, we were on our second form of government. The first was a confederacy of 13 independent “nation states” that banded together to win the American Revolution governed by the Articles of Confederation.

In the eyes of the world, we were a political experiment.

Even back then, political pundits living in the kingdoms and duchies of Europe pontificated that one cannot be successful as a country without a king, queen, or duke, or duchess. Our Founding Fathers were determined to succeed. Within four years, even the most stalwart defender of the Articles of Confederation, would admit that confederation was not an effective form of government.

Something had to be done, so in a separate group, some members of the Confederation Congress (as the Continental Congress was now known) and others met in Philadelphia in what we call the Constitutional Convention. In just 114 days (May 25th to September 17th, 1787), they created an amazing document that we call the Constitution, which has become the longest-serving document of its kind in the world.

In Section II, Executive, Section 2, Clause 2, the U.S. Constitution gives the President the power to appoint ambassadors, public ministers, judges of the Supreme Court members, and others not otherwise provided for in the Constitution with the advice and consent of the Senate of which two-thirds must vote their approval.

In Clause 3 of the same section, the Constitution gives the President the power to appoint those allowed in Clause 2 without Senate approval if it is not in session. These are recess appointments, and the appointed individual must be approved by the Senate when it convenes.

The first test of these two clauses came after June 1795 when John Jay, the U.S.’s first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, informed President George Washington that he was resigning. Since the Senate was not in session, Washington contacted John Rutledge of South Carolina to fill Jay’s position.

Rutledge was eminently qualified to be a member of the Supreme Court. During the Revolutionary War, he replaced the Royal Governor of South Carolina when Lord William Campbell fled in September 1775. That same year, he helped draft the South Carolina Constitution and then later played a major role in drafting the U.S. Constitution. Rutledge readily agreed to rejoin the Supreme Court as its Chief Justice. Hearing of Jay’s resignation, Rutledge contacted Washington, who readily agreed to offer a recess appointment as the Chief Justice starting with the court’s August 1795 session.

In 1790, He was the first Associate Justice appointed to the Supreme Court approved by the Senate. However, Rutledge resigned in 1791 to become the Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court.

In July, before he was sworn in on August 12th, 1795, as the new Chief Justice, Rutledge delivered a scathing speech in a public forum attacking the newly approved Jay Treaty with Great Britain arguing that the treaty was pro-British. Both Washington and Jay had pushed hard for the Jay Treaty which had been approved by the Senate by a slim margin.

Immediately, proponents of the treaty attacked Rutledge, suggesting that Rutledge did not have the mental capacity to sit on the Supreme Court. Rutledge ignored the criticism and took his seat after being sworn in.

On December 15th, 1795, opponents of Rutledge took the floor of the Senate and won a vote to not confirm Rutledge, as per Section II, Executive, Section 2, Clause 3. In their next vote, the Senate confirmed Oliver Ellsworth as the Third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, forcing Rutledge to step down.

While not well known, this episode was another test of the Constitution’s viability as a country’s governing document. Like many others since then, the Rutledge recess appointment and required confirmation provide the brilliance of the concepts in the U.S. Constitution.

While he was helping craft the Constitution, little did John Rutledge know that the document he helped create would end his tenure as the nation’s senior justice. Rutledge’s term as Chief Justice of four months, 3 days, and his term of 12 months and 18 days as an Associate Justice are the shortest in the court’s history.

Image is a photo of the bust of John Rutledge in the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

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Demilitarizing the U.S./Canadian Border

Once the Treaty of Ghent was signed to end the War of 1812, U.S./British relations began to warm. There were several reasons. One was that the men who led both countries in two bitter wars were passing from the scene, either through retirement, being voted out of power, or death.

Another was that both countries realized that there was more to be gained by cooperation than conflict. By 1817, Napoleon had been defeated and exiled to the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic.

Despite restrictions on both sides, trade between the two countries grew during the French Revolutionary and Napoleon Wars. Now that Europe was at peace, they began to increase at an even faster rate.

Last, there was a grudging acceptance in the U.K. that the United States was here to stay. We were not going to fall on our faces and need a king, or queen, or duke, or duchess to lead us. Add in that the U.S. was growing in population (we already had the land mass through the 1783 Treaty of Paris and the Louisiana Purchase), and in economic and industrial power.

Militarily, the U.S. was still a pigmy compared to the U.K. but didn’t need a large standing army because we didn’t have an empire to protect. The largest military threat to the U.S. was internal, not external. We needed an army that could protect the settlers moving west from the Native Americans. Even with the Napoleonic Wars over, we needed a navy to protect our ships traveling overseas.

Which brings us back to North America. The U.S. and the U.K. agreed something about the U.S./Canadian border had to be done.

During the American Revolution and during the War of 1812, the U.S. invaded Canada. Both times, the invasions failed, and during both wars, the major naval battles were fought on Lake Champlain and Lake Erie.

In 1817, Canada was not an independent country so any decisions about the colony’s borders had to be made in England. In a series of letters exchanged by the U.S. Secretary of State Richard Rush and the British Ambassador to the U.S., Sir Charles Bagot, in April 1817, the two men worked out an agreement that was submitted to both country’s legislatures.

On April 16th, 1818, the U.S. Congress ratified what is known as the Rush-Bago Treaty. In it, both countries agreed not to station armed naval vessels on any of the Great Lakes or Lake Champlain. The treaty also established the border as the geographic mid-point of the lakes. In addition, we agreed to joint control of the Oregon Territory and both countries agreed not to construct military or defensive fortifications on the U.S./Canadian border. This made our northern border – all 5,525 miles – the longest unfortified border in the world.

What is most interesting about the Rush-Bagot Treaty is that it has passed the test of time. Even during the American Civil War, when relations with the U.K. were tense over it selling weapons to the Confederacy, both sides honored the treaty.

One of the first acts of the New Canadian Parliament after the country became independent on July 1st, 1867, was to confirm that it would honor the provisions of Rush-Bagot. During World War II, the U.S. Navy had training vessels on the Great Lakes, something it notified Canada that it was doing. The Canadian Navy also had and still has bases on the Great Lakes for training.

Rush-Bagot is still in force. As late as 2004, the U.S. notified Canada that it would like to arm its Coast Guard boats that patrol the Great Lakes with machine guns due to an increase in smuggling. The Canadians agreed and said it would do the same.

What is interesting is that Rush-Bagot came together in just a few weeks. Transit times back and forth across the Atlantic is what delayed its ratification by Congress and the British Parliament. The agreement has had and continues to have far-reaching effects on the U.S. and Canadian National Security.

Image is of a plaque to the Rush-Bagot Treaty at the Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, ON

 

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Jim Blythe Veteran’s Impact Show

Marc and Jim talk about what it means to be a veteran. Marc and Jim tell a few stories from their Navy careers.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/live/AeuL0Ihp2SU?si=N9NzwRSZvDzv7L4Q

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