<\/p>\n
Last week, in our story about the long dispute over the boundary between Maine and Canada, we had reached the point where both sides anxiously awaited the decision of the Dutch king. That decision was announced on January 10, 1831, exactly two years after the briefs of the two governments had been presented to him. Let us now see how that decision was worded:<\/p>\n
“The line shall run due north from the source of the St. Croix (that is, the Schoodic or middle of the stream, as already settled) to where it intersects with the middle of the channel of the St. John, thence up the St. John to where the St. Francis River empties into it, thence up the St. Francis to the source of its southwest branch, thence due west to where it unites with the line claimed by U.S.”<\/p>\n
The disputed territory encompassed 12,027 square miles. The king’s award gave 7,908 to the U.S. and 4,119 to Canada. That decision was completely unacceptable to Maine, which took the position that the king had not decided at all which claim was the boundary, but had only recommended a compromise one between the two. What the decision had actually said was: “Because of the more or less hilly character of the entire disputed territory, the King cannot form the basis for a choice, and he does not consider the documents presented as preponderant either way. He regards the stipulations in the Treaty of 1783 as too vague to permit award to either side. The King came to the opinion that a suitable boundary can be drawn between the two claims, as he has now recommended.”<\/p>\n
On March 15, 1831 the Maine Legislature incorporated Madawaska as a town, and despite New Brunswick protest, the town was organized. Six months later, in September, 1831, New Brunswick civil officers arrested Selectman Daniel Savage and Town Clerk Jesse Wheelock of Madawaska and put them in jail at St. John. Instead of supporting the Maine action, the Secretary of State in Washington reproved Maine for taking independent action in the disputed territory.<\/p>\n
For some time relations between Maine and Washington had not been good. Maine people considered that Washington was indifferent to deeply felt Maine grievances. Maine vigorously denied New Brunswick’s rights to the Madawaska land and urged the Secretary of State to take national measures to get the Madawaska officers freed from the St. John jail.<\/p>\n
Although the prisoners were indeed set free in December. 1831. in the following month the Maine Legislature passed strong resolutions, declaring that the U.S. Constitution gave the Federal Government no right to cede away any territory of any state; that as one of the federated states of the Union. Maine had the clear duty of guaranteeing to its citizens the integrity of the state’s territory; that the King of the Netherlands had made a recommendation, not a decision; and that Maine could not and would not accept the King’s recommendation.<\/p>\n
The U.S. State Department responded by asking Maine to put a price on that part of the disputed area that lay north and east of the line recommended by the King. The U.S. would then buy that land from Maine in order to use it for making a peaceful and final settlement with Great Britain.<\/p>\n
Maine agreed to talk the matter over, and William Pitt Preble of Portland, Reuel Williams of Augusta and Nicholas Emery of Bangor were appointed commissioners of the State to discuss the federal request with U.S. Commissioners, Secretary of State Edward Livingston, Secretary of the Treasury Louis McLane, and Secretary of the the Navy Levi Woodbury. That staunch Whig statesman, Henry Clay of Kentucky, took sides with Maine and fought in the Senate against acceptance of a resolve presented by the administration to accept the Dutch King’s recommendation. Clay was successful and a negative amendment calling for the U.S. not to agree was passed 33 to 8.<\/p>\n
On June 23, 1832, having rejected the Dutch recommendation, the U.S. Senate passed the following resolve: “The Senate advises the President of the U.S. to open new negotiations with Great Britain for the ascertainment of the boundary between possessions of the U.S. and of Great Britain on the northeastern frontier of the U.S. according to the Treaty of 1783.”<\/p>\n
Commissions appointed by the President decided that Maine should provisionally, but not finally, surrender to the U.S. Government all claim to territory north of the St. John and east of the St. Francis, and in recompense the Federal Government would grant to Maine a million acres of land to be selected out of the unappropriated federal lands in the territory of Michigan. The commission further recommended that, if the above plan should not be accepted and the U.S. should fix the line as recommended by the Dutch King, Maine would anyhow receive the offered million acres in the west.<\/p>\n
To be put in force, the commission’s recommendations had to be accepted by the Maine Legislature and that body was not buying any such package. The Legislature voted that “no arrangement, provision or agreement made in regard to the boundary shall have any binding force until it has been submitted to vote of the people of Maine and approved by a majority of their votes.” The Kennebec Journal stated: “That resolve had a depressing effect in Washington.”<\/p>\n
The British Ambassador in Washington wanted to know if the sovereign authority of the United States was going to be overruled by the will of one state. The Secretary of State informed the Ambassador that “the authority of the U.S. is complete without the cooperation of the State of Maine.” Matters dragged along until 1837, when the Maine Legislature ordered the County Commissioners of Penobscot to take an “enumeration or census of all the inhabitants of said County residing north of the surveyed and located townships.”<\/p>\n
Commissioner Greeley, who led the census party was seized and jailed by New Brunswick authorities.<\/p>\n
In 1838 Maine’s long succession of Democratic administrations came to an end and, as the slogan of the tri umphant Whigs put it. “Maine went hellbent for Governor Kent”. Meanwhile Great Britain had come up with a new proposal, the establishment of a compromise. conventional line leading to equitable division of the territory. The term “conventional line” meant an arbitrary, agreed-upon line thatneed not necessarily conform to streams or ridges of land.<\/p>\n
Maine refused any conventional line, insisting upon its long-held interpretation of the Treaty of 1783. Gov. Kent sent a special agent to Washington to confer with the Maine Congressional delegation. He also sent along a written statement that said: “No departure from the treaty line is the emphatic vote of Maine. Upon myself as Governor. Maine’s will is of binding force and I shall faithfully execute it.”<\/p>\n
David Webster held that the line of the Treaty of 1783 was well defined and ought easily to be marked out on the actual land. On the other hand Senator Buchanan insisted that Maine was exceeding its authority in defying the sovereign United States. By this time Maine leaders were getting really angry. The Legislature passed a resolve in ringing words that said: “If the Federal Government is not able and willing to protect the territory of each state, then it is incapable of performing one of its highest duties.”<\/p>\n
Maine demanded that the Federal Government make a new and careful survey, based on all the evidence accumulated during the fifty-five years that had elapsed since the Treaty of 1783. When the Federal Government failed to provide such a survey, Maine took matters into her own hands. Gov. Kent appointed three prominent citizens as commissioners to run the proposed survey. The surveyors found the land at the line contended by Maine to be high enough to divide the streams according to the statement in the treaty. In 1839 the British Government made a new survey of their own. They found south of the claimed Maine line another of maximum elevation. and contended there lay the true Highlands. The Maine surveyors retorted that the highlands located by the British did not divide any streams at all, much less those to the St. Lawrence from those to the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
When Democrat John Fairfield succeeded Gov. Kent in 1839, he was even more vigorous than Kent had been in support of Maine’s claim. Under his leadership the Legislature ordered the Land Agent to take a sufficient force of men to the disputed area and arrest all persons trespassing on Maine territory as established by the Treaty of 1783, and the Legislature appropriated $10,000 to carry out its will. The Land Agent, with 200 men, went to Aroostook and made several arrests.<\/p>\n
But on Feb. 12, 1839 a band of 50 trespassers from New Brunswick seized the Land Agent and two citizens of Bangor and threw them into jail at Fredericton. When that news reached Bangor, the fat was in the fire. Gov. Fairfield then ordered Major General Hodsdon of the 3rd Division of State Militia to draft 1,000 men, rendezvous at Bangor ready to proceed to Aroostook on orders.<\/p>\n
The Legislature at once passed the following resolve: “The honor and interest of the State demand that a sufficient military force be stationed at once on the Aroostook River west of the boundary line established by the Treaty of 1783, to prevent further depredations on our public lands.” The Legislature then appropriated the respectable sum of $800,000.<\/p>\n
On Fairfield’s orders the thousand recruits were hurried to the border, and a draft of 10,000 additional men was ordered. The controversy had now reached a stage where the Federal Government was forced to interfere or to admit that a single state could legally wage war — something expressly forbidden by the Constitution. The President ordered General Scott of Mexican War fame to go to Maine and secure peace with honor. He arrived at Augusta in August, 1839. He at once sensed political implications in the situation.<\/p>\n
Both Democrats and Whigs were wary lest the opposing party gain some advantage from any action taken. Scott was thus able to obtain delay on actual firing of shots. With statesmanlike ability, Scott worked out an armistice whereby both withdrew their troops from the area. The New Brunswick authorities agreed to keep trespassers out of the area until a final settlement could be reached. Not a shot had been fired and so ended the Aroostook War.<\/p>\n
No settlement came, however, until Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State, agreed to try to reach an agreement satisfactory to all with British representative Lord Ashburton, who arrived in this country in April, 1842, to try to reach a final settlement. The two statesmen finally succeeded in securing Maine’s consent to a conventional line, from the intersection on the St. John of a line due north from the source of the St. Croix, thence up the middle of the St. John to a point three miles west of the Madawaska, thence to the outlet of Long Lake, thence west to where the St. Francis empties into Pohenaganook Lake, thence to the highlands dividing the waters to the River du Loup from those to the St. Francis. And that was the line between Maine and Canada that was fixed in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, and remains the boundary line to this day.<\/p>\n
And so, with these two broadcasts, we come to the end of the story of the long dispute over our northeastern boundary that lasted for nearly 60 years.<\/p>\n
Year: 1968<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #759, Broadcast on March 10, 1968<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1199,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}