The views which your excellency has been pleased to take of the subject
at this time embrace measures some of which have long since ceased to be
operative and reach back to the propriety of the stipulations entered
into by the treaty of Ghent, also of the subsequent negotiation designed
to bring those stipulations to a satisfactory result in the mode
prescribed by that treaty--that of arbitrament. It being, as your
excellency states, the opinion of Maine that those proceedings were
unjust and unwise, it is, in a matter in which she is so deeply
interested, her undoubted right to say so; yet the President thinks
that he can not be mistaken in believing that no practical good can at
this time be expected from discussion between the Federal and State
Governments upon those points. That the measures referred to have not
been as fortunate in their results as was hoped is entirely true, but
your excellency may nevertheless be assured that they had their origin
in a sincere desire on the part of the Federal Government to discharge
all its duties toward the State of Maine as a member of the Union, and
were resorted to in the full belief that her just rights would be
promoted by their adoption.
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