When the award of the arbitrator was submitted by
the late President to the Senate of the United States, that body refused
its advice and consent to the execution of the award, and passed a
resolution recommending to him to open a new negotiation with Great
Britain for the ascertainment of the boundary according to the treaty
of peace of 1783. That negotiation was forthwith entered upon by the
Executive, is still pending, and has been prosecuted with unremitting
assiduity. It is under such circumstances that the Federal Executive has
decided upon a continued compliance with the arrangement referred to,
and has insisted also upon its observance on the part of Great Britain.
Considerations of a similar nature have induced the President to refrain
hitherto from exercising the discretionary authority with which he is
invested to cause the boundary line in dispute to be explored, surveyed,
and monuments to be erected thereon. Coinciding with the government of
Maine on the question of the true boundary between the British Provinces
and the State, the President is yet bound by duty to consider the claim
which has been set up by a foreign power in amity with the United States
and the circumstances under which the negotiation for the adjustment
of that claim has been transmitted to him.
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