Mr. McLane, under date of 21st March, corrected the error into which Sir
Charles had fallen in regard to the proceedings on the award in the
Senate of the United States, and showed that that body not only failed,
but by two repeated votes of 35 and 34 to 8 refused, to consent to the
execution of the award, and by necessary implication denied its binding
effect upon the United States, thus putting it out of the power of the
President to carry it into effect and leaving the high parties to the
submission situated precisely as they were prior to the selection of the
arbiter.
The President had perceived, Mr. McLane said, in all the previous
efforts to adjust the boundary in accordance with the terms of the
treaty of 1783 that a natural and uniform rule in the settlement of
disputed questions of location had been quite overlooked; that the
chief, if not only, difficulty arose from a supposed necessity of
finding highlands corresponding with the treaty description in a due
north line from the monument, but it was plain that if such highlands
could be anywhere discovered it would be a legal execution of the treaty
to draw a line to them from the head of the St.
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