mark on the 14th day of April of the intention of this Government
to avail itself of the stipulation of the subsisting convention of
friendship, commerce, and navigation between that Kingdom and the United
States whereby either party might after ten years terminate the same at
the expiration of one year from the date of notice for that purpose.

The considerations which led me to call the attention of Congress to
that convention and induced the Senate to adopt the resolution referred
to still continue in full force. The convention contains an article
which, although it does not directly engage the United States to submit
to the imposition of tolls on the vessels and cargoes of Americans
passing into or from the Baltic Sea during the continuance of the
treaty, yet may by possibility be construed as implying such submission.
The exaction of those tolls not being justified by any principle of
international law, it became the right and duty of the United States to
relieve themselves from the implication of engagement on the subject,
so as to be perfectly free to act in the premises in such way as their
public interests and honor shall demand.

I remain of the opinion that the United States ought not to submit to
the payment of the Sound dues, not so much because of their amount,
which is a secondary matter, but because it is in effect the recognition
of the right of Denmark to treat one of the great maritime highways of
nations as a close sea, and prevent the navigation of it as a privilege,
for which tribute may be imposed upon those who have occasion to use it.

This Government on a former occasion, not unlike the present, signalized
its determination to maintain the freedom of the seas and of the great
natural channels of navigation. The Barbary States had for a long time
coerced the payment of tribute from all nations whose ships frequented
the Mediterranean. To the last demand of such payment made by them the
United States, although suffering less by their depredations than many
other nations, returned the explicit answer that we preferred war to
tribute, and thus opened the way to the relief of the commerce of the
world from an ignominious tax, so long submitted to by the more powerful
nations of Europe.

If the manner of payment of the Sound dues differ from that of the
tribute formerly conceded to the Barbary States, still their exaction
by Denmark has no better foundation in right. Each was in its origin
nothing