The Xyz Affair Dbq

In April 1803, the negotiation was concluded and the entire region of Louisiana was ceded to the United States for the sum of $11,250,000 dollars (LeFeber 182). The American negotiators seized the favorable circumstances to urge the claims of American merchants on the French government for $3,750,00. This important acquisition more than doubled the territory of the United States. The great majority of the nation received the treaty with jubilation, but there were some particularly in the eastern States that disclaimed strenuously against it. They saw in the great enlargement of our territory and was nogthing more thatn a great waste, a wilderness unpeopled with any beings except wolves and wandering Indians. We are to give money of which we have too little for land of which we already have too much (LeFeber 183).

Directory’s foreign minister, Prince Talleyrand, demanded a loan for France and a Bribe for French officials before they would deal with Adams commissioners. This led to the undeclared war with France from 1798-1800. Adams cut off trade with France and captured French ships. American army did well and got 85 prizes of armed merchantmen and vessels of the French navy. U. S gets closer to Britain put still remains the “peace” see bribe. France didn’t need another war so he said that the representatives would be received with respect by Napoleon. Napoleon had other plans to take of Europe so he made the “convention of 1800s” which said the Franco-American alliance was over (that if either one of them was attacked by Britain, the other will fight for them) and America had to pay for French shippers.

Around the time of 1798, many writers and politicians who weren’t supportive of a break with France were writing and publishing papers that directly criticized President John Adams’s foreign policy regarding France. Specifically, “Bache” and his “paper” are mentioned several times in Abigail Adams’s letters. Abigail explains that Bache’s paper is “wicked” and in the paper, Bache “calls the President old, querulous, Bald, blind, crippled, Toothless Adams.” Many of the Federalists feared that the hateful language directed towards the President could result in

*After Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793, France ___ → attacked American shipping, as did England, despite American neutrality.

While trying to cut off supplies from coming to the foe, both sides endeavored to square the United States from exchanging with the other. In 1807, Britain passed the Orders in Council, which obliged nonpartisan nations to acquire a permit from its powers before exchanging with France or French provinces. The Royal Navy likewise shocked Americans by its practice of impressment, or expelling sailors from U.S. shipper vessels and constraining them to serve for the benefit of the British. In 1809, the U.S. Congress canceled Thomas Jefferson's disliked Embargo Act, which by limiting exchange had harmed Americans more than either Britain or France. Its substitution, the Non-Intercourse Act, particularly denied exchange with Britain and France. It likewise demonstrated incapable, and thusly was supplanted with a May 1810 bill expressing that if either power dropped exchange limitations against the United States, Congress would thus continue non-intercourse with the contradicting force. After Napoleon implied he would stop limitations, President James Madison hindered all exchange with Britain that November. In the interim, new individuals from Congress chose that year–led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun–had started to shake for war, taking into account their outrage over British infringement of sea rights and Britain's support of Native American

The Neutrality Proclamation issued by 1793 connects to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions written in 1798 and 1799 during the John Adams administration in many ways. The Neutrality Proclamation clarifies that the United States would not interfere and take sides during war. George Washington refused the French’s call for assistance by claiming that any aid would violate the Neutrality Proclamation, which angered numerous Democratic-Republicans. A series of treaties, battles, and rebellions followed this act, which ultimately ended in Washington’s resignation from his presidency. Eventually, the election for a new president was formed, which Adams won by a few points on Jefferson.

When James Madison, the president of the United States began drafting a war message in late May 1812, claiming the hostility Great Britain had showed towards the United States he didn’t fail to mention the hand France had to play in the game of hostility. “He therefore attached one more paragraph to the message, noting that France had often been as guilty of the same infractions of American neutral rights as Great Britain.” France had decided that after Chief Justice John Jay’s treaty, or “Jay’s treaty” had passed in 1796 that it could too retort to the same violations of neutrals rights that Great Britain had grown accustomed to. “That Attitude in fact governed much French policy toward the United States for the subsequent decade and beyond…” This led to the XYZ affair. The United States sent diplomats to ensure peace between the two nations, however French negotiators in turn made outrageous demands that shocked the diplomats, the demands were dropped but France did not agree to end the seizures of American ships.

America’s Continental Congress named a five member commision to negotiate a treaty. They recruited John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens. However, Laurens was captured by a British warship. He was held in the Tower of London until the end of the war, and he did not leave the United States in time to partake in the treaty. So Adams, Franklin, and Jay conducted it without him. What was the T.O.P (Treaty of Paris)? The Treaty of Paris was a document that showed the British’s acknowledgement of American independence. The  preliminary articles of the treaty of paris were signed on November 30, and the final treaty was signed on September 3, 1783 in

France eventually became willing to create a treaty that would abrogate the alliance of 1778 and, therefore, abolish all ties between the nations. The agreement was that if either nation violated the treaty, it would be thrown out, and if there was an indecisive argument, a third party would resolve such.

Adams wanted to get France to sign a treaty similar to the Jay Treaty, which was signed with England, as a way to restore international relations. However, the French foreign minister, Talleyrand, wanted the equivalent of $250,000 for himself and a loan for France which amounted to extreme bribery. Pinckney said he wouldn’t even give a sixpence. Long before the Quasi War had started, United States and France signed the Treaty of Alliance, which was signed by Ben Franklin. It said that the two countries has a military alliance and said the French would help the Americans fight the British if they needed assistance. Congress wanted to go to war with France and Adams did not want to, because he wanted to keep the peace. One of the first battles was in February, the USS Constellation, lead by Thomas Thruxton,

At around this time, the French Revolution had recently taken place. Jay’s Treaty was a disaster and in response the French government permitted the French navy to freely attack American merchant ships. This outraged and terrified Americans who were largely split between those wanting a war on France and those worried that the same French navy that came to their aid during the Revolutionary War would return to attack them. Criticism for Adam and his government grew and exacerbated concerns for imminent war. In response to this so-called Quasi-War because no war ensued these naval skirmishes, the Alien and Sedition Acts were

minister to France in 1796, the government there refused to receive him. After John Adams became president in March 1797, he dispatched a three-member delegation to Paris later that same year to restore peace between the two countries. Once the diplomats—Pinckney along with John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry—arrived overseas they tried to meet with France’s foreign minister, Charles de Talleyrand. Instead, he put them off and eventually had three agents inform the U.S. commissioners that to see him they first would have to pay him a hefty bribe and provide France with a large loan, among other conditions. Pinckney’s supposed response was: “No! No! Not a

While America’s relationship with France is decent, the relationship with England is less than perfect. England began destroying our ships in response to their Orders in Council. America is losing ships and sailors fast. In response, Jefferson passes the Embargo Act of 1807 which prevents trade with all foreign countries therefor ruining America’s

The Trent Affair was an event which occurred during the Civil War, that threatened a war with Britain as well as the South. The Americans captured two Confederate diplomats from a British ship. The UK protested quite a bit until the diplomats were released. In 1861, the Union intercepted a letter that stated the Confederacy was sending two diplomats to France to negotiate financial and military aid in the Civil War. They were considered contraband of war, and were removed from the ship. Before they were released, British troops in Canada and the Atlantic increased, as did the threat of war. Abraham Lincoln didn’t want to there to be war between the European nation and the South, so he ordered the release of the men. The diplomats, however,

Madison and Jefferson then seized on widespread public sympathy for France's expansive, revolutionary exploits to promote republican sentiment in the United States. Madison bitterly opposed Jay's Treaty, feeling that it made the United States dependent on England and in fact tied America to the corrupt power-politics diplomacy of the Old World. With the final ratification of Jay's Treaty, Madison felt that a commercial junta that cared very little for the republican character of the nation had gained control. The war-like attitude toward France of President John Adams,' administration alarmed Madison. The XYZ AFFAIR brought the United States and France close to war. During the continiuous turmoil in the United States, the