treaty negotiation Quotes
The notion of Executive Privilege developed over the years. Our first President thought nothing of giving the Senate access to all the papers and records regarding the negotiations of the treaty with Great Britain.
3rd Viscount Palmerston. This historical quotations illustrates the worst of the British Empire. British merchants were making large profits shipping opium to China and selling it there. Drug addiction became a major problem and some local Chinese Authorities passed laws banning the importing and selling of opium. However, the English merchant ship captains paid no attention to these laws claiming their rights as Englishmen to free trade. The Chinese finally seized a number of shipments of opium and burned them. The British then appointed Captain Elliot to lead a squadron of ships to China, arrange for payment in compensation for the value of the seized opium and to open up the opium trade, by force if necessary. The Chinese position was not unreasonable and Captain Elliot was not able to secure the concessions the English government wanted without starting a small war with the loss of many lives. Temple, who was the Foreign Minister at this time, fired Elliot and replaced him with someone who was less concerned about problems of drug addiction and the Chinese. Thus began the First Opium War. Note that the then British view of equity was that if they had to send an expedition of ships and soldiers to force the Chinese to allow the English to sell opium, then part of the terms must be that the Chinese pay the costs for the British ships and soldiers who invaded their country and forced them to keep poisoning their own people. See {621319} for Captain Elliot’s view.
One fascinating thing about this quotation is that the assumption is automatic that the war is for the purpose of converting the enemy to Islam. At the beginning of Islam this was the only reason for initiating a war. After the death of the Prophet, greed, jealousy, and power became causes of war for the Muslims just as with most other peoples. This quotation has been used by people in conflict with Muslims to refuse any Muslim overtures for a cease fire or truce, as it will not lead to peace unless they are willing to convert and it is likely that the Muslims are getting the worst of the battle and just want to regroup and obtain respite or reinforcements. According to this fatwa, Muslims will never agree to a truce if they are winning or even taking many casualties. Or they may make a truce with “anti-Islamic” conditions with no intention of adhering to the conditions—that is if they are following the Muslim jurisprudence which some Muslim leaders do not,
Jefferson as one of the many firsts for America proposed that we enter into the first free trade agreement and advocated the principle of free trade with all nations—a notion that has not yet come to pass.
