It was more difficult to win over the United States. There the
people showed the usual indifference of a big and prosperous
country to the needs or opportunities of a small and backward
neighbor. The division of power between President and Congress
made it difficult to carry any negotiation through to success.
Yet these obstacles were overcome. The depletion of the fisheries
along the Atlantic coast of the United States made it worth
while, as I.D. Andrews, a United States consul in New Brunswick,
urged persistently, to gain access to the richer grounds to the
north and, if necessary, to offer trade concessions in exchange.
At Washington, the South was in the saddle. Its sympathies were
strongly for freer trade, but this alone would not have counted
had not the advocates of reciprocity convinced the Democratic
leaders of the bearing of their policy on the then absorbing
issue of slavery. If reciprocity were not arranged, the argument
ran, annexation would be sure to come and that would mean the
addition to the Union of a group of freesoil States which would
definitely tilt the balance against slavery for all time. With
the ground thus prepared, Lord Elgin succeeded by adroit and
capable diplomacy in winning over the leaders of Congress as well
as the Executive to his proposals. The Reciprocity Treaty was
passed by the Senate in August, 1854, and by the Legislatures of
the United Kingdom, Canada, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick,
and Nova Scotia in the next few months, and of Newfoundland in
1855.
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