144 
Indiana University Studies 
the British laws so that the proclamation would be required; 
(2) whether the proclamation was imperatively required by the 
laws; (3) whether the time for issuing the proclamation was 
at the discretion of the President; and (4) whether he could 
suspend its operation till the October or January following/ 
In regard to the first point, it was concluded that the occasion 
for issuing the proclamation had occurred. Judge Thompson 
of the Supreme Court held this opinion. Concerning the 
second point, Clay’s view that “the proclamation was posi- 
tively required by the law” prevailed. His view that the time 
of issuing was, to some extent, discretionary, and that its 
operation might be prospectively made, encountered the op- 
position of the President who believed that there could be no 
prospective suspension of the law, but that the same effect 
could be achieved by remission of the forfeitures until reason- 
able time of notice should be given. The final unanimous 
conclusion was that the proclamation “could not with pro- 
priety be delayed so long as until the next session of Con- 
gress”, and if delayed at all, “no adequate motive for issuing 
it could be assigned at any subsequent period before the ses- 
sion”. 
On March 17, 1827, therefore. President Adams issued his 
proclamation in accordance with the act of March 1, 1823, 
stating that the prohibition of the colonial trade resulting from 
the British order in council had brought about the contin- 
gency contemplated in that act, and that consequently the 
American restrictive acts of 1818 and 1820 were once more 
in force.^°® The Treasury Department’s orders carrying the 
proclamation into effect were most lenient in their operation 
until the first of the following July."^^'^ The interdict thus 
brought into operation, however, was not as wide in scope as 
that contemplated in the original bill introduced into the Sen- 
ate in the preceding session. British colonies outside the 
Western Hemisphere were not affected by the President’s proc- 
lamation. The situation created by the action of the two gov- 
ernments resolved itself into this: all British colonial ports, 
with the exception of those of the East India Company which 
lOj Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VII, 236. 
106 ihid. 
10- Ihid. 
^^>^Ibid., VII, 237. 
100 Richai’dson, Messages and Papers, II, 376. 
110 Am. State Papers, For. Rel., VI, 985. 
