foreign policy dominated the debates of the 1790s instead of the domestic issues and squabbles we've discussed over the last several videos basically when people were talking around Ye Old water cooler it was about the stuff going on overseas not so much the Whiskey Rebellion or the Tariff or the National Bank it was the international events and the U.S had to Define an international role and prove that it could protect itself and its assets now Washington is doesn't want to get involved in any European conflicts so he will issue in 1793 the neutrality proclamation the neutrality proclamation of 1793. technically April don't need to know that now if you're declaring neutrality and we understand what neutrality is right you you don't take a side in a conflict you know you just stay out of it but if you're declaring neutrality you don't do that if there's no big event going on there was a big event going on in Europe particular the French Revolution French Revolution had exploded into a general European war and was also in 1793 very rapidly becoming not just a uh Revolution but a very radical and violent revolution and just under the era called the reign of terror led by Maximilian robes Pierre which is where the Robespierre comes from um the guillotine 30 000 people in just roughly 16 months so it wasn't just that it became a general European War but it was becoming very very radical so Washington wanted to stay out of this he wanted nothing to do with this despite the French support in the U.S rev uh the American Revolution this is basically a statement of U.S policy that the U.S would not pick a side but would continue to trade neutral Nations can trade everything but what's called War material and that's uh material actually whoops exit yeah that's where it was you can see good night Thomas Ellie there we go hey almost like I should have double checked my slide before I recorded this you could trade as a neutral country you could trade everything but War material and notice it's spelled with an e at the end uh an a like we would expect material this is material this meant anything that can be used for waging or directly supporting a war guns ammunition iron you know certain other products right if if like in World War II the US was bombing German Iron Works so that they couldn't take that iron or steel Works they couldn't take that steel and produce tanks and bombs and guns steel itself is not something you can you know really fight a war with but the things you can make from steel you can't so War materials anything under that umbrella and this is a term we're going to come back to a few times so don't just remember it for this and then forget it we're going to be talking about this all the way in the Civil War um neither France nor Britain wanted this even if the U.S remained neutral they wanted full trade both Nations will start ignoring American neutrality which will cause a lot of problems now again both Britain and France but what we're going to specifically look at here and we'll get to the French later on in a later video is the British violations of American neutrality Britain will take a leading role in ignoring the proclamation on the Seas they will stop all U.S ships claiming they are carrying Contraband that they're carrying War material and they will seize all of those ships cargo what they also did was engage in the practice of impressment impressment is the kidnapping of another country's sailors and forcing them to serve in your own Navy so impressment kidnapping another country Sailors forcing them to serve in your Navy Britain and France both did this and it is specific to Sailors and navies not soldiers and armies not private citizens on lands Sailors and navies only there's a different term for General civilians there's a different term for armies and navies you can think of impressment though like I said it's kidnapping it could be you could categorize it human trafficking a certain extent um all of this though stopping American ships taking their cargo kidnapping their Sailors are all acts of War today if a country did this to the US people would want to go to war so naturally so did the US during this time you can understand why people were talking about foreign policy because of these things that were happening so that's one side of the way the British were violating American neutrality another side is through the Northwest Indian War hey look there's Fort Mitchell Mackinac oh and hey guess what it's relevant finally finally the Northwest Indian war was a conflict with the native nations and the Northwest Territory hence the name several native nations had Allied together to try to push out American settlers who were starting to flood in after the land ordinance of 1785. under the Articles this was in some way a sequel to pontiac's Rebellion back in the 1760s and one of the things they said about pontiac's rebellion was that it stopped native resistance for about 20 years or 20 years later and the native nations will lose and once again it will settle down there won't be another major conflict in the region for another 20 years but where this is relevant to our discussion because this is about the British and violating neutrality and of course the native nations lost right if if we're talking about a conflict between the U.S and native nations you could pretty much automatically assume that the natives lost because that's how it went how is this relevant to the British and their violations of American neutrality well the British were arming supplying and encouraging native attacks on the U.S they were convincing them to do this and then supporting them advising them giving them their weapons second they were doing this from forts in U.S territory that they still occupied they remember they were supposed to remove their troops from American soil as part of the Treaty of Paris of 1783 the treaty that ended the American Revolution one of the points the Five Points was that the British agreed to remove their troops from American soil all of these forts with the filled in symbol Mitchell Mackinac Detroit Miami Niagara Oswego ask uh ask watachi and uh uh point of fair are all with the British they still had troops in these forts so they hadn't fulfilled their side of the Treaty of Paris so not only were the did the British have a military forces on American soil they were then from those forts encouraging and arming the native nations to attack obviously when you take this information when that information gets back and then you take the information and all the things going on with impressment and the American shipping the calls for war within the us are going to become incredibly loud and frequent and Washington had to do something and what he'll do is try to negotiate a treaty and that treaty becomes known as Jay's Treaty John Jay was sent to Britain to negotiate peace to resolve these and other issues Washington did not trust Jefferson to negotiate with the British he was the Secretary of State Jefferson should have been the one sent here but Washington didn't trust him because remember Jefferson his ideas were that of the democratic Republican party that was just barely starting to come about but one of the things I said there was that they favored France and Jefferson in particular was incredibly popular in France so Washington was afraid that Jefferson would wouldn't strike a deal that would actually accomplish what needed to be accomplished because he didn't like the British so much what Jefferson didn't now Jay on the other hand or not on the other but Jay had his own impressive resume I've talked about him several times he was uh uh what are the the Federalists he wrote one of the authors of the Federalist Papers rather he's one of the authors of the Federalist Papers from unit one he was one of the negotiators for the Treaty of Paris of 1783. a few other things just to fill out his resume you don't have to know this stuff but just to give you an idea of he's one of these founding fathers doesn't get nearly enough recognition he was president of the Second Continental Congress for a year back in the 1770s he would served some time as ambassador to Spain under the Articles he was head of foreign policy again author of The Federalist Papers he was governor of New York for a time he wrote New York state constitution he was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and so much more but he wasn't Secretary of State but he had a huge resume so he was sent again the person that should have been sent was Jefferson the Secretary of State problem was Jay had very little to offer in terms of negotiating power he was basically negotiating with one hand tied behind his back or sewed into those uh his shirt pocket if you're looking at the painting here but he did get a treaty done if you wonder why so many portraits from this time have their hand like that that was just the style just like uh in the 80s it was the like the three different people like the different poses and stuff or or you know just whatever trendy thing for you know paintings were basically you know this that era's selfies right that's all they were um so he does get a treaty done and there's two main points here number one Britain agrees to remove all of their troops from American soil number two the U.S gained most favored nation uh status regarding trade with Britain that's it that's all the treaty says no promises or agreements were made about neutral trade no promises or agreements were made about impressment the British did not agree to stop America to stop stopping American ships they did not agree to stop impressment in fact being Britain's most favored trade partner isn't really being neutral when you think about it what most favored nation means is that when the when Britain is going to trade things uh maybe you get a better price or if they have a new product maybe you get or the first one they trade it's basically like a first look agreement there's no guarantees it just means that when they trade they look at you a little more I don't know like like uh like getting a a discount at a store right like a friends and family discount is kind of what that is um except if you didn't get that every time it was just you can have this discount but we may not give it to you this time so if you're most favored by one nation you're supposed to be neutral with you're not really neutral U.S didn't actually give up neutrality but and on paper but in reality yeah they kind of did and France understandably was Furious about this as were the Democratic Republicans neither side was particularly happy with this treaty the Federalists weren't happy with it either and it was trending towards rejection by the Senate who has to approve all treaties wait treat again it's another check and a bounce the executive branch can negotiate treaties but it's up to the Senate to approve them so the the the president can't negotiate any treaty they want and have it pass the Senate still has to come back and say yeah we like this yeah we don't and the Senate has in the past rejected treaties the Treaty of Versailles after World War one was rejected by the Senate so the U.S never actually signed it or or followed it Washington realizing that the Senate was tending towards rejecting the treaty essentially told the Senate they had two choices either accept the treaty and accept peace or to declare war on Britain there was no middle ground the whole point of this treaty was to solve these issues and hopefully prevent a war and if they don't accept the treaty then they're accepting more and enough Federalists came around that the treaty barely passed but it passed so this is significant for a few reasons number one and most important it prevented a war with Britain a war that the U.S could not win and even if it had a chance of winning was still going to be a disaster because where are you going to fight this war invade Canada you're going to take the US and it's like eight warships versus the British Navy you can try to invade England Spanish couldn't do that with the Spanish Armada so this was going to be a disaster so it prevented a war the war hadn't started yet it prevented a war with the British that the U.S was not going to win it was going to be a disaster second this is the first time that Washington is heavily criticized and he was downright unpopular in some parts of the country particularly in areas where there was a majority of Democratic Republicans so the South and rural areas Washington had never been so unpopular or so heavily criticized whether it's president or general and third this is a major event in the formation of political parties with Federalists in favor of the treaty eventually and the Democratic Republicans against until you start to see more of those lines being drawn between the parties this is where that Federalists more towards Britain Democratic Republicans more towards France that's where that thing kind of clicks into place so the parties are still forming and this is one of those important steps on that process so war was prevented but the country was beginning to divide and that's really the last thing for Washington's presidency there were other things going on obviously but as far as the big major events that's really what I have now impressment is here on the slide that's because I wanted to make sure and circle back here right at the end to to clarify that the British did not agree to stop impressment now did they yes if somebody's your most favored nation you don't attack their ships and kidnap their people so they did stop they never agreed to stop but they did stop for a little while they're gonna start it up again and that's a story for a little later on next we're going to move into a new president