"With respect to the northeastern boundary of the United States, no official correspondence between this Government and that of Great Britain has passed since that communicated to Congress toward the close of their last session"
About this Quote
The context is the simmering U.S.-British dispute over the Maine-New Brunswick line, a quarrel that had already produced arrests, militia mobilization, and the risk of turning local land claims into an international clash (the Aroostook crisis was about to flare). Van Buren's phrasing performs two tasks at once. To Congress, it’s a warning: don’t freelance foreign policy through speeches, appropriations, or hawkish posturing. To Britain, it’s a quiet reassurance: Washington isn’t escalating; it’s keeping the argument inside the channels that matter.
The subtext is management of American impatience. "With respect" reads like diplomacy, but it’s also containment. By invoking the last session’s communication, Van Buren implies continuity and control, suggesting the issue is being handled, just not in public. That’s classic executive-statecraft rhetoric: reduce the temperature by relocating the drama from the frontier to the file cabinet.
It’s also a reminder of how 19th-century power often operated - less through grand declarations than through the careful choreography of silence, timing, and who gets to speak for the nation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Buren, Martin Van. (2026, January 16). With respect to the northeastern boundary of the United States, no official correspondence between this Government and that of Great Britain has passed since that communicated to Congress toward the close of their last session. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-respect-to-the-northeastern-boundary-of-the-93401/
Chicago Style
Buren, Martin Van. "With respect to the northeastern boundary of the United States, no official correspondence between this Government and that of Great Britain has passed since that communicated to Congress toward the close of their last session." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-respect-to-the-northeastern-boundary-of-the-93401/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"With respect to the northeastern boundary of the United States, no official correspondence between this Government and that of Great Britain has passed since that communicated to Congress toward the close of their last session." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-respect-to-the-northeastern-boundary-of-the-93401/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
