On the morrow of his accession he had reversed the policy of Paul, denounced the League of Neutrals, and made peace with England (April 1801), at the same time opening negotiations with Austria.
But his second term derives most of its historical interest from the unsuccessful efforts to convict Aaron Burr of treasonable acts in the south-west, and from the efforts made to maintain, without war, the rights of neutrals on the high seas.
The fifteenth legislature (April 1864 to April 1865) ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and passed laws against " bush-whacking," a term used in the Civil War for guerilla warfare, especially as carried on by pretended neutrals.
Thus the declaration of Paris, 1856 (to which, however, the United States, Venezuela and Bolivia have not yet formally acceded), prohibits the use of privateers and protects the commerce of neutrals; the Geneva conventions, 1864 and 1906, give protection to the wounded and to those in attendance upon them; the St Petersburg declaration, 1868, prohibits the employment of explosive bullets weighing less than 400 grammes; and the three Hague declarations of 1899 prohibit respectively (I) the launching of projectiles from balloons, (2) the use of projectiles for spreading harmful gases, and (3) the use of expanding bullets.
In reply to a note addressed by England to neutrals, asking that all belligerent submarines be excluded from neutral waters, he said that the nature of each submarine must govern the decision.
