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Partly-printed DS as president, signed “R. B. Hayes,” one page, 7.75 x 10, July 25, 1878. President Hayes authorizes and directs the Secretary of State to cause the Seal of the United States to be affixed to “my full power to William M. Evarts, Secretary of State, to conclude a Convention between the United States and Japan, revising the existing treaties of commerce between the two countries.” Signed at the conclusion by Rutherford B. Hayes. In very good to fine condition, with scattered small stains, and light creasing to the lower left corner.
This document pertains to a modification of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States, also called the Harris Treaty, which was a treaty signed between the United States and the Tokugawa Shogunate that opened the ports of Kanagawa and four other Japanese cities to trade and granted extraterritoriality to foreigners, among several trading stipulations. It was signed on the deck of the USS Powhatan in Edo (now Tokyo) Bay on July 29, 1858.
The treaty followed the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa, which granted coaling rights for American merchant ships and allowed for a U.S. Consul in Shimoda. Although Commodore Matthew Perry secured fuel for U.S. ships and protection for U.S sailors, he left the important matter of trading rights to Townsend Harris, another American envoy who negotiated with the Tokugawa shogunate. It took two years to break down Japanese resistance, but with the realization that demands for similar privileges would soon follow from other Western powers, the Tokugawa government eventually capitulated.
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