which also misfired. Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane until others intervened to restrain Lawrence, who was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and institutionalized. Slavery During Jackson's presidency, slavery remained a minor political issue. Though federal troops were used to crush Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831, Jackson ordered them withdrawn immediately afterwards despite the petition of local citizens for them to remain for protection. Jackson considered the issue too divisive to the nation and to the delicate alliances of the Democratic Party, while sympathetic newspapers argued for excluding slavery from federal politics and keeping it at the state level. Jackson's view was challenged when the American Anti-Slavery Society formally agitated for abolition by sending anti-slavery tracts through the postal system into the South in 1835. Jackson condemned these agitators as "monsters" who should atone with their lives because they were attempting to destroy the Union by encouraging sectionalism. The act provoked riots in Charleston, and pro-slavery Southerners demanded that the postal service ban distribution of the materials. To address the issue, Jackson authorized that the tracts could be sent only to subscribers, whose names could be made publicly accountable. That December, Jackson called on Congress to prohibit the circulation through the South of "incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection". Foreign affairs The Jackson administration successfully negotiated trade agreements with Great Britain, Spain, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Siam. In his First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson addressed the issues of spoliation claims, demands of compensation for the capture of American ships and sailors by foreign nations during the Napoleonic Wars. Using a combination of bluster and tact, he successfully settled these claims with Denmark, Portugal, and Spain, but he had difficulty collecting spoliation claims from France, which was unwilling to pay an indemnity agreed to in an earlier treaty. Jackson asked Congress in 1834 to authorize reprisals against French property if the country failed to make payment, as well as to arm for defense. In response, France put its Caribbean fleet on a wartime footing. Both sides wanted to avoid a conflict, but the French wanted an apology for Jackson's belligerence. In his 1835 Annual Message to the Congress, Jackson asserted that he refused to apologize, but stated that he did not intend to "menace or insult the Government of France". The French were assuaged and agreed to pay $5,000,000 () to settle