Gifts often delight recipients, but the two lions King Morocco gave President Van Buren in 1839 gave him a headache trying to deal with it.

When Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States and the American ambassador to France, departed from France in 1785, he brought with him a farewell gift from King Louis XVI: an oval golden box with legs.

The luxury box puts Franklin in a dilemma.

This ban was laid down in the Articles of Confederation, which is considered the first US constitution, which was ratified in March 1781.

When drafting the US Constitution to replace the aforementioned document, the delegates of the 1787 Constitutional Conference decided to continue to include the ban on the new document, after Sen. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina stressed the need to

Therefore, the first article of the US Constitution prohibits officials and leaders from accepting gifts, money, positions and titles from the King, Prince or any other foreign country without the consent of Congress.

At the Constitutional Conference of 1788 to ratify the American Constitution, lawmaker Edmund Randolph mentioned foreign temptations and Franklin's dilemma as a basis for drawing this clause.

"The king of the allied country gave our country's ambassador a box," he said.

Due to this provision, US presidents including Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln were asked to consult Congress when foreign governments gave them gifts.

President Lincoln informed parliament after Siamese king La Mongkut presented him with a sword, two ivory tusks and pictures of the king and princess.

Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States, was in the most "big and vivid" dilemma of the 1800s. In the summer of 1839, King Morocco sent a delegation to the US consulate in Tangier to present a gift.

Consul General Thomas N. Carr tried to refuse to accept the two lions, explaining that US law forbids him and the President from accepting gifts.

"I will be beheaded if you do not accept them," the messenger said, emphasizing that even in the case Carr refused, he would still leave the two lions on the street, in front of the consulate.

At that moment, President Van Buren continued to receive a large number of gifts sent by the king of Oman Seyyid Said on the Sultanee ship docked in New York City, including two Arab horses, a Persian rug, and a few scarves.

Van Buren wrote to the King of Oman explaining that American law forbade him to accept gifts from abroad.

Van Buren then consulted parliament.

Today, US federal law prohibits government employees, including the president, from accepting gifts worth more than $ 390 from abroad, but leaders of countries often give gifts of much higher value.

The Obama family is not allowed to keep the jewelry unless they buy them out of pocket at market prices.

In 2012, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, bought a black pearl necklace for nearly $ 1,000, donated by Aung San Suu Kyi, now Myanmar's national adviser and foreign minister.

If gifts are not purchased, they are considered state property and many of the gifts are collected in collections in the presidential museum and library.