Part 153

For several years past I have been an advocate for the adoption of every measure, the object of which was to place our country in a complete state of defence, and prepare us to meet any state of things. I have thought, and do think that preparatory and vigorous measures are best calculated to maintain the dignity and secure the peace and happiness of our country--that to be prepared to meet danger is the best way to avert it. These preparations have not been carried to the extent which I have wished--and yet, sir, I am far from thinking that my country is in that feeble state which some gentlemen seem willing to represent it. I feel myself authorized to state, that we have all the necessaries; all the implements; all the munitions necessary for a three years' close war against any force which any power can send to this continent.

All that we want, are men. No, sir, pardon the expression--all which we want is an expression of the will of the nation. Let this House, let the constituted authorities declare that will--let them declare "the Republic to be in danger," and thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow-citizens will rally round the standard of their country, resolved to support her rights, avenge her wrongs, or perish in her ruin. Yes, sir, should that awful moment ever arrive, which may Heaven avert!--should we be forced into a war in the defence of our just rights, I trust and believe that there is not a man in the nation, whose situation will permit, who will not be ready to march at his country's call. No man more devoutly prays for peace than I do; no man deprecates large standing armies in the time of peace more than I do. I consider them the bane of society and the danger of republics; but, sir, as peace, honorable peace, is not always at our command, they must be resorted to in time of war.

Mr. NELSON protested against the doctrine that in the vote he was about to give he should pledge himself to the support of whatever ulterior measures the Committee of Foreign Relations might choose to adopt. He was sensible that he should hazard the censure of his associates in the Republican cause by the observations he proposed to submit. Nay, his Republican friends might have the audacity to denounce him as an apostate, but the people had intrusted him with their dearest rights and interests, and he was resolved to pursue these according to his best judgment, regardless of the strictures of friends, and of the contumacious abuse of the press. Proscription should have no influence on his conduct. And hence he must express his astonishment at those gentlemen who had threatened the House with the previous question, when they themselves admitted the vast importance of the subject under discussion. Tacitus informs us that even the semi-barbarian Germans, when war was to be decided on, took two several occasions to debate upon it--one, when they were in the full possession of their natural faculties; and, second, when they were excited by extravagant circumstances. But in these enlightened days it seems that we are to decide this all-important question without debate! He begged gentlemen to divest themselves of passion. It was not a time to bow to the influence of improper feelings. They ought calmly and coolly to meet the subject. They were to decide upon a question which was of no momentary nature. If they did go to war, it would be a lasting war; and he agreed with the gentleman from Georgia, (Mr. TROUP,) that if war-speeches were necessary to bring the House to the sticking point, it was much too soon to begin war.

He proposed to consider these resolutions as a measure of hostility, according to the views of its advocates, and then as a measure of defensive preparations, agreeable to the spirit of Executive recommendation, which was favorable to peace. What were the objects of the war? To establish our neutral rights, to exempt our seamen from imprisonment, the repeal of the Orders in Council, and of the blockades, and the security of the American flag. What would be the effects of war, the tocsin of which was for the first time sounded through the land? Our country had been blessed by Providence with more than thirty years of peace and plenty. The habits of the people were pacific. The trifling hostilities with England were of no consequence. But now the yeomanry of the country were to be called to arms as if our own territory were to be invaded. He sympathized with the sufferings of his impressed and incarcerated fellow-citizens; but would a territorial war exempt them from impressment? Would it establish our neutral rights? Certainly not. The way to enforce these rights was by a great maritime force, which the nation were incompetent to raise and support.

But the advocates of immediate war said that if they could not obtain their objects by direct hostility on the ocean, they could do it by a succedaneum--by the exercise of the lex talionis in an indirect way. After issuing letters of marque, they would resort to the invasion of the enemies' territorial provinces. He contended that this would be inefficacious, and maintained that to convert our merchants into privateers would be to turn them loose upon the seas as highway robbers. They would not be competent to carry on a war in this way. They would have abandoned their peaceful pursuits; they would accept a fraternal embrace of French subjects; fight side by side with them, and submit themselves to the will of the French Emperor. However scrupulous gentlemen might now be, when the hour of danger came they would accept the alliance of France. The national interests would be identified with those of the European continent. We should adopt the continental system, in which our liberties and independence would be jeopardized.

He deprecated the invasion of Canada as an act of foreign conquest. We could not suppose that Great Britain would slumber over our occupation of it, and where should we find a stationary force able to keep possession of it as a conquered province? Admit it as a sister into the Union, we dare not abandon it at the peace, and therefore we could not give it back for the restoration of our maritime rights. But suppose that Great Britain should be brought to her knees, (and this was all the most valiant of us would ask,) what have we to expect, if the power and the commerce of England should be thrown into the arms of France, from the high, the mighty, the imperial Napoleon? Would he respect us more than England would? They both follow their own interest, as we ought to follow ours. What would be the effect of this war upon ourselves?

He feared a war, not from a puerile fear of its expenses or of death, but from a manly dread of the consequences of this war, which must last as long as England had a ship at sea, or a man to man it. It must link us to the destinies of continental Europe; it would place us under complete foreign influence and foreign dominion; it would change our political institutions. The sages who framed the constitution, and illumined it by their commentaries, had predicted that it would not suit to stand the shock of war. The Republic would be ruined by war. We do not want courage. The Revolution had shown proofs of the greatest valor ever exhibited by human nature. But few circumstances besides invasion would justify war. It would strengthen the Executive arm at the expense of the Legislature. The Chief Magistrate would have to carry on the war. He would, upon the plea of necessity, change our appropriations from one object to another. The constitution would be sapped. The legislative power would be destroyed. He cared not for the prices of cotton and tobacco as compared with the constitution. War would introduce a slavish subordination among the people. They would lose their republican simplicity and their republican independence. They would neglect their homespun for the military plume and the gilded epaulette. Their morals would become depraved. Love of idleness, extravagance, and neglect of the dull pursuits of common life, would take place. The desire would again prevail of acquiring large fortunes by aid of invasion, at the expense of the war-worn soldier whose fruits would be taken away for a mere song, as they had been at the close of the Revolution. Cupidity would be introduced, and pervade the public mind.

I have made these remarks, Mr. Speaker, to repel the declarations of gentlemen, that to vote for this resolution would pledge me to embark in war. If war is necessary, I would not shrink from it, big as it is with calamity and ruin. It will be the duty of Government to obviate some of its evils.

I am in hopes, too, sir, that I have been so fortunate as to check the intemperance of the youth of my country. They will excuse me. I trust we may not be led away by the ardor of youth or of old age. I shall vote for the increase of the regular force, to go hand in hand with my friends, even in a war, if necessary and just. I have not made this speech to prove that I am against war.

Mr. FINDLAY said he had frequently observed members, after a question had undergone a very tedious discussion, say that if the yeas and nays had not been called they would not have spoken on the question, but these having been called, they must assign the reasons for their votes. He did not approve of that principle, because if it was to be reduced to practice every member would speak to every such question, and there would be no end of the debate. However, on this question, though he thought it had been sufficiently discussed, yet he deemed it proper to express a few thoughts, not so much to give the reasons for the vote he designed to give, as to explain the principles on which he designed to give his vote. He designed to vote for the resolution before the House, but not surely for the same reasons or with the same determined views that some honorable members have expressed. He would not dwell on the tyrannies and robberies of either the more ancient or modern despots or Governments, of the old world, but confine himself to such as had a direct relation to the question depending before the House.

That the aggressions and bad faith of the British Government, and the recommendations of the Executive, were the foundation of the resolutions before the House, was admitted by all that have spoken on the question. In order to be understood he would take a concise retrospect of our relations with Britain since nearly the commencement of the present Government of the United States.

During the First Congress an Indian war was commenced on our western frontier, and conducted as usual with savage ferocity; but, believing that it only resulted from the combination of a few tribes, our defensive measures at first were weak, and our first attempts unfortunate. But it soon became such a tedious and expensive war as to require for several years the exertion of all our resources. It had at last a fortunate conclusion; but during its progress our Government and the citizens were fully convinced that the Indians were encouraged and supported by the British Government.

We all knew that for several years past Indian councils have been convened by British agents, who influenced them by presents, and employed them as emissaries to excite the peaceable Indians in our own territories to go to war against our new and dispersed settlements. It would be infidelity to doubt the truth of the Indians having received their arms, &c., from British agents, and though these British allies have got a check in the late engagement, yet it also has cost us dear. We have no ground to conclude that the danger is over; revenge is the predominant passion of savages, and though we have not such unequivocal proofs of the British in the present instance exciting the Indians to war, and supplying them for that purpose, as we had in 1793, when President WASHINGTON received a copy of Lord Dorchester's speech to the Indian tribes, encouraging them to war against our settlements, and promising them a co-operation of the British force--the copy of which gracious speech several members yet in Congress saw at that time, and every member has heard of it--through a kind Providence that co-operation was prevented by the defeat of the British armies in Europe. Though we have not at present such explicit proofs that the Indians at present are acting as British allies, yet we have as much proof as the nature of the case can afford, and it would be very unwise if we did not act accordingly.

From the above view of the subject, if we had no other cause, I deduce the expediency of increasing our regular force agreeable to the recommendation of the President and of our committee. I think more has been said about taking Canada than was necessary. It is true, that during the same Indian war, it was the opinion of our most sage politicians that we never could be secure against Indian war till we had possession of Canada, and by that means have it in our power to cut off the communication between foreign nations and the Indians on our frontiers and in our own territory. They said that neither our revenue, our credit or population would at that time justify the attempt; but that we were rapidly increasing in population and all other resources, while the nations of Europe are wasting their own strength, but the time was fast approaching when we must repel national insults or surrender our independence. This was said particularly with respect to the impressment of our seamen. At the commencement of this outrage, never committed by any other nation but Britain, the public mind was very sensibly affected by it, but time and the frequent repetition of the injury seems to have rendered the public feelings callous. This put him in mind of what he had sometimes observed, that when the savages scalped a few families on the frontier, the whole country was terribly alarmed, but that after the savage butchery had continued and extended itself for some time, the sensibility seemed to abate. This had been evidently the effect of the continued impressment of our seamen.

Mr. ROBERTS observed he should offer no apology for rising so late in this discussion, as the short time for which he was about to ask attention would not justify it. The eloquence and talents which had been so abundantly exhibited on this occasion, would not admit of more than a concise expression of his opinion, without subjecting him, justly, to the charge of presumption. When the report now under consideration came first before the House, I was, said he, of the number of those who were disposed to decide upon it without debate. I have frequently been in the minority on the question of adjournment, from a wish to reach the question on the resolutions. Under these impressions I confess I viewed the challenge, or rather the invitation, given by the gentleman from Tennessee, (Mr. GRUNDY,) "to debate this subject now, if it was to be debated at all," more as the impulse of an ingenuous mind, preferring, on all occasions, an open course, than the dictates of prudence or necessity. Nor was it till after the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. MACON) had invited and urged discussion, that I became disposed to join in opinion with them, the correctness of which the debate of this day has very much strengthened.

By the adoption of this report, we are entering on a system of operations of the utmost national moment; the effects of which the wisest amongst us cannot fully foresee, and on which we have no choice but to act. The discussion has already elicited opinions, which it is well to know exist; and the more so, since some of them admit the holders to vote for the report, while they allow them to be adverse to the measures which are necessarily to follow it. A little time may be well spent in comparing sentiments in this stage of the business, as it may be conducive to celerity of movement in the sequel, and give more certain effect to the measures which must ultimately be followed.

Every political community must, of necessity, possess rights, which it may enjoy independently of, and in common with, every other. One of those rights is an uncontrolled jurisdiction over its own territory. It has long ago been found necessary for nations to settle by convention on the great scale where the limits of territory shall cease, and where the high seas shall commence. This convention, or law, has determined that the ships of neutrals shall be a part of the national territory; so long as they are careful to preserve a pacific character. Through the intervention of vessels navigating the high seas, nations in amity are enabled to overcome the want of proximity, and all the purposes of trade and commercial intercourse may thereby be extended, as well to the inhabitants of the remotest corners of the earth, as to those only divided by a geometrical line. An attempt to interrupt this intercourse by a third nation, is so serious an act of hostility and wrong, as not only always to justify, but to demand, resistance. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) has said the Government would not, on a former occasion, go to war, when their trade, which consisted in carrying the produce of one foreign country to another, was annoyed and cut up; and why not, he says, be pacific now, as well as then? While I agree that our national rights extend to both alike, admitting, however, every Government to make her own municipal regulations, I must be allowed to consider our direct export and import trade much better worth contending for, than what has been denominated our carrying trade. The cultivators and owners of the soil have never shown any disposition to fight for the latter trade; and for a very plain and consistent reason. War is sure to bring on its train of evils and expense; and where it is obvious that these will amount to more than the loss of the exercise of a right in its nature of but transitory use and minor interest, a free people may with propriety refuse to hazard them for its support. It is not for such a people to war for a speculative right or an empty name. The carrying trade, it must be owned, was profitable in exercise, but it was a profit that could be given up without vital prejudice to the national interests. Not so with our fair export trade. To yield this would be absolute recolonization. It must not only affect us in the great resources of national strength, but it must break the spirit of our citizens, and make them infidels in the principle of self-government. It would, at the same time, add means and facilities to the aggressing nation to multiply her outrages. Give up the export trade to Great Britain, and you will next be required to give up the coasting trade, and to admit her navigation act to as complete operation in our bays and harbors, as it now has round the limited shores of the British isles. The spirit of commercial monopoly she has so pertinaciously manifested, proves that her ambition craves more than her means can aspire to. The wrongs she has long been and still is committing towards these States, have assumed a character that imperiously calls for a resistance, made by all for the benefit of all.

I cannot with some gentlemen doubt the sufficiency of this Government to conduct a war. However congenial a state of peace may be to a Republic, the Constitution of the United States must have been framed with a view to war as well as peace. The members of the grand convention had almost all been active characters in the Revolutionary war. On the subject of war they were certainly more than mere theorists. Honest apprehensions have, too, been entertained in times back of the Government being too strong; I think, however, that we may look with well-grounded confidence for complete sufficiency in it; without being alarmed at the reverse of the picture. While the power of declaring war is vested in Congress; while levies and supplies are within its control; while a check on the appointing powers is vested in the Senate, and a periodical termination of the President's office exists; the Executive arm, though sufficiently untrammelled for necessary and useful command, is effectually paralyzed as to the exercise of power to affect or change the free features of the Government; unless indeed the representation should become utterly corrupt, an event no one can believe possible. I feel much satisfaction at this moment in seeing a man at the head of the Government who had a conspicuous concern in framing the constitution, and whose official duties have since closely connected him with the administration of Government under it. In the Message out of which the report before you has sprung, not the slightest doubt is discoverable of the efficiency of our institutions to sustain us under every exigency that may overtake us. My own reflections on this subject (and they have neither been light nor transitory) have neither served to alarm nor intimidate. I repose in safety on the saving maxim, "never to despair of the Republic."

Mr. MCKEE.--Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the House, at this late hour of the debate, with reluctance; but the importance of the question must be my apology.

Some gentlemen, in felicitating themselves on account of the temper of the House, evidenced by the determination to adopt vigorous measures against England, have expressed a regret that measures of a similar character had not been resorted to long since.

In this sentiment I cannot agree. In reviewing past times, we cannot but perceive that it has been the desire of the Government to avoid being involved in the war with which Europe has been so long desolated, and by dealing out justice to the belligerents, respectively, with an impartial hand, to preserve our neutrality, permitting our citizens peacefully to pursue their private avocations, reaping the rich harvest arising from our neutral commerce.

This was certainly a wise policy, and the distinguished success with which it was attended is a clear evidence of its wisdom and propriety. Why, then, should it be condemned? Have any people ever acquired individual wealth with so much rapidity; or have any been more happy in the enjoyment of domestic tranquillity than the people of the United States? None. The wish of the late and the present Administrations was to continue this state of happy prosperity as long as it was practicable, by making acts of wrong and vexation of a minor sort, growing out of the violence of the times, the subject of negotiation, rather than a cause of war. And, is this course of policy now to be condemned, and regrets entered up that we have not been at war years ago?

At the opening of the session of Congress, in December, 1809, after the disavowal of Erskine's arrangement, when our relations with England assumed a more unfavorable aspect than at the close of the summer session, the Committee on Foreign Relations, with a desire to preserve our neutrality, presented to the House a measure usually termed Macon's bill, No. 1; a measure which it is now known was approved by the Administration, and had the sanction even of a higher authority, (if such there be.) This measure was calculated in its operation to present serious difficulties to those nations by whom the rights of our neutral flag were disregarded; and, at the same time, it left open to the enterprise of our citizens those channels of trade, not included within the scope of the orders and decrees of the belligerents, as they then stood; a commerce as extensive and valuable as we can expect to enjoy in times of general peace. It was, however, opposed, and successfully, too, by war speeches. It fell, and by its fall the Administration were driven from their ground, and the hopes of maintaining much longer the neutrality of the United States also fell with it. This unfortunate event was succeeded by the act of May, 1810. By this act, the belligerents were invited, in a new form, to withdraw their orders and decrees; promising, on our part, in case either of them should accept the invitation thus given to both, to put in force the non-importation sections of the non-intercourse law against the party persevering in their orders or decrees for three months after their adversary had accepted the invitation thus given. The law of May, 1810, was enacted with a hope that the terms thereby offered to the belligerents, respectively, would induce the one or the other to accept them, and withdraw their orders or decrees. And an expectation was also entertained, that if one of the parties could be induced to relinquish their orders or decrees, the other party would follow the example; and, if this just expectation should be met by a perseverance of either of the parties in their orders or decrees, after their adversary had accepted the invitation thus given, it would test the sincerity of the various and repeated declarations made by them, respectively, that their orders and decrees, affecting our commerce, were reluctantly issued in their own just defence.

Those also who preferred war to the preservation of our neutrality, and by whom Macon's bill was rejected, would be relieved from the embarrassment of going to war with two of the most powerful nations in the world, or of selecting which of the two should be made our enemy, at a time when we had just cause of war against both. The fixed and determined hostility of one of the parties towards the United States would be (as it certainly now is) most clearly proved; and thereby our measures of hostility rendered the more necessary, and more likely to receive the unanimous approbation of the American people.

My opinion, therefore, is, that it was wise to preserve our neutrality as long as possible, making an appeal to force the last reluctant resort; and, inasmuch as the majority of Congress, in 1809, resolved to change the peaceful character of this country, the intervening period has been employed in a last effort to avert the calamities of war; the result of which has relieved this Government from any liability to the charge of partiality to either of the belligerents, by compelling one of them, by their own act, to present themselves as the object of our just hostility.

Mr. STANFORD said, as the resolution before the House contemplated an additional army, and from the avowal of its friends, involved in it the question of peace or war, he felt the desire to assign the reasons of his vote upon so important a subject. He was the more disposed to do so as he should probably find himself in a very small minority upon the question. He was not flattered, he said, with using arguments which would convince others; but for himself he felt their force strong enough to fix his mind against the measure. If he were to vote, he said, for the proposed army, he should vote inconsistently with all his former opinions and principles upon the subject, and he never could think of acting a part inconsistent with himself, and that more especially when all his experience had gone to confirm his first impressions, his honest prejudices against standing armies. Such establishments had always proved the bane of free Governments, and he could not see how we were to get along with them, and remain, as he believed we were, the freest and happiest people upon earth.

But, sir, we are told war is to be declared in certain events, and that the army proposed is to invade and take the Canadas. We are then to pass out of the limits of the United States and wage a war of the foreign offensive kind! If such was the contemplated use of this army when raised, he was still the more opposed to the measure. He was against the war itself, and the policy of it, and could by no means yield his vote to bring it about. That there were sufficient cause of war, he was ready to acknowledge, and he was not disposed in any the least degree to palliate the offences of Great Britain, or that of any of the other belligerents, committed on the persons and property of our citizens. All of them had deserved war at our hands, but we had at no time since the commencement of our present Government seen it our interest or policy to give into it, in the open and declared form, nor that of any other form, except that of a quasi character which happened under Mr. Adams's administration. The question never had been whether we had or had not cause of war, but whether the true interest of the United States did not, under all circumstances, call aloud upon us to cherish peace, and to avoid war and its evils as the last of the alternatives before us; and this, said Mr. S., he would be able to show was the Republican doctrine, as well in the old minority times as since that minority grew into a majority.

The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. GRUNDY) had made a direct appeal to the Republican party, and endeavored to rally and unite them in this, to them at least, new doctrine of war. If the appeal of the gentleman had any reference to him, he would beg leave to deny some of his positions. He had himself had some small share to act in the political scenes of '98-9, and he was glad to find from the gentleman's declaration that he had joined in the "clamor" of the day, to pull down the then Federal Administration for the unjustifiable war which they had gone into with France. Mr. S. said he knew he had joined in it most heartily. He believed he then acted right in all he did to supersede that Administration, and he still believed he was right. The best interests of the country forbade the war, and so the people determined, when ultimately they came to decide the question. That party thus ousted by the public voice, the present Republican majority was brought in upon their own professions of better principles, the love of peace and economy. But now, forgetting our old professions under a French crisis, we had raised the cry of war under a British one, and nothing short of it was to save our honor. Mr. S. declared if there was any difference in the causes of war then and now, he thought it turned most decidedly in favor of the former period, since the more intolerable outrage in the case of the Chesapeake had been at length atoned for. What were the facts? French decrees existed at that time against your rightful commerce--he spoke of the arrêttes or decrees of the French directory--these had the same practical effect on our maritime neutral rights that the British orders have now. French cruisers waylaid the mouths of your harbors, and captured your vessels; and the first successful act of the United States after the quasi-war commenced, was, the taking of one of these cruisers in the mouth of one of our harbors.