Part 30

It becomes, therefore, at last, indispensable to take a retrospective view of our affairs. And, if in taking this view, we should find the cause of our disasters, we must not fear to contemplate it, to hold it up; and, having grown wise by experience, we must not be prevented by false pride, from profiting by it; we must not shrink from the exercise of a virtue because it is also an imperious duty. And I hope that no gentleman who hears me is unwilling to sacrifice the popularity of the Administration to the salvation of the country.

Permit me then, sir, to go back to that period in our history which immediately preceded the adoption of our present form of Government. What was then our condition? The people were poor--for there was no commerce to assist agriculture--there was no revenue for general objects. Many States were hardly able to collect enough for State purposes. And, of course, there was no such thing as public credit, although there was an immense floating debt. We had no reputation abroad--there was no confidence even at home. But, sir, we had a WASHINGTON, and we had the pupils of WASHINGTON, men whom he knew to be faithful in the Cabinet, for he had found them faithful in the darkest stages of the Revolution. The nation, happily, had not been deluded--they knew their friends by their deeds--they had not yet yielded to the sweet fascination of the seductive popular declamations of these latter times. Men were known by what they did, not by what they said. These men, sir, had the sagacity to discover the secret springs of our prosperity and happiness and glory. And they were able to strike them with a powerful hand, and with a powerful hand they did strike them; and, instantly, as if by enchantment, the scene changed. Suddenly, agriculture raised her drooping head, for commerce beckoned her to prosperity. Your people began to pay their debts and to become rich. Public credit was restored; the Treasury began to fill readily. Sources of revenue were explored, certain of continually increasing, equally certain of being never exhausted, except by folly and madness. Indeed, sir, so perfect was the financial machinery that it admitted of no improvement. It required no more skill in the successors of the illustrious Hamilton to make this instrument "discourse most excellent music," than it would a child to play a hand-organ. An end was put to our Indian wars; our Algerine captives were redeemed--our reputation was established abroad, and the United States assumed their just rank among the nations of the earth! This was, indeed, a work worthy of the illustrious patriots who achieved it. It was the result of that profound practical wisdom, which, never yielding to the deception of brilliant theory, saw the public interest with a clear eye, and pursued it with a firm and steady step; and it was no wonder that it was successful. Let me add, too, that all this was accomplished without taxation being felt by the people.

But this great prosperity was not without interruption. It received a stroke, sir, deep and dangerous, and almost mortal, from the tremendous system of spoliations commenced by Great Britain in 1793. Misfortunes cast themselves across the path of nations as well as individuals. They are often unavoidable, and no nation can hope to be always exempt from them. The wisdom of the human mind is displayed in putting an end to them in private affairs, and in public that statesman only is great who can overcome and disperse them, who, though he cannot avert the bolt, can prevent the ruin it threatens. At the period of which I speak, we had such statesmen. Yes, sir, the alarm was depicted on every countenance--though the nation staggered to its centre under the severity of the blow it had received, yet was the Administration equal to the dreadful emergency--it had brought the nation into existence and prosperity, and it was equal to the preservation of both. And they showed it not by venting their rage in idle reproaches, but by applying efficient remedies to the diseases of the country.

Let it be remembered that justice was to be obtained from Great Britain; from that power which is now represented and held up to our indignation as "proud, unprincipled, imperious, and tyrannical;" and which certainly was at least as much so then; for then she had on her side all Europe engaged in combination against France, and France was alone as England is now. In short, she was then on the continent of Europe what France is now. Yet, from this same country did our Government succeed in obtaining not only reparation for the spoliations committed, but a surrender of the Western posts also. I repeat, sir, all this was accomplished when Great Britain was not less imperious in disposition, but more formidable in power than she is now. And surely all this ought to appear strange and wonderful indeed to those who have been deluded into the idea that, when Great Britain was struggling, gasping for existence, the same thing was impossible: that has with ease, and under more inauspicious circumstances, been accomplished, which the men now in power pretend they have attempted in vain. Still strange as it may seem to them, it is a fact--it is history. Well, sir, how was this miracle brought about? By a process very plain and simple. The Administration was sincerely desirous of peace; and that single object in their eye, they exerted their abilities to obtain it and consequently did obtain it. The instructions of the Minister breathed a desire of peace--of reconciliation upon terms compatible with the honor of both nations. The Administration did not send with their Minister a non-importation act, a proclamation, or a permanent embargo, by way of exhibiting their love of peace. The refinement in diplomacy which sends with the negotiator a new cause of quarrel for the purpose of accelerating the adjustment of an old one, was not yet invented. No, sir, Mr. Jay, (and the name of that stern, inflexible patriot and Republican, I always repeat with delight and veneration, because he is a patriot and a Republican)--

Mr. G. continued.--Mr. Jay had no disposition to bully the British Government into justice; he had no objection that they should have all the merit of returning voluntarily to a sense of justice, provided his country might have the benefit of substantial reparation. The stern sage of the Revolution became the courteous ambassador, and, appealing "to the justice and magnanimity of His Britannic Majesty," he demanded redress and he obtained it. The British Government saw that ours was sincerely disposed to be at peace with them, and, pursuing the natural direction of their interests, there was no difficulty in making peace. Our plundered merchants were compensated--paid, sir, bona fide. We did not purchase redress; we did not pay for the surrender of the Western posts, which were our right, and out of the purchase money indemnify a portion of our own citizens. No; the payment was to all; and in right old-fashioned "British gold," all counted down on the nail. I wish that I could, with equal truth, say the same thing of more modern treaties.

And now, sir, compensation being made by Great Britain for the spoliations on our commerce, the Western posts being surrendered, a commercial treaty being established, the dark cloud which obscured our prospects being dispersed, the sun of our prosperity once more burst forth in all its radiance, and again all was well.

I care not what were the objections of the day, begotten in the brain of faction, and cherished in mobs; under the treaty we were prosperous and happy, and that one fact is enough for me. Bad as the treaty was represented to be, and the worst feature of it most probably was, that it was a British Treaty--bad as it was, the continuance of its existence has been precisely co-extensive with the progress of our prosperity--it made our people rich and happy; and, bad as it was, they would have cause to rejoice indeed if the present Administration had furnished them with just such another.

France saw with uneasiness the return of a good understanding between America and Great Britain. And she, in her turn, let loose her plunders upon our commerce. Again the wisdom of our Government was called into action, and again it produced the most happy result. What did they do? An embassy was despatched to France, redress was demanded, but the Ministers were not received, nor could be, till a douceur--a tribute--was paid. From a nation which returned such an answer, redress could not be expected; and there was an end of negotiation. Britain and France had acted toward us with equal injustice--the disposition of our Government, its desire of peace, was the same with both. Its conduct was the same to both, but France would not even hear our demands. The American Government were at no loss how to act. The case was a plain one. One nation robs another--that other demands reparation--prevarication is the reply. It requires no skill to see, in such a case, that, to coax the offender into reparation is impossible. Accordingly, our Government did not hesitate as to the course it should pursue; they did not wait to be spurred on by any Government to an assertion of their rights; they would not leave it one moment doubtful whether they had the disposition and the courage to assert them. They proceeded immediately to annul the French Treaty, to pass non-intercourse laws; they built ships of war, and sent them upon the ocean, to protect our commerce. They were not so obstinate but that they could receive instruction, even from the author of the "Notes on Virginia," who, in that work, so judiciously recommends a navy. Our little armament picked up the French cruisers, great and small; the coast, the sea, was soon cleared of them. And our commerce again visited every clime in safety.

I will here remark, sir, that, during all this time, the staple commodities (particularly of the Northern States) suffered no diminution, but an increase in price. Well, sir, France very soon discovered that she had nothing to gain, and we nothing to lose by such a state of things. Even then, when she had some naval power, she discovered this. She was, therefore, very soon disposed to change it. A treaty was patched up, in the end, and something like the appearance of redress provided for.

Now, sir, for the result. A former Administration were able to settle our differences with Great Britain, although she governed all Europe, although she was unjust, haughty, and imperious. Now the same thing is said to be impossible! A former Administration were able, after a fair negotiation had failed, to bring France, who had then some maritime power, on her marrow-bones. And now, when she has none, again the same thing is impossible! How happens all this? Sir, I am afraid your Administration have committed most capital mistakes. They have been unwilling to learn wisdom from the experience and success of their predecessors. I do fear, and I shall be obliged to prove, that, on the one hand, they have been actuated by, certainly they have never (following the example of a former Administration) manifested a sincere disposition to accommodate our difficulties with Great Britain. And, on the other hand, they have in no instance shown to France that bold front which, in more unpromising times, brought the terrible Republic to her senses. These two errors, these wilful, wanton aberrations from established policy, are the true causes of all our misfortunes. It is owing to them that we have, if we believe the Administration sincere, two enemies who are already at war with each other, and we, the only instance of the kind since the creation of the world, are to step out a third and distinct belligerent, a sort of Ishmaelite belligerent; our hand against every nation, and every nation's hand against us. We are in a situation which defies hope, one in which we have but a single miserable consolation, that though it promises nothing but ruin, yet it is so ridiculous, so ludicrous, that we can but smile at it.

These remarks are extorted from me a little out of their order. I return to the period of the restoration of peace between the United States and France.

The Administration now (1801) passed into the hands of other men. They received a country, rich, prosperous, and increasing in prosperity. A people contented and happy; or discontented only with those who had been the authors of their prosperity. They received a Treasury full and overflowing, giving a vigor and a spring to public credit almost unknown before, and to the reputation of the country a dignity unsullied; they found us in peace and friendship with all nations, our commerce whitening every sea, and rewarding agriculture for all its industry, and every one sitting in peace under his own vine and fig tree. Our country presented to the animated philanthropist one uninterrupted display of liberty, of gaiety, and of felicity. Oh! happy, happy period of our history--never, never, I fear to return. And, if ever truth dropped from the lips of man, it was when the nation was declared to be in "the full tide of successful experiment." Never were the destinies of a nation in more wonderful prosperity committed to men. That prosperity had been acquired at a price no less unparalleled, at the expense of the destruction and disgrace of those whose wisdom and energy had produced it.

The new men, sir, were not required to bring order out of confusion; that had been done already.

They were not called upon to lay the deep and strong foundations of national prosperity and happiness; that had been done already.

They were not enjoined to "multiply" the talents committed to their stewardship; that was unnecessary--they were merely commanded to preserve them undiminished.

They were not required to create a paradise--but to keep uninjured that which was committed to their guardianship.

They promised, indeed; they were so rash, in the fulness of their exultation, as to promise to do more; but folly alone could believe them; and for breaking this promise I forgive them, for to do more was impossible. And if they had but preserved unimpaired, if they had not totally destroyed the inestimable treasures intrusted to them, I would have endeavored to overcome my resentment, my indignation, and my despair.

In performance of their lofty promises, in disregard of sacred duties, what have they done? In what condition do they leave the country, which, eight years since, "in the full tide of successful experiment," fell into their hands? They present to us, sir, the gloomy reverse of all it was. The people discontented and distressed--all becoming daily more and more poor--except, indeed, that class of rich speculators, whose wealth and whose hearts enabled them to prey upon the wants of their countrymen. The despair and dismay of 1786 are returned! The prosperity of twenty years is annihilated at one stroke! The sources of revenue are dried up. The Treasury, indeed, may be now full--but it must continually diminish--and, without its usual supply, it must soon be empty. We have still some credit. But how long, sir, can that be maintained, when it is known that we have no longer the means, allowing us to possess the disposition, to fulfil our pecuniary engagements? When you cannot collect a cent upon imposts, and dare not lay a direct tax, how far you will be able to obtain money on loan, is, to say the least of it, very questionable. But, I will hasten to finish the contrast I was about to make. Commerce, sir, has perished, and agriculture lies dead at her side--for these twin sisters must flourish or die together. No nation in the world is our friend--our paradise is becoming a wilderness; our soil is stained with the blood of our own citizens; and we look around us, in vain, for one solitary benefit to compensate us for all the dreadful effects of the present system.

Perhaps, sir, I may be answered: "Though all you have said be true, though our former prosperity exists no longer, it is ungenerous, it is unjust to impute the change to the agency of the Administration. What has happened could not be prevented." Though such a rebuke were reasonable, I will still insist that the Administration, if they deserve no censure, are certainly entitled to no praise, and can ask for no confidence. If they have not been the authors of the public calamities, they have not, like their predecessors, discovered the ability to prevent them from coming thick upon us. If their hearts are honest, their heads have not discovered much soundness. No set of men, however ignorant, however stupid, could have placed the country in a worse or a more deplorable situation. The truth is plain and palpable. Judging of the wisdom of the Administration by the result of its measures, I cannot sing praises to them for their skill and ingenuity in diplomacy. No, sir; I delight in that diplomacy which makes the poor rich; which makes industry prosperous; which spreads contentment through the land, and happiness among the people. I delight in the diplomacy, whose skill and wisdom can be read in the countenance of my countrymen, and makes the face of my country the evidence of its prosperity. I like not, I abhor that diplomatic skill which can be found only in a book! which has produced nothing but calamity, and whose praise is written in the blood of my countrymen.

But, sir, how happens it that we still remain under the distresses occasioned by the belligerents? Is there, indeed, a physical impossibility of removing them? From Great Britain, and that, too, when she had the whole continent on her side, we could once obtain justice, not only for the past, but security for the future. From France, too, we could once obtain justice, but now we can gain justice from neither. What change, sir, has occurred in the state of things to produce this strange impossibility? Our commerce is more an object to Great Britain now, than it was formerly--and France can oppose to us no resistance on the ocean. And yet no remedy can be found for our calamities! Sir, I will not be the dupe of this miserable artifice. What has been done once can be done again by employing the same means.

The Administration have committed greater errors. They have conducted all their affairs in such a style as to leave Great Britain no room to doubt that, when they asked for peace, they wanted it not. To this cause may be traced all our difficulties, so far as they proceed from that power. As it regards France, I fear that they have not acted the proper, the manly part. In short, sir, they have not pursued toward England the policy which saved us in 1795, nor toward France the policy which was successfully opposed to French rapacity and French obstinacy in '93.

I think an error was committed, when, affecting to desire an amicable arrangement with Great Britain, instead of treating with her as a nation not to be intimidated, much less bullied, the non-importation act was passed. For, sir, if she was so proud, so haughty, so imperious, as some gentlemen delight to describe her, then to bring her to justice by assuming an attitude of menace, was evidently impossible. When, therefore, you passed the non-importation act, under a pretence that it would be a successful auxiliary to friendly negotiation, what could you expect but to alarm the pride, and the haughtiness, and imperiousness of that nation? And, doing that, how could you expect an amicable result? No, sir, it was not, and it could not be expected. You obtained a treaty indeed--but it was from a Fox Ministry. Yet such as it was, it was not so good as a Jay's Treaty, and the Executive rejected it without so much as laying it before the Senate.

In support of the embargo system, gentlemen say, if we suffer our commerce to go on the ocean, or wherever it goes, it will be crippled either by France or Great Britain. Although this is not true in the extent laid down, yet it will hold tolerably true as respects the European seas. From what gentlemen are pleased to represent as the impossibility of sailing the ocean with safety, result (say they) the propriety and necessity of the embargo system. And they say, it is not the embargo, but the decrees and orders which are the true cause of all we suffer; that the embargo, so far from being the cause of, was advised as a remedy for the evils we endure. Well, sir, for the sake of the argument, be it as they say. Has the embargo answered? Is there any probability, the slightest indication, that it will answer? Has it operated, to any perceptible extent, except upon ourselves, during the twelvemonth it has been in existence? If, then, neither the remembrance of the past, nor the prospect of the future, gives the least encouragement to hope, why will gentlemen persist in the system? And that too, sir, at an expense to their own country so enormous in amount? Will they go on obstinately amid all the discontents, or clamors (as gentlemen in very anti-republican language call the voice of the people) in the Eastern and Northern States? And that from mere obstinacy--an obstinacy not encouraged by the least glimmering of hope? If I could be pointed to a single fact, produced by the operation of the embargo, which would prove that it had any other effect on the disposition of Great Britain than to irritate--or any other on France than to please, than to encourage her to a perseverance in that system of injustice which we pretend to oppose, but to the policy of which we give all our support with an infatuated wilfulness, and which, therefore, increases the hostility Great Britain has felt from the measure--if they could show me, sir, that the embargo will bring either to terms, I would abandon the opposition at once, and come heart and hand into the support of your measures. The other day, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. WILLIAMS) almost persuaded me that it ought to operate upon Great Britain; but I looked and I found it did not, and I was convinced it would not.

But, have gentlemen reflected that, if all the evils were drawn from Pandora's box, to vex Great Britain, you could have hit on none so well calculated to call out all her resistance, and all her obstinacy, as this same expedient, the embargo! If she yields to us, under the pressure of such a system, she discloses to us the secret of her independence! Sir, the embargo is war; it was intended as such against Great Britain. And she understands its meaning and its character too well for us to disguise it, under a pretence of its being a mere precautionary municipal measure. Its efficacy as a coercive measure has been too often and too loudly boasted of in this House, to make its real object a secret to her. Nay, in so far as the great and prominent feature of war is coercion; in so far as war is always intended to make the adversary yield that which he will not yield voluntarily; in so far, are the embargo and the non-importation act WAR. Each was intended to coerce Great Britain to yield to us points which it had been ascertained she would not yield voluntarily. It was a system of coercion, a new-fangled sort of philosophical experimental war; novel, to be sure, in its character, but, to all substantial purposes, war. Instead of bloodshed, there was to be ink shed--instead of bayonets, pens--instead of the bloody arena, huge sheets of paper! Whenever Great Britain shall yield to the coercion of the non-importation, embargo, or non-intercourse system, she virtually tells the people of the United States, "we are in your power whenever you choose to make a claim upon us, whether just or unjust; threaten us with an embargo and a non-intercourse, and you bring us to your feet." Does any gentlemen believe, even allowing the pressure of the embargo to be great upon her, that she can yield, that she can afford to yield? That she can admit that we have her always perfectly in our power? Sooner would she give up in battle--sooner would she see her soldiers retreating before our bayonets; sooner would she see her armies perish under our valor, than acknowledge herself the slave of this magic wand. Her children might grow to be men, and she might try the fortune of another day; the hair of Samson might grow on again, and his strength be renewed; but in yielding to the chance of the embargo, she places her existence in our hands, and becomes dependent upon our will for the existence of her sovereignty. Sir, the King of England cannot, he dare not, yield to our embargo.

But, sir, he has not told us that he considers our embargo hostile to him; nor has our Government ever told him that it was; such a declaration has never been put to paper. No, sir; when you look into the correspondence, it would seem that the embargo was never intended as a coercive measure, nor even understood so by Great Britain. Every thing on both sides is conceived in a sincere spirit of "friendship." Our non-importation act, our proclamation, our embargo, are all acts of friendship and kindness toward Great Britain, for aught we find there. And Great Britain issues her Orders in Council in a reciprocating spirit of amity toward us. She is not offended with our non-importation act, nor our embargo. Not at all. Her orders are not intended to harm us. She means nothing in the world, but simply to retaliate upon France--and she is sorry that almost the whole force of the blow falls upon us, but it is unavoidable. She, by the laws of nations, has as perfect a right to retaliate upon France as we have to make our innocent municipal regulations--and she is full as sorry that her retaliation system should wound us, as we are that our municipal regulations should incommode her. Sir, this diplomatic hypocrisy (begun, I acknowledge, by us) is intolerable. Sir, there is not one word of truth in the whole of it, from beginning to end. The plain state of the case is this: Anterior to the non-importation act, the British Treaty had expired--there were points of dispute, particularly concerning the impressment of seamen, which could not be adjusted to the satisfaction of our Government. In this state of things, either we ought to have gone to war, or we ought not. If we had intended to do so, stronger measures should have been resorted to than a non-importation act. If we had not intended to do so, the act should never have been passed. Those who passed it could have but one of two objects in view; either to coerce Great Britain to the terms we demanded--or, by vexing and irritating her, to raise up in due time an unnecessary fictitious quarrel, which (as this country is known to be extremely sensitive of British aggression) might ultimately end in a real old-fashioned war. No men could have been so weak as to calculate upon the first result. As to the other, the wisdom of the calculation is pretty strongly proved by the situation in which we now find ourselves. Sir, this is the whole mystery--and it must be explored--it must be exposed. We must understand the real character of our controversy with Great Britain--the real character, intent, and aim, of the different measures adopted by us and by her, before we can hope to heal the wounds our peace has received, or to restore the prosperity we have been unnecessarily made to abandon. I know, sir, how difficult it is to overcome matured opinions or inveterate prejudices; and I know, too, that, at this time, the individual who shall venture to lay open "the bare and rotten policy" of the time, makes himself the butt of party rancor, and strips himself to the unsparing "lacerations of the press." But these are considerations too feeble to deter me from my duty.

The object, sir, of our present deliberations is, or ought to be, to relieve our country from the distresses under which it groans; to do this, we should be prepared to legislate with a single eye to the welfare and happiness of the nation. It is of the first necessity that we should deliberate with calmness, if we mean to apply an effectual remedy to the diseases of the State. In the remarks which I had the honor to make yesterday, I was constrained to draw a contrast between the measures and prosperity of former times and those of the present times. Under circumstances of the same character, we were formerly able to overcome our misfortunes. Now we are not. And I did this for the purpose of impressing upon the House an opinion, that if the Administration had practised upon the principles of their predecessors, all had been well; or, that if retracing their steps, or relinquishing the path of error and misfortune, they would still be the learners of wisdom and experience, it would not even now be too late to retrieve the affairs of the country. If I know my own heart, I did not make the comparison from any invidious purposes; but merely to turn the minds of gentlemen back to former times; that they might reflect upon the perils and calamities of those times, and the means by which an end was put to them; but in doing this, I could not avoid paying the tribute of deserved praise and of sincere gratitude to the men under whose agency we prospered abundantly. In contrasting the conduct of the present with that of the former Administration, I meant to subserve no purposes of party. Nay, sir, I could have much desired to have been spared the necessity of presenting that contrast before the nation. I could have wished to have avoided these references, lest I might excite party feeling in others; lest I might appear to be governed by them myself. But truth could not be attained by any other course, and I have been compelled to take it.

The first resolution, contained in the following words, was divided, so as to take the question first on the part in italic:

"Resolved, That the United States cannot, without a sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the late edicts of Great Britain--and France."