Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.)

The bill proposes giving authority to the President of the United States to raise twenty thousand regular troops, in addition to the thirty-five thousand already authorized by law. This may be right or wrong, proper or improper, according to times and circumstances, and the objects which the measure is contemplated to effect. Were the country invaded by a foreign foe, and a foe so powerful as to make this additional number of troops necessary for its defence, I should say it were right and proper to raise them, whatever expense it might be to the nation. But if, as the advocates of the bill profess, these men are to be enlisted, and, together with those heretofore authorized, are to form a powerful army for the purpose of foreign conquest, I have no hesitation in giving it, as my opinion, that it is improper and wrong, or, at least, as the President has told us respecting the French decree repealing those of Berlin and Milan, that "the proceeding is rendered, by the time and manner of it, liable to many objections." Objections, it is apprehended, may arise from want of powers given to Congress by the constitution, either expressed or implied, to do this thing, with its professed object in view – that is, foreign conquest. And if these are unavailing, common reason and common sense furnish objections, sufficiently strong, to the expediency of our undertaking such enterprises. Objections, for want of sufficient powers given by the constitution, may be considered as novel; but, if sound, they should nevertheless prevail. The war itself is novel, this being the first of the kind that ever we have undertaken since that instrument was formed, or since we became an independent nation. If the constitution gives Congress any power to carry on foreign wars, those powers must be collected from expressions it contains, or from some clear and necessary implication from something that is therein expressed. It will be very readily admitted, that our national Government is a Government of a very simple construction, and that it possesses very limited powers; being established by compact, not by conquest, it has not all the powers incident to the sovereignties of other countries; not produced by conquest, it was not made for conquest. "The enumeration of certain rights in the constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; and the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people." The framers of this constitution took particular care, not only to define the powers they intended to give, but the objects to which that power should be applied, and therefore, but for those defined objects, Congress have no powers at all. The objects are first pointed out clearly and plainly, and then the powers necessary to their attainment. The people of this country, after having effected the Revolution and established their independence, considering their great transmarine distance from the nations of the Old World, and all their jarring and rival interests, flattered themselves with the expectation of long peace. Unapprehensive of being attacked at home, they had no idea of making war for the purpose of conquest abroad. "Peace and friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none," was their motto, and the same sentiment has been sanctioned by a man, whom the advocates of this war have never ceased to admire. An aversion to standing armies was among the causes that induced the Declaration of Independence; without standing armies, it was then believed, and we now know full well, foreign wars cannot be carried on. Foreign wars did not, therefore, come within the scope of that policy that dictated the constitution. I am not insensible, that, by the constitution, a power is given to Congress to declare war, (not to make it,) but their power is not to be exercised but in the spirit of that instrument, and for the attainment of some or all of the objects for which it was framed. And what are those objects? Why, and for what was the constitution made? Its authors have told us. It was for "the forming of a more perfect union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquillity, providing for the common defence, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," and all these benefits for the people that then did, or who thereafter should, belong to, or reside in the territory then embraced by the United States, and none other. The constitution was not made for any other, nor can it give jurisdiction over any other. If all or any of these objects are endangered, and it can be made to appear that raising the additional army proposed by this bill be necessary to the preservation and security of them, and can afford a rational prospect of producing such an effect, then my objections to the measure, so far as they arise from the apprehension of the want of constitutional authority, will be obviated. But here, permit me to ask, whether adding twenty thousand new troops to our present regular army, will be likely to have the effect of forming a more perfect union among the people of these States, or whether the little progress already made in the war has not produced fearful apprehensions of a sad reverse? If justice be not already established in our country, can there be any probability that a more formidable army will effect an object so desirable? No; for it is a well-known maxim, as true now as in those ancient times when it was written, that "Inter arma leges silent." So romantic an idea, as being able to establish justice through the world, could not have entered the heads of those that framed the constitution. Much has been said respecting the laws of nations; but they are now nowhere to be found, but in those books that treat on that subject; they were formed by the nations of the civilized world, and evidenced by the treaties, compacts, and agreements, entered into by them; but the Governments of Europe, in their struggle for power and dominion, seem to have disregarded or broken them down; and they being the majority in number, and superior in strength, it is not at present in our power to build up and enforce them. The unavoidable state of the world must be submitted to, until human nature shall, by its Great Author, be corrected. Nor can we, from what we have experienced, promise ourselves, from foreign war, an increase of tranquillity at home. But we are authorized, and are bound to provide for our common defence, and to raise armies, as well of regulars as militia, for that purpose, whenever the unfortunate situation of our country may render such a measure necessary; and our raising of a regular army could never have been contemplated by the framers of the constitution for any other purpose, and therefore give no authority so to do, and, as if conscious that this were the case, the committee that penned the act passed by Congress in June last, declaring war, made use of a form altogether unusual in other countries on similar occasions. The act declares that "war exists between the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and the United States;" going upon the idea, that hostilities had then been actually commenced against us by that Government, and our country invaded by a British armed force. Such a doctrine would have been very proper, and it might have been proper to raise armies in pursuance of it, had it been true. But such was not the fact. No hostile invasion of the country, by the British Government, had then been made, attempted or threatened. But some may say, and do say, that, if it were not a point then, it is now, and that, therefore, if we had no right to raise regular armies then, it being a time of peace, we may feel ourselves fully authorized now, since war has been declared, to raise new ones, or make additions to the old. This, indeed, would be contrary to a principle universally received and adopted, that no one should be permitted to take the advantage of his own wrong.

I know it is a doctrine, that the ruling party in this country, both in and out of this House, are every day zealously endeavoring to inculcate, that even admitting the war to have been wrong, at its commencement, it has now become the constitutional duty of its original opponents to afford every aid and encouragement to its prosecution. But this is a doctrine that I think no one can yield his assent to, till he is made to believe that two lines, constantly diverging, may finally meet in the same point. If our country has been in any degree invaded, and such invasion be in consequence of our having first invaded the territories of the invaders, it is proper for us, by withdrawing the cause, to put an end to the effect. The last, and not the least object of the powers given by the constitution, is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Many arguments cannot be necessary to show the tendency of foreign wars to destroy liberty. I believe history does not furnish an instance of any people long free, after engaging in the mad projects of foreign conquest. While Rome was content with her ancient boundaries, her inhabitants were blessed with freedom; but, afterwards, jealousies, tumults, insurrections, and seditions, and those two great plagues and scourges of mankind – anarchy and tyranny – following in the train, destroyed every vestige of liberty among that people. Is there any liberty left among the people of France, or of those countries that France has conquered? Fortunate for them, if they are less enlightened than we are; for, in such case, though slaves, they may not be quite so miserable ones. "The very age and body of our constitution, its form and pressure," indicative of the genius and temper of the people that adopted it, are all opposed to the prosecution of wars for conquest. Such enterprises must not be undertaken, or the constitution must be destroyed. Gentlemen seem already inclined to attribute the disgrace and defeats that have hitherto marked our progress in this war, rather to the form and constitution of our Government, than to the weakness and folly of its Administration. The French Emperor has been extolled, and his mode of conducting wars has been more than intimated as being worth our imitation. If, in making foreign conquests, we would have his success, we must make use of his means, and then we may bid adieu to our former happy institutions, our laws, and our liberty. On this ground, therefore, I am opposed to the progress of this war. But if I had not a scruple left, as to the authority given to Congress by the constitution to make this war for conquest, (and perhaps I ought not to have,) my sense of its inexpediency, while I shall have any regard for the welfare and prosperity of my country, will forever forbid my giving it the smallest aid.

Mr. H. Clay (Speaker) said he was gratified yesterday by the recommitment of this bill to a Committee of the whole House, from two considerations: one, since it afforded to him a slight relaxation from a most fatiguing situation; and the other, because it furnished him with an opportunity of presenting to the committee his sentiments upon the important topics which had been mingled in the debate. He regretted, however, the necessity under which the Chairman had been placed of putting the question,30 precluded him from an opportunity he had wished to have enjoyed of rendering more acceptable to the committee any thing he might have to offer on the interesting points it was his duty to touch. Unprepared, however, as he was to speak on this day, of which he was more sensible from the ill state of his health, he would solicit the attention of the committee for a few moments.

I was a little astonished, I confess, said Mr. C., when I found this bill permitted to pass silently through the Committee of the Whole, and that, not until the moment when the question was about to be put for its third reading, was it selected as that subject on which gentlemen in the opposition chose to lay before the House their views of the interesting attitude in which the nation stands. It did appear to me that the loan bill, which will soon come before us, would have afforded a much more proper occasion, it being more essential, as providing the ways and means for the prosecution of the war. But the gentlemen had the right of selection, and having exercised it, no matter how improperly, I am gratified, whatever I may think of the character of some part of the debate, at the latitude in which for once they have indulged. I claim only, in return, of gentlemen on the other side of the House, and of the committee, a like indulgence in expressing, with the same unrestrained freedom, my sentiments. Perhaps in the course of the remarks which I may feel myself called upon to make, said he, gentlemen may apprehend that they assume too harsh an aspect; I have only now to say that I shall speak of parties, measures, and things, as they strike my moral sense, protesting against the imputation of any intention on my part to wound the feelings of any gentleman.

Considering the situation in which this country is now placed, in a state of actual war with one of the most powerful nations on the earth, it may not be useless to take a view of the past, of various parties which have at different times appeared in this country, and to attend to the manner by which we have been driven from a peaceful posture. Such an inquiry may assist in guiding us to that result – an honorable peace – which must be the sincere desire of every friend to America. The course of that opposition, by which the administration of the Government had been unremittingly impeded for the last twelve years, was singular, and, I believe, unexampled in the history of any country. It has been alike the duty and the interest of the Administration to preserve peace. Their duty, because it is necessary to the growth of an infant people, their genius and their habits. Their interest, because a change of the condition of the nation brings along with it a danger of the loss of the affections of the people. The Administration has not been forgetful of these solemn obligations. No art has been left unessayed; no experiment, promising a favorable result, left untried to maintain the peaceful relations of the country. When, some six or seven years ago, the affairs of the nation assumed a threatening aspect, a partial non-importation was adopted. As they grew more alarming, an embargo was imposed. It would have attained its purpose, but it was sacrificed upon the altar of conciliation. Vain and fruitless attempt to propitiate! Then came a law of non-intercourse, and a general non-importation followed in the train. In the mean time, any indications of a return to the public law and the path of justice, on the part of either belligerent, are seized with avidity by the Administration – the arrangement with Mr. Erskine is concluded. It is first applauded, and then censured by the opposition. No matter with what sincerity the Administration cultivates peace, the opposition will insist that it alone is culpable for any breach between the two countries. Because the President thought proper, in accepting the proffered reparation for the attack on a national vessel, to intimate that it would have better comported with the justice of the King (and who does not think so?) to punish the offending officer, the opposition, entering into the royal feelings, sees in that imaginary insult abundant cause for rejecting Mr. Erskine's arrangement. On another occasion, you cannot have forgotten the hypercritical ingenuity which they displayed to divest Mr. Jackson's correspondence of a premeditated insult to this country. If gentlemen would only reserve for their own Government half the sensibility which is indulged for that of Great Britain, they would find much less to condemn. Restriction after restriction has been tried; negotiation has been resorted to, until longer to have negotiated would have been disgraceful. Whilst these peaceful experiments are undergoing a trial, what is the conduct of the opposition? They are the champions of war; the proud, the spirited, the sole repository of the nation's honor; the exclusive men of vigor and energy. The Administration, on the contrary, is weak, feeble, and pusillanimous – "incapable of being kicked into a war." The maxim, "not a cent for tribute, millions for defence," is loudly proclaimed. Is the Administration for negotiation? The opposition is tired, sick, disgusted with negotiation. They want to draw the sword and avenge the nation's wrongs. When, at length, foreign nations, perhaps, emboldened by the very opposition here made, refused to listen to the amicable appeals made, and repeated and reiterated by the Administration, to their justice and to their interests; when, in fact, war with one of them became identified with our independence and our sovereignty, and it was no longer possible to abstain from it, behold the opposition become the friends of peace and of commerce. They tell you of the calamities of war; its tragical events; the squandering away of your resources; the waste of the public treasure, and the spilling of innocent blood. They tell you that honor is an illusion! Now we see them exhibiting the terrific forms of the roaring king of the forest. Now the meekness and humility of the lamb! They are for war, and no restrictions, when the Administration is for peace; they are for peace and restrictions, when the Administration is for war. You find them, sir, tacking with every gale, displaying the colors of every party, and of all nations, steady only in one unalterable purpose: to steer, if possible, into the haven of power.

During all this time the parasites of opposition do not fail by cunning sarcasm or sly inuendo to throw out the idea of French influence, which is known to be false; which ought to be met in one manner only, and that is, by the lie direct. The Administration of this country devoted to foreign influence! The Administration of this country subservient to France! Great God! how is it so influenced? By what ligament, on what basis, on what possible foundation, does it rest? Is it on similarity of language? No! we speak different tongues; we speak the English language. On the resemblance of our laws! No! the sources of our jurisprudence spring from another and a different country. On commercial intercourse? No! we have comparatively none with France. Is it from the correspondence in the genius of the two governments? No! here alone is the liberty of man secure from the inexorable despotism which everywhere else tramples it under foot. Where, then, is the ground of such an influence? But, sir, I am insulting you by arguing on such a subject. Yet, preposterous and ridiculous as the insinuation is, it is propagated with so much industry, that there are persons found foolish and credulous enough to believe it. You will, no doubt, think it incredible (but I have nevertheless been told the fact) that an honorable member of this House, now in my eye, recently lost his election by the circulation of a story in his district, that he was the first cousin of the Emperor Napoleon. The proof of the charge was rested on a statement of facts which was undoubtedly true. The gentleman in question it was alleged had married a connection of the lady of the President of the United States, who was the intimate friend of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, who some years ago was in the habit of wearing red French breeches. Now, taking these premises as established, you, Mr. Chairman, are too good a logician not to see that the conclusion necessarily followed!

Throughout the period he had been speaking of, the opposition had been distinguished, amidst all its veerings and changes, by another inflexible feature – the application of every vile epithet, which our rich language affords, to Bonaparte. He has been compared to every hideous monster and beast, from that of the Revelations to the most insignificant quadruped. He has been called the scourge of mankind, the destroyer of Europe, the great robber, the infidel, and – Heaven knows by what other names. Really, gentlemen remind me of an obscure lady in a city, not very far off, who also took it into her head, in conversation with an accomplished French gentleman, to talk of the affairs of Europe. She, too, spoke of the destruction of the balance of power, stormed and raged about the insatiable ambition of the Emperor; called him the curse of mankind – the destroyer of Europe. The Frenchman listened to her with perfect patience, and when she had ceased, said to her, with ineffable politeness: "Madam, it would give my master, the Emperor, infinite pain, if he knew how hardly you thought of him."

Sir, gentlemen appear to me to forget that they stand on American soil; that they are not in the British House of Commons, but in the Chamber of the House of Representatives of the United States; that we have nothing to do with the affairs of Europe – the partition of territory and sovereignty there – except in so far as these things affect the interests of our own country. Gentlemen transform themselves into the Burkes, Chathams, and Pitts, of another country, and forgetting, from honest zeal, the interests of America, engage, with European sensibility, in the discussion of European interests. If gentlemen ask me, if I do not view with regret and sorrow the concentration of such vast power in the hands of Bonaparte, I reply that I do. I regret to see the Emperor of China holding such immense sway over the fortunes of millions of our species. I regret to see Great Britain possessing so uncontrolled a command over all the waters of our globe. And if I had the ability to distribute among the nations of Europe their several portions of power and of sovereignty, I would say that Holland should be resuscitated, and given the weight she enjoyed in the days of her De Witts. I would confine France within her natural boundaries – the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine – and make her a secondary naval power only. I would abridge the British maritime power, raise Prussia and Austria to first-rate powers, and preserve the integrity of the Empire of Russia. But these are speculations. I look at the political transactions of Europe, with the single exception of their possible bearing upon us, as I do at the history of other countries or other times. I do not survey them with half the interest that I do the movements in South America. Our political relation is much less important than it is supposed to be. I have no fears of French or English subjugation. If we are united, we are too powerful for the mightiest nation in Europe, or all Europe combined. If we are separated, and torn asunder, we shall become an easy prey to the weakest of them. In the latter dreadful contingency, our country will not be worth preserving.

In one respect there is a remarkable difference between Administration and the Opposition – it is in a sacred regard for personal liberty. When out of power, my political friends condemned the surrender of Jonathan Robbins; they opposed the violation of the freedom of the press, in the sedition law; they opposed the more insidious attack upon the freedom of the person, under the imposing garb of an alien law. The party now in opposition, then in power, advocated the sacrifice of the unhappy Robbins, and passed those two laws. True to our principles, we are now struggling for the liberty of our seamen against foreign oppression. True to theirs, they oppose the war for this object. They have indeed lately affected tender solicitude for the liberties of the people, and talk of the danger of standing armies, and the burden of taxes. But it is evident to you, Mr. Chairman, that they speak in a foreign idiom. Their brogue betrays that it is not their vernacular tongue. What! the opposition, who in 1798 and 1799, could raise an useless army to fight an enemy three thousand miles distant from us, alarmed at the existence of one raised for a known specified object – the attack of the adjoining provinces of the enemy? The gentleman from Massachusetts, who assisted by his vote to raise the army of twenty-five thousand, alarmed at the danger of our liberties from this very army!

I mean to speak of another subject, which I never think of but with the most awful considerations. The gentleman from Massachusetts, in imitation of his predecessors of 1799, has entertained us with Cabinet plots, Presidential plots, which are conjured up in the gentleman's own perturbed imagination. I wish, sir, that another plot of a much more serious kind – a plot that aims at the dismemberment of our Union – had only the same imaginary existence. But no man, who had paid any attention to the tone of certain prints, and to transactions in a particular quarter of the Union for several years past, can doubt the existence of such a plot. It was far, very far from my intention to charge the opposition with such a design. No, he believed them generally incapable of it. He could not say as much for some who were unworthily associated with them in that quarter of the Union to which he referred. The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must;" in and about the same time Henry's mission to Boston was undertaken. The flagitiousness of that embassy had been attempted to be concealed by directing the public attention to the price which the gentleman says was given for the disclosure. As if any price could change the atrociousness of the attempt on the part of Great Britain, or could extenuate in the slightest degree the offence of those citizens who entertained and deliberated upon the infamous proposition! There was a most remarkable coincidence between some of the things which that man states, and certain events in the quarter alluded to. In the contingency of war with Great Britain, it will be recollected that the neutrality and eventual separation of that section of the Union was to be brought about. How, sir, has it happened, since the declaration of war, that British officers in Canada have asserted to American officers that this very neutrality would take place? That they have so asserted can be established beyond controversy. The project is not brought forward openly, with a direct avowal of the intention. No, the stock of good sense and patriotism in that portion of the country is too great to be undisguisedly encountered. It is assailed from the masked batteries of friendship to peace and commerce on the one side, and by the groundless imputation of opposite propensities on the other. The affections of the people are to be gradually undermined. The project is suggested or withdrawn; the diabolical parties, in this criminal tragedy, make their appearance or exit, as the audience to whom they address themselves are silent, applaud or hiss. I was astonished, sir, to have lately read a letter, or pretended letter, published in a prominent print in that quarter, written not in the fervor of party zeal, but coolly and deliberately, in which the writer affects to reason about a separation, and attempts to demonstrate its advantages to different sections of the Union, deploring the existence now of what he terms prejudices against it, but hoping for the arrival of the period when they shall be eradicated.