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

Yes, sir, the tone of this House was soon changed. We succeeded, however, in the reduction of the Army; but I will trust to the recollection of gentlemen, upon all sides of the House, by what instrumentality this change was effected. The Commander of that Army was retained in his position. I have not leisure, health, or strength, to go into the details; gentlemen will remember them. Meanwhile, peace with this country was negotiated in France by the commissioners sent by Mr. Adams, and was followed up very soon afterwards by the short respite that the truce of Amiens gave to European combatants, wearied rather than satiated with slaughter. These events placed this country in the happiest condition. Of the proceeds of the direct and internal taxes voted by the predecessors of the administration of Mr. Jefferson, one moiety at least came into the Treasury after their dismissal from office. But these proceeds were not necessary to give an overflow of money into the Treasury, which we never ceased to have until we departed from those principles of government and that policy which brought us into power. We sailed on for some time in the full tide of successful experiment, unobstructed by squalls or adverse gales, if we except only the Yazoo breeze. That question was, if I forget not, the first cause of a breach between those persons who had a direct lead in the Government of the country. There were men who did not hesitate, in opposition to all the heads of your Departments, to throw themselves into the breach at that time attempted in the constitution of the country, to defend it, and to defend it with success. It appears, from some documents that have lately been laid upon our table, that errors of that day have been perceived, and that tender consciences which at that time revolted, are now entirely reconciled to the compromise which was then stamped with the reprobation of almost every honest man from Georgia to Virginia. There were considerations of personal feeling which gave to other parts of the Union, and to certain individuals therein, a bias on that subject; and I should be extremely sorry to be considered as passing any thing like general censure upon the advocates of that measure in or out of this House. I refer only, of course, to those who were not parties concerned in the fraud.

At that time, sir, all was prosperity and joy. At that time were accumulated in the Treasury those surpluses which, in one year, nearly equalled the sum for which, in the present year, the revenue is deficient, notwithstanding the loan of last year, and to make up which deficiency the head of the Treasury has been able to devise no other means than a resort to new loans. Yes, sir, there were then those surpluses in the Treasury, the ghosts of which lingered along its vaults for a time after their corporeal bodies departed, and were then heard of no more.

But to proceed. The expenditures of the Government, during the first four years of the Jefferson Administration, exclusive of payments on account of the public debt, averaged only eight millions of dollars a year. In the four last years of the Jefferson Administration, those expenditures were very greatly increased, amounting in the year 1808, (the last of the four,) without any increase of Army and Navy expenditures, to upwards of sixteen millions of dollars – rivalling the expenditures of any one year of Mr. Adams's war, and amounting to one-half as much as was expended by the Father of his Country in his eight years of the Presidency, during which he was called upon to establish public credit, to maintain a bloody Indian war, and to lay the foundation of that character of integrity which the Government has so long sustained abroad, notwithstanding the misconduct of its rulers. Yes, sir, it is a curious but notorious fact, that in 1808 and 1809 – and I speak of 1809, for, although the present incumbent came into office on the 3d of March of that year, expenses were incurred and voted in his predecessor's time – the expenditures of the Government outraged all belief when compared with the objects on which they were lavished. And here, Mr. Chairman, let me put to you, and to the gentleman on my right, if it be within the compass of any man's powers to detract more from the merit of an administration of the Government of the United States in managing at least one branch of the revenue than has been done by that honorable gentleman? What has he said? I will not repeat his words; to do so would be odious, invidious; but I well know if what he did say had come from the other side of the House, it would have been set down to the rancor of party spirit; to personal spleen; or to want of respect for the White house, or the Red house, or some other house. What has become of that vast amount of money? No man knows; and to the best of my knowledge and belief, so help me God, no man will ever know.

I find, as I anticipated, a difficulty in dragging along my miserable body, and my feeble mind, in this discussion; a difficulty not less, perhaps, than that of dragging along with me the attention of members of this House. I ask its patience, its pardon, and its pity.

But to continue. In this prosperous state of our country, the war in Europe was renewed, or about to be renewed. The Government of the United States would naturally, from the situation of affairs in that quarter of the world, experience a temporary diminution in its revenue, which it need not feel or regard, because it had been enabled to make that noble provision for a sinking fund, for lessening the national debt, for paying off the mortgages on the estate of every man in the country and of those who are unborn. It had made that noble provision, which was attempted to be diverted to the necessities created by the policy of the last four years of Jefferson's Administration, and the actual diversion of which, I believe, was the first act of this Administration. It had made that appropriation of eight millions of dollars for a sinking fund, not to be touched for any other purpose, and which, at the time of the appropriation, no man dared to believe would be gambled away.

The war in Europe brought to this country, among other birds of passage, a ravenous flock of neutralized carriers, which interposed the flag of neutrality, not only between the property, but even between the persons of the two belligerent powers; and it was their clamor principally, aided by the representations of those of our merchants who saw and wished to participate in the gains of such a commerce, that the first step was taken in that policy of restriction, which it was then foreseen would lead to the disastrous condition in which we now find ourselves. Yes, it was then foreseen and foretold. What was then prophesied is now history. It is so. "You," said the prophet, "are prospering beyond all human example. You, favorites of Almighty God, while all the rest of the world are scourged, and ravaged, and desolated by war, are about to enter into a policy called preventive of war; a policy which comes into this House in the garb of peace, but which must end in war." And in war it has ended. Yes, sir, we have been tortured, fretted, goaded, until at last, like some poor man driven from his family by discord at home, who says to himself, "any thing, even exile, is better than this," we have said that we will take war; we will take any thing for a change. And when war came, what said the people? They said, "any thing for a change!"

At that time circumstances occurred, and I hope the House will pardon me for alluding to them. It is absolutely necessary that I should do so. They have been spoken of by others before me; they were at the time, and have been since, detailed in the most solemn manner on the floor of this body. A denial of them has been challenged and never received. At that time, I repeat, circumstances occurred which made it my duty to oppose the projects of the Executive Government of this country in its relations with foreign powers.

At that time nothing that the Spanish Government could do, not even the invasion of our own territory, not even the capture and carrying off, not from our decks, but our soil, a portion of our citizens, could rouse this House to a spirit which would, in my judgment, have comported not only with its honor, but was absolutely indispensable to its dignity. We were wanting in the assertion of the rights of our own country over its soil and jurisdiction, by which assertion, then, we might have averted the calamities which have since befallen us; but a project for that purpose, recommended by the committee to whom that subject was referred, did not meet the approbation of the House. And from that day and date, the black cloud has thickened over us; has become more and more dense. From that day and date, have we departed from those counsels – in my humble judgment, at least – from those principles, adherence to which had induced the people of the United States to clothe us with their power and confidence.

What have we done since? From that day, with a short interruption, the policy of this Government has actually subserved, as far as it could, the purposes of France. I speak of facts; of facts susceptible of proof, which may be felt, seen, touched, heard, and understood by all except those too indolent to examine them, or too ignorant for the light of truth to have any effect upon their understandings. I say, sir, that the policy of this Government has, from that time, subserved the purposes of France. And how do I prove it? Why, sir, by way of meeting the French decrees, which prohibit to us all intercourse with Great Britain, we cut off the intercourse between us and the whole world. We virtually held out to our great commercial cities – to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston – the same language as Bonaparte had held to his own cities: "I know that you are suffering, and unhappy; that the grass is growing in your streets; that the ships at your wharves are rotting, until they are fit only for fuel; that your trade is dwindling only to nothing; but what is all that to my continental system? What are a few seaport towns – enterprising, wealthy, and prosperous, as indeed they are – what are they, compared to my continental system?" And, sir, what was our "restrictive" system? Similar in point of effect – certainly cotemporaneous in point of time – to Bonaparte's "continental system." Sir, it is a matter susceptible of demonstration, if I possessed the physical power to go through with it, that the system recommended by the then President of the United States, of laying an embargo on all ships and vessels in our ports, for the purpose of "keeping in safety these essential resources," took place in consequence of a communication from our Minister in Paris to this Government, transmitting certain correspondence of his with the French Government. And although in the message to both Houses of Congress, recommending the measure, the President does use the term "belligerent powers," I do attest the fact, and I call upon other gentlemen, who know it, to attest it also, that, while the message purposely referred to both "belligerents," not one scrip of manuscript relating to the other "belligerent" accompanied that message; nor was there any thing contained in that message relating to that "belligerent," but a scrap from an English paper, about the size of a square of its columns, containing some speculations of a London editor; and I say that there did not exist in this House, nor in this nation – if there did, let the evidence be produced – any knowledge of the existence of the orders in council, which have been put forward as justifying the embargo. If their existence had been known at the time, would the President in his message recommending an embargo have failed to notice the fact? Would he not have used it as one of the strongest inducements to the adoption of this system? Would those "orders" not have been published in the National Intelligencer, which is considered – and certainly not without cause, in view of certain things which we have lately seen in it – to be the Court paper? Produce the National Intelligencer of that date; there is not one syllable to be found in it concerning the Orders in Council. No, sir, in his message on the occasion referred to, the President did not produce any acts of the "belligerents" referred to, but only the correspondence between General Armstrong, our Minister at Paris, and that Government, on the subject of the construction of one of its first decrees. It was in consequence of the more recent decrees of France, and not of the British Orders in Council, that the embargo was recommended and laid. And yet, in the discussion which came off on that measure, it was represented as a weapon against England, which would be more efficient than any war, and must bring her to our feet: it would give effect to the object which Bonaparte had in view, of destroying her by consumption, by cutting her off from the commerce of the world. Although I state these facts, I know that it may be proven – and I am sorry that it can – by reference to the journals of this House, and by a report, too, of an honorable and respectable committee of this House, that the embargo was designed to obviate the effects of the Orders in Council.

But, sir, it is indisputably true, that there was no mention in the embargo message of those Orders in Council – no allusion to them in debate upon it – no knowledge of them at the time that the embargo law was passed, that can be proven by any document whatsoever entitled to the least respect; and I will even go so far as to allow as evidence the authority of any newspaper. The members of that committee had heard so much of the Orders in Council, and the effect that it was pretended that the embargo would have upon them, that in their report, speaking of them, they absolutely transposed cause and effect. It is unfortunate that it should be so; but it is nevertheless true. Events subsequent to the period to which I have now brought myself have been detailed in this debate in a manner so clear, so lucid, so convincing, by two honorable gentlemen from New York, that there is no need of my repeating the narrative: but I must be permitted to say that the statement made yesterday by a gentleman from New York, (Mr. Emott,) will be refuted when Euclid shall come to be considered a shallow sophist, and not before. My honorable friend from the same State, who spoke a few days ago, called upon gentlemen to handle that part of the subject – the revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the inveiglement thereby of this country into a war with England – in a manner more able than, he was pleased to say, he himself had done it. The attempt to do this would, indeed, be to gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to add to the perfume of the violet – in all cases a most ridiculous and wasteful excess. And yet, sir, the situation in which I unhappily stand, and in which it was my lot to stand at the conclusion of the last session of Congress, compels me to say a word on this subject. You will remember, sir, that it was my misfortune, during the first session of this Congress, to oppose the attempt to impress upon this House and the nation certain most preposterous, absurd, and false propositions; for the temerity of which effort I came under the censure – implied, at least, if not to say direct – of this honorable body. The contrary propositions, which I undertook to maintain, were, first, that the Berlin and Milan decrees were not repealed on the first of November, 1810, and that the only evidence of any such repeal, up to that date, was the President's Proclamation of the second of that month; and secondly, that the British Orders in Council did, in point of fact, establish no serious insurmountable obstacle to negotiation between that Government and the United States. Why, sir, I shall not here go into any argument on this point; if I had the ability, I have not the will; and, if I had the will, I have not the ability. Nor can it be necessary, when the Emperor of France himself comes into court, and cannot reject his own authority, as borne in his own laws. Yes, sir, he did come forth, and, in his antedated decree of the 28th of April, 1811 – though it unquestionably ought to bear date full twelve months later – does, in the most offensive of all possible ways, establish the fact, not only that the Berlin and Milan decrees were not repealed (as all the world knew except the President of the United States) on the first of November, 1810, but that they were in his mind when he issued his decree, dated 28th April, 1811. They were repealed, finally, in consequence – of what? Of your doing that which for years he had been attempting, by menace and blandishment, to induce you to do – that is to say, embark in war with England, taking sides with France, "causing," as the phrase was, "our flag to be respected: " And this, too, after your having posted up in the ledger of this House that war with one of the "belligerents" was equivalent to submission to the other!

My other proposition was, that the Orders in Council constituted no insurmountable obstacle to negotiation between this country and Great Britain. And what was the fact in regard to them? Why, that almost at the time that this position was taken on this floor – a few weeks only thereafter – the Orders in Council were repealed.

I put it to you, sir, and to the great mass of the people of this country – to the honest, laborious, unsuspecting, kind-hearted, confiding, generous, and just people – had the fact been known that the French decrees were not repealed, and that the Orders in Council were repealed, whether any man, in any station, would have had the confidence to propose a declaration of war against England, taking part against her, and siding with France in the conflict in which those nations are engaged?

And, whilst I am upon this subject, permit me to say, suppose the proposition which was repeatedly made – in more than one instance by the person who is now addressing you, and supported with the greatest ability by gentlemen on the other side of the House – to postpone our declaration of war against Great Britain until the autumn, when we might be in some state of preparation and readiness for it – had succeeded, what would have been the consequence? At this time we should have been at peace; we should have been lying secure in that snug safe haven of neutrality, in which the good sense of the greatest and best men of this country have always attempted to moor the public ship. Now, where are we? And shall this war be called a popular war; a war of the people; a war called for by the public voice, into which this country has been plunged, not more by the agency of the friends of Government than of its enemies, in the hope of the latter that this Administration would sink and founder in it, and they rise to power thereupon? Is it possible that that can be deemed a war of the people, a popular war, which has enabled a gentleman known to be of the most respectable connections, and possessed, I believe, of considerable talent – but who, put in competition with the veteran politician now at the helm of Government, is but a boy in politics – a person whose pretensions are so extremely inferior, to rival the present Chief Magistrate in the confidence of the people, and for a time, as you know, make him tremble for his re-election? It is, however, some consolation to reflect that, in all free Governments, the public voice will sooner or later be heard upon all their measures, and in condemnation of those which the opinion of that public detests and execrates. This is a great law of politics; it is to the political what gravitation is to the physical world; it cannot be counteracted. Statesmen know it, feel it; they do not reason to it, but from it; they never lose sight of it, but are guided by it in all their measures. And those of us who live to see the next Congress, will live to see the effects of that law in this House.

Sir, we have passed so many laws, we have had so many objects for enticing the belligerents on the one hand and coercing them on the other, and enticing and coercing them together, that I feel some little difficulty, in the present state of my brain, in referring to them by title or date; but it is the law passed on this subject, in consequence of which the celebrated letter of the 1st of August of the Duc de Cadore was written, to which I desire most particularly to refer. If, after the proclamation of the President of the United States of the 1st of November thereafter, issued in consequence of that letter, revoking so much of our non-intercourse law as related to France, an unbroken warfare being kept up by France on our commerce – a fact as notorious as the existence of any fact in nature – was it not good cause for reinstating the law in relation to France, and putting her on her ancient ground? Then I would be glad to know, for one, whether our continuing at war with England was any better cause for keeping up the interdiction in relation to her, after she had revoked her Orders in Council? In other words, it being admitted by gentlemen on one side, as it has been contended by gentlemen on the other, that the revocation of the Orders in Council by Great Britain was such a one as did satisfy the terms of the non-intercourse act, what was the reason that the proclamation required by our law in such case did not issue? Why, sir, the state of war between the United States and Great Britain being offensive on our part – being of our own making – was held to be a cause why we cannot execute our law as relates to her. Now, whilst the continued war upon us by France, by seizures of our merchant vessels and their cargoes, is not considered an obstacle to its execution in regard to her, is it not as clear as the noon-day sun, that if the making of war by France on the United States did not constitute any good cause for withholding the revocation as to her, when she professed to have repealed her Berlin and Milan decrees, there was no reason why it should not have been extended to Great Britain also, when she actually repealed her Orders in Council?

I am extremely at a loss to say whether my judgment, my memory, my imagination, or my command of words, fit me for the expression of the few scattered ideas I have on this subject; I fear that they may fail me. But I believe it will be conceded, on all hands, that if, after the revocation of the British Orders in Council, the President of the United States had, as he honorably might have done, made that repeal the basis of negotiation with Great Britain, there is not a man in this country – certainly there is none among his admirers and adherents – who would not have hailed him as the restorer of the peace and prosperity of the country, which had been so idly (I had almost said so wickedly) disturbed. But, regardless of every consequence, we went into war with England as an inconsiderate couple go into matrimony, without considering whether they have the means of sustaining their own existence, much less that of any unfortunate progeny that should happen to be born of them. The sacrifice was made. The blood of Christians enjoying the privileges of jury trial, of the writ of habeas corpus, of the freedom of conscience, of the blessings of civil liberty, citizens of the last Republic that ambition has left upon the face of a desolate earth – the blood of such a people was poured out as an atonement to the Moloch of France. The Juggernaut of India is said to smile when it sees the blood flow from the human sacrifice which its worship exacts; the Emperor of France might now smile upon us. But no, sir, our miserable offering is spurned. The French monarch turns his nose and his eyes another way. He snuffs on the plains of Moscow a thousand hecatombs, waiting to be sacrificed on the shrine of his ambition; and the city of the Czars, the largest in the world, is to be at once the altar and the fire of sacrifice to his miserable ambition. And what injury has the Emperor of Russia done to him? For what was he contending? For national existence; for a bare existence; for himself and the people who are subject to his sway. And what, sir, are you doing? Virtually fighting the battles of his foes; surrendering yourself to the views of his adversary, without a plea – without any thing to justify your becoming the victims of his blasting ambition.

Yes, sir, after having for years attempted to drive us by menace into war with England, when he has seen us fairly embarked in it, and the champions of human rights bleeding in his cause, the Ruler of France has turned with contempt from your reclamations; he has left your Minister, who was charged with those reclamations, to follow him in his Russian campaign, to whip up his jaded Pegasus, and, travelling at his heels, to overtake him if he can.32