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

What, then, did an elevated fitness of character and conduct require of the American Government, in relation to Great Britain, at the moment war was declared? What does it still require? I repeat, the war is a just and necessary war. This will be proved by adverting to the causes of the war. What, then, were the causes of the war? They were principally new and before unheard-of blockades – the Orders in Council, which have been generally so called, by way of pre-eminence; the spoliations of our commerce under various unfounded and insulting pretexts, and the impressment of our seamen. I am not permitted by the circumstances under which I address you to go at length into any of these subjects. But I may ask, what on the ocean did we enjoy but by the sufferance of Great Britain? What insults, what injuries had we not suffered? When did they begin; when, though they may have been varied in character, were they relaxed in degree, and when were they probably to cease?

Great Britain has been properly selected as the first object of our hostility. When a proposition was made to include France as well as Great Britain in the declaration of war, gentlemen on neither side of the House did support it. The opposition prints throughout the Union laughed it to scorn. Few men thought of resisting both at once. The voice of both parties appeared to be against it. The Government, obliged to resist, was obliged to select its enemy. Should France have been selected? With the blood of our citizens insultingly slaughtered without the slightest provocation, on the shores of our own territory, unatoned for till the moment of the declaration of war, with the habitual impressment of our seamen in every sea, with the continual and reiterated violation of your right to seek where you choose a market for your native produce, all before your eyes, and with no hope of a discontinuance of these injuries, we are told that we ought to have diverted our enmity from Great Britain, and directed it against France. Where, sir, could we attack France? Where are her colonies into which we could carry our arms? Where could we subjugate her provinces? Where are her ships? – where her commerce? Where could we have carried on against her any of the operations of war? Would the chivalry of gentlemen on the other side of the House have suggested an invasion of France? An honorable gentleman from New York, (Mr. Gold) said it would not have required another man nor another ship, to have resisted France. But, why, I pray you? Because such a resistance would have been confined to the idle and nugatory act of declaring it. Effectual resistance would have been impracticable. Gentlemen would resist France, would declare war against France, merely to show their indignation at her perfidy and injustice; and here I confess my feelings go with the gentlemen – I would do so too, had we no other enemy to contend with. But if we had abandoned or deferred our resistance to the injuries of England and as a pretext for it assailed France, would not the act have been idle and weak? Would it not have been wicked, to borrow one of the epithets which gentlemen have applied to the war with England, so to have sported with the public feelings and the national resentment as to have declared war against France, the minor aggressor, whom we could not touch, and to have suppressed our resentment against Great Britain, whose injuries were unlimited and unceasing, and whom alone we could reach? But why, sir, are the injuries these nations have done contrasted, and those of the one made an apology for those of the other? Why are we partisans of either? Have we no country of our own? Is there a land upon the globe so fair, so happy, and so free? And, beholding and enjoying these blessings,

"Breathes there a man with soul so deadWho never to himself hath said,This is my own, my native land!"

Sir, I feel neither as a Frenchman nor Briton, but as an American. As a citizen of the United States, I bear no affection to any other country. If I have any feeling of partiality for either of the great belligerents, it is for the country, and the people of Great Britain. From them I draw my blood in a very short descent. But that nation is the injurer of my country, and I can see her in no other light than that of an enemy, nor can I find any apology for her in the injuries France has done us. Sir, the Government did right in discriminating between Britain and France, and selecting the former. It was the only mode of real practical resistance. The world would have laughed at us had we declared war against France, who was no longer able to injure us, whom we could not assail with effect, and have left the unceasing injuries of Great Britain to go on unresisted and unresented. The world would have considered it as a mere cover for our pusillanimity. I say, then, that the Government was not tricked into a war with Great Britain. It was commenced in the prosecution of the best and most deliberate policy. It was the only honorable and practicable course. If there has been an error, and I think there has, it was in not having long since resisted England. War against England should have followed the first embargo; that was a wise measure, but it could not endure forever; it carried the policy of commercial restriction upon the enemy as far as such a policy should ever be carried, which from its nature can only be temporary. It at the same time prepared the nation for war; it brought home your wealth and seamen; it brought home your vessels, and placed you in the attitude in which the nation ought to have been previous to war, and its termination ought to have been followed by immediate and vigorous war. The pulse of the nation was high, and the confidence of the people in their rulers and resources great. Distrust has grown out of the hesitation and timidity then manifested. If the embargo had been followed up by war, some of the greatest injuries we have since suffered would not have occurred. France would not have ventured to have seized and sequestered our vessels and property as she subsequently did. She was tempted to do it because she saw we would suffer and submit to any injury.

Gentlemen say, that popular opinion was against the war. I deny it, sir. It was called for by popular opinion; and this will not be disproved, however soon popular opinion shall incline to peace, and gentlemen on the other side of the House regain the reins of power, as they are not unlikely to do, however just and necessary the war. Any man who thought with half the ability with which the gentlemen do, must have believed that in voting for war, he was probably surrendering himself politically a victim on the altar of his country; yet it is frequently declared, that the majority have declared this war to preserve their seats. They declared it against popular opinion, too, to preserve their seats, which they hold by the tenure of popular opinion! Are gentlemen serious? Look at the history of nations, and see if the war-makers have been generally the peacemakers.

But war was prematurely declared, it is said, because we had not a regular disciplined army at the time. Preparation for operations on land must have been relative to the defence of our own territory, or the invasion of the enemy's territory. The militia are the proper and the adequate defenders of the soil on which they live; for this purpose we did not want any other army. They might have been made more extensively useful. I join not with their revilers – I wish that their usefulness had not been circumscribed by a doctrine subversive of the true principles of the constitution which was maintained on this floor. I rejoice that I combated that doctrine; yet I do not mean to consider them as a fit army of invasion. I acknowledge that we were not prepared with a regularly-disciplined army, qualified for the invasion and conquest of the enemy's country. But should we have been prepared by winter, the time to which gentlemen wished to have deferred the declaration of war? It is a truth that a Government like ours never will, and never can, be prepared for war in peace. The great and effective preparation for war must grow out of the progress and events of the war. Notwithstanding our disasters on land, I believe our preparation is greater, and our situation better, than it would have been had the war been deferred. We were to expect, in the commencement of the war, to suffer such misfortunes. Except in the affair of Detroit, nothing has happened which should cause us to blush: that disgrace, like the disgrace of the Chesapeake, will be the harbinger of glory – I take it as an omen of victory. I pledge myself, if the war continue it will be so in the event. As the war stands at this moment, we have suffered little, and we have humbled the pride of the enemy where it was most insulting. We have insured the confidence of the nation, from the seashore to the mountains beyond them, as far as our population reaches, in our naval ability. I ask the gentlemen on the other side of the House, whether we have not gained something in this respect by the war? In one word, who would now commence the war and take the chance of better success in preference to the actual fortune of the war since it has been declared. It was not prematurely declared. I now contend the war ought to be continued. Some gentlemen have thought fit to say in debate, that the only alleged cause of war was formed by the Orders in Council. But from their own act, their celebrated protest, I will prove the contrary. Impressment is there enumerated as among the causes of war, as it was in all the public acts of the time relative to the causes of war. Without more words, I am authorized in asserting that impressment was one of the principal causes of the war; and although had the Orders in Council been revoked, and their revocation known to us before war was declared, we would no doubt have temporized longer; yet this cause itself must in the end have produced war.

It appears that very soon after the General Government went into operation, this practice was the subject of remonstrance; this was under the Administration of General Washington. It has been the subject of negotiation and remonstrance under every succeeding Administration. But it is alleged, because it was not settled in the Treaty of 1794, that it was not considered by General Washington as justifiable cause of war, and it is inferred that it ought not now to be considered as sufficient cause for the continuance of the war. What, sir, shall constitute cause of war? The spoliation of your property? Not so, say gentlemen, because the expenditure for redress will be greater than the injury sustained. The violation of the personal liberty of your citizens and the degradation of the ensign of your sovereignty? No, say gentlemen, General Washington did not consider these as sufficient cause of war. Will, then, any injury, or any combination of injuries, authorize or require national resentment? The reasoning of the gentlemen would lead us to a negative conclusion. But in their estimate of the actual causes of the present war, they appear to consider the business of impressment as trivial, and the Orders in Council as every thing. What, sir, will you go to war for property, the value of which is only relative, and which, compared with personal liberty, is worthless, and refuse to go to war for the personal liberty of the citizen? for that which is alike

"Given to the fool, the vain, the evil —To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the Devil!"

You will wage war, and not to rescue your fellow-citizens from imprisonment and stripes? But however this subject was to be viewed before we were actually involved in war, it must now be put on a footing of certainty; if our claim be not secured it will be surrendered; to make peace without obtaining any security against the abuse of which we complain, would be to acquiesce in it, and to acquiesce in it would be to surrender the rights of the country. This was the reasoning of Mr. King, who in one of his communications to Government on this subject says, he has abandoned negotiation, because to acquiesce in the views of the British Government would be to surrender our rights. And shall I be obliged, sir, to come here with volumes of documents to prove the rights of the citizen; to demonstrate that the naval officers of Britain have not a right to incarcerate him; to drag him to the gangway and flog him? Shall I be obliged by a laborious process of reasoning to prove the obligation of Government to rescue him from such suffering? No, gentlemen generally have abandoned this ground, and say, that the impressment of our citizens is, under proper circumstances, justifiable cause of war; and the gentleman from North Carolina, (Mr. Pearson,) who opened the debate on this subject says, that if a fit proposition, accompanied by means calculated to give it a fair chance of success, were tendered and did not procure a cessation of the practice of impressment, he would support the war. What is the proposition which he submits? That we shall prohibit from serving in our ships the seamen of Great Britain and other foreign seamen, and confine our crews to our own citizens. This being done he will support the war. I challenge gentlemen on the other side of the House to say distinctly to the people, for whom an honorable gentleman (Mr. Quincy) has said this debate was intended, that this war should not be continued for the protection of our seamen; they will not, they dare not. But if they are against the continuance of the war, it is on that ground and no other. The honorable gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Randolph) says, Great Britain has a right to insist on the services of her own subjects, and that England would not be England if she could not command them. I say that America will cease to be America if she suffers her to command them at the price of the liberty of her citizens and the honor of her flag. The same gentleman says, England will nail the flag to the mast and go to the bottom with it, rather than surrender the right of taking her seamen from on board our merchant vessels. I hope, sir, we shall imitate the noble example she sets us, and make every sacrifice rather than give up our citizens to bondage and stripes.

But, say gentlemen, the public law of all nations on earth, ancient and modern, has denied the right of expatriation. Admit that they are correct, and for the purpose of the argument, I do admit that such is the general law. But what is this law as modified by the practice of nations? Every nation which has thus forbidden expatriation has at the same time granted naturalization, and the general practice of nations is undoubtedly the law of nations. Does not England naturalize foreigners? Does she not naturalize your citizens? If she does not do it as generally as you do, it is because it is not her policy to do so; it is enough that she naturalizes your seamen; it is enough that all nations have, at the same moment, forbidden expatriation and granted naturalization. The law must be the result of neither exclusively, but of both these practices. Mr. Burke, (the great Edmund,) who was certainly no innovator, denominates Charles XII. the murderer of Patkul. Patkul was born a Swedish subject and had repeatedly taken up arms against his Sovereign; he was adopted by Russia and had been her Minister at the Court of Poland. Charles XII., the Sovereign to whom his natural allegiance was due, obtained possession of his person and put him to death – this act Mr. Burke denominates murder!

Governments which have naturalized foreigners have protected their naturalized subjects, and the Government to whom the native allegiance of such subjects was due, though they have denied the right of expatriation, have not impugned the protecting interposition of the adopted sovereign. If they have, it has been considered as an act of unprincipled violence, and in the instance of Patkul has merited and received the denomination of murder. On this subject I will quote a single sentence from one of Mr. King's letters; he says, "it behooves the British Government to adhere to the principle of natural allegiance wholly, or renounce it wholly." Contending themselves for the right of naturalization, can the British Government deny it to others? On the part of this Government sufficient evidence of its pacific and accommodating disposition appears in its offer to surrender every thing it can, consistently with national faith. On the part of Britain a protraction of the war, by refusing to meet us on the terms proposed, can proceed from no other motive than a determination to continue that abuse of power which she has inflicted and we have suffered so long. The ground taken by this country is what we must insist upon keeping, and I doubt not we will succeed if we contend for it as we ought. The informality of the negotiation between our Chargé d'Affaires and the British Government has been mentioned as a cause of its failure. If there had been an amicable disposition on the part of the British Government, the authority would have been considered ample. If there be not an amicable disposition we will negotiate in vain. We must fight, or we shall never succeed in obtaining a recognition of our rights. I will advert to one argument of the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Emott,) who has examined this subject with ability. It is that one which appeared to me to make the greatest impression on the House. He said he had examined the voluminous document on the subject of impressment, which was printed during the last session by order of the House, and that it did not appear from that document that more than ninety-three American seamen had been impressed in the year 1809; from which I believe every one who heard him inferred that it was proved affirmatively by that document, that no more than ninety-three American seamen, who were named therein, were impressed in that year. Now, what is the fact? The document does not state in one case, perhaps of eight or ten, when the impressment took place, and there are one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight persons named in that document. Of course the gentleman could not be authorized to say that but ninety-three, or any other precise number, were impressed in 1809. All those, the date of whose detention is not stated, may have been impressed in 1809. It is probable much the greatest portion was. A more particular examination of this point of inquiry will prove the magnitude of the evil. From the 1st of April, 1809, to the 30th of September, 1810, a period of eighteen months only, a single agent of this Government, in London, received one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight applications from impressed seamen. How many were unable to apply? Men imprisoned on board ships of war, scattered over the ocean and on distant stations, how could they apply to Mr. Lyman in London and give in their names? The number impressed must have been great, indeed, when a single agent in the short space of eighteen months, registered the names of one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight applicants. Of this number a part was discharged, acknowledged to be Americans beyond the possibility of denial; a small number is detained as being born in England, and the remainder are detained under various pretexts – such as supposed to be born in England, being on distant stations, having consular certificates proving them Danes, Swedes, &c.; as if they had any better right to take from on board an American vessel a Swede or a Dane than an American citizen. Even their own doctrine goes to assert a right to seize none but their own subjects. I ask, now, whether the impression made by the gentleman from New York was a just one? Whether it does not appear probable that at least one thousand of those contained in this list were impressed without even a plausible pretext? But if in a single statement I make out a result so variant from the statement of the gentleman, I beg you and the public to test the other statements of the gentleman in the same way. Not, sir, that the gentleman made the statement with any unfair intention, for no man is more honorable or correct – he has my highest esteem – but, it will show how liable we are to err – nay, how prone we are to err when our feelings and habit of thinking run with our argument. So much for impressment. It is an abuse such as cannot be tolerated by an independent nation. It is one which ought to be resisted by war.

The question was then taken on the passage of the bill, and decided in the affirmative – For the bill 77, against it 42, as follows:

Yeas. – Willis Alston, jun., William Anderson, Stevenson Archer, Daniel Avery, Ezekiel Bacon, David Bard, Josiah Bartlett, Burwell Bassett, William W. Bibb, William Blackledge, Robert Brown, William A. Burwell, William Butler, John C. Calhoun, Francis Carr, Langdon Cheves, James Cochran, John Clopton, Lewis Condict, William Crawford, Richard Cutts, Roger Davis, John Dawson, Joseph Desha, Samuel Dinsmoor, Elias Earle, William Findlay, James Fisk, Meshack Franklin, Thomas Gholson, Isaiah L. Green, Felix Grundy, Bolling Hall, Obed Hall, John A. Harper, Aylett Hawes, John M. Hyneman, Richard M. Johnson, Joseph Kent, William R. King, Abner Lacock, Peter Little, Aaron Lyle, Thomas Moore, William McCoy, Samuel McKee, Alexander McKim, Arunah Metcalf, Samuel L. Mitchill, Jeremiah Morrow, Hugh Nelson, Anthony New, Thomas Newton, Stephen Ormsby, Israel Pickens, James Pleasants, jun., Benjamin Pond, William M. Richardson, Samuel Ringgold, Thomas B. Robertson, John Rhea, John Roane, Jonathan Roberts, Ebenezer Sage, Lemuel Sawyer, Ebenezer Seaver, John Sevier, Adam Seybert, Samuel Shaw, George Smith, John Smith, William Strong, John Taliaferro, George M. Troup, Charles Turner, jr., William Widgery, and Richard Wynn.

Nays. – John Baker, Abijah Bigelow, Hermanus Bleecker, James Breckenridge, Elijah Brigham, Epaphroditus Champion, Martin Chittenden, Matthew Clay, Thomas B. Cooke, John Davenport, jr., William Ely, James Emott, Asa Fitch, Thomas R. Gold, Charles Goldsborough, Edwin Gray, Jacob Hufty, Richard Jackson, jun., Philip B. Key, Lyman Law, Joseph Lewis, jr., William Lowndes, Archibald McBryde, James Milnor, Jonathan O. Mosely, Joseph Pearson, Timothy Pitkin, jun., Elisha R. Potter, Josiah Quincy, John Randolph, William Reed, Henry M. Ridgely, William Rodman, Daniel Sheffey, Richard Stanford, Lewis B. Sturges, Samuel Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Uri Tracy, Laban Wheaton, Leonard White, and Thomas Wilson.

Ordered, That the title be, "An act in addition to the act, entitled 'An act to raise an additional military force, and for other purposes.'"

Friday, January 15

Land claims in Missouri Territory – Confirmation of private claims – Pre-emptions

Mr. Hempstead observed, that he had certain resolutions to submit, on which, as they were somewhat in detail, he would ask the liberty to make a few remarks. Under the second section of the first act for adjusting land claims in the Territory of Louisiana, (now Missouri,) each actual settler was entitled to six hundred and forty acres of land, together with such other and further quantity as heretofore had been allowed for the wife and family of such actual settler, agreeably to the laws, usages, and customs of the Spanish Government. A majority of the Board of Land Commissioners in that Territory were, under that section, so liberal in their grants, that it excited the alarm of Government. This alarm, sir, was soon transferred to the people, and has continued ever since; because a majority of the Board passed from one extreme to the other, and granted, in many instances, only one hundred, one hundred and fifty or two hundred arpens, where they had before granted seven or eight hundred arpens. The grants for the smaller quantities are contained in the lists of grants, and being final against the United States, would never come before Congress, unless upon petitions from individual claimants. Other boards of Commissioners, acting under the same law, have granted to the actual settler in every instance, when the law had been complied with, six hundred and forty acres; and it would seem to me, sir, that the people of the Missouri Territory are entitled to the same justice.

The second resolution is to provide as well for rejected claims, in which no testimony has been adduced, as when testimony has been received; and to prevent individual claimants from loading our table with petitions. The mode pointed out will present all claims to Congress at one time. With these observations I shall submit the resolutions for the sanction of the House:

Resolved, That the Committee on the Public Lands be instructed to inquire into the expediency of authorizing, in favor of the claimants, the re-examination of the grants of land made by the board of Commissioners for ascertaining and adjusting the titles and claims to land in the district of Louisiana, under the second section of the act, entitled "An act for ascertaining and adjusting the titles and claims to land within the Territory of Orleans and the district of Louisiana," passed the 2d of March, 1805; and also the grants made by the Recorder of Land Titles for the Territory of Missouri, under that part of the third section of the act, entitled "An act further providing for settling the claims to land in the Territory of Missouri," passed the 13th of June, 1812, which provides for settlement of donation rights in all cases where the quantity of land granted is less than six hundred and forty acres; and that said committee have leave to report by bill, or otherwise.