Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

This is the British title to the Columbia, and the only one that she wants for any thing. It suits her to have that river: it is her interest to have it: it strengthens her, and weakens others, for her to have it; and, therefore, have it she will. This is her title, and this her argument. Upon this title and argument, she gets a slice from Maine, and gains the mountain barrier which covers Quebec; and, upon this title and argument, she means to have the Columbia River. The events of the late war, and the application of steam power to ocean navigation, begat her title to the country between Halifax and Quebec: the suggestions of McKenzie begat her title to the Columbia. Improvident diplomacy on our part, a war countenance on her part, and this strange treaty, have given success to her pretensions in Maine: the same diplomacy, and the same countenance, have given her a foothold on the Columbia. It is for the Great West to see that no traitorous treaty shall abandon it to her. The President, in his message, says that there was no chance for any "agreement" about it at present; that it would not be made the subject of a "formal negotiation" at present; that it could not be included in the duties of the "special mission." Why so? The mission was one of peace, and to settle every thing; and why omit this pregnant question? Was this a war question, and therefore not to be settled by the peace mission? Why not come to an agreement now, if agreement is ever intended? The answer is evident. No agreement is ever intended. Contented with her possession, Great Britain wants delay, that time may ripen possession into title, and fortunate events facilitate her designs. My colleague and myself were sounded on this point: our answers forbade the belief that we would compromise or sacrifice the rights and interests of our country; and this may have been the reason why there were no "formal" negotiations in relation to it. Had we been "soft enough," there might have been an agreement to divide our country by the river, or, to refer the whole title to the decision of a friendly sovereign! We were not soft enough for that; and if such a paper, marked B, and identified with the initials of our Secretary, had been sent to the Missouri delegation, as was sent to the Maine commissioners, instead of subduing us to the purposes of Great Britain, it would have received from the whole delegation the answer due to treason, to cowardice, and to insolence.

But, it is demanded, what do we want with this country, so far off from us? I answer by asking, in my turn, what do the British want with it, who are so much further off? They want it for the fur trade; for a colony; for an outlet to the sea; for the communication across the continent; for a road to Asia; for the command of one hundred and forty thousand Indians against us; for the port and naval station which is to command the commerce and navigation of the North Pacific Ocean, and open new channels of trade with China, Japan, Polynesia, and the great East. They want it for these reasons; and we want it for the same; and because it adjoins us, and belongs to us, and should be possessed by our descendants, who will be our friends; and not by aliens, who will be our enemies.

Forty years ago, it was written by Humboldt that the valley of the Columbia invited Europeans to found a fine colony there; and, twenty years ago, the American Congress adopted a resolve, that no part of this continent was open to European colonization. The remark of Humboldt was that of a sagacious European; the resolve of Congress was the work of patriotic Americans. It remains to be seen which will prevail. The convention of 1818 has done us the mischief; it put the European power in possession: and possession with nations, still more than with individuals, is the main point in the contest. It will require the western pioneers to recover the lost ground; and they must be encouraged in the enterprise by liberal grants of lands, by military protection, and by governmental authority. It is time for the bill of my colleague to pass. The first session of the first Congress under the new census should pass it. The majority will be democratic, and the democracy will demand that great work at their hands. I put no faith in negotiation. I expect nothing but loss and shame from any negotiation in London. Our safety is in the energy of our people; in their prompt occupation of the country; and in their invincible determination to maintain their rights.

I do not dilate upon the value and extent of this great country. A word suffices to display both. In extent, it is larger than the Atlantic portion of the old thirteen United States; in climate, softer; in fertility, greater; in salubrity, superior; in position, better, because fronting Asia, and washed by a tranquil sea. In all these particulars, the western slope of our continent is far more happy than the eastern. In configuration, it is inexpressibly fine and grand – a vast oblong square, with natural boundaries, and a single gateway into the sea. The snow-capped Rocky Mountains enclose it to the east, an iron-bound coast on the west: a frozen desert on the north, and sandy plains on the south. All its rivers, rising on the segment of a vast circumference, run to meet each other in the centre; and then flow together into the ocean, through a gap in the mountain, where the heats of summer and the colds of winter are never felt; and where southern and northern diseases are equally unknown. This is the valley of the Columbia – a country whose every advantage is crowned by the advantages of position and configuration: by the unity of all its parts – the inaccessibility of its borders – and its single introgression to the sea. Such a country is formed for union, wealth, and strength. It can have but one capital, and that will be a Thebes; but one commercial emporium, and that will be Tyre, queen of cities. Such a country can have but one people, one interest, one government: and that people should be American – that interest ours – and that government republican. Great Britain plays for the whole valley: failing in that, she is willing to divide by the river. Accursed and infamous be the man that divides or alienates it!

II. – Impressment.

Impressment is another of the omitted subjects. This having been a cause of war in 1812, and being now declared, by the American negotiator, to be a sufficient cause for future wars, it would naturally, to my mind, have been included in the labors of a special mission, dedicated to peace, and extolled for its benevolent conception. We would have expected to find such a subject, after such a declaration, included in the labors of such a mission. Not so the fact. The treaty does not mention impressment. A brief paragraph in the President's message informs us that there was a correspondence on this point; and, on turning to this correspondence, we actually find two letters on the subject: one from Mr. Webster to Lord Ashburton – one from Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster: both showing, from their dates, that they were written after the treaty was signed; and, from their character, that they were written for the public, and not for the negotiators. The treaty was signed on the 9th of August; the letters were written on the 8th and 9th of the same month. They are a plea, and a reply; and they leave the subject precisely where they found it. From their date and character, they seem to be what the lawyers call the postea – that is to say, the afterwards; and are very properly postponed to the end of the document containing the correspondence, where they find place on the 120th page. They look ex post facto there; and, putting all things together, it would seem as if the American negotiator had said to the British lord (after the negotiation was over): 'My Lord, here is impressment – a pretty subject for a composition; the people will love to read something about it; so let us compose.' To which, it would seem, his lordship had answered: 'You may compose as much as you please for your people; I leave that field to you: and when you are done, I will write three lines for my own government, to let it know that I stick to impressment.' In about this manner, it would seem to me that the two letters were got up; and that the American negotiator in this little business has committed a couple of the largest faults: first, in naming the subject of impressment at all! next, in ever signing a treaty, after having named it, without an unqualified renunciation of the pretension!

Sir, the same thing is not always equally proper. Time and circumstances qualify the proprieties of international, as well as of individual intercourse; and what was proper and commendable at one time, may become improper, reprehensible, and derogatory at another. When George the Third, in the first article of his first treaty with the United States, at the end of a seven years' war, acknowledged them to be free, sovereign, and independent States, and renounced all dominion over them, this was a proud and glorious consummation for us, and the crowning mercy of a victorious rebellion. The same acknowledgment and renunciation from Queen Victoria, at present, would be an insult for her to offer – a degradation for us to accept. So of this question of impressment. It was right in all the administrations previous to the late war, to negotiate for its renunciation. But after having gone to war for this cause; after having suppressed the practice by war; after near thirty years' exemption from it – after all this, for our negotiator to put the question in discussion, was to compromise our rights! To sign a treaty without its renunciation, after having proposed to treat about it, was to relinquish them! Our negotiator should not have mentioned the subject. If mentioned to him by the British negotiator, he should have replied, that the answer to that pretension was in the cannon's mouth!

But to name it himself, and then sign without renunciation, and to be invited to London to treat about it – to do this, was to descend from our position; to lose the benefit of the late war; to revive the question; to invite the renewal of the practice, by admitting it to be an unsettled question – and to degrade the present generation, by admitting that they would negotiate where their ancestors had fought. These are fair inferences; and inferences not counteracted by the euphonious declaration that the American government is "prepared to say" that the practice of impressment cannot hereafter be allowed to take place! – as if, after great study, we had just arrived at that conclusion! and as if we had not declared much more courageously in the case of the Maine boundary, the Schlosser massacre, and the Creole mutiny and murder! The British, after the experience they have had, will know how to value our courageous declaration, and must pay due respect to our flag! For one, I never liked these declarations, and never made a speech in favor of any one of them; and now I like them less than ever, and am prepared to put no further faith in the declarations of gentlemen who were for going to war for the smallest part of the Maine boundary in 1838, and now surrender three hundred miles of that boundary for fear of war, when there is no danger of war. I am prepared to say that I care not a straw for the heroic declarations of such gentlemen. I want actions, not phrases. I want Mr. Jefferson's act in 1806 – rejection of any treaty with Great Britain that does not renounce impressment! And after having declared, by law, black impressment on the coast of Africa to be piracy; after stipulating to send a fleet there, to enforce our law against that impressment – after this, I am ready to do the same thing against white impressment on our own coasts, and on the high seas. I am ready to enact that the impressment of my white fellow-citizens out of an American ship is an act of piracy; and then to follow out that enactment in its every consequence.

The correspondence between our Secretary negotiator and Lord Ashburton on this subject, has been read to you – that correspondence which was drawn up after the treaty was finished, and intended for the American public: and what a correspondence it is! What an exchange of phrases! One denies the right of impressment: the other affirms it. Both wish for an amicable agreement; but neither attempts to agree. Both declare the season of peace to be the proper time to settle this question; and both agree that the present season of peace is not the convenient one. Our Secretary rises so high as to declare that the administration "is now prepared" to put its veto on the practice: the British negotiator shows that his Government is still prepared to resume the practice whenever her interest requires it. Our negotiator hopes that his communication will be received in the spirit of peace: the British minister replies, that it will. Our secretary then persuades himself that the British minister will communicate his sentiments in this respect, to his own government: his Lordship promises it faithfully. And, thereupon, they shake hands and part.

How different this holiday scene from the firm and virile language of Mr. Jefferson: "No treaty to be signed without a provision against impressment;" and this language backed by the fact of the instant rejection of a treaty so signed! Lord Chatham said of Magna Charta that it was homely Latin, but worth all the classics. So say I of this reply of Mr. Jefferson: it is plain English, but worth all the phrases which rhetoric could ever expend upon the subject. It is the only answer which our secretary negotiator should have given, after committing the fault of broaching the subject. Instead of that, he commences rhetorician, new vamps old arguments, writes largely and prettily; and loses the question by making it debatable. His adversary sees his advantage, and seizes it. He abandons the field of rhetoric to the lawyer negotiator; puts in a fresh claim to impressment; saves the question from being lost by a non-user; re-establishes the debate, and adjourns it to London. He keeps alive the pretension of impressment against us, the white race, while binding us to go to Africa to fight it down for the black race; and has actually left us on lower ground in relation to this question, than we stood upon before the late war. If this treaty is ratified, we must begin where we were in 1806, when Mr. Monroe and Mr. Pinckney went to London to negotiate against impressment; we must begin where they did, with the disadvantage of having yielded to Great Britain all that she wanted, and having lost all our vantage-ground in the negotiation. We must go to London, engage in a humiliating negotiation, become the spectacle of nations, and the sport of diplomacy; and wear out years in begging to be spared from British seizure, when sitting under our own flag, and sailing in our own ship: we must submit to all this degradation, shame and outrage, unless Congress redeems us from the condition into which we have fallen, and provides for the liberty of our people on the seas, by placing American impressment where African impressment has already been placed – piracy by law! For one, I am ready to vote the act – to execute it – and to abide its every consequence.

III. – The liberated slaves.

The case of the Creole, as it is called, is another of the omitted subjects. It is only one of a number of cases (differing in degree, but the same in character) which have occurred within a few years, and are becoming more frequent and violent. It is the case of American vessels, having American slaves on board, and pursuing a lawful voyage, and being driven by storms or carried by violence into a British port, and their slaves liberated by British law. This is the nature of the wrong. It is a general outrage liable to occur in any part of the British dominions, but happens most usually in the British West India islands, which line the passage round the Florida reefs in a voyage between New Orleans and the Atlantic ports. I do not speak of the 12,000 slaves (worth at a moderate computation, considering they must be all grown, and in youth or middle life, at least $6,000,000) enticed into Canada, and received with the honors and advantages due to the first class of emigrants. I do not speak of these, nor of the liberation of slaves carried voluntarily by their owners into British ports: the man who exposes his property wilfully to the operation of a known law, should abide the consequences to which he has subjected it. I confine myself to cases of the class mentioned – such as the Encomium, the Comet, the Enterprise, the Creole, and the Hermosa – cases in which wreck, tempest, violence, mutiny and murder were the means of carrying the vessel into the interdicted port; and in which the slave property, after being saved to the owners from revolt and tempests, became the victim and the prey of British law. It is of such cases that I complain, and of which I say that they furnish no subject for the operation of injurious laws, and that each of these vessels should have been received with the hospitality due to misfortune, and allowed to depart with all convenient despatch, and with all her contents of persons and property. This is the law of nations: it is what the civilization of the age requires. And it is not to be tolerated in this nineteenth century that an American citizen, passing from one port to another of his own country, with property protected by the laws of his country, should encounter the perils of an unfortunate navigator in the dark ages, shipwrecked on a rude and barbarian coast. This is not to be tolerated in this age, and by such a power as the United States, and after sending a fleet to Africa to protect the negroes. Justice, like charity, should begin at home; and protection should be given where allegiance is exacted. We cannot tolerate the spoil and pillage of our own citizens, within sight of our own coasts, after sending 4,000 miles to redress the wrongs of the black race. But if this treaty is ratified it seems that we shall have to endure it, or seek redress by other means than negotiation. The previous cases were at least ameliorated by compensation to their owners for the liberation of the slaves; but in the more recent and most atrocious case of the Creole, there is no indemnity of any kind – neither compensation to the owners whose property has been taken; nor apology to the Government, whose flag has been insulted; nor security for the future, by giving up the practice. A treaty is signed without a stipulation of any kind on the subject; and as it would seem, to the satisfaction of those who made it, and of the President, who sends it to us. A correspondence has been had; the negotiators have exchanged diplomatic notes on the subject; and these notes are expected to be as satisfactory to the country as to those who now have the rule of it. The President in his message says:

"On the subject of the interference of the British authorities in the West Indies, a confident hope is entertained that the correspondence which has taken place, showing the grounds taken by this government, and the engagements entered into by the British minister, will be found such as to satisfy the just expectation of the people of the United States." – Message, August 9.

This is a short paragraph for so large a subject; but it is all the message contains. But let us see what it amounts to, and what it is that is expected to satisfy the just expectations of the country. It is the grounds taken in the correspondence, and the engagements entered into by the British minister, which are to work out this agreeable effect.

And it is of the grounds stated in the Secretary's two letters, and the engagement, entered into in Lord Ashburton's note, that the President predicates his belief of the public satisfaction in relation to this growing and most sensitive question. This brings us to these grounds, and this engagement, that we may see the nature and solidity of the one, and the extent and validity of the other. The grounds for the public satisfaction are in the Secretary's letters; the engagement is in Lord Ashburton's letter; and what do they amount to? On the part of the Secretary, I am free to say that he has laid down the law of nations correctly; that he has well stated the principles of public law which save from hazard or loss, or penalty of any kind, the vessel engaged in a lawful trade, and driven or carried against her will, into a prohibited port. He has well shown that, under such circumstances, no advantage is to be taken of the distressed vessel; that she is to be received with the hospitality due to misfortune, and allowed to depart, after receiving the succors of humanity, with all her contents of persons and things. All this is well laid down by our Secretary. Thus far his grounds are solid. But, alas, this is all talk! and the very next paragraph, after a handsome vindication of our rights under the law of nations, is to abandon them! I refer to the paragraph commencing: "If your Lordship has no authority to enter into a stipulation by treaty for the prevention of such occurrences hereafter," &c. This whole paragraph is fatal to the Secretary's grounds, and pregnant with strange and ominous meanings. In the first place, it is an admission, in the very first line, that no treaty stipulation to prevent future occurrences of the same kind can be obtained here! that the special mission, which came to settle every thing, and to establish peace, will not settle this thing; which the Secretary, in numerous paragraphs, alleges to be a dangerous source of future war! This is a strange contradiction, and most easily got over by our Secretary. In default of a treaty stipulation (which he takes for granted, and evidently makes no effort to obtain), he goes on to solicit a personal engagement from his Lordship; and an engagement of what? That the law of nations shall be observed? No! but that instructions shall be given to the British local authorities in the islands, which shall lead them to regulate their conduct in conformity with the rights of citizens of the United States, and the just expectations of their government, and in such manner as shall, in future, take away all reasonable ground of complaint. This is the extent of the engagement which was so solicited, and which was to supply the place of a treaty stipulation! If the engagement had been given in the words proposed, it would not have been worth a straw. But it is not given in those words, but with glaring and killing additions and differences. His Lordship follows the commencement of the formula with sufficient accuracy; but, lest any possible consequence might be derived from it, he takes care to add, that when these slaves do reach them "no matter by what means," there is no alternative! Hospitality, good wishes, friendly feeling, the duties of good neighborhood – all give way! The British law governs! and that law is too well known to require repetition. This is the sum and substance of Lord Ashburton's qualifications of the engagement; and they show him to be a man of honor, that would not leave the Secretary negotiator the slightest room for raising a doubt as to the nature of the instructions which he engaged to have given. These instructions go only to the mode of executing the law. His Lordship engages only for the civility and gentleness of the manner – the suaviter in modo; while the firm execution of the law itself remains as it was – fortiter in re.

Lord Ashburton proposes London as the best place to consider this subject. Mr. Webster accepts London, and hopes that her Majesty's government will give us treaty stipulations to remove all further cause for complaint on this subject. This is his last hope, contained in the last sentence of his last note. And now, why a treaty stipulation hereafter, if this engagement is such (as the President says it is) as to satisfy the just expectations of the people of the United States? Why any thing more, if that is enough? And if treaty stipulations are wanting (as in fact they are), why go to London for them – the head-quarters of abolitionism, the seat of the World's Convention for the abolition of slavery, and the laboratory in which the insurrection of San Domingo was fabricated? Why go to London? Why go any where? Why delay? Why not do it here? Why not include it among the beatitudes of the vaunted peace mission? The excuse that the minister had not powers, is contradictory and absurd. The Secretary negotiator tells us, in his first letter, that the minister came with full powers to settle every subject in discussion. This was a subject in discussion; and had been since the time of the Comet, the Encomium, and the Enterprise – years ago. If instructions were forgotten, why not send for them? What are the steamers for, that, in the six months that the peace mission was here, they could not have brought these instructions a dozen times? No! the truth is, the British government would do nothing upon this subject when she found she could accomplish all her own objects without granting any thing.