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

But, sir, we are told that peace is in our power without a farther promotion of the war. Appeal not, say our opponents, to the fear, but to the generosity of our enemy. England yields nothing to her fears; stop, therefore, your preparation, and throw yourself on her mercy, and peace will be the result. We might, indeed, have pardon, but not peace on such terms. Those who think the war a sacrilege or a crime, might consistently adopt such a course; but we, who know it to be for the maintenance of the just rights of the community, never can. We are farther told that impressment of seamen was not considered a sufficient cause of war; and are asked why should it be continued on that account? Mr. C. observed that he individually did not feel the force of the argument; for it had been his opinion, that the nation was bound to resist so deep an injury even at the hazard of war; but, admitting its full force, the difference is striking between the commencement and the continuance of hostilities. War ought to be continued until its rational object, a permanent and secure peace, could be obtained. Even the friends of England ought not to desire the termination of the war, without a satisfactory adjustment of the subject of impressment. It would leave the root that must necessarily shoot up in future animosity and hostilities. America can never quietly submit to the deepest of injury. Necessity might compel her to yield for a moment; but it would be to watch the growth of national strength, and to seize the first favorable opportunity to seek redress. The worst enemy to the peace of the two countries could not desire a more effectual means to propagate eternal enmity.

But it is said that we ought to offer to England suitable regulations on this subject to secure to her the use of her own seamen; and because we have not, we are aggressors. He denied that we were bound to tender any regulations, or that we had not. England was the party injuring. She ought to confine her seamen to her own service; or, if that was impracticable, propose such arrangements that she might exercise her right without injury to us. This is the rule that governs all analogous cases in private life. But we have made our offer; it is, that the ship should protect the sailor. It is the most simple and only safe rule; but, to secure so desirable a point, the most liberal and effectual provisions ought and have been proposed to be made on our part to guard the British Government against the evil they apprehended, the loss of her seamen. The whole doctrine of protection heretofore relied on, and still recommended by the gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. P.,) is false and derogatory to our honor; and under no possible modification can effect the desirable objects of affording safety to our sailors, and securing the future harmony of the two countries. Nor can it be doubted, if governed by justice, she will yield to the offer of our Government, particularly if what the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bleecker) says be true, that there are ten thousand of her seamen in our service. She would be greatly the gainer by the arrangement. Experience, it is to be feared, however, will teach that gentleman that the evil lies much deeper. The use of her seamen is a mere pretence. The blow is aimed at our commercial greatness. It is this which has animated and directed all of her injurious councils towards this country. England is at the same time a trading and fighting nation; two occupations naturally at variance, and most difficult to be united. War limits the number and extent of the markets of a belligerent, makes a variety of regulations necessary; and produces heavy taxes, which are inimical to the prosperity of manufactories and consequently commerce. These causes combined give to trade new channels, which direct it naturally to neutral nations. To counteract this tendency, England, under various but flimsy pretences, has endeavored to support her commercial superiority by monopoly. It has been our fortune to resist with no inconsiderable success this spirit of monopoly. Her principal object in contending for the right of impressment is to have, in a great measure, the monopoly of the sailors of the world. A fixed resistance will compel her to yield this point as she has already done her Orders in Council. Success will amply reward our exertions. Our future commerce will feel its invigorating effects. But, say gentlemen, England will never yield this point, and every effort on our part to secure it is hopeless. To confirm this prediction and secure our reverence, the prophecies of the last session are relied on. Mr. C. felt no disposition to disparage our opponents' talents in that line; but he very much doubted whether the whole chapter of woes had been fulfilled. He would, for instance, ask whether so much as related to sacked towns, bombarded cities, ruined commerce, and revolting blacks, had been realized?

Such, then, is the cause of the war and its continuation; and such the nature of the opposition experienced, and its justification. It remains to be seen whether the intended effect will be produced. Whether animosity and discord will be fomented, and the zeal and union of the people to maintain the rights and indispensable duties of the community will abate; or, describing it under another aspect, whether it is the destiny of our country to sink under that of our enemy or not. Mr. C. said he was not without his fears and his hopes.

On the one hand our opponents had manifestly the advantage. The love of present ease and enjoyment, the love of gain, and party zeal, were on their side. These constitute part of the weakness of our nature. We naturally lead that way without the arts of persuasion. Far more difficult is the task of the majority. It is theirs to support the distant but lasting interest of our country; it is theirs to elevate the minds of the people, and to call up all of those qualities by which present sacrifices are made to secure a future good. On the other hand, our cause is not without its hope. The interest of the people and that of the leaders of a party are, as observed by a gentleman from New York, (Mr. Stow,) often at variance. The people are always ready, unless led astray by ignorance or delusion, to participate in the success of the country, or to sympathize in its adversity. Very different are the feelings of the leaders; on every great measure they stand pledged against its success, and almost invariably consider that their political consequence depends on its defeat. The heat of debate, the spirit of settled opposition, and the confident prediction of disaster, are among the causes of this opposition between the interest of a party and their country; and in no instance under our own Government have they existed in a greater degree than in relation to the present war. The evil is deeply rooted in the constitution of all free Governments, and is the principal cause of their weakness and destruction. It has but one remedy, the virtue and intelligence of the people – it behooves them, as they value the blessings of their freedom, not to permit themselves to be drawn into the vortex of party rage. For if by such opposition the firmest Government should prove incompetent to maintain the rights of the nation against foreign aggression, they will find realized the truth of the assertion that government is protection, and that it cannot exist where it fails of this great and primary object. The authors of the weakness are commonly the first to take the advantage of it, and to turn it to the destruction of liberty.

Mr. Desha. – Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to detain you long; my principal object in rising is to conjure gentlemen to bring this debate to a close. Sir, what can gentlemen flatter themselves by suffering this discussion to be protracted to so unwarrantable a length? It cannot be supposed that the substantial part of this House (I mean those who think much and speak little) will, by theoretical or sophisticated remarks, be driven from their course. Then, sir, those long-winded speeches must be either intended for the gallery, or for gentlemen's constituents. It would certainly be unjustifiable to sport away the public money; to exhaust the public patience in making long speeches, merely for the purpose of amusing the ear of the gallery. And, sir, your constituents would much rather you would act with decision, with promptitude, in adopting measures calculated for a vigorous prosecution of the war, that it might be brought to a speedy and honorable termination, than to take up weeks in detailing the causes of the war. The people are fully apprised of the causes of the war, from the documents that have been promulgated; they are satisfied that it is a just and necessary war: that it has been forced upon us by the injustice and oppression of our enemy, occasioned in a great measure by the violent opposition of a party to the Administration. Sir, act so as to give a vigorous prosecution to the war, and act promptly, and the people will support you with manly firmness, independent of the consideration of expense.

Mr. Speaker, this bill contemplates raising twenty thousand men for one year. Although I shall vote for the bill under consideration, I do not altogether approve of it. Sir, the time of service is too short to answer a valuable purpose. I am not so sanguine as to suppose that we will overrun the British provinces in one season. I should like it much better if the time of service, as has been proposed, was extended to eighteen months, and the bounty raised in proportion. You would then have the advantage of two campaigns; in the last of which, you might calculate on a certainty of being able to do something of a decisive character, as you would have the advantage of disciplined troops; and really, sir, if this bill is to answer any valuable purpose, it ought to have been passed some time since. Gentlemen certainly must see that the object of the opposition is procrastination; they have predicted that the bill under consideration, if adopted, will not only run the country to extraordinary expenses, swell the national debt to an enormous size, but that it will ultimately bring disgrace on the Government. And, sir, they are determined that their predictions shall be realized, by putting off the passage of the bill until late in the season thereby preventing you from obtaining the men in time to do any thing of a decisive character next summer. This, in my mind, is unquestionably their object; and I believe the ambition of some of them is such, that, rather than be found false prophets, they would endanger the only republic in the world. Sir, I do not wish to be understood to include the whole Federal party; far from it. I believe there are some, and I hope a considerable portion, who are American in principle, and would, perhaps, go as far as any American in defending their country's rights. Sir, it is not my intention to arraign motives; but, speaking of party, what has been the conduct of the Federalists for twelve years past, ever since the termination of the Reign of Terror? A uniform opposition to every thing of a prominent character proposed by the different republican Administrations. Now, sir, if Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison had been the weakest of men, as well as the wickedest, (which no man in his senses, who had any respect for his character, or standing in society, would assert,) they must have accidentally happened on something right in the course of twelve years.

Mr. Speaker, it is mortifying to see gentlemen who call themselves Americans, rise up in the face of the nation to palliate and vindicate the conduct of an enemy, and at the same time reprobate, in the strongest language of ridicule, every step proposed by the Administration calculated to counteract the iniquitous and destructive policy of our enemy. Can such conduct be called American? Sir, when it ought to be the duty and pride of every man having any pretensions to American principles, to rally under the governmental standard, in order to assist in expelling our tyrannical oppressors from the continent, by which extricating the Government from its present difficulties, you see the Federal party making every exertion in their power to make the war a dishonorable one.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that it is in the nature of tyrannical or despotical Governments to take arbitrary strides; yet, sir, I do believe that the impositions and oppressions heaped upon the American Government; the evils under which we at this time labor, are measurably, if not entirely, attributable to the party hostility arrayed against the Administration. Sir, they have, by their uniform opposition, led the British to believe that they had a powerful party in this country; that parties were nearly equally balanced; that it would be impossible for a Republican Administration to adhere to any decided stand taken against England, and that finally the English party would prevail. Thus, sir, have Government been beset by party. They have been baffled in every peaceable step calculated to vindicate our rights, or redress our grievances, until, by the injustice of our foreign enemy, bottomed on the aid they calculated on receiving from our domestic foes, the Government have been forced into war. And now you are told to put a stop to the war, and try once more if Briton will not do us justice. Degrading thought! Sir, we have already humbled ourselves in making proposals, and all efforts on the part of the Administration failed. The world has seen and understood that the failure was attributable to her own wickedness, and not to our pertinacity. Sir, the American Administration has exhibited an example of moderation unparalleled in the annals of the world; our forbearance has astonished the universe, and we have the consolation to see that neither the guilt of aggression, nor the folly of ambition, can be fairly attributed to it. Negotiation, as well as patience, has been exhausted. Instead of appealing again to the justice of a Government that makes principle bend to power, we have been necessarily compelled (though reluctantly) to appeal to arms, and I trust in God that they will never be laid down short of justice.

Mr. Cheves rose. – It was for some time during this debate, said he, my intention to have mingled my unimportant opinions and sentiments with those of other gentlemen in this discussion; but I gave way from time to time before the eagerness of others who were desirous of presenting themselves to your attention, and I had entirely abandoned the idea of taking any part in the argument; but the sudden and unexpected indisposition at this moment of my worthy friend and honorable colleague, (Mr. Williams,) the chairman of the committee with whom this bill originated, who was expected to close the debate, has left a vacuum in the argument which I propose to fill. Could he have addressed you, as he was prepared and anxious, in the faithful discharge of his duty to do, it would have rendered the feeble attempt which I shall make as unnecessary as it would have been impertinent and obtrusive. I propose, then, to speak, as my honorable friend would probably have done, generally, but briefly, on the several heads of discussion which have been introduced into the debate, which has not been on the bill before you, but on the general merits of the war; the origin, progress, and continuance of it. I mean not to censure the wide range which this discussion has taken. It is fair and right in gentlemen of the opposition to select some occasion during each session on which to discuss the great questions of state which the public events of the passing times present; and the one furnished by the bill before you was perhaps as proper as any other.

Almost all the gentlemen who have addressed you, have very gravely told you, by way of exordium, of their unquestionable right to do so, and of the firmness with which they mean to assert and exercise it, as if there had been, at any time, really an opposition to this freedom of discussion. These introductions must be a little amusing to the members of this House and to the attendants in your galleries, who have been in the habit of listening to the gentlemen. But if there ever could have been a doubt on this subject, and surely there never was any, the debate, which I hope is about to be closed, affords an ample refutation of it. There are parts of this debate which will descend to distant posterity as a monument of the freedom of discussion in this Hall. I trust, sir, we shall furnish few such testimonials – I hope never to see another exhibition on this floor. They must be looked upon with apprehension by all those who consider the restraints of personal politeness and the urbanity of social esteem as affording a better security to those who love peace and good manners, for the preservation of these valuable objects, than can be lent by the strongest arm or the severest sanctions which positive institutions have established; restraints under which even "vice itself loses half its evil, by losing all its grossness." I shall imitate the example of gentlemen who followed in the debate – I shall pour oil upon the waves, and endeavor to still the raging of the storm.

Gentlemen, fruitful in epithets, yet rather fruitful in their abundance than in their variety, have called this an unjust, wanton, wicked, and unnecessary war. I, on the contrary, assert it to be a just and necessary war. One characteristic difficulty here presents itself, which has occurred in all the discussion in and out of this House on this subject. What is a just and necessary war? By the advocates of war it is asserted that the injuries and insults of the enemy demanded war, and rendered this war just and necessary. The opponents of war admit the magnitude of the insults and injuries, but deny the inference. They assert that the war is unnecessary and not justifiable, because the pecuniary expenditure and loss will exceed in value the commercial objects for which we are contending. The advocates of war deny both the premises and the conclusion. The objects of the war are not merely commercial, but, if they were, the inference is denied. They admit that the pecuniary expenditure and loss will exceed the pecuniary value of the commercial objects for which they contend, but they deny that a war for commercial objects is therefore unnecessary or indefensible. To an intelligible argument it seems, therefore, under these circumstances, necessary that we should begin by some definition of a just and necessary war; and yet it seems to be a melancholy labor in a great and free State, where public sentiment should be unequivocal on such subjects, to proceed by rules of logic to establish great first principles of public sentiment; but I fear that, as all good things are purchased by concomitant sacrifices, we have not obtained the innumerable blessings and advantages of the freedom of speech and of the press for nothing. I fear they have sometimes substituted an erring reason for a better guide – the great uncontaminated current of public feeling – the moral sense of the nation, of which the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Quincy) so often tells so much.

But we must inquire, what is a just and necessary war? A war is just and necessary when waged to protect and defend the violated pecuniary interests of the country; or to defend and secure the sovereign rights and independence of a country; or, lastly and principally, to support and maintain the national honor. The last, indeed, embraces all the others; and, if I have distinguished, it is rather in conformity with custom, or for the purpose of elucidation than from any practical separation which I admit between the last and the former. But I am likely to incur the derision of the honorable gentlemen in the opposition by speaking of national honor. They seem not to have admitted the term into their vocabulary; they treat it as a new language; they remind me of the character of Goldfinch in one of Holcroft's plays, who, when he hears the Romans mentioned, exclaims, "Romans! Romans! who are they?" So the gentlemen, "national honor! what's that? what's that?" Yet, sir, strange as it may seem to the honorable gentlemen over the way, the maintenance of the principle of national honor, by which I mean that principle which animates and sustains an elevated fitness of character and conduct, is the only justifiable cause of war; and, if necessary, the principle ought to be maintained by all the sacrifices of war in its worst shape. No war is justifiable or necessary which is waged merely for pecuniary objects, if we can suppose such a war, for all wars involve expense and loss greater than the amount of any pecuniary objects for which they can be waged. On the ground of interest merely they would not, therefore, be justifiable; and there is to be superadded, what cannot be valued in money, the value of human life. But the value of every thing is founded on the security with which it is enjoyed. One unpunished violation of right provokes another and another, until all security is destroyed; and, therefore, it is necessary to resist given infractions of pecuniary right by sacrifices beyond the value of the right itself, because resistance is necessary to the security of all other pecuniary rights – nay, to the security of all other rights. Security of rights is a political thing; it is the protection of Government; it derives its value, and a great portion of its power, too, from a faithful and unrelaxed application of it to all the rights and interests of a nation; and is diminished in its value, and in its power also, by any failure to afford the protection which is due by Government to the subjects and the interests under its control. To abandon any interest is to abandon all, and to protect one is to protect all; war, therefore, waged to protect one political right is waged to protect all political rights; no war is, in consequence, made for any given right merely as such, but for all the rights and interests which are bound together in a nation under the social and civil compacts. To compare the expenditure and losses of war with the value of commercial objects, which may be the immediate cause of war, is to talk idly, and to forget the true end of all war and the first great purpose of Government – security. A great man (Sir James Mackintosh) has said, "the paramount interest of every State, that which comprehends all others, is security." Will you, then, it may be inquired, go to war to avenge the infraction of the smallest right under the protection of Government, and for this object jeopardize every other, and spill the blood of your fellow-citizens? Certainly not. There is a fitness which cannot be defined in anticipation, but which is easily discoverable when the occasion occurs, which determines when a war is necessary. It may depend upon the nature of the injury; on the character which the nation has acquired; on its ability to avenge the injury; on the character of the nation which has inflicted the injury, and a thousand other circumstances. The question ought always to be, What becomes the nation? What is due to the national honor? What is necessary to sustain an elevated fitness of character and conduct in the nation? If the injury sustained be one which cannot or will not probably be repeated, it is less necessary to avenge it. If the nation be poor and feeble, it may be obliged to submit to the violation of a great right. If it be great and powerful, it must sometimes resent a smaller injury; it may sometimes disdain to notice a considerable aggression upon its rights; in short, in no instance is the expense of the war a rule which will prove it just and necessary, or otherwise; in every instance is national honor, that is, a fitness of character and conduct, the rule by which its necessity and justifiable character are determinable. Generally when a nation is able to resist with effect the infraction of important pecuniary rights, it seems indubitable that an elevated fitness of character and conduct requires resistance. But this obligation is increased, and is less doubtful when any of the sovereign rights of a nation are infringed, as in gross and reiterated insults to the national flag, habitual violations of the personal liberty of its subjects, invasion of its territories, and the like; these are assaults upon its independence, and there is no room left for an inquiry into the fitness of resistance; it may indeed be supposed to change from a question of expediency to an act of necessity; it is a struggle for self-preservation; the nation acts upon a principle which is inherent in the meanest insect, and of which inanimate matter is not divested; the worm, when trodden on, writhes in resistance as well as anguish, and the reaction of inanimate matter seems to be the repulsive act of self-preservation.