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

I, for one, sir, will vote to continue the embargo, because I do still consider it a coercive measure – as the most deadly weapon we can use against Great Britain. I am induced to consider it so, when I take a view of what is the nature of our products – what is the nature of her exports and imports – what is the nature of her wants, and what her capacity and means of supply. Look at the West Indies, where the embargo has a decided ascendency over every other measure you can adopt. You will find that her colonial and navigation system has, in that quarter, never been maintained since the Revolution. Perhaps I ought, in presuming to speak further about the West Indies, to apologize to the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Key,) not indeed for his very courtly conduct, because if a man is ignorant, he does not like to be told of it. The gentleman will be pleased to pardon me, if I blunder on in my ignorant way, and talk a little more of that part of the world. [Mr. Key explained that he had not intended any reference to the gentleman from South Carolina in his remarks.] I am extremely obliged to the gentleman for his explanation. Entertaining great respect for his talents, I am happy to find, upon such authority, the charge is neither applicable nor intended. The colonial system has been always regarded as essential to all the vital interests of Great Britain. Every relaxation of that system has excited murmurs and great discontent in the mother country, and yet they have been constantly produced by the wants of the colonies. Would they have been permitted in favor of the United States, could those wants be supplied from any other quarter? I must contend, then, that their profitable existence depends upon an intercourse with the United States, notwithstanding every thing which has been said to the contrary. I do not mean to involve the idea of absolute starvation; much less to insinuate that the embargo is so coercive as to humble Great Britain at our feet; far from it – but I do say, from the nature of their products, their profitable existence depends upon us. There are not contained within the whole British empire at this time, whatever they may have been previous to the American Revolution, supplies for the home and colonial consumption. Will gentlemen tell us from whence they are to procure the principal articles of provisions and lumber? I might rest the argument in safety on these articles alone; these are essential, and of our produce. All the evasions of the embargo have been made with a view to that supply; enforce it, and from whence will they procure the article of lumber? It bears a higher price and is more scarce in Great Britain, even in ordinary times, than in the West Indies. The opinion that Nova Scotia and Canada were adequate to that supply, has been long since abandoned. The articles of their produce require a constant supply of our materials, some of them cannot be procured from any other part of the world; of the lumber received, we have heretofore furnished ninety-nine parts out of one hundred. But we are told they can raise corn. Who denies it? I will grant to gentlemen all they ask on that point, and add, too, that their corn is actually more valuable per bushel than that of this country; but when their labor and industry is directed to that object, what becomes of their cotton, sugar, and coffee cultivation? What becomes of the immense revenues derived from those sources? Gentlemen must not forget that at least one-third of her revenue accruing from commerce, is derived from the West India trade alone. I do not know that I should be wrong, if I were to say from coffee and sugar only. If you drive them to the cultivation of corn for subsistence, they must necessarily abandon the cultivation of their most valuable staples. And do gentlemen believe Great Britain is willing to sacrifice all these considerations to a refusal to do you justice? We do not require justice, for all we ask of her is to abstain from plundering us. We say to her "hands off;" we wish not to come into collision with you; let us alone. These sacrifices will not be much longer hazarded, unless indeed she is deluded into a belief that she has sufficient influence, in this country, to excite disaffection and insurrection, and thereby remove the cause of pressure.

Another objection with me to removing the embargo is, it will betray a timid, wavering, indecisive policy. If you will study the sentiments contained in Mr. Canning's note, you will find they afford a lesson of instruction which you ought to learn and practise upon: "To this universal combination His Majesty has opposed a temperate, but a determined retaliation upon the enemy; trusting that a firm resistance would defeat their project; but knowing that the smallest concession would infallibly encourage a perseverance in it." I beg the House to draw instruction from this otherwise detestable paper – it preaches a doctrine to which I hope we shall become proselytes. A steady perseverance in our measures will assist us almost as much as the strength of them.

I conceive the supplies necessary for the maintenance of the war with Spain and Portugal will fairly come into the calculation. It has become the duty and interest of Great Britain to maintain the cause of Spain and Portugal – she has made it so. Where will those supplies be drawn from? Does she produce them at home? Certainly not; for it cannot be forgotten that the average importation of flour alone at Liverpool is ninety thousand barrels annually. The Baltic is closed against her. The demand must be great; for Spain and Portugal in times of peace have regularly imported grain for their own consumption. And here I will observe, there is no attribute in my nature which induces me to take sides with those who contend for a choice of masters. So far as they are fighting for the right of self-government, God send them speed; but at this peculiar crisis I think it extremely important that our sympathies should not be enlisted on the side of either of the contending parties. I would, therefore, from Spain and Portugal withhold our supplies, because through them we coerce Great Britain.

But that pressure which Great Britain feels most, is most alive to, is at home. The last crop is short, and injured in harvesting; wheat is fourteen shillings the bushel, and rising. Her millions of poor must be supplied with bread, and what has become almost equally important, she must furnish employment for her laborers and manufacturers. Where can the necessary supply of cotton be procured? For, thank God! while we are making a sacrifice of that article, it goes to the injury of Great Britain who oppresses us, and whose present importation is not equal to one-half her ordinary consumption. If the manufacturer is to be thrown out of employ, till that raw material which is now the hypothesis of the day, is produced from Africa, the ministry who are the cause of it will not long rule the destinies of that nation. No, sir, I am not alarmed about supplies of cotton from Africa. Nor am I to be frightened out of the embargo by a fear of being supplanted in the market, from that quarter; they must be but little read indeed in political economy, who can dread a competition with barbarians, in the cultivation of the earth.

Another strong inducement with this House to continue and enforce the embargo is, that while it presses those who injure us, it preserves the nation in peace. I see no other honorable course in which peace can be maintained. Take whatever other project has been hinted at, and war inevitably results. While we can procrastinate the miseries of war, I am for procrastinating; we thereby gain the additional advantage of waiting the events in Europe. The true interests of this country can be found only in peace. Among many other important considerations, remember, that moment you go to war, you may bid adieu to every prospect of discharging the national debt. The present war of all others should be avoided; being without an object, no man can conjecture its termination; for as was most correctly observed by my friend, (Mr. Macon,) the belligerents fight everybody but one another. Every object for which the war was originally begun and continued to 1806, has since that time become extinct. The rupture in the negotiations of that day was made not on points affecting directly the British interest, but grew out of the indirect concern she felt in maintaining those urged by Russia, which Power, having since declared war against Great Britain, has obliterated the then only existing object of the war. Embark in it when you please, it will not procure you indemnity for the past; and your security for the future must ultimately depend on the same promises, which you can obtain by peaceable means. I have no disposition, sir, to hazard the interest of my country in a conflict so undefined, so interminable!

But, say gentlemen, it is certainly not submission to trade to those ports which the edicts of the belligerents have not prohibited us from trading with. Granted – I will not enter into a calculation on the subject, as to how much importance the trade would be of to us. The chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means has told you it would be contemptible in amount; but, sir, I say this, because I consider it expedient to continue the embargo, to withhold our supplies from those who need them, I will not permit you to go to those countries. Repeal the embargo in part! No, sir. Give merchants one single spot anywhere out of the jurisdiction of your own country, as large as the square of this House, and they would carry away the whole of our surplus produce. Give them a little island on which to place the fulcrum of their lever, and Archimedes-like, they will move your whole trade. Let them go to Demarara, to Gottenburg, or any other burg, and it is to the whole world. But the trade to Spain and Portugal has been held up as highly profitable to the merchants of the United States. The gentlemen who venture this opinion have not, perhaps, considered the subject with all the attention it is entitled to. It appears to me to be demonstrable from the documents, and the knowledge of circumstances which we possess, that Great Britain, with the extension of plunder the Orders in Council warranted, is not satisfied. She was not content that she had laid a snare whereby she intercepted our whole commerce to Europe. She then permitted us (no doubt from extreme moderation) to trade with the French colonies, taking care, at the same time, to force a direction of that trade in a channel which could not fail to yield a tributary supply to her exchequer. She has now interdicted, by orders secretly issued, that commerce also. The language of Cochrane's proclamation cannot be misunderstood. What a harvest he would have reaped from the robbery of your merchantmen, had the embargo been raised, as was expected by the British Cabinet, at the commencement of the session. The Orders in Council would have taken all your property going to continental Europe, and those of the Admiralty would have swept the West India traders. I believe the idea of enjoying a free trade to Spain and Portugal is altogether illusory. Mr. Canning has told us, not in totidem verbis, but certainly in effect, that we should be permitted to trade with those countries, only under the Orders in Council. In answer to the proposition made by Mr. Pinkney to suspend the embargo as to Great Britain, for a suspension of the Orders in Council as to the United States, the British Minister replied in the most peremptory manner possible. Here let me observe, that had that suspension been agreed to, the embargo would have co-operated with the Orders in Council against France. It would have been even much more efficacious than those orders, inasmuch as our own regulations would have interdicted all commerce with France. The professed object of the Orders in Council, retaliation on the enemy, cannot therefore be real – they originated, as they have been executed, in a spirit of deadly hostility against us. That the operation of those orders would be extended to Spain and Portugal, should the embargo be repealed in part, I infer from this positive assertion of the British Secretary: "It is not improbable, indeed, that some alterations may be made in the Orders in Council, as they are at present framed; alterations calculated not to abate their spirit or impair their principle, but to adapt them more exactly to the different state of things which has fortunately grown up in Europe, and to combine all practicable relief to neutrals with a more severe pressure upon the enemy." Here is not only a denial of suspension, but a threat that alterations will be made, (no doubt in tender mercy to us,) not to abate their spirit, but to adapt their operation more extensively to our ruin. What is the state of things alluded to? Let every gentleman who seeks after truth, candidly inquire for himself, what is the state of things which Mr. Canning considers has so fortunately grown up in Europe. Can it be any thing but the revolutions in Spain and Portugal? If the Orders in Council are not to be impaired, but their operation rendered more applicable to the present state of things, a fortiori, you are to be cut off from the South of Europe, in the same manner as you are from France and her dependencies. And are you ready to repeal the embargo under such a threat as this? This note, sir, is sarcastic to the last degree; in it I read insult added to the atrocious injuries my country has received; there is but one part of it which can be looked at with patience, and that is the valuable admonition I have read.

Some gentlemen have gone into a discussion of the propriety of encouraging manufactures in this country. I heard with regret the observations of the gentleman from Virginia on this subject. I will be excused by him for offering my protest against those sentiments. I am for no high protecting duties in favor of any description of men in this country. Extending to him the equal protection of the law, I am for keeping the manufacturer on the same footing with the agriculturist. Under such a system, they will increase precisely in that proportion which will essentially advance the public good. So far as your revenue system has protected the interests of your merchants, I am sincerely rejoiced; but I can consent to no additional imposition of duty, by way of bounty to one description of persons, at the expense of another, equally meritorious. I deplore most sincerely the situation into which the unprecedented state of the world has thrown the merchant. A gentleman from Massachusetts has said, they feel all the sensibility for the mercantile interest, which we feel for a certain species of property in the Southern States. This appeal is understood, and I well remember, that some of their representatives were among the first who felt for our distressing situation, while discussing the bill to prohibit the importation of slaves. I feel all the sympathy for that interest now, which was felt for us then; but I ask if it is not sound policy to encourage the patriotism of our merchants to support still longer the sacrifices, which the public exigencies call for, with spirit and resolution? If they should suffer most from our present situation, it is for their immediate advantage that we are contending. I must be allowed in continuation to say, that, although I do not profess to be one of the exclusive protectors of commerce, I am as willing to defend certain rights of the merchant, as the rights of the planter. Thus far I will go; I will assist in directing the physical strength of the nation to the protection of that commerce which properly grows out of the produce of the soil; but no further. Nor am I therefore disposed to limit the scene of his enterprise. Go up to Mocha, through the Dardanelles, into the South seas. Search for gums, skins, and gold, where and when you please; but take care, it shall be at your own risk. If you get into broils and quarrels, do not call upon me, to leave my plough in the field, where I am toiling for the bread my children must eat, or starve, to fight your battles.

It has been generally circulated throughout the Eastern States, in extracts of letters, said to be from members of Congress, (and which I am certainly sorry for, because it has excited jealousies, which I wish to see allayed,) that the Southern States are inimical to commerce. So far as South Carolina is concerned in the general implication, I do pronounce this a gross slander, an abominable falsehood, be the authors who they may. The State of South Carolina is now making a most magnanimous sacrifice for commercial rights.

Will gentlemen be surprised when I tell them, South Carolina is interested, by the suspension of our trade, in the article of cotton alone, to an amount greater than the whole revenue of the United States? We do make a sacrifice, sir; I wish it could be consummated. I should rejoice to see this day all our surplus cotton, rice, flour and tobacco burnt. Much better would it be to destroy it ourselves, than to pay a tribute on it to any foreign power. Such a national offering, caused by the cupidity and oppression of Great Britain, would convince her she could not humble the spirit of freemen. From the nature of her products, the people of South Carolina can have no interest unconnected and at variance with commerce. They feel for the pressure on Boston, as much as for that on Charleston, and they have given proofs of that feeling. Upon a mere calculation of dollars and cents – I do from my soul abhor such a calculation where national rights are concerned – if South Carolina could thus stoop to calculate, she would see that she has no interest in this question – upon a calculation of dollars and cents, which, I repeat, I protest against, it is perfectly immaterial to her whether her cotton, rice, and tobacco, go to Europe in English or American vessels. No, sir, she spurned a system which would export her produce at the expense of the American merchant, who ought to be her carrier. When a motion was made last winter for that kind of embargo which the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Key) was in favor of; for he says he gave his advice to do that very thing, which if adopted would cut up the navigation interest most completely, (an embargo on our ships and vessels only;) South Carolina could have put money in her pocket, (another favorite idea with the gentleman,) by selling her produce to foreigners at enormous prices; her representatives here unanimously voted against the proposition; and her Legislature, with a magnanimity I wish to see imitated throughout the United States, applauded that vote – they too said they would unanimously support the embargo, at the expense of their lives and fortunes. She did not want an embargo on our ships, and not on produce. No, sir; she knows we are linked together by one common chain – break it where you will, it dissolves the tie of union. She feels, sir, a stroke inflicted on Massachusetts, with the same spirit of resistance that she would one on Georgia. The Legislature, the representatives of a people with whom the love of country is indigenous, told you unanimously, that they would support the measures of the General Government. Thank God, that I am the Representative of such a State, and that its representatives would not accept of a commerce, even at the advice of a gentleman from Maryland, which would profit themselves at the expense of their Eastern brethren. Feeling these sentiments, I cannot but say, in contradiction to what fell from the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Gholson,) I should deplore that state of things which offers to the merchant the lamentable alternative, beggary or the plough. I would say to the merchant, in the sincerity of my heart, bear this pressure with manly fortitude; if the embargo fails of expected benefit, we will avenge your cause. I do say so, and believe the nation will maintain the assertion.

It is with reluctance I feel compelled, before I resume my seat, to make a few observations in reply to what fell from the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Key) yesterday. The gentleman commenced his address by contradicting the statements made by a gentleman from Massachusetts, and my worthy friends from Virginia and Georgia, (Messrs. Randolph and Troup.) He told you their districts could not feel the embargo most, as it was in his the sufferings were most severe. I shall not waste the time of the House by an inquiry into the truth of this assertion; nor, sir, will I enter into a competition of this sort. I aim at a distinction far more glorious. The State I represent in part, bears the embargo the best. This it is my pride to boast of. There, sir, there are no murmurs, no discontent at the exertions of Government to preserve the rights of the nation. And as long as respect for the honor, and a hope of the salvation of the country exists, so long will they bear it, press as hard as it may.

The gentleman told you, in speaking of the Maryland elections, that the film is removed from the eyes of the people, and that in discerning their true interests, they saw it was the embargo, and not the Orders in Council, which oppresses them. He must feel confident indeed in the knowledge that he is two years in advance of his constituents, or he would not have ventured such an assertion. [Mr. Key explained that he had said the film was removed, and the people saw that their distress arose more from the embargo than from the Orders in Council.] Mr. Williams continued: I have no intention to misrepresent the gentleman, but I understood him to say that the Orders in Council did not affect the continental market, but the Berlin decree; that the embargo caused all the pressure at home; that the Orders in Council had no part in producing that measure, and therefore I infer as his opinion, that the Orders in Council have not injured us. [Mr. Key said that the few observations which he had made on this subject, were in reply to the gentleman from Tennessee, (Mr. G. W. Campbell,) that the people should be no longer deluded. In answer to this Mr. K. said he had observed that the people were not deluded – that the film was removed from their eyes, and that he then had gone on to show that the depression of produce arose from the embargo. But that he never had meant to say that the Berlin decree and Orders in Council were not injurious, because they lopped off a large portion of our commerce.]

I understood the gentleman to say (observed Mr. W.) that it was very strange we would not trust our merchants upon the subject of the embargo, who were the best judges. I wish to represent the gentleman's sentiments correctly, and shall not consider him impolite, if I have misstated him, should he again stop me. Why, sir, is it strange? Are the merchants the guardians of the public honor? This I conceive to be the peculiar province of Congress, because to it alone has the constitution confided the power to declare war. Will the gentleman trust the merchants with the guardianship of his own honor? No, sir, he chooses to protect it himself. And would he advise the nation to pursue a course disgraceful, and to which he would not expose himself? I will not trust the merchants in this case, nor any other class of men; not being responsible for the national character, they will trade anywhere, without regard to principle. So true is this, Dessalines felt no uneasiness when informed of the law prohibiting all intercourse with St. Domingo; he replied, "hang up a bag of coffee in hell, and the American merchant will go after it." I am not sure that, in the evasions of the embargo, some of them have not already approached near its verge: certain I am, that, in a fair commerce, such is the enterprise and perseverance of their character, they will drive their trade as far as it can be driven. No, sir, I will not trust the merchant now, because he would do the very thing which the gentleman seems to wish, trade under the Orders in Council.

The embargo should be removed, because, says the gentleman, it has operated as a bounty to the British trade. I should be disposed to doubt this, if for no other reason than a knowledge of who advocates its removal. Before the embargo was laid, agricultural labor in the British West India islands, particularly on sugar estates, could scarcely support itself. I refer the gentleman to the documents printed by order of Parliament, and the memorials of the agent of Jamaica. He will find that the planters are in a distressed situation, not from their failure in the cultivation of the soil, but from the enormous duties on their produce in the mother country. Are the extravagant prices of articles of the first necessity, superadded to their former embarrassments, to operate as a bounty on their trade? I should be extremely gratified if the gentleman will inform us what would have been the amount of bounty on the trade, if evasions of the embargo had not taken place. If the price of flour has been sixty dollars per barrel, and other articles in proportion, what would have been the price had there been no evasions of the law? They could not have been procured at all: and yet we are told the embargo is a bounty on British trade! When the gentleman was, I had like to have said, justifying the Orders in Council, he should have favored us with a vindication of the smuggling proclamation also. Such a degree of corruption and of immorality never before, in any one paper, disgraced a civilized nation. The citizens of a country, at peace and in amity, enticed to evade their own laws! Is such an act calculated to induce the belief that the embargo operates as a bounty on British trade?