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

The new men, sir, were not required to bring order out of confusion; that had been done already.

They were not called upon to lay the deep and strong foundations of national prosperity and happiness; that had been done already.

They were not enjoined to "multiply" the talents committed to their stewardship; that was unnecessary – they were merely commanded to preserve them undiminished.

They were not required to create a paradise – but to keep uninjured that which was committed to their guardianship.

They promised, indeed; they were so rash, in the fulness of their exultation, as to promise to do more; but folly alone could believe them; and for breaking this promise I forgive them, for to do more was impossible. And if they had but preserved unimpaired, if they had not totally destroyed the inestimable treasures intrusted to them, I would have endeavored to overcome my resentment, my indignation, and my despair.

In performance of their lofty promises, in disregard of sacred duties, what have they done? In what condition do they leave the country, which, eight years since, "in the full tide of successful experiment," fell into their hands? They present to us, sir, the gloomy reverse of all it was. The people discontented and distressed – all becoming daily more and more poor – except, indeed, that class of rich speculators, whose wealth and whose hearts enabled them to prey upon the wants of their countrymen. The despair and dismay of 1786 are returned! The prosperity of twenty years is annihilated at one stroke! The sources of revenue are dried up. The Treasury, indeed, may be now full – but it must continually diminish – and, without its usual supply, it must soon be empty. We have still some credit. But how long, sir, can that be maintained, when it is known that we have no longer the means, allowing us to possess the disposition, to fulfil our pecuniary engagements? When you cannot collect a cent upon imposts, and dare not lay a direct tax, how far you will be able to obtain money on loan, is, to say the least of it, very questionable. But, I will hasten to finish the contrast I was about to make. Commerce, sir, has perished, and agriculture lies dead at her side – for these twin sisters must flourish or die together. No nation in the world is our friend – our paradise is becoming a wilderness; our soil is stained with the blood of our own citizens; and we look around us, in vain, for one solitary benefit to compensate us for all the dreadful effects of the present system.

Perhaps, sir, I may be answered: "Though all you have said be true, though our former prosperity exists no longer, it is ungenerous, it is unjust to impute the change to the agency of the Administration. What has happened could not be prevented." Though such a rebuke were reasonable, I will still insist that the Administration, if they deserve no censure, are certainly entitled to no praise, and can ask for no confidence. If they have not been the authors of the public calamities, they have not, like their predecessors, discovered the ability to prevent them from coming thick upon us. If their hearts are honest, their heads have not discovered much soundness. No set of men, however ignorant, however stupid, could have placed the country in a worse or a more deplorable situation. The truth is plain and palpable. Judging of the wisdom of the Administration by the result of its measures, I cannot sing praises to them for their skill and ingenuity in diplomacy. No, sir; I delight in that diplomacy which makes the poor rich; which makes industry prosperous; which spreads contentment through the land, and happiness among the people. I delight in the diplomacy, whose skill and wisdom can be read in the countenance of my countrymen, and makes the face of my country the evidence of its prosperity. I like not, I abhor that diplomatic skill which can be found only in a book! which has produced nothing but calamity, and whose praise is written in the blood of my countrymen.

But, sir, how happens it that we still remain under the distresses occasioned by the belligerents? Is there, indeed, a physical impossibility of removing them? From Great Britain, and that, too, when she had the whole continent on her side, we could once obtain justice, not only for the past, but security for the future. From France, too, we could once obtain justice, but now we can gain justice from neither. What change, sir, has occurred in the state of things to produce this strange impossibility? Our commerce is more an object to Great Britain now, than it was formerly – and France can oppose to us no resistance on the ocean. And yet no remedy can be found for our calamities! Sir, I will not be the dupe of this miserable artifice. What has been done once can be done again by employing the same means.

The Administration have committed greater errors. They have conducted all their affairs in such a style as to leave Great Britain no room to doubt that, when they asked for peace, they wanted it not. To this cause may be traced all our difficulties, so far as they proceed from that power. As it regards France, I fear that they have not acted the proper, the manly part. In short, sir, they have not pursued toward England the policy which saved us in 1795, nor toward France the policy which was successfully opposed to French rapacity and French obstinacy in '93.

I think an error was committed, when, affecting to desire an amicable arrangement with Great Britain, instead of treating with her as a nation not to be intimidated, much less bullied, the non-importation act was passed. For, sir, if she was so proud, so haughty, so imperious, as some gentlemen delight to describe her, then to bring her to justice by assuming an attitude of menace, was evidently impossible. When, therefore, you passed the non-importation act, under a pretence that it would be a successful auxiliary to friendly negotiation, what could you expect but to alarm the pride, and the haughtiness, and imperiousness of that nation? And, doing that, how could you expect an amicable result? No, sir, it was not, and it could not be expected. You obtained a treaty indeed – but it was from a Fox Ministry. Yet such as it was, it was not so good as a Jay's Treaty, and the Executive rejected it without so much as laying it before the Senate.

In support of the embargo system, gentlemen say, if we suffer our commerce to go on the ocean, or wherever it goes, it will be crippled either by France or Great Britain. Although this is not true in the extent laid down, yet it will hold tolerably true as respects the European seas. From what gentlemen are pleased to represent as the impossibility of sailing the ocean with safety, result (say they) the propriety and necessity of the embargo system. And they say, it is not the embargo, but the decrees and orders which are the true cause of all we suffer; that the embargo, so far from being the cause of, was advised as a remedy for the evils we endure. Well, sir, for the sake of the argument, be it as they say. Has the embargo answered? Is there any probability, the slightest indication, that it will answer? Has it operated, to any perceptible extent, except upon ourselves, during the twelvemonth it has been in existence? If, then, neither the remembrance of the past, nor the prospect of the future, gives the least encouragement to hope, why will gentlemen persist in the system? And that too, sir, at an expense to their own country so enormous in amount? Will they go on obstinately amid all the discontents, or clamors (as gentlemen in very anti-republican language call the voice of the people) in the Eastern and Northern States? And that from mere obstinacy – an obstinacy not encouraged by the least glimmering of hope? If I could be pointed to a single fact, produced by the operation of the embargo, which would prove that it had any other effect on the disposition of Great Britain than to irritate – or any other on France than to please, than to encourage her to a perseverance in that system of injustice which we pretend to oppose, but to the policy of which we give all our support with an infatuated wilfulness, and which, therefore, increases the hostility Great Britain has felt from the measure – if they could show me, sir, that the embargo will bring either to terms, I would abandon the opposition at once, and come heart and hand into the support of your measures. The other day, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Williams) almost persuaded me that it ought to operate upon Great Britain; but I looked and I found it did not, and I was convinced it would not.

But, have gentlemen reflected that, if all the evils were drawn from Pandora's box, to vex Great Britain, you could have hit on none so well calculated to call out all her resistance, and all her obstinacy, as this same expedient, the embargo! If she yields to us, under the pressure of such a system, she discloses to us the secret of her independence! Sir, the embargo is war; it was intended as such against Great Britain. And she understands its meaning and its character too well for us to disguise it, under a pretence of its being a mere precautionary municipal measure. Its efficacy as a coercive measure has been too often and too loudly boasted of in this House, to make its real object a secret to her. Nay, in so far as the great and prominent feature of war is coercion; in so far as war is always intended to make the adversary yield that which he will not yield voluntarily; in so far, are the embargo and the non-importation act WAR. Each was intended to coerce Great Britain to yield to us points which it had been ascertained she would not yield voluntarily. It was a system of coercion, a new-fangled sort of philosophical experimental war; novel, to be sure, in its character, but, to all substantial purposes, war. Instead of bloodshed, there was to be ink shed – instead of bayonets, pens – instead of the bloody arena, huge sheets of paper! Whenever Great Britain shall yield to the coercion of the non-importation, embargo, or non-intercourse system, she virtually tells the people of the United States, "we are in your power whenever you choose to make a claim upon us, whether just or unjust; threaten us with an embargo and a non-intercourse, and you bring us to your feet." Does any gentlemen believe, even allowing the pressure of the embargo to be great upon her, that she can yield, that she can afford to yield? That she can admit that we have her always perfectly in our power? Sooner would she give up in battle – sooner would she see her soldiers retreating before our bayonets; sooner would she see her armies perish under our valor, than acknowledge herself the slave of this magic wand. Her children might grow to be men, and she might try the fortune of another day; the hair of Samson might grow on again, and his strength be renewed; but in yielding to the chance of the embargo, she places her existence in our hands, and becomes dependent upon our will for the existence of her sovereignty. Sir, the King of England cannot, he dare not, yield to our embargo.

But, sir, he has not told us that he considers our embargo hostile to him; nor has our Government ever told him that it was; such a declaration has never been put to paper. No, sir; when you look into the correspondence, it would seem that the embargo was never intended as a coercive measure, nor even understood so by Great Britain. Every thing on both sides is conceived in a sincere spirit of "friendship." Our non-importation act, our proclamation, our embargo, are all acts of friendship and kindness toward Great Britain, for aught we find there. And Great Britain issues her Orders in Council in a reciprocating spirit of amity toward us. She is not offended with our non-importation act, nor our embargo. Not at all. Her orders are not intended to harm us. She means nothing in the world, but simply to retaliate upon France – and she is sorry that almost the whole force of the blow falls upon us, but it is unavoidable. She, by the laws of nations, has as perfect a right to retaliate upon France as we have to make our innocent municipal regulations – and she is full as sorry that her retaliation system should wound us, as we are that our municipal regulations should incommode her. Sir, this diplomatic hypocrisy (begun, I acknowledge, by us) is intolerable. Sir, there is not one word of truth in the whole of it, from beginning to end. The plain state of the case is this: Anterior to the non-importation act, the British Treaty had expired – there were points of dispute, particularly concerning the impressment of seamen, which could not be adjusted to the satisfaction of our Government. In this state of things, either we ought to have gone to war, or we ought not. If we had intended to do so, stronger measures should have been resorted to than a non-importation act. If we had not intended to do so, the act should never have been passed. Those who passed it could have but one of two objects in view; either to coerce Great Britain to the terms we demanded – or, by vexing and irritating her, to raise up in due time an unnecessary fictitious quarrel, which (as this country is known to be extremely sensitive of British aggression) might ultimately end in a real old-fashioned war. No men could have been so weak as to calculate upon the first result. As to the other, the wisdom of the calculation is pretty strongly proved by the situation in which we now find ourselves. Sir, this is the whole mystery – and it must be explored – it must be exposed. We must understand the real character of our controversy with Great Britain – the real character, intent, and aim, of the different measures adopted by us and by her, before we can hope to heal the wounds our peace has received, or to restore the prosperity we have been unnecessarily made to abandon. I know, sir, how difficult it is to overcome matured opinions or inveterate prejudices; and I know, too, that, at this time, the individual who shall venture to lay open "the bare and rotten policy" of the time, makes himself the butt of party rancor, and strips himself to the unsparing "lacerations of the press." But these are considerations too feeble to deter me from my duty.

[Mr. G. appearing much exhausted, and Mr. Quincy having intimated to the House that Mr. G. suffered under a pain in the side, moved for an adjournment. The Speaker inquired whether Mr. G. yielded the floor? Mr. G. replied, he had himself little inclination to continue his remarks, but the House appeared so eager to hear him, (a laugh,) he hardly knew what answer to make. However, he said, he would give the floor. The House then adjourned.]

The object, sir, of our present deliberations is, or ought to be, to relieve our country from the distresses under which it groans; to do this, we should be prepared to legislate with a single eye to the welfare and happiness of the nation. It is of the first necessity that we should deliberate with calmness, if we mean to apply an effectual remedy to the diseases of the State. In the remarks which I had the honor to make yesterday, I was constrained to draw a contrast between the measures and prosperity of former times and those of the present times. Under circumstances of the same character, we were formerly able to overcome our misfortunes. Now we are not. And I did this for the purpose of impressing upon the House an opinion, that if the Administration had practised upon the principles of their predecessors, all had been well; or, that if retracing their steps, or relinquishing the path of error and misfortune, they would still be the learners of wisdom and experience, it would not even now be too late to retrieve the affairs of the country. If I know my own heart, I did not make the comparison from any invidious purposes; but merely to turn the minds of gentlemen back to former times; that they might reflect upon the perils and calamities of those times, and the means by which an end was put to them; but in doing this, I could not avoid paying the tribute of deserved praise and of sincere gratitude to the men under whose agency we prospered abundantly. In contrasting the conduct of the present with that of the former Administration, I meant to subserve no purposes of party. Nay, sir, I could have much desired to have been spared the necessity of presenting that contrast before the nation. I could have wished to have avoided these references, lest I might excite party feeling in others; lest I might appear to be governed by them myself. But truth could not be attained by any other course, and I have been compelled to take it.

The first resolution, contained in the following words, was divided, so as to take the question first on the part in italic:

"Resolved, That the United States cannot, without a sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the late edicts of Great Britain– and France."

The question was then taken on the first clause of this resolution, and carried – yeas 136, nays 2.

The question being about to be put on the remaining part of the resolution, viz: on the words "and France" —

The question then recurred on the second member of the first resolution; and the same being taken, it was resolved in the affirmative – yeas 113, nays 2.

The main question was then taken that the House do agree to the said first resolution as reported to the Committee of the Whole, in the words following, to wit:

"Resolved, That the United States cannot, without a sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the edicts of Great Britain and France:"

And resolved in the affirmative – yeas 118, nays, 2.

Saturday, December 17

A division of the question on the resolution depending before the House was then called for by Mr. David R. Williams: Whereupon, so much of the said resolution was read, as is contained in the words following, to wit:

"Resolved, That it is expedient to prohibit, by law, the admission into the ports of the United States of all public or private armed or unarmed ships or vessels belonging to Great Britain or France, or to any other of the belligerent powers having in force orders or decrees violating the lawful commerce and neutral rights of the United States."

The question then recurring on the first member of the original resolution, as proposed to be divided on a motion of Mr. D. R. Williams, and hereinbefore recited, a division of the question on the first said member of the resolution was called for by Mr. Gardenier, from the commencement of the same to the words "Great Britain," as contained in the words following, to wit:

"Resolved, That it is expedient to prohibit, by law, the admission into the ports of the United States of all public or private armed or unarmed ships or vessels belonging to Great Britain."

The question being taken that the House do agree to the same, it was resolved in the affirmative – yeas 92, nays 29.

A farther division of the question was moved by Mr. Elliot, on the said first member of the resolution, on the words "or France," immediately following the words "Great Britain," hereinbefore recited: And the question being put thereupon, it was resolved in the affirmative – yeas 97, nays. 24.

And on the question that the House do agree to the second member of the said second resolution, contained in the words following, to wit:

"Or to any other of the belligerent powers having in force orders or decrees violating the lawful commerce and neutral rights of the United States:"

It was resolved in the affirmative – yeas 96, nays 26.

The question then being on the residue of the said resolution contained in the following words:

"And, also, the importation of any goods, wares, or merchandise, the growth, produce, or manufacture, of the dominions of any of the said powers, or imported from any place in the possession of either:"

The question was taken, and resolved in the affirmative – yeas 82, nays 36.

The main question was then taken that the House do agree to the said second resolution, as reported from the Committee of the whole House, and resolved in the affirmative – yeas 84, nays 30, as follows:

Yeas. – Lemuel J. Alston, Willis Alston, jun., Ezekiel Bacon, David Bard, Joseph Barker, Burwell Bassett, William W. Bibb, William Blackledge, John Blake, jun., Thomas Blount, Adam Boyd, John Boyle, Robert Brown, William A. Burwell, William Butler, Joseph Calhoun, George W. Campbell, Matthew Clay, Joseph Clopton, Richard Cutts, John Dawson, Joseph Desha, Daniel M. Durell, John W. Eppes, William Findlay, Jas. Fisk, Meshack Franklin, Francis Gardner, Thomas Gholson, jun., Peterson Goodwyn, Edwin Gray, Isaiah L. Green, John Heister, William Helms, James Holland, David Holmes, Benjamin Howard, Reuben Humphreys, Daniel Ilsley, John G. Jackson, Richard M. Johnson, Walter Jones, Thomas Kenan, William Kirkpatrick, John Lambert, John Love, Nathaniel Macon, Robert Marion, William McCreery, John Montgomery, Nicholas R. Moore, Thos. Moore, Jeremiah Morrow, John Morrow, Roger Nelson, Thos. Newbold, Thomas Newton, Wilson C. Nicholas, John Porter, John Rea of Pennsylvania, John Rhea of Tennessee, Jacob Richards, Matthias Richards, Benjamin Say, Ebenezer Seaver, Samuel Shaw, Dennis Smelt, John Smilie, Jedediah K. Smith, John Smith, Henry Southard, Richard Stanford, Clement Storer, John Taylor, George M. Troup, James I. Van Allen, Archibald Van Horne, Daniel C. Verplanck, Jesse Wharton, Robert Whitehill, Isaac Wilbour, David R. Williams, Alexander Wilson, and Richard Wynn.

Nays. – Evan Alexander, John Campbell, Epaphroditus Champion, Martin Chittenden, John Culpeper, Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, jun., Jas. Elliot, William Ely, Barent Gardenier, John Harris, Richard Jackson, Robert Jenkins, James Kelly, Philip B. Key, Joseph Lewis, jun., Matthew Lyon, Josiah Masters, William Milnor, Jonathan O. Mosely, Timothy Pitkin, jun., Josiah Quincy, John Russell, James Sloan, L. B. Sturges, Samuel Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Jabez Upham, Philip Van Cortlandt, and Killian K. Van Rensselaer.

And on the question that the House do concur with the Committee of the Whole in their agreement to the third resolution, in the words following, to wit:

Resolved, That measures ought to be immediately taken for placing the country in a more complete state of defence:

It was unanimously resolved in the affirmative.

On motion of Mr. George W. Campbell,

Ordered, That the second resolution be referred to the committee appointed on so much of the Message from the President of the United States, at the commencement of the present session, as respects our relations with foreign powers, with leave to report thereon by way of bill or bills.

On motion of Mr. George W. Campbell,

Ordered, That the third resolution be referred to the committee appointed, on the 8th ultimo, on so much of the said Message from the President of the United States as relates to the Military and Naval Establishments, with leave to report thereon by bill, or bills.

Monday, December 19

Miranda's Expedition

Mr. Love called for the order of the day on the report of the committee on the subject of the thirty-six persons confined in Carthagena, South America. The following is the resolution reported by the committee:

Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to adopt the most immediate and efficacious means in his power to obtain from the Viceroy of Grenada, in South America, or other proper authority, the liberation of thirty-six American citizens, condemned on a charge of piracy, and now held in slavery in the vaults of St. Clara, in Carthagena, and that the sum of – dollars be appropriated to that purpose.

Mr. D. R. Williams moved to postpone the consideration of the subject indefinitely. Negatived – 50 to 36.

The House then went into a Committee of the Whole on the subject – 39 to 33.

Mr. Love moved to amend the resolution by striking out the words in italics, and inserting "authorized to request." – Carried, ayes 54.

Those gentlemen who supported this resolution in the debate were Messrs. Love, Lyon, Bacon, Nelson, Sloan, and Wilbour. Those who opposed it were Messrs. D. R. Williams, Taylor, Smilie, Macon, and Southard.

The gentlemen who opposed the resolution, among other objections, contended that an agreement to the resolution would but involve the Government in difficulty without answering any good purpose; that it would in fact be aiding the attempt of a certain party to prove that the General Government had some connection with this expedition originally, which it certainly had not; that the facts set forth in the petition were wholly unsupported by evidence; that these persons had engaged themselves in a foreign service; that they had become weary of the privileges of freemen, and had entered into a hostile expedition against a foreign country, and, in so doing, had been taken, condemned for piracy, and immured as a punishment for that offence; that the British Government, having been at the bottom of this business, was the proper power to release these persons, and indeed had applied to the Spanish commander for the purpose; that even were the United States bound by the laws of justice or humanity to intercede for these persons, they knew not to whom to make application, and would probably meet with a refusal, perhaps a rude one, if any judgment could be formed from the present situation of our affairs with Spain; that if gentlemen wished for objects on which to exercise their humanity, they might find them in the lacerated backs of our impressed seamen, without extending it to criminals. In reply to an observation of Mr. Lyon, that if we did not get these men Great Britain would do so, and employ them to extend her naval force, Mr. Macon replied, if she did, she was welcome to keep them; but she was in the habit of supplying her navy with seamen from our vessels, without the trouble which the acquisition of these men might occasion her.