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

Mr. Burwell explained that he had said that the Governments were, in some of their features, alike.

Mr. Macon said that the reason of the fear in Great Britain that the Parliament would not meet often enough, was extremely obvious. The only voice which the people had was in the House of Commons, and they wanted them to be always in session, to keep the King and nobility off from them. In Great Britain the King dissolved Parliament at his pleasure. Here, he said, there was no power to dissolve Congress. Indeed, there was no similarity in the two Governments. He said he had no fear of any mischief being done by Congress meeting earlier; but he was opposed to their meeting earlier, because they would do more good by staying away. Could any man say what would take place between this day and the third of March? And yet the House were now called on to determine on an extra session. He was for giving such time, after the deliberations of the present session closed, as that Great Britain might see what we had done, and consider whether she would retract or go to war, for if she did not retract, war must be the consequence. Mr. M. said he would give every opportunity for peace; he would not be for hurrying the matter. He had no opinion that Congress being in session would have any effect on the people. The cry of an intention to destroy commerce was not to make him do a single thing which he would not otherwise do. No man can believe that we who raise produce should wish it to lie on our hands, as is now our situation. It is maritime rights for which we contend. For these we planters are making sacrifices, and we know it. As to the grower it is immaterial in point of interest into what ship or wagon his produce goes; but he is contending for the interests of his mercantile brethren. A great deal has been said about repealing the embargo to put an end to discontents. Let gentlemen beware of it, lest in trying to please everybody, they please nobody. Let us do what is right, that is the only ground for us to take. Whenever we begin to temporize, that principle is abandoned. I disagree with the gentleman from Tennessee as to the expediency of continuing the embargo; I do not believe that it would be inexpedient to try it beyond May. I believe we ought to try it beyond September. This is my opinion. What effect do gentlemen expect that the embargo will have had in May? Not more than at this moment. While every day from that time till September, it will be more and more effectual. I never voted for it as a permanent measure; but my opinion was, as I stated it, that it might be necessary to hold on to it for one, two, or three years. I might be wrong, but this was my opinion then, and I have not changed it. As to an extra session, I have never thought of it; but I am willing to leave it to the Executive. It has been so suddenly suggested, however, that I would not undertake to decide positively on the subject. I should rather incline to let them send to us now; we have sent to them long enough. As to the people being tired of the embargo, whenever they want war in preference to it, they will send their petitions here to that effect. When gentlemen from the Eastern States say, that the people there are tired of it, perhaps they speak correctly. As to all the talk of insurrections and divisions, it has no effect on me. When the sedition law was passed under the former Administration, it was said that the people would not bear it. I thought then as now, that the elections would show their disapprobation, and that they would manifest it in that way alone. When the people are tired of the embargo, as a means of preserving peace, they will tell you so, and say, "Give us war!" But none have said so; and yet, sir, I know well that myself and some others are blamed for our adherence to this measure. I can only say, that it is an honest adherence. I do believe that the continuance of that measure, with the addition of a bill now on your table, (non-intercourse bill,) is the best thing you can do; and if I thought that Congress would declare war in May, I should be much more averse to meeting then than I am now; but I do not believe it will.

The question was now taken on the motion of Mr. D. R. Williams to strike out the words "fourth Monday in May," and lost.

No other amendment being offered to the bill, it was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading. The bill being brought in engrossed, a motion was made that the same be read the third time to-morrow: and the question being put thereupon, it passed in the negative.

A motion was then made by Mr. Smilie, that the bill be now read the third time; and the question being taken thereupon, it was resolved in the affirmative.

The said bill was, accordingly, read the third time: Whereupon, Mr. Speaker stated the question from the chair, that the same do pass? And, the question being taken, it was resolved in the affirmative – yeas 80, nays 26.

Monday, February 6

Presidential Election

Several petitions having been presented, in addition to those heretofore stated, against the mode in which the late election in the State of Massachusetts was conducted —

Mr. Bacon offered the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Clerk of this House do carry to the Senate the several memorials from sundry citizens of the State of Massachusetts, remonstrating against the mode in which the appointment of Electors for President and Vice President has been proceeded to on the part of the Senate and House of Representatives of said State, as irregular and unconstitutional, and praying for the interference of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, for the purpose of preventing the establishment of so dangerous a precedent.

Mr. J. G. Jackson said he saw no objection to the resolution, or even to going farther than it proposed. The constitution had declared that the election of Electors in each State should be held in such manner as the Legislature should direct; and, he said, he never could consent to the doctrine that any set of men, without the authority of law, could make an election of Electors. He believed that the case was not provided for; and as the present case could not vary the general result of the Presidential election, gentlemen appeared not to be disposed to interfere in it. But, he hoped it would operate on the House to induce them to consider the propriety of providing some mode of hereafter distinguishing between legal, and illegal or surreptitious election.

Mr. Van Horne moved to strike out the words in italic, as he understood them as committing the House to express an opinion on the subject of the petitions. Motion lost – yeas 18.

Opening and Counting the Electoral Votes for President and Vice President

Mr. Nicholas offered the following order:

Ordered, That a message be sent to the Senate to inform them that this House is now ready to attend them in opening the certificates and counting the votes of the Electors of the several States, in the choice of a President and Vice President of the United States, in pursuance of the resolution of the two Houses of Congress of the 7th instant; and that the Clerk of the House do go with the said message.

Mr. Randolph said it had sometimes been the case, he did not say it had been the practice, that this House had met the other branch of the Legislature in their Chamber, for the purpose of counting the votes; in which cases, very properly indeed, this House being in the Chamber of the Senate, the President of that body had taken the chair. Mr. R. said he now understood that it was proposed, without any vote of this House for the purpose, that the President of the Senate was to take the chair of this House; that the Speaker was to leave the chair, to make way for the President of another body. To this, he, for one, could never consent. I conceive, said he, that such a proceeding would derogate, very materially, from the dignity, if not from the rights of this body. I can never consent, Mr. Speaker, that any other person than yourself, or the Chairman of the Committee of the whole House, should take the chair, except by a vote of the House. I hope, therefore, that this matter may be well understood. I conceive it to be a respect which we owe to ourselves, and to the people, whose immediate representatives we are, never to suffer, by a sort of prescriptive right, the privileges of this House to be in anywise diminished, or its dignity to fade before that of any other assembly of men whatever.

Mr. Nicholas said he was as unwilling as any other gentleman to surrender the privileges of the House. When assembled as the House of Representatives, he agreed that none but the Speaker should take the chair; but, on the occasion of counting out the votes, he did not consider the House of Representatives to be formed as a distinct body. In meeting on this occasion, he said, it always had been usual, since the establishment of the Government, for the Vice President of the United States, or the President pro tempore of the Senate, to take the chair. There was, also, a propriety in this course, because, by the constitution, the Vice President is to open the votes. For twenty years the practice had been that the President of the Senate presided in joint meeting.

Mr. Nicholas moved, in order to do away any difficulty in this case, that when the members of the Senate were introduced, the Speaker should relinquish the chair to the President of the Senate.

Mr. Davenport supported this motion. He had no doubt of the propriety of the President of the Senate presiding at a joint meeting, more especially, as he was the person designated by the constitution for counting out the votes.

Mr. Randolph said that if this course were taken, the Senate ought to be notified of this act of courtesy on the part of the House; if not, it might appear that the President of the Senate took the chair as a matter of right. He said he knew that, to many persons, matters of this sort appeared to be of minute importance, but in every thing touching the privileges of this House, as it regarded the claims of the other co-ordinate branches of the Government, he would stickle for the ninth part of a hair. It was well known that, in England, the privileges of the Commons had been gained inch by inch from the Kings and Nobles by a steady perseverance; and that man must have very little knowledge of mankind, indeed, who was not persuaded that those privileges might be lost, as they were gained, by gradual and imperceptible encroachment on the one hand, and tacit yielding on the other. This was not a matter of great consequence in itself; but power always begot power. It was like money, he said; any man could make money who had money. So any man, or body of men, who had power, could extend it. I have no objection, said Mr. R., very far from it, to the constitutional exercise of the powers and privileges of the Senate. Let their President count the votes, sir; there is a very good chair for him in which the Clerk now sits. But, on what principle is he to come into the House with the consciousness that he has a right to throw you out of the chair, sir, and take possession of it? I have no idea of suffering a man to come through those folding-doors with such a sentiment. If he comes into this House, he comes from courtesy, and cannot assume your chair, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of right, but as a favor. And, if the President of the Senate takes possession of your chair as a favor, it ought to be announced to the Senate as such; for, the mere vote on our side amounts to nothing, provided that he, and the body over whom he presides, come into this House under the knowledge, (without an intimation from us,) that you are to leave your chair, and he is to take possession of it.

Mr. Smilie observed that there was no fear of the privileges of this body being encroached upon by any other, for there was a written constitution, prescribing the powers of each body; and, at the same time that it was proper to be careful of their own rights, he said the House should be careful not to infringe on the rights of the other body. In respect to this question, there was a case in point. In one instance while Congress sat at Philadelphia, the Senate had come into the Representatives' Chamber to count out the votes, and the President of the Senate had taken the chair as a matter of right. We, said Mr. S., are sitting as a convention of the two Houses, for a special purpose, viz: to count out the votes. Who is properly the presiding officer in this case? Unquestionably the officer directed by the constitution to open the votes. And I consider the Speaker of the House, on this occasion, as acting in the same capacity as any other member of the House.

After some further observations on the subject from Messrs. Masters, Lyon, and Macon, the motion of Mr. Nicholas was agreed to – yeas 98.

Mr. Randolph then moved that the Senate be acquainted, by message, of this arrangement. Agreed to – yeas 73.

The resolution first offered by Mr. Nicholas was then agreed to.

On the suggestion of Mr. Van Dyke, it was agreed that the members should receive the Senate standing and uncovered.

The time for counting the votes having arrived, the members of the Senate, preceded by their Sergeant-at-Arms, entered the Representatives' Chamber, Mr. Milledge, the President pro tempore, took the Speaker's chair, and the members took their seats on the right hand of the chair. The tellers were ranged in front, and the Clerks of each House on the right and left of the tellers. The President of the Senate opened the electoral returns, one copy of which was handed to the teller of the Senate, Mr. S. Smith, who read it; the tellers of the House, Messrs. Nicholas and Van Dyke, comparing the duplicate returns handed to them.

When this business, which occupied about two hours, was concluded, the tellers handed their report to the President of the Convention, who was proceeding to read it, when

Mr. Hillhouse observed that the returns from one of the States appeared to be defective, the Governor's certificate not being attached to it. He thought that this might be as proper a time to notice it as any.

Nothing farther being said on the subject, however, the President of the Senate read the following statement of the votes, as reported by the tellers:

(For the statement of the votes see Senate proceedings of the same day, ante, p. 27.)

Thursday, February 9

Non-Intercourse

Mr. Taylor said it would be recollected that, in the course of the public business of this session, a resolution reported by a committee on our foreign relations arising out of a motion of a member from North Carolina, for the purpose of interdicting commercial intercourse with such belligerents as had in force decrees or edicts against the lawful commerce of the United States, had been agreed to and referred to the same committee, who had reported a bill for non-intercourse. This bill in fact, however, comprised but one-half of the whole subject embraced by the words "non-intercourse." The bill as reported to this House provided for the non-importation of the goods, wares, and merchandise, the growth and manufacture of these particular countries. That (said he) may be readily accounted for, from the circumstance that the House was then actually engaged in passing a law for the enforcement of the embargo, the committee therefore having only in view the other part of the question, so as to complete a non-intercourse. After that bill was reported, a gentleman from Tennessee, (Mr. Rhea,) in order that the whole might be incorporated into one, offered a resolution for that purpose. I did think it unnecessary at that time; but as the course of business seems to look towards a repeal of the embargo, in order that the whole subject of non-intercourse may be incorporated in the bill before the House, I move that the Committee of the Whole be discharged from the consideration of the bill, and that it may be referred to a committee, in order that it may be made in fact what the title imports it to be, completely, a bill for non-intercourse between this country and those nations having in force decrees affecting our neutral rights.

The Committee of the Whole was discharged from the further consideration of the bill, ayes 72.

The effect of the votes of this day, is to refer to the Committee on Foreign Relations, composed of Messrs. G. W. Campbell, Nicholas, Bacon, Taylor, Fisk, J. Montgomery, Mumford, Champion, and Porter, the several propositions for the repeal of the embargo, for arming the merchant vessels, for non-intercourse, for excluding armed vessels from our waters, and for declaring the first capture made in violation of the neutral rights of the United States to be a declaration of war, &c., with leave to report by bill.

The chief argument in favor of this general reference was, that these propositions might be merged in one bill which should present a general system, and thus render less complicated the proceedings of the House on these resolutions. The main arguments against it were, that it would destroy all that had already been done in Committee of the Whole, and probably present a system at length to the House which would not be approved, and thus produce no other effect at this late period of the session than to protract discussion; and also that it would encourage that speculation now going on in the mercantile towns, and be ruinous to many men of moderate capitals who had embarked their all in the purchase of produce, in the certainty that the embargo would be raised on the 4th of March.

Tuesday, February 14

Additional Duties

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill for imposing additional duties on all goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States.

[This bill provides "that an additional duty of – per centum on the permanent duties now imposed by law upon goods, wares, and merchandise, imported into the United States from foreign ports or places, shall be laid, levied and collected upon all goods, wares, and merchandise, which shall, after the thirty-first day of January, 1809, be imported into the United States from any foreign port or place; and a farther addition of ten per centum shall be made to the said additional duty in respect to all goods, wares, and merchandise, imported in ships or vessels not of the United States; and the duties imposed by this act shall be levied and collected in the same manner, and under the same regulations, mode of security, and time of payment, respectively, as are already prescribed by law, in relation to the duties now in force on the importation of articles imported from any foreign port or place. That this act shall continue in force until the first day of April, 1810, and no longer: Provided that the additional duties laid by this act, shall be collected on such goods, wares and merchandise, as shall have been imported previous to the said day."]

Wednesday, February, 15

Non-Intercourse

On motion of Mr. Nicholas, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill for interdicting commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain and France, and for other purposes.

Mr. Milnor moved to strike out the first section of the bill, with a view to try the principle of the non-intercourse system. In support of this motion, he alleged the impossibility of carrying the system into effect; for he conceived that the embargo had been ineffectual from the impossibility of carrying it into complete effect, and the proposed system would be as difficult to enforce. He thought that it would be impossible to carry a non-intercourse system into effect, as long as vessels were permitted to go to sea. He had many other objections to this bill, among which were these: that, although it raised the embargo only in part, the permission to vessels to go out, would render the provision for a partial embargo nugatory; that, if the bill were to pass in its present shape, it was to be doubted whether any revenue officer of the United States would understand the duty enjoined on him by it; that a time only two days previous to the meeting of the next Congress was fixed upon as the day upon which the non-importation should go into operation, and thus the bill appeared to manifest a distrust of that Congress, who certainly would be more competent than the present Congress to decide on its propriety at that time; that a non-intercourse between these countries, would but compel our citizens to pay a double freight to and from the entrepôt, without producing any other effect than injuring our own citizens; that goods from these countries, although their importation were interdicted by law, would be introduced nevertheless; that the extent of the territory and seacoast of the United States was so great that all efforts to interdict the importation of goods must be ineffectual, for they would be introduced contrary to law; thus depriving the United States of the revenue which would be derived from them, if their importation were permitted by law. Rather than accept this system, Mr. M. thought it would be better that this country should remain yet longer under the pressure of the embargo, which he had no doubt must be repealed early in the next session.

Mr. Quincy entered at considerable length into an examination of the system of coercion on foreign nations, by means of commercial restrictions. The idea of the efficacy of this system, he traced to a deeper root than any Administration under this Government. It was an error of the American people, originating in a period antecedent to the Revolution; it grew out of our colonial regulations. It began to be a favorite belief with the people, antecedent to the year 1760, and was then fostered by the patriots of that day, the idea being also encouraged by the patriots of England. Mr. Q. entered into a comparative statement of the exports from and imports to Great Britain from America at two different periods, viz: the nine years preceding the year 1775, and the nine years succeeding it, with a view to show that the average imports into Great Britain from all the world, during the nine years' peace with this country, amounted to about one-thirteenth more than the average imports during the same period of war; and the exports diminished, nearly in the same proportion. From his statements on this head and a comparison of the present relative situation of the two countries, Mr. Q. drew the inference that this supposed means of coercing the European powers, did not exist. He deemed it peculiarly unfortunate that a confidence in this power of coercion had so long existed, as it had prevented the United States from making preparations which they otherwise might have made. He hoped the idea would now cease. In relation to our present situation, he recommended a plain remedy, comprised in two words: "Follow nature." What did she first dictate for remedying any complaint? The removal of all obstructions on her operations. Mr. Q. therefore recommended the removal of the embargo, the repeal of the non-importation act, and the abandonment of the non-intercourse system. He wished "peace if possible; if war, union in that war;" for this reason, he wished a negotiation to be opened unshackled with those impediments to it which now existed. As long as they remained, the people in the portion of country whence he came, would not deem an unsuccessful attempt at negotiation to be cause for war; if they were moved, and an earnest attempt at negotiation was made, unimpeded with these restrictions, and should not meet with success, they would join heartily in a war. They would not, however, go to war to contest the rights of Great Britain to search American vessels for British seamen; for it was a general opinion with them that if American seamen were encouraged, there would be no occasion for the employment of foreign seamen. A removal of the embargo, without adopting any other measure, until the event of negotiation had been tried, Mr. Q. said, would first prevent any collision with the belligerents which might tend to embarrass negotiation; and, secondly, would give an opportunity to the country to ascertain what would be the practical operation of these orders and decrees, on our commerce; and give an opportunity to the next Congress to shape its measures according to their actual effect. If commerce did not suffer, the knowledge of this fact would supersede the necessity of any other measure, and peace would follow of course; if, on the contrary, a general sweep was made of all the property afloat, it would unite all parties in a war. Mr. Q. concluded a speech of two hours in length, by lamenting the state of the country, and invoking the spirit which "rides the whirlwind and directs the storm," to guide the nation to a happy result.