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

The true nature of this Cadore policy is alone to be discovered in the character of his master. Napoleon is a universal genius. "He can exchange shapes with Proteus to advantage." He hesitates at no means and commands every skill. He toys with the weak – he tampers with the mean – he browbeats the haughty – with the cunning he is a serpent. For the courageous he has teeth and talons. For the cowering he has hoofs. He found our Administration a pen and ink gentry – parchment politicians; and he has laid, for these ephemeral essences, a paper fly-trap, dipped in French honey. Hercules, finding that he could not reach our Administration with his club, and that they were out of their wits at the sight of his lion's skin, has condescended to meet them in petticoats, and conquer them, spinning at their own distaff.

As to those who, after the evidence now in our hands, deny that the decrees exist, I can no more reason with them than with those who should deny the sun to be in the firmament, at noon-day. The decrees revoked! The formal statute act of a despot revoked by the breath of his servile Minister; uttered on conditions not performed by Great Britain, and claiming terms not intended to be performed by us! The fatness of our commerce secure, when every wind of heaven is burdened with the sighs of our suffering seamen, and the coast of the whole continent heaped with the plunder of our merchants! The den of the tiger safe! Yet the tracks of those who enter it are innumerable, and not a trace is to be seen of a returning footstep! The den of the tiger safe! While the cry of the mangled victims are heard through the adamantine walls of his cave; cries, which despair and anguish utter, and which despotism itself cannot stifle!

No, Mr. Speaker. Let us speak the truth. The act now proposed is required by no obligation. It is wholly gratuitous. Call it then by its proper name. The first fruit of French alliance. A token, a transatlantic submission. Any thing except an act of an American Congress, the Representatives of freemen.

The present is the most favorable moment for the abandonment of these restrictions, unless a settled co-operation with the French continental system be determined. We have tendered the provisions of this act to both belligerents. Both have accepted – both, as principals, or by their agents, have deceived us.

We talk of the edicts of George the Third and Napoleon. Yet those of the President of the United States, under your law, are far more detestable to your merchants. Their edicts plundered the rich. His make those who are poor still poorer. Their decrees attack the extremities. His proclamation fixes upon the vitals, and checks the action of the seat of commercial life.

I know that great hopes are entertained of relief from the proposed law, by the prospect of a British regency. Between a mad monarch and a simpering successor, it is expected the whole system of that nation will be abandoned. Let gentlemen beware, and not calculate too certainly on the fulfilment, by men in power, of professions made out of it. The majority need not go out of our own country, nor beyond their own practice, to be convinced how easily, in such cases, proud promises may eventuate in meagre performance.

The whole bearing of my argument is to this point. It is time to take our own rights into our own keeping. It is time, if we will not protect, to refrain from hampering, by our own acts, the commerce of our country. Put your merchants no longer under the guardianship and caprice of foreign powers. Punish not, at the instigation of foreigners, your own citizens for following their righteous calling. We owe nothing to France. We owe nothing to Great Britain. We owe every thing to the American people. Let us show ourselves really independent; and look to a grateful, a powerful, and then united people, for support against every aggressor.

Mr. Mumford. – The gentleman (Mr. Quincy) from Massachusetts has given us a long talk, that amused the House very much with tropes and figures, and I hope has convinced himself that he is right. I am no advocate of either belligerent, I have not much confidence in the declarations of foreign Governments. I did, however, put some confidence in the Erskine arrangement, but I was deceived; it met my approbation, because I was among those who were determined to settle our disputes with Great Britain in our own way, as an independent nation. And I will now ask the gentleman from Massachusetts whether, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or any other higher authority in Great Britain, should write a letter to Sir William Scott, and a circular letter to the Collector of Liverpool, informing them that the Orders in Council did not apply to American vessels from and after the 1st November, he would not deem those letters to be evidence of the fact? If so, why not give the same credence to the letters of the Duke of Massa and the Duc de Gaete? I wish to preserve the faith of the nation. We have been plundered by both belligerents, and have as little confidence in the one as in the other; but without some reliance on the word of constituted authorities there is an end to all negotiations. The gentleman says that we are about to shut up "the only avenue to our commercial hope." These are his own words. Let us now examine this avenue to our commercial hope. I will in the first place ask the indulgence of the House while I read and state some facts from a letter I have just received from Liverpool, dated January 8, of the present year, from one of the most respectable houses there, which states that the importation of cotton from the United States was 320,000 bales in 1810; that there were then 145,000 bales on hand; tobacco imported in the same period, 14,700 hogsheads; and notwithstanding the consumption, the quantity imported kept the market supplied constantly with about the same number of hogsheads throughout the year 1810. Potashes imported 28,946 barrels, on hand 13,000 barrels: rice 39,000 imported, and there remain on hand very large supplies. Those are the principal articles of the produce of our soil unsold on 8th January, 1811, in the port of Liverpool alone, besides the quantities in the other ports of Great Britain; and the same letter observes: "This supply checks any attempt at speculation, and without an export vent is procured, the stock on hand must remain unsalable; if the belligerents return to a sense of justice, the continental markets being in that case reopened, will require large supplies, and cause our market to rise." The prices of upland cotton are stated at 12d. sterling per lb.; tobacco, very prime, 4d. to 7d., middling quality, great quantity on hand, fit only for continental market, at 1½ a 4d.; pot-ashes £43 to £44 per ton – rice 19 to 23 per cwt. Sir, there is no American merchant who can pursue that commerce, attended with the enormous charges and duties imposed on those articles without inevitable ruin; and I call to the recollection of gentlemen the numerous failures in consequence of bills of exchange returned under protest, which had been predicated on shipments to British ports; and yet the gentleman from Massachusetts tells us this is "the only avenue to our commercial hope." Send your vessels to the Brazils, you meet them there intriguing against your commerce; to Buenos Ayres, you find them there; to Cayenne, there also; to Terra Firma, you there find them in conjunction with Miranda intriguing and counteracting your commerce; to Barbadoes, Surinam, Demerara, Trinidad, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Jamaica, &c., and you are met with enormous port charges, and duties amounting to prohibition on the staple articles of the New England States; codfish, beef, pork, butter, lard, cheese, hams, &c. It is true we are admitted every now and then, at the mere will and caprice of a governor, to import into those colonies flour at a duty of one dollar per barrel; rice and lumber in proportion; on condition that you shall not take away any article but rum and molasses, and this is the only avenue to our commercial hope. They are like the locusts of Egypt in relation to our commerce. What has become of your 1,350,000 tons of shipping, valued at fifty dollars per ton, amounting to $67,500,000, one-third of which belongs to Massachusetts? Is the gentleman willing to surrender the carrying trade to Great Britain? Let him turn his attention to the ports of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans, and he will find that British ships are now taking the bread out of the mouths of his own constituents. They are enabled to take freight on so much lower terms than American vessels can afford to do it in consequence of the very great difference of duties in Great Britain, between importations in America or in a British ship, that we cannot compete with them unless you will countervail them, and take a decisive stand in defence of your commerce to continental Europe, and carry your produce direct to the consumers, and be no longer subjected to be fleeced by the monopolizers and retailers of the old world. They are not content to have the whole products of your soil deposited on their Island, on which they receive an enormous import, and raise an extra war tax, besides; but they will claim very soon the exclusive right to carry it when and where they please in their own ships. We are thus reduced to a worse situation than in a state of colonization; we have now all the disadvantages of being plundered by their navy, and none of the advantages of receiving its protection, although they have the impudence to charge us four per cent. convoy duty on their gewgaws and manufactures, which convoy they do not give us. Can this be a desirable state of things? And if persevered in, I am convinced the commerce of the United States will descend into the same tomb with the gentleman's story of the coffin.

There are three classes of your citizens to be provided for, as contemplated in the provisions of this bill – first, sequestrations in France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, and Russia. Second, those who have sailed to France under the faith of the Duke of Cadore's letter of the 5th of August. Third, importers of British manufactures. But it would seem by the arguments I have heard advanced in this House that there were only the latter class to be provided for, and, as I presume British precedent and authority will be admitted by the gentleman from Massachusetts to be good evidence, I will inform him and the House, what was the concurrent testimony of the English merchants before the bar of the House of Commons on the subject of exports and imports of the United States. They stated on oath that the exports to the United States were about twelve millions sterling, and that the imports were about four millions on an average for the years 1802, 1803, 1804, when there were no decrees against American commerce, and consequently it took its own natural channel and supplied each market according to its natural consumption. The difference between export and import being about eight millions sterling against us. Those English merchants state that it was made up and received from our trade with continental Europe; this has not been disproved by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor by his friend Stevens, of War in Disguise – it is a fact; they cannot deny it. And shall we be told about the profitable commerce with Great Britain? After a statement of these facts, shall we go on to gorge their warehouses with twelve millions sterling of produce, when their own internal consumption does not exceed four millions sterling? I hope not; and I do trust that the time is not far distant when we shall assert and defend our just rights.

Mr. Blaisdell. – Mr. Speaker: nothing would induce me to address you at this late hour, while there is so great a commotion in, and so many tokens of impatience manifested by, the House, but a sense of duty, and a desire to lend my feeble aid in arresting the progress of a measure which, in my opinion, involves a question of no less importance than whether we are prepared, after having been insulted, robbed, and deceived, by the French Emperor, to follow the fatal example of the petty, servile States of Europe, and throw this people into the embraces of that monster, at whose perfidy and corruption Lucifer blushes and Hell itself stands astonished. If I understand the amendment of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, its principal object is to renew the non-intercourse of 1809, so far as it respects Great Britain, which was previously attempted to be revived by the proclamation of the President of the second of November last. I should have supposed that, rather than have made so glaring a confession that that State paper misstated fact, the gentleman would have been dissuaded from his darling object, the non-intercourse. But it seems that when it comes in competition with the views of Napoleon, the veracity of the President must be sacrificed. But, sir, convinced as I am, that our paper war, which has been applied to all purposes, even to calling out the army, raising the militia, pressing the horses, &c., and sending them on an expedition the distance of five hundred miles, with express orders not to fight, has damned the character of this Government, broken down the spirit of the nation, embarrassed our citizens, and emptied the late overflowing Treasury, so as to render the resort to borrowing necessary; I cannot but hope that the amendment on your table will be rejected to give place to an amendment offered some days ago by an honorable gentleman from New York, (Mr. Emott,) when this bill was under discussion in Committee of the Whole.

Sir, if I understand that amendment, it went to suspend the whole restrictive system, except the third section of the law of May last, which saves fines and forfeitures incurred under our various restrictions. This amendment, to be sure, changes the position recommended by the Executive, but not much more than the bill, with the addition of the amendment now under consideration. Although it becomes this House to pay due deference to Executive recommendations; yet, if there are good reasons for a departure from such recommendations, it equally becomes the members of this House, out of a regard to the correctness of their own proceedings, to make such a departure correspond with the reasons which produced it. The position recommended by the Executive made its first appearance in a short paragraph in the President's Message, recommending such a modification of the law of May last, as would remove all doubts as to its exposition and execution; for the details of such modification we are referred to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. In this report we find a project recommended to enforce the non-importation against English merchandise of every kind and from every country. In the first place, by making the proclamation of the President, declaring that the French edicts had ceased to violate our neutral commerce on the first day of November last, the only evidence of that fact; and in the second place, by authorizing the officers of the army and navy to enter ships, dwelling-houses, stores, or any other place, to search for and seize merchandise suspected of being imported contrary to law, and making a donation of the boon so seized to the wretch who should be hardy enough, in defiance of all moral obligation, thus to rob his neighbor; and in the third place, by declaring all merchandise so seized in the Northern section of the Union, adjoining the British provinces, to be forfeited, unless by a palpable inversion of the rule of evidence in all other cases, and even in this case, adopted in all other sections of the Union, he is able to prove that the merchandise was legally imported and the duties paid – with many other provisions, all of which have been laid before this House, in the first bill on the subject reported by the Committee of Foreign Relations, the details of which are too well recollected to need pointing out, or to be suffered to meet a public investigation at this time.

But, sir, with all due deference to the high ministerial officer who recommended the project, and likewise to the honorable committee who reported the bill, I may be allowed to pay it the compliment of saying that, in my opinion, previous to the reign of that tyrant, who, by a military force, aided by projects of this kind, has destroyed the sanctuary of justice, and has spread pillage, debauchery, robbery, and death, throughout the greater part of Europe; such a bill as that would have been scouted from this Hall as the production of a madman. But on receiving the Message of the President, covering the letters of Mr. Russell, the American Chargé des Affaires at Paris, stating that American vessels, loaded with bona fide property of American citizens, had been seized and sequestered in the ports of France, under the Berlin and Milan decrees, as late as the 9th of December, doubts seemed to arise in this House, whether the decrees had ceased to operate on the first of November, as the President had declared. And the bill was sent back to the committee, for the purpose, as I understood, of bringing in a bill to suspend the operation of the law of May last, until we should hear from France, whether the Emperor had disavowed those seizures, and whether the decrees had actually ceased to operate on the first of November. And I did understand the honorable chairman of the committee, and several other gentlemen on the other side of the House, to say on that occasion, that if, after we had new arrivals from France, that did not prove to be the case, they should be as ready as any gentleman to repeal the whole code of restrictive laws until the Emperor should learn to respect our rights. What evidence have we had since to give us a more favorable prospect, as it respects the revocation of the decrees? Not a syllable. But, on the other hand, we have conclusive evidence that they were not so revoked that their operation ceased on that day.

If it be asked where this evidence appears, the answer is ready. In the first place, by the letter of the Grand Judge, the Duke of Massa, to the President of the Council of Prizes, as also by the letter of the Minister of Finance to the Director General of the Customs, both dated the 25th of December, fifteen days after the manly remonstrance of Mr. Russell, in the case of the Orleans Packet; in which remonstrance he states the outrageous conduct of the custom-house officers, and requests a prompt and speedy disavowal of the seizures, and that the property be again placed in the hands of the owners. But, sir, is there any thing in these two letters which looks like a disavowal of the seizure in express violation of the promise of the Duke of Cadore? No, sir, although these letters were written fifteen days after the remonstrance of Mr. Russell. Instead of this they both agree that the decrees did not cease to operate on the first of November, but that the property taken with the Orleans Packet, and all the property which should be seized between the first of November and the second of February, must remain in depot to wait the pleasure of the Emperor, on our causing our rights to be respected by England.

But how, Mr. Speaker, are we to cause our rights to be respected? Is it by merely reviving the law of May last, as is the object of this amendment? Certainly this is not their meaning; for both these letters have reference to that law, as well as the proclamation of the President giving it effect, and to the circular of the Secretary of the Treasury, addressed to the collectors of the several ports, enjoining a strict execution of that law. No, sir, this is not what is to be done, which will satisfy the Emperor. He who flatters himself that this will be sufficient, shuts his eyes against official evidence to the contrary; as well in the above-recited letters, written with a perfect knowledge of the performance on our part, and the promise of a performance on the part of France on the first day of November, as in the letter of the French Minister in the United States on the 12th of December, in which we are told that the French restrictions on our commerce are not to cease, but only on the result of firm and energetic measures to be adopted and persevered in by the two Governments against the common enemy.

But shall I be told that the letters of the Grand Judge and Minister of Finance promised that the property taken from our citizens since 1st of November should be restored, if we cause the law to be carried into effect after the 2d day of February, and therefore we were to believe it and ought to wait until we hear whether that has been the case? For the honor of my Government, I hope not. Is it really come to this, that we are brought to acknowledge that the Duke of Cadore was correct when he told General Armstrong that His Majesty could place no reliance on the American Government? No, sir, if this be true, for heaven's sake let us not express it. But what is this amendment which re-enacts the law of May last, and such pitiful reasoning as I have heard on this occasion, but placing our seal to that infamous insinuation? The President, on the mere promise of the Minister of the Emperor, that the Berlin and Milan decrees should cease to operate on the first day of November, placed full faith and reliance on that promise, and issued his proclamation on the 2d, presuming the promise had been fulfilled – and, shall we say that the Emperor is justifiable in disbelieving the law of May last, solemnly enacted by the three branches of the Government and the President's proclamation, together with the Circular of the Secretary of the Treasury, enjoining the law to be carried into effect?

I hope not; for if we are become so pitifully servile as this, well might Cadore, in his letter of February 14th, 1810, tell General Armstrong that the Americans were without just political views, without honor, and even independence. And if we, by adopting this amendment, condescend to justify the Emperor, in his insult upon the plighted faith of our Government, in my opinion we shall furnish the American people and the world with just ground to say Amen to the declaration of Cadore in that respect. Will any gentleman still say, that the decrees ceased to operate on the first of November, since we have had official information from the French Government itself, that our vessels are to be seized under these decrees, until the second of February? I trust not. Those gentlemen who support this amendment, ought to recollect that the sections which go to re-enact the law of May last, contain a confession that that law is not now in operation; for if the decrees did actually cease to operate on the first of November, no one doubts but the law is now in full force, without the provisions of this bill. When the honorable chairman of the committee first offered his amendment, a misunderstanding seemed to take place between him and two gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, viz. the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Wright,) and the gentleman from Tennessee, (Mr. Rhea,) which undoubtedly happened in this way. While the honorable chairman well knew that the decrees did not cease on the first of November; therefore to keep alive the spirit of the law of May, which gave England three months after they did cease, it became necessary to lengthen the time for her to revoke; and the other two gentlemen, as it would seem, really supposed, that because Mr. Pinkney had said that Cadore's letter was precision itself, these decrees really did cease to operate agreeable to that promise; although we have the official information from Mr. Russell on our tables, that the Orleans Packet was the first case that had happened after the first of November, to which the Berlin and Milan decrees could have been applied, and that they were applied in that case, and that several late arrivals, which left France from twenty to twenty-five days afterwards, bring no information from him that a change had taken place, and had that been the case, he would certainly have communicated information to the Government before the rising of Congress. On the contrary, these arrivals confirm what he had stated, and say, that every vessel arriving in France shares the same fate. Mr. Speaker, until I heard those two gentlemen, I did suppose that no man of common sense could have believed a position, in such direct opposition to evidence. And from the opinion which I have of the discernment of the gentleman from Tennessee, I think I must have misunderstood him, while perhaps it may be improper to include the other gentleman in the supposition.

Sir, I seldom trouble the House with any observations of mine, nor is it my intention, at this time, to examine and expose all the winding and management which has been practised, to bring about such a state of things as to render plausible this measure at this time. I shall, however, examine the non-intercourse system from the date of the law of March, 1809, and inquire what was its professed object? What use has been made of it? And how has it been regarded by the belligerents? And also notice some of its effects upon our own citizens as well as upon the Treasury. What must be the inevitable consequence if this measure is suffered to go into effect? I take it to amount to an entire non-importation of any of the articles, products, or manufactures of more than three-fourths of the civilized world, to which our merchants would, at this time, run the risk of attempting voyages; for, from the Continent of Europe no one returns unless at the expense of this Government. The dominions of Great Britain, including the East and West Indies, as well as her European dominions, and those on the American Continent, are immense. The products of these various countries formed a principal part of those importations of the last year, which, while the non-intercourse slept, gave new life and vigor to every branch of business. Our seaports, which the year before presented the gloomy appearance of cities besieged by a hostile foe, again resumed the appearance of enterprise, industry and wealth. Thousands, who in 1809 were either a burden to their friends, in the poor-house, or begging their bread in the streets, were in 1810 enjoying the fruits of their industry in a comfortable supply of the necessaries of life, while the farmer and planter sowed his seed and cultivated his field, with the comfortable prospect that his crop would not decay on his hand for want of a market. Now, sir, although exportation is not interdicted by this bill, yet I apprehend the result will be much the same. It can hardly be expected that Great Britain, who gentlemen on the other side of the House are fond of considering as the cause of all our commercial distress, will condescend to pay us specie for our produce, while our ports are closed, not only against her shipping of all kinds, but against every article of her products and manufactures, as well as those of her colonies and dependencies, while they are open to those of her enemy. Again, what was the effect of the non-intercourse in 1809 upon our Treasury? In addition to the bankruptcy and wretchedness spread over the face of the whole country, we are informed by the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury, laid on our tables, that the net revenue arising from duties on merchandise and tonnage, accruing during that year, amounted to only $6,527,000, while we are informed in the same report, that this source of revenue in the three first quarters of the year 1810, while commerce was free, amounted to a sum exceeding $7,250,000, and the Secretary adds, that he believed the whole revenue arising from duties on merchandise and tonnage for that year would amount to more than $12,000; making an increase in this year, when commerce was unshackled, of $5,473,000, notwithstanding all the robberies of Napoleon, which probably amounted to more than forty millions, a free importation of the avails of which would have greatly increased the revenue of that year. From this view of the subject, we find a deficit in the revenue of 1809, caused by this measure, of $5,473,000, and, in anticipation of the effects of the law now about to be enacted, the Secretary of the Treasury has, in the same report, recommended an immediate additional duty to be laid upon importations, which, together with the high duties already established by law, he thinks will not amount to more than $8,000,000; making an anticipated deficiency in the next year's revenue, occasioned by this measure, of $4,000,000, compared with that of 1810. But if we compare the revenue arising from duties on merchandise and tonnage during the year 1809, while commerce was restricted by the non-intercourse, with what it was in 1807, while it was unshackled, we shall find a deficiency of about $11,000,000.