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

Sir, I apprehend the President will not feel under very great obligations to that gentleman for this kind of support. For myself, I am free to declare, that stronger reasons than those must operate upon my mind, before I can give my sanction to a measure professedly impolitic and unjust.

This bill, Mr. Speaker, is advocated on the ground that, by the law of May, 1810, we are under obligations to France to prohibit commercial intercourse with Great Britain. If, sir, I rightly recollect, for I have not the law before me, the substance of the provision, as it respected France, was, that if she so revoked or modified her edicts and decrees, as that they should cease to violate our neutral commerce, and Great Britain refused, for three months, to pursue a similar course, then was this system of non-intercourse to commence, as it respects Great Britain.

Mr. Speaker, I deny that the faith of the nation is pledged by the law of May, 1810. It is neither a contract nor a treaty. To constitute a contract, two parties are necessary, at least. All writers upon the subject have so considered it; and, sir, if one party can make a contract with another, without the knowledge, consent, or approbation of the other, it is a new discovery, with which, as yet, I am unacquainted. Such, sir, is the nature of the contract referred to. The Congress was the only party concerned in making it. France knew nothing of it; it was made wholly without her consent or approbation. How, then, is the national faith plighted to France by that law? Sir, I know of but one way in which the faith of this nation can be pledged to another, and that is, by a treaty approved and ratified by the constituted authorities; and surely, sir, no gentleman will contend that this law amounted to a treaty. If, then, it was neither a contract nor a treaty, the faith of the nation is not pledged. The most you can make of it is, as was observed on a former occasion by the honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Randolph,) "that it is a rule of conduct for ourselves." But, sir, I am willing to admit, in case France had fairly and honestly complied with the conditions of the law, so often referred to, that good faith on our part might have required that we should pass the present bill. What was the condition to be performed on the part of France? Sir, she was to revoke and modify her decrees, so that they should cease to violate our neutral commerce. This has not been done. The Berlin and Milan decrees are not even nominally revoked. Look at the letters of Mr. Russell, our Chargé des Affaires at Paris, of the tenth of December last. Look at the letters of the Dukes of Massa and Gaete, of the twenty-fifth of the same month. Look at her conduct subsequent to the first of November, the time when you were informed that those decrees would cease to operate. Has she not seized every vessel which has arrived at her ports since that period? Upon this point I will not waste the time of the House by attempting to show that those decrees are still in force, a fact which has been already so fully and amply proved by the candid and able arguments of the honorable gentleman from New York, (Mr. Emott.)

But, sir, I will go further, and, for the sake of argument, admit, not only that the law of May, 1810, has all the binding force upon this nation of a treaty made by the regular constitutional authorities, but that the Berlin and Milan decrees were, on the fifth day of August last, actually revoked; and, after the first day November, ceased to violate our neutral commerce. There is still another important point to be considered, and I hope gentlemen will attend to it with candor.

Sir, it is a principle well established by the law of nations, as well as by the laws of nature and reason, that when one nation, in consequence of revoking certain acts injurious to another nation, claims from the other nation the performance of a promise made on condition that those acts should be revoked, it is necessary that the nation thus claiming the fulfilment of the promise, should first, not only revoke those injurious acts, but it should also be done fairly and honestly, without subterfuge or reserve, and without, at the same time, adopting other measures equally injurious, and producing the same effects. Now, sir, admit that the declaration of the Duc de Cadore, in his letter of the 5th of August, 1810, that the Berlin and Milan decrees were revoked, and, after the first of November, would cease to violate our neutral commerce, was an actual revocation of those decrees; still, sir, if this was merely to amuse and deceive us, if another act equally injurious was at the same time substituted, will it be contended that France has, nevertheless, fairly complied with the conditions of your law? Sir, it is a very singular fact that, on this very fifth day of August, another decree was issued by the French Emperor, which was equally injurious, and amounted, in fact, to a prohibition of our commerce, as much as the Berlin and Milan decrees. I allude to the duties established by the Emperor on articles of American produce, which were so enormously high, that the owner would prefer an abandonment of his cargo to a payment of the duties. Even this was insufficient; for, by a subsequent decree, various articles were prohibited, and those which were allowed, must only be exported in vessels which should sail from Charleston or New York.

Is this, sir, that fair, that honest repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees; is this that bona fide performance of the condition; that ceasing to violate our neutral commerce, which lays us under such solemn obligations to France? Am I not, then, Mr. Speaker, authorized to say, that the condition of the law of May, 1810, has not been complied with? I trust, sir, as to this point, that the letter of the Secretary of State to Mr. Turreau, of the 18th of December last, will be considered as conclusive. In this letter, the Secretary, speaking of the enormous duties which have been mentioned, observes: "If, then, for the revoked decrees, municipal laws, producing the same commercial effect, have been substituted; the mode only, and not the measure, have undergone an alteration."

To my mind, sir, this insidious, this perfidious conduct, on the part of Napoleon, is infinitely more base, and merits the indignation of the American people infinitely more than would an open refusal to revoke the obnoxious decrees. It is an attempt, if I may be allowed the expression, to gull and deceive us, by an artful, intriguing policy, which ought to excite our jealousy, and rouse our highest resentments. I trust, sir, I have fairly shown that our faith is not plighted, that we are under no obligations to Napoleon. If in this I am correct, then the passage of the present bill is a mere question of policy and interest.

It would be a mere waste of time to attempt, by a reference to the past evils which have resulted from this restrictive system, to show the impolicy of its continuance. The bad effects already produced are but too well known. This, sir, is the favorable moment to erase it from your statute books; the policy and interest of the nation require it.

Let us examine, for a moment, the consequences of its continuance.

Do you believe, sir, that your merchants, a great portion of whose property has been seized by foreign nations, when the remnant of their vessels, which have escaped, shall, upon entering your own ports, be seized by your own custom-house officers, that they will be satisfied to lose the remainder of their property, in pursuance of your own laws? They will think it hard enough, that millions of their property have been seized by France, by Denmark, and by Sweden, without having the remainder seized on their return, and confiscated by their own Government. Surely, sir, they will require strong evidence of the fact that your faith is plighted to France, before they will be satisfied with the measure you are about to adopt.

Mr. Speaker, I am not the Representative of merchants; I feel no peculiar interest in their favor, but I consider them a useful class of citizens; their interests are closely connected with the interests of your farmers; and, in this point of view, they are at least entitled to notice. Hitherto, your merchants have been noted for their fairness, and for the respect they have paid to your revenue laws. But, sir, after having their property plundered by France, by Denmark, and Sweden, will they not, when they learn that from a scrupulous regard to your faith plighted to France, a faith, however, which has no existence, you seize, with a few exceptions, all which return; will they not, I repeat it, endeavor to land their cargoes so as to escape the vigilance of your officers? Have you no apprehension that, when they have once learnt the art of smuggling to save their property from seizure and confiscation, they will afterwards practise it, to avoid the payment of duties? I fear that this system will have a tendency to corrupt the morals of your merchants, and from them it will extend throughout the country.

Wednesday, February 27

The House formed a quorum at half-past ten o'clock.

Mr. Gold. – Mr. Speaker, at a period when the civilized world is convulsed by continued war, to its centre; when the European continent is exhibiting the marks of ruthless conquest, and is threatened with all that barbarism, with which Attila, with his invading hordes, overwhelmed the Roman world, it becomes the Councils of this nation to move with cautious steps on the theatre of our foreign relations; to move, sir, with a fixed eye on the great law of neutrality, and yield an implicit obedience to its high injunctions.

It eminently becomes, sir, the Government of this country, in all our concerns with the belligerents of Europe, to carry an even hand, to manifest to both a fair, impartial, and equal conduct. Without such a course, the consequences to our peace and prosperity, from the jealousy and violence of warring nations, are inevitable, and, with it, we can hardly promise ourselves exemption from aggressions and spoliation; such and so destructive is the spirit of the times. Need I, sir, to excite caution in legislation, refer the House to the consequences of the non-intercourse act of the 1st of March, 1809; for, however free from all exception from the belligerents was that act, yet France, in the wantonness of power, made it the pretext for the exercise of the rigorous right of reprisal by an additional decree, which, with the preceding, have, like the besom of destruction, swept our property from the ocean.

It was on that act, that the Rambouillet decree of the 23d of March last, was founded for its sole justification; and so do the very terms of the decree, shameful and disgraceful as it is, import.

In reviewing the proceedings of our Government under the act of the 1st of May last, (the act upon which the President's proclamation for a non-importation with Great Britain is founded,) permit me, sir, to ask if the spirit of a fair and impartial neutrality, so eminently necessary in the critical situation of the United States, has guided our proceedings with the respective belligerents? By this act, if either of the belligerents rescinded its edicts, violating our neutral rights, the non-intercourse act was to be put in force against the other refusing to rescind, and the President, by proclamation, was to declare such fact of rescinding. Under this provision, sir, the President substituted a prospective engagement for a fact done; a promise for a performance; the future for the past, and hence, sir, have resulted our present difficulties; that crisis which bears so hard upon the American people. It is not, sir, my object to impeach the motives of the President in this ill-fated proceeding; I am to presume a love of country guided him; but it is impossible not to see in the measure a course indulgent to France, a construction upon the letter of the Duke de Cadore, of the 5th of August last, (touching the revocation of the decrees of Berlin and Milan,) the most favorable and advantageous to that country, and offensive to Great Britain. For, sir, notwithstanding the above proclamation, the noon-day sun is not plainer than that those decrees are not revoked; nor indeed, sir, will they, in my opinion, ever be revoked under the above act. The utmost extent of our hopes, from the last despatches transmitting the official communication of the twenty-fifth of December last, from the Grand Judge Massa, and the Minister of Finance, Gaete, is, that our vessels (with their cargoes) seized in the ports of France since the first of November, in violation of the stipulation of the above letter of the 5th of August, and of all that is holden sacred among nations, may be at some future day, under some new and embarrassing conditions, flowing from the policy of Napoleon, restored to our suffering citizens. By the last paragraph of the above letter of the Minister of the Finances, it would seem that the Emperor and King has shut his eyes upon past engagements, and referred all that concerns us to the second day of February, when new toils are to be spread, as is to be presumed, for the unsuspecting, credulous, and confiding American merchant and navigator. Against the mass of evidence, that the French decrees are not revoked – evidence which is increased by the melancholy advices of every east wind – the honorable member (Mr. Rhea) from Tennessee, refers us to the President's proclamation, as a foundation for our faith in the repeal of the decrees to rest on; this is evidence indeed of things not seen. As well might the trembling mariner look to his almanac for the state of the weather at the moment the pitiless tempest is beating upon him, and his vessel is sinking under the shock of the elements. Whatever ground of hope or belief in the good faith of France existed at the time of issuing the proclamation, subsequent events have removed those grounds from under our feet, and blasted all our hopes; the wily policy of the French Court stands confessed; the Emperor loves but to chasten; he seduces but to destroy.

While the indulgent course, the favorable interpretation of the letter of Cadore of the 5th of August above mentioned, was adopted by the Cabinet towards France; was a similar temper and disposition manifested in relation to Great Britain?

I fear, sir, this part of the case will not well bear scrutiny. That the Orders in Council, and not the doctrine of blockade, were the objects of the act of the 1st of May, in relation to Great Britain, not only the debates of the period, but the recollection of every member of this House, will bear me out in asserting. That mere cruising blockades, and every other blockade not supported by an actual investing force, is unwarranted by the laws of nations, is my clear conviction; it is the result of examination and reflection on the subject; but unfounded in public law as is the doctrine set up by Great Britain, its abandonment or modification can only be expected from treaty, and not by an isolated declaration at the threshold, under the threat of a specific alternative. The Orders in Council being removed, the blockade of May, 1806, would have been little more than nominal; why then was it insisted on as indispensable, under the above act? Through a strange fatality, something, inconsiderable in itself, is always found in our demands upon Great Britain, to bar a settlement.

But, Mr. Speaker, what is calculated much more to put in jeopardy the neutral character of our Government is the bill on the table. While all is uncertainty and embarrassment with France; while her decrees remain merely suspended and not revoked; while your merchants, trusting to the plighted faith of the Emperor, have been drawn into the French ports and there betrayed and sacrificed; while commerce is bleeding at every pore under the merciless gripe of Napoleon, we are called on to go farther to conciliate France, than she was entitled to, had she faithfully revoked her decrees. Upon revoking his decrees, the Emperor was entitled to have the act of the 1st of May carried into effect against Great Britain, and he was entitled to no more. Such, sir, is the precise condition imposed on the United States by the letter of the Duke de Cadore, of the 5th of August, and this is the whole extent of the requirement. Upon what ground, then, sir, is it that we are called on to pass this additional non-importation act against Great Britain? If France has revoked her decrees, is not a non-importation with Great Britain inevitable, and does it not exist? But I will put the key to the door; let us not dissemble; France has not revoked, and for that cause and that alone, has the question arisen, whether there be at this time a legal non-importation with Great Britain. If, sir, there be any other difficulty, in the way of a non-importation with Great Britain; if there does exist any other possible obstacle, let the advocates of the bill name that obstacle. I make the appeal to gentlemen, I demand of the chairman of the committee who reported this bill, why and wherefore it is presented? France has failed to revoke her decrees, and as such revocation was, under the act of the first of May, a prerequisite to non-importation with Great Britain, such non-importation must fall, unless this additional act in favor of France is passed. This, sir, is the whole length and breadth of the case; and on no other ground can this disastrous measure be placed. If France revoked her decrees, she was entitled to a non-importation against Great Britain, and if she failed to revoke, what? The bill gives the answer – she is equally entitled; so that, do what France may do, the end must be a non-importation with England. Such, sir, is the logic of your bill; such the impartiality towards the belligerents; such and so barefaced the subversion of the great principle of the act of May last.

The principle of the act of May was just and equal; our offers to Great Britain and France were the same, and the result, in case of refusal, alike to both. France met the offer by the famous letter of Cadore, of the 5th of August; in which, with more than conjurer's skill, this disciple of the Jesuits brought together and united both present and future; he revoked and did not revoke; he gave up the decrees and yet retained their operation or effects; he made the revocation both absolute and conditional; absolute for obtaining the President's proclamation, conditional for the purpose of eluding performance; absolute for drawing our property within his clutches, conditional for retaining it, to fill his coffers and fatten his minions; in fine, sir, the letter was one thing, or another thing, or nothing at all, as artifice might suggest or future events render necessary.

But, sir, the most copious source of error that I have witnessed during the various debates upon the proceedings under the act of the 1st of May, is found in the extent of the Berlin and Milan decrees. The gentlemen who have commenced their career of conciliation with France, treated those decrees as operating only on the narrow ground of direct commerce between the United States and Great Britain and on our vessels to other ports which have submitted to British search; hence the effort to justify the late seizures of our vessels in France, upon grounds consistent with the repeal of those decrees, as being laden with British colonial produce, &c. But, sir, this cannot avail or give the least color to the pretence of a repeal.

The Berlin decree (that decree which emanated from the French Emperor at the capital of prostrate Prussia, where he sat like Marius over the ruins of Carthage) contains ten distinct articles; the 6th and 7th prohibit all trade in British merchandise, and, the more effectually to close all the avenues to the continent, exclude from the continental ports all vessels coming from Great Britain or her colonies, or that shall have visited the colonies after the date of the decree. The Duke de Cadore, by the above letter of the 5th of August, pledged the Emperor, his master, for the entire repeal of this decree without any reservation. Had this pledge been faithfully redeemed; had such repeal been had with good faith, it would have subverted the whole continental system and removed all difficulty both between the United States and France, and between us and Great Britain, as it must have produced the actual result required by Great Britain, in restoring the commerce of the world to that state it was in at the promulgation of the decrees. Although the above decrees partake of municipal as well as external regulation, yet the French Emperor, foreseeing that Great Britain would not relinquish the ground taken while the continental system, so hostile to her commercial interests, was continued, and yielding for a moment, as is supposed, to the groans of subjugated States, stipulated by the above letter for a relinquishment of his system by an entire repeal of those decrees. Let me repeat, sir, had France proved faithful to her engagements, the United States would at this moment have had a prosperous commerce with Europe, and the present state of things is fairly imputable to the Emperor, with whom that bill on your table invites us to proclaim "all is well." I look about me, sir, with emotions of concern and anxiety to find a ground on which to justify the course adopted by this bill towards the belligerents. The peace, the reputation, and honor of my country are concerned. While the great principles of justice and fair neutrality shall be our landmarks and guide, come what may, fall when we may, we shall stand justified to the world, and what is of more consequence, we shall have the support of our own consciences; the sweet and consoling reflection, that we stand clear of fault and deserve a better fate. This bill will not give the United States this high and enviable condition.

Mr. Pearson. – It is but seldom, Mr. Speaker, I address you, especially on subjects of the nature and importance of that which is now under discussion. Perhaps on this account, I may not be the less entitled to your indulgence and the attention of this assembly.

Being opposed to the principles of this bill, and having no confidence in the reasons or pretences by which it is attempted to be justified, I shall not trouble you with an exposition of its particular details, however novel, arbitrary, and impolitic they may appear. The bill proposes substantially a revival of that system of commercial restrictions, under which the people of our country have so long and severely suffered. It substantially denies all intercourse with Great Britain and her colonies, by excluding from our ports British vessels of every description, and the products and manufactures of that nation of every kind, and to whomsoever they belong; while at the same time, every possible indulgence is granted to France – her vessels, armed and unarmed, her products and those of the nations which she has subjugated, find no restraint from us. Here let me remark, that to those two contending powers, whenever their interest, or the interests of either of them come in contact with the interests of my own country, I feel no preference, I make no discrimination; my first best wishes ever are at home. I now solemnly appeal to gentlemen, why shall we, at this moment, make this marked distinction? Why shall we take this hostile attitude against Great Britain, and open our arms to the embrace of France – when, by doing so, we must inevitably afflict our own people, and depart from that character of neutrality, which has been the alleged boast of the present and late Administration; and which alone has afforded those in power an apology with the people for those wild schemes of policy, with which their course has been but too plainly marked, and that accumulated distress which every man has seen, and every honest man has felt? Can it be because Bonaparte has said he loves the Americans? I, sir, know no other cause. I know it has been said on this floor, and said too by the honorable gentleman who reported this bill, and his honorable colleague, (Mr. Gholson,) that the Berlin and Milan decrees are revoked; and, in compliance with the law of the late session of Congress, the faith of this nation is pledged to Bonaparte, for the due execution of that law against Great Britain. To those opinions my understanding cannot assent – the obligation to Bonaparte I neither feel nor believe. That none such exist will not, in my opinion, be difficult to prove. For a fair understanding of this question, it becomes necessary to apply to the law of May, 1810. On that law and the proceedings which have been subsequently adopted by this Government and France, must the propriety of the present measures be justified or condemned. The act alluded to, in substance, declares: "That in case either Great Britain or France shall, before the 3d day of March next, so revoke or modify her edicts, that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, which fact the President of the United States shall declare by proclamation, and if the other nation shall not, within three months thereafter, so revoke or modify her edicts in like manner, the restrictive provisions of the law of 1809 are to be revived and have full force and effect against the nation so refusing or neglecting to revoke or modify," &c., and the restrictions imposed by the act, are from the date of such proclamation, to cease and be discontinued in relation to the nation revoking or modifying her decrees in the manner aforesaid.