Kitabı oku: «Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.)», sayfa 35
I allude, sir, to the first solemn declaration made to this Government by Mr. Jackson, respecting the despatch, in which the conditions were prescribed to Mr. Erskine. It is in the following words:
[Here Mr. Giles read the paragraphs from Mr. Jackson's letter, which charged that Mr. Erskine had shown to Mr. Smith, Secretary of State, the inadmissible conditions laid down in Mr. Canning's despatch; and then read Mr. Erskine's statement that he had not shown that part of Mr. Canning's despatch, and giving the reason why he had not done it.]
It is to be observed from this quotation, in the first place, sir, that Mr. Erskine explicitly disavows ever having shown the Executive Government the despatch containing the inadmissible conditions; and thus entirely exculpates it from the odious imputation attempted to be thrown on it by Mr. Jackson, and for this respectful forbearance to our Government, he is certainly entitled to the applause of his own. In the next place, Mr. Erskine explicitly states that the despatch in question contained but one part of his instructions, and that he thought that, from the spirit at least of his several letters of instructions, he was fully authorized to make the arrangement he had done. And I think there is very little doubt but he had – that Mr. Erskine still thinks so, there can be no doubt – for he nowhere says he is now convinced that his powers were incompetent – he only says, that the disavowal by His Majesty is a painful proof to him, that he had formed an erroneous judgment of His Majesty's views and the intentions of his instructions. Whether or not he had formed an erroneous view of His Majesty's views, or the intention of his instructions, I imagine, will depend very much upon the point of time to which the judgment he had formed is referable. If it be referred to the time of Mr. Oakley's mission, I am inclined to think he had neither formed an erroneous judgment of His Majesty's views, nor the intentions of his instructions; but, if he refers to the time of the disavowal, then I think it pretty certain, he had formed an erroneous judgment of both – for I have no doubt but His Majesty's views at least had completely changed between these two periods of time, and the real cause of this change, and of the disavowal itself, is to be looked for in the occurrences which took place, both in Europe and in the United States, during that interval. No, sir, the want of powers on the part of Mr. Erskine is not the true cause of the disavowal. I will now venture to conjecture the true cause, and, if it be the right one, the case will be a plain one, and all equivocations in the explanations rendered unnecessary. To do this, sir, I must call your attention to the state of events in Europe and in the United States, at these different periods of time. Mr. Oakley's mission was immediately after the British Government was apprised of the precipitate retreat of Sir John Moore's army from Spain, and the fortune escape of the remains of it from Corunna. The affairs of Spain, which had before excited such high expectations in the British Cabinet, were given up as hopeless, &c. Contemporaneously with a knowledge of these events, the British Government was also informed of the measures of resistance against her outrageous aggressions, contemplated by Congress; which she then believed would certainly be carried into effect, &c. Such was the state of things at the time of sending the despatches by Mr. Oakley. At the time of the disavowal, a new coalition had been formed, Austria had boldly entered into the war against France, and the Spaniards had been animated into further efforts at resistance, which excited new hopes of success, &c.
In this country, too, sir – it pains my heart to be compelled to recite the circumstances – our contemplated measures of resistance had been relaxed, and the whole country exhibited such scenes of divisions and disaffections as paralyzed in some degree the movements of the Government. I wish, sir, I could throw a shade of oblivion over these unfortunate scenes, or recollect them only as they furnish the strongest argument. Indeed, sir, they point with an infallible index to the course it now becomes us to pursue. Yes, sir, it is to these changes in the state of things, you are to look for the real causes of the disavowal, and not to the want of competent instructions on the part of Mr. Erskine; and it would have been more dignified on the part of the British Government to have told us so at once. She would then have said to us, the state of things is changed; at the time of giving the instructions, I was depressed from a combination of untoward events; I am now flushed with new hopes of elevation and of triumph. Besides, you have convinced me that you are untrue to yourselves – that you will shrink from the assertion and support of your own rights – if you will not, I am not bound to respect them, &c. I was then down, I am now up, and therefore I cannot grant you, in a spirit of triumph, what I solemnly promised in a spirit of despondency – I now find this the most favorable moment for establishing my favorite doctrine of the despotism of the ocean; and I cannot, and will not deprive myself of the advantage merely to avoid the imputation of bad faith. Yes, sir, this would have been a much more correct and dignified course on the part of Great Britain than the miserable effort made by Mr. Canning in devising an ingenious mental retort, for converting the bad faith of his own Government, in the disavowal of the arrangement, into a reproach upon ours, for the circumstances under which that arrangement was pretended to have been made. It is true, sir, that in the one case there would have been an admission of mala fides, which is basely attempted to be avoided by a miserable subterfuge in the other; but, then the British Cabinet would have had the consolation of having told the truth, taken the responsibility upon themselves and set us at defiance; and we should have been left to our own remedy, with a perfect understanding of the case. She would, also, have had the plea of necessity, the old-fashioned plea of tyrants, and, indeed, of everybody else, who has no better; but this is not Mr. Canning's mode of doing business; he chooses to act by tricks and contrivances; and, in the case of the disavowal, by a mental retort, flowing solely from his own visionary mental conceits, without a fact or pretext for its support.
Mr. President, I am told that Mr. Canning is a professed punster. But, sir, I would not condescend to make the observation here, had he not, after heaping upon us, during the whole of his administration, every injury and insult in his power, at the close of it placed us in a ludicrous situation by imposing on us an obligation, in a grave and serious concern to the nation, of expounding his equivoques, and unriddling his riddles. I really feel some condescension in being compelled, in my place, to hunt out for his and Mr. Jackson's meaning, through a transition of sentences, a collocation of words, and a shifting of verbiage. And indulge me, sir, with remarking, that I conceive the situation of a nation never can be more disastrous, calamitous, and lamentable, than when its great and serious affairs are placed in the hands of a parcel of punsters. For, sir, men of minds of that description are too much employed in the pleasing amusement of looking out for coruscations of wit and sentiment, to have any leisure for the more dull and unpleasurable business of observing and marking the great occurrences in human affairs, and of devising means of giving them a direction favorable to their own views, or to their country's interests. No, sir, this is too dull and plodding a pursuit for men of such light, flitting, brilliant imaginations, and if ever they unfortunately undertake it, they soon find the woful misapplication of talents. If, sir, any illustration were wanting of the correctness of these observations, it could nowhere be found better than in an attentive review of the historical events which occurred during the late British administration – the administration of the energetic, the brilliant, the sarcastic, the facetious, the joking Mr. Canning. He has carried his joking propensities far indeed. It may be truly said he jests at scars indeed – at scars of the blackest disgrace and ruin inflicted upon his bleeding country – upon a great nation, which probably would have received, and certainly merited, a better fate, if it had fortunately placed its destinies in better hands. Sir, it appears to me, that all the military enterprises during his whole administration, from the abominable attack on Copenhagen, down to the last expedition against the islands of Zealand, were nothing more than belligerent puns and conundrums. It has been constantly announced that some grand, secret expedition was on hand, and each succeeding one grander than the preceding, until the last expedition to Walcheren, which was the grandest of all; and, when the secret really came out, it appeared either that the object was abominable or contemptible, and the means of executing even the contemptible object, upon experiment, were generally found incompetent. Yes, sir, probably these enterprises have cost the British nation the lives of fifty thousand brave officers and soldiers, and I will not undertake to count the millions of dollars. Sir, the same little-minded course of policy has also been uniformly manifested during the same time against the United States; and in no respect more than in the disavowal of Mr. Erskine's arrangement – in avoiding to avow the real motives for it – and in the uncandid attempt to convert the bad faith of the British Government into a reproach upon our own; and this was to be done by an ingenious mental device, prettily conceived by Mr. Canning, and adroitly executed by Mr. Jackson, who, if not equal to Mr. Canning in the mysterious art of punning, I think can be very little way behind his prototype in the art of equivoques. Sir, the disavowal, in my judgment, was not for the want of competent powers. Too great a share of the real cause of the disavowal, unfortunately, is attributable to ourselves, and now is the moment to relieve ourselves from the imputation.
Sir, it is painful for me to be so often compelled to question the candor of any gentleman, particularly one clothed with the high functions of Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty; but permit me to ask you, sir, how it is possible for Mr. Jackson not to conceive that offence would be taken at his offensive insinuations after Mr. Smith's letter of the 1st of November, telling him in strong and decisive terms that offence had been taken at them? or how can Mr. Jackson reconcile it to himself to say that in adhering to these gross insinuations, he did not intend to give offence? Let me ask you, sir, what else he did, or could intend? For my part, I can see nothing else that he could either rationally intend or expect. Here then, sir, is another false or fallacious disguise thrown out before the people of the United States, as will always be the case in every appeal to them, calculated, or evidently intended, to excite their resentments and distrusts against their own Government.
Now, sir, upon the most critical review of this exposition, is there a single gentleman present, who is not prepared to say, that the facts stated in the resolution are fully justified by the correspondence? And if they be, sir, what inducement can possibly prevent unanimity on the present occasion? Surely those, who wish peace with Great Britain, will find unanimity upon this occasion the most likely to deter from war; and surely, sir, every gentleman must feel and see that the declarations contained in the resolution are imperiously due to the dignity and honor of our own Government, as well as to our respect for the people and ourselves. Sir, what would be the effect of passing by unnoticed these gross and insidious insults to both the people and Government? Why, sir, foreign Ministers would begin to conceive, that an appeal to the people was amongst the most sacred of their privileges and immunities. The frequency of them already is almost sufficient to establish and sanctify the rule. The cases of Genet, Yrujo, the publication of Mr. Canning's letter in one of the Boston newspapers, &c., never received sufficient animadversions from Congress; and if this most aggravated case of all should pass over unnoticed, I should not be surprised to see Mr. Jackson during the present winter set himself up as a British President in New York, contesting the point of jurisdiction before the people, with the American President at Washington; whilst Congress, regardless of their own constitutional powers, &c., should stand by and behold the extraordinary scene in a state of perfect neutrality. Sir, is it possible that Congress can so far forget their duties to the people and their respect for themselves? Independently of the obvious propriety of this proceeding in itself, have we, sir, no examples of the course of conduct recommended by the resolution? Let me remind you, sir, of the case of Count De Palm in the British Parliament. In that case, sir, the Count De Palm presented a memorial to the British King by the express order of his Government, complaining of the misrepresentation of facts made in the King's speech to Parliament, which complaint the British historians admit was well founded. After presenting the memorial, he caused it to be published and circulated through the country, etc. What, sir, was the conduct of the British Parliament and nation upon that occasion? Sir, the Parliament unanimously entered into resolutions expressing the highest indignation at the insolent procedure; and presented an address to His Majesty requesting him to order the Count De Palm out of the country immediately. Sir, I will not trouble the Senate with reading the proceedings of the House of Commons upon this memorable occasion; because I presented them to the Senate last winter in the case of the publication of Mr. Canning's letter in the Boston paper, and I, therefore, presume they are now fresh in the recollection of every gentleman. And what, sir, was the conduct of the opposition in the British House of Commons, when their King and country were insulted by a foreign Minister? Did they hold back, did they attempt to paralyze the proceedings of their Government in resenting this conduct and retrieving its wounded honor and dignity? No, sir, they were Englishmen, and felt the indignity to themselves! They were patriots, and could not see their Government and nation insulted with indifference! They stepped forward, sir, and were the first to move the resolution and address. The proceeding was unanimous; and what benefit did the British nation receive from this unanimous and prompt proceeding? Why, sir, from the year 1726 to the present time, the insult has not, I believe, been repeated, and probably never will again.
Sir, how honorable, how patriotic, was this course of conduct to the British opposition! How honorable and laudable would be its imitation here! Especially, sir, when union is all that is wanting to make us happy and victorious. Why then, sir, should we not have union, when it is so easy and efficacious a remedy for all our difficulties? Sir, the nation expects it; the nation has a right to demand it. May I not then hope, sir, that the hitherto dominant spirit of party will now yield to an occasion, so obvious, so urgent, so honorable! Sir, I cannot express to you the pleasure I should feel at my heart, if I could see all irritations banished, and harmony and mutual good will universally pervading all political scenes and all social intercourse. That the present occasion may be improved to this desirable end, is the most fervent prayer of one, who, in the present delicate, interesting crisis of the nation, feels a devotion for his country beyond every thing else on this side of Heaven!
After Mr. Giles concluded, the question was taken on the passage of the resolution to a third reading. There were twenty-four members present, besides the President pro tem.; of whom twenty voted in favor of it. It was ordered to be read a third time on Monday next.
Monday, December 11
Mr. Gilman, from the committee, reported the resolution relating to the official correspondence between the Secretary of State and Francis J. Jackson, Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty, correctly engrossed; and the resolution was read the third time.
On the question, Shall this resolution pass? it was determined in the affirmative – yeas 20, nays 4, as follows:
Yeas. – Messrs. Bradley, Brent, Condit, Crawford, Gaillard, German, Giles, Gilman, Gregg, Griswold, Lambert, Leib, Mathewson, Meigs, Parker, Pope, Reed, Smith of Maryland, Sumter, and Turner.
Nays. – Messrs. Goodrich, Hillhouse, Lloyd, and Pickering.
Monday, December 18
John Smith, from the State of New York, attended.
Thursday, December 21
Joseph Anderson, from the State of Tennessee, attended.
Tuesday, December 26
Jesse Franklin, from the State of North Carolina, attended.
Thursday, December 28
Charles Tait, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Georgia, in the place of John Milledge, resigned, produced his credentials; which were read, and, the oath prescribed by law having been administered to him, he took his seat in the Senate.
Tuesday, January 2, 1810
James A. Bayard, from the State of Delaware, attended.
Thursday, January 4
Jenkin Whiteside, from the State of Tennessee, attended.
Friday, January 12
Alexander Campbell, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Ohio, in place of Edward Tiffin, resigned; and Christopher G. Champlin, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Rhode Island, in the place of Francis Malbone, deceased; severally produced their credentials, which were read. And the oath prescribed by law having been administered to them, they took their seats in the Senate.
Tuesday, January 23
Naval Armament
The Senate resumed the third reading of the bill authorizing the fitting out, officering, and manning, the frigates belonging to the United States.
Thursday, February 1
The President communicated a letter from the Governor of the State of Kentucky, enclosing a certificate of the appointment of Henry Clay a Senator of the United States, in place of Buckner Thruston, resigned. And the certificate was read, and ordered to lie on file.
Monday, February 5
Henry Clay, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Kentucky, in the place of Buckner Thruston, attended, and the oath prescribed by law having been administered to him, he took his seat in the Senate.
Thursday, February 22
Non-Intercourse
Mr. Gilman, from the committee, reported the amendments to the bill, entitled "An act respecting the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain and France, and for other purposes," correctly engrossed; and the bill was read the third time as amended.
Mr. Clay. – Mr. President: At all times embarrassed when I have ventured to address you, it is with peculiar diffidence I rise on this occasion. The profound respect I have been taught to entertain for this body, my conscious inadequacy to discuss, as it deserves, the question before you, the magnitude of that question, and the recent seat I have taken in this House, are too well calculated to appall, and would impel me to silence if any other member would assume the task I propose attempting. But, sir, when the regular troops of this House, disciplined as they are in the great affairs of this nation, are inactive at their posts, it becomes the duty of its raw militia, however lately enlisted, to step forth in defence of the honor and independence of the country.
I voted yesterday against the amendment offered by the gentleman from Maryland, because, while that vote did not pledge me for the ultimate passage of the bill, it would have allowed me to give it my support if no better proposition was tendered. I do not like the bill as sent from the House of Representatives. It was a crazy vessel, shattered and leaky; but it afforded some shelter, bad as it was. It was opposition to the aggressive edicts of the belligerents. Taken from us without a substitute, we are left defenceless, naked, and exposed to all the rage and violence of the storm.
Sir, have we not been for years contending against the tyranny of the ocean? Has not Congress solemnly pledged itself to the world not to surrender our rights? And has not the nation at large in all its capacities of meetings of the people, State, and General Government, resolved to maintain at all hazards our maritime independence? Your whole circle of commercial restrictions, including the non-importation, embargo, and non-intercourse acts, had in view an opposition to the offensive measures of the belligerents, so justly complained of by us. They presented resistance– the peaceful resistance of the law. When this is abandoned without effect, I am for resistance by the sword.
No man in the nation wants peace more than I; but I prefer the troubled ocean of war, demanded by the honor and independence of the country, with all its calamities and desolation, to the tranquil and putrescent pool of ignominious peace. If we can accommodate our differences with one of the belligerents only, I should prefer that one to be Britain; but if with neither, and we are forced into a selection of our enemy, then am I for war with Britain, because I believe her prior in aggression, and her injuries and insults to us were atrocious in character. I shall not attempt to exhibit an account between the belligerents of mercantile spoliations inflicted and menaced. On that point we have just cause of war with both. Britain stands pre-eminent in her outrage on us, by her violation of the sacred personal rights of American freemen, in the arbitrary and lawless imprisonment of our seamen, the attack on the Chesapeake – the murder, sir. I will not dwell on the long catalogue of our wrongs and disgrace, which has been repeated until the sensibility of the nation is benumbed by the dishonorable detail.
But we are asked for the means of carrying on the war, and those who oppose it triumphantly appeal to the vacant vaults of the Treasury. With the unimpaired credit of the Government invigorated by a faithful observance of public engagements, and a rapid extinction of the debt of the land, with the boundless territories in the west presenting a safe pledge for reimbursement of loans to any extent, is it not astonishing that despondency itself should disparage the resources of this country? You have, sir, I am credibly informed, in the city and vicinity of New Orleans alone, public property sufficient to extinguish the celebrated deficit in the Secretary's report. And are we to regard as nothing the patriotic offer so often made by the States, to spend their last cent, and risk their last drop of blood, in the preservation of our neutral privileges? Or, are we to be governed by the low, grovelling parsimony of the counting room, and to cast up the actual pence in the drawer before we assert our inestimable rights?
It is said, however, that no object is attainable by war with Great Britain. In its fortunes, we are to estimate not only the benefit to be derived to ourselves, but the injury to be done the enemy. The conquest of Canada is in your power. I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet. Is it nothing to the British nation; is it nothing to the pride of her Monarch, to have the last of the immense North American possessions held by him in the commencement of his reign wrested from his dominion? Is it nothing to us to extinguish the torch that lights up savage warfare? Is it nothing to acquire the entire fur trade connected with that country, and to destroy the temptation and the opportunity of violating your revenue and other laws?
War with Great Britain will deprive her of those supplies of raw materials and provisions which she now obtains from this country. It is alleged that the non-intercourse law, constantly evaded, is incapable of execution. War will be a non-intercourse, admitting of but partial elusion. The pressure upon her, contemplated by your restrictive laws, will then be completely realized. She will not have the game, as she will if you press this bill without an efficient system, entirely in her own hands. The enterprise and valor of our maritime brethren will participate in the spoils of capture.
Another effect of war will be, the reproduction and cherishing of a commercial spirit amongst us. Is there no danger that we shall become enervated by the spirit of avarice, unfortunately so predominant? I do not wish to see that diffusive military character, which, pervading the whole nation, might possibly eventuate in the aggrandizement of some ambitious chief, by prostrating the liberties of the country. But a certain portion of military ardor (and that is what I desire) is essential to the protection of the country. The withered arm and wrinkled brow of the illustrious founders of our freedom are melancholy indications that they will shortly be removed from us. Their deeds of glory and renown will then be felt only through the cold medium of the historic page. We shall want the presence and living example of a new race of heroes to supply their places, and to animate us to preserve inviolate what they achieved. Am I counting too much on the valor of my countrymen, when I indulge the hope, that, if we are forced into war, the American hero now lives, who, upon the walls of Quebec, imitating his glorious example, will avenge the fall of the immortal Montgomery? But we shall, at least, gain the approbation of our own hearts. If we surrender without a struggle to maintain our rights, we forfeit the respect of the world, and (what is worse) of ourselves.
We are often reminded that the British navy constitutes the only barrier between us and universal dominion. When resistance to Britain is submission to France, I protest against the castigation of our colonial infancy being applied in the independent manhood of America. I am willing, sir, to dispense with the parental tenderness of the British navy. I cannot subscribe to British slavery upon the water, that we may escape French subjugation on land. I should feel myself humbled, as an American citizen, if we had to depend upon any foreign power to uphold our independence; and I am persuaded that our own resources, properly directed, are fully adequate to our defence. I am therefore for resisting oppression, by whomsoever attempted against us, whether maritime or territorial.
Considering then that the bill as amended in this House, in furnishing no substitute for the law of non-intercourse, which it repeals, nor the proposition of the other House, intended to take its place, is a total dereliction of all opposition to the edicts of the belligerents, I cannot vote for it in its present form. I move a recommitment of the bill to supply this defect. What ought to be the substitute, I confess I have not satisfied myself – not expecting that it would fall to my lot to make you this motion. The committee, however, can deliberate upon the subject, and propose one. I would suggest two for consideration – either a total non-importation, which our laws can doubtless enforce, or to arm our merchantmen, and authorize convoys. A day may be fixed, allowing sufficient time for the last effort of the negotiation. That failing, our merchants then to be permitted to arm, and to receive all the protection by convoys which the public vessels can give. This latter measure may lead to war, but it is not war. Our neutral rights are violated by the belligerents. Each places our commerce under restrictions, not warranted by the law of nations. We must then submit, or protect it. Whilst we confine ourselves within the pale of that law, neither has a right to complain. When so armed, and pursuing our lawful destination, let those who attempt to molest us take to themselves the consequences of their own violations. On our part, a war thus produced will be a war of defence.
But, Mr. President, if, after all our deliberation, it shall be deemed unwise to adopt either of these expedients, perhaps some other unexceptionable course may occur. I insist that you do not return the bill to the other branch of the Legislature in its present form. They have sent you a measure, I acknowledge, weak; it is, however, not submission. It professes to oppose (in form, at least) the injustice of foreign Governments. What are you about to do – to breathe vigor and energy into the bill? No, sir; you have eradicated all its vitality, and are about to transmit back again the lifeless skeleton. I entreat the Senate to recollect the high ground they occupy with the nation. I call upon the members of this House to maintain its character for vigor. I beseech them not to forfeit the esteem of the country. Will you set the base example to the other House of an ignominious surrender of our rights, after they have been reproached with imbecility, and you extolled for your energy? But, sir, if we could be so forgetful of ourselves, I trust we shall spare you the disgrace of signing with those hands, so instrumental in the Revolution, a bill abandoning some of the most precious rights which it then secured.
The motion of Mr. Clay to recommit the bill, for the purpose of amendment, was determined in the negative – yeas 13, nays 20, as follows:
Yeas. – Messrs. Bradley, Brent, Campbell, Clay, Condit, German, Mathewson, Meigs, Parker, Pope, Robinson, Sumter, and Whiteside.
Nays. – Messrs. Anderson, Bayard, Champlin, Crawford, Franklin, Gaillard, Gilman, Goodrich, Gregg, Hillhouse, Horsey, Lambert, Leib, Lloyd, Pickering, Reed, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Tait, and Turner.
On the question, Shall this bill pass as amended? it was determined in the affirmative – yeas 26, nays 7, as follows;
