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

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СКАЧАТЬ you have prevented them, alike contrary to their inclinations and their interests, from making for a longer period than ever was known or endured in any other nation.

      The second project is one which, in my opinion, would do little honor to the genius of any man. It is a sweeping project for doubling, at the moment, the duties on every description of imported merchandise, on which a duty is now payable. Without notice to the merchant, without inquiry, without discrimination, without distinction between the necessaries of the poor man and the luxuries of the rich one; between the indispensable raw materials of the manufacturer and the useless decorations of fashion. By which, bohea tea and Madeira wine, brown sugar and cosmetics, coaches and carpenters tools, are all, by a single stroke of the pen, raised in the same ratio; and a duty of 100 per cent. on the present rates, without favor or affection, equally recommended to be imposed on the whole of them.

      The third project is certainly not a novel one; it is simply that of shifting the burden off our own shoulders on to those of our successors: it is that of borrowing money on loans.

      I have been, sir, among those who have respected the intelligence and acuteness of the Secretary of the Treasury. I have thought the office very ably filled; nor has my estimation of his talents been diminished from the few personal conferences I have had with him since I have been in this city; but if his fame rested on no firmer a basis than the reports made to Congress the present session, in relation to enforcing the embargo laws, and to our fiscal concerns, then an infant's breath might easily burst the bubble. At any rate, it may very truly be said, that if such are our preparations for commencing, and our resources for continuing a war, they are those which will serve neither to inspirit ourselves, nor to frighten our enemies.

      If we are to have war, with whom is it to be prosecuted – not in terms I mean, but in fact? Certainly not with France. Her few possessions in the West Indies have probably, by this time, ceased to belong to her, and between her European territories and the United States a gulf intervenes, a power is interposed, which neither the Emperor of the West nor the King of the two Americas can either fathom or resist.

      It then appears, if we are to have war, it is to be a covert war with the two belligerents, but in reality an actual war with Great Britain alone, and not a war with both France and Great Britain, as the face of this bill seems to import.

      If this be the determination of our Government, and the war is to commence at a future day, and not instantly, what is the course which policy would dictate to this country to pursue? Certainly not a prohibition of the importation of her manufactures. A long period of years must elapse before we can furnish for ourselves many articles we receive from her even of the first necessity, or those which, from habit, have become such to us. We should, therefore, sedulously endeavor, not only to guard against exhausting our present stock, but to adopt every means in our power to replenish it.

      It would be expedient to throw wide open the entrance of our ports for importations, to overstock as much as possible the United States with British manufactures. This would procure for us a double advantage; it would promote our own accommodation, by giving us the means of commencing and prosecuting war with fewer privations, and it would powerfully tend to unite the interests of a certain class of the inhabitants of that country with our own – for, as the mass of importations from Great Britain are made on long credits, should a war ensue before such credits are cancelled, it is obvious that, until the conclusion of the war, those debts could not be collected, and this circumstance alone, to a certain extent, might operate as a preventive check to war, or, at any rate, would secure in the bosom of the British nation a party whose interests and feelings would be intimately connected with a speedy return of peace.

      By adopting a non-intercourse antecedent to a state of war, our own stock of supplies becomes exhausted, the British merchants have time and notice given them to collect, or alienate, by assignment, their debts in this country. A warning is given them to buckle on their armor; their good disposition towards us is not only changed, but embittered, and the very persons who, in the one case, might possibly prevent a war, or be instrumental in effecting the restoration of peace, would, in the other, probably be among the most willing to rush into the contest, from the impulse of temper, and from the conviction that their own circumstances would not be deteriorated by its consequences.

      A non-intercourse would also be attended with great hazard and disadvantage. It would be as well understood by others as by ourselves; it could alone be considered as the precursor of war; and the blow would be struck, not when we were prepared, but when our opponents were ready for the contest; and should this bill go into operation, it is very possible that during the ensuing summer, some of our cities may exhibit heaps of ruins and of ashes, before expresses could convene at the seat of Government even the heads of our departments.

      Another evil would arise, and that a permanent one; whether a non-intercourse eventuated in war or peace, it would materially and adversely affect both the habits of the people and the revenue of the State. Many of the articles which are now imported from Great Britain are indispensable for our comfort, and some of them for our existence. The people cannot do without them: the consequence must be, that, instead of being regularly imported, the articles will be smuggled into this country, and thereby the price not only becomes greatly enhanced to the consumer, but the duties are wholly lost to the Government.

      Hitherto, the revenue of the United States, arising from impost, has been collected with a degree of integrity and punctuality highly honorable and unexampled in the history of commercial nations. This successful collection of duties has not however been effected by the employment of swarms of revenue officers, spies, and informers, as in other countries; it has been infinitely more effectually secured, by an honorable pride of character, and that sentiment of affection which was naturally excited in the hearts of freemen towards the Government of their choice, and a Government under which, in the main, they have experienced much prosperity. But barriers of this description, like other high-toned sentiments of the mind, being once broken down, can with difficulty be restored, and the chance of materially impairing this, in reality, "cheap defence of nations," should, in my opinion, of itself, afford a sufficient reason for the rejection of all measures of doubtful policy.

      In a country nearly surrounded by, and everywhere intersected with navigable waters, encompassed by a frontier beyond the ability of ten Bonapartean armies to guard, and inhabited by a race of men unrivalled for hardihood and enterprise, and at present in a state of poverty, the temptation of great prices will be irresistible – for there is no truism in morals or philosophy better established than the commercial axiom, that demand will ultimately furnish a supply.

      There are, undoubtedly, periods in the history of a nation, in which a contest would be both honorable and indispensable, but it should ever be the result of great deliberation, and in an extended republic, perhaps, of necessity. That government is most wise and most patriotic, which so conducts the affairs of the nation over which it presides, as to produce the greatest ultimate good; and when a nation is attacked at the same time by two assailants, it is no reflection on its honor or its bravery, to select its opponent; and on principles of reciprocity, independently of those of interest, the first aggressor would undoubtedly be entitled to the first notice.

      Who then has been the first aggressor? I answer, France. The Berlin Decree is in a great measure the cause of our present difficulties. In justification of France in doing this, I know gentlemen resort to the convention between Russia and Great Britain in 1793, to prohibit a supply of grain to France; but this is by no means sufficient justification to France, even without referring to a decree to the same effect issued in May of the same year by France, while she was ignorant of the secret stipulation between Russia and Great Britain.

      For a long period, and among most of the maritime nations of Europe, the right of inhibiting a supply of provisions to an enemy, was tacitly acquiesced in, or expressly admitted. This practice existed even so long ago as the Mithridatic war, and has probably been followed up, without an interval at any one time of fifty years, from the commencement of the Christian era to the present day. СКАЧАТЬ