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

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СКАЧАТЬ to their character, or to the attainment of public confidence, I am willing to admit that the one now offered is as unexceptionable as any it would be likely to propose.

      In this view, however, I lay wholly out of sight the report of the committee by which it is accompanied and introduced. The course advocated in that report is, in my opinion, loathsome; the spirit it breathes disgraceful; the temper it is likely to inspire neither calculated to regain the rights we have lost, nor to preserve those which remain to us. It is an established maxim, that in adopting a resolution offered by a committee in this House, no member is pledged to support the reasoning, or made sponsor for the facts which they have seen fit to insert in it. I exercise, therefore, a common right, when I subscribe to the resolution, not on the principles of the committee, but on those which obviously result from its terms, and are the plain meaning of its expressions.

      I agree to this resolution, because, in my apprehension, it offers a solemn pledge to this nation – a pledge not to be mistaken, and not to be evaded – that the present system of public measures shall be totally abandoned. Adopt it, and there is an end of the policy of deserting our rights, under pretence of maintaining them. Adopt it, and we can no longer yield, at the beck of haughty belligerents, the right of navigating the ocean, that choice inheritance bequeathed to us by our fathers. Adopt it, and there is a termination of that base and abject submission, by which this country has for these eleven months been disgraced, and brought to the brink of ruin.

      That the natural import and necessary implication of the terms of this resolution are such as I have suggested, will be apparent from a very transient consideration. What do its terms necessarily include? They contain an assertion and a pledge. The assertion is, that the edicts of Great Britain and France are contrary to our rights, honor, and independence. The pledge is, that we will not submit to them.

      Concerning the assertion contained in this resolution I would say nothing, were it not that I fear those who have so long been in the habit of looking at the orders and decrees of foreign powers as the measure of the rights of our own citizens, and been accustomed, in direct subserviency to them, of prohibiting commerce altogether, might apprehend that there was some lurking danger in such an assertion. They may be assured there can be nothing more harmless. Neither Great Britain nor France ever pretended that those edicts were consistent with American rights; on the contrary, both these nations ground those edicts on the principle of imperious necessity, which admits the injustice done at the very instant of executing the act of oppression. No gentleman need to have any difficulty in screwing his courage up to this assertion. Neither of the belligerents will contradict it. Mr. Turreau and Mr. Erskine will both of them countersign the declaration to-morrow.

      With respect to the pledge contained in this resolution, understood according to its true import, it is a glorious one. It opens new prospects. It promises a change in the disposition of this House. It is a solemn assurance to the nation that it will no longer submit to these edicts. It remains for us, therefore, to consider what submission is, and what the pledge not to submit implies.

      One man submits to the order, decree, or edict of another, when he does that thing which such order, decree, or edict commands; or when he omits to do that thing which such order, decree, or edict prohibits. This, then, is submission. It is to take the will of another as the measure of our rights. It is to yield to his power – to go where he directs, or to refrain from going where he forbids us.

      If this be submission, then the pledge not to submit implies the reverse of all this. It is a solemn declaration that we will not do that thing which such order, decree, or edict commands, or that we will do what it prohibits. This, then, is freedom. This is honor. This is independence. It consists in taking the nature of things, and not the will of another, as the measure of our rights. What God and Nature has offered us we will enjoy, in despite of the commands, regardless of the menaces of iniquitous power.

      Let us apply these correct and undeniable principles to the edicts of Great Britain and France, and the consequent abandonment of the ocean by the American Government. The decrees of France prohibit us from trading with Great Britain. The orders of Great Britain prohibit us from trading with France. And what do we? Why, in direct subserviency to the edicts of each, we prohibit our citizens from trading with either. We do more; as if unqualified submission was not humiliating enough, we descend to an act of supererogation in servility; we abandon trade altogether; we not only refrain from that particular trade which their respective edicts prescribe, but, lest the ingenuity of our merchants should enable them to evade their operations, to make submission doubly sure, the American Government virtually re-enact the edicts of the belligerents, and abandon all the trade which, notwithstanding the practical effects of their edicts, remain to us. The same conclusion will result, if we consider our embargo in relation to the objects of this belligerent policy. France, by her edicts, would compress Great Britain by destroying her commerce and cutting off her supplies. All the continent of Europe, in the hand of Bonaparte, is made subservient to this policy. The embargo law of the United States, in its operation, is a union with this continental coalition against British commerce, at the very moment most auspicious to its success. Can any thing be more in direct subserviency to the views of the French Emperor? If we consider the orders of Great Britain, the result will be the same. I proceed at present on the supposition of a perfect impartiality in our Administration towards both belligerents, so far as relates to the embargo law. Great Britain had two objects in issuing her orders. First, to excite discontent in the people of the continent, by depriving them of their accustomed colonial supplies. Second, to secure to herself that commerce of which she deprived neutrals. Our embargo co-operates with the British views in both respects. By our dereliction of the ocean, the continent is much more deprived of the advantages of commerce than it would be possible for the British navy to effect, and by removing our competition, all the commerce of the continent which can be forced is wholly left to be reaped by Great Britain. The language of each sovereign is in direct conformity to these ideas. Napoleon tells the American Minister, virtually, that we are very good Americans; that, although he will not allow the property he has in his hands to escape him, nor desist from burning and capturing our vessels on every occasion, yet that he is, thus far, satisfied with our co-operation. And what is the language of George the Third, when our Minister presents to his consideration the embargo laws? Is it Le Roi s'avisera? The King will reflect upon them. No; it is the pure language of royal approbation, Le Roi le veut. The King wills it. Were you colonies he could expect no more. His subjects as inevitably get that commerce which you abandon as the water will certainly run into the only channel which remains after all the others are obstructed. In whatever point of view we consider these embargo laws in relation to these edicts and decrees, we shall find them co-operating with each belligerent in its policy. In this way, I grant, our conduct may be impartial; but what has become of our American rights to navigate the ocean? They are abandoned, in strict conformity to the decrees of both belligerents. This resolution declares that we shall no longer submit to such degrading humiliations. Little as I relish, I will take it, as the harbinger of a new day – the pledge of a new system of measures.

      Wednesday, November 30

Foreign Relations

      Mr. Richard M. Johnson. – I am more than astonished to see this House inundated by every mail with publications, from the East, declaring that we have no cause of complaint against Great Britain; that we should rescind the proclamation of interdict against British armed vessels; that we should repeal the non-importation law; that the embargo should be taken off as to Great Britain; that we should go to war with France; that punctilio prevents a settlement of our differences with Great Britain; inviting the people to violate and disregard the embargo, to put the laws and the constitution at defiance, and rise in rebellion.

      These considerations induced me to examine this matter, and to prove to every honest American, what we all believe in this place, that the object of one power, is to destroy our neutrality and involve us in the convulsing wars of Europe; and the object of the other, a monopoly of our commerce, and the destruction of our freedom and independence. Let evidence as conclusive as holy writ put the enemies of this insulted country to shame. We are informed by our Minister СКАЧАТЬ