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

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СКАЧАТЬ that he had said the film was removed, and the people saw that their distress arose more from the embargo than from the Orders in Council.] Mr. Williams continued: I have no intention to misrepresent the gentleman, but I understood him to say that the Orders in Council did not affect the continental market, but the Berlin decree; that the embargo caused all the pressure at home; that the Orders in Council had no part in producing that measure, and therefore I infer as his opinion, that the Orders in Council have not injured us. [Mr. Key said that the few observations which he had made on this subject, were in reply to the gentleman from Tennessee, (Mr. G. W. Campbell,) that the people should be no longer deluded. In answer to this Mr. K. said he had observed that the people were not deluded – that the film was removed from their eyes, and that he then had gone on to show that the depression of produce arose from the embargo. But that he never had meant to say that the Berlin decree and Orders in Council were not injurious, because they lopped off a large portion of our commerce.]

      I understood the gentleman to say (observed Mr. W.) that it was very strange we would not trust our merchants upon the subject of the embargo, who were the best judges. I wish to represent the gentleman's sentiments correctly, and shall not consider him impolite, if I have misstated him, should he again stop me. Why, sir, is it strange? Are the merchants the guardians of the public honor? This I conceive to be the peculiar province of Congress, because to it alone has the constitution confided the power to declare war. Will the gentleman trust the merchants with the guardianship of his own honor? No, sir, he chooses to protect it himself. And would he advise the nation to pursue a course disgraceful, and to which he would not expose himself? I will not trust the merchants in this case, nor any other class of men; not being responsible for the national character, they will trade anywhere, without regard to principle. So true is this, Dessalines felt no uneasiness when informed of the law prohibiting all intercourse with St. Domingo; he replied, "hang up a bag of coffee in hell, and the American merchant will go after it." I am not sure that, in the evasions of the embargo, some of them have not already approached near its verge: certain I am, that, in a fair commerce, such is the enterprise and perseverance of their character, they will drive their trade as far as it can be driven. No, sir, I will not trust the merchant now, because he would do the very thing which the gentleman seems to wish, trade under the Orders in Council.

      The embargo should be removed, because, says the gentleman, it has operated as a bounty to the British trade. I should be disposed to doubt this, if for no other reason than a knowledge of who advocates its removal. Before the embargo was laid, agricultural labor in the British West India islands, particularly on sugar estates, could scarcely support itself. I refer the gentleman to the documents printed by order of Parliament, and the memorials of the agent of Jamaica. He will find that the planters are in a distressed situation, not from their failure in the cultivation of the soil, but from the enormous duties on their produce in the mother country. Are the extravagant prices of articles of the first necessity, superadded to their former embarrassments, to operate as a bounty on their trade? I should be extremely gratified if the gentleman will inform us what would have been the amount of bounty on the trade, if evasions of the embargo had not taken place. If the price of flour has been sixty dollars per barrel, and other articles in proportion, what would have been the price had there been no evasions of the law? They could not have been procured at all: and yet we are told the embargo is a bounty on British trade! When the gentleman was, I had like to have said, justifying the Orders in Council, he should have favored us with a vindication of the smuggling proclamation also. Such a degree of corruption and of immorality never before, in any one paper, disgraced a civilized nation. The citizens of a country, at peace and in amity, enticed to evade their own laws! Is such an act calculated to induce the belief that the embargo operates as a bounty on British trade?

      I shall not enter upon another question stirred by the gentleman, the constitutionality of the embargo law; the subject has become so stale, that even he could scarcely make it interesting. It has been laid asleep – a solemn adjudication has taken place and put it at rest. But the gentleman will excuse me for observing he made a most unfortunate allusion in the course of his argument. He said it was strange that, not having the power delegated to us to tax exports, we should undertake to prohibit them. The Orders in Council, which if the gentleman did not justify, he was certainly very tender of, do exercise that very power of taxing our exports, which by the constitution we are prohibited, and that too when they are destined to a government equally sovereign and independent with that of Great Britain.

      We have been referred by the gentleman to the history of the Revolution, and after a kind of encomium on the resources of Great Britain, the triumphs of her navy and her present imperious attitude, he demanded to know if we can expect she will yield to us now, when during the Revolution she maintained a war against the whole world, at the same time that she kept us at bay seven years and succeeded with every nation but her own sons – will she truckle at our feet now? The gentleman knows we do not seek to make her truckle at our feet; we wish her no injury; we ask of her no boon whatever; we only entreat her to let us alone; to abstain from wanton, unprovoked acts of oppression. What is the object of this language? Is it to tell us she never will redress our wrongs; or is it to divert us from a prosecution of our rights? The contest was very different with her at that time from what it is now. She then contended against the dismemberment of her Empire. Will the gentleman say she values the principles of the Orders in Council, as she did the sovereignty of her colonies? What will the gentleman discover, by examining the history of the period he referred to? England, at that time, when France, Spain, Holland, and the United States, were opposed to her, when the armed neutrality in the north of Europe assailed her, when all these brought the principle of embargo to bear upon her, was nearer ruin than she ever was before or since. I refer him to Playfair's tables for the year 1781; there he will find the very principle proven, for which we are now contending. Does Great Britain now prize the plunder of your merchantmen, the impressment of your seamen, insult to your national flag, as much as she did the sovereignty of the soil? Certainly not; and yet she must, precisely the same, or she will not hold out now as she did then. When I recollect that her necessary annual expenditure is greater than the gross rent of all the landed property in her kingdom; that the armed neutrality affected her so materially, that the same principle is brought into operation again; that by withholding our custom, our supplies, our raw materials, we must necessarily destroy a large portion of her revenue, I cannot but hope she will see her own interest in redressing our injuries. This is all we contend for, allow the experiment to be made; if not, at least propose some better remedy.

      But said the gentleman, at the close of the Revolutionary war we alone triumphed over the arms of Great Britain; defeat befell all the rest of the world. I will not contest that point with him, as he is old enough to speak from experience.

      We were informed by the gentleman, that it was the Berlin decree, and not the Orders in Council, had destroyed our trade to the Continent of Europe. Here too we are directly at points. The gentleman has not made himself master of his case, or has totally mistaken his evidence. I hold a document in my hand which, perhaps, the gentleman may object to, as coming from the opposition party in Great Britain; it is the depositions of sundry merchants of great wealth and respectability, taken before the British House of Lords, on the subject of the Orders in Council. Here Mr. W. read from the depositions the following questions and answers:

      "If the American embargo were removed, and the Orders in Council still continued in force, in that case would the witness resume his shipments?

      "To a very small amount.

      "For what reason?

      "Because I do conceive, that there would be such great impediments, indeed a total annihilation of trade from the United States of America to the Continent of Europe, that I could not expect to receive any returns for the goods I sent out; and another reason would be my apprehension that a war between the United States and this country would be the consequence of those Orders in Council.

      "What is the reason that the Orders in Council prevent the witness sending our cotton goods in ships in ballast?

      "I believe I stated my apprehension that СКАЧАТЬ