Saturday, March 2.
EVENING SITTING.
Law of Retaliation.
Mr. Otis called the order of the day on the bill vesting the power of retaliation, in certain cases, in the President of the United States; when
Mr. Dent moved to postpone the consideration of this bill until the next session of Congress; which motion was negatived—35 to 32.
The House then went into a Committee of the Whole on this bill, and after some discussion, and an amendment being introduced into the preamble of the bill by Mr. Dayton, (the Speaker,) to make it apply generally to any acts of severity that may be committed by the French Republic in pursuance of any violent decree, instead of applying particularly to the decree declaring American citizens, found on board vessels of their enemy, pirates, and liable to suffer death, the committee rose, and the amendment was concurred in.
The question being, "Shall this bill pass?"
Mr. Livingston complained that this bill went to place the power of life and death in the hands of the President, with respect to every Frenchman in this country, in case the French Government should commit any act of violence against one of our citizens. He doubted, indeed, whether he would not have this power, in case of any American citizen being killed in battle on board a British ship. The Legislature, he said, had no right to vest this power, except in case of war; nor did he believe it would ever be exercised, if given. And as the decree complained of had been two years in existence without being carried into effect, he thought there was no need now to create an alarm about it. Indeed, the last decree having been suspended, he considered the first to be so also.
Mr. Edmond was sorry, at this late hour, to occupy a single moment of the time of the House; but he found himself called upon to say a few words. It was a painful reflection, he said, that any nation in the world should deliberately pass a legislative act for the purpose of authorizing the commission of murder; for the arrêt of the French Republic was nothing less than a law for putting innocent men to death. An instance like it could not be found on record. In time of war retaliation is found necessary to prevent the enormities of an enemy. Indeed, the intention of retaliation is always to prevent cruelty. This decree was said to be suspended; but if it were not intended to give it future operation, it would have been repeated. It might be convenient to suspend the decree for a time; but when a nation is so depraved as to pass a decree of this kind, what security have we that the decree will not be brought into operation in the recess of Congress. If it is not, the present law can have no effect. Mr. E. believed no one but the gentleman from New York could have supposed that this law was meant to retaliate for men killed in battle. If he examines the bill, he will find that the person must have been put to death pursuant to a decree of the French Republic. And whilst we suffer our humanity to be touched with respect to French citizens here, we ought not to forget American citizens, whose blood may be spilt in France under this decree.
Mr. Gallatin observed, that three arguments had been used in favor of passing this bill. One of them was, that it would afford protection to our seamen; the second, to give sufficient cause of irritation by repelling every hostile measure of the French Government by one of a similar nature; the third, to prevent the people of America having any belief in either the sincerity of France or the probability of a negotiation.
Mr. G. did not believe that this bill would give the protection expected to our seamen; and as to the power of retaliation, well knowing, both from the character of the President and the general character of America, that retaliation would be repugnant to his feelings, and the feelings of the public at large, he did not believe a single case would ever happen in which it would be exercised. What, said Mr. G., would be the degree of proof necessary to carry into effect this law? A man must have been taken on board a British vessel, or some other vessel at war with France, and put to death or ill-treated by the French. It must also be proved to have been done in pursuance of a French decree. In the next place, he must be an American citizen, and have been compelled to go on board such ship; and Mr. G. did not know how all this information was to come to the President.
If, said Mr. G., it be really our intention to give protection to our seamen, instead of authorizing the proposed retaliation, we ought to go to the source of the evil, and endeavor to prevent the impressment of our seamen by the British, which alone brought them into this situation. This bill does not comprehend any American who goes on board of a British ship of war voluntarily; they are not entitled to our protection by the law of nations; they must seek protection from the country under whose flag they sail. Those American citizens only, therefore, who have been forced on board a British ship of war, and who have been obliged to fight their battles against their will, are by this bill to be protected, so far as retaliation can protect them.
Mr. G. said, he had been induced to mention this point, not only because it naturally flows from the subject, but from one of the documents which had been submitted to the House. He alluded to Lord Grenville's letter to Mr. King, our Minister at London. [Mr. G. read an extract of that letter.]
Mr. G. observed, upon this document, that it contained a very extraordinary acknowledgment. Lord Grenville says, "the King feels the protection due to those who sail under his flag." Thereby openly acknowledging that there are a number of American seamen who do sail under his flag. And, as not many of our seamen had selected his service in preference to that of their own country; as our own seamen, if left to their choice, would sooner sail on board of our own ships than those of His British Majesty, it is therefore an explicit avowal of the impressment of American seamen. That identical document which communicates the offensive decree of France, is also the occasion of this bill.
This acknowledgment, said Mr. G., leads to more than one consequence. If we pass this bill, it will amount to this, that knowing American seamen were impressed by the British, the fact having been thus confessed, we choose rather to pass a retaliatory law against the French for punishing our seamen found in a situation into which they were arbitrarily forced by the British, than apply a remedy to the root of the evil.
Again, another part of this letter of Lord Grenville, when connected with this measure, made an extraordinary impression on his mind. The acknowledgment having been made, it might have been supposed Lord Grenville would have ordered all such American seamen to have been released; but he does not do this, but says the King will cause retaliation to be exercised. To do this might have some effect whilst these men remained on board of the King's ships; it would, therefore, increase his power, and prolong the time during which such seamen will remain on board. But Lord Grenville does not stop here. He says, the "King leaves it with the different powers to take measures accordingly." So that he gives us advice what we ought to do, and we are about to do it. Mr. G. had said, this bill was not likely to produce any effect; yet, if it should be put in force, by referring once more to Lord Grenville's letter, it will appear that the retaliation of which he speaks is to be confined to French prisoners, whom the fortune of war had thrown into the power of Great Britain; and he believed the present law should be confined to persons who should be captured by vessels of the United States. And it would be most effectual in this way; because if it were to operate against other French citizens in this country, the French Government would not be concerned about it, since ninety-nine out of a hundred of those citizens are probably emigrants, or persons for whose safety they have no interest.
If by meeting every hostile act of the French Government by a measure of a similar kind, we could render this country more respectable, Mr. G. should be in favor of it; but, in the present case, he did not think the measure applicable. There was a great difference, he said, between measures of hostility and retaliation. Measures of retaliation could do no good, except as preventives; and as the decree in question had already been two years in force without being carried into effect, it could scarcely be expected that it would now be exercised.
It must be allowed, Mr. G. said, that some change had taken place in our situation with respect to France; but it seemed as if gentlemen wished, by the passing of this bill, to take off any impression of this kind which might have been made on the people by the late appointment of Ministers to treat with France. Mr. G. did not mean to express any opinion on the probable issue of that nomination. He believed the President had taken certain measures; and that nothing which he could do or say would either accelerate or delay those measures. He wished to leave them uncontrolled, to have the effect they may, whatever it may be. Yet, in relation to what had been said with respect to Guadaloupe, he believed that captures had taken place; yet, when we speak of information, there was a letter written by one of the commanders of our vessels, which says, that a number of vessels go there for the purpose of being taken, in order to carry on a trade contrary to the laws of the United States. [The Speaker called to order.] Mr. G. said he was about to conclude. He considered this bill as calculated to have but little effect, and had it not been for the arguments of the gentleman from Massachusetts, he should have been at a loss to have known for what reason it was passed.
Mr. Dana said, "with what measure you mete, the same shall be measured to you again," was a doctrine long since established. It was a doctrine which injured man had assumed in all countries, and the justice of which had been universally admitted.
An appeal to this national sentiment, and to the writers on this subject, would be a sufficient answer to the gentleman's humanity for Frenchmen, to the forgetfulness of his fellow-citizens.
The general principles of the law are too just to be questioned. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, well knowing that the national feelings of man must approve of the principle, undertakes to distinguish away the subject. Instead of coming forward to the point, he has gone into complaints against British inhumanity. But why speak of British inhumanity, if not to embarrass this bill? This bill is intended against the French nation. If the gentleman wished a similar law against the British, neither he nor his followers could be suspected of any attachment to that nation, which would have prevented him or them from bringing forward such a measure. The gentleman knew such a measure would be embarrassed with difficulties; and, if it failed, it would deprive him of the argument he now makes use of. Shall we, said Mr. D., because our seamen have been first injured by Great Britain, when France uses them still worse, abandon them? Because they have been once injured with impunity, shall we turn our backs upon them for ever? The doctrine is too inhuman, too absurd, to be countenanced.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania assigns another reason against this bill. To make it effectual he says certain information must be given to the President, viz: that the person ill-treated is an American seaman; and that he has received his ill-treatment in pursuance of a decree of the French Government. Has the gentleman to learn that, when the officers of the French Government do an act of violence, which the principles of humanity and the law of nations condemn, if the nation does not punish its officers for the act, it must be done in pursuance of the orders of Government?
The gentleman's other objection was honorable to Americans. It was that the humanity of the President, and of the people of this country, would not suffer the law, if passed, to be carried into effect. Mr. D. said it was difficult to reason on this subject, but, admitting the fact, it affords a decisive proof that this power will never be abused, and at the worst, the law could only be ineffectual, and it might have the good effect of preventing the unprincipled murder of our countrymen.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania had said that the decree of the British Cabinet might have had some effect in procuring a suspension of the decree of the Executive Directory.
[Mr. Gallatin denied having said that the French Government had suspended their decree on account of the threats of the British. Mr. King's first letter is dated the 27th of November, and his second, mentioning the suspension of the decree, the 28th, so that that was impossible.]
The gentleman has taken an opportunity of referring to the note of Lord Grenville. If the gentleman was disposed to make a philippic against Lord Grenville, Mr. D. said, he had no reason to vindicate him; but, when the gentleman went so far beside the question to do it, it showed he had little respect for his audience. But the gentleman from Pennsylvania was certainly incorrect, when he said the note of Lord Grenville was a direct admission that impressed American seamen were held on board the British fleet. He would state a case in which American seamen would be liable to the effects of the French decree, where the British Government could not be censurable. Suppose an American vessel captured and plundered by the French, and some of our seamen, to escape the severities of a French dungeon, had escaped and got on board of a British ship of war, hoping by that means, in time, to get to their own country. Such cases, he had no doubt, had happened, and in such, the gentleman must allow, our citizens must be liable to suffer as pirates, without any blame resting on the conduct of the British.
Mr. Otis said, it had been so long unfashionable to vindicate the conduct of France, or to make apologies in her behalf, that those who now wished to do it, attempt to excite hatred against another nation. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has gone altogether upon this principle. He has said but little against the principle of the bill. His only objection to it was that it was not sufficiently extensive. Admitting the injuries to exist with respect to Great Britain, and that many of our seamen have been impressed by them, did the gentleman wish us to retaliate by impressing British seamen? No, he would be the first to oppose such a law; and yet this is the only just kind of retaliation that could be adopted, for he would not wish us, because the British have impressed our seamen, to put the first British subject we meet to death; and to talk of impressing their seamen, would be perfectly ridiculous.
It was not incumbent upon him, Mr. O. said, to enter into any argument to distinguish between the injuries which we have received from the French and British Governments, nor to palliate the conduct of any nation which has done us wrong; but when things perfectly clear are violently distorted, to excite undue prejudices, with a view of diverting the attention of the House from the subject before them, it becomes necessary to notice the attempt. Let it be granted that Great Britain impresses our seamen; she renounces every right to do so. She perseveres, it is true, in her right to reclaim her own seamen from on board our vessels, and in making this claim, some abuses may have taken place.
If the gentleman from Pennsylvania had seen fit to do justice to Lord Grenville, he would have turned to another document laid before Congress by the Secretary of State last year, wherein he says that Great Britain had never assumed the principle of impressing American seamen. His friend from South Carolina (Mr. Pinckney) affirmed what he said, and showed that the great difficulty was in preventing false passports from being given. This was verified in the conduct of Captain Loring and the Baltimore sloop of war. The difference, Mr. O. said, between the conduct of France and Great Britain towards us was palpable. Great Britain never refused to rectify grievances; she never heaped outrages upon us. If she had, he should have been for vengeance and war against that country, and the cry would certainly have been echoed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. O. said he disdained that sort of sensibility which his friend from Connecticut (Mr. Dana) seemed to think redounded to the honor of the people of this country. He owned it would not wound his feelings, in the smallest degree, to see the law of retaliation executed upon any French citizen in America. If one American citizen fell a sacrifice to the decree of France, it would altogether absorb his sympathies for Frenchmen. There is a French citizen, said he, now living in the neighborhood of New York, who originally came here as Ambassador from the French Republic; and I must say that I should not feel the least sensibility if he should fall a victim to this law! Indeed, there were French citizens enough on whom to execute the law; though he joined gentlemen on all sides of the House in hoping that there would be no occasion to carry it into effect.
The gentleman from New York says that a law of this kind ought not to be passed, except in time of war; and yet, said Mr. O., the gentleman will not let us go to war, and in the mean time our citizens may suffer with impunity under the bloody decrees of France. But he believed Congress had clearly the power, from those words of the constitution which say, "they shall grant letters of marque and reprisal"—reprisal, doubtless, not only against ships, but against property and persons, to pass a law of this kind. Mr. O. thought it necessary, therefore, to show to the French Republic that we are not negotiating through fear; that we are desirous of keeping peace with all the world, so long as we can do it consistent with our honor and independence; but no longer.
Mr. S. Smith wished to have postponed this bill till the next session. He thought it improper as it originally stood; as the decree which was passed two years ago was never acted upon. Indeed he had somewhere seen that American seamen were released on application of Mr. Skipwith, our Consul in France. The bill, as amended, is far less objectionable, yet he wished it were postponed till next session, because he never wished to see a law of this kind on our code. He agreed with the gentleman from Connecticut that it was legalizing murder.
Mr. S. believed the gentleman from Massachusetts mistaken in many respects. He himself believed France was disposed to make peace. Mr. S. proposed an amendment to the bill confining the retaliation to persons captured in pursuance of any of the laws of the United States. If this amendment was agreed to, the bill would be less exceptionable; for, though the gentleman from Massachusetts had said he should not regret the murder of any French citizen, under this law, nothing surely but the heat of argument could have led him to say this; he must own he should: nor did he believe that that gentleman, or any other, could lay hold of an unfortunate Frenchman, and put him to death, though one of our citizens might have suffered unjustly and cruelly in France.
The amendment was carried.
Mr. Macon did not wish to see this law in our code. In his opinion nothing but the utmost necessity ought to induce us to pass it. Nor could he believe that the gentleman from Massachusetts could see any man, even if taken in arms, put to death in cold blood! Though it might be right to punish those who passed the decree, if they could be laid hold of, it was a mournful thing to retaliate upon innocent persons the offences of the guilty.
The gentleman from Connecticut had quoted a scriptural passage—"With the same measure that you mete, the same shall be measured unto you." In the same volume, Mr. M. said, he would also find, "Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you;" and a law of this kind could not be justified upon the latter principle.
It is said we ought to show that we do not act from fear. He thought this one of the last measures the House should pass to evince that. Mr. M. hoped, that on the last evening of the session, a bill of this kind would not be pressed. The members had heretofore been accustomed to part in good humor, at the close of the session, however they might have differed in the course of it. He hoped they should not now depart from this custom. He therefore moved to postpone the bill till next session.
The question for postponement was negatived—48 to 37.
After a few observations from Mr. McDowell, against the bill, it was ordered to be read a third time and passed—yeas 56, nays 30.
A motion was made by Mr. Livingston, to adjourn till ten in the morning, as it would be impossible to get through the business to-night, and he understood the Senate were about to adjourn to that time.
Mr. Dana proposed to adjourn till seven in the evening; but that motion being negatived, the House adjourned till ten o'clock on Sunday morning.