Monday, January 27.
Detachment of Militia.
An engrossed bill authorizing a detachment from the Militia of the United States was read the third time.
Mr. Tallmadge, of Connecticut, said he had never recollected an instance, since he had been honored with a seat in that House, when a question of equal magnitude with the present, had passed on, from the report which was first made, to the third reading of the bill, and there had scarcely been a remark submitted to the House to elucidate or justify the measure. We have before us a bill of no trifling import; it provides for organizing, arming, and equipping, a military force of one hundred thousand men, and it appropriates two millions of dollars to enable the Government to bring this force into the field. Now this bill contemplates some serious intentions on the part of the Government, or else it is a solemn mockery, a mere political farce. At any rate, we shall hereby, if the bill passes into a law, lock up two millions of dollars in the Treasury, which must remain appropriated and sequestered from any other use, however urgent and pressing the calls of our country may be from any other quarter. Under the present aspect of this bill, as it has been presented to my mind, I shall be constrained to give it my unequivocal negative, unless some gentleman shall be able to remove my objection against its final passage. I, therefore, take the liberty to call on the honorable chairman of the committee, who reported the bill, (Mr. Varnum, of Massachusetts,) to state to the House the reasons which induced him to submit the bill now under consideration, and to request of him, for my particular information, to answer the two following queries, viz:
1st. What special objects are to be answered by the passage of this bill?
2d. What effect will such a law have upon the militia systems of the different States in the Union?
I make these inquiries of the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, who reported this bill, from a knowledge of the high station which he holds in the militia of that State; and from a hope that he has fully weighed all the relative bearings of this bill, with the advantages and inconveniences thence resulting, that he may be able to confirm the wavering, and to satisfy those who doubt respecting the provisions of this bill.
In the public Message of the President of the United States, communicated to Congress on the third of December last, we are informed that spoliations are committed on our commerce, and our seamen are impressed on the high seas; while aggressions and insults are offered to the citizens of the Territories of Orleans and the Mississippi, by the regular officers and soldiers of the King of Spain. Some of these injuries may admit of peaceable remedy, but some of them are of a nature to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it.
From the fullest examination I have been able to make of this public document, (and I lay no claim to private communications,) I can discover but one point on which this great military force can be brought to bear. Is it possible, then, Mr. Speaker, (and I do hope that the honorable chairman will give us an answer to the inquiry,) is it possible, I say, that an apportionment must be made on all the militia of the United States, from Georgia to the District of Maine, that the President of the United States may be enabled to repel an invasion, or chastise an insult offered to our citizens within the district of Orleans? If this be not the object, the inquiry returns with redoubled force—what is it? Or, are we to conclude that all this parade and expense is to form an army on paper, and to hold out to the world the high sense we entertain of our national honor and dignity, and the promptitude and vigor with which we are ready to defend it? Can it be possible, sir, that gentlemen can be serious in offering this preposterous parade of military defence, when the recommendation of the President, and the voice of our country, call so imperiously for something more efficient? Will the European powers believe that you are in sober earnest, when they shall read the provisions of this bill? Will the people of our own country be satisfied with this kind of military farce? The former, I am persuaded, will not be deceived by it; the latter cannot fail to be disgusted with this pitiful parade. Whatever may be my opinion of the military defence which our present circumstances call for, it is hardly proper for me now to discuss that question. If the difficulties and objections which so forcibly press upon my mind can be obviated, notwithstanding my general doubts of the efficacy of this measure, I shall vote for the bill on your table.
Mr. Varnum, of Massachusetts, then rose. He said it was difficult for him to enter into all the details which the questions of the gentleman implied; it depended upon the situation of the different parts of the country, whether the objections of the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Tallmadge) were applicable. It was not necessary, from the provisions of the act, to cull this out of the great body of the militia of the United States. That in Massachusetts it did not exempt from militia duty in the year 1797. They were only selected and officered, and ordered to be equipped and in readiness to march at a moment’s warning. They afterward returned to their ranks and were held to do duty there, in the same manner as if they had not been detached. If the argument of the gentleman was correct relative to a detachment, all the militia of the United States might be undisciplined, as the President had a right to call out the whole. As to the objection made by the other gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. Dana,) there was some difference in the pay proposed to be allowed by this bill, to the militia, which should compose the detachment, but it was not much less. The difference was small, from that allowed by the existing law. Mr. Chairman, the President has told us of dreadful depredations upon our commerce, and of insults and inroads upon our territories; that our seamen and fellow-citizens are impressed, and ill-treated in a most cruel manner. It becomes us, sir, to take some measure suitable to the occasion, unless we mean to show the world that we possess a servile and degraded spirit. And, in my opinion, this is that measure.
Mr. Quincy, of Massachusetts, said, that the reason given by his colleague, (Mr. Varnum,) for passing this bill, “that we ought to show in the present state of our country, that we do not possess a servile, degraded spirit,” was a principal reason with him against the bill. He believed that if, after all the evidence this House had received of the temper of the people, and of their expectations of efficient, real measures of defence, such a bill as this was to be the first fruit of a seven weeks’ deliberation, it would, indeed, indicate that our spirit was servile and degraded—at least, that such was the spirit of this House. And, indeed, in fact, its spirit was, in his opinion, far below the temper and spirit which prevailed in the community. It was, indeed, very extraordinary that, after all the urgent demands made upon us by the people and by the President, for various augmentations of our force, the first step we publicly take should be, not to increase the power of the Executive arm, but to diminish that which it already possesses. If this was the real character of this bill, he thought the conclusion inevitable, that a House which, in such a state of public affairs as ours, should be guilty of such an act, was actuated by “a servile and degraded spirit.” And whatever we may think of it ourselves, I have great fears that both the people and foreign nations will draw that conclusion concerning us. That this was no increase of Executive power, but a real diminution of it, was very evident.
The gentleman, my colleague, (Mr. Varnum,) had stated three reasons for passing the present and repealing the old law. 1st. The want of an appropriation for the expense of the detachment. This is a very good reason for an appropriating act, but it is none at all for an act repealing the provisions of the old law, and reenacting the same nearly in the same form. 2d. His second reason was, that the former act was permanent—this temporary. The former law had been passed in 1803, by the gentlemen who now constituted the majority in this House. It had been suffered to sleep for three years, and now, at the very moment the act is about to be useful, this great constitutional discovery is made. It is very unlucky that, when the people expect to see us alive to their protection, we are alive to nothing but theoretic questions and constitutional difficulties. The third reason for this law was the new apportionment of the detachment of militia it contemplates. In this consists the mischief and imbecility of the measure. By the law of 1803, which this bill proposes to repeal, the President is authorized to call out a detachment of eighty thousand militia. He may take the whole from any part of the Union. Wherever the exigency requires, he may there call for all, or any part, of the eighty thousand. By the present law, the detachment made is to consist, indeed, of a hundred thousand men; but this number is to be apportioned upon the States, and whatever is wanted for actual service is to be collected from seventeen independent divisions, in a country fifteen hundred miles in length.
The bill was then passed, 79 rising in the affirmative.