And then Adams startled the Democrats, and broke with the Whigs, in his reference to Jackson. “Whatever may be said of the imprudence of that recommendation,” he exclaimed, “the opinion of mankind will ever be that it was high-spirited and lofty, and such as became the individual from whom it emanated. I say it now, and I repeat, that it is the attitude which the Chief Magistrate will bear before the world, and before mankind, and before posterity.”[837]
Quite different the feeling of William S. Archer, a Virginia Whig, who looked with fear and trembling to a contest with France. Think, he cried, of the commercial loss! Why sacrifice this with so little involved? “It would be quixotic, and even romance scarcely presented a precedent, unless that of Sir Lucius O’Trigger.” And even if right, why take the chance? He had been surprised that Adams had said nothing about fear.
“No,” shouted Adams, “the gentleman’s whole argument is fear!”
The Virginian closed by offering a resolution “that in the just expectation that the Government of France will have made provision ... this House will forbear at the present time to adopt any measure in relation to that subject.”[838]
With flaming indignation, James W. Bouldin, a Virginia Democrat, replied to Archer’s timorous speech. “The gentleman asks if we would really go to war for five million dollars,” he said. “Will a man fight if you spit in his face?” Already the French Chamber was boasting that we had taken the like from others, and declaring that we were “a money-making, money-loving people, and would never spend a hundred million to obtain five.” And, continued Bouldin, “I have heard as much praise of foreign nations as I want to hear.... All I want to hear at this time is whether we intend to hold upon the treaty or give it up entirely.”[839]
Cambreleng, aroused by the sordid character of the Archer appeal, sharply warned that “the honor and welfare of the Nation is involved, and the measure will no longer be sacrificed to gratify the spirit of party.”[840] To which Tristam Burges, a Rhode Island Whig, responded with the amazing assertion that “France would be cowardly indeed if she should pay the money under such circumstances.”[841]
Edward Everett followed with a typical pacifist appeal for peace, but it was reserved for the eloquent Horace Binney to present the most novel reasons for America’s consent to her humiliation. In the President’s Message he had found “the President’s design ... impossible to fathom.”[842] The action of the French Chamber was none of our business. In the meantime we should not close the door on negotiations. The French Republicans were using the treaty as a club upon the monarchy, and should this country “strengthen the hands of a constitutional monarchy?”[843]
Then Adams, in no conciliatory temper, rose again. “Whence come these compliments to France?” he asked. “Are they elicited by her virtues? Is it because she has refused the payment ... due us? Is it because she has violated her plighted faith? Is it from the style of the dignified debates ... where we are characterized as a nation of mercenaries—where the basest and meanest of motives are attributed to the American people—those of sordid avarice, speculation, and gain?... Is it on this that the gentleman from Virginia bases his ‘just expectations’?” And, turning to Everett: “We have heard much of war and its horrors. No man can entertain a greater abhorrence of war than I. I would do anything but sacrifice honor and independence to avoid it. But when I hear it advanced that there is no such thing as national honor, that it is merely ideal, I must take leave to say that I do not subscribe to such a doctrine.”[844]
But the next speaker, Benjamin Hardin, though hailing from the fighting State of Kentucky, was not impressed. Randolph had compared his wit to “a coarse kitchen butcher knife whetted upon a brickbat,”[845] but he now purred gently to the harsh strokes of the French Chamber. “What would we go to war for?” he demanded. “The paltry sum of five million dollars!” In one year war would “sweep from the ocean at least fifty millions of our commerce.” And where would the expense fall? “Upon the hard-working and industrious farmer.”[846]
The outcome was the adoption of a resolution which was a compromise between that of the committee and the ideas of Adams, insisting on the maintenance of the treaty and in favor of preparations. This was adopted at a night session on the 2d of March, and the session was then thought to expire at midnight on March 3d.