“I will never consent to go to war for that which I cannot protect. I deem it no sacrifice of dignity to say to the Leviathan of the deep: We are unable to contend with you in your own element; but if you come within our actual limits, we will shed our last drop of blood in their defence.”
Had Randolph contented himself with taking this position, he could not have been overthrown, for he carried with him the secret sympathy of the Southern Republicans; but he had not the self-control that was needed in the face of an opponent so pliant and conciliatory as Jefferson. Randolph took rare pleasure in making enemies, while Jefferson never made one enemy except to gain two friends. Not satisfied with attacking Crowninshield and Gregg, Randolph gave full play to his anger against the whole House, and even assailed the Executive:—
“I have before protested, and I again protest, against secret, irresponsible, overruling influence. The first question I asked when I saw the gentleman’s Resolution was, Is this a measure of the Cabinet? Not of an open declared Cabinet, but of an invisible, inscrutable, unconstitutional Cabinet, without responsibility, unknown to the Constitution. I speak of back-stairs influence,—of men who bring messages to this House, which, although they do not appear on the Journals, govern its decisions. Sir, the first question that I asked on the subject of British relations was, What is the opinion of the Cabinet; what measures will they recommend to Congress?—well knowing that whatever measures we might take they must execute them, and therefore that we should have their opinion on the subject. My answer was (and from a Cabinet minister too), ‘There is no longer any Cabinet!’”
Though forbidden to mention what had occurred in secret session, “manacled, handcuffed, and tongue-tied” as he was, Randolph dragged the Spanish secret to light:—
“Like true political quacks, you deal only in handbills and nostrums. Sir, I blush to see the record of our proceedings; they resemble nothing but the advertisements of patent medicines. Here you have ‘the worm-destroying lozenges;’ there ‘Church’s cough-drops;’ and to crown the whole, ‘Sloan’s vegetable specific,’—an infallible remedy for all nervous disorders and vertigoes of brainsick politicians.... And where are you going to send your political panacea, resolutions and handbills excepted; your sole arcanum of government, your King Cure-all? To Madrid? No! you are not such quacks as not to know where the shoe pinches. To Paris! You know at least where the disease lies, and there you apply your remedy. When the nation anxiously demands the result of your deliberations, you hang your head and blush to tell. You are afraid to tell!”
Randolph next attacked Madison. He took up the secretary’s late pamphlet and overwhelmed its argument with contempt. He declared that France was the real enemy of America; that England was acting under the dictates of necessity; that the situation of Europe had completely changed since 1793, and that England occupied the place which France then held: “she is the sole bulwark of the human race against universal dominion,—no thanks to her for it!” As for a policy, he proposed to abandon commerce and to amputate mercantile interests:—
“I can readily tell gentlemen what I will not do. I will not propitiate any foreign nation with money. I will not launch into a naval war with Great Britain.... I will send her money on no pretext whatever; much less on pretence of buying Labrador or Botany Bay, when my real object was to secure limits which she formally acknowledged at the Peace of 1783. I go further: I would, if anything, have laid an embargo; this would have got our own property home, and our adversary’s into our power. If there is any wisdom left among us, the first step toward hostility will always be an embargo. In six months all your mercantile megrims would vanish. As to us, although it would cut deep, we can stand it.”
Before closing this desultory harangue, the orator once more turned to taunt the President:—
“Until I came into the House this morning, I had been stretched on a sick bed; but when I behold the affairs of this nation—instead of being where I hoped, and the people believed they were, in the hands of responsible men—committed to Tom, Dick, and Harry, to the refuse of the retail trade of politics, I do feel, I cannot help feeling, the most deep and serious concern.... I know, sir, that we may say, and do say, that we are independent (would it were true!), as free to give a direction to the Executive as to receive it from him; but do what you will, foreign relations, every measure short of war, and even the course of hostilities, depends upon him. He stands at the helm, and must guide the vessel of State. You give him money to buy Florida, and he purchases Louisiana. You may furnish means; the application of those means rests with him. Let not the master and mate go below when the ship is in distress, and throw the responsibility upon the cook and the cabin-boy! I said so when your doors were shut; I scorn to say less now they are open. Gentlemen may say what they please; they may put an insignificant individual to the ban of the republic: I shall not alter my course.”
That such a speech from a man so necessary to the Government should throw consternation among the majority, was a matter of course. No such event had ever happened in Congress as the public rebellion of a great party leader. The Federalists had quarrelled as bitterly, but had made no such scandal. Yet serious as Randolph’s defection might be, it would have done little harm had it not been that in denouncing the course taken by Jefferson and Madison he had much secret sympathy. Nay, as regarded Gregg’s Resolution, he expressed the feelings of the President himself and of the Cabinet. The so-called resistance to England, like the resistance to Spain, was a sham, and all parties agreed with Randolph in opposing serious retaliation.