Truisms like these, matters of course in the oldest despotisms of Europe, and the foundation of even Roman society, sounded altogether new in the mouth of a democratic Legislature, which uttered them as though their force were not universally admitted. The weakness of the report in its premises was not strengthened by vigor in the self-excuses that followed, more apologetic than convincing:—
“If we have not rushed to the field of battle, like the nations who are led by the mad ambition of a single chief or the avarice of a corrupted court, it has not proceeded from a fear of war, but from our love of justice and humanity.”
As the sway of Jefferson’s philosophy ceased, these formulas, never altogether pleasing, became peculiarly repulsive. Indeed, the only sentence in the committee’s report that commanded respect was its concluding appeal to the people to abandon the policy which had proceeded, as it claimed, from their love of justice and humanity:—
“The period has arrived when in the opinion of your committee it is the sacred duty of Congress to call forth the patriotism and resources of the country. By the aid of these, and with the blessing of God, we confidently trust we shall be enabled to procure that redress which has been sought for by justice, by remonstrance, and forbearance in vain.”
The report closed with six Resolutions, recommending an increase of ten thousand men to the regular army; a levy of fifty thousand volunteers; the outfit of all the vessels of war not in actual service; and the arming of merchant vessels.
In opening the debate on the report, Porter spoke in language more candid than the report itself. “It was the determination of the committee,” he said, “to recommend open and decided war,—a war as vigorous and effective as the resources of the country and the relative situation of ourselves and our enemy would enable us to prosecute.” He went so far as to point out the intended military operations,—the destruction of British fisheries, and of British commerce with America and the West Indies, and the conquest of Canada. “By carrying on such a war at the public expense on land, and by individual enterprise at sea, we should be able in a short time to remunerate ourselves ten-fold for all the spoliations she had committed on our commerce.”
Such ideas were not unbecoming to Porter, who began life as a Federalist, and had no philosophical theories or recorded principles to explain or defend; but what Porter might advise without a qualm, was much less simple for Republicans from the South; and while his speech had its value for the public as a straightforward declaration, it had little or none for individuals who were conscious that it advised what they had always condemned. The true spokesman of the committee was not Porter, but Felix Grundy of Tennessee.
Grundy, like Henry Clay a Virginian by birth and born the same year, 1777, like Clay began his career in Kentucky, where he rose to be chief-justice of the State before he was thirty years old. In 1807 he removed from Kentucky to Tennessee, and was next elected to the Twelfth Congress expressly to advocate war. As a new member, whose duty, like that of all new members, required him to exchange some controversial hostilities with John Randolph, he could not afford to miss his mark; and when Randolph called upon him by a sneering request to tell what were the constitutional resources of the committee and its talents, Grundy spoke. He apologized for his remarks as embarrassed, and indeed his speech showed less fluency than the subject and occasion seemed to warrant; but though it made no pretence of wit or rhetoric, it went to the heart of the subject, and dealt seriously with the difficulties which Grundy and his party felt.
“What cost me more reflection than anything else,” he admitted, “was the new test to which we are to put this government. We are about to ascertain by actual experiment how far our republican institutions are calculated to stand the shock of war; and whether, after foreign danger has disappeared, we can again assume our peaceful attitude without endangering the liberties of the people.”
At the outset, Grundy stumbled upon the difficulty which checked every movement of his party. Obliged to reconcile his present action with the attitude taken by his friends in opposition to the Federalist armaments of 1798, he could only charge that the armaments of 1798 were made not for war, but to provide Executive patronage and affect domestic politics,—a charge which, whether true or not, did not meet the objection.