"But what is the right of search in time of peace? And how has Congress felt, and how has the American government acted, on this point? I have some knowledge on this subject. In the year 1817, when I was about to return from England to the United States, Mr. Wilberforce, then a member of the British Parliament, very celebrated for his long and persevering exertions to suppress the African slave-trade, wrote me a note requesting an interview. I acceded promptly to his request; and in conversation he stated to me that the British government had found that without a mutual right of search between this country and that, upon the coast of Africa, it would be impossible to carry through the system she had formed in connection with the United States for the suppression of that infamous traffic. I had then just signed with my own hand a treaty declaring 'the traffic in slaves (not the African slave-trade, but the traffic in slaves) unjust and inhuman,' and in which both nations engaged to do all in their power to suppress it. Mr. Wilberforce inquired of me whether I thought that a proposal for a mutual, restricted, qualified right of search would be acceptable to the American government. I had at that time a feeling to the full as strong against the right of search, as it had then been exercised by British cruisers, as ever the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Ingersoll) had, in all his life. I had been myself somewhat involved in the question as a public man. It constituted one of the grounds of my unfortunate difference from those with whom I had long been politically associated; and it was for the exertions I had made against the admission of that right that I forfeited my place in the other end of the capitol, and, which was infinitely more painful to me, for this I had differed with men long dear to me, and to whom I had also been dear, insomuch that for a time it interrupted all friendly relations between us.
"The first thing I said, in reply to Mr. Wilberforce, was: 'No; you may as well save yourselves the trouble of making any proposals on that subject; my countrymen, I am very sure, will never assent to any such arrangement.' He then entered into an argument, the full force of which I felt, when I said to him, 'You may, if you think proper, make the proposal; but I think some other mode of getting over the difficulty must be resorted to; for the prejudices of my country are so immovably strong on that point, that I do not believe they will ever assent.'
"I returned home, and, under the administration of Mr. Monroe, I filled the office of Secretary of State; and in that capacity I was the medium through which the proposal of the British government was afterwards made to the United States to arrange a special right of search for the suppression of the slave-trade. This proposition I resisted and opposed in the cabinet with all my power. And I will say that, although I was not myself a slaveholder, I had to resist all the slaveholding members of the cabinet, and the President also. Mr. Monroe himself was always strongly inclined in favor of the proposition, and I maintained the opposite ground against him and the whole body of his official advisers as long as I could.
"At that time there was in Congress, and especially in the House, a spirit of concession, which I could not resist. From the year 1818 to the year 1823, not a session passed without some movement on this point, and some proposition made to request the President to negotiate for the mutual concession of this right of search. I resisted it to the utmost; and so earnest did the matter become, that, on one occasion, at an evening party in the President's house, in a conversation between myself and a distinguished gentleman of Virginia,—a principal leader of this movement, now living, but not now a member of this house,—words became so warm that what I said was afterwards alluded to by another gentleman of Virginia, in an address to his constituents, against my election as President of the United States. It was made an objection against me that I was an enemy to the suppression of the slave-trade. That address and my reply to it are in existence, and the latter in the hands of a gentleman of Virginia now in this house, and who can correct me if I do not state the matter correctly. The address was written, and would have been published, with an allusion to what I had said in the conversation (which the writer heard, although it was not addressed to him), but the gentleman with whom I was conversing went to him, and told him that if he did refer in print to that private conversation, he would never speak to him; and so it was suppressed. I state these facts, sir, that I may set myself right on this question of the right of search.
"At that time a gentleman, who was the leader of one of the parties in this house, had endeavored from year to year to prevail with the house to require of the President a concession of the right asked. I name him to honor him; for he was one of the most talented, laborious, eloquent, and useful men upon this floor. I allude to Charles Fenton Mercer, of Virginia. Session after session, he brought forward his resolution; and he continued to press it, until, finally, in 1823, he brought the house by yeas and nays to vote their assent to it; and, strange to say, there were but nine votes against it. The same thing took place in the other house. The joint resolution went to the President, and he accordingly entered into the negotiation. It was utterly against my judgment and wishes; but I was obliged to submit, and I prepared the requisite despatches to Mr. Rush, then our minister at the court of London. When he made his proposal to Mr. Canning, Mr. Canning's reply was, 'Draw up your convention, and I will sign it.' Mr. Rush did so, and Mr. Canning, without the slightest alteration whatever,—without varying the dot of an i, or the crossing of a t,—did affix to it his signature; thus assenting to our own terms in our own language.
"The convention came back here for ratification; but, in the mean time, another spirit came over the feelings of this house, as well as of the Senate. A party had been formed against the administration of Mr. Monroe; the course of the administration was no longer favored, and the house came out in opposition to a convention drawn in conformity to its own previous views.
"But now, as I do not wish to intrude on the attention of this committee a single moment longer than is necessary, I will pass over the rest of what I might say on this subject, and recur, in a few observations, to the other war-trumpet which we have heard within the last two days.
"They unite in one purpose, though they seem to be pursuing it by different means. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wise), confining his observations to our relations with Mexico, also urges us to war with the same professions of a disposition for peace as were so often repeated by the gentleman from Pennsylvania in regard to Great Britain. He does not immediately connect the questions of war with Mexico and war with Great Britain, but apparently knows and feels that they are in substance and in fact but one and the same question; and that, so surely as we rush into a war with Mexico, we shall shortly find ourselves in a war with England. The gentleman appeared entirely conscious of that; and I hope that no member of this committee will come to the conclusion that it is possible for us to have a war with Mexico without at the same time going to war with Great Britain. On that subject I will venture to say that the minister from England has no instructions. That is not one of the five points on which the gentleman from Pennsylvania tells us our controversy with England rests, and the surrendering of which is to open to that minister so easy a road to an earldom. The war with Mexico is to be produced by different means, and for different purposes. I think the gentleman from Virginia, in his speech, rested the question of the war with Mexico upon three grounds: 1st, That our citizens had claims against the Mexican government to the amount of ten or twelve millions; 2d, That some ten or twelve of our citizens had been treated with great severity, and suffered disgrace and abuse from the Mexican government, having been made slaves, and compelled to work at cleansing the streets; that these citizens were detained in servitude, while one British subject had been promptly released on the first demand of the British minister there; and, 3d, That a war with Mexico would accomplish the annexation of Texas to the Union. The gentleman was in favor of war, not merely for the abstract purpose of annexing Texas to the Union, but he was for war by peremptorily prohibiting Santa Anna from invading Texas.
"I will take up these reasons in order. And, first, as to going to war for the obtaining of these ten or twelve millions of dollars, being the claims of our own citizens on Mexico. This seems a very extraordinary reason, when, according to the doctrine of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, a state of war at once extinguishes all national debts. If we go to war with Mexico, her debts to our citizens will be expunged at once, if the doctrine of the gentleman from Pennsylvania be true. He did, to be sure, qualify the position by saying that war would at least suspend the payment of interest. If so, then it would equally suspend interest in the case of Mexico. The arguments of the two war gentlemen happen to cross each other, though they are directed to the same end. One of them will have us go to war with Mexico to recover twelve millions of dollars; the other would have us go to war with England to wipe out a debt of two hundred millions. I will not compare the arguments of the two gentlemen together; but I will say, in regard to the doctrine of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, that it has quite too much of repudiation in it for my creed. I do not think that a war with England would extinguish these two hundred millions, but that, on the contrary, Great Britain would be likely to say to us, 'We will go to war to recover the money you owe us,' That is one of the questions which we must settle if we go to war, but which we might otherwise, at least for a time, stave off. But, if we go to war, what must be the effect of the peace that follows? We must pay our two hundred millions, with the interest. As to our debt from Mexico, I believe the way to recover it is not to go to war for it; for war, besides failing to recover the money, will occasion us the loss of ten times the amount in other ways.
"As to war producing a suspension of interest on a national debt, let the gentleman look back a little to the wars of France. In 1793 France was at war with almost all the countries of Europe, and she immediately confiscated all her debts to them. But what happened thirty years after, when the reäction came? The allies took Paris, and, in the settlement which then took place, they compelled France to pay all her debts, with full interest on the whole period during which payment had been suspended. That was the consequence to France of going to war to extinguish debts. And, if we go to war with Great Britain to-morrow, she will make us, as one of the conditions of peace, pay our whole debt of two hundred millions, with interest. And what shall we gain? Spend millions upon millions every year, as long as the war continues; and, unless it is greatly successful, have to pay our debt at last, principal and interest. This would depend on the chances of war, or the issues of battle. And, as our contests would be chiefly on the ocean, we must first obtain a superiority on the seas before we can put her down and vanquish her; and this to save ourselves from the payment of two hundred millions justly due from our citizens to hers!