The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. King], has given a vivid and able picture of the exertions of the United States government in behalf of these claims. He has shown that they have been paid, and more than paid, on our part, by the invaluable blood of our citizens! Such, indeed, is the fact. What has not been done by the United States on behalf of these claims? For these very claims, for the protection of those very claimants, we underwent an incredible expense both in military and naval armaments.
[Here the honorable senator read a long list of military and naval preparations made by Congress for the protection of these claims, specifying the dates and the numbers.]
Nor did the United States confine herself solely to these strenuous exertions and expensive armaments; besides raising fleets and armies, she sent across the Atlantic embassies and agents; she gave letters of marque, by which every injured individual might take his own remedy and repay himself his losses. For these very claims the people were laden at that period with heavy taxes, besides the blood of our people which was spilt for them. Loans were raised at eight per cent. to obtain redress for these claims; and what was the consequence? It overturned the men in power at that period; this it was which produced that result, more than political differences.
The people were taxed and suffered for these same claims in that day; and now they are brought forward again to exhaust the public treasury and to sweep away more millions yet from the people, to impose taxes again upon them, for the very same claims for which the people have already once been taxed; reviving the system of '98, to render loans and debts and encumbrances again to be required; to embarrass the government, entangle the State, to impoverish the people; to dig, in a word, by gradual measures of this description, a pit to plunge the nation headlong into inextricable difficulty and ruin!
The government, in those days, performed its duty to the citizens in the protection of their commerce; and by vindicating, asserting, and satisfying these claims, it left nothing undone which now is to be done; the pretensions of this bill are therefore utterly unfounded! Duties are reciprocal; the duty of government is protection, and that of citizens allegiance. This bill attempts to throw upon the present government the duties and expenses of a former government, which have been already once acquitted. On its part, government has fulfilled, with energy and zeal, its duty to the citizens; it has protected and now is protecting their rights, and asserting their just claims. Witness our navy, kept up in time of peace, for the protection of commerce and for the profit of our citizens; witness our cruisers on every point of the globe, for the security of citizens pursuing every kind of lawful business. But, there are limits to the protection of the interests of individual citizens; peace must, at one time or other, be obtained, and sacrifices are to be made for a valuable consideration. Now, sir, peace is a valuable consideration, and claims are often necessarily abandoned to obtain it. In 1814, we gave up claims for the sake of peace; we gave up claims for Spanish spoliations, at the treaty of Florida; we gave up claims to Denmark. These claims also were given up, long anterior to others I have mentioned. When peace is made, the claims take their chance; some are given up for a gross sum, and some, such as these, when they are worth nothing, will fetch nothing. How monstrous, therefore, that measure is, which would transfer abandoned and disputed claims from the country, by which they were said to be due, to our own country, to our own government, upon our own citizens, requiring us to pay what others owed (nay, what it is doubtful if they did owe); requiring us to pay what we have never received one farthing for, and for which, if we had received millions, we have paid away more than those millions in arduous exertions on their behalf!
I should not discharge the duty I owe to my country, if I did not probe still deeper into these transactions. What were the losses which led to these claims? Gentlemen have indulged themselves in all the flights and raptures of poetry on this pathetic topic; we have heard of "ships swept from the ocean, families plunged in want and ruin;" and such like! What is the fact, sir? It is as the gentleman from New Hampshire has said: never, sir, was there known, before or since, such a flourishing state of commerce as the very time and period of these spoliations. At that time, men made fortunes if they saved one ship only, out of every four or five, from the French cruisers! Let us examine the stubborn facts of sober arithmetic, in this case, and not sit still and see the people's money charmed out of the treasury by the persuasive notes of poetry. [Mr. B here referred to public documents showing that, in the years 1793, '94, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, up to 1800, the exports, annually increased at a rapid rate, till, in 1800 they amounted to more than $91,000,000].
It must be taken into consideration that, at this period, our population was less than it is now, our territory was much more limited, we had not Louisiana and the port of New Orleans, and yet our commerce was far more flourishing than it ever has been since; and at a time, too, when we had no mammoth banking corporation to boast of its indispensable, its vital necessity to commerce! These are the facts of numbers, of arithmetic, which blow away the edifice of the gentlemen's poetry, as the wind scatters straws.
With respect to the parties in whose hands these claims are. They are in the hands of insurance offices, assignees, and jobbers; they are in the hands of the knowing ones who have bought them up for two, three, five, ten cents in the dollar! What has become of the screaming babes that have been held up after the ancient Roman method, to excite pity and move our sympathies? What has become of the widows and original claimants? They have been bought out long ago by the knowing ones. If we countenance this bill, sir, we shall renew the disgraceful scenes of 1793, and witness a repetition of the infamous fraud and gambling, and all the old artifices which the certificate funding act gave rise to. (Mr. B. here read several interesting extracts, describing the scenes which then took place.)
One of the most revolting features of this bill is its relation to the insurers. The most infamous and odious act ever passed by Congress was the certificate funding act of 1793, an act passed in favor of a crowd of speculators; but the principle of this bill is more odious than even it; I mean that of paying insurers for their losses. The United States, sir, insure! Can any thing be conceived more revolting and atrocious than to direct the funds of the treasury, the property of the people, to such iniquitous uses? On what principle is this grounded? Their occupation is a safe one; they make calculations against all probabilities; they make fortunes at all times; and especially at this very time when we are called upon to refund their losses, they made immense fortunes. It would be far more just and equitable if Congress were to insure the farmers and planters, and pay them their losses on the failure of the cotton crop; they, sir, are more entitled to put forth such claims than speculators and gamblers, whose trade and business it is to make money by losses. This bill, if passed, would be the most odious and unprincipled ever passed by Congress.
Another question, sir, occurs to me: what sum of money will this bill abstract from the treasury? It says five millions, it is true; but it does not say "and no more;" it does not say that they will be in full. If the project of passing this bill should succeed, not only will claims be made, but next will come interest upon them! Reflect, sir, one moment: interest from 1798 and 1800 to this day! Nor is there any limitation of the amount of claims; no, sir, it would not be possible for the imagination of man, to invent more cunning words than the wording of this bill. It is made to cover all sorts of claims; there is no kind of specification adequate to exclude them; the most illegal claims will be admitted by its loose phraseology!