The law of nations is clear, and the law of the patriot heart is equally clear. The case needs no book, no more than the hanging of Arbuthnot and Ambrister required the justification of books when General Jackson was in the hommocks and marshes of Florida. A band of foreign volunteers, without knowing what they were going to do, but ready to follow their file leader to the devil, steal across a boundary river in the night, attack unarmed people asleep upon the soil, and under the flag of their country; give no quarter—make no prisoners—distinguish not between young and old—innocent or guilty—kill all—add fire to the sword—send the vessel and its contents over the falls in flames—and run back under cover of the same darkness which has concealed their approach. All this in time of peace. And then to call this an act of war, for which the perpetrators are not amenable, and for which redress must be had by fighting, or negotiating with the nation to which they belong. This is absurd. It is futile and ridiculous. Common sense condemns it. The heart condemns it. Jackson's example in Florida condemns it; and we should render ourselves contemptible if we took any such weak and puerile course.
Mr. Fox nowhere says this act was done by the sovereign's command. He shows, in fact, that it was not so done; and we know that it was not. It was the act of volunteers, unknown to the British government until it was over, and unassumed by them for three years after it occurred. The act occurred in December, 1837; our minister, Mr. Stevenson, demanded redress for it in the spring of 1838. The British government did not then assume it, nor did they assume it at all until McLeod was caught. Then, for the first time, they assume and justify, and evidently for the mere purpose of extricating McLeod. The assumption is void. Governments cannot assume the crimes of individuals. It is only as a military enterprise that this offence can be assumed; and we know this affair was no such enterprise, and is not even represented as such by the British minister. He calls it a "transaction." Three times in one paragraph he calls it a "transaction;" and whoever heard of a fight, or a battle, being characterized as a transaction? We apply the term to an affair of business, but never to a military operation. How can we have a military operation without war? without the knowledge of the sovereign? without the forms and preliminaries which the laws of nations exact? This was no military enterprise in form, or in substance. It was no attack upon a fort, or a ship of war, or a body of troops. It was no attack of soldiers upon soldiers, but of assassins upon the sleeping and the defenceless. Our American defenders of this act go beyond the British in exalting it into a military enterprise. They take different ground, and higher ground, than the British, in setting up that defence; and are just as wrong now as they were in the case of Arbuthnot and Ambrister.
Incorrect in point of national law, I hold these instructions to have been derogatory to as in point of national character, and given with most precipitate haste when they should not have been given at all. They were given under a formal, deliberate, official threat from the minister; and a thousand unofficial threats from high and respectable sources. The minister says:
"But, be that as it may, her Majesty's government formally demands, upon the grounds already stated, the immediate release of Mr. McLeod; and her Majesty's government entreat the President of the United States to take into his most deliberate consideration the serious nature of the consequences which must ensue from a rejection of this demand."
Nothing could be more precise and formal than this demand—nothing more significant and palpable than this menace. It is such as should have prevented any answer—such as should have suspended diplomatic intercourse—until it was withdrawn. Instead of that, a most sudden and precipitate answer is given; and one that grants all that the British demanded, and more too; and that without asking any thing from them. It is given with a haste which seems to preclude the possibility of regular deliberation, cabinet council, and official form. The letter of Mr. Fox bears date the 12th of March, which was Friday, and may have been delivered in office hours of that day. The instruction to Mr. Crittenden was delivered on the 15th of March, which was Monday, and a copy delivered to Mr. Fox. This was the answer to the demand and the threat; and thus the answer was given in two days; for Sunday, as the lawyers call it, is dies non; that is to say, no day for business; and it is hardly to be presumed that an administration which seems to be returning to the church and state times of Queen Anne, had the office of the Department of State open, and the clerks at their desks on Sunday, instead of being in their pews at church. The answer, then, was given in two days; and this incontinent haste to comply with a threat contrasts wonderfully with the delay—the forty days' delay—before the letter was written which was intended for home consumption; and which, doubtless, was considered as written in good time, if written in time to be shown to Congress at this extra session.
Sir, I hold it to have been derogatory to our national character to have given any answer at all, much less the one that was given, while a threat was hanging over our heads. What must be the effect of yielding to demands under such circumstances? Certainly degradation—national degradation—and an encouragement to Great Britain to continue her aggressive course upon us. That nation is pressing us in the Northeast and Northwest; she is searching our ships on the coast of Africa; she gives liberty to our slaves wrecked on her islands in their transit from one of our ports to another; she nurtures in London the societies which produced the San Domingo insurrection, and which are preparing a similar insurrection for us; and she is the mistress of subjects who hold immense debts against our States, and for the payment of which the national guarantee, or the public lands, are wanted. She has many points of aggressive contact upon us; and what is the effect of this tame submission—this abject surrender of McLeod, without a word of redress for the affair of the Caroline, and under a public threat—what is the effect of this but to encourage her to press us and threaten us on every other point? It must increase her arrogance, and encourage her encroachments, and induce her to go on until submission to further outrage becomes impossible, and war results from the cowardice which courage would have prevented. On this head the history of many nations is full of impressive lessons, and none more so than that of Great Britain. It is a nation of brave people; but they have sometimes had ministers who were not brave, and whose timidity has ended in involving their country in all the calamities of war, after subjecting it to all the disgrace of pusillanimous submission to foreign insult. The administration of Sir Robert Walpole; long, cowardly and corrupt—tyrannical at home and cringing abroad—was a signal instance of this; and, as a warning to ourselves, I will read a passage from English history to show his conduct, and the consequences of it. I read from Smollett, and from his account of the Spanish depredations, and insults upon English subjects, which were continued the whole term of Walpole's administration, and ended in bringing on the universal war which raged throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and cost the English people so much blood and treasure. The historian says:
"The merchants of England loudly complained of these outrages; the nation was fired with resentment, and cried for vengeance; but the minister appeared cold, phlegmatic, and timorous. He knew that a war would involve him in such difficulties as must of necessity endanger his administration. The treasure which he now employed for domestic purposes must in that case be expended in military armaments; the wheels of that machine on which he had raised his influence would no longer move; the opposition would of consequence gain ground, and the imposition of fresh taxes, necessary for the maintenance of the war, would fill up the measure of popular resentment against his person and ministry. Moved by these considerations, he industriously endeavored to avoid a rupture, and to obtain some sort of satisfaction by dint of memorials and negotiations, in which he betrayed his own fears to such a degree as animated the Spaniards to persist in their depredations, and encouraged the court of Madrid to disregard the remonstrances of the British ambassador."
Such is the picture of Walpole's foreign policy; and how close is the copy we are now presenting of it! Under the scourge of Spanish outrage, he was cold, phlegmatic, and timorous; and such is the conduct of our secretary under British outrage. He wanted the public treasure for party purposes, and neglected the public defences: our ministry want the public lands and the public money for douceurs to the States, and leave the Union without forts and ships. Walpole sought some sort of satisfaction by dint of negotiation; our minister does the same. The British minister at Madrid was paralyzed by the timidity of the cabinet at home; so is ours paralyzed at London by our submission to Mr. Fox here. The result of the whole was, accumulated outrage, coalitions against England, universal war, the disgrace of the minister, and the elevation of the man to the highest place in his country, and to the highest pinnacle of glory, whom Walpole had dismissed from the lowest place in the British army—that of cornet of horse—for the political offence of voting against him. The elder William Pitt—the dismissed cornet—conducted with glory and success the war which the timidity of Walpole begat; and, that the smallest circumstances might not be wanting to the completeness of the parallel, our prime minister here has commenced his career by issuing an order for treating our military and naval officers as Pitt was treated by Walpole, and for the same identical offence.
Sir, I consider the instructions to Mr. Crittenden as most unfortunate and deplorable. They have sunk the national character in the eyes of England and of Europe. They have lost us the respect which we gained by the late war and by the glorious administration of Jackson. They bring us into contempt, and encourage the haughty British to push us to extremities. We shall feel the effect of this deplorable diplomacy in our impending controversies with that people; and happy and fortunate it will be for us if, by correcting our error, retracing our steps, recovering our manly attitude, discarding our distribution schemes, and preparing for war, we shall be able thereby to prevent war, and to preserve our rights.
I have never believed our English difficulties free from danger. I have not spoken upon the Northeastern question; but the senator from that State who sits on my right (looking at senator Williams) knows my opinion. He knows that I have long believed that nothing could save the rights of Maine but the war countenance of our government. Preparation for war might prevent war, and save the rights of the State. This has been my opinion; and to that point have all my labors tended. I have avoided speeches; I have opposed all distributions of land and money; I have gone for ships, forts and cannon—the ultima ratio of Republics as well as kings. I go for them now, and declare it as my opinion that the only way to obtain our rights, and to avoid eventual war with England, is to abandon all schemes of distribution, and to convert our public lands and surplus revenue, when we have it, into cannon, ships and forts.