There is no mistake in this case; there can be none. Experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The Western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of their wilderness. It exclaims that while one hand is held up to reject this Treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive, that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance, and the shrieks of torture. Already they seem to sigh in the west wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.
Are the posts to remain for ever in the possession of Great Britain? Let those who reject them, when the Treaty offers them to our hands, say, if they choose, they are of no importance. If they are, will they take them by force? The argument I am urging would then come to a point. To use force, is war. To talk of Treaty again, is too absurd. Posts and redress must come from voluntary good will, Treaty, or war.
Such a state of things will exist, if we should long avoid war, as will be worse than war. Peace without security, accumulation of injury without redress, or the hope of it, resentment against the aggressor, contempt for ourselves, intestine discord and anarchy. Worse than this need not be apprehended, for if worse could happen, anarchy would bring it. Is this the peace gentlemen undertake, with such fearless confidence, to maintain? Is this the station of American dignity, which the high-spirited champions of our national independence and honor could endure; nay, which they are anxious and almost violent to seize for the country? What is there in the Treaty that could humble us so low? Are they the men to swallow their resentments, who so lately were choking with them? If in the case contemplated by them, it should be peace, I do not hesitate to declare it ought not to be peace.
Let me cheer the mind, weary no doubt and ready to respond on this prospect, by presenting another, which it is yet in our power to realize. Is it possible for a real American to look at the prosperity of this country without some desire for its continuance, without some respect for the measures which, many will say, produced, and all will confess, have preserved it? Will he not feel some dread that a change of system will reverse the scene? The well-grounded fears of our citizens in 1794 were removed by the Treaty, but are not forgotten. Then they deemed war nearly inevitable, and would not this adjustment have been considered at that day as a happy escape from the calamity? The great interest, and the general desire of our people, was, to enjoy the advantages of neutrality. This instrument, however misrepresented, affords America that inestimable security. The causes of our disputes are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a new negotiation, after the end of the European war. This was gaining every thing, because it confirmed our neutrality, by which our citizens are gaining every thing. This alone would justify the engagements of the Government. For, when the fiery vapors of the war lowered in the skirts of our horizon, all our wishes were concentered in this one, that we might escape the desolation of the storm. This Treaty, like a rainbow on the edge of the cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was raging, and afforded at the same time the sure prognostic of fair weather. If we reject it, the vivid colors will grow pale; it will be a baleful meteor, portending tempest and war.
Let us not hesitate, then, to agree to the appropriation to carry it into faithful execution. Thus we shall save the faith of our nation, secure its peace, and diffuse the spirit of confidence and enterprise that will augment its prosperity. The progress of wealth and improvement is wonderful, and, some will think, too rapid. The field for exertion is fruitful and vast, and, if peace and good government should be preserved, the acquisitions of our citizens are not so pleasing as the proofs of their industry, as the instruments of their future success. The rewards of exertion go to augment its power. Profit is every hour becoming capital. The vast crop of our neutrality is all seed wheat, and is sown again to swell, almost beyond calculation, the future harvest of prosperity: and in this progress, what seems to be fiction, is found to fall short of experience.
Friday, April 29.
Execution of British Treaty.
Mr. Dayton (the Speaker) declared that he did by no means intend to follow the gentlemen who had conceived it advisable to enter into a discussion of the merits of the Treaty, article by article.
To those, he said, who regarded this second Treaty with Great Britain with disagreeable sensations—to those who believed that it did not contain in it such terms as the United States had reason to expect, and even a right to demand—to all those whose indignation had been excited at the unwarrantable outrages committed by that nation upon the rights of our neutral powers, who had seen their high-handed acts with astonishment, and the whole conduct of their administration towards this country with abhorrence—to those whose attachment for the French, nobly struggling for their liberties, was sincere, and who ardently wished that their revolution might terminate in the establishment of a good and stable government:—to all of this description, he could, with propriety, address himself, and say, that he harmonized with them in opinion, and that his feelings were in perfect unison with theirs. But if, he said, there should be found in that assembly one member, whose affection for any other nation exceeded that which he entertained for this, whose Representative he was—if there could even be found a single man whose hatred to any other country was greater than his love for America—him, he should consider as his enemy, hostile to the interests of the people who sent him there, utterly unqualified to judge rightly of their concerns, and a betrayer of the trust reposed in him. But, Mr. D. said, he could not believe it possible, that there were any such amongst them, and he was convinced that every one must see and feel the necessity of divesting himself of all his hatred, all his prejudices, and even all attachments that were in the least degree inconsistent with an unbiased deliberation and decision. The good and the prosperity of the people of the United States ought to be the primary object. It was that alone which their Representatives were delegated and commissioned more immediately to promote, and who would deny that it was intimately connected with, and involved in the vote they were about to give?
That the defects of this instrument of compact with Britain greatly exceeded its merits, was a truth which was strongly impressed upon his mind, long before he had heard the reasoning of the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Madison,) who had opened the debate. Although that gentleman had sketched its deformities in strong colors, and had in some instances, perhaps, exaggerated them; yet, Mr. D. said, he should not have contested the justice of the picture he had exhibited, if he had, at the same time, presented to their view, in true and faithful coloring, the other side of it also. Yet, this was surely necessary in order to enable them to form a right judgment. That member had declared that the House were now called upon to approve the Treaty, but Mr. D. was far from believing such a declaration warranted by the language or nature of the propositions on the table, to which all might assent, without pledging themselves to be the approvers of the instrument itself.