During twelve years, eight of which one of the first men the world ever saw, or perhaps ever will see, presided over our affairs, the policy of pacific negotiation prevailed in our councils; a policy somewhat more hostile in its aspect was attempted by his successor, but still negotiation succeeded negotiation, and success attended perseverance. In the early stages of our existence, before we were yet a nation, it is indeed true that we drank of the cup of humiliation, even to the dregs; it was the natural effect of our dependent situation; of the prejudices that bound us, and from which great violence was necessary, and was employed to detach us. Such humiliation would not befit us now; no motives exist to demand or justify it: we were then a part of another nation, and connected with another Government; we began by petition in the terms of abjectness and humility, which are incidental to subjects of monarchs; which are always necessary, in order to conceal the spirit and the presumption, of which monarchs are always jealous in their subjects; but abject as we appeared, the very temper and phrase of humility deceived our oppressor into a belief that we were too lowly to entertain the manly temper of resistance against oppression. Yet our precursory and reiterated humility did not unnerve our arms nor subdue our minds, when it became necessary to fling off the trammels of oppression. The result, we now enjoy. When that very power from which we had detached ourselves, refused to carry her treaty into execution, did we then go to war? She held several of our fortresses; we were entitled by every right of nature, and the usage of nations, to seize upon them; not like the right of deposit, a privilege enjoyed on the territory of another, but fortresses held, and in military array on our own territory. Did we then make war? No, we negotiated; and when another power subsequently attacked us, we pursued the same course with the like success. The gentleman (Mr. Ross) has told us that when President Washington came into office, he would not have negotiated for the Mississippi, had he not found the negotiation already begun. The gentleman has not told us upon what authority he states this, or how he came to possess the knowledge of a fact of which all others are ignorant; a fact, too, contradictory of his practice through life, and of the principles of that legacy which he left to his country.
Mr. S. T. Mason, said, that if he were to consult the state of his health, he should not trouble the Senate with any remarks on the resolutions before them. But he had heard in the course of debate, certain observations, such strange and paradoxical arguments; insinuations and assertions of such a nature as ought not to be passed unnoticed. Doubtful whether his strength would sustain him through the whole scope which in better health he should take, he would endeavor to limit his arguments to a few of the most prominent particulars, which excited his attention, and to the delivery of his reasons for preferring the substitute propositions of his friend from Kentucky, (Mr. Breckenridge,) to the original resolutions of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
He had heard, in the debate, many professions of confidence in the Executive. He was very glad to hear such unusual expressions from that quarter. However, it was entitled to its due weight—what that was he would not inquire; but this he would say, that this unexpected ebullition of confidence went very much farther than he should be disposed to carry his confidence in any man or any President whatever. Gentlemen tell us that they are willing to intrust to the Executive the power of going to war, or not, at his discretion. Wonderful indeed is this sudden disposition to confidence? Why do not gentlemen give away that which they have some authority or right to bestow? Who gave them the power to vest in any other authority than in Congress the right of declaring war? The framers of this constitution had too much experience to intrust such a power to any individual; they early and wisely foresaw, that though there might be men too virtuous to abuse such a power, that it ought not to be intrusted to any; and nugatory would be the authority of the Senate, if we could assume the right of transferring our constitutional functions to any man or set of men. It was a stretch of confidence which he would not trust to any President that ever lived, or that will live. He could not as one, without treason to the constitution, consent ever to relinquish the right of declaring war to any man, or men, beside Congress.
We are told that negotiation is not the course which is proper for us to pursue. But to this he should reply, that such was the usage of all civilized nations; and, however gentlemen might attempt to whittle away the strong ground taken by his friend from New York, he had shown, in a manner not to be shaken, that negotiation before a resort to the last scourge of nations, is the course most consistent with good policy, as well as with universal practice. The gentleman from Pennsylvania had indeed told us that Great Britain had departed from that practice; unfortunately for Great Britain and the gentleman's argument, he told us, at the same time, that she had sustained a most serious injury by her injustice and precipitation. She went to war to seek retribution, and after fighting a while, she left off, and forgot to ask the retribution for which she went to war! And this is the example held up for our imitation; because Great Britain violated the law of nations, we are called upon to do so too! We are told also that Great Britain commenced war during our Revolution, against the Dutch, without any previous notification; that she did the same in the late war with France, and in both cases seized on the ships in her harbors; that is, like a professional bully, she struck first, and then told them she would fight them—and this is the gracious example held up to us.
The merits of the different propositions consisted in this, that by the amendments we propose to seek the recourse of pacific nations—to follow up our own uniform practice; we pursue, in fact, the ordinary and rational course. The first resolutions go at once to the point of war. This was openly and fairly acknowledged by the gentleman from New York (Mr. G. Morris.) The gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Ross,) indeed, told us that it is not war—it was only going and taking peaceable possession of New Orleans! He did not before think the gentleman felt so little respect for the Senate, or estimated their understandings so much inferior to his own, as to call such a measure an act of peace! How did the gentleman mean to go, and how take peaceable possession? Would he march at the head of the posse comitatus? No! he would march at the head of fifty thousand militia, and he would send forth the whole naval and regular force, armed and provided with military stores. He would enter their island, set fire to their warehouses, and bombard their city, desolate their farms and plantations, and having swept all their habitations away, after wading through streams of blood, he would tell those who had escaped destruction, we do not come here to make war on you—we are a very moderate, tender-hearted kind of neighbors, and are come here barely to take peaceable possession of your territory! Why, sir, this is too naked not to be an insult to the understanding of a child!
But the gentleman from New York (Mr. Morris) did not trifle with the Senate in such a style; he threw off the mask at once, and in a downright manly way, fairly told us that he liked war—that it was his favorite mode of negotiating between nations; that war gave dignity to the species—that it drew forth the most noble energies of humanity! That gentleman scorned to tell us that he wished to take peaceable possession. No! He could not snivel; his vast genius spurned huckstering; his mighty soul would not bear to be locked up in a petty warehouse at New Orleans; he was for war, terrible, glorious havoc! He tells you plainly, that you are not only to recover your rights, but, you must remove your neighbors from their possessions, and repel those to whom they may transfer the soil; that Buonaparte's ambition is insatiable; that he will throw in colonies of Frenchmen, who will settle on your frontier for thousands of miles round about, (when he comes there;) and he does not forget to tell you of the imminent dangers which threaten our good old friends the English. He tells you that New Orleans is the lock and you must seize upon the key, and shut the door against this terrible Buonaparte, or he will come with his legions, and, as Gulliver served the Lilliputians, wash you off the map. Not content, in his great care for your honor and glory, as a statesman and a warrior, he turns prophet to oblige you—your safety in the present year or the next, does not satisfy him—his vast mind, untrammelled by the ordinary progressions of chronology, looks over ages to come with a faculty bordering on omniscience, and conjures us to come forward and regulate the decrees of Providence at ten thousand years distance.
We have been told that Spain had no right to cede Louisiana to France; that she had ceded to us the privilege of deposit, and had therefore no right to cede her territory without our consent! Are gentlemen disposed to wage war in support of this principle? Because she has given us a little privilege—a mere indulgence on her territory—is she thereby constrained from doing any thing for ever with her immense possessions? No doubt, if the gentleman (Mr. Morris) were to be the negotiator on this occasion, he would say: "You mean to cede New Orleans; no, gentlemen, I beg your pardon, you cannot cede that, for we want it ourselves; and as to the Floridas, it would be very indiscreet to cede that, as, in all human probability, we shall want that also in less than five hundred years from this day; and then, as to Louisiana, you surely could not think of that, for in something less than a thousand years, in the natural order of things, our population will progress towards that place also."
If Spain has ceded those countries to France, the cession has been made with all the encumbrances and obligations to which it is subject by previous compact with us. Whether Buonaparte will execute these obligations with good faith, he could not say; but to say that Spain has no right to cede, is a bold assertion indeed. The people of America will not go along with such doctrines, for they lead to ruin alone. We are also told, that the power of the Chief Consul is so great, that he puts up and pulls down all the nations of the Old World at discretion, and that he can do so with us. Yet we are told by the wonderful statesman, who gives us this awful information, that we must go to war with this maker and destroyer of Governments. If, after the unceasing pursuit of empire and conquest, which is thus presented to us, we take possession of his territory, from the gentleman's own declarations, what are we to expect, only that this wonderful man, who never abandons an object—who thinks his own and the nation's honor pledged to go through whatever he undertakes—will next attack us? Does the gentleman think that this terrible picture, which his warm imagination has drawn, is a conclusive argument for proceeding to that war which he recommends?
The Senate, Mr. President, at this moment, presents a very extraordinary aspect; and by those not acquainted with our political affairs, it would appear a political phenomenon. Here we see a number of people from the Eastern States and the seaboard, filled with the most extreme solicitude for the interest and rights of the Western and inland States; while the representatives of the Western people themselves appear to know nothing of this great danger, and to feel a full confidence in their Government. The former declaring that the Western people are all ready for revolt and open to seduction; the latter ignorant of any such disposition, and indignant at the disgrace which is thrown on their character. In their great loving-kindness for the Western people, those new friends of theirs tell them that they are a simple people, who do not know what is good for them, and that they will kindly undertake to do this for them. From the contiguous States of South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, (those States from which the gentleman from Pennsylvania, by his resolutions, proposes to draw the militia,) every member of this House is opposed to war; but from the East, (and one can scarcely refrain from laughing, to hear of the all-important representatives of the State of Delaware in particular,) such is the passion for the wonderful, or the absurd, there prevails the liveliest sensibility for the Western country!
Mr. Nicholas said,—When the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Ross) opened his war project, his resentment appeared to be confined wholly to Spain; his sole object the securing the navigation of the Mississippi, and our right to a convenient place of deposit on that river. We were told by that gentleman, that we are bound to go to war for this right, which God and nature had given the Western people. What are we to understand by this right, given by God and nature? Surely not the right of deposit, for that was given by treaty; and as to the right of navigation, that has been neither suspended nor brought into question. But we are told by the same gentleman, that the possession of New Orleans is necessary to our complete security. Leaving to the gentleman's own conscience to settle the question as to the morality of taking that place, because it would be convenient, he would inform him that the possession of it will not give us complete security. The island of Cuba, from its position, and the excellence of its harbors, commands the Gulf of Mexico as completely as New Orleans does the river Mississippi, and to give that complete security that he requires of the President, the island of Cuba must likewise be taken possession of. It has been shown that the measures proposed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and he would again demonstrate it, if it was necessary, are calculated to bring upon the Western country all the mischiefs that gentleman has depicted as resulting to them from a loss of the navigation of the river Mississippi. If we are driven to war to assert our rights, the Western people must make up their minds to bear that loss during the war; for without a naval superiority, which we have not and cannot obtain, or the possession of Cuba, we shall not be able to avail ourselves of the navigation to any useful purpose. Although we may take possession of the Floridas and New Orleans, it is from a conviction of its pernicious effects upon the Western country, as well as other reasons, that he was averse to appealing to arms as long as there is a prospect of attaining our object in another way.