The gentleman from New York, finding the weight of argument against him, and that a resort to arms would not be justifiable upon the ground taken by his friends, with a boldness and promptitude that characterizes veteran politicians, has not only assigned new and different causes for war, but new objects, and a new and more powerful enemy to cope with. He no doubt felt the force of the arguments that have been used to show the improbability that Spain would authorize an act that would produce a rupture with this country, at the moment that she was parting with Louisiana, and when she could not possibly derive any advantage from the wrong that she could do us by that act; and at a time when we knew from unquestionable evidence that it is the desire of Spain to cultivate a good understanding with this country. He could give no credit to the suggestion, that the First Consul had required Spain to take that step. He knew that character too well to believe that he would attempt to throw a responsibility upon others, for his measures, nor indeed could it be shown that the First Consul would be in any way benefited by it; he knows the American character too well to believe that any of the reasons that have been assigned by his friends who have preceded him in this argument, would form a justification for a declaration of war, without a previous demand for a redress of the wrongs that we have sustained. He knows that our countrymen, with a courage and perseverance that does promise success in any war, are at all times ready when it is necessary to assert their rights with arms, but that they will not be employed in wars of ambition or conquest; and above all, he sees the folly of going to war with Spain, and taking from her a country that we should be obliged in honor and justice to give up to the French, perhaps the instant after we had taken possession of it; for if France would reinstate us in the rights and privileges that we hold under our new treaty with Spain, I demand of the gentleman from New York, if he would wish this country to hold possession against France; and if he would, upon what ground he would justify it?
The cession was made to France before the injury done us by the Spanish officer; knowing this, we take the country; upon France demanding it of us, we should be bound by every principle of honor and justice to give her possession, upon her engaging to respect properly our rights. Spain having injured us surely will not justify our committing an outrage of the most injurious and insulting nature upon France. Would conduct like this comport with the gentleman's ideas of national honor, about which we have heard so much in the course of this debate? Can it be, that an act, which, if perpetrated by an individual, would be robbery, can be justifiable in a nation? And can it be justifiable in the eyes of men, who believe there is nothing so precious or important as national honor? Can the usefulness or convenience of any acquisition justify us in taking from another by force what we have no sort of right to?
There were not in America men more attached or more faithful to the Government of the United States than they were; and I will venture to predict, from my knowledge of them, that they will be the last to submit to the yoke of despotism, let it be attempted to be imposed upon them by whom it may. If there is one part of America more interested than any other in preserving the union of these States, and the present Government, it is the Western. Important as the Mississippi is to them, their free intercourse with the Atlantic States is more important—all their imports are received through that channel, and their most valuable exports are sold, and will continue to be so, in the Atlantic States. The same gentleman (Mr. Morris) says, we must line our frontier with custom-house officers, to prevent smuggling. If there is any force in what he says upon this subject, we ought not only to take New Orleans and the Floridas, but Louisiana, and all the British possessions on the continent. Another reason urged with great earnestness by the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Morris,) is, that France, without this acquisition, is too powerful for the peace and security of the rest of the world—that half the nations that lately existed are gone—that those that are left are afraid to act, and nation after nation falling at her nod—that, if France acquires the Floridas and New Orleans, it will put England and Spain completely in her power, giving to those places an importance that they do not merit; and yet that gentleman and his friends have repeatedly asserted that war would not result from our taking immediate possession of those places; indeed, they say, it is the only way to avoid war. At one moment the country is represented as so important as to make the First Consul the sovereign of the world; at the next, we are told that we may take it without any sort of risk, and without a probability that either France or Spain will go to war with us for the recovery of a country so all-important to them. In the language of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I say, this idle tale may amuse children, but will not satisfy men.
Mr. President, we have nothing to fear from the colony of any European nation on this continent; they ought rather to be considered as a pledge of the good conduct of the mother country towards us; for such possessions must be held only during our pleasure.
Can France, in fifty years, or in a century, establish a colony in any part of the territories now possessed by Spain, that could resist the power of the United States, even at this day, for a single campaign? What has been our progress since the year 1763, in settling our Western country? In forty years, under the most favorable circumstances that a new country could be settled, we have only a population of between five and six hundred thousand souls, and this country is settled by men who knew it perfectly—by men who either carried all their friends with them, or who knew that change of residence would not prevent their frequently seeing and hearing from their nearest relatives. Can it be expected that any country will be peopled as fast, from a nation at the distance of three thousand miles, as our Western country has been? And yet we are taught to be apprehensive of a colony to be landed to-morrow or next day from Europe. Sir, if we are wise and true to ourselves, we have nothing to fear from any nation, or combination of nations, against us. We are too far removed from the theatre of European politics, to be embroiled in them, if we act with common discretion. Friendship with us, is the interest of every commercial and manufacturing nation. Our interest is not to encourage partialities or prejudices towards any, but to treat them all with justice and liberality. He should be sorry to reproach any nation—he would rather suffer former causes of reproach to be buried in oblivion; and he was happy to perceive that prejudices which were incidental to the war that we had been forced into in defence of our liberties, with a nation from which we are principally sprung, were fast wearing off. Those prejudices had been very powerfully revived, soon after our Revolution had established our independence, by the aggressions of that nation, in various ways, more flagrant and atrocious than any thing we have to complain of at this day.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania said that this is not an apposite case; that at that time there was no blockade. It is true there was not a blockade of one of our ports, nor is there now, (the river Mississippi is open for the passage of our boats and vessels,) but we were injured, in a commercial point of view, in a more material manner than we should have been by the blockade of the Delaware or the Chesapeake; for all the countries (except Great Britain) to which it was desirable for us to trade were declared to be in a state of blockade, and all our vessels going to those countries were subject to seizure. Let gentlemen call to mind what was the conduct of our Government at that time. The House of Representatives had the subject under consideration, when the then President appointed an Envoy Extraordinary to demand satisfaction of Great Britain. What was the conduct of the members of the House of Representatives, who were acting upon the subject, before it was known to them that the Executive had taken any measures to obtain satisfaction for the injury sustained? Did they attempt to counteract the Executive? No; they suspended all Legislative discussions and Legislative measures. And even the injuries done us by the actual invasion of our territory, the erection of fortifications within our limits, the withholding the posts that belonged to us by treaty, and the robbery and abuse of our citizens on the high seas, did not provoke us to declare war, nor even to dispossess the invaders of our territory of what actually belonged to us. The Executive proposed to negotiate, and it was thought improper to obstruct it. How gentlemen who approved of the interference of the Executive upon that occasion, can justify their attempt to defeat the efforts of the present Administration to obtain redress for the injury that we now complain of, they must answer to their consciences and their country. Fortunately for the United States, not only the President, but a majority of both Houses of Congress, upon the present occasion, have put themselves in the gap between the pestilence and the people.
If the gentleman from New York had exerted his ingenuity as much to state the grounds upon which an expectation of the complete success of our Envoy might be founded, he would have been at least as usefully employed for his country as he has been in his attempt to show that it will not succeed, and he would have avoided the palpable contradictions of his own arguments that he has run into. The gentleman himself, without intending it, has assigned sufficient reasons why we might expect entire satisfaction. He has said, truly, that America, united, holds the command of the West Indies in her hands. This must be known to all the nations that have colonies there; it must likewise be known to the proprietors of Louisiana and the Floridas, that, circumstanced as we at present are, there will be perpetual sources of contention between them and us. Every thing that has happened as to the Mississippi will be reacted as to the great rivers that head in what is now the Mississippi Territory, and empty themselves into the Gulf of Mexico, after passing through West Florida. In the infancy of the colonies that may be settled in Florida or Louisiana, the mother country can count upon nothing but expense, particularly if they are to be the causes of perpetual quarrels with this country. In twenty years, the population of the United States will be nine or ten millions of people; one-third of that population will probably be on the Western waters. This will give a force in that quarter of the Union equal to that with which we contended with Great Britain; and our united force will be such that no nation at the distance of three thousand miles will be able to contend with us for any object in our neighborhood. These considerations, with a belief that, if we are treated with justice and liberality, we shall never violate the rights of other nations, or suffer ourselves to be involved in the wars that may take place among the great European nations, are arguments that cannot be withstood, if the Governments of France and Spain are in the hands of wise men; for they must see that they have nothing to hope from a contest with us, and that a union of our force with a rival nation would be productive of very serious danger and inconvenience to them.
Mr. Dayton said, he lamented exceedingly the indisposition of the honorable member from Virginia, (Mr. Nicholas,) not only because it had compelled him to abridge his arguments, which always entertained, even when they failed to convince, but because to that distraction of mind which sickness often produces, could alone be ascribed the doubts expressed by that member, respecting the views of the advocates of the original resolutions. The difficulty of the opposers of the resolutions, would, he said, have been less, if the gentlemen who supported them had settled among themselves what was their object, and had ascertained with whom we were to make war. To both these points, Mr. D. said, the fullest and clearest answers had been given. Our object, says he, is to obtain a prompt redress of injuries immediately affecting our Western brethren, who look to us for decisive and effectual measures, and have told us that a delay of remedy will be ruinous to them; and our views and wishes are to take possession of the place of deposit guaranteed by treaty, whether it be in the hands of the one nation or the other, and to hold it as a security that the trade of so important a river should not be liable to similar interruptions in future. We are not, as the gentleman from Virginia would insinuate, for rushing into a war, but we are for repelling insults, and insisting upon our rights, even at the risk of one. It was easy to foresee that the opposers of the resolutions offered by the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania, must resort to other means than fair argument, to justify them in the course which they were about to pursue. Our most precious rights flagrantly violated, treaties perfidiously broken, the outlet or road to market of half a million of our fellow-citizens obstructed, our trade shackled, our country grossly insulted, were facts too notorious, and too outrageous to allow them the least plausible ground of reasoning. Deprived of every other means of attack, they have resorted to that of alarm. They charge us with a thirst for war, and enter into a description of its horrors, as if they supposed that it was in our power to produce, or in theirs to prevent it. That which requires the concurrence of two parties, viz: contract or negotiation, they consider most easy; and war, which may always be produced by one party only, they consider as most difficult. Nay, sir, they do what is more extraordinary and unpardonable, they shut their eyes to the fact that hostility has already been commenced against us. Attacked and insulted as we had been, do we now, asked Mr. D., call for war? Let the resolutions give the answer. They begin with a declaration of certain rights, indisputable in their nature, indispensable in their possession, to the safety, peace, and union of this country. Not a member opposed to us has controverted them, except the honorable gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Wright.) He denied the truth of all except one of them, and even of a part of that one. His honorable friends from the Western country, who are in the habit of acting with him, cannot thank him for such defence. The formerly well applied words, "Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis egent," must be applicable on this occasion, and it may be as well to leave them with each other to settle the question of their rights. But there is one article of the Maryland member's creed which ought not to escape comment, because, if adopted, it would be fatal to the Union. I understood him, said Mr. D., as stating, that inasmuch as the produce which descends the Mississippi bears a proportion of about a twentieth only to the exports of the whole Union, it was not reasonable to expect that the other portion should be endangered to protect that minor part. If maxims like this were to actuate our councils, short indeed would be the duration of our independence. Our enemies would have only to attack us by piecemeal, State by State, to make us an easy prey. The honorable member from Maryland could not hope for even that gloomy consolation which we heard of on a former melancholy occasion. He could not flatter himself that he and his State would be left to be the last victim.
But, Mr. President, every other gentleman appears to admit the truth of the prefatory declaration of rights; they admit, too, that if we cannot be possessed of them otherwise, we must seize on them by force; but they refuse to give the means and the power to the President, in whom they have told us, over and over again, they repose implicit confidence. Is any one of the resolutions too imperative on the President, we will agree so to alter as to make it discretionary, if desired by any gentleman on the other side; for without their leave, we cannot now amend our own resolutions.
It is my consolation, Mr. President, said Mr. D., and it ought to be matter of triumph to my honorable friend, the mover of these resolutions, that, whatever may be their fate, the introduction and discussion of them will have produced no little benefit. They have brought forward gentlemen to pledge themselves, in their speeches, to employ force on failure of negotiation; which, though late, is better than never. They must be allowed the merit, too, of producing the resolutions which they offer as a substitute. These milk-and-water propositions of Mr. Breckenridge will at least serve to show that something should be done, some preparations made; and therefore even to these, feeble as they are, I will agree, if more cannot be carried. But let the relative merits of the two be compared. Ours authorize to call out of those militia nearest to the scene, and most interested in the event, a number not exceeding fifty thousand, and to give them orders to act, when the occasion requires it, in conjunction with the army and navy; theirs authorize an enrolment of eighty thousand, dispersed over the whole Continent, without any authority to act with them, however pressing the danger, nor even to march them out of their own State. Ours authorize the President to take immediate possession of some convenient place of deposit, as guaranteed by treaty, in order to afford immediate vent for the Western produce, and relief to our suffering fellow-citizens, and thereby put it out of the power of a Spanish Intendant, whether acting from caprice, or orders from his Court, to obstruct so important an outlet; theirs give no such authority, but leave to the slow progress and uncertainty of negotiation that remedy, which, to delay, is almost as fatal as to refuse.