During the last session of Congress, the whole of the intercourse with St. Domingo had undergone a full investigation. While the bill regulating the clearance of armed merchant vessels was under discussion, that part of our foreign commerce had been minutely examined. It would be remembered that the bill had been committed, recommitted, amended, and modified, with the utmost labor and skill. Besides the talents which the Senate afforded, all the sources of Executive information had been drained, to aid their researches. And the letters of the British and French Ministers, complaining of the conduct of our merchants in forcing this trade, were opened to our view. The crude material of the bill had been hammered at and worked upon so elaborately, as to have at last received the complete burnish of a law. With all the knowledge that could be derived from so many quarters, the bill was at length passed to check the violence of our navigators, and to restrain the adventurous zeal of our merchants. The provisions of this law were such as it was deemed just and proper that a neutral nation should take. And this was a liberal condescension to the wishes of the two great maritime and belligerent powers, without forgetting the respect that we owed to our own. With both these he wished to cultivate peace and good understanding; but to neither of them would he consent to yield any portion of our neutral and national rights.
The difficulties exhibited in the ministerial correspondence, Mr. M. said, were thus removed. With a promptitude that deserved to be admired, Congress interposed its authority, for the purpose at once of doing justice to our neighbors, regulating our commerce, and tranquillizing the Mexican seas. With these salutary provisions, he believed the two complaining nations had been satisfied. At least we had done so much that they ought in all reason to be content. Congress had already manifested a due regard to all that France and Great Britain had offered upon the branch of West Indian commerce, and in the true spirit of good neighborhood, and correct principle, had modified and restricted the intercourse with Hayti. And so fully did the Europeans seem to acquiesce in our conduct, that he had not heard any further remonstrances made by either of them about it. He thought the observations of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Adams) very much in point. Under a conviction that we had done as much as public faith and national honor required, he had given his vote against the introduction of a similar bill during the last session. Nothing had occurred from that time to this day, to alter the circumstances of the case, or to make it necessary for him to change his conduct.
For my own part, said Mr. M., I think the St. Domingo commerce is no great thing in itself. We might do exceedingly well without it; and I am very far from approving the means by which it has been carried on; but I dislike the idea of forbidding it, at the mandate of a foreign power. Like our Revolutionary patriots, let us put our foot here, and hence refuse to budge. It is not for us to legislate at the nod or bidding of any nation. I hope we understand our business better than to register edicts for them; while we pay due respect to others, it becomes us also to respect ourselves. The precedent is a dangerous one. If we agree to interdict this intercourse, we may, at the next session, be informed that we ought to withdraw from some other important port or region. When we are found to be so complying to one nation, we shall be subjected to a like request or menace from another, until, sir, our flag shall be furled in one foreign port after another, and nothing be left us but the coasting trade at home. The sad consequences have been ably portrayed by the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Samuel Smith.)
Mr. Hillhouse said, he hoped the question would be taken by yeas and nays, because he confidently expected there would be a great majority of the Senate opposed to giving leave to bring in the bill, for he considered the measure not only as improper, but as ill-timed.
The gentleman from Georgia has told us that the conflict in St. Domingo is that of masters attempting to reclaim their slaves, and that if the United States suffer the trade to be carried on, we shall be considered as aiding and upholding those slaves, and give offence to France. And that when peace shall take place in Europe, the French will transport those negroes by thousands to the shores of South Carolina and Georgia, to the endangering the lives of the citizens of those States. This Mr. H. considered as a bugbear, with which we ought not to be frightened, for, as to the warfare in St. Domingo being a mere conflict between master and slave, it will be well remembered that the French Republic long ago liberated all the slaves in that island, and declared them free. As to the citizens of the United States carrying arms and military stores to the enemies of France, the law of nations has declared the penalty, which is a forfeiture of the property, and the United States can in no way be implicated thereby. And as to France landing those negroes on our shores, he said there was power, and he believed there would be found a disposition in the people of the United States to repel such an insult; for if we cannot prevent France or any other power from invading our territory and insulting our national honor, by landing their outcasts upon our shores, we shall no longer deserve the name of an independent nation.
Mr. Jackson, in reply to Mr. Smith and Mr. Mitchill, confessed he had seen no official document, other than what the honorable mover had read, but he had seen at Newcastle, in Delaware, a whole fleet bound to St. Domingo, to force a trade which even captains of vessels, true Americans, cried shame on. That the honorable gentleman had called out, why had not the mover brought forward a resolution against Britain or some other power who had committed depredations on our commerce! Mr. J. said he wished to begin here, by preventing our own merchants from doing injury to other nations, and then to strike at those who insulted us. He for himself was prepared and willing to attack the first power who had insulted us with far more superior weapons than arming our ships. He was an agricultural man, and would suffer with the flour-makers; but he would call on the honorable gentleman either from Maryland, from New York, from Massachusetts, or Connecticut, to strike at Great Britain or any other nation who had injured us, by a resolution of prohibition of trade or intercourse, and he was the man who would second it and keep it on till the injuring nation should cry peccavi—keep it on one twelvemonth, and you would see them all at your feet. Look at the Legislature of Jamaica petitioning their Governor from time to time for American intercourse. Look at Trinidad, the same, in a state of famine. Sir, we have no favors to ask the nations of the earth; they must ask them of us, or their West India colonies must starve.
That, however, with respect to documents, he would inform the gentleman from Maryland, that he had seen, though not official, a letter from General Ferrand, Governor of St. Domingo, and which was published in all the principal newspapers of the United States, complaining to the French Government on this subject, and laying all the blame to the American Government, if not in direct, in the most severe indirect terms. That as to the total separation of the self-created Emperor and nation of Hayti, and its independence of the parent country, and under which gentlemen declared our rights of trade founded on the laws of nations—the late attack on that General by the Emperor proved it did not exist; he was defeated, his army scattered and driven to the mountains; that Ferrand held the island as French Governor for the French nation, and the separation was not such as to warrant the arguments used for a right to trade. It would be a fatal argument used against us as respected our Southern States by other powers. On the same grounds, a parcel of runaways and outcasts from South Carolina and Georgia, to the amount of some hundreds, now collected on or near the Okefonokee[28] swamp in Georgia, might be termed an independent society; or if an insurrection took place in those States, the rebellious horde, on creating an emperor, be supplied with arms and ammunition, as a separate and independent nation. This, as the honorable gentleman from Connecticut had been pleased to term his fears bugbears, might be no bugbear to him, safe and remote from the scene of action, near New Haven; but it was a serious bugbear to him, and would be to the whole southern country, where the horrid scenes of that island would be reacted, their property destroyed, and their families massacred.
After a few replicatory remarks from Mr. Logan, the consideration of the subject was postponed to Monday.
Tuesday, January 7, 1806.
James Turner, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of North Carolina, for the term of six years, from the third of March, 1805, produced his credentials, which were read, and the oath prescribed by law having been administered, he took his seat in the Senate.