This is no fiction, sir, it is a fact. It cuts your commerce like a two-edged sword, involves your neutrality, and prevents your own merchants from going to the same market, the profit on which ultimately centres in Great Britain. There are at this moment British agents in two of your commercial cities, and I suppose more in other parts of the United States as well as in Europe, for they swarm on the industry of all nations. They are acting in concert to carry on this licensed trade with the Spanish colonies, their enemies jeopardizing your neutrality, to the manifest injury of the real American merchants. This is a very valuable branch of commerce, as you may readily suppose from the price that sagacious calculating nation sets upon it. What is the result of all this? Why, sir, if it were not for the interference of this very Government, so much extolled at the expense of your own, we should enjoy the benefit ourselves. They themselves license vessels to carry on a commerce, which if pursued by your citizens, without their permission, is sure to be plundered. Thus, sir, that Government assails your commerce at home, and condemns it abroad, on the most vexatious and unwarrantable pretensions.
Sir, I beg leave to call the attention of the committee to an important fact. Examine your treaty with Spain, your treaty with France, your treaty with Holland, your treaties with some of the Northern Powers, what do they say? “Free ships make free goods.” What does Great Britain say? “You shall give up the goods of my enemies;” and you accede to it. Is this reciprocal? Is it just? Is it not a humiliating concession? Is this cause of war? What says that oracle, that celebrated pamphlet, on this occasion? Not a word, sir; it is as silent as the grave. Who now has the greatest cause of complaint, Great Britain or her enemies? Her motto is “Universal domination over the seas”—the common highway of all nations—and, unless you assert your rights, you will be swept into the general vortex. We are told that this is a war measure. If it be true, and commercial regulations are of that nature, we are at war with Great Britain at this very moment, for she imposes four per cent, on her exports to our country. You cannot impose any on your exports to that country; it is unconstitutional.
Mr. Chandler.—Mr. Chairman, unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, it is with extreme diffidence that I rise to make a few observations on the measures now under consideration; but the subject is so important, that I am unwilling to give a silent vote.
It appears to be acknowledged by all the gentlemen who have spoken before me, that we have just cause of complaint against Great Britain; that she has impressed our seamen and compelled them to serve on board her ships of war, to the number of several thousand; that she holds them in the most degrading servitude, and compels them to fight her battles against a nation with whom we are at peace, and that she has seized and condemned, contrary to the laws of nations, and usage, our ships and property to a very large amount. This fact, Mr. Chairman, is so evident and notorious, that it would be trifling with the time of this committee, were I to attempt to introduce new evidence to prove it.
This point being conceded, it then remains to be determined whether we will tamely submit to these wanton aggressions upon our rights as an independent and a neutral nation, or have recourse to measures of some kind calculated to obtain redress for the past and security for the future. The first, Mr. Chairman, ought to be put out of the question. To submit, without opposition to so wanton and so flagrant violation of our rights, would render us unworthy the name of Americans. For what did we contend with this same Great Britain in 1775 and the succeeding years? When we were few in numbers, and at first without arms, without ammunition, without money, or other established resources, and without allies? Sir, a Warren, a McClary, a Montgomery, a Mercer, and a host of heroes, fought, and bled, and died—for what? For the rights, the liberties, the freedom, and independence of our country. And shall we, Mr. Chairman, without one effort, surrender those dear-bought rights and privileges, the price of which was the best blood of our countrymen? No, sir, we shall not, we will not do it; our faces would be covered with shame, and disgrace as well as injury descend to our children. But, sir, this committee will not consent to a surrender of those rights, which they are constituted to guard and protect. They will, I presume, at least a great majority of them, be disposed to take measures sufficiently strong to compel that haughty nation to do us justice.
I believe, Mr. Chairman, the only difference in opinion with most of us is, what measures will be most likely to have the desired effect, with the least injury to ourselves. For my own part I was in favor of the resolution laid on the table by the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I allude to the one which has been several days under discussion. I was in favor of it, because I believe it would be the most effectual; and no man I think can doubt our right to adopt such a measure, it being only a commercial regulation, such as every independent nation may rightfully make whenever her interest or convenience require it. It would, in my opinion, be most likely to effect our object, because it would most deeply touch that tender point, their interest; and it is their interest which governs them. If we forsake their workshops and warehouses, it will materially affect their manufactures and trade. Indeed, to use the language of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, it will reach the vitals of her commerce; and if it were to go to the vitals of their nation, the fault is not ours; they are the aggressors, we act on the defensive only. If, sir, that nation has two millions of people employed in the cloth manufacture alone, as was stated by a gentleman from Maryland, (which number, however, I think too large,) she must at least have four millions in the whole employed in manufactures of all kinds. We take from her of these manufactures to the amount of thirty millions annually—a market for which she cannot find elsewhere. Interdict the importation of her goods, and what is the consequence? She cannot pay, and therefore cannot employ her workmen. She will not find her account in manufacturing goods annually to the amount of thirty millions of dollars more than she can find a market for; therefore her workmen, at least one million of them, will be out of employment. How are they to subsist? How can they get their bread? Other means they have not; they cannot find any other occupation; and, if they could, they are not fitted for them. This derangement of business must be severely felt; their merchants and manufacturers will, I believe, be persuasive advocates for us. They will feel the evil, and will powerfully press the Government to do us justice. The Minister will be convinced of the danger. He will be careful not to suffer our custom to be diverted from England; for he knows if the channel of our trade is once turned, it will not easily, if ever, be restored. He will pause before he finally drives his best customer to the necessity of leaving him; for he cannot be ignorant that our trade, consisting of the exportation of raw materials, and the importation of wrought manufactures, will be courted by other nations, who will soon find it for their interest to accommodate us with a supply of our demands on satisfactory terms. I consider, Mr. Chairman, that our commerce is and will be so available to the nations of Europe, as to furnish us the means of commanding respect and procuring justice by commercial regulations. I have no fear that Great Britain will venture on a war with us; but if, from a predetermination to quarrel with us at all events, she should make a commercial regulation, or any other of our measures, a pretext for hostilities, notwithstanding all that has been said on the floor of this House by certain gentlemen, to disparage the troops or militia of our own country, and of our weakness, inferiority, and inability to defend ourselves, and to prove the invincible power of Great Britain, yet I trust she would still find us Americans.
Mr. J. Randolph.—I should have been better pleased if the gentleman who has so eloquently painted the wrongs which we have received from Britain had, instead of telling us of the disease, pointed out the remedy. The gentleman a few days ago offered himself as a collateral security for the facts stated by the President and our illustrious Minister at the Court of London. Did the gentleman believe that what we could not take from them, we should accept from him? That our commerce has been pirated upon and our seamen impressed we all knew before. But where is the remedy? Gentlemen say they are for taking commanding ground, that will ensure respect. Where is it? Let them give in their project. Is this the remedy, or is this the time? Gentlemen tell us we ought not to stop short of indemnity for the past and security for the future. Are they then for going to war with Britain on the same ground which Mr. Pitt took with the French Republic? Do they expect success in their project? And is peace to be destroyed, and the interests of this people compromitted, until what they please to call indemnity and security shall be obtained? Are they for going to war with Spain and France, and making a similar convention with them that we some time since made with Britain for spoliations committed on our commerce, and then by a kind of legerdemain draw from our own pockets wherewith to pay for those very spoliations? Is this the indemnity they expect to obtain? I want none of it. I almost dread to see a convention with any power across the Atlantic, with a stipulation to pay money, as I fear its only tendency would be to deprive us of that we have left. Make any sort of convention you please, and something will scarcely fail to fall out between the cup and the lip, by which you will have to pay the debts due to you by others. By some sort of legerdemain, the money of your bona fide citizens will get into the pockets of your diplomatists or their creatures on this and the other side of the water, into the hands of bureau men, of counting-house politicians. But I find gentlemen undertake to say, because I am indisposed to go to war, I am the advocate and apologist of Great Britain; and because I quote the able pamphleteer, who stands forth the godfather of the doctrines contained in it, I abjure them; and so far from costing me six cents, they cost me one hundred and fifty; and I consider that a better bargain than the other pamphlet, which did not cost me a sous. Am I to be considered as the apologist of Britain, because the defence of this country has been committed to weak advocates, or because its cause has been weakly defended or treacherously abandoned? No; I am the advocate of the circumstances of the times—of the constitution of this people—of common sense—of expediency. What does the gentleman from New York tell you? I admire the resentment he feels for the wrongs committed on our country, and I entertain a respect for him. He tells you every thing I have told you—that American merchants are employed in covering enemy’s property. No, he draws a distinction between native and adopted merchants, and says that he considers the latter as the root of the evil. I agree that this trade is carried on by foreigners naturalized among us. But the gentleman says the other nations of Europe treat us on the principle that free ships make free goods; while Great Britain treats us on the opposite principle, and contends for the principle of contraband of war, and the liability of enemy’s property to seizure. Why is there this difference? Because those who treat on the principle of the mare liberum find it their interest to treat on this principle. But do they who have the mastery of the ocean consider it as their interest? And yet the gentleman arraigns one country for being governed by her own interest, while he applauds another for being governed by the same feelings.
But the gentleman says the Federal Constitution grew out of commerce. Indeed! I have always understood it grew out of the feeble and lax state of our Federation. I have no doubt the regulation of commerce, and the hope of obtaining an adequate revenue, aided its formation. But will the gentleman undertake to say the constitution was made to give us the mastery of the seas? If so, I will be glad to see how he makes it out. Will he say the finger of Heaven points to war?
Mr. J. Clay said he was sorry the committee were determined to press this subject. He believed a delay of four or five days would be important; he therefore moved that the committee should rise.
Mr. Alston said, it would certainly be unnecessary for the committee to rise, with a view to decide upon the resolution offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Gregg.) The committee having refused in the first instance to take up this resolution, and having acted upon that which had been submitted by the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Nicholson,) was a sufficient evidence of the sense of this House as to its final adoption or rejection. The newspapers emanating from this place to all parts of the United States would convey the sense of the House as fully upon the resolution as though a final vote should have been taken; and should the resolution offered by the gentleman from Maryland be now decided upon, and agreed to, every one would be satisfied that the one offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania would not be adopted.