Mr. Randolph said he trusted that on this resolution there would exist in the House, as there did in the nation, but one sentiment. The provision which had been made for the officers and soldiers of the Revolution was notoriously scanty and mean. Who, he asked, enjoyed the carrying trade for which, two years ago, we were near being plunged into a war? Emigrants since the peace of 1783. Men who ran no risk—who put nothing to hazard—whilst those who met the enemy in the field, with the gibbet staring them in the face at the same time, were left to pine in want and obscurity. Had the persons who achieved this right to trade with every quarter of the globe less claim to the benefits acquired by their blood than the man of yesterday? But they had no capital for such enterprises. They had sown that others might reap. The very lands which they had won with their swords had become the prey of rapacious adventurers. Should the fruits of the Revolution inure to the sole benefit of those who never put their persons to hazard, or even spent one dollar for the acquisition of our independence? He reminded the House of the pathetic appeal which had been made on a former occasion by one of its oldest members, (Mr. Van Cortlandt,) whom he hoped would long enjoy his seat there: “We shall not prove very chargeable to you—there are but few of us left, and they are daily dropping off—you will not be burdened with us long—most of us have broken our constitutions in the public service.” Mr. R. hoped that provision would be made for these gallant veterans—living monuments of the ingratitude of their country; that every man who had a claim on the public for services rendered during the Revolution, would be made comfortable for life, unless his own misconduct should forbid it.
Mr. Quincy said he did not rise to make objections to the general object of the resolution; but there was one part which he did not think it decorous for the committee to adopt; he meant the epithet disgraceful. He was not prepared to fix a disgrace upon the nation by his vote; if it were true that it was disgraced, he should wish more evidence of the fact than had been exhibited on that floor. Were he even to admit that it was a disgrace, he was not willing to turn the eyes of the world upon the shame of his country. In another point of view he objected to this declaration, as it would, by a strained or forced construction, limit the provision contemplated to be made. He should not offer an amendment to the resolution, because he trusted the gentleman himself would amend it. It would, however, meet his wishes either to strike out the last declaratory sentence, or to strike out the words “disgraceful to the,” and insert “in a.”
Mr. Randolph said that he did not feel for his resolution that sort of parental affection which authors were supposed to bear towards their works. The language was perfectly immaterial to him, so as it embraced his object. He thought it needless in a matter of this kind to attend to those verbal niceties with which the gentleman from Massachusetts had amused himself and the committee. So far from disgracing the country, he thought the acknowledgment in question the first step towards wiping off the stigma—a sort of atonement; and if the nation was disgraced, it was their duty as faithful servants to tell her so, and not to flatter her with the success of her arms, and persuade her that she was the very mirror and pink of chivalry, when they knew to the contrary.
It was matter of notoriety, and as such it was proper for the House to act upon, that there existed a great number of citizens in this nation in a state of indigence, who, if their country had done its duty, might, and probably would, have been in far different circumstances. This failure on the part of Government had thrown the evidences of their claims into the hands of men, many, if not most of them, emigrants since the Revolution. He asked whether our public lands, our free commerce—every blessing of our country—should be participated by those who had sacrificed nothing to our independence, and the men who achieved it be suffered to live and die in wretchedness? This was the question which he had propounded to the House, and those who could not comprehend it in its present shape, would not be assisted by any explanations which it was in his power to give. He knew comparisons were odious, but he must be permitted to make one. He would compare the services of Captains Lewis and Clarke, in exploring the continent of the Pacific Ocean, and their remuneration, with the hardships and dangers of the soldiers of the Revolution and their reward. He had no disposition to undervalue the services of those gentlemen and their companions; far from it. He thought them deserving of what they had obtained, and he had voted accordingly. But he should be guilty of gross injustice were he to aver that their labors had been as important to the United States as the services of those who had fought their battles, before they were United States. Yet, what a wide difference in their remuneration! On the one side, ample compensation; on the other, the statute of limitation, or perhaps a scanty pension. Mr. R. wished this subject to be taken up on the broadest ground—that where services could be shown, they should be recompensed—that the State should take the sufferer under her protection, and secure him from want.
Mr. Thomas asked the gentleman who moved this resolution, whether he intended to confine his provisions to the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary war, and not to extend relief to other sufferers? It was well known that there were many others in the service who suffered equally with those in the army—some of whom had lost their limbs, and others who performed meritorious services—and were of as much benefit as soldiers. Were they excluded by the resolution? It was but lately that an officer, who commanded one of our armed ships in the Revolutionary war, was in a state of almost starvation; and there were many more equal sufferers and equally meritorious with those who served in the army.
Mr. Randolph could only say, that his object was to provide for every man who had fought, whether in the militia, the regular army, or the navy.
Mr. Quincy said he really had not meant to amuse the House or the gentleman from Virginia by the observations which he had made. In certain cases words were things, and certainly this was one of those cases. Would the committee declare their own disgrace by passing the resolution as it now stood? No; they would declare their country to be disgraced. He could not consent to this. He therefore moved, as he wished to make as little alteration in the resolution as possible, to strike out the words “disgraceful to the,” and insert “in a.”
Mr. Randolph did not perceive the necessity of the amendment, neither was he very tenacious of the language of his resolution. The object of it alone was dear to him. Yet, there were occasions in which it behooved men, and nations too, to confess their sins. He thought the present one of them. Would the State of Georgia, for instance, have done herself more honor, if, instead of passing sentence of indelible disgrace on the Legislature which passed the famous law of the 5th of January, 1795, commonly called the Yazoo act, and expunging it from her records, she had faintly censured its authors and their abettors by a dainty circumlocution? He feared he would not be pardoned for introducing the Yazoo act in this case, since he had seen a most respectable Representative from the State of Georgia, (Mr. Troup,) attacked on all sides for daring to lisp the word Yazoo. They were told it was a worn out thing. That the House and the people were tired of it. That, like the cry of wolf in the fable, it had been repeated until no one would heed it. Mr. R. said that those who calculated in this way reckoned without their host. The people of the Union could never become familiarized and hardened to acts of corruption, by whomsoever they might be practised or patronized. Whether the words were stricken out or not, was perfectly immaterial to him. Perhaps, in rendering the censure more delicate, it was only rendered more severe. He thought the situation of these gentlemen—for gentlemen they were, by the most honorable of all titles, the sword—disgraceful to the country. Whenever the country was disgraced, he was for confessing it, that the people might be roused to wipe it away. For this reason he had said that the navy of the United States was a disgraced navy, and he should continue to say so until its character was retrieved.
Mr. Quincy said he was as willing as any gentleman to confess his own sins, but did not like to cast censure on other people, much less on his country. They would declare, by passing the resolution as it now stood, that their country was disgraced. He hoped they would not do it. He had no objection to the House confessing its own misdeeds. Let us, said he, work out our own reformation, but not pass a censure on our country. He declared his objection to the resolution to extend no further than to those words.
The amendment moved by Mr. Quincy was then agreed to without a division; and the question recurring on the original resolution,