Mr. Goodrich rose, and addressed the Senate as follows—
Mr. President: This bill, making further provision for enforcing the embargo, requires all our attention. We are not on ordinary business. An embargo for an indefinite period, over a great country like ours, abounding in rich staples and domestic products, and carrying on in its own vessels an extensive and profitable commerce, is a phenomenon in the civilized world. We are about entering on the second year of this novel measure, and even in defiance of the lessons which experience teaches, that without producing any beneficial results, it is embroiling the choicest interests of the nation. On foreign powers it has made no impression, and its ruinous effect on our own country, we see in the waste of private property and public revenue; in the discontents of our citizens; in the perplexed state of the public councils, and the increasing difficulties that are fast gathering round the Government. The friends of the embargo say, that it has been evaded and violated, but that when strictly enforced, it will compel foreign nations to respect our rights. Under these impressions, the system is to be maintained. To enforce it, the powers of the Government are to be put in array throughout our country, especially in places where discontents are manifested; and an extension is to be given to that system of arbitrary seizures of vessels, goods, merchandise, and domestic products, on suspicion of their being intended for exportation, which came in with the embargo laws, and has attended their execution.
In all this, sir, I see nothing that is to conciliate the conflicting opinions and passions of our citizens, and restore concord amongst them. I see nothing that will invigorate the public councils, and resuscitate the dormant spirit and resources of the nation. To me it seems that the Administration, without presenting to public view any definite object or course, are pressing forward our affairs into a chaos of inextricable difficulties. And I cannot but regard this bill as holding a prominent place among the measures leading on that unfortunate issue.
This bill bears marks of distrust entertained by the Government of the people, or a considerable portion of them, and of the State authorities; it places the coasting trade under further and vexatious restraints, as well as its general regulations under the control of the President. It intrenches on the municipal polity of the States, and the intercourse of the people in their ordinary business. And, what above all will wound the public sentiment, for the accustomed and mild means of executing the laws by civil process through the tribunals of justice, it substitutes military powers to be called out and exercised, not in aid, but in place, of the civil authorities.
The coasting trade is placed under the regulation of the President by this bill:
1st. Collectors may refuse permission to put a cargo on board of any ship, vessel, or boat, in any case where they have their own personal suspicions that it is intended for foreign exportation, and in every case which may be comprehended within the scope of any general instructions, issued by command of the President. But there is a proviso as to coasting vessels uniformly employed in the navigation of bays, sounds, rivers, and lakes, which shall have obtained a general permission.
2d. General permissions may be granted to the last-mentioned vessels, under such general instructions as the President of the United States may give, when it can be done without danger of the embargo being violated, to take on board such articles as may be designated in such general permission or permissions.
By these general instructions, the President may prescribe the kind and quantity of exports from, and imports into the individual States, and from and to the particular districts within a State. He may suspend them in part or in whole.
The power of issuing general instructions now proposed to be given to the President by law, he exercised in the recess of Congress, and in my opinion, without law. The Governor of Massachusetts was authorized to give certificates, or licenses for the importation of flour into that State; and, under general instructions from the President, without personal suspicion of his own, the collector at Charleston, in South Carolina, detained a vessel; which called forth the independent exercise of the judicial power of the circuit court in that State, to control the President's instructions. I am sensible the Administration and its friends have an arduous task in executing the embargo; difficulties beset them on every side; difficulties inherent in the measure itself, and not to be overcome by accumulating rigorous penalties, and an extension of the Executive power. The power to regulate commerce is vested in Congress, and by granting it to the President, do we not transfer to him one of the most important and delicate of the legislative powers? What State would have adopted the constitution, if it had been foreseen that this power would be granted to any man, however distinguished by office?
The sections I have considered, principally affect merchants and seafaring men in their business, at stores, custom-houses, about wharves, ships, and vessels. But other sections take a wider range, and intrench on the ordinary concerns of the great body of the people, by the powers they give for unreasonable and arbitrary searches for, and seizures of their property.