It has also been the fate of other countries, and may be the misfortune of this, to possess in its bosom, and to cherish in its confidence, men, who from an equally base and corrupt self-love and ill-directed ambition, become supple courtiers, political sunflowers, cringing demagogues; who, worshipping the idol power, whether in the hands of a military commander, a protector, or a consul, tender an implicit obedience and united support to every measure which emanates from the Executive, the source of office and profit. Such men bring upon a country the curses of undue domestic influence. Not to know and not to fear the dangers both of foreign and domestic influence, is to close our eyes on the light of history, and to disregard the testimony of ages. The States of Greece, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Eppes) reminds us, fell from foreign influence; the unhappy Kingdom of Spain at this moment groans and bleeds from the same cause. And, sir, from domestic influence, Rome had her Cæsar, England her Cromwell, and France now drags the chains of Bonaparte. Should it ever become the settled doctrine in this country, that the opinions and the measures of the Executive are entitled to our prompt acquiescence and blind support; that, like the devoted soldier, a mere military machine, we are not to pause over a vote; that free discussion of the merits of the Executive shall authorize suspicion of the purity of the citizen; the time will be fast hastening when a throne shall be erected upon the ruins of the Constitution of the United States, and the name of America be added to the list of those Republics which have "risen like the rocket, and fallen like the stick." Whether either of these parties exist in this country, I need not at this time inquire; no circumstance could render such an inquiry in this place other than unpleasant. I have suggested the possibility of their existence, and their evils, with a view equally pure, I hope, with that of those who have before alluded to them, and to excite a caution which well merits the attention of the American people.
Associated in this House with gentlemen, all of whom, I am to presume, are actuated by the same love of country; who alike feel the obligations of honor, conscience, regard to the constitution and responsibility to our constituents—I cannot but believe they act on this occasion with motives as pure as my own. Yet, sir, feeling myself bound by these high sanctions to pursue the course pointed out by my own judgment, and the dictates of my own conscience, I am compelled to declare, that I disapprove the conduct of the administration in the affair with Mr. Jackson, and that I am decidedly opposed to the resolution before us.
From the view I have taken of the correspondence between Mr. Smith and Mr. Jackson, my mind is satisfied—
That the letters of Mr. Jackson do not contain the insult to our administration which is imputed to them by the resolution. That, if they did, the Congress of the United States are not required either by duty or policy to interfere in the business—and that if they will interfere, the resolution under consideration is improper. On each of these points I will submit a few observations.
In regard to the insult said to be contained in Mr. Jackson's letters, my remarks shall be brief, with no other reference to the letters already so often repeated, as to have become "dull as a tale twice told," than I may conceive necessary to be intelligible. The offensive idea "that the Executive Government of the United States had a knowledge that the arrangement lately made by Mr. Erskine in behalf of his Government with the Government of the United States, was entered into without competent powers on the part of Mr. Erskine for that purpose," is said in the resolution to be conveyed in Mr. Jackson's letter of the 23d of October, and to be repeated in that of the 4th of November. Yet, as if it was on all hands admitted that no such idea could be found in these letters, all who have most anxiously desired to find it, have endeavored to establish it by recurring to Mr. Jackson's letter of the 11th of October, and there point us to that part of the letter, where Mr. Jackson, in reply to Mr. Smith's declaration, that an explanation was expected of the grounds of the disavowal by His Britannic Majesty of the arrangement made between Mr. Smith and Mr. Erskine, informs Mr. Smith, that he had seen with pleasure the forbearance of Mr. Smith, to complain of this disavowal, "inasmuch as you could not but have thought it unreasonable to complain of the disavowal of an act done under such circumstances as could only lead to the consequences that have actually followed." He adds, "It was not known when I left England whether Mr. Erskine had, according to the liberty allowed him, communicated to you in extenso his original instructions; it now appears that he did not. But in reverting to his official correspondence, and particularly to a despatch addressed on the 20th of April to His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I find that he there states, that he submitted to your consideration the three conditions specified in those instructions, as the groundwork of an arrangement which, according to information received from this country, it was thought in England might be made, with a prospect of great mutual advantage. Mr. Erskine then reports, verbatim et seriatim, your observations upon each of the three conditions, and the reasons which induced you to think that others might be substituted in lieu of them. It may have been concluded between you that these latter were an equivalent for the original conditions; but the very act of substitution evidently shows that those original conditions were in fact very explicitly communicated to you, and by you of course laid before the President for his consideration. I need hardly add, that the difference between these conditions and those contained in the arrangement of the 18th and 19th of April, is sufficiently obvious to require no elucidation; nor need I draw the conclusion, which I consider as admitted by all absence of complaint on the part of the American Government, viz: that under such circumstances His Majesty had an undoubted right to disavow the act of his Minister."
As the offensive idea is alleged to be an allusion to the circumstances under which the arrangement with Mr. Erskine was concluded, which justified the King in disavowing it; intimated to be known to our administration at the date of this letter; it is necessary to search, from the evidence before us, what those circumstances were upon which the King justified his disavowal; these found, we shall be at no loss to fix Mr. Jackson's allusion, and then to inquire whether these circumstances thus alluded to, were in fact known to our administration. It appears from the documents before us, that the King's Order in Council of the 24th of May, 1809, announcing the provisional agreement concluded by Mr. Erskine and the disavowal of it, assigns as the sole ground of the disavowal, that the said agreement "was not such as was authorized by His Majesty's instructions." And Mr. Pinkney, on the 28th of May, informs Mr. Smith that the British Minister, Mr. Canning, had in their interview on the 25th of May declared "that the British Minister (Mr. Erskine) had acted in his late negotiation and engagements with you, not only without authority, but in direct opposition to the most precise instructions;" that these facts were communicated by Mr. Pinkney, and known to our administration before the arrival of Mr. Jackson, appears from the correspondence between Mr. Smith and Mr. Erskine in July and August. Mr. Jackson also, in his letter of the 11th of October, says that his Government "with frankness, promptitude, and a most scrupulous regard to national honor, gave notice to the American Minister in London of the disavowal, of the motives of it, and of the precautions spontaneously taken by His Majesty to prevent any loss or injury accruing to the citizens of the United States from an agreement, however unauthorized, made in His Majesty's name." And in his letter to Mr. Smith, 23d of October, explicitly declares "His Majesty was pleased to disavow the agreement concluded between you and Mr. Erskine, because it was concluded in violation of that gentleman's instructions, and altogether without authority to subscribe to the terms of it." And to dispense with a recital of each particular in which the instructions were disregarded, Mr. Jackson adds, "These instructions I now understand by your letter, as well as from the obvious deduction which I took the liberty of making in mine of the 11th instant, were at the time in substance made known to you; no stronger illustration, therefore, can be given of the deviation from them which occurred, than by a reference to the terms of your agreement."
We thus find the British Government on every occasion, and through every agent, assigning the violation of instructions, and the want of authority in Mr. Erskine to conclude the agreement, as the sole ground of the disavowal, and relying on that ground, and no other, to shield them from the charge of perfidy. With this evidence before us; with the admission of Mr. Jackson "that the instructions were not made known in extenso;" with the correspondence of Mr. Smith and Mr. Erskine showing the knowledge of our administration of the instructions to Mr. Erskine and of the grounds of the disavowal of his arrangement prior to the arrival of Mr. Jackson in the United States, does it consist with candor and good sense; is it not a palpable violation of both, so to torture the language of Mr. Jackson in his letter of the 11th of October, in allusion to the circumstances which "could only lead to the disavowal," and to the knowledge of them by our administration, which prevented their complaints to him on his arrival, as to make them convey an idea that a distinct and different ground of disavowal existed than that which his Government and himself had before repeatedly assigned; to impute to him the insinuation that the restricted authority of Mr. Erskine was known at the time of the arrangement, when he had explicitly declared "that the instructions were not made known in extenso," and thus to fix upon him the absurdity of contradicting himself?
Such construction, and such an imputation, in my opinion, is at war with every sound rule of construction, and every honorable principle of just and fair dealing. It is worthy the observation of those gentlemen who so clearly see an insult in this letter of the 11th of October, that they have found what had escaped the jealous perspicacity of Mr. Smith, and the patient research of the draughter of the resolution; since Mr. Smith, in his reply of the 19th of October, gives no intimation of any thing offensive in this letter, and the resolution confines the insulting idea to the letter of the 23d of October. We come now to the letter of the 23d of October, in which, according to the resolution, is contained the "insolent and indecorous expressions, conveying the idea that the Executive Government of the United States had a knowledge that the arrangement lately made by Mr. Erskine with the Government of the United States was entered into without competent power on the part of Mr. Erskine." The offensive idea is said to be found in the following part of Mr. Jackson's letter: "I have no hesitation in informing you that his Majesty was pleased to disavow the agreement concluded between you and Mr. Erskine, because it was concluded in violation of that gentleman's instructions, and altogether without authority to subscribe to the terms of it. These instructions, I now understand by your letter, as well as from the obvious deduction which I took the liberty of making in mine of the 11th instant, were at the time in substance made known to you; no stronger illustration, therefore, can be given of the deviation from them which occurred than by a reference to the terms of your agreement." There is no equivocation in this language. He says the instructions were made known in substance—an expression which from its very terms excludes the idea of being made known in full extent; and that it is true, as Mr. J. here alleges, that the substance of Mr. Erskine's instructions were made known, appears from Mr. Smith's letter of the 19th of October. "Certain it is that your predecessor did present for my consideration the three conditions which now appear in the printed document; that he was disposed to urge them more than the nature of two of them (both palpably inadmissible, and one of them more than merely inadmissible) could permit, and that on finding his first proposals unsuccessful, the more reasonable terms comprised in the arrangement respecting the Order in Council were adopted." And Mr. Erskine himself declared to his Government, 20th of April, as stated by Mr. Jackson to Mr. Smith, 11th of October, and not questioned by him, "that he had submitted to the consideration of Mr. Smith the three conditions specified in his instructions, as the groundwork of an arrangement," and adds the reasons which induced Mr. Smith to think "that others might be substituted in lieu of them." These expressions of Mr. Jackson are unequivocal, free from obscurity, and cover no insinuation. They assert a single fact, the existence of which is established by the letters of Mr. Smith himself. To find in them a meaning "conveying the insolent and indecorous idea that our Government knew of Mr. Erskine's restricted authority," is to give to language a signification different from that heretofore received, and to exert a strength of imagination to which I have no pretensions. But in the letter of Mr. Jackson of November 4th, is said, by the resolution, to be found "the still more insolent and affronting "repetition of the same insinuation. In the conclusion of this letter Mr. J. complains, not intemperately, of the liberty Mr. Smith claimed of styling his remarks "irrelevant and improper," a freedom which I should regret to believe would be justified by our Secretary's ideas of decorum. Mr. Jackson concludes in the words which are said to contain this offensive repetition of the imaginary insult: "You will find in my correspondence with you, that I have carefully avoided drawing conclusions that did not necessarily follow from the premises advanced by me, and least of all should I think of uttering an insinuation where I was unable to substantiate a fact."
If Mr. Jackson had really uttered an unfounded insinuation, he here certainly repeats it, because he adheres to all he had before said, and retracts nothing. But if, as I believe, he had not made any insinuations, but had directly and obviously referred to facts which were either admitted or had been, substantially proved, and more especially as he has not anywhere made the insinuation charged, "that our Government were acquainted with Mr. Erskine's restricted authority," the conclusion seems to be irresistible, that he could not here repeat an insinuation which he had not previously made. This paragraph obviously means that he had abstained from such an insinuation because "he was unable to substantiate the fact." Nor can I conceive how this declaration could be offensive to Mr. Smith, unless received by him as presenting a contrast to his own deportment, in which case he owes his feelings to his own conscious sensibility.