Mr. Speaker, as the arrangement with Mr. Erskine has been often mentioned, and much relied on by the advocates of this bill, it deserves some further notice. That arrangement was the first act of the present Executive, after he came into office; it was presumed to have been fairly and properly made—it was hailed as a political jubilee by all denominations of politicians—particularly those who had not contributed to the elevation of the present Chief Magistrate; we thought we perceived in that event the evidence of a disposition in the present Executive (which we could not discover in his predecessor) to relieve this country from that system of commercial restriction, that self-destroying policy, which had made us poor indeed; we also thought a determination was manifested not to decline any advantageous accommodation with Great Britain, whether France said yea or nay. It will be but too well remembered that we had been groaning for two years under the pressure of non-importation, embargo, and non-intercourse—your treasury was drained, your citizens unable to pay their debts, and your courts of justice actually shut up, at least so far in many States (and among the rest the State which I have the honor in part to represent) as to suspend the effect of executions; your cities and seaports were inactive or deserted; gloom and dismay marked the features of the nation, and hope had almost bid us farewell; we fancied in this arrangement the glimmerings of returning sunshine, peace, and prosperity: with honest and upright hearts, we were willing to applaud the hand that gave it, without questioning or suspecting the manner or motives with which it was given. The delusion soon vanished; and I have no hesitation to declare, had I then known what I now know, I should have not offered such unqualified applause.
Mr. Speaker, let us make a very strange and very false supposition, that the Berlin and Milan decrees were actually repealed, and did cease to have effect on the first of November. What have we gained? What advantage have we derived from it? And have we not been officially informed by the French Minister in this city (General Turreau) in his letter to the Secretary of State, of the 12th December, 1810, that our most valuable productions, particularly of the Southern States, are at this moment excluded from the ports of France? As to the important articles, cotton and tobacco, he says: "their importation into France is at this moment especially prohibited, but I have reasons to believe (and I pray you meanwhile to observe, sir, they do not rest on any facts) that some modifications will be given to this absolute exclusion. These modifications will not depend on the chance of events, but will be the result of other measures, firm and pursued with perseverance, which the two Governments will continue to adopt to withdraw from the monopoly and from the vexations of the common enemy a commerce loyal and necessary to France as well as the United States." In this letter we find the touchstone, the true clue to French favor—war with England. Connected with this letter from Turreau, is a decree of the 16th July, 1810, which, in point of principle and arrogance, is not surpassed by any act in the history of Bonaparte. By this decree thirty or forty American vessels may import into France, under license, cotton, fish, oil, dye-wood, salt-fish, codfish, and peltry; they must export wine, brandy, silks, linens, cloths, jewellery, household furniture, and other manufactured articles; they can only depart from Charleston and New York, under the obligation of bringing with them a gazette of the day of their departure, also a certificate of the origin of the merchandise, given by the French Consul, containing a sentence in cypher. The French merchants who shall cause their vessels to come, must prove that they are concerned in the fabrics of Paris, Rouen, and other towns. Here is an attempt to extend French influence by bribing a select class of our merchants; granting favors to favorites. It is an attempt to make commercial regulations in our own ports, and to violate our constitution, by giving a preference to the ports of Charleston and New York, over all the rest in the United States, which is specially denied by the constitution. In addition to all this, we have a list of duties established at the French custom-house on the 5th August (the very day on which twenty or thirty American vessels and cargoes were sold and the proceeds given over to Bonaparte—the very memorable 5th August, the birthday of the celebrated letter of the Duc de Cadore) subjecting long staple cotton to a tariff of eighty cents per pound, short staple sixty cents, and tobacco forty cents per pound. By another decree of the 12th September, 1810, potash is taxed at one dollar twenty-five cents, codfish two dollars, rice four dollars per hundred—thus are we loved, favored, and taxed.
There can be no importation of American productions into France but on terms utterly inadmissible. The act of May last, in the language of the Secretary of State, had for its object not merely the recognition of a "speculative," legitimate principle, but the enjoyment of a substantial benefit. The overture then presented obviously embraced the idea of commercial advantage, it included the reasonable belief, that an abrogation of the Berlin and Milan decrees would leave the ports of France as free for the introduction of the produce of the United States, as they were previously to the promulgation of the decrees. If, then, for the revoked decrees, municipal laws, producing the same effect have been substituted, the mode only and not the measure has undergone an alteration. If France, by her own acts, has blocked up her ports against the introduction of the products of the United States, what motive has the Government in a discussion with a third power, to insist on the privilege of going to France? Whence the inducement to urge the annulment of a blockade of France, when, if annulled, no American cargoes would obtain a market in any of her ports? In such a state of things, a blockade of the coast of France would be to the United States as unimportant as would the blockade of the Caspian Sea. This is the language of truth and common sense, language which I did not very much expect to hear from the Secretary at this time; because it exposes the proclamation of the President, and condemns the present bill. But truth, like murder, will out, and it ought to strike dumb the advocates of this bill, and open their eyes to a different policy. But, sir, going on to the supposition that the French decrees are actually repealed, and cease to have effect, pursuing the principle about to be established of taking words for deeds, and form for substance, what is to become of the promise of Lord Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney, of the 31st of August, 1810, when he states that he is commanded by his Majesty to repeat the declaration made to this Government in February, 1808, of his Majesty's desire to see the commerce of the world restored to that freedom which is necessary for its prosperity, and his readiness to abandon the system which had been forced upon him, whenever the enemy should retract the principles which had rendered it necessary; and to assure us that whenever the repeal of the French decrees shall have actually taken effect, and the commerce of the neutral nations shall have been restored to the condition in which it stood previously to the promulgation of those decrees, he will feel the highest satisfaction in relinquishing a system which the conduct of the enemy compelled him to adopt. Here is a promise equally solemn, (and as there is at least as much virtue in the British Government as there is in that of France,) as much to be relied on as that of the Duc de Cadore; and as certainly as the Berlin and Milan decrees were revoked, and would cease to have effect on the first of November, so certainly have we the same assurance that the orders of Great Britain would be rescinded. Shall we then believe the one and not the other? Shall we frown and look big at England, while, with timid and abject submission, we crouch at the feet of France, and quietly rivet the chains prepared for us? Mr. Speaker, the goddess of justice has been described as being blind, with sword in one hand, and the scale and balance in the other, but if she is invoked in this measure, she comes blind indeed, with a sword in one hand, but no balance in the other; in one hand is the emblem of war, in the other the badge of slavery.
If war with England must happen, let it be done openly and for ourselves; let us not commence the attack by practising on our own citizens; and let it not be said we have been caught in the snares of Bonaparte. Mr. Speaker, I do not oppose this bill because it professes to give some relief to those merchants whose vessels sailed before the date of the proclamation, and which may have departed from a British port, prior to the 2d of February, 1811, but, sir, because I wish to rid the country of this whole consumptive system; and, if that cannot be done, I will not aid in propping up the President's proclamation, by taking from the judiciary of the country the power of deciding on its validity, which is one of the avowed objects of this bill. I had rather trust to the opinion of the judges for entire relief to our citizens, from the operation of the law of May, 1810, than grant the partial exemption contemplated by this bill. The honorable gentleman (Mr. Eppes) who reported this bill, declares that its great object is to prevent questions arising in the courts, on the construction of the law of May, 1810, and the effect of the President's proclamation. This, to my understanding, is legislating retrospectively; it is ex post facto; and, like the Rambouillet decree, is not only prospective, but retroactive. It takes from our citizens the right of appealing to the courts of justice, and makes the fiat of the Executive the supreme law—a doctrine subversive of the first principles of republicanism, and strange to be advocated by gentlemen who came into power under the name of republicans.
It is in vain, Mr. Speaker, to seek for the justification of this measure from any thing France has done, or from the indications which she has given of her fixed course of policy. Her great object is the destruction of the commerce of the world; and she wishes to make us tributary to that end, and, if possible, to embroil us in a war with England.
The disposition of Bonaparte towards us rests not alone on his acts of aggression, rapine, and plunder; the imprisonment of our citizens, the burning and sequestration of our property. He has heaped upon this devoted country all the epithets which malice could suggest or tyranny dictate; he has exhausted the cup of bitterness, and made us drink the dregs of humiliation; he has declared his decrees should suffer no change, and that the Americans should take the positive character of allies or enemies. As long ago as the 15th of January, 1808, he issued a declaration of war for us against Great Britain; an unconditional surrender of your rights is demanded, or an obedience to his dictates. And are we not in the act of yielding obedience? Sir, the nation which pretends to dictate laws to another offers chains. With more than Christian charity do we seem to forget and forgive the indignities offered to our national character; and the unkind, the severest cut of all to the present Administration, contained in the letter of the Duc de Cadore to General Armstrong, of the 17th of February, 1810, in which we are told that His Majesty could place no reliance on the proceedings of the United States. We are advised to tear to pieces the act of our independence; declared to be more abject than the slaves of Jamaica; that we are men without honor, energy, or just political views; that we will be obliged to fight for interest, after having refused to fight for honor. Our present rulers are there contrasted with the brave and generous heroes of our Revolution, and they are declared to be fit for the yoke which had been thrown off by their ancestors. This letter had scarcely reached our shores, the ink was scarcely dry, it was fresh in our memories, when the letter of the 5th of August was received; which, like a Lethean draught, threw the shade of oblivion over our insults and our wrongs; we sipped the poison as it fell, and I fear it is fast spreading through the body politic.
Mr. Speaker, I turn with disgust from those polluted pages before me—this history of our wrongs, this tyrant's love—would to God they could be blotted from our memories; or, if remembered, let it be with abhorrence and detestation.
I deprecate the course of policy, if policy it may be termed, which is now about to be forced upon us. I protest against it as a measure injurious to ourselves; weak, temporizing, and partial in its operation on foreign nations; unauthorized by the actual state of things; and calculated to hasten the period of our union with the destinies of France.
Sir, unless we turn from this wayward course, this highway to ruin, the time cannot be very distant when your deserted ports, your uninhabited cities, your oppressed people, and even your firesides and your altars, will only exhibit the sad signs of what they were. And I fear, sir, the period is fast approaching when it will not again be said, "that we are a people with whom the fierce spirit of liberty is stronger than among any other people on earth; whose institutions inspire them with lofty sentiments; who do not judge of an ill principle only by an actual grievance; but who anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle; who snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze."
When Mr. P. had concluded, the House adjourned to six o'clock this evening.