In that period, we have seen a war declared, precipitately and prematurely; for, notwithstanding all the arguments urged on that occasion, with so much zeal and eloquence, time has dissipated all; the illusion has vanished; your army, so confidently expected, did not, under the magic of that declaration, spring into existence; the condition of your enlistments would not, I apprehend, at this hour, justify the declaration of war. We have seen, sir, that war conducted in a manner well to comport with the spirit in which it was declared; disaster upon disaster in rapid succession have followed; the tone and heart of the country broken; universal disgust at the past, and deep concern and anxiety for the future, prevail everywhere.

And what, Mr. Speaker, is now proposed for the future—what is to retrieve our affairs—on what are our hopes to rest? An army of twelve-months' men! A broken reed! An army and term of service, which well nigh lost the country in the Revolutionary war; an army which in every step and stage of that war received the uniform and reiterated censure and condemnation of Washington, and every intelligent officer of that period; an army that stands recorded by every historian of that war with deep reproach and reprobation. Such is the foundation of our future hopes; shutting our eyes upon the lessons of experience, we live but to repeat former errors and renew our sufferings. Shall we never learn, that a soldier is not the creature of an hour; that he must be seasoned to the hardships of war; that to remove your recruit from his fireside, from his plentiful board, and all the comforts with which he is surrounded, to the theatre of service, there to sleep on the ground in tents, with two or three articles of subsistence only, is to give him up a victim to disease, to consign him to the grave? This precise result is presented to the mind by the melancholy review of the last campaign; disease and death have walked abroad in our armies on the frontier; they have been swept to the grave as by the besom of destruction. It has not stopped with your army; the frontier inhabitants, infected by the diseases of the camp, fly from the deadly theatre as from a destroying angel! Shall we never learn the difference between our situation, and that of nations who have a competent military establishment, sufficient at all times for both offensive and defensive operations?

The slender Military Establishment of the United States, whilst it consults economy, and favors the genius of the Government, forbids a hasty resort to war, especially extra-territorial and offensive war; time for preparation, after the measure is resolved on, is indispensable; and a disregard of our situation in this respect cannot fail to induce defeat and disaster—to produce such a campaign as has just now closed.

But, Mr. Speaker, wherefore change the term of enlistment, from five years, or during the war, to one year? The sole avowed object of the war by land was the conquest of the Canadas. Are you at this hour nearer your object than on the day you declared war, or has that object, with a steady and sure pace, constantly receded from you as you have advanced in the war? Is Canada so far conquered that you can now reduce the term of enlistment? It is impossible to shut our eyes on the past; while all is disgust and despondency with our own citizens—sick of the past, and concerned for the future; while every post brings to the Cabinet fearful and alarming changes in the sentiments of the people under this ill-fated war; your enemy, the Canadians, take courage, their wavering sentiments have become resolved, and union in defence of their firesides, the land that gives them bread, is spreading and cementing all in the patriotic vow.

There was a time, sir, when you had friends in the Upper Province; there were many who wished well to your arms, and would have greeted your approach, but that ill-fated policy which precipitated every thing, which in zeal for the end overlooked the means, has blasted all our hopes from that quarter. The Canadian, while he knows your power, distrusts your wisdom and your capacity to conduct the war; he dares not commit himself, his all, to such auspices. Hence, sir, difficulties thicken on every side, and at least three times the force is now necessary to effect the conquest, which would have been required at the commencement of the war. Have we made an impression on the Prince Regent and his Ministry? are they now more disposed to succumb and accept your terms than before the war? How stand the people of the British Empire? Instead of their coercing the Government into our terms, which we fondly anticipated, the late election to Parliament shows them disposed to go hand in hand with the Government in resisting our claims and inflicting on us all the evils of war. "Maritime Rights" are echoed and re-echoed with applause throughout the Empire. Such, sir, are the bitter fruits of your policy, and to what farther point the same hand shall conduct the destinies of the country, remains to be seen.

I seek not to aggravate the misconduct of the war, nor to commend our enemies, but only wish, sir, that we may see things as they are, our actual situation, and thus look danger in the face. Do you persevere in the conquest of Canada? Pass not the barrier with an army of less than forty-five or fifty thousand men: if you do, in my apprehension, the defeats and disasters of the past campaign will be visited upon you; another army will be made to pass under the yoke, and at the end of the year, you will find yourself still further removed from your object. The tug of war is now placed fairly before us, we cannot advance without meeting it. Such, Mr. Speaker, are the grounds on which I object to this twelve-months' army; it is not adapted to the professed object of the war, the conquest of Canada. Is there, sir, any other object in contemplation of the Government; any other land of leeks and onions, which Heaven has given us, or to which our destinies lead? Is the South of easier access than the North, and is the circle of hostility to be extended to that quarter? We profess a pacific policy; moderation and justice are our boast; let us beware how we commit to the hazard this high and enviable character; how we yield, on specious grounds, to the mad and destructive policy which we reprobate in others; a policy which has in all periods overwhelmed nations with calamity, and swelled the tide of human misery.

I fear there are points in our neutral course, in our relative conduct towards Great Britain and France which will not bear examination. You proclaimed the Berlin and Milan decrees revoked, and put upon Great Britain the threatened alternative of non-intercourse. Was the fact so? You took a promise for the fact; you proclaimed the fact, while France herself, the author of the deed and party to be benefited, denies and disowns it as done at the time. Here was a fatal error, a departure from the straight line of justice; and when our error in this was palpable to all the world, we gave no explanation, no excuse, but persevered in a measure which led to war. It is this course, sir, this departure from even-handed neutrality between Great Britain and France, that has lost you the support of your own citizens to a great and alarming extent, and at this moment sustains the British Ministry in the hearts of Englishmen. It is this belief of our Government's leaning to France, that has carried that Ministry so triumphantly through the late elections to Parliament.

If any thing could add to the gloom and sicken the mind under the prospect before us, it is the inauspicious conjunction of events. America and France both making war at the same time on Great Britain; we making the enemy of France our enemy, and this at the ill-fated moment when the all-grasping Emperor of that country is rolling a baleful cloud, charged with destruction, north upon the Russian Empire; upon a power always just to America; upon our truest and best friend in the European theatre. Against such a friend, at such a period, we have beheld the march of the Corsican through rivers of blood; his footsteps are traced over the ashes of the proudest cities, and he sits himself down, at length, at Moscow, like Marius over the ruins of Carthage.

The question was then taken on Mr. Clay's motion, and negatived.

Mr. Macon moved to strike out one, and insert five years as the term of enlistment. He regretted as much as any one the disasters which had befallen the country; and there was but one way to obviate their effects, and that was by rising superior to them, as a part of the nation had already done—he meant the Western country, where a patriotism had been exhibited equal to that which might have distinguished Rome in its best days. Their zeal was equal to their bravery—and the only drawback on their enterprise was the difficulty of finding something to eat in the wilderness. We must rise after reverses. What, sir, said Mr. M., would have become of Rome, had she desponded when Hannibal defeated her armies? She rose upon it and became the mistress of the world. What would have been the situation of our cause in the Revolution, if, after the British successes in Jersey, we had desponded? But the men of Pennsylvania and New Jersey rose on it, and victory and triumph followed. Our object now ought to be to recover the ground we have lost, and meet the enemy with troops that will insure success. We are told, sir, this war has united England to a man. Sir, I never expected aid from our enemies. Let us follow so good an example, and unite to a man; let us remember the old Continental maxim—"United we stand, divided we fall." If we were as united in defence of our rights, as England is in her usurpations, this war would not last a single campaign—and I hope in this respect we shall, at least, learn wisdom from an enemy. The calculations about one or two campaigns, however, in present circumstances, are visionary. We have engaged an enemy not in the habit of yielding very soon. But, if we were to unite, the question would soon be settled. The cause and object of this war has been more concisely stated by one of those actively engaged in it, than by any other person—I mean Captain Porter's motto—"Free trade and sailors' rights;" no man could have given a better definition of it. It appears to me that one part of this continent ought to be zealous for the rights of seamen—another part for a free export trade; and, if we were, as we ought to be, united, the war would be carried on with energy and with success. I agree with the gentleman from New Jersey, that this thing is not to be done by paper men. My opinion is, that the best thing we can do, is to raise men for five years. Let the Legislature of the country do its duty. If the thirty-five thousand men, now authorized, be not enough, let us get as many as will be adequate to the end we propose. Gentlemen have thought proper to review former transactions. I would be willing to pass them over. I believe almost every measure adopted by the General Government would have had its destined effect if adhered to. You have always got the better of the argument; you have better proclamations; but what avails all this? Britain has impressed your seamen, and given you blows for good words. You have been heretofore told your paper measures were worth nothing: now that it is proposed to give blow for blow, what is said? That you are departing from the pacific system, which the same persons before reprobated, and to which they have become friendly only after every attempt at pacification has failed. Sir, we are now engaged in war, and we must succeed or we must yield the rights of sailors and free trade. Does any man doubt that the war is justly undertaken? Is there a man in the nation—I care not of what political sect, many as there are—who believes that the war is not undertaken on just grounds—that we had not borne with their indignities till we could have borne them no longer? After plundering your property and impressing your seamen on the ocean, their agents have been sent into this nation to sow divisions among us, who ought to be but one family. What crime has been left undone? what injury have we not suffered? Could one be added to the catalogue? It seems to me not. No man loves peace more than I do, and if it had not been for Great Britain sending her agents to our firesides, I do not know but I should have voted against the war. It seemed to me like an attempt on a man's daughter. Not content with vexing and harassing you whenever you went from home, they came here to put strife into your family. You have been told that the Prince Regent and his Ministers are firm. Sir, we never calculated on their receding, but on the energies and force of the nation to obtain redress, and if we had been united, we should have equalled our most sanguine expectations. Let us follow their example, and determine to maintain our national rights, as they do to maintain their usurpations on them.