I have been led into this digression in consequence of remarks which have fallen from the other side of the House, but will now return to my subject.
A gentleman from New York, (Mr. Stow,) who addressed you early in this debate, told us that he reprobated the war, and had no confidence in the Administration to conduct it to a successful issue, but should vote for the bill to enable them to carry it on. This is strange political logic to my understanding. While I subscribe fully to his premises, the reasonings of my mind bring me to a very different result. Because I deprecate this war as pregnant with great evils, if not ruin to my country, I will, therefore, take all constitutional measures to bring it to a speedy and honorable close; and because I have no confidence in the Executive department of our Government, nor in the subordinate agents who have been appointed to vote for this bill, which, if adopted, will enlist still greater evils on this devoted country.
In presenting the subject to this honorable committee, in its most appropriate form, it may be proper to examine into the prominent causes of our dispute, which has terminated in open war with Great Britain. These I take to be three, viz:
1. The Orders in Council.
2. Impressment of our seamen.
3. The attack upon the Chesapeake.
That we may narrow the point in controversy as much as possible, I remark that ample and satisfactory atonement having been made for the violation of our rights by the attack on the Chesapeake, one cause of disquietude and a prominent one too, has been finally removed. It has indeed been frequently remarked on this floor, that the satisfaction offered for the unauthorized attack on the frigate Chesapeake was long delayed, and very reluctantly offered. However painful it may be to censure the conduct of our own Government, yet a sense of justice obliges me to say, that to every overture made by Great Britain to accommodate this unpleasant affair, our Administration attached some exceptionable condition which closed the door to an amicable adjustment. The committee cannot have forgotten the early disavowal of this wanton aggression on the honor of our flag by the British Government, and the tender of satisfaction which was made, but failed because our Minister was instructed to couple with this complaint the subject of impressment; nor can they have forgotten how indignant the Ministry and nation were when the President assumed the right of judging what would best comport with the honor of their King. Few, I believe, who read the offensive remark, expect a different result from that which ensued. And while I am upon this subject I take occasion to remark, that in all our attempts to negotiate with the British Government there seems to have been some untoward circumstance, some unfortunate condition, either accidentally or intentionally, attached to the question at issue, which has defeated the negotiation.
It would be within the scope of my present plan to take a particular review of the British Orders in Council, as well as the subject of impressments. But inasmuch as the documents relating to these two subjects have been laid on every gentleman's table; and more especially when I reflect that both topics have been very ably discussed by some gentlemen who have preceded me, and especially by the gentleman who has just sat down, (Mr. Bleecker,) I shall content myself with taking but a brief review of these prominent, and I may add, the only remaining causes for the present war. As to the Orders in Council, it ought not to be forgotten, that during several lengthy discussions to obtain their repeal, as well by our Ministers in London, as at this place, they have been considered as the prominent point in dispute. So, again, as to the origin of our restrictive system; it cannot be forgotten that the friends and abettors of those measures uniformly professed that they were adopted as retaliatory for the Orders in Council. From the first partial non-importation act, which passed on the eighteenth of April, 1806, down to the law of the second of March, 1811, the object has been, on the very face of the law, to procure a repeal of the Orders in Council, and of the Berlin and Milan decrees. If any doubt should remain on the mind of any member of this committee as to this fact, I beg him to turn his eye to the restrictive code, and I presume he will find the evidence to be abundant and complete. In this system of anti-commercial regulations, I find the origin and progress of our present political calamities. And here, Mr. Chairman, I shall readily admit, that we had grievances and complaints, great and heavy, against both of the belligerents; nor have I the least inclination to palliate or excuse them. My object is to show, what I have uniformly expressed on this floor, that our system of non-importation, non-intercourse, and embargo, have been directed against the Orders in Council, as to Great Britain, and nothing else; and finally, have brought this country into a ruinous war. Is there a man within these walls, who does not now believe (as was fully predicted when the law passed) that the conditions held out to the two great belligerents, to induce them to repeal their obnoxious edicts, violating the neutral commerce of the United States, placed the execution of our law in the hands of a foreign Government? Is there a man of ordinary capacity in the United States, having the means of information, who now believes that the Berlin and Milan decrees were repealed on the 1st of November, 1810, according to the proclamation of the President of the United States, solemnly announcing that fact; and that they thenceforward ceased to violate our neutral commerce? Does not candor constrain all to confess that, long after the pretended repeal of the aforesaid decrees, our commerce was harassed in every sea where French cruisers could reach it? Need I point you to the piratical seizures and burning of American property in the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic seas, by the privateers and fleets of the French Empire; subsequent to this pretended repeal, and sanctioned expressly by its authority? If all other evidence should be deemed insufficient, I inquire whether the French Emperor himself has not sufficiently humbled this country (if indeed our cup of humiliation had not been full before) by his own formal antedated repeal of his Berlin and Milan decrees, long subsequent to the time imposed on the President by the Duke of Cadore?
It cannot have escaped the attention of the committee, or of the nation, that Napoleon's decree, respecting the Berlin and Milan decrees, bears date the 28th of April, 1811, and is explicitly bottomed on the law of Congress passed March 2, 1811; the sole object of which law was to confirm the proclamation of the President which had then been issued more than four months, and the legality of which had become very questionable. This decree may be found among the documents accompanying the President's Message of November 4th, 1812, and on the forty-sixth page of those printed papers.
If further evidence should be needed to prove the abominable fraud of this transaction, it may be found in the correspondence of our Minister at Paris, in the summer of 1811, wherein he remarks, that he had repeatedly demanded evidence of the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees, but none could be obtained. And yet, forsooth, we are now furnished with a decree dated in April preceding, but not issued until we are so entangled in French toils, that war with Great Britain was inevitable. If this fact alone had been understood, I put it to the candor of this honorable committee to say, whether they would have consented to the declaration of war against Great Britain at the time and for the reasons which were given? I say, without fear of contradiction, that they would not. If my premises are true, and the inference undisputed, since the Government has been grossly deceived and drawn into this war, for reasons and causes which did not then exist, most assuredly it becomes our duty as well as interest to relieve the country from its pressure as soon as possible.