Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)

by United States. Congress

For these injuries and insults what atonement has been made? What satisfaction has been received for your plundered property? And what is the relation in which you stand to France? At this moment, when it is well known that it would not require one additional man in the army or navy to make good, in the eye of nations, your character as an independent and high-spirited people, you are prostrate at the feet of your's and the world's undoer. Is there any thing yet wanting to fill up the full measure of injustice you have sustained? Gentlemen on all sides are obliged to admit that the provocation which we have received from France is ample; that the cup of it is overflowing. And yet, what is our situation in relation to that destroyer of mankind—him who, devising death to all that live, sits like a cormorant on the tree of life; who cannot be glutted, nor tired, with human carnage; the impersonation of death; himself an incarnate death?

All this, I say, does prove—and if it does not I call on gentlemen to disprove the fact—that there is a difference in the standard by which we measure French aggressions and the aggressions of any other people under the sun. When Spain was the ally of France she was—what? She was secure from our indignation. There was not a murderer, a barbarian, in all our Western wilderness that was not safe under the Spanish cloak. For why? Because the King of Spain, such as he was—for he wore only the semblance of a crown—was in alliance with France; and he must not be touched.

But what has Revolutionary Spain done? What offence has she committed against France? That she is not only helpless, destitute of resources, unable to return a blow, but, above all, is coveted by France, are considerations which cannot justify, on the part of France, conduct towards her more infamous than that of the English at Copenhagen—conduct cowardly as it is unprincipled. But, sir, I forewarn gentlemen of the Southern country—I do beseech them, with a sincerity which no man can have a right to question—to beware how they transfer the theatre of war from the rocks and snows of Canada to the sandhills, the rice-fields, the tobacco plantations of the Southern States. For them to think of voluntarily consenting to make that region the theatre of the war, would compel me to believe that they are on the verge of that madness which precedes the destruction of all doomed by Heaven to perish.

Sir, I have just touched, with trembling and faltering hand, some of the preliminary observations which I had intended, at some time or other, to make, into which I have now been prematurely forced to enter, not more unexpectedly than unavoidably, by the strange turn which this debate has taken.

There are two other points—for, in respect to the Orders of Council, I shall not say a word about them—upon which I am very anxious to offer myself to your attention: the one the celebrated point of impressment, which, though it has been very ably handled, is not yet exhausted: the other the Indian war on our Western border. And I also wish to say something on the subject of negotiation. In the midst of a war with one of the greatest powers of Europe, why should the gleam of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife, the cries of massacred women and children reaching our ears—why should these fright us from our propriety? Why, we are told the Indians of the West have been stirred up to war with us by British agents. But what is the fact? That we have no Indian war, but a war of our own seeking, as I have already, in the course of this session, read to you certain proofs; and I will now give you another. It is this: It is agreed on all hands—no man has attempted to dispute it—that, in the affair of the battle of Tippecanoe, the commander and the officers distinguished themselves by the greatest gallantry. How has it happened, then, that while we have been freely voting medals to those gallant officers of our navy who have distinguished themselves on the ocean—and I hope we shall vote them something more substantial—not a whisper has been heard in relation to those who have been engaged in this expedition against the Indians? The subject has not been even inquired into.

Do we know, at this moment, as a Legislature, the causes of that disastrous business—I call it so from its consequences—or by whose authority this war was made? Or, is it come to this: that Governors of our Territories are to consider themselves as so many Hastings and Wellesleys of our country, and that, while they do not involve us in war with Christians like themselves, they may go to any extent in exterminating the Red Barbarians here as in the East Indies Governors and Proconsuls of the British Government do there in regard to uncivilized powers of that quarter of the globe? Is it discovered that our Territorial Governors may at pleasure invade the territory of other nations—for, inconsiderable and contemptible though they be, the Indian tribes are nations—in like manner that the British authorities make war upon those nations of the East? Yes, sir, not only is this a war of our own seeking—not only we had it in our power to keep the peace—but in the country which was the scene of the battle, and in the adjacent country, it was the most popular war ever waged. The frontier people of this country have been in the habit of driving the heathen before them; and to them the chase of the deer, the elk, and the antelope, is not so grateful as that of the red men they hunt. I believe that it is the cause of serious regret to many of the people of the West that there is now no longer any motive to drive them from their lands. As to the Red Men, the Big-Knives have, without any foreign prompting or instigation, driven them off from a country more extensive than that over which the Emperor of France wields his sceptre. So I put aside this item of Indian war altogether as a matter of account in the list of our grievances against the British Government. There is not a shadow of foundation for believing that these Indians were or could have been instigated to take up the hatchet against us until hostile arms had been taken up against them. When driven to the wall they must fight or die—the last alternative left to them—for which nobody can blame them.

It was, sir, a saying of one of the best men who ever wrote, in correspondence with a friend, that he had no time to write a shorter letter; and I can truly say that I have not time to deliver a shorter speech. I know that this question will be taken to-day, for I have been so admonished; and my own very severe and sudden indisposition, which I am almost ashamed to name, will compel me to detain your attention much longer than under other circumstances would have been the case.

A word, now, on the subject of impressment. Our foreign trade had grown beyond the capacity of either our tonnage or seamen to manage. Our mercantile marine was an infant Hercules; but it was overloaded beyond its strength: the crop was too abundant to be gathered by our hands alone. The consequence was, and a natural one too, that not only the capitalists flocked into our country from abroad to share in our growing commerce, but the policy also of our Government was adapted to it, and a law was passed to enable us to avail ourselves of the services of British seamen and seamen of other countries. And, in doing this, we availed ourselves of the pretext—which, as long as the countries to which they belonged winked at it, was fair for us to use—of taking these British seamen for Americans. It was in 1796 that commenced the act, to which reference has been made, and that system of "protections," as they were called, the very mention of which, at this day, causes a burst of honest indignation in the breast of citizens whose situation enables them to ascertain their true character. If these "protections," so termed, have not been forged all over Europe, it is only for the reason that the notes of a certain bank of which I have heard have not been forged, viz: that, the bank being broke, its notes were so worthless that people would not even steal them. The "protections" are attainable by everybody; by men of all ages, countries, and descriptions. They are a mere farce. The issuing of them has gone far to disgrace the character of the country, and has brought into question and jeopardy the rights of real American citizens. This question of impressment, delicate as it has been said to be—difficult as in one view it certainly is—is, of all others, in my judgment, the most compact. With the gentleman from New York, I will say that the tide of emigration has brought to the shores of our country many most valuable characters; some of them persons with whom I have the honor of being in habits, not only of intimacy, but friendship. I believe there does not exist one man of this description, who comes bona fide to this country to settle himself and children here, that would require you to go to war on his account. And, sir, I believe that the belligerent position itself in which you now find yourself will relieve you in a great degree of this evil, for many seamen who have so long, by virtue of these "protections," passed themselves off for American, will find it to be very convenient to be Portuguese or Swedish seamen, or seamen of some other State than the United States—some State that is not at war with England. Sir, there is a wide difference between the character of American seamen and seamen of every other country on earth. The American seaman has a home on the land, a domicil, a wife and children, to whom he is attached, to whom he is in the habit of returning after his voyages; with whom he spends, sometimes, a long vacation from the toils of maritime life. It is not so with the seamen of other countries. For the protection of men of the first description, I am disposed, if necessary, to use the force of the country, but for no other. I know, indeed, that some gentlemen who have spoken much on the subject of the principle of impressment, will tell you that the right to take from a neutral vessel one seaman, if carried to its extent, involves a right to take any, or all seamen. Why, sir, in like manner, it might be argued that the taking illegally of one vessel at sea involves the right to take every vessel. And yet, sir, who ever heard of two nations going to war about a single case of capture, though admitted not to be justified by the laws? Such a case never did and never will occur.

Of one thing we are certain: it rests upon no doubtful ground: that Great Britain, rather than surrender the right of impressing her own seamen, will nail her colors to the mast, and go down with them. And she is right, because, when she does surrender it, she is Samson shorn of his strength: the sinews of her power are cut. I say this openly in the House of Representatives; and I am not communicating to the enemy a secret of any value, because she has herself told us that she can never surrender it. She has told us so, not when she stood in the relation of an enemy toward us, but in the friendly intercourse of the British Ministry with our late Commissioners at London. Turn to the book: I wish the honorable gentleman, if he has it, would for a moment let me have the use of it. You are told in that book that every effort was made by the American Commissioners to effect a relaxation of this right; that the British Ministry evinced the sincerest desire to give satisfaction to them on this point: but what? The Admiralty was consulted; they waked up out of their slumbers the Civilians at Doctors' Commons to deliberate upon it; and they came to the conclusion that the Government of Great Britain could not give up that right. Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney, the Commissioners of the United States to negotiate a treaty with the Government of Great Britain, in their correspondence with their own Government, give this fact to excuse themselves for failing to accomplish their object, and to prove that every thing had been done that could be on their part, and every thing conceded on the other side that the most friendly disposition could warrant—and here I do not speak of masked friendship, but of real friendship. Although every thing possible had been done, this right of impressment of her own seamen was a sine qua non on the part of Great Britain—one which would not, could not, must not, be surrendered. And, sir, if this question of the right of impressment was one on which we were to go to war with Great Britain, we ought to have gone to war then; because we were then told by the highest authority in that Government that this was a point which never would be given up.

I find, sir, that I cannot trust my broken voice to read the book, now that it is in my hand, but must rely upon my recollection for facts.