venture to call it in aid of their purposes. It may bring in its train some recollections not suited to give ease or hope to their bosoms. I beg gentlemen who are so frequent in their recurrence to that period, to remember, that among the causes which led to a separation from Great Britain, the following are enumerated: "Unnecessary restrictions upon trade; cutting off commercial intercourse between the colonies; embarrassing our fisheries; wantonly depriving our citizens of necessaries; invasion of private property by governmental edicts; the authority of the commander-inchief, and under him of the brigadier-general, being rendered supreme in the civil government; the commander-in-chief of the army made governor of a colony; citizens transferred from their native country for trial." Let gentlemen beware how they appeal to the spirit of '76; lest it come with the aspect, not of a friend, but of a tormentor; lest they find a warning, when they look for support, and instead of encouragement they are presented with an awful lesson.

But repealing the embargo will be submission to tribute. The popular ear is fretted with this word tribute; and an odium is attempted to be thrown upon those, who are indignant at this abandonment of their rights, by representing them as the advocates of tribute. Sir, who advocates it? No man in this country, I believe. This outcry about tribute is the veriest bugbear that was ever raised, in order to persuade men to quit rights which God and nature had given them. In the first place, it is scarce possible, that, if left to himself, the interest of the merchant could ever permit him to pay the British re-exportation duty, denominated tribute. France, under penalty of confiscation, prohibits our vessels from receiving a visit from an English ship, or touching at an English port. In this state of things, England pretends to permit us to export to France certain articles, paying her a duty. The statement of the case shows the futility of the attempt. Who will pay a duty to England for permission to go to France to be confiscated? But suppose there is a mistake in this, and that it may be the interest of the merchant to pay such duty, for the purpose of going to certain destruction, have not you full powers over this matter? Cannot you, by pains and penalties, prohibit the merchant from the payment of such a duty? No man will obstruct There is, as I believe, but one opinion upon this subject. I hope, therefore, that gentlemen will cease this outcry about

tribute.

However, suppose that the payment of this duty is inevitable, which it certainly is not, let me ask-Is embargo independence? Deceive not yourselves. It is palpable submission. Gentlemen. exclaim, Great Britain "smites us on one cheek." And what does administration? "It turns the other also." Gentlemen say,

Great Britain is a robber; she takes our cloak." And what say administration? "Let her take our coat also." France and Great Britain require you to relinquish a part of your commerce, and you yield it entirely. Sir, this conduct may be the way to dignity and honor in another world, but it will never secure safety and independence in this.

At every corner of this great city we meet some gentlemen of the majority wringing their hands and exclaiming "What shall we do? Nothing but embargo will save us. Remove it, and what shall we do?" Sir, it is not for me, an humble and uninfluential individual, at an awful distance from the predominant influences, to suggest plans of government. But to my eye, the path of our duty is as distinct as the milky way; all studded with living sapphires; glowing with cumulating light. It is the path of active preparation; of dignified energy. It is the path of 1776. It consists not in abandoning our rights, but in supporting them, as they exist, and where they exist on the ocean, as well as on the land. It consists in taking the nature of things, as the measure of the rights of your citizens; not the orders and decrees of imperious foreigners. Give what protection you can. Take no counsel of fear. Your strength will increase with the trial, and prove greater than you are now aware.

But I shall be told, "This may lead to war." I ask, "Are we now at peace?" Certainly not, unless retiring from insult be peace; unless shrinking under the lash be peace. The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it. The idea, that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war, is inculcated too studiously among us. Disgrace is worse. Abandonment of essential rights is worse.

Sir, I could not refrain from seizing the first opportunity of spreading before this house the sufferings and exigencies of New England, under this embargo. Some gentlemen may deem it not strictly before us. In my opinion, it is necessarily. For, if the idea of the committee be correct, and embargo is resistance, then this resolution sanctions its continuance. If, on the contrary, as I contend, embargo is submission, then this resolution is a pledge of its repeal.

SPEECH OF JOHN RANDOLPH,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 10, 1811,

On the second resolution reported by the committee of foreign relations, "That an additional force of ten thousand regular troops ought to be immediately raised, to serve for three years; and that a bounty in lands ought to be given to encourage enlistment."

MR. SPEAKER,

This is a question, as it has been presented to this house, of peace or war. In that light it has been argued; in no other light can I consider it, after the declarations made by members of the committee of foreign relations. Without intending any disrespect to the chair, I must be permitted to say, that if the decision yesterday was correct, "that it was not in order to advance any arguments against the resolution, drawn from topics before other committees of the house," the whole debate, nay, the report itself, on which we are acting, is disorderly, since the increase of the military force is a subject, at this time, in agitation by a select committee, raised on that branch of the president's message. But it is impossible that the discussion of a question, broad as the wide ocean of our foreign concerns, involving every consideration of interest, of right, of happiness, and of safety at home; touching, in every point, all that is dear to freemen, "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor," can be tied down by the narrow rules of technical routine.

The committee of foreign relations have, indeed, decided that the subject of arming the militia (which has been pressed upon them as indispensable to the public security), does not come within the scope of their authority. On what ground, I have been and still am unable to see, they have felt themselves authorized to recommend the raising of standing armies, with a view (as has been declared) of immediate war-a war, not of defence, but of conquest, of aggrandizement, of ambition-a war foreign to the interests of this country-to the interests of humanity itself.

I know not how gentlemen, calling themselves republicans, can advocate such a war. What was their doctrine in 1798 and '9, when the command of the army-that highest of all possible trusts in

any government, be the form what it may-was reposed in the bosom of the father of his country-the sanctuary of a nation's love; the only hope that never caine in vain!-when other worthies of the revolution, Hamilton, Pinkney, and the younger Washington, men of tried patriotism, of approved conduct and valor, of untarnished honor, held subordinate command under him. Republicans were then unwilling to trust a standing army even to his hands, who had given proof that he was above all human temptation. Where now is the revolutionary hero, to whom you are about to confide this sacred trust? To whom will you confide the charge of leading the flower of our youth to the heights of Abraham? Will you find him in the person of an acquitted felon? What! then you were unwilling to vote an army where such men as have been named held high command! When Washington himself was at the head, did you show such reluctance, feel such scruples; and are you now nothing loath, fearless of every conse quence? Will you say that your provocations were less then than now, when your direct commerce was interdicted, your ambassadors hooted with derision from the French court, tribute demanded, actual war waged upon you?

Those who opposed the army then, were, indeed, denounced as the partisans of France; as the same men (some of them at least) are now held up as the advocates of England; those firm and undeviating republicans, who then dared, and now dare, to cling to the ark of the constitution, to defend it even at the expense of their fame, rather than surrender themselves to the wild projects of mad ambition. There is a fatality attending plenitude of power. Soon or late, some mania seizes upon its possessors; they fall from the dizzy height through giddiness. Like a vast estate, heaped up by the labor and industry of one man, which seldom survives the third generation; power gained by patient assiduity, by a faithful and regular discharge of its attendant duties, soon gets above its own origin. Intoxicated with their own greatness, the federal party fell. Will not the same causes produce the same effects now as then? Sir, you may raise this ariny, you may build up this vast structure of patronage; but "lay not the flattering unction to your souls;" you will never live to enjoy the succession. You sign your political death-warrant.

[After adverting to the provocation to hostilities from shutting up the Mississippi, by Spain, in 1803, Mr. Randolph proceeded as follows:]

The peculiar situation of the frontier, at that time insulted, alone induced the committee to recommend the raising of regular troops. It was too remote from the population of the country for the militia to act, in repelling and chastising Spanish incursion. New Orleans and its dependencies were separated by a vast ex

tent of wilderness from the settlements of the old United States; filled with a disloyal and turbulent people, alien to our institutions, language and manners, and disaffected towards our government. Little reliance could be placed upon them; and it was plain, that if "it was the intention of Spain to advance on our possessions until she be repulsed by an opposing force," that force must be a regular army, unless we were disposed to abandon all the country south of Tennessee; that "the protection of our citizens and the spirit and the honor of our country required that force should be interposed." Nothing remained but for the legislature to grant the only practicable means, or to shrink from the most sacred of all its duties to abandon the soil and its inhabitants to the mercy of hostile invaders. Yet this report, moderate as it was, was deemed of too strong a character by the house. It was rejected: and, at the motion of a gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Bidwell) [who has since taken a great fancy also to Canada, and marched off thither, in advance of the committee of foreign relations],"two millions of dollars were appropriated towards" (not in full of) "any extraordinary expense which might be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations;" in other words, to buy off, at Paris, Spanish aggressions at home. Was this fact given in evidence of our impartiality towards the belligerents? That to the insults and injuries and actual invasion of one of them, we opposed, not bullets, but dollars; that to Spanish invasion we opposed money, whilst for British aggression on the high seas we had arms-offensive war? But Spain was then shielded, as well as instigated, by a greater power. Hence our respect for her. Had we at that time acted as we ought to have done in defence of our rights of the natale solum itself, we should, I feel confident, have avoided that series of insult, disgrace and injury, which has been poured out upon us in long, unbroken succession. We would not, then, raise a small, regular force for a country, where the militia could not act, to defend our own territory; now we are willing to levy a great army-for great it must be to accomplish the proposed object for a war of conquest and ambition; and this, too, at the very entrance of the "northern hive" of the strongest part of the union.

An insinuation has fallen from the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Grundy), that the late massacre of our brethren on the Wabash was instigated by the British government. Has the president given any such information? Is it so believed by the administration? I have cause to believe the contrary to be the fact that such is not their opinion. This insinuation is of the grossest kind a presumption the most rash, the most unjustifiable. Show but good ground for it, I will give up the question at the threshold; I will be ready to march to Canada. It is, indeed,