tradictory record to be produced against them | tude to encounter? At second-hand with our -to the degradation of their established politi- intermediate decision to break off the storm of cal character and consequence. Sir, on this point of consistency and adherence to our former resolves, we ought to be the more tenacious, because we have excited hopes and expectations among our constituents, and especially the commercial class, that we ought not to disappoint. Next to an English, a Spanish war is the most disastrous in which this country can be engaged. It affects, most deeply, the little commercial enterprise that is suffered to exist in the country. Upon the suggestion that you were playing at this deep game last session, a hundred commercial enterprises connected with shipments to Spanish countries and colonies were suspended. Upon your wise and virtuous rejection of this measure, hundreds of shipments of enterprises grounded on your consistency, upon your permanency of system, have commenced, and are now proceeding. Sir, it will be a gross breach of faith towards the commercial world; they will be ruined by this secret declaration of war. It will burst upon them, from this conclave, like a hurricane from the cave of Eolus, sweeping into the power of your new enemy as large an amount of property as that for which we pretend we are solicitous to seek indemnification. Where is our property? our commerce? at Cadiz-at Havana-at Lisbon. Do you suppose that the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, their allies, are dullards and fools? and that they will omit the fair and honest exercise of the rights of reprisal and retaliation? Will they not preach our doctrines against ourselves; practice our own arts, and repel aggression by aggression? It is not on the mere ground of obstinate, unenlightened, indiscriminating adherence to your former measures, that I appeal to your sense of honor, magnanimity and consistency; but in relation to the prospect of loss, of disastrous consequences, of wide-spread distress. The merchants are now pursuing a lucrative honest trade with a friendly nation, upon the ground of their special and unsuspecting confidence in this Senate. Will you disappoint that confidence, and expose them to inevitable ruin; yourselves to inevitable censure? Sir, why should we, as a Senate, at this time introduce this proposition? Is it by way of penitence for our former sin? a means of obtaining pardon for our past offences? a reparation for wrongs we have done? Or is it that some terrible necessity exists, that the Senate should entitle itself to forgiveness, and propitiate selfish and senseless clamor, by an act of submission and a surrender of its former opinions? Sir, I know we have the right to originate this measure; but is it proper, expedient, decorous in us to do it? It was, at first, the measure of the House of Representatives: let them at least re-produce it. Why this attempt to oblige us to adopt a bantling they have abandoned? Why court a perilous responsibility, which it seems they have no longer the forti public censure, they may be willing to adopt it. But let us leave to them the honor and the peril of this at least contingent measure. If it will be so productive of good as some gentlemen predict, it will be an act of condescension and liberality for us to relinquish our pretensions in their favor; but if it be an act pregnant with innumerable evils, let the responsibility rest upon the broad shoulders of the immediate representatives of the people. They have a power to which we cannot pretend, that of originating money-bills-of devising the systems of taxation. The present war has exceeded, in expense, all previous calculation; has transcended every estimate:-and the expense of the next year will be at least double that of the last. A new war must inevitably lead to a farther enormous increase of the public burdens. Shall we originate measures, and leave to them the laborious, and I am afraid odious task of exacting from the pockets of the people the means of executing them? Or shall we heedlessly precipitate the country into a new war, ignorant whether the means will ever be provided to carry it on? Let us at least wait to see what is the system of taxation which their wisdom and patriotism will present to us. It may be too intolerable to be adopted;-then this measure must fail; and we shall as a Senate have lavished our precious stock of public favor in a legislative effort at once premature and impotent. Sir, I wish to husband our peculiar reputation. Prudence, caution, and circumspection, but above all, independence; a firm, severe, and erect independence, ought to be the distinguishing qualities of this grave and dignified assembly. It is not for us to court popularity—but I am not unwilling to augment and corroborate our claims upon the public gratitude. We have already this session done much. We originated and carried through with uncommon despatch and unanimity, the bill for the augmentation of the navy. We conducted, with like dispatch and unanimity, our proceedings in regard to the Merchants' Bonds. We have unbound from the rack the victims of financial extortion, and preserved an useful and unoffending class of citizens from ruin, and the nation from disgrace. Let us not surrender these strong holds upon the public confidence. Let us at least not invoke public execration, by a rash declaration of an additional, unjust, and unnecessary war. If the car of the state is to be driven Jehu-like to destruction, let us refuse to be the charioteers. I admit, that these objections are entirely preliminary; and relate not so much to the specific merits of the question now under consideration, as to the point whether we ought to consider it at all. Whether (if I may so express myself) we ought to assume of it any cognizance whatever. But in my humble conception, these objections are not less valid and important, for being preliminary considerations such as natu rally and necessarily precede, and for a time | practice of every administration-this assertion exclude the discussion of the main question. And, sir, there is another remaining topic, under this head of argument, of more prevailing force, than either of those I have attempted to illustrate. Why, I ask, is there, in the mode of presenting this measure, a total evasion of presidential responsibility? Is it a measure of the cabinet? Then, why has it not the sanction of presidential recommendation? Why are we to be used as a constitutional screen, interposed between the people, and the efficient initiator of this measure? Where is the message, where is the manifesto, spreading out in the expansion of detail, this declaration of another war, against an innocent, neutral, and friendly country? Is it not a presidential measure? then we are driving on to the consummation of a deed of dreadful import, without the usual and necessary instructions on this subject. It may be that we are doing something in opposition to another branch of the Government, who may hold, on this subject, opinions adverse to ours; -and we are voluntarily subjecting ourselves to the peril of a dangerous conflict between the constitutional authorities. This, I again admit, we have the power of doing;-but is it right, proper, expedient and decorous to do it? There may be an extreme case presumed, when it might be proper, at all hazards, to exercise this power. But will gentlemen pretend that the case has, in this instance, occurred? Is this an occasion of such pressing emergency, of such imperious necessity, of such obvious enormity, as compels us from duty and principle to act, even at the hazard of interrupting the harmony of the different departments of the Government? By the third Section of the 2d Article of the constitution, it is made the duty of the President, from time to time, to give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. It is his imperative duty;-he shall do it. It is a fair presumption, that if he thought this measure advisable, just, honest, practicable and expedient, that he would have recommended it. I know, sir, that some gentlemen object to this course of observation;-and alarm themselves with a jealousy, that there is in this argument, something that imports a surrender of the independent powers of this House, and they repel, with some warmth and indignation, the opinion that we should not act upon our own plans and conceptions, without a previous presidential recommendation. Most undoubtedly the gentleman from Pennsylvania is correct. I admit it-this is the theory of the constitution, and there may be cases in which it would not only be the duty of this House to act without presidential communication, but something like treason not to act. But is this such a case? This resort to the dormant, theoretic principles of the constitution, in contradistinction to the daily, well-understood and unobjectionable of a truism, which, in the abstract, nobody is disposed to deny; this stripping a case of all its circumstances, for the purpose of facilitating the progress of an unusual and unexplained course, is, I confess, not a mode of reasoning, for which my plain and unscholastic mind has a preference. I admired the animation and the spirit with which the gentleman from Pennsylvania asserted his own personal independence in regard to the executive, and feel grateful to him for the clear exposition of the principles upon which our independence as a political body is constitutionally upheld. And I accord with him in the assertion, that initiative legislation in all cases but those of revenue, and uninfluenced dei beration in all cases without exception, is the right and privilege of this House. But the exercise of this right, to be practically useful and beneficial, will, from its very nature, be infrequent. It is no corroboration of that right to assert it in unqualified terms, or to resort to it without judicious discrimination or self-evident necessity. And, sir, in a case involving a change of our relations from a state of peace with a friendly nation to that of war, no instance can hardly be imagined, in which our primary interference would be justifiable. It was clearly shown by my honorable friend from Connecticut, with a peculiar felicity of illustration, and an irrefutable force of argument, to be in as little accordance with the spirit of the constitution as it is contrary to the uniform practice under it. It may be, sir, reprobated as a tory doctrine;-but I have imbibed it, from an attention to the cases that have occurred, under the administrations of Messrs. Jefferson and Madison. In the great cases of the two embargoes, in that of the war with England, in this very measure heretofore, and indeed in all where a change of our relative situation with foreign powers was contemplated, we have had an executive message-a distinct recommendation. And, sir, this is the true whig doctrine-it is the correct republican course-it fixes the responsibility upon one person-it limits-it defines it-it reduces it to a single point. We can judge of the recommendation, by the reasons by which it is enforced; we can venture to indulge in a warrantable confidence, as to the truth of the statements that are made;-because we know they are made under the consciousness and the peril of the highest official responsibility. If the measure recommended, and made the basis of our proceedings, should afterwards appear to have pro ceeded from base, corrupt, or traitorous motives, by the constitutional process of impeachment, the transgression would be visited on the actual transgressor-the national honor would be redeemed, and public justice would be vindicated. But in the present mode who is responsible? who, in any event would be impeachable? To the President solely, in the first instance is in trusted the treaty-making power. He watches | by the honorable gentleman from Georgia, bu over our concerns with foreign nations-he has from their formal public acts. I agree the he the means of intelligence the power of inter-reditary king was Charles; the rightful king ference. If the former relative situation of our is Ferninand; the intrusive, usurping king is affairs with Spain has changed, he ought and Joseph. The country is invaded by France and will, unless you presume him criminally indif- is closely allied with England; but still, in prinferent to his sacred duty and his country's wel- ciple and fact, and for all efficient purposes, the fare, announce that change. Shall we clamor- government is Spanish ;-legitimately Spanish; ously rush to arms, when the sentinel on the represented and conducted by the agents of the watch-tower has lighted no beacon-has sound- Spanish nation; who make treaties, contract ed no trumpet-has rung no alarm-bell? alliances, fight battles, achieve victories, and perform all the essential duties and mighty functicns of a great nation. We have, at this very moment, a minister from that nation resident in this country, (why he has not been publicly acknowledged it is not for me to say,) who has tendered reparation for all the wrongs Spain has, at any time, inflicted on this country-on her part unintentional wrongs, occasioned by the peculiarity of her situation-and inflicted, not from injustice, but in consequence of French instigation, and French despotic dictation. The whole of our unpublished correspondence with Spain proves that she acted under duress. These wrongs, sir, were accidental blows, which in the paroxysm of distress, she directed without aim against a friend; and for which, now restored to sanity and freedom, she feels penitence and offers reparation. It would be unjust to avenge ourselves, in her present distresses; ungenerous, because her house is on fire, to plunder it of its precious effects; unchristian not to meet penitence with forgiveness. How do we know that the functions of the treaty-making power in this instance have ceased? that the virtuous attempt to preserve the country in peace has been abandoned in despair? May we not heedlessly and officiously interfere with unclosed negotiations on this very subject and thus disappoint the best concerted efforts of the proper authority directed to the attainment of this very object, by peaceful, in preference to belligerent means? Was not this the very argument urged successfully last session, in relation to France? Were not the manifold and enormous injuries committed against us by France equally reprobated by all parties, and did we not all agree that reparation-prompt, comprehensive, effectual reparation was due? What restrained us from requiring it in the same way from France as we did from England? because the President announced to us that negotiations with the one power and not with the other were closed. Let us wait for the same communication in regard to Spain. These considerations, drawn from the nature of the treaty-making power, when first urged by my honorable friend from Connecticut, seemed by the admission of the honorable gentleman from Kentucky on my right, to have made their proper impression on his candid and intelligent mind. But he has struggled manfully against his tendency to be convinced against his will, and has reconciled himself (as we all too easily can) to a former favorite prepossession. But the course of reasoning by which the honorable gentleman achieved this victory over himself, is to my humble conception as fallacious in principle, as it has been, when acted on by ministers and politicians, baneful in its effects. It is grounded on the assumption of the fact that there is no existing authority in Spain with whom it is safe and proper to treat. This, too, is the favorite argument of the honorable gentleman from Georgia, who last addressed you. The stress and substance of his very able address, appeared to me to be this: You must do this act necessity constrains you to adopt it, as a measure of security and precaution. You cannot negotiate-there is no Spain with whom to treat; or, at any rate, there is no Spain but as identified with Great Britain. In the true republican language of old times, I should say, that is the government which the people will to be so: and I should take the evidence of that will, not from an English newspaper, Cobbett's Register, which was quoted According, sir, to our American principles, grounding ourselves on the acknowledged rules of public law, there always is a legitimate government, the government "de facto;" we interfere not with the independency or interior constitutions of foreign nations. I admit that there may exist circumstances to which this, as a general rule, must bend; but it is a fact that has been repeatedly stated in print, and never contradicted, and to the conviction of my mind, ascertained by circumstances, that the reparation offered by the Minister of the Cortes of Spain, was an immediate reparation; a reparation in rem-by the delivery of dollars actually in this country-to the amount of all our fair claims; the amount to be settled by commissioners, upon the principle of the very convention made by Mr. Charles Pinckney, once acquiesced in by this very Senate, and highly advantageous to this country. If we get the reparation by honest means, if we were snug in our indemnity by consent of parties, we clearly should have an equitable, and at all events a legal right to retain it, let what would happen. No matter who might hereafter occupy the government of Spain; no action for money, had and received, could rightfully be instituted against us; and if attempted to be exacted by force, we should then clearly have a right to repel force by force. We ought to have disdained the menaces of an interfering, usurping power, have consulted solely American interests and feelings, have taken the money, and paid it over to the suffering merchants to whom it be- | have got it, it is by private, covert negotiation, longed. It strikes me as something strange indeed, that gentlemen should assert that Spain has no government; and yet in the same breath assert that she is in strict alliance with Great Britain. Is she incapable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity, and yet in strict alliance with another nation? Has she not, lately, likewise formed a treaty with Russia, who has acknowledged her independence? Has she not, lately, issued a declaration of neutrality, in regard to this country and our present war? If Spain has no government, she has no colonies-no jurisdiction over them-they are separated from the mother, or metropolitan country-they become, as to her, foreign, independent countries; as such, their rights ought to be by us respected. We have no right to avenge ourselves for Spanish wrongs on countries not Spanish. Sir, the experience of all ages proves that it is idle to debate upon the theories of a constitution in relation to the observance of treaties. If a fair and rational treaty be made so that it is the mutual interest of parties to observe it, you have obtained the true security and only wise dependence for the continuance of peace. Treaties made by a government when under one form of internal constitution, are still binding, though that form may be changed. We have acted on and recognized this principle. Do we know of any King of Spain but Ferdinand? It is admitted he has been announced to us. Has the pretended claim of Joseph Bonaparte to the crown of Spain, its territories and colonies, ever been made known in a formal and official manner to this government? Have we ever acknowledged it? Have we had any legal or even constructive notice of his arrogant pretensions? If so, where is the correspondence? Who is his minister? Do we mean to take possession of this country under color of that title? Have we bargained, in the treaty of limits negotiated by Mr. Barlow, for the cession of this country to us? What was the consideration of that bargain? What were its terms? Is it indeed true, that the offered compensation for the robberies committed on us by France, is to be an issue of a batch of licenses and a cession of East Florida? A reparation of ill faith, by permitting us again to be exposed to its treachery-a restitution for plunder, by authorizing us to plunder. On a former occasion, when we were about to take a territory confessedly ours by treaty and purchase we were told by France to stay our hand; did we not obey her? Was not even at that time the magnanimity (as it was called) of France a theme of eulogy in this country? Was not the answer of Talleyrand to our minister, (I think Mr. Livingston,) a plain, and if the phrase can be applied to him, an honest one? If you go to war with Spain, France will take the part of Spain; and did we not in consequence desist? You either have or have not got the assent of France to this seizure; if you a mean acceptance of illegal plunder from a power whose ten thousand wrongs, injuries and insults, are unredressed, uncompensated, unrevenged. If we have not got her assent, we act inconsistently-and encounter the very danger, that of a contested title, which we affect to be solicitous to avoid; and in case, which God forbid! France should be victorious in her attempt to overthrow the liberties of mankind, we should have to restore it at her bidding. She will convert us into a mere trustee of her own appointment, for her own benefit. She will have a cession from Spain, previous to our conquest. Every thing in relation to the claim or right of France seems to be evaded; but gently touched, hinted at with the utmost delicacy and caution; traced, as it were, in doubtful characters, in chemical ink, which the heat of some future occasion is to bring out. We know our Spanish concerns are closely linked with our French concerns; but how, to what extent, we are not permitted to know. We are too scrupulous to treat with Spain as the ally of England, because we deem it beneath our dignity to treat otherwise than with an independent and co-equal power. Yet is it not true, that when Spain was in a state of vassalage to France, this was deemed no objection to frequent negotiations? We asserted her nominal independence, and treated with the vassal by permission of the Lord, and for his benefit. Does the gentleman mean to say we ought to take possession of St. Augustine, because the Spanish local authorities are opposed by conspirators, traitors to their own country; no, they have no country-by renegadoes-a banditti; or to state this in terms as little inoffensive as possible to the feelings of gentlemen, because there is a Jacobin, revolutionary movement in that country? Does a really deep, honest, spontaneous, revolutionary movement exist there? Is it not, on the contrary, an artificial, concerted, contrived, petty, patchedup miserable treason, paid for by our money, fomented by our people? Who caused that movement? was it not solely occasioned by American interference? by American instigation? When the names were read, from Matthews' communication and the other papers, could the gravest among us forbear to smile, at the paucity of Spanish names, among the conspirators? There was here and there a Don Juan, and a Don Gomez, in a long list of wellknown American names and characters. I ask gentlemen, did we find a Revolution there, or did we create it? And shall we, in violation of the principle which protects us, and every civilized Society, from hateful, corrupt, foreign interference, in shameful inconsistency with all we said and did in Henry's affair, take advantage of our own wrong, and with an hypocrisy unrivalled but by Bonaparte himself, practise the very arts, against an innocent, un But sir, I recollect there is an argument which offending people, against which we were justly indignant, when we had even a distant suspi-has been distinctly announced, and was strencion, that they might be used against our honor, our integrity, our independence? But, sir, I will not further, at present, pursue this topic; my object is not to excite adverse feeling, but merely to awaken a strict attention, and direct a temperate investigation, to the proposition before us. What is that proposition? what is the statement of the case, as presented us by the honorable chairman of the committee? It is to seize a province, belonging to Spain -to seize and occupy it by the armies of the United States-to besiege an important and formidable fortress-to use force against a present, friendly, neutral power. That is, in short, to wage war against Spain. What are the avowed reasons, or rather pretexts? I say pretexts, because it is historically and proverbially true, that those who are determined on war, who are greedy for conquest, can always find pretexts, and dignify them with the name of reasons. War indeed is the "ultima ratio regum;" and when we read the manifestoes of kings determined to make war, it is more that literary curiosity may be gratified, than that our consciences may be enlightened, or our understandings convinced. We may occasionally be delighted with the speciousness of statement, and dexterity of argument-we may be momentarily dazzled with the splendid colors with which ingenuity may deck the robe of fraud, but the inherent deformity of the design it is impossible to conceal. uously urged by the honorable gentleman from Leaning then, sir, upon this staff of authority, I say this is not only war, but an offensive war; not only an offensive, but an unjust war; not only unjust, but I am, for the honor of my country, deeply apprehensive, that in the minds of foreign nations, in the minds of a majority of this nation, whose moral sense it will offend-it is liable to the odious epithet contained in the last sentence I have quoted. It is a wicked war; it is robbery. If this is not war, but something done only in reference to and for the security of an indemnity -a reducing of a legal lien into possession-a process to confirm peace-an instrument of negotiation-it is a measure the President already has in his power. It is the treaty-making power; he can act without our aid. But, sir, can there be any doubt that this act will be war against Spain? If we reject Vattel's definition, shall we adopt that of Mr. Jefferson? Is it not an effort to do, in this instance, as much harm as we can? Is it not an attempt to reduce the people of East Florida to a foreign yoke? Are gentlemen discontented at the expression-let them examine it-it is strictly correct. Their independence of us, is to be presumed as valuable to them as our independence of them is valuable to us. They have an equal right to self-government. Their peculiar habits, usages and institutions, their very prejudices and errors, are as dear to them as ours are to us. Do we affect to pity them, and compassionate their real or imaginary sufferings, under what Mr. Monroe calls a tottering and irresolute government? They deeply reciprocate your commiseration, and congratulate themselves, that they are not as we are, protestants, republicans, and sinners. Imbecile indeed must be the understanding, disingenuous indeed the moral nature of that man, who does not instantly detect and despise, the miserable though elaborate sophistry which justifies invasion, and instigates to plunder, and in wretched inconsistency, seeks a confirmation of independence and a guarantee of the integrity of empire, in the subjugation of an innocent neighbor, and in propagating as the precursor of arms, the holy doctrines of insurrection, treason, and rebellion. I own that I rejoice, that so much pains has been taken to apologize for this measure. It shows that we still retain some sense of shame; that we do not surrender our innocence without some decent struggles to save appearances. We have not as yet acquired the unblushing hardihood of our great prototypes and models. Though unjust in our design, we pay some homage to justice; we dare not openly despise what mankind have hitherto deemed most sacred. We acknowledge, that flagrant injustice ought to arouse indignation. Shall we adopt Mr. Madison's definition of The invasions that have been carried on by war? He describes, and a majority here must other nations-the different partitions of Po- say justly describes, impressment, as an assumpland-the capture of the Danish fleet-we agree tion of self-redress-a substitution of force which were atrocious acts. But our occupation of falls within the definition of war. Do we preEast-Florida, partly by force of arms, and partly tend that we can invest fortresses, circumvallate by subornation of treason, is a different affair; cities, raise fleets and armies, and move them our pretext is indemnity. It has long ago been against a foreign nation, have all the pride, elegantly said, that when a lamb is to be devo-pomp, and circumstance of war, and yet prevent ted, any thicket in which it may happen to stray, this from being war, by asseverating it is not will furnish the fuel necessary for its sacrifice. war? |