have nothing, or next to nothing, to fear-to the aggrandizement of one against which you have every thing to dread. I look to their ability and interest-not to their disposition. When you rely on that, the case is desperate. Is it to be inferred from all this, that I would yield to Great Britain? No; I would act towards her now, as I was disposed to do towards France in 1798-9-treat with her; and for the same reason, on the same principles. Do I say treat with her? At this moment you have a negotiation pending with her government. With her you have not tried negotiation and failed, totally failed, as you have done with Spain, or rather France. And wherefore, under such circumstances, this hostile spirit to the one, and this (I won't say what), to the other? ences were accommodated without a war. And what is there in the situation of England that invites to war with her? 'Tis true she does not deal so largely in perfectibility, but she supplies you with a much more useful commodity with coarse woollens. With less professions indeed, she occupies the place of France in 1793. She is the sole bulwark of the human race against universal dominion. No thanks to her for it. In protecting her own existence, she insures theirs. I care not who stands in this situation, whether England or Bonaparte-I practise the doctrines now, that I professed in 1798. Gentlemen may hunt up the journals if they please-I voted against all such projects under the administration of John Adams, and I will continue to do so under that of Thomas Jefferson. Are you not contented with being But a great deal is said about the laws of nafree and happy at home? Or will you surren- tions. What is national law, but national power der these blessings, that your merchants may guided by national interest? You yourselves tread on Turkish and Persian carpets, and burn acknowledge and practise upon this principle the perfumes of the east in their vaulted rooms? where you can, or where you dare; with the Gentlemen say, 'tis but an annual million lost, Indian tribes, for instance. I might give anoand even if it were five times that amount, what ther and more forcible illustration. Will the is it compared with your neutral rights? Sir, learned lumber of your libraries add a ship to let me tell them a hundred millions will be but your fleet, or a shilling to your revenue? Will a drop in the bucket, if once they launch with- it pay or maintain a single soldier? And will out rudder or compass, into this ocean of foreign you preach and prate of violations of your warfare. Whom do they want to attack-Eng-neutral rights, when you tamely and meanly land? They hope it is a popular thing, and submit to the violation of your territory? Will talk about Bunker's Hill, and the gallant feats you collar the stealer of your sheep, and let of our revolution. But is Bunker's Hill to be him escape that has invaded the repose of your the theatre of war? No, sir, you have selected fireside; has insulted your wife and children the ocean-and the object of attack is that very under your own roof? This is the heroism of navy which prevented the combined fleets of truck and traffic-the public spirit of sordid France and Spain from levying contributions avarice. Great Britain violates your flag on the upon you in your own seas-that very navy high seas. What is her situation? Contendwhich, in the famous war of 1798, stood be- ing, not for the dismantling of Dunkirk, for tween you and danger. Quebec, or Pondicherry, but for London and Westminster-for life. Her enemy violating, at will, the territories of other nations-acquiring thereby a colossal power, that threatens the very existence of her rival. But she has one vulnerable point to the arms of her adversary, which she covers with the ensigns of neutrality. She draws the neutral flag over the heel of Achilles. And can you ask that adversary to respect it at the expense of her existence ?-and in favor of whom?-an enemy that respects no neutral territory of Europe, and not even your own? I repeat that the insults of Spain towards this nation have been at the instigation of France: that there is no longer any Spain. Well, sir, because the French Government do not put this into the Moniteur, you choose to shut your eyes to it. None so blind as those who will not see. You shut your own eyes, and to blind those of other people, you go into conclave, and slink out again and say "a great affair of State !"-C'est une grande affaire d'Etat! It seems that your sensibility is entirely confined to the extremities. You may be pulled by the nose and ears, and never feel it ; but let your strong box be attacked, and you are all nerve-"Let us go to war!" Sir, if they called upon me only for my little peculium Whilst the fleets of the enemy were pent up in Toulon, or pinioned in Brest, we performed wonders, to be sure; but, sir, if England had drawn off, France would have told you quite a different tale. You would have struck no medals. This is not the sort of conflict that you are to count upon, if you go to war with Great Britain. Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat." And are you mad enough to take up the cudgels that have been struck from the nerveless hands of the three great maritime powers of Europe? Shall the planter mortgage his little crop, and jeopardize the constitution in support of commercial monopoly, in the vain hope of satisfying the insatiable greediness of trade? Administer the constitution upon principles for the general welfare, and not for the benefit of any particular class of men. Do you meditate war for the possession of Baton Rouge, or Mobile, places which your own laws declare to be within your limits? Is it even for the fair trade that exchanges your surplus products, for such foreign articles as you require? No, sir, 'tis for a circuitous traffic-an "ignis fatuus." And against whom? A nation from whom you have any thing to fear? I speak as to our liberties. No, sir, with a nation from whom you at a momeut too, when its neutrality was the object of all others nearest to the heart of the French Emperor. If you make him monarch of the ocean, you may bid adieu to it for ever. You may take your leave, sir, of navigationeven of the Mississippi. What is the situation of New Orleans, if attacked to-morrow? Filled with a discontented and repining people, whose to carry it on, perhaps I might give it: but my rights and liberties are involved in the grant, and I will never surrender them whilst I have life. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Crowninshield), is for sponging the debt. I can never consent to it. I will never bring the ways and means of fraudulent bankruptcy into your committee of supply. Confiscation and swindling shall never be found among my esti-language, manners, and religion, all incline them mates, to meet the current expenditure of peace or war. No, sir. I have said with the doors closed, and I say so when they are open, "pay the public debt." Get rid of that dead weight upon your Government, that cramp upon all your measures, and then you may put the world at defiance. So long as it hangs upon you, you must have revenue, and to have revenue, you must have commerce-commerce, peace. And shall these nefarious schemes be advised for lightening the public burthens? will you resort to these low and pitiful shifts? will you dare even to mention these dishonest artifices, to eke out your expenses, when the public treasure is lavished on Turks and infidels; on singing boys, and dancing girls; to furnish the means of bestiality to an African barbarian ? to the invader-a dissatisfied people, who despise the miserable governor you have set over them-whose honest prejudices, and basest passions alike take part against you. I draw my information from no dubious source-from a native American, an enlightened member of that odious and imbecile government. You have official information that the town and its dependencies are utterly defenceless and untenable-a firm belief, that apprised of this, Government would do something to put the place in a state of security, alone has kept the American portion of that community quiet. You have held that post-you now hold it by the tenure of the naval predominance of England, and yet you are for a British naval war. There are now two great commercial nations. Gentlemen say, that Great Britain will count Great Britain is one-we are the other. When upon our divisions. How! What does she you consider the many points of contact beknow of them? Can they ever expect greater tween our interests, you may be surprised that unanimity than prevailed at the last Presiden- there has been so little collision. Sir, to the tial election? No, sir, 'tis the gentleman's own other belligerent nations of Europe your naviconscience that sqeaks. But if she cannot cal- gation is a convenience, I might say, a necesculate upon your divisions, at least she may sary. If you do not carry for them they must reckon upon your pusillanimity. She may well starve, at least for the luxuries of life, which despise the resentment that cannot be excited custom has rendered almost indispensable. to honorable battle on its own ground-the And, if you cannot act with some degree of mere effusion of mercantile cupidity. Gen- spirit towards those who are dependent upon tlemen talk of repealing the British treaty. you, as carriers, do you reckon to browbeat a The gentleman from Pennsylvania should have jealous rival, who, the moment she lets slip the thought of that before he voted to carry it into dogs of war, sweeps you, at a blow, from the effect. And what is all this for? A point ocean? And, cui bono? for whose benefit?which Great Britain will not abandon to Russia, The planter? Nothing like it. The fair, honest, you expect her to yield to you. Russia indis- real American merchant? No, sir-for reneputably the second power of continental Europe, gadoes; to-day American-to-morrow, Danes. with half a million of hardy troops, with sixty Go to war when you will, the property, now sail of the line, thirty millions of subjects, a ter- covered by the American, will then pass under ritory more extensive even than our own- the Danish, or some other neutral flag. GenRussia, sir, the store-house of the British navy tlemen say, that one English ship is worth -whom it is not more the policy and the in- three of ours: we shall therefore have the adterest, than the sentiment of that Government, vantage in privateering. Did they ever know to soothe and to conciliate; her sole hope of a nation get rich by privateering? This is stuff a diversion on the continent-her only efficient for the nursery. Remember that your proally. What this formidable power cannot ob- ducts are bulky-as has been stated that they tain with fleets and armies, you will command require a vast tonnage. Take these carriers out by writ-with pot-hooks and hangers. I am of the market-what is the result? The manufor no such policy. True honor is always the factures of England, which (to use a finishing same. Before you enter into a contest, public touch of the gentleman's rhetoric) have reor private, be sure you have fortitude enough ceived the finishing stroke of art, lie in a small to go through with it. If you mean war, say comparative compass. The neutral trade can so, and prepare for it. Look on the other side carry them. Your produce rots in the ware-behold the respect in which France holds house-you go to Statia or St. Thomas's, and neutral rights on land-observe her conduct inget a striped blanket for a joe, if you can raise regard to the Franconian estates of the King of Prussia: I say nothing of the petty powersof the Elector of Baden, or of the Swiss: I speak of a first-rate monarchy of Europe, and one-double freight, charges, and commissions. Who receives the profit ?-The carrier. Who pays it ?-The consumer. All your produce that finds its way to England must bear the same accumulated charges, with this difference: | that there the burthen falls on the home price. I appeal to the experience of the last war, which has been so often cited. What, then, was the price of produce, and of broadcloth? But you are told England will not make war -she has her hands full. Holland calculated in the same way, in 1781. How did it turn out? You stand now in the place of Holland, then-without her navy, unaided by the preponderating fleets of France and Spain-to say nothing of the Baltic powers. Do you want to take up the cudgels where these great maritime powers have been forced to drop them? to meet Great Britain on the ocean, and drive her off its face? If you are so far gone as this, every capital measure of your policy has hitherto been wrong. You should have nurtured the old, and devised new systems of taxation-have cherished your navy. Begin this business when you may, land-taxes, stamp-acts, window-taxes, hearth-money, excise, in all its modifications of vexation and oppression, must precede, or follow after. But, sir, as French is the fashion of the day, I may be asked for my projet. I can readily tell gentlemen what I will not do. I will not propitiate any foreign nation with money. I will not launch into a naval war with Great Britain, although I am ready to meet her at the Cow-pens, or Bunker's Hill. And for this plain reason. We are a great land animal, and our business is on shore. I will send her no money, sir, on any pretext whatsoever, much less on pretence of buying Labrador, or Botany Bay, when my real object was to secure limits, which she formally acknowledged at the peace of 1783. I go further-I would (if any thing) have laid an embargo. This would have got our own property home, and our adversary's into our power. If there is any wisdom left among us, the first step towards hostility will always be an embargo, In six months all your mercantile megrims would vanish. As to us, although it would cut deep, we can stand it. Without such a precaution, go to war when you will, you go to the wall. As to debts, strike the balance tomorrow, and England is, I believe, in our debt. I hope, sir, to be excused for proceeding in this desultory course. I flatter myself I shall not have occasion again to trouble you-I know not that I shall be able-certainly not willing, unless provoked in self-defence. I ask your attention to the character of the inhabitants of that southern country, on whom gentlemen rely for the support of their measure. Who and what are they? A simple agricultural people, accustomed to travel in peace to market, with the produce of their labor. Who takes it from us? Another people devoted to manufactures -our sole source of supply. I have seen some stuff in the newspapers about manufactures in Saxony, and about a man who is no longer the chief of a dominant faction. The greatest man whom I ever knew-the immortal author of the letters of Curtius-has remarked the prone. ness of cunning people to wrap up and disguise in well-selected phrases, doctrines too deformed and detestable to bear exposure in naked words; by a judicious choice of epithets, to draw the attention from the lurking principle beneath, and perpetuate delusion. But a little while ago, and any man might be proud to be considered as the head of the republican party. Now, it seems, 'tis reproachful to be deemed the chief of a dominant faction. Mark the magic words! Head, chief. Republican party, dominant faction. But as to these Saxon manufactures. What became of their Dresden china? Why, the Prussian bayonets have broken all the pots, and you are content with Worcestershire or Staffordshire ware. There are some other fine manufactures on the continent, but no supply, except, perhaps, of linens, the article we can best dispense with. A few individuals, sir, may have a coat of Louviers cloth, or a service of Sevres china-but there is too little, and that little too dear, to furnish the nation. You must depend on the fur trade in earnest, and wear buffalo hides and bear-skins. Can any man, who understands Europe, pretend to say that a particular foreign policy is now right, because it would have been expedient twenty, or even ten years ago, without abandoning all regard for common sense? Sir, it is the statesman's province to be guided by circumstances, to anticipate, to foresee them— to give them a course and a direction-to mould them to his purpose. It is the business of a counting-house clerk to peer into the day-book and ledger, to see no further than the spectacles on his nose, to feel not beyond the pen behind his ear-to chatter in coffee-houses, and be the oracle of clubs. From 1783 to 1793, and even later (I don't stickle for dates), France had a formidable marine-so had Holland-so had Spain. The two first possessed thriving manufactures and a flourishing commerce. Great Britain, tremblingly alive to her manufacturing interests and carrying-trade, would have felt to the heart any measure calculated to favor her rivals in these pursuits-she would have yielded then to her fears and her jealousy alone. What is the case now? She lays an export duty on her manufactures, and there ends the question. If Georgia shall (from whatever cause) so completely monopolize the culture of cotton as to be able to lay an export duty of three per cent. upon it, besides taxing its cultivators, in every other shape that human or infernal ingenuity can devise, is Pennsylvania likely to rival her, or take away the trade? But sir, it seems that we, who are opposed to this resolution, are men of no nerves-who trembled in the days of the British treatycowards (I presume) in the reign of terror! Is this true? Hunt up the journals; let our actions tell. We pursue our unshaken course. We care not for the nations of Europe, but make foreign relations bend to our political principles, and subserve our country's interest. We have no wish to see another Actium, or Pharsalia, or the lieutenants of a modern Alexander, playing at piquet, or all-fours, for the empire of the world. 'Tis poor comfort to us, to be told that France has too decided a taste for luxurious things to meddle with us; that Egypt is her object, or the coast of Barbary, and at the worst we shall be the last devoured. We are enamored with neither nation-we would play their own game upon them, use them for our interest and convenience. But with all my abhorrence of the British government, I should not hesitate between Westminster-Hall and a Middlesex-jury, on the one hand, and the wood of Vincennes, and a file of Grenadiers, on the other. That jury-trial which walked with Horne Tooke, and Hardy, through the flames of ministerial persecution, is, I confess, more to my taste, than the trial of the Duke d' Enghien. Mr. Chairman, I am sensible of having detained the cominittee longer than I oughtcertainly much longer than I intended. I am equally sensible of their politeness, and not less so, sir, of your patient attention. It is your own indulgence, sir, badly requited indeed, to which you owe this persecution. I might offer another apology for these undigested, desultory remarks; my never having seen the treasury documents. Until I came into the House this morning, I have been stretched on a sick bed. But when I behold the affairs of this nation, instead of being where I hoped, and the people believed they were, in the hands of responsible men, committed to Tom, Dick, and Harry-to the refuse of the retail trade of politics-I do feel, I cannot help feeling, the most deep and serious concern. If the executive government would step forward and say, "such is our plan -such is our opinion, and such are our reasons in support of it," I would meet it fairly, would openly oppose, or pledge myself to support it. But without compass or polar star, I will not launch into an ocean of unexplored measures, which stand condemned by all the information to which I have access. The constitution of the United States declares it to be the province and duty of the President "to give to Congress, from time to time, information of the state of | the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge expedient and necessary." Has he done it? I know, sir, that we may say, and do say, that we are independent (would it were true); as free to give a direction to the executive as to receive it from him. But do what you will, foreign relationsevery measure short of war, and even the course of hostilities, depend upon him. He stands at the helm, and must guide the vessel of State. You give him money to buy Florida, and he purchases Louisiana.-You may furnish means the application of those means rests with him. Let not the master and mate go below when the ship is in distress, and throw the responsibility upon the cook and the cabinboy. I said so when your doors were shut: I scorn to say less now that they are open. Gentlemen may say what they please. They may put an insignificant individual to the ban of the Republic; I shall not alter my course. I blush with indignation at the misrepresentations which have gone forth in the public prints of our proceedings, public and private. Are the people of the United States, the real sovereigns of the country, unworthy of knowing what, there is too much reason to believe, has been communicated to the privileged spies of foreign governments? I think our citizens just as well entitled to know what has passed, as the Marquis Yrujo, who has bearded your President to his face, insulted your government within its own peculiar jurisdiction, and outraged all decency. Do you mistake this diplomatic puppet for an automaton? He has orders for all he does. Take his instructions from his pocket to-morrow, they are signed "Charles Maurice Talleyrand." Let the nation know what they have to depend upon. Be true to them, and (trust me) they will prove true to themselves and to you. The people are honest; now at home at their ploughs, not dreaming of what you are about. But the spirit of inquiry, that has too long slept, will be, must be, awakened. Let them begin to think; not to say such things are proper because they have been done-but what has been done? and wherefore?—and all will be right. SPEECH ON THE TARIFF. Mr. Randolph delivered this speech on the Tariff Bill, in the House of Representatives of the United States, on the fifteenth of April, upon myself, much less upon the House, when I say, that if I had consulted my own feelings the House exhausted as it is, and as I am, with and inclinations, I should not have troubled any further remarks upon this subject. I come to the discharge of this task, not merely with I am, Mr. Speaker, practising no deception reluctance, but with disgust; jaded, worn down, 1824.* * See Mr. Clay's speech on the same subject, in the subseuent pages of this volume: also, “Benton's Thirty Years' View," Vol. 1, page 32. abraded I may say, as I am by long attendance upon this body, and continued stretch of the attention upon this subject. I come to it, however, at the suggestion, and in pursuance of the wishes of those whose wishes are to me, in all matters touching my public duty, paramount law; I speak with those reservations of course, which every moral agent must be supposed to make to himself. It was not more to my surprise, than to my disappointment, that on my return to the House, after a necessary absence of a few days, on indispensable business, I found it engaged in discussing the general principle of the bill, when its details were under consideration. If I had expected such a turn in the debate, I would, at any private sacrifice, however great, have remained a spectator and auditor of that discussion. With the exception of the speech, already published, of my worthy colleague on my right, Mr. P. P. Barbour, I have been nearly deprived of the benefit of the discussion which has taken place. Many weeks have been occupied with this bill (I hope the House will pardon me for saying so) before I took the slightest part in the deliberations of the details; and I now sincerely regret that I had not firmness enough to adhere to the resolution which I had laid down to myself, in the early stage of the debate, not to take any part in the discussion of the details of the measure. But, as I trust, what I now have to say upon this subject, although more and better things have been said by others, may not be the same that they have said, or may not be said in the same manner; I here borrow the language of a man who has been heretofore conspicuous in the councils of the country; of one who was unrivalled for readiness and dexterity in debate; who was long without an equal on the floor of this body; who contributed as much to the revolution of 1801, as any man in this nation, and derived as little benefit from it; as, to use the words of that celebrated man, what I have to say is not that which has been said by others, and will not be said in their manner, the House will, I trust, have patience with me during the time that my strength will allow me to occupy their attention. And I beg them to understand, that the notes which I hold in my hand are not the notes on which I mean to speak, but of what others have spoken, and from which I will make the smallest selection in my power. Here permit me to say, that I am obliged and with great reluctance, to differ from my worthy colleague, who has taken so conspicuous a part in this debate, about one fact, which I will call to his recollection, for I am sure it was in his memory, though sleeping. He has undertaken to state the causes by which the difference in the relative condition of various parts of the Union has been produced; but my worthy colleague has omitted to state the "primum mobile" of the commerce and manufactures to which a portion of the country that I need not name, owes its present prosperity and wealth. That "primum mobile" was southern capital. I speak not now of transactions "quorum pars minima fui," but of things which, nevertheless, I have a contemporaneous recollection. I say, without the fear of contradiction, then, that in consequence of the enormous depreciation of the evidences of the public debt of this country the debt proper of the United States, (to which must be added an item of not less than twenty millions of dollars for the State debts assumed by the United States), being bought up and almost engrossed by the people of what were then called the Northern States-a measure which nobody dreamt any thing about, of which nobody had the slightest suspicionI mean the assumption of the State debts by the federal government-these debts being bought up for a mere song, a capital of eighty millions of dollars, or, in other words, a credit to that amount, bearing an interest of six per cent. per annum (with the exception of nineteen millions, the interest of that debt which bore an interest of three per cent.)-a capital of eighty millions of dollars was poured in a single day into the coffers of the North; and to that cause we may mainly ascribe the difference so disastrous to the South, between that country and the other portion of this Union, to which I have alluded. When we, roused by the sufferings of our brethren of Boston, entered into the contest with the mother country, and when we came out of it-when this constitution was adopted, we were comparatively rich; they were positively poor. What is now our relative situation? They are flourishing and rich; we are tributary to them, not only through the medium of the public debt of which I may have spoken, but also through the medium of the pension list, nearly the whole amount of which is disbursed in the Eastern States-and to this creation of a day is to be ascribed the difference of our relative situation (I hope my worthy colleague will not consider any thing that I say as conflicting with his general principles, to which I heartily subscribe). Yes, sir, and the price paid for the creation of all that portion of this capital, which consisted of the assumed debts of the States, was the immense boon of fixing the seat of government where it now is. And I advert to this bargain, because I wish to show to every member of this House, and, if it were possible, to every individual of this nation, the most tremendous and calamitous results of political bargaining. Sir, when are we to have enough of this tariff question? In 1816 it was supposed to be settled. Only three years thereafter, another proposition for increasing it was sent from this House to the Senate, baited with a tax of four cents per pound on brown sugar. It was fortunately rejected in that body. In what manner this bill is baited, it does not become me to say; but I have too distinct a recollection of the vote in committee of the whole, on the duty upon molasses, and afterwards of the vote in the House on the same question; of the votes of more than one of the States on that question, not to mark it well. I do not say that the change of the vote on that question was effected by any man's voting against his own motion; but I do not hesitate to say that it was effected |