[THE house being in committee of the whole, on the resolution
offered by Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, in the words following:
_Resolved_, That provision ought to be made by law, for
defraying the expense incident to the appointment of an agent
or commissioner to Greece, whenever the president shall deem it
expedient to make such appointment:
Mr. Clay addressed the committee in the following speech in
support of the resolution, in which it will be seen he was
true to the principles which he had so often vindicated when
the independence of South America was under consideration.
Notwithstanding the combined efforts of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster,
the resolution was not sustained by a majority of the house,
although there is no doubt that the measure proposed was in
accordance with public opinion, in the sympathies then felt for
the cause of the Greeks.]
IN rising, let me state distinctly the substance of the original
proposition of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster),
with that of the amendment of the gentleman from South Carolina
(Mr. Poinsett). The resolution proposes a provision of the means
to defray the expense of deputing a commissioner or agent to Greece,
_whenever_ the president, who knows, or ought to know, the disposition
of all the European powers, Turkish or Christian, shall deem it proper.
The amendment goes to withhold any appropriation to that object, but to
make a public declaration of our sympathy with the Greeks, and of our
good wishes for the success of their cause. And how has this simple,
unpretending, unambitious, this harmless proposition, been treated in
debate? It has been argued as if it offered aid to the Greeks; as if
it proposed the recognition of the independence of their government;
as a measure of unjustifiable interference in the internal affairs
of a foreign state, and, finally, as war. And they who thus argue the
question, whilst they absolutely surrender themselves to the illusions
of their own fervid imaginations, and depict, in glowing terms, the
monstrous and alarming consequences which are to spring out of a
proposition so simple, impute to us, who are its humble advocates,
quixotism, quixotism! Whilst they are taking the most extravagant and
boundless range, and arguing any thing and every thing but the question
before the committee, they accuse us of enthusiasm, of giving the reins
to excited feeling, of being transported by our imaginations. No, sir,
the resolution is no proposition for aid, nor for recognition, nor for
interference, nor for war.
I know that there are some who object to the resolution on account of
the source from which it has sprung――who except to its mover, as if its
value or importance were to be estimated by personal considerations.
I have long had the pleasure of knowing the honorable gentleman from
Massachusetts, and sometimes that of acting with him; and I have
much satisfaction in expressing my high admiration of his great
talents. But I would appeal to my republican friends, those faithful
sentinels of civil liberty with whom I have ever acted, shall we reject
a proposition, consonant to our principles, favoring the good and
great cause, on account of the political character of its mover? Shall
we not rather look to the intrinsic merits of the measure, and seek
every fit occasion to strengthen and perpetuate liberal principles
and noble sentiments? If it were possible for republicans to cease
to be the champions of human freedom, and if federalists become its
only supporters, I would cease to be a republican; I would become
a federalist. The preservation of the public confidence can only be
secured, or merited, by a faithful adherence to the principles by which
it has been acquired.
Mr. Chairman, is it not extraordinary that for these two successive
years the president of the United States should have been freely
indulged, not only without censure, but with universal applause,
to express the feelings which both the resolution and the amendment
proclaim, and yet, if this house venture to unite with him, the most
awful consequences are to ensue? From Maine to Georgia, from the
Atlantic ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, the sentiment of approbation
has blazed with the rapidity of electricity. Every where the interest
in the Grecian cause is felt with the deepest intensity, expressed in
every form, and increases with every new day and passing hour. And are
the representatives of the people alone to be insulated from the common
moral atmosphere of the whole land? Shall we shut ourselves up in
apathy, and separate ourselves from our country, from our constituents,
from our chief magistrate, from our principles?
The measure has been most unreasonably magnified. Gentlemen speak of
the watchful jealousy of the Turk, and seem to think the slightest
movement of this body will be matter of serious speculation at
Constantinople. I believe that neither the sublime porte, nor the
European allies, attach any such exaggerated importance to the acts
and deliberations of this body. The Turk will, in all probability,
never hear of the names of the gentlemen who either espouse or oppose
the resolution. It certainly is not without a value; but that value is
altogether moral; it throws our little tribute into the vast stream of
public opinion, which sooner or later must regulate the physical action
upon the great interests of the civilized world. But, rely upon it, the
Ottoman is not about to declare war against us because this unoffending
proposition has been offered by my honorable friend from Massachusetts,
whose name, however distinguished and eminent he may be in our own
country, has probably never reached the ears of the sublime porte. The
allied powers are not going to be thrown into a state of consternation,
because we appropriate some two or three thousand dollars to send an
agent to Greece.
The question has been argued as if the Greeks would be exposed to
still more shocking enormities by its passage; as if the Turkish
cimeter would be rendered still keener, and dyed deeper and yet deeper
in christian blood. Sir, if such is to be the effect of the declaration
of our sympathy, the evil has been already produced. That declaration
has been already publicly and solemnly made by the chief magistrate of
the United States, in two distinct messages. It is this document which
commands at home and abroad the most fixed and universal attention;
which is translated into all the foreign journals; read by sovereigns
and their ministers; and, possibly, in the divan itself. But our
resolutions are domestic, for home consumption, and rarely, if ever,
meet imperial or royal eyes. The president, in his messages, after
a most touching representation of the feelings excited by the Greek
insurrection, tells you that the dominion of the Turk is gone for
ever; and that the most sanguine hope is entertained that Greece will
achieve her independence. Well, sir, if this be the fact, if the allied
powers themselves may, possibly, before we again assemble in this hall,
acknowledge that independence, is it not fit and becoming in this house
to make provision that our president shall be among the foremost, or
at least not among the last, in that acknowledgment? So far from this
resolution being likely to whet the vengeance of the Turk against his
Grecian victims, I believe its tendency will be directly the reverse.
Sir, with all his unlimited power, and in all the elevation of his
despotic throne, he is at last but man, made as we are, of flesh, of
muscle, of bone and sinew. He is susceptible of pain, and can feel,
and has felt the uncalculating valor of American freemen in some of
his dominions. And when he is made to understand that the executive
of this government is sustained by the representatives of the people;
that our entire political fabric, base, column, and entablature, rulers
and people, with heart, soul, mind, and strength, are all on the side
of the gallant people whom he would crush, he will be more likely to
restrain than to increase his atrocities upon suffering and bleeding
Greece.
The gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bartlett) has made, on
this occasion, a very ingenious, sensible, and ironical speech――an
admirable _debut_ for a new member, and such as I hope we shall often
have repeated on this floor. But, permit me to advise my young friend
to remember the maxim, ‘that sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof;’ and when the resolution[10] on another subject, which I had
the honor to submit, shall come up to be discussed, I hope he will
not content himself with saying, as he has now done, that it is a
very extraordinary one; but that he will then favor the house with
an argumentative speech, proving that it is our duty quietly to see
laid prostrate every fortress of human hope, and to behold, with
indifference, the last outwork of liberty taken and destroyed.
It has been said, that the proposed measure will be a departure
from our uniform policy with respect to foreign nations; that it will
provoke the wrath of the holy alliance; and that it will, in effect,
be a repetition of their own offence, by an unjustifiable interposition
in the domestic concerns of other powers. No, sir, not even if it
authorized, which it does not, an immediate recognition of Grecian
independence. What has been the settled and steady policy and practice
of this government, from the days of Washington to the present moment?
In the case of France, the father of his country and his successors
received Genet, Fouchet, and all the French ministers who followed
them, whether sent from king, convention, anarchy, emperor, or king
again. The rule we have ever followed has been this; to look at the
state of the fact, and to recognise that government, be it what it
might, which was in actual possession of sovereign power. When one
government is overthrown, and another is established on its ruins,
without embarrassing ourselves with any of the principles involved in
the contest, we have ever acknowledged the new and actual government
as soon as it had undisputed existence. Our simple inquiry has been,
is there a government _de facto_? We have had a recent and memorable
example. When the allied ministers retired from Madrid, and refused
to accompany Ferdinand to Cadiz, ours remained, and we sent out
a new minister, who sought at that port to present himself to the
constitutional king. Why? Because it was the government of Spain, in
fact. Did the allies declare war against us for the exercise of this
incontestable attribute of sovereignty? Did they even transmit any
diplomatic note, complaining of our conduct? The line of our European
policy has been so plainly described, that it is impossible to mistake
it. We are to abstain from all interference in their disputes, to take
no part in their contests, to make no entangling alliances with any of
them; but to assert and exercise our indisputable right of opening and
maintaining diplomatic intercourse with any actual sovereignty.
There is reason to apprehend, that a tremendous storm is ready to burst
upon our happy country; one which may call into action all our vigor,
courage, and resources. Is it wise or prudent, in preparing to breast
the storm, if it must come, to talk to this nation of its incompetency
to repel European aggression; to lower its spirit, to weaken its moral
energy, and to qualify it for easy conquest and base submission? If
there be any reality in the dangers which are supposed to encompass us,
should we not animate the people, and adjure them to believe, as I do,
that our resources are ample; and that we can bring into the field a
million of freemen, ready to exhaust their last drop of blood, and to
spend the last cent in the defence of the country, its liberty, and its
institutions? Sir, are these, if united, to be conquered by all Europe
combined? All the perils to which we can possibly be exposed, are much
less in reality, than the imagination is disposed to paint them. And
they are best averted by an habitual contemplation of them, by reducing
them to their true dimensions. If combined Europe is to precipitate
itself upon us, we cannot too soon begin to invigorate our strength,
to teach our heads to think, our hearts to conceive, and our arms to
execute, the high and noble deeds which belong to the character and
glory of our country. The experience of the world instructs us, that
conquests are already achieved, which are boldly and firmly resolved
on; and that men only become slaves who have ceased to resolve to be
free. If we wish to cover ourselves with the best of all armor, let us
not discourage our people, let us stimulate their ardor, let us sustain
their resolution, let us proclaim to them that we feel as they feel,
and that, with them, we are determined to live or die like freemen.
Surely, sir, we need no long or learned lectures about the nature of
government, and the influence of property or ranks on society. We may
content ourselves with studying the true character of our own people;
and with knowing that the interests are confided to us of a nation
capable of doing and suffering all things for its liberty. Such a
nation, if its rulers be faithful, must be invincible. I well remember
an observation made to me by the most illustrious female[11] of the
age, if not of her sex. All history showed, she said, that a nation was
never conquered. No, sir, no united nation, that resolves to be free,
can be conquered. And has it come to this? Are we so humbled, so low,
so debased, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Greece;
that we dare not articulate our detestation of the brutal excesses
of which she has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend some
one or more of their imperial and royal majesties? If gentlemen are
afraid to act rashly on such a subject, suppose, Mr. Chairman, that we
unite in an humble petition, addressed to their majesties, beseeching
them, that of their gracious condescension, they would allow us to
express our feelings and our sympathies. How shall it run? ‘We, the
representatives of the _free_ people of the United States of America,
humbly approach the thrones of your imperial and royal majesties,
and supplicate that, of your imperial and royal clemency――’ I cannot
go through the disgusting recital; my lips have not yet learned to
pronounce the sycophantic language of a degraded slave! Are we so mean,
so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror,
utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever
stained earth or shocked high heaven? at the ferocious deeds of a
savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy
of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses
of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens
and recoils?
If the great body of christendom can look on calmly and coolly,
whilst all this is perpetrated on a christian people, in its own
immediate vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince,
that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to
christian wrongs, and capable of sympathy for christian sufferings;
that in this remote quarter of the world, there are hearts not yet
closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their
indignant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by
every ancient recollection, and every modern tie. Sir, attempts have
been made to alarm the committee, by the dangers to our commerce in the
Mediterranean; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium has been spread
before us to repress our sensibilities and to eradicate our humanity.
Ah! sir, ‘what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul,’ or what shall it avail a nation to save the whole
of a miserable trade, and lose its liberties?
On the subject of the other independent American states, hitherto it
has not been necessary to depart from the rule of our foreign relations,
observed in regard to Europe. Whether it will become us to do so or
not, will be considered when we take up another resolution, lying on
the table. But we may not only adopt this measure; we may go further;
we may recognise the government in the Morea, if actually independent,
and it will be neither war, nor cause of war, nor any violation of our
neutrality. Besides, sir, what is Greece to the allies? A part of the
dominions of any of them? By no means. Suppose the people in one of the
Philippine isles, or any other spot still more insulated and remote,
in Asia or Africa, were to resist their former rulers, and set up and
establish a new government, are we not to recognise them, in dread of
the holy allies? If they are going to interfere, from the danger of
the contagion of the example, here is the spot, our own favored land,
where they must strike. _This_ government, you, Mr. Chairman, and the
body over which you preside, are the living and cutting reproach to
allied despotism. If we are to offend them, it is not by passing this
resolution. We are daily and hourly giving them cause of war. It is
_here_, and in our free institutions, that they will assail us. They
will attack us because you sit beneath that canopy, and we are freely
debating and deliberating upon the great interests of freemen, and
dispensing the blessings of free government. They will strike, because
we pass one of those bills on your table. The passage of the least of
them, by our free authority, is more galling to despotic powers, than
would be the adoption of this so much dreaded resolution. Pass it, and
what do you do? You exercise an indisputable attribute of sovereignty,
for which you are responsible to none of them. You do the same when you
perform any other legislative function; no less. If the allies object
to this measure, let them forbid us to take a vote in this house; let
them strip us of every attribute of independent government; let them
disperse us.
Will gentlemen attempt to maintain that, on the principles of the
law of nations, those allies would have _cause_ of war? If there be
any principle which has been settled for ages, any which is founded in
the very nature of things, it is that every independent state has the
clear right to judge of the _fact_ of the existence of other sovereign
powers. I admit that there may be a state of inchoate initiative
sovereignty, in which a new government, just struggling into being,
cannot be said yet perfectly to exist. But the premature recognition
of such new government can give offence justly to no other than its
ancient sovereign. The right of recognition comprehends the right to
be informed; and the means of information must, of necessity, depend
upon the sound discretion of the party seeking it. You may send out
a commission of inquiry, and charge it with a provident attention to
your own people and your own interests. Such will be the character of
the proposed agency. It will not necessarily follow, that any public
functionary will be appointed by the president. You merely grant the
means by which the executive may act when _he_ thinks proper. What
does he tell you in his message? That Greece is contending for her
independence; that all sympathize with her; and that no power has
declared against her. Pass this resolution, and what is the reply which
it conveys to him? ‘You have sent us grateful intelligence; we feel
warmly for Greece, and we grant you money, that, when you shall think
it proper, when the interests of this nation shall not be jeoparded,
you may depute a commissioner or public agent to Greece.’ The whole
responsibility is then left where the constitution puts it. A member
in his place may make a speech or proposition, the house may even pass
a vote, in respect to our foreign affairs, which the president, with
the whole field lying full before him, would not deem it expedient to
effectuate.
But, sir, it is not for Greece alone that I desire to see this
measure adopted. It will give to her but little support, and that
purely of a moral kind. It is principally for America, for the credit
and character of our common country, for our own unsullied name, that
I hope to see it pass. Mr. Chairman, what appearance on the page of
history would a record like this exhibit? ‘In the month of January, in
the year of our Lord and Saviour, 1824, while all European christendom
beheld, with cold and unfeeling indifference, the unexampled wrongs and
inexpressible misery of christian Greece, a proposition was made in the
congress of the United States, almost the sole, the last, the greatest
depository of human hope and human freedom, the representatives of
a gallant nation, containing a million of freemen ready to fly to
arms, while the people of that nation were spontaneously expressing
its deep-toned feeling, and the whole continent, by one simultaneous
emotion, was rising, and solemnly and anxiously supplicating and
invoking high heaven to spare and succor Greece, and to invigorate her
arms in her glorious cause, whilst temples and senate houses were alike
resounding with one burst of generous and holy sympathy; in the year of
our Lord and Saviour, that Saviour of Greece and of us; a proposition
was offered in the American congress to send a messenger to Greece,
to inquire into her state and condition, with a kind expression of our
good wishes and our sympathies――and it was rejected!’ Go home, if you
can; go home, if you dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you
voted it down; meet, if you can, the appalling countenances of those
who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration
of your own sentiments; that you cannot tell how, but that some unknown
dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, drove
you from your purpose; that the spectres of cimiters, and crowns, and
crescents, gleamed before you and alarmed you; and that you suppressed
all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national
independence, and by humanity. I cannot bring myself to believe, that
such will be the feeling of a majority of the committee. But, for
myself, though every friend of the cause should desert it, and I be
left to stand alone with the gentleman from Massachusetts, I will give
to his resolution the poor sanction of my unqualified approbation.