"The right to confiscate vessels bound to a blockaded port, has
been unreasonably extended to cases not coming within the rule,
as heretofore adopted.
"On this principle, it might well be questioned, whether
this rule can be applied to a place not completely invested
by land as well as by sea. If we examine the reasoning on
which it is founded, the right to intercept and confiscate
supplies, designed for a blockaded town, it will be difficult
to resist the conviction that its extension to towns, invested
by sea only, is an unjustifiable encroachment on the right of
neutrals. But it is not of this departure from principle--a
departure which has received some sanction from practice--that
we mean to complain. It is, that ports, not effectually
blockaded by a force capable of completely investing them,
have yet been declared in a state of blockade, and vessels
attempting to enter therein have been seized, and, on that
account, confiscated."
I have shown, from the correspondence, that the blockade of May, 1806,
was the only one included in the demand of the Executive. I have shown
that it is not only a violation of our neutral rights, but of the
principles contended for by men of all political parties under every
administration of this country; and I cannot but express my regret
that the gentleman from New York should consider that, under the law
of the last session, this blockade ought not to have been included in
the demand of the Executive on Great Britain; that he should declare
in the hearing of the British agent that demands had been made by the
Executive of the United States which it would be extremely convenient
for us if Great Britain would allow, but which she never could yield.
The gentleman from New York has entered into an argument to show that
the Berlin and Milan decrees are not repealed. We have just heard of
the arrival of a French Minister; he has left France at a time to bring
us certain information on this question. I have no wish to enter on
this interesting question, with a bandage round my eyes. Whether France
has complied with her engagements; whether France has failed in her
engagements, cannot be a subject of ingenious speculation many days
longer. Whatever may be the information received, I shall endeavor to
adhere to what I deem the real interests of my country, and, so far as
I am able, to maintain its rights against the unprincipled aggressions
of every foreign nation.
I will now make a few observations on the bill before the House. It
contains but a single section, and exempts from forfeiture goods owned
wholly by citizens of the United States, which shall have departed from
a British port prior to the second day of February, 1811. When the
report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject of modifications
of the non-intercourse system was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Relations, it appeared to be the unanimous sentiment of the committee,
that goods which had left a British port, before the President's
proclamation reached the port, ought to be exempt from the penalty of
the non-intercourse law, although they might not arrive until after
the 2d day of February. It was considered not inconsistent with an
honest compliance with our engagements with France, and seemed to be
required by that general principle of policy which is adhered to in
all free countries, of allowing sufficient notice to its citizens of
the commencement of penalties and forfeitures. The bill for enforcing
the non-intercourse system was reported with that limited provision.
After the bill was printed various statements were received by the
committee, all tending to show that the orders of our merchants were
sent out in September and October; that, from the change in the actual
state of commercial capital in this country, goods were at present
purchased with cash, and not only became the property of our citizens
under the orders of merchants sent before the President's proclamation
issued, but were at the risk of the purchasers; that these goods were
actually paid for before the President's proclamation issued; that
they could not be brought in before the second day of February. The
committee having previously decided that time ought to be allowed
for the President's proclamation to reach a British port, and taking
into view the great injury our own citizens would sustain from a
rigorous construction of the law, determined to extend the time to the
ultimate period at which a citizen could put his property on board
without infringing the laws of his country. It is not supposed that
the construction put upon the law is strictly within its letter--it
is, however, perfectly within its object. It was designed to operate
on the nation refusing to modify or withdraw its edicts. To give it
a construction which would either confiscate property _bona fide_
American, or lock it up in British ports, would be to destroy our own
resources, and produce no effect on Great Britain. Under the sixth
section of the law, it is not made unlawful to put on board British
manufactures with the intent to import them, until the expiration of
the three months after the proclamation; its being unlawful after that
period depended on Great Britain's following the example of France
and revoking her edicts; according, therefore, as the citizen was
more or less sanguine, his interest might be more or less involved by
supposing that Great Britain would withdraw. Orders sent previous to
the issuing of the President's proclamation violated no existing law.
Those sent afterwards cannot be considered as given in violation of
law, inasmuch as the commencement of the law depended on a contingency,
viz: the modification or withdrawal of the British orders. There is
another circumstance which operated on the committee: The law of the
last session was not considered by the committee as a plain rule of
action which every citizen could clearly comprehend, and so arrange
his affairs as to avoid its penalties. The fourth section of the
act of last session revives certain sections of another act, on the
happening of a certain event, three months after that event shall
have been proclaimed by the President. This reviving section does not
declare that on and after three months from the date of the President's
proclamation there shall be non-intercourse, but that particular
sections of a former non-intercourse law shall be revived. Each of
the revived sections contain the words "20th of May next," and it has
been made a question whether these words are revived as part of the
sections. It is not supposed by me that such is a proper construction
of the law. It is only stated for the purpose of showing that the law
was not in that clear, decided form in which penal statutes ought to be
enacted. In the construction given to the law, more regard was paid to
its objects and principles than to its strict letter. And if, for the
purpose of affording relief in cases peculiarly hard and operating on
our own citizens exclusively, we have placed on the law a construction
not warranted by its letter, I hope we shall be justified by the purity
of the motives under which we have acted.
Mr. EMOTT explained.
Mr. STURGES said be was happy that he felt himself so situated that he
could avoid that course of discussion upon the present occasion, so
much reprobated by the honorable gentleman (Mr. EPPES) from Virginia.
He said he should not undertake to enter into a discussion of our
foreign relations, nor say much upon our restrictive system; that his
friend from New York (Mr. EMOTT) had already done that fully and ably.
He said he was at present inclined to support the amendment proposed
by the honorable gentleman, (Mr. RHEA, of Tennessee,) and if the words
should be stricken out as proposed by that gentleman, (as one good
turn deserved another,) he hoped he would be disposed to support a
proposition, which he (Mr. S.) would then submit to the committee. If
the committee should agree to strike out, Mr. S. would then propose to
insert in lieu thereof, after the words "be it enacted" the following
words, (which he read to the committee,) viz: "That an act entitled an
act concerning the commercial intercourse between the United States
and Great Britain and France, and their dependencies, and for other
purposes, passed May 1, 1810, be and the same is hereby repealed."
Mr. S. said he was inclined to favor the amendment of the gentleman
from Tennessee on another ground. He was not willing to imply by any
vote of his a recognition of the efficacy of the non-intercourse law,
so called, which could not, in his opinion, upon any principle, have
any operative force, until the 20th of May next. He flattered himself,
if gentlemen would be so good as to attend to him, that he should be
able to demonstrate to their satisfaction the truth of this position;
and that the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations, exercising
his usual candor, would himself be satisfied. The law, passed March 1,
1809, contained a number of sections which went to prevent importations
from Great Britain and France, and their dependencies. This law
(containing a clause limiting its duration) was to expire at the end
of the next session of Congress. The then next session of Congress
ended the last of June, 1809. The law of March, 1809, therefore, then
expired. The law of May 1st, 1810, enacted that certain sections of
that of March, 1809, should be revived upon certain contingencies.
Those sections, thus revived, are the 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th,
10th, and 18th. Mr. S. then recurred to those sections, and read the
third, which is as follows:
[The section was here read.]
Mr. S. said it was unnecessary to read the other sections to which
he had referred, as the phraseology, as to the time when they were
to take effect, was the same as in the section which he had read.
He said it would not answer the purpose of gentlemen who held a
different opinion from him, to argue in such a case as the present,
from the intention of the Legislature. He said it was a principle, in
construing penal statutes, to construe them strictly. But he said it
was not necessary for him, in support of his position, to resort to
this rule of construction. The words of these sections are explicit,
and the meaning plain. They are revived in the law of May, 1810. They
must be considered as revived in _todidem verbis_--as the whole of the
sections are revived generally, it is not competent to say that one
part of the section is revived, and not the other part. If they had
been transcribed _verbatim_, and incorporated in the law of May, 1810,
there could have been no question; and there can be no difference as
to this point between that case, and reviving them without excepting
any part. Mr. S. therefore concluded, that as the expressions in the
sections referred to were, that they were to take effect the 20th of
May next; and the law reviving them passed the 1st of May, 1810; that
they cannot have any efficacy until the 20th of May, 1811. And he
said the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. EPPES,) in attending to this
point, had implied his doubts upon it by saying, that as there might
be doubts among lawyers, though among unlearned men there could be
none, the Committee of Foreign Relations, in reporting the bill now
under consideration, were disposed to give a liberal construction to
the meaning of the Legislature. But, said Mr. S., this cannot help
the matter. No new law, in the nature of an explanatory law, can give
efficacy to the former one, if that law would otherwise have no force.
If, then, he was correct in his ideas upon the subject, and he thought
every lawyer in the House must be of his opinion, Mr. S. asked, what is
the consequence? He said that, from the 2d of February, any seizures
which have been or shall be made by your custom-house officers, cannot
be considered as legal. Your Federal courts cannot condemn property
so seized; and in case they are made, your State courts will sustain
actions of trover and trespass in favor of the owners thereof against
such officers.
Mr. WRIGHT.--Mr. Chairman: The gentleman from New York (Mr. EMOTT)
labored yesterday for three hours on his proposed amendment to the bill
under consideration, and exercised all his ingenuity to seduce us into
a violation of the faith of the nation, pledged in the act entitled "An
act concerning the commercial intercourse between the United States
and Great Britain and France and their dependencies, and for other
purposes." By this act the nation pledged itself to Great Britain and
to France, "that if either of them should so revoke or _modify_ their
edicts that they should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the
United States, that the President _should_, by proclamation, declare
the same; and that, three months after the date of said proclamation,
no goods, wares, or merchandise, the growth, produce, or manufacture of
the other nation, her colonies or dependencies, _should_ be imported
into the United States." The Government, strictly preserving her
neutral character, at the same moment presented to both nations the
same proposition, and by the solemnity of that act, in the face of the
world, pledged the faith of the nation to the faithful performance of
the condition above stated, on their part to be performed, in the event
of either Great Britain or France so revoking or modifying their edicts
that they should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United
States.
France, on the 5th of August, 1810, did so revoke her edicts that they
should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States,
after the second day of November; and, although the fact has been
established by the letter of the Duke of Cadore, of the 5th of August,
to General Armstrong, our Minister at Paris, and by him communicated
to the President of the United States; and, although the President
did, by his proclamation, bearing date the second of November, in
obedience to the said act of Congress, declare "that the edicts of
France violating the neutral commerce of the United States had been so
revoked or modified, that, from and after the second day of November,
they would cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States;"
whereby, after the expiration of three months from the date of said
proclamation, by virtue of the act aforesaid, "no goods, wares, or
merchandise, the growth, produce, or manufacture of Great Britain, her
colonies or dependencies, should be imported into the United States,
unless she, before the expiration of that time, revoked her edicts."
Yet, sir, this gentleman, to the bill on the table contemplating a
faithful execution of the non-intercourse law against Great Britain,
has proposed an amendment that "no vessel or merchandise shall be
liable to seizure or forfeiture, on account of any infraction, or
presumed infraction, of the provisions of the act to which this act
is a supplement;" thereby substantially to repeal the non-intercourse
act, although France has revoked her decrees, and Britain has refused
to revoke her Orders in Council, and by the last information from our
Minister in London, every spark of hope of their being revoked had been
extinguished.
That gentleman, a representative of the American people, has
proposed this direct breach of public faith, and as a pretext to the
unprincipled act, has had the temerity to declare "that the President
had no authority to issue his proclamation; that the assurances of
France to our Government were deceptive; that the Berlin and Milan
decrees were not revoked; and that the non-intercourse act is not
in force;" and thus has arraigned the President for issuing his
proclamation.
By the constitution, the Departments of the Government are distinctly
marked, and the President authorized, as the legitimate organ, to
discharge every function of the Executive. Besides, the non-intercourse
act has expressly authorized and directed him, by proclamation, to
declare the fact of the revocation or modification of the edicts which
the belligerents were by that act invited to revoke.
As well might that gentleman question the legitimacy of a treaty
after it had been ratified and declared by proclamation, or an act of
Congress after it had passed the usual forms and been duly published.
Sir, this act of the President, as to every fact stated, implies
absolute verity, and, like any other record, can be tried only by
itself.
Had the gentleman contented himself with the discharge of his
legislative duties, and indulged the President in the exercise of his
Executive functions, we should have been relieved from a long speech,
calculated only to inculpate the President and expose the gentleman's
devotion to Great Britain. How, I ask, could the President act a
different part, from the evidence in the case? The Duke of Cadore, the
French Minister of Foreign Relations at Paris, in writing, informed
General Armstrong, the American Minister at that Court, on the fifth
of August, "that he was authorized to declare to him, that the
decrees of Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that after the first of
November, they will cease to have effect; it being understood that, in
consequence of this declaration, the English shall revoke their Orders
in Council, and renounce the new principles of blockade which they
have wished to establish, _or_, that the United States, _conformably_
to the act you have just communicated, shall cause their rights to be
respected by the English." General Armstrong immediately communicated
it to the President, who, being thus in possession of the information,
was not only authorized, but bound to issue this proclamation.
I would ask, if this diplomatic evidence, the established mode of
communication between nations, is not to be received and respected, if
national confidence is not destroyed, and an end put to all diplomatic
intercourse? Was not the President, in good faith, bound to believe the
fact, and, believing it, bound to act as he did?
Sir, if Great Britain had made the like communication through Lord
Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney, and he to the President, who had, thereupon,
issued his proclamation, what would have been the conduct and language
of this gentleman and those who think with him in political opinion?
They would, I have no doubt, been prepared to eulogize the President,
and publicly approve the act. In this assertion I am not left to
conjecture, but will prove it by the most unequivocal evidence, if the
gentlemen are consistent with themselves. You will recollect that, by
the act of the first of March, eighteen hundred and nine, interdicting
the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain
and France, and their colonies and dependencies, after a certain
period, unless they should so revoke or modify their edicts that they
should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, the
President in the case of either power, so revoking or modifying their
edicts, was authorized by proclamation to declare the same, whereby
the interdictions were, as to the power so revoking, to be suspended,
and in force only against the other; and I hope you never will forget
the deep game that was played by Great Britain on that occasion, and
the diplomatic trick that was practised on our Administration by Mr.
Erskine's memorable treaty. The President _then_ placed full faith in
the act of the British Plenipotentiary, and, on the signing of that
treaty which revoked the Orders in Council, immediately issued his
proclamation, and thereby dissolved the commercial injunction, whereby
Great Britain was supplied with the necessaries of her existence.
Then the President acted promptly, as in the case of France; then he
acted on the information of the British Minister as he did in the case
of France on the information of the French Minister. Then the treaty
revoking the Orders in Council was rejected by the British Government;
but now, in the case of France, the revocation of her decrees is
confirmed and carried into full effect. But the proclamation in the
case of France is denounced by the gentleman from New York as neither
formal, substantial, nor by authority, although by comparing it with
the proclamation in the case of Great Britain, which I hold in my hand,
it will be found formally and substantially a copy of it, varied only
as to the Government to whose proceedings it relates. When I assure
you that the President's proclamation in the case of Great Britain met
with the approbation of the gentleman from New York and his political
friends, you will feel surprised at their partiality; but, when you
examine the resolution of the House of Representatives approbating the
conduct of the President in that case, you will feel no doubt of the
fact.
Sir, this gentleman has told us that the non-intercourse act is not in
force, and that the American people will not submit to its execution,
notwithstanding the revocation of the French decrees, the continuation
of the British Orders in Council, and the President's proclamation.
Whence does this gentleman derive the power of declaring an act of
Congress not in force, declared by the President's proclamation to be
in force? Or in what section of the Union does the gentleman presume
to say the American people will not submit to the law? That that
gentleman's speech was intended to sow sedition among the people, and
to encourage insubordination to this law, is too obvious.
Sir, the decrees of France, now they are revoked, seem to be more
obnoxious to that gentleman than the British Orders in Council, now in
full force. He denounces the Emperor for the Rambouillet decree, issued
the twenty-third of March, eighteen hundred and ten; which subjected
the ships of America to condemnation entering the ports of France,
which the Emperor declares was an act of retaliation; because Congress
had by their act of March, eighteen hundred and nine, subjected the
vessels of France to condemnation entering the ports of the United
States, yet that gentleman, when speaking of the British blockading
order of eighteen hundred and six, issued without even a pretext, which
by proclamation without investment subjected our ships to condemnation
entering the ports of France, says, "with respect to their Orders in
Council I have nothing to say as to their justice or their policy."
He is prepared to condemn France for her act of retaliation, but he
is not prepared even to speak of Great Britain's new paper blockading
system, much less to declare it unjust or impolitic; although Sir
William Scott, in 1 Robinson's Rep. page 96, expressly declares, "that
no vessel was liable to condemnation for entering a port alleged to be
blockaded, unless it was invested by such a naval force as to make the
entry therein hazardous."
Sir, I am no apologist for France--nor do I know how any American,
particularly a member of Congress, can be the apologist for either,
after France and England have both expressly admitted, that their
Orders in Council and decrees were direct violations of the law of
nations, and adopted from necessity, as a measure of retaliation
against each other, and have each charged the other with the first
aggressions on our neutral rights. On examining that subject, I find
that England, by her Orders in Council of May, eighteen hundred and
six, by proclamation had placed France in a state of blockade; that
France in eighteen hundred and seven had placed the British isles in
a like manner in a state of blockade; that England, by her Orders in
Council of the eleventh of November, eighteen hundred and seven, laid a
toll on neutral vessels, and made them pass through her ports; France,
by her decree of the seventeenth of December, eighteen hundred and
seven, declared the vessels submitting to that order denationalized,
and lawful prize; so that by their new principle of blockade, and
their unprincipled retaliations, the commerce of the United States was
cut up by the roots. The American Government, anxious to preserve the
remnant of the property of the American merchants, that had escaped
the rapacity of the tyrant of the ocean, on the twenty-second of
December, eighteen hundred and seven, passes the embargo law, which the
seditious clamors of certain arch traitors in the Eastern States, the
violation of the law by treason and cupidity, induced Congress on the
first of March, eighteen hundred and nine, to repeal, and to pass the
present non-intercourse law, continued, under which France has revoked
her decrees of Berlin and Milan, and now expects us to fulfil the
conditions which we voluntarily imposed on ourselves, in the event of
either revoking their decrees.
Sir, while Great Britain finds such able advocates on this floor,
she will find no necessity to redress our wrongs, but will wait the
issue of our proceedings in Congress, to see if our remedial laws are
not repealed, or our citizens excited to oppose their execution. But
we ought not to be surprised at this, when we take a retrospective
view of their conduct, their united and uniform opposition to the
Administration for many years. They have reprobated every measure--Mr.
Erskine's British treaty only excepted--and, as soon as that was
rejected by the British Government, as being made contrary to
instructions, our Administration was charged with making it, knowing
that Mr. Erskine had no authority, and with seducing him to make it
contrary to instructions. Afterwards, when Mr. F. J. Jackson, of
Copenhagen memory, was sent over as a Minister, while his hands were
yet stained with the innocent blood of the inhabitants of Copenhagen,
and insulted the administration with the charge of making the treaty
with Mr. Erskine, knowing that he had no authority to make it, and
after the peremptory asseveration "that Government had no such
knowledge, that with such knowledge no such arrangement would have been
made," and "that no such insinuation could be admitted," he replied,
"that he made no insinuation, without being able to substantiate a
fact, and in that I must continue;" thereby persevering in the charge
of falsehood in the Administration for which he was dismissed. Again
our Government was expressly charged with knowing that Mr. Erskine
had no authority, and with dismissing Mr. Jackson without any just
cause; that his charge was true, and that in this the Government acted
under the influence of France. In order to make such an impression
on the public mind, Mr. Jackson is treated with uncommon attention.
When he arrives at Baltimore he is surrounded by tories, royalists,
Burrites, and British agents, and treated with great politeness--when
he arrives in Philadelphia, he is overwhelmed by the civilities of
refugees, tories, Burrites, and United States' Bank directors--when
he arrives at New York, he is received with open arms by a set of
beings of the same description, who invite him to a public dinner,
and to test their attachment to the British Government treat him to
"God save the King"--when he reaches Boston, there is great parade
indeed; he is welcomed to the city by tories, traitors, disorganizers,
and embargo-breakers, and Fanueil Hall, once the Council Chamber of
the patriots of the Revolution, is prostituted to the disgraceful
purpose of a public dinner to this disgraced Minister, and there we
see a distinguished Senator of the United States testing his loyalty
by the toast of "Britain's fast anchored isle, the world's last hope."
After this hasty review of the past, we ought not to be surprised at
any measures that may be taken against the Administration, when Great
Britain is in the question.
SATURDAY, February 23.
_Commercial Intercourse._
Mr. MILNOR said: Mr. Chairman, when I take a view of the course which
has been pursued in relation to this subject, during the present
session, I confess I feel greatly surprised that we should be called
upon to adopt the present measure. It will be recollected, sir, that,
at a very early period, the honorable chairman of the Committee on
Foreign Relations, reported a bill supplemental to the act of the 1st
of May last. Although the gentleman did make one or two feeble attempts
to call it up for consideration, yet it was manifest that there was a
general indisposition to act upon it at that time. This, in the opinion
of myself and many others, arose from a doubt in the good faith of
the Emperor of the French. It was true that he had, through the Duke
of Cadore, declared that the Berlin and Milan decrees were revoked
on the 5th of August and that they should cease to have effect after
the first of November; and it was also true that the President of the
United States had, by his proclamation of the 2d of November, declared,
not simply that this promise had been given, but that the decrees were
revoked, and had ceased to operate. Notwithstanding this declaration
of the President, the previous conduct of the French Emperor inspired
an almost universal doubt of his good faith, and the curious character
of the declaration made by Cadore, was calculated to increase it. The
decrees of Berlin and Milan were revoked; that is, dead on the 5th of
August, and ceased to have effect; that is, to live on the first of
November; thus this creature had the wonderful faculty of being dead
and alive at the same time; of ceasing to have effect, and acting with
full vigor at the same instant. While all was doubt and hesitation,
despatches were received from Mr. Russell, our Chargé d'Affaires at
Paris, which made it apparent that the decrees which were to cease to
have effect on the first of November, were, in the month of December,
still in existence, and in full and practical operation. It is now
evident that the President was duped by the French Emperor, and led
to issue a proclamation on the faith of his promise, declaring a fact
which did not exist. So convinced were the House that this was the true
state of the case, that the honorable chairman of the Committee on
Foreign Relations himself moved to recommit the bill he had previously
introduced, and it was done. What, then, I would ask, sir, has since
occurred to alter the face of affairs, to induce this new attempt
to fasten on the restrictive system against our intercourse with
Great Britain? Is there any thing in the last communication from the
President, calculated to produce such an effect? On the contrary, it
furnishes the most conclusive evidence of the treachery of Bonaparte,
and ought to serve as a beacon to warn us against trusting him further.
It is true that there is a letter from Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley,
dated December 10th, in which the former labors to prove, that Cadore's
note to Armstrong is an absolute repeal of the French decrees, without
any conditions precedent, and that therefore the British Government
ought to be satisfied of its validity, and take immediate measures
for revoking their orders and blockades, agreeably to their promise.
But, it unfortunately happened that, on the same day on which our
Minister at London was performing his duty, in transmitting his able
but theoretical argument to the British Ministry, our Minister at Paris
was also performing his duty in remonstrating against the practical
operation of those very decrees, which were to have ceased to have
effect on the first of November. [Here Mr. M. read the letter of Mr.
Russell to the Duke of Cadore, dated December 10th, remonstrating
against the seizure of the brig New Orleans Packet, it being the only
case, as declared by Mr. Russell, to which the decrees could be applied
subsequent to the first of November.]
I recollect, sir, when Mr. Russell's correspondence was communicated
to this House, an apology was set up for the French Emperor. It was
alleged that the President's proclamation had not arrived in France at
the time of the seizure of the New Orleans Packet, and that Bonaparte,
having received no evidence of the intention of the American Government
to fulfil their engagement, had used the precautionary measure of
seizing the vessel, until he should receive some evidence of our good
faith; and we were exultingly told that the President's proclamation
would put all to rights, by satisfying his doubting Majesty of our
sincerity, and would induce him to release all property seized
subsequent to the first of November, and once more to put an end to
those nine-lived decrees. How has this prediction been verified? The
President's proclamation was communicated to the French Government
on the 12th of December, two days after Mr. Russell's remonstrance;
and yet, for any thing we know, that remonstrance remains unanswered,
and the New Orleans Packet remains under seizure to this very day. It
is true that, after waiting thirteen days, His Majesty condescended
to direct the partial suspension of the decrees, thereby giving the
most positive proof not only of their existence, but of their active
operation. On the 25th of December, the Dukes of Massa and of Gaete,
by the direction of their master, severally wrote a letter to the
officers connected with their respective departments, directing them
to suspend the operation of those very decrees, so far as respected
the condemnation of vessels and cargoes seized after the first of
November; not only those then in custody, but such as should thereafter
be seized. I will read a part of those letters for the purpose of
refreshing the memories of gentlemen on the subject. The Duke of
Massa writes to the President of the Council of Prizes as follows:
"In consequence of this engagement entered into by the Government
of the United States, to cause their rights to be respected, His
Majesty orders that all the causes that may be pending in the Council
of Prizes, of captures of American vessels, made after the first of
November, and those that may in future be brought before it, shall not
be judged according to the principles of the decrees of Berlin and
Milan, but that they shall remain suspended; the vessels captured or
seized to remain only in a state of sequestration, and the rights of
the proprietors being reserved for them until the 2d February next,
the period at which, the United States having fulfilled the engagement
to cause their rights to be respected, the said captures shall be
declared null by the Council--and the American vessels restored,
together with their cargoes, to the proprietors." The letter of the
Duke of Gaete is of a similar import. I will read a single paragraph,
which is as follows: "His Majesty having seen in these two pieces" (the
President's proclamation and Gallatin's circular to the collectors)
"the enunciation of the measures which the Americans purpose taking on
the second of February next, to cause their rights to be respected, has
ordered me to inform you that the Berlin and Milan decrees must not be
applied to any American vessels that have entered our ports since the
first of November, or may enter in future; and that those which have
been sequestered, as being in contravention of these decrees, must be
the object of a special report."
Here, sir, we find these two officers, by direction of their master,
explicitly recognizing the existence of the Berlin and Milan decrees,
and suspending their operation not as to sequestration, but only as
to condemnation. Not only those which had arrived after the first of
November, but those which should thereafter arrive, were to be held
in a state of sequestration, and to be subject to a special report.
With this plain statement before their eyes, will gentlemen assert,
can they possibly believe, that the decrees were revoked and ceased to
have effect on the first of November? They surely cannot. If, then,
the declaration of the fifth of August is proved to be false, and the
assurance that the decrees should cease to have effect after the first
of November was mere delusion, what becomes of the act of the first
of May, and of the President's proclamation? Sir, they are mere dead
letters, having no binding force or operation. The practical operation
of the act of the first of May was to depend upon the performance of
certain conditions on the part of one or the other of the belligerents,
and the President's proclamation was intended as a mere notification
of such performance. Admitting, then, that a faithful performance of
the pledge of the fifth of August, on the part of France, would have
had a binding force on us to carry our part of the agreement into
effect, can any man under the existing circumstances believe we are so
bound? Can a violation of a solemn pledge confer an obligation which
was only intended to be created on the complete fulfilment of that
pledge? Surely not. Sir, the law of the first of May, professed, on the
face of it, to be impartial towards the two nations who have violated
our rights. It promised that, if either would so revoke or modify her
edicts as that they should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the
United States, in that case certain restrictive measures should be
revived against the other. Have either complied? France did, indeed,
make a declaration that her edicts were revoked, and should cease to
have effect on a certain day. That day has long since passed, and, for
any thing we know, those edicts are in full operation. Nay, we have
positive proof of their active existence, nearly two months after they
were to have ceased; for, on the 25th of December, their operation as
to the condemnation of American property was suspended, while their
power to sequester was absolutely recognized and continued. With
such glaring, such positive proof before our eyes, of the perfidy of
France, we are about to act as though we believed she had performed
her promise with the utmost good faith. Nay, more, sir; if she had,
indeed, complied with her engagement, she could require nothing more
of us than the act of the 1st of May last; that was the full amount of
our engagement, the utmost limit of our bond. Upon, and in consequence
of that, was the Emperor's promise founded. Yet we are not satisfied
with that; persisting, in the face of the most positive and conclusive
testimony to the contrary, to affect to believe that he has performed
his promise, we are going beyond our contract; and, lest some doubts
should arise of the Emperor's want of faith, lest our courts should
decide, as they must decide, that the decrees being still in force,
the act of the first of May is a mere dead letter, we are about to
volunteer our services, and, by the section of the bill now under
consideration, to revive those sections of the old non-intercourse law
which were intended in a certain event to have been revived by the act
of the first of May; to revive them against Great Britain, and that
without exacting any conditions on the part of France. And must this
sacrifice be made in order to bolster up the President's proclamation
so prematurely issued? Must the best interests of the nation be put to
hazard to save him the mortification of acknowledging his error and
retracing his steps? Here, I fear, lies the true motive for our present
procedure.
This restrictive system is now to be revived against England, the
French decrees being in full force and operation against us at the
same time. Is this an honest neutrality? Is it equal and exact justice
to those two nations? Is it not rewarding the perfidy of the one
at the expense of the other, and at the expense of ourselves? Let
us be cautious how we proceed in this course. If France choose, in
consequence of our non-intercourse law of 1809, which was equal in
its operation as to both nations, to take it so much in dudgeon as to
confiscate the whole of the American property within her power, even
that which had sought the rights of hospitality in her ports, how much
more may Great Britain feel herself justified in retaliating on this
most partial and unjust measure which we are about to adopt against
her, by confiscating the millions of our property now within her power.
And if we have been silent under the former, and have apparently
acquiesced in it, what shall we, what can we, say, in case the latter
event should take place? But, sir, the apologists of France tell us
that His Majesty, the Emperor, has pledged his royal word that the
decrees shall cease to operate as it respects us; and that, though he
has thought proper to postpone the measure from the first of November
to the second of February, he has only done so in order to ascertain
whether we mean to go on to fulfil our engagements with good faith;
that he is only holding our property seized since the first of November
as security for our performance; and that, when he finds we are
determined to resist the illegal orders and blockades of Great Britain,
he will give up the property of our citizens. How insulting, this, to
American feelings, to be told that a total violation of faith on the
part of this man is excusable, because he chooses to suspect our faith.
But, sir, do these people really believe the property of our citizens
will be given up after the second of February, and in consequence of
the measure we are now about to adopt? When did that voracious monster
ever disgorge the plunder he had once received into his insatiable maw?
Of the millions upon millions of which he has, at different times, and
under various pretexts, plundered our unsuspecting citizens, where is
the instance of a single dollar returning to its rightful owner? No,
sir, let it once get within his iron grasp, and it is lost forever.
The present measure is evidently intended as a propitiatory sacrifice
to conciliate Napoleon--to induce him to become our friend, and to
cease to rob and plunder our defenceless citizens. Is it calculated
to produce this effect? Short-sighted as we confessedly are, sir, I
should suppose we can scarcely be such silly politicians as to expect
such an effect from such a measure. A brief view of the course which
has been pursued, and is pursuing, by the Emperor of France, must
produce a conviction in every unprejudiced mind, that he is not to
be diverted from his purpose by a toy like this. Sir, it must be
evident to every mind that his ambition soars to universal conquest.
To this point all his measures tend--every other consideration is
made to yield. For the accomplishment of this object, almost every
nation on the Continent of Europe has been insulted, plundered, and
subdued. To this end the external commerce of the continent has been
annihilated, the agricultural and manufacturing interests have been
depressed, and millions of his own subjects, and those of nations under
his influence, impoverished and ruined. But there is one impediment
to his gigantic project. Britain, proud, haughty Britain, stands in
the way, and puts a stop to his career. Isolated, as she happily is,
and the proud mistress of the ocean, she presents an impenetrable
barrier to his ambitious views. But Britain must be humbled, she must
be subdued. Her power on the ocean must be destroyed; and, to effect
this, she must be attacked through her commerce and manufactures.
For this purpose, what he is pleased to call his great continental
system has been devised and rigorously enforced. Finding that all his
restrictions and confiscations, aided by all his civil and military
power, could not prevent the introduction of British merchandise upon
the continent, he has resorted to a plan which promises to be more
effectual. Regardless of the rights and interests of his subjects, he
does not inquire whose the property may be; if it is of British origin
it is committed to the flames. Such is his plan; such are the efforts
and sacrifices he is making to insure its accomplishment. And yet, Mr.
Chairman, it would seem as if we had the consummate folly to believe
that we can appease this merciless tyrant by so weak, so silly, so
futile a measure as this one now under consideration. We seem to have
the madness to believe that this man, after the immense sacrifices he
has made for the attainment of his object, would yield that object in
our favor, and in order to be upon friendly terms with us would forego
all other considerations. And from what premises is such a conclusion
drawn? Is it from his past treatment of us? Let us, Mr. Chairman, take
a brief review of his past conduct towards us, in order to see what we
may expect in future. It is some years since he ordered our ships and
cargoes to be burned upon the ocean, and many were burnt. He has, at
various terms, and under different pretexts, seized and confiscated
the property of our citizens on the ocean, and in his ports, and in
the ports of his vassals. No longer ago than last spring, he told us
that we were without just political views, without honor, without
energy; and that, after refusing to fight for honor, we might find it
necessary to fight for interest. This insulting declaration, which
was dated on the 14th of February, was followed on the 23d of March
by the Rambouillet decree, which confiscated all American vessels
and cargoes which had arrived from the 20th of May, 1809, or should
thereafter arrive in any port of France, her allies, or those occupied
by her arms. Thus was from twenty to thirty millions of the property
of our unsuspecting and confiding citizens, who had sought the rights
of hospitality in his ports, sacrificed without a pretext, or with a
pretext which added to the injury. Finding, after this gross violation
of every principle which ought to govern honest and honorable nations,
that our merchants, taught by sad experience that there was no safety
within the range of his power, would venture there no more, he found
it necessary to throw out another lure to entice the unwary within his
reach. His tone is now suddenly changed. Instead of the haughty and
insulting tyrant, he assumes the shape of a fond and doating lover.
"His Majesty loves the Americans. Their prosperity and their commerce
are within the scope of his policy. He is pleased in aggrandizing the
United States." Yes, truly, His Majesty loves the Americans! If not
for our persons, yet for our property, he has given the most ample and
convincing proofs of his love. These sugared words, displaying so much
of the milk of human kindness, seem to have perfectly reconciled us to
his loving Majesty, and to have quite obliterated the remembrance of
his harsh and unkind language so lately used towards us. And not only
so, but it seems to have fully compensated us for all his robberies;
and we forbear to touch that string, lest he might be somewhat ruffled,
and once more induced to vent his anger on us. But lest his bare
professions of love should not have the desired effect of inducing
the Americans once more to place their property within his power, he
directed his Minister to declare that the Berlin and Milan decrees were
revoked, and should cease to have effect after the first of November.
Our Administration, confiding in his assurances, in the face of all his
previous conduct, published the proclamation of the second of November,
and thereby assisted in deceiving our too credulous citizens. But few,
however, ventured to place trust in him; and those who did, have met
with a fate which every man of reflection ought to have anticipated.
If, sir, such has been the course of that man's conduct towards us,
(and that it has, I appeal to all the documents which have been laid
before us,) I would ask why are we called upon to pass the section now
under consideration? To me, it is matter of mystery and astonishment.
MONDAY, February 25.
_Commercial Intercourse._
The House resumed the consideration of the unfinished business of
Saturday last, to wit, the bill supplementary to the act entitled "An
act concerning the commercial intercourse between the United States
and Great Britain and France, and their dependencies, and for other
purposes," and the amendments reported thereto by the Committee of the
whole House. The said amendments were read at the clerk's table.
Mr. QUINCY.--Mr. Speaker: The amendments contained in the sections
under consideration, contemplate the continuance and enforcement of the
non-intercourse law. This proposition presents a great, an elevated
and essential topic of discussion, due to the occasion, and claimed
by this people, which comprehends within the sphere and analogies of
just argument, the chief of those questions, the decision of which, at
this day, involves the peace, the happiness, and honor of this nation.
Whatever has a tendency to show, that if the system of non-intercourse
exist, it ought not to be continued; or, that if it do not exist, it
ought not to be revived; whatever has a tendency to prove, that we
are under no obligation to persist in it, nor under any obligation to
abandon it, is now within the fair range of debate.
After long delay, and much coy demeanor, the Administration of this
country have condescended to develop their policy. Though they have not
spoken to our mortal ears, with their fleshly tongues, yet they have
whispered their purposes through the constituted organs of this House.
And these are the features of the policy which they recommend: it is
proposed to grant particular and individual relief from anticipated
oppressions of the commercial restrictive system. It is proposed to
perpetuate that system, indefinitely, and leave our citizens, still
longer, subject to its embarrassments, its uncertainty and its terrors.
The chairman of our Committee of Foreign Relations, (Mr. EPPES,) at
the time he introduced these amendments to the House, exhibited the
true character of this policy, when he told us that it was "modelled
upon the principle not to turn over to the Judiciary the decision of
the existence of the non-intercourse law, but to make it the subject
of legislative declaration." In other words, it is found that the
majority of this House have too much policy to deny, and too much
principle to assert, that the fact, on which, and on which alone, the
President of the United States was authorized to issue his proclamation
of the second of November last, has occurred. A scheme has, therefore,
been devised, by which, without any embarrassment on this intricate
point, the continuance and enforcement of non-intercourse may be
insured, and toils, acceptable to France, woven by the hands of our own
Administration, spread over almost the only remaining avenue of our
commercial hope.
The proposition, contained in these amendments, has relation to the
most momentous and most elevated of our legislative obligations. We
are not, now, about to discuss the policy by which a princely pirate
may be persuaded to relinquish his plunder; nor yet the expectation
entertained of relaxation, in her belligerent system, of a haughty,
and perhaps jealous rival; nor yet the faith which we owe to a
treacherous tyrant; nor yet the fond, but frail hopes of favors from a
British regency, melting into our arms, in the honeymoon of power. The
obligations which claim our observance are of a nature much more tender
and imperious; the obligations which, as Representatives, we owe to
our constituents; the allegiance by which we are bound to the American
people; the obedience which is due to that solemn faith, by which we
are pledged to protect their peace, their prosperity, and their honor.
All these high considerations are materially connected with this policy.
It is not my intention, Mr. Speaker, to dilate on the general nature
and effects of this commercial restrictive system. It is no longer a
matter of speculation. We have no need to resort for illustration of
its nature to the twilight lustre of history, nor yet to the vibrating
brightness of human intellect. We have experience of its effects.
They are above, around, and beneath us. They paralyze the enterprise
of your cities. They sicken the industry of your fields. They deprive
the laborer and the mechanic of his employment. They subtract from the
husbandman and planter the just reward for that product which he has
moistened with the sweat of his brow. They crush individuals, in the
ruins of their most flattering hopes, and shake the deep-rooted fabric
of general prosperity.
It will, however, be necessary to say a word on the general nature
of this system. Not so much for the purpose of elucidating, as to
clear the way, and give distinctness to the course of my argument. It
will also be useful to deprive the advocates of this system of those
colors and popular lures, to which they resort, on a subject in no way
connected with the objects with which they associate it.
My argument proceeds upon the assumption of the irrelevancy of four
topics, usually adduced in support of the system contained in the law
of May, 1810, and of March, 1809; commonly called the non-intercourse
system. I take for granted that it is not advantageous; in other
words, that it is injurious; that it is not fiscal in its nature; nor
protective of manufactures; nor competent to coerce either belligerent.
That it is injurious is certain, not only because it is deprecated by
that part of the community which it directly affects, but because no
man advocates it as a permanent system, and every one declares his
desire to be rid of it. Fiscal it cannot be, because it prohibits
commerce, and consequently revenue; and by the high price and great
demand for foreign articles, which it produces, encourages smuggling.
Protective of manufactures it cannot be, because it is indiscriminate
in its provisions and uncertain in its duration; and this uncertainty
depends, not on our legislative discretion, but on the caprice of
foreign powers; our enemies, or rivals. No commercial system, which
is indiscriminate in its restrictions, can be generally protective
to manufactures. It may give a forced vivacity to a few particular
manufactures. But in all countries, some, and in this almost all
manufactures, depend, either for instruments or subjects, on foreign
supply. But, if this were not the case, a system, whose continuance
depended upon the will or the ever variant policy of foreign nations,
can never offer such an inducement to the capitalist, as will encourage
him to make extensive investments, in establishments resting on such
precarious foundations. As to the incompetency of this system to coerce
either belligerent, I take that for granted, because no man, as far
as I recollect, ever pretended it; at least no man ever did show, by
any analysis, or detailed examination of its relative effects on us,
and either belligerent, that it would necessarily coerce either out
of that policy which it was proposed to counteract. Embargo had its
friends. There were those who had a confidence in its success. But who
was ever the friend of non-intercourse? Who ever pretended to believe
in its efficacy? The embargo had a known origin, and the features of
its character were distinct. But "where, and what was this execrable
shape--if shape it may be called, which shape has none?" We all know
that the non-intercourse was not the product of any prospective
intelligence. It was the result of the casual concurrence of chaotic
opinions. It was agreed upon, because the majority could agree upon
nothing else. They who introduced it, abjured it. They who advocated
it, did not wish, and scarcely knew its use. And now that it is said to
be extended over us, no man, in this nation, who values his reputation,
will take his Bible oath that it is in effectual and legal operation.
There is an old riddle on a coffin, which I presume we all learned
when we were boys, that is as perfect a representation of the origin,
progress, and present state of this thing, called non-intercourse, as
is possible to be conceived.
"There was a man bespoke a thing,
Which when the maker home did bring,
That same maker did refuse it;
The man that spoke for it did not use it,
And he who had it did not know
Whether he had it;--yea, or no."
True it is, that if this non-intercourse shall ever be, in reality,
extended over us, the similitude will fail, in a material point. The
poor tenant of the coffin is ignorant of his state. But the poor
people of the United States will be, literally, buried alive in
non-intercourse; and realize the grave closing on themselves and their
hopes with a full and cruel consciousness of all the horrors of their
condition.
For these reasons, I put all such common-place topics out of the field
of debate. This, then, is the state of my argument; that as this
non-intercourse system is not fiscal, nor protective of manufactures,
nor competent to coerce, and is injurious, it ought to be abandoned,
unless we are bound to persist in it, by imperious obligations. My
object will be to show that no such obligations exist; that the present
is a favorable opportunity, not to be suffered to escape, totally to
relinquish it; that it is time to manage our own commercial concerns,
according to our own interest; and no longer put them into the keeping
of those who hate or those who envy their prosperity; that we are the
constituted shepherds, and ought no more to transfer our custody to the
wolves.
It is agreed, on all sides, that it is desirable to abandon this
commercial restrictive system. But the advocates of the measure now
proposed, say that we cannot abandon it, because our faith is plighted.
Yes, sir, our faith is plighted; and that, too, to that scrupulous
gentleman, Napoleon; a gentleman so distinguished for his own regard of
faith; for his kindness and mercies towards us; for angelic whiteness
of moral character; for overweening affection for the American people
and their prosperity. Truly, sir, it is not to be questioned, but that
our faith should be a perfect work towards this paragon of purity. On
account of our faith, plighted to him, it is proposed to continue this
non-intercourse.
But, Mr. Speaker, we may be allowed, I presume, to inquire whether
any such faith be plighted. I trust we are yet freemen. We are not
yet so far sunk in servility, that we are forbidden to examine into
the grounds of our national obligations. Under a belief that this is
permitted, I shall enter upon the task, and inquire whence they arise
and what is their nature.
Whence they arise is agreed. Our obligations result, if any exist,
under the act of May the first, 1810, called "An act concerning the
commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain
and France, and their dependencies, and for other purposes." It
remains, therefore, to inquire into the character of this act, and the
obligations arising under its provisions.
Before, however, I proceed, I would premise, that whether I shall
obtain, I am doubtful, but I am sure that the nature of my argument
deserves, the favor and prepossession for its success, of every member
in the House. My object is to show, that the obligation which we owe to
the people of the United States, is a free and unrestricted commerce.
The object of those who advocate these measures is to show that the
obligation we owe to Napoleon Bonaparte, is a commerce restricted and
enslaved. Now, as much as our allegiance is due more to the people
of the United States than it is to Napoleon Bonaparte, just so much
ought my argument to be received by the American Congress, with more
favor and prepossession than the argument of those who advocate these
measures. It is my intention to make my course of reasoning as precise
and distinct as possible. Because I invite scrutiny, I contend for
my country according to my conscientious conceptions of its best
interests. If there be fallacy, detect it. My invitation is given to
generous disputants. As to your stump orators, who utter low invective
and mistake it for wit, and gross personality, and pass it off for
argument, I descend not to their level; nor recognize their power to
injure; nor even to offend.
Whatever obligations are incumbent upon this nation, in consequence
of the act of the first of May, 1810, they result from the following
section: "_And be it further enacted_, That in case either Great
Britain or France shall, before the third day of March next, so revoke
or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the neutral
commerce of the United States, which fact the President of the United
States shall declare by proclamation, and if the other nation shall
not, within three months thereafter, so revoke or modify her edicts,
in like manner, then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth,
ninth, tenth, and eighteenth sections of the act, entitled 'An act
to interdict the commercial intercourse between the United States
and Great Britain and France, and their dependencies, and for other
purposes,' shall, from and after the expiration of three months from
the date of the proclamation aforesaid, be revived and have full
force and effect, so far as relates to the dominions, colonies, and
dependencies of the nation thus refusing or neglecting to revoke or
modify her edicts in manner aforesaid. And the restrictions imposed
by this act shall, from the date of such proclamation, cease and be
discontinued in relation to the nation revoking or modifying her
decrees, in the manner aforesaid."
Divested of technical expression, this is the abstract form of this
section. It provides that a new commercial condition shall result, on
the occurrence of a specified fact; which fact the President shall
declare. On this state of the subject I observe that nothing in the act
indicates whether the object of the United States, in providing for
this eventual commercial condition, was its own benefit, convenience,
or pleasure; or whether it was in the nature of a proffer to foreign
nations. It will, however, be agreed on all sides, that the object
was either the one or the other. If the object were our own benefit,
convenience, or pleasure, it will not be pretended that we are under
any obligation to continue the system. For that which was adopted,
solely for either of these ends, may, whenever our views concerning
them vary, be abandoned; it being the concern of no other. But it is
said that the act was, in truth, a proffer to the two belligerents,
of commerce to the obsequious nation, prohibition of commerce to the
contumacious nation. If this were the case, I shall agree, for the
sake of argument, that it ought to be fulfilled to the full extent
of the terms. But inasmuch as there is, in the terms of the act,
no indication of such a proffer, it follows that its nature must
arise from the circumstances of the case; and that the whole of the
obligation, whatever it is, grows out of an honorable understanding,
and nothing else. As such, I admit, it should be honorably fulfilled.
The nature of this proffer is that of a proposition upon terms. Now
what I say is, and it is the foundation of my argument, that whoever
claims an honorable compliance with such a proposition, must be able
to show, on his part, an honorable acceptance and fulfilment of the
terms. The terms our act proposed were--an act to be done; an effect
to be produced. The act to be done was, the revocation or modification
of the edicts. The effect to be produced was that this revocation or
modification should be such as that these edicts should "cease to
violate our neutral commerce." Now the questions which result are,
has the act been done? If done, has it been so done as to amount to
an honorable fulfilment or acceptance of our terms? The examination
of these two points will explain the real situation of these United
States, and the actual state of their obligations.
In considering the question whether the fact of revocation, or
modification, has occurred, it is unfortunate that it does involve,
at least in popular estimation, the propriety of the proclamation,
issued on the second of November last, by the President of the
United States. I regret, as much as any one, that such is the state
of things, that the question, whether a foreign despot has done a
particular act, seems necessarily to be connected with the question
concerning the prudence and perspicacity with which our own Chief
Magistrate has done another act. I say in popular estimation these
subjects seem so connected. I do not think that, in the estimation of
wise and reflecting men, they are necessarily thus connected. For the
fact might not have occurred precisely in the form contemplated by
the act of May, 1810, and yet the President of the United States, in
issuing his proclamation, might be either justifiable or excusable.
It might be justifiable. A power intrusted to a politician to be used
on the occurrence of a particular event, for the purpose of obtaining
a particular end, he may sometimes be justifiable in using, in a case
which may not be precisely that originally contemplated. It may be
effectually, though not formally, the same. It may be equally efficient
in attaining the end. In such a case a politician never will, and
perhaps ought not to hesitate at taking the responsibility, which
arises from doing the act in a case not coming within the verbal scope
of his authority. Thus, in the present instance. The President of the
United States might have deemed the terms, in the letter of the Duke
of Cadore, such as gave a reasonable expectation of acceptance on the
part of Great Britain. He has taken the responsibility. He has been
deceived. Neither Great Britain accepts the terms, nor France performs
her engagements. The proclamation might thus have been wise, though
unfortunate in its result. And as to excuse, will it be said that there
is nothing of the sort in this case? Why, sir, our Administration saw
the Great Napoleon, according to his own confession, over head and ears
in love with the American people. At such a sight as this, was it to be
expected of flesh and blood that they should hesitate to plunge into a
sea of bliss, and indulge in joy with such an amorous Cyprian?
But, whether the fact has occurred, on which alone this proclamation
could have legally issued, is a material inquiry and cannot be evaded,
let it reach where or whom it will. For with this is connected the
essential condition of this country; on this depends the multiplied
rights of our fellow-citizens, whose property has been or may be seized
or confiscated under this law: and hence result our obligations, if
any, as is pretended, exist. It is important here to observe, that,
according to the terms of the act of May 1, 1810, the law of March 1,
1809, revives on the occurrence of the fact required, and not on the
proclamation issued. If the fact had not occurred, the proclamation
is a dead letter, and no subsequent performance of the required fact,
by either belligerent, can retroact so as to give validity to the
previous proclamation. The course required by the act of the 1st of
May, 1810, unquestionably is, that the fact required to be done should
be precedent, in point of time, to the right accruing to issue the
proclamation; and of consequence that, by no construction, can any
subsequent performance of the fact required operate backward to support
a proclamation issued previous to the occurrence of that fact? Whenever
this fact is really done, a new proclamation is required to comply with
the provisions of the act, and to give efficacy to them.
I am the more particular in referring to this necessary construction,
resulting from the terms of the act of the first of May last, because
it is very obvious that a different opinion did until very lately,
and probably does now, prevail on this floor. We all recollect what a
state of depression the conduct of Bonaparte in seizing our vessels,
subsequent to the first of November, produced, as soon as it was
known in this House, and what a sudden joy was lighted up in it,
when the news of the arrival of a French Minister was communicated.
Great hopes were entertained and expressed, that he would bring some
formal revocation of his edicts, or disavowal of the seizures which
might retroact and support the proclamation. It was confidently
expected that some explanation, at least of these outrages, would be
contained in his portmanteau; that under his powder-puff, or in his
snuff box, some dust would be found to throw into the eyes of the
American people, which might so far blind the sense, as to induce
them to acquiesce in the enforcement of the non-intercourse, without
any very scrupulous scrutiny into the performance of the conditions
by Bonaparte. But, alas! sir, the Minister is as parsimonious as his
master is voracious. He has not condescended to extend one particle,
not one pinch of comfort to the Administration. From anything in
the Messages of our President, it would not be so much as known
that such a blessed vision, as was this new Envoy, had saluted his
eyes. His communications preserve an ominous silence on the topic.
Administration, after all their hopes, have been compelled to resort
to the old specific, and have caused to be tipped upon our tables a
cart-load of sand, grit, and sawdust, from our metaphysical mechanic,
who seesaws at St. James', as they pull the wire here in Washington.
Yes, sir, a letter written on the tenth day of December last, by our
Minister in London, is seriously introduced to prove, by abstract
reasoning, that the Berlin and Milan decrees had ceased to exist on the
first of the preceding November, of whose existence, as late as the
25th of last December, we have, as far as the nature of things permit,
ocular, auricular, and tangible demonstration. And the people of this
country are invited to believe the logic of Mr. Pinkney in the face of
the fact of a continued seizure of all the vessels which came within
the grasp of the French custom-house, from the first of November, down
to the date of our last accounts; and, in defiance of the declaration
of our Chargé d'Affaires, made on the 10th of December, that "it will
not be pretended that the decrees have in fact been revoked," and in
utter discredit of the allegation of the Duke of Massa, made on the
25th of the same month, which, in effect, declares the Berlin and
Milan decrees exist, by declaring "that they shall remain suspended."
After such evidence as this, the question whether a revocation or
modification of the edicts of France has so occurred "as that they
cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States," does no
longer depend upon the subtleties of syllogistic skill, nor is to be
disproved by any power of logical illation. It is an affair of sense
and feeling. And our citizens, whose property has been, since the first
of November, uniformly seized, and of which they are avowedly to be
deprived three months, and which is then only to be returned to them
on the condition of good behavior, may as soon be made to believe, by
the teaching of philosophy, that their rights are not violated, as a
wretch, writhing under the lash of the executioner, might be made by a
course of reasoning to believe, that the natural state of his flesh was
not violated, and that his shoulders, out of which blood was flowing at
every stroke, were in the quiet enjoyment of cuticular ease.
Whether the revocation expressed in the letter of the Duke of Cadore,
was absolute or conditional, or whether the conditions were precedent
or subsequent, in the present state of our evidence, it seems scarcely
important to inquire. Yet the construction of that celebrated passage,
in his letter of the 5th of August, has been, as I have ever seen,
given so much in the manner of lawyers, and so little in that of
statesmen, that it deserves a short elucidation; how much the words
"it being understood that," in their particular position are worth;
and whether they have the effect of a condition precedent, or of a
condition subsequent. A statesman will look at the terms contained in
that letter in a different aspect, not for the purpose of ascertaining
how much a court of law might be able to make of them, as to discern
in what position of language the writer intended to intrench himself,
and to penetrate his real policy, notwithstanding the veil in which he
chose to envelope it. He will consider the letter in connection with
the general course of French policy, and the particular circumstances
which produced it. By these lights, it is scarcely possible to mistake
the character and true construction of these expressions. Upon
recurring to the Berlin and Milan decrees, it will be found that they
contain a solemn pledge, that "they shall continue to be rigorously in
force, as long as that (the English) Government does not return to the
principle of the law of nations." Their determination to support this
pledge, the French Government has uniformly and undeviatingly declared.
They have told us constantly that they require a previous revocation on
the part of Great Britain, as the condition of their rescinding those
edicts. The question who should first revoke their edicts had come to
be, notoriously, a sort of point of honor between the two belligerents.
Perfectly acquainted with this state of things, we have been
perpetually negotiating between the one and the other, and contending
with each that it was his duty previously to revoke. At length the
French Government, either tired with our solicitations, or more
probably, seeing their own advantage in our anxiety to get rid of these
decrees, which yet, as an essential part of its continental system of
total commercial exclusion it never intended to abandon, devised this
scheme of policy, which has been the source of so much contest, and
has puzzled all the metaphysicians in England and the United States.
Cadore is directed to say to Mr. Armstrong: "In this new state of
things I am authorized to declare to you, sir, that the decrees of
Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that after the first of November they
will cease to have effect; it being understood that, in consequence of
this declaration, the English shall revoke their Orders in Council,
and renounce the new principles of blockade which they have wished to
establish; or that the United States, conformably to the act you have
just communicated, shall cause their rights to be respected by the
English." In this curious gallimaufry of time present and time future,
of doing and refraining to do, of declaration and understanding, of
English duties and American duties, it is easy to trace the design,
and see its adaptation to the past and present policy of the French
Emperor. The time present was used, because the act of the United
States required that previously to the proclamation the edicts "shall
be" revoked. And this is the mighty mystery of time present being
used, in expressing an act intended to be done in time future. For
if, as the order of time, and the state of intention indicated, time
future had been used, and the letter of Cadore had said the decrees
shall be revoked on the first of November next, then the proclamation
could not be issued, because the President would be obliged to wait
to have evidence that the act had been effectually done. Now as the
French Emperor never intended that it should be effectuated, and yet
meant to have all the advantage of an effectual deed without performing
it, this notable scheme was invented. And, by French finesse, and
American acquiescence, a thing is considered as effectually done, if
the declaration that it is done be made in language of time present,
notwithstanding the time of performance is in the same breath declared
to be in time future. Having thus secured the concurrence of the
American administration, the next part of the scheme was so to arrange
the expression that either the British Government should not accede, or
if it did accede, that it should secure to France the point of honor--a
previous revocation by the British; and if they did not accede, that
there should be a color for seizures and sequestrations, and thus still
further to bind the Americans over to their good behavior. All this is
attained by this well-devised expression "it being understood that, in
consequence of this declaration, the English shall revoke."
Now, Great Britain either would accede to the terms, or she would not.
If she did, and did it as the terms required, in consequence of this
declaration, then it must be done previous to the first of November,
and then the point of honor was saved to France; so that thus France,
by a revocation verbally present, effectually future, would attain
an effectual previous revocation from the English. But if, as France
expected Great Britain would not trust in such paper security, and
therefore not revoke, previously to the first of November, then an
apology might be found for France, to justify her in refusing to
effectuate that present, future, and absolute, conditional revocation.
And if ever the Duke of Cadore shall condescend, which it is probable
he never will, to reason with our Government on the subject, he may
tell them that they knew that the French Emperor had issued those
decrees, upon the pledge that they were to continue until the British
abandoned their maritime principles; that he told us, over, and over,
and over again, that previous revocation by the British was absolutely
required; that for the purpose of putting to trial the sincerity of
the British, he had indeed declared that the French decrees "are
revoked," on the first day of November ensuing; but then it was on the
expressed condition that _in consequence of that declaration_, not of
the revocation, but of _that declaration_, the British were to revoke,
and, if they did not, the "understanding" was not realized; and his
rights of enforcing his system remained to him. And I confess I do not
well see what answer can be made to such an argument. Let us examine
the case in common life. You, Mr. Speaker, have two separate tracts
of land, each lying behind the farms of A and B, so that you cannot
get to one of the tracts, without going over the farm of A, nor to
the other tract without going over the farm of B. For some cause or
other, both A and B have a mutual interest that you should enjoy the
right of passage to your tract, over the farm of each respectively. A
and B get into quarrels and wish to involve you in the dispute. You
keep aloof, but are perpetually negotiating with each for your old
right of passage-way, and telling each that it is owing to him that
the other prohibits your enjoyment of it. At last A says "Come. We
will put this B to trial. I on this fifth day of August, declare my
prohibitions of passage-way are revoked, and, after the first day
of November, my prohibitions shall cease to have effect; but, it is
understood that B, _in consequence of this declaration_, shall also
revoke his prohibition of passage-way." If B refuses, does A, under the
circumstances of such a declaration, violate any obligation, should
he refuse to permit the passage? Might not A urge with great color
and force of argument, that this arrangement was the effect of your
solicitation and assurance that B would be tempted by such a proffer,
and that the revocation of B was required, by the terms, to be the
consequence of A's declaration, for the very purpose of indicating
that it must be anterior to the fact of A's effectual revocation? But
let this be as it will; suppose that you, on the first of November,
in consequence of A's assurance, had sent your servants and teams to
bring home your products, and A should seize your oxen, and teams and
products, and drive your servants, after having stripped them, from
his farm, and should tell you, that he should keep this, and all other
property of yours, on which he can lay his hands, for three months,
and then he should restore it to you, or not, as he saw fit, according
to his opinion of your good behavior. I ask, if, in any sense, you
could truly say that on the first day of November the prohibitions or
edicts of A were so revoked, that they ceased to violate your liberty
of passage? Sir, when viewed in relation to common life, the idea is
so absurd, that it would be absolutely abusive to ask the question.
I refer the decision of so simple a case to the sound sense of the
American people, and not to that of "scurvy politicians, who seem to
see the things they do not." In a condensed form my argument is this.
From a revocation merely verbal, no obligations result. By the terms of
our act the revocation must be effectual, "so as the edict shall cease
to violate our rights." Now the simple question is, whether a uniform
seizure, since the first of November, under those edicts (for none
other are pretended) of all their property, and holding it for three
months, to see how they will behave, be or be not a violation of the
rights of the American people? In relation to the revival by a formal
declaration of the non-intercourse system, as is proposed in one of
these sections, I offer this argument: Either the fact, on which the
President's proclamation could alone have been issued, has occurred
or it has not. If it has occurred, then the law of March, 1809, is
revived, and this provision, by a declarative law, is unnecessary.
If it have not occurred, then there is no obligation to revive it,
for alone on the occurrence of the specified fact does our obligation
depend. In such case the revival by declaration is a mere gratuity to
Napoleon. This is in fact the true character of the law. As to the
provisions for relief of our merchants against anticipated seizure,
I hold them scarcely deserving consideration. Heaven be praised we
have independent tribunals and intelligent juries. Our judges are not
corrupt and our yeomanry will not be swayed in their decisions, by the
hope of presidential favors, nor be guided by party influence. The
harpies of your custom-house dare as soon eat off their own claws, as
thrust them, in the present state of the law of March, 1809, into the
fatness of their fellow-citizens. The timorous and light-shunning herd
of spies and informers have too much instinct to pounce on such a prey.
But, in order to cause any obligation to result under the law of May
1, 1810, it is necessary, not only that the fact required be done, and
the effect required produced; but also the terms of that act must be
accepted. The proffer we made, if such be the character of that act,
was only to revive the non-intercourse law against the contumacious
belligerent, after three months had expired from the date of the
proclamation. Now it is remarkable, that, so far from accepting the
terms of the proposition contained in our act, as the extent of our
obligations, Bonaparte expressly tells us that they mean something
else; and something, too, that no man in this House will dare to aver
they really intend. It is also remarkable that the terms of this
celebrated letter from the Duke of Cadore, of the fifth of August,
which have been represented as a relaxation in the rigor of the French
Emperor's policy, are, in fact, something worse than the original terms
of the Milan decree, and that, instead of having obtained a boon from
a friend in this boasted letter, our Administration have only caught
a gripe from a Tartar. By the terms of the Milan decree, it was to
"cease with respect to all nations who compelled the English to respect
their flag." By the terms of the letter of Cadore, it was to cease on
condition that the United States "cause their rights to be respected."
Now, as much as an obligation, of an indefinite extent, is worse than a
definite obligation, just so much worse are the terms of the letter of
Cadore, than the original terms of the Milan decree. Mr. Speaker, let
us not be deceived concerning the policy of the French Emperor. It is
stern, unrelenting, and unrelaxing. So far from any deviation from his
original system being indicated in this letter of the Duke of Cadore, a
strict adherence to it is formally and carefully expressed. Ever since
the commencement of "his continental system," as it is called, the
policy of Napoleon has uniformly been to oblige the United States to
effectual co-operation in that system. As early as the 7th of October,
1807, his minister, Champagny, wrote to General Armstrong, that the
interests of all maritime powers were common, to unite in support of
their rights against England. After this followed the embargo, which
co-operated effectually at the very critical moment, in his great plan
of continental commercial restriction. On the 24th of the ensuing
November, he resorts to the same language--"in violating the rights of
all nations England has united them all by a common interest, and it is
for them to have recourse to force against her." He then proceeds to
invite the United States to take "with the whole continent the part of
guaranteeing itself from her injustice, and in forcing her to a peace."
On the 15th of January, 1808, he is somewhat more pointed and positive,
as to our efficient concurrence in his plan of policy. For his
Minister, Champagny, then tells us, that "His Majesty has no doubt of
a declaration of war against England by the United States," and he
then proceeds to take the trouble of declaring war out of our hands,
and volunteers his services, gratuitously, to declare it, in our name
and behalf. "War exists then, in fact, between England and the United
States; and His Majesty considers it as declared from the day on which
England published her decrees." And in order to make assurance doubly
sure, he sequesters our vessels in his ports, "until a decision may be
had on the dispositions to be expressed by the United States," on his
proposition of considering themselves "associated in the cause of all
the powers," against England. Now in all this there is no deception,
and can be no mistake, as to the purpose of his policy. He tells us,
as plain as language can speak, that "by causing our rights to be
respected," he means war, on his side, against Great Britain. That "our
interests are common"--that he considers us already "associates in the
war," and that he sequesters our property by way of security for our
dispositions. This is his old policy. I pray some gentlemen on the
other side of the House to point out in what it differs from the new.
The letter of Cadore on the fifth of August tells us, it is expected
that we "cause our rights to be respected, in conformity to our act,"
and the same letter also tells us what he understands to be the meaning
of our act. "In short, Congress engages to oppose itself to that one
of the belligerent powers which shall refuse to acknowledge the rights
of neutrals." In other words, "by causing our rights to be respected,"
he means war on his side against Great Britain. In perfect conformity
with this uniform, undeviating policy, his Minister, Turreau, tells
our Government, in his letter of the 28th of November last, that "the
modifications to be given to the present absolute exclusion of our
products will not depend upon the chance of events, but will be the
result of measures, firm and pursued with perseverance, which the two
Governments will continue to adopt to withdraw from the monopoly and
from the vexations of the common enemy a commerce loyal and necessary
to France as well as the United States." And to the end, that no one
feature of his policy should be changed, or even appear to be relaxed,
his Excellency the Duke of Massa, and his Excellency the Duke of Gaete,
in their respective letters of the 25th of December, declare, that the
property taken, shall be "only sequestered until the United States have
fulfilled their engagements to cause their rights to be respected."
Now, Mr. Speaker, is there a man in this House bold enough to maintain,
or with capacity enough to point out, any material variation between
the policy of France to this country, subsequent to the Cadore letter,
of the 5th of August, and its policy anterior to that period? The
character of the policy is one and indivisible. Bonaparte had not
yielded one inch to our Administration. Now, as he neither performed
the act required by the law of May, 1810; nor produced the effect;
nor accepted the terms it proposed; whence arise our obligations? How
is our faith plighted? In what way are we bound again to launch our
country into this dark sea of restriction; surrounded on all sides
with perils and penalties?
The true nature of this Cadore policy is alone to be discovered in
the character of his master. Napoleon is a universal genius. "He can
exchange shapes with Proteus to advantage." He hesitates at no means
and commands every skill. He toys with the weak--he tampers with the
mean--he browbeats the haughty--with the cunning he is a serpent.
For the courageous he has teeth and talons. For the cowering he has
hoofs. He found our Administration a pen and ink gentry--parchment
politicians; and he has laid, for these ephemeral essences, a paper
fly-trap, dipped in French honey. Hercules, finding that he could not
reach our Administration with his club, and that they were out of their
wits at the sight of his lion's skin, has condescended to meet them in
petticoats, and conquer them, spinning at their own distaff.
As to those who, after the evidence now in our hands, deny that the
decrees exist, I can no more reason with them than with those who
should deny the sun to be in the firmament, at noon-day. The decrees
revoked! The formal statute act of a despot revoked by the breath of
his servile Minister; uttered on conditions not performed by Great
Britain, and claiming terms not intended to be performed by us! The
fatness of our commerce secure, when every wind of heaven is burdened
with the sighs of our suffering seamen, and the coast of the whole
continent heaped with the plunder of our merchants! The den of the
tiger safe! Yet the tracks of those who enter it are innumerable, and
not a trace is to be seen of a returning footstep! The den of the
tiger safe! While the cry of the mangled victims are heard through the
adamantine walls of his cave; cries, which despair and anguish utter,
and which despotism itself cannot stifle!
No, Mr. Speaker. Let us speak the truth. The act now proposed is
required by no obligation. It is wholly gratuitous. Call it then
by its proper name. The first fruit of French alliance. A token, a
transatlantic submission. Any thing except an act of an American
Congress, the Representatives of freemen.
The present is the most favorable moment for the abandonment of these
restrictions, unless a settled co-operation with the French continental
system be determined. We have tendered the provisions of this act to
both belligerents. Both have accepted--both, as principals, or by their
agents, have deceived us.
We talk of the edicts of George the Third and Napoleon. Yet those
of the President of the United States, under your law, are far more
detestable to your merchants. Their edicts plundered the rich. His make
those who are poor still poorer. Their decrees attack the extremities.
His proclamation fixes upon the vitals, and checks the action of the
seat of commercial life.
I know that great hopes are entertained of relief from the proposed
law, by the prospect of a British regency. Between a mad monarch
and a simpering successor, it is expected the whole system of that
nation will be abandoned. Let gentlemen beware, and not calculate too
certainly on the fulfilment, by men in power, of professions made out
of it. The majority need not go out of our own country, nor beyond
their own practice, to be convinced how easily, in such cases, proud
promises may eventuate in meagre performance.
The whole bearing of my argument is to this point. It is time to
take our own rights into our own keeping. It is time, if we will not
protect, to refrain from hampering, by our own acts, the commerce
of our country. Put your merchants no longer under the guardianship
and caprice of foreign powers. Punish not, at the instigation of
foreigners, your own citizens for following their righteous calling. We
owe nothing to France. We owe nothing to Great Britain. We owe every
thing to the American people. Let us show ourselves really independent;
and look to a grateful, a powerful, and then united people, for support
against every aggressor.
Mr. MUMFORD.--The gentleman (Mr. QUINCY) from Massachusetts has
given us a long talk, that amused the House very much with tropes
and figures, and I hope has convinced himself that he is right. I
am no advocate of either belligerent, I have not much confidence in
the declarations of foreign Governments. I did, however, put some
confidence in the Erskine arrangement, but I was deceived; it met my
approbation, because I was among those who were determined to settle
our disputes with Great Britain in our own way, as an independent
nation. And I will now ask the gentleman from Massachusetts whether,
if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or any other higher authority
in Great Britain, should write a letter to Sir William Scott, and a
circular letter to the Collector of Liverpool, informing them that the
Orders in Council did not apply to American vessels from and after the
1st November, he would not deem those letters to be evidence of the
fact? If so, why not give the same credence to the letters of the Duke
of Massa and the Duc de Gaete? I wish to preserve the faith of the
nation. We have been plundered by both belligerents, and have as little
confidence in the one as in the other; but without some reliance on the
word of constituted authorities there is an end to all negotiations.
The gentleman says that we are about to shut up "the only avenue to
our commercial hope." These are his own words. Let us now examine
this avenue to our commercial hope. I will in the first place ask the
indulgence of the House while I read and state some facts from a letter
I have just received from Liverpool, dated January 8, of the present
year, from one of the most respectable houses there, which states
that the importation of cotton from the United States was 320,000
bales in 1810; that there were then 145,000 bales on hand; tobacco
imported in the same period, 14,700 hogsheads; and notwithstanding the
consumption, the quantity imported kept the market supplied constantly
with about the same number of hogsheads throughout the year 1810.
Potashes imported 28,946 barrels, on hand 13,000 barrels: rice 39,000
imported, and there remain on hand very large supplies. Those are the
principal articles of the produce of our soil unsold on 8th January,
1811, in the port of Liverpool alone, besides the quantities in the
other ports of Great Britain; and the same letter observes: "This
supply checks any attempt at speculation, and without an export vent is
procured, the stock on hand must remain unsalable; if the belligerents
return to a sense of justice, the continental markets being in that
case reopened, will require large supplies, and cause our market to
rise." The prices of upland cotton are stated at 12d. sterling per lb.;
tobacco, very prime, 4d. to 7d., middling quality, great quantity on
hand, fit only for continental market, at 1½ a 4d.; pot-ashes £43 to
£44 per ton--rice 19 to 23 per cwt. Sir, there is no American merchant
who can pursue that commerce, attended with the enormous charges and
duties imposed on those articles without inevitable ruin; and I call to
the recollection of gentlemen the numerous failures in consequence of
bills of exchange returned under protest, which had been predicated on
shipments to British ports; and yet the gentleman from Massachusetts
tells us this is "the only avenue to our commercial hope." Send your
vessels to the Brazils, you meet them there intriguing against your
commerce; to Buenos Ayres, you find them there; to Cayenne, there
also; to Terra Firma, you there find them in conjunction with Miranda
intriguing and counteracting your commerce; to Barbadoes, Surinam,
Demerara, Trinidad, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Jamaica, &c., and you are
met with enormous port charges, and duties amounting to prohibition on
the staple articles of the New England States; codfish, beef, pork,
butter, lard, cheese, hams, &c. It is true we are admitted every
now and then, at the mere will and caprice of a governor, to import
into those colonies flour at a duty of one dollar per barrel; rice
and lumber in proportion; on condition that you shall not take away
any article but rum and molasses, and this is the only avenue to our
commercial hope. They are like the locusts of Egypt in relation to our
commerce. What has become of your 1,350,000 tons of shipping, valued
at fifty dollars per ton, amounting to $67,500,000, one-third of which
belongs to Massachusetts? Is the gentleman willing to surrender the
carrying trade to Great Britain? Let him turn his attention to the
ports of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and
New Orleans, and he will find that British ships are now taking the
bread out of the mouths of his own constituents. They are enabled to
take freight on so much lower terms than American vessels can afford to
do it in consequence of the very great difference of duties in Great
Britain, between importations in America or in a British ship, that we
cannot compete with them unless you will countervail them, and take a
decisive stand in defence of your commerce to continental Europe, and
carry your produce direct to the consumers, and be no longer subjected
to be fleeced by the monopolizers and retailers of the old world. They
are not content to have the whole products of your soil deposited on
their Island, on which they receive an enormous import, and raise an
extra war tax, besides; but they will claim very soon the exclusive
right to carry it when and where they please in their own ships. We
are thus reduced to a worse situation than in a state of colonization;
we have now all the disadvantages of being plundered by their navy,
and none of the advantages of receiving its protection, although they
have the impudence to charge us four per cent. convoy duty on their
gewgaws and manufactures, which convoy they do not give us. Can this be
a desirable state of things? And if persevered in, I am convinced the
commerce of the United States will descend into the same tomb with the
gentleman's story of the coffin.
There are three classes of your citizens to be provided for, as
contemplated in the provisions of this bill--first, sequestrations in
France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, and Russia.
Second, those who have sailed to France under the faith of the Duke
of Cadore's letter of the 5th of August. Third, importers of British
manufactures. But it would seem by the arguments I have heard advanced
in this House that there were only the latter class to be provided for,
and, as I presume British precedent and authority will be admitted by
the gentleman from Massachusetts to be good evidence, I will inform
him and the House, what was the concurrent testimony of the English
merchants before the bar of the House of Commons on the subject of
exports and imports of the United States. They stated on oath that the
exports to the United States were about twelve millions sterling, and
that the imports were about four millions on an average for the years
1802, 1803, 1804, when there were no decrees against American commerce,
and consequently it took its own natural channel and supplied each
market according to its natural consumption. The difference between
export and import being about eight millions sterling against us. Those
English merchants state that it was made up and received from our trade
with continental Europe; this has not been disproved by the British
Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor by his friend Stevens, of War in
Disguise--it is a fact; they cannot deny it. And shall we be told about
the profitable commerce with Great Britain? After a statement of these
facts, shall we go on to gorge their warehouses with twelve millions
sterling of produce, when their own internal consumption does not
exceed four millions sterling? I hope not; and I do trust that the time
is not far distant when we shall assert and defend our just rights.
Mr. BLAISDELL.--Mr. Speaker: nothing would induce me to address you
at this late hour, while there is so great a commotion in, and so
many tokens of impatience manifested by, the House, but a sense of
duty, and a desire to lend my feeble aid in arresting the progress
of a measure which, in my opinion, involves a question of no less
importance than whether we are prepared, after having been insulted,
robbed, and deceived, by the French Emperor, to follow the fatal
example of the petty, servile States of Europe, and throw this people
into the embraces of that monster, at whose perfidy and corruption
Lucifer blushes and Hell itself stands astonished. If I understand
the amendment of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, its principal
object is to renew the non-intercourse of 1809, so far as it respects
Great Britain, which was previously attempted to be revived by the
proclamation of the President of the second of November last. I should
have supposed that, rather than have made so glaring a confession
that that State paper misstated fact, the gentleman would have been
dissuaded from his darling object, the non-intercourse. But it seems
that when it comes in competition with the views of Napoleon, the
veracity of the President must be sacrificed. But, sir, convinced as I
am, that our paper war, which has been applied to all purposes, even
to calling out the army, raising the militia, pressing the horses,
&c., and sending them on an expedition the distance of five hundred
miles, with express orders not to fight, has damned the character of
this Government, broken down the spirit of the nation, embarrassed our
citizens, and emptied the late overflowing Treasury, so as to render
the resort to borrowing necessary; I cannot but hope that the amendment
on your table will be rejected to give place to an amendment offered
some days ago by an honorable gentleman from New York, (Mr. EMOTT,)
when this bill was under discussion in Committee of the Whole.
Sir, if I understand that amendment, it went to suspend the whole
restrictive system, except the third section of the law of May
last, which saves fines and forfeitures incurred under our various
restrictions. This amendment, to be sure, changes the position
recommended by the Executive, but not much more than the bill, with the
addition of the amendment now under consideration. Although it becomes
this House to pay due deference to Executive recommendations; yet,
if there are good reasons for a departure from such recommendations,
it equally becomes the members of this House, out of a regard to
the correctness of their own proceedings, to make such a departure
correspond with the reasons which produced it. The position recommended
by the Executive made its first appearance in a short paragraph in
the President's Message, recommending such a modification of the law
of May last, as would remove all doubts as to its exposition and
execution; for the details of such modification we are referred to
the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. In this report we find
a project recommended to enforce the non-importation against English
merchandise of every kind and from every country. In the first place,
by making the proclamation of the President, declaring that the French
edicts had ceased to violate our neutral commerce on the first day
of November last, the only evidence of that fact; and in the second
place, by authorizing the officers of the army and navy to enter ships,
dwelling-houses, stores, or any other place, to search for and seize
merchandise suspected of being imported contrary to law, and making
a donation of the boon so seized to the wretch who should be hardy
enough, in defiance of all moral obligation, thus to rob his neighbor;
and in the third place, by declaring all merchandise so seized in the
Northern section of the Union, adjoining the British provinces, to be
forfeited, unless by a palpable inversion of the rule of evidence in
all other cases, and even in this case, adopted in all other sections
of the Union, he is able to prove that the merchandise was legally
imported and the duties paid--with many other provisions, all of which
have been laid before this House, in the first bill on the subject
reported by the Committee of Foreign Relations, the details of which
are too well recollected to need pointing out, or to be suffered to
meet a public investigation at this time.
But, sir, with all due deference to the high ministerial officer who
recommended the project, and likewise to the honorable committee who
reported the bill, I may be allowed to pay it the compliment of saying
that, in my opinion, previous to the reign of that tyrant, who, by
a military force, aided by projects of this kind, has destroyed the
sanctuary of justice, and has spread pillage, debauchery, robbery,
and death, throughout the greater part of Europe; such a bill as that
would have been scouted from this Hall as the production of a madman.
But on receiving the Message of the President, covering the letters
of Mr. Russell, the American Chargé des Affaires at Paris, stating
that American vessels, loaded with _bona fide_ property of American
citizens, had been seized and sequestered in the ports of France,
under the Berlin and Milan decrees, as late as the 9th of December,
doubts seemed to arise in this House, whether the decrees had ceased
to operate on the first of November, as the President had declared.
And the bill was sent back to the committee, for the purpose, as I
understood, of bringing in a bill to suspend the operation of the law
of May last, until we should hear from France, whether the Emperor had
disavowed those seizures, and whether the decrees had actually ceased
to operate on the first of November. And I did understand the honorable
chairman of the committee, and several other gentlemen on the other
side of the House, to say on that occasion, that if, after we had new
arrivals from France, that did not prove to be the case, they should be
as ready as any gentleman to repeal the whole code of restrictive laws
until the Emperor should learn to respect our rights. What evidence
have we had since to give us a more favorable prospect, as it respects
the revocation of the decrees? Not a syllable. But, on the other hand,
we have conclusive evidence that they were not so revoked that their
operation ceased on that day.
If it be asked where this evidence appears, the answer is ready. In the
first place, by the letter of the Grand Judge, the Duke of Massa, to
the President of the Council of Prizes, as also by the letter of the
Minister of Finance to the Director General of the Customs, both dated
the 25th of December, fifteen days after the manly remonstrance of
Mr. Russell, in the case of the Orleans Packet; in which remonstrance
he states the outrageous conduct of the custom-house officers, and
requests a prompt and speedy disavowal of the seizures, and that the
property be again placed in the hands of the owners. But, sir, is
there any thing in these two letters which looks like a disavowal of
the seizure in express violation of the promise of the Duke of Cadore?
No, sir, although these letters were written fifteen days after the
remonstrance of Mr. Russell. Instead of this they both agree that
the decrees did not cease to operate on the first of November, but
that the property taken with the Orleans Packet, and all the property
which should be seized between the first of November and the second of
February, must remain in depot to wait the pleasure of the Emperor, on
our causing our rights to be respected by England.
But how, Mr. Speaker, are we to cause our rights to be respected?
Is it by merely reviving the law of May last, as is the object of
this amendment? Certainly this is not their meaning; for both these
letters have reference to that law, as well as the proclamation of
the President giving it effect, and to the circular of the Secretary
of the Treasury, addressed to the collectors of the several ports,
enjoining a strict execution of that law. No, sir, this is not what is
to be done, which will satisfy the Emperor. He who flatters himself
that this will be sufficient, shuts his eyes against official evidence
to the contrary; as well in the above-recited letters, written with a
perfect knowledge of the performance on our part, and the promise of
a performance on the part of France on the first day of November, as
in the letter of the French Minister in the United States on the 12th
of December, in which we are told that the French restrictions on our
commerce are not to cease, but only on the result of firm and energetic
measures to be adopted and persevered in by the two Governments against
the common enemy.