The House of Representatives, on the third of January, 1794, resolved
itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the report of Mr. Jefferson,
Secretary of State, “On the nature and extent of the privileges and
restrictions of the commercial intercourse of the United States with
foreign nations, and the measures which he thought proper to be adopted
for the improvement of the commerce and navigation of the same,” when Mr.
Madison introduced a series of resolutions, proposing to impose “further
restrictions and higher duties, in certain cases, on the manufactures
and navigation of foreign nations, employed in the commerce of the
United States, than those now imposed.”[C] On these resolutions Mr. Ames
addressed the committee, on the twenty-seventh of January, as follows:
MR. CHAIRMAN: The question lies within this compass: is there any measure
proper to be adopted by Congress, which will have the effect to put
our trade and navigation on a better footing? If there is, it is our
undoubted right to adopt it, (if by right is understood the power of
self-government, which every independent nation possesses,) and our own
as completely as
[A] Dr. Charles Caldwell, in his autobiography, thus speaks of
Ames’s eloquence: “He was decidedly one of the most splendid
rhetoricians of the age. Two of his speeches, in a special
manner--that on Jay’s treaty, and that usually called his ‘Tomahawk
speech’ (because it included some resplendent passages on Indian
massacres)--were the most brilliant and fascinating specimens of
eloquence I have ever heard; yet have I listened to some of the
most celebrated speakers in the British Parliament--among others,
to Wilberforce and Mackintosh, Plunket, Brougham, and Canning:
and Dr. Priestley, who was familiar with the oratory of Pitt the
father and Pitt the son, and also with that of Burke and Fox, made
to myself the acknowledgment that, in his own words, the speech
of Ames, on the British treaty, was the most bewitching piece of
parliamentary oratory he had ever listened to.”
[B] In the preparation of this sketch, the editor has relied mainly
on Mr. Kirkland’s chaste memoir of Mr. Ames, which is attached to
the published works of that eminent orator.
[C] Mr. Madison, in explanation of his motives and views, spoke of
the security and extension of our commerce as a principal object
for which the federal government was formed. He urged the tendency
of his resolutions to secure to us an equitable share of the
carrying trade; that they would enable other nations to enter into
competition with England for supplying us with manufactures; and in
this way he insisted that our country could make her enemies feel
the extent of her power, by depriving those who manufactured for us
of their bread. He adverted to the measures enforced by a certain
nation contrary to our maritime rights, and out of the proceeds
of the extra impositions proposed, he recommended a reimbursement
to our citizens of their losses arising from those measures. He
maintained that if the nation cannot protect the rights of its
citizens, it ought to repay the damage; and that we are bound to
obtain reparation for the injustice of foreign nations to our
citizens, or to compensate them ourselves.--_Ames’s Works, page 24._