House Of Representatives Of The United States,
January 14, 1814.1
Mr. Speaker, —
It was not my intention to offer myself to your notice on this question. I have
changed my purpose only in consequence of the course, which the debate took
yesterday, on an amendment proposed by me, to one of the subordinate provisions
of this bill.2 The observations to which that occasion gave rise
have induced me to prefer assigning my own reasons for my own vote, rather than
to trust to the justice or charity of the times to assign reasons for me.
The design of this bill is to encourage, by means of a very
extraordinary bounty, enlistments into the regular army. Laws already existing,
and other bills now in progress before the House, provide for the organization
of an army of sixty-three thousand men. For the purpose of filling the ranks of
that army, the bill before us proposes to give each recruit a bounty of one
hundred and twenty-four dollars, and three hundred and twenty acres of land. It
offers also a premium of eight dollars to every person, in or out of the army,
citizen or soldier, who shall procure an able-bodied man to be enlisted.
Before, sir, I can determine, for myself, whether so great a
military force should be raised, and at so great an expense, I am bound to inquire
into the object to which that force is to be applied. If the public exigency
shall, in my judgment, demand it; if any object connected with the protection
of the country and the safety of its citizens shall require it; and if I shall
see reasonable ground to believe, that the force, when raised, will be applied
to meet that exigency, and yield that protection, I shall not be restrained, by
any considerations of expense, from giving my support to the measure. I am
aware that the country needs defence, and I am anxious that defence should be
provided for it, to the fullest extent, and in the promptest manner. But what
is the object of this bill? To what service is this army destined, when its
ranks shall be filled? We are told, sir, that the frontier is invaded, and that
troops are wanted to repel that invasion. It is too true that the frontier is
invaded; that the war, with all its horrors, ordinary and extraordinary, is
brought within our own territories; and that the inhabitants, near the country
of the enemy, are compelled to fly, lighted by the fires of their own houses,
or to stay and meet the foe, unprotected by any adequate aid of Government. But
show me, that by any vote of mine, or any effort of mine, I can contribute to
the relief of such distress. Show me, that the purpose of government, in this
measure, is to provide defence for the frontiers. I aver I see no evidence of
any such intention. I have no assurance that this army will be applied to any
such object. There are, as was said by my honorable friend from New York (Mr.
Grosvenor), strong reasons to infer the contrary, from the fact that the forces
hitherto raised have not been so applied, in any suitable or sufficient
proportion. The defence of our own territory seems hitherto to have been regarded
as an object of secondary importance, a duty of a lower order than the invasion
of the enemy. The army raised last year was competent to defend the frontier.
To that purpose Government did not see fit to apply it. It was not competent,
as the event proved, to invade with success the provinces of an enemy. To that
purpose, however, it was applied. The substantial benefit which might have been
obtained, and ought to have been obtained, was sacrificed to a scheme of
conquest, in my opinion a wild one, commenced without means, prosecuted without
plan or concert, and ending in disgrace. Nor is it the inland frontier only
that has been left defenceless. The sea-coast has been, in many places, wholly
exposed. Give me leave to state one instance. The mouth of one of the largest
rivers in the eastern section of the Union is defended by a fort mounting
fourteen guns. This fort for a great part of the last season was holden by one
man and one boy only. I state the fact on the authority of an honorable
gentleman of this House. Other cases, almost equally flagrant, are known to
have existed in some of which interests of a peculiar character and great
magnitude have been at stake. With this knowledge of the past, I must have
evidence of some change in the purposes of administration, before I can vote
for this bill, under an expectation that protection will thereby be afforded to
either frontier of the Union. Of such change, there is no intimation. On the
contrary, gentlemen tell us, explicitly, that the acquisition of Canada is
still deemed to be an essential object; and the vote of the House, within the
last half-hour, has put the matter beyond doubt. An honorable gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Sheffy) has proposed an amendment to this bill, limiting the
service of the troops to be raised by its provisions, to objects of defence. To
the bill thus amended he offered his support, and would have been cheerfully
followed by his friends. The amendment was rejected. It is certain, therefore,
that the real object of this proposition to increase the military force to any
extraordinary degree, by extraordinary means, is to act over again the scenes
of the last two campaigns. To that object I cannot lend my support. I am
already satisfied with the exhibition.
Give me leave to say, sir, that the tone on the subject of
the conquest of Canada seems to be not a little changed. Before the war, that
conquest was represented to be quite an easy affair. The valiant spirits who
meditated it were only fearful lest it should be too easy to be glorious. They
had no apprehension, except that resistance would not be so powerful as to
render the victory splendid. These confident expectations were, however,
accompanied with a commendable spirit of moderation, the true mark of great
minds, and it was gravely said, that we ought not to make too large a grasp for
dominion, but to stop in our march of conquest northward, somewhere about the
line of perpetual congelation, and to leave to our enemies or others, the
residue of the continent to the pole. How happens, sir, that this country, so
easy of acquisition, and over which, according to the prophecies, we were to
have been by this time legislating, dividing it into States and Territories, is
not yet ours? Nay, sir, how happens it, that we are not even free of invasion
ourselves; that gentlemen here call on us, by all the motives of patriotism, to
assist in the defence of our own soil, and portray before us the state of the
frontier, by frequent and animated allusion to all those topics, which the
modes of Indian warfare usually suggest?
This, sir, is not what we were promised. This is not the
entertainment to which we were invited. This is no fulfilment of those
predictions, which it was deemed obstinacy itself not to believe. This is not
that harvest of greatness and glory, the seeds of which were supposed to be
sown, with the declaration of war.
When we ask, sir, for the causes of these disappointments,
we are told that they are owing to the opposition which the war encounters, in
this House, and among the people. All the evils which afflict the country are
imputed to opposition. This is the fashionable doctrine, both here and
elsewhere. It is said to be owing to opposition that the war became necessary;
and owing to opposition also that it has been prosecuted with no better
success.
This, sir, is no new strain. It has been sung a thousand
times. It is the constant tune of every weak or wicked administration. What
minister ever yet acknowledged, that the evils which fell on his country were
the necessary consequences of his own incapacity, his own folly, or his own
corruption? What possessor of political power ever yet failed to charge the
mischiefs resulting from his own measures, upon those who had uniformly opposed
those measures? The people of the United States may well remember the
administration of Lord North. He lost America to his country. Yet he could find
pretences for throwing the odium upon his opponents. He could throw it upon
those who had forewarned him of consequences from the first, and who had
opposed him, at every stage of his disastrous policy, with all the force of
truth and reason, and talent. It was not his own weakness, his own ambition,
his own love of arbitrary power, which disaffected the colonies. It was not the
Tea Act, the Stamp Act, or the Boston Port Bill, that severed the empire of
Britain. Oh no! It was owing to no fault of administration. It was the work of
opposition. It was the impertinent boldness of Chatham; the idle declaration of
Fox; and the unseasonable sarcasm of Barre! These men, and men like them, would
not join the Minister in his American war. They would not give the name and
character of wisdom to that which they believed to be the extreme of folly.
They would not pronounce those measures just and honorable which their
principles led them to detest. They declared the Minister's war to be wanton.
They foresaw its end, and pointed it out plainly both to the Minister and to
the country. He pronounced the opposition to be selfish and factious. He
persisted in his course; and the result is in history.
This example of ministerial justice seems to have become a
model for these times and this country. With slight shades of difference, owing
to different degrees of talent and ability, the imitation is sufficiently
exact. It requires little imagination to fancy one's self sometimes to be
listening to a recitation of the captivating orations of the occupants of Lord
North's Treasury Bench. We are told that our opposition has divided the
Government, and divided the country. Remember, sir, the state of the Government
and of the country, when the war was declared. Did not differences of opinion
then exist? Do we not know that this House was divided? Do we not know that the
other House was still more divided? Does not every man, to whom the public
documents are accessible, know, that in that other House, one single vote, having
been given otherwise than it was, would have rejected the act declaring war,
and adopted a different course of measures? A parental, guardian Government
would have regarded that state of things. It would have weighed such
considerations. It would have inquired coolly and dispassionately into the
state of public opinion, in the States of this confederacy. It would have
looked especially to those States, most concerned in the professed objects of
the war, and whose interests were to be most deeply affected by it. Such a
Government, knowing that its strength consisted in the union of opinion among
the people, would have taken no step, of such importance, without that union;
nor would it have mistaken mere party feeling for national sentiment.
That occasion, sir, called for a large and liberal view of
things. Not only the degree of union in the sentiments of the people, but the
nature and structure of the Government; the general habits and pursuits of the
community; the probable consequences of the war immediate and remote on our
civil institutions; the effect of a vast military patronage; the variety of
important local interests and objects; — those were considerations essentially
belonging to the subject. It was not enough that Government could make out its
cause of war on paper, and get the better of England in the argument. This was
requisite; but not all that was requisite. The question of War or Peace, in a
country like this, is not to be compressed into the compass that would befit a
small litigation. It is not to be made to turn upon a pin. Incapable in its
nature of being decided upon technical rules, it is unfit to be discussed in
the manner which usually appertains to the forensic habit. It should be
regarded as a great question not only of right, but also of prudence and
expediency. Reasons of a general nature, reasons of a moral nature,
considerations which go back to the origin of our institutions, and other
considerations which look forward to our hopeful progress in future times, all
belong, in their just proportions and gradations, to a question in the
determination of which the happiness of the present and of future generations
may be so much concerned.
I have heard no satisfactory vindication of the war on
grounds like those. They appear not to have suited the temper of that time.
Utterly astonished at the declaration of war, I have been surprised at nothing
since. Unless all history deceived me, I saw how it would be prosecuted, when I
saw how it was begun. There is in the nature of things an unchangeable relation
between rash counsels and feeble execution.
It was not, sir, the minority that brought on the war. Look
to your records, from the date of the Embargo, in 1807, to June, 1812.
Everything that men could do, they did, to stay your course. When at last they
could effect no more, they urged you to delay your measures. They entreated you
to give yet a little time for deliberation, and to wait for favorable events.
As if inspired for the purpose of arresting your progress, they laid before you
the consequences of your measures, just as we have seen them since take place.
They predicted to you their effects on public opinion. They told you, that
instead of healing they would inflame political dissensions. They pointed out
to you also what would and what must happen on the frontier. That which since
hath happened there is but their prediction, turned into history. Vain is the
hope, then, of escaping just retribution, by imputing to the minority of the
Government or to the opposition among the people the disasters of these times.
Vain is the attempt to impose thus on the common sense of mankind. The world
has had too much experience of ministerial shifts and evasions. It has learned
to judge of men by their actions, and of measures by their consequences.
If the purpose be, by casting these imputations upon those
who are opposed to the policy of the Government, to check their freedom of
inquiry, discussion, and debate, such purpose is also incapable of being
executed. That opposition is constitutional and legal. It is also
conscientious. It rests in settled and sober conviction, that such policy is
destructive to the interests of the people, and dangerous to the being of the
Government. The experience of every day confirms these sentiments. Men who act
from such motives are not to be discouraged by trifling obstacles, nor awed by
any dangers. They know the limit of constitutional opposition; up to that
limit, at their own discretion, they will walk, and walk fearlessly. If they
should find, in the history of their country, a precedent for going over, I
trust they will not follow it. They are not of a school in which insurrection
is taught as a virtue. They will not seek promotion through the paths of
sedition, nor qualify themselves to serve their country in any of the high
departments of its government, by making rebellion the first element in their
political science.
Important as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occasions,
the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important to
maintain the right of such discussion, in its full and just extent. Sentiments
lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit
on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of
inquiry by extravagant and unconstitutional pretences, the firmer shall be the
tone in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner in which I shall
exercise it. It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to
canvass public measures and the merits of public men. It is a “home-bred right,”
a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and
cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted
as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. Belonging to
private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the
last duty, which those whose representative I am, shall find me to abandon.
Aiming at all times to be courteous and temperate in its use, except when the
right itself shall be questioned, I shall then carry it to its extent. I shall
then place myself on the extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any
arm that would move me from my ground. This high constitutional privilege, I
shall defend and exercise within this House, and without this House, and in all
places; in time of war, in time of peace, and at all times. Living I shall
assert it, dying I shall assert it, and should I leave no other inheritance to
my children, by the blessing of God, I will still leave them the inheritance of
free principles and the example of a manly, independent and constitutional
defence of them.
Whoever, sir, would discover the causes which have produced
the present state of things, must look for them, not in the efforts of
opposition, but in the nature of the war, in which we are engaged, and in the
manner in which its professed objects have been attempted to be obtained. Quite
too small a portion of public opinion was in favor of the war, to justify it,
originally. A much smaller portion is in favor of the mode in which it has been
conducted. This is the radical infirmity. Public opinion, strong and united, is
not with you, in your Canada project. Whether it ought to be or ought not to
be, the fact that it is not, should, by this time, be evident to all; and it is
the business of practical statesmen, to act upon the state of things as it is,
and not to be always attempting to prove what it ought to be. The acquisition
of that country is not an object, generally desired by the people. Some
gentlemen, indeed, say it is not their ultimate object; and that they
wish it only as the means of effecting other purposes. But, sir, a large
portion of the people believe that a desire for the conquest and final
retention of Canada is the mainspring of public measures. Nor is the opinion
without ground. It has been distinctly avowed, by public men, in a public
manner. And if this be not the object, it is not easy to see the connection
between your means and ends. At least, that portion of the people, that is not
in the habit of refining far, cannot see it. You are, you say, at war for
maritime rights, and free trade. But they see you lock up your commerce and
abandon the ocean. They see you invade an interior province of the enemy. They
see you involve yourselves in a bloody war with the native savages; and they
ask you, if you have, in truth, a maritime controversy with the western
Indians, and are really contending for sailors' rights with the tribes of the
Prophet? In my judgment, the popular sentiment, in this case, corresponds with
the soundest political discretion. In my humble opinion, you are not able to
travel in the road you have taken, but if you were, it would not conduct you to
your object.
I am aware, sir, that both the professed objects of the war,
and the manner of prosecuting it, may receive the nominal approbation of a
great majority of those who constitute the prevailing party in the country. But
I know also how extremely fallacious any inference from that circumstance would
be, in favor of the real popularity of the measure. In times like these, a
great measure of a prevalent party becomes incorporated with the party
interest. To quarrel with the measure would be to abandon the party. Party
considerations, therefore, induce an acquiescence in that, on which the fate of
party is supposed to depend. Gentlemen, sir, fall into strange inconsistencies
on this subject. They tell us that the war is popular, that the invasion of
Canada is popular, and that it would have succeeded, before this time, had it
not been for the force of opposition. Sir, what gives force to opposition in
this country? Certainly nothing but the popularity of the cause of opposition,
and the numbers who espouse it. Upon this argument, then, in what an
unprecedented condition are the people of these States! We have on our hands a
most popular war; we have also a most popular opposition to that war. We cannot
push the measure, the opposition is so popular. We cannot retract it, the
measure itself is so popular. We can neither go forward, nor backward. We are
at the very centre of gravity, — the point of perpetual rest.
The truth is, sir, that party support is not the kind of
support necessary to sustain the country through a long, expensive, and bloody
contest; and this should have been considered, before the war was declared. The
cause, to be successful, must be upheld by other sentiments, and higher motives.
It must draw to itself the sober approbation of the great mass of the people.
It must enlist, not their temporary or party feelings, but their steady
patriotism, and their constant zeal. Unlike the old nations of Europe, there
are in this country no dregs of population, fit only to supply the constant
waste of war, and out of which an army can be raised, for hire, at any time,
and for any purpose. Armies of any magnitude can here be nothing but the people
embodied; and if the object be not one for which the people will embody, there
can be no armies. It is, I think, too plain to be doubted, that the conquest of
Canada is such an object. They do not feel the impulse of adequate motive. Not
unmindful of military distinction, they are yet not sanguine of laurels in this
contest. The harvest, thus far, they perceive has not been great. The prospect
of the future is no greater. Nor are they altogether reconciled to the principle
of this invasion. Canada, they know, is not to be conquered, but by
drenching its soil in the blood of its inhabitants. They have no thirst for
that blood. The borderers, on the line, connected by blood and marriage, and
all the ties of social life, have no disposition to bear arms against one
another. Merciless indeed has been the fate of some of these people. I
understand it to be fact, that in some of the affairs, which we call battles,
because we have had nothing else to give the name to, brother has been in arms
against brother. The bosom of the parent has been exposed to the bayonet of his
own son. Sir, I honor the people that shrink from a warfare like this. I
applaud their sentiments and their feelings. They are such as religion and
humanity dictate, and such as none but cannibals would wish to eradicate from
the human heart.
You have not succeeded in dividing the people of the
provinces from their Government. Your commanders tell you that they are
universally hostile to your cause. It is not, therefore, to make war on their
Government; it is to make war, fierce, cruel, bloody war, on the people
themselves, that you call to your standard the yeomanry of the Northern States.
The experience of two campaigns should have taught you, that they will not obey
that call. Government has put itself in every posture. It has used supplications
and entreaty; it has also menaced, and it still menaces, compulsion. All is in
vain. It cannot longer conceal its weakness on this point. Look to the bill
before you. Does not that speak a language exceeding everything I have said?
You last year gave a bounty of sixteen dollars. You now propose to give a
bounty of one hundred and twenty-four dollars, and you say you have no hope of
obtaining men at a lower rate. This is sufficient to convince me, it will be
sufficient to convince the enemy, and the whole world, yourselves only
excepted, what progress your Canada war is making in the affections of the
people.
It is to no want of natural resources, or natural strength,
in the country, that your failures can be attributed. The Northern States alone
are able to overrun Canada in thirty days, armed or unarmed, in any cause which
should propel them by inducements sufficiently powerful. Recur, sir, to
history. As early as 1745, the New England colonies raised an army of five
thousand men, and took Louisbourg from the troops of France. On what point of
the enemy's territory, let me ask, have you brought an equal force to bear in
the whole course of two campaigns? On another occasion, more than half a
century ago, Massachusetts alone, although its population did not exceed
one-third of its present amount, had an army of twelve thousand men. Of these,
seven thousand were at one time employed against Canada. A strong motive was
then felt to exist. With equal exertion, that Commonwealth could now furnish an
army of forty thousand men.
You have prosecuted this invasion for two campaigns. They
have cost you more, upon the average, than the campaigns of the Revolutionary
War. The project has already cost the American people nearly half as much as
the whole price paid for Independence. The result is before us. Who does not
see and feel, that this result disgraces us? Who does not see in what
estimation our martial prowess must be by this time holden, by the enemy, and
by the world? Administration has made its master effort to subdue a province,
three thousand miles removed from the mother country; lying at our own doors;
scarcely equal in natural strength to the least of the States of this
confederacy, and defended by external aid to a limited extent. It has persisted
two campaigns — and it has failed. Let the responsibility rest where it ought.
The world will not ascribe the issue to want of spirit or patriotism in the
American people. The possession of those qualities, in high and honorable
degrees, they have heretofore illustriously evinced, and spread out the proof
on the record of their Revolution. They will be still true to their character,
in any cause which they feel to be their own. In all causes they will defend
themselves. The enemy, as we have seen, can make no permanent stand, in any
populous part of the country. Its citizens will drive back his forces to the
line. But at that line, at the point where defence ceases, and invasion begins,
they stop. They do not pass it because they do not choose to pass it. Offering
no serious obstacle to their actual power, it rises, like a Chinese wall,
against their sentiments and their feelings.
It is natural, sir, such being my opinions, on the present
state of things, that I should be asked what, in my judgment, ought to be done.
In the first place, then, I answer, withdraw your invading armies, and follow
counsels which the national sentiment will support. In the next place, abandon
the system of commercial restriction. That system is equally ruinous to the interests,
and obnoxious to the feelings of whole sections and whole States. They believe
you have no constitutional right to establish such systems. They protest to
you, that such is not, and never was, their understanding of your powers. They
are sincere in this opinion, and it is of infinite moment, that you duly
respect that opinion, although you may deem it to be erroneous. These people,
sir, resisted Great Britain, because her Minister, under pretence of regulating
trade, attempted to put his hand into their pockets, and take their money.
There is that, sir, which they then valued, and which they still value, more
than money. That pretence of regulating trade they believed to be a mere cover
for tyranny and oppression. The present embargo, which does not vex, and
harass, and embarrass their commerce, but annihilates it, is also laid by color
of a power to regulate trade. For if it be not laid by virtue of this power, it
is laid by virtue of no power. It is not wonderful, sir, if this should be
viewed by them as a state of things not contemplated when they came into the
national compact.
Let me suppose, sir, that when the Convention of one of the
commercial States, Massachusetts for example, was deliberating on the adoption
of this Constitution, some person, to whose opening vision the future had been
disclosed, had appeared among them. He would have seen there the Patriots who
rocked the cradle of liberty in America. He would have seen there statesmen and
warriors, who had borne no dishonorable parts in the councils of their country,
and on her fields of battle. He would have found these men recommending the
adoption of this Instrument to a people, full of the feeling of independence,
and naturally jealous of all governments but their own. And he would have found
that the leading, the principal, and the finally prevalent argument, was the protection
and extention of commerce.
Now suppose, sir, that this person, having the knowledge of
future times, had told them, “This Instrument, to which you now commit your
fates, shall for a time not deceive your hopes. Administered and practised, as
you now understand it, it shall enable you to carry your favorite pursuits to
an unprecedented extent. The increase of your numbers, of your wealth, and of
your general prosperity shall exceed your expectations. But other times shall
arrive. Other counsels shall prevail. In the midst of this extension and growth
of commerce and prosperity, an Embargo, severe and universal, shall be laid
upon you, for eighteen months. This shall be succeeded by non-importations,
restrictions, and embarrassments, of every description. War, with the most
powerful maritime nation on earth, shall follow. This war shall be declared
professedly for your benefit, and the protection of your interest.
It shall be declared nevertheless against your urgent remonstrance. Your
voice shall be heard, but it shall be heard only to be disregarded. It shall be
a war for sailors' rights, against the sentiments of those to whom eight-tenths
of the seamen of the country belong. It shall be a war for maritime rights,
forced upon those who are alone interested in such concerns. It shall be
brought upon you by those to whom seamen and commerce shall be alike unknown;
who shall never have heard the surges of the sea; and into whose minds the idea
of a ship shall never have entered, through the eye, till they shall come, from
beyond the western hills, to take the protection of your maritime rights, and
the guardianship of your commercial interests into their skilful and experienced
hands. Bringing the enemy to the blockade of your ports, they shall leave your
coasts to be undefended, or defended by yourselves. Mindful of what may yet
remain of your commerce, they shall visit you with another Embargo. They shall
cut off your intercourse of every description with foreign nations. This not
only; they shall cut off your intercourse of every description by water, with
your sister States. This not only; they shall cut off your intercourse of every
description by water, between the ports of your own States. They shall seize
your accustomed commerce, in every limb, nerve, and fibre, and hold it, as in
the jaws of death.”
I now put it to you, sir, whether, if this practical
administration of the Constitution had been laid before them, they would have
ratified it. I ask you, if the hand of Hancock himself would not sooner have
committed it to the flames. If then, sir. they did not believe, and from the
terms of the instrument had no reason to believe, that it conferred such powers
on the Government, then, I say, the present course of its administration is not
consistent with its spirit and meaning.
Let any man examine our history, and he will find that the
Constitution of the country owes its existence to the commerce of the country.
Let him inquire of those that are old enough to remember, and they will tell it
to him. The idea of such a compact, as is well known, was first unfolded in a
meeting of delegates from different States holden for the purpose of making
some voluntary agreements respecting trade, and establishing a common tariff. I
see near me an honorable and venerable gentleman (Mr. Schureman of New Jersey),
who bore a part in the deliberations of that assembly, and who put his hand to
the first recommendation, ever addressed to the people of these States by any
body of men, to form a national Constitution. He will vouch for the truth of my
remark. He will tell you the motives which actuated him and his associates, as
well as the whole country, at that time. The faith of this nation is pledged to
its commerce, formally and solemnly. I call upon you to redeem that pledge; not
by sacrificing, while you profess to regard it; but by unshackling it, and
protecting it, and fostering it, according to your ability, and the reasonable expectations
of those who have committed it to the care of Government. In the commerce of
the country, the Constitution had its birth. In the extinction of that
commerce, it will find its grave. I use not the tone of intimidation or menace,
but I forewarn you of consequences. Let it be remembered, that in my place,
this day, and in the discharge of my public duty, I conjure you to alter your
course. I urge to you the language of entreaty. I beseech you, by your best
hopes of your country's prosperity; by your regard for the preservation of her
Government and her Union; by your own ambition, as honorable men, of leading
hereafter in the councils of a great and growing empire; I conjure you, by
every motive which can be addressed to the mind of man, that you abandon your
system of restrictions — that you abandon it at once — and abandon it forever.
The humble aid, which it would be in my power to render to
measures of Government, shall be given cheerfully, if Government will pursue
measures which I can conscientiously support. Badly as I think of the original
grounds of the war, as Avell as of the manner in which it has been hitherto
conducted, if even now failing in an honest and sincere attempt to procure just
and honorable peace, it will return to measures of defence and protection, such
as reason and common sense and the public opinion all call for, my vote shall
not be withholden from the means. Give up your futile projects of invasion.
Extinguish the fires that blaze on your inland frontiers. Establish perfect
safety and defence there, by adequate force. Let every man that sleeps on your
soil sleep in security. Stop the blood that flows from the veins of unarmed
yeomanry, and women and children. Give to the living time to bury and lament
their dead, in the quietness of private sorrow. Having performed this work of
beneficence and mercy on your inland border, turn, and look with the eye of
justice and compassion on your vast population along the coast. Unclench the
iron grasp of your Embargo. Take measures for that end, before another sun sets
upon you. With all the war of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to
war on it yourselves, you would still have some commerce. That commerce would
give you some revenue. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy.
That navy, in turn, will protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said, that
not one ship of force, built by your hands since the war, yet floats on the
ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national
sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force,
competent to defend your coast against considerable armaments, to convoy your
trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may
be realized. If, then, the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are
seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those
rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortunes points you.
There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our
party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are
lost in attachment to national character, on the element where that character
is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm
yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the
whole abundance of the national resources. In time you may enable yourselves to
redress injuries, in the place where they may be offered, and if need be, to
accompany your own flag throughout the world, with the protection of your own
cannon.
_______________
1 Speech on “A bill making further provision for
filling the ranks of the regular army, encouraging enlistments, and authorizing
the enlistments for longer periods of men whose terms of service are about to
expire.”
The first speech in Congress by Mr. Webster which was fully
reported.
2 Mr. Webster had moved to strike out of the
section allowing to the recruiting officer, or other person, eight dollars for
each recruit, the words “or other person.”
SOURCE: The Writings
and Speeches of Daniel Webster, National Edition, Volume 14 p. 18-34
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