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still carrying on with marks of increased injustice on every sea where she finds our property or seamen; we cannot meet her on that element-the only point where we can reach her is the rich, and to her the all-important territories on our North. Has not the proposed measure therefore every essential characteristic of defence? The idea of a war for the purpose of conquest, is abhorrent to the American people, and foreign from the principles of their Government.

JANUARY, 1812.

tion; for during all the attempts at adjustment for years past, our property was sweeping from the ocean before our eyes. With this spectacle before us, are we to sit down cooly and calculate in dollars, cents, and mills, what will be the cost of defending ourselves? If this had been the cool philosophy of seventy-six, you and I would not have been here. And if we temporize, while energy and action alone can save, we may entail lasting evils on the nation.

But we are told that "Great Britain is fighting for the liberties of the world ;" and again, that "she is not to be driven from the Baltic nor from anywhere else." If the last expression has allusion to the naval feat by which the Danish fleet was swept away, it is a very unfortunate circum-to prove that we have cause of war against Engstance to be mentioned in the same speech with the former, for it is questionable whether there is to be found an incident, in point of perfidy and injustice, to equal it in the civilized world. And when was it that Great Britain commenced her career in the laudable purpose of universal emancipation? Was it in 1775? Was it on this pursuit that her campaigns were performed through our land? If she will only extend common justice to us, or rather let us alone, it is all the favor I would ask from her.

As to any partiality between the two contending Powers, I hope there exists none in any American, there is no reason why there should be any for every nation is governed by interest; we can calculate nothing on friendship from any.

If it were a question at the early dawn of our Government, before the habits of our people were formed, whether it would not be to the nation's best interest to trust maritime commerce to other hands entirely for several ages, I am not prepared to answer in the negative And even now, as to the carrying trade proper, I am not inclined to view it as an object worthy of defence by war. But this direct trade, which carries the produce of our farmers to market, has been patronized by our Government under every Administration, and as the pursuits and habits of our citizens have under that system of things been formed, and as our country was growing under it in a degree unexampled, its protection has ceased to be at this day a question.

Yet this species of trade, all-important to the agricultural interest, is nearly extinguished. That every pacific policy has been tried in vain, is evident from the restrictive acts and the voluminous documents which have annually appeared, and which now load your mails to every corner of the Union. In these communications, the British Ministers express much concern for the misunder standing between the two nations, while their conduct, the sole cause of misunderstanding, is continued with multiplied marks of injustice. I say the sole cause of misunderstanding, for what politician will say that the refusal to ratify a treaty, or the laying an embargo, is any good cause of offence? And what cause of offence has proceeded from us? None. We have the solitary honor of a Government unexampled for its good faith, and in this instance for its modera

Mr. LOWNDES.-Mr. Speaker, the late period of the debate will necessarily shorten the observations I had intended to make. I concur, indeed, entirely in the opinion expressed by the gentleman from North Carolina-that it is now unnecessary land. The gentleman from Virginia, who yes, terday opposed the bill, conceded this point with as much prudence as candor. The value of the concession, however, was impaired by the remark that we have equal cause of war against France. That we had equal cause of war, sir, against France; that we have equal claims for indemnification against both Powers, I feel no disposition to deny., Both, have, indeed, been at war with us; but the easy distinction between their cases is thisthat the one Power has terminated its differences with us by a treaty which we ourselves proposed, while the other continues without mitigation its war upon our commerce.

In acknowledging, sir, that we have cause of war, the gentleman from Virginia denies its object to be either important or attainable.

That any importance should be attached to the object on the score of honor, is described as a romantic notion. But in the policy which it dictates, an enlarged view of national interest, usually concurs with a nice sense of national honor. It is impossible to compute the money-value of rights, like those in dispute between England and America. No rule of arithmetic will give you an answer as to the expense at which they may be worth defending. Let them be renounced and the loss will be felt, not for one year, but perhaps for the whole term of our existence as one nation. Let them te renounced, and every remaining right becomes more precarious by the encouragement which is offered for its infraction. Our object then, in resistance to England, is the preservation of that character, without which neutrality must be a burden. Its duties would be exacted and its rights forgotten. The importance of this character, even to our pecuniary interests, results from its effects in controlling the rapacity of foreign nations. It addresses itself to their prudence. It offers the only effectual corrective to that temptation of immediate interest which the belligerent must always feel in the plunder of the neutral.

If this view of the object of the war be correct, the observations of the honorable gentleman in respect to the relative value of our export trade to England and France, lose much of their importance. That his conclusions indeed are substantially erroneous, appear from his excluding from his statements (as he has himself remarked)

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the whole amount of trade to such countries as, although completely under the dominion of France, are not within its old limits or those of the Netherlands. His conclusions are impugned by another fact, which every man equally must know-I mean that much of American produce shipped to England is consumed on the Continent. The immediate, occasion of the war then, (if we attribute it to the interruption of our trade,) is greatly more important than the gentleman from Virginia has supposed it, and yet more important will be the effect of manly resistance on the character of the country-the effect of that character on our chances of future neutrality and prosperity. But the importance of the object, if the object be unattainable, cannot, we are told, be a reason for pursuing it. If the object of the war be the defence of national character, it cannot be unattainable. But suppose it designed only to procure a revocation of the Orders in Council-has the honorable gentleman given us a very consistent argument to prove that this effect cannot be produced?

H. of R.

spectres which haunt but few imaginations out of this House. The ruin of our Constitution and of our seaports is to be the inevitable consequence of the war. But are these dangers peculiar to the war in which we expect to be involved? That war is in itself an evil, that it is not unattended by distress and bloodshed, we know. The honest statesman will avoid it, when he can do so without renouncing the honor and the essential interests of his country. When these require, he will meet it. But, from the general evils of war, what conclusion does the gentleman draw? That we should never engage in it? Is it not strange, that so practical a statesman, the denouncer of the romantic notion of a war of honor, should have indulged this vision of a perpetual peace?

The danger to our Constitution is perhaps that which the gentleman considers the most alarming. A standing army offers an instrument which may at any time be employed against liberty. I am not afraid, sir, of terms. A standing army-a large regular force, maintained in time of peace, would be a just subject of public jealousy. But the He has told us, that we can do England little force proposed is not a standing army. It will injury by sea, and even that we shall be unable be employed against a foreign enemy, or it will to raise troops for the invasion of her provinces be disbanded. While engaged in war, the most in our neighborhood. As to the injury which timid politician will see it without alarm; and we may do her at sea, the number and enterprise on the return of peace, the same cause will reof our seamen, the near approach to our coast, move our fears for private security and public which the vessels engaged in her most valuable liberty. That cause is to be found in the bill trade must make, and the general opinion of naval upon your table in the ample and wise provision men, must determine the question. But that we for the future support of the soldier-in his freeshall be unable to raise the army proposed, or to hold. The most jealous patriots of England have occupy Canada in less than five years, is an as- considered their militia, although a regular force, sertion too humiliating to be admitted without as the natural protector of public liberty, because proof. We have been told, indeed, that the troops its officers are required to possess a landed qualiare most easily raised in a country which is in- fication. But this security for the good behaviour vaded; but the opinion is contradicted by expe- of the officers we extend to every soldier in the rience and reason. In the moment of invasion, army. That these men should, at the conclusion every man is employed in attending to his prop- of the war, leave their lands unvisited, to follow erty, in removing his family, or in securing them an ambitious General to a desperate and disgracea home and subsistence. During the Revolution-ful conflict with their fellow-citizens, is impossible. ary war, the greatest number of troops was, I think, enlisted in States which were safest from invasion. Our country will probably offer as large a proportion of its population now as then, and this will be a force amply adequate to the occasion.

But the gentleman from Virginia cannot see how our resistance on land can remove the English Orders in Council. He supposes, however, that this conduct of nations depends upon their interest, and that even now it may be doubted whether the interests of England do not require a revocation of these orders. Now let our efforts be as weak as the gentleman has represented them, and they will produce to England some inconvenience and some diversion of her force. If it be doubtful, then, whether it be her interest to continue her orders while we patiently submit to them, it should seem certain that it must be her interest to repeal them when their continuance involves the additional inconveniences which even the languid war which has been predicted would produce.

The honorable gentleman, determined to alarm, if he cannot convince us, unfolds a muster-roll of

From a military usurpation, such as the gentleman so much dreads, we were saved, he says, after the war of the Revolution, by the virtue of one man.

To the merits of General WASHINGTON, my feelings and my judgment equally subscribe. He had a mind too great to be bribed by title or by power. If a Crown had been within his reach, he would have disdained it. But a Crown never was within 'his reach. The men who most loved and revered him, whose lives he might have commanded as the protector of his country, were incapable of becoming the slaves of any despot. I will not consent, sir, to demolish the fair fame of our Revolutionary Army, that its fragments may be employed in raising a monument even to WASHINGTON.

The Constitution is as little endangered by the influence, as by the physical force which this army may give to Government. The body of electors throughout our country, is too numerous to be corrupted by commissions. In their expectations of office, there are always more candidates who fail than succeed. Disappointment will be stronger than gratitude.

H. OF. R.

Additional Military Force.

JANUARY, 1812.

The expense of the war, sir, is another danger by which the mind of the honorable gentleman is oppressed. The estimate for the Peace Establishment of a former year, proved inadequate. Military movements had been unexpectedly required from it. And because a peace estimate is found not to answer for war, the gentleman infers that a war estimate will be equally defective-her as unable to resist. The Orders in Council, nor was the difference (unless I am greatly mistaken) between the estimate and expenditure of the war alluded to, as great as has been supposed. The estimate was for the support of the Army. The expenditure was for the support of the Army, and for the purchase of arms, and for the building of fortifications.

America, which cannot raise an army, and cannot pay one, which cannot injure her enemy at sea, nor in five years obtain possession of a country on its own borders, containing perhaps two or three hundred thousand inhabitants-America is to subvert the balance of Europe, and to destroy the nation which the same speech represented a continuance of which is required neither by the honor nor interest of England, our ineffectual hostility can furnish no motives to repeal. And from this ineffectual hostility we are to refrain, lest it subject her to France. Such arguments, sir, if they were not inconsistent, would yet be inadmissible. We must leave the case of British interests to British statesmen."

even although England should fall, though the trident and sceptre should be united in the hands of the French Emperor, the intelligent patriot would place his best hopes in the unbroken spirit of the country. We should be most effectually prepared for subjection to France then, by submission to England now.

The ability of this country to support a much larger force than is proposed, results necessarily Yet I pretend not to the courage which can from its population and its wealth. By wealth I view with indifference the power of that man do not mean its income in money, but its large who rules sixty millions of active and civilized surplus produce beyond the necessary consump- Europeans, who directs by his sole will the whole tion of its inhabitants. On this circumstance de-force of a people just escaped from the violence pends the number of troops which a nation may of revolution, and uniting to the submission of maintain. How can it be believed that the sur-slavery all the force and energy of freedom. But plus produce of the United States is inadequate to the support, during war, of forty or fifty thousand men. With a favorable climate and fertile soil, and an industrious people, it should seem that this nation must be able to support in war, nearly as large a force, in proportion to its population, as any other State. Yet Sweden, with a third of our population, with the severest climate and the most barren soil, has maintained larger armies than the honorable gentleman supposes the United States capable of supporting. The expense of the Army, too, although the nation would be unable to bear it during war, will by, the operation of the funding system, be chiefly thrown on years of peace. Then it will diminish sensibly the profits of returning commerce. Yet, it is true, that in aid of loans, internal taxes must be resorted to, and these the honorable gentleman supposes that the people cannot be persuaded to

pay.

Sir, the people have paid perhaps a third of their moneys to the experiments of the restrictive system, by submitting to exclusion from the trade of the rest of the world; they would probably pay yet more to the monopoly of England, and I will not suppose that they can refuse any sacrifice of their fortunes to an honorable defence of their rights.

But our seaport towns are to be laid in ashes. We do not refrain however from all resistance to the Indians on our frontier, because they employ the scalping knife and the torture; and indignation rather than fear would be excited, if we believed England the incendiary which the honorable gentleman describes her. I do not yet believe it. She has not yet so far renounced the rules of civilized warfare, as to attack a town merely to destroy, without the intention or the power to retain it.

Such, sir, are the dangers to America which the honorable gentleman supposes that a war with England will involve. But there is yet, we are told, another danger, a danger to England

Mr. HARPER-Mr. Speaker: My apology for troubling the House, in this late stage of the debate, is founded on the peculiar situation of myself and the people whom I have the honor to represent. We are on the frontier, neighbors to the Canadians, and kindred to a portion of them. From our connexions and vicinity we know them; we respect and revere their virtues; their fondness for tranquillity; their love of industry and the rural arts; and their veneration for the principles of civil liberty. Sir, doubtless these people wish the blessings of a free Government-I mean one altogether free, for in their present condition they enjoy no inconsiderable portion of liberty. They are secured in the inestimable blessing of a trial by a jury of their peers-they are exempt from the horrors of an arbitrary judiciary; they are not liable to transportation and trial in a foreign country; and they cannot be taxed, but by the assent of their own Representatives, freely elected by themselves.

Still, as their population consists principally of hardy yeomanry, from the eight Eastern States, who have emigrated thither, who carried with them the principles in which they were nurtured and educated, and to which in active life they, while with us, were accustomed, they must revere the principles of our Revolution and Government, they must sigh for an affiliation with the great American family-they must at least in their hearts hail that day, which separates them from a foreign monarch, and unites them by holy and unchangeable bonds, with a nation destined to rule a continent by equal laws, flowing from the free will of a generous and independent people.

Sir, I hold these people in high estimation; if

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some of their fathers sinned, I would not visit the iniquity on the children-to them I would extend the affection of a brother; and even the follies of the father I would cover with the mantle of oblivion.

But, sir, although I do not doubt the desire of these Canadians to be with us associated, although I am persuaded that such an union will advance the interests of all, yet desire is often opposed by duty, which must and will be obeyed, by those who are, and those who are fit to be citizens of this Republic.

I was therefore pained at hearing the suggestion, that our conquest was founded, not on our own strength, but on the infidelity of the subjects of a foreign Power; on mental if not practical treason. This policy, if adopted, will expose the people of the Canadas to a hazard, which they ought not to incur-to rise without a special cause against the lawful sovereign, or to incur the odium of treachery, and as it may be to meet the consequent punishment of an offended monarch. It is cruel and unjust as it relates to them; it is impolitic as it relates to ourselves.

These lures which we offer may be held out by others; and hereafter the doctrines we now inculcate, may be applied to our own dismemberment and ruin.

H. of R.

ours is a Government of opinion, not of force. The nation demands measures of spirit, of energy; it demands redress of grievances and security for the future-it requires us to turn our energy against the enemy, not against ourselves. A system which in adverse times diverts the angry passions from those who injure us, to our own Government, is unwise and cannot endure. Indeed such a system has never been found practicable in monarchies-its success under the present iron despotism of Europe remains to be determined. In former times, the House of Bourbon, as monarchs, while at peace and enjoying general trade, vainly strove to guard a frontier of France of less than four hundred miles, by an army of twenty thousand men, from the introduction of German laces and silks. They never succeeded.

England, where more power is concentrated in less compass than ever happened to any other nation on earth, with all her system of vigor and terror, with all her fleets, her custom-house and excise officers, strives in vain, even now in time of war, to exclude the wines and brandies of France. Her public men retire, every Autumn, to the seacoast, where they are indulged in these luxuries, at a price by retail less than her duties. In our Revolution, though traffic with the British was punishable by death, yet the British army was well fed, by men not Tories, while the American army was starving in New Jersey, and so naked and unprovided for, that their route might be traced by the blood which they left be

No, sir, let us redress our multiplied injuries by our own strength; let us shun connexions with all foreign Powers; let us rise in our majesty, and will that the northern provinces shall be freetheir freedom will be certain; our enemy will behind them. punished; the savages will be held in check, and our Government will be enabled to execute its laws.

These prefatory remarks are founded on the belief, that it is the determination of Government to make war against Great Britain; to which measure I give my assent.

This assent is founded on a full and firm conviction of the necessity of a change of measures, and that it is more prudent, and more for the interest of the Government of this nation to advance to war, than to recede to the relations of a neutral nation, as explained at present by the British Government.

What, sir, happened under our embargo laws, which were, when laid, wise as measures of precaution? Where were the articles of provision that perished under these laws? Sir, the cases did not occur. Everything calculated for a foreign market was sent abroad. There were not on hand the usual supply of these articles, when the embargo was removed; and what is more extraordinary, without any material alteration in foreign countries, they fell in price in six weeks after the removal of the embargo.

Sir, these restrictions cannot be useful in the present state of society. We might inflict very considerable sufferings on those who injure us, if Sir, our present situation, of all others, is the the laws we make could be strictly executed; but most calculated to depress the spirits of our peo- we have to act for human nature as it is; not as ple; to unnerve the Government; to demoralize we might wish it, nor as it ought to be. And in the citizens, and to introduce that system of fraud the construction of laws and regulations, the wisand chicane, which advances the unprincipled, dom of the legislator is not more established by and beggars the virtuous; which creates a con- the intrinsic merits of his acts, than by the facil flict between the planting and the farming inter-ity and certainty of their execution.' est, for at present a great portion of the latter thrives, while the former is perishing: which arrays against each other the great interests of agriculture and commerce; which holds out false lures to the manufacturers, and virtually offers seven millions of dollars (the amount of our duties on importations of British commerce) to illicit traders.

There must, there will be a change of measures. We shall either recede from the conflict, or we must vindicate our rights by the sword. We cannot remain as we are. We are a Republic;

History has proved that commerce and civilization are twin sisters: they go hand-in-hand through the nations of the earth; and he who attempts to preserve the latter, without allowing the former, will discover in the end his ignorance of men and things.

Sir, continue your present state of things, and your revenue will be lost; your country may suffer some for those articles which are of most general use, and consequently the manufacturers of Britain may be injured, and this may induce them to act on their Government: but this nation will

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be inundated with the more valuable goods-and whatever of suffering there may be, will manifest itself in the interior.

While these considerations lead me to a decided opinion against our present attitude, and a regard for the Government and nation inspires me with a belief that it is improper to recede, I cannot but express my regret at the prospect of war; a regret which arises, in some degree, from a knowledge of its evils of the peaceful character of our citizens of the value of a citizen in this new nation-of the shock which it must occasion to our institutions and more especially of the present state of the world, where no balance is found, either on land or on water; and where, before the rights of a peaceful nation can be fully enjoyed, a just balance must be created for each element. Yet, with all these objections, I am constrained, by a sense of duty, to give my vote for these war

measures.

Having thus stated the motives which will in duce me to vote for the army, I proceed to remark, that I would be understood as voting an army for the efficient purposes of war, not as a means of negotiation. I pray to God, that he may open the eyes of the British Government to the interests of their renowned nation, and save us, them, and the world, from the evils of the impending conflict; by inducing them to return to us our injured seanien; to refrain from further impressments, and according to their promise, to revoke their Orders in Council and blockades, unsupported by competent force.

JANUARY, 1812.

only be answered by an appeal to the God of Battles.

Sir, as to the force contemplated by the bill, I have, at times, entertained doubts. It, at first view, appeared to me scarcely equal to the attainment of our objects. Again, I reflected on the spirit of our yeomanry-on their readiness to avenge our country's wrongs-on the discipline and military skill of that section of the Union to which I belong: I speak only of that section, sir, because I know but little of the state of the militia out of New England; and I thought we might safely rely on a smaller regular army at first, and a large volunteer force.

But, sir, reflecting on the history of our Revolution on the time necessary to train troops for the field, on the evils resulting from volunteers withdrawing from the service at a critical moment, on the double expense of marching one corps to, while another is marching from the Army, on the double loss of the labor of these men from the pursuits of agriculture, and on the sage advice of the immortal WASHINGTON, SO repeatedly given to the Revolutionary Congress: I am led conelusively to the opinion, that the true interests of the nation require that we should raise the full complement of men in this bill mentioned.

In addition to these, I am in favor of a corps of at least fifty thousand volunteers. It is not prudent to despise any enemy, more especially Great Britain, who rides Queen of the Waters; and, notwithstanding all her employment for troops, may furnish the Canadas with a considerable army. At this moment, sir, her regular force in Canada is not contemptible. She has there about eight thousand disciplined troops, and twelve thousand volunteer militia, who have been occasionally trained for two years. She has every munition of war; her forts are strong-particularly Quebec. On the St. Lawrence, and the great Western waters, she has vessels of war and forces to be overpowered. She will have all her armies well provided, and her posts well provis

But on our part, negotiation is, and ought to be ended. We cannot offer any new proposition. Our Administration has exhausted their own, our, and the nation's patience. The season of action has arrived. We have evinced every disposition to conciliate-to make reasonable allowances for the unprecedented condition of Europe, and to yield those portions of our neutral rights which are not considered essential to our existence as a nation. Instead of corresponding sen-ioned for a great length of time. The population. timents of friendship, and perhaps, I may say, of sympathy, we have met with accumulated insults. Our citizens are impressed and compelled to fight, not only the enemies of Great Britain, but their own friends and kindred. In every sea our flag is violated, and our merchants are robbed of their hard-earned wealth, and even the products of our soil. In our own waters, our citizens, in their lawful pursuits, have been inhumanly murdered, and our towns partially invested: to cap the climax, she now, after a fruitless war with France of eighteen years after her own promise to revoke her Orders in Council, when the French ediets were revoked, refuses to remove her obstructions to commerce, according to her promise; and, against every rule of the law of nations, demands of us, most of whose articles are excluded from European commerce, to dictate to Europe the terms on which British, not American, goods shall be admitted into the Continent. A proposition so monstrous cannot be the subject of a discussion. It bespeaks a determination to rule us, and can

(which prudence requires that we should overcome) is at least three hundred and fifty thousand; which will allow of her drawing forth an additional body of thirty thousand militia. Nor are we to stop here. Our regiments will never be filled with an efficient soldiery for field service: we cannot calculate, to fight our battles, on more than two-thirds of the number we enlist. Many of these must be employed on different services: you will have to garrison their forts after taking them; you will have to command all the rivers and passes into and out of the country; you will have convoys for provisions; men to guard your camps, and all the evils to encounter which are incident to an invading force.

Our efforts will not be limited to this enterprise. We have a frontier of savages, for seventeen hundred miles, to bridle and hold in awe; and a seacoast of as many more, to protect and defend. On which coast there are many cities of great value, and consequently presenting great objects of plunder. Nor will your able and wily enemy

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