tion of expense. Can any gentleman say what the difference of expense will be? He believed it would be very inconsiderable. The question of peace or war must be decided in three or four months, and several weeks would pass before the appointments could be made. Congress would spend more in deliberating on this subject than the difference of expense would amount to. In case the whole of the officers be appointed, the recruiting service will go on much better than it would otherwise do. If, said Mr. C., we be seri ous on the question of war, we ought not to stickle about an expense of twenty or thirty thousand dollars. If a temper of this kind is to prevail in the House, it will show that we are not fit to manage the affairs of the nation. He knew the expenses of war were considerable, and they will be so, at all events; but a war carried on with vigor would be less so than one carried on in a feeble, ineffective way. If gentlemen were alarmed at a measure of this kind at the commencement of our preparations, we had better proceed no further. Mr. RANDOLPH said he would make a motion which would supersede the one before the House. It was, that the further consideration of the subject should be indefinitely postponed. JANUARY, 1812. the Speaker (he should not wish it in safer hands) to carry on the war? Shall we declare, that the Executive not being capable of discerning the public interest, or not having spirit to pursue it, we have appointed a committee to take the President and Cabinet into custody? Gentlemen talk of marching and countermarching these troops, as if they would have any control over them; though they will have none, except, indeed, that they might withhold the supplies for their support, and by this means, oblige the Executive to disband them; but as to how, or where, or when they shall be employed, this House has no control whatever. It was far from his expectation, when he came to the House this morning, that he should have said anything on this bill. He did not know or expect that it would be taken up. But he did consider a standing army to be in itself not merely uncongenial, but deadly, to the spirit of a free Government; and he believed that the first man of an adventurous, unprincipled character, who got into the chair of our Government, with even half the number of men now proposed to be raised, at his back, will make the experiment in which Catiline failed, but in which Cæsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte succeeded. And shall we be told Mr. RANDOLPH made this motion, not from a that there is no danger of a man of this descripwish to impede the progress of the public busi-tion getting into the chair of Government? Is it ness, but from a sense of that duty, from a performance of which he trusted he should never be found to shrink. He made the motion, because he held a standing army to be, in itself, uncongenial with a Republican Government; because he held this Government, as at present constituted, A standing army is the life and soul of a milito be incapable, under existing circumstances, of tary despot. Will any man deny it? Can descarrying on, to any practical national effect, for-potism exist without it? Is it not the pabulum eign offensive war. He made the motion, also, on which it lives, and moves, and has its being? because the course pursued by the two Houses of It has ever been dangerous to limited monarchCongress, is a course not required by the circum-ies-he spoke of hereditary monarchies. Look stances of the country, nor by that branch of the Government which must be intrusted ultimately with the employment of the force proposed to be raised. It appeared to him, that, of late years, novelties the most strange and unaccountable had daily grown up in the two Houses of Congress. necessary to carry your recollection to the past? Is it necessary to state that a man, of the very description which had been mentioned, had been within one vote of becoming President of the United States? for the fact, said he, in all the authorities-the good, old doctrines of the Whigs, before power had corrupted them and they had apostatized from their principles. And if a standing army be dangerous to liberty in an hereditary monarchy, where the first seat in society is guarded by ancient preIn the first place, we undertake, by law, to en- judices, by moral restraints, and physical force; ter into stipulation with a foreign Power, not it in a form of Government like this, where the binding upon that Power, but binding only upon Chair of State is filled by a King Log, a standing ourselves. To do, by law, that to which the Ex-army be dangerous to liberty, what must it be in ecutive power alone is competent, and that which a Government like ours? In a Government like could be carried into effect by the treaty-making that of England, it is almost impossible for an power only. Now we are undertaking to say, usurper to get at the throne. How is he to get that the Executive Government of the United there? He dare not even imagine the King's States is either ignorant of the true interests of death. But here, such a character has only to the country, or incapable of carrying on the busi- wait four years, to be inducted, in form, to your ness of the nation, or unwilling to do that which chair; the door is always open to him. the public interest demands. This is the subject of your bill. After you have raised these twenty-five thousand men-if he might reason on an impossibility; for it had, he thought. been demonstrated that these men could not be raised, it would be an army on paper only-shall we form a committee of this House, in quality of a Committee of Public Safety, or shall we depute the power to We hear much, said Mr. R. about the conduct of the Congress of '75. In '75 the soil of this country was polluted by the tread of our enemy; and if an event of the same kind were to take place now, let the Congress of 1812 give only the signal, and there would be no difficulty in raising one hundred thousand men, more than we could victual, and clothe, and arm. But the circumstances under which this army is proposed are very different. JANUARY, 1811 Additional Military Force. H. OF R. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. SMILIE) has told the House that this army is to be provided for by internal taxes. He had been expecting this. The moment this bill becomes a law, you will hear the flap of the ominous wings of the Treasury pouncing upon your table, with projects of land tax, excise, hearth, tax, window tax. Excise not merely on whiskey-that great necessary of life, but upon leather, candles,&c., &c., in all the forms of oppression and extortion, so that the habitation of a man will no longer be his castle. For this reason he wished the consideration of this bill postponed, that the gentle-been repeated at least one hundred times before, man from Massachusetts (Mr. BACON, the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means) might lay before the House his budget for meeting the expenses of the war; so that the House may not, in the first instance, be entrapped by agreeing to raise an army, and then be told, they have nothing left to do, but to provide a system of internal taxation. And for what expense are you to provide? The principal? No; the bare interest of the principal only. cles, which we confess we have not, and to receive the duties on impost and tonnage. How does this square? Look at your revenue before you undertook to interfere with commerce, and look at it now, and you will find that nearly one half of your revenue is destroyed by your own act. Mr. R. said he had listened with attention, whenever his health would permit, to the arguments of gentlemen in favor of this bill. He had heard nothing of any weight until his worthy friend from South Carolina (Mr. WILLIAMS) spoke the other day. Nothing which had not and much better said; and there was such a similarity between the debates of this time and on a former occasion, that the whole appeared like an old story. As a friend and old fellow-laborer in political opinion, he was highly gratified by the speech of the gentleman from South Carolina; but, except on the subject of the Orders in Council, he did not recollect that he had said anything either new or convincing. After the fascination of his animated manner had passed off, he had We are to have a vast army-double the amount searched his mind for anything else in vain. He of that proposed to be raised in '98-internal taxes, listened to have heard a word on the subject of eight per cent. loans, and no Federalism. I pray the French decrees, either governmental or muyou, said Mr. R., of what sort of things is this icipal, or on the stipulations of the present EmFederalism compounded? What are its elements? peror of France towards the United States. He You have your choice of two alternatives. Gen-listened also for something on the subject of the tlemen must either stop on the good old Virginia letter of the Duke de Cadore to our Minister; but ground, or they must scout it, and go into Feder- he listened in vain. He heard nothing but the alism, and adopt Federal doctrine to its full ex-old story that the West Indies would no longer tent. They must take one or the other; and if they be prepared for this system of internal taxation-this system of patronage-this vast Army and Navy, and the point of honor-he spoke of honor as between nations-it is hardly worth while to keep up the old distinction. With regard to loans. He should be sorry on the general subject of finance, or perhaps on any other, to pretend to an equal degree of information with the very extraordinary man at the head of our Treasury Department. He never had any doubt of his ingenuity He believed that what could be done, he would effect. He would ven ture to affirm, however, for though his sources of information were not equal to those of the Secretary, he had no doubt of their correctness, that he cannot borrow money to the extent of our wants. It is not be to had abroad we all know; and it is not to be had at home. It is very easy for a man, or a nation, in full credit, who pays punctually, to borrow either small or large sums; but announce to the world that you have no resort, but to borrow, and you will soon find the barometer of your credit fall, What is the proposition, Mr. R. asked, which the Committee of Commerce and Manufactures has brought forward for importing from Great Britain and her possessions, articles ordered, or said to be ordered, previous to the 2d of February last? It is said, to enable us to comply with our treaty with the Indians, in furnishing them with the customary articles. But it is, in fact, to get blankets and woollens for our soldiery and revenue nto our Treasury. It is to get a supply of arti. be worth cultivating, and that the manufacturers of Birmingham and Manchester would compel the British Ministry to yield to our demands, This had been the standing order of the day for six years past. The gentleman from South Carolina called the attention of the House to a commerce, which we need never again look for. As we have undertaken to force manufactures here, so has the Emperor of France undertaken to force them; and as we have refused to supply England with raw materials, she has sought for supplies in other quarters. He looked upon our export of cotton to be as dead as that of indigo. We shall have no market for it hereafter, but to supply our own consumption; except they will take it from us in China, which can scarcely be expected. The gentleman from South Carolina says, that it takes all the profits of our trade with other countries, to pay the annual balance due to England. To men of practical minds, what does this fact prove? It proves that this balance was essential to our interest. It proves that we all know, that a capital is necessary to a man who is devoid of one; and England, being the first commercial nation in the world, furnishes us with a capital which we want, as Holland, in former times, used to furnish capital for the other nations of Europe. It is as plain as any proposition in mathematics, that where two nations trade together, the one rich and the other poor, the one yielding raw materials, and the other manufactures in a finished state, that the trade of superior wealth and refinement is necessary to the nation H. OF R. Additional Military Force. JANUARY, 1812. of inferior wealth. Do you want an illustration? What have you got, at an immense expense of Which is most necessary in America-blankets blood and treasure? a national curse! and rifles or furs? Suppose the savage on our Northwestern frontier would not let us have their furs, they would not get our blankets and rifles. Do not gentlemen see the avidity, notwithstanding all the difficulties attending the trade, and the consequent high prices, with which British manufactures are purchased here? The gentleman from South Carolina has founded a strong argument, in the reduced price of this cotten, for resisting the Orders in Council. But the low price of his cotton is no proof of the depreciation of British manufactures. But we are to go to war to conquer the liberty of the sea-France having tried this in vain. France, with an army of a million of men, with Bonaparte, Massena, and other famous generals at their head, having failed in this enterprise, some of our famous colonels are determined to succeed. This appears farcical. But as to the principle of the Orders in Council, take France out of the way, and he believed there would be no hesitation in resisting them. The question has been, shall we resist the minor, and put up with the major injury? But, situated as we are, he would resist the Orders in Council. But he saw no connexion between an army of twenty-five or fifty thousand men, and a repeal of the Orders in Council. You will, to be sure, have done a favor to Canada. You will have purchased, at a dear rate, her independence. This is very benevolent and philanthropic-and might be a very proper consideration for a quaker meeting or philanthropic society, but not for this body. But after Canada shall be conquered, commerce could not be forced into that inhospitable climate; and yet we are to bring upon ourselves land taxes, excise, and internal taxes of every description, to obtain it. Are there no limits, asked Mr. R., to the territory over which Republican government may be extended? Is it, like space, indefinite in its extent? He believed that whenever the valley of the Mississippi came to be filled up, we should find our mistake on this subject. You are laying the foundation for a secession from the Union-on the north, by the possession of Canada, and on the borders of the Ohio, for another division. The Ohio has been made the line between the slaveholding States and those which hold no slaves. He need not call the attention of the House to this distinction, nor to the jealousies and animosities growing out of the subject. favor the passage of this bill. But why should gentlemen wish to raise a larger force than the Executive wants-than he is disposed to use? For, with all his jealousies of Executive power, when we go to war, we must do one of the two things: We must either give the President such a military and naval force, and let him use it; or, if he decline using it, remove him and put some man in his place who will use it. There is no other alternative. Will any one suggest any other? Mr. R. said, if he thought these twenty-five thousand men could effect their object; if they could be raised; if, being raised, they would not Suppose the Chinese had as great a maritime be more dangerous than the Orders in Council or force in their seas as the British have in the At-French decrees, he might have been disposed to lantic ocean, and China was at war with Japan, and had passed similar orders with the British. We have no trade to Japan; she has some decree, either governmental or municipal, to prevent our going there; would his friend from South Carolina, whose heroic spirit and manly mind he admired, undertake to compel the Chinese, with a population of three hundred and fifty millions of subjects and a large fleet of ships-of-the-line, by passing a law to raise twenty-five thousand men, to repeal her restrictive orders against our commerce? This would be outquixoting Quixote himself; and outheroding all our former Herodings. With a law for raising twenty-five thousand men, whom you cannot raise, you are to set out on an expedition to conquer the liberty of the sea; and where? He did not know whether he understood his friend from South Carolina; but he seemed to have some project in his mind-the torpedoes having failed, he supposed he had got ten some other new invented machinery to be put in motion by the Falls of Niagara; but what it was he understood not. There is one view of the subject, which he must be permitted to take. No wise man would undertake any important measure until he first calculated the manner of effecting his object, and considered the situation in which he would be placed after his purpose was attained. Mr. R. would overlook every other consideration. He would indulge gentlemen in their most romantic notions of success. He would consider the American standard as hoisted on the walls of Quebec, and even at Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. You have an agent to execute certain business, he asks from you a certain amount for effecting the business on hand, you give him double-you force it upon him-you compel him to waste it. Would not this be deemed extraordinary conduct in an individual? If we place confidence in the Executive, we ought to act up to his views, and not adopt measures to force him beyond the point to which he is willing to go. Mr. R. felt an utter incapacity to do a proper degree of justice to his sentiments on this subject; but he could not suffer the bill to pass without making one more attempt to put it in the power of the House to retrace their steps from this illadvised measure, We are going to war-going to raise twentyfive thousand men-going to sweep away His Majesty's Government from the British Provinces. He sometimes was ready to persuade himself that he must be laboring under a mental derangement-that the thing could not be. What! raise twenty-five thousand men for this purpose; when it takes you from the 5th of November to the 10th of January, to get a bill, which comes to your hands ready cut and dried from the Senate, passed into a law; when you have yet to pass your volunteer bill, your navy bill, and above all, your appropriation bill. Why, Captain Cook would have sailed around the world before you can get through this; and yet you talk about carrying on offensive war, while everything shows you incapable of carrying on such a war. But, by the aid of war speeches and the previous question you may get your war measures passed. But the previous question will not replenish an empty Treasury, nor supply the places of your killed and wounded men, nor carry on your war. No; you would have to take the measures of your predecessors, and infuse a little more energy into the Government. 7 H. of R. the table that forty-five votes could be had in favor Mr. R. was the more anxious to hear the opinion of his friend from South Carolina as to the effect Mr. R. was afraid we should not be inclined to proposed to be obtained by these measures, because copy after the not unwise example of our prede- he believed him to be one of those pure, disintercessors of the Republics of ancient times-of the ested politicians, who sought nothing, and would ancient world-to attend to the auspices under receive nothing from the Government of his counwhich we are acting-to the signs of the times. Is try-who came here, at an expense of his time and it possible that this most imprudent measure, this fortune, to discharge the trust so worthily placed first actual war in which we have been engaged in him by his constituents. Mr. R. was proud since we achieved our independence, should be to say that he stood on the same ground-that entered upon under present circumstances-when he never occupied any other-on it he should foreclipses, comets, earthquakes and the most deso-ever stand as long as he remained in public lifelating visitations of God are taking place? Can these be the harbingers of any good? But if it had pleased Him, in whose hands are all things, to harden the heart of Pharaoh, that the Children of Israel may suffer-he supposed they must suffer without complaining. He should like to be told by his worthy friend from South Carolina, what purpose he finally and eventually proposes to accomplish by the war on which we are about to enter. Let us, said he, come down to the level of old-fashioned common sense-tell us, if we must endure all the evils of war, what we have to expect in return. He knew he had detained the House to little purpose; but he wished to put it in the power of the gentlemen to revise and think better of a vote, on which, in his opinion, depended the ultimate happiness, security, and everything dear to this country. He knew how very easy it was to make war; nothing easier than to make either national or personal war. It was as easy to go to war as to get a wife; and many a poor blockhead had he seen strutting his hour, because he had, after vast exertion, married a shrew. Mr. R. wished, if they could do no better, that Congress would adjourn, and suffer the members to go home and consult with the good old planters of the country on the subject of this war; and ask them if they are willing that their sons shall go to fight the Canadians, and whether, to support the expense, they be willing to submit to the payment of direct and indirect taxes, in order that we may get possession of the great mill-seat at Niagara ? and probably remain what is called an opposition man; because the moment the outs get in, they do the very things against which, whilst the were patriots, they loudly exclaimed. They realize the old fable of Æsop, "it was your bull that gored my ox." Let, however, the Government come to any resolution, in which the rights and liberties of the country are involved, if he had no strong objection to the course proposed, it would receive no captious opposition from him. He should despise any capitous opposition; but when you come to raise standing armies, to treason bills, to bills for the suspension of the habeas corpus, to unlimited taxation, to the violation of the most sacred provisions of the Constitution, he should then put in his veto. Whose bill is this, asked Mr. R., upon which we are now debating? Is it the bill of the wise, the sober, the discreet, the cautious, the thinking man, who now fills the Chair of State? No. Is it the bill of either of his two able coadjutors, men of clear minds, first in business, first in human affairs-solid, thinking, ingenious, wily, cunning-never at a loss-something like a cat, always on their feet? He knew this bill did not come from them. It is an anti-ministerial measure, and, therefore, though he was somewhat surprised at some of the support which it received, he was not surprised at the countenance it had from others. Whose system, then, is it? It came from the other House. Upon what is it bottomed? Upon any regular report? Not, he believed, upon even a resolution. We have no information upon what object the force is to be employed, or who is to command it-and that is of some importance. He should like to see the Commander-inchief named in the bill, though it would be adopt If the two Houses were to adjourn only for six weeks, it would afford time for the present war fever to subside; and by that time the Hornet would have returned. He did not believe, indeed, at present, if a declaration of war was laid uponing a new mode. This is a project, said Mr. R., which, a few years hence, no man will father-no one will acknowledge it to be his project. It will be said the bill originated in the Senate-that there was a great alarm in the country; that the Senate being a branch of the Executive, were supposed to possess the most correct information-that the whole party was for it-that he (the member who gives this account) was rather against it, but that he had given way to the general opinion; and where will then be the man who brought forward this bill? Gone to the vault of all the Capulets. He had frequently heard of thoughtless individuals being drawn into scrapes; but he never before heard of a nation, a sober-minded nation, being drawn into a war, not only against its own consent, but against the best judginent of those intrusted with the Government. He repeated that it was an anti-ministerial measure, which will be attended with no trifling consequence. JANUARY, 1812. that men in whose integrity he had the most unbounded confidence, in whose judgment he had the highest opinion, should suffer themselves to be carried away by clamor-not only against their own judgment and feelings, but against the will of the Executive branch of the Government. Pass this bill, said he, and we shall be disbanded long before the army we are about to raise, without being entitled either to half pay or a bountry in land." Who, asked Mr. R., are the Governors of this country? Are not the people? Is not the people's money to support the expenses of this war? It is, then, a question for them to settle. He knew they must settle it through their Representatives. If the nation be not disposed to fight, it will not be war speeches, made here, that will goad them to battle. You can neither make the people go to war, nor keep them at war, unless they be convinced they have no other resource. When dissatisfied, they will speak a language which will be heard. Mr. R. said he was a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations. This House is independent of the Executive branch of the Govern- Mr. R. said he had the most profound respect ment; yet in every question connected with war, for the intentions of gentlemen who differ in opinas that department is best acquainted with the ion from him on this question. God forbid that subject, and the resources of the country, and as he should arrogate to himself to judge not only it must eventually be intrusted with the execu- as to the correctness of measures, but as to intention of war measures, there was but one course, tion. Have we a right to say that the intentions after the committee met, which common sense of the majority of those who supported the meaprescribed, and that was to apply to the Execu-sures of '98, were corrupt? Certainly not; but tive branch for information on this subject. It we know the nation, when they had time to exwas on his motion, that the Secretary of War amine into those measures, withdrew from them appeared before the committee, and gave them a their support. And who are the great Republiplan of what the Executive deemed necessary to cans, the majority of the present day? They are be done, and the committee reported accordingly. the same who opposed and condemned the doings And what has been the result? Without any of the Congress of '98. further information from the Executive, we have changed our views on the subject, and taken up a bill from the other House, we know not from what source. Mr. R. believed we had as good a Government as we should ever see. He spoke of the Executive branch. He asked no favors of them; all that he had to ask of our Ministry was, that they would keep their hands out of his pocket. But why this violent struggle against Executive wishes? If, under the operation of the proposed system of measures, the people murmur against their rulers, what must the Executive say? Of course, he will say, "I laid my plan before Congress, and told them what measures ought, in my opinion, to be pursued; but they turned a deaf ear to it. Somebody, or ncbody, brought forward a bill entirely different from what I had recommended; but it was passed by a large majority of both Houses, and I did not choose to put my veto upon it." What can be said under these circunstances? The Executive stands acquitted. Not a tittle of responsibility attaches to him on account of the measures we are taking. Where then does it lie? On the House of Representatives. Where are they? Gone to their respective homes; and, when they meet again, who are they? A differerent body of men. Mr. R. said it was most astonishing to him, There was so much to be said on this subject, that he had not touched upon; and so much to be well said, that he had said most lamely, that Mr. R. felt reluctant to take his chair. He would not, however, further weary the patience of the House. He hoped some other gentleman, better qualified, would take up the points he had omitted. He had spoken principally as to the views and designs of the Administration, as counteracted by the bill on the table; he would not say, or insinuate designedly; though he did not believe that the bill proceeded from the warmest friend of the Administration. He hoped time would be afforded further to consider the subject; that, if the present motion did not succeed, a motion to postpone to a day certain would be more successful. The question on postponement was taken, without further debate, by yeas and nays as follows: YEAS-Abijah Bigelow, James Breckenridge, Elijah Brigham, Epaphroditus Champion, Martin Chittenden, Jackson, jr., Philip B. Key, Lyman Law, Joseph Lewis, John Davenport, jr., William Ely, Asa Fitch, Richard jr., Nathaniel Macon, Archibald McBryde, Jonathan O. Moseley, Joseph Pearson, Timothy Pitkin, jr., Elisha R. Potter, John Randolph, William Rodman, Daniel Sheffey, Richard Stanford, Philip Stuart, Lewis B. Sturges, Samuel Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Laban Wheaton, Leonard White, and Thomas Wilson-29. NAYS-Willis Alston, jun., William Anderson, Ste |