text: "Si" 0 l 4 "m.— sict " -- ss < *?,. ss. T ___l "CsiOsiN Gffisslcta 8; "5 or m ss-si 17 All T—E-D s T A. Tss-E is. camuse "OF REPRESENTATIVES. w, — 5? siss—xtffdne-Yday, 47]!!ka 5 si-sissB R ITI'S-siH A FF—A—[R'So —DELEGATE 'I: committee of the—whole on the states of the union.-Mr. 7. C. Smith instructed chair --on the rest of the session: ed by Mr.-Gregg. si {Mr.-7. Randalﬁt's speech continued] -- But the gentleman has told you that we ought to go to war, if for nothing else, for the for trade. ssNoW'Str, the people on whose support—he seems to calculate, so]. - iow (let me tell him) a better business, and " let me add that" whilst men are happy at home reap their own fields, the fruits of their labor and industry, there-as little - danger of their being induced to go 16 or 1700 miles in pursuit of beavers, racoons, --or Opoesum'sz-touch less of— going to war {or the privilege. They are better employed. Where they are. This trade, sir, may The important to "Britain, to nations who have exhausted every resources of industry -si—1th0me-,* hot-ved 'town' by taxation and — -wretchednesse. Let them, in God's name; if they please, follow the course. They may, jot me, catch every beaver asN. America. '-Yes,- sir, our people have a better occupation. action; at ease, profitable, honorable employment. While they should be engaged in distant regions in hunting the beaver, they dread lest those of whose natural prey they are should begin to "hunt them; should pillage their property, and assassinate their constitution—last least of these wild schemes pay your debt," instead of rating about its confiscation. Do not, I see, you expose at once your slavery and your folly. You have more lands then you know what to do with: you have lately paid 15 million for yet more. Go and work them; and cease to alarm the people with the cry of wolf, until they become deaf to your voice, or at least laugh at you. Mr. Chairman, I felt less regard for what I deem the best interests of this nation than for my own reputation. I should not, on this day, have offered to address you; but would have waited to come out, bedtled with flowers and bouquets of rhetoric, in a set speech. But, sir, I dreaded lest a tone might be given to the committee; they will pardon me, but I did not fear from all that I could see, or hear, that they might be prejudiced by its advocates, under pretense of protecting four commerce, in favor of this ridiculous preposterous project. I rose sir for one to plead guilty. To declare in the face of day that I will not go to war for this carrying trade. I will agree to pass for an idea if this is not the public sentiment, and you will find it to your cost begin "the" war when you "1 o " -. Gentlemen, talk of 1795. "They might as well go back to the Trojan war as what was your situation then? Then every heart beat high with sympathy for France, for the publican France!" "I am not prepared to say, with my friend, from Pennsylvania, that we were all ready to draw our swords in her cause, but I affirm that we were prepared to have gone great lengths, and am not ashamed to pay this compliment to the hearts of the American people, even if at the expense of their understandings. It was a noble and generous sentiment which of nations like individuals are never the worse for having felt. They were, I repeat it, ready to make great sacrifices for France. And why ready? Because she was fighting the battles of the human race against the combined enemies of their liberty; because the waite was performing the part, which Great Britain now, in fact, sustains; forming the only bulwark against universal dominion. Knock away her navy, and where are you? Under the naval despotism of France, unchecked and unqualified by any system of naval power, at best but a thing of masters. The tyrant of the ocean, and the tyrant of the land, is one and the same, lord of all lands and who shall say him nay, or wherefore doest thou this thing? Give to the tygraphic the descriptions of the shipwreck, and there is no longer Safety for the subjects of the seas of the forest or the fisheries of the sea. Wherein this high-anti-British spirit of the "gentleman from Pennsylvania" when he was victorious would save but an end to the British treaty, that putst source of seclusion to this country? and at the same time, when it is not less the interest than the sentiment of this people to pull down from Britain and exalt France. When sitting in the gentleman's room with the 30th, with the fleet. He could not screw his courage to the sticking place. Then England was combined in what has proved a lifeless, inefficient coalition, but which gave just cause of alarm to every friend's freedom. Now the liberties of the human race are threatened by a single power; more formidable than the coalesced world, to whom utmost ambition, vast as it is, the naval force of Great Britain seems the only obstacle; I am perfectly sensible and ashamed of the trespass, I am making on the penitence of the committee; but as I know no whether it will be in my power to trouble them again on this subject, I must be; leaves to continue my crude and desultory observations. I am not ashamed to confess they are so. At the commencement of this session, a printed message from the president of the United States breathing a great deal of national honor and indignation at the outrages we had endured, particularly from Spain. She was specially named and pointed at. She had pirated upon your commerce, imprisoned your citizens, violated your actual territory; invaded the very limits solemnly established between the two nations, by the treaty of San Lorenzo. Some of the state legislatures (among others the very state on which the gentleman from Pennsylvania relies for support) sent forward resolutions pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, as in support of any measures you might take in vindication of your established rights. Well, sir, what have you done? You have had resolutions laid upon ing and stationary—mercenary pen, silk and paper, that's all. Like true political quacks, you deal only in handbills and nostrums. Sir, I blush to see the record of our pro. advertisements of patent medicines. Here you have "the Worm Destroying Lozenges," there, "Church's Cough Drops," and to crown the whole, "Sloan's vegetable specifics," an infallible remedy for all nervous disorders and vertigo of brain and sick patients: each man earnestly adjuring you to give his medicine only a fair trial. In fact, indeed, these wonder working nostrums could perform but one half of what they promise, there is little danger of our dying a political death, at this time at least. But, sir, in politics as in physics, the Doctor's time is the most dangerous disease. But, sir; why do I talk of Spain? There was for the benefit of those who put the mechanism into motion. You know, that's the passive me! of a superior with Spain! And where are you going to send your political panacea, resolutions and handbills excepted, your sole arcanum of government; your king cure-all? To Madrid? No: You are not such quacks as not to know where the shoe pinches—to Paris. You know at least where the dis- ease lies, and there you apply your remedy. When the nation anxiously demands the result of your deliberations, you hang your head and blush to tell. You are afraid to tell. Your mouth is hermetically sealed. Your honor has received a wound which must not take air. Gentlemen dare not come forward and avow their weakness, much less defend it in the presence of the nation. Give them all they ask, that Spain exists, and what then? After shrinking from the Spanish aggression, do you presume to satisfy the British lion? But here the secret comes out. Britain, your table—gone to some expense for proceedings, they resemble nothing but the—and this I take to be our case at present. Are no longer Pyrenees? There exists no such nation; no such being in a Spanish King or Minister. It is a mere juggle, sir, that you have no differences with Spain or power, to whom at this moment you are crouching. Are your differences indeed? He, your rival in trades and governed as you are by complaining-house politicians, you would sacrifice the paramount interests of the country, to wound that rival. For Spain and France you are carrying on your trade, and as from good customers every indignity is. To be endured. I had seen dispatches relating to vitssal final decision on those measures; four weeks after they were received ; not only their contents, but'their very existenctce. all that timectunsuspected and unknown to - men whom the people fondly believe assist with their wisdom and experience at every important deliberation. Do-you believe that this system. or rather this no system will do. lam free to answer it will not. ltcannot last. " (am not so fraid of the fair, open, constitutional, responsible in ﬂuence of government ; but I'shrink intui tively'srom this left handed, invisible, ir. responsible influence, which desires the touch, but pervades and decides everything. Let the executive come forward to the legislature; let us see whilst we feel it. If we cannot rely on its wisdom, is it any disparagement to the gentleman from Pennsylvania to say that I cannot rely upon him? No, sir, he has mistaken his talent. He is out of the Palatine on whose skill the nation at this trying moment can repose their confidence. I will have nothing to do with his paper; much less will, lend it and make myself responsible for its goodness. I will not put my name to the assertion that there is no cabinet, no system, no platform. That which I believe in one place shall never be to say in another. This is no time, no place for mistaking our steps. The people have a right to know, they shall know the state of their affairs, assist as far as I am at liberty to communicate them. I speak from personal knowledge, as long as they know, on the contrary there was an express disavowal of any opinion whatsoever, on the great subject before you; and I have good reason for saying that none Since. Since measures laid before you the day after your session, some time ago a book was laid on our tables, which like some other bindings did not bear the name of a sister. Here was taught to expect a solution of all doubts and ends to all our disputes. It's fair, as it was the foe, as it was the friend to this nation, I would expect a solution. Oh! that mine enemy would write a book. At the very outset in the very first page, I believe there is a complete abandonment of the principle in dispute. Has any gentleman got the work? It was handed by one of the members. The first position taken is the broad principle of the unlimited freedom made between nations since peace, which the writer endeavours to extend to the made between a "neutral and a belligerent." Down; accompanied however by this acknowledgment. But much as the trade of a neutral with a belligerent nation, might in certain special cases, the safety of its antagonist, usage, founded on the principle of necessity, has admitted a few exceptions to the general rule. The case comes the doctrine of contraband, blockade, and enemy's property. Now sir, for what does that celebrated pamphlet, "War in Disguise," which is said to have been written under the eye of the British prime minister, "COULD NOT but this "principle of necessity." And this is abandoned by this pamphlet at the very threshold of the discussion. But as is this, were not enough he goes on to assign as a reason for not referring to the authority of the agents, that "The great change which has taken place in the state of manners, in the maxims of war, and in the course of commerce, make it a pretty certain" (What degree of certainty is this?) "That either nothing will be found relating to the question, or not, namely, is applicable to deserve attention in deciding it." Here sir, is an apology of the writer for not disclosing the whole extent of his learning, which might have overwhelmed the reader, is the admission that a change of circumstances, in the course of commerce, has made, and therefore will now justify, a total change of the law of nations." What more could the most sensible advocate for English usurpation demand? What else can they require to establish all, and even marshals than they contend for? Sir, it is a class of men, whose knowledge is very well known, who, if you only permit them to lay the foundation, will build you up, step by step, and Brick-by brick, very neat and snowy, if not unable to argue. To detect them it is only necessary to surrender. This case is again, again, is the mere fact of the case. Again, is the mere fact of the case where asserted in this book; the free ships make free goods? No ass has right of search is acknowledged, either as a property or as a lawful prize is sealed in the vessel delivered. After abandoning these facts, what becomes of the doctrine that mere shifting of the goods from one to another, the touching at another changes the property. Sir, give up the principle and there is an end of the question. You lie at the mercy of the conscience of a court of admiralty. The British sugar or French coffee made American property, by the mere change of the man or even by the landing and payment of duties? Does this operation change property? And when those articles are drawn back, and the sugars and wines are exported, are they not, as enemies' property, liable to seizure upon the principles of the "Examination of the British Doctrine, See?" And is there the best reason to believe, that this operation is performed in any, if not in most cases, to give a neutral aspect and color to the merchandise? I am prepared, sir, to be represented as willing to surrender important rights on this nation, to a foreign government. I have been told that this sentiment is already whispered in the dark, by time—servers and sycophancy. But if your clerk dared to say that this is not the case, then I would say that it is not the case. Print them, I would appeal to your justness. Nals. I would call for the reading of them, but that I know they are not prosy to look upon. I confess that I am more ready to surrender to a naval power a square league of ocean, than to a territory one, a square inch of land within our limits — and I am ready to meet the friends of the resolution on this ground at any time. Let them take off the injunction of setting the key. They dare not. They are ashamed and afraid do it. They may give wink and nod, and pretend to be wise, but they dare not come out and tell the nation what they have done. Gentlemen may take notes if they please; but I will never, from any motive short of self-defense, enter upon war. I will never be instrumental to the ambitious schemes of Bonaparte; nor put into his hands what will enable him to wield the world; and on the very principle that I wished success to the French. (in and in 1793. And wherefore? Because the case is changed. Great Britain can never again see the year 1760. Her continental influence is gone forever. Let who will be uppermost on the continent of Europe, she must find more than a counterpoise for her strength. Her race is run. She can only be formidable as a maritime power; and, even as such, perhaps not long. Are you going to instill the acts of the last administration, for which they have been deprived of the government at our instance? Are you going to instill the ground of 1798—9? I ask any man who now advocates a rupture with England, to assign a single reason for his opinion, that would not have justified a French war in 1798? If injury and insult abroad, would have justified it, we had them in abundance then. In what did the republicans say, at that day? Shet, under the cover of a war with France, the executive would be armed with a patronage and power which might enable it to master our liberties. They defend. Pre-cited for the war and navies, and saving armies, and taxing armies. The debate passed away; the good sense of people triumphed, and our differences were accommodated without a war. And will it be in the situation of England that! vices to war with her. 'Tis true she does not deal so largely in persecability, but she supplies you with a much more on; commodity, with coarse woollens. With less profession indeed, she occupies a place of France in 1793. She is the 1015 bulwark of the human face against universal dominion. No thanks to her for it. Protecting her own existence, she ensues theirs. I care not who stands in this simulation, whether England or Bonaparte practices the doctrines now, that I professed in 1798. Gentlemen may hunt up journals if they please; voted against all such projects under the administration of John Adams, and I will continue to do so under that of Thomas Jefferson. Are you not contented with being free and happy? Or will you surrender these blessings that your merchants may "go to Turkish and Persian carpets, and burn persumes of the east in their vaulted well"? Gentlemen say, 'tis but an annual wish lost, and even were it five times the amount, what is it compared with you? Neutral rights? Sir, let me tell them, a hundred millions will be but a drop of buckwheat, it once they launch without sudde or compass into this. Ocean of love. Whom do you want to attack? 