IC-NI 
 
 SB 53t 
 
Memorable American 
 Speeches 
 
 II 
 
 Democracy and Nationality 
 
\ 
 
ILafersifce Classics 
 
 Memorable American 
 Speeches 
 
 ii 
 
 Democracy and Nationality 
 
 COLLECTED AND EDITED 
 BY 
 
 JOHN VANCE CHENEY 
 
 Cfcica0o 
 R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
 
 CHRISTMAS, MCMVI11 
 

 
 C su 
 
 v, 3, 
 
 Deface 
 
 THE present volume of the Lakeside 
 Classics continues the series of memor 
 able American speeches begun last year, 
 and covers the first half-century of our na 
 tional life. It is unfortunate that the purpose 
 of the Lakeside Classics does not permit of 
 an exhaustive collection of American orations. 
 The field is extensive and exceedingly rich, 
 but the limited size of the volumes, and the 
 infrequency of their appearance, would make 
 an attempt at anything like a complete collec 
 tion ineffective and wearisome. The Pub 
 lishers have, therefore, contented themselves 
 with selecting only those speeches which stand 
 out in boldest relief on account of their literary 
 merit or the interest of their occasion, 
 speeches with which the average man of affairs 
 will be most desirous of becoming familiar. 
 
 For the selecting of the speeches and the 
 editing of this volume the Publishers have 
 again to thank Mr. John Vance Cheney. 
 
 The original purpose of the Lakeside Clas 
 sics has, to an extent, been departed from in the 
 present volume. The book still goes forth as 
 the Publishers idea of the possibilities of mod 
 est but good book-making, produced by the 
 economical methods of modern manufacturing. 
 5 
 
preface 
 
 Heretofore its type-setting, as well as its 
 presswork and binding, has been done by 
 machinery. In this volume the type-setting 
 has been done by the apprentices in the School 
 for Apprentices of the Lakeside Press. Realiz 
 ing that the old-fashioned, thoroughly trained 
 workman was passing out of the printing trade 
 as well as other trades, the Publishers have 
 established at their Press a school for the 
 training of their own workmen. Boys are 
 indentured upon graduation from grammar 
 school for a term of seven years, and these 
 boys, along with their factory work, spend a 
 substantial portion of each day in the Appren 
 tice School, where they are grounded in the 
 technique of their trade, under a competent 
 mechanical instructor, and also continue such 
 academic studies as will be of assistance to 
 them in their trade or will increase their gen 
 eral intelligence. The setting of this volume 
 is the first commercial product of these boys; 
 every piece of type, including the title-page, 
 being set by them in the school during the first 
 three months of their apprenticeship. The 
 Publishers believe the work gives great prom 
 ise that the art of printing, under the proper 
 system of training, may still be maintained at 
 its old-time standard. 
 
 THE PUBLISHERS. 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1908. 
 
SINCE the publishers have found it best 
 to cover the future periods of American 
 history with less detail than was indicat 
 ed in the preceding volume, the time from 
 Colonialism to the prolific period of the Anti- 
 Slavery Agitation, in other words, the birth- 
 time of Democracy and Nationality, is herein 
 delineated by but three speakers, treating sev 
 erally the proposition to increase the army, 
 the War of 1812, and Foot s resolution on the 
 Public Lands. To these is prefixed Washing 
 ton s Farewell Address; an unparalleled sum 
 mary of American patriotism and stateman- 
 ship, " the most famous and most influential 
 piece of advice in the history of our country." 
 
 While the present selection necessarily omits 
 important topics, such as the British Treaty, 
 the repeal of the Sedition Law, and the admis 
 sion of Louisiana, it offers brilliant illustra 
 tions of the themes considered; one of them, 
 the Reply to Hayne, considered by many to be 
 the finest effort of the Salisbury giant of the 
 Senate. 
 
 J. V. C. 
 
Contents 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON PAGE 
 
 Farewell Address . . 13 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 On the Militia Bill . 41 
 
 HENRY CLAY 
 
 On the War of 1812 . . 67 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 The Reply to Hayne . . .107 
 
Memorable American Speeches 
 
(1732-1799) 
 
 FAREWELL ADDRESS 
 
 [Published in Claypoole s American Daily Adver 
 tiser, September 19, 1796.] 
 
 FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: 
 
 THE period for a new election of a citizen 
 to administer the Executive Government 
 of the United States being not far dis 
 tant, and the time actually arrived when your 
 thoughts must be employed in designating the 
 person who is to be clothed with that important 
 trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it 
 may conduce to a more distinct expression of 
 the public voice, that I should now apprise 
 you of the resolution I have formed to decline 
 being considered among the number of those 
 out of whom a choice is to be made. 
 
 I beg you at the same time to do me the 
 justice to be assured that this resolution has 
 not been taken without a strict regard to all 
 the considerations appertaining to the relation 
 which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; 
 and that in withdrawing the tender of service 
 which silence in my situation might imply, 
 I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for 
 your future interest, no deficiency of grate 
 ful respect for your past kindness, but am 
 
 13 
 
American 
 
 supported by a full conviction that the step 
 is compatible with both. 
 
 The acceptance of and continuance hither 
 to in the office to which your suffrages have 
 twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice 
 of inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a 
 deference for what appeared to be your desire. 
 I constantly hoped that it would have been 
 much earlier in my power, consistently with 
 motives which I was not at liberty to disre 
 gard, to return to that retirement from which 
 I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength 
 of my inclination to do this previous to the 
 last election had even led to the preparation of 
 an address to declare it to you; but mature re 
 flection on the then perplexed and critical pos 
 ture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the 
 unanimous advice of persons entitled to my 
 confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea. 
 
 I rejoice that the state of your concerns, 
 external as well as internal, no longer renders 
 the pursuit of inclination incompatible with 
 the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am 
 persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained 
 for my services, that in the present circum 
 stances of our country you will not disapprove 
 my determination to retire. 
 
 The impressions with which I first undertook 
 the arduous trust were explained on the prop 
 er occasion. In the discharge of this trust, 
 I will only say that I have, with good intentions, 
 contributed towards the organization and ad- 
 14 
 
ministration of the government the best exer 
 tions of which a very fallible judgment was 
 capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the 
 inferiority of my qualifications, experience in 
 my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of 
 others, has strengthened the motives to diffi 
 dence of myself; and every day the increasing 
 weight of years admonishes me more and more 
 that the shade of retirement is as necessary 
 to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if 
 any circumstances have given peculiar value 
 to my services they were temporary, I have 
 the consolation to believe that while choice 
 and prudence invite me to quit the political 
 scene, patriotism does not forbid it. 
 
 In looking foward to the moment which is 
 intended to terminate the career of my public 
 life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend 
 the deep acknowledgment of that debt of grat 
 itude which I owe to my beloved country 
 for the many honors it has conferred upon me; 
 still more for the steadfast confidence with 
 which it has supported me, and for the oppor 
 tunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting 
 my inviolable attachment by services, faithful 
 and persevering though in usefulness unequal 
 to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our 
 country from these services let it always be 
 remembered to your praise, and as an instruct 
 ive example in our annals, that under cir 
 cumstances in which the passions, agitated in 
 every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst 
 15 
 
American 
 
 appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes 
 of fortune often discouraging, in situations in 
 which not unfrequently want of success has 
 countenanced the spirit of criticism, the con 
 stancy of your support was the essential prop 
 of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by 
 which they were effected. Profoundly pene 
 trated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to 
 the grave as a strong incitement to unceasing 
 vows that Heaven may continue to you the 
 choicest tokens of its beneficence ; that your 
 union and brotherly affection may be per 
 petual; that the free constitution which is 
 the work of your hands may be sacredly main 
 tained; that its administration in every depart 
 ment may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; 
 that, in fine, the happiness of the people 
 of these states, under the auspices of liberty, 
 may be made complete by so careful a preser 
 vation and so prudent a use of this blessing as 
 will acquire to them the glory of recommend 
 ing it to the applause, the affection, and adop 
 tion of every nation which is yet a stranger 
 to it. 
 
 Here, perhaps, I ought to stop; but a solici 
 tude for your welfare, which cannot end but 
 with my life, and the apprehension of danger 
 natural to that solicitude, urge me on an occa 
 sion like the present to offer to your solemn 
 contemplation, and to recommend to your fre 
 quent review, some sentiments which are the 
 result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable 
 16 
 
George 3afjington 
 
 observation, and which appear to me all-im 
 portant to the permanency of your felicity as 
 a people. These will be offered to you with 
 the more freedom as you can only see in them 
 the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, 
 who can possibly have no personal motive to 
 bias his counsels; nor can I forget, as an encour 
 agement to it, your indulgent reception of my 
 sentiments on a former and not dissimilar 
 occasion. 
 
 Interwoven as is the love of liberty with 
 every ligament of your hearts, no recommen 
 dation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm 
 the attachment. 
 
 The unity of government, which constitutes 
 you one people, is also now dear to you. It 
 is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edi 
 fice of your real independence; the support of 
 your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, 
 of your safety, of your prosperity in every 
 shape, of that very liberty which you so high 
 ly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that 
 from different causes and from different quar 
 ters much pains will be taken, many artifices 
 employed, to weaken in your minds the convic 
 tion of this truth; as this is the point in your 
 political fortress against which the batteries of 
 internal and external enemies will be most con 
 stantly and actively (though often covertly and 
 insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment 
 that you should properly estimate the immense 
 value of your national union to your collective 
 17 
 
American 
 
 and individual happiness; that you should 
 cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable 
 attachment to it, accustoming yourselves to 
 think and speak of it as of the palladium of 
 your political safety and prosperity ; watching 
 for its preservation with jealous anxiety, dis 
 countenancing whatever may suggest even a 
 suspicion that it can in any event be aban 
 doned, and indignantly frowning upon the first 
 dawning of every attempt to alienate any 
 portion of our country from the rest, or to 
 enfeeble the sacred ties which now link to 
 gether the various parts. 
 
 For this you have every inducement of sym 
 pathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice 
 of a common country, that country has a right 
 to concentrate your affections. The name 
 of American, which belongs to you in your 
 national capacity, must always exalt the just 
 pride of patriotism more than any appellation 
 derived from local discriminations. With 
 slight shades of difference you have the same 
 religion, manners, habits, and political princi 
 ples. You have in a common cause fought and 
 triumphed together. The independence and 
 liberty you possess are the work of joint 
 counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, 
 sufferings, and successes. 
 
 But these considerations, however power 
 
 fully they address themselves to your sensibili 
 
 ty, are greatly outweighed by those which apply 
 
 more immediately to your interest. Here 
 
 18 
 
<*0eorge 
 
 every portion of our country finds the most 
 commanding motives for carefully guarding 
 and preserving the union of the whole. 
 
 The North, in an unrestrained intercourse 
 with the South, protected by the equal laws 
 of a common government, finds in the pro 
 ductions of the latter great additional re 
 sources of maritime and commercial enterprise, 
 and precious materials of manufacturing in 
 dustry. The South, in the same intercourse, 
 benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its 
 agriculture grow and its commerce expand. 
 Turning partly into its own channels the sea 
 men of the North, it finds its particular navi 
 gation invigorated; and while it contributes, 
 in different ways, to nourish and increase 
 the general mass of the national navigation, it 
 looks forward to the protection of a maritime 
 strength to which itself is unequally adapted. 
 The East, in a like intercourse with the West 
 already finds, and in the progressive improve 
 ment of interior communications by land and 
 water will more and more find, a valuable 
 vent for the commodities which it brings from 
 abroad or manufactures at home. The West 
 derives from the East supplies requisite to its 
 growth and comfort, and what is perhaps of 
 still greater consequence it must of necessity 
 owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable 
 outlets for its own productions to the weight, 
 influence, and the future maritime strength of 
 the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an 
 
 19 
 
American 
 
 indissoluble community of interest as one 
 nation. Any other tenure by which the West 
 can hold this essential advantage, whether 
 derived from its own separate strength or 
 from an apostate and unnatural connection 
 with any foreign power, must be intrinsically 
 precarious. 
 
 While, then, every part of our country thus 
 feels an immediate and particular interest in 
 union, all the parts combined in the united 
 mass of means and efforts cannot fail to find 
 greater strength, greater resource, proportion- 
 ably greater security from external danger, a 
 less frequent interruption of their peace by 
 foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable 
 value, they must derive from union an ex 
 emption from those broils and wars between 
 themselves which so frequently afflict neigh 
 boring countries not tied together by the 
 same governments, which their own rivalships 
 alone would be sufficient to produce, but 
 which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, 
 and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. 
 
 Hence, likewise they will avoid the necessity 
 of those overgrown military establishments 
 which under any form of government are in 
 auspicious to liberty, and which are to be 
 regarded as particularly hostile to republican 
 liberty. In this sense it is that your union 
 ought to be considered as a main prop of your 
 liberty, and that the love of the one ought to 
 endear to you the preservation of the other. 
 
 20 
 
Ocorgc t^agfjingtcm 
 
 These considerations speak a persuasive 
 language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, 
 and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a 
 primary object of patriotic desire. Is there 
 a doubt whether a common government can 
 embrace so large a sphere? Let experience 
 solve it. To listen to mere speculation in 
 such a case were criminal. We are author 
 ized to hope that a proper organization of the 
 whole, with the auxiliary agency of govern 
 ments for the respective subdivisions, will 
 afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is 
 well worth a fair and full experiment. With 
 such powerful and obvious motives to union 
 affecting all parts of our country, while ex 
 perience shall not have demonstrated its im 
 practicability, there will always be reason 
 to distrust the patriotism of those who in 
 any quarter may endeavor to weaken its 
 bands. 
 
 In contemplating the causes which may 
 disturb our union, it occurs as matter of seri 
 ous concern that any ground should have 
 been furnished for characterizing parties by 
 geographical discriminations Northern and 
 Southern, Atlantic and Western whence de 
 signing men may endeavor to excite a belief 
 that there is a real difference of local interests 
 and views. One of the expedients of party 
 to acquire influence within particular districts 
 is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of 
 other districts. You cannot shield yourselves 
 
 21 
 
American 
 
 too much against the jealousies and heart 
 burnings which spring from these misrepre 
 sentations; they tend to render alien to each 
 other those who ought to be bound together 
 by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of 
 our Western country have lately had a useful 
 lesson on this head; they have seen in the 
 negotiation by the executive, and in the unan 
 imous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty 
 with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction 
 at that event throughout the United States, a 
 decisive proof how unfounded were the suspi 
 cions propagated among them of a policy in 
 the general government and in the Atlantic 
 States unfriendly to their interests in regard 
 to the Mississippi ; they have been witnesses to 
 the formation of two treaties, that with Great 
 Britain and that with Spain which secure 
 to them everything they could desire in re 
 spect to our foreign relations towards con 
 firming their prosperity. Will it not be their 
 wisdom to rely for the preservation of these 
 advantages on the union by which they were 
 procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf 
 to those advisers, if such there are, who would 
 sever them from their brethren and connect 
 them with aliens ? 
 
 To the efficacy and permanency of your 
 union a government for the whole is indispen 
 sable. No alliances, however strict, between 
 the parts can be an adequate substitute. 
 They must inevitably experience the infrac- 
 
 22 
 
George ta|)ington 
 
 tions and interruptions which all alliances in 
 all times have experienced. Sensible of this 
 momentous truth, "you have improved upon 
 your first essay by the adoption of a consti 
 tution of government better calculated than 
 your former for an intimate union, and for 
 the efficacious management of your common 
 concerns. This government, the offspring 
 of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, 
 adopted upon full investigation and mature de 
 liberation, completely free in its principles, in 
 the distribution of its powers, uniting security 
 with energy, and containing within itself a 
 provision for its own amendment, has a just 
 claim to your confidence and your support. 
 Respect for its authority, compliance with its 
 laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties 
 enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true 
 liberty. The basis of our political systems 
 is the right of the people to make and to alter 
 their constitutions of government. But the 
 constitution which at any time exists, till 
 changed by an explicit and authentic act of 
 the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon 
 all. The very idea of the power and the right 
 of the people to establish government presup 
 poses the duty of every individual to obey the 
 established government. 
 
 All obstructions to the execution of the 
 laws, all combinations and associations, under 
 whatever plausible character, with the real de 
 sign to direct, control, counteract, or awe the 
 
 23 
 
American 
 
 regular deliberation and action of the consti 
 pated authorities, are destructive of this funda- 
 menfal principle. and_o fatal tendency" Tney 
 serve to organize faction, to give it an artifi 
 cial and extraordinary force, lo put in the^ilace 
 of the olelegated will of the nation the_will of 
 a[- party -+- ofteTT a small but artful ajjTentgr- 
 ^jprisingrinnority of the comrnunjty^ and ? ac 
 cording to the alternate triumphs of different 
 parties, to make the public administratiorULa 
 mirrorof the ill-concerted and 
 
 ^ 
 
 projects of faction rather than the organ of 
 
 consistent^ and wholesome plans, digested by 
 
 common councils, and modified by mutual 
 
 interests. However combinations or associ 
 
 ations of the above description may now and 
 
 then_answer popular ends, they are likely^ in 
 
 tlie course of time and things,, to become po 
 
 tent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and 
 
 unprincipled men will be enabled^to subvert 
 
 the power "of the people, and to usurp for 
 
 \ themselves the reins of government, destroying 
 
 ^afterwards the very engines w^jch have lifted 
 
 v j^gm to unjust dominion. 
 
 ^"Towards the preservation of your govern 
 
 ment, and the permanency of your present 
 
 happy state, it is requisite not only that you 
 
 steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to 
 
 its acknowledged authority, but also that you 
 
 resist with care the spirit of innovation upon 
 
 its principles, however specious the pretexts. 
 
 One method of assault may be to effect in the 
 
 24 
 
<*B>eorge IDaa Ijington 
 
 forms of the constitution alterations which 
 will impair the energy of the system, and thus 
 to undermine what cannot be directly over 
 thrown. In all the changes to which you may 
 be invited, remember that time and habit are 
 at least as necessary to fix the true character 
 of governments as of other human institutions; 
 that experience is the surest standard by 
 which to test the real tendency of the exist 
 ing constitution of a country; that facility in 
 changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis 
 and opinion exposes to perpetual change, from 
 the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; 
 and remember especially that for the efficient 
 management of your common interests in a 
 country so extensive as ours a government of 
 as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect 
 security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty 
 itself will find in such a government, with 
 powers properly distributed and adjusted, its 
 surest guardian. It is indeed little else than 
 a name where the government is too feeble to 
 withstand the enterprises of faction to confine ** 
 each member of the society within the limits 
 prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in 
 the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights 
 of person and property. 
 
 I have already intimated to you the danger 
 of parties in the state, with particular refer 
 ence to the founding of them on geographical 
 discriminations. Let me now take a more 
 comprehensive view, and warn you in the most 
 25 
 
American 
 
 solemn manner against the baneful effects of 
 tSe*spTnt"of party generally. 
 
 /This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable 
 from our natureThaving its root in the strong 
 est passions of the human min.__Lt_exists 
 under different shapes in all governments^ 
 rnore or less stifled, controlled, or repre"ssec|; 
 but in those of the_rjqpular form it is seen in 
 its greatest rankness. and is truly their worst 
 
 le alternate domination of one faction over 
 another, sharpened by tne spirit ot "revenge 
 natural to party dissension, which in different 
 ages and countries has perpetrated the most 
 Horrid enormities T is itself a frightful cfespot- 
 ism. Jgut_ this leads at length to a more 
 formal and permanent despotism. The dis- 
 orders and miseries which result gradually in 
 cline tne minds of men to seek security and 
 repose in the absolute power of an individual; 
 and sooner or later the chief of some prevail 
 ing faction, more able or more fortunate than 
 his^ competitors, turns this disposition to the 
 rjurppses of his own elevation on the ruins 
 oTpuBTiC libeTfy. : """ 
 " Without looking forward to an extremity of 
 this kind (which neverless ought not |o fre en 
 tirely out of sightX the common and continual 
 mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient 
 to make it the? int pr<ac and duty of a wise 
 people to discourage ancj rpqtnHn it. 
 
 It serves always to distract the public coun- 
 26 
 
cils and enfeeble the public administration. 
 It agitates the commumity with ill-founded 
 jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animos 
 ity of one part against another, foments occa 
 sionally riot and insurrection. It opens the 
 door to foreign influence and corruption, which 
 find a facilitated access to the government 
 itself through the channels of party passions.. 
 Thus the policy and the will of one country 
 are subjected to the policy and will of another. 
 
 There is an opinion that parties in free 
 countries are useful checks upon the admin 
 istration of the government, and serve to keep 
 alive the spirit of liberty. This, within cer 
 tain limits, is probably true, and in govern 
 ments of a monarchical cast patriotism may 
 look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon 
 the spirit of party. But in those of the pop 
 ular character, in governments purely elective, 
 it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From 
 their natural tendency it is certain there will 
 always be enough of that spirit for every sal 
 utary purpose; and there being constant dan 
 ger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force 
 of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. 
 A fire not to be quenched, it demands a 
 uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into 
 a flame, lest instead of warming it should con 
 sume. 
 
 It is important, likewise, that the habits of 
 thinking in a free country should inspire cau 
 tion in those intrusted with its administration 
 27 
 
American 
 
 to confine themselves within their respective 
 constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise 
 of the powers of one department to encroach 
 upon another. The spirit of encroachment 
 tends to consolidate the powers of all the de 
 partments in one, and thus to create, whatever 
 the form of government, a real despotism. 
 A just estimate of that love of power, and 
 proneness to abuse it which predominates in 
 the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of 
 the truth of this position. The necessity of 
 reciprocal checks in the exercise of political 
 power by dividing and distributing it into dif 
 ferent depositories, and constituting each the 
 guardian of the public weal against invasions 
 by the others, has been evinced by experiments 
 ancient and modern, some of them in our 
 country, and under our own eyes. To pre 
 serve them must be as necessary as to institute 
 them. If in the opinion of the people the 
 distribution or modification of the constitu 
 tional powers be in any particular wrong, let it 
 be corrected by an amendment in the way 
 which the constitution designates. But let 
 there be no change by usurpation; for though 
 this in one instance may be the instrument of 
 good, it is the customary weapon by which free 
 governments are destroyed. The precedent 
 must always greatly overbalance in permanent 
 evil any partial or transient benefit which the 
 use can at any time yield. 
 
 Of all the dispositions and habits which lead 
 28 
 
oBeorge 
 
 to political prosperity, religion and morality 
 are indispensable supports. In vain would 
 that man claim the tribute of patriotism who 
 should labor to subvert these great pillars of 
 human happiness, these firmest props of the 
 duties of men and citizens. The mere poli 
 tician, equally with the pious man, ought to 
 respect and cherish them. A volume could 
 not trace all their connections with private and 
 public felicity. Let it simply be asked where 
 is the security for property, for reputation, for 
 life, if the sense of religious obligation desert 
 the oaths which are the instruments of in 
 vestigation in courts of justice? And let 
 us with caution indulge the supposition that 
 morality can be maintained without religion. 
 Whatever may be conceded to the influence 
 of refined education on minds of peculiar struc 
 ture, reason and experience both forbid us to 
 expect that national morality can prevail in 
 exclusion of religious principle. 
 
 Tis substantially true that virtue or moral 
 ity is a necessary spring of popular govern 
 ment. The rule indeed extends with more or 
 less force to every species of free govern 
 ment. Who that is a sincere friend to it can 
 look with indifference upon attempts to shake 
 the foundation of the fabric ? 
 
 Promote, then, as an object of primary im 
 portance, institutions for the general diffusion 
 of knowledge. In proportion as the structure 
 of a government gives force to public opinion 
 29 
 
American 
 
 it is essential that public opinion should be 
 enlightened. 
 
 As a very important source of strength and 
 security, cherish public credit. One method 
 of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as 
 possible: avoiding occasions of expense by 
 cultivating peace, but remembering also that 
 timely disbursements to prepare for danger 
 frequently prevent much greater disburse 
 ments to repel it; avoiding likewise the ac 
 cumulation of debt, not only by shunning 
 occasions of expense, but by vigorous ex 
 ertions in time of peace to discharge the 
 debts which unavoidable wars may have oc 
 casioned, not ungenerously throwing upon 
 posterity the burden which we ourselves ought 
 to bear. The execution of these maxims 
 belongs to your representatives, but it is neces 
 sary that public opinion should co-operate. To 
 facilitate to them the performance of their 
 duty it is essential that you should practically 
 bear in mind that towards the payments of 
 debts there must* be revenue; that to have 
 revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes 
 can be devised which are not more or less 
 inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic 
 embarrassment inseparable from the selection 
 of the proper objects (which is always a choice 
 of difficulties) ought to be a decisive motive 
 for a candid construction of the conduct of the 
 government in making it, and for a spirit of 
 acquiescence in the measures for obtaining 
 
 30 
 
revenue which the public exigencies may 
 at any time dictate. 
 
 Observe good faith and justice towards all 
 nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with 
 all. Religion and morality enjoin this con 
 duct; and can it be that good policy does not 
 equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, 
 enlightened, and at no distant period a great 
 nation to give to mankind the magnanimous 
 and too novel example of a people always 
 guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. 
 Who can doubt that in the course of time 
 and things the fruits of such a plan would 
 richly repay any temporary advantages which 
 might be lost by a steady adherence to it? 
 Can it be that Providence has not connected 
 the permanent felicity of a nation with its 
 virtue? The experiment at least is recom 
 mended by every sentiment which ennobles 
 human nature. Alas, is it rendered impossi 
 ble by its vices ! 
 
 In the execution of such a plan nothing is 
 more essential than that permanent, inveterate 
 antipathies against particular nations and pas 
 sionate attachments for others should be 
 excluded; and that in place of them just and 
 amicable feelings towards all should be culti 
 vated. The nation which indulges towards 
 another an habitual hatred or an habitual 
 fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a 
 slave to its animosity or to its affection; either 
 of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its 
 
^lemorafile American 
 
 duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation 
 against another disposes each more readily to 
 offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight 
 causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and in 
 tractable when accidental or trifling occasions 
 of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, 
 obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. 
 The nation prompted by ill-will and resent 
 ment sometimes impels to war the govern 
 ment, contrary to the best calculations of 
 policy. The government sometimes partici 
 pates in the national propensity, and adopts 
 through passion what reason would reject; at 
 other times it makes the animosity of the 
 nation subservient to projects of hostility in 
 stigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister 
 and pernicious motives. The peace often, 
 sometime perhaps the liberty, of nations has 
 been the victim. 
 
 So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one 
 nation for another produces a variety of evils. 
 Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating 
 the elusion of an imaginary common interest 
 in cases where no real common interest exists, 
 and infusing into one the enmities of the 
 other, betrays the former into a participation 
 in the quarrels and wars of the latter, with 
 out adequate inducement or justification. It 
 leads also to concessions to the favorite na 
 tion of privileges denied to others, which 
 is apt doubly to injure the nation making 
 the concessions by unnecessarily parting with 
 32 
 
oBeorge 
 
 what ought to have been retained, and by 
 exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition 
 to retaliate in the parties from whom equal 
 privileges are withheld; and it gives to am 
 bitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens who 
 devote themselves to the favorite nation fa 
 cility to betray or sacrifice the interests of 
 their own country, without odium, sometimes 
 even with popularity, gilding with the ap 
 pearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, 
 a commendable deference for public opinion, 
 or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or 
 foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, 
 or infatuation. 
 
 As avenues to foreign influence in in 
 numerable ways, such attachments are par 
 ticularly alarming to the truly enlightened 
 and independent patriot. How many oppor 
 tunities do they afford to tamper with domestic 
 factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to 
 mislead public opinion, to influence or awe 
 the public councils ! Such an attachment of 
 a small or weak towards a great and power 
 ful nation dooms the former to be the satellite 
 of the latter. 
 
 Against the insidious wiles of foreign in 
 fluence, I conjure you to believe me, fellow- 
 citzens, the jealousy of a free people ought 
 to be constantly awake; since history and ex 
 perience prove that foreign influence is one 
 of the most baneful foes of republican govern 
 ment. But that jealousy, to be useful, must 
 
 33 
 
American 
 
 be impartial, else it becomes the instrument 
 of the very influence to be avoided, instead 
 of a defense against it. Excessive partiality 
 for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike 
 of another cause those whom they actuate to 
 see danger only on one side, and serve to veil 
 and even second the arts of influence on the 
 other. Real patriots who may resist the 
 intrigues of the favorite are liable to become 
 suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes 
 usurp the applause and confidence of the peo 
 ple to surrender their interests. 
 
 The great rule of conduct for us, in regard 
 to foreign nations, is, in extending our com 
 mercial relations, to have with them as little 
 political connection as possible. So far as we 
 have already formed engagements, let them 
 be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here 
 let us stop. 
 
 Europe has a set of primary interests which 
 to us have none or a very remote relation. 
 Hence she must be engaged in frequent contro 
 versies, the causes of which are essentially 
 foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, 
 it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves 
 by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of 
 her politics, or the ordinary combinations and 
 collisions of her friendships or enmities. 
 
 Our detached and distant situation invites 
 
 and enables us to pursue a different course. 
 
 If we remain one people, under an efficient 
 
 government, the period is not far off when we 
 
 34 
 
may defy material injury from external annoy 
 ance ; when we may take such an attitude as 
 will cause the neutrality we may at any time 
 resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; 
 when belligerent nations, under the impossi 
 bility of making acquisitions upon us, will not 
 lightly hazard the giving us provocation when 
 we may choose peace or war, as our interest, 
 guided by our justice, shall counsel. 
 
 Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a 
 situation ? Why quit our own to stand upon 
 foreign ground ? Why, by interweaving our 
 destiny with that of any part of Europe, en 
 tangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of 
 European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, 
 or caprice ? 
 
 J T is our true policy to steer clear of perma 
 nent alliances with any portion of the foreign 
 world, so far, I mean, as we are now at 
 liberty to do it; for let me not be understood 
 as capable of patronizing infidelity to exist 
 ing engagements. I hold the maxim no less 
 applicable to public than to private affairs, 
 that honesty is always the best policy. I re 
 peat it, therefore, let those engagements be 
 observed in their genuine sense; but in my 
 opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise 
 to extend them. 
 
 Taking care always to keep ourselves, by 
 
 suitable establishments, on a respectable de- 
 
 ensive posture, we may safely trust to tempo- 
 
 ary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. 
 
 35 
 
American 
 
 Harmony, liberal intercourse with all na 
 tions, are recommended by policy, humanity, 
 and interest. But even our commercial policy 
 should hold an equal and impartial hand: 
 neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors 
 or preferences; consulting the natural course 
 of things; diffusing and diversifying by gen 
 tle means the streams of commerce, but forc 
 ing nothing; establishing with powers so dis 
 posed in order to give trade a stable course, 
 to define the rights of our merchants, and 
 to enable the government to support them 
 conventional rules of intercourse, the best 
 that present circumstances and mutual opinion 
 will permit, but temporary, and liable to be 
 from time to time abandoned or varied, as ex 
 perience and circumstances shall dictate; con 
 stantly keeping in view that J t is folly in one 
 nation to look for disinterested favors from 
 another; that it must pay with a portion of 
 its independence for whatever it may accept 
 under that character; that by such accept 
 ance it may place itself in the condition of 
 having given equivalents for nominal favors, 
 and yet of being reproached with ingratitude 
 for not giving more. There can be no greater 
 error than to expect or calculate upon real 
 favors from nation to nation. T is an illui ion 
 which experience must cure; which a just pride 
 ought to discard. 
 
 In offering to you, my countrymen, these 
 counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I 
 36 
 
dare not hope they will make the strong and 
 lasting impression I could wish; that they 
 will control the usual current of the passions, 
 or prevent our nation from running the course 
 which has hitherto marked the destiny of 
 nations. But if I may even flatter myself that 
 they may be productive of some partial bene 
 fit, some occasional good, that they may now 
 and then recur to moderate the fury of party 
 spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign 
 intrigue, to guard against the impostures of 
 pretended patriotism, this hope will be a full 
 recompense for the solicitude for your welfare 
 by which they have been dictated. 
 
 How far in the discharge of my official 
 duties I have been guided by the principles 
 which have been delineated, the public records 
 and other evidences of my conduct must wit 
 ness to you and to the world. To myself 
 the assurance of my own conscience is that 
 I have at least believed myself to be guided 
 by them. 
 
 In relation to the still subsisting war in 
 Europe, my proclamation of the 22d of April, 
 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned 
 by your approving voice, and by that of your 
 representatives in both houses of Congress, 
 the spirit of that measure has continually gov 
 erned me, uninfluenced by any attempts to 
 deter or divert me from it. 
 
 After deliberate examination with the aid 
 of the best lights I could obtain, I was well 
 37 
 
American 
 
 satisfied that our country, under all the cir 
 cumstances of the case, had a right to take, 
 and was bound in duty and interest to take, 
 a neutral position. Having taken it, I de 
 termined, as far as should depend upon me, 
 to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, 
 and firmness. 
 
 The considerations which respect the right 
 to hold this conduct it is not necessary on this 
 occasion to detail. I will only observe that 
 according to my understanding of the matter, 
 that right, so far from being denied by any 
 of the belligerent powers, has been virtually 
 admitted by all. 
 
 The duty of holding a neutral conduct may 
 be inferred, without any thing more, from the 
 obligation which justice and humanity impose 
 on every nation, in cases in which it is free 
 to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of 
 peace and amity towards other nations. 
 
 The inducements of interest for observing 
 that conduct will best be referred to your own 
 reflections and experience. With me, a pre 
 dominant motive has been to endeavor to 
 gain time to our country, to settle and mature 
 its yet recent institutions, and to progress 
 without interruption to that degree of strength 
 and consistency which is necessary to give it, 
 humanly speaking, the command of its own 
 fortunes. 
 
 Though, in reviewing the incidents of my 
 administration, I am unconscious of intentional 
 38 
 
error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my 
 defects not to think it probable that I may 
 have committed many errors. Whatever they 
 may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to 
 avert or mitigate the evils to which they may 
 tend. I shall also carry with me the hope 
 that my country will never cease to view them 
 with indulgence ; and that, after forty-five 
 years of my life dedicated to its service with 
 an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abil 
 ities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself 
 must soon be to the mansions of rest. 
 
 Relying on its kindness in this as in other 
 things, and actuated by that fervent love 
 towards it which is so natural to a man who 
 views in it the native soil of himself and his 
 progenitors for several generations, I antici 
 pate with pleasing expectation that retreat 
 in which I promise myself to realize, without 
 alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the 
 midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influ 
 ence of good laws under a free government, 
 the ever-favorite object of my heart, and 
 the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual 
 cares, labors, and dangers. 
 
 39 
 
(1773-1833) 
 
 ON THE MILITIA BILL 
 
 [Delivered December 10, 1811, in the House of 
 Representatives.] 
 
 MR. SPEAKER: 
 
 THIS is a question, as it has been pre 
 sented to this House, of peace or war. 
 In that light it has been argued; in no 
 other light can I consider it, after the declara 
 tions made by members of the committee of 
 foreign relations. | Without intending any dis 
 respect to the "chair, I must be permitted to 
 say that if the decision yesterday was correct, 
 "that it was not in order to advance any 
 arguments against the resolution drawn from 
 topics before other committees of the House," 
 the whole debate, nay, the report itself, on 
 which we are acting, is disorderly; since the 
 increase of the military force is a subject, at 
 this time, in agitation by a select committee, 
 raised on that branch of the President s mes 
 sage. But it is impossible that the discussion 
 of a question, broad as the wide ocean of our 
 foreign concerns, involving every considera 
 tion of interest, of right, of happiness, and of 
 safety at home ; touching in every point all 
 that is dear to freemen, "their lives, their for- 
 
jmemora&Ie American 
 
 tunes, and their sacred honor," can be tied 
 down by the narrow rules of technical routine. 
 The committee of foreign relations have 
 indeed decided that the subject of arming the 
 militia, which has been pressed upon them as 
 indispensable to the public security, does not 
 come within the scope of their authority. On 
 what ground, I have been and still am unable 
 to see, they have felt themselves authorized to 
 recommend the raising of standing armies, 
 with a view (as has been declared) of imme 
 diate war, a war, not of defense, but of con 
 quest, of aggrandizement, of ambition, a war 
 foreign to the interests of this country; to the 
 interests of humanity itself. 
 v I know not how gentlemen calling them 
 selves republicans can advocate such a war. 
 What was their doctrine in 1/98-99, when the 
 command of the army, that highest of all pos 
 sible trusts in any government, be the form 
 what it may, was reposed in the bosom of the 
 father of his country, the sanctuary of a 
 nation s love, the only hope that never came 
 in vain ; when other worthies of the Revolu 
 tion Hamilton, Pinckney, and the younger 
 Washington, men of tried patriotism, of ap 
 proved conduct and valor, of untarnished hon 
 or held subordinate command under him. 
 Republicans were then unwilling to trust a 
 standing army even to his hands, who had 
 given proof that he was above all human temp 
 tation. ; Where now is the Revolutionary hero 
 42 
 
n itanfcolpf) 
 
 to whom you are about to confide this sacred 
 trust? To whom will you confide the charge 
 of leading the flower of our youth to the 
 heights of Abraham ? J Will you find him in 
 the person of an acquitted felon ? What ! 
 Then you were unwilling to vote an army where 
 such men as have been named held high com 
 mand ! When Washington himself was at the 
 head did you show such reluctance, feel such 
 scruples; and are you now nothing loth, fear 
 less of every consequence ? Will you say that 
 your provocations were less then than now, 
 when your direct commerce was interdicted, 
 your ambassadors hooted with derision from 
 the French court, tribute demanded, actual war 
 waged upon you ? 
 
 Those who opposed the army then were in 
 deed denounced as the partisans of France, as 
 the same men (some of them at least) are now 
 held up as the advocates of England; those 
 firm and undeviating republicans who then 
 dared, and now dare, to cling to the ark of 
 the Constitution, to defend it even at the ex 
 pense of their fame, rather than surrender 
 themselves to the wild projects of mad ambi 
 tion. There is a fatality attending plenitude 
 of power. Soon or late, some mania seizes 
 upon its possessors; they fall from the dizzy 
 height through giddiness. Like a vast estate 
 heaped up by the labor and industry of one 
 man which seldom survives the third genera 
 tion, power gained by patient assiduity, by a 
 
 43 
 
Jftemorairte American 
 
 faithful and regular discharge of its attendant 
 duties, soon gets above its own origin. Intoxi 
 cated with their own greatness, the federal 
 party fell. Will not the same causes produce 
 the same effects now as then ? Sir, you may 
 raise this army, you may build up this vast 
 structure of patronage, but " lay not the flat 
 tering unction to your souls," you will never 
 live to enjoy the succession. You sign your 
 political death-warrant. 
 
 [Mr. Randolph here adverted to the provocation to 
 hostilities from shutting up the Mississippi by Spain 
 in 1803 but more fully to the conduct of the House 
 in 1805-6, under the strongest of all imaginable pro 
 vocations to war, the actual invasion of our country. 
 He read various passages from the President s pub 
 lic message of December 3, 1805.] 
 
 The peculiar situation of the frontier, at 
 that time insulted, alone induced the commit 
 tee to recommend the raising of regular troops. 
 It was too remote from the population of the 
 country for the militia to act in repelling and 
 chastising Spanish incursion. New Orleans 
 and its dependencies were separated by a vast 
 extent of wilderness from the settlements of 
 the old United States; filled with a disloyal 
 and turbulent people alien to our institutions, 
 language, and manners, and disaffected tow 
 ards our government. Little reliance could 
 be placed upon them, and it was plain that if 
 "it was the intention of Spain to advance on 
 our possessions until she be repulsed by an 
 opposing force," that force must be a regu- 
 44 
 
\ar army, unless we were disposed to abandon 
 all the country south of Tennessee; that "the 
 protection of our citizens, and the spirit and 
 the honor of our country, required that force 
 should be interposed." Nothing remained but 
 for the legislature to grant the only practicable 
 means, or to shrink from the most sacred of 
 all its duties; to abandon the soil and its in 
 habitants to the mercy of hostile invaders. 
 
 Yet this report, moderate as it was, was 
 deemed of too strong a character by the 
 House. It was rejected, and at the motion 
 of a gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Bid- 
 well, who has since taken a great fancy also 
 to Canada, and marched off thither in advance 
 of the committee of foreign relations), "two 
 millions of dollars were appropriated towards " 
 (not in full of) "any extraordinary expense 
 which might be incurred in the intercourse 
 between the United States and foreign na 
 tions"; in other words, to buy off, at Paris, 
 Spanish aggressions at home. 
 
 Was this fact given in evidence of our im 
 partiality towards the belligerents : that to 
 the insults arid injuries and actual invasion of 
 one of them we opposed, not bullets, but dol 
 lars? that to Spanish invasion we opposed 
 money, whilst for British aggression on the 
 high seas we had arms, offensive war ? But 
 Spain was then shielded, as well as instigated, 
 by a greater power. Hence our respect for 
 her. Had we at that time acted as we ought 
 45 
 
American 
 
 to have done, in defense of our rights, of the 
 natale solum itself, we should, I feel con 
 fident, have avoided that series of insult, dis 
 grace, and injury which has been poured out 
 upon us in long, unbroken succession. We 
 would not then raise a small regular force for 
 a country where the militia could not act to 
 defend our own territory; now we are willing 
 to levy a great army, for great it must be to 
 accomplish the proposed object, for a war of 
 conquest and ambition; and this, too, at the 
 very entrance of the "northern hive," of the 
 strongest part of the Union. 
 
 An insinuation has fallen from the gentle 
 man from Tennessee [Mr. Grundy], that the 
 late massacre of our brethren on the Wabash 
 was instigated by the British government. 
 Has the President given any such information ? 
 Is it so believed by the administration ? I have 
 cause to believe the contrary to be the fact; 
 that such is not their opinion. This insin 
 uation is of the grossest kind, a presumption 
 the most rash; the most unjustifiable. Show 
 but good ground for it, I will give up the 
 question at the threshold. I will be ready to 
 march to Canada. It is, indeed, well calculated 
 to excite the feelings of the western people 
 particularly, who are not quite so tenderly 
 attached to our red brethren as some of our 
 modern philosophers; but it is destitute of any 
 foundation, beyond mere surmise and suspicion. 
 What would be thought, if, without any proof 
 46 
 
whatsoever, a member should rise in his place 
 and tell us that the massacre in Savannah a 
 massacre perpetrated by civilized savages with 
 French commissions in their pockets was 
 excited by the French government ? There is 
 an easy and natural solution of the late trans 
 action on the Wabash, in the well-known 
 character of the aboriginal savage of North 
 America, without resorting to any such mere 
 conjectural estimate. I am sorry to say that, 
 for this signal calamity and disgrace, the 
 House is, in part at least, answerable. Session 
 after session, our table has been piled up 
 with Indian treaties, for which the appropria 
 tions have been voted as a matter of course, 
 without examination. Advantage has been 
 taken of the spirit of the Indians, broken by 
 the war which ended in the treaty of Grenville. 
 Under the ascendency then acquired over 
 them, they have been pent up by subsequent 
 treaties, into nooks; straitened in their 
 quarters by a blind cupidity, seeking to ex 
 tinguish their title to immense wildernesses, 
 for which (possessing, as we do already, more 
 land than we can sell or use) we shall not 
 have occasion for half a century to come. 
 It is our own thirst for territory, our own want 
 of moderation, that has driven these sons of 
 nature to desperation, of which we feel the 
 effects. 
 
 Although not personally acquainted with the 
 late Colonel Daveiss, I feel, I am persuaded, as 
 47 
 
jftemora&le American 
 
 deep and serious regret for his loss as the 
 gentleman from Tennessee himself. I know 
 him only through the representation of a friend 
 of the deceased [Mr. Rowan], some time a 
 member of this House , a man who, for native 
 force of intellect, manliness of character, and 
 high sense of honor, is not inferior to any that 
 have ever sat here. With him I sympathize 
 in the severest calamity that could befall a man 
 of his cast and character. Would to God they 
 were both now on this floor. From- my per 
 sonal knowledge of the one, I feel confident 
 that I should have his support , and I believe 
 (judging of him from the representation of 
 our common friend) of the other also. 
 
 I cannot refrain from smiling at the liberal 
 ity of the gentleman in giving Canada to New 
 York, in order to strengthen the northern bal 
 ance of power; while, at the same time, he 
 forewarns her that the western scale must 
 preponderate. I can almost fancy that I see 
 the capitol in motion towards the falls of 
 Ohio; after a short sojourn, taking its flight 
 to the Mississippi, and finally alighting on 
 Darien; which, when the gentleman s dreams 
 are realized, will be a most eligible seat of 
 government for the new republic (or empire) 
 of the two Americas ! But it seems that "in 
 1808 we talked and acted foolishly," and to 
 give some color of consistency to that folly, 
 we must now commit a greater. Really, I 
 cannot conceive of a weaker reason offered 
 48 
 
in support of a present measure than the jus 
 tification of a former folly. I hope we shall 
 act a wise part; take warning by our follies, 
 since we have become sensible of them, and re 
 solve to talk and act foolishly no more. It 
 is, indeed, high time to give over such pre 
 posterous language and proceedings. 
 
 This war of conquest, a war for the acqui 
 sition of territory and subjects, is to be a 
 new commentary on the doctrine that repub 
 licans are destitute of ambition; that they are 
 addicted to peace, wedded to the happiness 
 and safety of the great body of their people. 
 But it seems this is to be a holiday campaign; 
 there is to be no expense of blood or treasure 
 on our part; Canada is to conquer herself; 
 she is to be subdued by the principles of fra 
 ternity ! The people of that country are first 
 to be seduced from their allegiance and con 
 verted into traitors, as preparatory to making 
 them good citizens ! J Although I must ac 
 knowledge that some of our flaming patriots 
 were thus manufactured, I do not think the 
 process would hold good with a whole com 
 munity. It is a dangerous experiment. We 
 are to succeed in the French mode, by the 
 system of fraternization, all is French! But 
 how dreadfully it might be retorted on the 
 southern and western slave-holding States. I 
 detest this subordination of treason. I No; if 
 we must have them, let them fall by the 
 valor of our arms; by fair legitimate con- 
 49 
 
American 
 
 quest ; not become the victims of treacherous 
 seduction. ; 
 
 I am not surprised at the war spirit which 
 is manifesting itself in gentlemen from the 
 South. In the year 1805-6, in a struggle 
 for the carrying trade of belligerent- colo 
 nial produce, this country was most un 
 wisely brought into collision with the great 
 powers of Europe. By a series of most 
 impolitic and ruinous measures, utterly incom 
 prehensible to every rational, sober-minded 
 man, the southern planters, by their own votes, 
 have succeeded in knocking down the price of 
 cotton to seven cents, and of tobacco (a few 
 choice crops excepted) to nothing; and in 
 raising the price of blankets (of which a few 
 would not be amiss in a Canadian campaign), 
 coarse woolens, and every article of first ne 
 cessity, three or four hundred per centum. 
 And now that, by our own acts, we have 
 brought ourselves into this unprecedented 
 condition, we must get out of it in any way 
 but by an acknowledgment of our own want 
 of wisdom and forecast. But is war the 
 true remedy? 
 
 Who will profit by it ? Speculators; a few 
 lucky merchants who draw prizes in the lot 
 tery; commissaries and contractors. Who must 
 suffer by it? The people. It is their blood, 
 their taxes, that must flow to support it. 
 
 But gentlemen avowed that they would not 
 go to war for the carrying trade; that is, for 
 50 
 
any other but the direct export and import 
 trade; that which carries our native products 
 abroad, and brings back the return cargo ; and 
 yet they stickle for our commercial rights, and 
 will go to war for them ! I wish to know, in 
 point of principle, what difference gentlemen 
 can point out between the abandonment of 
 this or of that maritime right ? Do gentlemen 
 assume the lofty port and tone of chivalrous 
 redressers of maritime wrongs, and declare 
 their readiness to surrender every other mar 
 itime right, provided they may remain unmo 
 lested in the exercise of the humble privilege 
 of carrying their own produce abroad, and 
 bringing back a return cargo ? Do you make 
 this declaration to the enemy at the outset? 
 Do you state the minimum with which you 
 will be contented, and put it in their power to 
 close with your proposals at their option; give 
 her the basis of a treaty ruinous and disgrace 
 ful beyond example and expression ? And this, 
 too, after having turned up your noses in 
 disdain at the treaties of Mr. Jay and Mr. 
 Monroe ! Will you say to England, End the 
 war when you please, give us the direct trade 
 in our own produce, we are content ? " But 
 what will the merchants of Salem, and Boston, 
 and New York, and Philadelphia, and Balti 
 more, the men of Marblehead and Cape Cod, 
 say to this ? Will they join in a war professing 
 to have for its object what they would con 
 sider (and justly, too) as the sacrifice of their 
 
American 
 
 maritime rights, yet affecting to be a war for 
 the protection of commerce ? 
 
 I am gratified to find gentlemen acknowl 
 edging the demoralizing and destructive conse 
 quences of the non-importation law; confessing 
 the truth of all that its opponents foretold 
 when it was enacted. And will you plunge 
 yourselves in war because you have passed 
 a foolish and ruinous law and are ashamed to 
 repeal it ? " But our good friend, the French 
 emperor, stands in the way of its repeal, and 
 as we cannot go too far in making sacrifices 
 to him who has given such demonstration of 
 his love for the Americans, we must, in point 
 of fact, become parties to his war. Who can 
 be so cruel as to refuse him that favor ? " My 
 imagination shrinks from the miseries of such 
 a connection. I call upon the House to reflect 
 whether they are not about to abandon all rec 
 lamation for the unparalleled outrages, "in 
 sults, and injuries" of the French government, 
 to give up our claim for plundered millions; 
 and I ask what reparation or atonement they 
 can expect to obtain in hours of future dalli 
 ance, after they shall have made a tender of 
 their person to this gi^eat deflowerer of the 
 virginity of republics ? We have by our own 
 wise (I will not say wiseacre) measures so 
 increased the trade and wealth of Montreal 
 and Quebec that at last we begin to cast a 
 wishful eye at Canada. Having done so much 
 towards its improvement, by the exercise of 
 52 
 
"our restrictive energies," we begin to think 
 the laborer worthy of his hire, and to put in 
 claim for our portion. Suppose it ours, are 
 we any nearer to our point ? As his minister 
 said to the king of Epirus, " May we not as 
 well take our bottle of wine before as after 
 this exploit?" Go! march to Canada! leave 
 the broad bosom of the Chesapeake and her 
 hundred tributary rivers, the whole line of 
 seacoast from Machias to St. Mary s unpro 
 tected ! You have taken Quebec ; have you 
 conquered England ? Will you seek for the 
 deep foundations of her power in the frozen 
 deserts of Labrador ? 
 
 " Her march is on the mountain wave, 
 Her home is on the deep! " 
 
 Will you call upon her to leave your ports 
 and harbors untouched only just till you can 
 return from Canada to defend them? The 
 coast is to be left defenseless whilst men of 
 the interior are reveling in conquest and spoil. 
 But grant for a moment, for mere argument s 
 sake, that in Canada you touched the sinews 
 of her strength instead of removing a clog 
 upon her resources, an incumbrance, but one 
 which, from a spirit of honor, she will vigor 
 ously defend. In what situation would you 
 then place some of the best men of the nation ? 
 As Chatham and Burke, and the whole band 
 of her patriots, prayed for her defeat in 1776, 
 so must some of the truest friends of their 
 country deprecate the success of our arms 
 
 53 
 
;jttemora&le American 
 
 against the only power that holds in check the 
 arch-enemy of mankind. 
 
 The committee have outstripped the execu 
 tive. In designating the power against whom 
 this force is to be employed, as has most unad 
 visedly been done in the preamble or manifesto 
 with which the resolutions are prefaced, they 
 have not consulted the views of the executive, 
 that designation is equivalent to an abandon 
 ment of all our claims on the French govern 
 ment. No sooner was the report laid on the 
 table than the vultures were flocking round 
 their prey, the carcass of a great military 
 establishment. Men of tainted reputation, of 
 broken fortune (if they ever had any), and 
 of battered constitutions, "choice spirits tired of 
 the dull pursuits of civil life," were seeking 
 after agencies and commissions, willing to doze 
 in gross stupidity over the public fire; to light 
 the public candle at both ends. Honorable 
 men undoubtedly there are, ready to serve 
 their country ; but what man of spirit, or of 
 self-respect, will accept a commission in the 
 present army ? 
 
 The gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Grun- 
 dy] addressed himself yesterday exclusively 
 to the "republicans of the House." I know 
 not whether I may consider myself as entitled 
 to any part of the benefit of the honorable 
 gentleman s discourse. It belongs not, how 
 ever, to that gentleman to decide. If we 
 must have an exposition of the doctrines of 
 54 
 
republicanism, I shall receive it from the 
 fathers of the church, and not from the junior 
 apprentices of the law. I shall appeal to my 
 worthy friends from Carolina [Messrs. Macon 
 and Stanford] "men with whom I have meas 
 ured my strength, " by whose side I have 
 fought during the reign of terror; for it was 
 indeed an hour of corruption, of oppression, 
 of pollution. It is not at all to my taste 
 that sort of republicanism which was support 
 ed, on this side of the Atlantic, by the father 
 of the sedition law, John Adams, and by Peter 
 Porcupine on the other. Republicanism ! of 
 John Adams and William Cobbett ! Par no- 
 bile fratrum, now united as in 1/98, whom 
 the cruel walls of Newgate alone keep from 
 flying to each other s embrace, but whom, in 
 sentiment, it is impossible to divide. Gallant 
 crusaders in the holy cause of republicanism ! 
 Such "republicanism does, indeed, mean any 
 thing or nothing." 
 
 Our people will not submit to be taxed for 
 this war of conquest and dominion. The gov 
 ernment of the United States was not calcu 
 lated to wage offensive foreign war; it was 
 instituted for the common defense and general 
 welfare; and whosoever should embark it in a 
 war of offense would put it to a test which it 
 is by no means calculated to endure.) Make 
 it out that Great Britian has instigated the 
 Indians on a late occasion, and I am ready for 
 battle; but not for dominion. I am unwilling, 
 
 55 
 
American 
 
 however, under present circumstances, to take 
 Canada, at the risk of the Constitution, to em 
 bark in a common cause with France, and be 
 dragged at the wheels of the car of some 
 Burr or Bonaparte. For a gentleman from 
 Tennessee, or Genesee, or Lake Champlain, 
 there may be some prospect of advantage. 
 Their hemp would bear a great price by the 
 exclusion of foreign supply. In that, too, the 
 great importers are deeply interested. The 
 upper country on the Hudson and the lakes 
 would be enriched by the supplies for the 
 troops, which they alone could furnish. They 
 would have the exclusive market, to say noth 
 ing of the increased preponderance from the 
 acquisition of Canada and that section of the 
 Union which the Southern and Western States 
 have already felt so severely in the apportion 
 ment bill. 
 
 [Mr. Randolph adverted to the defenseless state 
 of the seaports, and particularly of the Chesapeake. 
 A single spot only on both shores might be consid 
 ered in tolerable security, from the nature of the 
 port and the strength of the population, and that 
 spot unhappily governed the whole state of Maryland. 
 His friend, the late Governor of Maryland (Mr. 
 Lloyd), at the very time he was bringing his warlike 
 resolutions before the legislature of the state, was 
 liable, on any night, to be taken out of his bed, and 
 carried off with his family, by the most contemptible 
 picaroon. Such was the situation of many a family 
 in Maryland and lower Virginia.] 
 
 Permit me now, sir, to call your attention 
 to the subject of our black population. I will 
 56 
 
JSanfcolpfj 
 
 touch this subject as tenderly as possible. It 
 is with reluctance that I touch it at all; but in 
 cases of great emergency, the state physician 
 must not be deterred by a sickly, hysterical 
 humanity from probing the wound of his pa 
 tient; he must not be withheld by a fastidi 
 ous and mistaken delicacy from representing 
 his true situation to his friends, or even to the 
 sick man himself, when the occasion calls for 
 it. What is the situation of the slave-holding 
 States ? During the war of the Revolution, 
 so fixed were their habits of subordination, 
 that while the whole country was overrun by 
 the enemy, who invited them to desert, no fear 
 was ever entertained of an insurrection of the 
 slaves. During a war of seven years, with our 
 country in possession of the enemy, no such 
 danger was ever apprehended. But should we, 
 therefore, be unobservant spectators of the 
 progress of society within the last twenty 
 years ; of the silent but powerful change 
 wrought, by time and chance, upon its compo 
 sition and temper? When the fountains of 
 the great deep of abomination were broken up, 
 even the poor slaves did not escape the gen 
 eral deluge. The French revolution has pol 
 luted even them. Nay, there have not been 
 wanting men in this House witness our legis 
 lative Legendre, the butcher who once held a 
 seat here to preach upon this floor these im 
 prescriptible rights to a crowded audience of 
 blacks in the galleries ; teaching them that they 
 57 
 
American 
 
 are equal to their masters; in other words, ad 
 vising them to cut their throats. Similar doc 
 trines have been disseminated by peddlers from 
 New England and elsewhere, throughout the 
 Southern country; and masters have been found 
 so infatuated, as by their lives and conversa 
 tion by a general contempt of order, morality, 
 and religion, unthinkingly to cherish these seeds 
 of self-destruction to them and their families. 
 What has been the consequence ? Within the 
 last ten years, repeated alarms of insurrection 
 among the slaves, some of them awful indeed. 
 From the spreading of this infernal doctrine, 
 the whole Southern country has been thrown 
 into a state of insecurity. Men dead to the 
 operation of moral causes have taken away 
 from the poor slave his habits of loyalty and 
 obedience to his master, which lightened his 
 servitude by a double operation; beguiling his 
 own cares and disarming his master s suspi 
 cions and severity; and now, like true empi 
 rics in politics, you are called upon to trust to 
 the mere physical strength of the fetter which 
 holds him in bondage. You have deprived 
 him of all moral restraint; you have tempt 
 ed him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowl 
 edge, just enough to perfect him in wickednes; 
 you have opened his eyes to his nakedness; 
 you have armed his nature against the hand 
 that has fed, that has clothed him, that has 
 cherished him in sickness; that hand which, 
 before he became a pupil of your school, he 
 58 
 
had been accustomed to press with respectful 
 affection. You have done all this and then 
 show him the gibbet and the wheel, as incen 
 tives to a sullen, repugnant obedience. God 
 forbid, sir, that the Southern States should 
 ever see an enemy on their shores with these 
 infernal principles of French fraternity in the 
 van. While talking of taking Canada, some of 
 us are shuddering for our own safety at home. 
 I speak from facts, when I say that the night- 
 bell never tolls for fire in Richmond that the 
 mother does not hug her infant more closely 
 to her bosom. I have been a witness of some 
 of the alarms in the capital of Virginia. 
 
 How have we shown our sympathy with the 
 patriots of Spain, or with the American prov 
 inces ? By seizing on one of them, her claim 
 to which we had formerly respected, as soon 
 as the parent country was embroiled at home. 
 Is it thus we yield them assistance against the 
 arch-fiend who is grasping at the scepter of 
 the civilized world ? The object of France is 
 as much Spanish-American as old Spain her 
 self. Much as I hate a standing army, I could 
 almost find it in my heart to vote one could 
 it be sent to the assistance of the Spanish 
 patriots. 
 
 [Mr. Randolph then proceeded to notice the un 
 just and illiberal imputation of British attachments 
 against certain characters in this country, sometimes 
 insinuated in that House, but openly avowed out 
 of it.] 
 
 59 
 
j^lemorafile American 
 
 Against whom are these charges brought ? 
 Against men who, in the war of the Revolu*- 
 tion, were in the councils of the nation or 
 fighting the battles of your country. And by 
 whom are they made? By runaways, chiefly 
 from the British dominions, since the breaking 
 out of the French troubles. It is insufferable. 
 It cannot be borne. It must and ought, with 
 severity to be put down in this House; and 
 out of it to meet the lie direct. We have no 
 fellow-feeling for the suffering and oppressed 
 Spaniards! Yet even them we do not rep 
 robate. Strange that we should have no 
 objection to any other people or government, 
 civilized or savage, in the whole world ! The 
 great autocrat of all the Russias receives the 
 homage of our high consideration. The Dey 
 of Algiers and his divan of pirates are a very 
 civil, good sort of people, with whom we find 
 no difficulty in maintaining the relations of 
 peace and amity. "Turks, Jews, and Infidels," 
 Melimelli or the Little Turtle, barbarians and 
 savages of every clime and color, are welcome 
 to our arms. With chiefs of banditti, negro, 
 or mulatto, we can treat and can trade. Name, 
 however, but England, and all our antipathies 
 are up in arms against her. Against whom ? 
 Against those whose blood runs in our veins 
 in common with whom we claim Shakespeare, 
 and Newton, and Chatham, for our country 
 men; whose form of government is the 
 freest on earth, our own only excepted; from 
 60 
 
whom every valuable principle of our own 
 institutions has been borrowed representa 
 tion, jury trial, voting the supplies, writ of 
 habeas corpus, our whole civil and criminal 
 jurisprudence; against our fellow-Protestants, 
 identified in blood, in language, in religion, 
 with ourselves. In what school did the wor 
 thies of our land, the Washingtons, Henrys, 
 Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges of America, 
 learn those principles of civil liberty which 
 were so nobly asserted by their wisdom and 
 valor? American resistance to British usur 
 pation has not been more warmly cherished 
 by these great men and their compatriots; 
 not more by Washington, Hancock, and Hen 
 ry than by Chatham and his illustrious asso 
 ciates in the British Parliament. It ought to 
 be remembered, too, that the heart of the 
 English people was with us. It was a selfish 
 and corrupt ministry, and their servile tools, 
 to whom we were not more opposed than they 
 were. I trust that none such may ever exist 
 among us; for tools will never be wanting to 
 subserve the purposes, however ruinous or 
 wicked, of kings and ministers of state. 
 
 I acknowledge the influence of a Shakespeare 
 and a Milton upon my imagination, of a Locke 
 upon my understanding, of a Sidney upon my 
 political principles, of a Chatham upon quali 
 ties which, would to God, I possessed in com 
 mon with that illustrious man ! of a Tillotson, 
 a Sherlock, and a Porteus upon my religion. 
 61 
 
American 
 
 This is a British influence which I can never 
 shake off. I allow much to the just and honest 
 prejudices growing out of the Revolution. 
 But by whom have they been suppressed 
 when they ran counter to the interests of my 
 country ? By Washington. By whom, would 
 you listen to them, are they most keenly felt ? 
 By felons escaped from the jails of Paris, New 
 gate, and Kilmainham, since the breaking out 
 of the French Revolution; who, in this abused 
 and insulted country, have set up for political 
 teachers, and whose disciples give no other 
 proof of their progress in republicanism ex 
 cept a blind devotion to the most ruthless mili 
 tary despotism that the world ever saw. 
 These are the patriots who scruple not to 
 brand with the epithet of tory the men, 
 [looking towards the seat of Colonel Stewart] 
 by whose blood your liberties have been 
 cemented. These are they who hold in such 
 keen remembrance the outrages of the British 
 armies, from which many of them are desert 
 ers. Ask these self-styled patriots where they 
 were during the American war ( for they are, 
 for the most part, old enough to have borne 
 arms), and you strike them dumb; their lips 
 are closed in eternal silence. If it were allow 
 able to entertain partialities, every considera 
 tion of blood, language, religion, and interest 
 would incline us towards England; and yet, 
 shall they be alone extended to France and 
 her ruler, whom, we are bound to believe, a 
 62 
 
chastening God suffers as the scourge of a 
 guilty world! On all other nations he tram 
 ples; he holds them in contempt; England 
 alone he hates; he would, but he cannot, de 
 spise her; fear cannot despise; and shall we 
 disparage our ancestors? Shall we bastard 
 ize ourselves by placing them even below the 
 brigands of St. Domingo? with whom Mr. 
 Adams negotiated a sort of treaty, for which 
 he ought to have been, and would have been, 
 impeached if the people had not previously 
 passed sentence of disqualification for their 
 service upon him. This antipathy to all that 
 is English must be French. 
 
 But the outrages and injuries of England 
 bred up in the principles of the Revolution 
 I can never palliate, much less defend them. 
 I well remember flying with my mother and 
 her new-born child from Arnold and Philips; 
 and we were driven by Tarleton and other 
 British Pandours from pillar to post, while 
 her husband was fighting the battles of his 
 country. The impression is indelible on my 
 memory; and yet (like my worthy old neigh 
 bor, who added seven buckshot to every car 
 tridge at the battle of Gulford, and drew a 
 fine sight at his man) I must be content to 
 be called a tory by a patriot of the last im 
 portation. Let us not get rid of one evil 
 (supposing it possible) at the expense of a 
 greater: mutatis mutandis, suppose France in 
 possession of the British naval power, and 
 63 
 
American 
 
 to her the trident must pass should England be 
 unable to wield it, what would be your con 
 dition ? What would be the situation of your 
 seaports, and their seafaring inhabitants ? Ask 
 Hamburg, Lubec ! Ask Savannah! What! 
 Sir, when their privateers are pent up in our 
 harbors by the British bulldogs; when they 
 receive at our hands every rite of hospitality 
 from which their enemy is excluded; when 
 they capture in our own waters, interdicted to 
 British armed ships, American vessels; when 
 such is their deportment towards you, under 
 such circumstances, what could you expect if 
 they were the uncontrolled lords of the ocean? 
 Had those privateers at Savannah borne Brit 
 ish commissions, or had your shipments of 
 cotton, tobacco, ashes, and what not, to Lon 
 don and Liverpool been confiscated, and the 
 proceeds poured into the English exchequer, 
 my life upon it, you would never have listened 
 to any miserable wire-drawn distinctions be 
 tween "orders and decrees affecting our neu 
 tral rights," and " municipal decrees " confis 
 cating in mass your whole property; you would 
 have had instant war ! The whole land would 
 have blazed out in war. 
 
 * And shall republicans become the instru 
 ments of him who has effaced the title of Attila 
 to the " scourge of God 1" Yet, even Attila, 
 in the falling fortunes of civilization, had, no 
 doubt, his advocates, his tools, his minions, 
 his parasites, in the very countries that he over- 
 64 
 
ran; sons of that soil whereon his horse had 
 trod; where grass could never after grow. If 
 perfectly fresh, instead of being as I am, my 
 memory clouded, my intellect stupefied, my 
 strength and spirits exhausted, I could not give 
 utterance to that strong detestation which I 
 feel towards (above all other works of the cre 
 ation) such characters as Gengis, Tamerlane, 
 Kouli-Khan, or Bonaparte. My instincts in 
 voluntarily revolt at their bare idea. Male 
 factors of the human race, who have ground 
 down man to a mere machine of their impious 
 and bloody ambition! Yet under all the ac 
 cumulated wrongs, and insults, and robberies 
 of the last of these chieftains, are we not, in 
 point of fact, about to become a party to his 
 views, a partner in his wars ? 
 *" But before this miserable force of ten thou 
 sand men is raised to take Canada, I beg gentle 
 men to look at the state of defense at home; 
 to count the cost of the enterprise before 
 it is set on foot, not when it may be too 
 late ; when the best blood of the country shall 
 be spilt, and nought but empty coffers left to 
 pay the cost. ; Are the bounty lands to be 
 given in Canada ? It might lessen my repug 
 nance to that part of the system, to granting 
 these lands, not to these miserable wretches 
 who sell themselves to slavery for a few dol 
 lars and a glass of gin, but in fact to the clerks 
 in our offices, some of whom, with an income 
 of fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars, 
 65 
 
American 
 
 live at the rate of four or five thousand, and 
 yet grow rich; who perhaps at this moment 
 are making out blank assignments for these 
 land rights. 
 
 r l beseech the House, before they run their 
 heads against this post, Quebec, to count the 
 cost. My word for it, Virginia planters will 
 not be taxed to support such a war, a war 
 which must aggravate their present distresses; 
 in which they have not the remotest interest. 
 Wh^re is the Montgomery, or even the Arnold, 
 or the Burr, who is to march to the Point Levi ? 
 I call upon those professing to be republicans 
 to make good the promises held out by their 
 republican predecessors when they came into 
 power; promises which, for years afterwards, 
 they honestly, faithfully fulfilled. We have 
 vaunted of paying off the national debt; of 
 retrenching useless establishments; and yet 
 have now become as infatuated with standing 
 armies, loans, taxes, navies, and war, as ever 
 were the Essex Junto. What republicanism is 
 this? 
 
 66 
 
Clay 
 
 (1777-1852) 
 
 ON THE WAR OF 1812 
 
 [Delivered January 8, 1813, in the House of 
 Representatives.] 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN: 
 
 I WAS gratified yesterday by the recommit 
 ment of this bill to a committee of the whole 
 House, from two considerations: one, since 
 it afforded me a slight relaxation from a most 
 fatiguing situation; and the other, because it 
 furnished me with an opportunity of presenting 
 to the committee my sentiments upon the im 
 portant topics which have been mingled in the 
 debate. I regret, however, that the necessity 
 under which the chairman has been placed of 
 putting the question precludes the opportu 
 nity, I had wished to enjoy, of rendering more 
 acceptable to the committee anything I might 
 have to offer on the interesting points on which 
 it is my duty to touch. Unprepared, however, 
 as I am to speak on this day, of which I am 
 the more sensible from the ill state of my 
 health, I will solicit the attention of the com 
 mittee for a few moments. 
 
 I was a little astonished, I confess, when 
 I found this bill permitted to pass silently 
 through the Committee of the Whole, and not 
 67 
 
;#lemoraWe American 
 
 selected until the moment when the question 
 was to be put for its third reading, as the sub 
 ject on which gentlemen in the opposition chose 
 to lay before the House their views of the 
 interesting attitude in which the nation stands. 
 It did appear to me that the loan bill, which 
 will soon come before us, would have afforded 
 a much more proper occasion, it being more 
 essential as providing the ways and means for 
 the prosecution of the war. But the gentle 
 men had the right of selection, and having 
 exercised it, no matter how improperly, I am 
 gratified, whatever I may think of the charac 
 ter of some part of the debate, at the latitude 
 in which, for once, they have been indulged. 
 I claim only in return, of gentlemen on the 
 other side of the House, and of the com 
 mittee, a like indulgence in expressing my sen 
 timents with the same unrestrained freedom. 
 Perhaps, in the course of the remarks which 
 I feel myself called upon to make, gentlemen 
 may apprehend that they assume too harsh an 
 aspect ; but I have only now to say that I shall 
 speak of parties, measures, and things as they 
 strike my moral sense, protesting against the 
 imputation of any intention on my part to 
 wound the feelings of any gentleman. 
 
 Considering the situation in which this coun 
 try is now placed, a state of actual war with 
 one of the most powerful nations on the earth, 
 it may not be useless to take a view of the 
 past, and of the various parties which have at 
 68 
 
Clap 
 
 different times appeared in this country, and 
 to attend to the manner by which we have been 
 driven from a peaceful posture to our present 
 warlike attitude. Such an inquiry may assist 
 in guiding us to that result, an honorable peace, 
 which must be the sincere desire of every 
 friend to America. The course of that oppo 
 sition, by which the administration of the 
 government had been unremittingly impeded 
 for the last twelve years, was singular, and, 
 I believe, unexampled in the history of any 
 country. It has been alike the duty and the 
 interest of the administration to preserve peace: 
 it was their duty, because it is necessary to 
 the growth of an infant people, to their genius, 
 and to their habits; it was their interest, 
 because a change of the condition of the nation 
 brings along with it a danger of the loss of the 
 affections of the people. The administration 
 has not been forgetful of these solemn obliga 
 tions. No art has been left unessayed, no 
 experiment promising a favorable result left 
 untried, to maintain the peaceful relations of 
 the country. When some six or seven years 
 ago the affairs of the nation assumed a threat 
 ening aspect, a partial non-importation was 
 adopted. As they grew more alarming, an 
 embargo was imposed. It would have accom 
 plished its purpose, but it was sacrificed upon 
 the altar of conciliation. Vain and fruitless 
 attempt to propitiate! Then came along 
 non-intercourse ; and a general non-importation 
 69 
 
American 
 
 followed in the train. In the mean time, any 
 indications of a return to the public law and 
 the path of justice, on the part of either bel 
 ligerent, are seized upon with avidity by the 
 administration. The arrangement with Mr. 
 Erskine is concluded. It is first applauded 
 and then censured by the opposition. No 
 matter with what unfeigned sincerity, with 
 what real effort, the administration cultivates 
 peace, the opposition insists that it alone is 
 culpable for every breach that is made between 
 the two countries. Because the President 
 thought proper, in accepting the proffered 
 reparation for the attack on a national vessel, 
 to intimate that it would have better comport 
 ed with the justice of the king (and who does 
 not think so ?) to punish the offending officer, 
 the opposition, entering into the royal feelings, 
 sees, in that imaginary insult, abundant cause 
 for rejecting Mr. Erskine s arrangement. On 
 another occasion, you cannot have forgotten 
 the hypocritical ingenuity which they dis 
 played, to divest Mr. Jackson s correspondence 
 of a premeditated insult to this country. If 
 gentlemen would only reserve for their own 
 government half the sensibility which is in 
 dulged for that of Great Britain, they would 
 find much less to condemn. Restriction after 
 restriction has been tried; negotiation has been 
 resorted to until further negotiation would 
 have been disgraceful. While these peaceful 
 experiments are undergoing a trial, what is 
 70 
 
Clap 
 
 the conduct of the opposition ? They are the 
 champions of war, the proud, the spirited, the 
 sole repository of the nation s honor, the men 
 of exclusive vigor and energy. The administra 
 tion, on the contrary, is weak, feeble, and 
 pusillanimous, " incapable of being kicked into 
 a war." The maxim, " Not a cent for tribute, 
 millions for defense," is loudly proclaimed. 
 Is the administration for negotiation ? The 
 opposition is tired, sick, disgusted with nego 
 tiation. They want to draw the sword and 
 avenge the nation s wrongs. When, how 
 ever, foreign nations, perhaps emboldened by 
 the very opposition here made, refuse to listen 
 to the amicable appeals, which have been re 
 peated and reiterated by the administration, 
 to their justice and to their interest; when, in 
 fact, war with one of them has become identified 
 with our independence and our sovereignty, 
 and to abstain from it was no longer possi 
 ble, behold the opposition veering round and 
 becoming the friends of peace and commerce. 
 They tell you of the calamities of war, its 
 tragical events, the squandering away of your 
 resources, the waste of the public treasure, and 
 the spilling of innocent blood. "Gorgons, hy 
 dras, and chimeras dire." They tell you that 
 honor is an illusion. Now we see them ex 
 hibiting the terrific forms of the roaring king 
 of the forest; now the meekness and humility 
 of the lamb. They are for war and no restric 
 tions when the administration is for peace. 
 
American 
 
 They are for peace and restrictions when the 
 administration is for war. You find them, sir, 
 tacking with every gale, displaying the colors 
 of every party and of all nations, steady only 
 in one unalterable purpose, to steer, if pos 
 sible, into the haven of power. 
 
 During all this time, the parasites of oppo 
 sition do not fail, by cunning sarcasm or sly 
 innuendo, to throw out the idea of French 
 influence, which is known to be false, which 
 ought to be met in one manner only, and that 
 is by the lie direct. The administration of this 
 country devoted to foreign influence ! The 
 administration of this country subservient to 
 France ! Great God, what a charge ! How is 
 it so influenced ? By what ligament, on what 
 basis, on what possible foundation does it 
 rest ? Is it similarity of language ? No ! We 
 speak different tongues; we speak the English 
 language. On the resemblance of our laws? 
 No ! The sources of our jurisprudence spring 
 from another and a different country. On 
 commercial intercourse ? No ! We have com 
 paratively none with France. Is it from the 
 correspondence in the genius of the two gov 
 ernments ? No ! Here alone is the liberty of 
 man secure from the inexorable despotism 
 which everywhere else tramples it under foot. 
 Where, then, is the ground of such an influ 
 ence ? But, sir, I am insulting you by arguing 
 on such a subject. Yet, preposterous and ri 
 diculous as the insinuation is, it is propagated 
 72 
 
iijenrp Clap 
 
 with so much industry that there are persons 
 found foolish and credulous enough to believe 
 it. You will, no doubt, think it incredible (but 
 I have nevertheless been told it as a fact) that 
 an honorable member of this House, now in 
 my eye, recently lost his election by the circu 
 lation of a silly story in his district that he 
 was the first cousin of the Emperor Napoleon. 
 The proof of the charge rested on the state 
 ment of facts, which was undoubtedly true. 
 The gentleman in question, it was alleged, 
 had married a connection of the lady of the 
 President of the United States, who was the 
 intimate friend of Thomas Jefferson, late Pres 
 ident of the United States, who some years 
 ago was in the habit of wearing red French 
 breeches. Now, taking these premises as 
 established, you, Mr. Chairman, are too good 
 a logician not to see that the conclusion 
 necessarily follows. 
 
 Throughout the period he had been speaking 
 of, the opposition has been distinguished, amid 
 all its veerings and changes, by another inflex 
 ible feature, the application to Bonaparte 
 of every vile and opprobrious epithet our lan 
 guage, copious as it is in terms of vituperation, 
 affords. He has been compared to every hid 
 eous monster and beast, from that mentioned 
 in the Revelations down to the most insignifi 
 cant quadruped. He has been called the scourge 
 of mankind, the destroyer of Europe, the great 
 robber, the infidel, the modern Attila, and 
 73 
 
American 
 
 heaven knows by what other names. Really, 
 gentlemen remind me of an obscure lady, in 
 a city not very far off, who also took it into her 
 head, in conversation with an accomplished 
 French gentleman, to talk of the affairs of 
 Europe. She, too, spoke of the destruction 
 of the balance of power; stormed and raged 
 about the insatiable ambition of the emperor; 
 called him the curse of mankind, the destroyer 
 of Europe. The Frenchman listened to her with 
 perfect patience, and when she had ceased, 
 said to her, with ineffable politeness, " Mad 
 ame, it would give my master, the emperor, 
 infinite pain if he knew how hardly you thought 
 of him." Sir, gentlemen appear to me to 
 forget that they stand on American soil; that 
 they are not in the British House of Com 
 mons, but in the chamber of the House of 
 Representatives of the United States; that we 
 have nothing to do with the affairs of Europe, 
 the partition of territory and sovereignty there, 
 except so far as these things affect the inter 
 ests of our own country. Gentlemen transform 
 themselves into the Burkes, Chathams, and 
 Pitts of another country, and forgetting, from 
 honest zeal, the interests of America, engage 
 with European sensibility in the discussion of 
 European interests. If gentlemen ask me 
 whether I do not view with regret and horror the 
 concentration of such vast power in the hands 
 of Bonaparte, I reply, that I do. I regret to 
 see the Emperor of China holding such im- 
 74 
 
J^enrp Clap 
 
 mense sway over the fortunes of millions of 
 our species. I regret to see Great Britain 
 possessing so uncontrolled a command over 
 all the waters of our globe. If I had the 
 ability to distribute among the nations of 
 Europe their several portions of power and 
 of sovereignty, I would say that Holland 
 should be resuscitated, and given the weight 
 she enjoyed in the days of her De Witts. I 
 would confine France within her natural boun 
 daries, the Alps, Pyrenees, and the Rhine, and 
 make her a secondary naval power only. I 
 would abridge the British maritime power, 
 raise Prussia and Austria to their original 
 condition, and preserve the integrity of the 
 empire of Russia. But these are speculations. 
 I look at the political transactions of Europe, 
 with the single exception of their possible 
 bearing upon us, as I do at the history of 
 other countries, or other times. I do not 
 survey them with half the interest that I do 
 the movements in South America. Our politi 
 cal relation with them is much less important 
 than it is supposed to be. I have no fears of 
 French or English subjugation. If we are 
 united we are too powerful for the mightiest 
 nation in Europe, or all Europe combined. If 
 we are separated and torn asunder, we shall 
 become an easy prey to the weakest of them. 
 In the latter dreadful contingency, our coun 
 try will not be worth preserving. 
 
 Next to the notice which the opposition 
 75 
 
JBlemora&Ie American 
 
 has found itself called upon to bestow upon 
 the French emperor, a distinguished citizen 
 of Virignia, formerly President of the United 
 States, has never for a moment failed to receive 
 their kindest and most respectful attention. 
 An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts 
 [Mr. Quincy], of whom I am sorry to say it 
 becomes necessary for me, in the course of my 
 remarks, to take some notice, has alluded to 
 him in a remarkable manner. Neither his 
 retirement from public office, his eminent ser 
 vices, nor his advanced age can exempt this 
 patriot from the coarse assaults of party 
 malevolence. No, sir, in 1801 he snatched 
 from the rude hand of usurpation the violated 
 constitution of his country, and that is his 
 crime. He preserved that instrument in form 
 and substance and spirit, a precious inheri 
 tance for generations to come, and for this he 
 can never be forgiven. How vain and impo 
 tent is party rage directed against such a man ! 
 He is not more elevated by his lofty residence 
 upon the summit of his own favorite mountain 
 than he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind 
 and the consciousness of a well-spent life, 
 above the malignant passions and bitter feel 
 ings of the day. No ! His own beloved Monti- 
 cello is not more moved by the storms that beat 
 against its sides than is this illustrious man 
 by the howlings of the whole British pack, set 
 loose from the Essex kennel ! When the gen 
 tleman to whom I have been compelled to 
 76 
 
allude shall have mingled his dust with that of 
 his abused ancestors, when he shall have been 
 consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at all, shall 
 live only in the treasonable annals of a certain 
 junto, the name of Jefferson will be hailed with 
 gratitude, his memory honored and cherished as 
 the second founder of the liberties of the peo 
 ple, and the period of his administration will 
 be looked back to as one of the happiest and 
 brightest epochs of American history, an 
 oasis in the midst of a sandy desert. But I 
 beg the gentleman s pardon; he has, indeed, 
 secured to himself a more imperishable fame 
 than I had supposed. I think it was about 
 four years ago that he submitted to the House 
 of Representatives an initiative proposition for 
 an impeachment of Mr. Jefferson. The House 
 condescended to consider it. The gentleman 
 debated it with his usual temper, moderation, 
 and urbanity. The House decided upon it in the 
 most solemn manner, and, although the gentle 
 man had somehow obtained a second, the final 
 vote stood one for and one hundred and seven 
 teen against the proposition. 
 
 In one respect there is a remarkable differ 
 ence between the administration and the oppo 
 sition: it is in a sacred regard for personal 
 liberty. When out of power, my political 
 friends condemned the surrender of Jonathan 
 Robbins; they opposed the violation of the 
 freedom of the press in the sedition law; they 
 opposed the more insidious attack upon the 
 77 
 
American 
 
 freedom of the person, under the imposing 
 garb of an alien law. The party now in oppo 
 sition, then in power, advocated the sacrifice 
 of the unhappy Robbins, and passed those two 
 laws. True to our principles, we are now 
 struggling for the liberty of our seamen 
 against foreign oppression. True to theirs, 
 they oppose a war undertaken for this object. 
 They have, indeed, lately affected a tender 
 solicitude for the liberties of the people, and 
 talk of the danger of standing armies, and the 
 burden of the taxes. But it must be evident to 
 you, Mr. Chairman, that they speak in a foreign 
 idiom. Their brogue evinces that it is not 
 their vernacular tongue. What! the oppo 
 sition who in 1798 and 1799 could raise a 
 useless army to fight an enemy three thou 
 sand miles distant from us, alarmed at the ex 
 istence of one raised for a known and specified 
 object, the attack of the adjoining provinces 
 of the enemy! What! the gentleman from 
 Massachusetts, who assisted by his vote to 
 raise the army of twenty-five thousand, alarmed 
 at the danger of our liberties from this very 
 army! 
 
 But, sir, I must speak of another subject 
 which I never think of but with feelings of the 
 deepest awe. The gentleman from Massachu 
 setts, in imitation of some of his predecessors 
 of 1799, has entertained us with a picture of 
 cabinet plots, presidential plots, and all sorts 
 of plots, which have been engendered by the 
 78 
 
I^enrp Clap 
 
 diseased state of the gentleman s imagination. 
 I wish, sir, that another plot of a much more 
 serious and alarming character a plot that 
 aims at the dismemberment of our Union 
 had only the same imaginary existence. But 
 no man who has paid any attention to the tone 
 of certain prints, and to transactions in a par 
 ticular quarter of the Union, for several years 
 past, can doubt the existence of such a plot. 
 It was far, very far, from my intention to 
 charge the opposition with such a design. No, 
 I believe them generally incapable of it. But 
 I cannot say as much for some who have been 
 unworthily associated with them in the quarter 
 of the Union to which I have referred. The 
 gentleman cannot have forgotten his own senti 
 ments, uttered even on the floor of this House, 
 " peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must," 
 nearly at the very time Henry s mission to 
 Boston was undertaken. The flagitiousness of 
 that embassy had been attempted to be con 
 cealed by directing the public attention to the 
 price which the gentleman says was given for 
 the disclosure. As if any price could change 
 the atrociousness of the attempt on the part of 
 Great Britain, or could extenuate, in the slight 
 est degree, the offense of those citizens who 
 entertained and deliberated upon a proposition 
 so infamous and unnatural! There was a 
 most remarkable coincidence between some of 
 the things which that man states and certain 
 events in the quarter alluded to. In the con- 
 79 
 
American 
 
 tingency of war with Great Britain, it will be 
 recollected that the neutrality and eventual 
 separation of that section of the Union was 
 to be brought about. How, sir, has it hap 
 pened since the declaration of war, that British 
 officers in Canada have asserted to American 
 officers that this very neutrality would take 
 place? That they have so asserted can be 
 established beyond controversy. The project 
 is not brought forward openly with a direct 
 avowal of the intention. No ; the stock of good 
 sense and patriotism in that portion of the 
 country is too great to be undisguisedly en 
 countered. It is assailed from the masked bat 
 teries of friendship, of peace and commerce on 
 the one side, and by the groundless imputation 
 of opposite propensities on the other. The 
 affections of the people there are gradually 
 to be undermined. The project is suggested 
 or withdrawn; the diabolical dramatis persona 
 in this criminal tragedy make their appearance 
 or exit as the audience to whom they address 
 themselves applaud or condemn. I was aston 
 ished, sir, in reading lately a letter, or pretend 
 ed letter, published in a prominent print in that 
 quarter, and written, not in the fervor of party 
 zeal, but coolly and dispassionately, to find that 
 the writer affected to reason about a separa 
 tion, and attempted to demonstrate its advan 
 tages to the different portions of the Union, 
 deploring the existence now of what he terms 
 prejudices against it, but hoping for the arrival 
 80 
 
Clap 
 
 of the period when they shall be eradicated. 
 But, sir, I will quit this unpleasent subject; I 
 will turn from one whom no sense of decency 
 or propriety could restrain from soiling the 
 carpet on which he treads, to gentlemen who 
 have not forgotten what is due to themselves, 
 to the place in which we are assembled, or to 
 those by whom they are opposed. The gentle 
 man from North Carolina [Mr. Pearson], from 
 Connecticut [Mr. Pitkin], and from New York 
 [Mr. Bleeker] have, with their usual decorum, 
 contended that the war would not have been 
 declared had it not been for the duplicity of 
 France in withholding an authentic instrument 
 repealing the decrees of Berlin and Milan; that 
 upon the exhibition of such an instrument the 
 revocation of the orders in council took place; 
 that this main cause of the war, but for which 
 it would not have been declared, being re 
 moved, the administration ought to seek for the 
 restoration of peace ; and that upon its sincere 
 ly doing so, terms compatible with the honor 
 and interest of this country might be obtained. 
 It is my purpose to examine, first, into the cir 
 cumstances under which the war was declared; 
 secondly, into the causes of continuing it; and 
 lastly, into the means which have been taken, 
 or ought to be taken, to procure peace; but, sir, 
 I am really so exhausted that, little as I am in 
 the habit of asking of the House an indulgence 
 of this kind, I feel I must trespass on their 
 goodness. 
 
 81 
 
American <>peerf)e# 
 
 [Here Mr. Clay sat down. Mr. Newton moved 
 that the committee rise, report progress, and ask 
 leave to sit again, which was done. On the next day 
 he proceeded.] 
 
 I am sensible, Mr. Chairman, that some part 
 of the debate to which this bill has given rise 
 has been attended by circumstances much to 
 be regretted, not usual in this House, and of 
 which it is to be hoped there will be no rep 
 etition. The gentleman from Boston had so 
 absolved himself from every rule of decorum 
 and propriety, had so outraged all decency, 
 that I have found it impossible to suppress the 
 feelings excited on the occasion. His colleague, 
 whom I have the honor to follow [Mr. Whea- 
 ton], whatever else he might not have proved 
 in his very learned, ingenious, and original ex 
 position of the powers of this government, 
 an exposition in which he has sought, where 
 nobody before him has, and nobody after him 
 will look, for a grant of our powers, I mean 
 the preamble to the Constitution, has clearly 
 shown, to the satisfaction of all who heard him, 
 that the power of defensive war is conferred. 
 I claim the benefit of a similar principle, in 
 behalf of my political friends, against the gen 
 tlemen from Boston. I demand only the ex 
 ercise of the right of repulsion. No one is 
 more anxious than I am to preserve the dig 
 nity and the freedom of debate; no member is 
 more responsible for its abuse, and if on this 
 occasion its just limits have been violated, let 
 82 
 
him who has been the unprovoked aggressor 
 appropriate to himself exclusively the conse 
 quences. 
 
 I omitted yesterday, sir, when speaking of a 
 delicate and painful subject, to notice a power 
 ful engine which the conspirators against the 
 integrity of the Union employ to effect their 
 nefarious purpose : I mean Southern influence. 
 The true friend to his country, knowing that 
 our Constitution was the work of compromise, 
 in which interests apparently conflicting were 
 attempted to be reconciled, aims to extinguish 
 or allay prejudices. But this patriotic exertion 
 does not suit the views of those who are urged 
 on by diabolical ambition. They find it con 
 venient to imagine the existence of certain 
 improper influences, and to propagate with 
 their utmost industry a belief of them. Hence 
 the idea of Southern preponderance, Virginia 
 influence, the yoking of the respectable yeo 
 manry of the North with negro slaves to the 
 car of Southern nabobs. If Virginia really 
 cherished a reprehensible ambition, an aim to 
 monopolize the chief magistracy of the country, 
 how was such a purpose to be accomplished ? 
 Virginia alone cannot elect a president, 
 whose elevation depends upon a plurality of 
 electoral votes, and a consequent concurrence 
 of many states. Would Vermont, disinterest 
 ed Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, independent 
 Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisi 
 ana, all consent to become the tools of inordi- 
 83 
 
American 
 
 nate ambition? But the present incumbent 
 was designated to the office before his prede 
 cessor had retired. How? By public senti 
 ment, public sentiment which grew out of his 
 known virtues, his illustrious services, and his 
 distinguished abilities. Would the gentleman 
 crush this public sentiment ? Is he prepared to 
 admit that he would arrest the progress of 
 opinion ? 
 
 The war was declared because Great Britain 
 arrogated to herself the pretension of regulat 
 ing our foreign trade, under the delusive name 
 of retaliatory orders in council, a pretension 
 by which she undertook to proclaim to Ameri 
 can enterprise, "Thus far shalt thou go. and 
 no farther," orders which she refused to re 
 voke after the alleged cause of their enactment 
 had ceased, because she persisted in the prac 
 tice of impressing American seamen, because 
 she had instigated the Indians to commit hostil 
 ities against us, and because she refused indem 
 nity for her past injuries upon our commerce. 
 I throw out of the question other wrongs. 
 The war, in fact, was announced, on our part, 
 to meet the war which she was waging on 
 her part. So undeniable were the causes of 
 the war, so powerfully did they address 
 themselves to the feeling of the whole Ameri 
 can people, that when the bill was pending be 
 fore this House, gentlemen in the opposition, 
 although provoked to debate, would not or 
 could not utter one syllable against it. It is 
 84 
 
Jijenrp Clap 
 
 true, they wrapped themselves up in sullen 
 silence, pretending they did not choose to de 
 bate such a question in secret session. While 
 speaking of the proceedings on that occasion, I 
 beg to be permitted to advert to another fact 
 which transpired, an important fact, material 
 for the nation to know, and which I have often 
 regretted had not been spread upon our jour 
 nals. 
 
 My honorable colleague [Mr. McKee] moved, 
 in Committee of the Whole, to comprehend 
 France in the war; and when the question was 
 taken upon the proposition, there appeared 
 but ten votes in support of it, of which seven 
 belonged to this side of the House, and three 
 only to the other! It is said that we were 
 inveigled into the war by the perfidy of France ; 
 and that, had she furnished the document in 
 time, which was first published in England, 
 in May last, it would have been prevented. I 
 will concede to gentlemen everything they ask 
 about the injustice of France toward this coun 
 try. I wish to God that our ability was equal 
 to our disposition to make her feel the sense that 
 we entertain of that injustice. The manner of 
 the publication of the paper in question was 
 undoubtedly extremely exceptionable. But I 
 maintain that had it made its appearance ear 
 lier it would not have had the effect supposed; 
 and the proof lies in the unequivocal declara 
 tions of the British government. I will trouble 
 you, sir, with going no farther back than to the 
 
 85 
 
American 
 
 letters of the British minister, addressed to the 
 Secretary of State, just before the expiration 
 of his diplomatic function. It will be recollect 
 ed by the committee that he exhibited to this 
 government a dispatch from Lord Castlereagh, 
 in which the principle was distinctly avowed, 
 that to produce the effect of a repeal of the 
 orders in council, the French decrees must be 
 absolutely and entirely revoked as to all the 
 world, and not as to America alone. A copy 
 of that dispatch was demanded of him, and he 
 very awkwardly evaded it. But on the loth 
 of June, after the bill declaring war had actu 
 ally passed this House, and was pending be 
 fore the Senate (and which, I have no doubt, 
 was known to him), in a letter to Mr. Monroe 
 he says: "I have no hesitation, sir, in saying 
 that Great Britain, as the case has hitherto 
 stood, never did, and never could, engage, 
 without the greatest injustice to herself and her 
 allies, as well as to other neutral nations, to 
 repeal her order as affecting America alone, 
 leaving them in force against other states, 
 upon condition that France would except, sin 
 gly and specially, America from the operation 
 of her decrees." On the I4th of the same 
 month, the bill still pending before the Senate, 
 he repeats: "I will now say that I feel entirely 
 authorized to assure you that if you can at any 
 time produce a full and unconditional repeal of 
 the French decrees, as you have a right to de 
 mand it in your character of a neutral nation, 
 86 
 
Clap 
 
 and that it be disengaged from any question 
 concerning our maritime rights, we shall be 
 ready to meet you with a revocation of the or 
 ders in council. Previously to your producing 
 such an instrument, which I am sorry to see you 
 regard as unnecessary, you cannot expect of 
 us to give up our orders in council." Thus, 
 sir, you see that the British government would 
 not be content with a repeal of the French 
 decrees as to us only. But the French paper 
 in question was such a repeal. It could not, 
 therefore, satisfy the British government. It 
 could not, therefore, have induced that govern 
 ment, had it been earlier promulgated, to repeal 
 the orders in council. It could not, therefore, 
 have averted the war. The withholding of it 
 did not occasion the war, and the promulgation 
 of it would not have prevented the war. But 
 gentlemen have contended that, in point of fact, 
 it did produce a repeal of the orders in council. 
 This I deny. After it made its appearance in 
 England, it was declared by one of the British 
 ministry, in Parliament, not to be satisfactory. 
 And all the world knows that the repeal of the 
 brders in council resulted from the inquiry, re 
 luctantly acceded to by the ministry, into the 
 effect upon their manufacturing establishments, 
 of our non-importation law, or to the warlike 
 attitude assumed by this government, or to 
 both. But it is said that the orders in coun 
 cil are withdrawn, no matter from what cause, 
 and that having been the sole motive for 
 87 
 
American 
 
 declaring the war, the relations of peace ought 
 to be restored. This brings me to the exami 
 nation of the grounds for continuing the pres 
 ent hostilities between this country and Great 
 Britain. 
 
 I am far from acknowledging that had the 
 orders in council been repealed, as they have 
 been before the war was declared, the declar 
 ation of hostilities would of course have been 
 prevented. In a body so numerous as this is, 
 from which the declaration emanated, it is im 
 possible to say, with any degree of certainty, 
 what would have been the effect of such a re 
 peal. Each member must answer for himself. 
 As to myself, I have no hesitation in saying 
 that I have always considered the impressment 
 of American seamen as much the most serious 
 aggression. But, sir, how have those orders 
 at last been repealed ? Great Britain, it is true, 
 has intimated a willingness to suspend their 
 practical operation, but she still arrogates to 
 herself the right to revive them upon certain 
 contingencies, of which she constitutes herself 
 the sole judge. She waives the temporary use 
 of the rod, but she suspends it in terror em over 
 our heads. 
 
 Supposing it to be conceded to, gentlemen, 
 that such a repeal of the orders in council as 
 took place on the 23d of June last, exception 
 able as it is, being known before the war was 
 proclaimed, would have prevented it, does it 
 follow that it ought to induce us to lay down 
 88 
 
Clap 
 
 our arms without the redress of any other 
 injury of which we complain ? 
 
 Does it follow, in all cases, that what would 
 in the first instance have prevented would also 
 terminate the war ? By no means. It requires 
 a strong and powerful effort in a nation, prone 
 to peace as this is, to burst through its habits 
 and encounter the difficulties and privations of 
 war. Such a nation ought but seldom to em 
 bark in a belligerent contest; but when it does, 
 it should be for obvious and essential rights 
 alone, and should firmly resolve to extort, at 
 all hazards, their recognition. The war of the 
 Revolution is an example of a war begun for 
 one object and prosecuted for another. It 
 was waged, in its commencement, against the 
 right asserted by the parent country to tax the 
 colonies. Then no one thought of absolute 
 independence. The idea of independence was 
 repelled. But the British government would 
 have relinquished the principle of taxation. 
 The founders of our liberties saw, however, 
 that there was no security short of indepen 
 dence, and they achieved that independence. 
 When nations are engaged in war, those rights 
 in controversy which are not acknowledged 
 by the treaty of peace are abandoned. And 
 who is prepared to say that American seamen 
 shall be surrendered as victims to the English 
 principle of impressment ? And, sir, what is 
 this principle ? She contends that she has a 
 right to the services of her own subjects; and 
 89 
 
^lemorafile American 
 
 that, in the exercise of this right, she may law 
 fully impress them, even although she finds 
 them in American vessels, upon the high seas, 
 without her jurisdiction. Now, I deny that 
 she has any right, beyond her jurisdiction, to 
 come on board our vessels, upon the high seas, 
 for any other purpose than in pursuit of enemies 
 or their goods, or goods contraband of war. But 
 she further contends that her subjects cannot 
 renounce their allegiance to her, and contract 
 a new obligation to other sovereigns. I do 
 not mean to go into the general question of 
 the right of expatriation. If, as is contended, 
 all nations deny it, all nations at the same time 
 admit and practice the right of naturalization. 
 Great Britain herself does this. Great Britain, 
 in the very case of foreign seamen, imposes 
 perhaps fewer restraints upon naturalization 
 than any other nation. Then, if subjects can 
 not break their original allegiance, they may, 
 according to universal usage, contract a new 
 allegiance. What is the effect of this double 
 obligation? Undoubtedly that the sovereign, 
 having possession of the subject, would have the 
 right to the services of the subject. If he 
 return within the jurisdiction of his primitive 
 sovereign he may resume his right to his ser 
 vices, of which the subject, by his own act, 
 could not divest himself. But his primitive 
 sovereign can have no right to go in quest of 
 him, out of his own jurisdiction, into the juris 
 diction of another sovereign, or upon the high 
 90 
 
Clap 
 
 seas, where there exists either no jurisdiction, 
 or it is possessed by the nation owning the 
 ship navigating them. But, sir, this discus 
 sion is altogether useless. It is not to the 
 British principle, objectionable as it is, that we 
 are alone to look ; it is to her practice, no 
 matter what guise she puts on. It is in vain 
 to assert the inviolability of the obligation 
 of allegiance. It is in vain to set up the 
 plea of necessity, and to allege that she cannot 
 exist without the impressment of her seamen. 
 The naked truth is, she comes, by her press- 
 gangs, on board of our vessels, seizes our native 
 as well as naturalized seamen, and drags them 
 into her service. It is the case, then, of the 
 assertion of an erroneous principle, and of a 
 practice not conformable to the asserted prin 
 ciple, a principle which, if it were theoreti 
 cally right, must be forever practically wrong; 
 a practice which can obtain countenance 
 from no principle whatever, and to submit to 
 which, on our part, would betray the most ab 
 ject degradation. We are told, by gentlemen 
 in the opposition, that government has not 
 done all that was incumbent on it to do to 
 avoid just cause of complaint on the part of 
 Great Britain; that, in particular, the certifi 
 cates of protection, authorized by the act of 
 1796, are fraudulently used. Sir, government 
 has done too much in granting those paper 
 protections. I can never think of them with 
 out being shocked. They resemble the passes 
 
American 
 
 which the master grants to his negro slave, 
 "Let the bearer, Mungo, pass and repass 
 without molestation." What do they imply? 
 That Great Britain has a right to seize all who 
 are not provided with them. From their very 
 nature they must be liable to abuse on both 
 sides. If Great Britain desires a mark by 
 which she can know her own subjects, let her 
 give them an earmark. The colors that float 
 from the masthead should be the credentials 
 of our seamen. There is no safety to us, and 
 the gentlemen have shown it, but in the rule 
 that all who sail under the flag (not being en 
 emies) are protected by the flag. It is impos 
 sible that this country should ever abandon 
 the gallant tars who have won for us such 
 splendid trophies. Let me suppose that the 
 genius of Columbia should visit one of them 
 in his oppressor s prison and attempt to 
 reconcile him to his forlorn and wretched 
 condition. She would say to him, in the lan 
 guage of gentlemen on the other side: "Great 
 Britain intends you no harm; she did not mean 
 to impress you, but one of her own subjects; 
 having taken you by mistake, I will remon 
 strate, and try to prevail upon her, by peace 
 able means, to release you; but I cannot, my 
 son, fight for you. " If he did not consider 
 this mere mockery, the poor tar would address 
 her judgment, and say: " You owe me, my coun 
 try, protection; I owe you, in return, obedience. 
 I am no British subject; I am a native of 
 92 
 
Clap 
 
 old Massachusetts, where lived my aged 
 father, my wife, my children. I have faithfully 
 discharged my duty. Will you refuse to do 
 yours?" Appealing to her passions, he would 
 continue: "I lost this eye in fighting under 
 Truxton, with the Insurgents; I got this scar 
 before Tripoli; I broke this leg on board the 
 Constitution, when the Guerriere struck." If 
 she remained still unmoved, he would break 
 out, in the accents of mingled distress and 
 despair, 
 
 " Hard, hard is my fate! Once I freedom enjoyed, 
 Was as happy as happy could be ! 
 Oh ! how hard is my fate, how galling these chains !" 
 
 I will not imagine the dreadful catastrophe to 
 which he would be driven by an abandonment 
 of him to his own oppressor. It will not be, it 
 cannot be, that this country will refuse him 
 protection. 
 
 It is said that Great Britain has been always 
 willing to make a satisfactory arrangement of 
 the subject of impressment, and that Mr. King 
 had nearly concluded one, prior to his depart 
 ure from that country. Let us hear what 
 that minister says upon his return to America. 
 In this letter, dated at New York in July, 1803, 
 after giving an account of his attempt to form 
 an arrangement for the protection of our sea 
 men, and his interviews to this end with Lords 
 Hawkesbury and St. Vincent, and stating that, 
 when he had supposed the terms of a conven 
 tion were agreed upon, a new pretension was 
 93 
 
American 
 
 set up (the mare clausuni), he concludes: "I 
 regret to have been unable to put this business 
 on a satisfactory footing, knowing, as I do, its 
 very great importance to both parties; but I 
 flatter myself that I have not misjudged the 
 interests of our own country in refusing to 
 sanction a principle that might be productive 
 of more extensive evils than those it was our 
 aim to prevent. The sequel of his negotiation 
 on this affair is more fully given in the recent 
 conversation between Mr. Russell and Lord 
 Castlereagh, communicated to Congress during 
 its present session. Lord Castlereagh says to 
 Mr. Russell: 
 
 "Indeed, there has evidently been much 
 misapprehension on this subject; an erroneous 
 belief entertained that an arrangement, in re 
 gard to it, has been nearer an accomplishment 
 than the facts will warrant. Even our friends 
 in Congress, I mean those who are opposed 
 to going to war with us, have been so confi 
 dent in this mistake that they have ascribed 
 the failure of such an arrangement solely to 
 the misconduct of the American government. 
 This error probably orginated with Mr. King; 
 for, being much esteemed here, and always well 
 received by the persons in power, he seems to 
 have misconstrued their readiness to listen 
 to his representations, and their warm profes 
 sions of a disposition to remove the complaints 
 of America, in relation to impressment, into 
 a supposed conviction, on their part, of the 
 94 
 
Clap 
 
 propriety of adopting the plan which he had 
 proposed. But Lord St. Vincent, whom he 
 might have thought he had brought over to his 
 opinions, appears never for a moment to have 
 ceased to regard all arrangements on the subject 
 to be attended with formidable if not insur 
 mountable obstacles. This is obvious from 
 a letter which his lordship addressed to Sir 
 William Scott at the time." 
 
 Here Lord Castlereagh read a letter, con 
 tained in the records before him, in which Lord 
 St. Vincent states to Sir William Scott the 
 zeal with which Mr. King had assailed him 
 on this subject of impressment, confesses his 
 own perplexity and total incompetency to 
 discover any practical project for the safe 
 discontinuance of that practice, and asks for 
 counsel and advice. " Thus you see," proceed 
 ed Lord Castlereagh, "that the confidence 
 of Mr. King on this subject was entirely un 
 founded." 
 
 Thus it is apparent that at no time has 
 the enemy been willing to place this subject 
 on a satisfactory footing. I will speak here 
 after of the overtures made by the adminis 
 tration since the war. 
 
 The honorable gentleman from New York 
 [Mr. Bleeker], in the very sensible speech 
 with which he favored the committee, made 
 one observation which did not comport with 
 his usual liberal and enlarged views. It was 
 that those who are most interested against 
 95 
 
American 
 
 the practice of impressment did not desire a 
 continuance of the war on account of it ; while 
 those (the Southern and Western members) 
 who had no interest in it were the zealous 
 advocates of American seamen. It was a 
 provincial sentiment unworthy of that gentle 
 man. It was one which, in a change of con 
 dition he would not express, because I know 
 he could not feel it. Does not that gentleman 
 feel for the unhappy victims of the tomahawk 
 in the Western wilds, although his quarter 
 of the Union may be exempted from similar 
 barbarities? I am sure he does. If there 
 be a description of rights which more than any 
 other should unite all parties in all quarters 
 of the Union, it is unquestionably the rights 
 of the person. No matter what his vocation, 
 whether he seeks subsistence amid the dangers 
 of the deep, or draws them from the bowels of 
 the earth, or from the humblest occupations 
 of mechanic life; wherever the sacred rights 
 of an American freeman are assailed, all hearts 
 ought to unite, and every arm should be braced 
 to vindicate his cause. 
 
 The gentleman from Delaware sees in Can 
 ada no object worthy of conquest. According 
 to him, it is a cold, sterile, and inhospitable re 
 gion. And yet such are the allurements which 
 it offers, that the same gentleman apprehends 
 that if it be annexed to the United States, al 
 ready too much weakened by an extension of 
 territory, the people of New England will rush 
 96 
 
Clap 
 
 over the line and depopulate that section of the 
 Union! That gentleman considers it honest 
 to hold Canada as a kind of hostage, to regard 
 it as a sort of bond for the good behavior of 
 the enemy. But he will not enforce the bond. 
 The actual conquest of that country would, 
 according to him, make no impression upon 
 the enemy; and yet the very apprehension only 
 of such a conquest would, at all times, have a 
 powerful operation upon him ! Other gentle 
 men consider the invasion of that country as 
 wicked and unjustifiable. Its inhabitants are 
 represented as harmless and unoffending; as 
 connected with those of the bordering states 
 by a thousand tender ties, interchanging acts of 
 kindness, and all the offices of good neighbor 
 hood. Canada innocent ! Canada unoffend 
 ing! Is it not in Canada that the tomahawk 
 of the savage has been molded into its death 
 like form? Has it not been from Canadian 
 magazines, Maiden and others, that those sup 
 plies have been issued which nourish and con 
 tinue the Indian hostilities, supplies which 
 have enabled the savage hordes to butcher the 
 garrison of Chicago, and to commit other hor 
 rible excesses and murders ? Was it not by the 
 joint co-operation of Canadians and Indians that 
 a remote American fort, Michilimackinac, was 
 assailed and reduced while in ignorance of a 
 state of war? But, sir, how soon have the 
 opposition changed their tone ! When the 
 administration was striving, by the operation 
 97 
 
American 
 
 of peaceful measures, to bring Great Britain 
 back to a sense of justice, they were for old- 
 fashioned war. And now they have got old-fash 
 ioned war, their sensibilities are cruelly shocked, 
 and all their sympathies lavished upon the 
 harmless inhabitants of the adjoining prov 
 inces. What does a state of war present ? The 
 united energies of one people arrayed against 
 the combined energies of another; a conflict in 
 which each party aims to inflict all the injury it 
 can, by sea and land, upon the territories, prop 
 erty, and citizens of another; subject only to 
 the rules of mitigated war practiced by civil 
 ized nations. The gentlemen would not touch 
 the continental provinces of the enemy, nor, I 
 presume, for the same reason, her possessions 
 in the West Indies. The same humane spirit 
 would spare the seamen and soldiers of the 
 enemy. The sacred person of his majesty must 
 not be attacked; for the learned gentlemen on 
 the other side are quite familiar with the max 
 im, that the king can do no wrong. Indeed, 
 sir, I know of no person on whom we may make 
 war, upon the principles of the honorable gen 
 tlemen, but Mr. Stephen, the celebrated author 
 of the orders in council, or the Board of Ad 
 miralty, who authorize and regulate the practice 
 of impressment. 
 
 The disasters of the war admonish us, we are 
 
 told, of the necessity of terminating the contest. 
 
 If our achievements by land have been less 
 
 splendid than those of our intrepid seamen by 
 
 98 
 
iap 
 
 water, it is not because the American soldier 
 is less brave. On the one element, organiza 
 tion, discipline, and a thorough knowledge of 
 their duties exist on the part of the officers and 
 their men. On the other, almost everything 
 is yet to be acquired. We have, however, 
 the consolation that our country abounds with 
 the richest materials, and that in no instance, 
 when engaged in action, have our arms been 
 tarnished. At Brownstown and at Queens- 
 town the valor of veterans was displayed and 
 acts of the noblest heroism were performed. 
 It is true that the disgrace of Detroit remains 
 to be wiped off. That is a subject on which 
 I cannot trust my feelings; it is not fitting I 
 should speak. But this much I will say, it 
 was an event which no human foresight could 
 have anticipated, and for which the admin 
 istration cannot be justly censured. It was 
 the parent of all the misfortunes we have ex 
 perienced on land. But for it the Indian war 
 would have been, in a great measure, prevent 
 ed or terminated, the ascendency on Lake 
 Erie acquired, and the war pushed on, perhaps, 
 to Montreal. With the exception of that 
 event, the war, even upon the land, has been at 
 tended by a series of the most brilliant exploits, 
 which, whatever interest they may inspire on 
 this side of the mountains, have given the 
 greatest pleasure on the other. The expedi 
 tion, under the command of Governor Edwards 
 and Colonel Russell, to Lake Pioria, on the 
 
 99 
 
American 
 
 Illinois, was completely successful. So was 
 that of Captain Craig, who, it is said, ascended 
 that river still higher. General Hopkins de 
 stroyed the prophet s town. We have just 
 received intelligence of the gallant enterprise 
 of Colonel Campbell. In short, sir, the Indian 
 towns have been swept from the mouth to 
 the source of the Wabash, and a hostile coun 
 try has been penetrated far beyond the most 
 daring incursions of any campaign during the 
 former Indian war. Never was more cool, 
 deliberate bravery displayed than that by 
 Newman s party from Georgia. And the cap 
 ture of the Detroit, and the destruction of 
 the Caledonia (whether placed to a maritime 
 or land account), for judgment, skill, and cour 
 age, on the part of Lieutenant Elliott, have 
 never been surpassed. 
 
 It is alleged that the elections in England 
 are in favor of the ministry, and that those in 
 this country are against the war. If, in such a 
 cause (saying nothing of the impurity of their 
 elections), the people of that country have ral 
 lied round their government, it affords a salu 
 tary lesson to the people here ; who, at all haz 
 ards ought to support theirs, struggling as it is 
 to maintain our just rights. But the people here 
 have not been false to themselves; a great 
 majority approve the war, as is envinced by 
 the recent re-election of the chief magistrate. 
 Suppose it were even true that an entire sec 
 tion of the Union were opposed to the war; 
 
 100 
 
that section being a minority, is the will of the 
 majority to be relinquished ? In that section 
 the real strength of the opposition had been 
 greatly exaggerated. Vermont has, by two suc 
 cessive expressions of her opinion, approved 
 the declaration of war. In New Hampshire, 
 parties are so nearly equipoised, that out of 
 thirty or thirty-five thousand votes, those who 
 approved and are for supporting it lost the 
 election by only one thousand or one thou 
 sand five hundred. In Massachusetts alone 
 have they obtained any considerable accession. 
 If we come to New York, we shall find that 
 other and local causes have influenced her 
 elections. 
 
 What cause, Mr. Chairman, which existed 
 for declaring the war has been removed ? We 
 sought indemnity for the past and security for 
 the future. The orders in council are suspend 
 ed, not revoked; no compensation for spolia 
 tions; Indian hostilities, which were before 
 secretly instigated, are now openly encouraged ; 
 and the practice of impressment unremittingly 
 persevered in and insisted upon. Yet the ad 
 ministration has given the strongest demonstra 
 tions of its love of peace. On the 29th of 
 June, less than ten days after the declaration 
 of war, the Secretary of State writes to Mr. 
 Russell, authorizing him to agree to an armis 
 tice upon two conditions only, and what are 
 they ? That the orders in council should be re 
 pealed, and the practice of impressing American 
 101 
 
jftemorafile American 
 
 seamen cease, those already impressed being 
 released. The proposition was for nothing 
 more than a real truce, that the war should in 
 fact cease on both sides. Again, on the 2/th 
 of July, one month later, anticipating a possi 
 ble objection to these terms, reasonable as they 
 are, Mr. Monroe empowers Mr. Russell to 
 stipulate in general terms for an armistice, 
 having only a formal understanding on these 
 points. In return, the enemy is offered a pro 
 hibition of the employment of his seamen in 
 our service, thus removing entirely all pretext 
 for the practice of impressment. The very 
 proposition which the gentleman from Connec 
 ticut [Mr. Pitkin] contends ought to be made 
 has been made. How are these pacific advan 
 ces met by the other party ? Rejected as abso 
 lutely inadmissible ; cavils are indulged about 
 the inadequacy of Mr. Russell s powers, and 
 the want of an act of Congress is intimated. 
 And yet the constant usage of nations, I be 
 lieve, is, where the legislation of one party is 
 necessary to carry into effect a given stipula 
 tion, to leave it to the contracting party to pro 
 vide the requisite laws. If he fail to do so, it 
 is a breach of good faith, and becomes the sub 
 ject of subsequent remonstrance by the injured 
 party. When Mr. Russell renews the overture, 
 in what was intended as a more agreeable form 
 to the British government, Lord Castlereagh is 
 not content with a simple rejection, but clothes 
 it in the language of insult. Afterward, in con- 
 102 
 
J^enrp Clap 
 
 versation with Mr. Russell, the moderation of 
 our government is misinterpreted, and made 
 the occasion of a sneer, that we are tired of the 
 war. The proposition of Admiral Warren is 
 submitted in a spirit not more pacific. He 
 is instructed, he tells us, to propose that the 
 government of the United States shall instant 
 ly recall their letters of marque and reprisal 
 against British ships, together with all orders 
 and instructions for any acts of hostility what 
 ever against the territories of his majesty, or 
 the persons or property of his subjects. That 
 small affair being settled, he is further author 
 ized to arrange as to the revocation of the 
 laws which interdict the commerce and ships 
 of war of his majesty from the harbors and 
 waters of the United States. This messenger 
 of peace comes with one qualified concession 
 in his pocket, not made to the justice of our 
 demands, and is fully empowered to receive 
 our homage, a contrite retraction of all our 
 measures adopted against his master ! And, 
 in default, he does not fail to assure us the 
 orders in council are to be forthwith revived. 
 The administration, still anxious to terminate 
 the war, suppresses the indignation which such 
 a proposal ought to have created, and, in its an 
 swer, concludes by informing Admiral Warren 
 "that if there be no objection to an accom 
 modation of the difference relating to impress 
 ment, in the mode proposed, other than the 
 suspension of the British claim to impress- 
 103 
 
jftemorafile American 
 
 ment during the armistice, there can be none 
 to proceeding, without the armistice, to an im 
 mediate discussion and arrangement of an ar 
 ticle on that subject." Thus it has left the door 
 of negotiation unclosed, and it remains to be 
 seen if the enemy will accept the invitation ten 
 dered to him. The honorable gentleman from 
 North Carolina [Mr. Pearson] supposes that 
 if Congress would pass a law prohibiting the 
 employment of British seamen in our service, 
 upon condition of a like prohibition on their 
 part, and repeal the act of non-importation, 
 peace would immediately follow. Sir, I have 
 no doubt, if such a law were to pass, with all 
 the requisite solemnities, and the repeal to 
 take place, Lord Castlereagh would laugh at 
 our simplicity. No, sir, the administration has 
 erred in the steps which it has taken to restore 
 peace, but its error has been, not in doing too 
 little, but in betraying too great a solicitude 
 for that event. An honorable peace is attain 
 able only by an efficient war. My plan would 
 be to call out the ample resources of the coun 
 try, give them a judicious direction, prosecute 
 the war with the utmost vigor, strike wherever 
 we can reach the enemy, at sea or on land, and 
 negotiate the terms of a peace at Quebec or 
 at Halifax. We are told that England is a 
 proud and lofty nation, which, disdaining to 
 wait for danger, meets it half-way. Haughty 
 as she is, we once triumphed over her, and if 
 we do not listen to the counsels of timidity 
 104 
 
Clap 
 
 and despair, we shall again prevail. In such 
 a cause, with the aid of Providence, we must 
 come out crowned with success; but if we fail, 
 let us fail like men, lash ourselves to our gal 
 lant tars, and expire together in one common 
 struggle, righting for free trade and seamen s 
 rights. 
 
 105 
 
Daniel 
 
 (1782-1852) 
 
 THE REPLY TO HAYNE 
 
 [Delivered January 26, 1830, in the Senate.] 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT: 
 
 WHEN the mariner has been tossed 
 for many days in thick weather, and 
 on an unknown sea, he naturally 
 avails himself of the first pause in the storm, 
 the earliest glance of the sun, to take his lati 
 tude, and ascertain how far the elements have 
 driven him from his true course. Let us imi 
 tate this prudence, and, before we float far 
 ther on the waves of this debate, refer to the 
 point from which we departed, that we may 
 at least be able to conjecture where we now 
 are. I ask for the reading of the resolution 
 before the Senate. 
 
 [The secretary read the resolution, as follows : 
 "Resolved, that the Committee on Public Lands 
 be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of 
 public lands remaining unsold within each state 
 and territory, and whether it be expedient to limit 
 for a certain period the sales of the public lands to 
 such lands only as have heretofore been offered for 
 sale and are now subject to entry at the minimum 
 price; and also, whether the office of surveyor- 
 general, and some of the land offices, may not be 
 abolished without detriment to the public interest; 
 107 
 
jftemorafcle American 
 
 or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to 
 hasten the sales and extend more rapidly the surveys 
 of the public lands."] 
 
 We have thus heard, sir, what the resolu 
 tion is which is actually before us for consid 
 eration ; and it will readily occur to every one, 
 that it is almost the only subject about which 
 something has not been said in the speech, 
 running through two days, by which the Sen 
 ate has been entertained by the gentleman 
 from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide 
 range of our public affairs, whether past or 
 present, everything, general or local, wheth 
 er belonging to national politics or party poli 
 tics, seems to have attracted more or less of 
 the honorable member s attention, save only 
 the resolution before the Senate. He has 
 spoken of everything but the public lands; 
 they have escaped his notice. To that sub 
 ject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even 
 the cold respect of a passing glance. 
 
 When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, 
 on Thursday morning, it so happened that it 
 would have been convenient for me to be else 
 where. The honorable member, however, did 
 not incline to put off the discussion to another 
 day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and 
 he wished to discharge it. That shot, sir, 
 which he thus kindly informed us was coming, 
 that we might stand out of the way, or prepare 
 ourselves to fall by it and die with decency, 
 has now been received. Under all advantages, 
 108 
 
2Daniel 
 
 and with expectation awakened by the tone 
 which preceded it, it has been discharged, and 
 has spent its force. It may become me to say 
 no more of its effect than that, if nobody is 
 found, after all, either killed or wounded, it 
 is not the first time in the history of human 
 affairs that the vigor and success of the war 
 have not quite come up to the lofty and sound 
 ing phrase of the manifesto. 
 
 The gentleman, sir, in declining to post 
 pone the debate, told the Senate, with the em 
 phasis of his hand upon his heart, that there 
 was something rankling here, which he wished 
 to relieve. [Mr. Hayne rose, and disclaimed 
 having used the word "rankling."] It would 
 not, Mr. President, be safe for the honorable 
 member to appeal to those around him, upon 
 the question whether he did in fact make use 
 of that word. But he may have been uncon 
 scious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he 
 disclaims it. But still, with or without the 
 use of that particular word, he had yet some 
 thing here, he said, of which he wished to rid 
 himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, 
 sir, I have a great advantage over the honor 
 able gentleman. There is nothing here, sir, 
 which gives me the slightest uneasiness; 
 neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is 
 sometimes more troublesome than either, the 
 consciousness of having been in the wrong. 
 There is nothing either originating here or 
 now received here by the gentleman s shot. 
 109 
 
American 
 
 Nothing originating here, for I had not the 
 slightest feeling of unkindness towards the hon 
 orable member. Some passages, it is true, had 
 occurred since our acquaintance in this body, 
 which I could have wished might have been 
 otherwise; but I had used philosophy and for 
 gotten them. I paid the honorable member 
 the attention of listening with respect to his 
 first speech; and when he sat down, though 
 surprised, and I must even say astonished, at 
 some of his opinions, nothing was farther from 
 my intention than to commence any personal 
 warfare. Through the whole of the few remarks 
 I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and 
 carefully, everything which I thought possible 
 to be construed into disrespect. And, sir, 
 while there is thus nothing originating here 
 which I have wished at any time, or now wish, 
 to discharge, I must repeat, also, that nothing 
 has been received here which rankles^ or in 
 any way gives me annoyance. I will not ac 
 cuse the honorable member of violating the 
 rules of civilized war; I will not say that he 
 poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts 
 were or were not dipped in that which would 
 have caused rankling if they had reached their 
 destination, there was not, as it happened, quite 
 strength enough in the bow to bring them to 
 their mark. If he wishes now to gather up 
 those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; 
 they will not be found fixed and quivering in 
 the object at which they were aimed. 
 no 
 
JBaniel 
 
 The honorable member complained that I 
 had slept on his speech. I must have slept on 
 it, or not slept at all. The moment the hon 
 orable member sat down, his friend from 
 Missouri rose, and, with much honeyed com 
 mendation of the speech, suggested that the 
 impressions which it had produced were too 
 charming and delightful to be disturbed by 
 other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed 
 that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have 
 been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this 
 excellent good feeling ? Must I not have been 
 absolutely malicious, if I could have thrust my 
 self forward, to destroy sensations thus pleas 
 ing ? Was it not much better and kinder, both 
 to sleep upon them myself and allow others 
 also the pleasure of sleeping upon them ? But 
 if it be meant, by sleeping upon his speech, 
 that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it 
 is quite a mistake. Owing to other engage 
 ments, I could not employ even the interval 
 between the adjournment of the Senate and 
 its meeting the next morning, in attention 
 to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless, 
 sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true. 
 I did sleep on the gentleman s speech, and 
 slept soundly. And I slept equally well on 
 his speech of yesterday, to which I am now 
 replying. It is quite possible that in this 
 respect, also, I possess some advantage over 
 the honorable member, attributable, doubtless, 
 to a cooler temperament on my part; for in 
 in 
 
American 
 
 truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably 
 well. 
 
 But the gentleman inquires why he was made 
 the object of such a reply. Why was he sin 
 gled out? If an attack has been made on the 
 East, he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was 
 made by the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, 
 I answered the gentleman s speech because I 
 happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose 
 to give an answer to that speech, which, if un 
 answered, I thought most likely to produce in 
 jurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire 
 who was the original drawer of the bill. I 
 found a responsible indorser before me, and 
 it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to 
 bring him to his just responsibility without 
 delay. But, sir, this interrogatory of the hon 
 orable member was only introductory to an 
 other. He proceeded to ask me whether I 
 had turned upon him, in this debate, from the 
 consciousness that I should find an overmatch, 
 if I ventured on a contest with his friend 
 from Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member, 
 modestia gratia, had chosen thus to defer to 
 his friend, and to pay him a compliment with 
 out intentional disparagement to others, it 
 would have been quite according to the friendly 
 courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful 
 to my own feelings. I am not one of those, 
 sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether 
 light and occasional, or more serious and 
 deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as 
 112 
 
2Daniel Wtbgttt 
 
 so much unjustly withholden from themselves. 
 But the tone and manner of the gentleman s 
 question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am 
 not at liberty to consider it as nothing more 
 than a civility to his friend. It had an air 
 of taunt arid disparagement, something of the 
 loftiness of asserted superiority, which does 
 not allow me to pass it over without notice. 
 It was put as a question for me to answer, 
 and so put as if it were difficult for me to 
 answer, whether I deemed the member from 
 Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate 
 here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraor 
 dinary language and an extraordinary tone, 
 for the discussions of this body. 
 
 Matches and overmatches! Those terms 
 are more applicable elsewhere than here, and 
 fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the 
 gentleman seems to forget where and what we 
 are. This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of 
 men of individual honor and personal charac 
 ter, and of absolute independence. We know 
 no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. 
 This is a hall for mutual consultation and dis 
 cussion; not an arena for the exhibition of 
 champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for 
 no man; I throw the challenge of debate at no 
 man s feet. But then, sir, since the honorable 
 member has put the question in a manner 
 that calls for an answer, I will give him an 
 answer; and I tell him, that, holding myself to 
 be the humblest of the members here, I yet 
 "3 
 
American 
 
 know nothing in the arm of his friend from 
 Missouri, either alone or when aided by the 
 arm of his friend from South Carolina, that 
 need deter even me from espousing whatever 
 opinions I may choose to espouse, from de 
 bating whenever I may choose to debate, or 
 from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, 
 on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered 
 as matter of commendation or compliment, I 
 should dissent from nothing which the honor 
 able member might say of his friend. Still 
 less do I put forth any pretensions of my own. 
 But when put to me as matter of taunt, I throw 
 it back, and say to the gentleman, that he 
 could possibly say nothing less likely than such 
 a comparison to wound my pride of personal 
 character. The anger of its tone rescued the 
 remark from intentional irony, which other 
 wise, probably, would have been its general ac 
 ceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by 
 this mutual quotation and commendation; if it 
 be supposed that, by casting the characters of 
 the drama, assigning to each his part, to one 
 the attack, to another the cry of onset; or 
 if it be thought that, by a loud and empty 
 vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to 
 be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that 
 any or all these things will shake any purpose 
 of mine, I can tell the honorable member, 
 once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and 
 that he is dealing with one of whose temper 
 and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, 
 114 
 
2Daniri Wtbgttt 
 
 I shall not allow myself, on this occasion, I 
 hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into any 
 loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I 
 never shall be, into crimination and recrimina 
 tion, the honorable member may perhaps find 
 that, in that contest, there will be blows to 
 take as well as blows to give; that others can 
 state comparisons as significant, at least, as 
 his own, and that his impunity may possibly 
 demand of him whatever powers of taunt and 
 sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to 
 a prudent husbandry of his resources. 
 
 But, sir, the Coalition ! The Coalition ! Ay, 
 "the murdered Coalition!" The gentleman 
 asks if I were led or frighted into this debate 
 by the specter of the Coalition. "Was it 
 the ghost of the murdered Coalition," he ex 
 claims, "which haunted the member from 
 Massachusetts, and which, like the ghost of 
 Ban quo, would never down ? " "The murdered 
 Coalition ! " Sir, this charge of a coalition, in 
 reference to the late administration, is not ori 
 ginal with the honorable member. It did not 
 spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, 
 as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all 
 borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very 
 low origin, and a still lower present condition. 
 It is one of the thousand calumnies with which 
 the press teemed during an excited political 
 canvass. It was a charge of which there was 
 not only no proof or probability, but which 
 was in itself wholly impossible to be true. No 
 
American 
 
 man of common information ever believed a 
 syllable of it. Yet it was of that class of false 
 hoods, which, by continued repetition, through 
 all the organs of detraction and abuse, are ca 
 pable of misleading those who are already far 
 misled, and of further fanning passion already 
 kindling into flame. Doubtless it served in its 
 day, and in greater or less degree, the end de 
 signed by it. Having done that, it has sunk 
 into the general mass of stale and loathed cal 
 umnies. It is the very cast-off slough of a 
 polluted and shameless press. Incapable of 
 further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless 
 and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power 
 of the honorable member to give it dignity 
 or decency, by attempting to elevate it, and 
 to introduce it into the Senate. He cannot 
 change it from what it is, an object of general 
 disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the con 
 tact, if he choose to touch it, is more likely to 
 drag him down, down, to the place where it 
 lies itself. 
 
 But, sir, the honorable member was not, 
 for other reasons, entirely happy in his allusion 
 to the story of Banquo s murder and Banquo s 
 ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but 
 the enemies, of the murdered Banquo at whose 
 bidding his spirit would not down. The hon 
 orable gentleman is fresh in his reading of the 
 English classics, and can put me right if I 
 am wrong; but, according to my poor recol 
 lection, it was at those who had begun with 
 116 
 
Daniel 
 
 caresses and ended with foul and treacherous 
 murder that the gory locks were shaken. 
 The ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, 
 was an honest ghost. It disturbed no inno 
 cent man. It knew where its appearance 
 would strike terror, and who would cry out, 
 A ghost! It made itself visible in the right 
 quarter, and compelled the guilty and the con 
 science-smitten, and none others, to start, 
 with, 
 
 " Pr ythee, see there! behold! lookl lo! 
 If I stand here, I saw him. " 
 
 Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, 
 sir?) who had thought to shield themselves 
 by concealing their own hand, and laying the 
 imputation of the crime on a low and hireling 
 agency in wickedness; who had vainly at 
 tempted to stifle the workings of their own 
 coward consciences by ejaculating through 
 white lips and chattering teeth, "Thou canst 
 not say I did it ! " I have misread the great 
 poet if those who had no way partaken in the 
 deed of the death, either found that they were, 
 or fear that they should be, pushed from their 
 stools by the ghost of the slain, or exclaimed 
 to a specter created by their own fears and 
 their own remorse, "Avaunt ! and quit our 
 sight ! " 
 
 There is another particular, sir, in which 
 
 the honorable member s quick perception of 
 
 resemblances might, I should think, have seen 
 
 something in the story of Banquo making it 
 
 117 
 
American 
 
 not altogether a subject of the most pleasant 
 contemplation. Those who murdered Banquo, 
 what did they win by it ? Substantial good ? 
 Permanent power ? Or disappointment, rather, 
 and sore mortification, dust and ashes, the 
 common fate of vaulting ambition overleaping 
 itself? Did not even-handed justice erelong 
 commend the poisoned chalice to their own 
 lips ? Did they not soon find that for another 
 they had "filed their mind"? that their am 
 bition, though apparently for the moment suc 
 cessful, had but put a barren scepter in their 
 grasp ? Ay, sir, 
 
 "A barren scepter in their gripe, 
 Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, 
 No son of theirs succeeding." 
 
 Sir, I need pursue the allusion no farther. 
 I leave the honorable gentleman to run it out at 
 his leisure, and to derive from it all the grati 
 fication it is calculated to administer. If he 
 finds himself pleased with the associations, 
 and prepared to be quite satisfied, though the 
 parallel should be entirely completed, I had 
 almost said, I am satisfied also; but that I shall 
 think of. Yes, sir, I will think of that. 
 
 In the course of my observations the other 
 day, Mr. President, I paid a passing tribute of 
 respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane of 
 Massachusetts. It so happened that he drew 
 the Ordinance of 1787, for the government 
 of the Northwestern Territory. A man of so 
 much ability, and so little pretense; of so 
 118 
 
Daniel 
 
 great a capacity to do good, and so unmixed 
 a disposition to do it for its own sake; a 
 gentleman who had acted an important part, 
 forty years ago, in a measure the influence of 
 which is still deeply felt in the very matter 
 which was the subject of debate, might, I 
 thought, receive from me a commendatory 
 recognition. But the honorable member was 
 inclined to be facetious on the subject. He 
 was rather disposed to make it matter of ridi 
 cule, that I had introduced into the debate 
 the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he 
 assures us he had never before heard. Sir, 
 if the honorable member had never before 
 heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry for it. It 
 shows him less acquainted with the public 
 men of the country than I had supposed. Let 
 me tell him, however, that a sneer from him 
 at the mention of the name of Mr. Dane is in 
 bad taste. It may well be a high mark of ambi 
 tion, sir, either with the honorable gentleman 
 or myself, to accomplish as much to make our 
 names known to advantage and remembered 
 with gratitude, as Mr. Dane has accomplished. 
 But the truth is, sir, I suspect, that Mr. Dane 
 lives a little too far north. He is of Massa 
 chusetts, and too near the north star to be 
 reached by the honorable gentleman s tele 
 scope. If his sphere had happened to range 
 south of Mason and Dixon s line, he might, 
 probably, have come within the scope of his 
 vision. 
 
 119 
 
American 
 
 I spoke, sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, 
 which prohibits slavery, in all future times, 
 northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great 
 wisdom and foresight, and one which had 
 been attended with highly beneficial and per 
 manent consequences. I suppose that, on this 
 point, no two gentlemen in the Senate could 
 entertain different opinions. But the simple 
 expression of this sentiment has led the gen 
 tleman not only into a labored defense of 
 slavery, in the abstract and on principle, but 
 also into a warm accusation against me, as 
 having attacked the system of domestic slav 
 ery now existing in the Southern States. For 
 all this, there was not the slightest founda 
 tion, in anything said or intimated by me. I 
 did not utter a single word which any ingenu 
 ity could torture into an attack on the slav 
 ery of the South. I said, only, that it was 
 highly wise and useful, in legislating for the 
 Northwestern country while it was yet a wild 
 erness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves; 
 and I added, that I presumed there was no 
 reflecting and intelligent person, in the neigh 
 boring state of Kentucky, who would doubt 
 that, if the same prohibition had been extend 
 ed, at the same early period, over that com 
 monwealth, her strength and population would, 
 at this day, have been far greater than they 
 are. If these opinions be thought doubtful, 
 they are nevertheless, I trust, neither extraor 
 dinary nor disrespectful. They attack nobody 
 
 120 
 
2DanieI 
 
 and menace nobody. And yet, sir, the gentle 
 man s optics have discovered, even in the mere 
 expression of this sentiment, what he calls the 
 very spirit of the Missouri question ! He rep 
 resents me as making an onset on the whole 
 South, and manifesting a spirit which would 
 interfere with and disturb their domestic con 
 dition ! 
 
 Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises 
 me than as it is committed here, and commit 
 ted without the slightest pretense of ground 
 for it. I say it only surprises me as being 
 done here; for I know full well that it is, 
 and has been, the settled policy of some per 
 sons in the South, for years, to represent the 
 people of the North as disposed to interfere 
 with them in their own exclusive and peculiar 
 concerns. This is a delicate and sensitive 
 point in Southern feeling; and of late years it 
 has always been touched, and generally with 
 effect, whenever the object has been to unite 
 the whole South against Northern men or 
 Northern measures. This feeling, always care 
 fully kept alive, and maintained at too intense 
 a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is 
 a lever of great power in our political ma 
 chine. It moves vast bodies, and gives to 
 them one and the same direction. But it is 
 without adequate cause, and the suspicion 
 which exists is wholly groundless. There is 
 not, and never has been, a disposition in the 
 North to interfere with these interests of the 
 121 
 
American 
 
 South. Such interference has never been 
 supposed to be within the power of govern 
 ment; nor has it been in any way attempted. 
 The slavery of the South has always been re 
 garded as a matter of domestic policy, left 
 with the states themselves, and with which 
 the federal government had nothing to do. 
 Certainly, sir, I am, and ever have been, of that 
 opinion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that 
 slavery, in the abstract, is no evil. Most assur 
 edly I need not say I differ with him, altogether 
 and most widely, on that point. I regard do 
 mestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, 
 both moral and political. But whether it be a 
 malady, and whether it be curable, and if so, 
 by what means ; or, on the other hand, whether 
 it be the vulnus immedicabile of the social sys 
 tem, I leave it to those whose right and duty it 
 is to inquire and to decide. And this, I believe, 
 sir, is, and uniformly has been, the sentiment 
 of the North. Let us look a little at the his 
 tory of this matter. 
 
 When the present Constitution was submit 
 ted for the ratification of the people, there 
 were those who imagined that the powers of 
 the government which it proposed to establish 
 might, in some possible mode, be exerted in 
 measures tending to the abolition of slavery. 
 This suggestion would of course attract much 
 attention in the Southern conventions. In that 
 of Virginia, Governor Randolph said : 
 
 "I hope there is none here, who, considering 
 122 
 
SDaniei 
 
 the subject in the calm light of philosophy, 
 will make an objection dishonorable to Vir 
 ginia; that, at the moment they are securing 
 the rights of their citizens, an objection is 
 started, that there is a spark of hope that 
 those unfortunate men now held in bondage 
 may, by the operation of the general govern 
 ment, be made free." 
 
 At the very first Congress, petitions on the 
 subject were presented, if I mistake not, 
 from different states. The Pennsylvania soci 
 ety from promoting the abolition of slavery took 
 a lead, and laid before Congress a memorial, 
 praying Congress to promote the abolition by 
 such powers as it possessed. This memorial 
 was referred, in the House of Representatives, 
 to a select committee, consisting of Mr. Foster 
 of New Hampshire, Mr. Gerry of Mas 
 sachusetts, Mr. Huntington of Connecticut, 
 Mr. Lawrence of New York, Mr. Sinnickson 
 of New Jersey, Mr. Hartley of Pennsylvania, 
 and Mr. Parker of Virginia; all of them, sir, 
 as you will observe, Northern men but the 
 last. This committee made a report, which 
 was referred to a committee of the whole 
 house, and there considered and discussed for 
 several days; and being amended, although 
 without material alteration, it was made to 
 express three distinct propositions on the sub 
 ject of slavery and the slave-trade. First, in 
 the words of the Constitution, that Congress 
 could not, prior to the year 1808, prohibit the 
 123 
 
American 
 
 migration or importation of such persons as 
 any of the states then existing should think 
 proper to admit; and secondly, that Congress 
 had authority to restrain the citizens of the 
 United States from carrying on the African 
 slave-trade, for the purpose of supplying for 
 eign countries. On this proposition, our early 
 laws against those who engage in that traffic 
 are founded. The third proposition, and that 
 which bears on the present question, was ex 
 pressed in the following terms : 
 
 "Resolved, that Congress have no authority 
 to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or 
 in the treatment of them in any of the states; 
 it remaining with the several states alone to 
 provide rules and regulations therein which 
 humanity and true policy may require." 
 
 This resolution received the sanction of the 
 House of Representatives so early as March, 
 1790. And now, sir, the honorable member 
 will allow me to remind him, that not only 
 were the select committee who reported the 
 resolution, with a single exception, all Northern 
 men, but also that, of the members then com 
 posing the House of Representatives, a large 
 majority, I believe nearly two-thirds, were 
 Northern men also. 
 
 The House agreed to insert these resolutions 
 in its journal, and from that day to this it has 
 never been maintained or contended at the 
 North, that Congress had any authority to 
 regulate or interfere with the condition of 
 124 
 
SDaniel 
 
 slaves in the several states. No Northern 
 gentleman, to my knowledge, has moved any 
 such question in either house of Congress. 
 
 The fears of the South, whatever fears they 
 might have entertained, were allayed and quiet 
 ed by this early decision; and so remained till 
 they were excited afresh, without cause, but 
 for collateral and indirect purposes. 
 
 When it became necessary, or was thought 
 so by some political persons, to find an unvary 
 ing ground for the exclusion of Northern men 
 from confidence and from lead in the affairs 
 of the republic, then, and not till then, the cry 
 was raised, and the feeling industriously excited, 
 that the influence of Northern men in public 
 counsels would endanger the relation of mas 
 ter and slave. For myself, I claim no other 
 merit than that this gross and enormous injus 
 tice towards the whole North has not wrought 
 upon me to change my opinions or my political 
 conduct. I hope I am above violating my prin 
 ciples, even under the smart of injury and false 
 imputations. Unjust suspicions and unde 
 served reproach, whatever pain I may experi 
 ence from them, will not induce me, I trust, to 
 overstep the limits of constitutional duty, or to 
 encroach on the rights of others. The domes 
 tic slavery of the Southern States I leave where 
 I find it, in the hands of their own govern 
 ments. It is their affair, not mine. Nor do 
 I complain of the peculiar effect which the 
 magnitude of that population has had in the 
 125 
 
American 
 
 distribution of power under this federal gov 
 ernment. We know, sir, that the represen 
 tation of the states in the other house is not 
 equal. We know that great advantage in that 
 respect is enjoyed by the slave-holding states; 
 and we know, too, that the intended equivalent 
 for that advantage, that is to say, the imposition 
 of direct taxes in the same ratio, has become 
 merely nominal, the habit of the government 
 being almost invariably to collect its revenue 
 from other sources and in other modes. Nev 
 ertheless, I do not complain; nor would I 
 countenance any movement to alter this ar 
 rangement of representation. It is the original 
 bargain, the compact; let it stand; let the 
 advantage of it be fully enjoyed. The Union 
 itself is too full of benefit to be hazarded in 
 propositions for changing its original basis. I 
 go for the Constitution as it is, and for the 
 Union as it is. But I am resolved not to sub 
 mit in silence to accusations, either against 
 myself individually or against the North, wholly 
 unfounded and unjust, accusations which im 
 pute to us a disposition to evade the constitu 
 tional compact, and to extend the power of the 
 government over the internal laws and domestic 
 condition of the states. All such accusations, 
 wherever and whenever made, all insinuations 
 of the existence of any such purposes, I know 
 and feel to be groundless and injurious. 
 
 And we must confide in Southern gentlemen 
 themselves; we must trust to those whose 
 126 
 
2Daniel 
 
 integrity of heart and magnanimity of feel 
 ing will lead them to a desire to maintain 
 and disseminate truth, and who possess the 
 means of its diffusion with the Southern pub 
 lic ; we must leave it to them to disabuse that 
 public of its prejudices. But in the mean time, 
 for my own part, I shall continue to act justly, 
 whether those towards whom justice is exer 
 cised receive it with candor or with con 
 tumely. 
 
 Having had occasion to recur to the Ordi 
 nance of 1/87, in order to defend myself 
 against the inferences which the honorable 
 member has chosen to draw, from my former 
 observations on that subject, I am not willing 
 now entirely to take leave of it without another 
 remark. It need hardly be said that that pa 
 per expresses just sentiments on the great 
 subject of civil and religious liberty. Such 
 sentiments were common, and abound in all 
 our state papers of that day. But this Or 
 dinance did that which was not so common, 
 and which is not even now universal; that is, 
 it set forth and declared it to be a high and 
 binding duty of government itself to support 
 schools and advance the means of education, 
 on the plain reason that religion, morality, 
 and knowledge are necessary to good govern 
 ment, and to the happiness of mankind. One 
 observation further. The important provision 
 incorporated into the Constitution of the Unit 
 ed States, and into several of those of the 
 127 
 
jftemorafcle American 
 
 states, and recently, as we have seen, adopted 
 into the reformed constitution of Virginia, 
 restraining legislative power in questions of 
 private right, and from impairing the obligation 
 of contracts, is first introduced and established, 
 as far as I am informed, as matter of express 
 written constitutional law, in this Ordinance 
 of 1/87. And I must add, also, in regard to 
 the author of the Ordinance, who has not had 
 the happiness to attract the gentleman s notice 
 heretofore, nor to avoid his sarcasm now, 
 that he was chairman of that select committee 
 of the old Congress, whose report first ex 
 pressed the strong sense of that body, that 
 the old Confederation was not adequate to the 
 exigencies of the country, and recommended 
 to the states to send delegates to the conven 
 tion which formed the present Contitution. 
 
 An attempt has been made to transfer from 
 the North to the South the honor of this 
 exclusion of slavery from the Northwestern 
 Territory. The journal, without argument or 
 comment, refutes such attempts. The cession 
 by Virginia was made in March, 1784. On the 
 1 9th of April following, a committee, consist 
 ing of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase, and Howell, 
 reported a plan for a temporary govern 
 ment of the territory, in which was this article: 
 "That, after the year 1800, there shall be nei 
 ther slavery nor involuntary servitude in any 
 of the said states, otherwise than in punish 
 ment of crimes whereof the party shall have 
 128 
 
Daniel 
 
 been convicted." Mr. Spaight of North Caro 
 lina moved to strike out this paragraph. The 
 question was put, according to the form then 
 practiced, "Shall these words stand as part of 
 the plan?" New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
 Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
 Jersey, and Pennsylvania, seven states, voted in 
 the affirmative; Maryland, Virginia, and South 
 Carolina, in the negative. North Carolina was 
 divided. As the consent of nine states was 
 necessary, the words could not stand, and were 
 struck out accordingly. Mr. Jefferson voted 
 for the clause, but was overruled by his col 
 leagues. 
 
 In March of the next year (1/85), Mr. King 
 of Massachusetts, seconded by Mr. Ellery of 
 Rhode Island, proposed the formerly rejected 
 article, with this addition: "And that this reg 
 ulation shall be an article of compact, and 
 remain a fundamental principle of the con 
 stitutions between the thirteen original states, 
 and each of the states described in the re 
 solve." On this clause, which provided the 
 adequate and thorough security, the eight 
 Northern States at that time voted affirmative 
 ly, and the four Southern States negatively. 
 The votes of nine states were not yet ob 
 tained, and thus the provision was again 
 rejected by the Southern States. The perse 
 verance of the North held out, and two years 
 afterwards the object was attained. It is no 
 derogation from the credit, whatever that 
 129 
 
American 
 
 may be, of drawing the Ordinance, that its 
 principles had before been prepared and dis 
 cussed, in the form of resolutions. If one 
 should reason in that way, what would be 
 come of the distinguished honor of the author 
 of the Declaration of Independence ? There 
 is not a sentiment in that paper which had 
 not been voted and resolved in the assemblies 
 and other popular bodies in the country, over 
 and over again. 
 
 But the honorable member has now found 
 out that this gentleman, Mr. Dane, was a 
 member of the Hartford Convention. How 
 ever uninformed the honorable member may 
 be of characters and occurrences at the North, 
 it would seem that he has at his elbow, on this 
 occasion, some high-minded and lofty spirit, 
 some magnanimous and true-hearted monitor, 
 possessing the means of local knowledge, and 
 ready to supply the honorable member with 
 everything, down even to forgotten and moth- 
 eaten twopenny pamphlets, which may be 
 used to the disadvantage of his own country. 
 But as to the Hartford Convention, sir, allow 
 me to say, that the proceedings of that body 
 seem now to be less read and studied in New 
 England than farther south. They appear to 
 be looked to, not in New England, but else 
 where, for the purpose of seeing how far they 
 may serve as a precedent. But they will not 
 answer the purpose; they are quite too tame. 
 The latitude in which they originated was too 
 130 
 
2Daniel Wtbgttt 
 
 cold. Other conventions, of more recent ex 
 istence, have gone a whole bar s length beyond 
 it. The learned doctors of Colleton and Abbe 
 ville have pushed their commentaries on the 
 Hartford collect so far, that the original text- 
 writers are thrown entirely into the shade. 
 I have nothing to do, sir, with the Hartford 
 Convention. Its journal, which the gentle 
 man has quoted, I never read. So far as 
 the honorable member may discover in its 
 proceedings a spirit in any degree resembling 
 that which was avowed and justified in those 
 other conventions to which I have alluded, or 
 so far as those proceedings can be shown to 
 be disloyal to the Constitution, or tending 
 to disunion, as far I shall be as ready as 
 any one to bestow on them reprehension and 
 censure. 
 
 Having dwelt long on this convention, and 
 other occurrences of that day, in the hope, 
 probably (which will not be gratified), that I 
 should leave the course of this debate to follow 
 him at length in those excursions, the honorable 
 member returned, and attempted another ob 
 ject. He referred to a speech of mine in the 
 other house, the same which I had occasion to 
 allude to myself, the other day; and has quoted 
 a passage or two from it, with a bold, though 
 uneasy and laboring, air of confidence, as if he 
 had detected in me an inconsistency. Judg 
 ing from the gentleman s manner, a stranger 
 to the course of the debate and to the point 
 
American 
 
 in discussion would have imagined, from so 
 triumphant a tone, that the honorable member 
 was about to overwhelm me with a manifest 
 contradiction. Any one who heard him, and 
 who had not heard what I had, in fact, previ 
 ously said, must have thought me routed and 
 discomfited, as the gentleman had promised. 
 Sir, a breath blows all this triumph away. 
 There is not the slightest difference in the 
 purport of my remarks on the two occasions. 
 What I said here on Wednesday is in exact 
 accordance with the opinion expressed by me 
 in the other house in 1825. Though the gen 
 tleman had the metaphysics of Hudibras, 
 though he were able 
 
 " To sever and divide 
 A hair twixt north and northwest side," 
 
 he could yet not insert his metaphysical scis 
 sors between the fair reading of my remarks 
 in 1825 and what I said here last week. There 
 is not only no contradiction, no difference, but, 
 in truth, too exact a similarity, both in thought 
 and language, to be entirely in just taste. 
 I had myself quoted the same speech; had re 
 curred to it, and spoke with it open before me; 
 and much of what I said was little more than 
 a repetition from it. In order to make finish 
 ing work with this alleged contradiction, per 
 mit me to recur to the origin of this debate, and 
 review its course. This seems expedient, and 
 may be done as well now as at any time. 
 Well, then, its history is this: The honor- 
 132 
 
2DanieI 
 
 able member from Connecticut moved a reso 
 lution, which constitutes the first branch of 
 that which is before us ; that is to say, a reso 
 lution instructing the committee on public 
 lands to inquire into the expediency of limit 
 ing, for a certain period, the sales of the public 
 lands, to such as have heretofore been offered 
 for sale; and whether sundry offices connected 
 with the sales of the lands might not be 
 abolished without detriment to the public ser 
 vice. In the progress of the discussion which 
 arose on this resolution, an honorable member 
 from New Hampshire moved to amend the 
 resolution, so as entirely to reverse its object; 
 that is, to strike it all out, and insert a direc 
 tion to the committee to inquire into the 
 expediency of adopting measures to hasten 
 the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys, 
 of the lands. 
 
 The honorable member from Maine sug 
 gested that both those propositions might 
 well enough go for consideration to the com 
 mittee; and in this state of the question, the 
 member from South Carolina addressed the 
 Senate in his first speech. He rose, he said, 
 to give us his own free thoughts on the public 
 lands. I saw him rise with pleasure, and 
 listened with expectation, though before he 
 concluded I was filled with surprise. Certainly, 
 I was never more surprised than to find him 
 following up, to the extent he did, the senti 
 ments and opinions which the gentleman from 
 
American 
 
 Missouri had put forth, and which it is known 
 he has long entertained. 
 
 I need not repeat at large the general topics 
 of the honorable gentleman s speech. When 
 he said yesterday that he did not attack the 
 Eastern states, he certainly must have forgot 
 ten not only particular remarks, but the whole 
 drift and tenor of his speech; unless he 
 means by not attacking, that he did not com 
 mence hostilities, but that another had preceded 
 him in the attack. He, in the first place, 
 disapproved of the whole course of the govern 
 ment, for forty years, in regard to its disposi 
 tion of the public lands; and then, turning 
 northward and eastward, and fancying he had 
 found a cause for alleged narrowness and 
 niggardliness in the "accursed policy " of the 
 tariff, to which he represented the people of 
 New England as wedded, he went on for a 
 full hour with remarks the whole scope of 
 which was to exhibit the results of this policy, 
 in feelings and in measures unfavorable to the 
 West. I thought his opinions unfounded and 
 erroneous, as to the general course of the gov 
 ernment, and venture to reply to them. 
 
 The gentleman had remarked on the anal 
 ogy of other cases, and quoted the conduct of 
 European governments towards their own sub 
 jects settling on this continent, as in point, to 
 show that we had been harsh and rigid in sell 
 ing, when we should have given the public 
 lands to settlers without price. I thought the 
 134 
 
2Danid 
 
 honorable member had suffered his judgment 
 to be betrayed by a false analogy ; that he was 
 struck with an appearance of resemblance 
 where there was no real similitude. I think 
 so still. The first settlers of North America 
 were enterprising spirits, engaged in private 
 adventure, or fleeing from tyranny at home. 
 When arrived here, they were forgotten by 
 the mother country, or remembered only to be 
 oppressed. Carried away again by the appear 
 ance of analogy, or struck with the eloquence 
 of the passage, the honorable member yester 
 day observed, that the conduct of government 
 towards the Western emigrants, or my repre 
 sentation of it, brought to his mind a cele 
 brated speech in the British Parliament. It 
 was, sir, the speech of Colonel Barre. On the 
 question of the stamp act, or tea tax, I forget 
 which, Colonel Barre had heard a member on 
 the treasury bench argue that the people of 
 the United States, being British colonists, 
 planted by the maternal care, nourished by the 
 indulgence and protected by the arms of Eng 
 land, would not grudge their mite to relieve the 
 mother country from the heavy burden under 
 which she groaned. The language of Colonel 
 Barre, in reply to this, was : "They planted by 
 your care ? Your oppression planted them in 
 America. They fled from your tyranny, and 
 grew by your neglect of them. So soon as you 
 began to care for them, you showed your care 
 by sending persons to spy out their liberties, 
 135 
 
American 
 
 misrepresent their character, prey upon them, 
 and eat out their substance." 
 
 And how does the honorable gentleman 
 mean to maintain that language like this is 
 applicable to the conduct of the government 
 of the United States towards the Western emi 
 grants, or to any representation given by me of 
 that conduct ? Were the settlers in the West 
 driven thither by our oppression ? Have they 
 flourished only by our neglect of them ? Has 
 the government done nothing but prey upon 
 them, and eat out their substance ? Sir, this 
 fervid eloquence of the British speaker, just 
 when and where it was uttered, and fit to re 
 main an exercise for the schools, is not a little 
 out of place, when it is brought thence to be 
 applied here to the conduct of our own country 
 towards her own citizens. From America to 
 England, it may be true; from Americans to 
 their own government, it would be strange 
 language. Let us leave it, to be recited and 
 declaimed by our boys against a foreign na 
 tion; not introduce it here, to recite and de 
 claim ourselves against our own. 
 
 But I come to the point of the alleged con 
 tradiction. In my remark on Wednesday, I 
 contended that we could not give away gratui 
 tously all the public lands; that we held them 
 in trust; that the government had solemnly 
 pledged itself to dispose of them as a common 
 fund for the common benefit, and to sell and 
 settle them as its discretion should dictate. 
 136 
 
2Daniel 
 
 Now, sir, what contradiction does the gentle 
 man find to this sentiment in the speech of 
 1825? He quotes me as having then said that 
 we ought not to hug these lands as a very great 
 treasure. Very well, sir; supposing me to be 
 accurately reported in that expression, what is 
 the contradiction? I have not now said that 
 we should hug these lands as a favorite source 
 of pecuniary income. No such thing. It is 
 not my view. What I have said, and what I 
 do say, is, that they are a common fund, to be 
 disposed of for the common benefit, to be sold 
 at low prices for the accommodation of settlers, 
 keeping the object of settling the lands as much 
 in view as that of raising money from them. 
 This I say now, and this I have always said. 
 Is this hugging them as a favorite treasure? 
 Is there no difference between hugging and 
 hoarding this fund, on the one hand, as a great 
 treasure, and, on the other, of disposing of it at 
 low prices, placing the proceeds in the general 
 treasury of the Union ? My opinion is, that as 
 much is to be made of the land as fairly and 
 reasonably may be, selling it all the while at 
 such rates as to give the fullest effect to settle 
 ment. This is not giving it all away to the 
 states, as the gentleman would propose; nor 
 is it hugging the fund closely and tenaciously, 
 as a favorite treasure ; but it is, in my judgment, 
 a just and wise policy, perfectly according with 
 all the various duties which rest on government. 
 So much for my contradiction. And what is 
 137 
 
American 
 
 it? Where is the ground of the gentleman s 
 triumph? What inconsistency in a word or 
 doctrine has he been able to detect? Sir, if 
 this be a sample of that discomfiture with which 
 the honorable gentleman threatened me, com 
 mend me to the word " discomfiture " for 
 the rest of my life. 
 
 But, after all, this is not the point of the de 
 bate; and I must now bring the gentleman 
 back to what is the point. 
 
 The real question between me and him is, 
 Has the doctrine been advanced at the South 
 or the East, that the population of the West 
 should be retarded, or at least need not be 
 hastened, on account of its effect to drain off 
 the people from the Atlantic states? Is this 
 doctrine, as has been alleged, of Eastern origin ? 
 That is the question. Has the gentleman found 
 anything by which he can make good his accu 
 sation? I submit to the Senate, that he has 
 entirely failed ; and, as far as this debate has 
 shown, the only person who has advanced 
 such sentiments is a gentleman from South 
 Carolina, and a friend of the honorable mem 
 ber himself. The honorable gentleman has 
 given no answer to this; there is none which 
 can be given. The simple fact, while it requires 
 no comment to enforce it, defies all argument 
 to refute it. I could refer to the speeches of 
 another Southern gentleman, in years before, 
 of the same general character, and to the same 
 effect, as that which has been quoted ; but I 
 138 
 
Daniel 
 
 will not consume the time of the Senate by the 
 reading of them. 
 
 So, then, sir, New England is guiltless of the 
 policy of retarding Western population, and of 
 all envy and jealousy of the growth of the new 
 states. Whatever there be of that policy in 
 the country, no part of it is hers. If it has a 
 local habitation, the honorable member has 
 probably seen by this time where to look for it; 
 and if it now has received a name, he has him 
 self christened it. 
 
 We approach, at length, sir, to a more im 
 portant part of the honorable gentleman s ob 
 servations. Since it does not accord with my 
 views of justice and policy to give away the 
 public lands altogether, as a mere matter of 
 gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentle 
 man on what ground it is that I consent to 
 vote them away in particular instances. How, 
 he inquires, do I reconcile with these professed 
 sentiments my support of measures appropri 
 ating portions of the lands to particular roads, 
 particular canals, particular rivers, and par 
 ticular institutions of education in the West ? 
 This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference 
 in political opinion between the honorable gen 
 tleman and myself. On my part, I look upon 
 all these objects as connected with the common 
 good, fairly embraced in its object and its 
 terms; he, on the contrary, deems them all, 
 if good at all, only local good. This is our 
 difference. The interrogatory which he pro- 
 
 139 
 
American 
 
 ceeded to put at once explains this difference. 
 "What interest," asks he, " has South Carolina 
 in a canal in Ohio ?" Sir, this very question is 
 full of significance. It develops the gentle 
 man s whole political system; and its answer 
 expounds mine. Here we differ. I look upon 
 a road over the Alleghanies, a canal round the 
 falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from 
 the Atlantic to the Western waters, as being 
 an object large and extensive enough to be 
 fairly said to be for the common benefit. The 
 gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key 
 to his construction of the powers of the gov 
 ernment. He may well ask what interest has 
 South Carolina in a canal in Ohio. On his 
 system, it is true, she has no interest. On that 
 system, Ohio and Carolina are different govern 
 ments and different countries; connected here, 
 it is true, by some slight and ill-defined bond 
 of union, but in all main respects separate and 
 diverse. On that system, Carolina has no more 
 interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. 
 The gentleman, therefore, only follows out his 
 own principles; he does no more than arrive 
 at the natural conclusions of his own doctrines ; 
 he only announces the true results of that creed 
 which he has adopted himself, and would per 
 suade others to adopt, when he thus declares 
 that South Carolina has no interest in a public 
 work in Ohio. 
 
 Sir, we narrow-minded people of New Eng 
 land do not reason thus. Our notion of things 
 140 
 
2Daniel 
 
 is entirely different. We look upon the states, 
 not as separated, but as united. We love to 
 dwell on that union, and on the mutual happi 
 ness which it has so much promoted, and the 
 common renown which it has so greatly con 
 tributed to acquire. In our contemplation, 
 Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same coun 
 try ; states united under the same general gov 
 ernment, having interests, common, associated, 
 intermingled. In whatever is within the prop 
 er sphere of the constitutional power of this 
 government, we look upon the states as one. 
 We do not impose geographical limits to our 
 patriotic feeling or regard; we do not follow 
 rivers and mountains and lines of latitude 
 to find boundaries beyond which public im 
 provements do not benefit us. We who come 
 here, as agents and representatives of these 
 narrow-minded and selfish men of New Eng 
 land, consider ourselves as bound to regard 
 with an equal eye the good of the whole, in 
 whatever is within our powers of legislation. 
 Sir, if a railroad or canal beginning in South 
 Carolina and ending in South Carolina ap 
 peared to me to be of national importance 
 and national magnitude, believing, as I do, that 
 the power of government extends to the en 
 couragement of works of that description; if I 
 were to stand up here and ask, What interest 
 has Massachusetts in a railroad in South Car 
 olina ? I should not be willing to face my con 
 stituents. These same narrow-minded men 
 141 
 
American 
 
 would tell me that they had sent me to act 
 for the whole country, and that one who pos 
 sessed too little comprehension, either of intel 
 lect or feeling, one who was not large enough, 
 both in mind and in heart, to embrace the 
 whole, was not fit to be intrusted with the 
 interest of any part. 
 
 Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of 
 the government by unjustifiable construction, 
 nor to exercise any not within a fair interpre 
 tation. But when it is believed that a power 
 does exist, then it is, in my judgment, to be ex 
 ercised for the general benefit of the whole. So 
 far as respects the exercise of such a power, 
 the states are one. It was the very object 
 of the Constitution to create unity of interests 
 to the extent of the powers of the general gov 
 ernment. In war and peace we are one; in 
 commerce, one; because the authority of the 
 general government reaches to war and peace, 
 and to the regulation of commerce. I have 
 never seen any more difficulty in erecting light 
 houses on the lakes than on the ocean; in im 
 proving the harbors of inland seas, than if they 
 were within the ebb and flow of the tide; or 
 in removing obstructions in the vast streams 
 of the West, more than in any work to facili 
 tate commerce on the Atlantic coast. If there 
 be any power for one, there is power also for 
 the other; and they are all and equally for the 
 common good of the country. 
 
 There are other objects, apparently more 
 142 
 
Daniel 
 
 local, or the benefit of which is less general, 
 towards which, nevertheless, I have concurred 
 with others, to give aid by donations of land. 
 It is proposed to construct a road, in or 
 through one of the new states, in which this 
 government possesses large quantities of land. 
 Have the United States no right, or, as a great 
 and untaxed proprietor, are they under no ob 
 ligation, to contribute to an object thus calcu 
 lated to promote the common good of all the 
 proprietors, themselves included ? And even 
 with respect to education, which is the extreme 
 case, let the question be considered. In the 
 first place, as we have seen, it was made mat 
 ter of compact with these states that they 
 should do their part to promote education. In 
 the next place, our whole system of land laws 
 proceeds on the idea that education is for the 
 common good; because, in every division, a 
 certain portion is uniformly reserved and ap 
 propriated for the use of schools. And finally, 
 have not these new states singularly strong 
 claims founded on the ground already stated, 
 that the government is a great untaxed proprie 
 tor, the ownership of the soil ? It is a consid 
 eration of great importance, that probably there 
 is in no part of the country or of the world 
 so great call for the means of education as in 
 these new states, owing to the vast numbers 
 of persons within those ages in which educa 
 tion and instruction are usually received, if re 
 ceived at all. This is the natural consequence 
 
 143 
 
American 
 
 of recency of settlement and rapid increase. 
 The census of these states shows how great a 
 proportion of the whole population occupies 
 the classes between infancy and manhood. 
 These are the wide fields, and here is the deep 
 and quick soil for the seeds of knowledge and 
 virtue ; and this is the favored season, the very 
 spring-time for sowing them. Let them be dis 
 seminated without stint. Let them be scattered 
 with a bountiful hand, broadcast. Whatever the 
 government can fairly do towards these objects, 
 in my opinion, ought to be done. 
 
 These, sir, are the grounds, succinctly stat 
 ed, on which my votes for grants of lands for 
 particular objects rest; while I maintain, at the 
 same time, that it is all a common fund for the 
 common benefit. And reasons like these, I 
 presume, have influenced the votes of other 
 gentlemen from New England. Those who 
 have a different view of powers of govern 
 ment, of course, come to different conclusions, 
 on these as on other questions. I observed, 
 when speaking on this subject before, that if 
 we looked to any measure, whether for a road, 
 a canal, or anything else, intended for the im 
 provement of the West, it would be found 
 that, if the New England ayes were struck out 
 of the lists of votes, the Southern noes would 
 always have rejected the measure. The truth 
 of this has not been denied, and cannot be 
 denied. In stating this, I thought it just to 
 ascribe it to the constitutional scruples of the 
 144 
 
2Daniri Wtbgttt 
 
 South, rather than to any other less favorable 
 or less charitable cause. But no sooner had I 
 done this, than the honorable gentleman asks 
 if I reproach him and his friends with their 
 constitutional scruples. Sir, I reproach no 
 body. I stated a fact, and gave the most 
 respectful reason for it that occurred to me. 
 The gentleman cannot deny the fact; he may, 
 if he choose, disclaim the reason. It is not 
 long since I had occasion, in presenting a peti 
 tion from his own state, to account for its be 
 ing intrusted to my hands, by saying that the 
 constitutional opinions of the gentleman and 
 his worthy colleague prevented them from 
 supporting it. Sir, did I state this as matter 
 of reproach? Far from it. Did I attempt to 
 find any other cause than an honest one for 
 these scruples ? Sir, I do not. It did not be 
 come me to doubt or to insinuate that the 
 gentleman had either changed his sentiments, 
 or that he had made up a set of constitutional 
 opinions accommodated to any particular com 
 bination of political occurrences. Had I done 
 so, I should have felt that, while I was entitled 
 to little credit in thus questioning other peo 
 ple s motives, I justified the whole world in 
 suspecting my own. But how has the gentle 
 man returned this respect for others opin 
 ions ? His own candor and justice, how have 
 they been exhibited towards the motives of 
 others, while he has been at so much pains to 
 maintain, what nobody has disputed, the purity 
 145 
 
American 
 
 of his own? Why, sir, he has asked when, 
 and how, and why New England votes were 
 found going for measures favorable to the 
 West. He has demanded to be informed 
 whether all this did not begin in 1825, and 
 while the election of President was still pend 
 ing. 
 
 Sir, to these questions retort would be justi 
 fied; and it is both cogent and at hand. Never 
 theless, I will answer the inquiry, not by retort, 
 but by facts. I will tell the gentleman when, 
 and how, and why New England has supported 
 measures favorable to the West. I have al 
 ready referred to the early history of the gov 
 ernment, to the first acquisition of the lands, 
 to the original laws for disposing of them, and 
 for governing the territories where they lie; 
 and have shown the influence of New England 
 men and New England principles in all these 
 leading measures. I should not be pardoned 
 were I to go over that ground again. Coming 
 to more recent times, and to measures of a less 
 general character, I have endeavored to prove 
 that everything of this kind, designed for 
 Western improvement, has depended on the 
 votes of New England ; all this is true beyond 
 the power of contradiction. And now, sir, 
 there are two measures to which I will refer, 
 not so ancient as to belong to the early history 
 of the public lands, and not so recent as to be 
 on this side of the period when the gentleman 
 charitably imagines a new direction may have 
 146 
 
SDaniel Wtbgttt 
 
 been given to New England feeling and New 
 England votes. These measures, and the New 
 England votes in support of them, may be 
 taken as samples and specimens of all the rest. 
 In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820) 
 the people of the West besought Congress for 
 a reduction in the price of lands. In favor of 
 that reduction, New England, with a delega 
 tion of forty members in the other house, gave 
 thirty-three votes, and one only against it. 
 The four Southern states, with more than 
 fifty members, gave thirty-two votes for it and 
 seven against it. Again, in 1821 (observe 
 again, sir, the time), the law passed for the 
 relief of the purchasers of the public lands. 
 This was a measure of vital importance to the 
 West, and more especially to the Southwest. 
 It authorized the relinquishment of contracts 
 for lands which had been entered into at high 
 prices, and a reduction in other cases of not 
 less than thirty- seven and a half per cent on 
 the purchase money. Many millions of dol 
 lars, six or seven, I believe, probably much 
 more, were relinquished by this law. On this 
 bill, New England, with her forty members, gave 
 more affirmative votes than the four Southern 
 states, with their fifty-two or fifty-three mem 
 bers. These two are far the most important 
 general measures respecting the public lands 
 which have been adopted within the last twen 
 ty years. They took place in 1820 and 1821. 
 That is the time when. 
 
 147 
 
American 
 
 As to the manner how, the gentleman already 
 sees that it was by voting in solid column for 
 the required relief; and lastly, as to the cause 
 why, I tell the gentleman it was because the 
 members from New England thought the meas 
 ures just and salutary; because they entertained 
 towards the West neither envy, hatred, nor 
 malice; because they deemed it becoming them, 
 as just and enlightened public men, to meet 
 the exigency which had arisen in the West 
 with the appropriate measure of relief; because 
 they felt it due to their own characters, and 
 the characters of their New England prede 
 cessors in this government, to act towards the 
 new states in the spirit of a liberal, patronizing, 
 magnanimous policy. So much, sir, for the 
 cause why; and I hope that by this time, 
 sir, the honorable gentleman is satisfied; if 
 not, I do not know when or how or why he 
 ever will be. 
 
 Having recurred to these two important 
 measures, in answer to the gentleman s in 
 quiries, I must now beg permission to go back 
 to a period somewhat earlier, for the purpose 
 of still further showing how much, or rather 
 how little, reason there is for the gentleman s 
 insinuation that political hopes or fears, or 
 party associations, were the grounds of these 
 New England votes. And after what has been 
 said, I hope it may be forgiven me if I allude 
 to some political opinions and votes of my 
 own, of very little public importance certainly, 
 148 
 
2Daniel 
 
 but which, from the time at which they were 
 given and expressed, may pass for good wit 
 nesses on this occasion. 
 
 This government, Mr. President, from its 
 origin to the peace of 1815, had been too much 
 engrossed with various other important con 
 cerns to be able to turn its thoughts inward, and 
 look to the development of its vast internal 
 resources. In the early part of President 
 Washington s administration, it was fully oc 
 cupied with completing its own organization, 
 providing for the public debt, defending the 
 frontiers, and maintaining domestic peace. 
 Before the termination of that administration, 
 the fires of the French Revolution blazed forth, 
 as from a new-opened volcano, and the whole 
 breadth of the ocean did not secure us from 
 its effects. The smoke and the cinders reached 
 us, though not the burning lava. Difficult and 
 agitating questions, embarrassing to govern 
 ment and dividing public opinion, sprung out of 
 the new state of our foreign relations, and were 
 succeeded by others, and yet again by others, 
 equally embarrassing and equally exciting divi 
 sion and discord, through the long series 
 of twenty years, till they finally issued in the 
 war with England. Down to the close of that 
 war, no distinct, marked, and deliberate at 
 tention had been given, or could have been 
 given, to the internal condition of the coun 
 try, its capacities of improvement, or the 
 constitutional power of the government in 
 149 
 
American 
 
 regard to objects connected with such im 
 provement. 
 
 The peace, Mr. President, brought about an 
 entirely new and a most interesting state of 
 things; it opened to us other prospects and 
 suggested other duties. We ourselves were 
 changed, and the whole world was changed. 
 The pacification of Europe, after June, 1815, 
 assumed a firm and permanent aspect. The 
 nations evidently manifested that they were 
 disposed for peace. Some agitation of the 
 waves might be expected, even after the storm 
 had subsided; but the tendency was, strongly 
 and rapidly, towards settled repose. 
 
 It so happened, sir, that I was at that time a 
 member of Congress, and, like others, natural 
 ly turned my thoughts to the contemplation of 
 the recently altered condition of the country 
 and of the world. It appeared plainly enough 
 to me, as well as to wiser and more experi 
 enced men, that the policy of the government 
 would naturally take a start in a new direction; 
 because new directions would necessarily be 
 given to the pursuits and occupations of the 
 people. We had pushed our commerce far and 
 fast, under the advantage of a neutral flag. But 
 there were now no longer flags, either neutral 
 or belligerent. The harvest of neutrality had 
 been great, but we had gathered it all. With 
 the peace of Europe, it was obvious there 
 would spring up in her circle of nations a re 
 vived and invigorated spirit of trade and a 
 150 
 
SDaniel 
 
 new activity in all the business and objects of 
 civilized life. Hereafter, our commercial gains 
 were to be earned only by success in a close 
 and intense competition. Other nations would 
 produce for themselves, and carry for them 
 selves, and manufacture for themselves, to the 
 full extent of their abilities. The crops of 
 our plains would no longer sustain European 
 armies, nor our ships longer supply those 
 whom war had rendered unable to supply 
 themselves. It was obvious that, under these 
 circumstances, the country would begin to 
 survey itself, and to estimate its own capacity 
 of improvement. 
 
 And this improvement, how was it to be 
 accomplished, and who was to accomplish it ? 
 We were ten or twelve millions of people, 
 spread over almost half a world. We were 
 more than twenty states, some stretching 
 along the same seaboard, some along the same 
 line of inland frontier, and others on opposite 
 banks of the same vast rivers. Two consider 
 ations at once presented themselves with great 
 force, in looking at this state of things. One 
 was that that great branch of improvement 
 which consisted in furnishing new facilities of 
 intercourse necessarily ran into different states 
 in every leading instance, and would benefit the 
 citizens of all such states. No one state, 
 therefore, in such cases, would assume the 
 whole expense, nor was the co-operation of 
 several states to be expected. Take the in- 
 
American 
 
 stance of the Delaware breakwater. It will 
 cost several millions of money. Would Penn 
 sylvania alone ever have constructed it ? Cer 
 tainly never, while this Union lasts, because it 
 is not for her sole benefit. Would Pennsyl 
 vania, New Jersey, and Delaware have united 
 to accomplish it at their joint expense ? Cer 
 tainly not, for the same reason. It could not 
 be done, therefore, but by the general gov 
 ernment. The same may be said of the large 
 inland undertakings, except that, in them, gov 
 ernment, instead of bearing the whole expense, 
 co-operates with others who bear a part. The 
 other consideration is, that the United States 
 have the means. They enjoy the revenues de 
 rived from commerce, and the states have no 
 abundant and easy sources of public income. 
 The custom-houses fill the general treasury, 
 while the states have scanty resources, except 
 by resort to heavy direct taxes. 
 
 Under this view of things, I thought it 
 necessary to settle, at least for myself, some 
 definite notions with respect to the powers of 
 the government in regard to internal affairs. 
 It may not savor too much of self-commenda 
 tion to remark, that, with this object, I consid 
 ered the Constitution, its judicial construction, 
 its contemporaneous exposition, and the whole 
 history of the legislation of Congress under it; 
 and I arrived at the conclusion that govern 
 ment had power to accomplish sundry objects, 
 or aid in their accomplishment, which are now 
 152 
 
Daniel 
 
 commonly spoken of as internal improve 
 ments. That conclusion, sir, may have been 
 right, or it may have been wrong. I am not 
 about to argue the grounds of it at large. I say 
 only, that it was adopted and acted on even 
 so early as in 1816. Yes, Mr. President, I 
 made up my opinion, and determined on my 
 intended course of political conduct, on these 
 subjects, in the Fourteenth Congress, in 1816. 
 And now, Mr. President, I have further to say, 
 that I made up these opinions, and entered on 
 this course of political conduct, Teucro duce. 
 Yes, sir, I pursued in all this a South Carolina 
 track on the doctrines of internal improvement. 
 South Carolina, as she was then represented in 
 the other house, set forth in 1816 under a fresh 
 and leading breeze, and I was among the fol 
 lowers. But if my leader sees new lights 
 and turns a sharp corner, unless I see new 
 lights also, I keep straight on in the same 
 path. I repeat, that leading gentlemen from 
 South Carolina were first and foremost in 
 behalf of the doctrines of internal improve 
 ments, when those doctrines came first to be 
 considered and acted upon in Congress. The 
 debate on the bank question, on the tariff of 
 1816, and on the direct tax will show who 
 was who, and what was what, at that time. 
 
 The tariff of 1816 (one of the plain cases 
 of oppression and usurpation, from which, if 
 the government does not recede, individual 
 states may justly secede from the government) 
 
 153 
 
American 
 
 is, sir, in truth, a South Carolina tariff, sup 
 ported by South Carolina votes. But for 
 those votes it could not have passed in the 
 form in which it did pass; whereas, if it had 
 depended on Massachusetts votes, it would 
 have been lost. Does not the honorable gen 
 tleman well know all this ? There are certainly 
 those who do, full well, know it all. I do 
 not say this to reproach South Carolina. I 
 only state the fact; and I think it will appear 
 to be true, that among the earliest and boldest 
 advocates of the tariff, as a measure of protec 
 tion, and on the express ground of protection, 
 were leading gentlemen of South Carolina in 
 Congress. I did not then, and cannot now, 
 understand their language in any other sense. 
 While this tariff of 1816 was under discussion 
 in the House of Representatives, an honorable 
 gentleman from Georgia, now of this house, 
 moved to reduce the proposed duty on cotton. 
 He failed, by four votes, South Carolina giv 
 ing three votes (enough to have turned the 
 scale) against his motion. The act, sir, then 
 passed, and received on its passage the sup 
 port of a majority of the Representatives of 
 South Carolina present and voting. This act 
 is the first in the order of those now denounced 
 as plain usurpations. We see it daily in the 
 list, by the side of those of 1824 and 1828, 
 as a case of manifest oppression, justifying 
 disunion. I put it home to the honorable mem 
 ber from South Carolina, that his own state 
 154 
 
Daniel 
 
 was not only " art and part " in this measure, 
 but the causa causans. Without her aid, this 
 seminal principle of mischief, this root of 
 upas, could not have been planted. I have 
 already said, and it is true, that this act 
 proceeded on the ground of protection. It 
 interfered directly with existing interests of 
 great value and amount. It cut up the Calcutta 
 cotton trade by the roots; but it passed, 
 nevertheless, and it passed on the principle 
 of protecting manufactures, on the principle 
 against free trade, on the principle opposed to 
 that which lets us alone. 
 
 Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of 
 important and leading gentlemen from South 
 Carolina, on the subject of internal improve 
 ment, in 1816. I went out of Congress the 
 next year, and, returning again in 1823, thought 
 I found South Carolina where I had left her. 
 I really supposed that all things remained as 
 they were, and that the South Carolina doc 
 trine of internal improvements would be de 
 fended by the same eloquent voices and the 
 same strong arms, as formerly. In the 
 lapse of these six years, it is true, political 
 associations had assumed a new aspect and 
 new divisions. A strong party had arisen 
 in the South hostile to the doctrine of internal 
 improvements. Anti-consolidation was the 
 flag under which this party fought; and its 
 supporters inveighed against internal improve 
 ments, much after the manner in which the 
 
Jftemoratrfe American 
 
 honorable gentleman has now inveighed against 
 them, as part and parcel of the system of 
 consolidation. Whether this party arose in 
 South Carolina itself, or in the neighborhood, 
 is more than I know. I think the latter. 
 However that may have been, there were those 
 found in South Carolina ready to make war 
 upon it, and who did make intrepid war upon 
 it. Names being regarded as things in such 
 controversies, they bestowed on the anti- 
 improvement gentlemen the appellation of 
 Radicals. Yes, sir, the appellation of Radicals, 
 as a term of distinction applicable and applied 
 to those who denied the liberal doctrines of 
 internal improvement, originated, according to 
 the best of my recollection, somewhere between 
 North Carolina and Georgia. Well, sir, these 
 mischievous Radicals were to be put down, and 
 the strong arm of South Carolina was stretched 
 out to put them down. About this time I 
 returned to Congress. The battle with the 
 Radicals had been fought, and our South 
 Carolina champions of the doctrines of inter 
 nal improvement had nobly maintained their 
 ground, and were understood to have achieved 
 a victory. We looked upon them as conquer 
 ors. They had driven back the enemy with 
 discomfiture, a thing, by the way, sir, which is 
 not always performed when it is promised. 
 A gentleman to whom I have already referred 
 in this debate had come into Congress, during 
 my absence from it, from South Carolina, and 
 156 
 
2DanieI 
 
 had brought with him a high reputation for 
 ability. He came from a school with which 
 we had been acquainted, et noscitur a sodis. 
 I hold in my hand, sir, a printed speech of 
 this distinguished gentleman, " On Internal 
 Improvements," delivered about the period 
 to which I now refer, and printed with a few 
 introductory remarks upon consolidation; in 
 which, sir, I think he quite consolidated the 
 arguments of his opponents, the Radicals, if 
 to crush\)t to consolidate. I give you a short 
 but significant quotation from these remarks. 
 He is speaking of a pamphlet, then recently 
 published, entitled " Consolidation"; and hav 
 ing alluded to the question of renewing the 
 charter of the former Bank of the United 
 States, he says: 
 
 " Moreover, in the early history of parties, and 
 when Mr. Crawford advocated a renewal of the 
 old charter, it was considered a Federal measure; 
 which internal improvement never vvas, as this author 
 erroneously states. This latter measure originated 
 in the administration of Mr. Jefferson, with the appro 
 priation for the Cumberland Road; and was first 
 proposed, as a system, by Mr. Calhoun, and carried 
 through the House of Representatives by a large 
 majority of the Republicans, including almost every 
 one of the leading men who carried us through the 
 late war." 
 
 So, then, internal improvement is not one of 
 the Federal heresies. 
 
 One paragraph more, sir : 
 
 " The author in question, not content with de 
 nouncing as Federalists, General Jackson, Mr. 
 
 157 
 
American 
 
 Adams, Mr. Calhoun, and the majority of the South 
 Carolina delegation in Congress, modestly extends 
 the denunciation to Mr. Monroe and the whole Re 
 publican party. Here are his words : During the ad 
 ministration of Mr. Monroe much has passed which 
 the Republican party would be glad to approve if 
 they could! But the principal feature, and that 
 which has chiefly elicited these observations, is the 
 renewal of the system of internal improvements. 
 Now, this measure was adopted by a vote of 115 to 86 
 of a Republican Congress, and sanctioned by a Re 
 publican President. Who, then, is this author, who 
 assumes the high prerogative of denouncing, in the 
 name of the Republican party, the Republican ad 
 ministration of the country ? A denunciation in 
 cluding within its sweep Calhotm, Lowndes, and 
 Cheves, men who will be regarded as the brightest 
 ornaments of South Carolina, and the strongest pil 
 lars of the Republican party, as long as the^late war 
 shall be remembered, and talents and patriotism shall 
 be regarded as the proper objects of the admiration 
 and gratitude of a free people! " 
 
 Such are the opinions, sir, which were 
 maintained by South Carolina gentlemen, in 
 the House of Representatives, on the subject 
 of internal improvements, when I took my 
 seat there as a member from Massachusetts in 
 1823. But this not all. We had a bill before 
 us, and passed it in that house, entitled, "An 
 act to procure the necessary surveys, plans, 
 and estimates upon the subject of roads and 
 canals." It authorized the President to cause 
 surveys and estimates to be made of the routes 
 of such roads and canals as he might deem of 
 national importance in a commercial or mili 
 tary point of view, or for the transportation of 
 158 
 
2Daniei 
 
 the mail, and appropriated thirty thousand 
 dollars out of the treasury to defray the ex 
 pense. This act, though preliminary in its 
 nature, covered the whole ground. It took 
 for granted the complete power of internal 
 improvement, as far as any of its advocates 
 had ever contended for it. Having passed the 
 other house, the bill came up to the Senate, 
 and was here considered and debated in April, 
 1824. The honorable member from South 
 Carolina was a member of the Senate at that 
 time. While the bill was under consideration 
 here, a motion was made to add the following 
 proviso: "Provided, that nothing herein con 
 tained shall be construed to affirm or admit a 
 power in Congress, on their own authority, to 
 make roads or canals within any of the states 
 of the Union." The yeas and nays were taken 
 on this proviso, and the honorable member 
 voted in the negative ! The proviso failed. 
 
 A motion was then made to add this proviso, 
 viz. : "Provided, that the faith of the United 
 States is hereby pledged, that no money shall 
 ever be expended for roads or canals, except 
 it shall be among the several states, and in the 
 same proportion as direct taxes are laid and 
 assessed by the provisions of the Constitu 
 tion." The honorable member voted against 
 this proviso also, and it failed. The bill was 
 then put on its passage, and the honorable 
 member voted for it, and it passed and be 
 came a law. 
 
 159 
 
;jttemora&le American 
 
 Now, it strikes me, sir, that there is no 
 maintaining these votes but upon the power 
 of internal improvement, in its broadest sense. 
 In truth, these bills for surveys and estimates 
 have always been considered as test questions; 
 they show who is for and who against internal 
 improvement. This law itself went the whole 
 length, and assumed the full and complete 
 power. The gentleman s votes sustained that 
 power, in every form in which the various prop 
 ositions to amend presented it. He went for 
 the entire and unrestrained authority, without 
 consulting the states, and without agreeing to 
 any proportionate distribution. And now suf 
 fer me to remind you, Mr. President, that it is 
 this very same power, thus sanctioned, in every 
 form, by the gentleman s own opinion, which 
 is so plain and manifest a usurpation that the 
 state of South Carolina is supposed to be jus 
 tified in refusing submission to any laws carry 
 ing the power into effect. Truly, sir, is not 
 this a little too hard ? May we not crave some 
 mercy, under favor and protection of the gen 
 tleman s own authority ? Admitting that a 
 road, or a canal, must be written down flat 
 usurpation as was ever committed, may we 
 find no mitigation in our respect for his place, 
 and his vote, as one that knows the law ? 
 
 The tariff, which South Carolina had an 
 
 efficient hand in establishing, in 1816, and 
 
 this asserted power of internal improvement, 
 
 advanced by her in the same year, and, as we 
 
 160 
 
Daniel 
 
 have seen, approved and sanctioned by her 
 representatives in 1824, these two measures 
 are the great grounds on which she is now 
 thought to be justified in breaking up the 
 Union, if she sees fit to break it up ! 
 
 I may now safely say, I think, that we have 
 had the authority of leading and distinguished 
 gentlemen from South Carolina in support of 
 the doctrine of internal improvement. I re 
 peat, that, up to 1824, I for one followed South 
 Carolina; but when that star, in its ascension, 
 veered off in an unexpected direction, I relied 
 on its light no longer. 
 
 I have thus, sir, perhaps not without some 
 tediousness of detail, shown, if I am in error on 
 the subject of internal improvement, how, and 
 in what company, I fell into that error. If I 
 am wrong, it is apparent who misled me. 
 
 I go to other remarks of the honorable mem 
 ber ; and I have to complain of an entire mis 
 apprehension of what I said on the subject of 
 the national debt, though I can hardly perceive 
 how any one could misunderstand me. What 
 I said was, not that I wished to put off the 
 payment of the debt, but, on the contrary, that 
 I had always voted for every measure for its 
 reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman him 
 self. He seems to claim the exclusive merit 
 of a disposition to reduce the public charge. 
 I do not allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I 
 am, for paying it, because it is a charge on our 
 finances, and on the industry of the country. 
 161 
 
Jttemora&le American 
 
 But I observed, that I thought I perceived a 
 morbid fervor on that subject, an excessive 
 anxiety to pay off the debt, not so much be 
 cause it is a debt simply, as because, while it 
 lasts, it furnishes one objection to disunion. 
 It is, while it continues, a tie of common 
 interest. I did not impute such motives to 
 the honorable member himself, but that there 
 is such an opinion in existence I have not a 
 particle of doubt. The most I said was, that, 
 if one effect of the debt was to strengthen our 
 Union, that effect itself was not regretted by 
 me, however much others might regret it. The 
 gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, 
 otherwise than by supposing me to have ad 
 vanced the doctrine that a national debt is a 
 national blessing. Others, I must hope, will 
 find much less difficulty in understanding me. 
 I distinctly and pointedly cautioned the honor 
 able member not to understand me as express 
 ing an opinion favorable to the continuance 
 of the debt. I repeated this caution, and re 
 peated it more than once; but it was thrown 
 away. 
 
 On yet another point, I was still more unac 
 countably misunderstood. The gentleman had 
 harangued against "consolidation." I told him, 
 in reply, that there was one kind of consolida 
 tion to which I was attached, and that was 
 the consolidation of our Union; that this was 
 precisely that consolidation to which I feared 
 others were not attached, and that such con- 
 162 
 
Daniel 
 
 solidation was the very end of the Constitution, 
 the leading object, as they had informed us 
 themselves, which its framers had kept in 
 view. I turned to their communication, and 
 read their very words, "the consolidation of 
 the Union," and expressd my devotion to this 
 sort of consolidation. I said, in terms, that I 
 wished not in the slightest degree to augment 
 the powers of this government; that my object 
 was to preserve, not to enlarge; and that by 
 consolidating the Union I understood no more 
 than the strengthening of the Union, and per 
 petuating it. Having been thus explicit, hav 
 ing thus read from the printed book the precise 
 words which I adopted, as expressing my own 
 sentiments, it passes comprehension how any 
 man could understand me as contending for an 
 extension of the powers of the government, or 
 for consolidation in that odious sense in which 
 it means an accumulation, in the federal gov 
 ernment, of the powers properly belonging to 
 the states. 
 
 I repeat, sir, that, in adopting the senti 
 ment of the framers of the Constitution, I read 
 their language audibly, and word for word; 
 and I pointed out the distinction, just as fully 
 as I have now done, between the consolidation 
 of the Union and that other obnoxious con 
 solidation which I disclaimed. And yet the 
 honorable member misunderstood me. The 
 gentleman had said that he wished for no fixed 
 revenue, not a shilling. If by a word he could 
 163 
 
American 
 
 convert the Capitol into gold, he would not 
 do it. Why all this fear of revenue ? Why, 
 sir, because, as the gentleman told us, it tends 
 to consolidation. Now, this can mean neither 
 more nor less than that a common revenue is 
 a common interest, and that all common inter 
 ests tend to preserve the union of the states. 
 I confess I like that tendency; if the gentle 
 man dislikes it, he is right in deprecating a 
 shilling of fixed revenue. So much, sir, for 
 consolidation. 
 
 As well as I recollect the course of his re 
 marks, the honorable gentleman next recurred 
 to the subject of the tariff. He did not doubt 
 the word must be of unpleasant sound to me, 
 and proceeded, with an effort neither new nor 
 attended with new success, to involve me and 
 my votes in inconsistency and contradiction. 
 I am happy the honorable gentleman has fur 
 nished me an opportunity of a timely remark 
 or two on that subject. I was glad he ap 
 proached it, for it is a question I enter upon 
 without fear from anybody. The strenuous 
 toil of the gentleman has been to raise an 
 inconsistency between my dissent to the tariff 
 in 1824 and my vote in 1828. It is labor 
 lost. He pays undeserved compliment to my 
 speech in 1824; but this is to raise me high, 
 that my fall, as he would have it, in 1828, 
 may be more signal. Sir, there was no fall. 
 Between the ground I stood on in 1824 and 
 that I took in 1828, there was not only no 
 164 
 
SDaniel Wtbgttt 
 
 precipice, but no declivity. It was a change 
 of position to meet new circumstances, but on 
 the same level. A plain tale explains the 
 whole matter. In 1816 I had not acquiesced 
 in the tariff, then supported by South Caro 
 lina. To some parts of it, especially, I felt and 
 expressed great repugnance. I held the same 
 opinions in 1820, at the meeting in Faneuil 
 Hall, to which the gentleman has alluded. 
 
 With a great majority of the representa 
 tives of Massachusetts, I voted against the 
 tariff of 1824. My reasons were then given, 
 and I will not now repeat them. But not 
 withstanding our dissent, the great states of 
 New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky 
 went for the bill, in almost unbroken column, 
 and it passed. Congress and the President 
 sanctioned it, and it became the law of the 
 land. What, then, were we to do ? Our only 
 option was, either to fall in with this settled 
 course of public policy, and accommodate our 
 selves to it as well as we could, or to embrace 
 the South Carolina doctrine, and talk of nulli 
 fying the statute by state interference. 
 
 This last alternative did not suit our prin 
 ciples, and of course we adopted the former. 
 In 1827, the subject came again before Con 
 gress, on a proposition to afford some relief 
 to the branch of wool and woolens. We 
 looked upon the system of protection as being 
 fixed and settled. The law of 1824 remained. 
 It had gone into full operation, and in regard 
 165 
 
Jftemoratile American 
 
 to some objects intended by it, perhaps most 
 of them, had produced all its expected effects. 
 No man proposed to repeal it; no man at 
 tempted to renew the general contest on its 
 principle. But, owing to subsequent and un 
 foreseen occurrences, the benefit intended by 
 it to wool and woolen fabrics had not been re 
 alized. Events not known here when the law 
 passed had taken place, which defeated its 
 object in that particular respect. A measure 
 was accordingly brought forward to meet this 
 precise deficiency, to remedy this particular 
 defect. It was limited to wool and woolens. 
 Was ever anything more reasonable? If the 
 policy of the tariff laws had become estab 
 lished in principle, as the permanent policy of 
 the government, should they not be revised 
 and amended, and made equal, like other laws, 
 as exigencies should arise, or justice require ? 
 Because we had doubted about adopting the 
 system, were we to refuse to cure its manifest 
 defects after it had been adopted, and when 
 no one attempted its repeal? And this, sir, 
 is the inconsistency so much bruited. I had 
 voted against the tariff of 1824, but it passed; 
 and in 1827 and 1828 I voted to amend it, in 
 a point essential to the interest of my constit 
 uents. Where is the inconsistency? Could 
 I do otherwise ? Sir, does political consis 
 tency consist in always giving negative votes ? 
 Does it require of a public man to refuse to 
 concur in amending laws because they passed 
 166 
 
SDaniel 
 
 against his consent ? Having voted against 
 the tariff originally, does consistency demand 
 that I should do all in my power to maintain 
 an unequal tariff, burdensome to my own con 
 stituents in many respects, favorable in none ? 
 To consistency of that sort, I lay no claim. 
 And there is another sort to which I lay as 
 little, and that is, a kind of consistency by 
 which persons feel themselves as much bound 
 to oppose a proposition after it has become a 
 law of the land as before. 
 
 The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to 
 the single object in which the tariff of 1824 
 had manifestly failed in its effect, passed the 
 House of Representatives, but was lost here. 
 We had then the act of 1828. I need not 
 recur to the history of a measure so recent. 
 Its enemies spiced it with whatsoever they 
 thought would render it distasteful ; its friends 
 took it, drugged as it was. Vast amounts of 
 property, many millions, had been invested 
 in manufactures, under the inducements of 
 the act of 1824. Events called loudly, as I 
 thought, for further regulation to secure the 
 degree of protection intended by that act. 
 I was disposed to vote for such regulation, and 
 desired nothing more; but certainly was not 
 to be bantered out of my purpose by a threat 
 ened augmentation of duty on molasses, put 
 into the bill for the avowed purpose of mak 
 ing it obnoxious. The vote may have been 
 right or wrong, wise or unwise ; but it is little 
 167 
 
American 
 
 less than absurd to allege against it an incon 
 sistency with opposition to the former law. 
 
 Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, 
 I have little now to say. Another opportu 
 nity may be presented. I remarked the other 
 day, that this policy did not begin with us in 
 New England; and yet, sir, New England is 
 charged with vehemence as being favorable, or 
 charged with equal vehemence as being un 
 favorable, to the tariff policy, just as best suits 
 the time, place, and occasion for making some 
 charge against her. The credulity of the 
 public has been put to its extreme capacity of 
 false impression relative to her conduct in this 
 particular. Through all the South, during the 
 late contest, it was New England policy and a 
 New England administration that were afflict 
 ing the country with a tariff beyond all endur 
 ance ; while on the other side of the Allegha- 
 nies even the act of 1828 itself, the very 
 sublimated essence of oppression, according 
 to Southern opinions, was pronounced to be 
 one of those blessings for which the West 
 was indebted to the " generous South." 
 
 With large investments in manufacturing 
 establishments, and many and various inter 
 ests connected with and dependent on them, 
 it is not to be expected that New England, 
 any more than other portions of the country, 
 will now consent to any measure destruc 
 tive or highly dangerous. The duty of the 
 government, at the present moment, would 
 168 
 
2Daniel 
 
 seem to be to preserve, not to destroy; to 
 maintain the position which it has assumed; 
 and for one, I shall feel it an indispensable 
 obligation to hold it steady, as far as in my 
 power, to that degree of protection which it 
 has undertaken to bestow. No more of the 
 tariff. 
 
 Professing to be provoked by what he chose 
 to consider a charge made by me against 
 South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. 
 President, has taken up a new crusade against 
 New England. Leaving altogether the sub 
 ject of the public lands, in which his success, 
 perhaps, had been neither distinguished nor 
 satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the topic 
 of the tariff, he sallied forth in a general as 
 sault on the opinions, politics, and parties of 
 New England as they have been exhibited in 
 the last thirty years. This is natural. The 
 "narrow policy" of the public lands had proved 
 a legal settlement in South Carolina, and was 
 not to be removed. The "accursed policy" 
 of the tariff, also, had established the fact of 
 its birth and parentage in the same state. 
 No wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished 
 to carry the war, as he expressed it, into the 
 enemy s country. Prudently willing to quit 
 these subjects, he was doubtless desirous of 
 fastening on others, which could not be trans 
 ferred south of Mason and Dixon s line. 
 The politics of New England became his 
 theme, and it was in this part of his speech, I 
 169 
 
American 
 
 think, that he menaced me with such sore dis 
 comfiture. Discomfiture! Why, sir, when he 
 attacks anything which I maintain and over 
 throws it, when he turns the right or left of 
 any position which I take up, when he drives 
 me from any ground I choose to occupy, he 
 may then talk of discomfiture, but not till that 
 distant day. What has he done? Has he 
 maintained his own charges? Has he proved 
 what he alleged ? Has he sustained himself in 
 his attack on the government, and on the history 
 of the North, in the matter of the public lands ? 
 Has he disproved a fact, refuted a propo 
 sition, weakened an argument, maintained by 
 me? Has he come within beat of drum of 
 any position of mine? O, no; but he has 
 "carried the war into the enemy s country"! 
 Carried the war into the enemy s country! 
 Yes, sir, and what sort of a war has he made 
 of it? Why, sir, he has stretched a dragnet 
 over the whole surface of perished pamphlets, 
 indiscreet sermons, frothy paragraphs, and 
 fuming popular addresses, over whatever 
 the pulpit in its moments of alarm, the press 
 in its heats, and parties in their extravagance 
 have severally thrown off in times of general 
 excitement and violence. He has thus swept 
 together a mass of such things as, but that they 
 now are old and cold, the public health would 
 have required him rather to leave in their state 
 of dispersion. For a good long hour or two we 
 had the unbroken pleasure of listening to the 
 170 
 
2Daniel Wtbgtct 
 
 honorable member, while he recited with his 
 usual grace and spirit, and with evident high 
 gusto, speeches, pamphlets, addresses, and all 
 the et cceteras of the political press, such as 
 warm heads produce in warm times, and such 
 as it would be "discomfiture" indeed for any 
 one whose taste did not delight in that sort of 
 reading to be obliged to peruse. This is his 
 war. This it is to carry the war into the ene 
 my s country. It is in an invasion of this sort 
 that he flatters himself with the expectation of 
 gaining laurels fit to adorn a senator s brow! 
 Mr. President, I shall not, it will not, I trust, 
 be expected that I should, either now or at any 
 time, separate this farrago into parts and 
 answer and examine its components. I shall 
 barely bestow upon it all a general remark or 
 two. In the run of forty years, sir, under this 
 Constitution, we have experienced sundry suc 
 cessive violent party contests. Party arose, 
 indeed, with the Constitution itself, and in 
 some form or other has attended it through 
 the greater part of its history. Whether any 
 other constitution than the old Articles of 
 Confederation was desirable, was itself a ques 
 tion on which parties divided; if a new con 
 stitution were framed, what powers should be 
 given to it was another question ; and when it 
 had been formed, what was, in fact, the just 
 extent of the powers actually conferred was a 
 third. Parties, as we know, existed under the 
 first administration as distinctly marked as 
 
;jftemora&Ie American 
 
 those which have manifested themselves at 
 any subsequent period. The contest imme 
 diately preceding the political change in 1801, 
 and that again which existed at the commence 
 ment of the late war, are other instances of 
 party excitement of something more than usual 
 strength and intensity. In all these conflicts 
 there was, no doubt, much of violence on both 
 and all sides. It would be impossible, if one 
 had a fancy for such employment, to adjust the 
 relative quantum of violence between these con 
 tending parties. There was enough in each as 
 must always be expected in popular govern 
 ments. With a great deal of popular and deco 
 rous discussion, there was mingled a great deal, 
 also, of declamation, virulence, crimination, 
 and abuse. In regard to any party, probably, 
 at one of the leading epochs in the history 
 of parties, enough may be found to make out 
 another inflamed exhibition, not unlike that 
 with which the honorable member has edified 
 us. For myself, sir, I shall not rake among 
 the rubbish of bygone times to see what I 
 can find, or whether I cannot find something 
 by which I can fix a blot on the escutcheon of 
 any state, any party, or any part of the coun 
 try. General Washington s administration 
 was steadily and zealously maintained, as we 
 all know, by New England. It was violently 
 opposed elsewhere. We know in what quarter 
 he had the most earnest, constant, and perse 
 vering support in all his great and leading 
 172 
 
SDaniel 
 
 measures. We know where his private and 
 personal character was held in the highest 
 degree of attachment and veneration; and we 
 know, too, where his measures were opposed, 
 his services slighted, and his character vilified. 
 We know, or we might know if we turned to 
 the journals, who expressed respect, gratitude, 
 and regret when he retired from the chief 
 magistracy, and who refused to express either 
 respect, gratitude, or regret. I shall not open 
 those journals. Publications more abusive or 
 scurrilous never saw the light than were sent 
 forth against Washington, and all his leading 
 measures, from presses south of New England. 
 But I shall not look them up. I employ no 
 scavengers; no one is in attendance on me, 
 furnishing such means of retaliation; and if 
 there were, with an ass s load of them, with a 
 bulk as huge as that which the gentleman him 
 self has produced, I would not touch one of 
 them. I see enough of the violence of our 
 own times to be no way anxious to rescue from 
 forgetfulness the extravagances of times past. 
 Besides, what is all this to the present pur 
 pose ? It has nothing to do with the public 
 lands, in regard to which the attack was be 
 gun; and it has nothing to do with those sen 
 timents and opinions which, I have thought, 
 tend to disunion, and all of which the honor 
 able member seems to have adopted himself, 
 and undertaken to defend. New England has, 
 at times, so argues the gentleman, held opin- 
 
 173 
 
American 
 
 ions as dangerous as those which he now holds. 
 Suppose this were so; why should he there 
 fore abuse New England ? If he finds himself 
 countenanced by acts of hers, how is it that 
 while he relies on these acts he covers, or 
 seeks to cover, their authors with reproach ? 
 But, sir, if, in the course of forty years, there 
 have been undue effervescences of party in 
 New England, has the same thing happened 
 nowhere else ? Party animosity and party out 
 rage, not in New England, but elsewhere, de 
 nounced President Washington, not only as a 
 Federalist, but as a Tory, a British agent, a 
 man who, in his high office, sanctioned corrup 
 tion. But does the honorable member sup 
 pose, if I had a tender here who should put 
 such an effusion of wickedness and folly into 
 my hand, that I would stand up and read it 
 against the South? Parties ran into great 
 heats again in 1799 and 1800. What was 
 said, sir, or rather what was not said, in those 
 years, against John Adams, one of the com 
 mittee that drafted the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, and its admitted ablest defender 
 on the floor of Congress ? If the gentleman 
 wishes to increase his stores of party abuse 
 and frothy violence, if he has a determined 
 proclivity to such pursuits, there are treasures 
 of that sort south of the Potomac, much to 
 his taste, yet untouched. I shall not touch 
 them. 
 
 The parties which divided the country at 
 
 174 
 
2DanieI 
 
 the commencement of the late war were vio 
 lent. But then there was violence on both 
 sides, and violence in every state. Minorities 
 and majorities were equally violent. There 
 was no more violence against the war in New 
 England than in other states; nor any more 
 appearance of violence, except that, owing to 
 a dense population, greater facility of assem 
 bling, and more presses, there may have been 
 more in quantity spoken and printed there 
 than in some other places. In the article of 
 sermons, too, New England is somewhat more 
 abundant than South Carolina; and for that 
 reason the chance of finding here and there 
 an exceptionable one may be greater. I hope, 
 too, there are more good ones. Opposition 
 may have been more formidable in New Eng 
 land, as it embraced a larger portion of the 
 whole population; but it was no more unre 
 strained in principle, or violent in manner. 
 The minorities dealt quite as harshly with 
 their own state governments as the majorities 
 dealt with the administration here. There 
 were presses on both sides, popular meetings 
 on both sides, ay, and pulpits on both sides 
 also. The gentleman s purveyors have only 
 catered for him among the productions of one 
 side. I certainly shall not supply the defi 
 ciency by furnishing samples of the other. I 
 leave to him, and to them, the whole concern. 
 It is enough for me to say, that if in any 
 part of this their grateful occupation, if in 
 
 175 
 
American 
 
 all their researches, they find anything in the 
 history of Massachusetts, or New England, or 
 in the proceedings of any legislative or other 
 public body, disloyal to the Union, speaking 
 slightingly of its value, proposing to break 
 it up, or recommending non-intercourse with 
 neighboring states, on account of difference 
 of political opinion, then, sir, I give them all 
 up to the honorable gentleman s unrestrained 
 rebuke; expecting, however, that he will ex 
 tend his buffetings in like manner to all simi 
 lar proceedings, wherever else found. 
 
 The gentleman, sir, has spoken at large of 
 former parties, now no longer in being, by 
 their received appellations, and has under 
 taken to instruct us, not only in the knowl 
 edge of their principles, but of their respective 
 pedigrees also. He has ascended to their 
 origin, and run out their genealogies. With 
 most exemplary modesty he speaks of the 
 party to which he professes to have himself 
 belonged, as the true pure, the only honest, 
 patriotic party, derived by regular descent, 
 from father to son, from the time of the virtu 
 ous Romans! Spreading before us the fam 
 ily tree of political parties, he takes especial 
 care to show himself snugly perched on a 
 popular bough ! He is wakeful to the expedi 
 ency of adopting such rules of descent as shall 
 bring him in, to the exclusion of others, as an 
 heir to the inheritance of all public virtue, and 
 all true political principle. His party and his 
 176 
 
SDaniri 
 
 opinions are sure to be orthodox; heterodoxy 
 is confined to his opponents. He spoke, sir, 
 of the Federalists, and I thought I saw some 
 eyes begin to open and stare a little, when he 
 ventured on that ground. I expected he would 
 draw his sketches rather lightly when he looked 
 on the circle round him, and especially if he 
 should cast his thoughts to the high places out 
 of the Senate. Nevertheless, he went back to 
 Rome, ad annum urbis condita, and found the 
 fathers of the Federalists in the primeval aris- 
 tocats of that renowned city ! He traced the 
 flow of Federal blood down through succes 
 sive ages and centuries, till he brought it into 
 the veins of the American Tories, of whom, by 
 the way, there were twenty in the Carolinas 
 for one in Massachusetts. From the Tories 
 he followed it to the Federalists; and as the 
 Federal party was broken up, and there was 
 no possibility of transmitting it further on this 
 side of the Atlantic, he seems to have dis 
 covered that it has gone off collaterally, though 
 against all the canons of descent, into the Ultras 
 of France, and finally become extinguished, like 
 exploded gas, among the adherents of Don 
 Miguel ! 
 
 This, sir, is an abstract of the gentleman s 
 history of Federalism. I am not about to con 
 trovert it. It is not, at present, worth the pains 
 of refutation; because, sir, if at this day any 
 one feels the sin of Federalism lying heavily on 
 his conscience, he can easily procure remission. 
 177 
 
American 
 
 He may even obtain an indulgence if he be 
 desirous of repeating the same transgression. 
 It is an affair of no difficulty to get into this 
 right line of patriotic descent. A man nowa 
 days is at liberty to choose his political parent 
 age. He may elect his own father. Federalist 
 or not, he may, if he choose, claim to belong 
 to the favored stock, and his claim will be al 
 lowed. He may carry back his pretensions just 
 as far as the honorable gentleman himself; nay, 
 he may make himself out the honorable gentle 
 man s cousin, and prove, satisfactorily, that he is 
 descended from the same political great-grand 
 father. All this is allowable. We all know a 
 process, sir, by which the whole Essex Junto 
 could, in one hour, be all washed white from 
 their ancient Federalism, and come out, every 
 one of them, original Democrats, dyed in the 
 wool ! Some of them have actually undergone 
 the operation, and they say it is quite easy. The 
 only inconvenience it occasions, as they tell us, 
 is a slight tendency of the blood to the face, a 
 soft suffusion, which, however, is very transient, 
 since nothing is said by those whom they join 
 calculated to deepen the red on the cheek, but 
 a prudent silence is observed in regard to all 
 the past. Indeed, sir, some smiles of appror 
 bation have been bestowed, and some crumbs 
 of comfort have fallen not a thousand miles 
 from the door of the Hartford Convention it 
 self. And if the author of the Ordinance of 
 1787 possessed the other requisite qualifications, 
 178 
 
SDaniel 
 
 there is no knowing, notwithstanding his Fed 
 eralism, to what heights of favor he might not 
 yet attain. 
 
 Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such 
 as it is, into New England, the honorable gentle 
 man all along professes to be acting on the 
 defensive. He chooses to consider me as hav 
 ing assailed South Carolina, and insists that he 
 comes forth only as her champion, and in her 
 defense. Sir, I do not admit that I made any 
 attack whatever on South Carolina. Nothing 
 like it. The honorable member, in his first 
 speech, expressed opinions in regard to rev 
 enue and some other topics which I heard 
 both with pain and with surprise. I told the 
 gentleman I was aware that such sentiments 
 were entertained out of the government, but 
 had not expected to find them advanced in it; 
 that I knew there were persons in the South 
 who speak of our Union with indifference or 
 doubt, taking pains to magnify its evils, and 
 to say nothing of its benefits; that the honor 
 able member himself, I was sure, could never 
 be one of these ; and I regretted the expression 
 of such opinions as he had avowed, because I 
 thought their obvious tendency was to en 
 courage feelings of disrespect to the Union, 
 and to impair its strength. This, sir, is the 
 sum and substance of all I said on the subject. 
 And this constitutes the attack which called 
 on the chivalry of the gentleman, in his own 
 opinion, to harry us with such a foray among 
 179 
 
jftemorafcle American 
 
 the party pamphlets and party proceedings of 
 Massachusetts ! If he means that I spoke with 
 dissatisfaction or disrespect of the ebullitions 
 of individuals in South Carolina, it is true. 
 But if he means that I assailed the character 
 of the state, her honor, or patriotism, that I 
 reflected on her history or her conduct, he has 
 not the slightest ground for any such as 
 sumption. I did not even refer, I think, in my 
 observations, to any collection of individuals. 
 I said nothing of the recent conventions. I 
 spoke in the most guarded and careful manner, 
 and only expressed my regret for the pub 
 lication of opinions, which I presumed the 
 honorable member disapproved as much as 
 myself. In this, it seems, I was mistaken. I do 
 not remember that the gentleman has dis 
 claimed any sentiment, or any opinion, of a 
 supposed anti-union tendency, which on all or 
 any of the recent occasions has been expressed. 
 The whole drift of his speech has been rather 
 to prove that, in divers times and manners, 
 sentiments equally liable to my objection have 
 been avowed in New England. And one 
 would suppose that his object, in this reference 
 to Massachusetts, was to find a precedent to 
 justify proceedings in the South, were it not 
 for the reproach and contumely with which he 
 labors, all along, to load these his own chosen 
 precedents. By way of defending South Caro 
 lina from what he chooses to think an attack 
 on her, he first quotes the example of Massa- 
 180 
 
2Daniel Wtbgttt 
 
 chusetts, and then denounces that example in 
 good set terms. This twofold purpose, not 
 very consistent, one would think, with itself, 
 was exhibited more than once in the course of 
 his speech. He referred, for instance, to the 
 Hartford Convention. Did he do this for au 
 thority, for a topic of reproach ? Apparently 
 for both, for he told us that he should find no 
 fault with the mere fact of holding such a con 
 vention, and considering and discussing such 
 questions as he supposes were then and there 
 discussed ; but what rendered it obnoxious 
 was its being held at the time, and under the 
 circumstances of the country then existing. 
 We were in a war, he said, and the country 
 needed all our aid ; the hand of government 
 required to be strengthened, not weakened; 
 and patriotism should have postponed such 
 proceedings to another day. The thing itself, 
 then, is a precedent; the time and manner 
 of it only a subject of censure. 
 
 Now, sir, I go much further on this point 
 than the honorable member. Supposing, as 
 the gentleman seems to do, that the Hartford 
 Convention assembled for any such purpose 
 as breaking up the Union, because they thought 
 unconstitutional laws had been passed, or to 
 consult on that subject, or to calculate the 
 value of the Union ; supposing this to be their 
 purpose, or any part of it, then I say the 
 meeting itself was disloyal, and was obnoxious 
 to censure, whether held in time of peace or 
 181 
 
American 
 
 time of war, or under whatever circumstances. 
 The material question is the object. Is disso 
 lution the object? If it be, external circum 
 stances may make it a more or less aggravated 
 case, but cannot affect the principle. I do not 
 hold, therefore, sir, that the Hartford Con 
 vention was pardonable, even to the extent of 
 the gentleman s admission, if its objects were 
 really such as have been imputed to it. Sir, 
 there never was a time, under any degree of 
 excitement, in which the Hartford Convention, 
 or any other convention, could have main 
 tained itself one moment in New England, if 
 assembled for any such purpose as the gen 
 tleman says would have been an allowable 
 purpose. To hold conventions to decide con 
 stitutional law! To try the binding validity 
 of statutes by votes in a convention ! Sir, the 
 Hartford Convention, I presume, would not 
 desire that the honorable gentleman should be 
 their defender or advocate, if he puts their 
 case upon such untenable and extravagant 
 grounds. 
 
 Then, sir, the gentleman has no fault to find 
 with these recently promulgated South Caro 
 lina opinions. And certainly he need have none ; 
 for his own sentiments, as now advanced, and 
 advanced on reflection, as far as I have been 
 able to comprehend them, go the full length of 
 all these opinions. I propose, sir, to say some 
 thing on these, and to consider how far they 
 are just and constitutional. Before doing that, 
 182 
 
Daniel 
 
 however, let me observe that the eulogium pro 
 nounced by the honorable gentleman on the 
 character of the state of South Carolina, for 
 her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my 
 hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge 
 that the honorable member goes before me in 
 regard for whatever of distinguished talent, or 
 distinguished character, South Carolina has 
 produced. I claim part of the honor; I partake 
 in the pride of her great names. I claim them 
 for countrymen, one and all, the Laurenses, the 
 Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the 
 Marions, Americans all, whose fame is no more 
 to be hemmed in by state lines, than their tal 
 ents and patriotism were capable of being cir 
 cumscribed within the same narrow limits. In 
 their day and generation, they served and hon 
 ored the country, and the whole country; and 
 their renown is of the treasures of the whole 
 country. Him whose honored name the gen 
 tleman himself bears, does he esteem me less 
 capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sym 
 pathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had 
 first opened upon the light of Massachusetts 
 instead of South Carolina ? Sir, does he sup 
 pose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name 
 so bright as to produce envy in my bosom ? 
 No, sir; increased gratification and delight 
 rather. I thank God that, if I am gifted with 
 little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals 
 to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that 
 other spirit which would drag angels down. 
 183 
 
American 
 
 When I shall be found, sir, in my place here 
 in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public 
 merit because it happens to spring up beyond 
 the little limits of my own state or neighbor 
 hood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for 
 any cause, the homage due to American tal 
 ent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion 
 to liberty and the country; or if I see an uncom 
 mon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordi 
 nary capacity and virtue, in any son of the 
 South, and if, moved by local prejudice or gan 
 grened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate 
 the tithe of a hair from his just character and 
 just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof 
 of my mouth ! 
 
 Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; 
 let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of 
 the past; let me remind you that, in early 
 times, no states cherished greater harmony, 
 both of principle and feeling, than Massachu 
 setts and South Carolina. Would to God that 
 harmony might again return! Shoulder to 
 shoulder they went through the Revolution; 
 hand in hand they stood round the administra 
 tion of Washington, and felt his own great arm 
 lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if 
 it exist, alienation, and distrust are the growth, 
 unnatural to such soils, of false principles since 
 sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which 
 that same great arm never scattered. 
 
 Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium 
 upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There 
 184 
 
SDaniel Wtbgttt 
 
 she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. 
 There is her history; the world knows it by 
 heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
 Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and 
 Bunker Hill; and there they will remain for 
 ever. The bones of her sons, failing in the 
 great struggle for independence, now lie min 
 gled with the soil of every state from New 
 England to Georgia; and there they will lie 
 forever. And, sir, where American liberty 
 raised its first voice, and where its youth 
 was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, 
 in the strength of its manhood and full of its 
 original spirit. If discord and disunion shall 
 wound it, if party strife and blind ambition 
 shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, 
 if uneasiness under salutary and necessary 
 restraint, shall succeed in separating it from 
 that union, by which alone its existence is made 
 sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of 
 that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; 
 it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of 
 vigor it may still retain over the friends who 
 gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall 
 it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its 
 own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 
 There yet remains to be performed, Mr. 
 President, by far the most grave and important 
 duty, which I feel to be devolved on me by 
 this occasion. It is to state, and to defend, 
 what I conceive to be the true principles of 
 the Constitution under which we are here 
 185 
 
American 
 
 assembled. I might well have desired that so 
 weighty a task should have fallen into other 
 and abler hands. I could have wished that it 
 should have been executed by those whose 
 character and experience give weight and influ 
 ence to their opinions, such as cannot possibly 
 belong to mine. But, sir, I have met the oc 
 casion, not sought it; and I shall proceed to 
 state my own sentiments, without challenging 
 for them any particular regard, with studied 
 plainness, and as much precision as possible. 
 
 I understand the honorable gentleman from 
 South Carolina to maintain that it is a right 
 of the state legislatures to interfere whenever, 
 in their judgment, this government transcends 
 its constitutional limits, and to arrest the oper 
 ation of its laws. 
 
 I understand him to maintain this right, as 
 a right existing under the Constitution, not as 
 a right to overthrow it on the ground of ex 
 treme necessity, such as would justify violent 
 revolution. 
 
 I understand him to maintain an authority, 
 on the part of the states, thus to interfere, for 
 the purpose of correcting the exercise of power 
 by the general government, of checking it and 
 of compelling it to conform to their opinion of 
 the extent of its powers. 
 
 I understand him to maintain that the ulti 
 
 mate power of judging of the constitutional 
 
 extent of its own authority is not lodged exclu 
 
 sively in the general government, or any branch 
 
 1 86 
 
Daniel 
 
 of it; but that, on the contrary, the states may 
 lawfully decide for themselves, and each state 
 for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of 
 the general government transcends its power. 
 
 I understand him to insist that if the exi 
 gency of the case, in the opinion of any state 
 government, requires it, such state government 
 may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an 
 act of the general government which it deems 
 plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 
 
 This is the sum of what I understand from 
 him to be the South Carolina doctrine, and 
 the doctrine which he maintains. I propose 
 to consider it, and compare it with the Consti 
 tution. Allow me to say, as a preliminary 
 remark, that I call this the South Carolina 
 doctrine only because the gentleman himself 
 has so denominated it. I do not feel at liberty 
 to say that South Carolina, as a state, has 
 ever advanced these sentiments. I hope she 
 has not, and never may. That a great major 
 ity of her people are opposed to the tariff laws 
 is doubtless true. That a majority, somewhat 
 less than that just mentioned, conscientiously 
 believe these laws unconstitutional may prob 
 ably also be true. But that any majority 
 holds to the right of direct state interference 
 at state discretion, the right of nullifying acts 
 of Congress by acts of state legislation, is 
 more than I know, and what I shall be slow to 
 believe. 
 
 That there are individuals besides the honor- 
 187 
 
;jttemoraWe American 
 
 able gentleman who do maintain these opinions 
 is quite certain. I recollect the recent ex 
 pression of a sentiment which circumstances 
 attending its utterance and publication justify 
 us in supposing was not unpremeditated. " The 
 sovereignty of the state, never to be con 
 trolled, construed, or decided on but by her 
 own feelings of honorable justice." 
 
 [Mr. Hayne here rose and said, that, for the pur 
 pose of being clearly understood, he would state that 
 his proposition was, in the words of the Virginia res 
 olution, as follows : 
 
 "That this assembly doth explicitly and perempto 
 rily declare, that it views the powers of the federal 
 government, as resulting from the compact to which 
 the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense 
 and intention of the instrument constituting that 
 compact, as no further valid than they are authorized 
 by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that, 
 in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous 
 exercise of other powers not granted by the said 
 compact, the states who are parties thereto have the 
 right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for ar 
 resting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining 
 within their respective limits the authorities, rights, 
 and liberties appertaining to them." 
 
 Mr.Webster resumed.] 
 
 I am quite aware, Mr. President, of the 
 existence of the resolution which the gentle 
 man read, and has now repeated, and that 
 he relies on it as his authority. I know the 
 source, too, from which it is understood to 
 have proceeded. I need not say that I have 
 much respect for the constitutional opinions 
 of Mr. Madison; they would weigh greatly 
 188 
 
with me always. But before the authority of 
 his opinion be vouched for the gentleman s 
 proposition, it will be proper to consider what 
 is the fair interpretation of that resolution, to 
 which Mr. Madison is understood to have 
 given his sanction. As the gentleman con 
 strues it, it is an authority for him. Possibly 
 he may not have adopted the right con 
 struction. That resolution declares that in 
 the case of the dangerous exercise of powers 
 not granted by the general government, the 
 states may interpose to arrest the progress 
 of the evil. But how interpose, and what 
 does this declaration purport ? Does it mean 
 no more than that there may be extreme cases 
 in which the people, in any mode of assembling, 
 may resist usurpation, and relieve themselves 
 from a tyrannical government ? No one will 
 deny this. Such resistance is not only ac 
 knowledged to be just in America, but in 
 England also; Blackstone admits as much, in 
 the theory and practice, too, of the English 
 constitution. We, sir, who oppose the Caro 
 lina doctrine, do not deny that the people 
 may, if they choose, throw off any government 
 when it becomes oppressive and intolerable, 
 and erect a better in its stead? We all know 
 that civil institutions are established for the 
 public benefit, and that when they cease to an 
 swer the ends of their existence they may be 
 changed. But I do not understand the doctrine 
 now contended for to be that, which, for the 
 189 
 
American 
 
 sake of distinction, we may call the right of 
 revolution. I understand the gentleman to 
 maintain that without revolution, without civil 
 commotion, without rebellion, a remedy for sup 
 posed abuse and transgression of the powers 
 of the general government lies in a direct 
 appeal to the interference of the state govern 
 ments. 
 
 [Mr. Hayne here rose and said he did not contend 
 for the mere right of revolution, but for the right of 
 constitutional resistance. What he maintained was, 
 that in case of a plain, palpable violation of the Consti 
 tution by the general government, a state may inter 
 pose; and that this interposition is constitutional. 
 Mr. Webster resumed.] 
 
 So, sir, I understood the gentleman, and 
 am happy to find that I did not misunderstand 
 him. What he contends for is, that it is 
 constitutional to interrupt the administration 
 of the Constitution itself, in the hands of those 
 who are chosen and sworn to administer it, by 
 the direct interference, in form of law, of the 
 states, in virtue of their sovereign capacity. 
 The inherent right in the people to reform 
 their government I do not deny; and they 
 have another right, and that is to resist un 
 constitutional laws without overturning the 
 government. It is no doctrine of mine that 
 unconstitutional laws bind the people. The 
 great question is, whose prerogative is it to 
 decide on the constitutionality or unconstitu 
 tionally of the laws? On that the main 
 debate hinges, The proposition that in case 
 190 
 
2Danid Wtbgttt 
 
 of a supposed violation of the Constitution 
 by Congress the states have a constitutional 
 right to interfere and annul the law of Con 
 gress is the proposition of the gentleman. 
 I do not admit it. If the gentleman had 
 intended no more than to assert the right of 
 revolution for justifiable cause, he would have 
 said only what all agreed to. But I cannot 
 conceive that there can be a middle course be 
 tween submission to the laws, when regularly 
 pronounced constitutional, on the one hand, 
 and open resistance, which is revolution or 
 rebellion, on the other. I say the right of a 
 state to annul a law of Congress cannot be 
 maintained but on the ground of the inalien 
 able right of man to resist oppression ; that is 
 to say, upon the ground of revolution. I 
 admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy, 
 above the Constitution and in defiance of the 
 Constitution, which may be resorted to when 
 a revolution is to be justified. But I do not 
 admit that under the Constitution, and in 
 conformity with it, there is any mode in which 
 a state government, as a member of the 
 Union, can interfere and stop the progress of 
 the general government by force of her own 
 laws, under any circumstances whatever. 
 
 This leads us to inquire into the origin of 
 this government, and the source of its power. 
 Whose agent is it ? Is it the creature of the 
 state legislatures, or the creature of the peo 
 ple ? If the government of the United States 
 
 IQI 
 
American 
 
 be the agent of the state governments, then 
 they may control it, provided they can agree 
 in the manner of controlling it ; if it be the 
 agent of the people, then the people alone 
 can control it, restrain it, modify or reform it. 
 It is observable enough that the doctrine for 
 which the honorable gentleman contends leads 
 him to the necessity of maintaining not only 
 that this general government is the creature of 
 the states, but that it is the creature of each 
 of the states severally, so that each may assert 
 the power for itself of determining whether it 
 acts within the limits of its authority. It is 
 the servant of four-and-twenty masters, of 
 different wills and different purposes, and yet 
 bound to obey all. This absurdity (for it 
 seems no less) arises from a misconception as 
 to the origin of this government and its true 
 character. It is, sir, the people s Constitu 
 tion, the people s government; made for the 
 people, made by the people, and answerable 
 to the people. The people of the United 
 States have declared that this Constitution 
 shall be the supreme law. We must either 
 admit the proposition or dispute their author 
 ity. The states are, unquestionably, sovereign, 
 so far as their sovereignty is not affected by the 
 supreme law. But the state legislatures, as pol 
 itical bodies, however sovereign, are yet not sov 
 ereign over the people. So far as the people 
 have given power to the general government, 
 so far the grant is unquestionably good, and 
 192 
 
SDaniel 
 
 the government holds of the people, and not 
 of the state governments. We are all agents 
 of the same supreme power, the people. 
 The general government and the state govern 
 ments derive their authority from the same 
 source. Neither can, in relation to the other, 
 be called primary, though one is definite and 
 restricted, and the other general and residuary. 
 The national government possesses those pow 
 ers which it can be shown the people have 
 conferred on it, and no more. All the rest 
 belongs to the state governments, or to the 
 people themselves. So far as the people have 
 restrained state sovereignty by the expression 
 of their will in the Constitution of the United 
 States, so far, it must be admitted, state sover 
 eignty is effectually controlled. I do not con 
 tend that it is, or ought to be, controlled 
 further. The sentiment to which I have re 
 ferred propounds that state sovereignty is 
 only to be controlled by its own "feeling of 
 justice" ; that is to say, it is not to be controlled 
 at all, for one who is to follow his own feelings 
 is under no legal control. Now, however 
 men may think this ought to be, the fact is, 
 that the people of the United States have 
 chosen to impose control on state sovereign 
 ties. There are those, doubtless, who wish 
 they had been left without restraint ; but the 
 Constitution has ordered the matter different 
 ly. To make war, for instance, is an exercise 
 of sovereignty; but the Constitution declares 
 193 
 
American 
 
 that no state shall make war. To coin money 
 is another exercise of sovereign power; but 
 no state is at liberty to coin money. Again, 
 the Constitution says that no sovereign state 
 shall be so sovereign as to make a treaty. 
 These prohibitions, it must be confessed, are 
 a control on the state sovereignty of South 
 Carolina, as well as of the other states, which 
 does not arise "from her own feelings of 
 honorable justice." The opinion referred to, 
 therefore, is in defiance of the plainest pro 
 visions of the Constitution. 
 
 There are other proceedings of public bodies 
 which have already been alluded to, and to 
 which I refer again for the purpose of ascer 
 taining more fully what is the length and 
 breadth of that doctrine, denominated the Caro 
 lina doctrine, which the honorable member has 
 now stood up on this floor to maintain. In one 
 of them I find it resolved that "the tariff of 
 1 828, and every other tariff designed to promote 
 one branch of industry at the expense of others, 
 is contrary to the meaning and intention of the 
 federal compact; and such a dangerous, palpa 
 ble, and deliberate usurpation of power, by 
 a determined majority, wielding the general 
 government beyond the limits of its delegated 
 powers, as calls upon the states which com 
 pose the suffering minority, in their sovereign 
 capacity, to exercise the powers which, as 
 sovereigns, necessarily devolve upon them, 
 when their compact is violated." 
 194 
 
Observe, sir, that this resolution holds the 
 tariff of 1828, and every other tariff designed 
 to promote one branch of industry at the ex 
 pense of another, to be such a dangerous, 
 palpable, and deliberate usurpation of power, 
 as calls upon the states, in their sovereign 
 capacity, to interfere by their own authority. 
 This denunciation, Mr. President, you will 
 please to observe, includes our old tariff of 
 1816, as well as all others; because that was 
 established to promote the interest of the 
 manufacturers of cotton, to the manifest and 
 admitted injury of the Calcutta cotton trade. 
 Observe, again, that all the qualifications are 
 here rehearsed and charged upon the tariff, 
 which are necessary to bring the case within 
 the gentleman s proposition. The tariff is a 
 usurpation; it is a dangerous usurpation; it is 
 a palpable usurpation; it is a deliberate usur 
 pation. It is such a usurpation, therefore, as 
 calls upon the states to exercise their right of 
 interference. Here is a case, then, within the 
 gentleman s principles, and all his qualifications 
 of his principles. It is a case for action. The 
 Constitution is plainly, dangerously, palpably, 
 and deliberately violated; and the states must 
 interpose their own authority to arrest the 
 law. Let us suppose the state of South Caro 
 lina to express this same opinion by the voice 
 of her legislature. That would be very impos 
 ing; but what then? Is the voice of one state 
 conclusive? It so happens that, at the very 
 
American 
 
 moment when South Carolina resolves that 
 the tariff laws are unconstitutional, Pennsylva 
 nia and Kentucky resolve exactly the reverse. 
 They hold those laws to be both highly proper 
 and strictly constitutional. And now, sir, how 
 does the honorable member propose to deal 
 with this case ? How does he relieve us from 
 this difficulty, upon any principle of his ? His 
 construction gets us into it; how does he pro 
 pose to get us out ? 
 
 In Carolina, the tariff is a palpable, delib 
 erate usurpation; Carolina, therefore, may 
 nullify it, and refuse to pay the duties. In 
 Pennsylvania, it is both clearly constitutional 
 and highly expedient; and there the duties are 
 to be paid. And yet we live under a govern 
 ment of uniform laws, and under a Constitu 
 tion, too, which contains an express provision, 
 as it happens, that all duties shall be equal 
 in all the states. Does not this approach 
 absurdity ? 
 
 If there be no power to settle such questions, 
 independent of either of the states, is not the 
 whole Union a rope of sand? Are we not 
 thrown back again, precisely, upon the old 
 Confederation ? 
 
 It is too plain to be argued. Four-and- 
 twenty interpreters of constitutional law, each 
 with a power to decide for itself, and none with 
 authority to bind anybody else, and this consti 
 tutional law the only bond of their union! 
 What is such a state of things but a mere con- 
 196 
 
SDaniel 
 
 nection during pleasure, or, to use the phrase 
 ology of the times, during feeling? And that 
 feeling, too, not the feeling of the people who 
 established the Constitution, but the feeling of 
 the state governments. 
 
 In another of the South Carolina addresses, 
 having premised that the crisis requires "all 
 the concentrated energy of passion," an atti 
 tude of open resistance to the laws of the 
 Union is advised. Open resistance to the laws, 
 then, is the constitutional remedy, the conser 
 vative power of the state which the South 
 Carolina doctrines teach for the redress of po 
 litical evils, real or imaginary. And its authors 
 further say, that, appealing with confidence to 
 the Constitution itself to justify their opin 
 ions, they cannot consent to try their accuracy 
 by the courts of justice. In one sense, indeed, 
 sir, this is assuming an attitude of open re 
 sistance in favor of liberty. But what sort of 
 liberty ? The liberty of establishing their own 
 opinions in defiance of the opinions of all 
 others; the liberty of judging and of deciding 
 exclusively themselves in a matter in which 
 others have as much right to judge and decide 
 as they; the liberty of placing their own opin 
 ions above the judgment of all others, above 
 the laws, and above the Constitution. This is 
 their liberty, and this is the fair result of the 
 proposition contended for by the honorable 
 gentleman. Or, it may be more properly said, 
 it is identical with it, rather than a result from 
 197 
 
American 
 
 it. In the same publication we find the fol 
 lowing: "Previously to our Revolution, when 
 the arm of oppression was stretched over New 
 England, where did our Northern brethren 
 meet with a braver sympathy than that which 
 sprung from the bosoms of Carolinians ? We 
 had no extortion, no oppression, no collision 
 with the king s ministers, no navigation interests 
 springing up, in envious rivalry of England." 
 
 This seems extraordinary language. South 
 Carolina no collision with the king s ministers 
 in 1775 ! No extortion! No oppression ! But, 
 sir, it is also most significant language. Does 
 any man doubt the purpose for which it was 
 penned ? Can any one fail to see that it was 
 designed to raise in the reader s mind the 
 question, whether, af this time, that is to 
 say, in 1828, South Carolina has any colli 
 sion with the king s ministers, any oppression, 
 or extortion, to fear from England ? Whether, 
 in short, England is not as naturally the friend 
 of South Carolina as New England, with her 
 navigation interests springing up in envious 
 rivalry of England ? 
 
 Is it not strange, sir, that an intelligent man 
 in South Carolina, in 1828, should thus labor 
 to prove that, in 1775, there was no hostility, 
 no cause of war, between South Carolina and 
 England ? That she had no occasion, in refer 
 ence to her own interest, or from a regard to 
 her own welfare, to take up arms in the Revo 
 lutionary contest ? Can any one account for 
 198 
 
3DanieI Wtb&ttt 
 
 the expression of such strange sentiments, and 
 their circulation through the state, otherwise 
 than by supposing the object to be what I 
 have already intimated, to raise the question, 
 if they had no * collision? (mark the expres 
 sion) with the ministers of King George the 
 Third, in 1/75, what collision have they, in 
 1828, with the ministers of King George the 
 Fourth? What is there now in the existing 
 state of things, to separate Carolina from Old, 
 more, or rather, than from New England ? 
 
 Resolutions, sir, have been recently passed 
 by the legislature of South Carolina. I need 
 not refer to them ; they go no farther than the 
 honorable gentleman himself has gone, and I 
 hope not so far. I content myself, therefore, 
 with debating the matter with him. 
 
 And now, sir, what I have first to say on 
 this subject is, that at no time, and under no 
 circumstances, has New England, or any state 
 in New England, or any respectable body of 
 persons in New England, or any public man 
 of standing in New England, put forth such 
 a doctrine as this Carolina doctrine. 
 
 The gentleman has found no case, he can 
 find none, to support his own opinions by 
 New England authority. New England has 
 studied the Constitution in other schools, and 
 under other teachers. She looks upon it with 
 other regards, and deems more highly and rev 
 erently both of its just authority and its utility 
 and excellence. The history of her legislative 
 199 
 
American 
 
 proceedings may be traced. The ephemeral 
 effusions of temporary bodies, called together 
 by the excitement of the occasion, may be 
 hunted up; they have been hunted up. The 
 opinions and votes of her public men, in and 
 out of Congress, may be explored. It will 
 be all in vain. The Carolina doctrine can 
 derive from her neither countenance nor sup 
 port. She rejects it now; she always did 
 reject it; and till she loses her senses, she 
 always will reject it. The honorable member 
 has referred to expressions on the subject of 
 the embargo law, made in this place, by an 
 honorable and venerable gentleman, now fa 
 voring us with his presence. He quotes that 
 distinguished senator as saying, that in his 
 judgment, the embargo law was unconstitu 
 tional, and that, therefore, in his opinion, the 
 people were not bound to obey it. That, sir, 
 is perfectly constitutional language. An un 
 constitutional law is not binding; but then it 
 does not rest with a resolution or a law of a 
 state legislature to decide whether an act of 
 Congress be or be not constitutional. An un 
 constitutional act of Congress would not bind 
 the people of this district, although they have 
 no legislature to interfere in their behalf; and, 
 on the other hand, a constitutional law of 
 Congress does bind the citizens of every state, 
 although all their legislatures should under 
 take to annul it by act or resolution. The 
 venerable Connecticut senator is a constitu- 
 200 
 
SDaniel 
 
 tional lawyer, of sound principles and enlarged 
 knowledge; a statesman practiced and experi 
 enced, bred in the company of Washington, 
 and holding just views upon the nature of our 
 governments. He believed the embargo un 
 constitutional, and so did others; but what 
 then? Who did he suppose was to decide 
 that question ? The state legislatures ? Cer 
 tainly not. No such sentiment ever escaped 
 his lips. 
 
 Let us follow up, sir, this New England 
 opposition to the embargo laws; let us trace it 
 till we discern the principle which controlled 
 and governed New England throughout the 
 whole course of that opposition. We shall 
 then see what similarity there is between the 
 New England school of constitutional opin 
 ions, and this modern Carolina school. The 
 gentleman, I think, read a petition from some 
 single individual addressed to the legislature of 
 Massachusetts, asserting the Carolina doctrine; 
 that is, the right of state interference to ar 
 rest the laws of the Union. The fate of that 
 petition shows the sentiment of the legislature. 
 It met no favor. The opinions of Massachu 
 setts were very different. They had been ex 
 pressed in 1798, in answer to the resolutions 
 of Virginia, and she did not depart from them, 
 nor bend them to the times. Misgoverned, 
 wronged, oppressed, as she felt herself to be, 
 she still held fast her integrity to the Union. 
 The gentleman may find in her proceedings 
 201 
 
American 
 
 much evidence of dissatisfaction with the 
 measures of government, and great and deep 
 dislike to the embargo; all this makes the case 
 so much the stronger for her; for notwith 
 standing all this dissatisfaction and dislike, she 
 still claimed no right to sever the bonds of 
 the Union. There was heat and there was 
 anger in her political feeling. Be it so; but 
 neither her heat nor her anger betrayed her 
 into infidelity to the government. The gentle 
 man labors to prove that she disliked the em 
 bargo as much as South Carolina dislikes the 
 tariff, and expressed her dislike as strongly. 
 Be it so; but did she propose the Carolina 
 remedy ? Did she threaten to interfere, by 
 state authority, to annul the laws of the 
 Union ? That is the question for the gentle 
 man s consideration. 
 
 No doubt, sir, a great majority of the peo 
 ple of New England conscientiously believed 
 the embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional; 
 as conscientiously, certainly, as the people of 
 South Carolina hold that opinion of the tariff. 
 They reasoned thus: Congress has power to 
 regulate commerce; but here is a law, they 
 said, stopping all commerce, and stopping it 
 indefinitely. The law is perpetual; that is, it 
 is not limited in point of time, and must of 
 course continue until it shall be repealed by 
 some other law. It is as perpetual, therefore, 
 as the law against treason or murder. Now, 
 is this regulating commerce, or destroying- it ? 
 202 
 
SDaniel 
 
 Is it guiding, controlling, giving the rule to 
 commerce, as a subsisting thing, or is it put 
 ting an end to it altogether ? Nothing is more 
 certain than that a majority in New England 
 deemed this law a violation of the Constitution. 
 The very case required by the gentleman to 
 justify state interference had then arisen. 
 Massachusetts believed this law to be "a delib 
 erate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a 
 power not granted by the Constitution." De 
 liberate it was, for it was long continued; pal 
 pable she thought it, as no words in the Consti 
 tution gave the power, and only a construction, 
 in her opinion most violent, raised it; dan 
 gerous it was, since it threatened utter ruin to 
 her most important interests. Here, then, was 
 a Carolina case. How did Massachusetts 
 deal with it ? It was, as she thought, a plain, 
 manifest, palpable violation of the Constitu 
 tion, and it brought ruin to her doors. Thou 
 sands of families, and hundreds of thousands 
 of individuals, were beggared by it. While 
 she saw and felt all this, she saw and felt also, 
 that, as a measure of national policy, it was 
 perfectly futile; that the country was in no 
 way benefited by that which caused so much 
 individual distress; that it was efficient only 
 for the production of evil, and all that evil 
 inflicted on ourselves. In such a case, under 
 such circumstances, how did Massachusetts 
 demean herself? Sir, she remonstrated, she 
 memorialized, she addressed herself to the 
 203 
 
3tmertcan 
 
 general government, not exactly "with the 
 concentrated energy of passion," but with her 
 own strong sense, and the energy of sober 
 conviction. But she did not interpose the 
 arm of her own power to arrest the law and 
 break the embargo. Far from it. Her prin 
 ciples bound her to two things; and she fol 
 lowed her principles, lead where they might. 
 First, to submit to every constitutional law of 
 Congress; and secondly, if the constitutional 
 validity of the law be doubted, to refer that 
 question to the decision of the proper tribu 
 nals. The first principle is vain and ineffec 
 tual without the second. A majority of us in 
 New England believed the embargo law un 
 constitutional; but the great question was, 
 and always will be in such cases, Who is to 
 decide this ? Who is to judge between the 
 people and the government ? And, sir, it is 
 quite plain that the Constitution of the United 
 States confers on the government itself, to be 
 exercised by its appropriate department, and 
 under its own responsibility to the people, this 
 power of deciding ultimately and conclusively 
 upon the just extent of its own authority. If 
 this had not been done, we should not have 
 advanced a single step beyond the old Confed 
 eration. 
 
 Being fully of the opinion that the embargo 
 
 law was unconstitutional, the people of New 
 
 England were yet equally clear in the opinion 
 
 (it was a matter they did doubt upon) that the 
 
 204 
 
SDaniel 
 
 question, after all, must be decided by the ju 
 dicial tribunals of the United States. Before 
 those tribunals, therefore, they brought the 
 question. Under the provisions of the law, 
 they had given bonds to millions in amount, and 
 which were alleged to be forfeited. They suf 
 fered the bonds to be sued, and thus raised 
 the question. In the old-fashioned way of 
 settling disputes, they went to law. The case 
 came to hearing and solemn argument; and 
 he who espoused their cause, and stood up for 
 them against the validity of the embargo act, 
 was none other than that great man of whom 
 the gentleman has made honorable mention, 
 Samuel Dexter. He was then, sir, in the full 
 ness of his knowledge and the maturity of his 
 strength. He had retired from long and dis 
 tinguished public service here, to the renewed 
 pursuit of professional duties, carrying with 
 him all that enlargement and expansion, all the 
 new strength and force, which an acquaintance 
 with the more general subjects discussed in 
 the national councils is capable of adding to 
 professional attainment, in a mind of true great 
 ness and comprehension. He was a lawyer, 
 and he was also a statesman. He had studied 
 the Constitution when he filled public station 
 that he might defend it; he had examined its 
 principles that he might maintain them. More 
 than all men, or at least as much as any man, 
 he was attached to the general government 
 and to the union of the states. His feelings 
 205 
 
American 
 
 and opinions all ran in that direction. A ques 
 tion of constitutional law, too, was, of all sub 
 jects, that one which was best suited to his 
 talents and learning. Aloof from technicality, 
 and unfettered by artificial rule, such a ques 
 tion gave opportunity for that deep and clear 
 analysis, that mighty grasp of principle, which 
 so much distinguished his higher efforts. His 
 very statement was argument; his inference 
 seemed demonstration. The earnestness of his 
 own conviction wrought conviction in others. 
 One was convinced, and believed, and assented, 
 because it was gratifying, delightful to think 
 and feel and believe in unison with an intellect 
 of such evident superiority. 
 
 Mr. Dexter, sir, such as I have described 
 him, argued the New England cause. He put 
 into his effort his whole heart as well as all 
 the powers of his understanding; for he had 
 avowed, in the most public manner, his entire 
 concurrence with his neighbors on the point 
 in dispute. He argued the cause; it was lost, 
 and New England submitted. The established 
 tribunals pronounced the law constitutional, 
 and New England acquiesced. Now, sir, is 
 not this the exact opposite of the doctrine of 
 the gentleman from South Carolina? Accord 
 ing to him, instead of referring to the judicial 
 tribunals, we should have broken up the em 
 bargo by laws of our own; we should have re 
 pealed it, quoad New England; for we had a 
 strong, palpable, and oppressive case. Sir, we 
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 believed the embargo unconstitutional; but still 
 that was matter of opinion, and who was to de 
 cide it ? We thought it a clear case ; but, never 
 theless, we did not take the law into our own 
 hands, because we did not wish to bring about 
 a revolution, nor to break up the Union; for I 
 maintain, that between submission to the deci 
 sion of the constituted tribunals, and revolution 
 or disunion, there is no middle ground; there is 
 no ambiguous condition, half allegiance and half 
 rebellion. And, sir, how futile, how very futile 
 it is, to admit the right of state interference, 
 and then attempt to save it from the character 
 of unlawful resistance, by adding terms of qual 
 ification to the causes and occasions, leaving 
 all these qualifications, like the case itself, in 
 the discretion of the state governments. It 
 must be a clear case, it is said, a deliberate 
 case, a palpable case, a dangerous case. But 
 then the state is still left at liberty to decide 
 for herself what is clear, what is deliberate, 
 what is palpable, what is dangerous. Do 
 adjectives and epithets avail anything? 
 
 Sir, the human mind is so constituted that the 
 merits of both sides of a controversy appear 
 very clear and very palpable to those who 
 respectively espouse them; and both sides usu 
 ally grow clearer as the controversy advances. 
 South Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the 
 tariff; she sees oppression there also, and she 
 sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision not 
 less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees 
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 no such thing in it; she sees it all constitu 
 tional, all useful, all safe. The faith of South 
 Carolina is strengthened by opposition, and she 
 now not only sees but resolves that the tariff 
 is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive, and 
 dangerous; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind 
 her neighbors, and equally willing to strengthen 
 her own faith by a confident asseveration, 
 resolves, also, and gives to every warm affirm 
 ative of South Carolina, a plain, downright, 
 Pennsylvania negative. South Carolina, to 
 show the strength and unity of her opinion, 
 brings her assembly to a unanimity, within 
 seven voices; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone 
 in this respect any more than in others, reduces 
 her dissentient fraction to a single vote. Now, 
 sir, again, I ask the gentleman, what is to be 
 done? Are these states both right? Is he 
 bound to consider them both right ? If not, 
 which is in the wrong ? Or rather, which has 
 the best right to decide ? And if he, and if I, 
 are not to know what the Constitution means, 
 and what it is, till those two state legislatures, 
 and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its 
 construction, what have we sworn to when we 
 have sworn to maintain it? I was forcibly 
 struck, sir, with one reflection, as the gentle 
 man went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. 
 Madison s resolutions to prove that a state 
 may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, 
 and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. 
 The honorable member supposes the tariff law 
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 to be such an exercise of power; and that 
 consequently a case has arisen in which the 
 state may, if it see fit, interfere by its own law. 
 Now it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. 
 Madison deems this same tariff law quite con 
 stitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable 
 violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation at 
 all. So that, while they use his authority for 
 a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very 
 case before them. All this, sir, shows the in 
 herent futility I had almost used a stronger 
 word of conceding this power of interference 
 to the state, and then attempting to secure it 
 from abuse by imposing qualifications of which 
 the states themselves are to judge. One of 
 the two things is true: either the laws of 
 the Union are beyond the discretion and be 
 yond the control of the states, or else we 
 have no constitution of general government, 
 and are thrust back again to the days of the 
 Confederation. 
 
 Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman s 
 doctrine had been received and acted upon in 
 New England, in the times of the embargo 
 and non-intercourse, we should probably not 
 now have been here. The government would 
 very likely have gone to pieces, and crumbled 
 into dust. No stronger case can ever arise 
 than existed under those laws; no states can 
 ever entertain a clearer conviction than the 
 New England states then entertained; and 
 if they had been under the influence of that 
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 heresy of opinion, as I must call it, which the 
 honorable member espouses, this Union would 
 in all probability have been scattered to the 
 four winds. I ask the gentleman, therefore, 
 to apply his principles to that case; I ask him 
 to come forth and declare, whether, in his 
 opinion, the New England states would have 
 been justified in interfering to break up the 
 embargo system under the conscientious opin 
 ions which they held upon it. Had they 
 a right to annul that law? Does he admit or 
 deny ? If what is thought palpably unconsti 
 tutional in South Carolina justifies that state 
 in arresting the progress of the law, tell me 
 whether that which was thought palpably 
 unconstitutional also in Massachusetts would 
 have justified her in doing the same thing? 
 Sir, I deny the whole doctrine. It has not a 
 foot of ground in the Constitution to stand on. 
 No public man of reputation ever advanced it 
 in Massachusetts in the warmest times, or 
 could maintain himself upon it there at any 
 time. 
 
 I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the 
 Virginia resolutions of 1798. I cannot under 
 take to say how these resolutions were under 
 stood by those who passed them. Their 
 language is not a little indefinite. In the case 
 of the exercise by Congress of a dangerous 
 power not granted to them, the resolutions 
 assert the right on the part of the state to 
 interfere and arrest the progress of the evil. 
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SDaniel 
 
 This is susceptible of more than one interpre 
 tation. It may mean no more than that the 
 states may interfere by complaint and re 
 monstrance, or by proposing to the people an 
 alteration of the Federal Constitution. This 
 would all be quite unobjectionable. Or it 
 may be that no more is meant than to assert 
 the general right of revolution, as against all 
 governments, in cases of intolerable oppres 
 sion. This no one doubts, and this, in my 
 opinion, is all that he who framed the reso 
 lutions could have meant by it; for I shall not 
 readily believe that he was ever of opinion 
 that a state, under the Constitution and in 
 conformity with it, could, upon the ground 
 of her own opinion of its unconstitutionality, 
 however clear and palpable she might think 
 the case, annul a law of Congress, so far as it 
 should operate on herself, by her own legis 
 lative power. 
 
 I must now beg to ask, sir, whence is this 
 supposed right of the states derived ? Where 
 do they find the power to interfere with the 
 laws of the Union? Sir, the opinion which 
 the honorable gentleman maintains is a notion 
 founded in a tqtal misapprehension, in my 
 judgment, of the origin of this government, 
 and of the foundation on which it stands. I 
 hold it to be a popular government erected by 
 the people; those who administer it responsible 
 to the people; and itself capable of being 
 amended and modified, just as the people may 
 
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 choose it should be. It is as popular, just as 
 truly emanating from the people, as the state 
 governments. It is created for one purpose ; 
 the state governments for another. It has 
 its own powers; they have theirs. There is 
 no more authority with them to arrest the 
 operation of a law of Congress, than with 
 Congress to arrest the operation of their 
 laws. We are here to administer a Constitu 
 tion emanating immediately from the people, 
 and trusted by them to our administration. 
 It is not the creature of the state govern 
 ments. It is of no moment to the argument, 
 that certain acts of the state legislatures are 
 necessary to fill our seats in this body. That 
 is not one of their original state powers, a 
 part of the sovereignty of the state. It is a 
 duty which the people, by the Constitution 
 itself, have imposed on the state legislatures; 
 and which they might have left to be per 
 formed elsewhere, if they had seen fit. So 
 they have left the choice of President with 
 electors; but all this does not affect the propo 
 sition that this whole government, President, 
 Senate, and House of Representatives, is a 
 popular government. It leaves it still all its 
 popular character. The governor of a state 
 (in some of the states) is chosen, not directly 
 by the people, but by those who are chosen 
 by the people, for the purpose of performing, 
 among other duties, that of electing a gov 
 ernor. Is the government of the state, on that 
 
 212 
 
SDaniel 
 
 account, not a popular government? This 
 government, sir, is the independent offspring 
 of the popular will. It is not the creature of 
 state legislatures; nay, more, if the whole 
 truth must be told, the people brought it into 
 existence, established it, and have hitherto 
 supported it, for the very purpose, amongst 
 others, of imposing certain salutary restraints 
 on state sovereignties. The states cannot 
 now make war; they cannot contract alliances; 
 they cannot make, each for itself, separate 
 regulations of commerce; they cannot lay 
 imposts; they cannot coin money. If this 
 Constitution, sir, be the creature of state 
 legislatures, it must B be admitted that it has 
 obtained a strange control over the volitions 
 of its creators. 
 
 The people, then, sir, erected this govern 
 ment. They gave it a constitution, and in 
 that constitution they have enumerated the 
 powers which they bestow on it. They have 
 made it a limited government. They have 
 defined its authority. They have restrained 
 it to the exercise of such powers as are 
 granted; and all others, they declare, are re 
 served to the states or the people. But, sir, 
 they have not stopped here. If they had, 
 they would have accomplished but half their 
 work. No definition can be so clear as to 
 avoid possibility of doubt; no limitation so 
 precise as to exclude all uncertainty. Who, 
 then, shall construe this grant of the people? 
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 Who shall interpret their will, where it may be 
 supposed they have left it doubtful? With 
 whom do they repose this ultimate right of 
 deciding on the powers of the government ? 
 Sir, they have settled all this in the fullest 
 manner. They have left it with the govern 
 ment itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, 
 the very chief end, the main design, for 
 which the whole Constitution was framed and 
 adopted, was to establish a government that 
 should not be obliged to act through state 
 agency, or depend on state opinion and state 
 discretion. The people had had quite enough 
 of that kind of government under the Con 
 federation. Under that system, the legal 
 action, the application of law to individuals, 
 belonged exclusively to the states. Congress 
 could only recommend; their acts were not of 
 binding force till the states had adopted and 
 sanctioned them. Are we in that condition 
 still? Are we yet at the mercy of state dis 
 cretion and state construction ? Sir, if we 
 are, then vain will be our attempt to maintain 
 the Constitution under which we sit. 
 
 But, sir, the people have wisely provided, 
 in the Constitution itself, a proper, suitable 
 mode and tribunal for settling questions of con 
 stitutional law. There are in the Constitution 
 grants of powers to Congress, and restrictions 
 on these powers. There are, also, prohibitions 
 on the states. Some authority must, therefore, 
 necessarily exist, having the ultimate jurisdic- 
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2DanieI 
 
 tion to fix and ascertain the interpretation 
 of these grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. 
 The Constitution has itself pointed out, or 
 dained, and established that authority. How 
 has it accomplished this great and essential 
 end ? By declaring, sir, that "the Constitution, 
 and the laws of the United States made in 
 pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of 
 the land, anything in the constitution or laws of 
 any state to the contrary notwithstanding ." 
 
 This, sir, was the first great step. By this 
 the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of 
 the United States is declared. The people so 
 will it. No state law is to be valid which 
 comes in conflict with the Constitution, or any 
 law of the United States passed in pursuance 
 of it. But who shall decide this question of 
 interference? To, whom lies the last appeal? 
 This, sir, the Constitution itself decides also, 
 by declaring "that the judicial power shall ex 
 tend to all cases arising under the Constitution 
 and laws of the United States." These two 
 provisions cover the whole ground. They 
 are, in truth, the keystone of the arch ! With 
 these it is a government; without them it is a 
 confederation. In pursuance of these clear 
 and express provisions, Congress established, 
 at its very first session, in the judicial act, a 
 mode for carrying them into full effect, and 
 for bringing all questions of constitutional 
 power to the final decision of the Supreme 
 Court. It then, sir, became a government. 
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 It then had the means of self-protection; 
 and but for this, it would, in all probability, 
 have been now among things which are past. 
 Having constituted the government, and de 
 clared its powers, the people have further 
 said, that, since somebody must decide on the 
 extent of these powers, the government shall 
 itself decide; subject, always, like other popu 
 lar governments, to its responsibility to the 
 people. And now, sir, I repeat, how is it 
 that a state legislature acquires any power to 
 interfere? Who, or what, gives them the 
 right to say to the people, "We, who are 
 your agents and servants for one purpose, will 
 undertake to decide that your other agents 
 and servants, appointed by you for another 
 purpose, have transcended the authority you 
 gave them?" The reply would be, I think, 
 not impertinent: "Who made you a judge 
 over another s servants ? To their own master 
 they stand or fall." 
 
 Sir, I deny this power of state legislatures 
 altogether. It cannot stand the test of exam 
 ination. Gentlemen may say that in an ex 
 treme case a state government might protect 
 the people from intolerable oppression. Sir, 
 in such a case the people might protect them 
 selves without the aid of the state govern 
 ments. Such a case warrants revolution. It 
 must make, when it comes, a law for itself. 
 A nullifying act of a state legislature cannot 
 alter the case, nor make resistance any more 
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SDaniel 
 
 lawful. In maintaining these sentiments, sir, 
 I am but asserting the rights of the people. I 
 state what they have declared, and insist on 
 their right to declare it. They have chosen 
 to repose this power in the general govern 
 ment, and I think it my duty to support it, 
 like other constitutional powers. 
 
 For myself, sir, I do not admit the compe 
 tency of South Carolina, or any other state, to 
 prescribe my constitutional duty; or to settle, 
 between me and the people, the validity of 
 laws of Congress for which I have voted. I 
 decline her umpirage. I have not sworn to 
 support the Constitution according to her con 
 struction of its clauses. I have not stipulated, 
 by my oath of office or otherwise, to come 
 under any responsibility, except to the people, 
 and those whom they have appointed to pass 
 upon the question, whether laws, supported by 
 my votes, conform to the Constitution of the 
 country. And, sir, if we look to the general 
 nature of the case, could anything have been 
 more preposterous than to make a government 
 for the whole Union, and yet leave its powers 
 subject, not to one interpretation, but to thir 
 teen or twenty- four interpretations? Instead 
 of one tribunal, established by all, responsible 
 to all, with power to decide for all, shall con 
 stitutional questions be left to four-and-twen- 
 ty popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for 
 itself, and none bound to respect the decisions 
 of others, and each at liberty, too, to give a 
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 new construction on every new election of its 
 own members ? Would anything, with such a 
 principle in it, or rather with such a destitution 
 of all principle, be fit to be called a govern 
 ment ? No, sir. It should not be denominat 
 ed a Constitution. It should be called, rather, 
 a collection of topics for everlasting con 
 troversy; heads of debate for a disputatious 
 people. It would not be a government. It 
 would not be adequate to any practical good, 
 or fit for any country to live under. 
 
 To avoid all possibility of being misunder 
 stood, allow me to repeat again, in the fullest 
 manner, that I claim no powers for the gov 
 ernment by forced or unfair construction. I 
 admit that it is a government of strictly limited 
 powers ; of enumerated, specified, and partic 
 ularized powers ; and that whatsoever is not 
 granted is withheld. But notwithstanding all 
 this, and however the grant of powers may be 
 expressed, its limit and extent may yet, in 
 some cases, admit of doubt ; and the general 
 government would be good for nothing, it 
 would be incapable of long existing, if some 
 mode had not been provided in which those 
 doubts, as they should arise, might be peace 
 ably but authoritatively solved. 
 
 And now, Mr. President, let me run the 
 honorable gentleman s doctrine a little into its 
 practical application. Let us look at his prob 
 able modus operandi. If a thing can be done, 
 an ingenious man can tell how it is to be done, 
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SDaniel 
 
 and I wish to be informed how this state inter 
 ference is to be put in practice, without vio 
 lence, bloodshed, and rebellion. We will take 
 the existing case of the tariff law. South 
 Carolina is said to have made up her opinion 
 upon it. If we do not repeal it (as we prob 
 ably shall not), she will then apply to the case 
 the remedy of her doctrine. She will, we 
 must suppose, pass a law of her legislature, 
 declaring the several acts of Congress, usually 
 called the tariff laws, null and void, so far as 
 they respect South Carolina or the citizens 
 thereof. So far, all is a paper transaction, and 
 easy enough. But the collector at Charleston 
 is collecting the duties imposed by these 
 tariff laws. He, therefore, must be stopped. 
 The collector will seize the goods if the tariff 
 duties are not paid. The state authorities 
 will undertake their rescue, the marshal, with 
 his posse, will come to the collector s aid, and 
 here the contest begins. The militia of the 
 state will be called out to sustain the nullify 
 ing act. They will march, sir, under a very 
 gallant leader; for I believe the honorable 
 member himself commands the militia of that 
 part of the state. He will raise the Nulli 
 fying Act on his standard, and spread it 
 out as his banner ! It will have a preamble, 
 setting forth that the tariff laws are palpable, 
 deliberate, and dangerous violations of the 
 Constitution! He will proceed, with this ban 
 ner flying, to the custom-house in Charleston, 
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jftemorafile American 
 
 "All the while 
 Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 
 
 Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the 
 collector that he must collect no more duties 
 under any of the tariff laws. This he will 
 be somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with 
 a grave countenance, considering what hand 
 South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. 
 But, sir, the collector would not, probably, 
 desist at his bidding. He would show him the 
 law of Congress, the treasury instruction, and 
 his own oath of office. He would say he 
 should perform his duty, come what come 
 might. 
 
 Here would ensue a pause, for they say 
 that a certain stillness precedes the tempest. 
 The trumpeter would hold his breath a while, 
 and before all this military array should fall 
 on the custom-house collector, clerks, and all 
 it is very probable some of those composing 
 it would request of their gallant commander- 
 in-chief to be informed a little upon the point 
 of law; for they have, doubtless, a just respect 
 for his opinions as a lawyer, as well as for his 
 bravery as a soldier. They know he has read 
 Blackstone and the Constitution, as well as 
 Turenne and Vauban. They would ask him, 
 therefore, something concerning their rights 
 in this matter. They would inquire whether 
 it was not somewhat dangerous to resist a law 
 of the United States. What would be the 
 nature of their offence, they would wish to 
 220 
 
SDaniel 
 
 learn, if they, by military force and array, 
 resisted the execution in Carolina of a law of 
 the United States, and it should turn out, after 
 all, that the law was constitutional ? He would 
 answer, of course, Treason. No lawyer could 
 give any other answer. John Fries, he would 
 tell them, had learned that some years ago. 
 How, then, they would ask, do you propose to 
 defend us ? We are not afraid of bullets, but 
 treason has a way of taking people off that 
 we do not much relish. How do you propose 
 to defend us ? " Look at my floating banner," 
 he would reply; "see there the nullifying 
 law!" Is it your opinion, gallant commander, 
 they would then say, that, if we should be in 
 dicted for treason, that same floating banner 
 of yours would make a good plea in bar? 
 " South Carolina is a sovereign state," he would 
 reply. That is true; but would the judge 
 admit our plea ? " These tariff laws," he would 
 repeat, "are unconstitutional, palpably, delib 
 erately, dangerously." That may all be so; 
 but if the tribunal should not happen to be of 
 that opinion, shall we swing for it ? We are 
 ready to die for our country, but it is rather 
 an awkward business, this dying without touch 
 ing the ground ! After all, that is a sort of 
 hemp tax worse than any part of the tariff. 
 
 Mr. President, the honorable gentleman 
 would be in a dilemma like that of another 
 great general. He would have a knot before 
 him which he could not untie. He must cut it 
 
 221 
 
American 
 
 with his sword. He must say to his followers, 
 "Defend yourselves with your bayonets"; 
 and this is war, civil war. 
 
 Direct collision, therefore, between force 
 and force is the unavoidable result of that 
 remedy for the revision of unconstitutional 
 laws which the gentleman contends for. It 
 must happen in the very first case to which it 
 is applied. Is not this the plain result ? To 
 resist by force the execution of a law, gener 
 ally, is treason. Can the courts of the United 
 States take notice of the indulgence of a state 
 to commit treason ? The common saying that 
 a state cannot commit treason herself is noth 
 ing to the purpose. Can she authorize others 
 to do it ? If John Fries had produced an act 
 of Pennsylvania, annulling the law of Congress, 
 would it have helped his case ? Talk about it 
 as we will, these doctrines go the length of 
 revolution. They are incompatible with any 
 peaceable administration of the government. 
 They lead directly to disunion and civil com 
 motion; and therefore it is, that at their com 
 mencement, when they are first found to be 
 maintained by respectable men, and in a tan 
 gible form, I enter my public protest against 
 them all. 
 
 The honorable gentleman argues, that, if 
 this government be the sole judge of the extent 
 of its own powers, whether that right of judg 
 ing be in Congress or the Supreme Court, it 
 equally subverts state sovereignty. This the 
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SDaniel 
 
 gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, although he 
 cannot perceive how the right of judging, in 
 this matter, if left to the exercise of state 
 legislatures, has any tendency to subvert the 
 government of the Union. The gentleman s 
 opinion may be that the right ought not to 
 have been lodged with the general govern 
 ment; he may like better such a constitution 
 as we should have under the right of state 
 interference; but I ask him to meet me on 
 the plain matter of fact. I ask him to meet 
 me on the Constitution itself. I ask him if 
 the power is not found there, clearly and visibly 
 found there. 
 
 But, sir, what is this danger, and what are 
 the grounds of it? Let it be remembered that 
 the Constitution of the United States is not un 
 alterable. It is to continue in its present form 
 no longer than the people who established 
 it shall choose to continue it. If they shall 
 become convinced that they have made an 
 injudicious or inexpedient partition and distri 
 bution of power between the state govern 
 ments and the general government, they can 
 alter that distribution at will. 
 
 If anything be found in the national Con 
 stitution, either by original provision or sub 
 sequent interpretation, which ought not to be in 
 it, the people know how to get rid of it. If any 
 construction, unacceptable to them, be estab 
 lished so as to become practically a part of the 
 Constitution, they will amend it at their own 
 223 
 
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 sovereign pleasure. But while the people 
 choose to maintain it as it is, while they are sat 
 isfied with it, and refuse to change it, who has 
 given, or who can give, to the state legislatures 
 a right to alter it, either by interference, con 
 struction, or otherwise? Gentlemen do not 
 seem to recollect that the people have any 
 power to do anything for themselves. They 
 imagine there is no safety for them any longer 
 than they are under the close guardianship 
 of the state legislatures. Sir, the people 
 have not trusted their safety in regard to the 
 general Constitution to these hands. They 
 have required other security, and taken other 
 bonds. They have chosen to trust themselves, 
 first, to the plain words of the instrument, and 
 to such construction as the government them 
 selves, in doubtful cases, should put on their 
 own powers, under their oaths of office, and 
 subject to their responsibility to them; just as 
 the people of a state trust their own state 
 governments with a similar power. Secondly, 
 they have reposed their trust in the efficacy of 
 frequent elections, and in their own power to 
 remove their own servants and agents when 
 ever they see cause. Thirdly, they have re 
 posed trust in the judicial power, which, in 
 order that it might be trustworthy, they have 
 made as respectable, as disinterested, and as 
 independent as was practicable. Fourthly, 
 they have seen fit to rely, in case of necessity, 
 or high expediency, on their known and admit- 
 224 
 
SDaniei Wtbgttt 
 
 ted power to alter or amend the Constitution 
 peaceably and quietly, whenever experience 
 shall point out defects or imperfections. And, 
 finally, the people of the United States have at 
 no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, au 
 thorized any state legislature to construe or 
 interpret their high instrument of government, 
 much less to interfere, by their own power, to 
 arrest its course and operation. 
 
 If, sir, the people in these respects had 
 done otherwise than they have done, their 
 Constitution could neither have been preserved, 
 nor would it have been worth preserving. 
 And if its plain provisions shall now be disre 
 garded, and these new doctrines interpolated 
 in it, it will become as feeble and helpless a 
 being as its enemies, whether early or more re 
 cent, could possibly desire. It will exist in every 
 state but as a poor dependent on state per 
 mission. It must borrow leave to be; and will 
 be no longer than state pleasure, or state dis 
 cretion, sees fit to grant the indulgence, and to 
 prolong its poor existence. 
 
 But, sir, although there are fears, there are 
 hopes also. The people have preserved this, 
 their own chosen Constitution, for forty years, 
 and have seen their happiness, prosperity, and 
 renown grow with its growth, and strengthen 
 with its strength. They are now, generally, 
 strongly attached to it. Overthrown by direct 
 assault, it cannot be evaded, undermined, nulli 
 fied, it will not be ; if we and those who shall 
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 succeed us here as agents and representatives 
 of the people shall conscientiously and vigi 
 lantly discharge the two great branches of 
 our public trust, faithfully to preserve, and 
 wisely to administer it. 
 
 Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons 
 of my dissent to the doctrines which have been 
 advanced and maintained. I am conscious of 
 having detained you and the Senate much too 
 long. I was drawn into the debate with no 
 previous deliberation, such as is suited to the 
 discussion of so grave and important a subject. 
 But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and 
 I have not been willing to suppress the utter 
 ance of its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot 
 even now persuade myself to relinquish it with 
 out expressing once more my deep conviction, 
 that, since it respects nothing less than the 
 union of the states, it is of most vital and 
 essential importance to the public happiness. 
 I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have 
 kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor 
 of the whole country, and the preservation 
 of our Federal Union. It is to that Union 
 we owe our safety at home, and our consid 
 eration and dignity abroad. It is to that 
 Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever 
 makes us most proud of our country. That 
 Union we reached only by the discipline of 
 our virtues in the severe school of adversity. 
 It had its origin in the necessities of disor 
 dered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined 
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SDaniel 
 
 credit. Under its benign influences, these 
 great interests immediately awoke, as from the 
 dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. 
 Every year of its duration has teemed with 
 fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; 
 and although our territories have stretched 
 out wider and wider, and our population spread 
 farther and farther, they have not outrun its 
 protection or its benefits. It has been to us 
 all a copious fountain of national, social, and 
 personal happiness. 
 
 I have not allowed myself, sir, to look be 
 yond the Union, to see what might lie hidden 
 in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly 
 weighed the chances of preserving liberty when 
 the bonds that unite us together shall be broken 
 asunder. I have not accustomed myself to 
 hang over the precipice of disunion, to see 
 whether, with my short sight, I can fathom 
 the depth of the abyss below; nor could I 
 regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs 
 of this government, whose thoughts should 
 be mainly bent on considering, not how the 
 Union may be best preserved, but how toler 
 able might be the condition of the people when 
 it should be broken up and destroyed. While 
 the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, grati 
 fying prospects spread out before us, for us 
 and our children. Beyond that I seek not to 
 penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day 
 at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant 
 that on my vision never may be opened what 
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 lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned 
 to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, 
 may I not see him shining on the broken 
 and dishonored fragments of a once glorious 
 union; on states dissevered, discordant, bel 
 ligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or 
 drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let 
 their last feeble and lingering glance rather 
 behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, 
 now known and honored throughout the earth, 
 still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
 streaming in original luster, not a stripe erased 
 or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bear 
 ing for its motto no such miserable interrog 
 atory as "What is all this worth? " nor those 
 other words of delusion and folly, " Liberty 
 first and Union afterwards"; but everywhere, 
 spread all over in characters of living light, 
 blazing on all its ample folds, as they float 
 over the sea and over the land, and in every 
 wind under the whole heavens, that other 
 sentiment, dear to every true American heart, 
 Liberty and Union, now and forever, one 
 and inseparable. 
 
 228 
 
Notes 
 
Jl-Joteg 
 
 Page 73. GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 A few days before the appearance of this highly 
 interesting document in print, I received a message 
 from the President, by his private secretary, Colonel 
 Lear, signifying his desire to see me. I waited on 
 him at the appointed time, and found him sitting 
 alone in the drawing-room. He received me very 
 kindly, and after paying my respects to him, desired 
 me to take a seat near him; then addressing himself 
 to me, said that he had for some time contemplated 
 withdrawing from public life, and had at length 
 concluded to do so at the end of the [then] present 
 term; that he had some thoughts and reflections 
 on the occasion, which he deemed proper to com 
 municate to the people of the United States, and 
 which he wished to appear in the Daily Advertiser^ 
 of which I was proprietor and editor. He paused, 
 and I took occasion to thank him for having select 
 ed that paper as the channel of communication to 
 the public, especially as I viewed this choice as an 
 evidence of his approbation of the principles and 
 manner in which the work was conducted. He si 
 lently assented, and asked me when I could make 
 the publication. I answered that the time should be 
 made perfectly convenient to himself, and the fol 
 lowing Monday was fixed on; he then said that his 
 secretary would deliver me the copy on the next 
 morning [Friday], and I withdrew. After the proof 
 sheet had been carefully compared with the copy 
 and corrected by myself, I carried two different re 
 vises to be examined by the President, who made 
 but few alterations from the original, except in the 
 punctuation, in which he was very minute. The 
 publication of the address bearing the same date 
 with the paper, September 19, 1796, being com 
 pleted, I waited on the President with the original, 
 231 
 
and in presenting it to him, expressed how much 
 I should be gratified by being permitted to retain 
 it ; upon which, in the most obliging manner, he 
 handed it back to me, saying that if I wished for it, 
 I might keep it; and I took my leave. Claypoolc s 
 Statement. 
 
 The address has been printed from the original 
 MS. by James Lenox (1850), and I have followed 
 that imprint. It was from the newspaper that a 
 secretary transcribed it into the President s letter- 
 book, and Sparks also followed the newspaper ver 
 sion. The original MS. is in the Lenox Library, 
 New York. The Hamilton drafts are in the De 
 partment of State, Washington. Horace Binney 
 made a full "Inquiry into the Formation of Wash 
 ington s Farewell Address " (1859). No other politi 
 cal paper by an American has been reprinted so 
 many times, and the address has become a classic. 
 Writings of George Washington, collected and edited 
 by W.C.Ford, vol. 13, pp. 277-279. 
 
 Adams reports that, when the address was read 
 in the House of Representatives, there were tears 
 in the eyes of nearly all present, with the exception 
 of Washington himself. 
 
 Pagtji.JoHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Whatever doubt may exist as to whether Mr. 
 Randolph was a great man, a consistent statesman, 
 a profound thinker, a logical debater, there can be 
 none as to his being a great orator. BOULDIN: 
 Some Reminiscences of John Randolph, p. 232. 
 
 Mr. Randolph was an orator proper. He pos 
 sessed the faculty of producing an instantaneous 
 and powerful effect upon his auditors; and his 
 speeches lose half their charm when they appear in 
 print. BOULDIN, p. 234. 
 
 This speech is not a complete evidence of his 
 
 oratorical powers. There we read the strategic 
 
 plans of the author; are enabled to conceive of his 
 
 wonderful facility in gathering materials for crush- 
 
 232 
 
ing the feelings of his adversaries; behold the dread 
 ful weapons he employed; but the action is wanting. 
 We cannot witness the running through with the 
 long bony finger, the rage of his eyes, which flashed 
 from side to side, nor the awful contractions of the 
 muscles of his face. We cannot tell how he bore 
 himself upon the field of battle, when the cry was 
 "Delenda est Carthago," nor how the victims of 
 his displeasure writhed and agonized with pain. 
 BOULDIN. p. 236. 
 
 Page 67. HENRY CLAY. 
 
 The public feeling ot wrath and indignation steadily 
 rose toward France, and still more toward Eng 
 land. In the new Congress, which met in De 
 cember, 1811, Henry Clay of Kentucky was chosen 
 Speaker of the House; he organized it with a view 
 to war, and made young John C. Calhoun of South 
 Carolina chairman of the Committee on Military 
 Affairs. The West had no patience with the tim 
 idity of the shipowners, for to the frontiersman 
 nothing seemed easier than to conquer Canada, 
 and, as Clay said, " negotiate the terms of a peace 
 at Quebec or Halifax." The country was then pros 
 perous ; manufactures were springing up, and nearly 
 $200,000,000 worth of goods were made in the country 
 in a single year. But Congress did not consider that 
 the national revenues were falling off; that the army 
 numbered only 7,000 men; and that there were no 
 good roads to the Canadian frontier. 
 
 Even President Madison could not stand the pres 
 sure for war, and war was formally declared against 
 Great Britain June 18, 1812, though it was pointed 
 out in Congress that we ought to fight France also. 
 The official reasons for the war were as follows: (l) 
 the insolence of the British cruisers on the coast; 
 (2) the capture of over 900 American vessels since 
 I 8o3; (3) blockades and other unrighteous practices 
 under the British Orders in Council; (4) the stirring 
 up of Indian hostilities; (5) impressment. An apol- 
 
 233 
 
ogy had been made for the Chesapeake affair; at the 
 last moment the British partly withdrew the offen 
 sive Orders; and we now know that it was an error 
 to suppose that the British instigated the Indian 
 wars. Nevertheless, two substantial grievances re 
 mained: the capture of our merchantmen; and the 
 impressment of about 4,000 seamen, of whom many 
 were still prisoners on British cruisers. HART: 
 Essentials in American History, pp. 279, 280. 
 
 Mr. Clay s chief attention was directed to the oppo 
 nents of the war. . . . If we consider the position of 
 the country and the position of Mr. Clay himself, it 
 can hardly be denied that he displayed on this occa 
 sion the greatest vigor of his character. He had 
 two single aims, one to silence the opposition, and 
 the other to reanimate the country for a vigorous 
 prosecution of the war to an honorable peace. 
 Canada was the vulnerable point of the enemy, and 
 Canada must be taken though it never was taken. 
 With the exception of the defense of New Orleans, 
 by General Jackson, on the 8th of January, 1815, 
 our naval victories on the lakes and on the ocean 
 were the most brilliant achievements of the war. 
 Works of Henry Clay , edited by Calvin Cotton, vol. 6, 
 P. 53- 
 Page 107 . DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 The third attempt to form an organic union was 
 now successfully carried out. The irregular author 
 ity of the Continental Congress had been replaced 
 by the legal but inefficient Confederation; to this 
 was now to succeed an organized government, com 
 plete in all its departments, and well endowed with 
 powers. How had this Constitution been adopted? 
 What was the authority which had taken upon itself 
 to diminish the powers of the states, and to disre 
 gard the clauses which required unanimous consent 
 to amendments? Was the new Constitution an 
 agreement between eleven states, or was it an instru 
 ment of government for the whole people? Upon 
 
 234 
 
jfeoteg 
 
 this question depends the whole discussion about 
 the nature of the Union and the right of secession. 
 
 The first theory is, that the Constitution was a 
 compact made between sovereign states. Thus 
 Hayne, in 1830, declared that " before the Constitu 
 tion each state was an independent sovereignty, pos 
 sessing all the rights and powers appertaining to 
 independent nations. . . . After the Constitution was 
 formed, they remained equally sovereign and inde 
 pendent as to all powers not expressly delegated to 
 the federal government. . . . The true nature of the 
 federal Constitution, therefore, is ... a compact 
 to which the states are parties. The importance 
 of the word "compact" is that it means an agree 
 ment which loses its force when any one of the 
 parties ceases to observe it ; a compact is little more 
 than a treaty. Those who framed the Constitution 
 appeared to consider it no compact; for on May 30, 
 1787, they voted that "no treaty or treaties among 
 the whole or part of the states, as separate sover 
 eignties, would be sufficient." In fact, the reason 
 for the violent opposition to the ratification of the 
 Constitution was that when once ratified the states 
 could not withdraw from it. 
 
 Another view is presented by Webster in his reply 
 to Hayne: "It is, sir, the people s Constitution, the 
 people s government, made for the people, made by 
 the people, and answerable to the people. The peo 
 ple of the United States have declared that this 
 Constitution shall be the supreme law." It is plain 
 that the Constitution does not rest simply upon the 
 consent of the majority of the nation. No popular 
 vote was taken or thought of; each act of ratification 
 set forth that it proceeded from a convention of the 
 people of a state. 
 
 The real nature of the new Constitution appears 
 in the light of the previous history of the country. 
 The Articles of Confederation had been a compact. 
 One of the principal reasons why the Confederation 
 was weak was that there was no way of compelling 
 
 235 
 
the states to perform their duties. The new Con 
 stitution was meant to be stronger and more perma 
 nent. The Constitution was, then, not a compact, 
 but an instrument of government similar in its origin 
 to the constitutions of the states. The difference 
 was that, by general agreement, it was not to take 
 effect until it was shown that in at least nine states 
 the people were willing to live under it. Whatever 
 the defects of the Confederation, however humiliat 
 ing its weakness to our national pride, it had per 
 formed an indispensable service : it had educated the 
 American people to the point where they were will 
 ing to accept a permanent federal union. As the 
 " Federalist " put it, "A nation without a national 
 government is an awful spectacle." HART : Forma 
 tion of the Union, 1750-1829, pp. 133-135. 
 
 " This resolution was, in itself, but a simple pro 
 posed inquiry into the expediency of a temporary 
 suspension of the sales of the public lands, and 
 as such inquiry presented but a narrow field of dis 
 cussion and but transient topics of debate. But it 
 was soon made to take another turn, and to develop 
 a topic of great and abiding interest, the doc 
 trine of nullification ! and its sequence, the dissolu 
 tion of the Union at the will of any one state. Mr. 
 Webster and Mr. Hayne (with whom it began) were 
 the prominent speakers on this new and startling 
 topic ; and what was said upon it by themselves and 
 others is all that retains a surviving interest at this 
 day, or gave celebrity to the debate at the time, and 
 is the only part of it which comes within the scope 
 of this abridgment. Mr. Hayne, in opposing Mr. 
 Foot s resolution, took occasion to go into the con 
 sideration of the future disposition of the public 
 lands, suggesting their transfer on easy terms to the 
 new states in which they lie, and for the benefit of 
 settlers and cultivators, and deprecating their sale 
 for money, either to accumulate in the treasury, or 
 to be divided among the states, as leading to cor 
 ruption and consolidation. Mr. Webster, in reply, 
 236 
 
took up this point in Mr. Hayne s speech, and ar 
 gued that consolidation was not the danger which 
 threatened these states, but the contrary dis 
 union! and referred to language and proceedings 
 in South Carolina, uncivic in their import, and 
 tending to this dire extremity. With equal deco 
 rum and justice, (for there was nothing to impli 
 cate Mr. Hayne in any of this language or conduct), 
 Mr. Webster formally exonerated him from all 
 complicity in the supposed design. But he impli 
 cated others, and that quite distinctly, friends of 
 Mr. Hayne, some of whom were absent, and uncon 
 scious of what was said; and one of whom was pres 
 ent, and bound to hear all that was said, and to be 
 silent, his position forbidding him to engage in 
 senatorial discussion (Mr. Calhoun, Vice-President 
 of the United States, and President of the Senate). 
 The generous spirit of Mr. Hayne came to the 
 defense of friends who could not speak for them 
 selves. He spoke for them; and that brought on 
 the great debate on nullification and disunion, 
 of such absorbing interest at the time, and to which 
 subsequent events have lent a great additional em 
 phasis. Abridgment of the Debates of Congress^ from 
 1789 to 1856, vol. 10, pp. 418, 419. 
 
 237 
 
TTSF 
 

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