MAY, 1797.] Answer to the President's Speech. declare war. He thought no such thing. It was the wish of the friends of the report (at least it was his wish) to preserve the country in peace, but to place it in a state of defence; but he hoped it would not be taken for granted, that every proposition in the Speech of the President would be carried into effect. He hoped they should continue to discuss the question. At present he was decidedly against the amendment. Mr. BALDWIN said, he had taken the liberty to express his concern several years ago, that this custom of answering the President's Speech, which was but a mere piece of public ceremony, should call up and demand expressions of opinion on all the important business of the session, while the members were yet standing with their hats in their hands, in the attitude of receiving the communications, and had not yet read or opened the papers which were the ground of their being called together. It applied very strongly in this instance, as this was a new Congress, and a greater proportion than common of new members; he thought it an unfavorable attitude in which to be hurried into the very midst of things, and to anticipate business of such vast importance to the country, before they had time to attend to the information which had been submitted to them. He trusted some fit occasion would before long be found to disencumber themselves of a ceremony, new in this country, which tended only to evil and to increasing embarrassments. He observed that it was under the influence of these impressions, he had made it a rule to himself. for many sessions, to vote for those amendments and those propositions in the Address which were most delphic and ambiguous, and while they were respectful to the President, left the House unpledged and open to take up the business of the session as it presented itself in its ordinary course. It was on this ground he should vote for the amendment now under consideration. He also noticed three particulars, in which he thought the proposed amendment preferable to the report of the committee. 1st. The report of the committee had in it twice repeated general and indefinite approbation of the measures of the Executive towards foreign nations, when it was well known that a majority of the House had, for four years past, been of a different opinion, and it must be supposed many of the present House were of a different opinion. He thought it well not to step out of their course to express any opinion on that subject, or to court opposition. 2d. He thought the Address contained too many epithets and superlatives. It was a style of writing which well became youth and passion in some circumstances, more rarely the experience and gravity of advanced life, and very seldom reconcilable to the dignity of a public assembly. He also nodeed "indignant," "indignity," and "indignation," repeated not less than three or four times in a dozen lines. He thought it would be found difficult, on trial, to remove these objections from the report, without proposing new sentences as the amendment had done. If it was thought the amendment was too low on the other extreme, 5th CoN.-4 [H. of R. the word sensibility, in the 5th line, might be changed into indignation, for once, and in several other places by the change of a word, it might be exactly graduated to the temper of the House. 3d. There was one thought in the amendment which he wished to be contained in the Address, which was not in the report of the committee, viz: the hope of success from sending an Envoy Extraordinary to treat specially on the grievances complained of, free ships making free goods, articles of contraband, &c., on the basis of strict equality to foreign nations. As to the objection that expressing this wish is dictating to the Executive on the subject of treaties, and therefore unconstitutional, he thought the objection had equal force against the whole Address, and all Answers to the President's Speeches, which are nothing but expressions of congratulation, or opinions, or wishes, on Executive measures. Mr. RUTLEDGE said, when the report of the committee should be before them, he should have some remarks to make upon it; but at present he should offer only a few observations upon the proposed amendment. He said he had strong objections to the amendment; but one so strong that he need not urge any other: it was, that in agreeing to it they should dictate to the Executive, which he believed would be infringing upon the Executive power. As it was his peculiar duty to give instructions to Ministers, it would be improper in them to say what should be the instructions given to a Minister; but if it were not so, he should not vote for those of the gentleman from Virginia. In the instructions of a Minister, it was usual to comprise a variety of propositions. Certain things were first to be proposed; if these could not be obtained, he was instructed to come forward with something else, and if this could not be got, he went on to his ultimatum. But, if the proposition of the gentleman from Virginia were to obtain, his instructions would be publicly known. In vain would it be for him to offer this or that, they will say the House of Representatives has directed you what to do, and we will not agree to anything else. This would be contrary to all diplomatic proceedings; for that reason he should be opposed to the House saying what should be his instructions. Indeed, if it were usual, he should be against it in this instance, as he believed it would encourage an extravagant demand. What, said he, have they said to our Minister-or rather to the person who was formerly our Minister, but who then had no power? They told him to go away; they had nothing to say to him; they would receive no more Ministers from the United States until their grievances were redressed. This country is charged with countenancing an inequality of treaties. The French have said, redress our grievances in a certain way. But, said Mr. R., if we do this, we shall put ourselves under the dominion of a foreign Power, and shall have to ask a foreign country what we shall do. This was a situation into which we must not fall without a struggle. Hor M H. OF R.] Answer to the President's Speech. Though he was upon the committee, he had contributed very little to the composition of the Answer reported. He thought it, however, a proper Address; but he was willing that it might undergo any modification which should not alter the substance of it. Mr. SITGREAVES said, though he had wished to have taken a little more time before he had troubled the committee with his observations; yet, as there now appeared an interval, he should take the opportunity of occupying it for a few minutes. He should not answer the observations of the gentleman from Georgia, with respect to the style of the Answer reported; but he believed that those gentlemen who would look at it without a perverted vision, would not discover the faults in it which that gentleman had discovered. He thought it rather remarkable for the simplicity of its style than for a redundancy of epithet. He discovered more of the latter in the amendment than in the original report. It was true that the superlative was used in different places, but he thought it was used where it ought to be. He would not, however, detain the committee with matter so immaterial, but would proceed to what appeared to him of some consequence. A stranger who had come into the House during this debate, and heard what had fallen from the mover of the proposed amendment, and from members who had followed him, would have supposed that, instead of an act of ordinary course being under discussion, they had been debating the question of a declaration of war against France. He would declare, for himself at least, on the subject of war, that he agreed in certain of the sentiments of gentlemen on the other side of the House. A state of war was certainly a curse to any nation; to America it would be peculiarly a curse. It ought to be avoided by all possible means. It was not only impolitic, but madness, to run into war. But he thought there were two sides of the subject. He thought that peace was the greatest of all possible blessings; but he also thought that peace might be purchased too dearly, and war avoided at too great an expense. He thought peace might cost a greater value than money-our independence. This was no new sentiment in this country. It was thought that peace might be bought too dearly in the Revolutionary war; they then thought it better to be at war than to submit to the alternative evils. France also shows that she prefers a state of wara war carried on at an unexampled expense of blood and treasure-to a state of peace with despotism. He thought, therefore, that we should hold a language of a firm and manly tone. To preserve peace by all honorable means, but not by dishonorable means. As he observed last session, on a similar occasion, we should cultivate peace with zeal and sincerity; but whenever our intention of doing so was publicly expressed, it ought to be accompanied with an opposite assertion of a determinution, if our endeavors to maintain peace fail, that then every resource of the nation shall be called into existence in support [MAY, 1797. of all that is dear to us. Such a declaration, at this time, was extremely proper. At present, he said, all the observations which had been made relative to war, were very premature. They might be brought into consideration, when any measure should be discussed which might lead to a war with France. Then would be the time to count the cost and the benefit. At present, he conceived, our only object was, to inquire what were the feelings which the conduct of France had created in our minds, and whether we were. prepared to express those feelings. Shall we, said he, from a fear of irritating the French Republic, in a communication with our own Executive, suppress our feelings, or what is worse, suppress the truth? For his own part, he saw nothing in the present business but an expression of feelings naturally excited by the occasion; nothing but a declaration of facts. This being the case, the question was, whether, from fear of irritating the French Government, they should suppress these feelings. It would be well to consider what would be the consequence of this condescension. He did not think they were warranted in believing that they should put France in a better humor with us by this means. He was sure that gentlemen who were in the last Congress would recollect that the Answer to the Address was reported in very mild terms, from a spirit of accommodation in the committee who formed it, and that it was afterwards pruned in the House with care, yet there had been no amelioration of the disposition of the French towards this country. Instead of inducing them to behave better to us, had it not been with a knowledge of this that they have offered us fresh insult and indignity? Indeed, Mr. Pinckney suggests an idea that this moderation of ours may have been one of the operating causes of sending our Minister from their country. Besides, gentlemen have not pointed out the particular expressions which they consider as irritating in the report. For his own part, he thought the amendment might be considered as more irritating than the draught of the committee. What was the language of the amendment? [He read it.] He gave it as his opinion, that there was more of war and bullying in it than in the original report. It was true the threat it contained was accompanied by an if. Now, all the difference between the draught and the amendment was, that in the former, instead of using the if, they had at once expressed indignation at the insults offered to this country by the French Republic, and given assurances to the Executive that they would repel indignity with indignation. But if this subject was to be considered, he would turn to a part of the gentleman's proposi tion, not indeed immediately before them, but which he had declared it his intention to bring forward, where he says, "we will repel all unjust demands on the United States by foreign countries; that we will ever consider the humiliation of the Government as the greatest personal disgrace." He was willing to act upon the gentleman's own principles. If we think there have MAY, 1797.] Answer to the President's Speech. been any unjust demands upon the United States by foreign nations, it is then our duty to repel them. The question was therefore narrowed, and they had only to say whether the demands made by the French Government were just or unjust. The gentleman from Virginia thought proper also to tell the committee, that majorities had pushed the House too far, and had expected minorities to sacrifice their opinions. The gentleman was very tenacious of his own opinion, and he trusted he would suffer others to be equally so of theirs. If that gentleman, said Mr. S., thinks the demands of France are not unjust, I think they are.. They had been declared to be unjust in the most solemn manner; and, if the committee think they are so, it was the gentleman's own position that they should say so; and if they were unjust, they should be repelled, and the United States should look forward to that state of things when it shall be necessary to repel them. He did not think it necessary to repeat his wishes for peace. He thought it possible for this Government to pursue a line of conduct which, while it secured our rights, would preserve us in peace. He wished to take a little notice of what had fallen from the gentleman from Virginia, on the subject of sacrifice of opinion. He had already observed that he hoped that gentleman would allow the same liberty of sentiment to others which he claimed for himself. He would not stop here. After great public measures have been the object of deliberate discussion in other branches of the Government, and have been carried by a majority, he thought it the duty of a minority to acquiesce in the determination. Wherever the opinion of all comes to be known through the different channels from which they emanate, and where there must of course be a difference of opinion, the minority ought certainly to acquiesce in the determinations of the majority. It was from this opinion that he was concerned to hear the past conduct of any branch of the Government censured. Whatever legitimate acts of Government were passed, they should be protected by the minority as well as the majority. They should be held sacred, and never blown upon by us. They should hold but one language in their support. Whatever difference of opinion might exist among themselves, this difference ought not to appear in their acts to foreign nations. We should speak, said he, in these cases, but as one people. Therefore, if the Answer to the President's Address be an instrument of which the French Republic must take notice, it should not appear to them that we have been at any time, or are now, divided in the sentiments which it contains: the acts of the Government are the acts of the country, and not a whisper should escape from us in opposition to them, when they have been concluded and carried into effect. He wished the gentleman from Virginia had omitted his observations with respect to factions which may exist in this country, as there was no necessary connection between that subject and the [H. OF R. one under consideration. It was one which ought to be kept out of view within these walls. It was to be regretted that the press was contaminated with this kind of rubbish; but when the gentleman had expressed his contempt for charges of this sort, he should have extended it to both sides of the House: for if French faction was cried out on one side, British faction, on the other, had for these four years been rung from New Hampshire to Georgia. He should have spared the committee these remarks, if the gentleman had not, perhaps unwillingly, in some degree added to the odium which was cast upon one side of the House, by saying that when he first came into the Government he found a general disposition against the French cause; and even against Republican government. [Mr. NICHOLAS denied having used this last expression.] Mr. S. said he so understood him. However, when he spoke of the existence of parties, he wished he had looked on both sides of the question. But, said he, let us, on this occasion, confine ourselves to the real question now before us. We have been informed, said he, by the President, in his Speech to both Houses, of the conduct of the French towards this Government, and have since received the documents upon which this report was founded. He had not yet heard any gentleman justify the conduct of the French. He had heard, indeed, some attempts to palliate or apologise for it, but none to vindicate it. His ideas of these things were, that the French had not only injured us, but added insult to injury; and while he retained this belief, he could not help feeling indignation and resentment. The question before the House was not, Will we resent it? Our actions, better than our words, show our desires for peace. It was a desire in which we were too much interested, to be doubted; yet it was proper that this desire should be accompanied with expressions of our feelings on the occasion. What objections could there be to this? If we were sunk so low, if our fears of the French Republic are so great, that we dare not express what we feel, our situation was become really deplorable. He hoped this was not, nor ever would be the case. He hoped we should cultivate peace with sincerity, but with firmness. For if the French Republic is so terrible to us, that we must crouch and sink before her; if we hold our rights at her nod, let gentlemen say so. And if we are to give up ourselves to her, let it be an act of the Government; do not let us conceal under the appearance of spirit, actual submission. Nations, it was true, might be brought into such a situation as to be obliged to surrender some of their rights to other nations; but, when this is done, it should be done with some degree of character. Let it not be done as a confession of guilt. Let us, said he, however, surrender any thing, sooner than the fair fame of our country. He was not a military man, nor did he know how he should act upon such an occasion; but he knew what we ought to do. We ought, rather than submit to such indignity, to die in the last ditch. Why insinuate that the Government had been wrong? Was it not H. OF R.] Answer to the President's Speech. enough to submit to injury; shall we not only receive the stripes, but kiss the rod that inflicts them ? But, said he, are we in this situation? Must we surrender any of our rights? He knew if we submitted to injury and insult, this would be the unavoidable consequence. He disdained any reliance on the generous magnanimity of the French Republic. He thought her conduct towards this country justified no such reliance. He was of opinion we ought to take a firm and decided attitude on this occasion. and, at any rate, before we make a surrender of our rights, we ought to make a struggle to retain them. Mr. S. said he had made these observations more with a desire to prevent any false representations of the views of the House from going abroad, than from a desire to throw much additional light upon the subject. For his own part, he saw nothing in the reported Answer that could | either irritate or offend against decorum. We assert that we have not injured the French Republic, but, if she will injure us, we will defend ourselves. Thinking thus, he should be in favor of the original report, and against the amendment. Mr. OTIS observed, that he was so little accustomed to the mode of conducting a debate in that honorable House, that he hardly knew in what manner to apply his remarks to the subject before the committee. A specific motion had been laid on the table by the gentleman from Virginia, which reduced the true question before them to a narrow compass; but the mover, in discussing his own proposition, had enlarged upon subjects dear to his mind, and familiar to his recollection. In this circuit he had been ably followed by the gentleman from South Carolina, and others; so that the whole subject of the Address to the President, and the reply of the committee, was brought into view, with many considerations that did not belong to it. It was his design to have remained silent until the subject had been exhausted by other gentlemen, and if any remark of an important nature had been omitted, which was not likely to have been the case, he would have suggested such ideas as might have presented themselves to his mind; but a motion having been made for the committee to rise, he would then offer a few observations, not so much for the sake of illustrating the question, which had been done most successfully, but in order to declare his sentiments upon this important occasion. He so far agreed with the gentleman from Georgia, that he believed, upon ordinary occasions, an Answer to the President's Address should be calculated to preserve an harmonious intercourse between the different departments of Government, rather than to pledge either branch of the Legislature, collaterally, upon subjects that would come regularly under their consideration. But the present was not an ordinary occasion, and the situation of the country required that the Answer should not be a spiritless expression of civility, but a new edition of the Declaration of Independence. He expressed his regret that upon this question gentlemen should have wandered into a review of measures and [MAY, 1797. subjects, so frequently examined, so deliberately settled, and which had a tendency to rekindle party animosity. If they would never acquiesce in the deliberate acts of the Government, because their personal sentiments had been adverse to them in the season of their discussion, there could be no end to controversy. For his part he conceived that all party distinctions ought now to cease; and that the House was now called by a warning voice, to destroy the idea of a geographical division of sentiment and interest existing among the people. His constituents and himself were disposed to regard the inhabitants of the Southern States as brothers, whose features were cast in the same mould, and who had waded through the same troubled waters to the shore of liberty and independence. He hoped that gentlemen would, in their turn, think the other part of the Union entitled to some consideration. The Address of the President disclosed, for the contemplation of the committee, a narrative of facts, and of the existing causes of controversy between the French Republic and ourselves; the overtures for reconciliation, which were to be repeated by attempts to negotiate, and the measures of defence that might be proper, in case negotiation should fail. The injuries sustained by us were of a high and atrocious nature, consisting in the capture of our vessels, depredations upon the property and persons of our citizens, the indignity offered to our Minister; but what was more aggravating than the rest, was, the professed determination not to receive our Minister until the complaints of the French should be redressed, without explanation and without exceptionuntil we should violate treaties, repeal laws, and do what the Constitution would not authorize, vacate solemn judgments of our courts of law. These injuries should not be concealed. He did not wish, however, to indulge in unnecessary expressions of indignation, but to state in plain and unequivocal terms the remonstrances of injured friendship. If any man doubted of the pernicious effects of the measures of the French nation, and of the actual state of our commerce, let him inquire of the ruined and unfortunate merchant, harassed with prosecutions on account of the revenue, which he so long and patiently toiled to support. If any doubted of its effects upon agriculture, let him inquire of the farmer whose produce is falling and will be exposed to perish in his barns. Where, said he, are your sailors? Listen to the passing gale of the ocean, and you will hear their groans issuing from French prisonships. Such were the injuries, and such the requisitions of the French nation; and he defied the ingenuity of any gentleman to draw a comparison between the Directory and the British Parliament, in favor of the former; and insisted that the demands of Charles Delacroix were upon a parallel with those of Lord North. He enlarged upon the analogy of the circumstances attending the pretensions of the British Government to bind us, when we were colonies, and of the French to subjugate us, now we are free and independent States. He thought it expedient to cultivate the MAY, 1797.] Answer to the President's Speech. [H. of R. same spirit of union, and to use the same firm attachment to his country,) that this very Anand decided language. He regretted that ques-swer was probably among the causes of the contions should be agitated upon this occasion, duct of the French Directory. He then added which had been formerly the cause of party some further observations, to prove, that when spirit and dissensions; and did not believe that the country was menaced with British hostilities, the immortal men who framed the noted instru- measures of defence had been proposed by the ment which dissolved the charm of allegiance friends to the Administration, comprising the and shivered the fetters of tyranny, condescended equipment of a navy, fortifying the ports, and to differ about verbal criticisms and nice expres-organizing the militia. sions, through fear of giving offence; nor that it was incumbent upon the members of the committee to repress the assertion of their rights, or smother a just and dignified expression of their susceptibility of insult, because the French had been once our friends, or because the commencement of their revolution was a struggle for liberty. There was a time when he was animated with enthusiasm in favor of the French Revolution, and he cherished it, while civil liberty appeared to be the object; but he now considered that Revolution as completely achieved, and that the war was continued, not for liberty, but for conquest and aggrandizement, to which he did not believe it was the interest of this country to contribute. The only precise objection which he recollected to a full declaration of our sense of injury, was the difference of the system, which, it was suggested, had been adopted by Government towards the British under similar circumstances of unjust aggression. But if it were true that this difference existed, it did not become those who thought the measures of Government wrong upon that occasion, to advocate a repetition of error. In his opinion, however, a difference of measures would be justifiable by a reflection upon the causes which induced the British depredations, and those to which the measures of the French may be assigned; and yet there was not in fact that variance between the plans recommended by the supporters of the late Executive, and adopted towards the British, and those which have been pursued, and are now defended, with respect to the French, which gentlemen were ready to imagine. He was contented to rest the first of these positions upon the facts, that the British were stimulated to annoy our commerce, through an apprehension that we were united against them, and the French, by a belief that we were divided in their favor. To undeceive them in these opposite prejudices, might have required, or at least justified, dissimilar modes of speaking and acting. Yet the language adopted, and the measures advocated, were nearly alike. To say nothing of the late instructions to Mr. Pinckney, the famous memorial of Mr. Jay to Lord Grenville, which has been the subject of so much calumny, was not couched in more conciliatory or unassuming terms than the Answer of the House of Representatives to the President's Speech at the last session. [He here read the Answer,] and yet it is intimated by our Minister, Mr. Pinckney, (a man, who, he hoped, was not meant to be included by the gentleman from Massachusetts in the description of those who were under British influence-a man of high and untarnished reputation and known Having thus, as he contended, demonstrated the right and propriety of stating our complaints, he adverted to the next important subject contained in the Speech: "the resolution of the Executive still to persist in pacific means of negotiation," and was thus led to analyse the motion for amendment submitted to the committee. He sincerely approved of this intention of the Executive, and most earnestly wished that it might be attended with success: no man could more anxiously deprecate a war than himself, or was more impressed with a persuasion of its calamities; and he knew that his constituents were solicitous to avoid it by all honorable means. The preamble of this motion was not, in his view, objectionable; but to express the sentiment "that the French merely intended to suspend the ordinary, and bring into use the extraordinary means of intercourse with foreign nations," was decidedly against his judgment. Was it possible for any man of veracity to make this declaration? If this was really the sole object of the Directory, it would have justified the dismission of Mr. Monroe, equally with a refusal to receive Mr. Pinckney. A wish to suspend the ordinary intercourse would have been displayed in their conduct to the resident Minister; yet Mr. Monroe was not only permitted to reside in France in his public capacity for many months subsequent to the pretended grievances, but was told by the Directory, "that he parted with their regret." It was, therefore, a most absurd and humiliating apology which gentlemen were disposed to furnish to the French Directory; he believed they would smile at and disavow it, and thought it degrading to make, in their behalf, timid excuses, which they would disdain to accept. The only chance for a propitious issue by negotiation, depended upon permitting the Executive, the Constitutional depositary of this right, to exercise a free agency; and the subsequent clause of the motion, which dictated terms to the Executive in the removal of the inequalities of our treaties, was equally impolitic and injudicious. It was probable that the Executive would make the concession alluded to by the gentleman, if an equivalent could be obtained, by a compensation for our losses, and the security of our peace; but of this he must be the judge, and we should leave him free to grant it as a sacrifice made to the desire of peace, and not authorize the French to claim it as a right. If it was known beforehand that the Executive was bound, and that the Minister was instructed, to remove a pretended cause of grievance, without any stipulation for an equivalent, he would commence his overtures under manifest disadvantage. The Directory, secure of one pretension, would probably urge others. In |