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H. OF R.

Non-Importation of Goods from Great Britain.

the French arms in 1793. And wherefore? Because the case is changed. Great Britain can never again see the year 1760. Her continental influence is gone forever. Let who will be uppermost on the continent of Europe, she must find more than a conoterpoise for her strength. Her race is run. She can only be formidable as a maritime Power; aud, even as such, perhaps not long. Are you going to justify the acts of the last Administration, for which they have been deprived of the Government at our instance? Are you going back to the ground of 1798-'9? I ask any man who now advocates a rupture with England to assign a single reason for his opinion, that would not have justified a French war in 1798? If injury and insult abroad would have justified it, we had them in abundance then. But what did the Republicans say at that day? That, under the cover of a war with France, the Exec

MARCH, 1806.

have struck no medals. This is not the sort of conflict that you are to count upon, if you go to war with Great Britain. Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat. And are you mad enough to take up the cudgels that have been struck from the nerveless hands of the three great maritime Powers of Europe? Shall the planter mortgage his little crop, and jeopardize the Constitution in support of commercial monopoly, in the vain hope of satisfying the insatiable greediness of trade? Administer the Constitution upon its own principles: for the general welfare, and not for the benefit of any particular class of men. Do you meditate war for the possession of Baton Rouge or Mobile, places which your own laws declare to be within your limits? Is it even for the fair trade that exchanges your surplus produets for such foreign articles as you require? No, sir, it is for a circuitous trade an ignis fatu

utive would be armed with a patronage and pow-us. And against whom? A nation from whom

er which might enable it to master our liberties. They deprecated foreign war and navies, and standing armies, and loans, and taxes. The delirium passed away-the good sense of the people triumphed, and our differences were accommodated without a war. And what is there in the situation of England that invites to war with her? It is true she does not deal so largely in perfectability, but she supplies you with a much more useful commodity-with coarse woollens. With less profession indeed she occupies the place of France in 1793. She is the sole bulwark of the human race against universal dominion; no thanks to her for it. In protecting her own existence, she insures theirs. I care not who stands in this situation, whether England or Bonaparte. I practice the doctrines now that I professed in 1798. Gentlemen may hunt up the journals if they please; I voted against all such projects under the Administration of John Adams, and I will continue to do so under that of Thomas Jef ferson. Are you not contented with being free and happy at home? Or will you surrender these blessings that your merchants may tread on Turkish and Persian carpets, and burn the perfumes of the East in their vaulted rooms. Gentlemen say it is but an annual million lost, and even if it were five times that amount, what is it compared with your neutral rights? Sir, let me tell them a hundred millions will be but a drop in the bucket, if once they launch without rudder or compass into this ocean of foreign warfare. Whom do they want to attack? England. They hope it is a popular thing, and talk about Bunker's Hill, and the gallant feats of our Revolution. But is Bunker's Hill to be the theatre of war? No, sir, you have selected the ocean, and the object of attack is that very navy which prevented the combined fleets of France and Spain from levying contribution upon you in your own seas; that very navy which, in the famous war of 1798. stood between you and danger. Whilst the fleets of the enemy were pent up in Toulon, or pinioned in Brest, we perforined wonders to be sure; but, sir, if England had drawn off, France would have told you quite a different tale. You would

you have anything to fear?-I speak as to our
liberties. No. sir, with a nation from whom you
have nothing, or next to nothing, to fear; to the
aggrandizement of one against which you have
everything to dread. I look to their ability and
interest, not to their disposition. When you rely
on that the case is desperate. Is it to be inferred
from all this that I would yield to Great Britain?
No. I would act towards her now, as I was dis
posed to do towards France, in 1798-19; treat
with her,
the same reason, on the same
principles. Do I say I would treat with her?
At this moment you have a negotiation pending
with her Government. With her you have not
tried negotiation and failed, totally failed, as you
have done with Spain, or rather France; and
wherefore, under such circumstances, this hostile
spirit to the one, and this-I will not say what-
to the other?

and

for

But a great deal is said about the laws of bations. What is national law but national power guided by national interest? You yourselves acknowledge and practice upon this principle where you can, or where you dare-with the Indian tribes for instance. I might give another and more forcible illustration. Will the learned lumber of your libraries add a ship to your fleet, or a shilling to your revenue? Will it pay or maintain a single soldier? And will you preach and prate of violations of your neutral rights, when you tamely and meanly submit to the violation of your territory? Will you collar the stealer of your sheep, and let him escape that has invaded the repose of your fireside has insulted your wife and children under your own roof? This is the heroism of truck and traffic-the public spirit of sordid avarice. Great Britain violates your flag on the high seas. Woat is her situation? Contending, not for the dismantling of Dunkirk, for Quebec, or Pondicherry, but for London and Westminster-for life. Her enemy violating at will the territories of other nations, acquiring thereby a colossal power that threatens the very existence of her rival. But she has one vulnerable point to the arms of her adversary, which she covers with the ensigns of neutrality; she draws

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house of the British Navy, whom it is not more
the policy and the interest than the sentiment of
that Government to soothe and to conciliate-her
sole hope of a diversion on the continent.and her
only efficient ally. What this formidable Power
cannot obtain with fleets and armies, you will
command by writ-with pothooks and hangers.
I am for no such policy.
honor is alway
the same. Before you enter into a contest, public
or private, be sure you have fortitude enough to
go through with it. If you mean war, say so, and
prepare for it. Look on the other side; behold
the respect in which France holds neutral rights
on land; observe her conduct in regard to the
Franconian estates of the King of Prussia. I say
nothing of the petty Powers of the Elector of
Baden, or of the Swiss-I speak of a first rate
Monarchy of Europe, and at a moment, too, when
its neutrality was the object of all others nearest
to the heart of the French Emperor. If you
make him monarch of the ocean, you may bid
adieu to it forever. You may take your leave,
sir, of navigation-even of the Mississippi. What
is the situation of New Orleans if attacked to-
morrow? Filled with a discontented and repin-
ing people, whose language, manners, and reli-
gion, all incline them to the invader-a dissatis-
fied people, who despise the miserable Governor
you have set over them-whose honest prejudices
and basest passions alike take part against you. I
draw my information from no dubious source; but
from a native American, an enlightened member
of that odious and imbecile Government. You
have official information that the town and its
dependencies are utterly defenceless and untena-
ble. A firm belief that (apprized of this) Gov.
ernment would do something to put the place in
a state of security, alone has kept the American
portion of that community quiet. You have held
that post, you now hold it, by the tenure of the

the neutral flag over the heel of Achilles. And can you ask that adversary to respect it at the expense of her existence? and in favor of whom? An enemy that respects no neutral territory of Europe, and not even your own. I repeat that the insults of Spain towards this nation have been at the instigation of France; that there is no longer any Spain. Well, sir, because the - French Government does not put this in the Moniteur, you choose to shut your eyes to it. ■ None so blind as those who will not see. You shut your own eyes, and to blind those of other people, you go into conclave, and slink out again and say, a great affair of State!" - C'est une grande affaire d'Etat! It seems that your sensibility is entirely confined to the extremities. You may be pulled by the nose and ears, and never feel it, but let your strong box be attacked, and you are all nerve-"Let us go to war!" Sir, if they - called upon me only for my little peculium to carry it on, perhaps I might give it; but my rights and liberties are involved in the grant, and I will never surrender them while I have life. - The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. CROWNINSHIELD) is for sponging the debt. I can never - consent to it; I will never bring the ways and means of fraudulent bankruptcy into your committee of supply. Confiscation and swindling shall never be found among my estimates to meet the current expenditure of peace or war. No, sir, I have said with the doors closed, and I say so when the doors are open, "pay the public debt;" get rid of that dead weight upon your Government-that cramp upon all your measures and then you may put the world at defiance. So long as it hangs upon you, you must I have revenue, and to have revenue you must have commerce-commerce, peace. And shall these nefarious schemes be advised for lightening the public burdens; will you resort tosthese low and pitiful shifts; dare even to mention these dishon-naval predominance of England, and yet you are

est artifices to eke out your expenses, when the public treasure is lavished on Turks and infidels, on singing boys and dancing girls, to furnish the means of beastiality to an African barbarian ?

Gentlemen say that Great Britain will count upon our divisions. How? What does she know of them? Can they ever expect greater unanimity than prevailed at the last Presidential elee tion? No, sir, it is the gentleman's own conscience that squeaks. But if she cannot calculate upon your divisions, at least she may reckon upon your pusillanimity. She may well despise the resentment that cannot be excited to honorable battle on its own ground; the mere effusion of mercantule cupidity. Gentlemen talk of repealing the British Treaty. The gentleman from Pennsylvania should have thought of that, before he voted to carry it into effect. And what is all this for? A point which Great Britain will not abandon to Russia, you expect her to yield to you

for a British naval war.

There are now but two great commercial nations-Great Britain is one, and the United States the other. When you consider the many points of contact between our interests, you may be surprised that there has been so little collision. Sir, to the other belligerent nations of Europe your navigation is a convenience. I might say, a necessary. If you do not carry for them they must starve, at least for the luxuries of life, which custom has rendered almost indispensable; and if you cannot act with some degree of spirit towards those who are dependent upon you as carriers, do you reckon to browbeat a jealous rival, who, the moment she lets slip the dogs of war, sweeps you at a blow from the ocean And cui bono? for whose benefit? The planter? Nothing like it. The fair, honest, real American merchant? No, sir, for renegadoes; to-day American, to-morrow, Danes. Go to war when you will, the property,

Russia! indisputably the second Power of Conta- now covered by the American, will then pass nental Europe; with not less than halt a million under the Danish, or some other neutral flag. of hardy troops; with sixty sail-of the-line, thirty Gentlemen say that one English ship is worth millions of subjects, and a territory more exten- three of ours; we shall therefore have the advansive even than our own-Russia, sir, the store-tage in privateering. Did they ever know a na

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tion to get rich by privateering? This is stuff, sir, for the nursery. Remember that your products are bulky, as has been stated; that they require a vast tonnage to transport them abroad, and that but two nations possess that tonnage. Take these carriers out of the market. What is the result? The manufactures of England, which (to use a finishing touch of the gentlemen's rhetoric) have received the finishing stroke of art, lie in a small comparative compass. The neutral trade can carry them. Your produce rots in the warehouse. You go to Eustatia or St. Thomas and get a striped blanket for a joe, if you can ❘ raise one. Double freight, charges, and commission. Who receives the profit? The carrier. Who pays it? The consumer. All your produce that finds its way to England, must hear the same accumulated charges with this difference, that there the burden falls on the home price. I appeal to the experience of the late war, which has been so often cited. What then was the price of produce, and of broadcloth?

But you are told England will not make war; that she has her hands full. Holland calculated in the same way in 1781. How did it turn out? You stand now in the place of Holland, then without her Navy, and unaided by the preponderating fleets of France and Spain, to say nothing of the Baltic Powers. Do you want to take up the cudgels where these great maritime States have been forced to drop them? to meet Great Britain on the ocean, and drive her off its face? If you are so far gone as this, every capital meas ure of your policy has hitherto been wrong. You should have nurtured the old, and devised new systems of taxation, and have cherished your navy. Begin this business when you may, land-taxes, stamp-acts, window-taxes, hearth-money, excise, in all its modifications of vexation and oppression, must precede or follow after. But, sir, as French is the fashion of the day, I may be asked for my projet. I can readily tell gentlemen what I will not do. I will not propitiate any foreign nation with money. I will not launch into a naval war with Great Britain, although I am ready to meet her at the Cowpens or on Bunker's Hill-and for this plain reason, we are a great land animal, and our business is on shore. I will send her money, sir, on no pretext whatever, much less on pretence of buying Labrador, or Botany Bay, when my real o ject was to secure limits, which she formally acknowledged at the peace of 1783. I go further: I would (if anything) have laid an embargo. This would have got our own property home, and our adversary's into our power. If there is any wisdom left among us, the first step towards hostility will always be an embargo. In six months all your mercantile megrims would vanish. As to us, although it would cut deep, we can stand it. Without such a precaution, go to war when you will, you go to the wall. As to debts. strike the balance to-morrow, and England is I believe in our

debt.

I hope, sir, to be excused for proceeding in this desultory course. I flatter myself I shall not have

MARCH, 1806.

occasion again to trouble you. I know not that I shall be able, certainly not willing, unless provoked in self-defence. I ask your attention to the character of the inhabitants of that Southern country, on whom gentlemen tely for support of their measure. Who and what are they? A simple, agricultural people, accustomed to travel in peace to market with the produce of their labor. who takes it from us? Another people, devoted to manufactures-our sole source of supply. I have seen some stuff in the newspapers about manufactures in Saxony, and about a man who is no longer the chief of a dominant faction. The greatest man whom I ever knew-the immortal author of the letters of Curtius-has remarked the proneness of cunning people to wrap up and disguise in well-selected phrases doctrines too deformed and detestable to bear exposure in naked words; by a judicous choice of epithets to draw the attention from the lurking principle beneath, and perpetuate delusion. But a little while ago, and any man might have been proud to have been considered as the head of the Republican party. Now, it seems, it is reproachful to be deemed the chief of a dominant faction. Mark the magic of words. Head-chief. Republican party-dominant faction. But as to these Saxon manulactures. What became of their Dresden china? Why the Prussian bayonets have broken all the pots, and you are content with Worcestershire or Staffordshire ware. There are some other fine n.anufactures on the continent, but no supply, except perhaps of linens, the article we can best dispense with. A few individuals, sir, may have a coat of Louvier's cloth, or a service of Sevres china; but there is too little, and that little too dear, to furnish the nation. You must depend on the fur trade in earnest, and wear buffalo hides and bear skins.

Can any man who understands Europe pretend to say that a particular foreign policy is now right because it would have been expedient twenty, or even ten years ago, without abandoning all regard for common sense? Sir, it is the statesman's province to be guided by circumstances; to anticipate, to foresee them; to give them a course and a direction; to mould them to his purpose. It is the business of a counting-house clerk to peer into the day book and leger, to see no further than the spectacles on his nose, to fe I not beyond the pen behind his ear; to chatter in coffee-houses, and be the oracle of clubs. From 1783 to 1793, and even later, (I dont stickle for dates.) France had a formidable marine-so had Holland-so had Spain. The two first possessed of thriving manufactures and a flourishing commerce. Great Britain, tremblingly alive to her manufacturing interests and carrying trade, would have felt to the heart any measure calculated to favor her rivals in these pursuits. She would have yielded then to her fears and her jealousy alone. What is the case now? She lays an export duty on her manufactures, and there ends the question. If Georgia shall (from whatever cause) so completely monopolize the culture of cotton as to be able to lay an export duty of three per cent. upon

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it, besides taxing its cultivators, in every other every measure short of war, and even the course

shape, that human or infernal ingenuity can devise, is Pennsylvania likely to rival her and take away the trade?.

But, sir, it seems that we, who are opposed to this resolution, are men of no nerve, who trembled in the days of the British treaty-cowards (1)

of hostilities depends upon him. He stands at the helm, and must guide the vessel of State. You give him money to buy Florida, and he purchases Louisiana. You may furnish means; the application of those means rests with him. Let not the master and mate go below when the ship

presume) in the reign of terror? Is this true? is in distress, and throw the responsibility upon

Hunt up the journals; let our actions tell. We pursue our old unshaken course. We care not for the nations of Europe, but make foreign relations bend to our political principles and subserve our country's interest. We have no wish to see another Actium, or Pharsalia, or the lieutenants of a modern Alexander playing at piquet, or all fours, for the empire of the world. It is poor comfort to us to be told that France has too decided a taste for luxurious things to meddle with us; that Egypt is her object, or the coast of Barbary, and, at the worst, we shall be the last devoured. We are enamored with neither nation; we would play their own game upon them, use them for our interest and convenience. But with all my abhorrence of the British Government, I should not hesitate between Westminster Hall and a Middlesex jury, on the one hand, and the wood of Vincennes and a file of grenadiers on the other. That jury-trial, which walked with Horne Tooke and Hardy through the flames of ministerial persecution is, I confess, more to my taste than the trial of the Duke d'Enghein.

Mr. Chairman. I am sensible of having detained the Committee longer than I ought; certainly much longer than I intended. I am equally sen sible of their politeness, and not less so, sir, of your patient attention. It is your own indulgence, sir, badly requited indeed, to which you owe this persecution. I might offer another apology for these undigested, desultory remarks-my never having seen the Treasury documents. Until 1 came into the House this morning I had been stretched on a sick bed. But when I behold the affairs of this nation instead of being where I hoped, and the people believed, they were, in the hands of responsible men, committed to Tom, Dick. and Harry, to the refuse of the retail trade of politics, I do feel, I cannot help feeling, the most deep and serious concern. If the Executive government would step forward and say, "such is our plan, such is our opinion, and such are our reasons in support of it," I would meet it fairly. would openly oppose, or pledge myself to support it. But, without compass or polar star, I will not launch into an ocean of unexplored measures, which stand condemned by all the information to which I have access. The Constitution of the United States declares it to be the province and the duty of the President "to give to Congress. 'from time to time, information of the state of 'the Union, and recommend to their considera'tion such measures as he shall judge expedient 'and necessary " Has he done it? I know. sir, that we may say, and do say, that we are independent. (would it were true;) as free to give a direction to the Executive as to receive it from him. But do what you will, foreign relations,

the cook and the cabin-boy. I said so when your doors were shut; I scorn to say less now that they are open. Gentlemen may say what they please. They may put an insignificant individual to the ban of the Republic-I shall not alter my course. 1 blush with indignation at the misrepresentations which have gone forth in the public prints of our proceedings, public and private. Are the people of the United States, the real sovereigns of the country, unworthy of knowing what, there is too much reason to believe, has been communicated to the privileged spies of foreign Governments? I think our citizens just as well entitled to know what has passed as the Marquis Yrujo, who has bearded your President to his face, insulted your Government within its owo peculiar jurisdiction, and outraged all decency. Do you mistake this diplomatic puppet for an automaton? He has orders for all he does. Take his instructions from his pocket to morrow, they are signed "Charles Maurice Talleyrand." Let the nation know what they have to depend upon. Be true to them, and (trust me) they will prove true to themselves and to you. The people are honest-now at home at their ploughs, not dreaming of what you are about. But the spirit of inquiry, that has too long slept, will be, must be, awakened. Let them begin to think-not to say such things are proper because they have been done-of what has been done, and wherefore, and all will be right.

The Committee then rose, and the House

adjourned.

THURSDAY, March 6.

Mr. CONRAD from the committee to whom was referred, on the twelfth of December last, a letter in the German language from David Christoph Mau, addressed to the Speaker, presenting to Congress a copy of his works, made a report thereon; which was read, and considered: Whereupon

Resolved, That the Librarian be directed to receive and take charge of the said books, and that the Speaker be requested to acknowledge by a letter addressed to the said David Christoph Mau, the acceptance of the said books.

The House proceeded to consider the amendments proposed by the Senate to the bill, entitled "An act for the relief of the Governor, Judges, and Secretary. of the Indiana Territory:" Whereupon,

Ordered That the said amendments, together with the bill be commited to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.

The House proceeded to consider the amendments proposed by the Senate to the bill, entitled "An act relating to bonds given by Marshals:" Wnereupon.

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Non-Importation of Goods from Great Britain.

Ordered, That the said amendments, together with the bill, be referred to Mr. TALLMADGE, Mr. CLARK, and Mr. HASTINGS.

The bill sent from the Senate, entitled "An act for the punishment of counterfeiting the current coin of the United States, and for other purposes," was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next.

Mr. G. W. CAMPBELL, one of the members from the State of Tennesseee, presented to the House certain resolutions of the General Assembty of the said State, for the opening the Muscle Shoals, in the river Tennessee; which were read, and referred to Mr. G. W. CAMPBELL Mr. VARNUM, Mr. WALTON, Mr. LEWIs, and Mr. SPALDING. Mr. G. W. CAMPBELL, moved the following resolution:

Resolved, That provision ought to be made for opening and improving the navigation of the river Tennessee, through the Muscle Shoals, in the Mississippi Territory.

Ordered, That the said resolution be referred to the committee last appointed.

NON-IMPORTATION OF BRITISH GOODS.

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union on Mr. GRGG'S resolution.

MARCH. 1806.

we had not an active commerce among our own citizens, it is evident that foreign merebants and nations only, would be enriched by the profits of our agriculture, would convert us into mere diggers of the soil for their benefit, and would thereby gain the means of insulting and degradtug us more abundantly. The price of our produce will lessen in the proportion that we curtail the means of transporting it to the best foreign markets, and the means will assuredly be curtailed if we withdraw our protection from the enterprise of our citizens upon the ocean. Declare to foreign nations that the active commerce of this country meets no longer the fostering care of Government, and you will soon hear of their tenfold insolence upon the seas; and our vessels, frowned from the enjoyment of their rights there, will find an asylum in our harbors only, where they will be left to rot. The produce of our country must share a similar fate, unless we consent to dispose of it to foreign merchants and speculators, at any price they may please to offer for it. But what is not less important, if we have a regard for morals and happiness, a horrid picture here presents itself; that moment you stagnate the vent of your grain, an extensive inland country will be inundated with whiskey and the destructive vices which flow from the free use of it.

Although important, this is far from being the most important view which may be taken of this subject. It is a conceded point, that our Government must by some means or other have revenue. The greatest statesmen and patriots of this country, have united, I believe, in considering com

Mr.N. WILLIAMS. - The subject now under consideration calls for a display of all the knowledge and experience of commercial men and statesmen. And although I do not profess to be of either class, yet if I should chance to bestow a mite of information upon a subject of such vast importance to this country, it will no doubt be favorably re-merce as our most fruitful source of revenue and

ceived by this honorable Committee.

The resolution now under discussion has for its principal o ject the protection of the active commerce of our country; it therefore becomes us perhaps, before we enter into the merits of the measure proposed, to inquire whether commerce is of itself so important to us, as to demand our protection. This first inquiry might seem un necessary, and even extraordinary, had we not witnessed so recently, upon this floor, the very light and trivial manner in which the commerce of this country has been treated, and had we not heard the very strange opinion, that it ought to be left to take care of itself.

It is possible that the agricultural class, which embraces a very great and respectable part of the population of our country, will look for some evideuce of the benefits to be derived to them from the protected enterprise of our merchants. Those benefits, however, are so obvious to an attentive observer, that very little need be urged to render them apparent. It has been justly said that agriculture and commerce are handmaids to each other. Indeed their interests are strongly and durably interwoven. Commerce has a direct tendency to raise the price of the product of the farmer's labor, by seeking in every part of the world the best markets for our articles of export, and by bringing back and scattering though the country that circulating medium, which cherishes industry, and sweetens the toils of the laborer. If

riches. It presents a mode of fiscal exaction, the most in union with the spirit and feelings as well as the interests of the American people that of indirect taxation. By this mode the consumers of articles of foreign growth and manufacture, contribute freely and copiously to the support of our Government, and to that fund which is destined to the payment of the national debt, and this too without feeling in a great degree the weight of the contribution. But the moment, sin, we give up this source of revenue, or expose it to the cupidity and rapacity of foreign Powers, a re sort to modes of taxation less congenial with the spirit of freedom must be inevitable. Let those who are for giving up this, look about and see what other sources of revenue our country can furnish. Experience, that mother of wisdom, has already instructed us, that excise laws are too odious in many parts of our country, to be borne; indeed this source of revenue would at best be trifling. Personal property is of a nature too occult and too liable to shift and change to become a safe and permanent source of revenue. The sale of the public lands, relied on by some, is an expedient which on many accounts will be slow and inefficient; but if the sentiment prevails of leaving commerce to take care of itself, and my notions are correct that such a measure will paralyze the industry of the farmer, it may very justly be doubted, whether our wild lands will meet with a ready market. What then, I

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