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cast upon their attachment: The whole of the opposition apa peared to concur in their illiberality towards the western people, at the very moment they were professing so much zeal for their good. The late President of the United States had in a most unwarrantable manner told him, that the western people were ready to hold out their hands to the first foreigner that should offer them an alliance; the same sentiment is echoed here, only in different terms. But such vile imputa tions attached not to the western people, but to those who employed them. The western people are Americans, who wasted the spring-tide and summer of their days in the cause of their country; men, who having spent their patrimony in establishing their country's independence, travelled to the wil derness, to seek a homestead for themselves and children. Was it honorable, was it consistent with those labored efforts for their good, which we are told actuate gentlemen, to calumniate them in so unworthy a fashion? Gentlemen appear by their gestures to deny that they have been guilty of this calumny. But my charge against them is not of that evasive or double character which they deal in; the words they have used I have take down....they are, "The French would draw the western people into an alliance." "The western people would be influenced by the insidious emissaries of l'rance." "Corruption would find its way among them, and be transferred even to that floor." Is this not calumny of the darkest hue? Is this the way in which 600,000 men are to be stigma tized? Men, a greater proportion of whom are soldiers who fought for the independence of America, than ever was to be found in the whole state (Delaware) to which the gen tleman belongs.

Another gentleman from that state (Mr. WELLS) had said yesterday, that the arguments from this side of the house had only tended to confirm him in the opinion which he had originally conceived. It was not the first time that he had heard this little species of argument employed; the gentlemen who are now in the minority, have been often obliged to their opponents for supplying them with this kind of conviction....it was too poor a species of consolation to them for him to enter tain the least desire of depriving them of it.

Yet with all this disrespect for the western people, they tell us that they are their only friends....that after we have convinced them of the correctness of their opinions, we ought to confide in those whom we have convinced without intend❤ ing it....that though we are ourselves convinced of the proprie

ty of negociation, and although a majority of that Senate, and the executive, had already determined upon it, we should listen to those gentlemen, who say, that corrupt influence will find its way to this floor from the western country, and undo all we have done to adopt what they call measures of energy. Gentlemen have mistaken both their own powers of conversion, and the mode of argument which they have adopted to convert us, or to inspire confidence in their professions among the western people. We are always ready to defend our country when occasion calls, with something better than words....but we know that if there is honor in defending our country in battle, there is both honor and virtue in defending it by prudence, without dishonor.

This mode of defence he found contemplated by the resolutions offered as substitutes. The gentleman (Mr. Ross) had indeed, as is usual with him, upon the most desperate subject, made a very ingenious speech; but it was so much perplexed by subtlety, that like the Gordian knot, it appeared incapable of being untied but by the sword. He hoped, however, it would not require an Alexander to atchieve it.

During twelve years, eight of which one of the first men the world ever saw, or perhaps ever will see, presided over our affairs, the policy of pacific negociation prevailed in our councils; a policy somewhat more hostile in its aspect was attempted by his successor, but still negociation succeeded negociation, and success attended perseverance.

In the early stages of our existence, before we were yet a nation, it is indeed true that we drank of the cup of humiliation, even to the dregs; it was the natural effect of our dependant situation; of the prejudices that bound us, and from which great violence was necessary, and was employed to detach us. Such humiliation would not befit us now; no motives exist to demand or justify it; we were then a part of another nation, and connected with another government; we began by petition in the terms of abjectness and humility, which is incidental to subjects of monarchs; which is always necessary, in order to conceal the spirit and the presumption, of which monarchs are always jealous in their subjects; but abject as we appeared, the very temper and phrase of humility, deceived our oppressor into a belief that we were too lowly to entertain the manly temper of resistence against oppression....yet our precursory and our reiterated humility, did not unnerve our arms nor subdue our minds, when it became necessary to fling off the trammels of oppression.... U

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The result we now enjoy. When that very power from which we had detached ourselves, refused to carry her treaty into exe cution....did we then go to war? She held several of our for tresses, we were entitled by every right of nature and the usage of nations to seize upon them; not like the right of deposit, a privilege enjoyed on the territory of another, but fortresses held, and in military array on our own territory. Did we then make war? No, we negociated; and when another power subsequently attacked us, we pursued the same course with the like success. The gentleman (Mr. Ross) has told us that when President Washington came into office, he would not have negociated for the Mississippi, had he not found the negociation already begun. The gentleman has not told us upon what authority he states this, or how he came to possess the knowlege of a fact of which all others are ignorant, a fact too, contradictory of his practice through his life, and of the principles of that legacy which he left to his country.

It was not to be expected that he should, coming from the interior of America, be competent to discuss the policy and balance of power in Europe. Indeed, if it were not from an apprehension of too much presumption, he would venture to say it was the height of absurdity to introduce their policy on a question like the present. We had been told also of the Romans, that they never negociated but on the line. This would of course lead us, if to any thing, to imitate the insolent and dominating spirit of Roman conquest, the part of the Roman policy of all others most to be deprecated and avoided. He would rather prefer the policy of the ancient republics of Greece, whose practice was negociation in preference to war, The policy of all republics is in their nature pacific. The contrary is the character of other forms of governments. In monarchies and aristocracies, the rulers never suffer, and the people who suffer, have no influence or control. In republics, the people who likewise suffer, have their due weight, and happiness being their interest, they are ever averse from war.

If European lesssons can be of use, those of Britain and Spain in the time of Sir Robert Walpole, should instruct us: that minister had been repeatedly called upon to declare war, in consequence of aggressions, or alledged aggressions, of Spain; after two years he was forced into it reluctantly, but not until after several embassies had been sent and failed. Britain has had few ministers equal to him as a politician. But history will tell you, that at the peace which followed, no notice was taken of the spoliations for which the war commenced. If Great Britain

then failed, what are we to expect from a war. If we were to believe all that gentlemen insinuated yesterday, it would seem to be our intention to humble ourselves in dust and ashes, at the feet of the emperor of the Gauls....and to encourage this idea of our humiliation, the gentlemen tell us, that he has conquered all Europe, and that his mandate is the law. To insinuations of this unbecoming kind, he would tell the gentlemen, in the words of his friend from Georgia, (General JACKSON) that in defence of our country and its rights, we will, when we draw the sword, throw away the scabbard. Gentlemen thus menace us only to make us the cowards which they ficticiously describe us. But he would call their recollection to our revolution, where a people unarmed, undisciplined, half part disaffected, asserted their own liberties....without money or visible resources; attacked by the then first nation of Europe, aided by auxiliaries from Germany, and with the first naval force on the ocean. Need the gentlemen be told we beat that great nation. The gentleman, none of the gentlemen on that side, know the people of whom they talk. I have walked more in the common walks of life, than those who look down with disdain on the hardy husbandman, and who consider all bliss, as well as all power the peculiar right of an imaginary superiority, or an accindental capacity for luxurious extravagance....I saw the army which atchieved our liberties, and often have I traced their naked footsteps through the snow by the blood which gushed from their lacerated but untired feet.... Men who endure, and are capable of enduring such hardships, possess spirits which men, accustomed to slight and degrade them, cannot conceive. It is upon such men, and not on the disciples of luxury and frivolity, that America must depend for her liberties; it is of such men the ranks of her armies will be composed, and such are the men who compose the population of the western country. He knew this people, and that they wished for peace, though if justice required it, they would be in the ranks of battle, while those who asperse them would perhaps be at their toilettes. The resolutions substituted would accord with the wishes of his constituents, he would therefore support them. If negociation failed, and we are compelled to the dernier resort, we should then see if those who are for resistance would unite,and make a common cause with us.

Mr. WHTIE (to explain) said, that the gentleman had in the evaporation of passion distorted and misrepresented him; he owed it to the public and the Senate, to shew that he would far as as any one in his respect for the western country,...

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he would go as far as the gentleman, or farther, What he alluded to, with regard to French influence over the western people, was, that they would by means of their commerce, obtain an influence over them.

Mr. ANDERSON, It gave him much pain to be obliged to shew the gentleman that passion must have occasioned a total absence of memory, or reflection a conviction of error, which it would have been more generous in him to acknowlege than to aggravate. But since the gentleman did affect to Herod it, he must again tell him, that it was not of commerce or commercial influence he first spoke; he did say, "that corruption would find its way to the floor of that house;" What, commercial corruption in that house? No. How then? It must find its way by the corruption of the members, which the western country send to Congress. If he had told the gentle man, that Delaware was under the influence of Great Britain, and that corruption had made its way from thence to the floor of that house, what indignation ought not the gentleman and his colleague have a right to feel.

General S. T. MASON said, that if he were to consult the state of his health, he should not trouble the Senate with any remarks on the resolutions before them. But he had heard in the course of the debate, certain observations, such strange and paradoxical arguments, insinuations and assertions of such a nature as ought not to be passed unnoticed, Doubtful whether his strength would sustain him through the whole scope which in better health he should take, he would endeavor to limit his arguments to a few of the most prominent particulars, which excited his attention, and to the delivery of his reasons for preferring the substitute propositions of his friend from Kentucky (Mr. BRECKENRIDGE) to the original resolu tions of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

In presenting himself to the attention of the Senate, his voice, feeble at the best of times, would, after the boisterous blaze of declamation, and crackling of eloquence, with which they had been yesterday stunned, would demand particular indulgence. Feeble as he was, however, he was not daunted; objects and sounds, often present themselves to the senses which surprize without exciting curiosity, and confound without being comprehensible: mountains of sophistry, like mountains of vapor, fade before the simple and inoffensive rays of reason and truth.

The amendment on your table is to be preferred to the resolutions first proposed, because they breathe a spirit more

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