the poor slaves had not escaped the general deluge. The French Revolution had polluted even them. Nay, there had not been wanting men in that House, witness their Legislative Legendre, the butcher who once held a seat there, to preach upon that floor these imprescriptible rights to a crowded audience of blacks in the galleriesteaching them that they are equal to their masters; in other words, advising them to cut their throats. Similar doctrines were disseminated by pedlers from New England and elsewhere, throughout the Southern country-and masters had been found so infatuated, as by their lives and conversation, by a general contempt of order, . morality, and religion, unthinkingly to cherish these seeds of self-destruction to them and their families What was 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 had been thrown into a state of insecurity. Men dead to the operation of moral causes, had 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 suspicions and severity; and now, like true empirics 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 tempted him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, just enough to perfect him in wickedness; 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 had been accustomed to press with respectful affection. You have done all this-and then show him the gibbet and the wheel, as incentives 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 were shuddering for our own safety at home. He spoke from facts, when he said that the nightbell never tolled for fire in Richmond that the mother did not hug her infant more closely to her bosom. He had been a witness of some of the alarms in the capital of Virginia. How had we shown our sympathy with the patriots of Spain, or with her American provinces? By seizing on one of them, her claim to which we had formerly respected, as soon as the parent country was embroiled at home. Was it thus we yielded them assistauce against the arch-fiend who is grasping at the sceptre of the civilized world. The object of France is as much Spanish America as Old Spain herself. Much as he hated a standing army he could almost find it in his heart to vote one, could it be sent to the assistance of the Spanish patriots. Mr. R. then proceeded to notice the unjust and illiberal imputation of British attachments, against certain characters in this country, sometimes in 1 DECEMBER, 1811. sinuated in that House, but openly avowed out of it. Against whom were these charges brought? Against men, who in the war of the Revolution were in the councils of the nation, or fighting the battles of your country. And by whom were they made? By runaways, chiefly from the British dominions, since the breaking out of the French troubles. He indignantly said-it is insufferable. It cannot be borne. It must, and ought, with severity, 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 reprobate. Strange! that we should have no objection to any people of 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 very civil, good sort of people, with whom we find no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace and amity-" Turks, Jews, and Infidels;" Mellimelli, 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 Shakspeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for our countrymen; whose form of government is the freest on earth, our own only excepted; from whom every valuable principle of our own institutions has been borrowed-representation, 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 worthies 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? And American resistance to British usurpation had not been more warmly cherished by these great men and their compatriots; not more by Washington, Hancock, and Henry, than by Chatham and his illustrious associates 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. He trusted that none such might ever exist among us-for tools will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of Kings and Ministers of State. He acknowledged the influence of a Shakspeare and Milton upon his imagination, of a Locke upon his understanding, of a Sidney upon his political principles, of a Chatham upon qualities which, would to God! he possessed in common with that illustrious man-of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, and a Porteus, upon his religion. This was a British influence which he could never shake off. He allowed much to the just and honest prejudices growing out of the Revolution. But by whom had they been suppressed when they DECEMBER, 1811. Foreign Relations. H. OF R. and "municipal decrees," confiscating in mass your whole property. You would have had instant war! The whole land would have blazed out in war. fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, his advocates, his tools, his minions, his parasites in the very countries that he overran-sons of that soil whereon his horse bad trod; where grass could never after grow. If perfectly fresh, Mr. RANDOLPH said, (instead of being as he was-his memory clonded, his intelleet stupified, his strength and spirits exhausted) he could not give utterance to that strong detestation which he felt towards (above all other works of the creation) such characters as Zingis, Tamerlane, Kouli-Khan, or Bonaparte. His instincts involuntarily revolted at their bare idea. Malefactors of the human race, who ground down man to a mere machine of their impious and bloody ambition. Yet under all the accumulated 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? ran counter to the interests of his country? By wards you, under such circumstances, what could Washington. By whom, would you listen to you expect if they were the uncontrolled lords of them, are they most keenly felt? By felons es- the ocean? Had those privateers at Savannah caped from the jails of Paris, Newgate, and Kil-borne British commissions-or had your shipmainham, since the breaking out of the French ments of cotton, tobacco, ashes, and what not, to Revolution-who, in this abused and insulted London and Liverpool, been confiscated, and the country, have set up for political teachers, and proceeds poured into the English Exchequer-my whose disciples give no other proof of their pro- life upon it! you would never have listened to gress in Republicanism, except a blind devotion any miserable wire-drawn distinctions between to the most ruthless military despotism that the" orders and decrees affecting our neutral rights," world ever saw. These are the patriots, who scruple not to brand with the epithet of tory the men (looking towards the seat of Col. STUART) by whose blood your liberties have been cemented. These are they, who hold in so keen remembrance And shall Republicans become the instruments the outrages of the British armies, from which many of him who had effaced the title of Attila to the of them were deserters. Ask these self-styled pat-"Scourge of God!" Yet even Attila, in the falling riots 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 allowable to entertain partialities, every consideration 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 chastening God suffers as the scourge of a guilty world! On all other nations he tramples-he holds them in contempt-England alone he hates; he would, but he cannot despise ber-fear cannot despise. And shall we disparage our ancestors ?-shall we bastardize ourselves by placing them even below the brigands of St. Domingo? with whom Mr. Adams had 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, he could never palliate, much less defend them. He well remembered flying with his mother, and her new born child, from Arnold and Phillips-and they had been driven by Tarleton and other British pandoors from pillar to post, while her husband was fighting the battles of his country. The impression was indelible on his memory-and yet (like his worthy old neighbor, who added seven buck shot to every cartridge at the battle of Guilford and drew a fine sight at his man) he must be content to be called a tory by a patriot of the last importation. Let us not get rid of one evil (supposing it to be possible) at the expense of a greater-mutatis mutandis. Suppose France in possession of the British naval power-and to her the Trident must pass should England be unable to wield it what would be your condition? 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 bull-dogs, when they receive at our hands every rite of hospitality, from which their enemy is excluded-when they capture within our own waters, interdicted to British armed ships, American vessels; when such is their deportment to But before this miserable force of ten thousand men was raised to take Canada, he begged them to look at the state of defence at home-to count the cost of the enterprise before it was set on foot, not when it might be too late-when the best blood of the country should be spilt, and nought but empty coffers left to pay the cost. Are the bounty lands to be given in Canada? It might lessen his repugnance to that part of the system, to granting these lands, not to those miserable wretches who sell themselves to slavery for a few dollars 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, lived at the rate of four or five thousand, and yet grew rich-who perhaps at that moment were making out blank assignments for these land rights. He would beseech the House, before they ran their heads against this post, Quebec, to count the cost. His word for it, Virginia planters would not be taxed to support such a war-a war which must aggravate their present distresses; in which they had not the remotest interest. Where is the Montgomery, or even the Arnold, or the Burr, who is to march to Point Levi? He called 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 had honestly, faithfully fulfilled. We had vaunted of paying off the national debt, of retrenching useless establishments; and yet had now become as infatuated with standing armies, loans, taxes, navies, and war, as ever were the Essex Junto. What Republicanism is this? Mr. RANDOLPH apologized for his very desultory manner of speaking. He regretted that his bodily indisposition had obliged him to talk perhaps somewhat too wildly; yet he trusted some method would be found in his madness-on the other resolution he should perhaps be obliged to trouble the House again. Mr. JOHNSON proceeded to reply, but had not gone far before he sat down, to afford Mr. RANDOLPH an opportunity to explain; after which an adjournment was moved and carried. WEDNESDAY, December 11. Mr. DAWSON, from the committee appointed on the ninteenth ultimo, presented a bill to amend the act providing for persons disabled by known wounds received in the Revolutionary war; which was read, and committed to a Committee of the Whole on Monday next. Mr. JENNINGS presented petitions from sundry inhabitants of the Indiana Territory, praying that a law may be passed to prohibit the interference of the United States' officers in elections held in said Territory, and that they may be authorized to elect their Delegate to this House at the time of the election of the members composing their Territorial Legislature.-Referred to a select committee. Mr. JENNINGS, Mr. NELSON, Mr, ROBERTS, Mr. NEWBOLD, Mr. SEVIER, Mr. ORMSBY, and Mr. REED, were appointed the committee. Mr. RANDOLPH, from the committee appointed as managers, on behalf of this House, of the conference on the subject of the disagreeing votes of the two Houses of Congress on the Senate's amendment to the bill, entitled "An act for the apportionment of Representatives among the several States, according to the third enumeration," reported: DECEMBER, 1811. 8 FOREIGN RELATIONS, The House resumed the consideration of the report of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Mr. JOHNSON said he rose to thank the committee for the report which was offered to the House, and the resolutions which were recomwishes, and, he believed, of public expectation. mended; though the measures fell short of his The ulterior measures, however, promised by the committee satisfied his mind, and he should give the report his warm support. The chairman had given the views of the committee. The expul sion of the British from their North American possessions, and granting letters of marque and reprisal against Great Britain are contemplated. Look at the Message of the President. At a moment least to be expected, when France had ceased to violate our neutral rights, and the olive branch Council were put into a more rigorous execution. was tendered to Great Britain, her Orders in Not satisfied with refusing a redress for wrongs committed on our coasts and in the mouths of our rights invaded; and, to close the scene of insoharbors, our trade is annoyed, and our national lence and injury, regardless of our moderation and old of our territory," measures of actual war. our justice, she has brought home to the "threshAs the love of peace has so long produced forbearance on our part, while commercial cupidity has increased the disposition to plunder on the hour of resistance is at hand, and that the Presipart of Great Britain, I feel rejoiced that the dent, in whom the people have so much confidence, has warned us of the perils that await them, and has exhorted us to put on the armor of defence, to gird on the sword, and assume the manly and bold attitude of war. He recommends filling up the ranks of the present Military Establishment, and to lengthen the term of All of which being promptly rejected by the committee service; to raise an auxiliary force for a more of the Senate, your committee, as a last effort at ac- limited time; to authorize the acceptance of volcommodation, proposed 36,000, as the medium between unteers, and provide for calling out detachments the two numbers adopted by the two Houses respect-of militia as circumstances may require. For the ively; which was also rejected as the others had been, without any discussion whatever, on the part of the managers of the Senate. No proposition being submitted on the other side to your committee, the conference was broken up, and the joint committee of the two Houses finally separated without coming to any agree ment." "That the committee had held a conference with the managers appointed on the part of the Senate. That the following propositions were submitted by the committee, to the managers of the Senate: To fix the ratio at 34,000, 33,000, 40,000, first time since my entrance into this body, there now seems to be but one opinion with a great majority-that with Great Britain war is inevitable; that the hopes of the sanguine as to a returning sense of British justice have expired; that the prophecies of the discerning have failed; and, that her infernal system has driven us to the Mr. NEWTON, from the Committee of Com- brink of a second revolution, as important as the merce and Manufactures, presented a bill author- first. Upon the Wabash, through the influence izing the refunding the duties paid on the import-of British agents, and within our territorial sea ation of certain copper articles; which was read by the British navy, the war has already com H. of R. ors, and then, they say menced. Thus, the folly, the power, and the tyranny of Great Britain, have taken from us the last alternative of longer forbearance. Mr. J. said we must now oppose the farther encroachments of Great Britain by war, or for-olution styled the inhabitants of the British provmally annul the Declaration of our Indepen- inces friends and fellow-sufferers in 1774: Aldence, and acknowledge' ourselves her devoted though then but a handful of men compared to colonies. The people whom I represent will not their present numbers, and only ten years had hesitate which of the two courses to choose; and, elapsed from their first incorporation with the if we are involved in war, to maintain our dear- British dominions; and nothing but the want of est rights, and to preserve our independence, I physical power and means prevented their indepledge myself to this House, and my constitu- pendence in 1776. The misfortunes of our arms ents to this nation, that they will not be wanting at Quebec, and in that quarter, are well known. in valor, nor in their proportion of men and These overtures of the Old Congress did not stop money to prosecute the war with effect. Before here. After the Articles of Confederation had we relinquish the conflict, I wish to see Great been adopted, the door was left open for the reBritain renounce the piratical system of paper ception of the Canadas, and the hope was not lost. blockade; to liberate our captured seamen on until British arms riveted the chains of slavery board her ships of war; relinquish the practice upon them, which at that time could not be broof impressment on board our merchant vessels; ken. Now, sir, these people are more enlightened, to repeal her Orders in Council; and cease, in they have a great American population among every other respect, to violate our neutral rights; them, and they have correct ideas of liberty and to treat us as an independent people. The gen-independence, and only want an opportunity to tleman from Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) has objected to the destination of this auxiliary forcethe occupation of the Canadas, and the other British possessions upon our borders where our laws are violated, the Indians stimulated to murder our citizens, and where there is a British monopoly of the peltry and fur trade. I should not wish to extend the boundary of the United States by war if Great Britain would leave us to, the quiet enjoyment of independence; but, considering her deadly and implacable enmity, and her continued hostility, I shall never die contented until I see her expulsion from North America, and her territories incorporated with the United States. It is strange that the gentleman would pause before refusing this force, if destined to keep the negroes in subordination who are not in a state of insurrection as I understand-and he will absolutely refuse to vote this force to defend us against the lawless aggressions of Great Britain a nation in whose favor he had said so much. But, he has a dislike to the Canadian French. French blood is hateful to him, I have no doubt but the Canadian French are as good citizens as the Canadian English, or the refugee tories of the Revolution; nor have I any doubt but a great majority of that vast community are sound in their morals and in their politics, and would make worthy, members of the United States. But, open the sacred pages of the Journals of the Congress of 1774-75-that Congress which commenced, and conducted to victory, the American Revolution. Upon the pages of the first volume (from page 54 to 100) we will find letters addressed to the inhabitants of Canada and the province of Quebec, containing the language of affectionate respect, and, in the warmth of patriotism, inviting them to unite against British tyranny, to make the cause of quarrel common, and to enter into the union of the States on the principles of equality. The encroachments of Great Britain are depicted in the most vivid col throw off the yoke of their taskmasters. Let us not think so meanly of the human character and the human mind. We are in pursuit of happiness, and we place a great value upon liberty as the means of happiness. What, then, let me ask, has changed the character of those people, that they are to be despised? What new order of things has disqualified them for the enjoyment of liberty? Has any malediction of Heaven doomed them to perpetual vassalage? Or, will the gentleman from Virginia pretend to more wisdom, and more patriotism than the constellation of patriots who conducted the infant Republic through the Revolution? In point of territorial limit, the map will prove its importance. The waters of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi interlock in a number of places, and the great Disposer of Human Events intended those two rivers should belong to the same people. But it has been denied that British influence had any agency in the late dreadful conflict and massacre upon the Wabash; and this is said to vindicate the British nation from so foul a charge.. Sir, look to the book of the Revolution. See the Indian savages in Burgoyne's army urged on every occasion to use the scalping-knife and tomahawk-not in battle, but against old men, women, and children; in the night, when they were taught to believe an Omniscient eye could not see their guilty deeds; and thus hardened in iniquity, they perpetrated the same deeds by the light of the sun, when no arm was found to oppose or protect. And when this crying sin was opposed by Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, the employment of these Indians was justified by a speech from one of the Ministry. Thus we see how the principles of honor, of humanity, of christianity, were violated and justified in the face of the world. Therefore, I can have no doubt of the influence of British agents in keeping up Indian hostility to the people of the United States, independent of the strong proofs on this occasion; and, I hope it will not be pre tended that these agents are too moral or too religious to do the infamous deed. So much for the expulsion of Great Britain from her dominions in North America, and their incorporation into the United States of America. DECEMBER, 1811. discrimination. Why love her rulers? Why kiss the rod of iron which inflicts the stripes without a cause? When all admit we have just cause of war, such attachments are dangerous, and encourage encroachment. I will venture to say, that our The gentleman from Virginia says we are iden-hatred of the British Government is not comtified with the British in religion, in blood, in lan-mensurate with her depredations and her outrages guage, and deeply laments our hatred to that coun- on our rights, or we should have waged a deadly try, who can boast of so many illustrious charac war against her many years past. The subject ters. This deep rooted enmity to Great Britain of foreign attachments and British hatred has arises from her insidious policy, the offspring of been examined at considerable length. I did not her perfidious conduct towards the United States. intend to begin that discussion, but I will pursue Her disposition is unfriendly; her enmity is im- it, and though I make no charge of British atplacable; she sickens at our prosperity and hap- tachments, I will, at all times, at every hazard, piness. If obligations of friendship do exist, why defend the Administration and the Republican does Great Britain rend those ties asunder, and party against the charge of foreign partialitiesopen the bleeding wounds of former conflicts? French or Spanish, or any other kind, when ap Or does the obligation of friendship exist on the plied to the measures of our Government. This part of the United States alone? I have never foreign influence is a dangerous enemy; we should thought that the ties of religion, of blood, of lan- destroy the means of its circulation among usguage, and of commerce, would justify or sancti- like the fatal tunic, it destroys where it touches. fy insult and injury on the contrary, that a pre- It is insidious, invisible, and takes advantage of meditated wrong from the hand of a friend created the most unsuspecting hours of social intercourse. more sensibility, and deserved the greater chas- I would not deny the good will of France nor of tisement and the higher execration. What would Great Britain to have an undue influence among you think of a man, to whom you were bound by us. But Great Britain alone has the means of the most sacred ties, who would plunder you of this influence to an extent dangerous to the Uniyour substance, aim a deadly blow at your honor, ted States. It has been said that Great Britain and in the hour of confidence endeavor to bury a was fighting the battles of the world-that she dagger in your bossom? Would you, sir, pro- stands against universal dominion threatened by claim to the world your affection for this mis- the arch-fiend of mankind. I should be sorry if creant of society, after this conduct, and endeavor our independence depended upon the power of: to interest your audience with the ties of kindred Great Britain. If, however, she would act the that bound you to each other? So let it be with part of a friendly Power towards the United States, nations, and there will be neither surprise nor I should never wish to deprive her of power, of lamentation that we execrate a Government so wealth, of honor, of prosperity. But if her enerhostile to our independence-for it is from the gies are to be directed against the liberties of this Government that we meet with such multiplied free and happy people, against my native couninjury, and to that object is our hatred directed. try, I should not drop a tear if the fast-anchored As to individuals of merit, whether British or isle would sink into the waves, provided the inFrench, I presume no person would accuse the nocent inhabitants could escape the deluge and people of the United States of such hatred to find an asylum in a more favorable soil. And as them, or of despising individuals, who might not to the power of France, I fear it as little as any be instrumental in the maritime despotism which other power; I would oppose her aggressions, unwe feel; and this accounts for the veneration we der any circumstances, as soon as I would British have for Sidney and Russell, statesmen of whom outrages. the gentleman has spoken; they are fatal examples, why we should love the British Government. The records of that Government are now stained with the blood of these martyrs in freedom's cause, as vilely as with the blood of American citizens; and certainly we shall not be called upon to love equally the murderer and the victim. For God's sake let us not again be told of the ties of religion, of laws, of blood, and of customs, which bind the two nations together, with a view to extort our love for the English Government, and more especially, when the same gentleman has acknowledged that we have ample cause of war against that nation-let us not be told of the freedom of that corrupt Government whose hands are washed alike in the blood of her own illustrious statesmen, for a manly opposition to tyranny, and the citizens of every other clime. But I would inquire into this love for the British Government and British institutions, in the gross, without any ❘ The ties of religion, of language, of blood, as it regards Great Britain, are dangerous ties to this country, with her present hostile disposition-instead of pledges of friendship they are used to paralyze the strength of the United States in relation to her aggressions. There are other ties equally efficacious. The number of her commercial traders within our limits, her agents, &c., the vast British capital employed in our commerce and our moneyed institutions, connected with her language, ancestry, customs, habits, and laws. These are formidable means for estranging the affections of many from our republican institutions, and producing partialities for Great Britain. Now I shall attend to the charge of partiality in our measures towards France. It is an insinuation not founded in fact, and can only exist in the imagination of those who may insinuate it. We are not driven to mere declarations-the truth of the assertion is bottomed upon the statute |
