American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) by Various

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The treaty is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It sacrifices the interest,
the honor, the independence of the United States, and the faith of our
engagements to France. If we listen to the clamor of party intemperance,
the evils are of a number not to be counted, and of a nature not to be
borne, even in idea. The language of passion and exaggeration may
silence that of sober reason in other places, it has not done it here.
The question here is, whether the treaty be really so very fatal as to
oblige the nation to break its faith. I admit that such a treaty ought
not to be executed. I admit that self-preservation is the first law of
society, as well as of individuals. It would, perhaps, be deemed an
abuse of terms to call that a treaty, which violates such a principle. I
waive also, for the present, any inquiry, what departments shall
represent the nation, and annul the stipulations of a treaty. I content
myself with pursuing the inquiry, whether the nature of this compact be
such as to justify our refusal to carry it into effect. A treaty is the
promise of a nation. Now, promises do not always bind him that makes
them. But I lay down two rules, which ought to guide us in this case.
The treaty must appear to be bad, not merely in the petty details, but
in its character, principle, and mass. And in the next place, this ought
to be ascertained by the decided and general concurrence of the
enlightened public.

I confess there seems to be something very like ridicule thrown over the
debate by the discussion of the articles in detail. The undecided point
is, shall we break our faith? And while our country and enlightened
Europe, await the issue with more than curiosity, we are employed to
gather piecemeal, and article by article, from the instrument, a
justification for the deed by trivial calculations of commercial profit
and loss. This is little worthy of the subject, of this body, or of the
nation. If the treaty is bad, it will appear to be so in its mass. Evil
to a fatal extreme, if that be its tendency, requires no proof; it
brings it. Extremes speak for themselves and make their own law. What if
the direct voyage of American ships to Jamaica with horses or lumber,
might net one or two per centum more than the present trade to Surinam;
would the proof of the fact avail any thing in so grave a question as
the violation of the public engagements?

Why do they complain, that the West Indies are not laid open? Why do
they lament, that any restriction is stipulated on the commerce of the
East Indies? Why do they pretend, that if they reject this, and insist
upon more, more will be accomplished? Let us be explicit--more would not
satisfy. If all was granted, would not a treaty of amity with Great
Britain still be obnoxious? Have we not this instant heard it urged
against our envoy, that he was not ardent enough in his hatred of Great
Britain? A treaty of amity is condemned because it was not made by a
foe, and in the spirit of one. The same gentleman, at the same instant,
repeats a very prevailing objection, that no treaty should be made with
the enemy of France. No treaty, exclaim others, should be made with a
monarch or a despot; there will be no naval security while those
sea-robbers domineer on the ocean; their den must be destroyed; that
nation must be extirpated.

I like this, sir, because it is sincerity. With feelings such as these,
we do not pant for treaties. Such passions seek nothing, and will be
content with nothing, but the destruction of their object. If a treaty
left King George his island, it would not answer; not if he stipulated
to pay rent for it. It has been said, the world ought to rejoice if
Britain was sunk in the sea; if where there are now men and wealth and
laws and liberty, there was no more than a sand bank for sea monsters to
fatten on; a space for the storms of the ocean to mingle in conflict.

What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the spot where a man
was born? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent
preference because they are greener? No, sir, this is not the character
of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended
self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself
with the minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of
society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see,
not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our
country's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and
cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk
his life in its defence, and is conscious that he gains protection while
he gives it. For, what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable
when a state renounces the principles that constitute their security? Or
if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in a
country odious in the eyes of strangers and dishonored in his own? Could
he look with affection and veneration to such a country as his parent?
The sense of having one would die within him; he would blush for his
patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would be a vice. He
would be a banished man in his native land. I see no exception to the
respect that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. If there
are cases in this enlightened period when it is violated, there are none
when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of
governments. It is observed by barbarians--a whiff of tobacco smoke, or
a string of beads, gives not merely binding force but sanctity to
treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money, but when
ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its
obligation. Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, nor the
principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to
despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the
foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect
together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find
themselves obliged to make justice, that justice under which they fell,
the fundamental law of their state. They would perceive, it was their
interest to make others respect, and they would therefore soon pay some
respect themselves, to the obligations of good faith.

It is painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make even the supposition,
that America should furnish the occasion of this opprobrium. No, let me
not even imagine, that a republican government, sprung, as our own is,
from a people enlightened and uncorrupted, a government whose origin is
right, and whose daily discipline is duty, can, upon solemn debate, make
its option to be faithless--can dare to act what despots dare not avow,
what our own example evinces, the states of Barbary are unsuspected of.
No, let me rather make the supposition, that Great Britain refuses to
execute the treaty, after we have done every thing to carry it into
effect. Is there any language of reproach pungent enough to express your
commentary on the fact? What would you say, or rather what would you not
say? Would you not tell them, wherever an Englishman might travel, shame
would stick to him--he would disown his country. You would exclaim,
England, proud of your wealth, and arrogant in the possession of
power--blush for these distinctions, which become the vehicles of your
dishonor. Such a nation might truly say to corruption, thou art my
father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister. We should say
of such a race of men, their name is a heavier burden than their debt.

The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty) is a
measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences.
From great causes we are to look for great effects. A plain and obvious
one will be, the price of the Western lands will fall. Settlers will not
choose to fix their habitation on a field of battle. Those who talk so
much of the interest of the United States, should calculate how deeply
it will be affected by rejecting the treaty; how vast a tract of wild
land will almost cease to be property. This loss, let it be observed,
will fall upon a fund expressly devoted to sink the national debt. What
then are we called upon to do? However the form of the vote and the
protestations of many may disguise the proceeding, our resolution is in
substance, and it deserves to wear the title of a resolution to prevent
the sale of the Western lands and the discharge of the public debt.

Will the tendency to Indian hostilities be contested by any one?
Experience gives the answer. The frontiers were scourged with war till
the negotiation with Great Britain was far advanced, and then the state
of hostility ceased. Perhaps the public agents of both nations are
innocent of fomenting the Indian war, and perhaps they are not. We ought
not, however, to expect that neighboring nations, highly irritated
against each other, will neglect the friendship of the savages; the
traders will gain an influence and will abuse it; and who is ignorant
that their passions are easily raised, and hardly restrained from
violence? Their situation will oblige them to choose between this
country and Great Britain, in case the treaty should be rejected. They
will not be our friends, and at the same time the friends of our
enemies.

But am I reduced to the necesity of proving this point? Certainly the
very men who charged the Indian war on the detention of the posts, will
call for no other proof than the recital of their own speeches. It is
remembered with what emphasis, with what acrimony, they expatiated on
the burden of taxes, and the drain of blood and treasure into the
Western country, in consequence of Britain's holding the posts. Until
the posts are restored, they exclaimed, the treasury and the frontiers
must bleed.

If any, against all these proofs, should maintain that the peace with
the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I urge another
reply. From arguments calculated to produce conviction, I will appeal
directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask, whether it is not
already planted there? I resort especially to the convictions of the
Western gentlemen, whether supposing no posts and no treaty, the
settlers will remain in security? Can they take it upon them to say,
that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? No,
sir, it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure
to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk.

On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for
them, if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal, I would swell my
voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log-house
beyond the mountains. I would say to the inhabitants, wake from your
false security; your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions are
soon to be renewed; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again;
in the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed; the
darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You
are a father--the blood of your sons shall fatten your cornfield; you
are a mother--the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.

On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings. It
is a spectacle of horror, which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature
in your hearts, it will speak a language, compared with which all I have
said or can say will be poor and frigid.

Will it be whispered that the treaty has made me a new champion for the
protection of the frontiers? It is known that my voice as well as vote
have been uniformly given in conformity with the ideas I have expressed.
Protection is the right of the frontiers; it is our duty to give it.

Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I
exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a
sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Will any one deny, that we are
bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of
duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for
unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Have
the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings
no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle
declamation introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or
to furnish petty topics of harangue from the windows of that
state-house? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask.
Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk without guilt and
without remorse.

It is vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be
reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures.
This is very true where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have
depicted are not unforeseen; they are so far from inevitable, we are
going to bring them into being by our vote. We choose the consequences,
and become as justly answerable for them as for the measures that we
know will produce them.

By rejecting the posts we light the savage fires--we bind the victims.
This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom
our decision will make, to the wretches that will be roasted at the
stake, to our country, and I do not deem it too serious to say, to
conscience and to God. We are answerable, and if duty be any thing more
than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bug-bear, we are
preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country.

There is no mistake in this case--there can be none. Experience has
already been the prophet of events, and the cries of future victims have
already reached us. The Western inhabitants are not a silent and
uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of
their wilderness. It exclaims that, while one hand is held up to reject
this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to
the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to
conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I
listen to the yells of savage vengeance, and the shrieks of torture.
Already they seem to sigh in the west wind-already they mingle with
every echo from the mountains.

It is not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of
measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will prove
pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If we
reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it with
good faith? I do honor to the intrepid spirits of those who say it will.
It was formerly understood to constitute the excellence of a man's faith
to believe without evidence and against it.

But, as opinions on this article are changed, and we are called to act
for our country, it becomes us to explore the dangers that will attend
its peace, and to avoid them if we can.

Is there any thing in the prospect of the interior state of the country
to encourage us to aggravate the dangers of a war? Would not the shock
of that evil produce another, and shake down the feeble and then
unbraced structure of our government? Is this a chimera? Is it going off
the ground of matter of fact to say, the rejection of the appropriation
proceeds upon the doctrine of a civil war of the departments? Two
branches have ratified a treaty, and we are going to set it aside. How
is this disorder in the machine to be rectified? While it exists its
movements must stop, and when we talk of a remedy, is that any other
than the formidable one of a revolutionary one of the people? And is
this, in the judgment even of my opposers, to execute, to preserve the
constitution and the public order? Is this the state of hazard, if not
of convulsion, which they can have the courage to contemplate and to
brave, or beyond which their penetration can reach and see the issue?
They seem to believe, and they act as if they believed, that our union,
our peace, our liberty, are invulnerable and immortal--as if our happy
state was not to be disturbed by our dissentions, and that we are not
capable of falling from it by our unworthiness. Some of them have, no
doubt, better nerves and better discernment than mine. They can see the
bright aspects and the happy consequences of all this array of horrors.
They can see intestine discords, our government disorganized, our wrongs
aggravated, multiplied, and unredressed, peace with dishonor, or war
without justice, union, or resources, in "the calm lights of mild
philosophy."

But whatever they may anticipate as the next measure of prudence and
safety, they have explained nothing to the house. After rejecting the
treaty, what is to be the next step? They must have foreseen what ought
to be done; they have doubtless resolved what to propose. Why then are
they silent? Dare they not avow their plan of conduct, or do they wait
till our progress toward confusion shall guide them in forming it?

Let me cheer the mind, weary, no doubt, and ready to despond on this
prospect, by presenting another, which it is yet in our power to
realize. Is it possible for a real American to look at the prosperity of
this country without some desire for its continuance--without some
respect for the measures which, many will say, produced, and all will
confess, have preserved, it? Will he not feel some dread that a change
of system will reverse the scene? The well-grounded fears of our
citizens in 1794 were removed by the treaty, but are not forgotten. Then
they deemed war nearly inevitable, and would not this adjustment have
been considered, at that day, as a happy escape from the calamity? The
great interest and the general desire of our people, was to enjoy the
advantages of neutrality. This instrument, however misrepresented,
affords America that inestimable security. The causes of our disputes
are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a new negotiation after
the end of the European war. This was gaining everything, because it
confirmed our neutrality, by which our citizens are gaining everything.
This alone would justify the engagements of the government. For, when
the fiery vapors of the war lowered in the skirts of our horizon, all
our wishes were concentred in this one, that we might escape the
desolation of the storm. This treaty, like a rainbow on the edge of the
cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was raging, and afforded,
at the same time, the sure prognostic of fair weather. If we reject it,
the vivid colors will grow pale,--it will be a baleful meteor portending
tempest and war.

Let us not hesitate, then, to agree to the appropriation to carry it
into faithful execution.

Thus we shall save the faith of our nation, secure its peace, and
diffuse the spirit of confidence and enterprise that will augment its
prosperity. The progress of wealth and improvement is wonderful, and,
some will think, too rapid. The field for exertion is fruitful and vast,
and if peace and good government should be preserved, the acquisitions
of our citizens are not so pleasing as the proofs of their industry--as
the instruments of their future success. The rewards of exertion go to
augment its power. Profit is every hour becoming capital. The vast crop
of our neutrality is all seed-wheat, and is sown again to swell, almost
beyond calculation, the future harvest of prosperity. And in this
progress, what seems to be fiction is found to fall short of experience.

I rose to speak under impressions that I would have resisted if I could.
Those who see me will believe that the reduced state of my health has
unfitted me, almost equally for much exertion of body or mind.
Unprepared for debate, by careful reflection in my retirement, or by
long attention here, I thought the resolution I had taken to sit silent,
was imposed by necesity, and would cost me no effort to maintain. With a
mind thus vacant of ideas, and sinking, as I really am, under a sense of
weakness, I imagined the very desire of speaking was extinguished by the
persuasion that I had nothing to say. Yet, when I come to the moment of
deciding the vote, I start back with dread from the edge of the pit into
which we are plunging. In my view, even the minutes I have spent in
expostulation have their value, because they protract the crisis, and
the short period in which alone we may resolve to escape it.

I have thus been led, by my feelings, to speak more at length than I
intended. Yet I have, perhaps, as little personal interest in the event
as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not think his
chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If,
however, the vote shall pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, as it
will, with the public disorders, to make confusion worse confounded,
even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive
the government and constitution of my country.

JOHN NICHOLAS

ON THE PROPOSED REPEAL OF THE SEDITION LAW

--HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEB. 25, 1799

MR. CHAIRMAN:

The Select Committee had very truly stated that only the second and
third sections of the act are complained of; that the part of the law
which punishes seditious acts is acquiesced in, and that the part which
goes to restrain what are called seditious writings is alone the object
of the petitions. This part of the law is complained of as being
unwarranted by the Constitution, and destructive of the first principles
of republican government. It is always justifiable, in examining the
principle of a law, to inquire what other laws can be passed with equal
reason, and to impute to it all the mischiefs for which it may be used
as a precedent.

In this case, little inquiry is left for us to make, the arguments in
favor of the law carrying us immediately and by inevitable consequence
to absolute power over the press.

It is not pretended that the Constitution has given any express
authority, which they claim, for passing this law, and it is claimed
only as implied in that clause of the Constitution which says: "Congress
shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers
vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or
in any department or officer thereof." It is clear that this clause was
intended to be merely an auxiliary to the powers specially enumerated in
the Constitution; and it must, therefore, be so construed as to aid
them, and at the same time to leave the boundaries between the General
Government and the State governments untouched. The argument by which
the Select Committee have endeavored to establish the authority of
Congress over the press is the following: "Congress has power to punish
seditious combinations to resist the laws, and therefore Congress must
have the power to punish false, scandalous, and malicious writings;
because such writings render the Administration odious and contemptible
among the people, and by doing so have a tendency to produce opposition
to the laws." To make it support the construction of the committee, it
should say that "Congress shall have power over all acts which are
likely to produce acts which hinder the execution of," etc. Our
construction confines the power of Congress to such acts as immediately
interfere with the execution of the enumerated powers of Congress,
because the power can only be necessary as well as proper when the acts
would really hinder the execution. The construction of the committee
extends the power of Congress to all acts which have a relation, ever so
many degrees removed, to the enumerated powers, or rather to the acts
which would hinder their execution. By our construction, the
Constitution remains defined and limited, according to the plain intent
and meaning of its framers; by the construction of the committee, all
limitation is lost, and it may be extended over the different actions of
life as speculative politicians may think fit. What has a greater
tendency to fit men for insurrection and resistance to government than
dissolute, immoral habits, at once destroying love of order, and
dissipating the fortune which gives an interest in society? The doctrine
that Congress can punish any act which has a tendency to hinder the
execution of the laws, as well as acts which do hinder it, will,
therefore, clearly entitle them to assume a general guardianship over
the morals of the people of the United States. Again, nothing can have a
greater tendency to ensure obedience to law, and nothing can be more
likely to check every propensity to resistance to government, than
virtuous and wise education; therefore Congress must have power to
subject all the youth of the United States to a certain system of
education. It would be very easy to connect every sort of authority used
by any government with the well-being of the General Government, and
with as much reason as the committee had for their opinion, to assign
the power to Congress, although the consequence must be the prostration
of the State governments.

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