Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.). United States. Congress
out. We have ourselves destroyed all that portion of our trade which the belligerents have not interdicted.
Taking the whole into view, then, I think that the continuance of the embargo, as an assertion of our rights, is not an efficient mode of resistance.
But gentlemen say, in a crisis like the present, when each individual ought to contribute his mite, it is very easy to find fault; and they ask for a substitute. I want no substitute. Take off the embargo. That is what I want. But when called upon in this manner, I cannot help looking around me to the source whence I expected higher and better information. The crisis is awful. We are brought into it by the means recommended by the head of our foreign relations. I think the President advised the embargo. If he did not, he certainly advised the gunboats and the additional military force. In these minor measures, which have been in their consequences so interesting, there was no want of advice or responsibility. Why then, in this awful crisis, shall we not look to the same quarter? The responsibility is left on us. We anti-embargoists show that things would not have been thus, had our advice been taken; and, not being taken, we have little encouragement to give more. Our advice is on the journals. We said, let us have what commerce we can get, and bring home returns to stimulate our industry. I believe the declarations of gentlemen when they say that they are friendly to commerce; but their fondness for it is the embrace of death. They say they will protect it; but it is strange that they should begin to protect it by abolishing it. I contend that their measures have not answered the purposes of protection, but on the contrary they have been prejudicial to it; and I trust in their candor that they will join us in giving elasticity to commerce, and removing this pressure. The interests of commerce and agriculture are identified; whenever one increases, the other extends. They progress pari passu. Look at your mercantile towns; and wherever you find one, like a pebble thrown into water, its influence extends in a circle more or less remotely, over the whole surface. Gentlemen from the agricultural country vote to support commerce, because it increases the value of their own product; they are not so disinterested as they suppose, and I believe the best way is to consider the two inseparable. As I am at present disposed, could I not obtain a total repeal, I would prefer a resolution laid on the table by a gentleman (Mr. Mumford) from one of the largest commercial cities in the Union, and who must be supposed to know the opinion of commercial men. I can scarcely with my knowledge or understanding point out any thing; but if I have not capacity to be one of the ins, I can readily perceive whether the present system be adequate or not. I would let our vessels go out armed for resistance; and if they were interfered with, I would make the dernier appeal. We are able and willing to resist; and when the moment arrives, there will be but one heart and hand throughout the whole Union. All will be American – all united for the protection of their dearest rights and interests.
Mr. Lyon opposed the report in a speech of an hour.
Mr. Desha said he had been particularly attentive to the whole of the debates during the very lengthy discussion of this important subject, and, said he, I am at a loss how to understand gentlemen, or what to conclude from their observations. Am I to conclude that they are really Americans in principle? I wish to do so; and I hope they are; but it appears somewhat doubtful, or they would not tamely give up the honor of their country by submitting to French decrees and British Orders in Council – that is, by warmly advocating the repeal of the embargo, without proposing something as a substitute. Do gentlemen mean an abject acquiescence to those iniquitous decrees and Orders in Council? Do gentlemen mean that that liberty and independence that was obtained through the valorous exertions of our ancestors, should be wrested from our hands without a murmur – that independence, in the obtaining of which so much virtue was displayed, and so much blood was shed? Do they mean that it should be relinquished to our former masters without a struggle? Gentlemen assign as a reason why the embargo should be removed, its inefficacy – that it has not answered the contemplated purpose. I acknowledge that as a measure of coercion it has not come entirely up to my expectations. It has not been as efficient as I expected it would have been. But what are the reasons why it has not fully come up to the expectations of its supporters, as a measure of coercion? The reasons are obvious to every man who is not inimical to the principles of our Government, and who is not prejudiced against the present Administration. Was it not for want of unanimity in support of the measure? Was it not in consequence of its having been wantonly, shamefully, and infamously violated? and perhaps winked at by some who are inimical to the principles of our Government; but who have had address and ingenuity sufficient to procure themselves to be appointed to office, and in which situation they have obtained a certain influence, and by misrepresentations as well as clamorous exertions have, in many instances, led the unwary astray, and caused the measure to become unpopular in some parts of the country? By improper representations and fallacious statements of certain prints, apparently, and I might add, undoubtedly, hostile to civil liberty and free Government, and advocates of British policy; by the baneful opposition of British agents and partisans, together with refugees or old tories, who still recollect their former abject standing, and who have never forgiven the American independence, and who, in all probability, are doing all in their power at this time to assist their master George the Third in bringing about colonization and vassalage in this happy land – by keeping up party spirit to such a height, that the tyrant of the ocean was led to believe that he had a most powerful British party in the bosom of our country – and that, by an extraordinary opposition made to the embargo, we would become restless, and could not adhere to a suspension of commerce – consequently would have to relax, and fall into paying tribute, under the Orders of Council, to that corrupt Government, Britain. These are part of the reasons why the embargo, as a measure of coercion, has not proved completely efficacious; and had it not been for this kind of conduct, our enemies would have been brought to a sense of justice, an amicable adjustment of differences would have taken place. By this iniquitous conduct they have tried to wrest from the hands of Government an engine, the best calculated of all others that could have been imagined, to coerce our enemies into a sense of justice, and bring about reciprocity of commerce, that most desirable object, a system of all others the best suited to the peaceful genius of our Government. But if it has not been entirely efficacious as a measure of coercion, it has been particularly serviceable in many instances – by keeping us out of war, which is at all times to be deprecated by civilized men, by preserving our citizens from becoming victims of British tyranny on board their war ships, and securing an immense amount of American property that was sailing on the ocean, supposed to amount in value to between sixty and a hundred millions of dollars, the principal part of which would inevitably have fallen into the voracious jaws of the monster of the deep, or into the iron grasp of the tyrant Napoleon – by which, if we are involved in war, we have preserved the leading sinews, wealth; and above all, for preventing us from becoming tributary to those piratical depredators, whose inevitable determination is to monopolize the whole trade of the world, by which they rob us of our inherent rights. If gentlemen had come forward with propositions to adopt any thing as a substitute for the embargo, that would have prevented us from the degradation of submission, or from falling into the hands of those monsters of iniquity, they no doubt would have met with support. The friends of this measure are not so particularly attached to it, but what they would willingly exchange it for one that was less sorely felt, less oppressive, and one that would preserve national honor, and bring about a redress of grievances; as it was with extreme regret that they had to resort to the measure of the embargo, and which could only be warranted by the necessity of the case. I am as anxious for the repeal of the embargo as any gentleman in this House, or perhaps any man on the continent, whenever it can be done consistent with the honor and welfare of the nation. The citizens of Kentucky, whom I have the honor to represent, feel its effects in common with their fellow men throughout the continent; but their patriotism is such that they bear it with cheerfulness, and magnanimity, and very justly consider it as a preventive of greater evils. I think that a retrograde step at this time would have the appearance of acquiescence, and be calculated to mark the Government with pusillanimity; therefore I deprecate war, believing as I do, that in a Government constructed like ours, war ought to be the last alternative, so as to preserve national honor. As such it would perhaps be advisable to adopt something like the second resolution that is under consideration, which, in addition to the embargo, would amount to a complete non-intercourse – which if systematically adhered to must produce the desired effect. If it should not, it will at least give time to make preparations for a more energetic