Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.). United States. Congress
of American seamen shipped themselves, proofs of their departure might, and certainly would, have been had. Read the intelligence from Nova Scotia; it informs us that none but English sailors have arrived there. I call upon gentlemen then to show how, where, and when, an American seaman has left his country, except in the pursuit of his ordinary vocation.
If the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Key) will apply to his political – I beg pardon – to his mercantile barometer, the insurance offices, he would find that, after the operation of the Orders in Council was known, insurance could not have been effected at Baltimore to the Continent of Europe for 80 per cent., and not at London, on American property, for 90 guineas per cent. The proof of this is before me. Does not this prove that so much danger existed on the ocean that it was next to impossible to pass without seizure and condemnation? And surely he will not contend that this advance of premium was caused by the embargo? If the embargo then has saved any thing to the country – and that it has there can be no doubt – exactly in the proportion that it has saved property and seamen to you, it has lessened the ability of the enemy to make war upon you, and what is primarily important, lessened the temptation to war. The rich plunder of your inoffensive and enlarged commerce, must inevitably have gone to swell the coffers which are to support the sinews of war against you. The reaction thus caused by the embargo, is in your favor, precisely to the amount of property and men which it has saved to you from your enemies.
But we are told that the enterprising merchant is deprived of an opportunity – of what? Of ruining himself and sacrificing the industry of others. Has any capitalist said he would venture out in the present tempest which blackens the ocean? No, sir, they are your dashing merchants; speculators, who, having nothing to lose and every thing to gain, would launch headlong on the ocean, regardless of consequences. No commerce can be now carried on, other than that which is subservient to the Orders in Council. I appeal to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Jackson) – no man is better informed on this subject – would he venture his property on the ocean in a trade contravening those orders? I would ask him further, would Brown and Ives, merchants, as remarkable for their prudence as for their enterprise, and for their capital as either; would they send their vessels to the Continent of Europe? I believe their opinion would corroborate the opinion of Mr. Gray.
The mercantile distresses have been described, with every possible exaggeration, as insufferable. The real distress, sir, is quite sufficient, without any undue coloring. I regret extremely, indeed, sir, from my heart and soul, I lament that the embargo should be considered as falling heavier on the merchant than on the planter. If I know my own heart I would share with them to the last loaf. But compare their situation now with what it would have been if their whole property had been swept away. Compare their present situation with that which must have been the necessary consequence of the seizure of all the floating, registered tonnage of the United States, and which would have happened, but for the embargo. Their vessels are now in safety; if the embargo had not been laid they would have lost both vessel and cargo. They must have either imposed an embargo on themselves, or exposed their capital to total destruction.
Another reason why I approve of the embargo, and which, really to my mind, is a very consolatory reason, is, it has at least preserved us thus far from bloodshed. I am one of those who believe the miseries of this life are sufficiently numerous and pressing without increasing either their number or pungency by the calamities inseparable from war. If we had put the question to every man in the nation, the head of a family, whether we should go to war or lay an embargo, (the only choice we had,) nineteen out of twenty would have voted for the embargo. I believe, sir, the people of the United States confiding their honor and national character to your guardianship, would this day decide the same question in the same way. The people have nothing to gain by war, nothing by bloodshed; but they have every thing to lose. From this reason results another, equally satisfactory; we are still free from an alliance with either of the belligerents. Upon a loss of peace inevitably follows an alliance with one of those two powers. I would rather stake the nation on a war with both, than ally with either. No, sir, I never will consent to rush into the polluted, detestable, distempered embraces of the whore of England, nor truckle at the footstool of the Gallic Emperor.
But the embargo has failed, it has been triumphantly asserted on one side of the House, and echoed along the vaulted dome from the other. If it has, it is no cause of triumph; no, indeed, sir; but it is a cause of melancholy feelings to every true patriot, to every man who does not rejoice in the wrongs of his country. Why has the measure failed of expected success? The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Key) used an argument incomprehensible to me, as an argument in his favor; on my side it is indeed invincible. He has established it was the evasion of the laws which prevented their being effectual. He tells you that certain evaders of the laws have so risen up in opposition to them, that the President of the United States was obliged to issue his proclamation in April last; that this proclamation told the British Cabinet the people had rebelled against the embargo – but I will pass over the subject; it imposes silence on me, because it must speak daggers to the hearts of some men.
My friend from Virginia (Mr. Randolph) urged one argument against the embargo, which, to be sure, is a most serious one. He asked if we were prepared to violate the public faith? I hope not, sir. I beg to be excused for asking him (for I know he scorns submission as much as any man) if submission will pay the public debt? To that gentleman's acute and comprehensive mind, the deleterious consequences of the present system of the belligerents to our interests, must be glowing, self-evident. He will see that their present measures carry destruction to the most valuable interests, and are subversive of the most sacred rights of the people; and if they are submitted to, every thing dear to an American must be afflicted with the slow, lingering, but certain approaches of consumption. I had rather go off at once. I have no opinion of a lingering death. Rather than the nation should be made to take this yoke, if so superlative a curse can be in store for us, may the hand of Heaven first annihilate that which cannot be nurtured into honor. I had much rather all should perish in one glorious conflict, than submit to this, so vile a system.
But we are told, that the embargo itself is submission. Indeed, sir! Then, with all my heart, I would tear it from the statute book, and leave a black page where it stood. Is the embargo submission? By whom is it so called? By gentlemen who are for active offence? Do these gentlemen come forward and tell you that that the embargo is submission? No such thing, sir. My memory deceives me, if any man who voted for the embargo thinks it submission. They are the original opponents of the embargo who call it submission, and who, while they charge you with the intention, are by every act and deed practising it themselves. It is incorrect, sir. Every gentleman who has spoken, and who has told you that the embargo is submission, has acknowledged the truth of the resolution under consideration; it has not been denied by a single individual. Suppose then we were to change its phraseology, and make it the preamble to a resolution for repealing the embargo, it will then read: "whereas the United States cannot without a sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the late edicts of Great Britain." Therefore resolved, that the embargo be repealed, and commerce with Great Britain permitted. Do these two declarations hang together, sir? That, because we cannot submit to the edicts of the belligerents, we will therefore open a free trade with them? The first part of the proposition is true, no man has denied it; the addition which I have made to it then, is the discordant part, and proves the embargo is not submission. I wish to know of gentlemen, whether trading with the belligerents, under their present restrictions on commerce, would not be submission? Certainly, sir. Is then a refraining from so doing, submission? In a word, is resistance submission? Was the embargo principle considered submission in the days of the stamp act? Did the nation call it submission when it was enacted under General Washington? Was it so considered by the Republicans, when resorted to for redress against the primary violations in 1793? Or was it ever contended that had not the embargo been raised, the terms of Jay's treaty would have been worse? Do gentlemen of the "old school" undertake to say that the Father of their country submitted then to George III.? I hope not, sir. If the embargo was not submission under George Washington, it is not under Thomas Jefferson. Again, I ask, were the principles of the embargo submission in 1774-'5-'6? But it has been replied, it is not meet that the remedies of that day should be applied to the present case. Why not, sir? The disease was the same; and lest gentlemen have forgotten what it was, I will tell them how the old Congress described it: "You exercised unbounded sovereignty over the