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Congress and the embargo, is thus described by Mr. Jefferson in a letter to General Dearborn, dated 16th July, 1810:

“I join in congratulations with you on the resurrection of republican principles in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and the hope that the professors of these principles will not again easily be driven off their ground. The Federalists during their short-lived ascendency [the repeal of the embargo] have, nevertheless, by forcing us from the embargo, inflicted a wound on our interests which can never be cured, and on our affections which it will require time to cicatrize. I ascribe all this to one pseudo-Republican, Story. He came on (in the place of Crowninshield, I believe), and stayed only a few days; long enough, however, to get complete hold of Bacon, who, giving in to his representations, became panic-struck and communicated his panic to his colleagues, and they to a majority of the sound members of Congress. They believed in the alternative of repeal or civil war, and produced the fatal measure of repeal. mediate parent of all our present evils, and has low standing in the eyes of the world."

This is the imreduced us to a

Here we see why the embargo was repealed, and all the advantages of instituting it lost to us. It was the negotiations with British agents to place New England under the control of that power, and, if need be, to engage in insurrections and civil war, thus severing the Union, to accomplish that purpose. These things indicate the anti-Democratic principles of the day, and their fatal consequences. It is evident that Jefferson knew of their existence and the intentions and purposes of their leaders, but doubted their courage to carry them out in practice, knowing as he did that criminals are proverbial for their want of it. They served the purpose of frightening Congress into conforming to their wishes in repealing the embargo, which a large majority deemed a wise, salutary, and necessary measure.

19.-"FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS."

These words were one of the war-cries of the Democratic party before and during the War of 1812. They had a special significance, calculated to arouse the American feeling. France

forbade all nations, by her Berlin and Milan Decrees, to trade with Great Britain, and threatened seizure and condemnation as a consequence of violating them; but, after a short time, she made our country an exception. Great Britain not only threatened, but actually seized and condemned our ships for trading with France, by her orders in council. It was trade freed from these decrees and orders that was referred to in the above motto. The war opened that trade which we continue to enjoy to this day. We now emphatically enjoy "free trade," so far as interference by other nations is concerned.

The expression" sailors' rights" had a widely-different origin. Great Britain has ever held that her native-born subjects cannot, in any way, throw off their allegiance. Her maxim is, “Once a subject, always a subject." This assumption we have ever controverted. When her subjects come to us and become naturalized, they become American citizens, owing her no allegiance, but entitled to protection from our Government. Governor Marcy's Martin Koszta letter to the Austrian minister will ever stand as a monument of his and our nation's fame. In addition, Great Britain claimed the right, and had acted upon it, time out of mind, that under the king's prerogative she had unquestioned authority to impress British subjects wherever found, on or within prescribed limits of the sea, and to force them into her naval service, provided they were or had been seamen. She further claimed, and practically asserted, her right to do so, to enter American ships and take from thence all such persons as she claimed as her subjects. In practice, her naval officers often insisted that speaking the English language was prima facie evidence of the party being a British subject, and it devolved upon him to prove the contrary. Hence, it was not strange that disputes arose as to whether the person claimed was a British subject or not. The whole claim set up by the British was disputed, and "sailors' rights to sail free in our vessels were insisted upon by us. This principle of freedom and protection was clearly within the Democratic theory, and necessary to enable men to pursue happiness in their own way. The Democrats were willing, the embargo having been abandoned in a panic, to go to war

with the most powerful nation on earth, to maintain "free trade and sailors' rights." When this question came fairly up between us and Great Britain, the Federal party, without openly and broadly sustaining her, did so indirectly in a variety of ways, thus furnishing evidence of a disposition to excuse if not to defend her, when they admitted that she was actually in the wrong. We give a few examples to illustrate the truth of our remark, first giving a statement by Mr. John Quincy Adams, made as early as 1808, showing the number which had then been impressed. In his letter to Mr. Otis, Mr. Adams said:

"Examine the official returns from the Department of State. They give the names of between four and five thousand men impressed since the commencement of the present war, of which not one-fifth part were British subjects. The number of naturalized Americans could not amount to one-tenth. I hazard little in saying, that more than three-fourths were native Americans. If it be said that some of these men, though appearing on the face of the returns to be American citizens, were really British subjects, and had fraudulently procured their protections, I reply, that this number must be far exceeded by the cases of citizens impressed which never reached the Department of State. The American consul in London estimates the number of impressments during the war at nearly three times the amount of the names returned."

In 1798 the commander of a British squadron in the WestIndies seized and detained a part of a fleet of American merchantvessels on their way to Havana, under convoy of the war-sloop Baltimore. He even sent on board this sloop-of-war and took five or six of her crew, claiming them as British subjects. He was not content to seize on board the merchant-vessels, but he must aggravate the insult by taking from a vessel-of-war. This act, if it had been generally known, would have set the friends of "freetrade and sailors' rights" in a blaze; although known to the then administration, it was not even made the subject of a communication to Congress.

The ultra-Federalists insisted that the number of impressments had been very small. A committee of the Massachusetts Legis

lature reported that the whole number of impressed Americans, prior to the war (of 1812), was only eleven, though we have shown it to have been many thousands. Mr. Pickering said, Great Britain only "desired to obtain her own subjects," and that the "evil we complained of arose from the impossibility of always distinguishing the persons of the two nations."

How near this was true is shown by Mr. Pickering's official letter, dated September 26, 1796, to Rufus King, our minister in England, in which he said: "For the British Government, then, to make professions of respect to the rights of our citizens and willingness to release them, and yet deny the only means of ascertaining those rights, is an insulting tantalism." And to Congress, in 1799, referring to a refusal by the British to investigate cases not coming through the British minister, he said: "Under this determination there will be detained, not only the subjects of his Britannic Majesty not naturalized since the peace of 1783, but all who, born elsewhere, were then resident in, and had become citizens of the United States; also all foreigners, as Germans, Swedes, Danes, Portuguese, and Italians, who voluntarily serve in the vessels of the United States. It is a fact that such foreigners have been frequently impressed, although their language and other circumstances demonstrate that they are not British subjects."

It is seen that Mr. Pickering substantially convicts himself of untruths. The Legislature of Massachusetts, on the 15th of July, agreed to a remonstrance denouncing the continuance of the war, after Great Britain repealed her orders in council, because she found her people would be stirred up against us. It denounced it as unjust because we had not removed proper causes of complaint by providing against employing British seamen. They said we had not exhausted negotiation on the subject; that "under such circumstances silence toward the Government would be treachery to the people."

Although the better classes of Federalists did not openly make, or authorize excuses for British impressments, they did not generally publicly condemn them. The lower strata, from what they saw and heard, believed that their conduct was approved and sus tained by the whole Federal party.

These cases of impressments show one party excusing, if not approving of them, while the other was willing to, and did actually declare war and hazard their lives to prevent their continuance. The former was anti-democratic as well as anti-patriotic, while the latter presents a striking instance of what democratic principles require and lead men to do, in order to protect the persons and property of the people, to the end that they may pursue the road to happiness as they choose.

20.-JAMES MADISON AND HIS POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.

Mr. Madison was the personification of honesty, intelligence, and pure democratic principles. A native of Virginia, near the residence of Jefferson, he was educated at Princeton, New Jersey. After going through the usual college studies, and graduating, he remained at that institution, pursuing mainly under the celebrated Doctor Witherspoon, at that time its president, those higher and broader studies which so eminently fitted him for the high positions he held and adorned in after-life. He cherished through life a lively recollection of the services and instruction of this learned man and pure patriot. Returning to Virginia, he devoted considerable attention to the study of the law, and the principles upon which it was founded, without burdening his mind with those tortuous rules of practice which often bewilder and entangle, without improving the mental faculties. He never commenced the practice of the law, nor is it certain that he was ever admitted to the bar.

At the age of twenty-five he was elected a member of the Legislature, where his extreme diffidence so far overcame him as to make him a silent and not a popular member. He failed of his reëlection the next year upon two grounds-one, because he could not speak, and the other because he would not treat the electors. The first was owing to his extreme diffidence, and the last because he held it inconsistent with the purity of elections. Hence it is seen that in one of the first steps of his public life he sacrificed success to that purity and sobriety of conduct from which nothing could ever induce him to swerve. The Legislature repaired this error by electing him a member of the State Council,

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