to endeavor to defend the country. For that purpose principally we are sent here, and not for that of opposition.

We are next told of the expenses of the war, and that people will not pay taxes. Why not? Is it a want of means? What, with 1,000,000 tons of shipping; a commerce of $100,000,000 annually; manufactures yielding. a yearly product of $150,000,000, and agriculture thrice that amount; shall we, with such great resources, be told that the country wants ability to raise and support 10,000 or 15,000 additional regulars? No: it has the ability, that is admitted; but will it not have the disposition? Is not our course just and necessary? Shall we, then, utter this libel on the people? Where will proof be found of a fact so disgraceful? It is said, in the history of the country twelve or fifteen years ago. The case is not parallel. The ability of the country is greatly increased since. The whiskey tax was unpopular. But, as well as my memory serves me, the objection was not so much to the tax or its amount as the mode of collecting it. The people were startled by the host of officers, and their love of liberty shocked with the multiplicity of regulations. We, in the spirit of imitation, copied from the most oppressive part of the European laws on the subject of taxes, and imposed on a young and virtuous people the severe provisions made necessary by corruption and the long practice of evasion. If taxes should become necessary, I do not hesitate to say the people will pay cheerfully. It is for their government and their cause, and it would be their interest and duty to pay. But i may be, and I believe was said, that the people will not pay taxes, be cause the rights violated are not worth defending, or that the defence will cost more than the gain. Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against this low and "calculating avarice" entering this hall of legislation. It is only fit for shops and counting-houses, and ought not to disgrace the seat of power by its squalid aspect. Whenever it touches sovereign power, the nation is ruined. It is too short-sighted to defend itself. It is a compromising spirit, always ready to yield a part to save the residue. It is too timid to have in itself the laws of selfpreservation. Sovereign power is never safe but under the shield of honor. There is, sir, one principle necessary to make us a great people-to produce, not the form, but real spirit of union, and that is to protect every citizen in the lawful pursuit of his business. He will then feel that he is backed by the government-that its arm is his arm. He then will rejoice in its increased strength and prosperity. Protec

tion and patriotism are reciprocal. This is the way which has led nations to greatness. Sir, I am not versed in this calculating policy, and will not, therefore, pretend to estimate in dollars and cents the value of national independence. I cannot measure in shillings and pence the misery, the stripes, and the slavery of our impressed seamen; nor even the value of our shipping, commercial and agricultural losses, under the orders in council and the British system of blockade. In thus expressing myself, I do not intend to condemn any prudent estimate of the means of a country before it enters on a war. That is wisdom, the other folly. The gentleman from Virginia has not failed to touch on the calamity of war, that fruitful source of declamation, by which humanity is made the advocate of submission. If he desires to repress the gallant ardor of our countrymen by such topics, let me inform him that true courage regards only the cause; that it is just and necessary, and that it contemns the sufferings and dangers of war. If he really wishes well to the cause of humanity, let his eloquence be addressed to the British minister, and not the American Congress. Tell them that, if they persist in such daring insult and outrage to a neutral nation, however inclined to peace, it will be bound by honor and safety to resist; and their patience and endurance, however great, will be exhausted; that the calamity of war will ensue, and that they, and not we, in the opinion of the world, will be answerable for all its devastation and misery. Let a regard to the interest of humanity stay the hand of injustice, and my life on it, the gentleman will not find it difficult to dissuade his countrymen from rushing into the bloody scenes of war.

We are next told of the danger of war. We are ready to acknowledge its hazard and misfortune, but I cannot think that we have any extraordinary danger to apprehend, at least none to warrant an acquiescence in the injuries we have received. On the contrary, I believe no war would be less dangerous to internal peace or the safety of the country. But we are told of the black population of the Southern States. As far as the gentleman from Virginia speaks of his own personal knowledge, I shall not question the correctness of his statement. I only regret that such is the state of apprehension in his part of the country. Of the southern section, I too have some personal knowledge, and can say that in South Carolina no such fears, in any part, are felt. But, sir, admit the gentleman's statement: will a war with Great Britain increase the danger? Will the country be less able to suppress

insurrections? Had we anything to fear from that quarter-which I do not believe-in my opinion, the period of the greatest safety is during a war, unless, indeed, the enemy should make a lodgment in the country. It is in war that the country would be most on its guard, our militia the best prepared, and the standing army the greatest. Even in our Revolution, no attempts were made at insurrection by that portion of our population; and, however the gentleman may alarm himself with the disorganizing effects of French principles, I cannot think our ignorant blacks have felt much of their baneful influence. I dare say more than one half of them never heard of the French Revolution.

But as great as he regards the danger from our slaves, the gentleman's fears end not there-the standing army is not less terrible to him. Sir, I think a regular force, raised for a period of actual hostilities, cannot properly be called a standing army. There is a just distinction between such a force and one raised as a permanent peace establishment. Whatever would be the composition of the latter, I hope the former will consist of some of the best materials of the country. The ardent patriotism of our young men, and the liberal bounty in land proposed to be given, will impel them to join their country's standard, and to fight her battles. They will not forget the citizen in the soldier, and, in obeying their officers, learn to contemn their government and Constitution. In our officers and soldiers we will find patriotism no less pure and ardent than in the private citizen; but if they should be as depraved as has been represented, what have we to fear from 25,000 or 30,000 regulars? Where will be the boasted militia of the gentleman? Can 1,000,000 of militia be overpowered by 30,000 regulars? If so, how can we rely on them against a foe invading our country? Sir, I have no such contemptuous idea of our militia their untaught bravery is sufficient to crush all foreign and internal attempts on their country's liberties.

But we have not yet come to the end of the chapter of dangers. The gentleman's imagination, so fruitful on this subject, conceives that our Constitution is not calculated for war, and that it cannot stand its rude shock. Can that be so? If so, we must then depend upon the commiseration or contempt of other nations for our existence. The Constitution, then, it seems, has failed in an essential object: "to provide for the common defence." No, says the gentleman, it is competent to a defensive, but not an offensive war. It is not necessary for me to

expose the fallacy of this argument. Why make the distinction in this case? Will he pretend to say that this is an offensive war-a war of conquest? Yes, the gentleman has ventured to make this assertion, and for reasons no less extraordinary than the assertion itself. He says, our rights are violated on the ocean, and that these violations affect our shipping and commercial rights, to which the Canadas have no relation. The doctrine of retaliation has been much abused of late, by an unreasonable extension of its meaning. We have now to witness a new abuse: the gentleman from Virginia has limited it down to a point. By his rule, if you receive a blow on the breast, you dare not return it on the head; you are obliged to measure and return it on the precise point on which it was received. If you do not proceed with this mathematical accuracy, it ceases to be self-defence-it becomes an unprovoked attack.

In speaking of Canada, the gentleman from Virginia introduced the name of Montgomery with much feeling and interest. Sir, there is danger in that name to the gentleman's argument. It is sacred to heroism! it is indignant of submission! It calls our memory back to the time of our Revolution-to the Congress of 1774 and 1775. Suppose a member of that day had rose and urged all the arguments which we bave heard on this occasion-had told that Congress your contest is about the right of laying a tax-that the attempt on Canada had nothing to do with it—that the war would be expensive-that danger and devastation would overspread our country-and that the power of Great Britain was irresistible. With what sentiment, think you, would such doctrines have been then received? Happy for us, they had no force at that period of our country's glory. Had such been acted on, this hall would never have witnessed a great people convened to deliberate for the general good; a mighty empire, with prouder prospects than any nation the sun ever shone on, would not have risen in the West. No! we would have been base, subjected colonies, governed by that imperious rod which Britain holds over her distant provinces.

The gentleman attributes the preparation for war to everything but its true cause. He endeavors to find it in the probable rise in the price of hemp. He represents the people of the Western States as willing to plunge our country into war for such interested and base motives. I will not reason this point. I see the cause of their ardor, not in such unworthy motives, but in their known patriotism and disinterestedness

No less mercenary is the reason which he attributes to the Southern States. He says that the Non-importation Act has reduced cotton to nothing, which has produced a feverish impatience. Sir, I acknowledge the cotton of our plantations is worth but little, but not for the cause assigned by the gentleman. The people of that section do not reason as he does; they do not attribute it to the efforts of their government to maintain the peace and independence of their country: they see in the low price of their produce the hand of foreign injustice; they know well, without the market of the Continent, the deep and steady current of our supply will glut that of Great Britain. They are not prepared for the colonial state to which again that power is endeavoring to reduce us. The manly spirit of that section will not submit to be regulated by any foreign power.

The love of France and the hatred of England have also been assigned as the cause of the present measure. France has not done us justice, says the gentleman from Virginia, and how can we, without partiality, resist the aggressions of England? I know, Sir, we have still cause of complaint against France, but it is of a different character from that against England. She professes now to respect our rights; and there cannot be a reasonable doubt but that the most objectionable parts of her decrees, as far as they respect us, are repealed. We have already formally acknowledged this to be a fact. But I protest against the principle from which his conclusion is drawn. It is a novel doctrine, and nowhere avowed out of this house, that you cannot select your antagonist without being guilty of partiality. Sir, when two invade your rights, you may resist both, or either, at your pleasure. The selection is regulated by prudence, and not by right. The stale imputation of partiality for France is better calculated for the columns of a newspaper

than for the walls of this house.

The gentleman from Virginia is at a loss to account for what he calls our hatred to England. He asks, how can we hate the country of Locke, of Newton, Hampden, and Chatham; a country having the same language and customs with ourselves, and descended from a common ancestry? Sir, the laws of human affections are steady and uniform. If we have so much to attach us to that country, powerful indeed must be the cause which has overpowered it. Yes, there is a cause strong enough; not that occult, courtly affection, which he has supposed to be entertained for France, but continued and unprovoked insult and injury: a cause so manifest that he had to exert much ingenuity to overlook it.