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that a western road. They ought to recollect that not one stone has yet been broken, not one spade of earth has been yet removed in any western State. The road begins in Maryland, and it terminates at Wheeling. It passes through the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. All the direct benefit of the expenditure of the public money on that road, has accrued to those three States; not one cent in any western State. And yet we have had to beg, entreat, supplicate you, session after session, to grant the necessary appropriations to complete the road. I have myself toiled until my powers have been exhausted and prostrated, to prevail on you to make the grant. We were actuated to make these exertions for the sake of the collateral benefit only to the west; that we might have a way by which we should be able to continue and maintain an affectionate intercourse with our friends and brethren-that we might have a way to reach the capital of our country, and to bring our counsels, humble as they may be, to consult and mingle with yours in the advancement of the national prosperity. Yes, sir, the Cumberland road has only reached the margin of a western State; and, from some indications which have been given during this session, I should apprehend it would there pause for ever, if my confidence in you were not unbounded; if I had not before witnessed that appeals were never unsuccessful to your justice, to your magnanimity, to your fraternal affection.

But, sir, the bill on your table is no western bill. It is emphatically a national bill, comprehending all, looking to the interests of the whole. The people of the west never thought of, never desired, never asked for, a system exclusively for their benefit. The system contemplated by this bill looks to great national objects, and proposes the ultimate application to their accomplishment of the only means by which they can be effected, the means of the nation-means which, if they be withheld from such objects, the Union, I do most solemnly believe, of these now happy and promising States, may, at some distant (I trust a far, far distant) day, be endangered and shaken at its

centre.

ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTAtives, January 20, 1824.

[THE resolution of Mr. WEBSTER, looking to a recognition of the Independence of Greece, and making an appropriation to send thither a Political Agent, with the amendment of Mr. POINSETT, disclaiming such recognition, but proposing instead a declaration of the sympathy of the United States with the Greeks in their struggle for Independence, being under consideration, Mr. CLAY said :]

In rising, let me state distinctly the substance of the original proposition of the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Webster,) with that of the amendment of the gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. Poinsett.) The resolution proposes a provision of the means to defray the expense of deputing a commissioner or agent to Greece, whenever the President, who knows, or ought to know, the disposition of all the European powers, Turkish or Christian, shall deem it proper. The amendment goes to withhold any appropriation to that object, but to make a public declaration of our sympathy with the Greeks, and of our good wishes for the success of their cause. And how has this simple, unpretending, unambitious, this harmless proposition, been treated in debate? It has been argued as if it offered aid to the Greeks; as if it proposed the recognition of the independence of their government; as a measure of unjustifiable interference in the internal affairs of a foreign state, and finally, as war. And they who thus argue the question, whilst they absolutely surrender themselves to the illusions of their own fervid imaginations, and depict, in glowing terms, the monstrous and alarming consequences which are to spring out of a proposition so simple, impute to us, who are its humble advocates, quixotism, quixotism! Whilst they are taking the most extravagant and boundless range, and arguing anything and

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everything but the question before the Committee, they accuse us of enthusiasm, of giving the reins to excited feeling, of being transported by our imaginations. No, ir, the resolution is no proposition for aid, nor for recognition, por for interference, nor for war.

I know that there are some who object to the resolution on account of the source from which it has sprung-who except to its mover, as if its value or importance were to be estimated by personal considerations. I have long had the pleasure of knowing the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, and sometimes that of acting with him; and I have much satisfaction in expressing my high admiration of his great talents. But I would appeal to my republican friends, those faithful sentinels of civil liberty with whom I have ever acted, shall we reject a proposition, consonant to our principles, favoring the good and great cause, on account of the political character of its mover? Shall we not rather look to the intrinsic merits of the measure, and seek every fit occasion to strengthen and perpetuate liberal principles and noble sentiments? If it were possible for republicans to cease to be the champions of human freedom, and if federalists become its only supporters, I would cease to be a republican; I would become a federalist. The preservation of the public confidence can only be secured, or merited, by a faithful adherence to the principles by which it has been acquired.

Mr. Chairman, is it not extraordinary that for these two successive years the President of the United States should have been freely indulged, not only without censure, but with universal applause, to express the feelings which both the resolution and the amendment proclaim, and yet, if this House venture to unite with him, the most awful consequences are to ensue? From Maine to Georgia, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, the sentiment of approbation has blazed with the rapidity of electricity. Everywhere the interest in the Grecian cause is felt with the deepest intensity, expressed in every form, and increases with every new day and passing hour. And are the representatives of the people alone to be insulated from the common moral atmosphere of the whole land? Shall we shut ourselves up in apathy, and separate ourselves from our country, from our constituents, from our chief magistrate, from our principles ?

The measure has been most unreasonably magnified. Gentlemen speak of the watchful jealousy of the Turk, and seem to think the slightest movement of this body will be matter of serious speculation at Constantinople. I believe that neither the Sublime Porte, nor the European allies, attach any such exaggerated importance to the acts and deliberations of this body. The Turk will, in all probability, never hear of the names of the gentlemen who either espouse or oppose the resolution. It certainly is not without a value; but that value is altogether moral; it throws our little tribute into the vast stream of public opinion, which sooner or later must regulate the physical action upon the great interests of the civilized world. But, rely upon it, the Ottoman is not about to declare war against us because this unoffending proposition has been offered by my honorable friend from Massachusetts, whose name, however distinguished and eminent he may be in our own country, has probably never reached the ears of the Sublime Porte. The allied powers are not going to be thrown into a state of consternation, because we appropriate some two or three thousand dollars to send an agent to Greece.

The question has been argued as if the Greeks would be exposed to still more shocking enormities by its passage; as if the Turkish cimeter would be rendered still keener, and dyed deeper and yet deeper in Christian blood. Sir, if such is to be the effect of the declaration of our sympathy, the evil has been already produced. That declaration has been already publicly and solemnly made by the Chief Magistrate of the United States, in two distinct messages. It is this document which commands at home and abroad the most fixed and universal attention; which is translated into all the foreign journals; read by sovereigns and their ministers; and, possibly, in the divan itself. But our resolutions are domestic, for home consumption, and rarely, if ever, meet imperial or royal eyes.The President, in his messages, after a most touching representation of the feelings excited by the Greek insurrection, tells you that the dominion of the Turk is gone ever; and that the most sanguine hope is entertained that Greece will achieve her independence. Well, sir, if this be the fact, if the allied powers themselves may, possibly, before we again assemble in this hall, acknowledge that independence, is it not fit and becoming in this House to make provision that our President shall be among the foremost, or at least not among the last, in that acknowledgment? So far from this resolution being likely to whet the

for

vengeance of the Turk against his Grecian victims, I believe its ten "dency will be directly the reverse. Sir, with all his unlimited power, and in all the elevation of his despotic throne, he is at last but man, made as we are, of flesh, of muscle, of bone and sinew. He is susceptible of pain, and can feel, and has felt the uncalculating valor of American freemen in some of his dominions. And when he is made to understand that the executive of this government is sustained by the representatives of the people; that our entire political fabric, base, column, and entablature, rulers and people, with heart, soul, mind, and strength, are all on the side of the gallant people whom he would crush, he will be more likely to restrain than to increase his atrocities upon suffering and bleeding Greece

The gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bartlett) has made, on this occasion, a very ingenious, sensible, and ironical speech-an admirable debut for a new member, and such as I hope we shall often have repeated on this floor. But, permit me to advise my young friend to remember the maxim, "that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and when the resolution* on another subject, which I had the honor to submit, shall come up to be discussed, I hope he will not content himself with saying, as he has now done, that it is a very extraordinary one; but that he will then favor the House with an argumentative speech, proving that it is our duty quietly to see laid prostrate every fortress of human hope, and to behold, with indifference, the last outwork of liberty taken and destroyed.

It has been said, that the proposed measure will be a departure from our uniform policy with respect to foreign nations; that it will provoke the wrath of the holy alliance; and that it will, in effect, be a repetition of their own offence, by an unjustifiable interposition in the domestic concerns of other powers. No, sir, not even if it authorized, which it does not, an immediate recognition of Grecian independence. What has been the settled and steady policy and practice of this government, from the days of Washington to the present moment? In the case of France, the father of his country and his successors received Genet, Fouchet, and all the French min

* The resolution, offered by Mr. Clay, declaring that the United States would not see with indifference any interference of the holy alliance in behalf of Spain against the new American republics.

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