instrument of avenging our political resentments. Those who affect to dread foreign influence, will do well to avoid a partnership in European jealousies and rivalships. Courting the friendship of the one, and provoking the hatred of the other, is dangerous to our real independence; for it would compel America to throw herself into the arms of the one for protection against the other. Then foreign influence, pernicious as it is, would be sought for; and though it should be shunned, it could not be resisted. The connections of trade form ties between individuals, and produce little control over government. They are the ties of peace, and are neither corrupt nor corrupting.

We have happily escaped from a state of the most imminent danger to our peace: a false step would lose all the security for its continuance, which we owe at this moment to the conduct of the President. What is to save us from war? Not our own power which inspires no terror; not the gentle and forbearing spirit of the powers of Europe at this crisis; not the weakness of England; not her affection for this country, if we believe the assurances of gentlemen on the other side. What is it, then? It is the interest of Great Britain to have America for a customer rather than an enemy: and it is precisely that interest which gentlemen are so eager to take away and to transfer to France. And what is stranger still, they say they rely on that operation as a means of producing peace with the Indians and Algerines. The wounds inflicted on Great Britain by our enmity, are expected to excite her to supplicate our friendship, and to appease us by soothing the animosity of our enemies. What is to produce effects so mystical, so opposite to nature, so much exceeding the efficacy of their pretended causes? This wonder-working paper on the table is the weapon of terror and destruction. Like the writing on Belshazzar's wall, it is to strike parliaments and nations with dismay it is to be stronger than fleets against pirates, or than armies against Indians. After the examination it has undergone, credulity itself will laugh at these pretensions.

We pretend to expect, not by the force of our restrictions, but by the mere show of our spirit, to level all the fences that have guarded for ages the monopoly of the colony trade. The repeal of the navigation act of England, which is cherished as the palladium of her safety, which time has rendered venerable, and prosperity endeared to her people, is to be extorted, from her fears of a weaker nation. It is not to be yielded freely, but violently torn from her; and yet the idea of a struggle to prevent indignity and loss, is considered as a chimera too ridiculous for sober refutation. She will not dare, say they, to resent it; and gentlemen have pledged themselves for the success of the attempt: what is treated as a phantom, is vouched by fact. Her navigation act is known

to have caused an immediate contest with the Dutch, and four desperate sea fights ensued in consequence, the very year of its passage.

How far it is an act of aggression for a neutral nation to assist the supplies of one neighbor, and to annoy and distress another, at the crisis of a contest between the two, which strains their strength to the utmost, is a question which we might not agree in deciding; but the tendency of such unseasonable partiality to exasperate the spirit of hostility against the intruder, cannot be doubted. The language of the French government would not soothe this spirit. It proposes, on the sole condition of a political connection, to extend to us a part of their West India commerce. The coincidence of our measures with their invitation, however singular, needs no comment. Of all men, those are least consistent who believe in the efficacy of the regulations, and yet affect to ridicule their hostile tendency. In the commercial conflict, say they, we shall surely prevail and effectually humble Great Britain.

In open war we are the weaker, and shall be brought into danger, if not to ruin. It depends, therefore, according to their own reasoning, on Great Britain herself, whether she will persist in a struggle which will disgrace and weaken her, or turn it into a war which will throw the shame and ruin upon her antagonist. The topics which furnish arguments to show the danger to our peace from the resolutions, are too fruitful to be exhausted. But without pursuing them further, the experience of mankind has shown that commercial rivalships, which spring from mutual efforts for monopoly, have kindled more wars, and wasted the earth more, than the spirit of conquest.

I hope we shall show by our vote that we deem it better policy to feed nations than to starve them, and that we shall never be so unwise as to put our good customers into a situation to be forced to make every exertion to do without us. By cherishing the arts of peace, we shall acquire, and we are actually acquiring, the strength and resources for a war. Instead of seeking treaties, we ought to shun them; for the later they shall be formed, the better will be the terms: we shall have more to give, and more to withhold. We have not yet taken our proper rank, nor acquired that consideration, which will not be refused us, if we persist in prudent and pacific counsels; if we give time for our strength to mature itself. Though America is rising with a giant's strength, its bones are yet but cartilages. By delaying the beginning of a conflict, we insure the victory.

By voting out the resolutions, we shall show to our own citizens and foreign nations that our prudence has prevailed over our prejudices, that we prefer our interests to our resentments. Let us assert a genuine independence of spirit; we shall be false to our duty and feelings as Americans, if we basely descend to a servile dependence on France and Great Britain.

into the sea. For, I ask of the men of knowledge of the world, whether they would not hold him for a blockhead, that should hope to prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, have they not failed of success? The indignant heart repels a conviction that is believed to debase it.

The self-love of an individual is not warmer in its sense, nor more constant in its action, than what is called in French, l'esprit du corps, or the self-love of an assembly; that jealous affection which a body of men is always found to bear towards its own prerogatives and power. I will not condemn this passion. Why should we urge an unmeaning censure, or yield to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public assembly are still men, and feel that esprit du corps which is one of the laws of their nature? Still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect, that this very spirit is a guardian instinct, that watches over the life of this assembly. It cherishes the principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its existence with all the strength we see it possess, the privileges of the representatives of the people, and mediately the liberties of the people, would not be guarded, as they are, with a vigilance that never sleeps, and an unrelaxing constancy and courage.

If the consequences, most unfairly attributed to the vote in the affirmative, were not chimerical, and worse, for they are deceptive, I should think it a reproach to be found even moderate in my zeal, to assert the constitutional powers of this assembly; and whenever they shall be in real danger, the present occasion affords proof, that there will be no want of advocates and champions.

Indeed, so prompt are these feelings, and when once roused, so difficult to pacify, that if we could prove the alarm was groundless, the prejudice against the appropriations may remain on the mind, and it may even pass for an act of prudence and duty to negative a measure, which was lately believed by ourselves, and may hereafter be misconceived by others, to encroach upon the powers of the House. Principles that bear a remote affinity with usurpation on those powers will be rejected, not merely as errors, but as wrongs. Our sensibilities will shrink from a post, where it is possible they may be wounded, and be inflamed by the slightest suspicion of an assault.

While these prepossessions remain, all argument is useless. It may be heard with the ceremony of attention, and lavish its own resources, and the patience it wearies, to no manner of purpose. The ears may be open, but the mind will remain locked up, and every pass to the understanding guarded.

Unless, therefore, this jealous and repulsive fear for the rights of the House can be allayed, I will not ask a hearing.

I cannot press this topic too far; I cannot address myself with too much emphasis to the magnanimity and candor of those who sit here, to suspect their own feelings, and, while they do, to examine the grounds of their alarm. I repeat it, we must conquer our persuasion, that this body has an interest in one side of the question more than the other, before we attempt to surmount our objections. On most subjects, and solemn ones too, perhaps in the most solemn of all, we form our creed more from inclination than evidence.

Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely possible they have yielded too suddenly to their alarms for the powers of this House; that the addresses, which have been made with such variety of forms, and with so great dexterity in some of them, to all that is prejudice and passion in the heart, are either the effects or the instruments of artifice and deception, and then let them see the subject once more in its singleness and simplicity.

It will be impossible, on taking a fair review of the subject, to justify the passionate appeals that have been made to us to struggle for our liberties and rights, and the solemn exhortations to reject the proposition, said to be concealed in that on your table, to surrender them for ever. In spite of this mock solemnity, I demand, if the House will not concur in the measure to execute the treaty, what other course shall we take? How many ways of proceeding lie open before us?

In the nature of things there are but three; we are either to make the treaty, to observe it, or break it. It would be absurd to say we will do neither. If I may repeat a phrase already so much abused, we are under coercion to do one of them, and we have no power, by the exercise of our discretion, to prevent the consequences of a choice.

By refusing to act, we choose. The treaty will be broken and fall to the ground. Where is the fitness, then, of replying to those who urge upon the House the topics of duty and policy, that they attempt to force the treaty down, and to compel this assembly to renounce its discretion and to degrade itself to the rank of a blind and passive instrument in the hands of the treaty-making power? In case we reject the appropriation, we do not secure any greater liberty of action, we gain no safer shelter than before from the consequences of the decision. Indeed, they are not to be evaded. It is neither just nor manly to complain that the treatymaking power has produced this coercion to act. It is not the art or the despotism of that power, it is the nature of things that compels. Shall we, dreading to become the blind instruments of power, yield ourselves the blinder dupes of mere sounds of imposture? Yet that word, that empty word, coercion, has given scope to an eloquence, that, one would imagine, could not be tired, and did not choose to be quieted.

Let us examine still more in detail the alternatives that are before us, and we shall scarcely fail to see, in still stronger lights, the futility of our apprehensions for the power and liberty of the House.

If, as some have suggested, the thing called a treaty is incomplete, if it has no binding force or obligation, the first question is, will this House complete the instrument, and, by concurring, impart to it that force which it wants. The doctrine has been avowed, that the treaty, though formally ratified by the executive power of both nations, though published as a law for our own by the President's proclamation, is still a mere proposition submitted to this assembly, no way distinguishable in point of authority or obligation, from a motion for leave to bring in a bill, or any other original act of ordinary legislation. This doctrine, so novel in our country, yet so dear to many, precisely for the reason, that in the contention for power, victory is always dear, is obviously repugnant to the very terms as well as the fair interpretation of our own resolutions-(Mr. Blount's.) We declare, that the treaty-making power is exclusively vested in the President and Senate, and not in this House. Need I say, that we fly in the face of that resolution, when we pretend, that the acts of that power are not valid until we have concurred in them? It would be nonsense, or worse, to use the language of the most glaring contradiction, and to claim a share in a power, which we at the same time disclaim as exclusively vested in other departments.

What can be more strange than to say, that the compacts of the President and Senate with foreign nations are treaties, without our agency, and yet those compacts want all power and obligation, until they are sanctioned by our concurrence? It is not my design in this place, if at all, to go into the discussion of this part of the subject. I will, at least for the present, take it for granted, that this monstrous opinion stands in little need of remark, and if it does, lies almost out of the reach of refutation.

But, say those who hide the absurdity under the cover of ambiguous phrases, have we no discretion? and if we have, are we not to make use of it in judging of the expediency or inexpediency of the treaty? Our resolution claims that privilege, and we cannot surrender it without equal inconsistency and breach of duty.

If there be any inconsistency in the case, it lies, not in making the appropriations for the treaty, but in the resolution itself (Mr. Blount's.) Let us examine it more nearly. A treaty is a bargain between nations, binding in good faith; and what makes a bargain? The assent of the contracting parties. We allow that the treaty power is not in this House; this House has no share in contracting, and is not a party of consequence, the President and Senate alone may make a treaty that is binding in good faith. We claim, however, say the gentlemen, a right to judge of the expediency of |

treaties; that is the constitutional province of our discretion. Be it so. What follows? Treaties, when adjudged by us to be inexpedient, fall to the ground, and the public faitk is not hurt. This, incredible and extravagant as it may seem, is asserted. The amount of it, in plainer language, is this-the President and Senate are to make national bargains, and this House has nothing to do in making them. But bad bargains do not bind this House, and, of inevitable consequence, do not bind the nation. When a national bargain, called a treaty, is made, its binding force does not depend upon the making, but upon our opinion that it is good. As our opinion on the matter can be known and declared only by ourselves, when sitting in our legislative capacity, the treaty, though ratified, and, as we choose to term it, made, is hung up in suspense, till our sense is ascertained. We condemn the bargain, and it falls, though, as we say, our faith does not. We approve a bargain as expedient, and it stands firm, and binds the nation. Yet, even in this latter case, its force is plainly not derived from the ratification by the treatymaking power, but from our approbation. Who will trace these inferences, and pretend that we have no share, according to the argument, in the treaty-making power? These opinions, nevertheless, have been advocated with infinite zeal and perseverance. Is it possible that any man can be hardy enough to avow them and their ridiculous consequences?

Let me hasten to suppose the treaty is considered as already made, and then the alternative is fairly presented to the mind, whether we will observe the treaty or break it. This, in fact, is the naked question.

If we choose to observe it with good faith, our course is obvious. Whatever is stipulated to be done by the nation, must be complied with. Our agency, if it should be requisite, cannot be properly refused. And I do not see why it is not as obligatory a rule of conduct for the legislative as for the courts of law.

I cannot lose this opportunity to remark, that the coercion, so much dreaded and declaimed against, appears at length to be no more than the authority of principles, the despotism of duty. Gentlemen complain we are forced to act in this way, we are forced to swallow the treaty. It is very true, unless we claim the liberty of abuse, the right to act as we ought not. There is but one right way open for us, the laws of morality and good faith have fenced up every other. What sort of liberty is that, which we presume to exercise against the authority of those laws? It is for tyrants to complain, that principles are restraints, and that they have no liberty, so long as their despotism has limits. These principles will be unfolded by examining the remaining question:

SHALL WE BREAK THE TREATY?

The treaty is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It

sacrifices the interest, the honor, the independence of the United States, and the faith of our engagements to France. If we listen to the clamor of party intemperance, the evils are of a number not to be counted, and of a nature not to be borne, even in idea. The language of passion and exaggeration may silence that of sober reason in other places, it has not done it here. The question here is, whether the treaty be really so very fatal as to oblige the nation to break its faith. I admit that such a treaty ought not to be executed. I admit that selfpreservation is the first law of society, as well as of individuals. It would, perhaps, be deemed an abuse of terms to call that a treaty, which violates such a principle. I wave also, for the present, any inquiry, what departments shall represent the nation, and annul the stipulations of a treaty. I content myself with pursuing the inquiry, whether the nature of this compact be such as to justify our refusal to carry it into effect. A treaty is the promise of a nation. Now, promises do not always bind him that makes them.

But I lay down two rules, which ought to guide us in this case. The treaty must appear to be bad, not merely in the petty details, but in its character, principle and mass. And in the next place, this ought to be ascertained by the decided and general concurrence of the enlightened public. I confess there seems to me something very like ridicule thrown over the debate by the discussion of the articles in detail. The undecided point is, shall we break our faith? And while our country and enlightened Europe await the issue with more than curiosity, we are employed to gather peacemeal, and article by article, from the instrument, a justification for the deed by trivial calculations of commercial profit and loss. This is little worthy of the subject, of this body, or of the nation. If the treaty is bad, it will appear to be so in its mass. Evil to a fatal extreme, if that be its tendency, requires no proof; it brings it. Extremes speak for themselves and make their own law. What if the direct voyage of American ships to Jamaica with horses or lumber, might net one or two per centum more than the present trade to Surinam; would the proof of the fact avail any thing in so grave a question as the violation of the public engagements?

It is in vain to allege, that our faith, plighted to France, is violated by this new treaty. Our prior treaties are expressly saved from the operation of the British treaty. And what do those mean who say, that our honor was forfeited by treating at all, and especially by such a treaty? Justice, the laws and practice of nations, a just regard for peace as a duty to mankind, and the known wish of our citizens, as well as that self-respect which required it of the nation to act with dignity and moderation, all these forbade an appeal to arms, before we had tried the effect of negotiation. The honor of the United States was saved, not forfeited, by treating. The treaty itself, by its stipula

tions for the posts, for indemnity, and for a due observation of our neutral rights, has justly raised the character of the nation. Never did the name of America appear in Europe with more lustre than upon the event of ratifying this instrument. The fact is of a nature to overcome all contradiction.

But the independence of the country-we are colonists again. This is the cry of the very men who tell us, that France will resent our exercise of the rights of an independent nation to adjust our wrongs with an aggressor, without giving her the opportunity to say, those wrongs shall subsist and shall not be adjusted. This is an admirable specimen of the spirit of independence. The treaty with Great Britain, it cannot be denied, is unfavorable to this strange sort of independence.

Few men of any reputation for sense, among those who say the treaty is bad, will put that reputation so much at hazard as to pretend that it is so extremely bad as to warrant and require a violation of the public faith. The proper ground of the controversy, therefore, is really unoccupied by the opposers of the treaty; as the very hinge of the debate is on the point, not of its being good or otherwise, but whether it is intolerably and fatally pernicious. If loose and ignorant declaimers have any where asserted the latter idea, it is too extravagant, and too solidly refuted, to be repeated here. Instead of any attempt to expose it still further, I will say, and I appeal with confidence to the candor of many opposers of the treaty to acknowledge, that if it had been permitted to go into operation silently, like our other treaties, so little alteration of any sort would be made by it in the great mass of our commercial and agricultural concerns, that it would not be generally discovered by its effects to be in force, during the term for which it was contracted. I place considerable reliance on the weight men of candor will give to this remark, because I believe it to be true, and little short of undeniable. When the panic dread of the treaty shall cease, as it certainly must, it will be seen through another medium. Those, who shall make search into the articles for the cause of their alarms, will be so far from finding stipulations that will operate fatally, they will discover few of them that will have any lasting operation at all. Those, which relate to the disputes between the two countries, will spend their force on the subjects in dispute, and extinguish them. The commercial articles are more of a nature to confirm the existing state of things, than to change it. The treaty alarm was purely an address to the imagination and prejudices of the citizens, and not on that account the less formidable. Objections that proceed upon error, in fact or calculation, may be traced and exposed; but such as are drawn from the imagination or addressed to it, elude definition, and return to domineer over the mind, after having been banished from it by truth.