United States. Congress - Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.)

But we are told, with a grave face, that a disposition is manifested to make this measure permanent. The States who call themselves commercial States, when compared with the Southern States, may emphatically be called manufacturing States. The Southern States are not manufacturing States, while the great commercial States are absolutely the manufacturing States. If this embargo system were intended to be permanent, those commercial States would be benefited by the exchange, to the injury of the Southern States. It is impossible for us to find a market for our produce but by foreign commerce; and whenever a change of the kind alluded to is made, that change will operate to the injury of the Southern States more than to the injury of the commercial States, so called.

But another secret motive with which the Government is charged to have been actuated is, that this measure was intended and is calculated to promote the interests of France. To be sure none of the gentlemen have expressly said that we are under French influence, but a resort is had to the exposé of the French Minister, and a deduction thence made that the embargo was laid at the wish of Bonaparte. The gentleman from Connecticut told us of this exposé for this purpose; and the gentleman from Massachusetts appeared to notice it with the same view.

Now we are told that there is no danger of war, except it be because we have understood that Bonaparte has said there shall be no neutrals; and that, if we repeal the embargo, we may expect that he will make war on us. And this is the only source from whence the gentleman could see any danger of war. If this declaration against neutrality which is attributed to the Gallic Emperor be true, and it may be so, his Gallic Majesty could not pursue a more direct course to effect his own wishes than to declare that our embargo had been adopted under his influence. And unless the British Minister had more political sagacity than the gentleman who offered the evidence of the exposé in proof of the charge, it would produce the very end which those gentlemen wished to avoid – a war with Great Britain; for she would commence the attack could she believe this country under the influence of France. I would just as much believe in the sincerity of that exposé, as Mr. Canning's sincerity, when he says that his Majesty would gladly make any sacrifice to restore to the commerce of the United States its wonted activity. No man in the nation is silly enough to be gulled by these declarations; but, from the use made of them, we should be led to think otherwise, were it not for the exercise of our whole stock of charity. Now, I cannot believe that any man in this nation does believe in the sincerity of Mr. Canning's expressions, or that Bonaparte believes that the embargo was laid to promote his interest. I cannot believe that there is any man in this nation who does candidly and seriously entertain such an opinion.

The gentleman from Massachusetts says it is true that a considerable alarm was excited in England when the news of the embargo arrived there; that they had been led to believe, from their writers and speakers, that a discontinuance of their intercourse with this country would be productive of most injurious consequences; but that they were now convinced that all their writers and statesmen were mistaken, and that she can suffer a discontinuance of intercourse without being convulsed or suffering at all. To believe this requires a considerable portion of credulity, especially when the most intelligent men affirm to the contrary. In the last of March or the first of April last, we find, on an examination of merchants at the Bar of the British House of Commons, that the most positive injury must result from a continuance of non-intercourse. It is not possible that our merchants on this side of the water, however intelligent they may be, can be as well acquainted with the interests of Great Britain as her most intelligent merchants. This alarm, however, the gentleman has told us, continued through the spring and dissipated in the summer. It is very easy to discover the cause of the dissipation of this alarm. It was not because the loss of intercourse was not calculated to produce an effect, but it proceeded from an adventitious cause, which could not have been anticipated – the revolution in Spain; and there is no intelligent man who will not acknowledge its injurious effects on our concerns. No sooner did the British Ministers see a probability that the struggle between the Spanish patriots and France would be maintained, than they conceived hopes that they might find other supplies; and then they thought they might give to the people an impulse by interesting the nation in the affairs of Spain, which would render lighter the effects of our embargo. This is the cause of the change in Mr. Canning's language; for every gentleman in the House knows that a very material change took place in it in the latter part of the summer. If then the embargo has not produced the effects calculated from it, we have every reason to believe that its failure to produce these effects has been connected with causes wholly adventitious, and which may give way if the nation adheres to the measure. If, however, there be any probability that these causes will be continued for a long time, we ought to abandon it. I am not in favor of continuing any measure of this kind, except there be a probability of its producing some effect on those who make it necessary for us to exercise this act of self-denial. When I first saw the account of the revolution in Spain, my fears were excited lest it should produce the effect which it has done. As soon as I saw the stand made by the Spanish patriots, I was apprehensive that it might buoy up the British nation under the sufferings arising from the effects of their iniquitous orders, which, compared with the sufferings which we ourselves have borne, have been as a hundred to one. If there be evidence that the effects of this measure will yet be counteracted by recent events in Spain, I will abandon it, but its substitute should be war, and no ordinary war – I say this notwithstanding the petitions in the other branch of the Legislature, and the resolutions of a State Legislature which have lately been published. When I read the resolutions, called emphatically the Essex resolutions, I blush for the disgrace they reflect on my country. We are told there that this nation has no just cause of complaint against Great Britain; and that all our complaints are a mere pretext for war. I blush that any man belonging to the great American family should be so debased, so degraded, so lost to every generous and national feeling, as to make a declaration of this kind. It is debasing to the national character.

How are these orders and decrees to be opposed but by war, except we keep without their reach? If the embargo produces a repeal of these edicts, we effect it without going to war. Whenever we repeal the embargo we are at war, or we abandon our neutral rights. It is impossible to take the middle ground, and say that we do not abandon them by trading with Great Britain alone. You must submit, or oppose force to force. Can arming our merchant vessels, by resisting the whole navy of Great Britain, oppose force to force? It is impossible. The idea is absurd.

By way of ridiculing the embargo, the gentleman from Connecticut, in his familiar way, has attempted to expose this measure. He elucidated it by one of those familiar examples by which he generally exemplifies his precepts. He says your neighbor tells you that you shall not trade with another neighbor, and you say you will not trade at all. Now this, he says, is very magnanimous, but it is a kind of magnanimity with which he is not acquainted. Now let us see the magnanimity of that gentleman, and see if it savors more of true magnanimity than our course. Great Britain and France each say that we shall not trade with the other. We say we will not trade with either of them, because we believe our trade will be important to both of them. The gentleman says it is a poor way of defending the national rights. Suppose we pursue his course. Great Britain says we shall not trade to France; we say we will not, but will obey her. We will trade upon such terms as she may impose. "This will be magnanimity indeed; this will be defending commerce with a witness!" It will be bowing the neck to the yoke. The opposition to taxation against our consent, at the commencement of the Revolution, was not more meritorious than the opposition to tribute and imposition at the present day. I cannot, for my soul, see the difference between paying tribute and a tacit acquiescence in the British Orders in Council. True, every gentleman revolts at paying tribute. But where is the difference between that and suffering yourself to be controlled by the arbitrary act of another nation? If you raise the embargo you must carry your produce to Great Britain and pay an arbitrary sum before you can carry it elsewhere. If it remains there, the markets will be glutted and it will produce nothing. For it appears, from the very evidence to which I have before alluded, that at least four-fifths of our whole exports of tobacco must go to England and pay a tax before we could look for a market elsewhere, and that out of seventy-five thousand hogsheads raised in this country, not more than fifteen thousand are consumed in Great Britain. Where does the remainder usually go? Why, to the ports of the Continent. I ask, then, if the whole consumption of Great Britain be but fifteen thousand hogsheads, if an annual addition of sixty thousand hogsheads be thrown into that market, would it sell for the costs of freight? Certainly not. The same would be the situation of our other produce.