ject. The Indians, inhabiting the United States, according to the statement of the American commissioners at Ghent, have a qualified sovereignty only, the supreme sovereignty residing in the government of the United States. They live under their own laws and customs, may inhabit and hunt their lands; but acknowledge the protection of the United States, and have no right to sell their lands but to the government of the United States. Foreign powers or foreign subjects have no right to maintain any intercourse with them, without our permission. They are not, therefore, independent nations, as the gentleman supposes. Maintaining the relation described with them, we must allow a similar relation to exist between Spain and the Indians residing within her dominions. She must be, therefore regarded as the sovereign of Florida, and we are, accordingly, treating with her for the purchase of it. In strictness, then, we ought first to have demanded of her to restrain the Indians, and, that failing, we should have demanded a right of passage for our army. But, if the president had the power to march an army into Florida, without consulting Spain, and without the authority of Congress, he had no power to authorize any act of hostility against her. If the gentleman had even succeeded in showing that an authority was conveyed by the executive to General Jackson to take the Spanish posts, he would only have established that unconstitutional orders had been given, and thereby transferred the disapprobation from the military officer to the executive. But no such orders were, in truth, given. The president acted in conformity to the Constitution, when he forbade the attack of a Spanish fort, and when, in the same spirit, he surrendered the posts themselves. I will not trespass much longer upon the time of the committee; but I trust I shall be indulged with some few reflections upon the danger of permitting the conduct on which it has been my painful duty to animadvert, to pass without a solemn expression of the disapprobation of this House. Recall to your recollection the free nations which have gone before us. Where are they now? Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were, And how have they lost their liberties? If we could transport ourselves back to the ages when Greece and Rome flourished in their greatest prosperity, and mingling in the throng, should ask a Grecian if he did not fear that some daring military chieftain, covered with glory, some Philip or Alexander, would one day overthrow the liberties of his country, the confident and indignant Grecian would exclaim, No! no! we have nothing to fear from our heroes; our liberties will be eternal. If a Roman citizen had been asked, if he did not fear that the conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly repelled the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell; Cæsar passed the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could not preserve the liberties of his devoted country! The celebrated Madame de Staël, in her last and perhaps her best work, has said, that in the very year, almost the very month, when the president of the directory declared that monarchy would never more show its frightful head in France, Bonaparte, with his grena liers, entered the palace of St. Cloud, and dispersing, with the bayonet, the deputics of the people, deliberating on the affairs of the state, laid the foundation of that vast fabric of despotism which overshadowed all Europe. I hope not to be misunderstood; I am far from intimating that General Jackson cherishes any designs inimical to the liberties of the country. I believe his intentions to be pure and patriotic. I thank God that he would not, but I thank him still more that he could not if he would, overturn the liberties of the Republic. But precedents, if bad, are fraught with the most dangerous consequences. Man has been described, by some of those who have treated of his nature, as a bundle of habits. The definition is much truer when applied to governments. Precedents are their habits. There is one important difference between the formation of habits by an indiv idual and by governments. He contracts it only after frequent repetition. A single instance fixes the habit and determines the direction of governments. Against the alarming doctrine of unlimited discretion in our military commanders when applied even to prisoners of war, I must enter my protest. It begins upon them; it will end on us. I hope our happy form of government is to be perpetual. But, if it is to be preserved, it must be by the practice of virtue, by justice, by moderation, by magnanimity, by greatness of soul, by keeping a watchful and steady eye on the executive; and, above all, by holding to a strict accountability the military branch of the public force. We are fighting a great moral battle, for the benefit not only of our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the whole world are in fixed attention upon us. One, and the largest portion of it, is gazing with contempt, with jealousy, and with envy; the other portion, with hope, with confidence, and with affection. Everywhere the black cloud of legitimacy is suspended over the world, save only one bright spot, which breaks out from the political hemisphere of the west, to enlighten, and animate, and gladden the human heart. Obscure that, by the downfall of liberty here, and all mankind are enshrouded in a pall of universal darkness. To you, Mr. Chairman, belongs the high privilege of transmitting, unimpaired, to posterity, the fair character and liberty of our country. Do you expect to execute this high trust, by trampling or suffering to be trampled down, law, justice, the Constitution, and the rights of the people? by exhibiting examples of inhumanity, and cruelty, and ambition? When the minions of despotism heard, in Europe, of the seizure of Pensacola, how did they chuckle, and chide the admirers of our institutions, tauntingly pointing to the demonstration of a spirit of injustice and aggrandizement made by our country, in the midst of an amicable negotiation! Behold, said they, the conduct of those who are constantly reproaching kings! You saw how those admirers were astounded and hung their heads. You saw, too, when that illustrious man, who presides over us, adopted his pacific, moderate, and just course, how they once more lifted up their heads with exultation and delight beaming in their countenances. And you saw how those minions themselves were finally compelled to unite in the general praises bestowed upon our government. Beware how you forfeit this exalted character. Beware how you give a fatal sanction, in this infant period of our republic, scarcely yet two-scorey ears old, to military insubordination. Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Cæsar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte, and that if we would escape the rock, on which they split, we must avoid their errors. How different has been the treatment of General Jackson, and that modest, but heroic young man, a native of one of the smallest States in the Union, who achieved for his country, on lake Erie, one of the most glorious victories of the late war. In a moment of passion, he forgot himself, and offered an act of violence which was repented of as soon as perpetrated. He was tried, and suffered the judgment to be pronounced by his peers. Public justice was thought not even then to be satisfied. The press and Congress took up the subject. My honorable friend from Virginia (Mr. Johnson), the faithful and consistent sentinel of the law and of the Constitution, disapproved in that instance, as he does in this, and moved an inquiry. The public mind remained agitated and unappeased, until the recent atonement so honorably made by the gallant commodore. And is there to be a distinction between the officers of the two branches of the public service? Are former services, however eminent, to preclude even inquiry into recent misconduct? Is there to be no limit, no prudential bounds to the national gratitude? I am not disposed to censure the president for not ordering a court of inquiry, or a general court-martial. Perhaps, impelled by a sense of gratitude, he determined, by anticipation, to extend to the general that pardon which he had the undoubted right to grant after sentence. Let us not shrink from our duty. Let us assert our constitutional powers, and vindicate the instrument from military violation. I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful isthmus on which we stand. They may bear down all opposition; they may even vote the general the public thanks; they may carry him triumphantly through this House. But, if they do, in my humble judgment, it will be a triumph of the principle of insubordination, a triumph of the military over the civil authority, a triumph over the powers of this House, a triumph over the Constitution of the land. And I pray most devoutly to Heaven, that it may not prove, in its ultimate effects and consequences, a triumph over the liberties of the people. ON THE SPANISH TREAT Y. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 3, 1820. [IN a historical point of view, the following speech is chiefly interesting, as it shows contingently what would have been the political results to the United States, in regard to Texas, if Mr. Clay's advice at this time, as set forth and advocated in this speech, had prevailed. The United States then owned the whole of Texas to the Rio Grande, or Rio del Norte. In the Spanish treaty negotiated by Mr. Monroe, in 1819, and ratified in 1820, the considerations given by the United States for Florida were, first, Texas; next, five millions of dollars; thirdly, our claims on Spain, some fifteen millions; and fourthly, about a million of acres of unseated lands in Louisiana, rated by Mr. Clay at ten dollars an acre-ten millions. The third and fourth considerations were contingent, but nevertheless, as Mr. Clay thought, worthy of a reckoning in the account. But the first and second alone were enormous, as compared with the price paid to France for Louisiana. Texas was an immense territory, and of great prospective, though of contingent, value. Politically, it might be invaluable, and it has proved so; for, as a possession of the United States, if it had been retained, its political history would have been very different, and all the cost of annexing Texas, as a foreign State, and the war with Mexico, would have been saved. Florida, as Mr. Clay showed, was doomed to fall into our lap, and nothing would be lost by waiting a little longer. Here is another striking instance of Mr. Clay's far-seeing political sagacity. From twenty to thirty millions for Florida, and throw into the bargain the vast territory of Texas! Was there ever such a folly? In Mr. Clay's Raleigh Letter, of April 17, 1844, he says: "When the treaty was laid before the House of Representatives, being a member of that body, I expressed the opinion which I then entertained, and still hold, that Texas was sacrificed to the acquisition of Florida."* *Last Seven Years of Henry Clay, p. 26. The speech of Mr. Clay on this occasion was in support of two resolutions offered by himself, as follows:] FIRST, resolved, that the Constitution of the United States vests in Congress the power to dispose of the territory belonging to them; and that no treaty, purporting to alienate any portion thereof, is valid without the concurrence of Congress: Second, resolved, that the equivalent proposed to be given by Spain to the United States in the treaty concluded between them, on the 22d of February, 1819, for that part of Louisiana lying west of the Sabine, was inadequate; and that it would be inexpedient to make a transfer thereof to any foreign power, or to renew the aforesaid treaty : Mr. Clay said, that, while he felt very grateful to the House for the prompt and respectful manner in which they had allowed him to enter upon the discussion of the resolutions which he had the honor of submitting to their notice, he must at the same time frankly say, that he thought their character and consideration, in the councils of this country, were concerned in not letting the present session pass off without deliberating upon our affairs with Spain. In coming to the present session of Congress, it had been his anxious wish to be able to concur with the executive branch of the government in the measures which it might conceive itself called upon to recommend on that subject, for two reasons, of which the first, relating personally to himself, he would not trouble the committee with further noticing. The other was, that it appeared to him to be always desirable, in respect to the foreign action of this government, that there should be a perfect coincidence in opinion between its several co-ordinate branches. In time of peace, however, it might be allowable, to those who are charged with the public interests, to entertain and express their respective views, although there might be some discordance between them. In a season of war there should be no division in the public councils; but a united and vigorous exertion to bring the war to an honorable conclusion. For his part, whenever that calamity may befall his country, he would entertain but one wish, and that is, that success might crown our struggle, and the war be honorably and gloriously terminated. He would never refuse to share in the joys incident to the victory of our arms, nor to participate in the griefs of defeat and discomfiture. He conceded entirely in the sentiment once expressed by that illustrious hero, whose recent melancholy fall we all so sincerely deplore, that fortune may attend our country in whatever war it may be involved. There are two systems of policy, he said, of which our goverment had had the choice. The first was, by appealing to the justice and affections of Spain, to employ all those persuasives which could arise out of our abstinence from any direct countenance to the cause of South America, and the observance of a strict neutrality. The other was, by appealing to her justice also, and to her fears, to prevail upon her to redress the injuries |