consistent with the practice of civilized nations, and more congenial with the character of the American people; they propose to effect what is reasonable, without tending to injus tice or impolicy; they are the substitutes for propositions, novel, unnecessary, and extraordinary....such as this body has no power to adopt. The amendments go to obtain all that is required by the most prudent considerations; they provide a constitutional force adequate for any exigency within, and a force for exterior service, should it be found necessary to call it forth; we shall have a body of 80,000 militia, for home service, and a corps of volunteers for a legal period, and which might be marched out of our limits; arsenals on the spot, provided with all the stores requisite for actual service, should they be required. Resolved on peace, unless forced from our rights....then prepared for war.

The resolutions first offered are of a very different cha racter, they seek a very different end....they tell us directly, you must go and make war, but they do not furnish the means. Does the gentleman not know that the militia cannot be sent on the service of invasion into the territory of their neighbors ? Does he not know that we are destitute of any authority whatever to send them?....the constitution gives Congress the power over the militia to "suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," but nothing farther.

The amendments provide for the exigency if it should ever arise, and in an adequate manner. It is proposed to enroll volunteer corps, for such a length of time as may be expedient or necessary for the service, and to march on any service which may be required.

He had heard in the debate, many professions of confidence in the executive, He was very glad to hear such unusual expressions from that quarter. However, it was entitled to its due weight....what that was he would not enquire; but this he would say, that this unexpected ebullition of confidence went very much farther that he should be disposed to carry his confidence in any man or any President whatever. Gentlemen tell us that they are willing to entrust to the executive the power of going to war, or not, at his discretion....wonderful indeed is this sudden disposition to confidence. Why do not gentlemen give away that which they have some authority or right to bestow?... Who gave them the power to vest in any other authority than in Congress the right of declaring The framers of this constitution had too much experience to entrust such a power to any individual; they early, and

war.

wisely foresaw, that though there might be men too virtuous to abuse such a power, that it ought not to be entrusted to any; and nugatory would be the authority of the Senate, if we could assume the right of transferring our constitutional functions to any man or set of men. It was a stretch of confidence which he would not trust to any President that ever lived, or that will live. He could not as one, without treason to the constitution, consent ever to relinquish the right of declaring war to any man, or men, beside Congress.

We are told that negociation is not the course which is proper for us to pursue. But to this he should reply, that such was the usage of all civilized nations; and, however, gentlemen might attempt to whittle away the strong ground taken by his friend from New York, he had shewn in a manner not to be shaken, that negociation before a resort to the last scourge of nations, is the course most consistent with good policy, as well as with universal practice. The gentleman from Pennsylvania had indeed told us that Great Britain had departed from that practice....unfortunately for Great Britain and the gentleman's argument, he told us at the same time, that she had sustained a most serious injury by her injustice and precipitation. She went to war to seek retribution, and after fighting a while, she left off, and forgot to ask the retribution. for which she went to war! And this is the example held up for our imitation, because Great Britain violated the law of nations, we are called upon to do so too! We are told also, that Great Britain commenced war during our revolution against the Dutch, without any previous notification....that she did the same in the late war with France, and in both cases seized on the ships in her harbors....that is, like a professional bully, she struck first, and then told them she'd fight them.... and this is the gracious example held up to us.

The merits of the different propositions consisted in this, that by the amendments we propose, to seek the recourse of pacific nations....to follow up our own uniform practice; we pursue, in fact, the ordinary and rational course. The first resolutions, go at once to the point of war. This was openly and fairly acknowleged by the gentleman from New York, (Mr. G. MORRIS.) The gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Ross) indeed told us that it is not war....it was only going and taking peaceable possession of New Orleans! He did not before think the gentleman felt so little respect for the Senate, or estimated their understandings so much inferior to his own, as to call such a measure an act of peace! How did the gen

tleman mean to go, and how take peaceable possession? Would he march at the head of the posse committatus? No! he would march at the head of 50,000 militia, and he would send forth the whole naval and regular force, armed and provided with military stores....He would enter their island, set fire to their warehouses, and bombard their city, desolate their farms and plantations, and having swept all their habitations away, after wading through streams of blood....he would tell those who had escaped destruction....we do not come here to make war on you....we are a very moderate, tender hearted kind of neighbors, and are come here barely to take peaceable possession of your territory! Why, sir, this is too naked not to be an insult to the understanding of a child!

But the gentleman from New York, (Mr. MORRIS) did not trifle with the Senate in such a stile....he threw of the mask at once, and in a down right manly way, fairly told us that he liked war....that was his favorite mode of negociating between nations....that war gave dignity to the species....that it drew forth the most noble energies of humanity! That gentleman scorned to tell us that he wished to take peaceable possession. No: He could not snivel, his vast genius spurned huckstering....his mighty soul would not bear to be locked up in a petty warehouse at New Orleans....he was for war, terrible glorious havoc! He tells you plainly, that you are not only to recover your rights, but you must remove your neighbors from their possessions, and repel those to whom they may transfer the soil....that Bonaparte's ambition is insatiable....that he will throw in colonies of Frenchmen, who will settle on your frontier for thousands of miles round about, (when he comes there ;) and he does not forget to tell you of the imminent dangers which threaten our good old friends the English....He tells you that New Orleans is the lock, and you must seize upon the key and shut the door against this terrible Bonaparte, or he will come with his legions, and as Gulliver served the

Lilliputians, wash you off the map. Not content in his great

care for your honor and glory, as a statesman and a warrior, he turns prophet to oblige you....your safety in the present year or the next, does not satisfy him....his vast mind, untrammelled by the ordinary progression of chronology, looks over ages to come with a faculty bordering on omniscience, and conjures us to come forward and regulate the decrees of Providence at 10,000 years distance.

That gentleman, Mr. President, is a surprizing genius.... an amazingly great man....he could never have been intended

for this poor plain unpowdered republican era in which we live satisfied, but which must be a perpetual source of discon tent to him. But it is not for us to arraign Providence! We are told that in the immensity of the universe, so unbounded is the space it occupies, that even this little ball of earth which we inhabit, is so comparatively insignificant and minute, that it would not be missed from the great galaxy; and yet we are told that in forming this little speck in the creation, omnipotence tired in six days and rested the seventh. In the construction of so immense a system, it would not then seem surprizing if, in the general confusion, souls had been shuffled into bodies never designed for them; or thrown by chance into ages for which their stupendous faculties were not fitted; who can say that the soul of that gentleman was not intended for some ancient sage or hero, or for some sage of future ages immensely remote, when America may have gone through a long career of greatness and degeneracy, after the manner of other nations. Such a soul, so heroic, and so hot for blood, would do honor to the Crusades....who can say that he was not intended for that age, and that the fall of Jerusalem was not owing to the unhappy accident of his being born out of his time, and in the wrong country!

The gentleman has, with great emphasis, repeated, that Florida must be ours. That this may be the case at some remote period, is not in the order of human events improbable. The natural progression of population would seem to indicate such an event. The geographical situation of that country, has long rendered such a theory familiar to speculative minds. But the gentleman says it must be ours now. Hence it appears that the deposit at New Orleans is really not the object which the gentleman's great mind contemplated. But how is Florida to be obtained? What injury have we sustained in Florida? Presently we shall be told we must have Louisiana; then the gold mines of Mexico....these would be very good things, if come by honestly....then Potosi....then St. Domingo, with their sugar, coffee, and all the rest. These likewise are all very good and comfortable things in their way, honorably and justly obtained. But what have we to do with the territories of other people? Have we not enough of our own? Have we not more than we can cultivate or sell?

If we suffer this rapacious spirit to prevail, Mr. President, what is to be our character?....our fate is not difficult to foresee. The nations of the old world will become jealous of our unjustifiable ambition....They will combine against us....

they will humble and curb us.

The British belt that binds us to the north, will be drawn tight upon us.... Should it appear that we seek to elbow out every European nation who possesses colonies on this side of the Atlantic....then would the sanguinary passions which pant for havoc and disorder, find ample scope for war and desolation....we should see those powers of Europe, lately armed against each other, combined against us.

But it is not with our European neighbors only that the fervid impatience of the gentleman would embroil us; not satisfied with Florida, and the lock and key of Louisiana, he launches us into the turbulent sea of European politics, and sets us to tilting for that phantom, the balance of power!.... Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Spain, are severally described as swallowed up by all devouring France; and not only are we to join in the crusade for restoring the lost balance of power, but we are invited to do more....we are invoked to come forth and tell the nations of Europe, that America is a young and manly nation, that we are eager to restore that balance of power....and that we will do ourselves the honor of leading the van in a new coalition!

Is any member of this house prepared for this? Is this the wish or will of the people of America? It requires no answer. We find the gentleman beginning with the deposit at New Orleans, and erecting an immense foundation for mischief on the rash act of a Spanish officer, in refusing us the right to deposit our produce in their territory....we are then carried back to anterior transactions, the capture of ships and the detention of seamen in the South American colonies of Spain....we are then alarmed about the dangers on our frontiers from a French colony....but at length the secret comes out....we are told we must go to war to restrain the overgrown power of France!.... The gentlemen pant for war.... and care not for what or with whom....they pursue war with a deplorable infatuation, and the most charitable construction that can be put upon their conduct is, that they know not what they do.

But we are not to be seduced from the sober policy which our situation and our experience commands. Under that illustrious character so often alluded to, we are told no aggression was ever submitted to with impunity....that there was no blockade of the North river, Savannah, or the Delaware. He would tell the gentleman, that there was a blockade more serious and extensive than the blockade of any or all those rivers ....the ocean was put in a state of blockade to us....our ships.

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