watch a favorable opportunity of making a second attack on my territories; this conduct, so prejudicial to my safety and interest, would be incompatible with neutrality. If, therefore, my enemy, on suffering a discomfiture, retreat into his country, although charity will not allow him to refuse them permission to pass in security; he is bound to make them continue their march beyond his frontiers as soon as possible, and not suffer them to remain in his territories, on the watch for a convenient opportunity to attack me anew; otherwise, he gives me a right to enter his country in pursuit of them. Such treatment is often experienced by nations that are unable to command respect. Their territories soon become the theatre of war-armies march, encamp and fight in it, as in a country open to all comers."

Yes, sir, the territory of Florida is emphatically a country" open to all comers." The British found a hearty welcome there during the late war. The outlawed Creeks receive the right hand of fellowship from governor Masot, and his retinue of official dignitaries; fugitive negroes, and banditti, are welcome guests, when associated in arms against the United States; and I am persuaded, the devil himself would have received holy orders, had he made his appearance at Pensacola in the character of a foe to this country! We alone were excluded from the high privilege of meeting our enemies on that soil which was prostituted to every purpose which could, in any manner, subserve their views, and contribute to our annoyance. The fortress of Barancas was peaceably put into the possession of a British and Indian force, in our recent conflict with Great Britain. The Negro Fort was erected on the Appalachicola, with the avowed intention of war with the United States. The vilest reptiles in creation were collected to carry the nefarious projects of the incendiary Nichols into execution, and not a murmur was heard, either from Pizarro or Masot, or the governor-general of Havanna.

But the moment we send a force to suppress these hostile combinations, Spanish sensibility breaks through the cloud by which it had been concealed. Protests and manifestos proclaim to the world the wrongs committed by this government, in the violation of the territorial sovereignty of the adored Ferdinand. With a full knowledge of this fraudulent neutrality on the part of Spain, and of our rights, as a nation, to the means of self-preservation, the President would have been unmindful of the high trust and confidence reposed in him, had he not ordered the army into Florida, to terminate the war with "exemplary punishment for hostilities so unprovoked." The occupation of the posts of St. Marks and Pensacola, and the fortress of Barancas, was a necessary means of accomplishing the end for which general Jackson entered the Spanish territory. They rest on the same general principles, and, if a distinction is taken which would justify the one and condemn the other, it must be founded on a diversity of facts, in reference to the facilities and privileges granted by the authorities of Spain to the other belligerent. For there is a universal rule, to which there is no exception, that whatever a neutral power grants or refuses to one of the parties at war, she must, in like manner, grant or refuse to the other; and, if she departs from this strict line of impartiality, by favoring either to the injury of the other, the injured nation may do herself justice, and take by force what is unjustly denied to her.

Such is the law by which the conduct of all civilized nations is regulated and governed; it remains only for me to glance at the most prominent points in the evidence, to show its application, and thereby rescue general Jackson from the imputation of having snatched from Congress the power delegated in the constitution to "declare war." I ask then, sir, did the governors of St. Marks and Pensacola allow the Indians and negroes free access into their fortifications, and supply them with arms and ammunition to carry

on the war in which they were engaged with the United States? To establish these facts, with regard to the former, I am perplexed with the difficulty of selecting that part of the testimony which might be deemed least susceptible of doubt or equivocation. The whole volume is full of details showing the abominable duplicity and perfidy of the treacherous Luengo.

[Mr. Poindexter here commented upon the testimony which went to establish the abovementioned facts. He observed, that it was evident that the enemy had the unlimited use of the fort of St. Marks for all the purposes of war, and as it regarded Pensacola its situation was substantially the same; that general Jackson, in taking possession of Pensacola, never contemplated an act of hostility against Spain, but that his sole object was to give peace and security to his own country, and to guard against the renewal of hostilities, by prohibiting the supplies which the Seminoles and Red Sticks were accustomed to receive from the faithless and unprincipled governor of Pensacola. In proof of this, he referred to the whole correspondence of general Jackson, and the general order issued after the surrender of Barancas. He then made some remarks upon our treaty with Spain. which it was alleged had been violated by these proceedings, and arrived at the conclusion, that whether the question was considered as resting on the great and universal principles which regulate belligerent rights and neutral duties, or the sacred and inviolable obligations of treaties, general Jackson stood erect, and that the people of the United States would accord to him their hearty thanks for his manly independence in asserting and maintaining their rights.]

Mr. Chairman, I will readily concede to honorable gentlemen, that, if war was made on Spain, either by the orders of the President, or by general Jackson, without the authority of Congress, it amounts to a violation of the constitution, and the most severe punishment, and not mere censure, ought to await the guilty

hand which aims a blow at the tree of liberty, on the soil where alone it is permitted to grow and flourish. But I deny that an act of war either has been, or was designed to have been, committed by general Jackson, in any part of his proceedings in Florida. By war, I wish to be understood to mean that state of things which puts one nation in collision with another: which arrays the people of one sovereignty against the people of another sovereignty; and not such acts as may or may not eventuate in a rupture between powers in amity with each other. The maximum must be reached, or the constitutional power of Congress to declare war remains inviolate. Suffer me to illustrate this postulatum by showing its analogy to another and a more familiar subject. Suppose a bill suspending the habeas corpus is proposed in this House, at a time of profound peace, both at home and abroad; every gentleman will admit that the passage of such a bill would violate an express provision in the constitution. I ask, if it should pass the first and second readings, and be ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, if, on the question, shall the bill pass, it is rejected-whether any of the incipient proceedings amounted to a breach of the constitution? I presume it will not be contended that they did. The violation of the instrument begins with the operation of the measure which it prohibits. So neither is an incipient step, taken by a subordinate authority under the government, which bears the semblance of hostility to a foreign nation, war, until it passes the ordeal of the ultimate power of both countries, and is deemed by them not susceptible of amicable and honorable explanation and amends. Let us test the conduct of general Jackson by these plain and simple rules, and it will be found that he has neither violated the constitution, nor compromitted the peace of the nation.

I have already attempted to prove to the committee that the conduct of Spain, in relation to our savage cnemy, justified the entrance of our army into her terri

tory, and the occupation of the posts of St. Marks, Pensacola, and the fortress of Barancas. But I will admit, for argument's sake, that these latter acts were not strictly justifiable, and that Spain had a right to complain of them; and yet, I say, that they did not amount to the definition of war, and consequently, that general Jackson is not chargeable with having usurped the powers of Congress. To sustain this position, I rely on the practice of the most enlightened European governments, in cases similar in their character; and on the effect of these measures upon the subsisting relations between Spain and the United States. The European precedents to which I shall refer, may be found in the celebrated letter of Mr. Madison to Mr. Rose, on the subject of the attack on the American frigate Chesapeake, by the British ship Leopard.

[Mr. Poindexter read them in the order given to them in that correspondence.]

In these instances force was resorted to; actual violence used, blood spilt, vessels captured, whole settlements broken up and destroyed, and yet the proud and haughty monarchs of England, France, and I may add, of Spain, at that day, did not consider either of them as actual war, but occurrences open to fair and candid explanation and honorable amends; which being demanded, resulted in the preservation of peace between the parties concerned.

These were direct acts of hostility, committed by the military of one power against the subjects of the other without a previous declaration of war, and therefore more offensive to the dignity and honor of the sovereign, than the temporary occupation of a town or fortress, in the prosecution of a war with another nation, to whom the same privilege had been granted. According to the practice of nations, therefore, the proceedings at St. Marks and Pensacola cannot be regarded as deciding the question of peace and war between Spain and the United States, waiving all the circumstances which so fully justify the commanding