If the bill passes, and effects the exclusion which is expected, the rich must, and will pay the monopoly price of the manufacturer. The poor must suffer extreme distress. Formerly, the number of this class was small, and it has become very large, and soon will embrace a majority of our citizens. On them will fall these restraints. Wherein have they been willing to sacrifice the interests of the country in pursuit of their own? Their poverty is their only crime, and this cannot be charged on them. It flows directly and palpably from the government. They have been generally, both in faith and practice, devoted to the administration.

Well may they exclaim, What have we done to merit from your hands both nakedness and hunger? All this is to be inflicted and suffered under the notion, that, by such pitiful schemes, you can compel the most opulent, the most powerful, the most prosperous, and the proudest nation on the earth, to receive the law at your hands, and to accept peace on your own terms. I forbear to press this subject further. I am persuaded, sir, and I trust this House, if it will exercise its own judgment, will also be persuaded that this bill, if passed into a law, can have no other effect than to render the nation ridiculous, and to increase the misery and distress of a loyal and faithful people, already bowed to the earth with privations and sufferings. There is one other consideration in the minds of many, of greater magnitude than any yet contemplated, against employing our time and strength in such fruitless schemes, which will now-they always have done prove a mere ignis-fatuus, as relates to the enemy. They delude us from examining into the critical state of our national affairs, and from adopting measures suited to the extreme exigency of our condition.

It is time to cease this trifling, and to look fully at the dangers of our present, and prepare for the 'orrors of our future situation. On our south frontiers, we have an invading foe, and I force, that we know of, to prevent desolation and ruin, as far as he chooses to proceed. In the west, it is true we hear the voice of joy and gladness, arising from the great influx of wealth, from projects for new demarcation of boundaries, extended territories, increasing population, and unclouded prosperity. I really rejoice, sir, that any part of our soil is free from the general gloom, from the otherwise universal despair that pervades the country. I need not say it is only in that highly favored portion of the United States, where the occasion or the sound of gladness is to be heard.

fortress to protect us against this menace, should we proceed the unhallowed length that has been threatened. And we have the most fatal evidence, that our enemy is neither slow nor measured in his retaliations. On our northern frontier, late a scene of the most extravagant vaunting, and whence we expected to realize all the promised fruits of the war, we behold our towns altogether defenceless, and at the mercy of an exasperated foe, the country laid waste and desolate, villages sacked and burning, and their wretched inhabitants naked and forlorn, fleeing in the most inclement season, from the flames of their houses, and the tomahawk of the savage.

All this time, the government of the nation amuses itself, by weighing the degree of pressure it can make on a powerful enemy, by depriving her woollen drapers and cotton weavers of the sale of a few bales of goods. Never was such a scene exhibited, since the day when the master of a great empire thought to divert himself by the most frivolous amusement while his capital was in flames. Let us quit this disgraceful and humiliating game, and seriously betake ourselves to the protection of our defenceless and neglected inhabitants, restore to them their ancient rights, suffer them to return to cheering industry and honest enterprise, endeavor to bring back peace, prosperity, and, if possible, character, to our bleeding country-once the just pride of every American, and the envy of every nation, now so fallen, so dishonored, so disgraced, and degraded, as to be unworthy the consideration of the meanest.

The system, sir, of which this is a part, has been tried in youth, and in manhood, in peace, and in war. In no instance has it ever pressed on Great Britain so as to produce from her a more favorable attention to our complaints. To us it has been pregnant with misfortune and disgrace. When practised by the most populous and most wealthy nations of the earth, it has also been ineffectual. Great Britain has risen triumphant over all the efforts of her numerous foes, and has now as friends, almost all those who were her enemies, and nearly the whole world is open to her as a market. It would seem then, conclusive to any men, not bereft of reason, that to persist in this course of measures, as instruments of war, marks the grossest imbecility of mind and power. We have also seen that the most powerful nations have never been able to execute such a system. The bill before us, and the message* which produced it, confess that we have not executed it; we have tried all the civil and military force of the country-all the forfeiture and penalties that human ingenuity and uncontrolled power could invent and enact, without effect. It must,

I did not, sir, in my motion for striking out, include spirits distilled from the sugar cane, because I am satisfied we can make at home, spirits in as great quantities as can be useful for domestic consumption. The only remaining consideration would be that of revenue. And since, by all the skill of our financiers, and the wisdom of our statesmen, we have only reduced

from sixteen millions to a half a million of dollars, it cannot, in the view of the administration, be important to regard the article in this relation; moreover, the prohibition of spirits distilled from cane, and the admission of French brandy, discover a due respect to that power and those interests, with which our own seem intimately, if not inseparably and fatally involved.

The following remarks, on the bill "to provide additional revenue for defraying the expenses of government, and maintaining the public credit, by laying a direct tax upon the United States, and to provide for assessing and collecting the same," were delivered by Mr. Gore, in the United States Senate, on the fifth of January, 1815.

MR. PRESIDENT: This bill imposes burdens extremely heavy on all the citizens of our common country, and on those with which I am most acquainted, a load that, under existing circumstances, will be intolerable.

With the principle of the bill, in selecting as objects of taxation the lands and buildings of the United States, I have no fault to find.

I consider them as fit and proper subjects of revenue, and such assessments calculated to equalize the burdens of the country, as imposing them on all parts, and with more impartiality than can be attained by any other mode. And, sir, I should feel it my duty to vote for a bill imposing such a tax to any reasonable amount had it not pleased the government of the nation to place the State, which I have the honor to represent, out of the protection of the United States, and to determine, that while it shall bear a full proportion of the taxes, none of their fruits shall redound to her relief.

The motives of Congress in granting supplies, are doubtless to provide for the defence of the country, and the security of its rights, by a safe and honorable peace.

These motives are wise and irresistible; all concur in the necessity of defending our territory against the enemy; and in the assertion and maintenance of our essential rights at every peril, and if necessary, by the sacrifice of all that conduces to private ease and personal enjoyment.

No one feels this truth more sensibly than myself-no one considers the duty more imperative. With its obligations I have no compromises to make, and in its performance I ask for no limitations on account of the folly and improvidence with which the war was urged, VOL. 1.-27

nor of the degrading imbecility, and prodigal waste of treasure, of blood, and character, by which it has been prosecuted.

The enemy publicly proclaims his purpose to spread desolation far and wide, on our unprotected sea-coasts. He proceeds to execute his threats with a barbarity and baseness, in many instances, unprecedented.

The mansions of the rich, the palaces of the nation, and the cottages of the poorest citizen, feel alike his disgraceful vengeance. The opulence of the wealthy is destroyed; the means of subsistence to the impoverished inhabitants of the sands are redeemed from his rapacity by grinding impositions, which the charity of such as being out of the reach of his power are alone able to supply. Even the ashes of the dead are not suffered to repose in quiet. And, as the last act of atrocity, your slaves are seized and seduced, embodied in military array, and led to the destruction of their masters, and the plunder of their possessions.

Whether those acts seek an apology in the conduct of our own government, we cannot inquire for the purpose of weighing our duty to repel his attack. Whoever comes to our shores in the character of an enemy must be resisted. We must do all in our power to defend ourselves and our soil from an invading foe.

A question arises, Have we any grounds for believing that the grants of men and ney will be wisely applied to the purposes of dance and protection?

Honorable gentlemen will please go bacto November, 1811, when the Executive, in winding its devious course to the fatal act of June, 1812, addressed the hopes, the fears, the vanity, and pride of the people, and owning its duty to establish the general security, assured the nation, "that the works of defence on our maritime frontier had been prosecuted with an activity leaving little to be added for the completion of the most important ones. The land forces so disposed as to ensure appropriate and important services, and embodied and marched toward the north-western frontiers," to seek satisfaction for acts, which it was declared, had alike, "the character and effects of war."

The subsequent course of things must be full

We learn that the same measures are to be pursued. The Atlantic coast is to be defended, as heretofore, by attempts on Canada. This is frankly and formally told to the Congress, that no pretence can be urged in future, of disappointment or deception.

I forbear to speak on this subject. In the actual state of things, all reasoning must be futile. The powers of language cease before the eloquent monitors constantly in our view.

We are doomed to remain in this scene, that we may not for a moment lose sight of our degradation and disgrace. The government had complete information of the designs of the enemy months before his attack on Washington. In this city were all the means of defence, fortresses, ships, cannon, men, and money; here, too, was concentrated all the wisdom of the administration, to deliberate, examine, decide, and prepare for the support of the Capitol, at least sixty days prior to its destruction, by a few thousand worn down and exhausted soldiers. You have now in full view the effect of their combined councils-of their individual and united talents, prudence, and energies.

These monuments show, in characters not to be mistaken, the future in the past, and the desolation around. They declare the fate of every place under the influence and protection of our government, if approached by the en

emy.

Congress continues to grant, with no sparing hand, supplies of every kind to the same men, in the hope, it is imagined that heaven may, by some miracle, interpose for their application to the safety and relief of the country.

Permit me, sir, to crave your indulgence, and that of the honorable Senate, while I relate the condition of the country which I represent, as the grounds of the vote I am constrained to give on this occasion. The State of Massachusetts has a sea-coast of about six hundred miles in extent. Its eastern boundary joins that of the enemy. It is of course peculiarly liable to invasion. The President of the United States was avowedly of the opinion that it would be invaded immediately on the commencement of the war. There were several islands, and one of great importance, on the eastern frontier, the title to which was not definitively acknowledged by Great Britain. The claim of Massachusetts had been allowed by this power in a treaty made according to the instructions of the President, which treaty the United States had chosen to reject. The government, therefore, superadded to the general obligation enjoined upon it, to protect and defend the territory of all the States, had incurred a peculiar responsibility to guard this particular frontier from falling into the hands of the enemy.

This State has been left entirely unprotected and defenceless, and has at no time had within it, and destined to its defence, sufficient force of the United States to protect any one point

Shortly after the adoption of the constitution she ceded to the United States all the fortresses in her possession. These, with all the prominent points of lands and sites, appropriate for fortifications, to defend the State against invasion, were, and for a long time previous to the war had been, in the exclusive possession of the United States. The State, therefore, had no authority or jurisdiction over, nor even to enter them for any purpose; much less to assume the defence of their territory, through these means.

One great and principal object of the constitution was to provide by this government for the common defence, and, by the power and resources of all the States, to protect each against invasion.

The preamble declares: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution." For this end the States surrendered the principal sources of revenue, over which they previously had uncontrolled dominion.

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defence, to borrow money on the credit of the United States."

Here are ample resources, and means commensurate to the duties the United States were enjoined and undertook to perform.

This cannot be denied by the men now in power; for they abolished many taxes, in full and productive operation, at the time they received the government.

Power was also granted to raise and support any kind of force necessary to ensure the common defence, and to protect the State against invasion, viz.: "To raise and support armies. To provide and maintain a navy. To exercise exclusive legislation over all places purchased by the consent of the legislatures of the States in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings."

The several States, having surrendered their own resources, and afforded such ample provision for the common defence, left no doubt of the paramount duty in the United States to perform it punctually and faithfully.

In the present war, they are without excuse, if this be not fully and perfectly done; for the war was of their own choice; they made it, and at their own time.

The several States received from the United States a solemn obligation, that they would protect each against invasion. "The United States guarantee to every State a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion."

If any thing were wanting to show the sacredness of this duty in the United States, and the absolute reliance which the States entertained of its complete performance, it is to be found in the restrictions and privations which the several States imposed on themselves.

his officers, ever pretended that this case existed, at the time the requisition was issued. The requisition was made expressly for the defence of the ports and harbors of that State and of Rhode Island.

Having thus surrendered all the pecuniary resources necessary to provide the means of defence, and also the right to raise a force requisite to this end, the several States did rely, and were justified in relying, with perfect confidence, for complete protection and defence, on the Government of the United States.

No one will pretend that such defence has been afforded to all the States in the Union. Massachusetts has been entirely abandoned. The men raised there for the regular army have been marched out of the State.

Within a month of the declaration of war, the governor of that State was informed, by direction of the President, that the regular troops were all ordered from the sea-coast; and his threat, if intended as such, was instantly executed. Thus, the moment the United States had placed the country in a situation to require defence, and which it was their duty to provide, they wantonly took away the only force which could afford it.

It may be said, that the President called forth the militia, in June and July, 1812, for the purpose of making the defence, and protecting the State against invasion, and the governor refused to obey the requisition. On the 12th June, 1812, the President, by his Secretary of War, requested Governor Strong to order into the service of the United States, on the requisition of General Dearborn, such parts of the militia as the general might deem necessary for the defence of the sea-coast; and, on the 22d June, the same general informed the governor that war was declared against Great Britain, and requested forty-one companies for the defence of the ports and harbors in Massachusetts, and the harbor of Newport, in Rhode Island.

The governor of a State is obliged to comply with every requisition of the United States for militia, made in pursuance of the provisions of the constitution. He is equally bound, by his duty to the States, to refrain from calling them forth for purposes not within these provisions. The only cases which authorize a call for the militia of the several States, to act against an enemy, is to repel invasion.

The President neither by himself nor any of

The militia is a force which belongs to the several States respectively and exclusively, and is so recognized by the Constitution of the United States. The Government of the United States is a government of limited authorities, and has no other powers than what are granted by the constitution. A power to call forth the militia to provide for the common defence, or to protect against invasion, is nowhere All the authority over the militia delegated to the United States, is to call them forth to repel invasion; to execute the laws, and to suppress insurrection. The United States are bound to provide for the common defence.

To repel invasion, is included in the duty of providing for the common defence; and as invasion may be sudden, even in time of profound peace, and before the United States can bring their forces to meet an unexpected attack, the militia of the several States is granted to the United States, from the necessity of the case, as the means by which they may provide for the common defence, in such particular instance.

If the United States have authority to call forth the militia for the ordinary purposes of war, for the common defence, or for protection against invasion, under any of the general powers granted, such as that to provide for the common defence, there would have been no necessity for the special clause authorizing Congress to provide for calling them forth to repel invasion; for repelling invasion is undoubtedly one part of the duty of providing for the common defence.

If it were the intent of the constitution to grant to the United States expressly, a power over the militia for protection against invasion, it would have declared, that, for such purposes, the United States might call forth the militia; or it would have said to protect against or repel invasion. And especially in the clause which enjoins on the United States the duty of protecting each State against invasion, the constitution would have declared, and that, for this purpose, the United States shall call forth the militia. No such words, no such grants, are made in this instrument. If, therefore, the authority of the United States to call forth the militia to protect the ports and harbors of a State, be granted, it must be by the terms to repel invasion. Common defence includes all the means by which a nation may be guarded, protected, defended, and secured against danger, both in war and in peace.

To repel invasion, is only one particular and specific act providing for the common defence. It is contrary to common sense, as well as to all the rules of logic, to say that a specific power or duty includes the general power, or

duty, of which it is a part; it is to say that a part contains the whole.

To repel invasion is to drive back and resist that which has already happened. To protect against invasion is to prevent its happening, to secure against its existence. The one act is against an event that has occurred-the other is to ensure and guard against the occurrence of such an event.

To protect against invasion, is to erect fortresses, to have them well manned, and supplied with all requisite stores, to provide and equip ships of war, to have an army and navy well organized and disciplined, 'n peace and in war. To repel invasion is one specific act of war, against another act of the like character.

To repel invasion is one part of the duty of providing for the common defence, and for this part a particular force is granted. To say that a grant of this force, for this special service, includes a grant of the same force for the purposes of protection and defence, is to say that a grant for one purpose, is a grant for another, and for every purpose, and that the grant of a limited is the grant of a general authority. This would be both illogical and irrational. And if under the limitations, which were intended to control the powers granted to the government of the United States, and especially under the express limitation, viz. "that powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, or to the people," such construction may be adopted, there remains no security for any right reserved to the States, or to the people.

However conclusive this reasoning may be, it is not to be presumed that, after the strides of power in which the spirit of party has indulged, it will have any effect on those who direct the affairs of this country; I will, sir, however, refer to opinions and authorities in confirmation of what has been advanced, that to many gentlemen did not formally admit either of exception or appeal.

These are to be found in the resolutions and arguments of the legislature of Virginia, and of Mr. Madison, one of that legislature in the years 1799 and 1800. I refer the Senate to the third resolution passed by that body, and framed by the pen of the President, in the words following:

"3. Resolved, That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact to which the States are parties, submitted by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that contract; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other power not granted by the same compacts, the States who are parties thereto have a right and are in duty bound to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their

respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them."

"It is said, that Congress are, by the constitution, to protect each State against invasion, and that the means of preventing are included in the power of protection against it."

"The power of war in general having been before granted by the constitution, this clause must either be a mere specification, for greater caution and certainty, of which there are other examples in the constitution, or be the injunction of a duty, superadded to a grant of power. Under either explanation, it cannot enlarge the powers of Congress on the subject. The power and duty to protect each State against an invading enemy would be the same, under the general powers, if this regard to greater caution had been omitted."

"Invasion is an operation of war. To protect against invasion is an exercise of the power of war. A power, therefore, not incident to war, cannot be incident to a particular modification of war. And as the removal of alien friends has appeared to be no incident to a general state of war, it cannot be incident to a partial state, or to a particular modification of war."

"Nor can it ever be granted, that a power to act on a case, when it actually occurs, includes a power over all the means that may tend to prevent the occurrence of the case. Such a latitude of construction would render unavailing every practicable definition of limited powers.'

If the observations which I have made, are founded on truth, and justified by the constitution, the following positions are established, viz.:

That the United States have no right to call on the several States for militia to perform any act of war, but to repel invasion.

That to defend the ports and harbors of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the purpose for which the militia was required in 1812, is not within the power delegated by the constitution to provide for calling forth the militia to repel invasion. In the case alluded to in 1812, it was not declared by the President, nor even pretended by his officers, that any invasion was made. In fact, no invasion was attempted until two years after this time. If the United States had no authority to make the requisition, the governor would have betrayed his duty to the State, in complying with the demand.

That the United States had no such authority, I think evident from the examination that has been made of the powers delegated by the constitution. And the State of Massachusetts, instead of being a just object of censure, by the United States, has a well-founded complaint against their government, for an attempt to usurp her rights and invade her prerogative.

* See proceedings in the House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 7th January, 1800, on the resolutions of the General Assembly of December 21st, 1798.