respect to coffee, as well as the rest, there were all the Spanish islands which produced them in great quantities. But, said he, is not the produce of the United States in these articles, of inferior quality? Cotton for instance? I told him the United States produced the best of cotton, and in immense quantities; that in all the southern States, as well as in Louisiana, the cultivation of this article within the last twenty years had flourished beyond imagination, and that of all the cotton brought by the American vessels whose cargoes were thus sequestered in Holstein, I was persuaded that the nine-tenths at least were the genuine produce of the United States. . The active commerce of all other nations, thanks to France, and to France alone, was annihilated. France herself, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, had nothing that could bear the name of commerce left in their own ships. The United States had scarcely any. Their intercourse with almost all Europe was suspended. Here alone they were still freely admitted, and into those ports of Denmark, where this violent measure must break it up again to the foundation. The portion of commerce carried on by American vessels in the Russian ports was small. The number of vessels was ascertained; and his Excellency as Minister of Commerce knew to what it could amount. He also knew how much of the trade was transacted in Russian vessels; and yet it was not for me to tell him that between England and this country the commerce actually carried on was a little less than in time of peace. He said that . It would be better that the whole commerce of the world should cease to exist for ten years than to abandon it forever to the control of England. That the effect of the restrictive system must in the long run press hardest upon England; and Mr. Pitt, whose talents as a minister must be acknowledged to have been great, was compelled by the clamors of the English nation arising from the distress upon their commerce, to make way for an administration which made peace. I acknowledge this was true; but observed that it was imputable to a system of measures in relation to commerce directly opposite to the present-a system which encouraged and favored the trade of the nations which were the rivals of England, so that the English could not support a competition with them. And although the English commerce might partially suffer in the general mass with the rest, it was much more than indemnified by the part which it had acquired from the ruins of all the other commercial nations. John Quincy Adams, Writings (N. Y., 1914), III. 373-380 passim. 18. Protest Against War (1811) Randolph, many years member of Congress, was a free lance and amusingly abused everybody. I KNOW not how gentlemen calling themselves republicans can advocate such a war. What was their doctrine in 1798-9, when the command of the army, that highest of all possible trusts in any government, be the form what it may, was reposed in the bosom of the Father of his country! the sanctuary of a nation's love!-the only hope that never came in vain? When other worthies of the revolution, Hamilton, Pinckney, and the younger Washington, men of tried patriotism, of approved conduct and valor, of untarnished honor, held subordinate command under him? Republicans were then unwilling to trust a standing army even to his hands, who had given proof that he was above all human temptation. Where now is the revolutionary hero to whom you are about to confide this sacred trust? To whom will you confide the charge of leading the flower of your youth to the heights of Abraham? Will you find him in the person of an acquitted felon? What! Then you were unwilling to vote an army, when such men as have been named held high command! When Washington himself was at the head, did you then show such reluctance, feel such scruple? And are you now nothing loth, fearless of every consequence? Will you say that your provocations were less then than now, when your direct commerce was interdicted, your ambassadors hooted with derision from the French court, tribute demanded, actual war waged upon you? Those who opposed the army then were indeed denounced as the partisans of France, as the same men-some of them at least—are now held up as the advocates of England; those firm and undeviating republicans, who then dared, and now dare, to cling to the ark of the Constitution, to defend it even at the expense of their fame, rather than surrender themselves to the wild projects of mad ambition. There is a fatality, sir, attending plenitude of power. Soon or late some mania seizes upon its possessors; they fall from the dizzy height, through the giddiness of their own heads. Like a vast estate, heaped up by the labor and industry of one man, which seldom survives the third generation. Power gained by patient assiduity, by a faithful and regular discharge of its attendant duties, soon gets above its own origin. Intoxicated with their own greatness, the federal party fell. Will not the same causes produce the same effects now as then? Sir, you may raise this army, you may build up this vast structure of patronage, this mighty apparatus of favoritism; but "lay not the flattering unction to your souls," you will never live to enjoy the succession: you sign your political death warrant. . . . This war of conquest, a war for the acquisition of territory and subjects, is to be a new commentary on the doctrine that republics are destitute of ambition; they are addicted to peace, wedded to the happiness and safety of the great body of their people. But it seems this is to be a holiday campaign; there is to be no expense of blood or treasure on our part; Canada is to conquer herself; she is to be subdued by the principles of fraternity. The people of that country are first to be seduced from their allegiance, and converted into traitors, as preparatory to the making them good citizens. Although I must acknowledge that some of our flaming patriots were thus manufactured, I do not think the process would hold good with a whole community. It is a dangerous experiment. We are to succeed in the French mode-by the system of fraternization. All is French! But how dreadfully it might be retorted on the southern and western slaveholding States. I detest this subornation of treason. But gentlemen avowed that they would not go to war for the carrying trade; that is, for any other but the direct export and import tradethat which carries our native products abroad, and brings back the return cargo; and yet they stickle for our commercial rights, and will go to |