SPEECH OF JOSIAH QUINCY,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, NOVEMBER 28, 1808,

On the following Resolution, "Resolved, that the United States cannot, without a sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the late edicts of Great Britain and France."

MR. CHAIRMAN,

I am not, in general, a friend to abstract legislation. Ostentatious declaration of general principles is so often the resort of weakness and of ignorance; it is so frequently the subterfuge of men who are willing to amuse, or who mean to delude the people, that it is with great reluctance I yield to such a course my sanction. If, however, a formal annunciation of a determination to perform one of the most common and undeniable of national duties be deemed, by a majority of this house, essential to their character, or to the attainment of public confidence, I am willing to admit, that the one now offered is as unexceptionable as any it would be likely to propose.

In this view, however, I lay wholly out of sight the report of the committee, by which it is accompanied and introduced. The course advocated in that report is, in my opinion, loathsome; the spirit it breathes disgraceful; the temper it is likely to inspire, neither calculated to regain the rights we have lost, nor to preserve those which remain to us. It is an established maxim, that, in adopting a resolution offered by a committee in this house, no member is pledged to support the reasoning, or made sponsor for the facts which they have seen fit to insert in it. I exercise, therefore, a common right, when I subscribe to the resolution, not on the principles of the committee, but on those which obviously result from its terms, and are the plain meaning of its expressions.

I agree to this resolution, because, in my apprehension, it offers a solemn pledge to this nation;—a pledge not to be mistaken, and not to be evaded, that the present system of public measures shall be totally abandoned. Adopt it, and there is an end of the policy of deserting our rights, under a pretence of maintaining them. Adopt it, and we no longer yield to the beck of haughty

belligerents the rights of navigating the ocean-that choice inheritance bequeathed to us by our fathers. Adopt it, and there is a termination of that base and abject submission, by which this country, has for these eleven months been disgraced and brought to the brink of ruin.

That the natural import and necessary implication of the terms of this resolution are such as I have suggested, will be apparent from a very transient consideration. What do its terms necessarily include? They contain an assertion and a pledge. The assertion is, that the edicts of Great Britain and France are contrary to our rights, honor, and independence. The pledge is, that we will not submit to them.

Concerning the assertion contained in this resolution, I would say nothing, were it not that I fear that those who have so long been in the habit of looking at the orders and decrees of foreign powers, as the measure of the rights of our own citizens, and have been accustomed, in direct subserviency to them, of prohibiting commerce altogether, might apprehend that there was some lurking danger in such an assertion. They may be assured there can be nothing more harmless. Neither Great Britain nor France ever pretended that those edicts were consistent with American rights. On the contrary, both these nations ground those edicts on the principle of imperious necessity, which admits the injustice done, at the very instant of executing the act of oppression. No gentleman need have any difficulty in screwing his courage up to this assertion. Neither of the belligerents will contradict it. Mr. Turreau and Mr. Erskine will both of them countersign the declaration to-morrow.

With respect to the pledge, contained in this resolution, understood according to its true import, it is a glorious one. It opens new prospects. It promises a change in the disposition of this house. It is a solemn assurance to the nation, that it will no longer submit to these edicts. It remains for us, therefore, to consider what submission is, and what the pledge not to submit implies.

One man submits to the order, decree, or edict of another, when he does that thing which such order, decree, or edict commands; or when he omits to do that thing, which such order, decree, or edict prohibits. This, then, is submission. It is to do as we are bidden. It is to take the will of another as the measure of our rights. It is to yield to his power; to go where he directs, or to refrain from going where he forbids us.

If this be submission, then the pledge not to submit implies the reverse of all this. It is a solemn declaration, that we will not do that thing which such order, decree, or edict commands, or that we will do what it prohibits. This, then, is freedom. This is

honor. This is independence. It consists in taking the nature of things, and not the will of another, as the measure of our rights. What God and nature has offered us, we will enjoy in despite of the commands, regardless of the menaces of iniquitous power.

Let us apply these correct and undeniable principles to the edicts of Great Britain and France, and the consequent abandonment of the ocean by the American government. The decrees of France prohibit us from trading with Great Britain. The orders of Great Britain prohibit us from trading with France. And what do we? Why, in direct subserviency to the edicts of each, we prohibit our citizens from trading with either. We do more; as if unqualified submission was not humiliating enough, we descend to an act of supererogation in servility; we abandon trade altogether; we not only refrain from that particular trade which their respective edicts proscribe, but lest the ingenuity of our merchants should enable them to evade their operation, to make submission doubly sure, the American government virtually reenact the edicts of the belligerents, and abandon all the trade, which, notwithstanding the practical effects of their edicts, remain to us. The same conclusion will result if we consider our embargo in relation to the objects of this belligerent policy. France, by her edicts, would oppress Great Britain, by destroying her commerce and cutting off her supplies. All the continent of Europe, in the hand of Bonaparte, is made subservient to this policy. The embargo law of the United States, in its operation, is a union with this continental coalition against British commerce, at the very moment most auspicious to its success. Can any thing be more in direct subserviency to the views of the French emperor? If we consider the orders of Great Britain, the result will be the same. I proceed, at present, on the supposition of a perfect impartiality in our administration towards both belligerents, so far as relates to the embargo law. Great Britain had two objects in view in issuing her ordersFirst, to excite discontent in the people of the continent, by depriving them of their accustomed colonial supplies. Second, to secure to herself that commerce of which she deprived neutrals. Our embargo coöperates with the British views in botly respects. By our dereliction of the ocean, the continent is much more deprived of the advantages of commerce, than it would be possible for the British navy to effect; and by removing our competition, all the commerce of the continent which can be forced, is wholly left to be reaped by Great Britain. The language of each sovereign is in direct conformity to these ideas. Napoleon tells the American minister virtually, that we are very good Americans; that, although he will not allow the property he has in his hands to escape him, nor desist from burning and capturing our vessels on every occasion, yet that he is, thus far, satisfied with our co

operation. And what is the language of George the Third, when our minister presents to his consideration the embargo laws? Is it Le roy s'avisera? The king will reflect upon them. No, it is the pure language of royal approbation. Le roy le veut. The king wills it. Were you colonies, he could expect no more. His subjects as inevitably get that commerce which you abandon, as the water will certainly run into the only channel which remains after all the others are obstructed. In whatever point of view we consider these embargo laws in relation to those edicts and decrees, we shall find them coöperating with each belligerent in its policy. In this way, I grant, our conduct may be impartial; but what has become of our American right to navigate the ocean? It is abandoned in strict conformity to the decrees of both belligerents. This resolution declares, that we will no longer submit to such degrading humiliation. Little as I relish, I will take it as the harbinger of a new day; the pledge of a new system of measures.

Perhaps, here, in strictness, I ought to close my observations. But the report of the committee, contrary to what I deem the principle of the resolution, unquestionably recommends the continuance of the embargo laws. And such is the state of the nation, and in particular that portion of it, which in part I represent, under their oppression, that I cannot refrain from submitting some considerations on that subject.

When I enter on the subject of the embargo, I am struck with wonder at the very threshold. I know not with what words to express my astonishment. At the time I departed from Massachusetts, if there was an impression, which I thought universal, it was, that, at the commencement of this session, an end would be put to this measure. The opinion was not so much, that it would be terminated, as that it was then at an end. Sir, the prevailing sentiment, according to my apprehension, was stronger than thiseven that the pressure was so great, that it could not possibly be endured; that it would soon be absolutely insupportable. And this opinion, as I then had reason to believe, was not confined to any one class, or description, or party; that even those who were friends of the existing administration, and unwilling to abandon it, were yet satisfied, that a sufficient trial had been given to this measure. With these impressions, I arrive in this city. I hear the incantations of the great enchanter. I feel his spell. I see the legislative machinery begin to move. The scene opens. And I am commanded to forget all my recollections, to disbelieve the evidence of my senses, to contradict what I have seen, and heard, and felt. I hear, that all this discontent is mere party clamor-electioneering artifice; that the people of New England are able and willing to endure this embargo for an indefinite, un

limited period; some say for six months; some a year; some two years. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Macon) told us, that he preferred three years of embargo to a war. And the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Clopton) said expressly, that he hoped we should never allow our vessels to go upon the ocean again, until the orders and decrees of the belligerents were rescinded; in plain English, until France and Great Britain should, in their great condescension, permit. Good heavens! Mr. Chairman, are men mad? Is this house touched with that insanity, which is the never-failing precursor of the intention of Heaven to destroy? The people of New England, after eleven months' deprivation of the ocean, to be commanded still longer to abandon it, for an undefined period; to hold their unalienable rights at the tenure of the will of Britain or of Bonaparte! A people, commercial in all aspects, in all their relations, in all their hopes, in all their recollections of the past, in all their prospects of the future; a people, whose first love was the ocean, the choice of their childhood, the approbation of their manly years, the most precious inheritance of their fathers, in the midst of their success, in the moment of the most exquisite perception of commercial prosperity, to be commanded to abandon it, not for a time limited, but for a time unlimited; not until they can be prepared to defend themselves there (for that is not pretended), but until their rivals recede from it; not until their necessities require, but until foreign nations permit! I am lost in astonishment, Mr. Chairman. I have not words to express the matchless absurdity of this attempt. I have no tongue to express the swift and headlong destruction, which a blind perseverance in such a system must bring upon this nation.

But men from New England, representatives on this floor, equally with myself the constitutional guardians of her interests, differ from me in these opinions. My honorable colleague (Mr. Bacon) took occasion, in secret session, to deny that there did exist all that discontent and distress, which I had attempted, in an humble way, to describe. He told us he had travelled in Massachusetts, that the people were not thus dissatisfied, that the embargo had not produced any such tragical effects. Really, sir, my honorable colleague has travelled-all the way from Stockbridge to Hudson; from Berkshire to Boston; from inn to inn; from county court to county court; and doubtless he collected all that important information, which an acute intelligence never fails to retain on such occasions. He found tea, sugar, salt, West India rum and molasses dearer; beef, pork, butter and cheese cheaper. Reflection enabled him to arrive at this difficult result, that in this way the evil and the good of the embargo equalize one another. But has my honorable colleague travelled on the seaboard? Has he witnessed the state of our cities? Has he seen our ships rot