SPEECH OF JOHN RANDOLPH,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE

UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 10, 1811,

On the second resolution reported by the committee of foreign relations, “That an additional force of ten thousand regular troops ought to be immediately raised, to serve for three years; and that a bounty in lands ought to be given to encourage enlistment."

MR. SPEAKER,

This is a question, as it has been presented to this house, of peace or war. In that light it has been argued; in no other light can I consider it, after the declarations made by members of the committee of foreign relations. Without intending any disrespect to the chair, I must be permitted to say, that if the decision yesterday was correct, "that it was not in order to advance any arguments against the resolution, drawn from topics before other committees of the house," the whole debate, nay, the report itself, on which we are acting, is disorderly, since the increase of the military force is a subject, at this time, in agitation by a select committee, raised on that branch of the president's message. But It is impossible that the discussion of a question, broad as the wide ocean of our foreign concerns, involving every consideration of interest, of right, of happiness, and of safety at home; touching, in every point, all that is dear to freemen, "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor," can be tied down by the narrow rules of technical routine.

The committee of foreign relations have, indeed, decided that the subject of arming the militia (which has been pressed upon them as indispensable to the public security), does not come within the scope of their authority. On what ground, I have been and still am unable to see, they have felt themselves authorized to recommend the raising of standing armies, with a view (as has been declared) of immediate war-a war, not of defence, but of conquest, of aggrandizement, of ambition-a war foreign to the interests of this country-to the interests of humanity itself.

I know not how gentlemen, calling themselves republicans, can advocate such a war. What was their doctrine in 1798 and '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, Pinkney, 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 our 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 where such men as have been named held high command! When Washington himself was at the head, did you show such reluctance, feel such scruples; and are you now nothing loath, 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 attending plenitude of power. Soon or late, some mania seizes upon its possessors; they fall from the dizzy height through giddiness. 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; but "lay not the flattering unction to your souls;" you will never live to enjoy the succession. You sign your political death-warrant.

[After adverting to the provocation to hostilities from shutting up the Mississippi, by Spain, in 1803, Mr. Randolph proceeded as follows:]

The peculiar situation of the frontier, at that time insulted, alone induced the committee to recommend the raising of regular troops. It was too remote from the population of the country for the militia to act, in repelling and chastising Spanish incursion. New Orleans and its dependencies were separated by a vast ex

tent of wilderness from the settlements of the old United States; filled with a disloyal and turbulent people, alien to our institutions, language and manners, and disaffected towards our government. Little reliance could be placed upon them; and it was plain, that if "it was the intention of Spain to advance on our possessions until she be repulsed by an opposing force," that force must be a regular army, unless we were disposed to abandon all the country south of Tennessee; that "the protection of our citizens and the spirit and the honor of our country required that force should be interposed." Nothing remained but for the legislature to grant the only practicable means, or to shrink from the most sacred of all its duties-to abandon the soil and its inhabitants to the mercy of hostile invaders. Yet this report, moderate as it was, was deemed of too strong a character by the house. It was rejected: and, at the motion of a gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Bidwell) [who has since taken a great fancy also to Canada, and marched off thither, in advance of the committee of foreign relations],"two millions of dollars were appropriated towards" (not in full of)" any extraordinary expense which might be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations; in other words, to buy off, at Paris, Spanish aggressions at home. Was this fact given in evidence of our impartiality towards the belligerents? That to the insults and injuries and actual invasion of one of them, we opposed, not bullets, but dollars; that to Spanish invasion we opposed money, whilst for British aggression on the high seas we had arms-offensive war? But Spain was then shielded, as well as instigated, by a greater power. Hence our respect for her. Had we at that time acted as we ought to have done in defence of our rights of the natale solum itself, we should, I feel confident, have avoided that series of insult, disgrace and injury, which has been poured out upon us in long, unbroken succession. We would not, then, raise a small, regular force for a country, where the militia could not act, to defend our own territory; now we are willing to levy a great army-for great it. must be to accomplish the proposed object for a war of conquest and ambition; and this, too, at the very entrance of the "northern hive" of the strongest part of the union.

An insinuation has fallen from the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Grundy), that the late massacre of our brethren on the Wabash was instigated by the British government. Has the president given any such information? Is it so believed by the administration? I have cause to believe the contrary to be the fact that such is not their opinion. This insinuation is of the grossest kind—a presumption the most rash, the most unjustifiable.. Show but good ground for it, I will give up the question at the threshold; I will be ready to march to Canada. It is, indeed,

well calculated to excite the feelings of the western people particularly, who are not quite so tenderly attached to our red brethren as some of our modern philosophers; but it is destitute of any foundation beyond mere surmise and suspicion. What would be thought, if, without any proof whatsoever, a member should rise in his place and tell us that the massacre in Savannah—a massacre perpetrated by civilized savages, with French commissions in their pockets, was excited by the French government? There is an easy and natural solution of the late transaction on the Wabash, in the well-known character of the aboriginal savage of North America, without resorting to any such mere conjectural estimate. I am sorry to say, that, for this signal calamity and disgrace, the house is, in part, at least, answerable. Session after session our table has been piled up with Indian treaties, for which the appropriations have been voted as a matter of course, without examination. Advantage has been taken of the spirit of the Indians, broken by the war which ended in the treaty of Grenville. Under the ascendency then acquired over them, they have been pent up, by subsequent treaties, into nooks; straitened in their quarters by a blind cupidity, seeking to extinguish their title to immense wildernesses; for which (possessing, as we do already, more land than we can sell or use) we shall not have occasion, for half a century to come. It is our own thirst for territory, our own want of moderation, that has driven these sons of nature to desperation, of which we feel the effects. Although not personally acquainted with the late Col. Daveiss, I feel, I am persuaded, as deep and serious regret for his loss as the gentleman from Tennessee himself. I know him only through the representation of a friend of the deceased (Mr. Rowan), some time a member of this housea man who, for native force of intellect, manliness of character, and high sense of honor, is not inferior to any that have ever sat here. With him I sympathize in the severest calamity that could befall a man of his cast of character. Would to God they were both now on this floor. From my personal knowledge of the one, I feel confident that I should have his support; and, I believe (judging of him from the representation of our common friend), of the other also.

I cannot refrain from smiling at the liberality of the gentleman, in giving Canada to New York, in order to strengthen the northern balance of power; while, at the same time, he forewarns her, that the western scale must preponderate. I can almost fancy that I see the capitol in motion towards the falls of Ohio; after a short sojourn, taking its flight to the Mississippi, and finally alighting on Darien; which, when the gentleman's dreams are realized, will be a most eligible seat of government for the new republic (or empire) of the two Americas! But it seems, that

"in 1808 we talked and acted foolishly," and to give some color of consistency to that folly, we must now commit a greater. Really I cannot conceive of a weaker reason, offered in support of a present measure, than the justification of a former folly. I hope we shall act a wise part; take warning by our follies, since we have become sensible of them, and resolve to talk and act foolishly no more. It is, indeed, high time to give over such preposterous language and proceedings. This war of conquest—a war for the acquisition of territory and subjects-is to be a new commentary on the doctrine, that republicans are destitute of ambition; that 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 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-alt is French! But how dreadfully it might be retorted on the southern and western slave-holding states. I detest this subornation of treason. No; if we must have them, let them fall by the valor of our arms; by fair, legitimate conquest; not become the victims of treacherous seduction.

I am not surprised at the war-spirit which is manifesting itself in gentlemen from the south. In the year 1805-6, in a struggle for the carrying trade of belligerent-colonial produce, this country was most unwisely brought into collision with the great powers of Europe. By a series of most impolitic and ruinous measures, utterly incomprehensible to every rational, sober-minded man, the southern planters, by their own votes, have succeeded in knocking down the price of cotton to seven cents, and of tobacco (a few choice crops excepted) to nothing; and in raising the price of blankets (of which a few would not be amiss in a Canadian campaign), coarse woollens, and every article of first necessity, three or four hundred per centum. And now, that, by our own acts, we have brought ourselves into this unprecedented condition, we must get out of it in any way, but by an acknowledgment of our own want of wisdom and forecast. But is war the true remedy? Who will profit by it? Speculators; a few lucky merchants, who draw prizes in the lottery; commissaries and contracters. Who must suffer by it? The people. It is their blood, their taxes, that must flow to support it.

But gentlemen avowed that they would not go to war for the