our enemy, and, having wrested it from him, we restore it to you, in the hope that you will take better care of it for the future."] "The gentleman from Massachusetts is truly unfortunate; fact or principle is always against him. The Spanish posts were not in the possession of the enemy. One old Indian only was found in the Barancas, none in Pensacola, none in St. Marks. There was not even the color of a threat of Indian occupation as it regards Pensacola and the Barancas. Pensacola was to be restored unconditionally, and might, therefore, immediately have come into the possession of the Indians, if they had the power and the will to take it. The gentleman is in a dilemma from which there is no escape. He gave up General Jackson when he supported the president, and gave up the president when he supported General Jackson. I rejoice to have seen the president manifesting, by the restoration of Pensacola, his devotedness to the constitution. When the whole country was ringing with plaudits for its capture, I said, and I said alone, in the limited circle in which I moved, that the president must surrender it; that he could not hold it. It is not my intention to inquire, whether the army was or was not constitutionally marched into Florida. It is not a clear question, and I am inclined to think that the express authority of Congress ought to have been asked. But, if the president had the power to march an army into Florida, without consulting Spain, and without the authority of Congress, he had no power to authorize any act of hostility against her. If the gentleman had even succeeded in showing that an authority was conveyed by the executive to General Jackson to take the Spanish posts, he would only have established that unconstitutional orders had been given, and thereby transferred the disapprobation from the military officer to the executive. But no such orders were, in truth, given. The president acted in conformity to the constitution, when he forbade the attack of a Spanish fort, and when, in the same spirit, he surrendered the posts themselves. "I will not trespass much longer upon the time of the committee; but I trust I shall be indulged with some few reflections upon the danger of permitting the conduct on which it has been my painful duty to animadvert, to pass without a solemn expression of the disapprobation of this house. Recall to your recollection the free nations which have gone before us. Where are they now? 'Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were, And how have they lost their liberties? If we could transport ourselves back to the ages when Greece and Rome flourished in their greatest prosperity, and, mingling in the throng, should ask a Grecian, if he did not fear that some daring military chieftain, covered with glory, some Philip or Alexander, would one day overthrow the liberties of his country, the confident and indignant VOL. I.-18 Grecian would exclaim, No! no! we have nothing to fear from our heroes; our liberties will be eternal.' If a Roman citizen had been asked, if he did not fear that the conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly repelled the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell; Cæsar passed the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could not preserve the liberties of his devoted country! The celebrated Madame de Stael, in her last and perhaps her best work, has said, that in the very year, almost the very month, when the president of the directory declared that monarchy would never more show its frightful head in France, Bonaparte, with his grenadiers, entered the palace of St. Cloud, and dispersing, with the bayonet, the deputies of the people, deliberating on the affairs of the state, laid the foundation of that vast fabric of despotism which overshadowed all Europe. I hope not to be misunderstood. I am far from intimating that General Jackson cherishes any designs inimical to the liberties of the country. I believe his intentions_to be pure and patriotic. I thank God that he would not, but I thank him still more that he could not if he would, overturn the liberties of the republic. But precedents, if bad, are fraught with the most dangerous consequences. Man has been described, by some of those who have treated of his nature, as a bundle of habits. The definition is much truer when applied to governments. Precedents are their habits. There is one important difference between the formation of habits by an individual and by governments. He contracts it only after frequent repetition. A single instance fixes the habit and determines the direction of governments. Against the alarming doctrine of unlimited discretion in our military commanders when applied even to prisoners of war, I must enter my protest. It begins upon them; it will end on us. I hope our happy form of government is to be perpetual. But, if it is to be preserved, it must be by the practice of virtue, by justice, by moderation, by magnanimity, by greatness of soul, by keeping a watchful and steady eye on the executive; and, above all, by holding to a strict accountability the military branch of the public force. "We are fighting a great moral battle, for the benefit, not only of our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the whole world are in fixed attention upon us. One, and the largest portion of it, is gazing with contempt, with jealousy, and with envy; the other portion, with hope, with confidence, and with affection. Everywhere the black cloud of legitimacy is suspended over the world, save only one bright spot, which breaks out from the political hemisphere of the west, to enlighten, and animate, and gladden the human heart. Obscure that, by the downfall of liberty here, and all mankind are enshrouded in a pall of universal darkness. To you, Mr. Chairman, belongs the high privilege of transmitting, unimpaired, to posterity, the fair character and liberty of our coun try. Do you expect to execute this high trust, by trampling, or suffering to be trampled down, law, justice, the constitution, and the rights of the people? by exhibiting examples of inhumanity, and cruelty, and ambition? When the minions of despotism heard, in Europe, of the seizure of Pensacola, how did they chuckle, and chide the admirers of our institutions, tauntingly pointing to the demonstration of a spirit of injustice and aggrandizement made by our country, in the midst of an amicable negotiation. Behold, said they, the conduct of those who are constantly reproaching kings. You saw how those admirers were astounded and hung their heads. You saw, too, when that illustrious man, who presides over us, adopted his pacific, moderate, and just course, how they once more lifted up their heads with exultation and delight beaming in their countenances. And you saw how those minions themselves were finally compelled to unite in the general praises bestowed upon our government. Beware how you forfeit this exalted character Beware how you give a fatal sanction, in this infant period of our republic, scarcely yet two-score years old, to military insubordination. Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Cæsar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte, and that if we would escape the rock on which they split, we must avoid their errors. * "I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful isthmus on which we stand. They may bear down all opposition; they may even vote the general the public thanks; they may carry him triumphantly through this house. But, if they do, in my humble judgment, it will be a triumph of the principle of insubordination, a triumph of the military over the civil authority, a triumph over the powers of this house, a triumph over the constitution of the land. And I pray most devoutly to Heaven, that it may not prove, in its ultimate effects and consequences, a triumph over the liberties of the people." The several stages of action, through which the resolution of censure reported by the committee on military affairs passed, while under debate, resulted in a majority against it, ranging from thirty to forty-six, in a house of one hundred and seventy members present. So the conduct of General Jackson was NOT disapproved. It can not but be observed, since the character of General Jackson stands so strongly developed before the world, that the part taken by Mr. Clay on this occasion, is sufficient to account for all that afterward occurred of an unpleasant nature, in the relations of these two individuals, as disclosed in other chapters of this work. Could such a speech ever be forgiven by the subject of it? Was it not the CAUSE OF GREAT EFFECTS? CHAPTER XIII. THE MISSOURI QUESTION. In the history of the United States, there has not, perhaps, been a more critical moment, arising from the violence of domestic excitement, than in the agitation of the Missouri question, from 1818 to 1821, unless it be the attempt at nullification by South Carolina, in 1832-'33. In case of the actual collision of force with force, the latter, probably, in the circumstances of the case, could have been quelled more easily than the former, simply because it could not bring to its aid the whole southern section of the Union; whereas, that portion of the country was united on the Missouri question. The arguments on both sides were forcible, in view of the respective parties, urged by their own feelings and interests. It was maintained, on the one hand, that the compromise of the federal constitution, regarding slavery, respected only its existing limits at the time; that it was most remote from the views of the parties to this arrangement, to have the domain of slavery extended on that basis; that the fundamental principles of the American revolution, and of the government and institutions erected upon it, were hostile to slavery; that the compromise was simply a toleration of things that were, and not a basis for things to be; that these securities of slavery as it existed, would be forfeited by an extension of the system; that the honor of the republic before the world, and its moral influence with mankind in favor of freedom, were identified with the advocacy of principles of universal emancipation; that the act of 1787, which established the territorial government north and west of the river Ohio, prohibiting slavery for ever therefrom, was a public recognition and avowal of the principles and designs of the people of the United States, in regard to new states and territories, north and west; and that the proposal to establish slavery in Missouri, was a violation of all these great and fundamental principles. On the other hand, it was maintained, that slavery was incorporated in the system of society as established in Louisiana, which comprehended the territory of Missouri, when purchased from France in 1803; that the faith of the United States was pledged by treaty to all the inhabitants of that wide domain, to maintain their rights and privileges on the same footing with the tenants of the original federal jurisdiction; and consequently, that, slavery being a part of their state of society, it would be a violation of federal engagements to abolish it without their consent. Nor could the federal government-as they maintained-prescribe the abolition of slavery to any part of said territory as a condition of being erected into a state of the Union, if they were otherwise entitled to it on the federal platform. It might as well, they said, be required of them to abolish any other municipal regulation, or to annihilate any other attribute of sovereignty. If the federal authorities had made an improper or ill-advised treaty in the purchase of Louisiana, they maintained, it would be manifest injustice to make the citizens of this newly-acquired portion of their jurisdiction, suffer on that account. They claimed, that they were received as a slaveholding community, on the same footing with other slave states, and that the existence or non-existence of slavery could not be made a question, when they presented themselves at the door of the capitol of the republic for a state charter. Such was the feeling, and such comprehensively were the arguments, in the two great sections of the Union, when the territory of Missouri, in 1818, asserted its claim to be incorporated as a state. The preparatory act of Congress, required to authorize a convention of the people of the territory to form a state-constitution, was taken up in the session of 1818-'19. In the house of representatives, the following resolutions were inserted in the bill: "That the further introduction of slavery, or involuntary servitude, be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been fully convicted." Yeas 87-nays 76. "And that all children born within the said state, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twentyfive years." Yeas 82-nays 78. The final action of the house, to incorporate these restrictions in the bill, was, yeas 91-nays 82. But the senate rejected these conditions, and the house ad |