* A 
 
 V »':^'v <^. 
 
 
 "°o 
 
 1^ • 
 
 
 V .J'^'^^.. V 
 
 •^>o^ 
 
 c" ♦* 
 
 vO 
 
 
 
 v' ,*p^'* <^-^ -.o"^ 
 
 
 ^^o^^^' 
 
 
 
 t^. 
 
 
 'oK 
 
 -P. 
 
 
 .«5^r 
 
 .^^ "^^^ -: 
 
 
 ,V ^, 
 
 
 '^o. 
 
 - V* .•»^L'* «> 
 

 
 
 vP<i- 
 
 4^ '^^ ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .'^ .^^-^^.^ V 
 
 
 •«<v "■ 
 
 5. '.^s*:*^ j^ V '>i^.- 
 
 
 
\?.\?^ 
 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts^ 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,! 
 
 June 25, 1812. / 
 
 THE Committee of the House of Representatives to 
 wlioni was referred the Message of His Excellency the Go- 
 vernor, transmitting a letter from the Hon. Mr. Lloyd, one 
 of the Senators of this Commonwealth in the Congress of the 
 United States, enclosing the copy of an Act of Congress, de- 
 claring War against the United Kingdom of Great-Britain and 
 Ireland, and to whom was also referred the Memorial of the 
 Inhabitants of Salem to this H9use ; have attended the service 
 assigned them, and ask leave to Report the following Address 
 to the People of this Commonwealth, which is respectfully 
 
 submitted. 
 
 N. TILLlNf^HAST, per Orikr. 
 
 Si' 
 

ADDRESS 
 
 OP THE HOUSE OF REPBESEJSrTtlTIVES 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTa 
 
 FELLOW CITIZEJVS, 
 
 THE House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 
 having nearly completed the ordinary duties of the ses- 
 sion, upon the eve of an adjournment, are induced to 
 delay their departure for their homes, by the intelligence 
 just received, of War declared by the United- States, 
 against Great Britain. Though the recent course of 
 public aifairs has led some of us to anticipate this event, 
 as the natural and inevitable consequence of the infatua- 
 tion which has presided in the national councils, and of 
 the fatal desertion of your interests by some of your o\mi 
 Representatives in Congress ; yet we are sensible that 
 this calamity will fall upon most of you as a sudden and 
 unexpected visitation ; and be regarded by you as an 
 instance of inconceivable folly afid desperation. We 
 also know, that it will be natural for |^ou to look to- 
 
4 
 
 wards your State Legislature, for the suggestion of some 
 means of relief from a condition so repugnant to your 
 wishes and interests. Most gladly would we devote our 
 time and exertions to any means of repairing the mischief 
 already begun, or of averting the ruinous consequences 
 which await our country. But our disposition unless 
 seconded by the active energies of the people can be of 
 no avail. The system deliberately adopted at a former 
 Session for securing permanent power to a majority of 
 the Senate in defiance of the voice of the people, impedes 
 and defeats the expression of the public will. The ap- 
 probation of War measures by a minority in this branch 
 and by certain members of Congress from this state, ex- 
 hibits you as a divided people to those who triumph in 
 your divisions, as a source of their own power ; and the 
 National Government has been induced to believe that your 
 fears and dissentions combined with your sober habits, 
 and natural aversion from the appearance of opposition to 
 the laws, are sufficient pledges for your tame acquies- 
 cence in the abandonment of your local interests, and for 
 your supporting at the expense of your blood and trea- 
 sure, a war, unnecessary, unjustifiable and impolitic; 
 which under the pretence of vindicating the independence 
 of our cou ntry against a nation which does not threaten 
 it, must too probably consign your liberties to the care 
 of a tyrant who has blotted every vestige of independence 
 from the continent of Europe. 
 
 Having presented a temperate and respectful memorf- 
 al to Congress, praying them to avert the evils of war 
 without effect ; it no longer becomes us to conceal our 
 sentiments upon the causes and tendency of the present 
 
5 
 
 war. The time perhaps approaches, when like other 
 millions of French power and influence, we shall be ex- 
 pected to observe a timid and profound silence upon the 
 measures of administration. A war begun upon princi- 
 ciples so outrageous to public opinions, to the feehngs 
 and interests of this people, can be supported only by the 
 violence which destroys the freedom of speech, and en- 
 dangers the Tiberty of the citizen. But while our Cham- 
 ber is not yet encompassed by a standing army and the 
 WTit of habeas corpus is not suspended, we will lift up a 
 warning voice to our constituents, and apprise them of 
 iheir danger. 
 
 '^^''hen amidst the peaceful scenes, in which for 
 thirty years you have been accustomed to repose, 
 you are made to realise that zvar exists ; when you find 
 that to :-.upply the exhausted treasury, paper money has 
 been issued ; and that direct and burdensome taxes must 
 be imposed upon your lands and your occupations, while 
 the means of providing for their payment are diminish- 
 ed ; we feel with what inquisitive anxiety you will look 
 around you for the causes of your tribulation. No in- 
 vasion of our country has been threatened. No enemy 
 \vus near. No enterprise upon our independence had 
 been undertaken. Neither treason, insurrection, nor re- 
 sistance to the execution of the laws, were to be appre- 
 hended : Your commercial rights it is true have been ex- 
 posed to violation by the belligerent nations, and injuries 
 hiu e been sustained, that were entitled to redress. But. 
 though the jneasure of injury cannot affect the jnght of re- 
 paration ; it ought not to be disregarded by a wise nation 
 in its attempt to procure atonement, by a resort to the 
 l^+st extremity. 
 
6 
 
 Without stopping upon this mobt solemn occasionj td 
 notice the insinuations and assertions so lavishly made, 
 of a plot to dismember tlie Union, by the employment 
 of secret emissaries, and the attempts to excite Indian 
 hostilities, insinuations and assertions wholly unsup- 
 ported by proof, and which furnish conclusive evidence 
 of a want of more important reasons ; we may consider 
 the causes assigned bj^ government for this appeal to 
 arms, to be, in substance, 
 
 First. The impressment of American seamen. 
 
 Secondly. The principles of bloc/cade, imputed to the 
 British government, by which poils not actually invest- 
 ed may be considered as subject to blockade. 
 
 Thirdly, and principally. The Oixlcrs in Council, 
 
 In regard to the impi-essment of our scamcH, the Bri- 
 -^sh government have at no period pretended to the right 
 of taking them, knowing them to be such* They claim 
 the right of visiting neutral ships in search yf their own 
 subjects ; and in tlie exercise of it, abuses, though to a 
 much less extent than the people have been led to be- 
 lieve, have been practised. But the conclusive remark 
 apon this subject is, that ?>ir. Monroe now Secretary 
 of State, and Mr. Pinkney, the present Attorney Ge- 
 neral, had made an arrangement with the British Go- 
 vernment, for the protection of our seamen, which in 
 their judgment would have been perfectly competent 
 to that object. But this arrangement. President Jef- 
 fersou, evidently and llitally determined to preserve 
 every source of irritation, refused to confirm. Since 
 that period the British Government has always profess- 
 ed a willingness to enter upon new arrangement^ their 
 
Minister has lately explicitly offered to obtain the re. 
 storation of every Americ;in Seaman, upon being fur- 
 nished with a list of them. We cannot but add, that 
 the Senate of this Commonwealth has refused to con- 
 cur with the House in the means of procuring from 
 every town a list of their impressed citizens, the number 
 of which we have reason to believe would appear quite 
 inconsiderable in comparison with the exaggerated allega- 
 tions of our administration, as well as with those who 
 by this act of their own Government, ore now exposed to 
 capture arid to confnement in prison ships. 
 
 Upon the question of constructive blockades^ sep- 
 arate from the Orders in Council, which rest on 
 special circumstances, there can be no pretence for 
 a controversy, involving the necessity of War. The 
 British Government has declared in "official com- 
 munications" that to constitute a blockade " par- 
 ticular ports must be actually invested and previous war- 
 ning given to vessels bound to them not to enter." To 
 this definition it is understood, that the American Gov- 
 ernment assents. But it is alleged that Great Britain 
 violates her professed limitation of this right of blockade, 
 by her Orders in Council, which are in effect, a construe. 
 tive blockade of France, ajid her dependencies. 
 
 It is far from the disposition of your Representatives 
 to investigate the reasons advanced by Great Britain in 
 defence of this measure, which her present administration 
 consider essential to the maintenance of her" indepen- 
 dence. But we may confidently appeal to your good 
 sense, for confirmation of the solcnm truth, that war a- 
 gainst Great Britain ahne, ;..t the moment she declares 
 
8 
 
 her Orders in Council repealed, whcficvcr a r«^votation of 
 the French decrees shall have effect, is a measure stamp-, 
 ed with partiality and injustice. By the operation of 
 these orders our commerce is excluded from the ports 
 of France and her dependencies. But were they repeal-^ 
 ed, the municipal regulations, heavy duties and other 
 multiplied embarrassments in those ports, would be ob- 
 stacles to tliat commerce, not less effectual than the Brit- 
 ish edicts. Thus to obtain the right to trafHck with 
 France, which would not be worth pursuing, we re- 
 nounce a participation in a lucrative commerce with the 
 rest of the world. To indemnify the merchant for his 
 partial losses, his whole property is exposed to capture^ 
 To secure retribution for occasional depredations, and in- 
 dividual outrage upon solitary vessels by British cruis- 
 ers, the entire navigation of the country and your brave 
 seamen will flill a prey to their fleets, which cover the 
 ocean. 
 
 This cursory view of the alleged causes of hostility, 
 compared with your own observation, and recollection of 
 the course of events, will enable you to judge not only of 
 the sincerity of the administration, but of the solidity of 
 their motives. We beg you also to recollect that the 
 French Decrees, while they were much more outrageous 
 in principle, were long anterior in time, and there- 
 fore first demanded resistance from our Government, 
 and that it appears by public documents, that the Orders 
 in Council w^ouldhave been revoked, had not our admin- 
 istration thought proper to connect the revocation with a 
 claim for the relinquishment of principles of blockade 
 which are now recognized as conformable to the Law of 
 Nations. From these considerations we ai^e constraj^eifl 
 
hj a sense of dnty tc^express our fears and persuasion^ 
 that the deplor;:ble event vrhich has vtow come to pass, 
 is attributable to otlner causes.. The most prominent of 
 these is the embarrassment arising from the precipitate 
 declaration of the President of the United States, that the 
 French decrees, which violated our commercial rights, 
 were repealed. This assurance has been contradicted by 
 a series of events and circumstances w^hich leave no room 
 for doubt. By the sinking and burning of our vessels 
 on the high seas ; by the formal declaration of the French 
 Government enforcing and amplifying those decrees ; and 
 finally by the language of the last Presidential Message 
 to Congress, which, while it* still asserts the repeal of those 
 decrees, explicitly admits, that since the period of such 
 pretended repeal " her government has authorized ille- 
 f ' gal captures by its privateers and public ships, and that 
 ^' other outrages have been practised on our vessels and 
 *' our citizens ; and that no indemnity has been provided 
 " or pledged for French spoliations on the property of 
 *' our citizens." It is thus manifest, that the mock re- 
 vocation of those decrees is an insult to common sense. 
 Yet to disguise the imposition practised upon our Exe- 
 cutive, to gratify its wounded pride, and evade the re- 
 traction of error, we are called upon to hazard all that is 
 dear to a nation. 
 
 Another and more remote cause of this war, we are 
 compelled to refer to a disposition in many, whose influ- 
 ence predominates in our national councils, to aggrandize 
 the Southern and Western States at the expence of the 
 Eastern section of the Union. It is unquestionably true^ 
 that the partial and local interests of the people of tb/^ 
 2 
 
10 
 
 different states might, by a spirit of accommodation, fee 
 so blended and reconciled as to produce a great and har- 
 monious whole, capable of securing the highest degree 
 of national felicity and strength. But we cannot disguise 
 our conviction, that a system coeval with the formation 
 of our Constitution was digested and has been unceas- 
 ingly pursued to create and secure a preponderance oF 
 weight and power over the Commercial States. What- 
 ever tends to check the growth of the navigating interest, 
 and prevent the accumulation of wealth in those states ; 
 whatever discourages the increase of their population and 
 encourages emigration from them ; whatever will con- 
 tribute to the extension of territory in the Southern and 
 Western region, by conquest or otherwise, will material- 
 ly contribute to the attainment of that object. The war 
 now commenced is adapted to produce these effects. 
 
 The first result will be a wide and wasteful sweep of 
 our vessels by capture. The shipping of Massachusetts 
 is her main sinews The loss of it is irretrievable, as it 
 constitutes capital. But to a southern planter, this is at 
 most a temporary evil, as foreign bottoms will carry his 
 crops to market. By tl^ embarrassments and losses 
 thus attendant upon commerce, it is the expectation of 
 soma politicians, that it will be deemed unworthy of 
 protection and cease to be represented, and that the at- 
 tention of men will be diverted from commercial pur- 
 ' suits, and their emigi'ation promoted to countries ac- 
 ^ quired or intended to be acquired by conquest or pur- 
 ^ chase ; which form no part of the original territory of the 
 ^ Uiiited States and were not included in our national 
 
 compact. 
 
Ill 
 
 Another cause of the present war must be referred to 
 a spirit of jealousy, and competition with Great Britain, 
 to a mistaken belief that she would yield to the pressure 
 of the continental system established by the Tyrant of 
 Europe, and to a propensity to co-operate in that sys- 
 tem, in the hope of sharing in the glory of its success, 
 and perpetuating in our Country the party influence and 
 power of its advocates. By adopting and pertinacious- 
 ly adhering to this system, the party in power ad- 
 vanced too far to retreat without discredit. They have 
 calculated that a change of their measures would be a 
 confession of error, and that this must be followed by 
 the forfeiture of their claim to public confidence. But 
 in war, the worst that can befall them is the loss of oflice 
 and of power, and they are not without hope of finding 
 a refuge from censure and contempt in the more violent 
 passion? which are inseparable from a state of war. 
 
 It is by these means, fellow Citizens, in our appre-'. 
 hension, that you are now involved in WAR. The 
 event forms a new Era in our national history. It Is an, 
 event awful, unexpected, hostile to your interests, men- 
 acing to your liberties, and revolting to your feelings.. 
 It destroys your confidence in the protection which the 
 constitution intended to afford against all wars repugnant 
 to the interest and will of the people ; and proves that 
 your Congress is in greater subjection to Executive in- 
 fluence, and to the passions of the few, than to the as-, 
 cendency of dispassionate councils. But your duties 
 are great in proportion to the magnitude of the exigen- 
 cy, and the trial imposed upon your fortitude and.patri- 
 otjsm^ 
 
12 
 
 You are the Citizens of one country, and bound to sup- 
 port all constitutional laws, until, by a peaceable change 
 of men, you can effect the repeal of such as are obnoxious. 
 You must also defend your Country against invasion 
 by any fc*-eign enemy, without weighing the justice or 
 necessity of the War. We pray you to discourage all at- 
 tempts to obtain redress of grievances by any acts of vio- 
 lence or combinations to oppose the laws. Your habits 
 of obedience to the dictates of duty, your just and tem- 
 perate views of your social and political obligations, your 
 'lirm -^.ttachment to the Constitution, are pledges for the 
 correctness of your conduct. When a great people find 
 themselves oppressed by the measures of their govern- 
 ment, when their just rights cU'e neglected, their inter- 
 ests overlooked, their opinions disregarded, and their re= 
 spectful petitions received with supercilious contempt, 
 it is impossible for them to submit in silence. In other 
 countries, such occurrences produce tumults, rebellion 
 and civil war. But in our country, a peaceable remedy 
 may be found for these evils in the Constitution. Situ- 
 ated, however, as you now are, every man must be quick 
 to discern, and active to apply this remedy. It must be 
 evident to you, tliat a President who has made this war, 
 is not qualified to make peace ; and that the men who 
 have concurred in this act of desperation, are pledged to 
 persevere in their course, regardless of all consequences^ 
 Display then the majesty of the people in the exercise of 
 your rights, aixl sacrificing all party feelings at the altar 
 of your country's good, resolve to displace those who 
 have abused their power, aaid betrayed their trust. Or- 
 ganize ?i. peace party throughout your country, and let 
 all other party distinctions vanish. Keep a steadfast eye 
 
13 
 
 upon the presidential election, and remember that if he, 
 whose fatal policy has plunged you into this unexampled 
 calamity, is again raised to the chair ; and if the abettors 
 of war are to be entrusted with conducting it ; you will 
 have nothing to expect for years to come, but ** the 
 sound of the warrior and garments rolled in blood ;" 
 and that if you should by your aid accelerate the fall of 
 Great Britain, you would merely deliver over your ex- 
 hausted country, and enslaved posterity to the dominion 
 of a t3Tant, whose want of power alone restrains him 
 from the exercise of unlimited despotism on the ocean, 
 and the same tyranny in the new world which he has 
 imposed upon the old. 
 
 To secure a full effect to your object, it will be 
 necessary that you should meet and consult to- 
 gether for tlie common good in your towns and 
 countieso It is in dark and trying times, that this 
 constitutional privilege becomes invaluable. Express 
 your sentiments without fear, and let the sound of your 
 disapprobation of this War be loud and deep. Let it 
 be distinctly understood, that in support of it, your con- 
 formity to the requisitions of law will be the result of 
 principle mid not of choice. If your sons must be torn 
 from you by conscriptions, consign them to the care of 
 God ; but let there be no volunteers except for defen- 
 sive war. 
 
 Remember this, if unsuccessful, will be the last effort 
 of a free Republic ; you must exhibit to the world the 
 magnanimity and constancy of a people suffering under 
 the oppression of their rulers and developing resources 
 for relief in their own energy and virtue, and in theprin- 
 
14 
 
 ciples of their Constitution, without desltoyint^ ■.uc 
 fabric. Such, a spectacle would indeed be most glo- 
 rious for our country, and consolatory tp a '''-ee'ping 
 world. The friends of the human race would rejoice 
 that one free people has escaped a snare into which its 
 Government had fallen. But if blind witli prejudice 
 and passion we permit power to remain wit] those who 
 forget right, we must become the allies of France, and 
 our only honor will consist in our having been the last 
 free Republic. 
 
 Finally, fellow- citizens, we are constrained to de- 
 clare our opinion that the war, under presen*^^ circum- 
 stances, is a wanton sacrifice of your be :;t interests. 
 That the provocation is not adequate to this highest and 
 most signal act of vengeance. That were it ever so 
 just, it ought not to be undertaken without greater pre- 
 paration. And that the declaration of war is in fact a 
 commission from our government to the British cruisers 
 to seize on that portion of our commeircial capital which 
 has hitherto esxaped the aggressions of foreign nationg^. 
 and the no less fatal measures of our own government. 
 
 w 
 

 
 >4 
 
 
 ♦ AT "Ov • "^ 
 
 
 

 «0^ . « • o.