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TOUCHSTONE 
 
 TO TF!E 
 
 peovlj: of tee uxiteb states; 
 
 OS Tilt 
 
 / 
 
 CHOICE OF A FMESIBENT. 
 
 JS^ETV-rORfC: 
 
 PRINTED i^MD PUBLISHED BY PELSUE & GOULD, 
 No. 3 New-street. 
 
 1812. 
 
I >-- 
 
 SXSTBICT or 5^W.V0BK, ss. 
 
 Be it Remembered, Tliat on the sixteenth day of July, 
 in the tliirty-sixlh year of the independence of the Uni- 
 ,. _ . ted States of America, Pclsue & Gould of the said Dis- 
 ^ ' trict, have deposited in this office the title of a Book, 
 the rig-ht whereof they claim as proprietors, in the 
 words following-, to wit : " touchtsone to the peo- 
 
 ILZ or THE UNITED -STATES, ON THE CHOICE Or A PRESIDENT." 
 
 In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, 
 «• An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the co- 
 pies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the authors and proprietors of 
 guch copies, during the time therein mentioned." And also to an 
 Act, entitled, " An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act 
 for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, 
 Charts and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, 
 during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits 
 thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical 
 
 and other prints. 
 
 CHARLES CLINTON, 
 
 Clerk ef the District of New-York. 
 
TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UMITEID ST»dTE8. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens, 
 
 There is not a more admirable principle in the 
 frame of our excellent constitution, than the peri- 
 odical return of sovereign power into the hands 
 of the people, for the purpose of delegating a su- 
 preme executive trust of their national concerns. 
 
 Power, in its original nature, is undoubtedly 
 always in the people : but it is only at the periods 
 of election, that they exhibit and maintain a con- 
 stitutional sovereignty. This remark should be 
 constantly had in view, in regard to the highest 
 official station in their government, and should 
 render them peculiarly jealous of their privileges 
 in that particular. 
 
 The principal value of the right of the people 
 to the choice of a chief magistrate, consists in the 
 controul which it gives them over the future di- 
 rection of their public affairs ; a matter in which 
 
every citizen is intimately concerned, both in his 
 fortune and safety, and compared with which, 
 the gratification of an idle feeling of favoritism, 
 or the triumph of a prevailing party, to further 
 the views of particular men, is beneath considera- 
 tion. 
 
 This privilege, so precious, that it may be call- 
 ed both the guarantee of our liberties, and our 
 security against the continuance of a weak or 
 wicked administration of our affairs, requires to 
 be exercised with wisdom and guarded with cir- 
 cumspection, in order not to be defrauded of its 
 ends. 
 
 History teaches us that the liberties of the peo- 
 ple are filched away in small parcels at the be- 
 ginning . Nations have sunk in slavery from the 
 eflfects of an abuse, no wise greater than is obser- 
 vable in a practice, which has lately obtained 
 among the members of Congress at the seat of 
 government ; a practice which aims at filling the 
 presidential chair, by forestalling the elective fran- 
 chise, and institutes its own formalities, as a pre- 
 requisite to the choice of the people. Though the 
 parties concerned may pretend there is nothing 
 morally wrong, or re})ugnant to the spirit of the 
 constitution in this proceeding, yet a wise and 
 jealous people will not fail to see therein, their 
 elective power subject to be curtailed, and take a 
 direction at least artificial ; with this further dan- 
 
ger, that where profligate men are the actors, it 
 is liable to entire subversion. 
 
 It is worthy of observation also, that the im- 
 pulse given to an election in support of him who 
 is the existing president, will be as strong as can 
 possibly be effected by the intrigues and exertions 
 of such as bask in the sunshine of official favor, 
 or receive the emoluments of places dependant on 
 the executive will. The president being the only 
 person in the administration immediately subject 
 to the elective franchise, and the other public 
 functionaries owing their appointment to him, the 
 whole patronage and influence of their offices 
 will be brought into exercise, and enlisted in his 
 behalf for the best of all possible reasons, that of 
 keeping themselves in place. Indeed these will 
 always form a sort of cabal in favor of the incum- 
 bent in office. It is so natural for power to attract 
 to itself as to a centre, all that receives conse- 
 quence or derives support from it, that it may be 
 looked for as resulting from the unerring ope- 
 ration of cause and effect, that the presidential 
 election will be swayed to the utmost of their 
 ability, whose offices hang on the event. They 
 will write labored encomiums on themselves and 
 on their masters, and trumpet forth praises on 
 their services and on their talents ; although 
 of the latter, their allowance may be scanty 
 enough for the ordinary callings of life, and al- 
 
though their services shall have had no other ef- 
 feet, than that of marring the pubUc fortunes, 
 while they made their own. They will toil and 
 sweat to bring about a stroke of politics favorable 
 to themselves, while matters of state are at cross 
 purposes, and either wholly out of sight, or else 
 beyond their capacity; they will occupy every 
 avenue to public opinion, by glozing statements, 
 and keep the public mini in a ferment on mo- 
 mentous questions, to draw off attention from the 
 schemes by which they are aiming to continue in 
 power. 
 
 The people at large may be said to feel a wise 
 pol'cy in the administering of their government, 
 and one that is contrary thereto, as sensibly as 
 the human body perceives a healthy or sickly at- 
 mosphere. Nor is the understanding of a citizen 
 in the common walks of life, less capable of dis- 
 cerning the powers of the body politic, and the 
 declining condition of the state, than the eye is of 
 observing the ravages of sickness on the frame, 
 and the bad effects of impure air on surrounding 
 objects Not that the wisest policy is always be- 
 neficial in immediate operation ; but it would be 
 an abuse of terms to call that policy wise, which 
 is not calculated immediately or remotely to con- 
 fer benefits on a nation. A system of public mea- 
 sures will 5how genius and wisdom in its process, 
 where those qualities have had any thing to do 
 
with its contrivance ; whereas to place a blind re- 
 liance on experimental projects, to be constantly 
 foiled, to grope about like one blindfold, to exhi- 
 bit resources withered, domestic prosperity im- 
 paired, and foreign relations irremediably entang- 
 led, may justly excite a suspicion of the ability of 
 those entrusted with the management of affairs. 
 
 But it is not merely unskifulness, or incompe- 
 tency, that has been the cause of the zig zag 
 course of our cabinet, and given birth to the her- 
 maphrodite policy so injurious to our own inter- 
 ests, and disgraceful in the eyes of all nations. 
 The late resort to hostilities cannot effect an obli- 
 vion of the past, nor become an act of indemnity 
 in favor of the administration. An overweening 
 passion for popularity, and an unwillingness to 
 put station on the issue of strong measures, at 
 junctures that imperiously demanded a recourse to 
 them, it is feared have mingled their impure cur- 
 rents in the pool, on whose surface the public 
 weal has been allowed to stagnate. If there are 
 better motives through which to account for the 
 steps, which have conducted us down the descent 
 of political degradation, I am ignorant of them. 
 I have heard of worse, but as they involve a tur- 
 pitude that I am unwilling to ascribe to any Ame- 
 can, I shall not allow them to have had the least 
 operation. 
 
8 
 
 Considerate men of both parties, into which 
 politics have divided the American community, la- 
 ment the deplorable situation of the country, and 
 are beginning to draw nearer to each other in at- 
 tributing its real causes. I look upon this as a 
 symptom that augurs favorably for the return of 
 the body politic to a healthier habit ; we must be 
 sensible of a disease before we take alarm ; we 
 must ascertain its nature before we can discover 
 or apply suitable remedies. And to what other 
 source can we look for political regeneration, or 
 how else escape destruction, than by the common 
 and united efforts of all good men at this season 
 of peril, in the cause of our country and its free- 
 dom, the price of the blood of our fathers. 
 
 I am aware it may be objected, that this man- 
 ner of speaking prejudges the case of our rulers ; 
 instead of simply stating it to the understanding, 
 and leaving its decision to the public mind. But 
 it is sufficient to answer, that I am not engaged 
 in developing an intricate argument, or in dis- 
 cussing an abstract point of metaphysical doc- 
 trine ; nor could I escape the reproach of a school 
 disputant, if I should take the method of postu- 
 late, and proposition and deduction to establish 
 the fact of our calamities, or to prove that they 
 are to be laid at the door of the administration. 
 That mistakes have been committed is palpable; 
 
and whether the error is of the head or the heart, 
 makes not an atom's difference in its pernicious 
 effect on the state. Our political doctors have 
 dealt in panaceas, till the quackery has ruined 
 the public health ; the question before the nation 
 is, whether a new physician shall be called in, or 
 those be re ained in employ, who have already 
 furnished so many proofs of inability, and whose 
 method of treatment has grievously increased the 
 malady, wherewith the republic has become afflict- 
 ed. 
 
 And here I shall take occasion to disclose, that 
 my principles in regard to government, are, and 
 always have been republican, according to the 
 sound construction of the federal constitution, 
 which in my belief, furnishes sufficient power to 
 the executive arm, whenever there is energy em- 
 ployed in the exercise ; and that according to my 
 abilities, I was instrumental in combating the mis- 
 chievous tendency of measures adverse to its 
 spirit, when the sway of our councils was in 
 federal hands. And if I know my own senti. 
 ments, or can conclude any thing from a long 
 course of years devoted to the simple and effi- 
 cacious doctrines of republicanism, I have not in 
 the least swerved from the path I set out in. Still 
 I am not disposed to forego the privilege of think- 
 ing for myself on the measures of government ; 
 and of censuring where they merit censure, not- 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 "withstanding they may be the oftspring of a re- 
 pubHcan cabinet ; though they may be applauded 
 to the skies by retainers as the wisest and best, 
 and preserve the support of the generaUty, wlio 
 are ever prone to think favorably of those with 
 whom they act, even when in error. The terms 
 federalist and republican, like all others applied 
 to denominate parties, which have heretofore 
 sprung up in states, on a division in sentiment re- 
 specting principles or measures, have ceased to 
 convey their original import in any great degree, 
 and serve now principally to define different inter- 
 ests contending for power. There is no longer a 
 contest about the degree of authority with which 
 to invest government, as the safest and most salu- 
 tary ; the limitations of the constitution seem to 
 be acknowledged on all hands, consistent with an 
 abundant exercise of vigor and energy on the part 
 of government. The chief contention between 
 republicans and federalists, lays, concerning the 
 persons who shall administer the government, and 
 the disposal of places under it, of honor and pro- 
 fit ; differing opinions on the policy of public mea- 
 sures, do not now fly to the constitution for sup- 
 port or defence, but to known effects, or probable 
 results, as manifested by experience, deduced 
 from reasoning, or detailed in history. 
 
 The discipline of party, grounded on political 
 profession, is notwithstanding vastly rigorous. It 
 
11 
 
 forbids the federalist and republican respectively, 
 to impute to each other good quaUties, or even 
 good intentions. But its greatest inconvenience 
 arises from its arbitrary tendency : forms and 
 mandates to regulate the proceedings of parties, 
 with a view to unity of action, being exceedingly 
 apt to degenerate into a moral tyranny. Hence 
 the presidency may be bestowed by intrigue 
 without regard to fitness or qualification ; hence 
 also a shield may be furnished to weakness and 
 imbecility, and our homage be demanded, for 
 baneful counsels, and destructive measures. 
 
 I know of no better rule to go by, in appre- 
 ciating the characters and motives of public men, 
 than judging them according to the principles of 
 human nature. A man's professing himself a fed- 
 eralist, or a republican, does not add to the pow- 
 ers of the mind, nor take away from the passions 
 that rule in the breast. It neither enlarges the 
 understanding, purifies the heart, nor elevates the 
 conduct. It leaves the endowments and talents of 
 the individual just as it found them ; and unhap- 
 pily diminishes nothing of the love of money or 
 the love of power, two great incentives to public 
 employment, and withal very apt to grow corrupt, 
 as the sphere of their action becomes more ex- 
 tended. There is however a charm attached to 
 the thing that is truly surprising; partaking of 
 the common nature of delusion, by an influence 
 
12 
 
 proportioned to the absurdity of pretension. A 
 person may be influenced with the desire of con- 
 ducting the affairs of the nation, and perhaps not 
 a little enamoured of high dignity, though not 
 otherwise chargeable with vicious propensities; 
 if by being uniform as a party man, he has obtain- 
 ed in that particular the confidence of his party ; 
 if he has acquired celebrity by a facility of writing, 
 (which in the fashion of our days signifies great 
 abilities) and has filled an office with decent cred- 
 it ; if by the aid of influential political friends, with 
 no more of cabal than ordinarily exists for the 
 furtherance of such objects, that person should be 
 placed at the head of his party, and of the gov- 
 ernment, straightway like the grand Lama of the 
 Hindoos, he becomes immaculate, and his opin- 
 ions receive from his followers, reverence and the 
 readiest conformity. As if the installation of of- 
 fice imparted talents not before possessed, con- 
 veyed energies which did not before exist, and 
 created faculties on the instant, equal to whatever 
 crisis might arise. As if the original properties 
 of that man's constitution, and his familiar quali- 
 ties, which subjected him to act and to be acted 
 on like his fellow men, suddenly received super- 
 natural exaltation, to put him out of the reach of 
 error, and beyond the scope of those principles, 
 which we apply to test the conduct of each other. 
 Is it just, is it rational, that the rule of party should 
 
1 
 
 exact the surrender of our judgment, and utter 
 its censures on all who refuse to bow the knee to 
 its idol? Shall reason be dethroned, to exalt m 
 its stead a tenet of political superstition, degrad- 
 ing to us as freemen, and at variance with the 
 constitution, and than which the English notion 
 that the king can do no wrong, is incomparably 
 safer ? 
 
 To the people, who in the calm exercise of their 
 reason will discern the truth, it belongs to deter- 
 mine, whether their honor and their welfare has 
 been promoted by the policy of their public coun- 
 cils ; whether those whom they have clothed with 
 their confidence, and entrusted with the charge 
 of their concerns, have displayed abilities propor- 
 tionate to the high reputation claimed for them by 
 their adherents, and equal to the station they have 
 been placed in ; whether they have shown them- 
 selves to have had a single eye to the prosperity 
 and dignity of the commonwealth, in the mea- 
 sures taken by them in relation to the outrages 
 committed against it ; measures, which avoiding 
 the vindication of our rights, taught the belliger- 
 ent antagonists to resort to retaliation on each 
 other, to our still greater injury, whereby we 
 have been compelled to appeal to arms on princi- 
 ples foreign to the original controversy. 
 
 I shall make no question of the justice, or even 
 expediency, of the war in which the union i^ em- 
 
14 
 
 barked. It is sufficient that it has been decided 
 upon by the constituted authorities of the coun- 
 try, to coraoiand the animated support of all good 
 citizens. War-makers, however, seldom are 
 peace-makers ; and it may be doubted, whether 
 they who have not been able to maintain the re- 
 lations of peace, can readily effect its restoration. 
 
 But in our republic, the duties of the citizen are 
 not confined in war to the camp, nor in peace to 
 the avocations and employments of civil life. The 
 rights of the citizen become by direct implication 
 his sacred duties. He is not vested with highly 
 important privileges, without being placed under 
 a correspondent obligation to exercise them with 
 discretion, and to preserve them with fidelity. If 
 his country has a paramount claim on his services 
 in her defence, so also has she on his best judg- 
 ment, in confiding her destinies to skilful and up- 
 right managers. Arms may obtain victories ; but 
 a wise administration alone can give efficacy to 
 military prowess by a judicious conduct of the 
 war, and procure for the nation, in return for its 
 sacrifices, the advantage of a speedy adjustment 
 of the dispute on honorable and beneficial terms. 
 
 The defence of every right attached to the 
 sovereignty of the United States, with life and 
 fortune, consists with the valor and patriotism of 
 Americans. The mode only, and not the princi- 
 ple, may originate a diflference of opinion. This 
 
15 
 
 is the field for the display of political sagacity, 
 and this admonishes to a change of public offi- 
 cers, if we would introduce a better system, and 
 a sounder policy. 
 
 On behalf of the Candidate for the Presidency 
 announced by the state of New- York, it is admit- 
 ted that the matters in dispute with foreign pow- 
 ers, so far as they are connected with the indepen- 
 dence of the republic, are of a nature that may 
 not be compromised. It is nevertheless insisted, 
 that where these have grown out of commercial 
 objects, they have been grossly misunderstood, 
 and a system been pursued in relation to them 
 manifestly fallacious, and whose deleterious qua- 
 lities, sure to operate upon ourselves, were of 
 most doubtful effect on those against whom it 
 was ostensibly directed. It is farther contended, 
 that the policy of our public councils, in regard 
 to the commercial interests of the United States, 
 is fundamentally erroneous ; that these interests 
 merit and require protection ; and that the inland 
 influence, notoriously ascendant in our govern- 
 ment under the present administration, is deci- 
 dedly hostile to this object. 
 
 With regard to the Virginian Candidate, the 
 present President, apart from the many weighty 
 local objections to his election, and the considera- 
 tions derived from the character both of his mind 
 and of his measures, it is conceived that the in- 
 
16 
 
 land, or auticommercial inflnence above spoken 
 of, which sprang from the rule of his predecessor, 
 to whose guidance it readily submitted as the 
 shepherd of the flock, now grown into great 
 strength by careful fostering, and into greater 
 conceit of its capacity and consequence, aspires 
 to be lawgiver, and does in fact constitute a 
 pledge, for the continuance of the same rickety 
 system, that has parallysed our national vigor, 
 and of views inimical to the true interests of those 
 districts of the union, whose natural and obvious 
 sources of prosperity arise from commercial pur- 
 suits. 
 
 It is in every body's recollection, that a suspi- 
 cion of unfriendliness to the rights of the people, 
 grounded on the declaration of leading men, and 
 the obvious tendency of many legislative and ex- 
 ecutive acts, connected with certain odious taxes, 
 was the cause of the downfal of the federal par- 
 ty, and elevation of the republican. For a few 
 years successive upon the latter coming into pow- 
 er, the country prospered exceedingly, increasing 
 in riches, and denoting every mark of augment- 
 ing strength. A widely extended commerce a 
 flourishing interior trade, prompt demand for the 
 productions of the soil, brisk circulation of mo- 
 ney, whose product is always in proportion to its 
 velocity in the public body, constant em})loyment 
 for every class of laboring citizens, a tranquil gov- 
 
17 
 
 ernment, and ample revenues, filled the bosom 
 with gladness, and gained much credit to our re. 
 publican rulers. But it may be remarked, that 
 those years furnished a spontaneous harvest of 
 national felicity, to which the administration con- 
 tributed nothing more, than the orderly manage- 
 ment of interior concerns, and that the whole pe- 
 riod furnished no test of their abilities in meeting 
 difficulties, for none existed. Yet wise observers 
 were not without their apprehensions, that the 
 ostentation of economy, which put the national 
 armor up to sale, and compressed the naval and 
 military establishments within a dwarfish com- 
 pass, thereby leaving our republic in the cheerful 
 but dangerous plight of one devoted to festive se- 
 curity, though surrounded by freebooting neigh, 
 bors ; I say wise observers, even among republi- 
 cans, would shake their heads, and doubt the 
 soundness of the measure. The current of pub.^ 
 lie opinion in its favor however was irresistible ; 
 and the devisers of it expatiated in delightful 
 complacency on its success, in the result of elec- 
 tions and the fulsomeness of addresses. Happy 
 rulers ! who without one effort of genius, or the 
 least display of skill, reap the rich reward of a 
 people's praise, and receive the oblation of their 
 gratefulness. Sagacious people ! who decorating 
 themselves with garlands, and throwing away 
 their coats of mail, dance to the gay notes of mu- 
 
IB 
 
 sic, reckless of the foe that hangs on their bor- 
 ders, and insults their shores. I am no wise fond 
 of introducing illustrations from holy writ ; but 
 for my life, I cannot divert my thoughts from 
 the story of Samson, surrendering his locks to the 
 allurements of Delilah. 
 
 Who can remember those halcyon days, with- 
 out feeling poignant sorrow at the change, which 
 in late years has spread despondency and distress 
 from the green hills of the north, to the savan- 
 nahs of our southern territory ? Who can sup- 
 press his concern at the gloom, which now invests 
 ^he political horizon, and the farther evils which 
 seem to impend over our country ? Who can con- 
 ceal his chagrin at the baneful conclusion of po- 
 litical schemes, which imposed on our belief by 
 specious representations, and won our consent by 
 lofty promise ? Who can forego his indignation 
 at the counterfeit pretensions and fallacious ora- 
 cles, which deprived us of benefits in actual pos- 
 session, by pointing to the possibility of boundless 
 acquisitions, and prompting the indulgence of un- 
 attainable desires ? 
 
 A review of the flourishing situation of the 
 United States, prior to the introduction of a sys- 
 tem, which entrusted the public safety to the jus- 
 tice of foreign governments, instead of guarding 
 it by the commanding energies of national force, 
 and which contented itself with elaborate vindica- 
 
19 
 
 lions of invaded rights, when the country ought 
 to have been put in armor to defend them, will 
 convince every dispassionate mind of the glaring 
 errors which have been committed. At that time, 
 the republic was in the full vigor of health, and in 
 the possession of abundant resources, which have 
 since been sweated, under various pretexts, into 
 the coffers of the belligerents ; it was high in the 
 respect of foreign powers, by imputed dignity, 
 and acknowledged strength ; its credit was un- 
 bounded, and the wealth of its citizens immense; 
 it possessed a prodigious number of hardy sea- 
 men, now very much diminished by piratical cap- 
 ture, and by voluntary departure from an unpro- 
 tected and irregular service ; but above all, the 
 spirit of the people was lofty, and ardent, and un* 
 abased by submission to repeated humiliation. 
 The political picture of Europe too, at that period, 
 illy justified the notion, that an obs^.-rvance of jus- 
 tice on our part towards its governments, would 
 insure a return of justice to us- What was to be 
 observed there but aggression and rapine, and the 
 blood-stained footsteps of ambition ? What secu- 
 rity that we should be exempted from ravages 
 longer than we were prepared to repress them ? 
 A greater fallacy has never exijited, than that 
 which inculcates a belief of a controuling sense 
 of justice over human governments. Men are 
 kept honest in the communities of which they are 
 
20 
 
 members, by the penalties of the laws, and the 
 competency of the tribunal entrusted with their 
 execution ; but governments acknowledge no au- 
 thority to which they are amenable, nor is there 
 any protection against their fraud and violence, 
 except in the sagacity and power of those other 
 governments, on whom fraud and violence may 
 be attempted. Here then was a fatal mistake, 
 whereby the national sword ceased to be the na- 
 tional safeguard ; and our interests were commit- 
 ted without guarantee to cabinet signets, on the 
 presumption of what never existed, honor, faith 
 and justice, in cabinets. The effects of this mistake 
 were quickly made visible in belligerent rapacity. 
 The unexampled progression of our country in 
 wealth, in trade, in resources, and in population, 
 excited jealousy; while our defenceless state offer- 
 ed both temptation and impunity to depredation. 
 Jealousy of a rising nation has always been a 
 spring of action with other powers; and most pro- 
 bably a feeling of this kind was among the incite- 
 ments to those acts, which have been for many 
 years the cause of the whining, the hectoring, and 
 the buffoonery of our legislation. The conduct 
 of our men in power, and of their majorities in 
 our legislative assemblies, has been not unlike that 
 of boys, who instead of resenting a blow or an in- 
 jury with becoming spirit, content themselves 
 with saying some foolish thing or other, and there- 
 
21 
 
 by receive farther provocation and more abusive 
 treatment. No sooner was the tame disposition 
 of our rulers known, and that wrongs excited Ut- 
 ile else but a detailed statement of grievances 
 well elucidated by arguments drawn from the 
 the public law, with perhaps a wreaking of ven- 
 geance on certain unoffending articles of British 
 manufacture, than one indignity succeeded ano- 
 ther, and outrage followed upon outrage, so fast 
 as almost to lose succession in continuity, and to 
 preclude separation from the series. Our com- 
 merce was subjected to interruption by the Bri- 
 tish, our seamen to impressment, our coasts and 
 ports to blockade, and, to cap the list, the foul 
 crime of murder called for atonement from those 
 violators of our peace. Messages to congress, re- 
 monstrances, and proclamations, were the only 
 measure of our redress. 
 
 This cant of complaint is what has done us in- 
 finite mischief. To show an extreme sensibility 
 to ill conduct from others without the spirit of re- 
 senting it, is in the lowest grade of political folly; 
 for it keeps open a door for aggressions to enter 
 at ; and there is a sort of malignant satisfaction 
 in those who bring themselves to commit violence, 
 that prompts them to exercise it with greater wil- 
 lingness on such poor spiritless beings, as swell 
 into bravado, and sink into lamentation, while 
 
22 
 
 they possess size and strength equal to combating 
 against abuse. 
 
 France,* treading on the Iieels of England, 
 gave loose to excesses of a more wanton charac- 
 ter ; atrocious beyond any practised in the dark- 
 est ages. She not only authorised spoliations upon 
 us without pretext, and presumptuously suspend- 
 ed the jurisdiction of the public law ; but did not 
 hesitate to violate our sovereignty in its most essen- 
 tial points. Where was then the spirit that anima- 
 ted the American people in their struggle for inde- 
 pendence, which led through sufferings to safety, 
 and through peril to glory ? Where was the pa- 
 triot fire, that inflamed the soldiers and states- 
 men of that day, which burned in the battle, and 
 illumined the sessions of the representatives of the 
 people ? When the tyrant fulminated his blasting 
 decrees, and dared to extend the yoke of his do- 
 minion over our republic, and to violate the sa- 
 cred emblems of our sovereignty, why sprang not 
 every sword spontaneous from its scabbard ? Why 
 was not the loud shout of an indignant insulted 
 people, heard in the saloons of the Thuilleries, 
 and in the halls of the slavish councils of the em- 
 
 * Alliuhng to the dcuiitionuliziu^ of our Flas; by the 
 Milau decree. 
 
23 
 
 pire ? What damnable spell could have been so 
 efficacious as to lay asleep the spirit of liberty in 
 the breast of the citizen, and sink our rulers in 
 criminal apathy, when* honor was basely blotted 
 from our scutcheon, and freedom bled by the 
 stab of ruffian violence ? My bosom glows with 
 indignation at the temporising, calculating, be- 
 traying policy of men administering the govern- 
 ment of a free people, and mourns over the awful 
 suspension of national resentment, amid enormi- 
 ties unprecedented and unprovoked. 
 
 At length in the year 1808, the public pulse 
 began to beat more briskly, and vigorous meas- 
 ures were called for from every quarter. This 
 indication of national feeljng, though every way 
 suited to the crisis, was nevertheless deemed un- 
 seasonable. An individual purpose required it 
 should be checked; the illustrious Jefferson, as 
 sagacious of foul weather as the water-fowl, had 
 resolved to retire, and was determined to make 
 a safe harbor before the storm. Accordingly it 
 was announced by those, whose familiar inter- 
 course with the administration, procured them 
 the appellation of back-stairs gentlemen, that the 
 injuries sustained by us from the belligerent?, 
 
 * Tlie Duke of Catlore had the impudence to say to tli? 
 ^Minister of the United States, that the Americans oai^hl 
 to tear their declaration uf independence to pieces. 
 
24 
 
 were so equal as to preclude distuiction, and so 
 great as to render hostilities against both necessa- 
 ry and proper. Popularity ! how mazy are thy 
 ways, how antic are thy shapes, how knavish are 
 thy expedients ! The truth of a position is of no 
 consequence with some people, so long as its con- 
 clusions are favorable to their views. That this 
 was a scheme ingeniously devised to get rid of 
 the responsibility of war altogether, has been con- 
 tended by those, who discredited the statement 
 on which it was built ; while others have insisted, 
 that so singular a predicament could not have 
 been produced, without our having contributed 
 towards it, either through unskilfulness, or mis- 
 conduct. The dilemma, we were supposed to be 
 in however, served to employ Congress, and to 
 amuse the public, with grave speculations, and 
 fanciful theories, on the many singular contin- 
 gents in triangular warfare, and ended as was 
 meant, in the continuance of the interdiction of 
 trade, which some twelve or eighteen months be- 
 fore, had been dextrously enough introduced, un- 
 der the notion and term of an embai go, to which 
 it had no more relation, nor was intended to have, 
 than the mere name 
 
 Now let any man of common sense, though 
 ever so little acquainted with politics, ask him- 
 self, whether a submission to injury in the com- 
 mon occurrences of life, is not likely to cause its 
 
25 
 
 repetition, and that too under aggravating cir- 
 cumstances. Let any one, who remembers the 
 military capacities of the United States, their re- 
 venues, and power, when we first began to hear 
 of interpolations on the law of nations, say, whe- 
 ther a sense of honor and a regard to the dignity 
 and interests of the country, did not naturally 
 lead to a resistance of encroachments by the na- 
 tional force, and whether a determined attitude 
 to that effect, would not have prevented farther 
 aggression, without the ultimate resort to war. 
 The pretensions of the aggression in its early 
 stage, did not make it worth while to lose by per- 
 severance therein, the benefits of intercourse and 
 trade, and to convert from friendship into enmi- 
 ty, a power armed at all points for the contest, 
 brave, resolute and active. It cannot be con- 
 cealed, that to the criminal forbearance of our 
 administration it is owing at this time, that the 
 whole code of public law in relation -to neutral 
 rights, is, as it were, annulled. 
 
 Something however was done to vindicate our 
 grievances, and to manifest our displeasure at the 
 spurious pretensions which culled forth our com- 
 plaints. The non-importation law was boldly 
 enacted in the teeth of the aggression. Yes, fel- 
 low-citizens, on the silk mercers, and woollen 
 drapers of Great Britain, did your rulers heroic- 
 ally take vengeance for your invaded rights. Yet 
 
 1) 
 
26 
 
 such was the infatuation of the British cabinet, 
 that it chose rather to persist in its career of vio- 
 lence, than to heed our retahation on the fabrics 
 of silk and wool ; the tears of Spitalfields, and 
 the moans of Yorkshire cloth halls, moved not 
 their obdurate hearts — Our government returned 
 to remonstrance and expostulation. 
 
 There is a kind of feeling requisite to the for- 
 mation of the statesman, which bestowing energy 
 upon the character of the man, cannot be alien- 
 ated from the administration of office. Too 
 much of it may degenerate into violence, or other 
 vicious effects ; but the total want thereof, is 
 among the greatest imperfections. For without 
 it, however acute and discerning the mind may 
 be in state-conjunctures, there will seldom exist 
 the decision to take bold steps at the critical mo- 
 ment. In this respect, the mere politician is 
 wholly a ditTerent creature from the statesman. 
 Craft and subtlety will answer the purpose of the 
 former, as the ends to be accomplished are most 
 frequently such as can be best effected by ma- 
 nagement and intrigue. Though to be the head 
 of a party requires no small talents, yet the ut- 
 most posses.'ion of these, without the admixture 
 of those energies, which prompt the soul to a cou- 
 rageous encounter with existing difficulties, is 
 not sufficient to accomplish the noble character of 
 the statesman. Not only must he be skilled in 
 
27 
 
 affairs of stvite, and in the relations of empires, 
 but he must feel within himself, an impulse, to 
 guide the destinies of his country through dan- 
 ger to glory, rather than to seek its quiet in igno- 
 miny. We have seen in our time a great man, 
 well enough versed in political concerns, but by 
 habits of philosophy strongly inclined to abstrac- 
 tion ; a soundfreasoner, but too prone to rest pub- 
 lic matters upon deductions of logic, and the ex- 
 planation of public law ; an able politician as ex- 
 emplified in the entire devotion of a numerous 
 party to his recommendations and opinions, but 
 not a little suspected of originating a system, 
 which has terminated in the total prostration of 
 neutral rights ; whose errors, (if they be such) 
 must be greatly imputed to a scantiness of those 
 great and lively sensibilities, which lead the ex- 
 ecutives of states to resent indignities, and teach 
 them to redress grievances by the national arm, 
 when redress by other means has failed. 
 
 His successor in office, and proselyte in opin- 
 ions, with equal abilities to form a thesis, and to 
 draw up a state-paper in language even less in- 
 volved, probably'as little tinctured with foreign 
 predilections, as much devoted to the welfare of 
 his country, and not more mistaken in the mode 
 of pursuing it, is not so capable a politician, if he 
 be a sounder statesman. But it may be doubted 
 whether he excels his predecessor in either cha- 
 
28 
 
 racter. Under his administration, while a great 
 and powerful party has split into sections, some 
 of which swerving from the sound principles of 
 confederation, have slidden into politics adverse 
 to the doctrine of republicanism, the country at 
 the same time has lost ground in reputation, and 
 declined in prosperity. A man must shut his 
 eyes not to see on all sides the evidences of im- 
 poverishment, of perplexity, and of humiliation. 
 Husbandmen, merchants, mechanics, the poorer 
 orders who depend upon daily labor for daily sub- 
 sistence, as well as those who derive an income 
 from more independent sources, all acknowledge 
 with sorrow and chagrin, their condition misera- 
 bly changed for the worse. It is visible in the 
 straitened circumstances of the inhabitants, in 
 their desponding discourse, and gloomy counte- 
 nance. Some disguise their fallen estates, and 
 make a decent retreat into the country, there to 
 pine under the remembrance of better days. 
 Some, like soldiers under a peace establishment, 
 make a point of going through the manual of their 
 several professions, and regularly appear at the 
 resorts heretofore appropriated to the purposes of 
 traffic, exchange, purchase, and sale, as ghosts 
 still haunt the spot rendered familiar by whatever 
 delights of business, diversion, or aflfection. Farms 
 are exposed to sale because of difliculty ; houses 
 in populous towns are untenanted through the 
 
29 
 
 suppression of trade, and the failure of resources 
 to defray expenditure. Then comes the horror 
 of new loans gleaning the scanty remains of our 
 blighted harvest; imposts doubled; the excise 
 augmented ; stamps to add to the nausea of the 
 stomach ; and direct taxation to purge into great- 
 er slenderness the national frame, already wasted 
 into a skeleton, exhibiting nothing but shrivelled 
 skin and projecting bone. Behold the effects of 
 that system, so strenuously insisted upon as best 
 fitted to the condition of our republic, and to se- 
 cure its prosperity and repose ! Let Monticello 
 bloom in the midst of the desert ; let an altar be 
 raised there for the devotion and offerings of po- 
 litical pilgrims, attracted from far and near by 
 the fame of the modern Numa; from where Mis- 
 sissippi pours his headlong current, to where the 
 western lakes spread their broad bosoms like in- 
 land seas, and receive the tribute of a thousand 
 streams. 
 
 Some advocates of the present system (and 
 what system has not its advocates) urge as one of 
 its benefits, that now war is declared, the dis- 
 tressed condition of the citizens will cause the 
 ranks of the army to fill speedily, as a resource 
 against starving. Thus there is comfort under 
 every affliction, and consolation may be drawn 
 even from reverse. It is however a sorry recom- 
 pense for the ruin brought on us by impolitic 
 
36 
 
 measures, that an army can be raised from its 
 victims ; it is a foolish defence of the imprudence 
 and perverseness of administration, to cite the fa. 
 cihty of recruiting, without demonstrating at the 
 same time their abiUty to raise the revenues ade- 
 quate to the support of the service ; it is a nota- 
 ble effrontery to continue praising the genius and 
 talents denoted by a policy, which our depressed 
 coniition proves to have been futile, and the 
 abandonment of which might have been expected 
 from the experience of its inefficacy. 
 
 There is a double paradox, and of the most 
 contradictory nature, in the principles on which 
 our government has founded tlie policy, whence 
 have accrued so many ills to the country. By the 
 one, our commerce has been made to sustain ex- 
 cessive severities of domestic creation, in order to 
 cure evils of foreign infliction. By the other, a 
 harmful and degrading dependence upon Europe, 
 and especially upon England, was supposed to be 
 placed in those relations of trade, which exchang- 
 ed our raw materials and produce, for its manu- 
 factured commodities, while our long embargo, 
 the back- bone of the present system, claiming ex- 
 istence, duration, defence, and effect, from a con- 
 trary principle, arrogated the dependence of Eu- 
 rope, and especially of England, upon us, for sup- 
 plies and intercourse essential to its prosperity, 
 and vital to its support. 
 
'31 
 
 And now after we have suffered all the evils 
 of state empiricism ; when the disorder has wast- 
 ed the frame, and subdued its vigor ; having seen 
 one period pass by, when the lancet might have 
 been used with effect, and another when ampu- 
 tation promised complete relief; now that we are 
 debilitated, exhausted, decayed, we have con- 
 sented to do one thing like other governments, 
 and have in good earnest undertaken with John 
 Bull, to try " which can do the other most harm." 
 
 But as it is not easily perceivable in what res- 
 pects our relations with the belligerents in regard 
 to abuses, essentially differed at the time hostili- 
 ties were declared against one of them, from the 
 period when the alleged equality of their aggres- 
 sions suggested the idea of the triangular war, it 
 may be permitted to scan the ground taken by 
 our rulers for that measure, with a view to inves- 
 tigate its probable consequences. In so doing, it 
 is not in the least intended to extenuate the in- 
 dignities and oppressions of Britain against us; 
 but to examine, whether under present manage- 
 ment, we are not likely to contract ills upon our 
 selves infinitely greater than those we have sought 
 to avoid ; whether there is not much reason to 
 apprehend, from the prejudices publicly avowed 
 by those who are in the interest of the adminis- 
 tration, from the tameness hitherto discovered in 
 regard to the enormities of France, and from the 
 
32 
 
 manifest efforts to propitiate its ruler, that a close 
 connexion will sooner or later be brought about 
 by the men who now compose our cabinet, if 
 they remain in power, and lose us in the incom- 
 prehensible mazes of French policy. 
 
 I infer this result especially from the new con. 
 ditions annexed to the revocation of the Berlin 
 and Milan decrees ; conditions to which we have 
 mysteriously become parties in order to elude 
 contesting them ; for it is apparent, that since our 
 resistance of the British orders is officially an- 
 nounced by the imperial government to be the 
 rule of our exemption from the operation of its 
 decrees, we can substantiate that exemption only 
 so long as we contorm to whatever arbitrary re- 
 quisitions, the repeal of those orders may be made 
 to depend upon. 
 
 I therefore think it extremely unfortunate, that 
 our recourse to hostilities with England was de- 
 layed till after the receipt by our government of 
 the French state paper, under the title of " The 
 report of the minister of foreiga relations, to his 
 majesty the emperor and king, communicated to 
 the conservative senate at their sitting on the lOih 
 March 1812." The language of this rejiort, which 
 is evidently intended for us, is very signilicant, 
 while the objects avowed in it are of a nature 
 that cannot fail to awaken much solicitude for 
 ourselves, as one of the " nations" alleged to be 
 
33 
 
 '* engaged in the same cause," and already in the 
 current of that vortex, which has invariably re- 
 duced the allies of France to become her depen- 
 dencies, and to receive the legislation of her po- 
 litics. 
 
 And -it is to leflections derived from these 
 heads, that I earnestly call the attention of the 
 nation, as furnishing the strongest motives and 
 most cogent reasons for a change of public officers* 
 
 That the imperial cabinet considers us as *' en- 
 gaged in the same cause," is incontestibly estab. 
 lished by the terms of the decree of April 28, 
 1812, from the palace of St. Cloud; whereby it 
 is proclaimed to the world, that the decrees of 
 Berlin and Milan shall no longer be enforced 
 against us, iri consider atioTi of our resisting the 
 arbitrary pretensions advanced by the British or- 
 ders in council. It is not pretended that these 
 decrees are revoked, because they violate the 
 sovereignty of the United States, and legalize pi- 
 racy J but they " are considered no longer in 
 force as far as regards American vessels," on a 
 stipulation, that arrogates the right of their revi- 
 val, and that implies our subjection to their au- 
 thority, and our acquiescence in their objects. 
 
 The manoeuvre of imperial diplomacy, where- 
 by this very decree, although promulgated from 
 the palace of St. Cloud in April, 1812, is made to 
 bear d^ate April 1811, justifies the notion, that the 
 
 £ 
 
34 
 
 decree itself, in consequence of its assumed stlpa- 
 lation, will be considered by the French govern- 
 ment as subjected to that new exposition of its 
 own pretensions and views, through the eftect of 
 the decrees of Berlin and Milan, officially de- 
 clared in the said report of its minister of foreign 
 relations in March last. The same chicanery, 
 that enlisted us under the banners of a general 
 cause, will be employed to retain us there ; while 
 the arch counsellors of the empire, will hasten to 
 cement the union, by kindly according a treaty 
 of amity and commerce, and by connecting us 
 in the glorious eritcrprizes of his majesty so essen- 
 tial to the independence of nations. 
 
 With the utmost sincerity I avow the most per- 
 fect confidence in the bravery of my fellow-citi- 
 zens, in the rectitude of their feelings, and in 
 their love of cnnntry ; in their fortitude under 
 trial, and in their inflexible attachment to the 
 liberties of America. A people thus actuated is 
 unconquerable in the conflict of arms. But such 
 a people is too apt to confide in the consciousness 
 of their own integrity ; to discredit the existence, 
 and to deride the predicted effects of crafty ma- 
 chinations, and subtle schemes devised for their 
 ruin. And why discredit ? Is not guile as ac- 
 tive a principle with the corrupt, as honor is 
 with the just ! Is not the success of intrigue 
 *s efficacious and gratifying to a proflig^ate 
 
35 
 
 government, as that of a campaign ? That we 
 deride, is because we cannot perceive the se- 
 cret channels, the clandestine influence, constant 
 advances and certain issue of designs, conceived 
 with mahgnity, concealed by dissimulation, and 
 resting upon artifice and wiles. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, what is known by refining in 
 politics is not the disease of him who is now ad- 
 dressing you. He aims only at plainness and 
 common sense ; he follows reason in her practical 
 illustrations ; in her familiar habitudes with men 
 and things. The lessons of the historic page, the 
 experience of other nations ought not to pass un- 
 heeded ; but if we will not listen to the voice of 
 other times, let us not shut our eyes to the obser- 
 vation of our own. Where duplicity is the charac- 
 teristic of a. government, and insidious purpOSeS 
 
 lurk beneath its fairest- seeming measures, there is 
 the strongest necessity to be on the watch, to an.- 
 ticipate its designs, and to elude its snares. 
 
 I have before spoken of tiie incomprehensible 
 policy of the imperial cabinet : partial develope- 
 ments are made only at the intervention of con- 
 siderable periods : but I have yet to learn, whajt 
 is meant by the concluding paragraph of the re- 
 port before spoken of " that an oracle which has 
 often been pronounced by his majesty, still 7nore 
 certain than the interest^ the rights and the inde- 
 pendence of the nations engaged in the same cai/sCt" 
 (ours among tUe number) ♦' makes it an imperi- 
 
36 
 
 ous and sacred law, tha^the French people must 
 remain in arms." I have more belief in French 
 imperial traud, than in his majesty's oracles ; and 
 therefore I fear that impositions, similar to ttiat, 
 •which so egregiously duped our administration in 
 regard to the revocation of the Berlin and Milan 
 decrees, will be employed to identify our cause 
 with that of the empire, and to pursue the war till 
 the accomplishment of his majesty's oracle, per- 
 mits the French people to lay down their arms, 
 and ourselves to taste the long banished blessings 
 of peace. 
 
 I again deprecate being considered as at all 
 inimical to the rescue of our neutral rights from 
 British usurpation. The sword is unsheathed' 
 and our privileges ought to be guaranteed before 
 it is allowed to rest in the scabbard. Rut let it 
 be wielded by men who have not shaken hands 
 with Napoleon over an unholy compact for the 
 destruction of England. 
 
 When I hear a retainer of the administration, 
 a member of the congress of the United States, 
 in the presence of that august body, invoking Al- 
 mighty power to unfix the moorings of the Bri- 
 tish isles, and sink them in the ocean ; I pause 
 for a moment over tlu' impiety of the cxi)ression ; 
 but I am led by cooler reflection to believe, that 
 an earthly potentate may be substituted for un- 
 yielding heaven; not indeed to engulf the fast- 
 anchored isles in the ocean's abyss, but to scath 
 
37 
 
 their surface with fire and sword. I detest the 
 sentiment and suspect the de.Nign embraced in this 
 avowal. The madness of revenge runs headlong 
 to perdition. Let not the cabinet errors of ling- 
 land form the cabinet errors of America. By 
 the inscrutable decrees of providence British 
 wrongs are visited on Britain ; the folly of Eng- 
 land has stretched her enemy into a gigantic size ; 
 her pressure has augmented his energies, till the 
 exhibition is portentous and terrific to the gov- 
 ernments of the earth. Power, say the Europe- 
 an statists, is travelling westward ; may it never 
 travel from the imperial empire to the shores of 
 Columbia! Maratime states may annoys their 
 objects are commerce and wealth. But military 
 governments aim at territorial domination : uni- 
 versal empire is tlie princijjle Of theU' Constitution. 
 Alexander led his forces to Asia : Rome sent her 
 legions to Egypt, to Scythia, and to Gaul : Swit- 
 zerland, and Holland, and Italy, are incorporated 
 with the empire, whose armies are now blacken- 
 ing the coasts of the Baltic : and is it wise that we 
 should })ray for the annihilation of English pow- 
 er ? Is it politic, that we should coalesce and con- 
 federate for the dovvnfal of England, when the 
 eye of conquest may have already scowled over 
 our hills and our vales, and we next in turn may 
 have to contend and bleed for the freedom of 
 America. 
 
38 
 
 It is one of the worst effects of weak men ad- 
 ministering the affairs of government, that they 
 are driven along by the current of early errors 
 into irredeemable folly. They get entangled in 
 the meshes of their own devices, and every sub- 
 sequent attempt to free themselves from the em- 
 barrassment, serves only to involve them in great- 
 er intricacy. 
 
 The special ground of the present war is re- 
 sistance to the British orders in council. The 
 cause is admitted to be abundant ; but let us in- 
 quire, whether the instant necessity of resorting 
 to hostilities, was not in part owing to an extra- 
 neous impulse, neither creditable to the integrity 
 nor independence of our public councils, and 
 which threatens a malign influence over the course 
 of the war. 
 
 It is now nearly a year since Mr. Barlow was 
 sent to Paris to *' commence the duties of minis- 
 ter plenipotentiary to the emperor of France." 
 In the letter of instructions to him from Mr. 
 Secretary Monroe, dated July 26th 1811, several 
 ** subjects of peculiar importance" were urged 
 upon his immediate attention; the principal of 
 these were, to obtain indemnity for our claims on 
 account of property unwarrantably seized and 
 confiscated : to procure a conlirmation of the 
 understanding of our government, that the French 
 decrees were revoked ; and to establish a com- 
 
39 
 
 mercial treaty between the United States and 
 France. No doubt it was imagined, that Mr. 
 Barlow's fertiUty of invention and skill in diplo- 
 matic concerns, copulating with the genius and 
 magnanimity of Napoleon, would dispatch these 
 small matters ofF.hand, and very soon enable the 
 administration, to communicate to the nation, 
 the interesting intelligence of the return to re- 
 lations of amity, by one of the belligerent powers, 
 thus happily accomplished. Vain imagination ! 
 Bitter disappointment! Mars and Apollo ! how 
 have you frustrated the fairest cabinet scheme, 
 and disconcerted the ablest stroke of politics, 
 ever contrived to keep men in place, and to se- 
 cure an election. Month passed away after 
 month without the expected tidings, and gave 
 our public functionaries to feel that worst sickness 
 of the heart, which arises from hope deferred. 
 
 Nevertheless, under the pleasing anticipation 
 of that happy result. Congress was summoned 
 to meet a month before the customary period, and 
 a war message w^as served up against the adverse 
 belligerent, highly seasoned for the congression- 
 al palate, which had become disgusted with wa- 
 ter gruel diet. The response of the house was 
 conformable to the spirit of the message, and 
 the report of the committee of foreign relations, 
 through its chairman Mr. Porter, indicated the 
 strongest determination to follow it up speedily 
 and with vigor. 
 
40 
 
 The event however proved that the calculation 
 of our cabinet had been somewhat premature, 
 and thai the public good would not have sustained 
 any injury, if Congress hud not commenced its 
 session before the time established by law. 
 
 Meanwhile the war spirit of our councils had 
 been made known to the imperial government, 
 through its privileged spies, and collected from 
 the columns of newspapers in the pay of admin- 
 istration. Mr. Barlow, by his own account, had 
 danced attendance assiduously enough on the 
 dignitary entrusted with the foreign relations of 
 the empire, with his schedule of grievances in one 
 hand, and his petition for redress in the other ; 
 essaying much, effecting nothing. 
 
 Subsequent accounts received at Paris from 
 America made it doubtful, whether we were suf- 
 ficiently in earnest, or had not begun to halt, in 
 our projected scheme of waging war against 
 England. The propulsion given to our councils 
 by imperial diplomacy to wards, an English war, 
 languishing under the vis inertiae of our pacific 
 disposition, notwithstanding the token of his ma- 
 jesty's displeasure in the plunder and burning of 
 our ships,' seemed to require strengthening and 
 support. The evil was soon perceived, and a 
 remedy quickly proposed for it, in the report of 
 the minister of foreign relations, of which I be- 
 fore made mention, but which, it is observable. 
 
41 
 
 was not found among the documents communi- 
 cated by the President in hismessage of May 26, 
 to " place before Congress the actual posture 
 of our relations with France." 
 
 This report I take to be the legitimate parent 
 of Mr. Madison's manifesto. It placed our gov- 
 ernment under the necessity of taking decisive 
 steps, and retained the interests which Mr. Bar- 
 low was directed to seek after, as a pledge that 
 those steps should be of the right kind. It com- 
 mitted us to the necessity of resisting the British 
 orders, under the penalty of our flag being con- 
 sidered and treated as denationalized ; and let it 
 again be remarked, that we are indebted to an 
 act of resistance against those orders, for our ex- 
 emption from that penalty, by the decree pro- 
 mulged from the palace of St. Cloud, April 28, 
 1812. 
 
 The term denationalize, ha? come into familiar 
 use to signify a privation of the riglits, which per- 
 sons or things possess by virtue of belonging to a 
 sovereign community.' An effect so absolute can. 
 not be supposed to exist without an equivalent 
 criminality, sufficiently defined by the public law, 
 and incontestibly established by proof. To de- 
 part from this equitable rule, is to violate the 
 sovereignty of the state, whose citizens or proper- 
 ty are affected by the proceeding. The dena- 
 tionalizing of our flag by the Milan decree on 
 
 w 
 
4>-2 
 
 the principles therein set forth, was as hostile art 
 invasion of our sovereignty, as would have been 
 the occupancy of any part of our territory by the 
 imperial legions. The report in question, after re- 
 citing the provisions of the Milan decree, pro. 
 ceeds to declare unqualiliedly that *' as long as 
 the British orders in council are not revoked, and 
 t/ie principh s of the tr*;aty of Utrecht in relation 
 to neutrals put in force, the decrees of Berlin and 
 Milan ought to [shall] subsist for the powers v^ho 
 suffer their flag to be denationalized." 
 
 " I will have no neutrals" was an oracle his 
 majesty pronounced some years ago, The year 
 1812 witnesses its verification. 
 
 Errors in policy, which proceed from timidity 
 or indecision, rarely fail of adding to difficulty : 
 by procrastinating the crisis, they multiply causes 
 of controversy ; by throwing the dispute into 
 other hands, they create an influence almost im- 
 possible to counteract. 
 
 It belonged to us to resist the early abuses of 
 British maratime power. \Ve complained loud- 
 ly, but continued passive. What we had not the 
 force to do as principal in the dispute, we how- 
 ever did in our own way in a secondary capacity. 
 
 " The decree of Berlin," says the report, " re- 
 plied to the English order of 1806."— Our Embar- 
 go came limping along to aid the common cause. 
 
 ♦' The decree of Milan," the report continues, 
 
4 
 
 o 
 
 " replies to the order of 1807." Our iion inter- 
 course act cried out amen. 
 
 By the French minister's said report of March, 
 1812, possessing many properties of a decree, the 
 repeal of the British orders is made to depend on 
 new and totally different conditions The decrees 
 of Berlin and Milan are revived and extended to 
 guarantee those conditions, embracing in their op- 
 eration, all powers indiscriminately who do not 
 resist the maratime regulations of England' 
 even when consonant with the practice and law 
 of nations. 
 
 The declaration of hostilities by our govern- 
 ment against Great Britain bears date June 18, 
 1812. 
 
 When the daring attack, on the sovereignty of 
 the United States by the flagitious provisions of 
 the Milan decree, was first committed, Mr. Madi- 
 son was Secretary of State, and of course not an- 
 swerable for the conduct of the government in re- 
 lation to it. But when he was President, and the 
 French cabinet thus formally and officially re- 
 vived its operation, is it not wonderful, that nei- 
 ther devotion to the public weal, regard to per- 
 sonal honor in his elevated station, nor a sense of 
 responsibility in the faithful discharge of his du- 
 ties, could admonish him of the course proper to 
 be pursued ? Still more wonderful is it, that the 
 Congress of the United States, on a matter so vital 
 
44 
 
 and an enormity so daring, should exhibit no re- 
 cognition of their sacred trust in representing a 
 free people, but should shew themselves to be in 
 leading strings by an administration itself unmov- 
 ed, impotent and degenerate. By the decree of 
 Milan, a leaden influence passed over the wings 
 of the American Eagle, and the stars of the 
 union were shorn of their radiance. Is it indeed 
 so, that the tyrant of France shall dictate condi- 
 tions for the independence of our flag, and terms 
 of exemption from being denationalized, under 
 the jurisdiction of a decree of the empire ? And 
 have our rulers on behalf of the people, subscri- 
 bed to the requisitions set forth for the continu- 
 ance of sovereignty in the American republic? 
 Let us then hasten to record our title in the regis- 
 try of the empire ; let " Holland, the Hanseatic 
 cities, thecoast.s which lie between the Zuydersee 
 and the Baltic," now united to France, clang 
 their fetters, while it is proclaimed, Napoleon 
 aa'fuits America to be free. 
 
 I should not be much concerned abtfut any of 
 the direct results of the war we have undertaken 
 against England, under the conduct of an efli- 
 cient administration. We have before measured 
 swords with that power, and at a time when we 
 bad not attained the moiety of our present force. 
 The worst eflect of the contest will fall upon the 
 relations of property; upon produce, shipping, 
 
45 
 
 debts, houses, lands and stocks. The commercial 
 states have been for a long time in the crucible, 
 and their precious substances wasted under the 
 successive experiments of our pohtical alchy- 
 mists. The inland anti-commercial interest, after 
 having aided and otficiated in the analysis, must 
 novv take its turn in the process of fusion; the 
 dissolution may be expected to produce little else 
 than vapor and sediment. 
 
 But I dread the consequences to be apprehend- 
 ed from the manifest implication with French 
 imperial policy, discernible in the very measure 
 of hostilities. I dread being identified through 
 the effect of the war with the aims and objects of 
 France; I dread being allied to her insidious 
 councils ; being brought more immediately with- 
 in the snares of her diplomacy and the action of 
 her intrigue. 
 
 However in making calculations on the pros, 
 perous issue of a war, the state of prepara- 
 tion and vigor of councils, under which it is com- 
 menced, will be naturally taken into account. 
 The value of the objects contended for, and the 
 ability and activity of the enemy, it may be sup- 
 posed, will have constituted with a wise cabinet 
 the ratio of the resources provided, and of the 
 military strength created for the contest. Where 
 the genius of a government is pacific, and the ha- 
 bits of its people no wise inclined to warlike pur- 
 
46 
 
 suits something ought to be allowed for the dis- 
 inclination, that will grow out of every conflict, 
 not essentially connected with their independence 
 and freedom. 
 
 How far these observations are illustrative of 
 our case, I submit without comment to the tliink- 
 ing part of my fellow citizens. But I make no 
 hesitation in boldly declaring, that the crude and 
 immature condition of our preparations, when 
 hostilities were recommended, impeaches the 
 administration of improvidence, and that the 
 random and indecisive course of their counsels, 
 during the long period that war w^as under con- 
 templatton, prohibits a reasonable expectation of 
 their conducting it with vigor and judgment, 
 or of their bringing it to a prosperous and happy 
 
 conclusion. 
 
 Nor can it fail to excite a suspicion of sinister 
 and interested purposes, as well as of a crook- 
 ed and contemptible policy, that they, who had 
 boldness enough to enterprise the war, should 
 lack courage to meet the effects of its burthens 
 upon the public feeling, and should postpone to 
 a future day the levying of the taxes instituted 
 for its prosecution, and essential to the exigen- 
 cies of the state. 
 
 The view I have given of the conduct of our 
 government is very general ; but it is not there- 
 fore the less instructive. I have purposely ab- 
 
47 
 
 stained from a minute investigation of individual 
 measures, and of insulated acts, af once impolitic 
 and detrimental, because I conceived however 
 much these might have denoted incompetency, 
 that the infirmity was more radical and compre- 
 hensive. Neither have I laid any stress upon 
 what is equally manifest ; that the old republican 
 ground, on which Mr. Madison and his associates 
 came into power, has been abandoned, and the 
 first principles of republican policy unadvisedly 
 discarded. Have they not avoided necessary 
 appropriations for the protection of our commerce, 
 while they proceeded to make immense expend- 
 iture on a commercial dispute not substantially 
 our own ? Have they not resorted to the very 
 system of loans and taxation, that in time^ past 
 occasioned their animadversion, and stimulated 
 
 thoir exertions to prevent our rcpubliu cuntracting, 
 
 what they termed the worst disease of European 
 politics ? Have not their economical plans, arbi- 
 trarily conceived, after drying up the sources of 
 prosperity, eventuated in heavy impositions on 
 the citizen, while the public chest hns been de- 
 frauded by legerdemain, and impoverished by 
 the constant access of wasteful schemes and vis- 
 ionary projection ? 
 
 If what has been advanced, does not warrant 
 the conclusion, that the course plainly pointed out 
 by an intelligent perception of the crises of our 
 
48 
 
 affairs, has been sacrificed to a policy, engender- 
 ed by the inaptitude of our rulers for governing, 
 and persisted in through the preponderating in- 
 fluence of inland predilections, then al o it may 
 be disputed that the country is in adverse circum- 
 stances, and that the American people are no 
 longer in the downward, but in the ascending 
 scale in the column of national greatness and fe- 
 licity. 
 
 It is moreover strongly inferible from the 
 grounds adduced, that those who stand at the 
 helm of the vessel of state, in order to avoid the 
 breakers on the English shore, have laid her head 
 in a direction towards the smooth waters and 
 smiling coasts of imperial France, where lie hid- 
 den rocks and shoals, that render repos^ unsafe, 
 and contiguity alarming. ,.. 
 
 It nmy perhaps bo indelicate, follow citizens, 
 
 to intimate that the question, *' who shall be our 
 next president ?" is believed not to have been 
 without its effects on the late decisions of our 
 public councils. The phlogiston in the temper 
 south of the Potomac, might be brought into act- 
 ual inflammalion, by contact with so gross an at- 
 mosphere, as could sustain a suspicion, that any 
 motive except patriotism, and any feelings save 
 those of public spirit enter into its com})osition. 
 Honor and love of country disclaim geographical 
 divisions ; but by my soul the people living in 
 
49 
 
 Virginia and the parts adjacent thereto, seem to 
 entertain very singular persuasions, not only of 
 their capacity, but of their right to administer 
 the government of the Union. 
 
 From the general considerations offered in the 
 preceding discussion agains* the continuance of 
 the presidency in Mr. Madison, I am thus insen- 
 sibly led to those of a local nature, highly forcible 
 and admonitory. If it be true, that on leading 
 public questions the bulk of those, who patronise 
 the measures of his administration, are represent- 
 atives from the Southern States, may it not be im- 
 puted to the centripetal force of a cabinet located 
 among themselves ? If it be true that there is a 
 vein of thinking in that quarter on affairs of gov- 
 ernment, which runs counter to the great interests 
 of the commercial States, can it be considered 
 otherwise than dangerous and highly inimical to 
 (;he federative principles of the union, to foster 
 such exclusive notions, and to cherish the means 
 whereby they possess scope and exercise ? Modes 
 of thinking long indulged in, take deep root ; 
 and the shallowest observer of the human mind, 
 knows that opinions are neither less stubborn, nor 
 less arrogant from being erroneous. Tliie consist- 
 ency of the parts and the due arrangement of 
 them, constitute the beauty and utility of afabric : 
 so in the union of the States, felicity can result 
 only from skill in forming their various relations 
 
 o 
 
50 
 
 into a beneficial and harmonious combination, 
 while efficacy is given to their separate capacities. 
 It cannot but be impolitic in the nature of our 
 union to continue its chief magistracy for a very 
 long period, in the citizen of any one state. I 
 give more credit to the efficacy of intrigue and 
 cabal in producing the effi.^ct, than to the superi- 
 ority of intellect and talents in preferring a just 
 claim to the privilege. Praised be the genius of 
 the ancient dominion ; the Roman sternness and 
 republican simplicity of its citizens ; the humility, 
 the forbearance, and pristine virtues of their char- 
 acter ! The sages who framed its system of 
 polity, have admirably combined the excellencies 
 of the codes of Lycurgus and Solon. We see 
 there the Helotes of Sparta to awaken disgust 
 towards debauch and licentiousness. — There the 
 citizens arc cailj' taught iiie viitues of Temper- 
 ance and chastity. — Gymnastic exercises are rc» 
 Tived in wrestling rings, and boxing matches ; 
 and public race grounds exceed in concourse and 
 value of stake, the games established in Greece 
 for the display of equestrian skill j where the 
 speed of chariots drawn by high mettled coursers, 
 and guided by heroes, competed alone for the 
 shout of empty applause. Yet do I still conceive 
 that the equality of nature liolds on either side of 
 the Apalachian in the endowments of Americans, 
 and that men of strong minds are not peculiar to 
 
51 
 
 any quarter of the union. The objection ap* 
 phes to the known process of power in possessiori, 
 which is ever prone to generate means for its own 
 continuance, and to the consequent inconvenience 
 that results from the influence of those means. 
 The instrumentality of agents in composing a 
 desigti, confers upon them in some degree, a 
 privilege of counselling, and a weight in the de- 
 cision of subsequent measures. It necessarily 
 constitutes a junto, whose ingenuity will con- 
 stantly be exercised on the direction of public 
 Concerns, and on deciding who shall fill the high 
 offices of government. Nothing can be more 
 dangerous to the freedom of election, than the 
 machinations of a knot of politicians thus form- 
 ed, and whose previous intrigues have given them 
 an insight, and an influence, with the numer- 
 ous minor iieeociation^, Int^ which the pursuit of 
 
 political objects connects the citizens of free 
 States. Nor can any thing tend more to perpet- 
 uate favorite schemes, and exclusive systems in 
 governments, than the uniform sway of particu- 
 lar individuals, in effecting the successive exalt- 
 ation into power of such as from policy or con- 
 viction adopt the notions and acknowledge the 
 principles on which those schemes and systems 
 are founded. It is probably on the operation of 
 a rule of this kind, that a suspicion has existed ' 
 
52 
 
 in the minds of many in regard to Virginia poli- 
 tics : a suspicion which, whether groundless or 
 Bot, proves the natural and obvious tendency of 
 the irregularity of continuing the executive of 
 the union in a particular State for an undue 
 length of time. 
 
 To the Candidate announced by the State of 
 New- York no local objections can be raised. New- 
 York has never yet enjoyed the dignity of the 
 Presidency. Central in geographical position, 
 and stretching from the Atlantic to the cataract 
 of Niagara, it claims a near affinity with every 
 object of maratime or interior concern that af- 
 fects the union. It is entitled to and will pos- 
 sess, by virtue of its population, much weight in 
 the national councils. Agriculture is the great 
 source of its wealth, but in a commercial view, 
 in the double vplMfions of inland and foreign trade, 
 it has no competitor. Its manufactuning estab- 
 lishments are progressing with rapid strides, and 
 already claim a capital of many millions. Of 
 course the State may not be supposed to have a 
 leading interest in the institution of a policy of 
 government, opposed to an equal participation of 
 benefit among the members of the confederation, 
 and to the full enjoyment of the separate local 
 and natural advantages, that diversify the seve- 
 , ral portions of our extensive territory. 
 
53 
 
 Dewitt Clinton, the Candidate of New- York, is 
 thus presented most favorably to the union for 
 the high office of President. 
 
 The chief advantage tendered to the nation, in 
 the prospect of Mr. Chnton's elevation, consists in 
 his not being pledged to a particular system, nor 
 to a particular set of men. If he should be elect- 
 ed, he will come into office with hands unfetter, 
 ed ; with a mind unswayed by animosities, fo- 
 reign or domestic ; with persuasions of the utili- 
 ty and benefits of commerce, that entitle it to the 
 protection of government. 
 
 Nor although uncommitted in policy, can a 
 doubt be entertained of that Gentleman's efficient 
 vindication of his country's rights. 
 
 His capacity for managing our national affairs, 
 is declared by the ability which he has displayed 
 
 in the various trusts confided to him, whereby he 
 has acquired great consideration even with his 
 political adversaries. To the arrogant demand 
 for proof of his eminent talents, it might be suf- 
 ficient in relation to existing competition, to reply, 
 that whenever a field has been afforded for their 
 exercise, he has uniformly obtained esteem and 
 applause. 
 
 The calumny, that charges him with intrigue, 
 must rest contented until it adduces the grounds 
 of crimination, with being informed, that Mr. 
 Clinton was the person who introduced that 
 
54 
 
 amendment of the constitution, and to whose in- 
 iiuence its adoption was chiefly owing, which 
 puts the presidency beyond the scope of the in. 
 trigues it was originally liable to, through the 
 name of the person intended for that office not 
 being designated. 
 
 The unanimity of the repubhcan members of 
 the legislature of New- York, sufficiently attests 
 their confidence in his attachment to the pure re- 
 pubhcan principles of the constitution of the Uni- 
 ted States. Yet it is not believed, that he would 
 carry into the general government, a principle of 
 exclusion, as a principle of republicanism. There 
 may be other merit besides the merit of party. 
 
 I am not the eulogist of Mr. Clinton : I am nei. 
 ther connected with him in sameness of pursuits, 
 nor indebted to h'un for any favor. Truth allows 
 me to say, that in the several stations he has fill- 
 ed, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, he has 
 commanded admiration for his abilities, and im- 
 pressed on all minds, a sense of an energetic and 
 decided character. Estimable in private life, and 
 irreproachable in his public career, he presents 
 the united claims of talents and virtue, on the af- 
 fections and support of the American people. 
 
 In reviewing the course of our foreign affairs 
 in their relations with England and with France, 
 I have endeavored fairly to test the claim of the 
 administration to our approval, and feel invul- 
 
55 
 
 nerable to every charge of inclining towards 
 either of those powers. The position I take is, 
 that an invasion of our acknowledged and ascer- 
 tained rights should meet repuLe by arms, if not 
 yielded to remonstrance, and that too, with 
 promptitude and vigor. Sucli ought to have been 
 the course of our government with regard to 
 England in 1806 and 1807. But when the Em- 
 perojc of France by the decree of Berlin, in ef- 
 feet, terminated our negociations upon existing 
 diflferences with the British government, when 
 by that decree assuming a broader violation of 
 our rights, he presented an original offence, not 
 merely at variance with neutral claims, but de- 
 structive of sovereign power, it became the im- 
 perious duty of the administration to set its face 
 against the outragp, and to nantoct it hy wan 
 There would have been dignity and safety in 
 such a course : reason and right counselled to it. 
 The speculative mind of a philosopher, the timid 
 bosoms of time-serving politicians decided differ- 
 ently ; and what has been the result ? New dis- 
 graces, new violations and incalculable spoliation, 
 till the aggressors are apparently convinced they 
 are in the right, and risque a war in defence of 
 wrong, while our rulers hide their incompetency 
 beneath restrictive systems, and their desertion 
 of the public weal behind the outrages of the 
 belliscerents. 
 
56 
 
 I have not addressed you, Fellow-Citizens, as 
 a party .man. I place no merit in declaring my 
 political sentiments. My business with you re- 
 lates to a national question. Test me by what is 
 written. Let not republicans condemn me, be- 
 cause I will not be bound in the fetters of con- 
 formity to caucus recommendations from the fo- 
 cus of intrigue, and the theatre of cabals. Let 
 me not be blamed for separating myself from 
 those, who resemble silly sheep following the bell- 
 wether in his leap down the precipice of destruc- 
 tion. I have not said, *' We are all federalists, 
 we are all republicans," but I address myself to 
 men of all parties as having an equal concern in 
 the destinies of the republic. I would not propi- 
 tiate the federalists by disguising my political 
 pcruaf^inns Tf thpre is any in that Darty, who 
 feels indifferent to the welfare and glory of his 
 country, unless federalism is ascendant, I would 
 not be considered as addressing myself to him : 
 he is the slave of party-spirit and unworthy the 
 name ol Freeman. 
 
 TOUCHSTONE. 
 
 If 73 
 

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