Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16) — John Shaqi
Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)United States. Congress
History
Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)
United States. Congress
Law -- United States; United States -- Politics and government
Mr. POPE said it had been his opinion this morning that this resolution
should have been referred to that committee, but after what had been
said, it was his wish that some commercial gentleman, whose knowledge
of commercial subjects would enable him to explore the wide field taken
by the gentleman from Connecticut, would have answered him. He had
hoped, at this session, after the Presidential election was decided,
that all would have dismounted from their political hobbies, that
they would have been all Federalists, all Republicans, all Americans.
When they saw the ocean swarming with pirates, and commerce almost
annihilated, he had hoped that the demon of party spirit would not
have reared its head within these walls, but that they would all have
mingled opinions and consulted the common good. He had heretofore been
often charmed with the matter-of-fact arguments of the gentleman from
Connecticut; but on this day the gentleman had resorted to arguments
from newspapers, and revived all the old story of French influence,
in the same breath in which he begged them to discard all party
feelings and discuss with candor. The gentleman had gone into a wide
field, which Mr. H. said he would not now explore, but begged time
till to-morrow, when he would endeavor to show to the nation and to
the world that the arguments used by the gentleman in favor of his
resolution were most weighty against it. If patriotism had departed
the land, if the streams of foreign corruption had flowed so far that
the people were ready to rise in opposition to their Government, it
was indeed time that foreign intercourse should cease. If the spirit
of 1776 were no more--if the spirit of commercial speculation had
surmounted all patriotism--if this was the melancholy situation of the
United States, it was time to redeem the people from this degeneracy,
to regenerate them, to cause them to be born again of the spirit of
1776. But he believed he should be able to show that the proposition of
the gentleman from Connecticut hardly merited the respect or serious
consideration of this honorable body. Mr. P. said he had expected
that in advocating his resolution the gentleman would have told the
Senate that we should go to war with Great Britain and France; that
he would have risen with patriotic indignation and have called for a
more efficient measure. But to his surprise, the gentleman had risen,
and with the utmost _sang froid_ told them, let your ships go out,
all's well, and nothing is to be apprehended. Mr. P. said he would not
go into the subject at this moment; he had but risen to express his
feelings on the occasion. He wished the subject postponed, the more
because he wished to consult a document just laid on their table, to
see how the memorials presented a short time ago from those whose cause
the gentleman from Connecticut undertook to advocate, accorded with the
sentiments he had this day expressed for them.
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