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
But we are told, that the embargo itself is submission. Indeed, sir!
Then, with all my heart, I would tear it from the statute book, and
leave a black page where it stood. Is the embargo submission? By
whom is it so called? By gentlemen who are for active offence? Do
these gentlemen come forward and tell you that that the embargo is
submission? No such thing, sir. My memory deceives me, if any man who
voted for the embargo thinks it submission. They are the original
opponents of the embargo who call it submission, and who, while they
charge you with the intention, are by every act and deed practising it
themselves. It is incorrect, sir. Every gentleman who has spoken, and
who has told you that the embargo is submission, has acknowledged the
truth of the resolution under consideration; it has not been denied by
a single individual. Suppose then we were to change its phraseology,
and make it the preamble to a resolution for repealing the embargo, it
will then read: "whereas the United States cannot without a sacrifice
of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the late edicts of
Great Britain." Therefore resolved, that the embargo be repealed, and
commerce with Great Britain permitted. Do these two declarations hang
together, sir? That, because we cannot submit to the edicts of the
belligerents, we will therefore open a free trade with them? The first
part of the proposition is true, no man has denied it; the addition
which I have made to it then, is the discordant part, and proves the
embargo is not submission. I wish to know of gentlemen, whether trading
with the belligerents, under their present restrictions on commerce,
would not be submission? Certainly, sir. Is then a refraining from so
doing, submission? In a word, is resistance submission? Was the embargo
principle considered submission in the days of the stamp act? Did the
nation call it submission when it was enacted under General Washington?
Was it so considered by the Republicans, when resorted to for redress
against the primary violations in 1793? Or was it ever contended that
had not the embargo been raised, the terms of Jay's treaty would have
been worse? Do gentlemen of the "old school" undertake to say that the
Father of their country submitted then to George III.? I hope not,
sir. If the embargo was not submission under George Washington, it is
not under Thomas Jefferson. Again, I ask, were the principles of the
embargo submission in 1774-'5-'6? But it has been replied, it is not
meet that the remedies of that day should be applied to the present
case. Why not, sir? The disease was the same; and lest gentlemen have
forgotten what it was, I will tell them how the old Congress described
it: "You exercised unbounded sovereignty over the sea, you named the
ports and nations to which alone our merchandise should be carried, and
with whom alone we should trade." Draw the parallel, sir, and if the
remedy of that period will not suit the present crisis, let us look
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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