Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)United States. Congress
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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
_Ordered_, That Mr. ALEXANDER, Mr. DAVID R. WILLIAMS, Mr. JOHN G.
JACKSON, Mr. KEY, and Mr. QUINCY, be appointed a committee, pursuant to
the said resolution.
A message from the Senate informed the House that the Senate have
passed a bill, entitled "An act supplemental to an act entitled 'An act
for extending the terms of credit on revenue bonds, in certain cases,
and for other purposes;'" also, a bill, entitled "An act to change the
post route from Annapolis to Rockhall, by Baltimore to Rockhall;" to
which they desire the concurrence of this House.
_Foreign Relations._
The following is Mr. GARDENIER'S speech entire:
Mr. Speaker: I had intended to defer the delivery of my sentiments upon
the second resolution, until that resolution should come before the
House. But the course which the debate has taken, has produced a change
in my original intention.
That the first resolution is an unnecessary one, because no clear,
definite, practical results can flow from it, appears to me
self-evident. Are the people of this country suspected of an intention
to abandon their rights or their independence? Indeed, sir, they are
not. Why then is it, that we are called upon to make a new declaration
of independence? Or was the Administration conducted in such a manner
as to make the firmness and patriotism of the nation itself doubted
abroad? Even I, sir, who am not suspected of a blind confidence in our
rulers, will not advance such a charge.
The true question is not, Is the matter expressed in this abstract
proposition true? But, Is it necessary that a resolution containing
it should be passed by this House? I agree with the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. CAMPBELL) that it would be no less ridiculous to pass
this resolution than to pass one that the sun shines. Allowing both to
be true, both are equally unnecessary to be embodied in a resolution of
this House. Begin this system of abstract legislation, and where are
you to stop? Sir, it partakes too much of the character of disturbed,
revolutionary times. To such a blasphemous height was this notion of
voting abstract propositions, or declarations, or truisms (call them
what you will) carried at one time in France, that their Convention
very gravely decreed "that there was a God!" This was a self-evident
truth; and being so could not become more so by being decreed. And
if the edicts of Great Britain and France go to the destruction of
our "rights, honor and independence," our voting that such is their
operation, makes it neither more nor less true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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