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
instructions of our Ministers, with respect to the different
belligerents, were necessarily modified with a reference to
their different circumstances, and to the condition annexed by
law to the Executive power of suspension requiring a degree of
security to our commerce which would not result from a repeal
of the decrees of France. Instead of a pledge therefore of a
suspension of the embargo as to her, in case of such a repeal,
it was presumed that a sufficient inducement might be found in
other considerations, and particularly in the change produced
by a compliance with our just demands by one belligerent, and
a refusal by the other, in the relations between the other
and the United States. To Great Britain, whose power on the
ocean is so ascendant, it was deemed not inconsistent with
that condition to state, explicitly, on her rescinding her
orders in relation to the United States, their trade would be
opened with her, and remain shut to her enemy, in case of his
failure to rescind his decrees also. From France no answer has
been received, nor any indication that the requisite change
in her decrees is contemplated. The favorable reception of
the proposition to Great Britain was the less to be doubted,
as her Orders of Council had not only been referred for their
vindication to an acquiescence on the part of the United
States no longer to be pretended, but as the arrangement
proposed, whilst it resisted the illegal decrees of France,
involved, moreover, substantially, the precise advantages
professedly aimed at by the British Orders. The arrangement
has, nevertheless, been rejected.
This candid and liberal experiment having thus failed, and
no other event having occurred on which a suspension of the
embargo by the Executive was authorized, it necessarily remains
in the extent originally given to it. We have the satisfaction,
however, to reflect, that in return for the privations imposed
by the measure, and which our fellow-citizens in general
have borne with patriotism, it has had the important effects
of saving our mariners, and our vast mercantile property,
as well as of affording time for prosecuting the defensive
and provisional measures called for by the occasion. It has
demonstrated to foreign nations the moderation and firmness
which govern our councils, and to our citizens the necessity of
uniting in support of the laws and the rights of their country,
and has thus long frustrated those usurpations and spoliations
which, if resisted, involved war, if submitted to, sacrificed a
vital principle of our national independence.
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