A nation which had never yet moved a muscle could hardly “make a pause;” but even if Colonel Johnson’s figures had been more correct, the sentiment was in his mouth unexpected, for in Kentucky gentlemen “buffeted on every side” were not supposed to pause. Still more remarkable was the language of Troup of Georgia--“the hot-headed Georgian,” as Jefferson afterward called him, who twenty years later challenged a civil war, but who in 1808 was even more anxious than Johnson to pause on the high eminence where he was buffeted on every side. “Permission to arm,” he said,[325] “is tantamount to a declaration of war; and the people of this country want peace as long as they can preserve it with honor. And do you think, sir, we are ready to plunge into a ruinous war, naked and unarmed, to gratify a few bankrupt commercial speculators? It is easy to declare war; it is more difficult under present circumstances to maintain peace; and it is most difficult of all to wage a successful war. Sir, beware! It is the object of the gentleman from Massachusetts and his friends to lead you step by step into a war, and if he can into an unpopular war, which the moment you cease to conduct with effect you are ruined, and he and his friends are exalted; ... and, sir, the moment this party ceases to rule, republicanism is gone, and with it the hopes of all good men forever.” Apart from the picture of American jealousies, Troup’s remarks offered an interesting example of the ideas then held in regard to national honor. No one made the obvious retort that a nation which preserved peace by tolerating insults like those inflicted by Champagny and Canning had best say nothing of its honor. The fiction of pride was still kept up, though members descended to appeals which seemed to imply physical fear. Madison’s brother-in-law, John G. Jackson, admitted himself to be cowed by Canning’s brutality. “The fires lighted up in Copenhagen,” said he,[326] “are scarcely extinguished; they are yet glowing before us in imagination at least. And we ought to recollect that if we do not submit, it is war; if we do submit, it is tribute; and if we have war, our towns will share the fate of fortified Copenhagen, unless we strengthen and fortify them.” On such reasoning, submission and tribute alone were possible, since fortifications which had failed to protect Copenhagen were little likely to protect Norfolk or New York. Macon joined in the same cry: “We have enough of the necessaries of life to make us content, and there is no nation in the world at this time that enjoys more of the luxuries of Europe and of the East and West Indies than we do,--in a word, none that enjoys more of the good things of this world.”