Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/25

Rh of New England seamen. From every quarter we were called upon for protection. Importunate as the west is now represented to be on another subject, the importunity of the east on that occasion was far greater. I hold in my hands the evidence of the fact. Here are petitions, memorials, and remonstrances from all parts of New England, setting forth the injustice, the oppressions, the depredations, the insults, the outrages committed by Great Britain against the unoffending commerce and seamen of New England, and calling upon Congress for redress. Sir, I cannot stop to read these memorials. In that from Boston, after stating the alarming and extensive condemnation of our vessels by Great Britain, which threatened “to sweep our commerce from the face of the ocean,” and “to involve our merchants in bankruptcy,” they call upon the government “to assert our rights, and to adopt such measures as will support the dignity and honor of the United States.”

From Salem we heard a language still more decisive; they call explicitly for “an appeal to arms,” and pledge their lives and property in support of any measures which Congress might adopt. From Newburyport an appeal was made “to the firmness and justice of the government to obtain compensation and protection.” It was here, I think, that, when the war was declared, it was resolved “to resist our own government even unto blood.” (Olive Branch, p. 101.)

In other quarters the common language of that day was, that our commerce and our seamen were entitled to protection; and that it was the duty of the government to afford it at every hazard. The conduct of Great Britain, we were then told, was “an outrage upon our national independence.” These clamors, which commenced as early as January, 1806, were continued up to 1812. In a message from the governor of one of the New England States, as late as the 10th October, 1811, this language is held: “A manly and decisive course has become indispensable; a course to satisfy foreign nations, that, while we desire peace, we have the means and the spirit to repel aggression. We are false to ourselves when our commerce, or our territory, is invaded with impunity.”

About this time, however, a remarkable change was observable in the tone and temper of those who had been endeavoring to force the country into a war. The language of complaint was changed into that of insult, and calls for protection converted into reproaches. “Smoke, smoke!” says one writer; “my life on it, our executive have no more idea of declaring war than my grandmother.” The“The [sic] committee of ways and means,” says another, “have come out with their Pandora’s box of taxes, and yet nobody dreams of war.” “Congress do not mean to declare war; they dare not.” But why multiply examples? An honorable member of the other house, from the city of Boston, [Mr. Quincy,] in a speech delivered on the 3d April, 1812, says, “Neither promises, nor threats, nor asseverations, nor oaths, will make me believe that you will go to war. The navigation states are sacrificed, and the spirit and character of the country prostrated by fear and avarice.” “You cannot,” said the same gentleman, on another occasion, “be kicked into a war.”

Well, sir, the war at length came, and what did we behold? The very men who had been for six years clamorous for war, and for whose protection it was waged, became at once equally clamorous against it. They had received a miraculous visitation; a new light suddenly beamed upon their minds; the scales fell from their eyes, and it was discovered that the war was declared from “subserviency to France;” and that Congress,