The gentleman from Massachusetts is truly unfortunate; fact or principle is always against him. The Spanish posts were not in the possession of the enemy. One old Indian only was found in the Barancas, none in Pensacola, none in St. Marks. There was not even the color of a threat of Indian occupation as it regards Pensacola and the Barancas. Pensacola was to be restored unconditionally, and might, therefore, immediately have come into the possession of the Indians, if they had the power and the will to take it. The gentleman is in a dilemma from which there is no escape. He gave up general Jackson when he supported the president, and gave up the president when he supported general Jackson. I rejoice to have seen the president manifesting, by the restoration of Pensacola, his devotedness to the constitution. When the whole country was ringing with plaudits for its capture, I said, and I said alone, in the limited circle in which I moved, that the president must surrender it; that he could not hold it. It is not my intention to inquire, whether the army was or was not constitution ally marched into Florida. It is not a clear question, and I am inclined to think that the express authority of congress ought to have been asked. The gentleman from Massachusetts will allow me to refer to a part of the correspondence at Ghent different from that which he has quoted. He will find the condition of the Indians there accurately defined. And it is widely variant from the gentleman's ideas on this subject. The Indians, inhabiting the United States, according to the statement of the American commissioners at Ghent, have a qualified sovereignty only, the supreme sovereignty residing in the government of the United States. They live under their own laws and customs, may inhabit and hunt their lands; but acknowledge the protection of the United States, and have no right to sell their lands but to the government of the United States. Foreign powers or foreign subjects have no right to maintain any intercourse with them, without our permission. They are not, therefore, independent nations, as the gentleman supposes. Maintaining the relation described with them, we must allow a similar relation to exist between Spain and the Indians residing within her dominions. She must be, therefore, regarded as the sovereign of Florida, and we are, accordingly, treating with her for the purchase of it. In strictness, then, we ought first to have demanded of her to restrain the Indians, and, that failing, we should have demanded a right of passage for our army. But, if the president had the power to march an army into Florida, without consulting Spain, and without the authority of congress, he had no power to authorize any act of hostility against her. If the gentleman had even succeeded in showing that an authority was conveyed by the executive to general Jackson to take the Spanish posts, he would only have established that unconstitutional orders had been given, and thereby transferred the disapprobation from

the military officer to the executive. But no such orders were, in truth, given. The president acted in conformity to the constitution, when he forbade the attack of a Spanish fort, and when, in the same spirit, he surrendered the posts themselves.

I will not trespass much longer upon the time of the committee; but I trust I shall be indulged with some few reflections upon the danger of permitting the conduct on which it has been my painful duty to animadvert, to pass without a solemn expression of the disapprobation of this house. Recall to your recollection the free nations which have gone before us. Where are they now?

'Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were,

A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour.'

And how have they lost their liberties? If we could transport ourselves back to the ages when Greece and Rome flourished in their greatest prosperity, and, mingling in the throng, should ask a Grecian if he did not fear that some daring military chieftain, covered with glory, some Philip or Alexander, would one day overthrow the liberties of his country, the confident and indignant Grecian would exclaim, no! no! we have nothing to fear from our heroes; our liberties will be eternal. If a Roman citizen had been asked, if he did not fear that the conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly repelled the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell; Cæsar passed the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could not preserve the liberties of his devoted country! The celebrated Madame de Stael, in her last and perhaps her best work, has said, that in the very year, almost the very month, when the president of the directory declared that monarchy would never more show its frightful head in France, Bonaparte, with his grenadiers, entered the palace of St. Cloud, and dispersing, with the bayonet, the deputies of the people, deliberating on the affairs of the state, laid the foundation of that vast fabric of despotism which overshadowed all Europe. I hope not to be misunderstood; I am far from intimating that general Jackson cherishes any designs inimical to the liberties of the country. I believe his intentions to be pure and patriotic. I thank God that he would not, but I thank him still more that he could not if he would, overturn the liberties of the republic. But precedents, if bad, are fraught with the most dangerous consequences. Man has been described, by some of those who have treated of his nature, as a bundle of habits. The definition is much truer when applied to governments. Precedents are their habits. There is one important difference between the formation of habits by an individual and by governments. He contracts it only after frequent repetition. A single instance fixes the habit and determines the direction of governments. Against

the alarming doctrine of unlimited discretion in our military commanders when applied even to prisoners of war, I must enter my protest. It begins upon them; it will end on us. I hope our happy form of government is to be perpetual. But, if it is to be preserved, it must be by the practice of virtue, by justice, by moderation, by magnanimity, by greatness of soul, by keeping a watchful and steady eye on the executive; and, above all, by holding to a strict accountability the military branch of the public force.

We are fighting a great moral battle, for the benefit not only of our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the whole world are in fixed attention upon us. One, and the largest portion of it, is gazing with contempt, with jealousy, and with envy; the other portion, with hope, with confidence, and with affection. Everywhere the black cloud of legitimacy is suspended over the world, save only one bright spot, which breaks out from the political hemisphere of the west, to enlighten, and animate, and gladden the human heart. Obscure that, by the downfall of liberty here, and all mankind arc enshrouded in a pall of universal darkness. To you, Mr. Chairman, belongs the high privilege of transmitting, unimpaired, to posterity, the fair character and liberty of our country. Do you expect to execute this high trust, by trampling, or suffering to be trampled down, law, justice, the constitution, and the rights of the people? by exhibiting examples of inhumanity, and cruelty, and ambition? When the minions of despotism heard, in Europe, of the seizure of Pensacola, how did they chuckle, and chide the admirers of our institutions, tauntingly pointing to the demonstration of a spirit of injustice and aggrandizement made by our country, in the midst of an amicable negotiation. Behold, said they, the conduct of those who are constantly reproaching kings. You saw how those admirers were astounded and hung their heads. You saw, too, when that illustrious man, who presides over us, adopted his pacific, moderate, and just course, how they once more lifted up their heads with exultation and delight beaming in their countenances. And you saw how those minions themselves were finally compelled to unite in the general praises bestowed upon our government. Beware how you forfeit this exalted character. Beware how you give a fatal sanction, in this infant period of our republic, scarcely yet two score years old, to military insubordination. Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Cæsar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte, and that if we would escape the rock on which they split, we must avoid their errors.

How different has been the treatment of general Jackson, and that modest, but heroic young man, a native of one of the smallest states in the union, who achieved for his country, on lake Erie, one of the most glorious victories of the late war. In a moment

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of passion, he forgot himself, and offered an act of violence which was repented of as soon as perpetrated. He was tried, and suffered the judgment to be pronounced by his peers. Public justice was thought not even then to be satisfied. The press and congress took up the subject. My honorable friend from Virginia (Mr. Johnson), the faithful and consistent sentinel of the law and of the constitution, disapproved in that instance, as he does in this, and moved an inquiry. The public mind remained agitated and unappeased, until the recent atonement so honorably made by the gallant commodore. And is there to be a distinction between the officers of the two branches of the public service? Are former services, however eminent, to preclude even inquiry into recent misconduct? Is there to be no limit, no prudential bounds to the national gratitude? I am not disposed to censure the president for not ordering a court of inquiry, or a general court-martial. Perhaps, impelled by a sense of gratitude, he determined, by anticipation, to extend to the general that pardon which he had the undoubted right to grant after sentence. Let us not shrink from our duty. Let us assert our constitutional powers, and vindicate the instrument from military violation.

I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful isthmus on which we stand. They may bear down all opposition; they may even vote the general the public thanks; they may carry him triumphantly through this house. But, if they do, in my humble judgment, it will be a triumph of the principle of insubordination, a triumph of the military over the civil authority, a triumph over the powers of this house, a triumph over the constitution of the land. And I pray most devoutly to Heaven, that it may not prove, in its ultimate effects and consequences, a triumph over the liberties of the people.

ON SOUTH AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 9, 1819.

[THE house being in committee of the whole, on the bill to increase the salaries of certain officers of government, Mr. Clay rose and saia |

It had been his settled intention to renew, pending this bill, the proposition which he had the honor of submitting at the last session, having for its object the recognition of the independence of the United Provinces of South America. He was restrained from executing that intention, by two considerations; one was his personal indisposition, but another and more important one, was, the small portion of the session yet remaining, to transact the public business. Whilst he was up, he would say, that so far from his opinions, expressed on the former occasion, having undergone any change, they had been strengthened and confirmed, by all the occurrences which had subsequently taken place. He had been anxious, if time had permitted, to examine what appeared to him very exceptionable reasons assigned for declining to recognise our sister republic, in a paper entitled to the most profound respect, the message of the president at the opening of congress. He was desirous, also, of noticing the still more exceptionable grounds taken in a paper recently transmitted to the house, from the department of state (it ought to be laid on our table; why it was not, he did not know; he hoped our worthy clerk would, in his future contract for the public printing, guard against the delay to which we have so often been subjected). From that paper it appeared, that even a consul could not be received from the southern republic, because the grant of an exequator implied recognition! We receive her flag, we admit her commerce, and yet refuse the consular protection which that flag and commerce necessarily drew with them! But to submit his proposition, would be to occasion, perhaps, a protracted debate. And considering the few days yet left us, the pressing and urgent, though not more impo tant business yet to be done, he should not hold himself excusable to the house and to the country, after having himself so materially contributed to the consumption of time in debate, if he were even