the war.

against impressment itself; and nothing short of this would be effectual, or prove a disposition to do justice or promote a good understanding between the two couutries.

On the 18th of June, 1812, the injunction of secrecy having been removed from the proceedings of congress, a DECLARATION OF War was announced, and the message of the president, and the report or manifesto of the committee on foreign relations was published, with the act declaring

On the final passage of the bill, the vote in the senate was 19 to 13; in the house, 79 to 49.

Before the adjournment, the federal members of the house of representatives published an address to their constituents, on the subject of the war with Great Britain. The minority complain that they had been called into secret session on the most interesting of all public relations, without any reason for secrecy. No fact not previously known was before the house, and no reason for secrecy existed, unless it was found in the apprehension of the effect of public debate on public opinion, or of public opinion on the result of the vote.

The object of waging war and invading Canada, the address said, had long been openly avowed, while, as was well known, our army and navy were inadequate for successful invasion, and our fortifications were insuffi cient for the security of our seaboard. Yet the people had been kept in ignorance of the progress of measures until the purposes of the administration were consummated, and the fate of the country was sealed. The demand of the minority for open doors having been refused, they declined discussion, convinced that, in the house, all argument with closed doors was hopeless.

In speaking of the alleged causes of war, on the subject of impressment, they remarked: “The government of the United States asserts the broad principle, that the flag of their merchant vessels shall protect the mariners. The privilege is claimed, although every person on board except the captain may be an alien. The British government asserts that the allegiance of their subjects is inalienable, in time of war, and that their seamen, found on the sea, the common highway of nations, shall not be protected by the flag of private merchant vessels.” This doctrine, they said, was common to all the governments of Europe. France, as well as England, claimed, in time of war, the services of her subjects. Both, by decrees, forbid their entering into foreign employ : both recall them by proclamation. None doubted that, in the present state of the French marine, if American merchant vessels were met at sea, having French seamen on board, France would take them. man believe that the United States would go to war with France on this account? They considered impressment to be a subject of arrange

Did any Mr. King

ment rather than of war. It had been so treated by every former administration.

England, they said, had disavowed the right of impressment as it respected our native citizens; and an arrangement, it was believed, might be made in regard to such as were naturalized. Indeed, Mr. King, when minister to England, had obtained from the British government a disavowal of the right to impress American seamen, naturalized as well as native, on the high seas. An arrangement had been advanced nearly to a conclusion, upon this basis, and was broken off only because Great Britain insisted on retaining the right on the narrow seas. was of the opinion, however, " that with more time than was left him for the experiment, the objection might have been overcome.” Mr. Madison, it appeared, was himself of the same opinion. In his letters to Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney, in February, 1807, he says : 1“ I take it for granted that

you

have not failed to make due use of the arrangement concerted by Mr. King with lord Hawkesbury in the year 1802, for settling the question of impressment. On that occasion, and under that administration, the British principle was fairly renounced in favor of the right of our flag, lord Hawkesbury having agreed to prohibit impressment on the high seas,' and lord Vincents requiring no more than an exception of the narrow seas, an exception resting on the obsolete claim of Great Britain to some peculiar dominion over them.”

It appeared farther, that the British ministry had called for an interview with Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney on this topic, at which they had gone so far as to offer, on the part of Great Britain, to pass laws making it penal for British commanders to impress American citizens on board of American vessels on the high seas, if America could pass a law making it penal for the officers of the United States to grant certificates of citizenship to British subjects. And Mr. Monroe, after his return, in a letter from Richmond to Mr. Madison, dated February 28, 1808, said : "I have, on the contrary, always believed, and still do believe, that the ground on which that interest (impressment) was placed by the paper of the British commissioners of the 8th of November, 1806, and the explanation which accompanied it, was both honorable and advantageous to the United States ; that it contained a concession in their favor, on the part of Great Britain, on the great principle in contestation, never before made by a formal and obligatory act of their government, which was highly favorable to their interest." In view of these facts, the mi. nority thought this subject furnished no proper cause of war.

They undertook to show also, that the blockade of 1806, which had been made a specific ground of complaint, and a cause of war, was regarded at first as favorable to the United States. As the manner in

which the American and French governments, in their official papers, had spoken of the order of blockade, was vague and indeterminate, and calculated to mislead, they presented the following facts: In August, 1804, the British established a blockade at the entrance of the French ports from Ostend to the Seine. The nearness of these ports to the British coasts, and the absence of all complaint, authorized the belief that the blockade was lawful, and enforced according to the usage of nations. On the 16th of May, 1806, the English secretary of state, Mr. Fox, notified our minister at London, Mr. Monroe, that the British government had thought fit to direct measures to be taken for the blockade of the coasts, rivers, and ports, from the river Elbe to the river Brest, both inclusive. The order, however, declared “ that such blockade shall not prevent neutral vessels laden with goods not being the property of his majesty's enemies, and not contraband of war, from approaching, entering, or leaving the said coasts, rivers, and ports, except those from Ostend to the Seine, already in a state of rigorous blockade, and which are to be so continued ;" and provided that the vessels entering bad not been laden at an enemy's port, and the vessels departing were not destined to an cnemy's port.

Hence it appeared, that the order did not actually extend the blockade; and instead of operating against our trade, it was considered at the time as designed to favor it, as the minority infer from the letters of Monroe to Mr. Madison. On the 17th of May, 1806, he wrote, that the order of blockade was “couched in terms of restraint, and professes to extend the blockade further than was heretofore done; nevertheless it takes it from many ports already blockaded; indeed from all east of Ostend, and west of the Seine, except in articles contraband of war and enemy's property, which are seizable without blockade. And in like form of exception, .... it admits the trade of neutrals within the same limits to be free in the productions of enemies' colonies, in every but the direct route, between the colony and the parent country;" adding, “it can not be doubted that the note was drawn by the government in reference to the question; and if intended as the foundation of a treaty, must be viewed in a favorable light.” And on the 20th of May, he wrote, that he had been “strengthened in the opinion, that the order of the 16th was drawn with a view to the question of our trade with the enemies' colonies, and that it promises to be highly satisfactory to our commercial interest"

In reference to this blockade, the minority said, as Mr. Foster had said to Mr. Monroe, that "it had never been made the subject of complaint hy the American government, until after the first order in council; and indeed not until the 1st of May, 1810, and until after the American government was apprised of the ground which it was the will of France should be taken on the subject." In proof of this, they referred to the offers made during the administration of Mr. Jefferson for the discontinuance of the emb as it related to Great Britain; none of which required the repeal of the blockade of May, 1806. Nor was it required by the arrangement made with Mr. Erskine during the administration of Mr. Madison. It did not appear to be of sufficient importance to engage even a thought; yet, under the act of May, 1810, it is made by our cabinet a sine qua non—an indispensable requisite !

The British orders in council, were the remaining cause of war. They had heretofore been considered by our governinent in connection with the French decrees. Certainly, both formed a system subversive of neutral rights; yet the undersigned could not persuade themselves that the orders in council, as they now existed, and with their present effect and operation, justified the selection of Great Britain as our enemy, and rendered necessary a declaration of unqualified war.

It was contended that the Berlin and Milan decrees had never been revoked. The condition on which the non-intercourse, according to the act of the 1st of May, 1810, was to be revived against Great Britain, was, on the part of France, an effectual revocation of her decrees. The president was bound to require evidence of such revocation. A revocation to be effectual, must require, that the wrongs done to the commerce of the United States by the operation of the decrees should be stopped. According to the address, the release of vessels, after capture and detention, was not evidence of the repeal. The authority to capture, was the very essence of the wrong, and must be annulled, before the decrees could be considered effectually revoked. The letter of the duke of Cadore of the 5th of August, 1810, was no annullment of this authority. The imperial act which gave the authority, required, to annul it, another imperial act equally formal and solemn. This subject was pursued at great length, with a view to prove that these decrees had never been revoked.

Was there any thing in the friendship or commerce of France, they asked, very interesting or alluring for entering into hostilities? Of our exports during the last year, amounting to upwards of 45 millions of dollars, a little more than one million in value was exported to France. France was now deprived of all her foreign colonies; and our trade to that country had been, for several years past, and before the date of the orders in council, comparatively inconsiderable.

“But,” says the address, “it is said that war is demanded by honor. Is national honor a principle which thirsts after vengeance, and is appeased only by blood ? which, trampling on the hopes of man, and spurning the laws of God, untaught by what is past, and careless of what is to come

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precipitates itself into any folly or madness, to gratify a selfish vanity, or to satiate some unhallowed rage? If honor demands a war with Eng. land, what opiate lulls that honor to sleep over the wrongs done us by France ? On land, robberies, seizures, imprisonments by French authority; at sea, pillage, sinkings, burnings under French orders. These are notorious. Are they unfelt because they are French ? Is any alleviation to be found in the correspondence and humiliations of the present minister plenipotentiary of the United States at the French court ? In his communications to our government, as before the public, where is the cause for selecting France as the friend of our country, and England as the enemy ?"

" At a crisis of the world such as the present, and under impressions such as these, the undersigned could not consider the war into which the United States have, in secret, been precipitated, as necessary, or required by any moral duty, or any political expediency."

This address was signed by 34 members of the house, all federalists; of whom there were, from New Hampshire, 1 ; Massachusetts, 8; Connecticut 7; Rhode Island, 2; Vermont, 1; New York, 4; Pennsylvania, 1; Delaware, 1; Maryland, 3; Virginia, 4; North Carolina, 2. There were only two federalists in the house who did not sign the address: and their names are not among the yeas or nays on the passage of the war act. Of the republicans who voted against war, there were from Massachusetts, 1; New York, 7; New Jersey, 4; Virginia, (Randolph) 1; Pennsylvania, 1 ; North Carolina, 1.

Although all the federal members of the house, and nearly the whole federal party, were opposed to the declaration of war; yet many of the party, after war had been declared, gave it their support as a measure of the country. Among its federal supporters of distinction, was expresident John Adams.

A few days before the declaration of war, an arrival from Europe brought a copy of a decree of Napoleon, repealing the Berlin and Milan decrees. This decree of repeal was dated April 28, 1811, and was in the following words: “ On the report of our minister for foreign affairs.

Being informed of the law of the 2d of March, 1811, by which the congress of the United States has decreed the exemption of the provisions of the act of non-intercourse, which interdicts the entry into Ameri. can ports, of the ships and the merchandise of Great Britain, her colonies and dependencies:

“ Considering that the said law is an act of resistance to the arbitrary pretensions advanced by the British orders in council, and a formal refusal to sanction a system hostile to the independence of neutral pow. ers and of their flags :