FISHER AMES

1758-1808

Fisher Ames, born at Dedham, Mass., in 1758, was but a boy when the Revolution began, and can hardly be classed among the colonial orators; a boy of seventeen, though he be already a graduate of Harvard, cannot be expected to address a political gathering effectively. But Ames, who had but fifty years to live, seemed bound to make the best of his time; his precocity was remarkable, and the work he did insured him remembrance. After leaving Harvard in 1774 with a high record as a student, he began the study of law, and was admitted to practice in 1781. He was now three-and-twenty, a fine classical scholar, and devoted to the investigation of political science. Meanwhile his forensic practice developed a marked talent for oratory, which his scholarship rendered comparable in quality with that of the great masters of eloquence on the other side of the Atlantic. Such ability could not fail to find its use in a new community; and Ames's name is found among the members of the Massachusetts ratifying committee in 1788; and the following year he was elected a federal member of Congress from Massachusetts, and retained his seat for eight years. During all these years, Ames was a frequent speaker; and at times his eloquence rose to such a pitch that, as when Sheridan made his famous speech against Warren Hastings, an adjournment was taken, in order that his hearers might recover somewhat from the too potent spell of his words. Those words might not produce so deep an effect to-day; they belonged to what we would consider the flowery style of oratory; and the growth among us of what is known as the sense of humor, or the inability to take the world au grand sérieux, makes such flights no longer possible. But people were still very serious and earnest in the republic during Washington's two administrations, and Ames spoke to sympathetic ears. His oration on "The British Treaty," is a worthy example of his style, showing, as it does, an intimate knowledge of political and economic issues.

An imaginative and cultured scholar, such as he, was sure to be chosen to pronounce eulogies, and similar addresses, where the ornaments of fancy and learning are in their proper place. Accordingly, Ames was chosen to deliver the funeral oration over Washington; and seldom in the history of our country has so great an opportunity been offered to speak immortal words. It cannot be affirmed that Ames was the one of all our orators, past or to come, that we would pick out for so lofty a commission; but the choice was a good one at the time, and he acquitted himself with abundant credit.

In 1804, his Alma Mater, having regard to the distinction and fair fame of her eminent son, offered him the presidency of the institution; but Ames, though but forty-six years of age, already began to feel the approach of the end, and was obliged to decline the honor. He retired from active public life; but continued to write at times. He was the author of " Laocoon and Other Essays," designed to stimulate opposi

tion to France. He died in 1808.

M

THE BRITISH TREATY*

R. CHAIRMAN: I entertain the hope, perhaps, a rash one, that my strength will hold me out to speak a few minutes.

In my judgment, a right decision will depend more on the temper and manner, with which we may prevail upon ourselves to contemplate the subject, than upon the development of any profound political principles, or any remarkable skill in the application of them. If we could succeed to neutralize our inclinations, we should find less difficulty than we have to apprehend in surmounting all our objections.

The suggestion, a few days ago, that the House manifested symptoms of heat and irritation, was made and retorted as if the charge ought to create surprise, and would convey reproach. Let us be more just to ourselves, and to the occasion. Let us not affect to deny the existence and the intrusion of some portion of prejudice and feeling into the debate, when, from the very structure of our nature, we ought to anticipate the circumstance as a probability, and when we are admonished by the evidence of our senses that it is the fact.

How can we make professions for ourselves, and offer exhortations to the House, that no influence should be felt but that of duty, and no guide respected but that of the understanding, while the peal to rally every passion of man is continually ringing in our ears?

Our understandings have been addressed, it is true, and with ability and effect; but, I demand, has any corner of the heart been left unexplored? It has been ransacked to find auxiliary arguments, and, when that attempt failed, to awaken the sensi

* A treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, between the United States and Great Britain, was concluded on November 19, 1794. Subsequently it was ratified by the President. On March 2, 1796, the President proclaimed it the law of the land, and the same day communicated it to the House of Repre

sentatives. On the twenty-eighth of April following, Mr. Ames, in Committee on the Whole, spoke on the subjoined resolution: "Resolved, as the opinion of this committee, that it is expedient to pass the laws necessary for carrying into effect the treaty with Great Britain."

bilities that would require none. Every prejudice and feeling has been summoned to listen to some peculiar style of address; and yet we seem to believe, and to consider a doubt as an affront, that we are strangers to any influence but that of unbiassed reason.

It would be strange, that a subject, which has roused in turn all the passions of the country, should be discussed without the interference of any of our own. We are men, and therefore not exempt from those passions; as citizens and representatives, we feel the interests that must excite them. The hazard of great interests cannot fail to agitate strong passions. We are not disinterested; it is impossible we should be dispassionate. The warmth of such feelings may becloud the judgment, and, for a time, pervert the understanding. But the public sensibility, and our own, has sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given an animation to the debate. The public attention has been quickened to mark the progress of the discussion, and its judgment, often hasty and erroneous on first impressions, has become solid and enlightened at last. Our result will, I hope, on that account, be the safer and more mature, as well as more accordant with that of the nation. The only constant agents in political affairs are the passions of men. Shall we complain of our nature-shall we say that man ought to have been made otherwise? It is right already, because He, from whom we derive our nature, ordained it so; and because thus made and thus acting, the cause of truth and the public good is the more surely promoted.

But an attempt has been made to produce an influence of a nature more stubborn, and more unfriendly to truth. It is very unfairly pretended, that the constitutional right of this House is at stake, and to be asserted and preserved only by a vote in the negative. We hear it said that this is a struggle for liberty, a manly resistance against the design to nullify this assembly, and to make it a cipher in the government; that the President and Senate, the numerous meetings in the cities, and the influence of the general alarm of the country, are the agents and instruments of a scheme of coercion and terror, to force the treaty down our throats, though we loathe it, and in spite of the clearest convictions of duty and conscience.

It is necessary to pause here and inquire, whether sugges

tions of this kind be not unfair in their very texture and fabric, and pernicious in all their influences. They oppose an obstacle in the path of inquiry, not simply discouraging, but absolutely insurmountable. They will not yield to argument; for as they were not reasoned up, they cannot be reasoned down. They are higher than a Chinese wall in truth's way, and built of materials that are indestructible. While this remains, it is vain to argue; it is vain to say to this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea. For, I ask of the men of knowledge of the world, whether they would not hold him for a blockhead, that should hope to prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, have they not failed of success? The indignant heart repels a conviction that is believed to debase it.

The self-love of an individual is not warmer in its sense, nor more constant in its action, than what is called in French, l'esprit du corps, or the self-love of an assembly; that jealous affection which a body of men is always found to bear towards its own prerogatives and power. I will not condemn this passion. Why should we urge an unmeaning censure, or yield to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public assembly are still men, and feel that esprit du corps which is one of the laws of their nature? Still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect, that this very spirit is a guardian instinct, that watches over the life of this assembly. It cherishes the principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its existence with all the strength we see it possess, the privileges of the representatives of the people, and mediately the liberties of the people, would not be guarded, as they are, with a vigilance that never sleeps, and an unrelaxing constancy and courage.

If the consequences, most unfairly attributed to the vote in the affirmative, were not chimerical, and worse, for they are deceptive, I should think it a reproach to be found even moderate in my zeal, to assert the constitutional powers of this assembly; and whenever they shall be in real danger, the present occasion affords proof that there will be no want of advocates and champions.

Indeed, so prompt are these feelings, and when once roused,

so difficult to pacify, that if we could prove the alarm was groundless, the prejudice against the appropriations may remain on the mind, and it may even pass for an act of prudence and duty to negative a measure, which was lately believed by ourselves, and may hereafter be misconceived by others, to encroach upon the powers of the House. Principles that bear a remote affinity with usurpation on those powers will be rejected, not merely as errors, but as wrongs. Our sensibilities will shrink from a post, where it is possible they may be wounded, and be inflamed by the slightest suspicion of an assault.

While these prepossessions remain, all argument is useless. It may be heard with the ceremony of attention, and lavish its own resources, and the patience it wearies, to no manner of purpose. The ears may be open, but the mind will remain locked up, and every pass to the understanding guarded.

Unless, therefore, this jealous and repulsive fear for the rights of the House can be allayed, I will not ask a hearing.

I cannot press this topic too far; I cannot address myself with too much emphasis to the magnanimity and candor of those who sit here, to suspect their own feelings, and, while they do, to examine the grounds of their alarm. I repeat it, we must conquer our persuasion, that this body has an interest in one side of the question more than the other, before we attempt to surmount our objections. On most subjects, and solemn ones too, perhaps in the most solemn of all, we form our creed more from inclination than evidence.

Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely possible they have yielded too suddenly to their alarms for the powers of this House; that the addresses, which have been made with such variety of forms, and with so great dexterity in some of them, to all that is prejudice and passion in the heart, are either the effects or the instruments of artifice and deception, and then let them see the subject once more in its singleness and simplicity.

It will be impossible, on taking a fair review of the subject, to justify the passionate appeals that have been made to us to struggle for our liberties and rights, and the solemn exhortations to reject the proposition, said to be concealed in that on your table, to surrender them forever. In spite of this mock