We are next told of the expenses of the war; and that the people will not pay taxes. Why not? Is it from want of means? . . .

Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against this low and "calculating avarice" entering this hall of legislation. It is only fit for shops and counting-houses; and ought not to disgrace the seat of power by its squalid aspect. Whenever it touches sovereign power, the nation is ruined. It is too short-sighted to defend itself. It is a compromising spirit, always ready to yield a part to save the residue. It is too timid to have in itself the laws of self-preservation. It is never safe but under the shield of honor. There is, Sir, one principle necessary to make us a great people-to produce not the form, but real spirit of union;-and that is, to protect every citizen in the lawful pursuit of his business. He will then feel that he is backed by the government; that its arm is his arm; and will rejoice in its increased strength and prosperity. Protection and patriotism are reciprocal. This is the way which had led nations to greatness. Sir, I am not versed in this calculating policy; and will not, therefore, pretend to estimate in dollars and cents the value of national independence. I cannot measure in shillings and pence the misery, the stripes, and the slavery of our impressed seamen; nor even the value of our shipping, commercial and agricultural losses,

under the orders in council, and the British system of blockade. . ..

John C. Calhoun, Speeches (N. Y., 1856), II. 41-44 passim.

4. What Constitutes a Blockade?

(1812)

By A CALM OBSERVER

One of the complaints of the United States was the capture of vessels bound to alleged blockaded ports.

I Do say that before a property of the value of 832,500 dollars in merchants' ships and innocent goods, within the pale of the law of God, and of the country of the proprietors, should have been sacrificed to an institution of political expediency, it ought to have been proved that all the technical requisites to such perversion existed. It ought to have been clearly before the court, that this proclamation blockade of the sixteenth of May, 1806, was not only capable of being enforced; intended to be enforced; ordered to be enforced; but actually was enforced, in the requisite strictness, from the time it issued to the time at least when the enemy invaded the rights of neutrals, by issuing the Berlin decree. Without this, even supposing the Berlin decree had never been revoked, the fact did not exist upon which this property was condemned; and this, for the rea

son set forth in my former letter, I am confident could not be proved. The more I look into it, indeed, the more I think it impossible. I do not find a pretence, that would amount to a proof of it in any form. It is fairly inferred from what is shown above, that the present or Canning administration ridicule the idea of its having been enforced at all. Mr. Foster makes use of the strongest expression: "it was intended to be maintained, and was actually maintained by an adequate force appointed to guard the whole coast."-"Mr. Fox had satisfied himself that the Admiralty had the means and would employ them;" never a word of did employ them, and when Mr. Monroe replies, "that he presumes it will not be pretended that such a force was actually applied and continued in the requisite strictness;" there is no rejoinder. Lord Grenville says, the proclamation was accompanied with directions to the Admiralty to carry it into effect;—not that the Admiralty did carry it into effect. Lord Erskine says, if both administrations have done wrong, we must retrace our steps together. Mr. Pinkney says to Marquis Wellesley, that whole coasts and countries can never be more than declared in a state of blockade.— Does the Marquis say they can? No-"His Royal Highness cannot consent to blend the question which has arisen upon the orders in council, with any discussion of the general prin

ciples of blockade." "This declaration does not preclude any amicable discussion upon the subject of any particular blockade, of which the circumstances may appear to the government of the United States, to be exceptionable or require explanation."

Key to the Orders in Council (London, 1812), 29-31.

5. What is National Disgrace?
(1812)

By REPRESENTATIVE JOSIAH QUINCY

The Federalists whom Quincy represented did not desire war.

WHILE I am on this point, I cannot refrain from noticing a strange solecism which seems to prevail touching the term "flag." It is talked about as though there was something mystical in its very nature; as though a rag, with certain stripes and stars upon it, tied to a stick and called a flag was a wizard's wand, and entailed security on every thing under it or within its sphere. There is nothing like all this in the nature of the thing. A flag is the evidence of power. A land flag is the evidence of land power. A maritime flag is the evidence of maritime power. You may have a piece of bunting upon a staff, and call it a flag: but, if you have

no maritime power to maintain it, you have a name and no reality; you have the shadow without the substance; you have the sign of a flag, but in truth you have no flag. . . .

Mr. Speaker, what is national disgrace? Of what stuff is it composed? Is a nation disgraced because its flag is insulted; because its seamen are impressed; because its course upon the highway of the ocean is obstructed? No, sir. Abstractedly considered, all this is not disgrace. Because all this may happen to a nation so weak as not to be able to maintain the dignity of its flag, or the freedom of its citizens, or the safety of its course. Natural weakness is never disgrace. But, sir, this is disgrace,when we submit to insult and to injury which we have the power to prevent or redress. Its essential constituents are want of sense or want of spirit.

When a nation, with ample means for its defence, is so thick in the brain as not to put them into a suitable state of preparation; or when, with sufficient muscular force, it is so tame in spirit as to seek safety not in manly effort, but in retirement, then a nation is disgraced; then it shrinks from its high and sovereign character into that of the tribe of Issachar, crouching down between two burdens; the French burden, on the one side, and the British burden on the other, so dull, so lifeless, so stupid,