tempts were not direct; because, in that case, the people might have been brought to reflect.

The great object then, as before, was war against England, and alliance with France; but not one word was said about war or alliance, words which might have created alarm, and given rise to hesitation. But measures were proposed, the direct and inevitable tendency of which was to widen the breach with England, and inflame the two countries more and more against each other. These measures assumed various shapes to suit the feelings and catch the passions of particular individuals or classes of men, and were urged with unremitting zeal, and indefatigable industry. Sometimes commercial restrictions on the trade of England were attempted; sometimes the intercourse between the two countries was to be cut off; and sometimes confiscation and sequestration were resorted to. Many of our best citizens, and the firmest friends to peace and neutrality, were impelled by the warmth of the moment, and the insinuations of this party, to favor and even propose or advocate these measures; and nothing was omitted to raise a storm of popular resentment and public odium against all those who had the firmness to withstand them. To speak of negociation was branded as pusillanimity; to speak of attempts at amicable adjustment, was pronounced to be little short of treason. Gentlemen, for their opposition to these hostile measures, were stigmatized on this floor as the agents of England; mobs were hired to burn them in effigy in various towns in the union; the presses devoted to the war party assailed them with continued vollies of calumny; their names were coupled with every disgraceful epithet, with every vile accusation; in the toasts of clubs, and the resolutions of societies; and finally, by all these means, aided by the continued aggressions of England, an universal flame was excited in the country, and the party saw itself approach to the moment of its triumph over the system of peace and neutrality.

VOL. II.

10

When the country was thus on the point of rushing down the precipice, the President of the United States, destined so often to become its saviour, again stretched out his paternal hand and prevented the fall. Interposing the powers of his office, and his unbounded personal popularity, between the legislature and the gulf at the very brink of which it had almost arrived, he arrested its career, and afforded the country time to recover from its delirium. He sent an envoy extraordinary, to make one further attempt at an amicable adjustment of our differences with England, before we should resolve to terminate them by the sword; and by this step he again broke the measures of the war party.

Their rage was proportioned to their disappointment, and it hurried them into the most furious invectives against the President, against the envoy, and against all who were understood to favor the measure. Every body remembers, Mr. Chairman, how they accused this envoy of being a tool of the British ministry, an enemy to liberty, and even an opposer of the independence of this country. Every body remembers what clamours were raised about the unconstitutionality of his appointment; how the clubs toasted, the orators harangued, and the societies resolved. Every body remembers how all the presses, under the influence of this party, loudly alleged, that the friends of the negociation were a faction devoted to England, and that the President of the United States, by sending the envoy, had placed himself at the head of the faction. Every one remembers how the leaders of this party did not refrain from repeating these accusations within the walls of this House, and even on this floor. It was in vain that the friends of the measure and of peace, spoke to them in language like this. "Let this attempt at negociation be made, and if it fails, we will join you in war. Should England refuse to do us justice, when thus peaceably applied to, we will join you in every measure of compulsion. We consider this as

the last effort at negociation; and so the President has announced it in his message for nominating the envoy." No! These gentlemen now so peaceable, when France repels with contempt two successive efforts at negociation, and meets all our advances by new measures of hostility, could then be satisfied with nothing less, than immediate measures of coercion and irritation against England. A single attempt to negociate, they reprobated as pusillanimity, and the very idea of a compromise they treated as a surrender of the rights and honor of the country.

When the envoy arrived, and presented a memorial, stating all our claims, and urging satisfaction, but urging in the usual forms of diplomatic civility, these forms were converted into a cause of accusation, a most violent outcry was raised against this civility by the very gentlemen who now proclaim their unbounded and even enthusiastic approbation of the conduct of the late minister to France, who, in his first address to the government of that republic, assured it solemnly and publicly, that this country was ready to submit cheerfully to any infractions of its treaties or violation of its rights, which France might think it for her own advantage to commit! Whence this strange inconsistency, but from an eager desire of war against England, and a blind servile devotedness to France? And will gen

tlemen after all this deny, that the whole scope of the measures, the whole drift of the system of their party, has been war against England and alliance with France?

The envoy, however, continued to negociate, and at length concluded a treaty, by which ancient differences were adjusted, and the foundation laid for amity in future. No sooner did the treaty arrive in the country, than every artifice was used to enflame the public mind, and excite against it the popular prejudices. Nothing was omitted to defeat it in the senate, and when ratified by that body, it was attacked by every coffee-house politician of the party, before it was published, by all

their presses, and by the resolutions of all the clubs. When made public, the most unheard of means were used to overwhelm it with general odium, to raise an universal cry against it, and deter the President from giving it his sanction. In every town, mobs were assembled, under the more respectable name of town meetings; those of a different opinion were silenced by clamor, intimidated by threats, or actually driven away by violence; and all opposition or discussion being thus prevented, these assemblages of ignorant and illiterate men were prevailed upon to vote by acclamation for resolutions which they were incapable of understanding, and could not even hear.

Thus the appearance of a formidable popular rising in various parts of the continent, was exhibited, and the phrenzy caught. It spread wider and wider, and aided by various auxiliary passions, drew into its vortex great masses of the best citizens. The country again seemed on the point of rushing down the precipice; but fortunately its guardian genius yet presided over its affairs. The President of the United States again placed himself in the breach, and received on his buckÏer all the strokes, aimed at the happiness of his country. He spoke to the people, they heard the voice of their father, they listened and became calm. He ratified the treaty; and the people said, "It is done, and must it not be supported? He has done it, and is it not right?" They listened and were appeased, they read and were convinced, they discovered their first errors, acknowledged and renounced them.

But not so the party, whose object was war against England at all events. They saw in this treaty the death of their hopes, the final frustration of all their projects; for this treaty took away all cause of quarrel between the two countries; and they resolved to make one grand effort for its destruction, which being accomplished, all the ancient disputes would be reinstated with new aggravation; and a rupture would be rendered by so much the more certain, as there could

be no faith in any new accommodation. To this object they bent their whole force, and this House was the place chosen for the attack. When the treaty came before this House to be carried into effect, doctrines, new to the constitution and incompatible with its existence, were introduced, in order to destroy it. The treaty-making power was attempted to be rendered subject to the control of this House; as the power of appointing foreign ministers is now attempted to be rendered subject. The treaty was attacked through the sides of the constitution; a war was sought by the overthrow of our government, and the violation of our plighted faith. But a firm resistance was given to these attempts. Enlightened discussions spread the truth before the eyes of the people. Warned by the errors into which they had before been drawn, and roused by the magnitude of the danger, they rose in their might, and the party was dismayed; they spoke and it trembled; they put forth their hand and touched it, and it sunk to the earth.

Thus again, Mr. Chairman, were the projects of these gentlemen confounded. Thus again were they prevented from effecting their purpose, so much desired, of driving this country into war with England and into the fraternal embraces of France.

The remaining history is known. The French, under pretexts so frivolous, that not one gentleman on this floor has been found hardy enough to defend them, have quarrelled with us on account of this treaty; because, by terminating our differences with England, it cuts off all hopes of our being drawn into war against her. In this quarrel, France proceeded, avowedly, on the ground of our being a divided people, opposed to our government, and attached to her, repels all our amicable advances, meets them with new injuries, and declares, that before she will listen to us, we must tread back all our steps, reverse our whole system of policy, break our treaty with England, and admit her own construction of her treaty with us. In this criti

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