United States. Congress

“ But, sir, why do I talk of Spain? “There are no longer Pyrenees!” There exists no such nation, no such being as a Spanish King, or Minister. It is a mere juggle, played off for the benefit of those who put the mechanism into motion. You know, sir, that you have no differences with Spain; that she is the passive tool of a superior power, to whom, at this moment, you are crouching. Are your differences, indeed, with Spain? And where are you going to send your political panacea, resolutions and handbills excepted, your sole arcanum of Government, your king cure all? ”

“ Your honor has received a wound which must not take air. Gentlemen dare not come forward and avow their work, much less defend it in the presence of the nation. Give them all they ask, that Spain exists—and what then? After shrinking from the Spanish jackall, do you presume to bully the British lion? But here the secret comes out. Britain is your rival in trade, and governed as you are by counting-house politician; you would sacrifice the paramount interests of the country, to wound that rival. For Spain and France you are carriers, and from good customers every indignity is to be endured. ”

“ No man could walk in safety, but would be at the mercy of the caprice of every grand jury that might be summoned, and that would be crime to-morrow which is innocent to-day.
What part of the constitution then declares any of the acts charged and proved upon Judge Chase, even in the worst aspect, to be impeachable? He has not been guilty of bribery or corruption; he is not charged with them. Has he then been guilty of “other high crimes and misdemeanors?” In an instrument so sacred as the constitution, I presume every word must have its full and fair meaning. ”

“ We have seen one half of the Old World subjected to his dominion, and the other half alarmed at his power. And is it thought, sir, that America alone, with an army scarcely sufficient to defend our garrisons, with a navy scarcely sufficient to punish a Bashaw, with a treasury incommensurate to our engagements, and an Executive unwilling to strain our energies—is it, I say sir, for America alone, under these circumstances, singly to withstand that gigantic nation, fighting on her own ground, fed from her own granaries, and furnished from her own arsenals? ”

“ Shall we, in the Tripoline war, to rescue from bondage three hundred Americans, perform, through the agency of some of our citizens, acts of perseverance, address, and heroism, unsurpassed in the annals of ancient or modern times, at the sacrifice of the lives of many brave men, who, with some of those that survived the conflict, will be enrolled by a grateful country upon the list of the favorite sons of the American nation—when as many thousands are groaning under the cruel oppression of Great Britain, and crying to us for succor, without exciting or producing one manly exertion! ”

“ I cannot agree with those gentlemen who maintain that in the arrest and transportation of Bollman and Swartwout, they can see no violation of the rights of individuals. The privileges of the constitution are as much the inheritance of the humblest and the most depraved, as of the most elevated or virtuous citizen. To be seized by a military force, to be concealed and hurried beyond the protection of the civil power, and to be sent a thousand miles for trial, in a place where the crime charged was not committed, I humbly conceive are violations of individual rights, and of the constitution. ”

“ It is with much pain and regret, sir, that I rise to announce to the Senate the irreparable loss our country has sustained in the death of one of her worthiest citizens and most distinguished patriots. Time has measured and told the days of another venerable sage of the Revolution. John Dickinson, the illustrious cotemporary and friend of Washington and Franklin, is now no more—his head and his heart devoted to the service and love of his country, till his locks were bleached by the frosts of more than seventy winters, have now descended in silence to the grave. ”

“ But, be assured, sir, that whenever the spirit of this nation shall move, every individual, in every department of the government, will move too.
The ocean must be considered a common and undivided property, to which each nation has a right; hence the difficulty of affording the same security and protection there as on land, where each knows the spot where his dominion ends and his neighbor’s begins. It is vain, therefore, the real situation of the United States being considered, to expect from her that perfect protection on the ocean which she can afford within her territorial limits. ”

“ No, sir, he was sitting within a stone’s throw of the residence of the Governor of Virginia, a man of whom I shall say nothing. Let the exalted stations he has more than filled, the high public trusts on which he has seemed rather to confer honor than receive it, his unshaken constancy in the worst of times, the dismay and confusion of his enemies, whose vain aspersions have passed him like the idle wind—let the confidence of a united people speak his eulogium. ”

“ Our merchants call loudly for the redress of injuries. I hope we shall redress them. Let us extend to them the arm of national protection, but let us extend it also to another class of injured citizens; while we give it to the rich, let us not withhold it from the poor. The groans of our impressed fellow-citizens mingle with the murmurs of every gale from the ocean! The queen of that element ought no longer to be suffered to bespangle her diadem with the tears of American seamen, or to substitute her will and her interest for the laws of nature and of nations. ”

“ Such conduct, and even such a justification, I look upon with abhorrence and dread. For, if, upon every alarm of conspiracy, our rights of personal liberty are to be entrusted to the keeping of a military commander, we may prepare to take our leave of them for ever. For my own part, I wish to live under a government of laws, and not of men; for, however pure and upright be the intentions of our military commanders, however virtuous, and even unsuspected be their conduct, I can never agree that my right to personal liberty shall depend on their forbearance and discretion. ”

“ I confess that I am more ready to surrender to a naval power a square league of ocean, than to a territorial one, a square inch of land within our limits; and I am ready to meet the friends of the resolution on this ground at any time.
Let them take off the injunction of secrecy. They dare not. They are ashamed and afraid to do it. They may give winks and nods, and pretend to be wise, but they dare not come out and tell the nation what they have done. Gentlemen may take notice if they please, but I will never, from any motive short of self-defence, enter upon war. ”

“ Is it possible that such can be the idea of this House; such our respect for the constitution, for the institutions we are all sworn to support, and which, if we do not support, whether our treason be committed under the banners of Aaron Burr, or under the cover of law, we are equally traitors? Is this House ready to sanction the doctrine that an open and avowed contempt of the civil by the military authority, shall be considered as nothing more than a common violation of law? A refusal to respect the writ of habeas corpus by a civil officer, is a high misdemeanor. ”

“ If our commerce is disturbed, if our rights on the sea are cut off one by one, and such is the tendency of the present measures of Britain, what will become of our cotton and tobacco? Will they not rot on our hands, or be sold at the price of those who may be pleased to come and purchase them? If commerce languish, agriculture will languish likewise, for one is the handmaid of the other. But, say gentlemen, the value of the trade interrupted by the piratical conduct of Britain, is not worth contending for, is not worth the risk of the present measure, or the hazard of war. ”

“ Take away the British navy, and France to-morrow is the tyrant of the ocean.
This brings me to the second point. How far is it politic in the United States to throw their weight into the scale of France at this moment, from whatever motive—to aid the views of her gigantic ambition—to make her mistress of the sea and land—to jeopardize the liberties of mankind? Sir, you may help to crush Great Britain, you may assist in breaking down her naval dominion, but you cannot succeed to it. The iron sceptre of the ocean will pass into his hands who wears the iron crown of the land. ”

“ The fair, the honest, and the useful trade that is engaged in carrying our own productions to foreign markets, and bringing back their productions in exchange? No, sir. It is that carrying trade which covers enemy’s property, and carries the coffee, the sugar, and other West India products, to the mother country. No, sir, if this great agricultural nation is to be governed by Salem and Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and Baltimore and Norfolk and Charleston, let gentlemen come out and say so; and let a committee of public safety be appointed from those towns to carry on the Government. ”

“ The constitution, sir, never intended to lay the judiciary thus prostrate at the feet of the House of Representatives, the slaves of their will, the victims of their caprice. The judiciary must be protected from prejudice and varying opinion, or it is not worth a farthing. Suppose a grand jury should make a presentment against a man, stating that most truly he had violated no law or committed any known offence; but he had violated their notions of common sense—for this was the standard of impeachment the gentleman who opened gave us—he had shocked their nerves or wounded their sensibility. ”

“ If, whenever the President of the United States, upon the high and solemn responsibility which weighs upon every act of his official duty, gives to Congress that account of our foreign relations which is necessary to enable them to adapt their measures to the circumstances for the general welfare of the Union, a foreign Minister, under color of his official privileges, is to contradict every part of his statements, to impeach the correctness of his facts, and to chide him even for his omissions, to what an abyss of abasement is the Chief Magistrate of this Union to be degraded! ”

“ We fear no nation, but let the time for shedding human blood be protracted, when consistent with our safety. If our claims upon the justice of England should be disregarded, there would be time enough for human butchery. He looked around him, and saw many who had witnessed the calamities and miseries of the American Revolution. But if war could not be avoided, accumulated horrors would not induce the American people to endanger their independence. They would say, like the immortal Washington, the former victorious leader of their armies, “I will conquer or die with my countrymen.” ”

“ Ought a republican majority to stake the national liberty upon the frail life of one man? Will not a monarchical Executive overturn the system of a republican Executive? And ought the United States to shut their eyes upon this possible danger until the case shall happen, when it may be too late to open them?
Sir, let us contemplate the dreadful evils which the English nation have suffered from the cause of investing executive power in a man hostile to the national opinion, and avoid them. They suffered, because their exclusion bill was abortive. Election is our exclusion bill. ”

“ In favor of life, not only every possible ground should be occupied by counsel to the jury, but every possible argument listened to and weighed with patience and forbearance; and it should never be forgotten that Judge Chase had such a conduct set as an example before him in a previous trial of the same case. Yes, sir, a brother judge of his, who has since gone to the world of spirits, had set him an example conspicuous for the purity of its excellence, and which should have arrested his career in the commission of this cruel outrage upon all humanity. ”

“ A point which Great Britain will not abandon to Russia, you expect her to yield to you—Russia! indisputably the second power of continental Europe; with not less than half a million of hardy troops; with sixty sail-of-the-line, thirty millions of subjects, and a territory more extensive even than our own—Russia, sir, the storehouse of the British Navy, whom it is not more the policy and the interest than the sentiment of that Government to soothe and to conciliate—her sole hope of a diversion on the continent, and her only efficient ally. ”