Chapter LXXV (2)

"Notwithstanding, however, every exertion that could be and was
made, it was impossible altogether to prevent some outbreaks,
and among the rest a parcel of some seventy or eighty Canadians,
as I have understood, with a very few Americans, took possession
of a place near the Canadian shore, called Navy Island, and
fortified themselves in defiance of British power. If I have not
been misinformed there were not more than eight or ten Americans
among them. An American steamboat supplied them with a cannon
and perhaps other munitions of war: for I have no disposition to
diminish whatever was the full extent of American illegality,
but, in this statement of the premises, desire to present the
argument with the most unreserved concessions. I am discussing
nothing as the member of a party. I consider the Secretary of
State as the representative of his government and country. I
desire to be understood as not intending to say one word against
that gentleman as an individual; as meaning to avoid every thing
like personality, and addressing myself to the position he has
assumed for the country, without reference to whether he is
connected with one administration or another; viewing this as a
controversy between the United States and a foreign government,
in which all Americans should be of one party, acknowledging no
distinction between the acts of Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Webster,
but considering the whole affair, under both the successive
administrations, as one and indivisible; and on many points, I
believe this country is altogether of one and the same sentiment
concerning this controversy. It seems to be universally agreed
that British _pirates_ as they were, as I will show according
to the strictest legal definition of the term, in the dead
of night, _burglariously invaded_ our country, _murdered_ at
least one of our unoffending fellow-citizens, were guilty of
the further crime of _arson_ by burning what was at least the
temporary dwelling of a number of persons asleep in a steamboat
moored to the wharf, and finally cutting her loose, carried her
into the middle of the stream, where, by romantic atrocity,
unexampled in the annals of crime, they sent her over the Falls
of Niagara, with how many persons in her, God only will ever
know.

"Now Mr. Speaker, this, in its national aspect, was precisely
the same as if perpetrated in your house or mine, and should
be resented and punished accordingly. Some time afterwards
one of the perpetrators, named McLeod, in a fit of that
sort of infatuation with which Providence mostly betrays the
guilty, strayed over from Canada to the American shore, like
a fool, as he was, and there was soon arrested and imprisoned
by that popular police, which is always on the alert to
administer justice upon malefactors. First proceeded against,
as it appears, for civil redress for the loss of the vessel,
he was soon after indicted by the appropriate grand jury,
and has remained ever since in custody, awaiting the regular
administration of justice. Guilty or innocent, however, there
he was, under the ægis of the law of the sovereign State of New
York, with the full protection of every branch of the government
of that State, when the present administration superseded
the last, and the first moment after the late President's
inauguration was ungenerously seized by the British minister
to present the new Secretary of State with a letter containing
the insolent, threatening, and insufferable language which I am
about to read from it:

"'The undersigned is instructed to demand from the government
of the United States, formally, in the name of the British
government, the immediate release of Mr. Alexander McLeod.
The transaction in question may have been, as her Majesty's
government are of opinion that it was, a justifiable employment
of force for the purpose of defending the British territory
from the unprovoked attack of a band of British rebels and
American pirates, who, having been permitted to arm and organize
themselves within the territory of the United States, had
actually invaded and occupied a portion of the territory of
her Majesty; or it may have been, as alleged by Mr. Forsyth,
in his note to the undersigned of the 26th of December, a most
unjustifiable invasion in time of peace, of the territory of the
United States.'"

"Finally, after a tissue of well elaborated diplomatic
contumely, the very absurdity of part of which, in the
application of the term pirates to the interfering Americans, is
demonstrated by Mr. Webster--the British minister reiterates,
towards the conclusion of his artfully insulting note--that
'be that as it may, her Majesty's government formally demands,
upon the grounds already stated, the immediate release of Mr.
McLeod; and her Majesty's government entreats the President of
the United States--I pray the House to mark the sarcasm of this
offensive entreaty--to take into his deliberate consideration
the serious nature of the consequences which must ensue from a
rejection of this demand.'

"Taken in connection with all the actual circumstances of the
case--the tone of the British press, both in England and Canada,
the language of members in both Houses of Parliament, and the
palpable terms of Mr. Fox's letter itself, it is impossible,
I think, not to see we cannot wink so hard as not to perceive
that Mr. Fox's is a threatening letter. It surprises me that
this should have been a subject of controversy in another
part of this building, while I cannot doubt that Mr. Webster
was perfectly satisfied of the menacing aspect of the first
letter he received from the British minister. Anxious--perhaps
laudably anxious--to avoid a quarrel so very unpromising at
the very outset of a new administration, he seems to have shut
his eyes to what must flash in every American face. And here
was his first mistake; for his course was perfectly plain. He
had nothing to do but, by an answer in the blandest terms of
diplomatic courtesy, to send back the questionable phrases to
Mr. Fox, with a respectful suggestion that they looked to him
as if conveying a threat; that he hoped not, he believed not;
he trusted for the harmony of their personal relations, and the
peace of their respective nations, that he was laboring under
a mistake; but he could not divest his mind of the impression,
that there were in this note of Mr. Fox, certain phrases which,
in all controversies among gentlemen as well as nations,
inevitably put an end to further negotiation. Mr. Fox must have
answered negatively or affirmatively, and the odious indignity
which now rankles in the breast of at least a large proportion
of the country, interpreting it as the meaning of the British
communication, would have been avoided. Mr. Webster had Mr. Fox
absolutely in the hollow of his hand. He had an opportunity of
enlisting the manly feeling of all his countrymen, the good will
of right-minded Englishmen themselves, to a firm and inoffensive
stand like this, on the threshold of the correspondence. Why he
did not, is not for me to imagine. With no feeling of personal
disparagement to that gentleman, I charge this as an obvious, a
capital, and a deplorable lapse from the position he should have
assumed, in his very first attitude towards the British minister.

"The British argument addressed to him was, that 'the
transaction in question was a justifiable employment of public
force, with the sanction, or by order of the constituted
authorities of a State, engaging individuals in military or
naval enterprises in their country's cause, when it would be
contrary to the universal practice of civilized nations to fix
individual responsibility upon the persons engaged.' This,
as I do not hesitate to pronounce it, false assumption of
law, is, at once, conceded by Mr. Webster, in the remarkable
terms, that the 'government of the United States,' by which
he must mean himself, entertains _no doubt_ of the asserted
British principle. Mr. Webster had just before said, that 'the
President is not certain that he understands precisely the
meaning intended to be conveyed by her Majesty's government,'
'which doubt,' he adds, 'has occasioned with the President some
hesitation.' Thus while the President entertained a doubt,
the government entertained no doubt at all; which I cannot
understand, otherwise, than that while the President hesitated
to concede, the Secretary of State had no hesitation whatever
to concede at once the whole British assumption, and surrender
at discretion the whole American case. For where is the use of
Mr. Webster's posterior, elaborated argument, when told by the
British minister that this transaction was _justifiable_, and
informed by the public prints that at a very early day, one of
the British Secretaries, Lord John Russell, declared in open
Parliament that the British government _justified_ what is
called the _transaction_ of McLeod. The matter was ended before
Mr. Webster set his powerful mind to produce an argument on the
subject. The British crown had taken its position. Mr. Webster
knew it had; and he may write the most elegant and pathetic
letters till doomsday, with no other effect than to display
the purity of his English to admiring fellow-citizens, and the
infirmity of his argument to Great Britain and the world. By
asserting the legal position which they assume, and justifying
the transaction, together with Mr. Webster's concession of their
legal position, the transaction is settled. Nothing remains to
be done. Mr. Webster may write about it if he will, but Mr.
Fox and the British minister hold the written acknowledgment
of the American Secretary of State, that the affair is at an
end. I call this, sir, a terrible mistake, a fatal blunder,
irrecoverable, desperate, leaving us nothing but Mr. Webster's
dreadful alternative of cold-blooded, endless, causeless war.

"Our position is false, extremely and lamentably false. The
aggrieved party, as we are, and bound to insist upon redress,
to require the punishment of McLeod, Drew, and McNab, and the
other pirates who destroyed the Caroline, we have been brought
to such a reverse of the true state of things, as to be menaced
with the wrong-doer's indignation, unless we yield every thing.
I care not whose fault it is, whether of this administration
or that. In such an affair I consider both the present and the
past, as presenting one and the same front to one and the same
assailant. I cannot refrain, however, from saying, that whatever
may have been our position, it has been greatly deteriorated by
Mr. Webster's unfortunate concession.

"Never did man lose a greater occasion than Mr. Webster cast
away, for placing himself and his country together, upon a
pinnacle of just renown. Great Britain had humbled France,
conquered Egypt, subdued vast tracts of India, and invaded
the distant empire of China--there was nothing left but our
degradation, to fill the measure of her glory, if it consists
in such achievements; and she got it by merely demanding,
without expecting it. And why have we yielded? Was there any
occasion for it? Did she intend to realize her threat? Were the
consequences which Mr. Webster was entreated to take into his
consideration, the immediate and exterminating warfare, servile
war and all, which belligerent newspapers, peers, and other such
heralds of hostilities have proclaimed? No such thing. We may
rely, I think, with confidence, upon the common good sense of
the English nation, not to rush at once upon such extremities,
and for such a cause. Mr. Fox took Mr. Webster in the melting
mood, and conquered by a threat; that is to say, conquered
for the moment; because the results, at some distant day,
unless his steps are retraced, will and must be estrangement
between kindred nations, and cold-blooded hostilities. I have
often thought, Mr. Speaker, that this affair of McLeod is what
military men call a demonstration, a feint, a false attack, to
divert us from the British design on the State of Maine; of
which I trust not one inch will ever be given up. And truly,
when we had the best cause in the world, and were the most
clearly in the right, it has been contrived, some how or other,
to put us in false position, upon the defensive, instead of
the offensive, and to perplex the plainest case with vexatious
complication and concession."

The latter part of this speech was prophetic--that which related to the designs on the State of Maine. Successful in this experiment of the most efficacious means for the release of McLeod, the British ministry lost no time in making another trial of the same experiment, on the territory of that State--and again successfully: but of this in its proper place. Mr. John Quincy Adams, and Mr. Caleb Cushing, were the prominent defenders of the administration policy in the House of Representatives--resting on the point that the destruction of the Caroline was an act of war. Mr. Adams said:

"I take it that the late affair of the Caroline was in hostile
array against the British government, and that the parties
concerned in it were employed in acts of war against it: and
I do not subscribe to the very learned opinion of the chief
justice of the State of New York (not, I hear, the chief
justice, but a judge of the Supreme Court of that State), that
there was no act of war committed. Nor do I subscribe to it
that every nation goes to war only on issuing a declaration or
proclamation of war. This is not the fact. Nations often wage
war for years, without issuing any declaration of war. The
question is not here upon a declaration of war, but acts of war.
And I say that in the judgment of all impartial men of other
nations, we shall be held as a nation responsible; that the
Caroline, there, was in a state of war against Great Britain;
for purposes of war, and the worst kind of war--to sustain an
insurrection; I will not say rebellion, because rebellion is a
crime, and because I heard them talked of as patriots."

Mr. Cushing said:

"It is strange enough that the friends of Mr. Van Buren should
deny that the attack on the Caroline was an act of war. I reply
to them not only by exhibiting the reason and the principle of
the thing, but by citing the authority of their own President.
I hold in my hand a copy of the despatch addressed by Mr.
Stevenson to Lord Palmerston, under the direction of Mr. Van
Buren, making demand of reparation for the destruction of the
Caroline, and in that despatch, which has been published, Mr.
Stevenson pursues the only course he could pursue; he proceeds
to prove the hostile nature of the act by a full exhibition
of facts, and concludes and winds up the whole with declaring
in these words: 'The case then is one of open, undisguised,
and unwarrantable hostility.' After this, let no one complain
of Mr. Webster for having put the case of the Caroline on the
same precise ground which Mr. Van Buren had assumed for it, and
which, indeed, is the only ground upon which the United States
could undertake to hold the British government responsible.
And when the gentleman from Pennsylvania is considering the
first great negotiation of Mr. Webster, how does he happen to
forget the famous, or rather infamous, first great negotiation
undertaken by Mr. Van Buren? And is it not an act of mere
madness on the part of the friends of Mr. Van Buren, to compel
us to compare the two? Here is a despatch before us, addressed
in a controversy between the United States and Great Britain,
containing one of the ablest vindications of the honor and
integrity of the United States that ever was written. Mr. Van
Buren began, also, with the discussion of the question between
us and Great Britain. And in what spirit?--that of a patriot,
a man of honor, and an American? Is not that despatch, on the
contrary, a monument of ignominy in the history of the United
States? Instead of maintaining the interests of this country,
did not Mr. Van Buren, on that occasion, utterly sacrifice
them? Did he not dictate in that despatch, a disposition of the
great question of the colony trade between the United States
and Great Britain, which, from that time to this, has proved
most disastrous in its effects on the commercial and navigating
interests of the United States? And pernicious as was the object
of the despatch, was not the spirit of it infinitely worse? in
which, for the first time, party quarrels of the people of the
United States were carried into our foreign affairs--in which
a preceding administration was impliedly reproached for the
zeal with which it had defended our interests--in which it was
proclaimed that the new administration started in the world with
a set purpose of concession toward Great Britain--in which the
honor of the United States was laid prostrate at the foot of the
British throne, and the proud name of America, to sustain which
our fathers had carried on a first and a second war, as we may
have to do a third--that glory which the arms of our enemy could
not reach, was, in this truckling despatch, laid low for the
first, and, I trust in God, the last time, before the lion of
England."

The ground taken by Mr. Adams and Mr. Cushing for the defence of Mr. Webster (for they seemed to consider him, and no doubt truly, as the whole administration in this case) was only shifting the defence from one bad ground to another. The war ground they assumed could only apply between Great Britain and the insurgents: she had no war with the United States: the attack on the Caroline was an invasion of the territory of a neutral power--at peace with the invader. That is a liberty not allowed by the laws of nations--not allowed by the concern which any nation, even the most inconsiderable, feels for its own safety, and its own self-respect. A belligerent party cannot enter the territory of a neutral, even in fresh pursuit of an enemy. No power allows it. That we have seen in our own day, in the case of the Poles, in their last insurrection, driven across the Austrian frontier by the Russians; and the pursuers stopped at the line, and the fugitive Poles protected the instant they had crossed it: and in the case of the late Hungarian revolt, in which the fugitive Hungarians driven across the Turkish frontier, were protected from pursuit. The Turks protected them, Mahometans as they were; and would not give up fugitive Christians to a Christian power; and afterwards assisted the fugitives to escape to Great Britain and the United States. The British then had no right to invade the United States even in fresh pursuit of fugitive belligerents: but the Caroline and crew were not belligerents. She was an American ferry-boat carrying men and supplies to the insurgents, but she was not a combatant. And if she had been--had been a war-vessel belonging to the insurgents, and fighting for them, she could not be attacked in a neutral port. The men on board of her were not Canadian insurgents, but American citizens, amenable to their own country for any infraction of her neutrality laws: and if they had been Canadian insurgents they could not have been seized on American soil; nor even demanded under the extradition clause in the treaty of 1796, even if in force. It did not extend to political offences, either of treason or war. It only applied to the common law offences of murder and forgery. How contradictory and absurd then to claim a right to come and take by violence, what could not be demanded under any treaty or the law of nations. No power gives up a political fugitive. Strong powers protect them openly, while they demean themselves orderly: weak powers get them to go away when not able to protect them. None give them up--not even the weakest. All the countries of Europe--the smallest kingdom, the most petty principality, the feeblest republic, even San Marino--scorn to give up a political fugitive, and though unable to chastise, never fail to resent any violation of its territory to seize them. We alone, and in the case of the Caroline, acknowledge the right of Great Britain to invade our territory, seize and kill American citizens sleeping under the flag of their country, to cut out an American vessel moored in our port, and send her in flames over the Falls of Niagara. We alone do that! but we have done it but once! and history places upon it the stigma of opprobrium.

Mr. William O. Butler of Kentucky, replied to Mr. Cushing, especially to his rehash of the stale imputations, worn out at the time of Mr. Van Buren's senatorial rejection as minister to Great Britain, and said:

"He expected from the gentleman a discussion on national law;
but how much was he astonished the next day, on reading his
speech in the _Intelligencer_, and finding him making a most
virulent attack on the conduct and reputation of Mr. Van Buren.
The gentleman referred to the letter of instructions of Mr. Van
Buren to our Minister at the Court of St. James, and compared it
with the instructions of Mr. Webster to the Attorney-general;
speaking of the latter as breathing the statesman and patriot
throughout, while he characterizes the former as infamous. Mr.
B. said he would not repeat the harsh and offensive terms in
which the gentleman had spoken of Mr. Van Buren's letter; he
would read what the gentleman said from his printed speech,
in order that the House might see the length to which his
invectives were carried. [Here Mr. B. read extracts from Mr.
Cushing's speech.] The gentleman spoke of comparing the two
letters together. But did he think of comparing the thing we
complain of with the thing he complains of? No: that would be
next to madness. The gentleman shrinks from that comparison, and
goes on to compare not the thing we complain of with the letter
of Mr. Van Buren, but the beautiful composition of Mr. Webster,
written forty days after complying with the British minister's
insulting demands, and intended to cover over the instructions
to Mr. Crittenden, after which he characterizes Mr. Van Buren's
letter as a monument of ignominy. Now Mr. B. said he would
make the same reply that a dignified farmer of Kentucky did to
a lawyer. The lawyer prosecuted the farmer for a slander, and
in the course of the trial took occasion to heap on him all the
abuse and invective of which the Billingsgate vocabulary is
capable. Yet the jury, without leaving their box, pronounced a
verdict of acquittal. The verdict of an honest and intelligent
jury, said the farmer, is a sufficient answer to all your abuse.
Just so it was with Mr. Van Buren. His letter had made a great
noise in the country; had been extensively circulated and read,
and had been assailed with the utmost virulence by the opposite
party. Yet the highest jury on earth, the American people, had
pronounced the acquittal of Mr. Van Buren by electing him to the
Chief Magistracy. The gentleman complained that the patriotism
of Mr. Webster not only had been assailed, but that the
gentleman from Pennsylvania had had the temerity to attack that
most beautiful of letters which the patriotic Secretary wrote
to Mr. Fox. Now he (Mr. B.) would admit that it was a beautiful
piece of composition, and he knew of but one that would compare
with it, and that was the proclamation of General Hull, just
before surrendering the Northwestern army to the British."

The friends of Mr. Webster had a fashion of extolling his intellect when his acts were in question; and on no occasion was that fashion more largely indulged in than on the present one. His letter, superscribed to Mr. Fox--brought out for home consumption forty days after the satisfactory answer had been given--was exalted to the skies for the harmony of its periods, the beauty of its composition, the cogency of its reasons! without regarding the national honor and interest which it let down into the mud and mire; and without considering that the British imperious demand required in the answer to it, nerve as well as head--and nerve most. It was a case for an iron will, more than for a shining intellect: and iron will was not the strong side of Mr. Webster's character. His intellect was great--his will small. His pursuits were civil and intellectual; and he was not the man, with a goose quill in his hand, to stand up against the British empire in arms. Throughout the debate, in both Houses of Congress, the answer to Mr. Fox was treated by Mr. Webster's friends, as his own; and, no doubt, justly--his supremacy as a jurist being so largely deferred to.

The debate in the House was on the adoption of a resolution offered by Mr. John G. Floyd, of New York, calling on the President for information in relation to the steps taken to aid the liberation of McLeod; and the fate of the resolution was significant of the temper of the House--a desire to get rid of the subject without a direct vote. It was laid upon the table by a good majority--110 to 70. The nays, being those who were for prosecuting the inquiry, were:

Messrs. Archibald H. Arrington, Charles G. Atherton, Linn
Banks, Henry W. Beeson, Benjamin A. Bidlack, Samuel S. Bowne,
Linn Boyd, Aaron V. Brown, Charles Brown, Edmund Burke, Reuben
Chapman, James G. Clinton, Walter Coles, Edward Cross, John R.
J. Daniel, Richard D. Davis, Ezra Dean, William Doan, Andrew
W. Doig, Ira A. Eastman, John C. Edwards, Charles G. Ferris,
John G. Floyd, Charles A. Floyd, Joseph Fornance, James Gerry,
William O. Goode, Samuel Gordon, William A. Harris, John
Hastings, Samuel L. Hays, Isaac E. Holmes, Jacob Houck, jr.,
George S. Houston, Edmund W. Hubard, Charles J. Ingersoll,
William Jack, Cave Johnson, John W. Jones, George M. Keim,
Abraham McClellan, Robert McClellan, James J. McKay, John
McKeon, Albert G. Marchand, Alfred Marshall, John Thompson
Mason, James Mathews, William Medill, John Miller, Christopher
Morgan, Peter Newhard, William Parmenter, Samuel Patridge,
William W. Payne, Arnold Plumer, John Reynolds, Lewis Riggs,
Tristram Shaw, John Snyder, Lewis Steenrod, George Sweeny,
Thomas A. Tomlinson, Hopkins L. Turney, John Van Buren, Aaron
Ward, Harvey M. Watterson, John Westbrook, James W. Williams,
Henry A. Wise, Fernando Wood.

The same subject was largely debated in the Senate--among others by Mr. Benton--some extracts from whose speech will constitute the next chapter.