tended to be sustained by any existing law of your own country. I continue: And being officially notified that said Paulding acted without instructions from the President or the Secretary of the Navy, Congress expresses its condemnation of his conduct in this regard. I put the condemnation expressly on the ground that his lawless act is disavowed by the President and the Secretary of the Navy. If they had avowed it, I would have directed my censure to a higher mark. If they had avowed it as an act of the government, I should have asked Congress to pass a vote of censure against the Secretary or the President, or whoever gave the order. We have fallen, sir, upon strange times, and, in my judgment, have sadly departed from the lessons taught us in the earlier, and, I might add, better days of the republic. In 1822, Commodore Porter, who wore his epaulets and bore his sword with distinguished credit, was sent in the command of a squadron to the Gulf of Mexico, and ordered to cruise in the West Indies and the waters of the Gulf, in search of pirates. He was told, as the authority before me shows, clearly and distinctly, that he might pursue the pirates on land; that they were the enemies of the human race; that all civilized men were combined against them; but he was told, at the same time, that he must not pursue them in violation of the local authorities of any country. He might continue the pursuit until he should be bidden to give it up, and then he must cease. In 1824, it was ascertained by Lieutenant Platt, one of the subordinate officers in that squadron, that a large quantity of goods had been stolen from Saint Thomas, and probably carried to Foxardo, in the island of Porto Rico. Lieutenant Platt pursued, and having accumulated such evidence as satisfied him that the goods were secreted at Foxardo, he landed with a view of finding them. Some persons not authorized to arrest his progress, forbade his pursuing them; but being informed by others that these were not persons in authority, and seeing, therefore, that he was not violating the letter of his instructions, he went forward. He found the officer of the port, who received him cordially. He found the alcalde, who received him cordially, and promised him assistance. While he was actually engaged in a search for the stolen goods-goods stolen, not by imaginary, but real piratesthe alcalde suddenly changed his mind, seized the lieutenant, thrust him into prison, and heaped divers insults and outrages upon him. Commodore Porter, receiving intelligence of these events, went to Foxardo and landed a military force, with a view of demanding reparation for the insult offered to the American flag, borne by Lieutenant Platt, under the circumstances which I have named. It became necessary to spike some guns; but no blood was shed, no gun was fired. The alcalde, on a sort of promise from Commodore Porter, that he should be protected in the exercise of his lawful authority, and that there was no purpose to subjugate him, at once came out and said frankly, "I have committed this outrage under compulsion, by orders." Commodore Porter was acting strictly within the letter of his instructions, as he claimed, and as I believe, from very recent investigations of all the papers; but it suited the Spanish authorities to complain of him. He was at once relieved from his command, and ordered home to be put upon trial. After being detained here for weeks and weeks, the Admi nistration in the mean time having undergone a change, Mr. Monroe having gone out and Mr. John Quincy Adams having come in, Commodore Porter complained of the delay. He filed a letter with the Presilent, and perhaps two or three with the Secretary of the Navy, comlaining of the delay which had occurred in his trial. Finally, he was out on his trial before a naval court-martial. He was convicted and entenced to six months' dismissal from the service of the United States. Here was a gallant officer, covered over with scars, entitled to stars, arters, and medals, arrested by the order of his government because e had landed upon a friendly soil, and undertaken to make arrests, not of imaginary, but real pirates-people who were confessed to be so; not only relieved of his command, but brought back to the United States in disgrace, put upon his trial, convicted, and sentenced. While I do not stand here to defend the harsh proceedings in that case, I instance it for the purpose of showing what measure of justice was meted out in the earlier days of the republic, in comparison with that which the senator from Wisconsin proposes to mete out to Commodore Paulding. Here was a man acting within the letter of his instructions; but the Administration had undergone a change. He had been told that these people were the enemies of all mankind. President Monroe had two or three times complained in his communications to Congress of the want of efficiency in the Spanish authorities. He had called on Congress to nerve the arm of the Executive to chastise these depredations on our commerce in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Monroe had declared to Commodore Porter, through Mr. Smith Thompson, then Secretary of the Navy, in express terms, that in pursuing the pirate he might land upon any soil, but that he must notmark you continue the pursuit after persons in authority should forbid his doing so. Lieutenant Platt claimed that he had not violated that instruction; that he had lived up precisely to the very letter of it; that when told by persons not in authority to cease the pursuit, he had determined to do it until he was informed that these people were not authorized to give any such command; that he then proceeded, that he was received cordially by the commander of the port and by the alcalde, persons in authority, who promised him their assistance; and then in the midst of all that he was thrown into prison, charged himself with being a pirate, his flag insulted, and himself derided. Then Commodore Porter landed, as I have said before, for the purpose of chastising this insolence, and was promptly met by an apology. On these general facts, I say again, he was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced, and the sentence was carried into execution. Now, with a case before us, where a commodore, according to the Secretary of the Navy and the President, is acting clearly beyond his instructions, without authority, landing upon a foreign soil, without any sort of shadow of authority from the President or Secretary, making important arrests, we are called upon to vote him a medal. There is another point in this transaction: Commodore Porter was tried, among other things, for insubordination in writing insolent letters to the President and Secretary of the Navy. I have the letters before me, but do not care to weary the Senate by reading them; but let senators take the letters of Commodore Porter in 1824 and 1825, and compare them with the insolent productions of Commodore Paulding addressed to the present Secretary of the Navy; and answer me whether, if Porter was tried, convicted, and sentenced for writing such letters as he wrote, what ought to be done with Commodore Paulding for writing such as he has written? I am not here to say that Paulding ought to be punished for writing an insolent letter to the Secretary of the Navy. If the Secretary does not think proper to vindicate himself, he may go unvindicated; I shall not stand here in his defence. What I say is, that we are falling upon strange times, when a commodore--a flag-officer --can write to the Secretary of the Navy, and actually reprimand him. Take his letter and read it. It is an actual reprimand, addressed by a commodore in the service to the Secretary of the Navy, saying, in effect, "Sir, you fogy, you nincompoop, you are meddling with a matter you know nothing about; let me and my command alone." The Secretary of the Navy writes back very complacently that he did not really mean to reprimand him; but, after all, he thinks he has some authority; and he rather thinks he has the right to dispose of the naval force as he pleases. It was not so in other days. If that letter had been addressed by Commodore Porter, or by any of the older commodores, to such a Secretary as Smith Thompson, or Samuel L. Southard, he would have been arrested, he would have been tried, he would have been convicted, and he would have been punished. If the present Secretary of the Navy does not think proper, however, to vindicate his official honor, he can let it alone; it is none of my business. The question with which we have to deal is, whether we will vote Commodore Paulding a medal for these services. Just think of it. The joint resolution proposes that the President have a medal, with suitable devices, presented "as a testimonial of the high sense entertained by Congress of his gallant conduct." Great God! Commodore Paulding, commanding as many, perhaps, as one hundred guns-I have not made the estimate of it, but there were certainly so many--having disposed of them at his leisure, with five or six hundred men, captures-what? Walker and a handful of filibusters, who laid down their arms at the very first summons, and made no sort of resistance upon paper or anywhere else, and Congress is called upon to vote a falsehood-that in this there was extraordinary gallantry! I know very well that the commodore, writing home to the government, says that all his men behaved with extraordinary gallantry. Why, sir, I suppose the next thing will be, if our army should approach Salt Lake, and all the Mormon men should be away, and they should make a desperate charge and capture all the women, they must all have medals for their extraordinary gallantry. [Laughter.] It would be a much more gallant act than this act of Paulding, and one much more deserving a medal. I object to this resolution, because it is not true in point of fact. It is asking Congress to vote a falsehood-I beg the Senator's pardon; I do not mean it in any offensive sense-but it is not true in point of fact that Paulding has displayed any gallantry. There was no occasion to display gallantry. Who does not know that at the very first instant, upon his summons, Walker and his men laid down their arms? They did not even threaten to fire. The gallant heroes, with Commodore Paulding at their head, walked upon the shore and then walked back again; and for that, Congress is to vote a deliberate historical falsehood, that they have displayed extraordinary gallantry! Then their conduct is said to have been "judicious." Judicious in what? Judicious in obeying his instructions? I thought it was the duty of officers, naval and military-nay, sir, I thought it the first duty of a soldier-to obey the letter of his instructions. Then we are asked to assert that all this was done "in arresting a lawless military expedition set on foot in the United States." That assumes the whole matter in controversy. I undertake to say that the expedition was not lawless, and that no facts have been presented to show that it was so. Even the enthusiastic senator from Wisconsin admits the right of expatriation. He would claim for himself at this very moment the right to leave the country, to swear allegiance to any other government; and in going, to bear arms upon his person, would he not? Is there a senator here; is there an American citizen who listens to me at this moment, who would not claim for himself the right to leave his country, to expatriate himself, to swear allegiance to any other government, and in doing so, to bear arms on his person? Did Walker, or any of those supposed to have been under his command, do anything more? They went, and they went with arms in their hands, as they had a right to do, as the President admits, as every senator that has yet spoken admits, and as the senator from Wisconsin claims that he would have the right to do. Then, by what authority is it called lawless? Have men acted in a lawless manner in doing that which all of us claim we have a right to do? Is there any lawlessness in doing that which every man insists every American citizen has a right to do, and which you may not hinder under any existing law, and for the hinderance of which you never will pass any law through Congress? It is assumed that the expedition was set on foot in the United States. Where is the evidence of it, sir? Where is the proof? I deny it! I say the fact is not as stated. I say there was no expedition, lawless or otherwise, set on foot in the United States. I admit that persons who were born under our flag and entitled to the protection of our laws, went voluntarily, every man acting on his own responsibility, with arms in their hands, with a view to assist what they claimed to be the rightful government of Nicaragua, in the person of William Walker. This, I claim, they had the right to do. It was no expedition set on foot. It was a body of American citizens, each man for himself, acting for himself, and on his own responsibility, doing precisely what, under the law, he had a right to do. When they got beyond the limits of the United States, if they organized an expedition, and placed William Walker, or any other man, at the head of it, I claim that they did only what they had a right to do, and for the doing of which they were in no manner responsible to the laws of our country. If the doctrine can be maintained, that we are overseers of the high seas, that our police jurisdiction extends everywhere--not only on our own soil, and within our own waters, but upon the high seas, even to Nicaragua, and every other country--then I grant you there may have been some violation of law; but I claim that your jurisdiction is confined to the soil and to the single marine league, and for the purposes of the commercial law, three marine leagues; and by no stretch of law, by no stretch of imagination, can you carry it beyond three marine leagues. It being admitted that Walker was not only off our soil, but without the jurisdiction of the waters over which we hold control, not only not upon the water, but actually upon the soil of a foreign country; and there being no evidence that any expedition was fitted out or set on foot on our soil, within our jurisdiction, or on the high seas; and the expedition, if it existed at all, was found on a foreign soil, then I claim that that declaration in the senator's resolution, is not true in point of fact. It is a simple, naked declaration, which Congress is asked to vote, but which is not sustained by any evidence on God's earth. I said, Mr. President, at the outset, that I had no regular prepared speech to make. In reference to the case of Commodore Porter, to which I have alluded, I have forborne to read the correspondence, the letters, and instructions, because I did not care to consume the time of the Senate; but the facts are as I have stated them, as proven by the volume before me, to which I have turned my attention, and given some study. If we are to vote Commodore Paulding a medal, I hope it will be done for reasons which are at least true in themselves. If we are to vote censure against him, I want it to be done for reasons which are true. If I have not stated the reasons correctly in my amendment, on the suggestion of any senator I will modify or change them. I think they are rigidly correct, strictly and emphatically correct in every particular. I intended they should be so. If I am mistaken, I shall listen to the suggestion of any senator, and change it until the facts and the legal positions are stated correctly; but I cannot stand by quietly and see a proposition introduced and gravely urged here, to vote a medal to an officer for violating the laws of his country, for doing that which the President tells us was a 66 grave error," and which has not been, and cannot be, defended on any grounds, legal or moral. INCREASE OF THE ARMY. SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 1, 1858, IN IT is with extreme diffidence, Mr. President, that I venture to express any opinion in reference to a matter like this. It has already passed under the supervision of gentlemen who are qualified, by education and by practice, to give opinions in reference to it; and it is more for the purpose of expressing my concurrence in the opinions of others, than to express any convictions of my own, that I have taken the floor at this time. I know, very well, sir, that if we fail to act here, and act efficiently, we assume a very high responsibility. Last year the President, and the Secretary of War, gave us fair warning that the military establishment of the country was too small, too feeble, to protect our frontiers. After a session of nine months, we adjourned without having done anything towards its increase. This year we are told in the official papers from |