1796.] MADISON'S SPEECH ON THE TREATY. 585 and the treaty with Great Britain came on for consideration after the others had been disposed of. The feelings of both parties were raised to the highest pitch of excitement. On the part of the Federalists, it was believed that war with Great Britain would inevitably follow the rejection of the treaty; and what was scarcely less dreaded by them, a closer connection with France. On the part of the Republicans, besides the want of reciprocity in many articles of the treaty, and its surrender of some points of policy which they estimated very highly, they regarded it as tending to a rupture with France, and as affording a sure triumph to their political adversaries. The nation looked anxiously on while the leading members of the Legislature on both sides prepared for a contest pregnant with such serious consequences.' The debate was opened by Mr. Madison. He arranged his objections to the treaty under the three heads corresponding to its declared objects. The part which related to the settlement of former differences, arising from the treaty of peace, he insisted, wanted reciprocity. The United States, he admitted, had failed to execute the article respecting the payment of their debts; but, by the present treaty, the British obtained the payment of those debts with interest. The British, on their part, had failed to execute two articles. For one of them, the negroes carried off by the British, we had obtained nothing. For the other, respecting the Western posts, we had indeed regained possession of them, but had received nothing for their detention; and the traffic with the Indians was so shackled with conditions, that the possession of the posts gave us no influence over those people, in which the chief value of the posts consisted. 1 Annals of Congress for 1796, page 976. 586 MADISON'S SPEECH. [CHAP. VIII. He noticed the inequality which opened to Great Britain all the ports of the United States as the condition of having an unimportant province opened to them. He animadverted on the clause respecting the navigation of the Mississippi, which was the more objectionable as the treaty itself supposes that Great Britain, by her real boundary, may have no pretensions to that navigation. The same want of reciprocity, in the second place, was to be found in the treaty provisions relative to the rights of neutrals and the laws of nations. We had surrendered the favorite principle that free ships make free goods; and had added naval stores, and even provisions, to the list of contraband articles, to the great advantage of Great Britain and injury to the United States. This stipulation, under our engagements with France, would, moreover, involve us in difficulties with that country. He complained that the treaty had surrendered the right of sequestration, which, for want of fleets and armies, was one of our principal means of defence. By this provision a very large amount of property would be secured to British proprietors, and but a small amount to American citizens. To have made this article reciprocal, when the United States were required to give up the right of sequestration, Great Britain should have been required to give up the right of seizing property on the ocean. Under the third head, he pointed out the disadvantage of having surrendered the right of laying discriminating duties, by which American navigation and commerce had been greatly protected and encouraged. He dilated on the injustice of excluding the United States from an equal share in the West India trade. He urged that every other nation, in relaxing the system of colonial 1796.] THE BRITISH TREATY DISCUSSED. 587 monopoly, so as to permit a trade between its colonies and other countries, had allowed those countries to share in the trade; and that her monopoly was the more objectionable, as we were precluded from appealing to the self-interest of Great Britain (by means of discriminating duties) to do us justice. He showed the inequality and impolicy of gratuitously securing to Great Britain the commercial advantages granted to other nations in return for benefits received from them. As to the trade to the East Indies, we already enjoyed it, because it was beneficial to Great Britain. He regarded the threatened consequence of a war with Great Britain, pressed as she was by France, as absurd. The discussion of the merits of the treaty being thus begun, was continued with little intermission until the first of May, and the debate was not confined to the leading members of the two parties, but extended itself to almost every one who had ventured to address the House. The principal members who answered Mr. Madison were Messrs. Lyman, Goodhue, Hillhouse, Kittera, Tracy, Griswold, Harper, and Ames. His most conspicuous supporters were Messrs. Giles, Swanwick, Nicholas, Findley, Page, Gallatin, and Smith of Maryland. The friends of the treaty maintained that we had no legitimate claim for the negroes carried away at the close of the War of the Revolution; they being regarded as men, and not as property; that, therefore, we had, by obstructing the collection of British debts, first violated the treaty, which justified Great Britain in retaining the posts. Some of the members asserted, from their personal knowledge of the trade with the Indians, that the greater part of it would fall into the hands of the Americans. As to the West India trade, they asked why we should 588 THE BRITISH TREATY DISCUSSED. [CHAP. VIII. expect that Great Britain would give up her colonial monopoly, when Spain, Portugal, Holland, even France herself, adhered to the same policy, except when under the pressure of war? They remarked on the inconsistency of those who now maintained that no commercial treaty with Great Britain was required, but who, not long since, had wished to adopt a system of restrictions to force her into such a treaty. With respect to the compensation to be made by Great Britain for her illegal seizures, the parties interested were satisfied with that provision, and anxiously desired the ratification of the treaty. The doctrine of free ships making free goods, they urged, was a novelty in the law of nations; nor was there at this time any treaty in which Great Britain admitted the principle, nor did France herself always conform to it. They added, that since Great Britain would, under her principles of international law, seize our provisions, was it not better that they should be paid for. As to the repugnance of some of the articles to our treaty with France, those are expressly provided for. They insisted on the impolicy of sequestration in a country needing capital and credit as much as the United States. If we cannot grant indulgence, they urged, to another nation, then are we really reduced to a state of colonial dependence. In conclusion, they maintained that unless we could satisfy the world that we are not bound by this treaty, made and ratified according to the Constitution, we should be regarded as a faithless nation; nor would a vote of the House, when given against the President and Senate, and a great proportion of the American people, remove this imputation. In the debates to which the British treaty gave rise, Albert Gallatin greatly distinguished himself in this, his first session. Notwithstanding the early countenance he 1796.] GALLATIN'S SPEECH. 589 had shown to the opponents of the excise law, he had, by his subsequent course in moderating the insurgents, so added to the number of his friends as to be elected to Congress. Among other objections to the treaty, he maintained that slaves being, by the law of nations, assimilated to real estate, were not a subject of booty in war. He insisted that though Great Britain would not admit the principle that free ships make free goods, it did not become us expressly to admit the opposite doctrine; and that the effect of this admission, taken in connection with our other treaties, which did not include naval stores and provisions in the list of contraband, would be to secure to Great Britain an exclusive supply of those articles during the war. He urged that while we had made to England full indemnity for every possible claim, we had abandoned every claim of our own of a doubtful nature. He admitted that if this treaty was set aside, there would be little probability of obtaining another: that granting indemnity for British spoliations to be desirable, and that justice ought to be done to British creditors; yet if the non-execution of the treaty was to be regarded as a mere pecuniary transaction, what we should lose as indemnity would be more than balanced by the debts due to the British: that, bad as the treaty was, he would, for the sake of calming the public agitation, have been willing to put up with it, but for the conduct of Great Britain in renewing her provision order in council, and her continued impressment of American seamen. He therefore preferred not an absolute rejection of the treaty, but a suspension of it. He considered the danger of war as chimerical. War was not the interest of Great Britain, as all the supplies for her military operations in the West Indies were obtained from this country. The |