consulted the views of the executive-that designation was equivalent to an abandonment of all our claims on the French government. No sooner was the report laid on the table, than the vultures were flocking round their prey, the carcase of a great military establishmentmen of tainted reputation, of broken fortune (if they ever had any) and battered constitutions, “choice spirits, tired of the dull pursuits of civil life," were seeking after agencies and commissions; willing to doze in gross stupidity over the public fire; to light the public candle at both ends. Honorable men undoubtedly these were, ready to serve their country; but what man of spirit, or of self-respect, would accept a commission in the present army?

The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Grundy) had addressed himself yesterday exclusively to the "republicans of the house." Mr. Randolph knew not whether he might consider himself as entitled to any part of the benefit of the honorable gentleman's discourse. It belonged not, however, to that gentleman to decide. If we must have an exposition of the Doctrines of Republicanism, he should receive it from the fathers of the church, and not from the junior ap prentices of the law. He should appeal to his worthy friends from North Carolina, (Messrs. Macon and Stanford) "men with whom he had measured his strength," by whose side he had fought during the reign of terror; for it was indeed an hour of corruption, of oppression, of pollution. It was not at all to his taste, that sort of republicanism which was supported on this side of the Atlantic by the father of the sedition law John Adams, and by Peter Porcupine on the other. Republicanism! of John Adams! and William Cobbett !Par nobile fratrum, now united as in 1798, whom the cruel walls of Newgate alone keep from flying to each other's embrace—but whom, in sentiment, it is impossible to divide! Gallant crusaders in the holy cause of republicanism! Such "republicanism does indeed mean any thing or nothing."

Our people will not submit to be taxed for this war of conquest and dominion. The government of the United States was not calculated to wage offensive foreign war-it was instituted for the common defence and general welfare; and whosoever should embark it in a war of offence, would put it to a test which it was by no means calculated to endure. Make it out that Great Britain had instigated the Indians on a late occasion, and he was ready for battle; but not for dominion. He was unwilling, however, under present circumstances, to take Canada, at the risk of the constitution! to embark in a common cause with France, and be dragged at the wheels of the car of some Burr or Bonaparte. For a gentleman from Tennessee or Gennessee, or Lake Champlain, there may be some prospect of advantage. Their hemp would bear a great price by the exclusion of foreign supply. In that, too, the great importers were deeply interested. The upper country on the Hudson and the Lakes, would be enriched by the supplies for the troops, which they alone could furnish. They would have the exclusive market: to say nothing of the

increased preponderance from the acquisition of Canada and that section of the union, which the southern and western States had already felt so severely in the apportionment bill.

Mr. Randolph adverted to the defenceless state of our seaports, and particularly of the Chesapeake. A single spot only, on both shores, might be considered in tolerable security-from the nature of the port and the strength of the population-and that spot unhappily governed the whole State of Maryland. His friend, the late Governor of Maryland, (Mr. Lloyd) at the very time he was bringing his warlike resolutions before the legislature of the State, was liable, on any night, to be taken out of his bed and carried off, with his family, by the most contemptible picaroon. Such was the situation of many a family in Maryland and lower Virginia,,

Mr. Randolph dwelt on the danger arising from the black population. He said, he would touch this subject as tenderly as possibleit was with reluctance that he touched it at all--but in cases of great emergency, the State physician must not be deterred by a sickly, hys terical humanity, from probing the wound of his patient he must not be withheld, by a fastidious and mistaken humanity, from representing his true situation to his friends, or even to the sick man himself, where the occasion called for it. What was the situation of the slave-holding States? During the war of the revolution, so fixed were their habits of subordination, that while the whole country were overrun by the enemy, who invited them to desert, no fear was ever entertained of an insurrection of the slaves. During a war of seven years, with our country in possession of the enemy, no such danger was ever apprehended. But should we therefore be unobservant spectators of the progress of society within the last 20 years-of the silent but powerful change wrought by time and chance, upon its composition and temper? When the fountains of the great deep of abomination were broken up, even the poor slaves had not escaped the general deluge. The French revolution had polluted even them. Nay,there had not been wanting men in that house, witness their legislative Legendre, the butcher who once held a seat there, to preach upon that floor these imprescriptible rights to a crowded audience of blacks in the galleries-teaching them that they are equal to their masters; in other words, advising them to cut their throats. Similar doctrines were disseminated by pedlars from New England and elsewhere, throughout the southern country---and masters had been found so infatuated, as by their lives and conversation, by a contempt of morality and religion, unthinkingly to cherish these seeds of self-destruction to them and their families. What was the consequence? Within the last ten years, repeated alarms of insurrection among the slaves--some of them awful indeed. From the spreading of this infernal doctrine, the whole southern country had been thrown into a state of insecurity.

[The remainder of Mr. Randolph's speech in No. 6.]

CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER.

No. 6.]

TWELFTH CONGRESS.... FIRST SESSION. [1811-12.

[Debates continued.]

Continuation of Mr. Randolph's Speech

On the second Resolution reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Men dead to the operation of moral caufes, had taken away from the poor flave his habits of loyalty and obedience to his mafter, which lightened his fervitude by a double operation; beguiling his own cares and difarming his mafter's fufpicions and feverity; and now, like true empirics in politics, you are called upon to truft to the mere phyfical ftrength of the fetter which holds him in bondage Your have deprived him of all moral reftraint, you have tempted him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, just enough to perfect him in wickedness; you have opened his eyes to his nakednefs; you have armed his nature a gainst the hand that has fed, that has clothed him, that has cherifhed him in fickness; that hand, which before he became a pupil of your school he had been accuftomed to prefs with respectful affection. You have done all this-and then fhew him the gibbet and the wheel, as incentives to a fullen, repugnant obedience. God forbid, fir, that the fouthern ftates fhould ever fee an enemy on their fhores, with these infernal principles of French fraternity in the van. While talking of taking Canada, fome of us were Thuddering for our own fafety at home. He spoke from facts, when he said that the night-bell never tolled for fire in Richmond, that the mother did not hug her infant more closely to her bofom. He had been witness to fome of the alarms in the capital of Virginia.

How had we fhown our fympathy with the Patriots of Spain, or with her American provinces? By feizing on one of them, her claim to which we had formerly refpected, as foon as the parent country was embroiled at home.

Was it thus we yielded them affiftance against the arch-fiend, who is grafping at the fceptre of the civilized world. The object of France is as much Spanish America as old Spain herself. Much as he hated a ftanding army, he could almoft find it in his heart to vote one, could it be fent to the affiftance of the Spanish patriots.

Mr. Randolph then proceeded to notice the unjust and illiberal imputation of British attachments against certain characters in this country, fometimes infinuated in that Houfe, but openly avowed out of it. Against whom were thefe charges brought? Against men who in the war of the revolution were in the councils

of the nation, or fighting the battles of your country. And by whom were they made? By run ways chiefly from the British dominions, fince the breaking out of the French troubles. He indignantly faid-it is infufferable. It cannot be borne, It muft and ought, with feverity, to be put down in this Houfeand out of it to meet the lie direct. We have no fellow feeling for the fuffering and oppreffed Spaniards! Yet even them we do not reprobate. Strange! that we fhould have no objection to any other people or government, civilized or favage, in the whole world. The great autocrat of all the Ruffias receives the homage of our high confideration. The Dey of Algiers and his Divan of pirates are very civil good fort of people, with whom we find no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace and amity-" Turks, Jews and Infidels," Melimelli or the Little Turtle; Barbarians and favages of every clime and color, are welcome to our arms. With Chiefs of Banditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat and can trade. Name, however, but England, and all our antipathics are up in arms against her. Against whom? Againft thofe whofe blood runs in our own veins; in common with whom we claim Shakespeare, and Newton, and Chatham for our countrymen whofe form of government is the freeft on earth, our own only excepted; from whom every valuable principle of our own inftitutions has been borrowed-Reprefentation -Jury trial-voting the fupplies-writ of Habeas Corpus...our whole civil and criminal jurifprudence-against our fellow protestants identified in blood, in language, in religion with ourselves. In what fchool did the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, Henries, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges of America learn thofe principles of civil liberty which were fo nobly afferted by their wifdom and valor. And American refiftance to Britifh ufurpa. tion had not been more warmly cherished by these great men and their compatriots; not more by Wafhington, Hancock, and Henry, than by Chatham and his illuftrious affociates in the British Parliament. It ought to be remembered, too, that the heart of the English people was with us. It was a felfifh and corrupt miniftry, and their fervile tools, to whom we were not more op pofed than they were. He trufted that none fuch might ever exift among us-for tools will never be wanting to fubferve the purpofes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and minifters of ftate.

He acknowledged the influence of a Shakefpeare and a Milton upon his imagination, of a Locke upon his understanding, of a Sidney upon his political principles, of a Chatham upon qualities which, would to God! he poffeffed in common with that illuf trious nian of a Tillotfon, a Sherlock, and a Porteus, upon his religion. This was a British influence which he could never thake off. He allowed much to the juft and honeft prejudices growing out of the revolution. But by whom had they been sup. preffed when they ran counter to the interests of his country?

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By Washington. By whom, would you liften to them, are they moft keenly felt? By felons efcaped from the Jails of Paris, Newgate and Kilmainham, fince the breaking out of the French revolution--who, in this abused and infulted country, have set up for political teachers, and whose difciples give no other proof of their progrefs in republicanifm, except a blind devotion to the moft ruthlefs military defpotifm that the world ever faw. Thele are the patriots, who fcruple not to brand with the epithet of tory the men (looking towards the feat of Col. Steuart) by-whofe blood your liberties have been cemented. Thefe are they, who hold in fuch keen remembrance the outrages of the British armies, from which many of them were deferters. Afk thefe felf ftyled patriots where they were during the American war, (for they are for the most part old enough to have borne arms) and you ftrike them dumb-their lips are clofed in eternal filence. If it were allowable to entertain partialities; every confideration of blood, language, religion and interest would incline us towards England: and yet, fhall they be alone extended to France and her ruler, whom we are bound to believe a chaftening God fuffers as the fcourge of a guilty world! On all other nations he trampleshe holds them in contempt-England alone he hates; he would, but he cannot defpife her-fear cannot despise; and fhall we difparage our ancestors?-fhall we baftardize ourfelves by placing them even below the brigands of St. Domingo? With whom Mr. Adams had negociated a fort of treaty, for which he ought to have been and would have been impeached, if the people had not previously passed sentence of difqualification for their fervice upon him. This antipathy to all that is English must be French.

But the outrages and injuries of England-Bred up in the prin ciples of the revolution, he could never palliate, much lefs de. fend them. He well remembered flying with his mother and her new born child, from Arnold and Phillips-and they had been driven by Tarleton and other British Pandours from pillar to poft, while her husband was fighting the battles of his country. The impreffion was indelible on his memory-and yet (like his worthy old neighbor, who added feven buck fhot to every cartridge at the battle of Guilford and drew a fine fight at his man) he must be content to be called a tory by a patriot of the laft importation. Let us not get rid of one evil (fuppofing it poffible) at the expense of a greater-mutatus mutandis, fuppale France in poffeffion of the British naval power-and to her the Trident muft pafs fhould England be unable to wield it--what would be your condition? What would be the fituation of your fea-ports and their fea-faring inhabitants? Afk Hamburg... Lubec?-Afk Savannah? What! fir, when their privateers are pent up in our harbors by the British bull-dogs, when they receive at our hands every rite of hofpitality, from which their enemy is excluded-when they capture within our own waters,