applicable to investing this power, as to the suspension we have already agreed to.

Mr. DANA said, he agreed that the amendment of the Senate was, in substance, nearly the same with the proposition rejected in the House. He was in favor of this proposition, and still continued favorable to it, because, he approved the extension of the suspension of the act to December, and because, he believed, if the power of suspending it were vested in the President, he would not suffer it to go into effect before that day.

er.

Without going into the question, how far the commercial regulations were calculated to coerce Great Britain, Mr. D. said he would undertake to say that the operation of the non-importation act was more injurious to ourselves than Great Britain; and that it imposed such burdens on our merchants, and was so extremely vexatious to them, that he had little doubt of its suspension by the President, if he should be invested with the powIt would be recollected that the resolutions adopted by the House at their last session were very general; that they had been referred to a committee to bring in a bill, who had, from the pressure of circumstances, reported a bill very promptly, and with no other specification than that contained in the resolutions. In the construction given to this law, he understood no regard had been paid to labor, but merely to the material, the consequence of which was extremely vexatious. He would state an instance: Aqua fortis could only be imported in glass or gold vessels. A quantity had been imported into New York in glass vessels, and been refused entry because contained in glass. Mr. D. here specified some other articles, similarly circumstanced. He added that the provisions of the act were of so dubious a nature, that the Secretary of the Treasury had given no instructions respecting them. For these reasons, he thought the law would never be suffered to go into operation. It had, indeed, produced an effect, which the House, in passing it, had not contemplated, He would, therefore, have it done away altogether, and if they were to have any commercial prohibitions, he hoped they would be imposed in such language as all people might understand.

Mr. BIDWELL said, before the question was taken, he would, in answer to the gentleman from Connecticut on his right, (Mr. DANA,) just observe, that any doubt or difficulty which had arisen, or might arise, in the execution of the law, from the general description of articles of manufacture, by their material of chief value, might be easily removed by a supplemental act. It was not strange nor new, that, in a complicated system of regulations, experience should point out practical defects in the details, and render legislative explanation or amendment necessary. It was no rational objection against the system. Notwithstanding any such imperfections in the details of the prohibitory act, he had no doubt that, whether left to the Executive or the Legislature, the act would be ultimately carried into full and complete effect, unless rendered unnecessary by an intervening arrangement of the points in dispute.

H. OF R.

Mr. DANA said that, in the statement he had made, he did not state many of the inconveniences that had been experienced. Half the goods imported into New York since the non-importation law took effect had been refused entry. The law was, indeed, one which ought never to go into operation. As far as he was informed, the Government of Great Britain had as yet only given friendly assurances. He considered the existence of this law as a bar to satisfactory arrangements, and was, therefore, willing to lay it aside for the sake of peace and accommodation, not considering it as aiding, but as impeding our negotiations. Mr. CHANDLER said, if he believed with the gentleman from Connecticut, that the President would, under any circumstances, no matter what, suspend the act, he would not give his vote for the proposed amendment. On the contrary, believing that he would let it go into effect, unless our differences were adjusted, it had his approbation. To remedy the evils mentioned, he would have no objection to doing away this act, after a proper time, and prescribing in a new act a double dose. He would pass an act prohibiting the importation of all goods from Great Britain. Believing the act had been attended with good consequences, and had brought the Government of that nation to a sense of their interests, and that there was a probability of an early adjustment of our differences, he should give his vote for the amendment.

The question was then taken by yeas and nays and the amendment carried-yeas 82, nays 23, as follows:

Anderson, John Archer, David Bard, Burwell Bassett, YEAS-Evan Alexander, Willis Alston, jun., Isaac George M. Bedinger, Silas Betton, Barnabas Bidwell, John Blake, jun., Robert Brown, John Boyle, William A. Burwell, William Butler, George W. Campbell, Levi Casey, John Chandler, Martin Chittenden, John Claiborne, Joseph Clay, John Clopton, Leonard Cov ington, Richard Cutts, Samuel W. Dana, Ezra Darby, John Davenport, junior, John Dawson, William Dickson, Theodore Dwight, Elias Earle, Peter Early, William Ely, John W. Eppes, James M. Garnett, Peterson Goodwyn, Silas Halsey, Seth Hastings, James Holland, David Hough, John G. Jackson, Jas. Kelly, Thomas Kenan, Nehemiah Knight, Joseph Lewis, jr., Henry W. Livingston, Robert Marion, Josiah Masters, William McCreery, David Meriwether, Nicholas R. O. Mosely, Jeremiah Nelson, Thomas Newton, jun., Timothy Pitkin, jun., John Porter, John Pugh, Thomas M. Randolph, John Rea of Pennsylvania, John Russell, Thomas Sammons, Thomas Sandford, Martin G. Schuneman, John Smith, Henry Southard, Richard Stanford, William Stedman, Lewis B. Sturges, Samuel Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Samuel Tenney, Philip R. Thompson, Thomas W. Thompson, Uri Tracy, Philip Van Cortlandt, Killian K. Van Rensselaer, Eliphalet Wickes, Marmaduke Williams, Alexander Wilson, and Thomas Wynns.

Moore, Thomas Moore, Jeremiah Morrow, Jonathan

NATS-Joseph Barker, Jacob Crowninshield, Ebenezer Elmer, William Findley, James Fisk, Isaiah L. Green, John Lambert, Gideon Olin, John Randolph, John Rhea of Tennessee, Jacob Richards, Peter Sailly, Ebenezer Seaver, James Sloan, John Smilie, Samuel

H. OF R.

Mr. DAWSON urged the propriety of deferring the consideration of the bill to a future day, par ticularly as several of the members most interested in it, were absent.

DECEMBER, 1806.

such a project—and they should have an estimate for it; by knowing what these buildings had cost, the frequent appropriations called for, and recollecting that every appropriation was the last, they would know how to act, and whether they the confines of which they could never learn. He were about to be involved in a sea of expense, which they sat, the conduct of the persons embelieved this had been the case in the building in ployed on it having always fallen short of the promise made.

NATIONAL DEFENCE.

The House divided on going into Committee ayes 44, noes 33.

The House then resolved itself into a Commit

tee of the Whole.

Mr. JOHN RANDOLPH offered the following resolution :

Resolved, That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, requested to cause to be laid before this House an account, stating the several sums which have been expended on the Capitol, the President's house, the public offices, the navy yard, and the marine barracks, respectively; and the amount expended on other objects of public expense within the City of Washington.

Messrs. ALSTON and OLIN suggested that it might be embarrassing to the public officers to give such a detailed and retrospective statement. Mr. J. RANDOLPH replied, that his object was to get information, for which purpose he wished to have a condensed view of the whole expenditures within the City of Washington. At present, when an appropriation for a particular object was called for, he possessed no standard of comparison whereby to determine its propriety. He wished to know the aggregate amount which this sink of expense, of increasing expense, has cost the nation, together with the several items of expenditure. He desired this information to guide him in judging of the future appropriations that might be asked. Suppose the House should undertake to build an University-he understood there was

Mr. Elliot rose and addressed the Chair as follows:

country, that but one sentiment has pervaded and I will premise, Mr. Speaker, for the honor of my agitated the American mind, in relation to what has been called, with more energy indeed than proApril last, by a small British naval force, and the priety, the blockade of the port of New York, in while in the peaceable pursuit of his honest occuatrocious murder of our fellow citizen, John Pierce, pation, by the order of the officer commanding dark cloud seemed to overshadow our political prosthat force. At that melancholy moment, when a of the bold figures of antiquity, silent amidst arms; pects, the laws of our country were, to borrow one they were languid, they were lifeless, when they Executive made a prompt and patriotic use of the ought to have been energetic and irresistible. The few and feeble means which the laws had placed in his power; but few and feeble indeed they were, and the most energetic exercise of them could not, in a degree calculated to add lustre to the national character, command the respect of foreign nations. I have not ascertained whether John Pierce was the father of a family: If such should be found to be the fact, and if some doubts which I have been led to entertain of the constitutionality of the proposition should be dissipated by further investigation, I should probably deem it my duty to propose that his children shall be educated at the public expense. I am opposed from principle to the erection of monuments, except in cases of a very extraordinary character; and in this case there can be no necessity for anything of that kind, as Pierce will have sufficient monuments in the memory of his fellow-citizens, and in the pages of his country's history.

But it is not my present purpose to compose an epicedium upon Pierce, or to move the erection of his monument. I have objects of more consequence in view. At the time of the occurrence of the unfortunate event to which I have alluded, and ever since, the question must have been continually inviting public attention, must have been commanding, and irresistibly forcing itself, upon public attention, Have we not, or do we not pretend to have, a naval armament for the purpose of national defence and protection? We have indeed the shadow of a navy. Economical, excessively

extreme parsimony? With an overflowing Treasury; with an accumulation of revenue, which enables us to purchase empires, and at the same time rapidly reduce a debt, the pressure of which no man feels, or ever can feel; with a debt which is but the dust of the balance in which are suspended our national resources; our naval establishment is inferior to that which was possessed by the little State of Ragusa, the last of the republics of the ancient world, previously to its recent destruction by the power of France: Ragusa, which possessed but one considerable port, perhaps twenty or thirty miles of barren seacoast, and a population of from 80,000 to 120,000 souls. A propos of Ragusa. Who would not mourn for Ragusa? Every republican on earth ought to shed a tear for its fate! Who were the Ragusans? Were they among the conspirators against the liberties and national independence of France, who are said to have held their caucusses at Pilnitz and at Pavia? Were they subsidized by British gold? Were they the enemies of any people on the globe? Ah! No. They were a simple, peaceful, unambitious, industrious, virtuous, republican people. They were so far from being the enemies of any nation, that they were the friends of all the world; that they might enjoy the privilege of managing their own concerns in their own manner, as to their domestic legislation, they always paid tribute to every nation that demanded tribute from them; and on this humiliating condition they were suffered to exist as a republic through almost all the revolutions of ages. They did exist-they are now slaves! And it is a memorable fact that the Emperor of France has not even pretended that the Ragusans were hostile to his interests. Political necessity alone justifies, or attempts to justify, the seizure of their dominions. And when would their fate be ours, if the means of destruction were at hand? To

morrow!

It is certainly time to think and act with more energy. This great and solemn subject has long attracted my attention, and occupied my silent reflections. Our local habitation is our only security. Were it not for the vast waves of the vast ocean, it would be the merest folly that could be imagined to tie up your roof with those strings that dangle so delightfully over our heads. Were it not for that noble and all-protecting element, why in the name of Heaven would you prop up these tottering walls any longer? Let them alone, and crazy as they are, and they are crazy enough in all conscience, they would last ten times as long as the noble structure of your republic itself! At least ten times as long. But many think we are in no danger. They must be very pious men; they must have a confidence in Divine Providence, in which I should not like to be behind them; or they must possess a degree of self-confidence, the possession of which I do not envy them. Does any one believe that our Army and Navy, that our militia, numerous, brave, and patriotic as it is, could resist for a moment three millions of European veterans in arms? Could we resist the power of France, if that power could be brought

DECEMBER, 1806.

to bear upon us? He who could say so, should wander into the wilderness; he should go at least to the extreme limit of the desert heath that surrounds us, and talk to the woods and to the winds. No human ear could listen for a moment with patience to such idle fanfaronade. One word more upon the subject of our Treasury and our debt. It has frequently been said that the present is the age of wonders; and we have another proof of it this very session within these walls. Could you call old Solomon himself from the "vasty deep," and give him a seat among us-and as he would be but a shade, I suppose you would consider him only as a kind of Territorial delegate, with a right of debating but not of voting could you get him here, the very first step of his parliamentary career would be to move to strike out a section of the sacred volume, inserted by his own pen, the words, "there is nothing new under the sun." In the Journal of our proceedings upon the President's Message, we have a record of this sort: "Resolved, That so much of the Message of the President of the United States, as relates to the future appropriation of the surplus revenue, &c., be referred to a select committee." This is a new kind of Committee of Ways and Means. It must be called, I suppose, Committee of Ways and Means, No. 2. Committees of this description, organized for the purpose of devising means to carry on the great concerns of nations, are of some antiquity; but this is the first committee that has ever been created for the purpose of devising ways and means to get rid of the surplus moneys of a Government. I can point the gentlemen of this committee to an object worthy of their attention: the defence of their country opens an ample and honorable field for their labors. But it is time to disclose my own system more particularly. I will keep the House in suspense no longer. I would imitate the magnanimous, but at the same time very prudent policy of the Emperor of Austria, approved, or at least not censured, by the Emperor of France himself, by establishing a powerful armed neutrality. I would organize a general and effectual system of national defence. Here, again, let me not be misunderstood. I am no friend to large armies and navies, or new and oppressive taxes. The system should be economical as well as energetic.

Upon this subject I have long waited, like Elibu of old, that older men might speak, but no one opens his lips; and silence in future would be a dereliction of what I deem one of the first and dearest interests of my country. Perhaps in my manner of announcing my intentions and objects, although it has been conformable to every day's practice in the British Parliament, I may not have been considered as conforming perfectly to the rules of order here; but if order has been violated, the transgression shall not be repeated. I have risen at this time merely to call the attention of the House to the subject, and to give notice that I shall, on Tuesday of next week, (as it is proper to lead the public mind gradually to the contemplation of concerns of such importance,) offer to the consideration of the House a series of