The World's Best Orations Part 11

FISHER AMES (1758-1808)

Fisher Ames is easily first among the New England Federalist orators of the first quarter of a century of the Republic. He was greatly, sometimes extravagantly, admired by his contemporaries, and his addresses are studied as models by eminent public speakers of our own day. Dr. Charles Caldwell in his autobiography calls Ames "one of the most splendid rhetoricians of his age." . . . "Two of his speeches," writes Doctor Caldwell, "that on Jay's Treaty and that usually called his Tomahawk speech, because it included some resplendent pa.s.sages on Indian ma.s.sacre, were the most brilliant and fascinating specimens of eloquence I have ever heard, though I have listened to some of the most eloquent speakers in the British Parliament,--among others to Wilberforce and Mackintosh, Plunkett, Brougham, and Canning. Doctor Priestly who was familiar with the oratory of Pitt the father, and Pitt the son, as also with that of Burke and Fox, made to myself the acknowledgment that the speech of Ames on the British treaty was 'the most bewitching piece of eloquence' to which he had ever listened."

Ames was born at Dedham, Ma.s.sachusetts, on April 9th, 1758. His father, Nathaniel Ames, a physician, had the "honorable family standing" which was so important in the life of most of the colonies. He had scientific tendencies and published an "Astronomical Diary," or nautical almanac, which was in considerable vogue. The son, however, developed at the early age of six years a fondness for cla.s.sical literature, which led him to undertake to master Latin. He made such progress that he was admitted to Harvard when but twelve years old. While there, it "was observed that he coveted the glory of eloquence," showing his fondness for oratory not merely in the usual debating society declamation, but by the study of cla.s.sical models and of such great English poets as Shakespeare and Milton. To this, no doubt correctly, has been attributed his great command of language and his fertility in ill.u.s.tration. After graduating from Harvard in 1774, he studied law in Boston, served in the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature, in the convention for ratifying the Federal const.i.tution, and in the first Congress elected under the const.i.tution. After retiring, be was called in 1804 to the presidency of Harvard. He declined the honor, however, on account of diffidence and failing health. His death occurred on the fourth of July, 1808, in the fiftieth year of his age.

After the treaty with Great Britain (Jay's), concluded in 1794, had been ratified and proclaimed by the President, he communicated it to the House of Representatives, "in order that the necessary appropriations might be made to carry it into effect." The speech on the Treaty, delivered by Ames, was on a resolution in favor of making the appropriations thus called for, the House being in committee of the whole April 28th, 1796.

ON THE BRITISH TREATY

(Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 28, 1796)

Mr. Chairman:--

I entertain the hope, perhaps a rash one, that my strength will hold me out to speak a few minutes.

In my judgment, a right decision will depend more on the temper and manner with which we may prevail upon ourselves to contemplate the subject than upon the development of any profound political principles, or any remarkable skill in the application of them. If we could succeed to neutralize our inclinations, we should find less difficulty than we have to apprehend in surmounting all our objections.

The suggestion, a few days ago, that the House manifested symptoms of heat and irritation, was made and retorted as if the charge ought to create surprise, and would convey reproach. Let us be more just to ourselves and to the occasion. Let us not affect to deny the existence and the intrusion of some portion of prejudice and feeling into the debate, when, from the very structure of our nature, we ought to antic.i.p.ate the circ.u.mstance as a probability, and when we are admonished by the evidence of our senses that it is the fact.

How can we make professions for ourselves, and offer exhortations to the House, that no influence should be felt but that of duty, and no guide respected but that of the understanding, while the peal to rally every pa.s.sion of man is continually ringing in our ears?

Our understandings have been addressed, it is true, and with ability and effect; but, I demand, has any corner of the heart been left unexplored? It has been ransacked to find auxiliary arguments, and, when that attempt failed, to awaken the sensibilities that would require none. Every prejudice and feeling has been summoned to listen to some peculiar style of address; and yet we seem to believe and to consider as an affront a doubt that we are strangers to any influence but that of unbiased reason.

It would be strange that a subject which has aroused in turn all the pa.s.sions of the country should be discussed without the interference of any of our own. We are men, and, therefore, not exempt from those pa.s.sions; as citizens and representatives we feel the interests that must excite them. The hazard of great interests cannot fail to agitate strong pa.s.sions. We are not disinterested; it is impossible we should be dispa.s.sionate. The warmth of such feelings may becloud the judgment, and, for a time, pervert the understanding. But the public sensibility, and our own, has sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given an animation to the debate. The public attention has been quickened to mark the progress of the discussion, and its judgment, often hasty and erroneous on first impressions, has become solid and enlightened at last. Our result will, I hope, on that account, be the safer and more mature, as well as more accordant with that of the nation. The only constant agents in political affairs are the pa.s.sions of men. Shall we complain of our nature-- shall we say that man ought to have been made otherwise? It is right already, because he, from whom we derive our nature, ordained it so; and because thus made and thus acting, the cause of truth and the public good is the more surely promoted.

But an attempt has been made to produce an influence of a nature more stubborn and more unfriendly to truth. It is very unfairly pretended, that the const.i.tutional right of this house is at stake, and to be a.s.serted and preserved only by a vote in the negative. We hear it said that this is a struggle for liberty, a manly resistance against the design to nullify this a.s.sembly and to make it a cipher in the government; that the President and Senate, the numerous meetings in the cities, and the influence of the general alarm of the country, are the agents and instruments of a scheme of coercion and terror, to force the treaty down our throats, though we loathe it, and in spite of the clearest convictions of duty and conscience.

It is necessary to pause here and inquire whether suggestions of this kind be not unfair in their very texture and fabric, and pernicious in all their influences. They oppose an obstacle in the path of inquiry, not simply discouraging, but absolutely insurmountable. They will not yield to argument; for as they were not reasoned up, they cannot be reasoned down. They are higher than a Chinese wall in truth's way, and built of materials that are indestructible. While this remains, it is vain to argue; it is vain to say to this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea. For, I ask of the men of knowledge of the world whether they would not hold him for a blockhead that should hope to prevail in an argument whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask, further, when such attempts have been made, have they not failed of success? The indignant heart repels a conviction that is believed to debase it.

The self-love of an individual is not warmer in its sense, nor more constant in its action, than what is called in French, _l'esprit_ _du_ _corps_, or the self-love of an a.s.sembly; that jealous affection which a body of men is always found to bear towards its own prerogatives and power. I will not condemn this pa.s.sion. Why should we urge an unmeaning censure or yield to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public a.s.sembly are still men, and feel that _esprit_ _du_ _corps_ which is one of the laws of their nature? Still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect that this very spirit is a guardian instinct that watches over the life of this a.s.sembly. It cherishes the principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its existence with all the strength we see it possess, the privileges of the representatives of the people, and mediately the liberties of the people, would not be guarded, as they are, with a vigilance that never sleeps and an unrelaxed constancy and courage. If the consequences, most unfairly attributed to the vote in the affirmative, were not chimerical, and worse, for they are deceptive, I should think it a reproach to be found even moderate in my zeal to a.s.sert the const.i.tutional powers of this a.s.sembly; and whenever they shall be in real danger, the present occasion affords proof that there will be no want of advocates and champions.

Indeed, so prompt are these feelings, and, when once roused, so difficult to pacify, that if we could prove the alarm was groundless, the prejudice against the appropriations may remain on the mind, and it may even pa.s.s for an act of prudence and duty to negative a measure which was lately believed by ourselves, and may hereafter be misconceived by others, to encroach upon the powers of the House. Principles that bear a remote affinity with usurpation on those powers will be rejected, not merely as errors, but as wrongs. Our sensibilities will shrink from a post where it is possible they may be wounded, and be inflamed by the slightest suspicion of an a.s.sault.

While these prepossessions remain, all argument is useless. It may be heard with the ceremony of attention, and lavish its own resources, and the patience it wearies, to no manner of purpose. The ears may be open; but the mind will remain locked up, and every pa.s.s to the understanding guarded.

Unless, therefore, this jealous and repulsive fear for the rights of the House can be allayed, I will not ask a hearing.

I cannot press this topic too far; I cannot address myself with too much emphasis to the magnanimity and candor of those who sit here, to suspect their own feelings, and, while they do, to examine the grounds of their alarm. I repeat it, we must conquer our persuasion that this body has an interest in one side of the question more than the other, before we attempt to surmount our objections. On most subjects, and solemn ones too, perhaps in the most solemn of all, we form our creed more from inclination than evidence.

Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely possible they have yielded too suddenly to their alarms for the powers of this House; that the addresses which have been made with such variety of forms and with so great dexterity in some of them, to all that is prejudice and pa.s.sion in the heart, are either the effects or the instruments of artifice and deception, and then let them see the subject once more in its singleness and simplicity.

It will be impossible, on taking a fair review of the subject, to justify the pa.s.sionate appeals that have been made to us to struggle for our liberties and rights, and the solemn exhortations to reject the proposition, said to be concealed in that on your table, to surrender them forever. In spite of this mock solemnity, I demand, if the House will not concur in the measure to execute the treaty, what other course shall we take? How many ways of proceeding lie open before us?

In the nature of things there are but three; we are either to make the treaty, to observe it, or break it. It would be absurd to say we will do neither. If I may repeat a phrase already much abused, we are under coercion to do one of them; and we have no power, by the exercise of our discretion, to prevent the consequences of a choice.

By refusing to act, we choose. The treaty will be broken and fall to the ground. Where is the fitness, then, of replying to those who urge upon the House the topics of duty and policy that they attempt to force the treaty down, and to compel this a.s.sembly to renounce its discretion, and to degrade itself to the rank of a blind and pa.s.sive instrument in the hands of the treaty-making power? In case we reject the appropriation, we do not secure any greater liberty of action; we gain no safer shelter than before from the consequences of the decision. Indeed, they are not to be evaded. It is neither just nor manly to complain that the treaty-making power has produced this coercion to act. It is not the act or the despotism of that power--it is the nature of things that compels. Shall we, dreading to become the blind instruments of power, yield ourselves the blinder dupes of mere sounds of imposture? Yet that word, that empty word, coercion, has given scope to an eloquence that, one would imagine, could not be tired and did not choose to be quieted.

Let us examine still more in detail the alternatives that are before us, and we shall scarcely fail to see, in still stronger lights, the futility of our apprehensions for the power and liberty of the House.

If, as some have suggested, the thing called a treaty is incomplete,--if it has no binding force or obligation,--the first question is, Will this House complete the instrument, and, by concurring, impart to it that force which it wants?

The doctrine has been avowed that the treaty, though formally ratified by the executive power of both nations, though published as a law for our own by the President's proclamation, is still a mere proposition submitted to this a.s.sembly, no way distinguishable, in point of authority or obligation, from a motion for leave to bring in a bill, or any other original act of ordinary legislation. This doctrine, so novel in our country, yet so dear to many, precisely for the reason that, in the contention for power, victory is always dear, is obviously repugnant to the very terms as well as the fair interpretation of our own resolutions (Mr. Blount's). We declare that the treaty-making power is exclusively vested in the President and Senate, and not in this House. Need I say that we fly in the face of that resolution when we pretend that the acts of that power are not valid until we have concurred in them? It would be nonsense, or worse, to use the language of the most glaring contradiction, and to claim a share in a power which we at the same time disdain as exclusively vested in other departments.

What can be more strange than to say that the compacts of the President and Senate with foreign nations are treaties, without our agency, and yet those compacts want all power and obligation, until they are sanctioned by our concurrence? It is not my design, in this place, if at all, to go into the discussion of this part of the subject. I will, at least for the present, take it for granted, that this monstrous opinion stands in little need of remark, and if it does, lies almost out of the reach of refutation.

But, say those who hide the absurdity under the cover of ambiguous phrases, Have we no discretion? And if we have, are we not to make use of it in judging of the expediency or inexpediency of the treaty? Our resolution claims that privilege, and we cannot surrender it without equal inconsistency and breach of duty.

If there be any inconsistency in the case, it lies, not in making the appropriations for the treaty, but in the resolution itself (Mr. Blount's). Let us examine it more nearly. A treaty is a bargain between nations, binding in good faith; and what makes a bargain?

The a.s.sent of the contracting parties. We allow that the treaty power is not in this House; this House has no share in contracting, and is not a party; of consequence, the President and Senate alone may make a treaty that is binding in good faith. We claim, however, say the gentlemen, a right to judge of the expediency of treaties; that is the const.i.tutional province of our discretion. Be it so. What follows? Treaties, when adjudged by us to be inexpedient, fall to the ground, and the public faith is not hurt. This, incredible and extravagant as it may seem, is a.s.serted. The amount of it, in plainer language, is this--the President and Senate are to make national bargains, and this House has nothing to do in making them. But bad bargains do not bind this House, and, of inevitable consequence, do not bind the nation. When a national bargain, called a treaty, is made, its binding force does not depend upon the making, but upon our opinion that it is good. . . .

To expatiate on the value of public faith may pa.s.s with some men for declamation--to such men I have nothing to say. To others I will urge, Can any circ.u.mstance mark upon a people more turpitude and debas.e.m.e.nt? Can anything tend more to make men think themselves mean, or degrade to a lower point their estimation of virtue and their standard of action?

It would not merely demoralize mankind; it tends to break all the ligaments of society, to dissolve that mysterious charm which attracts individuals to the nation, and to inspire in its stead a repulsive sense of shame and disgust.

What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread ent.i.tled to this ardent preference because they are greener? No, sir; this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it. For what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable when a State renounces the principles that const.i.tute their security? Or, if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in a country odious in the eyes of strangers and dishonored in his own? Could he look with affection and veneration to such a country as his parent?

The sense of having one would die within him; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would be a vice. He would be a banished man in his native land.

I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlightened period when it is violated, there are none when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed by barbarians--a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanct.i.ty to treaties. Even in Algiers a truce may be bought for money; but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus, we see neither the ignorance of savages nor the principles of an a.s.sociation for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice, that justice under which they fell, the fundamental law of their state. They would perceive it was their interest to make others respect, and they would therefore soon pay some respect themselves to the obligations of good faith.

It is painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make even the supposition, that America should furnish the occasion of this opprobrium. No, let me not even imagine that a republican government, sprung as our own is, from a people enlightened and uncorrupted, a government whose origin is right, and whose daily discipline is duty, can, upon solemn debate, make its option to be faithless--can dare to act what despots dare not avow, what our own example evinces, the states of Barbary are unsuspected of. No, let me rather make the supposition that Great Britain refuses to execute the treaty, after we have done everything to carry it into effect. Is there any language of reproach pungent enough to express your commentary on the fact? What would you say, or rather what would you not say? Would you not tell them, wherever an Englishman might travel, shame would stick to him--he would disown his country.

You would exclaim, England, proud of your wealth, and arrogant in the possession of power--blush for these distinctions, which become the vehicles of your dishonor. Such a nation might truly say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. We should say of such a race of men, their name is a heavier burden than their debt.

I can scarcely persuade myself to believe that the consideration I have suggested requires the aid of any auxiliary. But, unfortunately, auxiliary arguments are at hand. Five millions of dollars, and probably more, on the score of spoliations committed on our commerce, depend upon the treaty. The treaty offers the only prospect of indemnity. Such redress is promised as the merchants place some confidence in. Will you interpose and frustrate that hope, leaving to many families nothing but beggary and despair? It is a smooth proceeding to take a vote in this body; it takes less than half an hour to call the yeas and nays and reject the treaty.

But what is the effect of it? What, but this? The very men formerly so loud for redress, such fierce champions that even to ask for justice was too mean and too slow, now turn their capricious fury upon the sufferers and say by their vote, to them and their families, No longer eat bread; pet.i.tioners, go home and starve; we can not satisfy your wrongs and our resentments.

Will you pay the sufferers out of the treasury? No. The answer was given two years ago, and appears on our journals. Will you give them letters of marque and reprisal to pay themselves by force? No; that is war. Besides, it would be an opportunity for those who have already lost much to lose more. Will you go to war to avenge their injury? If you do, the war will leave you no money to indemnify them. If it should be unsuccessful, you will aggravate existing evils; if successful, your enemy will have no treasure left to give our merchants; the first losses will be confounded with much greater, and be forgotten. At the end of a war there must be a negotiation, which is the very point we have already gained; and why relinquish it? And who will be confident that the terms of the negotiation, after a desolating war, would be more acceptable to another House of Representatives than the treaty before us? Members and opinions may be so changed that the treaty would then be rejected for being what the present majority say it should be.

Whether we shall go on making treaties and refusing to execute them, I know not. Of this I am certain, it will be very difficult to exercise the treaty-making power on the new principles, with much reputation or advantage to the country.

The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty) is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences. From great causes we are to look for great effects. A plain and obvious one will be the price of the western lands will fall. Settlers will not choose to fix their habitation on a field of battle. Those who talk so much of the interest of the United States should calculate how deeply it will be affected by rejecting the treaty; how vast a tract of wild land will almost cease to be property. The loss, let it be observed, will fall upon a fund expressly devoted to sink the national debt. What, then, are we called upon to do? However the form of the vote and the protestations of many may disguise the proceeding, our resolution is in substance, and it deserves to wear the t.i.tle of a resolution to prevent the sale of the western lands and the discharge of the public debt.

Will the tendency to Indian hostilities be contested by any one?

Experience gives the answer. The frontiers were scourged with war till the negotiation with Great Britain was far advanced, and then the state of hostility ceased. Perhaps the public agents of both nations are innocent of fomenting the Indian war, and perhaps they are not. We ought not, however, to expect that neighboring nations, highly irritated against each other, will neglect the friends.h.i.+p of the savages; the traders will gain an influence and will abuse it; and who is ignorant that their pa.s.sions are easily raised, and hardly restrained from violence? Their situation will oblige them to choose between this country and Great Britain, in case the treaty should be rejected. They will not be our friends, and at the same time the friends of our enemies.

But am I reduced to the necessity of proving this point? Certainly the very men who charged the Indian war on the detention of the posts, will call for no other proofs than the recital of their own speeches. It is remembered with what emphasis, with what acrimony, they expatiated on the burden of taxes, and the drain of blood and treasure into the western country, in consequence of Britain's holding the posts. Until the posts are restored, they exclaimed, the treasury and the frontiers must bleed.

If any, against all these proofs, should maintain that the peace with the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. From arguments calculated to produce conviction, I will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether it is not already planted there. I resort especially to the convictions of the western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security. Can they take it upon them to say that an Indian peace, under these circ.u.mstances, will prove firm? No, sir; it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk.

On this theme, my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for them--if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal--I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log house beyond the mountains, I would say to the inhabitants, Wake from your false security; your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again; in the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father--the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field; you are a mother--the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.

On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings.

It is a spectacle of horror which can not be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, it will speak a language compared with which all I have said or can say will be poor and frigid.

Will it be whispered that the treaty has made a new champion for the protection of the frontiers? It is known that my voice as well as vote has been uniformly given in conformity with the ideas I have expressed. Protection is the right of the frontiers; it is our duty to give it.

Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Will any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty, for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be approached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans unresponsible? Have the principles, on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that state house? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk without guilt, and without remorse?