[See pp. 16, 25, 32, 119, 120, 199, 276.] ELEVENTH CONGRESS, THIRD SESSION. January 7, 1811. Mr. Clay, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the message of the President in regard to the country lying east of the Perdido and south of the State of Georgia and the Mississippi Territory, made the following report: The United States of America, in Congress assembled, having had their attention imperiously drawn to the present situation of the territory adjoining their southern border, and considering the influence which the destiny of that territory may have upon their security, tranquillity, and commerce, declare that they could not see with indifference the said territory pass into the hands of any other foreign power, and that they feel themselves called upon by the peculiar circumstances of the existing crisis to provide, under certain contingencies, for the temporary occupation of the said territory. Whilst they thus yield to what is demanded of them by their own safety, they further declare that the said territory in their hands shall remain, subject to future arrangement between them and Spain. (Ex. Jour., Vol. 2, p. 176.) [See as above.] January 11, 1811. Mr. Anderson, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the confidential resolution from the House of Representatives to enable the President of the United States to take possession of the territory lying east of the river Perdido and south of the State of Georgia and the Mississippi Territory, and for other purposes, made the following report: Your committee have given the resolution to them referred most careful consideration, and beg to report the same with the following amendment and to recommend that, as amended, it be favorably considered: Strike out all after the words "Taking into view the" and insert in lieu thereof the following: Peculiar situation of Spain, and of her American provinces, and considering the influence which the destiny of the territory adjoining the southern border of the United States may have upon their security, tranquillity, and commerce: Therefore, Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States, under the peculiar circumstances of the existing crisis, can not, without serious inquietude, see any part of the said territory pass into the hands of any foreign power, and that a due regard to their own safety compels them to provide, under certain contingencies, for the temporary occupation of the said territory. They, at the same time, declare that the said territory shall in their hands remain, subject to future negotiation. (Ex. Jour., Vol. 2, pp. 182, 183.) country, is a still more direct and aggravated insult and affront to the American people and their Government, as it is evidently an insidious attempt to excite their resentments and distrusts against their own Government, by appealing to them, through false or fallacious disguises, against some of its acts, and to excite resentments and divisions amongst the people themselves, which can only be dishonourable to their own characters and ruinous to their own interests. And the Congress of the United States do hereby solemnly pledge themselves to the American people, and to the world, to stand by and support the Executive Government in its refusal to receive any further communications from the said Francis J. Jackson, and to call into action the whole force of the nation, if it should become necessary, in consequence of the conduct of the Executive Government in this respect, to repel such insults, and to assert and maintain the rights, the honour, and the interests of the United States. (Leg. Jour., pp. 409, 410; Stat. L., vol. 2, p. 612; Annals, 11th Cong., 2d sess., 482.) [See pp. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 31, 47, 69, 77, 196.] December 5, 1809. On the message of the President as respects the relations existing between the United States and Great Britain and France, Mr. Giles reported as follows: That if any foreign ambassador, minister, or other person entitled to enjoy within the United States the privileges and immunities of a foreign minister shall have committed, or may hereafter commit, any such act as by the laws of nations would justify the President of the United States in ordering such offending ambassador, minister, or other person as aforesaid out of the District of Columbia, or out of the territories of the United States, or in sending him home to his sovereign, or to some place or territory within his sovereign's jurisdiction; in every such place where the President of the United States shall deem it proper and expedient to exercise his constitutional authority in either of these respects, he shall be, and is hereby, authorized and empowered to cause a warrant to be issued and signed by the Secretary of State, directed to any civil officer of the United States authorized to serve process, or any military officer under the authority of the United States, commanding him to provide for and enforce the departure of such ambassador, minister, or other person offending as aforesaid, taking due precautions to avoid improper or unnecessary violence in executing such warrant. And all officers, civil and military, under the authority of the United States, are hereby required and enjoined to be obedient to such warrant. And in case any officer, civil or military, to whom such warrant shall be directed shall fail or unreasonably delay to execute the same, every officer so offending shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall be punished by fine and imprisonment before any court of the United States having cognizance of the offence: Provided, That the fine shall not exceed dollars, nor the imprisonment be longer than years. (Annals, 11th Cong., 2d sess., 482.) [See pp. 16, 25, 32, 119, 120, 199, 276.] ELEVENTH CONGRESS, THIRD SESSION. January 7, 1811. Mr. Clay, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the message of the President in regard to the country lying east of the Perdido and south of the State of Georgia and the Mississippi Territory, made the following report: The United States of America, in Congress assembled, having had their attention imperiously drawn to the present situation of the territory adjoining their southern border, and considering the influence which the destiny of that territory may have upon their security, tranquillity, and commerce, declare that they could not see with indifference the said territory pass into the hands of any other foreign power, and that they feel themselves called upon by the peculiar circumstances of the existing crisis to provide, under certain contingencies, for the temporary occupation of the said territory. Whilst they thus yield to what is demanded of them by their own safety, they further declare that the said territory in their hands shall remain, subject to future arrangement between them and Spain. (Ex. Jour., Vol. 2, p. 176.) [See as above.] January 11, 1811. Mr. Anderson, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the confidential resolution from the House of Representatives to enable the President of the United States to take possession of the territory lying east of the river Perdido and south of the State of Georgia and the Mississippi Territory, and for other purposes, made the following report: Your committee have given the resolution to them referred most careful consideration, and beg to report the same with the following amendment and to recommend that, as amended, it be favorably considered: Strike out all after the words "Taking into view the" and insert in lieu thereof the following: Peculiar situation of Spain, and of her American provinces, and considering the influence which the destiny of the territory adjoining the southern border of the United States may have upon their security, tranquillity, and commerce: Therefore, Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States, under the peculiar circumstances of the existing crisis, can not, without serious inquietude, see any part of the said territory pass into the hands of any foreign power, and that a due regard to their own safety compels them to provide, under certain contingencies, for the temporary occupation of the said territory. They, at the same time, declare that the said territory shall in their hands remain, subject to future negotiation. (Ex. Jour., Vol. 2, pp. 182, 183.) [See pp. 5, 7, 19, 77, 196.] TWELFTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION. November 29, 1811. On the message of the President as to relations with France and Great Britain, Mr. Giles reported as follows: Your committee have endeavored to give the subject submitted to them that full and dispassionate consideration which is due to one so intimately connected with the interest, the peace, the safety, and the honor of their country. Your committee will not encumber your journals and waste your patience with a detailed history of the various matters growing out of our foreign relations. The cold recital of wrongs, of injuries, and aggressions known and felt by every member of this Union could have no other effect than to deaden the national sensibility and render the public mind callous to injuries with which it is already too familiar. Without recurring, then, to the multiplied wrongs of partial or temporary operation, of which we have so just cause of complaint against the two great belligerents, your committee will only call your attention at this time to the systematic aggressions of those powers authorized by their edicts against neutral commerce-a system which, as regarded its principles, was founded on pretentions that went to the subversion of our national independence, and which, although now abandoned by one power, is, in its broad and destructive operation as still enforced by the other, sapping the foundations of our prosperity. It is more than five years since England and France, in violation of those principles of justice and public law held sacred by all civilized nations, commenced this unprecedented system by seizing the property of the citizens of the United States peaceably pursuing their lawful commerce on the high seas. To shield themselves from the odium which such outrage must incur, each of the belligerents sought a pretext in the conduct of the other, each attempting to justify his system of rapine as a retaliation of similar acts on the part of his enemy, as if the law of nations, founded on the eternal rules of justice, could sanction a principle which, if engrafted into our municipal code, would excuse the crime of one robber upon the sole plea that the unfortunate object of his rapacity was also a victim to the injustice of another. The fact of priority could be true as to one only of the parties, and whether true or false could furnish no ground of justification. The United States, thus unexpectedly and violently assailed by the two greatest powers in Europe, withdrew their citizens and property from the ocean, and, cherishing the blessings of peace, although the occasion would have fully justified war, sought redress in an appeal to the justice and magnanimity of the belligerents. When this appeal had failed of the success which was due to its moderation, other measures, founded on the same pacific policy but applying to the interests instead of the justice of the belligerents, were resorted to. Such was the character of the nonintercourse and nonimportation laws which invited the return of both powers to their former state of amicable relations by offering commercial advantages to the one who should first revoke his hostile edicts and imposing restrictions on the other. France, at length availing herself of the proffers made equally to her and her enemy by the nonimportation law of May, 1810, announced the repeal, on the 1st of the following November, of the decrees of Berlin and Milan. And it affords a subject of sincere congratulation to be informed, through the special organs of the Government, that those decrees are, so far at least as our rights are concerned, equally and practically at an end. It was confidently expected that this act on the part of France would have been immediately followed by a revocation on the part of Great Britain of her orders in council. If our reliance on her justice had been impaired by the wrongs she had inflicted, yet when she had plighted her faith to the world that the sole motive of her aggressions on neutral commerce was to be found in the Berlin and Milan decrees, we looked forward to the extinction of those decrees as the period when the freedom of the seas would be again restored. In this reasonable expectation we have, however, been disappointed. A year has elapsed since the French decrees were rescinded, and yet Great Britain, instead of retracing pari passu that course of unjustifiable attack on neutral rights in which she professed to be only the reluctant follower of France, has advanced with bolder and continually increasing strides. To the categorical demands lately made by our Government for the repeal of her orders in council she has affected to deny the practical extinction of the French decrees, and she has, moreover, advanced a new and unexpected demand, increasing in hostility the orders themselves. She has insisted, through her accredited minister at this place, that the repeal of the orders in council must be preceded not only by the practical abandonment of the decrees of Berlin and Milan, so far as they infringe the neutral rights of the United States, but by the renunciation on the part of France of the whole of her system of commercial warfare against Great Britain, of which those decrees originally formed a part. This system is understood to consist in a course of measures adopted by France and the other powers on the Continent subject to or in alliance with her calculated to prevent the introduction into their territories of the products and manufactures of Great Britain and her colonies and to annihilate her trade with them. However hostile these relations may be on the part of France toward Great Britain, or however sensibly the latter may feel their effects, they are, nevertheless, to be regarded only as the expedients of one enemy against another, for which the United States, as a neutral power, can in no respect be responsible; they are, too, in exact conformity with those which Great Britain has herself adopted and acted upon in time of peace as well as war. And it is not to be presumed that France would yield to the unauthorized demand of America that which she seems to have considered as one of the most powerful engines of her present war. Such are the pretensions upon which Great Britain founds the violation of the maritime rights of the United States-pretensions not theoretical merely, but followed up by a desolating war upon our unprotected commerce. The ships of the United States, laden with the products of our own soil and labor, navigated by our own citizens, and peaceably pursuing a lawful trade, are seized on our own coasts, at the very mouths of our harbors, and condemned and confiscated. Your committee are not, however, of that sect whose worship is at the shrine of a calculating avarice. And while we are laying before you the just complaints of our merchants against the plunder of their ships and cargoes, we can not refrain from presenting to the justice and humanity of our country the unhappy case of our impressed seamen. Although the groans of these victims of barbarity for the |