7. I see no exception to the respect that is paid among na tions to the laws 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 tobac co smoke or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity 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 annal its obligation. Thus we see neither the ignorance of savages, nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, their 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 loth, 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 ob ligations of good faith.

8. It is painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make even the supposition that America should furnish the occasion of this opprobium. No, let me not even imagine, that a republican government, sprung, as our own is, from a people enlightened and uncorrupted, a government whose original 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 every thing 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 dishonSuch 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.

or.

9. The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treais 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 en 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. This 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 protestation of many may disguise the proceeding, our resolution is in substance, and it deserves to wear the title of a resolution to prevent the sale of the western lands, and the discharge of the public debt.

10. Will the tendency to Indian hostility be contested by any one? Experience gives the answer. The frontiers were scourged with war till the negociation with Great Britain was far advanced, and then the state of hostility ceased. Perhaps the public agents of both nations were innocent of fomenting the Indian war, and perhaps they were not. We ought not, however, to expect, that neighboring nations, highly irritated against each other, will neglect the friendship of the savages, the traders will gain an influence, and will abuse it-and who is ignorant that their passions 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.

11. 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 conviction of the western gentlemen whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security? Can they take upon them to say, that an Indian peace under these circumstances, 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.

12. On this theme my emotions are unutterable: if I could find words for them, if my powers bore any propertion 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 day time, your path through the woods will be ambush ed. The darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father-the blood of your sons shall fatten on your corn-field-You are a mother-the war whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.

13. On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings. It is a spectacle of horror which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will speak a language compared with which all I have said or can say, will be poor and frigid.

14. Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerated the tendencies of our mea sures? 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 reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears or 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 news paper essay, or to furnish petty topics of harrangue from the windows of that state-house? I trust it is neither too presump tous nor too late to ask, can you put the dearest interest of so ciety at risk without guilt, and without remorse?

15. By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make, to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake to our country, and! do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to God We are answerable-and if duty be any thing more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country.

sacri

16. There is no mistake in this case, there can be none. Experience has already been the prophet of events, and the The cries of our future victims have already reached us. western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining fice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of their ilderness. It exclaims, that while one hand is held up to ject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no grea

effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture. Already they seem to

sigh in the west wind-already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.

17. Look again at the state of things-On the sea coast, vast losses uncompensated-On the frontier, Indian war, actual encroachment on our territory. Every where discontent -resentments tenfold more fierce because they will be impotent and humbled. National discord and abasement.

18. The disputes of the old treaty of 1783, being left to rankle, will revive the almost extinguished animosities of that period. Wars in all countries and most of all in such as are free, arise from the impetuosity of the public feelings. The despotism of Turkey is often obliged by clamor to un- . sheath the sword. War might perhaps be delayed, but could not be prevented. The causes of it would remain, would be aggravated, would be multiplied, and soon become intolerable. More capture, more impressments would swell the list of our wrongs, and the current of our rage. I make no calculation of the arts of those whose employment it had been on former occasions, to fan the fire. I say nothing of the foreign money and emissaries that might foment the spirit of hostility, because the state of things will naturally run to violence. With less than their former exertion, they would be successful,

19. Will our government be able to temper and restrain the turbulence of such a crisis? The government, alas, will be in no capacity to govern. A divided people; and divided councils! Shall we cherish the spirit of peace or shew the energies of war? Shall we make our adversary afraid of our strength, or dispose him, by the measures of resentment and broken faith, to respect our rights? Do gentlemen rely on the state of peace because both nations will be worse disposed to keep it ? Because injuries and insults still harder to endure, will be mutually offered?

20. Such a state of things will exist, if we should long avoid war, as will be worse than war. Peace without security, accumulation of injury without redress, or the hope of it, resentment against the aggressor, contempt for ourselves, inteszine discord and anarchy. Wease than this need not be apprehended, for if worse could happen, anarchy would bring it. Is this the peace gentlemen undertake with such fearless con

fidence, to maintain? Is this the station of American dignity, which the high spirited champions of our national independence and honor could endure-nay, which they are anxious and almost violent to seize for the country? What is there in the treaty that could humble us so low? Are they the men to swallow their resentments, who so lately were choaking with them? If in the case contemplated by them it should be peace, I do not hesitate to declare it ought not to be peace.

21. Is there any thing in the prospect of the interior state of the country, to encourage us to aggravate the dangers of a war? Would not the shock of that evil produce another, and shake down the feeble and then unbraced structure of our government? Is this the chimera? Is it going off the ground of matter of fact to say, the rejection of the appropriation proceeds upon the doctrine of a civil war of the departments ? Twe branches have ratified a treaty, and we are going to set it aside. How is this disorder in the machine to be rectified? While it exists, its movements must stop, and when we talk of a remedy, is that any other than the formidable one of a revolutionary interposition of the people? And is this, in the judgment even of my opposers, to execute, to preserve the constitution, and the public order? Is this the state of hazard, if not of convulsion, which they can have the courage to contemplate and to brave, or beyond which their penetration can reach and see the issue? They seem to believe, and they act as if they believed that our union, or peace, our liberty are invulnerable and immortal-as if our happy state was not to be disturbed by our dissention, and that we are not capable of falling from it by our unworthiness. Some of them have no doubt better nerves and better discernment than mine. They can see the bright aspects and happy consequences of all this array of hor rors. They can see intestine discords, our government dis organized, our wrongs aggravated, multiplied and unredressed, peace with dishonor, or war without justice, union or resources in the calm lights of mild philosophy."

22. Let me cheer the mind, weary, no doubt, and ready to despond on this prospect, by presenting another which it is yet in our power to realize. is it possible for a real American to look at the prosperity of this country without some desire for it's continuance without some respect for the measures winch any will say produced, and all will confess have preserved it? The not feel soraedread that a change of system will reverse scene? The well grounded fears of our citizens in 1794