Other counsels have prevailed. Our moderation and conciliation have
had no other effect than to encourage perseverance and to enlarge
pretensions. We behold our seafaring citizens still the daily victims of
lawless violence, committed on the great common and highway of nations,
even within sight of the country which owes them protection. We behold
our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil and industry, or
returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful
destinations, confiscated by prize courts no longer the organs of public
law but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their unfortunate crews
dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British ports into British
fleets, whilst arguments are employed in support of these aggressions
which have no foundation but in a principle equally supporting a claim
to regulate our external commerce in all cases whatsoever.
We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war against
the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace
toward Great Britain.
Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive
usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force
in defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into
the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections
which might entangle it in the contest or views of other powers,
and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable
reestablishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question which
the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the
Government.
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