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condemned, that war is the purifier, blood is the aliment, of free institutions.
Sir it is true that republics have often been cradled in war, but more often they have met with a grave in that cradle.
Peace is the interest, the policy, the nature of a popular government.
War may bring benefits to a few, but privation and loss are the lot of the many.
An appeal to arms should be the last resort, and only by national rights or national honor can it be justified.
To those who have treated this as a case involving the national honor, I reply that, whenever that question shall justly be raised, I trust an American Congress will not delay for weeks to discuss the chances, or estimate the sacrifices, which its maintenance may cost.
But, sir, instead of rights invaded or honor violated, the question before us is, the expediency of terminating an ancient treaty, which, if it be unwise, it can not be dishonorable, to continue.
Yet, throughout this long discussion, the recesses and vaulted dome of this hall have reechoed to inflammatory appeals and violent declamations on the sanctity of national honor; and then, as if to justify them, followed reflections most discreditable to the conduct of our Government.
The charge made elsewhere has been repeated here, that we have trodden upon Mexico, but cowered under England.
Sir, it has been my pride to believe that our history was unstained by an act of injustice or of perfidy; that we stood recorded before the world as a people haughty to the strong, generous to the weak; and nowhere has this character been more exemplified than in our intercourse with Mexico.
We have been referred to the treaty of peace that closed our last war with Great Britain, and told that our injuries were unredressed, because the question of impressment was not decided.
There are other decisions than those made by commissioners, and sometimes they outlast the letter of a treaty.
On sea and land we settled the question of impressment before negotiations were commenced at Ghent.
Further, it should be remembered that there was involved within that question a cardinal principle of each Government.
The power of expatriation, and its sequence, naturalization, were denied by Great Britain; and hence a right asserted to impress native-born Britons, though naturalized as citizens of the United States.
This violated a principle which lies at the foundation of our institutions, and could never be permitted; but, not being propagandists, we could afford to leave the political opinion unnoticed, after having taught a lesson which would probably prevent any future attempt to exercise it to our injury.
Let the wisdom of that policy be judged by subsequent events. . . .
Davis then proceeded to state and argue at length the historical questions involved, making copious citations from original authorities.
He continued:
Waiving the consideration of any sinister motive or sectional hate which may have brought allies to the support of the resolution now before us, I will treat it as simply aiming at the object which in common we desire—to secure the whole of Oregon to the United States.
Thus considered, the dissolution of the Oregon convention becomes a mere question of time.
As a friend to the extension of our Union, and therefore prone to insist upon its territorial claims, I have thought this movement premature; that we should have put ourselves in the strongest attitude for the enforcement of our
