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The gentleman from Kentucky tells us he is of no party. Why, this is rather strange, that an honorable gentleman of his ability and great talents should have lived so long in this country, where political parties are marshalled against each other, and that he alone has stood erect and firm. This may be a fact, and the gentleman's conduct may have proved it; but, for my part, I never yet saw two parties contending together, that I did not decide in my mind for one or the other. This straight course neither inclining to one side nor the other is a very honorable, but difficult path. The gentleman may get through it, but I very much question whether he does not evince, before he goes hence, that he is as strong a partisan as any gentleman on the floor.

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H. OF R.

that they were about to establish a preceden which might in future times be productive of mischievous consequences. He knew that some gentlemen had instanced the case of St. Clair as a case in point; but, he believed, when considered, it would be found that the resolution on the table was directed to the man and not the subject generally and if they compared the case cited as paramount or precedent to that now under consideration, it would be found totally inapplicable. [He then read an extract from the Journals of a resolution by the House in which General St. Clair's name was used as descriptive of the action into which the resolution went to request an inquiry.]

The House would observe that in this case it was necessary that the name of Major General St. Clair should be used as descriptive of the subject-matter; but that there was nothing personal in the error or matter of the resolution. On this motion there was yeas and nays: so that the resolution upon the subject itself was lost.

[He then quoted the Journal, stating another motion to appoint a committee to inquire into the cause of the defeat of the late army under General St. Clair, which was adopted.]

The gentleman has told us that he is not a friend to Burrism, and refused to appear as counsel for him. This is honorable to him, but there Observe also the tenor of this resolution. The was no occasion to tell the House of it. An hon- words Major General St. Clair were merely deest man never wishes to cry out innocent, before scriptive. The causes of the failure of the late he is charged with a crime. The course pursued expedition was the subject-matter of the resoluon this occasion is not calculated to injure Col. tion. So that this committee was not constiBurr or his project. The self same course has been tuted for the purpose of trying or making inquiry here pursued as at Richmond; and the present into the conduct of Major General St. Clair, only proceedings and discussion all have the same ten- as incidentally concerned, and he understood from dency. Was Aaron Burr tried there? No. A those who were then members of Congress that spectator of the proceeding would have believed the General was a witness on the subject. What General Wilkinson was on his trial, and that an in- had become of the result of this inquiry, Mr. T. quiry was instituted into the conduct of the Chief could not say, for he had not been able to find it on Magistrate of the United States. The same ar- the Journals-it was not yet ended. So that the gument and declamation are now used that were position which he had before laid down, that this used there. Sink the Administration, sink Wil-resolution authorizing an inquiry into the conduct kinson, and Aaron Burr comes into power, and rises of course. Burr and Blannerhasset are gone to the Western country. Let gentlemen reflect upon the consequences to which their arguments will lead; that there is a desire at all events to crush the man. God forbid that I should charge any member on the floor. But such will be the effect on the public mind, and therefore I am opposed to the measures which are proposed; upon that ground, if upon no other, I would vote against them. Let the court of inquiry sit. Let us see the result of it, and then we may call for evidence if ample justice be not done. If any high character in the country is implicated let us apply the corrective. But, until then, let us sit here as the "grand inquest of the nation." Let us permit things to travel in their usual course.

Impressed with the propriety of negativing the main object of the resolution, Mr. A. moved to strike out all that part of it, except the part directing the transmission of papers to the Executive.

Mr. TAYLOR said, that when he had before spoken on this subject, (and the measure was not in the least altered by the amendments since made,) he had declared the measure to be an innovation,

of General Wilkinson was a new case, was correct, and it would therefore become a precedent.

He confessed that those who were opposed to him in opinion on this subject, had vastly the vantage-ground over him. The high sounding words "Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the United States," and the republican jealousy against standing armies, were weapons which these gentlemen had managed with great adroitness and dexterity; but he would ask, what was this mighty Army, about which the alarms and fears of the nation were attempted to be excited? About three thousand men, scattered over a frontier of one thousand eight hundred miles, commanded by a "Commander-in-Chief." If he might be allowed to make a comparison, he would instance a commander-in-chief in the State of South Carolina, who had command of a standing army consisting of fourteen men; this standing army and its commander had the charge of the arsenal near Charleston. Cur rides? Mutato nomine fabula narratur de te. The standing army which had been made use of as a bugbear to get at a particular character, could be tied hand and foot by the citizen soldiers of a single district in the State in

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which Mr. T. resided. But it was a standing army; and gentleman had said, "Let the nation move"-for what? For three thousand men and a Brigadier General-to be sure the highest officer now in command-a sort of captain of the magazine guard. But if we should be called upon to have a standing army, which should act in a case of emergency, if the complexion of national affairs should demand it, was there any man so mad as to suppose that Brigadier General Wilkinson would be appointed Commander-in-Chief, unless perfectly cleared from the charges against him? Would not the Executive adopt the same principles in regard to the Commander-in-Chief which Cæsar did as to his wife, that she should not only be pure but unsuspected? Would he not examine whether Wilkinson was the sworn traitor as which he was denounced? Certainly he would; he could not avoid it.

Mr. T. said he had heard a speech on this subject from a very honorable, and he would swear, a very honest man, (Mr. RowAN,) which at first thought appeared to be entitled to great weight; but which, when the whole was taken together, appeared to have been a battle at random. The gentleman had seized upon the sword of public expedieney, and wielded it with a vengeance. "Let the nation move" was the language of the French Revolution. The gentleman has told us that the instances which I adduced did not apply; that these precedents were abuses, not uses, of the power. I wish they did not. But if there are no limits to our power, no landmarks to define our power, where shall we stop? I should fear to follow the sanguine, the hasty, the honest judgment of the gentleman himself? I suppose that the National Convention of France, when they denounced Marat, supposed that they had seized on a villain; he was denounced as General Wilkinson has been here, and what was the result of it? He slipped through their fingers. True it was, a female assassin put him out of the way, but the friends of that man rose up and denounced his very denunciators. Committees were appointed, as is now proposed, to inquire; their sittings were protracted, that popular fury might be excited, and newspaper fulminations might deprive the individual of a fair trial; they spun out the inquiry till the communes of Paris came to the door of the Convention, and demanded that the persons implicated in the inquiry should be punished. I have this morning heard of a transaction, which, at this day, has taken place, and placed the present procedure on all-fours with the errors of that day. I have learnt, that not satisfied with the supposed force and weight of the denunciations here, another respectable political body has taken up this subject, and I suppose are about to proceed to judge the man, to retorture his name extrajudicially in the same Capitol where, not long ago, it was done secundum artem. I ask if this case be not parallel to that of the communes of Paris; if it be not putting into practice the very principle I so much deprecate? It is alarming. What citizen shall be safe when the nation and the nation's strongest child shall move against

JANUARY, 1808.

him? Who shall obtain a fair trial with such weights as these against him?

[Mr. BURWELL interrupted Mr. T. to explain. It appeared from the point of the gentleman's observations that he alluded to the Legislature of Virginia. He rather supposed the gentleman was mistaken in the course of measures which had there taken place. It was well known that a member could introduce what measure he pleases into a legislative body; but it did not follow that it would be adopted. He made this observation in justice to the Legislature of the State of which he was in part a Representative; and he must say that he thought the comparison of that body with the communes of Paris, or any other such body, was not justifiable.]

I have said, continued Mr. T.. that the gentleman who has given us most information on the other side of the question, was acting honorably; that I believed he felt everything which he said, and that it was his duty to urge it, and so I will say likewise of the Legislature of the State of Virginia; but I will say that they are mistaken, and so will this House be if it adopts this resolution. I hope there is good sense enough in that Legislature and this House to stop at the threshold, before they do an act of which they will assuredly repent. I hope that if denunciations of public characters do take place here and elsewhere, through the mistaken zeal of individuals, yet that neither the Legislature of the United States nor of the State of Virginia will immolate the Constitution of their country.

The gentleman from Kentucky had gone on to show the expediency of using this two-edged sword-always used by despots to trample upon the rights of nations and individuals-this incidental power of self-preservation, and had proceeded till he got into a difficulty; had met with an impediment in his rapid course. What was it, and how did he overcome it? After having armed the committee, and supposed them to have taken out summons for persons and papers, when this committee would be about to encounter our Constitutional objections, the gentleman had exclaimed that he wished to see what individual would dare to resist their mandate. This was the very language used by Sandwich, Bute, and Halifax, in the case of the general warrant issued against John Wilkes, ordering his papers to be seized; and yet there was found a man in that nation as inferior as it is in the notions of liberty, there was found a man who dared to resist; and there was also found an enlightened jury and upright court, who applauded his resistance, and the nation itself went with them. The gentleman had denounced General Wilkinson for having seized upon persons and deprived them of their liberty; and yet, when this power was here objected to and suspected, what was his language? The gentleman wishes to see what man would dare to oppose it, and says, if a judge would dare to issue his writ of habeas corpus, he would march up to the Senate with him, and lay him by the heels. Gracious God! Talk of General Wilkioson's having violated the Constitution, and in the

INDEX

TO THE PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE FIRST SESSION OF
THE TENTH CONGRESS.

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