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and exposed, under the severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most distant and deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own brethren.
"British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights and peace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added the most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction.
"Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force, and sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been cut off from their legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed at our agricultural and maritime interests.
"It has come into proof, that, at the very moment when the public minister (of Great Britain) was holding the language of friendship, and inspiring confidence in the sincerity of a negotiation with which he was charged, a secret agent of his government was employed in intrigues, having for their object a subversion of our Government, and a dismemberment of our happy Union."Mr. Calhoun, the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, which recommended the resort to arms in 1812, sets forth our grievances some what in detail. After giving a brief account of the aggressions committed upon our commerce by the government of Great Britain, and persisted in for a series of years, the committee say:
"We must now proceed to other wrongs, which have been still more severely felt. Among these is the impressment of our seamen, a practice which has been unceasingly maintained by Great Britain in the wars to which she has been a party since our Revolution. Your committee cannot convey in adequate terms, the deep sense which they entertain of the injustice and op pression of this proceeding. Under the pretext of impressing British seamen, our fellow-citizens are seized in British ports, on the high seas, and in every other quarter to which British power extends; are taken on board British men of war, and compelled to serve there as British subjects. In this mode our citizens are wantonly snatched from their country and their families, deprived of their liberty, and doomed to an ignominious and slavish bondage; compelled to fight the battles of a foreign country, and often to perish in them. Our flag has given them 210 protection; it has been unceasingly violated, and our vessels exposed to danger by the loss of men taken from them. Your committee need not remark, that, while this practice is continued, it is impossible for the United States to consider themselves an independent nation. Its continuance is the more unjustifiable, because the United States have repeatedly proposed to the British government an arrangement which would secure to it the control of its own people.
"This lawless waste of our trade, and equally unlawful impressment of our seamen, have been much aggravated by the insults and indignities attending them. Under the pretext of blockading the harbors of France and her allies, British squadrons have been stationed on our own coasts, to watch and annoy our trade. To give effect to the blockade of European ports, the ports and harbors of the' United States have been blockaded. In executing these orders of the British Government, or in obeying the spirit which was known to animate it, the commanders of these squadrons have encroached on our jurisdiction, seized our vessels, and carried into effect impressments within our limits, and done other acts of great injustice, violence, and op pression. The United States have seen with mingled indignation and surprise, that these acts, instead of procuring to the perpetrators the punishment due to unauthorized crimes, have not failed to recommend them to the favor of their government.
"Your committee would be much gratified if they could close here the detail of British wrongs; but it is their duty to recite an act of still greater malignity than any of those which have been already brought to your view. The attempt to dismember our Union, and overthrow our excellent Constitution, by a secret mission, the object of which was to foment discontent, and ex cite insurrection against the constituted authorities and laws of the nation, as lately disclosed by the agent employed in it, affords full proof that there is no bound to the hostility of the British government towards the United States; no act, however unjustifiable, which it would not commit to accomplish their ruin."
These were among the causes of the war of 1812, as detailed by the President of the United States and the chairman of the Committee .of Foreign Affairs, in the better days of the Republic, when reliance could safely be placed upon the statements of those high functionaries. And how will those causes compare with the true causes of the war in which we are now engaged? In their causes nothing can be more dissimilar. The one was declared by Congress, the other commenced by the President; the former was declared for just causes, the latter for no adequate cause what-
