liberty; nor even the guilty, until accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a loss of it by imprisonment. Sir, not until martial law shall become the law of the land, and the whole country shall be formed into one vast camp, need we fear impressment, either without law or by force of any legislative enactment.

"Cannot property be taken for public use by the commanding General? It can be taken no otherwise by him, than it can be taken by Congress. They are told by the Constitution, 'Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.' Just compensation has reference to the value of the consideration paid, as well as to the time of payment. He who takes property, unless he contracts to pay at a future day, does not make just compensation, unless he pays when he receives the property. Notwithstanding the assertion of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Sutherland,] a mere promise to pay is no compensation; especially if made by the United States, against which you can have no compulsory process. The United States are continually making contracts, and receiving the lands of individuals, either for light-houses, fortifications, or other purposes. They cannot seize and confiscate these lands. An appropriation is made by Congress to make payment, upon receiving the conveyance. The owner makes a deed of the land to the United States; and if he be wise, he will not deliver this deed to the agent, until he receives his money. I do not know of any other, nor have I ever heard of any other method in this country, of obtaining specific private property for public use. The great sources of ways and means, by which Congress can raise a revenue, are Impost, Duties, Excise, Taxes, and Loans. By these they provide for the general defence, and not by impressment and military exaction. What, Sir, can a General take, when he cannot take the lodging of a single soldier in any man's house, even in time of war, unless a law be first made, regulating the manner in which it may be done? Who, then, will contend that a General may plunder the people he is sent to protect; stripping the very beds from under their children, and carrying away the whole food of their households? Why, Sir, the very compensation law of the 9th of April, 1816, giving remuneration to such persons as had suffered from such impressments, by the military officers in the last war, demonstrates that Congress considered them all illegal. For it provides that all, who have recovered compensation of such officers, shall receive none of Congress, and all who have not, and who claim it here, shall, before receiving the amount of their claim allowed, execute a release to the officer who made the impressment.

"It has been said, necessity will justify taking any thing. Necessity, Sir, is named the tyrant's plea. What kind of necessity justifies any act? It is that which takes away law. Where necessity may be the rule of action, law cannot be the rule. Law ends where necessity begins: for necessity has no law. You throw overboard the cargo, to save the ship; the owner of the goods is not wronged, because had you not done this, both ship and cargo would have been lost. Two men escaping from a wreck, succeed in getting on the same plank; it can float but one of them; in the struggle for self-preservation, one is pushed off and drowned; the other reaches the shore. No wrong has been done: for if one had not, both must have perished. Ten men are all the survivors in a foundered ship; they have no provisions; they agree to a decimation by lot. The death of one preserves the rest, till some pilgrim traveller of the ocean relieves them. His death was a calamity, not a wrong: for all must have died, if the death of one had not saved the other nine. In a burning city, a house, adjoining one already in flames, is blown up, to stop the progress of the fire. The owner of that house has suffered no injury: for his house would have been consumed by the fire, if it had not been destroyed to stop the progress of it. In a beleaguered city, cut off from all aid and succor from the country, every thing is brought forth to aid in the defence; the very women carry out their own food and that of their children, to refresh the men fighting on the walls. When a practicable breach is made by the enemy, houses are seen to have been demolished, and another wall is already erected within. No injury is done to the owners by this mode of defence; because, if the enemy had succeeded, he

would have deprived them of all they possessed. So it is in recapturing a city; and so where the armies of the country meet to repulse the invading enemy: Whatever is destroyed by the march or conflict, would have been taken or destroyed by the enemy, if it had not been so destroyed on the field of battle. These are cases of necessity.

"Now, Sir, did any such necessity exist in the defence of New-Orleans? The condition of that city has, in this debate, been placed before us, and colored by a description of all the calamities of a beleaguered town, cut off from all possibility of aid to be derived from the Government or surrounding country. The fact was not so. New-Orleans was open to the populous and wealthy States of the West. Were they slow in sending succors? No, Sir; every wave of their own mighty rivers rolled down, freighted with the strength, the arms, and the valor, of those patriotic regions. Cotemporaneous prejudice may, for a time, triumph over truth; but history, impartial history, will do justice to that people; nor leave to the future orator in this House a shadow of claim to declare, 'that New-Orleans could not have been defended without impressing' master and slave, father and son. Nor will I believe, Sir, that the gallant people of that devoted city waited to be impressed into their own defence. The blood of the Goth, the Frank, and the Saxon, mingles in their veins; and when was either race known to retreat from the face of danger? No, Sir; all property was ready, and tendered to the public service; all persons stood to their arms, and waited only for the command. There was no treachery, no disaffection, no desire to escape danger. It has been said, Sir, the invading foe promised to his soldiery all the rewards of a licentious brutality: gold to the avaricious, beauty to the profligate. I would to God, for the honor of the English name, it were not so; but so it has been told, and so it has been believed. Was this watch-word echoed through the streets of Orleans, and was there a husband, a father, a brother, who did not fly to the defence? Who can say that men, brave men, the valor and chivalry of New-Orleans, did, or could on that day, wait to be compelled into defence-I do not say of their city,

their wealth, their houses, their fire-sides-but of the cherished honor, the pure loveliness of their sisters, and wives, and daughters? The very surmise is a foul and tainting calumny."

"The gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Everett,) has said, that the law of the United States took away the power of the father over the son, and, by carrying him forward out of his minority three years earlier than he otherwise would have been, rendered him capable of contracting to serve his country. I have, Sir, no belief that the United States have any authority to abrogate the parental power, even if it existed only in the laws of State jurisdiction. It has a higher sanction; the unchangeable relations of nature; the laws of God, paramount to all human legislation. Its object is the perfect education of the son. It begins with the cradle; it ends in his entire manhood, the maturity of his body and mind. During its whole course, it is a reciprocation of benefits. At first they are, indeed, nothing to the father, but the smile, the caress, and the joyous gratitude of infancy; at last, relief, assistance, and substantial remuneration. Can the son forget, and shall laws be formed to make him forget, that his father cared for him, and labored for him, while he slept on his mother's bosom? Let every man read his own heart; he will find the laws of this relationship indelibly written there. I beg leave to say, Sir, if there be any memory of my own past life, which comes back to me with feelings not to be touched by time, or discolored by any condition of existence, it is the grateful recollection that I wrought out the full term of my legal minority, under the power of my father, in aiding him to cultivate his fields. No, Sir, the law of filial obligation, of paternal authority, cannot be abrogated by civil enactments. Sparta took children from their parents; but the State became the parent. The Lacedemonians were not a commonwealth of citizens. They were an army; their city was a camp; and they were mere warriors. The Hebrew paternal power, like the Roman, was great, and was confirmed by all the sanctions of the decalogue. Men were, however, found in that nation who could advocate its abrogation. The traditions of the Sanhedrim, and the lectures of the Synagogue subverted this law of Moses; and he who would devote his services on the altar, and pronounce it 'gift,' was released from the law of his parents, and thereby became capable of serving the State. This was the tradition of the Corbun; and such as taught its doctrines were denounced by the Saviour of the World, as those who 'made void the laws of God by the command of

"I want words, Sir, to express my regret that such a question, and for such an amount, should have been brought into debate on this floor-that such principles and such terms should have been pressed into the discussion. Why urge the question of slavery upon us, and at the same time, declare that we dare not decide it? We have no right-we claim no rightwe wish for no right to decide the question of slavery. Men from the free States have already decided the question for themselves, within their own State jurisdiction; and such men, to decide it here for other States, must first be renegade from the Constitution, or oblivious of its high and controlling principles. When has this question been raised, and not by men interested in its eternal slumber? The Missouri Question was, as it has truly been said on this floor, no triumph. It was no triumph of policy; it was no triumph of humanity. To contract, and not extend the theatre of it, is the true policy of every statesman, as well in the slave-holding, as in those States uncursed by this moral and political mischief. On this matter of slavery, singular and ominous political events have, within the last forty years, transpired in the great community of the New World. What another half century will exhibit, is known to Him only who holds in his hand the destiny of nations. This kind of population is rapidly increasing; and, should any large and united number of them make a desperate struggle for emancipation, it will then indeed be found, that the policy which had placed aid and relief at any greater distance, was cruelly and fatally unwise. Humanity surely did not triumph in that decision. It widened the mart of slavery. Southern

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