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We admit the right of any nation to prohibit the commerce of another
into its own dominions, where there are no treaties to the contrary;
but as this right belongs to one side as well as the other, there is
always a way left to bring avarice and insolence to reason.
But the ground of security which Lord Sheffield has chosen to erect
his policy upon, is of a nature which ought, and I think must, awaken
in every American a just and strong sense of national dignity. Lord
Sheffield appears to be sensible, that in advising the British nation
and Parliament to engross to themselves so great a part of the
carrying trade of America, he is attempting a measure which cannot
succeed, if the politics of the United States be properly directed to
counteract the assumption.
But, says he, in his pamphlet, "It will be a long time before the
American states can be brought to act as a nation, neither are they
to be feared as such by us."
What is this more or less than to tell us, that while we have no
national system of commerce, the British will govern our trade by
their own laws and proclamations as they please. The quotation
discloses a truth too serious to be overlooked, and too mischievous
not to be remedied.
Among other circumstances which led them to this discovery none could
operate so effectually as the injudicious, uncandid and indecent
opposition made by sundry persons in a certain state, to the
recommendations of Congress last winter, for an import duty of five
per cent. It could not but explain to the British a weakness in the
national power of America, and encourage them to attempt restrictions
on her trade, which otherwise they would not have dared to hazard.
Neither is there any state in the union, whose policy was more
misdirected to its interest than the state I allude to, because her
principal support is the carrying trade, which Britain, induced by
the want of a well-centred power in the United States to protect and
secure, is now attempting to take away. It fortunately happened (and
to no state in the union more than the state in question) that the
terms of peace were agreed on before the opposition appeared,
otherwise, there cannot be a doubt, that if the same idea of the
diminished authority of America had occurred to them at that time as
has occurred to them since, but they would have made the same grasp
at the fisheries, as they have done at the carrying trade.
It is surprising that an authority which can be supported with so
much ease, and so little expense, and capable of such extensive
advantages to the country, should be cavilled at by those whose duty
it is to watch over it, and whose existence as a people depends upon
it. But this, perhaps, will ever be the case, till some misfortune
awakens us into reason, and the instance now before us is but a
gentle beginning of what America must expect, unless she guards her
union with nicer care and stricter honor. United, she is formidable,
and that with the least possible charge a nation can be so;
separated, she is a medley of individual nothings, subject to the
sport of foreign nations.
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