Albert Beveridge

Nothing can be more completely demonstrated than the inefficacy of the embargo, yet that demonstration seems to be of no avail.

Though every one of these Bugbears is an empty Phantom, yet the People seem to believe every article of this bombastical Creed and tremble and shudder in Consequence.

Warmly as he sympathized with Federalist opinion of the absurd Republican retaliatory measures, and earnestly as he shared Federalist partisanship for Great Britain, John Marshall deplored all talk of secession and sternly rebuked…

His opinion was not confined to the case before him; it was meant for the whole country and especially for those localities where National laws were being denounced and violated, and National authority defied and flouted.

We have lost our resentment for the severest injuries a nation ever suffered, because of their being so often repeated.

As the Federalist faith in Great Britain grew stronger, Federalist distrust of the youthful and growing American people increased.

Clay's speeches, extravagant, imprudent, and grandiose, had at least one merit: they were thoroughly American and expressed the opinion of the first generation of Americans that had grown up since the colonies won their freedom.

Had France felt for the United States any portion of that respect to which our real importance entitles us, would she have failed to give this proof of it?

Bonaparte does not sufficiently respect us to exhibit for our sake, to France, to America, to Britain, or to the world, any evidence of his having receded one step from the position he had taken.

He avers to ourselves, to our selected enemy, & to the world, that, whatever pretexts we may assign for our conduct, he has in fact ceded nothing, he has made no advance, he stands on his original ground & we have marched up to it.

We have submitted, completely submitted; & he will not leave us the poor consolation of concealing that submission from ourselves.

Permit me to subjoin to my thanks for this mark of your attention my fervent wish that this momentous measure may, in its operation on the interest & honor of our country, disappoint only its enemies.

Every measure which tends to cement more closely the union of the eastern with the western states" would be invaluable to the whole country.

In reply the Chief Justice said that the report "contains a labored apology for France but none for ourselves.

It appears probable that a great battle will be fought on or near the Elbe & never had the world more at stake than will probably depend on that battle.

This position was that men of every country have a natural right to remove to another land and there become citizens or subjects, entitled to the protection of the government of the nation of their adoption.

The British principle, on the contrary, was that British subjects could never thus expatriate themselves, and that, if they did so, the British Government could seize them wherever found, and by force compel them to serve the Empire in any…

But in truth it is a question upon which I never entertained a scintilla of doubt; and have never yet heard an argument which ought to excite a doubt in any sound and reflecting mind.

But the war achieved an inestimable good--it de-Europeanized America.

It put an end to our thinking and feeling only in European terms and emotions.

It developed the spirit of the new America, born since our political independence had been achieved, and now for the first time emancipated from the intellectual and spiritual sovereignty of the Old World.

It had revealed to this purely American generation a consciousness of its own strength; it could exult in the fact that at last America had dared to fight.

The American Navy, ship for ship, officer for officer, man for man, had proved itself superior to the British Navy, the very name of which had hitherto been mentioned only in terror or admiration of its unconquerable might.

American riflemen of the West and South had overwhelmed the flower of all the armies of Europe.

An American frontier officer, Andrew Jackson, had easily outwitted some of Great Britain's ablest and most experienced professional generals.