Accustomed to act as a sense of duty urges; as most would think, with too little regard to personal consequences: particularly, having sometimes expressed my sentiments to public and to private men on subjects of public moment, or of their individual interest, at the hazard of giving them offense: and impelled by the dangers of a measure of great national concern, the interdiction of all commerce with St. Domingo鈥攏ow pending in the House of Representatives, whose fiat¹ will tomorrow make it a law; I take the liberty to address you. For it is well understood to be a measure which, if you did not originate, you certainly approve, and are solicitous to have immediately adopted.
Your son-in-law, Mr. Eppes,² this day told the House that the French government demanded (in the English meaning of the word)³ the enacting of such a law; and that to render it acceptable, it must be promptly passed. This sentiment, Sir, publicly expressed by your son-in-law, living under your roof and in your daily conversation, is unavoidably, as well by your friends as by your political enemies, traced up to you as its source: and the measure in question, though apparently originating in the Senate, & presented in the ordinary form of a law for your approbation, will be pronounced yours: and you will be held responsible, in more than your executive capacity, for all its consequences. These consequences, I am persuaded, have either not been thought of, or not duly weighed by many whose vote is to give efficiency to the project.
Dessalines⁴ is pronounced by some to be a ferocious tyrant: but whatever atrocities may have been committed under his authority, have they been surpassed鈥攈ave they been equaled, in their nature (in their extent they are comparatively nothing) those of the French revolution? When 鈥渋nfuriated men were seeking (as you once said) through blood and slaughter, their long lost liberty鈥�?⁵鈥擨f this could ever be an apology for Frenchmen, will it not apply, with ten-fold propriety & force, to the rude Blacks of St. Domingo?鈥擨f Frenchmen, when more free than the subjects of any monarchy in Europe, the English excepted鈥攁nd only seeking greater freedom, the political liberty of Englishmen, or of citizens of the United States鈥攃ould find in you an apologist for cruel excesses of which the world had furnished no example鈥攁re the hapless, the wretched Haitians (鈥済uilty,鈥� indeed, 鈥渙f a skin not colored like our own鈥�⁶ but) emancipated, and by a great national act declared free; after enjoying freedom many years; having maintained it in arms鈥攔esolved to live free or die; are these men, not merely to be abandoned to their own efforts, but to be deprived of those necessary supplies which for a series of years they have been accustomed to receive from the United States, and without which they cannot subsist? And are they to be thus deprived, not by the operations of an enemy with whom they wage war, but by the direct agency of a neutral power?鈥擜ll the world know, Sir, that the Haitians, though declared revolted subjects of France, are in the actual possession of independence; that they are engaged in a civil war; and therefore that those powers who intend to maintain their neutrality, are bound to act toward them with impartiality鈥�.
All these I view as direct and certain consequences of the bill in question, if it becomes a law. I have not time to speak of the disgrace which its passage will stamp on the government of the United States: on Congress, indeed, for its obsequiousness; but primarily and chiefly on you, on whose will (not simply the final act of executive approbation) the measure is known to depend. With an explicit vindication, by the executive, of the lawfulness of the commerce with Haiti鈥攚ith open declarations, on the floor of Congress, that it is our right by the law of nations鈥攚e tamely yield up this right, we abandon this commerce鈥攁t the nod, at the insolent demand of the minister of France! After such a display of tameness, of spaniel servility, shall we have the face to talk of our independence? Of American spirit? Sir, the moment you sign this act (and you will sign it, if it pass the House of Representatives) you seal the degradation of your country, whose honor and dignity are placed in your hands; not to be debased; but to be firmly maintained against the demands, and in defiance of the menaces of any power on earth. One act of submission begets further unwarrantable demands; and every subsequent compliance still further debases the nation, blunts the sense of national honor, and sinks the spirit of the people. While we thus yield obedience to France we shall become the object of her contempt, and the scorn of Europe. Save then your country, Sir, while you may, from such ignominy and thralldom. Pause I beseech you. If we must finally yield and receive a French prefect to rule over us; or, what will be more galling, a president of our own nation ruling under the auspices & by the permission of France, let us at least wait 鈥檛ill the necessity becomes apparent; that we may find some apology, some consolation, for our abject submission鈥�.

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