isting
crisis; that the long and expensive war had impaired the resources of
England and France, who would soon be compelled from mere exhaustion to
make peace, and with the restoration of peace our difficulties would
necessarily terminate, and we might demand redress for the grievances
which we had sustained at their hands; that a declaration of war with
England would be substantially, as it turned out to be, a receipt in
full for our enormous commercial losses caused by her orders in council,
which losses must then be assumed by our own government, or fall on the
merchants, who would be crushed by their weight; that peace among the
belligerents might happen at any moment, while a war with one of them
would certainly involve a large expenditure of blood and money, and
might continue at the pleasure of the belligerent long after a general
pacification in Europe; and that, if war was to be waged as a measure of
redress for our violated rights, as both belligerents were equally
guilty, it should be declared against both.

In weighing the reasons on which any measure of public policy is
founded, we must always refer to the time when the deed was done and to
the position of the actors. At the present day, looking at the results
which are believed to have flowed from the war of 1812, and especially
our victories on the sea, we are inclined to blame those who opposed its
declaration, and extol the wisdom and gallantry of those who approved
it. This test, however, is neither philosophical nor just; and, as a
proof of the soundness of Mr. Tazewell's opinions, or that at least they
were not taken up, as has been alleged, from hostility to a democratic
administration, we may state the fact that Madison himself, of whose
administration the war shines as the crowning honor, was, like his
predecessor in the presidency, opposed originally to its declaration;
but was overruled or over-persuaded by the able and gallant young men
whose eloquence carried that measure through Congress; and it should
ever be remembered that, if the declaration had been postponed a few
weeks, the repeal of the British orders in council would have rendered
it unnecessary; and the thousands of precious lives and the millions of
treasure which it cost would have been saved to the country.

If war, with all its possible compensations, be at all times a dangerous
and uncertain measure--if all the treasures and glories which human
hands can hold, and the imagina