Index :: 1816 Tompkins Speech

National Aegis February 14, 1816

GOVERNOUR TOMPKIN’S SPEECH

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On Friday His Excellency delivered a Speech to both Houses of the Legislature of New-York; of which the following are extracts:

Gentlemen of the Senate

and of the Assembly ----

"In meeting the Legislature for the first time since the termination of the war with Great Britain, allow me to congratulate you on that event; and on the negotiation of an honourable, and, I trust, a permanent peace.  Sensible of its blessings we ought to ascribe its attainment to the direction of that Providence under whose auspices we have been protected thro’ the perils and embarrassments of war.

"It is with the proudest sensations, we can recur to the character and incidents of the late war, to the unwearied valour and firmness, which marked the progress of our arms through every vicissitude of peril and discomfiture, which courted every exposure and braved every danger; and which in its termination, has in an eminent degree, contributed as well to strengthen our confidence to the efficacy and stability of our political institutions, as to elevate our national character abroad.

"It has been a matter of much speculation, whether our government, in its organization, was well calculated for a state of war; and it has been apprehended, that, wanting the consolidated energies of monarchy, its powers would ask without concentration, and of course without effect.  The late glorious contest has, however, established the fallacy of the objection, and the perfection of its system.  It has presented with some triumph to the world, the refutation of an opinion which denied to republics a capacity to resist the assaults of exterior hostility; and it was practically shown that a free nation, not only destitute of the system, the science & experience which give perfection to military operations, but deprived even of the signal benefits resulting from unanimity, has been able to resist with success the most desperate efforts of an enemy inured to war, and possessing all the advantages of veteran force and experienced generals.

"In becoming a belligerent, the government of the United States consulted alone the respect she owed herself and assumed an attitude demanded by her wrongs, her honour and a regard to her permanent prosperity, which made war necessary to the accomplishment of a peace which should again restore, upon an equitable basis, the long disturbed relations of amity and commerce.  But among the events growing out of the late war, we cannot too much appreciate the elevation of the American character, and the pleasing contrasts with periods anterior to its declaration.  Remote from the collisions of Europe, her political influence in the scale of nations was scarcely felt; but the spirit with which she resisted the novel & unauthorized pretension of disguised hostility, the firmness with which she maintained a sanguinary and perilous contest, and the moderation she has shown after the causes of the war had, by subsequent events been essentially removed in the arrangement of a peace, emanating principally from her valor and resources, have given her a rank in the convention of nations, which cannot fail effectually to guarantee the continuance of her pacific relations.  Amidst these considerations let not those who have achieved these great objects, under the most adverse fortunes, be forgotten.  Let hem not retire at once the objects of the respect and gratitude of their country.  I cannot, but cherish, the hope that sacrifices and their sufferings will early command the attention of the national legislature.