227 



Massachusetts is an interest of the whole Union that one of those 

 two commissioners was a citizen of South-Carolina ? If Mr. Rus 

 sell is ignorant of all this, it only shows his jncompetency to give 

 any opinion the subject. If he is not, with what colour of justice 

 can he pretend, from the relative situation of the parties to the 

 treaty of 1783, that the pretension of having reserved the fishing 

 liberty as a permanent participation of jurisdiction, while abandon 

 ing the claim to the territory itself, was a vain-glorious boast, too 

 ridiculous to deserve an answer ? 



Mr. Russell does not leave us, however, to indirect inferences, 

 for the conclusion, that in his estimates, a great interest of Massa 

 chusetts was of none to the rest of the Union ; for he expressly 

 says, in his original letter of llth February, 1815, and in his se 

 cond revision of it, published in the National Gazette of loth May, 

 that the people of the whole Western Country, the &quot; unoffending 

 &quot; citizens of an immense tract of territory,&quot; were &quot; NOT AT ALL 

 * benefited by the fishing privilege.&quot; 



In the revision of the duplicate y for the eye of the House of Re 

 presentatives, and of the nation, made in 1822, this passage is one 

 of those which appears to have smitten the conscience of the writ 

 er ; for in that version, he qualified the words not at all, by adding 

 to them, ** or but faintly ,&quot; so that it reads, &quot; the unoffending citi- 

 *? zens of an immense tract of territory, not at all, OR BUT FAINTLY, 

 * : benefited by the fishing privilege,&quot; but then again, as if grudging 

 even this concession to the fishermen, he takes care in the same 

 sentence to reduce it in degree as much as he enlarges it in ex 

 tent, by adding to his &quot; doubtful accommodation of a few fisher- 

 &quot; men,&quot; the words &quot; annually decreasing in number.&quot; 



It was not so that the patriots and sages of our Revolution were 

 wont to reason or to feel. On the 19th of June, 1779, a resolution 

 was moved in Congress, by Mr. Gerry * That it is essential to 

 &quot; the welfare of these United States, that the inhabitants thereof, 

 &quot; at the expiration of the war, should continue to enjoy the free 

 &quot; and undisturbed exercise of their common right to fish on the 

 ; Banks of Newfoundland, and the other fishing banks and seas of 

 &quot; North America, preserving inviolate the treaties between France 

 &quot; and the said States.&quot; 



In the debate upon this resolution, a motion was made by Mr. 

 John Dickinson, to insert the word ALL, before &quot; these United 

 States,&quot; and the word was inserted by a vote of ten States out of 

 twelve. And so, on the 24th of June, the resolution passed that 

 it was essential to the welfare of all these United States, that they 

 should continue to enjoy the fisheries after the war. 



It is, indeed, only upon the principle that an interest important to 

 one section of the Union, is and ought to be considered and sup 

 ported as the interest of the whole, that a right of excluding British 

 subjects from the navigation of the Mississippi, could be claimed or 

 contended for, as the interest of the whole Union. It is an interest, 

 whether great or small, essentially local, am! admitting to the fullest 



