those injuries are yet unavenged;--passions, which I fondly hoped had
long been quenched in my bosom, flame once more; and I am led to cherish
with still deeper affection that Federal Union which will enable us
henceforth to right such wrongs even though attempted by the combined
navies of the world.

The same reasons which induced Mr. Tazewell to oppose the restrictive
policy of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, led him
necessarily to oppose the war of 1812 with Great Britain. He believed
that, if a declaration of war had been expedient at any period of the
commercial difficulties with England and France, the proper time for
declaring it was when the offence was given, and when our commerce was
at the height, and our ability to sustain hostilities was proportionally
greater; that the administration, having waived the opportunity of
making a declaration in the first instance, and deliberately adopted the
policy of diplomacy and of commercial regulation as the proper means of
relief, our resources meantime having become crippled and our revenue
almost annihilated, it was bound to adhere to it during the existing
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