38. Report and Resolutions of the Legislature of Rhode Island.
November 5, 1814.
The Legislature and the whole people of this State already but too well know how frequently and fruitlessly they have petitioned the Federal Government for some portion of those means of defence for which we have paid so dearly, and to which, by the Constitution, we are so fully entitled. Our most pressing petitions and representations to the head and various departments of the general government have often gone unanswered, sometimes have been answered by unmeaning professions and promises never performed, but generally by telling us to protect ourselves. The result is, that at this moment we have fewer means of defence, less show of protection afforded by that government, than we had ever at any period during a state of peace.
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But while thus withdrawing from us all but the shadow of defence, and totally disregarding their duty and our just rights under the Constitution; that government is constantly demanding and taking from us those resources and revenues which, by the Constitution, we granted expressly to enable them to afford us that protection.
[Here follows an arraignment of the Federal Government for their neglect to defend their coast, declaring that:] for a long period we were left without any other evidence of the existence of a President or a government of the United States, than what we derived from the burthens imposed and the calamities brought upon us by them. And so perseveringly was this project against our rights pursued, that the President of the United States himself, in one of his public messages, openly, and with great chagrin, complained of the policy of the enemy in leaving this section of the country unassailed and unravaged. [The policy of the government in regard to the State militia is also severely censured.]
We are not alone in these calamities. Our sister States of the South have been almost equally oppressed and abused. They are beginning to assert their rights; and with us they will never suffer our common rights, under the constitution, to be pros -
