The people of this state, though not immediately exposed to those piratical depredations, which vex, and destroy the commerce of their eastern brethren on the ocean, cannot be less deeply interested in their effects. They look to the sufferings and wrongs of a single member as intimately affecting the whole body. But when an evil becomes so general and inveterate in its deleterious effects, as to threaten dissolution, unless a proper and forcible remedy is applied--The state of Kentucky, yielding to none in patriotism; in its deep rooted attachment to the sacred bond of the union; in its faithful remembrance of the price of our freedom, and in the heartfelt conviction that our posterity have a sacred claim upon us, to transmit to them unimpaired, this God-like inheritance, cannot fail to be penetrated, with any event which threatens even to impair it; much less then, can she be insensible to those daring wrongs of a foreign power, which lead to its immediate destruction.
But when we have discovered a systematic course of injury from her towards our country, evidencing too strongly to be mistaken, an utter disregard of almost every principle of acknowledged rights between independent nations, endeavouring by almost every act of violence on the high seas--on the coasts of foreign powers with whom we were in amity--and even in sight of our own harbours by capturing and destroying our vessels: confiscating our property: forcibly imprisoning and torturing our fellow-citizens: condemning some to death: slaughtering others, by attacking our ships of war: impressing all she can lay her hands upon, to man her vessels: bidding defiance to our seaports: insulting our national honour by every means that lawless force and brutality can devise: inciting the savages to murder the inhabitants on our defenceless frontiers: furnishing them with arms and ammunition lately, to attack our forces: to the loss of a number of brave men: and by every art of power and intrigue, seeking to dispose of our whole strength and resources, as may suit her unrestrained ambition or interest--and when her very offers of redress, go only to sanction her wrongs, and seek merely a removal of those obstacles interposed by our government, to the full enjoyment of her iniquitous benefits; we can be at no loss which course should be pursued. . . .
1. Resolved, by the general assembly for the state of Kentucky, that this state feel deeply sensibly, of the continued, wanton, and flagrant violations by Great Britain and France, of the dearest rights of the people of the United States, as a free and independent nation: that those violations if not discontinued, and ample compensation made for them, ought to be resisted with the whole power of our country.
2. Resolved, that as war seems probable so far as we have any existing evidence of a sense of justice on the part of the government of Great Britain, that the state of Kentucky, to the last mite of her strength and resources, will contribute them to maintain the contest and support the right of their country against such lawless violations; and that the citizens of Kentucky, are prepared to take the field when called on.
Source: Resolution, Kentucky Legislature, December 16, 1811, in Niles' Weekly Register, I (January 11, 1812).
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