Political Sketches of eight years in Washington, ... with annotations. ... Also a general appendix ... and a series of charts, giving a comparative synopsis of the constitutions of the several States and the United States

Front matter

POLITICAL SKETCHES OF EIGHT YEARS IN WASHINGTON; IN FOUR PARTS, WITH ANNOTATIONS TO EACH. ALSO A GENERAL APPENDIX; AN ALPHABETICAL INDEX; and A SERIES OF CHARTS, GIVING A COMPARATIVE SYNOPSIS OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE SEVERAL STATES, AND THE UNITED STATES. BY ROBERT MAYO, M. D. Author of an Inaugural Thesis on the Sensorium, University of Pennsylvania, 1803 ; Compiler of an Epitome of Ancient Geography, with Maps, for the use of Seminaries, Phila delphia, 1814; and a New System of Mythology, with plates, Philadelphia, 1819; Compiler of the Pension Laws, with opinions of Attorneys-General of the United States, and Analyti cal Tables, by desire of the Secretary of War for the use of the Pension Office, Washington, *D. C. 1832, &c. &c. BALTIMORE: PUBLISHED BY FIELDING LUCAS, JR.; GARRET ANDERSON, WASHINGTON; R. J. SMITH, RICHMOND; CAREY, HART &CO., DESILVER, THOMAS & CO. AND J. DOBSON, PHILADELPHIA; G. fc C. CARVILL & CO. AND COLLINS, KEESE & CO. NEW YORK; C. C. LITTLE & CO. AND HILL1ARD, GRAY & CO. BOSTON. 1839.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, on the twenty-seventh day of December, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, by Robert Mayo, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Columbia. john n^ tdœj^&tii&ER .

Preface

. From a transient glance at the panorama of political events that have crowded the canvass within the last eight or ten years, it has at length become apparent to every eye that those great operatives time and experience are bringing all their resources to bear on the fate of our once promising constitutions of government; the one aiming its wither ing powers at their destruction, the other exerting its conservative facul ties to cure the diseases which have at the same time been gradually undermining them. In this political portraiture, the recent demonstrations of the federal Executive upon the government of the state of Pennsylvania stands in bold relief, and deserves the close inspection of every American citizen, as well as the serious deliberations of every statesman. To aid them in making out a more digested and methodical sketch of the materials which compose this section of the general scheme, I have thrown to gether in a Postscript to Part the First of this work, the principal facts with appropriate reflections from the columns of distinguished editors and other unquestionable authorities.

Fora more ample review of our whole political canvass with the diversified commentaries connected with the present important epoch in the history of free government, I would commend the historian to an examination of the leading journals of either political party, as the best sources of a correct narrative of the varying phases and incidents of American history, except where the facts are incontrovertibly established by public records, official reports, and congressional proceedings. In the following work I have proposed to myself the lighter task of bringing the prominent features of these materials together in such connection of affinity which cause and effect have appeared to my mind to point out, in order to demonstrate their practical bearing upon the durability of our institutions. And I am truly grieved, as an American citizen, to say, that in looking deeper than the mere surface of the recent

PREFACE.

. rebellion at Harrisburg, a most atrocious conspiracy of the members of the federal Executive against the stability and purity of our popular institutions, both state and federal, is obvious and undeniable ; and that the agency of corrupt men of all parties throughout the Union, are among the means resorted to, to promote and accomplish their purpose. For, though the outbreak has taken place in Pennsylvania, the scheme of disorganization is not confined to that state. True, their operations have been more industriously pursued in that state, as the most suitable theatre, from its central position and other appliances, to enact the first part of their diabolical tragedy. In making this exposition the more clear and conclusive, I have thought it proper to remount a little beyond the day, to show the quo animo of their former rehearsals upon the same, and the adjoining thea tre of Maryland ; but not meaning it shall be inferred by these selections, that the like have not taken place in New York, Baltimore, Boston, and elsewhere, as part and parcel of the various riots that have occurred by their direct or indirect instigation of the deluded democracy of numbers.

The following sagacious remarks of the experienced editor of the Baltimore Merchant will give a foretaste of those sinister party proceed ings as exhibited in the Postscript above mentioned. These extracts are indeed invaluable as a preliminary to those exhibits ; and they are still the more so for the facts embraced in the first, particularly, which, to my mind, taken in connection with other facts in every man's recollection, go to correct a very fatal error that has heretofore tended more to inflame and perpetuate party dissensions and denunciations than all other causes united. That error consists in the sweeping injustice with which political parties are wont to stigmatize their adversaries, in mass, as being actuated by views and objects inimical to the interests of particular States, of the Union, or of the general wellfare.

But whatever may have been the radical and irreconcilable differences between the views and principles of the whigs of the revolution and the Tories of that day, it is clear to my comprehension, upon a fair inspection of the materials which of late years have entered into the composition of the Jack son-Van Buren party, that BIr. Jefferson was mistaken in denouncing the federalists (who derived their cognomen from their advocacy and success in the adoption of the federal constitution) as hostile to republi can principles and the best interests of the Union. So palpable an inconsistency charged, and injustice practised, towards those ever to be gratefully remembered patriots, down to the last day of his life, is the more surprising, as he had, at his first inauguration, in the true spirit of that compromise which took place between his friends and opponents in

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. V effecting his election, solemnly and truly declared that 'we are all fede ralists, we are all republicans.' And under a like estimate of those who have renounced and abandoned the unrighteous firm of Jackson and Van Buren in disgust, it is equally erroneous in the federalists, federal repub licans or whigs, to denounce the self-styled republicans per excellence in a body, as radical anarchists and disorganizers, inimical to social order and the supremacy of the laws, instigators of mobs, insurrections, and the levelling process of agrarianism in impugning the sacred rights of pro perty and the inviolability of contracts. Yes, when we see daily before our revolted sense of consistency and common honesty (patriotism out of the question as a stale and unfashionable commodity) that the Jackson- Van Buren party, is, in a great degree, made up of odds and ends of all parties, consisting of men of broken fortunes and crooked principles, of easy consciences and adventurous spirits, we are justified in the deduc tion, that the censures reciprocally cast upon each other by conflicting parties, properly belong only to the dishonest individuals of either party, who have come into the political market with the price of their con sciences on their tongues, and are ready to serve any party that hap pens to be uppermost, or is so likely to be, and will pay them best.

My inference, therefore, is, that an honest man, whether he assumes the party denomination of whig, republican, federalist, federal-republican, democrat, or democratic-republican, or any other of the hundred denomina tions of party nomenclature, is worth a thousand dishonest men, what ever may be their hollow professions of devotion to the will and the interest of thepeople. An honest man, whose fundamental principle necessarily is to give every man his due, is a patriot, a philanthropist, and pre-eminently a republican, all the world over, be the banner under which he is enlisted or the country of his allegiance what they may : while a dishonest man is the reverse of this, under whatever form of government he may live, or whatever party professions he may attempt to deceive others withal.

Nay, an honest, patriotic, and magnanimous prince, for all practical good, is preferable to a dishonest, hypocritical, canting loco foco of the Tammany Hall, district attorney, Price, or Independence Square, would have been tory, and now rebel, blood-thirsty, I.ncersoll stamp. But there are so few honest men in the world, that I would take no man upon trust, no matter what party colour he professes. And certainly not him, under any considerations, who can have the hardihood to sow rebellion at broad-cast and in every form throughout the land, by pro claiming the heresy, that 'government is instituted to secure the greatest benefits to the greatest number;'' thereby instilling the mischievous, preda- VI

PREFACE.

. tory doctrine, in other words, that the few have no rights, and are entitled to no benefits of government, that their millions in store as the fruits of their industry, their providential care, and bountiful thrift, is the rightful property of the worthless vagabonds, paupers, and vagrants of the land, if they should happen to outnumber the more worthy portions of society — thus holding out a reward to worthlessness, and a punishment to merit. With these qualifying preliminaries, the reader will, I hope, peruse to advantage, the following extract from the Baltimore Merchant, of the 19th of June last, as it justly applies to many other prominent actors in the present political drama, whose names are not there mentioned : 'Glimpses of real character. — Mr. Jefferson who knew mankind well, always believed that the leading federalists were monarchists in disguise.

This he often declared, and not without reason. After the signal defeat of that party, though the vigilance of others was suspended, he always kept his eye upon them, and observed all their windings and turnings. In his letter to Lafayette, a short time before his death, he speaks of them as being still a strong party, and more dan gerous, because they had changed their name. He doubtless foresaw their policy would be to attack the constitution under the more popular title of Demo cratic Republicans. Their old leader, Mr. John Adams, in his letters to Cun ningham, recommended them to change their name, and mingle with the republicans. The election of Gen. Jackson furnished them wilh the occasion and they availed themselves of the counsel. They changed their name and mingled with the Republican party, the members of which they very soon succeeded in driving out of the administration.

They then took entire possession of the government, and all have witnessed the consequences. The government tended immediately to monarchy, and has become one, in all save the written forms. They have left the parchment only. The declaration of some of these new disciples of democracy in past times, are striking enough. Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, while he acted in his true character, declared that 'if he had a drop of democratic blood in his veins, he would let it out.' He put this royal declaration on paper, and it has risen up in judgment against him. But this is nothing to the super-royal averments of Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, a flaming disorganizer and democratic republican, and at present a candidate for Congress and a leader of the Royalists in Pennsylvania. The last Philadelphia paper brings us the following account of him.

Such are the men who have controlled the federal government for years past. That party not only in this State, but through its official organ, the 'Globe,' holds up C. J. Ingersoll, Esq. as a perfect sample of their principles and politics. His sentiments, with regard to political duties and feelings, are their sentiments and feelings. Nay, more— he is the candidate for Congress of that party in the hot bed of their party, the third Congressional district, in the county of Philadelphia. If we can, therefore, ascertain whether his sentiments are those of a Tory, the question will be settled as to the whole party. Fortunately we are left in no doubt on that point. We have his principles pro claimed over his own signature, as early as 1807; and up to this day, as far as we can learn, they are the only principles which he has never deserted.

In the Democratic Press of Friday, June 5th, 1807, the following paragraph was published. "A would-have-been Tory. — One of Governor McKean's officers who sup planted a democrat, and who officiates in the Orphans' court, was heard to say, the other day, that — 'had he been a man during ihe Jlmerican Revolution he would have been a Tory — that every man of honour was a Tory during that time."

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. VII The Tory referred to, knowing who was meant, addressed a letter to the editor of that paper, which was published on Monday, June 8, 1807, from which the following extracts are taken. The whole letter will be re-published, if desired. 'Mr. Binns : — Some days ago, on my way to the Sheriff's office, where I had occasion to call, I found that gentleman and Judge Jonathan Smith on the area in front of the state-house ; aster despatching my professional arrangements with the sheriff, we talked politics, as we are in the habit of doing often, and with perfect good humour. Mr. Smith remained entirely neutral. General Barker was, I thought, unusually animated in reprobation of Tories, upon which I said, as you have pub lished, that had 1 been a man during the Revolution I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A TORY — that many ofthe best men in the country were so then, * * * I endeavour to molest no body with my political sentiments, though I disdain to disguise them, however heretical they may sound at this time of the tide.

If I had been capable of reason and reflection when the American colonies took up arms against the mother country, I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A TORY— NOR CAN I EVER CONSIDER THAT AN APPELLATION OF REPROACH.' (Signed) C. J. INGERSOLL. No. 189 Chesnut-st. June 7, 1807. So much for this Democrat. The Virginia public will now be at no loss to understand why this gentleman is so great a favourite with T. Ritchie, and why the Richmond Enquirer has been so zealous in its support of the administration for some years past.' About the same time that the above made its appearance, and before the conspiracy to which the following relates, was blown to the public, the editor of the Merchant made this solemn annunciation : 'That they (the Executive functionaries in this city) are keeping up an active correspondence with leading demagogues in Philadelphia and elsewhere, we all know ; and that there are secret organizations of men in more places than Philadelphia is highly probable.

It is no difficult matter to create a pretext for the employment of military forces thus organized. 'The supremacy of the laws' means as every man knows, obedience to the orders issued, from time to time, by the Executive. Resistance to these orders is resistance to the 'laws,' as has been intimated on more than one occasion in the last few weeks. Our security is in constant vigilance. It will not do to trust these men. Our eyes must be constantly upon them ; for the past gives us full assurance of what we may expect in the future. Depend upon it, as their fortunes grow desperate, their efforts to redeem them will be desperate. They are capable of attempting any thing.' No man is better skilled in the late Executive tactics than General Green, who was, for some time, their chosen official organ of the press.

But whoever should be disposed to question the correctness of his inspi rations, or his insight into the tactics of the heir and imitator, will aban don his doubts when subsequent developments have established their truth. And to satisfy himself of that, the reader may now turn forward to the postscript, or go regularly on, through the first part of the political panorama I have endeavoured, in faint outline, to sketch before him, till he reaches it, and there, recognizes this beginning of the circle. One other subject must be noticed here. I have stated in a note, page 14, in relation to the circular of the paymaster-general to disbursing officers — 'that it is considered at the treasury department as a bureau arrangement of the paymaster-general's department.' The following extract from Mr. Biddle's letter of the 10th of December last, to the

PREFACE.

. Hon. J. Q. Adams, indicating some mistake in the above-mentioned statement, I am induced here to advert to it, to say, that it is verbatim what was said to me by the chief clerk and occasionally acting secretary of the treasury department, as late as October last. The obvious reflec tion is, that as the chief clerk of the department is necessarily supposed to be acquainted with the immediate transactions of the secre tary's office, the hypothecated comment with which I concluded that note, comes to be true, without impugning Mr. Young's sincerity in the least. 'III. During these movements it became important to understand distinctly the course of the government. In my letter to you of the 6th of April last, I stated my 'conviction that there could be no safe or permanent resumption of specie payments by the banks until the policy of the government towards them was changed.' Thi3 change was soon and happily made.

On the 30th of May, the specie circular, requiring payments in coin in the land offices, was repealed by congress. On the 25th of June, the bill called the sub-treasury, requiring coin in all payments to the government, was negatived. In the month of July, the government agreed to receive an anticipated payment of the bonds of the banlc to the amount of between four and five ■millions of dollars in a credit to ihe treasurer on the books of the bank — and arrange ments WERE MADE FOR THE MORE DISTANT PUBLIC DISBURSEMENTS IN THE notes of the bank. These arrangements, as honourable to the Executive officers, as they were beneficial to the public services, brought the government into efficient co-operation for the re-establishment of the currency, and opened the way to a resumption of specie payments.

The resumption accordingly took place throughout the middle states, on the 13th of August, and in many of the southern and western states soon after.' All commentary upon this development, will be superseded by the hearty congratulations with which the intelligent and business commu nity will be disposed to greet the secretary of the treasury upon these symptoms of returning reason, though he seems to have been ashamed to avow it, in his late financial report to Congress. Washington, January 1st, 1839. TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. A DEDICATION. Esteeming you as a confederated and fraternal community within the purview of your social compact, influenced by no sectional or party considerations, and acknowledging the control or the vassalage of no political aspirant — but enjoying a bond of alliance cemented by the assimilation of political creeds, institutions, and pursuits, which are daily elaborating the endearing products of the general welfare, and actuating you more and more to a laudable love of your whole country, in whose national destinies not only are your individual interests and those ofyour posterity to the latest generation especially identified, but also the dearest hopes of the advocates of freedom throughout the world — to your grave deliberations I take the liberty of inscribing the matters and specifications ofthe ensuing volume — which, in all their material bearings are the rightful and exclusive concern ments ofthe whole people, however frequently agitated, usurped, perverted, and misapplied, to subserve merely sectional, individual, or party purposes.

Upon their due consideration, you will probably be more inclined to 'estimate the value of the union,' to which you have been so frequently challenged of late years; to estimate it, how ever, not in the light sense of taunt and defiance because it is so secure, so guarded, so sacred, that it is in no danger; but on the contrary, with fear and trembling, because it is so insecure, so unguarded, so profaned, as to be reduced to the most imminent X DEDICATION. danger! — and danger alone, enables us to place a true and proper estimate upon the most precious treasure in our gift, while, with out a deep and sincere conviction of that danger, we hardly know how to lay any value on it at all. In these portentous and perilous times, it may be useful for you to bear in mind, that 'self-preservation' is the great and para mount law of nature, which no alienation of natural rights, in framing the sum total of social compacts, ever infringes — which no civil institution, however prone to encroachments upon all reservations, ever disparages.

This law, though the emanation of natural reason for individual protection in a state of nature, is found to be transferable and strictly applicable to communities in their social intercourse, and hence it has become also a fundamental international law, not conventional indeed, but universally recognized, as a matter of course, by force of natural reason. National communities, crowded together in geographical propin quity, have nevertheless found it necessary, in order to insure the observance of this law, to throw around it the guards of con ventional laws, checks, guaranties, and treaties, constituting what is well known among European States, as the 'balance of power' — being among them the true conservative, effective, aux iliary ofthe 'natural law of self-preservation.' But in your case, on account of your remoteness of situation from the liabilities to foreign interference, you have little or no concern with the balance of power between nations, as an auxiliary to this conser vative law.

Yet this exemption does not secure you against the wiles of the destroying demon. If you have no foreign enemy, singly, or combined by cupidity or envy, to make you afraid, yon have hundreds and thousands of insidious foes, who make up in numbers and artifice their deficiencies of physical strength; whose internal location amongst you, whose ramifications, inter minglings, and seeming participations in all your concerns, give them incalculably more power to work mischief and destruction to your institutions, than can justly be apprehended from the most formidable array of foreign states. You already anticipate me, and will, I have no doubt, heave a deep sigh of assent to the truth of the annunciation, when I tell you who they are. When I tell you they are your own chosen servants, affianced to your interests and to their duties, first by DEDICATION.

XI their neighbourship, and next by their oath of office, you will hardly deny, from sad experience, but that it is too true ! Yet, when you reflect that these men, before they became public ser vants, or aspirants to office, were bone ofyour bone, and flesh of your flesh, and while soliciting your confidence and trust, made all plausible professions of identity of interests, you must stand for a moment petrified and confounded with the incongruous problem of human nature — and ask yourselves if all is lost, if indeed there is no hope in man! That I have not ceased to hope, this book, (which, with all deference, I dedicate to you,) is my token : but that my hope is a slender one, this book (which abounds with palpable causes of despair,) is also too ample a token. Be that as it may, I am free to declare to you in advance, what can easily be demonstrated in its proper place, (without adverting, here, to the intrinsic frailties of your political system itself.)

That your public servants are too prone to lose sight of those interests they most cherished while they were plain citizens, to abandon those fundamental principles they then advocated, and to avail themselves of the facilities of their official trusts, to grasp at pelf, power, and patronage : That the interests of politicians and public functionaries are mainly antagonistical to the interests of the great mass of the people, who constitute the true democracy of every country ; and that all distinctions and conflictions of party, are the ingenious devices for advancing the designs of the former, at the too sore cost ofthe latter: That the ambitious political aspirants are the sole agitators of party warfare, each trying to win, to inveigle, or to seduce the plurality of numbers to his standard, under the plausible pretences of a name, a principle, or a dogma, hunted up, or manufactured, to suit the existing emergency, and that which ever may happen to triumph, the people are sure to 'pay the piper,' though, in fact, there were not a pin to choose between them.

Or, indeed, if there be a difference, it is discovered when too late, that the most seductive and successful in the arts of deception, have generally been those who inscribe on their banner, a popular name, and stigmatize their opponents with an odious one — assuming for their motto, the vox populi — and for their creed, any series of plausible abstractions, whose magic may promise gold to the people with- DEDICATION. out work, a government without tax, an administration without expense, and a society without laws or constitution : though their golden promises may end in banishing gold from the sight of the people ; though their promised relief from taxation result in an enormous and unwieldy surplus revenue, that tends to increase corruption ; though their boasted economical administration may quadruple the expense of any former one ; though their society without laws, may teem with mobs, Lynch law, and murder, throughout the land — with piracy of the avowed pupils of the same party, practised on a neighbouring nation, and similar interferences with the internal affairs of another friendly power, actuated in both cases, by agrarian cupidity, which threaten your country with a war at both extremities ! !

These are the prolific fruitions of a too indulgent confidence reposed by you, in the frail promises of a party, spoiled and intoxicated with a popular name, which they have assumed as a carte blanche to violate every promise and every principle in which your true interests are based ; and of which I will fear lessly say, the like cannot be cited, in the thousandth degree, in the deeds of any other denomination of party, however stigma tized and traduced, as anti-democratic, monarchical, despotic ! What then, may I ask you, is there in a name, but a siren note of the most baneful poison, when it chants the tones of the most captivating promise, and that too, with the deliberate purpose to deceive, to cajole, and to betray! Who will now have the hardihood to say, that the thousandth part of such misdeeds, perpetrated by a less plausible or popular party, would not have con signed them to eternal infamy, if not to corporeal 'pains and penalties V Does not this sufficiently demonstrate the bad policy of intrusting personal favourites, alias spoiled children — to administer or execute your agencies, without restraints or responsibilities, except such as they, out of their own freak, assume and prescribe for themselves, suited only to their own convenience, knowing that their too kind and indulgent 'constituents,' will not enforce any responsibility against them ?

Does it not prove that the arcana of governments are too remote from the popular view, to fulfil the spirit and pledge of accountability intended to be guarantied by your constitution, enveloped as they are, like an Egyptian mummy, in a thousand folds of mystery, DEDICATION. XIII which the initiated are in general either too interested, too timid, or too indolent to remove, and lay bare for your inspection, the abominations they conceal. You will, doubtless, agree with me, that these matters are peculiarly worthy of your consideration at the present crisis, when, as is obvious from the course of public events and discus sions for years past, and becoming daily more alarming, 'all the fundamental principles ofyour institutions' seem to be torn from their sacred record, and thrown into the air, for a general scram ble between conservatives and destructives, federalists and republicans, whigs and loco focos, or what not, each endeavouring to appropriate to himself a few favourite axioms, or to substitute some plausible dogmas, regardless of their consistency, or good keeping with the cognomen of his party banner, or his former professions, provided they but promise to subserve the existing emergency !

Now, when the spell of enchantment, recently cast over your better judgments by force of circumstances, has run its day, and affords a fit moment for cool retrospection, you will also agree with me in the importance of instituting a vigorous effort among yourselves, to restore, and make practical application of those fundamental principles, to which you have been admonished by most of your state constitutions to have 'frequent recurrence.' Your first inquiry, then, will be, what were those fundamental principles, and where are they now ? Do they still exist in practice, or only in name ? How, and by whom, have they been set at naught? How, and by whom, can they be rescued from the hands of the spoilers! be restored to their true reading! and the black lines, with which they have been chequered and defaced by party traces, neatly expunged ! !

Whether this be effected by means of a national convention, based on congressional repre sentation, and selected from among yourselves, as citizens, exclusive of all office-holders, executive, legislative or judicial, state or federal — or by means of consultations in your primitive assem blies, in the true capacity of a sovereign people — it is undeniable, the danger is yours, and the remedy is with you ! But continue supinely to defer its application to an indefinite future, and I will dare predict that the worthy remnant of your sires of the revolution, who yet linger with you, will witness DEDICATION. your extorted avowal, that the only advantage you now enjoy from their toils, their privations, their profuse expenditures of blood and treasure, is the poor privilege of being cozened and misruled by your own household on this side of the Atlantic, in lieu of the same grievances formerly practised by the proud mis tress of the ocean, against which your fathers indignantly pro tested, and staked upon the issue, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour!