The writings and speeches of Samuel J. Tilden

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I

The Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 were thought by many of the statesmen of what are known as " the Southern States " to discriminate unfairly against the agrif.ultural interests of their section of the Commonwealth, and in favor of the infant manufacturing interests of the Eastern States. Failing to obtain what they regarded as adequate relief for their grievances from the Federal Government, they put forward " the reserved right " of each State, as an independent party to the original compact of the States, to disregard any legislation of the Federal Government, — to " nullify " it, in other words, — whenever they were persuaded that such legislation was in conflict with their view of the conditions upon which the Union was formed. Acting upon this theory, the State of South Carolina, in the summer of 1832, assumed an attitude of defiance toward the Federal Government, and, under the leadership of John C. Calhoun, — then the most conspicuous, and perhaps the most influential, statesman in the Southern States, — deliberately proclaimed that the Federal revenue laws should not be enforced within her borders. On the 11th of December President Jackson — who had just been triumphantly re-elected — issued his memorable Proclamation warning the people of South Carolina and their sympathizers of the perils of their attitude toward the General Government, and giving them to understand that the Union would be preserved and the Federal authority enforced, at. whatever hazard. On the 16th of January, 1833, he sent to Congress what is known to history as his Nullification Message; which was followed immediately by the introduction into Congress of a "Force Bill," intended to secure the prompt collection of the revenue

VOL. I. 1 in the State of South Carolina, which passed the Senate by the decisive vote of 32 to 8.

Pending these events, a new tariff bill was prepared by Henry Clay, known as the " Compromise Act,'' under the cover of which the Nullifiers finally retreated and found shelter from their rash and critical position. The two articles which follow were contributed by Mr. Tilden to the Press of his native county while these were the burning questions of the day, and when for a time the perpetuity of the Union was by many despaired of. The fact that Mr. Van Buren — who was already regarded as the probable successor of President Jackson, and whose political fortunes were involved in the issue of this contest— was also a resident of Columbia County, gave local importance to the discussion. It is worth noting, that, when these articles were written, Mr. Tilden was not yet twenty years of age.

NULLIFICATION AND THE OPPOSITION.i

Upon the re-election of the President by an overwhelming, and to them unexpected, majority, the opposition Press were profuse in their professions of candor toward his administration, and their promises to yield a hearty support to such of its measures as might meet their approval. How have their pledges been redeemed ? When the Proclamation of the President was issued, declaring his determination to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and laws, and to preserve the Union, — objects which they could not but approve, — instead of giving him their cordial support, they immediately attribute the act itself to the basest of motives. The patriotic eloquence of that noble document, its powerful reasoning, its surpassing beauty, e^ort their admiration ; yet, issued as it was by one whose whole life, they must acknowledge, has been devoted to his country's good, they ascribe it to his enmity toward Mr. Calhoun. And in thus pertinaciously attributing an act acknowledged to be good to the very worst of motives, they disclose the rule of that warfare which they have so relentlessly waged against the President. But the consequences of this course do not end with him. The object of the Proclamation was to array a moral force in support of the Government ; to call out an expression of public feeling, which should rebuke disaffection and sustain the laws, by an influence more powerful than military force. The tendency of the course of the opposition Press is wholly to destroy this moral influence. If they could succeed in producing the impression that the object

1 From the Kinderhook Sentinel, 1833.

and end of the Proclamation was to injure Mr. Calhoun, it ■would palsy the arm of every friend of his country which is now raised to sustain the Executive in the noble attitude he has assumed ; it would cause a moral revulsion in the public mind which would embarrass instead of aiding the Government, for the people would not lend themselves to minister to the gratification of private resentment ; it would destroy the salutary influence of the Proclamation upon the minds of the mass of honest but deluded men who have lent their support to Nullification ; it would embitter their minds, and strengthen and fix them in their fatal course. Such is the candor which the opposition Press extend toward the President, such the support they render him : a candor which denies good motives to the best actions ; a support which takes the way, above all others, most calculated to defeat his object ! Would to Heaven that its palpable and abominable injustice to one who has deserved so well of his countrymen were the worst feature of this conduct, and that in these reckless attempts to injure him they did not vitally wound their country !

In their anxiety to fix the charge .of inconsistency upon the President, the opposition accuse him of permitting Georgia to trample with impunity upon the Constitution and laws at the very time he is preparing to enforce them in South Carolina. The reckless: editor ^ of the New York " Commercial Advertiser," in the same paper which contains the Proclamation, affects to consider the controversy between South Carolina and the Union as a personal contest between the President and Mr. Calhoun, in which he " sees no reason for the friends of the Constitution to interfere ! " If the President should not execute the laws, this consistent and moral editor would pronounce him worthy of impeachment for gross dereliction of duty ; if he should attempt to execute them, the editor would not sustain him because he had not done so in a former instance, and because in recommending a modification of the tariff, he had assumed the ground of the NuUifiers! Though few of the opposition 1 Colonel 'William L. Stone.

1833.] NULLIFICATION AND THE OPPOSITION. 13

presses have gone this length, they have perseveringly mingled these charges with every expression of approbation of the President's course with respect to South Carolina ; they have repeatedly attributed the nullification of that State to his countenance of it in Georgia ; and in many instances have declared that he must execute the laws in Georgia before he could receive their support in executing them in South Carolina. Now, if this charge were true, would it be politic to add to the already existing difficulties another, — a controversy with a more powerful and united State ; would it be best to force that State to the aid of South Carolina ? Or is the desire of these "friends of the Constitution" to embroil the President with Georgia so great, that they care not if in doing it they " strengthen disaffection, and perhaps sever the bonds of the Union ?

But the charge itself is as false and slanderous as they are reckless and malicious who could select this moment to utter it. As a fair specimen of the manner in which it has been urged, and of the attempts which have been made by means of it to enlist the sympathies of the religious public in behalf of the opposition, we extract the following from a letter of Ex-governor Shultzj of Pennsylvania, which was published in most of the opposition papers, and without correcting the calumnious falsehood which it contains : " The ministers of the meek and lowly Redeemer are left to languish in a dungeon, because President Jackson has not carried into effect the decision of the Supreme Court." Driven from this ground of attack, forced to acknowledge that the President had no right to interfere until after the further action of the Supreme Court, they next make a stand under the Intercourse Law of 1802. This Act, — which regulates intercourse with the Indians, forbids attempts to survey their lands, provides for the punishment of trespasses and such other offences as may be committed within their territories, and for their general protection, — it is alleged the President has neglected to execute, in direct violation of the Constitution, which enjoins upon him the duty of the faithful execution of the laws. A moment's examination will show that this charge is utterly without foundation. The nineteenth section of the Act declares " that nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to prevent any trade or intercourse with Indians living on lands surrounded by citizens of the United States, and being within the ordinary jurisdiction of any of the individual States."

That this Act was prospective in its operation, and would apply to those tribes which should thereafter become subject to the jurisdiction of a State, as well as to those which were so at the time of its passage, will hardly be disputed. After a deliberate examination of the subject, it was the opinion of the President that, upon the extension of the laws of Georgia over the Cherokees, the case was fairly embraced within the exception. Now, however erroneous this construction of the law may have been, the right of the Executive to make it is unquestionable. When called upon to execute this Act, he must, of necessity, first determine whether the tribe, in whose behalf its application is claimed, be within the jurisdiction of a State; and if lie decide incorrectly, he may be accused, not of having transcended his powers, but of having erred in their exercise. And if his construction of the law should be so extravagant as to defeat its object, it would even then be but the abuse of a power clearly possessed. But if the charge of having passed the bounds of his constitutional duty be without foundation in truth, that of having given tlie Act an extravagant construction is no less so. When it first became necessary for the President to act upon this subject there had been no judicial decision upon the question, and his immediate predecessors in the administration had, just before, oiBcially promulgated opinions fully coinciding with those he had adopted and by which his course in respect to this Act has been guided. But there is yet much higher authority. The legislative department, which had enacted the law, which could abrogate it, and which, if they did not approve the President's construction, could pass an Explanatory Act correcting it, upon a full discussion of the subject approved and sane-

1833] NULLIFICATION AND THE OPPOSITION. 15

tioned his construction of the law. The ability of this department of the government to conform the law itself to their wishes should certainly give great weight to their construction of it ; and the President would have incurred a high responsibility had he, in so important a question, acted upon a different one. The construction- given by' the Secretary of the Treasury to a section of the tariff law of last year caused it to bear heavily upon the mercantile interests : yet, though the correctness of his opinion was doubted, he was not accused of having transcended his powers in forming and acting upon that opinion ; he was not accused of having assumed a " dispensing power " over the laws. But an application was made to Congress to alter the law so as to obviate the unfavorable construction. Now had Congress, after a deliberate examinar tion of the matter, refused to alter the Act, and sanctioned the construction of the Secretary of the Treasury, he would have been exonerated from the imputation even of error in judgment, since he would have fulfilled the intentions of those who made the law, and who could repeal it.

n.

THE CLAY COMPROMISE OF 1833 AND -NULLIFICATION.!

However advantageous for the country Mr. Clay's Bill may be in itself, and however cogent the reasons which he urged in its support, his abandonment of the ground he formerly occupied must be admitted. How'long is it since, in a public speech, he pronounced the Union, without the protective system, not worth preserving, and declared his determination to adhere to the one, even at the hazard of a dissolution of the other ? Until the introduction of his Bill, the whole weight of the arguments of his friends, the universal expression; of their opinions in public meetings, and their uniform course in Congress, were in opposition to any modification of the tariff at the last session. More than this ; when the friends of the Administration had the moral courage to call upon the North to yield something of interest to patriotism, their motives: were most violently assailed, they were branded as " submission men," as " dough-faces," and were charged with being willing to barter away the essential interests of the nation to secure the aid of the South in elevating Mr. Van Buren to the' Presidency. Yet when Mr. Clay introduces a Bill involving all the obnoxious principles of the Administration upon this subject, he is immediately hailed by many of the same presses and the same individuals as the savior of his country !

"Whence this change in the course of Mr. Clay ? Was it from a lofty spirit of patriotism ? or was it the baser suggtestiou of mingled interest and disappointment ? Why was this spirit of 1 From the Columbia Sentinel, April 11, 1833.

1833.] THE CLAY COMPROMISE AND NULLIFICATION. 17

patriotic concession never evinced as long as the pursuit of the course which had brouglat these evils upon us could subserve his interests ? When, last year, many of the firmest friends of the tariff were advocating a compromise of the question, under the belief that such a measure alone could save us from the horrors of disunion, where was Mr. Clay then found ? When the committee of the Senate receded from some amendments, unimportant in themselves, and an adherence to which would have inevitably defeated the Bill, who does not recollect his gross and indecorous attacks upon the members of that committee ? Has the Union become more valuable now that it is no longer Mr. Clay's interest to pursue a course that had well nigh destroyed it ? Is the tariff less essential to the interests of the country now that his boisterous support of it cannot longer be made the means of elevating him to power and to place ? Mr. Clay has been the head and front of one of those parties which produced these unhappy divisions. At the late election his claims to the first office in the nation were mainly urged upon the ground of his identification with that party ; and upon this ground rested his hopes of success. He did not then assume the attitude of a mediator. It was not till the people had decided, by an overwhelming majority, against his ultra and uncompromising course, that a zeal for peace came over him, which has led him to sacrifice his own offspring upon the altar of Union ! It was not till, by his own admission, a harmonious adjustment of the question could not much longer be prevented, that he put on the garb of a peacemaker. When an alliance with the American System had ceased to be profitable, when it could no longer be made a stalking-horse to ride into power upon, he was ready to abandon it. Then visions of " family strife," of " smoking ruins," and of " desolated fields " floated through his imagination. Then he found that the Union was more valuable than the tariff itself. A new-born zeal for peace and harmony fired his soul. He could not " look silently on the raging storm." He could not " listen to the soft and seducing whispers -of ambition." He was willing to risk the

VOL. I. 2

'f alienation of faithful and valued friends." He whose whole life had been a struggle for office now felt no desire " even for the highest ! " When his repeated and desperate attempts to . obtain the grapes had failed, like Reynard of old he consoled himself with the reflection that they were sour ! When the voice of the people had placed him at an immeasurable distance from the Presidential chair, he could look upon that high station with the most philosophic contempt, and even pity its "incarcerated incumbent " as one deprived of " all blessings of genuine freedom!"

Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay, they tell us, have saved the Union. Saved the Union from what ? From themselves ! I defy their friends to escape from this conclusion ; for what was it that endangered the Union but the conflict of those warring systems of which they were the ultra supporters, the champions and fathers ? And at what time did they interpose for its preservation ? Mr. Calhoun when those States from which he expected aid and co-operation had denounced his principles, when his cause was utterly hopeless, and when all the ingenuity which had been employed in weaving the web of Nullification was required to extricate himself from its meshes. Mr. Clay, as he tells us, when a compromise of the question would have been speedily effected by other hands, and when he feared that his favorite system would be more suddenly, if not more fatally, prostrated. And they claim to have saved the country ! Their modesty is equalled only by that of the assassin who, when he perceives he cannot effect his purpose, drops the hand raised to strike the dagger to your heart, and claims your eternal gratitude for having preserved your life.

At the late election the Administration were before the people as the advocates of a mutual sacrifice of interest to the public good, of a compromise which should reconcile conflicting interests and restore peace to the country. In taking this position they arrayed against themselves the extremes of both parties ; but they chose to pursue the common good of the whole country rather than rest their hopes of success upon appeals to

1833] THE CLAY COMPROMISE AND NULLIFICATION. 19

sectional and individual interests. And nobly did the people justify this confidence in their firmness and integrity of purpose. In every point of view tlie result was an unmixed tri-- umph of the Administration. If Mr. Clay's former course upon this subject resulted from a disregard of its consequences, how strikingly do his attempts to avail himself of sectional prejudices at the expense of the prosperity of the country contrast with their enlarged and comprehensive and patriotic policy ! If his course resulted from his not foreseeing these consequences, what an exhibition does it afford of the superiority of the Administration in sagacity and statesmanship !

m.

In 1829, at the request of President Jackson, Martin Van Buren resigned the governorship of the State of New York to accept the office of Secretary of State. To relieve the President, in 1831, from an embarrassment growing out of a difference between him and • some of the partisans of John C. Calhoun in his Cabinet in regard to the treatment due from their respective families to the wife of General Eaton, who was then Secretary at War, Mr. Van Buren resigned his seat in the Cabinet. This facilitated, as it was intended to do, the formation of an entirely new Cabinet. Mr. Calhoun resented this step ; and from its date ceased to hold any personal relations with President Jackson or with Mr. Van Buren, who, very unjustly, was held responsible for the Cabinet rupture. The alienation even went so far that at a public dinner given to Mr. Calhoun in South Carolina shortly after these occurrences, the ordinary toast to the President was omitted, and the first toast that was drunk reflected offensively upon the character of Mr. Van Buren.

As soon as the new Administration was organized. President Jackson nominated Mr. Van Buren as Minister to England. Presuming upon his confirmation, the new Minister repaired to London, presented his credentials, and proceeded to organize his official establishment near the English Court. He had failed to appreciate the ambition or the desperation of his rivals. When Congress met in the fall, the NuUifiers, under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, combining with the Whigs and Protectionists, under Mr. Clay, made common cause against this formidable candidate for the succession, and refused to confirm Mr. Van Buren's nomination. The Democracy of New York

1833-] VAN BUREN AND THE NULLIFIERS. 21

resented this factious and ignoble conspiracy to humiliate their most prominent and promising statesman ; and one of the consequences was that Mr. Van Buren was placed on the Presidential ticket, and elected Vice-President, with Jackson for President, the following year. His success made him the inevitable candidate of the Democracy of New York in 1836, and as a matter of course drew upon him, rather, than upon the President, the hostile fire of all the rival candidates, and of all the foes, from whatever cause, of the Administration. It also rallied his friends ; and the following article from the pen of Mr. Tilden was a timelycontribution to his defence.

VAN BUREN AND THE NULLIPIERS.i

Few men have been more violently or unremittingly assailed than Mr. Van Buren ; still more limited is the number of those who have proved as invulnerable to attack. For a long time a prominent actor in the busy scenes of political life, the ingenuity of his opponents, incited by interest and sharpened by malice, has succeeded in fixing upon him not one act disreputable to his character as a patriot or as a man.

Among the vague and indefinite allegations which are made against him, we find only one that is in any degree tangible. The charge to which we refer is that of an improper concealment of his opinions and an habitual avoidance of responsibility. On what occasion has he exhibited these characteristics ? •Was it when, entering upon the stage of action, unsustained by the influence of family connections or of patronage, he arrayed himself with the Democracy of his native county against the hopeless rule of Federal domination ? Was it when, disregarding alike the seductions of ambition and the menaces of power, which were alternately employed to corrupt or to intimidate him, he pursued a course which, for a time at least, must shut him out from every hope of advancement, and condemn him to waste his energies in the struggles of a desperate minority V Was it when, in the hour of peril and of danger, the failure of New York to sustain the National Government would have been followed by the most disastrous consequences, his exertions invigorated her arm and gave confidence to her counsels ? Was it when, in the Presidential contest of 1824, he preferred defeat in support of the Republican usages and candidates

1 From the Columbia Sentinel, Sept. 12, 1833.

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to success iu a different course ? Was it when the Federal Government, sustained by large majorities in every branch and by most of the prominent politicians of the country, was fast whelming the rights of the States and the people in the vortex of constructive power, he remained firm amid the general apostasy ? Was it when the last moments of the great Father of Democracy were embittered by the fear that he had survived the principles and the cause to which his life had been devoted, and the exertions of Mr. Van Buren to restore the ancient landmarks of the party, and to revive, establish, and defend its priinitive doctrines, called forth his grateful plaudits and gave him hope that posterity would not be cheated of the promised fruits of his toils and his sacrifices ? Was it when, in support of the same great principles, he advised, approved, and sustained the vetos of the President, — at a time, too, when his own prospects were indissolubly bound up in the result of an election which these very acts must jeopard ? In which of these instances has he manifested weakness of purpose, evasion, or concealment ? And if these and many other acts of his life have been marked with a steady and fearless pursuit of the path of duty and an utter disregard of personal consequences, when and where has he exhibited the contrary qualities ? When has he avoided a public question ? When has he shrunk from incurring a just responsibility ? Always firm, but never violent, Mr. Yan Buren has fearlessly met every public question ; and if his enemies cannot find as many inconsistencies in his course as in their own, it is not because he possesses the magic power of reconciling contradictions, or the more than magic power of so expressing his opinions that theywill bear a construction suited to every exigency. The cause is far more simple. Never hurried by momentary excitement into inconsiderate and extravagant generalizations for temporary purposes, — he has rarely, if ever, taken ground which it afterward became necessary to abandon.^ Principles are eternal and unchanging. He who acts from the deliberate convictions of a mature judgment will seldom have occasion to alter his opinions. But lie who adopts compxe^iensive principles or extravagant doctrines to suit temporary expedients or from a transient enthusiasm, must change with every fluctuation of circumstances and' with every caprice . of passion. ^

Mr. Van Buren's sentiments upon every important subject on which a proper occasion for their expression has offered, are before the public. They only are ignorant of them who have neglected to inform themselves. Shortly previous to the late election he was called upon, by a meeting in North Carolina, to declare his opinions upon the great questions which at that time agitated the country. His fortunes embarked in a contest on the issue of which his very political existence depended, — his opinions asked with the evident design of embroiling him with some party or other, and of wresting to his destruction whatever declaration of them he might make, — he could have had no more powerful inducement or better excuse for pursuing that " non-committal " course which his enemies attribute to him. Yet he neither hesitated nor evaded, but returned a full and explicit enunciation of his sentiments. His reply, upon a recent occasion, to similar inquiries proposed to him by his fellow-citizens of Rhode Island, was no less frank and satisfactory. Mr. Webster, — the soul of franltness itself, -^- whose opinions were also requested, returned no answer; and Mr. Adams — ever in his most candid moments relapsing into habits inherited from the great Italian master of his school — answered in a manner altogether too diplomatic to mean anything. And yet there are those to whose perverted vision, in the one case, all is shuffling, dark, and ambiguous, and in the other, all is direct, open, and candid !

The charge of intrigue also rests upon mere assertion ; and - the most industrious malevolence has sought in vain for evidence of its truth. The instances in which it has been most pertinaciously urged, and the only ones in which proof has ever been attempted, are the rupture between the President and Mr. Calhoun, and the dissolution of the late Cabinet. Independent of the utter inability of the accusers to adduce one

?S33-] VAN BUREN AND THE NULLIFIERS. 25

particle of testimony, — independent of the decisive verdict passed by the people, after a full investigation, — there is one fact which ought to put the matter forever at rest. Andrew Jackson, who alone could know, and who could not be deceived,— who, of whatever. else he may have been accused, has never been charged with duplicity, — Andrew Jackson has, in the face of the nation, solemnly declared that in neither of these occurrences had Mr. Van Buren any participation whatever.

When the friends of Mr. Van Buren demand proof of the various charges which are brought against him, the only reply they receive is that he is a wily magician, too versatile and too cunning to express an opinion or commit an act which is tangible. Heretofore innocence has been presumed until guilt was proved. Heretofore the burden of evidence has been supposed to rest with the accuser. But the enemies of Mr. Van Buren, unable to convict him in accordance with these universally admitted axioms, in their zeal to accomplish that object hesitate not to reverse them. They have arraigned him at the bar of public opinion for offences of the worst character. The reason they assign for offering no direct proof admits, in substance, that they cannot do so, and in substance asserts the monstrous claim that because they cannot, their allegations shall be believed without it !

But this is one of those unusual cases in which we may safely undertake to prove a negative. The melancholy fate of many a noble mind has taught the world that the loftiest powers and the most profound intellect, unsustained by high moral sentiments, offer but a feeble resistance to the temptations of vice. Nature seems to have ordained, for the security of mankind, that every perversion of the heart shall be followed by a corresponding obliquity of the understanding. However strong may be the speculative belief that " honesty is the best policy," without strict integrity of purpose no man will act, for any considerable time, upon that conviction. There will always be some nearer way to the goal of his desires, and if unrestrained by principle, he will not hesitate to tread it. That men may, in some instances, commit good actions from mercenary motives, is very possible. But that any one will pursue a long course of virtue from such inducements, is contradicted by the unvarying testimony of all human experience. That Mr. Van Buren, or that any man acting from other than the purest intentions, could have passed a whole life in the mazes of politics, — that he could have been exposed to all the allurements of ambition and the corruptions of power, — and yet no perfidious friend or malignant enemy be able to fix upon him one act of dishonor, is incredible, and too absurd to find belief, except with those who, in order to destroy an obnoxious individual, are ready to reverse the laws of evidence and to violate every rule which should govern men in the investigation of truth.