CXXIX. COMMENCEMENT OF TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS--PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE…

CXXIX. COMMENCEMENT OF TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS--PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

The following was the list of the members:

SENATORS:

MAINE--Ether Shepley, John Ruggles.

NEW HAMPSHIRE--Isaac Hill, Henry Hubbard.

MASSACHUSETTS--Daniel Webster, John Davis.

RHODE ISLAND--Nehemiah R. Knight, Asher Robbins.

CONNECTICUT--Gideon Tomlinson, Nathan Smith.

VERMONT--Samuel Prentiss, Benjamin Swift.

NEW-YORK--Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, Silas Wright, jun.

NEW JERSEY--Samuel L. Southard, Garret D. Wall.

PENNSYLVANIA--James Buchanan, Samuel McKean.

DELAWARE--John M. Clayton, Arnold Naudain.

MARYLAND--Robert H. Goldsborough, Jos. Kent.

VIRGINIA--Benjamin Watkins Leigh, John Tyler.

NORTH CAROLINA--Bedford Brown, Willie P. Mangum.

SOUTH CAROLINA--J. C. Calhoun, William C. Preston.

GEORGIA--Alfred Cuthbert, John P. King.

KENTUCKY--Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden.

TENNESSEE--Felix Grundy, Hugh L. White.

OHIO--Thomas Ewing, Thomas Morris.

LOUISIANA--Alexander Porter, Robert C. Nicholas.

INDIANA--Wm. Hendricks, John Tipton.

MISSISSIPPI--John Black, Robert J. Walker.

ILLINOIS--Elias K. Kane, John M. Robinson.

ALABAMA--Wm. R. King, Gabriel P. Moore.

MISSOURI--Lewis F. Linn, Thomas H. Benton.

REPRESENTATIVES:

MAINE--Jeremiah Bailey, George Evans, John Fairfield, Joseph Hall, Leonard Jarvis, Moses Mason, Gorham Parks, Francis O. J. Smith--8.

NEW HAMPSHIRE--Benning M. Bean, Robert Burns, Samuel Cushman, Franklin Pierce, Jos. Weeks--5.

MASSACHUSETTS--John Quincy Adams, Nathaniel B. Borden, George N. Briggs, William B. Calhoun, Caleb Cushing, George Grennell, jr., Samuel Hoar, William Jackson, Abbot Lawrence, Levi Lincoln, Stephen C. Phillips, John Reed--12.

RHODE ISLAND--Dutee J. Pearce, W. Sprague--2.

CONNECTICUT--Elisha Haley, Samuel Ingham, Andrew T. Judson, Lancelot Phelps, Isaac Toucey, Zalmon Wildman--6.

VERMONT--Heman Allen, Horace Everett, Hiland Hall, Henry F. Janes, William Slade--5.

NEW-YORK--Samuel Barton, Saml. Beardsley, Abraham Bockee, Matthias J. Bovee, John W. Brown, C. C. Cambreleng, Graham H. Chapin, Timothy Childs, John Cramer, Ulysses F. Doubleday, Valentine Efner, Dudley Farlin, Philo C. Fuller, William K. Fuller, Ransom H. Gillet, Francis Granger, Gideon Hard, Abner Hazeltine, Hiram P. Hunt, Abel Huntington, Gerrit Y. Lansing, George W. Lay, Gideon Lee, Joshua Lee, Stephen B. Leonard, Thomas C. Love, Abijah Mann, jr., William Mason, John McKeon, Ely Moore, Sherman Page, Joseph Reynolds, David Russell, William Seymour, Nicholas Sickles, William Taylor, Joel Turrill, Aaron Vanderpoel, Aaron Ward, Daniel Wardwell--40.

NEW JERSEY--Philemon Dickerson, Samuel Fowler, Thomas Lee, James Parker, Ferdinand S. Schenck, William N. Shinn--6.

PENNSYLVANIA--Joseph B. Anthony, Michael W. Ash, John Banks, Andrew Beaumont, Andrew Buchanan, George Chambers, William P. Clark, Edward Darlington, Harmar Denny, Jacob Fry, jr., John Galbraith, James Harper, Samuel S. Harrison, Joseph Henderson, William Hiester, Edward B. Hubley, Joseph R. Ingersoll, John Klingensmith, jr., John Laporte, Henry Logan, Job Mann, Thomas M. T. McKennan, Jesse Miller, Matthias Morris, Henry A. Muhlenberg, David Potts, jr., Joel B. Sutherland, David D. Wagener.--28.

DELAWARE.--John J. Milligan.--1.

MARYLAND.--Benjamin C. Howard, Daniel Jenifer, Isaac McKim, James A. Pearce, John N. Steele, Francis Thomas, James Turner, George C. Washington.--8.

VIRGINIA.--James M. H. Beale, James W. Bouldin, Nathaniel H. Claiborne, Walter Coles, Robert Craig, George C. Dromgoole, James Garland, G. W. Hopkins, Joseph Johnson, John W. Jones, George Loyall, Edward Lucas, John Y. Mason, William McComas, Charles F. Mercer, William S. Morgan, John M. Patton, John Roane, John Robertson, John Taliaferro, Henry A. Wise.--21.

NORTH CAROLINA.--Jesse A. Bynum, Henry W. Connor, Edmund Deberry, James Graham, Micajah T. Hawkins, James J. McKay, William Montgomery, Ebenezer Pettigrew, Abraham Rencher, William B. Shepard, Augustine H. Shepperd, Jesse Speight, Lewis Williams.--13.

SOUTH CAROLINA.--Robert B. Campbell, William J. Grayson, John K. Griffin, James H. Hammond, Richard J. Manning, Francis W. Pickens, Henry L. Pinckney, James Rogers, Waddy Thompson, jr.--9.

GEORGIA.--Jesse F. Cleveland, John Coffee, Thomas Glasscock, Seaton Grantland, Charles E. Haynes, Hopkins Holsey, Jabez Jackson, George W. Owens, George W. B. Towns.--9.

ALABAMA.--Reuben Chapman, Joab Lawler, Dixon H. Lewis, Francis S. Lyon, Joshua L. Martin.--5.

MISSISSIPPI.--David Dickson, J. F. H. Claiborne.--2.

LOUISIANA.--Rice Garland, Henry Johnson, Eleazer W. Ripley.--3.

TENNESSEE.--John Bell, Samuel Bunch, William B. Carter, William C. Dunlap, John B. Forester, Adam Huntsman, Cave Johnson, Luke Lea, Abram P. Maury, Balie Peyton, James K. Polk, E. J. Shields, James Standefer.--13.

KENTUCKY.--Chilton Allan, Lynn Boyd, John Calhoun, John Chambers, Richard French, Wm. J. Graves, Benjamin Hardin, James Harlan, Albert G. Hawes, Richard M. Johnson, Joseph R. Underwood, John White, Sherrod Williams.--13.

MISSOURI.--Wm. H. Ashley, Albert G. Harrison.--2.

ILLINOIS.--Zadok Casey, William L. May, John Reynolds.--3.

INDIANA.--Ratliff Boon, John Carr, John W. Davis, Edward A. Hannegan, George L. Kinnard, Amos Lane, Jonathan McCarty.--7.

OHIO.--William K. Bond, John Chaney, Thomas Corwin, Joseph H. Crane, Thomas L. Hamer, Elias Howell, Benjamin Jones, William Kennon, Daniel Kilgore, Sampson Mason, Jeremiah McLene, William Patterson, Jonathan Sloane, David Spangler, Bellamy Storer, John Thompson, Samuel F. Vinton, Taylor Webster, Elisha Whittlesey.--19.

DELEGATES.

ARKANSAS TERRITORY.--Ambrose H. Sevier.

FLORIDA TERRITORY.--Joseph M. White.

MICHIGAN TERRITORY.--George W. Jones.

Mr. James K. Polk of Tennessee, was elected speaker of the House, and by a large majority over the late speaker, Mr. John Bell of the same State. The vote stood one hundred and thirty-two to eighty-four, and was considered a test of the administration strength, Mr. Polk being supported by that party, and Mr. Bell having become identified with those who, in siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a candidate for the presidency, were considered as having divided from the democratic party. Among the eminent names missed from the list of the House of Representatives, were: Mr. Wayne of Georgia, appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States; and Mr. Edward Everett of Massachusetts, who declined a re-election.

The state of our relations with France, in the continued non-payment of the stipulated indemnity, was the prominent feature in the President's message; and the subject itself becoming more serious in the apparent indisposition in Congress to sustain his views, manifested in the loss of the fortification bill, through the disagreement of the two Houses. The obligation to pay was admitted, and the money even voted for that purpose; but offence was taken at the President's message, and payment refused until an apology should be made. The President had already shown, on its first intimation, that no offence was intended, nor any disrespect justly deducible from the language that he had used; and he was now peremptory in refusing to make the required apology; and had instructed the United States' chargé d'affaires to demand the money; and, if not paid, to leave France immediately. The ministers of both countries had previously withdrawn, and the last link in the chain of diplomatic communication was upon the point of being broken. The question having narrowed down to this small point, the President deemed it proper to give a retrospective view of it, to justify his determination, neither to apologize nor to negotiate further. He said:

"On entering upon the duties of my station, I found the United States an unsuccessful applicant to the justice of France, for the satisfaction of claims, the validity of which was never questionable, and has now been most solemnly admitted by France herself. The antiquity of these claims, their high justice, and the aggravating circumstances out of which they arose, are too familiar to the American people to require description. It is sufficient to say, that, for a period of ten years and upwards, our commerce was, with but little interruption, the subject of constant aggressions, on the part of France--aggressions, the ordinary features of which were condemnations of vessels and cargoes, under arbitrary decrees, adopted in contravention, as well of the laws of nations as of treaty stipulations, burnings on the high seas, and seizures and confiscations, under special imperial rescripts, in the ports of other nations occupied by the armies, or under the control of France. Such, it is now conceded, is the character of the wrongs we suffered; wrongs, in many cases, so flagrant that even their authors never denied our right to reparation. Of the extent of these injuries, some conception may be formed from the fact that, after the burning of a large amount at sea, and the necessary deterioration in other cases, by long detention, the American property so seized and sacrificed at forced sales, excluding what was adjudged to privateers, before or without condemnation, brought into the French treasury upwards of twenty-four millions of francs, besides large custom-house duties.

"The subject had already been an affair of twenty years' uninterrupted negotiation, except for a short time, when France was overwhelmed by the military power of united Europe. During this period, whilst other nations were extorting from her payment of their claims at the point of the bayonet, the United States intermitted their demand for justice, out of respect to the oppressed condition of a gallant people, to whom they felt under obligations for fraternal assistance in their own days of suffering and of peril. The bad effects of these protracted and unavailing discussions, as well upon our relations with France as upon our national character, were obvious; and the line of duty was, to my mind, equally so. This was, either to insist upon the adjustment of our claims, within a reasonable period, or to abandon them altogether. I could not doubt that, by this course, the interest and honor of both countries would be best consulted. Instructions were, therefore, given in this spirit to the minister, who was sent out once more to demand reparation. Upon the meeting of Congress, in December, 1829, I felt it my duty to speak of these claims; and the delays of France, in terms calculated to call the serious attention of both countries to the subject. The then French Ministry took exception to the message, on the ground of its containing a menace, under which it was not agreeable to the French government to negotiate. The American minister, of his own accord, refuted the construction which was attempted to be put upon the message, and, at the same time, called to the recollection of the French ministry, that the President's message was a communication addressed, not to foreign governments, but to the Congress of the United States, in which it was enjoined upon him, by the constitution, to lay before that body information of the state of the Union, comprehending its foreign as well as its domestic relations; and that if, in the discharge of this duty, he felt it incumbent upon him to summon the attention of Congress in due time to what might be the possible consequences of existing difficulties with any foreign government, he might fairly be supposed to do so, under a sense of what was due from him in a frank communication with another branch of his own government, and not from any intention of holding a menace over a foreign power. The views taken by him received my approbation, the French government was satisfied, and the negotiation was continued. It terminated in the treaty of July 4, 1831, recognizing the justice of our claims, in part, and promising payment to the amount of twenty-five millions of francs, in six annual instalments.

"The ratifications of this treaty were exchanged at Washington, on the 2d of February, 1832; and, in five days thereafter, it was laid before Congress, who immediately passed the acts necessary, on our part, to secure to France the commercial advantages conceded to her in the compact. The treaty had previously been solemnly ratified by the King of the French, in terms which are certainly not mere matters of form, and of which the translation is as follows: 'We, approving the above convention, in all and each of the depositions which are contained in it, do declare by ourselves, as well as by our heirs and successors, that it is accepted, approved, ratified, and confirmed; and by these presents, signed by our hand, we do accept, approve, ratify, and confirm it; promising, on the faith and word of a king, to observe it, and to cause it to be observed inviolably, without ever contravening it, or suffering it to be contravened, directly or indirectly, for any cause, or under any pretence whatsoever.'

"Official information of the exchange of ratifications in the United States reached Paris, whilst the Chambers were in session. The extraordinary, and, to us, injurious delays of the French government, in their action upon the subject of its fulfilment, have been heretofore stated to Congress, and I have no disposition to enlarge upon them here. It is sufficient to observe that the then pending session was allowed to expire, without even an effort to obtain the necessary appropriations--that the two succeeding ones were also suffered to pass away without any thing like a serious attempt to obtain a decision upon the subject; and that it was not until the fourth session--almost three years after the conclusion of the treaty, and more than two years after the exchange of ratifications--that the bill for the execution of the treaty was pressed to a vote, and rejected. In the mean time, the government of the United States, having full confidence that a treaty entered into and so solemnly ratified by the French king, would be executed in good faith, and not doubting that provision would be made for the payment of the first instalment, which was to become due on the second day of February, 1833, negotiated a draft for the amount through the Bank of the United States. When this draft was presented by the holder, with the credentials required by the treaty to authorize him to receive the money, the government of France allowed it to be protested. In addition to the injury in the non-payment of the money by France, conformably to her engagement, the United States were exposed to a heavy claim on the part of the bank, under pretence of damages, in satisfaction of which, that institution seized upon, and still retains, an equal amount of the public moneys. Congress was in session when the decision of the Chambers reached Washington; and an immediate communication of this apparently final decision of France not to fulfil the stipulations of the treaty, was the course naturally to be expected from the President. The deep tone of dissatisfaction which pervaded the public mind, and the correspondent excitement produced in Congress by only a general knowledge of the result, rendered it more than probable, that a resort to immediate measures of redress would be the consequence of calling the attention of that body to the subject. Sincerely desirous of preserving the pacific relations which had so long existed between the two countries, I was anxious to avoid this course if I could be satisfied that, by doing so, neither the interests nor the honor of my country would be compromitted. Without the fullest assurances upon that point, I could not hope to acquit myself of the responsibility to be incurred in suffering Congress to adjourn without laying the subject before them. Those received by me were believed to be of that character.

"The expectations justly founded upon the promises thus solemnly made to this government by that of France, were not realized. The French Chambers met on the 31st of July, 1834, soon after the election, and although our minister in Paris urged the French ministry to press the subject before them, they declined doing so. He next insisted that the Chambers, if prorogued without acting on the subject, should be reassembled at a period so early that their action on the treaty might be known in Washington prior to the meeting of Congress. This reasonable request was not only declined, but the Chambers were prorogued on the 29th of December; a day so late, that their decision, however urgently pressed, could not, in all probability, be obtained in time to reach Washington before the necessary adjournment of Congress by the constitution. The reasons given by the ministry for refusing to convoke the Chambers, at an earlier period, were afterwards shown not to be insuperable, by their actual convocation, on the first of December, under a special call for domestic purposes, which fact, however, did not become known to this Government until after the commencement of the last session of Congress.

"Thus disappointed in our just expectations, it became my imperative duty to consult with Congress in regard to the expediency of a resort to retaliatory measures, in case the stipulations of the treaty should not be speedily complied with; and to recommend such as, in my judgment, the occasion called for. To this end, an unreserved communication of the case, in all its aspects, became indispensable. To have shrunk, in making it, from saying all that was necessary to its correct understanding, and that the truth would justify, for fear of giving offence to others, would have been unworthy of us. To have gone, on the other hand, a single step further, for the purpose of wounding the pride of a government and people with whom we had so many motives of cultivating relations of amity and reciprocal advantage, would have been unwise and improper. Admonished by the past of the difficulty of making even the simplest statement of our wrongs, without disturbing the sensibilities of those who had, by their position, become responsible for their redress, and earnestly desirous of preventing further obstacles from that source, I went out of my way to preclude a construction of the message, by which the recommendation that was made to Congress might be regarded as a menace to France, in not only disavowing such a design, but in declaring that her pride and her power were too well known to expect any thing from her fears. The message did not reach Paris until more than a month after the Chambers had been in session; and such was the insensibility of the ministry to our rightful claims and just expectations, that our minister had been informed that the matter, when introduced, would not be pressed as a cabinet measure.

"Although the message was not officially communicated to the French government, and notwithstanding the declaration to the contrary which it contained, the French ministry decided to consider the conditional recommendation of reprisals a menace and an insult, which the honor of the nation made it incumbent on them to resent. The measures resorted to by them to evince their sense of the supposed indignity were, the immediate recall of their minister at Washington, the offer of passports to the American minister at Paris, and a public notice to the legislative chambers that all diplomatic intercourse with the United States had been suspended.

"Having, in this manner, vindicated the dignity of France, they next proceeded to illustrate her justice. To this end a bill was immediately introduced into the Chamber of Deputies, proposing to make the appropriations necessary to carry into effect the treaty. As this bill subsequently passed into a law, the provisions of which now constitute the main subject of difficulty between the two nations, it becomes my duty, in order to place the subject before you in a clear light, to trace the history of its passage, and to refer, with some particularity, to the proceedings and discussions in regard to it. The Minister of Finance, in his opening speech, alluded to the measures which had been adopted to resent the supposed indignity, and recommended the execution of the treaty as a measure required by the honor and justice of France. He, as the organ of the ministry, declared the message, so long as it had not received the sanction of Congress, a mere expression of the personal opinion of the President, for which neither the government nor people of the United States were responsible; and that an engagement had been entered into, for the fulfilment of which the honor of France was pledged. Entertaining these views, the single condition which the French ministry proposed to annex to the payment of the money was, that it should not be made until it was ascertained that the government of the United States had done nothing to injure the interests of France; or, in other words, that no steps had been authorized by Congress of a hostile character towards France.

"What the disposition or action of Congress might be, was then unknown to the French Cabinet. But, on the 14th of January, the Senate resolved that it was, at that time inexpedient to adopt any legislative measures in regard to the state of affairs between the United States and France, and no action on the subject had occurred in the House of Representatives. These facts were known in Paris prior to the 28th of March, 1835, when the committee, to whom the bill of indemnification had been referred, reported it to the Chamber of Deputies. That committee substantially re-echoed the sentiments of the ministry, declared that Congress had set aside the proposition of the President, and recommended the passage of the bill, without any other restriction than that originally proposed. Thus was it known to the French ministry and chambers that if the position assumed by them, and which had been so frequently and solemnly announced as the only one compatible with the honor of France, was maintained, and the bill passed as originally proposed, the money would be paid, and there would be an end of this unfortunate controversy.

"But this cheering prospect was soon destroyed by an amendment introduced into the bill at the moment of its passage, providing that the money should not be paid until the French government had received satisfactory explanations of the President's message of the 2d December, 1834; and, what is still more extraordinary, the president of the council of ministers adopted this amendment, and consented to its incorporation in the bill. In regard to a supposed insult which had been formally resented by the recall of their minister, and the offer of passports to ours, they now, for the first time, proposed to ask explanations. Sentiments and propositions, which they had declared could not justly be imputed to the government or people of the United States, are set up as obstacles to the performance of an act of conceded justice to that government and people. They had declared that the honor of France required the fulfilment of the engagement into which the King had entered, unless Congress adopted the recommendations of the message. They ascertained that Congress did not adopt them, and yet that fulfilment is refused, unless they first obtain from the President explanations of an opinion characterized by themselves as personal and inoperative."

Having thus traced the controversy down to the point on which it hung--no payment without an apology first made--the President took up this condition as a new feature in the case--presenting national degradation on one side, and twenty-five millions of francs on the other--and declared his determination to submit to no dishonor, and repulsed the apology as a stain upon the national character; and concluded this head of his message with saying:

"In any event, however, the principle involved in the new aspect which has been given to the controversy is so vitally important to the independent administration of the government, that it can neither be surrendered nor compromitted without national degradation. I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that such a sacrifice will not be made through any agency of mine. The honor of my country shall never be stained by an apology from me for the statement of truth and the performance of duty; nor can I give any explanation of my official acts, except such as is due to integrity and justice, and consistent with the principles on which our institutions have been framed. This determination will, I am confident, be approved by my constituents. I have indeed studied their character to but little purpose, if the sum of twenty-five millions of francs will have the weight of a feather in the estimation of what appertains to their national independence: and if, unhappily, a different impression should at any time obtain, in any quarter, they will, I am sure, rally round the government of their choice with alacrity and unanimity, and silence for ever the degrading imputation."

The loss of the fortification bill at the previous session, had been a serious interruption to our system of defences, and an injury to the country in that point of view, independently of its effect upon our relations with France. A system of general and permanent fortification of the coasts and harbors had been adopted at the close of the war of 1812; and throughout our extended frontier were many works in different degrees of completion, the stoppage of which involved loss and destruction, as well as delay, in this indispensable work. Looking at the loss of the bill in this point of view, the President said:

"Much loss and inconvenience have been experienced, in consequence of the failure of the bill containing the ordinary appropriations for fortifications which passed one branch of the national legislature at the last session, but was lost in the other. This failure was the more regretted, not only because it necessarily interrupted and delayed the progress of a system of national defence, projected immediately after the last war, and since steadily pursued, but also because it contained a contingent appropriation, inserted in accordance with the views of the Executive, in aid of this important object, and other branches of the national defence, some portions of which might have been most usefully applied during the past season. I invite your early attention to that part of the report of the Secretary of War which relates to this subject, and recommend an appropriation sufficiently liberal to accelerate the armament of the fortifications agreeably to the proposition submitted by him, and to place our whole Atlantic seaboard in a complete state of defence. A just regard to the permanent interests of the country evidently requires this measure. But there are also other reasons which at the present juncture give it peculiar force, and make it my duty to call the subject to your special consideration."

The plan for the removal of the Indians to the west of the Mississippi being now in successful progress and having well nigh reached its consummation, the President took the occasion, while communicating that gratifying fact, to make an authentic exposition of the humane policy which had governed the United States in adopting this policy. He showed that it was still more for the benefit of the Indians than that of the white population who were relieved of their presence--that besides being fully paid for all the lands they abandoned, and receiving annuities often amounting to thirty dollars a head, and being inducted into the arts of civilized life, they also received in every instance more land than they abandoned, of better quality, better situated for them from its frontier situation, and in the same parallels of latitude. This portion of his message will be read with particular gratification by all persons of humane dispositions, and especially so by all candid persons who had been deluded into the belief of injustice and oppression practised upon these people. He said:

"The plan of removing the aboriginal people who yet remain within the settled portions of the United States, to the country west of the Mississippi River, approaches its consummation. It was adopted on the most mature consideration of the condition of this race, and ought to be persisted in till the object is accomplished, and prosecuted with as much vigor as a just regard to their circumstances will permit, and as fast as their consent can be obtained. All preceding experiments for the improvement of the Indians have failed. It seems now to be an established fact, that they cannot live in contact with a civilized community and prosper. Ages of fruitless endeavors have, at length, brought us to a knowledge of this principle of intercommunication with them. The past we cannot recall, but the future we can provide for. Independently of the treaty stipulations into which we have entered with the various tribes, for the usufructuary rights they have ceded to us, no one can doubt the moral duty of the government of the United States to protect, and, if possible, to preserve and perpetuate, the scattered remnants of this race, which are left within our borders. In the discharge of this duty, an extensive region in the West has been assigned for their permanent residence. It has been divided into districts, and allotted among them. Many have already removed, and others are preparing to go; and with the exception of two small bands, living in Ohio and Indiana, not exceeding 1,500 persons, and of the Cherokees, all the tribes on the east side of the Mississippi, and extending from Lake Michigan to Florida, have entered into engagements which will lead to their transplantation.

"The plan for their removal and re-establishment is founded upon the knowledge we have gained of their character and habits, and has been dictated by a spirit of enlarged liberality. A territory exceeding in extent that relinquished, has been granted to each tribe. Of its climate, fertility, and capacity to support an Indian population, the representations are highly favorable. To these districts the Indians are removed at the expense of the United States, and with certain supplies of clothing, arms, ammunition, and other indispensable articles, they are also furnished gratuitously with provisions for the period of a year after their arrival at their new homes. In that time, from the nature of the country, and of the products raised by them, they can subsist themselves by agricultural labor, if they choose to resort to that mode of life. If they do not, they are upon the skirts of the great prairies, where countless herds of buffalo roam, and a short time suffices to adapt their own habits to the changes which a change of the animals destined for their food may require. Ample arrangements have also been made for the support of schools. In some instances, council-houses and churches are to be erected, dwellings constructed for the chiefs, and mills for common use. Funds have been set apart for the maintenance of the poor. The most necessary mechanical arts have been introduced, and blacksmiths, gunsmiths, wheelwrights, millwrights, &c. are supported among them. Steel and iron, and sometimes salt, are purchased for them, and ploughs and other farming utensils, domestic animals, looms, spinning-wheels, cars, &c., are presented to them. And besides these beneficial arrangements, annuities are in all cases paid, amounting in some instances to more than thirty dollars for each individual of the tribe; and in all cases sufficiently great, if justly divided, and prudently expended, to enable them, in addition to their own exertions, to live comfortably. And as a stimulus for exertion, it is now provided by law, that, 'in all cases of the appointment of interpreters, or other persons employed for the benefit of the Indian, a preference shall be given to persons of Indian descent, if such can be found who are properly qualified for the discharge of the duties.'"

The effect of the revival of the gold currency was a subject of great congratulation with the President, and its influence was felt in every department of industry. Near twenty millions of dollars had entered the country--a sum far above the average circulation of the Bank of the United States in its best days, and a currency of a kind to diffuse itself over the country, and remain where there was a demand for it, and for which, different from a bank paper currency, no interest was paid for its use, and no danger incurred of its becoming useless. He thus referred to this gratifying circumstance:

"Connected with the condition of the finances, and the flourishing state of the country in all its branches of industry, it is pleasing to witness the advantages which have been already derived from the recent laws regulating the value of the gold coinage. These advantages will be more apparent in the course of the next year, when the branch mints authorized to be established in North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana, shall have gone into operation. Aided, as it is hoped they will be, by further reforms in the banking systems of the States, and by judicious regulations on the part of Congress in relation to the custody of the public moneys, it may be confidently anticipated that the use of gold and silver as a circulating medium will become general in the ordinary transactions connected with the labor of the country. The great desideratum, in modern times, is an efficient check upon the power of banks, preventing that excessive issue of paper whence arise those fluctuations in the standard of value which render uncertain the rewards of labor. It was supposed by those who established the Bank of the United States, that, from the credit given to it by the custody of the public moneys, and other privileges, and the precautions taken to guard against the evils which the country had suffered in the bankruptcy of many of the State institutions of that period, we should derive from that institution all the security and benefits of a sound currency, and every good end that was attainable under that provision of the constitution which authorizes Congress alone to coin money and regulate the value thereof. But it is scarcely necessary now to say that these anticipations have not been realized. After the extensive embarrassment and distress recently produced by the Bank of the United States, from which the country is now recovering, aggravated as they were by pretensions to power which defied the public authority, and which, if acquiesced in by the people, would have changed the whole character of our government, every candid and intelligent individual must admit that, for the attainment of the great advantages of a sound currency, we must look to a course of legislation radically different from that which created such an institution."

Railroads were at this time still in their infancy in the United States; they were but few in number and comparatively feeble; but the nature of a monopoly is the same under all circumstances and the United States, in their post-office department, had begun to feel the effects of the extortion and overbearing of monopolizing companies, clothed with chartered privileges intended to be for the public as well as private advantage, but usually perverted to purposes of self-enrichment, and of oppression. The evil had already become so serious as to require the attention of Congress; and the President thus recommended the subject to its consideration:

"Particular attention is solicited to that portion of the report of the postmaster-general which relates to the carriage of the mails of the United States upon railroads constructed by private corporations under the authority of the several States. The reliance which the general government can place on those roads as a means of carrying on its operations, and the principles on which the use of them is to be obtained, cannot too soon be considered and settled. Already does the spirit of monopoly begin to exhibit its natural propensities in attempts to exact from the public, for services which it supposes cannot be obtained on other terms, the most extravagant compensation. If these claims be persisted in, the question may arise whether a combination of citizens, acting under charters of incorporation from the States, can, by a direct refusal or the demand of an exorbitant price, exclude the United States from the use of the established channels of communication between the different sections of the country; and whether the United States cannot, without transcending their constitutional powers, secure to the post-office department the use of those roads, by an act of Congress which shall provide within itself some equitable mode of adjusting the amount of compensation. To obviate, if possible, the necessity of considering this question, it is suggested whether it be not expedient to fix, by law, the amounts which shall be offered to railroad companies for the conveyance of the mails, graduated according to their average weight, to be ascertained and declared by the postmaster-general. It is probable that a liberal proposition of that sort would be accepted."

The subject of slavery took a new turn of disturbance between the North and South about this time. The particular form of annoyance which it now wore was that of the transmission into the slave States, through the United States mail, of incendiary publications, tending to excite servile insurrections. Societies, individuals and foreigners were engaged in this diabolical work--as injurious to the slaves by the further restrictions which it brought upon them, as to the owners whose lives and property were endangered. The President brought this practice to the notice of Congress, with a view to its remedy. He said:

"In connection with these provisions in relation to the post-office department, I must also invite your attention to the painful excitement produced in the South by attempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves, in prints, and in various sorts of publications, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of a servile war. There is doubtless no respectable portion of our countrymen who can be so far misled, as to feel any other sentiment than that of indignant regret at conduct so destructive of the harmony and peace of the country, and so repugnant to the principles of our national compact and to the dictates of humanity and religion. Our happiness and prosperity essentially depend upon peace within our borders: and peace depends upon the maintenance, in good faith, of those compromises of the constitution upon which the Union is founded. It is fortunate for the country that the good sense, the generous feeling, and the deep-rooted attachment of the people of the non-slaveholding States, to the Union, and to their fellow-citizens of the same blood in the South, have given so strong and impressive a tone to the sentiments entertained against the proceedings of the misguided persons who have engaged in these unconstitutional and wicked attempts, and especially against the emissaries from foreign parts, who have dared to interfere in this matter, as to authorize the hope that those attempts will no longer be persisted in. But if these expressions of the public will, shall not be sufficient to effect so desirable a result, not a doubt can be entertained that the non-slaveholding States, so far from countenancing the slightest interference with the constitutional rights of the South, will be prompt to exercise their authority in suppressing, so far as in them lies, whatever is calculated to produce this evil. In leaving the care of other branches of this interesting subject to the State authorities, to whom they properly belong, it is nevertheless proper for Congress to take such measures as will prevent the post-office department, which was designed to foster an amicable intercourse and correspondence between all the members of the confederacy, from being used as an instrument of an opposite character. The general government, to which the great trust is confided of preserving inviolate the relations created among the States, by the constitution, is especially bound to avoid in its own action any thing that may disturb them. I would, therefore, call the special attention of Congress to the subject, and respectfully suggest the propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection."

The President in this impressive paragraph makes a just distinction between the conduct of misguided men, and of wicked emissaries, engaged in disturbing the harmony of the Union, and the patriotic people of the non-slaveholding States who discountenance their work and repress their labors. The former receive the brand of reprobation, and are pointed out for criminal legislation: the latter receive the applause due to good citizens.

The President concludes this message, as he had done many others, with a recurrence to the necessity of reform in the mode of electing the two first officers of the Republic. His convictions must have been deep and strong thus to bring him back so many times to the fundamental point of direct elections by the people, and total suppression of all intermediate agencies. He says:

"I felt it to be my duty in the first message which I communicated to Congress, to urge upon its attention the propriety of amending that part of the constitution which provides for the election of the President and the Vice-President of the United States. The leading object which I had in view was the adoption of some new provision, which would secure to the people the performance of this high duty, without any intermediate agency. In my annual communications since, I have enforced the same views, from a sincere conviction that the best interests of the country would be promoted by their adoption. If the subject were an ordinary one, I should have regarded the failure of Congress to act upon it, as an indication of their judgment, that the disadvantages which belong to the present system were not so great as those which would result from any attainable substitute that had been submitted to their consideration. Recollecting, however, that propositions to introduce a new feature in our fundamental laws cannot be too patiently examined, and ought not to be received with favor, until the great body of the people are thoroughly impressed with their necessity and value, as a remedy for real evils, I feel that in renewing the recommendation I have heretofore made on this subject, I am not transcending the bounds of a just deference to the sense of Congress, or to the disposition of the people. However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system, that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers, at the same time that each is held responsible to the great source of authority, which is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed. My reflection and experience satisfy me, that the framers of the constitution, although they were anxious to mark this feature as a settled and fixed principle in the structure of the government, did not adopt all the precautions that were necessary to secure its practical observance, and that we cannot be said to have carried into complete effect their intentions until the evils which arise from this organic defect are remedied. All history tells us that a free people should be watchful of delegated power, and should never acquiesce in a practice which will diminish their control over it. This obligation, so universal in its application to all the principles of a Republic, is peculiarly so in ours, where the formation of parties, founded on sectional interests, is so much fostered by the extent of our territory. These interests, represented by candidates for the Presidency, are constantly prone, in the zeal of party and selfish objects, to generate influences, unmindful of the general good, and forgetful of the restraints which the great body of the people would enforce, if they were, in no contingency, to lose the right of expressing their will. The experience of our country from the formation of the government to the present day, demonstrates that the people cannot too soon adopt some stronger safeguard for their right to elect the highest officers known to the constitution, than is contained in that sacred instrument as it now stands."

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CXXX. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. Buchanan presented the memorial of the religious society of "Friends," in the State of Pennsylvania, adopted at their Caln quarterly meeting, requesting Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade, in the District of Columbia. He said the memorial did not emanate from fanatics, endeavoring to disturb the peace and security of society in the Southern States, by the distribution of incendiary publications, but from a society of Christians, whose object had always been to promote good-will and peace among men. It was entitled to respect from the character of the memorialists; but he dissented from the opinion which they expressed and the request which they made. The constitution recognized slavery; it existed here; was found here when the District was ceded to the United States; the slaves here were the property of the inhabitants; and he was opposed to the disturbance of their rights. Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the States. That was determined in the first Congress that ever sat--in the Congress which commenced in 1789 and ended in 1791--and in the first session of that Congress. The Religious Society of Friends then petitioned Congress against slavery, and it was resolved, in answer to that petition, that Congress had no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or with their treatment, in any of the States: and that was the answer still to be given. He then adverted to the circumstances under which the memorial was presented. A number of fanatics, led on by foreign incendiaries, have been scattering firebrands through the Southern States--publications and pictures exciting the slaves to revolt, and to the destruction of their owners. Instead of benefiting the slaves by this conduct, they do them the greatest injury, causing the bonds to be drawn tighter upon them; and postponing emancipation even in those States which might eventually contemplate it. These were his opinions on slavery, and on the prayer of this memorial. He was opposed to granting the prayer, but was in favor of receiving the petition as the similar one had been received, in 1790, and giving it the same answer; and, he had no doubt, with the same happy effect of putting an end to such applications, and giving peace and quiet to the country. He could not vote for the motion of the senator from South Carolina, Mr. Calhoun, to reject it. He thought rejection would inflame the question: reception and condemnation would quiet it. Mr. Calhoun had moved to reject all petitions of the kind--not reject upon their merits, after consideration, but beforehand, when presented for reception. This was the starting point of a long and acrimonious contest in the two Houses of Congress, in which the right of petition was maintained on one side, and the good policy of quieting the question by reception and rejection: on the other side, it was held that the rights, the peace, and the dignity of the States required all anti-slavery petitions to be repulsed, at the first presentation, without reception or consideration. The author of this View aspired to no lead in conducting this question; he thought it was one to be settled by policy; that is to say, in the way that would soonest quiet it. He thought there was a clear line of distinction between mistaken philanthropists, and mischievous incendiaries--also between the free States themselves and the incendiary societies and individuals within them; and took an early moment to express these opinions in order to set up the line between what was mistake and what was crime--and between the acts of individuals, on one hand, and of States, on the other; and in that sense delivered the following speech:

"Mr. Benton rose to express his concurrence in the suggestion of the senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Buchanan), that the consideration of this subject be postponed until Monday. It had come up suddenly and unexpectedly to-day, and the postponement would give an opportunity for senators to reflect, and to confer together, and to conclude what was best to be done, where all were united in wishing the same end, namely, to allay, and not to produce, excitement. He had risen for this purpose; but, being on his feet he would say a few words on the general subject, which the presentation of these petitions had so suddenly and unexpectedly brought up. With respect to the petitioners, and those with whom they acted, he had no doubt but that many of them were good people, aiming at benevolent objects, and endeavoring to ameliorate the condition of one part of the human race, without inflicting calamities on another part; but they were mistaken in their mode of proceeding; and so far from accomplishing any part of their object, the whole effect of their interposition was to aggravate the condition of those in whose behalf they were interfering. But there was another part, and he meant to speak of the abolitionists, generally, as the body containing the part of which he spoke; there was another part whom he could not qualify as good people, seeking benevolent ends by mistaken means, but as incendiaries and agitators, with diabolical objects in view, to be accomplished by wicked and deplorable means. He did not go into the proofs now to establish the correctness of his opinion of this latter class, but he presumed it would be admitted that every attempt to work upon the passions of the slaves, and to excite them to murder their owners, was a wicked and diabolical attempt, and the work of a midnight incendiary. Pictures of slave degradation and misery, and of the white man's luxury and cruelty, were attempts of this kind; for they were appeals to the vengeance of slaves, and not to the intelligence or reason of those who legislated for them. He (Mr. B.) had had many pictures of this kind, as well as many diabolical publications, sent to him on this subject, during the last summer; the whole of which he had cast into the fire, and should not have thought of referring to the circumstance at this time, as displaying the character of the incendiary part of the abolitionists, had he not, within these few days past, and while abolition petitions were pouring into the other end of the Capitol, received one of these pictures, the design of which could be nothing but mischief of the blackest dye. It was a print from an engraving (and Mr. B. exhibited it, and handed it to senators near him), representing a large and spreading tree of liberty, beneath whose ample shade a slave owner was at one time luxuriously reposing, with slaves fanning him; at another, carried forth in a palanquin, to view the half-naked laborers in the cotton field, whom drivers, with whips, were scourging to the task. The print was evidently from the abolition mint, and came to him by some other conveyance than that of the mail, for there was no post-mark of any kind to identify its origin, and to indicate its line of march. For what purpose could such a picture be intended, unless to inflame the passions of slaves? And why engrave it, except to multiply copies for extensive distribution? But it was not pictures alone that operated upon the passions of the slaves, but speeches, publications, petitions presented in Congress, and the whole machinery of abolition societies. None of these things went to the understandings of the slaves, but to their passions, all imperfectly understood, and inspiring vague hopes, and stimulating abortive and fatal insurrections. Societies, especially, were the foundation of the greatest mischiefs. Whatever might be their objects, the slaves never did, and never can, understand them but in one way: as allies organized for action, and ready to march to their aid on the first signal of insurrection! It was thus that the massacre of San Domingo was made. The society in Paris, Les Amis des Noirs, Friends of the Blacks, with its affiliated societies throughout France and in London, made that massacre. And who composed that society? In the beginning, it comprised the extremes of virtue and of vice; it contained the best and the basest of human kind! Lafayette and the Abbé Gregoire, those purest of philanthropists; and Marat and Anacharsis Clootz, those imps of hell in human shape. In the end (for all such societies run the same career of degeneration), the good men, disgusted with their associates, retired from the scene; and the wicked ruled at pleasure. Declamations against slavery, publications in gazettes, pictures, petitions to the constituent assembly, were the mode of proceeding; and the fish-women of Paris--he said it with humiliation, because American females had signed the petitions now before us--the fish-women of Paris, the very poissardes from the quays of the Seine, became the obstreperous champions of West India emancipation. The effect upon the French islands is known to the world; but what is not known to the world, or not sufficiently known to it, is that the same societies which wrapt in flames and drenched in blood the beautiful island, which was then a garden and is now a wilderness, were the means of exciting an insurrection upon our own continent: in Louisiana, where a French slave population existed, and where the language of Les Amis des Noirs could be understood, and where their emissaries could glide. The knowledge of this event (Mr. B. said) ought to be better known, both to show the danger of these societies, however distant, and though oceans may roll between them and their victims, and the fate of the slaves who may be excited to insurrection by them on any part of the American continent. He would read the notice of the event from the work of Mr. Charles Gayarre, lately elected by his native State to a seat on this floor, and whose resignation of that honor he sincerely regretted, and particularly for the cause which occasioned it, and which abstracted talent from a station that it would have adorned. Mr. B. read from the work, 'Essai Historique sur la Louisiane:' 'The white population of Louisiana was not the only part of the population which was agitated by the French revolution. The blacks, encouraged without doubt by the success which their race had obtained in San Domingo, dreamed of liberty, and sought to shake off the yoke. The insurrection was planned at Pointe Coupeé, which was then an isolated parish, and in which the number of slaves was considerable. The conspiracy took birth on the plantation of Mr. Julien Poydras, a rich planter, who was then travelling in the United States, and spread itself rapidly throughout the parish. The death of all the whites was resolved. Happily the conspirators could not agree upon the day for the massacre; and from this disagreement resulted a quarrel, which led to the discovery of the plot. The militia of the parish immediately took arms, and the Baron de Carondelet caused them to be supported by the troops of the line. It was resolved to arrest, and to punish the principal conspirators. The slaves opposed it; but they were quickly dispersed, with the loss of twenty of their number killed on the spot. Fifty of the insurgents were condemned to death. Sixteen were executed in different parts of the parish; the rest were put on board a galley and hung at intervals, all along the river, as far as New Orleans (a distance of one hundred and fifty miles). The severity of the chastisement intimidated the blacks, and all returned to perfect order.'

"Resuming his remarks, Mr. B. said he had read this passage to show that our white population had a right to dread, nay, were bound to dread, the mischievous influence of these societies, even when an ocean intervened, and much more when they stood upon the same hemisphere, and within the bosom of the same country. He had also read it to show the miserable fate of their victims, and to warn all that were good and virtuous--all that were honest, but mistaken--in the three hundred and fifty affiliated societies, vaunted by the individuals who style themselves their executive committee, and who date, from the commercial emporium of this Union, their high manifesto against the President; to warn them at once to secede from associations which, whatever may be their designs, can have no other effect than to revive in the Southern States the tragedy, not of San Domingo, but of the parish of Pointe Coupeé.

"Mr. B. went on to say that these societies had already perpetrated more mischief than the joint remainder of all their lives spent in prayers of contrition, and in works of retribution, could ever atone for. They had thrown the state of the emancipation question fifty years back. They had subjected every traveller, and every emigrant, from the non-slaveholding States, to be received with coldness, and viewed with suspicion and jealousy, in the slaveholding States. They had occasioned many slaves to lose their lives. They had caused the deportation of many ten thousands from the grain-growing to the planting States. They had caused the privileges of all slaves to be curtailed, and their bonds to be more tightly drawn. Nor was the mischief of their conduct confined to slaves; it reached the free colored people, and opened a sudden gulf of misery to that population. In all the slave States, this population has paid the forfeit of their intermediate position; and suffered proscription as the instruments, real or suspected, of the abolition societies. In all these States, their exodus had either been enforced or was impending. In Missouri there was a clause in the constitution which prohibited their emigration to the State; but that clause had remained a dead letter in the book until the agitation produced among the slaves by the distant rumbling of the abolition thunder, led to the knowledge in some instances, and to the belief in others, that these people were the antennæ of the abolitionists; and their medium for communicating with the slaves, and for exciting them to desertion first, and to insurrection eventually. Then ensued a painful scene. The people met, resolved, and prescribed thirty days for the exodus of the obnoxious caste. Under that decree a general emigration had to take place at the commencement of winter. Many worthy and industrious people had to quit their business and their homes, and to go forth under circumstances which rendered them objects of suspicion wherever they went, and sealed the door against the acquisition of new friends while depriving them of the protection of old ones. He (Mr. B.) had witnessed many instances of this kind, and had given certificates to several, to show that they were banished, not for their offences, but for their misfortunes; for the misfortune of being allied to the race which the abolition societies had made the object of their gratuitous philanthropy.

"Having said thus much of the abolition societies in the non-slaveholding States, Mr. B. turned, with pride and exultation, to a different theme--the conduct of the great body of the people in all these States. Before he saw that conduct, and while the black question, like a portentous cloud was gathering and darkening on the Northeastern horizon, he trembled, not for the South, but for the Union. He feared that he saw the fatal work of dissolution about to begin, and the bonds of this glorious confederacy about to snap; but the conduct of the great body of the people in all the non-slaveholding States quickly dispelled that fear, and in its place planted deep the strongest assurance of the harmony and indivisibility of the Union which he had felt for many years. Their conduct was above all praise, above all thanks, above all gratitude. They had chased off the foreign emissaries, silenced the gabbling tongues of female dupes, and dispersed the assemblages, whether fanatical, visionary, or incendiary, of all that congregated to preach against evils which afflicted others not them; and to propose remedies to aggravate the disease which they pretended to cure. They had acted with a noble spirit. They had exerted a vigor beyond all law. They had obeyed the enactments, not of the statute book, but of the heart; and while that spirit was in the heart, he cared nothing for laws written in a book. He would rely upon that spirit to complete the good work it has begun; to dry up these societies; to separate the mistaken philanthropist from the reckless fanatic and the wicked incendiary, and put an end to publications and petitions which, whatever may be their design, can have no other effect than to impede the object which they invoke, and to aggravate the evil which they deplore.

"Turning to the immediate question before the Senate, that of the rejection of the petitions, Mr. B. said his wish was to give that vote which would have the greatest effect in putting down these societies. He thought the vote to be given to be rather one of expediency than of constitutional obligation. The clause in the constitution so often quoted in favor of the right of petitioning for a redress of grievances would seem to him to apply rather to the grievances felt by ourselves than to those felt by others, and which others might think an advantage, what we thought a grievance. The petitioners from Ohio think it a grievance that the people of the District of Columbia should suffer the institution of slavery, and pray for the redress of that grievance; the people of the District think the institution an advantage, and want no redress; now, which has the right of petitioning? Looking to the past action of the Senate, Mr. B. saw that, about thirty years ago, a petition against slavery, and that in the States, was presented to this body by the society of Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and that the same question upon its reception was made, and decided by yeas and nays, 19 to 9, in favor of receiving it. He read the names, to show that the senators from the slave and non-slaveholding States voted some for and some against the reception, according to each one's opinion, and not according to the position or the character of the State from which he came. Mr. B. repeated that he thought this question to be one of expediency, and that it was expedient to give the vote which would go furthest towards quieting the public mind. The quieting the South depended upon quieting the North; for when the abolitionists were put down in the former place, the latter would be at ease. It seemed to him, then, that the gentlemen of the non-slaveholding States were the proper persons to speak first. They knew the temper of their own constituents best, and what might have a good or an ill effect upon them, either to increase the abolition fever, or to allay it. He knew that the feeling of the Senate was general; that all wished for the same end; and the senators of the North as cordially as those of the South."

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CXXXI. MAIL CIRCULATION OF INCENDIARY PUBLICATIONS

Mr. Calhoun moved that so much of the President's message as related to the mail transmission of incendiary publications be referred to a select committee. Mr. King, of Alabama, opposed the motion, urging that the only way that Congress could interfere would be by a post-office regulation; and that all such regulation properly referred itself to the committee on post-offices and post-roads. He did not look to the particular construction of the committee, but had no doubt the members of that committee could see the evil of these incendiary transmissions through the mails, and would provide a remedy which they should deem constitutional, proper and adequate; and he expressed a fear that, by giving the subject too much importance, an excitement might be got up. Mr. Calhoun replied that the Senator from Alabama had mistaken his object--that it was not to produce any unnecessary excitement, but to adopt such a course as would secure a committee which would calmly and dispassionately go into an examination of the whole subject; which would investigate the character of those publications, to ascertain whether they were incendiary or not; and, if so, on that ground to put a check on their transmission through the mails. He could not but express his astonishment at the objection which had been taken to his motion, for he knew that the Senator from Alabama felt that deep interest in the subject which pervaded the feelings of every man in the South. He believed that the post-office committee would be fully occupied with the regular business which would be brought before them; and it was this consideration, and no party feeling, which had induced him to make his motion. Mr. Grundy, chairman of the committee on post-offices and post-roads, said that his position was such as to have imposed silence upon him, if that silence might not have been misunderstood. In reply to the objection that a majority of the committee were not from the slave States, that circumstance might be an advantage; it might give the greater weight to their action, which it was known would be favorable to the object of the motion. He would say that the federal government could do but little on this subject except through a post-office regulation, and thereby aiding the efficiency of the State laws. He did not desire to see any power exercised which would have the least tendency to interfere with the sovereignty of the States. Mr. Calhoun adhering to his desire for a select committee, and expressing his belief that a great constitutional question was to be settled, and that the crisis required calmness and firmness, and the action of a committee that came mainly from the endangered part of the Union--his request was granted; and a committee of five appointed, composed as he desired; namely, Mr. Calhoun chairman, Mr. King of Georgia, Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, Mr. Davis of Massachusetts, and Mr. Lewis F. Linn of Missouri. A bill and a report were soon brought in by the committee--a bill subjecting to penalties any post-master who should knowingly receive and put into the mail any publication, or picture touching the subject of slavery, to go into any State or territory in which the circulation of such publication, or picture, should be forbid by the State laws. When the report was read Mr. Mangum moved the printing of 5000 extra copies of it. This motion brought a majority of the committee to their feet, to disclaim their assent to parts of the report; and to absolve themselves from responsibility for its contents. A conversational debate ensued on this point, on which Mr. Davis, Messrs. King of Alabama and Georgia, Mr. Linn and Mr. Calhoun thus expressed themselves:

"Mr. Davis said that, as a motion had been made to print the paper purporting to be a report from the select committee of which he was a member, he would remark that the views contained in it did not entirely meet his approbation, though it contained many things which he approved of. He had risen for no other purpose than to make this statement, lest the impression should go abroad with the report that he assented to those portions of it which did not meet his approbation."

"Mr. King, of Georgia, said that, lest the same misunderstanding should go forth with respect to his views, he must state that the report was not entirely assented to by himself. However, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun), in making this report, had already stated that the majority of the committee did not agree to the whole of it, though many parts of it were concurred in by all."

"Mr. Davis said he would add further, that he might have taken the usual course, and made an additional report, containing all his views on the subject, but thought it hardly worth while, and he had contented himself with making the statement that he had just made."

"Mr. King, of Alabama, said this was a departure from the usual course--by it a minority might dissent; and yet, when the report was published, it would seem to be a report of the committee of the Senate, and not a report of two members of it. It was proper that the whole matter should go together with the bill, that the report submitted by the minority might be read with the bill, to show that the reading of the report was not in conflict with the principles of the bill reported. He thought the senator from North Carolina (Mr. Mangum) had better modify his motion, so as to have the report and bill published together."

"Mr. Linn remarked that, being a member of the committee, it was but proper for him to say that he had assented to several parts of the report, though he did not concur with it in all its parts. Should it become necessary, he would, when the subject again came before the Senate, explain in what particulars he had coincided with the views given in the report, and how far he had dissented from them. The bill, he said, had met with his approbation."

"Mr. Calhoun said he hoped his friend from North Carolina would modify his motion, so as to include the printing of the bill with the report. It would be seen, by comparing both together, that there was no non sequitur in the bill, coming as it did after this report."

"Mr. King, of Alabama, had only stated his impressions from hearing the report and bill read. It appeared to him unusual that a report should be made by a minority, and merely acquiesced in by the committee, and that the bill should be adverse to it."

"Mr. Davis said the report was, as he understood it to be read from the chair, the report of the committee. He had spoken for himself only, and for nobody else, lest the impression might go abroad that he concurred in all parts of the report, when he dissented from some of them."

"Mr. Calhoun said that a majority of the committee did not concur in the report, though there were two members of it, himself and the gentleman from North Carolina, who concurred throughout; three other gentlemen concurred with the greater part of the report, though they dissented from some parts of it; and two gentlemen concurred also with some parts of it. As to the bill, two of the committee would have preferred a different one, though they had rather have that than none at all; another gentleman was opposed to it altogether. The bill, however, was a natural consequence of the report, and the two did not disagree with each other."

The parts of the report which were chiefly exceptionable were two: 1. The part which related to the nature of the federal government, as being founded in "compact;" which was the corner-stone of the doctrine of nullification, and its corollary that the laws of nations were in full force between the several States, as sovereign and independent communities except as modified by the compact; 2. The part that argued, as upon a subsisting danger, the evils by an abolition of slavery in the slave States by interference from other States. On the first of these points the report said:

"That the States which form our Federal Union are sovereign and independent communities, bound together by a constitutional compact, and are possessed of all the powers belonging to distinct and separate States, excepting such as are delegated to be exercised by the general government, is assumed as unquestionable. The compact itself expressly provides that all powers not delegated are reserved to the States and the people. To ascertain, then, whether the power in question is delegated or reserved, it is only necessary to ascertain whether it is to be found among the enumerated powers or not. If it be not among them, it belongs, of course, to the reserved powers. On turning to the constitution, it will be seen that, while the power of defending the country against external danger is found among the enumerated, the instrument is wholly silent as to the power of defending the internal peace and security of the States; and of course, reserves to the States this important power, as it stood before the adoption of the constitution, with no other limitation, as has been stated, except such as are expressly prescribed by the instrument itself. From what has been stated, it may be inferred that the right of a State to defend itself against internal dangers is a part of the great, primary, and inherent right of self-defence, which, by the laws of nature, belongs to all communities; and so jealous were the States of this essential right, without which their independence could not be preserved, that it is expressly provided by the constitution, that the general government shall not assist a State, even in case of domestic violence, except on the application of the authorities of the State itself; thus excluding, by a necessary consequence, its interference in all other cases.

"Having now shown that it belongs to the slaveholding States, whose institutions are in danger, and not to Congress, as is supposed by the message, to determine what papers are incendiary and intended to excite insurrection among the slaves, it remains to inquire, in the next place, what are the corresponding duties of the general government, and the other States, from within whose limits and jurisdiction their institutions are attacked; a subject intimately connected with that with which the committee are immediately charged, and which, at the present juncture, ought to be fully understood by all the parties. The committee will begin with the first. It remains next to inquire into the duty of the States from within whose limits and jurisdiction the internal peace and security of the slaveholding States are endangered. In order to comprehend more fully the nature and extent of their duty, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the relations which exist between the States of our Federal Union, with the rights and obligations reciprocally resulting from such relations. It has already been stated that the States which compose our Federal Union are sovereign and independent communities, united by a constitutional compact. Among its members the laws of nations are in full force and obligation, except as altered or modified by the compact; and, of course, the States possess, with that exception, all the rights, and are subject to all the duties, which separate and distinct communities possess, or to which they are subject. Among these are comprehended the obligation which all States are under to prevent their citizens from disturbing the peace or endangering the security of other States; and in case of being disturbed or endangered, the right of the latter to demand of the former to adopt such measures as will prevent their recurrence, and if refused or neglected, to resort to such measures as its protection may require. This right remains, of course, in force among the States of this Union, with such limitations as are imposed expressly by the constitution. Within their limits, the rights of the slaveholding States are as full to demand of the States within whose limits and jurisdiction their peace is assailed, to adopt the measures necessary to prevent the same, and if refused or neglected, to resort to means to protect themselves, as if they were separate and independent communities."

This part of the report was that which, in founding the federal government in compact, as under the old articles of the confederation, and in bringing the law of nations to apply between the States as independent and sovereign communities, except where limited by the compact, was supposed to contain the doctrine of nullification and secession; and the concluding part of the report is an argument in favor of the course recommended in the Crisis in the event that New-York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania did not suppress the abolition societies. The report continues:

"Their professed object is the emancipation of slaves in the Southern States, which they propose to accomplish through the agencies of organized societies, spread throughout the non-slaveholding States, and a powerful press, directed mainly to excite, in the other States, hatred and abhorrence against the institutions and citizens of the slaveholding States, by addresses, lectures, and pictorial representations, abounding in false and exaggerated statements. If the magnitude of the mischief affords, in any degree, the measure by which to judge of the criminality of a project, few have ever been devised to be compared with the present, whether the end be regarded, or the means by which it is proposed to be accomplished. The blindness of fanaticism is proverbial. With more zeal than understanding, it constantly misconceives the nature of the object at which it aims, and towards which it rushes with headlong violence, regardless of the means by which it is to be effected. Never was its character more fully exemplified than in the present instance. Setting out with the abstract principle that slavery is an evil, the fanatical zealots come at once to the conclusion that it is their duty to abolish it, regardless of all the disasters which must follow. Never was conclusion more false or dangerous. Admitting their assumption, there are innumerable things which, regarded in the abstract, are evils, but which it would be madness to attempt to abolish. Thus regarded, government itself is an evil, with most of its institutions intended to protect life and property, comprehending the civil as well as the criminal and military code, which are tolerated only because to abolish them would be to increase instead of diminishing the evil. The reason is equally applicable to the case under consideration, to illustrate which, a few remarks on slavery, as it actually exists in the Southern States, will be necessary.

"He who regards slavery in those States simply under the relation of master and slave, as important as that relation is, viewed merely as a question of property to the slaveholding section of the Union, has a very imperfect conception of the institution, and the impossibility of abolishing it without disasters unexampled in the history of the world. To understand its nature and importance fully, it must be borne in mind that slavery, as it exists in the Southern States (including under the Southern all the slaveholding States), involves not only the relation of master and slave, but, also, the social and political relations of two races, of nearly equal numbers, from different quarters of the globe, and the most opposite of all others in every particular that distinguishes one race of men from another. Emancipation would destroy these relations--would divest the masters of their property, and subvert the relation, social and political, that has existed between the races from almost the first settlement of the Southern States. It is not the intention of the committee to dwell on the pecuniary aspect of this vital subject, the vast amount of property involved, equal at least to $950,000,000; the ruin of families and individuals; the impoverishment and prostration of an entire section of the Union, and the fatal blow that would be given to the productions of the great agricultural staples, on which the commerce, the navigation, the manufactures, and the revenue of the country, almost entirely depend. As great as these disasters would be, they are nothing, compared to what must follow the subversion of the existing relation between the two races, to which the committee will confine their remarks. Under this relation, the two races have long lived in peace and prosperity, and if not disturbed, would long continue so to live. While the European race has rapidly increased in wealth and numbers, and at the same time has maintained an equality, at least, morally and intellectually, with their brethren of the non-slaveholding States; the African race has multiplied with not less rapidity, accompanied by great improvement, physically and intellectually, and the enjoyment of a degree of comfort with which the laboring class in few countries can compare, and confessedly greatly superior to what the free people of the same race possess in the non-slaveholding States. It may, indeed, be safely asserted, that there is no example in history in which a savage people, such as their ancestors were when brought into the country, have ever advanced in the same period so rapidly in numbers and improvement. To destroy the existing relations would be to destroy this prosperity, and to place the two races in a state of conflict, which must end in the expulsion or extirpation of one or the other. No other can be substituted, compatible with their peace or security. The difficulty is in the diversity of the races. So strongly drawn is the line between the two, in consequence of it, and so strengthened by the force of habit, and education, that it is impossible for them to exist together in the same community, where their numbers are so nearly equal as in the slaveholding States, under any other relation than which now exists. Social and political equality between them is impossible. No power on earth can overcome the difficulty. The causes resisting lie too deep in the principles of our nature to be surmounted. But, without such equality, to change the present condition of the African race, were it possible, would be but to change the form of slavery. It would make them the slaves of the community, instead of the slaves of individuals, with less responsibility and interest in their welfare on the part of the community than is felt by their present masters; while it would destroy the security and independence of the European race, if the African should be permitted to continue in their changed condition within the limits of those States. They would look to the other States for support and protection, and would become, virtually, their allies and dependents; and would thus place in the hands of those States the most effectual instrument to destroy the influence and control the destiny of the rest of the Union. It is against this relation between the two races that the blind and criminal zeal of the abolitionists is directed--a relation that now preserves in quiet and security more than 6,500,000 of human beings, and which cannot he destroyed without destroying the peace and prosperity of nearly half the States of the Union, and involving their entire population in a deadly conflict, that must terminate either in the expulsion or extirpation of those who are the object of the misguided and false humanity of those who claim to be their friends. He must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive that the subversion of a relation which must be followed with such disastrous consequences can only be effected by convulsions that would devastate the country, burst asunder the bonds of Union, and ingulf in a sea of blood the institutions of the country. It is madness to suppose that the slaveholding States would quietly submit to be sacrificed. Every consideration--interest, duty, and humanity, the love of country, the sense of wrong, hatred of oppressors, and treacherous and faithless confederates, and finally despair--would impel them to the most daring and desperate resistance in defence of property, family, country, liberty, and existence. But wicked and cruel as is the end aimed at, it is fully equalled by the criminality of the means by which it is proposed to be accomplished. These, as has been stated, consist in organized societies and a powerful press, directed mainly with a view to excite the bitterest animosity and hatred of the people of the non-slaveholding States against the citizens and institutions of the slaveholding States. It is easy to see to what disastrous results such means must tend. Passing over the more obvious effects, their tendency to excite to insurrection and servile war, with all its horrors, and the necessity which such tendency must impose on the slaveholding States to resort to the most rigid discipline and severe police, to the great injury of the present condition of the slaves, there remains another, threatening incalculable mischief to the country. The inevitable tendency of the means to which the abolitionists have resorted to effect their object must, if persisted in, end in completely alienating the two great sections of the Union. The incessant action of hundreds of societies, and a vast printing establishment, throwing out daily thousands of artful and inflammatory publications, must make, in time, a deep impression on the section of the Union where they freely circulate, and are mainly designed to have effect. Tho well-informed and thoughtful may hold them in contempt, but the young, the inexperienced, the ignorant, and thoughtless, will receive the poison. In process of time, when the number of proselytes is sufficiently multiplied, the artful and profligate, who are ever on the watch to seize on any means, however wicked and dangerous, will unite with the fanatics, and make their movements the basis of a powerful political party, that will seek advancement by diffusing, as widely as possible, hatred against the slaveholding States. But, as hatred begets hatred, and animosity animosity, these feelings would become reciprocal, till every vestige of attachment would cease to exist between the two sections, when the Union and the constitution, the offspring of mutual affection and confidence, would forever perish. Such is the danger to which the movements of the abolitionists expose the country. If the force of the obligation is in proportion to the magnitude of the danger, stronger cannot be imposed, than is at present, on the States within whose limits the danger originates, to arrest its further progress--a duty they owe, not only to the States whose institutions are assailed, but to the Union and constitution, as has been shown, and, it may be added, to themselves."

The insidiousness of this report was in the assumption of an actual impending danger of the abolition of slavery in all the slave States--the destruction of nine hundred and fifty millions of property--the ocean of blood to be shed--the war of extermination between two races--and the necessity for extraordinary means to prevent these dire calamities; when the fact was, that there was not one particle of any such danger. The assumption was contrary to fact: the report was inflammatory and disorganizing: and if there was any thing enigmatical in its conclusions, it was sufficiently interpreted in the contemporaneous publications in the Southern slave States, which were open in their declarations that a cause for separation had occurred, limited only by the conduct of the free States in suppressing within a given time the incendiary societies within their borders. This limitation would throw the responsibility of disunion upon the non-slaveholding States failing to suppress these societies: for disunion, in that case, was foreshadowed in another part of this report, and fully avowed in contemporary Southern publications. Thus the report said:

"Those States, on the other hand, are not only under all the obligations which independent communities would be, to adopt such measures, but also under the obligation which the constitution superadds, rendered more sacred, if possible, by the fact that, while the Union imposes restrictions on the right of the slaveholding States to defend themselves, it affords the medium through which their peace and security are assailed. It is not the intention of the committee to inquire what those restrictions are, and what are the means which, under the constitution, are left to the slaveholding States to protect themselves. The period has not yet come, and they trust never will, when it may be necessary to decide those questions; but come it must, unless the States whose duty it is to suppress the danger shall see in time its magnitude and the obligations which they are under to adopt speedy and effectual measures to arrest its further progress. That the full force of this obligation may be understood by all parties, the committee propose, in conclusion, to touch briefly on the movements of the abolitionists, with the view of showing the dangerous consequences to which they must lead if not arrested."

These were ominous intimations, to receive their full interpretation elsewhere, and indissolubly connecting themselves with the late disunion attitude of South Carolina--the basis of discontent only changed. Mr. King of Georgia said that positions had been assumed and principles insisted upon by Mr. Calhoun, not only inconsistent with the bill reported, but he thought inconsistent with the "existence of the Union itself, and which if established and carried into practice, must hastily end in its dissolution." Mr. Calhoun in his reply pretty well justified these conclusions of the Georgia senator. He made it a point that the non-slaveholding States had done nothing yet to suppress the incendiary societies within their limits; and joining that non-action of these States with a refusal of Congress to pass this bill, he looked upon it as in vain to expect security or protection for the slaveholding States except from themselves--from State interposition, as authorized in the Virginia resolutions of 1798; and as recently carried out by South Carolina in her nullification proceedings; and declared that nothing was wanted but "concert" among themselves to place their domestic institutions, their peace and security under their own protection and beyond the reach of danger. All this was thus intelligibly, and ominously stated in his reply to Mr. King:

"Thus far (I say it with regret) our just hopes have not been realized. The legislatures of the South, backed by the voice their constituents expressed through innumerable meetings, have called upon the non-slaveholding States to repress the movements made within the jurisdiction of those States against their peace and security. Not a step has been taken; not a law has been passed, or even proposed; and I venture to assert that none will be; not but what there is a favorable disposition towards us in the North, but I clearly see the state of political parties there presents insuperable impediments to any legislation on the subject. I rest my opinion on the fact that the non-slaveholding States, from the elements of their population, are, and will continue to be, divided and distracted by parties of nearly equal strength; and that each will always be ready to seize on every movement of the other which may give them the superiority, without much regard to consequences, as affecting their own States, and much less, remote and distant sections. Nor have we been less disappointed as to the proceedings of Congress. Believing that the general government has no right or authority over the subject of slavery, we had just grounds to hope Congress would refuse all jurisdiction in reference to it, in whatever form it might be presented. The very opposite course has been pursued. Abolition petitions have not only been received in both Houses, but received on the most obnoxious and dangerous of all grounds--that we are bound to receive them; that is, to take jurisdiction of the question of slavery whenever the abolitionists may think proper to petition for its abolition, either here or in the States. Thus far, then, we of the slaveholding States have been grievously disappointed. One question still remains to be decided that is presented by this bill. To refuse to pass this bill would be virtually to co-operate with the abolitionists--would be to make the officers and agents of the post-office department in effect their agents and abettors in the circulation of their incendiary publications, in violation of the laws of the States. It is your unquestionable duty, as I have demonstrably proved, to abstain from their violation; and, by refusing or neglecting to discharge that duty, you would clearly enlist, in the existing controversy, on the side of the abolitionists against the Southern States. Should such be your decision, by refusing to pass this bill, I shall say to the people of the South, look to yourselves--you have nothing to hope from others. But I must tell the Senate, be your decision what it may, the South will never abandon the principles of this bill. If you refuse co-operation with our laws, and conflict should ensue between your and our law, the Southern States will never yield to the superiority of yours. We have a remedy in our hands, which, in such events, we shall not fail to apply. We have high authority for asserting that, in such cases, 'State interposition is the rightful remedy'--a doctrine first announced by Jefferson--adopted by the patriotic and republican State of Kentucky by a solemn resolution, in 1798, and finally carried out into successful practice on a recent occasion, ever to be remembered, by the gallant State which I, part, have the honor to represent. In this well-tested and efficient remedy, sustained by the principles developed in the report and asserted in this bill, the slaveholding States have an ample protection. Let it be fixed, let it be riveted in every Southern mind, that the laws of the slaveholding States for the protection of their domestic institutions are paramount to the laws of the general government in regulation of commerce and the mail, and that the latter must yield to the former in the event of conflict; and that, if the government should refuse to yield, the States have a right to interpose, and we are safe. With these principles, nothing but concert would be wanting to bid defiance to the movements of the abolitionists, whether at home or abroad, and to place our domestic institutions, and, with them, our security and peace, under our own protection, and beyond the reach of danger."

These were very significant intimations. Congress itself was to become the ally of the abolitionists, and enlist in their cause, if it did not pass his bill, which was opposed by Southern senators and founded upon a minority report of a Southern committee selected by Mr. Calhoun himself. It was well known it was not to pass; and in view of that fact it was urged upon the South to nullify and secede.

Thus, within two short years after the "compromise" of 1833 had taken Mr. Calhoun out of the hands of the law, he publicly and avowedly relapsed into the same condition; recurring again to secession for a new grievance; and to be resorted to upon contingencies which he knew to be certain; and encouraged in this course by the success of the first trial of strength with the federal government. It has been told at the proper place--in the chapter which gave the secret history of the compromise of 1833--that Mr. Webster refused to go into that measure, saying that the time had come to try the strength of the constitution and of the government: and it now becomes proper to tell that Mr. Clay, after seeing the relapse of Mr. Calhoun, became doubtful of the correctness of his own policy in that affair; and often said to his friends that, "in looking back upon the whole case, he had seriously doubted the policy of his interference." Certainly it was a most deplorable interference, arresting the process of the law when it was on the point of settling every thing without hurting a hair of any man's head, and putting an end to nullification for ever; and giving it a victory, real or fancied, to encourage a new edition of the same proceedings in a far more dangerous and pervading form. But to return to the bill before the Senate.

"Mr. Webster addressed the Senate at length in opposition to the bill, commencing his argument against what he contended was its vagueness and obscurity, in not sufficiently defining what were the publications the circulation of which it intended to prohibit. The bill provided that it should not be lawful for any deputy postmaster, in any State, territory, or district of the United States, knowingly to deliver to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, district, or territory, their circulation was prohibited. Under this provision, Mr. W. contended that it was impossible to say what publications might not be prohibited from circulation. No matter what was the publication, whether for or against slavery, if it touched the subject in any shape or form, it would fall under the prohibition. Even the constitution of the United States might be prohibited; and the person who was clothed with the power to judge in this delicate matter was one of the deputy postmasters, who, notwithstanding the difficulties with which he was encompassed in coming to a correct decision, must decide correctly, under pain of being removed from office. It would be necessary, also, he said, for the deputy postmasters referred to in this bill, to make themselves acquainted with all the various laws passed by the States, touching the subject of slavery, and to decide on them, no matter how variant they might be with each other. Mr. W. also contended that the bill conflicted with that provision in the constitution which prohibited Congress from passing any law to abridge the freedom of speech or of the press. What was the liberty of the press? he asked. It was the liberty of printing as well as the liberty of publishing, in all the ordinary modes of publication; and was not the circulation of papers through the mails an ordinary mode of publication? He was afraid that they were in some danger of taking a step in this matter that they might hereafter have cause to regret, by its being contended that whatever in this bill applies to publications touching slavery, applies to other publications that the States might think proper to prohibit; and Congress might, under this example, be called upon to pass laws to suppress the circulation of political, religious, or any other description of publications which produced excitement in the States. Was this bill in accordance with the general force and temper of the constitution and its amendments? It was not in accordance with that provision of the instrument under which the freedom of speech and of the press was secured. Whatever laws the State legislatures might pass on the subject, Congress was restrained from legislating in any manner whatever, with regard to the press. It would be admitted, that if a newspaper came directed to him, he had a property in it; and how could any man, then, take that property and burn it without due form of law? and he did not know how this newspaper could be pronounced an unlawful publication, and having no property in it, without a legal trial. Mr. W. argued against the right to examine into the nature of publications sent to the post-office, and said that the right of an individual in his papers was secured to him in every free country in the world. In England, it was expressly provided that the papers of the subject shall be free from all unreasonable searches and seizures--language, he said, to be found in our constitution. This principle established in England, so essential to liberty, had been followed out in France, where the right of printing and publishing was secured in the fullest extent; the individual publishing being amenable to the laws for what he published; and every man printed and published what he pleased, at his peril. Mr. Webster went on, at some length, to show that the bill was contrary to that provision of the constitution which prohibits Congress to pass any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press."

Mr. Clay spoke against the bill, saying:

"The evil complained of was the circulation of papers having a certain tendency. The papers, unless circulated, did no harm, and while in the post-office or in the mail, they were not circulated--it was the circulation solely which constituted the evil. It was the taking them out of the mail, and the use that was to be made of them, that constituted the mischief. Then it was perfectly competent to the State authorities to apply the remedy. The instant that a prohibited paper was handed out, whether to a citizen or sojourner, he was subject to the laws which might compel him either to surrender them or burn them. He considered the bill not only unnecessary, but as a law of a dangerous, if not a doubtful, authority. It was objected that it was vague and indefinite in its character; and how is that objection got over? The bill provided that it shall not be lawful for any deputy postmaster, in any State, territory, or district of the United States, knowingly to deliver to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, territory, or district, their circulation is prohibited. Now, what could be more vague and indefinite than this description? Now, could it be decided, by this description, what publications should be withheld from distribution? The gentleman from Pennsylvania said that the laws of the States would supply the omission. He thought the senator was premature in saying that there would be precision in State laws, before he showed it by producing the law. He had seen no such law, and he did not know whether the description in the bill was applicable or not. There was another objection to this part of the bill; it applied not only to the present laws of the States, but to any future laws that might pass. Mr. C. denied that the bill applied to the slaveholding States only; and went on to argue that it could be applied to all the States, and to any publication touching the subject of slavery whatever, whether for or against it, if such publication was only prohibited by the laws of such State. Thus, for instance, a non-slaveholding State might prohibit publications in defence of the institution of slavery, and this bill would apply to it as well as to the laws of the slaveholding States; but the law would be inoperative: it declared that the deputy postmaster should not be amenable, unless he knowingly shall deliver, &c. Why, the postmaster might plead ignorance, and of course the law would be inoperative.

"But he wanted to know whence Congress derived the power to pass this law. It was said that it was to carry into effect the laws of the States. Where did they get such authority? He thought that their only authority to pass laws was in pursuance of the constitution; but to pass laws to carry into effect the laws of the States, was a most prolific authority, and there was no knowing where it was to stop; it would make the legislation of Congress dependent upon the legislation of twenty-four different sovereignties. He thought the bill was of a most dangerous tendency. The senator from Pennsylvania asked if the post-office power did not give them the right to regulate what should be carried in the mails. Why, there was no such power as that claimed in the bill; and if they passed such a law, it would be exercising a most dangerous power. Why, if such doctrine prevailed, the government might designate the persons, or parties, or classes, who should have the benefit of the mails, excluding all others."

At last the voting came on; and, what looks sufficiently curious on the outside view, there were three tie votes successively--two on amendments, and one on the engrossment of the bill. The two ties on amendments stood fifteen to fifteen--the absentees being eighteen: one third of the Senate: the tie on engrossment was eighteen to eighteen--the absentees being twelve: one fourth of the Senate. It was Mr. Calhoun who called for the yeas and nays on each of these questions. It was evident that there was a design to throw the bill into the hands of the Vice-President--a New-Yorker, and the prominent candidate for the presidency. In committee of the whole he did not vote in the case of a tie; but it was necessary to establish an equilibrium of votes there to be ready for the immediate vote in Senate on the engrossment; and when the committee tie was deranged by the accession of three votes on one side, the equilibrium was immediately re-established by three on the other. Mr. Van Buren, at the moment of this vote (on the engrossment) was out of the chair, and walking behind the colonnade back of the presiding officer's chair. My eyes were wide open to what was to take place. Mr. Calhoun, not seeing him, eagerly and loudly asked where was the Vice-President? and told the Sergeant-at-arms to look for him. But he needed no looking for. He was within hearing of all that passed, and ready for the contingency: and immediately stepping up to his chair, and standing up, promptly gave the casting vote in favor of the engrossment. I deemed it a political vote, that is to say, given from policy; and I deemed it justifiable under the circumstances. Mr. Calhoun had made the rejection of the bill a test of alliance with Northern abolitionists, and a cause for the secession of the Southern States: and if the bill had been rejected by Van Buren's vote, the whole responsibility of its loss would have been thrown upon him and the North; and the South inflamed against those States and himself--the more so as Mr. White, of Tennessee, the opposing democratic candidate for the presidency, gave his votes for the bill. Mr. Wright also, as I believe, voted politically, and on all the votes both in the committee and the Senate. He was the political and the personal friend of the Vice-President, most confidential with him, and believed to be the best index to his opinions. He was perfectly sensible of his position, and in every vote on the subject voted with Mr. Calhoun. Several other senators voted politically, and without compunction, although it was a bad bill, as it was known it would not pass. The author of this View would not so vote. He was tired of the eternal cry of dissolving the Union--did not believe in it--and would not give a repugnant vote to avoid the trial. The tie vote having been effected, and failed of its expected result, the Senate afterwards voted quite fully on the final passage of the bill, and rejected it--twenty-five to nineteen: only four absent. The yeas were: Messrs. Black, Bedford, Brown, Buchanan, Calhoun, Cuthbert of Georgia, Grundy, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Mangum, Moore, Nicholas of Louisiana, Alexander Porter, Preston of South Carolina, Rives, Robinson, Tallmadge, Walker of Mississippi, White of Tennessee, Silas Wright. The nays were: Messrs. Benton, Clay, Crittenden, Davis of Massachusetts, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough of Maryland, Hendricks, Hubbard, Kent, Knight, Leigh, McKean of Pennsylvania, Thomas Morris of Ohio, Naudain of Delaware, Niles of Connecticut, Prentiss, Ruggles, Shepley, Southard, Swift, Tipton, Tomlinson, Wall of New Jersey, Webster: majority six against the bill; and seven of them, if the solecism may be allowed, from the slave States. And thus was accomplished one of the contingencies in which "State interposition" was again to be applied--the "rightful remedy of nullification" again resorted to--and the "domestic institutions" of the Southern States, by "concert" among themselves, "to be placed beyond the reach of danger."

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Chapter CXXXII

FRENCH AFFAIRS--APPROACH OF A FRENCH SQUADRON--APOLOGY REQUIRED.

In his annual message at the commencement of the session the President gave a general statement of our affairs with France, and promised a special communication on the subject at an early day. That communication was soon made, and showed a continued refusal on the part of France to pay the indemnity, unless an apology was first made; and also showed that a French fleet was preparing for the American seas, under circumstances which implied a design either to overawe the American government, or to be ready for expected hostilities. On the subject of the apology, the message said:

"Whilst, however, the government of the United States was awaiting the movements of the French government, in perfect confidence that the difficulty was at an end, the Secretary of State received a call from the French chargé d'affaires in Washington, who desired to read to him a letter he had received from the French minister of foreign affairs. He was asked whether he was instructed or directed to make any official communication, and replied that he was only authorized to read the letter, and furnish a copy if requested. It was an attempt to make known to the government of the United States, privately, in what manner it could make explanations, apparently voluntary, but really dictated by France, acceptable to her, and thus obtain payment of the twenty-five millions of francs. No exception was taken to this mode of communication, which is often used to prepare the way for official intercourse; but the suggestions made in it were, in their substance, wholly inadmissible. Not being in the shape of an official communication to this government, it did not admit of reply or official notice; nor could it safely be made the basis of any action by the Executive or the legislature; and the Secretary of State did not think proper to ask a copy, because he could have no use for it."

One cannot but be struck with the extreme moderation with which the President gives the history of this private attempt to obtain a dictated apology from him. He recounts it soberly and quietly, without a single expression of irritated feeling; and seems to have met and put aside the attempt in the same quiet manner, it was a proof of his extreme indisposition to have any collision with France, and of his perfect determination to keep himself on the right side in the controversy, whatever aspect it might assume. But that was not the only trial to which his temper was put. The attempt to obtain the apology being civilly repulsed, and the proffered copy of the dictated terms refused to be taken, an attempt was made to get that copy placed upon the archives of the government, with the view to its getting to Congress, and through Congress to the people; to become a point of attack upon the President for not giving the apology, and thereby getting the money from France, and returning to friendly relations with her. Of this attempt to get a refused paper upon our archives, and to make it operate as an appeal to the people against their own government, the President (still preserving all his moderation), gives this account:

"Copies of papers, marked Nos. 9, 10, and 11 show an attempt on the part of the French chargé d'affaires, many weeks afterwards, to place a copy of this paper among the archives of this government, which for obvious reasons, was not allowed to be done; but the assurance before given was repeated, that any official communication which he might be authorized to make in the accustomed form would receive a prompt and just consideration. The indiscretion of this attempt was made more manifest by the subsequent avowal of the French chargé d'affaires, that the object was to bring the letter before Congress and the American people. If foreign agents, on a subject of disagreement between their government and this, wish to prefer an appeal to the American people, they will hereafter, it is hoped, better appreciate their own rights, and the respect due to others, than to attempt to use the Executive as the passive organ of their communications. It is due to the character of our institutions that the diplomatic intercourse of this government should be conducted with the utmost directness and simplicity, and that, in all cases of importance, the communications received or made by the Executive should assume the accustomed official form. It is only by insisting on this form that foreign powers can be held to full responsibility; that their communications can be officially replied to; or that the advice or interference of the legislature can, with propriety, be invited by the President. This course is also best calculated, on the one hand, to shield that officer from unjust suspicions; and, on the other, to subject this portion of his acts to public scrutiny, and, if occasion shall require it, to constitutional animadversion. It was the more necessary to adhere to these principles in the instance in question, inasmuch as, in addition to other important interests, it very intimately concerned the national honor; a matter, in my judgment, much too sacred to be made the subject of private and unofficial negotiation."

Having shown the state of the question, the President next gave his opinion of what ought to be done by Congress; which was, the interdiction of our ports to the entry of French vessels and French products:--a milder remedy than that of reprisals which he had recommended at the previous session. He said:

"It is time that this unequal position of affairs should cease, and that legislative action should be brought to sustain Executive exertion in such measures as the case requires. While France persists in her refusal to comply with the terms of a treaty, the object of which was, by removing all causes of mutual complaint, to renew ancient feelings of friendship, and to unite the two nations in the bonds of amity, and of a mutually beneficial commerce, she cannot justly complain if we adopt such peaceful remedies as the law of nations and the circumstances of the case may authorize and demand. Of the nature of these remedies I have heretofore had occasion to speak; and, in reference to a particular contingency, to express my conviction that reprisals would be best adapted to the emergency then contemplated. Since that period, France, by all the departments of her government, has acknowledged the validity of our claims and the obligations of the treaty, and has appropriated the moneys which are necessary to its execution; and though payment is withheld on grounds vitally important to our existence as an independent nation, it is not to be believed that she can have determined permanently to retain a position so utterly indefensible. In the altered state of the questions in controversy, and under all existing circumstances, it appears to me that, until such a determination shall have become evident, it will be proper and sufficient to retaliate her present refusal to comply with her engagements by prohibiting the introduction of French products and the entry of French vessels into our ports. Between this and the interdiction of all commercial intercourse, or other remedies, you, as the representatives of the people, must determine. I recommend the former, in the present posture of our affairs, as being the least injurious to our commerce, and as attended with the least difficulty of returning to the usual state of friendly intercourse, if the government of France shall render us the justice that is due; and also as a proper preliminary step to stronger measures, should their adoption be rendered necessary by subsequent events."

This interdiction of the commerce of France, though a milder measure than that of reprisals, would still have been a severe one--severe at any time, and particularly so since the formation of this treaty, the execution of which was so much delayed by France; for that was a treaty of two parts--something to be done on each side. On the part of France to pay us indemnities: on our side to reduce the duties on French wines: and this reduction had been immediately made by Congress, to take effect from the date of the ratification of the treaty; and the benefit of that reduction had now been enjoyed by French commerce for near four years. But that was not the only benefit which this treaty brought to France from the good feeling it produced in America: it procured a discrimination in favor of silks imported from this side of the Cape of Good Hope--a discrimination inuring, and intended to inure, to the benefit of France. The author of this View was much instrumental in procuring that discrimination, and did it upon conversations with the then resident French minister at Washington, and founding his argument upon data derived from him. The data were to show that the discrimination would be beneficial to the trade of both countries; but the inducing cause was good-will to France, and a desire to bury all recollection of past differences in our emulation of good works. This view of the treaty, and a statement of the advantages which France had obtained from it, was well shown by Mr. Buchanan in his speech in support of the message on French affairs; in which be said:

"The government of the United States proceeded immediately to execute their part of the treaty. By the act of the 13th July, 1832, the duties on French wines were reduced according to its terms, to take effect from the day of the exchange of ratifications. At the same session, the Congress of the United States, impelled, no doubt, by their kindly feelings towards France, which had been roused into action by what they believed to be a final and equitable settlement of all our disputes, voluntarily reduced the duty upon silks coming from this side of the Cape of Good Hope, to five per cent., whilst those from beyond were fixed at ten per cent. And at the next session, on the 2d of March, 1833, this duty of five per cent. was taken off altogether; and ever since, French silks have been admitted into our country free of duty. There is now, in fact, a discriminating duty of ten per cent. in their favor, over silks from beyond the Cape of Good Hope.

"What has France gained by these measures in duties on her wines and her silks, which she would otherwise have been bound to pay? I have called upon the Secretary of the Treasury, for the purpose of ascertaining the amount. I now hold in my hand a tabular statement, prepared at my request, which shows, that had the duties remained what they were, at the date of the ratification of the treaty, these articles, since that time would have paid into the Treasury, on the 30th September, 1834, the sum of $3,061,525. Judging from the large importations which have since been made, I feel no hesitation in declaring it as my opinion, that, at the present moment, these duties would amount to more than the whole indemnity which France has engaged to pay to our fellow-citizens. Before the conclusion of the ten years mentioned in the treaty, she will have been freed from the payment of duties to an amount considerably above twelve millions of dollars."

It is almost incomprehensible that there should have been such delay in complying with a treaty on the part of France bringing her such advantages; and it is due to the King, Louis Philippe to say, that he constantly referred the delay to the difficulty of getting the appropriation through the French legislative chambers. He often applied for the appropriation, but could not venture to make it an administration question; and the offensive demand for the apology came from that quarter, in the shape of an unprecedented proviso to the law (when it did pass), that the money was not to be paid until there had been an apology. The only objection to the King's conduct was that he did not make the appropriation a cabinet measure, and try issues with the chambers; but that objection has become less since; and in fact totally disappeared, from seeing a few years afterwards, the ease with which the King was expelled from his throne, and how unable he was to try issues with the chambers. The elder branch of the Bourbons, and all their adherents, were unfriendly to the United States, considering the American revolution as the cause of the French revolution; and consequently the source of all their twenty-five years of exile, suffering and death. The republicans were also inimical to him, and sided with the legitimists.

The President concluded his message with stating that a large French naval armament was under orders for our seas; and said:

"Of the cause and intent of these armaments I have no authentic information, nor any other means of judging, except such as are common to yourselves and to the public; but whatever may be their object, we are not at liberty to regard them as unconnected with the measures which hostile movements on the part of France may compel us to pursue. They at least deserve to be met by adequate preparations on our part, and I therefore strongly urge large and speedy appropriations for the increase of the navy, and the completion of our coast defences.

"If this array of military force be really designed to affect the action of the government and people of the United States on the questions now pending between the two nations, then indeed would it be dishonorable to pause a moment on the alternative which such a state of things would present to us. Come what may, the explanation which France demands can never be accorded; and no armament, however powerful and imposing, at a distance, or on our coast, will, I trust, deter us from discharging the high duties which we owe to our constituents, to our national character, and to the world."

Mr. Buchanan sustained the message in a careful and well-considered review of this whole French question, showing that the demand of an apology was an insult in aggravation of the injury, and could not be given without national degradation; joining the President in his call for measures for preserving the rights and honor of the country; declaring that if hostilities came they were preferable to disgrace, and that the whole world would put the blame on France. Mr. Calhoun took a different view of it, declaring that the state of our affairs with France was the effect of the President's mismanagement, and that if war came it would be entirely his fault; and affirmed his deliberate belief that it was the President's design to have war with France. He said:

"I fear that the condition in which the country is now placed has been the result of a deliberate and systematic policy. I am bound to speak my sentiments freely. It is due to my constituents and the country, to act with perfect candor and truth on a question in which their interests is so deeply involved. I will not assert that the Executive has deliberately aimed at war from the commencement; but I will say that, from the beginning of the controversy to the present moment, the course which the President has pursued is precisely the one calculated to terminate in a conflict between the two nations. It has been in his power, at every period, to give the controversy a direction by which the peace of the country might be preserved, without the least sacrifice of reputation or honor; but he has preferred the opposite. I feel (said Mr. C.) how painful it is to make these declarations; how unpleasant it is to occupy a position which might, by any possibility, be construed in opposition to our country's cause; but, in my conception, the honor and the interests of the country can only be maintained by pursuing the course that truth and justice may dictate. Acting under this impression, I do not hesitate to assert, after a careful examination of the documents connected with this unhappy controversy, that, if war must come, we are the authors--we are the responsible party. Standing, as I fear we do, on the eve of a conflict, it would to me have been a source of pride and pleasure to make an opposite declaration; but that sacred regard to truth and justice, which, I trust, will ever be my guide under the most difficult circumstances, would not permit."

Mr. Benton maintained that it was the conduct of the Senate at the last session which had given to the French question its present and hostile aspect: that the belief of divided counsels, and of a majority against the President, and that we looked to money and not to honor, had encouraged the French chambers to insult us by demanding an apology, and to attempt to intimidate us by sending a fleet upon our coasts. He said:

"It was in March last that the three millions and the fortification bill were lost; since then the whole aspect of the French question is changed. The money is withheld, and explanation is demanded, an apology is prescribed, and a French fleet approaches. Our government, charged with insulting France, when no insult was intended by us, and none can be detected in our words by her, is itself openly and vehemently insulted. The apology is to degrade us; the fleet to intimidate us; and the two together constitute an insult of the gravest character. There in no parallel to it, except in the history of France herself; but not France of the 19th century, nor even of the 18th, but in the remote and ill-regulated times of the 17th century, and in the days of the proudest of the French Kings, and towards one of the smallest Italian republics. I allude, sir, to what happened between Louis XIV. and the Doge of Genoa, and will read the account of it from the pen of Voltaire, in his Age of Louis XIV.

"'The Genoese had built four galleys for the service of Spain; the King (of France) forbade them, by his envoy, St. Olon, one of his gentlemen in ordinary, to launch those galleys. The Genoese, incensed at this violation of their liberties, and depending too much on the support of Spain, refused to obey the order. Immediately fourteen men of war, twenty galleys, ten bomb-ketches, with several frigates, set sail from the port of Toulon. They arrived before Genoa, and the ten bomb-ketches discharged 14,000 shells into the town, which reduced to ashes a principal part of those marble edifices which had entitled this city to the name of Genoa the Proud. Four thousand men were then landed, who marched up to the gates, and burnt the suburb of St. Peter, of Arena. It was now thought prudent to submit, in order to prevent the total destruction of the city. The King exacted that the Doge of Genoa, with four of the principal senators, should come and implore his clemency in the palace of Versailles; and, lest the Genoese should elude the making this satisfaction, and lessen in any manner the pomp of it, he insisted further that the Doge, who was to perform this embassy, should be continued in his magistracy, notwithstanding the perpetual law of Genoa, which deprives the Doge of his dignity who is absent but a moment from the city. Imperialo Lercaro, Doge of Genoa, attended by the senators Lomellino, Garibaldi, Durazzo, and Salvago, repaired to Versailles, to submit to what was required of him. The Doge appeared in his robes of state, his head covered with a bonnet of red velvet, which he often took off during his speech; made his apology, the very words and demeanor of which were dictated and prescribed to him by Seignelai,' (the French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs).

"Thus, said Mr. B., was the city of Genoa, and its Doge, treated by Louis XIV. But it was not the Doge who was degraded by this indignity, but the republic of which he was chief magistrate, and all the republics of Italy, besides, which felt themselves all humbled by the outrage which a king had inflicted upon one of their number. So of the apology demanded, and of the fleet sent upon us, and in presence of which President Jackson, according to the Constitutionnel, is to make his decision, and to remit it to the Tuileries. It is not President Jackson that is outraged, but the republic of which he is President; and all existing republics, wheresoever situated. Our whole country is insulted, and that is the feeling of the whole country; and this feeling pours in upon us every day, in every manner in which public sentiment can be manifested, and especially in the noble resolves of the States whose legislatures are in session, and who hasten to declare their adherence to the policy of the special message. True, President Jackson is not required to repair to the Tuileries, with four of his most obnoxious senators, and there recite, in person, to the King of the French, the apology which he had first rehearsed to the Duke de Broglie; true, the bomb-ketches of Admiral Mackau have not yet fired 14,000 shells on one of our cities; but the mere demand for an apology, the mere dictation of its terms, and the mere advance of a fleet, in the present state of the world, and in the difference of parties, is a greater outrage to us than the actual perpetration of the enormities were to the Genoese. This is not the seventeenth century. President Jackson is not the Doge of a trading city. We are not Italians, to be trampled upon by European kings; but Americans, the descendants of that Anglo-Saxon race, which, for a thousand years, has known how to command respect, and to preserve its place at the head of nations. We are young, but old enough to prove that the theory of the Frenchman, the Abbé Raynal, is as false in its application to the people of this hemisphere as it is to the other productions of nature; and that the belittling tendencies of the New World are no more exemplified in the human race than they are in the exhibition of her rivers and her mountains, and in the indigenous races of the mammoth and the mastodon. The Duke de Broglie has made a mistake, the less excusable, because he might find in his own country, and perhaps in his own family, examples of the extreme criticalness of attempting to overawe a community of freemen. There was a Marshal Broglie, who was Minister at War, at the commencement of the French Revolution, and who advised the formation of a camp of 20,000 men to overawe Paris. The camp was formed. Paris revolted; captured the Bastile; marched to Versailles; stormed the Tuileries; overset the monarchy; and established the Revolution. So much for attempting to intimidate a city. And yet, here is a nation of freemen to be intimidated: a republic of fourteen millions of people, and descendants of that Anglo-Saxon race which, from the days of Agincourt and Cressy, of Blenheim and Ramillies, down to the days of Salamanca and Waterloo, have always known perfectly well how to deal with the impetuous and fiery courage of the French."

Mr. Benton also showed that there was a party in the French Chambers, working to separate the President of the United States from the people of the United States, and to make him responsible for the hostile attitude of the two countries. In this sense acted the deputy, Mons. Henry de Chabaulon, who spoke thus:

"The insult of President Jackson comes from himself only. This is more evident, from the refusal of the American Congress to concur with him in it. The French Chamber, by interfering, would render the affair more serious, and make its arrangement more difficult, and even dangerous. Let us put the case to ourselves. Suppose the United States had taken part with General Jackson, we should have had to demand satisfaction, not from him, but from the United States; and, instead of now talking about negotiation, we should have had to make appropriations for a war, and to intrust to our heroes of Navarino and Algiers the task of teaching the Americans that France knows the way to Washington as well as England."

This language was received with applause in the Chamber, by the extremes. It was the language held six weeks after the rise of Congress, and when the loss of the three millions asked by the President for contingent preparation, and after the loss of the fortification bill, were fully known in Paris. Another speaker in the Chamber, Mons. Rancé, was so elated by these losses as to allow himself to discourse thus:

"Gentlemen, we should put on one side of the tribune the twenty-five millions, on the other the sword of France. When the Americans see this good long sword, this very long sword, gentlemen (for it struck down every thing from Lisbon to Moscow), they will perhaps recollect what it did for the independence of their country; they will, perhaps, too, reflect upon what it could do to support and avenge the honor and dignity of France, when outraged by an ungrateful people. [Cries of 'well said!'] Believe me, gentlemen, they would sooner touch your money than dare to touch your sword; and for your twenty-five millions they will bring you back the satisfactory receipt, which it is your duty to exact."

And this also was received with great approbation, in the Chamber, by the two extremes and was promptly followed by two royal ordinances, published in the Moniteur, under which the Admiral Mackau was to take command of a "squadron of observation," and proceed to the West Indies. The Constitutionnel, the demi-official paper of the government, stated that this measure was warranted by the actual state of the relations between France and the United States--that the United States had no force to oppose to it--and applauded the government for its foresight and energy. Mr. Benton thus commented upon the approach of this French squadron:

"A French fleet of sixty vessels of war, to be followed by sixty more, now in commission, approaches our coast; and approaches it for the avowed purpose of observing our conduct, in relation to France. It is styled, in the French papers, a squadron of observation; and we are sufficiently acquainted with the military vocabulary of France to know what that phrase means. In the days of the great Emperor, we were accustomed to see the armies which demolished empires at a blow, wear that pacific title up to the moment that the blow was ready to be struck. These grand armies assembled on the frontiers of empires, gave emphasis to negotiation, and crushed what resisted. A squadron of observation, then, is a squadron of intimidation first, and of attack eventually; and nothing could be more palpable than that such was the character of the squadron in question. It leaves the French coast contemporaneously with the departure of our diplomatic agent, and the assembling of our Congress; it arrives upon our coast at the very moment that we shall have to vote upon French affairs; and it takes a position upon our Southern border--that border, above all others, on which we are, at this time, peculiarly sensitive to hostile approach.

"What have we done, continued Mr. B., to draw this squadron upon us? We have done no wrong to France; we are making no preparations against her; and not even ordinary preparations for general and permanent security. We have treaties, and are executing them, even the treaty that she does not execute. We have been executing that treaty for four years, and may say that we have paid France as much under it as we have in vain demanded from her, as the first instalment of the indemnity; not, in fact, by taking money out of our treasury and delivering to her, but, what is better for her, namely, leaving her own money in her own hands, in the shape of diminished duties upon her wines, as provided for in this same treaty, which we execute, and which she does not. In this way, France has gained one or two millions of dollars from us, besides the encouragement to her wine trade. On the article of silks, she is also gaining money from us in the same way, not by treaty, but by law. Our discriminating duties in favor of silks, from this side the Cape of Good Hope, operate almost entirely in her favor. Our great supplies of silks are from France, England, and China. In four years, and under the operation of this discriminating duty, our imports of French silks have risen from two millions of dollars per annum to six millions and a half; from England, they have risen from a quarter of a million to three quarters; from China, they have sunk from three millions and a quarter to one million and a quarter. This discriminating duty has left between one and two millions of dollars in the pockets of Frenchmen, besides the encouragement to the silk manufacture and trade. Why, then, has she sent this squadron, to observe us first, and to strike us eventually? She knows our pacific disposition towards her not only from our own words and actions, but from the official report of her own officers: from the very officer sent out last spring, in a brig, to carry back the recalled minister."

Mr. Benton then went on to charge the present state of our affairs with France distinctly and emphatically upon the conduct of the Senate, in their refusal to attend to the national defences--in their opposition to the President--and in the disposition manifested rather to pull down the President, in a party contest, than to sustain him against France--rather to plunder their own country than to defend it, by taking the public money for distribution instead of defence. To this effect, he said:

"He had never spoken unkindly of the French nation, neither in his place here, as a senator, nor in his private capacity elsewhere. Born since the American Revolution, bred up in habitual affection for the French name, coming upon the stage of life when the glories of the republic and of the empire were filling the world and dazzling the imagination, politically connected with the party which, a few years ago, was called French, his bosom had glowed with admiration for that people; and youthful affection had ripened into manly friendship. He would not now permit himself to speak unkindly, much less to use epithets; but he could not avoid fixing his attention upon the reason assigned in the Constitutionnel for the present advance of the French squadron upon us. That reason is this: 'America will have no force capable of being opposed to it.' This is the reason. Our nakedness, our destitution, has drawn upon us the honor of this visit; and we are now to speak, and vote, and so to demean ourselves, as men standing in the presence of a force which they cannot resist, and which had taught the lesson of submission to the Turk and the Arab! And here I change the theme: I turn from French intimidation to American legislation; and I ask how it comes that we have no force to oppose to this squadron which comes here to take a position upon our borders, and to show us that it knows the way to Washington as well as the English? This is my future theme; and I have to present the American Senate as the responsible party for leaving our country in this wretched condition. First, there is the three million appropriation which was lost by the opposition of the Senate, and which carried down with it the whole fortification bill, to which it was attached. That bill, besides the three millions, contained thirteen specific appropriations for works of defence, part originating in the House of Representatives, and part in the Senate, and appropriating $900,000 to the completion and armament of forts.

"All these specific appropriations, continued Mr. B., were lost in the bill which was sunk by the opposition of the Senate to the three millions, which were attached to it by the House of Representatives. He (Mr. B.) was not a member of the conference committee which had the disagreement of the two Houses committed to its charge, and could go into no detail as to what happened in that conference; he took his stand upon the palpable ground that the opposition which the Senate made to the three million appropriation, the speeches which denounced it, and the prolonged invectives against the President, which inflamed the passions and consumed the precious time at the last moment of the session, were the true causes of the loss of that bill; and so leaves the responsibility for the loss on the shoulders of the Senate.

"Mr. B. recalled attention to the reason demi-officially assigned in the Constitutionnel, for the approach of the French fleet of observation, and to show that it came because 'America had no force capable of being opposed to it.' It was a subsidiary argument, and a fair illustration of the dangers and humiliations of a defenceless position. It should stimulate us to instant and vigorous action; to the concentration of all our money, and all our hands, to the sacred task of national defence. For himself, he did not believe there would be war, because he knew that there ought not to be war; but that belief would have no effect upon his conduct. He went for national defence, because that policy was right in itself, without regard to times and circumstances. He went for it now, because it was the response, and the only response, which American honor could give to the visit of Admiral Mackau. Above all, he went for it because it was the way, and the only manly way, of letting France know that she had committed a mistake in sending this fleet upon us. In conclusion, he would call for the yeas and nays, and remark that our votes would have to be given under the guns of France, and under the eyes of Europe."

The reproach cast by Mr. Benton on the conduct of the Senate, in causing the loss of the defence bills, and the consequent insult from France, brought several members to their feet in defence of themselves and the body to which they belonged.

"Mr. Webster said his duty was to take care that neither in nor out of the Senate there should be any mistake, the effect of which should be to produce an impression unfavorable or reproachful to the character and patriotism of the American people. He remembered the progress of that bill (the bill alluded to by Mr. Benton), the incidents of its history, and the real cause of its loss. And he would satisfy any man that the loss of it was not attributable to any member or officer of the Senate. He would not, however, do so until the Senate should again have been in session on executive business. As soon as that took place, he should undertake to show that it was not to any dereliction of duty on the part of the Senate that the loss of that bill was to be attributed.

"Mr. Preston of South Carolina said every senator had concurred in general appropriations to put the navy and army in a state of defence. This undefined appropriation was not the only exception. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Benton) had said this appropriation was intended to operate as a permanent defence. The senator from Missouri (Mr. Benton) had preferred a general indictment against the Senate before the people of the United States. It was strange the gentleman should ask the departments for calculations to enable us to know how much was necessary to appropriate, when the information was not given to us when we rejected the undefined appropriations. I rejoice, said Mr. P., that the gentleman has said even to my fears there will be no French war. France was not going to squabble with America on a little point of honor, that might do for duellists to quarrel about, but not for nations. There was no reason why blood should be poured out like water in righting this point of honor. If this matter was placed on its proper basis, his hopes would be lit up into a blaze of confidence. The President had recommended making reprisals, if France refused payment. France had refused, but the remedy was not pursued. It may be, said he, that this fleet is merely coming to protect the commerce of France. If the President of the United States, at the last session of Congress, had suggested the necessity of making this appropriation, we would have poured out the treasury; we would have filled his hands for all necessary purposes. There was one hundred thousand dollars appropriated that had not been called for. He did not know whether he was permitted to go any further and say to what extent any of the departments were disposed to go in this matter.

"Mr. Clayton of Delaware was surprised at the suggestion of an idea that the American Senate was not disposed to make the necessary appropriations for the defence of the country; that they had endeavored to prevent the passage of a bill, the object of which was to make provision for large appropriations for our defence. The senator from Missouri had gone into a liberal attack of the Senate. He (Mr. C.) was not disposed to say any thing further of the events of the last night of the session. He took occasion to say there were other matters in connection with this appropriation. Before any department or any friend of the administration had named an appropriation for defence, he made the motion to appropriate five hundred thousand dollars. It was on his motion that the Committee on Military Affairs made the appropriation to increase the fortifications. Actuated by the very same motives which induced him to move that appropriation, he had moved an additional appropriation to Fort Delaware. The motion was to increase the seventy-five thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand, and elicited a protracted debate. The next question was, whether, in the general bill, five hundred thousand dollars should be appropriated. He recollected the honorable chairman of the Committee on Finance told them there was an amendment before that committee of similar tenor. As chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, he felt disinclined to give it up. The amendment fell on the single ground, by one vote, that the Committee on Finance had before it the identical proposition made by the Committee on Military Affairs. He appealed to the country whether, under those circumstances, they were to be arraigned before the people of the country on a charge of a want of patriotism. He had always felt deeply affected when those general remarks were made impugning the motives of patriotism of the senators. He was willing to go as far as he who goes farthest in making appropriations for the national protection. Nay, he would be in advance of the administration."

Mr. Benton returned to his charge that the defence bills of the last session were lost through the conduct of the Senate. It was the Senate which disagreed to the House amendment of three millions to the fortification bill (which itself contained appropriations to the amount of $900,000); and it was the Senate which moved to "adhere" to its disagreement, thereby adopting the harsh measure which so much endangers legislation. And, in support of his views, he said:

"The bill died under lapse of time. It died because not acted upon before midnight of the last day of the session. Right or wrong, the session was over before the report of the conferees could be acted on. The House of Representatives was without a quorum, and the Senate was about in the same condition. Two attempts in the Senate to get a vote on some printing moved by his colleague (Mr. Linn), were both lost for want of a quorum. The session then was at an end, for want of quorums, whether the legal right to sit had ceased or not. The bill was not rejected either in the House of Representatives or in the Senate, but it died for want of action upon it; and that action was prevented by want of time. Now, whose fault was it that there was no time left for acting on the report of the conferees? That was the true question, and the answer to it would show where the fault lay. This answer is as clear as mid-day, though the transaction took place in the darkness of midnight. It was this Senate! The bill came to the Senate in full time to have been acted upon, if it had been treated as all bills must be treated that are intended to be passed in the last hours of the session. It is no time for speaking. All speaking is then fatal to bills, and equally fatal, whether for or against them. Yet, what was the conduct of the Senate with respect to this bill? Members commenced speaking upon it with vehemence and perseverance, and continued at it, one after another. These speeches were fatal to the bill. They were numerous, and consumed much time to deliver them. They were criminative, and provoked replies. They denounced the President without measure; and, by implication, the House of Representatives, which sustained him. They were intemperate, and destroyed the temper of others. In this way the precious time was consumed in which the bill might have been acted upon; and, for want of which time, it is lost. Every one that made a speech helped to destroy it; and nearly the whole body of the opposition spoke, and most of them at much length, and with unusual warmth and animation. So certain was he of the ruinous effect of this speaking, that he himself never opened his mouth nor uttered one word upon it. Then came the fatal motion to adhere, the effect of which was to make bad worse, and to destroy the last chance, unless the House of Representatives had humbled itself to ask a conference from the Senate. The fatal effect of this motion to adhere, Mr. B. would show from Jefferson's Manual; and read as follows: 'The regular progression in this case is, that the Commons disagree to the amendment; the Lords insist on it; the Commons insist on their disagreement; the Lords adhere to their amendment; the Commons adhere to their disagreement; the term of insisting may be repeated as often as they choose to keep the question open; but the first adherence by either renders it necessary for the other to recede or to adhere also; when the matter is usually suffered to fall. (10 Grey, 148.) Latterly, however, there are instances of their having gone to a second adherence. There must be an absolute conclusion of the subject somewhere, or otherwise transactions between the Houses would become endless. (3 Hatsell, 268, 270.) The term of insisting, we are told by Sir John Trevor, was then (1678) newly introduced into parliamentary usage by the Lords. (7 Grey, 94.) It was certainly a happy innovation, as it multiplies the opportunities of trying modifications, which may bring the Houses to a concurrence. Either House, however, is free to pass over the term of insisting, and to adhere in the first instance. (10 Grey, 146.) But it is not respectful to the other. In the ordinary parliamentary course, there are two free conferences at least before an adherence. (10 Grey, 147.)'

"This is the regular progression in the case of amendments, and there are five steps in it. 1. To agree. 2. To disagree. 3. To recede. 4. To insist. 5. To adhere. Of these five steps adherence is the last, and yet it was the first adopted by the Senate. The effect of its adoption was, in parliamentary usage, to put an end to the matter. It was, by the law of Parliament, a disrespect to the House. No conference was even asked by the Senate after the adherence, although, by the parliamentary law, there ought to have been two free conferences at least before the adherence was voted. All this was fully stated to the Senate that night, and before the question to adhere was put. It was fully stated by you, sir (said Mr. B., addressing himself to Mr. King, of Alabama, who was then in the Vice-President's chair). This vote to adhere, coupled with the violent speeches, denouncing the President, and, by implication, censuring the House of Representatives, and coupled with the total omission of the Senate to ask for a conference, seemed to indicate a fatal purpose to destroy the bill; and lost it would have been upon the spot, if the House of Representatives, forgetting the disrespect with which it had been treated, and passing over the censure impliedly cast upon it, had not humbled itself to come and ask for a conference. The House humbled itself; but it was a patriotic and noble humiliation; it was to serve their country. The conference was granted, and an amendment was agreed upon by the conferees, by which the amount was reduced, and the sum divided, and $300,000 allowed to the military, and $500,000 to the naval service. This was done at last, and after all the irritating speeches and irritating conduct of the Senate; but the precious time was gone. The hour of midnight was not only come, but members were dispersed; quorums were unattainable; and the bill died for want of action. And now (said Mr. B.) I return to my question. I resume, and maintain my position upon it. I ask how it came to pass, if want of specification was really the objection--how it came to pass that the Senate did not do at first what it did at last? Why did it not amend, by the easy, natural, obvious, and parliamentary process of disagreeing, insisting, and asking for a committee of conference?

"Mr. B. would say but a word on the new calendar, which would make the day begin in the middle. It was sufficient to state such a conception to expose it to ridicule. A farmer would be sadly put out if his laborers should refuse to come until mid-day. The thing was rather too fanciful for grave deliberation. Suffice it to say there are no fractions of days in any calendar. There is no three and one fourth, three and one half, and three and three fourths of March, or any other month. When one day ends, another begins, and midnight is the turning point both in law and in practice. All our laws of the last day are dated the 3d of March; and, in point of fact, Congress, for every beneficial purpose, is dissolved at midnight. Many members will not act, and go away; and such was the practice of the venerable Mr. Macon, of North Carolina, who always acted precisely as President Jackson did. He put on his hat and went away at midnight; he went away when his own watch told him it was midnight; after which he believed he had no authority to act as a legislator, nor the Senate to make him act as such. This was President Jackson's course. He stayed in the Capitol until a quarter after one, to sign all the bills which Congress should pass before midnight. He stayed until a majority of Congress was gone, and quorums unattainable. He stayed in the Capitol, in a room convenient to the Senate, to act upon every thing that was sent to him, and did not have to be waked up, as Washington was, to sign after midnight; a most unfortunate reference to Washington, who, by going to bed at midnight, showed that he considered the business of the day ended; and by getting up and putting on his night gown, and signing a bill at two o'clock in the morning of the 4th, showed that he would sign at that hour what had passed before midnight; and does not that act bear date the 3d of March?"

Mr. Webster earnestly defended the Senate's conduct and his own; and said:

"This proposition, sir, was thus unexpectedly and suddenly put to us, at eight o'clock in the evening of the last day of the session. Unusual, unprecedented, extraordinary, as it obviously is, on the face of it, the manner of presenting it was still more extraordinary. The President had asked for no such grant of money; no department had recommended it; no estimate had suggested it; no reason whatever was given for it. No emergency had happened, and nothing new had occurred; every thing known to the administration at that hour, respecting our foreign relations, had certainly been known to it for days and for weeks before.

"With what propriety, then, could the Senate be called on to sanction a proceeding so entirely irregular and anomalous? Sir, I recollect the occurrences of the moment very well, and I remember the impression which this vote of the House seemed to make all around the Senate. We had just come out of executive session; the doors were but just opened; and I hardly remember whether there was a single spectator in the hall or the galleries. I had been at the clerk's table, and had not reached my seat when the message was read. All the senators were in the chamber. I heard the message certainly with great surprise and astonishment; and I immediately moved the Senate to disagree to this vote of the House. My relation to the subject, in consequence of my connection with the Committee on Finance, made it my duty to propose some course, and I had not a moment's doubt or hesitation what that course ought to be. I took upon myself, then, sir, the responsibility of moving that the Senate should disagree to this vote, and I now acknowledge that responsibility. It might be presumptuous to say that I took a leading part, but I certainly took an early part, a decided part, and an earnest part, in rejecting this broad grant of three millions of dollars, without limitation of purpose or specification of object; called for by no recommendation, founded on no estimate, made necessary by no state of things which was made known to us. Certainly, sir, I took a part in its rejection; and I stand here, in my place in the Senate, to-day, ready to defend the part so taken by me; or rather, sir. I disclaim all defence, and all occasion of defence, and I assert it as meritorious to have been among those who arrested, at the earliest moment, this extraordinary departure from all settled usage, and, as I think, from plain constitutional injunction--this indefinite voting of a vast sum of money to mere executive discretion, without limit assigned, without object specified, without reason given, and without the least control under heaven.

"Sir, I am told that, in opposing this grant, I spoke with warmth, and I suppose I may have done so. If I did, it was a warmth springing from as honest a conviction of duty as ever influenced a public man. It was spontaneous, unaffected, sincere. There had been among us, sir, no consultation, no concert. There could have been none. Between the reading of the message and my motion to disagree there was not time enough for any two members of the Senate to exchange five words on the subject. The proposition was sudden and perfectly unexpected. I resisted it, as irregular, as dangerous in itself, and dangerous in its precedent, as wholly unnecessary, and as violating the plain intention, if not the express words, of the constitution. Before the Senate I then avowed, and before the country I now avow, my part in this opposition. Whatsoever is to fall on those who sanctioned it, of that let me have my full share.

"The Senate, sir, rejected this grant by a vote of twenty-nine against nineteen. Those twenty-nine names are on the journal; and whensoever the expunging process may commence, or how far soever it may be carried, I pray it, in mercy, not to erase mine from that record. I beseech it, in its sparing goodness, to leave me that proof of attachment to duty and to principle. It may draw around it, over it, or through it, black lines, or red lines, or any lines; it may mark it in any way which either the most prostrate and fantastical spirit of man-worship, or the most ingenious and elaborate study of self-degradation may devise, if only it will leave it so that those who inherit my blood, or who may hereafter care for my reputation, shall be able to behold it where it now stands.

"The House, sir, insisted on this amendment. The Senate adhered to its disagreement. The House asked a conference, to which request the Senate immediately acceded. The committees of conference met, and, in a short time, came to an agreement. They agreed to recommend to their respective Houses, as a substitute for the vote proposed by the House, the following:

"'As an additional appropriation for arming the fortifications of the United States, three hundred thousand dollars.'

"As an additional appropriation for the repair and equipment of ships of war of the United States, five hundred thousand dollars.'

"I immediately reported this agreement of the committees of conference to the Senate; but, inasmuch as the bill was in the House of Representatives, the Senate could not act further on the matter until the House should first have considered the report of the committees, decided thereon, and sent us the bill. I did not myself take any note of the particular hour of this part of the transaction. The honorable member from Virginia (Mr. Leigh) says he consulted his watch at the time, and he knows that I had come from the conference, and was in my seat, at a quarter past eleven. I have no reason to think that he is under any mistake in this particular. He says it so happened that he had occasion to take notice of the hour, and well remembers it. It could not well have been later than this, as any one will be satisfied who will look at our journals, public and executive, and see what a mass of business was dispatched after I came from the committees, and before the adjournment of the Senate. Having made the report, sir, I had no doubt that both Houses would concur in the result of the conference, and looked every moment for the officer of the House bringing the bill. He did not come, however, and I pretty soon learned that there was doubt whether the committee on the part of the House would report to the House the agreement of the conferees. At first I did not at all credit this; but it was confirmed by one communication after another, until I was obliged to think it true. Seeing that the bill was thus in danger of being lost, and intending, at any rate, that no blame should justly attach to the Senate, I immediately moved the following resolution:

"'Resolved, That a message be sent to the honorable the House of Representatives, respectfully to remind the House of the report of the committee of conference appointed on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the amendment of the House to the amendment of the Senate to the bill respecting the fortifications of the United States.'

"You recollect this resolution, sir, having, as I well remember, taken some part on the occasion.

"This resolution was promptly passed; the Secretary carried it to the House, and delivered it. What was done in the House on the receipt of this message now appears from the printed journal. I have no wish to comment on the proceedings there recorded--all may read them, and each be able to form his own opinion. Suffice it to say, that the House of Representatives, having then possession of the bill, chose to retain that possession, and never acted on the report of the committee. The bill, therefore, was lost. It was lost in the House of Representatives. It died there, and there its remains are to be found. No opportunity was given to the members of the House to decide whether they would agree to the report of the two committees or not. From a quarter past eleven, when the report was agreed to by the committees, until two or three o'clock in the morning, the House remained in session. If at any time there was not a quorum of members present, the attendance of a quorum, we are to presume, might have been commanded, as there was undoubtedly a great majority of the members still in the city.

"But now, sir, there is one other transaction of the evening which I feel bound to state, because I think it quite important, on several accounts, that it should be known.

"A nomination was pending before the Senate, for a judge of the Supreme Court. In the course of the sitting, that nomination was called up, and, on motion, was indefinitely postponed. In other words, it was rejected; for an indefinite postponement is a rejection. The office, of course, remained vacant, and the nomination of another person to fill it became necessary. The President of the United States was then in the capitol, as is usual on the evening of the last day of the session, in the chamber assigned to him, and with the heads of departments around him. When nominations are rejected under these circumstances, it has been usual for the President immediately to transmit a new nomination to the Senate; otherwise the office must remain vacant till the next session, as the vacancy in such case has not happened in the recess of Congress. The vote of the Senate, indefinitely postponing this nomination, was carried to the President's room by the Secretary of the Senate. The President told the Secretary that it was more than an hour past twelve o'clock, and that he could receive no further communications from the Senate, and immediately after, as I have understood, left the capitol. The Secretary brought back the paper containing the certified copy of the vote of the Senate, and indorsed thereon the substance of the President's answer, and also added that, according to his own watch, it was a quarter past one o'clock."

This was the argument of Mr. Webster in defence of the Senate and himself; but it could not alter the facts of the case--that the Senate disagreed to the House appropriation--that it adhered harshly--that it consumed the time in elaborate speeches against the President--and that the bill was lost upon lapse of time, the existence of the Congress itself expiring while this contention, began by the Senate, was going on.

Mr. Webster dissented from the new doctrine of counting years by fractions of a day, as a thing having no place in the constitution, in law, or in practice;--and which was besides impracticable, and said:

"There is no clause of the constitution, nor is there any law, which declares that the term of office of members of the House of Representatives shall expire at twelve o'clock at night on the 3d of March. They are to hold for two years, but the precise hour for the commencement of that term of two years is nowhere fixed by constitutional or legal provision. It has been established by usage and by inference, and very properly established, that, since the first Congress commenced its existence on the first Wednesday in March, 1789, which happened to be the 4th day of that month, therefore, the 4th of March is the day of the commencement of each successive term, but no hour is fixed by law or practice. The true rule is, as I think, most undoubtedly, that the session holden on the last day, constitutes the last day, for all legislative and legal purposes. While the session commenced on that day continues, the day itself continues, according to the established practice both of legislative and judicial bodies. This could not well be otherwise. If the precise moment of actual time were to settle such a matter, it would be material to ask, who shall settle the time? Shall it be done by public authority; or shall every man observe the tick of his own watch? If absolute time is to furnish a precise rule, the excess of a minute, it is obvious, would be as fatal as the excess of an hour. Sir, no bodies, judicial or legislative, have ever been so hypercritical, so astute to no purpose, so much more nice than wise, as to govern themselves by any such ideas. The session for the day, at whatever hour it commences, or at whatever hour it breaks up, is the legislative day. Every thing has reference to the commencement of that diurnal session. For instance, this is the 14th day of January; we assembled here to day at twelve o'clock; our journal is dated January 14th, and if we should remain until five o'clock to-morrow morning (and the Senate has sometimes sat so late) our proceedings would still all bear date of the 14th of January; they would be so stated upon the journal, and the journal is a record, and is a conclusive record, so far as respects the proceedings of the body."

But he adduced practice to the contrary, and showed that the expiring Congress had often sat after midnight, on the day of the 3d of March, in the years when that day was the end of the Congress; and in speaking of what had often occurred, he was right. I have often seen it myself; but in such cases there was usually an acknowledgment of the wrong by stopping the Senate clock, or setting it back; and I have also seen the hour called and marked on the journal after twelve, and the bills sent to the President, noted as passed at such an hour of the morning of the fourth; when they remained untouched by the President; and all bills and acts sent to him on the morning of the fourth are dated of the third; and that date legalizes them, although erroneous in point of fact. But, many of the elder members, such as Mr. Macon, would have nothing to do with these contrivances, and left the chamber at midnight, saying that the Congress was constitutionally extinct, and that they had no longer any power to sit and act as a Senate. Upon this point Mr. Grundy, of Tennessee, a distinguished jurist as well as statesman, delivered his opinion, and in consonance with the best authorities. He said:

"A serious question seems now to be made, as to what time Congress constitutionally terminates. Until lately, I have not heard it seriously urged that twelve o'clock, on the 3d of March, at night, is not the true period. It is now insisted, however, that at twelve o'clock on the 4th of March is the true time; and the argument in support of this is, that the first Congress met at twelve o'clock, on the 4th of March. This is not placing the question on the true ground; it is not when the Congress did meet, or when the President was qualified by taking the oath of office, but when did they have the constitutional right to meet? This certainly was, and is, in all future cases, on the 4th of March; and if the day commence, according to the universal acceptation and understanding of the country, at the first moment after twelve o'clock at night on the 3d of March, the constitutional right or power of the new Congress commences at that time; and if called by the Chief Magistrate to meet at that time, they might then qualify and open their session. There would be no use in arguing away the common understanding of the country, and it would seem as reasonable to maintain that the 4th of March ended when the first Congress adjourned, as it is to say that it began when they met. From twelve o'clock at night until twelve o'clock at night is the mode of computing a day by the people of the United States, and I do not feel authorized to establish a different mode of computation for Congress. At what hour does Christmas commence? When does the first day of the year, or the first of January, commence? Is it at midnight or at noon? If the first day of a year or month begins and ends at midnight, does not every other day? Congress has always acted upon the impression that the 3d of March ended at midnight; hence that setting back of clocks which we have witnessed on the 3d of March, at the termination of the short session.

"In using this argument, I do not wish to be understood as censuring those who have transacted the public business here after twelve o'clock on the 3d of March. From this error, if it be one, I claim no exemption. With a single exception, I believe, I have always remained until the final adjournment of both Houses. As to the President of the United States, he remained until after one o'clock on the 4th of March. This was making a full and fair allowance for the difference that might exist in different instruments for keeping time; and he then retired from his chamber in the Capitol. The fortification bill never passed Congress; it never was offered to him for his signature; he, therefore, can be in no fault. It was argued that many acts of Congress passed on the 4th of March, at the short session, are upon our statute books, and that these acts are valid and binding. It should be remembered that they all bear date on the 3d of March; and so high is the authenticity of our records, that, according to the rules of evidence, no testimony can be received to contradict any thing which appears upon the face of our acts."

To show the practice of the Senate, when its attention was called to the true hour, and to the fact that the fourth day of March was upon them, the author of this View, in the course of this debate, showed the history of the actual termination of the last session--the one at which the fortification bill was lost. Mr. Hill, of New Hampshire, was speaking of certain enormous printing jobs which were pressed upon the Senate in its expiring moments, and defeated after midnight; Mr. Benton asked leave to tell the secret history of this defeat; which being granted, he stood up, and said:

"He defeated these printing jobs after midnight, and by speaking against time. He had avowed his determination to speak out the session; and after speaking a long time against time, he found that time stood still; that the hands of our clock obstinately refused to pass the hour of twelve; and thereupon addressed the presiding officer (Mr. Tyler, the President pro tem.), to call to his attention the refractory disposition of the clock; which, in fact, had been set back by the officers of the House, according to common usage on the last night, to hide from ourselves the fact that our time was at an end. The presiding officer (Mr. B. said) directed an officer of the House to put forward the clock to the right time; which was done; and not another vote was taken that night, except the vote to adjourn."

This was a case, as the lawyers say, in point. It was the refusal of the Senate the very night in question, to do any thing except to give the adjourning vote after the attention of the Senate was called to the hour.

In reply to Mr. Calhoun's argument against American arming, and that such arming would be war on our side, Mr. Grundy replied:

"But it is said by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun), that, if we arm, we instantly make war: it is war. If this be so, we are placed in a most humiliating situation. Since this controversy commenced, the French nation has armed; they have increased their vessels of war; they have equipped them; they have enlisted or pressed additional seamen into the public service; they have appointed to the command of this large naval force one of their most experienced and renowned naval officers; and this squadron, thus prepared, and for what particular purpose we know not, is now actually in the neighborhood of the American coast. I admit the proceeding on the part of the French government is neither war, nor just cause of war on our part; but, seeing this, shall we be told, if we do similar acts, designed to defend our own country, we are making war? As I understand the public law, every nation has the right to judge for itself of the extent of its own military and naval armaments, and no other nation has a right to complain or call it in question. It appears to me that, although the preparations and armaments of the French government are matters not to be excepted to, still they should admonish us to place our country in a condition in which it could be defended in the event the present difficulties between the two nations should lead to hostilities."

In the course of the debate the greater part of the opposition senators declared their intention to sustain measures of defence; on which Mr. Benton congratulated the country, and said:

"A good consequence had resulted from an unpleasant debate. All parties had disclaimed the merit of sinking the fortification bill of the last session, and a majority had evinced a determination to repair the evil by voting adequate appropriations now. This was good. It bespoke better results in time to come, and would dispel that illusion of divided counsels on which the French government had so largely calculated. The rejection of the three millions, and the loss of the fortification bill, had deceived France; it had led her into the mistake of supposing that we viewed every question in a mercantile point of view; that the question of profit and loss was the only rule we had to go by; that national honor was no object; and that, to obtain these miserable twenty-five millions of francs, we should be ready to submit to any quantity of indignity, and to wade through any depth of national humiliation. The debate which has taken place will dispel that illusion; and the first dispatch which the young Admiral Mackau will have to send to his government will be to inform it that there has been a mistake in this business--that these Americans wrangle among themselves, but unite against foreigners; and that many opposition senators are ready to vote double the amount of the twenty-five millions to put the country in a condition to sustain that noble sentiment of President Jackson, that the honor of his country shall never be stained by his making an apology for speaking truth in the performance of duty."

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CXXXIII. FRENCH INDEMNITIES: BRITISH MEDIATION: INDEMNITIES PAID

The message of the President in relation to French affairs had been referred to the Senate's committee on foreign relations, and before any report had been received from that committee a further message was received from the President informing the Senate that Great Britain had offered her friendly mediation between the United States and France--that it had been accepted by the governments both of France and the United States; and recommending a suspension of all retaliatory measures against France; but a vigorous prosecution of the national works of general and permanent defence. The message also stated that the mediation had been accepted on the part of the United States with a careful reservation of the points in the controversy which involved the honor of the country, and which admitted of no compromise--a reservation which, in the vocabulary of General Jackson, was equivalent to saying that the indemnities must be paid, and no apologies made. And such in fact was the case. Within a month from the date of that message the four instalments of the indemnities then due, wore fully paid and without waiting for any action on the part of the mediator. In communicating the offer of the British mediation the President expressed his high appreciation of the "elevated and disinterested motives of that offer." The motives were, in fact, both elevated and disinterested; and presents one of those noble spectacles in the conduct of nations on which history loves to dwell. France and the United States had fought together against Great Britain; now Great Britain steps between France and the United States to prevent them from fighting each other. George the Third received the combined attacks of French and Americans; his son, William the Fourth, interposes to prevent their arms from being turned against each other. It was a noble intervention, and a just return for the good work of the Emperor Alexander in offering his mediation between the United States and Great Britain--good works these peace mediations, and as nearly divine as humanity can reach;--worthy of all praise, of long remembrance, and continual imitation;--the more so in this case of the British mediation when the event to be prevented would have been so favorable to British interests--would have thrown the commerce of the United States and of France into her hands, and enriched her at the expense of both. Happily the progress of the age which, in cultivating good will among nations, elevates great powers above all selfishness, and permits no unfriendly recollection--no selfish calculation--to balk the impulsions of a noble philanthropy.

I have made a copious chapter upon the subject of this episodical controversy with France--more full, it might seem, than the subject required, seeing its speedy and happy termination: but not without object. Instructive lessons result from this history; both from the French and American side of it. The wrong to the United States came from the French chamber of deputies--from the opposition part of it, composed of the two extremes of republicans and legitimists, deadly hostile to each other, but combined in any attempt to embarrass a king whom both wished to destroy: and this French opposition inflamed the question there. In the United States there was also an opposition, composed of two, lately hostile parties (the modern whigs and the southern dissatisfied democracy); and this opposition, dominant in the Senate, and frustrating the President's measures, gave encouragement to the French opposition: and the two together, brought their respective countries to the brink of war. The two oppositions are responsible for the hostile attitude to which the two countries were brought. That this is not a harsh opinion, nor without foundation, may be seen by the history which is given of the case in the chapter dedicated to it; and if more is wanting, it may be found in the recorded debates of the day; in which things were said which were afterwards regretted; and which, being regretted, the author of this View has no desire to repeat:--the instructive lesson of history which he wishes to inculcate, being complete without the exhumation of what ought to remain buried. Nor can the steadiness and firmness of President Jackson be overlooked in this reflective view. In all the aspects of the French question he remained inflexible in his demand for justice, and in his determination, so far as it depended upon him to have it. In his final message, communicating to congress the conclusion of the affair, he gracefully associated congress with himself in their joy at the restoration of the ancient cordial relations between two countries, of ancient friendship, which misconceptions had temporarily alienated from each other.

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CXXXIV. PRESIDENT JACKSON'S FOREIGN DIPLOMACY

A view of President Jackson's foreign diplomacy has been reserved for the last year of his administration, and to the conclusion of his longest, latest, and most difficult negotiation; and is now presented in a single chapter, giving the history of his intercourse with foreign nations. From no part of his administration was more harm apprehended, by those who dreaded the election of General Jackson, than from this source. From his military character they feared embroilments; from his want of experience as a diplomatist, they feared mistakes and blunders in our foreign intercourse. These apprehensions were very sincerely entertained by a large proportion of our citizens; but, as the event proved, entirely without foundation. No part of his administration, successful, beneficial, and honorable as it was at home, was more successful, beneficial and honorable than that of his foreign diplomacy. He obtained indemnities for all outrages committed on our commerce before his time, and none were committed during his time. He made good commercial treaties with some nations from which they could not be obtained before--settled some long-standing and vexatious questions; and left the whole world at peace with his country, and engaged in the good offices of trade and hospitality. A brief detail of actual occurrences will justify this general and agreeable statement,

1. THE DIRECT TRADE WITH THE BRITISH WEST INDIES.--I have already shown, in a separate chapter, the recovery, in the first year of his administration, of this valuable branch of our commerce, so desirable to us from the nearness of those islands to our shore, the domestic productions which they took from us, the employment it gave to our navigation, the actual large amount of the trade, the acceptable articles it gave in return, and its satisfactory establishment on a durable basis after fifty years of interrupted, and precarious, and restricted enjoyment: and I add nothing more on that head. I proceed to new cases of indemnities obtained, or of new treaties formed.

2. At the head of these stands the FRENCH INDEMNITY TREATY.--The commerce of the United States had suffered greatly under the decrees of the Emperor Napoleon, and redress had been sought by every administration, and in vain, from that of Mr. Madison to that of Mr. John Quincy Adams, inclusively. President Jackson determined from the first moment of his administration to prosecute the claims on France with vigor; and that not only as a matter of right, but of policy. There were other secondary powers, such as Naples and Spain, subject to the same kind of reclamation, and which had sheltered their refusal behind that of France; and with some show of reason, as France, besides having committed the largest depredation, was the origin of the system under which they acted, and the inducing cause of their conduct. France was the strong power in this class of wrong-doers, and as such was the one first to be dealt with. In his first annual message to the two Houses of Congress, President Jackson brought this subject before that body, and disclosed his own policy in relation to it. He took up the question as one of undeniable wrong which had already given rise to much unpleasant discussion, and which might lead to possible collision between the two governments; and expressed a confident hope that the injurious delays of the past would find a redress in the equity of the future. This was pretty clear language, and stood for something in the message of a President whose maxim of foreign policy was, to "ask nothing but what was right, and to submit to nothing that was wrong." At the same time, Mr. William C. Rives, of Virginia, was sent to Paris as minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary, and especially charged with this reclamation. His mission was successful; and at the commencement of the session 1831-'32, the President had the gratification to communicate to both Houses of Congress and to submit to the Senate for its approbation, the treaty which closed up this long-standing head of complaint against an ancient ally. The French government agreed to pay twenty-five millions of francs to American citizens "for (such was the language of the treaty) unlawful seizures, captures, sequestrations, confiscations or destruction of their vessels, cargoes or other property;" subject to a deduction of one million and a half of francs for claims of French citizens, or the royal treasury, for "ancient supplies or accounts," or for reclamations on account of commercial injury. Thus all American claims for spoliation in the time of the Emperor Napoleon were acknowledged and agreed to be satisfied, and the acknowledgment and agreement for satisfaction made in terms which admitted the illegality and injustice of the acts in which they originated. At the same time all the French claims upon the United States, from the time of our revolution, of which two (those of the heirs of Beaumarchais and of the Count Rochambeau) had been a subject of reclamation for forty years, were satisfied. The treaty was signed July 4th, 1831, one year after the accession of Louis Phillippe to the French throne--and to the natural desire of the new king (under the circumstances of his elevation) to be on good terms with the United States; and to the good offices of General Lafayette, then once more influential in the councils of France, as well as to the zealous exertions of our minister, the auspicious conclusion of this business is to be much attributed. The indemnity payable in six annual equal instalments, was satisfactory to government and to the claimants; and in communicating information of the treaty to Congress, President Jackson, after a just congratulation on putting an end to a subject of irritation which for many years had, in some degree, alienated two nations from each other, which, from interest as well as from early recollections, ought to cherish the most friendly relations--and (as if feeling all the further consequential advantages of this success) went on to state, as some of the good effects to result from it, that it gave encouragement to persevere in demands for justice from other nations; that it would be an admonition that just claims would be prosecuted to satisfactory conclusions, and give assurance to our own citizens that their own government will exert all its constitutional power to obtain redress for all their foreign wrongs. This latter declaration was afterwards put to the proof, in relation to the execution of the treaty itself, and was kept to the whole extent of its letter and spirit, and with good results both to France and the United States. It so happened that the French legislative chambers refused to vote appropriations necessary to carry the treaty into effect. An acrimonious correspondence between the two governments took place, becoming complicated with resentment on the part of France for some expressions, which she found to be disrespectful, in a message of President Jackson. The French minister was recalled from the United States; the American minister received his passport; and reprisals were recommended to Congress by the President. But there was no necessity for them. The intent to give offence, or to be disrespectful, was disclaimed; the instalments in arrear were paid; the two nations returned to their accustomed good feeling; and no visible trace remains of the brief and transient cloud which for a while overshadowed them. So finished, in the time of Jackson, with entire satisfaction to ourselves, and with honor to both parties, the question of reclamations from France for injuries done our citizens in the time of the Great Emperor; and which the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams had been unable to enforce.

3. DANISH TREATY.--This was a convention for indemnity for spoliations on American commerce, committed twenty years before the time of General Jackson's administration. They had been committed during the years 1808, 1809, 1810, and 1811, that is to say, during the last year of Mr. Jefferson's administration and the three first years of Mr. Madison's. They consisted of illegal seizures and illegal condemnations or confiscations of American vessels and their cargoes in Danish ports, during the time when the British orders in council and the French imperial decrees were devastating the commerce of neutral nations, and subjecting the weaker powers of Europe to the course of policy which the two great belligerent powers had adopted. The termination of the great European contest, and the return of nations to the accustomed paths of commercial intercourse and just and friendly relations, furnished a suitable opportunity for the United States, whose citizens had suffered so much, to demand indemnity for these injuries. The demand had been made; and had been followed up with zeal during each succeeding administration, but without effect, until the administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams. During that administration, and in the hands of the American Chargé d'Affaires (Mr. Henry Wheaton), the negotiation made encouraging progress. General Jackson did not change the negotiator--did not incur double expense, a year's delay, and substitute a raw for a ripe minister--and the negotiation went on to a speedy and prosperous conclusion. The treaty was concluded in March, 1830, and extended to a complete settlement of all questions of reclamation on both sides. The Danish government renounced all pretension to the claims which it had preferred, and agreed to pay the sum of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the government of the United States, to be by it distributed among the American claimants. This convention, which received the immediate ratification of the President and Senate, terminated all differences with a friendly power, with whom the United States never had any but kind relations (these spoliations excepted), and whose trade to her West India islands, lying at our door, and taking much of our domestic productions, was so desirable to us.

4. NEAPOLITAN INDEMNITY TREATY.--When Murat was King of Naples, and acting upon the system of his brother-in-law, the Emperor Napoleon, he seized and confiscated many vessels and their cargoes, belonging to citizens of the United States. The years 1809, 1810, 1811 and 1812 were the periods of these wrongs. Efforts had been made under each administration, from Mr. Madison to Mr. John Quincy Adams, to obtain redress, but in vain. Among others, the special mission of Mr. William Pinkney, the eminent orator and jurist, was instituted in the last year of Mr. Madison's administration, exclusively charged, at that court, with soliciting indemnity for the Murat spoliations. A Bourbon was then upon the throne, and this 'legitimate,' considering Murat as an usurper who had taken the kingdom from its proper owners, and done more harm to them than to any body else, was naturally averse to making compensation to other nations for his injurious acts. This repugnance had found an excuse in the fact that France, the great original wrongdoer in all these spoliations, and under whose lead and protection they were all committed, had not yet been brought to acknowledge the wrong and to make satisfaction. The indemnity treaty with France, in July 1831, put an end to this excuse; and the fact of the depredations being clear, and the law of nations indisputably in our favor, a further and more earnest appeal was made to the Neapolitan government. Mr. John Nelson, of Maryland, was appointed United States Chargé to Naples, and concluded a convention for the payment of the claims. The sum of two millions one hundred and fifteen thousand Neapolitan ducats was stipulated to be paid to the United States government, to be by it distributed among the claimants; and, being entirely satisfactory, the convention immediately received the American ratification. Thus, another head of injury to our citizens, and of twenty years' standing, was settled by General Jackson, and in a case in which the strongest prejudice and the most revolting repugnance had to be overcome. Murat had been shot by order of the Neapolitan king, for attempting to recover the kingdom; he was deemed a usurper while he had it; the exiled royal family thought themselves sufficiently wronged by him in their own persons, without being made responsible for his wrongs to others; and although bound by the law of nations to answer for his conduct while king in point of fact, yet for almost twenty years--from their restoration in 1814 to 1832--they had resisted and repulsed the incessant and just demands of the United States. Considering the sacrifice of pride, as well as the large compensation, which this branch of the Bourbons had to make in paying a bill of damages against an intrusive king of the Bonaparte dynasty, and this indemnity obtained from Naples in the third year of General Jackson's first presidential term, which had been refused to his three predecessors--Messrs. Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams--may be looked upon as one of the most remarkable of his diplomatic successes.

SPANISH INDEMNITY TREATY.--The treaty of 1819 with Spain, by which we gained Florida and lost Texas, and paid five millions of dollars to our own citizens for Spanish spoliations, settled up all demands upon that power up to that time; but fresh causes of complaint soon grew up. All the Spanish-American states had become independent--had established their own forms of government--and commenced political and commercial communications with all the world. Spanish policy revolted at this escape of colonies from its hands; and although unable to subdue the new governments, was able to refuse to acknowledge their independence--able to issue paper blockades, and to seize and confiscate the American merchant vessels trading to the new states. In this way much damage had been done to American commerce, even in the brief interval between the date of the treaty of 1819 and General Jackson's election to the presidency, ten years thereafter. A new list of claims for spoliations had grown up; and one of the early acts of the new President was to institute a mission to demand indemnity. Mr. Cornelius Van Ness, of New-York, was the minister appointed; and having been refused in his first application, and given an account of the refusal to his government, President Jackson dispatched a special messenger to the American minister at Madrid, with instructions, "once more" to bring the subject to the consideration of the Spanish government; informing Congress at the same time, that he had made his last demand; and that, if justice was not done, he would bring the case before that body, "as the constitutional judge of what was proper to be done when negotiation fails to obtain redress for wrongs." But it was not found necessary to bring the case before Congress. On a closer examination of the claims presented and for the enforcement of which the power of the government had been invoked, it was found that there had occurred in this case what often takes place in reclamation upon foreign powers; that claims were preferred which were not founded in justice, and which were not entitled to the national interference. Faithful to his principle to ask nothing but what was right, General Jackson ordered these unfounded claims to be dropped, and the just claims only to be insisted upon; and in communicating this fact to Congress, he declared his policy characteristically with regard to foreign nations, and in terms which deserve to be remembered. He said: "Faithful to the principle of asking nothing but what was clearly right, additional instructions have been sent to modify our demands, so as to embrace those only on which, according to the laws of nations, we had a strict right to insist upon." Under these modified instructions a treaty of indemnity was concluded (February, 1834), and the sum of twelve millions of reals vellon stipulated to be paid to the government of the United States, for distribution among the claimants. Thus, another instance of spoliation upon our foreign commerce, and the last that remained unredressed, was closed up and satisfied under the administration of General Jackson; and this last of the revolutionary men had the gratification to restore unmixed cordial intercourse with a power which had been our ally in the war of the Revolution; which had ceded to us the Floridas, to round off with a natural boundary our Southern territory; which was our neighbor, conterminous in dominions, from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and which, notwithstanding the jars and collisions to which bordering nations are always subject, had never committed an act of hostility upon the United States. The conclusion of this affair was grateful to all the rememberers of our revolutionary history, and equally honorable to both parties: to General Jackson, who renounced unfounded claims, and to the Spanish government, which paid the good as soon as separated from the bad.

6. RUSSIAN COMMERCIAL TREATY.--Our relations with Russia had been peculiar--politically, always friendly; commercially, always liberal--yet, no treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, to assure these advantages and guarantee their continuance. The United States had often sought such a treaty. Many special missions, and of the most eminent citizens, and at various times, and under different administrations, and under the Congress of the confederation before there was any administration, had been instituted for that purpose--that of Mr. Francis Dana of Massachusetts (under whom the young John Quincy Adams, at the age of sixteen, served his diplomatic apprenticeship as private secretary), in 1784, under the old Congress; that of Mr. Rufus King, under the first Mr. Adams; that of Mr. John Quincy Adams, Mr. Albert Gallatin, Mr. James A. Bayard, and Mr. William Pinkney, under Mr. Monroe; that of Mr. George Washington Campbell, and Mr. Henry Middleton, under Mr. Monroe (the latter continued under Mr. John Quincy Adams); and all in vain. For some cause, never publicly explained, the guaranty of a treaty had been constantly declined, while the actual advantages of the most favorable one had been constantly extended to us. A convention with us for the definition of boundaries on the northwest coast of America, and to stipulate for mutual freedom of fishing and navigation in the North Pacific Ocean, had been readily agreed upon by the Emperor Alexander, and wisely, as by separating his claims, he avoided such controversies as afterwards grew up between the United States and Great Britain, on account of their joint occupation; but no commercial treaty. Every thing else was all that our interest could ask, or her friendship extend. Reciprocity of diplomatic intercourse was fully established; ministers regularly appointed to reside with us--and those of my time (I speak only of those who came within my Thirty Years' View), the Chevalier de Politica, the Baron Thuyl, the Baron Krudener, and especially the one that has remained longest among us, and has married an American lady, M. Alexandre de Bodisco--all of a personal character and deportment to be most agreeable to our government and citizens, well fitted to represent the feelings of the most friendly sovereigns, and to promote and maintain the most courteous and amicable intercourse between the two countries. The Emperor Alexander had signally displayed his good will in offering his mediation to terminate the war with Great Britain; and still further, in consenting to become arbitrator between the United States and Great Britain in settling their difference in the construction of the Ghent treaty, in the article relating to fugitive and deported slaves. We enjoyed in Russian ports all the commercial privileges of the most favored nation; but it was by an unfixed tenure--at the will of the reigning sovereign; and the interests of commerce required a more stable guaranty. Still, up to the commencement of General Jackson's administration, there was no American treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation with that great power. The attention of President Jackson was early directed to this anomalous point; and Mr. John Randolph of Roanoke, then retired from Congress, was induced, by the earnest persuasions of the President, and his Secretary of State, Mr. Van Buren, to accept the place of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the Court of St. Petersburg--to renew the applications for the treaty which had so long been made in vain. Repairing to that post, Mr. Randolph found that the rigors of a Russian climate were too severe for the texture of his fragile constitution; and was soon recalled at his own request. Mr. James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, was then appointed in his place; and by him the long-desired treaty was concluded, December, 1832--the Count Nesselrode the Russian negotiator, and the Emperor Nicholas the reigning sovereign. It was a treaty of great moment to the United States; for, although it added nothing to the commercial privileges actually enjoyed, yet it gave stability to their enjoyment; and so imparted confidence to the enterprise of merchants. It was limited to seven years' duration, but with a clause of indefinite continuance, subject to termination upon one year's notice from either party. Near twenty years have elapsed: no notice for its termination has ever been given; and the commerce between the two countries feels all the advantages resulting from stability and national guaranties. And thus was obtained, in the first term of General Jackson's administration, an important treaty with a great power, which all previous administrations and the Congress of the Confederation had been unable to obtain.

7. PORTUGUESE INDEMNITY.--During the years 1829 and '30, during the blockade of Terceira, several illegal seizures were made of American vessels, by Portuguese men-of-war, for alleged violations of the blockade. The United States chargé d'affairs at Lisbon, Mr. Thomas L. Brent, was charged with the necessary reclamations, and had no difficulty in coming to an amicable adjustment. Indemnity in the four cases of seizure was agreed upon in March, 1832, and payment in instalments stipulated to be made. There was default in all the instalments after the first--not from bad faith, but from total inability--although the instalments were, in a national point of view, of small amount. It deserves to be recorded, as an instance of the want to which a kingdom, whose very name had been once the synonym of gold regions and diamond mines, may be reduced by wretched government, that in one of the interviews of the American chargé (then Mr. Edward Kavanagh), with the Portuguese Minister of Finance, the minister told him "that no persons in the employment of the government, except the military, had been paid any part of their salaries for a long time; and that, on that day, there was not one hundred dollars in the treasury." In this total inability to pay, and with the fact of having settled fairly, further time was given until the first day of July, 1837; when full and final payment was made, to the satisfaction of the claimants.

Indemnity was made to the claimants by allowing interest on the delayed payments, and an advantage was granted to an article of American commerce by admitting rice of the United States in Portuguese ports at a reduced duty. The whole amount paid was about $140,000, which included damages to some other vessels, and compensation to the seamen of the captured vessels for imprisonment and loss of clothes--the sum of about $1,600 for these latter items--so carefully and minutely were the rights of American citizens guarded in Jackson's time. Some other claims on Portugal, considered as doubtful, among them the case of the brave Captain Reid, of the privateer General Armstrong, were left open for future prosecution, without prejudice from being omitted in the settlement of the Terceira claims, which were a separate class.

8. TREATY WITH THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.--At the commencement of the annual session of Congress of 1830-'31, President Jackson had the gratification to lay before the Senate a treaty of friendship and commerce between the United States and the Turkish emperor--the Sultan Mahmoud, noted for his liberal foreign views, his domestic reforms, his protection of Christians, and his energetic suppression of the janissaries--those formidable barbarian cohorts, worse than prætorian, which had so long dominated the Turkish throne. It was the first American treaty made with that power, and so declared in the preamble (and in terms which implied a personal compliment from the Porte in doing now what it had always refused to do before), and was eminently desirable to us for commercial, political and social reasons. The Turkish dominions include what was once nearly the one half of the Roman world, and countries which had celebrity before Rome was founded. Sacred and profane history had given these dominions a venerable interest in our eyes. They covered the seat which was the birth-place of the human race, the cradle of the Christian religion; the early theatre of the arts and sciences; and contained the city which was founded by the first Roman Christian emperor. Under good government it had always been the seat of rich commerce and of great wealth. Under every aspect it was desirable to the United States to have its social, political and commercial intercourse with these dominions placed on a safe and stable footing under the guaranty of treaty stipulations; and this object was now accomplished. These were the general considerations; particular and recent circumstances gave them additional weight.

Exclusion of our commerce from the Black Sea, and the advantages which some nations had lately gained by the treaty of Adrianople, called for renewed exertions on our part; and they were made by General Jackson. A commissioner was appointed (Mr. Charles Rhind) to open negotiations with the Sublime Porte; and with him were associated the United States naval commander in the Mediterranean (Commodore Biddle), and the United States consul at Smyrna (Mr. David Offley). Mr. Rhind completed the negotiation, though the other gentlemen joined in the signature of the treaty. By the provisions of this treaty, our trade with the Turkish dominions was placed on the footing of the most favored nation; and being without limitation as to time, may be considered as perpetual, subject only to be abrogated by war, in itself improbable, or by other events not to be expected. The right of passing the Dardanelles and of navigating the Black Sea was secured to our merchant ships, in ballast or with cargo, and to carry the products of the United States and of the Ottoman empire, except the prohibited articles. The flag of the United States was to be respected. Factors, or commercial brokers, of any religion were allowed to be employed by our merchants. Consuls were placed on a footing of security, and travelling with passports was protected. Fairness and justice in suits and litigations were provided for. In questions between a citizen of the United States and a subject of the Sublime Porte, the parties were not to be heard, nor judgment pronounced, unless the American interpreter (dragoman) was present. In questions between American citizens the trial was to be before the United States minister or consul. "Even when they (the American citizens, so runs the fourth article), shall have committed some offence, they shall not be arrested and put in prison by the local authorities, but shall be tried by the minister or consul, and punished according to the offence." By this treaty all that was granted to other nations by the treaty of Adrianople is also granted to the United States, with the additional stipulation, to be always placed on the footing of the most favored nation--a stipulation wholly independent of the treaty exacted by Russia at Adrianople as the fruit of victories, and of itself equivalent to a full and liberal treaty; and the whole guaranteed by a particular treaty with ourselves, which makes us independent of the general treaty of Adrianople. A spirit of justice, liberality and kindness runs through it. Assistance and protection is to be given throughout the Turkish dominions to American wrecked vessels and their crews; and all property recovered from a wreck is to be delivered up to the American consul of the nearest port, for the benefit of the owners. Ships of war of the two countries are to exhibit towards each other friendly and courteous conduct, and Turkish ships of war are to treat American merchant vessels with kindness and respect. This treaty has now been in force near twenty years, observed with perfect good faith by each, and attended by all the good consequences expected from it. The valuable commerce of the Black Sea, and of all the Turkish ports of Asia Minor, Europe and Africa (once the finest part of the Roman world), travelling, residence, and the pursuit of business throughout the Turkish dominions, are made as safe to our citizens as in any of the European countries; and thus the United States, though amongst the youngest in the family of nations, besides securing particular advantages to her own citizens, has done her part in bringing those ancient countries into the system of modern European commercial policy, and in harmonizing people long estranged from each other.

9. RENEWAL OF THE TREATY WITH MOROCCO.--A treaty had been made with this power in the time of the old Congress under the Confederation; and it is honorable to Morocco to see in that treaty, at the time when all other powers on the Barbary coast deemed the property of a Christian, lawful prey, and his person a proper subject for captivity, entering into such stipulations as these following, with a nation so young as the United States: "Neither party to take commissions from an enemy; persons and property captured in an enemy's vessel to be released; American citizens and effects to be restored; stranded vessels to be protected; vessels engaged in gunshot of forts to be protected; enemies' vessels not allowed to follow out of port for twenty-four hours; American commerce to be on the most favored footing; exchange of prisoners in time of war; no compulsion in buying or selling goods; no examination of goods on board, except contraband was proved; no detention of vessels; disputes between Americans to be settled by their consuls, and the consul assisted when necessary; killing punished by the law of the country; the effects of persons dying intestate to be taken care of, and delivered to the consul, and, if no consul, to be deposited with some person of trust; no appeal to arms unless refusal of friendly arrangements; in case of war, nine months to be allowed to citizens of each power residing in the dominions of the other to settle their affairs and remove." This treaty, made in 1787, was the work of Benjamin Franklin (though absent at the signature), John Adams, at London, and Thomas Jefferson, at Paris, acting through the agent, Thomas Barclay, at Fez; and was written with a plainness, simplicity and beauty, which I have not seen equalled in any treaty, between any nations, before or since. It was extended to fifty years, and renewed by General Jackson, in the last year of his administration, for fifty years more; and afterwards until twelve months' notice of a desire to abridge it should be given by one of the parties. The resident American consul at Tangier, Mr. James R. Leib, negotiated the renewal; and all the parties concerned had the good taste to preserve the style and language of the original throughout. It will stand, both for the matter and the style, a monument to the honor of our early statesmen.

10. TREATY OF AMITY AND COMMERCE WITH SIAM.--This was concluded in March, 1833, Mr. Edmund Roberts the negotiator on the part of the United States, and contained the provisions in behalf of American citizens and commerce which had been agreed upon in the treaty with the Sublime Porte, which was itself principally framed upon that with Morocco in 1787; and which may well become the model of all that may be made, in all time to come, with all the Oriental nations.

11. THE SAME WITH THE SULTAN OF MUSCAT.

Such were the fruits of the foreign diplomacy of President Jackson. There were other treaties negotiated under his administration--with Austria, Mexico, Chili, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela--but being in the ordinary course of foreign intercourse, do not come within the scope of this View, which confines itself to a notice of such treaties as were new or difficult--which were unattainable by previous administrations; and those which brought indemnity to our citizens for spoliations committed upon them in the time of General Jackson's predecessors. In this point of view, the list of treaties presented, is grand and impressive; the bare recital of which, in the most subdued language of historical narrative, places the foreign diplomacy of General Jackson on a level with the most splendid which the history of any nation has presented. First, the direct trade with the British West Indies, which had baffled the skill and power of all administrations, from Washington to John Quincy Adams inclusive, recovered, established, and placed on a permanent and satisfactory footing. Then indemnities from France, Spain, Denmark, Naples, Portugal, for injuries committed on our commerce in the time of the great Napoleon. Then original treaties of commerce and friendship with great powers from which they never could be obtained before--Russia, Austria, the Sublime Porte. Then leaving his country at peace with all the world, after going through an administration of eight years which brought him, as a legacy from his predecessors, the accumulated questions of half an age to settle with the great powers. This is the eulogy of FACTS, worth enough, in the plainest language, to dispense with eulogium of WORDS.

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