Chapter XLII…

Chapter XLII

THE RECOVERY OF THE DIRECT TRADE WITH THE BRITISH WEST INDIA ISLANDS.

The recovery of this trade had been a large object with the American government from the time of its establishment. As British colonies we enjoyed it before the Revolution; as revolted colonies we lost it; and as an independent nation we sought to obtain it again. The position of these islands, so near to our ports and shores--the character of the exports they received from us, being almost entirely the product of our farms and forests, and their large amount, always considerable, and of late some four millions of dollars per annum--the tropical productions which we received in return, and the large employment it gave to our navigation--all combined to give a cherished value to this branch of foreign trade, and to stimulate our government to the greatest exertions to obtain and secure its enjoyment; and with the advantage of being carried on by our own vessels. But these were objects not easily attainable, and never accomplished until the administration of President Jackson. All powers are jealous of alien intercourse with their colonies, and have a natural desire to retain colonial trade in their own hands, both for commercial and political reasons; and have a perfect right to do so if they please. Partial and conditional admission to trade with their colonies, or total exclusion from them, is in the discretion of the mother country; and any participation in their trade by virtue of treaty stipulations or legislative enactment, is the result of concession--generally founded in a sense of self-interest, or at best in a calculation of mutual advantage. No less than six negotiations (besides several attempts at "concerted legislation") had been carried on between the United States and Great Britain on this subject; and all, until the second year of General Jackson's administration, resulting in nothing more than limited concessions for a year, or for short terms; and sometimes coupled with conditions which nullified the privilege. It was a primary object of concern with General Washington's administration; and a knowledge of the action then had upon it elucidates both the value of the trade, the difficulty of getting admission to its participation, and the right of Great Britain to admit or deny its enjoyment to others. General Washington had practical knowledge on the subject. He had seen it enjoyed, and lost--enjoyed as British subjects, lost as revolted colonies and independent states--and knew its value, both from the use and the loss, and was most anxious to recover it. It was almost the first thing, in our foreign relations, to which he put his hand on becoming President; and literally did he put his hand to it. For as early as the 14th of October, 1789--just six months after his inauguration--in a letter of unofficial instructions to Mr. Gouverneur Morris, then in Europe, written with his own hand (requesting him to sound the British government on the subject of a commercial treaty with the United States), a point that he made was to ascertain their views in relation to allowing us the "privilege" of this trade. Privilege was his word, and the instruction ran thus: "Let it be strongly impressed on your mind that the privilege of carrying our productions in our own vessels to their islands, and bringing, in return, the productions of those islands to our ports and markets, is regarded here as of the highest importance," &c.

It was a prominent point in our very first negotiation with Great Britain in 1794; and the instructions to Mr. Jay, in May of that year, shows that admission to the trade was then only asked as a privilege, as in the year '89 and upon terms of limitation and condition. This is so material to the right understanding of this question, and to the future history of the case, and especially of a debate and vote in the Senate, of which President Jackson's instructions through Mr. Van Buren on the same subject was made the occasion, that I think it right to give the instructions of President Washington to Mr. Jay in his own words. They were these:

"If to the actual footing of our commerce and navigation in the British European dominions could be added the privilege of carrying directly from the United States to the British West Indies in our own bottoms generally, or of certain specified burthens, the articles which by the Act of Parliament, 28, Geo. III., chap. 6, may be carried thither in British bottoms, and of bringing them thence directly to the United States in American bottoms, this would afford an acceptable basis of treaty for a term not exceeding fifteen years."

An article was inserted in the treaty in conformity to these principles--our carrying vessels limited in point of burthen to seventy tons and under; the privilege limited in point of duration to the continuance of the then existing war between Great Britain and the French Republic, and to two years after its termination; and restricted in the return cargo both as to the nature of the articles and the port of their destination. These were hard terms, and precarious, and the article containing them was "suspended" by the Senate in the act of ratification, in the hope to obtain better; and are only quoted here in order to show that this direct trade to the British West Indies was, from the beginning of our federal government, only sought as a privilege, to be obtained under restrictions and limitations, and subordinately to British policy and legislation. This was the end of the first negotiation; five others were had in the ensuing thirty years, besides repeated attempts at "concerted legislation"--all ending either abortively or in temporary and unsatisfactory arrangements.

The most important of these attempts was in the years 1822 and 1823: and as it forms an essential item in the history of this case, and shows, besides, the good policy of letting "well-enough" alone, and the great mischief of inserting an apparently harmless word in a bill of which no one sees the drift but those in the secret, I will here give its particulars, adopting for that purpose the language of senator Samuel Smith, of Maryland,--the best qualified of all our statesmen to speak on the subject, he having the practical knowledge of a merchant in addition to experience as a legislator. His statement is this:

"During the session of 1822, Congress was informed that an act was pending in Parliament for the opening of the colonial ports to the commerce of the United States. In consequence, an act was passed authorizing the President (then Mr. Monroe), in case the act of Parliament was satisfactory to him, to open the ports of the United States to British vessels by his proclamation. The act of Parliament was deemed satisfactory, and a proclamation was accordingly issued, and the trade commenced. Unfortunately for our commerce, and I think contrary to justice, a treasury circular issued, directing the collectors to charge British vessels entering our ports with the alien tonnage and discriminating duties. This order was remonstrated against by the British minister (I think Mr. Vaughan). The trade, however, went on uninterrupted. Congress met and a bill was drafted in 1823 by Mr. Adams, then Secretary of State, and passed both Houses, with little, if any, debate. I voted for it, believing that it met, in a spirit of reciprocity, the British act of Parliament. This bill, however, contained one little word, "elsewhere," which completely defeated all our expectations. It was noticed by no one. The senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster) may have understood its effect. If he did so understand it, he was silent. The effect of that word "elsewhere" was to assume the pretensions alluded to in the instructions to Mr. McLane. (Pretension to a "right" in the trade.) The result was, that the British government shut their colonial ports immediately, and thenceforward. This act of 1822 gave us a monopoly (virtually) of the West India trade. It admitted, free of duty, a variety of articles, such as Indian corn, meal, oats, peas, and beans. The British government thought we entertained a belief that they could not do without our produce, and by their acts of the 27th June and 5th July, 1825, they opened their ports to all the world, on terms far less advantageous to the United States, than those of the act of 1822."

Such is the important statement of General Smith. Mr. Webster was present at the time, and said nothing. Both these acts were clear rights on the part of Great Britain, and that of 1825 contained a limitation upon the time within which each nation was to accept the privilege it offered, or lose the trade for ever. This legislative privilege was accepted by all nations which had any thing to send to the British West Indies, except the United States. Mr. Adams did not accept the proffered privilege--undertook to negotiate for better terms--failed in the attempt--and lost all. Mr. Clay was Secretary of State, Mr. Gallatin the United States Minister in London, and the instructions to him were, to insist upon it as a "right" that our produce should be admitted on the same terms on which produce from the British possessions were admitted.--This was the "elsewhere," &c. The British government refused to negotiate; and then Mr. Gallatin was instructed to waive temporarily the demand of right, and accept the privilege offered by the act of 1825. But in the mean time the year allowed in the act for its acceptance had expired, and Mr. Gallatin was told that his offer was too late! To that answer the British ministry adhered; and, from the month of July, 1826, the direct trade to the British West Indies was lost to our citizens, leaving them no mode of getting any share in that trade, either in sending out our productions or receiving theirs, but through the expensive, tedious, and troublesome process of a circuitous voyage and the intervention of a foreign vessel. The shock and dissatisfaction in the United States were extreme at this unexpected bereavement; and that dissatisfaction entered largely into the political feelings of the day, and became a point of attack on Mr. Adams's administration, and an element in the presidential canvass which ended in his defeat.

In giving an account of this untoward event to his government, Mr. Gallatin gave an account of his final interview with Mr. Huskisson, from which it appeared that the claim of "right" on the part of the United States, on which Mr. Gallatin had been instructed to "insist" was "temporarily waived;" but without effect. Irritation, on account of old scores, as expressed by Mr Gallatin--or resentment at our pertinacious persistence to secure a "right" where the rest of the world accepted a "privilege," as intimated by Mr. Huskisson--mixed itself with the refusal; and the British government adhered to its absolute right to regulate the foreign trade of its colonies, and to treat us as it did the rest of the world. The following are passages from Mr. Gallatin's dispatch, from London, September 11, 1827:

"Mr. Huskisson said it was the intention of the British government to consider the intercourse of the British colonies as being exclusively under its control, and any relaxation from the colonial system as an indulgence, to be granted on such terms as might suit the policy of Great Britain at the time it was granted. I said every question of right had, on this occasion, been waived on the part of the United States, the only object of the present inquiry being to ascertain whether, as a matter of mutual convenience, the intercourse might not be opened in a manner satisfactory to both countries. He (Mr. H.) said that it had appeared as if America had entertained the opinion that the British West Indies could not exist without her supplies; and that she might, therefore, compel Great Britain to open the intercourse on any terms she pleased. I disclaimed any such belief or intention on the part of the United States. But it appeared to me, and I intimated it, indeed, to Mr. Huskisson, that he was acting rather under the influence of irritated feelings, on account of past events, than with a view to the mutual interests of both parties."

This was Mr. Gallatin's last dispatch. An order in council was issued, interdicting the trade to the United States; and he returned home. Mr. James Barbour, Secretary at War, was sent to London to replace him, and to attempt again the repulsed negotiation; but without success. The British government refused to open the question: and thus the direct access to this valuable commerce remained sealed against us. President Adams, at the commencement of the session of Congress, 1827-28, formally communicated this fact to that body, and in terms which showed at once that an insult had been received, an injury sustained, redress refused, and ill-will established between the two governments. He said:

"At the commencement of the last session of Congress, they were informed of the sudden and unexpected exclusion by the British government, of access, in vessels of the United States, to all their colonial ports, except those immediately bordering upon our own territory.

"In the amicable discussions which have succeeded the adoption of this measure, which, as it affected harshly the interests of the United States, became a subject of expostulation on our part, the principles upon which its justification has been placed have been of a diversified character. It has at once been ascribed to a mere recurrence to the old long-established principle of colonial monopoly, and at the same time to a feeling of resentment, because the offers of an act of Parliament, opening the colonial ports upon certain conditions, had not been grasped at with sufficient eagerness by as instantaneous conformity to them. At a subsequent period it has been intimated that the new exclusion was in resentment, because a prior act of Parliament, of 1822, opening certain colonial ports, under heavy and burdensome restrictions, to vessels of the United States, had not been reciprocated by an admission of British vessels from the colonies, and their cargoes, without any restriction or discrimination whatever. But, be the motive for the interdiction what it may, the British government have manifested no disposition, either by negotiation or by corresponding legislative enactments, to recede from it; and we have been given distinctly to understand that neither of the bills which were under the consideration of Congress at their last session, would have been deemed sufficient in their concessions to have been rewarded by any relaxation from the British interdict. The British government have not only declined negotiation upon the subject, but, by the principle they have assumed with reference to it, have precluded even the means of negotiation. It becomes not the self-respect of the United States, either to solicit gratuitous favours, or to accept, as the grant of a favor, that for which an ample equivalent is exacted."

This was the communication of Mr. Adams to Congress, and certainly nothing could be more vexatious or hopeless than the case which he presented--an injury, an insult, a rebuff, and a refusal to talk with us upon the subject. Negotiation, and the hope of it, having thus terminated, President Adams did what the laws required of him, and issued his proclamation making known to the country the total cessation of all direct commerce between the United States and the British West India Islands.

The loss of this trade was a great injury to the United States (besides the insult), and was attended by circumstances which gave it the air of punishment for something that was past. It was a rebuff in the face of Europe; for while the United States were sternly and unceremoniously cut off from the benefit of the act of 1825, for omission to accept it within the year, yet other powers in the same predicament (France, Spain and Russia) were permitted to accept after the year; and the "irritated feelings" manifested by Mr. Huskisson indicated a resentment which was finding its gratification. We were ill-treated, and felt it. The people felt it. It was an ugly case to manage, or to endure; and in this period of its worst aspect General Jackson was elected President.

His position was delicate and difficult. His election had been deprecated as that of a rash and violent man, who would involve us in quarrels with foreign nations; and here was a dissension with a great nation lying in wait for him--prepared to his hand--the legacy of his predecessor--either to be composed satisfactorily, or to ripen into retaliation and hostility; for it was not to be supposed that things could remain as they were. He had to choose between an attempt at amicable recovery of the trade by new overtures, or retaliation--leading to, it is not known what. He determined upon the first of these alternatives, and Mr. Louis McLane, of Delaware, was selected for the delicate occasion. He was sent minister to London; and in renewing an application which had been so lately and so categorically rejected, some reason had to be given for a persistance which might seem both importunate and desperate, and even deficient in self-respect; and that reason was found in the simple truth that there had been a change of administration in the United States, and with it a change of opinion on the subject, and on the essential point of a "right" in us to have our productions admitted into her West Indies on the same terms as British productions were received; that we were willing to take the trade as a "privilege," and simply and unconditionally, under the act of Parliament of 1825. Instructions to that effect had been drawn up by Mr. Van Buren, Secretary of State, under the special directions of General Jackson, who took this early occasion to act upon his cardinal maxim in our foreign intercourse: "Ask nothing but what is right--submit to nothing wrong." This frank and candid policy had its effect. The great object was accomplished. The trade was recovered; and what had been lost under one administration, and precariously enjoyed under others, and been the subject of fruitless negotiation for forty years, and under six different Presidents--Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams--with all their accomplished secretaries and ministers, was now amicably and satisfactorily obtained under the administration of General Jackson; and upon the basis to give it perpetuity--that of mutual interest and actual reciprocity. The act of Parliament gave us the trade on terms nearly as good as those suggested by Washington in 1789; fully as good as those asked for by him in 1794; better than those inserted in the treaty of that year, and suspended by the Senate; and, though nominally on the same terms as given to the rest of the world, yet practically better, on account of our proximity to this British market; and our superabundance of articles (chiefly provisions and lumber) which it wants. And the trade has been enjoyed under this act ever since, with such entire satisfaction, that there is already an oblivion of the forty years' labor which it cost us to obtain it; and a generation has grown up, almost without knowing to whom they are indebted for its present enjoyment. But it made its sensation at the time, and a great one. The friends of the Jackson administration exulted; the people rejoiced; gratification was general--but not universal; and these very instructions, under which such great and lasting advantages had been obtained, were made the occasion in the Senate of the United States of rejecting their ostensible author as a minister to London. But of this hereafter.

The auspicious conclusion of so delicate an affair was doubtless first induced by General Jackson's frank policy in falling back upon Washington's ground of "privilege," in contradistinction to the new pretension of "right,"--helped out a little, it may be, by the possible after-clap suggested in the second part of his maxim. Good sense and good feeling may also have had its influence, the trade in question being as desirable to Great Britain as to the United States, and better for each to carry it on direct in their own vessels, than circuitously in the vessels of others; and the articles on each side being of a kind to solicit mutual exchange--tropical productions on one part, and those of the temperate zone on the other. But there was one thing which certainly contributed to the good result, and that was the act of Congress of May 29th, of which General Samuel Smith, senator from Maryland, was the chief promoter; and by which the President was authorized, on the adoption of certain measures by Great Britain, to open the ports of the United States to her vessels on reciprocal terms. The effect of this act was to strengthen General Jackson's candid overture; and the proclamation opening the trade was issued October the 5th, 1830, in the second year of the first term of the administration of President Jackson. And under that proclamation this long desired trade has been enjoyed ever since, and promises to be enjoyed in after time co-extendingly with the duration of peace between the two countries.

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XLIII. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GLOBE NEWSPAPER

At a presidential levee in the winter of 1830-'31, Mr. Duff Green, editor of the Telegraph newspaper, addressed a person then and now a respectable resident of Washington city (Mr. J. M. Duncanson), and invited him to call at his house, as he had something to say to him which would require a confidential interview. The call was made, and the object of the interview disclosed, which was nothing less than to engage his (Mr. Duncanson's) assistance in the execution of a scheme in relation to the next presidential election, in which General Jackson should be prevented from becoming a candidate for re-election, and Mr. Calhoun should be brought forward in his place. He informed Mr. Duncanson that a rupture was impending between General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun; that a correspondence had taken place between them, brought about (as he alleged) by the intrigues of Mr. Van Buren; that the correspondence was then in print, but its publication delayed until certain arrangements could be made; that the democratic papers at the most prominent points in the States were to be first secured; and men well known to the people as democrats, but in the exclusive interest of Mr. Calhoun, placed in charge of them as editors; that as soon as the arrangements were complete, the Telegraph would startle the country with the announcement of the difficulty (between General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun), and the motive for it; and that all the secured presses, taking their cue from the Telegraph, would take sides with Mr. Calhoun, and cry out at the same time; and the storm would seem to be so universal, and the indignation against Mr. Van Buren would appear to be so great, that even General Jackson's popularity would be unable to save him.

Mr. Duncanson was then invited to take part in the execution of this scheme, and to take charge of the Frankfort (Kentucky) Argus; and flattering inducements held out to encourage him to do so. Mr. Duncanson expressed surprise and regret at all that he heard--declared himself the friend of General Jackson, and of his re-election--opposed to all schemes to prevent him from being a candidate again--a disbeliever in their success, if attempted--and made known his determination to reveal the scheme, if it was not abandoned. Mr. Green begged him not to do so--said that the plan was not fully agreed upon; and might not be carried out. This was the end of the first interview. A few days afterwards Mr. Green called on Mr. Duncanson, and informed him that a rupture was now determined upon, and renewed his proposition that he should take charge of some paper, either as proprietor, or as editor on a liberal salary--one that would tell on the farmers and mechanics of the country, and made so cheap as to go into every workshop and cabin. Mr. Duncanson was a practical printer--owned a good job office--was doing a large business, especially for the departments--and only wished to remain as he was. Mr. Green offered, in both interviews, to relieve him from that concern by purchasing it from him, and assured him that he would otherwise lose the printing of the departments, and be sacrificed. Mr. Duncanson again refused to have any thing to do with the scheme, consulted with some friends, and caused the whole to be communicated to General Jackson. The information did not take the General by surprise; it was only a confirmation of what he well suspected, and had been wisely providing against. The history of the movement in Mr. Monroe's cabinet, to bring him before a military court, for his invasion of Spanish territory during the Seminole war, had just come to his knowledge; the doctrine of nullification had just been broached in Congress; his own patriotic toast: "The Federal Union: it must be preserved"--had been delivered; his own intuitive sagacity told him all the rest--the breach with Mr. Calhoun, the defection of the Telegraph, and the necessity for a new paper at Washington, faithful, fearless and incorruptible.

The Telegraph had been the central metropolitan organ of his friends and of the democratic party, during the long and bitter canvass which ended in the election of General Jackson, in 1828. Its editor had been gratified with the first rich fruits of victory--the public printing of the two Houses of Congress, the executive patronage, and the organship of the administration. The paper was still (in 1830) in its columns, and to the public eye, the advocate and supporter of General Jackson; but he knew what was to happen, and quietly took his measures to meet an inevitable contingency. In the summer of 1830, a gentleman in one of the public offices showed him a paper, the Frankfort (Kentucky) Argus, containing a powerful and spirited review of a certain nullification speech in Congress. He inquired for the author, ascertained him to be Mr. Francis P. Blair--not the editor, but an occasional contributor to the Argus--and had him written to on the subject of taking charge of a paper in Washington. The application took Mr. Blair by surprise. He was not thinking of changing his residence and pursuits. He was well occupied where he was--clerk of the lucrative office of the State Circuit Court at the capital of the State, salaried president of the Commonwealth Bank (by the election of the legislature), and proprietor of a farm and slaves in that rich State. But he was devoted to General Jackson and his measures, and did not hesitate to relinquish his secure advantages at home to engage in the untried business of editor at Washington. He came--established the Globe newspaper--and soon after associated with John C. Rives,--a gentleman worthy of the association and of the confidence of General Jackson and of the democratic party: and under their management the paper became the efficient and faithful organ of the administration during the whole period of his service, and that of his successor, Mr. Van Buren. It was established in time, and just in time, to meet the advancing events at Washington City. All that General Jackson had foreseen in relation to the conduct of the Telegraph, and all that had been communicated to him through Mr. Duncanson, came to pass: and he found himself, early in the first term of his administration, engaged in a triple war--with nullification, the Bank of the United States, and the whig party:--and must have been without defence or support from the newspaper press at Washington had it not been for his foresight in establishing the Globe.

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Chapter XLIV

LIMITATION OF PUBLIC LAND SALES. SUSPENSION OF SURVEYS. ABOLITION OF THE OFFICE OF SURVEYOR GENERAL. ORIGIN OF THE UNITED STATES LAND SYSTEM. AUTHORSHIP OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY ORDINANCE OF 1778. SLAVERY CONTROVERSY. PROTECTIVE TARIFF. INCEPTION OF THE DOCTRINE OF NULLIFICATION.

At the commencement of the session 1829-'30, Mr. Foot, of Connecticut, submitted in the Senate a resolution of inquiry which excited much feeling among the western members of that body. It was a proposition to inquire into the expediency of limiting the sales of the public lands to those then in market--to suspend the surveys of the public lands--and to abolish the office of Surveyor General. The effect of such a resolution, if sanctioned upon inquiry and carried into legislative effect, would have been to check emigration to the new States in the West--to check the growth and settlement of these States and territories--and to deliver up large portions of them to the dominion of wild beasts. In that sense it was immediately taken up by myself, and other western members, and treated as an injurious proposition--insulting as well as injurious--and not fit to be considered by a committee, much less to be reported upon and adopted. I opened the debate against it in a speech, of which the following is an extract:

"Mr. Benton disclaimed all intention of having anything to do with the motives of the mover of the resolution: he took it according to its effect and operation, and conceiving this to be eminently injurious to the rights and interests of the new States and Territories, he should justify the view which he had taken, and the vote he intended to give, by an exposition of facts and reasons which would show the disastrous nature of the practical effects of this resolution.

"On the first branch of these effects--checking emigration to the West--it is clear, that, if the sales are limited to the lands now in market, emigration will cease to flow; for these lands are not of a character to attract people at a distance. In Missouri they are the refuse of forty years picking under the Spanish Government, and twenty more under the Government of the United States. The character and value of this refuse had been shown, officially, in the reports of the Registers and Receivers, made in obedience to a call from the Senate. Other gentlemen would show what was said of it in their respective States; he would confine himself to his own, to the State of Missouri, and show it to be miserable indeed. The St. Louis District, containing two and a quarter millions of acres, was estimated at an average value of fifteen cents per acre; the Cape Girardeau District, containing four and a half millions of acres, was estimated at twelve and a half cents per acre; the Western District, containing one million and three quarters of acres, was estimated at sixty-two and a half cents; from the other two districts there was no intelligent or pertinent return; but assuming them to be equal to the Western District, and the average value of the lands they contain would be only one half the amount of the present minimum price. This being the state of the lands in Missouri which would be subject to sale under the operation of this resolution, no emigrants would be attracted to them. Persons who remove to new countries want new lands, first choices; and if they cannot get these, they have no sufficient inducement to move.

"The second ill effect to result from this resolution, supposing it to ripen into the measures which it implies to be necessary would be in limiting the settlements in the new States and Territories. This limitation of settlement would be the inevitable effect of confining the sales to the lands now in market. These lands in Missouri, only amount to one third of the State. By consequence, only one third could be settled. Two thirds of the State would remain without inhabitants; the resolution says, for 'a certain period,' and the gentlemen, in their speeches, expound this certain period to be seventy-two years. They say seventy-two millions of acres are now in market; that we sell but one million a year; therefore, we have enough to supply the demand for seventy-two years. It does not enter their heads to consider that, if the price was adapted to the value, all this seventy-two millions that is fit for cultivation would be sold immediately. They must go on at a million a year for seventy-two years, the Scripture term of the life of man--a long period in the age of a nation; the exact period of the Babylonish captivity--a long and sorrowful period in the history of the Jews; and not less long nor less sorrowful in the history of the West, if this resolution should take effect.

"The third point of objection is, that it would deliver up large portions of new States and Territories to the dominion of wild beasts. In Missouri, this surrender would be equal to two-thirds of the State, comprising about forty thousand square miles, covering the whole valley of the Osage River, besides many other parts, and approaching within a dozen miles of the centre and capital of the State. All this would be delivered up to wild beasts: for the Indian title is extinguished, and the Indians gone; the white people would be excluded from it; beasts alone would take it; and all this in violation of the Divine command to replenish the earth, to increase and multiply upon it, and to have dominion over the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, the fish in the waters, and the creeping things of the earth.

"The fourth point of objection is, in the removal of the land records--the natural effect of abolishing all the offices of the Surveyors General. These offices are five in number. It is proposed to abolish them all, and the reason assigned in debate is, that they are sinecures; that is to say, offices which have revenues and no employment. This is the description of a sinecure. We have one of these offices in Missouri, and I know something of it. The Surveyor General, Colonel McRee, in point of fidelity to his trust, belongs to the school of Nathaniel Macon; in point of science and intelligence, he belongs to the first order of men that Europe or America contains. He and his clerks carry labor and drudgery to the ultimate point of human exertion, and still fall short of the task before them; and this is an office which it is proposed to abolish under the notion of a sinecure, as an office with revenues, and without employment. The abolition of these offices would involve the necessity of removing all their records, and thus depriving the country of all the evidences of the foundations of all the land titles. This would be sweeping work; but the gentleman's plan would be incomplete without including the General Land Office in this city, the principal business of which is to superintend the five Surveyor General's offices, and for which there could be but little use after they were abolished.

"These are the practical effects of the resolution. Emigration to the new States checked their settlement limited; a large portion of their surface delivered up to the dominion of beasts; the land records removed. Such are the injuries to be inflicted upon the new States, and we, the senators from those States, are called upon to vote in favor of the resolution which proposes to inquire into the expediency of committing all these enormities! I, for one, will not do it. I will vote for no such inquiry. I would as soon vote for inquiries into the expediency of conflagrating cities, of devastating provinces, and of submerging fruitful lands under the waves of the ocean.

"I take my stand upon a great moral principle, that it is never right to inquire into the expediency of doing wrong.

"The proposed inquiry is to do wrong; to inflict unmixed, unmitigated evil upon the new States and Territories. Such inquiries are not to be tolerated. Courts of law will not sustain actions which have immoral foundations; legislative bodies should not sustain inquiries which have iniquitous conclusions. Courts of law make it an object to give public satisfaction in the administration of justice; legislative bodies should consult the public tranquillity in the prosecution of their measures. They should not alarm and agitate the country; yet, this inquiry, if it goes on, will give the greatest dissatisfaction to the new States in the West and South. It will alarm and agitate them, and ought to do it. It will connect itself with other inquiries going on elsewhere--in the other end of this building--in the House of Representatives--to make the new States a source of revenue to the old ones, to deliver them up to a new set of masters, to throw them as grapes into the wine press, to be trod and squeezed as long as one drop of juice could be pressed from their hulls. These measures will go together; and if that resolution passes, and this one passes, the transition will be easy and natural, from dividing the money after the lands are sold, to divide the lands before they are sold, and then to renting the land and drawing an annual income, instead of selling it for a price in hand. The signs are portentous; the crisis is alarming; it is time for the new States to wake up to their danger, and to prepare for a struggle which carries ruin and disgrace to them, if the issue is against them."

The debate spread, and took an acrimonious turn, and sectional, imputing to the quarter of the Union from which it came an old, and early policy to check the growth of the West at the outset by proposing to limit the sale of the western lands to a "clean riddance" as they went--selling no tract in advance until all in the rear was sold out. It so happened that the first ordinance reported for the sale and survey of western lands in the Congress of the Confederation, (1785,) contained a provision to this effect; and came from a committee strongly Northern--two to one, eight against four: and was struck out in the House on the motion of southern members, supported by the whole power of the South. I gave this account of the circumstance:

"The ordinance reported by the committee, contained the plan of surveying the public lands, which has since been followed. It adopted the scientific principle of ranges of townships, which has been continued ever since, and found so beneficial in a variety of ways to the country. The ranges began on the Pennsylvania line, and proceeded west to the Mississippi; and since the acquisition of Louisiana, they have proceeded west of that river; the townships began upon the Ohio River, and proceeded north to the Lakes. The townships were divided into sections of a mile square, six hundred and forty acres each; and the minimum price was fixed at one dollar per acre, and not less than a section to be sold together. This is the outline of the present plan of sales and surveys; and, with the modifications it has received, and may receive, in graduating the price of the land to the quality, the plan is excellent. But a principle was incorporated in the ordinance of the most fatal character. It was, that each township should be sold out complete before any land could offered in the next one! This was tantamount to a law that the lands should not be sold; that the country should not be settled: for it is certain that every township, or almost every one, would contain land unfit for cultivation, and for which no person would give six hundred and forty dollars for six hundred and forty acres. The effect of such a provision may be judged by the fact that above one hundred thousand acres remain to this day unsold in the first land district; the district of Steubenville, in Ohio, which included the first range and first township. If that provision had remained in the ordinance, the settlements would not yet have got out of sight of the Pennsylvania line. It was an unjust and preposterous provision. It required the people to take the country clean before them; buy all as they went; mountains, hills, and swamps; rocks, glens, and prairies. They were to make clean work, as the giant Polyphemus did when he ate up the companions of Ulysses:

'No entrails, blood, nor solid bone remains.'

Nothing could be more iniquitous than such a provision. It was like requiring your guest to eat all the bones on his plate before he should have more meat. To say that township No. 1 should be sold out complete before township No. 2 should be offered for sale, was like requiring the bones of the first turkey to be eat up before the breast of the second one should be touched. Yet such was the provision contained in the first ordinance for the sale of the public lands, reported by a committee of twelve, of which eight were from the north and four from the south side of the Potomac. How invincible must have been the determination of some politicians to prevent the settlement of the West, when they would thus counteract the sales of the lands which had just been obtained after years of importunity, for the payment of the public debt!

"When this ordinance was put upon its passage in Congress, two Virginians, whose names, for that act alone, would deserve the lasting gratitude of the West, levelled their blows against the obnoxious provision. Mr. Grayson moved to strike it out, and Mr. Monroe seconded him; and, after an animated and arduous contest, they succeeded. The whole South supported them; not one recreant arm from the South; many scattering members from the North also voted with the South, and in favor of the infant West; proving then, as now, and as it always has been, that the West has true supporters of her rights and interests--unhappily not enough of them--in that quarter of the Union from which the measures have originated that several times threatened to be fatal to her."

Still enlarging its circle, but as yet still confined to the sale and disposition of the public lands, the debate went on to discuss the propriety of selling them to settlers at auction prices, and at an arbitrary minimum for all qualities, and a refusal of donations; and in this hard policy the North was again considered as the exacting part of the Union--the South as the favorer of liberal terms, and the generous dispenser of gratuitous grants to the settlers in the new States and Territories. On this point, Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, thus expressed himself:

"The payment of 'a penny,' or a 'pepper corn,' was the stipulated price which our fathers along the whole Atlantic coast, now composing the old thirteen States, paid for their lands; and even when conditions, seemingly more substantial, were annexed to the grants; such for instance as 'settlement and cultivation;' these were considered as substantially complied with, by the cutting down a few trees and erecting a log cabin--the work of only a few days. Even these conditions very soon came to be considered as merely nominal, and were never required to be pursued, in order to vest in the grantee the fee simple of the soil. Such was the system under which this country was originally settled, and under which the thirteen colonies flourished and grew up to that early and vigorous manhood, which enabled them in a few years to achieve their independence; and I beg gentlemen to recollect, and note the fact, that, while they paid substantially nothing to the mother country, the whole profits of their industry were suffered to remain in their own hands. Now, what, let us inquire, was the reason which has induced all nations to adopt this system in the settlement of new countries? Can it be any other than this; that it affords the only certain means of building up in a wilderness, great and prosperous communities? Was not that policy founded on the universal belief, that the conquest of a new country, the driving out "the savage beasts and still more savage men," cutting down and subduing the forest, and encountering all the hardships and privations necessarily incident to the conversion of the wilderness into cultivated fields, was worth the fee simple of the soil? And was it not believed that the mother country found ample remuneration for the value of the land so granted, in the additions to her power and the new sources of commerce and of wealth, furnished by prosperous and populous States? Now, sir, I submit to the candid consideration of gentlemen, whether the policy so diametrically opposite to this, which has been invariably pursued by the United States towards the new States in the West has been quite so just and liberal, as we have been accustomed to believe. Certain it is, that the British colonies to the north of us, and the Spanish and French to the south and west, have been fostered and reared up under a very different system. Lands, which had been for fifty or a hundred years open to every settler, without any charge beyond the expense of the survey, were, the moment they fell into the hands of the United States, held up for sale at the highest price that a public auction, at the most favorable seasons, and not unfrequently a spirit of the wildest competition, could produce; with a limitation that they should never be sold below a certain minimum price; thus making it, as it would seem, the cardinal point of our policy, not to settle the country, and facilitate the formation of new States, but to fill our coffers by coining our lands into gold."

The debate was taking a turn which was foreign to the expectations of the mover of the resolution, and which, in leading to sectional criminations, would only inflame feelings without leading to any practical result. Mr. Webster saw this; and to get rid of the whole subject, moved its indefinite postponement; but in arguing his motion he delivered a speech which introduced new topics, and greatly enlarged the scope, and extended the length of the debate which he proposed to terminate. One of these new topics referred to the authorship, and the merit of passing the famous ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwestern Territory, and especially in relation to the antislavery clause which that ordinance contained. Mr. Webster claimed the merit of this authorship for Mr. Nathan Dane--an eminent jurist of Massachusetts, and avowed that "it was carried by the North, and by the North alone." I replied, claiming the authorship for Mr. Jefferson, and showing from the Journals that he (Mr. Jefferson) brought the measure into Congress in the year 1784 (the 19th of April of that year), as chairman of a committee, with the antislavery clause in it, which Mr. Speight, of North Carolina, moved to strike out; and it was struck out--the three Southern States present voting for the striking out, because the clause did not then contain the provision in favor of the recovery of fugitive slaves, which was afterwards ingrafted upon it. Mr. Webster says it was struck out because "nine States" did not vote for its retention. That is an error arising from confounding the powers of the confederation. Nine States were only required to concur in measures of the highest import, as declaring war, making peace, negotiating treaties, &c.,--and in all ordinary legislation the concurrence of a bare majority (seven) was sufficient; and in this case there were only six States voting for the retention, New Jersey being erroneously counted by Mr. Webster to make seven. If she had voted the number would have been seven, and the clause would have stood. He was led into the error by seeing the name of Mr. Dick appearing in the call for New Jersey; but New Jersey was not present as a State, being represented by only one member, and it requiring two to constitute the presence of a State. Mr. Dick was indulged with putting his name on the Journal, but his vote was not counted. Mr. Webster says the ordinance reported by Mr. Jefferson in 1784 did not pass into a law. This is a mistake again. It did pass; and that within five days after the antislavery clause was struck out--and that without any attempt to renew that clause, although the competent number (seven) of non-slaveholding States were present--the colleague of Mr. Dick having joined him, and constituted the presence of New Jersey. Two years afterwards, in July 1787, the ordinance was passed over again, as it now stands, and was pre-eminently the work of the South. The ordinance, as it now stands, was reported by a committee of five members, of whom three were from slaveholding States, and two (and one of them the chairman) were from Virginia alone. It received its first reading the day it was reported--its second reading the next day, when one other State had appeared--the third reading on the day ensuing; going through all the forms of legislation, and becoming a law in three days--receiving the votes of the eight States present, and the vote of every member of each State, except one; and that one from a free State north of the Potomac. These details I verified by producing the Journals, and showed under the dates of July 11th, 1787, and July 12th and 13th, the votes actually given for the ordinance. The same vote repealed the ordinance (Mr. Jefferson's) of 1784. I read in the Senate the passages from the Journal of the Congress of the confederation, the passages which showed these votes, and incorporated into the speech which I published, the extract from the Journal which I produced; and now incorporate the same in this work, that the authorship of that ordinance of 1787, and its passage through the old Congress, may be known in all time to come as the indisputable work, both in its conception and consummation, of the South. This is the extract:

THE JOURNAL.

Wednesday, July 11th, 1787.

"Congress assembled: Present, the seven States above mentioned." (Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia--7.)

"The Committee, consisting of Mr. Carrington (of Virginia), Mr. Dane (of Massachusetts), Mr. R. H. Lee (of Virginia), Mr. Kean (of South Carolina), and Mr. Smith (of New York), to whom was referred the report of a committee touching the temporary government of the Western Territory, reported an ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio; which was read a first time.

"Ordered, That to-morrow be assigned for the second reading."

"Thursday, July 12th, 1787.

"Congress assembled: Present, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia--(8.)

"According to order, the ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, was read a second time.

"Ordered, That to-morrow be assigned for the third reading of said ordinance."

"Friday, July 13th, 1787.

"Congress assembled: Present, as yesterday.

"According to order, the ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, was read a third time, and passed as follows."

[Here follows the whole ordinance, in the very words in which it now appears among the laws of the United States, with the non-slavery clause, the provisions in favor of schools and education, against impairing the obligation of contracts, laying the foundation and security of all these stipulations in compact, in favor of restoring fugitives from service, and repealing the ordinance of 23d of April, 1784--the one reported by Mr. Jefferson.]

"On passing the above ordinance, the yeas and nays being required by Mr. Yates:

Massachusetts--Mr. Holten, aye; Mr. Dane, aye.

New York--Mr. Smith, aye; Mr. Yates, no; Mr. Harring, aye.

New Jersey--Mr. Clarke, aye; Mr. Scheurman, aye.

Delaware--Mr. Kearney, aye; Mr. Mitchell, aye.

Virginia--Mr. Grayson, aye; Mr. R. H. Lee, aye; Mr. Carrington, aye.

North Carolina--Mr. Blount, aye; Mr. Hawkins, aye.

South Carolina--Mr. Kean, aye; Mr. Huger, aye.

Georgia--Mr. Few, aye; Mr. Pierce, aye.

So it was resolved in the affirmative." (Page 754, volume 4.)

The bare reading of these passages from the Journals of the Congress of the old confederation, shows how erroneous Mr. Webster was in these portions of his speech:

"At the foundation of the constitution of these new northwestern States, we are accustomed, sir, to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character, than the ordinance of '87. That instrument, was drawn by Nathan Dane, then, and now, a citizen of Massachusetts. It was adopted, as I think I have understood, without the slightest alteration; and certainly it has happened to few men to be the authors of a political measure of more large and enduring consequence. It fixed, for ever, the character of the population in the vast regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. It impressed on the soil itself, while it was yet a wilderness, an incapacity to bear up any other than free men. It laid the interdict against personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all local constitutions. Under the circumstances then existing, I look upon this original and seasonable provision, as a real good attained. We see its consequences at this moment, and we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow. It was a great and salutary measure of prevention. Sir, I should fear the rebuke of no intelligent gentleman of Kentucky, were I to ask whether if such an ordinance could have been applied to his own State, while it yet was a wilderness, and before Boon had passed the gap of the Alleghany, he does not suppose it would have contributed to the ultimate greatness of that commonwealth? It is, at any rate, not to be doubted, that where it did apply it has produced an effect not easily to be described, or measured in the growth of the States, and the extent and increase of their population. Now, sir, this great measure again was carried by the north, and by the north alone. There were, indeed, individuals elsewhere favorable to it; but it was supported as a measure, entirely by the votes of the northern States. If New England had been governed by the narrow and selfish views now ascribed to her, this very measure was, of all others, the best calculated to thwart her purposes. It was, of all things, the very means of rendering certain a vast emigration from her own population to the west. She looked to that consequence only to disregard it. She deemed the regulation a most useful one to the States that would spring up on the territory, and advantageous to the country at large. She adhered to the principle of it perseveringly, year after year, until it was finally accomplished.

"An attempt has been made to transfer, from the North to the South, the honor of this exclusion of slavery from the northwestern territory. The journal, without argument or comment, refutes such attempt. The cession by Virginia was made, March, 1784. On the 19th of April following, a committee, consisting of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase, and Howell, reported a plan for a temporary government of the territory, in which was this article: 'that, after the year 1800, there shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been convicted.' Mr. Speight, of North Carolina, moved to strike out this paragraph. The question was put, according to the form then practised: 'Shall these words stand, as part of the plan,' &c.? New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania--seven States, voted in the affirmative. Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, in the negative. North Carolina was divided. As the consent of nine States was necessary, the words could not stand, and were struck out accordingly. Mr. Jefferson voted for the clause, but was overruled by his colleagues.

"In March, the next year [1785], Mr. King of Massachusetts, seconded by Mr. Ellery of Rhode Island, proposed the formerly rejected article, with this addition: 'And that this regulation shall be an article of compact, and remain a fundamental principle of the constitutions between the thirteen original States, and each of the States described in the resolve,' &c. On this clause, which provided the adequate and thorough security, the eight northern States at that time voted affirmatively, and the four southern States negatively. The votes of nine States were not yet obtained, and thus, the provision was again rejected by the southern States. The perseverance of the north held out, and two years afterwards the object was attained."

This is shown to be all erroneous in relation to this ordinance. It was not first drawn by Mr. Dane, but by Mr. Jefferson, and that nearly two years before Mr. Dane came into Congress. It was not passed by the North alone, but equally by the South--there being but eight States present at the passing, and they equally of the North and the South--and the South voting unanimously for it, both as States and as individual members, while the North had one member against it. It was not baffled two years for the want of nine States; if so, and nine States had been necessary, it would not have been passed when it was, and never by free State votes alone. There were but eight States (both Northern and Southern) present at the passing; and there were not nine free States in the confederacy at that time. There were but thirteen in all: and the half of these, as nearly as thirteen can be divided, were slave States. The fact is, that the South only delayed its vote for the antislavery clause in the ordinance for want of the provision in favor of recovering fugitives from service. As soon as that was added, she took the lead again for the ordinance--a fact which gives great emphasis to the corresponding provision in the constitution.

Mr. Webster was present when I read these extracts, and said nothing. He neither reaffirmed his previous statement, that Mr. Dane was the author of the ordinance, and that "this great measure was carried by the North, and by the North alone." He said nothing; nor did he afterwards correct the errors of his speech: and they now remain in it; and have given occasion to a very authentic newspaper contradiction of his statement, copied, like my statement to the Senate, from the Journals of the old Congress. It was by Edward Coles, Esq., formerly of Virginia, and private secretary to President Madison, afterwards governor of the State of Illinois, and now a citizen of Pennsylvania, resident of Philadelphia. He made his correction through the National Intelligencer, of Washington City; and being drawn from the same sources it agrees entirely with my own. And thus the South is entitled to the credit of originating and passing this great measure--a circumstance to be remembered and quoted, as showing the South at that time in taking the lead in curtailing and restricting the existence of slavery. The cause of Mr. Webster's mistakes may be found in the fact that the ordinance was three times before the old Congress, and once (the third time) in the hands of a committee of which Mr. Dane was a member. It was first reported by a committee of three (April, 1784) of which two were from slave states, (Mr. Jefferson of Virginia and Mr. Chase of Maryland,) Mr. Howard, of Rhode Island; and this, as stated, was nearly two years before Mr. Dane became a member. The antislavery clause was then dropped, there being but six States for it. The next year, the antislavery clause, with some modification, was moved by Mr. Rufus King, and sent as a proposition to a committee: but did not ripen into a law. Afterwards the whole ordinance was passed as it now stands, upon the report of a committee of six, of whom Mr. Dane was one; but not the chairman.

Closely connected with this question of authorship to which Mr. Webster's remarks give rise, was another which excited some warm discussion--the topic of slavery--and the effect of its existence or non-existence in different States. Kentucky and Ohio were taken for examples, and the superior improvement and population of Ohio were attributed to its exemption from the evils of slavery. This was an excitable subject, and the more so because the wounds of the Missouri controversy, in which the North was the undisputed aggressor, were still tender, and hardly scarred over. Mr. Hayne answered with warmth and resented as a reflection upon the slave States this disadvantageous comparison. I replied to the same topic myself, and said:

"I was on the subject of slavery, as connected with the Missouri question, when last on the floor. The senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hayne] could see nothing in the question before the Senate, nor in any previous part of the debate, to justify the introduction of that topic. Neither could I. He thought he saw the ghost of the Missouri question brought in among us. So did I. He was astonished at the apparition. I was not: for a close observance of the signs in the West had prepared me for this development from the East. I was well prepared for that invective against slavery, and for that amplification of the blessings of exemption from slavery, exemplified in the condition of Ohio, which the senator from Massachusetts indulged in, and which the object in view required to be derived from the Northeast. I cut the root of that derivation by reading a passage from the Journals of the old Congress; but this will not prevent the invective and encomium from going forth to do their office; nor obliterate the line which was drawn between the free State of Ohio and the slave State of Kentucky. If the only results of this invective and encomium were to exalt still higher the oratorical fame of the speaker, I should spend not a moment in remarking upon them. But it is not to be forgotten that the terrible Missouri agitation took its rise from the "substance of two speeches" delivered on this floor; and since that time, antislavery speeches, coming from the same political and geographical quarter, are not to be disregarded here. What was said upon that topic was certainly intended for the north side of the Potomac and Ohio; to the people, then, of that division of the Union, I wish to address myself, and to disabuse them of some erroneous impressions. To them I can truly say, that slavery, in the abstract, has but few advocates or defenders in the slave-holding States, and that slavery as it is, an hereditary institution descended upon us from our ancestors, would have fewer advocates among us than it has, if those who have nothing to do with the subject would only let us alone. The sentiment in favor of slavery was much weaker before those intermeddlers began their operations than it is at present. The views of leading men in the North and the South were indisputably the same in the earlier periods of our government. Of this our legislative history contains the highest proof. The foreign-slave trade was prohibited in Virginia, as soon as the Revolution began. It was one of her first acts of sovereignty. In the convention of that State which adopted the federal constitution, it was an objection to that instrument that it tolerated the African slave-trade for twenty years. Nothing that has appeared since has surpassed the indignant denunciations of this traffic by Patrick Henry, George Mason, and others, in that convention.

"Sir, I regard with admiration, that is to say, with wonder, the sublime morality of those who cannot bear the abstract contemplation of slavery, at the distance of five hundred or a thousand miles off. It is entirely above, that is to say, it affects a vast superiority over the morality of the primitive Christians, the apostles of Christ, and Christ himself. Christ and the apostles appeared in a province of the Roman empire, when that empire was called the Roman world, and that world was filled with slaves. Forty millions was the estimated number, being one-fourth of the whole population. Single individuals held twenty thousand slaves. A freed man, one who had himself been a slave, died the possessor of four thousand--such were the numbers. The rights of the owners over this multitude of human beings was that of life and death, without protection from law or mitigation from public sentiment. The scourge, the cross, the fish-pond, the den of the wild beast, and the arena of the gladiator, was the lot of the slave, upon the slightest expression of the master's will. A law of incredible atrocity made all slaves responsible with their own lives for the life of their master; it was the law that condemned the whole household of slaves to death, in case of the assassination of the master--a law under which as many as four hundred have been executed at a time. And these slaves were the white people of Europe and of Asia Minor, the Greeks and other nations, from whom the present inhabitants of the world derive the most valuable productions of the human mind. Christ saw all this--the number of the slaves--their hapless condition--and their white color, which was the same with his own; yet he said nothing against slavery; he preached no doctrines which led to insurrection and massacre; none which, in their application to the state of things in our country, would authorize an inferior race of blacks to exterminate that superior race of whites, in whose ranks he himself appeared upon earth. He preached no such doctrines, but those of a contrary tenor, which inculcated the duty of fidelity and obedience on the part of the slave--humanity and kindness on the part of the master. His apostles did the same. St. Paul sent back a runaway slave. Onesimus, to his owner, with a letter of apology and supplication. He was not the man to harbor a runaway, much less to entice him from his master; and, least of all, to excite an insurrection."

This allusion to the Missouri controversy, and invective against the free States for their part in it, brought a reply from Mr. Webster, showing what their conduct had been at the first introduction of the slavery topic in the Congress of the United States, and that they totally refused to interfere between master and slave in any way whatever. This is what he said:

"When the present constitution was submitted for the ratification of the people, there were those who imagined that the powers of the government which it proposed to establish might, perhaps, in some possible mode, be exerted in measures tending to the abolition of slavery. This suggestion would, of course, attract much attention in the southern conventions. In that of Virginia, Governor Randolph said:

"'I hope there is none here who, considering the subject in the calm light of philosophy, will make an objection dishonorable to Virginia--that, at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection is started, that there is a spark of hope that those unfortunate men now held in bondage may, by the operation of the general government, be made free.'

"At the very first Congress, petitions on the subject were presented, if I mistake not, from different States. The Pennsylvania society for promoting the abolition of slavery, took a lead, and laid before Congress a memorial, praying Congress to promote the abolition by such powers as it possessed. This memorial was referred, in the House of Representatives, to a select committee consisting of Mr. Foster of New Hampshire; Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Huntington of Connecticut; Mr. Lawrence of New-York; Mr. Sinnickson of New Jersey; Mr. Hartley of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Parker of Virginia; all of them, sir, as you will observe, northern men, but the last. This committee made a report, which was committed to a committee of the whole house, and there considered and discussed on several days; and being amended, although in no material respect, it was made to express three distinct propositions on the subject of slavery and the slave-trade. First, in the words of the constitution, that Congress could not, prior to the year 1808, prohibit the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States, then existing, should think proper to admit. Second, that Congress had authority to restrain the citizens of the United States from carrying on the African slave-trade, for the purpose of supplying foreign countries. On this proposition, our laws against those who engage in that traffic, are founded. The third proposition, and that which bears on the present question, was expressed in the following terms:

"'Resolved, That Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them in any of the States; it remaining with the several States alone to provide rules and regulations therein, which humanity and true policy may require.'

"This resolution received the sanction of the House of Representatives so early as March, 1790. And now, sir, the honorable member will allow me to remind him, that not only were the select committee who reported the resolution, with a single exception, all northern men, but also that of the members then composing the House of Representatives, a large majority, I believe nearly two thirds, were northern men also.

"The house agreed to insert these resolutions in its journal, and, from that day to this, it has never been maintained or contended that Congress had any authority to regulate, or interfere with, the condition of slaves in the several States. No northern gentleman, to my knowledge, has moved any such question in either house of Congress.

"The fears of the South, whatever fears they might have entertained, were allayed and quieted by this early decision; and so remained, till they were excited afresh, without cause, but for collateral and indirect purposes. When it became necessary, or was thought so, by some political persons, to find an unvarying ground for the exclusion of northern men from confidence and from lead in the affairs of the republic, then, and not till then, the cry was raised, and the feeling industriously excited, that the influence of northern men in the public councils would endanger the relation of master and slave. For myself I claim no other merit than that this gross and enormous injustice towards the whole North, has not wrought upon me to change my opinions, or my political conduct. I hope I am above violating my principles, even under the smart of injury and false imputations. Unjust suspicions and undeserved reproach, whatever pain I may experience from them, will not induce me, I trust, nevertheless, to overstep the limits of constitutional duty, or to encroach on the rights of others. The domestic slavery of the South I leave where I find it--in the hands of their own governments. It is their affair, not mine. Nor do I complain of the peculiar effect which the magnitude of that population has had in the distribution of power under this federal government. We know, sir, that the representation of the states in the other house is not equal. We know that great advantage, in that respect, is enjoyed by the slaveholding States; and we know, too, that the intended equivalent for that advantage, that is to say, the imposition of direct taxes in the same ratio, has become merely nominal; the habit of the government being almost invariably to collect its revenues from other sources, and in other modes. Nevertheless, I do not complain: nor would I countenance any movement to alter this arrangement of representation. It is the original bargain, the compact--let it stand: let the advantage of it be fully enjoyed. The Union itself is too full of benefit to be hazarded in propositions for changing its original basis. I go for the constitution as it is, and for the Union as it is. But I am resolved not to submit, in silence, to accusations, either against myself individually, or against the North, wholly unfounded and unjust; accusations which impute to us a disposition to evade the constitutional compact, and to extend the power of the government over the internal laws and domestic condition of the States. All such accusations, wherever and whenever made, all insinuations of the existence of any such purposes, I know, and feel to be groundless and injurious. And we must confide in southern gentlemen themselves; we must trust to those whose integrity of heart and magnanimity of feeling will lead them to a desire to maintain and disseminate truth, and who possess the means of its diffusion with the southern public; we must leave it to them to disabuse that public of its prejudices. But, in the mean time, for my own part, I shall continue to act justly, whether those towards whom justice is exercised, receive it with candor or with contumely."

This is what Mr. Webster said on the subject of slavery; and although it was in reply to an invective of my own, excited by the recent agitation of the Missouri question, I made no answer impugning its correctness; and must add that I never saw any thing in Mr. Webster inconsistent with what he then said; and believe that the same resolves could have been passed in the same way at any time during the thirty years that I was in Congress.

But the topic which became the leading feature of the whole debate; and gave it an interest which cannot die, was that of nullification--the assumed right of a state to annul an act of Congress--then first broached in our national legislature--and in the discussion of which Mr. Webster and Mr. Hayne were the champion speakers on opposite sides--the latter understood to be speaking the sentiments of the Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun. This new turn in the debate was thus brought about: Mr. Hayne, in the sectional nature of the discussion which had grown up, made allusions to the conduct of New England during the war of 1812; and especially to the assemblage known as the Hartford Convention, and to which designs unfriendly to the Union had been attributed. This gave Mr. Webster the rights both of defence and of retaliation; and he found material for the first in the character of the assemblage, and for the second in the public meetings which had taken place in South Carolina on the subject of the tariff--and at which resolves were passed, and propositions adopted significant of resistance to the act; and, consequently, of disloyalty to the Union. He, in his turn, made allusions to these resolves and propositions, until he drew out Mr. Hayne into their defence, and into an avowal of what has since obtained the current name of "Nullification;" although at the time (during the debate) it did not at all strike me as going the length which it afterwards avowed; nor have I ever believed that Mr. Hayne contemplated disunion, in any contingency, as one of its results. In entering upon the argument, Mr. Webster first summed up the doctrine, as he conceived it to be avowed, thus:

"I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to maintain, that it is a right of the State legislature to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws.

"I understand him to maintain this right, as a right existing under the constitution; not as a right to overthrow it, on the ground of extreme necessity, such as would justify violent revolution.

"I understand him to maintain an authority, on the part of the States, thus to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the exercise of power by the general government, of checking it, and of compelling it to conform to their opinion of the extent of its powers.

"I understand him to maintain that the ultimate power of judging of the constitutional extent of its own authority is not lodged exclusively in the general government, or any branch of it; but that, on the contrary, the States may lawfully decide for themselves, and each State for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the general government transcends its power.

"I understand him to insist that, if the exigency of the case, in the opinion of any State government, require it, such State government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government, which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional."

Mr. Hayne, evidently unprepared to admit, or fully deny, the propositions as broadly laid down, had recourse to a statement of his own; and, adopted for that purpose, the third resolve of the Virginia resolutions of the year 1798--reaffirmed in 1799. He rose immediately and said that, for the purpose of being clearly understood, he would state that his proposition was in the words of the Virginia resolution; and read it--

"That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them."

Thus were the propositions stated, and argued--each speaker taking his own proposition for his text; which in the end, (and as the Virginia resolutions turned out to be understood in the South Carolina sense) came to be identical. Mr. Webster, at one point, giving to his argument a practical form, and showing what the South Carolina doctrine would have accomplished in New England if it had been acted upon by the Hartford Convention, said:

"Let me here say, sir, that, if the gentleman's doctrine had been received and acted upon in New England, in the times of the embargo and non-intercourse, we should probably not now have been here. The government would, very likely, have gone to pieces, and crumbled into dust. No stronger case can ever arise than existed under those laws; no States can ever entertain a clearer conviction than the New England States then entertained; and if they had been under the influence of that heresy of opinion, as I must call it which the honorable member espouses, this Union would, in all probability, have been scattered to the four winds. I ask the gentleman, therefore, to apply his principles to that case; I ask him to come forth and declare, whether, in his opinion, the New England States would have been justified in interfering to break up the embargo system, under the conscientious opinions which they held upon it? Had they a right to annul that law? Does he admit or deny? If that which is thought palpably unconstitutional in South Carolina, justifies that State in arresting the progress of the law, tell me, whether that which was thought palpably unconstitutional also in Massachusetts, would have justified her in doing the same thing? Sir, I deny the whole doctrine. It has not a foot of ground in the constitution to stand on. No public man of reputation ever advanced it in Massachusetts, in the warmest times, or could maintain himself upon it there at any time."

He argued that the doctrine had no foundation either in the constitution, or in the Virginia resolutions--that the constitution makes the federal government act upon citizens within the States, and not upon the States themselves, as in the old confederation: that within their constitutional limits the laws of Congress were supreme--and that it was treasonable to resist them with force: and that the question of their constitutionality was to be decided by the Supreme Court. On this point, he said:

"The people, then, sir, erected this government. They gave it a constitution; and in that constitution they have enumerated the powers which they bestow on it. They have made it a limited government. They have defined its authority. They have restrained it to the exercise of such powers as are granted; and all others, they declare, are reserved to the States or to the people. But, sir, they have not stopped here. If they had, they would have accomplished but half their work. No definition can be so clear as to avoid possibility of doubt; no limitation so precise as to exclude all uncertainty. Who then shall construe this grant of the people? Who shall interpret their will, where it may be supposed they have left it doubtful? With whom do they repose this ultimate right of deciding on the powers of the government? Sir, they have settled all this in the fullest manner. They have left it with the government itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, the very chief end, the main design, for which the whole constitution was framed and adopted was, to establish a government that should not be obliged to act through State agency, or depend on State opinion and State discretion. The people had had quite enough of that kind of government under the confederacy. Under that system, the legal action, the application of law to individuals, belonged exclusively to the States. Congress could only recommend; their acts were not of binding force, till the States had adopted and sanctioned them. Are we in that condition still? Are we yet at the mercy of State discretion, and State construction? Sir, if we are, then vain will be our attempt to maintain the constitution under which we sit. But, sir, the people have wisely provided, in the constitution itself, a proper, suitable mode and tribunal for settling questions of constitutional law. There are, in the constitution, grants of powers to Congress, and restrictions on these powers. There are, also, prohibitions on the States. Some authority must, therefore, necessarily exist, having the ultimate jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpretation of these grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. The constitution has, itself, pointed out, ordained, and established, that authority. How has it accomplished this great and essential end? By declaring, sir, that 'the constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.'

"This, sir, was the first great step. By this, the supremacy of the constitution and laws of the United States is declared. The people so will it. No State law is to be valid which comes in conflict with the constitution or any law of the United States. But who shall decide this question of interference? To whom lies the last appeal? This, sir, the constitution itself decides also, by declaring 'that the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the constitution and laws of the United States.' These two provisions, sir, cover the whole ground. They are, in truth, the key-stone of the arch. With these, it is a constitution; without them it is a confederacy. In pursuance of these clear and express provisions, Congress established, at its very first session, in the Judicial Act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, and for bringing all questions of constitutional power to the final decision of the Supreme Court. It then, sir, became a government. It then had the means of self-protection; and, but for this, it would, in all probability, have been now among things which are past. Having constituted the government, and declared its powers, the people have farther said, that, since somebody must decide on the extent of these powers, the government shall itself decide; subject, always, like other popular governments, to its responsibility to the people. And now, sir, I repeat, how is it that a State legislature acquires any power to interfere? Who or what gives them the right to say to the people, 'we, who are your agents and servants for one purpose, will undertake to decide that your other agents and servants, appointed by you for another purpose, have transcended the authority you gave them?' The reply would be, I think, not impertinent: who made you judge over another's servants? To their own masters they stand or fall."

With respect to the Virginia resolutions, on which Mr. Hayne relied, Mr. Webster disputed the interpretation put upon them--claimed for them an innocent and justifiable meaning--and exempted Mr. Madison from the suspicion of having penned a resolution asserting the right of a State legislature to annul an act of Congress, and thereby putting it in the power of one State to destroy a form of government which he had just labored so hard to establish. To this effect he said:

"I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the Virginia resolutions of 1798. I cannot undertake to say how these resolutions were understood by those who passed them. Their language is not a little indefinite. In the case of the exercise, by Congress, of a dangerous power, not granted to them, the resolutions assert the right, on the part of the State, to interfere, and arrest the progress of the evil. This is susceptible of more than one interpretation. It may mean no more than that the States may interfere by complaint and remonstrance; or by proposing to the people an alteration of the federal constitution. This would all be quite unobjectionable; or, it may be, that no more is meant than to assert the general right of revolution, as against all governments, in cases of intolerable oppression. This no one doubts; and this, in my opinion, is all that he who framed the resolutions could have meant by it: for I shall not readily believe that he (Mr. Madison) was ever of opinion that a State, under the constitution, and in conformity with it, could, upon the ground of her own opinion of its unconstitutionality, however clear and palpable she might think the case, annul a law of Congress, so far as it should operate on herself, by her own legislative power."

Mr. Hayne, on his part, disclaimed all imitation of the Hartford Convention; and gave (as the practical part of his doctrine) the pledge of forcible resistance to any attempt to enforce unconstitutional laws. He said:

"Sir, unkind as my allusion to the Hartford Convention has been considered by its supporters, I apprehend that this disclaimer of the gentleman will be regarded as 'the unkindest cut of all.' When the gentleman spoke of the Carolina conventions of Colleton and Abbeville, let me tell him that he spoke of that which never had existence, except in his own imagination. There have, indeed, been meetings of the people in those districts, composed, sir, of as high-minded and patriotic men as any country can boast; but we have had no 'convention' as yet; and when South Carolina shall resort to such a measure for the redress of her grievances, let me tell the gentleman that, of all the assemblies that have ever been convened in this country, the Hartford Convention is the very last we shall consent to take as an example; nor will it find more favor in our eyes, from being recommended to us by the senator from Massachusetts. Sir, we would scorn to take advantage of difficulties created by a foreign war, to wring from the federal government a redress even of our grievances. We are standing up for our constitutional rights, in a time of profound peace; but if the country should, unhappily, be involved in a war to-morrow, we should be found flying to the standard of our country--first driving back the common enemy, and then insisting upon the restoration of our rights.

"The gentleman has called upon us to carry out our scheme practically. Now, sir, if I am correct in my view of this matter, then it follows, of course, that the right of a State being established, the federal government is bound to acquiesce in a solemn decision of a State, acting in its sovereign capacity, at least so far as to make an appeal to the people for an amendment to the constitution. This solemn decision of a State (made either through its legislature, or a convention, as may be supposed to be the proper organ of its sovereign will--a point I do not propose now to discuss) binds the federal government, under the highest constitutional obligation, not to resort to any means of coercion against the citizens of the dissenting State. How, then, can any collision ensue between the federal and State governments, unless, indeed, the former should determine to enforce the law by unconstitutional means? What could the federal government do, in such a case? Resort, says the gentleman, to the courts of justice. Now, can any man believe that, in the face of a solemn decision of a State, that an act of Congress is 'a gross, palpable, and deliberate violation of the constitution,' and the interposition of its sovereign authority to protect its citizens from the usurpation, that juries could be found ready merely to register the decrees of the Congress, wholly regardless of the unconstitutional character of their acts? Will the gentleman contend that juries are to be coerced to find verdicts at the point of the bayonet? And if not, how are the United States to enforce an act solemnly pronounced to be unconstitutional? But, if the attempt should be made to carry such a law into effect, by force, in what would the case differ from an attempt to carry into effect an act nullified by the courts, or to do any other unlawful and unwarrantable act? Suppose Congress should pass an agrarian law, or a law emancipating our slaves, or should commit any other gross violation of our constitutional rights, will any gentleman contend that the decision of every branch of the federal government, in favor of such laws, could prevent the States from declaring them null and void, and protecting their citizens from their operation?

"Sir, if Congress should ever attempt to enforce any such laws, they would put themselves so clearly in the wrong, that no one could doubt the right of the State to exert its protecting power.

"Sir, the gentleman has alluded to that portion of the militia of South Carolina with which I have the honor to be connected, and asked how they would act in the event of the nullification of the tariff law by the State of South Carolina? The tone of the gentleman, on this subject, did not seem to me as respectful as I could have desired. I hope, sir, no imputation was intended."

[Mr. Webster: "Not at all; just the reverse."]

"Well, sir, the gentleman asks what their leaders would be able to read to them out of Coke upon Littleton, or any other law book, to justify their enterprise? Sir, let me assure the gentleman that, whenever any attempt shall be made from any quarter, to enforce unconstitutional laws, clearly violating our essential rights, our leaders (whoever they may be) will not be found reading black letter from the musty pages of old law books. They will look to the constitution, and when called upon, by the sovereign authority of the State, to preserve and protect the rights secured to them by the charter of their liberties, they will succeed in defending them, or 'perish in the last ditch.'"

I do not pretend to give the arguments of the gentlemen, or even their substance, but merely to state their propositions and their conclusions. For myself, I did not believe in any thing serious in the new interpretation given to the Virginia resolutions--did not believe in any thing practical from nullification--did not believe in forcible resistance to the tariff laws from South Carolina--did not believe in any scheme of disunion--believed, and still believe, in the patriotism of Mr. Hayne: and as he came into the argument on my side in the article of the public lands, so my wishes were with him, and I helped him where I could. Of this desire to help, and disbelief in disunion, I gave proof, in ridiculing, as well as I could, Mr. Webster's fine peroration to liberty and union, and really thought it out of place--a fine piece of rhetoric misplaced, for want of circumstances to justify it. He had concluded thus:

"When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union afterwards; but every where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart--Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!"

These were noble sentiments, oratorically expressed, but too elaborately and too artistically composed for real grief in presence of a great calamity--of which calamity I saw no sign; and therefore deemed it a fit subject for gentle castigation: and essayed it thus:

"I proceed to a different theme. Among the novelties of this debate, is that part of the speech of the senator from Massachusetts which dwells with such elaboration of declamation and ornament, upon the love and blessings of union--the hatred and horror of disunion. It was a part of the senator's speech which brought into full play the favorite Ciceronian figure of amplification. It was up to the rule in that particular. But, it seemed to me, that there was another rule, and a higher, and a precedent one, which it violated. It was the rule of propriety; that rule which requires the fitness of things to be considered; which requires the time, the place, the subject, and the audience, to be considered; and condemns the delivery of the argument, and all its flowers, if it fails in congruence to these particulars. I thought the essay upon union and disunion had so failed. It came to us when we were not prepared for it; when there was nothing in the Senate, nor in the country to grace its introduction; nothing to give, or to receive, effect to, or from, the impassioned scene that we witnessed. It may be, it was the prophetic cry of the distracted daughter of Priam, breaking into the council, and alarming its tranquil members with vaticinations of the fall of Troy; but to me, it all sounded like the sudden proclamation for an earthquake, when the sun, the earth, the air, announced no such prodigy; when all the elements of nature were at rest, and sweet repose pervading the world. There was a time, and you, and I, and all of us, did see it, sir, when such a speech would have found, in its delivery, every attribute of a just and rigorous propriety! It was at a time, when the five-striped banner was waving over the land of the North! when the Hartford Convention was in session! when the language in the capitol was, "Peaceably, if we can; forcibly, if we must!" when the cry, out of doors, was, "the Potomac the boundary; the negro States by themselves! The Alleghanies the boundary; the Western savages by themselves! The Mississippi the boundary, let Missouri be governed by a prefect, or given up as a haunt for wild beasts!" That time was the fit occasion for this speech; and if it had been delivered then, either in the hall of the House of Representatives, or in the den of the Hartford Convention, or in the highway among the bearers and followers of the five-striped banner, what effects must it not have produced! What terror and consternation among the plotters of disunion! But, here, in this loyal and quiet assemblage, in this season of general tranquillity and universal allegiance, the whole performance has lost its effect for want of affinity, connection, or relation, to any subject depending, or sentiment expressed, in the Senate; for want of any application, or reference, to any event impending in the country."

I do not quote this passage for any thing that I now see out of place in that peroration; but for a quite different purpose--for the purpose of showing that I was slow to believe in any design to subvert this Union--that at the time of this great debate (February and March, 1830) I positively discredited it, and publicly proclaimed my incredulity. I did not want to believe it. I repulsed the belief. I pushed aside every circumstance that Mr. Webster relied on, and softened every expression that Mr. Hayne used, and considered him as limiting (practically) his threatened resistance to the tariff act, to the kind of resistance which Virginia made to the alien and sedition laws--which was an appeal to the reason, judgment and feelings of the other States--and which had its effect in the speedy repeal of those laws. Mr. Calhoun had not then uncovered his position in relation to nullification. I knew that Mr. Webster was speaking at him in all that he said to Mr. Hayne: but I would believe nothing against him except upon his own showing, or undoubted evidence. Although not a favorite statesman with me, I felt admiration for his high intellectual endowments, and respect for the integrity and purity of his private life. Mr. Hayne I cordially loved; and believed, and still believe, in the loyalty of his intentions to the Union. They were both from the South--that sister Carolina, of which the other was my native State, and in both of which I have relatives and hereditary friends--and for which I still have the affections which none but the wicked ever lose for the land of their birth: and I felt as they did in all that relates to the tariff--except their remedy. But enough for the present. The occasion will come, when we arrive at the practical application of the modern nullification doctrine, to vindicate the constitution from the political solecism of containing within itself a suicidal principle, and to vindicate the Virginia resolutions, and their authors (and, in their own language), from the "anarchical and preposterous" interpretation which has been put upon their words.

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XLV. REPEAL OF THE SALT TAX

A tax on Salt is an odious measure, hated by all people and in all time, and justly, because being an article of prime necessity, indispensable to man and to beast, and bountifully furnished them by the Giver of all good, the cost should not be burthened, nor the use be stinted by government regulation; and the principles of fair taxation would require it to be spared, because it is an agent, and a great one, in the development of many branches of agricultural and mechanical industry which add to the wealth of the country and produce revenue from the exports and consumption to which they give rise. People hate the salt tax, because they are obliged to have the salt, and cannot evade the tax: governments love the tax for the same reason--because people are obliged to pay it. This would seem to apply to governments despotic or monarchial, and not to those which are representative and popular. But representative governments sometimes have calamities--war for example--when subjects of taxation diminish as need for revenue increases: and then representative governments, like others, must resort to the objects which will supply its necessities. This has twice been the case with the article of salt in the United States. The duty on that article was carried up to a high tax in the quasi war with France (1798), having been small before; and then only imposed as a war measure--to cease as soon as the war was over. But all governments work alike on the imposition and release of taxes--easy to get them on in a time of necessity--hard to get them off when the necessity has passed. So of this first war tax on salt. The "speck of war" with France, visible above the horizon in '98, soon sunk below it; and the sunshine of peace prevailed. In the year 1800--two years after the duty was raised to its maximum--the countries were on the most friendly terms; but it was not until 1807, and under the whole power of Mr. Jefferson's administration, that this temporary tax was abolished; and with it the whole system of fishing bounties and allowances founded upon it.

In the war of 1812, at the commencement of the war with Great Britain, it was renewed, with its concomitant of fishing bounties and allowances; but still as a temporary measure, limited to the termination of the war which induced it, and one year thereafter. The war terminated in 1815, and the additional year expired in 1816; but before the year was out, the tax was continued, not for a definite period, but without time--on the specious argument that, if a time was fixed, it would be difficult to get it off before the time was out: but if unfixed, it would be easy to get it off at any time: and all agreed that that was to be soon--that a temporary continuance of all the taxes was necessary until the revenue, deranged by the war, should become regular and adequate. It was continued on this specious argument--and remained in full until General Jackson's administration--and, in part, until this day (1850)--the fishing bounties and allowances in full: and that is the working of all governments in the levy and repeal of taxes. I found the salt tax in full force when I came to the Senate in 1820, strengthened by time, sustained by a manufacturing interest, and by the fishing interest (which made the tax a source of profit in the supposed return of the duty in the shape of bounties and allowances): and by the whole American system; which took the tax into its keeping, as a protection to a branch of home industry. I found efforts being made in each House to suppress this burthen upon a prime necessary of life; and, in the session 1829-'30, delivered a speech in support of the laudable endeavor, of which these are some parts:

"Mr. Benton commenced his speech, by saying that he was no advocate for unprofitable debate, and had no ambition to add his name to the catalogue of barren orators; but that there were cases in which speaking did good; cases in which moderate abilities produced great results, and he believed the question of repealing the salt tax to be one of those cases. It had certainly been so in England. There the salt tax had been overthrown by the labors of plain men, under circumstances much more unfavorable to their undertaking than exist here. The English salt tax had continued one hundred and fifty years. It was cherished by the ministry, to whom it yielded a million and a half sterling of revenue; it was defended by the domestic salt makers, to whom it gave a monopoly of the home market; it was consecrated by time, having subsisted for five generations; it was fortified by the habits of the people, who were born, and had grown gray under it; and it was sanctioned by the necessities of the State, which required every resource of rigorous taxation. Yet it was overthrown; and the overthrow was effected by two debates, conducted, not by the orators whose renown has filled the world--not by Sheridan, Burke, Pitt, and Fox--but by plain, business men--Mr. Calcraft, Mr. Curwen, and Mr. Egerton. These patriotic members of the British Parliament commenced the war upon the British salt tax in 1817, and finished it in 1822. They commenced with the omens and auspices all against them, and ended with complete success. They abolished the salt tax in toto. They swept it all off, bravely rejecting all compromises when they had got their adversaries half vanquished, and carrying their appeals home to the people, until they had roused a spirit before which the ministry quailed, the monopolizers trembled, the Parliament gave way, and the tax fell. This example is encouraging; it is full of consolation and of hope; it shows what zeal and perseverance can do in a good cause: it shows that the cause of truth and justice is triumphant when its advocates are bold and faithful. It leads to the conviction that the American salt tax will fall as the British tax did, as soon as the people shall see that its continuance is a burthen to them, without adequate advantage to the government, and that its repeal is in their own hands.

"The enormous amount of the tax was the first point to which Mr. B. would direct his attention. He said it was near three hundred per cent. upon Liverpool blown, and four hundred per cent. upon alum salt; but as the Liverpool was a very inferior salt, and not much used in the West, he would confine his observations to the salt of Portugal and the West Indies, called by the general name of alum. The import price of this salt was from eight to nine cents a bushel of fifty-six pounds each, and the duty upon that bushel was twenty cents. Here was a tax of upwards of two hundred per cent. Then the merchant had his profit upon the duty as well as the cost of the article: and when it went through the hands of several merchants before it got to the consumer, each had his profit upon it; and whenever this profit amounted to fifty per cent. upon the duty, it was upwards of one hundred per cent. upon the salt. Then, the tariff laws have deprived the consumer of thirty-four pounds in the bushel, by substituting weight for measure, and that weight a false one. The true weight of a measured bushel of alum salt is eighty-four pounds; but the British tariff laws, for the sake of multiplying the bushels, and increasing the product of the tax, substituted weight for measure; and our tariff laws copied after them, and adopted their standard of fifty-six pounds to the bushel.

"Mr. B. entered into statistical details, to show the aggregate amount of this tax, which he stated to be enormous, and contrary to every principle of taxation, even if taxes were so necessary as to justify the taxing of salt. He stated the importation of foreign salt, in 1829, at six millions of bushels, round numbers; the value seven hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, and the tax at twenty cents a bushel, one million two hundred thousand dollars, the merchant's profit upon that duty at fifty per cent. is six hundred thousand dollars; and the secret or hidden tax, in the shape of false weight for true measure, at the rate of thirty pounds in the bushel, was four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Here, then, is taxation to the amount of about two millions and a quarter of dollars, upon an article costing seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and that article one of prime necessity and universal use, ranking next after bread, in the catalogue of articles for human subsistence.

"The distribution of this enormous tax upon the different sections of the Union, was the next object of Mr. B.'s inquiry; and, for this purpose, he viewed the Union under three great divisions--the Northeast, the South, and the West. To the northeast, and especially to some parts of it, he considered the salt tax to be no burthen, but rather a benefit and a money-making business. The fishing allowances and bounties produced this effect. In consideration of the salt duty, the curers and exporters of fish are allowed money out of the treasury, to the amount, as it was intended, of the salt duty paid by them; but it has been proved to be twice as much. The annual allowance is about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the aggregate drawn from the treasury since the first imposition of the salt duty in 1789, is shown by the treasury returns to be five millions of dollars. Much of this is drawn by undue means, as is shown by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, at the commencement of the present session, page eight of the annual report on the finances. The Northeast makes much salt at home, and chiefly by solar evaporation, which fits it for curing fish and provisions. Much of it is proved, by the returns of the salt makers, to be used in the fisheries, while the fisheries are drawing money from the treasury under the laws which intended to indemnify them for the duty paid on foreign salt. To this section of the Union, then, the salt tax is not felt as a burthen.

"Let us proceed to the South. In this section there are but few salt works, and no bounties or allowances, as there are no fisheries. The consumers are thrown almost entirely upon the foreign supply, and chiefly use the Liverpool blown. The import price of this is about fifteen cents a bushel; the weight and strength is less than that of alum salt; and the tax falls heavily and directly upon the people, to the whole amount of their consumption. It is a heavy burthen upon the South.

"The West is the last section to be viewed, and it will be found to be the true seat of the most oppressive operations of the salt tax. The domestic supply is high in price, deficient in quantity, and altogether unfit for one of the greatest purposes for which salt is there wanted--curing provisions for exportation. A foreign supply is indispensable, and alum salt is the kind used. The import price of this kind, from the West Indies, is nine cents a bushel; from Portugal, eight cents a bushel. At these prices, the West could be supplied with this salt at New Orleans, if the duty was abolished; but, in consequence of the duty, it costs thirty-seven and a half cents per bushel there, being four times the import price of the article, and seventy-five cents per bushel at Louisville and other central parts of the valley of the Mississippi. This enormous price, resolved into its component parts, is thus made up: 1. Eight or nine cents a bushel for the salt. 2. Twenty cents for duty. 3. Eight or ten cents for merchant's profit at New Orleans. 4. Sixteen or seventeen cents for freight to Louisville. 5. Fifteen or twenty cents for the second merchant's profit, who counts his per centum on his whole outlay. In all, about seventy-five cents for a bushel of fifty pounds, which, if there was no duty, and the tariff regulations of weight for measure abolished, would be bought in New Orleans, by the measured bushel of eighty pounds weight, for eight or nine cents, and would be brought up the river, by steamboats, at the rate of thirty-three and a third cents per hundred weight. It thus appears that the salt tax falls heaviest upon the West. It is an error to suppose that the South is the greatest sufferer. The West wants it for every purpose the South does, and two great purposes besides--curing provision for export, and salting stock. The West uses alum salt, and on this the duty is heaviest, because the price is lower, and the weight greater. Twenty cents on salt which costs eight or nine cents a bushel is a much heavier duty than on that which costs fifteen cents; and then the deception in the substitution of weight for measure is much greater in alum salt, which weighs so much more than the Liverpool blown. Like the South, the West receives no bounties or allowances on account of the salt duties. This may be fair in the South, where the imported salt is not re-exported upon fish or provisions; but it is unfair in the West, where the exportation of beef, pork, bacon, cheese, and butter, is prodigious, and the foreign salt re-exported upon the whole of it.

"Mr. B. then argued, with great warmth, that the provision curers and exporters were entitled to the same bounties and allowances with the exporters of fish. The claims of each rested upon the same principle, and upon the principle of all drawbacks--that of a reimbursement of the duty which was paid on the imported salt when re-exported on fish and provisions. The same principle covers the beef and pork of the farmer, which covers the fish of the fisherman; and such was the law in the beginning. The first act of Congress, in the year 1789, which imposed a duty upon salt, allowed a bounty, in lieu of a drawback, on beef and pork exported, as well as fish. The bounty was the same in each case; it was five cents a quintal on dried fish, five cents a barrel on pickled fish, and five on beef and pork. As the duty on salt was increased, the bounties and allowances were increased also. Fish and salted beef and pork fared alike for the first twenty years.

"They fared alike till the revival of the salt tax at the commencement of the late war. Then they parted company; bounties and allowances were continued to the fisheries, and dropped on beef and pork; and this has been the case ever since. The exporters of fish are now drawing at the rate of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, as a reimbursement for their salt tax; while exporters of provisions draw nothing. The aggregate of the fishing bounties and allowances, actually drawn from the treasury, exceeds five millions of dollars; while the exporters of provisions, who get nothing, would have been entitled to draw a greater sum; for the export in salted provisions exceeds the value of exported fish.

"Mr. B. could not quit this part of his subject, without endeavoring to fix the attention of the Senate upon the provision trade of the West. He took this trade in its largest sense, as including the export trade of beef, pork, bacon, cheese, and butter, to foreign countries, especially the West Indies; the domestic trade to the Lower Mississippi and the Southern States; the neighborhood trade, as supplying the towns in the upper States, the miners in Missouri and the Upper Mississippi, the army and the navy; and the various professions, which, being otherwise employed, did not raise their own provisions. The amount of this trade, in this comprehensive view, was prodigious, and annually increasing, and involving in its current almost the entire population of the West, either as the growers and makers of the provisions, the curers, exporters, or consumers. The amount could scarcely be ascertained. What was exported from New Orleans was shown to be great; but it was only a fraction of the whole trade. He declared it to be entitled to the favorable consideration of Congress, and that the repeal of the salt duty was the greatest favor, if an act of justice ought to come under the name of favor, which could be rendered it, as the salt was necessary in growing the hogs and cattle, as well as in preparing the beef and pork for market. A reduction in the price of salt, next to a reduction in the price of land, was the greatest blessing which the federal government could now confer upon the West. Mr. B. referred to the example of England, who favored her provision curers, and permitted them to import alum salt free of duty, for the encouragement of the provision trade, even when her own salt manufacturers were producing an abundant and superfluous supply of common salt. He showed that she did more; that she extended the same relief and encouragement to the Irish; and he read from the British statute book an act of the British Parliament, passed in 1807, entitled 'An act to encourage the export of salted beef and pork from Ireland,' which allowed a bounty of ten pence sterling on every hundred weight of beef and pork so exported, in consideration of the duty paid on the salt which was used in the curing of it. He stated, that, at a later period, the duty had been entirely repealed, and the Irish, in common with other British subjects, allowed a free trade with all the world, in salt; and then demanded, in the most emphatic manner, if the people of the West could not obtain from the American Congress the justice which the oppressed Irish had procured from a British Parliament, composed of hereditary nobles, and filled with representatives of rotten boroughs, and slavish retainers of the king's ministers.

"The 'American system' has taken the salt tax under its shelter and protection. The principles of that system, as I understand them, and practise upon them, are to tax, through the custom-house, the foreign rivals of our own essential productions, when, by that taxation, an adequate supply of the same article, as good and as cheap, can be made at home. These were the principles of the system (Mr. B. said) when he was initiated, and, if they had changed since, he had not changed with them; and he apprehended a promulgation of the change would produce a schism amongst its followers. Taking these to be the principles of the system, let the salt tax be brought to its test. In the first place, the domestic manufacture had enjoyed all possible protection. The duty was near three hundred per cent. on Liverpool salt, and four hundred upon alum salt; and to this must be added, so far as relates to all the interior manufactories, the protection arising from transportation, frequently equal to two or three hundred per cent. more. This great and excessive protection has been enjoyed, without interruption, for the last eighteen years, and partially for twenty years longer. This surely is time enough for the trial of a manufacture which requires but little skill or experience to carry it on. Now for the results. Have the domestic manufactories produced an adequate supply for the country? They have not; nor half enough. The production of the last year (1829) as shown in the returns to the Secretary of the Treasury, is about five millions of bushels; the importation of foreign salt, for the same period, as shown by the custom-house returns, is five million nine hundred and forty-five thousand five hundred and forty-seven bushels. This shows the consumption to be eleven millions of bushels, of which five are domestic. Here the failure in the essential particular of an adequate supply is more than one half. In the next place, how is it in point of price? Is the domestic article furnished as cheap as the foreign? Far from it, as already shown, and still further, as can be shown. The price of the domestic, along the coast of the Atlantic States, varies, at the works, from thirty-seven and a half to fifty cents; in the interior, the usual prices, at the works, are from thirty-three and a third cents to one dollar for the bushel of fifty pounds, which can nearly be put into a half bushel measure. The prices of the foreign salt, at the import cities, as shown in the custom-house returns for 1829, are, for the Liverpool blown, about fifteen cents for the bushel of fifty-six pounds; for Turk's Island and other West India salt, about nine cents; for St. Ubes and other Portugal salt, about eight cents; for Spanish salt, Bay of Biscay and Gibraltar, about seven cents; from the Island of Malta, six cents. Leaving out the Liverpool salt, which is made by boiling, and, therefore, contains slack and bittern, a septic ingredient, which promotes putrefaction, and renders that salt unfit for curing provisions, and which is not used in the West, and the average price of the strong, pure, alum salt, made by solar evaporation, in hot climates, is about eight cents to the bushel. Here, then, is another lamentable failure. Instead of being sold as cheap as the foreign, the domestic salt is from four to twelve times the price of alum salt. The last inquiry is as to the quality of the domestic article. Is it as good as the foreign? This is the most essential application of the test: and here again the failure is decisive. The domestic salt will not cure provisions for exportation (the little excepted which is made, in the Northeast, by solar evaporation), nor for consumption in the South, nor for long keeping at the army posts, nor for voyages with the navy. For all these purposes it is worthless, and useless, and the provisions which are put up in it are lost, or have to be repacked, at a great expense, in alum salt. This fact is well known throughout the West, where too many citizens have paid the penalty of trusting to domestic salt, to be duped or injured by it any longer.

"And here he submitted to the Senate, that the American system, without a gross departure from its original principles, could not cover this duty any longer. It has had the full benefit of that system in high duties, imposed for a long time, on foreign salt; it had not produced an adequate supply for the country, nor half a supply; nor at as cheap a rate, by three hundred or one thousand per cent.; and what it did supply so far from being equal in quantity, could not even be used as a substitute for the great and important business of the provision trade. The amount of so much of that trade as went to foreign countries, Mr. B. showed to be sixty-six thousand barrels of beef, fifty-four thousand barrels of pork, two millions of pounds of bacon, two millions of pounds of butter, and one million of pounds of cheese; and he considered the supply for the army and navy, and for consumption in the South, to exceed the quantity exported.

"It cannot be necessary here to dilate upon the uses of salt. But, in repealing that duty in England, it was thought worthy of notice that salt was necessary to the health, growth, and fattening of hogs, cattle, sheep, and horses; that it was a preservative of hay and clover, and restored moulded and flooded hay to its good and wholesome state, and made even straw and chaff available as food for cattle. The domestic salt makers need not speak of protection against alum salt. No quantity of duty will keep it out. The people must have it for the provision trade; and the duty upon that kind of salt is a grievous burthen upon them, without being of the least advantage to the salt makers.

"Mr. B. said, there was no argument which could be used here, in favor of continuing this duty, which was not used, and used in vain, in England; and many were used there, of much real force, which cannot be used here. The American system, by name, was not impressed into the service of the tax there, but its doctrines were; and he read a part of the report of the committee on salt duties, in 1817, to prove it. It was the statement of the agent of the British salt manufacturers, Mr. William Horne, who was sworn and examined as a witness. He said: 'I will commence by referring to the evidence I gave upon the subject of rock salt, in order to establish the presumption of the national importance of the salt trade, arising from the large extent of British capital employed in the trade, and the considerable number of persons dependant upon it for support. I, at the same time, stated that the salt trade was in a very depressed state, and that it continued to fall off. I think it cannot be doubted that the salt trade, in common with all staple British manufactures, is entitled to the protection of government; and the British manufacturers of salt consider that, in common with other manufacturers of this country, they are entitled to such protection, in particular from a competition at home with foreign manufacturers; and, in consequence, they hope to see a prohibitory duty on foreign salt.'

"Such was the petition of the British manufacturers. They urged the amount of their capital, the depressed state of their business, the number of persons dependent upon it for support, the duty of the government to protect it, the necessity for a prohibitory duty on foreign salt, and the fact that they were making more than the country could consume. The ministry backed them with a call for the continuance of the revenue, one million five hundred thousand pounds sterling, derived from the salt tax; and with a threat to lay that amount upon something else, if it was taken off of salt. All would not do. Mr. Calcraft, and his friends, appealed to the rights and interests of the people, as overruling considerations in questions of taxation. They denounced the tax itself as little less than impiety, and an attack upon the goodness and wisdom of God, who had filled the bowels of the earth, and the waves of the sea, with salt for the use and blessing of man, and to whom it was denied, its use clogged and fettered, by odious and abominable taxes. They demanded the whole repeal; and when the ministry and the manufacturers, overpowered by the voice of the people, offered to give up three fourths of the tax, they bravely resisted the proposition, stood out for total repeal, and carried it.

"Mr. B. could not doubt a like result here, and he looked forward, with infinite satisfaction, to the era of a free trade in salt. The first effect of such a trade would be, to reduce the price of alum salt, at the import cities, to eight or nine cents a bushel. The second effect would be, a return to the measured bushel, by getting rid of the tariff regulation, which substituted weight for measure, and reduced eighty-four pounds to fifty. The third effect would be, to establish a great trade, carried on by barter, between the inhabitants of the United States and the people of the countries which produce alum salt, to the infinite advantage and comfort of both parties. He examined the operation of this barter at New Orleans. He said, this pure and superior salt, made entirely by solar evaporation, came from countries which were deficient in the articles of food, in which the West abounded. It came from the West Indies, from the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and from places in the Mediterranean; all of which are at this time consumers of American provisions, and take from us beef, pork, bacon, rice, corn, corn meal, flour, potatoes, &c. Their salt costs them almost nothing. It is made on the sea beach by the power of the sun, with little care and aid from man. It is brought to the United States as ballast, costing nothing for the transportation across the sea. The duty alone prevents it from coming to the United States in the most unbounded quantity. Remove the duty, and the trade would be prodigious. A bushel of corn is worth more than a sack of salt to the half-starved people to whom the sea and the sun give as much of this salt as they will rake up and pack away. The levee at New Orleans would be covered--the warehouses would be crammed with salt; the barter trade would become extensive and universal, a bushel of corn, or of potatoes, a few pounds of butter, or a few pounds of beef or pork, would purchase a sack of salt; the steamboats would bring it up for a trifle; and all the upper States of the Great Valley, where salt is so scarce, so dear, and so indispensable for rearing stock and curing provisions, in addition to all its obvious uses, would be cheaply and abundantly supplied with that article. Mr. B. concluded with saying, that, next to the reduction of the price of public lands, and the free use of the earth for labor and cultivation, he considered the abolition of the salt tax, and a free trade in foreign salt, as the greatest blessing which the federal government could now bestow upon the people of the West."

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Chapter XLVI

BIRTHDAY OF MR. JEFFERSON, AND THE DOCTRINE OF NULLIFICATION.

The anniversary of the birthday of Mr. Jefferson (April 13th) was celebrated this year by a numerous company at Washington City. Among the invited guests present were the President and Vice-President of the United States, three of the Secretaries of departments--Messrs. Van Buren, Eaton and Branch--and the Postmaster-General, Mr. Barry--and numerously attended by members of both Houses of Congress, and by citizens. It was a subscription dinner; and as the paper imported, to do honor to the memory of Mr. Jefferson as the founder of the political school to which the subscribers belonged. In that sense I was a subscriber to the dinner and attended it; and have no doubt that the mass of the subscribers acted under the same feeling. There was a full assemblage when I arrived, and I observed gentlemen standing about in clusters in the ante-rooms, and talking with animation on something apparently serious, and which seemed to engross their thoughts. I soon discovered what it was--that it came from the promulgation of the twenty-four regular toasts, which savored of the new doctrine of nullification; and which, acting on some previous misgivings, began to spread the feeling, that the dinner was got up to inaugurate that doctrine, and to make Mr. Jefferson its father. Many persons broke off, and refused to attend further; but the company was still numerous, and ardent, as was proved by the number of volunteer votes given--above eighty--in addition to the twenty-four regulars; and the numerous and animated speeches delivered--the report of the whole proceedings filling eleven newspaper columns. When the regular toasts were over, the President was called upon for a volunteer, and gave it--the one which electrified the country, and has become historical: "Our Federal Union: It must be preserved." This brief and simple sentiment, receiving emphasis and interpretation from all the attendant circumstances, and from the feeling which had been spreading since the time of Mr. Webster's speech, was received by the public as a proclamation from the President, to announce a plot against the Union, and to summon the people to its defence. Mr. Calhoun gave the next toast; and it did not at all allay the suspicions which were crowding every bosom. It was this: "The Union: next to our Liberty the most dear: may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefit and burthen of the Union." This toast touched all the tender parts of the new question--liberty before union--only to be preserved--State rights--inequality of burthens and benefits. These phrases, connecting themselves with Mr. Hayne's speech, and with proceedings and publications in South Carolina, unveiled NULLIFICATION, as a new and distinct doctrine in the United States, with Mr. Calhoun for its apostle, and a new party in the field of which he was the leader. The proceedings of the day put an end to all doubt about the justice of Mr. Webster's grand peroration, and revealed to the public mind the fact of an actual design tending to dissolve the Union.

Mr. Jefferson was dead at that time, and could not defend himself from the use which the new party made of his name--endeavoring to make him its founder;--and putting words in his mouth for that purpose which he never spoke. He happened to have written in his lifetime, and without the least suspicion of its future great materiality, the facts in relation to his concern in the famous resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky, and which absolve him from the accusation brought against him since his death. He counselled the resolutions of the Virginia General Assembly; and the word nullify, or nullification, is not in them, or any equivalent word: he drew the Kentucky resolutions of 1798: and they are equally destitute of the same phrases. He had nothing to do with the Kentucky resolutions of 1799, in which the word "nullification," and as the "rightful remedy," is found; and upon which the South Carolina school relied as their main argument--and from which their doctrine took its name. Well, he had nothing to do with it! and so wrote (as a mere matter of information, and without foreseeing its future use), in a letter to William C. Cabell shortly before his death. This letter is in Volume III., page 429, of his published correspondence. Thus, he left enough to vindicate himself, without knowing that a vindication would be necessary, and without recurring to the argumentative demonstration of the peaceful and constitutional remedies which the resolutions which he did write, alone contemplated. But he left a friend to stand up for him when he was laid low in his grave--one qualified by his long and intimate association to be his compurgator, and entitled from his character to the absolute credence of all mankind. I speak of Mr. Madison, who, in various letters published in a quarto volume by Mr. J. C. McGuire, of Washington City, has given the proofs which I have already used, and added others equally conclusive. He fully overthrows and justly resents the attempt "of the nullifiers to make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal of their colossal heresy." (Page 286: letter to Mr. N. P. Trist.) And he left behind him a State also to come to the rescue of his assailed integrity--his own native State of Virginia--whose legislature almost unanimously, immediately after the attempt to make Mr. Jefferson "the pedestal of this colossal heresy," passed resolves repulsing the imputation, and declaring that there was nothing in the Virginia resolutions '98 '99, to support South Carolina in her doctrine of nullification. These testimonies absolve Mr. Jefferson: but the nullifiers killed his birthday celebrations! Instead of being renewed annually, in all time, as his sincere disciples then intended, they have never been heard of since! and the memory of a great man--benefactor of his species--has lost an honor which grateful posterity intended to pay it, and which the preservation and dissemination of his principles require to be paid.

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XLVII. REGULATION OF COMMERCE

The constitution of the United States gives to Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. That power has not yet been executed, in the sense intended by the constitution: for the commercial treaties made by the President and the Senate are not the legislative regulation intended in that grant of power; nor are the tariff laws, whether for revenue or protection, any the more so. They all miss the object, and the mode of operating, intended by the constitution in that grant--the true nature of which was explained early in the life of the new federal government by those most competent to do it--Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Wm. Smith of South Carolina,--and in the form most considerate and responsible. Mr. Jefferson, as Secretary of State, in his memorable report "On the restrictions and privileges of the commerce of the United States in foreign countries;" Mr. Madison in his resolutions as a member of the House of Representatives in the year 1793, "For the regulation of our foreign commerce;" and in his speeches in support of his resolutions; and the speeches in reply, chiefly by Mr. William Smith, of South Carolina, speaking (as it was held), the sense of General Hamilton; so that in the speeches and writing of these three early members of our government (not to speak of many other able men then in the House of Representatives), we have the authentic exposition of the meaning of the clause in question, and of its intended mode of operation: for they all agreed in that view of the subject, though differing about the adoption of a system which would then have borne most heavily upon Great Britain. The plan was defeated at that time, and only by a very small majority (52 to 47),--the defeat effected by the mercantile influence, which favored the British trade, and was averse to any discrimination to her disadvantage, though only intended to coerce her into a commercial treaty--of which we then had none with her. Afterwards the system of treaties was followed up, and protection to our own industry extended incidentally through the clause in the constitution authorizing Congress to "Lay and collect taxes, duties, imports and excises," &c. So that the power granted in the clause, "To regulate commerce with foreign nations," has never yet been exercised by Congress:--a neglect or omission, the more remarkable as, besides the plain and obvious fairness and benefit of the regulation intended, the power conferred by that clause was the potential moving cause of forming the present constitution, and creating the present Union.

The principle of the regulation was to be that of reciprocity--that is, that trade was not to be free on one side, and fettered on the other--that goods were not to be taken from a foreign country, free of duty, or at a low rate, unless that country should take something from us, also free, or at a low rate. And the mode of acting was by discriminating in the imposition of duties between those which had, and had not, commercial treaties with us--the object to be accomplished by an act of Congress to that effect; which foreign nations might meet either by legislation in their imposition of duties; or, and which is preferable, by treaties of specified and limited duration. My early study of the theory, and the working of our government--so often different, and sometimes opposite--led me to understand the regulation clause in the constitution, and to admire and approve it: and as in the beginning of General Jackson's administration, I foresaw the speedy extinction of the public debt, and the consequent release of great part of our foreign imports from duty, I wished to be ready to derive all the benefit from the event which would result from the double process of receiving many articles free which were then taxed, and of sending abroad many articles free which were now met by heavy taxation. With this view, I brought a bill into the Senate in the session 1829-'30, to revive the policy of Mr. Madison's resolutions of 1793--without effect then, but without despair of eventual success. And still wishing to see that policy revived, and seeing near at hand a favorable opportunity for it in the approaching extinction of our present public debt--(and I wish I could add, a return to economy in the administration of the government)--and consequent large room for the reduction and abolition of duties, I here produce some passages from the speech I delivered on my bill of 1830, preceded by some passages from Mr. Madison's speech of 1793, in support of his resolutions, and showing his view of their policy and operation--not of their constitutionality, for of that there was no question: and his complaint was that the identical clause in the constitution which caused the constitution to be framed, had then remained four years without execution. He said:

"Mr. Madison, after some general observations on the report, entered into a more particular consideration of the subject. He remarked that the commerce of the United States is not, at this day, on that respectable footing to which, from its nature and importance, it is entitled. He recurred to its situation previous to the adoption of the constitution, when conflicting systems prevailed in the different States. The then existing state of things gave rise to that convention of delegates from the different parts of the Union, who met to deliberate on some general principles for the regulation of commerce, which might be conducive, in their operation, to the general welfare, and that such measures should be adopted as would conciliate the friendship and good faith of those countries who were disposed to enter into the nearest commercial connections with us. But what has been the result of the system which has been pursued ever since? What is the present situation of our commerce? From the situation in which we find ourselves after four years' experiment, he observed, that it appeared incumbent on the United States to see whether they could not now take measures promotive of those objects, for which the government was in a great degree instituted. Measures of moderation, firmness and decision, he was persuaded, were now necessary to be adopted, in order to narrow the sphere of our commerce with those nations who see proper not to meet us on terms of reciprocity.

"Mr. M. took a general view of the probable effects which the adoption of something like the resolutions he had proposed, would produce. They would produce, respecting many articles imported, a competition which would enable countries who did not now supply us with those articles, to do it, and would increase the encouragement on such as we can produce within ourselves. We should also obtain an equitable share in carrying our own produce; we should enter into the field of competition on equal terms, and enjoy the actual benefit of advantages which nature and the spirit of our people entitle us to.

"He adverted to the advantageous situation this country is entitled to stand in, considering the nature of our exports and returns. Our exports are bulky, and therefore must employ much shipping, which might be nearly all our own: our exports are chiefly necessaries of life, or raw materials, the food for the manufacturers of other nations. On the contrary, the chief of what we receive from other countries, we can either do without, or produce substitutes.

"It is in the power of the United States, he conceived, by exerting her natural rights, without violating the rights, or even the equitable pretensions of other nations--by doing no more than most nations do for the protection of their interests, and much less than some, to make her interests respected; for, what we receive from other nations are but luxuries to us, which, if we choose to throw aside, we could deprive part of the manufacturers of those luxuries, of even bread, if we are forced to the contest of self-denial. This being the case, our country may make her enemies feel the extent of her power. We stand, with respect to the nation exporting those luxuries, in the relation of an opulent individual to the laborer, in producing the superfluities for his accommodation; the former can do without those luxuries, the consumption of which gives bread to the latter.

"He did not propose, or wish that the United States should, at present, go so far in the line which his resolutions point to, as they might go. The extent to which the principles involved in those resolutions should be carried, will depend upon filling up the blanks. To go the very extent of the principle immediately, might be inconvenient. He wished, only, that the Legislature should mark out the ground on which we think we can stand; perhaps it may produce the effect wished for, without unnecessary irritation; we need not at first, go every length.

"Another consideration would induce him, he said, to be moderate in filling up the blanks--not to wound public credit. He did not wish to risk any sensible diminution of the public revenue. He believed that if the blanks were filled with judgment, the diminution of the revenue, from a diminution in the quantity of imports, would be counterbalanced by the increase in the duties.

"The last resolution he had proposed, he said, is, in a manner, distinct from the rest. The nation is bound by the most sacred obligation, he conceived, to protect the rights of its citizens against a violation of them from any quarter; or, if they cannot protect, they are bound to repay the damage.

"It is a fact authenticated to this House by communications from the Executive, that there are regulations established by some European nations, contrary to the law of nations, by which our property is seized and disposed of in such a way that damages have accrued. We are bound either to obtain reparation for the injustice, or compensate the damage. It is only in the first instance, no doubt, that the burden is to be thrown upon the United States. The proper department of government will, no doubt, take proper steps to obtain redress. The justice of foreign nations will certainly not permit them to deny reparation when the breach of the law of nations evidently appears; at any rate, it is just that the individual should not suffer. He believed the amount of the damages that would come within the meaning of this resolution, would not be very considerable."

Reproducing these views of Mr. Madison, and with a desire to fortify myself with his authority, the better to produce a future practical effect, I now give the extract from my own speech of 1830:

"Mr. Benton said he rose to ask the leave for which he gave notice on Friday last; and in doing so, he meant to avail himself of the parliamentary rule, seldom followed here, but familiar in the place from whence we drew our rules--the British Parliament--and strictly right and proper, when any thing new or unusual is to be proposed, to state the clauses, and make an exposition of the principles of his bill, before he submitted the formal motion for leave to bring it in.

"The tenor of it is, not to abolish, but to provide for the abolition of duties. This phraseology announces, that something in addition to the statute--some power in addition to that of the legislature, is to be concerned in accomplishing the abolition. Then the duties for abolition are described as unnecessary ones; and under this idea is included the twofold conception, that they are useless, either for the protection of domestic industry, or for supplying the treasury with revenue. The relief of the people from sixteen millions of taxes is based upon the idea of an abolition of twelve millions of duties; the additional four millions being the merchant's profit upon the duty he advances; which profit the people pay as a part of the tax, though the government never receives it. It is the merchant's compensation for advancing the duty, and is the same as his profit upon the goods. The improved condition of the four great branches of national industry is presented as the third object of the bill; and their relative importance, in my estimation, classes itself according to the order of my arrangement. Agriculture, as furnishing the means of subsistence to man, and as the foundation of every thing else, is put foremost; manufactures, as preparing and fitting things for our use, stands second, commerce, as exchanging the superfluities of different countries, comes next; and navigation, as furnishing the chief means of carrying on commerce, closes the list of the four great branches of national industry. Though classed according to their respective importance, neither branch is disparaged. They are all great interests--all connected--all dependent upon each other--friends in their nature--for a long time friends in fact, under the operations of our government: and only made enemies to each other, as they now are by a course of legislation, which the approaching extinguishment of the public debt presents a fit opportunity for reforming and ameliorating. The title of my bill declares the intention of the bill to improve the condition of each of them. The abolition of sixteen millions of taxes would itself operate a great improvement in the condition of each; but the intention of the bill is not limited to that incidental and consequential improvement, great as it may be; it proposes a positive, direct, visible, tangible, and countable benefit to each; and this I shall prove and demonstrate, not in this brief illustration of the title of my bill, but at the proper places, in the course of the examination into its provisions and exposition of its principles.

"I will now proceed with the bill, reading each section in its order, and making the remarks upon it which are necessary to explain its object and to illustrate its operation."

The First Section.

"That, for the term of ten years, from and after the first day of January, in the year 1832, or, as soon thereafter as may be agreed upon between the United States and any foreign power, the duties now payable on the importation of the following articles, or such of them as may be agreed upon, shall cease and determine, or be reduced, in favor of such countries as shall, by treaty, grant equivalent advantages to the agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, of the United States.

"This section contains the principle of abolishing duties by the joint act of the legislative and executive departments. The idea of equivalents, which the section also presents, is not new, but has for its sanction high and venerated authority, of which I shall not fail to avail myself. That we ought to have equivalents for abolishing ten or twelve millions of duties on foreign merchandise is most clear. Such an abolition will be an advantage to foreign powers, for which they ought to compensate us, by reducing duties to an equal amount upon our productions. This is what no law, or separate act of our own, can command. Amicable arrangements alone, with foreign powers, can effect it; and to free such arrangements from serious, perhaps insuperable difficulties, it would be necessary first to lay a foundation for them in an act of Congress. This is what my bill proposes to do. It proposes that Congress shall select the articles for abolition of duty, and then leave it to the Executive to extend the provisions of the act to such powers as will grant us equivalent advantages. The articles enumerated for abolition of duty are of kinds not made in the United States, so that my bill presents no ground of alarm or uneasiness to any branch of domestic industry.

"The acquisition of equivalents is a striking feature in the plan which I propose, and for that I have the authority of him whose opinions will never be invoked in vain, while republican principles have root in our soil. I speak of Mr. Jefferson, and of his report on the commerce and navigation of the United States, in the year '93, an extract from which I will read."

The Extract.

"Such being the restrictions on the commerce and navigation of the United States, the question is, in what way they may best be removed, modified, or counteracted?

"As to commerce, two methods occur: 1. By friendly arrangements with the several nations with whom these restrictions exist: or, 2. By the separate act of our own legislatures, for countervailing their effects.

"There can be no doubt, but that, of these two, friendly arrangements is the most eligible. Instead of embarrassing commerce under piles of regulating laws, duties, and prohibitions, could it be relieved from all its shackles, in all parts of the world--could every country be employed in producing that which nature has best fitted it to produce, and each be free to exchange with others mutual surplusses, for mutual wants, the greatest mass possible would then be produced, of those things which contribute to human life and human happiness, the numbers of mankind would be increased, and their condition bettered.

"Would even a single nation begin with the United States this system of free commerce, it would be advisable to begin it with that nation; since it is one by one only that it can be extended to all. Where the circumstances of either party render it expedient to levy a revenue, by way of impost on commerce, its freedom might be modified in that particular, by mutual and equivalent measures, preserving it entire in all others.

"Some nations, not yet ripe for free commerce, in all its extent, might be willing to mollify its restrictions and regulations, for us, in proportion to the advantages which an intercourse with us might offer. Particularly they may concur with us in reciprocating the duties to be levied on each side, or in compensating any excess of duty, by equivalent advantages of another nature. Our commerce is certainly of a character to entitle it to favor in most countries. The commodities we offer are either necessaries of life, or materials for manufacture, or convenient subjects of revenue; and we take in exchange either manufactures, when they have received the last finish of art and industry, or mere luxuries. Such customers may reasonably expect welcome and friendly treatment at every market--customers, too, whose demands, increasing with their wealth and population, must very shortly give full employment to the whole industry of any nation whatever, in any line of supply they may get into the habit of calling for from it.

"But, should any nation, contrary to our wishes, suppose it may better find its advantage by continuing its system of prohibitions, duties, and regulations, it behooves us to protect our citizens, their commerce and navigation, by counter prohibitions, duties, and regulations, also. Free commerce and navigation are not to be given in exchange for restrictions and vexations; nor are they likely to produce a relaxation of them."

* * * * *

"The plan which I now propose adopts the idea of equivalents and retaliation to the whole extent recommended by Mr. Jefferson. It differs from his plan in two features: first, in the mode of proceeding, by founding the treaties abroad upon a legislative act at home; secondly, in combining protection with revenue, in selecting articles of exception to the system of free trade. This degree of protection he admitted himself, at a later period of his life. It corresponds with the recommendation of President Washington to Congress, in the year '90, and with that of our present Chief Magistrate, to ourselves, at the commencement of the present session of Congress.

"I will not now stop to dilate upon the benefit which will result to every family from an abolition of duties which will enable them to get all the articles enumerated in my bill for about one third, or one half less, than is now paid for them. Let any one read over the list of articles, and then look to the sum total which he now pays out annually for them, and from that sum deduct near fifty per cent., which is about the average of the duties and merchant's profit included, with which they now come charged to him. This deduction will be his saving under one branch of my plan--the abolition clause. To this must be added the gain under the clause to secure equivalents in foreign markets, and the two being added together, the saving in purchases at home being added to the gain in sales abroad, will give the true measure of the advantages which my plan presents.

"Let us now see whether the agriculture and manufactures of the United States do not require better markets abroad than they possess at this time. What is the state of these markets? Let facts reply. England imposes a duty of three shillings sterling a pound upon our tobacco, which is ten times its value. She imposes duties equivalent to prohibition on our grain and provisions; and either totally excludes, or enormously taxes, every article, except cotton, that we send to her ports. In France, our tobacco is subject to a royal monopoly, which makes the king the sole purchaser, and subjects the seller to the necessity of taking the price which his agents will give. In Germany, our tobacco, and other articles, are heavily dutied, and liable to a transit duty, in addition, when they have to ascend the Rhine, or other rivers, to penetrate the interior. In the West Indies, which is our great provision market, our beef, pork, and flour, usually pay from eight to ten dollars a barrel: our bacon, from ten to twenty-five cents a pound; live hogs, eight dollars each; corn, cornmeal, lumber, whiskey, fruit, vegetables, and every thing else, in proportion; the duties in the different islands, on an average, equalling or exceeding the value of the articles in the United States. We export about forty-five millions of domestic productions, exclusive of manufactures, annually; and it may be safely assumed that we have to pay near that sum in the shape of duties, for the privilege of selling these exports in foreign markets. So much for agriculture. Our manufactures are in the same condition. In many branches they have met the home demand, and are going abroad in search of foreign markets. They meet with vexatious restrictions, peremptory exclusions, or oppressive duties, wherever they go. The quantity already exported entitles them to national consideration, in the list of exports. Their aggregate value for 1828 was about five millions of dollars, comprising domestic cottons, to the amount of a million of dollars; soap and candles, to the value of nine hundred thousand dollars; boots, shoes, and saddlery, five hundred thousand dollars; hats, three hundred thousand dollars; cabinet, coach, and other wooden work, six hundred thousand dollars; glass and iron, three hundred thousand dollars; and numerous smaller items. This large amount of manufactures pays their value, in some instances more, for the privilege of being sold abroad; and, what is worse, they are totally excluded from several countries from which we buy largely. Such restrictions and impositions are highly injurious to our manufactures; and it is incontestably true, the amount of exports prove it, that what most of them now need is not more protection at home, but a better market abroad; and it is one of the objects of this bill to obtain such a market for them.

"It appears to me [said Mr. B.] to be a fair and practicable plan, combining the advantages of legislation and negotiation, and avoiding the objections to each. It consults the sense of the people, in leaving it to their Representatives to say on what articles duties shall be abolished for their relief; on what they shall be retained for protection and revenue; it then secures the advantage of obtaining equivalents, by referring it to the Executive to extend the benefit of the abolition to such nations as shall reciprocate the favor. To such as will not reciprocate, it leaves every thing as it now stands. The success of this plan can hardly be doubted. It addresses itself to the two most powerful passions of the human heart--interest and fear; it applies itself to the strongest principles of human action--profit and loss. For, there is no nation with whom we trade but will be benefited by the increased trade of her staple productions, which will result from a free trade in such productions; none that would not be crippled by the loss of such a trade, which loss would be the immediate effect of rejecting our system. Our position enables us to command the commercial system of the globe; to mould it to our own plan, for the benefit of the world and ourselves. The approaching extinction of the public debt puts it into our power to abolish twelve millions of duties, and to set free more than one-half of our entire commerce. We should not forego, nor lose the advantages of such a position. It occurs but seldom in the life of a nation, and once missed, is irretrievably gone, to the generation, at least, that saw and neglected the golden opportunity. We have complained, and justly, of the burthens upon our exports in foreign countries; a part of our tariff system rests upon the principle of retaliation for the injury thus done us. Retaliation, heretofore, has been our only resource: but reciprocity of injuries is not the way to enrich nations any more than individuals. It is an 'unprofitable contest,' under every aspect. But the present conjuncture, payment of the public debt, in itself a rare and almost unprecedented occurrence in the history of nations, enables us to enlarge our system; to present a choice of alternatives: one fraught with relief, the other presenting a burthen to foreign nations. The participation, or exclusion, from forty millions of free trade, annually increasing, would not admit of a second thought, in the head of any nation with which we trade. To say nothing of her gains in the participation in such a commerce, what would be her loss in the exclusion from it? How would England, France, or Germany, bear the loss of their linen, silk, or wine trade, with the United States? How could Cuba, St. Domingo, or Brazil, bear the loss of their coffee trade with us? They could not bear it at all. Deep and essential injury, ruin of industry seditions, and bloodshed, and the overthrow of administrations, would be the consequence of such loss. Yet such loss would be inevitable (and not to the few nations, or in the articles only which I have mentioned, for I have put a few instances only by way of example), but to every nation with whom we trade, that would not fall into our system, and throughout the whole list of essential articles to which our abolition extends. Our present heavy duties would continue in force against such nations; they would be abolished in favor of their rivals. We would say to them, in the language of Mr. Jefferson, free trade and navigation is not to be given in exchange for restrictions and vexations! But I feel entire confidence that it would not be necessary to use the language of menace or coercion. Amicable representations, addressed to their sense of self-interest, would be more agreeable, and not less effectual. The plan cannot fail! It is scarcely within the limits of possibility that it should fail! And if it did, what then? We have lost nothing. We remain as we were. Our present duties are still in force, and Congress can act upon them one or two years hence, in any way they please.

"Here, then, is the peculiar recommendation to my plan, that, while it secures a chance, little short of absolute certainty, of procuring an abolition of twelve millions of duties upon our exports in foreign countries, in return for an abolition of twelve millions of duties upon imports from them, it exposes nothing to risk, the abolition of duty upon the foreign article here being contingent upon the acquisition of the equivalent advantage abroad.

"I close this exposition of the principles of my bill with the single remark, that these treaties for the mutual abolition of duties should be for limited terms, say for seven or ten years, to give room for the modifications which time, and the varying pursuits of industry, may show to be necessary. Upon this idea, the bill is framed, and the period of ten years inserted by way of suggestion and exemplification of the plan. Another feature is too obvious to need a remark, that the time for the commencement of the abolition of duties is left to the Executive, who can accommodate it to the state of the revenue and the extinction of the public debt."

The plan which I proposed in this speech adopted the principle of Mr. Madison's resolutions but reversed their action. The discrimination which he proposed was a levy of five or ten per cent. more on the imports from countries which did not enter into our propositions for reciprocity: my plan, as being the same thing in substance, and less invidious in form, was a levy of five or ten per cent. less on the commerce of the reciprocating nations--thereby holding out an inducement and a benefit, instead of a threat and a penalty.

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Chapter XLVIII

ALUM SALT. THE ABOLITION OF THE DUTY UPON IT, AND REPEAL OF THE FISHING BOUNTY AND ALLOWANCES FOUNDED ON IT.

I look upon a salt tax as a curse--as something worse than a political blunder, great as that is--as an impiety, in stinting the use, and enhancing the cost by taxation, of an article which God has made necessary to the health and comfort, and almost to the life, of every animated being--the poor dumb animal which can only manifest its wants in mute signs and frantic actions, as well as the rational and speaking man who can thank the Creator for his goodness, and curse the legislator that mars its enjoyment. There is a mystery in salt. It was used in holy sacrifice from the earliest day; and to this time, in the Oriental countries, the stranger lodging in the house, cannot kill or rob while in it, after he has tasted the master's salt. The disciples of Christ were called by their master the salt of the earth. Sacred and profane history abound in instances of people refusing to fight against the kings who had given them salt: and this mysterious deference for an article so essential to man and beast takes it out of the class of ordinary productions, and carries it up close to those vital elements--bread, water, fire, air--which Providence has made essential to life, and spread every where, that craving nature may find its supply without stint, and without tax. The venerable Mr. Macon considered a salt tax in a sacrilegious point of view--as breaking a sacred law--and fought against ours as long as his public life lasted; and I, his disciple, not disesteemed by him, commenced fighting by his side against the odious imposition; and have continued it since his death, and shall continue it until the tax ceases, or my political life terminates. Many are my speeches, and reports, against it in my senatorial life of thirty years; and among other speeches, one limited to a particular kind of salt not made in the United States, and indispensable to dried or pickled provisions. This is the alum salt, made by solar evaporation out of sea water; and being a kind not produced at home, indispensable and incapable of substitute, it had a legitimate claim to exemption from the canons of the American system. That system protected homemade fire-boiled common salt, because it had a foreign rival: we had no sun-made crystallized salt at home; and therefore had nothing to protect in taxing the foreign article. I had failed--we had all failed--in our attempts to abolish the salt tax generally: I determined to attempt the abolition of the alum salt duty separately; and with it, the fishing bounties and allowances founded upon it: and brought a bill into the Senate to accomplish that object. The fishing bounties and allowances being claimed by some, as a bounty to navigation (in which point of view they would be as unconstitutional as unjust), I was under the necessity of tracing their origin, as being founded on the idea of a drawback of the duty paid on the salt put upon the exported dried or pickled fish--commencing with the salt tax, and adjusted to the amount of the tax--rising with its increase and falling with its fall--and that, in the beginning allowed to the exportation of pickled beef and pork, to the same degree, and upon the same principle that the bounties and allowances were extended to the fisheries. In the bill introduced for this purpose, I spoke as follows:

"To spare any senator the supposed necessity of rehearsing me a lecture upon the importance of the fisheries, I will premise that I have some acquaintance with the subject--that I know the fisheries to be valuable, for the food they produce, the commerce they create, the mariners they perfect, the employment they give to artisans in the building of vessels; and the consumption they make of wood, hemp and iron. I also know that the fishermen applied for the bounties, at the commencement of our present form of government, which the British give to their fisheries, for the encouragement of navigation; and that they were denied them upon the report of the then Secretary of State (Mr. Jefferson). I also know that our fishing bounties and allowances go, in no part, to that branch of fishing to which the British give most bounty--whaling--because it is the best school for mariners; and the interests of navigation are their principal object in promoting fishing. No part of our bounties and allowances go to our whale ships, because they do not consume foreign salt on which they have paid duty, and reclaim it as drawback. I have also read the six dozen acts of Congress, general and particular, passed in the last forty years--from 1789 to 1829 inclusively--giving the bounties and allowances which it is my present purpose to abolish, with the alum salt duty on which all this superstructure of legislative enactment is built up. I say the salt tax, and especially the tax on alum salt (which is the kind required for the fisheries), is the foundation of all these bounties and allowances; and that, as they grew up together, it is fair and regular that they should sink and fall together. I recite a dozen of the acts: thus:

"1. Act of Congress, 1789, grants five cents a barrel on pickled fish and salted provisions, and five cents a quintal on dried fish, exported from the United States, in lieu of a drawback of the duties imposed on the importation of the salt used in curing such fish and provisions.

"N.B. Duty on salt, at that time, six cents a bushel.

"2. Act of 1790 increases the bounty in lieu of drawback to ten cents a barrel on pickled fish and salted provisions, and ten cents a quintal on dried fish. The duty on salt being then raised to twelve cents a bushel.

"3. Act of 1792 repeals the bounty in lieu of drawback on dried fish, and in lieu of that, and as a commutation and equivalent therefor, authorizes an allowance to be paid to vessels in the cod fishery (dried fish) at the rate of one dollar and fifty cents a ton on vessels of twenty to thirty tons; with a limitation of one hundred and seventy dollars for the highest allowance to any vessel.

"4. A supplementary act, of the same year, adds twenty per cent. to each head of these allowances.

"5. Act of 1797 increases the bounty on salted provisions to eighteen cents a barrel; on pickled fish to twenty-two cents a barrel; and adds thirty-three and a third per cent. to the allowance in favor of the cod-fishing vessels. Duty on salt, at the same time, being raised to twenty cents a bushel.

"6. Act of 1799 increases the bounty on pickled fish to thirty cents a barrel, on salted provisions to twenty-five.

"7. Act of 1800 continues all previous acts (for bounties and allowances) for ten years, and makes this proviso: That these allowances shall not be understood to be continued for a longer time than the correspondent duties on salt, respectively, for which the said additional allowances were granted, shall be payable.

"8. Act of 1807 repeals all laws laying a duty on imported salt, and for paying bounties on the exportation of pickled fish and salted provisions, and making allowances to fishing vessels--Mr. Jefferson being then President.

"9. Act of 1813 gives a bounty of twenty cents a barrel on pickled fish exported, and allows to the cod-fishing vessels at the rate of two dollars and forty cents the ton for vessels between twenty and thirty tons, four dollars a ton for vessels above thirty, with a limitation of two hundred and seventy-two dollars for the highest allowance; and a proviso, that no bounty or allowance should be paid unless it was proved to the satisfaction of the collector that the fish was wholly cured with foreign salt, and the duty on it secured or paid. The salt duty, at the rate of twenty cents a bushel, was revived as a war tax at the same time. Bounties on salted provisions were omitted.

"10. Act of 1816 continued the act of 1813 in force, which, being for the war only, would otherwise have expired.

"11. Act of 1819 increases the allowance to vessels in the cod fishery to three dollars and fifty cents a ton on vessels from five to thirty; to four dollars a ton on vessels above thirty tons; with a limitation of three hundred and sixty dollars for the maximum allowance.

"12. Act of 1828 authorizes the mackerel fishing vessels to take out licenses like the cod-fishing vessels, under which it is reported by the vigilant Secretary of the Treasury that money is illegally drawn by the mackerel vessels--the newspapers say to the amount of thirty to fifty thousand dollars per annum.

"These recitals of legislative enactments are sufficient to prove that the fishing bounties and allowances are bottomed upon the salt duty, and must stand or fall with that duty. I will now give my reasons for proposing to abolish the duty on alum salt, and will do it in the simplest form of narrative statement; the reasons themselves being of a nature too weighty and obvious to need, or even to admit, of coloring or exaggeration from arts of speech.

"1. Because it is an article of indispensable necessity in the provision trade of the United States. No beef or pork for the army or navy, or for consumption in the South, or for exportation abroad, can be put up except in this kind of salt. If put up in common salt it is rejected absolutely by the commissaries of the army and navy, and if taken to the South must be repacked in alum salt, at an expense of one dollar and twelve and a half cents a barrel, before it is exported, or sold for domestic consumption. The quantity of provisions which require this salt, and must have it, is prodigious, and annually increasing. The exports of 1828 were, of beef sixty-six thousand barrels, of pork fifty-four thousand barrels, of bacon one million nine hundred thousand pounds weight, butter and cheese two million pounds weight. The value of these articles was two millions and a quarter of dollars. To this amount must be added the supply for the army and navy, and all that was sent to the South for home consumption, every pound of which had to be cured in this kind of salt, for common salt will not cure it. The Western country is the great producer of provisions; and there is scarcely a farmer in the whole extent of that vast region whose interest does not require a prompt repeal of the duty on this description of salt.

"2. Because no salt of this kind is made in the United States, nor any rival to it, or substitute for it. It is a foreign importation, brought from various islands in the West Indies, belonging to England, France, Spain, and Denmark; and from Lisbon, St. Ubes, Gibraltar, the Bay of Biscay, and Liverpool. The principles of the protecting system do not extend to it: for no quantity of protection can produce a home supply. The present duty, which is far beyond the rational limit of protection, has been in force near thirty years, and has not produced a pound. We are still thrown exclusively upon the foreign supply. The principles of the protecting system can only apply to common salt, the product of which is considerable in the United States; and upon that kind, the present duty is proposed to be left in full force.

"3. Because the duty is enormous, and quadruples the price of the salt to the farmer. The original value of salt is about fifteen cents the measured bushel of eighty-four pounds. But the tariff substitutes weight for measure, and fixes that weight at fifty-six pounds, instead of eighty-four. Upon that fifty-six pounds, a duty of twenty cents is laid. Upon this duty, the retail merchant has his profit of eight or ten cents, and then reduces his bushel from fifty-six to fifty pounds. The consequence of all these operations is, that the farmer pays about three times as much for a weighed bushel of fifty pounds, as he would have paid for a measured bushel of eighty-four pounds, if this duty had never been imposed.

"4. Because the duty is unequal in its operation, and falls heavily on some parts of the community, and produces profit to others. It is a heavy tax on the farmers of the West, who export provisions; and no tax at all, but rather a source of profit, to that branch of the fisheries to which the allowances of the vessels apply. Exporters of provisions have the same claim to these allowances that exporters of fish have. Both claims rest upon the same principle, and upon the principle of all drawbacks, that of refunding the duty paid on the imported salt, which is re-exported on salted fish and provisions. The same principle covers the beef and pork of the farmer which covers the fish of the fisherman; and such was the law, as I have shown, for the first eighteen years that these bounties and allowances were authorized. Fish and provisions fared alike from 1789 to 1807. Bounties and allowances began upon them together, and fell together, on the repeal of the salt tax, in the second term of Mr. Jefferson's administration. At the renewal of the salt tax, in 1813, at the commencement of the late war, they parted company, and the law, to the exact sense of the proverb, has made fish of one and flesh of the other ever since. The fishing interest is now drawing about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually from the treasury; the provision raisers draw not a cent, while they export more than double as much, and ought, upon the same principle, to draw more than double as much money from the treasury.

"5. Because it is the means of drawing an undue amount of money from the public treasury, under the idea of an equivalent for the drawback of duty on the salt used in the curing of fish. The amount of money actually drawn in that way is about four millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and is now going on at the rate of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, and constantly augmenting. That this amount is more than the legal idea recognizes, or contemplates, is proved in various ways. 1. By comparing the quantity of salt supposed to have been used, with the quantity of fish known to have been exported, within a given year. This test, for the year 1828, would exhibit about seventy millions of pounds weight of salt on about forty millions of pounds weight of fish. This would suppose about a pound and three quarters of salt upon each pound of fish. 2. By comparing the value of the salt supposed to have been used, with the value of the fish known to have been exported. This test would give two hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars for the salt duty on about one million of dollars' worth of fish; making the duty one fourth of its value. On this basis, the amount of the duty on the salt used on exported provisions would be near six hundred thousand dollars. 3. By comparing the increasing allowances for salt with the decreasing exportation of fish. This test, for two given periods, the rate of allowance being the same, would produce this result: In the year 1820, three hundred and twenty-one thousand four hundred and nineteen quintals of dried fish exported, and one hundred and ninety-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty-four dollars paid for the commutation of the salt drawback: in 1828, two hundred and sixty-five thousand two hundred and seventeen quintals of dried fish exported, and two hundred and thirty-nine thousand one hundred and forty-five dollars paid for the commutation. These comparisons establish the fact that money is unlawfully drawn from the treasury by means of these fishing allowances, bottomed on the salt duty, and that fact is expressly stated by the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Ingham), in his report upon the finances, at the commencement of the present session of Congress. [See page eight of the report.]

"6. Because it has become a practical violation of one of the most equitable clauses in the constitution of the United States--the clause which declares that duties, taxes, and excises, shall be uniform throughout the Union. There is no uniformity in the operation of this tax. Far from it. It empties the pockets of some, and fills the pockets of others. It returns to some five times as much as they pay, and to others it returns not a cent. It gives to the fishing interest two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, and not a cent to the farming interest, which, upon the same principle, would be entitled to six hundred thousand dollars per annum.

"7. Because this duty now rests upon a false basis--a basis which makes it the interest of one part of the Union to keep it up, while it is the interest of other parts to get rid of it. It is the interest of the West to abolish this duty: it is the interest of the Northeast to perpetuate it. The former loses money by it; the latter makes money by it; and a tax that becomes a money-making business is a solecism of the highest order of absurdity. Yet such is the fact. The treasury records prove it, and it will afford the Northeast a brilliant opportunity to manifest their disinterested affection to the West, by giving up their own profit in this tax, to relieve the West from the burthen it imposes upon her.

"8. Because the repeal of the duty will not materially diminish the revenue, nor delay the extinguishment of the public debt. It is a tax carrying money out of the treasury, as well as bringing it in. The issue is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, perhaps the full amount which accrues on the kind of salt to which the abolition extends. The duty, and the fishing allowances bottomed upon it, falling together as they did when Mr. Jefferson was President, would probably leave the amount of revenue unaffected.

"9. Because it belongs to an unhappy period in the history of our government, and came to us, in its present magnitude, in company with an odious and repudiated set of measures. The maximum of twenty cents a bushel on salt was fixed in the year '98, and was the fruit of the same system which produced the alien and sedition laws, the eight per cent. loans, the stamp act, the black cockade, and the standing army in time of peace. It was one of the contrivances of that disastrous period for extorting money from the people, for the support of that strong and splendid government which was then the cherished vision of so many exalted heads. The reforming hand of Jefferson overthrew it, and all the superstructure of fishing allowances which was erected upon it. The exigencies of the late war caused it to be revived for the term of the war, and the interest of some, and the neglect of others, have permitted it to continue ever since. It is now our duty to sink it a second time. We profess to be disciples of the Jeffersonian school; let us act up to our profession, and complete the task which our master set us."

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XLIX. BANK OF THE UNITED STATES

It has been already shown that General Jackson in his first annual message to Congress, called in question both the constitutionality and expediency of the national bank, in a way to show him averse to the institution, and disposed to see the federal government carried on without the aid of such an assistant. In the same message he submitted the question to Congress, that, if such an institution is deemed essential to the fiscal operations of the government, whether a national one, founded upon the credit of the government, and its revenues, might not be devised, which would avoid all constitutional difficulties, and at the same time secure all the advantages to the government and country that were expected to result from the present bank. I was not in Washington when this message was prepared, and had had no conversation with the President in relation to a substitute for the national bank, or for the currency which it furnished, and which having a general circulation was better entitled to the character of "national" than the issues of the local or State banks. We knew each other's opinions on the question of a bank itself: but had gone no further. I had never mentioned to him the idea of reviving the gold currency--then, and for twenty years--extinct in the United States: nor had I mentioned to him the idea of an independent or sub-treasury--that is to say, a government treasury unconnected with any bank--and which was to have the receiving and disbursing of the public moneys. When these ideas were mentioned to him, he took them at once; but it was not until the Bank of the United States should be disposed of that any thing could be done on these two subjects; and on the latter a process had to be gone through in the use of local banks as depositories of the public moneys which required several years to show its issue and inculcate its lesson. Though strong in the confidence of the people, the President was not deemed strong enough to encounter all the banks of all the States at once. Temporizing was indispensable--and even the conciliation of a part of them. Hence the deposit system--or some years' use of local banks as fiscal agents of the government--which gave to the institutions so selected, the invidious appellation of "pet banks;" meaning that they were government favorites.

In the mean time the question which the President had submitted to Congress in relation to a government fiscal agent, was seized upon as an admitted design to establish a government bank--stigmatized at once as a "thousand times more dangerous" than an incorporated national bank--and held up to alarm the country. Committees in each House of Congress, and all the public press in the interest of the existing Bank of the United States, took it up in that sense, and vehemently inveighed against it. Under an instruction to the Finance Committee of the Senate, to report upon a plan for a uniform currency, and under a reference to the Committee of Ways and Means of the House, of that part of the President's message which related to the bank and its currency, most ample, elaborate and argumentative reports were made--wholly repudiating all the suggestions of the President, and sustaining the actual Bank of the United States under every aspect of constitutionality and of expediency: and strongly presenting it for a renewal of its charter. These reports were multiplied without regard to expense, or numbers, in all the varieties of newspaper and pamphlet publication and lauded to the skies for their power and excellence, and triumphant refutation of all the President's opinions. Thus was the "war of the bank" commenced at once, in both Houses of Congress, and in the public press; and openly at the instance of the bank itself, which, forgetting its position as an institution of the government, for the convenience of the government, set itself up for a power, and struggled for a continued existence--in the shape of a new charter--as a question of its own, and almost as a right. It allied itself at the same time to the political party opposed to the President, joined in all their schemes of protective tariff, and national internal improvement: and became the head of the American system. With its moneyed and political power, and numerous interested affiliations, and its control over other banks, brokers and money dealers, it was truly a power, and a great one: and, in answer to a question put by General Smith, of Maryland, chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate already mentioned (and appended with other questions and answers to that report), Mr. Biddle, the president, showed a power in the national bank to save, relieve or destroy the local banks, which exhibited it as their absolute master; and, of course able to control them at will. The question was put in a spirit of friendship to the bank, and with a view to enable its president to exhibit the institution as great, just and beneficent. The question was: "Has the bank at any time oppressed any of the State banks?" and the answer: "Never." And, as if that was not enough, Mr. Biddle went on to say: "There are very few banks which might not have been destroyed by an exertion of the power of the bank. None have been injured. Many have been saved. And more have been, and are constantly relieved, when it is found that they are solvent but are suffering under temporary difficulty." This was proving entirely too much. A power to injure and destroy--to relieve and to save the thousand banks of all the States and Territories was a power over the business and fortunes of nearly all the people of those States and Territories: and might be used for evil as well as for good; and was a power entirely too large to be trusted to any man, with a heart in his bosom--or to any government, responsible to the people; much less to a corporation without a soul, and irresponsible to heaven or earth. This was a view of the case which the parties to the question had not foreseen; but which was noted at the time; and which, in the progress of the government struggle with the bank, received exemplifications which will be remembered by the generation of that day while memory lasts; and afterwards known as long as history has power to transmit to posterity the knowledge of national calamities.

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L. REMOVALS FROM OFFICE

I am led to give a particular examination of this head, from the great error into which Tocqueville has fallen in relation to it, and which he has propagated throughout Europe to the prejudice of republican government; and also, because the power itself is not generally understood among ourselves as laid down by Mr. Jefferson; and has been sometimes abused, and by each party, but never to the degree supposed by Mons. de Tocqueville. He says, in his chapter 8 on American democracy: "Mr. Quincy Adams, on his entry into office, discharged the majority of the individuals who had been appointed by his predecessor; and I am not aware that General Jackson allowed a single removable functionary employed in the public service to retain his place beyond the first year which succeeded his election." Of course, all these imputed sweeping removals were intended to be understood to have been made on account of party politics--for difference of political opinion--and not for misconduct, or unfitness for office. To these classes of removal (unfitness and misconduct), there could be no objection: on the contrary, it would have been misconduct in the President not to have removed in such cases. Of political removals, for difference of opinion, then, it only remains to speak; and of those officials appointed by his predecessor, it is probable that Mr. Adams did not remove one for political cause; and that M. de Tocqueville, with respect to him, is wrong to the whole amount of his assertion.

I was a close observer of Mr. Adams's administration, and belonged to the opposition, which was then keen and powerful, and permitted nothing to escape which could be rightfully (sometimes wrongfully) employed against him; yet I never heard of this accusation, and have no knowledge or recollection at this time of a single instance on which it could be founded. Mr. Adams's administration was not a case, in fact, in which such removals--for difference of political opinion--could occur. They only take place when the presidential election is a revolution of parties; and that was not the case when Mr. Adams succeeded Mr. Monroe. He belonged to the Monroe administration, had occupied the first place in the cabinet during its whole double term of eight years; and of course, stood in concurrence with, and not in opposition to, Mr. Monroe's appointments. Besides, party lines were confused, and nearly obliterated at that time. It was called "the era of good feeling." Mr. Adams was himself an illustration of that feeling. He had been of the federal party--brought early into public life as such--a minister abroad and a senator at home as such; but having divided from his party in giving support to several prominent measures of Mr. Jefferson's administration, he was afterwards several times nominated by Mr. Madison as minister abroad; and on the election of Mr. Monroe he was invited from London to be made his Secretary of State--where he remained till his own election to the Presidency. There was, then, no case presented to him for political removals; and in fact none such were made by him; so that the accusation of M. de Tocqueville, so far as it applied to Mr. Adams, is wholly erroneous, and inexcusably careless.

With respect to General Jackson, it is about equally so in the main assertion--the assertion that he did not allow a single removable functionary to remain in office beyond the first year after his election. On the contrary, there were entire classes--all those whose functions partook of the judicial--which he never touched. Boards of commissioners for adjudicating land titles; commissioners for adjudicating claims under indemnity treaties; judges of the territorial courts; justices of the District of Columbia; none of these were touched, either in the first or in any subsequent year of his administration, except a solitary judge in one of the territories; and he not for political cause, but on specific complaint, and after taking the written and responsible opinion of the then Attorney General, Mr. Grundy. Of the seventeen diplomatic functionaries abroad, only four (three ministers and one chargé des affaires) were recalled in the first year of his administration. In the departments at Washington, a majority of the incumbents remained opposed to him during his administration. Of the near eight thousand deputy postmasters in the United States, precisely four hundred and ninety-one were removed in the time mentioned by Mons. de Tocqueville, and they for all causes--for every variety of causes. Of the whole number of removable officials, amounting to many thousands, the totality of removals was about six hundred and ninety and they for all causes. Thus the government archives contradict Mons. de Tocqueville, and vindicate General Jackson's administration from the reproach cast upon it. Yet he came into office under circumstances well calculated to excite him to make removals. In the first place, none of his political friends, though constituting a great majority of the people of the United States, had been appointed to office during the preceding administration; and such an exclusion could not be justified on any consideration. His election was, in some degree, a revolution of parties, or rather a re-establishment of parties on the old line of federal and democratic. It was a change of administration, in which a change of government functionaries, to some extent, became a right and a duty; but still the removals actually made, when political, were not merely for opinions, but for conduct under these opinions; and, unhappily, there was conduct enough in too many officials to justify their removal. A large proportion of them, including all the new appointments, were inimical to General Jackson, and divided against him on the re-establishment of the old party lines; and many of them actively. Mr. Clay, holding the first place in Mr. Adams's cabinet, took the field against him, travelled into different States, declaimed against him at public meetings; and deprecated his election as the greatest of calamities. The subordinates of the government, to a great degree, followed his example, if not in public speeches, at least in public talk and newspaper articles; and it was notorious that these subordinates were active in the presidental election. It was a great error in them. It changed their position. By their position all administrations were the same to them. Their duties were ministerial, and the same under all Presidents. They were noncombatants. By engaging in the election they became combatant, and subjected themselves to the law of victory and defeat--reward and promotion in one case, loss of place in the other. General Jackson, then, on his accession to the Presidency, was in a new situation with respect to parties, different from that of any President since the time of Mr. Jefferson, whom he took for his model, and whose rule he followed. He made many removals, and for cause, but not so many as not to leave a majority in office against him--even in the executive departments in Washington City.

Mr. Jefferson had early and anxiously studied the question of removals. He was the first President that had occasion to make them, and with him the occasion was urgent. His election was a complete revolution of parties, and when elected, he found himself to be almost the only man of his party in office. The democracy had been totally excluded from federal appointment during the administration of his predecessor; almost all offices were in the hands of his political foes. I recollect to have heard an officer of the army say that there was but one field officer in the service favorable to him. This was the type of the civil service. Justice to himself and his party required this state of things to be altered; required his friends to have a share proportionate to their numbers in the distribution of office; and required him to have the assistance of his friends in the administration of the government. The four years' limitation law--the law which now vacates within the cycle of every Presidential term the great mass of the offices--was not then in force. Resignations then, as now, were few. Removals were indispensable, and the only question was the principle upon which they should be made. This question, Mr. Jefferson studied anxiously, and under all its aspects of principle and policy, of national and of party duty; and upon consultation with his friends, settled it to his and their satisfaction. The fundamental principle was, that each party was to have a share in the ministerial offices, the control of each branch of the service being in the hands of the administration; that removals were only to be made for cause; and, of course, that there should be inquiry into the truth of imputed delinquencies. "Official misconduct," "personal misconduct," "negligence," "incapacity," "inherent vice in the appointment," "partisan electioneering beyond the fair exercise of the elective franchise;" and where "the heads of some branches of the service were politically opposed to his administration"--these, with Mr. Jefferson, constituted the law of removals, and was so written down by him immediately after his inauguration. Thus, March 7th, 1801--only four days after his induction into office--he wrote to Mr. Monroe:

"Some removals, I know, must be made. They must be as few as possible, done gradually, and bottomed on some malversation, or inherent disqualification. Where we should draw the line between retaining all and none, is not yet settled, and will not be until we get our administration together; and, perhaps, even then we shall proceed à tatons, balancing our measures according to the impression we perceive them to make."

On the 23d of March, 1801, being still in the first month of his administration, Mr. Jefferson wrote thus to Gov. Giles, of Virginia:

"Good men, to whom there is no objection but a difference of political opinion, practised on only so far as the right of a private citizen will justify, are not proper subjects of removal, except in the case of attorneys and marshals. The courts being so decidedly federal and irremovable, it is believed that republican attorneys and marshals, being the doors of entrance into the courts, are indispensably necessary as a shield to the republican part of our fellow-citizens; which, I believe, is the main body of the people."

Six days after, he wrote to Elbridge Gerry, afterwards Vice-President, thus:

"Mr. Adams's last appointments, when he knew he was appointing counsellors and aids for me, not for himself, I set aside as fast as depends on me. Officers who have been guilty of gross abuse of office, such as marshals packing juries, &c., I shall now remove, as my predecessors ought in justice to have done. The instances will be few, and governed by strict rule, and not party passion. The right of opinion shall suffer no invasion from me. Those who have acted well have nothing to fear, however they may have differed from me in opinion: those who have done ill, however, have nothing to hope; nor shall I fail to do justice, lest it should be ascribed to that difference of opinion."

To Mr. Lincoln, his Attorney-General, still writing in the first year of his administration, he says:

"I still think our original idea as to office is best; that is, to depend, for obtaining a just participation, on deaths, resignations and delinquencies. This will least affect the tranquillity of the people, and prevent their giving into the suggestion of our enemies--that ours has been a contest for office, not for principle. This is rather a slow operation, but it is sure, if we pursue it steadily, which, however, has not been done with the undeviating resolution I could have wished. To these means of obtaining a just share in the transaction of the public business, shall be added one more, to wit, removal for electioneering activity, or open and industrious opposition to the principles of the present government, legislative and executive. Every officer of the government may vote at elections according to his conscience; but we should betray the cause committed to our care, were we to permit the influence of official patronage to be used to overthrow that cause. Your present situation will enable you to judge of prominent offenders in your State in the case of the present election. I pray you to seek them, to mark them, to be quite sure of your ground, that we may commit no errors or wrongs; and leave the rest to me. I have been urged to remove Mr. Whittemore, the surveyor of Gloucester, on grounds of neglect of duty and industrious opposition; yet no facts are so distinctly charged as to make the step sure which we should take in this. Will you take the trouble to satisfy yourself on the point?"

This was the law of removals as laid down by Mr. Jefferson, and practised upon by him, but not to the extent that his principle required, or that public outcry indicated. He told me himself, not long before his death (Christmas, 1824), that he had never done justice to his own party--had never given them the share of office to which their numbers entitled them--had failed to remove many who deserved it, but who were spared through the intercession of friends and concern for their distressed families. General Jackson acted upon the rule of Mr. Jefferson, but no doubt was often misled into departures from the rule; but never to the extent of giving to the party more than their due proportion of office, according to their numbers. Great clamor was raised against him, and the number of so-called "removals" was swelled by an abuse of the term, every case being proclaimed a "removal," where he refused to reappoint an ex-incumbent whose term had expired under the four years' limitation act. Far from universal removals for opinion's sake, General Jackson, as I have already said, left the majority of his opponents in office, and re-appointed many such whose terms had expired, and who had approved themselves faithful officers.

Having vindicated General Jackson and Mr. Adams from the reproach of Mons. de Tocqueville, and having shown that it was neither a principle nor a practice of the Jefferson school to remove officers for political opinions, I now feel bound to make the declaration, that the doctrine of that school has been too much departed from of late, and by both parties, and to the great detriment of the right and proper working of the government.

The practice of removals for opinion's sake is becoming too common, and is reducing our presidential elections to what Mr. Jefferson deprecated, "a contest of office instead of principle," and converting the victories of each party, so far as office is concerned, into the political extermination of the other; as it was in Great Britain between the whigs and tories in the bitter contests of one hundred years ago, and when the victor made a "clean sweep" of the vanquished, leaving not a wreck behind. Mr. Macaulay thus describes one of those "sweepings:"

"A persecution, such as had never been known before, and has never been known since, raged in every public department. Great numbers of humble and laborious clerks were deprived of their bread, not because they had neglected their duties, not because they had taken an active part against the ministry, but merely because they had owed their situations to some (whig) nobleman who was against the peace. The proscription extended to tidewaiters, to doorkeepers. One poor man, to whom a pension had been given for his gallantry in a fight with smugglers, was deprived of it because he had been befriended by the (whig) Duke of Grafton. An aged widow, who, on account of her husband's services in the navy, had, many years before, been made housekeeper in a public office, was dismissed from her situation because she was distantly connected by marriage with the (whig) Cavendish family."

This, to be sure, was a tory proscription of whigs, and therefore the less recommendable as an example to either party in the United States, but too much followed by both--to the injury of individuals, the damage of the public service, the corruption of elections, and the degradation of government. De Tocqueville quotes removals as a reproach to our government, and although untrue to the extent he represented, the evil has become worse since, and is true to a sufficient extent to demand reform. The remedy is found in Mr. Jefferson's rule, and in the four years' limitation act which has since been passed; and under which, with removals for cause, and some deaths, and a few resignations, an ample field would be found for new appointments, without the harshness of general and sweeping removals.

I consider "sweeping" removals, as now practised by both parties, a great political evil in our country, injurious to individuals, to the public service, to the purity of elections, and to the harmony and union of the people. Certainly, no individual has a right to an office: no one has an estate or property in a public employment; but when a mere ministerial worker in a subordinate station has learned its duties by experience, and approved his fidelity by his conduct, it is an injury to the public service to exchange him for a novice, whose only title to the place may be a political badge or a partisan service. It is exchanging experience for inexperience, tried ability for untried, and destroying incentive to good conduct by destroying its reward. To the party displaced it is an injury, having become a proficient in that business, expecting to remain in it during good behavior, and finding it difficult, at an advanced age, and with fixed habits, to begin a new career in some new walk of life. It converts elections into scrambles, for office, and degrades the government into an office for rewards and punishments; and divides the people of the Union into two adverse parties--each in its turn, and as it becomes dominant, to strip and proscribe the other.

Our government is a Union. We want a united people, as well as united States--united for benefits as well as for burdens, and in feeling as well as in compact; and this cannot be while one half (each in its turn) excludes the other from all share in the administration of the government. Mr. Jefferson's principle is perfect, and reconciled public and private interest with party rights and duties. The party in power is responsible for the well-working of the government, and has a right, and is bound by duty to itself, to place its friends at the head of the different branches of the public service. After that, and in the subordinate places, the opposite party should have its share of employment; and this Mr. Jefferson's principle gives to it. But as there are offices too subordinate for party proscription, so there are others too elevated and national for it. This is now acknowledged in the army and navy, and formerly was acknowledged in the diplomatic department; and should be again. To foreign nations we should, at least, be one people--an undivided people, and that in peace as well as in war. Mr. Jefferson's principle reached this case, and he acted upon it. His election was not a signal gun, fired for the recall of all the ministers abroad, to be succeeded incontinently by partisans of its own. Mr. Rufus King, the most eminent of the federal ministers abroad, and at the most eminent court of Europe, that of St. James, remained at his post for two years after the revolution of parties in 1800; and until he requested his own recall, treated all the while with respect and confidence, and intrusted with a negotiation which he conducted to its conclusion. Our early diplomatic policy, eschewing all foreign entanglement, rejected the office of "minister resident." That early republican policy would have no permanent representation at foreign courts. The "envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary," called out on an emergent occasion, and to return home as soon as the emergency was over, was the only minister known to our early history; and then the mission was usually a mixed one, composed of both parties. And so it should be again. The present permanent supply and perpetual succession of "envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary" is a fraud upon the name, and a breach of the old policy of the government, and a hitching on American diplomacy to the tail of the diplomacy of Europe. It is the actual keeping up of "ministers resident" under a false name, and contrary to a wise and venerable policy; and requires the reform hand of the House of Representatives. But this point will require a chapter of its own, and its elucidation must be adjourned to another and a separate place.

Mons. de Tocqueville was right in the principle of his reproach, wrong in the extent of his application, but would have been less wrong if he had written of events a dozen years later. I deprecate the effect of such sweeping removals at each revolution of parties, and believe it is having a deplorable effect both upon the purity of elections and the distribution of office, and taking both out of the hands of the people, and throwing the management of one and the enjoyment of the other into most unfit hands. I consider it as working a deleterious change in the government, making it what Mr. Jefferson feared: and being a disciple of his school, and believing in the soundness and nationality of the rule which he laid down, I deem it good to recall it solemnly to public recollection--for the profit, and hope, of present and of future times.

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LI. INDIAN SOVEREIGNTIES WITHIN THE STATES

A political movement on the part of some of the southern tribes of Indians, brought up a new question between the States and those Indians, which called for the interposition of the federal government. Though still called Indians, their primitive and equal government had lost its form, and had become an oligarchy, governed chiefly by a few white men, called half-breeds, because there was a tincture of Indian blood in their veins. These, in some instances, set up governments within the States, and claimed sovereignty and dominion within their limits. The States resisted this claim and extended their laws and jurisdiction over them. The federal government was appealed to; and at the commencement of the session of 1829-'30, in his first annual message, President Jackson brought the subject before the two Houses of Congress, thus:

"The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian tribes within the limits of some of our States, have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another, wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have, at the same time, lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them further into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust, and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, government has constantly defeated its own policy, and the Indians, in general, receding further and further to the West, have retained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites, and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only sovereigns within their territories, extended their laws over the Indians; which induced the latter to call upon the United States for protection.

"Under these circumstances, the question presented was, whether the general government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions? The constitution declares, that "no new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State," without the consent of its legislature. If the general government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union, against her consent, much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there. Georgia became a member of the confederacy which eventuated in our federal union, as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits; which, having been originally defined in her colonial charter, and subsequently recognized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of a portion of her territory to the United States, in the articles of cession of 1802. Alabama was admitted into the Union on the same footing with the original States, with boundaries which were prescribed by Congress. There is no constitutional, conventional, or legal provision, which allows them less power over the Indians within their borders, than is possessed by Maine or New-York. Would the people of Maine permit the Penobscot tribe to erect an independent government within their State? and, unless they did, would it not be the duty of the general government to support them in resisting such a measure? Would the people of New-York permit each remnant of the Six Nations within her borders, to declare itself an independent people, under the protection of the United States? Could the Indians establish a separate republic on each of their reservations in Ohio? And if they were so disposed, would it be the duty of this government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this government are reversed; and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect.

"Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama, that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States; and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi, or submit to the laws of those States."

Having thus refused to sustain these southern tribes in their attempt to set up independent governments within the States of Alabama and Georgia, and foreseeing an unequal and disagreeable contest between the Indians and the States, the President recommended the passage of an act to enable him to provide for their removal to the west of the Mississippi. It was an old policy, but party spirit now took hold of it, and strenuously resisted the passage of the act. It was one of the closest, and most earnestly contested questions of the session; and finally carried by an inconsiderable majority. The sum of $500,000 was appropriated to defray the expenses of treating with them for an exchange, or sale of territory; and under this act, and with the ample means which it placed at the disposal of the President, the removals were eventually effected; but with great difficulty, chiefly on account of a foreign, or outside influence from politicians and intrusive philanthropists. Georgia was the State where this question took its most serious form. The legislature of the State laid off the Cherokee country into counties, and prepared to exercise her laws within them. The Indians, besides resisting through their political friends in Congress, took counsel and legal advice, with a view to get the question into the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Wirt, the late Attorney General of the United States, was retained in their cause, and addressed a communication to the Governor of the State, apprising him of the fact; and proposing that an "agreed case" should be made up for the decision of the court. Gov. Gilmer declined this proposal, and in his answer gave as the reason why the State had taken the decided step of extending her jurisdiction, that the Cherokee tribe had become merged in its management in the "half breeds," or descendants of white men, who possessed wealth and intelligence, and acting under political and fanatical instigations from without, were disposed to perpetuate their residence within the State,--(the part of them still remaining and refusing to join their half tribe beyond the Mississippi). The governor said: "So long as the Cherokees retained their primitive habits, no disposition was shown by the States under the protection of whose government they resided, to make them subject to their laws. Such policy would have been cruel; because it would have interfered with their habits of life, the enjoyments peculiar to Indian people, and the kind of government which accorded with those habits and enjoyments. It was the power of the whites, and of their children among the Cherokees, that destroyed the ancient laws, customs and authority of the tribe, and subjected the nation to the rule of that most oppressive of governments--an oligarchy. There is nothing surprising in this result. From the character of the people, and the causes operating upon them, it could not have been otherwise. It was this state of things that rendered it obligatory upon Georgia to vindicate the rights of her sovereignty by abolishing all Cherokee government within its limits. Whether of the intelligent, or ignorant class, the State of Georgia has passed no laws violative of the liberty, personal security, or private property of any Indian. It has been the object of humanity, and wisdom, to separate the two classes (the ignorant, and the informed Indians) among them, giving the rights of citizenship to those who are capable of performing its duties and properly estimating its privileges; and increasing the enjoyment and the probability of future improvement to the ignorant and idle, by removing them to a situation where the inducements to action will be more in accordance with the character of the Cherokee people."

With respect to the foreign interference with this question, by politicians of other States and pseudo philanthropists, the only effect of which was to bring upon subaltern agents the punishment which the laws inflicted upon its violators, the governor said: "It is well known that the extent of the jurisdiction of Georgia, and the policy of removing the Cherokees and other Indians to the west of the Mississippi, have become party questions. It is believed that the Cherokees in Georgia, had determined to unite with that portion of the tribe who had removed to the west of the Mississippi, if the policy of the President was sustained by Congress. To prevent this result, as soon as it became highly probable that the Indian bill would pass, the Cherokees were persuaded that the right of self-government could be secured to them by the power of the Supreme Court of the United States, in defiance of the legislation of the general and State governments. It was not known, however, until the receipt of your letter, that the spirit of resistance to the laws of the State, and views of the United States, which has of late been evident among the Indians, had in any manner been occasioned by your advice." Mr. Wirt had been professionally employed by the Cherokees to bring their case before the Supreme Court; but as he classed politically with the party, which took sides with the Indians against Georgia, the governor was the less ceremonious, or reserved in his reply to him.

Judge Clayton, in whose circuit the Indian counties fell, at his first charge to the grand jury assured the Indians of protection, warned the intermeddlers of the mischief they were doing, and of the inutility of applying to the Supreme Court. He said: "My other purpose is to apprise the Indians that they are not to be oppressed, as has been sagely foretold: that the same justice which will be meted to the citizen shall be meted to them." With respect to intermeddlers he said: "Meetings have been held in all directions, to express opinions on the conduct of Georgia, and Georgia alone--when her adjoining sister States had lately done precisely the same thing; and which she and they had done, in the rightful exercise of their State sovereignty." The judge even showed that one of these intrusive philanthropists had endeavored to interest European sympathy, in behalf of the Cherokees; and quoted from the address of the reverend Mr. Milner, of New-York, to the Foreign Missionary Society in London: "That if the cause of the negroes in the West Indias was interesting to that auditory--and deeply interesting it ought to be--if the population in Ireland, groaning beneath the degradation of superstition--excited their sympathies, he trusted the Indians of North America would also be considered as the objects of their Christian regard. He was grieved, however, to state that there were those in America, who acted towards them in a different spirit; and he lamented to say that, at this very moment, the State of Georgia was seeking to subjugate and destroy the liberties both of the Creeks and the Cherokees; the former of whom possessed in Georgia, ten millions of acres of land, and the latter three millions." In this manner European sympathies were sought to be brought to bear upon the question of removal of the Indians--a political and domestic question, long since resolved upon by wise and humane American statesmen--and for the benefit of the Indians themselves, as well as of the States in which they were. If all that the reverend missionary uttered had been true, it would still have been a very improper invocation of European sympathies in an American domestic question, and against a settled governmental policy: but it was not true. The Creeks, with their imputed ten millions of acres, owned not one acre in the State; and had not in five years--not since the treaty of cession in 1825: which shows the recklessness with which the reverend suppliant for foreign sympathy, spoke of the people and States of his own country. The few Cherokees who were there, instead of subjugation and destruction of their liberties, were to be paid a high price for their land, if they chose to join their tribe beyond the Mississippi; and if not, they were to be protected like the white inhabitants of the counties they lived in. "With respect to the Supreme Court, the judge declared that he should pay no attention to its mandate--holding no writ of error to lie from the Supreme Court of the United States to his State Court--but would execute the sentence of the law, whatever it might be, in defiance of the Supreme Court; and such was the fact. Instigated by foreign interference, and relying upon its protection, one George Tassels, of Indian descent, committed a homicide in resisting the laws of Georgia--was tried for murder--convicted--condemned--and sentenced to be hanged on a given day. A writ of error, to bring the case before itself, was obtained from the Supreme Court of the United States; and it was proposed by the counsel, Mr. Wirt, to try the whole question of the right of Georgia, to exercise jurisdiction over the Indians and Indian country within her limits, by the trial of this writ of error at Washington; and for that purpose, and to save the tedious forms of judicial proceedings, he requested the governor to consent to make up an "agreed case" for the consideration and decision of that high court. This proposition Governor Gilmer declined, in firm but civil terms, saying: "Your suggestion that it would be convenient and satisfactory if yourself, the Indians, and the governor would make up a law case to be submitted to the Supreme Court for the determination of the question, whether the legislature of Georgia has competent authority to pass laws for the government of the Indians residing within its limits, however courteous the manner, and conciliatory the phraseology, cannot but be considered as exceedingly disrespectful to the government of the State. No one knows better than yourself, that the governor would grossly violate his duty, and exceed his authority, by complying with such a suggestion; and that both the letter and the spirit of the powers conferred by the constitution upon the Supreme Court forbid its adjudging such a case. It is hoped that the efforts of the general government to execute its contract with Georgia (the compact of 1802), to secure the continuance and advance the happiness of the Indian tribes, and to give quiet to the country, may be so effectually successful as to prevent the necessity of any further intercourse upon the subject." And there was no further intercourse. The day for the execution of Tassels came round: he was hanged: and the writ of the Supreme Court was no more heard of. The remaining Cherokees afterwards made their treaty, and removed to the west of the Mississippi; and that was the end of the political, and intrusive philanthropical interference in the domestic policy of Georgia. One Indian hanged, some missionaries imprisoned, the writ of the Supreme Court disregarded, the Indians removed: and the political and pseudo-philanthropic intermeddlers left to the reflection of having done much mischief in assuming to become the defenders and guardians of a race which the humanity of our laws and people were treating with parental kindness.

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LII. VETO ON THE MAYSVILLE ROAD BILL

This was the third veto on the subject of federal internal improvements within the States, and by three different Presidents. The first was by Mr. Madison, on the bill "to set apart, and pledge certain funds for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of watercourses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States; and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions of the common defence"--a very long title, and even argumentative--as if afraid of the President's veto--which it received in a message with the reasons for disapproving it. The second was that of Mr. Monroe on the Cumberland Road bill, which, with an abstract of his reasons and arguments, has already been given in this View. This third veto on the same subject, and from President Jackson, and at a time when internal improvement by the federal government had become a point of party division, and a part of the American system, and when concerted action on the public mind had created for it a degree of popularity: this third veto under such circumstances was a killing blow to the system--which has shown but little, and only occasional vitality since. Taken together, the three vetoes, and the three messages sustaining them, and the action of Congress upon them (for in no instance did the House in which they originated pass the bills, or either of them, in opposition to the vetoes), may be considered as embracing all the constitutional reasoning upon the question; and enough to be studied by any one who wishes to make himself master of the subject.

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