Chapter XCIII
DEATH OF LEWIS WILLIAMS, OF NORTH CAROLINA, AND NOTICE OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER.
He was one of those meritorious and exemplary members whose labors are among the most useful to their country: diligent, modest, attentive, patriotic, inflexibly honest--a friend to simplicity and economy in the working of the government, and an enemy to all selfish, personal, and indirect legislation. He had the distinction to have his merits and virtues commemorated in the two Houses of Congress by two of the most eminent men of the age--Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams--who respectively seconded in the House to which each belonged, the customary motion for funeral honors to his memory. Mr. Adams said:
"Mr. Speaker, I second the motion, and ask the indulgence of the House for the utterance of a few words, from a heart full to overflowing with anguish which no words can express. Sir, my acquaintance with Mr. Williams commenced with the second Congress of his service in this House. Twenty-five years have since elapsed, during all which he has been always here at his post, always true to his trust, always adhering faithfully to his constituents and to his country--always, and through every political vicissitude and revolution, adhered to faithfully by them. I have often thought that this steadfastness of mutual attachment between the representative and the constituent was characteristic of both; and, concurring with the idea just expressed with such touching eloquence by his colleague (Mr. Rayner), I have habitually looked upon Lewis Williams as the true portraiture and personification of the people of North Carolina. Sir, the loss of such a man at any time, to his country, would be great. To this House, at this juncture, it is irreparable. His wisdom, his experience, his unsullied integrity, his ardent patriotism, his cool and deliberate judgment, his conciliatory temper, his firm adherence to principle--where shall we find a substitute for them? In the distracted state of our public counsels, with the wormwood and the gall of personal animosities adding tenfold bitterness to the conflict of rival interests and discordant opinions, how shall we have to deplore the bereavement of his presence, the very light of whose countenance, the very sound of whose voice, could recall us, like a talisman, from the tempest of hostile passions to the calm composure of harmony and peace.
"Mr. Williams was, and had long been, in the official language which we have adopted from the British House of Commons, the Father of the House; and though my junior by nearly twenty years, I have looked up to him in this House, with the reverence of filial affection, as if he was the father of us all. The seriousness and gravity of his character, tempered as it was with habitual cheerfulness and equanimity, peculiarly fitted him for that relation to the other members of the House, while the unassuming courtesy of his deportment and the benevolence of his disposition invited every one to consider him as a brother. Sir, he is gone! The places that have known him shall know him no more; but his memory shall be treasured up by the wise and the good of his contemporaries, as eminent among the patriots and statesmen of this our native land; and were it possible for any Northern bosom, within this hall, ever to harbor for one moment a wish for the dissolution of our National Union, may the spirit of our departed friend, pervading every particle of the atmosphere around us, dispel the delusion of his soul, by reminding him that, in that event, he would no longer be the countryman of Lewis Williams."
Mr. Clay, in the Senate, who was speaker of the House when the then young Lewis Williams first entered it, bore his ample testimony from intimate personal knowledge, to the merits of the deceased; and, like Mr. Adams, professed a warm personal friendship for the individual, as well as exalted admiration for the public man.
"Prompted by a friendship which existed between the deceased and myself, of upwards of a quarter of a century's duration, and by the feelings and sympathies which this melancholy occasion excites, will the Senate allow me to add a few words to those which have been so well and so appropriately expressed by my friend near me [Mr. Graham], in seconding the motion he has just made? Already, during the present session, has Congress, and each House, paid the annual instalment of the great debt of Nature. We could not have lost two more worthy and estimable men than those who have been taken from us. My acquaintance with the lamented Lewis Williams commenced in the fall of 1815, when he first took his seat as a member of the House of Representatives from the State of North Carolina, and I re-entered that House after my return from Europe. From that period until his death, a cordial and unbroken friendship has subsisted between us; and similar ties were subsequently created with almost every member of his highly respectable family. When a vacancy arose in the responsible and laborious office of chairman of the Committee of Claims, which had been previously filled by another distinguished and lamented son of North Carolina (the late Mr. Yancy), in virtue of authority vested in me, as the presiding officer of the House, I appointed Mr. Williams to fill it. Always full of labor, and requiring unremitting industry, it was then, in consequence of claims originating in the late war, more than ever toilsome. He discharged his complicated duties with the greatest diligence, ability, impartiality, and uprightness, and continued in the office until I left the House in the year 1825. He occasionally took part in the debates which sprung up on great measures brought for the advancement of the interests of the country, and was always heard with profound attention, and, I believe, with a thorough conviction of his perfect integrity. Inflexibly adhering always to what he believed to be right, if he ever displayed warmth or impatience, it was excited by what he thought was insincere, or base, or ignoble. In short, Lewis Williams was a true and faithful image of the respectable State which he so long and so ably served in the national councils--intelligent, quiet, unambitious, loyal to the Union, and uniformly patriotic. We all feel and deplore, with the greatest sensibility, the heavy loss we have so suddenly sustained. May it impress us with a just sense of the frailty and uncertainty of human life! And, profiting by his example, may we all be fully prepared for that which is soon to follow."
Mr. Williams reflected the character of his State; and that was a distinction so obvious and so honorable that both speakers mentioned it, and in doing so did honor both to the State and the citizen. And she illustrated her character by the manner in which she cherished him. Elected into the General Assembly as soon as age would permit, and continued there until riper age would admit him into the Federal Congress, he was elected into that body amongst the youngest of its members; and continued there by successive elections until he was the longest sitting member, and became entitled to the Parliamentary appellation of Father of the House. Exemplary in all the relations of public and private life, he crowned a meritorious existence by an exemplary piety, and was as remarkable for the close observance of all his christian obligations as he was for the discharge of his public duties.
Chapter XCIV
THE CIVIL LIST EXPENSES: THE CONTINGENT EXPENSES OF CONGRESS: AND THE REVENUE COLLECTION EXPENSE.
Pursuing the instructive political lesson to be found in the study of the progressive increased expenditures of the government, we take up, in this chapter, the civil list in the gross, and two of its items in detail--the contingent expenses of Congress, and the expense of collecting the revenue--premising that the civil list, besides the salaries of civil officers, includes the foreign diplomatic intercourse, and a variety of miscellanies. To obtain the proper comparative data, recourse is again had to Mr. Calhoun's speech of this year (1842) on the naval appropriation.
"The expenditures under the first head have increased since 1823, when they were $2,022,093, to $5,492,030 98, the amount in 1840; showing an increase, in seventeen years, of 2 7-10 to 1, while the population has increased only about 3/4 to 1, that is, about 75 per cent.--making the increase of expenditures, compared to the increase of population, about 3 6-10 to 1. This enormous increase has taken place although a large portion of the expenditures under this head, consisting of salaries to officers, and the pay of members of Congress, has remained unchanged. The next year, in 1841, the expenditure rose to $6,196,560. I am, however, happy to perceive a considerable reduction in the estimates for this year, compared with the last and several preceding years; but still leaving room for great additional reduction to bring the increase of expenditures to the same ratio with the increase of population, as liberal as that standard of increase would be.
"That the Senate may form some conception, in detail, of this enormous increase, I propose to go more into particulars in reference to two items: the contingent expenses of the two Houses of Congress, and that of collecting the duties on imports. The latter, though of a character belonging to the civil list, is not included in it, or either of the other heads; as the expenses incident to collecting the customs, are deducted from the receipts, before the money is paid into the Treasury.
"The contingent expenses (they exclude the pay and mileage of members) of the Senate in 1823 were $12,841 07, of which the printing cost $6,349 56, and stationery $1,631 51; and that of the House, $37,848 95, of which the printing cost $22,314 41, and the stationery $3,877 71. In 1840, the contingent expenses of the Senate were $77,447 22, of which the printing cost $31,285 32, and the stationery $7,061 77; and that of the House $199,219 57, of which the printing cost $65,086 46, and the stationery $36,352 99. The aggregate expenses of the two Houses together rose from $50,690 02 to $276,666; being an actual increase of 5 4-10 to 1, and an increase, in proportion to population, of about 7 2-10 to one. But as enormous as this increase is, the fact that the number of members had increased not more than about ten per cent. from 1823 to 1840, is calculated to make it still more strikingly so. Had the increase kept pace with the increase of members (and there is no good reason why it should greatly exceed it), the expenditures would have risen from $50,690 to $55,759, only making an increase of but $5,069; but, instead of that, it rose to $276,666, making an increase of $225,970. To place the subject in a still more striking view, the contingent expenses in 1823 were at the rate of $144 per member, which one would suppose was ample, and in 1840, $942. This vast increase took place under the immediate eyes of Congress; and yet we were told at the extra session, by the present chairman of the Finance Committee, that there was no room for economy, and that no reduction could be made; and even in this discussion he has intimated that little can be done. As enormous as are the contingent expenses of the two Houses, I infer from the very great increase of expenditures under the head of civil list generally, when so large a portion is for fixed salaries, which have not been materially increased for the last seventeen years, that they are not much less so throughout the whole range of this branch of the public service.
"I shall now proceed to the other item, which I have selected for more particular examination, the increased expenses of collecting the duties on imports. In 1823 it was $766,699, equal to 3 86-100 per cent. on the amount collected, and 98-100 on the aggregate amount of imports; and in 1840 it had increased to $1,542,319 24, equal to 14 13-100 per cent. on the amount collected, and to 1 58-100 on the aggregate amount of the imports, being an actual increase of nearly a million, and considerably more than double the amount of 1823. In 1839 it rose to $1,714,515.
"From these facts, there can be little doubt that more than a million annually may be saved under the two items of contingent expenses of Congress, and the collection of the customs, without touching the other great items comprised under the civil list, the executive and judicial departments, the foreign intercourse, light-houses, and miscellaneous. It would be safe to put down a saving of at least a half million for them."
The striking facts to be gleaned from these statements are--That the civil list in 1821 was about two millions of dollars; in 1839, four and a half millions; and in 1841, six millions and a fraction. That the contingent expenses of Congress during the same periods respectively, were, $50,000, and $276,000. And the collection of the custom house revenue at the same periods, the respective sums of $766,000, and $1,542,000. These several sums were each considered extravagant, and unjustifiable, at the time Mr. Calhoun was speaking; and each was expected to feel the pruning knife of retrenchment. On the contrary, all have risen higher--inordinately so--and still rising: the civil and diplomatic appropriation having attained 17 millions: the contingent expenses of Congress 4 to 510,000: and the collection of the customs to above two millions.
XCV. RESIGNATION AND VALEDICTORY OF MR. CLAY
In the month of March, of this year, Mr. Clay resigned his place in the Senate, and delivered a valedictory address to the body, in the course of which he disclosed his reasons. Neither age, nor infirmities, nor disinclination for public service were alleged as the reasons. Disgust, profound and inextinguishable, was the ruling cause--more inferrible than alleged in his carefully considered address. Supercession at the presidential convention of his party to make room for an "available" in the person of General Harrison--the defection of Mr. Tyler--the loss of his leading measures--the criminal catastrophe of the national bank for which he had so often pledged himself--and the insolent attacks of the petty adherents of the administration in the two Houses, (too annoying for his equanimity, and too contemptible for his reply): all these causes of disgust, acting upon a proud and lofty spirit, induced this withdrawal from a splendid theatre for which, it was evident, he had not yet lost his taste. The address opened with a retrospect of his early entrance into the Senate, and a grand encomium upon its powers and dignity as he had found it, and left it. Memory went back to that early year, 1806, when just arrived at senatorial age, he entered the American Senate, and commenced his high career--a wide and luminous horizon before him, and will and talent to fill it. After some little exordium, he proceeded:
"And now, allow me, Mr. President, to announce, formally and officially, my retirement from the Senate of the United States, and to present the last motion which I shall ever make within this body; but, before making that motion, I trust I shall be pardoned for availing myself of this occasion to make a few observations. At the time of my entry into this body, which took place in December, 1806, I regarded it, and still regard it, as a body which may be compared, without disadvantage, to any of a similar character which has existed in ancient or modern times; whether we look at it in reference to its dignity, its powers, or the mode of its constitution; and I will also add, whether it be regarded in reference to the amount of ability which I shall leave behind me when I retire from this chamber. In instituting a comparison between the Senate of the United States and similar political institutions, of other countries, of France and England, for example, he was sure the comparison might be made without disadvantage to the American Senate. In respect to the constitution of these bodies: in England, with only the exception of the peers from Ireland and Scotland, and in France with no exception, the component parts, the members of these bodies, hold their places by virtue of no delegated authority, but derive their powers from the crown, either by ancient creation of nobility transmitted by force of hereditary descent, or by new patents as occasion required an increase of their numbers. But here, Mr. President, we have the proud title of being the representatives of sovereign States or commonwealths. If we look at the powers of these bodies in France and England, and the powers of this Senate, we shall find that the latter are far greater than the former. In both those countries they have the legislative power, in both the judicial with some modifications, and in both perhaps a more extensive judicial power than is possessed by this Senate; but then the last and undefined and undefinable power, the treaty-making power, or at least a participation in the conclusions of treaties with foreign powers, is possessed by this Senate, and is possessed by neither of the others. Another power, too, and one of infinite magnitude, that of distributing the patronage of a great nation, which is shared by this Senate with the executive magistrate. In both these respects we stand upon ground different from that occupied by the Houses of Peers of England and of France. And I repeat, that with respect to the dignity which ordinarily prevails in this body, and with respect to the ability of its members during the long period of my acquaintance with it, without arrogance or presumption, we may say, in proportion to its numbers, the comparison would not be disadvantageous to us compared with any Senate either of ancient or modern times."
He then gave the date of the period at which he had formed the design to retire, and the motive for it--the date referring to the late presidential election, and the motive to find repose in the bosom of his family.
"Sir, I have long--full of attraction as public service in the Senate of the United States is--a service which might fill the aspirations of the most ambitious heart--I have nevertheless long desired to seek that repose which is only to be found in the bosom of one's family--in private life--in one's home. It was my purpose to have terminated my senatorial career in November, 1840, after the conclusion of the political struggle which characterized that year."
The termination of the presidential election in November, was the period at which Mr. Clay intended to retire: the determination was formed before that time--formed from the moment that he found himself superseded at the head of his party by a process of intricate and trackless filtration of public opinion which left himself a dreg where he had been for so many years the head. It was a mistake, the effect of calculation, which ended more disastrously for the party than for himself. Mr. Clay could have been elected at that time. The same power which elected General Harrison could have elected him. The banks enabled the party to do it. In a state of suspension, they could furnish, without detriment to themselves, the funds for the campaign. Affecting to be ruined by the government, they could create distress: and thus act upon the community with the double battery of terror and seduction. Lending all their energies and resources to a political party, they elected General Harrison in a hurrah! and could have done the same by Mr. Clay. With him the election would have been a reality--a victory bearing fruit: with General Harrison and Mr. Tyler--through Providence with one, and defection in the other--the triumph, achieved at so great expense, became ashes in the mouths of the victors. He then gave his reasons for not resigning, as he had intended, at the termination of the election: it was the hope of carrying his measures at the extra session, which he foresaw was to take place.
"But I learned very soon, what my own reflections indeed prompted me to suppose would take place, that there would be an extra session; and being desirous, prior to my retirement, to co-operate with my friends in the Senate in restoring, by the adoption of measures best calculated to accomplish that purpose, that degree of prosperity to the country, which had been, for a time, destroyed, I determined upon attending the extra session, which was called, as was well known, by the lamented Harrison. His death, and the succession which took place in consequence of it, produced a new aspect in the affairs of the country. Had he lived, I do not entertain a particle of doubt that those measures which, it was hoped, might be accomplished at that session, would have been consummated by a candid co-operation between the executive branch of the government and Congress; and, sir, allow me to say (and it is only with respect to the extra session), that I believe if there be any one free from party feelings, and free from bias and from prejudice, who will look at its transactions in a spirit of candor and of justice, but must come to the conclusion to which, I think, the country generally will come, that if there be any thing to complain of in connection with that session, it is not as to what was done and concluded, but as to that which was left unfinished and unaccomplished."
Disappointed in his expectations from the extra session, by means which he did not feel it necessary to recapitulate, Mr. Clay proceeds to give the reasons why he still deferred his proposed resignation, and appeared in the Senate again at its ensuing regular session.
"After the termination of that session, had Harrison lived, and had the measures which it appeared to me it was desirable to have accomplished, been carried, it was my intention to have retired; but I reconsidered that determination, with the vain hope that, at the regular session of Congress, what had been unaccomplished at the extra session, might then be effected, either upon the terms proposed or in some manner which would be equivalent. But events were announced after the extra session--events resulting, I believe, in the failure to accomplish certain objects at the extra session--events which seemed to throw upon our friends every where present defeat--this hope, and the occurrence of these events, induced me to attend the regular session, and whether in adversity or in prosperity, to share in the fortunes of my friends. But I came here with the purpose, which I am now about to effectuate, of retiring as soon as I thought I could retire with propriety and decency, from the public councils."
Events after the extra session, as well as the events of the session, determined him to return to the regular one. He does not say what those subsequent events were. They were principally two--the formation of a new cabinet wholly hostile to him, and the attempt of Messrs. Tyler, Webster and Cushing to take the whig party from him. The hostility of the cabinet was nothing to him personally; but it indicated a fixed design to thwart him on the part of the President, and augured an indisposition to promote any of his measures. This augury was fulfilled as soon as Congress met. The administration came forward with a plan of a government bank, to issue a national currency of government paper--a thing which he despised as much as the democracy did; and which, howsoever impossible to succeed itself, was quite sufficient, by the diversion it created, to mar the success of any plan for a national bank. Instead of carrying new measures, it became clear that he was to lose many already adopted. The bankrupt act, though forced upon him, had become one of his measures; and that was visibly doomed to repeal. The distribution of the land revenue had become a political monstrosity in the midst of loans, taxes and treasury notes resorted to to supply its loss: and the public mind was in revolt against it. The compromise act of 1833, for which he was so much lauded at the time, and the paternity of which he had so much contested at the time, had run its career of folly and delusion--had left the Treasury without revenue, and the manufacturers without protection; and, crippled at the extra session, it was bound to die at this regular one--and that in defiance of the mutual assurance for continued existence put into the land bill; and which, so far from being able to assure the life of another bill, was becoming unable to save its own. Losing his own measures, he saw those becoming established which he had most labored to oppose. The specie circular was taking effect of itself, from the abundance of gold and the baseness of paper. The divorce of Bank and State was becoming absolute, from the delinquency of the banks. There was no prospect ahead either to carry new measures, or to save old ones, or to oppose the hated ones. All was gloomy ahead. The only drop of consolation which sweetened the cup of so much bitterness was the failure of his enemies to take the whig party from him. That parricidal design (for these enemies owed their elevation to him) exploded in its formation--aborted in its conception; and left those to abjure whiggism, and fly from its touch, who had lately combined to consolidate Congress, President and people into one solid whig mass. With this comfort he determined to carry into effect his determination to resign, although it was not yet the middle of the session, and that all-important business was still on the anvil of legislation--to say nothing of the general diplomatic settlement, to embrace questions from the peace of 1783, which it was then known Great Britain was sending out a special mission to effect. But, to proceed with the valedictory. Having got to the point at which he was to retire, the veteran orator naturally threw a look back upon his past public course.
"From the year 1806, the period of my entering upon this noble theatre of my public service, with but short intervals, down to the present time, I have been engaged in the service of my country. Of the nature and value of those services which I may have rendered during my long career of public life, it does not become me to speak. History, if she deigns to notice me, and posterity--if a recollection of any humble service which I may have rendered shall be transmitted to posterity--will be the best, truest, and most impartial judges; and to them I defer for a decision upon their value. But, upon one subject, I may be allowed to speak. As to my public acts and public conduct, they are subjects for the judgment of my fellow-citizens; but my private motives of action--that which prompted me to take the part which I may have done, upon great measures during their progress in the national councils, can be known only to the Great Searcher of the human heart and myself; and I trust I shall be pardoned for repeating again a declaration which I made thirty years ago: that whatever error I may have committed--and doubtless I have committed many during my public service--I may appeal to the Divine Searcher of hearts for the truth of the declaration which I now make, with pride and confidence, that I have been actuated by no personal motives--that I have sought no personal aggrandizement--no promotion from the advocacy of those various measures on which I have been called to act--that I have had an eye, a single eye, a heart, a single heart, ever devoted to what appeared to be the best interests of the country."
With this retrospection of his own course was readily associated the recollection of the friends who had supported him in his long and eventful, and sometimes, stormy career.
"But I have not been unsustained during this long course of public service. Every where on this widespread continent have I enjoyed the benefit of possessing warm-hearted, and enthusiastic, and devoted friends--friends who knew me, and appreciated justly the motives by which I have been actuated. To them, if I had language to make suitable acknowledgments, I would now take leave to present them, as being all the offering that I can make for their long continued, persevering and devoted friendship."
These were general thanks to the whole body of his friends, and to the whole extent of his country; but there were special thanks due to nearer friends, and the home State, which had then stood by him for forty-five years (and which still stood by him ten years more, and until death), and fervidly and impressively he acknowledged this domestic debt of gratitude and affection.
"But, sir, if I have a difficulty in giving utterance to an expression of the feelings of gratitude which fill my heart towards my friends, dispersed throughout this continent, what shall I say--what can I say--at all commensurate with my feelings of gratitude towards that State whose humble servitor I am? I migrated to the State of Kentucky nearly forty-five years ago. I went there as an orphan, who had not yet attained his majority--who had never recognized a father's smile--poor, penniless, without the favor of the great--with an imperfect and inadequate education, limited to the means applicable to such a boy;--but scarcely had I set foot upon that generous soil, before I was caressed with parental fondness--patronized with bountiful munificence--and I may add to this, that her choicest honors, often unsolicited, have been freely showered upon me; and when I stood, as it were, in the darkest moments of human existence--abandoned by the world, calumniated by a large portion of my own countrymen, she threw around me her impenetrable shield, and bore me aloft, and repelled the attacks of malignity and calumny, by which I was assailed. Sir, it is to me an unspeakable pleasure that I am shortly to return to her friendly limits; and that I shall finally deposit (and it will not be long before that day arrives) my last remains under her generous soil, with the remains of her gallant and patriotic sons who have preceded me."
After this grateful overflow of feelings to faithful friends and country, came some notice of foes, whom he might forgive, but not forget.
"Yet, sir, during this long period, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, in this and other countries. I have been often, Mr. President, the object of bitter and unmeasured detraction and calumny. I have borne it, I will not say always with composure, but I have borne it without creating any disturbance. I have borne it, waiting in unshaken and undoubting confidence, that the triumphs of truth and justice would ultimately prevail; and that time would settle all things as they ought to be settled. I have borne them under the conviction, of which no injustice, no wrong, no injury could deprive me, that I did not deserve them, and that He to whom we are all to be finally and ultimately responsible, would acquit me, whatever injustice I might experience at the hands of my fellow-men."
This was a general reference to the attacks and misrepresentations with which, in common with all eminent public men of decided character, he had been assailed; but there was a recent and offensive imputation upon him which galled him exceedingly--as much so for the source from which it came as for the offence itself: it was the imputation of the dictatorship, lavished upon him during the extra session; and having its origin with Mr. Tyler and his friends. This stung him, coming from that source--Mr. Tyler having attained his highest honors through his friendship: elected senator by his friends over Mr. Randolph, and taken up for Vice-President in the whig convention (whereby he became both the second and the first magistrate of the republic) on account of the excessive affection which he displayed for Mr. Clay. To this recent, and most offensive imputation, he replied specially:
"Mr. President, a recent epithet (I do not know whether for the purpose of honor or of degradation) has been applied to me; and I have been held up to the country as a dictator! Dictator! The idea of dictatorship is drawn from Roman institutions; and there, when it was created, the person who was invested with this tremendous authority, concentrated in his own person the whole power of the state. He exercised unlimited control over the property and lives of the citizens of the commonwealth. He had the power of raising armies, and of raising revenue by taxing the people. If I have been a dictator, what have been the powers with which I have been clothed? Have I possessed an army, a navy, revenue? Have I had the distribution of the patronage of the government? Have I, in short, possessed any power whatever? Sir, if I have been a dictator, I think those who apply the epithet to me must at least admit two things: in the first place, that my dictatorship has been distinguished by no cruel executions, stained by no deeds of blood, soiled by no act of dishonor. And they must no less acknowledge, in the second place (though I do not know when its commencement bears date, but I suppose, however, that it is intended to be averred, from the commencement of the extra session), that if I have been invested with, or have usurped the dictatorship, I have at least voluntarily surrendered the power within a shorter period than was assigned by the Roman laws for its continuance."
Mr. Clay led a great party, and for a long time, whether he dictated to it or not, and kept it well bound together, without the usual means of forming and leading parties. It was a marvel that, without power and patronage (for the greater part of his career was passed in opposition as a mere member of Congress), he was able so long and so undividedly to keep so great a party together, and lead it so unresistingly. The marvel was solved on a close inspection of his character. He had great talents, but not equal to some whom he led. He had eloquence--superior in popular effect, but not equal in high oratory to that of some others. But his temperament was fervid, his will strong, and his courage daring; and these qualities, added to his talents, gave him the lead and supremacy in his party--where he was always dominant, but twice set aside by the politicians. It was a galling thing to the President Tyler, with all the power and patronage of office, to see himself without a party, and a mere opposition member at the head of a great one--the solid body of the whigs standing firm around Mr. Clay, while only some flankers and followers came to him; and they importunate for reward until they got it. Dictatorship was a natural expression of resentment under such circumstances; and accordingly it was applied--and lavishly--and in all places: in the Senate, in the House, in the public press, in conversation, and in the manifesto which Mr. Cushing put out to detach the whigs from him. But they all forgot to tell that this imputed dictatorship at the extra session, took place after the defection of Mr. Tyler from the whig party, and as a consequence of that defection--some leader being necessary to keep the party together after losing the two chiefs they had elected--one lost by Providence, the other by treachery. This account settled, he turned to a more genial topic--that of friendship; and to make atonement, reconciliation and peace with all the senators, and they were not a few, with whom he had had some rough encounters in the fierce debate. Unaffectedly acknowledging some imperfection of temper, he implored forgiveness from all whom he had ever offended, and extended the hand of friendship to every brother member.
"Mr. President, that my nature is warm, my temper ardent, my disposition in the public service enthusiastic, I am ready to own. But those who suppose they may have seen any proof of dictation in my conduct, have only mistaken that ardor for what I at least supposed to be patriotic exertions for fulfilling the wishes and expectations by which I hold this seat; they have only mistaken the one for the other. Mr. President, during my long and arduous services in the public councils, and especially during the last eleven years, in the Senate, the same ardor of temperament has characterized my actions, and has no doubt led me, in the heat of debate, in endeavoring to maintain my opinions in reference to the best course to be pursued in the conduct of public affairs, to use language offensive, and susceptible of ungracious interpretation, towards my brother senators. If there be any who entertain a feeling of dissatisfaction resulting from any circumstance of this kind, I beg to assure them that I now make the amplest apology. And, on the other hand, I assure the Senate, one and all, without exception and without reserve, that I leave the Senate chamber without carrying with me to my retirement a single feeling of dissatisfaction towards the Senate itself or any one of its members. I go from it under the hope that we shall mutually consign to perpetual oblivion whatever of personal animosities or jealousies may have arisen between us during the repeated collisions of mind with mind."
This moving appeal was strongly responded to in spontaneous advances at the proper time--deferred for a moment by a glowing and merited tribute to his successor (Mr. Crittenden), and his own solemn farewell to the Senate.
"And now, allow me to submit the motion which is the object that induced me to arise upon this occasion. It is to present the credentials of my friend and successor, who is present to take my place. If, Mr. President, any void could be created by my withdrawal from the Senate of the United States, it will be filled to overflowing by my worthy successor, whose urbanity, gallant bearing, steady adherence to principle, rare and uncommon powers of debate, are well known already in advance to the whole Senate. I move that the credentials be received, and at the proper moment that the oath required be administered. And now, in retiring as I am about to do from the Senate, I beg leave to deposit with it my fervent wishes, that all the great and patriotic objects for which it was instituted, may be accomplished--that the destiny designed for it by the framers of the constitution may be fulfilled--that the deliberations, now and hereafter, in which it may engage for the good of our common country, may eventuate in the restoration of its prosperity, and in the preservation and maintenance of her honor abroad, and her best interests at home. I retire from you, Mr. President, I know, at a period of infinite distress and embarrassment. I wish I could have taken leave of the public councils under more favorable auspices: but without meaning to say at this time, upon whom reproaches should fall on account of that unfortunate condition, I think I may appeal to the Senate and to the country for the truth of what I say, when I declare that at least no blame on account of these embarrassments and distresses can justly rest at my door. May the blessings of Heaven rest upon the heads of the whole Senate, and every member of it; and may every member of it advance still more in fame, and when they shall retire to the bosoms of their respective constituencies, may they all meet there that most joyous and grateful of all human rewards, the exclamation of their countrymen, 'well done, thou good and faithful servant.' Mr. President, and Messieurs Senators, I bid you, one and all, a long, a last, a friendly farewell."
Mr. Preston concluded the ceremony by a motion to adjourn. He said he had well observed from the deep sensation which had been sympathetically manifested, that there could be but little inclination to go on with business in the Senate, and that he could not help participating in the feeling which he was sure universally prevailed, that something was due to the occasion. The resignation which had just taken place was an epoch in the annals of the country. It would undoubtedly be so considered in history. And he did not know that he could better consult the feelings of the Senate than by moving an adjournment: which motion was made and agreed to. Senators, and especially those who had had their hot words with the retiring statesman, now released from official restraint, went up, and made return of all the kind expressions which had been addressed to them. But the valedictory, though well performed, did not escape the criticism of senators, as being out of keeping with the usages of the body. It was the first occasion of the kind; and, thus far, has been the last; and it might not be recommendable for any one, except another Henry Clay--if another should ever appear--to attempt its imitation.
XCVI. MILITARY DEPARTMENT: PROGRESS OF ITS EXPENSE
There is no part of the working of the government, at which that part of the citizens who live upon their own industry should look more closely, than into its expenditures. The progress of expense in every branch of the public service should be their constant care; and for that purpose retrospective views are necessary, and comparisons between different periods. A preceding chapter has given some view of this progress and comparison in the Navy Department: the present one will make the same retrospect with respect to the army, and on the same principles--that of taking the aggregate expense of the department, and then seeing the effective force produced, and the detailed cost of such force. Such comparative view was well brought up by Mr. Calhoun for a period of twenty years--1822 to 1842--in the debate on the naval appropriations; and it furnishes instructive data for this examination. He said:
"I shall now pass to the military, with which I am more familiar. I propose to confine my remarks almost entirely to the army proper, including the Military Academy, in reference to which the information is more full and minute. I exclude the expenses incident to the Florida war, and the expenditures for the ordnance, the engineer, the topographical, the Indian, and the pension bureaus. Instead of 1823, for which there is no official and exact statement of the expenses of the army, I shall take 1821, for which there is one made by myself, as Secretary of War, and for the minute correctness of which, I can vouch. It is contained in a report made under a call of the House of Representatives, and comprises a comparative statement of the expenses of the army proper, for the years 1818, '19, '20, and '21, respectively, and an estimate of the expense of 1823. It may be proper to add, which I can with confidence, that the comparative expense of 1823, if it could be ascertained, would be found to be not less favorable than 1821. It would probably be something more so.
"With these remarks, I shall begin with a comparison, in the first place, between 1821 and the estimate for the army proper for this year. The average aggregate strength of the army in the year 1821, including officers, professors, cadets, and soldiers, was 8,109, and the proportion of officers, including the professors of the Military Academy, to the soldiers, including cadets, was 1 to 12 18-100, and the expenditure $2,180,093 53, equal to $263 91 for each individual. The estimate for the army proper for 1842, including the Military Academy, is $4,453,370 16. The actual strength of the army, according to the return accompanying the message at the opening of the session, was 11,169. Assuming this to be the average strength for this year, and adding for the average number of the Academy, professors and cadets, 300, it will give within a very small fraction $390 for each individual, making a difference of $136 in favor of 1821. How far the increase of pay, and the additional expense of two regiments of dragoons, compared to other descriptions of troops, would justify this increase, I am not prepared to say. In other respects, I should suppose, there ought to be a decrease rather than an increase, as the prices of clothing, provisions, forage, and other articles of supply, as well as transportation, are, I presume, cheaper than in 1821. The proportion of officers to soldiers I would suppose to be less in 1842, than in 1821, and of course, as far as that has influence, the expense of the former ought to be less per man than the latter. With this brief and imperfect comparison between the expense of 1821 and the estimates for this year, I shall proceed to a more minute and full comparison between the former and the year 1837. I select that year, because the strength of the army, and the proportion of officers to men (a very material point as it relates to the expenditure) are almost exactly the same.
"On turning to document 165 (H. R., 2d sess., 26th Con.), a letter will be found from the then Secretary of War (Mr. Poinsett) giving a comparative statement, in detail, of the expense of the army proper, including the Military Academy, for the years 1837, '38, '39 and '40. The strength of the army for the first of these years, including officers, professors, cadets, and soldiers, was 8,107, being two less than in 1821. The proportion of officers and professors, to the cadets and soldiers, 11 46-100, being 72-100 more than 1821. The expenditure for 1837, $3,308,011, being $1,127,918 more than 1821. The cost per man, including officers, professors, cadets, and soldiers, was in 1837 $408 03, exceeding that of 1821 by $144 12 per man. It appears by the letter of the Secretary, that the expense per man rose in 1838 to $464 35; but it is due to the head of the department, at the time, to say, that it declined under his administration, the next year, to $381 65; and in the subsequent, to $380 63. There is no statement for the year 1841; but as there has been a falling off in prices, there ought to be a proportionate reduction in the cost, especially during the present year, when there is a prospect of so great a decline in almost every article which enters into the consumption of the army. Assuming that the average strength of the army will be kept equal to the return accompanying the President's message, and that the expenditure of the year should be reduced to the standard of 1821, the expense of the army would not exceed $2,895,686, making a difference, compared with the estimates, of $1,557,684; but that, from the increase of pay, and the greater expense of the dragoons, cannot be expected. Having no certain information how much the expenses are necessarily increased from those causes, I am not prepared to say what ought to be the actual reductions; but, unless the increase of pay, and the increased cost because of the dragoons are very great, it ought to be very considerable.
"I found the expense of the army in 1818, including the Military Academy, to be $3,702,495, at a cost of $451 57 per man, including officers, professors, cadets, and soldiers, and reduced it in 1821 to $2,180,098, at a cost of $263 91; and making a difference between the two years, in the aggregate expenses of the army, of $1,522,397, and $185 66 per man. There was, it is true, a great fall in prices in the interval; but allowing for that, by adding to the price of every article entering into the supplies of the army, a sum sufficient to raise it to the price of 1818, there was still a difference in the cost per man of $163 95. This great reduction was effected without stinting the service or diminishing the supplies, either in quantity or quality. They were, on the contrary, increased in both, especially the latter. It was effected through an efficient organization of the staff, and the co-operation of the able officers placed at the head of each of its divisions. The cause of the great expense at the former period, was found to be principally in the neglect of public property, and the application of it to uses not warranted by law. There is less scope, doubtless, for reformation in the army now. I cannot doubt, however, but that the universal extravagance which pervaded the country for so many years, and which increased so greatly the expenses both of government and individuals, has left much room for reform in this, as well as other branches of the service."
This is an instructive period at which to look. In the year 1821, when Mr. Calhoun was Secretary at War, the cost of each man in the military service (officers and cadets included) was, in round numbers, 264 dollars per man: in the year 1839, when Mr. Poinsett was Secretary, and the Florida war on hand, the cost per man was 380 dollars: in the year 1842, the second year of Mr. Tyler's administration, the Florida war still continuing, it was 390 dollars per man: now, in 1855, it is about 1,000 dollars a man. Thus, the cost of each man in the army has increased near three fold in the short space of about one dozen years. The same result will be shown by taking the view of these increased expenses in a different form--that of aggregates of men and of cost. Thus, the aggregate of the army in 1821 was 8,109 men, and the expense was $2,180,093: in 1839 the aggregate of the army was about 8,000 men--the cost $3,308,000: in 1842 the return of the army was 11,169--the appropriation asked for, and obtained $4,453,370. Now, 1854, the aggregate of the army is 10,342--the appropriations ten millions and three quarters! that is to say, with nearly one thousand men less than in 1842, the cost is upwards of six millions more. Such is the progress of waste and extravagance in the army--fully keeping up with that in the navy.
In a debate upon retrenchment at this session, Mr. Adams proposed to apply the pruning knife at the right place--the army and navy: he did not include the civil and diplomatic, which gave no sign at that time of attaining its present enormous proportions, and confined himself to the naval and military expenditure. After ridiculing the picayune attempts at retrenchment by piddling at stationery and tape, and messengers' pay, he pointed to the army and navy; and said:
"There you may retrench millions! in the expenses of Congress, you retrench picayunes. You never will retrench for the benefit of the people of this country, till you retrench the army and navy twenty millions. And yet he had heard of bringing down the expenditures of the government to twenty millions. Was this great retrenchment to be effected by cutting off the paper of members, by reducing the number of pages, and cutting down the salaries of the door-keepers? How much could be retrenched in that way? If there was to be any real retrenchment, it must be in the army and navy. A sincere and honest determination to reduce the expenses of the government, was the spirit of a very large portion of the two parties in the House; and that was a spirit in which the democracy had more merit than the other party. He came here as an humble follower of those who went for retrenchment; and, so help him God, so long as he kept his seat here, he would continue to urge retrenchment in the expenditures of the military and naval force. Well, what was the corresponding action of the Executive on this subject? It was a recommendation to increase the expenditures both for the army and navy. They had estimates from the War and Navy Departments of twenty millions. The additions proposed to the armed force, as he observed yesterday, fifteen millions would not provide for. Where was the spirit of retrenchment on the part of the Executive, which Congress had a right to expect? How had he met the spirit manifested by Congress for retrenchment of the expenditures of the government? By words--words--and nothing else but words."
A retrenchment, to be effectual, requires the President to take the lead, as Mr. Jefferson did at the commencement of his administration. A solitary member, or even several members acting together, could do but little: but they should not on that account forbear to "cry aloud and spare not." Their voice may wake up the people, and lead to the election of a President who will be on the side of republican economy, instead of royal extravagance. This writer is not certain that 20 millions, on these two heads, could have been retrenched at the time Mr. Adams spoke; but he is sure of it now.
Chapter XCVII
PAPER MONEY PAYMENTS: ATTEMPTED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: RESISTED: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH.
The long continued struggle between paper money and gold was now verging to a crisis. The gold bill, rectifying the erroneous valuation of that metal, had passed in 1834: an influx of gold coin followed. In seven years the specie currency had gone up from twenty millions to one hundred. There was five times as much specie in the country as there was in 1832, when the currency was boasted to be solid under the regulation of the Bank of the United States. There was as much as the current business of the country and of the federal government could use: for these 100 millions, if allowed to circulate and to pass from hand to hand, in every ten hands that they passed through, would do the business of one thousand millions. Still the administration was persistent in its attempts to obtain a paper money currency: and the national bank having failed, and all the efforts to get up paper money machines (under the names of fiscal agent, fiscal corporation, and exchequer board) having proved abortive, recourse was had to treasury notes, with the quality of re-issuability attached to them. Previous issues had been upon the footing of any other promissory note: when once paid at the treasury, it was extinguished and cancelled. Now they were made re-issuable, like common bank notes; and a limited issue of five millions of dollars became unlimited from its faculty of successive emission. The new administration converted these notes into currency, to be offered to the creditors of the government in the proportion of two-thirds paper, and one-third specie; and, from the difficulty of making head against the government, the mass of the creditors were constrained to take their dues in this compound of paper and specie. Mr. Benton determined to resist it, and to make a case for the consideration and judgment of Congress and the country, with the view of exposing a forced unconstitutional tender, and inciting the country to a general resistance. For this purpose he had a check drawn for a few days' compensation as senator, and placed it in the hands of a messenger for collection, inscribed, "the hard, or a protest." The hard was not delivered: the protest followed: and Mr. Benton then brought the case before the Senate, and the people, in a way which appears thus in the register of the Congress debates (and which were sufficient for their objects as the forced tender of the paper money was immediately stopped):
Mr. Benton rose to offer a resolution, and to precede it with some remarks, bottomed upon a paper which he held in his hand, and which he would read. He then read as follows:
[COMPENSATION NO. 149.]
OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF THE SENATE OF THE U. S. A.
WASHINGTON, 31st January, 1842.
Cashier of the Bank of Washington,
Pay to Hon. THOMAS H. BENTON, or order one hundred and forty-two dollars. $142 (Signed) ASBURY DICKENS,
Secretary of the Senate. (Endorsed). [pointing finger symbol] "The hard, or a protest.
"THOMAS H. BENTON."
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
Washington County, Set:
Be it known, That on the thirty-first day of January, 1842, I, George Sweeny, Notary Public, by lawful authority duly commissioned and sworn, dwelling in the County and District aforesaid, at the request of the honorable Thomas H. Benton, presented at the bank of Washington, the original check whereof the above is a true copy, and demanded there payment of the sum of money in the said check specified, whereunto the cashier of said bank answered: "The whole amount cannot be paid in specie, as treasury notes alone have been deposited here to meet the Secretary of the Senate's checks; but I am ready to pay this check in one treasury note for one hundred dollars, bearing six per cent. interest, and the residue in specie."
Therefore I, the said notary, at the request aforesaid, have protested, and by these presents do solemnly protest, against the drawer and endorser of this said check, and all others whom it doth or may concern, for all costs, exchange, or re-exchange, charges, damages, and interests, suffered and to be suffered for want of payment thereof.
[SEAL]
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my Seal Notarial, this first day of February, 1842.
GEORGE SWEENY, Notary Public.
Protesting, $1 75.
Recorded in Protest Book, G. S. No. 4, page 315.
Mr. B. said this paper explained itself. It was a check and a protest. The check was headed "compensation," and was drawn by the Secretary of the Senate for so much pay due to him (Mr. B.) for his per diem attendance in Congress. It had been presented at the proper place for payment, and it would be seen by the protest that payment was refused, unless he (Mr. B.) would consent to receive two-thirds paper and about one-third specie. He objected to this, and endorsed upon the check, as an instruction to the messenger who carried it, these words: "The hard, or a protest." Under instructions the protest came, and with it notarial fees to the amount of $1,75, which were paid in the hard. Mr. B. said this was what had happened to himself, here at the seat of government; and he presumed the same thing was happening to others, and all over the Union. He presumed the time had arrived when paper money payments, and forced tenders of treasury notes, were to be universal, and when every citizen would have to decide for himself whether he would submit to the imposition upon his rights, and to the outrage upon the Constitution, which such a state of things involved. Some might not be in a situation to submit. Necessity, stronger than any law, might compel many to submit; but there were others who were in a situation to resist; and, though attended with some loss and inconvenience, it was their duty to do so. Tyranny must be resisted; oppression must be resisted; violation of the Constitution must be resisted; folly or wickedness must be resisted; otherwise there is an end of law, of liberty, and of right. The government becomes omnipotent, and rides and rules over a prostrate country, as it pleases. Resistance to the tyranny or folly of a government becomes a sacred duty, which somebody must perform, and the performance of which is always disagreeable, and sometimes expensive and hazardous. Mr. Hampden resisted the payment of ship money in England: and his resistance cost him money, time, labor, losses of every kind, and eventually the loss of his life. His share of the ship money was only twenty shillings, and a suggestion of self-interest would have required him to submit to the imposition, and put up with the injury. But a feeling of patriotism prompted him to resist for others, not for himself--to resist for the benefit of those who could not resist for themselves; and, above all, to resist for the sake of the Constitution of the country, trampled under foot by a weak king and a profligate minister. Mr. Hampden resisted the payment of ship money to save the people of England from oppression, and the constitution from violation. Some person must resist the payment of paper money here, to save the people from oppression, and the Constitution from violation; and if persons in station, and at the seat of government will not do it, who shall? Sir, resistance must be made; the safety of the country, and of the Constitution demands it. It must be made here: for here is the source and presence of the tyranny. It must be made by some one in station: for the voice of those in private life could not be heard. Some one must resist, and for want of a more suitable person, I find myself under the necessity of doing it--and I do it with the less reluctance because it is in my line, as a hard-money man; and because I do not deem it quite as dangerous to resist our paper money administration as Hampden found it to resist Charles the First and the Duke of Buckingham.
There is no dispute about the fact, and the case which I present is neither a first one, nor a solitary one. The whig administration, in the first year of its existence, is without money, and without credit, and with no other means of keeping up but by forced payments of paper money, which it strikes from day to day to force into the hands, and to stop the mouths of its importunate creditors. This is its condition; and it is the natural result of the folly which threw away the land revenue--which repealed the hard money clause of the independent treasury--which repealed the prohibition against the use of small notes by the federal government--which has made war upon gold, and protected paper--and which now demands the establishment of a national manufactory of paper money for the general and permanent use of the federal government. Its present condition is the natural result of these measures; and bad as it is, it must be far worse if the people do not soon compel a return to the hard money and economy of the democratic administrations. This administration came into power upon a promise to carry on the government upon thirteen millions per annum; the first year is not yet out; it has already had a revenue of twenty odd millions, a loan bill for twelve millions, a tax bill for eight or ten millions, a treasury note bill for five millions: and with all this, it declares a deficit, and shows its insolvency, by denying money to its creditors, and forcing them to receive paper, or to go without pay. In a season of profound peace, and in the first year of the whig administration, this is the condition of the country! a condition which must fill the bosom of every friend to our form of government with grief and shame.
Sir, a war upon the currency of the constitution has been going on for many years; and the heroes of that war are now in power. They have ridiculed gold, and persecuted it in every way, and exhausted their wits in sarcasms upon it and its friends. The humbug gold bill was their favorite phrase; and among other exhibitions in contempt of this bill and its authors, were a couple of public displays--one in May, 1837, the other in the autumn of 1840--at Wheeling, in Virginia, by two gentlemen (Mr. Tyler and Mr. Webster), now high functionaries in this government, in which empty purses were held up to the contemplation of the crowd, in derision of the gold bill and its authors. Sir, that bill was passed in June, 1834; and from that day down to a few weeks ago, we were paid in gold. Every one of us had gold that chose it. Now the scene is reversed. Gold is gone; paper has come. Forced payments, and forced tenders of paper, is the law of the whig administration! and empty purses may now be held up with truth, and with sorrow, as the emblem both of the administration and its creditors.
The cause of this disgraceful state of things, Mr. B. said, he would not further investigate at present. The remedy was the point now to be attended to. The government creditor was suffering; the constitution was bleeding; the character of the country was sinking into disgrace; and it was the duty of Congress to apply a remedy to so many disasters. He, Mr. B. saw the remedy; but he had not the power to apply it. The power was in other hands; and to them he would wish to commit the inquiry which the present condition of things imperiously required of Congress to make.
Mr. B. said here was a forced payment of paper money--a forced tender of paper money--and forced loans from the citizens. The loan to be forced out of him was $100, at 6 per cent.; but he had not the money to lend, and should resist the loan. Those who have money will not lend it, and wisely refuse to lend it to an administration which throws away its rich pearl--the land revenue. The senator from North Carolina [Mr. MANGUM] proposes a reduction of the pay of the members by way of relief to the Treasury, but Mr. B. had no notion of submitting to it: he had no notion of submitting to a deduction of his pay to enable an administration to riot in extravagance, and to expend in a single illegal commission in New York (the Poindexter custom house inquisition), more than the whole proposed saving from the members' pay would amount to. He had no notion of submitting to such curtailments, and would prefer the true remedy, that of restoring the land revenue to its proper destination; and also restoring economy, democracy, and hard money to power.
Mr. Benton then offered the following resolution, which was adopted:
"Resolved, That the Committee on Finance be instructed to inquire into the nature of the payments now made, or offered to be made, by the federal government to its creditors. Whether the same are made in hard money or in paper money? Whether the creditors have their option? Whether the government paper is at a discount? And what remedy, if any, is necessary to enable the government to keep its faith with its creditors, so as to save them from loss, the Constitution from violation, and the country from disgrace?"
Chapter XCVIII
CASE OF THE AMERICAN BRIG CREOLE, WITH SLAVES FOR NEW ORLEANS, CARRIED BY MUTINY INTO NASSAU, AND THE SLAVES LIBERATED.
At this time took place one of those liberations of slaves in voyages between our own ports, of which there had already been four instances; but no one under circumstances of such crime and outrage. Mutiny, piracy, and bloodshed accompanied this fifth instance of slaves liberated by British authorities while on the voyage from one American port to another. The brig Creole, of Richmond, Virginia, had sailed from Norfolk for New Orleans, among other cargo, having 135 slaves on board. When out a week, and near the Bahama Islands, a mutiny broke out among the slaves, or rather nineteen of them, in the night, manifesting itself instantly and unexpectedly upon the officers and crew of the brig, and the passengers. The mutineers, armed with knives and handspikes, rushed to the cabin, where the officers not on duty, the wife and children of the captain, and passengers were asleep. They were knocked down, stabbed and killed, except as they could save themselves in the dark. In a few minutes the mutineers were masters of the vessel, and proceeded to arrange things according to their mind. All the slaves except the 19 were confined in the hold, and great apprehensions entertained of them, as they had refused to join in the mutiny, many of them weeping and praying--some endeavoring to save their masters, and others hiding to save themselves. The living, among the officers, crew and passengers were hunted up, and their lives spared to work the ship. They first demanded that they should be carried to Liberia--a design which was relinquished upon representations that there was not water and provisions for a quarter of the voyage. They then demanded to go to a British island, and placing the muzzle of a musket against the breast of the severely wounded captain, menaced him with instant death if he did not comply with their demand. Of course he complied, and steered for Nassau, in the island of Providence. The lives of his wife and children were spared, and they, with other surviving whites, were ordered into the forward hold. Masters of the ship, the 19 mutineers took possession of the cabin--ate there--and had their consultations in that place. All the other slaves were rigorously confined in the hold, and fears expressed that they would rise on the mutineers. Not one joined them. The affidavits of the master and crew taken at Nassau, say:
"None but the 19 went into the cabin. They ate in the cabin, and others ate on deck as they had done the whole voyage. The 19 were frequently closely engaged in secret conversation, but the others took no part in it, and appeared not to share in their confidence. The others were quiet and did not associate with the mutineers. The only words that passed between the others and the 19, were when the others asked them for water or grub, or something of the kind. The others were kept under as much as the whites were. The 19 drank liquor in the cabin and invited the whites to join them, but not the other negroes. Madison, the ring-leader, gave orders that the cooking for all but the 19 should be as it was before, and appointed the same cook for them. The nineteen said that all they had done was for their freedom. The others said nothing about it. They were much afraid of the nineteen. They remained forward of the mainmast. The nineteen took possession of the after part of the brig, and stayed there the whole time or were on watch. The only knives found after the affray, were two sheath knives belonging to the sailors. The captain's bowie knife and the jack knife. None of the other negroes had any other knives. Madison sometimes had the bowie knife, and sometimes Ben had it. No other negro was seen with that knife. On Monday afternoon Madison got the pistol from one of the nineteen, and said he did not wish them to have any arms when they reached Nassau. The nineteen paraded the deck armed, while the other negroes behaved precisely as they had done before the mutiny. About 10 o'clock, P. M., on the 8th day of November, 1841, they made the light of Abaco. Ben had the gun. About 10 o'clock P. M. he fired at Stevens, who came on deck as already stated. Merritt and Gifford (officers of the vessel) alternately kept watch. Ben, Madison, Ruffin and Morris (four principal mutineers) kept watch by turns, the whole time up to their arrival at Nassau, with knives drawn. So close was the watch, that it was impossible to rescue the brig. Neither passengers, officers or sailors were allowed to communicate with each other. The sailors performed their usual duties."
Arrived at Nassau, a pilot came on board--all the men in his boat being negroes. He and his men on coming on board, mingled with the slaves, and told them they were free men--that they should go on shore, and never be carried away from there. The regular quarantine officer then came on board, to whom Gifford, first mate of the vessel, related all the circumstances of the mutiny. Going ashore with the quarantine officer, Gifford related all the same circumstances to the Governor of the island, and to the American Consul at Nassau. The consul, in behalf of the vessel and all interested, requested that a guard should be sent on board to protect the vessel and cargo, and keep the slaves on board until it could be known what was to be done. The Governor did so--sending a guard of twenty-four negro soldiers in British uniform, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets. The affidavits then say:
"From Tuesday the 10th, till Friday the 12th day of November, they tied Ben Blacksmith, Addison, Ruffin, and Morris, put them in the long boat, placed a sentry over them, and fed them there. They mingled with the negroes, and told the women they were free, and persuaded them to remain in the island. Capt. Fitzgerald, commanding the company, told many of the slaves owned by Thomas McCargo, in presence of many other of the slaves, how foolish they were, that they had not, when they rose, killed all the whites on board, and run the vessel ashore, and then they would have been free, and there would have been no more trouble about it. This was on Wednesday. Every day the officers and soldiers were changed at 9 o'clock, A.M. There are 500 regular soldiers on the island, divided into four equal companies, commanded by four officers, called captains. There was a regular sentry stationed every night, and they put all the men slaves below, except the four which were tied, and placed a guard over the hatchway. They put them in the hold at sunset, and let them out at sunrise. There were apparently from twelve to thirteen thousand negroes in the town of Nassau and vicinity, and about three or four thousand whites."
The next day the Queen's attorney-general for this part of her West Indian possessions, came on board the brig, attended by three magistrates and the United States consul, and took the depositions of all the white persons on board in relation to the mutiny. That being done, the attorney-general placed the 19 mutineers in the custody of the captain and his guard of 24 negro soldiers, and ordered them upon the quarter-deck. The affidavits then continue:
"There were about fifty boats lying round the brig, all filled with men from the shore, armed with clubs, and subject to the order of the attorney-general, and awaiting a signal from one of the civil magistrates; a sloop was towed from the shore by some of our boats, and anchored near the brig--this sloop was also filled with men armed with clubs; all the men in the boats were negroes. The fleet of boats was under the immediate command of the pilot who piloted the brig into the harbor. This pilot, partly before the signal was given by one of the magistrates, said that he wished they would get through the business; that they had their time and he wanted his.
"The attorney-general here stepped on the quarter-deck, and addressing himself to all the persons except the nineteen who were in custody, said, 'My friends, you have been detained a short time on board the Creole for the purpose of ascertaining the individuals who were concerned in this mutiny and murder. They have been identified, and will be detained, and the rest of you are free, and at liberty to go on shore, and wherever you please.' Then addressing the prisoners he said: 'Men, there are nineteen of you who have been identified as having been engaged in the murder of Mr. Hewell, and in an attempt to kill the captain and others. You will be detained and lodged in prison for a time, in order that we may communicate with the English government, and ascertain whether your trial shall take place here or elsewhere.' At this time Mr. Gifford, the mate of the vessel, then in command, the captain being on shore, under the care of a physician, addressed the attorney-general in the presence of the magistrates, protested against the boats being permitted to come alongside of the vessel, or that the negroes other than the mutineers should be put on shore. The attorney-general replied that Mr. Gifford had better make no objection, but let them go quietly on shore, for if he did, there might be bloodshed. At this moment one of the magistrates ordered Mr. Merritt, Mr. McCargo, and the other passengers, to look to their money and effects, as he apprehended that the cabin of the Creole would be sacked and robbed.
"The attorney-general with one of the magistrates, stepped into his boat and withdrew into the stream, a short distance from the brig, when they stopped. A magistrate on the deck of the Creole gave the signal for the boats to approach instantly. With a hurrah and a shout, a fleet of boats came alongside of the brig, and the magistrates directed the men to remain on board of their own boats, and commanded the slaves to leave the brig and go on board the boats. They obeyed his orders, and passing from the Creole into the boats, were assisted, many of them, by this magistrate. During this proceeding, the soldiers and officers were on the quarter-deck of the Creole, armed with loaded muskets and bayonets fixed, and the attorney-general with one of the magistrates in his boat, lay at a convenient distance, looking on. After the negroes had embarked in the boats, the attorney-general and magistrate pushed out their boat, and mingled with the fleet, congratulating the slaves on their escape, and shaking hands with them. Three cheers were then given, and the boats went to the shore, where thousands were waiting to receive them."
The 19 mutineers were then taken on shore, and lodged in prison, while many of the slaves--the greater part of them--who were proclaimed to be liberated, begged to be allowed to proceed with their masters to New Orleans, but were silenced by threats, and the captain told that his vessel should be forfeited if he attempted to carry any of them away. Only four, by hiding themselves, succeeded in getting off with their masters. The next day a proceeding took place in relation to what was called "the baggage of the passengers;" which is thus stated in the affidavits:
"On Monday following these events, being the 15th day of November, the attorney-general wrote a letter to Captain Ensor, informing him that the passengers of the Creole, as he called the slaves, had applied to him for assistance in obtaining their baggage which was still on board the brig, and that he should assist them in getting it on shore. To this letter, Gifford, the officer in command of the vessel, replied that there was no baggage on board belonging to the slaves that he was aware of, as he considered them cargo, and the property of their owners, and that if they had left any thing on board the brig, it was the property also of their masters; and besides he could not land any thing without a permit from the custom house, and an order from the American consul. The attorney-general immediately got a permit from the custom-house, but no order from the American consul, and put an officer of the customs on board the brig, and demanded the delivery of the baggage of the slaves aforesaid to be landed in the brig's boat. The master of the Creole, not feeling himself at liberty to refuse, permitted the officer with his men to come on board and take such baggage and property as they chose to consider as belonging to the slaves. They went into the hold of the vessel, and took all the wearing apparel, blankets, and other articles, as also one bale of blankets, belonging to Mr. Lockett, which had not been opened. These things were put on board of the boat of the officer of the customs, and carried on shore."
The officers of the American brig earnestly demanded that the mutineers should be left with them to be carried into a port of the United States to be tried for their mutiny and murder; but this demand was positively refused--the attorney-general saying that they would take the orders of the British government as to the place. This was tantamount to an acquittal, and even justification of all they had done, as according to the British judicial decisions a slave has a right to kill his master to obtain his freedom. This outrage (the forcible liberation of the slaves, refusal to permit the mutineers to be brought to their own country for trial, and the abstraction of articles from the brig belonging to the captain and crew), produced much exasperation in the slave States. Coming so soon after four others of kindred character, and while the outrage on the Caroline was still unatoned for, it bespoke a contempt for the United States which was galling to the feelings of many besides the inhabitants of the States immediately interested. It was a subject for the attention both of the Executive government and the Congress; and accordingly received the notice of both. Early in the session of '41-'42, Mr. Calhoun submitted a call in the Senate, in which the President was requested to give information of what he had heard of the outrage, and what steps he had taken to obtain redress. He answered through the Secretary of State (Mr. Webster), showing that all the facts had been regularly communicated, and that he (the Secretary) had received instructions to draw up a despatch on the subject to the American minister in London (Mr. Edward Everett); which would be done without unnecessary delay. On receiving this message, Mr. Calhoun moved to refer it to the Committee on Foreign Relations--prefacing his motion with some remarks, and premising that the Secretary had answered well as to the facts of the case.
"As to the remaining portion of the resolution, that which asked for information as to what steps had been taken to bring the guilty in this bloody transaction to justice, and to redress the wrong done to our citizens, and the indignity offered to our flag, he regretted to say, the report of the Secretary is very unsatisfactory. He, Mr. C., had supposed, in a case of such gross outrage, that prompt measures for redress would have been adopted. He had not doubted, but that a vessel had been despatched, or some early opportunity seized for transmitting directions to our minister at the court of St. James, to demand that the criminals should be delivered to our government for trial; more especially, as they were detained with the view of abiding the decision of the government at home. But in all this he had been in a mistake. Not a step has been yet taken--no demand made for the surrender of the murderers, though the Executive must have been in full possession of the facts for more than a month. The only reply is, that he (the Secretary) had received the orders of the President to prepare a despatch for our minister in London, which would be 'prepared without unnecessary delay.' He (Mr. Calhoun) spoke not in the spirit of censure; he had no wish to find fault; but he thought it due to the country, and more especially, of the portion that has so profound an interest in this subject, that he should fearlessly state the facts as they existed. He believed our right to demand the surrender of the murderers clear, beyond doubt, and that, if the case was fairly stated, the British government would be compelled, from a sense of justice, to yield to our demand; and hence his deep regret that there should have been such long delay in making any demand. The apparent indifference which it indicates on the part of the government, and the want of our views on the subject, it is to be feared, would prompt to an opposite decision, before any despatch can now be received by our minister.
"He repeated that the case was clear. He knew that an effort had been made, and he regretted to say, even in the South, and through a newspaper in this District, but a morning or two since, to confound the case with the ordinary one of a criminal fleeing from the country where the crime was perpetrated, to another. He admitted that it is a doubtful question whether, by the laws of nations, in such a case, the nation to which he fled, was bound to surrender him on the demand of the one where the crime was committed. But that was not this case, nor was there any analogy between them. This was mutiny and murder, committed on the ocean, on board of one of our vessels, sailing from one port to another on our own coast, in a regular voyage, committed by slaves, who constituted a part of the cargo, and forcing the officers and crew to steer the vessel into a port of a friendly power. Now there was nothing more clear, than that, according to the laws of nations, a vessel on the ocean is regarded as a portion of the territory of the State to which she belongs, and more emphatically so, if possible, in a coasting voyage; and that if forced into a friendly port by an unavoidable necessity, she loses none of the rights that belong to her on the ocean. Contrary to these admitted principles, the British authorities entered on board of the Creole, took the criminals under their own jurisdiction, and that after they had ascertained them to be guilty of mutiny and murder, instead (as they ought to have done) of aiding the officers and crew in confining them, to be conveyed to one of our ports, where they would be amenable to our laws. The outrage would not have been greater, nor more clearly contrary to the laws of nations, if, instead of taking them from the Creole, they had entered our territory, and forcibly taken them from one of our jails; and such, he could scarcely doubt, would be the decision of the British government itself, if the facts and reasons of the case be fairly presented before its decision is made. It would be clearly the course she would have adopted had the mutiny and murder been perpetrated by a portion of the crew, and it can scarcely be that she will regard it less criminal, or less imperiously her duty, to surrender the criminals, because the act was perpetrated by slaves. If so, it is time we should know it."
The Secretary soon had his despatch ready and as soon as it was ready, it was called for at the instance of a friend of the Secretary, communicated to the Senate and published for general information, clearly to counteract the impressions which Mr. Calhoun's remarks had made. It gave great satisfaction in its mode of treating the subject, and in the intent it declared to demand redress:
"The British government cannot but see that this case, as presented in these papers, is one calling loudly for redress. The 'Creole' was passing from one port of the United States to another, in a voyage perfectly lawful, with merchandise on board, and also with slaves, or persons bound to service, natives of America, and belonging to American citizens, and which are recognized as property by the constitution of the United States in those States in which slavery exists. In the course of the voyage some of the slaves rose upon the master and crew, subdued them, murdered one man, and caused the vessel to be carried into Nassau. The vessel was thus taken to a British port, not voluntarily, by those who had the lawful authority over her, but forcibly and violently, against the master's will, and with the consent of nobody but the mutineers and murderers: for there is no evidence that these outrages were committed with the concurrence of any of the slaves, except those actually engaged in them. Under these circumstances, it would seem to have been the plain and obvious duty of the authorities at Nassau, the port of a friendly power, to assist the American consul in putting an end to the captivity of the master and crew, restoring to them the control of the vessel, and enabling them to resume their voyage, and to take the mutineers and murderers to their own country to answer for their crimes before the proper tribunal. One cannot conceive how any other course could justly be adopted, or how the duties imposed by that part of the code regulating the intercourse of friendly states, which is generally called the comity of nations, could otherwise be fulfilled. Here was no violation of British law attempted or intended on the part of the master of the 'Creole,' nor any infringement of the principles of the law of nations. The vessel was lawfully engaged in passing from port to port, in the United States. By violence and crime she was carried, against the master's will, out of her course, into the port of a friendly power. All was the result of force. Certainly, ordinary comity and hospitality entitled him to such assistance from the authorities of the place as should enable him to resume and prosecute his voyage and bring the offenders to justice. But, instead of this, if the facts be as represented in these papers, not only did the authorities give no aid for any such purpose, but they did actually interfere to set free the slaves, and to enable them to disperse themselves beyond the reach of the master of the vessel or their owners. A proceeding like this cannot but cause deep feeling in the United States."
Mr. Calhoun was so well satisfied with this despatch that, as soon as it was read, he stood up, and said:
"The letter which had been read was drawn up with great ability, and covered the ground which had been assumed on this subject by all parties in the Senate. He hoped that it would have a beneficial effect, not only upon the United States, but Great Britain. Coming from the quarter it did, this document would do more good than in coming from any other quarter."
This was well said of the letter, but there was a paragraph in it which damped the expectations of some senators--a paragraph which referred to the known intention to send out a special minister (Lord Ashburton) to negotiate a general settlement of differences with Great Britain--and which expressed a wish that this special minister should be clothed with power to settle this case of the Creole. That looked like deferring it to a general settlement, which, in the opinion of some, was tantamount to giving it up.
Chapter XCIX
DISTRESS OF THE TREASURY: THREE TARIFF BILLS, AND TWO VETOES: END OF THE COMPROMISE ACT.
Never were the coffers and the credit of the Treasury--not even in the last year of the war with Great Britain (1814)--at a lower ebb, or more pitiable point, than at present. A deficit of fourteen millions in the Treasury--a total inability to borrow, either at home or abroad, the amount of the loan of twelve millions authorized the year before--treasury-notes below par--a million and a half of protested demands--a revenue from imports inadequate and decreasing: such was the condition of the Treasury, and all the result of three measures forced upon the previous administration by the united power of the opposition, and the aid of temporizing friends, too prone to take alarm in transient difficulties, and too ready to join the schemes of the opposition for temporary relief, though more injurious than the evils they were intended to remedy. These three measures were: 1. Compromise act of 1833. 2. The distribution of surplus revenue in 1837. 3. The surrender of the land revenue to the States. The compromise act, by its slow and imperceptible reductions of revenue during its first seven years, created a large surplus: by its abrupt and precipitous falling off the last two, made a deficit. The distribution of this surplus, to the amount of near thirty millions, took away the sum which would have met this deficiency. And the surrender of the land revenue diverted from its course the second largest stream of revenue that came into the Treasury: and the effect of the whole was to leave it without money and without credit: and with a deficit which was ostentatiously styled, "the debt of the late administration." Personally considered, there was retributive justice in this calamitous visitation. So far as individuals were concerned it fell upon those who had created it. Mr. Tyler had been the zealous promoter of all these measures: the whig party, whose ranks he had joined, had been their author: some obliging democrats were the auxiliaries, without which they could not have been carried. The administration of President Tyler now needed the money: his former whig friends had the power to grant, or withhold it: and they chose, either to withhold, or to grant upon terms which Mr. Tyler repulsed. They gave him two tariff revenue bills in a month, which he returned with vetoes, and had to look chiefly to that democracy whom he had left to join the whigs (and of whom he had become the zealous opponent), for the means of keeping his administration alive.
A bill called a "provisional tariff" was first sent to him: he returned it with the objections which made it impossible for him to approve it: and of which these objections were the chief:
"It suspends, in other words, abrogates for the time, the provision of the act of 1833, commonly called the 'compromise act.' The only ground on which this departure from the solemn adjustment of a great and agitating question seems to have been regarded as expedient is, the alleged necessity of establishing, by legislative enactments, rules and regulations for assessing the duties to be levied on imports, after the 30th June, according to the home valuation; and yet the bill expressly provides that 'if before the 1st of August there be no further legislation upon the subject, the laws for laying and collecting duties shall be the same as though this act had not been passed.' In other words, that the act of 1833, imperfect as it is considered, shall in that case continue to be, and to be executed under such rules and regulations as previous statutes had prescribed, or had enabled the executive department to prescribe for that purpose, leaving the supposed chasm in the revenue laws just as it was before.
"The bill assumes that a distribution of the proceeds of the public lands is, by existing laws, to be made on the first day of July, 1842, notwithstanding there has been an imposition of duties on imports exceeding twenty per cent. up to that day, and directs it to be made on the 1st of August next. It seems to me very clear that this conclusion is equally erroneous and dangerous; as it would divert from the Treasury a fund sacredly pledged for the general purposes of the government, in the event of a rate of duty above twenty per cent. being found necessary for an economical administration of the government. The act of September last, which provides for the distribution, couples it inseparably with the condition that it shall cease--first, in case of war; second, as soon and so long as the rate of duties shall, for any reason whatever, be raised above twenty per cent. Nothing can be more clear, express, or imperative, than this language. It is in vain to allege that a deficit in the Treasury was known to exist, and that means were taken to supply this deficit by loan when the act was passed."
These reasons show the vice and folly of the acts which a pride of consistency still made him adhere to. That compromise act of 1833 assumed to fix the tariff to eternity, first, by making existing duties decline through nine years to a uniform ad valorem of twenty per centum on all dutied articles; next, by fixing it there for ever, giving Congress leave to work under it on articles then free; but never to go above it: and the mutual assurance entered into between this act and the land distribution act of the extra session, was intended to make sure of both objects--the perpetual twenty per centum, and the land distribution. One hardly knows which to admire most, the arrogance, or the folly, of such presumptuous legislation: and to add to its complication there was a clear division of opinion whether any duty at all, for want of a law appointing appraisers, could be collected after the 30th of June. Between the impracticability, and the unintelligibility of the acts, and his consistency, he having sanctioned all these complicated and dependent measures, it was clear that Mr. Tyler's administration was in a deplorable condition. The low credit of the government, in the impossibility of getting a small loan, was thus depicted:
"Who at the time foresaw or imagined the possibility of the present real state of things, when a nation that has paid off her whole debt since the last peace, while all the other great powers have been increasing theirs, and whose resources already so great, are yet but in the infancy of their development, should be compelled to haggle in the money market for a paltry sum, not equal to one year's revenue upon her economical system."
Not able to borrow, even in time of peace, a few millions for three years! This was in the the time of paper money. Since gold became the federal currency, any amount, and in time of war, has been at the call of the government; and its credit so high, and its stock so much above par, that twenty per centum premium is now paid for the privilege of paying, before they are due, the amounts borrowed during the Mexican war:
"This connection (the mutual assurance between the compromise act and the land distribution) thus meant to be inseparable, is severed by the bill presented to me. The bill violates the principle of the acts of 1833, and September, 1841, by suspending the first, and rendering, for a time, the last inoperative. Duties above twenty per cent. are proposed to be levied, and yet the proviso in the distribution act is disregarded. The proceeds of the sales are to be distributed on the 1st of August; so that, while the duties proposed to be enacted exceed twenty per cent. no suspension of the distribution to the States is permitted to take place. To abandon the principle for a month is to open the way for its total abandonment. If such is not meant, why postpone at all? Why not let the distribution take place on the 1st of July, if the law so directs? (which, however, is regarded as questionable.) But why not have limited the provision to that effect? Is it for the accommodation of the Treasury? I see no reason to believe that the Treasury will be in better condition to meet the payment on the 1st of August, than on the 1st of July."
Here Mr. Tyler was right in endeavoring to get back, even temporarily, the land revenue; but slight as was this relaxation of their policy, it brought upon him keen reproaches from his old friends. Mr. Fillmore said:
"On what principle was this veto based? The President could not consent that the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands should cease for a single day. Now, although that was the profession, yet it appeared to have been but a pretence. Mr. F. wished to speak with all respect to the chief magistrate, but of his message he must speak with plainness. What was the law which that message vetoed? It authorized the collection of duties for a single month as they were levied on the first of January last, to allow time for the consideration of a permanent revenue for the country; it postponed the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands till the month should expire, and Congress could provide the necessary supplies for the exhausted Treasury. But what would be the effect of the veto now on the table? Did it prevent the distribution? By no means; it reduced the duties, in effect, to twenty per cent., and authorized the distribution of the land fund among the States; and that distribution would, in fact, take place the day after to-morrow. That would be the practical operation of this paper. When Congress had postponed the distribution for a month, did it not appear like pretence in the chief magistrate to say that he was forced to veto the bill from Congress, to prevent the distribution, which his veto, and that alone, would cause to take place? Congress had been willing to prevent the distribution, but the President, by one and the same blow, cut down the revenue at a moment when his Secretary could scarce obtain a loan on any terms, and in addition to this distributed the income from the public domain! In two days the distribution must take place. Mr. F. said he was not at all surprised at the joy with which the veto had been hailed on the other side of the house, or at the joyful countenances which were arrayed there; probably this act was but the consummation of a treaty which had been long understood as in process of negotiation. If this was the ratification of such treaty, Mr. F. gave gentlemen much joy on the happy event. He should shed no tears that the administration had passed into its appropriate place. This, however, was a matter he should not discuss now; he should desire the message might be laid on the table till to-morrow and be printed. Mr. F. said he was free to confess that we were now in a crisis which would shake this Union to its centre. Time would determine who would yield and who was right; whether the President would or would not allow the representatives of the people to provide a revenue in the way they might think best for the country, provided they were guilty of no violation of the constitution. The President had now told them, in substance, that he had taken the power into his own hands; and although the highest financial officer of the government declared it as his opinion, that it was doubtful whether the duties could be collected which Congress had provided by law, the President told the House that any further law was unnecessary; that he had power enough in his own hands, and he should use it; that he had authorized the revenue officers to do all that was necessary. This then would be in fact the question before the country: whether Congress should legislate for the people of this country or the Executive?"
Mr. Alexander H. H. Stuart, of Virginia, took issue with the President on the character of the land distribution bill, and averred it to have been an intended part of the compromise from the beginning. He said:
"That the President has rested his veto upon the grounds of expediency alone, and not upon any conscientious or constitutional scruples. He withholds his assent because of its supposed conflict with the compromise act of 1833. I take issue with the President in regard to this matter of fact, and maintain that there is no such conflict. The President's particular point of objection to the temporary tariff bill is that it contemplates a prospective distribution of the land proceeds. Now, conceding that the President has put a correct construction on our bill, I aver that it is no violation of the compromise act to withdraw the land proceeds from the ordinary purposes of the government, and distribute them among the States. On the contrary, I maintain that that act distinctly contemplates the distribution of the land proceeds, that the distribution was one of the essential elements of the compromise, and that the failure to distribute the land fund now would of itself be a violation of the true understanding of those who adopted the compromise, and a palpable fraud upon the rights of one of the parties to it."
Mr. Caruthers, of Tennessee, was still more pointed to the same effect, referring to Mr. Tyler's conduct in the Virginia General Assembly to show that he was in favor of the land revenue distribution, and considered its cessation as a breach of the compromise. He referred to his,
"Oft-quoted resolutions in the legislature of Virginia, in 1839, urging the distribution, and conveying the whole proceeds of the lands, not only ceded but acquired by purchase and by treaty. Mr. C. also referred to the adroit manner in which Mr. Tyler had at that time met the charge of his opponents (that he desired to violate the compromise act) by the introduction of the well known proviso, that the General Assembly did not mean to infringe or disturb the provisions of the compromise act."
The vote was taken upon the returned bill, as required by the constitution; and falling far short of the required two-thirds, it was rejected. But the exigencies of the Treasury were so great that a further effort to pass a revenue bill was indispensable; and one was accordingly immediately introduced into the House. It differed but little from the first one, and nothing on the land revenue distribution clause, which it retained in full. That clause had been the main cause of the first veto: it was a challenge for a second! and under circumstances which carried embarrassment to the President either way. He had been from the beginning of the policy, a supporter of the distribution; and at the extra session had solemnly recommended it in his regular message. On the other hand, he had just disapproved it in his message returning the tariff bill. He adhered to this latter view; and said:
"On the subject of distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, in the existing state of the finances, it has been my duty to make known my settled convictions on various occasions during the present session of Congress. At the opening of the extra session, upwards of twelve mouths ago, sharing fully in the general hope of returning prosperity and credit, I recommended such a distribution; but that recommendation was even then expressly coupled with the condition that the duties on imports should not exceed the rate of twenty per cent, provided by the compromise act of 1833. The bill which is now before me proposes, in its 27th section, the total repeal of one of the provisos in the act of September; and, while it increases the duties above twenty per cent., directs an unconditional distribution of the land proceeds. I am therefore subjected a second time, in the period of a few days, to the necessity of either giving my approval to a measure which, in my deliberate judgment, is in conflict with great public interests; or of returning it to the House in which it originated, with my objections. With all my anxiety for the passage of a law which would replenish an exhausted Treasury, and furnish a sound and healthy encouragement to mechanical industry, I cannot consent to do so at the sacrifice of the peace and harmony of the country, and the clearest convictions of public duty."
The reasons were good, and ought to have prevented Congress from retaining the clause; but party spirit was predominant, and in each House the motion to strike out the clause had been determined by a strict party vote. An unusual course was taken with this second veto message: it was referred to a select committee of thirteen members, on the motion of Mr. Adams; and from that committee emanated three reports upon it--one against it, and two for it; the committee dividing politically in making them. The report against it was signed by ten members; the other two by the remaining three members; but they divided, so as to present two signatures to one report, and a single one to the other. Mr. Adams, as the chairman, was the writer of the majority report, and made out a strong case against Mr. Tyler personally, but no case at all in favor of the distribution clause. The report said:
"Who could imagine that, after this most emphatic coupling of the revenue from duties of impost, with revenue from the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, the first and paramount objection of the President to this bill should be, that it unites two subjects which, so far from having any affinity to one another, are wholly incongruous in their character; which two subjects are identically the same with those which he had coupled together in his recommendation to Congress at the extra session? If there was no affinity between the parties, why did he join them together? If the union was illegitimate, who was the administering priest of the unhallowed rites? It is objected to this bill, that it is both a revenue and an appropriation bill? What then? Is not the act of September 4, 1841, approved and signed by the President himself, both a revenue and an appropriation bill? Does it not enact that, in the event of an insufficiency of impost duties, not exceeding twenty per centum ad valorem, to defray the current expenses of the government, the proceeds of the sales of the lands shall be levied as part of the same revenue, and appropriated to the same purposes?"
The report concluded with a strong denunciation of, what it considered, an abuse of the veto power, and a contradiction of the President's official recommendation and conduct:
"The power of the present Congress to enact laws essential to the welfare of the people has been struck with apoplexy by the Executive hand. Submission to his will, is the only condition upon which he will permit them to act. For the enactment of a measure earnestly recommended by himself, he forbids their action, unless coupled with a condition declared by himself to be on a subject so totally different, that he will not suffer them to be coupled in the same law. With that condition, Congress cannot comply. In this state of things, he has assumed, as the committee fully believe, the exercise of the whole legislative power to himself, and is levying millions of money upon the people, without any authority of law. But the final decision of this question depends neither upon legislative nor executive, but upon judicial authority; nor can the final decision of the Supreme Court upon it be pronounced before the close of the present Congress."
The returned bill being put to the vote, was found to lack as much as the first of the two-thirds majority, and was rejected. But revenue was indispensable. Daily demands upon the government were undergoing protest. The President in his last message had given in $1,400,000 of such dishonored demands. The existing revenue from imports, deficient as it was, was subjected to a new embarrassment, that of questioned legality for want of a law of appraisement under the compromise, and merchants paid their duties under protest, and with notices of action against the collector to recover them back. It was now near the end of August. Congress had been in session nine months--an unprecedentedly long session, and that following immediately on the heels of an extra session of three months and a half. Adjournment could not be deferred, and could not take place without providing for the Treasury. The compromise and the land distribution were the stumbling-blocks: it was determined to sacrifice them together, but without seeming to do so. A contrivance was fallen upon: duties were raised above twenty per centum: and that breach of the mutual assurance in relation to the compromise, immediately in terms of the assurance, suspended the land revenue distribution--to continue it suspended while duties above the compromise limit continued to be levied. And as that has been the case ever since, the distribution of the revenue has been suspended ever since. Such were the contrivances, ridiculous inventions, and absurd circumlocutions which Congress had recourse to to get rid of that land distribution which was to gain popularity for its authors; and to get rid of that compromise which was celebrated at the time as having saved the Union, and the breach of which was deprecated in numerous legislative resolves as the end of the Union, and which all the while was nothing but an arrogant piece of monstrosity, patched up between two aspiring politicians, to get rid of a stumbling-block in each other's paths for the period of two presidential elections. In other respects one of the worst features of that personal and pestiferous legislation has remained--the universal ad valorems--involving its army of appraisers, their diversity of appraisement from all the imperfections to which the human mind is subject--to say nothing of the chances for ignorance, indifference, negligence, favoritism, bribery and corruption. The act was approved the 30th day of August; and Congress forthwith adjourned.
C. MR. TYLER AND THE WHIG PARTY: CONFIRMED SEPARATION
At the close of the extra session, a vigorous effort was made to detach the whig party from Mr. Clay. Mr. Webster in his published letter, in justification of his course in remaining in the cabinet when his colleagues left it, gave as a reason the expected unity of the party under a new administration. "A whig president, a whig Congress, and a whig people," was the vision that dazzled and seduced him. Mr. Cushing published his address, convoking the whigs to the support of Mr. Tyler. Mr. Clay was stigmatized as a dictator, setting himself up against the real President. Inducements as well as arguments were addressed to the whig ranks to obtain recruits: all that came received high reward. The arrival of the regular session was to show the fruit of these efforts, and whether the whig party was to become a unity under Mr. Tyler, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Cushing, or to remain embodied under Mr. Clay. It remained so embodied. Only a few, and they chiefly who had served an apprenticeship to party mutation in previous changes, were seen to join him: the body of the party remained firm, and militant--angry and armed; and giving to President Tyler incessant proofs of their resentment. His legislative recommendations were thwarted, as most of them deserved to be: his name was habitually vituperated or ridiculed. Even reports of committees, and legislative votes, went the length of grave censure and sharp rebuke. The select committee of thirteen, to whom the consideration of the second tariff, in a report signed by nine of its members, Mr. Adams at their head, suggested impeachment as due to him:
"The majority of the committee believe that the case has occurred, in the annals of our Union, contemplated by the founders of the constitution by the grant to the House of Representatives of the power to impeach the President of the United States; but they are aware that the resort to that expedient might, in the present condition of public affairs, prove abortive. They see that the irreconcilable difference of opinion and of action between the legislative and executive departments of the government is but sympathetic with the same discordant views and feelings among the people."
A rebuking resolve, and of a retributive nature, was adopted by the House. It has been related (Vol. I.) that when President Jackson sent to the Senate a protest against the senatorial condemnation pronounced upon him in 1835, the Senate refused to receive it, and adopted resolutions declaring the protest to be a breach of the privileges of the body in interfering with the discharge of their duties. The resolves so adopted were untrue, and the reverse of the truth--the whole point of the protest being that the condemnation was extra-judicial and void, coming under no division of power which belonged to the Senate: not legislative, for it proposed no act of legislation: not executive, for it applied to no treaty or nomination: not judicial, for it was founded in no articles of impeachment from the House, and without forming the Senate into a court of impeachment. The protest considered the condemnatory sentence, and justly, as the act of a town meeting, done in the Senate-chamber, and by senators; but of no higher character than if done by the same number of citizens in a voluntary town meeting. This was the point, and whole complaint of the protest; but the Senate, avoiding to meet it in that form, put a different face upon it, as an interference with the constitutional action of the Senate, attacking its independence; and, therefore, a breach of its privileges. Irritated by the conduct of the House in its reports upon his tariff-veto messages, Mr. Tyler sent in a protest also, as President Jackson had done, but without attending to the difference of the cases, and that, in its action upon the veto messages, the House was clearly acting within its sphere--within its constitutional legislative capacity; and, consequently, however disagreeable to him this action might be, it was still legislative and constitutional, and such as the House had a legal right to adopt, whether just or unjust. Overlooking this difference, Mr. Tyler sent in his protest also: but the House took the distinction; and applied legitimately to the conduct of Mr. Tyler what had been illegally applied to General Jackson, with the aggravation of turning against himself his own votes on that occasion--Mr. Tyler being one of the senators who voted in favor of the three resolves against President Jackson's protest. When this protest of Mr. Tyler was read in the House, Mr. Adams stood up, and said:
"There seemed to be an expectation on the part of some gentlemen that he should propose to the House some measure suitable to be adopted on the present occasion. Mr. A. knew of no reason for such an expectation, but the fact that he had been the mover of the resolution for the appointment of the committee which had made the report referred to in the message; had been appointed by the Speaker, chairman of the committee; and that the report against which the President of the United States had sent to the House such a multitude of protests, was written by him. So far as it had been so written, Mr. A. held himself responsible to the House, to the country, to the world, and to posterity; and, so far as he was the author of the report, he held himself responsible to the President also. The President should hear from him elsewhere than here on that subject. Mr. A. went on to say that it was because the report had been adopted by the House, and not because it had been written by him, that the President had sent such a bundle of protests; and therefore Mr. A. felt no necessity or obligation upon himself to propose what measures the House ought to adopt for the vindication of its own dignity and honor; and perhaps, from considerations of delicacy, he was indeed the very last man in the House who should propose any measure, under the circumstances."
Mr. Botts, of Virginia, a member of the committee which had made the report, after some introductory remarks, went on to say:
"In 1834 the Senate had adopted certain resolutions, condemning the course of President Jackson in the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States to the State banks. In consequence of this movement on the part of the Senate, President Jackson sent to that body a protest against the right of the Senate to express any opinion censuring his public course; and, what made the case then stronger than the present case, was, that the Senate constituted the jury by whom he was to be tried, should any impeachment be brought against him. The Senate, after a long, elaborate discussion of the whole matter, and the most eloquent and overpowering torrent of debate that ever was listened to in this country, adopted the three following resolutions:
'1. Resolved, That, while the Senate is, and ever will be, ready to receive from the President all such messages and communications as the constitution and laws, and the usual course of business, authorize him to transmit to it; yet it cannot recognize any right in him to make a formal protest against votes and proceedings of the Senate, declaring such votes and proceedings to be illegal and unconstitutional, and requesting the Senate to enter such protests on its journal.'
"On this resolution the yeas and nays were taken; and it was adopted, by a vote of 27 to 16: and, among the recorded votes in its favor, stood the names of John Tyler, now acting President of the United States, and Daniel Webster, now his prime minister.
"The second resolution was as follows:
'2. Resolved, That the aforesaid protest is a breach of the privileges of the Senate, and that it be not entered on the journal.'
"The same vote, numerically, was given in favor of this resolution; and among the yeas stood the names of John Tyler, now acting President of the United States, and of Daniel Webster, now his prime minister.
"The third resolutions read as follows:
'3. Resolved, That the President of the United States has no right to send a protest to the Senate against any of its proceedings.'
"And in sanction of this resolution also, the record shows the names of the same John Tyler and Daniel Webster."
Mr. Botts forbore to make any remarks of his own in support of the adoption of these resolutions, but read copious extracts from the speech of Mr. Webster in support of the same resolutions when offered in the Senate; and, adopting them as his own, called for the previous question; which call was sustained; and the main question being put, and the vote taken on the resolutions separately, they were all carried by large majorities. The yeas and nays on the first resolve, were:
"YEAS--Messrs. Adams, Landaff W. Andrews, Arnold, Babcock, Barnard, Birdseye, Blair, Boardman, Borden, Botts, Brockway, Jeremiah Brown, Calhoun, William B. Campbell, Thomas J. Campbell, Caruthers, Chittenden, John C. Clark, Cowen, Garrett Davis, John Edwards, Everett, Fillmore, Gamble, Gentry, Graham, Granger, Green, Habersham, Hall, Halsted, Howard, Hudson, Joseph R. Ingersoll, Isaac D. Jones, John P. Kennedy, King, Linn, McKennan, S. Mason, Mathiot, Mattocks, Maxwell, Maynard, Mitchell, Moore, Morrow, Osborne, Owsley, Pope, Powell, Ramsey, Benj. Randall, A. Randall, Randolph, Rayner, Ridgway, Rodney, William Russell, James M. Russell, Saltonstall, Shepperd, Simonton, Slade, Truman Smith, Sprigg, Stanly, Stratton, Summers, Taliaferro, John B. Thompson, Richard W. Thompson, Tillinghast, Toland, Tomlinson, Triplett, Trumbull, Underwood, Van Rensselaer, Wallace, Warren, Washington, Thomas W. Williams, Joseph L. Williams, Yorke, and Augustus Young--87.
"NAYS--Messrs. Arrington, Atherton, Black, Boyd, Aaron V. Brown, Burke, Wm. O. Butler, P. C. Caldwell, Casey, Coles, Cross, Cushing, Richard D. Davis, Dawson, Gordon, Harris, Hastings, Hays, Hopkins, Hubbard, William W. Irwin, Cave Johnson, John W. Jones, Abraham McClellan, Mallory, Medill, Newhard, Oliver, Parmenter, Payne, Proffit, Read, Reding, Reynolds, Riggs, Rogers, Shaw, Shields, Steenrod, Jacob Thompson, Van Buren, Ward, Weller, James W. Williams, Wise, and Wood--46."
The other two resolves were adopted by, substantially, the same vote--the whole body of the whigs voting for the adoption. And this may be considered, so far as Congress was concerned, as the authoritative answer to that idea of whig unity which had induced Mr. Webster to remain in the cabinet. General Jackson was then alive, and it must have looked to him like retributive justice to see two of those (Mr. Tyler and Mr. Webster) who had voted his protest to be a breach of privilege, when it was not, now receiving the same vote from their own party; and that in a case where the breach of privilege was real.
CI. LORD ASHBURTON'S MISSION, AND THE BRITISH TREATY
Sixty years had elapsed since the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain which terminated the war of the revolution, and established the boundaries between the revolted colonies, now independent States, and the remaining British possessions in North America. A part of these boundaries, agreed upon in the treaty of peace, remained without acknowledgment and without sanction on the part of the British government: it was the part that divided the (now) State of Maine from Lower Canada, and was fixed by the words of the treaty, "along the highlands which divide the waters which empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean." Nothing could be more simple, or of more easy ascertainment than this line. Any man that knew his right hand from his left, and who could follow a ridge, and not get off of it to cross any water flowing to the right or the left, could trace the boundary, and establish it in the very words of the treaty. In fact there was no tangible dispute about it. The British government had agreed to it under a misapprehension as to the course of these highlands; and as soon as their true course was found out, that government refused to carry that part of the treaty into effect, and for a reason which was very frankly told, after the treaty of 1842, by a British civil engineer who had been employed by his government to search out the course of the boundary along those highlands. He said:
"The treaty of 1783 proposed to establish the boundary between the two countries along certain highlands. The Americans claimed these highlands to run in a northeasterly direction from the head of the Connecticut River, in a course which would have brought the boundary within the distance of twenty miles from the river St. Lawrence, and which, besides cutting off the posts and military routes leading from the province of New Brunswick to Quebec, would have given them various military positions to command and overawe that river and the fortress of Quebec."
This was the objection to the highland boundary. It brought the United States frontier within twenty miles of Quebec, and went one degree and a half north of Quebec! skirting and overlooking Lower Canada all the way, and cutting off all communication between that inland province and the two Atlantic provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and between Quebec and Halifax. It was a boundary which commanded the capital of British North America, and which flanked and dominated the principal British province for one hundred and fifty miles. Military considerations rendered such a boundary just as repugnant to the British as the same considerations rendered it acceptable to us; and from the moment it was seen that the State of Maine was projected far north of Quebec and brought up to the long line of heights which looked down upon that capital, the resolution was not to abide that boundary. Negotiation began immediately, and continued, without fruit, for thirty years. That brought the parties to the Ghent Treaty, at the end of the war of 1812, where all attempts to settle the boundary ended in making provision for referring the question to the arbitrament of a friendly sovereign. This was done, the king of the Netherlands being agreed upon as the arbiter. He accepted the trust--executed it--and made an award nearly satisfactory to the British government because it cut off a part of the northern projection of Maine, and so admitted a communication, although circuitous, between Halifax and Quebec; but still leaving the highland boundary opposite that capital. The United States rejected the award because it gave up a part of the boundary of 1783; and thus the question remained for near thirty years longer--until the treaty of 1842--Great Britain demanding the execution of the award--the United States refusing it. And thus the question stood when the special mission arrived in the United States. That mission was well constituted for its purposes. Lord Ashburton, as Mr. Alexander Baring, and head of the great banking house of Baring and Brothers, had been known for more than a generation for his friendly sentiments towards the United States, and business connection with the people and the government; and was, besides, married to an American lady. The affability of his manners was a further help to his mission, the whole of which was so composed (Mr. Mildmay, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Stepping, all gentlemen of mind, tact, and pleasing deportment) as to be real auxiliaries in accomplishing the object of his mission. It was a special mission, sent to settle questions, and return; and so confined to its character of special, that Mr. Fox, the resident minister, although entirely agreeable to the United States and his own government, was not joined in it. It was the first time the United States had been so honored by Great Britain, and the mission took the character of beneficent, in professing to come to settle all questions between the two governments; but ended in only settling such as suited Great Britain, and in the way that suited her. At the head of those questions was the northeastern boundary, which was settled by giving up the line of 1783, retiring the whole line from the heights which flanked Lower Canada, cutting off as much of Maine as admitted of a pretty direct communication between Halifax and Quebec; and thus granting to Great Britain far more than the award gave her, and with which she had been content. The treaty also made a new boundary in the northwest, from Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods, also to the prejudice of the United States, retiring the line to the south, and depriving the United States' fur traders of the great line of transportation between these two lakes, which the treaty of 1783 gave to them. The treaty also bound the United States to pay for Rouse's Point, at the outlet of Lake Champlain, which the treaty of '83 and the award of the king of the Netherlands gave to us as a matter of right. It also bound the United States to keep up a squadron, in conjunction with the British, on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave trade--nominally for five years, but in reality indefinitely, by the addition of that clause (so seductive and insidious, and so potent in saddling an onerous measure permanently upon a people) which is always resorted to when perpetuity is intended, and cannot be stipulated--the clause which continues the provision in force, after its limited term, until one of the parties give notice to the contrary. An extradition clause was also wanted by Great Britain, and she got it--broad enough to cover the recapture of her subjects whether innocent or guilty, and to include political offenders while professing to take only common felons. These were the points Great Britain wished settled; and she got them all arranged according to her own wishes: others which the United States wished settled, were omitted, and indefinitely adjourned. At the head of these was the boundary beyond the Rocky Mountains. Oregon was in dispute. The United States wished it settled: Great Britain wished that question to remain as it was, as she had the possession, and every day was ripening her title. Oregon was adjourned. The same of the Caroline, the Schlosser outrage--the liberation of slaves at Bermuda and Nassau--the refusal to shelter fugitive slaves in Canada: all were laid over, and for ever. Every thing that the United States wished settled was left unsettled, especially Oregon--a question afterwards pregnant with "inevitable war." Besides obtaining all she wished by treaty, Great Britain also made a great acquisition by statute law. An act of Congress was passed to fit the case of McLeod (in future), and to take such offenders out of the hands of the States.
Notwithstanding its manifold objections the treaty was so framed as to secure its ratification, and to command acquiescence in the United States while crowned with the greatest applause in Great Britain. Lord Ashburton received the formal thanks of parliament for his meritorious labors. Ministers and orators united in declaring that he had accomplished every object that Great Britain desired, and in the way she desired it--and left undone every thing which she wished to remain as it was. The northeastern boundary being altered to suit her, they made a laugh, even in parliament, of the manner in which they had served us. It had so happened, immediately after the peace of '83, that the king's geographer made a map of the United States and the Canadas, to show their respective boundaries; and on that map the line of '83 was laid down correctly, along the highlands, overlooking and going beyond Quebec; and had marked it with a broad red line. He made it for the king, George the Third, who wrote upon it with his own hand--This is Oswald's line. (Mr. Richard Oswald being the British negotiator of the provisional treaty of peace of '82 which established that boundary, and which was adopted in the definitive treaty of peace in '83.) This map disappeared from its accustomed place about the time Lord Ashburton's mission was resolved upon, not to be brought over to America by him to assist in finding the true line, but to be hid until the negotiation was over. Some member of parliament hinted at this removal and hiding, during the discussion on the motion of thanks, with an intimation that he thought British honor would have been better consulted by showing this map to the American negotiator: Lord Brougham, the mover of the motion, amused himself at this conception, and thought it would have been carrying frankness a little too far, in such a negotiation, for the British negotiator to have set out with showing, "that he had no case"--"that he had not a leg to stand on." His lordship's speech on the occasion, which was more amusing to himself and the parliament than it can be to an American, nevertheless deserves a place in this history of the British treaty of 1842; and, accordingly, here it is:
"It does so happen that there was a map published by the King's geographer in this country in the reign of his Majesty George III., and here I could appeal to an illustrious Duke whom I now see, whether that monarch was not as little likely to err from any fulness of attachment towards America, as any one of his faithful subjects? [The Duke of Cambridge.] Because he well knows that there was no one thing which his reverend parent had so much at heart as the separation from America, and there was nothing he deplored so much as that separation having taken place. The King's geographer, Mr. Faden, published his map 1783, which contains, not the British, but the American line. Why did not my noble friend take over a copy of that map? My noble friend opposite (Lord Aberdeen) is a candid man; he is an experienced diplomatist, both abroad and at home; he is not unlettered, but thoroughly conversant in all the craft of diplomacy and statesmanship. Why did he conceal this map? We have a right to complain of that; and I, on the part of America, complain of that. You ought to have sent out the map of Mr. Faden, and said, 'this is George the Third's map.' But it never occurred to my noble friend to do so. Then, two years after Mr. Faden published that map, another was published, and that took the British line. This, however, came out after the boundary had become matter of controversy post litem motam. But, at all events, my noble friend had to contend with the force of the argument against Mr. Webster, and America had a right to the benefit of both maps. My noble friend opposite never sent it over, and nobody ever blamed him for it. But that was not all. What if there was another map containing the American line, and never corrected at all by any subsequent chart coming from the same custody? And what if that map came out of the custody of a person high in office in this country--nay, what if it came out of the custody of the highest functionary of all--of George III. himself? I know that map--I know a map which I can trace to the custody of George III., and on which there is the American line and not the English line, and upon which there is a note, that from the handwriting, as it has been described to me, makes me think it was the note of George III. himself: 'This is the line of Mr. Oswald's treaty in 1783,' written three or four times upon the face of it. Now, suppose this should occur--I do not say that it has happened--but it may occur to a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,--either to my noble friend or Lord Palmerston, who, I understand by common report, takes a great interest in the question; and though he may not altogether approve of the treaty, he may peradventure envy the success which attended it, for it was a success which did not attend any of his own American negotiations. But it is possible that my noble friend, or Lord Palmerston, may have discovered that there was this map, because George III.'s library by the munificence of George IV. was given to the British Museum, and this map must have been there; but it is a curious circumstance that it is no longer there. I suppose it must have been taken out of the British Museum for the purpose of being sent over to my noble friend in America; and that, according to the new doctrines of diplomacy, he was bound to have used it when there, in order to show that he had no case--that he had not a leg to stand upon. Why did he not take it over with him? Probably he did not know of its existence. I am told that it is not now in the British Museum, but that it is in the Foreign Office. Probably it was known to exist; but somehow or other that map, which entirely destroys our contention and gives all to the Americans, has been removed from the British Museum, and is now to be found at the Foreign Office. Explain it as you will, that is the simple fact, that this important map was removed from the Museum to the Office, and not in the time of my noble friend (Lord Aberdeen)."
Thus did our simplicity, and their own dexterity, or ambi-dexterity, as the case may be, furnish sport for the British parliament: and thus, "without a case," and, "without a leg to stand upon," was Lord Ashburton an overmatch for our Secretary-negotiator, with a good case to show, and two good legs to rest on. This map with its red line, and the King's autographic inscription upon it, was afterwards shown to Mr. Everett, upon his request, by Lord Aberdeen; and the fact communicated by him to the Department of State. But the effect of the altered line was graphically stated at a public dinner in honor of it by the same gentleman (Mr. Featherstonhaugh), whose view of the old boundary has already been given.
"Now, gentlemen, if you will divert your attention for a moment from the conflicting statements you may have read in regard to the merits of the compromise which has been made, I will explain them to you in a few words. The American claim, instead of being maintained, has been altogether withdrawn and abandoned; the territory has been divided into equal moieties, as nearly as possible; we have retained that moiety which secures to us every object that was essential to the welfare of our colonies; all our communications, military and civil, are for ever placed beyond hostile reach; and all the military positions on the highlands claimed by America are, without exception, secured for ever to Great Britain."
So spoke a person who had searched the country under the orders of the British government--who knew what he said--and who says there was a compromise, in which our territory (for that is the English of it) was divided into two equal parts, and the part that contained every thing that gave value to the whole, was retained by Great Britain for her share. But there were some members of the American Senate, as will be seen in the sequel, who had no occasion to wait for parliamentary revelations, or dinner-table exultations, in order to understand the merits of this treaty of 1842; and who put their opinions in a form and place, while the treaty was undergoing ratification, to speak for themselves in after time.
Many anomalies attended the conducting of the negotiations which ended in the production of the treaty. As far as could be seen there was no negotiation--none in the diplomatic sense of the term. There were no protocols, minutes, or record to show the progress of things--to show what was demanded, what was offered, and what was agreed upon. Articles came forth ripe and complete, without a trace of their progression; and when thus produced a letter would be drawn up to recommend it--not to the British government, who needed no recommendation of any part of it--but to the American people, who otherwise might not have perceived its advantages. In the next place the treaty was made by a single negotiator on each side, Mr. Fox the resident minister not having been joined with Lord Ashburton, and no one on the American side joined with Mr. Webster, and he left without instructions from the President. On this point Mr. Benton remarked in the debate on the treaty:
"In this case the employment of a single negotiator was unjustifiable. The occasion was great, and required several, both for safety and for satisfaction. The negotiation was here. Our country is full of able men. Two other negotiators might have been joined without delay, without trouble, and almost without expense. The British also had another negotiator here (Mr. Fox); a minister of whom I can say without disparagement to any other, that, in the two and twenty years which I have sat in this Senate, and had occasion to know the foreign ministers, I have never known his superior for intelligence, dignity, attention to his business, fidelity to his own Government, and decorum to ours. Why not add Mr. Fox to Lord Ashburton, unless to prevent an associate from being given to Mr. Webster? Was it arranged in London that the whole negotiation should be between two, and that these two should act without a witness, and without notes or minutes of their conferences? Be this as it may, the effect is the same; and all must condemn this solitary business between two ministers, when the occasion so imperiously demanded several."
The want of instructions was also animadverted upon by Mr. Benton, as a departure from the constitutional action of the government, and injurious in this case, as the three great sections of the Union had each its peculiar question to get settled, and the Secretary-negotiator belonged to one only of these sections, and the only one whose questions had been settled.
"By the theory of our government, the President is the head of the Executive Department, and must treat, through his agents and ministers, with foreign powers. He must tell them what to do, and should tell that in unequivocal language, that there may be no mistake about it. He must command and direct the negotiation; he must order what is done. This is the theory of our government, and this has been its practice from the beginning of Washington's to the end of Mr. Van Buren's administration; and never was it more necessary than now. Being but one negotiator, and he not approved by the Senate for that purpose, and being from an interested State, it was the bounden duty of the President to have guided and directed every thing. He is the head of the Union, and should have attended to the interest of the whole Union; on the contrary, he abandons every thing to his Secretary, and this Secretary takes care of one section of the Union, and of his own State, and of Great Britain; and leaves the other two sections of the Union out of the treaty. The Northern States, coterminous with Canada, get their boundaries adjusted; Massachusetts gets money, which her sister States are to pay; and Great Britain takes two slices, and all her military frontiers, from the State of Maine! the Southern and Western States are left as they were."
It was known that certain senators were consulted as the treaty went along, not publicly, but privately, visiting the negotiators upon request for that purpose, agreeing to it in these conferences; and thus forestalling their official action. This anomaly Mr. Benton thus exposed:
"The irregular manner in which the ratification of this treaty has been sought, by consultations with individual members, before it was submitted to the Senate. Here I tread upon delicate ground; and if I am wrong, this is the time and the place to correct me. I speak in the hearing of those who must know whether I am mistaken. I have reason to believe that the treaty has been privately submitted to senators--their opinions obtained--the judgment of the body forestalled; and then sent here for the forms of ratification. [One senator said he had not been consulted.] Mr. B. in continuation: Certainly not, as the senator says so; and so of any other gentleman who will say the same. I interrogate no one. I have no right to interrogate any one. I do not pretend to say that all were consulted; that would have been unnecessary; and besides, I know I was not consulted myself; and I know many others who were not. All that I intend to say is, that I have reason to think that this treaty has been ratified out of doors! and that this is a great irregularity, and bespeaks an undue solicitude for it on the part of its authors, arising from a consciousness of its indefensible character."
The war argument was also pressed into the service of the ratification, and vehemently relied upon as one of the most cogent arguments in its favor. The treaty, or war! was the constant alternative presented, and not without effect upon all persons of gentle and temporizing spirit. Mr. Benton also exposed the folly and mischief of yielding to such a threat--declaring it to be groundless, and not to be yielded to if it was not.
"The fear of war. This Walpole argument is heavily pressed upon us, and we are constantly told that the alternatives lie between this treaty--the whole of it, just as it is--or war! This is a degrading argument, if true; and infamous, if false! and false it is: and more than that, it is as shameless as it is unfounded! What! the peace mission come to make war! It is no such thing. It comes to take advantage of our deplorable condition--to take what it pleases, and to repulse the rest. Great Britain is in no condition to go to war with us, and every child knows it. But I do not limit myself to argument, and general considerations, to disprove this war argument. I refer to the fact which stamps it with untruth. Look to the notes of Sir Charles Vaughan and Mr. Bankhead, demanding the execution of the award, and declaring that its execution would remove every impediment to the harmony of the two countries. After that, and while holding these authentic declarations in our hands, are we to be told that the peace mission requires more than the award? requires one hundred and ten miles more of boundary? requires $500,000 for Rouse's Point, which the award gave us without money? requires a naval and diplomatic alliance, which she dared not mention in the time of Jackson or Van Buren? requires the surrender of 'rebels' under the name of criminals? and puts the South and West at defiance, while conciliating the non-slaveholding States? and gives us war, if we do not consent to all this degradation, insult, and outrage? Are we to be told this? No, sir, no! There is no danger of war; but this treaty may make a war, if it is ratified. It gives up all advantages; leaves us with great questions unsettled; increases the audacity of the British; weakens and degrades us; and leaves us no alternative but war to save the Columbia, to prevent impressment, to resist search, to repel Schlosser invasions, and to avoid a San Domingo insurrection in the South, excited from London, from Canada, and from Nassau."
The mission had been heralded as one of peace--as a beneficent overture for a universal settlement of all difficulties--and as a plan to establish the two countries on a footing of friendship and cordiality, which was to leave each without a grievance, and to launch both into a career of mutual felicity. On the contrary only a few were settled, and those few the only ones which concerned Great Britain and the northern States: the rest which peculiarly concerned the South and the West, were adjourned to London--that is to say, to the Greek calends. On this point Mr. Benton said:
"We were led to believe, on the arrival of the special minister, that he came as a messenger of peace, and clothed with full powers to settle every thing; and believing this, his arrival was hailed with universal joy. But here is a disappointment--a great disappointment. On receiving the treaty and the papers which accompany it, we find that all the subjects in dispute have not been settled; that, in fact, only three out of seven are settled; and that the minister has returned to his country, leaving four of the contested subjects unadjusted. This is a disappointment; and the greater, because the papers communicated confirm the report that the minister came with full powers to settle every thing. The very first note of the American negotiator--and that in its very first sentence, confirms this belief, and leaves us to wonder how a mission that promised so much, has performed so little. Mr. Webster's first note runs thus: 'Lord Ashburton having been charged by the Queen's government with full powers to negotiate and settle all matters in discussion between the United States and England, and having on his arrival at Washington announced,' &c., &c. Here is a declaration of full power to settle every thing; and yet, after this, only part is settled, and the minister has returned home. This is unexpected, and inconsistent. It contradicts the character of the mission, balks our hopes, and frustrates our policy. As a confederacy of States, our policy is to settle every thing or nothing; and having received the minister for that purpose, this complete and universal settlement, or nothing, should have been the sine qua non of the American negotiator.
"From the message of the President which accompanies the treaty, we learn that the questions in discussion between the two countries were: 1. The Northern boundary. 2. The right of search in the African seas, and the suppression of the African slave trade. 3. The surrender of fugitives from justice. 4. The title to the Columbia River. 5. Impressment. 6. The attack on the Caroline. 7. The case of the Creole, and of other American vessels which had shared the same fate. These are the subjects (seven in number) which the President enumerates, and which he informs us occupied the attention of the negotiators. He does not say whether these were all the subjects which occupied their attention. He does not tell us whether they discussed any others. He does not say whether the British negotiator opened the question of the State debts, and their assumption or guarantee by the Federal government! or whether the American negotiator mentioned the point of the Canadian asylum for fugitive slaves (of which twelve thousand have already gone there) seduced by the honors and rewards which they receive, and by the protection which is extended to them. The message is silent upon these further subjects of difference if not of discussion, between the two countries; and, following the lead of the President, and confining ourselves (for the present) to the seven subjects of dispute named by him, and we find three of them provided for in the treaty--four of them not: and this constitutes a great objection to the treaty--an objection which is aggravated by the nature of the subjects settled, or not settled. For it so happens that, of the subjects in discussion, some were general, and affected the whole Union; others were local, and affected sections. Of these general subjects, those which Great Britain had most at heart are provided for; those which most concerned the United States are omitted: and of the three sections of the Union which had each its peculiar grievance, one section is quieted, and two are left as they were. This gives Great Britain an advantage over us as a nation: it gives one section of the Union an advantage over the two others, sectionally. This is all wrong, unjust, unwise, and impolitic. It is wrong to give a foreign power an advantage over us: it is wrong to give one section of the Union an advantage over the others. In their differences with foreign powers, the States should be kept united: their peculiar grievances should not be separately settled, so as to disunite their several complaints. This is a view of the objection which commends itself most gravely to the Senate. We are a confederacy of States, and a confederacy in which States classify themselves sectionally, and in which each section has its local feelings and its peculiar interests. We are classed in three sections; and each of these sections had a peculiar grievance against Great Britain; and here is a treaty to adjust the grievances of one, and but one, of these three sections. To all intents and purposes, we have a separate treaty--a treaty between the Northern States and Great Britain; for it is a treaty in which the North is provided for, and the South and West left out. Virtually, it is a separate treaty with a part of the States; and this forms a grave objection to it in my eyes.
"Of the nine Northern States whose territories are coterminous with the dominions of her Britannic Majesty, six of them had questions of boundary or of territory, to adjust; and all of these are adjusted. The twelve Southern slaveholding States had a question in which they were all interested--that of the protection and liberation of fugitive or criminal slaves in Canada and the West Indies: this great question finds no place in the treaty, and is put off with phrases in an arranged correspondence. The whole great West takes a deep interest in the fate of the Columbia River, and demands the withdrawal of the British from it: this large subject finds no place in the treaty, nor even in the correspondence which took place between the negotiators. The South and West must go to London with their complaints: the North has been accommodated here. The mission of peace has found its benevolence circumscribed by the metes and boundaries of the sectional divisions in the Union. The peace-treaty is for one section: for the other two sections there is no peace. The non-slaveholding States, coterminous with the British dominions are pacified and satisfied: the slaveholding and the Western States, remote from the British dominions, are to suffer and complain as heretofore. As a friend to the Union--a friend to justice--and as an inhabitant of the section which is both slaveholding and Western, I object to the treaty which makes this injurious distinction amongst the States."
The merits of the different stipulations in the treaty were fully spoken to by several senators--among others, by Mr. Benton--some extracts from whose speech will constitute some ensuing chapters.
Chapter CII
BRITISH TREATY: THE PRETERMITTED SUBJECTS: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS.
I. THE COLUMBIA RIVER AND ITS VALLEY.
The omitted or pretermitted subjects are four: the Columbia River--impressment--the outrage on the Caroline--and the liberation of American slaves, carried by violence or misfortune into the British West India islands, or enticed into Canada. Of these, I begin with the Columbia, because equal in importance to any, and, from position, more particularly demanding my attention. The country on this great river is ours: diplomacy has endangered its title: the British have the possession and have repulsed us from the whole extent of its northern shore, and from all the fur region on both sides of the river, and up into all the valleys and gorges of the Rocky Mountains. Our citizens are beginning to go there; and the seeds of national contestation between the British and Americans are deeply and thickly sown in that quarter. From the moment that we discovered it, Great Britain has claimed this country; and for thirty years past this claim has been a point of contested and deferred diplomacy, in which every step taken has been a step for the benefit of her claim, and for the injury of ours. The germ of a war lies there; and this mission of peace should have eradicated that germ. On the contrary, it does not notice it! Neither the treaty nor the correspondence names or notices it! and if it were not for a meagre and stinted paragraph in the President's message, communicating and recommending the treaty, we should not know that the name of the Oregon had occurred to the negotiators. That paragraph is in these words:
"After sundry informal communications with the British minister upon the subject of the claims of the two countries to territory west of the Rocky Mountains, so little probability was found to exist of coming to any agreement on that subject at present, that it was not thought expedient to make it one of the subjects of formal negotiation, to be entered upon between this government and the British minister, as part of his duties under his special mission."
This is all that appears in relation to a disputed country, equal in extent to the Atlantic portion of the old thirteen United States; superior to them in climate, soil, and configuration; adjacent to the valley of the Mississippi; fronting Asia; holding the key to the North Pacific Ocean; the only country fit for colonization on the extended coast of Northwest America; a country which belongs to the United States by a title as clear as their title to the District of Columbia; which a resolve of Congress, during Mr. Monroe's administration, declared to be occluded against European colonization; which Great Britain is now colonizing; and the title to which has been a subject of diplomatic discussion for thirty years. This is all that is heard of such a country, and such a dispute, in this mission of peace, which was to settle every thing. To supply this omission, and to erect some barrier against the dangers of improvident, indifferent, ignorant, or treacherous diplomacy in future negotiations in relation to this great country, it is my purpose at present to state our title to it; and, in doing so, to expose the fallacy of the British pretensions; and thus to leave in the bosom of the Senate, and on the page of our legislative history, the faithful evidences of our right, and which shall attest our title to all succeeding generations.
(Here Mr. Benton went into a full derivation of the American title to the Columbia River and its valley, between the parallels of 42 and 49 degrees of north latitude--taking the latter boundary from the tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht, and the former from the second article of the Florida treaty of 1819, with Spain.)
The treaty of Utrecht between France and England, as all the world knows, was the treaty which put an end to the wars of Queen Anne and Louis XIV., and settled their differences in America as well as in Europe. Both England and France were at that time large territorial possessors in North America--the English holding Hudson's Bay and New Britain, beyond Canada, and her Atlantic colonies on this side of it; and France holding Canada and Louisiana. These were vast possessions, with unfixed boundaries. The tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht provided for fixing these boundaries. Under this article, British and French commissioners were appointed to define the possessions of the two nations; and by these commissioners two great points were fixed (not to speak of others), which have become landmarks in the definition of boundaries in North America, namely: the Lake of the Woods, and the 49th parallel of north latitude west of that lake. These two points were established above a century and a quarter ago, as dividing the French and British dominions in that quarter. As successful rebels, we acquired one of these points at the end of the Revolution. The treaty of Independence of 1783 gave us the Lake of the Woods as a landmark in the (then) north-west corner of the Union. As successors to the French in the ownership of Louisiana, we acquired the other; the treaty of 1803 having given us that province as France and Spain had held it; and that was, on the north, by the parallel of 49 degrees. Beginning in the Lake of the Woods, our northern Louisiana boundary followed the 49th parallel to the west. How far? is now the important question; and I repeat the words of the report of the commissioners, accepted by their respective nations, when I answer--"INDEFINITELY!" I quote the words of the report when I answer (omitting all the previous parts of the line), "to the latitude of 49 degrees north of the equator, and along that parallel indefinitely to the west." [A senator asked where all this was found.] Mr. BENTON. I find it in the state papers of France and England above an hundred years ago, and in those of the United States since the acquisition of Louisiana. I quote now from Mr. Madison's instructions, when Secretary of State under Mr. Jefferson in 1804, to Mr. Monroe, then our minister in London; and given to him to fortify him in his defence of our new acquisition. The cardinal word in this report of the commissioners is the word "indefinitely;" and that word it was the object of the British to expunge, from the moment that we discovered the Columbia, and acquired Louisiana--events which were of the same era in our history, and almost contemporaneous. In the negotiations with Mr. Monroe (which ended in a treaty, rejected by Mr. Jefferson without communication to the Senate), the effort was to limit the line, and to terminate it at the Rocky Mountains; well knowing that if this line was suffered to continue indefinitely to the west, it would deprive them of all they wanted; for it would strike the ocean three degrees north of the mouth of the Columbia. Without giving us what we were entitled to by right of discoveries, and as successors to Spain, it would still take from Great Britain all that she wanted--which was the mouth of the river, its harbor, the position which commanded it, and its right bank, in the rich and timbered region of tide-water. The line on the 49th parallel would cut her off from all these advantages; and, therefore, to mutilate that line, and stop it at the Rocky Mountains, immediately became her inexorable policy. At Ghent, in 1814, the effort was renewed. The commissioners of the United States and those of Great Britain could not agree; and nothing was done. At London, in 1818, the effort was successful; and in the convention then signed in that city, the line of the treaty of Utrecht was stopped at the Rocky Mountains. The country on the Columbia was laid open for ten years to the joint occupation of the citizens and subjects of both powers; and, afterwards, by a renewed convention at London, this joint occupation was renewed indefinitely, and until one of the parties should give notice for its termination. It is under this privilege of joint occupation that Great Britain has taken exclusive possession of the right bank of the river, from its head to its mouth, and also exclusive possession of the fur trade on both sides of the river, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains. My friend and colleague [Mr. LINN] has submitted a motion to require the President to give the stipulated notice for the termination of this convention--a convention so unequal in its operation, from the inequality of title between the two parties, and from the organized power of the British in that quarter under the powerful direction of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company. Thus our title as far as latitude 49, so valid under the single guarantee of the treaty of Utrecht, without looking to other sources, has been jeoparded by this improvident convention; and the longer it stands, the worse it is for us.
A great fault of the treaty of 1818 was in admitting an organized and powerful portion of the British people to come into possession of our territories jointly with individual and disconnected possessors on our part. The Hudson's Bay Company held dominion there on the north of our territories. They were powerful in themselves, perfectly organized, protected by their government, united with it in policy, and controlling all the Indians from Canada and the Rocky Mountains out to the Pacific Ocean, and north to Baffin's Bay. This company was admitted, by the convention of 1818, to a joint possession with us of all our territories on the Columbia River. The effect was soon seen. Their joint possession immediately became exclusive on the north bank of the river. Our fur-traders were all driven from beyond the Rocky Mountains; then driven out of the mountains; more than a thousand of them killed: forts were built; a chain of posts established to communicate with Canada and Hudson's Bay; settlers introduced; a colony planted; firm possession acquired; and, at the end of the ten years when the joint possession was to cease, the intrusive possessors, protected by their government, refused to go--began to set up title--and obtained a renewal of the convention, without limit of time, and until they shall receive notice to quit. This renewed convention was made in 1828; and, instead of joint possession with us for ten years, while we should have joint possession with them of their rivers, bays, creeks and harbors, for the same time--instead of this, they have had exclusive possession of our territory, our river, our harbor, and our creeks and inlets, for above a quarter of a century. They are establishing themselves as in a permanent possession--making the fort Vancouver, at the confluence of the Multnomah and Columbia, in tide-water, the seat of their power and operations. The notice required never will be given while the present administration is in power; nor obeyed when given, unless men are in power who will protect the rights and the honor of their country. The fate of Maine has doubled the dangers of the Columbia, and nearly placed us in a position to choose between war and INFAMY, in relation to that river.
Another great fault in the convention was, in admitting a claim on the part of Great Britain to any portion of these territories. Before that convention, she stated no claim; but asked a favor--the favor of joint possession for ten years: now she sets up title. That title is backed by possession. Possession among nations, as well as among individuals, is eleven points out of twelve; and the bold policy of Great Britain well knows how to avail itself of these eleven points. The Madawaska settlement has read us a lesson on that head; and the success there must lead to still greater boldness elsewhere. The London convention of 1818 is to the Columbia, what the Ghent treaty of 1814 was to Maine; that is to say, the first false step in a game in which we furnish the whole stake, and then play for it. In Maine the game is up. The bold hand of Great Britain has clutched the stake; and nothing but the courage of our people will save the Columbia from the same catastrophe.
I proceed with more satisfaction to our title under the Nootka Sound treaty, and can state it in a few words. All the world knows the commotion which was excited in 1790 by the Nootka Sound controversy between Great Britain and Spain. It was a case in which the bullying of England and the courage of Spain were both tried to the ne plus ultra point, and in which Spanish courage gained the victory. Of course, the British writers relate the story in their own way; but the debates of the Parliament, and the terms of the treaty in which all ended, show things as they were. The British, presuming on the voyages of Captain Cook, took possession of Nootka; the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico sent a force to fetch the English away, and placed them in the fortress of Acapulco. Pitt demanded the release of his English, their restoration to Nootka, and an apology for the insult to the British Crown, in the violation of its territory and the persons of its subjects; the Spaniard refused to release, refused the restoration, and the apology, on the ground that Nootka was Spanish territory, and declared that they would fight for its possession. Then both parties prepared for war. The preparations fixed the attention of all Europe. Great Britain bullied to the point of holding the match over the touch-hole of the cannon; but the Spaniards remaining firm, she relaxed, and entered into a convention which abnegated her claim. She accepted from the Spaniards the privilege of landing and building huts on the unoccupied parts of the coast, for the purpose of fishing and trading; and while this acceptance nullified her claim, yet she took nothing under it--not even temporary use--never having built a hut, erected a tent, or commenced any sort of settlement on any part of the coast. Mr. Fox keenly reproached Mr. Pitt with the terms of this convention, being, as he showed, a limitation instead of an acquisition of rights.
Our title is clear: that of the British is null. She sets up none--that is, she states no derivation of title. There is not a paper upon the face of the earth, in which a British minister has stated a title, or even a claim. They have endeavored to obtain the country by the arts of diplomacy; but never have stated a title, and never can state one. The fur-trader, Sir Alexander McKenzie, prompted the acquisition, gave the reason for it, and never pretended a title. His own discoveries gave no title. They were subsequent to the discovery of Captain Gray, and far to the north of the Columbia. He never saw that river. He missed the head sources of it, fell upon the Tacouche Tesse, and struck the Pacific in a latitude 500 miles (by the coast) to the north of the Columbia. His subsequent discoveries were all north of that point. He was looking for a communication with the sea--for a river, a harbor, and a place for a colony--within the dominions of Great Britain; and, not finding any, he boldly recommended his government to seize the Columbia River, to hold it, and to expel the Americans from the whole country west of the Rocky Mountains. And upon these pretensions the British claim has rested, until possession has made them bold enough to exclude it from the subjects of formal negotiation between the two countries. The peace-mission refused us peace on that point. The President tells us that there is "no probability of coming to any agreement at present!" Then when can the agreement be made? If refused now, when is it to come? Never, until we show that we prefer war to ignominious peace.
This is the British title to the Columbia, and the only one that she wants for any thing. It suits her to have that river: it is her interest to have it: it strengthens her, and weakens others, for her to have it; and, therefore, have it she will. This is her title, and this her argument. Upon this title and argument, she gets a slice from Maine, and gains the mountain barrier which covers Quebec; and, upon this title and argument, she means to have the Columbia River. The events of the late war, and the application of steam power to ocean navigation, begat her title to the country between Halifax and Quebec: the suggestions of McKenzie begat her title to the Columbia. Improvident diplomacy on our part, a war countenance on her part, and this strange treaty, have given success to her pretensions in Maine: the same diplomacy, and the same countenance, have given her a foothold on the Columbia. It is for the Great West to see that no traitorous treaty shall abandon it to her. The President, in his message, says that there was no chance for any "agreement" about it at present; that it would not be made the subject of a "formal negotiation" at present; that it could not be included in the duties of the "special mission." Why so? The mission was one of peace, and to settle every thing; and why omit this pregnant question? Was this a war question, and therefore not to be settled by the peace mission? Why not come to an agreement now, if agreement is ever intended? The answer is evident. No agreement is ever intended. Contented with her possession, Great Britain wants delay, that time may ripen possession into title, and fortunate events facilitate her designs. My colleague and myself were sounded on this point: our answers forbade the belief that we would compromise or sacrifice the rights and interests of our country; and this may have been the reason why there were no "formal" negotiations in relation to it. Had we been "soft enough," there might have been an agreement to divide our country by the river, or, to refer the whole title to the decision of a friendly sovereign! We were not soft enough for that; and if such a paper, marked B, and identified with the initials of our Secretary, had been sent to the Missouri delegation, as was sent to the Maine commissioners, instead of subduing us to the purposes of Great Britain, it would have received from the whole delegation the answer due to treason, to cowardice, and to insolence.
But, it is demanded, what do we want with this country, so far off from us? I answer by asking, in my turn, what do the British want with it, who are so much further off? They want it for the fur trade; for a colony; for an outlet to the sea; for the communication across the continent; for a road to Asia; for the command of one hundred and forty thousand Indians against us; for the port and naval station which is to command the commerce and navigation of the North Pacific Ocean, and open new channels of trade with China, Japan, Polynesia, and the great East. They want it for these reasons; and we want it for the same; and because it adjoins us, and belongs to us, and should be possessed by our descendants, who will be our friends; and not by aliens, who will be our enemies.
Forty years ago, it was written by Humboldt that the valley of the Columbia invited Europeans to found a fine colony there; and, twenty years ago, the American Congress adopted a resolve, that no part of this continent was open to European colonization. The remark of Humboldt was that of a sagacious European; the resolve of Congress was the work of patriotic Americans. It remains to be seen which will prevail. The convention of 1818 has done us the mischief; it put the European power in possession: and possession with nations, still more than with individuals, is the main point in the contest. It will require the western pioneers to recover the lost ground; and they must be encouraged in the enterprise by liberal grants of lands, by military protection, and by governmental authority. It is time for the bill of my colleague to pass. The first session of the first Congress under the new census should pass it. The majority will be democratic, and the democracy will demand that great work at their hands. I put no faith in negotiation. I expect nothing but loss and shame from any negotiation in London. Our safety is in the energy of our people; in their prompt occupation of the country; and in their invincible determination to maintain their rights.
I do not dilate upon the value and extent of this great country. A word suffices to display both. In extent, it is larger than the Atlantic portion of the old thirteen United States; in climate, softer; in fertility, greater; in salubrity, superior; in position, better, because fronting Asia, and washed by a tranquil sea. In all these particulars, the western slope of our continent is far more happy than the eastern. In configuration, it is inexpressibly fine and grand--a vast oblong square, with natural boundaries, and a single gateway into the sea. The snow-capped Rocky Mountains enclose it to the east, an iron-bound coast on the west: a frozen desert on the north, and sandy plains on the south. All its rivers, rising on the segment of a vast circumference, run to meet each other in the centre; and then flow together into the ocean, through a gap in the mountain, where the heats of summer and the colds of winter are never felt; and where southern and northern diseases are equally unknown. This is the valley of the Columbia--a country whose every advantage is crowned by the advantages of position and configuration: by the unity of all its parts--the inaccessibility of its borders--and its single introgression to the sea. Such a country is formed for union, wealth, and strength. It can have but one capital, and that will be a Thebes; but one commercial emporium, and that will be Tyre, queen of cities. Such a country can have but one people, one interest, one government: and that people should be American--that interest ours--and that government republican. Great Britain plays for the whole valley: failing in that, she is willing to divide by the river. Accursed and infamous be the man that divides or alienates it!
II.--IMPRESSMENT.
Impressment is another of the omitted subjects. This having been a cause of war in 1812, and being now declared, by the American negotiator, to be a sufficient cause for future wars, it would naturally, to my mind, have been included in the labors of a special mission, dedicated to peace, and extolled for its benevolent conception. We would have expected to find such a subject, after such a declaration, included in the labors of such a mission. Not so the fact. The treaty does not mention impressment. A brief paragraph in the President's message informs us that there was a correspondence on this point; and, on turning to this correspondence, we actually find two letters on the subject: one from Mr. Webster to Lord Ashburton--one from Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster: both showing, from their dates, that they were written after the treaty was signed; and, from their character, that they were written for the public, and not for the negotiators. The treaty was signed on the 9th of August; the letters were written on the 8th and 9th of the same month. They are a plea, and a reply; and they leave the subject precisely where they found it. From their date and character, they seem to be what the lawyers call the postea--that is to say, the afterwards; and are very properly postponed to the end of the document containing the correspondence, where they find place on the 120th page. They look ex post facto there; and, putting all things together, it would seem as if the American negotiator had said to the British lord (after the negotiation was over): 'My Lord, here is impressment--a pretty subject for a composition; the people will love to read something about it; so let us compose.' To which, it would seem, his lordship had answered: 'You may compose as much as you please for your people; I leave that field to you: and when you are done, I will write three lines for my own government, to let it know that I stick to impressment.' In about this manner, it would seem to me that the two letters were got up; and that the American negotiator in this little business has committed a couple of the largest faults: first, in naming the subject of impressment at all! next, in ever signing a treaty, after having named it, without an unqualified renunciation of the pretension!
Sir, the same thing is not always equally proper. Time and circumstances qualify the proprieties of international, as well as of individual intercourse; and what was proper and commendable at one time, may become improper, reprehensible, and derogatory at another. When George the Third, in the first article of his first treaty with the United States, at the end of a seven years' war, acknowledged them to be free, sovereign, and independent States, and renounced all dominion over them, this was a proud and glorious consummation for us, and the crowning mercy of a victorious rebellion. The same acknowledgment and renunciation from Queen Victoria, at present, would be an insult for her to offer--a degradation for us to accept. So of this question of impressment. It was right in all the administrations previous to the late war, to negotiate for its renunciation. But after having gone to war for this cause; after having suppressed the practice by war; after near thirty years' exemption from it--after all this, for our negotiator to put the question in discussion, was to compromise our rights! To sign a treaty without its renunciation, after having proposed to treat about it, was to relinquish them! Our negotiator should not have mentioned the subject. If mentioned to him by the British negotiator, he should have replied, that the answer to that pretension was in the cannon's mouth!
But to name it himself, and then sign without renunciation, and to be invited to London to treat about it--to do this, was to descend from our position; to lose the benefit of the late war; to revive the question; to invite the renewal of the practice, by admitting it to be an unsettled question--and to degrade the present generation, by admitting that they would negotiate where their ancestors had fought. These are fair inferences; and inferences not counteracted by the euphonious declaration that the American government is "prepared to say" that the practice of impressment cannot hereafter be allowed to take place!--as if, after great study, we had just arrived at that conclusion! and as if we had not declared much more courageously in the case of the Maine boundary, the Schlosser massacre, and the Creole mutiny and murder! The British, after the experience they have had, will know how to value our courageous declaration, and must pay due respect to our flag! For one, I never liked these declarations, and never made a speech in favor of any one of them; and now I like them less than ever, and am prepared to put no further faith in the declarations of gentlemen who were for going to war for the smallest part of the Maine boundary in 1838, and now surrender three hundred miles of that boundary for fear of war, when there is no danger of war. I am prepared to say that I care not a straw for the heroic declarations of such gentlemen. I want actions, not phrases. I want Mr. Jefferson's act in 1806--rejection of any treaty with Great Britain that does not renounce impressment! And after having declared, by law, black impressment on the coast of Africa to be piracy; after stipulating to send a fleet there, to enforce our law against that impressment--after this, I am ready to do the same thing against white impressment on our own coasts, and on the high seas. I am ready to enact that the impressment of my white fellow-citizens out of an American ship is an act of piracy; and then to follow out that enactment in its every consequence.
The correspondence between our Secretary negotiator and Lord Ashburton on this subject, has been read to you--that correspondence which was drawn up after the treaty was finished, and intended for the American public: and what a correspondence it is! What an exchange of phrases! One denies the right of impressment: the other affirms it. Both wish for an amicable agreement; but neither attempts to agree. Both declare the season of peace to be the proper time to settle this question; and both agree that the present season of peace is not the convenient one. Our Secretary rises so high as to declare that the administration "is now prepared" to put its veto on the practice: the British negotiator shows that his Government is still prepared to resume the practice whenever her interest requires it. Our negotiator hopes that his communication will be received in the spirit of peace: the British minister replies, that it will. Our secretary then persuades himself that the British minister will communicate his sentiments in this respect, to his own government: his Lordship promises it faithfully. And, thereupon, they shake hands and part.
How different this holiday scene from the firm and virile language of Mr. Jefferson: "No treaty to be signed without a provision against impressment;" and this language backed by the fact of the instant rejection of a treaty so signed! Lord Chatham said of Magna Charta that it was homely Latin, but worth all the classics. So say I of this reply of Mr. Jefferson: it is plain English, but worth all the phrases which rhetoric could ever expend upon the subject. It is the only answer which our secretary negotiator should have given, after committing the fault of broaching the subject. Instead of that, he commences rhetorician, new vamps old arguments, writes largely and prettily; and loses the question by making it debatable. His adversary sees his advantage, and seizes it. He abandons the field of rhetoric to the lawyer negotiator; puts in a fresh claim to impressment; saves the question from being lost by a non-user; re-establishes the debate, and adjourns it to London. He keeps alive the pretension of impressment against us, the white race, while binding us to go to Africa to fight it down for the black race; and has actually left us on lower ground in relation to this question, than we stood upon before the late war. If this treaty is ratified, we must begin where we were in 1806, when Mr. Monroe and Mr. Pinckney went to London to negotiate against impressment; we must begin where they did, with the disadvantage of having yielded to Great Britain all that she wanted, and having lost all our vantage-ground in the negotiation. We must go to London, engage in a humiliating negotiation, become the spectacle of nations, and the sport of diplomacy; and wear out years in begging to be spared from British seizure, when sitting under our own flag, and sailing in our own ship: we must submit to all this degradation, shame and outrage, unless Congress redeems us from the condition into which we have fallen, and provides for the liberty of our people on the seas, by placing American impressment where African impressment has already been placed--piracy by law! For one, I am ready to vote the act--to execute it--and to abide its every consequence.
III.--THE LIBERATED SLAVES.
The case of the Creole, as it is called, is another of the omitted subjects. It is only one of a number of cases (differing in degree, but the same in character) which have occurred within a few years, and are becoming more frequent and violent. It is the case of American vessels, having American slaves on board, and pursuing a lawful voyage, and being driven by storms or carried by violence into a British port, and their slaves liberated by British law. This is the nature of the wrong. It is a general outrage liable to occur in any part of the British dominions, but happens most usually in the British West India islands, which line the passage round the Florida reefs in a voyage between New Orleans and the Atlantic ports. I do not speak of the 12,000 slaves (worth at a moderate computation, considering they must be all grown, and in youth or middle life, at least $6,000,000) enticed into Canada, and received with the honors and advantages due to the first class of emigrants. I do not speak of these, nor of the liberation of slaves carried voluntarily by their owners into British ports: the man who exposes his property wilfully to the operation of a known law, should abide the consequences to which he has subjected it. I confine myself to cases of the class mentioned--such as the Encomium, the Comet, the Enterprise, the Creole, and the Hermosa--cases in which wreck, tempest, violence, mutiny and murder were the means of carrying the vessel into the interdicted port; and in which the slave property, after being saved to the owners from revolt and tempests, became the victim and the prey of British law. It is of such cases that I complain, and of which I say that they furnish no subject for the operation of injurious laws, and that each of these vessels should have been received with the hospitality due to misfortune, and allowed to depart with all convenient despatch, and with all her contents of persons and property. This is the law of nations: it is what the civilization of the age requires. And it is not to be tolerated in this nineteenth century that an American citizen, passing from one port to another of his own country, with property protected by the laws of his country, should encounter the perils of an unfortunate navigator in the dark ages, shipwrecked on a rude and barbarian coast. This is not to be tolerated in this age, and by such a power as the United States, and after sending a fleet to Africa to protect the negroes. Justice, like charity, should begin at home; and protection should be given where allegiance is exacted. We cannot tolerate the spoil and pillage of our own citizens, within sight of our own coasts, after sending 4,000 miles to redress the wrongs of the black race. But if this treaty is ratified it seems that we shall have to endure it, or seek redress by other means than negotiation. The previous cases were at least ameliorated by compensation to their owners for the liberation of the slaves; but in the more recent and most atrocious case of the Creole, there is no indemnity of any kind--neither compensation to the owners whose property has been taken; nor apology to the Government, whose flag has been insulted; nor security for the future, by giving up the practice. A treaty is signed without a stipulation of any kind on the subject; and as it would seem, to the satisfaction of those who made it, and of the President, who sends it to us. A correspondence has been had; the negotiators have exchanged diplomatic notes on the subject; and these notes are expected to be as satisfactory to the country as to those who now have the rule of it. The President in his message says:
"On the subject of the interference of the British authorities in the West Indies, a confident hope is entertained that the correspondence which has taken place, showing the grounds taken by this government, and the engagements entered into by the British minister, will be found such as to satisfy the just expectation of the people of the United States."--Message, August 9.
This is a short paragraph for so large a subject; but it is all the message contains. But let us see what it amounts to, and what it is that is expected to satisfy the just expectations of the country. It is the grounds taken in the correspondence, and the engagements entered into by the British minister, which are to work out this agreeable effect.
And it is of the grounds stated in the Secretary's two letters, and the engagement, entered into in Lord Ashburton's note, that the President predicates his belief of the public satisfaction in relation to this growing and most sensitive question. This brings us to these grounds, and this engagement, that we may see the nature and solidity of the one, and the extent and validity of the other. The grounds for the public satisfaction are in the Secretary's letters; the engagement is in Lord Ashburton's letter; and what do they amount to? On the part of the Secretary, I am free to say that he has laid down the law of nations correctly; that he has well stated the principles of public law which save from hazard or loss, or penalty of any kind, the vessel engaged in a lawful trade, and driven or carried against her will, into a prohibited port. He has well shown that, under such circumstances, no advantage is to be taken of the distressed vessel; that she is to be received with the hospitality due to misfortune, and allowed to depart, after receiving the succors of humanity, with all her contents of persons and things. All this is well laid down by our Secretary. Thus far his grounds are solid. But, alas, this is all talk! and the very next paragraph, after a handsome vindication of our rights under the law of nations, is to abandon them! I refer to the paragraph commencing: "If your Lordship has no authority to enter into a stipulation by treaty for the prevention of such occurrences hereafter," &c. This whole paragraph is fatal to the Secretary's grounds, and pregnant with strange and ominous meanings. In the first place, it is an admission, in the very first line, that no treaty stipulation to prevent future occurrences of the same kind can be obtained here! that the special mission, which came to settle every thing, and to establish peace, will not settle this thing; which the Secretary, in numerous paragraphs, alleges to be a dangerous source of future war! This is a strange contradiction, and most easily got over by our Secretary. In default of a treaty stipulation (which he takes for granted, and evidently makes no effort to obtain), he goes on to solicit a personal engagement from his Lordship; and an engagement of what? That the law of nations shall be observed? No! but that instructions shall be given to the British local authorities in the islands, which shall lead them to regulate their conduct in conformity with the rights of citizens of the United States, and the just expectations of their government, and in such manner as shall, in future, take away all reasonable ground of complaint. This is the extent of the engagement which was so solicited, and which was to supply the place of a treaty stipulation! If the engagement had been given in the words proposed, it would not have been worth a straw. But it is not given in those words, but with glaring and killing additions and differences. His Lordship follows the commencement of the formula with sufficient accuracy; but, lest any possible consequence might be derived from it, he takes care to add, that when these slaves do reach them "no matter by what means," there is no alternative! Hospitality, good wishes, friendly feeling, the duties of good neighborhood--all give way! The British law governs! and that law is too well known to require repetition. This is the sum and substance of Lord Ashburton's qualifications of the engagement; and they show him to be a man of honor, that would not leave the Secretary negotiator the slightest room for raising a doubt as to the nature of the instructions which he engaged to have given. These instructions go only to the mode of executing the law. His Lordship engages only for the civility and gentleness of the manner--the suaviter in modo; while the firm execution of the law itself remains as it was--fortiter in re.
Lord Ashburton proposes London as the best place to consider this subject. Mr. Webster accepts London, and hopes that her Majesty's government will give us treaty stipulations to remove all further cause for complaint on this subject. This is his last hope, contained in the last sentence of his last note. And now, why a treaty stipulation hereafter, if this engagement is such (as the President says it is) as to satisfy the just expectations of the people of the United States? Why any thing more, if that is enough? And if treaty stipulations are wanting (as in fact they are), why go to London for them--the head-quarters of abolitionism, the seat of the World's Convention for the abolition of slavery, and the laboratory in which the insurrection of San Domingo was fabricated? Why go to London? Why go any where? Why delay? Why not do it here? Why not include it among the beatitudes of the vaunted peace mission? The excuse that the minister had not powers, is contradictory and absurd. The Secretary negotiator tells us, in his first letter, that the minister came with full powers to settle every subject in discussion. This was a subject in discussion; and had been since the time of the Comet, the Encomium, and the Enterprise--years ago. If instructions were forgotten, why not send for them? What are the steamers for, that, in the six months that the peace mission was here, they could not have brought these instructions a dozen times? No! the truth is, the British government would do nothing upon this subject when she found she could accomplish all her own objects without granting any thing.
IV.--BURNING OF THE CAROLINE.
The Caroline is the last of the seven subjects in the arrangement which I make of them. I reserve it for the last; the extreme ignominy of its termination making it, in my opinion, the natural conclusion of a disgraceful negotiation. It is a case in which all the sources of national degradation seem to have been put in requisition--diplomacy; legislation; the judiciary; and even the military. To volunteer propitiations to Great Britain, and to deprecate her wrath, seem to have been the sole concern of the administration, when signal reparation was due from her to us. And here again we have to lament the absence of all the customary disclosures in the progress of negotiations. No protocol, no minutes, no memorandums: nothing to show how a subject began, went on, and reached its consummation. Every thing was informal in this anomalous negotiation. Wat Tyler never hated the ink-horn worse than our Secretary-negotiator hated it upon this occasion. It was only after a thing was finished, that the pen was resorted to; and then merely to record the agreement, and put a face upon it for the public eye. In this way many things may have been discussed, which leave no written trace behind them; and it would be a curious circumstance if so large a subject, and one so delicate as the State debts, should find itself in that predicament.
The case of the Caroline is now near four years old. It occurred in December of the year 1838, under Mr. Van Buren's administration; but it was not until March, 1841, and until the new administration was in power, that the question assumed its high character of a quarrel between the United States and Great Britain. Before that time, the outrage upon the Caroline was only the act of the individuals engaged in it. The arrest of one of these individuals brought out the British government. She assumed the offence; alleged the outrage to have been perpetrated by her authority; and demanded the release of McLeod, under the clear implication of a national threat if he was not surrendered. The release was demanded unconditionally--not the slightest apology or atonement being offered for the outrage on the Caroline, out of which the arrest of McLeod grew. The arrogant demand of the British was delivered to the new Secretary of State on the 12th day of March. Instead of refusing to answer under a threat, he answered the sooner; and, in his answer went far beyond what the minister [Mr. Fox] had demanded. He despatched the Attorney-general of the United States to New York, to act as counsel for McLeod; he sent a Major-general of the United States army along with him, to give emphasis to his presence; and he gave a false version to the law of nations, which would not only cover the McLeod case, but all succeeding cases of the same kind. I consider all this the work of the State Department; for General Harrison was too new in his office, too much overwhelmed by the army of applicants who besieged him and soon destroyed his life, to have the time to study the questions to which the arrest of McLeod, and the demand for his release, and the assumption of his crime by the British government gave rise. The Romans had a noble maxim--grand in itself, and worthy of them, because they acted upon it. PARCERE SUBJECTIS, DEBELLARE SUPERBOS: Spare the humble--humble the proud. Our administration has invoked this maxim to cover its own conduct. In giving up McLeod they say it is to lay hold of the sovereign--that the poor servant is spared while the proud master is to be held to account. Fine phrases these, which deceive no one: for both master and servant are let go. Our people were not deceived by these grave professions. They believed it was all a pretext to get out of a difficulty; that, what between love and fear of the British, the federal party was unwilling to punish McLeod, or to see him punished by the State of New York; that the design was to get rid of responsibility, by getting rid of the man; and, that when he was gone, we should hear no more of these new Romans calling his sovereign to account. This was the opinion of the democracy, very freely expressed at the time; and so it has all turned out to be. McLeod was acquitted, and got off; the British government became responsible, on the administration's own principles; they have not been held to that responsibility; no atonement or apology has been made for the national outrage at Schlosser; and the President informs us that no further complaint, on account of this aggression on the soil and sovereignty of the Union, and the lives of its citizens, is to be made!
A note has been obtained from Lord Ashburton, and sent to us by the President, declaring three things--first, that the burning of the Caroline, and killing the people, was a serious fact; secondly, that no disrespect was intended to the United States in doing it; thirdly, that the British government unfeignedly hopes there will be no necessity for doing it again. This is the extent, and the whole extent, to which the special minister, with all his politeness and good nature, and with all his desire to furnish the administration with something to satisfy the public, could possibly go. The only thing which I see him instructed by his government to say, or which in itself amounts to a positive declaration, is the averment that her Majesty's government "considers it a most serious fact" that, in the hurried execution of this necessary service, a violation of the United States territory was committed. This is admitted to be a fact!--a serious fact!--and a most serious fact! But as for any sorrow for it, or apology for it, or promise not to commit such serious facts again, or even not to be so hurried the next time--this is what the minister nowhere says, or insinuates. On the contrary, just the reverse is declared; for the justification of this "most serious fact" as being the result of a hurried execution of a "necessary service," is an explicit averment that the aforesaid "most serious fact" will be repeated just so often as her Majesty's government shall deem it necessary to her service. As to the polite declaration, that no disrespect was intended to the United States while invading its territory, killing its citizens, setting a steamboat on fire, and sending her in flames over the falls of Niagara--such a declaration is about equivalent to telling a man that you mean him no disrespect while cudgelling him with both hands over the head and shoulders.
The celebrated Dr. Johnson was accustomed to say that there was a certain amount of gullibility in the public mind, which must be provided for. It would seem that our Secretary-negotiator had possessed himself of this idea, and charged himself with the duties under it, and had determined to make full provision for all the gullibility now extant. He has certainly provided quantum sufficit of humbuggery in this treaty, and in his correspondence in defence of it, to gorge the stomachs of all the gulls of the present generation, both in Europe and America.
Our Secretary is full of regret that McLeod was so long imprisoned, makes excuses for the New York court's decisions against him, and promises to call the attention of Congress to the necessity of providing against such detention in future. He says, in his last letter to Lord Ashburton:
"It was a subject of regret that the release of McLeod was so long delayed. A State court--and that not of the highest jurisdiction--decided that, on summary application, embarrassed, as it would appear, by technical difficulties, he could not be released by that court. His discharge, shortly afterward, by a jury, to whom he preferred to submit his case, rendered unnecessary the further prosecution of the legal question. It is for the Congress of the United States, whose attention has been called to the subject to say what further provision ought to be made to expedite proceedings in such cases."
Such is the valedictory of our Secretary--his sorrows over the fate of McLeod. That individual had been released for a year past. His arrest continued but for a few months, with little personal inconvenience to himself; with no danger to his life, if innocent; and with the gratification of a notoriety flattering to his pride, and beneficial to his interest. He is probably highly delighted with the honors of the occurrence, and no way injured by his brief and comfortable imprisonment. Yet the sorrow of our Secretary continues to flow. At the end of a year, he is still in mourning, and renews the expression of his regret for the poor man's detention, and gives assurances against such delays in future;--this in the same letter in which he closes the door upon the fate of his own countrymen burnt and murdered in the Caroline, and promises never to disturb the British government about them again. McLeod and all Canadians are encouraged to repeat their most serious facts upon us, by the perfect immunity which both themselves and their government have experienced. And to expedite their release, if hereafter arrested for such facts, they are informed that Congress had been "called" upon to pass the appropriate law--and passed it was! The habeas corpus act against the States, which had slept for many months in the Senate, and seemed to have sunk under the public execration--this bill was "called" up, and passed contemporaneously with the date of this letter. And thus the special minister was enabled to carry home with him an act of Congress to lay at the footstool of his Queen, and to show that the measure of atonement to McLeod was complete: that the executive, the military, the legislative, and the judicial departments had all been put in requisition, and faithfully exerted themselves to protect her Majesty's subjects from being harmed for a past invasion, conflagration, and murder; and to secure them from being called to account by the State courts for such trifles in future.
And so ends the case of the Caroline and McLeod. The humiliation of this conclusion, and the contempt and future danger which it brings upon the country, demand a pause, and a moment's reflection upon the catastrophe of this episode in the negotiation. The whole negotiation has been one of shame and injury; but this catastrophe of the McLeod and Caroline affair puts the finishing hand to our disgrace. I do not speak of the individuals who have done this work, but of the national honor which has been tarnished in their hands. Up to the end of Mr. Van Buren's administration, all was safe for the honor of the country. Redress for the outrage at Schlosser had been demanded; interference to release McLeod had been refused; the false application of the laws of war to a state of peace had been scouted. On the 4th day of March, 1841, the national honor was safe; but on that day its degradation commenced. Timing their movements with a calculated precision, the British government transmitted their assumption of the Schlosser outrage, their formal demand for the release of McLeod, and their threat in the event of refusal, so as to arrive here on the evening of the day on which the new administration received the reins of government. Their assumption, demand, and threat, arrived in Washington on the evening of the 4th day of March, a few hours after the inauguration of the new powers was over. It seemed as if the British had said to themselves: This is the time--our friends are in power--we helped to elect them--now is the time to begin. And begin they did. On the 8th day of March, Mr. Fox delivered to Mr. Webster the formal notification of the assumption, made the demand, and delivered the threat. Then the disgraceful scene began. They reverse the decision of Mr. Van Buren's administration, and determine to interfere in behalf of McLeod, and to extricate him by all means from the New York courts. To mask the ignominy of this interference, they pretend it is to get at a nobler antagonist; and that they are going to act the Romans, in sparing the humble and subduing the proud. It is with Queen Victoria with whom they will deal! McLeod is too humble game for them. McLeod released, the next thing is to get out of the scrape with the Queen; and for that purpose they invent a false reading of the law of nations, and apply the laws of war to a state of peace. The jus belli, and not the jus gentium, then becomes their resort. And here ends their grand imitation of the Roman character. To assume the laws of war in time of peace, in order to cover a craven retreat, is the nearest approach which they make to war. Then the special minister comes. They accept from him private and verbal explanations, in full satisfaction to themselves of all the outrage at Schlosser: but beg the minister to write them a little apology, which they can show to the people. The minister refuses; and thereupon they assume that they have received it, and proclaim the apology to the world. To finish this scene, to complete the propitiation of the Queen, and to send her minister home with legal and parchment evidence in his hand of our humiliation, the expression of regret for the arrest and detention of McLeod is officiously and gratuitously renewed; the prospect of a like detention of any of her Majesty's subjects in future is pathetically deplored; and, to expedite their delivery from State courts when they again invade our soil, murder our citizens, and burn our vessels, the minister is informed that Congress has been "called" upon to pass a law to protect them from these courts. And here "a most serious fact" presents itself. Congress has actually obeyed the "call"--passed the act--secured her Majesty's subjects in future--and given the legal parchment evidence of his success to her minister before he departs for his home. The infamous act--the habeas corpus against the States--squeamishly called the "remedial justice act"--is now on the statute-book; the original polluting our code of law, the copy lying at the footstool of the British Queen. And this is the point we have reached. In the short space of a year and a half, the national character has been run down, from the pinnacle of honor to the abyss of disgrace. I limit myself now to the affair of McLeod and the Caroline alone; and say that, in this business, exclusive of other disgraces, the national character has been brought to the lowest point of contempt. It required the Walpole administration five-and-twenty long years of cowardly submission to France and Spain to complete the degradation of Great Britain: our present rulers have completed the same work for their own country in the short space of eighteen months. And this is the state of our America! that America which Jackson and Van Buren left so proud! that America which, with three millions of people fought and worsted the British empire--with seven millions fought it, and worsted it again--and now, with eighteen millions, truckles to the British Queen, and invents all sorts of propitiatory apologies for her, when the most ample atonement is due to itself. Are we the people of the Revolution?--of the war of 1812?--of the year 1834, when Jackson electrified Europe by threatening the King of France with reprisals!
McLeod is given up because he is too weak; the Queen is excused, because she is too strong; propitiation is lavished where atonement is due; an apology accepted where none was offered; the statute of limitations pleaded against an insult, by the party which received it! And the miserable performers in all this drama of national degradation expect to be applauded for magnanimity, when the laws of honor and the code of nations, stamp their conduct with the brand of cowardice.
Chapter CIII
BRITISH TREATY: NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY ARTICLE: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACT.
The establishment of the low-land boundary in place of the mountain boundary, and parallel to it. This new line is 110 miles long. It is on this side of the awarded line--not a continuation of it, but a deflection from it; and evidently contrived for the purpose of weakening our boundary, and retiring it further from Quebec. It will be called in history the Webster line. It begins on the awarded line, at a lake in the St. Francis River; breaks off at right angles to the south, passes over the valley of the St. John in a straight line, and equidistant from that river and the mountain, until it reaches the north-west branch of the St. John, when approaching within forbidden distance of Quebec, it deflects to the east; and then holds on its course to the gorge in the mountain at the head of Metjarmette creek. A view of the map will show the character of this new line; the words of the treaty show how cautiously it was guarded; and the want of protocols hides its paternity from our view. The character of the line is apparent; and it requires no military man, or military woman, or military child, to say to whose benefit it enures. A man of any sort--a woman of any kind--a child of any age--can tell that! It is a British line, made for the security of Quebec. Follow its calls on the map, and every eye will see this design.
The surrender of the mountain boundary between the United States and Great Britain on the frontiers of Maine. This is a distinct question from the surrender of territory. The latter belonged to Maine: the former to the United States. They were national, and not State boundaries--established by the war of the Revolution, and not by a State law or an act of Congress; and involving all the considerations which apply to the attack and defence of nations. So far as a State boundary is coterminous with another State, it is a State question, and may be left to the discretion of the States interested: so far as it is coterminous with a foreign power, it is a national question, and belongs to the national authority. A State cannot be permitted to weaken and endanger the nation by dismembering herself in favor of a foreigner; by demolishing a strong frontier, delivering the gates and keys of a country into the hands of a neighboring nation, and giving them roads and passes into the country. The boundaries in question were national, not State; and the consent of Maine, even if given, availed nothing. Her defence belongs to the Union; is to be made by the blood and treasure of the Union; and it was not for her, even if she had been willing, to make this defence more difficult, more costly, and more bloody, by giving up the strong, and substituting the weak line of defence. Near three hundred miles of this strong national frontier have been surrendered by this treaty--being double as much as was given up by the rejected award. The King of the Netherlands, although on the list of British generals, and in the pay of the British Crown, was a man of too much honor to deprive us of the commanding mountain frontier opposite to Quebec; and besides, Jackson would have scouted the award if he had attempted it. The King only gave up the old line to the north of the head of the St. Francis River; and for this he had some reason, as the mountain there subsided into a plain, and the ridge of the highlands (in that part) was difficult to follow: our negotiator gives up the boundary for one hundred and fifty miles on this side the head of the St. Francis, and without pretext; for the mountain ridge was there three thousand feet high. The new part given up, from the head of the St. Francis to Metjarmette portage, is invaluable to Great Britain. It covers her new road to Quebec, removes us further from that city, places a mountain between us, and brings her into Maine. To comprehend the value of this new boundary to Great Britain, and its injury to us, it is only necessary to follow it on a map--to see its form--know its height, the depth of its gorges, and its rough and rocky sides. The report of Capt. Talcott will show its character--three thousand feet high: any map will show its form. The gorge at the head of the Metjarmette creek--a water of the St. Lawrence--is made the terminus ad quem of the new conventional lowland line: beyond that gorge, the mountain barrier is yielded to Great Britain. Now take up a map. Begin at the head of the Metjarmette creek, within a degree and a half of the New Hampshire line--follow the mountain north--see how it bears in upon Quebec--approaching within two marches of that great city, and skirting the St. Lawrence for some hundred miles. All this is given up. One hundred and fifty miles of this boundary is given up on this side the awarded line; and the country left to guess and wonder at the enormity and fatuity of the sacrifice. Look at the new military road from Halifax to Quebec--that part of it which approaches Quebec and lies between the mountain and the St. Lawrence. Even by the awarded line, this road was forced to cross the mountain at or beyond the head of the St. Francis, and then to follow the base of the mountain for near one hundred miles; with all the disadvantages of crossing the spurs and gorges of the mountain, and the creeks and ravines, and commanded in its whole extent by the power on the mountain. See how this is changed by the new boundary! the road permitted to take either side of the mountain--to cross where it pleases--and covered and protected in its whole extent by the mountain heights, now exclusively British. Why this new way, and this security for the road, unless to give the British still greater advantages over us than the awarded boundary gave? A palliation is attempted for it. It is said that the mountain is unfit for cultivation; and the line along it could not be ascertained; and that Maine consented. These are the palliations--insignificant if true, but not true in their essential parts. And, first, as to the poverty of the mountain, and the slip along its base, constituting this area of 893 square miles surrendered on this side the awarded line: Captain Talcott certifies it to be poor, and unfit for cultivation. I say so much the better for a frontier. As to the height of the mountains, and the difficulty of finding the dividing ridge, and the necessity of adopting a conventional line: I say all this has no application to the surrendered boundary on this side the awarded line at the head of the St. Francis. On this side of that point, the mountain ridge is lofty, the heights attain three thousand feet; and navigable rivers rise in them, and flow to the east and to the west--to the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. Hear Captain Talcott, in his letter to Mr. Webster: (The letter read.)
This letter was evidently obtained for the purpose of depreciating the lost boundary, by showing it to be unfit for cultivation. The note of the Secretary-negotiator which drew it forth is not given, but the answer of Captain Talcott shows its character; and its date (that of the 14th of July) classes it with the testimony which was hunted up to justify a foregone conclusion. The letter of Captain Talcott is good for the Secretary's purpose, and for a great deal more. It is good for the overthrow of all the arguments on which the plea for a conventional boundary stood. What was that plea? Simply, that the highlands in the neighborhood of the north-west corner of Nova Scotia could not be traced; and that it was necessary to substitute a conventional line in their place. And it is the one on which the award of the King of the Netherlands turned, and was, to the extent of a part of his award, a valid one. But it was no reason for the American Secretary to give one hundred and fifty miles of mountain line on this side the awarded line, where the highlands attained three thousand feet of elevation, and turned navigable rivers to the right and left. Lord Ashburton, in his letter of the 13th of June, commences with this idea: that the highlands described in the treaty could not be found, and had been so admitted by American statesmen; and quotes a part of a despatch from Mr. Secretary Madison in 1802 to Mr. Rufus King, then U. S. Minister in London. I quote the whole despatch, and from this it appears--1. That the part at which the treaty could not be executed, for want of finding the highlands, was the point to be constituted by the intersection of the due north line from the head of the St. Croix with the line drawn along the highlands. 2. That this point might be substituted by a conventional one agreed upon by the three commissioners. 3. That from this point, so agreed upon, the line was to go to the highlands, and to follow them wherever they could be ascertained, to the head of the Connecticut River. This is the clear sense of Mr. Madison's letter and Mr. Jefferson's message; and it is to be very careless to confound this point (which they admitted to be dubious, for want of highlands at that place) with the line itself, which was to run near 300 miles on the elevations of a mountain reaching 3,000 feet high. The King of the Netherlands took a great liberty with this point when he brought it to the St. John's River: our Secretary-negotiator took a far greater liberty with it when he brought it to the head of the Metjarmette creek; for it is only at the head of this creek that our line under the new treaty begins to climb the highlands. The King of the Netherlands had some apology for his conventional point and conventional line to the head of the St. Francis--for the highlands were sunk into table-land where the point ought to be, and which was the terminus a quo of his conventional line: but our negotiator had no apology at all for turning this conventional line south, and extending it 110 miles through the level lands of Maine, where the mountain highlands were all along in sight to the west. It is impossible to plead the difficulty of finding the highlands for this substitution of the lowland boundary, in the whole distance from the head of the St. Francis, where the King of the Netherlands fixed the commencement of our mountain line, to the head of the Metjarmette, where our Secretary fixed its commencement. Lord Ashburton's quotation from Mr. Madison's letter is partial and incomplete: he quotes what answers his purpose, and is justifiable in so doing. But what must we think of our Secretary-negotiator, who neglected to quote the remainder of that letter, and show that it was a conventional point, and not a conventional line, that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison proposed? and that this conventional point was merely to fix the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, where, in fact, there were no highlands; after which, the line was to proceed to the elevated ground dividing the waters, &c., and then follow the highlands to the head of the Connecticut? Why did our Secretary omit this correction of the British minister's quotation, and thus enable him to use American names against us?
To mitigate the enormity of this barefaced sacrifice, our Secretary-negotiator enters into a description of the soil, and avers it to be unfit for cultivation. What if it were so? It is still rich enough to bear cannon, and to carry the smuggler's cart; and that is the crop Great Britain wishes to plant upon it. Gibraltar and Malta are rocks; yet Great Britain would not exchange them for the deltas of the Nile and of the Ganges. It is not for growing potatoes and cabbages that she has fixed her eye, since the late war, on this slice of Maine; but for trade and war--to consolidate her power on our north-eastern border, and to realize all the advantages which steam power gives to her new military and naval, and commercial station, in Passamaquoddy Bay; and her new route for trade and war through Halifax and Maine to Quebec. She wants it for great military and commercial purposes; and it is pitiful and contemptible in our negotiator to depreciate the sacrifice as being poor land, unfit for cultivation, when power and dominion, not potatoes and cabbages, is the object at stake. But the fact is, that much of this land is good; so that the excuse for surrendering it without compensation is unfounded as well as absurd.
I do not argue the question of title to the territory and boundaries surrendered. That work has been done in the masterly report of the senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. BUCHANAN], and in the resolve of the Senate, unanimously adopted, which sanctioned it. That report and that resolve were made and adopted in the year 1838--seven years after the award of the King of the Netherlands--and vindicated our title to the whole extent of the disputed territory. After this vindication, it is not for me to argue the question of title. I remit that task to abler and more appropriate hands--to the author of the report of 1838. It will be for him to show the clearness of our title under the treaty of 1783--how it was submitted to in Mr. Jay's treaty of 1794, in Mr. Liston's correspondence of 1798, in Mr. King's treaty of 1803, in Mr. Monroe's treaty of 1807, and in the conferences at Ghent--where, after the late war had shown the value of a military communication between Quebec and Halifax, a variation of the line was solicited as a favor, by the British commissioners, to establish that communication. It will be for him also to show the progress of the British claim, from the solicited favor of a road, to the assertion of title to half the territory, and all the mountain frontier of Maine; and it will further be for him to show how he is deserted now by those who stood by him then. It will be for him to expose the fatal blunder at Ghent, in leaving our question of title to the arbitration of a European sovereign, instead of confiding the marking of the line to three commissioners, as proposed in all the previous treaties, and agreed to in several of them. To him, also, it will belong to expose the contradiction between rejecting the award for adopting a conventional line, and giving up part of the territory of Maine; and now negotiating a treaty which adopts two conventional lines, gives up all that the award did, and more too, and a mountain frontier besides; and then pays money for Rouse's Point, which came to us without money under the award. It will be for him to do these things. For what purpose? some one will say. I answer, for the purpose of vindicating our honor, our intelligence, and our good faith, in all this affair with Great Britain; for the purpose of showing how we are wronged in character and in rights by this treaty; and for the purpose of preventing similar wrongs and blunders in time to come. Maine may be dismembered, and her boundaries lost, and a great military power established on three sides of her; but the Columbia is yet to be saved? There we have a repetition of the Northeastern comedy of errors on our part, and of groundless pretension on the British part, growing up from a petition for joint possession for fishing and hunting, to an assertion of title and threat of war; this groundless pretension dignified into a claim by the lamentable blunder of the convention of London in 1818. We may save the Columbia by showing the folly, or worse, which has dismembered Maine.
The award of the King of the Netherlands was acceptable to the British, and that award was infinitely better for us; and it was not only accepted by the British, but insisted upon; and its non-execution on our part was made a subject of remonstrance and complaint against us. After this, can any one believe that the "peace mission" was sent out to make war upon us if we did not yield up near double as much as she then demanded? No, sir! there is no truth in this cry of war. It is only a phantom conjured up for the occasion. From Jackson and Van Buren the British would gladly have accepted the awarded boundary: the federalists prevented it, and even refused a new negotiation. Now, the same federalists have yielded double as much, and are thanking God that the British condescend to accept it. Such is federalism: and the British well knew their time, and their men, when they selected the present moment to send their special mission; to double their demands; and to use arguments successfully, which would have been indignantly repelled when a Jackson or a Van Buren was at the head of the government--or, rather, would never have been used to such Presidents. The conduct of our Secretary-negotiator is inexplicable. He rejects the award, because it dismembers Maine; votes against new negotiations with England; and announces himself ready to shoulder a musket and march to the highland boundary, and there fight his death for it. This was under Jackson's administration. He now becomes negotiator himself; gives up the highland boundary in the first note; gives up all that was awarded by the King of the Netherlands; gives up 110 miles on this side of that award; gives up the mountain barrier which covered Maine, and commanded the Halifax road to Quebec; gives $500,000 for Rouse's Point, which the King of the Netherland's allotted us as our right.