Chapter CIV
BRITISH TREATY: NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARY: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS.
The line from Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods never was susceptible of a dispute. That from the Lake of the Woods to the head of the Mississippi was disputable, and long disputed; and it will not do to confound these two lines, so different in themselves, and in their political history. The line from Lake Superior was fixed by landmarks as permanent and notorious as the great features of nature herself--the Isle Royale, in the northwest of Lake Superior, and the chain of small lakes and rivers which led from the north of that isle to the Lake of the Woods. Such were the precise calls of the treaty of 1783, and no room for dispute existed about it. The Isle Royale was a landmark in the calls of the treaty, and a great and distinguished one it was--a large rocky island in Lake Superior, far to the northwest, a hundred miles from the southern shore; uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible to the Indians in their canoes; and for that reason believed by them to be the residence of the Great Spirit, and called in their language, Menong. This isle was as notorious as the lake itself, and was made a landmark in the treaty of 1783, and the boundary line directed to go to the north of it, and then to follow the chain of small lakes and rivers called "Long Lake," which constituted the line of water communication between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods, a communication which the Indians had followed beyond the reach of tradition, which was the highway of nations, and which all travellers and traders have followed since its existence became known to our first discoverers. A line through the Lake Superior, from its eastern outlet to the northward of the Isle Royale, leads direct to this communication; and the line described was evidently so described for the purpose of going to that precise communication. The terms of the call are peculiar. Through every lake and every water-course, from Lake Ontario to the Lake Huron, the language of the treaty is the same: the line is to follow the middle of the lake. Through every river it is the same: the middle of the main channel is to be followed. On entering Lake Superior, this language changes. It is no longer the middle of the lake that is to constitute the boundary, but a line through the lake to the "northward" of Isle Royale--a boundary which, so far from dividing the lake equally, leaves almost two-thirds of it on the American side. The words of the treaty are these:
"Thence through Lake Superior, northward of the isles Royale and Philippeaux, to the Long Lake; thence through the middle of said Long Lake, and the water communication between it and the Lake of the Woods, to the Lake of the Woods," &c.
These are the words of the call; and this variation of language, and this different mode of dividing the lake, were for the obvious purpose of taking the shortest course to the Long Lake, or Pigeon River, which led to the Lake of the Woods. The communication through these little lakes and rivers was evidently the object aimed at; and the call to the north of Isle Royale was for the purpose of getting to that object. The island itself was nothing, except as a landmark. Though large (for it is near one hundred miles in circumference), it has no value, neither for agriculture, commerce, nor war. It is sterile, inaccessible, remote from shore; and fit for nothing but the use to which the Indians consigned it--the fabulous residence of a fabulous deity. Nobody wants it--neither Indians nor white people. It was assigned to the United States in the treaty of 1783, not as a possession, but as a landmark, and because the shortest line through the lake, to the well-known route which led to the Lake of the Woods, passed to the north of that isle. All this is evident from the maps, and all the maps are here the same; for these features of nature are so well defined that there has never been the least dispute about them. The commissioners under the Ghent treaty (Gen. Porter for the United States, and Mr. Barclay for Great Britain), though disagreeing about several things, had no disagreement about Isle Royale, and the passage of the line to the north of that isle. In their separate reports, they agreed upon this; and this settled the whole question. After going to the north of Isle Royale, to get out of the lake at a known place, it would be absurd to turn two hundred miles south, to get out of it at an unknown place. The agreement upon Isle Royale settled the line to the Lake of the Woods, as it was, and as it is: but it so happened that, in the year 1790, the English traveller and fur-trader Mr. (afterwards Sir Alexander) McKenzie, in his voyage to the Northwest, travelled up this line of water communication, saw the advantages of its exclusive possession by the British; and proposed in his "History of the Fur Trade," to obtain it by turning the line down from Isle Royale, near two hundred miles, to St. Louis River in the southwest corner of the lake. The Earl of Selkirk, at the head of the Hudson's Bay Company, repeated the suggestion; and the British government, for ever attentive to the interests of its subjects, set up a claim, through the Ghent commissioners, to the St. Louis River as the boundary. Mr. Barclay made the question, but too faintly to obtain even a reference to the arbitrator; and Lord Ashburton had too much candor and honor to revive it. He set up no pretension to the St. Louis River, as claimed by the Ghent commissioners: he presented the Pigeon River as the "long lake" of the treaty of 1783, and only asked for a point six miles south of that river; and he obtained all he asked. His letter of the 17th of July is explicit on this point. He says:
"In considering the second point, it really appears of little importance to either party how the line be determined through the wild country between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods, but it is important that some line should be fixed and known. I would propose that the line be taken from a point about six miles south of Pigeon River, where the Grand Portage commences on the lake, and continued along the line of the said portage, alternately by land and water, to Lac la Pluie--the existing route by land and by water remaining common by both parties. This line has the advantage of being known, and attended with no doubt or uncertainty in running it."
These are his Lordship's words: Pigeon River, instead of St. Louis River! making no pretension to the four millions of acres of fine mineral land supposed to have been saved between these two rivers; and not even alluding to the absurd pretension of the Ghent commissioner! After this, what are we to think of the candor and veracity of an official paper, which would make a merit of having saved four millions of acres of fine mineral land, "northward of the claim set up by the British commissioner under the Ghent treaty?" What must we think of the candor of a paper which boasts of having "included this within the United States," when it was never out of the United States? If there is any merit in the case, it is in Lord Ashburton--in his not having claimed the 200 miles between Pigeon River and St. Louis River. What he claimed, he got; and that was the southern line, commencing six miles south of Pigeon River, and running south of the true line to Rainy Lake. He got this; making a difference of some hundreds of thousands of acres, and giving to the British the exclusive possession of the best route; and a joint possession of the one which is made the boundary. To understand the value of this concession, it must be known that there are two lines of communication from the Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods, both beginning at or near the mouth of Pigeon River; that these lines are the channels of trade and travelling, both for Indians, and the fur-traders; that they are water communications; and that it was a great point with the British, in their trade and intercourse with the Indians, to have the exclusive dominion of the best communication, and a joint possession with us of the other. This is what Lord Ashburton claimed--what the treaty gave him--and what our Secretary-negotiator became his agent and solicitor to obtain for him. I quote the Secretary's letter of the 25th of July to Mr. James Ferguson, and the answers of Mr. Ferguson of the same date, and also the letter of Mr. Joseph Delafield, of the 20th of July, for the truth of what I say. From these letters, it will be seen that our Secretary put himself to the trouble to hunt testimony to justify his surrender of the northern route to the British; that he put leading questions to his witnesses, to get the information which he wanted; and that he sought to cover the sacrifice, by depreciating the agricultural value of the land, and treating the difference between the lines as a thing of no importance. Here is the letter. I read an extract from it:
"What is the general nature of the country between the mouth of Pigeon River and the Rainy Lake? Of what formation is it, and how is its surface? and will any considerable part of its area be fit for cultivation? Are its waters active and running streams, as in other parts of the United States? Or are they dead lakes, swamps, and morasses? If the latter be their general character, at what point, as you proceed westward, do the waters receive a more decided character as running streams?
"There are said to be two lines of communication, each partly by water and partly by portages, from the neighborhood of Pigeon River to the Rainy Lake: one by way of Fowl Lake, the Saganaga Lake, and the Cypress Lake; the other by way of Arrow River and Lake; then by way of Saganaga Lake, and through the river Maligne, meeting the other route at Lake la Croix, and through the river Namekan to the Rainy Lake. Do you know any reason for attaching great preference to either of these two lines? Or do you consider it of no importance, in any point of view, which may be agreed to? Please be full and particular on these several points."
Here are leading questions, such as the rules of evidence forbid to be put to any witness, and the answers to which would be suppressed by the order of any court in England or America. They are called "leading," because they lead the witness to the answer which the lawyer wants; and thereby tend to the perversion of justice. The witnesses are here led to two points: first, that the country between the two routes or lines is worth nothing for agriculture; secondly, that it is of no importance to the United States which of the two lines is established for the boundary. Thus led to the desired points, the witnesses answer. Mr. Ferguson says:
"As an agricultural district, this region will always be valueless. The pine timber is of high growth, equal for spars, perhaps, to the Norway pine, and may, perhaps, in time, find a market; but there are no alluvions, no arable lands, and the whole country may be described as one waste of rock and water.
"You have desired me also to express an opinion as to any preference which I may know to exist between the several lines claimed as boundaries through this country, between the United States and Great Britain.
"Considering that Great Britain abandons her claim by the Fond du Lac and the St. Louis River; cedes also Sugar Island (otherwise called St. George's Island) in the St. Marie River; and agrees, generally, to a boundary following the old commercial route, commencing at the Pigeon River, I do not think that any reasonable ground exists to prevent a final determination of this part of the boundary."
And Mr. Delafield adds:
"As an agricultural district, it has no value or interest, even prospectively, in my opinion. If the climate were suitable (which it is not), I can only say that I never saw, in my explorations there, tillable land enough to sustain any permanent population sufficiently numerous to justify other settlements than those of the fur-traders; and, I might add, fishermen. The fur-traders there occupied nearly all those places; and the opinion now expressed is the only one I ever heard entertained by those most experienced in these northwestern regions.
"There is, nevertheless, much interest felt by the fur-traders on this subject of boundary. To them, it is of much importance, as they conceive; and it is, in fact, of national importance. Had the British commissioner consented to proceed by the Pigeon River (which is the Long Lake of Mitchell's map), it is probable there would have been an agreement. There were several reasons for his pertinacity, and for this disagreement; which belong, however, to the private history of the commission, and can be stated when required. The Pigeon River is a continuous water-course. The St. George's Island, in the St. Marie River, is a valuable island, and worth as much, perhaps, as most of the country between the Pigeon River and Dog River route, claimed for the United States, in an agricultural sense."
These are the answers; and while they are conclusive upon the agricultural character of the country between the two routes, and present it as of no value; yet, on the relative importance of the routes as boundaries, they refuse to follow the lead which the question held out to them, and show that, as commercial routes, and, consequently, as commanding the Indians and their trade, a question of national importance is involved. Mr. Delafield says the fur-traders feel much interest in this boundary: to them, it is of much importance; and it is, in fact, of national importance. These are the words of Mr. Delafield; and they show the reason why Lord Ashburton was so tenacious of this change in the boundary. He wanted it for the benefit of the fur-trade, and for the consequent command which it would give the British over the Indians in time of war. All this is apparent; yet our Secretary would only look at it as a corn and potato region! And finding it not good for that purpose, he surrenders it to the British! Both the witnesses look upon it as a sacrifice on the part of the United States, and suppose some equivalent in other parts of the boundary was received for it. There was no such equivalent: and thus this surrender becomes a gratuitous sacrifice on the part of the United States, aggravated by the condescension of the American Secretary to act as the attorney of the British minister, and seeking testimony by unfair and illegal questions; and then disregarding the part of the answers which made against his design.
Chapter CV
BRITISH TREATY: EXTRADITION ARTICLE: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACT.
I proceed to the third subject and last article in the treaty--the article which stipulates for the mutual surrender of fugitive criminals. And here again we are at fault for these same protocols. Not one word is found in the correspondence upon this subject, the brief note excepted of Lord Ashburton of the 9th of August--the day of the signature of the treaty--to say that its ratification would require the consent of the British parliament, and would necessarily be delayed until the parliament met. Except this note, not a word is found upon the subject; and this gives no light upon its origin, progress, and formation--nothing to show with whom it originated--what necessity for it in this advanced age of civilization, when the comity of nations delivers up fugitive offenders upon all proper occasions--and when explanations upon each head of offences, and each class of fugitives, is so indispensable to the right understanding and the safe execution of the treaty. Total and black darkness on all these points. Nor is any ray of light found in the President's brief paragraphs in relation to it. Those paragraphs (the work of his Secretary, of course) are limited to the commendation of the article, and are insidiously deceptive, as I shall show at the proper time. It tells us nothing that we want to know upon the origin and design of the article, and how far it applies to the largest class of fugitive offenders from the United States--the slaves who escape with their master's property, or after taking his life--into Canada and the British West Indies. The message is as silent as the correspondence on all these points; and it is only from looking into past history, and contemporaneous circumstances, that we can search for the origin and design of this stipulation, so unnecessary in the present state of international courtesy, and so useless, unless something unusual and extraordinary is intended. Looking into these sources, and we are authorized to refer the origin and design of the stipulation to the British minister, and to consider it as one of the objects of the special mission with which we have been honored. Be this as it may, I do not like the article. Though fair upon its face, it is difficult of execution. As a general proposition, atrocious offenders, and especially between neighboring nations, ought to be given up; but that is better done as an affair of consent and discretion, than under the constraints and embarrassments of a treaty obligation. Political offenders ought not to be given up; but under the stern requisitions of a treaty obligation, and the benefit of an ex parte accusation, political offenders may be given up for murder, or other crimes, real or pretended; and then dealt with as their government pleases. Innocent persons should not be harassed with groundless accusations; and there is no limit to these vexations, if all emigrants are placed at the mercy of malevolent informers, subjected to arrest in a new and strange land, examined upon ex parte testimony, and sent back for trial if a probable case is made out against them.
This is a subject long since considered in our country, and on which we have the benefit both of wise opinions and of some experience. Mr. Jefferson explored the whole subject when he was Secretary of State under President Washington, and came to the conclusion that these surrenders could only be made under three limitations:--1. Between coterminous countries. 2. For high offences. 3. A special provision against political offenders. Under these limitations, as far back as the year 1793, Mr. Jefferson proposed to Great Britain and Spain (the only countries with which we held coterminous dominions, and only for their adjacent provinces) a mutual delivery of fugitive criminals. His proposition was in these words:
"Any person having committed murder of malice prepense, not of the nature of treason, or forgery, within the United States or the Spanish provinces adjoining thereto, and fleeing from the justice of the country, shall be delivered up by the government where he shall be found, to that from which he fled, whenever demanded by the same."
This was the proposition of that great statesman: and how different from those which we find in this treaty! Instead of being confined to coterminous dominions, the jurisdiction of the country is taken for the theatre of the crime; and that includes, on the part of Great Britain, possessions all over the world, and every ship on every sea that sails under her flag. Instead of being confined to two offences of high degree--murder and forgery--one against life, the other against property--this article extends to seven offences; some of which may be incurred for a shilling's worth of property, and another of them without touching or injuring a human being. Instead of a special provision in favor of political offenders, the insurgent or rebel may be given up for murder, and then hanged and quartered for treason; and in the long catalogue of seven offences, a charge may be made, and an ex parte case established, against any political offender which the British government shall choose to pursue.
To palliate this article, and render it more acceptable to us, we are informed that it is copied from the 27th article of Mr. Jay's treaty. That apology for it, even if exactly true, would be but a poor recommendation of it to the people of the United States. Mr. Jay's treaty was no favorite with the American people, and especially with that part of the people which constituted the republican party. Least of all was this 27th article a favorite with them. It was under that article that the famous Jonathan Robbins, alias Thomas Nash, was surrendered--a surrender which contributed largely to the defeat of Mr. Adams, and the overthrow of the federal party, in 1800. The apology would be poor, if true: but it happens to be not exactly true. The article in the Webster treaty differs widely from the one in Jay's treaty--and all for the worse. The imitation is far worse than the original--about as much worse as modern whiggery is worse than ancient federalism. Here are the two articles; let us compare them:
MR. WEBSTER'S TREATY.
"Article 10.--It is agreed that the United States and her Britannic Majesty shall, upon mutual requisitions by them, or their ministers, officers, or authorities, respectively made, deliver up to justice all persons who, being charged with the crime of murder, or assault with intent to commit murder, or piracy, or arson, or robbery, or forgery, or the utterance of forged papers committed within the jurisdiction of either, shall seek an asylum, or shall be found, within the territories of the other: provided, that this shall only be done, upon such evidence of criminality as, according to the laws of the place where the fugitive or person so charged shall be found, would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial, if the crime or offence had there been committed; and the respective judges and other magistrates shall have power, jurisdiction, and authority, upon complaint made under oath, to issue a warrant for the apprehension of the fugitive or person so charged, that he may be brought before such judges, or other magistrates, respectively, to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and considered; and if, on such hearing, the evidence be deemed sufficient to sustain the charge, it shall be the duty of the examining judge, or magistrate, to certify the same to the proper executive authority, that a warrant may issue for the surrender of such fugitive. The expense of such apprehension and delivery shall be borne and defrayed by the party who makes the requisition, and receives the fugitive."
MR. JAY'S TREATY.
"Article 27.--It is further agreed that his Majesty and the United States, on mutual requisitions by them, respectively, or by their respective ministers, or officers, authorized to make the same, will deliver up to justice all persons who, being charged with murder, or forgery, committed within the jurisdiction of either, shall seek an asylum within any of the countries of the other: provided, that this shall only be done on such evidence of criminality as, according to the laws of the place where the fugitive or person so charged shall be found, would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial if the offence had there been committed. The expense of such apprehension and delivery shall be borne and defrayed by those who make the requisition, and receive the fugitive."
These are the two articles, and the difference between them is great and striking. First, the number of offences for which delivery of the offender is to be made, is much greater in the present treaty. Mr. Jay's article is limited to two offences--murder and forgery: the two proposed by Mr. Jefferson; but without his qualification to exclude political offences, and to confine the deliveries to offenders from coterminous dominions. The present treaty embraces these two, and five others, making seven in the whole. The five added offences are--assault, with intent to commit murder; piracy; robbery; arson; and the utterance of forged paper. These additional five offences, though high in name, might be very small in degree. Assault, with intent to murder, might be without touching or hurting any person; for, to lift a weapon at a person within striking distance, without striking, is an assault: to level a fire-arm at a person within carrying distance, and without firing, is an assault; and the offence being in the intent, is difficult of proof. Mr. Jefferson excluded it, and so did Jay's treaty; because the offence was too small and too equivocal to be made a matter of international arrangement. Piracy was excluded, because it was absurd to speak of a pirate's country. He has no country. He is hostis humani generis--the enemy of the human race; and is hung wherever he is caught. The robbery might be of a shilling's worth of bread; the arson, of burning a straw shed; the utterance of forged paper, might be the emission or passing of a counterfeit sixpence. All these were excluded from Jay's treaty, because of their possible insignificance, and the door they opened to abuse in harassing the innocent, and in multiplying the chances for getting hold of a political offender for some other offence, and then punishing him for his politics.
Striking as these differences are between the present article and that of Mr. Jay's treaty, there is a still more essential difference in another part; and a difference which nullifies the article in its only material bearing in our favor. It is this: Mr. Jay's treaty referred the delivery of the fugitive to the executive power. This treaty intervenes the judiciary, and requires two decisions from a judge or magistrate before the governor can act. This nullifies the treaty in all that relates to fugitive slaves guilty of crimes against their masters. In the eye of the British law, they have no master, and can commit no offence against such a person in asserting their liberty against him, even unto death. A slave may kill his master, if necessary to his escape. This is legal under British law; and, in the present state of abolition feeling throughout the British dominions, such killing would not only be considered fair, but in the highest degree meritorious and laudable. What chance for the recovery of such a slave under this treaty? Read it--the concluding part--after the word "committed," and see what is the process to be gone through. Complaint is to be made to a British judge or justice. The fugitive is brought before this judge or justice, that the evidence of the criminality may be heard and considered--such evidence as would justify the apprehension, commitment, and trial of the party, if the offence had been committed there. If, upon this hearing, the evidence be deemed sufficient to sustain the charge, the judge or magistrate is to certify the fact to the executive authority; and then, and not until then, the surrender can be made. This is the process; and in all this the new treaty differs from Jay's. Under his treaty the delivery was a ministerial act, referring itself to the authority of the governor: under this treaty, it becomes a judicial act, referring itself to the discretion of the judge, who must twice decide against the slave (first, in issuing the warrant; and next, in trying it) before the governor can order the surrender. Twice judicial discretion interposes a barrier, which cannot be forced; and behind which the slave, who has robbed or killed his master, may repose in safety. What evidence of criminality will satisfy the judge, when the act itself is no crime in his eyes, or under his laws, and when all his sympathies are on the side of the slave? What chance would there be for the judicial surrender of offending slaves in the British dominions, under this treaty, when the provisions of our own constitution, within the States of our own Union, in relation to fugitive slaves, cannot be executed? We all know that a judicial trial is immunity to a slave pursued by his owner, in many of our own States. Can such trials be expected to result better for the owner in the British dominions, where the relation of master and slave is not admitted, and where abolitionism is the policy of the government, the voice of the law, and the spirit of the people? Killing his master in defence of his liberty, is no offence in the eye of British law or British people; and no slave will ever be given up for it.
(Mr. WRIGHT here said, that counterfeiting American securities, or bank notes, was no offence in Canada; and the same question might arise there in relation to forgers.)
Mr. BENTON resumed. Better far to leave things as they are. Forgers are now given up in Canada, by executive authority, when they fly to that province. This is done in the spirit of good neighborhood; and because all honest governments have an interest in suppressing crimes, and repelling criminals. The governor acts from a sense of propriety, and the dictates of decency and justice. Not so with the judge. He must go by the law; and when there is no law against the offence, he has nothing to justify him in delivering the offender.
Conventions for the mutual surrender of large offenders, where dominions are coterminous, might be proper. Limited, as proposed by Mr. Jefferson in 1793, and they might be beneficial in suppression of border crimes and the preservation of order and justice. But extended as this is to a long list of offenders--unrestricted as it is in the case of murder--applying to dominions in all parts of the world, and to ships in every sea--it can be nothing but the source of individual annoyance and national recrimination. Besides, if we surrender to Great Britain, why not to Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and all the countries of the world? If we give up the Irishman to England, why not the Pole to Russia, the Italian to Austria, the German to his prince; and so on throughout the catalogue of nations? Sir, the article is a pestiferous one; and as it is determinable upon notice, it will become the duty of the American people to elect a President who will give the notice, and so put an end to its existence.
Addressing itself to the natural feelings of the country, against high crimes and border offenders, and in favor of political liberty, the message of the President communicating and recommending this treaty to us, carefully presents this article as conforming to our feelings in all these particulars. It is represented as applicable only to high crimes--to border offenders; and to offences not political. In all this, the message is disingenuous and deceptive, and calculated to ravish from the ignorant and the thoughtless an applause to which the treaty is not entitled. It says:
"The surrender to justice of persons who, having committed high crimes, seek an asylum in the territories of a neighboring nation, would seem to be an act due to the cause of general justice, and properly belonging to the present state of civilization and intercourse. The British provinces of North America are separated from the States of the Union by a line of several thousand miles; and, along portions of this line, the amount of population on either side is quite considerable, while the passage of the boundary is always easy.
"Offenders against the law on the one side transfer themselves to the other. Sometimes, with great difficulty they are brought to justice; but very often they wholly escape. A consciousness of immunity, from the power of avoiding justice in this way, instigates the unprincipled and reckless to the commission of offences; and the peace and good neighborhood of the border are consequently often disturbed.
"In the case of offenders fleeing from Canada into the United States, the governors of States are often applied to for their surrender; and questions of a very embarrassing nature arise from these applications. It has been thought highly important, therefore, to provide for the whole case by a proper treaty stipulation. The article on the subject, in the proposed treaty, is carefully confined to such offences as all mankind agree to regard as heinous and destructive of the security of life and of property. In this careful and specific enumeration of crimes, the object has been to exclude all political offences, or criminal charges arising from wars or intestine commotions. Treason, misprision of treason, libels, desertion from military service, and other offences of a similar character, are excluded."
In these phrases the message recommends the article to the Senate and the country; and yet nothing could be more fallacious and deceptive than such a recommendation. It confines the surrender to border offenders--Canadian fugitives: yet the treaty extends it to all persons committing offences under the "jurisdiction" of Great Britain--a term which includes all her territory throughout the world, and every ship or fort over which her flag waves. The message confines the surrender to high crimes: yet we have seen that the treaty includes crimes which may be of low degree--low indeed! A hare or a partridge from a preserve; a loaf of bread to sustain life; a sixpenny counterfeit note passed; a shed burnt; a weapon lifted, without striking! The message says all political crimes, all treasons, misprision of treason, libels, and desertions are excluded. The treaty shows that these offences are not excluded--that the limitations proposed by Mr. Jefferson are not inserted; and, consequently, under the head of murder, the insurgent, the rebel, and the traitor who has shed blood, may be given up; and so of other offences. When once surrendered, he may be tried for any thing. The fate of Jonathan Robbins, alias Nash, is a good illustration of all this. He was a British sailor--was guilty of mutiny, murder, and piracy on the frigate Hermione--deserted to the United States--was demanded by the British minister as a murderer under Jay's treaty--given up as a murderer--then tried by a court-martial on board a man-of-war for mutiny, murder, desertion, and piracy--found guilty--executed--and his body hung in chains from the yard-arm of a man-of-war. And so it would be again. The man given up for one offence, would be tried for another; and in the number and insignificance of the offences for which he might be surrendered, there would be no difficulty in reaching any victim that a foreign government chose to pursue. If this article had been in force in the time of the Irish rebellion, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald had escaped to the United States after wounding, as he did, several of the myrmidons who arrested him, he might have been demanded as a fugitive from justice, for the assault with intent to kill; and then tried for treason, and hanged and quartered; and such will be the operation of the article if it continues.
Chapter CVI
BRITISH TREATY; AFRICAN SQUADRON FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE; MR. BENTON'S SPEECH; EXTRACT.
The suppression of the African slave-trade is the second subject included in the treaty; and here the regret renews itself at the absence of all the customary lights upon the origin and progress of treaty stipulations. No minutes of conference; no protocols; no draughts or counterdraughts; no diplomatic notes; not a word of any kind from one negotiator to the other. Nothing in relation to the subject, in the shape of negotiation, is communicated to us. Even the section of the correspondence entitled "Suppression of the slave-trade"--even this section professedly devoted to the subject, contains not a syllable upon it from the negotiators to each other, or to their Governments; but opens and closes with communications from American naval officers, evidently extracted from them by the American negotiator, to justify the forthcoming of preconceived and foregone conclusions. Never since the art of writing was invented could there have been a treaty of such magnitude negotiated with such total absence of necessary light upon the history of its formation. Lamentable as is this defect of light upon the formation of the treaty generally, it becomes particularly so at this point, where a stipulation new, delicate, and embarrassing, has been unexpectedly introduced, and falls upon us as abruptly as if it fell from the clouds. In the absence of all appropriate information from the negotiators themselves, I am driven to glean among the scanty paragraphs of the President's message, and in the answers of the naval officers to the Secretary's inquiries. Though silent as to the origin and progress of the proposition for this novel alliance, they still show the important particular of the motives which caused it.
Passing from the political consequences of this entanglement--consequences which no human foresight can reach--I come to the immediate and practical effects which lie within our view, and which display the enormous inexpediency of the measure. First: the expense in money--an item which would seem to be entitled to some regard in the present deplorable state of the treasury--in the present cry for retrenchment--and in the present heavy taxation upon the comforts and necessaries of life. This expense for 80 guns will be about $750,000 per annum, exclusive of repairs and loss of lives. I speak of the whole expense, as part of the naval establishment of the United States, and not of the mere expense of working the ships after they have gone to sea. Nine thousand dollars per gun is about the expense of the establishment; 80 guns would be $720,000 per annum, which is $3,600,000 for five years. But the squadron is not limited to a maximum of 80 guns; that is the minimum limit: it is to be 80 guns "at the least." And if the party which granted these 80 shall continue in power, Great Britain may find it as easy to double the number, as it was to obtain the first eighty. Nor is the time limited to five years; it is only determinable after that period by giving notice; a notice not to be expected from those who made the treaty. At the least, then, the moneyed expense is to be $3,600,000; if the present party continues in power, it may double or treble that amount; and this, besides the cost of the ships. Such is the moneyed expense. In ships, the wear and tear of vessels must be great. We are to prepare, equip, and maintain in service, on a coast 4,000 miles from home, the adequate number of vessels to carry these 80 guns. It is not sufficient to send the number there; they must be kept up and maintained in service there; and this will require constant expenses to repair injuries, supply losses and cover casualties. In the employment of men, and the waste of life and health, the expenditure must be large. Ten men and two officers to the gun, is the smallest estimate that can be admitted. This would require a complement of 960 men. Including all the necessary equipage of the ship, and above 1,000 persons will be constantly required. These are to be employed at a vast distance from home; on a savage coast; in a perilous service; on both sides of the equator; and in a climate which is death to the white race. This waste of men--this wear and tear of life and constitution--should stand for something in a Christian land, and in this age of roaming philanthropy; unless, indeed, in excessive love for the blacks, it is deemed meritorious to destroy the whites. The field of operations for this squadron is great; the term "coast of Africa" having an immense application in the vocabulary of the slave-trade. On the western coast of Africa, according to the replies of the naval officers Bell and Paine, the trade is carried on from Senegal to Cape Frio--a distance of 3,600 miles, following its windings as the watching squadrons would have to go. But the track of the slavers between Africa and America has to be watched, as well as the immediate coast; and this embraces a space in the ocean of 35 degrees on each side of the equator (say four thousand miles), and covering the American coast from Cuba to Rio Janeiro; so that the coast of Africa--the western coast alone--embraces a diagram of the ocean of near 4,000 miles every way, having the equator in the centre, and bounded east and west by the New and the Old World. This is for the western coast only: the eastern is nearly as large. The same naval officers say that a large trade in negroes is carried on in the Mahometan countries bordering on the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and in the Portuguese East India colonies; and, what is worthy to be told, it is also carried on in the British presidency of Bombay, and other British Asiatic possessions. It is true, the officers say the American slavers are not yet there; but go there they will, according to all the laws of trading and hunting, the moment they are disturbed, or the trade fails on the western coast. Wherever the trade exists, the combined powers must follow it: for good is not to be done by halves, and philanthropy is not to be circumscribed by coasts and latitudes. Among all the strange features in the comedy of errors which has ended in this treaty that of sending American ministers abroad, to close the markets of the world against the slave-trade, is the most striking. Not content with the expenses, loss of life, and political entanglement of this alliance, we must electioneer for insults, and send ministers abroad to receive, pocket, and bring them home.
In what circumstances do we undertake all this fine work? What is our condition at home, while thus going abroad in search of employment? We raise 1,000 men for foreign service, while reducing our little army at home! We send ships to the coast of Africa, while dismounting our dragoons on the frontiers of Missouri and Arkansas! We protect Africa from slave-dealers, and abandon Florida to savage butchery! We send cannon, shot, shells, powder, lead, bombs, and balls, to Africa, while denying arms and ammunition to the young men who go to Florida! We give food, clothes, pay, to the men who go to Africa, and deny rations even to those who go to Florida! We cry out for retrenchment, and scatter $3,600,000 at one broad cast of the hand! We tax tea and coffee, and send the money to Africa! We are borrowing and taxing, and striking paper money, and reducing expenses at home, when engaging in this new and vast expense for the defence of Africa! What madness and folly! Has Don Quixote come to life, and placed himself at the head of our Government, and taken the negroes of Africa, instead of the damsels of Spain, for the objects of his chivalrous protection?
The slave-trade is diabolical and infamous; but Great Britain is not the country to read us a lesson upon its atrocity, or to stimulate our exertions to suppress it. The nation which, at the peace of Utrecht, made the asiento--the slave contract--a condition of peace, fighting on till she obtained it; the nation which entailed African slavery upon us--which rejected our colonial statutes for its suppression[4]--which has many, many ten millions, of white subjects in Europe and in Asia in greater slavery of body and mind, in more bodily misery and mental darkness, than any black slaves in the United States;--such a nation has no right to cajole or to dragoon us into alliances and expenses for the suppression of slavery on the coast of Africa. We have done our part on that subject. Considering the example and instruction we had from Great Britain, we have done a wonderful part. The constitution of the United States, mainly made by slaveholding States, authorized Congress to put an end to the importation of slaves by a given day. Anticipating the limited day by legislative action, the Congress had the law ready to take effect on the day permitted by the constitution. On the 1st day of January, 1808, Thomas Jefferson being President of the United States, the importation of slaves became unlawful and criminal. A subsequent act of Congress following up the idea of Mr. Jefferson in his first draught of the Declaration of Independence, qualified the crime as piratical, and delivered up its pursuers to the sword of the law, and to the vengeance of the world, as the enemies of the human race. Vessels of war cruising on the coast of Africa, under our act of 1819, have been directed to search our own vessels--to arrest the violators of the law, and bring them in--the ships for confiscation, and the men for punishment. This was doing enough--enough for a young country, far remote in the New World, and whose policy is to avoid foreign connections and entangling alliances. We did this voluntarily, without instigation, and without supervision from abroad; and now there can be no necessity for Great Britain to assume a superiority over us in this particular, and bind us in treaty stipulations, which destroy all the merit of a voluntary action. We have done enough; and it is no part of our business to exalt still higher the fanatical spirit of abolition, which is now become the stalking-horse of nations and of political powers. Our country contains many slaves, derived from Africa; and, while holding these, it is neither politic nor decent to join the crusade of European powers to put down the African slave-trade. From combinations of powers against the present slave-takers, there is but a step to the combination of the same powers against the present slaveholders; and it is not for the United States to join in the first movement, which leads to the second. "No entangling alliances" should be her motto! And as for her part in preventing the foreign slave-trade, it is sufficient that she prevents her own citizens, in her own way, from engaging in it; and that she takes care to become neither the instrument, nor the victim, of European combinations for its suppression.
[4] He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare--the opprobrium of infidel powers--is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold. He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce; and, that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting the very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.--[Original draught of the Declaration of Independence, as drawn by Mr. Jefferson, and before it was altered by the committee.]
The eighth and ninth articles of the treaty bind us to this naval alliance with Great Britain. By these articles we stipulate to keep a squadron of at least 80 guns on the coast of Africa for five years for the suppression of this trade--with a further stipulation to keep it up until one or the other party shall give notice of a design to retire from it. This is the insidious way of getting an onerous measure saddled upon the country. Short-sighted people are fascinated with the idea of being able to get rid of the burden when they please; but such burdens are always found to be the most interminable. In this case Great Britain will never give the notice: our government will not without a congressional recommendation, and it will be found difficult to unite the two Houses in a request. The stipulation may be considered permanent under the delusion of a five years' limit, and an optional continuance.
The papers communicated do not show at whose instance these articles were inserted; and the absence of all minutes of conferences leaves us at a loss to trace their origin and progress in the hands of the negotiators. The little that is seen would indicate its origin to be wholly American; evidence aliunde proves it to be wholly British; and that our Secretary-negotiator was only doing the work of the British minister in assuming the ostensible paternity of the articles. In the papers communicated, there is not a syllable upon the subject from Lord Ashburton. His finger is not seen in the affair. Mr. Webster appears as sole mover and conductor of the proposition. In his letter of the 30th of April to Captains Bell and Paine of the United States navy, he first approaches the subject, and opens it with a series of questions on the African slave-trade. This draws forth the answers which I have already shown. This is the commencement of the business. And here we are struck with the curious fact, that this letter of inquiry, laying the foundation for a novel and extraordinary article in the treaty, bears date 44 days before the first written communication from the British to the American negotiator! and 47 days before the first written communication from Mr. Webster to Lord Ashburton! It would seem that much was done by word of mouth before pen was put to paper; and that in this most essential part of the negotiations, pen was not put to paper at all, from one negotiator to the other, throughout the whole affair. Lord Ashburton's name is never found in connection with the subject! Mr. Webster's only in the notes of inquiry to the American naval officers. Even in these he does not mention the treaty, nor allude to the negotiation, nor indicate the purpose for which information was sought! So that this most extraordinary article is without a clew to its history, and stands in the treaty as if it had fallen from the clouds, and chanced to lodge there! Even the President's message, which undertakes to account for the article, and to justify it, is silent on the point, though laboring through a mass of ambiguities and obscurities, evidently calculated to raise the inference that it originated with us. From the papers communicated, it is an American proposition, of which the British negotiator knew nothing until he signed the treaty. That is the first place where his name is seen in conjunction with it, or seen in a place to authorize the belief that he knew of it. Yet, it is certainly a British proposition; it is certainly a British article. Since the year 1806 Great Britain has been endeavoring to get the United States into some sort of arrangement for co-operation in the suppression of the African slave-trade. It was slightly attempted in Mr. Jefferson's time--again at Ghent; but the warning-voice of the Father of his country--no entangling alliances--saved us on each occasion. Now we are yoked--yoked in with the British on the coast of Africa; and when we can get free from it, no mortal can foresee.
Chapter CVII
EXPENSE OF THE NAVY: WASTE OF MONEY NECESSITY OF A NAVAL PEACE ESTABLISHMENT, AND OF A NAVAL POLICY.
The naval policy of the United States was a question of party division from the origin of parties in the early years of the government--the federal party favoring a strong and splendid navy, the republican a moderate establishment, adapted to the purposes of defence more than of offence: and this line of division between the parties (under whatsoever names they have since worn), continues more or less perceptible to the present time. In this time (the administration of Mr. Tyler) all the branches being of the same political party, and retaining the early principles of the party under the name of whig, the policy for a great navy developed itself with great vigor. The new Secretary, Mr. Upshur, recommended a large increase of ships, seamen, and officers, involving an additional expense of about two millions and a half in the naval branch of the service; and that at a time when a deficit of fourteen millions was announced, and a resort to taxes, loans and treasury notes recommended to make it up; and when no emergency required increase in that branch of the public service. Such a recommendation brought on a debate in which the policy of a great navy was discussed--the necessity of a naval peace establishment was urged--the cost of our establishment examined--and the waste of money in the naval department severely exposed. Mr. Calhoun, always attentive to the economical working of the government, opened the discussion on this interesting point.
"The aggregate expense of the British navy in the year 1840 amounted to 4,980,353 pounds sterling, deducting the expense of transport for troops and convicts, which does not properly belong to the navy. That sum, at $4 80 to the pound sterling, is equal to $23,905,694 46. The navy was composed of 392 vessels of war of all descriptions, leaving out 36 steam vessels in the packet service, and 23 sloops fitted for foreign packets. Of the 392, 98 were line of battle ships, of which 19 were building; 116 frigates, of which 14 were building; 68 sloops, of which 13 were building; 44 steam vessels, of which 16 were building; and 66 gun brigs, schooners, and cutters, of which 12 were building.
"The effective force of the year--that which was in actual service, consisted of 3,400 officers, 3,998 petty officers, 12,846 seamen, and 9,000 marines, making an aggregate of 29,244. The number of vessels in actual service were 175, of which 24 were line of battle ships, 31 frigates, 30 steam vessels, and 45 gun brigs, schooners, and cutters, not including the 30 steamers and 24 sloops in the packet service, at an average expenditure of $573 for each individual, including officers, petty officers, seamen, and marines.
"Our navy is composed, at present, according to the report of the Secretary accompanying the President's message, of 67 vessels--of which 11 are line of battle ships, 17 frigates, 18 sloops of war, 2 brigs, 4 schooners, 4 steamers, 3 store ships, 3 receiving vessels, and 5 small schooners. The estimates for the year are made on the assumption, that there will be in service during the year, 2 ships of the line, 1 razee, 6 frigates, 20 sloops, 11 brigs and schooners, 3 steamers, 3 store ships and 8 small vessels; making in the aggregate, 53 vessels. The estimates for the year, for the navy and marine corps, as has been stated, is $8,705,579 83, considerably exceeding one-third of the entire expenditures of the British navy for 1840.
"Mr. C. contended there should be no difference in the expenses of the two navies. We should build as cheap and employ men as cheap, or we should not be able to compete with the British navy. If our navy should prove vastly more expensive than the British navy, we might as well give up, and he recommended this matter to the consideration of the Senate.
"Among the objects of retrenchment, I place at the head the great increase that is proposed to be made to the expenditures of the navy, compared with that of last year. It is no less than $2,508,032 13, taking the expenditures of last year from the annual report of the Secretary. I see no sufficient reason, at this time, and in the present embarrassed condition of the Treasury, for this great increase. I have looked over the report of the Secretary hastily, and find none assigned, except general reasons, for an increased navy, which I am not disposed to controvert. But I am decidedly of the opinion, that the commencement ought to be postponed till some systematic plan is matured, both as to the ratio of increase and the description of force of which the addition should consist, and till the department is properly organized, and in a condition to enforce exact responsibility and economy in its disbursements. That the department is not now properly organized, and in that condition, we have the authority of the Secretary himself, in which I concur. I am satisfied that its administration cannot be made effective under the present organization, particularly as it regards its expenditures."
"The expenses of this government were of three classes: the civil list, the army and the navy; and all of these had been increased enormously since 1823. The remedy now was to compare the present with the past, mark the difference, and compel the difference to be accounted for. He cited 1823, and intended to make that the standard, because that was the standard for him, the government being then economically administered. He selected 1823, also, because in 1824 we commenced a new system, and that of protection, which had done so much evil. We had made two tariffs since then, the origin of all evils. The civil list rose in seventeen years from about $2,000,000 to $6,000,000--nearly a threefold proportion compared with the increase of population. In Congress the increase had been enormous. The increase of contingent expenses had been fivefold, and compared with population, sixfold. The aggregate expenses of the two Houses now amounted to more than $250,000. The expense of collecting revenue had also been enormously increased. From 1823 it had gone up from $700,000 to $1,700,000--an increase of one million of dollars. The expense on collection in 1823 was but one per cent., now one per cent. and 5-100. Under the tariff these increases were made from 1824 to 1828. Estimating the expenses of collection at $800,000, about $1,000,000 would be saved. The judiciary had increased in this proportion, and the light-house department also. In the war department, in 1822 (the only year for which he had estimates), the expenses per man were but $264; now the increase had gone up to $400 for each individual. At one time it had been as much as $480 for each individual--$1,400,000 could be saved here in the army proper, including the military academy alone. It might be said that one was a cheap and the other a dear year. Far otherwise; meat was never cheaper, clothing never as cheap as now. All this resulted from the expansive force of a surplus revenue. In 1822 he had reduced the expenses of every man in the army.
"It had been proposed to increase the expenditures of the navy two and a half millions of dollars over the past year, and he was not ready for this. Deduct two millions from this recommendation, and it would be two millions saved. These appropriations, at least, might go over to the next session. The expenses of the marine corps amounted to nearly six hundred thousand dollars, nearly six hundred dollars a head--two hundred dollars a head higher than the army, cadets and all. He hoped the other expenses of the navy department were not in proportion so high as this. Between the reductions which might be made in the marine corps and the navy, two millions and a half might be saved.
"The Secretary of the Treasury estimates for 32 millions of dollars for the expenses of the current year. I am satisfied that $17,000,000 were sufficient to meet the per annum expenses of the government, and that this sum would have been according to the ratio of population. This sum, by economy, could be brought down to fifteen millions, and thus save nine millions over the present estimates. This could be done in three or four years--the Executive leading the way, and Congress co-operating and following the Executive."
This was spoken in the year 1842. Mr. Calhoun was then confident that the ordinary expenses of the government should not exceed 17 millions of dollars, and that, with good economy that sum might be further reduced two millions, making the expenses but 15 millions per annum. The navy was one of the great points to which he looked for retrenchment and reduction; and on that point he required that the annual appropriation for the navy should be decreased instead of being augmented; and that the money appropriated should be more judiciously and economically applied. The President should lead the way in economy and retrenchment. Organization as well as economy was wanted in the navy--a properly organized peace establishment. The peace establishment of the British navy in 1840, was 24 millions--there being 173 vessels in commission. Instead of reduction, the expense of our navy, also in time of peace, is gaining largely upon hers. It is nearly doubled since Mr. Calhoun spoke--15 millions in 1855.
Mr. Woodbury, who had been Secretary of the Navy under President Jackson, spoke decidedly against the proposed increase, and against the large expenditure in the department, and its unfavorable comparison with the expenses of the British navy in time of peace. He said:
"There are twenty-nine or thirty post-captains now on leave or waiting orders, and from thirty to forty commanders. Many of them are impatient to be called into active service--hating a life of indolence--an idle loafing life--and who are anxious to be performing some public service for the pay they receive. It was, generally, not their fault that they were not on duty; but ours, in making them so numerous that they could not be employed. He dwelt on the peace establishment of England--for her navy averaged £18,000,000 in time of war, before the year 1820--but her peace establishment was now only £5,000,000 to 6,000,000. Gentlemen talk of 103 post-captains being necessary, for employment in commission; while England has only 70 post-captains employed in vessels in commission. She had fewer commanders so employed than our whole number of the same grade.
"The host of English navy officers was on retired and half-pay--less in amount than ours by one-third when full, and not one-half of full pay often, when retired; and her seamen only half. Her vessels afloat, also, were mostly small ones--63 of them being steamers, with only one or two guns on an average.
"That the navy ought to be regulated by law, every gentleman admits. Without any express law, was there not a manifest propriety in any proviso which should prevent the number of appointments from being carried half up, or quite up to the standard of the British navy, on full pay? It would be a great relief to the Executive, and the head of the Navy Department, to fix some limitation on appointments, by which the importunities with which they are beset shall not be the occasion of overloading the Government with a greater number of officers in any grade than the exigencies of the service actually demand. A clerk in any public office, a lieutenant in the army, a judge could not be appointed without authority of law; and why should there not be a similar check with regard to officers in the navy?
"It was urged heretofore, in official communications by himself, that it would be proper to limit Executive discretion in this; and a benefit to the Executive and the departments would also accrue by passing laws regulating the peace establishment. He had submitted a resolution for that purpose, in December last, which had not been acted on; though he hoped it yet would be acted upon before our adjournment. It was better to bring this matter forward in an appropriation bill, than that there should be no check at all. It is the only way in which the House now finds it practicable to effect any control on this question. It could only be done in an appropriation bill, which gives that House the power of control as to navy officers. There should be no reflection on the House on this account; for there is no reflection on the Executive or the Senate. It is their right and duty in the present exigency. He considered the introduction of it into this bill under all the circumstances, not only highly excusable, but justifiable. He did not mean to say that a separate law would not, in itself, if prepared early and seasonably, be more desirable; but he contended this check was better than none at all. When acting on this proviso the Senate is acting on the whole bill. It was not put in without some meaning. It was not merely to strip the Executive and the Senate of the appointing power, now unlimited: its object was to reduce the expenses of the navy, from the Secretary of the Navy's estimate of eight and a half millions of dollars, to about $6,293,000. That was the whole effect of the whole measure, and of all the changes in the bill.
"The difference between both sides of the Senate on this subject seemed to be, that one believed the navy ought to be kept upon a quasi war establishment; and the other, in peace and not expecting war, believed it ought to be on a peace establishment;--not cut down below that, but left liberally for peace.
"During the administration of the younger Adams, there was a peace establishment of the navy; and was it not then perfectly efficient and prosperous for all peace purposes? Yet the average expenditure then was only from three to four millions. It was so under General Jackson. Under Mr. Adams, piracy was extirpated in the West Indies. Under his successor, the Malays in the farthest India were chastised; and a semi-banditti broken up at the Falkland Islands. It was not till 1836 '37 that a large increase commenced. But why? Because there was an overflowing treasury. We were embarrassed with money, rather than for money. An exploring expedition was then decided upon. But even with that expedition--so noble and glorious in some respects--six millions and a fraction were the whole expenses. But why should it now at once be raised to eight and a half millions?"
The British have a peace as well as a war establishment for their navy; and the former was usually about one-third of the latter. We have no naval peace establishment. It is all on the war footing, and is now (1855) nearly double the expense of what it was in the war with Great Britain. A perpetual war establishment, when there is no war. This is an anomaly which no other country presents, and which no country can stand, and arises from the act of 1806, which authorizes the President "to keep in actual service, in time of peace, so many of the frigates and other armed public vessels of the United States as in his judgment the nature of the service might require, and to cause the residue thereof to be laid up in ordinary in convenient ports." This is the discretion which the act of 1806 gives to the President--unlimited so far as that clause goes; but limited by two subsequent clauses limiting the number of officers to be employed to 94, and the whole number of seamen and boys to 925; and placing the unemployed officers on half pay without rations--a degree of reduction which made them anxious to be at sea instead of remaining unemployed at home. Under Mr. Jefferson, then, the act of 1806 made a naval peace establishment; but doing away all the limitations of that act, and leaving nothing of it in force but the presidential discretion to employ as many vessels as the service might require, the whole navy is thrown into the hands of the President: and the manner in which he might exercise that discretion might depend entirely upon the view which he would take of the naval policy which ought to be pursued--whether great fleets for offence, or cruisers for defence. All the limitations of the act of 1806 have been thrown down--even the limitation to half pay; and unemployed pay has been placed so high as to make it an object with officers to be unemployed. Mr. Reuel Williams, of Maine, exposed this solecism in a few pertinent remarks. He said:
"Half of the navy officers are now ashore, and there can be no necessity for such a number of officers as to admit of half being at sea, and the other half on land. Such was not the case heretofore. It was in 1835 that such increase of shore pay was made, as caused it to be the interest of the officers to be off duty. The only cure for this evil was, either to reduce the pay when off duty, or to limit the time of relaxation, and to adjust the number to the actual requirements of the service."
The vote was taken upon the increase proposed by the Secretary of the Navy, and recommended by the President, and it was carried by one vote--the yeas and nays being well defined by the party line.
"YEAS--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clayton, Conrad, Crittenden, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Porter, Preston, Rives, Simmons, Tallmadge, and Woodbridge--23."
"NAYS--Messrs. Allen, Bagby, Benton, Buchanan, Crafts, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Smith of Indiana, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, White, Wilcox, Williams, Woodbury, Wright and Young--22."
Mr. Benton spoke chiefly to the necessity of having a naval policy--a policy which would determine what was to be relied on--a great navy for offence, or a moderate one for defence; and a peace establishment in time of peace, or a war establishment in peace as well as war. Some extracts from his speech are given in the next chapter.
CVIII. EXPENSES OF THE NAVY: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS
I propose to recall to the recollection of the Senate the attempt which was made in 1822--being seven years after the war--to limit and fix a naval peace establishment; and to fix it at about one-fourth of what is now proposed, and that that establishment was rejected because it was too large. Going upon the plan of Mr. Jefferson's act of 1806, it took the number of men and officers for the limitation, discouraged absence on shore by reducing the pay one-half and withholding rations; collected timber for future building of vessels; and directed all to remain in port which the public service did not require to go abroad. It provided for one rear-admiral; five commodores; twenty-five captains; thirty masters commandant; one hundred and ninety lieutenants; four hundred midshipmen; thirty-five surgeons; forty-five surgeon's mates: six chaplains; forty pursers; and three thousand five hundred men and boys--in all a little over four thousand men. Yet Congress refused to adopt this number. This shows what Congress then thought of the size of a naval peace establishment. Mr. B. was contemporary with that bill--supported it--knows the reason why it was rejected--and that was, because Congress would not sanction so large an establishment. To this decision there was a close adherence for many years. In the year 1833--eleven years after that time, and when the present senator from New Hampshire [Mr. WOODBURY] was Secretary of the Navy, the naval establishment was but little above the bill of 1822. It was about five thousand men, and cost about four millions of dollars, and was proposed by that Secretary to be kept at about that size. Here Mr. B. read several extracts from Mr. Woodbury's report of 1833--the last which he made as Secretary of the Navy--which verified these statements. Mr. B. then looked to the naval establishment on the 1st of January, 1841, and showed that the establishment had largely increased since Mr. Woodbury's report, and was far beyond my calculation in 1822. The total number of men, of all grades, in the service in 1841, was a little over eight thousand; the total cost about six millions of dollars--being double the amount and cost of the proposed peace establishment of the United States in the year 1822, and nearly double the actual establishment of 1833. Mr. B. then showed the additions made by executive authority in 1841, and that the number of men was carried up to upwards of eleven thousand, and the expense for 1842 was to exceed eight millions of dollars! This (he said) was considered an excessive increase; and the design now was to correct it, and carry things back to what they were a year before. This was the design; and this, so far from being destructive to the navy, was doing far more for it than its most ardent friends proposed or hoped for a few years before.
Mr. B. here exhibited a table showing the actual state of the navy, in point of numbers, at the commencement of the years 1841 and 1842; and showed that the increase in one year was nearly as great as it had been in the previous twenty years; and that its totality at the latter of these periods was between eleven and twelve thousand men, all told. This is what the present administration has done in one year--the first year of its existence: and it is only the commencement of their plan--the first step in a long succession of long steps. The further increases, still contemplated were great, and were officially made known to the Congress, and the estimates increased accordingly. To say nothing of what was in the Senate in its executive capacity, Mr. B. would read a clause from the report of the Senate's Committee on Naval Affairs, which showed the number of vessels which the Secretary of the Navy proposed to have in commission, and the consequent vast increase of men and money which would be required. (The following is the extract from Mr. Bayard's report):
"The second section of the act of Congress of the 21st April, 1806, expressly authorizes the President 'to keep in actual service, in time of peace, so many of the frigates and other public armed vessels of the United States, as in his judgment the nature of the service may require.' In the exercise of this discretion, the committee are informed by the Secretary of the Navy that he proposes to employ a squadron in the Mediterranean, consisting of two ships of the line, four frigates, and four sloops and brigs--in all, ten vessels; another squadron on the Brazil station, consisting, also, of two ships-of-the-line, four frigates, and four sloops and brigs; which two squadrons will be made from time to time to exchange their stations, and thus to traverse the intermediate portion of the Atlantic. He proposes, further, to employ a squadron in the Pacific, consisting of one ship-of-the-line, two frigates, and four sloops; and a similar squadron of one ship of the line, two frigates, and four sloops in the East Indies; which squadrons, in like manner, exchanging from time to time their stations, will traverse the intermediate portion of the Pacific, giving countenance and protection to the whale fishery in that ocean. He proposes, further, to employ a fifth squadron, to be called the home squadron, consisting of one ship-of-the-line, three frigates, and three sloops, which, besides the duties which its name indicates, will have devolved upon it the duties of the West India squadron, whose cruising ground extended to the mouth of the Amazon, and as far as the 30th degree of west longitude from London. He proposes, additionally, to employ on the African coast one frigate and four sloops and brigs--in all, five vessels; four steamers in the Gulf of Mexico, and four steamers on the lakes. There will thus be in commission seven ships-of-the-line, sixteen frigates, twenty-three sloops and brigs, and eight steamers--in all, fifty-four vessels."
This is the report of the committee. This is what we are further to expect. Five great squadrons, headed by ships of the line; and one of them that famous home squadron hatched into existence at the extra session one year ago, and which is the ridicule of all except those who live at home upon it, enjoying the emoluments of service without any service to perform. Look at it. Examine the plan in its parts, and see the enormity of its proportions. Two ships-of-the-line, four frigates, and four sloops and brigs for the Mediterranean--a sea as free from danger to our commerce as is the Chesapeake Bay. Why, sir, our Secretary is from the land of Decatur, and must have heard of that commander, and how with three little frigates, one sloop, and a few brigs and schooners, he humbled Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, and put an end to their depredations on American ships and commerce. He must have heard of Lord Exmouth, who, with less force than he proposes to send to the Mediterranean, went there and crushed the fortifications of Algiers, and took the bond of the pirates never to trouble a Christian again. And he must have heard of the French, who, since 1830, are the owners of Algiers. Certainly the Mediterranean is as free from danger to-day as is the Chesapeake Bay; and yet our Secretary proposes to send two ships-of-the-line, four frigates, and four sloops to that safe sea, to keep holiday there for three years. Another squadron of the same magnitude is to go to Brazil, where a frigate and a sloop would be the extent that any emergency could require, and more than has ever been required yet. The same of the Pacific Ocean, where Porter sailed in triumph during the war with one little frigate; and a squadron to the East Indies, where no power has any navy, and where our sloops and brigs would dominate without impediment. In all fifty-four men-of-war! Seven ships-of-the-line, sixteen frigates, twenty-three sloops and brigs, and eight steamers. And all this under Jefferson's act of 1806, when there was not a ship-of-the-line, nor a large frigate, nor twenty vessels of all sorts, and part of them to remain in port--only the number going forth that would require nine hundred and twenty-five men to man them! just about the complement of one of these seven ships-of-the-line. Does not presidential discretion want regulating when such things as these can be done under the act of 1806? Has any one calculated the amount of this increase, and counted up the amount of men and money which it will cost? The report does not, and, in that respect, is essentially deficient. It ought to be counted, and Mr. B. would attempt it. He acknowledged the difficulty of such an undertaking; how easy it was for a speaker--and especially such a speaker as he was--to get into a fog when he got into masses of millions, and so bewilder others as well as himself. To avoid this, details must be avoided, and results made plain by simplifying the elements of calculation. He would endeavor to do so, by taking a few plain data, in this case--the data correct in themselves, and the results, therefore, mathematically demonstrated.
He would take the guns and the men--show what we had now, and what we proposed to have; and what was the cost of each gun afloat, and the number of men to work it. The number of guns we now have afloat is nine hundred and thirty-seven; the number of men between eleven and twelve thousand; and the estimated cost for the whole, a fraction over eight millions of dollars. This would give about twelve men and about nine thousand dollars to each gun. [Mr. BAYARD asked how could these nine thousand dollars a gun be made out?] Mr. BENTON replied. By counting every thing that was necessary to give you the use of the gun--every thing incident to its use--every thing belonging to the whole naval establishment. The end, design, and effect of the whole establishment, was to give you the use of the gun. That was all that was wanted. But, to get it, an establishment had to be kept up of vast extent and variety--of shops and yards on land, as well as ships at sea--of salaries and pensions, as well as powder and balls. Every expense is counted, and that gives the cost per gun. Mr. B. said he would now analyze the gentleman's report, and see what addition these five squadrons would make to the expense of the naval establishment. The first point was, to find the number of guns which they were to bear, and which was the element in the calculation that would lead to the results sought for. Recurring to the gentleman's report, and taking the number of each class of vessels, and the number of guns which each would carry, and the results would be:
7 ships-of-the-line, rating 74, but carrying 80 guns, 560 16 frigates, 44 guns each, 704 13 sloops, 20 guns each, 260 10 brigs, 10 guns each, 100 8 steamers, 10 guns each, 80 ------ 1,704
Here (said Mr. B.) is an aggregate of 1,704 guns, which, at $9,000 each gun, would give $15,336,000, as the sum which the Treasury would have to pay for a naval establishment which would give us the use of that number. Deduct the difference between the 937, the present number of guns, and this 1,704, and you have 767 for the increased number of guns, which, at $9,000 each, will give $6,903,000 for the increased cost in money. This was the moneyed result of the increase. Now take the personal increase--that is to say, the increased number of men which the five squadrons would require. Taking ten men and two officers to the gun--in all, twelve--and the increased number of men and officers required for 767 guns would be 8,204. Add these to the 11,000 or 12,000 now in service, and you have close upon 20,000 men for the naval peace establishment of 1843, costing about fifteen millions and a half of dollars.
But I am asked, and in a way to question my computation, how I get at these nine thousand dollars cost for each gun afloat? I answer--by a simple and obvious process. I take the whole annual cost of the navy department, and then see how many guns we have afloat. The object is to get guns afloat, and the whole establishment is subordinate and incidental to that object. Not only the gun itself, the ship which carries it, and the men who work it, are to be taken into the account, but the docks and navy-yards at home, the hospitals and pensions, the marines and guards--every thing, in fact, which constituted the expense of the naval establishment. The whole is employed, or incurred, to produce the result--which is, so many guns at sea to be fired upon the enemy. The whole is incurred for the sake of the guns, and therefore all must be counted. Going by this rule (said Mr. B.), it would be easily shown that his statement of yesterday was about correct--rather under than over; and this could be seen by making a brief and plain sum in arithmetic. We have the number of guns afloat, and the estimated expense for the year: the guns 936; the estimate for the year is $8,705,579. Now, divide this amount by the number of guns, and the result is a little upwards of $9,200 to each one. This proves the correctness of the statement made yesterday; it proves it for the present year, which is the one in controversy. The result will be about the same for several previous years. Mr. B. said he had looked over the years 1841 and 1838, and found this to be the result: in 1841, the guns were 747, and the expense of the naval establishment $6,196,516. Divide the money by the guns, and you have a little upwards of $8,300. In 1838, the guns were 670, and the expense $5,980,971. This will give a little upwards of $8,900 to the gun. The average of the whole three years will be just about $9,000.
Thus, the senator from New Hampshire [Mr. WOODBURY] and himself were correct in their statement, and the figures proved it. At the same time, the senator from Delaware [Mr. BAYARD] is undoubtedly correct in taking a small number of guns, and saying they may be added without incurring an expense of more than three or four thousand dollars. Small additions may be made, without incurring any thing but the expense of the gun itself, and the men who work it. But that is not the question here. The question is to almost double the number; it is to carry up 937 to 1,700. Here is an increase intended by the Secretary of the Navy of near 800 guns--perhaps quite 800, if the seventy-fours carry ninety guns, as intimated by the senator [Mr. BAYARD] this day. These seven or eight hundred guns could not be added without ships to carry them, and all the expense on land which is incident to the construction of these ships. These seven or eight hundred additional guns would require seven or eight thousand men, and a great many officers. Ten men and two officers to the gun is the estimate. The present establishment is near that rate, and the increase must be in the same proportion. The present number of men in the navy, exclusive of officers, is 9,784: which is a fraction over ten to the gun. The number of officers now in service (midshipmen, surgeons, &c., included) is near 1,300, besides the list of nominations not yet confirmed. This is in the proportion of nearly one and a half to a gun. Apply the whole to the intended increase--the increase which the report of the committee discloses to us--and you will have close upon 17,000 men and 2,000 officers for the peace establishment of the navy--in all, near 20,000 men! and this, independent of those employed on land, and the 2,000 mechanics and laborers who are usually at our navy-yards. Now, these men and officers cost money: two hundred and twenty-six dollars per annum per man, and eight hundred and fifty dollars per annum per officer, was the average cost in 1833, as stated in the report of the then Secretary of the Navy, the present senator from New Hampshire [Mr. WOODBURY]. What it is now, Mr. B. did not know, but knew it was greater for the officers now, than it was then. But one thing he did know--and that was, that a naval peace establishment of the magnitude disclosed in the committee's report (six squadrons, 54 vessels, 1,700 guns, 17,000 men, and 2,000 or 3,000 officers) would break down the whole navy of the United States.
Mr. B. said we had just had a presidential election carried on a hue-and-cry against extravagance, and a hurrah for a change, and a promise to carry on the government for thirteen millions of dollars; and here were fifteen and a half millions for one branch of the service! and those who oppose it are to be stigmatized as architects of ruin, and enemies of the navy; and a hue-and-cry raised against them for the opposition. He said we had just voted a set of resolutions [Mr. CLAY'S] to limit the expenses of the government to twenty-two millions; and yet here are two-thirds of that sum proposed for one branch of the service--a branch which, under General Jackson's administration, cost about four millions, and was intended to be limited to about that amount. This was the economy--the retrenchment--the saving of the people's money, which was promised before the election!
Mr. B. would not go into points so well stated by the senator from New Hampshire [Mr. WOODBURY] on yesterday, that our present peace naval establishment exceeds the cost of the war establishment during the late war; that we pay far more money, and get much fewer guns and men than the British do for the same money. He would omit the tables which he had on hand to prove these important points, and would go on to say that it was an obligation of imperious duty on Congress to arrest the present state of things; to turn back the establishment to what it was a year ago; and to go to work at the next session of Congress to regulate the United States naval peace establishment by law. When that bill came up, a great question would have to be decided--the question of a navy for defence, or for offence! When that question came on, he would give his opinion upon it, and his reasons for that opinion. A navy of some degree, and of some kind, all seemed to be agreed upon; but what it is to be--whether to defend our homes, or carry war abroad--is a question yet to be decided, and on which the wisdom and the patriotism of the country would be called into requisition. He would only say, at present, that coasts and cities could be defended without great fleets at sea. The history of continental Europe was full of the proofs. England, with her thousand ships, could do nothing after Europe was ready for her, during the late wars of the French revolution. He did not speak of attacks in time of peace, like Copenhagen, but of Cadiz and Teneriffe in 1797, and Boulogne and Flushing in 1804, where Nelson, with all his skill and personal daring, and with vast fleets, was able to make no impression.
Mr. B. said the navy was popular, and had many friends and champions; but there was such a thing as killing by kindness. He had watched the progress of events for some time, and said to his friends (for he made no speeches about it) that the navy was in danger--that the expense of it was growing too fast--that there would be reaction and revulsion. And he now said that, unless things were checked, and moderate counsels prevailed, and law substituted for executive discretion (or indiscretion, as the case might be), the time might not be distant when this brilliant arm of our defence should become as unpopular as it was in the time of the elder Mr. Adams.
Chapter CIX
MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE OPENING OF THE REGULAR SESSION OF 1842-3.
The treaty with Great Britain, and its commendation, was the prominent topic in the forepart of the message. The President repeated, in a more condensed form, the encomiums which had been passed upon it by its authors, but without altering the public opinion of its character--which was that it was really a British treaty, Great Britain getting every thing settled which she wished, and all to her own satisfaction; while all the subjects of interest to the United States were adjourned to an indefinite future time, as well known then as now never to occur. One of these deferred subjects was a matter of too much moment, and pregnant with too grave consequences, to escape general reprobation in the United States: it was that of the Columbia River, exclusively possessed by the British under a joint-occupation treaty: and which possession only required time to ripen it into a valid title. The indefinite adjournment of that question was giving Great Britain the time she wanted; and the danger of losing the country was turning the attention of the Western people towards saving it by sending emigrants to occupy it. Many emigrants had gone: more were going: a tide was setting in that direction. In fact the condition of this great American territory was becoming a topic of political discussion, and entering into the contests of party; and the President found it necessary to make further excuses for omitting to settle it in the Ashburton treaty, and a necessity to attempt to do something to soothe the public mind. He did so in this message:
"It would have furnished additional cause for congratulation, if the treaty could have embraced all subjects calculated in future to lead to a misunderstanding between the two governments. The territory of the United States, commonly called the Oregon Territory, lying on the Pacific Ocean, north of the forty-second degree of latitude, to a portion of which Great Britain lays claim, begins to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens; and the tide of population, which has reclaimed what was so lately an unbroken wilderness in more contiguous regions, is preparing to flow over those vast districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In advance of the acquirement of individual rights to these lands, sound policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the two governments to settle their respective claims. It became manifest, at an early hour of the late negotiations, that any attempt, for the time being, satisfactorily to determine those rights, would lead to a protracted discussion which might embrace, in its failure, other more pressing matters; and the Executive did not regard it as proper to waive all the advantages of an honorable adjustment of other difficulties of great magnitude and importance, because this, not so immediately pressing, stood in the way. Although the difficulty referred to may not, for several years to come, involve the peace of the two countries, yet I shall not delay to urge on Great Britain the importance of its early settlement."
The excuse given for the omission of this subject in the Ashburton negotiations is lame and insufficient. Protracted discussion is incident to all negotiations, and as to losing other matters of more pressing importance, all that were of importance to the United States were given up any way, and without getting any equivalents for them. The promise to urge an early settlement could promise but little fruit after Great Britain had got all she wanted; and the discouragement of settlement, by denying land titles to the emigrants until an adjustment could be made, was the effectual way to abandon the country to Great Britain. But this subject will have an appropriate chapter in the history of the proceedings of Congress to encourage that emigration which the President would repress.
The termination of the Florida war was a subject of just congratulation with the President, and was appropriately communicated to Congress.
"The vexatious, harassing, and expensive war which so long prevailed with the Indian tribes inhabiting the peninsula of Florida, has happily been terminated; whereby our army has been relieved from a service of the most disagreeable character, and the Treasury from a large expenditure. Some casual outbreaks may occur, such as are incident to the close proximity of border settlers and the Indians; but these, as in all other cases, may be left to the care of the local authorities, aided, when occasion may require, by the forces of the United States."
The President does not tell by what treaty of peace this war was terminated, nor by what great battle it was brought to a conclusion: and there were none such to be told--either of treaty negotiated, or of battle fought. The war had died out of itself under the arrival of settlers attracted to its theatre by the Florida armed occupation act. No sooner did the act pass, giving land to each settler who should remain in the disturbed part of the territory five years, than thousands repaired to the spot. They went with their arms and ploughs--the weapons of war in one hand and the implements of husbandry in the other--their families, flocks and herds, established themselves in blockhouses, commenced cultivation, and showed that they came to stay, and intended to stay. Bred to the rifle and the frontier, they were an overmatch for the Indians in their own mode of warfare; and, interested in the peace of the country, they soon succeeded in obtaining it. The war died out under their presence, and no person could tell when, nor how; for there was no great treaty held, or great battle fought, to signalize its conclusion. And this is the way to settle all Indian wars--the cheap, effectual and speedy way to do it: land to the armed settler, and rangers, when any additional force is wanted--rangers, not regulars.
But a government bank, under the name of exchequer, was the prominent and engrossing feature of the message. It was the same paper-money machine, borrowed from the times of Sir Robert Walpole, which had been recommended to Congress at the previous session and had been so unanimously repulsed by all parties. Like its predecessor it ignored a gold and silver currency, and promised paper. The phrases "sound currency"--"sound circulating medium"--"safe bills convertible at will into specie," figured throughout the scheme; and to make this government paper a local as well as a national currency, the denomination of its notes was to be carried down at the start to the low figure of five dollars--involving the necessity of reducing it to one dollar as soon as the banishment of specie which it would create should raise the usual demand for smaller paper. To do him justice, his condensed argument in favor of this government paper, and against the gold and silver currency of the constitution, is here given:
"There can be but three kinds of public currency: 1st. Gold and silver; 2d. The paper of State institutions; or, 3d. A representative of the precious metals, provided by the general government, or under its authority. The sub-treasury system rejected the last, in any form; and, as it was believed that no reliance could be placed on the issues of local institutions, for the purposes of general circulation, it necessarily and unavoidably adopted specie as the exclusive currency for its own use. And this must ever be the case, unless one of the other kinds be used. The choice, in the present state of public sentiment, lies between an exclusive specie currency on the one hand, and government issues of some kind on the other. That these issues cannot be made by a chartered institution, is supposed to be conclusively settled. They must be made, then, directly by government agents. For several years past, they have been thus made in the form of treasury notes, and have answered a valuable purpose. Their usefulness has been limited by their being transient and temporary; their ceasing to bear interest at given periods, necessarily causes their speedy return, and thus restricts their range of circulation; and being used only in the disbursements of government, they cannot reach those points where they are most required. By rendering their use permanent, to the moderate extent already mentioned, by offering no inducement for their return, and by exchanging them for coin and other values, they will constitute, to a certain extent, the general currency so much needed to maintain the internal trade of the country. And this is the exchequer plan, so far as it may operate in furnishing a currency."
It would seem impossible to carry a passion for paper money, and of the worst kind, that of government paper, farther than President Tyler did; but he found it impossible to communicate his passion to Congress, which repulsed all the exchequer schemes with the promptitude which was due to an unconstitutional, pernicious, and gratuitous novelty. The low state of the public credit, the impossibility of making a loan, and the empty state of the Treasury, were the next topics in the message.
"I cannot forego the occasion to urge its importance to the credit of the government in a financial point of view. The great necessity of resorting to every proper and becoming expedient, in order to place the Treasury on a footing of the highest respectability, is entirely obvious. The credit of the government may be regarded as the very soul of the government itself--a principle of vitality, without which all its movements are languid, and all its operations embarrassed. In this spirit the Executive felt itself bound, by the most imperative sense of duty, to submit to Congress, at its last session, the propriety of making a specific pledge of the land fund, as the basis for the negotiation of the loans authorized to be contracted. I then thought that such an application of the public domain would, without doubt, have placed at the command of the government ample funds to relieve the Treasury from the temporary embarrassments under which it labored. American credit had suffered a considerable shock in Europe, from the large indebtedness of the States, and the temporary inability of some of them to meet the interest on their debts. The utter and disastrous prostration of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania had contributed largely to increase the sentiment of distrust, by reason of the loss and ruin sustained by the holders of its stock--a large portion of whom were foreigners, and many of whom were alike ignorant of our political organization, and of our actual responsibilities. It was the anxious desire of the Executive that, in the effort to negotiate the loan abroad, the American negotiator might be able to point the money-lender to the fund mortgaged for the redemption of the principal and interest of any loan he might contract, and thereby vindicate the government from all suspicion of bad faith, or inability to meet its engagements. Congress differed from the Executive in this view of the subject. It became, nevertheless, the duty of the Executive to resort to every expedient in its power to negotiate the authorized loan. After a failure to do so in the American market, a citizen of high character and talent was sent to Europe--with no better success; and thus the mortifying spectacle has been presented, of the inability of this government to obtain a loan so small as not in the whole to amount to more than one-fourth of its ordinary annual income; at a time when the governments of Europe, although involved in debt, and with their subjects heavily burdened with taxation, readily obtain loans of any amount at a greatly reduced rate of interest. It would be unprofitable to look further into this anomalous state of things; but I cannot conclude without adding, that, for a government which has paid off its debts of two wars with the largest maritime power of Europe, and now owing a debt which is almost next to nothing, when compared with its boundless resources--a government the strongest in the world, because emanating from the popular will, and firmly rooted in the affections of a great and free people--and whose fidelity to its engagements has never been questioned--for such a government to have tendered to the capitalists of other countries an opportunity for a small investment of its stock, and yet to have failed, implies either the most unfounded distrust in its good faith, or a purpose, to obtain which, the course pursued is the most fatal which could have been adopted. It has now become obvious to all men that the government must look to its own means for supplying its wants; and it is consoling to know that these means are altogether adequate for the object. The exchequer, if adopted, will greatly aid in bringing about this result. Upon what I regard as a well-founded supposition, that its bills would be readily sought for by the public creditors, and that the issue would, in a short time, reach the maximum of $15,000,000, it is obvious that $10,000,000 would thereby be added to the available means of the treasury, without cost or charge. Nor can I fail to urge the great and beneficial effects which would be produced in aid of all the active pursuits of life. Its effects upon the solvent State banks, while it would force into liquidation those of an opposite character, through its weekly settlements, would be highly beneficial; and, with the advantages of a sound currency, the restoration of confidence and credit would follow, with a numerous train of blessings. My convictions are most strong that these benefits would flow from the adoption of this measure; but, if the result should be adverse, there is this security in connection with it--that the law creating it may be repealed at the pleasure of the legislature, without the slightest implication of its good faith."
It is impossible to read this paragraph without a feeling of profound mortification at seeing the low and miserable condition to which the public credit had sunk, both at home and abroad; and equally mortifying to see the wretched expedients which were relied upon to restore it: a government bank, issuing paper founded on its credit and revenues, and a hypothecation of the lands, their proceeds to help to bolster up the slippery and frail edifice of governmental paper: the United States unable to make a loan to the amount of one-fourth of its revenues! unable to borrow five millions of dollars! unable to borrow any thing, while the overloaded governments of Europe could borrow as much as they pleased. It was indeed a low point of depressed credit--the lowest that the United States had ever seen since the declaration of Independence. It was a state of humiliation and disgrace which could not be named without offering some reason for its existence; and that reason was given: it was the "disastrous prostration," as it was called--the crimes and bankruptcy, as should have been called, of the Pennsylvania Bank of the United States! that bank which, in adding Pennsylvania to its name, did not change its identity, or its nature; and which for ten long years had been the cherished idol of the President, his Secretary of State, and his exchequer orator on the floor of the House--for which General Jackson had been condemned and vituperated--and on the continued existence of which the whole prosperity of the government and the people, and their salvation from poverty and misery, was made to depend. That bank was now given as the cause of the woful plight into which the public credit was fallen--and truly so given! for while its plunderings were enormous, its crimes were still greater: and the two put together--an hundred millions plundered, and a mass of crimes committed--the effect upon the American name was such as to drive it with disgrace from every exchange in Europe. And the former champions of the bank, uninstructed by experience, unabashed by previous appalling mistakes, now lavish the same encomiums on an exchequer bank which they formerly did on a national bank; and challenge the same faith for one which they had invoked for the other. The exchequer is now, according to them, the sole hope of the country: the independent treasury and hard money, its only danger. Yet the exchequer was repulsed--the independent treasury and gold was established: and the effect, that that same country which was unable to borrow five millions of dollars, has since borrowed many ten millions, and is now paying a premium of 20 per centum--actually paying twenty dollars on the hundred--to purchase the privilege of paying loans before they are due.
CX. REPEAL OF THE BANKRUPT ACT: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH; EXTRACTS
The spectacle was witnessed in relation to the repeal of this act which has rarely been seen before--a repeal of a great act of national legislation by the same Congress that passed it--by the same members sitting in the same seats--and the repeal approved by the same President who had approved the enactment. It was a homage to the will of the people, and the result of the general condemnation which the act received from the community. It had been passed as a party measure: its condemnation was general without regard to party: and the universality of the sentiment against it was honorable to the virtue and intelligence of the people. In the commencement of the session 1842-'43, motions were made in both Houses to repeal the act; and in the Senate the practical bad working of the act, and of the previous act, was shown as an evidence of the unfruitfulness of the whole system, and of the justice and wisdom of leaving the whole relation of debtor and creditor in relation to insolvency, or bankruptcy, to the insolvent laws of the States. In offering a petition in the Senate for the repeal of the act from the State of Vermont, Mr. Benton said:
"He would take the opportunity which the presentation of this petition offered, to declare that, holding the bankrupt act to be unconstitutional at six different points (the extinction of the debt without the consent of a given majority of the creditors being at the head of these points), he would vote for no repeal which would permit the act to continue in force for the trial of depending cases, unless with provisions which would bring the action of the law within the constitution. To say nothing, at present, of other points of unconstitutionality, he limited himself to the abolition of debts without the consent of a given majority of the creditors. This, he held, no power in our country can do. Congress can only go as far as the bankrupt systems of England and other countries go; and that is, to require the consent of a given majority of the creditors (four-fifths in number and value in England and Scotland), and that founded upon a judicial certificate of integrity by the commissioners who examined the case, and approved afterwards by the Lord Chancellor. Upon these principles only could Congress act: upon these principles the Congress of 1800 acted, in making a bankrupt act: and to these principles he would endeavor to conform the action of the present act so long as it might run. He held all the certificates granted by the courts to be null and void; and that the question of the validity would be carried before the courts, and before the tribunal of public opinion. The federal judges decided the alien and sedition law to be constitutional. The people reversed that decision, and put down the men who held it. This bankrupt act was much more glaringly unconstitutional--much more immoral--and called more loudly upon the people to rise against it. If he was a United States judge, he would decide the act to be unconstitutional. If he was a State court, and one of these certificates of discharge from debts should be pleaded in bar before him, on an action brought for the recovery of the old debt, he would treat the certificate as a nullity, and throw it out of court. If commanded by the Supreme Court, he would resign first. The English law held all bankrupts, whose certificates were not signed by the given majority of the creditors, to be uncertificated; and, as such, he held all these to be who had received certificates under our law. They had no certificate of discharge from a given majority of the creditors; and were, therefore, what the English law called 'uncertificated bankrupts.' He said the bankrupt systems formed the creditors into a partnership for the management of the debtor's estate, and his discharge from debt; and, in this partnership, a given majority acted for the whole, all having the same interest in what was lost or saved; and, therefore, to be governed by a given majority, doing what was best for the whole. But even to this there were limitations. The four-fifths could not release the debt of the remaining fifth, except upon a certificate of integrity from the commissioners who tried the case, and a final approval by the Lord Chancellor. The law made itself party to the discharge, as it does in a case of divorce, and for the sake of good morals; and required the judicial certificate of integrity, without which the release of four-fifths of the creditors would not extinguish the debt of the other fifth. It is only in this way that Congress can act. It can only act according to the established principles of the bankrupt systems. It had no inherent or supreme authority over debts. It could not abolish debts as it pleased. It could not confound bankruptcy and insolvency, and so get hold of all debts, and sweep them off as it pleased. All this was despotism, such as only could be looked for in a government which had no limits, either on its moral or political powers. The attempt to confound insolvency and bankruptcy, and to make Congress supreme over both, was the most daring attack on the constitution, on the State laws, on the rights of property, and on public morals, which the history of Europe or America exhibited. There was no parallel to it in Europe or America. It was repudiation--universal repudiation of all debts--at the will of the debtor. The law was subversive of civil society; and he called upon Congress, the State legislatures, the federal and State judiciaries--and, above all, the people--to brand it for unconstitutionality and immorality, and put it down.
"Mr. B. said he had laid down the law, but he would refer to the forms which the wisdom of the law provided for executing itself. These forms were the highest evidences of the law. They were framed by men learned in the law--approved by the courts--and studied by the apprentices to the law. They should also be studied by the journeymen--by the professors--and by the ermined judges. In this case, especially, they should be so studied. Bankruptcy was a branch of the law but little studied in our country. The mass of the community were uninformed upon it; and the latitudinarians, who could find no limits to the power of our government were daringly presuming upon the general ignorance, by undertaking to confound bankruptcy and insolvency, and claiming for Congress a despotic power over both. This daring attempt must be chastised. Congress must be driven back within the pale of the constitution; and for that purpose, the principles of the bankrupt systems must be made known to the people. The forms are one of the best modes of doing this: and here are the forms of a bankrupt's certificate in Great Britain--the country from which our constitution borrowed the system. [Mr. B. then read from Jacob's Law Dictionary, title Bankruptcy, at the end of the title, the three forms of the certificates which were necessary to release a debtor from his debts.] The first form was that of the commissioners who examined the case, and who certified to the integrity of the bankrupt, and that he had conformed in all particulars to the act. The second form was that of the certificate of four-fifths of his creditors, 'allowing him to be discharged from his debts.' The third was the certificate of the Lord Chancellor, certifying that notice of these two certificates having been published for twenty-one days in the London Gazette, and no cause being shown to the contrary, the certificates granted by the commissioners and by the creditors were 'confirmed.' Then, and not till then, could the debtor be discharged from his debts; and with all this, the act of 1800 in the United States perfectly agreed, only taking two-thirds instead of four-fifths of the creditors. Congress could only absolve debts in this way, and that among the proper subjects of a bankrupt law: and the moral sense of the community must revolt against any attempt to do it in any other form. The present act was repudiation--criminal repudiation, as far as any one chose to repudiate--and must be put down by the community."
On the question for the repeal of the act, Mr. Benton took occasion to show it to be an invasion of the rights of the States, over the ordinary relations of debtor and creditor within their own limits, and a means of eating up estates to the loss of both debtor and creditor, and the enrichment of assignees, who make the settlement of the estate a life-long business, and often a legacy to his children.
"A question cannot arise between two neighbors about a dozen of eggs, without being liable to be taken from the custody of the laws of the States, and brought up to the federal courts. And now, when this doctrine that insolvency and bankruptcy are the same, if a continuance of the law is to be contrived, it must be done in conformity with such a fallacy. The law has proved to be nothing but a great insolvent law, for the abolition of debts, for the benefit of debtors; and would it be maintained that a permanent system ought to be built up on such a foundation as that?
"Some months ago, he read in a Philadelphia paper a notice to creditors to come forward for a dividend of half a cent in the dollar, in a case of bankruptcy pending under the old law of 1800, since the year 1801. And, three or four days ago, he read a notice in a London paper, calling on creditors to come in for a dividend of five-sixths of a penny in the pound, in a case of bankruptcy pending since the year 1793. Here has been a case where the waste of property has been going on for fifty years in England, and another case where it has been going on in this country forty-one or forty-two years. He had been himself twenty-three years in the Senate, and, during that time, various efforts were made to revive the old law of 1800 in some shape or other; but never, till last session, in the shape in which the present law passed. And how could this law be expected to stand, when even the law of 1800 (which was in reality a bankrupt law) could not stand; but was, in the first year of its operation, condemned by the whole country?"
The passage of the act had been a reproach to Congress: its repeal should do them honor, and still more the people, under whose manifest and determined will it was to be done. The repeal bill readily passed the Senate, and then went to the House, where it was quickly passed, and under pressure of the previous question, by a vote 128 to 98. The history of the passage of these two measures (bankrupt and distribution) each of which came to an untimely end, is one of those legislative arcana which should be known, that such legislation may receive the reprobation which it deserves. The public only sees the outside proceeding, and imagines a wise and patriotic motive for the enactment of important laws. Too often there is neither wisdom nor patriotism in such enactment, but bargain, and selfishness, and duresse of circumstances. So it was in this case. The misconduct and misfortunes of the banks and the vices inherent in paper money, which had so long been the currency of the country, had filled the Union with pecuniary distress, and created an immense body of insolvent debtors, estimated by some at five hundred thousand: and all these were clamorous for a bankrupt act. The State of Mississippi was one of those most sorely afflicted with this state of things, and most earnest for the act. Her condition governed the conduct of her senators, and their votes made the bankrupt act, and passed the fiscal bank through the Senate. Such are the mysteries of legislation.
A bankrupt act, though expressly authorized by the constitution, had never been favored by the American people. It was tried fifty years ago, and condemned upon a two years' experience. Persevering efforts had since been made for a period of twenty years to obtain another act, but in vain. It was the opinion of Mr. Lowndes, expressed at the last session that he served, that no act framed upon the principles of the British system would ever be suitable to our country--that the complex and expensive machinery of the system, so objectionable in England, where debtors and creditors were comparatively near together, would be intolerable in the United States, where they were so widely separated, and the courts so sparsely scattered over the land, and so inconvenient to the majority of parties and witnesses. He believed a simple system might be adopted, reducing the process to a transaction between the debtor and his creditors, in which courts would have but little to do except to give effect to their agreement. The principle of his plan was that there should be a meeting of the creditors, either on the invitation of the failing debtor, or the summons of a given number of creditors; and when together, and invested with power to examine into the debtor's affairs, and to examine books and take testimony, that they themselves, by a given majority of two-thirds or three-fourths in value, should decide every question, make a pro rata division of the effects, and grant a certificate of release: the release to be of right if the effects were taken. This simple process would dispense with the vexatious question, of what constitutes an act of bankruptcy? And substitute for it the broad inquiry of failing circumstances--in the solution of which, those most interested would be the judges. It would also save the devouring expenses of costs and fees, and delays equally devouring, and the commissioners that must be paid, and the assignees who frequently become the beneficiaries of the debtor's effects--taking what he collects for his own fees, and often making a life estate of it. The estate of a bankrupt, in the hands of an assignee, Mr. Randolph was accustomed to call, "a lump of butter in a dog's mouth;" a designation which it might sometimes bear from the rapidity with which it was swallowed; but more frequently it was a bone to gnaw, and to be long gnawed before it was gnawed up. As an evidence of this, Mr. Benton read a notice from a Philadelphia paper, published while this debate was going on, inviting creditors to come forward and receive from the assignee a dividend of half a cent in the dollar, in a case of bankruptcy under the old act of 1800; also a notice in a London paper for the creditors to come in and receive a dividend of five-sixths of a penny in the pound in a case depending since 1793--the assignees respectively having been administering, one of them forty-one years, and the other fifty-two years, the estate of the debtor; and probably collecting each year about as much as paid his own fees.
The system has become nearly intolerable in England. As far back as the year 1817, the British Parliament, moved by the pervading belief of the injustice and abuses under their bankrupt laws, appointed a commissioner to examine into the subject, and to report the result of their investigation. It was done; and such a mass of iniquity revealed, as to induce the Lord Chancellor to say that the system was a disgrace to the country--that the assignees had no mercy either upon the debtor or his creditors--and that it would be better to repeal every law on the subject. The system, however, was too much interwoven with the business of the country to be abandoned. The report of the commissioners only led to a revision of the laws and attempted ameliorations; the whole of which were disregarded by our Congress of 1841, as were the principles of all previous bankrupt acts either in Great Britain, on the European Continent, or in the United States. That Congress abandoned the fundamental principle of all bankrupt systems--that of a proceeding of the creditors for their own benefit, and made it practically an insolvent law at the will of the debtor, for the abolition of his debt at his own pleasure. Iniquitous in itself, vicious in its mode of being passed, detested by the community, the life of the act was short and ignominious. Mr. Buchanan said it would be repealed in two years: and it was. Yet it was ardently contended for. Crowds attended Congress to demand it. Hundreds of thousands sent up their petitions. The whole number of bankrupts was stated by the most moderate at one hundred thousand: and Mr. Walker declared in his place that, if the act was not passed, thousands of unfortunate debtors would have to wear the chains of slavery, or be exiled from their native land.
CXI. MILITARY ACADEMY AND ARMY EXPENSES
The instincts of the people have been against this academy from the time it took its present form under the act of 1812, and those subsequent and subsidiary to it: many efforts have been made to abolish or to modify it: and all unsuccessful--partly from the intrinsic difficulty of correcting any abuse--partly from the great number interested in the Academy as an eleemosynary institution of which they have the benefit--and partly from the wrong way in which the reformers go to work. They generally move to abolish the whole system, and are instantly met by Washington's recommendation in favor of it. In the mean time Washington never saw such an institution as now shelters behind his name; and possibly would never have been in the army, except as a private soldier, if it had existed when he was a young man. He never recommended such an academy as we have: he never dreamed of such a thing: he recommended just the reverse of it, in recommending that cadets, serving in the field with the companies to which they were attached, and receiving the pay, clothing, and ration of a sergeant, should be sent--such of them as showed a stomach for the hardships, as well as a taste for the pleasures and honors of the service, and who also showed a capacity for the two higher branches of the profession (engineering and artillery)--to West Point, to take instruction from officers in these two branches of the military art: and no more. At this session one of the usual movements was made against it--an attack upon the institution in its annual appropriation bill, by moving to strike out the appropriation for its support, and substitute a bill for its abolition. Mr. Hale made the motion, and was supported in it by several members. Mr. McKay, chairman of the committee, which had the appropriation bill in charge, felt himself bound to defend it, but in doing so to exclude the conclusion that he was favorable to the academy. Begging gentlemen, therefore, to withdraw their motion, he went on to say:
"He was now, and always had been, in favor of a very material alteration in the organization of this institution. He did not think that the government should educate more young men than were necessary to fill the annual vacancies in the army. It was beyond dispute, that the number now educated was more than the average annual vacancies in the army required; and hence the number of supernumerary second lieutenants--which he believed was now something like seventy; and would be probably thirty more the next year. This, however, did not present the true state of the question. In a single year, in consequence of an order issued from the war department, that all the officers who were in the civil service of the railroad and canal companies, &c., should join their respective regiments, there were upwards of one hundred resignations. Now, if these resignations had not taken place, the army would have been overloaded with supernumerary second lieutenants. He was for reducing the number of cadets, but at the same time would make a provision by which parents and guardians should have the privilege of sending their sons and wards there to be educated, at their own expense. This (Mr. M. said) was the system adopted in Great Britain; and it appeared, by a document he had in his hand, that there were three hundred and twenty gentlemen cadets, and fifteen officers educated at the English Military Academy, at a much less expense than it required to educate two hundred and twenty cadets at West Point. He agreed with much of what had been said by the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Seymour, that it would be an amelioration of our military service, to open the door of promotion to meritorious non-commissioned officers and privates. Under the present system, no man who was a non-commissioned officer or private, however meritorious, had the least chance of promotion. It was true that there were instances of such men getting commissions, but they were very rare; and the consequence was, that the ranks of the army were filled with some of the worst men in the country, and desertions had prevailed to an enormous extent. Mr. McK. here gave from the documents, the number of annual desertions, from the year 1830 to 1836, showing an average of one thousand. He would not now, however, enlarge on this subject, but would reserve his remarks till the bill for reorganizing the academy, which he understood was to be reported by the Military Committee, should come in."
Mr. McKay was not counted among the orators of the House: he made no pretension to fine speaking: but he was one of those business, sensible, upright men, who always spoke sense and reason, and to the point, and generally gave more information to the House in a few sentences than could often be found in one of the most pretentious speeches. Of this character were the remarks which he made on this occasion; and in the four statements that he made, first, that upwards of one hundred West Point officers had resigned their commissions in one year when ordered to quit civil service and join their corps; secondly, that there was a surplus of seventy graduates at that time for whom there was no place in the army; thirdly, that at the English Military Academy, three hundred and thirty-five cadets and officers were instructed at much less expense than two hundred and twenty with us; fourthly, that the annual desertions from the rank and file of the army had averaged one thousand men per annum for six years together, these desertions resulting from want of promotion and disgust at a service which was purely necessary. Mr. McKay was followed by another speaker of the same class with himself--Mr. Cave Johnson, of Tennessee; who stood up and said:
"That there was no certainty that the bill to be reported by the Military Committee, which the gentleman referred to, would be reached this session; and he was therefore for effecting a reform now that the subject was before them. He would, therefore, suggest to the gentleman from New Hampshire to withdraw his amendment, and submit another, to the following effect: That no money appropriated in this bill, or hereafter to be appropriated, shall be applied to the payment of any cadet hereafter to be appointed; and the terms of service of those who have warrants now in the academy shall be held to cease from and after four years from the time of their respective appointments. The limitation of this appropriation now, would put an end to the academy, unless the House would act on the propositions which would be hereafter made. He was satisfied it ought to be abolished, and he would at once abolish it, but for the remarks of his friend from North Carolina; he therefore hoped his friend from New Hampshire would adopt the suggestions which had been made."
Mr. Harralson, of Georgia, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, felt himself called upon by his position to come to the defence of the institution, which he did in a way to show that it was indefensible. He
"Intimated that that committee would propose some reductions in the number of cadets; and when that proposition came before the House, these amendments could be appropriately offered. The proposition would be made to reduce the number of the cadets to the wants of the army. But this appropriation should now be made; and if, by any reductions hereafter made, it should be found more than adequate to the wants of the institution, the balance would remain in the Treasury, and would not be lost to the country. He explained the circumstances under which, in 1836, some persons educated as cadets at West Point became civil engineers, and accepted employment on projected lines of railroad; and asserted that no class of our countrymen were more ready to obey the call of their country, in any exigency which might arise."
Mr. Orlando Ficklin, of Illinois, not satisfied with the explanations made by the chairman on military affairs, returned to the charge of the one hundred resignations in one year; and said:
"He had listened to the apology or excuse rendered by the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, for the cadets who resigned in 1836. And what was that excuse? Why, forsooth, though they had been educated at the government expense, yet, because they could get better pay by embarking in other pursuits, they deserted the service of the country which had educated them, and prepared them for her service. He did not intend to detain the committee at present, but he must be permitted to say to those who were in favor of winding up the concern, that they ought not to vote an appropriation of a single dollar to that institution, unless the same bill contained a provision, in language as emphatic as it could be made, declaring that this odious, detestable, and aristocratic institution, shall be brought to a close. If it did not cost this government a single dollar, he would still be unwilling that it should be kept up. He was not willing that the door of promotion should be shut against the honest and deserving soldier, and that a few dandies and band-box heroes, educated at that institution, should enjoy the monopoly of all the offices. Mr. F. adverted to the present condition of the army. It was filled up, he said, by foreigners. Native Americans, to whom they should naturally look as the defenders of the country, were deterred from entering it. It would be well, he thought, to have a committee of investigation, that the secrets of the prison-house might be disclosed, and its abuses brought to light."
Mr. Black, of Georgia, proposed an amendment, compelling the cadets to serve ten years, and keeping up the number: upon which Mr. Hale remarked:
"The amendment of the gentleman from Georgia would seem to imply that there were not officers enough: whereas the truth was there were more than enough. The difficulty was, there were already too many. The Army Register showed a list already of seventy supernumeraries; and more were being turned out upon us every year. The gentleman from New York had made a most unhappy illustration of the necessity for educating cadets for the army, by comparing them with the midshipmen in the navy. What was the service rendered by midshipmen on board our national vessels? Absolutely none. They were of no sort of use; and precisely so was it with these cadets. He denied that General Washington ever recommended a military academy like the present institution; and, if he had done so, he would, instead of proclaiming it, have endeavored to shield his great name from such a reproach."
The movement ended as usual, in showing necessity for a reform, and in failing to get it.
Chapter CXII
EMIGRATION TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER, AND FOUNDATION OF ITS SETTLEMENT BY AMERICAN CITIZENS: FREMONT'S FIRST EXPEDITION.
The great event of carrying the Anglo-Saxon race to the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and planting that race firmly on that sea, took place at this time, beginning in 1842, and largely increasing in 1843. It was not an act of the government, leading the people and protecting them; but, like all the other great emigrations and settlements of that race on our continent, it was the act of the people, going forward without government aid or countenance, establishing their possession, and compelling the government to follow with its shield, and spread it over them. So far as the action of the government was concerned, it operated to endanger our title to the Columbia, to prevent emigration, and to incur the loss of the country. The first great step in this unfortunate direction was the treaty of joint occupation, as it was called, of 1818; by which the British, under the fallacious idea of mutuality, where there was nothing mutual, were admitted to a delusive joint occupation, with ourselves, intended to be equal--but which quickly became exclusive on their part: and was obliged to become so, from the power and organization of their Hudson Bay Company, already flanking the country and ready to cross over and cover it. It is due to the memory of President Monroe, under whose administration this unfortunate treaty was made, to say that, since the publication of the first volume of this View, the author has been informed by General Jesup (who had the fact from Mr. Monroe himself at the time), that his instructions had not authorized this arrangement (which in fact the commissioners intimated in their correspondence), and only after much hesitation prevailed on himself to send it to the Senate. That treaty was for ten years, and the second false step was in its indefinite extension by another of 1828, until one or the other of the parties should give notice for its discontinuance--the most insidious and pernicious of all agreements, being so easy to be adopted, and so hard to be got rid of. The third great blunder was in not settling the Oregon question in the Ashburton negotiation, when we had a strong hold upon the British government in its earnest desire to induce us to withdraw our northeastern boundary from the neighborhood of Lower Canada, and to surrender a part of Maine for the road from Halifax to Quebec. The fourth step in this series of governmental blunders, was the recommendation of President Tyler to discountenance emigration to Oregon, by withholding land from the emigrants, until the two governments had settled the title--a contingency too remote to be counted upon within any given period, and which every year's delay would make more difficult. The title to the country being thus endangered by the acts of the government, the saving of it devolved upon the people--and they saved it. In 1842, incited by numerous newspaper publications, upwards of a thousand American emigrants went to the country, making their long pilgrimage overland from the frontiers of Missouri, with their wives and children, their flocks and herds, their implements of husbandry and weapons of defence--traversing the vast inclined plane to the base of the Rocky Mountains, crossing that barrier (deemed impassable by Europeans), and descending the wide slope which declines from the mountains to the Pacific. Six months would be consumed in this journey, filled with hardships, beset by dangers from savage hostility, and only to be prosecuted in caravans of strength and determination. The Burnets and Applegates from Missouri were among the first leaders, and in 1843, some two thousand more joined the first emigration. To check these bold adventurers was the object of the government: to encourage them, was the object of some Western members of Congress, on whom (in conjunction with the people) the task of saving the Columbia evidently devolved. These members were ready for their work, and promptly began. Early in the session, Mr. Linn, a senator from Missouri, introduced a bill for the purpose, of which these were the leading provisions:
"That the President of the United States is hereby authorized and required to cause to be erected, at suitable places and distances, a line of stockade and blockhouse forts, not exceeding five in number, from some point on the Missouri and Arkansas rivers into the best pass for entering the valley of the Oregon; and, also, at or near the mouth of the Columbia River.
"That provision hereafter shall be made by law to secure and grant six hundred and forty acres, or one section of land, to every white male inhabitant of the territory of Oregon, of the age of eighteen years and upward, who shall cultivate and use the same for five consecutive years; or to his heir or heirs-at-law, if such there be, in case of his decease. And to every such inhabitant or cultivator (being a married man) there shall be granted, in addition, one hundred and sixty acres to the wife of said husband, and the like quantity of one hundred and sixty acres to the father for each child under the age of eighteen years he may have, or which may be born within the five years aforesaid.
"That no sale, alienation, or contract of any kind, shall be valid, of such lands, before the patent is issued therefor; nor shall the same be liable to be taken in execution, or bound by any judgment, mortgage, or lien, of any kind, before the patent is so issued; and all pretended alienations or contracts for alienating such lands, made before the issuing of the patents, shall be null and void against the settler himself, his wife, or widow, or against his heirs-at-law, or against purchasers, after the issuing of the patent.
"That the President is hereby authorized and required to appoint two additional Indian agents, with a salary of two thousand dollars each, whose duty it shall be (under his direction and control) to superintend the interests of the United States with any or every Indian tribe west of any agency now established by law.
"That the sum of one hundred thousand dollars be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to carry into effect the provisions of this act.
"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the supreme court and district courts of the territory of Iowa, be, and the same is hereby, extended over that part of the Indian territories lying west of the present limits of the said territory of Iowa, and south of the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the boundary line between the United States and the Republic of Texas, not included within the limits of any State; and also, over the Indian territories comprising the Rocky Mountains and the country between them and the Pacific Ocean, south of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes of north latitude, and north of the forty-second degree of north latitude; and justices of the peace may be appointed for the said territory, in the same manner and with the same powers as now provided by law in relation to the territory of Iowa: Provided, That any subject of the government of Great Britain, who shall have been arrested under the provisions of this act for any crime alleged to have been committed within the territory westward of the Stony or Rocky Mountains, while the same remains free and open to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the United States and of Great Britain, pursuant to stipulations between the two powers, shall be delivered up, on proof of his being such British subject, to the nearest or most convenient authorities having cognizance of such offence by the laws of Great Britain, for the purpose of being prosecuted and tried according to such laws.
"SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That one associate judge of the supreme court of the territory of Iowa, in addition to the number now authorized by law, may, in the discretion of the President, be appointed, to hold his office by the same tenure and for the same time, receive the same compensation, and possess all the powers and authority conferred by law upon the associate judges of the said territory; and one judicial district shall be organized by the said supreme court, in addition to the existing number, in reference to the jurisdiction conferred by this act; and a district court shall be held in the said district by the judge of the supreme court, at such times and places as the said court shall direct; and the said district court shall possess all the powers and authority vested in the present district courts of the said territory, and may, in like manner, appoint its own clerk.
"SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That any justice of the peace, appointed in and for the territories described in the second section of this act, shall have power to cause all offenders against the laws of the United States to be arrested by such persons as they shall appoint for that purpose, and to commit such offenders to safe custody for trial, in the same cases and in the manner provided by law in relation to the Territory of Iowa; and to cause the offenders so committed to be conveyed to the place appointed for the holding of a district court for the said Territory of Iowa, nearest and most convenient to the place of such commitment, there to be detained for trial, by such persons as shall be authorized for that purpose by any judge of the supreme court, or any justice of the peace of the said Territory; or where such offenders are British subjects, to cause them to be delivered to the nearest and most convenient British authorities, as hereinbefore provided; and the expenses of such commitment, removal, and detention, shall be paid in the same manner as provided by law in respect to the fees of the marshal of the said territory."
These provisions are all just and necessary for the accomplishment of their object, and carefully framed to promote emigration, and to avoid collisions with the British, or hostilities with the Indians. The land grants were the grand attractive feature to the emigrants: the provision for leaving British offenders to British jurisdiction was to avoid a clash of jurisdictions, and to be on an equality with the British settlers over whom the British Parliament had already extended the laws of Canada; and the boundaries within which our settlers were to be protected, were precisely those agreed upon three years later in a treaty between the two powers. The provisions were all necessary for their object, and carefully framed to avoid infraction of any part of the unfortunate treaty of 1818; but the bill encountered a strenuous, and for a long time a nearly balanced, opposition in the Senate--some opposed to the whole object of settling the country at any time--some to its present settlement, many to the fear of collision with the British subjects already there, or infraction of the treaty of 1818. Mr. McDuffie took broad ground against it.
"For whose benefit are we bound to pass this bill? Who are to go there, along the line of military posts, and take possession of the only part of the territory fit to occupy--that part lying upon the sea-coast, a strip less than one hundred miles in width; for, as I have already stated, the rest of the territory consists of mountains almost inaccessible, and low lands which are covered with stone and volcanic remains, where rain never falls, except during the spring; and even on the coast no rain falls, from April to October, and for the remainder of the year there is nothing but rain. Why, sir, of what use will this be for agricultural purposes? I would not for that purpose give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. I wish to God we did not own it. I wish it was an impassable barrier to secure us against the intrusion of others. This is the character of the country. Who are we to send there? Do you think your honest farmers in Pennsylvania, New York, or even Ohio or Missouri, will abandon their farms to go upon any such enterprise as this? God forbid! if any man who is to go to that country, under the temptations of this bill, was my child--if he was an honest industrious man, I would say to him, for God's sake do not go there. You will not better your condition. You will exchange the comforts of home, and the happiness of civilized life, for the pains and perils of a precarious existence. But if I had a son whose conduct was such as made him a fit subject for Botany Bay, I would say in the name of God, go. This is my estimate of the importance of the settlement. Now, what are we to gain by making the settlement? In what shape are our expenditures there to be returned? When are we to get any revenue from the citizens of ours who go to that distant territory--3,300 miles from the seat of government, as I have it from the senator from Missouri? What return are they going to make us for protecting them with military posts, at the expense at the outset of $200,000, and swelling hereafter God knows how much--probably equalling the annual expenses of the Florida war. What will they return us for this enormous expense, after we have tempted them, by this bill, to leave their pursuits of honest industry, to go upon this wild and gambling adventure, in which their blood is to be staked?"
Besides repulsing the country as worthless, Mr. McDuffie argued that there was danger in taking possession of it--that the provisions of the bill conflicted with the stipulations of the treaty of 1818--and that Great Britain, though desirous of peace with the United States, would be forced into war in defence of her rights and honor. Mr. Calhoun was equally opposed as his colleague to the passage of the bill, but not for the same reasons. He deemed the country well worth having, and presenting great commercial advantages in communicating with China and Japan, which should not be lost.
"I do not agree with my eloquent and able colleague that the country is worthless. He has underrated it, both as to soil and climate. It contains a vast deal of land, it is true, that is barren and worthless; but not a little that is highly productive. To that may be added its commercial advantages, which will, in time, prove to be great. We must not overlook the important events to which I have alluded as having recently occurred in the Eastern portion of Asia. As great as they are, they are but the beginning of a series of a similar character, which must follow at no distant day. What has taken place in China, will, in a few years, be followed in Japan, and all the eastern portions of that continent. Their ports, like the Chinese, will be opened, and the whole of that large portion of Asia, containing nearly half of the population and wealth of the globe, will be thrown open to the commerce of the world, and be placed within the pales of European and American intercourse and civilization. A vast market will be created, and a mighty impulse will be given to commerce. No small portion of the share that would fall to us with this populous and industrious portion of the globe, is destined to pass through the ports of the Oregon Territory to the valley of the Mississippi, instead of taking the circuitous and long voyage round Cape Horn; or the still longer, round the Cape of Good Hope. It is mainly because I place this high estimate on its prospective value, that I am so solicitous to preserve it, and so adverse to this bill, or any other precipitate measure which might terminate in its loss. If I thought less of its value, or if I regarded our title less clear, my opposition would be less decided."
Infraction of the treaty and danger of war--the difficulty and expense of defending a possession so remote--the present empty condition of the treasury--were further reasons urged by Mr. Calhoun in favor of rejecting the bill; but having avowed himself in favor of saving our title to the country, it became necessary to show his mode of doing so, and fell upon the same plan to ripen and secure our title, which others believed was wholly relied upon by Great Britain to ripen and secure hers--Time! an element which only worked in favor of the possessor; and that possessor was now Great Britain. On this head he said:
"The question presents itself, how shall we preserve this country? There is only one means by which it can be; but that, fortunately, is the most powerful of all--time. Time is acting for us; and, if we shall have the wisdom to trust its operation, it will assert and maintain our right with resistless force, without costing a cent of money, or a drop of blood. There is often in the affairs of government, more efficiency and wisdom in non-action, than in action. All we want to effect our object in this case, is 'a wise and masterly inactivity.' Our population is rolling towards the shores of the Pacific, with an impetus greater than what we realize. It is one of those forward movements which leaves anticipation behind. In the period of thirty-two years which have elapsed since I took my seat in the other House, the Indian frontier has receded a thousand miles to the West. At that time, our population was much less than half what it is now. It was then increasing at the rate of about a quarter of a million annually; it is now not less than six hundred thousand; and still increasing at the rate of something more than three per cent. compound annually. At that rate, it will soon reach the yearly increase of a million. If to this be added, that the region west of Arkansas and the State of Missouri, and south of the Missouri River, is occupied by half civilized tribes, who have their lands secured to them by treaty (and which will prevent the spread of population in that direction), and that this great and increasing tide will be forced to take the comparatively narrow channel to the north of that river and south of our northern boundary, some conception may be formed of the strength with which the current will run in that direction, and how soon it will reach the eastern gorges of the Rocky Mountains. It will soon--far sooner than anticipated--reach the Rocky Mountains, and be ready to pour into the Oregon Territory, when it will come into our possession without resistance or struggle--or, if there should be resistance, it would be feeble and ineffectual. We would then be as much stronger there, comparatively, than Great Britain, as she is now stronger than we are; and it would then be as idle in her to attempt to assert and maintain her exclusive claim to the territory against us, as it would now be in us to attempt it against her. Let us be wise, and abide our time, and it will accomplish all that we desire, with far more certainty and with infinitely less sacrifice, than we can without it."
Mr. Calhoun averred and very truly, that his opposition to the bill did not grow out of any opposition to the growth of the West--declared himself always friendly to the interests of that great section of our country, and referred to his course when he was Secretary at war to prove it.
"I go back to the time when I was at the head of the War Department. At that early period I turned my attention particularly to the interest of the West. I saw that it required increased security to its long line of frontier, and greater facility of carrying on intercourse with the Indian tribes in that quarter, and to enable it to develope its resources--especially that of its fur-trade. To give the required security, I ordered a much larger portion of the army to that frontier; and to afford facility and protection for carrying on the fur-trade, the military posts were moved much higher up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Under the increased security and facility which these measures afforded, the fur-trade received a great impulse. It extended across the continent in a short time, to the Pacific, and north and south to the British and Mexican frontiers; yielding in a few years, as stated by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Linn], half a million of dollars annually. But I stopped not there. I saw that individual enterprise on our part, however great, could not successfully compete with the powerful incorporated Canadian and Hudson Bay Companies, and that additional measures were necessary to secure permanently our fur-trade. For that purpose I proposed to establish a post still higher up the Missouri, at the mouth of the Yellow Stone River, and to give such unity and efficiency to our intercourse and trade with the Indian tribes between our Western frontier and the Pacific ocean, as would enable our citizens engaged in the fur-trade to compete successfully with the British traders. Had the measures proposed been adopted, we would not now have to listen to the complaint, so frequently uttered in this discussion, of the loss of that trade."
The inconsistent argument of Mr. McDuffie, that the country was worthless, and yet that Great Britain would go to war for it, was thus answered by Mr. Linn:
"The senator from South Carolina somewhat inconsistently urges that the country is bleak, barren, volcanic, rocky, a waste always flooded when it is not parched; and insists that, worthless as it is, Great Britain will go at once to war for it. Strange that she should in 1818 have held so tenaciously to what is so worthless! Stranger still, that she should have stuck yet closer to it in 1827, when she had had still ampler time to learn the bootlessness of the possession! And strangest of all, that she should still cling to it with the grasp of death! Sir, I cannot for my life help thinking that she and the senator have formed a very different estimate of the territory, and that she is (as she ought to be) a good deal the better informed. She knows well its soil climate, and physical resources, and perfectly comprehends its commercial and geographical importance. And knowing all this, she was ready to sink all sense of justice, stifle all respect for our clear title, and hasten to root her interests in the soil, so as to secure the strong, even when most wrongful, title of possession."
The danger of waiting for Great Britain to strengthen her claim was illustrated by Mr. Linn, by what had happened in Maine. In 1814 she proposed to purchase the part she wanted. She afterwards endeavored to negotiate for a right of way across the State. Failing in that attempted negotiation, as in the offer to purchase, she boldly set up a claim to all she wanted--demanded it as matter of right--and obtained it by the Ashburton treaty--the United States paying Massachusetts and Maine for the dismembered part. Deprecating a like result from temporizing measures with respect to Oregon, Mr. Linn said:
"So little before 1813 or 1814 did Great Britain ever doubt your claim to the lately contested territory in Maine, that in 1814 she proposed to purchase that part of it which she desired. She next treated for a right of way. It was refused; and she then set up a claim to the soil. This method has sped no ill with her; for she has got what she wanted, AND MADE YOU PAY FOR IT. Her Oregon game is the same. She has set her heart upon a strip of territory north of the Oregon, and seems determined to pluck it from us, either by circumvention or force. Aware of the political as well as legal advantages of possession, she is strengthening hers in every way not too directly responsible. She is selecting and occupying the best lands, the most favorable sites. These she secures to the settlers under contracts. For any counteraction of yours, she may take, and is taking, possession of the whole territory. She has appropriated sites for mills, manufactories, and farms. If one of these has been abandoned for a better, she reverts to it, if a citizen of yours occupies it, and ejects him. She tells her people she will protect them in whatever they have laid, or may lay, their hands upon. If she can legitimately do this, why may not we? Is this a joint occupation of which she is to have the sole benefit? Had you as many citizens there as she, you would be compelled to protect them; and if you have not, why is it but because she keeps them off, and you refuse to offer them the inducements which she holds out? Give them a prospective grant of lands, and insure them the shelter of your laws, and they will soon congregate there in force enough to secure your rights and their own."
The losses already sustained by our citizens from the ravages of Indians, incited against them by the British Hudson Bay company, were stated by Mr. Linn upon good authority, to be five hundred men in lives taken in the first ten years of the joint occupation treaty, and half a million of dollars in property robbed or destroyed, besides getting exclusive possession of our soil, and the command of our own Indians within our own limits: and he then contrasted this backwardness to protect our own citizens on their own soil with the readiness to expend untold amounts on the protection of our citizens engaged in foreign commerce; and even in going to the coast of Africa to guard the freedom of the negro race.
"Wherever your sails whiten the sea, in no matter what clime, against no matter whom, the national arm stretches out its protection. Every where but in this unhappy territory, the persons and the pursuits of your citizens are watched over. You count no cost when other interests are concerned, when other rights are assailed; but you recoil here from a trifling appropriation to an object of the highest national importance, because it enlists no sectional influence. Contrast, for instance, your supineness about the Oregon Territory, with your alacrity to establish, for guarding the slave coast and Liberia, a squadron costing $600,000 annually, and which you have bound yourself by treaty to keep up for five years, with great exposure of lives and vessels. By stipulation, eighty guns (one-twelfth of your force afloat) is kept upon this service; and, as your naval expenditure amounts to about seven millions a year, this (its twelfth part) will make, in five years, three millions bestowed in watching the coast of Africa, and guarding the freedom of the negro race! For this you lavish millions; and you grudge $100,000 to the great American and national object of asserting your territorial rights and settling your soil. You grant at once what furthers the slave policy of a rival power, and deny the means of rescuing from its grasp your own property and soil."
This African squadron has now been kept up more than twice five years, and promises to be perpetual; for there was that delusive clause in the article, so tempting to all temporizing spirits, that after the lapse of the five years, the squadron was still to be kept up until the United States should give notice to terminate the article. This idea of notice to terminate a treaty, so easy to put in it, and so difficult to be given when entanglement and use combine to keep things as they are, was shown to be almost impossible in this treaty of joint occupation of the Columbia. Mr. Calhoun had demanded of Mr. Linn, why not give the notice to terminate the treaty before proceeding to settle the country? to which he answered:
"The senator from South Carolina [Mr. CALHOUN], has urged that we should, first of all, give the twelve months' notice of our renunciation of the treaty. He [Mr. LINN] could only answer that he had repeatedly, by resolutions, urged that course in former years; but always in vain. He had ever been met with the answer: 'This is not the proper time--wait.' Meanwhile, the adverse possession was going on, fortifying from year to year the British claim and the British resources, to make it good. Mr. Madison had encouraged the bold and well-arranged scheme of Astor to fortify and colonize. He was dispossessed; and the nucleus of empire which his establishments formed, passed into the hands of the Hudson Bay Company, now the great instrument of English aggrandizement in that quarter. The senator insists that, by the treaty, there should be a joint possession. Be it so, if you will. But where is our part of this joint possession? In what does it consist, or has it consisted? We have no posts there, no agent, no military power to protect traders. Nay, indeed, no traders! For they have disappeared before foreign competition; or fallen a sacrifice to the rifle, the tomahawk, or the scalping knife of those savages whom the Hudson Bay Company can always make the instruments of systematic massacre of adventurous rivals."
Mr. Benton spoke at large in defence of the bill, and first of the clause in it allotting land to the settlers, saying:
"The objections to this bill grew out of the clause granting land to the settlers, not so much on account of the grants themselves, as on account of the exclusive jurisdiction over the country, which the grants would seem to imply. This was the objection; for no one defended the title of the British to one inch square of the valley of Oregon. The senator from Arkansas [Mr. SEVIER], who has just spoken, had well said that this was an objection to the whole bill; for the rest would be worth nothing, without these grants to the settlers. Nobody would go there without the inducement of land. The British had planted a power there--the Hudson Bay Fur Company--in which the old Northwest Company was merged; and this power was to them in the New World what the East India company was to them in the Old World: it was an arm of the government, and did every thing for the government which policy, or treaties prevented it from doing for itself. This company was settling and colonizing the Columbia for the British government, and we wish American citizens to settle and colonize it for us. The British government gives inducement to this company. It gives them trade, commerce, an exclusive charter, laws, and national protection. We must give inducement also; and our inducement must be land and protection. Grants of land will carry settlers there; and the senator from Ohio [Mr. TAPPAN] was treading in the tracks of Mr. Jefferson (perhaps without having read his recommendation, although he has read much) when he proposed, in his speech of yesterday, to plant 50,000 settlers, with their 50,000 rifles, on the banks of the Oregon. Mr. Jefferson had proposed the same thing in regard to Louisiana. He proposed that we should settle that vast domain when we acquired it; and for that purpose, that donations of land should be made to the first 30,000 settlers who should go there. This was the right doctrine, and the old doctrine. The white race were a land-loving people, and had a right to possess it, because they used it according to the intentions of the Creator. The white race went for land, and they will continue to go for it, and will go where they can get it. Europe, Asia, and America, have been settled by them in this way. All the States of this Union have been so settled. The principle is founded in their nature and in God's command; and it will continue to be obeyed. The valley of the Columbia is a vast field open to the settler. It is ours, and our people are beginning to go upon it. They go under the expectation of getting land; and that expectation must be confirmed to them. This bill proposes to confirm it; and if it fails in this particular, it fails in all. There is nothing left to induce emigration; and emigration is the only thing which can save the country from the British, acting through their powerful agent--the Hudson Bay Company."
Mr. Benton then showed from a report of Major Pilcher, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and who had visited the Columbia River, that actual colonization was going on there, attended by every circumstance that indicated ownership and the design of a permanent settlement. Fort Vancouver, the principal of these British establishments, for there are many of them within our boundaries, is thus described by Major Pilcher:
"This fort is on the north side of the Columbia, nearly opposite the mouth of the Multnomah, in the region of tide-water, and near the head of ship navigation. It is a grand position, both in a military and commercial point of view, and formed to command the whole region watered by the Columbia and its tributaries. The surrounding country, both in climate and soil, is capable of sustaining a large population; and its resources in timber give ample facilities for ship-building. This post is fortified with cannon; and, having been selected as the principal or master position, no pains have been spared to strengthen or improve it. For this purpose, the old post near the mouth of the river has been abandoned. About one hundred and twenty acres of ground are in cultivation; and the product in wheat, barley, oats, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, is equal to what is known in the best parts of the United States. Domestic animals are numerous--the horned cattle having been stated to me at three hundred; hogs, horses, sheep, and goats, in proportion; also, the usual domestic fowls: every thing, in fact, indicating a permanent establishment. Ship-building has commenced at this place. One vessel has been built and rigged, sent to sea, and employed in the trade of the Pacific Ocean. I also met a gentleman, on my way to Lake Winnipec, at the portage between the Columbia and Athabasca, who was on his way from Hudson's Bay to Fort Colville, with a master ship-carpenter, and who was destined for Fort Vancouver, for the purpose of building a ship of considerable burden. Both grist and saw-mills have been built at Fort Vancouver: with the latter, they saw the timber which is needed for their own use, and also for exportation to the Sandwich Islands; upon the former, their wheat is manufactured into flour. And, from all that I could learn, this important post is silently growing up into a colony; and is, perhaps, intended as a future military and naval station, which was not expected to be delivered up at the expiration of the treaty which granted them a temporary and joint possession."
Mr. Benton made a brief deduction of our title to the Columbia to the 49th parallel under the treaty of Utrecht, and rapidly traced the various British attempts to encroach upon that line, the whole of which, though earnestly made and perseveringly continued, failed to follow that great line from the Lake of the Woods to the shores of the Pacific. He thus made this deduction of title:
"Louisiana was acquired in 1803. In the very instant of signing the treaty which brought us that province, another treaty was signed in London (without a knowledge of what was done in Paris), fixing, among other things, the line from the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi. This treaty, signed by Mr. Rufus King and Lord Hawkesbury, was rejected by Mr. Jefferson, without reference to the Senate, on account of the fifth article (which related to the line between the Lake of the Woods and the head of the Mississippi), for fear it might compromise the northern boundary of Louisiana and the line of 49 degrees. In this negotiation of 1803, the British made no attempt on the line of the 49th degree, because it was not then known to them that we had acquired Louisiana; but Mr. Jefferson, having a knowledge of this acquisition, was determined that nothing should be done to compromise our rights, or to unsettle the boundaries established under the treaty of Utrecht.
"Another treaty was negotiated with Great Britain in 1807, between Messrs. Monroe and William Pinckney on one side, and Lords Holland and Auckland on the other. The English were now fully possessed of the fact that we had acquired Louisiana, and become a party to the line of 49 degrees; and they set themselves openly to work to destroy that line. The correspondence of the ministers shows the pertinacity of these attempts; and the instructions of Mr. Adams, in 1818 (when Secretary of State, under Mr. Monroe), to Messrs. Rush and Gallatin, then in London, charged with negotiating a convention on points left unsettled at Ghent, condense the history of the mutual propositions then made. Finally, an article was agreed upon, in which the British succeeded in mutilating the line, and stopping it at the Rocky Mountains. This treaty of 1807 shared the fate of that of 1803, but for a different reason. It was rejected by Mr. Jefferson, without reference to the Senate, because it did not contain an explicit renunciation of the pretension of impressment!
"At Ghent the attempt was renewed: the arrest of the line at the Rocky Mountains was agreed upon, but the British coupled with their proposition a demand for the free navigation of the Mississippi, and access to it through the territories of the United States; and this demand occasioned the whole article to be omitted. The Ghent treaty was signed without any stipulation on the subject of the line along the 49th degree, and that point became a principal object of the ministers charged with completing at London, in 1818, the subjects unfinished at Ghent in 1814. Thus the British were again foiled; but, true to their design, they persevered and accomplished it in the convention signed at London in 1818. That convention arrested the line at the mountains, and opened the Columbia to the joint occupation of the British; and, being ratified by the United States, it has become binding and obligatory on the country. But it is a point not to be overlooked, or undervalued, in this case, that it was in the year 1818 that this arrestation of the line took place; that up to that period it was in full force in all its extent, and, consequently, in full force to the Pacific Ocean; and a complete bar (leaving out all other barriers) to any British acquisition, by discovery, south of 49 degrees in North America."
The President in his message had said that "informal conferences" had taken place between Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton on the subject of the Columbia, but he had not communicated them. Mr. Benton obtained a call of the Senate for them: the President answered it was incompatible with the public interest to make them public. That was a strange answer, seeing that all claims by either party, and all negotiations on the subjects between them, whether concluded or not, and whether successful or not should be communicated.
"The President, in his message recommending the peace treaty, informs us that the Columbia was the subject of "informal conferences" between the negotiators of that treaty; but that it could not then be included among the subjects of formal negotiation. This was an ominous annunciation, and should have opened the eyes of the President to a great danger. If the peace mission, which came here to settle every thing, and which had so much to gain in the Maine boundary and the African alliance;--if this mission could not agree with us about the Columbia, what mission ever can? To an inquiry from the Senate to know the nature and extent of these "informal conferences" between Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton, and to learn the reason why the Columbia question could not have been included among the subjects of formal negotiation--to these inquiries, the President answers, that it is incompatible with the public interest to communicate these things. This is a strange answer, and most unexpected. We have no political secrets in our country, neither among ourselves nor with foreigners. On this subject of the Columbia, especially, we have no secrets. Every thing in relation to it has been published. All the conferences heretofore have been made public. The protocols, the minutes, the conversations, on both sides, have all been published. The British have published their claim, such as it is: we have published ours. The public documents are full of them, and there can be nothing in the question itself to require secrecy. The negotiator, and not the subject, may require secrecy. Propositions may have been made, and listened to, which no previous administration would tolerate, and which it may be deemed prudent to conceal until it has taken the form of a stipulation, and the cry of war can be raised to ravish its ratification from us. All previous administrations, while claiming the whole valley of the Columbia, have refused to admit a particle of British claim south of 49 degrees. Mr. Adams, under Mr. Monroe, peremptorily refused to submit any such claim even to arbitration. The Maine boundary, settled by the treaty of 1783, had been submitted to arbitration; but this boundary of 49 was refused. And now, if, after all this, any proposition has been made by our government to give up the north bank of the river, I, for one, shall not fail to brand such a proposition with the name of treason."
This paragraph was not without point, and even inuendo. The north bank of the Columbia with equal rights of navigation in the river, and to the harbor at its mouth, had been the object of the British from the time that the fur-trader, and explorer, Sir Alexander McKenzie, had shown that there was no river and harbor suitable to commerce and settlement north of that stream. They had openly proposed it in negotiations: they had even gone so far as to tell our commissioners of 1818, that no treaty of boundaries could be made unless that river became the line, and its waters and the harbor at the mouth made common to both nations--a declaration which should have utterly forbid the idea of a joint occupation, as such occupation was admitting an equality of title and laying a foundation for a division of the territory. This cherished idea of dividing by the river had pervaded every British negotiation since 1818. It was no secret: the British begged it: we refused it. Lord Ashburton, there is reason to know, brought out the same proposition. In his first diplomatic note he stated that he came prepared to settle all the questions of difference between the two countries; and this affair of the Columbia was too large, and of too long standing, and of too much previous negotiation to have been overlooked. It was not overlooked. The President says that there were conferences about it, qualified as informal: which is evidence there would have been formal negotiation if the informal had promised success. The informal did not so promise; and the reason was, that the two senators from Missouri being sounded on the subject of a conventional divisional line, repulsed the suggestion with an earnestness which put an end to it; and this knowledge of a proposition for a conventional line induced the indignant language which those two senators used on the subject in all their speeches. If they had yielded, the valley of the Columbia would have been divided; for that is the way the whole Ashburton treaty was made. Senators were sounded by the American negotiator, each on the point which lay nearest to him; and whatever they agreed to was put into the treaty. Thus the cases of the liberated slaves at Nassau and Bermuda were given up--the leading southern senators agreeing to it beforehand, and voting for the treaty afterwards. The writer of this View had this fact from Mr. Bagby, who refused to go with them, and voted against the ratification of the treaty.
"This pretension to the Columbia is an encroachment upon our rights and possession. It is a continuation of the encroachments which Great Britain systematically practises upon us. Diplomacy and audacity carry her through, and gain her position after position upon our borders. It is in vain that the treaty of 1783 gave us a safe military frontier. We have been losing it ever since the late war, and are still losing it. The commission under the treaty of Ghent took from us the islands of Grand Menan, Campo Bello, and Indian Island, on the coast of Maine, and which command the bays of Fundy and Passamaquoddy. Those islands belonged to us by the treaty of peace, and by the laws of God and nature; for they are on our coast, and within wading distance of it. Can we not wade to these islands? [Looking at senator WILLIAMS, who answered, 'We can wade to one of them.'] Yes, wade to it! And yet the British worked them out of us; and now can wade to us, and command our land, as well as our water. By these acquisitions, and those of the late treaty, the Bay of Fundy will become a great naval station to overawe and scourge our whole coast, from Maine to Florida. Under the same commission of the Ghent treaty, she got from us the island of Boisblanc, in the mouth of the Detroit River, and which commands that river and the entrance into Lake Erie. It was ours under the treaty of 1783; it was taken from us by diplomacy. And now an American ship must pass between the mouths of two sets of British batteries--one on Boisblanc; the other directly opposite, at Malden; and the two batteries within three or four hundred yards of each other. Am I right as to the distance? [Looking at Senator WOODBRIDGE, who answered, 'The distance is three hundred yards.'] Then comes the late treaty, which takes from us (for I will say nothing of what the award gave up beyond the St. John) the mountain frontier, 3,000 feet in height, 150 miles long, approaching Quebec and the St. Lawrence, and, in the language of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, 'commanding all their communications, and commanding and overawing Quebec itself.' This we have given up; and, in doing so, have given up our military advantages in that quarter, and placed them in the hands of Great Britain, to be used against ourselves in future wars. The boundary between the Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods has been altered by the late treaty, and subjected us to another encroachment, and to the loss of a military advantage, which Great Britain gains. To say nothing about Pigeon River as being or not being the 'long lake' of the treaty of 1783; to say nothing of that, there are yet two routes commencing in that stream--one bearing far to the south, and forming the large island called 'Hunter's.' By the old boundary the line went the northern route; by the new, it goes to the south; giving to the British a large scope of our territory (which is of no great value), but giving them, also, the exclusive possession of the old route, the best route, and the one commanding the Indians, which is of great importance. The encroachment now attempted upon the Columbia, is but a continuation of this system of encroachments which is kept up against us, and which, until 1818, labored even to get the navigation of the Mississippi, by laboring to make the line from the Lake of the Woods reach its head spring. If Great Britain had succeeded in getting this line to touch the Mississippi, she was then to claim the navigation of the river, under the law of nations, contrary to her doctrine in the case of the people of Maine and the river St. John. The line of the 49th parallel of north latitude is another instance of her encroaching policy; it has been mutilated by the persevering efforts of British diplomacy; and the breaking of that line was immediately followed by the most daring of all her encroachments--that of the Columbia River."
The strength of the bill was tested by a motion to strike out the land-donation clause, which failed by a vote of 24 to 22. The bill was then passed by the same vote--the yeas and nays being:
"YEAS.--Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Clayton, Fulton, Henderson, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mangum, Merrick, Phelps, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Smith of Indiana, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, White, Wilcox, Williams, Woodbury, Wright, Young."
"NAYS.--Messrs. Archer, Bagby, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Calhoun, Choate, Conrad, Crafts, Dayton, Evans, Graham, Huntington, McDuffie, Miller, Porter, Rives, Simmons, Sprague, Tallmadge, Woodbridge."
The bill went to the House, where it remained unacted upon during the session; but the effect intended by it was fully produced. The vote of the Senate was sufficient encouragement to the enterprising people of the West. Emigration increased. An American settlement grew up at the mouth of the Columbia. Conventional agreements among themselves answered the purpose of laws. A colony was planted--had planted itself--and did not intend to retire from its position--and did not. It remained and grew; and that colony of self-impulsion, without the aid of government, and in spite of all its blunders, saved the Territory of Oregon to the United States: one of the many events which show how little the wisdom of government has to do with great events which fix the fate of countries.
Connected with this emigration, and auxiliary to it, was the first expedition of Lieutenant Frémont to the Rocky Mountains, and undertaken and completed in the summer of 1842--upon its outside view the conception of the government, but in fact conceived without its knowledge, and executed upon solicited orders, of which the design was unknown. Lieutenant Frémont was a young officer, appointed in the topographical corps from the class of citizens by President Jackson upon the recommendation of Mr. Poinsett, Secretary at War. He did not enter the army through the gate of West Point, and was considered an intrusive officer by the graduates of that institution. Having, before his appointment, assisted for two years the learned astronomer, Mr. Nicollet, in his great survey of the country between the Missouri and Mississippi, his mind was trained to such labor; and instead of hunting comfortable berths about the towns and villages, he solicited employment in the vast regions beyond the Mississippi. Col. Abert, the chief of the corps, gave him an order to go to the frontier beyond the Mississippi. That order did not come up to his views. After receiving it he carried it back, and got it altered, and the Rocky Mountains inserted as an object of his exploration, and the South Pass in those mountains named as a particular point to be examined, and its position fixed by him. It was through this Pass that the Oregon emigration crossed the mountains, and the exploration of Lieutenant Frémont had the double effect of fixing an important point in the line of the emigrants' travel, and giving them encouragement from the apparent interest which the government took in their enterprise. At the same time the government, that is, the executive administration, knew nothing about it. The design was conceived by the young lieutenant: the order for its execution was obtained, upon solicitation, from his immediate chief--importing, of course, to be done by his order, but an order which had its conception elsewhere.
Chapter CXIII
LIEUTENANT FREMONT'S FIRST EXPEDITION: SPEECH, AND MOTION OF SENATOR LINN.
A communication was received from the War Department, in answer to a call heretofore made for the report of Lieutenant Frémont's expedition to the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Linn moved that it be printed for the use of the Senate; and also that one thousand extra copies be printed.
"In support of his motion," Mr. L. said, "that in the course of the last summer a very interesting expedition had been undertaken to the Rocky Mountains, ordered by Col. Abert, chief of the Topographical Bureau, with the sanction of the Secretary at War, and executed by Lieutenant Frémont of the topographical engineers. The object of the expedition was to examine and report upon the rivers and country between the frontiers of Missouri and the base of the Rocky Mountains; and especially to examine the character, and ascertain the latitude and longitude of the South Pass, the great crossing place to these mountains on the way to the Oregon. All the objects of the expedition have been accomplished, and in a way to be beneficial to science, and instructive to the general reader, as well as useful to the government.
"Supplied with the best astronomical and barometrical instruments, well qualified to use them, and accompanied by twenty-five voyageurs, enlisted for the purpose at St. Louis, and trained to all the hardships and dangers of the prairies and the mountains, Mr. Frémont left the mouth of the Kansas, on the frontiers of Missouri, on the 10th of June; and, in the almost incredibly short space of four months returned to the same point, without an accident to a man, and with a vast mass of useful observations, and many hundred specimens in botany and geology.
"In executing his instructions, Mr. Frémont proceeded up the Kansas River far enough to ascertain its character, and then crossed over to the Great Platte, and pursued that river to its source in the mountains, where the Sweet Water (a head branch of the Platte) issues from the neighborhood of the South Pass. He reached the Pass on the 8th of August, and describes it as a wide and low depression of the mountains, where the ascent is as easy as that of the hill on which this Capitol stands, and where a plainly beaten wagon road leads to the Oregon through the valley of Lewis's River, a fork of the Columbia. He went through the Pass, and saw the head-waters of the Colorado, of the Gulf of California; and, leaving the valleys to indulge a laudable curiosity and to make some useful observations, and attended by four of his men, he climbed the loftiest peak of the Rocky Mountains, until then untrodden by any known human being; and, on the 15th of August, looked down upon ice and snow some thousand feet below, and traced in the distance the valleys of the rivers which, taking their rise in the same elevated ridge, flow in opposite directions to the Pacific Ocean and to the Mississippi. From that ultimate point he returned by the valley of the Great Platte, following the stream in its whole course, and solving all questions in relation to its navigability, and the character of the country through which it flows.
"Over the whole course of this extended route, barometrical observations were made by Mr. Frémont, to ascertain elevations both of the plains and of the mountains; astronomical observations were taken, to ascertain latitudes and longitudes; the face of the country was marked as arable or sterile; the facility of travelling, and the practicability of routes, noted; the grand features of nature described, and some presented in drawings; military positions indicated; and a large contribution to geology and botany was made in the varieties of plants, flowers, shrubs, trees, and grasses, and rocks and earths, which were enumerated. Drawings of some grand and striking points, and a map of the whole route, illustrate the report, and facilitate the understanding of its details. Eight carts, drawn by two mules each, accompanied the expedition; a fact which attests the facility of travelling in this vast region. Herds of buffaloes furnished subsistence to the men; a short, nutritious grass, sustained the horses and mules. Two boys (one of twelve years of age, the other of eighteen), besides the enlisted men, accompanied the expedition, and took their share of its hardships; which proves that boys, as well as men, are able to traverse the country to the Rocky Mountains.
"The result of all his observations Mr. Frémont had condensed into a brief report--enough to make a document of ninety or one hundred pages; and believing that this document would be of general interest to the whole country, and beneficial to science, as well as useful to the government, I move the printing of the extra number which has been named.
"In making this motion, and in bringing this report to the notice of the Senate, I take a great pleasure in noticing the activity and importance of the Topographical Bureau. Under its skilful and vigilant head [Colonel Abert], numerous valuable and incessant surveys are made; and a mass of information collected of the highest importance to the country generally, as well as to the military branch of the public service. This report proves conclusively that the country, for several hundred miles from the frontier of Missouri, is exceedingly beautiful and fertile; alternate woodland and prairie, and certain portions well supplied with water. It also proves that the valley of the river Platte has a very rich soil, affording great facilities for emigrants to the west of the Rocky Mountains.
"The printing was ordered."
CXIV. OREGON COLONIZATION ACT: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH
MR. BENTON said: On one point there is unanimity on this floor; and that is, as to the title to the country in question. All agree that the title is in the United States. On another point there is division; and that is, on the point of giving offence to England, by granting the land to our settlers which the bill proposes. On this point we divide. Some think it will offend her--some think it will not. For my part, I think she will take offence, do what we may in relation to this territory. She wants it herself, and means to quarrel for it, if she does not fight for it. I think she will take offence at our bill, and even at our discussion of it. The nation that could revive the question of impressment in 1842--which could direct a peace mission to revive that question--the nation that can insist upon the right of search, and which was ready to go to war with us for what gentlemen call a few acres of barren ground in a frozen region--the nation that could do these things, and which has set up a claim to our territory on the western coast of our own continent, must be ripe and ready to take offence at any thing that we may do. I grant that she will take offence; but that is not the question with me. Has she a right to take offence? That is my question! and this being decided in the negative, I neither fear nor calculate consequences. I take for my rule of action the maxim of President Jackson in his controversy with France--ask nothing but what is right, submit to nothing wrong and leave the consequences to God and the country. That maxim brought us safely and honorably out of our little difficulty with France, notwithstanding the fears which so many then entertained; and it will do the same with Great Britain, in spite of our present apprehensions. Courage will keep her off, fear will bring her upon us. The assertion of our rights will command her respect; the fear to assert them will bring us her contempt. The question, then, with me, is the question of right, and not of fear! Is it right for us to make these grants on the Columbia? Has Great Britain just cause to be offended at it? These are my questions; and these being answered to my satisfaction, I go forward with the grants, and leave the consequences to follow at their pleasure.
The fear of Great Britain is pressed upon us; at the same time her pacific disposition is enforced and insisted upon. And here it seems to me, that gentlemen fall into a grievous inconsistency. While they dwell on the peaceable disposition of Great Britain, they show her ready to go to war with us for nothing, or even for our own! The northeastern boundary is called a dispute for a few acres of barren land in a frozen region, worth nothing; yet we are called upon to thank God Almighty and Daniel Webster for saving us from a war about these few frozen and barren acres. Would Great Britain have gone to war with us for these few acres? and is that a sign of her pacific temper? The Columbia is admitted on all hands to be ours; yet gentlemen fear war with Great Britain if we touch it--worthless as it is in their eyes. Is this a sign of peace? Is it a pacific disposition to go to war with us, for what is our own; and which is besides, according to their opinion, not worth a straw? Is this peaceful? If it is, I should like to know what is hostile. The late special minister is said to have come here, bearing the olive branch of peace in his hand. Granting that the olive branch was in one hand, what was in the other? Was not the war question of impressment in the other? also, the war question of search, on the coast of Africa? also, the war question of the Columbia, which he refused to include in the peace treaty? Were not these three war questions in the other hand?--to say nothing of the Caroline; for which he refused atonement; and the Creole, which he says would have occasioned the rejection of the treaty, if named in it. All these war questions were in the other hand; and the special mission, having accomplished its peace object in getting possession of the military frontiers of Maine, has adjourned all the war questions to London, where we may follow them if we please. But there is one of these subjects for which we need not go to London--the Creole, and its kindred cases. The conference of Lord Ashburton with the abolition committee of New York shows that that question need not go to London--that England means to maintain all her grounds on the subject of slaves, and that any treaty inconsistent with these grounds would be rejected. This is what he says:
"Lord Ashburton said that, when the delegation came to read his correspondence with Mr. Webster, they would see that he had taken all possible care to prevent any injury being done to the people of color; that, if he had been willing to introduce an article including cases similar to that of the Creole, his government would never have ratified it, as they will adhere to the great principles they have so long avowed and maintained; and that the friends of the slave in England would be very watchful to see that no wrong practice took place under the tenth article."
This is what his lordship said in New York, and which shows that it was not want of instructions to act on the Creole case, as alleged in Mr. Webster's correspondence, but want of inclination in the British government to settle the case. The treaty would have been rejected, if the Creole case had been named in it; and if we had had a protocol showing that fact, I presume the important note of Lord Ashburton would have stood for as little in the eyes of other senators as it did in mine, and that the treaty would have found but few supporters. The Creole case would not be admitted into the treaty; and what was put in it, is to give the friends of the slaves in England a right to watch us, and to correct our wrong practices under the treaty! This is what the protocol after the treaty informs us; and if we had had a protocol before it, it is probable that there would have been no occasion for this conference with the New York abolitionists. Be that as it may, the peace mission, with its olive branch in one hand, brought a budget of war questions in the other, and has carried them all back to London, to become the subject of future negotiations. All these subjects are pregnant with danger. One of them will force itself upon us in five years--the search question--which we have purchased off for a time; and when the purchase is out we must purchase again, or submit to be searched, or resist with arms. I repeat it: the pacific England has a budget of war questions now in reserve for us, and that we cannot escape them by fearing war. Neither nations nor individuals ever escaped danger by fearing it. They must face it, and defy it. An abandonment of a right, for fear of bringing on an attack, instead of keeping it off, will inevitably bring on the outrage that is dreaded.
Other objections are urged to this bill, to which I cannot agree. The distance is objected to it. It is said to be eighteen thousand miles by water (around Cape Horn), and above three thousand miles by land and water, through the continent. Granted. The very distance, by Cape Horn, was urged by me, twenty years ago, as a reason for occupying and fortifying the mouth of the Columbia. My argument was, that we had merchant ships and ships of war in the North Pacific Ocean; that these vessels were twenty thousand miles from an Atlantic port; that a port on the western coast of America was indispensable to their safety; and that it would be suicidal in us to abandon the port we have there to any power, and especially to the most formidable and domineering naval power which the world ever saw. And I instanced the case of Commodore Porter, his prizes lost, and his own ship eventually captured in a neutral port, because we had no port of our own to receive and shelter him. The twenty thousand miles distance, and dangerous and tempestuous cape to be doubled, were with me arguments in favor of a port on the western coast of America, and, as such, urged on this floor near twenty years ago. The distance through the continent is also objected to. It is said to exceed three thousand miles. Granted. But it is further than that to Africa, where we propose to build up a colony of negroes out of our recaptured Africans. Our eighty-gun fleet is to carry her intercepted slaves to Liberia: so says the correspondence of the naval captains (Bell and Paine) with Mr. Webster. Hunting in couples with the British, at an expense of money (to say nothing of the loss of lives and ships) of six hundred thousand dollars per annum, to recapture kidnapped negroes, we are to carry them to Liberia, and build up a black colony there, four thousand miles from us, while the Columbia is too far off for a white colony! The English are to carry their redeemed captives to Jamaica, and make apprentices of them for life. We are to carry ours to Liberia; and then we must go to Liberia to protect and defend them. Liberia is four thousand miles distant, and not objected to on account of the distance; the Columbia is not so far, and distance becomes a formidable objection.
The expense is brought forward as another objection, and repeated, notwithstanding the decisive answer it has received from my colleague. He has shown that it is but a fraction of the expense of the African squadron; that this squadron is the one-twelfth part of our whole naval establishment, which is to cost us seven millions of dollars per annum, and that the annual cost of the squadron must be near six hundred thousand dollars, and its expense for five years three millions. For the forts in the Oregon--forts which are only to be stockades and block-houses, for security against the Indians--for these forts, only one hundred thousand dollars is appropriated; being the sixth part of the annual expense, and the thirtieth part of the whole expense, of the African fleet. Thus the objection of expense becomes futile and ridiculous. But why this everlasting objection of expense to every thing western? Our dragoons dismounted, because, they say, horses are too expensive. The western rivers unimproved, on account of the expense. No western armory, because of the expense. Yet hundreds of thousands, and millions, for the African squadron!
Another great objection to the bill is the land clause--the grants of land to the settler, his wife, and his children. Gentlemen say they will vote for the bill if that clause is stricken out; and I say, I will vote against it if that clause is stricken out. It is, in fact, the whole strength and essence of the bill. Without these grants, the bill will be worth nothing. Nobody will go three thousand miles to settle a new country, unless he gets land by it. The whole power of the bill is in this clause; and if it is stricken out, the friends of the bill will give it up. They will give it up now, and wait for the next Congress, when the full representation of the people, under the new census, will be in power, and when a more auspicious result might be expected.
Time is invoked, as the agent that is to help us. Gentlemen object to the present time, refer us to the future, and beg us to wait, and rely upon TIME and NEGOTIATIONS to accomplish all our wishes. Alas! time and negotiation have been fatal agents to us, in all our discussions with Great Britain. Time has been constantly working for her, and against us. She now has the exclusive possession of the Columbia; and all she wants is time, to ripen her possession into title. For above twenty years--from the time of Dr. Floyd's bill, in 1820, down to the present moment--the present time, for vindicating our rights on the Columbia, has been constantly objected to; and we were bidden to wait. Well, we have waited: and what have we got by it? Insult and defiance!--a declaration from the British ministers that large British interests have grown up on the Columbia during this time, which they will protect!--and a flat refusal from the olive-branch minister to include this question among those which his peaceful mission was to settle! No, sir; time and negotiation have been bad agents for us, in our controversies with Great Britain. They have just lost us the military frontiers of Maine, which we had held for sixty years; and the trading frontier of the Northwest, which we had held for the same time. Sixty years' possession, and eight treaties, secured these ancient and valuable boundaries: one negotiation, and a few days of time, have taken them from us! And so it may be again. The Webster treaty of 1842 has obliterated the great boundaries of 1783--placed the British, their fur company and their Indians, within our ancient limits: and I, for one, want no more treaties from the hand which is always seen on the side of the British. I go now for vindicating our rights on the Columbia; and, as the first step towards it, passing this bill, and making these grants of land, which will soon place the thirty or forty thousand rifles beyond the Rocky Mountains, which will be our effective negotiators.
Chapter CXV
NAVY PAY AND EXPENSES: PROPOSED REDUCTION: SPEECH OF MR. MERIWETHER, OF GEORGIA: EXTRACTS.
Mr. Meriwether said "that it was from no hostility to the service that he desired to reduce the pay of the navy. It had been increased in 1835 to meet the increase of labor elsewhere, &c.; and a decline having taken place there, he thought a corresponding decline should take place in the price of labor in the navy. At the last session of Congress, this House called on the Secretary of the Navy for a statement of the pay allowed each officer previous to the act of 1835. From the answer to that resolution, Mr. M. derived the facts which he should state to the House. He was desirous of getting the exact amount received by each grade of officers, to show the precise increase by the act of 1835. Aided by that report, the Biennial Register of 1822, and the Report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1822, furnishing the estimates for the 'full pay and full rations' of each grade of officers, he was enabled to present the entire facts accurately. Previous to that time, the classification of officers was different from what it has been since; but, as far as like services have been rendered under each classification, the comparative pay is presented under each. Previous to 1835, the pay of the 'commanding officer of the navy' was $100 per month, and sixteen rations per day, valued at 25 cents each ration; which amounted, 'full pay and full rations,' to $2,660 per annum. The same officer as senior captain in service receives now $4,500; while 'on leave,' he receives $3,500 per annum. Before 1835, a 'captain commanding a squadron' received the same pay as the commanding officer of the navy, and the same rations; amounting, in all, to $2,660; that same officer, exercising the same command, receives now $4,000. Before 1835, a captain commanding a vessel of 32 guns and upwards, received $100 per month and eight rations per day--being a total of $1,930 per annum; a captain commanding a vessel of 20 and under 32 guns, received $75 per month and six rations per day--amounting to $1,447 50 per annum. Since 1835, these same captains, when performing these same duties, receive $3,500; and when at home, by their firesides, 'waiting orders,' receive $2,500 per annum. Before 1835, a 'master commanding' received $60 per month and five rations per day--amounting to $1,176 per annum. Since that time, the same officer, in sea service, receives $2,500 per annum; at other duty, $2,100 per annum; and 'waiting orders,' $1,800 per annum. Before 1835, a 'lieutenant commanding' received $50 per month and four rations per day; which amounted to $965 per annum. Since that time, the same officer receives, for similar services, $1,800 per annum. Before 1835, a lieutenant on other duty received $40 per month, and three rations per day--amounting to $761 per annum. Since that time, for the same services, that same officer has received $1,500 per annum; and when 'waiting orders,' $1,200 per annum. Before 1835, a midshipman received $19 per month and one ration per day--making $319 25 per annum. Since that time, a passed midshipman on duty received $750 per annum; if 'waiting orders,' $600; a midshipman received, in sea service, $400; on other duty, $350; and 'waiting orders,' $300 per annum. Surgeons, before 1835, received $50 per month and two rations per day--amounting to $787 50; they now receive from $1,000 to $2,700 per annum. Before 1835, a 'schoolmaster' received $25 per month and two rations per day; now, under the name of a professor, he receives $1,200 per annum.
"Before 1835, a carpenter, boatswain, and gunner received $20 per month and two rations per day--making $427 50 each per annum; they now receive, if employed on a ship-of-the-line, $750, on a frigate $600, on other duty $500, and 'waiting orders' $360 per annum. A similar increase has been made in the pay of all other officers. The pay of seamen has not been enlarged, and it is proposed to leave it as it is. In several instances, an officer idle, 'waiting orders,' receives more pay now than one of similar grade received during the late war, when he exposed his life in battle in defence of his country. At the navy-yards the pay of officers was greater than at sea. Before 1835, a captain commandant received for pay, rations, candles, and servants' hire, $3,013 per annum, besides fuel; the same officer, for the same services, receives now $3,500 per annum. A master commandant received $1,408 per annum, with fuel; the same officer now receives $2,100 per annum. A lieutenant received $877, with fuel; the same officer receives now $1,500. At naval stations, before the act of 1835, a captain received $2,660 per annum; he now receives $3,500 per annum. A lieutenant received $761 per annum, and he now receives $1,500 per annum. Before and since the act of 1835, quarters were furnished the officers at navy yards and stations. Before that time, the pay and emoluments were estimated for in dollars and cents, and appropriated for as pay; and the foregoing statements are taken from the actual 'estimates' of the navy department, and, as such, show the whole pay and emoluments received by each officer.
"The effect of this increase of pay has been realized prejudicially in more ways than one. In the year 1824, there were afloat in the navy, 404 guns; in 1843, 946 guns. The cost of the item of pay alone for each gun, then, was $2,360; now the cost is $3,500.
"The naval service has become, to a great extent, one of ease and of idleness. The high pay has rendered its offices mostly sinecures; hence the great effort to increase the number of officers. Every argument has been used, every entreaty resorted to, to augment that corps. We have seen the effect of this, that in one year (1841) there were added 13 captains, 41 commanders, 42 lieutenants, and 163 midshipmen, without any possibly conceivable cause for the increase; and when, at the same time, these appointments were made, there were 20 captains 'waiting orders,' and 6 'on leave;' 26 commanders 'waiting orders,' and 3 'on leave;' 103 lieutenants 'on leave and waiting orders,' and 16 midshipmen 'on leave and waiting orders.' The pay of officers 'waiting orders' amounted, during the year 1841, to $261,000; and now the amount required for the pay of that same idle corps, increased by a useless and unnecessary increase of the navy, is $395,000! It is a fact worthy of notice that, under the old pay in 1824, there were 28 captains, 4 of whom were 'waiting orders,' of 30 commanders, only 7 were 'waiting orders.' Under the new pay, in 1843, there are 68 captains, of whom 38 are 'waiting orders;' 97 commanders, of whom 57 are 'waiting orders and on leave.' The item of pay, in 1841, amounted to $2,335,000, and we are asked to appropriate for the next twelve months $3,333,139. To give employment to as many officers as possible, it is proposed to extend greatly our naval force; increasing the number of our vessels in commission largely, and upon every station, notwithstanding our commerce is reduced, and we are at peace with all the world, and have actually purchased our peace from the only nation from which we apprehended difficulty.
"It was stated somewhere, in some of the reports, that the appropriation necessary to defray the expenses of courts-martial in the navy would be, this year $50,000. This was a very large amount, when contrasted with the service. The disorderly conduct of the navy was notorious--no one could defend it. The country was losing confidence in it daily, and becoming more unwilling to bear the burdens of taxation to foster or sustain it. A few years since, its expenditures did not exceed four millions and a half: they are now up to near eight millions of dollars. Its expense is greater now than during the late war with England. Notwithstanding the unequivocal declarations of Congress, at the last session, against the increase of the navy, and in favor of its reduction, the Secretary passes all unheeded, and moves on in his bold career of folly and extravagance, without abiding for a moment any will but his own. Nothing more can be hoped for, so long as the navy has such a host of backers, urging its increase and extravagance--from motives of personal interest too often. The axe should be laid at once to the root of the evil: cut down the pay, and it will not then be sought after so much as a convenient resort for idlers, who seek the offices for pay, expecting and intending that but little service shall be rendered in return, because but very little is needed. The salaries are far beyond any compensation paid to any other officer of government, either State or Federal, for corresponding services. A lieutenant receives higher pay than a very large majority of the judges of the highest judicatories known to the States; a commander far surpasses them, and equals the salaries of a majority of the Governors of the States. Remove the temptation which high pay and no labor present, and you will obviate the evil. Put down the salaries to where they were before the year 1835, and you will have no greater effort after its offices than you had before. So long as the salaries are higher than similar talents can command in civil life, so long will applicants flock to the navy for admission, and the constant tendency will be to increase its expenses. The policy of our government is to keep a very small army and navy during time of peace, and to insure light taxes, and to induce the preponderance of the civil over the military authorities. In time of peace we shall meet with no difficulty in sustaining an efficient navy, as we always have done. In time of war, patriotism will call forth our people to the service. Those who would not heed this call are not wanted; for those who fight for pay will, under all circumstances, fight for those who will pay the best. The navy cannot complain of this proposed reduction; for its pay was increased in view of the increasing value of labor and property throughout the whole country. No other pay was increased; and why should not this be reduced?--not the whole amount actually increased, but only a small portion of the increase? It is due to the country; and no one should object. We are now supporting the government on borrowed money. The revenues will not be sufficient to support it hereafter; and reduction has to take place sooner or later, and upon some one or all of the departments. Upon which ought it to fall more properly than on that which has been defended against the prejudices resulting from the high prices which have recently fallen upon every department of labor and property?
"By the adoption of the amendment proposed, there will be a permanent and annual saving of about $400,000 in the single item of pay. And from the embarrassed condition of the treasury, so large a sum of money might, with the greatest propriety, be saved; more especially since by the late British treaty concluded at this place, an annual increase is to be made to the navy expenditures of some $600,000, as it is stated, to keep a useless squadron on the coast of Africa. The estimates for pay for the present year greatly exceed those of the last year. We appropriated for the last year's service for pay, &c., $2,335,000. The sum asked for the same service this year is $2,953,139. Besides, there is the sum of $380,000 asked for clothing--a new appropriation, never asked for before. The clothing for seamen being paid for by themselves, so much of the item of pay as was necessary had hitherto been expended in clothing for them, which was received by them in lieu of money. Now a separate fund is asked, which is to be used as pay, and will increase that item so much, making a sum-total of $3,333,139; which is an excess of $998,139 over and above that appropriated for the like purpose last session.
"The Secretary of the Navy says that his plan of keeping the ships sailing over the ocean (where possibly no vessel can or will see them, and where the people with whom we trade can never learn any thing of our greatness, on account of the absence of our ships from their ports, being kept constantly sailing from station to station) will 'require larger squadrons than we have heretofore employed.' He then states that his estimates are prepared for squadrons upon this large and expensive scale. 'This,' he says, 'it is my duty to do, submitting to Congress to determine whether, under the circumstances, so large a force can properly be put in commission or not. If the condition of the treasury will warrant it (of which they are the judges), I have no hesitation in recommending the largest force estimated for.' It is well known that the condition of the treasury will not warrant this force. We must fall back upon the force of last year, as the ultimatum that can be sustained. Our appropriations for pay last year were $1,000,000 less than those now asked for. This can be cut off without prejudice to the service; and with the reduction proposed in the salaries, $1,400,000 can be saved from waste, and applied to sustain a depleted treasury. Increase is now unreasonable and impracticable.
"A portion of the home squadron, authorized in September, 1841, has not yet gone to sea for the want of seamen. While our commerce is failing, and our sailors are idle, they will not enter the service. The flag-ship of that squadron is yet in port without her complement of men. Why then only increase officers and build ships, when you cannot get men to man them?
"From 1829 to 1841, the sums paid to officers 'waiting orders,' were, 1829, $197,684; in 1830, $156,025; in 1831, $231,378; in 1832, $204,290; in 1833, $205,233; in 1834, $202,914; in 1835, $219,036; in 1836, $212,362; in 1837, $250,930; in 1838, $297,000; in 1839, $265,043; in 1840, $265,000; in 1841, $252,856.
"The honorable member also showed from the report of the chief of the medical department, that, out of the appropriation for medicine there had been purchased in one year 31 blue cloth frock coats with navy buttons and a silver star on them, 31 pairs of blue cassimere pantaloons, and 31 blue cassimere vests with navy buttons--all for pensioners. He also shows that under the head of medicine there had been purchased out of the same fund, whiskey, coal, clothing, spirits, harness, stationery, hay, corn, oats, stoves, beef, mutton, fish, bread, charcoal, &c., to the amount of some $4,000; and, in general, that purchases of all articles were generally made from particular persons, and double prices paid. Many examples of this were given, among them the purchase of certain surgical instruments in Philadelphia from the favored sellers for the sum of $1,224 and 54 cents, which it was proved had been purchased by them from the maker, in the same city, for $669 and 81 cents: and in the same proportion in the purchases generally."