Chapter XXII
MR. CLAY'S RESOLUTION IN FAVOR OF RESUMING BANKS, AND MR. BENTON'S REMARKS UPON IT.
After the New York banks had resolved to recommence specie payments, and before the day arrived for doing so, Mr. Clay submitted a resolution in the Senate to promote resumption by making the notes of the resuming banks receivable in payment of all dues to the federal government. It was clearly a movement in behalf of the delinquent banks, as those of New York, and others, had resolved to return to specie payments without requiring any such condition. Nevertheless he placed the banks of the State of New York in the front rank for the benefits to be received under his proposed measure. They had undertaken to recommence payments, he said, not from any ability to do so, but from compulsion under a law of the State. The receivability of their notes in payment of all federal dues would give them a credit and circulation which would prevent their too rapid return for redemption. So of others. It would be a help to all in getting through the critical process of resumption; and in helping them would benefit the business and prosperity of the country. He thought it wise to give that assistance; but reiterated his opinion that, nothing but the establishment of a national bank would effectually remedy the evils of a disordered currency, and permanently cure the wounds under which the country was now suffering. Mr. Benton replied to Mr. Clay, and said:
This resolution of the senator from Kentucky [Mr. CLAY], is to aid the banks to resume--to aid, encourage, and enable them to resume. This is its object, as declared by its mover; and it is offered here after the leading banks have resumed, and when no power can even prevent the remaining solvent banks from resuming. Doubtless, immortal glory will be acquired by this resolution! It can be heralded to all corners of the country, and celebrated in all manner of speeches and editorials, as the miraculous cause of an event which had already occurred! Yes, sir--already occurred! for the solvent banks have resumed, are resuming, and will resume. Every solvent bank in the United States will have resumed in a few months, and no efforts of the insolvents and their political confederates can prevent it. In New York the resumption is general; in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Jersey, it is partial; and every where the solvent banks are preparing to redeem the pledge which they gave when they stopped--that of resuming whenever New York did. The insolvent and political banks will not resume at all, or, except for a few weeks, to fail again, make a panic and a new run upon the resuming banks--stop them, if possible, then charge it upon the administration, and recommence their lugubrious cry for a National Bank.
The resumption will take place. The masses of gold and silver pouring into the country under the beneficent effects of General Jackson's hard-money policy, will enable every solvent bank to resume; a moral sense, and a fear of consequences, will compel them to do it. The importations of specie are now enormous, and equalling every demand, if it was not suppressed. There can be no doubt but that the quantity of specie in the country is equal to the amount of bank notes in circulation--that they are dollar for dollar--that the country is better off for money at this day than it ever was before, though shamefully deprived of the use of gold and silver by the political and insolvent part of the banks and their confederate politicians.
The solvent banks will resume, and Congress cannot prevent them if it tried. They have received the aid which they need in the $100,000,000 of gold and silver which now relieves the country, and distresses the politicians who predicted no relief, until a national bank was created. Of the nine hundred banks in the country, there are many which never can resume, and which should not attempt it, except to wind up their affairs. Many of these are rotten to the core, and will fall to pieces the instant they are put to the specie test. Some of them even fail now for rags; several have so failed in Massachusetts and Ohio, to say nothing of those called wild cats--the progeny of a general banking law in Michigan. We want a resumption to discriminate between banks, and to save the community from impositions.
We wanted specie, and we have got it. Five years ago--at the veto session of 1832--there were but twenty millions in the country. So said the senator from Massachusetts who has just resumed his seat [Mr. WEBSTER]. We have now, or will have in a few weeks, one hundred millions. This is the salvation of the country. It compels resumption, and has defeated all the attempts to scourge the country into a submission to a national bank. While that one hundred millions remains, the country can place at defiance the machinations of the Bank of the United States, and its confederate politicians, to perpetuate the suspension, and to continue the reign of rags and shin-plasters. Their first object is to get rid of these hundred millions, and all schemes yet tried have failed to counteract the Jacksonian policy. Ridicule was tried first; deportation of specie was tried next; a forced suspension has been continued for a year; the State governments and the people were vanquished, still the specie came in, because the federal government created a demand for it. This firm demand has frustrated all the schemes to drive off specie, and to deliver up the country to the dominion of the paper-money party. This demand has been the stumbling block of that party; and this resolution now comes to remove that stumbling block. It is the most revolting proposition ever made in this Congress! It is a flagrant violation of the constitution, by making paper money a tender both to and from the government. It is fraught with ruin and destruction to the public property, the public Treasury, and the public creditors. The notes of nine hundred banks are to be received into the Treasury, and disbursed from the Treasury. They are to be paid out as well as paid in. The ridiculous proviso of willingness to receive them on the part of the public creditor is an insult to him; for there is no choice--it is that or nothing. The disbursing officer does not offer hard money with one hand, and paper with the other, and tell the creditor to take his choice. No! he offers paper or nothing! To talk of willingness, when there is no choice, is insult, mockery and outrage. Great is the loss of popularity which this administration has sustained from paying out depreciated paper; great the deception which has been practised upon the government in representing this paper as being willingly received. Necessity, and not good will, ruled the creditor; indignation, resentment, and execrations on the administration, were the thanks with which he received it. This has disgraced and injured the administration more than all other causes put together; it has lost it tens of thousands of true friends. It is now getting into a condition to pay hard money; and this resolution comes to prevent such payment, and to continue and to perpetuate the ruinous paper-money payments. Defeat the resolution, and the government will quickly pay all demands upon it in gold and silver, and will recover its popularity; pass it, and paper money will continue to be paid out, and the administration will continue to lose ground.
The resolution proposes to make the notes of 900 banks the currency of the general government, and the mover of the resolution tells you, at the same time, that all these banks will fail! that they cannot continue specie payments if they begin! that nothing but a national bank can hold them up to specie payments, and that we have no such bank. This is the language of the mover; it is the language, also, of all his party; more than that--it is the language of Mr. Biddle's letter--that letter which is the true exposition of the principles and policy of the opposition party. Here, then, is a proposition to compel the administration, by law, to give up the public lands for the paper of banks which are to fail--to fill the Treasury with the paper of such banks--and to pay out such paper to the public creditors. This is the proposition, and it is nothing but another form of accomplishing what was attempted in this chamber a few weeks ago, namely, a direct receipt of irredeemable paper money! That proposition was too naked and glaring; it was too rank and startling; it was rebuked and repulsed. A circuitous operation is now to accomplish what was then too rashly attempted by a direct movement. Receive the notes of 900 banks for the lands and duties; these 900 banks will all fail again;--so says the mover, because there is no king bank to regulate them. We have then lost our lands and revenues, and filled our Treasury with irredeemable paper. This is just the point aimed at by the original proposition to receive irredeemable paper in the first instance: it ends in the reception of such paper. If the resolution passes, there will be another explosion: for the receivability of these notes for the public dues, and especially for the public lands, will run out another vast expansion of the paper system--to be followed, of course, by another general explosion. The only way to save the banks is to hold them down to specie payments. To do otherwise, and especially to do what this resolution proposes, is to make the administration the instrument of its own disgrace and degradation--to make it join in the ruin of the finances and the currency--in the surrender of the national domain for broken bank paper--and in producing a new cry for a national bank, as the only remedy for the evils it has produced.
[The measure proposed by Mr. CLAY was defeated, and the experiment of a specie currency for the government was continued.]
Chapter XXIII
RESUMPTION BY THE PENNSYLVANIA UNITED STATES BANK; AND OTHERS WHICH FOLLOWED HER LEAD.
The resumption by the New York banks had its effect. Their example was potent, either to suspend or resume. All the banks in the Union had followed their example in stopping specie payments: more than half of them followed them in recommencing payments. Those which did not recommence became obnoxious to public censure, and to the suspicion of either dishonesty or insolvency. At the head of this delinquent class stood the Bank of the United States, justly held accountable by the public voice for the delinquency of all the rest. Her position became untenable. She was compelled to descend from it; and, making a merit of necessity, she affected to put herself at the head of a general resumption; and in pursuance of that idea invited, in the month of July, through a meeting of the Philadelphia banks, a general meeting in that city on the 25th of that month, to consult and fix a time for resumption. A few banks sent delegates; others sent letters, agreeing to whatever might be done. In all there were one hundred and forty delegates, or letters, from banks in nine States; and these delegates and letters forming themselves into a general convention of banks, passed a resolution for a general resumption on the 13th of August ensuing. And thus ended this struggle to act upon the government through the distresses of the country, and coerce it into a repeal of the specie circular--into a recharter of the United States Bank--the restoration of the deposits--and the adoption of the notes of this bank for a national currency. The game had been overplayed. The public saw through it, and derived a lesson from it which put bank and state permanently apart, and led to the exclusive use of gold and silver by the federal government; and the exclusive keeping of its own moneys by its own treasurers. All right-minded people rejoiced at the issue of the struggle; but there were some that well knew that the resumption on the part of the Bank of the United States was hollow and deceptive--that she had no foundations, and would stop again, and for ever I said this to Mr. Van Buren at the time, and he gave the opinion I expressed a better acceptance than he had accorded to the previous one in February, 1837. Parting from him at the end of the session, 1838-'39, I said to him, this bank would stop before we meet again; that is to say, before I should return to Congress. It did so, and for ever. At meeting him the ensuing November, he was the first to remark upon the truth of these predictions.
Chapter XXIV
PROPOSED ANNEXATION OF TEXAS: MR. PRESTON'S MOTION AND SPEECH: EXTRACTS.
The republic of Texas had now applied for admission into the federal Union, as one of its States. Its minister at Washington, Memucan Hunt, Esq., had made the formal application to our executive government. That was one obstacle in the way of annexation removed. It was no longer an insult to her to propose to annex her; and she having consented, it referred the question to the decision of the United States. But there was still another objection, and which was insuperable: Texas was still at war with Mexico; and to annex her was to annex the war--a consequence which morality and policy equally rejected. MR. PRESTON, of South Carolina, brought in a resolution on the subject--not for annexation, but for a legislative expression in favor of the measure, as a basis for a tripartite treaty between the United States, Mexico and Texas; so as to effect the annexation by the consent of all parties, to avoid all cause of offence; and unite our own legislative with the executive authority in accomplishing the measure. In support of this motion, he delivered a speech which, as showing the state of the question at the time, and presenting sound views, and as constituting a link in the history of the Texas annexation, is here introduced--some extracts to exhibit its leading ideas.
"The proposition which I now submit in regard to this prosperous and self-dependent State would be indecorous and presumptuous, had not the lead been given by Texas herself. It appears by the correspondence of the envoy extraordinary of that republic with our own government, that the question of annexation on certain terms and conditions has been submitted to the people of the republic, and decided in the affirmative by a very large majority; whereupon, and in pursuance of instructions from his government, he proposes to open a negotiation for the accomplishment of that object. The correspondence has been communicated upon a call from the House of Representatives, and thus the proposition becomes a fit subject for the deliberation of Congress. Nor is it proposed by my resolution, Mr. President, to do any thing which could be justly construed into cause of offence by Mexico. The terms of the resolution guard our relations with that republic; and the spirit in which it is conceived is entirely averse to any compromise of our national faith and honor, for any object, of whatever magnitude. More especially would I have our intercourse with Mexico characterized by fair dealing and moderation, on account of her unfortunate condition, resulting from a long-continued series of intestine dissensions, which all who have not been born to liberty must inevitably encounter in seeking for it. As long, therefore, as the pretensions of Mexico are attempted to be asserted by actual force, or as long as there is any reasonable prospect that she has the power and the will to resubjugate Texas, I do not propose to interfere. My own deliberate conviction, to be sure, is, that that period has already passed; and I beg leave to say that, in my judgment, there is more danger of an invasion and conquest of Mexico by Texas, than that this last will ever be reannexed to Mexico.
"I disavow, Mr. President, all hostile purposes, or even ill temper, towards Mexico; and I trust that I impugn neither the policy nor principles of the administration. I therefore feel myself at liberty to proceed to the discussion of the points made in the resolution, entirely disembarrassed of any preliminary obstacle, unless, indeed, the mode by which so important an act is to be effected may be considered as interposing a difficulty. If the object itself be within the competency of this government, as I shall hereafter endeavor to show, and both parties consent, every means mutually agreed upon would establish a joint obligation. The acquisition of new territory has heretofore been effected by treaty, and this mode of proceeding in regard to Texas has been proposed by her minister; but I believe it would comport more with the importance of the measure, that both branches of the government should concur, the legislature expressing a previous opinion; and, this being done, all difficulties, of all kinds whatsoever, real or imaginary, might be avoided by a treaty tripartite between Mexico, Texas, and the United States, in which the assent and confirmation of Mexico (for a pecuniary consideration, if you choose) might be had, without infringing the acknowledged independence and free agency of Texas.
"The treaty, Mr. President, of 1819, was a great oversight on the part of the Southern States. We went into it blindly, I must say. The great importance of Florida, to which the public mind was strongly awakened at that time by peculiar circumstances, led us precipitately into a measure by which we threw a gem away that would have bought ten Floridas. Under any circumstances, Florida would have been ours in a short time; but our impatience induced us to purchase it by a territory ten times as large--a hundred times as fertile, and to give five millions of dollars into the bargain. Sir, I resign myself to what is done; I acquiesce in the inexorable past; I propose no wild and chimerical revolution in the established order of things, for the purpose of remedying what I conceive to have been wrong originally. But this I do propose: that we should seize the fair and just occasion now presented to remedy the mistake which was made in 1819; that we should repair as far as we can the evil effect of a breach of the constitution; that we should re-establish the integrity of our dismembered territory, and get back into our Union, by the just and honorable means providentially offered to us, that fair and fertile province which, in an evil hour, we severed from the confederacy.
"But the boundary line established by the treaty of 1819 not only deprives us of this extensive and fertile territory, but winds with "a deep indent" upon the valley of the Mississippi itself, running upon the Red River and the Arkansas. It places a foreign nation in the rear of our Mississippi settlements, and brings it within a stone's throw of that great outlet which discharges the commerce of half the Union. The mouth of the Sabine and the mouth of the Mississippi are of a dangerous vicinity. The great object of the purchase of Louisiana was to remove all possible interference of foreign States in the vast commerce of the outlet of so many States. By the cession of Texas, this policy was, to a certain extent, compromised.
"The committee, it appears to me, has been led to erroneous conclusions on this subject by a fundamental mistake as to the nature and character of our government; a mistake which has pervaded and perverted all its reasoning, and has for a long time been the abundant source of much practical mischief in the action of this government, and of very dangerous speculation. The mistake lies in considering this, as to its nature and powers, a consolidated government of one people, instead of a confederated government of many States. There is no one single act performed by the people of the United States, under the constitution, as one people. Even in the popular branch of Congress this distinction is maintained. A certain number of delegates is assigned to each State, and the people of each State elect for their own State. When the functionaries of the government assemble here, they have no source of power but the constitution, which prescribes, defines, and limits their action, and constitutes them, in their aggregate capacity, a trust or agency, for the performance of certain duties confided to them by various States or communities. This government is, therefore, a confederacy of sovereign States, associating themselves together for mutual advantages. They originally came together as sovereign States, having no authority and pretending to no power of reciprocal control. North Carolina and Rhode Island stood off for a time, refusing to join the confederacy, and at length came into it by the exercise of a sovereign discretion. So too of Missouri, who was a State fully organized and perfect, and self-governed, before she was a State of this Union; and, in the very nature of things, this has been the case with all the States heretofore admitted, and must always continue to be so. Where, then, is the difficulty of admitting another State into this confederacy? The power to admit new States is expressly given. "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." By the very terms of the grant, they must be States before they are admitted; when admitted, they become States of the Union. The terms, restrictions, and principles upon which new States are to be received, are matters to be regulated by Congress, under the constitution.
"Heretofore, in the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, France and Spain both stipulated that the inhabitants of the ceded territories should be incorporated in the Union of the United States as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the federal constitution, and admitted to all the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States. In compliance with this stipulation, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri have been admitted into the Union, and at no distant day Florida will be. Now, if we contract with France and Spain for the admission of States, why shall we not with Texas? If France can sell to us her subjects and her territory, why cannot the people of Texas give themselves and their territory to us? Is it more consistent with our republican notions that men and territory can be transferred by the arbitrary will of a monarch, for a price, than that a free people may be associated with us by mutual consent?
"It is supposed that there is a sort of political impossibility, resulting from the nature of things, to effect the proposed union. The committee says that "the measure is in fact the union of two independent governments." Certainly the union of twenty-seven "independent governments;" but the committee adds, that it should rather be termed the dissolution of both, and the formation of a new one, which, whether founded on the same or another written constitution, is, as to its identity, different from either. This can only be effected by the summum jus, &c.
"A full answer to this objection, even if many others were not at hand, as far as Texas is concerned, is contained in the fact that the summum jus has been exercised.
"Her citizens, by a unanimous vote, have decided in favor of annexation; and, according to the admission of the committee, this is sufficiently potent to dissolve their government, and to surrender themselves to be absorbed by ours. To receive this augmentation of our territory and population, manifestly does not dissolve this government, or even remodel it. Its identity is not disturbed. There is no appeal necessary to the summum jus populi for such a political arrangement on our part, even if the summum jus populi could be predicated of this government, which it cannot. Now, it is very obvious that two free States may associate for common purposes, and that these common purposes may be multiplied in number or increased in importance at the discretion of the parties. They may establish a common agency for the transaction of their business; and this may include a portion or all of their political functions. The new creation may be an agency if created by States, or a government if created by the people; for the people have a right to abolish and create governments. Does any one doubt whether Texas could rejoin the republic of Mexico? Why not, then, _re_join this republic?
"No one doubts that the States now composing this Union might have joined Great Britain after the declaration of independence. The learned committee would not contend that there was a political impossibility in the union of Scotland and England, or of Ireland and Britain; or that, in the nature of things, it would be impossible for Louisiana, if she were a sovereign State out of this Union, to join with the sovereign State of Texas in forming a new government.
"There is no point of view in which the proposition for annexation can be considered, that any serious obstacle in point of form presents itself. If this government be a confederation of States, then it is proposed to add another State to the confederacy. If this government be a consolidation, then it is proposed to add to it additional territory and population. That we can annex, and afterwards admit, the cases of Florida and Louisiana prove. We can, therefore, deal with the people of Texas for the territory of Texas, and the people can be secured in the rights and privileges of the constitution, as were the subjects of Spain and France.
"The Massachusetts legislature experience much difficulty in ascertaining the mode of action by which the proposed annexation can be effected, and demand "in what form would be the practical exercise of the supposed power? In what department does it lie?" The progress of events already, in a great measure, answers this objection. Texas has taken the initiative. Her minister has introduced the subject to that department which is alone capable of receiving communications from foreign governments, and the executive has submitted the correspondence to Congress. The resolutions before you propose an expression of opinion by Congress, which, if made, the executive will doubtless address itself earnestly, in conjunction with the authorities of Texas, to the consummation of the joint wishes of the parties, which can be accomplished by treaty, emanating from one department of this government, to be carried into effect by the passage of all needful laws by the legislative department, and by the exercise of the express power of Congress to admit new States."
The proposition of Mr. Preston did not prevail; the period for the annexation of Texas had not yet arrived. War still existing between Mexico and Texas--the status of the two countries being that of war, although hostilities hardly existed--a majority of the Senate deemed it unadvisable even to take the preliminary steps towards annexation which his resolution proposed. A motion to lay the proposition on the table prevailed, by a vote of 24 to 14.
Chapter XXV
DEBATE BETWEEN MR. CLAY AND MR. CALHOUN, PERSONAL AND POLITICAL, AND LEADING TO EXPOSITIONS AND VINDICATIONS OF PUBLIC CONDUCT WHICH BELONG TO HISTORY.
For seven years past Mr. Calhoun, while disclaiming connection with any party, had acted on leading measures with the opposition, headed by Messrs. Clay and Webster. Still disclaiming any such connection, he was found at the extra session co-operating with the administration. His co-operation with the opposition had given it the victory in many eventful contests in that long period; his co-operation with the Van Buren administration might turn the tide of victory. The loss or gain of a chief who in a nearly balanced state of parties, could carry victory to the side which he espoused, was an event not to be viewed without vexation by the party which he left. Resentment was as natural on one side as gratification was on the other. The democratic party had made no reproaches--(I speak of the debates in Congress)--when Mr. Calhoun left them; they debated questions with him as if there had been no cause for personal complaint. Not so with the opposition now when the course of his transit was reversed, and the same event occurred to themselves. They took deeply to heart this withdrawal of one of their leaders, and his appearance on the other side. It created a feeling of personal resentment against Mr. Calhoun which had manifested itself in several small side-blows at the extra session; and it broke out into systematic attack at the regular one. Some sharp passages took place between himself and Mr. Webster, but not of a kind to lead to any thing historical. He (Mr. Webster) was but slightly inclined towards that kind of speaking which mingles personality with argument, and lessens the weight of the adversary argument by reducing the weight of the speaker's character. Mr. Clay had a turn that way; and, certainly, a great ability for it. Invective, mingled with sarcasm, was one of the phases of his oratory. He was supreme at a philippic (taken in the sense of Demosthenes and Cicero), where the political attack on a public man's measure was to be enforced and heightened by a personal attack on his conduct. He owed much of his fascinating power over his hearers to the exercise of this talent--always so captivating in a popular assembly, and in the galleries of the Senate; not so much so in the Senate itself; and to him it naturally fell to become the organ of the feelings of his party towards Mr. Calhoun. And very cordially, and carefully, and amply, did he make preparation for it.
The storm had been gathering since September: it burst in February. It had been evidently waiting for an occasion: and found it in the first speech of Mr. Calhoun, of that session, in favor of Mr. Van Buren's recommendation for an independent treasury and a federal hard-money currency. This speech was delivered the 15th of February, and was strictly argumentative and parliamentary, and wholly confined to its subject. Four days thereafter Mr. Clay answered it; and although ready at an extemporaneous speech, he had the merit, when time permitted, of considering well both the matter and the words of what he intended to deliver. On this occasion he had had ample time; for the speech of Mr. Calhoun could not be essentially different from the one he delivered on the same subject at the extra session; and the personal act which excited his resentment was of the same date. There had been six months for preparation; and fully had preparation been made. The whole speech bore the impress of careful elaboration and especially the last part; for it consisted of two distinct parts--the first, argumentative, and addressed to the measure before the Senate: and was in fact, as well as in name, a reply. The second part was an attack, under the name of a reply, and was addressed to the personal conduct of Mr. Calhoun, reproaching him with his desertion (as it was called), and taunting him with the company he had got into--taking care to remind him of his own former sad account of that company: and then, launching into a wider field, he threw up to him all the imputed political delinquencies of his life for near twenty years--skipping none from 1816 down to the extra session;--although he himself had been in close political friendship with this alleged delinquent during the greater part of that long time. Mr. Calhoun saw at once the advantage which this general and sweeping assault put into his hands. Had the attack been confined to the mere circumstance of quitting one side and joining the other, it might have been treated as a mere personality; and, either left unnoticed, or the account settled at once with some ready words of retort and justification. But in going beyond the act which gave the offence--beyond the cause of resentment, which was recent, and arraigning a member on the events of almost a quarter of a century of public life, he went beyond the limits of the occasion, and gave Mr. Calhoun the opportunity of explaining, or justifying, or excusing all that had ever been objected to him; and that with the sympathy in the audience with which attack for ever invests the rights of defence. He saw his advantage, and availed himself of it. Though prompt at a reply, he chose to make none in a hurry. A pause ensued Mr. Clay's conclusion, every one deferring to Mr. Calhoun's right of reply. He took the floor, but it was only to say that he would reply at his leisure to the senator from Kentucky.
He did reply, and at his own good time, which was at the end of twenty days; and in a way to show that he had "smelt the lamp," not of Demades, but of Demosthenes, during that time. It was profoundly meditated and elaborately composed: the matter solid and condensed; the style chaste, terse and vigorous; the narrative clear; the logic close; the sarcasm cutting: and every word bearing upon the object in view. It was a masterly oration, and like Mr. Clay's speech, divided into two parts; but the second part only seemed to occupy his feelings, and bring forth words from the heart as well as from the head. And well it might! He was speaking, not for life, but for character! and defending public character, in the conduct which makes it, and on high points of policy, which belonged to history--defending it before posterity and the present age, impersonated in the American Senate, before which he stood, and to whom he appealed as judges while invoking as witnesses. He had a high occasion, and he felt it; a high tribunal to plead before, and he rejoiced in it; a high accuser, and he defied him; a high stake to contend for, his own reputation: and manfully, earnestly, and powerfully did he defend it. He had a high example both in oratory, and in the analogies of the occasion, before him; and well had he looked into that example. I happened to know that in this time he refreshed his reading of the Oration on the Crown; and, as the delivery of his speech showed, not without profit. Besides its general cast, which was a good imitation, there were passages of a vigor and terseness--of a power and simplicity--which would recall the recollection of that masterpiece of the oratory of the world. There were points of analogy in the cases as well as in the speeches, each case being that of one eminent statesman accusing another, and before a national tribunal, and upon the events of a public life. More happy than the Athenian orator, the American statesman had no foul imputations to repel. Different from Æschines and Demosthenes, both himself and Mr. Clay stood above the imputation of corrupt action or motive. If they had faults, and what public man is without them? they were the faults of lofty natures--not of sordid souls; and they looked to the honors of their country--not its plunder--for their fair reward.
When Mr. Calhoun finished, Mr. Clay instantly arose, and rejoined--his rejoinder almost entirely directed to the personal part of the discussion, which from its beginning had been the absorbing part. Much stung by Mr. Calhoun's reply, who used the sword as well as the buckler, and with a keen edge upon it, he was more animated and sarcastic in the rejoinder than in the first attack. Mr. Calhoun also rejoined instantly. A succession of brief and rapid rejoinders took place between them (chiefly omitted in this work), which seemed running to infinity, when Mr. Calhoun, satisfied with what he had done, pleasantly put an end to it by saying, he saw the senator from Kentucky was determined to have the last word; and he would yield it to him. Mr. Clay, in the same spirit, disclaimed that desire; and said no more. And thus the exciting debate terminated with more courtesy than that with which it had been conducted.
In all contests of this kind there is a feeling of violated decorum which makes each party solicitous to appear on the defensive, and for that purpose to throw the blame of commencing on the opposite side. Even the one that palpably throws the first stone is yet anxious to show that it was a defensive throw; or at least provoked by previous wrong. Mr. Clay had this feeling upon him, and knew that the onus of making out a defensive case fell upon him; and he lost no time in endeavoring to establish it. He placed his defence in the forepart of the attack. At the very outset of the personal part of his speech he attended to this essential preliminary, and found the justification, as he believed, in some expressions of Mr. Calhoun in his sub-treasury speech; and in a couple of passages in a letter he had written on a public occasion, after his return from the extra session--commonly called the Edgefield letter. In the speech he believed he found a reproach upon the patriotism of himself and friends in not following his (Mr. Calhoun's) "lead" in support of the administration financial and currency measures; and in the letter, an impeachment of the integrity and patriotism of himself and friends if they got into power; and also an avowal that his change of sides was for selfish considerations. The first reproach, that of lack of patriotism in not following Mr. Calhoun's lead, he found it hard to locate in any definite part of the speech; and had to rest it upon general expressions. The others, those founded upon passages in the letter, were definitely quoted; and were in these terms: "I could not back and sustain those in such opposition in whose wisdom, firmness and patriotism I had no reason to confide."--"It was clear, with our joint forces (whigs and nullifiers) we could utterly overthrow and demolish them; but it was not less clear that the victory would enure, not to us, but exclusively to the benefit of our allies, and their cause." These passages were much commented upon, especially in the rejoinders; and the whole letter produced by Mr. Calhoun, and the meaning claimed for them fully stated by him.
In the speeches for and against the crown we see Demosthenes answering what has not been found in the speech of Eschines: the same anomaly took place in this earnest debate, as reported between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. The latter answers much which is not found in the published speech to which he is replying. It gave rise to some remark between the speakers during the rejoinders. Mr. Calhoun said he was replying to the speech as spoken. Mr. Clay said it was printed under his supervision--as much as to say he sanctioned the omissions. The fact is, that with a commendable feeling, he had softened some parts, and omitted others; for that which is severe enough in speaking, becomes more so in writing; and its omission or softening is a tacit retraction, and honorable to the cool reflection which condemns what passion, or heat, had prompted. But Mr. Calhoun did not accept the favor: and, neither party desiring quarter, the one answered what had been dropt, and the other re-produced it, with interest. In his rejoinders, Mr. Clay supplied all that had been omitted--and made additions to it.
This contest between two eminent men, on a theatre so elevated, in which the stake to each was so great, and in which each did his best, conscious that the eye of the age and of posterity was upon him, was an event in itself, and in their lives. It abounded with exemplifications of all the different sorts of oratory of which each was master: on one side--declamation, impassioned eloquence, vehement invective, taunting sarcasm: on the other--close reasoning, chaste narrative, clear statement, keen retort. Two accessories of such contests (disruptions of friendships), were missing, and well--the pathetic and the virulent. There was no crying, or blackguarding in it--nothing like the weeping scene between Fox and Burke, when the heart overflowed with tenderness at the recollection of former love, now gone forever; nor like the virulent one when the gall, overflowing with bitterness, warned an ancient friend never to return as a spy to the camp which he had left as a deserter.
There were in the speeches of each some remarkable passages, such only as actors in the scenes could furnish, and which history will claim. Thus: Mr. Clay gave some inside views of the concoction of the famous compromise act of 1833; which, so far as they go, correspond with the secret history of the same concoction as given in one of the chapters on that subject in the first volume of this work. Mr. Clay's speech is also remarkable for the declaration that the protective system, which he so long advocated, was never intended to be permanent: that its only design was to give temporary encouragement to infant manufactures: and that it had fulfilled its mission. Mr. Calhoun's speech was also remarkable for admitting the power, and the expediency of incidental protection, as it was called; and on this ground he justified his support of the tariff of 1816--so much objected against him. He also gave his history of the compromise of 1833, attributing it to the efficacy of nullification and of the military attitude of South Carolina: which brought upon him the relentless sarcasm of Mr. Clay; and occasioned his explanation of his support of a national bank in 1816. He was chairman of the committee which reported the charter for that bank, and gave it the support which carried it through; with which he was reproached after he became opposed to the bank. He explained the circumstances under which he gave that support--such as I had often heard him state in conversation; and which always appeared to me to be sufficient to exempt him from reproach. At the same time (and what is but little known), he had the merit of opposing, and probably of defeating, a far more dangerous bank--one of fifty millions (equivalent to one hundred and twenty millions now), and founded almost wholly upon United States stocks--imposingly recommended to Congress by the then secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Alexander J. Dallas. The analytical mind of Mr. Calhoun, then one of the youngest members, immediately solved this monster proposition into its constituent elements; and his power of generalization and condensation, enabled him to express its character in two words--lending our credit to the bank for nothing, and borrowing it back at six per cent. interest. As an alternative, and not as a choice, he supported the national bank that was chartered, after twice defeating the monster bank of fifty millions founded on paper; for that monster was twice presented to Congress, and twice repulsed. The last time it came as a currency measure--as a bank to create a national currency; and as such was referred to a select committee on national currency, of which Mr. Calhoun was chairman. He opposed it, and fell into the support of the bank which was chartered. Strange that in this search for a national bank, the currency of the constitution seemed to enter no one's head. The revival of the gold currency was never suggested; and in that oblivion of gold, and still hunting a substitute in paper, the men who put down the first national bank did their work much less effectually that those who put down the second one.
The speech of each of these senators, so far as they constitute the personal part of the debate, will be given in a chapter of its own: the rejoinders being brief, prompt, and responsive each to the other, will be put together in another chapter. The speeches of each, having been carefully prepared and elaborated, may be considered as fair specimens of their speaking powers--the style of each different, but each a first class speaker in the branch of oratory to which he belonged. They may be read with profit by those who would wish to form an idea of the style and power of these eminent orators. Manner, and all that is comprehended under the head of delivery, is a different attribute; and there Mr. Clay had an advantage, which is lost in transferring the speech to paper. Some of Mr. Calhoun's characteristics of manner may be seen in these speeches. He eschewed the studied exordiums and perorations, once so much in vogue, and which the rhetorician's rules teach how to make. A few simple words to announce the beginning, and the same to show the ending of his speech, was about as much as he did in that way; and in that departure from custom he conformed to what was becoming in a business speech, as his generally were; and also to what was suitable to his own intellectual style of speaking. He also eschewed the trite, familiar, and unparliamentary mode (which of late has got into vogue) of referring to a senator as, "my friend," or, "the distinguished," or, "the eloquent," or, "the honorable," &c. He followed the written rule of parliamentary law; which is also the clear rule of propriety, and referred to the member by his sitting-place in the Senate, and the State from which he came. Thus: "the senator from Kentucky who sits farthest from me;" which was a sufficient designation to those present, while for the absent, and for posterity the name (Mr. Clay) would be put in brackets. He also addressed the body by the simple collective phrase, "senators;" and this was, not accident, or fancy, but system, resulting from convictions of propriety; and he would allow no reporter to alter it.
Mr. Calhoun laid great stress upon his speech in this debate, as being the vindication of his public life; and declared, in one of his replies to Mr. Clay, that he rested his public character upon it, and desired it to be read by those who would do him justice. In justice to him, and as being a vindication of several measures of his mentioned in this work, not approvingly, a place is here given to it.
This discussion between two eminent men, growing out of support and opposition to the leading measures of Mr. Van Buren's administration, indissolubly connects itself with the passage of those measures; and gives additional emphasis and distinction to the era of the crowning policy which separated bank and state--made the government the keeper of its own money--repulsed paper money from the federal treasury--filled the treasury to bursting with solid gold; and did more for the prosperity of the country than any set of measures from the foundation of the government.
Chapter XXVI
DEBATE BETWEEN MR. CLAY AND MR. CALHOUN: MR. CLAY'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS.
"Who, Mr. President, are the most conspicuous of those who perseveringly pressed this bill upon Congress and the American people? Its drawer is the distinguished gentleman in the white house not far off (Mr. VAN BUREN); its indorser is the distinguished senator from South Carolina, here present. What the drawer thinks of the indorser, his cautious reserve and stifled enmity prevent us from knowing. But the frankness of the indorser has not left us in the same ignorance with respect to his opinion of the drawer. He has often expressed it upon the floor of the Senate. On an occasion not very distant, denying him any of the noble qualities of the royal beast of the forest, he attributed to him those which belong to the most crafty, most skulking, and the meanest of the quadruped tribe. Mr. President, it is due to myself to say, that I do not altogether share with the senator from South Carolina in this opinion of the President of the United States. I have always found him, in his manners and deportment, civil, courteous, and gentlemanly; and he dispenses, in the noble mansion which he now occupies, one worthy the residence of the chief magistrate of a great people, a generous and liberal hospitality. An acquaintance with him of more than twenty years' duration has inspired me with a respect for the man, although, I regret to be compelled to say, I detest the magistrate.
"The eloquent senator from South Carolina has intimated that the course of my friends and myself, in opposing this bill, was unpatriotic, and that we ought to have followed in his lead; and, in a late letter of his, he has spoken of his alliance with us, and of his motives for quitting it. I cannot admit the justice of his reproach. We united, if, indeed, there were any alliance in the case, to restrain the enormous expansion of executive power; to arrest the progress of corruption; to rebuke usurpation; and to drive the Goths and Vandals from the capital; to expel Brennus and his horde from Rome, who, when he threw his sword into the scale, to augment the ransom demanded from the mistress of the world, showed his preference for gold; that he was a hard-money chieftain. It was by the much more valuable metal of iron that he was driven from her gates. And how often have we witnessed the senator from South Carolina, with woful countenance, and in doleful strains, pouring forth touching and mournful eloquence on the degeneracy of the times, and the downward tendency of the republic? Day after day, in the Senate, have we seen the displays of his lofty and impassioned eloquence. Although I shared largely with the senator in his apprehension for the purity of our institutions, and the permanency of our civil liberty, disposed always to look at the brighter side of human affairs, I was sometimes inclined to hope that the vivid imagination of the senator had depicted the dangers by which we were encompassed in somewhat stronger colors than they justified.
"The arduous contest in which we were so long engaged was about to terminate in a glorious victory. The very object for which the alliance was formed was about to be accomplished. At this critical moment the senator left us; he left us for the very purpose of preventing the success of the common cause. He took up his musket, knapsack, and shot-pouch, and joined the other party. He went, horse, foot, and dragoon; and he himself composed the whole corps. He went, as his present most distinguished ally commenced with his expunging resolution, solitary and alone. The earliest instance recorded in history, within my recollection, of an ally drawing off his forces from the combined army, was that of Achilles at the siege of Troy. He withdrew, with all his troops, and remained in the neighborhood, in sullen and dignified inactivity. But he did not join the Trojan forces; and when, during the progress of the siege, his faithful friend fell in battle, he raised his avenging arm, drove the Trojans back into the gates of Troy, and satiated his vengeance by slaying Priam's noblest and dearest son, the finest hero in the immortal Iliad. But Achilles had been wronged, or imagined himself wronged, in the person of the fair and beautiful Briseis. We did no wrong to the distinguished senator from South Carolina. On the contrary, we respected him, confided in his great and acknowledged ability, his uncommon genius, his extensive experience, his supposed patriotism; above all, we confided in his stern and inflexible fidelity. Nevertheless, he left us, and joined our common opponents, distrusting and distrusted. He left us, as he tells us in the Edgefield letter, because the victory which our common arms were about to achieve, was not to enure to him and his party, but exclusively to the benefit of his allies and their cause. I thought that, actuated by patriotism (that noblest of human virtues), we had been contending together for our common country, for her violated rights, her threatened liberties, her prostrate constitution. Never did I suppose that personal or party considerations entered into our views. Whether, if victory shall ever again be about to perch upon the standard of the spoils party (the denomination which the senator from South Carolina has so often given to his present allies), he will not feel himself constrained, by the principles on which he has acted, to leave them, because it may not enure to the benefit of himself and his party, I leave to be adjusted between themselves.
"The speech of the senator from South Carolina was plausible, ingenious, abstract, metaphysical, and generalizing. It did not appear to me to be adapted to the bosoms and business of human life. It was aerial, and not very high up in the air, Mr. President, either--not quite as high as Mr. Clayton was in his last ascension in his balloon. The senator announced that there was a single alternative, and no escape from one or the other branch of it. He stated that we must take the bill under consideration, or the substitute proposed by the senator from Virginia. I do not concur in that statement of the case. There is another course embraced in neither branch of the senator's alternative; and that course is to do nothing,--always the wisest when you are not certain what you ought to do. Let us suppose that neither branch of the alternative is accepted, and that nothing is done. What, then, would be the consequence? There would be a restoration of the law of 1789, with all its cautious provisions and securities, provided by the wisdom of our ancestors, which has been so trampled upon by the late and present administrations. By that law, establishing the Treasury department, the treasure of the United States is to be received, kept, and disbursed by the treasurer, under a bond with ample security, under a large penalty fixed by law, and not left, as this bill leaves it, to the uncertain discretion of a Secretary of the Treasury. If, therefore, we were to do nothing, that law would be revived; the treasurer would have the custody, as he ought to have, of the public money, and doubtless he would make special deposits of it in all instances with safe and sound State banks; as in some cases the Secretary of the Treasury is now obliged to do. Thus, we should have in operation that very special deposit system, so much desired by some gentlemen, by which the public money would remain separate and unmixed with the money of banks.
"There is yet another course, unembraced by either branch of the alternative presented by the senator from South Carolina; and that is, to establish a bank of the United States, constituted according to the old and approved method of forming such an institution, tested and sanctioned by experience; a bank of the United States which should blend public and private interests, and be subject to public and private control; united together in such manner as to present safe and salutary checks against all abuses. The senator mistakes his own abandonment of that institution as ours. I know that the party in power has barricaded itself against the establishment of such a bank. It adopted, at the last extra session, the extraordinary and unprecedented resolution, that the people of the United States should not have such a bank, although it might be manifest that there was a clear majority of them demanding it. But the day may come, and I trust is not distant, when the will of the people must prevail in the councils of her own government; and when it does arrive, a bank will be established.
"The senator from South Carolina reminds us that we denounced the pet bank system; and so we did, and so we do. But does it therefore follow that, bad as that system was, we must be driven into the acceptance of a system infinitely worse? He tells us that the bill under consideration takes the public funds out of the hands of the Executive, and places them in the hands of the law. It does no such thing. They are now without law, it is true, in the custody of the Executive; and the bill proposes by law to confirm them in that custody, and to convey new and enormous powers of control to the Executive over them. Every custodary of the public funds provided by the bill is a creature of the Executive, dependent upon his breath, and subject to the same breath for removal, whenever the Executive--from caprice, from tyranny, or from party motives--shall choose to order it. What safety is there for the public money, if there were a hundred subordinate executive officers charged with its care, whilst the doctrine of the absolute unity of the whole executive power, promulgated by the last administration, and persisted in by this, remains unrevoked and unrebuked?
"Whilst the senator from South Carolina professes to be the friend of State banks, he has attacked the whole banking system of the United States. He is their friend; he only thinks they are all unconstitutional! Why? Because the coining power is possessed by the general government; and that coining power, he argues, was intended to supply a currency of the precious metals; but the State banks absorb the precious metals, and withdraw them from circulation, and, therefore, are in conflict with the coining power. That power, according to my view of it, is nothing but a naked authority to stamp certain pieces of the precious metals, in fixed proportions of alloy and pure metal prescribed by law; so that their exact value be known. When that office is performed, the power is functus officio; the money passes out of the mint, and becomes the lawful property of those who legally acquire it. They may do with it as they please,--throw it into the ocean, bury it in the earth, or melt it in a crucible, without violating any law. When it has once left the vaults of the mint, the law maker has nothing to do with it, but to protect it against those who attempt to debase or counterfeit, and, subsequently, to pass it as lawful money. In the sense in which the senator supposes banks to conflict with the coining power, foreign commerce, and especially our commerce with China, conflicts with it much more extensively.
"The distinguished senator is no enemy to the banks; he merely thinks them injurious to the morals and industry of the country. He likes them very well, but he nevertheless believes that they levy a tax of twenty-five millions annually on the industry of the country! The senator from South Carolina would do the banks no harm; but they are deemed by him highly injurious to the planting interest! According to him, they inflate prices, and the poor planter sells his productions for hard money, and has to purchase his supplies at the swollen prices produced by a paper medium. The senator tells us that it has been only within a few days that he has discovered that it is illegal to receive bank notes in payment of public dues. Does he think that the usage of the government under all its administrations, and with every party in power, which has prevailed for nigh fifty years, ought to be set aside by a novel theory of his, just dreamed into existence, even if it possess the merit of ingenuity? The bill under consideration, which has been eulogized by the senator as perfect in its structure and details, contains a provision that bank notes shall be received in diminished proportions, during a term of six years. He himself introduced the identical principle. It is the only part of the bill that is emphatically his. How, then, can he contend that it is unconstitutional to receive bank notes in payment of public dues? I appeal from himself to himself."
"The doctrine of the senator in 1816 was, as he now states it, that bank notes being in fact received by the executive, although contrary to law, it was constitutional to create a Bank of the United States. And in 1834, finding that bank which was constitutional in its inception, but had become unconstitutional in its progress, yet in existence, it was quite constitutional to propose, as the senator did, to continue it twelve years longer."
"The senator and I began our public career nearly together; we remained together throughout the war. We agreed as to a Bank of the United States--as to a protective tariff--as to internal improvements; and lately as to those arbitrary and violent measures which characterized the administration of General Jackson. No two men ever agreed better together in respect to important measures of public policy. We concur in nothing now."
Chapter XXVII
DEBATE BETWEEN MR. CLAY AND MR. CALHOUN: MR. CALHOUN'S SPEECH; EXTRACTS.
"I rise to fulfil a promise I made some time since, to notice at my leisure the reply of the senator from Kentucky farthest from me [Mr CLAY], to my remarks, when I first addressed the Senate on the subject now under discussion.
"On comparing with care the reply with the remarks, I am at a loss to determine whether it is the most remarkable for its omissions or misstatements. Instead of leaving not a hair in the head of my arguments, as the senator threatened (to use his not very dignified expression), he has not even attempted to answer a large, and not the least weighty, portion; and of that which he has, there is not one fairly stated, or fairly answered. I speak literally, and without exaggeration; nor would it be difficult to establish to the letter what I assert, if I could reconcile it to myself to consume the time of the Senate in establishing a long series of negative propositions, in which they could take but little interest, however important they may be regarded by the senator and myself. To avoid so idle a consumption of the time, I propose to present a few instances of his misstatements, from which the rest may be inferred; and, that I may not be suspected of having selected them, I shall take them in the order in which they stand in his reply.
[The argumentative part omitted.]
"But the senator did not restrict himself to a reply to my arguments. He introduced personal remarks, which neither self-respect, nor a regard to the cause I support, will permit me to pass without notice, as adverse as I am to all personal controversies. Not only my education and disposition, but, above all, my conception of the duties belonging to the station I occupy, indisposes me to such controversies. We are sent here, not to wrangle, or indulge in personal abuse, but to deliberate and decide on the common interests of the States of this Union, as far as they have been subjected by the constitution to our jurisdiction. Thus thinking and feeling, and having perfect confidence in the cause I support, I addressed myself, when I was last up, directly and exclusively to the understanding, carefully avoiding every remark which had the least personal or party bearing. In proof of this, I appeal to you, senators, my witnesses and judges on this occasion. But it seems that no caution on my part could prevent what I was so anxious to avoid. The senator, having no pretext to give a personal direction to the discussion, made a premeditated and gratuitous attack on me. I say having no pretext; for there is not a shadow of foundation for the assertion that I called on him and his party to follow my lead, at which he seemed to take offence, as I have already shown. I made no such call, or any thing that could be construed into it. It would have been impertinent, in the relation between myself and his party, at any stage of this question; and absurd at that late period, when every senator had made up his mind. As there was, then, neither provocation nor pretext, what could be the motive of the senator in making the attack? It could not be to indulge in the pleasure of personal abuse--the lowest and basest of all our passions; and which is so far beneath the dignity of the senator's character and station. Nor could it be with the view to intimidation. The senator knows me too long, and too well, to make such an attempt. I am sent here by constituents as respectable as those he represents, in order to watch over their peculiar interests, and take care of the general concern; and if I were capable of being deterred by any one, or any consequence, in discharging my duty, from denouncing what I regarded as dangerous or corrupt, or giving a decided and zealous support to what I thought right and expedient, I would, in shame and confusion, return my commission to the patriotic and gallant State I represent, to be placed in more resolute and trustworthy hands.
"If, then, neither the one nor the other of these be the motive, what, I repeat, can it be? In casting my eyes over the whole surface I can see but one, which is, that the senator, despairing of the sufficiency of his reply to overthrow my arguments, had resorted to personalities, in the hope, with their aid, to effect what he could not accomplish by main strength. He well knows that the force of an argument on moral or political subjects depends greatly on the character of him who advanced it; and that to cast suspicion on his sincerity or motive, or to shake confidence in his understanding, is often the most effectual mode to destroy its force. Thus viewed, his personalities may be fairly regarded as constituting a part of his reply to my argument; and we, accordingly, find the senator throwing them in front, like a skilful general, in order to weaken my arguments before he brought on his main attack. In repelling, then, his personal attacks, I also defend the cause which I advocate. It is against that his blows are aimed and he strikes at it through me, because he believes his blows will be the more effectual.
"Having given this direction to his reply, he has imposed on me a double duty to repel his attacks: duty to myself, and to the cause I support. I shall not decline its performance; and when it is discharged, I trust I shall have placed my character as far beyond the darts which he has hurled at it, as my arguments have proved to be above his abilities to reply to them. In doing this, I shall be compelled to speak of myself. No one can be more sensible than I am how odious it is to speak of one's self. I shall endeavor to confine myself within the limits of the strictest propriety; but if any thing should escape me that may wound the most delicate ear, the odium ought in justice to fall not on me, but the senator, who, by his unprovoked and wanton attack, has imposed on me the painful necessity of speaking of myself.
"The leading charge of the senator--that on which all the others depend, and which, being overthrown, they fall to the ground--is that I have gone over; have left his side, and joined the other. By this vague and indefinite expression, I presume he meant to imply that I had either changed my opinion, or abandoned my principle, or deserted my party. If he did not mean one, or all; if I have changed neither opinions, principles, nor party, then the charge meant nothing deserving notice. But if he intended to imply, what I have presumed he did, I take issue on the fact--I meet and repel the charge. It happened, fortunately for me, fortunately for the cause of truth and justice, that it was not the first time that I had offered my sentiments on the question now under consideration. There is scarcely a single point in the present issue on which I did not explicitly express my opinion, four years ago, in my place here, when the removal of the deposits and the questions connected with it were under discussion--so explicitly as to repel effectually the charge of any change on my part; and to make it impossible for me to pursue any other course than I have without involving myself in gross inconsistency. I intend not to leave so important a point to rest on my bare assertion. What I assert stands on record, which I now hold in my possession, and intend, at the proper time, to introduce and read. But, before I do that, it will be proper I should state the questions now at issue, and my course in relation to them; so that, having a clear and distinct perception of them, you may, senators, readily and satisfactorily compare and determine whether my course on the present occasion coincides with the opinions I then expressed.
"There are three questions, as is agreed by all, involved in the present issue: Shall we separate the government from the banks, or shall we revive the league of State banks, or create a national bank? My opinion and course in reference to each are well known. I prefer the separation to either of the others; and, as between the other two, I regard a national bank as a more efficient, and a less corrupting fiscal agent than a league of State banks. It is also well known that I have expressed myself on the present occasion hostile to the banking system, as it exists; and against the constitutional power of making a bank, unless on the assumption that we have the right to receive and treat bank-notes as cash in our fiscal operations, which I, for the first time, have denied on the present occasion. Now, I entertained and expressed all these opinions, on a different occasion, four years ago, except the right of receiving bank-notes, in regard to which I then reserved my opinion; and if all this should be fully and clearly established by the record, from speeches delivered and published at the time, the charge of the senator must, in the opinion of all, however prejudiced, sink to the ground. I am now prepared to introduce, and have the record read. I delivered two speeches in the session of 1833-'34, one on the removal of the deposits, and the other on the question of the renewal of the charter of the late bank. I ask the secretary to turn to the volume lying before him, and read the three paragraphs marked in my speech on the deposits. I will thank him to raise his voice, and read slowly, so that he may be distinctly heard; and I must ask you, senators, to give your attentive hearing; for on the coincidence between my opinions then and my course now, my vindication against this unprovoked and groundless charge rests.
"[The secretary of the Senate read as requested.]
"Such were my sentiments, delivered four years since, on the question of the removal of the deposits, and now standing on record; and I now call your attention senators, while they are fresh in your minds, and before other extracts are read, to the opinions I then entertained and expressed, in order that you may compare them with those that I have expressed, and the course I have pursued on the present occasion. In the first place, I then expressed myself explicitly and decidedly against the banking system, and intimated, in language too strong to be mistaken, that, if the question was then bank or no bank, as it now is, as far as government is concerned, I would not be found on the side of the bank. Now, I ask, I appeal to the candor of all, even the most prejudiced, is there any thing in all this contradictory to my present opinions or course? On the contrary, having entertained and expressed these opinions, could I, at this time, when the issue I then supposed is actually presented, have gone against the separation without gross inconsistency? Again, I then declared myself to be utterly opposed to a combination or league of State banks, as being the most efficient and corrupting fiscal agent the government could select, and more objectionable than a bank of the United States. I again appeal, is there a sentiment or a word in all this contradictory to what I have said, or done, on the present occasion? So far otherwise, is there not a perfect harmony and coincidence throughout, which, considering the distance of time and the difference of the occasion, is truly remarkable; and this extending to all the great and governing questions now at issue?
"To prove all this I again refer to the record. If it shall appear from it that my object was to disconnect the government gradually and cautiously from the banking system, and with that view, and that only, I proposed to use the Bank of the United States for a short time, and that I explicitly expressed the same opinions then as I now have on almost every point connected with the system; I shall not only have vindicated my character from the charge of the senator from Kentucky, but shall do more, much more to show that I did all an individual, standing alone, as I did, could do to avert the present calamities: and, of course, I am free from all responsibility for what has since happened. I have shortened the extracts, as far as was possible to do justice to myself, and have left out much that ought, of right, to be read in my defence, rather than to weary the Senate. I know how difficult it is to command attention to reading of documents; but I trust that this, where justice to a member of the body, whose character has been assailed, without the least provocation, will form an exception. The extracts are numbered, and I will thank the secretary to pause at the end of each, unless otherwise desired.
"[The secretary read as requested.]
"But the removal of the deposits was not the only question discussed at that remarkable and important session. The charter of the United States Bank was then about to expire. The senator from Massachusetts nearest to me [Mr. WEBSTER], then at the head of the committee on finance, suggested, in his place, that he intended to introduce a bill to renew the charter. I clearly perceived that the movement, if made, would fail; and that there was no prospect of doing any thing to arrest the danger approaching, unless the subject was taken up on the broad question of the currency; and that if any connection of the government with the banks could be justified at all, it must be in that relation. I am not among those who believe that the currency was in a sound condition when the deposits were removed in 1834. I then believed, and experience has proved I was correct, that it was deeply and dangerously diseased; and that the most efficient measures were necessary to prevent the catastrophe which has since fallen on the circulation of the country. There was then not more than one dollar in specie, on an average, in the banks, including the United States Bank and all, for six of bank notes in circulation; and not more than one in eleven compared to liabilities of the banks; and this while the United States Bank was in full and active operation; which proves conclusively that its charter ought not to be renewed, if renewed at all, without great modifications. I saw also that the expansion of the circulation, great as it then was, must still farther increase; that the disease lay deep in the system; that the terms on which the charter of the Bank of England was renewed would give a western direction to specie, which, instead of correcting the disorder, by substituting specie for bank notes in our circulation, would become the basis of new banking operations that would greatly increase the swelling tide. Such were my conceptions then, and I honestly and earnestly endeavored to carry them into effect, in order to prevent the approaching catastrophe.
"The political and personal relations between myself and the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WEBSTER], were then not the kindest. We stood in opposition at the preceding session on the great question growing out of the conflict between the State I represented and the general government, which could not pass away without leaving unfriendly feelings on both sides; but where duty is involved, I am not in the habit of permitting my personal relations to interfere. In my solicitude to avoid coming dangers, I sought an interview, through a common friend, in order to compare opinions as to the proper course to be pursued. We met, and conversed freely and fully, but parted without agreeing. I expressed to him my deep regret at our disagreement, and informed him that, although I could not agree with him, I would throw no embarrassment in his way; but should feel it to be my duty, when he made his motion to introduce a bill to renew the charter of the bank, to express my opinion at large on the state of the currency and the proper course to be pursued; which I accordingly did. On that memorable occasion I stood almost alone. One party supported the league of State banks, and the other the United States Bank, the charter of which the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WEBSTER.] proposed to renew for six years. Nothing was left me but to place myself distinctly before the country on the ground I occupied, which I did fully and explicitly in the speech I delivered on the occasion. In justice to myself, I ought to have every word of it read on the present occasion. It would of itself be a full vindication of my course. I stated and enlarged on all the points to which I have already referred; objected to the recharter as proposed by the mover; and foretold that what has since happened would follow, unless something effectual was done to prevent it. As a remedy, I proposed to use the Bank of the United States as a temporary expedient, fortified with strong guards, in order to resist and turn back the swelling tide of circulation.
"After having so expressed myself, which clearly shows that my object was to use the bank for a time in such a manner as to break the connection with the system, without a shock to the country or currency, I then proceed and examine the question, whether this could be best accomplished by the renewal of the charter of the United States Bank, or through a league of State banks. After concluding what I had to say on the subject, in my deep solicitude I addressed the three parties in the Senate separately, urging such motives as I thought best calculated to act on them; and pressing them to join me in the measure suggested, in order to avert approaching danger. I began with my friends of the State rights party, and with the administration. I have taken copious extracts from the address to the first, which will clearly prove how exactly my opinions then and now coincide on all questions connected with the banks. I now ask the secretary to read the extract numbered two.
"[The secretary read accordingly.]
"I regret to trespass on the patience of the Senate, but I wish, in justice to myself, to ask their attention to one more, which, though not immediately relating to the question under consideration, is not irrelevant to my vindication. I not only expressed my opinions freely in relation to the currency and the bank, in the speech from which such copious extracts have been read, but had the precaution to define my political position distinctly in reference to the political parties of the day, and the course I would pursue in relation to each. I then, as now, belonged to the party to which it is my glory ever to have been attached exclusively; and avowed, explicitly, that I belonged to neither of the two parties, opposition or administration, then contending for superiority; which of itself ought to go far to repel the charge of the senator from Kentucky, that I have gone over from one party to the other. The secretary will read the last extract.
"[The secretary read.]
"Such, senators, are my recorded sentiments in 1834. They are full and explicit on all the questions involved in the present issue, and prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, that I have changed no opinion, abandoned no principle, nor deserted any party. I stand now on the ground I stood then, and, of course, if my relations to the two opposing parties are changed--if I now act with those I then opposed, and oppose those with whom I then acted, the change is not in me. I, at least, have stood still. In saying this, I accuse none of changing. I leave others to explain their position, now and then, if they deem explanation necessary. But, if I may be permitted to state my opinion, I would say that the change is rather in the questions and the circumstances, than in the opinions or principles of either of the parties. The opposition were then, and are now, national bank men, and the administration, in like manner, were anti-national bank, and in favor of a league of State banks; while I preferred then, as now, the former to the latter, and a divorce from banks to either. When the experiment of the league failed, the administration were reduced to the option between a national bank and a divorce. They chose the latter, and such, I have no reason to doubt, would have been their choice, had the option been the same four years ago. Nor have I any doubt, had the option been then between a league of banks and divorce, the opposition then, as now, would have been in favor of the league. In all this there is more apparent than real change. As to myself, there has been neither. If I acted with the opposition and opposed the administration then, it was because I was openly opposed to the removal of the deposits and the league of banks, as I now am; and if I now act with the latter and oppose the former, it is because I am now, as then, in favor of a divorce, and opposed to either a league of State banks or a national bank, except, indeed, as the means of effecting a divorce gradually and safely. What, then, is my offence? What but refusing to abandon my first choice, the divorce from the banks, because the administration has selected it, and of going with the opposition for a national bank, to which I have been and am still opposed? That is all; and for this I am charged with going over--leaving one party and joining the other.
"Yet, in the face of all this, the senator has not only made the charge, but has said, in his place, that he heard, for the first time in his life, at the extra session, that I was opposed to a national bank! I could place the senator in a dilemma from which there is no possibility of escape. I might say to him, you have either forgot, or not, what I said in 1834. If you have not, how can you justify yourself in making the charge you have? But if you have--if you have forgot what is so recent, and what, from the magnitude of the question and the importance of the occasion, was so well calculated to impress itself on your memory, what possible value can be attached to your recollection or opinions, as to my course on more remote and less memorable occasions, on which you have undertaken to impeach my conduct? He may take his choice.
"Having now established by the record that I have changed no opinion, abandoned no principle, nor deserted any party, the charge of the senator, with all the aspersions with which he accompanied it, falls prostrate to the earth. Here I might leave the subject, and close my vindication. But I choose not. I shall follow the senator up, step by step, in his unprovoked, and I may now add, groundless attack, with blows not less decisive and victorious.
"The senator next proceeded to state, that in a certain document (if he named it, I did not hear him) I assigned as the reason why I could not join in the attack on the administration, that the benefit of the victory would not enure to myself, or my party; or, as he explained himself, because it would not place myself and them in power. I presume he referred to a letter, in answer to an invitation to a public dinner, offered me by my old and faithful friends and constituents of Edgefield, in approbation of my course at the extra session.
"[Mr. CLAY. I do.]
"The pressure of domestic engagements would not permit me to accept their invitation; and, in declining it, I deemed it due to them and myself to explain my course, in its political and party bearing, more fully than I had done in debate. They had a right to know my reasons, and I expressed myself with the frankness due to the long and uninterrupted confidence that had ever existed between us.
"Having made these explanatory remarks, I now proceed to meet the assertion of the senator. I again take issue on the fact. I assigned no such reason as the senator attributes to me. I never dreamed nor thought of such a one; nor can any force of construction extort such from what I said. No; my object was not power or place, either for myself or party. I was far more humble and honest. It was to save ourselves and our principles from being absorbed and lost in a party, more numerous and powerful; but differing from us on almost every principle and question of policy.
"When the suspension of specie payments took place in May last (not unexpected to me), I immediately turned my attention to the event earnestly, considering it as an event pregnant with great and lasting consequences. Reviewing the whole ground, I saw nothing to change in the opinions and principles I had avowed in 1834; and I determined to carry them out, as far as circumstances and my ability would enable me. But I saw that my course must be influenced by the position which the two great contending parties might take in reference to the question. I did not doubt that the opposition would rally either on a national bank, or a combination of State banks, with Mr. Biddle's at the head; but I was wholly uncertain what course the administration would adopt, and remained so until the message of the President was received and read by the secretary at his table. When I saw he went for a divorce, I never hesitated a moment. Not only my opinions and principles long entertained, and, as I have shown, fully expressed years ago, but the highest political motives, left me no alternative. I perceived at once that the object, to accomplish which we had acted in concert with the opposition, had ceased: Executive usurpations had come to an end for the present: and that the struggle with the administration was no longer for power, but to save themselves. I also clearly saw, that if we should unite with the opposition in their attack on the administration, the victory over them, in the position they occupied, would be a victory over us and our principles. It required no sagacity to see that such would be the result. It was as plain as day. The administration had taken position, as I have shown, on the very ground I occupied in 1834; and which the whole State rights party had taken at the same time in the other House, as its journals will prove. The opposition, under the banner of the bank, were moving against them for the very reason that they had taken the ground they did.
"Now, I ask, what would have been the result if we had joined in the attack? No one can now doubt that the victory over those in power would have been certain and decisive, nor would the consequences have been the least doubtful. The first fruit would have been a national bank. The principles of the opposition, and the very object of the attack, would have necessarily led to that. We would have been not only too feeble to resist, but would have been committed by joining in the attack with its avowed object to go for one, while those who support the administration would have been scattered in the winds. We should then have had a bank--that is clear; nor is it less certain, that in its train there would have followed all the consequences which have and ever will follow, when tried--high duties, overflowing revenue, extravagant expenditures, large surpluses; in a word, all those disastrous consequences which have well near overthrown our institutions, and involved the country in its present difficulties. The influence of the institution, the known principles and policy of the opposition, and the utter prostration of the administration party, and the absorption of ours, would have led to these results as certainly as we exist.
"I now appeal, senators, to your candor and justice, and ask, could I, having all these consequences before me, with my known opinions and that of the party to which I belong, and to which only I owe fidelity, have acted differently from what I did? Would not any other course have justly exposed me to the charge of having abandoned my principles and party, with which I am now accused so unjustly? Nay, would it not have been worse than folly--been madness in me, to have taken any other? And yet, the grounds which I have assumed in this exposition are the very reasons assigned in my letter, and which the senator has perverted most unfairly and unjustly into the pitiful, personal, and selfish reason, which he has attributed to me. Confirmative of what I say, I again appeal to the record. The secretary will read the paragraph marked in my Edgefield letter, to which, I presume, the senator alluded.
"[The secretary of the Senate reads:]
"As soon as I saw this state of things, I clearly perceived that a very important question was presented for our determination, which we were compelled to decide forthwith--shall we continue our joint attack with the Nationals on those in power, in the new position which they have been compelled to occupy? It was clear, with our joint forces, we could utterly overthrow and demolish them; but it was not less clear that the victory would enure, not to us, but exclusively to the benefit of our allies and their cause. They were the most numerous and powerful, and the point of assault on the position which the party to be assaulted had taken in relation to the banks, would have greatly strengthened the settled principles and policy of the National party, and weakened, in the same degree, ours. They are, and ever have been, the decided advocates of a national bank; and are now in favor of one with a capital so ample as to be sufficient to control the State institutions, and to regulate the currency and exchanges of the country. To join them with their avowed object in the attack to overthrow those in power, on the ground they occupied against a bank, would, of course, not only have placed the government and country in their hands without opposition, but would have committed us, beyond the possibility of extrication, for a bank; and absorbed our party in the ranks of the National Republicans. The first fruits of the victory would have been an overshadowing National Bank, with an immense capital, not less than from fifty to a hundred millions; which would have centralized the currency and exchanges, and with them the commerce and capital of the country, in whatever section the head of the institution might be placed. The next would be the indissoluble union of the political opponents, whose principles and policy are so opposite to ours, and so dangerous to our institutions, as well as oppressive to us.
"I now ask, is there any thing in this extract which will warrant the construction that the senator has attempted to force on it? Is it not manifest that the expression on which he fixes, that the victory would enure, not to us, but exclusively to the benefit of the opposition, alludes not to power or place, but to principle and policy? Can words be more plain? What then becomes of all the aspersions of the senator, his reflections about selfishness and the want of patriotism, and his allusions and illustrations to give them force and effect? They fall to the ground without deserving a notice, with his groundless accusation.
"But, in so premeditated and indiscriminate an attack, it could not be expected that my motives would entirely escape; and we accordingly find the senator very charitably leaving it to time to disclose my motive for going over. Leave it to time to disclose my motive for going over! I who have changed no opinion, abandoned no principle, and deserted no party: I, who have stood still, and maintained my ground against every difficulty, to be told that it is left to time to disclose my motive! The imputation sinks to the earth with the groundless charge on which it rests. I stamp it with scorn in the dust. I pick up the dart, which fell harmless at my feet. I hurl it back. What the senator charges on me unjustly, he has actually done. He went over on a memorable occasion, and did not leave it to time to disclose his motive.
"The senator next tells us that I bore a character for stern fidelity; which he accompanied with remarks implying that I had forfeited it by my course on the present occasion. If he means by stern fidelity a devoted attachment to duty and principle, which nothing can overcome, the character is, indeed, a high one; and I trust, not entirely unmerited. I have, at least, the authority of the senator himself for saying that it belonged to me before the present occasion, and it is, of course, incumbent on him to show that I have since forfeited it. He will find the task a Herculean one. It would be by far more easy to show the opposite; that, instead of forfeiting, I have strengthened my title to the character; instead of abandoning any principles, I have firmly adhered to them; and that too, under the most appalling difficulties. If I were to select an instance in the whole course of my life on which, above all others, to rest my claim to the character which the senator attributed to me, it would be this very one, which he has selected to prove that I have forfeited it.
"I acted with the full knowledge of the difficulties I had to encounter, and the responsibility I must incur. I saw a great and powerful party, probably the most powerful in the country, eagerly seizing on the catastrophe which had befallen the currency, and the consequent embarrassments that followed, to displace those in power, against whom they had been long contending. I saw that, to stand between them and their object, I must necessarily incur their deep and lasting displeasure. I also saw that, to maintain the administration in the position they had taken--to separate the government from the banks, I would draw down on me, with the exception of some of the southern banks, the whole weight of that extensive, concentrated, and powerful interest--the most powerful by far of any in the whole community; and thus I would unite against me a combination of political and moneyed influence almost irresistible. Nor was this all. I could not but see that, however pure and disinterested my motives, and however consistent my course with all I had ever said or done, I would be exposed to the very charges and aspersions which I am now repelling. The ease with which they could be made, and the temptation to make them, I saw were too great to be resisted by the party morality of the day--as groundless as I have demonstrated them. But there was another consequence that I could not but foresee, far more painful to me than all others. I but too clearly saw that, in so sudden and complex a juncture, called on as I was to decide on my course instantly, as it were, on the field of battle, without consultation, or explaining my reasons, I would estrange for a time many of my political friends, who had passed through with me so many trials and difficulties, and for whom I feel a brother's love. But I saw before me the path of duty, and, though rugged, and hedged on all sides with these and many other difficulties, I did not hesitate a moment to take it. After I had made up my mind as to my course, in a conversation with a friend about the responsibility I would assume, he remarked that my own State might desert me. I replied that it was not impossible; but the result has proved that I under-estimated the intelligence and patriotism of my virtuous and noble State. I ask her pardon for the distrust implied in my answer; but I ask with assurance it will be granted, on the grounds I shall put it--that, in being prepared to sacrifice her confidence, as dear to me as light and life, rather than disobey on this great question, the dictates of my judgment and conscience, I proved myself worthy of being her representative.
"But if the senator, in attributing to me stern fidelity, meant, not devotion to principle, but to party, and especially the party of which he is so prominent a member, my answer is, that I never belonged to his party, nor owed it any fidelity; and, of course, could forfeit, in reference to it, no character for fidelity. It is true, we acted in concert against what we believed to be the usurpations of the Executive; and it is true that, during the time, I saw much to esteem in those with whom I acted, and contracted friendly relations with many; which I shall not be the first to forget. It is also true that a common party designation was applied to the opposition in the aggregate--not, however, with my approbation; but it is no less true that it was universally known that it consisted of two distinct parties, dissimilar in principle and policy, except in relation to the object for which they had united: the national republican party, and the portion of the State rights party which had separated from the administration, on the ground that it had departed from the true principles of the original party. That I belonged exclusively to that detached portion, and to neither the opposition nor administration party, I prove by my explicit declaration, contained in one of the extracts read from my speech on the currency in 1834. That the party generally, and the State which I represent in part, stood aloof from both of the parties, may be established from the fact that they refused to mingle in the party and political contests of the day. My State withheld her electoral vote in two successive presidential elections; and, rather than to bestow it on either the senator from Kentucky, or the distinguished citizen whom he opposed, in the first of those elections, she threw her vote on a patriotic citizen of Virginia, since deceased, of her own politics; but who was not a candidate; and, in the last, she refused to give it to the worthy senator from Tennessee near me (Judge WHITE), though his principles and views of policy approach so much nearer to hers than that of the party to which the senator from Kentucky belongs.
"And here, Mr. President, I avail myself of the opportunity to declare my present political position, so that there may be no mistake hereafter. I belong to the old Republican State Rights party of '98. To that, and that alone, I owe fidelity, and by that I shall stand through every change, and in spite of every difficulty. Its creed is to be found in the Kentucky resolutions, and Virginia resolutions and report; and its policy is to confine the action of this government within the narrowest limits compatible with the peace and security of these States, and the objects for which the Union was expressly formed. I, as one of that party, shall support all who support its principles and policy, and oppose all who oppose them. I have given, and shall continue to give, the administration a hearty and sincere support on the great question now under discussion, because I regard it as in strict conformity to our creed and policy; and shall do every thing in my power to sustain them under the great responsibility which they have assumed. But let me tell those who are more interested in sustaining them than myself, that the danger which threatens them lies not here, but in another quarter. This measure will tend to uphold them, if they stand fast, and adhere to it with fidelity. But, if they wish to know where the danger is, let them look to the fiscal department of the government. I said, years ago, that we were committing an error the reverse of the great and dangerous one that was committed in 1828, and to which we owe our present difficulties, and all we have since experienced. Then we raised the revenue greatly, when the expenditures were about to be reduced by the discharge of the public debt; and now we have doubled the disbursements, when the revenue is rapidly decreasing; an error, which, although probably not so fatal to the country, will prove, if immediate and vigorous measures be not adopted, far more so to those in power.
"But the senator did not confine his attack to my conduct and motives in reference to the present question. In his eagerness to weaken the cause I support, by destroying confidence in me, he made an indiscriminate attack on my intellectual faculties, which he characterized as metaphysical, eccentric, too much of genius, and too little common sense; and of course wanting a sound and practical judgment.
"Mr. President, according to my opinion, there is nothing of which those who are endowed with superior mental faculties ought to be more cautious, than to reproach those with their deficiency to whom Providence has been less liberal. The faculties of our mind are the immediate gift of our Creator, for which we are no farther responsible than for their proper cultivation, according to our opportunities, and their proper application to control and regulate our actions. Thus thinking, I trust I shall be the last to assume superiority on my part, or reproach any one with inferiority on his; but those who do not regard the rule, when applied to others, cannot expect it to be observed when applied to themselves. The critic must expect to be criticised; and he who points out the faults of others, to have his own pointed out.
"I cannot retort on the senator the charge of being metaphysical. I cannot accuse him of possessing the powers of analysis and generalization, those higher faculties of the mind (called metaphysical by those who do not possess them), which decompose and resolve into their elements the complex masses of ideas that exist in the world of mind--as chemistry does the bodies that surround us in the material world; and without which those deep and hidden causes which are in constant action, and producing such mighty changes in the condition of society, would operate unseen and undetected. The absence of these higher qualities of the mind is conspicuous throughout the whole course of the senator's public life. To this it may be traced that he prefers the specious to the solid, and the plausible to the true. To the same cause, combined with an ardent temperament, it is owing that we ever find him mounted on some popular and favorite measure, which he whips along, cheered by the shouts of the multitude, and never dismounts till he has rode it down. Thus, at one time, we find him mounted on the protective system, which he rode down; at another, on internal improvement; and now he is mounted on a bank, which will surely share the same fate, unless those who are immediately interested shall stop him in his headlong career. It is the fault of his mind to seize on a few prominent and striking advantages, and to pursue them eagerly without looking to consequences. Thus, in the case of the protective system, he was struck with the advantages of manufactures; and, believing that high duties was the proper mode of protecting them, he pushed forward the system, without seeing that he was enriching one portion of the country at the expense of the other; corrupting the one and alienating the other; and, finally, dividing the community into two great hostile interests, which terminated in the overthrow of the system itself. So, now, he looks only to a uniform currency, and a bank as the means of securing it, without once reflecting how far the banking system has progressed, and the difficulties that impede its farther progress; that banking and politics are running together to their mutual destruction; and that the only possible mode of saving his favorite system is to separate it from the government.
"To the defects of understanding, which the senator attributes to me, I make no reply. It is for others, and not me, to determine the portion of understanding which it has pleased the Author of my being to bestow on me. It is, however, fortunate for me, that the standard by which I shall be judged is not the false, prejudiced, and, as I have shown, unfounded opinion which the senator has expressed; but my acts. They furnish materials, neither few nor scant, to form a just estimate of my mental faculties. I have now been more than twenty-six years continuously in the service of this government, in various stations, and have taken part in almost all the great questions which have agitated this country during this long and important period. Throughout the whole I have never followed events, but have taken my stand in advance, openly and freely avowing my opinions on all questions, and leaving it to time and experience to condemn or approve my course. Thus acting, I have often, and on great questions, separated from those with whom I usually acted, and if I am really so defective in sound and practical judgment as the senator represents, the proof, if to be found any where, must be found in such instances, or where I have acted on my sole responsibility. Now, I ask, in which of the many instances of the kind is such proof to be found? It is not my intention to call to the recollection of the Senate all such; but that you, senators, may judge for yourselves, it is due in justice to myself, that I should suggest a few of the most prominent, which at the time were regarded as the senator now considers the present; and then, as now, because where duty is involved, I would not submit to party trammels.
"I go back to the commencement of my public life, the war session, as it was usually called, of 1812, when I first took my seat in the other House, a young man, without experience to guide me, and I shall select, as the first instance, the Navy. At that time the administration and the party to which I was strongly attached were decidedly opposed to this important arm of service. It was considered anti-republican to support it; but acting with my then distinguished colleague, Mr. Cheves, who led the way, I did not hesitate to give it my hearty support, regardless of party ties. Does this instance sustain the charge of the senator?
"The next I shall select is the restrictive system of that day, the embargo, the non-importation and non-intercourse acts. This, too, was a party measure which had been long and warmly contested, and of course the lines of party well drawn. Young and inexperienced as I was, I saw its defects, and resolutely opposed it, almost alone of my party. The second or third speech I made, after I took my seat, was in open denunciation of the system; and I may refer to the grounds I then assumed, the truth of which have been confirmed by time and experience, with pride and confidence. This will scarcely be selected by the senator to make good his charge.
"I pass over other instances, and come to Mr. Dallas's bank of 1814-15. That, too, was a party measure. Banking was then comparatively but little understood, and it may seem astonishing, at this time, that such a project should ever have received any countenance or support. It proposed to create a bank of $50,000,000, to consist almost entirely of what was called then the war stocks; that is, the public debt created in carrying on the then war. It was provided that the bank should not pay specie during the war, and for three years after its termination, for carrying on which it was to lend the government the funds. In plain language, the government was to borrow back its own credit from the bank, and pay to the institution six per cent. for its use. I had scarcely ever before seriously thought of banks or banking, but I clearly saw through the operation, and the danger to the government and country; and, regardless of party ties or denunciations, I opposed and defeated it in the manner I explained at the extra session. I then subjected myself to the very charge which the senator now makes; but time has done me justice, as it will in the present instance.
"Passing the intervening instances, I come down to my administration of the War Department, where I acted on my own judgment and responsibility. It is known to all, that the department, at that time, was perfectly disorganized, with not much less than $50,000,000 of outstanding and unsettled accounts; and the greatest confusion in every branch of service. Though without experience, I prepared, shortly after I went in, the bill for its organization, and on its passage I drew up the body of rules for carrying the act into execution; both of which remain substantially unchanged to this day. After reducing the outstanding accounts to a few millions, and introducing order and accountability in every branch of service, and bringing down the expenditure of the army from four to two and a half millions annually, without subtracting a single comfort from either officer or soldier, I left the department in a condition that might well be compared to the best in any country. If I am deficient in the qualities which the senator attributes to me, here in this mass of details and business it ought to be discovered. Will he look to this to make good his charge?
"From the war department I was transferred to the Chair which you now occupy. How I acquitted myself in the discharge of its duties, I leave it to the body to decide, without adding a word. The station, from its leisure, gave me a good opportunity to study the genius of the prominent measure of the day, called then the American system; of which I profited. I soon perceived where its errors lay, and how it would operate. I clearly saw its desolating effects in one section, and corrupting influence in the other; and when I saw that it could not be arrested here, I fell back on my own State, and a blow was given to a system destined to destroy our institutions, if not overthrown, which brought it to the ground. This brings me down to the present times, and where passions and prejudices are yet too strong to make an appeal, with any prospect of a fair and impartial verdict. I then transfer this, and all my subsequent acts, including the present, to the tribunal of posterity; with a perfect confidence that nothing will be found, in what I have said or done, to impeach my integrity or understanding.
"I have now, senators, repelled the attacks on me. I have settled the account and cancelled the debt between me and my accuser. I have not sought this controversy, nor have I shunned it when forced on me. I have acted on the defensive, and if it is to continue, which rests with the senator, I shall throughout continue so to act. I know too well the advantage of my position to surrender it. The senator commenced the controversy, and it is but right that he should be responsible for the direction it shall hereafter take. Be his determination what it may, I stand prepared to meet him."
XXVIII. DEBATE BETWEEN MR. CLAY AND MR. CALHOUN REJOINDERS BY EACH
MR. CLAY:--"As to the personal part of the speech of the senator from South Carolina, I must take the occasion to say that no man is more sincerely anxious to avoid all personal controversy than myself. And I may confidently appeal to the whole course of my life for the confirmation of that disposition. No man cherishes less than I do feelings of resentment; none forgets or forgives an injury sooner than I do. The duty which I had to perform in animadverting upon the public conduct and course of the senator from South Carolina was painful in the extreme; but it was, nevertheless, a public duty; and I shrink from the performance of no duty required at my hands by my country. It was painful, because I had long served in the public councils with the senator from South Carolina, admired his genius, and for a great while had been upon terms of intimacy with him. Throughout my whole acquaintance with him, I have constantly struggled to think well of him, and to ascribe to him public virtues. Even after his famous summerset at the extra session, on more than one occasion I defended his motives when he was assailed; and insisted that it was uncharitable to attribute to him others than those which he himself avowed. This I continued to do, until I read this most extraordinary and exceptionable letter: [Here Mr. Clay held up and exhibited to the Senate the Edgefield letter, dated at Fort Hill, November 3, 1837:] a letter of which I cannot speak in merited terms, without a departure from the respect which I owe to the Senate and to myself. When I read that letter, sir, its unblushing avowals, and its unjust reproaches cast upon my friends and myself, I was most reluctantly compelled to change my opinion of the honorable senator from South Carolina. One so distinguished as he is, cannot expect to be indulged with speaking as he pleases of others, without a reciprocal privilege. He cannot suppose that he may set to the right or the left, cut in and out, and chasse, among principles and parties as often as he pleases, without animadversion. I did, indeed, understand the senator to say, in his former speech, that we, the whigs, were unwise and unpatriotic in not uniting with him in supporting the bill under consideration. But in that Edgefield letter, among the motives which he assigns for leaving us, I understand him to declare that he could not 'back and sustain those in such opposition, in whose wisdom, firmness, and patriotism, I have no reason to confide.'
"After having written and published to the world such a letter as that, and after what has fallen from the senator, in the progress of this debate, towards my political friends, does he imagine that he can persuade himself and the country that he really occupies, on this occasion, a defensive attitude? In that letter he says:
"'I clearly saw that our bold and vigorous attacks had made a deep and successful impression. State interposition had overthrown the protective tariff, and with it the American system, and put a stop to the congressional usurpation; and the joint attacks of our party, and that of our old opponents, the national republicans, had effectually brought down the power of the Executive, and arrested its encroachments for the present. It was for that purpose we had united. True to our principle of opposition to the encroachment of power, from whatever quarter it might come, we did not hesitate, after overthrowing the protective system, and arresting legislative usurpation, to join the authors of that system, in order to arrest the encroachments of the Executive, although we differed as widely as the poles on almost every other question, and regarded the usurpation of the Executive but as a necessary consequence of the principles and policy of our new allies.'
"State interposition!--that is as I understand the senator from South Carolina; nullification, he asserts, overthrew the protective tariff and the American system. And can that senator, knowing what he knows, and what I know, deliberately make such an assertion here? I had heard similar boasts before, but did not regard them, until I saw them coupled in this letter with the imputation of a purpose on the part of my friends to disregard the compromise, and revive the high tariff. Nullification, Mr. President, overthrew the protective policy! No, sir. The compromise was not extorted by the terror of nullification. Among other more important motives that influenced its passage, it was a compassionate concession to the imprudence and impotency of nullification! The danger from nullification itself excited no more apprehension than would be felt by seeing a regiment of a thousand boys, of five or six years of age, decorated in brilliant uniforms, with their gaudy plumes and tiny muskets, marching up to assault a corps of 50,000 grenadiers, six feet high. At the commencement of the session of 1832, the senator from South Carolina was in any condition other than that of dictating terms. Those of us who were then here must recollect well his haggard looks and his anxious and depressed countenance. A highly estimable friend of mine, Mr. J. M. Clayton, of Delaware, alluding to the possibility of a rupture with South Carolina, and declarations of President Jackson with respect to certain distinguished individuals whom he had denounced and proscribed, said to me, on more than one occasion, referring to the senator from South Carolina and some of his colleagues, "They are clever fellows, and it will never do to let old Jackson hang them." Sir, this disclosure is extorted from me by the senator.
"So far from nullification having overthrown the protective policy, in assenting to the compromise, it expressly sanctioned the constitutional power which it had so strongly controverted, and perpetuated it. There is protection from one end to the other in the compromise act; modified and limited it is true, but protection nevertheless. There is protection, adequate and abundant protection, until the year 1842; and protection indefinitely beyond it. Until that year, the biennial reduction of duties is slow and moderate, such as was perfectly satisfactory to the manufacturers. Now, if the system were altogether unconstitutional, as had been contended, how could the senator vote for a bill which continued it for nine years? Then, beyond that period, there is the provision for cash duties, home valuations, a long and liberal list of free articles, carefully made out by my friend from Rhode Island (Mr. KNIGHT), expressly for the benefit of the manufacturers; and the power of discrimination, reserved also for their benefit; within the maximum rate of duty fixed in the act. In the consultations between the senator and myself in respect to the compromise act, on every point upon which I insisted he gave way. He was for a shorter term than nine years, and more rapid reduction. I insisted, and he yielded. He was for fifteen instead of twenty per cent. as the maximum duty; but yielded. He was against any discrimination within the limited range of duties for the benefit of the manufacturers; but consented. To the last he protested against home valuation, but finally gave way. Such is the compromise act; and the Senate will see with what propriety the senator can assert that nullification had overthrown the protective tariff and the American system. Nullification! which asserted the extraordinary principle that one of twenty-four members of a confederacy, by its separate action, could subvert and set aside the expressed will of the whole! Nullification! a strange, impracticable, incomprehensible doctrine, that partakes of the character of the metaphysical school of German philosophy, or would be worthy of the puzzling theological controversies of the middle ages.
"No one, Mr. President, in the commencement of the protective policy, ever supposed that it was to be perpetual. We hoped and believed that temporary protection extended to our infant manufactures, would bring them up, and enable them to withstand competition with those of Europe. We thought, as the wise French minister did, who, when urged by a British minister to consent to the equal introduction into the two countries of their respective productions, replied that free trade might be very well for a country whose manufactures had reached perfection, but was not entirely adapted to a country which wished to build up its manufactures. If the protective policy were entirely to cease in 1842, it would have existed twenty-six years from 1816, or 18 from 1824; quite as long as, at either of those periods, its friends supposed might be necessary. But it does not cease then, and I sincerely hope that the provisions contained in the compromise act for its benefit beyond that period, will be found sufficient for the preservation of all our interesting manufactures. For one, I am willing to adhere to, and abide by the compromise in all its provisions, present and prospective, if its fair operation is undisturbed. The Senate well knows that I have been constantly in favor of a strict and faithful adherence to the compromise act. I have watched and defended it on all occasions. I desire to see it faithfully and inviolably maintained. The senator, too, from South Carolina, alleging that the South were the weaker party, has hitherto united with me in sustaining it. Nevertheless, he has left us, as he tells us in his Edgefield letter, because he apprehended that our principles would lead us to the revival of a high tariff.
"The senator from South Carolina proceeds, in his Edgefield letter, to say:
"'I clearly perceived that a very important question was presented for our determination, which we were compelled to decide forthwith: shall we continue our joint attack with the nationals on those in power, in the new position which they have been compelled to occupy? It was clear that, with our joint forces, we could utterly overthrow and demolish them. But it was not less clear that the victory would enure not to us, but exclusively to the benefit of our allies and their cause.'
"Thus it appears that in a common struggle for the benefit of our whole country, the senator was calculating upon the party advantages which would result from success. He quit us because he apprehended that he and his party would be absorbed by us. Well, what is to be their fate in his new alliance? Is there no absorption there? Is there no danger that the senator and his party will be absorbed by the administration party? Or does he hope to absorb that? Another motive avowed in the letter, for his desertion of us, is, that 'it would also give us the chance of effecting what is still more important to us, the union of the entire South.' What sort of an union of the South does the senator wish? Is not the South already united as a part of the common confederacy? Does he want any other union of it? I wish he would explicitly state. I should be glad, also, if he would define what he means by the South. He sometimes talks of the plantation or staple States. Maryland is partly a staple State. Virginia and North Carolina more so. And Kentucky and Tennessee have also staple productions. Are all these States parts of his South? I fear, Mr. President, that the political geography of the senator comprehends a much larger South than that South which is the object of his particular solicitude; and that, to find the latter, we should have to go to South Carolina; and, upon our arrival there, trace him to Fort Hill. This is the disinterested senator from South Carolina!
"But he has left no party, and joined no party! No! None. With the daily evidences before us of his frequent association, counselling and acting with the other party, he would tax our credulity too much to require us to believe that he has formed no connection with it. He may stand upon his reserved rights; but they must be mentally reserved, for they are not obvious to the senses. Abandoned no party? Why this letter proclaims his having quitted us, and assigns his reasons for doing it; one of which is, that we are in favor of that national bank which the senator himself has sustained about twenty-four years of the twenty-seven that he has been in public life. Whatever impression the senator may endeavor to make without the Senate upon the country at large, no man within the Senate, who has eyes to see, or ears to hear, can mistake his present position and party connection. If, in the speech which I addressed to the Senate on a former day, there had been a single fact stated which was not perfectly true, or an inference drawn which was not fully warranted, or any description of his situation which was incorrect, no man would enjoy greater pleasure than I should do in rectifying the error. If, in the picture which I portrayed of the senator and his course, there be any thing which can justly give him dissatisfaction, he must look to the original and not to the painter. The conduct of an eminent public man is a fair subject for exposure and animadversion. When I addressed the Senate before, I had just perused this letter. I recollected all its reproaches and imputations against us, and those which were made or implied in the speech of the honorable senator were also fresh in my memory. Does he expect to be allowed to cast such imputations, and make such reproaches against others without retaliation? Holding myself amenable for my public conduct, I choose to animadvert upon his, and upon that of others, whenever circumstances, in my judgment, render it necessary; and I do it under all just responsibility which belongs to the exercise of such a privilege.
"The senator has thought proper to exercise a corresponding privilege towards myself; and, without being very specific, has taken upon himself to impute to me the charge of going over upon some occasion, and that in a manner which left my motive no matter of conjecture. If the senator mean to allude to the stale and refuted calumny of George Kremer, I assure him I can hear it without the slightest emotion; and if he can find any fragment of that rent banner to cover his own aberrations, he is perfectly at liberty to enjoy all the shelter which it affords. In my case there was no going over about it; I was a member of the House of Representatives, and had to give a vote for one of three candidates for the presidency. Mr. Crawford's unfortunate physical condition placed him out of the question. The choice was, therefore, limited to the venerable gentleman from Massachusetts, or to the distinguished inhabitant of the hermitage. I could give but one vote; and, accordingly, as I stated on a former occasion, I gave the vote which, before I left Kentucky, I communicated to my colleague [Mr. CRITTENDEN], it was my intention to give in the contingency which happened. I have never for one moment regretted the vote I then gave. It is true, that the legislature of Kentucky had requested the representatives from that State to vote for General Jackson; but my own immediate constituents, I knew well, were opposed to his election, and it was their will, and not that of the legislature, according to every principle applicable to the doctrine of instructions, which I was to deposit in the ballot-box. It is their glory and my own never to have concurred in the elevation of General Jackson. They ratified and confirmed my vote, and every representative that they have sent to Congress since, including my friend, the present member, has concurred with me in opposition to the election and administration of General Jackson.
"If my information be not entirely incorrect, and there was any going over in the presidential election which terminated in February, 1825, the senator from South Carolina--and not I--went over. I have understood that the senator, when he ceased to be in favor of himself,--that is, after the memorable movement made in Philadelphia by the present minister to Russia (Mr. DALLAS), withdrawing his name from the canvass, was the known supporter of the election of Mr. Adams. What motives induced him afterwards to unite in the election of General Jackson, I know not. It is not my habit to impute to others uncharitable motives, and I leave the senator to settle that account with his own conscience and his country. No, sir, I have no reproaches to make myself, and feel perfectly invulnerable to any attack from others, on account of any part which I took in the election of 1825. And I look back with entire and conscious satisfaction upon the whole course of the arduous administration which ensued.
"The senator from South Carolina thinks it to be my misfortune to be always riding some hobby, and that I stick to it till I ride it down. I think it is his never to stick to one long enough. He is like a courier who, riding from post to post, with relays of fresh horses, when he changes his steed, seems to forget altogether the last which he had mounted. Now, it is a part of my pride and pleasure to say, that I never in my life changed my deliberate opinion upon any great question of national policy but once, and that was twenty-two years ago, on the question of the power to establish a bank of the United States. The change was wrought by the sad and disastrous experience of the want of such an institution, growing out of the calamities of war. It was a change which I made in common with Mr. Madison, two governors of Virginia, and the great body of the republican party, to which I have ever belonged.
"The distinguished senator sticks long to no hobby. He was once gayly mounted on that of internal improvements. We rode that double--the senator before, and I behind him. He quietly slipped off, leaving me to hold the bridle. He introduced and carried through Congress in 1816, the bill setting apart the large bonus of the Bank of the United States for internal improvements. His speech, delivered on that occasion, does not intimate the smallest question as to the constitutional power of the government, but proceeds upon the assumption of its being incontestable. When he was subsequently in the department of war, he made to Congress a brilliant report, sketching as splendid and magnificent a scheme of internal improvements for the entire nation, as ever was presented to the admiration and wonder of mankind.
"No, sir, the senator from South Carolina is free from all reproach of sticking to hobbies. He was for a bank of the United States in 1816. He proposed, supported, and with his accustomed ability, carried through the charter. He sustained it upon its admitted grounds of constitutionality, of which he never once breathed the expression of a doubt. During the twenty years of its continuance no scruple ever escaped from him as to the power to create it. And in 1834, when it was about to expire, he deliberately advocated the renewal of its term for twelve years more. How profound he may suppose the power of analysis to be, and whatever opinion he may entertain of his own metaphysical faculty,--can he imagine that any plain, practical, common sense man can ever comprehend how it is constitutional to prolong an unconstitutional bank for twelve years? He may have all the speeches he has ever delivered read to us in an audible voice by the secretary, and call upon the Senate attentively to hear them, beginning with his speech in favor of a bank of the United States in 1816, down to his speech against a bank of the United States, delivered the other day, and he will have made no progress in his task. I do not speak this in any unkind spirit, but I will tell the honorable senator when he will be consistent. He will be so, when he resolves henceforward, during the residue of his life, never to pronounce the word again. We began our public career nearly together; we remained together throughout the war and down to the peace. We agreed as to a bank of the United States--as to a protective tariff--as to internal improvements--and lately, as to those arbitrary and violent measures which characterized the administration of General Jackson. No two prominent public men ever agreed better together in respect to important measures of national policy. We concur now in nothing. We separate for ever."
Mr. CALHOUN. "The senator from Kentucky says that the sentiments contained in my Edgefield letter then met his view for the first time, and that he read that document with equal pain and amazement. Now it happens that I expressed these self-same sentiments just as strongly in 1834, in a speech which was received with unbounded applause by that gentleman's own party; and of which a vast number of copies were published and circulated throughout the United States.
"But the senator tells us that he is among the most constant men in this world. I am not in the habit of charging others with inconsistency; but one thing I will say, that if the gentleman has not changed his principles, he has most certainly changed his company; for, though he boasts of setting out in public life a republican of the school of '98, he is now surrounded by some of the most distinguished members of the old federal party. I do not desire to disparage that party. I always respected them as men, though I believed their political principles to be wrong. Now, either the gentleman's associates have changed, or he has; for they are now together, though belonging formerly to different and opposing parties--parties, as every one knows, directly opposed to each other in policy and principles.
"He says I was in favor of the tariff of 1816, and took the lead in its support. He is certainly mistaken again. It was in charge of my colleague and friend, Mr. Lowndes, chairman then of the committee of Ways and Means, as a revenue measure only. I took no other part whatever but to deliver an off-hand speech, at the request of a friend. The question of protection, as a constitutional question, was not touched at all. It was not made, if my memory serves me, for some years after. As to protection, I believe little of it, except what all admit was incidental to revenue, was contained in the act of 1816. As to my views in regard to protection at that early period, I refer to my remarks in 1813, when I opposed a renewal of the non-importation act, expressly on the ground of its giving too much protection to the manufacturers. But while I declared, in my place, that I was opposed to it on that ground, I at the same time stated that I would go as far as I could with propriety, when peace returned, to protect the capital which the war and the extreme policy of the government had turned into that channel. The senator refers to my report on internal improvement, when I was secretary of war; but, as usual with him, forgets to tell that I made it in obedience to a resolution of the House, to which I was bound to answer, and that I expressly stated I did not involve the constitutional question; of which the senator may now satisfy himself, if he will read the latter part of the report. As to the bonus bill, it grew out of the recommendation of Mr. Madison in his last message; and although I proposed that the bonus should be set apart for the purpose of internal improvement, leaving it to be determined thereafter, whether we had the power, or the constitution should be amended, in conformity to Mr. Madison's recommendation. I did not touch the question to what extent Congress might possess the power; and when requested to insert a direct recognition of the power by some of the leading members, I refused, expressly on the ground that, though I believed it existed, I had not made up my mind how far it extended. As to the bill, it was perfectly constitutional in my opinion then, and which still remains unchanged, to set aside the fund proposed, and with the object intended, but which could not be used without specific appropriations thereafter.
"In my opening remarks to-day, I said the senator's speech was remarkable, both for its omissions and mistakes; and the senator infers, with his usual inaccuracy, that I alluded to a difference between his spoken and printed speech, and that I was answering the latter. In this he was mistaken; I hardly ever read a speech, but reply to what is said here in debate. I know no other but the speech delivered here.
"As to the arguments of each of us, I am willing to leave them to the judgment of the country: his speech and arguments, and mine, will be read with the closer attention and deeper interest in consequence of this day's occurrence. It is all I ask."
Mr. CLAY. "It is very true that the senator had on other occasions, besides his Edgefield letter, claimed that the influence arising from the interference of his own State had effected the tariff compromise. Mr. C. had so stated the fact when up before. But in the Edgefield letter the senator took new ground, he denounced those with whom he had been acting, as persons in whom he could have no confidence, and imputed to them the design of renewing a high tariff and patronizing extravagant expenditures, as the natural consequences of the establishment of a bank of the United States, and had presented this as a reason for his recent course. When, said Mr. C., I saw a charge like this, together with an imputation of unworthy motives, and all this deliberately written and published, I could not but feel very differently from what I should have done under a mere casual remark.
"But the senator says, that if I have not changed principles, I have at least got into strange company. Why really, Mr. President, the gentleman has so recently changed his relations that he seems to have forgotten into what company he has fallen himself. He says that some of my friends once belonged to the federal party. Sir, I am ready to go into an examination with the honorable senator at any time, and then we shall see if there are not more members of that same old federal party amongst those whom the senator has so recently joined, than on our side of the house. The plain truth is, that it is the old federal party with whom he is now acting. For all the former grounds of difference which distinguished that party, and were the great subjects of contention between them and the republicans, have ceased from lapse of time and change of circumstances, with the exception of one, and that is the maintenance and increase of executive power. This was a leading policy of the federal party. A strong, powerful, and energetic executive was its favorite tenet. The leading members of that party had come out of the national convention with an impression that under the new constitution the executive arm was too weak. The danger they apprehended was, that the executive would be absorbed by the legislative department of the government; and accordingly the old federal doctrine was that the Executive must be upheld, that its influence must be extended and strengthened; and as a means to this, that its patronage must be multiplied. And what, I pray, is at this hour the leading object of that party, which the senator has joined, but this very thing? It was maintained in the convention by Mr. Madison, that to remove a public officer without valid cause, would rightfully subject a president of the United States to impeachment. But now not only is no reason required, but the principle is maintained that no reason can be asked. A is removed and B is put in his place, because such is the pleasure of the president.
"The senator is fond of the record. I should not myself have gone to it but for the infinite gravity and self-complacency with which he appeals to it in vindication of his own consistency. Let me then read a little from one of the very speeches in 1834, from which he has so liberally quoted, and called upon the secretary to read so loud, and the Senate to listen so attentively:
"'But there is in my opinion a strong, if not an insuperable objection against resorting to this measure, resulting from the fact that an exclusive receipt of specie in the treasury would, to give it efficacy, and to prevent extensive speculation and fraud, require an entire disconnection on the part of the government, with the banking system, in all its forms, and a resort to the strong box, as the means of preserving and guarding its funds--a means, if practicable at all in the present state of things, liable to the objection of being far less safe, economical, and efficient, than the present.'"
"Here is a strong denunciation of that very system he is now eulogising to the skies. Here he deprecates a disconnection with all banks as a most disastrous measure; and, as the strongest argument against it, says that it will necessarily lead to the antiquated policy of the strong box. Yet, now the senator thinks the strong box system the wisest thing on earth. As to the acquiescence of the honorable senator in measures deemed by him unconstitutional, I only regret that he suddenly stopped short in his acquiescence. He was, in 1816, at the head of the finance committee, in the other House, having been put there by myself, acquiescing all the while in the doctrines of a bank, as perfectly sound, and reporting to that effect. He acquiesced for nearly twenty years, not a doubt escaping from him during the whole time. The year 1834 comes: the deposits are seized, the currency turned up side down, and the senator comes forward and proposes as a remedy a continuation of the Bank of the United States for twelve years--here acquiescing once more; and as he tells us, in order to save the country. But if the salvation of the country would justify his acquiescence in 1816 and in 1834, I can only regret that he did not find it in his heart to acquiesce once more in what would have remedied all our evils.
"In regard to the tariff of 1816, has the senator forgotten the dispute at that time about the protection of the cotton manufacture? The very point of that dispute was, whether we had a right to give protection or not. He admits the truth of what I said, that the constitutional question as to the power of the government to protect our own industry was never raised before 1820 or 1822. It was but first hinted, then controverted, and soon after expanded into nullification, although the senator had supported the tariff of 1816 on the very ground that we had power. I do not now recollect distinctly his whole course in the legislature, but he certainly introduced the bonus bill in 1816, and sustained it by a speech on the subject of internal improvements, which neither expresses nor implies a doubt of the constitutional power. But why set apart a bonus, if the government had no power to make internal improvements? If he wished internal improvements, but conscientiously believed them unconstitutional, why did he not introduce a resolution proposing to amend the constitution? Yet he offered no such thing. When he produced his splendid report from the war department, what did he mean? Why did he tantalize us with that bright and gorgeous picture of canals and roads, and piers and harbors, if it was unconstitutional for us to touch the plan with one of our fingers? The senator says in reply, that this report did not broach the constitutional question. True. But why? Is there any other conclusion than that he did not entertain himself any doubt about it? What a most extraordinary thing would it be, should the head of a department, in his official capacity, present a report to both houses of Congress, proposing a most elaborate plan for the internal improvement of the whole union, accompanied by estimates and statistical tables, when he believed there was no power in either house to adopt any part of it. The senator dwells upon his consistency: I can tell him when he will be consistent--and that is when he shall never pronounce that word again."
Mr. CALHOUN. "As to the tariff of 1816, I never denied that Congress have the power to impose a protective tariff for the purpose of revenue; and beyond that the tariff of 1816 did not go one inch. The question of the constitutionality of the protective tariff was never raised till some time afterwards.
"As to what the senator says of executive power, I, as much as he, am opposed to its augmentation, and I will go as far in preventing it as any man in this House. I maintain that the executive and judicial authorities should have no discretionary power, and as soon as they begin to exercise such power, the matter should be taken up by Congress. These opinions are well grounded in my mind, and I will go as far as any in bringing the Executive to this point. But, I believe, the Executive is now outstripped by the congressional power. He is for restricting the one. I war upon both.
"The senator says I assigned as a reason of my course at the extra session that I suspected that he and the gentleman with whom he acted would revive the tariff. I spoke not of the tariff, but a national bank. I believe that banks naturally and assuredly ally themselves to taxes on the community. The higher the taxes the greater their profits; and so it is with regard to a surplus and the government disbursements. If the banking power is on the side of a national bank, I see in that what may lead to all the consequences which I have described; and I oppose institutions that are likely to lead to such results. When the bank should receive the money of the government, it would ally itself to taxation, and it ought to be resisted on that ground. I am very glad that the question is now fairly met. The fate of the country depends on the point of separation; if there be a separation between the government and banks, the banks will be on the republican side in opposition to taxes; if they unite, they will be in favor of the exercise of the taxing power.
"The senator says I acquiesced in the use of the banks because the banks existed. I did so because the connection existed. The banks were already used as depositories of the government, and it was impossible at once to reverse that state of things. I went on the ground that the banks were a necessary evil. The State banks exist; and would not he be a madman that would annihilate them because their respective bills are uncurrent in distant parts of the country? The work of creating them is done, and cannot be reversed; when once done, it is done for ever.
"I was formerly decided in favor of separating the banks and the government, but it was impossible then to make it, and it would have been followed by nothing but disaster. The senator says the separation already exists; but it is only contingent; whenever the banks resume, the connection will be legally restored. In 1834 I objected to the sub-treasury project, and I thought it not as safe as the system now before us. But it turns out that it was more safe, as appears from the argument of the senator from Delaware, (Mr. Bayard.) I was then under the impression that the banks were more safe but it proves otherwise."
Mr. CLAY. "If the senator would review his speech again, he would see there a plain and explicit denunciation of a sub-treasury system.
"The distinguished senator from South Carolina (I had almost said my friend from South Carolina, so lately and so abruptly has he bursted all amicable relations between us, independent of his habit of change, I think, when he finds into what federal doctrines and federal company he has gotten, he will be disposed soon to feel regret and to return to us,) has not, I am persuaded, weighed sufficiently the import of the unkind imputations contained in his Edgefield letter towards his former allies--imputations that their principles are dangerous to our institutions, and of their want of firmness and patriotism. I have read that singular letter again and again, with inexpressible surprise and regret; more, however, if he will allow me to say so, on his own than on our account.
"Mr. President, I am done; and I sincerely hope that the adjustment of the account between the senator and myself, just made, may be as satisfactory to him as I assure him and the Senate it is perfectly so to me."
Mr. CALHOUN. "I have more to say, but will forbear, as the senator appears desirous of having the last word."
Mr. CLAY. "Not at all."
* * * * *
The personal debate between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay terminated for the day, and with apparent good feeling; but only to break out speedily on a new point, and to lead to further political revelations important to history. Mr. Calhoun, after a long alienation, personal as well as political, from Mr. Van Buren, and bitter warfare upon him, had become reconciled to him in both capacities, and had made a complimentary call upon him, and had expressed to him an approbation of his leading measures. All this was natural and proper after he had become a public supporter of these measures; but a manifestation of respect and confidence so decided, after a seven years' perseverance in a warfare so bitter, could not be expected to pass without the imputation of sinister motives; and, accordingly, a design upon the presidency as successor to Mr. Van Buren was attributed to him. The opposition newspapers abounded with this imputation; and an early occasion was taken in the Senate to make it the subject of a public debate. Mr. Calhoun had brought into the Senate a bill to cede to the several States the public lands within their limits, after a sale of the saleable parts at graduated prices, for the benefit of both parties--the new States and the United States. It was the same bill which he had brought in two years before; but Mr. Clay, taking it up as a new measure, inquired if it was an administration measure? whether he had brought it in with the concurrence of the President? If nothing more had been said Mr. Calhoun could have answered, that it was the same bill which he had brought in two years before, when he was in opposition to the administration; and that his reasons for bringing it in were the same now as then; but Mr. Clay went on to taunt him with his new relations with the chief magistrate, and to connect the bill with the visit to Mr. Van Buren and approval of his measures. Mr. Calhoun saw that the inquiry was only a vehicle for the taunt, and took it up accordingly in that sense: and this led to an exposition of the reasons which induced him to join Mr. Van Buren, and to explanations on other points, which belong to history. Mr. Clay began the debate thus:
"Whilst up, Mr. Clay would be glad to learn whether the administration is in favor of or against this measure, or stands neutral and uncommitted. This inquiry he should not make, if the recent relations between the senator who introduced this bill and the head of that administration, continued to exist; but rumors, of which the city, the circles, and the press are full, assert that those relations are entirely changed, and have, within a few days, been substituted by others of an intimate, friendly, and confidential nature. And shortly after the time when this new state of things is alleged to have taken place, the senator gave notice of his intention to move to introduce this bill. Whether this motion has or has not any connection with that adjustment of former differences, the public would, he had no doubt, be glad to know. At all events, it is important to know in what relation of support, opposition, or neutrality, the administration actually stands to this momentous measure; and he [Mr. C.] supposed that the senator from South Carolina, or some other senator, could communicate the desired information."
Mr. Calhoun, besides vindicating himself, rebuked the indecorum of making his personal conduct a subject of public remark in the Senate; and threw back the taunt by reminding Mr. Clay of his own change in favor of Mr. Adams.
"He said the senator from Kentucky had introduced other, and extraneous personal matter; and asked whether the bill had the sanction of the Executive; assigning as a reason for his inquiry, that, if rumor was to be credited, a change of personal relation had taken place between the President and myself within the last few days. He [Mr. C.] would appeal to the Senate whether it was decorous or proper that his personal relations should be drawn in question here. Whether he should establish or suspend personal relations with the President, or any other person, is a private and personal concern, which belongs to himself individually to determine on the propriety, without consulting any one, much less the senator. It was none of his concern, and he has no right to question me in relation to it.
"But the senator assumes that a change in my personal relations involves a change of political position; and it is on that he founds his right to make the inquiry. He judges, doubtless, by his own experience; but I would have him to understand, said Mr. C., that what may be true in his own case on a memorable occasion, is not true in mine. His political course may be governed by personal considerations; but mine, I trust, is governed strictly by my principles, and is not at all under the control of my attachments or enmities. Whether the President is personally my friend or enemy, has no influence over me in the discharge of my duties, as, I trust, my course has abundantly proved. Mr. C. concluded by saying, that he felt that these were improper topics to introduce here, and that he had passed over them as briefly as possible."
This retort gave new scope and animation to the debate, and led to further expositions of the famous compromise of 1833, which was a matter of concord between them at the time, and of discord ever since; and which, being much condemned in the first volume of this work, the authors of it are entitled to their own vindications when they choose to make them: and this they found frequent occasion to do. The debate proceeded:
"Mr. Clay contended that his question, as to whether this was an administration measure or not, was a proper one, as it was important for the public information. He again referred to the rumors of Mr. Calhoun's new relations with the President, and supposed from the declarations of the senator, that these rumors were true; and that his support, if not pledged, was at least promised conditionally to the administration. Was it of no importance to the public to learn that these pledges and compromises had been entered into?--that the distinguished senator had made his bow in court, kissed the hand of the monarch, was taken into favor, and agreed henceforth to support his edicts?"
This allusion to rumored pledges and conditions on which Mr. Calhoun had joined Mr. Van Buren, provoked a retaliatory notice of what the same rumor had bruited at the time that Mr. Clay became the supporter of Mr. Adams; and Mr. Calhoun said:
"The senator from Kentucky had spoken much of pledges, understandings, and political compromises, and sudden change of personal relations. He [said Mr. C.] is much more experienced in such things than I am. If my memory serves me, and if rumors are to be trusted, the senator had a great deal to do with such things, in connection with a distinguished citizen; now of the other House; and it is not at all surprising, from his experience then, in his own case, that he should not be indisposed to believe similar rumors of another now. But whether his sudden change of personal relations then, from bitter enmity to the most confidential friendship with that citizen, was preceded by pledges, understandings, and political compromises on the part of one or both, it is not for me to say. The country has long since passed on that."
All this taunt on both sides was mere irritation, having no foundation in fact. It so happened that the writer of this View, on each of these occasions (of sudden conjunctions with former adversaries), stood in a relation to know what took place. In one case he was confidential with Mr. Clay; in the other with Mr. Van Buren. In a former chapter he has given his testimony in favor of Mr. Clay, and against the imputed bargain with Mr. Adams: he can here give it in favor of Mr. Calhoun. He is entirely certain--as much so as it is possible to be in supporting a negative--that no promise, pledge, or condition of any kind, took place between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Van Buren, in coming together as they did at this juncture. How far Mr. Calhoun might have looked to his own chance of succeeding Mr. Van Buren, is another question, and a fair one. The succession was certainly open in the democratic line. Those who stood nearest the head of the party had no desire for the presidency, but the contrary; and only wished a suitable chief magistrate at the head of the government--giving him a cordial support in all patriotic measures; and preserving their independence by refusing his favors. This allusion refers especially to Mr. Silas Wright; and if it had not been for a calamitous conflagration, there might be proof that it would apply to another. Both Mr. Wright and Mr. Benton refused cabinet appointments from Mr. Van Buren; and repressed every movement in their favor towards the presidency. Under such circumstances, Mr. Calhoun might have indulged in a vision of the democratic succession, after the second term of Mr. Van Buren, without the slippery and ignominious contrivance of attempting to contract for it beforehand. There was certainly a talk about it, and a sounding of public men. Two different friends of Mr. Calhoun, at two different times and places,--one in Missouri (Thomas Hudson, Esq.), and the other in Washington (Gov. William Smith, of Virginia),--inquired of this writer whether he had said that he could not support Mr. Calhoun for the presidency, if nominated by a democratic convention? and were answered that he had, and because Mr. Calhoun was the author of nullification, and of measures tending to the dissolution of the Union. The answer went into the newspapers, without the agency of him who gave it, and without the reasons which he gave: and his opposition was set down to causes equally gratuitous and unfounded--one, personal ill-will to Mr. Calhoun; the other, a hankering after the place himself. But to return to Messrs. Clay and Calhoun. These reciprocal taunts having been indulged in, the debate took a more elevated turn, and entered the region of history. Mr. Calhoun continued:
"I will assure the senator, if there were pledges in his case, there were none in mine. I have terminated my long-suspended personal intercourse with the President, without the slightest pledge, understanding, or compromise, on either side. I would be the last to receive or exact such. The transition from their former to their present personal relation was easy and natural, requiring nothing of the kind. It gives me pleasure to say, thus openly, that I have approved of all the leading measures of the President, since he took the Executive chair, simply because they accord with the principles and policy on which I have long acted, and often openly avowed. The change, then, in our personal relations, had simply followed that of our political. Nor was it made suddenly, as the senator charges. So far from it, more than two years have elapsed since I gave a decided support to the leading measure of the Executive, and on which almost all others since have turned. This long interval was permitted to pass, in order that his acts might give assurance whether there was a coincidence between our political views as to the principles on which the government should be administered, before our personal relations should be changed. I deemed it due to both thus long to delay the change, among other reasons to discountenance such idle rumors as the senator alludes to. That his political course might be judged (said Mr. CALHOUN) by the object he had in view, and not the suspicion and jealousy of his political opponents, he would repeat what he had said, at the last session, was his object. It is, said he, to obliterate all those measures which had originated in the national consolidation school of politics, and especially the senator's famous American system, which he believed to be hostile to the constitution and the genius of our political system, and the real source of all the disorders and dangers to which the country was, or had been, subject. This done, he was for giving the government a fresh departure, in the direction in which Jefferson and his associates would give, were they now alive and at the helm. He stood where he had always stood, on the old State rights ground. His change of personal relation, which gave so much concern to the senator, so far from involving any change in his principles or doctrines, grew out of them."
The latter part of this reply of Mr. Calhoun is worthy of universal acceptance, and perpetual remembrance. The real source of all the disorders to which the country was, or had been subject, was in the system of legislation which encouraged the industry of one part of the Union at the expense of the other--which gave rise to extravagant expenditures, to be expended unequally in the two sections of the Union--and which left the Southern section to pay the expenses of a system which exhausted her. This remarkable declaration of Mr. Calhoun was made in 1839--being four years after the slavery agitation had superseded the tariff agitation,--and which went back to that system of measures, of which protective tariff was the main-spring, to find, and truly find, the real source of all the dangers and disorders of the country--past and present. Mr. Clay replied:
"He had understood the senator as felicitating himself on the opportunity which had been now afforded him by Mr. C. of defining once more his political position; and Mr. C. must say that he had now defined it very clearly, and had apparently given it a new definition. The senator now declared that all the leading measures of the present administration had met his approbation, and should receive his support. It turned out, then, that the rumor to which Mr. C. had alluded was true, and that the senator from South Carolina might be hereafter regarded as a supporter of this administration, since he had declared that all its leading measures were approved by him, and should have his support. As to the allusion which the senator from South Carolina had made in regard to Mr. C.'s support of the head of another administration [Mr. ADAMS], it occasioned Mr. C. no pain whatever. It was an old story, which had long been sunk in oblivion, except when the senator and a few others thought proper to bring it up. But what were the facts of that case? Mr. C. was then a member of the House of Representatives, to whom three persons had been returned, from whom it was the duty of the House to make a selection for the presidency. As to one of those three candidates, he was known to be in an unfortunate condition, in which no one sympathized with him more than did Mr. C. Certainly the senator from South Carolina did not. That gentleman was therefore out of the question as a candidate for the chief magistracy; and Mr. C. had consequently the only alternative of the illustrious individual at the Hermitage, or of the man who was now distinguished in the House of Representatives, and who had held so many public places with honor to himself, and benefit to the country. And if there was any truth in history, the choice which Mr. C. then made was precisely the choice which the senator from South Carolina had urged upon his friends. The senator himself had declared his preference of Adams to Jackson. Mr. C. made the same choice; and his constituents had approved it from that day to this, and would to eternity. History would ratify and approve it. Let the senator from South Carolina make any thing out of that part of Mr. C.'s public career if he could. Mr. C. defied him. The senator had alluded to Mr. C. as the advocate of compromise. Certainly he was. This government itself, to a great extent, was founded and rested on compromise; and to the particular compromise to which allusion had been made, Mr. C. thought no man ought to be more grateful for it than the senator from South Carolina. But for that compromise, Mr. C. was not at all confident that he would have now had the honor to meet that senator face to face in this national capitol."
The allusion in the latter part of this reply was to the President's declared determination to execute the laws upon Mr. Calhoun if an overt act of treason should be committed under the nullification ordinance of South Carolina; and the preparations for which (overt act) were too far advanced to admit of another step, either backwards or forwards; and from which most critical condition the compromise relieved those who were too deeply committed, to retreat without ruin, or to advance without personal peril. Mr. Calhoun's reply was chiefly directed to this pregnant allusion.
"The senator from Kentucky has said, Mr. President, that I, of all men, ought to be grateful to him for the compromise act."
[Mr. CLAY. "I did not say 'to me.'"]
"The senator claims to be the author of that measure, and, of course, if there be any gratitude due, it must be to him. I, said Mr. Calhoun, made no allusion to that act; but as the senator has thought proper to refer to it, and claim my gratitude, I, in turn, now tell him I feel not the least gratitude towards him for it. The measure was necessary to save the senator politically: and as he has alluded to the subject, both on this and on a former occasion, I feel bound to explain what might otherwise have been left in oblivion. The senator was then compelled to compromise to save himself. Events had placed him flat on his back, and he had no way to recover himself but by the compromise. This is no after thought. I wrote more than half a dozen of letters home at the time to that effect. I shall now explain. The proclamation and message of General Jackson necessarily rallied around him all the steadfast friends of the senator's system. They withdrew their allegiance at once from him, and transferred it to General Jackson. The senator was thus left in the most hopeless condition, with no more weight with his former partisans than this sheet of paper (raising a sheet from his desk). This is not all. The position which General Jackson had assumed, necessarily attracted towards him a distinguished senator from Massachusetts, not now here [Mr. WEBSTER], who, it is clear, would have reaped all the political honors and advantages of the system, had the contest come to blows. These causes made the political condition of the senator truly forlorn at the time. On him rested all the responsibility, as the author of the system; while all the power and influence it gave, had passed into the hands of others. Compromise was the only means of extrication. He was thus forced by the action of the State, which I in part represent, against his system, by my counsel to compromise, in order to save himself. I had the mastery over him on the occasion."
This is historical, and is an inside view of history. Mr. Webster, in that great contest of nullification, was on the side of President Jackson, and the supreme defender of his great measure--the Proclamation of 1833; and the first and most powerful opponent of the measure out of which it grew. It was a splendid era in his life--both for his intellect, and his patriotism. No longer the advocate of classes, or interests, he appeared the great defender of the Union--of the constitution--of the country--and of the administration, to which he was opposed. Released from the bonds of party, and from the narrow confines of class and corporation advocacy, his colossal intellect expanded to its full proportions in the field of patriotism, luminous with the fires of genius; and commanding the homage, not of party, but of country. His magnificent harangues touched Jackson in his deepest-seated and ruling feeling--love of country! and brought forth the response which always came from him when the country was in peril, and a defender presented himself. He threw out the right hand of fellowship--treated Mr. Webster with marked distinction--commended him with public praise--and placed him on the roll of patriots. And the public mind took the belief, that they were to act together in future; and that a cabinet appointment, or a high mission, would be the reward of his patriotic service. (It was the report of such expected preferment that excited Mr. Randolph (then in no condition to bear excitement) against General Jackson.) It was a crisis in the political life of Mr. Webster. He stood in public opposition to Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. With Mr. Clay he had a public outbreak in the Senate. He was cordial with Jackson. The mass of his party stood by him on the proclamation. He was at a point from which a new departure might be taken:--one at which he could not stand still: from which there must be advance, or recoil. It was a case in which will, more than intellect, was to rule. He was above Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun in intellect--below them in will. And he was soon seen co-operating with them (Mr. Clay in the lead), in the great measure condemning President Jackson. And so passed away the fruits of the golden era of 1833. It was to the perils of this conjunction (of Jackson and Webster) that Mr. Calhoun referred, as the forlorn condition from which the compromise relieved Mr. Clay: and, allowing to each the benefit of his assertion, history avails herself of the declarations of each in giving an inside view of personal motives for a momentous public act. And, without deciding a question of mastery in the disputed victory, History performs her task in recording the fact that, in a brief space, both Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster were seen following the lead of Mr. Clay in his great attack upon President Jackson in the session of 1834-'35.
"Mr. Clay, rejoining, said he had made no allusion to the compromise bill till it was done by the senator from South Carolina himself; he made no reference to the events of 1825 until the senator had himself set him the example; and he had not in the slightest and the most distant manner alluded to nullification until after the senator himself had called it up. The senator ought not to have introduced that subject, especially when he had gone over to the authors of the force bill and the proclamation. The senator from South Carolina said that he [Mr. C.] was flat on his back, and that he was my master. Sir, I would not own him as my slave. He my master! and I compelled by him! And, as if it were impossible to go far enough in one paragraph, he refers to certain letters of his own to prove that I was flat on my back! and, that I was not only on my back, but another senator and the President had robbed me! I was flat on my back, and unable to do any thing but what the senator from South Carolina permitted me to do!
"Why, sir, [said Mr. C.] I gloried in my strength, and was compelled to introduce the compromise bill; and compelled, too, by the senator, not in consequence of the weakness, but of the strength, of my position. If it was possible for the senator from South Carolina to introduce one paragraph without showing the egotism of his character, he would not now acknowledge that he wrote letters home to show that he (Mr. C.) was flat on his back, while he was indebted to him for that measure which relieved him from the difficulties in which he was involved. Now, what was the history of the case? Flat as he was on his back, Mr. C. said he was able to produce that compromise, and to carry it through the Senate, in opposition to the most strenuous exertions of the gentleman who, the senator from South Carolina said, had supplanted him, and in spite of his determined and unceasing opposition. There was (said Mr. C.) a sort of necessity operating on me to compel me to introduce that measure. No necessity of a personal character influenced him; but considerations involving the interests, the peace and harmony of the whole country, as well as of the State of South Carolina, directed him in the course he pursued. He saw the condition of the senator from South Carolina and that of his friends; he saw the condition to which he had reduced the gallant little State of South Carolina by his unwise and dangerous measures; he saw, too, that we were on the eve of a civil war; and he wished to save the effusion of blood--the blood of our own fellow-citizens. That was one reason why he introduced the compromise bill. There was another reason that powerfully operated on him. The very interest that the tariff laws were enacted to protect--so great was the power of the then chief magistrate, and so rapidly was that power increasing--was in danger of being sacrificed. He saw that the protective system was in danger of being swept away entirely, and probably at the next session of Congress, by the tremendous power of the individual who then filled the Executive chair; and he felt that the greatest service that he could render it, would be to obtain for it 'a lease for a term of years,' to use an expression that had been heretofore applied to the compromise bill. He saw the necessity that existed to save the protective system from the danger which threatened it. He saw the necessity to advance the great interests of the nation, to avert civil war, and to restore peace and harmony to a distracted and divided country; and it was therefore that he had brought forward this measure. The senator from South Carolina, to betray still further and more strikingly the characteristics which belonged to him, said, that in consequence of his (Mr. C.'s) remarks this very day, all obligations towards him on the part of himself (Mr. CALHOUN), of the State of South Carolina, and the whole South, were cancelled. And what right had the senator to get up and assume to speak of the whole South, or even of South Carolina herself? If he was not mistaken in his judgment of the political signs of the times, and if the information which came to him was to be relied on, a day would come, and that not very distant neither, when the senator would not dare to rise in his place and presume to speak as he had this day done, as the organ of the gallant people of the State he represented."
The concluding remark of Mr. Clay was founded on the belief, countenanced by many signs, that the State of South Carolina would not go with Mr. Calhoun in support of Mr. Van Buren; but he was mistaken. The State stood by her distinguished senator, and even gave her presidential vote for Mr. Van Buren at the ensuing election--being the first time she had voted in a presidential election since 1829. Mr. Grundy, and some other senators, put an end to this episodical and personal debate by turning the Senate to a vote on the bill before it.
Chapter XXIX
INDEPENDENT TREASURY, OR, DIVORCE OF BANK AND STATE: PASSED IN THE SENATE: LOST IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
This great measure consisted of two distinct parts: 1. The keeping of the public moneys: 2. The hard money currency in which they were to be paid. The two measures together completed the system of financial reform recommended by the President. The adoption of either of them singly would be a step--and a step going half the distance--towards establishing the whole system: and as it was well supposed that some of the democratic party would balk at the hard money payments, it was determined to propose the measures singly. With this view the committee reported a bill for the Independent Treasury--that is to say, for the keeping of the government moneys by its own officers--without designating the currency to be paid to them. But there was to be a loss either way; for unless the hard money payments were made a part of the act in the first instance, Mr. Calhoun and some of his friends could not vote for it. He therefore moved an amendment to that effect; and the hard money friends of the administration supporting his motion, although preferring that it had not been made, and some others voting for it as making the bill obnoxious to some other friends of the administration, it was carried; and became a part of the bill. At the last moment, and when the bill had been perfected as far as possible by its friends, and the final vote on its passage was ready to be taken, a motion was made to strike out that section--and carried--by the helping vote of some of the friends of the administration--as was well remarked by Mr. Calhoun. The vote was, for striking out--Messrs. Bayard, Buchanan, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton (Jno. M.), Crittenden, Cuthbert, Davis of Mississippi, Fulton, Grundy, Knight, McKean, Merrick, Morris, Nicholas, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Sevier, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Spence, Swift, Talmadge, Tipton, Wall, White, Webster, Williams--31. On the other hand only twenty-one senators voted for retaining the clause. They were--Messrs. Allen, of Ohio, Benton, Brown of North Carolina, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Hubbard of New Hampshire, King of Alabama, Linn of Missouri, Lumpkin of Georgia, Lyon of Michigan, Mouton of Louisiana, Niles, Norvell, Franklin Pierce, Roane of Virginia, Smith of Connecticut, Strange of North Carolina, Trotter of Mississippi, Robert J. Walker, Silas Wright, Young of Illinois--21.
This section being struck from the bill, Mr. Calhoun could no longer vote for it; and gave his reasons, which justice to him requires to be preserved in his own words:
"On the motion of the senator from Georgia (Mr. CUTHBERT), the 23d section, which provides for the collection of the dues of the government in specie, was struck out, with the aid of a few on this side, and the entire opposition to the divorce on the other. That section provided for the repeal of the joint resolution of 1816, which authorizes the receipt of bank notes as cash in the dues of the public. The effects of this will be, should the bill pass in its present shape, that the government will collect its revenue and make its disbursements exclusively in bank notes; as it did before the suspension took place in May last. Things will stand precisely as they did then, with but a single exception, that the public deposits will be made with the officers of the government instead of the banks, under the provision of the deposit act of 1836. Thus far is certain. All agree that such is the fact; and such the effect of the passage of this bill as it stands. Now, he intended to show conclusively, that the difference between depositing the public money with the public officers, or with the banks themselves, was merely nominal, as far as the operation and profits of the banks were concerned; that they would not make one cent less profit, or issue a single dollar less, if the deposits be kept by the officers of the government instead of themselves; and, of course, that the system would be equally subject to expansions and contractions, and equally exposed to catastrophes like the present, in the one, as the other, mode of keeping.
"But he had other and insuperable objections. In giving the bill originally his support, he was governed by a deep conviction that the total separation of the government and the banks was indispensable. He firmly believed that we had reached a point where the separation was absolutely necessary to save both government and banks. He was under a strong impression that the banking system had reached a point of decrepitude--that great and important changes were necessary to save it and prevent convulsions; and that the first step was a perpetual separation between them and the government. But there could be, in his opinion, no separation--no divorce--without collecting the public dues in the legal and constitutional currency of the country. Without that, all would prove a perfect delusion; as this bill would prove should it pass. We had no constitutional right to treat the notes of mere private corporations as cash; and if we did, nothing would be done.
"These views, and many others similar, he had openly expressed, in which the great body of the gentlemen around him had concurred. We stand openly pledged to them before the country and the world. We had fought the battle manfully and successfully. The cause was good, and having stood the first shock, nothing was necessary, but firmness; standing fast on our position to ensure victory--a great and glorious victory in a noble cause, which was calculated to effect a more important reformation in the condition of society than any in our time--he, for one, could not agree to terminate all those mighty efforts, at this and the extra session, by returning to a complete and perfect reunion with the banks in the worst and most dangerous form. He would not belie all that he had said and done, by voting for the bill as it now stood amended; and to terminate that which was so gloriously begun, in so miserable a farce. He could not but feel deeply disappointed in what he had reason to apprehend would be the result--to have all our efforts and labor thrown away, and the hopes of the country disappointed. All would be lost! No; he expressed himself too strongly. Be the vote what it may, the discussion would stand. Light had gone abroad. The public mind had been aroused, for the first time, and directed to this great subject. The intelligence of the country is every where busy in exploring its depths and intricacies, and would not cease to investigate till all its labyrinths were traced. The seed that has been sown will sprout and grow to maturity; the revolution that has been begun will go through, be our course what it may."
The vote was then taken on the passage of the bill, and it was carried--by the lean majority of two votes, which was only the difference of one voter. The affirmative vote was: Messrs. Allen, Benton, Brown, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, Hubbard, King, Linn, Lumpkin, Lyon, Morris, Mouton, Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Strange, Trotter, Walker, Wall, Williams, Wright, Young--27. The negatives were: Messrs. Bayard, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Davies, Grundy, Knight, McKean, Merrick, Nicholas, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Ruggles, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Spence, Swift, Talmadge, Tipton, Webster, Hugh L. White--25.
The act having passed the Senate by this slender majority was sent to the House of Representatives; where it was lost by a majority of 14. This was a close vote in a house of 236 present; and the bill was only lost by several friends of the administration voting with the entire opposition. But a great point was gained. Full discussion had been had upon the subject, and the public mind was waked up to it.
Chapter XXX
PUBLIC LANDS: GRADUATION OF PRICE: PRE-EMPTION SYSTEM: TAXATION WHEN SOLD.
For all the new States composed territory belonging, or chiefly so to the federal government, the Congress of the United States became the local legislature, that is to say, in the place of a local legislature in all the legislation that relates to the primary disposition of the soil. In the old States this legislation belonged to the State legislatures, and might have belonged to the new States in virtue of their State sovereignty except by the "compacts" with the federal government at the time of their admission into the Union, in which they bound themselves, in consideration of land and money grants deemed equivalent to the value of the surrendered rights, not to interfere with the primary disposition of the public lands, nor to tax them while remaining unsold, nor for five years thereafter. These grants, though accepted as equivalents in the infancy of the States, were soon found to be very far from it, even in a mere moneyed point of view, independent of the evils resulting from the administration of domestic local questions by a distant national legislature. The taxes alone for a few years on the public lands would have been equivalent to all the benefits derived from the grants in the compacts. Composed of citizens from the old States where a local legislature administered the public lands according to the local interests--selling lands of different qualities for different prices, according to its quality--granting pre-emptions and donations to first settlers--and subjecting all to taxation as soon as it became public property; it was a national feeling to desire the same advantages; and for this purpose, incessant, and usually vain efforts were made to obtain them from Congress. At this session (1837-'38) a better progress was made, and bills passed for all the purposes through the Senate.
1. The graduation bill. This measure had been proposed for twelve years, and the full system embraced a plan for the speedy and final extinction of the federal title to all the lands within the new States. Periodical reductions of price at the rate of 25 cents per acre until reduced to 25 cents: a preference in the purchase to actual settlers, constituting a pre-emption right: donations to destitute settlers: and the cession of the refuse to States in which they lay:--these were the provisions which constituted the system and which were all contained in the first bills. But finding it impossible to carry all the provisions of the system in any one bill, it became necessary to secure what could be obtained. The graduation-bill was reduced to one feature--reduction of price; and that limited to two reductions, bringing down the price at the first reduction to one dollar per acre: at the next 75 cents per acre. In support of this bill Mr. Benton made a brief speech, from which the following are some passages:
"The bill comes to us now under more favorable auspices than it has ever done before. The President recommends it, and the Treasury needs the money which it will produce. A gentleman of the opposition [Mr. CLAY], reproaches the President for inconsistency in making this recommendation; he says that he voted against it as senator heretofore, and recommends it as President now. But the gentleman forgets so tell us that Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate, spoke in favor of the general object of the bill from the first day it was presented, and that he voted in favor of one degree of reduction--a reduction of the price of the public lands to one dollar per acre--the last session that he served here. Far from being inconsistent, the President, in this recommendation, has only carried out to their legitimate conclusions the principles which he formerly expressed, and the vote which he formerly gave.
"The bill, as modified on the motions of the senators from Tennessee and New Hampshire [Messrs. GRUNDY and HUBBARD] stands shorn of half its original provisions. Originally it embraced four degrees of reduction, it now contains but two of those degrees. The two last--the fifty cent, and the twenty-five cent reductions, have been cut off. I made no objection to the motions of those gentlemen. I knew them to be made in a friendly spirit; I knew also that the success of their motions was necessary to the success of any part of the bill. Certainly I would have preferred the whole--would have preferred the four degrees of reduction. But this is a case in which the homely maxim applies, that half a loaf is better than no bread. By giving up half the bill, we may gain the other half; and sure I am that our constituents will vastly prefer half to nothing. The lands may now be reduced to one dollar for those which have been five years in market, and to seventy-five cents for those which have been ten years in market. The rest of the bill is relinquished for the present, not abandoned for ever. The remaining degrees of reduction will be brought forward hereafter, and with a better prospect of success, after the lands have been picked and culled over under the prices of the present bill. Even if the clauses had remained which have been struck out, on the motions of the gentlemen from Tennessee and New Hampshire, it would have been two years from December next, before any purchases could have been made under them. They were not to take effect until December, 1840. Before that time Congress will twice sit again; and if the present bill passes, and is found to work well, the enactment of the present rejected clauses will be a matter of course.
"This is a measure emphatically for the benefit of the agricultural interest--that great interest, which he declared to be the foundation of all national prosperity, and the backbone, and substratum of every other interest--which was, in the body politic, front rank for service, and rear rank for reward--which bore nearly all the burthens of government while carrying the government on its back--which was the fountain of good production, while it was the pack-horse of burthens, and the broad shoulders which received nearly all losses--especially from broken banks. This bill was for them; and, in voting for it, he had but one regret, and that was, that it did not go far enough--that it was not equal to their merits."
The bill passed by a good majority--27 to 16; but failed to be acted upon in the House of Representatives, though favorably reported upon by its committee on the public lands.
2. The pre-emptive system. The provisions of the bill were simple, being merely to secure the privilege of first purchase to the settler on any lands to which the Indian title had been extinguished; to be paid for at the minimum price of the public lands at the time. A senator from Maryland, Mr. Merrick, moved to amend the bill by confining its benefits to citizens of the United States--excluding unnaturalized foreigners. Mr. Benton opposed this motion, in a brief speech.
"He was entirely opposed to the amendment of the senator from Maryland (Mr. MERRICK). It proposed something new in our legislation. It proposed to make a distinction between aliens and citizens in the acquisition of property. Pre-emption rights had been granted since the formation of the government; and no distinction, until now, had been proposed, between the persons, or classes of persons, to whom they were granted. No law had yet excluded aliens from the acquisition of a pre-emption right, and he was entirely opposed to commencing a system of legislation which was to affect the property rights of the aliens who came to our country to make it their home. Political rights rested on a different basis. They involved the management of the government, and it was right that foreigners should undergo the process of naturalization before they acquired the right of sharing in the government. But the acquisition of property was another affair. It was a private and personal affair. It involved no question but that of the subsistence, the support, and the comfortable living of the alien and his family. Mr. B. would be against the principle of the proposed amendment in any case, but he was particularly opposed to this case. Who were the aliens whom it proposed to affect? Not those who are described as paupers and criminals, infesting the purlieus of the cities, but those who had gone to the remote new States, and to the remote parts of those States, and into the depths of the wilderness, and there commenced the cultivation of the earth. These were the description of aliens to be affected; and if the amendment was adopted, they would be excluded from a pre-emption right in the soil they were cultivating, and made to wait until they were naturalized. The senator from Maryland (Mr. MERRICK), treats this as a case of bounty. He treats the pre-emption right as a bounty from the government, and says that aliens have no right to this bounty. But, is this correct? Is the pre-emption a bounty? Far from it. In point of money, the pre-emptioner pays about as much as any other purchaser. He pays the government price, one dollar and twenty-five cents; and the table of land sales proves that nobody pays any more, or so little more that it is nothing in a national point of view. One dollar twenty-seven and a half cents per acre is the average of all the sales for fifteen years. The twenty millions of acres sold to speculators in the year 1836, all went at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. The pre-emption then is not a bounty, but a sale, and a sale for full price, and, what is more, for solid money; for pre-emptioners pay with gold and silver, and not with bank credits. Numerous were the emigrants from Germany, France, Ireland, and other countries, now in the West, and especially in Missouri, and he (Mr. B.) had no idea of imposing any legal disability upon them in the acquisition of property. He wished them all well. If any of them had settled upon the public lands, so much the better. It was an evidence of their intention to become citizens, and their labor upon the soil would add to its product and to the national wealth."
The motion of Mr. Merrick was rejected by a majority of 13. The yeas were: Messrs. Bayard, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Knight, Merrick, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Smith, of Indiana, Southard, Spence, Tallmadge, Tipton, 15. The nays were: Messrs. Allen, Benton, Brown, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay, of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Linn, Lumpkin, Lyon, Mouton, Nicholas, Niles, Nowell, Pierce, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Walker, Webster, White, Williams, Wright, Young, of Illinois, (28.) The bill being then put to the vote, was passed by a majority of 14.
3. Taxation of public lands when sold. When the United States first instituted their land system, the sales were upon credit, at a minimum price of two dollars, payable in four equal annual payments, with a liability to revert if there should be any failure in the payments. During that time it was considered as public land, nor was the title passed until the patent issued--which might be a year longer. Five years, therefore, was the period fixed, during which the land so sold should be exempt from taxation by the State in which it lay. This continued to be the mode of sale, until the year 1821, when the credit was changed for the cash system, and the minimum price reduced to one dollar twenty-five cents per acre. The reason for the five years exemption from state taxation had then ceased, but the compacts remaining unaltered, the exemption continued. Repeated applications were made to Congress to consent to the modification of the compacts in that article; but always in vain. At this session the application was renewed on the part of the new States; and with success in the Senate, where the bill for that purpose passed nearly unanimously, the negatives being but four, to wit: Messrs. Brown, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Southard. Being sent to the H. R. it remained there without action till the end of the session.
Chapter XXXI
SPECIE BASIS FOR BANKS: ONE THIRD OF THE AMOUNT OF LIABILITIES THE LOWEST SAFE PROPORTION: SPEECH OF MR. BENTON ON THE RECHARTER OF THE DISTRICT BANKS.
This is a point of great moment--one on which the public mind has not been sufficiently awakened in this country, though well understood and duly valued in England. The charters of banks in the United States are usually drawn on this principle, that a certain proportion of the capital, and sometimes the whole of it, shall be paid up in gold or silver before the charter shall take effect. This is the usual provision, without any obligation on the bank to retain any part of this specie after it gets into operation; and this provision has too often proved to be illusory and deceptive. In many cases, the banks have borrowed the requisite amount for a day, and then returned it; in many other cases, the proportion of specie, though paid up in good faith, is immediately lent out, or parted with. The result to the public is about the same in both cases; the bank has little or no specie, and its place is supplied by the notes of other banks. The great vice of the banking system in the United States is in banking upon paper--upon the paper of each other--and treating this paper as cash. This may be safe among the banks themselves; it may enable them to settle with one another, and to liquidate reciprocal balances; but to the public it is nothing. In the event of a run upon a bank, or a general run upon all banks, it is specie, and not paper, that is wanted. It is specie, and not paper, which the public want, and must have.
The motion of the senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. BUCHANAN] is intended to remedy this vice in these District banks; it is intended to impose an obligation on these banks to keep in their vaults a quantum of specie bearing a certain proportion to the amount of their immediate liabilities in circulation and deposits. The gentleman's motion is well intended, but it is defective in two particulars: first, in requiring the proportion to be the one-fourth, instead of the one-third, and next, in making it apply to the private deposits only. The true proportion is one-third, and this to apply to all the circulation and deposits, except those which are special. This proportion has been fixed for a hundred years at the Bank of England; and just so often as that bank has fallen below this proportion, mischief has occurred. This is the sworn opinion of the present Governor of the Bank of England, and of the directors of that institution. Before Lord Althorpe's committee in 1832, Mr. Horsley Palmer, the Governor of the Bank, testified in these words:
"'The average proportion, as already observed, of coin and bullion which the bank thinks it prudent to keep on hand, is at the rate of a third of the total amount of all her liabilities, including deposits as well as issues.' Mr. George Ward Norman, a director of the bank, states the same thing in a different form of words. He says: 'For a full state of the circulation and the deposits, say twenty-one millions of notes and six millions of deposits, making in the whole twenty-seven millions of liabilities, the proper sum in coin and bullion for the bank to retain is nine millions.' Thus, the average proportion of one-third between the specie on hand and the circulation and deposits, must be considered as an established principle at that bank, which is quite the largest, and amongst the oldest--probably, the very oldest bank of circulation in the world."
The Bank of England is not merely required to keep on hand, in bullion, the one-third of its immediate liabilities; it is bound also to let the country see that it has, or has not, that proportion on hand. By an act of the third year of William IV., it is required to make quarterly publications of the average of the weekly liabilities of the bank, that the public may see whenever it descends below the point of safety. Here is the last of these publications, which is a full exemplification of the rule and the policy which now governs that bank:
Quarterly average of the weekly liabilities and assets of the Bank of England, from the 12th December, 1837, to the 6th of March, 1838, both inclusive, published pursuant to the act 3 and William IV., cap. 98:
Liabilities. Assets. Circulation, £18,600,000 Securities, £22,792,900 Deposits, 11,535,000 Bullion, 10,015,000 ----------- ----------- £30,135,000 £30,807,000
London, March 12.
According to this statement, the Bank of England is now safe; and, accordingly, we see that she is acting upon the principle of having bullion enough, for she is shipping gold to the United States.
The proportion in England is one-third. The bank relies upon its debts and other resources for the other two-thirds, in the event of a run upon it. This is the rule in that bank which has more resources than any other bank in the world; which is situated in the moneyed metropolis of the world--the richest merchants its debtors, friends and customers--and the Government of England its debtor and backer, and always ready to sustain it with exchequer bills, and with every exertion of its credit and means. Such a bank, so situated and so aided, still deems it necessary to its safety to keep in hand always the one-third in bullion of the amount of its immediate liabilities. Now, if the proportion of one-third is necessary to the safety of such a bank, with such resources, how is it possible for our banks, with their meagre resources and small array of friends, to be safe with a less proportion?
This is the rule at the Bank of England, and just as often as it has been departed from, the danger of that departure has been proved. It was departed from in 1797, when the proportion sunk to the one-seventh; and what was the result? The stoppage of the banks, and of all the banks in England, and a suspension of specie payments for six-and-twenty years! It was departed from again about a year ago, when the proportion sunk to one-eighth nearly; and what was the result? A death struggle between the paper systems of England and the United States, in which our system was sacrificed to save hers. Her system was saved from explosion! but at what cost?--at what cost to us, and to herself?--to us a general stoppage of all the banks for twelve months; to the English, a general stagnation of business, decline of manufactures, and of commerce, much individual distress, and a loss of two millions sterling of revenue to the Crown. The proportion of one-third may then be assumed as the point of safety in the Bank of England; less than that proportion cannot be safe in the United States. Yet the senator from Pennsylvania proposes less--he proposes the one-fourth; and proposes it, not because he feels it to be the right proportion, but from some feeling of indulgence or forbearance to this poor District. Now, I think that this is a case in which kind feelings can have no place, and that the point in question is one upon which there can be no compromise. A bank is a bank, whether made in a district or a State; and a bank ought to be safe, whether the stockholders be rich or poor. Safety is the point aimed at, and nothing unsafe should be tolerated. There should be no giving and taking below the point of safety. Experienced men fix upon the one-third as the safe proportion; we should not, therefore, take a less proportion. Would the gentleman ask to let the water in the boiler of a steamboat sink one inch lower, when the experienced captain informed him that it had already sunk as low as it was safe to go? Certainly not. So of these banks. One-third is the point of safety; let us not tamper with danger by descending to the one-fourth.
When a bank stops payment, the first thing we see is an exposition of its means, and a declaration of ultimate ability to pay all its debts. This is nothing to the holders of its notes. Immediate ability is the only ability that is of any avail to them. The fright of some, and the necessity of others, compel them to part with their notes. Cool, sagacious capitalists can look to ultimate ability, and buy up the notes from the necessitous and the alarmed. To them ultimate ability is sufficient; to the community it is nothing. It is, therefore, for the benefit of the community that the banks should be required to keep always on hand the one-third of their circulation and deposits; they are then trusted for two-thirds, and this is carrying credit far enough. If pressed by a run, it is as much as a bank can do to make up the other two-thirds out of the debts due to her. Three to one is credit enough, and it is profit enough. If a bank draws interest upon three dollars when it has but one, this is eighteen per cent., and ought to content her. A citizen cannot lend his money for more than six per cent., and cannot the banks be contented with eighteen? Must they insist upon issuing four dollars, or even five, upon one, so as to draw twenty-four or thirty per cent.; and thus, after paying their officers vast salaries, and accommodating friends with loans on easy terms, still make enough out of the business community to cover all expenses and all losses: and then to divide larger profits than can be made at any other business?
The issuing of currency is the prerogative of sovereignty. The real sovereign in this country--the government--can only issue a currency of the actual dollar: can only issue gold and silver--and each piece worth its face. The banks which have the privilege of issuing currency issue paper; and not content with two more dollars out for one that is, they go to five, ten, twenty--failing of course on the first run; and the loss falling upon the holders of its notes--and especially the holders of the small notes.
We now touch a point, said Mr. B., vital to the safety of banking, and I hope it will neither be passed over without decision, nor decided in an erroneous manner. We had up the same question two years ago, in the discussion of the bill to regulate the keeping of the public moneys by the local deposit banks. A senator from Massachusetts (Mr. WEBSTER) moved the question; he (Mr. B.) cordially concurred in it; and the proportion of one-fourth was then inserted. He (Mr. B.) had not seen at that time the testimony of the governor and directors of the Bank of England, fixing on the one-third as the proper proportion, and he presumed that the senator from Massachusetts (Mr. W.) had not then seen it, as on another occasion he quoted it with approbation, and stated it to be the proportion observed at the Bank of the United States. The proportion of one-fourth was then inserted in the deposit bill; it was an erroneous proportion, but even that proportion was not allowed to stand. After having been inserted in the bill, it was struck out; and it was left to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury to fix the proportion. To this I then objected, and gave my reasons for it. I was for fixing the proportion, because I held it vital to the safety of the deposit banks; I was against leaving it to the secretary, because it was a case in which the inflexible rule of law, and not the variable dictate of individual discretion should be exercised; and because I was certain that no secretary could be relied upon to compel the banks to toe the mark, when Congress itself had flinched from the task of making them do it. My objections were unavailing. The proportion was struck out of the bill; the discretion of the secretary to fix it was substituted; and that discretion it was impossible to exercise with any effect over the banks. They were, that is to say, many of them were, far beyond the mark then; and at the time of the issuing of the Treasury order in July, 1836, there were deposit banks, whose proportion of specie in hand to their immediate liabilities was as one to twenty, one to thirty, one to forty, and even one to fifty! The explosion of all such banks was inevitable. The issuing of the Treasury order improved them a little: they began to increase their specie, and to diminish their liabilities; but the gap was too wide--the chasm was too vast to be filled: and at the touch of pressure, all these banks fell like nine-pins! They tumbled down in a heap, and lay there, without the power of motion, or scarcely of breathing. Such was the consequence of our error in omitting to fix the proper proportion of specie in hand to the liabilities of our deposit banks: let us avoid that error in the bill now before us.
Chapter XXXII
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH: COMPARATIVE PROSPERITY: SOUTHERN DISCONTENT: ITS TRUE CAUSE.
To show the working of the federal government is the design of this View--show how things are done under it and their effects; that the good may be approved and pursued, the evil condemned and avoided, and the machine of government be made to work equally for the benefit of the whole Union, according to the wise and beneficent intent of its founders. It thus becomes necessary to show its working in the two great Atlantic sections, originally sole parties to the Union--the North and the South--complained of for many years on one part as unequal and oppressive, and made so by a course of federal legislation at variance with the objects of the confederation and contrary to the intent or the words of the constitution.
The writer of this View sympathized with that complaint; believed it to be, to much extent, well founded; saw with concern the corroding effect it had on the feelings of patriotic men of the South; and often had to lament that a sense of duty to his own constituents required him to give votes which his judgment disapproved and his feelings condemned. This complaint existed when he came into the Senate; it had, in fact, commenced in the first years of the federal government, at the time of the assumption of the State debts, the incorporation of the first national bank, and the adoption of the funding system; all of which drew capital from the South to the North. It continued to increase; and, at the period to which this chapter relates, it had reached the stage of an organized sectional expression in a voluntary convention of the Southern States. It had often been expressed in Congress, and in the State legislatures, and habitually in the discussions of the people; but now it took the more serious form of joint action, and exhibited the spectacle of a part of the States assembling sectionally to complain formally of the unequal, and to them, injurious operation of the common government, established by common consent for the common good, and now frustrating its object by departing from the purposes of its creation. The convention was called commercial, and properly, as the grievance complained of was in its root commercial, and a commercial remedy was proposed.
It met at Augusta, Georgia, and afterwards at Charleston, South Carolina; and the evil complained of and the remedy proposed were strongly set forth in the proceedings of the body, and in addresses to the people of the Southern and Southwestern States. The changed relative condition of the two sections of the country, before and since the Union, was shown in their general relative depression or prosperity since that event, and especially in the reversed condition of their respective foreign import trade. In the colonial condition the comparison was wholly in favor of the South; under the Union wholly against it. Thus, in the year 1760--only sixteen years before the Declaration of Independence--the foreign imports into Virginia were £850,000 sterling, and into South Carolina £555,000; while into New York they were only £189,000, into Pennsylvania £490,000; and into all the New England Colonies collectively only £561,000.
These figures exhibit an immense superiority of commercial prosperity on the side of the South in its colonial state, sadly contrasting with another set of figures exhibited by the convention to show its relative condition within a few years after the Union. Thus, in the year 1821, the imports into New York had risen to $23,000,000--being about seventy times its colonial import at about an equal period before the adoption of the constitution; and those of South Carolina stood at $3,000,000--which, for all practical purposes, may be considered the same that they were in 1760.
Such was the difference--the reversed conditions--of the two sections, worked between them in the brief space of two generations--within the actual lifetime of some who had seen their colonial conditions. The proceedings of the convention did not stop there, but brought down the comparison (under this commercial aspect) to near the period of its own sitting--to the actual period of the highest manifestation of Southern discontent, in 1832--when it produced the enactment of the South Carolina nullifying ordinance. At that time all the disproportions between the foreign commerce of the two sections had inordinately increased. The New York imports (since 1821) had more than doubled; the Virginia had fallen off one-half; South Carolina two-thirds. The actual figures stood: New York fifty-seven millions of dollars, Virginia half a million, South Carolina one million and a quarter.
This was a disheartening view, and rendered more grievous by the certainty of its continuation, the prospect of its aggravation, and the conviction that the South (in its great staples) furnished the basis for these imports; of which it received so small a share. To this loss of its import trade, and its transfer to the North, the convention attributed, as a primary cause, the reversed conditions of the two sections--the great advance of one in wealth and improvements--the slow progress and even comparative decline of the other; and, with some allowance for the operation of natural or inherent causes, referred the effect to a course of federal legislation unwarranted by the grants of the constitution and the objects of the Union, which subtracted capital from one section and accumulated it in the other:--protective tariff, internal improvements, pensions, national debt, two national banks, the funding system and the paper system; the multiplication of offices, profuse and extravagant expenditure, the conversion of a limited into an almost unlimited government; and the substitution of power and splendor for what was intended to be a simple and economical administration of that part of their affairs which required a general head.
These were the points of complaint--abuses--which had led to the collection of an enormous revenue, chiefly levied on the products of one section of the Union and mainly disbursed in another. So far as northern advantages were the result of fair legislation for the accomplishment of the objects of the Union, all discontent or complaint was disclaimed. All knew that the superior advantages of the North for navigation would give it the advantage in foreign commerce; but it was not expected that these facilities would operate a monopoly on one side and an extinction on the other; nor was that consequence allowed to be the effect of these advantages alone, but was charged to a course of legislation not warranted by the objects of the Union, or the terms of the constitution, which created it. To this course of legislation was attributed the accumulation of capital in the North, which had enabled that section to monopolize the foreign commerce which was founded upon southern exports; to cover one part with wealth while the other was impoverished; and to make the South tributary to the North, and suppliant to it for a small part of the fruits of their own labor.
Unhappily there was some foundation for this view of the case; and in this lies the root of the discontent of the South and its dissatisfaction with the Union, although it may break out upon another point. It is in this belief of an incompatibility of interest, from the perverted working of the federal government, that lies the root of southern discontent, and which constitutes the danger to the Union, and which statesmen should confront and grapple with; and not in any danger to slave property, which has continued to aggrandize in value during the whole period of the cry of danger, and is now of greater price than ever was known before; and such as our ancestors would have deemed fabulous. The sagacious Mr. Madison knew this--knew where the danger to the Union lay, when, in the 86th year of his age, and the last of his life, and under the anguish of painful misgivings, he wrote (what is more fully set out in the previous volume of this work) these portentous words:
"The visible susceptibility to the contagion of nullification in the Southern States, the sympathy arising from known causes, and the inculcated impression of a permanent incompatibility of interest between the North and the South, may put it in the power of popular leaders, aspiring to the highest stations, to unite the South, on some critical occasion, in some course of action of which nullification may be the first step, secession the second, and a farewell separation the last."
So viewed the evil, and in his last days, the great surviving founder of the Union--seeing, as he did, in this inculcated impression of a permanent incompatibility of interest between the two sections, the fulcrum or point of support, on which disunion could rest its lever, and parricidal hands build its schemes. What has been published in the South and adverted to in this View goes to show that an incompatibility of interest between the two sections, though not inherent, has been produced by the working of the government--not its fair and legitimate, but its perverted and unequal working.
This is the evil which statesmen should see and provide against. Separation is no remedy; exclusion of Northern vessels from Southern ports is no remedy; but is disunion itself--and upon the very point which caused the Union to be formed. Regulation of commerce between the States, and with foreign nations, was the cause of the formation of the Union. Break that regulation, and the Union is broken; and the broken parts converted into antagonist nations, with causes enough of dissension to engender perpetual wars, and inflame incessant animosities. The remedy lies in the right working of the constitution; in the cessation of unequal legislation in the reduction of the inordinate expenses of the government; in its return to the simple, limited, and economical machine it was intended to be; and in the revival of fraternal feelings, and respect for each other's rights and just complaints; which would return of themselves when the real cause of discontent was removed.
The conventions of Augusta and Charleston proposed their remedy for the Southern depression, and the comparative decay of which they complained. It was a fair and patriotic remedy--that of becoming their own exporters, and opening a direct trade in their own staples between Southern and foreign ports. It was recommended--attempted--failed. Superior advantages for navigation in the North--greater aptitude of its people for commerce--established course of business--accumulated capital--continued unequal legislation in Congress; and increasing expenditures of the government, chiefly disbursed in the North, and defect of seamen in the South (for mariners cannot be made of slaves), all combined to retain the foreign trade in the channel which had absorbed it; and to increase it there with the increasing wealth and population of the country, and the still faster increasing extravagance and profusion of the government. And now, at this period (1855), the foreign imports at New York are $195,000,000; at Boston $58,000,000; in Virginia $1,250,000; in South Carolina $1,750,000.
This is what the dry and naked figures show. To the memory and imagination it is worse; for it is a tradition of the Colonies that the South had been the seat of wealth and happiness, of power and opulence; that a rich population covered the land, dispensing a baronial hospitality, and diffusing the felicity which themselves enjoyed; that all was life, and joy, and affluence then. And this tradition was not without similitude to the reality, as this writer can testify; for he was old enough to have seen (after the Revolution) the still surviving state of Southern colonial manners, when no traveller was allowed to go to a tavern, but was handed over from family to family through entire States; when holidays were days of festivity and expectation, long prepared for, and celebrated by master and slave with music and feasting, and great concourse of friends and relatives; when gold was kept in desks or chests (after the downfall of continental paper) and weighed in scales, and lent to neighbors for short terms without note, interest, witness, or security; and on bond and land security for long years and lawful usance: and when petty litigation was at so low an ebb that it required a fine of forty pounds of tobacco to make a man serve as constable.
The reverse of all this was now seen and felt,--not to the whole extent which fancy or policy painted--but to extent enough to constitute a reverse, and to make a contrast, and to excite the regrets which the memory of past joys never fails to awaken. A real change had come, and this change, the effect of many causes, was wholly attributed to one--the unequal working of the Federal Government--which gave all the benefits of the Union to the North, and all its burdens to the South. And that was the point on which Southern discontent broke out--on which it openly rested until 1835; when it was shifted to the danger of slave property.
Separation is no remedy for these evils, but the parent of far greater than either just discontent or restless ambition would fly from. To the South the Union is a political blessing; to the North it is both a political and a pecuniary blessing; to both it should be a social blessing. Both sections should cherish it, and the North most. The story of the boy that killed the goose that laid the golden egg every day, that he might get all the eggs at once, was a fable; but the Northern man who could promote separation by any course of wrong to the South would convert that fable into history--his own history--and commit a folly, in a mere profit and loss point of view, of which there is no precedent except in fable.