Chapter LXXIX…

Chapter LXXIX

INFRINGEMENT OF THE TARIFF COMPROMISE ACT OF 1833: CORRECTION OF ABUSES IN DRAWBACKS

The history, both ostensible and secret, of this act has been given, and its brief existence foretold, although intended for perpetuity, and the fate of the Union, in numerous State legislative resolves, and in inumerable speeches, declared to depend upon its inviolability. It was assumed to have saved the Union: the corollary of that assumption was, that its breach would dissolve the Union. Equally vain and idle were both the assumption and the inference! and equally erroneous was the general voice, which attributed the act to Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. They appeared to the outside observer as the authors of the act: the inside witness saw in Mr. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, and Mr. Robert P. Letcher, of Kentucky, its real architects--the former in commencing the measure and controlling its provisions; the latter as having brought Mr. Calhoun to its acceptance by the communication to him of President Jackson's intentions; and by his exertions in the House of Representatives. It was composed of two parts--one part to last nine years, for the benefit of the manufacturers: the other part to last for ever, for the benefit of the planting and consuming interest. Neither part lived out its allotted time; or, rather, the first part died prematurely, and the second never began to live. It was a felo de se from the beginning, and bound to perish of the diseases in it. To Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun, it was a political necessity--one to get rid of a stumbling-block (which protective tariff had become); the other to escape a personal peril which his nullifying ordinance had brought upon him: and with both, it was a piece of policy, to enable them to combine against Mr. Van Buren, by postponing their own contention: and a device on the part of Mr. Clayton and Mr. Clay to preserve the protective system, doomed to a correction of its abuses at the ensuing session of Congress. The presidential election was over, and General Jackson elected to his second term, pledged to a revenue tariff and incidental protection: a majority of both Houses of Congress were under the same pledge: the public debt was rapidly verging to extinction: and both the circumstances of the Treasury, and the temper of the government were in harmony with the wishes of the people for a "judicious tariff;" limited to the levy of the revenue required for the economical administration of a plain government, and so levied as to extend encouragement to the home production of articles necessary to our independence and comfort. All this was ready to be done, and the country quieted for ever on the subject of the tariff, when the question was taken out of the hands of the government by a coalition between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun, and a bill concocted, as vicious in principle, as it was selfish and unparliamentary in its conception and execution. The plan was to give the manufacturers their undue protection for nine years, by making annual reductions, so light and trifling during the time, that they would not be felt; and after the nine years, to give the anti-tariff party their millennium, in jumping down, at two leaps, in the two last years, to a uniform ad valorem duty of twenty per centum on all dutied articles. All practical men saw at the time how this concoction would work--that it would produce more revenue than the government wanted the first seven years, and leave it deficient afterwards--that the result would be a revulsion of all interests against a system which left the government without revenue--and that, in this revulsion there must be a re-modelling, and an increase in the tariff: all ending in a complete deception to the anti-tariff party, who would see the protective part of the compromise fully enjoyed by the manufacturing interest, and the relief part for themselves wholly lost. All this was seen at the time: but a cry was got up, by folly and knavery, of danger to the Union: this bill was proclaimed as the only means of saving it: ignorance, credulity, timidity and temporizing temperaments united to believe it. And so the bill was accepted as a God-send: the coming of which had saved the Union--the loss of which would destroy it: and the two ostensible architects of the measure (each having worked in his own interest, and one greatly over-reaching the other), were saluted as pacificators, who had sacrificed their ambition upon the altar of patriotism for the good of their country.

The time had come for testing these opinions. We were in the eighth year of the compromise, the first part had nearly run its course: within one year the second part was to begin. The Secretary of the Treasury had declared the necessity of loans and taxes to carry on the government: a loan bill for twelve millions had been passed: a tariff bill to raise fourteen millions more was depending; and the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Millard Fillmore, thus defended its necessity:

"He took a view of the effects of the compromise act, in the course of which he said that by that act one tenth of the customs over twenty-five per cent. ad valorem was to come off on the 1st January, 1834; and on the 1st January, 1836, another tenth was to be deducted; on the 1st January, 1838, another tenth; and on the 1st January, 1840, another tenth; and on the 1st January, 1842, three tenths more; and on the 1st July, 1842, the remaining three tenths were to be deducted, so that, on that day, what was usually termed the compromise act, was to go fully into effect, and reduce the revenue to 20 per cent. ad valorem on all articles imported into the country. It appeared from a report submitted to this House (he meant the financial report of the Secretary of the Treasury, document No. 2, page 20), showing the amount of imports for the seven years from 1834 to 1840 inclusive, that there were imported into this country one hundred and forty-one million four hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine dollars' worth of goods, of which seventy-one million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand three hundred and twelve dollars were free of duty, and sixty-nine million seven hundred and forty-eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars paid duty. Then, having these amounts, and knowing that, by the compromise act, articles paying duty over 20 per cent., and many of them paid more, were to be reduced down to that standard, and all were to pay only 20 per cent., what would be the amount of revenue from that source? Why, its gross amount would only be thirteen million nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars in round numbers--that is, taking the average of goods imported in the last seven years, the whole gross amount of duty that would pass into the Treasury, did all the imported articles pay the highest rate of duty, would only be thirteen million nine hundred and fifty-four thousand dollars--say fourteen millions of dollars in round numbers."

Thus the compromise act, under its second stage, was only to produce about fourteen millions of dollars--little more than half what the exigencies of the government required. Mr. Fillmore passed in review the different modes by which money could be raised. First, by loans: and rejected that mode as only to be used temporarily, and until taxes of some kind could be levied. Next, by direct taxation: and rejected that mode as being contrary to the habits and feelings of the people. Thirdly, by duties: and preferred that mode as being the one preferred by the country, and by which the payment of the tax became, in a large degree, voluntary--according to the taste of the payer in purchasing foreign goods. He, therefore, with the Secretary of the Treasury, preferred that mode, although it involved an abrogation of the compromise. His bill proposed twenty per centum additional to the existing duty on certain specified articles--sufficient to make up the amount wanted. This encroachment on a measure so much vaunted when passed, and which had been kept inviolate while operating in favor of one of the parties to it, naturally excited complaint and opposition from the other; and Mr. Gilmer, of Virginia, said:

"In referring to the compromise act, the true characteristics of that act which recommended it strongly to him, were that it contemplated that duties were to be levied for revenue only, and in the next place to the amount only necessary to the supply of the economical wants of the government. He begged leave to call the attention of the committee to the principle recognized in the language of the compromise--a principle which ought to be recognized in all time to come by every department of the government. It is, said he, that duties to be raised for revenue are to be raised to such an amount only as is necessary for an economical administration of the government. Some incidental protection must necessarily be given, and he, for one, coming from an anti-tariff portion of the country, would not object to it. But said he, we were told yesterday by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. ADAMS], that he did not consider the compromise binding, because it was a compact between the South and the West, in which New England was not a party, and it was crammed down her throat by the previous question, he voting against it. The gentleman from Pennsylvania said to-day almost the same thing, for he considered it merely a point of honor which he was willing to concede to the South, and that object gained, there was no longer reason for adhering to it.

"Did the gentleman contend that no law was binding on New England, and on him, unless it is sanctioned by him and the New England delegation? Sir, said Mr. G., I believe that it is binding, whether sanctioned by New England or not. The gentleman said that he would give the public lands to the States, and the compromise act to the dogs. Sir, if the lands are to be given to the States, if upwards of three millions are to be deducted from that source of revenue, and we are then to be told that this furnishes a pretext, first for borrowing, and then for taxing the people, we may well feel cause for insisting on the obligations of the compromise. Sir, said Mr. G., gentlemen know very well that there is some virtue in the compromise act, and that though it may be repudiated by a few of the representatives of the people, yet the people themselves will adhere to it as the means of averting the greatest of evils. But he had seen enough to show him that the power of giving might be construed as the power of taking, and he should not be surprised to see a proposition to assume the debts of the States--for the more that you give, the more that is wanted.

"After some further remarks, Mr. G. said that he was opposed to the hurrying of this important measure through at the present session. Let us wait until sufficient information is obtained to enable us to act judiciously. Let us wait to inquire whether there is any necessity for raising an increased revenue of eight millions of dollars from articles, all of which, under the compromise act, are either free of duty or liable to a duty of less than 20 per cent. Let us not be told that on account of the appropriations for a home squadron, and for fortifications amounting to about three millions of dollars, that it is necessary to raise this large sum. We have already borrowed twelve millions of dollars, and during the remainder of the year, Mr. Ewing tells us that the customs will yield five millions, which together, will make seventeen millions of dollars of available means in the Treasury. Then there was a large sum in the hands of the disbursing officers of the government, and he ventured to assert that there would be more than twenty millions at the disposal of the Treasury before the expiration of the next session of Congress. Are we to be told, said Mr. G., that we are to increase the tariff in order to give to the States this fourth instalment under the deposit act? No sir; let us arrest this course of extravagance at the outset; let us arrest that bill which is now hanging in the other House [the distribution bill], and which I trust will ever hang there. Let us arrest that bill and the proceeds from that source will, in the coming four years, pay this twelve million loan. But these measures are all a part of the same system. Distribution is used as a pretext for a loan, and a loan is used as a pretext for high duties. This was an extraordinary session of Congress, and inasmuch as there would be within a few months a regular session--inasmuch as the Committee on Commerce had reported a resolution contemplating the organization of a select committee, with a view to the collection of information to aid in the revision of the tariff for revenue--and inasmuch as the compromise goes fully into operation in July next--he thought that wisdom, as well as justice, demanded that they should not hurry through so important a measure, when it was not absolutely essential to the wants of the government.

"After some further remarks, Mr. G. said that it was time that he and his whig friends should understand one another. He wanted now to understand what were the cardinal principles of the whig party, of which he was an humble member. He had for six or seven years been a member of that party, and thought he understood their principles, but he much feared that he had been acting under some delusion; and now that they were all here together, he wished to come to a perfect understanding."

The perfect understanding of each other which Mr. Gilmer wished to have with his whig friends, was a sort of an appeal to Mr. Clay to stand by the act of 1833. He represented that party on one side of the compromise, and Mr. Calhoun the other: and now, when it was about to be abrogated, he naturally called on the guaranty of the other side to come to the rescue. Mr. Charles Jared Ingersoll, pleasantly and sarcastically apostrophized the two eminent chiefs, who represented two opposite parties, and gloriously saved the Union (without the participation of the government), at the making of that compromise: and treated it as glory that had passed by:

"I listened with edification to the account of the venerable member from Massachusetts [Mr. ADAMS], of the method of enacting the compromise act--what may be called the perpetration of that memorable measure. Certainly it put an end to fearful strife. Perhaps it saved this glorious Union. I wish to be understood as speaking respectfully of both the distinguished persons who are said to have accomplished it. After all, however, it was rather their individual achievement than an act of Congress. The two chiefs, the towering peaks, of overhanging prohibitory protection and forcible nullification, nodded their summits together, and the work was done, without the active agency of either the executive or legislative branches of government. Its influences on public tranquillity were benignant. But how to be regarded as economical or constitutional lessons, is a different question, which, at this session, I am hardly prepared to unravel. Undiscriminating impost, twenty per cent. flush throughout, on all articles alike, will not answer the purposes of the Union, or of my State. It is not supposed by their advocates that it will. The present bill is to be transient; we are to have more particular, more thorough and permanent laws hereafter. Without giving in my adhesion to the compromise act, or announcing opposition to it, I hope to see such government as will ensure steady employment, at good wages, by which I mean high wages, paid in hard money; no others can be good, high, or adequate, or money at all; for every branch of industry, agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, and navigation, that palmy state of a country, to which this of all others is entitled, pulcherrimo populi fasligio."

Mr. Pickens, of South Carolina, the intimate friend of Mr. Calhoun, also raised his voice against the abrogation of the act which had been kept in good faith by the free-trade party, and the consuming classes while so injurious to them, and was now to be impaired the moment it was to become beneficial:

"All the gentlemen who had spoken denied the binding force of the compromise act. Was this the doctrine of the party in power? Mr. P. had wished to hear from Kentucky, that he might discover whether this had been determined in conclave. The struggle would be severe to bring back the system of 1824, '28, and '32. The fact could no longer be disguised; and gentlemen might prepare themselves for the conflict. He saw plainly that this bill was to be passed by, and that all the great questions of the tariff policy would be again thrown open as though the compromise act had no existence. Was this fair? In 1835-6, when the last administration had taken possession of power, it was determined that the revenue must be reduced; but Mr. P. had at that time insisted that, though there was a surplus, the compromise act was not lightly to be touched, and that it would therefore be better to forbear and let that act run its course. Gentlemen on the other side had then come up and congratulated him on his speech; for they had already received the benefit of that act for four years. Then his doctrine was all right and proper; but now, when the South came to enjoy its share of the benefit, they took the other side, and the compromise was as nothing. One gentleman had said that twenty-eight millions would be needed to carry on the government; another, that twenty-seven; another, that twenty-five; and in this last opinion, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. INGERSOLL] agreed. And, as this sum could not be raised without duties over 20 per cent. the compromise must be set aside. Until lately Mr. P. had not been prepared for this; he had expected that at least the general spirit of that act would be carried out in the legislation of Congress; but he now saw that the whole tariff question must be met in all its length and breadth."

Very justly did Mr. Pickens say that the bill had been kept inviolate while operating injuriously to the consumers--that no alteration would be allowed in it. That was the course of the Congress to such a degree that a palpable error in relation to drawbacks was not allowed to be rectified, though plundering the Treasury of some hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum. But the new bill was to be passed: it was a necessity: for, in the language of Mr. Adams, the compromise act had beggared the Treasury, and would continue to beggar it--producing only half enough for the support of the government: and the misfortune of the free trade party was, that they did not foresee that consequence at the time, as others did; or seeing it, were obliged to submit to what the high tariff party chose to impose upon them, to release eminent men of South Carolina from the perilous condition in which the nullification ordinance had placed them. It passed the House by a vote of 116 to 101--the vote against it being stronger than the resistance in debate indicated.

The expenses of collecting the duties under the universal ad valorem system, in which every thing had to be valued, was enormous, and required an army of revenue officers--many of them mere hack politicians, little acquainted with their business, less attentive to it, giving the most variant and discordant valuations to the same article at different places, and even in the same place at different times; and often corruptly; and more occupied with politics than with custom-house duties. This was one of the evils foreseen when specific duties were abolished to make way for ad valorems and home valuations, and will continue until specific duties are restored as formerly, or "angels" procured to make the valuations. Mr. Charles Jared Ingersoll exposed this abuse in the debate upon this bill, showing that it cost nearly two millions of dollars to collect thirteen; and that two thousand officers were employed about it, who also employed themselves in the elections. He said:

"Even the direct tax and internal duties levied during the late war cost but little more than five per cent. for collection; whereas, now, upon an income decreasing under the compromise act in geometrical ratio, the cost of collecting it increases in that ratio; amounting, according to the answer I got from the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, to at least twelve per cent.; near two millions of dollars, says the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. SALTONSTALL]--one million seven hundred thousand dollars. To manage the customs, government is obliged to employ not less than two thousand officers, heavily paid, and said to be the most active partisans; those who, in this metropolis, are extremely annoying by their importunate contests for office, and elsewhere still more offensive by misconduct, sometimes of a gross kind, as in the instance of one, whom I need not name, in my district. The venerable gentleman from Vermont [Mr. EVERETT] suggested yesterday a tax on auctions as useful to American manufactures. On that, I give no opinion. But this I say, that a stamp tax on bank notes, and a duty on auctions, would not require fifty men to collect them. It is not for us of the minority to determine whether they should be laid. Yet I make bold to suggest to the friends of the great leader, who, next to the President, has the power of legislation at present, that one of three alternatives is inevitable."

The bill went to the Senate where it found its two authors--such to the public; but in relative positions very different from what they were when it was passed--then united, now divided--then concurrent, now antagonistic: and the antagonism, general upon all measures, was to be special on this one. Their connection with the subject made it their function to lead off in its consideration; and their antagonist positions promised sharp encounters--which did not fail to come. From the first word temper was manifest; and especially on the part of Mr. Clay. He proposed to go on with the bill when it was called: Mr. Calhoun wished it put off till Monday. (It was then Friday.) Mr. Clay persevered in his call to go on with the bill, as the way to give general satisfaction. Then ensued a brief and peremptory scene, thus appearing in the Register of Debates:

"Mr. CALHOUN thought the subject had better lie over. Senators had not an opportunity of examining the amendments; indeed, few had even the bill before them, not expecting it to come up. He agreed with the senator from Kentucky that it was important to give satisfaction, but the best way was to do what was right and proper; and he always found that, in the end, it satisfied more persons than they would by looking about and around to see what particular interest could be conciliated. Whatever touched the revenue touched the pockets of the people, and should be looked to with great caution. Nothing, in his opinion, was so preposterous as to expect, by a high duty on these articles, to increase the revenue. If the duty was placed at 20 per cent. it would be impossible to prevent smuggling. The articles in question would not bear any such duty; indeed, if they were reduced to 5 per cent. more revenue would be realized. He really hoped the senator would let the matter lie over until to-morrow or Monday."

"Mr. CLAY said he always found, when there was a journey to be performed, that it was as well to make the start; if they only got five or six miles on the way, it was so much gained at least."

"Mr. CALHOUN. We ought to have had some notice."

"Mr. CLAY. I give you notice now. Start! start! The amendment was very simple, and easily understood. It was neither more nor less than to exempt the articles named from the list of exceptions in the bill, by which they would be subjected to a duty of 20 per cent. Those who agreed to it could say 'aye,' and those who did not 'no;' and that was all he should say on the subject."

The bill went on. Mr. Calhoun said:

"He was now to be called on to vote for this bill, proposing, as it did, a great increase of taxes on the community, because it was an exigency measure. He should give his votes as if for the permanent settlement of the tariff. The exigency was produced by the gentlemen on the opposite side, and they should be held responsible for it. This necessity had been produced by the present administration--it was of their making, and he should vote for this as if he were settling the taxes, and as if the gentlemen had done their duty, and had not by extravagance and distribution created a deficiency in the Treasury, for which they were responsible. They yesterday passed a bill emptying the Treasury, by giving away the proceeds of the public lands, and to-day we have a bill to supply the deficiency by a resort to a tax which in itself was a violation of the compromise act. The compromise act provides that no duty shall be laid except for the economical support of the government; and he regarded the giving away of the public lands a violation of that act, whether the duty was raised to 20 per cent. or not, because they had not attempted to bring down the expenses of the government to an economical standard. He should proceed with this bill as if he were fixing the tariff; he thought an average of twelve and a half per cent. on our imports would raise an ample revenue for the support of the government, and in his votes on the several classes of articles he should bear this average in mind, imposing higher duties on some, and lower duties on others, as he thought the several cases called for."

"Mr. Benton said the bill came in the right place; and at the right moment: it came to fill up the gap which we had just made in the revenue by voting away the land-money. He should not help to fill that gap. Those who made it may fill it. He knew the government needed money, and must have it, and he did not intend to vote factiously, to stop its wheels, but considerately to compel it to do right. Stop the land-money distribution, and he would vote to supply its place by increased duties on imports; but while that branch of the revenue was lavished on the States in order to purchase popularity for those who squandered it, he would not become accessory to their offence by giving them other money to enable them to do so. The present occasion, he said, was one of high illustration of the vicious and debauching distribution schemes. When those schemes were first broached in this chamber ten years before, it was solely to get rid of a surplus--solely to get rid of money lying idle in the Treasury--merely to return to the people money which they had put into the Treasury and for which there was no public use. Such was the argument for these distributions for the first years they were attempted. Then the distributors advanced a step further, and proposed to divide the land money for a series of years, without knowing whether there would be any surplus or not. Now they have taken the final stride, and propose to borrow money, and divide it: propose to raise money by taxes, and divide it: for that is what the distribution of the land money comes to. It is not a separate fund: it is part of the public revenue: it is in the Treasury: and is as much custom-house revenue, for the customs have to be resorted to to supply its place. It is as much public money as that which is obtained upon loan: for the borrowed money goes to supply its loss. The distribution law is a fraud and a cheat on its face: its object is to debauch the people, and to do it with their own money; and I will neither vote for the act; nor for any tax to supply its place."

It was moved by Mr. Woodbury to include sumach among the dutiable articles, on the ground that it was an article of home growth, and the cultivation of it for domestic manufacturing purposes ought to be encouraged. Mr. Clay opposed this motion, and fell into a perfect free-trade argument to justify his opposition, and to show that sumach ought to come in free. This gave Mr. Calhoun an opportunity, which was not neglected, to compliment him on his conversion to the right faith; and this compliment led to some interesting remarks on both sides, in which each greeted the other in a very different spirit from what they had done when they were framing that compromise which one of them was now breaking. Thus:

"Mr. CLAY said it was very true that sumach was an article of home growth; but he understood it was abundant where it was not wanted; and where those manufactures exist which would require it, there was none to be found. Under these circumstances, it had not as yet been cultivated for manufacturing purposes, and probably would not be, as long as agricultural labor could be more profitably employed. Imported sumach came from countries where labor was much cheaper than in this country, and he thought it was for the interest of our manufacturers to obtain it upon the cheapest terms they can. Our agricultural labor would be much employed in other channels of industry."

"Mr. CALHOUN was very glad to hear the senator from Kentucky at last coming round in support of this sound doctrine. It was just what he (Mr. Calhoun) had long expected that Mr. Clay would be forced to conform to, that those articles ought to be imported, which can be obtained from abroad on cheaper terms than they can be produced at home."

"Mr. CLAY thought the senator from South Carolina was not entitled to his interpretation of what he (Mr. Clay) had said. The senator converts a few words expressed in favor of continuing the free importation of sumach, under present circumstances, into a general approbation of free trade--a thing wholly out of view in his (Mr. Clay's) mind at the time he made his remarks. It was certainly owing to the peculiar habit of mind in which the senator from South Carolina was so fond of indulging, that he was thus always trying to reduce every thing to his system of abstractions."

These "abstractions," and this "peculiar habit," were a standing resort with Mr. Clay when a little pressed by Mr. Calhoun. They were mere flouts, but authorizing retaliation; and, on the present occasion, when the question was to break up that compromise which (in his part of it, the universal 20 per cent. ad valorems) was the refined essence of Mr. Calhoun's financial system, and which was to be perpetual, and for which he had already paid the consideration in the nine years' further endurance of the protective system: when this was the work in hand, and it aggravated by the imperative manner in which it was brought on--refusal to wait till Monday, and that most extemporaneous notice, accompanied by the command, "start! start!"--all this was a good justification to Mr. Calhoun in the biting spirit which he gave to his replies--getting sharper as he went on, until Mr. Clay pleasantly took refuge under sumach--popularly called shoe-make in the South and West.

"Mr. Calhoun observed that the senator from Kentucky had evidently very strong prejudices against what he calls abstractions. This would be easily understood when we take into consideration what the senator and his friends characterized as abstractions. What he and they called abstractions, was the principle of scrutiny and opposition so powerfully evinced by this side of the Senate, against the low estimates, ruinous projects, and extravagant expenditures which constitute the leading measures of the present administration. As regards the principles of free trade, if these were abstractions, he was happy to know that he was in company with some of the ablest statesmen of Great Britain. He referred to the report recently made in Parliament on this subject--a document of eminent ability."

"Mr. Clay observed that the senator from South Carolina based his abstractions on the theories of books--on English authorities, and on the arguments urged in favor of free trade by a certain party in the British Parliament. Now, he (Mr. Clay), and his friends would not admit of these authorities being entitled to as much weight as the universal practice of nations, which in all parts of the world was found to be in favor of protecting home manufactures to an extent sufficient to keep them in a flourishing condition. This was the whole difference. The senator was in favor of book theory and abstractions: he (Mr. Clay) and his friends were in favor of the universal practice of nations, and the wholesome and necessary protection of domestic manufactures. And what better proof could be given of national decision on this point than that furnished by the recent elections in Great Britain. A report on the subject of free trade, written by the astute and ingenious Scotchman, Mr. Hume, had obtained pretty general circulation in this country. On the principles set forth in that report the British ministry went before the people of England at a general election, and the result proved that they were repudiated."

"Mr. Calhoun had supposed the senator from Kentucky was possessed of more tact than to allude at all to the recent elections in England, and claim them as a triumph of his principles, much less to express himself in such strong terms of approbation at the result. The senator was, however, elated at the favorable result of the late elections to the tory party in England. That was not much to be wondered at, for the interests, objects, and aims of the tory party there and the whig party here, are identical. The identity of the two parties is remarkable. The tory party are the patrons of corporate monopolies; and are not you? They are advocates of a high tariff; and are not you? They are the supporters of a national bank; and are not you? They are for corn-laws--laws oppressive to the mass of the people, and favorable to their own power; and are not you? Witness this bill. The tory party in England are not supported by the British people. That party is the representative of the mere aristocracy of the country, which, by the most odious and oppressive system of coercion exercised over the tenantry of the country, has obtained the power of starving the mass of the people, by the continuation of laws exclusively protecting the landed interests, that is, the rent rolls of the aristocracy. These laws that party will uphold, rather than suffer the people to obtain cheap bread. The administration party in England wished to dissipate this odious system of exclusive legislation, and to give the mass of the people cheap bread. This the senator from Kentucky characterizes as ridiculous abstraction. And who are these tories of England? Do not the abolitionists constitute a large portion of that party? Those very abolitionists, who have more sympathy for the negroes of the West India Islands, than for the starving and oppressed white laborers of England. And why? Because it is the interest of the tory party to have high rents at home, and high tariff duties against the sugar of this country, for the protection of the owners of estates in the West India Islands. This is the party, the success of which, at the recent elections in Great Britain, has so elated the senator from Kentucky! The success of that party in England, and of the whig party here, is the success of the great money power, which concentrates the interests of the two parties, and identifies their principles. The struggle of both is a struggle for the ascendency of this great money power. When the whole subject is narrowly looked into, it is seen that the whole question at issue is that of the ascendency of this enormous and dangerous power, or that of popular rights. And this is a struggle which the opposition in this Capitol, to whom alone the people of this country can now look for protection against the measures threatened to be consummated here, will maintain to the last, regardless of the success of the tories abroad or their allies at home."

Mr. Clay did not meet these biting interrogatories. He did not undertake to show any injustice in classifying his modern whig party with the English high tory party, but hauled off, washing his hands of sympathy for that party--a retreat, for which Mr. Calhoun taunted him in his reply. Fact was, the old federal party--and I never refer to them as such in reproach--had become unpopular, and changed name without changing principles. They took that of whig, as having a seductive revolutionary odor, without seeming to perceive that it had not a principle in common with the whigs of the revolution which their adversaries had not also; and that in reality they occupied the precise ground in our political parties which the high tory party did in England. Mr. Calhoun drove this home to Mr. Clay with a point and power, and a closeness of application, which stuck, and required an exculpatory answer, if any could be given. But none such was attempted, either by Mr. Clay, or any of his friends; and the issue has shown the folly of taking a name without corresponding works. The name "whig" has been pretty well given up, without finding a better, and perhaps without saving the commendable principle of conservatism which was in it; and which, in its liberal and enlightened sense, is so essential in all governments. One thing both the disputants seemed to forget, though others did not; and that was, that Mr. Calhoun had acted with this party for ten years against President Jackson.

"Mr. Clay denied that he had made any boast of the success of the tories in the English elections. He had expressed no sympathy with that party. He cared nothing about their success, though he did hope that the tories would not come into power in this country. He had only adverted to their triumph in England as an evidence of the sense of the English nation on the subject of free trade. His argument was, that no matter what contending politicians said about abstract principles, when it came to the practical action of the whole nation on these principles, that action was found decisive against theories and in favor of the practice of nations all over the globe. As to the success of the tories in England, he had frequently made the remark that this government had more to expect from the justice of a tory minister than a whig ministry, either in England or France, as the latter were afraid of being accused of being swayed by their liberal sentiments."

This was disavowing a fellow-feeling--not showing a difference; and Mr. Calhoun, seeing his advantage, followed it up with clinching vigor, and concluded with a taunt justified by the occasion.

"Mr. Calhoun said when there was a question at issue between the senator from Kentucky and himself, that senator was not the judge of its accuracy, nor was he; but he would leave it to the Senate, and to all present who had heard the argument, if he had not met it fairly. Did he not quote, in tones of exultation, the triumph of the tory party in England as the triumph of his principles over the principles of free trade? And when he (Mr. Calhoun) had noticed the points of identity in principle between the tory party of England and the whig party of this country, had the senator attempted to reply? Nay more, he had alluded to the striking coincidence between the party affinities in Great Britain and this country, and showed that this victory was not a tory victory only, but an abolitionist victory--the advocates of high taxes on sugar joining the advocates of high taxes on bread, and now the senator wishes to produce the impression that he had not fairly met the question, and tries to make a new issue. There was one trait in the senator's character, which he had often noticed. He makes his onslaughts with great impetuosity, not always thinking where they will carry him; and when he finds himself in difficulty, all his great ingenuity is taxed to make a skilful retreat. Like the French general, Moreau, he is more celebrated for the dexterity of his retreats than the fame of his battles."

Mr. Clay pleasantly terminated this interlude, which was certainly unprofitable to him, by recalling the Senate to the question before them, which was simply in relation to the free, or taxed importation of sumach: a word which he pronounced with an air and emphasis, peculiar to himself, and which had the effect of a satiric speech when he wished to make any thing appear contemptible, or ridiculous.

"Mr. Clay of Kentucky was not going into a dissertation on the political institutions of the British nation. He would merely recapitulate the facts with relation to the question at issue between the administration party in England and the tory party. Here Mr. Clay re-stated the position of both parties at the recent election, and the result; and concluded by declaring, that, after all, it was not a question now before the Senate, whether it was a tory victory in England and a whig victory here, but whether sumach was or was not to be admitted free of duty. He thought it would be just as well to revert to that question and let it be decided. For his part, he cared very little whether it was or was not. He would leave it to the Senate to decide the question just as it pleased."

The vote was taken: sumach was taxed: the foreign rival was discouraged--with what benefit to the American farmer, and the domestic grower of the article, the elaborate statistics of the decennial census has yet failed to inform us. But certainly so insignificant a weed has rarely been the occasion of such keen debate, between such eminent men, on a theatre so elevated. The next attempt to amend the bill was at a point of more concern to the American farmer: and appears thus in the Register of Debates:

"Mr. ALLEN had proposed to make salt a free article, which Mr. WALKER had proposed to amend by adding gunny bags.

"Mr. BENTON appealed to the senator from Mississippi to withdraw his amendment, and let the vote be taken on salt.

"Mr. KING also appealed to the senator from Mississippi to withdraw his amendment.

"Mr. WALKER said, at the suggestion of his friends, he should withdraw his amendment for the present, as it was supposed by some it might embarrass the original amendment.

"Mr. HUNTINGTON opposed the amendment as tending to a violation of the compromise act. It would result, also, in the annihilation of the extensive American works engaged in this manufacture, and would give the foreign manufacturers a monopoly in trade, which would tend to greatly increase the price of the article as it entered into the consumption of the country.

"Mr. KING was in favor of the compromise act, so far as it could be maintained. The article of salt entered equally into the consumption of all classes--the poor as well as the rich. He should vote for this amendment. If the senator wished, he would vote to amend the proposition so that it should not take effect till the 30th of June, 1842; and that would prevent its interference with the compromise. He hoped the experiment would be made, and be ascertained whether revenue sufficient for the expenses of government could be raised by taxation on other articles which could better bear it. He should vote for the amendment.

"Mr. BATES said the duty on salt affected two great portions of the community in a very different manner--the interior of the country, which derived their supplies from the domestic manufacture, from salines, and those parts on the seaboard which were supplied with imported salt. The price of salt for the interior of the country, which was supplied with domestic salt, of which there was a great abundance, would not be affected by an imposition of duty, as the price was regulated by the law of nature, and could not be repealed or modified; but the price of salt on the seaboard, which was supplied by imports, and some manufactured from marine water, would, however gentlemen might be disposed to disbelieve it, be increased if the duty were taken off; as the manufactories of salt from marine water would be entirely suspended, since none would continue the investment of their capital in so uncertain a business--the foreign supply being quite irregular. Thus perhaps, a third of the supplies being cut off, a greater demand would arise, and the price be increased on the seaboard, while the interior would not be affected.

"Mr. SEVIER wished to know how much revenue was collected from salt; he had heard it stated that the drawbacks amounted to more than the duty; if so, it would be better to leave it among the free articles.

"Mr. CLAY did not recollect positively; he believed the duty was about $400,000, and the drawbacks near $260,000--the tax greatly exceeded the drawback.

"Mr. CALHOUN said, individually there was, perhaps, no article which he would prefer to have exempted from duty than salt, but he was opposed, by any vote of his, to give a pretext for a violation of the compromise act hereafter. The duty on salt was going off gradually, and full as rapidly as was consistent with safety to commercial interests. No one could regard the bill before them as permanent. It was evident that the whole system would have to be revised under the compromise system.

"Mr. WALKER was warmly in favor of the amendment. He regarded a tax on salt as inhuman and unjust. It was almost as necessary to human life as the air they breathed, and should be exempted from all burdens whatever.

"Mr. ALLEN then modified his amendment so as that it should not take effect until after the 3d of June, 1842.

"Mr. CLAY spoke against the amendment; and said the very circumstance of the universality of its use, was a reason it should come in for its share of taxation. He never talked about the poor, but he believed he felt as much, and probably more, than those who did. Who were the poor? Why we were all poor; and any attempt to select certain classes for taxation was absurd, as before the collector came round they might be poor. He expressed the hope that the tax might not be interfered with. This was a subject which Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Macon took under their peculiar care, and other gentlemen had since mounted the hobby, and literally rode it down. He could tell them, if they desired to preserve the compromise, they must leave the salt tax alone.

"The debate was further continued by Messrs. WALKER, BENTON, CALHOUN, and PRESTON, when the question was taken on the adoption of the amendment, and decided in the negative, as follows:

"YEAS--Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Prentiss, Preston, Smith of Connecticut, Tappan, Walker, White, Woodbury, Wright, and Young--21.

"NAYS--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Calhoun, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Ker, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Porter, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Sturgeon, Tallmadge, and Woodbridge--23.

This odious and impious tax on salt has been kept up by a combination of private and political interests. The cod and mackerel fisheries of New England and the domestic manufacturers of salt on the Kenhawa and in New York, constituting the private interest; and the tariff-protective party constituting the political interest. The duty has been reduced, not abolished; and the injury has become greater to the Treasury in consequence of the reduction; and still remains considerable to the consumers. The salt duty, previous to the full taking effect of the compromise act of 1833, paid the fishing bounties and allowances founded upon it, and left a surplus for the Treasury: now, and since 1842, these bounties and allowances take the whole amount of the salt duty, and a large sum besides, out of the public Treasury. In five years (from 1848 to 1854), the duty produced from about $210,000, to $220,000; and the bounties and allowances during the same time, were from about $240,000, to $300,000; leaving the Treasury a loser to the amount of the difference: and, without going into figures, the same result may be predicated of every year since 1842. To the consumer the tax still remaining, although only one-fifth of the value, about doubles the cost of the article consumed to the consumer. It sends all the salt to the custom-house, and throws it into the hands of regraters; and they combine, and nearly double the price.

The next attempt to amend the bill was on Mr. Woodbury's motion to exempt tea and coffee from duty, which was successful by a large vote--39 to 10. The nays were: Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Berrien, Clay of Kentucky, Henderson, Leeds, Kerr, Merrick, Preston, Rives, Southard. The bill was then passed by a general vote, only eleven against it, upon the general ground that the government must have revenue: but those who voted against it thought the proper way to stop the land bill was to deny this supply until that was given up.

The compromise act of 1833--by a mere blunder, for it cannot be supposed such an omission could have been intentional--in providing for the reduction of duties on imported sugars, molasses, and salt, made no corresponding provision for the reduction of drawbacks when the sugars underwent refining and exportation; nor upon molasses when converted into rum and exported; nor on the fishing bounties and allowances, when the salt was re-exported on the fish which had been cured by it. This omission was detected at the time by members not parties to the compromise, but not allowed to be corrected by any one unfriendly to the compromise. The author of this View offered an amendment to that effect--which was rejected, by yeas and nays, as follows: Yeas--Messrs. Benton, Buckner, Calhoun, Dallas, Dickerson, Dudley, Forsyth, Johnson, Kane, King, Rives, Robinson, Seymour, Tomlinson, Webster, White, Wilkins, and Wright. Nays--Messrs. Bell, Bibb, Black, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Foot, Grundy, Hendricks, Holmes, Knight, Mangum, Miller, Moore, Naudain, Poindexter, Prentiss, Robbins, Silsbee, Smith, Sprague, Tipton, Troup, and Tyler. Of those then voting against this provision, one (Mr. Ewing, as Secretary of the Treasury), now, in 1841, recommended its adoption, so far as it related to refined sugars and rum; another (Mr. Clay), supported his recommendation; a third (Mr. Tyler), approved the act which adopted it: but all this, after the injury had been going on for eight years, and had plundered the Treasury of one and a half millions of dollars. The new tariff act of this extra session made the corresponding reductions, and by a unanimous vote in each House; the writer of this View, besides his motion at the time, having renewed it, and in vain, almost every year afterwards--always rejected on the cry that the compromise was sacred and inviolable--had saved the Union at the time it was made, and would endanger it the day it was broken. Well! it was pretty well broken at this extra session: and the Union was just as much destroyed by its breaking as it had been saved by its making. In one case the reductions of drawback remained untouched--that of the bounties and allowances to the cod and mackerel fisheries, founded on the idea of returning to the fisherman, or the exporter, the amount of duty supposed to have been paid on the imported salt carried back out of the country on that part of the fish which was exported. The fisheries have so long possessed this advantage that they now claim it as a right--no such pretension being set up until it was attacked as an abuse. A committee of the Senate, in the year 1846, of which Mr. Benton was chairman, and Mr. John Davis of Massachusetts, and Mr. Alexander Anderson, were members, made a report which explored this abuse to its source; but without being able to get it corrected. The abuse commenced after the late war with Great Britain, and has taken since that time about six millions of dollars; and is now going at the rate of about three hundred thousand dollars per annum. In the earlier ages of the government, these bounties and allowances were always stated in the annual treasury report, according to their true nature in connection with the salt duties, and as dependent upon those duties: and the sums allowed were always carried out in bushels of salt: which would show how much salt was supposed to have been carried out of the country on the exported fish. A treasury statement of that kind at present, would show about one million three hundred thousand bushels of foreign salt (for it is only on the foreign that the bounties and allowances accrue), so exported, while there is only about one million of bushels imported--nineteen-twentieths of which is employed in other branches of business--beef and pork packing, and bacon curing, for example: and there can be no doubt but that these branches export far more foreign salt on the articles they send abroad, than is done on cod and mackerel exported. In viewing the struggles about these bounties and allowances, I have often had occasion to admire the difference between the legislators of the North and those of the South and West--the former always intent upon the benefits of legislation--the latter upon the honors of the government.

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LXXX. NATIONAL BANK: FIRST BILL

This was the great measure of the session, and the great object of the whig party, and the one without which all other measures would be deemed to be incomplete, and the victorious election itself little better than a defeat. Though kept out of view as an issue during the canvass, it was known to every member of the party to be the alpha and omega of the contest, and the crowning consummation of ten years labor in favor of a national bank. It was kept in the background for a reason perfectly understood. Both General Harrison and Mr. Tyler had been ultra against a national bank while members of the democratic party: they had both, as members of the House of Representatives voted in a small minority in favor of issuing a writ of scire facias against the late Bank of the United States soon after it was chartered; and this could be quoted in the parts of the country where a bank was unpopular. At the same time the party was perfectly satisfied with their present sentiments, and wanted no discussion which might scare off anti-bank men without doing any good on their own side. The bank, then, was the great measure of the session--the great cause of the called session--and as such taken by Mr. Clay into his own care from the first day. He submitted a schedule of measures for the consideration of the body, and for acting on which he said it might be understood the extraordinary session was convoked; he moved for a select committee to report a bill, of which committee he was of course to be chairman: and he moved a call upon the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Ewing) for the plan of a bank. It was furnished accordingly, and studiously contrived so as to avoid the President's objections, and save his consistency--a point upon which he was exceedingly sensitive. The bill of the select committee was modelled upon it. Even the title was made ridiculous to please the President, though not as much so as he wished. He objected to the name of bank, either in the title or the body of the charter, and proposed to style it "The Fiscal Institute;" and afterwards the "Fiscal Agent;" and finally the "Fiscal Corporation." Mr. Clay and his friends could not stand these titles; but finding the President tenacious on the title of the bill, and having all the properties of all sorts of banks--discount--deposit--circulation--exchange--all in the plan so studiously contrived, they yielded to the word Fiscal--rejecting each of its proposed addenda--and substituted bank. The title of the instrument then ran thus: "A Bill to incorporate the subscribers to the Fiscal Bank of the United States." Thus entitled, and thus arranged out of doors, it was brought into the Senate, not to be perfected by the collective legislative wisdom of the body, but to be carried through the forms of legislation, without alteration except from its friends, and made into law. The deliberative power of the body had nothing to do with it. Registration of what had been agreed upon was its only office. The democratic members resisted strenuously in order to make the measure odious. Successful resistance was impossible, and a repeal of the act at a subsequent Congress was the only hope--a veto not being then dreamed of. Repeal, therefore, was taken as the watchword, and formal notice of it proclaimed in successive speeches, that all subscribers to the bank should be warned in time, and deprived of the plea of innocence when the repeal should be moved. Mr. Allen, of Ohio, besides an argument in favor of the right of this repeal, produced a resolve from the House Journal of 1819, in which General Harrison, then a member of that body, voted with others for a resolve directing the Judiciary Committee to report a bill to repeal the then United States Bank charter--not to inquire into the expediency of repealing, but to repeal absolutely.

The bill was passed through both Houses--in the Senate by a close vote, 26 to 23--in the House by a better majority, 128 to 98. This was the sixth of August. All was considered finished by the democracy, and a future repeal their only alternative. Suddenly light began to dawn upon them. Rumors came that President Tyler would disapprove the act; which, in fact he did: but with such expressions of readiness to approve another bill which should be free from the objections which he named, as still to keep his party together, and to prevent the explosion of his cabinet. But it made an explosion elsewhere. Mr. Clay was not of a temper to be balked in a measure so dear to his heart without giving expression to his dissatisfaction; and did so in the debate on the veto message; and in terms to assert that Mr. Tyler had violated his faith to the whig party, and had been led off from them by new associations. He said:

"On the 4th of April last, the lamented Harrison, the President of the United States, paid the debt of nature. President Tyler, who, as Vice-President, succeeded to the duties of that office, arrived in the city of Washington on the 6th of that month. He found the whole metropolis wrapt in gloom, every heart filled with sorrow and sadness, every eye streaming with tears, and the surrounding hills yet flinging back the echo of the bells which were tolled on that melancholy occasion. On entering the Presidential mansion he contemplated the pale body of his predecessor stretched before him, and clothed in the black habiliments of death. At that solemn moment, I have no doubt that the heart of President Tyler was overflowing with mingled emotions of grief, of patriotism and gratitude--above all, of gratitude to that country by a majority of whose suffrages, bestowed at the preceding November, he then stood the most distinguished, the most elevated, the most honored of all living whigs of the United States.

"It was under these circumstances, and in this probable state of mind, that President Tyler, on the 10th day of the same month of April, voluntary promulgated an address to the people of the United States. That address was in the nature of a coronation oath, which the chief of the State, in other countries, and under other forms, takes upon ascending the throne. It referred to the solemn obligations, and the profound sense of duty under which the new President entered upon the high trust which had devolved upon him, by the joint acts of the people and of Providence, and it stated the principles and delineated the policy by which he would be governed in his exalted station. It was emphatically a whig address from beginning to end--every inch of it was whig, and was patriotic.

"In that address the President, in respect to the subject-matter embraced in the present bill, held the following conclusive and emphatic language: 'I shall promptly give my sanction to any constitutional measure which, originating in Congress, shall have for its object the restoration of a sound circulating medium, so essentially necessary to give confidence in all the transactions of life, to secure to industry its just and adequate rewards, and to re-establish the public prosperity. In deciding upon the adaptation of any such measure to the end proposed, as well as its conformity to the Constitution, I shall resort to the fathers of the great republican school for advice and instruction, to be drawn from their sage views of our system of government, and the light of their ever glorious example.'

"To this clause in the address of the President, I believe but one interpretation was given throughout this whole country, by friend and foe, by whig and democrat, and by the presses of both parties. It was by every man with whom I conversed on the subject at the time of its appearance, or of whom I have since inquired, construed to mean that the President intended to occupy the Madison ground, and to regard the question of the power to establish a national bank as immovably settled. And I think I may confidently appeal to the Senate, and to the country, to sustain the fact that this was the contemporaneous and unanimous judgment of the public. Reverting back to the period of the promulgation of the address, could any other construction have been given to its language? What is it? 'I shall promptly give my sanction to any constitutional measure which, originating in Congress,' shall have certain defined objects in view. He concedes the vital importance of a sound circulating medium to industry and to the public prosperity. He concedes that its origin must be in Congress. And, to prevent any inference from the qualification, which he prefixes to the measure, being interpreted to mean that a United States Bank was unconstitutional, he declares that, in deciding on the adaptation of the measure to the end proposed, and its conformity to the constitution, he will resort to the fathers of the great Republican school. And who were they? If the Father of his country is to be excluded, are Madison (the father of the constitution), Jefferson, Monroe, Gerry, Gallatin, and the long list of Republicans who acted with them, not to be regarded as among those fathers? But President Tyler declares not only that he should appeal to them for advice and instruction, but to the light of their ever glorious example. What example? What other meaning could have been possibly applied to the phrase, than that he intended to refer to what had been done during the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe?

"Entertaining this opinion of the address, I came to Washington, at the commencement of the session, with the most confident and buoyant hopes that the Whigs would be able to carry all their prominent measures, and especially a Bank of the United States, by far that one of the greatest immediate importance. I anticipated nothing but cordial co-operation between the two departments of government; and I reflected with pleasure that I should find at the head of the Executive branch, a personal and political friend, whom I had long and intimately known, and highly esteemed. It will not be my fault if our amicable relations should unhappily cease, in consequence of any difference of opinion between us on this occasion. The President has been always perfectly familiar with my opinion on this bank question.

"Upon the opening of the session, but especially on the receipt of the plan of a national bank, as proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, fears were excited that the President had been misunderstood in his address, and that he had not waived but adhered to his constitutional scruples. Under these circumstances it was hoped that, by the indulgence of a mutual spirit of compromise and concession, a bank, competent to fulfil the expectations and satisfy the wants of the people, might be established.

"Under the influence of that spirit, the Senate and the House agreed, 1st, as to the name of the proposed bank. I confess, sir, that there was something exceedingly outré and revolting to my ears in the term 'Fiscal Bank;' but I thought, 'What is there in a name? A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.' Looking, therefore, rather to the utility of the substantial faculties than to the name of the contemplated institution, we consented to that which was proposed."

In his veto message Mr. Tyler fell back upon his early opinions against the constitutionality of a national bank, so often and so publicly expressed; and recurring to these early opinions he now declared that it would be a crime and an infamy in him to sign the bill which had been presented to him. In this sense he thus expressed himself:

"Entertaining the opinions alluded to, and having taken this oath, the Senate and the country will see that I could not give my sanction to a measure of the character described without surrendering all claim to the respect of honorable men--all confidence on the part of the people--all self-respect--all regard for moral and religious obligations; without an observance of which no government can be prosperous, and no people can be happy. It would be to commit a crime which I would not wilfully commit to gain any earthly reward, and which would justly subject me to the ridicule and scorn of all virtuous men."

Mr. Clay found these expressions of self-condemnation entirely too strong, showing too much sensibility in a President to personal considerations--laying too much stress upon early opinions--ignoring too completely later opinions--and not sufficiently deferring to those fathers of the government to whom, in his inaugural address, he had promised to look for advice and instruction, both as to the constitutionality of a bank, and its adaptation to the public wants. And he thus animadverted on the passage:

"I must think, and hope I may be allowed to say, with profound deference to the Chief Magistrate, that it appears to me he has viewed with too lively sensibility the personal consequences to himself of his approval of the bill; and that, surrendering himself to a vivid imagination, he has depicted them in much too glowing and exaggerated colors, and that it would have been most happy if he had looked more to the deplorable consequences of a veto upon the hopes, the interests, and the happiness of his country. Does it follow that a magistrate who yields his private judgment to the concurring authority of numerous decisions, repeatedly and deliberately pronounced, after the lapse of long intervals, by all the departments of government, and by all parties, incurs the dreadful penalties described by the President? Can any man be disgraced and dishonored who yields his private opinion to the judgment of the nation? In this case, the country (I mean a majority), Congress, and, according to common fame, an unanimous cabinet, were all united in favor of the bill. Should any man feel himself humbled and degraded in yielding to the conjoint force of such high authority? Does any man, who at one period of his life shall have expressed a particular opinion, and at a subsequent period shall act upon the opposite opinion, expose himself to the terrible consequences which have been portrayed by the President? How is it with the judge, in the case by no means rare, who bows to the authority of repeated precedents, settling a particular question, whilst in his private judgment the law was otherwise? How is it with that numerous class of public men in this country, and with the two great parties that have divided it, who, at different periods, have maintained and acted on opposite opinions in respect to this very bank question?

"How is it with James Madison, the father of the constitution--that great man whose services to his country placed him only second to Washington--whose virtues and purity in private life--whose patriotism, intelligence, and wisdom in public councils, stand unsurpassed? He was a member of the national convention that formed, and of the Virginia convention that adopted the constitution. No man understood it better than he did. He was opposed in 1791 to the establishment of the Bank of the United States upon constitutional ground; and in 1816 he approved and signed the charter of the late Bank of the United States. It is a part of the secret history connected with the first Bank, that James Madison had, at the instance of General Washington, prepared a veto for him in the contingency of his rejection of the bill. Thus stood James Madison when, in 1815, he applied the veto to a bill to charter a bank upon considerations of expediency, but with a clear and express admission of the existence of a constitutional power in Congress to charter one. In 1816, the bill which was then presented to him being free from the objections applicable to that of the previous year, he sanctioned and signed it. Did James Madison surrender 'all claim to the respect of honorable men--all confidence on the part of the people--all self-respect--all regard for moral and religious obligations?' Did the pure, the virtuous, the gifted James Madison, by his sanction and signature to the charter of the late Bank of the United States, commit a crime which justly subjected him 'to the ridicule and scorn of all virtuous men?'"

But in view of these strong personal consequences to his (Mr. Tyler's) own character in the event of signing the bill, Mr. Clay pointed out a course which the President might have taken which would have saved his consistency--conformed to the constitution--fulfilled his obligations to the party that elected him--and permitted the establishment of that sound currency, and that relief from the public distress, which his inaugural address, and his message to Congress, and his veto message, all so earnestly declared to be necessary. It was to have let the bill lie in his hands without approval or disapproval: in which case it would have become a law without any act of his. The constitution had made provision for the case in that clause in which it declares that--"If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return; in which case it shall not be a law." In this case there was no danger of Congress adjourning before the lapse of the ten days; and Mr. Clay adverted to this course as the one, under his embarrassing circumstances the President ought to have adopted, and saved both his consistency and faith to his party. He urged it as a proper course--saying:

"And why should not President Tyler have suffered the bill to become a law without his signature? Without meaning the slightest possible disrespect to him (nothing is further from my heart than the exhibition of any such feeling towards that distinguished citizen, long my personal friend), it cannot be forgotten that he came into his present office under peculiar circumstances. The people did not foresee the contingency which has happened. They voted for him as Vice-President. They did not, therefore, scrutinize his opinions with the care which they probably ought to have done, and would have done, if they could have looked into futurity. If the present state of the fact could have been anticipated--if at Harrisburg, or at the polls, it had been foreseen that General Harrison would die in one short month after the commencement of his administration; that Vice-President Tyler would be elevated to the presidential chair; that a bill, passed by decisive majorities of the first whig Congress, chartering a national bank, would be presented for his sanction; and that he would veto the bill, do I hazard any thing when I express the conviction that he would not have received a solitary vote in the nominating convention, nor one solitary electoral vote in any State in the Union?"

Not having taken this course with the bill, Mr. Clay pointed out a third one, suggested by the conduct of the President himself under analogous circumstances, and which, while preserving his self-respect, would accomplish all the objects in view by the party which elected him, by simply removing the obstacle which stood between them and the object of their hopes; it was to resign the presidency. For this contingency--that of neither President nor Vice-President--the constitution had also made provision in declaring--"In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President; and the Congress may by law provide for the case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as President; and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected." Congress had acted under this injunction and had devolved the duties of President, first on the president of the Senate pro tempore; and if no such temporary president, then on the speaker of the House of Representatives; and requiring a new election to be held on the first Wednesday of the ensuing December if there was time before it for a notification of two months; and if not, then the new election to take place (if the vacant term had not expired on the third day of March after they happened) on the like Wednesday of the next ensuing month of December. Here was provision made for the case, and the new election might have been held in less than four months--the temporary president of the Senate, Mr. Southard, acting as President in the mean time. The legal path was then clear for Mr. Tyler's resignation, and Mr. Clay thus enforced the propriety of that step upon him:

"But, sir, there was still a third alternative, to which I allude not because I mean to intimate that it should be embraced, but because I am reminded of it by a memorable event in the life of President Tyler. It will be recollected that, after the Senate had passed the resolution declaring the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States to have been derogatory from the constitution and laws of the United States, for which resolution President (then senator) Tyler had voted, the General Assembly of Virginia instructed the senators from that State to vote for the expunging of that resolution. Senator Tyler declined voting in conformity with that instruction, and resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States. This he did because he could not conform, and did not think it right to go counter to the wishes of those who had placed him in the Senate. If, when the people of Virginia, or the General Assembly of Virginia, were his only constituency, he would not set up his own particular opinion in opposition to theirs, what ought to be the rule of his conduct when the people of twenty-six States--a whole nation--compose his constituency? Is the will of the constituency of one State to be respected, and that of twenty-six to be wholly disregarded? Is obedience due only to the single State of Virginia? The President admits that the Bank question deeply agitated, and continues to agitate, the nation. It is incontestable that it was the great, absorbing, and controlling question, in all our recent divisions and exertions. I am firmly convinced, and it is my deliberate judgment, that an immense majority, not less than two-thirds of the nation, desire such an institution. All doubts in this respect ought to be dispelled by the recent decisions of the two Houses of Congress. I speak of them as evidence of popular opinion. In the House of Representatives, the majority was 131 to 100. If the House had been full, and but for the modification of the 16th fundamental condition, there would have been a probable majority of 47. Is it to be believed that this large majority of the immediate representatives of the people, fresh from amongst them, and to whom the President seemed inclined, in his opening message, to refer this very question, have mistaken the wishes of their constituents?"

The acting President did not feel it to be his duty to resign, although it may be the judgment of history (after seeing the expositions of his secretaries at the resignation of their places consequent upon a second veto to a second bank act), that he ought to have done so. In his veto message he seemed to leave the way open for his approval of a charter free from the exceptions he had taken; and rumor was positive in asserting that he was then engaged in arranging with some friends the details of a bill which he could approve. In allusion to this rumor, Mr. Clay remarked:

"On a former occasion I stated that, in the event of an unfortunate difference of opinion between the legislative and executive departments, the point of difference might be developed, and it would be then seen whether they could be brought to coincide in any measure corresponding with the public hopes and expectations. I regret that the President has not, in this message, favored us with a more clear and explicit exhibition of his views. It is sufficiently manifest that he is decidedly opposed to the establishment of a new Bank of the United States formed after two old models. I think it is fairly to be inferred that the plan of the Secretary of the Treasury could not have received his sanction. He is opposed to the passage of the bill which he has returned; but whether he would give his approbation to any bank, and, if any, what sort of a bank, is not absolutely clear. I think it may be collected from the message, with the aid of information derived through other sources, that the President would concur in the establishment of a bank whose operations should be limited to dealing in bills of exchange to deposits, and to the supply of a circulation, excluding the power of discounting promissory notes. And I understand that some of our friends are now considering the practicability of arranging and passing a bill in conformity with the views of President Tyler. Whilst I regret that I can take no active part in such an experiment, and must reserve to myself the right of determining whether I can or cannot vote for such a bill after I see it in its matured form, I assure my friends that they shall find no obstacle or impediment in me. On the contrary, I say to them, go on: God speed you in any measure which will serve the country, and preserve or restore harmony and concert between the departments of government. An executive veto of a Bank of the United States, after the sad experience of late years, is an event which was not anticipated by the political friends of the President; certainly not by me. But it has come upon us with tremendous weight, and amidst the greatest excitement within and without the metropolis. The question now is, what shall be done? What, under this most embarrassing and unexpected state of things, will our constituents expect of us? What is required by the duty and the dignity of Congress? I repeat that if, after a careful examination of the executive message, a bank can be devised which will afford any remedy to existing evils, and secure the President's approbation, let the project of such a bank be presented. It shall encounter no opposition, if it should receive no support, from me."

The speech of Mr. Clay brought out Mr. Rives in defence of the President, who commenced with saying:

"He came to the Senate that morning to give a silent vote on the bill, and he should have contented himself with doing so but for the observations which had fallen from the senator from Kentucky in respect to the conduct of the President of the United States. Mr. R. had hoped the senator would have confined himself strictly to the merits of the question before the Senate. He told us, said Mr. R., that the question was this: the President having returned the bill for a fiscal bank with his exceptions thereto, the bill was such an one as ought to pass by the constitutional majority of two-thirds; and thus become a law of the land. Now what was the real issue before the Senate? Was it not the naked question between the bill and the objections to it, as compared with each other? I really had hoped that the honorable senator, after announcing to us the issue in this very proper manner, would have confined his observations to it alone; and if he had done so I should not have troubled the Senate with a single word. But what has been the course of the honorable senator? I do not reproach him with it. He, no doubt, felt it necessary, in order to vindicate his own position before the country, to inculpate the course taken by the President: and accordingly about two-thirds of his speech, howsoever qualified by expressions of personal kindness and respect, were taken up in a solemn arraignment of the President of the United States. Most of the allegations put forth by the senator seem to arrange themselves under the general charge of perfidy--of faithlessness to his party, and to the people."

Mr. Rives went on to defend the President at all points, declaring the question of a bank was not an issue in the election--repelling the imputation of perfidy--scouting the suggestions of resignation and of pocketing the bill to let it become law--arguing that General Harrison himself would have disapproved the same bill if he had lived and it had been presented to him. In support of this opinion he referred to the General's early opposition to the national bank of 1816, and to his written answer given during the canvass--"that he would not give his sanction to a Bank of the United States, unless by the failure of all other expedients, it should be demonstrated to be necessary to carry on the operations of government; and unless there should be a general and unequivocal manifestation of the will of the Union in favor of such an institution; and then only as a fiscal, and not as a commercial bank." But this authentic declaration seemed to prove the contrary of that for which it was quoted. It contained two conditions, on the happening of which General Harrison would sign a bank charter--first, the failure of all other plans for carrying on the financial operations of the government; and, secondly, the manifestation of public opinion in favor of it. That the first of these conditions had been fulfilled was well shown by Mr. Rives himself in the concluding passages of his speech where he said: "All previous systems have been rejected and condemned--the sub-treasury--the pet banks--an old-fashioned Bank of the United States--a new-fashioned fiscal agent." The second condition was fulfilled in the presidential election in the success of the whig party, whose first object was a bank; and in the election of members of the House and the Senate, where the majorities were in favor of a bank. The conditions were fulfilled then on which General Harrison was to approve a bank charter; and the writer of this View has no doubt that he would have given his signature to a usual bank charter if he had lived; and from an obligatory sense of duty, and with no more dishonor than Mr. Madison had incurred in signing the act for the second bank charter after having been the great opponent of the first one; and for which signing, as for no act of his life, was dishonor imputed to him. The writer of this View believes that General Harrison would have signed a fair bank charter, and under its proper name; and he believes it, not from words spoken between them, but from public manifestations, seen by every body. 1. His own declaration, stating the conditions on which he would do it; and which conditions were fulfilled. 2. The fact that he was the presidential candidate of the party which was emphatically the bank party. 3. The selection of his cabinet, every member of which was in favor of a national bank. 4. The declaration of Mr. Clay at the head of the list of measures proposed by him for the consideration of Congress at its extra session, in which a national bank was included; and which measures he stated were probably those for which the extraordinary session had been convened by President Harrison--a point on which Mr. Clay must be admitted to be well informed, for he was the well reputed adviser of President Harrison on the occasion.

Mr. Clay rejoined to Mr. Rives, and became more close and pointed in his personal remarks upon Mr. Tyler's conduct, commencing with Mr. Rives' lodgment in the "half-way house," i.e. the pet bank system--which was supposed to have been a camping station in the transition from the democratic to the whig camp. He began thus:

"I have no desire, said he, to prolong this unpleasant discussion, but I must say that I heard with great surprise and regret the closing remark, especially, of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, as, indeed, I did many of those which preceded it. That gentleman stands in a peculiar situation. I found him several years ago in the half-way house, where he seems afraid to remain, and from which he is yet unwilling to go. I had thought, after the thorough riddling which the roof of the house had received in the breaking up of the pet bank system, he would have fled somewhere else for refuge; but, there he still stands, solitary and alone, shivering and pelted by the pitiless storm. The sub-treasury is repealed--the pet bank system is abandoned--the United States Bank bill is vetoed--and now, when there is as complete and perfect a reunion of the purse and the sword in the hands of the executive as ever there was under General Jackson or Mr. Van Buren, the senator is for doing nothing."

There was a whisper at this time that Mr. Tyler had an inner circle of advisers, some democratic and some whig, and most of whom had sojourned in the "half-way house," and who were more confidential and influential with the President than the members of his cabinet. To this Mr. Clay caustically adverted.

"Although the honorable senator professes not to know the opinions of the President, it certainly does turn out in the sequel that there is a most remarkable coincidence between those opinions and his own; and he has, on the present occasion, defended the motives and the course of the President with all the solicitude and all the fervent zeal of a member of his privy council. There is a rumor abroad that a cabal exists--a new sort of kitchen cabinet--whose object is the dissolution of the regular cabinet--the dissolution of the whig party--the dispersion of Congress, without accomplishing any of the great purposes of the extra session--and a total change, in fact, in the whole face of our political affairs. I hope, and I persuade myself, that the honorable senator is not, cannot be, one of the component members of such a cabal; but I must say that there has been displayed by the honorable senator to-day a predisposition, astonishing and inexplicable, to misconceive almost all of what I have said, and a perseverance, after repeated corrections, in misunderstanding--for I will not charge him with wilfully and intentionally misrepresenting--the whole spirit and character of the address which, as a man of honor and as a senator, I felt myself bound in duty to make to this body."

There was also a rumor of a design to make a third party, of which Mr. Tyler was to be the head; and, as part of the scheme, to make a quarrel between Mr. Tyler and Mr. Clay, in which Mr. Clay was to be made the aggressor; and he brought this rumor to the notice of Mr. Rives, repelling the part which inculpated himself, and leaving the rest for Mr. Rives to answer.

"Why, sir, what possible, what conceivable motive can I have to quarrel with the President, or to break up the whig party? What earthly motive can impel me to wish for any other result than that that party shall remain in perfect harmony, undivided, and shall move undismayed, boldly, and unitedly forward to the accomplishment of the all-important public objects which it has avowed to be its aim? What imaginable interest or feeling can I have other than the success, the triumph, the glory of the whig party? But that there may be designs and purposes on the part of certain other individuals to place me in inimical relations with the President, and to represent me as personally opposed to him, I can well imagine--individuals who are beating up for recruits, and endeavoring to form a third party, with materials so scanty as to be wholly insufficient to compose a decent corporal's guard. I fear there are such individuals, though I do not charge the senator as being himself one of them. What a spectacle has been presented to this nation during this entire session of Congress! That of the cherished and confidential friends of John Tyler, persons who boast and claim to be par excellence, his exclusive and genuine friends, being the bitter, systematic, determined, uncompromising opponents of every leading measure of John Tyler's administration! Was there ever before such an example presented, in this or any other age, in this or any other country? I have myself known the President too long, and cherished towards him too sincere a friendship, to allow my feelings to be affected or alienated by any thing which has passed here to-day. If the President chooses--which I am sure he cannot, unless falsehood has been whispered into his ears or poison poured into his heart--to detach himself from me, I shall deeply regret it, for the sake of our common friendship and our common country. I now repeat, what I before said, that, of all the measures of relief which the American people have called upon us for, that of a National Bank and a sound and uniform currency has been the most loudly and importunately demanded."

Mr. Clay reiterated his assertion that bank, or no bank, was the great issue of the presidential canvass wherever he was, let what else might have been the issue in Virginia, where Mr. Rives led for General Harrison.

"The senator says that the question of a Bank was not the issue made before the people at the late election. I can say, for one, my own conviction is diametrically the contrary. What may have been the character of the canvass in Virginia, I will not say; probably gentlemen on both sides were, every where, governed in some degree by considerations of local policy. What issues may therefore have been presented to the people of Virginia, either above or below tide water, I am not prepared to say. The great error, however, of the honorable senator, is in thinking that the sentiments of a particular party in Virginia are always a fair exponent of the sentiments of the whole Union. I can tell the senator, that, wherever I was--in the great valley of the Mississippi, in Kentucky, in Tennessee, in Maryland--in all the circles in which I moved, every where, 'Bank or no Bank' was the great, the leading, the vital question."

In conclusion, Mr Clay apostrophized himself in a powerful peroration as not having moral courage enough (though he claimed as much as fell to the share of most men) to make himself an obstacle to the success of a great measure for the public good; in which the allusion to Mr. Tyler and his veto was too palpable to miss the apprehension of any person.

"The senator says that, if placed in like circumstances, I would have been the last man to avoid putting a direct veto upon the bill, had it met my disapprobation; and he does me the honor to attribute to me high qualities of stern and unbending intrepidity. I hope that in all that relates to personal firmness--all that concerns a just appreciation of the insignificance of human life--whatever may be attempted to threaten or alarm a soul not easily swayed by opposition, or awed or intimidated by menace--a stout heart and a steady eye, that can survey, unmoved and undaunted, any mere personal perils that assail this poor transient, perishing frame--I may, without disparagement, compare with other men. But there is a sort of courage which, I frankly confess it, I do not possess--a boldness to which I dare not aspire--a valor which I cannot covet. I cannot lay myself down in the way of the welfare and happiness of my country. That I cannot, I have not the courage to do. I cannot interpose the power with which I may be invested--a power conferred not for my personal benefit, not for my aggrandizement, but for my country's good--to check her onward march to greatness and glory. I have not courage enough, I am too cowardly for that. I would not, I dare not, in the exercise of such a trust, lie down, and place my body across the path that leads my country to prosperity and happiness. This is a sort of courage widely different from that which a man may display in his private conduct and personal relations. Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that higher and nobler courage, which prompts the patriot to offer himself a voluntary sacrifice to his country's good. Apprehensions of the imputation of the want of firmness sometimes impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the want of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character of crimes in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate victim of these passions cannot see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle of his own personal interests. All his thoughts are withdrawn from his country, and concentrated on his consistency, his firmness, himself. The high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a patriotism, which, soaring towards Heaven, rises far above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting thought of the good and the glory of one's country, are never felt in his impenetrable bosom. That patriotism which, catching its inspiration from the immortal God, and leaving at an immeasurable distance below, all lesser, grovelling, personal interests and feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death itself--that is public virtue--that is the noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues!"

Mr. Rives replied to Mr. Clay, and with respect to the imputed cabal, the privy council, and his own zealous defence of Mr. Tyler, said:

"The senator has indulged his fancy in regard to a certain cabal, which he says it is alleged by rumor (an authority he seems prone to quote of late) has been formed for the wicked purpose of breaking up the regular cabinet, and dissolving the whig party. Though the senator is pleased to acquit me of being a member of the supposed cabal, he says he should infer, from the zeal and promptitude with which I have come forward to defend the motives and conduct of the President, that I was at least a member of his privy council! I thank God, Mr. President, that in his gracious goodness he has been pleased to give me a heart to repel injustice and to defend the innocent, without being laid under any special engagement, as a privy councillor or otherwise, to do justice to my fellow-man; and if there be any gentleman who cannot find in the consciousness of his own bosom a satisfactory explanation of so natural an impulse, I, for one, envy him neither his temperament nor his philosophy. If Mr. Tyler, instead of being a distinguished citizen of my own State, and filling at this moment, a station of the most painful responsibility, which entitles him to a candid interpretation of his official acts at the hands of all his countrymen, had been a total stranger, unknown to me in the relations of private or political friendship, I should yet have felt myself irresistibly impelled by the common sympathies of humanity to undertake his defence, to the best of my poor ability, when I have seen him this day so powerfully assailed for an act, as I verily believe, of conscientious devotion to the constitution of his country and the sacred obligation of his high trust."

With respect to the half-way house, Mr. Rives admitted his sojourn there, and claimed a sometime companionship in it with the senator from Kentucky, just escaped from the lordly mansion, gaudy without, but rotten and rat-eaten within (the Bank of the United States); and glad to shelter in this humble but comfortable stopping place.

"The senator from Kentucky says he found me several years ago in this half-way house, which, after the thorough riddling the roof had received in the breaking up of the pet bank system, he had supposed I would have abandoned. How could I find it in my heart, Mr. President, to abandon it when I found the honorable senator from Kentucky (even after what he calls the riddling of the roof) so anxious to take refuge in it from the ruins of his own condemned and repudiated system, and where he actually took refuge for four long years, as I have already stated. When I first had the honor to meet the honorable senator in this body, I found him not occupying the humble but comfortable half-way house, which has given him shelter from the storm for the last four years, but a more lordly mansion, gaudy to look upon, but altogether unsafe to inhabit; old, decayed, rat-eaten, which has since tumbled to the ground with its own rottenness, devoted to destruction alike by the indignation of man and the wrath of heaven. Yet the honorable senator, unmindful of the past, and heedless of the warnings of the present, which are still ringing in his ears, will hear of nothing but the instant reconstruction of this devoted edifice."

Mr. Rives returned to the imputed cabal, washed his hands of it entirely, and abjured all desire for a cabinet office, or any public station, except a seat in the Senate: thus:

"I owe it to myself, Mr. President, before I close, to say one or two words in regard to this gorgon of a cabal, which the senator tells us, upon the authority of dame Rumor, has been formed to break up the cabinet, to dissolve the whig party, and to form a new or third party. Although the senator was pleased to acquit me of being a member of this supposed cabal, he yet seemed to have some lurking jealousies and suspicions in his mind on the subject. I will tell the honorable senator, then, that I know of no such cabal, and I should really think that I was the last man that ought to be suspected of any wish or design to form a new or third party. I have shown myself at all times restive under mere party influence and control from any quarter. All party, in my humble judgment, tends, in its modern degeneracy, to tyranny, and is attended with serious hazard of sacrificing an honest sense of duty, and the great interests of the country, to an arbitrary lead, directed by other aims. I desire, therefore, to take upon myself no new party bonds, while I am anxious to fulfil, to the fullest extent that a sense of duty to the country will permit, every honorable engagement implied in existing ones. In regard to the breaking up of the cabinet, I had hoped that I was as far above the suspicion of having any personal interest in such an event as any man. I have never sought office, but have often declined it; and will now give the honorable senator from Kentucky a full quit-claim and release of all cabinet pretensions now and for ever. He may rest satisfied that he will never see me in any cabinet, under this or any other administration. During the brief remnant of my public life, the measure of my ambition will be filled by the humble, but honest part I may be permitted to take on this floor in consultations for the common good."

Mr. Rives finished with informing Mr. Clay of a rumor which he had heard--the rumor of a dictatorship installed in the capitol, seeking to govern the country, and to intimidate the President, and to bend every thing to its own will, thus:

"Having disposed of this rumor of a cabal, to the satisfaction, I trust, of the honorable senator, I will tell him of another rumor I have heard, which, I trust, may be equally destitute of foundation. Rumor is busy in alleging that there is an organized dictatorship, in permanent session in this capitol, seeking to control the whole action of the government, in both the legislative and executive branches, and sending deputation after deputation to the President of the United States to teach him his duty, and bring him to terms. I do not vouch for the correctness of this rumor. I humbly hope it may not be true; but if it should unfortunately be so, I will say that it is fraught with far more danger to the regular and salutary action of our balanced constitution, and to the liberties of the people, than any secret cabal that ever has existed or ever will exist."

The allusion, of course, was to Mr. Clay, who promptly disavowed all knowledge of this imputed dictatorship. In this interlude between Mr. Clay and Mr. Rives, both members of the same party, the democratic senators took no part; and the subject was dropped, to be followed by a little conversational debate, of kindred interest, growing out of it, between Mr. Archer of Virginia, and Mr. Clay--which appears thus in the Register of Debates:

"Mr. ARCHER, in rising on the present occasion, did not intend to enter into a discussion on the subject of the President's message. He thought enough had been said on the subject by the two senators who had preceded him, and was disposed, for his part, to let the question be taken without any more debate. His object in rising was to call the attention of the senator from Kentucky to a certain portion of his remarks, in which he hoped the senator, upon reflection, would see that the language used by him had been too harsh. His honorable friend from Kentucky had taken occasion to apply some very harsh observations to the conduct of certain persons who he supposed had instigated the President of the United States in the course he had taken in regard to the bill for chartering the Fiscal Bank of the United States. The honorable senator took occasion to disclaim any allusion to his colleague [Mr. RIVES], and he would say beforehand that he knew the honorable senator would except him also.

"Mr. CLAY said, certainly, sir!"

This was not a parliamentary disclaimer, but a disclaimer from the heart, and was all that Mr. Archer could ask on his own account; but he was a man of generous spirit as well as of high sense of honor, and taking up the case of his colleagues in the House, who seemed to be implicated, and could not appear in the chamber and ask for a disclaimer, Mr. Archer generously did so for them; but without getting what he asked for. The Register says:

"Mr. Archer. He would say, however, that the remarks of the senator, harsh as they were, might well be construed as having allusion to his colleagues in the other House. He (Mr. A.) discharged no more than the duty which he knew his honorable colleagues in the other House would discharge towards him were an offensive allusion supposed to be made to him where he could not defend himself, to ask of the honorable senator to make some disclaimer as regarded them.

"Mr. Clay here said, no, no.

"Mr. ARCHER. The words of the senator were: 'A low, vulgar, and profligate cabal;' which the senator also designated as a kitchen cabinet, had surrounded the President, and were endeavoring to turn out the present cabinet. Now, who would the public suppose to be that low and infamous cabal? Would the people of the United States suppose it to be composed of any other than those who were sent here by the people to represent them in Congress? He asked the senator from Kentucky to say, in that spirit of candor and frankness which always characterized him, who he meant by that cabal, and to disclaim any allusion to his colleagues in the other House, as he had done for his colleague and himself in this body.

"Mr. CLAY said, if the honorable senator would make an inquiry of him, and stop at the inquiry, without going on to make an argument, he would answer him. He had said this and he would repeat it, and make no disclaimer--that certain gentlemen, professing to be the friends, par excellence, of the President of the United States, had put themselves in opposition to all the leading measures of his administration. He said that rumor stated that a cabal was formed, for the purpose of breaking down the present cabinet and forming a new one; and that that cabal did not amount to enough to make a corporal's guard. He did not say who they were; but he spoke of rumor only. Now, he would ask his friend from Virginia [Mr. ARCHER] if he never heard of that rumor? If the gentleman would tell him that he never heard of that rumor, it would give him some claims to an answer.

"Mr. ARCHER confessed that he had heard of such a rumor, but he never heard of any evidence to support it.

"Mr. CLAY. I repeat it here, in the face of the country, that there are persons who call themselves, par excellence, the friends of John Tyler, and yet oppose all the leading measures of the administration of John Tyler. I will say that the gentleman himself is not of that cabal, and that his colleague is not. Farther than that, this deponent saith not, and will not say.

"Mr. ARCHER. The gentleman has not adverted to the extreme harshness of the language he employed when he was first up, and he would appeal to gentlemen present for the correctness of the version he (Mr. A.) had given of it. The gentleman said there was a cabal formed--a vile kitchen cabinet--low and infamous, who surrounded the President and instigated him to the course he had taken. That was the language employed by the honorable senator. Now suppose language such as this had been used in the other branch of the national legislature, which might be supposed to refer to him (Mr. A.) where he had not an opportunity of defending himself; what would be the course of his colleagues there? The course of those high-minded and honorable men there toward him, would be similar to that he had taken in regard to them.

"Mr. CLAY. Mr. President, did I say one word about the colleagues of the gentleman? I said there was a cabal formed for the purpose of breaking down the present cabinet, and that that cabal did not number a corporal's guard; but I did not say who that cabal was, and do not mean to be interrogated. Any member on this floor has a right to ask me if I alluded to him; but nobody else has. I spoke of rumor only.

"Mr. ARCHER said a few words, but he was not heard distinctly enough to be reported.

"Mr. CLAY. I said no such thing. I said there was a rumor--that public fame had stated that there was a cabal formed for the purpose of removing the cabinet, and I ask the gentleman if he has not heard of that rumor?

"Mr. ARCHER, after some remarks too low to be heard in the gallery, said it was not the words the gentleman had quoted to which he referred. It was the remark of the gentleman that there was a low and infamous cabal--a vile kitchen cabinet--and the gentleman knew that to his view there could not be a more odious phrase used than kitchen cabinet--and that it was these expressions that he wished an explanation of.

"Mr. BERRIEN said it was the concurrent opinion of all the senators around him, that the senator from Kentucky had spoken of the cabal as a rumor, and as not coming within his own knowledge. He hoped the senator would understand him in rising to make this explanation.

"Mr. ARCHER said he was glad to hear the disclaimer made by the gentleman from Georgia, and he would therefore sit down, under the conviction that the gentleman from Kentucky had made no such blow at his colleagues of the other House, as he had supposed."

Mr. Clay could not disclaim for the Virginia members of the House--that is to say, for all those members. Rumor was too loud with respect to some of them to allow him to do that. He rested upon the rumor; and public opinion justified him in doing so. He named no one, nor was it necessary. They soon named themselves by the virulence with which they attacked him.

The vote was taken on the bill over again, as required by the constitution, and so far from receiving a two-thirds vote, it barely escaped defeat by a simple majority. The vote was 24 to 24; and the yeas and nays were:

"YEAS--Messrs. Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, White, Woodbridge.

"NAYS--Messrs. Allen, Archer, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Clayton, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Rives, Sevier, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Williams, Woodbury, Wright, Young."

The rejection of the bank bill gave great vexation to one side, and equal exultation to the other. Hisses resounded from the galleries of the Senate: the President was outraged in his house, in the night, by the language and conduct of a disorderly crowd assembled about it. Mr. Woodbury moved an inquiry into the extent of these two disturbances, and their authors; and a committee was proposed to be charged with the inquiry: but the perpetrators were found to be of too low an order to be pursued, and the proceeding was dropped. Some manifestations of joy or sorrow took place, however, by actors of high order, and went into the parliamentary debates. Some senators deemed it proper to make a complimentary visit to Mr. Tyler, on the night of the reception of the veto message, and to manifest their satisfaction at the service which he had rendered in arresting the bank charter; and it so happened that this complimentary visit took place on the same night on which the President's house had been beset and outraged. It was doubtless a very consolatory compliment to the President, then sorely assailed by his late whig friends; and very proper on the part of those who paid it, though there were senators who declined to join in it--among others, the writer of this View, though sharing the exultation of his party. On the other hand the chagrin of the whig party was profound, and especially that of Mr. Clay, its chief--too frank and impetuous to restrain his feelings, and often giving vent to them--generally bitterly, but sometimes playfully. An occasion for a display of the latter kind was found in the occasion of this complimentary visit of democratic senators to the President, and in the offering of Mr. Woodbury's resolution of inquiry into the disturbances; and he amusingly availed himself of it in a brief speech, of which some extracts are here given:

"An honorable senator from New Hampshire [Mr. WOODBURY] proposed some days ago a resolution of inquiry into certain disturbances which are said to have occurred at the presidential mansion on the night of the memorable 16th of August last. If any such proceedings did occur, they were certainly very wrong and highly culpable. The chief magistrate, whoever he may be, should be treated by every good citizen with all becoming respect, if not for his personal character, on account of the exalted office he holds for and from the people. And I will here say, that I read with great pleasure the acts and resolutions of an early meeting, promptly held by the orderly and respectable citizens of this metropolis, in reference to, and in condemnation of, those disturbances. But, if the resolution had been adopted, I had intended to move for the appointment of a select committee, and that the honorable senator from New Hampshire himself should be placed at the head of it, with a majority of his friends. And will tell you why, Mr. President. I did hear that about eight or nine o'clock on that same night of the famous 16th of August, there was an irruption on the President's house of the whole loco foco party in Congress; and I did not know but that the alleged disorders might have grown out of or had some connection with that fact. I understand that the whole party were there. No spectacle, I am sure, could have been more supremely amusing and ridiculous. If I could have been in a position in which, without being seen, I could have witnessed that most extraordinary reunion, I should have had an enjoyment which no dramatic performance could possibly communicate. I think that I can now see the principal dramatis personæ who figured in the scene. There stood the grave and distinguished senator from South Carolina--

["Mr. CALHOUN here instantly rose, and earnestly insisted on explaining; but Mr. CLAY refused to be interrupted or to yield the floor.]

"Mr. CLAY. There, I say, I can imagine stood the senator from South Carolina--tall, careworn, with furrowed brow, haggard, and intensely gazing, looking as if he were dissecting the last and newest abstraction which sprung from metaphysician's brain, and muttering to himself, in half-uttered sounds, 'This is indeed a real crisis!' Then there was the senator from Alabama [Mr. KING], standing upright and gracefully, as if he were ready to settle in the most authoritative manner any question of order, or of etiquette, that might possibly arise between the high assembled parties on that new and unprecedented occasion. Not far off stood the honorable senators from Arkansas and from Missouri [Mr. SEVIER and Mr. BENTON], the latter looking at the senator from South Carolina, with an indignant curl on his lip and scorn in his eye, and pointing his finger with contempt towards that senator [Mr. CALHOUN], whilst he said, or rather seemed to say, 'He call himself a statesman! why, he has never even produced a decent humbug!'

["Mr. BENTON. The senator from Missouri was not there."]

Mr. Clay had doubtless been informed that the senator from Missouri was one of the senatorial procession that night, and the readiness with which he gave his remarks an imaginative turn with respect to him, and the facility with which he went on with his scene, were instances of that versatility of genius, and presence of mind, of which his parliamentary life was so full, and which generally gave him the advantage in sharp encounters. Though refusing to permit explanations from Mr. Calhoun, he readily accepted the correction from Mr. Benton--(probably because neither Mr. Benton, nor his immediate friends, were suspected of any attempt to alienate Mr. Tyler from his whig friends)--and continued his remarks, with great apparent good humor, and certainly to the amusement of all except the immediate objects of his attention.

"Mr. CLAY. I stand corrected; I was only imagining what you would have said if you had been there. Then there stood the senator from Georgia [Mr. CUTHBERT], conning over in his mind on what point he should make his next attack upon the senator from Kentucky. On yonder ottoman reclined the other senator from Missouri on my left [Mr. LINN], indulging, with smiles on his face, in pleasing meditations on the rise, growth, and future power of his new colony of Oregon. The honorable senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. BUCHANAN], I presume, stood forward as spokesman for his whole party; and, although I cannot pretend to imitate his well-known eloquence, I beg leave to make an humble essay towards what I presume to have been the kind of speech delivered by him on that august occasion:

"May it please your Excellency: A number of your present political friends, late your political opponents, in company with myself, have come to deposit at your Excellency's feet the evidences of our loyalty and devotion; and they have done me the honor to make me the organ of their sentiments and feelings. We are here more particularly to present to your Excellency our grateful and most cordial congratulations on your rescue of the country from a flagrant and alarming violation of the constitution, by the creation of a Bank of the United States; and also our profound acknowledgments for the veto, by which you have illustrated the wisdom of your administration, and so greatly honored yourself. And we would dwell particularly on the unanswerable reasons and cogent arguments with which the notification of the act to the legislature had been accompanied. We had been, ourselves, struggling for days and weeks to arrest the passage of the bill, and to prevent the creation of the monster to which it gives birth. We had expended all our logic, exerted all our ability, employed all our eloquence; but in spite of all our utmost efforts, the friends of your Excellency in the Senate and House of Representatives proved too strong for us. And we have now come most heartily to thank your Excellency, that you have accomplished for us that against your friends, which we, with our most strenuous exertions, were unable to achieve."

After this pleasant impersonation of the Pennsylvania senator, Mr. Clay went on with his own remarks.

"I hope the senator will view with indulgence this effort to represent him, although I am but too sensible how far it falls short of the merits of the original. At all events he will feel that there is not a greater error than was committed by the stenographer of the Intelligencer the other day, when he put into my mouth a part of the honorable senator's speech. I hope the honorable senators on the other side of the chamber will pardon me for having conceived it possible that, amidst the popping of champagne, the intoxication of their joy, the ecstasy of their glorification, they might have been the parties who created a disturbance, of which they never could have been guilty had they waited for their 'sober second thoughts.' I have no doubt the very learned ex-Secretary of the Treasury, who conducted that department with such distinguished ability, and such happy results to the country, and who now has such a profound abhorrence of all the taxes on tea and coffee, though, in his own official reports, he so distinctly recommended them, would, if appointed chairman of the committee, have conducted the investigation with that industry which so eminently distinguishes him; and would have favored the Senate with a report, marked with all his accustomed precision and ability, and with the most perfect lucid clearness."

Mr. Buchanan, who had been made the principal figure in Mr. Clay's imaginary scene, took his satisfaction on the spot, and balanced the account by the description of another night scene, at the east end of the avenue, not entirely imaginary if Dame Rumor may be credited on one side of the question, as well as on the other. He said:

"The honorable senator has, with great power of humor, and much felicity of description, drawn for us a picture of the scene which he supposes to have been presented at the President's house on the ever-memorable evening of the veto. It was a happy effort; but, unfortunately, it was but a fancy sketch--at least so far as I am concerned. I was not there at all upon the occasion. But, I ask, what scenes were enacted on that eventful night at this end of the avenue? The senator would have no cause to complain if I should attempt, in humble imitation of him, to present a picture, true to the life, of the proceedings of himself and his friends. Amidst the dark and lowering clouds of that never-to-be-forgotten night, a caucus assembled in one of the apartments of this gloomy building, and sat in melancholy conclave, deploring the unhappy fate of the whig party. Some rose, and advocated vengeance; 'their voice was still for war.' Others, more moderate, sought to repress the ardent zeal of their fiery compatriots, and advised to peace and prudence. It was finally concluded that, instead of making open war upon Captain Tyler, they should resort to stratagem, and, in the elegant language of one of their number, that they should endeavor 'to head' him. The question was earnestly debated by what means they could best accomplish this purpose; and it was resolved to try the effect of the 'Fiscality' now before us. Unfortunately for the success of the scheme, 'Captain Tyler' was forewarned and forearmed, by means of a private and confidential letter, addressed by mistake to a Virginia coffee-house. It is by means like this that 'enterprises of great pith and moment' often fail. But so desperately intent are the whig party still on the creation of a bank, that one of my friends on this side of the House told me that a bank they would have, though its exchanges should be made in bacon hams, and its currency be small patatoes."

Other senators took the imaginary scene, in which they had been made to act parts, in perfect good temper; and thus the debate on the first Fiscal Bank charter was brought to a conclusion with more amicability than it had been conducted with.

In the course of the consideration of this bill in the Senate, a vote took place which showed to what degree the belief of corrupt practices between the old bank and members of Congress had taken place. A motion was made by Mr. Walker to amend the Fiscal Bank bill so as to prevent any member of Congress from borrowing money from that institution. The motion was resisted by Mr. Clay, and supported by democratic senators on the grounds of the corruptions already practised, and of which repetitions might be expected. Mr. Pierce, of New Hampshire, spoke most fully in favor of the motion, and said:

"It was idle--if it were not offensive, he would say absurd--for gentlemen to discourse here upon the incorruptibility of members of Congress. They were like other men--and no better, he believed no worse. They were subject to like passions, influenced by like motives, and capable of being reached by similar appliances. History affirmed it. The experience of past years afforded humiliating evidence of the fact. Were we wiser than our fathers? Wiser than the most sagacious and patriotic assemblage of men that the world ever saw? Wiser than the framers of the constitution? What protection did they provide for the country against the corruptibility of members of Congress? Why, that no member should hold any office, however humble, which should be created, or the emoluments of which should be increased, during his term of service. How could the influence of a petty office be compared with that of the large bank accommodations which had been granted and would be granted again? And yet they were to be told, that in proposing this guard for the whole people, they were fixing an ignominious brand upon themselves and their associates. It seemed to him, that such remarks could hardly be serious; but whether sincere or otherwise, they were not legislating for themselves--not legislating for individuals--and he felt no apprehension that the mass, whose rights and interests were involved, would consider themselves aggrieved by such a brand.

"The senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. BUCHANAN] while pressing his unanswerable argument in favor of the provision, remarked, that should this bill become a law, no member of Congress 'having a proper sense of delicacy and honor,' with the question of repeal before him, could accept a loan from the Bank. That question of 'delicacy and honor' was one to which he (Mr. P.) did not choose now to address himself. He would, however, be guided by the light of experience, and he would take leave to say, that that light made the path before him, upon this proposition, perfectly luminous. By no vote of his should a provision be stricken from this bill, the omission of which would tend to establish a corrupt and corrupting influence--secret and intangible--in the very bosom of the two Houses whose province and duty it would be to pass upon that great question of repeal. What had taken place was liable to occur again. Those who were now here and those who would succeed to their places, were not more virtuous, not more secure from the approach of venality, not more elevated above the influence of certain appliances, than their predecessors. Well, what did history teach in relation to the course of members of Congress during that most extraordinary struggle between the Bank and the people for supremacy, which convulsed the whole continent from 1831 to 1834?

"He rose chiefly to advert to that page of history, and whether noticed here or not, it would be noticed by his constituents, who, with their children, had an infinitely higher stake in this absorbing question than members of Congress, politicians, or bankers.

"He read from the bank report presented to the Senate in 1834, by the present President of the United States, 'Senate Documents, second session, twenty-third Congress,' p. 320. From that document it appeared that in 1831 there was loaned to fifty-nine members of Congress, the sum of three hundred and twenty-two thousand one hundred and ninety-nine dollars. In 1832, the year when the bank charter was arrested by the veto of that stern old man who occupied the house and hearts of his countrymen, there was loaned to fifty-four members of Congress, the sum of four hundred and seventy-eight thousand and sixty-nine dollars. In 1833, the memorable panic year, there was loaned to fifty-eight members, three hundred and seventy-four thousand seven hundred and sixty-six dollars. In 1834, hope began to decline with the Bank, and so, also, did its line of discounts to members of Congress; but even in that year the loan to fifty-two members amounted to two hundred and thirty-eight thousand five hundred and eighty-six dollars.

"Thus in four years of unparalleled political excitement, growing out of a struggle with the people for the mastery, did that institution grant accommodations to two hundred and twenty-three of the people's representatives, amounting to the vast sum of one million four hundred and thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty dollars. He presented no argument on these facts. He would regard it not merely as supererogation, but an insult to the intelligence of his countrymen. A tribunal of higher authority than the executive and Congress combined, would pass upon the question of 'delicacy and honor,' started by the senator from Pennsylvania, and it would also decide whether in the bank to loan was dangerous or otherwise. He indulged no fears as to the decision of the tribunal in the last resort--the sovereign people."

Mr. Clay remarked that the greater part of these loans were made to members opposed to the bank. Mr. Buchanan answered, no doubt of that. A significant smile went through the chamber, with inquiries whether any one had remained opposed? The yeas and nays were called upon the question--and it was carried; the two Virginia senators, Messrs. Archer and Rives, and Mr. Preston, a Virginian by birth, voting with the democracy, and making the vote 25 yeas to 24 nays. The yeas were: Messrs. Allen, Archer, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Williams, Woodbury, Wright and Young. The nays were: Messrs. Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntingdon, Leeds Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, White, Woodbridge. This vote, after the grounds on which the question was put, was considered an explicit senatorial condemnation of the bank for corrupt practices with members of Congress.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter LXXXI

SECOND FISCAL AGENT: BILL PRESENTED: PASSED: DISAPPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT.

This second attempt at a fiscal bill has two histories--one public and ostensible--the other secret and real: and it is proper to write them both, for their own sakes, and also to show in what manner the government is worked. The public history will be given first, and will be given exclusively from a public source--the debates of Congress. We begin with it as it begins there--an extemporaneous graft upon a neglected bill lying on the table of the House of Representatives. Early in the session a bill had been brought in from a select committee on the "currency," which had not been noticed from the time of its introduction. It seemed destined to sleep undisturbed upon the table to the end of the session, and then to expire quietly upon lapse of time. Soon after the rejection of the first fiscal under the qualified veto of the President, Mr. Sergeant of Pennsylvania moved the House (when in that state which is called Committee of the Whole) to take up this bill for consideration: which was done as moved. Mr. Sergeant then stated that, his intention was to move to amend that bill by striking out the whole of it after the enacting clause, and inserting a new bill, which he would move to have printed. Several members asked for the reading of the new bill, or a statement of its provisions; and Mr. Sergeant, in compliance with these requests, stood up and said:

"That, as several inquiries had been made of him with regard to this bill, he would now proceed to make a short statement, to show in what respects it differed from that recently before this House. He would say, first, that there were two or three verbal errors in this bill, and there were words, in two or three places, which he thought had better have been left out, and which were intended to have been omitted by the committee. There were several gentlemen in the present Congress who entertained extreme hostility to the word 'bank,' and, as far as he was concerned, he felt every disposition to indulge their feelings; and he had therefore endeavored throughout this bill to avoid using the word 'bank.' If that word anywhere remained as applicable to the being it was proposed to create by this law, let it go out--let it go out. Now the word 'corporation' sounded well, and he was glad to perceive it gave pleasure to the House. At all events, they had a new word to fight against. Now the difference between this bill and that which passed this House some days ago, would be seen by comparison. The present differed from the other principally in three or four particulars, and there were some other parts of the bill which varied, in minor particulars, from that which had been before the House a few days ago. Those differences gentlemen would have no difficulty in discovering and understanding when the bill should have been printed. He would now proceed to answer the inquiries of gentlemen in reference to this bill. Mr. S. then stated the following as the substantial points of difference between the two bills:

"1. The capital in the former bill was thirty millions, with power to extend it to fifty millions. In this bill twenty-one millions, with power to extend it to thirty-five millions. 2. The former bill provided for offices of discount and deposit. In this there are to be agencies only. 3. The dealings of the corporation are to be confined to buying and selling foreign bills of exchange, including bills drawn in one State or territory, and payable in another. There are to be no discounts. 4. The title of the corporation is changed."

This was Friday, the 20th of August. The next day--the bill offered in amendment by Mr. Sergeant having been printed and the House gone into committee--that member moved that all debate upon it in committee of the whole should cease at 4 o'clock that afternoon, and then proceed to vote upon the amendments which might be offered, and report those agreed upon to the House. And having moved this in writing, he immediately moved the previous question upon it. This was sharp practice, and as new as sharp. It was then past 12 o'clock. Such rapidity of proceeding was a mockery upon legislation, and to expose it as such, Mr. Roosevelt of New York moved to amend the time by substituting, instanter, for 4 o'clock, remarking that they might as well have no time for discussion as the time designated. Several members expressing themselves to the same effect, Mr. Sergeant extended the time to 4 o'clock on Monday evening. The brevity of the time was still considered by the minority, and justly, as a mockery upon legislation; and their opinions to that effect were freely expressed. Mr. Cave Johnson asked to be excused from voting on Mr. Sergeant's resolution, giving for the reason that the amendment was a new bill just laid upon the table of members, and that it would be impossible for them to act understandingly upon it in the short time proposed. Mr. Charles Brown of Pennsylvania also asked to be excused from voting, saying that the amendment was a bill of thirty-eight printed pages--that it had only been laid upon their tables ten minutes when the motion to close the debate at 4 o'clock was made--and that it was impossible to act upon it with the care and consideration due to a legislative act, and to one of this momentous importance, and which was to create a great fiscal corporation with vast privileges, and an exclusive charter for twenty years. Mr. Rhett of South Carolina asked to be in like manner excused, reducing his reasons to writing, in the form of a protest. Thus:

"1. Because the rule by which the resolution is proposed is a violation of the spirit of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that the freedom of speech and of the press shall not be abridged by any law of Congress. 2. Because it destroys the character of this body as a deliberative assembly: a right to deliberate and discuss measures being no longer in Congress, but with the majority only. 3. Because it is a violation of the rights of the people of the United States, through their representatives, inherited from their ancestors, and enjoyed and practised time immemorial, to speak to the taxes imposed on them, when taxes are imposed. 4. Because by the said rule, a bill may be taken up in Committee of the Whole, be immediately reported to the House, and, by the aid of the previous question, be passed into a law, without one word of debate being permitted or uttered. 5. Because free discussion of the laws by which the people are governed, is not only essential to right legislation, but is necessary to the preservation of the constitution, and the liberties of the people; and to fear or supress it is the characteristic of tyrannies and tyrants only. 6. Because the measure proposed to be forced through the House within less than two days' consideration is one which deeply affects the integrity of the constitution and the liberties of the people; and to pass it with haste, and without due deliberation, would evince a contemptuous disregard of either, and may be a fatal violation of both."

Besides all other objections to this rapid legislation, it was a virtual violation of the rules of the House, made under the constitution, to prevent hasty and inconsiderate, or intemperate action; and which requires a bill to be read three times, each time on a different day, and to be voted upon each time. Technically an amendment, though an entire new bill, is not a bill, and therefore, is not subject to these three readings and votings: substantially and truly, such an amendment is a bill; and the reason of the rule would require it to be treated as such.

Other members asked to be excused from voting; but all being denied that request by an inexorable majority, Mr. Pickens of South Carolina stood up and said: "It is now manifest that the House does not intend to excuse any member from voting. And as enough has been done to call public attention to the odious resolution proposed to be adopted, our object will have been attained: and I respectfully suggest to our friends to go no further in this proceeding!" Cries of "agreed! agreed!" responded to this appeal; and the motion of Mr. Sergeant was adopted. He, himself, then spoke an hour in support of the new bill--one hour of the brief time which was allowed for discussion. Mr. Wise occupied the remainder of the evening against the bill. On Monday, on resuming its consideration, Mr. Turney of Tennessee moved to strike out the enacting clause--which, if done, would put an end to the bill. The motion failed. Some heated discussion took place, which could hardly be called a debate on the bill; but came near enough to it to detect its fraudulent character. It was the old defunct Bank of the United States, in disguise, to come to life again in it. That used-up concern was then in the hands of justice, hourly sued upon its notes, and the contents collected upon execution; and insolvency admitted. It could not be named in any charter: no reference could be made to it by name. But there was a provision in the amended bill to permit it to slip into full life, and take the whole benefit of the new charter. Corporations were to be allowed to subscribe for the stock: under that provision she could take all the stock--and be herself again. This, and other fraudulent provisions were detected: but the clock struck four! and the vote was taken, and the bill passed--125 to 94. The title of the original bill was then amended to conform to its new character; and, on the motion of Mr. Sergeant was made to read in this wise: "An act to provide for the better collection, safe keeping, and disbursement of the public revenue, by means of a corporation to be styled the Fiscal Corporation of the United States." Peals of laughter saluted the annunciation of this title; and when it was carried to the Senate, as it immediately was, for the concurrence of that body, and its strange title was read out, ridicule was already lying in wait for it; and, under the mask of ridicule, an attack was made upon its real character, as the resuscitation of Mr. Biddle's bank: and Mr. Benton exclaimed--

"Heavens what a name! long as the moral law--half sub-treasury, and half national bank--and all fraudulent and deceptive, to conceal what it is; and entirely too long. The name is too long. People will never stand it. They cannot go through all that. We must have something shorter--something that will do for every day use. Corporosity! that would be a great abridgment; but it is still too long. It is five syllables, and people will not go above two syllables, or three at most, and often hang at one, in names which have to be incontinently repeated. They are all economical at that, let them be as extravagant as they may be in spending their money. They will not spend their breath upon long names which have to be repeated every day. They must have something short and pointed; and, if you don't give it to them, they will make it for themselves. The defunct Fiscal Bank was rapidly taking the title of fiscality; and, by alliteration, rascality; and if it had lived, would soon have been compendiously and emphatically designated by some brief and significant title. The Fiscal Corporation cannot expect to have better luck. It must undergo the fate of all great men and of all great measures, overburdened with titles--it must submit to a short name. There is much virtue in a name; and the poets tell us there are many on whose conception Phoebus never smiled, and at whose birth no muse, or grace, was present. In that predicament would seem to be this intrusive corporosity, which we have received from the other House, and sent to our young committee, and which has mutation of title without alteration of substance, and without accession of euphony, or addition of sense. Some say a name is nothing--that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So it will; and a thorn by any other name would stick as deep. And so of these fiscals, whether to be called banks or corporations. They will still be the same thing--a thorn in our side--but a short name they must have. This corporosity must retrench its extravagance of title.

"I go for short names, and will give reasons for it. The people will have short names, although they may spoil a fine one; and I will give you an instance. There was a most beautiful young lady in New Orleans some years ago, as there always has been, and still are many such. She was a Creole, that is to say, born in this country, of parents from Europe. A gentleman who was building a superb steamboat, took it into his head to honor this young lady, by connecting her name with his vessel; so he bestowed upon it the captivating designation of LA BELLE CREOLE. This fine name was painted in golden letters on the sides of his vessel; and away she went, with three hundred horse power, to Kentucky and Ohio. The vessel was beautiful, and the name was beautiful, and the lady was beautiful; but all the beauty on earth could not save the name from the catastrophe to which all long titles are subjected. It was immediately abbreviated, and, in the abbreviation, sadly deteriorated. At first, they called her the bell--not the French belle, which signifies fine or beautiful--but the plain English bell, which in the Holy Scriptures, was defined to be a tinkling cymbal. This was bad enough; but worse was coming. It so happens that the vernacular pronunciation of creole, in the Kentucky waters, is cre-owl; so they began to call this beautiful boat the cre-owl! but things did not stop here. It was too extravagant to employ two syllables when one would answer as well, and be so much more economical; so the first half of the name was dropped, and the last retained; and thus La Belle Creole--the beautiful creole--sailed up and down the Mississippi all her life by the name, style, title, and description of, THE OWL! (Roars of laughing in the Senate, with exclamations from several, that it was a good name for a bank--that there was an Owl-Creek Bank in Ohio once, now dead and insolvent, but, in its day, as good as the best.)

"Mr. B. continued. I do not know whether owl will do for this child of long name, and many fathers; but we must have a name, and must continue trying till we get one. Let us hunt far and wide. Let us have recourse to the most renowned Æsop and his fables, and to that one of his fables which teaches us how an old black cat succeeded in getting at the rats again after having eaten up too many of them, and become too well known, under her proper form, to catch any more. She rolled herself over in a meal tub--converted her black skin into white--and walked forth among the rats as a new and innocent animal that they had never seen before. All were charmed to see her! but a quick application of teeth and claws to the throats and bellies of the rats, let them see that it was their old acquaintance, the black cat; and that whitening the skin did not alter the instincts of the animal, nor blunt the points of its teeth and claws. The rats, after that, called her the meal-tub cat, and the mealy cat. May we not call this corporosity the meal-tub bank? A cattish name would certainly suit it in one particular; for, like a cat, it has many lives, and a cat, you know, must be killed nine times before it will die; so say the traditions of the nursery; and of all histories the traditions of children are the most veracious. They teach us that cats have nine lives. So of this bank. It has been killed several times, but here it is still, scratching, biting, and clawing. Jackson killed it in 1832; Tyler killed it last week. But this is only a beginning. Seven times more the Fates must cut the thread of its hydra life before it will yield up the ghost.

"The meal tub! No insignificant, or vulgar name. It lives in history, and connects its fame with kings and statesmen. We all know the Stuarts of England--an honest and bigoted race in the beginning, but always unfortunate in the end. The second Charles was beset by plots and cabals. There were many attempts, or supposed attempts to kill him; many plots against him, and some very ridiculous; among the rest one which goes by the name of the meal-tub plot; because the papers which discovered it were found in the meal-tub where the conspirators, or their enemies, had hid them.

"Sir, I have given you a good deal of meal this morning; but you must take more yet. It is a fruitful theme, and may give us a good name before we are done with it. I have a reminiscence, as the novel writers say, and I will tell it. When a small boy, I went to school in a Scotch Irish neighborhood, and learnt many words and phrases which I have not met with since, but which were words of great pith and power; among the rest shake-poke. (Mr. ARCHER: I never heard that before.) Mr. BENTON: but you have heard of poke. You know the adage: do not buy a pig in the poke; that is to say, in the bag; for poke signifies bag, or wallet, and is a phrase much used in the north of England, and among the Scotch Irish in America. A pig is carried to market in a poke, and if you buy it without taking it out first, you may be 'taken in.' So corn is carried to a mill in a poke, and when brought home, ground into meal, the meal remains in the poke, in the houses of poor families, until it is used up. When the bag is nearly empty, it is turned upside down, and shaken; and the meal that comes out is called the shake-poke, that is to say, the last shake of the bag. By an easy and natural metaphor, this term is also applied to the last child that is born in a family; especially if it is puny or a rickety concern. The last child, like the last meal, is called a shake-poke; and may we not call this fiscalous corporation a shake-poke also, and for the same reason? It is the last--the last at all events for the session! it is the last meal in their bag--their shake-poke! and it is certainly a rickety concern.

"I do not pretend to impose a name upon this bantling; that is a privilege of paternity, or of sponsorship, and I stand in neither relation to this babe. But a name of brevity--of brevity and significance--it must have; and, if the fathers and sponsors do not bestow it, the people will: for a long name is abhorred and eschewed in all countries. Remember the fate of John Barebone, the canting hypocrite in Cromwell's time. He had a very good name, John Barebone; but the knave composed a long verse, like Scripture, to sanctify himself with it, and intituled himself thus:--'Praise God, Barebone, for if Christ had not died for you, you would be damned, Barebone.' Now, this was very sanctimonious; but it was too long--too much of a good thing--and so the people cut it all off but the last two words, and called the fellow 'damned Barebone,' and nothing else but damned Barebone, all his life after. So let this corporosity beware: it may get itself damned before it is done with us, and Tyler too."

The first proceeding in the Senate was to refer this bill to a committee, and Mr. Clay's select committee would naturally present itself as the one to which it would go: but he was too much disgusted at the manner in which his own bill had been treated to be willing to take any lead with respect to this second one; and, in fact, had so expressed himself in the debate on the veto message. A motion was made to refer it to another select committee, the appointing of which would be in the President of the Senate--Mr. Southard, of New Jersey. Mr. Southard, like Mr. Sergeant, was the fast friend of the United States Bank, to be revived under this bill; and like him conducted the bill to the best advantage for that institution. Mr. Sergeant had sprung the bill, and rushed it through, backed by the old bank majority, with a velocity which distanced shame in the disregard of all parliamentary propriety and all fair legislation. He had been the attorney of the bank for many years, and seemed only intent upon its revivification--no matter by what means. Mr. Southard, bound by the same friendship to the bank, seemed to be animated by the same spirit, and determined to use his power in the same way. He appointed exclusively the friends of the bank, and mostly of young senators, freshly arrived in the chamber. Mr. King, of Alabama, the often President of the Senate pro tempore, and the approved expounder of the rules, was the first--and very properly the first--to remark upon the formation of this one-sided committee; and to bring it to the attention of the Senate. He exposed it in pointed terms.

"Mr. KING observed, that in the organization of committees by Congress, the practice had been heretofore invariable--the usage uniform. The first business, on the meeting of each House, after the selection of officers and organizing, was to appoint the various standing committees. In designating those to whom the various subjects to which it is proposed to call the attention of Congress shall be referred, the practice always has been to place a majority of the friends of the administration on each committee. This is strictly correct, in order to insure a favorable consideration of the various measures which the administration may propose to submit to their examination and decision. A majority, however, of the friends of the administration, is all that has heretofore been considered either necessary or proper to be placed on those committees; and in every instance a minority of each committee consists of members supposed to be adverse to the measures of the dominant party. The propriety of such an arrangement cannot fail to strike the mind of every senator. All measures should be carefully examined; objections suggested; amendments proposed; and every proposition rendered as perfect as practicable before it is reported to the House for its action. This neither can, nor will, be controverted. In the whole of his [Mr. KING's] congressional experience, he did not know of a single instance in which this rule had been departed from, until now. But there has been a departure from this usage, sanctioned by justice and undeviating practice, which had given to it the force and obligation of law; and he [Mr. KING] felt it to be his duty to call the attention of the Senate to this most objectionable innovation. Yesterday a bill was reported from the House of Representatives for the chartering of a fiscal corporation. It was immediately taken up, read twice on the same day, and, on the motion of the senator from Georgia, ordered to be referred to a select committee. This bill embraced a subject of the greatest importance, one more disputed upon constitutional grounds, as well as upon the grounds of expediency, than any other which has ever agitated this country. This bill, of such vast importance, fraught with results of the greatest magnitude, in which the whole country takes the liveliest interest, either for or against its adoption, has been hurried through the other House in a few days, almost without discussion, and, as he [Mr. K.], conceived, in violation of the principles of parliamentary law, following as it did, immediately on the heels of a similar bill, which had, most fortunately for the country, received the veto of the President, and ultimately rejected by the Senate. The rules of the Senate forbade him to speak of the action of the other House on this subject as he could wish. He regretted that he was not at liberty to present their conduct plainly to the people, to show to the country what it has to expect from the dominant party here, and what kind of measures may be expected from the mode of legislation which has been adopted. The fiscal corporation bill has, however, come to us, and he [Mr. KING] and his friends, much as they were opposed to its introduction or passage, determined to give it a fair and open opposition. No objection was made to the motion of the senator from Georgia to send it to a select committee, and that that committee should be appointed by the presiding officer. The President of the Senate made the selection; but, to his [Mr. K.'s] great surprise, on reading the names this morning in one of the public papers, he found they were all members of the dominant party: not one selected for this most important committee belongs to the minority in this body opposed to the bill. Why was it, he [Mr. KING] must be permitted to ask, that the presiding officer had departed from a rule which, in all the fluctuations of party, and in the highest times of party excitement, had never before been departed from?

"There must have been a motive in thus departing from a course sanctioned by time, and by every principle of propriety. It will be for the presiding officer to state what that motive was. Mr. King must be permitted to repeat, the more to impress it on the minds of senators, that during more than twenty years he had been in Congress, he had never known important committees to be appointed, either standing or select, in which some member of the then minority did not constitute a portion, until this most extraordinary selection of a committee, to report on this most important bill. Would it not [said Mr. KING] have been prudent, as well as just, to have given to the minority a fair opportunity of suggesting their objections in committee? The friends of the measure would then be apprised of those objections, and could prepare themselves to meet them. He [Mr. KING] had not risen to make a motion, but merely to present this extraordinary proceeding to the view of the Senate, and leave it there; but, he believed, in justice to his friends, and to stamp this proceeding with condemnation, he would move that two additional members be added to the committee."

The President of the Senate, in answer to the remarks of Mr. King, read a rule from Jefferson's Manual in which it is said that, a bill must be committed to its friends to improve and perfect it, and not to its enemies who would destroy it. And under this rule Mr. Southard said he had appointed the committee. Mr. Benton then stood up, and said:

"That is the Lex Parliamentaria of England from which you read, Mr. President, and is no part of our rules. It is English authority--very good in the British Parliament, but not valid in the American Senate. It is not in our rules--neither in the rules of the House nor in those of the Senate; and is contrary to the practice of both Houses--their settled practice for fifty years. From the beginning of our government we have disregarded it, and followed a rule much more consonant to decency and justice, to public satisfaction, and to the results of fair legislation, and that was, to commit our business to mixed committees--committees consisting of friends and foes of the measure, and of both political parties--always taking care that the friends of the measure should be the majority; and, if it was a political question, that the political party in power should have the majority. This is our practice; and a wise and good practice it is, containing all the good that there is in the British rule, avoiding its harshness, and giving both sides a chance to perfect or to understand a measure. The nature of our government--its harmonious and successful action--requires both parties to have a hand in conducting the public business, both in the committees and the legislative halls; and this is the first session at which committee business, or legislative business, has been confined, or attempted to be confined, to one political party. The clause which you read, Mr. President, I have often read myself; not for the purpose of sending a measure to a committee of exclusive friends, but to prevent it from going to a committee of exclusive enemies--in fact to obtain for it a mixed committee--such as the democracy has always given when in power--such as it will again give when in power--and such as is due to fair, decent, satisfactory, and harmonious legislation."

Mr. Benton, after sustaining Mr. King in his view of the rules and the practice, told him that he was deceived in his memory in supposing there had never been a one-sided committee in the Senate before: and remarked:

"That senator is very correct at all times; but he will not take it amiss if I shall suggest to him that he is in error now--that there has been one other occasion in which a one-sided committee was employed--and that in a very important case--concerning no less a power than Mr. Biddle's bank, and even Mr. Biddle himself. I speak of the committee which was sent by this Senate to examine the Bank of the United States in the summer of 1834, when charged with insolvency and criminality by General Jackson--charges which time have proved to be true--and when the whole committee were of one party, and that party opposed to General Jackson, and friendly to the bank. And what became then of the rule of British parliamentary law, which has just been read? It had no application then, though it would have cut off every member of the committee; for not one of them was favorable to the inquiry, but the contrary; and the thing ended as all expected. I mention this as an instance of a one-sided committee, which the senator from Alabama has overlooked, and which deserves to be particularly remembered on this occasion, for a reason which I will mention; and which is, that both these committees were appointed in the same case--for the same Bank of the United States--one to whitewash it--which it did; the other to smuggle it into existence under a charter in which it cannot be named. And thus, whenever that bank is concerned, we have to look out for tricks and frauds (to say no more), even on the high floors of national legislation."

Mr. Buchanan animadverted with justice and severity upon the tyranny with which the majority in the House of Representatives had forced the bill through, and marked the fact that not a single democratic member had succeeded in getting an opportunity to speak against it. This was an unprecedented event in the history of parties in America, or in England, and shows the length to which a bank party would go in stifling the right of speech. In all great measures, before or since, and in all countries possessing free institutions, the majority has always allowed to the adversary the privilege of speaking to the measures which were to be put upon them: here for the first time it was denied; and the denial was marked at the time, and carried at once into parliamentary history to receive the reprobation due to it. This was the animadversion of Mr. Buchanan:

"The present bill to establish a fiscal corporation was hurried through the House of Representatives with the celerity, and, so far as the democracy was concerned, with the silence of despotism. No democratic member had an opportunity of raising his voice against it. Under new rules in existence there, the majority had predetermined that it should pass that body within two days from the commencement of the discussion. At first, indeed, the determination was that it should pass the first day; but this was felt to be too great an outrage; and the mover was graciously pleased to extend the time one day longer. Whilst the bill was in Committee of the Whole, it so happened that, in the struggle for the floor, no democratic member succeeded in obtaining it; and at the destined hour of four in the afternoon of the second day, the committee rose, and all further debate was arrested by the previous question. The voice of that great party in this country to which I am proud to belong, was, therefore, never heard through any of its representatives in the House against this odious measure. Not even one brief hour, the limit prescribed by the majority to each speaker, was granted to any democratic member."

The bill went to the committee which had been appointed, without the additional two members which Mr. King had suggested; and which suggestion, not being taken up by the majority, was no further pressed. Mr. Berrien, chairman of that committee, soon reported it back to the Senate--without alteration; as had been foreseen. He spoke two hours in its favor--concluding with the expression that the President would give it his approval--founding that opinion on the President's message at the commencement of the session--on his veto message of the first fiscal bill--on the report of the Secretary of the Treasury--and on this Secretary's subsequent plan for a bank framed with the view to avoid his constitutional objections. Mr. Clay declared his intention to vote for the bill, not that it went as far as he could wish, but that it would go a good distance--would furnish a sound national currency, and regulate exchanges. Mr. Archer, who had voted against the first bank, and who was constitutionally opposed to a national bank, made a speech chiefly to justify his vote in favor of the present bill. It was well known that no alteration would be permitted in the bill--that it had been arranged out of doors, and was to stand as agreed upon: but some senators determined to offer amendments, merely to expose the character of the measure, to make attacks upon the most vulnerable points; and to develope the spirit which conducted it. In this sense Mr. Benton acted in presenting several amendments, deemed proper in themselves, and which a foreknowledge of their fate would not prevent him from offering. The whole idea of the institution was, that it was to be a treasury bank; and hence the pertinacity with which "fiscal," synonymous with treasury, was retained in all the titles, and conformed to in all its provisions: and upon this idea the offered amendments turned.

"Mr. BENTON said he had an amendment to offer, which the Senate would presently see was of great importance. It was, to strike out from the ninth line of the first section the word 'States.' It was in that provision assigning seventy thousand shares to individual companies, corporations, or States. This was a new kind of stockholders: a new description of co-partners with stockjobbers in a banking corporation. States had no right to be seduced into such company; he would therefore move to have them struck out: let the word "States" be taken out of that line. To comprehend the full force and bearing of this amendment it would be necessary to keep in view that the sixteenth section of this charter designates the Fiscal Corporation the Treasury of the United States. It expressly says that--

"'All public moneys in deposit in said corporation, or standing on its books to the credit of the Treasurer, shall be taken and deemed to be in the Treasury of the United States, and all payments made by the Treasurer shall be in checks drawn on said corporation.'

"Yes, sir! this Fisc is to be the Treasury of the United States; and the Treasury of the United States is to be converted into a corporation, and not only forced into partnership with individuals, companies, and corporations, but into joint stock co-partnership with the States. The general government is to appoint three directors, and the rest of the partners will have the appointment of the other six. The corporators will be two to one against the general government, and they will of course have the control of the Treasury of this Union in their hands. Now he was for sticking to the constitution, not only in spirit and meaning, but to the letter; and the constitution gives no authority to individuals, companies, corporations, and States, to take the public Treasury of the Union out of the hands of the general government. The general government alone, and acting independently of any such control, is required by the constitution to manage its own fiscal affairs. Here it is proposed to retain only one-third of the control of this Treasury in the hands of the general government--the other two-thirds may fall exclusively into the hands of the States, and thus the Treasury of the whole Union may be at the disposal of such States as can contrive to possess themselves of the two-thirds of the stock they are authorized to take. If it is the object to let those States have the funds of the Treasury to apply to their own use, the scheme is well contrived to attain that end. He, however, was determined not to let that plan be carried without letting the people know who were its supporters; he should, therefore, demand the yeas and nays on his amendment."

"Mr. BERRIEN explained that the objection raised against the sixteenth section was merely technical. The words did not convert the bank into the United States Treasury; they merely provided for a conformity with laws regulating the lodgment and withdrawal of Treasury funds. The question was then taken on the amendment, which was rejected as follows: Yeas--Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Clay of Alabama, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Woodbury, Wright, and Young--18. Nays--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, White, and Woodbridge--28."

Mr. Benton then moved to strike out "corporations" from the enumeration of persons and powers which should possess the faculty of becoming stockholders in this institution, with the special view of keeping out the Pennsylvania Bank of the United States, and whose name could not be presented openly for a charter, or re-charter:

"The late United States Bank had means yet to keep a cohort of lawyers, agents, cashiers, and directors, who would not lose sight of the hint, and who were panting to plunge their hands into Uncle Sam's pocket. There was nothing to prevent the corporators of the late United States Bank becoming the sole owners of these two-thirds of the stock in the new Fiscality. The sixteenth fundamental rule of the eleventh section is the point where we are to find the constitutionality of this Fiscality. The little pet banks of every State may be employed as agents. This is a tempting bait for every insolvent institution in want of Treasury funds to strain every nerve and resort to every possible scheme for possessing themselves of the control of the funds of the United States. This object was to defeat such machinations. On this amendment he would demand the yeas and nays. The question was then taken on the amendment, and decided in the negative as follows: Yeas--Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Rives, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Woodbury, Wright, and Young--21. Nays--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Tallmadge, White, and Woodbridge--26."

Mr. Rives objected to the exchange dealings which this fiscal corporation was to engage in, as being discounts when the exchange had some time to run. He referred to his former opinions, and corrected a misapprehension of Mr. Berrien. He was opposed to discounts in every form; while this bill authorizes discounts to any amount on bills of exchange. He offered no amendment, but wished to correct the misunderstanding of Mr. Berrien, who held that this bill, in this particular, was identical with the amendment offered to the first bill by Mr. Rives, and that it was in strict conformity with the President's message.

"Mr. BENTON fully concurred with the senator from Virginia [Mr. RIVES], that cashing bills of exchange was just as much a discounting operation as discounting promissory notes; it was, in fact, infinitely worse. It was the greatest absurdity in the world, to suppose that the flimsy humbug of calling the discounting of bills of exchange--gamblers' kites, and race-horse bills of exchange--a 'dealing in exchanges' within the meaning of the terms used in the President's veto message. As if the President could be bamboozled by such a shallow artifice. Only look at the operation under this bill. A needy adventurer goes to one of these agencies, and offers his promissory note with securities, in the old-fashioned way, but is told it cannot be discounted--the law is against it. The law, however, may be evaded if he put his note into another shape, making one of his sureties the drawer, and making the other, who lives beyond the State line, his drawee, in favor of himself, as endorser; and in that shape the kite will be cashed, deducting the interest and a per centage besides in the shape of exchange. Here is discount added to usury; and is not that worse than discounting promissory notes?"

The President had dwelt much upon "local discounts," confining the meaning of that phrase to loans obtained on promissory notes. He did not consider money obtained upon a bill of exchange as coming under that idea--nor did it when it was an exchange of money--when it was the giving of money in one place for money in another place. But that true idea of a bill of exchange was greatly departed from when the drawer of the bill had no money at the place drawn on, and drew upon time, and depended upon getting funds there in time; or taking up the bill with damages when it returned protested. Money obtained that way was a discount obtained, and on far worse terms for the borrower, and better for the bank, than on a fair promissory note: and the rapacious banks forced their loans, as much as possible into this channel. So that this fiscal bank was limited to do the very thing it wished to do, and which was so profitable to itself and so oppressive to the borrower. This, Mr. Tappan, of Ohio, showed in a concise speech.

"Mr. TAPPAN said, when senators on the other side declare that this bank bill is intended to withhold from the corporation created by it the power of making loans and discounts, he felt himself bound to believe that such was their honest construction of it. He was, however, surprised that any man, in the slightest degree acquainted with the banking business of the country, who had read this bill, should suppose that, under its provisions, the company incorporated by it would not have unlimited power to loan their paper and to discount the paper of their customers. The ninth fundamental article says, that 'the said corporation shall not, directly or indirectly, deal or trade in any thing except foreign bills of exchange, including bills or drafts drawn in one State or Territory and payable in another.' This bill, in this last clause, sanctioned a mode of discounting paper, and making loans common in the Western country. He spoke of a mode of doing business which he had full knowledge of, and he asked senators, therefore, to look at it. A man who wants a loan from a bank applies to the directors, and is told, we can lend you the money, but we do not take notes for our loans--you must give us a draft; but, says the applicant, I have no funds any where to draw upon; no matter, say the bankers, if your draft is not met, or expected to be met, because you have no funds, that need make no difference; you may pay it here, with the exchange, when the time it has to run is out; so the borrower signs a draft or bill of exchange on somebody in New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, and pays the discount for the time it has to run; when that time comes round, the borrower pays into the bank the amount of his draft, with two, four, six, or ten per cent., whatever the rate of exchange may be, and the affair is settled, and he gets a renewal for sixty days, by further paying the discount on the sum borrowed; and if it is an accommodation loan, it it renewed from time to time by paying the discount and exchange. Very few of the Western banks, he believed, discounted notes; they found it much more profitable to deal in exchange, as it is called; but this dealing in exchange enables the banks to discount as much paper, and to loan as much of their own notes, as the old-fashioned mode of discounting; it is a difference in form merely, with this advantage to the banks, that it enables them to get from their customers ten or twelve per cent. on their loans, instead of six, to which, in discounting notes, they are usually restricted. How then, he asked, could senators say that this bill did not give the power to make loans and discounts? He had shown them how, under this law, both loans and discounts will be made without limitation."

Mr. Benton then went on with offering his amendments, and offered one requiring all the stockholders in this corporation Fisc (which was to be the Treasury of the United States), to be citizens of the United States, for the obvious reason of preventing the national treasury from falling under the control of foreigners. M. Berrien considered the amendment unnecessary, as there was already a provision that none but citizens of the United States should take the original stock; and the only effect of the provision would be to lessen the value of the stock. Mr. Benton considered this provision as a fraudulent contrivance to have the appearance of excluding foreigners from being stockholders while not doing so. The prohibition upon them as original subscribers was nothing, when they were allowed to become stockholders by purchase. His amendment was intended to make the charter what it fraudulently pretended to be--a bank owned by American citizens. The word "original" would be a fraud unless the prohibition was extended to assignees. And he argued that the senator from Georgia (Mr. Berrien), had admitted the design of selling to foreigners by saying that the value of the stock would be diminished by excluding foreigners from its purchase. He considered the answer of the senator double, inconsistent, and contradictory. He first considered the amendment unnecessary, as the charter already confined original subscriptions to our own citizens; and then considered it would injure the price of the stock to be so limited. That was a contradiction. The fact was, he said, that this bill was to resurrect, by smuggling, the old United States Bank, which was a British concern; and that the effect would be to make the British the governors and masters of our treasury: and he asked the yeas and nays on his motion, which was granted, and they stood--19 to 26, and were: YEAS--Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Sevier, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Woodbury, Wright, and Young--19. NAYS--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Tallmadge, White, and Woodbridge--26. Considering this a vital question, and one on which no room should be left for the majority to escape the responsibility of putting the United States Treasury in the hands of foreigners--even alien enemies in time of war, as well as rival commercial competitors in time of peace--Mr. Benton moved the same prohibition in a different form. It was to affix it to the eleventh fundamental rule of the eleventh section of the bill, which clothes the corporation with power to make rules to govern the assignment of stock: his amendment was to limit these assignments to American citizens. That was different from his first proposed amendment, which included both original subscribers and assignees. The senator from Georgia objected to that amendment as unnecessary, because it included a class already prohibited as well as one that was not. Certainly it was unnecessary with respect to one class, but necessary with respect to the other--necessary in the estimation of all who were not willing to see the United States Treasury owned and managed by foreigners. He wished now to hear what the senator from Georgia could say against the proposed amendment in this form. Mr. Berrien answered: "He hoped the amendment would not prevail. The original subscribers would be citizens of the United States. To debar them from transferring their stock, would be to lessen the value of the stock, which they rendered valuable by becoming the purchasers of it." Mr. Benton rejoined, that his amendment did not propose to prevent the original subscribers from selling their stock, or any assignee from selling; the only design of the amendment was to limit all these sales to American citizens; and that would be its only effect if adopted. And as to the second objection, a second time given, that it would injure the value of the stock, he said it was a strange argument, that the paltry difference of value in shares to the stockholders should outweigh the danger of confiding the Treasury of the United States to foreigners--subjects of foreign potentates. He asked the yeas, which were granted--and stood--21 to 27: the same as before, with the addition of some senators who had come in. These several proposed amendments, and the manner in which they were rejected, completed the exposure of the design to resuscitate the defunct Bank of the United States, just as it had been, with its foreign stockholders, and extraordinary privileges. It was to be the old bank revived, disguised, and smuggled in. It was to have the same capital as the old one--thirty-five millions: for while it said the capital was to be twenty-one millions, there was a clause enabling Congress to add on fourteen millions--which it would do as soon as the bill passed. Like the old bank, it was to have the United States for a partner, owning seven millions of the stock. The stock was all to go to the old Bank of the United States; for the subscriptions were to be made with commissioners appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury--who, it was known, would appoint the friends of the old bank; so that the whole subscription would be in her hands; and a charter for her fraudulently and deceptiously obtained. The title of the bill was fraudulent, being limited to the management of the "public" moneys, while the body of it conferred all the privileges known to the three distinct kinds of banks:--1. Circulation. 2. Exchange. 3. Discount and deposit--the discount being in the most oppressive and usurious form on inland and mere neighborhood bills of exchange, declared by the charter to be foreign bills for the mere purpose of covering these local loans.

"Mr. WALKER moved an amendment, requiring that the bills in which the Bank should deal should be drawn at short dates, and on goods already actually shipped. It was negatived by yeas and nays, as follows:--YEAS--Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Rives, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Woodbury, Wright, and Young--21. NAYS--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, White, and Woodbridge--27. Mr. ALLEN moved an amendment to make the directors, in case of suspension, personally liable for the debts of the bank. This was negatived as follows: YEAS--Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Woodbury, Wright, and Young--20. NAYS--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, White, and Woodbridge--28."

The character of the bill having been shown by the amendments offered and rejected, there was no need to offer any more, and the democratic senators ceased opposition, that the vote might be taken on the bill: it was so; and the bill was passed by the standing majority. Concurred in by the Senate without alteration, it was returned to the House, and thence referred to the President for his approval, or disapproval. It was disapproved, and returned to the House, with a message stating his objections to it; where it gave rise to some violent speaking, more directed to the personal conduct of the President than to the objections to the bill stated in his message. In this debate Mr. Botts, of Virginia, was the chief speaker on one side, inculpating the President: Mr. Gilmer of Virginia, and Mr. Proffit of Indiana, on the other were the chief respondents in his favor. The vote being taken there appeared 103 for the bill, 80 against it--which not being a majority of two-thirds, the bill was rejected: and so ends the public and ostensible history of the second attempt to establish a national bank at this brief session under the guise, and disguise, of a misnomer: and a long one at that.

The negative votes, when rejected on the final vote for want of two-thirds of the House, were:

"Messrs. Archibald H. Arrington, Charles G. Atherton, Linn Banks, Benjamin A. Bidlack, Linn Boyd, David P. Brewster, Aaron V. Brown, Charles Brown, William O. Butler, Patrick C. Caldwell, John Campbell, Reuben Chapman, James G. Clinton, Walter Coles, Richard D. Davis, John B. Dawson, Ezra Dean, Andrew W. Doig, Ira A. Eastman, John C. Edwards, Joseph Egbert, Charles G. Ferris, John G. Floyd, Charles A. Floyd, Joseph Fornance, James Gerry, Thomas W. Gilmer, William O. Goode, Amos Gustine, William A. Harris, John Hastings, Samuel L. Hays, Isaac E. Holmes, George W. Hopkins, Jacob Houck, jr., George S. Houston, Edmund W. Hubard, Robert M. T. Hunter, Charles J. Ingersoll, William W. Irwin, William Jack, Cave Johnson, John W. Jones, George M. Keim, Andrew Kennedy, Dixon H. Lewis, Abraham McClellan, Robert McClellan, James J. McKay, John McKeon, Francis Mallory, Albert G. Marchand, John Thompson Mason, James Mathews, William Medill, John Miller, Peter Newhard, William Parmenter, Samuel Patridge, Wm. W. Payne, Arnold Plumer, George H. Proffit, John Reynolds, R. Barnwell Rhett, Lewis Riggs, James Rogers, Tristram Shaw, Benjamin G. Shields, John Snyder, Lewis Steenrod, George Sweney, Hopkins L. Turney, John Van Buren, Aaron Ward, Harvey M. Watterson, John B. Weller, John Westbrook, James W. Williams, Henry A. Wise, Fernando Wood."

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Chapter LXXXII

SECRET HISTORY OF THE SECOND BILL FOR A FISCAL AGENT, CALLED FISCAL CORPORATION: ITS ORIGIN WITH MR. TYLER: ITS PROGRESS THROUGH CONGRESS UNDER HIS LEAD: ITS REJECTION UNDER HIS VETO.

Soon after the meeting of Congress in this extra session--in the course of the first week of it--Mr. Gilmer, of Virginia, held a conversation with a whig member of the House, in which he suggested to him that "a couple of gentlemen of about their size," might become important men in this country--leading men--and get the control of the government. An explanation was requested--and given. It was to withdraw Mr. Tyler from the whig party, and make him the head of a third party, in which those who did it would become chiefs, and have control in the administration. This was the explanation; and the scheme was based, not upon any particular circumstances, but upon a knowledge of Mr. Tyler's character and antecedents: and upon a calculation that he would be dazzled with the idea of being the head of a party, and let the government fall into the hands of those who pleased him--his indolence, and want of business habits disqualifying him for the labors of administration. Democratic doctrines were to be the basis of the new party, especially opposition to a national bank: but recruits from all parties received. The whig member to whom this suggestion for the third party was made, declined to have any thing to do with it: nor was he further consulted. But his eyes were opened, and he had to see; and he saw other whigs do what he would not. And he had received a clue which led to the comprehension of things which he did not see, and had got an insight that would make him observant. But his lips were sealed under an injunction; and remained so, as far as the public was concerned. I never heard him quoted for a word on the subject; but either himself, or some one equally well informed, must have given Mr. Clay exact information; otherwise he could not have hit the nail on the head at every lick, as he did in his replies to Mr. Rives and Mr. Archer in the debate on the first veto message: as shown in the preceding chapter.

The movement went on: Mr. Tyler fell into it: the new party germinated, microscopically small; but potent in the President's veto power. A national bank was the touchstone; and that involved a courtship with the democracy--a breach with the whigs. The democracy rejoiced, and patted Mr. Tyler on the shoulder--even those who despised the new party: for they deemed it fair to avail themselves of a treachery of which they were not the authors; and felt it to be a retributive justice to deprive the whigs of the fruits of a victory which they had won by log-cabin, coonskin, and hard cider tactics; and especially to effect the deprivation in the person of one whom they had taken from the democratic camp, and set up against his old friends--the more annoying to them because he could tell of their supposed misdeeds when he was one of them. To break their heads with such a stick had retribution in it, as well as gratification: and Mr. Tyler was greatly extolled. To the whigs, it was a galling and mortifying desertion, and ruinous besides. A national bank was their life--the vital principle--without which they could not live as a party--the power which was to give them power: which was to beat down their adversaries--uphold themselves--and give them the political and the financial control of the Union. To lose it, was to lose the fruits of the election, with the prospect of losing the party itself. Indignation was their pervading feeling; but the stake was too great to be given up in a passion; and policy required the temporizing expedient of conciliation--the proud spirit of Mr. Clay finding it hard to bend to it; but yielding a little at first. The breach with the whigs was resolved on: how to effect it without too much rudeness--without a violence which would show him an aggressor as well as a deserter--was the difficulty; and indirect methods were taken to effect it. Newspapers in his interest--the Madisonian at Washington and Herald at New York--vituperated the whig party, and even his cabinet ministers. Slights and neglects were put upon those ministers: the bank question was to complete the breach; but only after a long management which should have the appearance of keeping faith with the whigs, and throwing the blame of the breach upon them. This brings us to the point of commencing the history of the second fiscal bank bill, ending with a second veto, and an open rupture between the President and the whigs.

The beginning of the second bill was laid in the death of the first one; as the seed of a separation from his cabinet was planted in the same place. The first veto message, in rejecting one bill, gave promise to accept another, and even defined the kind of bill which the President could approve: this was encouraging to the whigs. But that first veto was resolved upon, and the message for it drawn, without consultation with his cabinet--without reference to them; and without their knowledge--except from hearsay and accident. They first got wind of it in street rumor, and in paragraphs in the Madisonian, and in letters to the New York Herald: and got the first knowledge of it from coming in upon the President while he was drawing it. This was a great slight to his cabinet, and very unaccountable to ministers who, only two short months before, had been solicited to remain in their places--had been saluted with expressions of confidence; and cheered with the declaration that their advice and counsel would be often wanted. They felt the slight of the neglected consultation, as well as the disappointment in the rejected bill; but the President consoled them for the disappointment (saying nothing about the slight) by showing himself ready, and even impatient for another bill. This readiness for another bill is thus related by Mr. Ewing, the Secretary of the Treasury, in his letter of resignation of his office addressed to the President; dated Sept. 11th, 1841:

"On the morning of the 16th of August I called at your chamber, and found you preparing the first veto message, to be despatched to the Senate. The Secretary of War came in also, and you read a portion of the message to us. He observed that though the veto would create a great sensation in Congress, yet he thought the minds of our friends better prepared for it than they were some days ago, and he hoped it would be calmly received, especially as it did not shut out all hope of a bank. To this you replied, that you really thought that there ought to be no difficulty about it; that you had sufficiently indicated the kind of a bank you would approve, and that Congress might, if they saw fit, pass such a bill in three days."

Mr. Bell, the Secretary of War, referred to in the foregoing statement of Mr. Ewing, thus gives his account of the same interview:

"I called on the President on official business on the morning of Monday the 16th of August, before the first veto message was sent in. I found him reading the message to the Secretary of the Treasury. He did me the honor to read the material passages to me. Upon reading that part of it which treats of the superior importance and value of the business done by the late Bank of the United States in furnishing exchanges between different States and sections of the Union, I was so strongly impressed with the idea that he meant to intimate that he would have no objection to a bank which should be restricted to dealing in exchanges, that I interrupted him in the reading, and asked if I was to understand (by what he had just read) that he was prepared to give his assent to a bank in the District of Columbia, with offices or agencies in the States, having the privilege, without their assent, to deal in exchanges between them, and in foreign bills. He promptly replied that he thought experience had shown the necessity of such a power in the government. And (after some further remarks favorable to such a bill) expressed the opinion that nothing could be more easy than to pass a bill which would answer all necessary purposes--that it could be done in three days."

Such are the concurrent statements of two of the cabinet; and Mr. Alexander A. Stuart, a member of the House of Representatives from Virginia, thus gives his statement to the same effect in his account of the readiness of the President, amounting to anxiety, for the introduction and passage of a second bill.

"After the adjournment of the House (on the 16th of August), Mr. Pearce of Maryland (then a representative in Congress, now a senator) called at my boarding-house, and informed me that he was induced to believe that there was still some hope of compromising the difficulties between Congress and the President, by adopting a bank bill on the basis of a proposition which had been submitted by Mr. Bayard (Richard H.) in the Senate, modified so as to leave out the last clause which authorized the conversion of the agencies into offices of discount and deposit on certain contingencies. He produced to me a portion of the Senate journal, containing that proposition, with the obnoxious clause crossed out with ink; and requested me to visit the President and see if we could not adjust the difficulty. At first I declined, but at length yielded to his desire, and promised to do so. About 5 o'clock, I drove to the President's house, but found him engaged with a distinguished democratic senator. This I thought rather a bad omen; but I made known my wish for a private audience; which in a few minutes was granted. This was the first occasion on which I had ventured to approach the President on the subject. I made known to him at once the object of my visit, and expressed the hope that some measure might be adopted to heal the division between himself and the whig party in Congress. I informed him of the existence of the committee to which I referred, and mentioned the names of those who composed it, and relied on their age and known character for prudence and moderation, as the best guarantees of the conciliatory spirit of the whig party in Congress. He seemed to meet me in the proper temper, and expressed the belief that a fair ground of compromise might yet be agreed upon. I then made known what I had heard of his opinions in regard to Mr. Bayard's proposition. He asked me if I had it with me? I replied in the affirmative, and produced the paper, which had been given to me by Mr. Pearce with the clause struck out, as above stated. He read it over carefully, and said it would do, making no objection whatever to the clause in regard to the establishment of agencies in the several States without their assent. But he said the capital was too large, and referred to Mr. Appleton and Mr. Jaudon as authority to prove that ten or fifteen millions would be enough. I objected that it might hereafter be found insufficient; and as the charter had twenty years to run, it might be as well to provide against a contingency which would leave the government dependent on the bank for permission to enlarge the capital; and to obviate the difficulty I suggested the propriety of giving to Congress the power to increase it as the public exigencies should require. To this he assented; and by his direction I made the note on the margin of the paper; 'capital to be 15 millions of dollars--to be increased at the option of Congress when public interests require.' The President then said: 'Now if you will send me this bill I will sign it in twenty-four hours.' (After informing the President that there was a statute in Virginia against establishing agencies of foreign banks in the State, he said), 'This must be provided for:' and he then took the paper and wrote on the margin the following words, which were to come in after the word 'or,' and before the word 'bank' in the first line of the proposition of Mr. Bayard, (the blank line in this paper), 'In case such agencies are forbidden by the laws of the State.' I remonstrated against this addition as unnecessary, and not meeting the objection; but he said: 'Let it stand for the present; I will think about it.'--The President then instructed me to go to Mr. Webster, and have the bill prepared at once; and as I rose to leave him, after cautioning me not to expose him to the charge of dictating to Congress, he held my right hand in his left, and raising his right hand upwards, exclaimed with much feeling: 'Stuart! if you can be instrumental in passing this bill through Congress, I will esteem you the best friend I have on earth.'"

The original paper of Mr. Bayard, here referred to, with the President's autographic emendations upon it, were in the possession of Mr. Benton, and burnt in the conflagration of his house, books and papers, in February, 1855.

These statements from Messrs. Ewing, Bell, and Stuart are enough (though others might be added) to show that Mr. Tyler, at the time that he sent in the first veto message, was in favor of a second bill--open and earnest in his professions for it--impatient for its advent--and ready to sign it within twenty-four hours. The only question is whether these professions were sincere, or only phrases to deceive the whigs--to calm the commotion which raged in their camp--and of which he was well informed--and to avert the storm which was ready to burst upon him; trusting all the while to the chapter of contingencies to swamp the bill in one of the two Houses, or to furnish pretexts for a second veto if it should come back to his hands. The progress of the narrative must solve the problem; and, therefore, let it proceed.

The 18th of August--the day on which Mr. Clay was to have spoken in the Senate on the first veto message, and which subject was then postponed on the motion of Mr. Berrien for reasons which he declined to state--Mr. Tyler had a meeting with his cabinet, in which the provisions of the new bill were discussed, and agreed upon--the two members picked out (one in each House--Mr. Sergeant and Mr. Berrien) to conduct it--the cabinet invited to stand by him (the President) and see that the bill passed. Mr. Ewing gives this account, of this days' work, in his letter of resignation addressed to the President.

"I then said to you, 'I have no doubt that the House having ascertained your views will pass a bill in conformity to them, provided they can be satisfied that it would answer the purposes of the Treasury, and relieve the country.' You then said, 'cannot my cabinet see that this is brought about? You must stand by me in this emergency. Cannot you see that a bill passes Congress such as I can approve without inconsistency?' I declared again my belief that such a bill might be passed. And you then said to me, 'what do you understand to be my opinions? State them: so that I may see that there is no misapprehension about them.' I then said that I understood you to be of opinion that Congress might charter a bank in the District of Columbia, giving it its location here. To this you assented. That they might authorize such bank to establish offices of discount and deposit in the several States, with the assent of the States. To this you replied, 'don't name discounts: they have been the source of the most abominable corruptions, and are wholly unnecessary to enable the bank to discharge its duties to the country and the government.' I observed in reply that I was proposing nothing, but simply endeavoring to state what I had understood to be your opinion as to the powers which Congress might constitutionally confer on a bank; that on that point I stood corrected. I then proceeded to say that I understood you to be of opinion that Congress might authorize such bank to establish agencies in the several States, with power to deal in bills of exchange, without the assent of the States, to which you replied, 'yes, if they be foreign bills, or bills drawn in one State and payable in another. That is all the power necessary for transmitting the public funds and regulating exchanges and the currency.' Mr. Webster then expressed, in strong terms, his opinion that such a charter would answer all just purposes of government and be satisfactory to the people; and declared his preference for it over any which had been proposed, especially as it dispensed with the assent of the States to the creation of an institution necessary for carrying on the fiscal operations of government. He examined it at some length, both as to its constitutionality and its influence on the currency and exchanges, in all which views you expressed your concurrence, desired that such a bill should be introduced, and especially that it should go into the hands of some of your friends. To my inquiry whether Mr. Sergeant would be agreeable to you, you replied that he would. You especially requested Mr. Webster and myself to communicate with Messrs. Berrien and Sergeant on the subject, to whom you said you had promised to address a note, but you doubted not that this personal communication would be equally satisfactory. You desired us, also, in communicating with those gentlemen, not to commit you personally, lest, this being recognized as your measure, it might be made a subject of comparison to your prejudice in the course of discussion. You and Mr. Webster then conversed about the particular wording of the 16th fundamental article, containing the grant of power to deal in exchanges, and of the connection in which that grant should be introduced; you also spoke of the name of the institution, desiring that that should be changed. To this I objected, as it would probably be made a subject of ridicule, but you insisted that there was much in a name, and this institution ought not to be called a bank. Mr. Webster undertook to adapt it in this particular to your wishes. Mr. Bell then observed to Mr. Webster and myself that we had no time to lose; that if this were not immediately attended to, another bill, less acceptable, might be got up and reported. We replied that we would lose no time. Mr. Webster accordingly called on Messrs. Berrien and Sergeant immediately, and I waited on them by his appointment at 5 o'clock on the same day, and agreed upon the principles of the bill in accordance with your expressed wishes. And I am apprised of the fact, though it did not occur in my presence, that after the bill was drawn up, and before it was reported, it was seen and examined by yourself; that your attention was specially called to the 16th fundamental article: that on full examination you concurred in its provisions: that at the same time its name was so modified as to meet your approbation: and the bill was reported and passed, in all essential particulars, as it was when it came through your hands."

The sixteenth fundamental article, here declared to have been especially examined and approved by the President, was the part of the bill on which he afterwards rested his objections to its approval, and the one that had been previously adjusted to suit him in the interview with Mr. Stuart: Mr. Sergeant, and Mr. Berrien (mentioned as the President's choice to conduct the bill through the two Houses), were the two members that actually did it; and they did it with a celerity which subjected themselves to great censure; but which corresponded with the President's expressed desire to have it back in three days. Every part of the bill was made to suit him. The title, about which he was so solicitous to preserve his consistency, and about which his cabinet was so fearful of incurring ridicule, was also adjusted to his desire. Mr. Bell says of this ticklish point: "A name, he (the President) said, was important. What should it be? Fiscal Institute would do." It was objected to by a member of the cabinet, and Fiscal Bank preferred. He replied, "there was a great deal in a name, and he did not want the word bank to appear in the bill." Finally, Fiscal Corporation was agreed upon. Other members of the cabinet, in their letters of resignation, who were present on the 18th, when the bill was agreed upon, corroborated the statement of Mr. Ewing, in all particulars. Mr. Badger said, "It was then distinctly stated and understood that such an institution (the plan before the cabinet) met the approbation of the President, and was deemed by him free from constitutional objections; that he desired (if Congress should deem it necessary to act upon the subject during the session) that such an institution should be adopted by that body, and that the members of his cabinet should aid in bringing about that result: and Messrs. Webster and Ewing were specially requested by the President to have a communication on the subject with certain members of Congress. In consequence of what passed at this meeting I saw such friends in Congress as I deemed it proper to approach, and urged upon them the passage of a bill to establish such an institution (the one agreed upon), assuring them that I did not doubt it would receive the approbation of the President. Mr. Bell is full and particular in his statement, and especially on the point of constitutionality in the 16th fundamental article--the reference to Mr. Webster on that point--his affirmative opinion, and the concurrence of the President in it. A part of the statement is here given--enough for the purpose."

"The President then gave the outline of such a bank, or fiscal institution, as he thought he could sanction. It was to be in the District of Columbia, to have the privilege of issuing its own notes, receive moneys on deposit, and to deal in bills of exchange between the States, and between the United States and foreign states. But he wished to have the opinion of his cabinet upon it. His own consistency and reputation must be looked to. He considered his cabinet his friends, who must stand by and defend whatever he did upon the subject. He appealed particularly to Mr. Webster, for his opinion on the point of consistency; and whether there was not a clear distinction between the old bank of the United States--a bank of discount and deposit--and the one he now thought of proposing; and whether the constitutional question was not different. He reminded us that in all his former speeches and reports, he had taken the ground that Congress had no constitutional power to charter a bank which had the power of local discount. Mr. Webster pointed out the distinction between the two plans, which appeared to be satisfactory to him."

On the point of having himself understood, and all chance for misunderstanding obviated, the President was very particular, and requested Mr. Ewing to repeat what he (the President) had said. Mr. Ewing did so; and having at one point deviated from the President's understanding, he was stopped--corrected--set right; and then allowed to go on to the end. Mr. Bell's own words must tell the rest.

"The President said he was then understood. He requested Mr. Webster particularly to communicate with the gentlemen (Messrs. Sergeant and Berrien), who had waited upon him that morning, and to let them know the conclusions to which he had come. He also requested Mr. Ewing to aid in getting the subject properly before Congress. He requested that they would take care not to commit him by what they said to members of Congress, to any intention to dictate to Congress. They might express their confidence and belief that such a bill as had just been agreed upon would receive his sanction; but it should be as matter of inference from his veto message and his general views. He thought he might request that the measure should be put into the hands of some friend of his own upon whom he could rely. Mr. Sergeant was named, and he expressed himself satisfied that he should have charge of it. He also expressed a wish to see the bill before it was presented to the House, if it could be so managed."

Thus instructed and equipped, the members of the cabinet went forth as requested, and had such success in preparing a majority of the members of each House for the reception of this Fiscal Corporation bill, and for its acceptance also that it was taken up to the exclusion of all business, hurried along, and passed incontinently--as shown in the public history of the bill in the preceding chapter; and with such disregard of decent appearances, as drew upon the President's two conductors of the bill (Messrs. Sergeant and Berrien) much censure at the time--to be vetoed, like the first; and upon objections to that 16th fundamental rule, which had been the subject of such careful consideration--of autographic correction--clear understanding--and solemn ratification. And here the opportunity occurs, and the occasion requires, the correction of a misapprehension into which senators fell (and to the prejudice of Mr. Berrien), the day he disappointed the public and the Senate in putting off the debate on the first veto message, and taking up the bankrupt bill. He declined to give a reason for that motion, and suspicion assigned it to an imperious requisition on the part of the senators who had taken the bankrupt act to their bosoms, and who held the fate of Mr. Clay's leading measures in their hands. It was afterwards known that this was a mistake, and that this postponement, as well as the similar one the day before, were both yielded to conciliate Mr. Tyler--to save him from irritation (for he had a nervous terror of Mr. Clay's impending speech) while the new bill was in process of concoction. This process was commenced on the 16th of August, continued on the 17th, and concluded on the 18th. Mr. Clay consented to the postponement of his anti-veto speech both on the 17th and on the 18th, not to disturb this concoction; and spoke on the 19th--being the day after the prepared bill had been completed, and confided to its sponsors in the House and the Senate. All this is derived from Mr. Alexander A. Stuart's subsequent publication, to comprehend which fully, his account of his connection with the subject must be taken up from the moment of his leaving the President's house, that night of the 16th; and premising, that the whig joint committee of which he speaks, was a standing little body of eminent whigs, whose business it was to fix up measures for the action of the whole party in Congress. With this preliminary view, the important statement of Mr. Stuart will be given.

"Upon leaving the President, I took a hack, and drove immediately to Mr. Webster's lodgings, which were at the opposite end of the city; but, unfortunately he was not at home. I then returned to my boarding-house, where I told what had transpired to my messmates, Mr. Summers, and others. After tea I went to the meeting of the joint committee, of which I have already spoken. I there communicated to Mr. Sergeant, before the committee was called to order, what had occurred between the President and myself. When the committee was first organized there was a good deal of excitement, and difference of opinion; and an animated debate ensued on various propositions which were submitted. Finally I was invited by Mr. Sergeant to state to the committee what had passed between the President and myself; which I did, accompanied by such remarks as I thought would have a tendency to allay excitement, and lead to wise and dispassionate conclusions. After much deliberation, the committee concluded to recommend to the whig party, in both Houses of Congress, to accede to the President's views. A difficulty was then suggested, that the veto message had been made the order of the day at noon, and Mr. Clay had the floor; and it was supposed that the debate might possibly assume such a character as to defeat our purposes of conciliation. Mr. Mangum at once pledged himself that Mr. Clay should offer no obstacle to the adjustment of our difficulties; and engaged to obtain his assent to the postponement of the orders of the day, until we should have an opportunity of reporting to a general meeting of the whig party, and ascertaining whether they would be willing to accept a bank on the basis agreed on by Mr. Tyler and myself--with this understanding the committee adjourned. On the next day (17th of August) Mr. Mangum, with Mr. Clay's assent, moved the postponement of the discussion of the veto, and it was agreed to (see Senate Journal, p. 170): and on the 18th of August the subject was again, with Mr. Clay's concurrence, postponed, on the motion of Mr. Berrien. (Senate Journal, p. 173.) During this time the whigs held their general meeting, and agreed to adopt a bill on the President's plan; and Mr. Sergeant and Mr. Berrien were requested to see that it was properly drawn; and, if necessary, to seek an interview with the President to be certain that there was no misunderstanding as to his opinions. From this statement, confirmed by the journals of the Senate, it will be seen with how much truth Mr. Tyler has charged Mr. Clay with an intolerant and dictatorial spirit, and a settled purpose to embarrass his administration. So far from such being the fact, I state upon my own personal knowledge, that Mr. Clay made every sacrifice consistent with honor and patriotism, to avoid a rupture with Mr. Tyler. The result of the labors of Messrs. Sergeant and Berrien, was the second bank bill, which these distinguished jurists supposed to be in conformity with the President's views."

From this array of testimony it would seem certain that the President was sincerely in favor of passing this second bill: but this account has a per contra side to it; and it is necessary to give the signs and facts on the other side which show him against it from the beginning. These items are:--1. The letters in the New York Herald; which, from the accuracy with which they told beforehand what the President was to do, had acquired a credit not to be despised; and which foreshadowed the veto, lauding the President and vituperating his cabinet. 2. A sinister rumor to that effect circulating in the city, and countenanced by the new friends who were intimate with the President. 3. The concourse of these at his house. 4. The bitter opposition to it from the same persons in the House and the Senate; a circumstance on which Mr. Clay often remarked in debate, with a significant implication. 5. What happened to Mr. Bell; and which was this: on the 17th day of August Mr. Tyler requested him to make up a statement from the operations of the war department (its receipts and disbursements) to show the advantage of such a bank as they had agreed upon, and to be used as an argument for it. Mr. Bell complied with alacrity, and carried the statement to the President himself the same evening--expecting to be thanked for his zeal and activity. Quite the contrary. "He received the statements which I gave him (writes Mr. Bell) with manifest indifference, and alarmed me by remarking that he began to doubt whether he would give his assent (as I understood him) to any bill." 6. What happened to Mr. Webster and Mr. Ewing, and which is thus related by the latter in his letter of resignation to the President: "You asked Mr. Webster and myself each to prepare and present you an argument touching the constitutionality of the bill (as agreed upon); and before those arguments could be prepared and read by you, you declared, as I heard and believe, to gentlemen, members of the House, that you would cut off your right hand rather than approve it." 7. What passed between Mr. Wise and Mr. Thompson of Indiana in the debate on the veto of this bill, and which thus appears on the Congress Register: "Mr. Wise rose and said, that he had always felt perfectly assured that the President would not sign a bank: that if he had been waked up at any hour of the night he would have declared his opposition to a bank." To which Mr. Thompson: "Then why not tell us so at once? Why all this subterfuge and prevarication--this disingenuous and almost criminal concealment? What labor, care, and anxiety he would have saved us." 8. Rumors that Mr. Tyler was endeavoring to defeat the bill while on its passage. 9. Proof point blanc to that effect. As this is a most responsible allegation, it requires a clear statement and exact proof; and they shall both be given. On the 25th of August, after the bill had passed the House and was still before the Senate, Mr. Webster wrote a letter to Messrs. Choate and Bates (the two senators from Massachusetts) in which, speaking in the interest of the President, and of his personal knowledge, he informed them that the President had seen the rapid progress of the bill in the House with regret, and wished it might have been postponed;--and advised the whigs to press it no further; and justified this change in the President on Mr. Botts' letter, which had just appeared. This is the allegation, and here is the proof in the letter itself--afterwards furnished for publication by Mr. Webster to the editors of the Madisonian:

"GENTLEMEN:--As you spoke last evening of the general policy of the whigs, under the present posture of affairs, relative to the bank bill, I am willing to place you in full possession of my opinion on that subject.

"It is not necessary to go further back, into the history of the past, than the introduction of the present measure into the House of Representatives.

"That introduction took place, within two or three days, after the President's disapproval of the former bill; and I have not the slightest doubt that it was honestly and fairly intended as a measure likely to meet the President's approbation. I do not believe that one in fifty of the whigs had any sinister design whatever, if there was an individual who had such design.

"But I know that the President had been greatly troubled, in regard to the former bill, being desirous, on one hand, to meet the wishes of his friends, if he could, and on the other, to do justice to his own opinions.

"Having returned this first bill with objections, a new one was presented in the House, and appeared to be making rapid progress.

"I know the President regretted this, and wished the whole subject might have been postponed. At the same time, I believed he was disposed to consider calmly and conscientiously whatever other measure might be presented to him. But in the mean time Mr. Botts' very extraordinary letter made its appearance. Mr. Botts is a whig of eminence and influence in our ranks. I need not recall to your mind the contents of the letter. It is enough to say, that it purported that the whigs designed to circumvent their own President, to 'head him' as the expression was and to place him in a condition of embarrassment. From that moment, I felt that it was the duty of the whigs to forbear from pressing the bank bill further, at the present time. I thought it was but just in them to give decisive proof that they entertained no such purpose, as seemed to be imputed to them. And since there was reason to believe, that the President would be glad of time, for information and reflection, before being called on to form an opinion on another plan for a bank--a plan somewhat new to the country--I thought his known wishes ought to be complied with. I think so still. I think this is a course, just to the President, and wise on behalf of the whig party. A decisive rebuke ought, in my judgment, to be given to the intimation, from whatever quarter, of a disposition among the whigs to embarrass the President. This is the main ground of my opinion; and such a rebuke, I think, would be found in the general resolution of the party to postpone further proceedings on the subject to the next session, now only a little more than three months off.

"The session has been fruitful of important acts.--The wants of the Treasury have been supplied; provisions have been made for fortifications, and for the navy; the repeal of the sub-treasury has passed; the bankrupt bill, that great measure of justice and benevolence, has been carried through; and the land bill seems about to receive the sanction of Congress.

"In all these measures, forming a mass of legislation, more important, I will venture to say, than all the proceedings of Congress for many years past, the President has cordially concurred.

"I agree, that the currency question is, nevertheless, the great question before the country; but considering what has already been accomplished, in regard to other things; considering the difference of opinion which exists upon this remaining one; and, considering, especially, that it is the duty of the whigs effectually to repel and put down any supposition, that they are endeavoring to put the President in a condition, in which he must act under restraint or embarrassment, I am fully and entirely persuaded, that the bank subject should be postponed to the next session. I am gentlemen, your friend and obedient servant. (Signed, Daniel Webster, and addressed to Messrs. Choate and Bates, senators from Massachusetts, and dated, August 25th, 1841.)"

This is the proof, and leaves it indisputable that the President undertook to defeat his own bill. No more can be said on that point. The only point open to remark, and subject to examination, is the reason given by Mr. Webster for this conduct in the President; and this reason is found in Mr. Botts' letter--which had just made its appearance. That letter might be annoyance--might be offensive--might excite resentment: but it could not change a constitutional opinion, or reverse a state policy, or justify a President in breaking his word to his cabinet and to the party that had elected him. It required a deeper reason to work such results; and the key to that reason is found in the tack taken in the first eight or nine days of the session to form a third party, breaking with the whigs, settling back on the democracy, and making the bank veto the point of rupture with one, the cement with the other, the rallying points of the recruits, and the corner-stone of the infant Tyler party. That was the reason: and all the temporizing and double-dealing--pushing the bill forward with one hand, and pulling back with the other--were nothing but expedients to avert or appease the storm that was brewing, and to get through the tempest of his own raising with as little damage to himself as possible. The only quotable part of this letter was the phrase, "Head Captain Tyler, or die:" a phrase quoted by the public to be laughed at--by Mr. Webster, to justify Mr. Tyler's attempt to defeat his own bill, so solemnly prepared and sent to the whigs, with a promise to sign it in twenty-four hours if they would pass it. The phrase was fair though it presented a ridiculous image. This "heading," applied to a person signifies to check, or restrain; applied to animals (which is its common use in the South and the West) is, to turn one round which is running the wrong way, and make it go back to the right place. Taken in either sense, the phrase is justifiable, and could only mean checking Mr. Tyler in his progress to the new party, and turning him back to the party that elected him Vice-president. As for the "dying," that could imply no killing of persons, nor any death of any kind to "Captain Tyler," but only the political death of the whigs if their President left them. All this Mr. Webster knew very well, for he was a good philologist, and knew the meaning of words. He was also a good lawyer, and knew that an odious meaning must be given to an innocent word when it is intended to make it offensive. The phrase was, therefore, made to signify a design to circumvent the President with a view to embarrass him--Mr. Clay being the person intended at the back of Mr. Botts in this supposed circumvention and embarrassment. But circumvent was not the word of the letter, nor its synonyme; and is a word always used in an evil sense--implying imposition, stratagem, cheat, deceit, fraud. The word "heading" has no such meaning: and thus the imputed offence, gratuitously assumed, makes its exit for want of verity. Embarrassment is the next part of the offence, and its crowning part, and fails like the other. Mr. Clay had no such design. That is proved by Mr. Stuart, and by his own conduct--twice putting off his speech--holding in his proud spirit until chafed by Mr. Rives--then mollifying indignant language with some expressions of former regard to Mr. Tyler. He had no design or object in embarrassing him. No whig had. And they all had a life and death interest (political) in conciliating him, and getting him to sign: and did their best to do so. The only design was to get him to sign his own bill--the fiscal corporation bill--which he had fixed up himself, title and all--sent out his cabinet to press upon Congress--and desired to have it back in three days, that he might sign it in twenty-four hours. The only solution is, that he did not expect it to come back--that he counted on getting some whigs turned against it, as tried without avail on Messrs. Choate and Bates; and that he could appease the whig storm by sending in the bill, and escape the performance of his promise by getting it defeated. This is the only solution; and the fact is that he would have signed no bank bill, under any name, after the eighth or ninth day of the session--from the day that he gave into the scheme for the third party, himself its head, and settling back upon his ci-devant democratic character. From that day a national bank of any kind was the Jonas of his political ship--to be thrown overboard to save the vessel and crew.

And this is the secret history of the birth, life and death of the second fiscal bank, called fiscal corporation--doomed from the first to be vetoed--brought forward to appease a whig storm--sometimes to be postponed--commended to the nursing care of some--consigned to the strangling arts of others: but doomed to be vetoed when it came to the point as being the corner-stone in the edifice of the new party, and the democratic baptismal regeneration of Mr. Tyler himself.

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