President Jackson in his first annual message to Congress called attention to the fact of expiration in 1836 of the charter of incorporation granted by the Federal government to a moneyed institution called The Bank of the United States, which was originally designed to assist the government in establishing and maintaining a uniform and sound currency. He seriously doubted the constitutionality and expediency of the law creating the bank, and was opposed to a renewal of the charter. His view of the matter was that if such an institution was deemed a necessity it should be made a national one, in the sense of being founded on the credit of the government and its revenues, and not a corporation independent from and not a part of the government. The House of Representatives was strongly in favor of the renewal of the charter, and several of its committees made elaborate, ample and argumentative reports upon the subject. These reports were the subject of newspaper and pamphlet publication; and lauded for their power and excellence, and triumphant refutation of all the President’s opinions. Thus was the “war of the Bank” commenced at once in Congress, and in the public press; and openly at the instance of the Bank itself, which, forgetting its position as an institution of the government, for the convenience of the government, set itself up as a power, and struggled for continued existence, by demand for renewal of its charter. It allied itself at the same time to the political power opposed to the President, joined in all their schemes of protective tariff, and national internal improvement, and became the head of the American system. Its moneyed and political power, numerous interested affiliations, and control over other banks and fiscal institutions, was truly great and extensive, and a power which was exercised and made to be felt during the struggle to such a degree that it threatened a danger to the country and the government almost amounting to a national calamity.
The subject of renewal of the charter was agitated at every succeeding session of Congress down to 1836, and many able speeches made for and against it.
In the month of December, 1831, the National Republicans, as the party was then called which afterward took the name of “whig,” held its convention in Baltimore, and nominated candidates for President and Vice-President, to be voted for at the election in the autumn of the ensuing year. Henry Clay was the candidate for the office of President, and John Sergeant for that of Vice-President. The platform or address to the people presented the party issues which were to be settled at the ensuing election, the chief subjects being the tariff, internal improvement, removal of the Cherokee Indians, and the renewal of the United States Bank charter. Thus the bank question was fully presented as an issue in the election by that part of its friends who classed politically against President Jackson. But it had also Democratic friends without whose aid the re-charter could not be got through Congress, and they labored assiduously for it. The first Bank of the United States, chartered in 1791, was a federal measure, favored by General Hamilton, opposed by Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and the Republican party; and became a great landmark of party, not merely for the bank itself, but for the latitudinarian construction of the constitution in which it was founded, and the precedent it established that Congress might in its discretion do what it pleased, under the plea of being “necessary” to carry into effect some granted power. The non-renewal of the charter in 1811, was the act of the Republican party, then in possession of the government, and taking the opportunity to terminate, upon its own limitation, the existence of an institution whose creation they had not been able to prevent. The charter of the second bank, in 1816, was the act of the Republican party, and to aid them in the administration of the government, and, as such, was opposed by the Federal party—not seeming then to understand that, by its instincts, a great moneyed corporation was in sympathy with their own party, and would soon be with it in action—which the bank soon was—and now struggled for a continuation of its existence under the lead of those who had opposed its creation and against the party which effected it. Mr. Webster was a Federal leader on both occasions—against the charter in 1816; for the re-charter in 1832. The bill passed the Senate after a long and arduous contest; and afterwards passed the House, quickly and with little or no contest at all.
It was sent to the President, and vetoed by him July 10, 1832; the message stating his objections being an elaborate review of the subject; the veto being based mainly on the unconstitutionality of the measure. The veto was sustained. Following this the President after the adjournment removed from the bank the government deposits, and referred to that fact in his next annual message on the second day of December, 1833, at the opening of the first session of the twenty-third Congress. Accompanying it was the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. Roger B. Taney, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, giving the reasons of the government for the withdrawal of the public funds. Long and bitter was the contest between the President on the one side and the Bank and its supporters in the Senate on the other side. The conduct of the Bank produced distress throughout the country, and was so intended to coerce the President. Distress petitions flooded Congress, and the Senate even passed resolutions of censure of the President. The latter, however, held firm in his position. A committee of investigation was appointed by the House of Representatives to inquire into the causes of the commercial embarrassment and the public distress complained of in the numerous distress memorials presented to the two Houses during the session; and whether the Bank had been instrumental, through its management of money, in producing the distress and embarrassment of which so much complaint was made; to inquire whether the charter of the Bank had been violated, and what corruptions and abuses, if any, existed in its management; and to inquire whether the Bank had used its corporate power or money to control the press, to interpose in politics, or to influence elections. The committee were granted ample powers for the execution of these inquiries. It was treated with disdain and contempt by the Bank management; refused access to the books and papers, and the directors and president refused to be sworn and testify. The committee at the next session made report of their proceedings, and asked for warrants to be issued against the managers to bring them before the Bar of the House to answer for contempt; but the friends of the Bank in the House were able to check the proceedings and prevent action being taken. In the Senate, the President was sought to be punished by a declination by that body to confirm the President’s nomination of the four government directors of the Bank, who had served the previous year; and their re-nomination after that rejection again met with a similar fate. In like manner his re-nomination of Roger B. Taney to be Secretary of the Treasury was rejected, for the action of the latter in his support of the President and the removal of the public deposits. The Bank had lost much ground in the public estimation by resisting the investigation ordered and attempted by the House of Representatives, and in consequence the Finance Committee of the Senate made an investigation, with so weak an attempt to varnish over the affairs and acts of the corporation that the odious appellation of “white-washing committee” was fastened upon it. The downfall of the Bank speedily followed; it soon afterwards became a total financial wreck, and its assets and property were seized on executions. With its financial failure it vanished from public view, and public interest in it and concern with it died out.
About the beginning of March, 1831, a pamphlet was issued in Washington, by Mr. John C. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and addressed to the people of the United States, explaining the cause of a difference which had taken place between himself and the President, General Jackson, instigated as the pamphlet alleged, by Mr. Van Buren, and intended to make trouble between the first and second officers of the government, and to effect the political destruction of himself (Mr. Calhoun) for the benefit of the contriver of the quarrel, the then Secretary of State, and indicated as a candidate for the presidential succession upon the termination of Jackson’s term. The differences grew out of certain charges against General Jackson respecting his conduct during the Seminole war which occurred in the administration of President Monroe. The President justified himself in published correspondence, but the inevitable result followed—a rupture between the President and Vice-President—which was quickly followed by a breaking up and reconstructing the Cabinet. Some of its members classed as the political friends of Mr. Calhoun, and could hardly be expected to remain as ministers to the President. Mr. Van Buren resigned; a new Cabinet was appointed and confirmed. This change in the Cabinet made a great figure in the party politics of the day, and filled all the opposition newspapers, and had many sinister reasons assigned to it—all to the prejudice of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren.
It is interesting to note here that during the administration of President Jackson,—in the year 1833,—the Congress of the United States, as the consequence of the earnest efforts in that behalf, of Col. R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, aided by the recommendation and support of the President, passed the first laws, abolishing imprisonment for debt, under process from the Courts of the United States: the only extent to which an act of Congress could go, by force of its enactments; but by force of example and influence, has led to the cessation of the practice of imprisoning debtors, in all, or nearly all, of the States and Territories of the Union; and without the evil consequences which had been dreaded from the loss of this remedy over the person. The act was a total abolition of the practice, leaving in full force all the remedies against fraudulent evasions of debt.
The American system, and especially its prominent feature of a high protective tariff was put in issue, in the Presidential canvass of 1832; and the friends of that system labored diligently in Congress in presenting its best points to the greatest advantage; and staking its fate upon the issue of the election. It was lost; not only by the result of the main contest, but by that of the congressional election which took place simultaneously with it. All the States dissatisfied with that system, were satisfied with the view of its speedy and regular extinction, under the legislation of the approaching session of Congress, excepting only South Carolina. She has held aloof from the Presidential contest, and cast her electoral votes for persons who were not candidates—doing nothing to aid the election of General Jackson, with whom her interests were apparently identified. On the 24th November, 1832, two weeks after the election which decided the fate of the tariff, that State issued an “Ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities.” It declared that the Congress had exceeded its constitutional powers in imposing high and excessive duties on the theory of “protection,” had unjustly discriminated in favor of one class or employment, at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals; that said laws were in consequence not binding on the State and its citizens; and declaring its right and purpose to enact laws to prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of said acts and parts of the acts of the Congress of the United States within the limits of that State after the first day of February following. This ordinance placed the State in the attitude of forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to take effect on the first day of February next ensuing—a date prior to the meeting of the next Congress, which the country naturally expected would take some action in reference to the tariff laws complained of. The ordinance further provided that if, in the meantime, any attempt was made by the federal government to enforce the obnoxious laws, except through the tribunals, all the officers of which were sworn against them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the continuance of South Carolina in the Union—to absolve her from all connection with the federal government—and to establish her as a separate government, wholly unconnected with the United States or any State. The ordinance of nullification was certified by the Governor of South Carolina to the President of the United States, and reached him in December of the same year; in consequence of which he immediately issued a proclamation, exhorting the people of South Carolina to obey the laws of Congress; pointing out and explaining the illegality of the procedure; stating clearly and distinctly his firm determination to enforce the laws as became him as Executive, even by resort to force if necessary. As a state paper, it is important as it contains the views of General Jackson regarding the nature and character of our federal government, expressed in the following language: “The people of the United States formed the constitution, acting through the State Legislatures in making the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in the constitution show it to be a government in which the people of all the States collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. * * * The people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch. * * * In the House of Representatives the members are all representatives of the United States, not representatives of the particular States from which they come. They are paid by the United States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act done in the performance of their legislative functions. * * *
“The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by a compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States—they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State, having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other States, a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of the nation, and any injury to that unity, is not only a breach which could result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offence.”
Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, the President in his annual message, merely adverted to the attitude of the State, and proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the powers he already possessed. The proceedings in South Carolina not ceasing, and taking daily a more aggravated form in the organization of troops, the collection of arms and of munitions of war, and in declarations hostile to the Union, he found it necessary early in January to report the facts to Congress in a special message, and ask for extraordinary powers. Bills for the reduction of the tariff were early in the Session introduced into both houses, while at the same time the President, though not relaxing his efforts towards a peaceful settlement of the difficulty, made steady preparations for enforcing the law. The result of the bills offered in the two Houses of Congress, was the passage of Mr. Clay’s “compromise” bill on the 12th of February 1833, which radically changed the whole tariff system.
The President in his message on the South Carolina proceedings had recommended to Congress the revival of some acts, heretofore in force, to enable him to execute the laws in that State; and the Senate’s committee on the judiciary had reported a bill accordingly early in the session. It was immediately assailed by several members as violent and unconstitutional, tending to civil war, and denounced as “the bloody bill”—the “force bill,” &c. The bill was vindicated in the Senate, by its author, who showed that it contained no novel principle; was substantially a revival of laws previously in force; with the authority superadded to remove the office of customs from one building or place to another in case of need. The bill was vehemently opposed, and every effort made to render it odious to the people, and even extend the odium to the President, and to every person urging or aiding in its passage. Mr. Webster justly rebuked all this vituperation, and justified the bill, both for the equity of its provisions, and the necessity for enacting them. He said, that an unlawful combination threatened the integrity of the Union; that the crisis called for a mild, temperate, forbearing but inflexibly firm execution of the laws; and finally, that public opinion sets with an irresistible force in favor of the Union, in favor of the measures recommended by the President, and against the new doctrines which threatened the dissolution of the Union. The support which Mr. Webster gave to these measures was the regular result of the principles which he laid down in his first speeches against nullification in the debate with Mr. Hayne, and he could not have done less without being derelict to his own principles then avowed. He supported with transcendent ability, the cause of the constitution and of the country, in the person of a President to whom he was politically opposed, whose gratitude and admiration he earned for his patriotic endeavors. The country, without distinction of party, felt the same; and the universality of the feeling was one of the grateful instances of popular applause and justice when great talents are seen exerting themselves for the good of the country. He was the colossal figure on the political stage during that eventful time; and his labors, splendid in their day, survive for the benefit of distant posterity.
During the discussion over the re-charter of the Bank of the United States, which as before mentioned, occupied the attention of Congress for several years, the country suffered from a money panic, and a general financial depression and distress was generally prevalent. In 1834 a measure was introduced into the House, for equalizing the value of gold and silver, and legalizing the tender of foreign coin, of both metals. The good effects of the bill were immediately seen. Gold began to flow into the country through all the channels of commerce, foreign and domestic; the mint was busy; and specie payment, which had been suspended in the country for thirty years, was resumed, and gold and silver became the currency of the land; inspiring confidence in all the pursuits of industry.
As indicative of the position of the democratic party at that date, on the subject of the kind of money authorized by the Constitution, Mr. Benton’s speech in the Senate is of interest. He said: “In the first place, he was one of those who believed that the government of the United States was intended to be a hard-money government; that it was the intention and the declaration of the Constitution of the United States, that the federal currency should consist of gold and silver, and that there is no power in Congress to issue, or to authorize any company of individuals to issue, any species of federal paper currency whatsoever. Every clause in the Constitution (said Mr. B.) which bears upon the subject of money—every early statute of Congress which interprets the meaning of these clauses—and every historic recollection which refers to them, go hand in hand in giving to that instrument the meaning which this proposition ascribes to it. The power granted to Congress to coin money is an authority to stamp metallic money, and is not an authority for emitting slips of paper containing promises to pay money. The authority granted to Congress to regulate the value of coin, is an authority to regulate the value of the metallic money, not of paper. The prohibition upon the States against making anything but gold and silver a legal tender, is a moral prohibition, founded in virtue and honesty, and is just as binding upon the Federal Government as upon the State Governments; and that without a written prohibition; for the difference in the nature of the two governments is such, that the States may do all things which they are not forbid to do; and the Federal Government can do nothing which it is not authorized by the Constitution to do. The framers of the Constitution (said Mr. B.) created a hard-money government. They intended the new government to recognize nothing for money but gold and silver; and every word admitted into the Constitution, upon the subject of money, defines and establishes that sacred intention.
Legislative enactment came quickly to the aid of constitutional intention and historic recollection. The fifth statute passed at the first session of the first Congress that ever sat under the present Constitution was full and explicit on this head. It declared, “that the fees and duties payable to the federal government shall be received in gold and silver coin only.” It was under General Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, in 1791, that the policy of the government underwent a change. In the act constituting the Bank of the United States, he brought forward his celebrated plan for the support of the public credit—that plan which unfolded the entire scheme of the paper system and immediately developed the great political line between the federalists and the republicans. The establishment of a national bank was the leading and predominant feature of that plan; and the original report of the secretary, in favor of establishing the bank, contained this fatal and deplorable recommendation: “The bills and notes of the bank, originally made payable, or which shall have become payable, on demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be receivable in all payments to the United States.” From the moment of the adoption of this policy, the moneyed character of the government stood changed and reversed. Federal bank notes took the place of hard-money; and the whole edifice of the government slid, at once, from the solid rock of gold and silver money, on which its framers had placed it, into the troubled and tempestuous ocean of paper currency.
The first session of the 35th Congress opened December 1835. Mr. James K. Polk was elected Speaker of the House by a large majority over Mr. John Bell, the previous Speaker; the former being supported by the administration party, and the latter having become identified with those who, on siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a candidate for the presidency, were considered as having divided from the democratic party. The chief subject of the President’s message was the relations of our country with France relative to the continued non-payment of the stipulated indemnity provided for in the treaty of 1831 for French spoliations of American shipping. The obligation to pay was admitted, and the money even voted for that purpose; but offense was taken at the President’s message, and payment refused until an apology should be made. The President commented on this in his message, and the Senate had under consideration measures authorizing reprisals on French shipping. At this point Great Britain offered her services as mediator between the nations, and as a result the indemnity was shortly afterwards paid.
Agitation of the slavery question in the United States really began about this time. Evil-disposed persons had largely circulated through the Southern states, pamphlets and circulars tending to stir up strife and insurrection; and this had become so intolerable that it was referred to by the President in his message. Congress at the session of 1836 was flooded with petitions and memorials urging federal interference to abolish slavery in the States; beginning with the petition of the Society of Friends of Philadelphia, urging the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. These petitions were referred to Committees after an acrimonious debate as to whether they should be received or not. The position of the government at that time is embodied in the following resolution which was adopted in the House of Representatives as early as 1790, and substantially reaffirmed in 1836, as follows: “That Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the States; it remaining with the several States to provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy may require.”
In the Summer preceding the Presidential election of 1836, a measure was introduced into Congress, which became very nearly a party measure, and which in its results proved disastrous to the Democratic party in after years. It was a plan for distributing the public land money among the States either in the shape of credit distribution, or in the disguise of a deposit of surplus revenue; and this for the purpose of enhancing the value of the State stocks held by the United States Bank, which institution, aided by the party which it favored, led by Mr. Clay, was the prime mover in the plan. That gentleman was the author of the scheme, and great calculations were made by the party which favored the distribution upon its effect in adding to their popularity. The Bill passed the Senate in its original form, but met with less favor in the House where it was found necessary. To effectuate substantially the same end, a Senate Bill was introduced to regulate the keeping of the public money in the deposit banks, and this was turned into distribution of the surplus public moneys with the States, in proportion to their representation in Congress, to be returned when Congress should call for it; and this was called a deposit with the States, and the faith of the States pledged for a return of the money. It was stigmatized by its opponents in Congress, as a distribution in disguise—as a deposit never to be reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the Constitution; as an attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as plundering instead of defending the country. The Bill passed both houses, mainly by the efforts of a half dozen aspirants to the Presidency, who sought to thus increase their popularity. They were doomed to disappointment in this respect. Politically, it was no advantage to its numerous and emulous supporters, and of no disservice to its few determined opponents. It was a most unfortunate act, a plain evasion of the Constitution for a bad purpose; and it soon gave a sad overthrow to the democracy and disappointed every calculation made upon it. To the States it was no advantage, raising expectations which were not fulfilled, and upon which many of them acted as realities. The Bill was signed by the President, but it is simple justice to him to say that he did it with a repugnance of feeling, and a recoil of judgment, which it required great efforts of his friends to overcome, and with a regret for it afterwards which he often and publicly expressed. In a party point of view, the passage of this measure was the commencement of calamities, being an efficient cause in that general suspension of specie payments, which quickly occurred, and brought so much embarrassment on the Van Buren administration, ending in the great democratic defeat of 1840.
The presidential election of 1836 resulted in the choice of the democratic candidate, Mr. Van Buren, who was elected by 170 electoral votes; his opponent, General Harrison, receiving seventy-three electoral votes. Scattering votes were given for Mr. Webster, Mr. Mangum, and Mr. Hugh L. White, the last named representing a fragment of the democracy who, in a spirit of disaffection, attempted to divide the democratic party and defeat Mr. Van Buren. At the opening of the second session of the twenty-fourth Congress, December, 1836, President Jackson delivered his last annual message, under circumstances exceedingly gratifying to him. The powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he had the satisfaction of seeing full majorities of ardent and tried friends in each House. The country was in peace and friendship with all the world; all exciting questions quieted at home; industry in all its branches prosperous, and the revenue abundant. And as a happy sequence of this state of affairs, the Senate on the 16th of March, 1837, expunged from the Journal the resolution, adopted three years previously, censuring the President for ordering the removal of the deposits of public money in the United States Bank. He retired from the presidency with high honors, and died eight years afterwards at his home, the celebrated “Hermitage,” in Tennessee, in full possession of all his faculties, and strong to the last in the ruling passion of his soul—love of country.
The 4th of March, 1837, ushered in another Democratic administration—the beginning of the term of Martin Van Buren as President of the United States. In his inaugural address he commented on the prosperous condition of the country, and declared it to be his policy to strictly abide by the Constitution as written—no latitudinarian constructions permitted, or doubtful powers assumed; that his political chart should be the doctrines of the democratic school, as understood at the original formation of parties.
The President, however, was scarcely settled in his new office when a financial panic struck the country with irresistible force. A general suspension of the banks, a depreciated currency, and insolvency of the federal treasury were at hand. The public money had been placed in the custody of the local banks, and the notes of all these banks, and of all others in the country, were received in payment of public dues. On the 10th of May, 1837, the banks throughout the country suspended specie payments. The stoppage of the deposit banks was the stoppage of the Treasury. Non-payment by the government was an excuse for non-payment by others. The suspension was now complete; and it was evident, and as good as admitted by those who had made it, that it was the effect of contrivance on the part of politicians and the so-called Bank of the United States (which, after the expiration of its national charter, had become a State corporation chartered by the Legislature of Pennsylvania in January, 1836) for the purpose of restoring themselves to power. The whole proceeding became clear to those who could see nothing while it was in progress. Even those of the democratic party whose votes had helped to do the mischief, could now see that the attempt to deposit forty millions with the States was destruction to the deposit banks; that the repeal of President Jackson’s order, known as the “specie circular”—requiring payment for public lands to be in coin—was to fill the treasury with paper money, to be found useless when wanted; that distress was purposely created to throw blame of it upon the party in power; that the promptitude with which the Bank of the United States had been brought forward as a remedy for the distress, showed that it had been held in reserve for that purpose; and the delight with which the whig party saluted the general calamity, showed that they considered it their own passport to power. Financial embarrassment and general stagnation of business diminished the current receipts from lands and customs, and actually caused an absolute deficit in the public treasury. In consequence, the President found it an inexorable necessity to issue his proclamation convening Congress in extra session.
The first session of the twenty-fifth Congress met in extra session, at the call of the President, on the first Monday of September, 1837. The message was a review of the events and causes which had brought about the panic; a defense of the policy of the “specie circular,” and a recommendation to break off all connection with any bank of issue in any form; looking to the establishment of an Independent Treasury, and that the Government provide for the deficit in the treasury by the issue of treasury notes and by withholding the deposit due to the States under the act then in force. The message and its recommendations were violently assailed both in the Senate and House by able and effective speakers, notably by Messrs. Clay and Webster, and also by Mr. Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, who made a formal and elaborate reply to the whole document under thirty-two distinct heads, and reciting therein all the points of accusation against the democratic policy from the beginning of the government down to that day. The result was that the measures proposed by the Executive were in substance enacted; and their passage marks an era in our financial history—making a total and complete separation of Bank and State, and firmly establishing the principle that the government revenues should be receivable in coin only.
The measures of consequence discussed and adopted at this session, were the graduation of price of public lands under the pre-emption system, which was adopted; the bill to create an independent Treasury, which passed the Senate, but failed in the House; and the question of the re-charter of the district banks, the proportion for reserve, and the establishment of such institutions on a specie basis. The slavery question was again agitated in consequence of petitions from citizens and societies in the Northern States, and a memorial from the General Assembly of Vermont, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and territories, and for the exclusion of future slave states from the Union. These petitions and memorials were disposed of adversely; and Mr. Calhoun, representing the ultra-Southern interest, in several able speeches, approved of the Missouri compromise, he urged and obtained of the Senate several resolutions declaring that the federal government had no power to interfere with slavery in the States; and that it would be inexpedient and impolitic to interfere, abolish or control it in the District of Columbia and the territories. These movements for and against slavery in the session of 1837–38 deserve to be noticed, as of disturbing effect at the time, and as having acquired new importance from subsequent events.
The first session of the twenty-sixth Congress opened December, 1839. The organization of the House was delayed by a closely and earnestly contested election from the State of New Jersey. Five Democrats claiming seats as against an equal number of Whigs. Neither set was admitted until after the election of Speaker, which resulted in the choice of Robert M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, the Whig candidate, who was elected by the full Whig vote with the aid of a few democrats—friends of Mr. Calhoun, who had for several previous sessions been acting with the Whigs on several occasions. The House excluding the five contested seats from New Jersey, was really Democratic; having 122 members, and the Whigs 113 members. The contest for the Speakership was long and arduous, neither party adhering to its original caucus candidate. Twenty scattering votes, eleven of whom were classed as Whigs, and nine as Democrats, prevented a choice on the earlier ballots, and it was really Mr. Calhoun’s Democratic friends uniting with a solid Whig vote on the final ballot that gained that party the election. The issue involved was a vital party question as involving the organization of the House. The chief measure, of public importance, adopted at this session of Congress was an act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, and disbursing of the public money. It practically revolutionized the system previously in force, and was a complete and effectual separation of the federal treasury and the Government, from the banks and moneyed corporations of the States. It was violently opposed by the Whig members, led by Mr. Clay, and supported by Mr. Cushing, but was finally passed in both Houses by a close vote.
At this time, and in the House of Representatives, was exhibited for the first time in the history of Congress, the present practice of members “pairing off,” as it is called; that is to say, two members of opposite political parties, or of opposite views on any particular subject, agreeing to absent themselves from the duties of the House, for the time being. The practice was condemned on the floor of the House by Mr. John Quincy Adams, who introduced a resolution: “That the practice, first openly avowed at the present session of Congress, of pairing off, involves, on the part of the members resorting to it, the violation of the Constitution of the United States, of an express rule of this House, and of the duties of both parties in the transaction, to their immediate constituents, to this House, and to their country.” This resolution was placed in the calendar to take its turn, but not being reached during the session, was not voted on. That was the first instance of this justly condemned practice, fifty years after the establishment of the Government; but since then it has become common, even inveterate, and is now carried to great lengths.
The last session of the twenty-sixth Congress was barren of measures, and necessarily so, as being the last of our administration superseded by the popular voice, and soon to expire; and therefore restricted by a sense of propriety, during the brief remainder of its existence, to the details of business and the routine of service. The cause of this was the result of the presidential election of 1840. The same candidates who fought the battle of 1836 were again in the field. Mr. Van Buren was the Democratic candidate. His administration had been satisfactory to his party, and his nomination for a second term was commended by the party in the different States in appointing their delegates; so that the proceedings of the convention which nominated him were entirely harmonious and formal in their nature. Mr. Richard M. Johnson, the actual Vice-President, was also nominated for Vice-President.
On the Whig ticket, General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was the candidate for President, and Mr. John Tyler, of Virginia, for Vice-President. The leading statesmen of the Whig party were again put aside, to make way for a military man, prompted by the example in the nomination of General Jackson, the men who managed presidential elections believing then as now that military renown was a passport to popularity and rendered a candidate more sure of election. Availability—for the purpose—was the only ability asked for. Mr. Clay, the most prominent Whig in the country, and the acknowledged head of the party, was not deemed available; and though Mr. Clay was a candidate before the convention, the proceedings were so regulated that his nomination was referred to a committee, ingeniously devised and directed for the afterwards avowed purpose of preventing his nomination and securing that of General Harrison; and of producing the intended result without showing the design, and without leaving a trace behind to show what was done. The scheme (a modification of which has since been applied to subsequent national conventions, and out of which many bitter dissensions have again and again arisen) is embodied and was executed in and by means of the following resolution adopted by the convention: “Ordered, That the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and appoint a committee, not exceeding three in number, to receive the views and opinions of such delegation, and communicate the same to the assembled committees of all the delegations, to be by them respectively reported to their principals; and that thereupon the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and ballot for candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President, and having done so, to commit the ballot designating the votes of each candidate, and by whom given, to its committee, and thereupon all the committees shall assemble and compare the several ballots, and report the result of the same to their several delegations, together with such facts as may bear upon the nomination; and said delegation shall forthwith reassemble and ballot again for candidates for the above offices, and again commit the result to the above committees, and if it shall appear that a majority of the ballots are for any one man for candidate for President, said committee shall report the result to the convention for its consideration; but if there shall be no such majority, then the delegation shall repeat the balloting until such a majority shall be obtained, and then report the same to the convention for its consideration. That the vote of a majority of each delegation shall be reported as the vote of that State; and each State represented here shall vote its full electoral vote by such delegation in the committee.” This was a sum in political algebra, whose quotient was known, but the quantity unknown except to those who planned it; and the result was—for General Scott, 16 votes; for Mr. Clay, 90 votes; for General Harrison, 148 votes. And as the law of the convention impliedly requires the absorption of all minorities, the 106 votes were swallowed up by the 148 votes and made to count for General Harrison, presenting him as the unanimity candidate of the convention, and the defeated candidates and all their friends bound to join in his support. And in this way the election of 1840 was effected—a process certainly not within the purview of those framers of the constitution who supposed they were giving to the nation the choice of its own chief magistrate.
The contest before the people was a long and bitter one, the severest ever known in the country, up to that time, and scarcely equalled since. The whole Whig party and the large league of suspended banks, headed by the Bank of the United States making its last struggle for a new national charter in the effort to elect a President friendly to it, were arrayed against the Democrats, whose hard-money policy and independent treasury schemes, met with little favor in the then depressed condition of the country. Meetings were held in every State, county and town; the people thoroughly aroused; and every argument made in favor of the respective candidates and parties, which could possibly have any effect upon the voters. The canvass was a thorough one, and the election was carried for the Whig candidates, who received 234 electoral votes coming from 19 States. The remaining 60 electoral votes of the other 9 States, were given to the Democratic candidate; though the popular vote was not so unevenly divided; the actual figures being 1,275,611 for the Whig ticket, against 1,135,761 for the Democratic ticket. It was a complete rout of the Democratic party, but without the moral effect of victory.
On March 4, 1841, was inaugurated as President, Gen’l Wm. H. Harrison, the first Chief Magistrate elected by the Whig party, and the first President who was not a Democrat, since the installation of Gen’l Jackson, March 4, 1829. His term was a short one. He issued a call for a special session of Congress to convene the 31st of May following, to consider the condition of the revenue and finances of the country, but did not live to meet it. Taken ill with a fatal malady during the last days of March, he died on the 4th of April following, having been in office just one month. He was succeeded by the Vice-President, John Tyler. Then, for the first time in our history as a government, the person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the constitution, had devolved upon him the Presidential office.
The twenty-seventh Congress opened in extra session at the call of the late President, May 31, 1841. A Whig member—Mr. White of Kentucky—was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Whigs had a majority of forty-seven in the House and of seven in the Senate, and with the President and Cabinet of the same political party presented a harmony of aspect frequently wanting during the three previous administrations. The first measure of the new dominant party was the repeal of the independent treasury act passed at the previous session; and the next in order were bills to establish a system of bankruptcy, and for distribution of public land revenue. The former was more than a bankrupt law; it was practically an insolvent law for the abolition of debts at the will of the debtor. It applied to all persons in debt, allowed them to institute the proceedings in the district where the petitioner resided, allowed constructive notices to creditors in newspapers—declared the abolition of the debt where effects were surrendered and fraud not proved; and gave exclusive jurisdiction to the federal courts, at the will of the debtor. It was framed upon the model of the English insolvent debtors’ act of George the Fourth, and embodied most of the provisions of that act, but substituting a release from the debt instead of a release from imprisonment. The bill passed by a close vote in both Houses.
The land revenue distribution bill of this session had its origin in the fact that the States and corporations owed about two hundred millions to creditors in Europe. These debts were in stocks, much depreciated by the failure in many instances to pay the accruing interest—in some instances failure to provide for the principal. These creditors, becoming uneasy, wished the federal government to assume their debts. The suggestion was made as early as 1838, renewed in 1839, and in 1840 became a regular question mixed up with the Presidential election of that year, and openly engaging the active exertions of foreigners. Direct assumption was not urged; indirect by giving the public land revenue to the States was the mode pursued, and the one recommended in the message of President Tyler. Mr. Calhoun spoke against the measure with more than usual force and clearness, claiming that it was unconstitutional and without warrant. Mr. Benton on the same side called it a squandering of the public patrimony, and pointed out its inexpediency in the depleted state of the treasury, apart from its other objectionable features. It passed by a party vote.
This session is remarkable for the institution of the hour rule in the House of Representatives—a very great limitation upon the freedom of debate. It was a Whig measure, adopted to prevent delay in the enactment of pending bills. It was a rigorous limitation, frequently acting as a bar to profitable debate and checking members in speeches which really impart information valuable to the House and the country. No doubt the license of debate has been frequently abused in Congress, as in all other deliberative assemblies, but the incessant use of the previous question, which cuts off all debate, added to the hour rule which limits a speech to sixty minutes (constantly reduced by interruptions) frequently results in the transaction of business in ignorance of what they are about by those who are doing it.
The rule worked so well in the House, for the purpose for which it was devised—made the majority absolute master of the body—that Mr. Clay undertook to have the same rule adopted in the Senate; but the determined opposition to it, both by his political opponents and friends, led to the abandonment of the attempt in that chamber.
Much discussion took place at this session, over the bill offered in the House of Representatives, for the relief of the widow of the late President—General Harrison—appropriating one year’s salary. It was strenuously opposed by the Democratic members, as unconstitutional, on account of its principle, as creating a private pension list, and as a dangerous precedent. Many able speeches were made against the bill, both in the Senate and House; among others, the following extract from the speech of an able Senator contains some interesting facts. He said: “Look at the case of Mr. Jefferson, a man than whom no one that ever existed on God’s earth were the human family more indebted to. His furniture and his estate were sold to satisfy his creditors. His posterity was driven from house and home, and his bones now lay in soil owned by a stranger. His family are scattered: some of his descendants are married in foreign lands. Look at Monroe—the able, the patriotic Monroe, whose services were revolutionary, whose blood was spilt in the war of Independence, whose life was worn out in civil service, and whose estate has been sold for debt, his family scattered, and his daughter buried in a foreign land. Look at Madison, the model of every virtue, public or private, and he would only mention in connection with this subject, his love of order, his economy, and his systematic regularity in all his habits of business. He, when his term of eight years had expired, sent a letter to a gentleman (a son of whom is now on this floor) [Mr. Preston], enclosing a note of five thousand dollars, which he requested him to endorse, and raise the money in Virginia, so as to enable him to leave this city, and return to his modest retreat—his patrimonial inheritance—in that State. General Jackson drew upon the consignee of his cotton crop in New Orleans for six thousand dollars to enable him to leave the seat of government without leaving creditors behind him. These were honored leaders of the republican party. They had all been Presidents. They had made great sacrifices, and left the presidency deeply embarrassed; and yet the republican party who had the power and the strongest disposition to relieve their necessities, felt they had no right to do so by appropriating money from the public Treasury. Democracy would not do this. It was left for the era of federal rule and federal supremacy—who are now rushing the country with steam power into all the abuses and corruptions of a monarchy, with its pensioned aristocracy—and to entail upon the country a civil pension list.”
There was an impatient majority in the House in favor of the passage of the bill. The circumstances were averse to deliberation—a victorious party, come into power after a heated election, seeing their elected candidate dying on the threshold of his administration, poor and beloved: it was a case for feeling more than of judgment, especially with the political friends of the deceased—but few of whom could follow the counsels of the head against the impulsions of the heart.
The bill passed, and was approved; and as predicted, it established a precedent which has since been followed in every similar case.
The subject of naval pensions received more than usual consideration at this session. The question arose on the discussion of the appropriation bill for that purpose. A difference about a navy—on the point of how much and what kind—had always been a point of difference between the two great political parties of the Union, which, under whatsoever names, are always the same, each preserving its identity in principles and policy, but here the two parties divided upon an abuse which no one could deny or defend. A navy pension fund had been established under the act of 1832, which was a just and proper law, but on the 3d of March, 1837, an act was passed entitled “An act for the more equitable distribution of the Navy Pension Fund.” That act provided: I. That Invalid naval pensions should commence and date back to the time of receiving the inability, instead of completing the proof. II. It extended the pensions for death to all cases of death, whether incurred in the line of duty or not. III. It extended the widow’s pensions for life, when five years had been the law both in the army and navy. IV. It adopted the English system of pensioning children of deceased marines until they attained their majority.
The effect of this law was to absorb and bankrupt the navy pension fund, a meritorious fund created out of the government share of prize money, relinquished for that purpose, and to throw the pensions, arrears as well as current and future, upon the public treasury, where it was never intended they were to be. It was to repeal this act, that an amendment was introduced at this session on the bringing forward of the annual appropriation bill for navy pensions, and long and earnest were the debates upon it. The amendment was lost, the Senate dividing on party lines, the Whigs against and the Democrats for the amendment. The subject is instructive, as then was practically ratified and re-enacted the pernicious practice authorized by the act of 1837, of granting pensions to date from the time of injury and not from the time of proof; and has grown up to such proportions in recent years that the last act of Congress appropriating money for arrears of pensions, provided for the payment of such an enormous sum of money that it would have appalled the original projectors of the act of 1837 could they have seen to what their system has led.
Again, at this session, the object of the tariff occupied the attention of Congress. The compromise act, as it was called, of 1833, which was composed of two parts—one to last nine years, for the benefit of manufactures; the other to last for ever, for the benefit of the planting and consuming interest—was passed, as hereinbefore stated, in pursuance of an agreement between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun and their respective friends, at the time the former was urging the necessity for a continuance of high tariff for protection and revenue, and the latter was presenting and justifying before Congress the nullification ordinance adopted by the Legislature of South Carolina. 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 its author (Mr. Clayton, of Delaware) and Mr. Clay to preserve the protective system. It provided for a reduction of a certain per centage each year, on the duties for the ensuing nine years, until the revenue was reduced to 20 per cent. ad valorem on all articles imported into the country. In consequence the revenue was so reduced that in the last year, there was little more than half what the exigencies of the government required, and different modes, by loans and otherwise, were suggested to meet the deficiency. 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 was depending; and the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Millard Fillmore, defended its necessity in an able speech. His bill proposed twenty per cent. 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, in a speech against the new bill, 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 as 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, 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.”
The bill went to the Senate where it found Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun in positions very different from what they occupied when the compromise act was passed—then united, now divided—then concurrent, now antagonistic, and the antagonism general, upon all measures, was to be special upon 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. Mr. Clay said that he “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.”
Mr. Calhoun in reply, referring to his allusion to the success in the late election of the tory party in England, said: “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 supporters of a national bank; and are not you? They are for corn laws—laws oppressive to the masses of the people, and favorable to their own power; and are not you? Witness this bill.*** 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 bill was passed by a large majority, upon the general ground that the government must have revenue.
The chief measure of the session, and the great object of the whig party—the one for which it had labored for ten years—was for the re-charter of a national bank. Without this all other measures would be deemed to be incomplete, and the victorious election itself but little better than a defeat. The President, while a member of the Democratic party, had been opposed to the United States Bank; and to overcome any objections he might have the bill was carefully prepared, and studiously contrived to avoid the President’s objections, and save his consistency—a point upon which he was exceedingly sensitive. The democratic members resisted strenuously, in order to make the measure odious, but successful resistance was impossible. It passed both houses by a close vote; and contrary to all expectation the President disapproved the act, 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 resignation of his cabinet. In his veto message the President fell back upon his early opinions against the constitutionality of a national bank, so often and so publicly expressed.
The veto caused consternation among the whig members; and Mr. Clay openly gave expression to his dissatisfaction, in the debate on the veto message, in terms to assert that President Tyler had violated his faith to the whig party, and had been led off from them by new associations. He said: “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; so 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 anything 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?”
The vote was taken on the bill over again, as required by the constitution, and so far from receiving a two-thirds vote, it received only a bare majority, and was 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. The veto was sustained; and so ended the second attempt to resuscitate the old United States Bank under a new name. This second movement to establish the bank has a secret history. It almost caused the establishment of a new party, with Mr. Tyler as its head; earnest efforts having been made in that behalf by many prominent Whigs and Democrats. The entire cabinet, with the exception of Mr. Webster, resigned within a few days after the second veto. It was a natural thing for them to do, and was not unexpected. Indeed Mr. Webster had resolved to tender his resignation also, but on reconsideration determined to remain and publish his reasons therefor in a letter to the National Intelligencer, in the following words:
“Lest any misapprehension should exist, as to the reasons which led me to differ from the course pursued by my late colleagues, I wish to say that I remain in my place, first, because I have seen no sufficient reasons for the dissolution of the late Cabinet, by the voluntary act of its own members. I am perfectly persuaded of the absolute necessity of an institution, under the authority of Congress, to aid revenue and financial operations, and to give the country the blessings of a good currency and cheap exchanges. Notwithstanding what has passed, I have confidence that the President will co-operate with the legislature in overcoming all difficulties in the attainment of these objects; and it is to the union of the Whig party—by which I mean the whole party, the Whig President, the Whig Congress, and the Whig people—that I look for a realization of our wishes. I can look nowhere else. In the second place if I had seen reasons to resign my office, I should not have done so, without giving the President reasonable notice, and affording him time to select the hands to which he should confide the delicate and important affairs now pending in this department.”
The conduct of the President in the matter of the vetoes of the two bank bills produced revolt against him in the party; and the Whigs of the two Houses of Congress held several formal meetings to consider what they should do in the new condition of affairs. An address to the people of the United States was resolved upon. The rejection of the bank bill gave great vexation to one side, and equal exultation to the other. The subject was not permitted to rest, however; a national bank was the life—the vital principle—of the Whig party, without which it could not live as a party; it was the power which was to give them power and the political and financial control of the Union. A second attempt was made, four days after the veto, to accomplish the end by amendments to a bill relating to the currency, which had been introduced early in the session. Mr. Sargeant of Pennsylvania, moved to strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert his amendments, which were substantially the same as the vetoed bill, except changing the amount of capital and prohibiting discounts on notes other than bills of exchange. The bill was pushed to a vote with astonishing rapidity, and passed by a decided majority. In the Senate the bill went to a select committee which reported it back without alteration, as had been foreseen, the committee consisting entirely of friends of the measure; and there was a majority for it on final passage. 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 it was promulgated in language intended to mean a repudiation of the President, a permanent separation of the Whig party from him, and to wash their hands of all accountability for his acts. An opening paragraph of the address set forth that, for twelve years the Whigs had carried on a contest for the regulation of the currency, the equalization of exchanges, the economical administration of the finances, and the advancement of industry—all to be accomplished by means of a national bank—declaring these objects to be misunderstood by no one and the bank itself held to be secured in the Presidential election, and its establishment the main object of the extra session. The address then proceeds to state how these plans were frustrated:
“It is with profound and poignant regret that we find ourselves called upon to invoke your attention to this point. Upon the great and leading measure touching this question, our anxious endeavors to respond to the earnest prayers of the nation have been frustrated by an act as unlooked for as it is to be lamented. We grieve to say to you that by the exercise of that power in the constitution which has ever been regarded with suspicion, and often with odium, by the people—a power which we had hoped was never to be exhibited on this subject, by a Whig President—we have been defeated in two attempts to create a fiscal agent, which the wants of the country had demonstrated to us, in the most absolute form of proof to be eminently necessary and proper in the present emergency. Twice have we with the utmost diligence and deliberation matured a plan for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of the public moneys through the agency of a corporation adapted to that end, and twice has it been our fate to encounter the opposition of the President, through the application of the veto power.*** We are constrained to say that we find no ground to justify us in the conviction that the veto of the President has been interposed on this question solely upon conscientious and well-considered opinions of constitutional scruple as to his duty in the case presented. On the contrary, too many proofs have been forced upon our observation to leave us free from the apprehension that the President has permitted himself to be beguiled into an opinion that by this exhibition of his prerogative he might be able to divert the policy of his administration into a channel which should lead to new political combinations, and accomplish results which must overthrow the present divisions of party in the country; and finally produce a state of things which those who elected him, at least, have never contemplated.
“In this state of things, the Whigs will naturally look with anxiety to the future, and inquire what are the actual relations between the President and those who brought him into power; and what, in the opinion of their friends in Congress, should be their course hereafter.*** The President by his withdrawal of confidence from his real friends in Congress and from the members of his cabinet; by his bestowal of it upon others notwithstanding their notorious opposition to leading measures of his administrations has voluntarily separated himself from those by whose exertions and suffrage he was elevated to that office through which he has reached his present exalted station.*** The consequence is, that those who brought the President into power can be no longer, in any manner or degree, justly held responsible or blamed for the administration of the executive branch of the government; and the President and his advisers should be exclusively hereafter deemed accountable.*** The conduct of the President has occasioned bitter mortification and deep regret. Shall the party, therefore, yielding to sentiments of despair, abandon its duty, and submit to defeat and disgrace? Far from suffering such dishonorable consequences, the very disappointment which it has unfortunately experienced should serve only to redouble its exertions, and to inspire it with fresh courage to persevere with a spirit unsubdued and a resolution unshaken, until the prosperity of the country is fully re-established, and its liberties firmly secured against all danger from the abuses, encroachments or usurpations of the executive department of the government.”
This was the manifesto, so far as it concerns the repudiation of President Tyler, which Whig members of Congress put forth: it was answered (under the name of an address to his constituents) by Mr. Cushing, in a counter special plea—counter to it on all points—especially on the main question of which party the President was to belong to; the manifesto of the Whigs assigning him to the democracy—the address of Mr. Cushing, claiming him for the Whigs. It was especially severe on Mr. Clay, as setting up a caucus dictatorship to coerce the President; and charged that the address emanated from this caucus, and did not embody or represent the sentiments of all Whig leaders; and referred to Mr. Webster’s letter, and his remaining in the cabinet as proof of this. But it was without avail against the concurrent statements of the retiring senators, and the confirmatory statements of many members of Congress. The Whig party recoiled from the President, and instead of the unity predicted by Mr. Webster, there was diversity and widespread dissension. The Whig party remained with Mr. Clay; Mr. Webster retired, Mr. Cushing was sent on a foreign mission, and the President, seeking to enter the democratic ranks, was refused by them, and left to seek consolation in privacy, for his political errors and omissions.
The extra session, called by President Harrison, held under Mr. Tyler, dominated by Mr. Clay, commenced May 31, and ended Sept. 13, 1841—and was replete with disappointed calculations, and nearly barren of permanent results. The purposes for which it was called into being, failed. The first annual message of President Tyler, at the opening of the regular session in December, 1841, coming in so soon after the termination of the extra session, was brief and meagre of topics, with few points of interest.
In the month of March, 1842, Mr. Henry Clay resigned his place in the Senate, and delivered a valedictory address to that body. He had intended this step upon the close of the previous presidential campaign, but had postponed it to take personal charge of the several measures which would be brought before Congress at the special session—the calling of which he foresaw would be necessary. He resigned not on account of age, or infirmity, or disinclination for public life; but out of disgust—profound and inextinguishable. He had been basely defeated for the Presidential nomination, against the wishes of the Whig party, of which he was the acknowledged head—he had seen his leading measures vetoed by the President whom his party had elected—the downfall of the Bank for which he had so often pledged himself—and the insolent attacks of the petty adherents of the administration in the two Houses: all these causes acting on his proud and lofty spirit, induced this withdrawal from public life for which he was so well fitted.
The address opened with a retrospect of his early entrance into the Senate, and a grand encomium upon its powers and dignity as he had found it, and left it. Memory went back to that early year, 1806, when just past thirty years of age, he entered the United States Senate, and commenced his high career—a wide and luminous horizon before him, and will and talent to fill it. He said: “From the year 1806, the period of my entering upon this noble theatre of my public service, with but short intervals, down to the present time, I have been engaged in the service of my country. Of the nature and value of those services, which I may have rendered during my long career of public life, it does not become me to speak. History, if she deigns to notice me, and posterity—if a recollection of any humble service which I may have rendered, shall be transmitted to posterity—will be the best, truest, and most impartial judges; and to them I defer for a decision upon their value. But, upon one subject, I may be allowed to speak. As to my public acts and public conduct, they are for the judgment of my fellow-citizens; but my private motives of action—that which prompted me to take the part which I may have done, upon great measures during their progress in the national councils, can be known only to the Great Searcher of the human heart and myself; and I trust I shall be pardoned for repeating again a declaration which I made thirty years ago: that whatever error I may have committed—and doubtless I have committed many during my public service—I may appeal to the Divine Searcher of hearts for the truth of the declaration which I now make, with pride and confidence, that I have been actuated by no personal motives—that I have sought no personal aggrandizement—no promotion from the advocacy of those various measures on which I have been called to act—that I have had an eye, a single eye, a heart, a single heart, ever devoted to what appeared to be the best interests of the country.”
Mr. Clay led a great party, and for a long time, whether he dictated to it or not, and kept it well bound together, without the usual means of forming and leading parties. It was surprising that, without power and patronage, he was able so long and so undividedly to keep so great a party together, and lead it so unresistingly. He had great talents, but not equal to some whom he led. He had eloquence—superior in popular effect, but not equal in high oratory to that of some others. But his temperament was fervid, his will was strong, and his courage daring; and these qualities, added to his talents, gave him the lead and supremacy in his party, where he was always dominant. The farewell address made a deep impression upon the Senators present; and after its close, Mr. Preston brought the ceremony to a conclusion, by moving an adjournment, which was agreed to.
Again at this session was the subject of the tariff considered, but this time, as a matter of absolute necessity, to provide a revenue. Never before were the coffers and the credit of the treasury at so low an ebb. A deficit of fourteen millions in the treasury—a total inability to borrow, either at home or abroad, the amount of the loan of twelve millions authorized the year before—the treasury notes below par, and the revenues from imports inadequate and decreasing.
The compromise act of 1833 in reducing the duties gradually through nine years, to a fixed low rate; the act of 1837 in distributing the surplus revenue; and the continual and continued distribution of the land revenue, had brought about this condition of things. The remedy was sought in a bill increasing the tariff, and suspending the land revenue distribution. Two such bills were passed in a single month, and both vetoed by the President. It was now near the end of August. Congress had been in session for an unprecedentedly long time. Adjournment could not be deferred, and could not take place without providing for the Treasury. The compromise act and the land distribution were the stumbling-blocks: it was resolved to sacrifice them together; and a bill was introduced raising the duties above the fixed rate of twenty per cent., and that breach of the mutual assurance in relation to the compromise, immediately in terms of the assurance, suspended the land revenue distribution—to continue it suspended while duties above the compromise limit continued to be levied. And as that has been the case ever since, the distribution of the land revenue has been suspended ever since. The bill was passed, and approved by the President, and Congress thereupon adjourned.