Chapter VI: Book I (3)

“It was stated, at the commencement of the last session, that a great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked that the result has been, so far, very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the globe, with which we have so much intercourse, and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when rights are invaded or seriously menaced, that we resent injuries, or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments. And to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare, that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new governments and Spain, we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the competent authorities of this government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security.

“The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced, than that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on a principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on the same principle, is a question to which all independent powers, whose governments differ from theirs, are interested; even those most remote, and surely none more so than the United States. Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government, _de facto_, as the legitimate government for us: to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy; meeting, in all instances, the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none. But in regard to these continents, circumstances are eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can any one believe, that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition, in any form, with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in the hope that other powers will pursue the same course.”

The second election of Monroe, in 1820, was accomplished without a contest. Out of 231 electoral votes, but one was cast against him, and that for John Quincy Adams. Mr. Tompkins, the candidate for Vice-President, was only a little less fortunate, there being 14 scattering votes against him. Neither party, if indeed there was a Federalist party left made any nominations.

The Missouri Compromise.

The second session of the 17th Congress opened on the 4th day of March, 1820, with James Monroe at the head of the Executive Department of the Government, and the Democratic party in the majority in both branches of the Federal Legislature. The Cabinet at that time was composed of the most brilliant minds of the country, indeed as most justly remarked by Senator Thomas H. Benton in his published review of the events of that period, it would be difficult to find in any government, in any country, at any time, more talent and experience, more dignity and decorum, more purity of private life, a larger mass of information, and more addiction to business, than was comprised in the list of celebrated names then constituting the executive department of the government. The legislative department was equally impressive. The exciting and agitating question then pending before Congress was on the admission of the State of Missouri into the Federal Union, the subject of the issue being the attempted tacking on of conditions restricting slavery within her limits. She was admitted without conditions under the so-called compromise, which abolished it in certain portions of the then province of Louisiana. In this controversy, the compromise was sustained and carried entirely by the Democratic Senators and members from the Southern and slaveholding States aided and sanctioned by the Executive, and it was opposed by fifteen Senators from non-slaveholding States, who represented the opposite side on the political questions of the day. It passed the House by a close vote of 86 to 82. It has been seriously questioned since whether this act was constitutional. The real struggle was political, and for the balance of power. For a while it threatened the total overthrow of all political parties upon principle, and the substitution of geographical parties discriminated by the slave line, and thus destroying the proper action of the Federal government, and leading to a separation of the States. It was a federal movement, accruing to the benefit of that party, and at first carried all the Northern democracy in its current, giving the supremacy to their adversaries. When this effect was perceived, democrats from the northern non-slaveholding States took early opportunity to prevent their own overthrow, by voting for the admission of the States on any terms, and thus prevent the eventual separation of the States in the establishment of geographical parties divided by a slavery and anti-slavery line.

The year 1820 marked a period of financial distress in the country, which soon became that of the government. The army was reduced, and the general expenses of the departments cut down, despite which measures of economy the Congress deemed it necessary to authorize the President to contract for a loan of five million dollars. Distress was the cry of the day; relief the general demand, the chief demand coming from debtors to the Government for public lands purchased under the then credit system, this debt at that time aggregating twenty-three millions of dollars. The banks failed, money vanished, instalments were coming due which could not be met; and the opening of Congress in November, 1820, was saluted by the arrival of memorials from all the new States praying for the relief to the purchaser of the public lands. The President referred to it in his annual message of that year, and Congress passed a measure of relief by changing the system to cash sales instead of credit, reducing the price of the lands, and allowing present debtors to apply payments already made to portions of the land purchased, relinquishing the remainder. Applications were made at that time for the establishment of the preemptive system, but without effect; the new States continued to press the question and finally prevailed, so that now the preemptive principle has become a fixed part of our land system, permanently incorporated with it, and to the equal advantage of the settler and the government.

The session of 1820–21, is remarkable as being the first at which any proposition was made in Congress for the occupation and settlement of our territory on the Columbia river—the only part then owned by the United States on the Pacific coast. It was made by Dr. Floyd, a representative from Virginia, who argued that the establishment of a civilized power on the American coast of the Pacific could not fail to produce great and wonderful benefits not only to our own country, but to the people of Eastern Asia, China and Japan on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean, and that the valley of the Columbia might become the granary of China and Japan. This movement suggested to Senator Benton, to move, for the first time publicly in the United States, a resolution to send ministers to the Oriental States.

At this time treaties with Mexico and Spain were ratified, by which the United States acquired Florida and ceded Texas; these treaties, together with the Missouri compromise—a measure contemporaneous with them—extinguished slave soil in all the United States territory west of the Mississippi, except in that portion which was to constitute the State of Arkansas; and, including the extinction in Texas consequent upon its cession to a non-slaveholding power, constituted the largest territorial abolition of slavery that was ever up to that period effected by any political power of any nation.

The outside view of the slave question in the United States, at this time, is that the extension of slavery was then arrested, circumscribed, and confined within narrow territorial limits, while free States were permitted an almost unlimited expansion.

In 1822 a law passed Congress abolishing the Indian factory system, which had been established during Washington’s administration, in 1796, under which the Government acted as a factor or agent for the sale of supplies to the Indians and the purchase of furs from them; this branch of the service then belonged to the department of the Secretary of War. The abuses discovered in it led to the discontinuance of that system.

The Presidential election of 1824 was approaching, the candidates were in the field, their respective friends active and busy, and popular topics for the canvass in earnest requisition. Congress was full of projects for different objects of internal improvement, mainly in roads and canals, and the friends of each candidate exerted themselves in rivalry of each other, under the supposition that their opinions would stand for those of their principals. An act for the preservation of the Cumberland Road, which passed both houses of Congress, met with a veto from President Monroe, accompanied by a state paper in exposition of his opinions upon the whole subject of Federal interference in matters of inter state commerce and roads and canals. He discussed the measure in all its bearings, and plainly showed it to be unconstitutional. After stating the question, he examined it under every head of constitutional derivation under which its advocates claimed the power, and found it to be granted by no one of them and virtually prohibited by some of them. This was then and has since been considered to be the most elaborate and thoroughly considered opinion upon the general question which has ever been delivered by any American statesman. This great state paper, delivered at a time when internal improvement by the federal government had become an issue in the canvass for the Presidency and was ardently advocated by three of the candidates and qualified by two others, had an immense current in its power, carrying with it many of the old strict constructionists.

The revision of the tariff, with a view to the protection of home industry, and to the establishment of what was then called “The American System,” was one of the large subjects before Congress at the session of 1823–24, and was the regular commencement of the heated debates on that question which afterwards ripened into a serious difficulty between the federal government and some of the Southern States. The presidential election being then depending, the subject became tinctured with party politics, in which so far as that ingredient was concerned, and was not controlled by other considerations, members divided pretty much on the line which always divided them on a question of constructive powers. The protection of domestic industry not being among the powers granted, was looked for in the incidental; and denied by the strict constructionists to be a substantive term, to be exercised for the direct purpose of protection; but admitted by all at that time and ever since the first tariff act of 1789, to be an incident to the revenue raising power, and an incident to be regarded in the exercise of that power. Revenue the object, protection the incident, had been the rule in the earlier tariffs; now that rule was sought to be reversed, and to make protection the object of the law, and revenue the incident. Mr. Henry Clay was the leader in the proposed revision and the champion of the American system; he was ably supported in the House by many able and effective speakers; who based their argument on the general distress then alleged to be prevalent in the country. Mr. Daniel Webster was the leading speaker on the other side, and disputed the universality of the distress which had been described; and contested the propriety of high or prohibitory duties, in the present active and intelligent state of the world, to stimulate industry and manufacturing enterprise.

The bill was carried by a close vote in both Houses. Though brought forward avowedly for the protection of domestic manufactures, it was not entirely supported on that ground; an increase of revenue being the motive with some, the public debt then being nearly ninety millions. An increased protection to the products of several States, as lead in Missouri and Illinois, hemp in Kentucky, iron in Pennsylvania, wool in Ohio and New York, commanded many votes for the bill; and the impending presidential election had its influence in its favor.

Two of the candidates, Messrs. Adams and Clay, voted for and avowedly supported General Jackson, who voted for the bill, was for it, as tending to give a home supply of the articles necessary in time of war, and as raising revenue to pay the public debt; Mr. Crawford was opposed to it, and Mr. Calhoun had withdrawn as a Presidential candidate. The Southern planting States were dissatisfied, believing that the new burdens upon imports which it imposed, fell upon the producers of the exports, and tended to enrich one section of the Union at the expense of another. The attack and support of the bill took much of a sectional aspect; Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, and some others, being unanimous against it. Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky being unanimous for it. Massachusetts, which up to this time had no small influence in commerce, voted, with all, except one member, against it. With this sectional aspect, a tariff for protection, also began to assume a political aspect, being taken under the care of the party, afterwards denominated as Whig. The bill was approved by President Monroe; a proof that that careful and strict constructionist of the constitution did not consider it as deprived of its revenue character by the degree of protection which it extended.

A subject which at the present time is exciting much criticism, viz: proposed amendments to the constitution relative to the election of President and Vice-President, had its origin in movements in that direction taken by leading Democrats during the campaign of 1824. The electoral college has never been since the early elections, an independent body free to select a President and Vice-President; though in theory they have been vested with such powers, in practice they have no such practical power over the elections, and have had none since their institution. In every case the elector has been an instrument, bound to obey a particular impulsion, and disobedience to which would be attended with infamy, and with every penalty which public indignation could inflict. From the beginning they have stood pledged to vote for the candidate indicated by the public will; and have proved not only to be useless, but an inconvenient intervention between the people and the object of their choice. Mr. McDuffie in the House of Representatives and Mr. Benton in the Senate, proposed amendments; the mode of taking the direct vote to be in districts, and the persons receiving the greatest number of votes for President or Vice-President in any district, to count one vote for such office respectively which is nothing but substituting the candidates themselves for their electoral representatives.

In the election of 1824 four candidates were before the people for the office of President, General Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. None of them received a majority of the 261 electoral votes, and the election devolved upon the House of Representatives. John C. Calhoun had a majority of the electoral votes for the office of Vice-President, and was elected. Mr. Adams was elected President by the House of Representatives, although General Jackson was the choice of the people, having received the greatest number of votes at the general election. The election of Mr. Adams was perfectly constitutional, and as such fully submitted to by the people; but it was a violation of the _demos krateo_ principle; and that violation was equally rebuked. All the representatives who voted against the will of their constituents, lost their favor, and disappeared from public life. The representation in the House of Representatives was largely changed at the first general election, and presented a full opposition to the new President. Mr. Adams himself was injured by it, and at the ensuing presidential election was beaten by General Jackson more than two to one.

Mr. Clay, who took the lead in the House for Mr. Adams, and afterwards took upon himself the mission of reconciling the people to his election in a series of public speeches, was himself crippled in the effort, lost his place in the democratic party, and joined the Whigs (then called the national republicans). The democratic principle was victor over the theory of the Constitution, and beneficial results ensued. It vindicated the people in their right and their power. It re-established parties upon the basis of principle, and drew anew party lines, then almost obliterated under the fusion of parties during the “era of good feeling,” and the efforts of leading men to make personal parties for themselves. It showed the conservative power of our government to lie in the people, more than in its constituted authorities. It showed that they were capable of exercising the function of self-government, and lastly, it assumed the supremacy of the democracy for a long time, and until lost by causes to be referred to hereafter. The Presidential election of 1824 is remarkable under another aspect—its results cautioned all public men against future attempts to govern presidential elections in the House of Representatives; and it put an end to the practice of caucus nominations for the Presidency by members of Congress. This mode of concentrating public opinion began to be practiced as the eminent men of the Revolution, to whom public opinion awarded a preference, were passing away, and when new men, of more equal pretensions, were coming upon the stage. It was tried several times with success and general approbation, because public sentiment was followed—not led—by the caucus. It was attempted in 1824 and failed; all the opponents of Mr. Crawford, by their joint efforts, succeeded, and justly in the fact though not in the motive, in rendering these Congress caucus nominations odious to the people, and broke them down. They were dropped, and a different mode adopted—that of party nominations by conventions of delegates from the States.

The administration of Mr. Adams commenced with his inaugural address, in which the chief topic was that of internal national improvement by the federal government. This declared policy of the administration furnished a ground of opposition against Mr. Adams, and went to the reconstruction of parties on the old line of strict, or latitudinous, construction of the Constitution. It was clear from the beginning that the new administration was to have a settled and strong opposition, and that founded in principles of government—the same principles, under different forms, which had discriminated parties at the commencement of the federal government. Men of the old school—survivors of the contest of the Adams and Jefferson times, with some exceptions, divided accordingly—the federalists going for Mr. Adams, the republicans against him, with the mass of the younger generation. The Senate by a decided majority, and the House by a strong minority, were opposed to the policy of the new President.

In 1826 occurred the famous debates in the Senate and the House, on the proposed Congress of American States, to contract alliances to guard against and prevent the establishment of any future European colony within its borders. The mission though sanctioned was never acted upon or carried out. It was authorized by very nearly a party vote, the democracy as a party being against it. The President, Mr. Adams, stated the objects of the Congress to be as follows: “An agreement between all the parties represented at the meeting, that each will guard, by its own means, against the establishment of any future European colony within its own borders, may be advisable. This was, more than two years since, announced by my predecessor to the world, as a principle resulting from the emancipation of both the American continents. It may be so developed to the new southern nations, that they may feel it as an essential appendage to their independence.”

Mr. Adams had been a member of Mr. Monroe’s cabinet, filling the department from which the doctrine would emanate. The enunciation by him as above of this “Monroe Doctrine,” as it is called, is very different from what it has of late been supposed to be, as binding the United States to guard all the territory of the New World from European colonization. The message above quoted was written at a time when the doctrine as enunciated by the former President through the then Secretary was fresh in the mind of the latter, and when he himself in a communication to the American Senate was laying it down for the adoption of all the American nations in a general congress of their deputies. According to President Adams, this “Monroe Doctrine” (according to which it has been of late believed that the United States were to stand guard over the two Americas, and repulse all intrusive colonists from their shores), was entirely confined to our own borders; that it was only proposed to get the other States of the New World to agree that, each for itself, and by its own means, should guard its own territories; and, consequently, that the United States, so far from extending gratuitous protection to the territories of other States, would neither give, nor receive, aid in any such enterprise, but that each should use its own means, within its own borders, for its own exemption from European colonial intrusion.

No question in its day excited more intemperate discussion, excitement, and feeling between the Executive and the Senate, and none died out so quickly, than this, relative to the proposed congress of American nations. The chief advantage to be derived from its retrospect—and it is a real one—is a view of the firmness with which the minority maintained the old policy of the United States, to avoid entangling alliances and interference with the affairs of other nations; and the exposition, by one so competent as Mr. Adams, of the true scope and meaning of the Monroe doctrine.

At the session of 1825–26 attempt was again made to procure an amendment to the Constitution, in relation to the mode of election of President and Vice-President, so as to do away with all intermediate agencies, and give the election to the direct vote of the people. In the Senate the matter was referred to a committee who reported amendments dispensing with electors, providing for districts equal in number to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State was entitled in Congress, and obviating all excuses for caucuses and conventions to concentrate public opinion by providing that in the event of no one receiving a majority of the whole number of district votes cast, that a second election should be held limited to the two persons receiving the highest number of votes; and in case of an equal division of votes on the second election then the House of Representatives shall choose one of them for President, as is prescribed by the Constitution. The idea being that the first election, if not resulting in any candidate receiving a majority, should stand for a popular nomination—a nomination by the people themselves, out of which the election is almost sure to be made on the second trial. The same plan was suggested for choosing a Vice-President, except that the Senate was to finally elect, in case of failure to choose at first and second elections. The amendments did not receive the requisite support of two-thirds of either the Senate or the House. This movement was not of a partisan character; it was equally supported and opposed respectively by Senators and Representatives of both parties. Substantially the same plan was recommended by President Jackson in his first annual message to Congress, December 8, 1829.

It is interesting to note that at this Session of 1825 and ’26, attempt was made by the Democrats to pass a tenure of office bill, as applicable to government employees and office-holders; it provided “that in all nominations made by the President to the Senate, to fill vacancies occasioned by an exercise of the President’s power to remove from office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to the Senate at the same time that the nomination is made, with a statement of the reasons for which such officer may have been removed.” It was also sought at the same time to amend the Constitution to prohibit the appointment of any member of Congress to any federal office of trust or profit, during the period for which he was elected; the design being to make the members wholly independent of the Executive, and not subservient to the latter, and incapable of receiving favors in the form of bestowals of official patronage.

The tariff of 1828 is an era in our political legislation; from it the doctrine of “nullification” originated, and from that date began a serious division between the North and the South. This tariff law was projected in the interest of the woolen manufacturers, but ended by including all manufacturing interests. The passage of this measure was brought about not because it was favored by a majority, but because of political exigencies. In the then approaching presidential election, Mr. Adams, who was in favor of the “American System,” supported by Mr. Clay (his Secretary of State) was opposed by General Jackson. This tariff was made an administration measure, and became an issue in the canvass. The New England States, which had formerly favored free trade, on account of their commercial interests, changed their policy, and, led by Mr. Webster, became advocates of the protective system. The question of protective tariff had now not only become political, but sectional. The Southern States as a section, were arrayed against the system, though prior to 1816 had favored it, not merely as an incident to revenue, but as a substantive object. In fact these tariff bills, each exceeding the other in its degree of protection, had become a regular appendage of our presidential elections—carrying round in every cycle of four years, with that returning event; starting in 1816 and followed up in 1820–24, and now in 1828; with successive augmentations of duties; the last being often pushed as a party measure, and with the visible purpose of influencing the presidential election. General Jackson was elected, having received 178 electoral votes to 83 received by John Quincy Adams. Mr. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, who was on the ticket with Mr. Adams, was defeated for the office of Vice-President, and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was elected to that office.

The election of General Jackson was a triumph of democratic principle, and an assertion of the people’s right to govern themselves. That principle had been violated in the presidential election in the House of Representatives in the session of 1824–25; and the sanction, or rebuke, of that violation was a leading question in the whole canvass. It was also a triumph over the high protective policy, and the federal internal improvement policy, and the latitudinous construction of the Constitution; and of the democracy over the federalists, then called national republicans; and was the re-establishment of parties on principle, according to the landmarks of the early years of the government. For although Mr. Adams had received confidence and office from Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, and had classed with the democratic party during the “era of good feeling,” yet he had previously been federal; and on the re-establishment of old party lines which began to take place after the election of Mr. Adams in the House of Representatives, his affinities and policy became those of his former party; and as a party, with many individual exceptions, they became his supporters and his strength. General Jackson, on the contrary, had always been democratic, so classing when he was a Senator in Congress under the administration of the first Mr. Adams; and when party lines were most straightly drawn, and upon principle, and as such now receiving the support of men and States which took this political position at that time, and maintained it for years afterwards; among the latter, notably the States of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The short session of 1829–30 was rendered famous by the long and earnest debates in the Senate on the doctrine of nullification, as it was then called. It started by a resolution of inquiry introduced by Mr. Foot of Connecticut; it was united with a proposition to limit the sales of the public lands to those then in the market—to suspend the surveys of the public lands—and to abolish the office of Surveyor-General. The effect of such a resolution, if sanctioned upon inquiry and carried into legislative effect, would have been to check emigration to the new States in the West, and to check the growth and settlement of these States and Territories. It was warmly opposed by Western members. The debate spread and took an acrimonious turn, and sectional, imputing to the quarter of the Union from which it came an old and early policy to check the growth of the West at the outset by proposing to limit the sale of the Western lands, by selling no tract in advance until all in the rear was sold out; and during the debate Mr. Webster referred to the famous ordinance of 1787 for the government of the northwestern territory, and especially the anti-slavery clause which it contained.

Closely connected with this subject to which Mr. Webster’s remarks, during the debate, related, was another which excited some warm discussion—the topic of slavery—and the effect of its existence or non-existence in different States. Kentucky and Ohio were taken for examples, and the superior improvement and population of Ohio were attributed to its exemption from the evils of slavery. This was an excitable subject, and the more so because the wounds of the Missouri controversy in which the North was the undisputed aggressor, were still tender. Mr. Hayne from South Carolina answered with warmth and resented as a reflection upon the Slave States this disadvantageous comparison. Mr. Benton of Missouri followed on the same side, and in the course of his remarks said, “I regard with admiration, that is to say, with wonder, the sublime morality of those who cannot bear the abstract contemplation of slavery, at the distance of five hundred or a thousand miles off.” This allusion to the Missouri controversy, and invective against the free States for their part in it, by Messrs. Hayne and Benton, brought a reply from Mr. Webster, showing what their conduct had been at the first introduction of the slavery topic in the Congress of the United States, and that they totally refused to interfere between master and slave in any way whatever. But the topic which became the leading feature of the whole debate, and gave it an interest which cannot die, was that of nullification—the assumed right of a State to annul an act of Congress—then first broached in the Senate—and in the discussion of which Mr. Webster and Mr. Hayne were the champion speakers on opposite sides—the latter voicing the sentiments of the Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun. This turn in the debate was brought about, by Mr. Hayne having made allusion to the course of New England during the war of 1812, and especially to the assemblage known as the Hartford Convention, and to which designs unfriendly to the Union had been attributed. This gave Mr. Webster an opportunity to retaliate, and he referred to the public meetings which had just then taken place in South Carolina on the subject of the tariff, and at which resolves were passed, and propositions adopted significant of resistance to the act; and consequently of disloyalty to the Union. He drew Mr. Hayne into their defence and into an avowal of what has since obtained the current name of “_Nullification_.” He said, “I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to maintain, that it is a right of the State Legislature to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws,*** that the States may lawfully decide for themselves, and each State for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the general government transcends its powers,*** that if the exigency of the case, in the opinion of any State government require it, such State government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government, which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional.” Mr. Hayne was evidently unprepared to admit, or fully deny, the propositions as so laid down, but contented himself with stating the words of the Virginia Resolution of 1798, as follows: “That this assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.”

This resolution came to be understood by Mr. Hayne and others on that side of the debate, in the same sense that Mr. Webster stated, as above, he understood the gentleman from the South to interpret it. On the other side of the question, he argued that the doctrine had no foundation either in the Constitution, or on the Virginia resolutions—that the Constitution makes the federal government act upon citizens within the States, and not upon the States themselves, as in the old confederation: that within their Constitutional limits the laws of Congress were supreme—and that it was treasonable to resist them with force: and that the question of their constitutionality was to be decided by the Supreme Court: with respect to the Virginia resolutions, on which Mr. Hayne relied, Mr. Webster disputed the interpretation put upon them—claimed for them an innocent and justifiable meaning—and exempted Mr. Madison from the suspicion of having framed a resolution asserting the right of a State legislature to annul an Act of Congress, and thereby putting it in the power of one State to destroy a form of government which he had just labored so hard to establish.

Mr. Hayne on his part gave (as the practical part of his doctrine) the pledge of forcible resistance to any attempt to enforce unconstitutional laws. He said, “The gentleman has called upon us to carry out our scheme practically. Now, sir, if I am correct in my view of this matter, then it follows, of course, that the right of a State being established, the federal government is bound to acquiesce in a solemn decision of a State, acting in its sovereign capacity, at least so far as to make an appeal to the people for an amendment to the Constitution. This solemn decision of a State binds the federal government, under the highest constitutional obligation, not to resort to any means of coercion against the citizens of the dissenting State.*** Suppose Congress should pass an agrarian law, or a law emancipating our slaves, or should commit any other gross violation of our constitutional rights, will any gentlemen contend that the decision of every branch of the federal government, in favor of such laws, could prevent the States from declaring them null and void, and protecting their citizens from their operation?*** Let me assure the gentlemen that, whenever any attempt shall be made from any quarter, to enforce unconstitutional laws, clearly violating our essential rights, our leaders (whoever they may be) will not be found reading black letter from the musty pages of old law books. They will look to the Constitution, and when called upon by the sovereign authority of the State, to preserve and protect the rights secured to them by the charter of their liberties, they will succeed in defending them, or ‘perish in the last ditch.’”

These words of Mr. Hayne seem almost prophetic in view of the events of thirty years later. No one then believed in anything serious in the new interpretation given to the Virginia resolutions—nor in anything practical from nullification—nor in forcible resistance to the tariff laws from South Carolina—nor in any scheme of disunion.

Mr. Webster’s closing reply was a fine piece of rhetoric, delivered in an elaborate and artistic style, and in an apparent spirit of deep seriousness. He concluded thus—“When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and disfigured fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing in all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—Liberty _and_ Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”

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.