Chapter LXXIV: Book III: Great Speeches on Great Issues (25)

Free trade would almost seem to be an aristocratic disease from which workingmen are exempt, and those that catch it are as proud of it as they would be of the gout—another aristocratic distinction.

It might be more modest for these “nebulous professors” of political economy to agree among themselves how to define and locate the leading idea of their “dismal science” whether in the value in exchange or value in use, in profits of capital or wages, whether in the desire for wealth or aversion to labor, or in the creation, accumulation, distribution and consumption of wealth, and whether rent is the recompense for the work of nature or the consequence of a monopoly of property, before they ask a doubting world to accept the flickering and much disputed theory of free trade as an infallible truth about which they have themselves never ceased to wrangle. The weight of nations against it is as forty to one. It may be safe to say that when sea-serpents, mermaids, and centaurs find a place in natural history, free trade will obtain recognition as a science; but till then it must go uncrowned, wearing no august title, and be content with the thick-and-thin championship of the “Cobden Club.”

THE BRITISH POLICY EVERYWHERE REJECTED.

All of the principal British colonies from the rising to the setting of the sun—India alone possibly excepted—are in open and successful revolt against the application of the free-trade tyranny of their mother country, and European States not only refuse to copy the loudly-heralded example, but they are retreating from it as though it were charged with dynamite. Even the London Times, the great “thunderer” of public opinion in Great Britain, does not refrain from giving a stunning blow to free trade when it indicates that it has proved a blunder, and reminds the world that it predicted it would so prove at the start. The ceremony of free trade, with only one party responding solitary and alone, turns out as dull and disconsolate as that of a wedding without a bride. The honeymoon of buying cheap and selling dear appears indefinitely postponed.

There does not seem to be any party coming to rescue England from her isolated predicament. Bismarck, while aiming to take care of the interests of his own country, as do all ministers, on this question perhaps represents the attitude of the greater part of the far-sighted statesmen of Europe, and he, in one of his recent parliamentary speeches, declared:

Without being a passionate protectionist, I am as a financier, however, a passionate imposer of duties, from the conviction that the taxes, the duties levied at the frontier, are almost exclusively borne by the foreigner, especially for manufactured articles, and that they have always an advantageous, retrospective, protectionist action.

Practically the nations of continental Europe acquiesce in this opinion, and are a unit in their flat refusal of British free trade. They prefer the example of America. Before self-confident men pronounce the whole world of tariff men, at home and abroad, “half-educated or half-witted,” they would do well to see to it that the stupidity is not nearer home, or that they have not themselves cut adrift from the logic of their own brains, only to be wofully imposed upon by free-trade quackery, which treats man as a mere fact, no more important than any other fact, and ranks labor only as a commodity to be bought and sold in the cheapest or dearest markets.

So long as statesmen are expected to study the prosperity and advancement of the people for whose government and guidance they are made responsible, so long free-trade theories must be postponed to that Utopian era when the health, strength and skill, capital and labor of the whole human race shall be reduced or elevated to an entire equality, and when each individual shall dwell in an equal climate, upon an equal soil, freely pasture his herds and flocks where he pleases, and love his neighbor better than himself.

OUR FARMERS.

The test of profitable farming is the state of the account at the end of the year. Under free trade the evidence multiplies that the English farmer comes to the end of the year with no surplus, often in debt, bare and discontented. Their laborers rarely know the luxury of meat, not over sixteen ounces per week,[87] and never expect to own a rood of the soil.

But under the protective policy the American farmer holds and cultivates his own land, has a surplus at the end of the year for permanent investments or improvements, and educates and brings up his sons and daughters with the advantages and comforts of good society. There are more American houses with carpets than in any other country of the world. I believe it will not be disputed that the down-trodden tillers of the soil in Great Britain are not well fed; that they are coarsely underclad, and that for lack of common-school culture they would hardly be regarded as fit associates here for Americans who drive their teams afield, or for the young men who start in life as laborers upon farms. The claim that free trade is the true policy of the American farmer would seem to be, therefore, a very courageous falsehood.

It is an unfortunate tendency of the age that nearly one-half of the population of the globe is concentrated in cities, often badly governed, and sharply exposed to extravagance, pauperism, immorality, and all the crimes and vices which overtake mankind reared in hot-beds. I would neither undervalue the men of brilliant parts, nor blot out the material splendor of cities, but regret to see the rural districts depopulated for their unhealthy aggrandizement. Free trade builds up a few of these custom-house cities, where gain from foreign trade is the chief object sought, where mechanics, greater in numbers than any other class, often hang their heads, though Crœsus rolls in Pactolian wealth, and Shylock wins his pound of flesh; but protection assembles artisans and skilled workmen in tidy villages and towns, details many squadrons of industry to other and distant localities, puts idle and playful waterfalls at work, opens, builds up, and illumines, as with an electric light, the whole interior of the country; and the farmer of Texas or of New England, of Iowa or of Wisconsin, is benefited by such reinforcements of consumers, whether they are by his side or across the river, at Atlanta or South Bend, at Paterson or at Providence. The farmers own and occupy more than nineteen-twentieths of our whole territory, and their interest is in harmony with the even-handed growth and prosperity of the whole country.

There is not a State whose interests would not be jeopardized by free trade, and I should like to dwell upon the salient facts as to Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Alabama, Illinois, and many other States, but I shall only refer to one. The State of Texas, surpassing empires in its vast domains, doubling its population within a decade, and expending over twenty million dollars within a year in the construction of additional railroads, with a promised expenditure within the next fifteen months of over twenty-seven millions more, has sent to market as raw material the past year 12,262,052 pounds of hides, 20,671,639 pounds of wool, and 1,260,247 bales of cotton. Her mineral resources, though known to be immense, are as yet untouched. Her bullocks, in countless herds on their way to market, annually crowd and crop the prairies from Denver to Chicago. But now possessed of a liberal system of railroads, how long will the dashing spirit of the Lone Star State—where precious memories still survive of Austin, of Houston, of Rusk, and of Schleicher—be content to send off unmanufactured her immense bulk of precious raw materials, which should be doubled in value at home, and by the same process largely multiply her population? With half as many in number now as had the original thirteen, and soon to pass our largest States, wanting indefinite quantities of future manufactures at home, Texas should also prepare to supply the opening trade with Mexico, in all of its magnitude and variety, and far more worthy of ambition than in the golden days of Montezuma.

No State can run and maintain railroads unless the way-stations, active and growing settlements and towns, are numerous enough to offer a large, constant, and increasing support. The through business of long lines of railroads is of great importance to the termini, and gives the roads some prestige, but the prosperity and dividends mainly accrue from the local business of thrifty towns on the line of the roads. It is these, especially manufacturing towns, which make freight both ways, to and from, that free trade must ever fail to do, and while through freights, owing to inevitable competition, pay little or no profit, the local freights sustain the roads, and are and must be the basis of their chief future value. Without this efficient local support, cheap and rapid long transportation would be wholly impracticable.

The Southern States, in the production of cotton, have possibly already reached the maximum quantity that can be cultivated with greatest profit, unless the demand of the world expands. A short crop now often brings producers a larger sum than a full crop. The amount of the surplus sent abroad determines the price of the whole crop. Production appears likely soon to outrun the demand. Texas alone has latent power to overstock the world. Is it not time, therefore, to curtail the crop, or to stop any large increase of it, while sure to obtain as much or more for it, and to turn unfruitful capital and labor into other and more profitable channels of industry? The untrodden fields, where capital and labor wait to be organized for the development of Southern manufactures and mining, offer unrivaled temptations to leaders among men in search of legitimate wealth.

The same facts are almost equally applicable to general agriculture, but more particularly to the great grain-growing regions of the West. A great harvest frequently tends to render the labor of the whole year almost profitless, whenever foreign countries are blessed with comparatively an equal abundance. The export of corn last year in October was 8,535,067 bushels, valued at $4,604,840, but the export of only 4,974,661 bushels this year brings $3,605,813. An equal difference appears in the increased value of exports of flour. A much larger share of crops must be consumed nearer home, if any sure and regular market is to be permanently secured. The foreign demand, fitful and uncertain as it is, rarely exceeds one-twentieth of even the present home requirements, and the losses from long transportation, incident to products of great bulk, can never be successfully avoided except by an adequate home demand.

Farmers do not look for a market for grain among farmers, but solely among non-producing consumers, and these it is greatly to their interest to multiply rather than to diminish by forcing them to join in producing or doubling crops for which there may be an insufficient demand. Every ship-load of wheat sent abroad tends to bring down foreign prices; and such far-off markets should be sought only when the surplus at home is excessive or when foreign prices are extraordinarily remunerative.

The wheat regions of the West, superb as they undoubtedly are, it is to be feared, have too little staying character to be prodigally squandered, and their natural fertility noticeably vanishes in the rear unless retained by costly fertilizers almost as rapidly as new fields open in front. Some of the Middle States as well as the New England, though seeking fertilizers far and near, already look to the West for much of their corn and bread; and there is written all over Eastern fields, as Western visitors may read, the old epitaph, “As we are now so you may be.” It will take time for this threatened decadence, but not long in the life of nations. The wheat crop runs away from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, and sinks in other localities as it looms up in Minnesota, Nebraska, and Dakota. Six years of cropping in California, it is said, reduces the yield per acre nearly one-half.

There was in 1880 devoted to wheat culture over thirty-five million acres, or nearly double the acreage of 1875. In twenty-five years a hundred million people will more than overtake any present or prospective surplus, and we may yet need all of our present magnificent wheat fields to give bread to our own people. Certainly we need not be in haste to slaughter and utterly exhaust the native fertility of our fields on the cheap terms now presented.

England, with all her faults, is great, but unfortunately has not room to support her greatness, and must have cheap food and be able to offer better wages or part with great numbers of her people. I most sincerely hope her statesmen—and she is never without those of eminence—will prove equal to their great trust and to any crisis; but we cannot surrender the welfare of our Republic to any foreign empire. Free trade may or may not be England’s necessity. Certainly it is not our necessity; and it has not reached, and never will reach, the altitude of a science. An impost on corn there, it is clear, would now produce an exodus of her laboring population that would soon leave the banner of Victoria waving over a second-rate power.

Among the nations of the world the high position of the United States was never more universally and cordially admitted. Our rights are everywhere promptly conceded, and we ask nothing more. It is an age of industry, and we can only succeed by doing our best. Our citizens under a protective tariff are exceptionally prosperous and happy, and not strangers to noble deeds nor to private virtues. A popular government based on universal suffrage will be best and most certainly perpetuated by the elevation of laboring men through the more liberal rewards of diversified employments, which give scope to all grades of genius and intelligence and tend to secure to posterity the blessings of universal education and the better hope of personal independence.

Speech of Hon. J. D. Cameron, of Penna.

_On the Reduction of Revenue as Affecting the Tariff. Delivered in the
United States Senate January 16, 1882_.

Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania. I move to take up the resolution submitted by me in relation to internal-revenue taxes.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate proceeded to consider the following resolution submitted by Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania, December 6, 1881:

_Resolved_, That in the opinion of the Senate it is expedient to reduce the revenue of the Government by abolishing all existing internal revenue taxes except those imposed upon high wines and distilled spirits.

Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania. Mr. President, the surplus revenue of this Government applicable to the payment of the public debt for the year ending June 30, 1881, was $100,069,404.98.

The inference from these figures must be that if such surplus receipts are applied to the reduction of the debt it will be paid within ten or twelve years. The question then is: Should the people continue to be taxed as heavily as they now are to pay it off within so short a period? Is it wise or prudent?

No one will deny the wisdom of the legislators who inaugurated the system of reducing the debt, or the patriotism of the people who have endured a heavy load of taxation to pay the interest and reduce the principal of such indebtedness. Both have been causes of wonder to the world, and have shown the strength, honesty, and prudence attainable under a republican form of government in matters where it was thought to be weak. It is acknowledged that the course thus pursued by Congress, and supported by the people, has had several good results. The exercise of the power of the Government and the cheerful submission to the enacting nature of the laws by the people has had an undoubted tendency to elevate and strengthen the moral tone of the nation, giving the people more confidence in each other, and compelling the approval of the world. It has reduced the principal sum of our national indebtedness until it is entirely within the ready control of the financial ability of the people either to pay off or to pay the interest thereon. It has established the credit of the country, and brought it up from a position where the 6 per cent. gold bonds of the United States before the war would not command par to a present premium of 17 per cent, on a 4 per cent. bond, and to the ready exchange of called 6 per cent. bonds into new ones bearing 3½ per cent. interest. It has demonstrated the ability of the country not only to carry on a most expensive internal war, but to pay off its cost in a time unknown to any other people; and further, that the ability of the country to furnish men and material of war and to meet increased financial demands is cumulative. The burden carried by this country from 1861 to the present day has been much greater than it would be if laid upon this nation and people from 1881 to 1900.

The burden, therefore, of the present debt would fall but lightly on the country if the payment thereof should be for a time delayed, or the rate at which it has been paid be decreased. It thus becomes a question of prudence with the Government whether they will continue the burden upon the people, or relieve them of part of it.

The burdens of general taxation borne by the people are very onerous. They have not only the General Government to sustain, on which devolves the expenses of legislation, of the Federal judiciary, of the representatives of our country in all the principal governments and cities of the world, of the management of such of our internal affairs and conveniences as belong to Congress, the keeping up of our Army and Navy, the erection of public buildings, the improvement of the rivers and harbors, and many other items that require large annual expenditures. With the increase of population and the filling up of our unoccupied lands almost all these annual outlays and expenses will tend to increase in place of decreasing, and all such expenditures must be in some way met by the people of the country. They have also to sustain their State governments with the expenses and outlays incident to them, their legislatures, judiciaries, penitentiaries, places of reform, hospitals, and all means of aiding the afflicted, to sustain the common schools, to pay the cost of such improvements of rivers, of canals, of railways, or of roads as the States may undertake. They have also the heavy cost to meet of city governments, of county, town and borough governments; they must pay the inferior Legislatures, erect buildings, provide water, police, jails, poor-houses, and build roads and take care of them.

On the liberality of the people the country depends for the building of charitable institutions, universities, colleges, private schools of high grade, and every variety of relief to the poor and the afflicted. In addition to these burdens almost all the States, most of the large cities, and many of the counties and towns in the States still labor under the burdens of indebtedness incurred during the war to sustain the General Government, which indebtedness, incurred on the then value of paper currency, has now to be paid in gold. They have not had the means at command to pay off much of such indebtedness like the General Government, nor to refund it at a lower rate of interest. The superior credit of the General Government has been made partially at the expense of the local governments. I have stated these facts that Senators might keep in mind that the question should not be considered as merely one of our ability to reduce our indebtedness by paying off annually one hundred millions of dollars and by continuing our present laws for raising revenues, as if it were but a small matter for the people to do, but it should be considered in connection with the total burden of taxation imposed by the revenue laws of the General Government, as well as by those of the State and the subordinate governments within their bounds.

There is, therefore, a strong argument to be found in these facts of the other burdens of taxation borne by the people in favor of reducing the amount of revenue applicable to the payment of the public debt when it can be done without injury to the credit of the Government and without risking in the least the ability of the Government either to pay such indebtedness as it matures or to interfere with the ability of the Government to fully provide for the wants of the country as they may be developed. A complete statement of the percentage of taxation borne by each male citizen of the United States over twenty-one years of age in the various ways stated would astound the Senate and the country. There is probably no country in the world where the taxation direct and indirect is so heavy, and only a people situated and circumstanced as the American people are could prosper under such a burden. If no other reason could be advanced in favor of a reduction of the amount of moneys derived from our internal-revenue laws than this one of reducing the burdens of the people, it would be amply sufficient, in my judgment, to warrant the proposed reduction. Yet I will say frankly that I have another object in wishing to have the internal revenue reduced, and I hope before long that every vestige of that system will cease to exist. That object is to prevent any material change being made in the tariff upon imports as it now exists, for upon its existence depends the prosperity, the happiness, the improvement, the education of the laboring people of the country, although I do not object to a careful revision of it by a competent commission.

I want to say a word here about the arrears of pension act. This act never should be repealed, and in my judgment it never will or can be. It has lately been held up to contempt by that class of people who twenty years ago were engaged in exhorting these same pensioners to go to the front, and who now object to rewarding them; but their opinion is not shared by the people at large; in fact, no more essentially just law was ever placed upon the statute book. Its effect is simply and solely to prevent the Government from pleading the statute of limitation against its former defenders. It did not increase the rate of pensions in any way whatever, but merely said that a man entitled to a pension for physical injury received in Government service should not be debarred from receiving it because he was late in making his application. To the payment of these pensions every sentiment of honesty and gratitude should hold us firmly committed.

My friend the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BECK] is very honest, is generally very astute, and has great capacity as a leader. My personal friendship makes me desire his success, and as an individual I want him to be the recipient of all the honors his party can bestow upon him, but I am very sure that he is now opposing a measure that is intended to promote the welfare of and is in accord with the wishes of the people of the country. He is leading his party astray, he is holding it back, he is tying it to the carcass of free trade.

Politically I am glad that he is; on his own account I regret it. He is opposing the principle of protection, and, in my judgment, no man can do that and retain the support of the people. No party can to-day proclaim the doctrine of “a tariff for revenue only” and survive. Opposition to an earnest prosecution of the war for the suppression of the rebellion failed to destroy the Democratic party because of the recruits it received from the South, but opposition to the doctrine of protection to American productions, hostility to the elevation of American labor, no party in this enlightened day can advocate and live. I am astonished that the Democratic party does not learn by experience. The “tariff-for-a-revenue-only” plank in the Cincinnati platform lost it Indiana, lost it New York, and in 1884 it will lose it one-half of the Southern States.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. The morning hour has expired. Is it the pleasure of the Senate that unanimous consent be given to the Senator from Pennsylvania to proceed with his remarks?

Mr. BECK. I move that unanimous consent be granted.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. The Chair hears no objection, and the morning hour will be continued until the Senator from Pennsylvania closes his remarks.

Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania. The great question of protection to American labor will be the question which will obliterate old dissensions and unite the States in one common brotherhood. The Democratic party has made its last great fight. It will struggle hard, and in its death throes will, with the aid of a few unsuccessful and disappointed Republicans, possibly have temporary local successes, but death has marked it for its victim, die it will, and on its tomb will be inscribed, “Died because of opposition to the education, the elevation, the advancement of the people.”

The historic policy of this country has been to raise its revenues mainly from duties on imports and from the sale of the public lands. There are many reasons in favor of this policy. It is more just and equal in its burdens on the States and on the people; it is less inquisitorial, less expensive, less liable to corruption; it is free from many vexed questions which our experience of twenty years in collecting internal revenue has developed. The internal revenue brings the General Government in contact with the people in almost every thing they eat, wear, or use. The collection of revenue by duties on imports is so indirect as to remove much of the harshness felt when the citizen comes in direct contact with the iron grip of the law compelling him to affix a stamp to what he makes or uses. No one will question the fact that the collection of internal duties unfavorably affected the general morals of the nation.

The internal revenue laws were adopted by the Government as a war measure, as an extraordinary and unusual means of raising money for an emergency, and it is proper and in accordance with public opinion that with the end of the emergency such policy should cease. I cannot but think that every Senator will agree with me that the end of the emergency has been reached. The emergency embraced not only the time of the expenditures, but their continuation until the debt incurred during the emergency was so reduced as to be readily managed, if not exclusively by the ordinary revenues of the Government, yet with a greatly reduced system of internal revenues and for a limited time. But in determining wherein such reduction shall be made, two great interests of the country are to be considered:

First, the system of duties on foreign goods, wares, &c.

Second, our national banking system.

It has been proposed to meet this question of reduction by lowering the rates of duty, and thus to continue in this country indefinitely the use of direct and indirect taxation, supposing that such reduction would require the prolonged continuation of internal taxation.

The first effect of this would be to increase the revenues, as lower duties would lead for awhile to increased importations; but ultimately these increased importations would destroy our manufactures and impoverish the people to the point of inability to buy largely abroad, and when that point would be reached, we should have no other source of revenue than internal taxes upon an impoverished people. At first we should have more revenue than we need, but in the end much less.

This statement of the effect of lower duties may at first seem anomalous and questionable, but that such would be the result is proven by the effect on the revenues of the country of the reduction in duties in the tariff of 1846 below that of 1842. This will be evident from the Treasury statistics of the years 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, &c., which will show for the latter years a large increase of revenues. A reduction of duties which would affect the ability of our manufacturers to compete with foreign makers would cause a large importation of goods, with two objects: first, to find a market, the effect of which would be to keep the mills of England and other countries fully employed; and, second, a repetition of the custom of English manufacturers to put goods on our markets at low and losing prices for the purpose of crippling and breaking down our operators. And the increase of out national revenues would continue until our fires were stopped, our mills and mines closed, our laborers starved, and our capital and skill, the work of many years, lost. This time would be marked, by a renewal of our vassalage to England. Then the tables would be turned, our revenues would fall off with our inability to purchase, our taxation would continue and become very onerous, and in place of a strong, reliant, and self-supporting people, exercising a healthful influence over the nations of the world, we would be owned and be the servants of Europe, tilling the ground for the benefit of its people; our laborers would be brought down to a level with the pauper labor of Europe.

Our form of government will not permit the employment of ignorant pauper labor. It is a government of the people, and to have it continue to grow and prosper the people must be paid such wages as will enable them to be educated sufficiently to realize and appreciate the benefits of its free institutions; and knowing these benefits, they will maintain them. If, on the other hand, it is desirable that the revenues from duties should be decreased, and thereby retain both kinds of taxation, the direct and the indirect, the best possible way to do this would be to largely increase the duties on imported goods, which would for a time decrease the imports, thereby decreasing the amount of duties received. This tendency would last until, through this policy, the wealth and purchasing power of the country would so largely increase that the revenues would again increase, both by reason of decreased cost in foreign countries and because of the purchase by us of articles of special beauty, skill, and luxury. It may be said (and however paradoxical it may appear, the assertion is proven by the history of the tariff) that while the immediate tendency with free-trade duties is to increase imports and revenues, the ultimate result of such low duties is to decrease the imports and revenues, due to the decreasing ability of the country to purchase. The immediate tendency of protective tariffs is to decrease imports and revenues, but the final result is to increase the imports and duties, arising from the greater ability of the country to purchase. But my intention is not to discuss at this time the question of a tariff, but to show the effect of a change in the duties on imports upon the revenues of the country.

I clearly recognize that while the public mind is decidedly in favor of encouraging home manufacturers by levying what are called protective duties, yet the people are opposed to placing those duties so high that they become prohibitory and making thereby an exclusive market for our manufacturers at home. It seems very clear to my mind, in view of these statements as to the result of decreasing or increasing the duties on our imports, that no reduction of revenue is practicable by changes in our tariff.

The second great interest of the people, which will very shortly be directly affected by the large and increasing surplus revenues of the country, is the system of national banks, and this through the decrease of the public indebtedness by the application of the annual surplus to its payment. The large annual reduction of the public debt will very shortly begin to affect the confidence of the public in the continuation of the system. It will increase public anxieties and excite their fears as to a substitution of any other system for this that has proven so acceptable and so valuable to the country. If the national banking system is to be worked out of existence, it will inevitably cause serious financial trouble.

Financial difficulties among a people like those of this country, however ill-based or slight, are always attended by disastrous consequences, because in times of prosperity the energies and hopefulness of the people are stretched to the utmost limits, and the shock of financial trouble has the effect of an almost total paralysis on the business of the country. It is certainly the part of statesmanship to avoid such a calamity whenever it is possible.

I unhesitatingly declare and believe that the value of our system of national banks is so great in the benefits the country derives therefrom and the dangers and losses its continuance will avoid that it were better to continue in existence an indebtedness equal to the wants of the banks which the country may from time to time require until some equally conservative plan may be offered that will enable us to dispense with the system.

It is also important in this connection for Senators to bear in mind that the increasing business of the country will annually require increased banking facilities, and consequently increased bonds as the basis on which they can be organized; and it should not be overlooked that a possible determination by Congress to pay off by retiring or by funding the greenbacks will create a great hiatus in the circulating medium of the country, which can only be replaced by additional national-bank notes based upon an equivalent amount of public indebtedness.

In view of the statements I have made, I cannot but conclude that the wisest and most prudent course for Congress is to leave the question of changes in the tariff laws to be adjusted as they may from time to time require, and to make whatever reduction of the income of the Government that may be found desirable by reducing the changes in the internal-revenue laws.

The national revenue laws as they now are may be greatly and profitably changed. They are very burdensome to a heavily-taxed people, and such burdens should be relieved wherever it is possible. This can now be done with safety by providing that so much of the public debt may be paid off from time to time as may not be required to sustain the system of national banks.

I move that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Finance.

The motion was agreed to.

Extracts from Speech of Hon. Thomas H. Benton,

_On Proposed Amendments of the Constitution in relation to the
election of President and Vice-President, Delivered in the U. S.
Senate Chamber, A. D. 1824_.

He said:—The evil of a want of uniformity in the choice of Presidential electors, is not limited to its disfiguring effect upon the face of our government, but goes to endanger the rights of the people, by permitting sudden alterations on the eve of an election, and to annihilate the rights of the small States, by enabling the large ones to combine, and to throw all their votes into the scale of a particular candidate. These obvious evils make it certain that _any uniform rule_ would be preferable to the present state of things. But, in fixing on one, it is the duty of statesmen to select that which is calculated to give to every portion of the Union its due share in the choice of a chief magistrate, and to every individual citizen a fair opportunity of voting according to his will. This would be effected by adopting the _District System_. It would divide every State into districts equal to the whole number of votes to be given, and the people of each district would be governed by its own majority, and not by a majority existing in some remote part of the State. This would be agreeable to the _rights_ of individuals: for in entering into society, and submitting to be bound by the decision of the majority, each individual retained the right of voting for himself wherever it was practicable, and of being governed by a majority of the vicinage, and not by majorities brought from remote sections to overwhelm him with their accumulated numbers. It would be agreeable to the _interests_ of all parts of the States; for each State may have different interests in different parts; one part may be agricultural, another manufacturing, another commercial; and it would be unjust that the strongest should govern, or that two should combine and sacrifice the third. The district system would be agreeable to the _intention_ of our present constitution, which, in giving to each elector a separate vote, instead of giving to each State a consolidated vote, composed of all its electoral suffrages, clearly intended that each mass of persons entitled to one elector, should have the right of giving one vote, according to their own sense of their own interest.

The general ticket system now existing in ten States, was the offspring of policy, and not of any disposition to give fair play to the will of the people. It was adopted by the leading men of those States, to enable them to consolidate the vote of the State. It would be easy to prove this by referring to facts of historical notoriety. It contributes to give power and consequence to the leaders who manage the elections, but it is a departure from the intention of the constitution; violates the rights of the minorities, and is attended with many other evils.

The intention of the constitution is violated because it was the intention of that instrument to give to each mass of persons, entitled to one elector, the power of giving an electoral vote to any candidate they preferred. The rights of minorities are violated, because a majority of _one_ will carry the vote of the whole State. The principle is the same, whether the elector is chosen by general ticket, or by legislative ballot; a majority of _one_, in either case, carries the vote of the whole State. In New York, thirty-six electors are chosen; nineteen is a majority, and the candidate receiving this majority is fairly entitled to receive nineteen votes; but he counts in reality thirty-six: because the minority of seventeen are added to the majority. These seventeen votes belong to seventeen masses of people, of 40,000 souls each, in all 680,000 people, whose votes are seized upon, taken away, and presented to whom the majority pleases. Extend the calculation to the seventeen States now choosing electors by general ticket or legislative ballot, and it will show that three millions of souls, a population equal to that which carried us through the Revolution, may have their votes taken from them in the same way. To _lose_ their votes is the fate of all minorities, and it is theirs only to submit; but this is not a case of votes _lost_, but of votes _taken away_, added to those of the majority, and given to a person to whom the minority was opposed.

He said, this objection (to the direct vote of the people) had a weight in the year 1787, to which it is not entitled in the year 1824. Our government was then young, schools and colleges were scarce, political science was then confined to few, and the means of diffusing intelligence were both inadequate and uncertain. The experiment of a popular government was just beginning; the people had been just released from subjection to an hereditary king, and were not yet practiced in the art of choosing a temporary chief for themselves. But thirty-six years have reversed this picture; thirty-six years, which have produced so many wonderful changes in America, have accomplished the work of many centuries upon the intelligence of its inhabitants. Within that period, schools, colleges, and universities have multiplied to an amazing extent. The means of diffusing intelligence have been wonderfully augmented by the establishment of six hundred newspapers, and upwards of five thousand post-offices. The whole course of an American’s life, civil, social, and religious, has become one continued scene of intellectual and of moral improvement. Once in every week, more than eleven thousand men, eminent for learning and for piety, perform the double duty of amending the hearts, and enlightening the understandings, of more than eleven thousand congregations of people. Under the benign influence of a free government, both our public institutions and private pursuits, our juries, elections, courts of justice, the liberal professions, and the mechanical arts, have each become a school of political science and of mental improvement. The federal legislature, in the annual message of the President, in reports of heads of departments, and committees of Congress, and speeches of members, pours forth a flood of intelligence which carries its waves to the remotest confines of the republic. In the different States, twenty-four State executives and State legislatures, are annually repeating the same process within a more limited sphere. The habit of universal travelling, and the practice of universal interchange of thought, are continually circulating the intelligence of the country, and augmenting its mass. The face of our country itself, its vast extent, its grand and varied features, contribute to expand the human intellect and magnify its power. Less than half a century of the enjoyment of liberty has given practical evidence of the great moral truth, that under a free government, the power of the intellect is the only power which rules the affairs of men; and virtue and intelligence the only durable passports to honor and preferment. The conviction of this great truth has created an universal taste for learning and for reading, and has convinced every parent that the endowments of the mind and the virtues of the heart, are the only imperishable, the only inestimable riches which he can leave to his posterity.

This objection (the danger of tumults and violence at the elections) is taken from the history of the ancient republics; and the tumultuary elections of Rome and Greece. But the justness of the example is denied. There is nothing in the laws of physiology which admits a parallel between the sanguinary Roman, the volatile Greek, and the phlegmatic American. There is nothing in the state of the respective countries, or in the manner of voting, which makes one an example for the other. The Romans voted in a mass, at a single voting place, even when the qualified voters amounted to millions of persons.

They came to the polls armed, and divided into classes, and voted, not by heads, but by centuries.

In the Grecian republics all the voters were brought together in a great city, and decided the contest in one great struggle.

In such assemblages, both the inducement to violence, and the means of committing it, were prepared by the government itself. In the United States all this is different. The voters are assembled in small bodies, at innumerable voting places, distributed over a vast extent of country. They come to the polls without arms, without odious instructions, without any temptation to violence, and with every inducement to harmony.

If heated during the day of election, they cool off upon returning to their homes, and resuming their ordinary occupations.

But let us admit the truth of the objection. Let us admit that the American people would be as tumultuary at this presidential election as were the citizens of the ancient republics at the election of their chief magistrates. What then? Are we thence to infer the inferiority of the officers thus elected, and the consequent degradation of the countries over which they presided? I answer no. So far from it, that I assert the superiority of these officers over all others ever obtained for the same countries, either by hereditary succession, or the most select mode of election. I affirm those periods of history to be the most glorious in arms, the most renowned in arts, the most celebrated in letters, the most useful in practice, and the most happy in the condition of the people, in which the whole body of the citizens voted direct for the chief officer of their country. Take the history of that commonwealth which yet shines as the leading star in the firmament of nations. Of the twenty-five centuries that the Roman state has existed, to what period do we look for the generals and statesmen, the poets and orators, the philosophers and historians, the sculptors, painters and architects, whose immortal works have fixed upon their country the admiring eyes of all succeeding ages? Is it to the reign of the seven first kings?—to the reigns of the emperors, proclaimed by the prætorian bands?—to the reigns of the Sovereign Pontiffs, chosen by a select body of electors in a conclave of most holy cardinals? No.—We look to none of these, but to that short interval of four centuries and a half which lies between the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the re-establishment of monarchy in the person of Octavius Cæsar. It is to this short period, during which the consuls, tribunes, and prætors, were annually elected by a direct vote of the people, to which we look ourselves, and to which we direct the infant minds of our children, for all the works and monuments of Roman greatness; for roads, bridges, and aqueducts, constructed; for victories gained, nations vanquished, commerce extended, treasure imported, libraries founded, learning encouraged, the arts flourishing, the city embellished, and the kings of the earth humbly suing to be admitted into the friendship, and taken under the protection of the Roman people. It was of this magnificent period that Cicero spoke, when he proclaimed the people of Rome to be the masters of kings, and the conquerors and commanders of all the nations of the earth. And, what is wonderful, during this whole period, in a succession of four hundred and fifty annual elections, the people never once prepared a citizen to the consulship who did not carry the prosperity and glory of the Republic to a point beyond that at which he had found it.

It is the same with the Grecian Republics. Thirty centuries have elapsed since they were founded; yet it is to an ephemeral period of one hundred and fifty years only the period of popular elections which intervened between the dispersing of a cloud of petty tyrants, and the coming of a great one in the person of Philip, King of Macedon, that we are to look for that galaxy of names which shed so much lustre upon their country, and in which we are to find the first cause of that intense sympathy which now burns in our bosoms at the name of Greece.

These short and brilliant periods exhibit the great triumph of popular elections; often tumultuary, often stained with blood, but always ending gloriously for the country.

Then the right of suffrage was enjoyed; the sovereignty of the people was no fiction. Then a sublime spectacle was seen, when the Roman citizen advanced to the polls and proclaimed: “_I vote for Cato to be consul_;” the Athenian, “_I vote for Aristides to be Archon_;” the Hebran, “_I vote for Pelopidas to be Bœotrach_;” the Lacedemonian, “_I vote for Leonidas to be first of the Ephori_,” and why not an American citizen the same? Why may he not go up to the poll and proclaim, “_I vote for Thomas Jefferson to be President of the United States_?” Why is he compelled to put his vote in the hands of another, and to incur all the hazards of an irresponsible agency, when he himself could immediately give his own vote for his own chosen candidate, without the slightest assistance from agents or managers?

But I have other objections to these intermediate electors. They are the peculiar and favorite institution of aristocratic republics, and elective monarchies. I refer the Senate to the late republics of Venice and Genoa; of France, and her litter; to the Kingdom of Poland; the empire of Germany, and the Pontificate of Rome. On the contrary, a direct vote by the people is the peculiar and favorite institution of democratic republics; as we have just seen in the governments of Rome, Athens, Thebes, and Sparta; to which may be added the principal cities of the Amphyctionic and Achaian leagues, and the renowned republic of Carthage when the rival of Rome.

I have now answered the objections which were brought forward in the year ’78. I ask for no judgment upon their validity of that day, but I affirm them to be without force or reason in the year 1824.

TIME and EXPERIENCE have so decided. Yes, _time_ and _experience_, the only infallible tests of good or bad institutions, have now shown that the continuance of the electoral system will be both useless and dangerous to the liberties of the people, and that the only effectual mode of preserving our government from the corruptions which have undermined the liberties of so many nations, is, to confide the election of our chief magistrates to those who are farthest removed from the influence of his patronage; that is to say, to the whole body of American citizens.

The electors are not independent; they have no superior intelligence; they are not left to their own judgment in the choice of a President; they are not above the control of the people; on the contrary, every elector is pledged, before he is chosen, to give his vote according to the will of those who choose him.

He is nothing but an agent, tied down to the execution of a precise trust. Every reason which induced the convention to institute electors has failed. They are no longer of any use, and may be dangerous to the liberties of the people. They are not useful, because they have no power over their own vote, and because the people can vote for a President as easily as they can vote for an elector. They are dangerous to the liberties of the people, because, in the _first_ place, they introduce extraneous considerations into the election of President; and in the _second_ place, they may sell the vote which is intrusted to their keeping. They introduce extraneous considerations, by bringing their own character and their own exertions into the presidential canvass. Every one sees this. Candidates for electors are now selected, not for the reasons mentioned in the Federalist, but for their devotion to a particular party, for their manners, and their talent at electioneering. The elector may betray the liberties of the people, by selling his vote. The operation is easy, because he votes by ballot; detection is impossible, because he does not sign his vote; the restraint is nothing but his own conscience, for there is no legal punishment for this breach of trust. If a swindler defrauds you out of a few dollars of property or money, he is whipped and pilloried, and rendered infamous in the eye of the law; but, if an elector should defraud 40,000 people of their vote, there is no remedy but to abuse him in newspapers, where the best men in the country may be abused, as Benedict Arnold or Judas Iscariot.

Every reason for instituting electors has failed, and every consideration of prudence requires them to be discontinued. They are nothing but agents, in a case which requires no agent; and no prudent man would, or ought, to employ an agent to take care of his money, his property, or his liberty, when he is equally capable to take care of them himself.

But, if the plan of the constitution had not failed—if we were now deriving from electors all the advantages expected from their institution—I, for one, would still be in favor of getting rid of them.

I should esteem the incorruptibility of the people, their disinterested desire to get the best man for President, to be more than a counterpoise to all the advantages which might be derived from the superior intelligence of a more enlightened, but smaller, and therefore, more corruptible body. I should be opposed to the intervention of electors, because the double process of electing a man to elect a man, would paralyze the spirit of the people, and destroy the life of the election itself. Doubtless this machinery was introduced into our constitution for the purpose of softening the action of the democratic element; but it also softens the interest of the people in the result of the election itself. It places them at too great a distance from their first servant. It interposes a body of men between the people and the object of their choice, and gives a false direction to the gratitude of the President elected. He feels himself indebted to the electors who collected the votes of the people, and not to the people, who gave their votes to the electors.