Chapter IX (11)

His own singleness of purpose, his disinterested patriotism, were evinced by the selection of his first cabinet, and by the manner in which he filled the seats of justice, and other places of high trust. He sought for men fit for offices; not for offices which might suit men. Above personal considerations, above local considerations, above party considerations, he felt that he could only discharge the sacred trust which the country had placed in his hands, by a diligent inquiry after real merit, and a conscientious preference of virtue and talent. The whole country was the field of his selection. He explored that whole field, looking only for whatever it contained most worthy and distinguished. He was, indeed, most successful, and he deserved success for the purity of his motives, the liberality of his sentiments, and his enlarged and manly policy.

Washington's administration established the national credit, made provision for the public debt, and for that patriotic army whose interests and welfare were always so dear to him; and, by laws wisely framed, and of admirable effect, raised the commerce and navigation of the country, almost at once, from depression and ruin to a state of prosperity. Nor were his eyes open to these interests alone. He viewed with equal concern its agriculture and manufactures, and, so far as they came within the regular exercise of the powers of this government, they experienced regard and favor.

It should not be omitted, even in this slight reference to the general measures and general principles of the first President, that he saw and felt the full value and importance of the judicial department of the government. An upright and able administration of the laws he held to be alike indispensable to private happiness and public liberty. The temple of justice, in his opinion, was a sacred place, and he would profane and pollute it who should call any to minister in it, not spotless in character, not incorruptible in integrity, not competent by talent and learning, not a fit object of unhesitating trust.

Among other admonitions, Washington has left us, in his last communication to his country, an exhortation against the excesses of party spirit. A fire not to be quenched, he yet conjures us not to fan and feed the flame. Undoubtedly, Gentlemen, it is the greatest danger of our system and of our time. Undoubtedly, if that system should be overthrown, it will be the work of excessive party spirit, acting on the government, which is dangerous enough, or acting _in_ the government, which is a thousand times more dangerous; for government then becomes nothing but organized party, and, in the strange vicissitudes of human affairs, it may come at last, perhaps, to exhibit the singular paradox of government itself being in opposition to its own powers, at war with the very elements of its own existence. Such cases are hopeless. As men may be protected against murder, but cannot be guarded against suicide, so government may be shielded from the assaults of external foes, but nothing can save it when it chooses to lay violent hands on itself.

Finally, Gentlemen, there was in the breast of Washington one sentiment so deeply felt, so constantly uppermost, that no proper occasion escaped without its utterance. From the letter which he signed in behalf of the Convention when the Constitution was sent out to the people, to the moment when he put his hand to that last paper in which he addressed his countrymen, the Union,--the Union was the great object of his thoughts. In that first letter he tells them that, to him and his brethren of the Convention, union appears to be the greatest interest of every true American; and in that last paper he conjures them to regard that unity of government which constitutes them one people as the very palladium of their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He regarded the union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as the great treasure-house which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity; here, as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness. He has taught us to maintain this union, not by seeking to enlarge the powers of the government, on the one hand, nor by surrendering them, on the other; but by an administration of them at once firm and moderate, pursuing objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit of justice and equity.

The extreme solicitude for the preservation of the Union, at all times manifested by him, shows not only the opinion he entertained of its importance, but his clear perception of those causes which were likely to spring up to endanger it, and which, if once they should overthrow the present system, would leave little hope of any future beneficial reunion. Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous man, that is one of the rashest which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities for the deliberate establishment of a united government over distinct and widely extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human affairs, and but once; the event stands out as a prominent exception to all ordinary history; and unless we suppose ourselves running into an age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition.

Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard, nothing as of paramount political interest, but the integrity of the Union itself. With a united government, well administered, he saw that we had nothing to fear; and without it, nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country. If we might regard our country as personated in the spirit of Washington, if we might consider him as representing her, in her past renown, her present prosperity, and her future career, and as in that character demanding of us all to account for our conduct, as political men or as private citizens, how should he answer him who has ventured to talk of disunion and dismemberment? Or how should he answer him who dwells perpetually on local interests, and fans every kindling flame of local prejudice? How should he answer him who would array State against State, interest against interest, and party against party, careless of the continuance of that _unity of government which constitutes us one people_?

The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty.

But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!

Gentlemen, I propose--"THE MEMORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON."

* * * * *

From the excellent speeches delivered by gentlemen on this interesting occasion, we cannot refrain from selecting for this publication, though a little out of place, the appropriate, just, and classic remarks of Mr. Robbins.

Mr. Webster having retired, Mr. Chambers, being in the chair, called upon Mr. Robbins of Rhode Island; when Mr. Senator ROBBINS of that State addressed the company as follows:--

* * * * *

"GENTLEMEN,--I beg leave to offer a sentiment; but first, with your indulgence, will offer a few remarks, not inappropriate, I hope, to the occasion.

"It is the peculiar good fortune of this country to have given birth to a citizen, whose name everywhere produces a sentiment of regard for his country itself. In other countries, whenever or wherever this is spoken of to be praised, and with the highest praise, it is called the country of Washington. I believe there is no people, civilized or savage, in any place, however remote, where the name of Washington has not been heard, and where it is not repeated with the fondest admiration. We are told, that the Arab of the desert talks of Washington in his tent, and that his name is familiar to the wandering Scythian. He seems, indeed, to be the delight of human kind, as their beau ideal of human nature. 'Nil oriturum alias, nil ortum tale fatentes.'

"No American, in any part of the world, but has found the regard for himself increased by his connection with Washington, as his fellow-countryman; and who has not felt a pride, and had occasion to exult, in the fortunate connection?

"Half a century and more has now passed away since he came upon the stage, and his fame first broke upon the world; for it broke like the blaze of day from the rising sun,--almost as sudden, and seemingly as universal. The eventful period since that era has teemed with great men, who have crossed the scene and passed off. Some of them have arrested great attention, very great; still Washington retains his preeminent place in the minds of men, still his peerless name is cherished by them in the same freshness of delight as in the morn of its glory.

"History will keep her record of his fame; but history is not necessary to perpetuate it. In regions where history is not read, where letters are unknown, it lives, and will go down from age to age, in all future time, in their traditionary lore.

"Who would exchange this fame, the common inheritance of our country, for the fame of any individual which any country of any time can boast? I would not; with my sentiments, I could not.

"I recollect the first time I ever saw Washington: indeed, it is impossible I should forget it, or recollect it without the liveliest emotion. I was then a child at school. The school was dismissed, and we were told, that General Washington was expected in town that day, on his way to Cambridge, to take command of the American army. We, the children, were permitted to mingle with the people, who had assembled in mass to see him. I did see him; I riveted my eyes upon him; I could now, were I master of the pencil, delineate with exact truth his form and features, and every particular of his costume: so vivid are my recollections. I can never forget the feelings his sublime presence inspired. How often, afterwards, when I came, in my studies, to learn them, have I repeated and applied, as expressive of that feeling, these lines,--

"Quem sese ore ferens! quam forti pectore et armis!
Credo equidem, nec vana fides, genus esse Deorum."

He did seem to me more than mortal. It is true this was young and ignorant enthusiasm; but, though young and ignorant, it was not false; it was enthusiasm, which my riper judgment has always recognized as just; it was but the anticipated sentiment of the whole human kind.

"I now beg leave to offer this sentiment:--

"The written legacy of Washington to his countrymen,--a code of politics by which, and by which alone, as he believed, their union and their liberties can be made immortal."

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FOOTNOTES

[94] A Speech delivered at a Public Dinner in Honor of the Centennial
Birthday of Washington, on the 22d of February, 1832.

[95] See Works of Fisher Ames, pp. 122, 123.

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION AT WORCESTER.[96]

Mr. President,--I offer no apology for addressing the meeting. Holding, by the favor of the people of this Commonwealth, an important public situation, I deem it no less than a part of my duty, at this interesting moment, to make known my opinions on the state of public affairs, and, however I may have performed other duties, this, at least, it is my purpose, on the present occasion, fully to discharge. Not intending to comment at length on all the subjects which now attract public attention, nor to discuss any thing in detail, I wish, nevertheless, before an assembly so large and respectable as the present, and through them before the whole people of the State, to lay open, without reserve, my own sentiments, hopes, and fears respecting the state and the prospects of our common country.

The resolutions which have been read from the chair express the opinion, that the public good requires an effectual change, in the administration of the general government, both of measures and of men. In this opinion I heartily concur.

Mr. President, there is no citizen of the State, who, in principle and by habitual sentiment, is less disposed than myself to general opposition to government, or less desirous of frequent changes in its administration. I entertain this feeling strongly, and at all times, towards the government of the United States; because I have ever regarded the Federal Constitution as a frame of government so peculiar, and so delicate in its relations to the State governments, that it might be in danger of overthrow, as well from an indiscriminate and wanton opposition, as from a weak or a wicked administration. But a case may arise in which the government is no longer safe in the hands to which it has been intrusted. It may come to be a question, not so much in what particular manner, or according to what particular political opinions, the government shall be administered, as whether the Constitution itself shall be preserved and maintained. Now, Sir, in my judgment, just such a case and just such a question are at this moment before the American people. Entertaining this sentiment, and thoroughly and entirely convinced of its truth, I wish, as far as my humble power extends, to produce in the people a more earnest attention to their public concerns. With the people, and the people alone, lies any remedy for the past or any security for the future. No delegated power is equal to the exigency of the present crisis. No public servants, however able or faithful, have ability to check or to stop the fearful tendency of things. It is a case for sovereign interposition. The rescue, if it come at all, must come from that power which no other on earth can resist. I earnestly wish, therefore, unimportant as my own opinions may be, and entitled, as I know they are, to no considerable regard, yet, since they are honest and sincere, and since they respect nothing less than dangers which appear to me to threaten the government and Constitution of the country, I fervently wish that I could now make them known, not only to this meeting and to this State, but to every man in the Union. I take the hazard of the reputation of an alarmist; I cheerfully submit to the imputation of over-excited apprehension; I discard all fear of the cry of false prophecy, and I declare, that, in my judgment, not only the great interests of the country, but the Constitution itself, are in imminent peril, and that nothing can save either the one or the other but that voice which has authority to say to the evils of misrule and misgovernment, "Hitherto shall ye come, but no further."

It is true, Sir, that it is the natural effect of a good constitution to protect the people. But who shall protect the constitution? Who shall guard the guardian? What arm but the mighty arm of the people itself is able, in a popular government, to uphold public institutions? The constitution itself is but the creature of the public will; and in every crisis which threatens it, it must owe its security to the same power to which it owes its origin.

The appeal, therefore, is to the people; not to party nor to partisans, not to professed politicians, not to those who have an interest in office and place greater than their stake in the country, but to the people, and the whole people; to those who, in regard to political affairs, have no wish but for a good government, and who have power to accomplish their own wishes.

* * * * *

Mr. President, are the principles and leading measures of the administration hostile to the great interests of the country?

Are they dangerous to the Constitution, and to the union of the States?

Is there any prospect of a beneficial change of principles and measures, without a change of men?

Is there reasonable ground to hope for such a change of men?

On these several questions, I desire to state my own convictions fully, though as briefly as possible.

* * * * *

As government is intended to be a practical institution, if it be wisely formed, the first and most natural test of its administration is the effect produced by it. Let us look, then, to the actual state of our affairs. Is it such as should follow a good administration of a good constitution?

Sir, we see one State openly threatening to arrest the execution of the revenue laws of the Union, by acts of her own. This proceeding is threatened, not by irresponsible persons, but by those who fill her chief places of power and trust.

In another State, free citizens of the country are imprisoned, and held in prison, in defiance of a judgment of the Supreme Court, pronounced for their deliverance. Immured in a dungeon, marked and patched as subjects of penitentiary punishment, these free citizens pass their days in counting the slow-revolving hours of their miserable, captivity, and their nights in feverish and delusive dreams of their own homes and their own families; while the Constitution stands adjudged to be violated, a law of Congress is effectually repealed by the act of a State, and a judgment of deliverance by the Supreme Court is set a naught and contemned.[97]

Treaties, importing the most solemn and sacred obligations, are denied to have binding force.

A feeling that there is great insecurity for property, and the stability of the means of living, extensively prevails.

The whole subject of the tariff, acted on for the moment, is at the same moment declared not to be at rest, but liable to be again moved, and with greater effect, just so soon as power for that purpose shall be obtained.

The currency of the country, hitherto safe, sound, and universally satisfactory, is threatened with a violent change; and an embarrassment in pecuniary affairs, equally distressing and unnecessary, hangs over all the trading and active classes of society.

A long-used and long-approved legislative instrument for the collection of revenue, well secured against abuse, and always responsible to Congress and to the laws, is denied further existence; and its place is proposed to be supplied by a new branch of the executive department, with a money power controlled and conducted solely by executive agency.

The power of the VETO is exercised, not as an extraordinary, but as an ordinary power; as a common mode of defeating acts of Congress not acceptable to the executive. We hear, one day, that the President needs the advice of no cabinet; that a few secretaries, or clerks, are enough for him. The next, we are informed that the Supreme Court is but an obstacle to the popular will, and the whole judicial department but an encumbrance to government. And while, on one side, the judicial power is thus derided and denounced, on the other arises the cry, "Cut down the Senate!" and over the whole, at the same time, prevails the loud avowal, shouted with all the lungs of conscious party strength and party triumph, that the spoils of the enemy belong to the victors. This condition of things, Sir, this general and obvious aspect of affairs, is the result of three years' administration, such as the country has experienced.

But, not resting on this general view of results, let me inquire what the principles and policy of the administration are, on the leading interests of the country, subordinate to the Constitution itself. And first, what are its principles, and what its policy, respecting the tariff? Is this great question settled, or unsettled? And is the present administration for, or against, the tariff?

Sir, the question is wholly unsettled, and the principles of the administration, according to its most recent avowal of those principles, are adverse to the protective policy, decidedly hostile to the whole system, root and branch; and this on permanent and alleged constitutional grounds.

In the first place, nothing has been done to settle the tariff question. The anti-tariff members of Congress who voted for the late law have, none of them, said they would adhere to it. On the contrary, they supported it, because, as far as it went, it was reduction, and that was what they wished; and if they obtained this degree of reduction now, it would be easier to obtain a greater degree hereafter; and they frankly declared, that their intent and purpose was to insist on reduction, and to pursue reduction, unremittingly, till all duties on imports should be brought down to one general and equal percentage, and that regulated by the mere wants of the revenue; or, if different rates of duty should remain on different articles, still, that the whole should be laid for revenue, and revenue only; and that they would, to the utmost of their power, push this course, till protection by duties, as a special object of national policy, should be abandoned altogether in the national councils. It is a delusion, therefore, Sir, to imagine that the present tariff stands, safely, on conceded ground. It covers not an inch that has not been fought for, and must not be again fought for. It stands while its friends can protect it, and not an hour longer.

In the next place, in that compend of executive opinion contained in the veto message, the whole principle of the protective policy is plainly and pointedly denounced.

Having gone through its argument against the bank charter, as it now exists, and as it has existed, either under the present or a former law, for near forty years, and having added to the well-doubted logic of that argument the still more doubtful aid of a large array of opprobrious epithets, the message, in unveiled allusion to the protective policy of the country, holds this language:--

"Most of the difficulties our government now encounters, and most of
the dangers which impend over our Union, have sprung from an
abandonment of the legitimate objects of government by our national
legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are embodied in
this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal
protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them
richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires,
we have, in the results of our legislation, arrayed section against
section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a
fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our
Union. It is time to pause in our career, to review our principles,
and, if possible, revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of
compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the
fathers of our Union. If we cannot at once, in justice to interests
vested under improvident legislation, make our government what it
ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of
monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our
government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many,
and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws
and system of political economy."

Here, then, we have the whole creed. Our national legislature has abandoned the legitimate objects of government. It has adopted such principles as are embodied in the bank charter; and these principles are elsewhere called objectionable, odious, and unconstitutional. All this has been done, because rich men have besought the government to render them richer by acts of Congress. It is time to pause in our career. It is time _to review these principles_. And if we cannot at once MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT WHAT IT OUGHT TO BE, we can, at least, take a stand against new grants of power and privilege.

The plain meaning of all this is, that our protecting laws are founded in an abandonment of the legitimate objects of government; that this is the great source of our difficulties; that it is time to stop in our career, to review the principles of these laws, and, as soon as we can, MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT WHAT IT OUGHT TO BE.

No one can question, Mr. President, that these paragraphs, from the last official publication of the President, show that, _in his opinion, the tariff, as a system designed for protection, is not only impolitic, but unconstitutional also_. They are quite incapable of any other version or interpretation. They defy all explanation, and all glosses.

Sir, however we may differ from the principles or the policy of the administration, it would, nevertheless, somewhat satisfy our pride of country, if we could ascribe to it the character of consistency. It would be grateful if we could contemplate the President of the United States as an identical idea. But even this secondary pleasure is denied to us. In looking to the published records of executive opinions, sentiments favorable to protection and sentiments against protection either come confusedly before us, at the same moment, or else follow each other in rapid succession, like the shadows of a phantasmagoria.

Having read an extract from the veto message, containing the statement of _present opinions_, allow me to read another extract from the annual message of 1830. It will be perceived, that in that message both the clear constitutionality of the tariff laws, and their indispensable policy, are maintained in the fullest and strongest manner. The argument on the constitutional point is stated with more than common ability; and the policy of the laws is affirmed in terms importing the deepest and most settled conviction. We hear in this message nothing of improvident legislation; nothing of the abandonment of the legitimate objects of government; nothing of the necessity of pausing in our career and reviewing our principles; nothing of the necessity of changing our government, _till it shall be made what it ought to be_. But let the message speak for itself.

"The power to impose duties on imports originally belonged to the
several States. The right to adjust those duties with a view to the
encouragement of domestic branches of industry is so completely
incidental to that power, that it is difficult to suppose the
existence of the one without the other. The States have delegated
their whole authority over imports to the general government,
without limitation or restriction, saving the very inconsiderable
reservation relating to their inspection laws. This authority having
thus entirely passed from the States, the right to exercise it for
the purpose of protection does not exist in them; and consequently,
if it be not possessed by the general government, it must be
extinct. Our political system would thus present the anomaly of a
people stripped of the right to foster their own industry, and to
counteract the most selfish and destructive policy which might be
adopted by foreign nations. This surely cannot be the case; this
indispensable power, thus surrendered by the States, must be within
the scope of the authority on the subject expressly delegated to
Congress.

"In this conclusion I am confirmed, as well by the opinions of
Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, who have each
repeatedly recommended the exercise of this right under the
Constitution, as by the uniform practice of Congress, the continued
acquiescence of the States, and the general understanding of the
people.

"I am well aware that this is a subject of so much delicacy, on
account of the extended interests it involves, as to require that it
should be touched with the utmost caution; and that, while an
abandonment of the policy in which it originated, a policy coeval
with our government, pursued through successive administrations, is
neither to be expected nor desired, the people have a right to
demand, and have demanded, that it be so modified as to correct
abuses and obviate injustice."

Mr. President, no one needs to point out inconsistencies plain and striking as these. The message of 1830 is a well-written paper; it proceeded, probably, from the cabinet proper. Whence the veto message of 1832 proceeded, I know not; perhaps from the cabinet improper.

But, Sir, there is an important record of an earlier date than 1830. If, as the President avers, we have been guilty of improvident legislation, what act of Congress is the most striking instance of that improvidence? Certainly it is the act of 1824. The principle of protection, repeatedly recognized before that time, was, by that act, carried to a new and great extent; so new and so great, that the act was considered as the foundation of the system. That law it was which conferred on the distinguished citizen, whose nomination for President this meeting has received with so much enthusiasm, (Mr. Clay,) the appellation of the "Author of the American System." Accordingly, the act of 1824 has been the particular object of attack, in all the warfare waged against the protective policy. If Congress ever abandoned legitimate objects of legislation in favor of protection, it did so by that law. If any laws now on the statute-book, or which ever were there, show, by their character as laws of protection, that our government is not what it ought to be, and that it ought to be altered, and, in the language of the veto message, _made_ what it ought to be, the law of 1824 is the very law which, more than any and more than all others, makes good that assertion. And yet, Sir, the President of the United States, then a Senator in Congress, voted for that law! And, though I have not recurred to the journal, my recollection is, that, as to some of its provisions, his support was essential to their success. It will be found, I think, that some of its enactments, and those now most loudly complained of, would have failed, but for his own personal support of them by his own vote.

After all this, it might have been hoped that there would be, in 1832, some tolerance of opinion toward those who cannot think that improvidence, abandonment of all the legitimate objects of legislation, a desire to gratify the rich, who have besought Congress to make them still richer, and the adoption of principles unequal, oppressive, and odious, are the true characteristics to be ascribed to the system of protection.

But, Sir, it is but a small part of my object to show inconsistencies in executive opinions. My main purpose is different, and tends to more practical ends. It is, to call the attention of the meeting, and of the people, to the principles avowed in the late message as being the President's _present opinions_, and proofs of _his present purposes_, and to the consequences, if they shall be maintained by the country. These principles are there expressed in language which needs no commentary. They go, with a point-blank aim, against the fundamental stone of the protective system; that is to say, against the constitutional power of Congress to establish and maintain that system, in whole or in part. The question, therefore, of the tariff, the question of every tariff, the question between maintaining our agricultural and manufacturing interests where they now are, and breaking up the entire system, and erasing every vestige of it from the statute book, is a question materially to be affected by the pending election.

* * * * *

The President has exercised his NEGATIVE power on the law for continuing the bank charter. Here, too, he denies both the constitutionality and the policy of an existing law of the land. It is true that the law, or a similar one, has been in operation nearly forty years. Previous Presidents and previous Congresses have, all along, sanctioned and upheld it. The highest courts, and indeed all the courts, have pronounced it constitutional. A majority of the people, greater than exists on almost any other question, agrees with all the Presidents, all the Congresses, and all the courts of law. Yet, against all this weight of authority, the President puts forth his own individual opinion, and has negatived the bill for continuing the law. Which of the members of his administration, or whether any one of them, concur in his sentiments, we know not. Some of them, we know, have recently advanced precisely the opposite opinions, and in the strongest manner recommended to Congress the continuation of the bank charter. Having himself urgently and repeatedly called the attention of Congress to the subject, and his Secretary of the Treasury--who, and all the other secretaries, as the President's friends say, are but so many pens in his hand--having, in his communication to Congress, at this very session, insisted both on the constitutionality and necessity of the bank, the President nevertheless saw fit to negative the bill, passed, as it had been, by strong majorities in both Houses, and passed, without doubt or question, in compliance with the wishes of a vast majority of the American people.

The question respecting the constitutional power of Congress to establish a bank, I shall not here discuss. On that, as well as on the general expediency of renewing the charter, my opinions have been elsewhere expressed. They are before the public, and the experience of every day confirms me in their truth. All that has been said of the embarrassment and distress which will be felt from discontinuing the bank falls far short of an adequate representation. What was prophecy only two months ago is already history.

In this part of the country, indeed, we experience this distress and embarrassment in a mitigated degree. The loans of the bank are not so highly important, or at least not so absolutely necessary, to the present operations of our commerce; yet we ourselves have a deep interest in the subject, as it is connected with the general currency of the country, and with the cheapness and facility of exchange.

The country, generally speaking, was well satisfied with the bank. Why not let it alone? No evil had been felt from it in thirty-six years. Why conjure up a troop of fancied mischiefs, as a pretence to put it down? The message struggles to excite prejudices, from the circumstance that foreigners are stockholders; and on this ground it raises a loud cry against a moneyed aristocracy. Can any thing, Sir, be conceived more inconsistent than this? any thing more remote from sound policy and good statesmanship? In the United States the rate of interest is high, compared with the rates abroad. In Holland and England, the actual value of money is no more than three, or perhaps three and a half, per cent. In our Atlantic States, it is as high as five or six, taking the whole length of the seaboard; in the Northwestern States, it is eight or ten, and in the Southwestern ten or twelve. If the introduction, then, of foreign capital be discountenanced and discouraged, the American moneylender may fix his own rate anywhere from five to twelve per cent. per annum. On the other hand, if the introduction of foreign capital be countenanced and encouraged, its effects to keep down the rate of interest, and to bring the value of money in the United States so much the nearer to its value in older and richer countries. Every dollar brought from abroad, and put into the mass of active capital at home, by so much diminishes the rate of interest; and by so much, therefore, benefits all the active and trading classes of society, at the expense of the American capitalist. Yet the President's invention, for such it deserves to be called, that which is to secure us against the possibility of being oppressed by a moneyed aristocracy, is to shut the door and bar it safely against all introduction of foreign capital!

Mr. President, what is it that has made England a sort of general banker for the civilized world? Why is it that capital from all quarters of the globe accumulates at the centre of her empire, and is thence again distributed? Doubtless, Sir, it is because she invites it, and solicits it. She sees the advantage of this; and no British minister ever yet did a thing so rash, so inconsiderate, so startling, as to exhibit a groundless feeling of dissatisfaction at the introduction or employment of foreign capital.

Sir, of all the classes of society, the larger stockholders of the bank are among those least likely to suffer from its discontinuance. There are, indeed, on the list of stockholders many charitable institutions, many widows and orphans, holding small amounts. To these, and other proprietors of a like character, the breaking up of the bank will, no doubt, be seriously inconvenient. But the capitalist, he who has invested money in the bank merely for the sake of the security and the interest, has nothing to fear. The refusal to renew the charter will, it is true, diminish the value of the stock; but, then, the same refusal will create a scarcity of money; and this will reduce the price of all other stocks; so that the stockholders in the bank, receiving, on its dissolution, their portion respectively of its capital, will have opportunities of new and advantageous investment.

The truth is, Sir, the great loss, the sore embarrassment, the severe distress, arising from this VETO, will fall on the public, and especially on the more active and industrious portion of the public. It will inevitably create a scarcity of money; in the Western States, it will most materially depress the value of property; it will greatly enhance, everywhere, the price of domestic exchange; it threatens, everywhere, fluctuations of the currency; and it drives all our well-settled and safe operations of revenue and finance out of their accustomed channels. All this is to be suffered on the pretended ground of a constitutional scruple, which no respect for the opinion of others, no deference to legislative precedent, no decent regard to judicial decision, no homage to public opinion, expressed and maintained for forty years, have power to overcome. An idle apprehension of danger is set up against the experience of almost half a century; loose and flimsy theories are asserted against facts of general notoriety; and arguments are urged against continuing the charter, so superficial and frivolous, and yet so evidently addressed to those of the community who have never had occasion to be conversant with subjects of this sort, that an intelligent reader, who wishes to avoid imputing obliquity of motive, is obliged to content himself with ascribing to the source of the message, whatever and wherever that source may have been, no very distinguished share of the endowments of intellect.

Mr. President, as early as December, 1829, the President called the attention of Congress to the subject of the bank, in the most earnest manner. Look to his annual message of that date. You will find that he then felt constrained, by an irresistible sense of duty to the various interests concerned, not to delay beyond that moment his urgent invitation to Congress to take up the subject. He brought forward the same topic again, in all his subsequent annual messages; yet when Congress _did_ act upon it, and, on the fourth of July, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO, _did_ send him a bill, he returned it with his objections; and among these objections, he not only complained _that the executive was not consulted on the propriety of present action_, but affirmed also, in so many words, _that present action was deemed premature by the executive department_.

Let me ask, Mr. President, if it be possible that the same President, the same chief magistrate, the same mind, could have composed these two messages? Certainly they much more resemble the production of _two_ minds, holding, on this point, precisely opposite opinions. The message of December, 1829, asserts that the time had _then_ come for Congress to consider the bank subject; the message of 1832 declares, that, even then, the action of Congress on the same subject was _premature_; and both these messages were sent to Congress by the President of the United States. Sir, I leave these two messages to be compared and considered by the people.

Mr. President, I will here take notice of but one other suggestion of the President, relative to the time and manner of passing the late bill. A decent respect for the legislature of the country has hitherto been observed by all who have had occasion to hold official intercourse with it, and especially by all other branches of the government. The purity of the motives of Congress, in regard to any measure, has never been assailed from any respectable quarter. But in the veto message there is one expression, which, as it seems to me, no American can read without some feeling. There is an expression, evidently not casual or accidental, but inserted with design and composed with care, which does carry a direct imputation of the possibility of the effect of _private interest_ and _private influence_ on the deliberations of the two Houses of Congress. I quote the passage, and shall leave it without a single remark:--"Whatever interest or influence, whether public or private, has given birth to this act, it cannot be found either in the wishes or necessities of the executive department, by which present action is deemed premature."

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Among the great interests of the country, Mr. President, there is one which appears to me not to have attracted from the people of this Commonwealth a degree of attention altogether equal to its magnitude. I mean the public lands.

If we run our eye over the map of the country, and view the regions, almost boundless, which now constitute the public domain, and over which an active population is rapidly spreading itself, and if we recollect the amount of annual revenue derived from this source, we shall hardly fail to be convinced that few branches of national interest are of more extensive and lasting importance. So large a territory, belonging to the public, forms a subject of national concern of a very delicate nature, especially in popular governments. We know, in the history of other countries, with what views and designs the public lands have been granted. Either in the form of gifts and largesses, or in that of reduction of prices to amounts merely nominal, or as compensation for services, real or imagined, the public domain, in other countries and other times, has not only been diverted from its just use and destination, but has been the occasion, also, of introducing into the state and into the public counsels no small portion both of distraction and corruption.

Happily, our own system of administering this great interest has hitherto been both safe and successful. Nothing under the government has been better devised than our land system; and nothing, thus far, more beneficially conducted. But the time seems to have arrived, in the progress of our growth and prosperity, when it has become necessary to reflect, not on any new mode of sale, for that can hardly be improved, but on some disposition of the proceeds such as shall be just and equal to the whole country, and shall insure also a constant and vigilant attention to this important subject from the people of all the States. It is not to be denied or disguised, that sentiments have recently sprung up, in some places, of a very extraordinary character, respecting the ownership, the just proprietary interest, in these lands. The lands are well known to have been obtained by the United States, either by grants from individual States, or by treaties with foreign powers. In both cases, and in all cases, the grants and cessions were to the United States, for the interest of the whole Union; and the grants from individual States contain express limitations and conditions, binding up the whole property to the common use of all the States for ever. Yet, of late years, an idea has been suggested, indeed seriously advanced, _that these lands, of right, belong to the States respectively in which they happen to lie_. This doctrine, Sir, which, I perceive, strikes this assembly as being somewhat extravagant, is founded on an argument derived, as is supposed, from the nature of State sovereignty. It has been openly espoused, by candidates for office, in some of the new States, and, indeed, has been announced in the Senate of the United States.

To the credit of the country, it should be stated, that, up to the present moment, these notions have not spread widely; and they will be repudiated, undoubtedly, by the power of general opinion, so soon as that opinion shall be awakened and expressed. But there is another tendency more likely, perhaps, to run to injurious excess; and that is, a constant effort to reduce the price of land to sums almost nominal, on the ground of facilitating settlement. The sound policy of the government has been, uniformly, to keep the prices of the public lands low; so low that every actual settler might easily obtain a farm; but yet not so low as to tempt individual capitalists to buy up large quantities to hold for speculation. The object has been to meet, at all times, the whole actual demand, at a cheap rate; and this object has been attained. It is obviously of the greatest importance to keep the prices of the public lands from all influences, except the single one of the desire of supplying the whole actual demand at a cheap rate. The present minimum price is one dollar and a quarter per acre; and millions of acres of land, much of it of an excellent quality, are now in the market at this rate. Yet every year there are propositions to reduce the price, and propositions to graduate the price; that is to say, to provide that all lands having been offered for sale for a certain length of time at the established rate, if not then sold, shall be offered at a less rate; and again reduced, if not sold, to one still less. I have myself thought, that, in some of the oldest districts, some mode might usefully be adopted of disposing of the remainder of the unsold lands, and closing the offices; but a universal system of graduation, lowering prices at short intervals, and by large degrees, could have no other effect than a general depression of price in regard to the whole mass, and would evidently be great mismanagement of the public property. This convention, Sir, will think it singular enough, that a reduction of prices of the public lands should have been demanded on the ground _that other impositions for revenue, such as the duty on tea and coffee, have been removed_; thus considering and treating the sums received for lands sold as a _tax_, a _burden_, an _imposition_, and a great _drain_ on the means and the industry of the new States. A man goes from New England to one of the Western States, buys a hundred acres of the best land in the world for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, pays his money, and receives an indisputable title; and immediately some one stands up in Congress to call this operation the laying of a _tax_, the imposition of a _burden_; and the whole of these purchases and payments, taken together, are represented as an intolerable _drain_ on the money and the industry of the new States. I know not, Sir, which deserves to pass for the original, and which for the copy; but this reasoning is not unlike that which maintains that the trading community of the West will be exhausted and ruined by the privilege of borrowing money of the Bank of the United States at six per cent interest; this interest being, as is said in the veto message, a burden upon their industry, and a drain of their currency, which no country can bear without inconvenience and distress!

It was in a forced connection with the reduction of duties of impost, that the subject of the public lands was referred to the Committee of Manufactures in the Senate, at the late session of Congress. This was a legislative movement, calculated to throw on Mr. Clay, who was acting a leading part on the subject of the tariff and the reduction of duties, a new and delicate responsibility. From this responsibility, however, Mr. Clay did not shrink. He took up the subject, and his report upon it, and his speech delivered afterwards in defence of the report, are, in my opinion, among the very ablest of the efforts which have distinguished his long public life. I desire to commend their perusal to every citizen of Massachusetts. They will show him the deep interest of all the States, his own among the rest, in the security, and proper management, and disposal, of the public domain. Founded on the report of the committee, Mr. Clay introduced a bill, providing for the distribution among all the States, according to population, of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands for five years, first making a deduction of a considerable percentage in favor of the new States; the sums thus received by the States to be disposed of by them in favor of education, internal improvement, or colonization, as each State might choose for itself. This bill passed the Senate. It was vigorously opposed in the House of Representatives by the main body of the friends of the administration, and finally lost by a small majority. By the provisions of the bill, Massachusetts would have received, as her dividend, at the present average rate of sales, one hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars a year.

I am free to confess, Sir, that I had hoped to see some unobjectionable way of disposing of this subject, with the observance of justice towards all the States, by the government of the United States itself, without a distribution through the intervention of the State governments. Such a way, however, I have not discovered. I therefore voted for the bill of the last session.

Mr. President, let me remind the meeting of the great extent of this public property.