Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"Mr. B. called upon the Senate to consider well what they did before they proceeded further in the consideration of this resolution. He called upon them to consider what was due to the House of Representatives, whose privilege was invaded, and who had a right to send a message to the Senate, complaining of the proceeding, and demanding its abandonment. He conjured them to consider what was due to the President, who was thus to be tried in his absence for a most enormous crime; what was due to the Senate itself, in thus combining the incompatible characters of accusers and judges, and which would itself be judged by Europe and America. He dwelt particularly on the figure which the Senate would make in going on with the consideration of this resolution. It accused the President of violating the constitution; and itself committed twenty violations of the same constitution in making the accusation! It accused him of violating a single law, and itself violated all the laws of criminal justice in prosecuting him for it. It charged him with designs dangerous to the liberties of the citizens, and immediately trampled upon the rights of all citizens, in the person of their Chief Magistrate.

"Mr. B. descanted upon the extraordinary organization of the Senate, and drew an argument from it in favor of the reserve and decorum of their proceedings. The Senate were lawgivers, and ought to respect the laws already made; they were the constitutional advisers of the President, and should observe, as nearly as possible, the civil relations which the office of adviser presumes; they might be his judges, and should be the last in the world to stir up an accusation against him, to prejudge his guilt, or to attack his character with defamatory language. Decorum, the becoming ornament of every functionary, should be the distinguishing trait of an American senator, who combines, in his own office, the united dignities of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial character. In his judicial capacity especially, he should sacrifice to decorum and propriety; and shun, as he would the contagious touch of sin and pestilence, the slightest approach to the character of prosecutor. He referred to British parliamentary law to show that the Lords could not join in an accusation, because they were to try it; but here the Senate was sole accuser, and had nothing from the House of Representatives to join; but made the accusation out and out, and tried it themselves. He said the accusation was a double one – for a high crime and a misdemeanor – and the latter a more flagrant proceeding than the former; for it assumed to know for what cause the President had dismissed his late Secretary, and undertook to try the President for a thing which was not triable or impeachable.

"From the foundation of the government, it had been settled that the President's right to dismiss his secretaries resulted from his constitutional obligation to see that the laws were faithfully executed. Many Presidents had dismissed secretaries, and this was the first time that the Senate had ever undertaken to found an impeachment upon it, or had assumed to know the reasons for which it was done.

"Mr. B. said that two other impeachments seemed to be going on, at the same time, against two other officers, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer; so that the Senate was brimful of criminal business. The Treasurer and the Secretary of the Treasury were both civil officers, and were both liable to impeachment for misdemeanors in office; and great misdemeanors were charged upon them. They were, in fact, upon trial, without the formality of a resolution; and, if hereafter impeached by the House of Representatives, the Senate, if they believed what they heard, would be ready to pronounce judgment and remove them from office, without delay or further examination.

"Mr. B. then addressed himself to the Vice-President (Mr. Van Buren), upon the novelty of the scene which was going on before him, and the great change which had taken place since he had served in the Senate. He commended the peculiar delicacy and decorum of the Vice-President himself, who, in six years' service, in high party times, and in a decided opposition, never uttered a word, either in open or secret session, which could have wounded the feelings of a political adversary, if he had been present and heard it. He extolled the decorum of the opposition to President Adams' administration. If there was one brilliant exception, the error was redeemed by classic wit, and the heroic readiness with which a noble heart bared its bosom to the bullets of those who felt aggrieved. Still addressing himself to the Vice-President, Mr. B. said that if he should receive some hits in the place where he sat, without the right to reply, he must find consolation in the case of his most illustrious predecessor, the great apostle of American liberty (Mr. Jefferson), who often told his friends of the manner in which he had been cut at when presiding over the Senate, and personally annoyed by the inferior – no, young and inconsiderate – members of the federal party.

"Mr. B. returned to the point in debate. The President, he repeated, was on trial for a high crime, in seizing the public treasure in violation of the laws and the constitution. Was the charge true? Does the act which he has done deserve the definition which has been put upon it? He had made up his own mind that the public deposits ought to be removed from the Bank of the United States. He communicated that opinion to the Secretary of the Treasury; the Secretary refused to remove them; the President removed him, and appointed a Secretary who gave the order which he thought the occasion required. All this he did in virtue of his constitutional obligation to see the laws faithfully executed; and in obedience to the same sense of duty which would lead him to dismiss a Secretary of War, or of the Navy, who would refuse to give an order for troops to march, or a fleet to sail. True, it is made the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to direct the removal of the deposits; but the constitution makes it the duty of the President to see that the Secretary performs his duty; and the constitution is as much above law as the President is above the Secretary.

"The President is on trial for a misdemeanor – for dismissing his Secretary without sufficient cause. To this accusation there are ready answers: first, that the President may dismiss his Secretaries without cause; secondly, that the Senate has no cognizance of the case; thirdly, that the Senate cannot assume to know for what cause the Secretary in question was dismissed.

"The Secretary of the Treasury is on trial. In order to get at the President, it was found necessary to get at a gentleman who had no voice on this floor. It had been found necessary to assail the Secretary of the Treasury in a manner heretofore unexampled in the history of the Senate. His religion, his politics, his veracity, his understanding, his Missouri restriction vote, had all been arraigned. Mr. B. said he would leave his religion to the constitution of the United States, Catholic as he was, and although 'the Presbyterian might cut off his head the first time he went to mass;' for he could see no other point to the anecdote of Cromwell and the capitulating Catholics, to whom he granted the free exercise of their religion, only he would cut off their heads if they went to mass. His understanding he would leave to himself. The head which could throw the paper which was taken for a stone on this floor, but which was, in fact, a double-headed chain-shot fired from a forty-eight pounder, carrying sails, masts, rigging, all before it, was a head that could take care of itself. His veracity would be adjourned to the trial which was to take place for misquoting a letter of Secretary Crawford, and he had no doubt would end as the charge did for suppressing a letter which was printed in extenso among our documents, and withholding the name and compensation of an agent; when that name and the fact of no compensation was lying on the table. The Secretary of the Treasury was arraigned for some incidental vote on the Missouri restriction, when he was a member of the Maryland legislature. Mr. B. did not know what that vote was; but he did know that a certain gentleman, who lately stood in the relation of sergeant to another gentleman, in a certain high election, was the leader of the forces which deforced Missouri of her place in the Union for the entire session which he first attended (not served) in the Congress of the United States. His politics could not be severely tried in the time of the alien and sedition law, when he was scarce of age; but were well tried during the late war, when he sided with his country, and received the constant denunciations of that great organ of federalism, the Federal Republican newspaper. For the rest, Mr. B. admitted that the Secretary had voted for the elder Adams to be President of the United States, but denied the right of certain persons to make that an objection to him. Mr. B. dismissed these personal charges, for the present, and would adjourn their consideration until his (Mr. Taney's) trial came on, for which the senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), stood pledged; and after the trial was over, he had no doubt but that the Secretary of the Treasury, although a Catholic and a federalist, would be found to maintain his station in the first rank of American gentlemen and American patriots.

"Mr. B. took up the serious charges against the Secretary: that of being the mere instrument of the President in removing the deposits, and violating the constitution and laws of the land. How far he was this mere instrument, making up his mind, in three days, to do what others would not do at all, might be judged by every person who would refer to the opposition papers for the division in the cabinet about the removal of the deposits; and which constantly classed Mr. Taney, then the Attorney General, on the side of removal. This classification was correct, and notorious, and ought to exempt an honorable man, if any thing could exempt him, from the imputation of being a mere instrument in a great transaction of which he was a prime counsellor. The fact is, he had long since, in his character of legal adviser to the President, advised the removal of these deposits; and when suddenly and unexpectedly called upon to take the office which would make it his duty to act upon his own advice, he accepted it from the single sense of honor and duty; and that he might not seem to desert the President in flinching from the performance of what he had recommended. His personal honor was clean; his personal conduct magnanimous; his official deeds would abide the test of law and truth.

"Mr. B. said he would make short work of long accusations, and demolish, in three minutes, what had been concocting for three months, and delivering for three days in the Senate. He would call the attention of the Senate to certain clauses of law, and certain treasury instructions which had been left out of view, but which were decisive of the accusation against the Secretary. The first was the clause in the bank charter, which invested the Secretary with the power of transferring the public funds from place to place. It was the 15th section of the charter: he would read it. It enacted that whenever required by the Secretary of the Treasury, the bank should give the necessary facilities for transferring the public funds from place to place, within the United States, or territories thereof; and for distributing the same in payment of the public creditors, &c.

"Here is authority to the Secretary to transfer the public moneys from place to place, limited only by the bounds of the United States and its territories; and this clause of three lines of law puts to flight all the nonsense about the United States Bank being the treasury, and the Treasurer being the keeper of the public moneys, with which some politicians and newspaper writers have been worrying their brains for the last three months. In virtue of this clause, the Secretary of the Treasury gave certain transfer drafts to the amount of two millions and a quarter; and his legal right to give the draft was just as clear, under this clause of the bank charter, as his right to remove the deposits was under another clause of it. The transfer is made by draft; a payment out of the treasury is made upon a warrant; and the difference between a transfer draft and a treasury warrant was a thing necessary to be known by every man who aspired to the office of illuminating a nation, or of conducting a criminal prosecution, or even of understanding what he is talking about. They have no relation to each other. The warrant takes the money out of the treasury: the draft transfers it from point to point, for the purpose of making payment: and all this attack upon the Secretary of the Treasury is simply upon the blunder of mistaking the draft for the warrant.

"The senator from Kentucky calls upon the people to rise, and drive the Goths from the capital. Who are those Goths? They are General Jackson and the democratic party, – he just elected President over the senator himself, and the party just been made the majority in the House – all by the vote of the people. It is their act that has put these Goths in possession of the capital to the discomfiture of the senator and his friends; and he ought to be quite sure that he felt no resentment at an event so disastrous to his hopes, when he has indulged himself with so much license in vituperating those whom the country has put over him.

"The senator from Kentucky says the eyes and the hopes of the country are now turned upon Congress. Yes, Congress is his word, and I hold him to it. And what do they see? They see one House of Congress – the one to which the constitution gives the care of the purse, and the origination of impeachments, and which is fresh from the popular elections: they see that body with a majority of above fifty in favor of the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, and approving the act which the senator condemns. They see that popular approbation in looking at one branch of Congress, and the one charged by the constitution with the inquisition into federal grievances. In the other branch they see a body far removed from the people, neglecting its proper duties, seizing upon those of another branch, converting itself into a grand inquest, and trying offences which itself prefers; and in a spirit which bespeaks a zeal quickened by the sting of personal mortification. He says the country feels itself deceived and betrayed – insulted and wronged – its liberties endangered – and the treasury robbed: the representatives of the people in the other House, say the reverse of all this – that the President has saved the country from the corrupt dominion of a great corrupting bank, by taking away from her the public money which she was using in bribing the press, subsidizing members, purchasing the venal, and installing herself in supreme political power.

"The senator wishes to know what we are to do? What is our duty to do? I answer, to keep ourselves within our constitutional duties – to leave this impeachment to the House of Representatives – leave it to the House to which it belongs, and to those who have no private griefs to avenge – and to judges, each of whom should retire from the bench, if he happened to feel in his heart the spirit of a prosecutor instead of a judge. The Senate now tries General Jackson; it is subject to trial itself – to be tried by the people, and to have its sentence reversed."

The corner-stone of Mr. Clay's whole argument was, that the Bank of the United States was the treasury of the United States. This was his fundamental position, and utterly unfounded, and shown to be so by the fourteenth article of what was called the constitution of the bank. It was the article which provided for the establishment of branches of the mother institution, and all of which except the branch at Washington city, were to be employed, or not employed, as the directors pleased, as depositories of the public money; and consequently were not made so by any law of Congress. The article said:

"The directors of said corporation shall establish a competent office of discount and deposit in the District of Columbia, whenever any law of the United States shall require such an establishment; also one such office of discount and deposit in any State in which two thousand shares shall have been subscribed, or may be held, whenever, upon application of the legislature of such State, Congress may, by law, require the same: Provided, The directors aforesaid shall not be bound to establish such office before the whole of the capital of the bank shall have been paid up. And it shall be lawful for the directors of the said corporation to establish offices of discount and deposit wheresoever they shall think fit, within the United States or the territories thereof, to such persons, and under such regulations, as they shall deem proper, not being contrary to law, or the constitution of the bank. Or, instead of establishing such offices, it shall be lawful for the directors of the said corporation, from time to time, to employ any other bank or banks, to be first approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, at any place or places that they may deem safe and proper, to manage and transact the business proposed as aforesaid, other than for the purposes of discount, to be managed and transacted by such officers, under such agreements, and subject to such regulations, as they shall deem just and proper.

"Mr. B. went on to remark upon this article, that it placed the establishment of but one branch in the reach or power of Congress, and that one was in the District of Columbia – in a district of ten miles square – leaving the vast extent of twenty-four States, and three Territories, to obtain branches for themselves upon contingencies not dependent upon the will or power of Congress; or requiring her necessities, or even her convenience, to be taken into the account. A law of Congress could obtain a branch in this district; but with respect to every State, the establishment of the branch depended, first, upon the mere will and pleasure of the bank; and, secondly, upon the double contingency of a subscription, and a legislative act, within the State. If then, the mother bank does not think fit, for its own advantage, to establish a branch; or, if the people of a State do not acquire 2,000 shares of the stock of the bank, and the legislature, therefore, demand it, no branch will be established in any State, or any Territory of the Union. Congress can only require a branch, in any State, after two contingencies have happened in the State; neither of them having the slightest reference to the necessities, or even convenience, of the federal government.

"Here, then, said Mr. B., is the Treasury established for the United States! A Treasury which is to have an existence but at the will of the bank, or the will of a State legislature, and a few of its citizens, enough to own 2,000 shares of stock worth $100 a share! A Treasury which Congress has no hand in establishing, and cannot preserve after it is established; for the mother bank, after establishing her branches, may shut them up, or withdraw them. Such a thing has already happened. Branches in the West have been, some shut up, some withdrawn; and, in these cases, the Treasury was broken up, according to the new-fangled conception of a national Treasury. No! said Mr. B., the Federal bank is no more the Treasury of the United States than the State banks are. One is just as much the Treasury as the other; and made so by this very 14th fundamental article of the constitution of the bank. Look at it! Look at the alternative! Where branches are not established, the State banks are to be employed!

"The Bank of the United States is to select the State bank; the Secretary of the Treasury is to approve the selection; and if he does so the State bank so selected, and so approved becomes the keeper of the public moneys; it becomes the depository of the public moneys; it transfers them; it pays them out; it does every thing except make discounts for the mother bank and issue notes; it does everything which the federal government wants done; and that is nothing but what a bank of deposit can do. The government makes no choice between State banks and branch banks. They are all one to her. They stand equal in her eyes; they stand equal in the charter of the bank itself; and the horror that has now broken out against the State banks is a thing of recent conception – a very modern impulsion; which is rebuked and condemned by the very authority to which it traces its source. Mr. B. said, the State banks were just as much made the federal treasury by the bank charter, as the United States Bank itself was: and that was sufficient to annihilate the argument which now sets up the federal bank for the federal treasury. But the fact was, that neither was made the Treasury; and it would be absurd to entertain such an idea for an instant; for the federal bank may surrender her charter, and cease to exist – it can do so at any moment it pleases – the State banks may expire upon their limitation; they may surrender; they may be dissolved in many ways, and so cease to exist; and then there would be no Treasury! What an idea, that the existence of the Treasury of this great republic is to depend, not upon itself, but upon corporations, which may cease to exist, on any day, by their own will, or their own crimes."

The debates on this subject brought out the conclusion that the treasury of the United States had a legal, not a material existence – that the Treasurer having no buildings, and keepers, to hold the public moneys, resorted (when the treasury department was first established), to the collectors of the revenue, leaving the money in their hands until drawn out for the public service – which was never long, as the revenues were then barely adequate to meet the daily expenses of the government; afterwards to the first Bank of the United States – then to local banks; again to the second bank; and now again to local banks. In all these cases the keepers of the public moneys were nothing but keepers, being the mere agents of the Secretary of the treasury in holding the moneys which he had no means of holding himself. From these discussions came the train of ideas which led to the establishment of the independent treasury – that is to say, to the creation of officers, and the erection of buildings, to hold the public moneys.

CHAPTER CI.

CONDEMNATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON – MR. CALHOUN'S SPEECH – EXTRACTS

It was foreseen at the time of the coalition between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay, in which they came together – a conjunction of the two political poles – on the subject of the tariff, and laid it away for a term to include two presidential elections – that the effect would be (even if it was not the design), to bring them together upon all other subjects against General Jackson. This expectation was not disappointed. Early in the debate on Mr. Clay's condemnatory resolution, Mr. Calhoun took the floor in its support; and did Mr. Clay the honor to adopt his leading ideas of a revolution, and of a robbery of the treasury. He not only agreed that we were in the middle of a revolution, but also asserted, by way of consolation to those who loved it, that revolutions never go backwards – an aphorism destined, in this case, to be deceived by the event. In the pleasing anticipation of this aid from Mr. Calhoun and his friends, Mr. Clay had complacently intimated the expectation of this aid in his opening speech; and in that intimation there was no mistake. Mr. Calhoun responded to it thus:

"The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] anticipates with confidence that the small party, who were denounced at the last session as traitors and disunionists, will be found, on this trying occasion, standing in the front rank, and manfully resisting the advance of despotic power. I (said Mr. C.) heard the anticipation with pleasure, not on account of the compliment which it implied, but the evidence which it affords that the cloud which has been so industriously thrown, over the character and motive of that small but patriotic party begins to be dissipated. The Senator hazarded nothing in the prediction. That party is the determined, the fixed, and sworn enemy to usurpation, come from what quarter and under what form it may – whether from the executive upon the other departments of this government, or from this government on the sovereignty and rights of the States. The resolution and fortitude with which it maintained its position at the last session, under so many difficulties and dangers, in defence of the States against the encroachments of the general government, furnished evidence not to be mistaken, that that party, in the present momentous struggle, would be found arrayed in defence of the rights of Congress against the encroachments of the President. And let me tell the Senator from Kentucky (said Mr. C.) that, if the present struggle against executive usurpation be successful, it will be owing to the success with which we, the nullifiers – I am not afraid of the word – maintained the rights of the States against the encroachment of the general government at the last session."

This assurance of aid was no sooner given than complied with. Mr. Calhoun, and all his friends came immediately to the support of the resolution, and even exceeded their author in their zeal against the President and his Secretary. Notwithstanding the private grief which Mr. Calhoun had against General Jackson in the affair of the "correspondence" and the "exposition" – the contents of which latter were well known though not published – and notwithstanding every person was obliged to remember that grief while Mr. Calhoun was assailing the General, and alleging patriotism for the motive, and therefore expected that it should have imposed a reserve upon him; yet, on the contrary he was most personally bitter, and used language which would be incredible, if not found, as it is, in his revised reports of his speeches. Thus, in enforcing Mr. Clay's idea of a robbery of the treasury after the manner of Julius Cæsar, he said:

"The senator from Kentucky, in connection with this part of his argument, read a striking passage from one of the most pleasing and instructive writers in any language [Plutarch], the description of Cæsar forcing himself, sword in hand, into the treasury of the Roman commonwealth. We are at the same stage of our political revolution, and the analogy between the two cases is complete, varied only by the character of the actors and the circumstances of the times. That was a case of an intrepid and bold warrior, as an open plunderer, seizing forcibly the treasury of the country, which, in that republic, as well as ours, was confined to the custody of the legislative department of the government. The actors in our case are of a different character – artful, cunning, and corrupt politicians, and not fearless warriors. They have entered the treasury, not sword in hand, as public plunderers, but, with the false keys of sophistry, as pilferers, under the silence of midnight. The motive and the object are the same, varied in like manner by circumstances and character. 'With money I will get men, and with men money,' was the maxim of the Roman plunderer. With money we will get partisans, with partisans votes, and with votes money, is the maxim of our public pilferers. With men and money Cæsar struck down Roman liberty, at the fatal battle of Pharsalia, never to rise again; from which disastrous hour all the powers of the Roman republic were consolidated in the person of Cæsar, and perpetuated in his line. With money and corrupt partisans a great effort is now making to choke and stifle the voice of American liberty, through all its natural organs; by corrupting the press; by overawing the other departments; and, finally, by setting up a new and polluted organ, composed of office-holders and corrupt partisans, under the name of a national convention, which, counterfeiting the voice of the people, will, if not resisted, in their name dictate the succession; when the deed will be done, the revolution be completed, and all the powers of our republic, in like manner, be consolidated in the President, and perpetuated by his dictation."

On the subject of the revolution, "bloodless as yet," in the middle of which we were engaged, and which was not to go backwards, Mr. Calhoun said:

"Viewing the question in its true light, as a struggle on the part of the Executive to seize on the power of Congress, and to unite in the President the power of the sword and the purse, the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] said truly, and, let me add, philosophically, that we are in the midst of a revolution. Yes, the very existence of free governments rests on the proper distribution and organization of power; and, to destroy this distribution, and thereby concentrate power in any one of the departments, is to effect a revolution. But while I agree with the senator that we are in the midst of a revolution, I cannot agree with him as to the time at which it commenced, or the point to which it has progressed. Looking to the distribution of the powers of the general government, into the legislative, executive, and judicial departments, and confining his views to the encroachment of the executive upon the legislative, he dates the commencement of the revolution but sixty days previous to the meeting of the present Congress. I (said Mr. C.) take a wider range, and date it from an earlier period. Besides the distribution among the departments of the general government, there belongs to our system another, and a far more important division or distribution of power – that between the States and the general government, the reserved and delegated rights, the maintenance of which is still more essential to the preservation of our institutions. Taking this wide view of our political system, the revolution, in the midst of which we are, began, not as supposed by the senator from Kentucky, shortly before the commencement of the present session, but many years ago, with the commencement of the restrictive system, and terminated its first stage with the passage of the force bill of the last session, which absorbed all the rights and sovereignty of the States, and consolidated them in this government. Whilst this process was going on, of absorbing the reserved powers of the States, on the part of the general government, another commenced, of concentrating in the executive the powers of the other two – the legislative and judicial departments of the government; which constitutes the second stage of the revolution, in which we have advanced almost to the termination."

Mr. Calhoun brought out in this debate the assertion, in which he persevered afterwards until it produced the quarrel in the Senate between himself and Mr. Clay, that it was entirely owing to the military and nullifying attitude of South Carolina that the "compromise" act was passed, and that Mr. Clay himself would have been prostrated in the attempt to compromise. He thus, boldly put forward that pretension:

"To the interposition of the State of South Carolina we are indebted for the adjustment of the tariff question; without it, all the influence of the senator from Kentucky over the manufacturing interest, great as it deservedly is, would have been wholly incompetent, if he had even thought proper to exert it, to adjust the question. The attempt would have prostrated him, and those who acted with him, and not the system. It was the separate action of the State that gave him the place to stand upon, created the necessity for the adjustment, and disposed the minds of all to compromise."

The necessity of his own position, and the indispensability of Mr. Calhoun's support, restrained Mr. Clay, and kept him quiet under this cutting taunt; but he took ample satisfaction for it some years later, when the triumph of General Jackson in the "expunging resolution," and the decline of their own prospects for the Presidency, dissolved their coalition, and remitted them to their long previous antagonistic feelings. But there was another point in which Mr. Calhoun intelligibly indicated what was fully believed at the time, namely, that the basis of the coalition which ostensibly had for its object the reduction of the tariff, was in reality a political coalition to act against General Jackson, and to the success of which it was essential that their own great bone of contention was to be laid aside, and kept out of the way, while the coalition was in force. It was to enable them to unite their forces against the "encroachments and corruptions of the Executive" that the tariff was then laid away; and although the removal of the deposits was not then foreseen, as the first occasion for this conjunction, yet there could have been no failure of finding occasions enough for the same purpose when the will was so strong – as subsequent events so fully proved. General Jackson could do but little during the remainder of his Presidency which was not found to be "unconstitutional, illegal, corrupt, usurping, and dangerous to the liberties of the people;" and as such, subject to the combined attack of Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun and their respective friends. All this was as good as told, and with an air of self-satisfaction at the foresight of it, in these paragraphs of Mr. Calhoun's speech:

"Now, I put the solemn question to all who hear me: if the tariff had not then been adjusted – if it was now an open question – what hope of successful resistance against the usurpations of the Executive, on the part of this or any other branch of the government, could be entertained? Let it not be said that this is the result of accident – of an unforeseen contingency. It was clearly perceived, and openly stated, that no successful resistance could be made to the corruption and encroachments of the Executive, while the tariff question remained open, while it separated the North from the South, and wasted the energy of the honest and patriotic portions of the community against each other, the joint effort of which is indispensably necessary to expel those from authority who are converting the entire powers of government into a corrupt electioneering machine; and that, without separate State interposition, the adjustment was impossible. The truth of this position rests not upon the accidental state of things, but on a profound principle growing out of the nature of government, and party struggles in a free State. History and reflection teach us, that when great interests come into conflict, and the passions and the prejudices of men are aroused, such struggles can never be composed by the influence of any individuals, however great; and if there be not somewhere in the system some high constitutional power to arrest their progress, and compel the parties to adjust the difference, they go on till the State falls by corruption or violence.

"I will (said Mr. C.) venture to add to these remarks another, in connection with the point under consideration, not less true. We are not only indebted to the cause which I have stated for our present strength in this body against the present usurpation of the Executive, but if the adjustment of the tariff had stood alone, as it ought to have done, without the odious bill which accompanied it – if those who led in the compromise had joined the State-rights party in their resistance to that unconstitutional measure, and thrown the responsibility on its real authors, the administration, their party would have been so prostrated throughout the entire South, and their power, in consequence, so reduced, that they would not have dared to attempt the present measure; or, if they had, they would have been broken and defeated."

Mr. Calhoun took high ground of contempt and scorn against the Secretary's reasons for removing the deposits, so far as founded in the misconduct of the bank directors – declaring that he would not condescend to notice them – repulsing them as intrusive – and shutting his eyes upon these accusations, although heinous in their nature, then fully proved; and since discovered to be far more criminal than then suspected, and such as to subject their authors, a few years afterwards, to indictments in the Court of General Sessions, for the county of Philadelphia, for a "conspiracy to cheat and defraud the stockholders;" – indictments on which they were saved from jury trials by being "habeas corpus'd" out of the custody of the sheriff of the county, who had arrested them on bench warrants. Mr. Calhoun thus repulsed all notice of these accusations:

"The Secretary has brought forward many and grievous charges against the bank. I will not condescend to notice them. It is the conduct of the Secretary, and not that of the bank, which is immediately under examination; and he has no right to drag the conduct of the bank into the issue, beyond its operations in regard to the deposits. To that extent I am prepared to examine his allegations against it; but beyond that he has no right – no, not the least – to arraign the conduct of the bank; and I, for one, will not, by noticing his charges beyond that point, sanction his authority to call its conduct in question. But let the point in issue be determined, and I, as far as my voice extends, will give to those who desire it the means of the freest and most unlimited inquiry into its conduct."

But, while supporting Mr. Clay generally in his movement against the President, Mr. Calhoun disagreed with him in the essential averment in his resolve, that his removal of Mr. Duane because he would not, and the appointment of Mr. Taney because he would, remove them was a usurpation of power. Mr. Calhoun held it to be only an "abuse;" and upon that point he procured a modification of his resolve from Mr. Clay, notwithstanding the earnestness of his speech on the charge of usurpation. And he thus stated his objection:

"But, while I thus severely condemn the conduct of the President in removing the former Secretary and appointing the present, I must say, that in my opinion it is a case of the abuse, and not of the usurpation of power. I cannot doubt that the President has, under the constitution, the right of removal from office; nor can I doubt that the power of removal, wherever it exists, does, from necessity, involve the power of general supervision; nor can I doubt that it might be constitutionally exercised in reference to the deposits. Reverse the present case; suppose the late Secretary, instead of being against, had been in favor of the removal; and that the President, instead of being for, had been against it, deeming the removal not only inexpedient, but, under circumstances illegal; would any man doubt that, under such circumstances, he had a right to remove his Secretary, if it were the only means of preventing the removal of the deposits? Nay, would it not be his indispensable duty to have removed him? and, had he not, would not he have been universally and justly held responsible?"

In all the vituperation of the Secretary, as being the servile instrument of the President's will, the members who indulged in that species of attack were acting against public and recorded testimony. Mr. Taney was complying with his own sense of public duty when he ordered the removal. He had been attorney-general of the United States when the deposit-removal question arose, and in all the stages of that question had been in favor of the removal; so that his conduct was the result of his own judgment and conscience; and the only interference of the President was to place him in a situation where he would carry out his convictions of duty. Mr. Calhoun, in this speech, absolved himself from all connection with the bank, or dependence upon it, or favors from it. Though its chief author, he would have none of its accommodations: and said:

"I am no partisan of the bank; I am connected with it in no way, by moneyed or political ties. I might say, with truth, that the bank owes as much to me as to any other individual in the country; and I might even add that, had it not been for my efforts, it would not have been chartered. Standing in this relation to the institution, a high sense of delicacy, a regard to independence and character, has restrained me from any connection with the institution whatever, except some trifling accommodations, in the way of ordinary business, which were not of the slightest importance either to the bank or myself."

Certainly there was no necessity for Mr. Calhoun to make this disclaimer. His character for pecuniary integrity placed him above the suspicion of a venal motive. His errors came from a different source – from the one that Cæsar thought excusable when empire was to be attained. Mr. Clay also took the opportunity to disclaim any present connection with, or past favors from the bank; and,

"Begged permission to trespass a few moments longer on the Senate, to make a statement concerning himself personally. He had heard that one high in office had allowed himself to assert that a dishonorable connection had subsisted between him (Mr. C), and the Bank of the United States. When the present charter was granted, he voted for it; and, having done so, he did not feel himself at liberty to subscribe, and he did not subscribe, for a single share in the stock of the bank, although he confidently anticipated a great rise in the value of the stock. A few years afterwards, during the presidency of Mr. Jones, is was thought, by some of his friends at Philadelphia, expedient to make him (Mr. C), a director of the Bank of the United States; and he was made a director without any consultation with him. For that purpose five shares were purchased for him, by a friend, for which he (Mr. C), afterwards paid. When he ceased to be a director, a short time subsequently, he disposed of those shares. He does not now own, and has not for many years been the proprietor of, a single share.

"When Mr. Cheves was appointed president of the bank, its affairs in the States of Kentucky and Ohio were in great disorder; and his (Mr. C.'s), professional services were engaged during several years for the bank in those States. He brought a vast number of suits, and transacted a great amount of professional business for the bank. Among other suits was that for the recovery of the one hundred thousand dollars, seized under the authority of a law of Ohio, which he carried through the inferior and supreme courts. He was paid by the bank the usual compensation for these services, and no more. And he ventured to assert that no professional fees were ever more honestly and fairly earned. He had not, however, been the counsel for the bank for upwards of eight years past. He does not owe the bank, or any one of its branches, a solitary cent. About twelve or fifteen years ago, owing to the failure of a highly estimable (now deceased), friend, a large amount of debt had been, as his indorser, thrown upon him (Mr. C), and it was principally due to the Bank of the United States. He (Mr C.) established for himself a rigid economy, a sinking fund, and worked hard, and paid off the debt long since, without receiving from the bank the slightest favor. Whilst others around him were discharging their debts in property, at high valuations, he periodically renewed his note, paying the discount, until it was wholly extinguished."

But it was not every member who could thus absolve himself from bank connection, favor, or dependence. The list of congressional borrowers, or retainers, was large – not less than fifty of the former at a time, and a score of the latter; and even after the failure of the bank and the assignment of its effects, and after all possible liquidations had been effected by taking property at "high valuation," allowing largely for "professional services," and liberal resorts to the "profit and loss" account, there remained many to be sued by the assignees to whom their notes were passed; and some of such early date as to be met by a plea of the statute of limitations in bar of the stale demand. Mr. Calhoun concluded with a "lift to the panic" in a reference to the "fearful crisis" in which we were involved – the dangers ahead to the liberties of the country – the perils of our institutions – and a hint at his permanent remedy – his panacea for all the diseases of the body politic – dissolution of the Union. He ended thus:

"We have (said Mr. C), arrived at a fearful crisis; things cannot long remain as they are. It behooves all who love their country, who have affection for their offspring, or who have any stake in our institutions, to pause and reflect. Confidence is daily withdrawing from the general government. Alienation is hourly going on. These will necessarily create a state of things inimical to the existence of our institutions, and, if not speedily arrested, convulsions must follow, and then comes dissolution or despotism; when a thick cloud will be thrown over the cause of liberty and the future prospects of our country."

CHAPTER CII.

PUBLIC DISTRESS

From the moment of the removal of the deposits, it was seen that the plan of the Bank of the United States was to force their return, and with it a renewal of its charter, by operating on the business of the country and the alarms of the people. For this purpose, loans and accommodations were to cease at the mother bank and all its branches, and in all the local banks over which the national bank had control; and at the same time that discounts were stopped, curtailments were made; and all business men called on for the payment of all they owed, at the same time that all the usual sources of supply were stopped. This pressure was made to fall upon the business community, especially upon large establishments employing a great many operatives; so as to throw as many laboring people as possible out of employment. At the same time, politicians engaged in making panic, had what amounts they pleased, an instance of a loan of $100,000 to a single one of these agitators, being detected; and a loan of $1,100,000 to a broker, employed in making distress, and in relieving it in favored cases at a usury of two and a half per centum per month. In this manner, the business community was oppressed, and in all parts of the Union at the same time: the organization of the national bank, with branches in every State, and its control over local banks, being sufficient to enable it to have its policy carried into effect in all places, and at the same moment. The first step in this policy was to get up distress meetings – a thing easily done – and then to have these meetings properly officered and conducted. Men who had voted for Jackson, but now renounced him, were procured for president, vice-presidents, secretaries, and orators; distress orations were delivered; and, after sufficient exercise in that way, a memorial and a set of resolves, prepared for the occasion, were presented and adopted. After adoption, the old way of sending by the mail was discarded, and a deputation selected to proceed to Washington and make delivery of their lugubrious document. These memorials generally came in duplicate, to be presented, in both Houses at once, by a senator from the State and the representative from the district. These, on presenting the petition, delivered a distress harangue on its contents, often supported by two or three adjunct speakers, although there was a rule to forbid any thing being said on such occasions, except to make a brief statement of the contents. Now they were read in violation of the rule, and spoke upon in violation of the rule, and printed never to be read again, and referred to a committee, never more to be seen by it; and bound up in volumes to encumber the shelves of the public documents. Every morning, for three months, the presentation of these memorials, with speeches to enforce them, was the occupation of each House: all the memorials bearing the impress of the same mint, and the orations generally cast after the same pattern. These harangues generally gave, in the first place, some topographical or historical notice of the county or town from which it came – sometimes with a hint of its revolutionary services – then a description of the felicity which it enjoyed while the bank had the deposits; then the ruin which came upon it, at their loss; winding up usually with a great quantity of indignation against the man whose illegal and cruel conduct had occasioned such destruction upon their business. The meetings were sometimes held by young men; sometimes by old men; sometimes by the laboring, sometimes by the mercantile class; sometimes miscellaneous, and irrespective of party; and usually sprinkled over with a smart number of former Jackson-men, who had abjured him on account of this conduct to the bank. Some passages will be given from a few of these speeches, as specimens of the whole; the quantity of which contributed to swell the publication of the debates of that Congress to four large volumes of more than one thousand pages each. Thus, Mr. Tyler of Virginia, in presenting a memorial from Culpeper county, and hinting at the military character of the county, said:

"The county of Culpeper, as he had before observed, had been distinguished for its whiggism from the commencement of the Revolution; and, if it had not been the first to hoist the revolutionary banner, at the tap of the drum, they were second to but one county, and that was the good county of Hanover, which had expressed the same opinion with them on this all-important subject. He presented the memorial of these sons of the whigs of the Revolution, and asked that it might be read, referred to the appropriate committee, and printed."

Mr. Robbins of Rhode Island, in presenting memorials from the towns of Smithfield and Cumberland in that State:

"A small river runs through these towns, called Blackstone River; a narrow stream, of no great volume of water, but perennial and unfailing, and possessing great power from the frequency and greatness of its falls. Prior to 1791, this power had always run to waste, except here and there a saw mill or a grist mill, to supply the exigencies of a sparse neighborhood, and one inconsiderable forge. Since that period, from time to time, and from place to place, that power, instead of running to waste, has been applied to the use of propelling machinery, till the valley of that small river has become the Manchester of America. That power is so unlimited, that scarcely any limitation can be fixed to its capability of progressive increase in its application. That valley, in these towns, already has in it over thirty different establishments; it has in it two millions of fixed capital in those establishments; it has expended in it annually, in the wages of manual labor, five hundred thousand dollars; it has in it one hundred thousand spindles in operation. I should say it had – for one half of these spindles are already suspended, and the other half soon must be suspended, if the present state of things continues. On the bank of that river, the first cotton spindle was established in America. The invention of Arkwright, in 1791, escaped from the jealous prohibitions of England, and planted itself there. It was brought over by a Mr. Slater, who had been a laboring manufacturer in England, but who was not a machinist. He brought it over, not in models, but in his own mind, and fortunately he was blessed with a mind capacious of such things, and which by its fair fruits, has made him a man of immense fortune, and one of the greatest benefactors to his adopted country. There he made the first essays that laid the foundation of that system which has spread so far and wide in this country, and risen to such a height that it makes a demand annually for two hundred and fifty thousand bales of cotton – about one fourth of all the cotton crop of all our cotton-growing States; makes for those States, for their staple, the best market in the world, except that of England: it was rapidly becoming to them the best market in the world, not excepting that of England; still better, it was rapidly becoming for them a market to weigh down and preponderate in the scale against all the other markets of the world taken together. Now, all those prospects are blasted by one breath of the Executive administration of this country. Now every thing in that valley, every thing in possession, every thing in prospect, is tottering to its fall. One half of those one hundred thousand spindles are, as I before stated, already stopped; the other half are still continued, but at a loss to the owners, and purely from charity to the laborers; but this charity has its limit; and regard to their own safety will soon constrain them to stop the other half. Five months ago, had one travelled through that valley and witnessed the scenes then displayed there – their numerous and dense population, all industrious, and thriving, and contented – had heard the busy hum of industry in their hours of labor – the notes of joy in their hours of relaxation – had seen the plenty of their tables, the comforts of their firesides – had, in a word, seen in every countenance the content of every heart; and if that same person should travel through the same valley hereafter, and should find it then deserted, and desolate, and silent as the valley of death, and covered over with the solitary and mouldering ruins of those numerous establishments, he would say, 'Surely the hand of the ruthless destroyer has been here!' Now, if the present state of things is to be continued, as surely as blood follows the knife that has been plunged to the heart, and death ensues, so surely that change there is to take place; and he who ought to have been their guardian angel, will have been that ruthless destroyer."