Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"At the very commencement, in selecting the stock, there would be great, if not insurmountable, difficulties. No one would think of investing the surplus in bank stock, against which there are so many and such decisive reasons that it is not deemed necessary to state them; nor would the objections be less decisive against vesting in the stock of the States, which would create the dangerous relation of debtor and creditor between the government and the members of the Union. But suppose this difficulty surmounted, and that some stock perfectly safe was selected, there would still remain another that could not be surmounted. There cannot be found a stock, with an interest in its favor sufficiently strong to compete with the interests which, with a large surplus revenue, will be ever found in favor of expenditures. It must be perfectly obvious to all who have the least experience, or who will duly reflect on the subject, that were a fund selected in which to vest the surplus revenue for future use, there would be found in practice a constant conflict between the interest in favor of some local or favorite scheme of expenditure, and that in favor of the stock. Nor can it be less obvious that, in point of fact, the former would prove far stronger than the latter. The result is obvious. The surplus, be it ever so great, would be absorbed by appropriations, instead of being vested in the stock; and the scheme, of course, would, in practice, prove an abortion; which brings us back to the original inquiry, how is the surplus to be disposed of until the excess shall be reduced to the just and economical wants of the government?

"After bestowing on this question, on the successful solution of which so much depends, the most deliberate attention, your committee, as they have already stated, can advise but one means by which it can be effected; and that is, an amendment of the constitution, authorizing the temporary distribution of the surplus revenue among the States till the year 1843; when, as has been shown, the income and expenditure will be equalized.

"Your committee are fully aware of the many and fatal objections to the distribution of the surplus revenue among the States, considered as a part of the ordinary and regular system of this government. They admit them to be as great as can well be imagined. The proposition itself, that the government should collect money for the purpose of such distribution, or should distribute a surplus for the purpose of perpetuating taxes, is too absurd to require refutation; and yet what would be when applied, as supposed, so absurd and pernicious, is, in the opinion of your committee, in the present extraordinary and deeply disordered state of our affairs, not only useful and salutary, but indispensable to the restoration of the body politic to a sound condition; just as some potent medicine, which it would be dangerous and absurd to prescribe to the healthy, may, to the diseased, be the only means of arresting the hand of death. Distribution, as proposed, is not for the preposterous and dangerous purpose of raising a revenue for distribution, or of distributing the surplus as a means of perpetuating a system of duties or taxes; but a temporary measure to dispose of an unavoidable surplus while the revenue is in the course of reduction, and which cannot be otherwise disposed of, without greatly aggravating a disease that threatens the most dangerous consequences; and which holds out hope, not only of arresting its further progress, but also of restoring the body politic to a state of health and vigor. The truth of this assertion a few observations will suffice to illustrate.

"It must be obvious, on a little reflection, that the effects of distribution of the surplus would be to place the interests of the States, on all questions of expenditure, in opposition to expenditure, as every reduction of expense would necessarily increase the sum to be distributed among the States. The effect of this would be convert them, through their interests, into faithful and vigilant sentinels on the side of economy and accountability in the expenditures of this government; and would thus powerfully tend to restore the government, in its fiscal action, to the plain and honest simplicity of former days.

"It may, perhaps, be thought by some that the power which the distribution among the States would bring to bear against the expenditure and its consequent tendency to retrench the disbursements of the government, would be so strong, as not only to curtail useless or improper expenditure, but also the useful and necessary. Such, undoubtedly, would be the consequence, if the process were too long continued; but in the present irregular and excessive action of the system, when its centripetal force threatens to concentrate all its powers in a single department, the fear that the action of this government will be too much reduced by the measure under consideration, in the short period to which it is proposed to limit its operation, is without just foundation. On the contrary, if the proposed measure should be applied in the present diseased state of the government, its effect would be like that of some powerful alterative medicine operating just long enough to change the present morbid action, but not sufficiently long to superinduce another of an opposite character.

"But it may be objected that, though the distribution might reduce all useless expenditure, it would at the same time give additional power to the interest in favor of taxation. It is not denied that such would be its tendency; and, if the danger from increased duties or taxes was at this time as great as that from a surplus revenue, the objection would be fatal; but it is confidently believed that such is not the case. On the contrary, in proposing the measure, it is assumed that the act of March 2, 1833, will remain undisturbed. It is on the strength of this assumption that the measure is proposed, and, as it is believed, safely proposed.

"It may, however, be said that the distribution may create, on the part of the States, an appetite in its favor which may ultimately lead to its adoption as a permanent measure. It may indeed tend to excite such an appetite, short as is the period proposed for its operation; but it is obvious that this danger is far more than countervailed by the fact that the proposed amendment to the constitution to authorize the distribution would place the power beyond the reach of legislative construction; and thus effectually prevent the possibility of its adoption as a permanent measure; as it cannot be conceived that three-fourths of the States will ever assent to an amendment of the constitution to authorize a distribution, except as an extraordinary measure, applicable to some extraordinary condition of the country like the present.

"Giving, however, to these and other objections which may be urged, all the force that can be claimed for them, it must be remembered the question is not whether the measure proposed is or is not liable to this or that objection, but whether any other less objectionable can be devised; or rather, whether there is any other, which promises the least prospect of relief, that can be applied. Let not the delusion prevail that the disease, after running through its natural course, will terminate of itself, without fatal consequences. Experience is opposed to such anticipations. Many and striking are the examples of free States perishing under that excess of patronage which now afflicts ours. It may, in fact, be said with truth, that all or nearly all diseases which afflict free governments may be traced directly or indirectly to excess of revenue and expenditure; the effect of which is to rally around the government a powerful, corrupt, and subservient corps – a corps ever obedient to its will, and ready to sustain it in every measure, whether right or wrong; and which, if the cause of the disease be not eradicated, must ultimately render the government stronger than the people.

"What progress this dangerous disease has already made in our country it is not for your committee to say; but when they reflect on the present symptoms; on the almost unbounded extent of executive patronage, wielded by a single will; the surplus revenue, which cannot be reduced within proper limits in less than seven years – a period which covers two presidential elections, on both of which all this mighty power and influence will be brought to bear; and when they consider that, with the vast patronage and influence of this government, that of all the States acting in concert with it will be combined, there are just grounds to fear that the fate which has befallen so many other free governments must also befall ours, unless, indeed, some effectual remedy be forthwith applied. It is under this impression that your committee have suggested the one proposal; not as free from all objections, but as the only one of sufficient power to arrest the disease and to restore the body politic to a sound condition; and they have accordingly reported a resolution so to amend the constitution that the money remaining in the treasury at the end of each year till the 1st of January, 1843, deducting therefrom the sum of $2,000,000 to meet current and contingent expenses, shall annually be distributed among the States and Territories, including the District of Columbia; and, for that purpose, the sum to be distributed to be divided into as many shares as there are senators and representatives in Congress, adding two for each territory and two for the District of Columbia; and that there shall be allotted to each State a number of shares equal to its representation in both Houses, and to the territories, including the District of Columbia, two shares each. Supposing the surplus to be distributed should average $9,000,000 annually, as estimated, it would give to each share $30,405; which multiplied by the number of senators and representatives from a State will show the amount to which any State will be entitled."

The report being here introduced to speak for itself, the reply also is introduced as delivered upon the instant, and found in the Congress register of debates, thus:

"Mr. Benton next came to the proposition in the report to amend the constitution for eight years, to enable Congress to make distribution among the States, Territories, and District of Columbia, of the annual surplus of public money. The surplus is carefully calculated at $9,000,000 per annum for eight years; and the rule of distribution assumed goes to divide that sum into as many shares as there are senators and representatives in Congress; each State to take shares according to her representation; which the report shows would give for each share precisely $30,405; and then leaves it to the State itself, by a little ciphering, in multiplying the aforesaid sum of $30,405 by the whole number of senators and representatives which it may have in Congress, to calculate the annual amount of the stipend it would receive. This process the report extends through a period of eight years; so that the whole sum to be divided to the States, Territories, and District of Columbia, will amount to seventy-two millions of dollars.

"Of all the propositions which he ever witnessed, brought forward to astonish the senses, to confound recollection, and to make him doubt the reality of a past or a present scene, this proposition, said Mr. B., eclipses and distances the whole! What! the Senate of the United States – not only the same Senate, but the same members, sitting in the same chairs, looking in each others' faces, remembering what each had said only a few short months ago – now to be called upon to make an alteration in the constitution of the United States, for the purpose of dividing seventy-two millions of surplus money in the treasury; when that same treasury was proclaimed, affirmed, vaticinated, and proved, upon calculations, for the whole period of the last session, to be sinking into bankruptcy! that it would be destitute of revenue by the end of the year, and could never be replenished until the deposits were restored! the bank rechartered! and the usurper and despot driven from the high place which he dishonored and abused! This was the cry then; the cry which resounded through this chamber for six long months, and was wafted upon every breeze to every quarter of the Republic, to alarm, agitate, disquiet and enrage the people. The author of this report, and the whole party with which he marched under the oriflamme of the Bank of the United States, filled the Union with this cry of a bankrupt treasury, and predicted the certain and speedy downfall of the administration, from the want of money to carry on the operations of the government.

"[Mr. Calhoun here rose and wished to know of Mr. Benton whether he meant to include him in the number of those who had predicted a deficiency in the revenue.]

"Mr. B. said he would answer the gentleman by telling him an anecdote. It was the story of a drummer taken prisoner in the low countries by the videttes of Marshal Saxe, under circumstances which deprived him of the protection of the laws of war. About to be shot, the poor drummer plead in his defence that he was a non-combatant; he did not fight and kill people; he did nothing, he said, but beat his drum in the rear of the line. But he was answered, so much the worse; that he made other people fight, and kill one another, by driving them on with that drum of his in the rear of the line; and so he should suffer for it. Mr. B. hoped that the story would be understood, and that it would be received by the gentleman as an answer to his question; as neither in law, politics, nor war, was there any difference between what a man did by himself, and did by another. Be that as it may, said Mr. B., the strangeness of the scene in which we are now engaged remains the same. Last year it was a bankrupt treasury, and it beggared government; now it is a treasury gorged to bursting with surplus millions, and a government trampling down liberty, contaminating morals, bribing and wielding vast masses of people, from the unemployable funds of countless treasures. Such are the scenes which the two sessions present; and it is in vain to deny it, for the fatal speeches of that fatal session have gone forth to all the borders of the republic. They were printed here by the myriad, franked by members by the ton weight, freighted to all parts by a decried and overwhelmed Post Office, and paid for! paid for! by whom? Thanks for one thing, at least! The report of the Finance Committee on the bank (Mr. Tyler's report) effected the exhumation of one mass – one mass of hidden and buried putridity; it was the printing account of the Bank of the United States for that session of Congress which will long live in the history of our country under the odious appellation of the panic session. That printing account has been dug up; is the black vomit of the bank! and he knew the medicine which could bring forty such vomits from the foul stomach of the old red harlot. It was the medicine of a committee of investigation, constituted upon parliamentary principles; a committee, composed, in its majority, of those who charged misconduct, and evinced a disposition to probe every charge to the bottom; such a committee as the Senate had appointed, at the same session, not for the bank, but for the post office.

"Yes, exclaimed Mr. B., not only the treasury was to be bankrupt, but the currency was to be ruined. There was to be no money. The trash in the treasury, what little there was, was to be nothing but depreciated paper, the vile issues of insolvent pet banks. Silver, and United States bank notes, and even good bills of exchange, were all to go off, all to take leave, and make their mournful exit together; and gold! that was a trick unworthy of countenance; a gull to bamboozle the simple, and to insult the intelligent, until the fall election were over. Ruin, ruin, ruin to the currency was the lugubrious cry of the day, and the sorrowful burden of the speech for six long months. Now, on the contrary, it seems to be admitted that there is to be money, real good money, in the treasury, such as the fiercest haters of the pet banks would wish to have; and that not a little, since seventy-two millions of surpluses are proposed to be drawn from that same empty treasury in the brief space of eight years. Not a word about ruined currency now. Not a word about the currency itself. The very word seems to be dropped from the vocabulary of gentlemen. All lips closed tight, all tongues hushed still, all allusion avoided, to that once dear phrase. The silver currency doubled in a year; four millions of gold coins in half a year; exchanges reduced to the lowest and most uniform rates; the whole expenses of Congress paid in gold; working people receiving gold and silver for their ordinary wages. Such are the results which have confounded the prophets of wo, silenced the tongues of lamentation, expelled the word currency from our debates; and brought the people to question, if it cannot bring themselves, to doubt, the future infallibility of those undaunted alarmists who still go forward with new and confident predictions, notwithstanding they have been so recently and so conspicuously deceived in their vaticinations of a ruined currency, a bankrupt treasury, and a beggard government.

"But here we are, said Mr. B., actually engaged in a serious proposition to alter the constitution of the United States for the period of eight years, in order to get rid of surplus revenue; and a most dazzling, seductive, and fascinating scheme is presented; no less than nine millions a year for eight consecutive years. It took like wildfire, Mr. B. said, and he had seen a member – no, that might seem too particular – he had seen a gentleman who looked upon it as establishing a new era in the affairs of our America, establishing a new test for the formation of parties, bringing a new question into all our elections, State and federal; and operating the political salvation and elevation of all who supported it and the immediate, utter, and irretrievable political damnation of all who opposed it. But Mr. B. dissented from the novelty of the scheme. It was an old acquaintance of his, only new vamped and new burnished, for the present occasion. It is the same proposition, only to be accomplished in a different way, which was brought forward, some years ago, by a senator from New Jersey (Mr. Dickerson) and which then received unmeasured condemnation, not merely for unconstitutionality, but for all its effects and consequences: the degradation of mendicant States, receiving their annual allowance from the bounty of the federal government; the debauchment of the public morals, when every citizen was to look to the federal treasury for money, and every candidate for office was to outbid his competitor in offering it; the consolidation of the States, thus resulting from a central supply of revenue; the folly of collecting with one hand to pay back with the other; and both hands to be greased at the expense of the citizen, who pays one man to collect the money from him, and another to bring it back to him, minus the interest and the cost of a double operation in fetching and carrying; and the eventual and inevitable progress of the scheme to the plunder of the weaker half of the Union by the stronger; when the stronger half would undoubtedly throw the whole burden of raising the money upon the weaker half, and then take the main portion to themselves. Such were the main objections uttered against this plan, seven years ago, when a gallant son of South Carolina (General Hayne) stood by his (Mr. B.'s) side – no, stood before him – and led him in the fight against that fatal and delusive scheme, now brought forward under a more seclusive, dangerous, alarming, inexcusable, unjustifiable, and demoralizing form.

"Yes, said Mr. B., it is not only the revival of the same plan for dividing surplus revenue, which received its condemnation on this floor, seven or eight years ago; but it is the modification, and that in a form infinitely worse for the new States, of the famous land bill which now lies upon our table. It takes up the object of that bill, and runs away with it, giving nine millions where that gave three, and leaves the author of that bill out of sight behind; and can the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) be so short-sighted as not to see that somebody will play him the same prank, and come forward with propositions to raise and divide twenty, thirty, forty millions; and thus outleap, outjump, and outrun him in the race of popularity, just as far as he himself has now outjumped, outleaped, and outran, the author of the land distribution bill?

"Yes, said Mr. B., this scheme for dividing surplus revenue is an old acquaintance on this floor; but never did it come upon this floor at a time so inauspicious, under a form so questionable, and upon assumptions so unfounded in fact, so delusive in argument. He would speak of the inauspiciousness of the time hereafter; at present, he would take positions in direct contradiction to all the arguments of fact and reason upon which this monstrous scheme of distribution is erected and defended. Condensed into their essence, these arguments are:

"1. That there will be a surplus of nine millions annually, for eight years.

"2. That there is no way to reduce the revenue.

"3. That there is no object of general utility to which these surpluses can be applied.

"4. That distribution is the only way to carry them off without poisoning and corrupting the whole body politic.

"Mr. B. disputed the whole of those propositions, and would undertake to show each to be unfounded and erroneous.

"1. The report says that the surplus will probably equal, on the average, for the next eight years, the sum of $9,000,000 beyond the just wants of the government; and in a subsequent part it says, supposing the surplus to be distributed should average $9,000,000, annually, as estimated, it would give to each share $30,405, which, multiplied by the senators and representatives of any State, would show the sum to which it would be entitled. The amendment which has been reported to carry this distribution into effect is to take effect for the year 1835 – the present year – and to continue till the 1st day of January, 1843; of course it is inclusive of 1842, and makes a period of eight years for the distribution to go on. The amendment contains a blank, which is to be filled up with the sum which is to be left in the treasury every year, to meet contingent and unexpected demands and the report shows that this blank is to be filled with the sum of $2,000,000. Here, then, is the totality of these surpluses, eleven millions a year, for eight consecutive years; but of which nine millions are to be taken annually for distribution. Now, nine times eight are seventy-two, so that here is a report setting forth the enormous sum of $72,000,000 of mere surplus, after satisfying all the just wants of the government, and leaving two millions in the treasury, to be held up for distribution, and to excite the people to clamor for their shares of such a great and dazzling prize. At the same time, Mr. B. said, there would be no such surplus. It was a delusive bait held out to whet the appetite of the people for the spoils of their country; and could never be realized, even if the amendment for authorizing the distribution should now pass. The seventy-two millions could never be found; they would exist nowhere but in this report, in the author's imagination, and in the deluded hopes of an excited community. The seventy-two millions could never be found; they would turn out to be the 'fellows in Kendal green and buckram suits,' which figured so largely in the imagination of Sir John Falstaff – the two-and-fifty men in buckram which the valiant old knight received upon his point, thus! [extending a pencil in the attitude of defence]. The calculations of the author of the report were wild, delusive, astonishing, incredible. He (Mr. B.) could not limit himself to the epithet wild, for it was a clear case of hallucination.

"Mr. B. then took up the treasury report of Mr. Secretary Woodbury, communicated at the commencement of the present session of Congress, and containing the estimates required by law of the expected income and expenditure for the present year, and also for the year 1836. At pages 4 and 5 are the estimates for the present year; the income estimated at $20,000,000, the expenditures at $19,683,540; being a difference of only some three hundred thousand dollars between the income and the outlay; and such is the chance for nine millions taken, and two left in the first year of the distribution. At pages 10, 14, 15, the revenue for 1836 is computed; and, after going over all the heads of expense, on which diminutions will probably be made, he computes the income and outlay of the year at about equal; or probably a little surplus to the amount of one million. These are the estimates, said Mr. B., formed upon data, and coming from an officer making reports upon his responsibility, and for the legislative guidance of Congress; and to which we are bound to give credence until they are shown to be incorrect. Here, then, are the first two years of the eight disposed of, and nothing found in them to divide. The last two years of the term could be dispatched even more quickly, said Mr. B.; for every body that understands the compromise act of March, 1833, must know that, in the last two years of the operation of that act, there would be an actual deficit in the treasury. Look at the terms of the act! It proceeds by slow and insensible degrees, making slight deductions once in two years, until the years 1841 and 1842, when it ceases crawling, and commences jumping; and leaps down, at two jumps, to twenty per centum on the value of the articles which pay duty, which articles are less than one half of our importations. Twenty per cent. upon the amount of goods which will then pay duty will produce but little, say twelve or thirteen millions, upon the basis of sixty or seventy millions of dutiable articles imported then, which only amount to forty-seven millions now. Then there will be no surplus at all for one half the period of eight years: the first two and the last two. In the middle period of four years there will probably be a surplus of two or three millions; but Mr. B. took issue upon all the allegations with respect to it; as that there was no way to reduce the revenue without disturbing the compromise act of March, 1833; that there was no object of general utility to which it could be applied; and that distribution was the only way to get rid of it.

"Equally delusive, and profoundly erroneous, was the gentleman's idea of the surplus which could be taken out of the appropriations. True, that operation could be performed once, and but once. The run of our treasury payments show that about one quarter of the year's expenditure is not paid within the year, but the first quarter of the next year, and thus could be paid out of the revenue received in the first quarter of the next year, even if the revenue of the last quarter of the preceding year was thrown away. But this was a thing which could only be done once. You might rely upon the first quarter, but you could not upon the second, third, and fourth. There would not be a dollar in the treasury at the end of four years, if you deducted a quarter's amount four times successively. It was a case, if a homely adage might be allowed, which would well apply – you could not eat the cake and have it too. Mr. B. submitted it, then, to the Senate, that, on the first point of objection to the report, his issue was maintained. There was no such surplus of nine millions a year for eight years, as had been assumed, nor any thing near it; and this assumption being the corner-stone of the whole edifice of the scheme of distribution, it was sufficient to show the fallacy of that data to blow the whole scheme into the empty air.

"Mr. B. admonished the Senate to beware of ridicule. To pass a solemn vote for amending the constitution, for the purpose of enabling Congress to make distribution of surpluses of revenue, and then find no surplus to distribute, might lessen the dignity and diminish the weight of so grave a body. It might expose it to ridicule; and that was a hard thing for public bodies, and public men, to stand. The Senate had stood much in its time; much in the latter part of Mr. Monroe's administration, when the Washington Republican habitually denounced it as a faction, and displayed many brilliant essays, written by no mean hand, to prove that the epithet was well applied, though applied to a majority. It had stood much, also, during the four years of the second Mr. Adams's administration; as the surviving pages of the defunct National Journal could still attest: but in all that time it stood clear of ridicule; it did nothing upon which saucy wit could lay its lash. Let it beware now! for the passage of this amendment may expose it to untried peril; the peril of song and caricature. And wo the Senate, farewell to its dignity, if it once gets into the windows of the printshop, and becomes the burden of the ballads which the milkmaids sing to their cows.

"2. Mr. B. took up his second head of objection. The report affirmed that there was no way to reduce the revenue before the end of the year 1842, without violating the terms of the compromise act of March, 1833. Mr. B. said he had opposed that act when it was on its passage, and had then stated his objections to it. It was certainly an extraordinary act, a sort of new constitution for nine years, as he had heard it felicitously called. It was made in an unusual manner, not precisely by three men on an island on the coast of Italy, but by two in some room of a boarding-house in this city; and then pushed through Congress under a press of sail, and a duresse of feeling; under the factitious cry of dissolution of the Union, raised by those who had been declaring, on one hand, that the tariff could not be reduced without dissolving the Union; and on the other that it could not be kept up without dissolving the same Union. The value of all such cries, Mr. B. said, would be appreciated in future, when it was seen with how much facility certain persons who had stood under the opposite poles of the earth, as it were, on the subject of the tariff had come together to compromise their opinions, and to lay the tariff on the shelf for nine years! a period which covered two presidential elections! That act was no favorite of his, but he would let it alone; and thus leaving it to work out its design for nine years, he would say there were ways to reduce the revenue, very sensibly, without affecting the terms or the spirit of that act. And here he would speak upon data. He had the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Woodbury) to declare that he believed he could reduce the revenue in this way and upon imports to the amount of five hundred thousand dollars; and he, Mr. B., should submit a resolution calling upon the Secretary to furnish the details of this reduction to the Senate at the commencement of their next stated session, that Congress might act upon it. Further, Mr. B. would say, that it appeared to him that the whole list of articles in the fifth section of the act, amounting to thirty or forty in number, and which by that section are to be free of duty in 1842, and which in his opinion might be made free this day, and that not only without injury to the manufacturers, but with such manifest advantage to them, that, as an equivalent for it, and for the sake of obtaining it, they ought to come forward of themselves, and make a voluntary concession of reductions on some other points, especially on some classes of woollen goods.

"Having given Mr. Woodbury's authority for a reduction of $500,000 on imports, Mr. B. would show another source from which a much larger reduction could be made, and that without affecting this famous act of March, 1833, in another and a different quarter; it was in the Western quarter, the new States, the public lands! The act of 1833 did not embrace this source of revenue, and Congress was free to act upon it, and to give the people of the new States the same relief on the purchase of the article on which they chiefly paid revenue as it had done to the old States in the reduction of the tariff. Mr. B. did not go into the worn-out and exploded objections to the reduction of the price of the lands which the report had gathered up from their old sleeping places, and presented again to the Senate. Speculators, monopolies, the fall in the price of real estate all over the Union; these were exploded fallacies which he was sorry to see paraded here again, and which he should not detain the Senate to answer. Suffice it to say, that there is no application made now, made heretofore, or intended to be made, so far as he knew, to reduce the price of new land! One dollar and a quarter was low enough for the first choice of new lands; but it was not low enough for the second, third, fourth, and fifth choices! It was not low enough for the refuse lands which had been five, ten, twenty, forty years in market; and which could find no purchaser at $1 25, for the solid reason that they were worth but the half, the quarter, the tenth part, of that sum. It was for such lands that reduction of prices was sought, and had been sought for many years, and would continue to be sought until it was obtained; for it was impossible to believe that Congress would persevere in the flagrant injustice of for ever refusing to reduce the price of refuse and unsalable lands to their actual value. The policy of President Jackson, communicated in his messages, Mr. B. said, was the policy of wisdom and justice. He was for disposing of the lands more for the purpose of promoting settlements, and creating freeholders, than for the purpose of exacting revenue from the meritorious class of citizens who cultivate the soil. He would sell the lands at prices which would pay expenses – the expense of acquiring them from the Indians, and surveying and selling them; and this system of moderate prices with donations, or nominal sales to actual settlers, would do justice to the new States, and effect a sensible reduction in the revenue; enough to prevent the necessity of amending the constitution to get rid of nine million surpluses! But whether the price of lands was reduced or not, Mr. B. said, the revenue from that source would soon be diminished. The revenue had been exorbitant from the sale of lands for three or four years past. And why? Precisely because immense bodies of new lands, and much of it in the States adapted to the production of the great staples which now bear so high a price, have within that period, come into market; but these fresh lands must soon be exhausted; the old and refuse only remain for sale; and the revenue from that source will sink down to its former usual amount, instead of remaining at three millions a year for nine years, as the report assumes.

"3. When he had thus shown that a diminution of revenue could be effected, both on imports and on refuse and unsalable lands, Mr. B. took up the third issue which he had joined with the report; namely, the possibility of finding an object of general utility on which the surpluses could be expended. The report affirmed there was no such object; he, on the contrary, affirmed that there were such; not one, but several, not only useful, but necessary, not merely necessary, but exigent; not exigent only, but in the highest possible degree indispensable and essential. He alluded to the whole class of measures connected with the general and permanent defence of the Union! In peace, prepare for war! is the admonition of wisdom in all ages and in all nations; and sorely and grievously has our America heretofore paid for the neglect of that admonition. She has paid for it in blood, in money, and in shame. Are we prepared now? And is there any reason why we should not prepare now? Look at your maritime coast, from Passamaquoddy Bay to Florida point; your gulf coast, from Florida point to the Sabine; your lake frontier, in its whole extent. What is the picture? Almost destitute of forts; and, it might be said, quite destitute of armament. Look at your armories and arsenals – too few and too empty; and the West almost destitute! Look at your militia, many of them mustering with corn stalks; the States deficient in arms, especially in field artillery, and in swords and pistols for their cavalry! Look at your navy; slowly increasing under an annual appropriation of half a million a year, instead of a whole million, at which it was fixed soon after the late war, and from which it was reduced some years ago, when money ran low in the treasury! Look at your dock-yards and navy-yards; thinly dotted along the maritime coast, and hardly seen at all on the gulf coast, where the whole South, and the great West, so imperiously demand naval protection! Such is the picture; such the state of our country; such its state at this time, when even the most unobservant should see something to make us think of defence! Such is the state of our defences now, with which, oh! strange and wonderful contradiction! the administration is now reproached, reviled, flouted, and taunted, by those who go for distribution, and turn their backs on defence! and who complain of the President for leaving us in this condition, when five years ago, in the year 1829, he recommended the annual sum of $250,000 for arming the fortifications (which Congress refused to give), and who now are for taking the money out of the treasury, to be divided among the people; instead of turning it all to the great object of the general and permanent defence of the Union, for which they were so solicitous, so clamorous, so feelingly alive, and patriotically sensitive, even one short month ago.

"Does not the present state of the country (said Mr. B.) call for defence? and is not this the propitious time for putting it in defence? and will not that object absorb every dollar of real surplus that can be found in the treasury for these eight years of plenty, during which we are to be afflicted with seventy-two millions of surplus? Let us see. Let us take one single branch of the general system of defence, and see how it stands, and what it would cost to put it in the condition which the safety and the honor of the country demanded. He spoke of the fortifications, and selected that branch, because he had data to go upon; data to which the senator from South Carolina, the author of this report, could not object.

"The design (said Mr. B.) of fortifying the coasts of the United States is as old as the Union itself. Our documents are full of executive recommendations, departmental reports, and reports of committees upon this subject, all urging this great object upon the attention of Congress. From 1789, through every succeeding administration, the subject was presented to Congress; but it was only after the late war, and when the evils of a defenceless coast were fresh before the eyes of the people, that the subject was presented in the most impressive, persevering, and systematic form. An engineer of the first rank (General Bernard) was taken into our service from the school of the great Napoleon. A resolution of the House of Representatives called on the War Department for a plan of defence, and a designation of forts adequate to the protection of the country; and upon this call examinations were made, estimates framed, and forts projected for the whole maritime coast from Savannah to Boston. The result was the presentation, in 1821, of a plan for ninety forts upon that part of the coast; namely, twenty-four of the first class; twenty-three of the second; and forty-three of the third. Under the administration of Mr. Monroe, and the urgent recommendations of the then head of the War Department (Mr. Calhoun), the construction of these forts was commenced, and pushed with spirit and activity; but, owing to circumstances not necessary now to be detailed, the object declined in the public favor, lost a part of its popularity, perhaps justly, and has since proceeded so slowly that, at the end of twenty years from the late war, no more than thirteen of these forts have been constructed; namely, eight of the first class, three of the second, and two of the third; and of these thirteen constructed, none are armed; almost all of them are without guns or carriages, and more ready for the occupation of an enemy than for the defence of ourselves. This is the state of fortifications on the maritime coast, exclusive of the New England coast to the north of Boston, exclusive of Cape Cod, south of Boston, and exclusive of the Atlantic coast of Florida. The lake frontier is untouched. The gulf frontier, almost two thousand miles in length, barely is dotted with a few forts in the neighborhood of Pensacola, New Orleans, and Mobile; all the rest of the coast may be set down as naked and defenceless. This was our condition. Now, Mr. B. did not venture to give an opinion that the whole plan of fortifications developed in the reports of 1821 should be carried into effect; but he would say, and that most confidently, that much of it ought to be; and it would be the business of Congress to decide on each fort in making a specific appropriation for it. He would also say that many forts would be found to be necessary which were not embraced in that plan; for it did not touch the lake coast, and the gulf coast, nor the New England coast, north of Boston, nor any point of the land frontier. Without going into the question at all, of how many were necessary, or where they should be placed, it was sufficient to show that there were enough wanting, beyond dispute, to constitute an object of utility, worthy of the national expenditure; and sufficient to absorb, not nine millions of annual surplus, to be sure, but about as many millions of surplus as would ever be found, and the bank stock into the bargain. The thirteen forts constructed had cost twelve millions one hundred and thirteen thousand dollars; near one million of dollars each. But this was for construction only; the armament was still to follow; and for this object two millions were estimated in 1821 for the ninety forts then recommended; and of that two millions it may be assumed that but little has been granted by Congress. So much for fortifications; in itself a single branch of defence, and sufficient to absorb many millions. But there were many other branches of defence which, Mr. B. said, he would barely enumerate. There was the navy, including its gradual increase, its dock-yards, its navy-yards; then the armories and arsenals, which were so much wanted in the South and West, and especially in the South, for a reason (besides those which apply to foreign enemies) which need not be named; then the supply of arms to the States, especially field artillery, swords, and pistols, for which an annual but inadequate appropriation had been made for so long a time that he believed the States had almost forgot the subject. Here are objects enough, Mr. President, exclaimed Mr. B., to absorb every dollar of our surplus, and the bank stock besides. The surpluses, he was certain, would be wholly insufficient, and the bank stock, by a solemn resolution of the two Houses of Congress, should be devoted to the object. As a fund was set apart, and held sacred and inviolable, for the payment of the public debt so; should a fund be now created for national defence, and this bank stock should be the first and most sacred item put into it. It is the only way to save that stock from becoming the prey of incessant contrivances to draw money from the treasury. Mr. B. said that he intended to submit resolutions, requesting the President to cause to be communicated to the next Congress full information upon all the points that he had touched; the probable revenue and expenditure for the next eight years; the plan and expense of fortifying the coast; the navy, and every other point connected with the general and permanent defence of the Union, with a view to let Congress take it up, upon system, and with a design to complete it without further delay. And he demanded, why hurry on this amendment before that information can come in?

"Now is the auspicious moment, said Mr. B., for the republic to rouse from the apathy into which it has lately sunk on the subject of national defence. The public debt is paid; a sum of six or seven millions will come from the bank; some surpluses may occur; let the national defence become the next great object after the payment of the debt, and all spare money go to that purpose. If further stimulus were wanted, it might be found in the present aspect of our foreign affairs, and in the reproaches, the taunts, and in the offensive insinuations which certain gentlemen have been indulging in for two months with respect to the defenceless state of the coast; and which they attribute to the negligence of the administration. Certainly such gentlemen will not take that money for distribution, for the immediate application of which their defenceless country is now crying aloud, and stretching forth her imploring hands.

"Mr. B. would here avail himself of a voice more potential than his own to enforce attention to the great object of national defence, the revival of which he was now attempting. It was a voice which the senator from South Carolina, the author of this proposition to squander in distributions the funds which should be sacred to defence, would instantly recognize. It was an extract from a message communicated to Congress, December 3, 1822, by President Monroe. Whether considered under the relation of similarity which it bears to the language and sentiments of cotemporaneous reports from the then head of the War Department; the position which the writer of those reports then held in relation to President Monroe; the right which he possessed, as Secretary of War, to know, at least, what was put into the message in relation to measures connected with his department; considered under any and all of these aspects, the extracts which he was about to read might be considered as expressing the sentiments, if not speaking the words, of the gentleman who now sees no object of utility in providing for the defence of his country; and who then plead the cause of that defence with so much truth and energy, and with such commendable excess of patriotic zeal.

"Mr. B. then read as follows:

"'Should war break out in any of those countries (the European), who can foretell the extent to which it may be carried, or the desolation which may spread? Exempt as we are from these causes (of European civil wars), our internal tranquillity is secure; and distant as we are from the troubled scene, and faithful to just principles in regard to other powers, we might reasonably presume that we should not be molested by them. This, however, ought not to be calculated on as certain. Unprovoked injuries are often inflicted, and even the peculiar felicity of our situation might, with some, be a cause of excitement and aggression. The history of the late wars in Europe furnishes a complete demonstration that no system of conduct, however correct in principle, can protect neutral powers from injury from any party; that a defenceless position and distinguished love of peace are the surest invitations to war; and that there is no way to avoid it, other than by being always prepared, and willing, for just cause, to meet it. If there be a people on earth, whose more especial duty it is to be at all times prepared to defend the rights with which they are blessed, and to surpass all others in sustaining the necessary burdens, and in submitting to sacrifices to make such preparations, it is undoubtedly the people of these States.'

"Mr. B. having read thus far, stopped to make a remark, and but a remark, upon a single sentiment in it. He would not weaken the force and energy of the whole passage by going over it in detail; but he invoked attention upon the last sentiment – our peculiar duty, so strongly painted, to sustain burdens, and submit to sacrifices, to accomplish the noble object of putting our country into an attitude of defence! The ease with which we can prepare for the same defence now, by the facile operation of applying to that purpose surpluses of revenue and bank stock, for which we have no other use, was the point on which he would invoke and arrest the Senate's attention.

"Mr. B. resumed his reading, and read the next paragraph, which enumerated all the causes which might lead to general war in Europe, and our involvement in it, and concluded with the declaration 'That the reasons for pushing forward all our measures of defence, with the utmost vigor, appear to me to acquire new force.' And then added, these causes for European war are now in as great force as then; the danger of our involvement is more apparent now than then; the reasons for sensibility to our national honor are nearer now than then; and upon all the principles of the passage from which he was reading, the reasons for pushing forward all our measures of defence with the utmost vigor, possessed far more force in this present year 1835, than they did in the year 1822.

"Mr. B. continued to read:

"'The United States owe to the world a great example, and by means thereof, to the cause of liberty and humanity a generous support. They have so far succeeded to the satisfaction of the virtuous and enlightened of every country. There is no reason to doubt that their whole movement will be regulated by a sacred regard to principle, all our institutions being founded on that basis. The ability to support our own cause, under any trial to which it may be exposed, is the great point on which the public solicitude rests. It has often been charged against free governments, that they have neither the foresight nor the virtue to provide at the proper season for great emergencies; that their course is improvident and expensive; that war will always find them unprepared; and, whatever may be its calamities, that its terrible warnings will be disregarded and forgotten as soon as peace returns. I have full confidence that this charge, so far as it relates to the United States, will be shown to be utterly destitute of truth.'

"Mr. B., as he closed the book, said, he would make a few remarks upon some of the points in this passage, which he had last read – the reproach so often charged upon free governments for want of foresight and virtue, their improvidence and expensiveness, their proneness to disregard and forget in peace the warning lessons of the most terrible calamities of war. And he would take the liberty to suggest that, of all the mortal beings now alive upon this earth, the author of the report under discussion ought to be the last to disregard and to forget the solemn and impressive admonition which the passage conveyed! the last to so act as to subject his government to the mortifying charge which has been so often cast upon them! the last to subject the virtue of the people to the humiliating trial of deciding between the defence and the plunder of their country!

"Mr. B. dwelt a moment on another point in the passage which he had read – the great example which this republic owed to the world, and to the cause of free governments, to prove itself capable of supporting its cause under every trial; and that by providing in peace for the dangers of war. It was a striking point in the passage, and presented a grand and philosophic conception to the reflecting mind. The example to be shown to the world, and the duty of this republic to exhibit it, was an elevated and patriotic conception, and worthy of the genius which then presided over the War Department. But what is the example which we are now required to exhibit? It is that of a people preferring the spoils of their country to its defence! It is that of the electioneerer, going from city to city, from house to house, even to the uninformed tenant of the distant hamlet, who has no means of detecting the fallacies which are brought from afar to deceive his understanding: it is the example of this electioneerer, with slate and pencil in his hand (and here Mr. B. took up an old book cover, and a pencil, and stooped over it to make figures, as if working out a little sum in arithmetic), it is the example of this electioneerer, offering for distribution that money which should be sacred to the defence of his country; and pointing out for overthrow, at the next election, every candidate for office who should be found in opposition to this wretched and deceptive scheme of distribution. This is the example which it is proposed that we should now exhibit. And little did it enter into his (Mr. B.'s) imagination, about the time that message was written, that it should fall to his lot to plead for the defence of his country against the author of this report. He admired the grandeur of conception which the reports of the war office then displayed. He said he differed from the party with whom he then acted, in giving a general, though not a universal, support to the Secretary of War. He looked to him as one who, when mellowed by age and chastened by experience, might be among the most admired Presidents that ever filled the presidential chair. [Mr. B., by a lapsus linguæ, said throne, but corrected the expression on its echo from the galleries.]

"Mr. B. said there was an example which it was worthy to imitate: that of France; her coast defended by forts and batteries, behind which the rich city reposed in safety – the tranquil peasant cultivated his vine in security – while the proud navy of England sailed innoxious before them, a spectacle of amusement, not an object of terror. And there was an example to be avoided: the case of our own America during the late war; when the approach of a British squadron, upon any point of our extended coast, was the signal for flight, for terror, for consternation; when the hearts of the brave and the almost naked hands of heroes were the sole reliance for defence; and where those hearts and those hands could not come, the sacred soil of our country was invaded; the ruffian soldier and the rude sailor became the insolent masters of our citizens' houses; their footsteps marked by the desolation of fields, the conflagration of cities, the flight of virgins, the violation of matrons! the blood of fathers, husbands, sons! This is the example which we should avoid!

"But the amendment is to be temporary: it is only to last until 1842. What an idea! – a temporary alteration in a constitution made for endless ages! But let no one think it will be temporary, if once adopted. No! if the people once come to taste that blood; if they once bring themselves to the acceptance of money from the treasury they are gone for ever. They will take that money in all time to come; and he that promises most, receives most votes. The corruption of the Romans, the debauchment of the voters, the venality of elections, commenced with the Tribunitial distribution of corn out of the public granaries; it advanced to the distribution of the spoils of foreign nations, brought home to Rome by victorious generals and divided out among the people; it ended in bringing the spoils of the country into the canvass for the consulship, and in putting up the diadem of empire itself to be knocked down to the hammer of the auctioneer. In our America there can be no spoils of conquered nations to distribute. Her own treasury – her own lands – can alone furnish the fund. Begin at once, no matter how, or upon what – surplus revenue, the proceeds of the lands, or the lands themselves – no matter; the progress and the issue of the whole game is as inevitable as it is obvious. Candidates bid, the voters listen; and a plundered and pillaged country – the empty skin of an immolated victim – is the prize and the spoil of the last and the highest bidder."

The proposition to amend the constitution to admit of this distribution was never brought to a vote. In fact it was never mentioned again after the day of the above discussion. It seemed to have support from no source but that of its origin; and very soon events came to scatter the basis on which the whole stress and conclusion of the report lay. Instead of a surplus of nine millions to cover the period of two presidential elections, there was a deficit in the treasury in the period of the first one; and the government reduced to the humiliating resorts to obtain money to keep itself in motion – mendicant expeditions to Europe to borrow money, returning without it – and paper money struck under the name of treasury notes. But this attempt to amend the constitution to permit a distribution, becomes a material point in the history of the working of our government, seeing that a distribution afterwards took place without the amendment to permit it.

CHAPTER CXXIX.

COMMENCEMENT OF TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS – PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

The following was the list of the members:

SENATORS:

Maine – Ether Shepley, John Ruggles.