Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"'That the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be ineligible to, and incapable of holding, any civil office under the authority of the United States, during the term for which they shall respectively be elected.'

"By the North Carolina convention, the same amendment was recommended, in the same words.

"In the first session of the first Congress, which was held under the constitution, a member of the House of Representatives submitted a similar proposition of amendment; and, in the third session of the eleventh Congress, James Madison being President, a like proposition was again submitted, and being referred to a committee of the House, was reported by them in the following words:

"'No senator or representative shall be appointed to any civil office, place, or emolument, under the authority of the United States, untill the expiration of the presidential term in which such person shall have served as a senator or representative.'

"Upon the question to adopt this resolution, the vote stood 71 yeas, 40 nays. – wanting but three votes of the constitutional number for referring it to the decision of the States.

"Having thus shown, by a reference to the venerable evidence of our early history, that the principle of the amendment now under consideration, has had the support and approbation of the first friends of the constitution, the committee will now declare their own opinion in favor of its correctness, and expresses its belief that the ruling principle in the organization of the federal government demands its adoption."

It is thus seen that in the formation of the constitution, and in the early ages of our government, there was great jealousy on this head – great fear of tampering between the President and the members – and great efforts made to keep each independent of the other. For the safety of the President, and that Congress should not have him in their power, he was made independent of them in point of salary. By a constitutional provision his compensation was neither to be diminished nor increased during the term for which he was elected; – not diminished, lest Congress should starve him into acquiescence in their views; – not increased, lest Congress should seduce him by tempting his cupidity with an augmented compensation. That provision secured the independence of the President; but the independence of the two Houses was still to be provided for; and that was imperfectly effected by two provisions – the first, prohibiting office holders under the federal government from taking a seat in either House; the second, by prohibiting their appointment to any civil office that might have been created, or its emoluments increased, during the term for which he should have been elected. These provisions were deemed by the authors of the federalist (No. 55) sufficient to protect the independence of Congress, and would have been, if still observed in their spirit, as well as in their letter, as was done by the earlier Presidents. A very strong instance of this observance was the case of Mr. Alexander Smythe, of Virginia, during the administration of President Monroe. Mr. Smythe had been a member of the House of Representatives, and in that capacity had voted for the establishment of a judicial district in Western Virginia, and by which the office of judge was created. His term of service had expired: he was proposed for the judgeship: the letter of the constitution permitted the appointment: but its spirit did not. Mr. Smythe was entirely fit for the place, and Mr. Monroe entirely willing to bestow it upon him. But he looked to the spirit of the act, and the mischief it was intended to prevent, as well as to its letter; and could see no difference between bestowing the appointment the day after, or the day before, the expiration of Mr. Smythe's term of service: and he refused to make the appointment. This was protecting the purity of legislation according to the intent of the constitution; but it has not always been so. A glaring case to the contrary occurred in the person of Mr. Thomas Butler King, under the presidency of Mr. Fillmore. Mr. King was elected a member of Congress for the term at which the office of collector of the customs at San Francisco had been created, and had resigned his place: but the resignation could not work an evasion of the constitution, nor affect the principle of its provision. He had been appointed in the recess of Congress, and sent to take the place before his two years had expired – and did take it; and that was against the words of the constitution. His nomination was not sent in until his term expired – the day after it expired – having been held back during the regular session; and was confirmed by the Senate. I had then ceased to be a member of the Senate, and know not whether any question was raised on the nomination; but if I had been, there should have been a question.

But the constitutional limitation upon the appointment of members of Congress, even when executed beyond its letter and according to its spirit, as done by Mr. Monroe, is but a very small restraint upon their appointment, only applying to the few cases of new offices created, or of compensation increased, during the period of their membership. The whole class of regular vacancies remain open! All the vacancies which the President pleases to create, by an exercise of the removing power, are opened! and between these two sources of supply, the fund is ample for as large a commerce between members and the President – between subservient votes on one side, and executive appointments on the other – as any President, or any set of members, might choose to carry on. And here is to be noted a wide departure from the theory of the government on this point, and how differently it has worked from what its early friends and advocates expected. I limit myself now to Hamilton, Madison and Jay; and it is no narrow limit which includes three such men. Their names would have lived for ever in American history, among those of the wise and able founders of our government, without the crowning work of the "Essays" in behalf of the constitution which have been embodied under the name of "Federalist" – and which made that name so respectable before party assumed it. The defects of the constitution were not hidden from them in the depths of the admiration which they felt for its perfections; and these defects were noted, and as far as possible excused, in a work devoted to its just advocation. This point (of dangerous commerce between the executive and the legislative body) was obliged to be noticed – forced upon their notice by the jealous attacks of the "Anti-Federalists" – as the opponents of the constitution were called: and in the number 55 of their work, they excused, and diminished, this defect in these terms:

"Sometimes we are told, that this fund of corruption (Executive appointments) is to be exhausted by the President in subduing the virtue of the Senate. Now, the fidelity of the other House is to be the victim. The improbability of such a mercenary and perfidious combination of the several members of the government, standing on as different foundations as republican principles will well admit, and at the same time accountable to the society over which they are placed, ought alone to quiet this apprehension. But, fortunately, the constitution has provided a still further safeguard. The members of the Congress are rendered ineligible to any civil offices that may be created, or of which the emoluments may be increased, during the term of their election. No offices, therefore, can be dealt out to the existing members, but such as may become vacant by ordinary casualties; and to suppose that these would be sufficient to purchase the guardians of the people, selected by the people themselves, is to renounce every rule by which events ought to be calculated, and to substitute an indiscriminate and unbounded jealousy, with which all reasoning must be vain."

Such was their defence – the best which their great abilities, and ardent zeal, and patriotic devotion, could furnish. They could not deny the danger. To diminish its quantum, and to cover with a brilliant declamation the little that remained, was their resource. And, certainly if the working of the government had been according to their supposition, their defence would have been good, I have taken the liberty to mark in italics the ruling words contained in the quotation which I have made from their works – "ordinary casualties." And what were they? deaths, resignations, removals upon impeachment, and dismissions by the President and Senate. This, in fact, would constitute a very small amount of vacancies during the presidential term; and as new offices, and those of increased compensation, were excluded, the answer was undoubtedly good, and even justified the visible contempt with which the objection was repulsed. But what has been the fact? what has been the working of the government at this point? and how stands this narrow limitation of vacancies to "ordinary casualties?" In the first place, the main stay of the argument in the Federalist was knocked from under it at the outset of the government; and so knocked by a side-blow from construction. In the very first year of the constitution a construction was put on that instrument which enabled the President to create as many vacancies as he pleased, and at any moment that he pleased. This was effected by yielding to him the kingly prerogative of dismissing officers without the formality of a trial, or the consent of the other part of the appointing power. The authors of the Federalist had not foreseen this construction: so far from it they had asserted the contrary: and arguing logically from the premises, "that the dismissing power was appurtenant to the appointing power," they had maintained in that able and patriotic work – (No. 77) – that, as the consent of the Senate was necessary to the appointment of an officer, so the consent of the same body would be equally necessary to his dismission from office. But this construction was overruled by the first Congress which sat under the constitution. The power of dismission from office was abandoned to the President alone; and, with the acquisition of this prerogative, the power and patronage of the presidential office was instantly increased to an indefinite extent; and the argument of the Federalist against the capacity of the President to corrupt members of Congress, founded on the small number of places which he could use for that purpose, was totally overthrown. This is what has been done by construction. Now for the effects of legislation: and without going into an enumeration of statutes so widely extending and increasing executive patronage in the multiplication of offices, jobs, contracts, agencies, retainers, and sequiturs of all sorts, holding at the will of the President, it is enough to point to a single act – the four years' limitation act; which, by vacating almost the entire civil list – the whole "Blue Book" – the 40,000 places which it registers – in every period of a presidential term – puts more offices at the command of the President than the authors of the Federalist ever dreamed of; and enough to equip all the members and all their kin if they chose to accept his favors. But this is not the end. Large as it opens the field of patronage, it is not the end. There is a practice grown up in these latter times, which, upon every revolution of parties, makes a political exodus among the adversary office-holders, marching them off into the wilderness, and leaving their places for new-comers. This practice of itself, also unforeseen by the authors of the Federalist, again over-sets their whole argument, and leaves the mischief from which they undertook to defend the constitution in a degree of vigor and universality of which the original opposers of that mischief had never formed the slightest conception.

Besides the direct commerce which may take place between the Executive and a member, there are other evils resulting from their appointment to office, wholly at war with the theory of our government, and the purity of its action. Responsibility to his constituents is the corner-stone and sheet-anchor, in the system of representative government. It is the substance without which representation is but a shadow. To secure that responsibility the constitution has provided that the members shall be periodically returned to their constituents – those of the House at the end of every two years, those of the Senate at the end of every six – to pass in review before them – to account for what may have been done amiss, and to receive the reward or censure of good or bad conduct. This responsibility is totally destroyed if the President takes a member out of the hands of his constituents, prevents his return home, and places him in a situation where he is independent of their censure. Again: the constitution intended that the three departments of the government, – the executive, the legislative, and the judicial – should be independent of each other: and this independence ceases, between the executive and legislative, the moment the members become expectants and recipients of presidential favor; – the more so if the President should have owed his office to their nomination. Then it becomes a commerce, upon the regular principle of trade – a commerce of mutual benefit. For this reason Congress caucuses for the nomination of presidential candidates fell under the ban of public opinion, and were ostracised above twenty years ago – only to be followed by the same evil in a worse form, that of illegal and irresponsible "conventions;" in which the nomination is an election, so far as party power is concerned; and into which the member glides who no longer dares to go to a Congress caucus; – whom the constitution interdicts from being an elector – and of whom some do not blush to receive office, and even to demand it, from the President whom they have created. The framers of our government never foresaw – far-seeing as they were – this state of things, otherwise the exclusion of members from presidential appointments could never have failed as part of the constitution, (after having been first adopted in the original draught of that instrument); nor repulsed when recommended by so many States at the adoption of the constitution; nor rejected by a majority of one in the Congress of 1789, when proposed as an amendment, and coming so near to adoption by the House.

Thus far I have spoken of this abuse as a potentiality – as a possibility – as a thing which might happen: the inexorable law of history requires it to be written that it has happened, is happening, becomes more intense, and is ripening into a chronic disease of the body politic. When I first came to the Senate thirty years ago, aged members were accustomed to tell me that there were always members in the market, waiting to render votes, and to receive office; and that in any closely contested, or nearly balanced question, in which the administration took an interest, they could turn the decision which way they pleased by the help of these marketable votes. It was a humiliating revelation to a young senator – but true; and I have seen too much of it in my time – seen members whose every vote was at the service of government – to whom a seat in Congress was but the stepping-stone to executive appointment – to whom federal office was the pabulum for which their stomachs yearned – and who to obtain it, were ready to forget that they had either constituents or country. And now, why this mortifying exhibition of a disgusting depravity? I answer – to correct it: – if not by law and constitutional amendment (for it is hard to get lawgivers to work against themselves), at least by the force of public opinion, and the stern rebuke of popular condemnation.

I have mentioned Mr. Monroe as a President who would not depart, even from the spirit of the constitution, in appointing, not a member, but an ex-member of Congress, to office. Others of the earlier Presidents were governed by the same principle, of whom I will only mention (for his example should stand for all) General Washington, who entirely condemned the practice. In a letter to General Hamilton (vol. 6, page 53, of Hamilton's Works), he speaks of his objections to these appointments as a thing well known to that gentleman, and which he was only driven to think of in a particular instance, from the difficulty of finding a Secretary of State, successor to Mr. Edmund Randolph. No less than four persons had declined the offer of it; and seeing no other suitable person without going into the Senate, he offered it to Mr. Rufus King of that body – who did not accept it: and for this offer, thus made in a case of so much urgency, and to a citizen so eminently fit, Washington felt that the honor of his administration required him to show a justification. What would the Father of his country have thought if members had come to him to solicit office? and especially, if these members (a thing almost blasphemous to be imagined in connection with his name) had mixed in caucuses and conventions to procure his nomination for President? Certainly he would have given them a look which would have sent such suppliants for ever from his presence. And I, who was senator for thirty years, and never had office for myself or any one of my blood, have a right to condemn a practice which my conduct rebukes, and which the purity of the government requires to be abolished, and which the early Presidents carefully avoided.

CHAPTER XXXI.

DEATH OF THE EX-PRESIDENTS JOHN ADAMS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON

It comes within the scope of this View to notice the deaths and characters of eminent public men who have died during my time, although not my contemporaries, and who have been connected with the founding or early working of the federal government. This gives me a right to head a chapter with the names of Mr. John Adams and Mr. Jefferson – two of the most eminent political men of the revolution, who, entering public life together, died on the same day, – July 4th, 1826, – exactly fifty years after they had both put their hands to that Declaration of Independence which placed a new nation upon the theatre of the world. Doubtless there was enough of similitude in their lives and deaths to excuse the belief in the interposition of a direct providence, and to justify the feeling of mysterious reverence with which the news of their coincident demise was received throughout the country. The parallel between them was complete. Born nearly at the same time, Mr. Adams the elder, they took the same course in life – with the same success – and ended their earthly career at the same time, and in the same way: – in the regular course of nature, in the repose and tranquillity of retirement, in the bosom of their families, and on the soil which their labors had contributed to make free.

Born, one in Massachusetts, the other in Virginia, they both received liberal educations, embraced the same profession (that of the law), mixed literature and science with their legal studies and pursuits, and entered early into the ripening contest with Great Britain – first in their counties and States, and then on the broader field of the General Congress of the Confederated Colonies. They were both members of the Congress which declared Independence – both of the committee which reported the Declaration – both signed it – were both employed in foreign missions – both became Vice Presidents – and both became Presidents. They were both working men; and, in the great number of efficient laborers in the cause of Independence which the Congresses of the Revolution contained, they were doubtless the two most efficient – and Mr. Adams the more so of the two. He was, as Mr. Jefferson styled him, "the Colossus" of the Congress – speaking, writing, counselling – a member of ninety different committees, and (during his three years' service) chairman of twenty five – chairman also of the board of war and board of appeals: his soul on fire with the cause, left no rest to his head, hands, or tongue. Mr. Jefferson drew the Declaration of Independence, but Mr. Adams was "the pillar of its support, and its ablest advocate and defender," during the forty days it was before the Congress. In the letter which he wrote that night to Mrs. Adams (for, after all the labors of the day, and such a day, he could still write to her), he took a glowing view of the future, and used those expressions, "gloom" and "glory," which his son repeated in the paragraph of his message to Congress in relation to the deaths of the two ex-Presidents, which I have heard criticized by those who did not know their historical allusion, and could not feel the force and beauty of their application. They were words of hope and confidence when he wrote them, and of history when he died. "I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and to support and defend these States; yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory!" and he lived to see it – to see the glory – with the bodily, as well as with the mental eye. And (for the great fact will bear endless repetition) it was he that conceived the idea of making Washington commander-in-chief, and prepared the way for his unanimous nomination.

In the division of parties which ensued the establishment of the federal government, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson differed in systems of policy, and became heads of opposite divisions, but without becoming either unjust or unkind to each other. Mr. Adams sided with the party discriminated as federal; and in that character became the subject of political attacks, from which his competitor generously defended him, declaring that "a more perfectly honest man never issued from the hands of his Creator;" and, though opposing candidates for the presidency, neither would have any thing to do with the election, which they considered a question between the systems of policy which they represented, and not a question between themselves. Mr. Jefferson became the head of the party then called republican – now democratic; and in that character became the founder of the political school which has since chiefly prevailed in the United States. He was a statesman: that is to say, a man capable of conceiving measures useful to the country and to mankind – able to recommend them to adoption, and to administer them when adopted. I have seen many politicians – a few statesmen – and, of these few, he their pre-eminent head. He was a republican by nature and constitution, and gave proofs of it in the legislation of his State, as well as in the policy of the United States. He was no speaker, but a most instructive and fascinating talker; and the Declaration of Independence, even if it had not been sistered by innumerable classic productions, would have placed him at the head of political writers. I never saw him but once, when I went to visit him in his retirement; and then I felt, for four hours, the charms of his bewitching talk. I was then a young senator, just coming on the stage of public life – he a patriarchal statesman just going off the stage of natural life, and evidently desirous to impress some views of policy upon me – a design in which he certainly did not fail. I honor him as a patriot of the Revolution – as one of the Founders of the Republic – as the founder of the political school to which I belong; and for the purity of character which he possessed in common with his compatriots, and which gives to the birth of the United States a beauty of parentage which the genealogy of no other nation can show.

CHAPTER XXXII.

BRITISH INDEMNITY FOR DEPORTED SLAVES

In this year was brought to a conclusion the long-continued controversy with Great Britain in relation to the non-fulfilment of the first article of the treaty of Ghent (1814), for the restitution of slaves carried off by the British troops in the war of 1812. It was a renewal of the misunderstanding, but with a better issue, which grew up under the seventh article of the treaty of peace of 1783 upon the same subject. The power of Washington's administration was not able to procure the execution of that article, either by restoration of the slaves or indemnity. The slaves then taken away were carried to Nova Scotia, where, becoming an annoyance, they were transferred to Sierra Leone; and thus became the foundation of the British African colony there. The restitution of deported slaves, stipulated in the first article of the Ghent treaty, could not be accomplished between the two powers; they disagreed as to the meaning of words; and, after seven years of vain efforts to come to an understanding, it was agreed to refer the question to arbitrament. The Emperor Alexander accepted the office of arbitrator, executed it, and decided in favor of the United States. That decision was as unintelligible to Great Britain as all the previous treaty stipulations on this same subject had been. She could not understand it. A second misunderstanding grew up, giving rise to a second negotiation, which was concluded by a final agreement to pay the value of the slaves carried off. In 1827 payment was made – twelve years after the injury and the stipulation to repair it, and after continued and most strenuous exertions to obtain redress.

The case was this: it was a part of the system of warfare adopted by the British, when operating in the slave States, to encourage the slaves to desert from their owners, promising them freedom; and at the end of the war these slaves were carried off. This carrying off was foreseen by the United States Commissioners at Ghent, and in the first article of the treaty was provided against in these words; "all places taken, &c. shall be restored without delay, &c., or carrying away any of the artillery, or other public property originally captured in the said posts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, or any slaves or other private property." The British Government undertook to extend the limitation which applied to public property to that which was private also; and so to restore only such slaves as were originally captured within the forts, and which remained therein at the time of the exchange of ratifications – a construction which would have excluded all that were induced to run away, being nearly the whole; and all that left the forts before the exchange of ratifications, which would have included the rest. She adhered to the construction given to the parallel article in the treaty of 1783, and by which all slaves taken during the war were held to be lawful prize of war, and free under the British proclamation, and not to be compensated for. The United States, on the contrary, confined this local limitation to things appurtenant to the forts; and held the slaves to be private property, subject to restitution, or claim for compensation, if carried away at all, no matter how acquired.

The point was solemnly carried before the Emperor Alexander, the United States represented by their minister, Mr. Henry Middleton, and Great Britain by Sir Charles Bagot – the Counts Nesselrode and Capo D'Istrias receiving the arguments to be laid before the Emperor. His Majesty's decision was peremptory; "that the United States of America are entitled to a just indemnification from Great Britain for all private property carried away by the British forces; and, as the question regards slaves more especially, for all such slaves as were carried away by the British forces from the places and territories of which the restitution was stipulated by the treaty, in quitting the said places and territories." This was explicit; but the British minister undertook to understand it as not applying to slaves who voluntarily joined the British troops to free themselves from bondage, and who came from places never in possession of the British troops; and he submitted a note to that effect to the Russian minister, Count Nesselrode, to be laid before the Emperor. To this note Alexander gave an answer which is a model of categorical reply to unfounded dubitation. He said: "the Emperor having, by the mutual consent of the two plenipotentiaries, given an opinion, founded solely upon the sense which results from the text of the article in dispute, does not think himself called upon to decide here any question relative to what the laws of war permit or forbid to the belligerents; but, always faithful to the grammatical interpretation of the first article of the treaty of Ghent, his Imperial Majesty declares, a second time, that it appears to him, according to this interpretation, that, in quitting the places and territories of which the treaty of Ghent stipulates the restitution to the United States, his Britannic Majesty's forces had no right to carry away from the same places and territories, absolutely, any slave, by whatever means he had fallen or come into their power." This was the second declaration, the second decision of the point; and both parties having bound themselves to abide the decision, be it what it might, a convention was immediately concluded for the purpose of carrying the Emperor's decision into effect, by establishing a board to ascertain the number and value of the deported slaves. It was a convention formally drawn up, signed by the ministers of the three powers, done in triplicate, ratified, and ratifications exchanged, and the affair considered finished. Not so the fact! New misunderstanding, new negotiation, five years more consumed in diplomatic notes, and finally a new convention concluded! Certainly it was not the value of the property in controversy, not the amount of money to be paid, that led Great Britain to that pertinacious resistance, bordering upon cavilling and bad faith. It was the loss of an advantage in war – the loss of the future advantage of operating upon the slave States through their slave property, and which advantage would be lost if this compensation was enforced, – which induced her to stand out so long against her own stipulations, and the decisions of her own accepted arbitrator.

This new or third treaty, making indemnity for these slaves, was negotiated at London, November, 1826, between Mr. Gallatin on the part of the United States, and Messrs. Huskisson and Addington on the part of Great Britain. It commenced with reciting that "difficulties having arisen in the execution of the convention concluded at St. Petersburg, July 12th, 1822, under the mediation of his majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, between the United States of America and Great Britain, for the purpose of carrying into effect the decision of his Imperial Majesty upon the differences which had arisen between the said United States and Great Britain as to the true construction and meaning of the first article of the treaty of Ghent, therefore the said parties agree to treat again," &c. The result of this third negotiation was to stipulate for the payment of a gross sum to the government of the United States, to be by it divided among those whose slaves had been carried off: and the sum of one million two hundred and four thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars was the amount agreed upon. This sum was satisfactory to the claimants, and was paid to the United States for their benefit in the year 1827 – just twelve years after the conclusion of the war, and after two treaties had been made, and two arbitrations rendered to explain the meaning of the first treaty, and which fully explained itself. Twelve years of persevering exertion to obtain the execution of a treaty stipulation which solely related to private property, and which good faith and sheer justice required to have been complied with immediately! At the commencement of the session of Congress, 1827-28, the President, Mr. John Quincy Adams, was able to communicate the fact of the final settling and closing up of this demand upon the British government for the value of the slaves carried off by its troops. The sum received was large, and ample to pay the damages; but that was the smallest part of the advantage gained. The example and the principle were the main points – the enforcement of such a demand against a government so powerful, and after so much resistance, and the condemnation which it carried, and the responsibility which it implied – this was the grand advantage. Liberation and abduction of slaves was one of the modes of warfare adopted by the British, and largely counted on as a means of harassing and injuring one half of the Union. It had been practised during the Revolution, and indemnity avoided. If avoided a second time, impunity would have sanctioned the practice and rendered it inveterate; and in future wars, not only with Great Britain but with all powers, this mode of annoyance would have become an ordinary resort, leading to servile insurrections. The indemnity exacted carried along with it the condemnation of the practice, as a spoliation of private property to be atoned for; and was both a compensation for the past and a warning for the future. It implied a responsibility which no power, or art, or time could evade, and the principle of which being established, there will be no need for future arbitrations.

I have said that this article in the treaty of Ghent for restitution, or compensation, for deported slaves was brought to a better issue than its parallel in the treaty of peace of 1783. By the seventh article of this treaty it was declared that the evacuation (by the British troops) should be made "without carrying away any negroes or other property belonging to the American inhabitants." Yet three thousand slaves were carried away (besides ten times that number – 27,000 in Virginia alone – perishing of disease in the British camps); and neither restitution nor compensation made for any part of them. Both were resisted – the restitution by Sir Guy Carleton in his letter of reply to Washington's demand, declaring it to be an impossible infamy in a British officer to give up those whom they had invited to their standard; but reserving the point for the consideration of his government, and, in the mean time, allowing and facilitating the taking of schedules of all slaves taken away – names, ages, sex, former owners, and States from which taken. The British government resisted compensation upon the ground of war captures; that, being taken in war, no matter how, they became, like other plunder, the property of the captors, who had a right to dispose of it as they pleased, and had chosen to set it free; that the slaves, having become free, belonged to nobody, and consequently it was no breach of the treaty stipulation to carry them away. This ground was contested by the Congress of the confederation to the end of its existence, and afterwards by the new federal government, from its commencement until the claim for indemnity was waived or abandoned, at the conclusion of Jay's treaty, in 1796. The very first message of Washington to Congress when he became President, presented the inexecution of the treaty of peace in this particular, among others, as one of the complaints justly existing against Great Britain; and all the diplomacy of his administration was exerted to obtain redress – in vain. The treaties of '94 and '96 were both signed without allusion to the subject; and, being left unprovided for in these treaties, the claim sunk into the class of obsolete demands; and the stipulation remained in the treaty a dead letter, although containing the precise words, and the additional one "negroes," on which the Emperor Alexander took the stand which commanded compensation and dispensed with arguments founded in the laws of war. Not a shilling had been received for that immense depredation upon private property; although the Congress of the confederation adopted the strongest resolves, and even ordered each State to be furnished with copies of the schedules of the slaves taken from it; and hopes of indemnity were kept alive until extinguished by the treaty of '96. It was a bitter complaint against that treaty, as the Congress debates of the time, and the public press, abundantly show.

Northern men did their duty to the South in getting compensation (and, what is infinitely more, establishing the principle that there shall be compensation in such cases) for the slaves carried away in the war of 1812. A majority of the commissioners at Ghent who obtained the stipulation for indemnity were Northern men – Adams, Russell, Gallatin, from the free, and Clay and Bayard from the slave States. A Northern negotiator (Mr. Gallatin), under a Northern President (Mr. John Quincy Adams), finally obtained it; and it is a coincidence worthy of remark that this Northern negotiator, who was finally successful, was the same debater in Congress, in '96, who delivered the best argument (in my opinion surpassing even that of Mr. Madison), against the grounds on which the British Government resisted the execution of this article of the treaty.

I am no man to stir up old claims against the federal government; and, I detest the trade which exhumes such claims, and deplore the facility with which they are considered – too often in the hands of speculators who gave nothing, or next to nothing, for them. But I must say that the argument on which the French spoliation claim is now receiving so much consideration, applies with infinitely more force to the planters whose slaves were taken during the war of the Revolution than in behalf of these French spoliation claims. They were contributing – some in their persons in the camp or council, all in their voluntary or tax contributions – to the independence of their country when they were thus despoiled of their property. They depended upon these slaves to support their families while they were supporting their country. They were in debt to British merchants, and relied upon compensation for these slaves to pay those debts, at the very moment when compensation was abandoned by the same treaty which enforced the payment of the debts. They had a treaty obligation for indemnity, express in its terms, and since shown to be valid, when deprived of this stipulation by another treaty, in order to obtain general advantages for the whole Union. This is something like taking private property for public use. Three thousand slaves, the property of ascertained individuals, protected by a treaty stipulation, and afterwards abandoned by another treaty, against the entreaties and remonstrances of the owners, in order to obtain the British commercial treaty of '94, and its supplement of '96: such is the case which this revolutionary spoliation of slave property presents, and which puts it immeasurably ahead of the French spoliation claims prior to 1800. There is but four years' difference in their ages – in the dates of the two treaties by which they were respectively surrendered – and every other difference between the two cases is an argument of preference in favor of the losers under the treaty of 1796. Yet I am against both, and each, separately or together; and put them in contrast to make one stand as an argument against the other. But the primary reason for introducing the slave spoliation case of 1783, and comparing its less fortunate issue with that of 1812, was to show that Northern men will do justice to the South; that Northern men obtained for the South an indemnity and security in our day which a Southern Administration, with Washington at its head, had not been able to obtain in the days of our fathers.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MEETING OF THE FIRST CONGRESS ELECTED UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF MR. ADAMS

The nineteenth Congress, commencing its legal existence, March the 4th, 1825, had been chiefly elected at the time that Mr. Adams' administration commenced, and the two Houses stood divided with respect to him – the majority of the Representatives being favorable to him, while the majority of the Senate was in opposition. The elections for the twentieth Congress – the first under his administration – were looked to with great interest, both as showing whether the new President was supported by the country, and his election by the House sanctioned, and also as an index to the issue of the ensuing presidential election. For, simultaneously with the election in the House of Representatives did the canvass for the succeeding election begin – General Jackson being the announced candidate on one side, and Mr. Adams on the other; and the event involving not only the question of merits between the parties, but also the question of approved or disapproved conduct on the part of the representatives who elected Mr. Adams. The elections took place, and resulted in placing an opposition majority in the House of Representatives, and increasing the strength of the opposition majority in the Senate. The state of parties in the House was immediately tested by the election of speaker, Mr. John W. Taylor, of New-York, the administration candidate, being defeated by Mr. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, in the opposition. The appointment of the majority of members on all the committees, and their chairmen, in both Houses adverse to the administration, was a regular consequence of the inflamed state of parties, although the proper conducting of the public business would demand for the administration the chairman of several important committees, as enabling it to place its measures fairly before the House. The speaker (Mr. Stevenson) could only yield to this just sense of propriety in the case of one of the committees, that of foreign relations, to which Mr. Edward Everett, classing as the political and personal friend of the President, was appointed chairman. In other committees, and in both Houses, the stern spirit of the times prevailed; and the organization of the whole Congress was adverse to the administration.

The presidential message contained no new recommendations, but referred to those previously made, and not yet acted upon; among which internal improvement, and the encouragement of home industry, were most prominent. It gave an account of the failure of the proposed congress of Panama; and, consequently, of the inutility of all our exertions to be represented there. And, as in this final and valedictory notice by Mr. Adams of that once far-famed congress, he took occasion to disclaim some views attributed to him, I deem it just to give him the benefit of his own words, both in making the disclaimer, and in giving the account of the abortion of an impracticable scheme which had so lately been prosecuted, and opposed, with so much heat and violence in our own country. He said of it:

"Disclaiming alike all right and all intention of interfering in those concerns which it is the prerogative of their independence to regulate as to them shall seem fit, we hail with joy every indication of their prosperity, of their harmony, of their persevering and inflexible homage to those principles of freedom and of equal rights, which are alone suited to the genius and temper of the American nations. It has been therefore with some concern that we have observed indications of intestine divisions in some of the republics of the South, and appearances of less union with one another, than we believe to be the interest of all. Among the results of this state of things has been that the treaties concluded at Panama do not appear to have been ratified by the contracting parties, and that the meeting of the Congress at Tacubaya has been indefinitely postponed. In accepting the invitations to be represented at this Congress, while a manifestation was intended on the part of the United States, of the most friendly disposition towards the Southern republics by whom it had been proposed, it was hoped that it would furnish an opportunity for bringing all the nations of this hemisphere to the common acknowledgment and adoption of the principles, in the regulation of their international relations, which would have secured a lasting peace and harmony between them, and have promoted the cause of mutual benevolence throughout the globe. But as obstacles appear to have arisen to the reassembling of the Congress, one of the two ministers commissioned on the part of the United States has returned to the bosom of his country, while the minister charged with the ordinary mission to Mexico remains authorized to attend at the conferences of the Congress whenever they may be resumed."

This is the last that was heard of that so much vaunted Congress of American nations, and in the manner in which it died out of itself, among those who proposed it, without ever having been reached by a minister from the United States, we have the highest confirmation of the soundness of the objections taken to it by the opposition members of the two Houses of our Congress.

In stating the condition of the finances, the message, without intending it, gave proof of the paradoxical proposition, first, I believe, broached by myself, that an annual revenue to the extent of a fourth or a fifth below the annual expenditure, is sufficient to meet that annual expenditure; and consequently that there is no necessity to levy as much as is expended, or to provide by law for keeping a certain amount in the treasury when the receipts are equal, or superior to the expenditure. He said:

"The balance in the treasury on the first of January last was six millions three hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars and eighteen cents. The receipts from that day to the 30th of September last, as near as the returns of them yet received can show, amount to sixteen millions eight hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-one dollars and thirty-two cents. The receipts of the present quarter, estimated at four millions five hundred and fifteen thousand, added to the above, form an aggregate of twenty-one millions four hundred thousand dollars of receipts. The expenditures of the year may perhaps amount to twenty-two millions three hundred thousand dollars, presenting a small excess over the receipts. But of these twenty-two millions, upwards of six have been applied to the discharge of the principal of the public debt; the whole amount of which, approaching seventy-four millions on the first of January last, will on the first day of next year fall short of sixty-seven millions and a half. The balance in the treasury on the first of January next, it is expected, will exceed five millions four hundred and fifty thousand dollars; a sum exceeding that of the first of January, 1825, though falling short of that exhibited on the first of January last."

In this statement the expenditures of the year are shown to exceed the income, and yet to leave a balance, about equal to one fourth of the whole in the treasury at the end of the year; also that the balance was larger at the end of the preceding year, and nearly the same at the end of the year before. And the message might have added, that these balances were about the same at the end of every quarter of every year, and every day of every quarter – all resulting from the impossibility of applying money to objects until there has been time to apply it. Yet in the time of those balances of which Mr. Adams speaks, there was a law to retain two millions in the treasury; and now there is a law to retain six millions; while the current balances, at the rate of a fourth or a fifth of the income, are many times greater than the sum ordered to be retained; and cannot be reduced to that sum, by regular payments from the treasury, until the revenue itself is reduced below the expenditure. This is a financial paradox, sustainable upon reason, proved by facts, and visible in the state of the treasury at all times; yet I have endeavored in vain to establish it; and Congress is as careful as ever to provide an annual income equal to the annual expenditure; and to make permanent provision by law to keep up a reserve in the treasury; which would be there of itself without such law as long as the revenue comes within a fourth or a fifth of the expenditure.

The following members composed the two Houses at this, the first session of the twentieth Congress:

SENATE

Maine – John Chandler, Albion K. Parris.

New Hampshire – Samuel Bell, Levi Woodbury.

Massachusetts – Nathaniel Silsbee, Daniel Webster.

Connecticut – Samuel A. Foot, Calvin Willey.

Rhode Island – Nehemiah R. Knight, Asher Robbins.

Vermont – Dudley Chase, Horatio Seymour.

New-York – Martin Van Buren, Nathan Sanford.

New Jersey – Mahlon Dickerson, Ephraim Bateman.

Pennsylvania – William Marks, Isaac D. Barnard.

Delaware – Louis M'Lane, Henry M. Ridgeley.

Maryland – Ezekiel F. Chambers, Samuel Smith.

Virginia – Littleton W. Tazewell, John Tyler.