Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"Heartless is the calumny invented and propagated, not from this floor, but elsewhere, on the cause of the Texian revolt. It is said to be a war for the extension of slavery. It had as well be said that our own Revolution was a war for the extension of slavery. So far from it, that no revolt, not even our own, ever had a more just and a more sacred origin. The settlers in Texas went to live under the form of government which they had left behind in the United States – a government which extends so many guarantees for life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, and which their American and English ancestors had vindicated for so many hundred years. A succession of violent changes in government, and the rapid overthrow of rulers, annoyed and distressed them; but they remained tranquil under every violence which did not immediately bear on themselves. In 1822 the republic of 1821 was superseded by the imperial diadem of Iturbide. In 1823 he was deposed and banished, returned and was shot, and Victoria made President. Mentuno and Bravo disputed the presidency with Victoria; and found, in banishment, the mildest issue known among Mexicans to unsuccessful civil war. Pedraza was elected in 1828; Guerrero overthrew him the next year. Then Bustamente overthrew Guerrero; and, quickly, Santa Anna overthrew Bustamente, and, with him, all the forms of the constitution, and the whole frame of the federative government. By his own will, and by force, Santa Anna dissolved the existing Congress, convened another, formed the two Houses into one, called it a convention; and made it the instrument for deposing, without trial, the constitutional Vice-President, Gomez Farias, putting Barragan into his place, annihilating the State governments, and establishing a consolidated government, of which he was monarch, under the retained republican title of President. Still, the Texians did not take up arms: they did not acquiesce, but they did not revolt. They retained their State government in operation, and looked to the other States, older and more powerful than Texas, to vindicate the general cause, and to re-establish the federal constitution of 1824. In September, 1835, this was still her position. In that month, a Mexican armed vessel appeared off the coast of Texas, and declared her ports blockaded. At the same time, General Cos appeared in the West with an army of fifteen hundred men, with orders to arrest the State authorities, to disarm the inhabitants, leaving one gun to every five hundred souls; and to reduce the State to unconditional submission. Gonzales was the selected point for the commencement of the execution of these orders; and the first thing was the arms, those trusty rifles which the settlers had brought with them from the United States, which were their defence against savages, their resource for game, and the guard which converted their houses into castles stronger than those 'which the king cannot enter.' A detachment of General Cos's army appeared at the village of Gonzales, on the 28th of September, and demanded the arms of the inhabitants; it was the same demand, and for the same purpose, which the British detachment, under Major Pitcairn had made at Lexington, on the 19th of April 1775. It was the same demand! and the same answer was given – resistance – battle – victory! for the American blood was at Gonzales as it had been at Lexington; and between using their arms, and surrendering their arms, that blood can never hesitate. Then followed the rapid succession of brilliant events, which, in two months, left Texas without an armed enemy in her borders, and the strong forts of Goliad and the Alamo, with their garrisons and cannon, the almost bloodless prizes of a few hundred Texian rifles. This was the origin of the revolt; and a calumny more heartless can never be imagined than that which would convert this just and holy defence of life, liberty, and property, into an aggression for the extension of slavery.

"Just in its origin, valiant and humane in its conduct, sacred in its object, the Texian revolt has illustrated the Anglo-Saxon character, and given it new titles to the respect and admiration of the world.

"It shows that liberty, justice, valor – moral, physical, and intellectual power – discriminate that race wherever it goes. Let our America rejoice, let Old England rejoice, that the Brassos and Colorado, new and strange names – streams far beyond the western bank of the Father of Floods – have felt the impress, and witnessed the exploits of a people sprung from their loins, and carrying their language, laws, and customs, their magna charta and its glorious privileges, into new regions and far distant climes. Of the individuals who have purchased lasting renown in this young war, it would be impossible, in this place to speak in detail, and invidious to discriminate; but there is one among them whose position forms an exception, and whose early association with myself justifies and claims the tribute of a particular notice. I speak of him whose romantic victory has given to the Jacinto[11 - Hyacinth; hyacinthus; huakinthos; water flower.] that immortality in grave and serious history which the diskos of Apollo had given to it in the fabulous pages of the heathen mythology. General Houston was born in the State of Virginia, county of Rockbridge: he was appointed an ensign in the army of the United States, during the late war with Great Britain, and served in the Creek campaign under the banners of Jackson. I was the lieutenant colonel of the regiment to which he belonged, and the first field officer to whom he reported. I then marked in him the same soldierly and gentlemanly qualities which have since distinguished his eventful career: frank, generous, brave; ready to do, or to suffer, whatever the obligations of civil or military duty imposed; and always prompt to answer the call of honor, patriotism, and friendship. Sincerely do I rejoice in his victory. It is a victory without alloy, and without parallel, except at New Orleans. It is a victory which the civilization of the age, and the honor of the human race, required him to gain: for the nineteenth century is not the age in which a repetition of the Goliad matins could be endured. Nobly has he answered the requisition; fresh and luxuriant are the laurels which adorn his brow.

"It is not within the scope of my present purpose, to speak of military events, and to celebrate the exploits of that vanguard of the Anglo-Saxons who are now on the confines of the ancient empire of Montezuma; but that combat of the San Jacinto! it must for ever remain in the catalogue of military miracles. Seven hundred and fifty citizens, miscellaneously armed with rifles, muskets, belt pistols, and knives, under a leader who had never seen service, except as a subaltern, march to attack near double their numbers – march in open day across a clear prairie, to attack upwards of twelve hundred veterans, the élite of an invading army of seven thousand, posted in a wood, their flanks secured, front intrenched; and commanded by a general trained in civil wars, victorious in numberless battles; and chief of an empire of which no man becomes chief except as conqueror. In twenty minutes, the position is forced. The combat becomes a carnage. The flowery prairie is stained with blood; the hyacinth is no longer blue, but scarlet. Six hundred Mexicans are dead; six hundred more are prisoners, half wounded; the President General himself is a prisoner; the camp and baggage all taken; and the loss of the victors, six killed and twenty wounded. Such are the results, and which no European can believe, but those who saw Jackson at New Orleans. Houston is the pupil of Jackson; and he is the first self-made general, since the time of Mark Antony, and the King Antigonus, who has taken the general of the army and the head of the government captive in battle. Different from Antony, he has spared the life of his captive, though forfeited by every law, human and divine.

"I voted, in 1821, to acknowledge the absolute independence of Mexico; I vote now to recognize the contingent and expected independence of Texas. In both cases, the vote is given upon the same principle – upon the principle of disjunction where conjunction is impossible or disastrous. The Union of Mexico and Spain had become impossible; that of Mexico and Texas is no longer desirable or possible. A more fatal present could not be made than that of the future incorporation of the Texas of La Salle with the ancient empire of Montezuma. They could not live together, and extermination is not the genius of the age; and, besides, is more easily talked of than done. Bloodshed only could be the fruit of their conjunction; and every drop of that blood would be the dragon's teeth sown upon the earth. No wise Mexican should wish to have this Trojan horse shut up within their walls."

CHAPTER CXLVI.

THE SPECIE CIRCULAR

The issue of the Treasury order, known as the "Specie Circular," was one of the events which marked the foresight, the decision, and the invincible firmness of General Jackson. It was issued immediately after the adjournment of Congress, and would have been issued before the adjournment, except for the fear that Congress would counteract it by law. It was an order to all the land-offices to reject paper money, and receive nothing but gold and silver in payment of the public lands; and was issued under the authority of the resolution of the year 1816 which, in giving the Secretary of the Treasury discretionary authority to receive the notes of specie paying banks in revenue payments, gave him also the right to reject them. The number of these banks had now become so great, the quantity of notes issued so enormous, the facility of obtaining loans so universal, and the temptation to converting shadowy paper into real estate, so tempting, that the rising streams of paper from seven hundred and fifty banks took their course towards the new States, seat of the public domain – discharging in accumulated volume there collected torrents upon the different land-offices. The sales were running up to five millions a month, with the prospect of unbounded increase after the rise of Congress; and it was this increase from the land sales which made that surplus which the constitution had been burlesqued to divide among the States. And there was no limit to this conversion of public land into inconvertible paper. In the custom-house branch of the revenue there was a limit in the amount to be received – limited by the amount of duties to be paid: but in the land-office branch there was no limit. It was therefore at that point that the remedy was wanted; and, for that reason, the "Specie Circular" was limited in its application to the land-offices; and totally forbade the sale of the public lands for any thing but hard money. It was an order of incalculable value to the United States, and issued by President Jackson in known disregard of the will both of the majority of Congress and of his cabinet.

Before the adjournment of Congress, and in concert with the President, the author of this View had attempted to get an act of Congress to stop the evil; and in support of his motion to that effect gave his opinion of the evil itself, and of the benefits which would result from its suppression. He said:

"He was able to inform the Senate how it happened that the sales of the public lands had deceived all calculations, and run up from four millions a year to five millions a quarter; it was this: speculators went to banks, borrowed five, ten, twenty, fifty thousand dollars in paper, in small notes, usually under twenty dollars, and engaged to carry off these notes to a great distance, sometimes five hundred or a thousand miles; and there laid them out for public lands. Being land-office money, they would circulate in the country; many of these small notes would never return at all, and their loss would be a clear gain to the bank; others would not return for a long time; and the bank would draw interest on them for years before they had to redeem them. Thus speculators, loaded with paper, would outbid settlers and cultivators, who had no undue accommodations from banks, and who had nothing but specie to give for lands, or the notes which were its real equivalent. Mr. B. said that, living in a new State, it came within his knowledge that such accommodations as he had mentioned were the main cause of the excessive sales which had taken place in the public lands, and that the effect was equally injurious to every interest concerned – except the banks and the speculators: it was injurious to the treasury, which was filling up with paper; to the new States, which were flooded with paper; and to settlers and cultivators, who were outbid by speculators, loaded with this borrowed paper. A return to specie payments for lands is the remedy for all these evils."

Having exposed the evil, and that to the country generally as well as to the federal treasury, Mr. B. went on to give his opinion of the benefits of suppressing it; and said:

"It would put an end to every complaint now connected with the subject, and have a beneficial effect upon every public and private interest. Upon the federal government its effect would be to check the unnatural sale of the public lands to speculators for paper; it would throw the speculators out of market, limit the sales to settlers and cultivators, stop the swelling increases of paper surpluses in the treasury, put an end to all projects for disposing of surpluses; and relieve all anxiety for the fate of the public moneys in the deposit banks. Upon the new States, where the public lands are situated, its effects would be most auspicious. It would stop the flood of paper with which they are inundated, and bring in a steady stream of gold and silver in its place. It would give them a hard-money currency, and especially a share of the gold currency; for every emigrant could then carry gold to the country. Upon the settler and cultivator who wished to purchase land its effect would be peculiarly advantageous. He would be relieved from the competition of speculators; he would not have to contend with those who received undue accommodations at banks, and came to the land-offices loaded with bales of bank notes which they had borrowed upon condition of carrying them far away, and turning them loose where many would be lost, and never get back to the bank that issued them. All these and many other good effects would thus be produced, and no hardship or evil of any kind could accrue to the meritorious part of the country; for the settler and cultivator who wishes to buy land for use, or for a settlement for his children, or to increase his farm, would have no difficulty in getting hard money to make his purchase. He has no undue accommodations from banks. He has no paper but what is good; such as he can readily convert into specie. To him the exaction of specie payments from all purchasers would be a rule of equality, which would enable him to purchase what he needs without competition with fictitious and borrowed capital."

Mr. B. gave a view of the actual condition of the paper currency, which he described as hideous and appalling, doomed to a catastrophe; and he advised every prudent man, as well as the government, to fly from its embrace. His voice, and his warning, answered no purpose. He got no support for his motion. A few friends were willing to stand by him, but the opposition senators stood out in unbroken front against it, reinforced largely by the friends of the administration: but it is in vain to attribute the whole opposition to the measure merely to the mistaken opinions of friends, and the resentful policy of foes. There was another cause operating to the same effect; and the truth of history requires it to be told. There were many members of Congress engaged in these land speculations, upon loans of bank paper; and who were unwilling to see a sudden termination of so profitable a game. The rejection of the bill it was thought would be sufficient; and on the news of it the speculation redoubled its activity. But there was a remedy in reserve for the cure of the evil which they had not foreseen, and which was applied the moment that Congress was gone. Jackson was still President! and he had the nerve which the occasion required. He saw the public lands fleeting away – saw that Congress would not interfere – and knew the majority of his cabinet to be against his interference. He did as he had often done in councils of war – called the council together to hear a decision. He summoned his cabinet – laid the case before them – heard the majority of adverse opinions: – and directed the order to issue. His private Secretary, Mr. Donelson, was directed to prepare a draught of the order. The author of this View was all the while in the office of this private Secretary. Mr. Donelson came to him, with the President's decision, and requested him to draw up the order. It was done – the rough draught carried back to the council – put into official form – signed – issued. It was a second edition of the removal of the deposits scene, and made an immense sensation. The disappointed speculators raged. Congress was considered insulted, the cabinet defied, the banks disgraced. But the vindication of the measure soon came, in the discovery of the fact, that some tens of millions of this bank paper was on its way to the land-offices to be changed into land – when overtaken by this fatal "Specie Circular," and turned back to the sources from which it came.

CHAPTER CXLVII.

DEATH OF MR. MADISON, FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

He died in the last year of the second term of the presidency of General Jackson, at the advanced age of eighty-six, his mind clear and active to the last, and greatly occupied with solicitous concern for the safety of the Union which he had contributed so much to establish. He was a patriot from the beginning. "When the first blood was shed in the streets of Boston, he was a student in the process of his education at Princeton College, where the next year, he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was even then so highly distinguished by the power of application and the rapidity of progress, that he performed all the exercises of the two senior collegiate years in one – while at the same time his deportment was so exemplary, that Dr. Witherspoon, then at the head of the college, and afterwards himself one of the most eminent patriots and sages of our revolution, always delighted in bearing testimony to the excellency of his character at that early stage of his career; and said to Thomas Jefferson long afterwards, when they were all colleagues in the revolutionary Congress, that in the whole career of Mr. Madison at Princeton, he had never known him say, or do, an indiscreet thing." So wrote Mr. John Quincy Adams in his discourse upon the "Life of James Madison," written at the request of the two Houses of Congress: and in this germ of manhood is to be seen all the qualities of head and heart which mature age, and great events, so fully developed, and which so nobly went into the formation of national character while constituting his own: the same quick intellect, the same laborious application, the same purity of morals, the same decorum of deportment. He had a rare combination of talent – a speaker, a writer, a counsellor. In these qualities of the mind he classed with General Hamilton; and was, perhaps, the only eminent public man of his day who so classed, and so equally contended in three of the fields of intellectual action. Mr. Jefferson was accustomed to say he was the only man that could answer Hamilton. Perspicuity, precision, closeness of reasoning, and strict adherence to the unity of his subject, were the characteristics of his style; and his speeches in Congress, and his dispatches from the State Department, may be equally studied as models of style, diplomatic and parliamentary as sources of information, as examples of integrity in conducting public questions: and as illustrations of the amenity with which the most earnest debate, and the most critical correspondence, can be conducted by good sense, good taste, and good temper. Mr. Madison was one of the great founders of our present united federal government, equally efficient in the working convention which framed the constitution and the written labors which secured its adoption. Co-laborer with General Hamilton in the convention and in the Federalist – both members of the old Congress and of the convention at the same time, and working together in both bodies for the attainment of the same end, until the division of parties in Washington's time began to estrange old friends, and to array against each other former cordial political co-laborers. As the first writer of one party, General Hamilton wrote some leading papers, which, as the first writer of the other party, Mr. Madison was called upon to answer: but without forgetting on the part of either their previous relations, their decorum of character, and their mutual respect for each other. Nothing that either said could give an unpleasant personal feeling to the other; and, though writing under borrowed names, their productions were equally known to each other and the public; for none but themselves could imitate themselves. Purity, modesty, decorum – a moderation, temperance, and virtue in everything – were the characteristics of Mr. Madison's life and manners; and it is grateful to look back upon such elevation and beauty of personal character in the illustrious and venerated founders of our Republic, leaving such virtuous private characters to be admired, as well as such great works to be preserved. The offer of this tribute to the memory of one of the purest of public men is the more gratefully rendered, private reasons mixing with considerations of public duty. Mr. Madison is the only President from whom he ever asked a favor, and who granted immediately all that was asked – a lieutenant-colonelcy in the army of the United States in the late war with Great Britain.

CHAPTER CXLVIII.

DEATH OF MR. MONROE, FIFTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

He died during the first term of the administration of President Jackson, and is appropriately noticed in this work next after Mr. Madison, with whom he had been so long and so intimately associated, both in public and in private life; and whose successor he had been in successive high posts, including that of the presidency itself. He is one of our eminent public characters which have not attained their due place in history; nor has any one attempted to give him that place but one – Mr. John Quincy Adams – in his discourse upon the life of Mr. Monroe. Mr. Adams, and who could be a more competent judge? places him in the first line of American statesmen, and contributing, during the fifty years of his connection with the public affairs, a full share in the aggrandisement and advancement of his country. His parts were not shining, but solid. He lacked genius, but he possessed judgment: and it was the remark of Dean Swift, well illustrated in his own case and that of his associate friends, Harley and Bolingbroke (three of the rarest geniuses that ever acted together, and whose cause went to ruin notwithstanding their wit and eloquence), that genius was not necessary to the conducting of the affairs of state: that judgment, diligence, knowledge, good intentions, and will, were sufficient. Mr. Monroe was an instance of the soundness of this remark, as well as the three brilliant geniuses of Queen Anne's time, and on the opposite side of it. Mr. Monroe had none of the mental qualities which dazzle and astonish mankind; but he had a discretion which seldom committed a mistake – an integrity that always looked to the public good – a firmness of will which carried him resolutely upon his object – a diligence that mastered every subject – and a perseverance that yielded to no obstacle or reverse. He began his patriotic career in the military service, at the commencement of the war of the revolution – went into the general assembly of his native State at an early age – and thence, while still young, into the continental Congress. There he showed his character, and laid the foundation of his future political fortunes in his uncompromising opposition to the plan of a treaty with Spain by which the navigation of the Mississippi was to be given up for twenty-five years in return for commercial privileges. It was the qualities of judgment, and perseverance, which he displayed on that occasion, which brought him those calls to diplomacy in which he was afterwards so much employed with three of the then greatest European powers – France, Spain, Great Britain. And it was in allusion to this circumstance that President Jefferson afterwards, when the right of deposit at New Orleans had been violated by Spain, and when a minister was wanted to recover it, said, "Monroe is the man: the defence of the Mississippi belongs to him." And under this appointment he had the felicity to put his name to the treaty which secured the Mississippi, its navigation and all the territory drained by its western waters, to the United States for ever. Several times in his life he seemed to miscarry, and to fall from the top to the bottom of the political ladder: but always to reascend as high, or higher than ever. Recalled by Washington from the French mission, to which he had been appointed from the Senate of the United States, he returned to the starting point of his early career – the general assembly of his State – served as a member from his county – was elected Governor; and from that post restored by Jefferson to the French mission, soon to be followed by the embassies to Spain and England. Becoming estranged from Mr. Madison about the time of that gentleman's first election to the presidency, and having returned from his missions a little mortified that Mr. Jefferson had rejected his British treaty without sending it to the Senate, he was again at the foot of the political ladder, and apparently out of favor with those who were at its top. Nothing despairing, he went back to the old starting point – served again in the Virginia general assembly – was again elected Governor: and from that post was called to the cabinet of Mr. Madison, to be his double Secretary of State and War. He was the effective power in the declaration of war against Great Britain. His residence abroad had shown him that unavenged British wrongs was lowering our character with Europe, and that war with the "mistress of the seas" was as necessary to our respectability in the eyes of the world, as to the security of our citizens and commerce upon the ocean. He brought up Mr. Madison to the war point. He drew the war report which the committee on foreign relations presented to the House – that report which the absence of Mr. Peter B. Porter, the chairman, and the hesitancy of Mr. Grundy, the second on the committee, threw into the hands of Mr. Calhoun, the third on the list and the youngest of the committee; and the presentation of which immediately gave him a national reputation. Prime mover of the war, he was also one of its most efficient supporters, taking upon himself, when adversity pressed, the actual duties of war minister, financier, and foreign secretary at the same time. He was an enemy to all extravagance, to all intrigue, to all indirection in the conduct of business. Mr. Jefferson's comprehensive and compendious eulogium upon him, as brief as true, was the faithful description of the man – "honest and brave." He was an enemy to nepotism, and no consideration or entreaty – no need of the support which an office would give, or intercession from friends – could ever induce him to appoint a relative to any place under the government. He had opposed the adoption of the constitution until amendments were obtained; but these had, he became one of its firmest supporters, and labored faithfully, anxiously and devotedly, to administer it in its purity. He was the first President under whom the author of this View served, commencing his first senatorial term with the commencement of the second presidential term of this last of the men of the revolution who were spared to fill the office in the great Republic which they had founded.

CHAPTER CXLIX.

DEATH OF CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL

He died in the middle of the second term of General Jackson's presidency, having been chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States full thirty-five years, presiding all the while (to use the inimitable language of Mr. Randolph), "with native dignity and unpretending grace." He was supremely fitted for high judicial station: – a solid judgment, great reasoning powers, acute and penetrating mind: with manners and habits to suit the purity and the paucity of the ermine: – attentive, patient, laborious: grave on the bench, social in the intercourse of life: simple in his tastes, and inexorably just. Seen by a stranger come into a room, and he would be taken for a modest country gentleman, without claims to attention, and ready to take the lowest place in company, or at table, and to act his part without trouble to any body. Spoken to, and closely observed, he would be seen to be a gentleman of finished breeding, of winning and prepossessing talk, and just as much mind as the occasion required him to show. Coming to man's estate at the beginning of the revolution he followed the current into which so many young men, destined to become eminent, so ardently entered; and served in the army, and with notice and observation, under the eyes of Washington. Elected to Congress at an early age he served in the House of Representatives in the time of the elder Mr. Adams, and found in one of the prominent questions of the day a subject entirely fitted to his acute and logical turn of mind – the case of the famous Jonathan Robbins, claiming to be an American citizen, reclaimed by the British government as a deserter, delivered up, and hanged at the yard-arm of an English man-of-war. Party spirit took up the case, and it was one to inflame that spirit. Mr. Marshall spoke in defence of the administration, and made the master speech of the day, when there were such master speakers in Congress as Madison, Gallatin, William B. Giles, Edward Livingston, John Randolph. It was a judicial subject, adapted to the legal mind of Mr. Marshall, requiring a legal pleading: and well did he plead it. Mr. Randolph has often been heard to say that it distanced competition – leaving all associates and opponents far behind, and carrying the case. Seldom has one speech brought so much fame, and high appointment to any one man. When he had delivered it his reputation was in the zenith: in less than nine brief months thereafter he was Secretary at War, Secretary of State, Minister to France, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Politically, he classed with the federal party, and was one of those high-minded and patriotic men of that party, who, acting on principle, commanded the respect of those even who deemed them wrong.

CHAPTER CL.

DEATH OF COL. BURR, THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

He was one of the few who, entering the war of independence with ardor and brilliant prospects, disappointed the expectations he had created, dishonored the cause he had espoused, and ended in shame the career which he had opened with splendor. He was in the adventurous expedition of Arnold through the wilderness to Quebec, went ahead in the disguise of a priest to give intelligence of the approach of aid to General Montgomery, arrived safely through many dangers, captivated the General by the courage and address which he had shown, was received by him into his military family; and was at his side when he was killed. Returning to the seat of war in the Northern States he was invited by Washington, captivated like Montgomery by the soldierly and intellectual qualities he had shown, to his headquarters, with a view to placing him on his staff; but he soon perceived that the brilliant young man lacked principle; and quietly got rid of him. The after part of his life was such as to justify the opinion which Washington had formed of him; but such was his address and talent as to rise to high political distinction: Attorney General of New-York, Senator in Congress, and Vice-President of the United States. At the close of the presidential election of 1800, he stood equal with Mr. Jefferson in the vote which he received, and his undoubted successor at the end of Mr. Jefferson's term. But there his honors came to a stand, and took a downward turn, nor ceased descending until he was landed in the abyss of shame, misery, and desolation. He intrigued with the federalists to supplant Mr. Jefferson – to get the place of President, for which he had not received a single vote – was suspected, detected, baffled – lost the respect of his party, and was thrown upon crimes to recover a position, or to avenge his losses. The treasonable attempt in the West, and the killing of General Hamilton, ended his career in the United States. But although he had deceived the masses, and reached the second office of the government, with the certainty of attaining the first if he only remained still, yet there were some close observers whom he never deceived. The early mistrust of Washington has been mentioned: it became stronger as Burr mounted higher in the public favor; and in 1794, when a senator in Congress, and when the republican party had taken him for their choice for the French mission in the place of Mr. Monroe recalled, and had sent a committee of which Mr. Madison was chief to ask his nomination from Washington, that wise and virtuous man peremptorily refused it, giving as a categorical reason, that his rule was invariable, never to appoint an immoral man to any office. Mr. Jefferson had the same ill opinion of him, and, notwithstanding his party zeal, always considered him in market when the federalists had any high office to bestow. But General Hamilton was most thoroughly imbued with a sense of his unworthiness, and deemed it due to his country to balk his election over Jefferson; and did so. His letters to the federal members of Congress painted Burr in his true character, and dashed far from his grasp, and for ever, the gilded prize his hand was touching. For that frustration of his hopes, four years afterwards, he killed Hamilton in a duel, having on the part of Burr the spirit of an assassination – cold-blooded, calculated, revengeful, and falsely-pretexted. He alleged some trivial and recent matter for the challenge, such as would not justify it in any code of honor; and went to the ground to kill upon an old grudge which he was ashamed to avow. Hard was the fate of Hamilton – losing his life at the early age of forty-two for having done justice to his country in the person of the man to whom he stood most politically opposed, and the chief of the party by which he had been constrained to retire from the scene of public life at the age of thirty-four – the age at which most others begin it – he having accomplished gigantic works. He was the man most eminently and variously endowed of all the eminent men of his day – at once soldier and statesman, with a head to conceive, and a hand to execute: a writer, an orator, a jurist: an organizing mind, able to grasp the greatest system; and administrative, to execute the smallest details: wholly turned to the practical business of life, and with a capacity for application and production which teemed with gigantic labors, each worthy to be the sole product of a single master intellect; but lavished in litters from the ever teeming fecundity of his prolific genius. Hard his fate, when, withdrawing from public life at the age of thirty-four, he felt himself constrained to appeal to posterity for that justice which contemporaries withheld from him. And the appeal was not in vain. Statues rise to his memory: history embalms his name: posterity will do justice to the man who at the age of twenty was "the principal and most confidential aid of Washington," who retained the love and confidence of the Father of his country to the last; and to whom honorable opponents, while opposing his systems of policy, accorded honor, and patriotism, and social affections, and transcendental abilities. – This chapter was commenced to write a notice of the character of Colonel Burr; but that subject will not remain under the pen. At the appearance of that name, the spirit of Hamilton starts up to rebuke the intrusion – to drive back the foul apparition to its gloomy abode – and to concentrate all generous feeling on itself.

CHAPTER CLI.

DEATH OF WILLIAM B. GILES, OF VIRGINIA

He also died under the presidency of General Jackson. He was one of the eminent public men coming upon the stage of action with the establishment of the new constitution – with the change from a League to a Union; from the confederation to the unity of the States – and was one of the most conspicuous in the early annals of our Congress. He had that kind of speaking talent which is most effective in legislative bodies, and which is so different from set-speaking. He was a debater; and was considered by Mr. Randolph to be, in our House of Representatives, what Charles Fox was admitted to be in the British House of Commons: the most accomplished debater which his country had ever seen. But their acquired advantages were very different, and their schools of practice very opposite. Mr. Fox perfected himself in the House, speaking on every subject; Mr. Giles out of the House, talking to every body. Mr. Fox, a ripe scholar, addicted to literature, and imbued with all the learning of all the classics in all time; Mr. Giles neither read nor studied, but talked incessantly with able men, rather debating with them all the while: and drew from this source of information, and from the ready powers of his mind, the ample means of speaking on every subject with the fulness which the occasion required, the quickness which confounds an adversary, and the effect which a lick in time always produces. He had the kind of talent which was necessary to complete the circle of all sorts of ability which sustained the administration of Mr. Jefferson. Macon was wise, Randolph brilliant, Gallatin and Madison able in argument; but Giles was the ready champion, always ripe for the combat – always furnished with the ready change to meet every bill. He was long a member of the House; then senator, and governor; and died at an advanced age, like Patrick Henry, without doing justice to his genius in the transmission of his labors to posterity; because, like Henry, he had been deficient in education and in reading. He was the intimate friend of all the eminent men of his day, which sufficiently bespeaks him a gentleman of manners and heart, as well as a statesman of head and tongue.

CHAPTER CLII.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1836

Mr. Van Buren was the candidate of the democratic party; General Harrison the candidate of the opposition; and Mr. Hugh L. White that of a fragment of the democracy. Mr. Van Buren was elected, receiving one hundred and seventy electoral votes, to seventy-three given to General Harrison, and twenty-six given to Mr. White. The States voting for each, were: – Mr. Van Buren: Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Michigan, Arkansas. For General Harrison: Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana. For Mr. White: Georgia and Tennessee. Massachusetts complimented Mr. Webster by bestowing her fourteen votes upon him; and South Carolina, as in the two preceding elections, threw her vote away upon a citizen not a candidate, and not a child of her soil – Mr. Mangum of North Carolina – disappointing the expectations of Mr. White's friends, whose standing for the presidency had been instigated by Mr. Calhoun, to divide the democratic party and defeat Mr. Van Buren. Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was the democratic candidate for the vice-presidency, and received one hundred and forty-seven votes, which, not being a majority of the whole number of votes given, the election was referred to the Senate, to choose between the two highest on the list; and that body being largely democratic, he was duly elected: receiving thirty-three out of forty-nine senatorial votes. The rest of the vice-presidential vote, in the electoral colleges, had been between Mr. Francis Granger, of New York, who received seventy-seven votes; Mr. John Tyler, of Virginia, who received forty-seven; and Mr. William Smith, of South Carolina, complimented by Virginia with her twenty-three votes. Mr. Granger, being the next highest on the list, after Colonel Johnson, was voted for as one of the two referred to the Senate; and received sixteen votes. A list of the senators voting for each will show the strength of the respective parties in the Senate, at the approaching end of President Jackson's administration; and how signally all the efforts intended to overthrow him had ended in the discomfiture of their authors, and converted an absolute majority of the whole Senate into a meagre minority of one third. The votes for Colonel Johnson were: Mr. Benton of Missouri; Mr. Black of Mississippi; Mr. Bedford Brown of North Carolina; Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania; Mr. Cuthbert of Georgia; Mr. Dana of Maine; Mr. Ewing of Illinois; Mr. Fulton of Arkansas; Mr. Grundy of Tennessee; Mr. Hendricks of Indiana; Mr. Hubbard of Maine; Mr. William Rufus King of Alabama; Mr. John P. King of Georgia; Mr. Louis F. Linn of Missouri; Mr. Lucius Lyon of Michigan Mr. McKean of Pennsylvania; Mr. Gabriel Moore of Alabama; Mr. Morris of Ohio; Mr. Alexander Mouton of Louisiana; Mr. Wilson C. Nicholas of Louisiana; Mr. Niles of Connecticut; Mr. John Norvell of Michigan; Mr. John Page of New Hampshire; Mr. Richard E. Parker of Virginia; Mr. Rives of Virginia; Mr. John M. Robinson of Illinois; Mr. Ruggles of Maine; Mr. Ambrose H. Sevier of Arkansas; Mr. Peleg Sprague of Maine; Mr. Robert Strange of North Carolina; Mr. Nathaniel P. Talmadge of New York; Mr. Tipton of Indiana; Mr. Robert J. Walker of Mississippi; Mr. Silas Wright of New York. Those voting for Mr. Francis Granger were: Mr. Richard H. Bayard of Delaware; Mr. Clay; Mr. John M. Clayton of Delaware; Mr. John Crittenden of Kentucky; Mr. John Davis of Massachusetts; Mr. Thomas Ewing of Ohio; Mr. Kent of Maryland; Mr. Nehemiah Knight of Rhode Island; Mr. Prentiss of Vermont; Mr. Asher Robbins of Rhode Island; Mr. Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey; Mr. John S. Spence of Maryland; Mr. Swift of Vermont; Mr. Gideon Tomlinson of Connecticut; Mr. Wall of New Jersey; Mr. Webster. South Carolina did not vote, neither in the person of Mr. Calhoun nor in that of his colleague, Mr. Preston: an omission which could not be attributed to absence or accident, as both were present; nor fail to be remarked and considered ominous in the then temper of the State, and her refusal to vote in the three preceding presidential elections.

CHAPTER CLIII.

LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT JACKSON

At the opening of the second Session of the twenty-fourth Congress, President Jackson delivered his last Annual Message, and under circumstances to be grateful to his heart. The powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he saw full majorities of ardent and tried friends in each House. We were in peace and friendship with all the world, and all exciting questions quieted at home. Industry in all its branches was prosperous. The revenue was abundant – too much so. The people were happy. His message, of course, was first a recapitulation of this auspicious state of things, at home and abroad; and then a reference to the questions of domestic interest and policy which required attention, and might call for action. At the head of these measures stood the deposit act of the last session – the act which under the insidious and fabulous title of a deposit of a surplus of revenue with the States – made an actual distribution of that surplus; and was intended by its contrivers to do so. His notice of this measure went to two points – his own regrets for having signed the act, and his misgivings in relation to its future observation. He said:

"The consequences apprehended, when the deposit act of the last session received a reluctant approval, have been measurably realized. Though an act merely for the deposit of the surplus moneys of the United States in the State Treasuries, for safe keeping, until they may be wanted for the service of the general government, it has been extensively spoken of as an act to give the money to the several States, and they have been advised to use it as a gift, without regard to the means of refunding it when called for. Such a suggestion has doubtless been made without a due consideration of the obligation of the deposit act, and without a proper attention to the various principles and interests which are affected by it. It is manifest that the law itself cannot sanction such a suggestion, and that, as it now stands, the States have no more authority to receive and use these deposits without intending to return them, than any deposit bank, or any individual temporarily charged with the safe-keeping or application of the public money, would now have for converting the same to their private use, without the consent and against the will of the government. But, independently of the violation of public faith and moral obligation which are involved in this suggestion, when examined in reference to the terms of the present deposit act, it is believed that the considerations which should govern the future legislation of Congress on this subject, will be equally conclusive against the adoption of any measure recognizing the principles on which the suggestion has been made."

This misgiving was well founded. Before the session was over there was actually a motion to release the States from their obligation to restore the money – to lay which motion on the table there were seventy-three resisting votes – an astonishing number in itself, and the more so as given by the same members, sitting in the same seats, who had voted for the act as a deposit a few months before. Such a vote was ominous of the fate of the money; and that fate was not long delayed. Akin to this measure, and in fact the parent of which it was the bastard progeny, was distribution itself, under its own proper name; and which it was evident was soon to be openly attempted, encouraged as its advocates were by the success gained in the deposit act. The President, with his characteristic frankness and firmness, impugned that policy in advance; and deprecated its effects under every aspect of public and private justice, and of every consideration of a wise or just policy. He said:

"To collect revenue merely for distribution to the States, would seem to be highly impolitic, if not as dangerous as the proposition to retain it in the Treasury. The shortest reflection must satisfy every one that to require the people to pay taxes to the government merely that they may be paid back again, is sporting with the substantial interests of the country, and no system which produces such a result can be expected to receive the public countenance. Nothing could be gained by it, even if each individual who contributed a portion of the tax could receive back promptly the same portion. But it is apparent that no system of the kind can ever be enforced, which will not absorb a considerable portion of the money, to be distributed in salaries and commissions to the agents employed in the process, and in the various losses and depreciations which arise from other causes; and the practical effect of such an attempt must ever be to burden the people with taxes, not for purposes beneficial to them, but to swell the profits of deposit banks, and support a band of useless public officers. A distribution to the people is impracticable and unjust in other respects. It would be taking one man's property and giving it to another. Such would be the unavoidable result of a rule of equality (and none other is spoken of, or would be likely to be adopted), inasmuch as there is no mode by which the amount of the individual contributions of our citizens to the public revenue can be ascertained. We know that they contribute unequally, and a rule therefore that would distribute to them equally, would be liable to all the objections which apply to the principle of an equal division of property. To make the general government the instrument of carrying this odious principle into effect, would be at once to destroy the means of its usefulness, and change the character designed for it by the framers of the constitution."

There was another consideration connected with this policy of distribution which the President did not name, and could not, in the decorum and reserve of an official communication to Congress: it was the intended effect of these distributions – to debauch the people with their own money, and to gain presidential votes by lavishing upon them the spoils of their country. To the honor of the people this intended effect never occurred; no one of those contriving these distributions ever reaching the high object of their ambition. Instead of distribution – instead of raising money from the people to be returned to the people, with all the deductions which the double operation of collecting and dividing would incur, and with the losses which unfaithful agents might inflict – instead of that idle and wasteful process, which would have been childish if it had not been vicious, he recommended a reduction of taxes on the comforts and necessaries of life, and the levy of no more money than was necessary for the economical administration of the government; and said:

"In reducing the revenue to the wants of the government, your particular attention is invited to those articles which constitute the necessaries of life. The duty on salt was laid as a war tax, and was no doubt continued to assist in providing for the payment of the war debt. There is no article the release of which from taxation would be felt so generally and so beneficially. To this may be added all kinds of fuel and provisions. Justice and benevolence unite in favor of releasing the poor of our cities from burdens which are not necessary to the support of our government, and tend only to increase the wants of the destitute."

The issuance of the "Treasury Circular" naturally claimed a place in the President's message; and received it. The President gave his reason for the measure in the necessity of saving the public domain from being exchanged for bank paper money, which was not wanted, and might be of little value or use when wanted; and expressed himself thus:

"The effects of an extension of bank credits, and over-issues of bank paper, have been strikingly illustrated in the sales of the public lands. From the returns made by the various registers and receivers in the early part of last summer it was perceived that the receipts arising from the sales of the public lands, were increasing to an unprecedented amount. In effect, however, these receipts amounted to nothing more than credits in bank. The banks lent out their notes to speculators; they were paid to the receivers, and immediately returned to the banks, to be lent out again and again; being mere instruments to transfer to speculators the most valuable public land, and pay the government by a credit on the books of the banks. Those credits on the books of some of the western banks, usually called deposits, were already greatly beyond their immediate means of payment, and were rapidly increasing. Indeed each speculation furnished means for another; for no sooner had one individual or company paid in the notes, than they were immediately lent to another for a like purpose; and the banks were extending their business and their issues so largely, as to alarm considerate men, and render it doubtful whether these bank credits, if permitted to accumulate, would ultimately be of the least value to the government. The spirit of expansion and speculation was not confined to the deposit banks, but pervaded the whole multitude of banks throughout the Union, and was giving rise to new institutions to aggravate the evil. The safety of the public funds, and the interest of the people generally, required that these operations should be checked; and it became the duty of every branch of the general and State governments to adopt all legitimate and proper means to produce that salutary effect. Under this view of my duty, I directed the issuing of the order which will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury, requiring payment for the public lands sold to be made in specie, with an exception until the 15th of the present month, in favor of actual settlers. This measure has produced many salutary consequences. It checked the career of the Western banks, and gave them additional strength in anticipation of the pressure which has since pervaded our Eastern as well as the European commercial cities. By preventing the extension of the credit system, it measurably cut off the means of speculation, and retarded its progress in monopolizing the most valuable of the public lands. It has tended to save the new States from a non-resident proprietorship, one of the greatest obstacles to the advancement of a new country, and the prosperity of an old one. It has tended to keep open the public lands for the entry of emigrants at government prices, instead of their being compelled to purchase of speculators at double or treble prices. And it is conveying into the interior large sums in silver and gold, there to enter permanently into the currency of the country, and place it on a firmer foundation. It is confidently believed that the country will find in the motives which induced that order, and the happy consequences which will have ensued, much to commend and nothing to condemn."

The people were satisfied with the Treasury Circular; they saw its honesty and good effects; but the politicians were not satisfied with it. They thought they saw in it a new exercise of illegal power in the President – a new tampering with the currency – a new destruction of the public prosperity; and commenced an attack upon it the moment Congress met, very much in the style of the attack upon the order for the removal of the deposits; and with fresh hopes from the resentment of the "thousand banks," whose notes had been excluded, and from the discontent of many members of Congress whose schemes of speculation had been balked. And notwithstanding the democratic majorities in the two Houses, the attack upon the "Circular" had a great success, many members being interested in the excluded banks, and partners in schemes for monopolizing the lands. A bill intended to repeal the Circular was actually passed through both Houses; but not in direct terms. That would have been too flagrant. It was a bad thing, and could not be fairly done, and therefore gave rise to indirection and ambiguity of provisions, and complication of phrases, and a multiplication of amphibologies, which brought the bill to a very ridiculous conclusion when it got to the hands of General Jackson. But of this hereafter.

The intrusive efforts made by politicians and missionaries, first, to prevent treaties from being formed with the Indians to remove from the Southern States, and then to prevent the removal after the treaties were made, led to serious refusals on the part of some of these tribes to emigrate; and it became necessary to dispatch officers of high rank and reputation, with regular troops, to keep down outrages and induce peaceable removal. Major General Jesup was sent to the Creek nation, where he had a splendid success in a speedy and bloodless accomplishment of his object. Major General Scott was sent to the Cherokees, where a pertinacious resistance was long encountered, but eventually and peaceably overcome. The Seminole hostilities in Florida were just breaking out; and the President, in his message, thus notices all these events:

"The military movements rendered necessary by the aggressions of the hostile portions of the Seminole and Creek tribes of Indians, and by other circumstances, have required the active employment of nearly our whole regular force, including the marine corps, and of large bodies of militia and volunteers. With all these events, so far as they were known at the seat of government before the termination of your last session, you are already acquainted; and it is therefore only needful in this place to lay before you a brief summary of what has since occurred. The war with the Seminoles during the summer was, on our part, chiefly confined to the protection of our frontier settlements from the incursions of the enemy; and, as a necessary and important means for the accomplishment of that end, to the maintenance of the posts previously established. In the course of this duty several actions took place, in which the bravery and discipline of both officers and men were conspicuously displayed, and which I have deemed it proper to notice in respect to the former, by the granting of brevet rank for gallant services in the field. But as the force of the Indians was not so far weakened by these partial successes as to lead them to submit, and as their savage inroads were frequently repeated, early measures were taken for placing at the disposal of Governor Call, who, as commander-in-chief of the territorial militia, had been temporarily invested with the command, an ample force, for the purpose of resuming offensive operations in the most efficient manner, so soon as the season should permit. Major General Jesup was also directed, on the conclusion of his duties in the Creek country, to repair to Florida, and assume the command. Happily for the interests of humanity, the hostilities with the Creeks were brought to a close soon after your adjournment, without that effusion of blood, which at one time was apprehended as inevitable. The unconditional submission of the hostile party was followed by their speedy removal to the country assigned them west of the Mississippi. The inquiry as to the alleged frauds in the purchase of the reservations of these Indians, and the causes of their hostilities, requested by the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1st of July last to be made by the President, is now going on, through the agency of commissioners appointed for that purpose. Their report may be expected during your present session. The difficulties apprehended in the Cherokee country have been prevented, and the peace and safety of that region and its vicinity effectually secured, by the timely measures taken by the war department, and still continued."

The Bank of the United States was destined to receive another, and a parting notice from General Jackson, and greatly to its further discredit, brought upon it by its own lawless and dishonest course. Its charter had expired, and it had delayed to refund the stock paid for by the United States, or to pay the back dividend; and had transferred itself with all its effects, and all its subscribers except the United States, to a new corporation, under the same name, created by a proviso to a road bill in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, obtained by bribery, as subsequent legislative investigation proved. This transfer, or transmigration, was a new and most amazing procedure. The metempsychosis of a bank was a novelty which confounded and astounded the senses, and set the wits of Congress to work to find out how it could legally be done. The President, though a good lawyer and judge of law, did not trouble himself with legal subtleties and disquisitions. He took the broad, moral, practical, business view of the question; and pronounced it to be dishonest, unlawful, and irresponsible; and recommended to Congress to look after its stock. The message said:

"The conduct and present condition of that bank, and the great amount of capital vested in it by the United States, require your careful attention. Its charter expired on the third day of March last, and it has now no power but that given in the 21st section, 'to use the corporate name, style, and capacity, for the purpose of suits, for the final settlement and liquidation of the affairs and accounts of the corporation, and for the sale and disposition of their estate, real, personal, and mixed, and not for any other purpose, or in any other manner whatsoever, nor for a period exceeding two years after the expiration of the said term of incorporation.' Before the expiration of the charter, the stockholders of the bank obtained an act of incorporation from the legislature of Pennsylvania, excluding only the United States. Instead of proceeding to wind up their concerns, and pay over to the United States the amount due on account of the stock held by them, the president and directors of the old bank appear to have transferred the books, papers, notes, obligations, and most or all of its property, to this new corporation, which entered upon business as a continuation of the old concern. Amongst other acts of questionable validity, the notes of the expired corporation are known to have been used as its own, and again put in circulation. That the old bank had no right to issue or reissue its notes after the expiration of its charter, cannot be denied; and that it could not confer any such right on its substitute, any more than exercise it itself, is equally plain. In law and honesty, the notes of the bank in circulation, at the expiration of its charter, should have been called in by public advertisement, paid up as presented, and, together with those on hand, cancelled and destroyed. Their re-issue is sanctioned by no law, and warranted by no necessity. If the United States be responsible in their stock for the payment of these notes, their re-issue by the new corporation, for their own profit, is a fraud on the government. If the United States is not responsible, then there is no legal responsibility in any quarter, and it is a fraud on the country. They are the redeemed notes of a dissolved partnership, but, contrary to the wishes of the retiring partner, and without his consent, are again re-issued and circulated. It is the high and peculiar duty of Congress to decide whether any further legislation be necessary for the security of the large amount of public property now held and in use by the new bank, and for vindicating the rights of the government, and compelling a speedy and honest settlement with all the creditors of the old bank, public and private, or whether the subject shall be left to the power now possessed by the executive and judiciary. It remains to be seen whether the persons, who, as managers of the old bank, undertook to control the government, retained the public dividends, shut their doors upon a committee of the House of Representatives, and filled the country with panic to accomplish their own sinister objects, may now, as managers of a new Bank, continue with impunity to flood the country with a spurious currency, use the seven millions of government stock for their own profit, and refuse to the United States all information as to the present condition of their own property, and the prospect of recovering it into their own possession. The lessons taught by the bank of the United States cannot well be lost upon the American people. They will take care never again to place so tremendous a power in irresponsible hands, and it will be fortunate if they seriously consider the consequences which are likely to result on a smaller scale from the facility with which corporate powers are granted by their State government."

This novel and amazing attempt of the bank to transmigrate into the body of another bank with all its effects, was a necessity of its position – the necessity which draws a criminal to even insane acts to prevent the detection, exposure, and ruin from which guilt recoils in not less guilty contrivances. The bank was broken, and could not wind up, and wished to postpone, or by chance avert the dreaded discovery. It was in the position of a glass vase, cracked from top to bottom, and ready to split open if touched, but looking as if whole while sitting unmoved on the shelf. The great bank was in this condition, and therefore untouchable, and saw no resource except in a metempsychosis – a difficult process for a soulless institution – and thereby endeavoring to continue its life without a change of name, form, or substance. The experiment was a catastrophe, as might have been expected beforehand; and as was soon seen afterwards.

The injury resulting to the public service from the long delay in making the appropriations at the last session – delayed while occupied with distribution bills until the season for labor had well passed away. On this point the message said:

"No time was lost, after the making of the requisite appropriations, in resuming the great national work of completing the unfinished fortifications on our seaboard, and of placing them in a proper state of defence. In consequence, however, of the very late day at which those bills were passed, but little progress could be made during the season which has just closed. A very large amount of the moneys granted at your last session accordingly remains unexpended; but as the work will be again resumed at the earliest moment in the coming spring, the balance of the existing appropriations, and, in several cases which will be laid before you, with the proper estimates, further sums for the like objects, may be usefully expended during the next year."

Here was one of the evils of dividing the public money, and of factious opposition to the government. The session of 1834-'5 had closed without a dollar for the military defences, leaving half finished works unfinished, and finished works unarmed; and that in the presence of a threatening collision with France; and at the subsequent session of 1835-6, the appropriations were not made until the month of July and when they could not be used or applied.