Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Scarcely did the railroad system begin to spread itself along the highways of the United States than the effects of the monopoly and extortion incident to moneyed corporations, began to manifest itself in exorbitant demands for the transportation of the mails, and in capricious refusals to carry them at all except on their own terms. President Jackson was not the man to submit to an imposition, or to capitulate to a corporation. He brought the subject before Congress, and invited particular attention to it in a paragraph of his message; in which he said:

"Your particular attention is invited to the subject of mail contracts with railroad companies. The present laws providing for the making of contracts are based upon the presumption that competition among bidders will secure the service at a fair price. But on most of the railroad lines there is no competition in that kind of transportation, and advertising is therefore useless. No contract can now be made with them, except such as shall be negotiated before the time of offering or afterwards, and the power of the Postmaster-general to pay them high prices is, practically, without limitation. It would be a relief to him, and no doubt would conduce to the public interest, to prescribe by law some equitable basis upon which such contracts shall rest, and restrict him by a fixed rule of allowance. Under a liberal act of that sort, he would undoubtedly be able to secure the services of most of the railroad companies, and the interest of the Department would be thus advanced."

The message recommended a friendly supervision over the Indian tribes removed to the West of the Mississippi, with the important suggestion of preventing intestine war by military interference, as well as improving their condition by all the usual means. On these points, it said:

"The national policy, founded alike in interest and in humanity, so long and so steadily pursued by this government, for the removal of the Indian tribes originally settled on this side of the Mississippi, to the west of that river, may be said to have been consummated by the conclusion of the late treaty with the Cherokees. The measures taken in the execution of that treaty, and in relation to our Indian affairs generally, will fully appear by referring to the accompanying papers. Without dwelling on the numerous and important topics embraced in them, I again invite your attention to the importance of providing a well-digested and comprehensive system for the protection, supervision and improvement of the various tribes now planted in the Indian country. The suggestions submitted by the commissioner of Indian affairs, and enforced by the secretary, on this subject, and also in regard to the establishment of additional military posts in the Indian country, are entitled to your profound consideration. Both measures are necessary for the double purpose of protecting the Indians from intestine war, and in other respects complying with our engagements to them, and of securing our Western frontier against incursions, which otherwise will assuredly be made on it. The best hopes of humanity, in regard to the aboriginal race, the welfare of our rapidly extending settlements, and the honor of the United States, are all deeply involved in the relations existing between this government and the emigrating tribes. I trust, therefore, that the various matters submitted in the accompanying documents, in respect to those relations, will receive your early and mature deliberation; and that it may issue in the adoption of legislative measures adapted to the circumstances and duties of the present crisis."

This suggestion of preventing intestine wars (as they are called) in the bosoms of the tribes, is founded equally in humanity to the Indians and duty to ourselves. Such wars are nothing but massacres, assassinations and confiscations. The stronger party oppress a hated, or feared minority or chief; and slay with impunity (in some of the tribes), where the assumption of a form of government, modelled after that of the white race, for which they have no capacity, gives the justification of executions to what is nothing but revenge and assassination. Under their own ancient laws, of blood for blood, and for the slain to avenge the wrong, this liability of personal responsibility restrained the killings to cases of public justifiable necessity. Since the removal of that responsibility, revenge, ambition, plunder, take their course: and the consequence is a series of assassinations which have been going on for a long time; and still continue. To aggravate many of these massacres, and to give their victims a stronger claim upon the protection of the United States, they are done upon those who are friends to the United States, upon accusations of having betrayed the interest of the tribe in some treaty for the sale of lands. The United States claim jurisdiction over their country, and exercise it in the punishment of some classes of criminals; and it would be good to extend it to the length recommended by President Jackson.

The message would have been incomplete without a renewal of the standing recommendation to take the presidential election out of the hands of intermediate bodies, and give it directly to the people. He earnestly urged an amendment to the constitution to that effect; but that remedy being of slow, difficult, and doubtful attainment, the more speedy process by the action of the people becomes the more necessary. Congressional caucuses were put down by the people in the election of 1824: their substitute and successor – national conventions – ruled by a minority, and managed by intrigue and corruption, are about as much worse than a Congress caucus as Congress itself would be if the members appointed, or contrived the appointment, of themselves, instead of being elected by the people. The message appropriately concluded with thanks to the people for the high honors to which they had lifted him, and their support under arduous circumstances, and said:

"Having now finished the observations deemed proper on this, the last occasion I shall have of communicating with the two Houses of Congress at their meeting, I cannot omit an expression of the gratitude which is due to the great body of my fellow citizens, in whose partiality and indulgence I have found encouragement and support in the many difficult and trying scenes through which it has been my lot to pass during my public career. Though deeply sensible that my exertions have not been crowned with a success corresponding to the degree of favor bestowed upon me, I am sure that they will be considered as having been directed by an earnest desire to promote the good of my country; and I am consoled by the persuasion that whatever errors have been committed will find a corrective in the intelligence and patriotism of those who will succeed us. All that has occurred during my administration is calculated to inspire me with increased confidence in the stability of our institutions, and should I be spared to enter upon that retirement which is so suitable to my age and infirm health, and so much desired by me in other respects, I shall not cease to invoke that beneficent Being to whose providence we are already so signally indebted for the continuance of his blessings on our beloved country."

CHAPTER CLIV.

FINAL REMOVAL OF THE INDIANS

At the commencement of the annual session of 1836-'37, President Jackson had the gratification to make known to Congress the completion of the long-pursued policy of removing all the Indians in the States, and within the organized territories of the Union, to their new homes west of the Mississippi. It was a policy commencing with Jefferson, pursued by all succeeding Presidents, and accomplished by Jackson. The Creeks and Cherokees had withdrawn from Georgia and Alabama; the Chickasaws and Choctaws from Mississippi and Alabama; the Seminoles had stipulated to remove from Florida; Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri had all been relieved of their Indian population; Kentucky and Tennessee, by earlier treaties with the Chickasaws, had received the same advantage. This freed the slave States from an obstacle to their growth and prosperity, and left them free to expand, and to cultivate, to the full measure of their ample boundaries. All the free Atlantic States had long been relieved from their Indian populations, and in this respect the northern and southern States were now upon an equality. The result has been proved to be, what it was then believed it would be, beneficial to both parties; and still more so to the Indians than to the whites. With them it was a question of extinction, the time only the debatable point. They were daily wasting under contact with the whites, and had before their eyes the eventual but certain fate of the hundreds of tribes found by the early colonists on the Roanoke, the James River, the Potomac, the Susquehannah, the Delaware, the Connecticut, the Merrimac, the Kennebec and the Penobscot. The removal saved the southern tribes from that fate; and in giving them new and unmolested homes beyond the verge of the white man's settlement, in a country temperate in climate, fertile in soil, adapted to agriculture and to pasturage, with an outlet for hunting, abounding with salt water and salt springs – it left them to work out in peace the problem of Indian civilization. To all the relieved States the removal of the tribes within their borders was a great benefit – to the slave States transcendently and inappreciably great. The largest tribes were within their limits, and the best of their lands in the hands of the Indians, to the extent, in some of the States, as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, of a third or a quarter of their whole area. I have heretofore shown, in the case of the Creeks and the Cherokees in Georgia, that the ratification of the treaties for the extinction of Indian claims within her limits, and which removed the tribes which encumbered her, received the cordial support of northern senators; and that, in fact, without that support these great objects could not have been accomplished. I have now to say the same of all the other slave States. They were all relieved in like manner. Chickasaws and Choctaws in Mississippi and Alabama; Chickasaw claims in Tennessee and Kentucky; Seminoles in Florida; Caddos and Quapaws in Louisiana and in Arkansas; Kickapoos, Delawares, Shawnees, Osages, Iowas, Pinkeshaws, Weas, Peorias, in Missouri; all underwent the same process, and with the same support and result. Northern votes, in the Senate, came to the ratification of every treaty, and to the passage of every necessary appropriation act in the House of Representatives. Northern men may be said to have made the treaties, and passed the acts, as without their aid it could not have been done, constituting, as they did, a large majority in the House, and being equal in the Senate, where a vote of two-thirds was wanting. I do not go over these treaties and laws one by one, to show their passage, and by what votes. I did that in the case of the Creek treaty and the Cherokee treaty, for the removal of these tribes from Georgia; and showed that the North was unanimous in one case, and nearly so in the other, while in both treaties there was a southern opposition, and in one of them (the Cherokee), both Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay in the negative: and these instances may stand for an illustration of the whole. And thus the area of slave population has been almost doubled in the slave States, by sending away the Indians to make room for their expansion; and it is unjust and cruel – unjust and cruel in itself, independent of the motive – to charge these Northern States with a design to abolish slavery in the South. If they had harbored such design – if they had been merely unfriendly to the growth and prosperity of these Southern States, there was an easy way to have gratified their feelings, without committing a breach of the constitution, or an aggression or encroachment upon these States: they had only to sit still and vote against the ratification of the treaties, and the enactment of the laws which effected this great removal. They did not do so – did not sit still and vote against their Southern brethren. On the contrary, they stood up and spoke aloud, and gave to these laws and treaties an effective and zealous support. And I, who was the Senate's chairman of the committee of Indian affairs at this time, and know how these things were done, and who was so thankful for northern help at the time; I, who know the truth and love justice, and cherish the harmony and union of the American people, feel it to be my duty and my privilege to note this great act of justice from the North to the South, to stand in history as a perpetual contradiction of all imputed design in the free States to abolish slavery in the slave States. I speak of States, not of individuals or societies.

I have shown that this policy of the universal removal of the Indians from the East to the West of the Mississippi originated with Mr. Jefferson, and from the most humane motives, and after having seen the extinction of more than forty tribes in his own State of Virginia; and had been followed up under all subsequent administrations. With General Jackson it was nothing but the continuation of an established policy, but one in which he heartily concurred, and of which his local position and his experience made him one of the safest of judges; but, like every other act of his administration, it was destined to obloquy and opposition, and to misrepresentations, which have survived the object of their creation, and gone into history. He was charged with injustice to the Indians, in not protecting them against the laws and jurisdiction of the States; with cruelty, in driving them away from the bones of their fathers; with robbery, in taking their lands for paltry considerations. Parts of the tribes were excited to resist the execution of the treaties, and it even became necessary to send troops and distinguished generals – Scott to the Cherokees, Jesup to the Creeks – to effect their removal; which, by the mildness and steadiness of these generals, and according to the humane spirit of their orders, was eventually accomplished without the aid of force. The outcry raised against General Jackson, on account of these measures, reached the ears of the French traveller and writer on American democracy (De Tocqueville), then sojourning among us and collecting materials for his work, and induced him to write thus in his chapter 18:

"The ejectment of the Indians very often takes place, at the present day, in a regular, and, as it were, legal manner. When the white population begins to approach the limit of a desert inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the United States usually dispatches envoys to them, who assemble the Indians in a large plain, and having first eaten and drunk with them, accost them in the following manner: 'What have you to do in the land of your fathers? Before long you must dig up their bones in order to live. In what respect is the country you inhabit better than another? Are there no woods, marshes or prairies, except where you dwell? and can you live nowhere but under your own sun? Beyond those mountains, which you see at the horizon – beyond the lake which bounds your territory on the west – there lie vast countries where beasts of chase are found in great abundance. Sell your lands to us, and go and live happily in those solitudes.'

"After holding this language, they spread before the eyes of the Indians fire-arms, woollen garments, kegs of brandy, glass necklaces, bracelets of tinsel, ear-rings, and looking-glasses. If, when they have beheld all these riches, they still hesitate, it is insinuated that they have not the means of refusing their required consent, and that the government itself will not long have the power of protecting them in their rights. What are they to do? Half convinced, half compelled, they go to inhabit new deserts, where the importunate whites will not permit them to remain ten years in tranquillity. In this manner do the Americans obtain, at a very low price, whole provinces, which the richest sovereigns in Europe could not purchase."

The Grecian Plutarch deemed it necessary to reside forty years in Rome, to qualify himself to write the lives of some Roman citizens; and then made mistakes. European writers do not deem it necessary to reside in our country at all in order to write our history. A sojourn of some months in the principal towns – a rapid flight along some great roads – the gossip of the steamboat, the steam-car, the stage-coach, and the hotel – the whispers of some earwigs – with the reading of the daily papers and the periodicals, all more or less engaged in partisan warfare – and the view of some debates, or scene, in Congress, which may be an exception to its ordinary decorum and intelligence: these constitute a modern European traveller's qualifications to write American history. No wonder that they commit mistakes, even where the intent is honest. And no wonder that Mons. de Tocqueville, with admitted good intentions, but with no "forty years" residence among us, should be no exception to the rule which condemns the travelling European writer of American history to the compilation of facts manufactured for partisan effect, and to the invention of reasons supplied from his own fancy. I have already had occasion, several times, to correct the errors of Mons. de Tocqueville. It is a compliment to him, implicative of respect, and by no means extended to others, who err more largely, and of purpose, but less harmfully. His error in all that he has here written is profound! and is injurious, not merely to General Jackson, to whom his mistakes apply, but to the national character, made up as it is of the acts of individuals; and which character it is the duty of every American to cherish and exalt in all that is worthy, and to protect and defend from all unjust imputation. It was in this sense that I marked this passage in De Tocqueville for refutation as soon as his book appeared, and took steps to make the contradiction (so far as the alleged robbery and cheating of the Indians was concerned) authentic and complete and as public and durable as the archives of the government itself. In this sense I had a call made for a full, numerical, chronological and official statement of all our Indian purchases, from the beginning of the federal government in 1789 to that day, 1840 – tribe by tribe, cession by cession, year by year – for the fifty years which the government had existed; with the number of acres acquired at each cession, and the amount paid for each.

The call was made in the Senate of the United States, and answered by document No. 616, 1st session, 26th Congress, in a document of thirteen printed tabular pages, and authenticated by the signatures of Mr. Van Buren, President; Mr. Poinsett, Secretary at War; and Mr. Hartley Crawford, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. From this document it appeared, that the United States had paid to the Indians eighty-five millions of dollars for land purchases up to the year 1840! to which five or six millions may be added for purchases since – say ninety millions. This is near six times as much as the United States gave the great Napoleon for Louisiana, the whole of it, soil and jurisdiction; and nearly three times as much as all three of the great foreign purchases – Louisiana, Florida and California – cost us! and that for soil alone, and for so much as would only be a fragment of Louisiana or California. Impressive as this statement is in the gross, it becomes more so in the detail, and when applied to the particular tribes whose imputed sufferings have drawn so mournful a picture from Mons. de Tocqueville. These are the four great southern tribes – Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws. Applied to them, and the table of purchases and payments stands thus: To the Creek Indians twenty-two millions of dollars for twenty-five millions of acres; which is seven millions more than was paid France for Louisiana, and seventeen millions more than was paid Spain for Florida. To the Choctaws, twenty-three millions of dollars (besides reserved tracts), for twenty millions of acres, being three millions more than was paid for Louisiana and Florida. To the Cherokees, for eleven millions of acres, was paid about fifteen millions of dollars, the exact price of Louisiana or California. To the Chickasaws, the whole net amount for which this country sold under the land system of the United States, and by the United States land officers, three millions of dollars for six and three-quarter millions of acres, being the way the nation chose to dispose of it. Here are fifty-six millions to four tribes, leaving thirty millions to go to the small tribes whose names are unknown to history, and which it is probable the writer on American democracy had never heard of when sketching the picture of their fancied oppressions.

I will attend to the case of these small remote tribes, and say that, besides their proportion of the remaining thirty-six millions of dollars, they received a kind of compensation suited to their condition, and intended to induct them into the comforts of civilized life. Of these I will give one example, drawn from a treaty with the Osages, in 1839; and which was only in addition to similar benefits to the same tribe, in previous treaties, and which were extended to all the tribes which were in the hunting state. These benefits were, to these Osages, two blacksmith's shops, with four blacksmiths, with five hundred pounds of iron and sixty pounds of steel annually; a grist and a saw mill, with millers for the same; 1,000 cows and calves; two thousand breeding swine; 1,000 ploughs; 1,000 sets of horse-gear; 1,000 axes; 1,000 hoes; a house each for ten chiefs, costing two hundred dollars apiece; to furnish these chiefs with six good wagons, sixteen carts, twenty-eight yokes of oxen, with yokes and log-chain; to pay all claims for injuries committed by the tribe on the white people, or on other Indians, to the amount of thirty thousand dollars; to purchase their reserved lands at two dollars per acre; three thousand dollars to reimburse that sum for so much deducted from their annuity, in 1825, for property taken from the whites, and since returned; and, finally, three thousand dollars more for an imputed wrongful withholding of that amount, for the same reason, in the annuity payment of the year 1829. In previous treaties, had been given seed grains, and seed vegetables, with fruit seeds and fruit trees; domestic fowls; laborers to plough up their ground and to make their fences, to raise crops and to save them, and teach the Indians how to farm; with spinning, weaving, and sewing implements, and persons to show their use. Now, all this was in one single treaty, with an inconsiderable tribe, which had been largely provided for in the same way in six different previous treaties! And all the rude tribes – those in the hunting state, or just emerging from it – were provided for in the same manner, the object of the United States being to train them to agriculture and pasturage – to conduct them from the hunting to the pastoral and agricultural state; and for that purpose, and in addition to all other benefits, are to be added the support of schools, the encouragement of missionaries, and a small annual contribution to religious societies who take charge of their civilization.

Besides all this, the government keeps up a large establishment for the special care of the Indians, and the management of their affairs; a special bureau, presided over by a commissioner at Washington City; superintendents in different districts; agents, sub-agents, and interpreters, resident with the tribe; and all charged with seeing to their rights and interests – seeing that the laws are observed towards them; that no injuries are done them by the whites; that none but licensed traders go among them; that nothing shall be bought from them which is necessary for their comfort, nor any thing sold to them which may be to their detriment. Among the prohibited articles are spirits of all kinds; and so severe are the penalties on this head, that forfeiture of the license, forfeiture of the whole cargo of goods, forfeiture of the penalty of the bond, and immediate suit in the nearest federal court for its recovery, expulsion from the Indian country, and disability for ever to acquire another license, immediately follow every breach of the laws for the introduction of the smallest quantity of any kind of spirits. How unfortunate, then, in M. de Tocqueville to write, that kegs of brandy are spread before the Indians to induce them to sell their lands! How unfortunate in representing these purchases to be made in exchange for woollen garments, glass necklaces, tinsel bracelets, ear-rings, and looking-glasses! What a picture this assertion of his makes by the side of the eighty-five millions of dollars at that time actually paid to those Indians for their lands, and the long and large list of agricultural articles and implements – long and large list of domestic animals and fowls – the ample supply of mills and shops, with mechanics to work them and teach their use – the provisions for schools and missionaries, for building fences and houses – which are found in the Osage treaty quoted, and which are to be found, more or less, in every treaty with every tribe emerging from the hunter state. The fact is, that the government of the United States has made it a fixed policy to cherish and protect the Indians, to improve their condition, and turn them to the habits of civilized life; and great is the wrong and injury which the mistake of this writer has done to our national character abroad, in representing the United States as cheating and robbing these children of the forest.

But Mons. de Tocqueville has quoted names and documents, and particular instances of imposition upon Indians, to justify his picture; and in doing so has committed the mistakes into which a stranger and sojourner may easily fall. He cites the report of Messrs. Clark and Cass, and makes a wrong application – an inverted application – of what they reported. They were speaking of the practices of disorderly persons in trading with the Indians for their skins and furs. They were reporting to the government an abuse, for correction and punishment. They were not speaking of United States commissioners, treating for the purchase of lands, but of individual traders, violating the laws. They were themselves those commissioners and superintendents of Indian affairs, and governors of Territories, one for the northwest, in Michigan, the other for the far west, in Missouri; and both noted for their justice and humanity to the Indians, and for their long and careful administration of their affairs within their respective superintendencies. Mons. de Tocqueville has quoted their words correctly, but with the comical blunder of reversing their application, and applying to the commissioners themselves, in their land negotiations for the government, the cheateries which they were denouncing to the government, in the illicit traffic of lawless traders. This was the comic blunder of a stranger: yet this is to appear as American history in Europe, and to be translated into our own language at home, and commended in a preface and notes.

CHAPTER CLV.

RECISION OF THE TREASURY CIRCULAR

Immediately upon the opening of the Senate and the organization of the body, Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, gave notice of his intention to move a joint resolution to rescind the treasury circular; and on hearing the notice, Mr. Benton made it known that he would oppose the resolution at the second reading – a step seldom resorted to, except when the measure to be so opposed is deemed too flagrantly wrong to be entitled to the honor of rejection in the usual forms of legislation. The debate came on promptly, and upon the lead of the mover of the resolution, in a prepared and well-considered speech, in which he said:

"This extraordinary paper was issued by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 11th of July last, in the form of a circular to the receivers of public money in the several land offices in the United States, directing them, after the 15th of August then next, to receive in payment for public lands nothing but gold and silver and certificates of deposits, signed by the Treasurer of the United States, with a saving in favor of actual settlers, and bona fide residents in the State in which the land happened to lie. This saving was for a limited time, and expires, I think, to-morrow. The professed object of this order was to check the speculations in public lands; to check excessive issues of bank paper in the West, and to increase the specie currency of the country; and the necessity of the measure was supported, or pretended to be supported, by the opinions of members of this body and the other branch of Congress. But, before I proceed to examine in detail this paper, its character, and its consequences, I will briefly advert to the state of things out of which it grew. I am confident, and I believe I can make the thing manifest, that the avowed objects were not the only, nor even the leading objects for which this order was framed; they may have influenced the minds of some who advised it, but those who planned, and those who at last virtually executed it, were governed by other and different motives, which I shall proceed to explain. It was foreseen, prior to the commencement of the last session of Congress, that there would be a very large surplus of money in the public treasury beyond the wants of the country for all their reasonable expenditures. It was also well understood that the land bill, or some other measure for the distribution of this fund, would be again presented to Congress; and, if the true condition of the public sentiment were known and understood, that its distribution, in some form or other, would be demanded by the country. On the other hand, it seems to have been determined by the party, and some of those who act with it thoroughly, that the money should remain where it was in the deposit banks, so that it could be wielded at pleasure by the executive. This order grew out of the contest to which I have referred. It was issued not by the advice of Congress or under the sanction of any law. It was delayed until Congress was fairly out of the city, and all possibility of interference by legislation was removed; and then came forth this new and last expedient. It was known that these funds, received for public lands, had become a chief source of revenue, and it may have occurred to some that the passage of a treasury order of this kind would have a tendency to embarrass the country; and as the bill for the regulation of the deposits had just passed, the public might be brought to believe that all the mischief occasioned by the order was the effect of the distribution bill. It has, indeed, happened, that this scheme has failed; the public understand it rightly, but that was not by any means certain at the time the measure was devised. It was not then foreseen that the people would as generally see through the contrivance as it has since been found that they do. There may have been various other motives which led to the measure. Many minds were probably to be consulted; for it is not to be presumed that a step like this was taken without consultation, and guided by the will of a single individual alone. That is not the way in which these things are done. No doubt one effect hoped for by some was, that a check would be put to the sales of the public lands. The operation of the order would naturally be, to raise the price of land by raising the price of the currency in which it was to be paid for. But, while this would be the effect on small buyers, those who purchased on a large scale would be enabled to sell at an advance of ten or fifteen per cent. over what would have been given if the United States lands had been open to purchasers in the ordinary way. Those who had borrowed money of the deposit banks and paid it out for lands, would thus be enabled to make sales to advantage; and by means of such sales make payment to the banks who found it necessary to call in their large loans, in order to meet the provisions of the deposit bill. The order, therefore, was likely to operate to the common benefit of the deposit banks and the great land dealers, while it counteracted the effect of the obnoxious deposit bill. There may have been yet another motive actuating some of those who devised this order. There was danger that the deposit banks, when called upon to refund the public treasure, would be unable to do it: indeed, it was said on this floor that the immediate effect of the distribution bill would be to break those banks. How this treasury order would operate to collect the specie of the country into the land offices, whence it would immediately go into the deposit banks, and would prove an acceptable aid to them while making the transfers required by law. These seem to me to have been among the real motives which led to the adoption of that order."

Mr. Ewing then argued at length against the legality of the treasury circular, quoting the joint resolution of 1816, and insisting that its provisions had been violated; also insisting on the largeness of the surplus, and that it had turned out to be much larger than was admitted by the friends of the administration; which latter assertion was in fact true, because the appropriations for the public service (the bills for which were in the hands of the opposition members) had been kept off till the middle of the summer, and could not be used; and so left some fifteen millions in the treasury of appropriated money which fell under the terms of the deposit act, and became divisible as surplus.

Mr. Benton replied to Mr. Ewing, saying:

"In the first of these objects the present movement is twin brother to the famous resolution of 1833, but without its boldness; for that resolution declared its object upon its face, while this one eschews specification, and insidiously seeks a judgment of condemnation by inference and argument. In the second of these objects every body will recognize the great design of the second branch of the same famous resolution of 1833, which, in the restoration of the deposits to the Bank of the United States, clearly went to the establishment of the paper system, and its supremacy over the federal government. The present movement, therefore, is a second edition of the old one, but a lame and impotent affair compared to that. Then, we had a magnificent panic; now, nothing but a miserable starveling! For though the letter of the president of the Bank of the United States announced, early in November, that the meeting of Congress was the time for the new distress to become intense, yet we are two weeks deep in the session, and no distress memorial, no distress deputation, no distress committees, to this hour! Nothing, in fact, in that line, but the distress speech of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ewing]; so that the new panic of 1836 has all the signs of being a lean and slender affair – a mere church-mouse concern – a sort of dwarfish, impish imitation of the gigantic spectre which stalked through the land in 1833."

Mr. Benton then showed that this subaltern and Lilliputian panic was brought upon the stage in the same way, and by the same managers, with its gigantic brother of 1833-'34; and quoted from a published letter of Mr. Biddle in November preceding, and a public speech of Mr. Clay in the month of September preceding, in which they gave out the programme for the institution of the little panic; and the proceeding against the President for violating the laws; and against the treasury order itself as the cause of the new distress. Mr. Biddle in his publication said: "Our pecuniary condition seems to be a strange anomaly. When Congress adjourned, it left the country with abundant crops, and high prices for them – with every branch of industry flourishing, and with more specie than we ever had before – with all the elements of universal prosperity. None of these have undergone the slightest change; yet, after a few months, Congress will re-assemble, and find the whole country suffering intense pecuniary distress. The occasion of this, and the remedy for it, will occupy our thoughts. In my judgment, the main cause of it is the mismanagement of the revenue – mismanagement in two respects: the mode of executing the distribution law, and the order requiring specie for the payment of the public lands – an act which seems to me a most wanton abuse of power, if not a flagrant usurpation. The remedy follows the causes of the evils. The first measure of relief, therefore, should be the instant repeal of the treasury order requiring specie for lands; the second, the adoption of a proper system to execute the distribution law. These measures would restore confidence in twenty-four hours, and repose in at least as many days. If the treasury will not adopt them voluntarily, Congress should immediately command it." This was the recommendation, or mandate, of the president of the Bank of the United States, still acting as a part of the national legislative power even in its new transformation, and keeping an eye upon that distribution which Congress passed as a deposit, which he had recommended as raising the price of the State stocks held by the bank; and the delay in the delivery of which he considers as one of the causes which had brought on the new distress. Mr. Clay in his Lexington speech had taken the same grounds; and speaking of the continued tampering with the currency by the administration, went on to say:

"One rash, lawless, and crude experiment succeeds another. He considered the late treasury order, by which all payments for public lands were to be in specie, with one exception, for a short duration, a most ill-advised, illegal, and pernicious measure. In principle it was wrong, in practice it will favor the very speculation which it professes to endeavor to suppress. The officer who issued it, as if conscious of its obnoxious character, shelters himself behind the name of the President. But the President and Secretary had no right to promulgate any such order. The law admits of no such discrimination. If the resolution of the 30th of April, 1816, continued in operation (and the administration on the occasion of the removal of the deposits, and on the present occasion, relies upon it as in full force), it gave the Secretary no such discretion as he has exercised. That resolution required and directed the Secretary of the Treasury to adopt such measures as he might deem necessary, 'to cause, as soon as may be, all duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States, to be collected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as by law provided and declared, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand, in said legal currency of the United States.' This resolution was restrictive and prohibitory upon the Secretary only as to the notes of banks not redeemable in specie on demand. As to all such notes, he was forbidden to receive them from and after the 20th of February, 1817. As to the notes of banks which were payable and paid on demand in specie, the resolution was not merely permissive, it was compulsory and mandatory. He was bound, and is yet bound, to receive them, until Congress interfere."

Mr. Benton replied to the arguments of Mr. Ewing, the letter of Mr. Biddle, and the speech of Mr. Clay; and considered them all as identical, and properly answered in the lump, without special reference to the co-operating assailants. On the point of the alleged illegality of the treasury order, he produced the Joint Resolution of 1816 under which it was done; and then said:

"This is the law, and nothing can be plainer than the right of selection which it gives to the Secretary of the Treasury. Four different media are mentioned in which the revenue may be collected, and the Secretary is made the actor, the agent, and the power, by which the collection is to be effected. He is to do it in one, or in another. He may choose several, or all, or two, or one. All are in the disjunctive. No two are joined together, but all are disjoined, and presented to him individually and separately. It is clearly the right of the Secretary to order the collections to be made in either of the four media mentioned. That the resolution is not mandatory in favor of any one of the four, is obvious from the manner in which the notes of the Bank of the United States are mentioned. They were to be received as then provided for by law; for the bank charter had then just passed; and the 14th section had provided for the reception of the notes of this institution until Congress, by law, should direct otherwise. The right of the institution to deliver its notes in payment of the revenue, was anterior to this resolution, and always held under that 14th section, never under this joint resolution, and when that section was repealed at the last session of this Congress, that right was admitted to be gone, and has never been claimed since. The words of the law are clear; the practice under it has been uniform and uninterrupted from the date of its passage to the present day. For twenty years, and under three Presidents, all the Secretaries of the Treasury have acted alike. Each has made selections, permitting the notes of some specie-paying banks to be received, and forbidding others. Mr. Crawford did it in numerous instances; and fierce and universal as were the attacks upon that eminent patriot, during the presidential canvass of 1824, no human being ever thought of charging him with illegality in this respect. Mr. Rush twice made similar selections, during the administration of Mr. Adams, and no one, either in the same cabinet with him, or out of the cabinet against him, ever complained of it. For twenty years the practice has been uniform; and every citizen of the West knows that that practice was the general, though not universal, exclusion of the Western specie-paying bank paper from the Western land offices. This every man in the West knows, and knows that that general exclusion continued down to the day that the Bank of the United States ceased to be the depository of the public moneys. It was that event which opened the door to the receivability of State bank paper which has since been enjoyed."

Having vindicated the treasury order from the charge of illegality, Mr. Benton took up the head of the new distress, and said:

"The news of all this approaching calamity was given out in advance in the Kentucky speech and the Philadelphia letter, already referred to; and the fact of its positive advent and actual presence was vouched by the senator from Ohio [Mr. Ewing] on the last day that the Senate was in session. I do not permit myself (said Mr. B.) to bandy contradictory asseverations and debatable assertions across this floor. I choose rather to make an issue, and to test assertion by the application of evidence. In this way I will proceed at present. I will take the letter of the president of the Bank of the United States as being official in this case, and most authoritative in the distress department of this combined movement against President Jackson. He announces, in November, the forthcoming of the national calamity in December; and after charging part of this ruin and mischief on the mode of executing what he ostentatiously styles the distribution law, when there is no such law in the country, he goes on to charge the remainder, being ten-fold more than the former upon the Treasury order which excludes paper money from the land offices."

Mr. Benton then read Mr. Biddle's description of the new distress, which, in his publication was awful and appalling, but which, he said, was nowhere visible except in the localities where the bank had power to make it. It was a picture of woe and ruin, but not without hope and remedy if Congress followed his directions; in the mean time he thus instructed the country how to behave, and promised his co-operation – that of the bank – in the overthrow of President Jackson, and his successor, Mr. Van Buren (for that is what he meant in this passage):

"In the mean time, all forbearance and calmness should be maintained. There is great reason for anxiety – none whatever for alarm; and with mutual confidence and courage, the country may yet be able to defend itself against the government. In that struggle my own poor efforts shall not be wanting. I go for the country, whoever rules it. I go for the country, loved when worst governed – and it will afford me far more gratification to assist in repairing wrongs, than to triumph over those who inflict them."

This pledge of aid in a struggle with the government was a key to unlock the meaning of the movements then going on to produce the general suspension of specie payments in all the banks which saluted the administration of Mr. Van Buren in the first quarter of its existence, and intended to produce it in its first month. Considering specie payments as the only safety of the country, and foreseeing the general bank explosions, chiefly contrived by the Bank of the United States, which was to re-appear in the ruin, and claim its re-establishment as the only remedy for the evils which itself and its confederates created, Mr. Benton said:

"There is no safety for the federal revenues but in the total exclusion of local paper, and that from every branch of the revenue – customs, lands, and post office. There is no safety for the national finances but in the constitutional medium of gold and silver. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness of paper money, we have approached the confines of the constitutional medium. Seventy-five millions of specie in the country, with the prospect of annual increase of ten or twelve millions for the next four years; three branch mints to commence next spring, and the complete restoration of the gold currency; announce the success of President Jackson's great measures for the reform of the currency and vindicate the constitution from the libel of having prescribed an impracticable currency. The success is complete; and there is no way to thwart it, but to put down the treasury order, and to re-open the public lands to the inundation of paper money. Of this, it is not to be dissembled, there is great danger. Four deeply interested classes are at work to do it – speculators, local banks, United States Bank, and politicians out of power. They may succeed, but he (Mr. B.) would not despair. The darkest hour of night is just before the break of day; and, through the gloom ahead, he saw the bright vision of the constitutional currency erect, radiant, and victorious. Through regulation, or explosion, success must eventually come. If reform measures go on, gold and silver will be gradually and temperately restored; if reform measures are stopped, then the paper system runs riot, and explodes from its own expansion. Then the Bank of the United States will exult in the catastrophe, and claim its own re-establishment as the only adequate regulator of the local banks. Then it will be said the specie experiment has failed! But no; the contrary will be known, that the specie experiment has not failed, but it was put down by the voice and power of the interested classes, and must be put up again by the voice and power of the disinterested community."

This was uttered in December 1836: in April 1837 it was history.

Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, replied to Mr. Benton; and said:

"The senator from Missouri had exhibited a table, the results of which he had pressed with a very triumphant air. Was it extraordinary that the deposit banks should be strengthened? The effect of the order went directly to sustain them. But it was at the expense of all the other banks of the country. Under this order, all the specie was collected and carried into their vaults: an operation which went to disturb and embarrass the general circulation of the country, and to produce that pecuniary difficulty which was felt in all quarters of the Union. Mr. C. did not profess to be competent to judge how far the whole of this distress was attributable to the operation of the treasury order, but of this at least he was very sure, through a great part of the Western country, it was universally attributed to that cause. The senator from Missouri supposed that the order had produced no part of this pressure. If not, he would ask what it had produced? Had it increased the specie in the country? Had it increased the specie in actual and general circulation? If it had done no evil, what good had it done? This, he believed was as yet undiscovered. So far as it had operated at all, it had been to derange the state of the currency, and to give it a direction inverse to the course of business. The honorable senator, however, could not see how moving money across a street could operate to affect the currency; and seemed to suppose that moving money from west to east, or from east to west, would have as little effect. Money, however, if left to itself, would always move according to the ordinary course of business transactions. This course might indeed be disturbed for a time, but it would be like forcing the needle away from the pole: you might turn it round and round as often as you pleased, but, left to itself, it would still settle at the north. Our great commercial cities were the natural repositories where money centred and settled. There it was wanted, and it was more valuable if left there than if carried into the interior. Any intelligent business man in the West would rather have money paid him for a debt in New-York than at his own door. It was worth more to him. If, then, specie was forced, by treasury tactics, to take a direction contrary to the natural course of business, and to move from east to west, the operation would be beneficial to none, injurious to all. It was not in the power of government to keep it in a false direction or position. Specie was in exile whenever it was forced out of that place where business called for it. Such an operation did no real good. It was a forced movement and was soon overcome by the natural course of things.

"Mr. C. was well aware that men might be deluded and mystified on this subject, and that while the delusion lasted, this treasury order might be held up before the eyes of men as a splendid arrangement in finance; but it was only like the natural rainbow, which owed its very existence to the mist in which it had its being. The moment the atmosphere was clear, its bright colors vanished from the view. So it would be with this matter. The specie of the country must resume its natural course. Man might as well escape from the physical necessities of their nature, as from the laws which governed the movements of finance: and the man who professed to reverse or dispense with the one was no greater quack than he who made the same professions with regard to the other.

"But it was said to be the distribution bill which had done all the mischief; and Mr. C. was ready to admit that the manner in which the government had attempted to carry that law into effect might in part have furnished the basis for such a supposition. He had no doubt that the pecuniary evils of the country had been aggravated by the manner in which this had been done."

Mr. Webster also replied to Mr. Benton, in an elaborate speech, in which, before arguing the legal question, he said:

"The honorable member from Missouri (Mr. Benton) objects even to giving the resolution to rescind a second reading. He avails himself of his right, though it be not according to general practice, to arrest the progress of the measure at its first stage. This, at least, is open, bold, and manly warfare. The honorable member, in his elaborate speech, founds his opposition to this resolution, and his support of the treasury order, on those general principles respecting currency which he is known to entertain, and which he has maintained for many years. His opinions some of us regard as altogether ultra and impracticable; looking to a state of things not desirable in itself, even if it were practicable; and, if it were desirable, as being far beyond the power of this government to bring about.

"The honorable member has manifested much perseverance and abundant labor, most undoubtedly, in support of his opinions; he is understood, also, to have had countenance from high places; and what new hopes of success the present moment holds out to him, I am not able to judge, but we shall probably soon see. It is precisely on these general and long-known opinions that he rests his support of the treasury order. A question, therefore, is at once raised between the gentleman's principles and opinions on the subject of the currency, and the principles and opinions which have generally prevailed in the country, and which are, and have been, entirely opposite to his. That question is now about to be put to the vote of the Senate. In the progress and by the termination of this discussion, we shall learn whether the gentleman's sentiments are or are not to prevail, so far, at least, as the Senate is concerned. The country will rejoice, I am sure, to see some declaration of the opinions of Congress on a subject about which so much has been said, and which is so well calculated, by its perpetual agitation, to disquiet and disturb the confidence of society.

"We are now fast approaching the day when one administration goes out of office, and another is to come in. The country has an interest in learning, as soon as possible, whether the new administration, while it receives the power and patronage, is to inherit, also, the topics and the projects of the past; whether it is to keep up the avowal of the same objects and the same schemes, especially in regard to the currency. The order of the Secretary is prospective, and, on the face of it, perpetual. Nothing in or about it gives it the least appearance of a temporary measure. On the contrary, its terms imply no limitation in point of duration, and the gradual manner in which it is to come into operation shows plainly an intention of making it the settled and permanent policy of government. Indeed, it is but now beginning its complete existence. It is only five or six days since its full operation has commenced. Is it to stand as the law of the land and the rule of the treasury, under the administration which is to ensue? And are those notions of an exclusive specie currency, and opposition to all banks, on which it is defended, to be espoused and maintained by the new administration, as they have been by its predecessor? These are questions, not of mere curiosity, but of the highest interest to the whole country. In considering this order, the first thing naturally is, to look for the causes which led to it, or are assigned for its promulgation. And these, on the face of the order itself, are declared to be 'complaints which have been made of frauds, speculations, and monopolies, in the purchase of the public lands, and the aid which is said to be given to effect these objects, by excessive bank credits, and dangerous, if not partial, facilities through bank drafts and bank deposits, and the general evil influence likely to result to the public interest, and especially the safety of the great amount of money in the treasury, and the sound condition of the currency of the country, from the further exchange of the national domain in this manner, and chiefly for bank credits and paper money.'

"This is the catalogue of evils to be cured by this order. In what these frauds consist, what are the monopolies complained of, or what is precisely intended by these injurious speculations, we are not informed. All is left on the general surmise of fraud, speculation, and monopoly. It is not avowed or intimated that the government has sustained any loss, either by the receipt of the bank notes which proved not to be equivalent to specie, or in any other way. And it is not a little remarkable that these evils, of fraud, speculation, and monopoly, should have become so enormous and so notorious, on the 11th of July, as to require this executive interference for their suppression, and yet that they should not have reached such a height as to make it proper to lay the subject before Congress, although Congress remained in session until within seven days of the date of the order. And what makes this circumstance still more remarkable, is the fact that, in his annual message, at the commencement of the same session, the President had spoken of the rapid sales of the public lands as one of the most gratifying proofs of the general prosperity of the country, without suggesting that any danger whatever was to be apprehended from fraud, speculation, or monopoly. His words were: 'Among the evidences of the increasing prosperity of the country, not the least gratifying, is that afforded by the receipts from the sales of the public lands, which amount, in the present year, to the unexpected sum of eleven millions.' From the time of the delivery of that message, down to the date of the treasury order, there had not been the least change, so far as I know, or so far as we are informed, in the manner of receiving payment for the public lands. Every thing stood, on the 11th of July, 1836, as it had stood at the opening of the session, in December, 1835. How so different a view of things happened to be taken at the two periods, we may be able to learn, perhaps, in the further progress of this debate.

"The order speaks of the 'evil influence' likely to result from the further exchange of the public lands into 'paper money.' Now, this is the very language of the gentleman from Missouri. He habitually speaks of the notes of all banks, however solvent, and however promptly their notes may be redeemed in gold and silver, as 'paper money.' The Secretary has adopted the honorable member's phrases, and he speaks, too, of all the bank notes received at the land offices, although every one of them is redeemable in specie, on demand, but as so much 'paper money.' In this respect, also, sir, I hope we may know more as we grow older, and be able to learn whether, in times to come, as in times recently passed, the justly obnoxious and odious character of 'paper money' is to be applied to the issues of all the banks in all the States, with whatever punctuality they redeem their bills. This is quite new, as financial language. By paper money, in its obnoxious sense, I understand paper issues on credit alone, without capital, without funds assigned for its payment, resting only on the good faith and the future ability of those who issue it. Such was the paper money of our revolutionary times; and such, perhaps, may have been the true character of the paper of particular institutions since. But the notes of banks of competent capitals, limited in amount to a due proportion to such capitals, made payable on demand in gold and silver, and always so paid on demand, are paper money in no sense but one; that is to say, they are made of paper, and they circulate as money. And it may be proper enough for those who maintain that nothing should so circulate but gold and silver, to denominate such bank notes 'paper money,' since they regard them but as paper intruders into channels which should flow only with gold and silver. If this language of the order is authentic, and is to be so hereafter, and all bank notes are to be regarded and stigmatized as mere 'paper money,' the sooner the country knows it the better.

"The member from Missouri charges those who wish to rescind the treasury order with two objects: first, to degrade and disgrace the President; and, next, to overthrow the constitutional currency of the country. For my own part, sir, I denounce nobody; I seek to degrade or disgrace nobody. Holding the order illegal and unwise, I shall certainly vote to rescind it; and, in the discharge of this duty, I hope I am not expected to shrink back, lest I might do something which might call in question the wisdom of the Secretary, or even of the President. And I hope that so much of independence as may be manifested by free discussion and an honest vote is not to cause denunciation from any quarter. If it should, let it come."

It became a very extended debate, in which Mr. Niles, Mr. Rives, Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Southard, Mr. Strange of N. C., Mr. Clay, Mr. Walker of Miss., and others partook. The subject having been referred to the committee of public lands, of which Mr. Walker was chairman, reported a bill, "limiting and designating the funds receivable for the revenues of the United States;" the object of which was to rescind the treasury circular without naming it, and to continue the receipt of bank notes in payment of all dues to the government. Soon after the bill was reported, and had received its second reading, a motion was made in the Senate to lay the impending subject (public lands) on the table for the purpose of considering the bill reported by Mr. Walker to limit and designate the funds receivable in public dues. Mr. Benton was taken by surprise by this motion, which was immediately agreed to, and the bill ordered to be engrossed for a third reading the next day. To that third reading Mr. Benton looked for his opportunity to speak; and availed himself of it, commencing his speech with giving the reason why he did not speak the evening before when the question was on the engrossment of the bill. He said he could not have foreseen that the subject depending before the Senate, the bill for limiting the sales of the public lands to actual settlers, would be laid down for the purpose of taking up this subject out of its order; and, therefore, had not brought with him some memorandums which he intended to use when this subject came up. He did not choose to ask for delay, because his habit was to speak to subjects when they were called; and in this particular cause he did not think it material when he spoke; for he was very well aware that his speaking would not affect the fate of the bill. It would pass; and that was known to all in the chamber. It was known to the senator from Ohio (Mr. Ewing) who indulged himself in saying he thought otherwise a few days ago; but that was only a good-natured way of stimulating his friends, and bringing them up to the scratch. The bill would pass, and that by a good vote, for it would have the vote of the opposition, and a division of the administration vote. Why, then, did he speak? Because it was due to his position, and the part he had acted on the currency questions, to express his sentiments more fully on this bill, so vital to the general currency, than could be done by a mere negative vote. He should, therefore, speak against it, and should direct his attention to the bill reported by the Public Land Committee, which had so totally changed the character of the proceeding on this subject. The recision of the treasury order was introduced a resolution – it went out a resolution – but it came back a bill, and a bill to regulate, not the land office receipts only, but all the receipts of the federal government; and in this new form is to become statute law, and a law to operate on all the revenues, and to repeal all other laws upon the subject to which it related. In this new form it assumes an importance, and acquires an effect, infinitely beyond a resolution, and becomes in fact, as well as in name, a totally new measure. Mr. B. reminded the Senate that he had, in his first speech on this subject, given it as his opinion, that two main objects were proposed to be accomplished by the rescinding resolution; first, the implied condemnation of President Jackson for violating the laws and constitution, and destroying the prosperity of the country; and, secondly, the imposition of the paper currency of the States upon the federal government. With respect to the first of these objects, he presumed it was fully proved by the speeches of all the opposition senators who had spoken on this subject; and, with respect to the second, he believed it would find its proof in the change which the original resolution had undergone, and the form it was now assuming of statute law, and especially with the proviso which was added at the end of the second section.

Mr. B. then took up the bill reported by the committee, and remarked, first, upon its phraseology, not in the spirit of verbal criticism, but in the spirit of candid objection and fair argument. There were cases in which words were things, and this was one of those cases. Money was a thing, and the only words in the constitution of that thing were, "gold and silver coin." The bill of the committee was systematically exclusive of the words which meant this thing, and used words which included things which were not money. These words were, then, a fair subject of objection and argument, because they went to set aside the money of the constitution, and to admit the public revenues to be paid in something which was not money. The title of the bill uses the word "funds." It professes to designate the funds receivable for the revenues of the United States. Upon this word Mr. B. had remarked before, as being one of the most indefinite in the English language; and, so far from signifying money only, even paper money only, that it comprehended every variety of paper security, public or private, individual or corporate out of which money could be raised. The retention of this word by the committee, after the objections made to it, were indicative of their intentions to lay open the federal treasury to the reception of something which was not constitutional money; and this intention, thus disclosed in the title to the bill, was fully carried out in its enactments. The words "legal currency of the United States" are twice used in the first section, when the words "gold and silver" would have been more appropriate and more definite, if hard money was intended.

Mr. B. admitted that, in the eye of a regular bred constitutional lawyer, legal currency might imply constitutional currency; but certain it was that the common and popular meaning of the phrase was not limited to constitutional money, but included every currency that the statute law made receivable for debts. Thus, the notes of the Bank of the United States were generally considered as legal currency, because receivable by law in payment of public dues; and in like manner the notes of all specie-paying banks would, under the committee's bill, rise to the dignity of legal currency. The second section of the bill twice used the word "cash;" a word which, however understood at the Bank of England, where it always means ready money, and where ready money signifies gold coin in hand, yet with the banks with which we have to deal it has no such meaning, but includes all sorts of current paper money on hand, as well as gold and silver on hand.