Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

MILITARY ACADEMY: ITS RIDING-HOUSE

The annual appropriation bill for the support of this Academy contained a clause for the purchase of forty horses, "for instruction in light artillery and cavalry exercise;" and proposed ten thousand dollars for the purpose. This purchase was opposed, and the clause stricken out. The bill also contained a clause proposing thirty thousand dollars, in addition to the amount theretofore appropriated, for the erection of a building for "recitation and military exercises," as the clause expressed itself. It was understood to be for the riding-house in bad weather. Mr. McKay, of North Carolina, moved to strike out the clause, upon the ground that military men ought to be inured to hardship, not pampered in effeminacy; and that, as war was carried on in the field, so young officers should be learned to ride in the open air, and on rough ground, and to be afraid of no weather. The clause was stricken out, but restored upon re-consideration; in opposition to which Mr. Smith, of Maine, was the principal speaker; and said:

"I beg leave to call the attention of the committee to the paragraph of this bill proposed to be stricken out. It is an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars, in addition to the amount already appropriated, for the erection of a building within which to exercise and drill the cadets at West Point. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Ingersoll] who reported this bill, and who never engages himself in any subject without making himself entire master of all its parts, will do the committee the justice, I trust, to inform them, when he shall next take the floor, what the amount heretofore appropriated for this same building, in which to exercise the cadets, actually has been; that, if we decide on the propriety of having such a building, we may also know how much we have heretofore taken from the public Treasury for its erection, and to what sum the thirty thousand dollars now proposed will be an addition.

"The honorable gentleman from New-York [Mr. Cambreleng] says this proposed building is to protect the cadets during the inclemency of the winter season, when the snow is from two to six feet deep; and has urged upon the committee the extreme hardship of requiring the cadets to perform their exercises in the open air in such an inclement and cold region as that where West Point is situated. Sir, if the gentleman would extend his inquiries somewhat further North or East, he would find that at points where the winters are still more inclement than at West Point, and where the snow lies for months in succession from two to eight feet deep, a very large and useful and respectable portion of the citizens not only incur the snows and storms of winter by day without workshops or buildings to protect them, but actually pursue the business of months amid such snows and storms, without a roof, or board, or so much as a shingle to cover and protect them by either day or night, and do not dream of murmuring. But, forsooth, the young cadet at West Point, who goes there to acquire an education for himself, who is clothed and fed, and even paid for his time, by the government while acquiring his education, cannot endure the atmosphere of West Point, without a magnificent building to shield him during the few hours in the week, while in the act of being drilled, as part of his education! The government is called upon to appropriate thirty thousand dollars, in addition to what has already been appropriated for the purpose, to protect the young cadet, who is preparing to be a soldier, against this temporary and yet most salutary exposure, as I esteem it. Sir, is Congress prepared thus to pamper the effeminacy of these young gentlemen, at such an expense, too, upon the public Treasury? Is it not enough to educate them for nothing, and to pay them for their time while you are educating them, and that you provide for their comfortable subsistence, comfortable lodgings, and all the ordinary comforts, not to say numerous luxuries of life, without attempting to keep them for ever within doors, to be raised like children? I am opposed to it; and I think, whenever the people of this nation shall be made acquainted with the fact, they too will be opposed to it.

"The gentleman from New-York says the exposure of the cadets is very great and that, among other duties, they are required to perform camp duties for three months in the year. It is true, sir, that the law of Congress imposes three months' camp duty upon the cadet. But the same tender spirit of guardianship which has suggested the expediency of housing the cadets from the atmosphere while performing their drill duties and exercises has in some way construed away one third of the law of Congress upon this subject; and, instead of three months' camp duty, as the law requires, the cadets are required, by the rules and regulations of the institution, to camp out only two months of the year; and for this purpose, sir, every species of camp utensils and camp furniture that government money can purchase is provided for them; and this same duty, thus pictured forth here by the gentleman from New-York as a severe hardship, is in fact so tempered to the cadets as to become a mere luxury – a matter of absolute preference among the cadets. The gentleman from New-York will find, by the rules and regulations of the Academy, the months of July and August, or of August and September, are selected for this camp duty: seasons of the year, sir, when it is absolutely a luxury and privilege for the cadets to leave their close quarters and confined rooms, to perform duty out door, and to spend the nights in their well-furnished camps. Sir, the hardships and exposures of the cadets are nothing compared with those of the generality of our fellow-citizens in the North, in their ordinary pursuits; and yet we are called upon to add to their luxuries – two hundred and fifty dollar horses to ride, splendid camp equipage to protect them from the dews and damp air of summer, and magnificent buildings to shield them in their winter exercises. I think it is high time for Congress, and for the people of this nation, to reflect seriously upon these matters, and to inquire with somewhat of particularity into the character of this institution.

"But the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Ingersoll), has volunteered to put the reputation of the West Point Academy for morality in issue at this time, and sets it out in eloquent description, as pre-eminently pure and irreproachable in this respect.

"Sir, does not the honorable gentleman know that the history of this institution, within a few years back only, bears quite different testimony upon this subject? Does not the gentleman know the fact – a fact well substantiated by the Register of Debates in your library – that only a few years since the government was forced into the necessity of purchasing up, at an expense of ten thousand dollars, a neighboring tavern stand, as the only means of saving the institution from being overwhelmed and ruined by the gross immoralities of the cadets? Is not the gentleman aware that the whole argument urged to force and justify the government into this purchase was, that the moral power of the Academy was unequal to the counter influences of the neighboring tavern? And are we to be told, sir, that this institution stands forth in its history pre-eminently pure, and above comparison with the institutions that exist upon the private enterprise and munificence, and thirst for knowledge, that characterize our countrymen? I make these suggestions, and allude to these facts, not voluntarily, and from a wish to create a discussion upon either the merits or demerits of the Academy. When I made the proposition to strike from this bill the ten thousand dollars proposed to be appropriated for the purchase of horses, I neither intended nor desired to enter into a discussion of the institution. I have not now spoken, except upon the impulse given by the remarks of the gentlemen from New-York and Pennsylvania; and now, instead of going into the facts that do exist in relation to the Academy, I can assure gentlemen that I have but scarcely approached them. I have been willing, and am now willing, to have these facts brought to light at another time, and upon a proper occasion that will occur hereafter, and leave the people of this nation to judge of them dispassionately. A report upon the subject of this institution will be made shortly, as the honorable gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Hawes) has assured the house. From that report, all will be able to form an opinion as to the policy of the institution in its present shape and under its present discipline. That some grave objections exist to both its shape and discipline, I think all will agree. But I wish not to discuss either at this time. Let us know, however, and let the country know, something about the expensive buildings now in progress at West Point, before we conclude to add this further appropriation of thirty thousand dollars to the expenses of the institution; and, while I am up, I will call the attention of the honorable gentleman who reported this bill to another item in it, which embraces forage for horses among other matters, and I wish him to specify to the committee what proportion of the sum of over thirteen thousand dollars contained in this item, is based upon the supposed supply of forage. We have stricken out the appropriation for purchasing horses, and another part of the bill provides forage for the officers' horses; hence a portion of the item now adverted to should probably be stricken out."

The debate became spirited and discursive, grave and gay, and gave rise to some ridiculous suggestions, as that if it was necessary to protect these young officers from bad weather when exercising on horseback it ought to be done in no greater degree than young women are protected in like circumstances – parasols for the sun, umbrellas for rain, and pelisses for cold: which it was insisted would be a great economy. On the other hand it was insisted that riding-houses were appurtenant to the military colleges of Europe, and that fine riders were trained in these schools. The $30,000, in addition to previous appropriations for the same purpose, was granted; but has been found to be insufficient; and a late Board of Visitors, following the lead of the Superintendent of the Academy, and powerfully backed by the War Office, at Washington City, has earnestly recommended a further additional appropriation of $20,000, still further to improve the riding-house; on the ground that, "the room now used for the purpose is extremely dangerous to the lives and limbs of the cadets." This further accommodation is deemed indispensable to the proper teaching of the art of "equitation: " that is to say, to the art of riding on the back of a horse; and the Visitors recommend this accommodation to Congress, in the following pathetic terms: "The attention of the committee has been drawn to the consideration of the expediency of erecting a new building for cavalry exercise. We are aware that the subject has been before Congress, upon the recommendation of former boards of Visitors, and we cannot add to the force of the arguments made use of by them, in favor of the measure. We would regret to be compelled to believe that there is a greater indifference to the safety of human life and limb in this country than in most others. It is enough for us to say that, in the opinion of the Superintendent, the course of equitation cannot be properly taught without it, 'and that the room now used for the purpose is extremely dangerous to the lives and limbs of the cadets.' In this opinion, we entirely concur. The appropriation required for the erection of such a building will amount to some $20,000. We can hardly excuse ourselves, if we neglect to bring this subject, so far as we are able to do so, most emphatically to the notice of those who have the power, and, we doubt not, the disposition also, to remove the evil."

CHAPTER CLVIII.

SALT TAX: MR. BENTON'S FOURTH SPEECH AGAINST IT

The amount which this tax brings into the treasury is about 600,000 dollars, and that upon an article costing about 650,000 dollars; and one-half of the tax received goes to the fishing bounties and allowances founded upon it. So that what upon the record is a tax of about 100 per centum, is in the reality a tax of 200 per centum; and that upon an article of prime necessity and universal use, while we have articles of luxury and superfluity – wines, silks – either free of tax, or nominally taxed at some ten or twenty per centum. The bare statement of the case is revolting and mortifying; but it is only by looking into the detail of the tax – its amount upon different varieties of salt – its effect upon the trade and sale of the article – upon its importation and use – and the consequences upon the agriculture of the country, for want of adequate supplies of salt – that the weight of the tax, and the disastrous effects of its imposition, can be ascertained. To enable the Senate to judge of these effects and consequences, and to render my remarks more intelligible, I will read a table of the importation of salt for the year 1835 – the last that has been made up – and which is known to be a fair index to the annual importations for many years past. With the number of bushels, and the name of the country from which the importations come, will be given the value of each parcel at the place it was obtained, and the original cost per bushel.

Statement of the quantity of Salt imported into the United States during the year 1835, with the value and cost thereof, per bushel, at the place from which it was imported:

Mr. B. would remark that salt, being brought in ballast, the greatest quantity came from England, where we had the largest trade; and that its importation, with a tax upon it, being merely incidental to trade, this greatest quantity came from the place where it cost most, and was of far inferior kind. The salt from England was nearly one half of the whole quantity imported; its cost was about sixteen cents a bushel; and its quality was so inferior that neither in the United States, nor in Great Britain, could it be used for curing provisions, fish, butter, or any thing that required long keeping, or exposure to southern heats. This was the salt commonly called Liverpool. It was made by artificial heat, and never was, and never can be made pure, as the mere agitation of the boiling prevents the separation of the bittern, and other foreign and poisonous ingredients with which all salt water, and even mineral salt, is more or less impregnated. The other half of the imported salt costs far less than the English salt, and is infinitely superior to it; so far superior that the English salt will not even serve for a substitute in the important business of curing fish, and flesh, for long keeping, or southern exposure. This salt was made by the action of the sun in the latitudes approaching, and under the tropics. We begin to obtain it in the West Indies, and in large quantity on Turk's Island; and get it from all the islands and coasts, under the sun's track, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Black Sea. The Cape de Verd Islands, the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Spain and Portugal, the Mediterranean coast of France, the two coasts of Italy, the islands in the Mediterranean, the coasts of the Adriatic, the Archipelago, up to the Black Sea, all produce it and send it to us. The table which has been read shows that the original cost of this salt – the purest and strongest in the world – is about nine or ten cents a bushel in the Gulf of Mexico; five, six and seven cents on the coasts of France, Spain and Portugal; three and four cents in Italy and the Adriatic; and less than three cents in Sicily. Yet all this salt bears one uniform duty; it was all twenty cents a bushel, and is now near ten cents a bushel; so that while the tax on the English salt is a little upwards of fifty per cent. on the value, the same tax on all the other salt is from one hundred to two hundred, and three hundred and near four hundred per cent. The sun-made salt is chiefly used in the Great West, in curing provisions; the Liverpool is chiefly used on the Atlantic coasts; and thus the people in different sections of the Union pay different degrees of tax upon the same articles, and that which costs least is taxed most. A tax ranging to some hundred per cent. is in itself an enormous tax; and thus the duty collected by the federal government from all the consumers of the sun-made salt, is in itself excessive; amounting, in many instances, to double, treble, or even quadruple the original cost of the article. This is an enormity of taxation which strikes the mind at the first blush; but, it is only the beginning of the enormity, the extent of which is only discoverable in tracing its effects to all their diversified and injurious consequences. In the first place, it checks and prevents the importation of the salt. Coming as ballast, and not as an article of commerce on which profit is to be made, the shipper cannot bring it except he is supplied with money to pay the duty, or surrenders it into the hands of salt dealers, on landing, to go his security for the payment of the duty. Thus, the importation of the article is itself checked; and this check operates with the greatest force in all cases where the original price of the salt was least; and, therefore, where it operates most injuriously to the country. In all such cases the tax operates as a prohibition to use salt as ballast, and checks its importation from all the places of its production nearest the sun's track, from the Gulf of Mexico to Constantinople. In the next place, the imposition of the tax throws the salt into the hands of an intermediate set of dealers in the seaports, who either advance the duty, or go security for it, and who thus become possessed of nearly all the salt which is imported. A few persons employed in this business engross the salt, and fix the price for all in the market; and fix it higher or lower, not according to the cost of the article, but according to the necessities of the country, and the quantity on hand, and the season of the year. The prices at which they fix it are known to all purchasers, and may be seen in all prices-current. It is generally, in the case of alum salt, four, five, ten, or fifteen times as much as it cost. It is generally forty, or fifty, or sixty cents a bushel, and nearly the same price for all sorts, without any reference to the original cost, whether it cost three cents, or five cents, or ten cents, or fifteen cents a bushel. About one uniform price is put on the whole, and the purchaser has to submit to the imposition. This results from the effect of the tax, throwing the article, which is nothing but ballast, into the hands of salt dealers. The importer does not bring more money than the salt is worth, to pay the duty; he does not come prepared to pay a heavy duty on his ballast; he has to depend upon raising the money for paying the duty after he arrives in the United States; and this throws him into the hands of the salt dealer, and subjects the country purchaser to all the fair charges attending this change of hands, and this establishment of an intermediate dealer, who must have his profits; and also to all the additional exactions which he may choose to make. This should not be. There should be no costs, nor charges, nor intermediate profits, on such an article as salt. It comes as ballast; as ballast it should be handed out – should be handed from the ship to the steamboat – should escape port charges, and intermediate profits – and this would be the case, if the duty was abolished. Thus the charges, costs, profits, and exactions, in consequence of the tax, are greater than the tax itself! But this is not all – a further injury, resulting from the tax, is yet to be inflicted upon the consumer. It is well known that the measured bushel of alum salt, and all sun-made salt is alum salt – it is well known that a bushel of this salt weighs about eighty-four pounds; yet the custom-house bushel goes by weight, and not by measure, and fifty-six pounds is there the bushel. Thus the consumer, in consequence of having the salt sent through the custom-house, is shifted from the measured to the weighed bushel, and loses twenty-eight pounds by the operation! but this is not his whole loss; the intermediate salt dealer deducts six pounds more, and gives fifty pounds for the bushel; and thus this taxed and custom-housed article, after paying some hundred per cent. to the government and several hundred per cent. more to the regraters, is worked into a loss of thirty-four pounds on every bushel! All these losses and impositions would vanish, if salt was freed from the necessity of passing the custom-houses; and to do that, it must be freed in toto from taxation. The slightest duty would operate nearly the whole mischief, for it would throw the article into the hands of regraters, and would substitute the weighed for the measured bushel.

Such are the direct injuries of the salt tax; a tax enormous in itself, disproportionate in its application to the same article in different parts of the Union, and bearing hardest upon that kind which is cheapest, best, and most indispensable. The levy to the government is enormous, $650,000 per annum upon an article only worth about $600,000; but what the government receives is a trifle, compared to what is exacted by the regrater, – what is lost in the difference between the weighed and the measured bushel, – and the loss which the farmer sustains for want of adequate supplies of salt for his stock, and their food. Assuming the government tax to be ten cents a bushel, the average cost of alum salt to be seven cents, and the regrater's price to be fifty cents, and it is clear that he receives upwards of three times as much as the government does; and that the tribute to those regraters is near two millions of dollars per annum. Assuming again that thirty-four pounds in the bushel are lost to the consumer in the substitution of the weighed for the measured bushel, and here is another loss amounting to nearly three-eighths of the value of the salt; that is to say, to about $250,000 on an importation of $650,000 worth.

These detailed views of the operation and effects of the salt duty, continued Mr. B., place the burdens of that tax in the most odious and revolting light; but the picture is not yet complete; two other features are to be introduced into it, each of which, separately, and still more, both put together, go far to double its enormity, and to carry the iniquity of such a tax up to the very verge of criminality and sinfulness. The first of these features is, in the loss which the farmers sustain for want of adequate supplies of salt for their stock; and the second, from the fact that the duty is a one-sided tax, being imposed only on some sections of the Union, and not at all upon another section of the Union. A few details will verify these additional features. First, as to the loss which the country sustains for want of adequate supplies of salt. Every practical man knows that every description of stock requires salt – hogs, horses, cattle, sheep; and that all the prepared food of cattle requires it also – hay, fodder, clover, shucks, &c. In England it is ascertained, by experience, that sheep require, each, half a pound a week, which is twenty-eight pounds, or half a custom-house bushel, per annum; cows require a bushel and a half per annum; young cattle a bushel; draught horses, and draught cattle, a bushel; colts, and young cattle, from three pecks to a bushel each, per annum; and it was computed in England, before the abolition of the salt-tax there, that the stock of the English farmers, for want of adequate supplies of salt, was injured to an annual amount far beyond the product of the tax.

Dr. Young, before a committee of the British House of Commons, and upon oath, testified to his belief that the use of salt free of tax would benefit the agricultural interest, in the increased value of their stock alone, to the annual amount of three millions sterling, near fifteen millions of dollars. Such was the injury of the salt-tax in England to the agricultural interest in the single article of stock. What the injury might be to the agricultural interest in the United States on the same article, on account of the stinted use of salt occasioned by the tax, might be vaguely conceived from general observation and a few established facts. In the first place, it was known to every body that stock in our country was stinted for salt; that neither hogs, horses, cattle, or sheep, received any thing near the quantity found by experience to be necessary in England; and, as for their food, that little or no salt was put upon it in the United States; while in England, ten or fifteen pounds of salt to the ton of hay, clover, &c. was used in curing it. Taking a single branch of the stock of the United States, that of sheep, and more decided evidence of the deplorable deficiency of salt cannot be produced. The sheep in the United States were computed by the wool-growers, in 1832, in their petitions to Congress, at twenty millions; this number, at half a bushel each, would require about ten millions of bushels; now the whole supply of salt in the United States, both home-made and imported, barely exceeds ten millions; so that, if the sheep received an adequate supply, there would not remain a pound for any other purpose! Of course, the sheep did not receive an adequate supply, nor perhaps the fourth part of what was necessary; and so of all other stock. To give an opinion of the total loss to the agricultural interest in the United States for want of the free use of this article, would require the minute, comprehensive, sagacious, and peculiar turn of mind of Dr. Young; but it may be sufficient for the argument, and for all practical purposes, to assume that our loss, in proportion to the number of our stock, is greater than that of the English farmers, and amounts to fifteen or twenty times the value of the tax itself!

CHAPTER CLIX.

EXPUNGING RESOLUTION – PREPARATION FOR DECISION

It was now the last session of the last term of the presidency of General Jackson, and the work of the American Senate doing justice to itself by undoing the wrong which it had done to itself in its condemnation of the President, was at hand. The appeal to the people had produced its full effect; and, in less time than had been expected. Confident from the beginning in the verdict of the people, the author of the movement had not counted upon its delivery until several years – probably until after the retirement of General Jackson, and until the subsidence of the passions which usually pursue a public man while he remains on the stage of action. Contrary to all expectation, the public mind was made up in less than three years, and before the termination of that second administration which was half run when the sentence of condemnation was passed. At the commencement of this session, 1836-'37, the public voice had come in, and in an imperative form. A majority of the States had acted decisively on the subject – some superseding their senators at the end of their terms who had given the obnoxious vote, and replacing them by those who would expunge it; others sending legislative instructions to their senators, which carried along with them, in the democratic States, the obligation of obedience or resignation; and of which it was known there were enough to obey to accomplish the desired expurgation. Great was the number superseded, or forced to resign. The great leaders, Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun, easily maintained themselves in their respective States; but the mortality fell heavily upon their followers, and left them in a helpless minority. The time had come for action; and on the second day after the meeting of the Senate, Mr. Benton gave notice of his intention to bring in at an early period the unwelcome resolution, and to press it to a decision. Heretofore he had introduced it without any view to action, but merely for an occasion for a speech, to go to the people; but the opposition, exulting in their strength, would of themselves call it up, against the wishes of the mover, to receive the rejection which they were able to give it. Now these dispositions were reversed; the mover was for decision – they for staving it off. On the 26th day of December – the third anniversary of the day on which Mr. Clay had moved the condemnatory resolution – Mr. Benton laid upon the table the resolve to expunge it – followed by his third and last speech on the subject. The following is the resolution; the speech constitutes the next chapter:

Resolution to expunge from the Journal the Resolution of the Senate of March 28, 1834, in relation to President Jackson and the Removal of the Deposits.

"Whereas, on the 26th day of December, in the year 1833, the following resolve was moved in the Senate:

"'Resolved, That, by dismissing the late Secretary of the Treasury, because he would not, contrary to his own sense of duty, remove the money of the United States in deposit with the Bank of the United States and its branches, in conformity with the President's opinion, and by appointing his successor to effect such removal, which has been done, the President has assumed the exercise of a power over the Treasury of the United States, not granted him by the Constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people.'

"Which proposed resolve was altered and changed by the mover thereof, on the 28th day of March, in the year 1834, so as to read as follows:

"'Resolved, That, in taking upon himself the responsibility of removing the deposit of the public money from the Bank of the United States, the President of the United States has assumed the exercise of a power over the Treasury of the United States not granted to him by the constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people.'

"Which resolve, so changed and modified by the mover thereof, on the same day and year last mentioned, was further altered, so as to read in these words:

"'Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceedings in relation to the revenue has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both:'

"In which last mentioned form the said resolve, on the same day and year last mentioned, was adopted by the Senate, and became the act and judgment of that body, and, as such, now remains upon the journal thereof:

"And whereas the said resolve was not warranted by the constitution, and was irregularly and illegally adopted by the Senate, in violation of the rights of defence which belong to every citizen, and in subversion of the fundamental principles of law and justice; because President Jackson was thereby adjudged and pronounced to be guilty of an impeachable offence, and a stigma placed upon him as a violator of his oath of office, and of the laws and constitution which he was sworn to preserve, protect, and defend, without going through the forms of an impeachment, and without allowing to him the benefits of a trial, or the means of defence:

"And whereas the said resolve, in all its various shapes and forms, was unfounded and erroneous in point of fact, and therefore unjust and unrighteous, as well as irregular and unauthorized by the constitution; because the said President Jackson neither in the act of dismissing Mr. Duane, nor in the appointment of Mr. Taney, as specified in the first form of the resolve; nor in taking upon himself the responsibility of removing the deposits, as specified in the second form of the same resolve; nor in any act which was then, or can now, be specified under the vague and ambiguous terms of the general denunciation contained in the third and last form of the resolve, did do or commit any act in violation or in derogation of the laws and constitution; or dangerous to the liberties of the people:

"And whereas the said resolve, as adopted, was uncertain and ambiguous, containing nothing but a loose and floating charge for derogating from the laws and constitution, and assuming ungranted power and authority in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue; without specifying what part of the executive proceedings, or what part of the public revenue was intended to be referred to; or what parts of the laws and constitution were supposed to have been infringed; or in what part of the Union, or at what period of his administration, these late proceedings were supposed to have taken place; thereby putting each senator at liberty to vote in favor of the resolve upon a separate and secret reason of his own, and leaving the ground of the Senate's judgment to be guessed at by the public, and to be differently and diversely interpreted by individual senators, according to the private and particular understanding of each: contrary to all the ends of justice, and to all the forms of legal or judicial proceeding; to the great prejudice of the accused, who could not know against what to defend himself; and to the loss of senatorial responsibility, by shielding senators from public accountability for making up a judgment upon grounds which the public cannot know, and which, if known, might prove to be insufficient in law, or unfounded in fact:

"And whereas the specification contained in the first and second forms of the resolve having been objected to in debate, and shown to be insufficient to sustain the charges they were adduced to support, and it being well believed that no majority could be obtained to vote for the said specifications, and the same having been actually withdrawn by the mover in the face of the whole Senate, in consequence of such objection and belief, and before any vote taken thereupon; the said specifications could not afterwards be admitted by any rule of parliamentary practice, or by any principle of legal implication, secret intendment, or mental reservation, to remain and continue a part of the written and public resolve from which they were thus withdrawn; and, if they could be so admitted, they would not be sufficient to sustain the charges thereto contained:

"And whereas the Senate being the constitutional tribunal for the trial of the President, when charged by the House of Representatives with offences against the laws and the constitution, the adoption of the said resolve, before any impeachment preferred by the House, was a breach of the privileges of the House; not warranted by the constitution; a subversion of justice; a prejudication of a question which might legally come before the Senate; and a disqualification of that body to perform its constitutional duty with fairness and impartiality, if the President should thereafter be regularly impeached by the House of Representatives for the same offence:

"And whereas the temperate, respectful, and argumentative defence and protest of the President against the aforesaid proceeding of the Senate was rejected and repulsed by that body, and was voted to be a breach of its privileges, and was not permitted to be entered on its journal or printed among its documents; while all memorials, petitions, resolves, and remonstrances against the President, however violent or unfounded, and calculated to inflame the people against him, were duly and honorably received, encomiastically commented upon in speeches, read at the table, ordered to be printed with the long list of names attached, referred to the Finance Committee for consideration, filed away among the public archives, and now constitute a part of the public documents of the Senate, to be handed down to the latest posterity:

"And whereas the said resolve was introduced, debated, and adopted, at a time and under circumstances which had the effect of co-operating with the Bank of the United States in the parricidal attempt which that institution was then making to produce a panic and pressure in the country; to destroy the confidence of the people in President Jackson; to paralyze his administration; to govern the elections; to bankrupt the State banks; ruin their currency; fill the whole Union with terror and distress; and thereby to extort from the sufferings and the alarms of the people, the restoration of the deposits and the renewal of its charter:

"And whereas the said resolve is of evil example and dangerous precedent, and should never have been received, debated, or adopted by the Senate, or admitted to entry upon its journal: Wherefore,

"Resolved, That the said resolve be expunged from the journal; and, for that purpose, that the Secretary of the Senate, at such time as the Senate may appoint, shall bring the manuscript journal of the session 1833 '34 into the Senate, and, in the presence of the Senate, draw black lines round the said resolve, and write across the face thereof, in strong letters, the following words: 'Expunged by order of the Senate, this – day of – , in the year of our Lord 1837.'"

CHAPTER CLX.

EXPUNGING RESOLUTION. – MR. BENTON'S THIRD SPEECH

Mr. President: It is now near three years since the resolve was adopted by the Senate, which it is my present motion to expunge from the journal. At the moment that this resolve was adopted, I gave notice of my intention to move to expunge it; and then expressed my confident belief that the motion would eventually prevail. That expression of confidence was not an ebullition of vanity, or a presumptuous calculation, intended to accelerate the event it affected to foretell. It was not a vain boast, or an idle assumption, but was the result of a deep conviction of the injustice done President Jackson, and a thorough reliance upon the justice of the American people. I felt that the President had been wronged; and my heart told me that this wrong would be redressed! The event proves that I was not mistaken. The question of expunging this resolution has been carried to the people, and their decision has been had upon it. They decide in favor of the expurgation; and their decision has been both made and manifested, and communicated to us in a great variety of ways. A great number of States have expressly instructed their senators to vote for this expurgation. A very great majority of the States have elected senators and representatives to Congress, upon the express ground of favoring this expurgation. The Bank of the United States, which took the initiative in the accusation against the President, and furnished the material, and worked the machinery which was used against him, and which was then so powerful on this floor, has become more and more odious to the public mind, and musters now but a slender phalanx of friends in the two Houses of Congress. The late Presidential election furnishes additional evidence of public sentiment. The candidate who was the friend of President Jackson, the supporter of his administration, and the avowed advocate for the expurgation, has received a large majority of the suffrages of the whole Union, and that after an express declaration of his sentiments on this precise point. The evidence of the public will, exhibited in all these forms, is too manifest to be mistaken, too explicit to require illustration, and too imperative to be disregarded. Omitting details and specific enumeration of proofs, I refer to our own files for the instructions to expunge, – to the complexion of the two Houses for the temper of the people, – to the denationalized condition of the Bank of the United States for the fate of the imperious accuser, – and to the issue of the Presidential election for the answer of the Union. All these are pregnant proofs of the public will, and the last pre-eminently so: because, both the question of the expurgation, and the form of the process, was directly put in issue upon it. A representative of the people from the State of Kentucky formally interrogated a prominent candidate for the Presidency on these points, and required from him a public answer for the information of the public mind. The answer was given, and published, and read by all the voters before the election; and I deem it right to refer to that answer in this place, not only as evidence of the points put in issue, but also for the purpose of doing more ample justice to President Jackson by incorporating into the legislative history of this case, the high and honorable testimony in his favor of the eminent citizen, Mr. Van Buren, who has just been exalted to the lofty honors of the American Presidency:

"Your last question seeks to know 'my' opinion as to the constitutional power of the Senate or House of Representatives to expunge or obliterate from the journals the proceedings of a previous session.

"You will, I am sure, be satisfied upon further consideration, that there are but few questions of a political character less connected with the duties of the office of President of the United States, or that might not with equal propriety be put by an elector to a candidate for that station, than this. With the journals of neither house of Congress can he properly have any thing to do. But, as your question has doubtless been induced by the pendency of Col. Benton's resolutions, to expunge from the journals of the Senate certain other resolutions touching the official conduct of President Jackson, I prefer to say, that I regarded the passage of Col. Benton's preamble and resolutions to be an act of justice to a faithful and greatly injured public servant, not only constitutional in itself, but imperiously demanded by a proper respect for the well known will of the people."

I do not propose, sir, to draw violent, unwarranted, or strained inferences. I do not assume to say that the question of this expurgation was a leading, or a controlling point in the issue of this election. I do not assume to say, or insinuate, that every individual, and every voter, delivered his suffrage with reference to this question. Doubtless there were many exceptions. Still, the triumphant election of the candidate who had expressed himself in the terms just quoted, and who was, besides, the personal and political friend of President Jackson, and the avowed approver of his administration, must be admitted to a place among the proofs in this case, and ranked among the high concurring evidences of the public sentiment in favor of the motion which I make.

Assuming, then, that we have ascertained the will of the people on this great question, the inquiry presents itself, how far the expression of that will ought to be conclusive of our action here? I hold that it ought to be binding and obligatory upon us! and that, not only upon the principles of representative government, which requires obedience to the known will of the people, but also in conformity to the principles upon which the proceeding against President Jackson was conducted when the sentence against him was adopted. Then every thing was done with especial reference to the will of the people! Their impulsion was assumed to be the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate verdict was expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and pressure – every engine of political and moneyed power – was put in motion, and worked for many months, to excite the people against the President; and to stir up meetings, memorials, petitions, travelling committees, and distress deputations against him; and each symptom of popular discontent was hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted here as proof that the people demanded the condemnation of the President. Not only legislative assemblies, and memorials from large assemblies, were then produced here as evidence of public opinion, but the petitions of boys under age, the remonstrances of a few signers, and the results of the most inconsiderable elections, were ostentatiously paraded and magnified, as the evidence of the sovereign will of our constituents. Thus, sir, the public voice was every thing while that voice, partially obtained through political and pecuniary machinations, was adverse to the President. Then the popular will was the shrine at which all worshipped. Now, when that will is regularly, soberly, repeatedly, and almost universally expressed through the ballot boxes, at the various elections, and turns out to be in favor of the President, certainly no one can disregard it, nor otherwise look at it than as the solemn verdict of the competent and ultimate tribunal upon an issue fairly made up, fully argued, and duly submitted for decision. As such verdict, I receive it. As the deliberate verdict of the sovereign people, I bow to it. I am content. I do not mean to reopen the case, nor to recommence the argument. I leave that work to others, if any others choose to perform it. For myself, I am content; and, dispensing with further argument, I shall call for judgment, and ask to have execution done, upon that unhappy journal, which the verdict of millions of freemen finds guilty of bearing on its face an untrue, illegal, and unconstitutional sentence of condemnation against the approved President of the Republic.

But, while declining to reopen the argument of this question, and refusing to tread over again the ground already traversed, there is another and a different task to perform; one which the approaching termination of President Jackson's administration makes peculiarly proper at this time, and which it is my privilege, and perhaps my duty, to execute, as being the suitable conclusion to the arduous contest in which we have been so long engaged; I allude to the general tenor of his administration, and to its effect, for good or for evil, upon the condition of his country. This is the proper time for such a view to be taken. The political existence of this great man now draws to a close. In little more than forty days he ceases to be a public character. In a few brief weeks he ceases to be an object of political hope to any, and should cease to be an object of political hate, or envy, to all. Whatever of motive the servile and timeserving might have found in his exalted station for raising the altar of adulation, and burning the incense of praise before him, that motive can no longer exist. The dispenser of the patronage of an empire – the chief of this great confederacy of States – is soon to be a private individual, stripped of all power to reward, or to punish. His own thoughts, as he has shown us in the concluding paragraph of that message which is to be the last of its kind that we shall ever receive from him, are directed to that beloved retirement from which he was drawn by the voice of millions of freemen, and to which he now looks for that interval of repose which age and infirmities require. Under these circumstances, he ceases to be a subject for the ebullition of the passions, and passes into a character for the contemplation of history. Historically, then, shall I view him; and limiting this view to his civil administration. I demand, where is there a chief magistrate of whom so much evil has been predicted, and from whom so much good has come? Never has any man entered upon the chief magistracy of a country under such appalling predictions of ruin and woe! never has any one been so pursued with direful prognostications! never has any one been so beset and impeded by a powerful combination of political and moneyed confederates! never has any one in any country where the administration of justice has risen above the knife or the bowstring, been so lawlessly and shamelessly tried and condemned by rivals and enemies, without hearing, without defence, without the forms of law or justice! History has been ransacked to find examples of tyrants sufficiently odious to illustrate him by comparison. Language has been tortured to find epithets sufficiently strong to paint him in description. Imagination has been exhausted in her efforts to deck him with revolting and inhuman attributes. Tyrant, despot, usurper; destroyer of the liberties of his country; rash, ignorant, imbecile; endangering the public peace with all foreign nations; destroying domestic prosperity at home; ruining all industry, all commerce, all manufactures; annihilating confidence between man and man; delivering up the streets of populous cities to grass and weeds, and the wharves of commercial towns to the encumbrance of decaying vessels; depriving labor of all reward; depriving industry of all employment; destroying the currency; plunging an innocent and happy people from the summit of felicity to the depths of misery, want, and despair. Such is the faint outline, followed up by actual condemnation, of the appalling denunciations daily uttered against this one MAN, from the moment he became an object of political competition, down to the concluding moment of his political existence.

"The sacred voice of inspiration has told us that there is a time for all things. There certainly has been a time for every evil that human nature admits of to be vaticinated of President Jackson's administration; equally certain the time has now come for all rational and well-disposed people to compare the predictions with the facts, and to ask themselves if these calamitous prognostications have been verified by events? Have we peace, or war, with foreign nations? Certainly, we have peace with all the world! peace with all its benign, and felicitous, and beneficent influences! Are we respected, or despised abroad? Certainly the American name never was more honored throughout the four quarters of the globe, than in this very moment. Do we hear of indignity, or outrage in any quarter? of merchants robbed in foreign ports? of vessels searched on the high seas? of American citizens impressed into foreign service? of the national flag insulted any where? On the contrary, we see former wrongs repaired; no new ones inflicted. France pays twenty-five millions of francs for spoliations committed thirty years ago; Naples pays two millions one hundred thousand ducats for wrongs of the same date; Denmark pays six hundred and fifty thousand rix dollars for wrongs done a quarter of a century ago; Spain engages to pay twelve millions of reals vellon for injuries of fifteen years date; and Portugal, the last in the list of former aggressors, admits her liability, and only waits the adjustment of details to close her account by adequate indemnity. So far from war, insult, contempt, and spoliation from abroad; this denounced administration has been the season of peace and good will, and the auspicious era of universal reparation. So far from suffering injury at the hands of foreign powers, our merchants have received indemnities for all former injuries. It has been the day of accounting, of settlement, and of retribution. The total list of arrearages, extending through four successive previous administrations, has been closed and settled up. The wrongs done to commerce for thirty years back, and under so many different Presidents, and indemnities withheld from all, have been repaired and paid over under the beneficent and glorious administration of President Jackson. But one single instance of outrage has occurred, and that at the extremities of the world, and by a piratical horde, amenable to no law but the law of force. The Malays of Sumatra committed a robbery and massacre upon an American vessel. Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of the United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial of treating with robbers and assassins, was to hold back the arm of justice. Commodore Downes went out. His cannon and his bayonets struck the outlaws in their den. They paid in terror and in blood for the outrage which was committed; and the great lesson was taught to these distant pirates – to our antipodes themselves – that not even the entire diameter of this globe could protect them! and that the name of American citizen, like that of Roman citizen in the great days of the Republic and of the empire, was to be the inviolable passport of all that wore it throughout the whole extent of the habitable world.

"At home, the most gratifying picture presents itself to the view: the public debt paid off; taxes reduced one half; the completion of the public defences systematically commenced; the compact with Georgia, uncomplied with since 1802, now carried into effect, and her soil ready to be freed, as her jurisdiction has been delivered, from the presence and encumbrance of an Indian population. Mississippi and Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina; Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas; in a word, all the States encumbered with an Indian population have been relieved from that encumbrance; and the Indians themselves have been transferred to new and permanent homes, every way better adapted to the enjoyment of their existence, the preservation of their rights, and the improvement of their condition.

"The currency is not ruined! On the contrary, seventy-five millions of specie in the country is a spectacle never seen before, and is the barrier of the people against the designs of any banks which may attempt to suspend payments, and to force a dishonored paper currency upon the community. These seventy-five millions are the security of the people against the dangers of a depreciated and inconvertible paper money. Gold, after a disappearance of thirty years, is restored to our country. All Europe beholds with admiration the success of our efforts in three years, to supply ourselves with the currency which our constitution guarantees, and which the example of France and Holland shows to be so easily attainable, and of such incalculable value to industry, morals, economy, and solid wealth. The success of these efforts is styled in the best London papers, not merely a reformation, but a revolution in the currency! a revolution by which our America is now regaining from Europe the gold and silver which she has been sending to it for thirty years past."

Domestic industry is not paralyzed; confidence is not destroyed; factories are not stopped; workmen are not mendicants for bread and employment; credit is not extinguished; prices have not sunk; grass is not growing in the streets of populous cities; the wharves are not lumbered with decaying vessels; columns of curses, rising from the bosoms of a ruined and agonized people, are not ascending to heaven against the destroyer of a nation's felicity and prosperity. On the contrary, the reverse of all this is true! and true to a degree that astonishes and bewilders the senses. I know that all is not gold that glitters; that there is a difference between a specious and a solid prosperity. I know that a part of the present prosperity is apparent only – the effect of an increase of fifty millions of paper money, forced into circulation by one thousand banks; but, after making due allowance for this fictitious and delusive excess, the real prosperity of the country is still unprecedentedly and transcendently great. I know that every flow must be followed by its ebb, that every expansion must be followed by its contraction. I know that a revulsion of the paper system is inevitable; but I know, also, that these seventy-five millions of gold and silver is the bulwark of the country, and will enable every honest bank to meet its liabilities, and every prudent citizen to take care of himself.

Turning to some points in the civil administration of President Jackson, and how much do we not find to admire! The great cause of the constitution has been vindicated from an imputation of more than forty years' duration. He has demonstrated, by the fact itself, that a national bank is not 'necessary' to the fiscal operations of the federal government; and in that demonstration he has upset the argument of General Hamilton, and the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and all that ever has been said in favor of the constitutionality of a national bank. All this argument and decision rested on the single assumption of the 'necessity' of that institution to the federal government. He has shown it is not 'necessary;' that the currency of the constitution, and especially a gold currency, is all that the federal government wants, and that she can get that whenever she pleases. In this single act, he has vindicated the constitution from an unjust imputation, and knocked from under the decision of the Supreme Court the assumed fact on which it rested. He has prepared the way for the reversal of that decision; and it is a question for lawyers to answer, whether the case is not ripe for the application of that writ of most remedial nature, as Lord Coke calls it, and which was invented, lest, in any case, there should be an oppressive defect of justice! the venerable writ of audita querela defendentis, to ascertain the truth of a fact happening since the judgment; and upon the due finding of which the judgment will be vacated. Let the lawyers bring their books, and answer us, if there is not a case here presented for the application of that ancient and most remedial writ?

From President Jackson, the country has first learned the true theory and practical intent of the constitution, in giving to the Executive a qualified negative on the legislative power of Congress. Far from being an odious, dangerous, or kingly prerogative, this power, as vested in the President, is nothing but a qualified copy of the famous veto power vested in the tribunes of the people among the Romans, and intended to suspend the passage of a law until the people themselves should have time to consider it. The qualified veto of the President destroys nothing; it only delays the passage of a law, and refers it to the people for their consideration and decision. It is the reference of a law, not to a committee of the House, or of the whole House, but to the committee of the whole Union. It is a recommitment of the bill to the people, for them to examine and consider; and if, upon this examination, they are content to pass it, it will pass at the next session. The delay of a few months is the only effect of a veto, in a case where the people shall ultimately approve a law; where they do not approve it, the interposition of the veto is the barrier which saves them the adoption of a law, the repeal of which might afterwards be almost impossible. The qualified negative is, therefore, a beneficent power, intended, as General Hamilton expressly declares in the 'Federalist,' to protect, first, the executive department from the encroachments of the legislative department; and, secondly, to preserve the people from hasty, dangerous, or criminal legislation on the part of their representatives. This is the design and intention of the veto power; and the fear expressed by General Hamilton was, that Presidents, so far from exercising it too often, would not exercise it as often as the safety of the people required; that they might lack the moral courage to stake themselves in opposition to a favorite measure of the majority of the two Houses of Congress; and thus deprive the people, in many instances, of their right to pass upon a bill before it becomes a final law. The cases in which President Jackson has exercised the veto power has shown the soundness of these observations. No ordinary President would have staked himself against the Bank of the United States, and the two Houses of Congress, in 1832. It required President Jackson to confront that power – to stem that torrent – to stay the progress of that charter, and to refer it to the people for their decision. His moral courage was equal to the crisis. He arrested the charter until it could go to the people, and they have arrested it for ever. Had he not done so, the charter would have become law, and its repeal almost impossible. The people of the whole Union would now have been in the condition of the people of Pennsylvania, bestrode by the monster, in daily conflict with him, and maintaining a doubtful contest for supremacy between the government of a State and the directory of a moneyed corporation.