Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

This is certainly a satisfactory result. It exempts the administration of that period from the imputation of extravagance, which the unexplained exhibition of the aggregate expenditures might have drawn upon it in the minds of uninformed persons. It clears that administration from all blame. It must be satisfactory to every candid mind. And now let us apply the test of the same examination to some year of the present administration, now so incontinently charged with ruinous extravagance. Let us see how the same rule will work when applied to the present period; and, for that purpose, let us take the last year in the table, that of 1839. Let others take any year that they please, or as many as they please: I take one, because I only propose to give an example; and I take the last one in the table, because it is the last. Let us proceed with this examination, and see what the results, actual and comparative, will be.

Commencing with the aggregate payments from the Treasury for all objects, Mr. B. said it would be seen at the foot of the first column in the first table, that they amounted to $37,129,396 80; passing to the second column, and it would be seen that this sum was reduced to $25,982,797 75; and passing to the third, and it would be seen that this latter sum was itself reduced to $13,525,800 18; and, referring to the second table, under the year 1839, and it would be seen how this aggregate of thirty-seven millions was reduced to thirteen and a half. It was a great reduction; a reduction of nearly two-thirds from the aggregate amount paid out; and left for the proper expenses of the government – its ordinary and permanent expenses – an inconceivably small sum for a great nation of seventeen millions of souls, covering an immense extent of territory, and acting a part among the great powers of the world. To trace this reduction – to show the reasons of the difference between the first and the third columns, Mr. B. would follow the same process which he had pursued in explaining the expenditures of the year 1824, and ask for nothing in one case which had not been granted in the other.

1. The first item to be deducted from the thirty-seven million aggregate, was the sum of $11,146,599 05, paid on account of the public debt. He repeated, on account of the public debt; for it was paid in redemption of Treasury notes; and these Treasury notes were so much debt incurred to supply the place of the revenue deposited with the States, in 1836, or shut up in banks during the suspension of 1837, or due from merchants, to whom indulgence had been granted. To supply the place of these unattainable funds, the government went in debt by issuing Treasury notes; but faithful to the sentiment which abhorred a national debt, it paid off the debt almost as fast as it contracted it. Above eleven millions of this debt was paid in 1839, amounting to almost the one-third part of the aggregate expenditure of that year; and thus, nearly the one-third part of the sum which is charged upon the administration as extravagance and corruption, was a mere payment of debt! – a mere payment of Treasury notes which we had issued to supply the place of our misplaced and captured revenue – our three instalments of ten millions cash presented to the States under the false and fraudulent name of a deposit, and our revenue of 1837 captured by the banks when they shut their doors upon their creditors. The glorious administration of President Jackson left the country free from public debt: its worthy successor will do the same.

Removal of Indians from the Southern and Western States, and extinction of their titles, and numerous smaller items, all specified in the third column of the table, amount to about twelve millions and a half more; and these added to the payments on the public debt, the remainder is the expense of the government, and is but about the one-third of the aggregate expenditure – to be precise, about thirteen millions and a half.

With this view of the tabular statements Mr. B. closed the examination of the items of expenditure, and stated the results to be a reduction of the thirty-seven million aggregate in 1839, like that of the thirty-two million aggregate in 1824, to about one-third of its amount. The very first item, that of the payment of public debt in the redemption of Treasury notes, reduced it eleven millions of dollars: it sunk it from thirty-seven millions to twenty-six. The other eighteen items amounted to $12,656,977, and reduced the twenty-six millions to thirteen and a half. Here then is a result which is attained by the same process which applies to the year 1824, and to every other year, and which is right in itself; and which must put to flight and to shame all the attempts to excite the country with this bugbear story of extravagance. In the first place the aggregate expenditures have not increased threefold in fifteen years; they have not risen from thirteen to thirty-nine millions, as incontinently asserted by the opposition; but from thirty-two millions to thirty-seven or thirty-nine. And how have they risen? By paying last year eleven millions for Treasury notes, and more than twelve millions for Indian lands, and wars, removals of Indians, and increase of the army and navy, and other items as enumerated. The result is a residuum of thirteen and a half millions for the real expenses of the government; a sum one and a half millions short of what gentlemen proclaim would be an economical expenditure. They all say that fifteen millions would be an economical expenditure; very well! here is thirteen and a half! which is a million and a half short of that mark.

CHAPTER LVII.

DEATH OF MR. JUSTICE BARBOUR OF THE SUPREME COURT, AND APPOINTMENT OF PETER V. DANIEL, ESQ., IN HIS PLACE

Mr. Phillip P. Barbour was a representative in Congress from the State of Virginia when I was first elected to the Senate in 1820. I had the advantage – (for advantage I truly deemed it for a young member) – to be in habitual society with such a man – one of the same mess with him the first session of my service. Nor was it accidental, but sought for on my part. It was a talented mess – among others the brilliant orator, William Pinkney of Maryland; and the eloquent James Barbour, of the Senate, brother to the representative: their cousin the representative John S. Barbour, equal to either in the endowments of the mind: Floyd of Virginia: Trimble and Clay of Kentucky. I knew the advantage of such association – and cherished it. From that time I was intimate with Mr. Phillip P. Barbour during the twenty-one winters which his duties, either as representative in Congress, or justice of the Supreme Court, required him to be at Washington. He was a man worthy of the best days of the republic – modest, virtuous, pure: artless as a child: full of domestic affections: patriotic: filially devoted to Virginia as his mother State, and a friend to the Union from conviction and sentiment. He had a clear mind – a close, logical and effective method of speaking – copious without diffusion; and, always speaking to the subject, both with knowledge and sincerity, he was always listened to with favor. He was some time Speaker of the House, and was appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court by President Van Buren in 1837, in place of Mr. Justice Duval, resigned. He had the death which knows no pain, and which, to the body, is sleep without waking. He was in attendance upon the Supreme Court, in good health and spirits, and had done his part the night before in one of the conferences which the labors of the Supreme Bench impose almost nightly on the learned judges. In the morning he was supposed by his servant to be sleeping late, and, finally going to his bedside, found him dead – the face all serene and composed, not a feature or muscle disturbed, the body and limbs in their easy natural posture. It was evident that the machinery of life had stopped of itself, and without a shock. Ossification of the heart was supposed to be the cause. He was succeeded on the Supreme Bench by Peter V. Daniel, Esq., of the same State, also appointed by Mr. Van Buren – one in the first, the other in the last days of his administration.

A beautiful instance in Mr. Barbour of self-denial, and of fidelity to party and to personal friendship, and regard for honor and decorum, occurred while he was a member of the House. Mr. Randolph was in the Senate: the time for his re-election came round: he had some personal enemies in his own party, who, joined to the whig party, could defeat him: and it was a high object with the administration at Washington (that of Mr. Adams), to have him defeated. The disaffected and the opposition combined together, counted their numbers, ascertained their strength, and saw that they could dispose of the election; but only in favor of some one of the same party with Mr. Randolph. They offered the place to Mr. Barbour. It was the natural ascent in the gradation of his appointments; and he desired it; and, it may be said, the place desired him: for he was a man to adorn the chamber of the American Senate. But honor forbid; for with him Burns's line was a law of his nature: Where you feel your honor grip, let that still be your border. He was the personal and political friend of Mr. Randolph, and would not be used against him; and sent an answer to the combined parties which put an end to their solicitations. Mr. John Tyler, then governor of the State, and standing in the same relation with Mr. Barbour to Mr. Randolph, was then offered the place: and took it. It was his first step in the road to the whig camp; where he arrived eventually – and lodged, until elected out of it into the vice-presidential chair.

Judge Barbour was a Virginia country gentleman, after the most perfect model of that most respectable class – living on his ample estate, baronially, with his family, his slaves, his flocks and herds – all well cared for by himself, and happy in his care. A farmer by position, a lawyer by profession, a politician of course – dividing his time between his estate, his library, his professional, and his public duties – scrupulously attentive to his duties in all: and strict in that school of politics of which Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, John Taylor of Caroline, Mr. Monroe, Mr. Macon, and others, were the great exemplars. A friend to order and economy in his private life, he carried the same noble qualities into his public stations, and did his part to administer the government with the simplicity and purity which its founders intended for it.

CHAPTER LVIII.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Mr. Van Buren was the democratic candidate. His administration had been so acceptable to his party, that his nomination in a convention was a matter of form, gone through according to custom, but the result commanded by the party in the different States in appointing their delegates. Mr. Richard M. Johnson, the actual Vice-President, was also nominated for re-election; and both nominations were made in conformity to the will of the people who sent the delegates. On the part of the whigs the same nominations were made as in the election of 1836 – General William Henry Harrison of Ohio, for President; and Mr. John Tyler of Virginia, for Vice-President. The leading statesmen of the whig party were again passed by to make room for a candidate more sure of being elected. The success of General Jackson had turned the attention of those who managed the presidential nominations to military men, and an "odor of gunpowder" was considered a sufficient attraction to rally the masses, without the civil qualifications, or the actual military fame which General Jackson possessed. Availability, to use their own jargon, was the only ability which these managers asked – that is, available for the purposes of the election, and for their own advancement, relying on themselves to administer the government. Mr. Clay, the prominent man, and the undisputed head of the party, was not deemed available; and it was determined to set him aside. How to do it was the question. He was a man of too much power and spirit to be rudely thrust aside. Gentle, and respectful means were necessary to get him out of the way; and for that purpose he was concertedly importuned to withdraw from the canvass. He would not do so, but wrote a letter submitting himself to the will of the convention. When he did so he certainly expected an open decision – a vote in open convention – every delegate acting responsibly, and according to the will of his constituents. Not so the fact. He submitted himself to the convention: the convention delivered him to a committee: the committee disposed of him in a back chamber. It devised a process for getting at a result, which is a curiosity in the chapter of ingenious inventions – which is a study for the complication of its machinery – a model contrivance of the few to govern many – a secure way to produce an intended result without showing the design, and without leaving a trace behind to show what was done: and of which none but itself can be its own delineator: and, therefore, here it is:

"Ordered, That the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and appoint a committee, not exceeding three in number, to receive the views and opinions of such delegation, and communicate the same to the assembled committees of all the delegations, to be by them respectively reported to their principals; and that thereupon the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and ballot for candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President, and having done so, to commit the ballot designating the votes of each candidate, and by whom given, to its committee; and thereupon all the committees shall assemble and compare the several ballots, and report the result of the same to their several delegations, together with such facts as may bear upon the nomination; and said delegation shall forthwith re-assemble and ballot again for candidates for the above offices, and again commit the result to the above committees, and if it shall appear that a majority of the ballots are for any one man for candidate for President, said committee shall report the result to the convention for its consideration; but if there shall be no such majority, then the delegations shall repeat the balloting until such a majority shall be obtained, and then report the same to the convention for its consideration. That the vote of a majority of each delegation shall be reported as the vote of that State; and each State represented here shall vote its full electoral vote by such delegation in the committee."

As this View of the Thirty Years is intended to show the working of our political system, and how things were done still more than what was done; and as the election of chief magistrate is the highest part of that working; and as the party nomination of a presidential candidate is the election of that candidate so far as the party is concerned: in all these points of view, the device of this resolution becomes historical, and commends itself to the commentators upon our constitution. The people are to elect the President. Here is a process through multiplied filtrations by which the popular sentiment is to be deduced from the masses, collected in little streams, then united in one swelling current, and poured into the hall of the convention – no one seeing the source, or course of any one of the streams. Algebra and alchemy must have been laid under contribution to work out a quotient from such a combination of signs and symbols. But it was done. Those who set the sum could work it: and the quotient was political death to Mr. Clay. The result produced was – for General Scott, 16 votes: for Mr. Clay, 90 votes: for General Harrison, 148 votes. And as the law of these conventions swallows up all minorities in an ascertained majority, so the majority for General Harrison swallowed up the 106 votes given to Mr. Clay and General Scott, made them count for the victor, presenting him as the unanimity candidate of the convention, and the defeated candidate and all their friends bound to join in his support. And in this way the election of 1840 was effected! a process certainly not within the purview of those framers of the constitution, who supposed they were giving to a nation the choice of its own chief magistrate.

From the beginning it had been foreseen that there was to be an embittered contest – the severest ever known in our country. Two powers were in the field against Mr. Van Buren, each strong within itself, and truly formidable when united – the whole whig party, and the large league of suspended banks, headed by the Bank of the United States – now criminal as well as bankrupt, and making its last struggle for a new national charter in the effort to elect a President friendly to it. In elections as in war money is the sinew of the contest, and the broken and suspended banks were in a condition, and a temper, to furnish that sinew without stint. By mutual support they were able to make their notes pass as money; and, not being subject to redemption, it could be furnished without restraint, and with all the good will of a self-interest in putting down the democratic party, whose hard-money policy, and independent treasury scheme, presented it as an enemy to paper money and delinquent banks. The influence of this moneyed power over its debtors, over presses, over travelling agents, was enormous, and exerted to the uttermost, and in amounts of money almost fabulous; and in ways not dreamed of. The mode of operating divided itself into two general classes, one coercive – addressed to the business pursuits and personal interests of the community: the other seductive, and addressed to its passions. The phrases given out in Congress against the financial policy of the administration became texts to speak upon, and hints to act upon. Carrying out the idea that the re-election of Mr. Van Buren would be the signal for the downfall of all prices, the ruin of all industry, and the destruction of all labor, the newspapers in all the trading districts began to abound with such advertisements as these: "The subscriber will pay six dollars a barrel for flour if Harrison is elected, and three dollars if Van Buren is." "The subscriber will pay five dollars a hundred for pork if Harrison is elected, and two and a half if Van Buren is." And so on through the whole catalogue of marketable articles, and through the different kinds of labor: and these advertisements were signed by respectable men, large dealers in the articles mentioned, and well able to fix the market price for them. In this way the result of the election was brought to bear coercively upon the business, the property, and the pecuniary interest of the people. The class of inducements addressed to the passions and imaginations of the people were such as history blushes to record. Log-cabins, coonskins, and hard cider were taken as symbols of the party, and to show its identification with the poorest and humblest of the people: and these cabins were actually raised in the most public parts of the richest cities, ornamented with coonskins after the fashion of frontier huts, and cider drank in them out of gourds in the public meetings which gathered about them: and the virtues of these cabins, these skins, and this cider were celebrated by travelling and stationary orators. The whole country was put into commotion by travelling parties and public gatherings. Steamboats and all public conveyances were crowded with parties singing doggerel ballads made for the occasion, accompanied with the music of drums, fifes, and fiddles; and incited by incessant speaking. A system of public gatherings was got up which pervaded every State, county and town – which took place by day and by night, accompanied by every preparation to excite; and many of which gatherings were truly enormous in their numbers – only to be estimated by the acre; attempts at counting or computing such masses being out of the question. The largest of these gatherings took place at Dayton, in the State of Ohio, the month before the election; and the description of it, as given by its enthusiastic friends, will give a vivid idea of that monster assemblage, and of the myriads of others of which it was only the greatest – differing in degree only, not in kind:

"Dayton, the whole body there assembled in convention covered ten acres by actual measurement! And at no time were there more than two-thirds of the people on the ground. Every house with a flag was a hotel without price – the strings of every door being out, and every latch unfastened! One hundred thousand! It were useless to attempt any thing like a detailed description of this grand gathering of the people. We saw it all – felt it all – and shall bear to our graves, live we yet half a century, the impression it made upon our hearts. But we cannot describe it. No eye that witnessed it, can convey to the mind of another, even a faint semblance of the things it there beheld. The bright and glorious day – the beautiful and hospitable city – the green-clad and heaven-blessed valley – the thousand flags, fluttering in every breeze and waving from every window – the ten thousand banners and badges, with their appropriate devices and patriotic inscriptions – and, more than all, the hundred thousand human hearts beating in that dense and seething mass of people – are things which those alone can properly feel and appreciate, who beheld this grandest spectacle of time. The number of persons present was, during the whole of the morning, variously estimated at from seventy-five to ninety thousand. Conjecture, however, was put to rest in the afternoon, at the speakers' stand. Here, while the crowd was compact, as we have elsewhere described it, and during the speech of General Harrison, the ground upon which it stood was measured by three different civil engineers, and allowing to the square yard four persons, the following results were arrived at: the first made it 77,600, the second 75,000, and the third 80,000. During the time of making three measurements, the number of square yards of surface covered was continually changing, by pressure without and resistance from within. Mr. Van Buren and his wiseacre assistants, have so managed currency matters, that we have very little to do business with. We can, therefore, be away from home, a portion of the time, as well as at home. And with respect to our families, when we leave upon a rally, we take them with us! Our wives and daughters, we are proud to say, have the blood of their revolutionary mothers and grandmothers coursing through their veins. There is no man among us whose heart is more filled and animated than theirs, by the spirit of seventy-six. Look at the three hundred and fifty at Nashville, who invited Henry Clay, the nation's pride, to be with them and their husbands and brothers on the 15th of August! Look at the four hundred at St. Louis, the nine hundred at the Tippecanoe battle-ground, the five thousand at Dayton! What now, but the spirit of seventy-six, does all this manifest? Ay, and what tale does it all tell? Does it not say, that the wicked charlatanry, and mad ambition, and selfish schemings, of the leading members of this administration of the general government, have made themselves felt in the very sanctum sanctorum of domestic life? Does it not speak of the cheerless hearth, where willing hands sit without employment? Does it not speak of the half-recompensed toil of the worn laborer, who finds, now and then, a week's hard work, upon the scant proceeds of which he must subsist himself and his family for a month! Does it not speak of empty larders in the town, while the garners of the country are overflowing? Does it not speak of want here and abundance there, without any medium of exchange to equalize the disparity? Does it not speak of a general disorganization of conventional operations – of embarrassment, stagnation, idleness, and despondency – whose 'malign influences' have penetrated the inner temples of man's home, and aroused, to indignant speech and unusual action, her who is its peace, its gentleness, its love, its all but divinity? The truth is – and it should be told – the women are the very life and soul of these movements of the people. Look at their liberal preparations at Nashville. Look at their boundless hospitality at Dayton. Look at their ardor and activity every where. And last, though far from the least important, look at their presence, in hundreds and by thousands, wherever there is any good to be done, to animate and encourage, and urge on their fathers, husbands and brothers. Whence those six hundred and forty-four flags, whose stars and stripes wave in the morning breeze, from nearly every house-top, as we enter the beautiful little city of Dayton? From the hand of woman. Whence the decorations of these porticoes and balconies, that gleam in the rising sun, as we ride through the broad and crowded streets? From the hand of woman. Whence this handsome and proudly cherished banner, under which the Ohio delegation returned from Nashville, and which now marks the head-quarters of the Cincinnati delegation of one thousand to Dayton? From the hand of woman. Whence yon richly wrought and surpassingly beautiful standard, about which cluster the Tippecanoe hosts, and whose production has cost many weeks of incessant labor? From the hand of woman. And to come down to less poetical but more substantial things, whence all the wholesome viands prepared in the six hundred and forty-four flag-houses around us, for our refreshment, and all the pallets spread for our repose? From the hand of woman."