Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

The concluding part of this paragraph, in which the new President declares that, in looking to the constitutionality and expediency of a national bank, he should look for advice and instruction to the example of the fathers of the Republic, he was understood as declaring that he would not be governed by his own former opinions against a national bank, but by the example of Washington, a signer of the constitution (who signed the charter of the first national bank); and by the example of Mr. Madison, another signer of the constitution, who, yielding to precedent and the authority of judicial decisions, had signed the charter for the second bank, notwithstanding his early constitutional objections to it. In other parts of the paragraph he was considered as declaring in favor of the late United States Bank, as in the previous part of the paragraph where he used the phrases which had become catch-words in the long contest with that bank – "war upon the currency" – "sound circulating medium" – "restoration of national prosperity;" &c., &c. He was understood to express a preference for the re-charter of that institution. And this impression was well confirmed by other circumstances – his zealous report in favor of that bank when acting as volunteer chairman to the Senate's committee which was sent to examine it – his standing a canvass in a presidential election in which the re-charter of that bank, though concertedly blinked in some parts of the Union, was the understood vital issue every where – his publicly avowed preference for its notes over gold, at Wheeling, Virginia – the retention of a cabinet, pledged to that bank, with expressions of confidence in them, and in terms that promised a four years' service together – and his utter condemnation in other parts of his inaugural and in all his public speeches, of every other plan (sub-treasury, state banks, revival of the gold currency), which had been presented as remedies for the financial and currency disorders. All these circumstances and declarations left no doubt that he was not only in favor of a national bank, but of re-chartering the late one; and that he looked to it, and to it alone, for the "sound circulating medium" which he preferred to the constitutional currency – for the keeping of those deposits which he had condemned Jackson for removing from it – and for the restoration of that national prosperity, which the imputed war upon the bank had destroyed.

CHAPTER LXII.

TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS: FIRST SESSION: LIST OF MEMBERS, AND ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE

Members of the Senate

Maine. – Reuel Williams, George Evans.

New Hampshire. – Franklin Pierce, Levi Woodbury.

Vermont. – Samuel Prentis, Samuel Phelps.

Massachusetts. – Rufus Choate, Isaac C. Bates.

Rhode Island. – Nathan F. Dixon, James F. Simmons.

Connecticut. – Perry Smith, Jaz. W. Huntington.

New York. – Silas Wright, N. P. Tallmadge.

New Jersey. – Sam. L. Southard, Jacob W. Miller.

Pennsylvania. – James Buchanan, D. W. Sturgeon.

Delaware. – Richard H. Bayard, Thomas Clayton.

Maryland. – John Leeds Kerr, Wm. D. Merrick.

Virginia. – Wm. C. Rives, Wm. S. Archer.

North Carolina. – Wm. A. Graham, Willie P. Mangum.

South Carolina. – Wm. C. Preston, John C. Calhoun.

Georgia. – Alfred Cuthbert, John M. Berrien.

Alabama. – Clement C. Clay, William R. King.

Mississippi. – John Henderson, Robert J. Walker.

Louisiana. – Alexander Mouton, Alexander Barrow.

Tennessee. – A. O. P. Nicholson, Spencer Jarnagin, executive appointment. Ephraim H. Foster.

Kentucky. – Henry Clay, J. J. Morehead.

Ohio. – William Allen, Benjamin Tappan.

Indiana. – Oliver H. Smith, Albert S. White.

Illinois. – Richard M. Young, Sam'l McRoberts.

Missouri. – Lewis F. Linn, Thomas H. Benton.

Arkansas. – Ambrose H. Sevier, William S. Fulton.

Michigan. – Augustus S. Porter, William Woodbridge.

Members of the House

Maine. – Nathaniel Clifford, Wm. P. Fessenden, Benj. Randall, David Bronson, Nathaniel Littlefield, Alfred Marshall, Joshua A. Lowell, Elisha H. Allen.

New Hampshire. – Tristram Shaw, Ira A. Eastman, Charles G. Atherton, Edmund Burke, John R. Reding.

Vermont. – Hiland Hall, William Slade, Horace Everett, Augustus Young, John Mattocks.

Massachusetts. – Robert C. Winthrop, Leverett Saltonstall, Caleb Cushing, Wm. Parmenter, Charles Hudson, Osmyn Baker, Geo. N. Briggs, William B. Calhoun, Wm. S. Hastings, Nathaniel B. Borden, Barker Burnell, John Quincy Adams.

Rhode Island. – Joseph L. Tillinghast, William B. Cranston.

Connecticut. – Joseph Trumbull, Wm. W. Boardman, Thomas W. Williams, Thos. B. Osborne, Truman Smith, John H. Brockway.

New York. – Chas. A. Floyd, Joseph Egbert, John McKeon, James J. Roosevelt, Fernando Wood, Chas. G. Ferris, Aaron Ward, Richard D. Davis, James G. Clinton, John Van Buren, R. McClellan, Jacob Hauck, jr., Hiram P. Hunt, Daniel D. Barnard, Archibald L. Lin, Bernard Blair, Thos. A. Tomlinson, H. Van Rensselaer, John Sanford, Andrew W. Doig, John G. Floyd, David P. Brewster, T. C. Chittenden, Sam. S. Bowne, Samuel Gordon, John C. Clark, Lewis Riggs, Sam. Partridge, Victory Birdseye, A. L. Foster, Christopher Morgan, John Maynard, John Greig, Wm. M. Oliver, Timothy Childs, Seth M. Gates, John Young, Stanley N. Clark, Millard Fillmore, – Babcock.

New Jersey. – John B. Aycrigg, John P. B. Maxwell, William Halsted, Joseph F. Randolph, Joseph F. Stratton, Thos. Jones Yorke.

Pennsylvania. – Charles Brown, John Sergeant, George W. Tolland, Charles Ingersoll, John Edwards, Jeremiah Brown, Francis James, Joseph Fornance, Robert Ramsay, John Westbrook, Peter Newhard, George M. Keim, Wm. Simonton, James Gerry, James Cooper, Amos Gustine, James Irvine, Benj. Bidlack, John Snyder, Davis Dimock, Albert G. Marchand, Joseph Lawrence, Wm. W. Irwin, William Jack, Thomas Henry, Arnold Plumer.

Delaware. – George B. Rodney.

Maryland. – Isaac D. Jones, Jas. A. Pearce, James W. Williams, J. P. Kennedy, Alexander Randall, Wm. Cost Johnson, John T. Mason, Augustus R. Sollers.

Virginia. – Henry A. Wise, Francis Mallory, George B. Cary, John M. Botts, R. M. T. Hunter, John Taliaferro, Cuthbert Powell, Linn Banks, Wm. O. Goode, John W. Jones, E. W. Hubbard, Walter Coles, Thomas W. Gilmer, Wm. L. Goggin, R. B. Barton, Wm. A. Harris, A. H. H. Stuart, Geo. W. Hopkins, Geo. W. Summers, S. L. Hays, Lewis Steinrod.

North Carolina. – Kenneth Rayner, John R. J. Daniel, Edward Stanly, Wm. H. Washington, James J. McKay, Archibald Arrington, Edmund Deberry, R. M. Saunders, Aug'e H. Shepherd, Abraham Rencher, Green C. Caldwell, James Graham, Lewis Williams.

South Carolina. – Isaac E. Holmes, William Butler, F. W. Pickens, John Campbell, James Rogers, S. H. Butler, Thomas D. Sumter, R. Barnwell Rhett, C. P. Caldwell.

Georgia. – Rich'd W. Habersham, Wm. C. Dawson, Julius C. Alvord, Eugenius A. Nisbet, Lott Warren, Thomas Butler King, Roger L. Gamble, Jas. A. Merriwether, Thos. F. Foster.

Alabama. – Reuben Chapman, Geo. S. Houston, Dixon H. Lewis, Benj. G. Shields.

Mississippi. – A. L. Bingaman, W. R. Harley.

Louisiana. – Edward D. White, J. B. Dawson, John Moore.

Arkansas. – Edward Cross.

Tennessee. – Thomas D. Arnold, Abraham McClellan, Joseph L. Williams, Thomas J. Campbell, Hopkins L. Turney, Wm. B. Campbell, Robert L. Caruthers, Meredith P. Gentry, Harvey M. Watterson, Aaron V. Brown, Cave Johnson, Milton Brown, Christopher H. Williams.

Kentucky. – Linn Boyd, Philip Triplet, Joseph R. Underwood, Bryan W. Owsley, John B. Thompson, Willis Green, John Pope, James C. Sprigg, John White, Thomas F. Marshall, Landoff W. Andrews, Garret Davis, William O. Butler.

Ohio. – N. G. Pendleton, John B. Weller, Patrick G. Goode, Jeremiah Morrow, William Doane, Calvary Morris, Wm. Russell, Joseph Ridgeway, Wm. Medill, Samson Mason, B. S. Cowan, Joshua Matheot, James Matthews, Geo. Sweeney, S. J. Andrews, Joshua R. Giddings; John Hastings, Ezra Dean, Sam. Stockley.

Indiana. – George W. Proffit, Richard W. Thompson, Joseph L. White, James H. Cravens, Andrew Kennedy, David Wallace, Henry S. Lane.

Missouri. – John Miller, John C. Edwards.

Michigan. – Jacob M. Howard.

Mr. John White of Kentucky (whig), was elected Speaker of the House over Mr. John W. Jones of Virginia, democratic. Mr. Matthew St. Clair Clarke of Pennsylvania (whig), was elected clerk over Mr. Hugh A. Garland of Virginia, democratic. The whigs had a majority of near fifty in the House, and of seven in the Senate; so that all the legislative, and the executive department of the government – the two Houses of Congress and the President and cabinet – were of the same political party, presenting a harmony of aspect frequently wanting during the three previous administrations. Notwithstanding their large majority, the whig party proceeded slowly in the organization of the House in the adoption of rules for its proceeding. A fortnight had been consumed in vain when Mr. Cushing, urgently, and successfully exhorted his whig friends to action:

"I say (continued Mr. Cushing) that it is our fault if this House be disorganized. We are in the majority – we have a majority of forty – and we are responsible to our country, to the constitution, and to our God, for the discharge of our duty here. It is our duty to proceed to the organization of the House, to the transaction of the business for which the country sent us here. And I appeal to the whig party on this floor that they do their duty – that they act manfully and expeditiously, and that, howsoever the House may organize, under whatever rules, or under no rules at all; for I am prepared, if this resolution be not adopted, to call upon the Speaker for the second reading of a bill from the Senate, now upon the table, and to move that we proceed with it under the parliamentary law. We can go on under that. We are a House, with a speaker, clerk, and officers; and whether we have rules or not is immaterial. We can proceed as the Commons in England do. We can act upon bills by referring them to a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, or to select committees, if there are no standing committees. And I am prepared, if the House cannot be organized under the proposition now before us, for the purpose of testing the question and enabling the country to see whose fault it is that we do not go on with its business, to call at once for the action of the House upon that bill under the parliamentary law. Once more I appeal to the whig party, for party lines, I see, are now about to be drawn; I appeal to the whig party, to the friends of the administration – and I recognize but one, and that is the administration of John Tyler – that is the administration, and I recognize no other in the United States at this time; I appeal to the administration party, to the friends of the administration of John Tyler, that at this hour they come to the rescue of their country, and organize the House, under whatever rules: because, if we do not, we shall become, as we are now becoming, the laughing-stock, the scorn, the contempt of the people of these United States."

The bill from the Senate, for action on which Mr. Cushing was so impatient, and so ready to act without rules, was the one for the repeal of the sub-treasury; whilom characterized by him as a serpent hatched of a fowl's egg, (cockatrice); which the people would trample into the dust. Under his urgent exhortation the House soon organized, and made the repeal. Passed so promptly, this repealing bill, with equal celerity, was approved and signed by the President – leaving him in the first quarter of his administration in full possession of that formidable sword and long purse, the imputed union of which in the hands of General Jackson had been his incontinent deprecation, even in his inaugural address. For this repeal of the sub-treasury provided no substitute for keeping the public moneys, and left them without law in the President's hands.

CHAPTER LXIII.

FIRST MESSAGE OF MR. TYLER TO CONGRESS, AND MR. CLAY'S PROGRAMME OF BUSINESS

The first paragraph in the message related to the death of President Harrison, and after a proper expression of respect and regret, it went on to recommend a grant of money to his family, grounded on the consideration of his expenses in removing to the seat of government, and the limited means of his private fortune:

"With this public bereavement are connected other considerations which will not escape the attention of Congress. The preparations necessary for his removal to the seat of government, in view of a residence of four years, must have devolved upon the late President heavy expenditures, which, if permitted to burden the limited resources of his private fortune, may tend to the serious embarrassment of his surviving family; and it is therefore respectfully submitted to Congress, whether the ordinary principles of justice would not dictate the propriety of its legislative interposition."

This recommendation was considered by many as being without the pale of the constitution, and of dangerous precedent. With respect to the limited means of which he spoke, the fact was alike true and honorable to the late President. In public employment from early life and during the greatest part of his life, no pecuniary benefit had resulted to him. In situations to afford opportunities for emolument, he availed himself of none. With immense amounts of public money passing through his hands, it all went, not only faithfully to its objects, but without leaving any profit behind from its use. He lived upon his salaries, liberally dispensing hospitality and charities, and with simplicity and economy in all his habits. He used all that he received, and came out of office as he entered it, and died poor. This, among the ancient Romans was a commendable issue of a public career, to be mentioned with honor at the funeral of an illustrious man: and should be so held by all republican people.

The message showed that President Tyler would not have convoked the Congress in extra session had it not been done by his predecessor; but being convoked he would not disturb the arrangement; and was most happy to find himself so soon surrounded by the national representation:

"In entering upon the duties of this office, I did not feel that it would be becoming in me to disturb what had been ordered by my lamented predecessor. Whatever, therefore, may have been my opinion originally as to the propriety of convening Congress at so early a day from that of its late adjournment, I found a new and controlling inducement not to interfere with the patriotic desires of the late President, in the novelty of the situation in which I was so unexpectedly placed. My first wish, under such circumstances, would necessarily have been to have called to my aid in the administration of public affairs, the combined wisdom of the two Houses of Congress, in order to take their counsel and advice as to the best mode of extricating the government and the country from the embarrassments weighing heavily on both. I am then most happy in finding myself so soon, after my accession to the presidency, surrounded by the immediate representatives of the States and people."

The state of our foreign relations claimed but a brief paragraph. The message stated that no important change had taken place in them since the last session of Congress, and that the President saw nothing to make him doubt the continuance of the peace with which the country was blessed. He passed to home affairs:

"In order to supply the wants of the government, an intelligent constituency, in view of their best interests, will without hesitation, submit to all necessary burdens. But it is, nevertheless, important so to impose them as to avoid defeating the just expectations of the country growing out of pre-existing laws. The act of the 2d March, 1833, commonly called the compromise act, should not be altered, except under urgent necessities, which are not believed at this time to exist. One year only remains to complete the series of reductions provided for by that law, at which time provisions made by the same, and which law then will be brought actively in aid of the manufacturing interest of the Union, will not fail to produce the most beneficial results."

This compromise act of 1833, was drawing towards the close of its career, and was proving itself to have been a complete illusion in all the good it had promised, and a sad reality in all the ill that had been predicted of it. It had been framed on the principle of helping manufactures for nine years, and then to be a free trade measure for ever after. The first part succeeded, and so well, in keeping up high duties as to raise far more revenue than the government needed: the second part left the government without revenue for its current uses, and under the necessity of giving up that uniform twenty per centum duty on the value of imports, which was to have been the permanent law of our tariff; and which never became law at all. In the meanwhile, the compromise having provided for periodical reductions in the duties on imported sugars and molasses, made no provision for proportionate reductions of the drawback upon these articles when exported in the changed shape of rum and refined sugars: and enormous sums were drawn from the treasury by this omission in the compromise act – the great refiners and rum distillers driving an immense capital into their business for the mere purpose of getting the gratuitous drawbacks. The author of this View endeavored to supply the omission at the time, and repeatedly afterwards; but these efforts were resisted by the advocates of the compromise until these gratuities becoming enormous, rising from $2,000 per annum, to hundreds of thousands per annum, and finally reaching five hundred thousand, they roused the alarm of the government, and sunk under the enormity of their abuse. Yet it was this compromise which was held too sacred to have its palpable defects corrected, and the inviolability of which was recommended to be preserved, that in addition to its other faults, was making an annual present of some hundreds of thousands of dollars to two classes of manufacturers.

A bank of some kind was recommended, under the name of fiscal agent, as necessary to facilitate the operations of the Treasury, to promote the collection and disbursement of the public revenue, and to supply a currency of uniform value. The message said:

"In intimate connection with the question of revenue, is that which makes provision for a suitable fiscal agent, capable of adding increased facilities in the collection and disbursement of the public revenues, rendering more secure their custody, and consulting a true economy in the great multiplied and delicate operations of the Treasury department. Upon such an agent depends in an eminent degree, the establishment of a currency of uniform value, which is of so great importance to all the essential interests of society; and on the wisdom to be manifested in its creation, much depends."

These are the reasons which General Hamilton gave for asking the establishment of the first national bank, in 1791, and which have been given ever since, no matter with what variation of phraseology, for the creation of a similar institution. This preference for a bank, under a new name, was confirmed by the rejection of the sub-treasury and hard-money currency, assumed by the message to have been condemned by the people in the result of the presidential election. Speaking of this system, it said: "If carried through all the stages of its transmutation, from paper and specie to nothing but the precious metals, to say nothing of the insecurity of the public moneys its injurious effects have been anticipated by the country, in its unqualified condemnation." The justice and wisdom of this condemnation, thus inferred from the issue of the presidential election, and carried as that election was (and as has been described), has been tested by the experience of many years, without finding that insecurity of the public moneys, and those injurious effects which the message assumed. On the contrary those moneys have been safely kept, and the public prosperity never as great as under the Independent Treasury and the gold and silver currency of the federal government: and long has it been since any politician has allowed himself to be supposed to be against them. Up to the date of that message then – up to the first day of the extra session, 1841 – Mr. Tyler may be considered as in favor of a national bank, with its paper currency, and opposed to the gold and silver currency, and the sub-treasury. A distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands was recommended as a means of assisting the States in the payment of their debts, and raising the price of their stocks in foreign markets. Repudiating as unconstitutional, the federal assumption of the State debts, he still recommended a grant of money from the public funds to enable them to meet these debts. In this sense the message said:

"And while I must repudiate, as a measure founded in error, and wanting constitutional sanction, the slightest approach to an assumption by this government of the debts of the States, yet I can see in the distribution adverted to much to recommend it. The compacts between the proprietor States and this government expressly guarantee to the States all the benefits which may arise from the sales. The mode by which this is to be effected addresses itself to the discretion of Congress as the trustee for the States, and its exercise, after the most beneficial manner, is restrained by nothing in the grants or in the constitution so long as Congress shall consult that equality in the distribution which the compacts require. In the present condition of some of the States, the question of distribution may be regarded as substantially a question between direct and indirect taxation. If the distribution be not made in some form or other, the necessity will daily become more urgent with the debtor States for a resort to an oppressive system of direct taxation, or their credit, and necessarily their power and influence, will be greatly diminished. The payment of taxes, often the most inconvenient and oppressive mode, will be exacted in place of contributions for the most part voluntarily made, and therefore comparatively unoppressive. The States are emphatically the constituents of this government, and we should be entirely regardless of the objects held in view by them, in the creation of this government, if we could be indifferent to their good. The happy effects of such a measure upon all the States, would immediately be manifested. With the debtor States it would effect the relief to a great extent of the citizens from a heavy burden of direct taxation, which presses with severity on the laboring classes, and eminently assist in restoring the general prosperity. An immediate advance would take place in the price of the State securities, and the attitudes of the States would become once more, as it should ever be, lofty and erect. Whether such distribution should be made directly to the States in the proceeds of the sales, or in the form of profits by virtue of the operations of any fiscal agency having those proceeds as its basis, should such measure be contemplated by Congress, would well deserve its consideration."

Mr. Tyler, while a member of the democratic party, had been one of the most strict in the construction of the constitution, and one of the most vigilant and inflexible in bringing proposed measures to the test of that instrument – repulsing the most insignificant if they could not stand it. He had been one of the foremost against the constitutionality of a national bank, and voting for a scire facias to vacate the charter of the last one soon after it was established. Now, in recommending the grant of money to the family of General Harrison – in recommending a bank under the name of fiscal agent – in preferring a national paper currency – in condemning the currency of the constitution – in proposing a distribution of the land revenue – in providing for the payment of the State debts: in all these recommendations he seemed to have gone far beyond any other President, however latitudinarian. Add to this, he had instituted an inquisition to sit upon the conduct of officers, to hear and adjudge in secret; to the encouragement of informers and debaters, and to the infringement of the liberty of speech, and the freedom of opinion in the subordinates of the government. In view of all this, the author of this work immediately exclaimed: