Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

The speech of Judge Tappan covered the facts of the case, upon which, and other speeches delivered, the Senate made up its mind, and the bill was passed, though upon a good division, and a visible development of party lines. The yeas were:

"Messrs. Allen, Bagby, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Cuthbert, Fulton, Graham, Henderson, King, Linn, McDuffie, McRoberts, Mangum, Rives, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Smith of Indiana, Sprague, Sturgeon, Tallmadge, Tappan, Walker, Wilcox, Williams, Woodbury, Wright, Young – 28."

The nays were:

"Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Choate, Clayton, Conrad, Crafts, Crittenden, Dayton, Evans, Huntington, Kerr, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, White, Woodbridge – 20."

In the House it was well supported by Mr. Charles Jared Ingersoll, and others, and passed at the ensuing session by a large majority – 158 to 28. This gratifying result took place before the death of General Jackson, so that he had the consolation of seeing the only two acts which impugned the legality of any part of his conduct – the senatorial condemnation for the removal of the deposits, and the proceedings in New Orleans under martial law – both condemned by the national representation, and the judicial record as well as the Senate journal, left free from imputation upon him.

CHAPTER CXX.

REPEAL OF THE BANKRUPT ACT: ATTACK OF MR. CUSHING ON MR. CLAY: ITS REBUKE

This measure was immediately commenced in the House of Representatives, and pressed with vigor to its conclusion. Mr. Everett, of Vermont, brought in the repeal bill on leave, and after a strenuous contest from a tenacious minority, it was passed by the unexpected vote of two to one – to be precise – 140 to 72. In the Senate it had the same success, and greater, being passed by nearly three to one – 34 to 13: and the repealing act being carried to Mr. Tyler, he signed it as promptly as he had signed the bankrupt act itself. This was a splendid victory for the minority who had resisted the passage of the bill, and for the people who had condemned it. The same members, sitting in the same chairs, who a year and a half before, passed the act, now repealed it. The same President who had recommended it in a message, and signed the act as soon as it passed, now signed the act which put an end to its existence. A vicious and criminal law, corruptly passed, and made the means of passing two other odious measures, was itself now brought to judgment, condemned, and struck from the statute-book; and this great result was the work of the people. All the authorities – legislative, executive, and judicial – had sustained the act. Only one judge in the whole United States (R. W. Wells, Esq., United States district judge for Missouri), condemned it as unconstitutional. All the rest sustained it, and he was overruled. But the intuitive sense of honor and justice in the people revolted at it. They rose against it in masses, and condemned it in every form – in public meetings, in legislative resolves, in the press, in memorials to Congress, and in elections. The tables of the two Houses were loaded with petitions and remonstrances, demanding the repeal, and the members were simply the organs of the people in pronouncing it. Never had the popular voice been more effective – never more meritoriously raised. The odious act was not only repealed, but its authors rebuked, and compelled to pronounce the rebuke upon themselves. It was a proud and triumphant instance of the innate, upright sentiment of the people, rising above all the learning and wisdom of the constituted authorities. Nor was it the only instance. The bankrupt act of forty years before, though strictly a bankrupt act as known to the legislation of all commercial countries, was repealed within two years after its passage – and that by the democratic administration of Mr. Jefferson: this of 1841, a bankrupt act only in name – an act for the abolition of debts at the will of the debtor in reality – had a still shorter course, and a still more ignominious death. Two such condemnations of acts for getting rid of debts, are honorable to the people, and bespeak a high degree of reverence for the sacred obligations between debtor and creditor; and while credit is due to many of the party discriminated as federal in 1800, and as whig in 1840 (but always the same), for their assistance in condemning these acts, yet as party measures, the honor of resisting their passage and conducting their repeal, in both instances, belongs to the democracy.

The repeal of this act, though carried by such large majorities, and so fully in accordance with the will of the people, was a bitter mortification to the administration. It was their measure, and one of their measures of "relief" to the country. Mr. Webster had drawn the bill, and made the main speech for it in the Senate, before he went into the cabinet. Mr. Tyler had recommended it in a special message, and promptly gave it his approving signature. To have to sign a repeal bill, so soon, condemning what he had recommended and approved, was most unpalatable: to see a measure intended for the "relief" of the people repulsed by those it was intended to relieve, was a most unwelcome vision. From the beginning the repeal was resisted, and by a species of argument, not addressed to the merits of the measure, but to the state of parties, the conduct of men, and the means of getting the government carried on. Mr. Caleb Cushing was the organ of the President, and of the Secretary of State in the House; and, identifying himself with these two in his attacks and defences, he presented a sort of triumvirate in which he became the spokesman of the others. In this character he spoke often, and with a zeal which outran discretion, and brought him into much collision with the House, and kept him much occupied in defending himself, and the two eminent personages who were not in a position to speak for themselves. A few passages from these speeches, from both sides, will be given to show the state of men and parties at that time, and how much personal considerations had to do with transacting the business of Congress. Thus:

"Mr. Cushing, who was entitled to the floor, addressed the House at length, in reply to the remarks made by various gentlemen, during the last three weeks, in relation to the present administration. He commenced by remarking that the President of the United States was accused of obstructing the passage of whig measures of relief, and was charged with uncertainty and vacillation of purpose. As these charges had been made against the President, he felt it to be his duty to ask the country who was chargeable with vacillation and uncertainty of purpose, and the destruction of measures of relief? Who were they who, with sacrilegious hands, were seeking to expunge the last measure of the 'ill-starred' extra session from the statute-books? Forty-seven whigs, he answered, associated with the democratic party in the House, and formed a coalition to blot out that measure. He repeated it: forty-seven whigs formed a coalition with the democrats to expunge all the remains of the extra session which existed. For three weeks past, there had been constantly poured forth the most eloquent denunciations of the President, of the Secretary of State, and of himself. He might imagine, as was said by Warren Hastings when such torrents of denunciation were poured out upon him, that there was some foundation for the imputation of the orators. He should inquire into the merits of the political questions, and into the accusations made against him. He was told that he had thrown a firebrand into the House – that he had brought a tomahawk here. He denied it. He had done no such thing. It was not true that he commenced the debate which was carried on; and when gentlemen said that he had volunteered remarks out of the regular order, in reply to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Arnold], he told them that they were not judges. His mode of defence was counter-attack, and it was for him to judge of the argument. If he carried the war into the enemy's camp, the responsibility was with those who commenced the attack."

Mr. Clay, though retiring from Congress, and not a member of the House of Representatives, was brought into the debate, and accused of setting up a dictatorship, and baffling or controlling the constitutional administration:

"The position of the two great parties, and those few who stood here to defend the acts of the administration, was peculiar. Our government was now undergoing a test in a new particular. This was the first time that the administration of the government had ever devolved upon the Vice-President. Now, he had called upon the people and the House to adapt themselves to that contingency, and support the constitution; for with the 'constitutional fact' was associated the party fact; and whilst the President was not a party chief, there was a party chief of the party in power. The question was, whether there could be two administrations – one, a constitutional administration, by the President; and the other a party administration, exercised by a party chief in the capitol? With this issue before him – whether the President, or the party leader – the chief in the White House, or the chief in the capitol – should carry on the administration – he felt it to be a duty which he owed to the government of his country to give his aid to the constitutional chief. That was the real question which had pervaded all our contests thus far."

Such an unparliamentary reference to Mr. Clay, a member of a different House, could not pass without reply in a place where he could not speak for himself, but where his friends were abundant. Mr. Garret Davis, of Kentucky, performed that office, and found in the fifteen years' support of Mr. Clay by Mr. Cushing (previous to his sudden adhesion to Mr. Tyler at the extra session), matter of personal recrimination:

"Mr. Garret Davis replied to the portion of the speech of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Cushing] relating to the alleged dictation of the ex-senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay]. The gentleman from Massachusetts declared that there were but two alternatives – one, a constitutional administration, under the lead of the President; and the other, a faction, under the lead of the senator from Kentucky. Such remarks were no more nor less than calumnies on that distinguished man; and he would ask the gentleman what principle Mr. Clay had changed, by which he had obtained the ill-will of the gentleman, after having had his support for fifteen years previous to the extra session? He asked, Did the senator from Kentucky bring forward any new measure at the extra session? Did he enter upon any untrodden path, in order to embarrass the path of John Tyler? No, was the answer."

Reverting to the attacks on the administration, Mr. Cushing considered them as the impotent blows of a faction, beating its brains out against the immovable rock of the Tyler government:

"It was now nearly two years since, in accordance with a vote of the people, a change took place in the administration of the government. Since that time, an internecine war had arisen in the dominant party. The war had now been pursued for about one year and a half; but, in the midst of it, the federal government, with its fixed constitution, had stood, like the god Terminus, defying the progress of those who were rushing against it. The country had seen one party throw itself against the immovable rock of the constitution. What had been the consequence? The party thus hurling itself against the constitutional rock was dashed to atoms."

Mr. Cushing did not confine his attempts to gain adherents to Mr. Tyler, to the terrors of denunciations and anathemas: he superadded the seductive arguments of persuasion and enticement, and carried his overtures so far as to be charged with putting up the administration favor to auction, and soliciting bidders. He had said:

"Now he would suppose a man called to be President of the United States. It mattered not whether he was elected, or whether the office devolved upon him by contingencies contemplated in the constitution. He was President. What, then, was his first duty? To consider how to discharge his functions. He (Mr. C.) thought the President was bound to look around at the facts, and see by what circumstances he was supported. Gentlemen might talk of treason; much had been said on that subject; but the question for the individual who might happen to be President to consider was, How is the government to be carried out? By whose aid? He (Mr. Cushing) would say to that party now having the majority (and whom, on account of that circumstance, it was more important he should address), that if they gave him no aid, it was his duty to seek aid from their adversaries. If the whigs continue to blockade the wheels of the government, he trusted that the democrats would be patriotic enough to carry it on."

Up to this point Mr. Cushing had addressed himself to the whigs to come to the support of Mr. Tyler: despairing of success there he now turned to the democracy. This open attempt to turn from one party to the other, and to take whichever he could get, turned upon him a storm of ridicule and reproach. Mr. Thompson, of Indiana, said:

"The gentleman seemed to have assumed the character of auctioneer for this bankrupt administration, and he took it that the gentleman would be entitled to a good part of its effects. This was the first time in the history of any civilized country that a government had, through the person of its acknowledged leader – a man doing most of its speaking, and much of its thinking – stalked into a representative assembly, and openly put up the administration in the common market to the highest bidder."

But Mr. Cushing did not limit himself to seductive appliances in turning to the democracy for support to Mr. Tyler: he dealt out denunciation to them also, and menaced them with the fate of the shattered whig party if they did not come to the rescue. On this Mr. Thompson remarked:

"The gentleman also told the minority that they would be dashed to pieces, like their predecessors, unless they came into the measures of the President; but it yet remained to be seen whether he would get a bid. Judging from the expression of opinion by the leading organ of the democratic party, he (Mr. T.) was inclined to think that no bid would be offered by a portion of that party. He thought, from givings-out, in various quarters, that the President would ultimately have to resort to this 'constitutional fact,' to defend himself against a large portion even of that party. Indeed, it was doubtful whether there would be bidders from either side."

Mr. Cushing had said that there were persons connected with the administration who would yet be heard of for the Presidency, and seemed to present that contingency also as a reason why support should be given it. To this intimation Mr. Thompson made an indignant reply:

"He recollected well – though he was very young at the time, and not prepared to take part in the political discussions of the day – that, during the administration of the distinguished and venerable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Adams] there arose in this country a party, who, upon the bare supposition (which was dispelled on an examination of the facts) – upon the bare suspicion that there was what was called a bargain, intrigue, and management between the then head of the administration, and another distinguished citizen who was a member of his cabinet, made it a subject of the most bitter and vindictive denunciation. Yet, notwithstanding that this part of our history was still fresh in the recollection of the gentleman from Massachusetts – when we see, in this age of republican liberty, a gentleman descended from a line of illustrious Revolutionary ancestry – coming, too, almost from the very Cradle of Liberty, and acting as the organ of the administration on this floor – boldly, shamelessly, and unblushingly offering the spoils of office as a consideration for party support, we may well have cause for alarm. How many clerkships were there in Philadelphia to be disposed of in this manner? From the collector down to the lowest tide-waiter, the power of appointment was to be directed for the purpose of operating on the coming presidential contest. Who, now, would charge the whig party with shaping their measures with a view to the elevation of a particular individual, after hearing the bold and open avowal from the gentleman that the present administration would shape their measures for the purpose of operating on the coming contest? But (said Mr. T.) there was something exceedingly ridiculous in the idea of the administration party – and such a party, too! – coming into the Representative hall, and telling its members that it had the power to dispose of the various candidates for the Presidency at its pleasure, and controlling the votes of nearly three millions of freemen by means of its veto power, and the power of appointment and removal."

Mr. Cushing had belonged to the federal party, since called whig, up to the time that he joined Mr. Tyler, and had been all that time a fierce assailant of the democratic party: the energy with which he now attacked that party, and the warmth with which he wooed the other, brought on him many reproaches, some rough and cutting – some tender and deprecatory; as this from Mr. Thompson:

"The gentleman exulted in the fate of the whig party, and told them with much satisfaction that their party was destroyed. Now, let him ask the gentleman, in the utmost sincerity of his heart, whether he did not feel some little mortification and regret when he saw the banner under which he had so often rallied trailing in the dust, and trampled under the feet of those against whom he had fought for so many years?"

Foremost of the whigs in zeal and activity, Mr. Cushing, as one of the most prominent men of the party, was appointed when the presidential vote of 1840 was counted in the House, as one of the committee of two to wait upon General Harrison and formally make known to him his election. In two months afterwards General Harrison died – Mr. Tyler became President and quit the whigs: Mr. Cushing quit at the same time; and not content with quitting, threw all the obloquy upon them which, for fifteen years, he had lavished upon the democracy; and in quitting the whigs he reversed his conduct in all the measures of his life, and without giving a reason for the change in a single instance. Mr. Garret Davis summed up these changes in a scathing peroration, from which some extracts are here given:

"The gentleman occupies a strange position and puts forth extraordinary notions, considering the measures and principles which he always, until the commencement of this administration, advocated with so much zeal and ability I had read many of his speeches before I knew him. I admired his talents and attainments; I approved of the soundness of his views, and was instructed and fortified in my own. But he is wonderfully metamorphosed; and I think if he will examine the matter deliberately, he will find it to be quite as true, that he has broken his neck politically in jumping his somersets, as that 'the whig party has knocked out its brains against the fixed fact.' He tells us that party is nothing but an association of men struggling for power; and that he contemns measures – that measures are not principles. The gentleman must have been reading the celebrated treatise, 'The Prince,' for such dicta are of the school of Machiavelli; and his sudden and total abandonment of all the principles as well as measures, to which he was as strongly pledged as any whig, good and true, proves that he had studied his lesson to some purpose. At the extra session of 1837, he opposed the sub-treasury in a very elaborate speech, in which we find these passages: 'We are to have a government paper currency, recognizable by the government of the United States, and employed in its dealings; but it is to be irredeemable government paper? 'If the scheme were not too laughingly absurd to spend time in arguing about it seriously; if the mischiefs of a government paper currency had not had an out-and-out trial both in Europe and America, I might discuss it as a question of political economy. But I will not occupy the committee in this way. I am astounded at the fatuity of any set of men who can think of any such project.' This is what he said of the sub-treasury. Now, he is the unscrupulous advocate of the exchequer, a measure embodying both the sub-treasury and a great organized government bank, and fraught with more frightful dangers than his own excited imagination had pictured in the whole three years.

"He was one of the stanchest supporters of a United States bank. He characterized 'the refusal of the late President (Jackson) to sign the bill re-chartering the bank, like the removal of the deposits, to be in defiance and violation of the popular will,' and characterized as felicitous the periods of time when we possessed a national bank, and as calamitous the periods that we were without them, saying – 'Twice for long periods of time, have we tried a national bank, and in each period it has fulfilled its appointed purpose of supplying a safe and equal currency, and of regulating and controlling the issues of the State banks. Twice have we tried for a few years to drag on without a national bank, and each of these experiments has been a season of disaster and confusion.' And yet, sir, he has denied that he was ever the supporter of a bank of the United States, and is now one of the most rabid revilers of such an institution.

"He was for Mr. Clay's land bill; and he has abandoned, and now contemns it. No man has been more frequent and unsparing in his denunciations of General Jackson; and now he is the sycophantic eulogist of the old hero. He was the unflinching defender of the constitutional rights and powers of Congress. This administration has not only resorted to the most flagitious abuse of the veto power, but has renewed every other assault, open or insidious, of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren upon Congress, which he, at the time, so indignantly rebuked; and he now justifies them all. He has gone far ahead of the extremest parasites of executive power. John Tyler vetoed four acts of Congress which the gentleman had voted for, and strange, by his subtle sophistry, he defended each of the vetoes; and most strange, when the House, in conformity to the provisions of the constitution, voted again upon the measures, his vote was recorded in their favor, and to overrule the very vetoes of which he had just been the venal advocate."

This versatility of Mr. Cushing, in the support of vetoes, was one of the striking qualities developed in his present change of parties. He had condemned the exercise of that power in General Jackson in the case of the Bank of the United States, and dealt out upon him unmeasured denunciation for that act: now he became the supporter of all the vetoes of Mr. Tyler, even when those vetoes condemned his own votes, and when they condemned the fiscal bank charter which Mr. Tyler himself had devised and arranged for Congress. He became the champion, unrivalled, of Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay, defending them in all things; but now in attacking Mr. Clay whom he had so long, and until so recently, so closely, followed and loudly applauded, he became obnoxious to the severe denunciations of that gentleman's friends.

CHAPTER CXXI.

NAVAL EXPENDITURES, AND ADMINISTRATION ATTEMPTS AT REFORM: ABORTIVE

The annual appropriation for this branch of the service being under consideration, Mr. Parmenter, the chairman of the naval committee, proposed to limit the whole number of petty officers, seamen, ordinary seamen, landsmen and boys in the service to 7,500; and Mr. Slidell moved an amendment to get rid of some 50 or 60 masters' mates who had been illegally appointed by Mr. Secretary Henshaw, during his brief administration of the naval department in the interval between his nomination by Mr. Tyler and his rejection by the Senate. These motions brought on a debate of much interest on the condition of the navy itself, the necessity of a peace establishment, and the reformation of abuses. Mr. Cave Johnson, of Tennessee —

"Expressed himself gratified to see the limitation proposed by the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs; that he had long believed that we should have a peace establishment for the navy, as well as the army; and that the number of officers and men in each should be limited to the necessities of the public service. Heretofore the navy had been left to the discretion of the Secretary, only limited by the appropriation bills. He urged upon the chairman of the Naval Committee the propriety of reducing still further. If he did not misunderstand the amendment, it proposed to man the number of vessels required for the next year in the same way that we would do in time of war, as we have heretofore done. He thought there should be a difference in the complement of men required for each ship in war and in peace. He read a table, showing that in the British service, first class men-of-war of 120 guns, in time of peace had on board (officers, men, and marines) 886 men, whilst the same class in our service had on board 1,200, officers, men, and marines – near one-third more officers and men in the American service than were employed in the British. The table showed about the same difference in vessels of inferior size. He thought the number of men and officers should be regulated for a peace, and not a war establishment. He expressed the hope that the chairman of the Naval Committee would so shape his amendment as to fix the number of officers and men for a peace establishment. He was desirous of having a peace establishment, and the expenditures properly regulated. This branch of the service, together with the army, were the great sources of expenditure. He read a table, showing the expenditures of these branches of the public service from 1821 to 1842, as follows: ($235,000,000.) He said the country would be astonished to see the immense sums expended on the army and navy; and, as he thought, without any adequate return to the country. He could see no advantage to the country from this immense expenditure – no adequate return. He was aware of the excuse made for it – the protection of our commerce. This was a mere pretext – an excuse for throwing upon the public treasury an immense number of men, who might be much more profitably to the country employed in other occupations. He alluded to the Mediterranean squadron and the expenditures for the protection of our commerce on that sea; and expressed the opinion that our expenditures at that station equalled the whole of the commerce east of the Straits of Gibraltar – that it would be better for the country to pay for the commerce than protect it; that there was no more need to protect our commerce in the Mediterranean than there was in the Chesapeake Bay. Such a thing as pirates in that sea had been scarcely heard of in the last twenty years. He expressed his determination to vote for the amendment, but hoped the chairman would so shape it as to make a regular peace establishment."