Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"The public defences will require near one hundred millions of dollars; the annual amount required for these defences alone amount to thirteen or fourteen millions. The engineer department answers explicitly that it can beneficially expend six millions of dollars annually; the ordnance that it can beneficially expend three millions; the navy that it can beneficially expend several millions; and all this for a series of years. This distribution bill has five years to run, and in that time, if the money is applied to defence instead of distribution, the great work of national defence will be so far completed as to place the United States in condition to cause her rights and her interests, her flag and her soil, to be honored and respected by the whole world."

The bill was passed in the Senate, though by a vote somewhat close – 25 to 20. The yeas were:

Messrs. Black, Buchanan, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Hendricks, Kent, Knight, Leigh, McKean, Mangum, Naudain, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Webster White.

Nays. – Messrs. Benton, Calhoun, Cuthbert, Ewing of Illinois, Grundy, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Linn, Moore, Morris, Niles, Rives, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Tallmadge, Walker, Wright.

Being sent to the House for concurrence it became evident that it could not pass that body; and then the friends of distribution in the Senate fell upon a new mode to effect their object, and in a form to gain the votes of many members who held distribution to be a violation of the constitution – among them Mr. Calhoun; – who took the lead in the movement. There was a bill before the Senate to regulate the keeping of the public moneys in the deposit banks; and this was turned into distribution of the surplus public moneys with the States, in proportion to their representation in Congress, to be returned when Congress should call for it: and this was called a deposit with the States; and the faith of the States pledged for returning the money. The deposit was defended on the same argument on which Mr. Calhoun had proposed to amend the constitution two years before; namely that there was no other way to get rid of the surplus. And to a suggestion from Mr. Wright that the moneys, when once so deposited might never be got back again, Mr. Calhoun answered:

"But the senator from New-York objects to the measure, that it would, in effect, amount to a distribution, on the ground, as he conceives, that the States would never refund. He does not doubt but that they would, if called on to refund by the government; but he says that Congress will in fact never make the call. He rests this conclusion on the supposition that there would be a majority of the States opposed to it. He admits, in case the revenue should become deficient, that the southern or staple States would prefer to refund their quota, rather than to raise the imposts to meet the deficit; but he insists that the contrary would be the case with the manufacturing States, which would prefer to increase the imposts to refunding their quota, on the ground that the increase of the duties would promote the interests of manufactures. I cannot agree with the senator that those States would assume a position so utterly untenable as to refuse to refund a deposit which their faith would be plighted to return, and rest the refusal on the ground of preferring to lay a tax, because it would be a bounty to them, and would consequently throw the whole burden of the tax on the other States. But, be this as it may, I can tell the senator that, if they should take a course so unjust and monstrous, he may be assured that the other States would most unquestionably resist the increase of the imposts; so that the government would have to take its choice, either to go without the money, or call on the States to refund the deposits."

Mr. Benton took an objection to this scheme of deposit, that it was a distribution under a false name, making a double disposition of the same money; that the land money was to be distributed under the bill already passed by the Senate: and he moved an amendment to except that money from the operation of the deposit to be made with the States. He said it was hardly to be supposed that, in the nineteenth century, a grave legislative body would pass two bills for dividing the same money; and it was to save the Senate from the ridicule of such a blunder that he called their attention to it, and proposed the amendment. Mr. Calhoun said there was a remedy for it in a few words, by adding a proviso of exception, if the land distribution bill became a law. Mr. Benton was utterly opposed to such a proviso – a proviso to take effect if the same thing did not become law in another bill. Mr. Morris also wished to know if the Senate was about to make a double distribution of the same money? As far it respected the action of the Senate the land bill was, to all intents and purposes, a law. It had passed the Senate, and they were done with it. It had changed its title from "bill" to "act." It was now the act of the Senate, and they could not know what disposition the House would make of it. Mr. Webster believed the land bill could not pass the House; that it was put to rest there; and therefore he had no objection to voting for the second one: thus admitting that, under the name of "distribution" the act could not pass the House, and that a change of name was indispensable. Mr. Wright made a speech of statements and facts to show that there would be no surplus; and taking up that idea, Mr. Benton spoke thus:

"About this time two years ago, the Senate was engaged in proclaiming the danger of a bankrupt Treasury, and in proving to the people that utter ruin must ensue from the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States. The same Senate, nothing abated in confidence from the failure of former predictions, is now engaged in celebrating the prosperity of the country, and proclaiming a surplus of forty, and fifty, and sixty millions of dollars in that same Treasury, which so short a time since they thought was going to be bankrupt. Both occupations are equally unfortunate. Our Treasury is in no more danger of bursting from distension now, than it was of collapsing from depletion then. The ghost of the panic was driven from this chamber in May, 1834, by the report of Mr. Taney, showing that all the sources of the national revenue were in their usual rich and bountiful condition; and that there was no danger of bankruptcy. The speech and statement, so brief and perspicuous, just delivered by the senator from New York [Mr. Wright], will perform the same office upon the distribution spirit, by showing that the appropriations of the session will require nearly as much money as the public Treasury will be found to contain. The present exaggerations about the surplus will have their day, as the panic about an empty Treasury had its day; and time, which corrects all things, will show the enormity of these errors which excite the public mind, and stimulate the public appetite, for a division of forty, fifty, and sixty millions of surplus treasure."

The bill being ordered to a third reading, with only six dissenting votes, the author of this View could not consent to let it pass without an attempt to stigmatize it, and render it odious to the people, as a distribution in disguise – as a deposit never to be reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the constitution; as an attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as plundering instead of defending the country; as a cheat that would only last till the presidential election was over; for there would be no money to deposit after the first or second quarter; – and as having the inevitable effect, if not the intention, to break the deposit banks; and, finally, as disappointing its authors in their schemes of popularity: in which he was prophetic; as, out of half a dozen aspirants to the presidency, who voted for it, no one of them ever attained that place. The following are parts of his speech:

"I now come, Mr. President (continued Mr. B.), to the second subject in the bill – the distribution feature – and to which the objections are, not of detail, but of principle; but which objections are so strong, in the mind of myself and some friends, that, far from shrinking from the contest, and sneaking away in our little minority of six, where we were left last evening, we come forward with unabated resolution to renew our opposition, and to signalize our dissent; anxious to have it known that we contended to the last against the seductions of a measure, specious to the view, and tempting to the taste, but fraught with mischief and fearful consequences to the character of this government, and to the stability and harmony of this confederacy.

"Stripping this enactment of statutory verbiage, and collecting the provisions of the section into a single view, they seem to be these: 1. The public moneys, above a specific sum, are to be deposited with the States, in a specified ratio; 2. The States are to give certificates of deposit, payable to the United States; but no time, or contingency, is fixed for the payment; 3. The Secretary of the Treasury is to sell and assign the certificates, limited to a ratable proportion of each, when necessary to meet appropriations made by Congress; 4. The certificates so assigned are to bear an interest of five per cent., payable half yearly; 5. To bear no interest before assignment; 6. The principal to be payable at the pleasure of the State.

"This, Mr. President, is the enactment; and what is such an enactment? Sir, I will tell you what it is. It is, in name, a deposit; in form, a loan; in essence and design, a distribution. Names cannot alter things; and it is as idle to call a gift a deposit, as it would be to call a stab of the dagger a kiss of the lips. It is a distribution of the revenues, under the name of a deposit, and under the form of a loan. It is known to be so, and is intended to be so; and all this verbiage about a deposit is nothing but the device and contrivance of those who have been for years endeavoring to distribute the revenues, sometimes by the land bill, sometimes by direct propositions, and sometimes by proposed amendments to the constitution. Finding all these modes of accomplishing the object met and frustrated by the constitution, they fall upon this invention of a deposit, and exult in the success of an old scheme under a new name. That it is no deposit, but a free gift, and a regular distribution, is clear and demonstrable, not only from the avowed principles, declared intentions, and systematic purposes of those who conduct the bill, but also from the means devised to effect their object. Names are nothing. The thing done gives character to the transaction; and the imposition of an erroneous name cannot change that character. This is no deposit. It has no feature, no attribute, no characteristic no quality of a deposit. A deposit is a trust requiring the consent of two parties, leaving to one the rights of ownership, and imposing on the other the duties of trustee. The depositor retains the right of property, and reserves the privilege of resumption; the depositary is bound to restore. But here the right of property is parted with; the privilege of resumption is surrendered; the obligation to render back is not imposed. On the contrary, our money is put where we cannot reach it. Our treasury warrant cannot pursue it. The States are to keep the money, free of interest, until it is needed to meet appropriations; and then the Secretary of the Treasury is – to do what? – call upon the State? No! but to sell and assign the certificate; and the State is to pay the assignee an interest half yearly, and the principal when it pleases. Now, these appropriations will never be made. The members of Congress are not yet born – the race of representatives is not yet known – who will vote appropriations for national objects, to be paid out of their own State treasuries. Sooner will the tariff be revived, or the price of public land be raised. Sooner will the assignability of the certificate be repealed by law. The contingency will never arrive, on which the Secretary is to assign: so the deposit will stand as a loan for ever, without interest. At the end of some years, the nominal transaction will be rescinded; the certificates will all be cancelled by one general, unanimous, harmonious vote in Congress. The disguise of a deposit, like the mask after a play, will be thrown aside; and the delivery of the money will turn out to be, what it is now intended to be, a gift from the beginning. This will be the end of the first chapter. And now, how unbecoming in the Senate to practise this indirection, and to do by a false name what cannot be done by its true one. The constitution, by the acknowledgment of many who conduct this bill, will not admit of a distribution of the revenues. Not further back than the last session, and again at the commencement of the present session, a proposition was made to amend the constitution, to permit this identical distribution to be made. That proposition is now upon our calendar, for the action of Congress. All at once, it is discovered that a change of names will do as well as a change of the constitution. Strike out the word 'distribute,' and insert the word 'deposit;' and, incontinently, the impediment is removed: the constitution difficulty is surmounted; the division of the money can be made. This, at least, is quick work. It looks magical, though not the exploit of the magician. It commits nobody, though not the invention of the non-committal school. After all, it must be admitted to be a very compendious mode of amending the constitution, and such a one as the framers of that instrument never happened to think of. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Are we legislating, or amusing ourselves with phantasmagoria? Can we forget that we now have upon the calendar a proposition to amend the constitution, to effect this very distribution, and that the only difference between that resolution and this thirteenth section, is in substituting the word 'deposit' for the word 'distribute?'

"Having shown this pretended deposit to be a distribution in disguise, and to be a mere evasion of the constitution, Mr. B. proceeded to examine its effects, and to trace its ruinous consequences upon the federal government and the States. It is brought forward as a temporary measure, as a single operation, as a thing to be done but once; but what career, either for good or for evil, ever stopped with the first step? It is the first step which costs the difficulty; that taken, the second becomes easy, and repetition habitual. Let this distribution, in this disguise, take effect; and future distribution will be common and regular. Every presidential election will bring them, and larger each time; as the consular elections in Rome, commencing with distributions of grain from the public granaries, went on to the exhibitions of games and shows, the remission of debts, largesses in money, lands, and provisions; until the rival candidates openly bid against each other, and the diadem of empire was put up at auction, and knocked down to the last and highest bidder. The purity of elections may not yet be affected in our young and vigorous country; but how long will it be before voters will look to the candidates for the magnitude of their distributions, instead of looking to them for the qualifications which the presidential office requires?

"The bad consequences of this distribution of money to the States are palpable and frightful. It is complicating the federal and State systems, and multiplying their points of contact and hazards of collision. Take it as ostensibly presented; that of a deposit or loan, to be repaid at some future time; then it is establishing the relation of debtor and creditor between them: a relation critical between friends, embarrassing between a State and its citizens; and eminently dangerous between confederate States and their common head. It is a relation always deprecated in our federal system. The land credit system was abolished by Congress, fifteen years ago, to get rid of the relation of debtor and creditor between the federal government and the citizens of the States; and seven or eight millions of debt, principal and interest, was then surrendered. The collection of a large debt from numerous individual debtors, was found to he almost impossible. How much worse if the State itself becomes the debtor! and more, if all the States become indebted together! Any attempt to collect the debt would be attended, first with ill blood, then with cancellation. It must be the representatives of the States who are to enforce the collection of the debt. This they would not do. They would stand together against the creditor. No member of Congress could vote to tax his State to raise money for the general purposes of the confederacy. No one could vote an appropriation which was to become a charge on his own State treasury. Taxation would first be resorted to, and the tariff and the public lands would become the fountain of supply to the federal government. Taken as a real transaction – as a deposit with the States, or a loan to the States – as this measure professes to be, and it is fraught with consequences adverse to the harmony of the federal system, and fraught with new burdens upon the customs, and upon the lands; taken as a fiction to avoid the constitution, as a John Doe and Richard Roe invention to convey a gift under the name of a deposit, and to effect a distribution under the disguise of a loan, and it is an artifice which makes derision of the constitution, lets down the Senate from its lofty station; and provides a facile way for doing any thing that any Congress may choose to do in all time to come. It is only to depose one word and instal another – it is merely to change a name – and the frowning constitution immediately smiles on the late forbidden attempt.

"To the federal government the consequences of these distributions must be deplorable and destructive. It must be remitted to the helpless condition of the old confederacy, depending for its supplies upon the voluntary contributions of the States. Worse than depending upon the voluntary contributions, it will be left to the gratuitous leavings, to the eleemosynary crumbs, which remain upon the table after the feast of the States is over. God grant they may not prove to be the feasts of the Lapithæ and Centaurs! But the States will be served first; and what remains may go to the objects of common defence and national concern for which the confederacy was framed, and for which the power of raising money was confided to Congress. The distribution bills will be passed first, and the appropriation bills afterwards; and every appropriation will be cut down to the lowest point, and kept off to the last moment. To stave off as long as possible, to reduce as low as possible, to defeat whenever possible, will be the tactics of federal legislation; and when at last some object of national expenditure has miraculously run the gauntlet of all these assaults, and escaped the perils of these multiplied dangers, behold the enemy still ahead, and the recapture which awaits the devoted appropriation, in the shape of an unexpended balance, on the first day of January then next ensuing. Thus it is already; distribution has occupied us all the session. A proposition to amend the constitution, to enable us to make the division, was brought in in the first month of the session. The land bill followed, and engrossed months, to the exclusion of national defence. Then came the deposit scheme, which absorbs the remainder of the session. For nearly seven months we have been occupied with distribution, and the Senate has actually passed two bills to effect the same object, and to divide the same identical money. Two bills to divide money, while one bill cannot be got through for the great objects of national defence named in the constitution. We are now near the end of the seventh month of the session. The day named by the Senate for the termination of the session is long passed by; the day fixed by the two Houses is close at hand. The year is half gone, and the season for labor largely lost; yet what is the state of the general, national, and most essential appropriations? Not a shilling is yet voted for fortifications; not a shilling for the ordnance; nothing for filling the empty ranks of the skeleton army; nothing for the new Indian treaties; nothing for the continuation of the Cumberland road; nothing for rebuilding the burnt-down Treasury; nothing for the custom-house in New Orleans; nothing for extinguishing the rights of private corporators in the Louisville canal, and making that great thoroughfare free to the commerce of the West; nothing for the western armory, and arsenals in the States which have none; nothing for the extension of the circuit court system to the new States of the West and Southwest; nothing for improving the mint machinery; nothing for keeping the mints regularly supplied with metals for coining; nothing for the new marine hospitals; nothing for the expenses of the visitors now gone to the Military Academy; nothing for the chain of posts and the military road along the Western and Northwestern frontier. All these, and a long list of other objects, remain without a cent to this day; and those who have kept them off now coolly turn upon us, and say the money cannot be expended if appropriated, and that, on the first of January, it must fall into the surplus fund to be divided. Of the bills passed, many of the most essential character have been delayed for months, to the great injury of individuals and of the public service. Clerks and salaried officers have been borrowing money at usury to support their families, while we, wholly absorbed with dividing surpluses, were withholding from them their stipulated wages. Laborers at Harper's Ferry Armory have been without money to go to market for their families, and some have lived three weeks without meat, because we must attend to the distribution bills before we can attend to the pay bills. Disbursing officers have raised money on their own account, to supply the want of appropriations. Even the annual Indian Annuity Bill has but just got through; the Indians even – the poor Indians, as they were wont to be called – even they have had to wait, in want and misery, for the annual stipends solemnly guarantied by treaties. All this has already taken place under the deplorable influence of the distribution spirit.

"The progress which the distribution spirit has made in advancing beyond its own pretensions, is a striking feature in the history of the case, and ominous of what may be expected from its future exactions. Originally the proposition was to divide the surplus. It was the surplus, and nothing but the surplus, which was to be taken; that bona fide and inevitable surplus which remained after all the defences were provided for, and all needed appropriations fully made. Now the defences are postponed and decried; the needful appropriations are rejected, stinted, and deferred, till they cannot be used; and, instead of the surplus, it is the integral revenue, it is the money in the Treasury, it is the money appropriated by law, which is to be seized upon and divided out. It is the unexpended balances which are now the object of all desire and the prize of meditated distribution. The word surplus is not in the bill! that word, which has figured in so many speeches, which has been the subject of so much speculation, which has been the cause of so much delusion in the public mind, and of so much excited hope; that word is not in the bill! It is carefully, studiously, systematically excluded, and a form of expression is adopted to cover all the money in the Treasury, a small sum excepted, although appropriated by law to the most sacred and necessary objects. A recapture of the appropriated money is intended; and thus the very identical money which we appropriate at this session is to be seized upon on the first day of January, torn away from the objects to which it was dedicated, and absorbed in the fund for general distribution. And why? because the cormorant appetite of distribution grows as it feeds, and becomes more ravenous as it gorges. It set out for the surplus; now it takes the unexpended balances, save five millions; next year it will take all. But it is sufficient to contemplate the thing as it is; it is sufficient to contemplate this bill as seizing upon the unexpended balances on the first day of January, regardless of the objects to which they are appropriated; and to witness its effect upon the laws, the policy, and the existence of the federal government.