Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

On Monday the parties exchanged cards, and social relations were formally and courteously restored. It was about the last high-toned duel that I have witnessed, and among the highest-toned that I have ever witnessed, and so happily conducted to a fortunate issue – a result due to the noble character of the seconds as well as to the generous and heroic spirit of the principals. Certainly duelling is bad, and has been put down, but not quite so bad as its substitute – revolvers, bowie-knives, blackguarding, and street-assassinations under the pretext of self-defence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

DEATH OF MR. GAILLARD

He was a senator from South Carolina, and had been continuously, from the year 1804. He was five times elected to the Senate – the first time for an unexpired term – and died in the course of a term; so that the years for which he had been elected were nearly thirty. He was nine times elected president of the Senate pro tempore, and presided fourteen years over the deliberations of that body, – the deaths of two Vice-Presidents during his time (Messrs. Clinton and Gerry), and the much absence of another (Gov. Tompkins), making long continued vacancies in the President's chair, – which he was called to fill. So many elections, and such long continued service, terminated at last only by death, bespeaks an eminent fitness both for the place of Senator, and that of presiding officer over the Senate. In the language of Mr. Macon, he seemed born for that station. Urbane in his manners, amiable in temper, scrupulously impartial, attentive to his duties, exemplary patience, perfect knowledge of the rules, quick and clear discernment, uniting absolute firmness of purpose, with the greatest gentleness of manners, setting young Senators right with a delicacy and amenity, which spared the confusion of a mistake – preserving order, not by authority of rules, but by the graces of deportment: such were the qualifications which commended him to the presidency of the Senate, and which facilitated the transaction of business while preserving the decorum of the body. There was probably not an instance of disorder, or a disagreeable scene in the chamber, during his long continued presidency. He classed democratically in politics, but was as much the favorite of one side of the house as of the other, and that in the high party times of the war with Great Britain, which so much exasperated party spirit.

Mr. Gaillard was, as his name would indicate, of French descent, having issued from one of those Huguenot families, of which the bigotry of Louis XIV., dominated by an old woman, deprived France, for the benefit of other countries.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION IN RELATION TO THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT

The attempt was renewed at the session of 1825-'26 to procure an amendment to the constitution, in relation to the election of the two first magistrates of the republic, so as to do away with all intermediate agencies, and give the election to the direct vote of the people. Several specific propositions were offered in the Senate to that effect, and all substituted by a general proposition submitted by Mr. Macon – "that a select committee be appointed to report upon the best and most practicable mode of electing the President and Vice-President: " and, on the motion of Mr. Van Buren, the number of the committee was raised to nine – instead of five – the usual number. The members of it were appointed by Mr. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and were carefully selected, both geographically as coming from different sections of the Union, and personally and politically as being friendly to the object and known to the country. They were: Mr. Benton, chairman, Mr. Macon, Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Hugh L. White of Tennessee, Mr. Findlay of Pennsylvania, Mr. Dickerson of New Jersey, Mr. Holmes of Maine, Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, and Col. Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. The committee agreed upon a proposition of amendment, dispensing with electors, providing for districts in which the direct vote of the people was to be taken; and obviating all excuse for caucuses and conventions to concentrate public opinion by proposing a second election between the two highest in the event of no one receiving a majority of the whole number of district votes in the first election. The plan reported was in these words:

"That, hereafter the President and Vice-President of the United States shall be chosen by the People of the respective States, in the manner following: Each State shall be divided by the legislature thereof, into districts, equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives, to which such State may be entitled in the Congress of the United States; the said districts to be composed of contiguous territory, and to contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of persons, entitled to be represented, under the constitution, and to be laid off, for the first time, immediately after the ratification of this amendment, and afterwards at the session of the legislature next ensuing the appointment of representatives, by the Congress of the United States; or oftener, if deemed necessary by the State; but no alteration, after the first, or after each decennial formation of districts, shall take effect, at the next ensuing election, after such alteration is made. That, on the first Thursday, and succeeding Friday, in the month of August, of the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and on the same days in every fourth year thereafter, the citizens of each State, who possess the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature, shall meet within their respective districts, and vote for a President and Vice-President of the United States, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with himself: and the person receiving the greatest number of votes for President, and the one receiving the greatest number of votes for Vice-President in each district shall be holden to have received one vote: which fact shall be immediately certified to the Governor of the State, to each of the senators in Congress from such State, and to the President of the Senate. The right of affixing the places in the districts at which the elections shall be held, the manner of holding the same, and of canvassing the votes, and certifying the returns, is reserved, exclusively, to the legislatures of the States. The Congress of the United States shall be in session on the second Monday of October, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and on the same day in every fourth year thereafter: and the President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, shall open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be President, if such number be equal to a majority of the whole number of votes given; but if no person have such majority, then a second election shall be held, on the first Thursday and succeeding Friday, in the month of December, then next ensuing, between the persons having the two highest numbers, for the office of President: which second election shall be conducted, the result certified, and the votes counted, in the same manner as in the first; and the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President. But, if two or more persons shall have received the greatest and equal number of votes, at the second election, the House of Representatives shall choose one of them for President, as is now prescribed by the constitution. The person having the greatest number of votes for Vice-President, at the first election, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be equal to a majority of the whole number of votes given, and, if no person have such majority, then a second election shall take place, between the persons having the two highest numbers, on the same day that the second election is held for President, and the person having the highest number of votes for Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President. But if two or more persons shall have received the greatest number of votes in the second election, then the Senate shall choose one of them for Vice-President, as is now provided in the constitution. But, when a second election shall be necessary, in the case of Vice-President, and not necessary in the case of President, then the Senate shall choose a Vice-President, from the persons having the two highest numbers in the first election, as is now prescribed in the constitution."

The prominent features of this plan of election are: 1. The abolition of electors, and the direct vote of the people; 2. A second election between the two highest on each list, when no one has a majority of the whole; 3. Uniformity in the mode of election. – The advantages of this plan would be to get rid of all the machinery by which the selection of their two first magistrates is now taken out of the hands of the people, and usurped by self-constituted, illegal, and irresponsible bodies, – and place it in the only safe, proper, and disinterested hands – those of the people themselves. If adopted, there would be no pretext for caucuses or conventions, and no resort to the House of Representatives, – where the largest State is balanced by the smallest. If any one received a majority of the whole number of districts in the first election, then the democratic principle – the demos krateo– the majority to govern – is satisfied. If no one receives such majority, then the first election stands for a popular nomination of the two highest – a nomination by the people themselves – out of which two the election is sure to be made on the second trial. But to provide for a possible contingency – too improbable almost ever to occur – and to save in that case the trouble of a third popular election, a resort to the House of Representatives is allowed; it being nationally unimportant which is elected where the candidates were exactly equal in the public estimation. – Such was the plan the committee reported; and it is the perfect plan of a popular election, and has the advantage of being applicable to all elections, federal and State, from the highest to the lowest. The machinery of its operation is easy and simple, and it is recommended by every consideration of public good, which requires the abandonment of a defective system, which has failed – the overthrow of usurping bodies, which have seized upon the elections – and the preservation to the people of the business of selecting, as well as electing, their own high officers. The plan was unanimously recommended by the whole committee, composed as it was of experienced men taken from every section of the Union. But it did not receive the requisite support of two-thirds of the Senate to carry it through that body; and a similar plan proposed in the House of Representatives received the same fate there – reported by a committee, and unsustained by two-thirds of the House: and such, there is too much reason to apprehend, may be the fate of future similar propositions, originating in Congress, without the powerful impulsion of the people to urge them through. Select bodies are not the places for popular reforms. These reforms are for the benefit of the people, and should begin with the people; and the constitution itself, sensible of that necessity in this very case, has very wisely made provision for the popular initiative of constitutional amendments. The fifth article of that instrument gives the power of beginning the reform of itself to the States, in their legislatures, as well as to the federal government in its Congress: and there is the place to begin, and before the people themselves in their elections to the general assembly. And there should be no despair on account of the failures already suffered. No great reform is carried suddenly. It requires years of persevering exertion to produce the unanimity of opinion which is necessary to a great popular reformation: but because it is difficult, it is not impossible. The greatest reform ever effected by peaceful means in the history of any government was that of the parliamentary reform of Great Britain, by which the rotten boroughs were disfranchised, populous towns admitted to representation, the elective franchise extended, the House of Commons purified, and made the predominant branch – the master branch of the British government. And how was that great reform effected? By a few desultory exertions in the parliament itself? No, but by forty years of continued exertion, and by incessant appeals to the people themselves. The society for parliamentary reform, founded in 1792, by Earl Grey and Major Cartwright, succeeded in its efforts in 1832; and in their success there is matter for encouragement, as in their conduct there is an example for imitation. They carried the question to the people, and kept it there forty years, and saw it triumph – the two patriotic founders of the society living to see the consummation of their labors, and the country in the enjoyment of the inestimable advantage of a "Reformed Parliament."

CHAPTER XXIX.

REDUCTION OF EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE

In the session 1825-'26, Mr. Macon moved that the select committee, to which had been committed the consideration of the propositions for amending the constitution in relation to the election of President and Vice-President, should also be charged with an inquiry into the expediency of reducing Executive patronage, in cases in which it could be done by law consistently with the constitution, and without impairing the efficiency of the government. The motion was adopted, and the committee (Messrs. Benton, Macon, Van Buren, White of Tennessee, Findlay of Pennsylvania, Dickerson, Holmes, Hayne, and Johnson of Kentucky) made a report, accompanied by six bills; which report and bills, though not acted upon at the time, may still have their use in showing the democratic principles, on practical points of that day (when some of the fathers of the democratic church were still among us); – and in recalling the administration of the government, to the simplicity and economy of its early days. The six bills reported were. 1. To regulate the publication of the laws of the United States, and of the public advertisements. 2. To secure in office the faithful collectors and disbursers of the revenue, and to displace defaulters. 3. To regulate the appointment of postmasters. 4. To regulate the appointment of cadets. 5. To regulate the appointment of midshipmen. 6. To prevent military and naval officers from being dismissed the service at the pleasure of the President. – In favor of the general principle, and objects of all the bills, the report accompanying them, said:

"In coming to the conclusion that Executive patronage ought to be diminished and regulated, on the plan proposed, the committee rest their opinion on the ground that the exercise of great patronage in the hands of one man, has a constant tendency to sully the purity of our institutions, and to endanger the liberties of the country. This doctrine is not new. A jealousy of power, and of the influence of patronage, which must always accompany its exercise, has ever been a distinguished feature in the American character. It displayed itself strongly at the period of the formation, and of the adoption, of the federal constitution. At that time the feebleness of the old confederation had excited a much greater dread of anarchy than of power – 'of anarchy among the members than of power in the head' – and although the impression was nearly universal that a government of more energetic character had become indispensably necessary, yet, even under the influence of this conviction – such was the dread of power and patronage – that the States, with extreme reluctance, yielded their assent to the establishment of the federal government. Nor was this the effect of idle and visionary fears, on the part of an ignorant multitude, without knowledge of the nature and tendency of power. On the contrary, it resulted from the most extensive and profound political knowledge, – from the heads of statesmen, unsurpassed, in any age, in sagacity and patriotism. Nothing could reconcile the great men of that day to a constitution of so much power, but the guards which were put upon it against the abuse of power. Dread and jealousy of this abuse displayed itself throughout the instrument. To this spirit we are indebted for the freedom of the press, trial by jury, liberty of conscience, freedom of debate, responsibility to constituents, power of impeachment, the control of the Senate over appointments to office; and many other provisions of a like character. But the committee cannot imagine that the jealous foresight of the time, great as it was, or that any human sagacity, could have foreseen, and placed a competent guard upon, every possible avenue to the abuse of power. The nature of a constitutional act excludes the possibility of combining minute perfection with general excellence. After the exertion of all possible vigilance, something of what ought to have been done, has been omitted; and much of what has been attempted, has been found insufficient and unavailing in practice. Much remains for us to do, and much will still remain for posterity to do – for those unborn generations to do, on whom will devolve the sacred task of guarding the temple of the constitution, and of keeping alive the vestal flame of liberty.

"The committee believe that they will be acting in the spirit of the constitution, in laboring to multiply the guards, and to strengthen the barriers, against the possible abuse of power. If a community could be imagined in which the laws should execute themselves – in which the power of government should consist in the enactment of laws – in such a state the machine of government would carry on its operations without jar or friction. Parties would be unknown, and the movements of the political machine would but little more disturb the passions of men, than they are disturbed by the operations of the great laws of the material world. But this is not the case. The scene shifts from this imaginary region, where laws execute themselves, to the theatre of real life, wherein they are executed by civil and military officers, by armies and navies, by courts of justice, by the collection and disbursement of revenue, with all its train of salaries, jobs, and contracts; and in this aspect of the reality, we behold the working of PATRONAGE, and discover the reason why so many stand ready, in any country, and in all ages, to flock to the standard of POWER, wheresoever, and by whomsoever, it may be raised.

"The patronage of the federal government at the beginning, was founded upon a revenue of two millions of dollars. It is now operating upon twenty-two millions; and, within the lifetime of many now living, must operate upon fifty. The whole revenue must, in a few years, be wholly applicable to subjects of patronage. At present about one half, say ten millions of it, are appropriated to the principal and interest of the public debt, which, from the nature of the object, involves but little patronage. In the course of a few years, this debt, without great mismanagement, must be paid off. A short period of peace, and a faithful application of the sinking fund, must speedily accomplish that most desirable object. Unless the revenue be then reduced, a work as difficult in republics as in monarchies, the patronage of the federal government, great as it already is, must, in the lapse of a few years, receive a vast accession of strength. The revenue itself will be doubled, and instead of one half being applicable to objects of patronage, the whole will take that direction. Thus, the reduction of the public debt, and the increase of revenue, will multiply in a four-fold degree the number of persons in the service of the federal government, the quantity of public money in their hands, and the number of objects to which it is applicable; but as each person employed will have a circle of greater or less diameter, of which he is the centre and the soul – a circle composed of friends and relations, and of individuals employed by himself on public or on private account – the actual increase of federal power and patronage by the duplication of the revenue, will be, not in the arithmetical ratio, but in geometrical progression – an increase almost beyond the power of the mind to calculate or to comprehend."

This was written twenty-five years ago. Its anticipations of increased revenue and patronage are more than realized. Instead of fifty millions of annual revenue during the lifetime of persons then living, and then deemed a visionary speculation, I saw it rise to sixty millions before I ceased to be a senator; and saw all the objects of patronage expanding and multiplying in the same degree, extending the circle of its influence, and, in many cases, reversing the end of its creation. Government was instituted for the protection of individuals – not for their support. Office was to be given upon qualifications to fill it – not upon the personal wants of the recipient. Proper persons were to be sought out and appointed – (by the President in the higher appointments, and by the heads of the different branches of service in the lower ones); and importunate suppliants were not to beg themselves into an office which belonged to the public, and was only to be administered for the public good. Such was the theory of the government. Practice has reversed it. Now office is sought for support, and for the repair of dilapidated fortunes; applicants obtrude themselves, and prefer "claims" to office. Their personal condition and party services, not qualification, are made the basis of the demand: and the crowds which congregate at Washington, at the change of an administration, supplicants for office, are humiliating to behold, and threaten to change the contests of parties from a contest for principle into a struggle for plunder.

The bills which were reported were intended to control, and regulate different branches of the public service, and to limit some exercises of executive power. 1. The publication of the government advertisements had been found to be subject to great abuse – large advertisements, and for long periods, having been often found to be given to papers of little circulation, and sometimes of no circulation at all, in places where the advertisement was to operate – the only effect of that favor being to conciliate the support of the paper, or to sustain an efficient one. For remedy, the bill for that purpose provided for the selection, and the limitation of the numbers, of the newspapers which were to publish the federal laws and advertisements, and for the periodical report of their names to Congress. 2. The four years' limitation law was found to operate contrary to its intent, and to have become the facile means of getting rid of faithful disbursing officers, instead of retaining them. The object of the law was to pass the disbursing officers every four years under the supervision of the appointing power, for the inspection of their accounts, in order that defaulters might be detected and dropped, while the faithful should be ascertained and continued. Instead of this wholesome discrimination, the expiration of the four years' term came to be considered as the termination and vacation of all the offices on which it fell, and the creation of vacancies to be filled by new appointments at the option of the President. The bill to remedy this evil gave legal effect to the original intention of the law by confining the vacation of office to actual defaulters. The power of the President to dismiss civil officers was not attempted to be curtailed, but the restraints of responsibility were placed upon its exercise by requiring the cause of dismission to be communicated to Congress in each case. The section of the bill to that effect was in these words: "That in all nominations made by the President to the Senate, to fill vacancies occasioned by an exercise of the President's power to remove from office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to the Senate at the same time that the nomination is made, with a statement of the reasons for which such officer may have been removed." This was intended to operate as a restraint upon removals without cause, and to make legal and general what the Senate itself, and the members of the committee individually, had constantly refused to do in isolated cases. It was the recognition of a principle essential to the proper exercise of the appointing power, and entirely consonant to Mr. Jefferson's idea of removals; but never admitted by any administration, nor enforced by the Senate against any one – always waiting the legal enactment. The opinion of nine such senators as composed the committee who proposed to legalize this principle, all of them democratic, and most of them aged and experienced, should stand for a persuasive reason why this principle should be legalized. 3. The appointment of military cadets was distributed according to the Congressional representation, and which has been adopted in practice, and perhaps become the patronage of the member from a district instead of the President. 5. The selection of midshipmen was placed on the same footing, and has been followed by the same practical consequence. 6. To secure the independence of the army and navy officers, the bill proposed to do, what never has been done by law, – define the tenure by which they held their commissions, and substitute "good behavior" for the clause which now runs "during the pleasure of the President." The clause in the existing commission was copied from those then in use, derived from the British government; and, in making army and navy officers subject to dismission at the will of the President, departs from the principle of our republican institutions, and lessens the independence of the officers.