Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

CHAPTER II.

ADMISSION OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI

This was the exciting and agitating question of the session of 1820-'21. The question of restriction, that is, of prescribing the abolition of slavery within her limits, had been "compromised" the session before, by agreeing to admit the State without restriction, and abolishing it in all the remainder of the province of Louisiana, north and west of the State of Missouri, and north of the parallel of 36 degrees, 30 minutes. This "compromise" was the work of the South, sustained by the united voice of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, the united voices of the Southern senators, and a majority of the Southern representatives. The unanimity of the cabinet has been shown, impliedly, by a letter of Mr. Monroe, and positively by the Diary of Mr. John Quincy Adams. The unanimity of the slave States in the Senate, where the measure originated, is shown by its journal, not on the motion to insert the section constituting the compromise (for on that motion the yeas and nays were not taken), but on the motion to strike it out, when they were taken, and showed 30 votes for the compromise, and 15 against it – every one of the latter from non-slaveholding States – the former comprehending every slave State vote present, and a few from the North. As the constitutionality of this compromise, and its binding force, have, in these latter times, begun to be disputed, it is well to give the list of the senators names voting for it, that it may be seen that they were men of judgment and weight, able to know what the constitution was, and not apt to violate it. They were Governor Barbour and Governor Pleasants, of Virginia; Mr. James Brown and Governor Henry Johnson, of Louisiana; Governor Edwards and Judge Jesse B. Thomas, of Illinois; Mr. Elliott and Mr. Walker, of Georgia; Mr. Gaillard, President, pro tempore, of the Senate and Judge William Smith, from South Carolina; Messrs. Horsey and Van Dyke, of Delaware; Colonel Richard M. Johnson and Judge Logan, from Kentucky; Mr. William R. King, since Vice-President of the United States, and Judge John W. Walker, from Alabama; Messrs. Leake and Thomas H. Williams, of Mississippi; Governor Edward Lloyd, and the great jurist and orator, William Pinkney, from Maryland; Mr. Macon and Governor Stokes, from North Carolina; Messrs. Walter Lowrie and Jonathan Roberts, from Pennsylvania; Mr. Noble and Judge Taylor, from Indiana; Mr. Palmer, from Vermont; Mr. Parrott, from New Hampshire. This was the vote of the Senate for the compromise. In the House, there was some division among Southern members; but the whole vote in favor of it was 134, to 42 in the negative – the latter comprising some Northern members, as the former did a majority of the Southern – among them one whose opinion had a weight never exceeded by that of any other American statesman, William Lowndes, of South Carolina. This array of names shows the Missouri compromise to have been a Southern measure, and the event put the seal upon that character by showing it to be acceptable to the South. But it had not allayed the Northern feeling against an increase of slave States, then openly avowed to be a question of political power between the two sections of the Union. The State of Missouri made her constitution, sanctioning slavery, and forbidding the legislature to interfere with it. This prohibition, not usual in State constitutions, was the effect of the Missouri controversy and of foreign interference, and was adopted for the sake of peace – for the sake of internal tranquillity – and to prevent the agitation of the slave question, which could only be accomplished by excluding it wholly from the forum of elections and legislation. I was myself the instigator of that prohibition, and the cause of its being put into the constitution – though not a member of the convention – being equally opposed to slavery agitation and to slavery extension. There was also a clause in it, authorizing the legislature to prohibit the emigration of free people of color into the State; and this clause was laid hold of in Congress to resist the admission of the State. It was treated as a breach of that clause in the federal constitution, which guarantees equal privileges in all the States to the citizens of every State, of which privileges the right of emigration was one; and free people of color being admitted to citizenship in some of the States, this prohibition of emigration was held to be a violation of that privilege in their persons. But the real point of objection was the slavery clause, and the existence of slavery in the State, which it sanctioned, and seemed to perpetuate. The constitution of the State, and her application for admission, was presented by her late delegate and representative elect, Mr. John Scott; and on his motion, was referred to a select committee. Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, Mr. John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, and General Samuel Smith, of Maryland, were appointed the committee; and the majority being from slave States, a resolution was quickly reported in favor of the admission of the State. But the majority of the House being the other way, the resolution was rejected, 79 to 83 – and by a clear slavery and anti-slavery vote, the exceptions being but three, and they on the side of admission, and contrary to the sentiment of their own State. They were Mr. Henry Shaw, of Massachusetts, and General Bloomfield and Mr. Bernard Smith, of New-Jersey. In the Senate, the application of the State shared a similar fate. The constitution was referred to a committee of three, Messrs. Judge William Smith, of South Carolina, Mr. James Burrill, of Rhode Island, and Mr. Macon, of North Carolina, a majority of whom being from slave States, a resolution of admission was reported, and passed the Senate – Messrs. Chandler and Holmes, of Maine, voting with the friends of admission; but was rejected in the House of Representatives. A second resolution to the same effect passed the Senate, and was again rejected in the House. A motion was then made in the House by Mr. Clay to raise a committee to act jointly with any committee which might be appointed by the Senate, "to consider and report to the Senate and the House respectively, whether it be expedient or not, to make provision for the admission of Missouri into the Union on the same footing as the original States, and for the due execution of the laws of the United States within Missouri? and if not, whether any other, and what provision adapted to her actual condition ought to be made by law." This motion was adopted by a majority of nearly two to one – 101 to 55 – which shows a large vote in its favor from the non-slaveholding States. Twenty-three, being a number equal to the number of the States, were then appointed on the part of the House, and were: Messrs. Clay, Thomas W. Cobb, of Georgia; Mark Langdon Hill, of Massachusetts; Philip P. Barbour, of Virginia; Henry R. Storrs, of New-York; John Cocke, of Tennessee; Christopher Rankin, of Mississippi; William S. Archer, of Virginia; William Brown, of Kentucky; Samuel Eddy, from Rhode Island; William D. Ford, of New-York; William Culbreth, Aaron Hackley, of New-York; Samuel Moore, of Pennsylvania; James Stevens, of Connecticut; Thomas J. Rogers, from Pennsylvania; Henry Southard, of New-Jersey; John Randolph; James S. Smith, of North Carolina; William Darlington, of Pennsylvania; Nathaniel Pitcher, of New-York; John Sloan, of Ohio, and Henry Baldwin, of Pennsylvania. The Senate by a vote almost unanimous – 29 to 7 – agreed to the joint committee proposed by the House of Representatives; and Messrs. John Holmes, of Maine; James Barbour, of Virginia; Jonathan Roberts, of Pennsylvania; David L. Morril, of New-Hampshire; Samuel L. Southard, of New-Jersey; Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky; and Rufus King, of New-York, to be a committee on its part. The joint committee acted, and soon reported a resolution in favor of the admission of the State, upon the condition that her legislature should first declare that the clause in her constitution relative to the free colored emigration into the State, should never be construed to authorize the passage of any act by which any citizen of either of the States of the Union should be excluded from the enjoyment of any privilege to which he may be entitled under the constitution of the United States; and the President of the United States being furnished with a copy of said act, should, by proclamation, declare the State to be admitted. This resolution was passed in the House by a close vote – 86 to 82 – several members from non-slaveholding States voting for it. In the Senate it was passed by two to one – 28 to 14; and the required declaration having been soon made by the General Assembly of Missouri, and communicated to the President, his proclamation was issued accordingly, and the State admitted. And thus ended the "Missouri controversy," or that form of the slavery question which undertook to restrict a State from the privilege of having slaves if she chose. The question itself, under other forms, has survived, and still survives, but not under the formidable aspect which it wore during that controversy, when it divided Congress geographically, and upon the slave line. The real struggle was political, and for the balance of power, as frankly declared by Mr. Rufus King, who disdained dissimulation; and in that struggle the non-slaveholding States, though defeated in the State of Missouri, were successful in producing the "compromise," conceived and passed as a Southern measure. The resistance made to the admission of the State on account of the clause in relation to free people of color, was only a mask to the real cause of opposition, and has since shown to be so by the facility with which many States, then voting in a body against the admission of Missouri on that account, now exclude the whole class of the free colored emigrant population from their borders, and without question, by statute, or by constitutional amendment. For a while this formidable Missouri question threatened the total overthrow of all political parties upon principle, and the substitution of geographical parties discriminated by the slave line, and of course destroying the just and proper action of the federal government, and leading eventually to a separation of the States. It was a federal movement, accruing to the benefit of that party, and at first was overwhelming, sweeping all the Northern democracy into its current, and giving the supremacy to their adversaries. When this effect was perceived the Northern democracy became alarmed, and only wanted a turn or abatement in the popular feeling at home, to take the first opportunity to get rid of the question by admitting the State, and re-establishing party lines upon the basis of political principle. This was the decided feeling when I arrived at Washington, and many of the old Northern democracy took early opportunities to declare themselves to me to that effect, and showed that they were ready to vote the admission of the State in any form which would answer the purpose, and save themselves from going so far as to lose their own States, and give the ascendant to their political adversaries. In the Senate, Messrs. Lowrie and Roberts, from Pennsylvania; Messrs. Morril and Parrott, from New-Hampshire; Messrs. Chandler and Holmes, from Maine; Mr. William Hunter, from Rhode Island; and Mr. Southard, from New-Jersey, were of that class; and I cannot refrain from classing with them Messrs. Horsey and Vandyke, from Delaware, which, though counted as a slave State, yet from its isolated and salient position, and small number of slaves, seems more justly to belong to the other side. In the House the vote of nearly two to one in favor of Mr. Clay's resolution for a joint committee, and his being allowed to make out his own list of the House committee (for it was well known that he drew up the list of names himself, and distributed it through the House to be voted), sufficiently attest the temper of that body, and showed the determination of the great majority to have the question settled. Mr. Clay has been often complimented as the author of the "compromise" of 1820, in spite of his repeated declaration to the contrary, that measure coming from the Senate; but he is the undisputed author of the final settlement of the Missouri controversy in the actual admission of the State. He had many valuable coadjutors from the North – Baldwin, of Pennsylvania; Storrs and Meigs, of New-York; Shaw, of Massachusetts: and he had also some opponents from the South – members refusing to vote for the "conditional" admission of the State, holding her to be entitled to absolute admission – among them Mr. Randolph. I have been minute in stating this controversy, and its settlement, deeming it advantageous to the public interest that history and posterity should see it in the proper point of view; and that it was a political movement for the balance of power, balked by the Northern democracy, who saw their own overthrow, and the eventual separation of the States, in the establishment of geographical parties divided by a slavery and anti-slavery line.

CHAPTER III.

FINANCES. – REDUCTION OF THE ARMY

The distress of the country became that of the government. Small as the government expenditure then was, only about twenty-one millions of dollars (including eleven millions for permanent or incidental objects), it was still too great for the revenues of the government at this disastrous period. Reductions of expense, and loans, became the resort, and economy – that virtuous policy in all times – became the obligatory and the forced policy of this time. The small regular army was the first, and the largest object on which the reduction fell. Small as it was, it was reduced nearly one-half – from 10,000 to 6,000 men. The navy felt it next – the annual appropriation of one million for its increase being reduced to half a million. The construction and armament of fortifications underwent the like process. Reductions of expense took place at many other points, and even the abolition of a clerkship of $800 in the office of the Attorney General, was not deemed an object below the economical attention of Congress. After all a loan became indispensable, and the President was authorized to borrow five millions of dollars. The sum of twenty-one millions then to be raised for the service of the government, small as it now appears, was more than double the amount required for the actual expenses of the government – for the actual expense of its administration, or the working its machinery. More than half went to permanent or incidental objects, to wit: principal and interest of the public debt, five and a half millions; gradual increase of the navy, one million; pensions, one and a half millions; fortifications, $800,000; arms, munitions, ordnance, and other small items, about two millions; making in the whole about eleven millions, and leaving for the expense of keeping the machinery of government in operation, about ten millions of dollars; and which was reduced to less than nine millions after the reductions of this year were effected. A sum of one million of dollars, over and above the estimated expenditure of the government, was always deemed necessary to be provided and left in the treasury to meet contingencies – a sum which, though small in itself, was absolutely unnecessary for that purpose, and the necessity for which was founded in the mistaken idea that the government expends every year, within the year, the amount of its income. This is entirely fallacious, and never did and never can take place; for a large portion of the government payments accruing within the latter quarters of any year are not paid until the next year. And so on in every quarter of every year. The sums becoming payable in each quarter being in many instances, and from the nature of the service, only paid in the next quarter, while new revenue is coming in. This process regularly going on always leaves a balance in the treasury at the end of the year, not called for until the beginning of the next year, and when there is a receipt of money to meet the demand, even if there had been no balance in hand. Thus, at the end of the year 1820, one of the greatest depression, and when demands pressed most rapidly upon the treasury, there was a balance of above two millions of dollars in the treasury – to be precise, $2,076,607 14, being one-tenth of the annual revenue. In prosperous years the balance is still larger, sometimes amounting to the fourth, or the fifth of the annual revenue; as may be seen in the successive annual reports of the finances. There is, therefore, no necessity to provide for keeping any balance as a reserve in the treasury, though in later times this provision has been carried up to six millions – a mistake which economy, the science of administration, and the purity of the government, requires to be corrected.

CHAPTER IV.

RELIEF OF PUBLIC LAND DEBTORS

Distress was the cry of the day; relief the general demand. State legislatures were occupied in devising measures of local relief; Congress in granting it to national debtors. Among these was the great and prominent class of the public land purchasers. The credit system then prevailed, and the debt to the government had accumulated to twenty-three millions of dollars – a large sum in itself, but enormous when considered in reference to the payors, only a small proportion of the population, and they chiefly the inhabitants of the new States and territories, whose resources were few. Their situation was deplorable. A heavy debt to pay, and lands already partly paid for to be forfeited if full payment was not made. The system was this: the land was sold at a minimum price of two dollars per acre, one payment in hand and the remainder in four annual instalments, with forfeiture of all that had been paid if each successive instalment was not delivered to the day. In the eagerness to procure fresh lands, and stimulated by the delusive prosperity which multitudes of banks created after the war, there was no limit to purchasers except in the ability to make the first payment. That being accomplished, it was left to the future to provide for the remainder. The banks failed; money vanished; instalments were becoming due which could not be met; and the opening of Congress in November, 1820, was saluted by the arrival of memorials from all the new States, showing the distress, and praying relief to the purchasers of the public lands. The President, in his annual message to Congress, deemed it his duty to bring the subject before that body, and in doing so recommended indulgence in consideration of the unfavorable change which had occurred since the sales. Both Houses of Congress took up the subject, and a measure of relief was devised by the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Crawford, which was equally desirable both to the purchaser and the government. The principle of the relief was to change all future sales from the credit to the cash system, and to reduce the minimum price of the lands to one dollar, twenty-five cents per acre, and to give all present debtors the benefit of that system, by allowing them to consolidate payments already made on different tracts on any particular one, relinquishing the rest; and allowing a discount for ready pay on all that had been entered, equal to the difference between the former and present minimum price. This released the purchasers from debt, and the government from the inconvenient relation of creditor to its own citizens. A debt of twenty-three millions of dollars was quietly got rid of; and purchasers were enabled to save lands, at the reduced price, to the amount of their payments already made: and thus saved in all cases their homes and fields, and as much more of their purchases as they were able to pay for at the reduced rate. It was an equitable arrangement of a difficult subject, and lacked but two features to make it perfect; first, a pre-emptive right to all first settlers; and, secondly, a periodical reduction of price according to the length of time the land should have been in market, so as to allow of different prices for different qualities, and to accomplish in a reasonable time the sale of the whole. Applications were made at that time for the establishment of the pre-emptive system; but without effect, and, apparently without the prospect of eventual success. Not even a report of a committee could be got in its favor – nothing more than temporary provisions, as special favors, in particular circumstances. But perseverance was successful. The new States continued to press the question, and finally prevailed; and now the pre-emptive principle has become a fixed part of our land system, permanently incorporated with it, and to the equal advantage of the settler and the government. The settler gets a choice home in a new country, due to his enterprise, courage, hardships and privations in subduing the wilderness: the government gets a body of cultivators whose labor gives value to the surrounding public lands, and whose courage and patriotism volunteers for the public defence whenever it is necessary. The second, or graduation principle, though much pressed, has not yet been established, but its justice and policy are self-evident, and the exertions to procure it should not be intermitted until successful. The passage of this land relief bill was attended by incidents which showed the delicacy of members at that time, in voting on questions in which they might be interested. Many members of Congress were among the public land debtors, and entitled to the relief to be granted. One of their number, Senator William Smith, from South Carolina, brought the point before the Senate on a motion to be excused from voting on account of his interest. The motion to excuse was rejected, on the ground that his interest was general, in common with the country, and not particular, in relation to himself: and that his constituents were entitled to the benefit of his vote.

CHAPTER V.

OREGON TERRITORY

The session of 1820-21 is remarkable as being the first at which any proposition was made in Congress for the occupation and settlement of our territory on the Columbia River – the only part then owned by the United States on the Pacific coast. It was made by Dr. Floyd, a representative from Virginia, an ardent man, of great ability, and decision of character, and, from an early residence in Kentucky, strongly imbued with western feelings. He took up this subject with the energy which belonged to him, and it required not only energy, but courage, to embrace a subject which, at that time, seemed more likely to bring ridicule than credit to its advocate. I had written and published some essays on the subject the year before, which he had read. Two gentlemen (Mr. Ramsay Crooks, of New-York, and Mr. Russell Farnham, of Massachusetts), who had been in the employment of Mr. John Jacob Astor in founding his colony of Astoria, and carrying on the fur trade on the northwest coast of America, were at Washington that winter, and had their quarters at the same hotel (Brown's), where Dr. Floyd and I had ours. Their acquaintance was naturally made by Western men like us – in fact, I knew them before; and their conversation, rich in information upon a new and interesting country, was eagerly devoured by the ardent spirit of Floyd. He resolved to bring forward the question of occupation, and did so. He moved for a select committee to consider and report upon the subject. The committee was granted by the House, more through courtesy to a respected member, than with any view to business results. It was a committee of three, himself chairman, according to parliamentary rule, and Thomas Metcalfe, of Kentucky (since Governor of the State), and Thomas V. Swearingen, from Western Virginia, for his associates – both like himself ardent men, and strong in western feeling. They reported a bill within six days after the committee was raised, "to authorize the occupation of the Columbia River, and to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes thereon," accompanied by an elaborate report, replete with valuable statistics, in support of the measure. The fur trade, the Asiatic trade, and the preservation of our own territory, were the advantages proposed. The bill was treated with the parliamentary courtesy which respect for the committee required: it was read twice, and committed to a committee of the whole House for the next day – most of the members not considering it a serious proceeding. Nothing further was done in the House that session, but the first blow was struck: public attention was awakened, and the geographical, historical, and statistical facts set forth in the report, made a lodgment in the public mind which promised eventual favorable consideration. I had not been admitted to my seat in the Senate at the time, but was soon after, and quickly came to the support of Dr. Floyd's measure (who continued to pursue it with zeal and ability); and at a subsequent session presented some views on the subject which will bear reproduction at this time. The danger of a contest with Great Britain, to whom we had admitted a joint possession, and who had already taken possession, was strongly suggested, if we delayed longer our own occupation; "and a vigorous effort of policy, and perhaps of arms, might be necessary to break her hold." Unauthorized, or individual occupation was intimated as a consequence of government neglect, and what has since taken place was foreshadowed in this sentence: "mere adventurers may enter upon it, as Æneas entered upon the Tiber, and as our forefathers came upon the Potomac, the Delaware and the Hudson, and renew the phenomenon of individuals laying the foundation of a future empire." The effect upon Asia of the arrival of an American population on the coast of the Pacific Ocean was thus exhibited: "Upon the people of Eastern Asia the establishment of a civilized power on the opposite coast of America, could not fail to produce great and wonderful benefits. Science, liberal principles in government, and the true religion, might cast their lights across the intervening sea. The valley of the Columbia might become the granary of China and Japan, and an outlet to their imprisoned and exuberant population. The inhabitants of the oldest and the newest, the most despotic and the freest governments, would become the neighbors, and the friends of each other. To my mind the proposition is clear, that Eastern Asia and the two Americas, as they become neighbors should become friends and I for one had as lief see American ministers going to the emperors of China and Japan, to the king of Persia, and even to the Grand Turk, as to see them dancing attendance upon those European legitimates who hold every thing American in contempt and detestation." Thus I spoke; and this I believe was the first time that a suggestion for sending ministers to the Oriental nations was publicly made in the United States. It was then a "wild" suggestion: it is now history. Besides the preservation of our own territory on the Pacific, the establishment of a port there for the shelter of our commercial and military marine, the protection of the fur trade and aid to the whaling vessels, the accomplishment of Mr. Jefferson's idea of a commercial communication with Asia through the heart of our own continent, was constantly insisted upon as a consequence of planting an American colony at the mouth of the Columbia. That man of large and useful ideas – that statesman who could conceive measures useful to all mankind, and in all time to come – was the first to propose that commercial communication, and may also be considered the first discoverer of the Columbia River. His philosophic mind told him that where a snow-clad mountain, like that of the Rocky Mountains, shed the waters on one side which collected into such a river as the Missouri, there must be a corresponding shedding and collection of waters on the other; and thus he was perfectly assured of the existence of a river where the Columbia has since been found to be, although no navigator had seen its mouth and no explorer trod its banks. His conviction was complete; but the idea was too grand and useful to be permitted to rest in speculation. He was then minister to France, and the famous traveller Ledyard, having arrived at Paris on his expedition of discovery to the Nile, was prevailed upon by Mr. Jefferson to enter upon a fresher and more useful field of discovery. He proposed to him to change his theatre from the Old to the New World, and, proceeding to St. Petersburg upon a passport he would obtain for him, he should there obtain permission from the Empress Catharine to traverse her dominions in a high northern latitude to their eastern extremity – cross the sea from Kamschatka, or at Behring's Straits, and descending the northwest coast of America, come down upon the river which must head opposite the head of the Missouri, ascend it to its source in the Rocky Mountains, and then follow the Missouri to the French settlements on the Upper Mississippi; and thence home. It was a magnificent and a daring project of discovery, and on that account the more captivating to the ardent spirit of Ledyard. He undertook it – went to St. Petersburg – received the permission of the Empress – and had arrived in Siberia when he was overtaken by a revocation of the permission, and conducted as a spy out of the country. He then returned to Paris, and resumed his original design of that exploration of the Nile to its sources which terminated in his premature death, and deprived the world of a young and adventurous explorer, from whose ardour, courage, perseverance and genius, great and useful results were to have been expected. Mr. Jefferson was balked in that, his first attempt, to establish the existence of the Columbia River. But a time was coming for him to undertake it under better auspices. He became President of the United States, and in that character projected the expedition of Lewis and Clark, obtained the sanction of Congress, and sent them forth to discover the head and course of the river (whose mouth was then known), for the double purpose of opening an inland commercial communication with Asia, and enlarging the boundaries of geographical science. The commercial object was placed first in his message, and as the object to legitimate the expedition. And thus Mr. Jefferson was the first to propose the North American road to India, and the introduction of Asiatic trade on that road; and all that I myself have either said or written on that subject from the year 1819, when I first took it up, down to the present day when I still contend for it, is nothing but the fruit of the seed planted in my mind by the philosophic hand of Mr. Jefferson. Honor to all those who shall assist in accomplishing his great idea.