CHAPTER XXXI.

CLOSING SCENE.

In looking over the House of Representatives of the ninth Congress, who had devolved on them the important duty of giving the first impulse and direction to the policy of the country in regard to foreign nations, at this critical period, when the powers of Europe, not content with destroying one another, seemed to be aiming at the commercial and political annihilation of this transatlantic republic also, we are struck with the very common and unimportant characters of which it was composed. There were, doubtless, some modest and retiring men, of sound judgment, who were content to give their vote in silence, and to pass their opinions on men and things around them without giving the world the benefit of their wisdom. But all those who were most prominent in the lead of affairs, were without reputation, without political experience or information, the mere hacks of a party, possessing none of the qualities of head or heart that constitute the statesman, filled at the same time with all the narrow conceptions and the intolerance of political bigotry. The reputation of not one has survived the age in which he lived. The world is none the wiser for what they have said or done. Their names, with all their acts, have gone down to oblivion. Such men require a head to think for them; without knowledge, or independence of character, they needed a leader to guide and to instruct them in their duty. Coming into office under the auspices of Mr. Jefferson, his opinion was law to their understanding, his will the harmonizing agent to all their actions. The true character of the representative office, and the delicate relationship existing between that and the Executive, was beyond their conception; and they made a boast and a virtue of their unbounded confidence in the source of all power and patronage. In the hands of a virtuous President, these men were the confiding representatives without question to approve his measures; in the hands of a corrupt and ambitious aspirant, they would have been the subtle tools to enregister his edicts of usurpation or oppression. Fortunately for the country, Mr. Jefferson

was a pure patriot and an honest man; he seemed to have no other wish but the good of his country. And, perhaps, it was a consciousness of this fact that made his followers place such implicit reliance on the propriety and the wisdom of whatever he did. What is blind fidelity to the leader of an opposition, will soon be converted into corrupt adulation to the bountiful dispenser of all honors and rewards. An honest coincidence of opinion will be the source of allegiance in the one case; but a base affinity for the loaves and fishes will be the means of cohesion in the other. Corruption follows power; and the rapacious and the profligate, like sharks in the sea, are sure to swim in the wake of the rich freighted argosy of state.

The proceedings of Congress, in regard to our foreign relations, furnish a fruitful commentary on the facility with which men will surrender their opinions and their consciences into the keeping of a popular leader; and the readiness with which bodies of men, in a corporate capacity, will do an act that would disgrace an individual of common respectability. As to these foreign affairs, so complicated and so critical, the President had no plan to propose. On this subject, above all others, he had a right to give a direction to the acts of the legislature; the treaty-making power belonged to him and to the Senate. He did not comply with the Constitution; he informed them of the facts in his possession, but did not recommend what should be done. He had no well-digested plan, on which he was willing to stake his reputation as a statesman; but he stimulated the legislature, by an expression of his secret wishes, to do those things which he was not willing to assume the responsibility of recommending. This was certainly degrading the representative body to a menial purpose. But they were wholly unconscious of the part they were made to act; and when the proud and independent spirit of their leader rose in rebellion, they sought to hunt him down like some wild beast that had broken into the quiet close of a browsing herd. But in justice to these men, it must be conceded, that it was not so much the acts of Mr. Randolph on the Spanish question that offended them, as the bitter and sarcastic words used by him on all occasions towards some of those who professed to belong to the same party, and claimed to be his political friends. It is true, he did not mince his words, and in the heat of debate, he spoke the plain truth in strongest terms. There was no diplomatic ambiguity about him;

and often his blunt directness of expression gave offence where it was not intended. But possessing, as he did, a keen insight into the motives of men; having a high sense of the dignity and purity of the representative character, and a strong disgust for selfishness and grovelling meanness in those who should be patterns of truth and nobleness, he was unsparing in his denunciations of men who, under the guise of republicanism, had crept into official places for no other purpose but to rob the treasury. And it must be confessed that there were not a few of this class to be found in all the departments of government. The Yazoo speculation, Proteus-like, had assumed every shape by which it could glide into the councils of the nation, and find favor in the eyes of the people; it was the dry-rot of the body politic, that secretly consumed the very joints of its massive timbers. A member of the President's cabinet, as we already know, was the Hercules on whose shoulders was upreared this vast fabric of speculation; the boundless patronage of his office was prostituted to his purposes; and he insolently boasted of the means that he used and the triumph he anticipated over the public virtue. There were many post-office contractors in the House of Representatives; the evil had grown to such an extent that Randolph moved an amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting all contractors from holding a seat on the floor of Congress. "I have said, and I repeat it," said Mr. Randolph, "that the aspect in which this thing presents itself, would alone determine me to resist it. (The Yazoo petitioners.) In one of the petitioners I behold an executive officer, who receives and distributes a yearly revenue of three hundred thousand dollars, yielding scarcely any net profit to the government-a patronage limited only by the extent of our country. Is this right? Is it even decent? Shall political power be made the engine of private interest? Shall such a suspicion tarnish your proceedings? How would you receive a petition from a President of the United States, if such a case can be supposed possible? Sir, I wish to see the same purity pervading every subordinate branch of administration, which I am persuaded exists in its great departments. Shall persons holding appointments under the great and good man who presides over our counsels, draw on the rich fund of his well-earned reputation, to eke out their flimsy and scanty pretensions? Is the relation in which they stand to him to be made the cloak and cover of their dark

designs? To the gentleman from New-York, who takes fire at every insinuation against his friend, I have only to observe on this subject, that what I dare say, I dare to justify. To the House I will relate an incident how far I have lightly conceived or expressed an opinion to the prejudice of any man. I owe an apology to my informant for making public what he certainly did not authorize me to reveal. There is no reparation which can be offered by one gentleman and accepted by another that I shall not be ready to make him, but I feel myself already justified to him, since he sees the circumstances under which I act. A few evenings since a profitable contract for carrying the mail was offered to a friend of mine, who is a member of this House. You must know, sir, the person so often alluded to, maintains a jackal; fed not, as you would suppose, upon the offal of contract, but with the fairest pieces in the shambles; and at night, when honest men are abed, does this obscene animal prowl through the streets of this vast and desolate city, seeking whom he may tamper with. Well, sir, when this worthy plenipotentiary had made his proposal in due form, the independent man to whom it was addressed, saw at once its drift. 'Tell your principal,' said he, that I will take his contract, but I shall vote against the Yazoo claim, notwithstanding.' Next day he was told that there had been some misunderstanding of the business, that he could not have the contract, as it was previously bespoken by another.

Sir, I well recollect, when first I had the honor of a seat in this House, we were then members of a small minority-a poor forlorn hope that this very petitioner appeared at Philadelphia on behalf of another great land company on Lake Erie. He then told us, as an inducement to vote for the Connecticut reserve (as it was called), that if that measure failed, it would ruin the republicans and the cause in that State. You, sir, cannot have forgotten the reply he received: That we did not understand the republicanism that was to be paid for; that we feared it was not of the right sort, but spurious.' And having maintained our principles through the ordeal of that day, shall we now abandon them to act with the men and upon the measures which we then abjured? Shall we now condescend to means which we disdained to use in the most desperate crisis of our political fortunes? This is indeed the age of monstrous coalitions; and this corruption has the qualities of connecting the most inveterate

enemies, personal as well as political. It has united in close concert those, of whom it has been said, not in the figurative language of prophecy, but in the sober narrative of history, 'I have bruised thy head and thou hast bruised my heel.' Such is the description of persons who would present to the President of the United States an act, to which, when he puts his hand, he signs a libel on his whole political life. But he will never tarnish the unsullied lustre of his fame; he will never sanction the monstrous position (for such it is, dress it up as you will), that a legislator may sell his vote, and a right which cannot be divested will pass under such sale. Establish this doctrine, and there is an end of representative government; from that moment republicanism receives its death-blow.

"The feeble cry of Virginian influence and ambitious leaders, is attempted to be raised. If such insinuations were worthy of a reply, I might appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, for the fact, that no man in this House (yourself perhaps excepted) is oftener in a minority than I am. If by a leader be meant one who speaks his opinion frankly and boldly-who claims something of that independence, of which the gentleman from New-York so loudly vaunts-who will not connive at public robbery, be the robbers who they may, then the imputation may be just; such is the nature of my ambition: but in the common acceptation of words, nothing can be more false. In the coarse but strong language of the proverb, ''tis the still sow that sucks the draff.'

"No, sir, we are not the leaders. There they sit and well they know it, forcing down our throats the most obnoxious measures. Gentlemen may be silent, but they shall be dragged into public view. If they direct our public counsels, at least let them answer for the result. We will not be responsible for their measures. If we do not hold the reins, we will not be accountable for the accidents which may befall the carriage.

"But, sir, I am a denunciator! Of whom? Of the gentlemen on my left? Not at all; but of those men and their principles whom the people themselves have denounced; on whom they have burnt their indelible curse, deep and lasting as the lightning from heaven.

"Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that we should not be content to live upon the principal of our popularity, that we should go on to deserve the public confidence, and the disapprobation of the gentleman over