THIRTY YEARS' VIEW.

tain themselves at home, that the custom-house proved; but I do not come here to argue upon
books were showing that a great many species
of our manufactures, and especially the cotton,
were going abroad to far distant countries; and
sustaining themselves on remote theatres against
all competition, and beyond the range of any
help from our laws. Mr. Clay, himself, spoke of
this exportation, to show the excellence of our
fabrics, and that they were worth protection; I
used the same fact to show that they were inde-
pendent of protection; and said:

admissions, whether candid or unguar led, of the
proofs; and, really, sir, I have a mind to com-
plain that the gentleman's admission about cot-
adversary speakers. I bring my own facts and
tons has crippled the force of my argument;
that it has weakened its effect by letting out half
at a time, and destroyed its novelty, by an anti-
(that we exported domestic cottons) treasured
cipated revelation. The truth is, I have this fact
up in my magazine of material! and intended
to produce it, at the proper time, to show that
we exported this article, not to Canton and Cal-
in great quantities, as a regular trade, to the
cutta alone, but to all quarters of the globe; not
amount of a million and a quarter of dollars,
a few cargoes only, by way of experiment, but
forty thousand dollars' worth, in the year 1830,
had done what the combined fleets and armies
annually; and that, of this amount, no less than
of the world could not do; it had scaled the
rock of Gibraltar, penetrated to the heart of the
British garrison, taken possession of his Britan-

"And here I would ask, how many and which are the articles that require the present high rate of protection? Certainly not the cotton manufacture; for, the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], who appears on this floor as the leading champion of domestic manufactures, and whose admissions of fact must be conclusive against his arguments of theory! this senator tells you, and dwells upon the disclosure with triumphant ex-nic Majesty's soldiers, bound their arms, legs, and ultation, that American cottons are now exported bodies, and strutted in triumph over the ramto Asia, and sold at a profit in the cotton markets of Canton and Calcutta! Surely, sir, our parts and batteries of that unattackable fortress. tariff laws of 1824 and 1828 are not in force in And now, sir, I will use no more of the gentleBengal and China. And I appeal to all mankind man's admissions; I will draw upon my own for the truth of the inference, that, if our cottons of our domestic manufactures to be in the same can go to these countries, and be sold at a profit flourishing condition with cottons, actually going resources; and will show nearly the whole list without any protection at all, they can stay at home, and be sold to our own citizens, without abroad to seek competition, without protection, loss, under a less protection than fifty and two hundred and fifty per centum! One fact, Mr. riously with foreign manufactures wherever they in every foreign clime, and contending victoPresident, is said to be worth a thousand theo- can encounter them. I read from the customries; I will add that it is worth a hundred thou-house returns, of 1830-the last that has been sand speeches; and this fact that the American printed. Listen to it: cottons now traverse the one-half of the circum

ference of this globe-cross the equinoctial line; descend to the antipodes; seek foreign markets on the double theatre of British and Asiatic com

petition, and come off victorious from the contest-is a full and overwhelming answer to all the speeches that have been made, or ever can be made, in favor of high protecting duties on these cottons at home. The only effect of such duties is to cut off importations-to create monopoly at home-to enable our manufacturers to sell their goods higher to their own christian fellow-citizens than to the pagan worshippers of Fo and of Brahma! to enable the inhabitants of the Ganges and the Burrampooter to wear American cottons upon cheaper terms than the inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi. And every Western citizen knows the fact, that when these shipments of American cottons were making to the extremities of Asia, the price of these same cottons was actually raised twenty and twenty five per cent., in all the towns of the West; with this further difference to our prejudice, that we can only pay for them in money, while the inhabitants of Asia make payment in the products

of their own country.

"This is what the gentleman's admission

whole, or nearly the whole, of that long cata"This is the list of domestic manufactures exported to foreign countries. It comprehends the discourse; and shows the whole to be going logue of items which the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] read to us, on the second day of his abroad, without a shadow of protection, to seek goods of all the world. The list of articles I competition, in foreign markets, with the foreign factures (and I have omitted many minor artihave read, contains near fifty varieties of manucles) amounting, in value, to near six millions of dollars! And now behold the diversity of human reasoning! The senator from Kentucky exhibits a list of articles manufactured in the United in the enormous protection they now enjoy, will States, and argues that the slightest diminution overwhelm the whole in ruin, and cover the country with distress; I read the same identical and contend victoriously with their foreign rivals in all foreign markets." list, to show that all these articles go abroad

and 1828 the reviving and returning prosperity Mr. Clay had attributed to the tariffs of 1824 effect of recovery from prostration, and in spite of the country, while in fact it was the mere

of these tariffs, instead of by their help. Business had been brought to a stand during the disastrous period which ensued the establishment of the Bank of the United States. It was a period of stagnation, of settlement, of paying up, of getting clear of loads of debt; and starting afresh. It was the strong man, freed from the burthen under which he had long been prostrate, and getting on his feet again. In the West I knew that this was the process, and that our revived prosperity was entirely the result of our own resources, independent of, and in spite of federal legislation; and so declared it in my speech. I said:

1

"The fine effects of the high tariff upon the prosperity of the West have been celebrated on this floor: with how much reason, let facts respond, and the people judge! I do not think we are indebted to the high tariff for our fertile lands and our navigable rivers; and I am certain we are indebted to these blessings for the prosperity we enjoy. In all that comes from the soil, the people of the West are rich. They have an abundant supply of food for man and beast, and a large surplus to send abroad. They have the comfortable living which industry creates for itself in a rich soil; but, beyond this, they are poor. They have none of the splendid works which imply the presence of the moneyed power! No Appian or Flaminian ways; no roads paved or McAdamized; no canals, except what are made upon borrowed means; no aqueducts; no bridges of stone across our innumerable streams; no edifices dedicated to eternity; no schools for the fine arts: not a public library for which an ordinary scholar would not apologize. And why none of those things? Have the people of the West no taste for public improvements, for the useful and the fine arts, and for literature? Certainly they have a very strong taste for them; but they have no money! not enough for private and current uses, not enough to defray our current expenses, and buy necessaries! without thinking of public improvements. We have no money! and that is a tale

Behold, on the other hand, the flying steamboats, and the fleets of floating arks, loaded with the products of the forest, the farm, and the pasture, following the course of our noble rivers, and bearing their freights to that great city which revives, upon the banks of the Mississippi, the name* of the greatest of the emperors that ever reigned upon the banks of the heroic exploits by giving an order to his legions Tiber, and who eclipsed the glory of his own never to levy a contribution of salt upon a Roman citizen! Behold this double line of exports, and observe the refluent currents of gold and silver which result from them! Large are the supplies-millions are the amount which is annually poured into the West from these double exportations; enough to cover the face of the earth with magnificent improvements, and to cram every industrious pocket with gold and silver. But where is this money? for it is not in the country! Where does it go? for go it does, and scarcely leaves a vestige of its transit behind! Sir, it goes to the Northeast! to the seat of the American system! there it goes! and thus it goes!"

Mr. Clay had commenced his speech with an apology for what might be deemed failing powers on account of advancing age. He said he was getting old, and might not be able to fulfil the expectation, and requite the attention, of the attending crowd; and wished the task could have fallen to younger and abler hands. This apology for age when no diminution of mental or bodily vigor was perceptible, induced several speakers to commence their replies with allusions to it, generally complimentary, but not admitting the fact. Mr. Hayne gracefully said, that he had lamented the advances of age, and mourned the decay of his eloquence, so eloquently as to prove that it was still in full vigor; and that he had made an able and ingenious argument, fully sustaining his high reputation as an accomplished orator. General Smith, of Maryland, said that he could not complain too dolefully in the book of lamentations which himself of the infirmities of age, though older was composed for the death of the Maysville than the senator from Kentucky, nor could find road-to be denied or suppressed now. They in his years any apology for the insufficiency of have no adequate supply of money. And why? his speech. Mr. Clay thought this was intended Have they no exports? Nothing to send abroad? Certainly they have exports. Behold to be a slur upon him, and replied in a spirit the marching myriads of living animals annually which gave rise to the following sharp encounter: taking their departure from the heart of the "Mr. Smith then rose, and said he was sorry West, defiling through the gorges of the Cumberland, the Alleghany, and the Apalachian to find that he had unintentionally offended the mountains, or traversing the plains of the South, honorable gentleman from Kentucky. In refer· diverging as they march, and spreading them-ring to the vigorous age he himself enjoyed, he selves all over that vast segment of our territorial circle which lies between the debouches of the Mississippi and the estuary of the Potomac! VOL. I.-18

which has been told too often here-chanted

"Aurelian," whose name was given to the military station (presidium) which was afterwards corrupted into "Orleans."

Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in blunders to the last.'

No, sir, said Mr. S., I will not take it. I will not so far disregard what is due to the dignity of the Senate."

had not supposed he should give offence to others who complained of the infirmities of age. The gentleman from Kentucky was the last who "Mr. Smith.-The last allusion is unworthy should take the remark as disparaging to his of the gentleman. Totter, sir, I totter? Though vigor and personal appearance; for, when that some twenty years older than the gentleman, I gentleman spoke to us of his age, he heard a can yet stand firm, and am yet able to correct young lady near him exclaim-"Old, why I his errors. I could take a view of the gentlethink he is mighty pretty." The honorable man's course, which would show how inconsis gentleman, on Friday last, made a similitude tent he has been. [Mr. Clay exclaimed: 'Take where none existed. I, said Mr. S., had suggest-it, sir, take it—I dare you.' [Cries of "order."] ed the necessity of mutual forbearance in settling the tariff, and, thereupon, the gentleman vociferated loudly and angrily about removals from office. He said I was a leader in the system. I deny the fact. I never exercised the Mr. Hayne concluded one of his speeches with least influence in effecting a removal, and on the contrary, I interfered, successfully, to prevent the a declaration of the seriousness of the Southern removal of two gentlemen in office. I am charg-resistance to the tariff, and with a feeling appeal ed with making a committee on roads and canals, to senators on all sides of the house to meet their adverse to internal improvement. If this be so, Southern brethren in the spirit of conciliation, it is by mistake. I certainly supposed every and restore harmony to a divided people by regentleman named on that committee but one to be friendly to internal improvement. To the moving from among them the never-failing source committee on manufactures I assigned four out of contention. He said: of five who were known to be friendly to the protective system. The rights of the minority, "Let not gentlemen so far deceive themselves he had endeavored, also, in arranging the com- as to suppose that the opposition of the South to mittee, to secure. The appointment of the com- the protecting system is not based on high and mittees he had found one of the most difficult lofty principles. It has nothing to do with parand onerous tasks he had ever undertaken. One- ty politics, or the mere elevation of men. It third of the house were lawyers, all of whom rises far above all such considerations. Nor is wanted to be put upon some important commit- it influenced chiefly by calculations of interest, tee. The oath which the senator had tendered, but is founded in much nobler impulses. The he hoped he would not take. In the year 1795, instinct of self-interest might have taught us an Mr. S. said, he had sustained a protective duty easier way of relieving ourselves from this opagainst the opposition of a member from Pitts-pression. It wanted but the will, to have supburg. Previous to the year 1822, he had always given incidental support to manufactures, in fixing the tariff. He was a warm friend to the tariff of 1816, which he still regarded as a wise and beneficial law. He hoped, then, the gentleman would not take his oath.

"Mr. Clay placed, he said, a high value on the compliment of which the honorable senator was the channel of communication; and he the more valued it, inasmuch as he did not recollect more than once before, in his life, to have received a similar compliment. He was happy to find that the honorable gentleman disclaimed the system of proscription; and he should, with his approbation, hereafter cite his authority in opposition to it. The Committee on Roads and Canals, whatever were the gentleman's intentions in constructing it, had a majority of members whose votes and speeches against internal improvements were matter of notoriety. The gentleman's appeal to his acts in '95, is perfectly safe; for, old as I am, my knowledge of his course does not extend back that far. He would take the period which the gentleman named, since 1822. It comes, then, to this: The honorable gentleman was in favor of protecting manufactures; but he had turned-I need not use the word he has abandoned manufactures. Thus:

plied ourselves with every article embraced in the protective system, free of duty, without any other participation on our part than a simple consent to receive them. But, sir, we have scorned, in a contest for our rights, to resort to any but open and fair means to maintain them. The spirit with which we have entered into this business, is akin to that which was kindled in the bosom of our fathers when they were made the victims of oppression; and if it has not displayed itself in the same way, it is because we have ever cherished the strongest feelings of confraternity towards our brethren, and the warmest and most devoted attachment to the Union. If we have been, in any degree, divided among ourselves in this matter, the source of that division, let gentlemen be assured, has not arisen so much from any difference of opinion as to the true character of the oppression, as from the different degrees of hope of redress. All parties have for years past been looking forward to this crisis for the fulfilment of their hopes, or the confirmation of their fears. And God grant that the result may be auspicious.

"Sir, I call upon gentlemen on all sides of the House to meet us in the true spirit of conciliation and concession. Remove, I earnestly beseech you, from among us, this never-failing source of contention. Dry up at its source this fountain

of the waters of bitterness. Restore that har-complishment of these great reforms in the mony which has been disturbed-that mutual land system when the session of 1831-'32 openaffection and confidence which has been impaired, and with it the authentic annunciation of ed. And it is in your power to do it this day;

but there is but one means under heaven by the extinction of the public debt within two which it can by doing equal justice to all. And years-which event would remove the objection be assured that he to whom the country shall be of many to interfering with the subject, the indebted for this blessing, will be considered as lands being pledged to that object. This sesthe second founder of the republic. He will be regarded, in all aftertimes, as the ministering angel visiting the troubled waters of our political dissensions, and restoring to the element its healing virtues."

I take pleasure in quoting these words of Mr. Hayne. They are words of moderation and of justice of sorrow more than anger-of expostulation more than menace-of loyalty to the Union -of supplication for forbearance ;-and a moving appeal to the high tariff party to avert a national catastrophe by ceasing to be unjust. His moderation, his expostulation, his supplication, his appeal-had no effect on the majority. The protective system continued to be an exasperating theme throughout the session, which ended without any sensible amelioration of the system, though with a reduction of duty on some articles of comfort and convenience: as recommended by President Jackson.

CHAPTER LXX. .

PUBLIC LANDS.—DISTRIBUTION TO THE STATES.

sion, preceding the presidential election, and gathering up so many subjects to go into the canvass, fell upon the lands for that purpose, and in the way in which magazines of grain in republican Rome, and money in the treasury in democratic Athens, were accustomed to be dealt with by candidates for office in the periods of election; that is to say, were proposed for distribution. A plan for dividing out among the States for a given period the money arising from the sale of the lands, was reported from the Committee on Manufactures by Mr. Clay, a member of that committee-and which properly could have nothing to do with the sale and disposition of the lands. That report, after a general history, and view of the public lands, came to these conclusions:

"Upon full and thorough consideration, the committee have come to the conclusion that it is inexpedient either to reduce the price of the public lands, or to cede them to the new States. They believe, on the contrary, that sound policy coincides with the duty which has devolved on the general government to the whole of the States, and the whole of the people of the Union, and enjoins the preservation of the existing system as having been tried and approvTHE efforts which had been making for years to in consequence of the extraordinary financial ed after long and triumphant experience. But, ameliorate the public land system in the feature prosperity which the United States enjoy, the of their sale and disposition, had begun to have question merits examination, whether, whilst their effect-the effect which always attends the general government steadily retains the control of this great national resource in its perseverance in a just cause. A bill had ripenown hands, after the payment of the public ed to a third reading in the Senate reducing the debt, the proceeds of the sales of the public price of lands which had been long in market lands, no longer needed to meet the ordinary less than one half-to fifty cents per acre-and expenses of government, may not be beneficialthe pre-emption principle had been firmly esta-ly appropriated to some other objects for a lim

blished, securing the settler in his home at a fixed price. Two other principles, those of donations to actual settlers, and of the cession to the States in which they lie of all land not sold within a reasonable and limited period, were all that was wanting to complete the ameliorated system which the graduation bills proposed; and these bills were making a progress which promised them an eventual success. All the indications were favorable for the speedy ac

ited time.

"Governments, no more than individuals, should be seduced or intoxicated by prosperity, however flattering or great it may be. The country now happily enjoys it in a most unexampled degree. We have abundant reason to be grateful for the blessings of peace and plenty, and freedom from debt. But we must be forgetful of all history and experience, if we indulge the delusive hope that we shall always be exempt from calamity and reverses. Seasons of national adversity, of suffering, and of war, will assuredly come. A wise government

of war.

"In conformity with the views and principles which the committee have now submitted, they beg leave to report a bill, entitled 'An act to appropriate, for a limited time, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands of the United States.""

should expect, and provide for them. Instead of wasting or squandering its resources in a period of general prosperity, it should husband and cherish them for those times of trial and difficulty, which, in the dispensations of Providence, may be certainly anticipated. Entertaining these views, and as the proceeds of the sales of the public lan Is are not wanted for or- The impropriety of originating such a bill in dinary revenue, which will be abundantly sup- the committee on manufactures was so clear that plied from the imposts, the committee respect-acquiescence in it was impossible. The chairfully recommend that an appropriation of them be made to some other purpose, for a limited man of the committee on public lands immeditime, subject to be resumed in the contingency ately moved its reference to that committee; Should such an event unfortunately and although there was a majority for it in the occur, the fund may be withdrawn from its Senate, and for the bill as it came from the compeaceful destination, and applied in aid of other means, to the vigorous prosecution of the war, mittee on manufactures, yet the reference was and, afterwards to the payment of any debt immediately voted; and Mr. Clay's report and which may be contracted in consequence of its bill sent to that committee, invested with genexistence. And when peace shall be again re-eral authority over the whole subject. That stored, and the debt of the new war shall have been extinguished, the fund may be again ap- committee, through its chairman, Mr. King of propriated to some fit object other than that of Alabama, made a counter report, from which the ordinary expenses of government. Thus some extracts are here given: may this great resource be preserved and rendered subservient, in peace and in war, to the common benefit of all the States composing the Union.

"The inquiry remains, what ought to be the specific application of the fund under the restriction stated? After deducting the ten per cent. proposed to be set apart for the new States, a portion of the committee would have preferred that the residue should be applied to the objects of internal improvement, and colonization of the free blacks, under the direction of the general government. But a majority of the committee believes it better, as an alternative for the scheme of cession to the new States, and as being most likely to give general satisfaction, that the residue be divided among the twenty-four States, according to their federal representative population, to be applied to education, internal improvement, or colonization, or to the redemption of any existing debt contracted for internal improvements, as each State, judging for itself, shall deem most conformable with its own interests and policy. Assuming the annual product of the sales of the public lands to be three millions of dollars, the table hereto annexed, marked C, shows what each State would be entitled to receive, according to the principle of division which has been stated. In order that the propriety of the proposed appropriation should again, at a day not very far distant, be brought under the review of Congress, the committee would recommend that it be limited to a period of five years, subject to the condition of war not breaking out in the mean time. By an appropriation so restricted as to time, each State will be enabled to estimate the probable extent of its proportion, and to adapt its measures of education, improvement, colonization, or extinction of existing debt, accordingly.

"The committee ventures to suggest that the view which the committee on manufactures has taken of the federal domain, is fundamentally erroneous; that it has misconceived the true principles of national policy with respect to wild lands; and, from this fundamental mistake, and radical misconception, have resulted the great errors which pervade the whole structure of their report and bill.

"The committee on manufactures seem to contemplate the federal domain merely as an object of revenue, and to look for that revenue solely from the receivers of the land offices; when the science of political economy has ascertained such a fund to be chiefly, if not exclusively, valuable under the aspect of population and cultivation, and the eventual extraction of revenue from the people in its customary modes of taxes and imposts.

"The celebrated Edmund Burke is supposed to have expressed the sum total of political wisdom on this subject, in his well-known propositions to convert the forest lands of the British crown into private property; and this committee, to spare themselves further argument, and to extinguish at once a political fallacy which ought not to have been broached in the nineteenth century, will make a brief quotation from the speech of that eminent man.

"The revenue to be derived from the sale of the forest lands will not be so considerable as many have imagined; and I conceive it would be unwise to screw it up to the utmost, or even to suffer bidders to enhance, according to their eagerness, the purchase of objects wherein the expense of that purchase may weaken the capital to be employed in their cultivation. The principal revenue which I propose to draw from these uncultivated wastes, is to spring from the improvement and cultivation of the kingdom;