attributed to him, I deem it just to give him the benefit of his own words, both in making the disclaimer, and in giving the account of the abortion of an impracticable scheme which had so lately been prosecuted, and opposed, with so much heat and violence in our own country. He said of it: "Disclaiming alike all right and all intention majority of the Senate was in opposition. The gress, he took occasion to disclaim some views elections for the twentieth Congress-the first under his administration-were looked to with great interest, both as showing whether the new President was supported by the country, and his election by the House sanctioned, and also as an index to the issue of the ensuing presidential election. For, simultaneously with the election in the House of Representatives did the canvass for the succeeding election begin-General Jack-of interfering in those concerns which it is the son being the announced candidate on one side, prerogative of their independence to regulate as and Mr. Adams on the other; and the event in- to them shall seem fit, we hail with joy every indication of their prosperity, of their harmony, volving not only the question of merits between of their persevering and inflexible homage to the parties, but also the question of approved or those principles of freedom and of equal rights, disapproved conduct on the part of the represen- which are alone suited to the genius and temper tatives who elected Mr. Adams. The elections of the American nations. It has been therefore with some concern that we have observed inditook place, and resulted in placing an opposition cations of intestine divisions in some of the remajority in the House of Representatives, and publics of the South, and appearances of less increasing the strength of the opposition majori- union with one another, than we believe to be ty in the Senate. The state of parties in the the interest of all. Among the results of this state of things has been that the treaties conHouse was immediately tested by the election of cluded at Panama do not appear to have been speaker, Mr. John W. Taylor, of New-York, ratified by the contracting parties, and that the the administration candidate, being defeated by meeting of the Congress at Tacubaya has been Mr. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, in the options to be represented at this Congress, while a indefinitely postponed. In accepting the invitaposition. The appointment of the majority of manifestation was intended on the part of the members on all the committees, and their chair- United States, of the most friendly disposition men, in both Houses adverse to the administra- towards the Southern republics by whom it tion, was a regular consequence of the inflamed had been proposed, it was hoped that it would state of parties, although the proper conducting tions of this hemisphere to the common acknowfurnish an opportunity for bringing all the naof the public business would demand for the ad- ledgment and adoption of the principles, in the ministration the chairman of several important regulation of their international relations, which committees, as enabling it to place its measures would have secured a lasting peace and harmony fairly before the House. The speaker (Mr. Ste- mutual benevolence throughout the globe. But between them, and have promoted the cause of venson) could only yield to this just sense of as obstacles appear to have arisen to the repropriety in the case of one of the committees, assembling of the Congress, one of the two minthat of foreign relations, to which Mr. Edward isters commissioned on the part of the United Everett, classing as the political and personal States has returned to the bosom of his country, while the minister charged with the ordinary friend of the President, was appointed chairman. mission to Mexico remains authorized to attend In other committees, and in both Houses, the at the conferences of the Congress whenever stern spirit of the times prevailed; and the or- they may be resumed." ganization of the whole Congress was adverse to the administration. The presidential message contained no new recommendations, but referred to those previously made, and not yet acted upon; among which internal improvement, and the encouragement of home industry, were most prominent. It gave an account of the failure of the proposed congress of Panama; and, consequently, of the inutility of all our exertions to be represented there. And, as in this final and valedictory notice by Mr. Adams of that once far-famed con This is the last that was heard of that so much vaunted Congress of American nations, and in the manner in which it died out of itself, among those who proposed it, without ever having been reached by a minister from the United States, we have the highest confirmation of the soundness of the objections taken to it by the opposition members of the two Houses of our Congress. In stating the condition of the finances, the message, without intending it, gave proof of the paradoxical proposition, first, I believe, broached by myself, that an annual revenue to the extent the revenue itself is reduced below the exof a fourth or a fifth below the annual expendi- penditure. This is a financial paradox, sustainture, is sufficient to meet that annual expendi-able upon reason, proved by facts, and visible ture; and consequently that there is no neces-in the state of the treasury at all times; yet I sity to levy as much as is expended, or to pro- have endeavored in vain to establish it; and vide by law for keeping a certain amount in the Congress is as careful as ever to provide an antreasury when the receipts are equal, or superior nual income equal to the annual expenditure; to the expenditure. He said: and to make permanent provision by law to keep up a reserve in the treasury; which would be there of itself without such law as long as the revenue comes within a fourth or a fifth of the expenditure. "The balance in the treasury on the first of January last was six millions three hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars and eighteen cents. The receipts from that day to the 30th of September last, as near as the returns of them yet received can show, amount to sixteen millions eight hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-one dollars and thirty-two cents. The receipts of the present quarter, estimated at four millions five hundred and fifteen thousand, added to the above, form an ag gregate of twenty-one millions four hundred thousand dollars of receipts. The expenditures of the year may perhaps amount to twenty-two millions three hundred thousand dollars, presenting a small excess over the receipts. But of these twenty-two millions, upwards of six have been applied to the discharge of the principal of the public debt; the whole amount of which, approaching seventy-four millions on the first of January last, will on the first day of next year fall short of sixty-seven millions and a half. The balance in the treasury on the first of January next, it is expected, will exceed five millions four hundred and fifty thousand dollars; a sum exceeding that of the first of January, 1825, though falling short of that exhibited on the first of January last." In this statement the expenditures of the year are shown to exceed the income, and yet to leave a balance, about equal to one fourth of the whole in the treasury at the end of the year; also that the balance was larger at the end of the preceding year, and nearly the same at the end of the year before. And the message might have added, that these balances were about the same at the end of every quarter of every year, and every day of every quarter-all resulting from the impossibility of applying money to objects until there has been time to apply it. Yet in the time of those balances of which Mr. Adams speaks, there was a law to retain two millions in the treasury; and now there is a law to retain six millions; while the current balances, at the rate of a fourth or a fifth of the income, are many times greater than the sum ordered to be retained; and cannot be reduced to that sum, by regular payments from the treasury, until Barker, jr., Titus Brown, Joseph Healey, Jonathan Harvey, Thomas Whipple, jr.—6. MASSACHUSETTS-Samuel C. Allen, John Bailey, Issac C. Bates, B. W. Crowninshield, John Davis, Henry W. Dwight, Edward Everett, Benjamin Gorham, James L. Hodges, John Locke, John Reed, Joseph Richardson, John Varnum-15. ^ RHODE ISLAND-Tristam Burges, Dutee J. Pearce-2 CONNECTICUT-John Baldwin, Noyes Barber, Ralph J. Ingersoll, Orange Merwin, Elisha Phelps, David Plant-6. VERMONT-Daniel A. A. Buck, Jonathan Hunt, Rolin C. Mallary, Benjamin Swift, George E. Wales-5. NEW-YORK-Daniel D. Barnard, George O. Belden, Rudolph Bunner, C. C. Cambreleng, Samuel Chase, John C. Clark, John D. Dickinson, Jonas Earll, jr., Daniel G. Garnsey, Nathaniel Garrow, John I. De Graff, John Hallock, jr., Selah R. Hobbie, Michael Hoffman, Jeromus Johnson, Richard Keese, Henry Markell, H. C. Martindale, Dudley Marvin, John Magee, John Maynard, Thomas J. Oakley, S. Van Rensselaer, Henry R. Storrs, James Strong, John G. Stower, Phineas L. Tracy, John W. Taylor, G. C. Verplanck, Aaron Ward, John J. Wood, Silas Wood, David Woodcock, Silas Wright, jr.-34. NEW JERSEY Lewis Condict, George Holcombe, Isaac Pierson, Samuel Swan, Edge Thompson, Ebenezer Tucker-6 PENNSYLVANIA-William Addams, Samuel DELAWARE-Kensy Johns. jr.-1. R. Mitchell, Wm. T. Nuckolls, Starling Tucker -9. GEORGIA-John Floyd, Tomlinson Fort, Charles E. Haynes, George R. Gilmer, Wilson Lumpkin, Wiley Thompson, Richard H. Wilde-7. KENTUCKY-Richard A. Buckner, James Clark, Henry Daniel, Joseph Lecompte, Robert P. Letcher, Chittenden Lyon, Thomas Metcalfe, Robert M'Hatton, Thomas P. Moore, Charles A. Wickliffe, Joel Yancey, Thomas Chilton-12. TENNESSEE John Bell, John Blair, David Crockett, Robert Desha, Jacob C. Isacks, Pryor Lea, John H. Marable, James C. Mitchell, James K. Polk-9. OHIO-Mordecai Bartley, Philemon Beecher, William Creighton, jr., John Davenport, James Findlay, Wm. M'Lean, William Russell, John Sloane, William Stanberry, Joseph Vance, Samuel F. Vinton, Elisha Whittlesey, John Woods, John C. Wright-14. LOUISIANA-William L. Brent, Henry H. Gurley, Edward Livingston-3. INDIANA-Thomas H. Blake, Jonathan Jennings, Oliver H. Smith-3. MISSISSIPPI-William Haile-1. MISSOURI-Edward Bates-1. DELEGATES. ARKANSAS TERRITORY-A. H. Sevier. This list of members presents an immense array of talent, and especially of business talent; and in its long succession of respectable names, many will be noted as having attained national reputations-others destined to attain that distinction-while many more, in the first class of useful and respectable members, remained without national renown for want of that faculty which nature seems most capriciously to have scattered among the children of men—the faculty of fluent and copious speech ;-giving it to some of great judgment-denying it to others of equal, or still greater judgment-and lavishing it upon some of no judgment at all. The national eyes are fixed upon the first of these classes--the men of judgment and copious speech; and even those in the third class obtain national notoriety; while NORTH CAROLINA-Willis Alston, Daniel L. the men in the second class-the men of judgBarringer, John H. Bryan, Samuel P. Carson, Henry W. Conner, John Culpeper, Thomas H. ment and few words-are extremely valued and Hall, Gabriel Holmes, John Long, Lemuel Saw-respected in the bodies to which they belong, yer, A. H. Shepperd, Daniel Turner, Lewis Williams-13. VIRGINIA-Mark Alexander, Robert Allen, Wm. S. Archer, Wm. Armstrong, jr., John S. Barbour, Philip P. Barbour, Burwell Bassett, N. H. Claiborne, Thomas Davenport, John Floyd, Isaac Leffler, Lewis Maxwell, Charles F. Mercer, William M'Coy, Thomas Newton, John Randolph, William C. Rives, John Roane, Alexander Smyth, A Stevenson, John Talliaferro, James Trezvant-22. SOUTH CAROLINA-John Carter, Warren R. Davis, William Drayton, James Hamilton, jr., George M'Duffie, William D. Martin, Thomas and have great weight in the conduct of business. They are, in fact, the business men, often more practical and efficient than the great orators. This twentieth Congress, as all others that have been, contained a large proportion of these most useful and respectable members; and it will be the pleasant task of this work to do them the justice which their modest merit would not do for themselves. CHAPTER XXXIV. REVISION OF THE TARIFF. THE tariff of 1828 is an era in our legislation, being the event from which the doctrine of "nullification" takes its origin, and from which a serious division dates between the North and the South. It was the work of politicians and manufacturers; and was commenced for the benefit of the woollen interest, and upon a bill chiefly designed to favor that branch of manufacturing industry. But, like all other bills of the kind, it required help from other interests to get itself along; and that help was only to be obtained by admitting other interests into the benefits of the bill. And so, what began as a special benefit, intended for the advantage of a particular interest, became general, and ended with including all manufacturing interests or at least as many as were necessary to make up the strength necessary to carry it. The productions of different States, chiefly in the West, were favored by additional duties on their rival imports; as lead in Missouri and Illinois, and hemp of Kentucky; and thus, though opposed to the object of the bill, many members were necessitated to vote for it. Mr. Rowan, of Kentucky, well exposed the condition of others in this respect, in showing his own in some remarks which he made, and in which he said: "He was not opposed to the tariff as a system of revenue, honestly devoted to the objects and purposes of revenue on the contrary, he was friendly to a tariff of that character; but when perverted by the ambition of political aspirants, and the secret influence of inordinate cupidity, to purposes of individual, and sectional ascendency, he could not be seduced by the captivation of names, or terms, however attractive, to lend it his individual support. "It is in vain, Mr. President, said he, that it is called the American System-names do not alter things. There is but one American System, and that is delineated in the State and Federal consti tutions. It is the system of equal rights and privileges secured by the representative principle ceeds of the labor of some to taxation, in the -a system, which, instead of subjecting the proview to enrich others, secures to all the proceeds of their labor-exempts all from taxation, except for the support of the protecting power of the government. As a tax necessary to the support of the government, he would support itcall it by what name you please ;-as a tax for any other purpose, and especially for the purposes to which he had alluded-it had his individual reprobation, under whatever name it might as sume. "It might, he observed, be inferred from what he had said, that he would vote against the bill. He did not wish any doubts to be entertained as to the vote he should give upon this measure, or the reasons which would influence him to give it. He was not at liberty to substitute his individual opinion for that of his State. He was one of the organs here, of a State, that had, by the tariff of 1824, been chained to the car of the Eastern manufacturers-a State that had been from that time, and was now groaning under the pressure of that unequal and unjust measure-a measure from the pressure of which, owing to the prevailing illusion throughout the United States, she saw no hope of escape, by a speedy return to correct principles ;-and seeing no hope of escaping from the ills of the system, she is conherself of the mitigation which this bill presents, strained, on principles of self-defence, to avail in the duties which it imposes upon foreign hemp, spirits, iron, and molasses. The hemp, iron, and distilled spirits of the West, will, like the woollens of the tax indirectly imposed by this bill, upon of the Eastern States, he encouraged to the extent those who shall buy and consume them. Those who may need, and buy those articles, must pay to the grower, or manufacturer of them, an increased price to the amount of the duties imposed upon the like articles of foreign growth or fabric. To this tax upon the labor of the consumer, his individual opinion was opposed. But, as the organ of the State of Kentucky, he felt himself bound to surrender his individual opinion, and express the opinion of his State." Thus, this tariff bill, like every one admitting a variety of items, contains a vicious principle, by which a majority may be made up to pass a measure which they do not approve. But besides variety of agricultural and manufacturing items collected into this bill, there was another of very different import admitted into it, namely, that of party politics. A presidential election was approaching: General Jackson and Mr. Adams were the candidates-the latter in favor of the "American System”—of which Mr. Clay (his Secretary of State) was the champion, and indissolubly connected with him in the public mind in the issue of the election. This tariff Now the imputation is precisely of an opposite was made an administration measure, and became an issue in the canvass; and to this Mr. Rowan significantly alluded when he spoke of a tariff as being "perverted by the ambition of political aspirants." It was in vain that the manufacturers were warned not to mix their interests with the doubtful game of politics. They yielded to the temptation-yielded as a class, though with individua! exceptions-for the sake of the temporary benefit, without seeming to realize the danger of connecting their interests with the fortunes of a political party. This tariff of '28, besides being remarkable for giving birth to "nullification," and heart-burning between the North and the South, was also remarkable for a change of policy in the New England States, in relation to the protective system. Being strongly commercial, these States had hitherto favored free trade; and Mr. Webster was the champion of that trade up to 1824. At this session a majority of those States, and especially those which classed politically with Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, changed their policy: and Webster became a champion of the protective system. The cause of this change, as then alleged, was the fact that the protective system had become the established policy of the government, and that these States had adapted their industry to it; though it was insisted, on the other hand, that political calculation had more to do with the change than federal legislation: and, in fact, the question of this protection was one of those which lay at the foundation of parties, and was advocated by General Hamilton in one of his celebrated reports of fifty years ago. But on this point it is right that New England should speak for herself, which she did at the time of the discussion of the tariff in '28; and through the member, now a senator (Mr. Webster), who typified in his own person the change which his section of the Union had undergone. He said: character. The present measure is pronounced to be brought forward by her agency, and deto be exclusively for the benefit of New England; signed to gratify the cupidity of her wealthy establishments. "Both charges, sir, are equally without the slightest foundation. The opinion of New England, up to 1824, was founded in the conviction, that, on the whole, it was wisest and best, both for herself and others, that manufacturers should make haste slowly. She felt a reluctance to trust great interests on the foundation of government patronage; for who could tell how long such patronage would last, or with what steadiness, skill, or perseverance, it would continue to be granted? It is now nearly fifteen years, since, among the first things which I ever ventured to say here, was the expression of a serious doubt, whether this government was fitted by its construction, to administer aid and protection to particular pursuits; whether, having called such pursuits into being by indications of its favor, it would not, afterwards, desert them, when troubles come upon them; and leave them to their fate. Whether this prediction, the result, certainly, of chance, and not of sagacity, will so soon be fulfilled, remains to be seen. wards those who should embark in manufactures. "At the same time it is true, that from the very first commencement of the government, those who have administered its concerns have held a tone of encouragement and invitation toAll the Presidents. I believe, without exception, have concurred in this general sentiment; and the very first act of Congress, laying duties of impost, adopted the then unusual expedient of a that of declaring, that the duties, which it impos preamble, apparently for little other purpose than ed, were imposed for the encouragement and protection of manufactures. When, at the commencement of the late war, duties were doubled, we were told that we should find a mitigation of the weight of taxation in the new aid and succor which would be thus afforded to our own manufacturing labor. Like arguments were urged, and prevailed, but not by the aid of New England votes, when the tariff was afterwards arranged at the close of the war, in 1816. nally, after a whole winter's deliberation, the act of 1824 received the sanction of both Houses of Congress, and settled the policy of the country. What, then, was New England to do? She was "New England, sir, has not been a leader in fitted for manufacturing operations, by the this policy. On the contrary, she held back, her- amount and character of her population, by her self, and tried to hold others back from it, from capital, by the vigor and energy of her free labor, the adoption of the constitution to 1824. Up to by the skill, economy, enterprise, and persever1824, she was accused of sinister and selfish de-ance of her people. I repeat, what was she, unsigns, because she discountenanced the progress der these circumstances, to do? A great and of this policy. It was laid to her charge, then. prosperous rival in her near neighborhood, threatthat having established her manufactures herself, she wished that others should not have the power of rivalling her; and, for that reason, opposed all legislative encouragement. Under this angry denunciation against her, the act of 1824 passed. Fi ening to draw from her a part, perhaps a great part, of her foreign commerce; was she to use. or to neglect, those other means of seeking her own prosperity which belonged to her character and her condition? Was she to hold out, for |