overt act of treason should be committed under son, and the supreme defender of his great the nullification ordinance of South Carolina; measure-the Proclamation of 1833; and the and the preparations for which (overt act) were | first and most powerful opponent of the too far advanced to admit of another step, either measure out of which it grew. It was a splenbackwards or forwards; and from which most did era in his life-both for his intellect, and critical condition the compromise relieved those his patriotism. No longer the advocate of who were too deeply committed, to retreat with- classes, or interests, he appeared the great deout ruin, or to advance without personal peril. fender of the Union-of the constitution-of Mr. Calhoun's reply was chiefly directed to this the country-and of the administration, to pregnant allusion. which he was opposed. Released from the of class and corporation advocacy, his colossal bonds of party, and from the narrow confines "The senator from Kentucky has said, Mr. President, that I, of all men, ought to be grate-intellect expanded to its full proportions in the ful to him for the compromise act. [Mr. CLAY. "I did not say to me.'"] The senator claims to be the author of that measure, and, of course, if there be any gratitude due, it must be to him. I, said Mr. Calhoun, made no allusion to that act; but as the senator has thought proper to refer to it, and claim my gratitude, I, in turn, now tell him I feel not the least gratitude towards him for it. The measure was necessary to save the senator politically and as he has alluded to the subject, both on this and on a former occasion, I feel bound to explain what might otherwise have been left in oblivion. The senator was then compelled to compromise to save himself. Events had placed him flat on his back, and he had no way to recover himself but by the compromise. This is no after thought. I wrote more than half a dozen of letters home at the time to that effect. I shall now explain. The proclamation and message of General Jackson necessarily rallied around him all the steadfast friends of the senator's system. They withdrew their allegiance at once from him, and transferred it to General Jackson. The senator was thus left in the most hopeless condition, with no more weight with his former partisans than this sheet of paper (raising a sheet from his desk). This is not all. The position which General Jackson had assumed, necessarily attracted towards him a distinguished senator from Massachusetts, not now here [Mr. WEBSTER], who, it is clear, would have reaped all the political honors and advantages of the system, had the contest come to blows. These causes made the political condition of the senator truly forlorn at the time. On him rested all the responsibility, as the author of the system; while all the power and influence it gave, had passed into the hands of others. Compromise was the only means of extrication. He was thus forced by the action of the State, which I in part represent, against his system, by my counsel to compromise, in order to save himself. I had the mastery over him on the occasion." field of patriotism, luminous with the fires of genius; and commanding the homage, not of party, but of country. His magnificent harangues touched Jackson in his deepest-seated and ruling feeling-love of country! and brought forth the response which always came from him when the country was in peril, and a defender presented himself. He threw out the right hand of fellowship-treated Mr. Webster with marked distinction-commended him with public praise-and placed him on the roll of patriots. And the public mind took the belief, that they were to act together in future; and that a cabinet appointment, or a high mission, would be the reward of his patriotic service. (It was the report of such expected preferment that excited Mr. Randolph (then in no condition to bear excitement) against General Jackson.) It was a crisis in the political life of Mr. Webster. He stood in public opposition to Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. With Mr. Clay he had a public outbreak in the Senate. He was cordial with Jackson. The mass of his party stood by him on the proclamation. He was at a point from which a new departure might be taken :-one at which he could not stand still: from which there must be advance, or recoil. It was a case in which will, more than intellect, was to rule. He was above Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun in intellect-below them in will. And he was soon seen co-operating with them (Mr. Clay in the lead), in the great measure conAnd so passed demning President Jackson. away the fruits of the golden era of 1833. It was to the perils of this conjunction (of Jackson and Webster) that Mr. Calhoun referred, This is historical, and is an inside view of his- as the forlorn condition from which the comtory. Mr. Webster, in that great contest of promise relieved Mr. Clay: and, allowing to nullification, was on the side of President Jack-| each the benefit of his assertion, history avails herself of the declarations of each in giving an inside view of personal motives for a momentous public act. And, without deciding a question of mastery in the disputed victory, History performs her task in recording the fact that, in a brief space, both Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster were seen following the lead of Mr. Clay in his great attack upon President Jackson in the session of 1834-35. Mr. Clay, rejoining, said he had made no allusion to the compromise bill till it was done by the senator from South Carolina himself; he made no reference to the events of 1825 until the senator had himself set him the example; and he had not in the slightest and the most distant manner alluded to nullification until after the senator himself had called it up. The senator ought not to have introduced that subject, especially when he had gone over to the authors of the force bill and the proclamation. The senator from South Carolina said that he Mr. C.] was flat on his back, and that he was my master. Sir, I would not own him as my slave. He my master! and I compelled by him! And, as if it were impossible to go far enough in one paragraph, he refers to certain letters of his own to prove that I was flat on my back! and, that I was not only on my back, but another senator and the President had robbed me! I was flat on my back, and unable to do any thing but what the senator from South Carolina permitted me to do! "Why, sir, [said Mr. C.] I gloried in my strength, and was compelled to introduce the compromise bill; and compelled, too, by the senator, not in consequence of the weakness, but of the strength, of my position. If it was possible for the senator from South Carolina to introduce one paragraph without showing the egotism of his character, he would not now acknowledge that he wrote letters home to show that he (Mr. C.) was flat on his back, while he was indebted to him for that measure which relieved him from the difficulties in which he was involved. Now, what was the history of the case? Flat as he was on his back, Mr. C. said he was able to produce that compromise, and to carry it through the Senate, in opposition to the most strenuous exertions of the gentleman who, the senator from South Carolina said, had supplanted him, and in spite of his determined and unceasing opposition. There was (said Mr. C.) sort of necessity operating on me to compel me to introduce that measure. No necessity of a personal character influenced him; but Considerations involving the interests, the peace and harmony of the whole country, as well as of the State of South Carolina, directed him in the course he pursued. He saw the condition of the senator from South Carolina and that of his friends; he saw the condition to which he had reduced the gallant little State of South Carolina by his unwise and dangerous measures; he saw, too, that we were on the eve of a civil war; and he wished to save the effusion of blood-the blood of our own fellow-citizens. That was one reason why he introduced the compromise bill. There was another reason that powerfully operated on him. The very interest that the tariff laws were enacted to protect-so great was the power of the then chief magistrate, and so rapidly was that power increasing was in danger of being sacrificed. He saw that the protective system was in danger of being swept away entirely, and probably at the next session of Congress, by the tremendous power of the individual who then filled the Executive chair; and he felt that the greatest service that he could render it, would be to obtain for it 'a lease for a term of years,' to use an expression that had been heretofore applied to the compromise bill. He saw the necessity that existed to save the protective system from the danger which threatened it. He saw the necessity to advance the great interests of the nation, to avert civil war, and to restore peace and harmony to a distracted and divided country; and it was therefore that he had brought forward this measure. The senator from South Carolina, to betray still further and more strikingly the characteristics which belonged to him, said, that in consequence of his (Mr. C.'s) remarks this very day, all obligations towards him on the South Carolina, and the whole South, were canpart of himself (Mr. CALHOUN), of the State of celled. And what right had the senator to get up and assume to speak of the whole South, or even of South Carolina herself? If he was not mistaken in his judgment of the political signs of the times, and if the information which came to him was to be relied on, a day would come, and that not very distant neither, when the senator would not dare to rise in his place and presume to speak as he had this day done, as the organ of the gallant people of the State he represented." The concluding remark of Mr. Clay was founded on the belief, countenanced by many signs, that the State of South Carolina would not go with Mr. Calhoun in support of Mr. Van Buren; but he was mistaken. The State stood by her distinguished senator, and even gave her presidential vote for Mr. Van Buren at the ensuing election-being the first time she had voted in a presidential election since 1829. Mr. Grundy, and some other senators, put an end to this episodical and personal debate by turning the Senate to a vote on the bill before it. CHAPTER XXIX. of Ohio, Benton, Brown of North Carolina, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Hubbard of New Hampshire, King of Alabama, Linn of Missouri, Lumpkin of Georgia, Lyon of Michigan Mouton of Louisiana, Niles, Norvell, Franklin INDEPENDENT TREASURY, OR, DIVORCE OF BANK Pierce, Roane of Virginia, Smith of Connecti AND STATE: PASSED IN THE SENATE: LOST IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. THIS great measure consisted of two distinct parts: 1. The keeping of the public moneys: 2. The hard money currency in which they were to be paid. The two measures together completed the system of financial reform recommended by the President. The adoption of either of them singly would be a step-and a step going half the distance-towards establishing the whole system: and as it was well supposed that some of the democratic party would balk at the hard money payments, it was determined to propose the measures singly. With this view the committee reported a bill for the Independent Treasury-that is to say, for the keeping of the government moneys by its own officers-without designating the currency to be paid to them. But there was to be a loss either way; for unless the hard money payments were made a part of the act in the first instance, Mr. Calhoun and some of his friends could not vote for it. He therefore moved an amendment to that effect; and the hard money friends of the administration supporting his motion, although preferring that it had not been made, and some others voting for it as making the bill obnoxious to some other friends of the administration, it was carried; and became a part of the bill. At the last moment, and when the bill had been perfected as far as possible by its friends, and the final vote on its passage was ready to be taken, a motion was made to strike out that section—and carried-by the helping vote of some of the friends of the administration —as was well remarked by Mr. Calhoun. The vote was, for striking out—Messrs. Bayard, Buchanan, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton (Jno. M.), Crittenden, Cuthbert, Davis of Mississippi, Fulton, Grundy, Knight, M'Kean, Merrick, Morris, Nicholas, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Sevier, Smith, of Indiana, Southard, Spence, Swift, Talmadge, Tipton, Wall, White, Webster, Williams-31. On the other hand only twenty-one senators voted for retaining the clause. They were-Messrs. Allen, cut, Strange of North Carolina, Trotter of Mississippi, Robert J. Walker, Silas Wright, Young of Illinois-21. This section being struck from the bill, Mr. Calhoun could no longer vote for it; and gave his reasons, which justice to him requires to be preserved in his own words: "On the motion of the senator from Georgia (Mr. CUTHBERT), the 23d section, which provides for the collection of the dues of the gov of a few on this side, and the entire opposition ernment in specie, was struck out, with the aid to the divorce on the other. That section provided for the repeal of the joint resolution of 1816, which authorizes the receipt of bank effects of this will be, should the bill pass in its notes as cash in the dues of the public. The present shape, that the government will collect its revenue. and make its disbursements exclusively in bank notes; as it did before the suspension took place in May last. Things will stand precisely as they did then, with but a single exception, that the public deposits will be made with the officers of the government instead of the banks, under the provision of the deposit act of 1836. Thus far is certain. All agree that such is the fact; and such the effect of the passage of this bill as it stands. Now, he intended to show conclusively, that the difference between depositing the public money themselves, was merely nominal, as far as the with the public officers, or with the banks operation and profits of the banks were concerned; that they would not make one cent less profit, or issue a single dollar less, if the deposits be kept by the officers of the government instead of themselves; and, of course, that the system would be equally subject to expansions and contractions, and equally exposed to catastrophes like the present, in the one, as the other, mode of keeping. "But he had other and insuperable objections. In giving the bill originally his support, he was governed by a deep conviction that the total separation of the government and the banks was indispensable. He firmly believed that we had reached a point where the separation was absolutely necessary to save both government and banks. He was under a strong impression that the banking system had reached a point of decrepitude-that great and important changes sions; and that the first step was a perpetual were necessary to save it and prevent convulseparation between them and the government. But there could be, in his opinion, no separation -no divorce-without collecting the public dues in the legal and constitutional currency of the country. Without that, all would prove a perfect delusion; as this bill would prove should it pass. We had no constitutional right to treat the notes of mere private corporations as cash; and if we did, nothing would be done. slender majority was sent to the House of Representatives; where it was lost by a majority of 14. This was a close vote in a house of 236 present; and the bill was only lost by several friends of the administration voting with the entire opposition. But a great point was gained. Full discussion had been had upon the subject, and the public mind was waked up to it. CHAPTER XXX. EMPTION SYSTEM: TAXATION WHEN SOLD. "These views, and many others similar, he had openly expressed, in which the great body of the gentlemen around him had concurred. We stand openly pledged to them before the country and the world. We had fought the battle manfully and successfully. The cause was good, and having stood the first shock, nothing was necessary, but firmness; standing fast on our position to ensure victory—a great and glorious victory in a noble cause, which was calculated to effect a more important re- PUBLIC LANDS: GRADUATION OF PRICE: PREformation in the condition of society than any in our time-he, for one, could not agree to terminate all those mighty efforts, at this and the extra session, by returning to a complete and perfect reunion with the banks in the worst and most dangerous form. He would not belie all that he had said and done, by voting for the bill as it now stood amended; and to terminate that which was so gloriously begun, in so miserable a farce. He could not but feel deeply disappointed in what he had reason to apprehend would be the result-to have all our efforts and labor thrown away, and the hopes of the country disappointed. All would be lost! No; he expressed himself too strongly. Be the vote what it may, the discussion would stand. Light had gone abroad. The public mind had been aroused, for the first time, and directed to this great subject. The intelligence of the country is every where busy in exploring its depths and intricacies, and would not cease to investigate till all its labyrinths were traced. The seed that has been sown will sprout and grow to maturity; the revolution that has been begun will go through, be our course what it may." The vote was then taken on the passage of the bill, and it was carried-by the lean majority of two votes, which was only the difference of one voter. The affirmative vote was: Messrs. Allen, Benton, Brown, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, Hubbard, King, Linn, Lumpkin, Lyon, Morris, Mouton, Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith of Connectieat. Strange, Trotter, Walker, Wall, Williams, Wright, Young-27. The negatives were: Messrs. Bayard, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Davies, Grun FOR all the new States composed territory belonging, or chiefly so to the federal government, the Congress of the United States became the local legislature, that is to say, in the place of a local legislature in all the legislation that relates to the primary disposition of the soil. In the old States this egislation belonged to the State legislatures, and might have belonged to the new States in virtue of their State sovereignty except by the "compacts" with the federal government at the time of their admission into the Union, in which they bound themselves, in consideration of land and money grants deemed equivalent to the value of the surrendered rights, not to interfere with the primary disposition of the public lands, nor to tax them while remaining unsold, nor for five years thereafter. These grants, though accepted as equivalents in the infancy of the States, were soon found to be very far from it, even in a mere moneyed point of view, independent of the evils resulting from the administration of domestic local questions by a distant national legislature. The taxes alone for a few years on the public lands would have been equivalent to all the benefits derived from the grants in the compacts. Composed of citizens from the old States where a local legislature administered the public lands according to the local interests selling lands of different qualities for different prices, according to its quality-granting preemptions and donations to first settlers-and subjecting all to taxation as soon as it became public property; it was a national feeling to desire the same advantages; and for this purThe act having passed the Senate by this pose, incessant, and usually vain efforts were Knight, McKean, Merrick, Nicholas, Prentins, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Ruggles, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Spence, Swift, Talmadge, Tipton, Webster, Hugh L. White-25. made to obtain them from Congress. At this session (1837-'38) a better progress was made, and bills passed for all the purposes through the Senate. 1. The graduation bill. This measure had been proposed for twelve years, and the full system embraced a plan for the speedy and final extinction of the federal title to all the lands within the new States. Periodical reductions of price at the rate of 25 cents per acre until reduced to 25 cents: a preference in the purchase to actual settlers, constituting a preemption right: donations to destitute settlers: and the cession of the refuse to States in which they lay-these were the provisions which constituted the system and which were all contained in the first bills. But finding it impossible to carry all the provisions of the system in any one bill, it became necessary to secure what could be obtained. The graduation-bill was reduced to one feature-reduction of price; and that limited to two reductions, bringing down the price at the first reduction to one dollar per acre: at the next 75 cents per In support of this bill Mr. Benton made a brief speech, from which the following are some passages: The embraced four degrees of reduction, it now contains but two of those degrees. The two lastthe fifty cent, and the twenty-five cent reductions, have been cut off. I made no objection to the motions of those gentlemen. I knew them to be made in a friendly spirit; I knew also that the success of their motions was necessary to the success of any part of the bill. Certainly I would have preferred the whole-would have preferred the four degrees of reduction. But this is a case in which the homely maxim applies, that half a loaf is better than no bread. By giving up half the bill, we may gain the other half; and sure I am that our constituents will vastly prefer half to nothing. The lands may now be reduced to one dollar for those which have been five years in market, and to seventyfive cents for those which have been ten years in market. The rest of the bill is relinquished for the present, not abandoned for ever. remaining degrees of reduction will be brought forward hereafter, and with a better prospect of success, after the lands have been picked and culled over under the prices of the present bill Even if the clauses had remained which have been struck out, on the motions of the gentlemen from Tennessee and New Hampshire, it "The bill comes to us now under more favor- would have been two years from December able auspices than it has ever done before. The next, before any purchases could have been made President recommends it, and the Treasury under them. They were not to take effect until needs the money which it will produce. A December, 1840. Before that time Congress gentleman of the opposition [Mr. CLAY], re- will twice sit again; and if the present bill proaches the President for inconsistency in passes, and is found to work well, the enactment making this recommendation; he says that he of the present rejected clauses will be a matter voted against it as senator heretofore, and re- of course. commends it as President now. But the gentleman forgets so tell us that Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate, spoke in favor of the general object of the bill from the first day it was presented, and that he voted in favor of one degree of reduction-a reduction of the price of the public lands to one dollar per acre -the last session that he served here. Far from being inconsistent, the President, in this recommendation, has only carried out to their legitimate conclusions the principles which he formerly expressed, and the vote which he formerly gave. acre. "The bill, as modified on the motions of the senators from Tennessee and New Hampshire [Messrs. GRUNDY and HUBBARD] stands shorn of half its original provisions. Originally it! "This is a measure emphatically for the benefit of the agricultural interest-that great interest, which he declared to be the foundation of all national prosperity, and the backbone, and substratum of every other interest—which was, in the body politic, front rank for service, and rear rank for reward—which bore nearly all the burthens of government while carrying the government on its back-which was the fountain of good production, while it was the pack-horse of burthens, and the broad shoulders which received nearly all losses-especially from broken banks. This bill was for them; and, in voting for it, he had but one regret, and that was, that it did not go far enough—that it was not equal to their merits." The bill passed by a good majority-27 to |