The duties imposed did not differ radically from those of the act of 1832.* Wool valued at less than 7 cents per pound which was free under the act of 1832 paid a duty of 5 per cent.; other wool paid 3 cents per pound and 30 per cent., against 4 cents and 40 per cent. under the former act. Woolen manufactures paid 40 per cent., instead of 50 per cent.; while cotton manufactures paid 30 per cent., instead of 25 per cent. with a minimum of 20 cents per square yard for goods in the gray, and of 30 cents for goods bleached, dyed or printed. The duties on the more important descriptions of iron, and on leather, boots and shoes, and paper were reduced, while the duties on glass and its manufactures were raised.† Hence, as the new tariff had raised the duties above 20 per cent., the distribution of the proceeds of public land sales was stopped.

Nevertheless, in defiance to Tyler, the Whigs rushed through both Houses a bill repealing the antidistribution clause of the act of 1841, only to have the measure defeated by the pocket veto of the President.‡ On August 30 Tyler angered the Whigs still more by sending to the House a protest against the report of its veto committee. He said that the committee, instead of con

A tabular statement of the rates will be found in Bishop, History of Manufactures, vol. ii., pp. 429-474.

Stanwood, Tariff Controversies, vol. ii., pp.

28-30.

McMaster, vol. vii., p. 64.

fining itself to the objections urged against the bill, availed itself of the occasion

"to arraign the motives of the President for others of his acts since his introduction into office. In the absence of all proof, and, as I am bound to declare, against all law or precedent in parliamentary proceedings, and at the same time in a manner which it would be difficult to reconcile with the comity hitherto sacredly observed in the intercourse between independent and coordinate departments of the government, it has assailed my whole official conduct without the shadow of a pretext for such assault, and, stopping short of impeachment, had charged me, nevertheless, with offences declared to deserve impeachment."

Without any particle of testimony to support the charges, the House had been pleased to adopt the report, and thereby became the accuser of the President before the country and before the world. In protesting against this, Tyler said:

"I protest against this whole proceeding of the House of Representatives as ex parte and extra-judicial. I protest against it as subversive of the common right of all citizens to be con

demned only upon a fair and impartial trial,

according to law and evidence, before the country. I protest against it as destructive of all the comity of intercourse between the departments of this government, and destined sooner or later to lead to conflicts fatal to the peace of the country and the integrity of the Constitution. I protest against it in the name of that Constitution which is not only my own shield of protection and defense, but that of every American citizen. I protest against it in the name of the people, by whose will I stand where I do, by whose authority I exercised the power which I am charged with having usurped, and to whom I am responsible for a firm and faithful discharge, according to my own convictions of duty, of the high stewardship confided to me by them. I protested against it in the name of all regulated liberty, and all limited government, as a proceeding tending to the utter destruction of the checks and balances of the Constitution and the accumulating in the hands of the House of Rep

resentatives, or a bare majority of Congress for the time being, an uncontrolled and despotic power. And I respectfully ask that this my protest may be entered upon the journal of the House of Representatives as a solemn and formal declaration for all time to come against the injustice and unconstitutionality of such a proceeding."

Still the House refused to enter this document on the journal,† and a few hours later Congress adjourned.

Another act which led to a quarrel with the President, and which was vigorously denounced by many States and openly defied by others, was that making a new apportionment of representation under the census of 1840. In January of 1842 a select committee had reported a bill providing that, after March 3, 1843, the House should consist of 223 members and that the ratio should be one for every 68,000. Late in April the House took the bill under consideration and changed the ratio to one Representative for every 59,179 persons. An amendment was then reported by the Committee on Elections, making it obligatory on the States that the district system be adopted in the election of members of Congress. Under this amendment the State legislatures were to divide the States into as many districts composed of contiguous territory as there were representatives of the State. The State-rights members objected to the obligatory nature of the amend

* Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. iv., pp. 190-193.

Benton, Abridgment, vol. xiv., p. 527 et seq.
Ibid, p. 404.

VOL. VII 6

77

ment, and a second amendment modifying the first was moved. This provided that when any State was to have more than one Representative, the delegation should be elected by the districts composed of contiguous territory; that there should be as many districts as there were Representatives; and that none should elect more than one Representative. A long debate ensued, but the amendment was adopted and the bill sent to the Senate. That body changed the ratio to one Representative for every 70,680 and provided that any States whose unrepresented fraction exceeded a moiety of the ratio-number should have an extra Representative. On June 13, 1842, by a vote of 112 to 95, the House refused to concur in this,* but on the 15th, by votes of 24 to 18 and 30 to 14, the Senate refused to recede. Finally, however, the House yielded, and on the 17th the bill was passed as amended by the Senate.‡ After some consideration Tyler approved the bill, and on June 25 informed the House that he had signed the act and had caused the same to be deposited in the office of the Secretary of State, accompanied by an exposition of his reasons for approving it.

The House was then thoroughly incensed, for it saw in this another

* Ibid, p. 431. Ibid, p. 432. Ibid, p. 436.

|| United States Statutes-at-Large, vol. v., p. 491.

78

He

violation of the Constitution and another encroachment on the rights of the legislature. Its members thereupon passed a resolution directing the Secretary of State to transmit an authenticated copy of Tyler's reasons. On receiving it, the House learned that Tyler disapproved of the bill, but said: “I have not been able to bring myself to believe that a doubtful opinion of the chief magistrate ought to outweigh the solemnly pronounced opinion of the representatives of the people and of the States." doubted that Congress possessed power to command the States to adopt a district system, and he questioned the lawfulness of giving representation to fractions of the population. * The House referred Tyler's note to a committee, which criticized the President for declaring in a private note that the bill was not approved and that he doubted its constitutionality, after he had officially approved it. The committee said that under the Constitution the President was limited to three modes of procedurehe could veto a bill, sign a bill, or allow it to become law without his signature. Only in the case of a veto could he assign reasons for his actions, and such reasons must be sent, together with the bill, to the House

Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. iv., pp.

159-160.

in which it originated. In refuting Tyler's objections regarding the mandatory character of the act, the committee pointed out that every apportionment act was mandatory; that in the new apportionment the representations in most of the States was either reduced or increased; that these changes not only annulled regulations provided by the various States for holding Congressional elections, but required them to enact new regulations to conform with the new apportionment. The committee charged Tyler with encouraging a defiance of the law on the part of certain States, and a resolution was introduced stating that in filing an exposition of his reasons for signing the bill the President acted in an unwarranted manner and one which tended to injure the public interest, and that the House protested against its ever being repeated or cited as a precedent.* But this resolution was not adopted, though the report was.t The Mandamus Law, as it was called, raised a storm of protest, several States declaring it unconstitutional, while others absolutely refused to obey its mandates and elected their Representatives on general tickets.

* See the report in Niles' Register, vol. lxii., pp. 329-332.

† McMaster, vol. vii., pp. 68-69; Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. ii., p. 505 et seq.

79

Before Congress assembled in 1841 it was seen that a crisis had been reached in the relations with Great Britain the ill-feeling produced by the northeastern boundary dispute, with the Caroline outrage, and the conduct of the British in Oregon having been greatly increased by the unwarranted searches of American vessels on the African coast, and especially by interference in the case of the Amistad. On August 26, 1839, On August 26, 1839, Lieutenant-commander Thomas R. Gedney, of the United States steamer Washington, when off the eastern end of Long Island, had observed a suspicious-looking schooner lying near shore, and after examination seized her as a smuggler.* The vessel proved to be the Spanish schooner Amistad, which had left Havana on June 27 with 54 negro slaves, some merchandise, and two white passengers bound for Guanaja near Porto Principé, Cuba. When four days out, the negroes revolted, murdered the cap

*See the official report in Niles' Register, vol. lvii., p. 28.

tain and three of the crew, and, taking possession of the vessel, compelled their owners to sail the ship toward Africa.

A remarkable voyage then began. When the sun or moon shone the pilots sailed the ship eastward, but when darkness prevailed they sailed. the ship northward, hoping thereby to come in sight of any land but Africa. After beating about in this way for some time, the schooner came in sight of the Long Island coast, where she was overhauled by the Washington.* The negroes were seized and the ship was taken to New London.† After an investigation, 39 negroes charged with piracy were committed for trial before the circuit court to be held at Hartford in September. Three girls and a cabin boy were sent to the county jail to be held as witnesses.

See the account by one of the officers of the Washington, in Niles' Register, vol. lvii., p. 28.

Spears, The American Slave Trade, pp. 184187; Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. ii., p. 322; Williams, The Negro Race in America, vol. ii., pp. 93–94.

The abolitionists of New York then employed counsel for the negroes* and appointed a committee to collect money wherewith to minister to their wants.

Meanwhile the status of the slaves was growing complicated. The schooner and cargo were libeled by Lieutenant Gedney for salvage on September 6, 1839; and in a note to Forsyth the Spanish minister Calderon demanded that the vessel and her contents, together with the slaves, be delivered to the owners, as the United States could not hold Spanish subjects for crimes committed on a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters.† The United States marshal filed a libel in the district court on behalf of the United States, alleging that the Africans were claimed by Spain and that they had been illegally imported under the Act of 1819. The owners of the slaves, Pedro Montez and José Ruiz, also filed claims- the former against part of the cargo and the three girls and boy as being his property, and the latter for the rest of the property and the remainder of the slaves. Captain Green, of Long Island, also put in a claim for salvage, and the heirs of the dead captain laid claim to the schooner and part of the cargo.

When the circuit court opened at Hartford, on September 23, 1839,

*Wilson, Rise and Fall of Slave Power, vol. i., P. 458. Wilson, Rise and Fall of Slave Power, vol. i.,

p. 457.

the judge, in charging the jury, stated that if the alleged crimes had really been committed, they were done on a Spanish vessel and no cognizance of them could be taken in our courts.* The district court was then opened, but was twice adjourned until January 7, 1840.† When the case was about to come up for trial, the Spanish minister applied to Secretary Forsyth for the use of a vessel in which to send the Africans to Cuba in case the claim of the United States was sustained by the Court.‡ Accordingly the schooner Grampus was sent to anchor off New Haven, and Van Buren issued an executive order to the marshal directing him to deliver the negroes to the commander of the Grampus. On January 12, 1840, Forsyth directed the district-attorney to see that the President's order was carried into execution, "and that unless an appeal shall actually have been interposed, you are not to take it for granted that it will be interposed."

When the case was decided (late in January of 1840) it was the United States that appealed, and not the friends of the negroes; for the court had decided that the capture was made on the high seas, and that the case came under the jurisdiction of the

Ibid, p. 460. The decision is in Niles' Register, vol. lvii., p. 75.

Niles' Register, vol. lvii., pp. 222-223. Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. ii., pp. 326-327.

Wilson, Rise and Fall of Slave Power, vol. i.,

p. 462.