26TH CONG....1ST SESS. ket, and sharing those of the world in the sale of his productions? It is the inflated paper bubble; it is "because we manufacture at the nominal prices of our own inflated currency, and are compelled to sell at the real prices of other nations." Such, in his view, is the cause of our embarrassment and failure in success. Now, sir, what is the remedy proposed by the Senator? "Reduce (says he) our nominal to the real standard of prices throughout the world, and you cover our country with blessings and benefits." We are to take exclusive possession of our own market, and enter those of the world successfully; and by what process? By reducing the cost of our goods "to the standard of prices throughout the world; by bringing wages down as low as those who manufacture cheapest; for by no other process can we enter the markets of the world in successful competition. The Senator shows us that England is carrying on an unsuccessful competition in the manufacture of cutlery with Germany, because of the paper money of England. Germany, he alleges, is a hard-money country, and the costs of production or wages is lower, and she therefore manufactures cheaper. Assumption of State Debts--Mr. Strange. of any moment. It was not the measure of influ- The Senator laid hold of another isolated para- Now, sir, what is the standard of prices throughout the world? It must be a standard which will enable us to sell as low as others; to produce as low as the nation that produces lowest, or we cannot get the exclusive possession of our own market, and enter the markets of the world in successful competition. We must go down to the wages of France, Germany, and other countries that produce lower than our laborers, or those of England. If I can understand language, the paper bubble is to be reduced till this result is reached. The Senator says he is for a mixed currency, but goes for the reduction of it till it brings prices to this standard. Of what consequence is it, Mr. President, whether it shall be mixed or unmixed, hard money, or hard money and paper, if the reduction is to go on till this effect of coming down to the standard of prices throughout the world is produced? None whatever; and yet so confident is the Senator in the soundness of his policy, that he exhorts the manufacturers to take the corrective into their own hands, and to bring this result about; and yet he complains of me as representing him as too much of a hard-money man. I supposed in all this the Senator looked really to hard money; but whether he did or not is of little. consequence, as the effect on labor and business will be the same. I was led to this conclusion, for I thought he would not wish to be understood as viewing one currency as most useful to the But the Senator went further, and read from manufacturers and another to the country. If my speech the next sentence, which is: "What there be confusion in the matter I am not answer- response will the farmers, mechanics, and manuable for that, for I replied to such opinions as were facturers make to such a flagitious proposition?" advanced. It appeared to me that the evil com- and, seizing upon the word "flagitious," used in plained of was the expansion of the currency, and no sense offensively, not having the remotest perthe remedy proposed a reduction to this standard sonal application to him, but applied to the genof prices throughout the world. I know the Sen-eral proposition to reduce wages, &c., and not ator has spoken much of his friendship for laborers; but it is his practical views of policy, his means to be employed to secure prosperity, that 1 examined. I did not consider the part of his speech from which he has read, and considers the foundation of unjust remarks elsewhere, as an important or material portion of his reasoning. Such is the doctrine contained in the printed speech. It is before the world, and let them judge of it and see whether I have brought the member nearer to being a friend of hard money than he brings himself. But the Senator pointed out two paragraphs in my reply which he says do him injustice. If so, it was not my purpose. On the first page, he alleges that, in a general summary which I make, (not of his exclusive views, as the paragraph shows,) I impute to him an opinion that the subTreasury will have a greater influence over banks and banking, and reduce the currency beyond what he ever thought or has contended it would do, notwithstanding I expressly state, in another place, when I speak of him alone, that he declares himself the friend of well-regulated banks and a mixed currency. On this point I shall only say it is the last on which I could have anticipated complaint, after all the reasoning of the Senator to prove the expediency of reducing the currency, because of the evils of banking. But the effect of the bill is matter that never entered my mind as to the hypothesis or anything contained in it, SENATE. and has already afforded so wide a field of debate, But the good-humored assaults made upon me on yesterday by the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CRITTENDEN,] excited me to a degree that made me unmindful, for the time, of my weakness. Perhaps he brought me somewhat into the state of the Prince of Denmark when, witnessing the extravagances of Laertes over the grave of his sister, he exclaimed, "Nay, an thou❜lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou." His prophetic visions produced a correspondent delirium in myself, and tempted me to efforts to out-prophesy him. Time must, as in other cases, disclose whether the four hundred who foretold success to Ahab at Ramoth-Gilead, or Micaiah the son of Imlah, who prognosticated defeat, are the truer prophets. But neither of us, I fear, can boast much of unction from above; and while it is forbidden to us to look even upon the shadows of coming events, we must be content to speculate by the pale light of reason, and to draw from the experience of the past analogical deductions for the future. When I said to the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] on yesterday that I differed from him with less regret than I did with the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. BUCHANAN,] I said it in no spirit of unkindness; indeed, had I done so, I should have misrepresented my own feelings. I am not one of those who cannot do justice to a political opponent. No one, I am sure, within this Chamber, listens to that Senator with more pleasure than myself; no one more admires the dexterity with which he wields his blade, although myself may sometimes feel the keenness of its edge. But I cannot but regret that the same sagacity and skill with which he wields it are not displayed in the selection of the cause in which to draw it. I should be happy to fight upon the same side with the Senator from Kentucky, did not sad experience convince me that if I ever do so, I must be content to take the wrong one. As usual, the debate upon the report and resolutions submitted by the chairman of the select committee, the Senator from Tennessee, [Mr. GRUNDY,] has taken a very discursive range, and the whole field of party strife has been traversed as suited the tastes of the various speakers. Upon its first introduction, the report was met by the most extraordinary fusilade ever witnessed in this Chamber, and the vigor of the attack plainly indicated the heart-cherished value of the objects against which the report and resolutions were leveled. And yet the resolutions contain four simple propositions, w hich the report sustains by able and unansw ments. The first three of these prop "1. Resolved, That the assumption, directly by the General Government, of the debts whic or may be, contracted by the States for loca State purposes, would be unjust, both to the S the people. erable arguositions are: have been, or indirectly, objects or tates and to e highly in tates. be wholly itution of "2. Resolved, That such assumption would b expedient, and dangerous to the union of the S 3. Resolved, That such assumption would unauthorized by, and in violation of, the Cons the United States, and utterly repugnant to all the objects and purposes for which the Federal Union was fo rmed." one the Neither of these propositions had any temerity openly to question, and with all the fearlessness ascribed by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] to American Senators, in the discharge of official duty; and just, as trust, no one here has been bold enough to dispute the truth of either of them. impo tions. from But it is said their assertion in this form, and at this time, is irregular, unnecessary, and itic. Irregular, because no legislative act proposed, either by the report or the resolu This is an extraordinary objection to come a party who passed the resolution condemn try of General Jackson through this body b clamation. It is true that resolution was su Use unc quently expunged, but the ground of its exp Live tion was not that it contemplated no legisla But is it true that our duty here is c fined to the mere passage of laws? Does the steer age of the vessel of State depend exclusively on the passage of laws? And if not, is Congress to leave that steerage to other hands, and to take no thought of the direction in which the vessel is tending? If, from the lookout point which it oc action. on cupies, it beholds rocks and shoals, and whirl- It cannot be the mere declaration that the States They are denounced as unnecessary because SENATE. revenues arising therefrom, for the before-mentioned purposes, would be equally unjust, inexpedient, and unconstitutional." And here the gentlemen on the other side make their stand and fight against the resolution, and insist that it is both constitutional, just, and expedient to distribute the proceeds of the publio lands among the States. On all these points I take issue. 1. I say it is unconstitutional. Why? I assume it as a political axiom, disputed by no one, that this Government has no power to raise money for any other purposes than those set forth in the Constitution which gave that Government existence. I assume further, what I presume no one will question, that distribution among the States is not one of those purposes. Does it not follow, as an inevitable conclusion of right reason, that whatever might be the constitutional power of Congress over a fund on hand, which it was evident could never be absorbed in the proper outlay of the Government, it would be a manifest breach of all constitutional trust to make such a distribution, when the effect would be to create a necessity for raising further sums by taxation to supply the place of those so diverted by distribution? But I understood the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CLAY,] who addressed us the other day, to consider a portion of these lands as a specific trust, to be applied to certain purposes distinctly pointed out in the deeds of cession. The following is the language used in the cession made by the State of Virginia, on the 1st day of March, 1784, to wit: "That all the lands within the territory so ceded to the United States, and not reserved or appropriated to any of the before-mentioned purposes, or disposed of in bounties to the officers and soldiers of the American Army, shall be considered as a common fund for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become, members of the Confederation or Federal alliance of said States, Virginia inclusive, according to the usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and shall be faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever." The language used in the deeds of other States substantially the same. It is very obvious that distribution is not one of the objects of the trust, or it would have been set forth. The object, after certain reservations, is one, and that is "to be a common fund for the use and benefit of all the States, according to the usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure. It is well known that, at this time, our Federal Constitution had not been adopted, and that each State contributed by taxing and collecting from her own citizens so much to the general charge as Congress declared to be her quota. The object of the trust declared in relation to the public lands, was then manifest-that a proportion equal to what each State contributed to the general charge and expenditure, of the proceeds of the public lands, was to be applied toward her quota of such charge and expenditure, and diminish to that extent her necessity for self-taxation. The words use and benefit" exclude the idea of an actual surrender to the States; but imply an application by a trustee to the particular use declared. And as if to exclude any possibility of mistake, the deed goes on to declare that it shall be faithfully and bona fide, (appropriate words as applicable to a servant or trustee,) disposed of for that purpose, and no other use or purpose whatsoever. Nothing can be more specific and exclusive of every other use and purpose than contribution to the general charge and expenditure. 66 But the secret that such an impression does exist somewhere, and the true origin of that impres-is sion, are disclosed further by a metaphor resorted to by the opponents of these resolutions to show their impolicy. They speak of this Government being the father, and the States the children. From this figure the principle of consolidation is distinctly seen peeping out, and its fallacy ought to be at once exposed. Does the son beget the father, or the father the son? Is the procreator or the offspring anterior in existence? There can be but one answer to these questions. Now, as the States made the General Government, and not the General Government the State governments, and as the State governments existed for years before the General Government, the General Government cannot be the father of the State governments. But waiving the correctness of the figure for the present, for the sake of argument let it be conceded that the relationship does exist as supposed. Assuming this, the argument on the other side is that it is impolitic and unkind for a father to proclaim the indebtedness of his children, and declare in advance that he will not assume their debts. But in this argument two important facts are overlooked in the case of the particular family spoken of, namely, in the first place that the indebtedness of the children is known to every one before the father speaks, and speak to us of the woes of the States, and the sym- in the next place that the father cannot speak to odpathy due to them, if we were not expected to his children without all the world hearing him. bring relief? Do men spend their breath in detail- The question then arises whether such a father, ring their grievances, and appealing to the pity of knowing that his children were largely indebted, those from whom they expect nothing? A poli- and that designing persons were endeavoring to tician as old and experienced and skillful as the persuade them that it was the duty of the father Senator from Kentucky speaks not without an and the interest of the whole family that he should object; and to me the inference is clear, that, like assume their debts, while he himself firmly beleaven, his words are cast into the mass to create lieved that such a step would be ruinous to all, a ferment in the public mind until it throws out and unjust to many branches of it, he ought not some food for the cravings of the States, or rather to warn his children against listening to pernicious of the British bankers. The objection, then, that counsels-counsels tending to render them indothese resolutions were unnecessary, is as ground-lent and extravagant-and distinctly to apprise less as the one that they are irregular. d ons And this is further conclusively proved by the third objection brought against them, to wit, that they are impolitic. How impolitic? Because, forsooth, they will injure the credit of the States. them that, according to his views of justice, ex- 4. Resolved, That to set apart the public lands, or the Thus matters stood anterior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. But I understood the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CLAY] to say that after that, the execution of the trust became impossible, and the trust fund consequently resulted to the original grantors; that the States no longer contributed, by self-taxation, their proportions to the general charge and expenditure, but the levy of taxes was made by the General Government through imposts upon the country at large, and the measure of application and the subjects of application were thereby annihilated. It is true that, in practice, after the adoption of the Federal Constitution the States were no more called on to contribute their proportions of the public charge and expenditure, but this was a mere practical 26TH CONG....1ST SESS. operation. Potentially, both the objects and "The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." Assumption of State Debts-Mr. Strange. Now, what territory was there belonging to the United States, other than the lands ceded by the States? And there is no evidence that any other territory, which could be called property of the United States, was in contemplation. So far from it, purchases of territory, since made, have been seriously questioned as breaches of the Constitution. It follows, then, that these public lands were deemed the property of the United States by the framers of the Constitution, and not that the trust had resulted for the want of power to execute it. It appears, then, that Congress holds this fund under the same trusts that it does other property of the United States; and the question recurs whether, if Congress cannot constitutionally raise money for distribution among the States, she can do so indirectly, by applying the money which she holds for the purposes of the Government to distribution among the States, and thereby create a necessity for raising other money for those purposes to which the fund distributed ought to have been applied. Every fair mind furnishes a ready answer to this question. revenue, showing that an abstraction of the pro- that a distribution of the proceeds of the public 2. Nor is the injustice of such distribution less 3. As to the inexpediency of the distribution objected to by the resolution, what can any man say, after the luminous and forcible portraiture made of its effects a few days ago by the Senator from South Carolina? It is a vast subject, and I will not overtask myself and the patience of the Senate by going into it. I leave it as left by the Senator from South Carolina. I will not attempt to gild a sunbeam. And here, sir, the subject would seem naturally "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again: So may error ever perish, and, among other The great difficulty of the cause to which I belong, in our party strifes, is the preservation of our own banner. Our adversaries are ever striving to throw matters into confusion, and taking advantage of the tumult to rob us of our banner, and to thrust theirs into our unwilling grasp. Our names are seized upon and appropriated to themselves, and others fixed upon us by which our forefathers never baptized us. Thus occasionally are our own brethren and kindred, men of the same political family, and sharing with us in the common inheritance of sound faith, made for a time to fight against us, and mischief is perpe SENATE. arm to the public view the glorious Democratic fruit of the body to appease imaginary deities for Next came the age of Mars, and heroes, clad in steel, controlled mankind. He is among the most noble of the heathen gods, and has about him a generosity of character which disdains to trample on the weak and defenseless, and scatters with liberality what he gathers by his power. Still he appealed not to the reason of mankind, but controlled them, through their fears, with the rustling banner and the bristling steel. After him came Mercury, establishing domin ion by addressing himself, through fraud and artifice, to the cupidity of mankind, or humbling them into submission by reducing them to poverty. Finally, combinations were formed among all these powers, and the science of government became complex and mysterious. It was sup posed that there was no other way of correcting the evils, or rather to render them tolerable, incident to these principles of government, than to resort to checks and balances, and to make the vices and passions of one man restrain the vices and passions of another. When government became a mystery it was supposed that it admitted but of three simple forms, namely, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and that all governments consisted of one or more of these elements, controlled by one another, or a combination of two or three, of the heathen deities before mentioned. Such was the state of things in the Old World, but our sagacious forefathers saw the error of principles on which those Governments were based, and the battles of our Revolution were fought that the whole heathen Pantheon might be dethroned with its cumbrous and expensive ma chinery, and that Governments might be estab lished in the New World formed upon moral principles; that man might be restored to his native dignity, a self-governing being, disinthralled from the dominion of passions, and yielding to the sway of reason and conscience-a reason and conscience on whose tablets are written, by the finger of God himself, precious and noble truths which can never be erased, but are refreshed by revelation from day to day. They believed that man retains much of the original image of his Maker; that somedo to his country than to hold forth with a strong thing of His purity is enshrined in the breast of And is it not equally obvious, that while the Government continues in operation, such must be the effect of every distribution, unless we can suppose the improbable (and certainly not now existing) case of the General Government holding funded debt or stocks yielding an annual interest sufficient to defray its current expenses? The en-trated difficult to repair; for it is not every man lightened and able Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] in his argument on the expediency of this measure, has put the case of the present state of the Treasury and the prospective who knows the true prince by "instinct," like I do not know a better service that a man can DI 26TH CONG....1ST SESS. Assumption of State Debts-Mr. Strange. inevitable consequence. A man is fitted by a gradual increase or reduction of his means to bear the maximum or minimum with calmness, while sudden reverses either way bring in their train the loss of content, and with it, happiness. In either case the passion of avarice is stirred to woman; that mercy, that most interesting of His attributes, beams forth from her eye in rays of tenderness or gently distills in drops of sympathy. That in the bosom of man His sterner attribute of justice has a deep abiding place. Such were the principles upon which our beautiful system of government were based. Corruption was ex-madness. This is the real curse under which we cluded by avoiding accumulations of power; justice secured by establishing a perfect equality of rights among men; and happiness placed within the reach of all, by opening a fair field for virtue, and talent, and industry to reap their harvest; while vice and ignorance and stupidity and in- || dolence were left to that curse to which a righteous Providence has seen fit to expose them. But the devil came, as he has ever done to each earthly paradise, disguised as an angel of light, or in some unobtrusive form, little calculated to excite the alarm of those whose destruction he meditates. Connate with our Constitution were those who held to the old belief that honest, disinterested reason was an unsafe governor, and that Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury-one, or all threemust be restored; hence an established religion, standing armies, vast navies, exclusive privileges and monopolies, and whole hosts of eleemosynary dependents upon the labor of others, all had their advocates. In all this we perceive what constitute the warring elements of party in our land. But constant association, even in strife, will assimilate men to each other, and one may gather moral contagion from another whom he hates; and thus have these parties been constantly varying in the intensity of their principles, so as even sometimes to render it doubtful which was which. The result has been that Jupiter, and Mars, and Mercury, have all been imperceptibly regaining in part their lost empire, and although disavowed in our constitutions, have exerted substantial control in our public affairs. Of these, as might have been expected from his nature, Mercury has been by far the most successful. He has not only given tone to our Government, but has enthroned himself in the hearts of our people, until, instead of increasing in virtue and disinterestedness and patriotism, an eager haste to be rich has become our distinguishing national characteristic. Hence every individual is pursuing riches as the chief good, and money, money, money,currency, currency, currency, is the continual cry in the country, in the city, in private conversation, and in the debates of this Chamber. To all this the Governments have been contributing by example, and the stimulus of their measures, tariff, internal improvements by the General Government, lending revenues for banking purposes, and other kindred operations. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] has represented the friends of the Administration as differing among themselves as to which of these causes have produced these effects. He will pardon me for saying there is no such difference among them; they all concur in believing every one of them the offspring of the same parent, and to have acted harmoniously in the accomplishment of his designs. Some may suppose one of these causes more efficient than the rest; others may have supposed another; but all agree that the whole responsibility is to be shared among them; and in what exact proportions it is not thought very material to inquire. But what, after all, is the great evil they have produced? Is it any actual diminution of the resources of the country? This, perhaps, they have effected to a great extent; but that is little or nothing compared to the real evils. These are transferring by stratagem and fraud, from A to B, the hard earnings of the latter, not by a regular and slow process, but by the quick and unseen movements of a mountebank; defeating that tendency to equilibrium at which our institutions aim; leaving the one party overwhelmed with amazement and distress at a poverty which has rushed upon him like an armed man; the other panting with that feverish thirst for wealth which sudden success begets-the deepest curse of him who feels it resembling in kind and intensity that of the fabled Tantalus; or wallowing in an ostentatious luxury at war with our republican institutions; provoking impotent envy in some; in others, less wealthy, ruinous efforts to vie in splendor. Individual and aggregate misery is the are at present laboring. This is the agony through || which we are passing, of which I spoke yesterday. A picture drawn by the hand of an ancient master is not inapplicable to our times. Sallust, in one of his epistles to Cæsar, thus expresses himself: "In process of time, the ascendency of wealth became complete. Its excellence was universally acknowledged, and power and honors followed in its train. From the same era, the decline of virtue may be dated. Poverty was now held as ignominions. Innocence of heart and simplicity of manners were interpreted into a satire on the times. Thus the youth, taught to look up to riches as the sovereign good, became apt pupils in the school of luxury. Avarice and pride supplied their precepts. Rapacity and profusion went hand in hand. Careless of their own fortunes, and eager to possess those of others, shame and remorse, modesty and moderation, every principle, gave way. All rushed into a profligacy that heeded no restraint, either divine or human." side, did we not prevent these evils? In turn, I will And why, we are tauntingly asked on the other ask another question. Has not the Democratic party been striving against them-inefficiently, it is true, but still striving-from time immemorial? We read a parable in Scripture of a certain husbandman, who sowed good seed in his field; but while he slept an enemy came and sowed tares among his wheat. Would it not have been an aggravation of the wrong had that enemy taunted him to his face, by asking him why he suffered tares to grow among his wheat? We are the descendants of those (politically, I mean,) who sowed the good seed of Democratic principles in our constitutions, and yonder are the descendants of those who sowed the tares of Federalism among it; and now they ask us why we have not prevented their growth. They point exultingly to this and that bad measure, which they have themselves cajoled or forced us into, and laugh at us for not having avoided them, although, like struggling men, in attempting that which we would, we have been forced to do that which we would not. The State bank deposit system, they know well, we were pressed into by them in our efforts to escape from the more dangerous system of the United States Bank. It was to us a halfway house, as they have endeavored since to make it for themselves, between a United States Bank and a total disconnection of the Government from banking affairs. SENATE. us perform our constitutional duty of furnishing the nation standards of weights and measures, and of the value of property, and, freed from all distracting influences from ourselves, the States will be as certain to abide by all these as that flowers succeed the showers of spring. You have no right to say to the States that they shall keep their accounts in dollars and cents; that they shall measure cloth with a yard-stick, or their corn by the bushel, or weigh their bacon by the pound; but it is your duty to furnish them with standards by which value, weights, and measures may be tested. You should perform this duty, and having performed it, ask for no more power in relation to these subjects. You have all that is needful for liberty, and more can only be desired by tyranny. The banking institutions, debts, and internal improvements of the States will soon be brought within wholesome limits if you will only let them alone. A bad currency is a curse to the community in which it exists, and the State Legislature will soon be forced by a community which feels the smart to apply the proper correctives; and States having no resources but those derived from direct taxation to pay debts and carry on works of internal improvements will become very chary in contracting the one and quite prudent in conducting the other. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] tauntingly reminds us that the present Administration, on coming into power, found the nation in a high state of prosperity, but the Senator well knows it was a deceptive prosperity; it was that state of pleasant delirium which some poisons produce. The raging madness had not then disclosed itself; lethargic prostration had not supervened. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] presents, in glowing colors, the oft-drawn picture of the prosperity for which we are indebted canals, railroads, villages, and fast-multiplying to the credit system. Our numerous steamboats, States, are all attributed to this credit system. In this argument the Senator, I think, falls into two fallacies; one, in attributing too much to the credit system; and another, in assuming that the friends of the Administration are warring upon it. I will not say that the credit system has no share in the production of these great results, but I do say that they are mainly to be ascribed to the great national advantages which Heaven has vouchsafed our country; to that elastic spring which exists among the inhabitants of all new countries, but chiefly to our glorious free constitutions, founded But they ask us further why we do not correct on moral principles, to which men have flocked in orowds from other lands. To the credit systhese evils, now that we are fully aware of their existence. Mark again the insulting cruelty of tem, I, for one, am no enemy; but I am for leavthis inquiry. They bind a man's hands behind ing it to the States, to be fashioned according to his back, and cast him into the water, and ask their fancy, and I am well satisfied that they will him to swim. Have we not been endeavoring to not much abuse it. I am for withdrawing, at from them continual resistance? Yet the evils adonce and forever, our awkward intermeddling with remedy these evils, and have we not encountered it. With us it is like bladders in the hands of mit of no immediate remedy. The poison of ava-boys; at one time we blow it up to its highest tension, and at another explode it with a great rice has seized on the heart of the nation, and that noise. Let us cease from this foolish and frivis a malady which admits of no radical cure during olous, not to say dangerous employment. And the present generation. Of him in whose bosom in addition to this, let us cease by our vicious exthe serpent avarice has fixed its envenomed tooth, it may with truth be said, as lago said of Othello: amples to perpetuate the false notions prevalent in the country, that show and wealth and pomp are "Not poppy, nor mandragora, the only elements of happiness, and that virtue and talents are worthless, except so far as they contribute to these. Let us, on the contrary, present abiding examples of economy and republican simplicity. Nor all the drowsy sirups of the world Yet, in talking of remedies, they always indicate to us such as consist with their mistaken notions of the disease, and are for administering those which must inevitably aggravate its symptoms. Still there is something we can do, something we have done, and something, I trust in God, we will yet do, if not to heal the disease, at least to prevent its spread. We may stand like Moses between the living and the dead, and prevent its extending to those who are yet healthy. And if we cannot hinder its extending itself through the whole living mass we may prevent its transmission to posterity. This can only be done by successfully resisting the mad schemes of those who are continually administering fresh poison in the form of high tariff, United States Bank, connecting the Government with banks, distributing revenue among the States, assuming State debts, &c. This is all we need do. Let These, Mr. President, are my remedies, and I do not think it would be saying much for them merely to declare that they are far preferable to the one to which the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] looks with such ecstatic devotion. I do not think this the proper place for discussing the merits of presidential candidates; but are we to sit here from day to day and hear the President of the United States denounced on the other side of this Chamber as utterly unfit for the station he fills, and other men "applauded to the very echo," as endowed with every quality which can fit a man to govern, and admit by our silence the truth of all that is alleged? As an American statesman-as a lover of my country, feel that it is wrong, and that it is my solemn duty to put in a counter plea. I 238 26TH CONG....1ST SESS. Assumption of State Debts-Mr. Strange. event, he managed so dexterously as to have him- But as the great physician, who is to "purge The Gheber looks to the East for his god, but the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] looks to the West, and, as might be expected, his eye encounters a setting and not a rising luminary. Not a giant rising in his strength, and rejoicing to run his course, but a being worn out and exhausted, unfitted for action, and suited only for repose. And what is still more unfortunate, even this setting luminary is surrounded by no halo of glory, but like the moon described by Moore in his song, weeping "behind a cloud, (I will not say "for the maiden's shame," because that might be supposed to have a sinister allusion, but) for shame that while a portion of his countrymen are lauding him to the skies as a sage, a hero, and a statesman, he is compelled to remember the old proverb, "Praise undeserved is censure in disguise.' Reposing on his own estate, (not in a log cabin, as some have pretended, but in a splendid mansion, as I am told,) perfectly unconscious of any merit, his friends insist upon dragging him forth to dissolve, by his presence, the fanciful conceptions of his great qualities which they have conjured up in the public mind. There was a time when some of the leaders of the party who are now seeking to make political capital out of military fame declared that the election of a military chieftain to the presidency of the United States was the greatest curse that could fall upon the nation. Why have they now selected a military chieftain for their political lead-jail as bond-servants, he is likely to be a Magnus er? Is it because they believe what has been said of him, that "he is not general enough to hurt him?" Why, then, present him in the glare of military glory? Is it to dazzle the people, as moths are said to be by the brightness of a candle? But more in sorrow than in reproach, do I declare his military renown to be like the tinsel glitter of dresses at a theater, got up for show, and for the occasion, which will not bear the light of day, or the scrutiny of examination. Alas! where shall we look for the evidences of the sagacity and heroism of William Henry Harrison? Are they to be sought for in that page of history which records the battle of Tippecanoe? Are they to be found in his surprise and agitation when Joe Davis carried the white banner-not very high, it is true, nor yet as a flag of truce, but by necessity-and fought under it, or rather over it, with desperate valor, snatching in death a victory which had been thrust into the hands of the enemy by the want of skill (to use no harsher term) of his chief? Are they to be found in the story of his consigning to the slaughter the chivalrous Croghan, with his handful of men, while the general himself, within sound of the well-directed and effective fire of Fort Stephenson, stood with some thousands of stout Americans at his back, wringing his hands, and crying out "his blood be upon his own head?" Are they registered in the page which tells of the battle of the Thames, where he reluctantly pursued a retreating foe, while bolder spirits, among whom you, sir, stand nobly conspicuous, pressed forward, and gathered wounds and laurels, dripping with the same blood? Are they to be found in the tragic story of the river Raisin? Are they found in his resigning his command in May, 1814, amid the very heat of war, upon the acknowledged ground that detraction had breathed upon his name, and he not choosing to court an inquiry into the truth of the imputations? Are they furnished by the deliberate rejection of his name, when his country was bestowing the meed of approbation upon some of her sons who had earned it by deeds of valor? If these are his jewels they are as worthless as the black diamond to the lapidary. Deeds like these shine like dark lightning. They will resound through the earth like silent thunder. But the military fame of this new messiah, who is "to bring peace upon the earth," is a mere make-weight. It is as a skillful diplomatist, a profound politician, that he is to commend himself to the hearts of the people, and win from them the oaken chaplet on which so many look with a longing eye. As to his diplomacy, I have heard of but one opportunity afforded him for its display, and then I have learned that high authority pronounced him, in advance, utterly unfit for the station to which he was assigned, and that, in the Apollo-Esculapius, if you please-all over the sense. I have too much confidence in the people of these of his rival. Like every wise physician, he has leading advocates of the one have ever been the It is not the first time I have heard the shout to that blind confidence and enthusiasm so natu- SENATE. as a matter of course, no one of opposing politics is there. What is the consequence? There is no fellowship between the ins and the outs. The mass of the people finding themselves excluded, together with the leading men of the Democratic party, cannot fail to perceive that a common destiny has visited both, and they are naturally drawn into association with those who have been excluded like them, and not with those who have been reveling in pleasures in which they have not been invited to participate. But lest I may be casting pearls-I will not say before swine-lest I may be casting away good counsel upon those by whom it will not be justly valued, I will close my didactic strain. A few words in conclusion, to the people of my own State. The presidential strife is not the only one going on at present. One is now raging in North Carolina in which my colleague and myAt the last session of self have a deep interest. Congress, we presented on this floor resolutions containing the opinions of the Legislature of that State, of popular sentiment upon certain great leading questions. We then declined assuming for the Legislature a responsibility which, according to our understanding of the Democratic doctrine of instruction, (a doctrine which we received with implicit faith,) properly rested upon it. We took issue with the Legislature, as we had a right to do on its expressed opinion of popular sentiment; and to enable all parties to have the issue tried, and at the same time to put ourselves and our political principles fairly before the people of North Carolina, we avowed our determination to resign our commissions into the hands of the next Legislature, whatever political party might prove to be in the ascendant. That we may not be supposed to have forgotten the pledge, or to repent having made it, I now solas a trust from the people of my State. As their emnly renew it. I hold my seat in this body but wish that I should hold it has been questioned, to them I refer for the solution of the doubt. All I ask is, that they will have the goodness, in their next legislative elections, to keep this question distinctly before them, and cast their votes accordingly; and to their decision, whatever it may be, I will bow with filial submission. It is not likely that I shall often again trouble the Senate until that decision is made; and in conclusion of what may be the last address I shall ever make to it, I ask pardon of the Senate for having so long and so unprofitably occupied its time. On the day after the remarks of Mr. STRANGE, Mr.TALLMADGE, of New York, addressed the Senate, and, in the course of his speech, was pleased to consider the observations of Mr. STRANGE upon the Federal practice of feasting a sarcastic allusion to the entertainments given to the President during his summer tour through his native State -indulging at the same time in some very coarse remarks upon the President, which were understood by Mr. STRANGE to charge the President with ingratitude to his native State, and of having played the traitor toward it. Mr. STRANGE in reply said: I should not have again so soon troubled the Senate, Mr. President, had not the Senator from New York [Mr. TALLMADGE] done me the honor to notice some of my remarks made on yesterday, perverting them to a far different sense from that in which He was pleased to supthey were used by me. pose that I had some sarcastic allusion to the entertainments given to the President during his tour, last summer, through the State of New York. These entertainments were altogether different from the Federal feasts to which I alluded. The latter seem to be given for no object but to produce effect, and act upon elections; the former, were the mere rendition of courtesy and the outfellow-citizen, upon his return after a long absence from his native State. They were due to the man, but still more to the Chief Magistrate of the nation; and I deeply regret that the political rancor of the Federalists should have caused these pub lic demonstrations of good feeling to be confined to one political party. Of what ingratitude to his State, on the part of Mr. Van Buren, the Senator speaks, I am at a loss to understand. Does he mean to complain that he has administered the And now, having undertaken to advise my Federal friends, I would warn them against another practice which, I verily believe, has often contrib-pouring of good feeling toward a distinguished uted to their defeat. I mean their custom of giving great political feasts with the hope of making a strong impression, and convincing men of the justice of their cause by tickling their palates and addling their brains. The practice springs out of their great radical mistake that man is more of an animal than an intellectual being. But upon their own basis they miscalculate. It is never the mass of voters who are invited to these feasts; it is the élite of the party, the favored few, and, |