26TH CONG....1ST SESS.

had been treated on this subject, and altogether for political effect. Almost as soon as it was known that the President intended to visit New York there were murmurings in the Whig ranks that there would be no enthusiasm in his reception; that it would be cold, and confined to a few officeholders and devoted partisans. His response at the Battery to the address made him was seized upon as a pretext to execute what had been long predetermined. It was said he had avowed himself the President of a party by responding to his" Democratic" fellow-citizens. Had any other class of citizens addressed him, and thus entitled themselves to a response? Did not the orator who addressed him speak in behalf of his " Democratic fellow-citizens?" Was the President to deny to the orator the character he had assumed? And, if allowing him the character, could he do otherwise than respond to it? Suppose an orator had addressed irim in behalf of his Masonic fellow-citizens, could the President do otherwise than respond to his Masonic fellow-citizens? If his Whig fellow-citizens really designed to show respect to the President, would they not have selected an orator to address him, or have united with the Democracy in the selection of a common spokesman? Not having done either of these, could they reasonably expect a response addressed to them from one to whom they had said nothing? The expectation would have been unreasonable. It was never entertained; and an event which every one must have foreseen, has been spoken of with affected amazement, and perverted to the injury of one who does honor to his State and country, for party purposes.

Mr. WRIGHT. Mr. President, I cannot but feel the remarks which have fallen from the Chair as implying a reproof upon myself; a reproof, sir, I know, not intended, but necessarily following from the discharge of that unpleasant duty which the Chair has felt itself left to perform, to protect the absent from the consequences of language used in debate in the Senate. As a personal and political friend of the President of the United States I thank you, sir, for the manifestation of friendly feeling toward that officer which you have now given; and my self-reproach arises from the conviction that you must have felt it to be much more the duty of the friends of that in

Cumberland Road-Mr. Wright.

or public reputation. Hence my determination
to preserve silence, as his friend.

This occasion calls also for an explanation as
to my own course. I need not ask the Senate to
witness for me the reluctance I have manifested
here upon all occasions to enter into these angry
discussions with my colleague. That reluctance
has become so evident to himself that it has been
made matter of charge against me upon this floor,
and he calls it lecturing him upon forbearance,
good temper, and good feeling. There are limits
beyond which even such lectures should not be
delivered, and I cannot disguise from myself that
that limit, as between that Senator and me, is
nearer than even he may suspect.

I shall not, however, follow him now a single step. My original purpose as to him, so far as this debate is concerned, shall be fully and faithfully preserved. I have not risen to reply to him, but to justify myself to you, sir, and to the body. You referred in your remarks to the epithet of traitor applied by him to the President. He answers by saying that the words were not his, but a quotation from Shakspeare. How far he can exempt himself from your strictures by such an apology I am not disposed to examine. How far an ingenuous mind would feel relieved, after having applied offensive and unmerited epithets toward an individual, epithets confessed to be unmerited by the apology that the words were quoted, and not original with the speaker, I will not inquire. It is enough for me to know and feel that I would never make such an apology for such an offense, where personal or public character and honor are concerned.

SENATE.

no language would be objected to by him on account of its harshness. His principal and his only object was to prevent personalities, which must always tend, in a greater or less degree, to produce disorder and unpleasant feelings among the members.

CUMBERLAND ROAD.

DEBATE IN THE SENATE,
TUESDAY, March 31, 1840.

The bill for the continuation of the Cumberland road in the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, was taken up for consideration; and the question being on the amendment proposed by Mr. CLAY, of Alabama, to strike out the two per cent. clause,

Mr. WRIGHT said he did not rise to debate the merits of the Cumberland road bill. That duty he left to those who, from local position and more extensive acquaintance with the utility of the work, could beiter discharge it. Still he had for some years now last past given his vote for these appropriations, and he desired to do so now. He was anxious that the bill should retain its usual form, the characteristics which had distinguished appropriations for this road from those for internal improvements generally. This work was thus distinguished from the peculiar circumstances which had led Congress to undertake it, and appropriations to continue it could have his support only upon the conditions that these distinctions were carefully and fully preserved.

From these remarks it would be seen that his object was to discuss, not the general merits of the bill, but the particular motion of the Senator from Alabama, [Mr. CLAY.] If that motion prevailed, the bill would be placed beyond the reach of his vote, and, as he had learned, of the votes of several other Senators. He hoped the motion. would not prevail, and he must ask a small portion of the time of the body for an attempt to show to the friends of the measure that it should not

What was the motion? It was to strike out from the bill the following words:

There was one other remark, sir, which you did not notice, and which I thought not less exceptionable. It related to the statement of a fact in the last annual message of the President, and the charge was that the statement was untrue, and that the President knew it to be untrue. Here, however, Mr. President, there was an apology for the assertion, by the way of a qualification to it; and what was that? It was that if the Pres-prevail. ident did not know his statement to be untrue, he proved himself disqualified for the station he holds by making it. My reply to this omission of yours, sir, is, that when the President of the United States shall be under the necessity of appealdividual upon this floor than of yourself to inter-ing to the source of these remarks, either to espose that interference against harsh and unparlia-tablish his character for truth, or his capacity for mentary remarks aimed at him which you have his present office, he will be beyond my reach found yourself constrained to make. As a Sen- || for defense or justification. ator from the same State from which the President comes, you must have considered it my especial duty to shield him from such assaults emanating from a Senator from his own State.

Will you, Mr. President, permit me to address one word to you in conclusion? I pretend to no learning in the rules and orders of a legislative assembly; but when the President of the United I may, sir, have mistaken my duty. I have States shall be concerned, and my colleague shall not been insensible to the delicacy of my position.be the accuser, I entreat of you, so far as you can Had my own feelings permitted that insensibility, possibly make it consistent with your sense of the the best of friends to the President and myself duties of your position, not to interfere upon any here have not suffered me to rest in unconscious- future occasion. Leave to the friends of the Presness of the impressions produced upon others. ident here his protection from assaults of this They have given me repeated admonitions, while character and from that quarter. these remarks have been in the course of utterance, that it was my imperious duty to correct the errors and repel the imputations with which they were so plentifully interspersed.

Even against these strong exterior influences, and, I must be permitted to say, against the stronger impulses of my own feelings toward a most valued and esteemed and abused friend, I must confess, Mr. President, 1 had made up my mind to preserve perfect silence. Your interference has unsealed my lips, and I now owe it to the Senate, to the respectable auditory present, and to the country, to explain the grounds upon which my determination to be silent was rested.

I doubt not, sir, that I treated the debate, in my own mind, too much as a State matter, as the course of remark of the speaker was calculated to induce me to do. In that sense I felt a confidence which amounted to unconcern. I could not bring myself to believe that the individual who now occupies the presidential chair required defense from accusations made in the tone and temper to which the Senate was compelled to listen, and resting on the authority which brought them before the body. The standing and character and public course of the President during a long life of public services were too well known to me to permit me to feel alarm for his personal

The VICE PRESIDENT asked leave to submit a single remark. Although he was decidedly of the impression that it was unparliamentary and out of order to make personal attacks on the President of the United States in debate, as having a tendency to bring members into collision and produce crimination and recrimination, he should not hereafter feel it his duty to call any member to order, whatever might be the character of his remarks. He had discharged what he had considered to be his duty in submitting the subject to the consideration of the members of the Senate, who were equally interested in the preservation of its decorum and harmony. In answer to the suggestion that the rules of the Senate should not interfere with the freedom and latitude of debate, he would state that he fully coincided in the sentiment; and members might, if they thought proper, resort to the Greek, the Latin, the French, or the English, for phrases to add to the pungency or strength of their animadversions, and however harsh they might be, he would not interfere. In his opinion, however, it was of very little importance, when you inflicted a stab on the person or reputation of your neighbor, whether you inflicted it with your own weapon or one borrowed for the purpose from another. In speaking of measures whose tendencies were despotic and tyrannical,

Which said appropriations are made upon the same terms, and shall be subject to all the provisions, conditions, restrictions, and limitations, touching appropriations for the Cumberland road, contained in the act entitled "An act to provide for continuing the construction and for the repair of the Cumberland road," approved the 3d day of March, 1837.

A reference to the act of 1837 would show the effect of this proposed amendment, by showing the "provisions, conditions, restrictions, and limitations" contained in that act subject to which the bill in its present shape proposes to make these appropriations, but from which the amendment if adopted will free them and leave the appropriations open, general, and unconditional. He was satisfied, too, that this examination would prove that the proposition to amend was even broader than the honorable mover intended or desired; that there were "conditions and limitations" in that act which even he did not desire to remove; from which he would not wish to relieve these appropriations in case they were to be made.

What, then, were the conditions, restrictions, and limitations" in the act of 1837 referred to? The first was found in the first section of the act, in the following words:

"That the said road within the State of Illinois shall not be stoned or graveled, unless it can be done at a cost not greater than the average cost of stoning or graveling said road within the States of Ohio and Indiana."

This, he presumed, was a "limitation" which the honorable mover of the amendment and those who would vote with him did not desire to repeal. The second was in the same section, and in the following words:

"That in all cases where it can be done, it shall be the duty of the superintending officers to cause the work on said road to be laid off in sections, and let out to the lowest substantial bidders after due notice."

Here, again, was a "restriction" which he did not suppose the opponents of the bill would be anxious to remove.

The third "condition" was found in the second section of this act of 1837, in the following words:

"That the second section of an act for the continuation of the Cumberland road in the States of Ohio, Indiana, and

16

26TH CONG.... 1ST SESS.

Union on an equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes; three per cent. of the appropriation contained in the said seventh section being directed by a subsequent law to the laying out, opening, and making roads within the said State of Ohio. And secondly, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, chargeable upon and reimbursable at the Treasury by said fund of two per cent. as the same shall accrue."

Cumberland Road-Mr. Clay.

present it as an exception to the rule for which he
was contending.

SENATE.

acres. Even at the present minimum price of the public lands, the two per cent. from this quantity would, if he had made no error in the calculation,

suppose, the State of Missouri should be embraced in the estimate of future revenue to the fund, it would be more than doubled. There are 32,154,897 acres of unsold land in that State, and at the minimum price that quantity will pay more than $800,000 to this fund. But when it is considered that the unsold land in all these States must become more valuable as settlements increase and improvements in its vicinity are extended, who shall say what limit shall be fixed to this contingent fund? In any event it seemed to him a plain dictate of duty to secure whatever it is to yield to reimburse the Treasury for this expensive work.

The second and only other exception which his research had enabled him discover was a bill ap-yield to this fund more than $670,000. If, as some proved on the 2d of March, 1833, at the close of General Jackson's first term. This was a plain case of departure from the rule of charging these Here we are shown fully the origin of this appropriations upon the two per cent. fund, as the work called the Cumberland road, the basis upon appropriations made in this law for continuing which its adoption by Congress rested, and the the construction of the road in the three States, fund from which the expenditures were to be de-separate from the appropriations for repairs, were frayed. In every respect the work was peculiar direct in manner and heavy in amount. He was as a work of internal improvement prosecuted by happy, however, to be able to destroy the force the authority and under the direction of Congress. of this exception as a precedent upon the authorThis very first act, too, as its terms fully show, ity of the then President himself. He spoke from adopted the principle of anticipating the avails of personal information from that distinguished inthis two per cent. fund by a general appropriation dividual when he said that his approbation of that from the Treasury, charged upon the fund, and to bill was an oversight, suffered in the hurry of busibe reimbursable out of it. It was not necessary ness at the close of a short session of Congress, for him to defend the wisdom of this policy at that when all who have been here know that a great early day. It was sufficient that it was then majority of the bills of the session go to the Presadopted, and was one of the expositions, by the ident during the last evening. All who were here then fathers, of the powers and duties of Congress at the session of 1832-33 will remember that it growing out of these new and peculiar compacts was one of the most exciting periods of our hiswith the new States. It was too late for him now tory, and that an unusual number of bills of the to question the soundness of the principles upon deepest interest finally passed the two Houses which they acted, or the wisdom of the policy and reached the President within the last few which guided their course. Nearly every Con- hours of the session which closed on Saturday gress from 1806 to the present time had followed the 2d of March. in their footsteps, and every President of the United States, from Mr. Jefferson to the present incumbent, had approved bills appropriating money for this road.

An examination of this bill will present a fur-
ther and strong apology for the oversight of the
President. Instead of being the usual and ordi-
nary appropriation bill for the Cumberland road,
it is an appropriation bill of an anomalous char-

ety of other subjects in the same bill. Its title is
a very imperfect index of its contents, and yet it
is evidently made up of the substance of the titles
of three or four originally independent bills. It
is "An act making appropriations for carrying
on certain works heretofore commenced for the
improvement of harbors and rivers, and also for
continuing and repairing the Cumberland road
and certain territorial roads." It embraces more
than thirty separate and independent appropria-
tions, which take from the Treasury more than
one million dollars. In such a bill, and reaching
the President at such a period, it was not in the
least surprising to him that the absence of this
qualification to the Cumberland road appropria-
tions was not noticed.

Had these bills followed the form of appropriation found in the law of 1806 above quoted?acter, coupling harbors, rivers, roads, and a variHe had taken great pains to answer this inquiry correctly and truly, and with two single exceptions, upon which he would particularly remark, he believed that every appropriation for the survey and construction of the road had been expressly, in the law making it, charged upon the two per cent. fund, and made reimbursable out of it. He had found some bills appropriating money for the repairs of those portions of the road which had been once called completed which did not contain this pledge, as he thought they should not. These were mere appropriations for the preservation and security of the property of the United States, as this road when finished clearly was, until transferred to the States, or otherwise disposed of. It was barely possible that there might be some further exceptions of appropriations for survey and construction, but he could not think there were, as he had intended to make his examination full and accurate.

How, then, did the two exceptions stand? The first is an act of Congress, approved on the 15th of May, 1820, when Mr. Monroe was President. It is peculiar in itself, and perhaps ought not to be considered an exception to the rule under discussion. Its title is "An act to authorize the appointment of commissioners to lay out the road therein mentioned. This will show that the whole object of the act was a survey. The act has a preamble, which is in these words:

"Whereas by the continuation of the Cumberland road from Wheeling, in the State of Virginia, through the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the lands of the United States may become more valuable."

Shall we do this if we pass the amendment now proposed, and thus by our own act release the pledge for the future? What is our daily experience now as to the other States? But a few days since the Senate passed a bill to pay this fund to the State of Mississippi. Another bill is now upon its passage, or has already gone to the House of Representatives, to make the same payment to the State of Alabama. These States have come here with demands for the money which we have not found ourselves able to resist. To Michigan and Arkansas, the whole five per cent. was yielded as one of the terms of their admission into the Union. Other new States will come after these examples, and who can make himself believe that if we strike out this clause, and thus release our hold upon the future accruing revenue to the fund from the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, those States will not come, when their road shall have been completed, and tell us, up to 1840 you held and expended this portion of our two per cent. fund, but in that year you, by your own express act, refused longer to pledge it for the Cumberland road, and the money which has come into your Treasury since that period is ours, upon the principles which have governed your conduct toward the other new States. Who can convince himself that our successors will be able to resist such an application from these States?

To the unconditional opponents of this bill he was aware that this reasoning would be unavailing, nay, that his very declaration of the importance of the provision to him would add to their anxiety to press the motion, that they might force him and others who held similar opinions to vote against the whole measure. Such he knew to be the condition of the honorable mover of the amendment. He was conscientiously opposed to

Still, whether the apology should be deemed sufficient or not, he was able to state the fact that this omission was not noticed, and that the bill would not have received the approbation of the then President, however important these and the other appropriations it contained, if the omission had been observed-so important did he consider the retention of the two per cent. clause, as it is called, as a principle upon which the appropria-his opinions, it was his duty to practice; and such tions for this road rest, and a marked characteristic to distinguish them from open and unrestricted appropriations for internal improvements.

He was aware it had been said, and would again be said, that the expenditures already made upon the road had more than consumed the two per cent. fund reserved and applicable to its construction, and therefore that the clause in the present bills was wholly useless. He wished to meet this ob

Thus placing the legislation upon a ground sep-jection to the clause, as he did all other points of arate from and independent of the compacts with the States and the fund therein provided. The act then goes on to provide for the survey of a road from Wheeling to some point on the left bank of the Mississippi river, between St. Louis and the mouth of the Illinois river, and appropriates $10,000 generally, to be paid out of any unappropriated money in the Treasury, to defray the expense of the survey. The second section of this act contains this emphatic proviso:

“Provided always, and it is hereby enacted and declared, That nothing in this act contained, or that shall be done in pursuance thereof, shall be deemed or construed to imply any obligation on the part of the United States to make, or to defray the expense of making, the road hereby authorized to be laid out, or of any part thereof."

Such was the first exception he had been able to discover, and he remarked again that it was very doubtful how far it could fairly be considered an exception within the proper limits of the discussion. The act was certainly sui generis, as a piece of legislation relating to the Cumberland road; but such as it was, he had felt bound to

No. 21.

this argument, fairly. He was, therefore, willing
to admit that he did not expect the two per cent.
fund of the three States would be sufficient to re-
imburse the Treasury for all past expenses upon
this work; but that did not, to him, constitute a
good reason for separating this essential feature
from the bill, and passing it without it. The prac-
tice commenced with the commencement of the
work, to anticipate the moneys which this fund
was to yield, and if those anticipations had been
pushed too far, it was no reason, to his mind, why
we should abandon our hold upon that portion of
the fund which remains.

All the three States yet embraced within their
limits unsold lands, and consequently portions of
this fund are yet to be collected from all. The
amount, too, is considerable. He had been fa-
vored with an official statement from the General
Land Office, brought down to the close of the
third quarter of the last year, which showed that
the unsold lands in the States of Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois, at that time amounted to 26,835,234

of his motion. This was fair, and gave no ground of complaint. Any fair and open and manly opposition he had a right to practice; indeed, with

was his present proposition for amendment.

To those, however, who were the friends of this road, who desired appropriations for it, he felt that he had a right to appeal with success upon this question. To them the pledge of this fund could not be objectionable, even if they did not consider it any longer useful. It could do no harm, if it was of no substantial service to the Treasury, and they certainly would indulge those who consider it essential, so long as they ask nothing more than what is looked upon as a nugatory provision. They will not bring the fate of the bill into jeopardy rather than not discharge it from what they consider, at the worst, but harmless surplusage, and that, too, after they know that others, equally friendly, consider the provision proposed to be stricken out one of essential, of vital importance.

He must be permitted to believe, therefore, that however far he may have fallen short of producing conviction upon the minds of either the foes or the friends of the measure as to the importance of retaining the pledge of this two per cent. fund, the simple information that he and others so held it would induce every friend to the Cumberland road to vote against the proposed amendment.

Mr. CLAY, of Alabama, claimed the indul gence of the Senate that he might reply to some of the remarks which had fallen from the Senator from New York. He said the Senator from New York, [Mr. WRICHT,] with that adroitness for which he was distinguished in debate, had called

26TH CONG....1ST SESS.

the attention of the Senate to other conditions contained in the act of March 3, 1837, than that which had been the chief subject of his (Mr. C.'s) remarks in the previous part of this discussion, the benefit of which he said would be lost if the amendment prevailed. Seizing upon those other conditions and limitations which no one who had before participated in the debate had deemed of sufficient importance to be noticed, the Senator had apparently endeavored to deter other gentlemen from supporting the amendment, by remarking with portentous solemnity that it went much further than the mover (Mr. C.) or others supposed. So far as related to himself, the Senator from New York was wholly mistaken; he knew perfectly all the conditions and limitations in the act referred to, and he presumed other gentlemen were not so uninformed as seemed to be supposed. He said the difficulty suggested by the gentleman was not so embarrassing or formidable as he seemed to imagine, as he would presently show.

The most obnoxious condition in the act of March 3, 1837, proposed to be revived and continued by that portion of the bill which he had moved to strike out, was that which held out to the President and the country the false idea and delusive hope that the amount appropriated was to be replaced by the said States respectively out of the fund reserved to each for laying out and making roads under the direction of Congress, when no Senator had asserted or could assert that any such fund existed or ever would exist. The Senator from New York himself had distinctly admitted with his usual candor that the whole two per cent. fund which had accrued or ever could accrue on the sale of lands in the four States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, was already exhausted. A knowledge of this fact and a repugnance to see a bill passed through the Senate containing a promise of reimbursement from a mere fictitious fund, and of course deceptive and fraudulent, had induced him, as he had before explained, to move to strike it out. If an individual were to draw a bill of exchange or check in favor of another person on a banker with whom he had no funds deposited, and with no pledge that it should be accepted or paid, it would be held dishonorable. The pretense that the Creneral Government was to be reimbursed the amount of this appropriation when we knew it could not, he said, was in principle the same with the case he had supposed. We were taking the money of the people, and to reimburse them drawing in their favor on a fund upon which we know we have already overdrawn. He appealed to Senators to say whether such a course was compatible with the fairness, candor, and dignity which should ever be manifest in the proceedings of this body.

Cumberland Road-Mr. Clay.

motion prevails (said Mr. C.) and the obnoxious
clause is stricken out, let him move to fill the blank
with the restrictions and conditions alluded to,
and he will encounter no opposition.

Mr. C. said the Senator from New York had
again brought to the attention of the Senate the
several compacts between the United States and
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had been so
often read or referred to in the course of this de-
bate. He would not again read them or pursue
very closely the Senator's comments upon them.
He certainly had not given any new views upon
their proper construction, nor had he proved that
by the terms of those compacts the General Gov-
ernment was bound to give those States more than
the amount of the two per cent. of the net pro-
ceeds of the public lands sold in each after their
admission into the Union. On the contrary, he
understood the Senator from New York to ad-
mit, distinctly, that we were bound for no more
by those compacts, for laying out roads leading
to the several States, and that the fund reserved
for that purpose had long since been entirely ex-
hausted.

SENATE.

So it would have been with the long list of bills making appropriations for the same road, which the gentleman paraded before the Senate as having been approved by the same distinguished Chief Magistrate, if they had wanted the clause promising reimbursement. And so it would doubt less be with the present Chief Magistrate if a bill were to pass for the same object and be presented without such a clause; he, too, professing the same views of constitutional power, would feel bound To avoid this result to return it with his veto. shall we send him a bill masked in fraud? Shail we send it to him with the assertion on its face that the money "shall be replaced by the States respectively" out of a fund which has long ceased

But the Senator had dwelt with much emphasis
upon the surrender by those States of the right
to tax the lands of the United States until five
years after the day of sale. He was not accus-
tomed to deny that such surrender of one of the
rights of sovereignty by the new States (for the
same had been required of and assented to by
all of them) was a great sacrifice; nor should he
on this occasion. It was true that the General
Government had offered, and given to the new
States in exchange, and on the condition they
would yield this right of taxing the public domain
until five years after its sale, the section numbered
sixteen in every township for the use of schools;
the salt springs within them, with certain por-
tions of the public land to aid in the use of work-
ing the same; three per cent. of the net proceeds
of public lands for making roads or canals in the
States, and two per cent. for roads leading to
them; two entire townships of land for the en-
dowment and support of a seminary of learning;
besides land for seats of the State governments;
but it was very questionable whether all these to-
gether would furnish an equivalent for the sur-
render of that single great right of sovereignty.
Yet, he said, the new States had assented to these
conditions, and made the several compacts, and
were bound by them, however hard they might
operate where the public land remained long un-
sold. But he thought it was not just or proper
that three or four of those new States should be
the continual and exclusive recipients of the na-
tional bounty and munificence. If the General
Government had not been liberal enough to the
new States-and Mr. C. frankly believed it had
not, especially in refusing to graduate and reduce
the price of the inferior qualities of land, in con-
sequence of which they had not been sold for
many years, and never would let the Senator
from New York bring in a bill to make up for
all deficiencies, and placing all on an equal foot-

kansas, and Michigan first be placed on an equal-
ity with the other four new States by expending
for their benefit as many million dollars as had
been literally poured out of the Treasury on the
Cumberland road; and let your liberality be ap-
portioned among the several States in proportion
to the amount which each has paid into the Treas-
ury for public lands, and we shall have less cause
to complain of injustice in your exercise of un-
authorized power.

But, sir, (said Mr. C.,) what are the other conditions, limitations, and restrictions of the act of 1837, referred to in the clause embraced by my motion? They are," that the said road, within the State of Illinois, shall not be stoned or graveled, unless it can be done at a cost not greater than the average cost of stoning or graveling said road within the States of Ohio and Indi-ing. Let Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arana," and "that in all cases when it can be done, it shall be the duty of the superintending officers to cause the work on said road to be laid off in sections and let out to the lowest substantial bidder after due notice." The act also contains a further provision, "that the second section of an act for the continuation of the Cumberland road in the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, approved the 2d of July, 1836, shall not be applicable to expenditures hereafter to be made on said road." Now, sir, these several provisions may be necessary and important, and I have no objection whatever to them if the bill should pass. Neither of them comes in collision with my object; and I am perfectly willing, if the money is to be appropriated, that it shall be applied under all those restrictions, and any others the Senate may deem salutary. Mr. C. said, if his amendment prevailed, a part of the bill would merely be stricken out; and how easy would it be, if the other provisions brought to the attention of the Senate were necessary, to have them inserted. This seemed to him to obviate the supposed difficulty entirely, and none would coöperate with the Senator from New York in effectuating that object more cordially than himself. After my

to exist?

Mr. C. contended that nothing favorable to the general power of making appropriations by this Government, for the construction of roads or canals within the limits of the States, was to be inferred from Mr. Jefferson's approval of the bills which had been alluded to by the Senator from New York for the construction of the Cumberland road. That venerated man never gave an opinion that any delegated power of the kind was to be found in the Constitution. All his principles were opposed to such a doctrine. The only provision of the Constitution to which such a power could be considered incidental was to be found in the last paragraph of the third section of the fourth article, which declared:

But the Senator has made the remarkable discovery that the first bill which ever appropriated money for the Cumberland road was approved by Mr. Jefferson, and that even that anticipated the accruement of the two per cent. fund. He then goes through the various bills making appropriations for this road, all of which, except one, anticipated the fund and contained a clause for reimbursement out of it. The excepted bill which wanted this clause was approved by President Jackson; but the Senator does that distinguished patriot the justice to say that he alluded to it afterward, and said the want of the reimbursing clause had escaped his attention, in the hurry of business, perhaps on the last night of the session, or he should have withheld his approval.

"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."

This, with the exemption of the domain of the United States from taxation, justified the clause to be found in each of the compacts with the new States upon their admission, that five per cent. of the net proceeds of the public lands afterward sold should be applied toward making roads within, and leading to, the States. It is very ob vious that the construction of such roads would encourage and facilitate emigration, and accelerate the sale of the public domain. It might almost be regarded as proper, on the same principle that required the lands to be surveyed, and designated by sections, townships, and ranges. Mr. C. said he could suppose this a very justifiable and expedient exercise of power while the public domain was a wilderness and the means of access to individual enterprise very difficult or altogether impossible; but when those States had been settled from twenty to forty years, were in a high state of cultivation and improvement, with millions of inhabitants, and with numerous roads leading to and through them, how could it longer be pretended to have any necessary connection with the settlement of the country or the sale of the public lands?

The Senator from New York had also urged, as an objection to his motion, that, by striking out the clause of the bill, as proposed, we should release the two per cent. fund. The gentleman might dismiss his apprehensions on that score when it had been, again and again, shown that we had already appropriated money and taken liens on the fund to the amount of more than four millions above the largest sum that could ever possibly accrue. And the Senator from New York asks, what was the objection to this clause with those who would vote for the bill without it? Mr. C. expressed his surprise at this question. He asked, in turn, is it no objection to a bill which is to be sent to the President, to tell him, in effect, that this money is due by the compacts with Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and that it is to be reimbursed from a particular fund, when we know it is not so due, and, moreover, know that we never can be reimbursed? Sir, such are the facts; and the Senator from New York has admitted them by telling us he knew that we had already appropri ated more money to the Cumberland road than had or ever would accrue from the two per cent. fund of the four States. Let gentlemen decide for themselves whether, because they believe an appropriation constitutional, they can consistently attach to the bill an unfounded assurance to the Executive and to the country that the amount is due to us by contract, and will be refunded, when they know it is not due and will not be refunded.

Mr. C. expressed his profound regret that any of those who supported the present Administra

26TH CONG.... 1ST SESS.

tion, and with whom he usually agreed, should support a measure of the character of the bill before the Senate. Having shown, as he confidently believed he had, that there was no existing fund of either of the States for whose benefit this road was to be made, out of which we could be reimbursed; and having established, beyond contradiction from any quarter, that no sufficient amount could ever accrue from sales of the public lands hereafter to be made in those States, it followed conclusively that the bill could not be sustained or justified under the compacts to which there had been such frequent reference. Under such cir- || cumstances, what was the naked question presented to the Senate? It was simply whether the General Government could make appropriations for the construction of roads within the States consistently with the Constitution or principles of sound policy. That was a question he had thought || settled by the last Administration, and he was sorry to see it disturbed by any of those who professed to be friendly to its principles.

It would be recollected that President Jackson, in his veto message on the Maysville road bill, and in his subsequent messages on similar measures, had laid down principles entirely unfavorable to the exercise of such power as that now contemplated. The Cumberland road, he thought, had been sufficiently shown to be a mere local improvement in the proper sense of those terms. Although it ran through several of the States, it was wholly unconnected with any national object; it was entirely in the interior of the country, and could not be said to be necessary to or even to facilitate its defense. Not being national in its character, it was without and beyond the constitutional power of Congress; for all must admit that this Government was instituted for national and not for State purposes.

This was one of the great questions, of most vital interest in the quarter of the Union whence he came. It was well understood that his constituents, with the people of the southern States generally, were in favor of a strict construction of the Constitution of the United States, and a rigid limitation of the powers of this Government to its legitimate functions. During the last presidential canvass, when the present Chief Magistrate was a prominent candidate before the people of the Union, among the strongest objections urged against him in the South was that he was latitudinous in his constitutional opinions, and would favor internal improvements by the General Government. This objection was met by his friends and supporters with his pledge that he would "follow in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor," by the resolution he offered in the Senate of the United States in December, 1825, declaring that "Congress does not possess the power to make roads and canals within the States,' and by his remarks, on various occasions, expressive of his opinion that Congress could not constitutionally exercise any such power. He was among those who then and still believed the President a strict constructionist, and opposed to the exercise of the power in question. It was under this confident belief that the present Chief Magistrate had received such a generous support in the Democratic States of the South. The Republicans of that quarter of the Union thought they were cooperating with brethren of the same political principles, and that, when successful, the administration would be conducted accordingly. He now entertained no doubt that whenever a question involving and coming in conflict with those principles might be presented to the President it would be met in a proper manner; he was firm and consistent, and would do his duty. He asked, was it fair, then, toward the President and many of his friends, for another portion of them to unite with those who were opposed to us in constitutional opinions in throwing around an ap propriation (which could otherwise never meet his sanction) such masks and disguises that he could not see its true character? Were not those who pursued this course, in truth, opposing the acknowledged principles on which the Administration came into power, and bringing it into discredit with the Democratic party?

Mr. C. thought that, for a party to act long together and remain united, they must entertain and act upon some common principles and for

for the use of the Government. It originated, where such measures should originate, in the popular branch; and the bill is to be sustained, and sustained, only upon that clause of the Constitution which gives authority to Congress "to borrow money on the credit of the United States." He should not attempt to sustain the bill upon; any other principle. It was, then, in his judgment, nothing more nor less than a bill to borrow a specified sum for the use and upon the credit of the United States.

As the first section of this bill seeks to revive the provisions of the act of the 12th of October, 1837, authorizing the issue of Treasury notes, and the acts having connection therewith, which were subsequently passed by Congress, he proposed to examine those acts with much particularity, in order to show that the character of this measure was such and such only as he had given it.

common objects. He said it must be apparent that if one portion of a political party in this country was in favor of a strict and the other a latitudinous construction of the Constitution-one portion in favor of an economical and the other an extravagant and prodigal administration; one portion in favor of large appropriations to a certain class of objects in one quarter of the Union, and against such appropriations for like objects in another quarter-they could not long act together harmoniously. He said the mass of our plain, honest, intelligent, but unsophisticated fellow-citizens could never be made to understand why millions of dollars could be constitutionally appropriated for a road in Ohio or Indiana, Illinois or Missouri, while it was held to be unconstitutional to do the same thing in Tennessee or Alabama, South Carolina or Georgia. They could not be made to understand he hoped they never might that the Constitution meant one thing north of the Ohio, and another thing entirely different on the south side of the same river. They understood that the Constitution was intended to impose equal burdens and dispense equal benefits and blessings throughout all the States of the Union. Equality of rights and privileges, burdens and benefits, among all the free citizens of this great and enlightened Republic was the great principle which laid at the foundation of all our institutions. Disregard and destroy that distinguishing characteristic, and you jeopard theject by individuals, so far as it went to give a happiness and prosperity of this great people, if

not the existence of the Government itself.

Mr. PHELPS followed in opposition to, and
Mr. SMITH, of Indiana, in support of, the bill,
when,

On motion of Mr. CLAY, of Kentucky, the
Senate adjourned.

TREASURY NOTE BILL.

DEBATE IN THE SENATE,

MONDAY, March 30, 1840.

The bill authorizing the issue of Treasury notes was taken up at one o'clock, on the motion of Mr. HUBBARD, and, having been read,

Mr. HUBBARD remarked that he regretted, and the Senate would regret, that his friend, the chairman of the Committee on Finance, was absent from his place. The charge of this bill would have devolved upon him had he been present. And not until within a few hours did he suppose that his honorable friend would not be able to be in his place. He was aware that the severe indisposition of a member of his family had occasioned his absence. The Committee on Finance had met this morning, and had assigned to him the care of this bill, and as they regard immediate action upon this measure of great importance, if not of indispensable necessity, they had instructed him to press this bill upon the consideration of the Senate without any delay.

The bill, which has passed the House, and is now before the Senate, provides

That the regulations and provisions contained in the act passed the 12th day of October, in the year 1837, entitled "An act to authorize the issuing of Treasury notes," and the subsequent acts in addition thereto, be, and the same are hereby, renewed, and made in full force, excepting the limitations concerning the times within which such notes may be issued, and restricting the amount thereof as hereafter provided.

And the same bill further provides

That under the regulations and provisions contained in said act, Treasury notes may be issued in lieu of others hereafter or heretofore redeemed, but not to exceed in the amount of notes outstanding at any one time the aggregate of $5,000,000, and to be redeemed sooner than one year, if the means of the Treasury will permit, by giving notice sixty days of those notes which the Department is ready to redeem; no interest to be allowed thereon after the expiration of said sixty days. And that this act shall continue in force one year and no longer.

As this bill, so essential to the public service, so intimately connected with the preservation of the public credit, had been opposed with so much determination, he felt himself now called upon to ask the candid attention of the Senate while he went into a full examination of its provisions. And in the outset he must be permitted to say that this measure is no bank in disguise; that it has no direct or remote relation to any such institution. It is simply a measure to borrow $5,000,000

The act which was passed on the 12th of October, 1837, was "An act to authorize the issuing. of Treasury notes;" was an act, in other words, authorizing the issue of certificates of public debt. And the notes which were issued under and in pursuance of the act of October, 1837, were but the promises of the Government to pay the amount of money specified. And he was unable to distinguish between the issue of these notes by the Government and the issue of notes for a like ob

definite character to the transaction. If an individual wishes to raise money for his convenience he issues his own written promise to pay. It is evidence of the debt of the individual, and it is evidence of the engagement of the same individual to redeem that debt. And precisely so with the Government-it wanted money; it issued in the mode required by law its evidences of debt and its promises of payment. In both cases the want of immediate means for the use induced the transaction. And as no doubt could be entertainedthat in the case of the individual it would be loan upon his credit, equally clear is it that in the case of the Government it would emphatically be a loan of the $10,000,000 obtained under the act of October, 1837. The issue was made upon the credit of the Government; the means were procured upon that issue by the faith of the Government which was pledged for the redemption of the debt incurred. And if it so happened that these Treasury notes entered into the circulation of the country, that circumstance did not tend to change the character of the transaction. The negotiable paper of an individual, upon which he may obtain a loan, may enter into circulation; it may pass from hand to hand by assignment and delivery, but the original transaction is nevertheless

the same.

By the first section of the act referred to the President of the United States is authorized to cause Treasury notes, for such sum or sums as the exigencies of the Government may require, to be prepared and issued, limiting the amount of issue to $10,000,000-giving to that responsible officer of the Government, in other words, the power to borrow $10,000,000, if the exigencies of the country should demand it. The notes which were to be issued, signed, and countersigned, could not be regarded in any other light. And if they should get into circulation, pass from one to another, it may be answered that the certificates of the funded debt were alike assignable, and passed from one to another. By the second section of the act of the 12th of October, 1837, the true character is given to this transaction. It is there expressly provided that these notes shall be reimbursed and redeemed by the United States, at the Treasury, after the expiration of one year from the dates of the notes, respectively. The same section provides that the rate of interest shall be fixed by the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approbation of the President, and that they shall not draw interest after the expiration of said year, distinctly evincing the period of duration for this loan, and solemnly pledging the faith of the Government for the reimbursement of the notes issued, or of the loan contracted. The true character is here given to this transaction.

The exigencies of the country then required the use of $10,000,000. The President was authorlized to make the loan in the mode prescribed. The