Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States

by Martin Van Buren

CHAPTER IX.

Effects of our Leading Party Conflicts in the Light of Seventy Years' Experience—Contest as to the Relative Powers of the State and General Governments—Merits and Faults of the Parties to that Contest—The Credit of settling the Struggle upon right Grounds due to Jefferson's Administration—Attempt of the Federalists to give undue Supremacy to the Judicial Department and Failure of that Attempt—Hamilton's Funding System—History of its Establishment, Continuance, and Overthrow—The National Bank Struggle—The Protective System—Clay's American System—Internal Improvements by the General Government—Overthrow of these Measures the beneficent Work of the Democratic Party—No such Contributions to the Public Welfare made by the Opponents of that Party—The Debt of Gratitude due from the Country to Madison, to Jackson, and especially to Jefferson.

IT will not be deemed inappropriate to close this review of the rise and progress of our political parties, and of the principles upon which they have acted, with a fuller notice of the advantages and disadvantages which have resulted to the country from their conflicting acts and pretensions during an experience of more than seventy years. In deciding the character of parties by their works we will but follow the dictates of unerring wisdom, by which we are taught to judge the tree by its fruit.

A great question, and naturally the first that arose in the formation of our political system, related to the power that should be reserved to, and the treatment that should be extended towards, the State governments. Rivalries between them and the Federal head could not be prevented. To mitigate the evil by dealing justly and wisely with the State authorities, was all that could be done. Each of the great parties which have divided the country had, from the beginning, its own, and they were conflicting opinions, in respect to the spirit in which this important subject should be dealt with. These, and the acts and sayings they gave rise to, have been herein freely spoken of, and what has been said need not be repeated. The facts and circumstances brought into view, consisting in a considerable degree of the reiterated declarations of the parties themselves, with a mass of others supplied by contemporaneous history, fully justify the belief that if Hamilton and Morris, and the influential men of the party of which the former was through life the almost absolute leader, could have had their way, the State governments would have been reduced to conditions in regard to power and dignity which would not only have destroyed their usefulness, but from which they must have sunk into insignificance and contempt; to which state it was the avowed wish of those leaders to depress them. This desire was frustrated in the Federal Convention, not so much through favorable feeling towards the State authorities as by a conviction on the part of a majority—a conviction which could neither be disguised nor suppressed—that the old Anti-Federal party would be sufficiently strengthened by a plan of the Constitution, against which a design clearly hostile to the State governments could be fairly charged, to enable that party to prevent its ratification. John Quincy Adams, to his declaration that the "Constitution was extorted from the grinding necessity of a reluctant nation," might have added, with equal truth, that the Constitution, in the form it bore on this point, was extorted from the Convention by a necessity not less effectual. Hamilton's design to attain the object he had failed to accomplish in the Convention, by "administrating" the Constitution, in the language of Madison, into a thing very different from what they both knew it was intended to be, was defeated by the old Republican party.

The lowest point to which the State governments would have been reduced, if the influence that was exerted to lessen their power had not been defeated in the way I have described, must of necessity be matter of speculation only. Hamilton, as we have seen, declared candidly that he knew of no reason why he did not advocate their total overthrow other than the manifest strong desire of the people for their retention; whilst Morris, with equal openness, said that if they could not abolish them altogether, it was nevertheless desirable to pull the teeth of the serpents.

There can be but little doubt that a complete triumph of the Federal policy would have resulted in a decline of the State governments, if they escaped extinguishment, from the condition which they occupied at the period of the recognition of our Independence to mere municipal authorities, without sufficient power to render them extensively useful—fit theatres only for the exercise and enjoyment of the patronage of the Federal government.

The Anti-Federalists, like their opponents, could only look with favor on one side of this great question. I do not complain of their partiality for the State governments, for it was in them a natural and inherited feeling, one which had been cherished with equal ardor from a remote period in our history by men whose places they filled and whom they most resembled. Their fault was the exclusiveness of their preference. They could not and did not deny that a general government of some sort was indispensable, and they should therefore have stood ready to confer upon it such powers as were necessary to enable it to sustain itself and to qualify it for the successful performance of the duties to be assigned to it. This they would not do. They, on the contrary, allowed their local prejudices and their suspicious, in some instances well founded but unwisely indulged, to lead them to persistent refusals to concede to the Federal head means which a sufficient experience had shown to be absolutely necessary to good government. Public and private interests suffered from that cause, and they were justly held responsible for the consequences. Their conduct was as unjustifiable and as suicidal as was the unmitigated warfare waged by leading Federalists against the State governments; and no political course adopted by public men or political parties, of which it could be said that it was intentionally wrong, has hitherto, to their honor be it spoken, long escaped rebuke from the American people.

The Anti-Federal party by their pertinacious, nay morbid perseverance in a wrong course, exposed themselves to the same penalty which was at a later period inflicted upon their old opponents—as a party they were overthrown and ruined.

The merit of discouraging and finally extinguishing this unnatural, unprofitable, and unnecessary struggle between the friends of the General and State governments, and of vindicating the Federal Constitution, by placing the peculiar principle it sought to establish for the government to be constituted under its authority, that of an imperium in imperio, upon a practicable and safe footing, was reserved for the administration of Thomas Jefferson. For the evils arising from the pernicious rivalry between agencies, upon the harmonious coöperation of which the framers of the Constitution relied for the success of that instrument, the remedy recommended by Mr. Jefferson in his inaugural address, as expressed in his own inimitable language, was "the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwark against anti-republican tendencies: the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad." These propositions, so simple, so natural, and so plainly in accord with the spirit of the Constitution, though, in common with other suggestions from the same source designed by their author to give repose to an over-agitated community, received at the time with indifference by incensed partisans, met with a cordial welcome from the great body of the people. Their fitness and probable efficacy could not be successfully controverted, and although they did not escape factious opposition, a majority of the people, tired of the unavailing agitation which the subject had undergone, and more and more satisfied of Mr. Jefferson's sincere desire to advance the general interest, embraced them with constantly increasing earnestness, and sustained them until they became the successful as well as settled policy of the Government. Angry passions, having their origin in this prolific source of partisan strife, which swept over and convulsed the country during the Government of the Confederation, and for at least twenty years after the adoption of the new Constitution, have been subdued. The State governments, increased in number from thirteen to more than thirty, with no other powers than those reserved to them by the undisputed provisions of the Constitution, have advanced to a degree of dignity and usefulness which has enabled them to extend to their citizens seven eighths of the aid and protection for which they look to government, either State or national, and has also removed from their representatives all fear of the encroachments of the Federal Government; whilst the latter, having proven itself able to sustain itself without the aid of constructive powers, and to perform with promptitude and success all the duties assigned to it, is no longer disturbed by apprehensions of the factious spirit and grasping designs once so freely charged upon the State authorities.

For this auspicious state of things we are beyond all doubt indebted, more than to any other cause, to the conservative character of Democratic principles and the unwavering fidelity of the party that sustains them.

To understand truly the advantages which the country has derived from the success of this policy, and the defeat of that to which it was opposed, we have only to picture to ourselves what the condition of the State governments must have been if the latter had triumphed, and to compare it with the actual state of things. Assuming that the desire to divest them of the authority which they had gradually acquired, as occasions for its exercise were developed by the necessities of the public service, at one time so strong with leading Federalists and as we have seen so openly avowed, had been limited to what was actually proposed, viz., to give to the General Government the power to appoint their governors, and through them the most important of their minor officers, including those of the militia, with an absolute veto upon all State laws,—what, judging according to the experience we have had, would now have been the character and condition of those governments? Without the authority required to make themselves useful, or respectability sufficient to excite the ambition of individuals to be honorably employed in their service, and thus to divide their attention and regard between the Federal and State governments, they would have sunk gradually into feeble, unimportant, characterless establishments—mere places for the sinecure appointments of the former. Contrast institutions like these—and only such could have been possible under the policy advocated by the leading Federalists—with the galaxy of independent governments of which we now boast, such as no confederation, ancient or modern, possessed, vested with authority and dignity, and filling the States respectively with monuments of their wisdom, enterprise, usefulness, and philanthropy; and contrast the Federal Government, resting as it now does on these tried and ample foundations, with one based on establishments like those to which it was proposed to degrade the States, and we will have some idea of the dangers that the people of the United States have escaped, and the advantages they have secured by the wisdom of their course and the patriotism of those who advised it. If the Democratic party of Jefferson's time, and under his lead, had effected nothing else for the country, they would have done enough in this to deserve the perpetual respect and gratitude of the whole people.

Yet this was but the beginning of their usefulness, subsequent to the adoption of the present Constitution.

No sooner had the efforts of the leaders of the Federal party to break down the power and influence of the State governments been arrested through the triumph of the Democratic party in the great contest of 1800, which was to a great extent carried on in their defense, than an attempt was set on foot to rescue a portion of the political power lost by the former, by raising the judicial power—the dispensers of which were to a man on their side—above the executive and legislative departments of the Federal Government. Of this enterprise, its origin, progress, and present condition, I have taken the notice which I thought was demanded by its importance. That it was unsuccessful, and that the balance of power between those departments, so necessary to the security of liberty and to the preservation of the Government, has not been destroyed, is altogether due to the persevering opposition of the Democratic party under the same bold and capable leader.

Where the points in issue between political parties have been of so grave a character as those in the United States, it is not an easy matter to decide on their relative importance, or in which the right and the wrong was most apparent. Whilst some have resolved themselves mainly into questions of expediency, in respect to which errors may be committed without incurable injury to our institutions, there have been others striking at their roots, which would, if differently decided, have ended in their inevitable destruction. The two to which I have referred were emphatically of the latter character, and hence the inestimable value of the successful resistance that was made on the Democratic side.

Hamilton's funding system, though involving in respect to the assumption of the State debts a grave constitutional question, was in its principal features one of expediency. Yet it was an important one, by reason of the serious consequences that were apprehended from its assumed tendency, and produced impressions upon the public scarcely less marked than were made by any public question which had before or has since arisen in this country. The character of that system, and the injuries that were anticipated from its establishment, have been spoken of in a previous part of this essay. Only a slight consideration of the operations of a similar system elsewhere will be sufficient to show how greatly the welfare of nations has been affected by their course in respect to it.

Of these, England, from her present condition in regard to her public debt, compared with that in which it is believed she might have stood if her course in that respect had been guided by wiser counsels, presents the most instructive example. Ours derives interest scarcely less impressive from the evils we have avoided by abandoning, whilst that was yet in our power, the further imitation of her example after we had fully begun to imitate it. That the system was established here with much éclat, and under explanations and circumstances indicative of a determination on the part of the men in power to adhere to it as long as and whenever a public debt existed, all know. It is also known that the practice of funding the public debt, for which it furnished the plan, has long been discontinued. Through what agency and upon what inducements that discontinuance has been brought about, and who is entitled to the credit of protecting the country from the evils flowing from the practice elsewhere, can only be ascertained by an impartial examination of its further history. To bestow that attention upon the subject is perhaps not necessary for instruction or example, as a national bank has not become more completely an "obsolete idea" amongst us, or more thoroughly condemned in public opinion than a funding system. Still there are many considerations which render such an examination an object of curiosity certainly, and one not destitute of higher interest. If the change which was effected in the policy and action of the Government in this regard has been as advantageous as with the light which experience has thrown upon the subject cannot be longer doubted, it is highly proper that those who brought about the reform should have the credit of it.

No important transaction upon which patriotism of such an order and intellects of such caliber as distinguished the public men of that day were earnestly employed, can be without interest to inquiring minds of this. It is so long since the whole affair has passed from public attention as to make it an unfamiliar subject to most of us. I confess it was so to me, and those who read these sheets will not complain if the interest I have taken in following it to its termination shall at least save them from some of the trouble that would otherwise have been necessary to master its details.

Strongly excited by the first appearance of the project at the head of Hamilton's programme, as well described by Madison in his interesting statement to Mr. Trist, the old Republicans in and out of Congress, with Jefferson as their adviser and at their head, rallied promptly in earnest and unyielding opposition to its consummation. Overborne by a large majority in the first Congress, devoted as it was to Hamilton and his measures, they could not defeat the bill for its establishment, and were obliged to content themselves in the first instance with efforts to expose its objectionable features to the people, in the hope of rendering it too odious to be persisted in. They also resorted, as they often afterwards did on similar occasions, to the State legislatures for advice and coöperation. That of Virginia, the President's native State, as well as the place of his residence, denounced the scheme very soon after its introduction, in resolutions of much power, touching the subject upon the points in respect to which it was most exceptionable. Its opponents in Congress also kept a watchful eye upon the steps taken by the Secretary towards its execution, and followed every important movement by calls for information and by pertinent resolutions. These calls were generally upon the Secretary, occasionally on the President himself. As early as 1792, the Republicans caused the introduction of, and gave efficient support to, a resolution that "measures ought to be taken for the redemption of so much of the public debt as by the act making provision for the debts of the United States, they have the right to redeem." In this resolution, which was adopted by the House, a provision was inserted, against the votes of the old Republicans, to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare the plan for the contemplated redemption. Those who were opposed to its preparation by that officer desired to have it done by a committee, and apprehended obstacles on his part to an efficient prosecution of the reform they supported.

The resolution, though not expressly such in its terms, was obviously designed as a side-blow at the funding system. That the Secretary so regarded it was sufficiently apparent from the graceful notice, in his report, of the circumstance that "the House had predetermined the question in regard to the expediency of the proposed redemption, and only submitted to his consideration the best mode of carrying it into effect." He then proceeded to state the different ways in which the object in view might be accomplished, designated that which he thought most expedient, pointed out the increased burdens on the people it would require, and specified the taxes the imposition of which he thought would be necessary. His report was drawn up with his accustomed skill and ability, but the measure was no further prosecuted at that time.

The President was subsequently called upon, at the instance of the Republicans, for copies of the commissions and instructions under which Hamilton had borrowed some twelve millions of dollars in Europe in virtue of a provision of the act establishing the funding system, and a call was at the same time made upon Hamilton for an account of the manner in which the money had been applied. These calls brought from the President copies of the commission and instructions, the latter of which were very precise and in strict conformity, in every respect, to the law, and from Hamilton an elaborate report, drawn with a degree of care and power unusual even with him. He appears to have anticipated a storm, and to have prepared himself for every contingency, as far as his conduct could be sustained by the facts. Those who derive pleasure from the intellectual efforts of great minds, however remote the occasion that called them forth, will not begrudge the time spent in reading his report.

A series of resolutions introduced into the House by Giles of Virginia, charged the Secretary with having violated both the law and the President's instructions, by the manner in which he had executed the authority confided to him. These resolutions, after a long and animated debate, were thrown out by strong votes, of the composition of which Mr. Jefferson undertakes to give an account in his annals. But no unprejudiced mind can read Madison's unanswerable speech, which will be found in the first volume of "Benton's Abridgment of the Debates of Congress," p. 431, without being convinced that the truth of both charges was established. He proves by the Secretary's own letters that on the very day of the receipt of the President's instructions he commenced arrangements, which he, notwithstanding, carried into effect, for an application of the funds diametrically opposite to that which the President had directed him to make.

Mr. Randall, in his "Life of Thomas Jefferson,"[39] has accidentally fallen into a singular mistake in saying that "Mr. Madison voted with the majority on every division" on that occasion, and on that assumption proceeds to show "that Jefferson put a less charitable construction on the motives of the majority," by giving the following entry in his "Ana": "March the 2d, 1793. See, in the papers of this date, Mr. Giles's Resolutions. He and one or two others were sanguine enough to believe that the palpableness of these resolutions rendered it impossible the House could reject them. Those who knew the composition of the House,—1. Of bank directors; 2. Holders of bank stock; 3. Stock-jobbers; 4. Blind devotees; 5. Ignorant persons who did not comprehend them; 6. Lazy and good-humored persons, who comprehended and acknowledged them, yet were too lazy to examine or unwilling to pronounce censure,—the persons who knew these characters foresaw that the three first descriptions making one third of the House, the three latter would make one half of the residue; and of course that they would be rejected by a majority of two to one. But they thought that even this rejection would do good, by showing the public the desperate and abandoned dispositions with which their affairs were conducted. The resolutions were proposed, and nothing spared to present them in the fullness of demonstration. There were not more than three or four who voted otherwise than had been expected."

Mr. Madison voted with the minority on every division, and so far was he from acting otherwise that William Smith, of South Carolina, the devoted friend of Hamilton, charged him with saying after the vote that "the opinion of the House on the preceding resolutions would not change the truth of facts, and that the public would ultimately decide whether the Secretary's conduct was criminal or not."

The character of this debate and the open disregard of the President's instructions by the Secretary, which it established, were not likely to pass unheeded or even lightly regarded through the proud and sensitive mind of Washington.

Other circumstances may be referred to which show quite clearly that the latter was not at ease upon the subject of the finances. Among these is one of a very striking character, not known at the time, and only recently disclosed through the publication of the "Hamilton Papers" by order of Congress. I allude to the correspondence between him and Washington, to which I have before referred for another purpose, and which will be found in the fourth volume of "Hamilton's Works," commencing at page 510. The committee appointed by Congress to examine the state of the treasury preparatory to Hamilton's resignation, then expected but postponed for a season, were charged by that body to "inquire into the authorities, from the President to the Secretary of the Treasury, respecting the making and disbursing of the loans" which were the subject of the debate and proceedings above referred to. Hamilton thought the inquiry beyond the province of the committee, but wishing to be prepared, if they should decide otherwise, furnished the President with a statement of the facts, as he understood them to be, with a view to his approval. Washington indorsed on it a certificate which was very unsatisfactory to Hamilton, who thereupon addressed to him a long and earnest letter, in which he complained vehemently, and with the frankness and boldness natural to him, of not having been sustained by the President in a delicate and responsible part of his official duties in respect to the public debt. It does not appear that Washington made any reply to this extraordinary letter, or that he did anything further upon the subject which had called it forth.

Whilst the proceedings which led to the debate of which I have spoken were going on, a bill was introduced on the recommendation of the Secretary, for a second assumption of State debts, and authorizing a loan to be opened for that purpose. Notwithstanding strenuous efforts on the part of the Republican members to prevent its passage, the bill passed the House, but only by the casting vote of Mr. Speaker Trumbull. These circumstances were brought to the notice of the President by Jefferson, before the bill was acted upon by the Senate, and it was rejected by that body. He speaks in his "Ana" of the prevalent impression that the bill had been defeated by the interference of the President, through Lear, with Langdon, who till that time had gone steadily for the funding system but now opposed its extension. Jefferson says, "Beckley knows this."

But whatever may have been the state of feeling between these great men, arising out of the condition of the finances, or the course of the Secretary in respect to them, we have the best reasons for believing that there was a growing sentiment in the Federal party adverse to the expediency of keeping on foot the funding system. It soon began to lose the brilliant hues in which it had been clothed, at its first introduction, by the very imposing report of the Secretary. Our foreign creditors showed an unwillingness to subject their debts to its operation, and the means taken to find subjects to be embraced by its provisions could not fail to excite odium against the measure. The people were not a little predisposed to listen favorably to the charges that were made against it on the part of the Republicans, by the circumstances heretofore noticed that it was so close an imitation of the English system, and adopted upon the heel of the Revolution. The growing jealousy of the people, and consequent increase of public clamor against it, caused a wide-spread conviction through the Federal ranks that the entire success of the Republican party could only be prevented by its abandonment,—a conviction greatly strengthened and stimulated to action by the startling fact that, although the President had just been reëlected by the unanimous vote of the people, the country was convulsed by partisan rancors, for which there was no other apology than the measures of his administration, and the Confederacy which he came into power to cement was in imminent peril of disruption by their violence. Neither was this the worst nor the most humiliating view of the case. For the first time during our existence as an independent nation, even including the period of the proverbially weak government of the Confederation, our free institutions suffered the discredit of an open rebellion against the authority of the Federal Government springing up in the Quaker State, one of the oldest and best settled in the Confederacy and in which was established the seat of that Government, against the imposition of a tax always and everywhere odious, an "infernal tax," as Jefferson called it;—an insurrection of so much importance as to induce Washington to call into the field a force numerically larger than was ever concentrated at one place during the War of the Revolution, or ever organized in one body in the course of two wars through which the country has since passed, and nearly if not quite double that with which Scott fought his way through a hostile nation of eight millions, and entered the City of Mexico in triumph. No feature in the character of Washington has ever been disclosed which will allow us to believe for a moment that those scenes could have failed to disturb and agitate deeply his lofty and sensitive spirit. We have a fact, now for the first time, as far as I know or believe, revealed in Randall's "Life of Jefferson," which gives us some clue to the current of Washington's thoughts at that very critical period of his life. Hamilton, whose resignation was about to take effect, applied to have the time prolonged until after the impending insurrection had been suppressed, on the ground that as it was menaced in consequence of a measure of his Department, it would not be proper for him to leave his post until the crisis had terminated, and he had also asked for leave to attend the troops to the scene of the outbreak. Both of these applications had been readily agreed to by the President. In the midst of these movements, between the first Proclamation offering pardon to the rebels upon their return to duty and the second calling the troops into the field and announcing the intended application of military force, an express was sent to Mr. Jefferson with an invitation to him to resume his former place in Washington's cabinet. This fact is indisputable, for Jefferson's answer declining the invitation is published by Randall.

What was the nature and what the extent of Washington's design in this application? The assumption is justified by the lapse of time and by other circumstances, that as no record of his intentions has come to light none exists, and it is therefore a question on which we are only able to speculate; but there is another question, the answer to which, though not quite certain, may be made so, and which, when ascertained, would throw much light upon the subject of our speculations.

Was Hamilton advised of the application to Jefferson, and was it made with his approbation? The thorough examinations and publications which have been made of the papers of both Washington and Hamilton, without the disclosure of a single reference to the main fact, authorize the belief that Hamilton never was a party to the movement in any shape. In respect to Hamilton's papers, this inference is particularly strong, as, from the quasi-rivalry which has recently been set on foot by his descendants between his own fame and that of Washington, it may well be presumed that if they could have furnished evidence of such an act of disloyalty to Federalism on the part of Washington as his invitation to Jefferson, who had, after his retirement, openly charged Congress with the most flagrant corruption, and traced its origin to the measures of the Secretary of the Treasury, the information would certainly not have been withheld from publication. The same considerations lead with still greater confidence to the conclusion that no movement had been made towards any other than a temporary change of purpose in regard to his resignation on the part of Hamilton. Washington's letter giving his consent to the postponement, is published among the "Hamilton Papers," and from all that was said or done upon the subject it is quite clear that no attempt was made by him to dissuade Hamilton from carrying his resolution into effect, and that such resolution was final on the part of the latter from the beginning.

Incidents occurring at an early period of their relations were well calculated to induce circumspection in such a matter on both sides. The uncertainty in regard to Washington's ulterior intentions in the step he had just taken will become more apparent the more the question is considered. Mr. Randall seems to infer from it a desire on his part to return to the system of a balanced government with which he commenced his administration. But to the consummation of such a design the assent of Hamilton was absolutely indispensable, and that, with the lights before us, we may safely assume was neither asked nor given. I find it, besides, difficult to resist the conclusion that Washington's preference for that sort of government must by that time have been greatly weakened if not entirely extinguished. He had tried it under circumstances far more eligible than those then existing or than he could reasonably anticipate, and had found it disastrous. Jefferson had in the most positive terms declined an attempt to coalesce with Hamilton, as made impossible by the radical differences in their political principles. The same differences continued, and their personal relations had now become much more embittered. For these and other reasons that could be given, it is extremely difficult to reconcile with his well-known prudence the design hypothetically attributed to Washington by Randall.

If there is the force in these suggestions that they appear to me to possess, we would seem to be driven to the conclusion that Washington contemplated, in military language, a change of front dependent upon Jefferson's acceptance; that he meant not only to place Jefferson at the head of his cabinet, but to give an increased effect to his principles in the future administration of the Government. I confess that this is a startling supposition, even to my own mind, and one in respect to which I feel that I cannot go much beyond surmise. A step of so decided and so pregnant a character, taken under the pressure of a situation for many reasons so critical, could not have been thought of by such a man as Washington without ulterior, well-considered designs. What were they, if not of the character I have suggested? I can conceive of no other answer to this question which is not more inconsistent with well-known facts.

Considerations were not wanting to persuade him that his second term, under an administration thus directed, would be more agreeable as well as more auspicious for the country than the first had been. I have before referred to the contrast between Jefferson and Madison on one side, and Hamilton on the other, presented by the fact that whilst the former entered upon the discharge of public offices with feelings and views similar to those with which they accepted private trusts, considered themselves under equal obligations to respect the rights and to carry into full and fair effect the intentions of the parties chiefly concerned, and would have regarded a failure to do either as much a violation of the principles of probity and honor in one case as in the other, the latter neither entertained nor professed to act upon such opinions; he had on the contrary a conviction, which he never changed, that there were deficiencies in the popular mind which made it impracticable on the part of men in power to deal safely with the people by appeals to their good sense and honesty, and that they could only be successfully governed through their fears or their interests. Hence his justification of measures addressed to their passions and particular interests, and hence his indifference to the faithful observance of the Constitution as a moral or honorable obligation and his utter recklessness of constitutional restraints in his public career, notwithstanding the perfect uprightness of his dealings in private life.

Washington's personal character has been never correctly appreciated, if the former of these systems or ideas was not more congenial with his taste and with the suggestions of his heart than the latter. In giving his assent to the bill for the establishment of the bank, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that he was sanctioning a measure which he had conclusive reason to believe was never intended to be authorized by the Constitution, framed by a convention over which he had presided. Reasons of supposed state necessity we are warranted in believing reconciled his conscience to the step, but it cannot be doubted, without injustice to his character, that it was a hard service and altogether repugnant to his feelings. His inquietude under these restraints upon his natural inclinations was exhibited on more than one occasion. His letter to the venerable Edmund Pendleton, (one of the purest of men,) published by Randall, was one of them. That rumors were rife in respect to the measures decided upon by Federal cabals if Washington had refused to sign the Bank Bill we learn from several sources, and no one who knew Mr. Madison can doubt that he spoke with full knowledge when he said to Trist as already quoted, that if the President had vetoed the Bill "there would have been an effort to nullify it" (the veto), "and they" (the leading Federalists) "would have arrayed themselves in a hostile attitude." It is, besides, against nature to suppose that Washington's consciousness of the past condition of things in this regard and recollection of the scenes referred to by Madison, had not been painfully revived by the offensive letter he had received from Hamilton only four months before the period of which we are speaking.

The probable correctness of the inference under consideration ought not to be tested by the character of the subsequent relations between Washington and Hamilton. Jefferson declined the President's invitation to resume his former seat in his cabinet promptly but respectfully and kindly. Mr. Randall says that he has read a declaration by President Washington to the effect that he would have offered the place to Madison, upon Jefferson's declension, if he had not ascertained that he would not accept it. These successive and marked steps by the most prominent leaders of the Republican party, taken in connection with the results of the preceding Congressional elections, and the avowed principles upon which they had been conducted, show clearly that the lines had been distinctly and finally drawn between the Republicans who had hitherto sustained the administration in general and the Federal party; the opinion at which Jefferson and the Republicans had arrived being that the differences which had arisen, founded as they chiefly were on the interpretation of the Constitution and the degree of sanctity attaching to that instrument, could not be satisfactorily settled by any divided counsels, or by any the most liberal and friendly dispositions of the President; that the season for obtaining present redress and future security upon those points through such means had passed away, and that their proper course, whilst continuing their respect for and their confidence in Washington to the end, was to support the measures of his administration as far as they could consistently with their avowed principles, and to place the Government in the hands of men of their own school at the earliest practicable moment after his voluntary retirement.

The President, having greatly against his inclination consented to stand by the helm for another term, and having been reëlected by the unanimous vote of the country, had no other course to pursue than to carry on the Government under its existing organization, relying for his support upon the Federal party, with such coöperation as his measures might draw from its opponents. Hamilton resigned at the end of the quarter, his resignation was accepted in the way I have described, and as the actual and acknowledged leader of the Federal party, though out of office, he kept up his relations with Washington's administration as well as with that of his successor, Mr. Adams, as has been already set forth. The administration having been virtually, and, in the English sense, actually overthrown by being reduced to a minority in the popular branch of the national legislature, the President, having signally failed in his disinterested and patriotic attempt to arrest the adverse current by a reconstruction of his cabinet so as to place at its head the known and acknowledged leader of the opposition to the principal measures of the Government, and obliged by his reëlection to remain at his post till the expiration of his second term or to retire with discredit, turned his attention to an earnest survey of the policy to which so disastrous a state of things might be attributed. That it had not originated in any objections personal to himself was shown by the fact that the same election which exhibited the evidence of dissatisfaction, on the part of a majority of the people, with the measures of Government, demonstrated also by his unanimous reëlection their continued confidence in him. Those measures to which the deprecated result was attributed were the bank and the funding system. Jay's treaty had no agency in producing it, that disturbing question not having then arisen, and its only effect, in this respect, was during the last year of Washington's administration to increase the majority against the Government to so great an extent as to enable the Republicans to carry Kitchel's resolution condemnatory of the President's own act in refusing to lay before Congress the instructions and papers connected with the negotiation of the treaty, by a vote, including absentees whose sentiments were known, of very nearly two to one.

The bank, to the operations of which Jefferson, whilst in retirement, openly and unreservedly attributed the corruption of Congress, had passed beyond reach, but the funding system was yet open to the action of the Government. It was in respect to this ill-omened and ill-fated measure that the tocsin had been first sounded of that alarm which now extensively pervaded the public mind, and it was beyond all doubt that no other act of the Government had proven a more prolific source of popular discontent. It was not the existence of the debt of which the people complained; they gladly accepted that burden, on the contrary, as the price of their liberties; but it was the system devised by Hamilton for its management and for the treatment of their fiscal affairs generally that excited their severe displeasure. They believed that the politico-fiscal agencies congenial with, and cherished features of, monarchical institutions had been adopted in servile emulation of the English system, and as they were acknowledged sources of corruption in that system, that they had been introduced for similar effect here. Hamilton's oft-avowed preference for the English model gave much color to the first part of this conclusion, and the exasperated feelings of our people toward that government predisposed the public mind against the whole policy. Nor were these resentments without adequate cause. No independent nation was ever worse treated by another than was ours by Great Britain from the recognition of our Independence until after the war of 1812. So arrogant and outrageous was her conduct at this very period that Washington, as appears by his published letters to Hamilton in August 1796, found it difficult to keep the expressions of his dissatisfaction within the bounds demanded by his official position, and Hamilton was driven to admit in his reply that "we were subject to inconveniences too nearly approaching a state of war" to be submitted to. But these were not the only nor even the principal objections of the people against the funding system. They were satisfied by reason and observation that there could never be a proper economy in public expenditures, or a check to the increase of public debt so long as Government was not only under no obligation to pay the principal of such debts but had no right so to do or the right only in respect to a mere pittance, as was the case with our funded debt. The power to convert the credit of the nation into revenue by such a policy, of which Hamilton boasted, was a power in which they thought no government could be safely indulged. If the argument in favor of that opinion, which need not be repeated here, was not sufficient to establish its soundness, the experience of the mother country, which was constantly before their eyes, afforded conclusive demonstration of it. I have elsewhere stated the extent to which the debt of England had then already increased, and the force with which her ablest writer on political economy and finance had traced that alarming growth, by the lights of experience and reason, to those features in her funding system.

Hamilton had been throughout and still remained devoted to what we may call English principles in the management of our finances, and constantly desirous to extend them to every species of our public debt, foreign and domestic. General Washington was wedded to no such views. The subject belonging peculiarly to Hamilton's department, and having full confidence in him, he acquiesced in the course he recommended, but he was always open to conviction, and only wished to leave the question of its continuance to be decided by its results. In the course of a conversation with Mr. Jefferson, designed to prevail on him to remain in the cabinet, the latter says that Washington touched upon the merits of the funding system, to which he knew that Mr. Jefferson was earnestly opposed, and expressed himself thus: "There is a difference of opinion about it, some thinking it very bad, and others very good; experience was the only criterion of right which he knew, and this alone would decide which opinion was right." The disappointment generally experienced by the original friends of the system cannot have failed to reach Washington, and it is impossible that the discredit which the measure had brought upon his administration could have escaped the notice of so sagacious and generally dispassionate an observer of the course of events. Hamilton was to leave him in a month or two, and he was destined to pass through an ordeal becoming every day more and more severe. To relieve his Government as far as practicable from odium from any source, was therefore a suggestion of duty and interest to which he could not but give heed. The measure of which we are speaking challenged his attention. The power of the Government over it, without the consent of its creditors, was, it is true, very limited, but it could relieve the system to some extent of a portion of its unpopularity by lessening its character of irredeemability. The annual eight per cent. for interest and principal (only two per cent. towards the principal, which was all the Government had a right to pay, but was never obliged to pay), it could make itself liable to redeem punctually, and could give to the creditors securities which would put it out of its power to evade its undertaking.

This was all that could be done, and it was not to be doubted that the accomplishment of this through the interference of Washington, with a return to the old mode of raising money, would go far to allay honest apprehensions, and to remove prejudices against his administration without disadvantage to the public service certainly, and, I may add, without the slightest departure from the course which it became him to pursue. He determined to pursue it. That the resolution in regard to the policy finally adopted upon this point originated with Washington alone, without consultation with, or advice from, Hamilton, is rendered certain to my mind from contemporaneous circumstances, some of which will be referred to. He, of course, communicated his intention to Hamilton, who proposed to take charge of all the preliminary steps that could be adopted during the short period of his remaining in office to prepare the way for the contemplated change. This was proper in itself and assented to by the President, who thus, as was his way on most occasions, enabled Hamilton to give to the whole affair the shape he thought best. The funding system was emphatically his measure, and if it was to be discontinued, it was proper that he should be permitted to make its exit as graceful as was practicable.

The intended movement was preceded by the President's speech to Congress in November, 1794, from which I extract this passage: "The time which has elapsed since the commencement of our fiscal measures has developed our pecuniary resources so as to open a way for a definitive plan for the redemption of the public debt. It is believed that the result is such as to encourage Congress to consummate this work without delay. Nothing can more promote the permanent welfare of the nation, and nothing would be more grateful to our constituents. Indeed, whatsoever is unfinished of our system of public credit cannot be benefited by procrastination; and, as far as may be practicable, we ought to place that credit on grounds which cannot be disturbed, and to prevent that progressive accumulation of debt which must ultimately endanger all governments."

This was substantially the only part of the speech which related to any other matter than the Pennsylvanian insurrection, and no one familiar with Hamilton's writings can doubt that the entire paragraph was prepared by him,—a proceeding common and in this instance particularly proper. It presented in general terms a gratifying assurance of the improvement in the revenues of the Government, and the promised advantages to the national finances. No reference is made to the character of the measures by which those advantages were to be secured; these might be provisions for the immediate reduction of the debt, or at the least for an earlier reduction than that which was authorized by law.

On the 25th of January, eleven days before he left the department, Hamilton tendered to the Senate an elaborate "plan for the further support of public credit on the basis of the actual revenue." It was not his annual report, nor had it been called for by the Senate, but had been prepared, he said, as a part of his duties, according to the Act by which they were prescribed, and in conformity with the suggestions of the President. It fills twenty-seven pages, small print, in the large folio edition of the American State Papers, and, being his last, was of course prepared with great care and, as much of course, with great ability. Jefferson thought, at times, that Hamilton did not himself understand his own complicated and elaborate reports on the finances, but in this I am persuaded he was entirely mistaken. Hamilton evidently held the thousand threads which traversed these voluminous works with a firm and instructed hand, and perfectly understood their several and manifold connections with the body of the documents and the results to which the whole and every part tended. That he meant that others should understand them as well as he did is perhaps not so certain.

His plan did not even look to a present reduction of the debt, which would seem to be the natural consequence of a revenue so prosperous as that he had described in the speech; that would have been an impossibility. At the date of his report the debt had increased four millions from what it was when the funding system was established, independent of the assumption of those of the States, and at the end of Mr. Adams's administration, the increase stood at eight millions. I have not examined the result for each year, but am confident that I hazard little in affirming that there was not a single year, from the first period to the last, during which the public debt was not increased. Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Mr. Madison, written in 1796, expressed the opinion that, from the commencement of the new government till the time when he ceased to attend to it, the debt had augmented a million a year. The preceding statement shows the correctness of his calculation.

Neither did Hamilton propose any measures by which the payment of the debt might be accelerated, but the reverse. The whole debt then stood as follows: foreign debt, between thirteen and fourteen millions; domestic debt funded, including those of the States, between sixty and sixty-one millions, and domestic debt unsubscribed, between one and two millions. The foreign debt was payable by installments, ending at the expiration of fifteen years. His plan was to offer the foreign creditors one half of one per cent. interest, annually, more than it then drew, if they would consent to make it a domestic debt, and postpone the redemption of the principal till 1818, which would defer it between eight and nine years; or, if they refused that, it might remain redeemable at any time they proposed, so that the redemption of the principal was not accelerated by making it less than the fifteen years. A law authorizing such a change was passed, the offer made and declined. The debt was suffered to stand as it did, and the last payment was made during the administration of Mr. Madison. In respect to the funded debt, all that the report proposed (and that proposition was carried into effect by law shortly after Hamilton retired) was to add materially to the existing provisions for the payment of the public debt, and to provide effectually that the funds set apart for that should be regularly and inviolably applied, first, to the payment of as much of the funded debt as the Government had a right to pay annually, which was two per cent. of the principal besides the interest, and after that to the then existing public debt generally; that is to say, in regard to the funded debt, it changed the option of the Government to pay the two per cent. into a positive obligation, and provided adequate funds for that purpose. It was calculated that these provisions would redeem the funded debt bearing an immediate interest in 1818, and the deferred funded debt in 1824; they did so, and thus the funded debt was extinguished. All succeeding loans, as well under the administrations of Washington and Adams as subsequently, were made redeemable at or after a certain period, save in rare and very limited instances controlled by special circumstances and not constituting modifications of the general rule of the Government.

By this step Congress carried into effect an object for which the Republicans had striven since soon after the establishment of the funding system, and upon the resolution to accomplish which Hamilton had interposed a temporary obstruction by his report in December, 1792. The funded debt was changed into a simple debt payable by regular though small installments, at stated and certain periods. Its ultimate redemption was made certain, and the further practice of funding successfully discountenanced. That was done which Washington desired to have done; not indeed in the plain, straightforward way in which he would have done it, for that would have shown that the Government, in deference to public sentiment, had, to borrow a common phrase, taken the back track; an exhibition which Hamilton's course was designed to avoid. What the latter undertook to do he did effectually and in good faith, but a careful perusal of his last exposé will show how little the whole proceeding was in harmony with his individual feelings.

The following are extracts from that extraordinary paper:—

"To extinguish a debt which exists and to avoid the contracting more are always ideas favored by public feeling; but to pay taxes for the one or the other purpose, which are the only means of preventing the evil, is always more or less unpopular. These contradictions are in human nature; and happy indeed would be the country that should ever want men to turn them to the account of their own popularity or to some other sinister account.

"Hence it is no uncommon spectacle to see the same men clamoring for occasions of expense when they happen to be in unison with the present humor of the community, whether well or ill directed, declaiming against a public debt and for the reduction of it as an abstract thesis, yet vehement against every plan of taxation which is proposed to discharge old debts or to avoid new by the defraying of exigencies as they emerge. These unhandsome acts throw artificial embarrassments in the way of the administration of a government."

These observations afford evidence of the wounded spirit under which he was acting, and also of the strong sense he entertained of the influence which a necessity for taxation is calculated to exert upon the minds of a legislature anxious for the redemption of a public debt. Do they not further explain the motive for the array of taxes that would be required to carry into effect the Resolution of 1792, in favor of making provision for the redemption of the funded debt, contained in his report upon that resolution?

When speaking of now resorting to the old practice of anticipating revenues, that is, by making provision for the payment of both principal and interest, in the departure from which practice the English Funding System had its birth, he says:—

"This would be at the same time an antidote against what may be pronounced the most plausible objections to the system of funding public debts; which are, that, by facilitating the means of supporting expense they encourage to enterprises which produce it, and by furnishing in credit a substitute for revenue, likely to be too freely used to avoid the odium of laying new taxes, they occasion a tendency to run in debt. Though these objections to funding systems—which, giving the greatest possible energy to public credit, are a great source of national security, strength, and prosperity—are very similar to those which speculative men urge against national and individual opulence, drawn from its abuses; and though perhaps, upon a careful analysis of facts, they would be found to have much less support in them than is imagined, attributing to those systems effects which are to be ascribed, more truly, to the passions of men and perhaps to the genius of particular governments; yet, as they are not wholly unfounded, it is desirable to guard, as far as possible, against the dangers which they suppose, without renouncing the advantages which these systems undoubtedly afford."

When we find him thus dallying with a pet system on the eve of its abandonment, thus filling a paper designed to prepare the way for that result with his reasons for deprecating it, who can suppose that its impending fate was of his own suggestion, or doubt that he looked to its restoration under more favorable auspices?

The Secretary very naturally endeavors in this paper to place the provisions now recommended in respect to the Sinking Fund upon the same footing with those contained in his first Report upon public credit, conformably to which his funding system was established. Without the slightest desire to assail or to weaken any of his attempts to rest his acts on the most favorable ground consistent with truth, it is yet due to the memories of the patriotic men who by their fearless and persevering efforts succeeded in discrediting that dangerous system, and finally in causing it to be discontinued from the operations of our Government, that the circumstances under which they acted should not be misrepresented. The difference between the provisions of the Sinking Fund first and now adopted was great indeed. The grant of the funds to the first, to say nothing of their insufficiency, lacked the essential quality of being irrevocable, but was left subject to the action of Congress. There was therefore no reason to think that more might be expected from the Sinking Fund here than had been realized in England, where it had not only been found entirely ineffectual even in time of peace, but the funds vested in the Commissioners had on more than one occasion been used as a basis for new loans. But now, when the business of redemption was entered upon in earnest, that matter was placed upon a very different footing. The funds were not only more ample, but they were vested in the Commissioners as an irrevocable trust, and the faith of the Government was pledged that its execution should not be interfered with. As widely different were the dispositions of the Government and the sentiments of its principal supporters. On the former occasion the proposals submitted to Congress by the head of the Treasury Department, and most trusted officer of the Government, were to fund the entire debt of the United States upon the following terms, viz: 1st. That the whole principal should be forever irredeemable at the option of the United States; 2d. That they should not even reserve to themselves a right to pay more than two dollars upon a hundred of the principal, however full their coffers, and however great their convenience to pay; and, that no obstacle might be wanting to the redemption of that pittance, he proposed further to assume and fund in the same way twenty-five millions of the debts of the States which the Federal Government was under no obligations to pay and was not asked to assume. This policy was entered upon in the face of the fact that the debt of England, under a similar system, had, in eighty years, increased from some five millions to two hundred and seventy-six millions of pounds sterling, and was still increasing.

After these propositions had been substantially adopted by Congress and sustained by the Government, Hamilton, having the entire direction of its affairs, and knowing the spirit and firmness with which those who disapproved of his schemes always maintained their views of the public interest, had no right to complain of, and ought not to have been surprised at, the opposition he encountered from them, under the weight of which his Funding System, in respect to the future action of the Government in the management of its finances, soon became a dead letter, no further thought of than to get rid of the debts that had been contracted under it, with the intent to return to the old mode of anticipating revenue, that of direct loans payable at or after specific periods, principal as well as interest; the only way by which, as Adam Smith had demonstrated, a nation could avoid a permanent and ruinous public debt,—a view of the subject which came too late for England, but was, happily, in season for us. Though the Government had, by the Act of March 3d, 1795, passed to carry into effect the improved views of Washington, placed the management of our finances upon a better footing, no progress was made in the reduction of the public debt; but the act doubtless accomplished much in restraining its increase. It was not an easy thing to keep down the public debt under an administration which, like that of Mr. Adams, in pursuance of the express advice of Hamilton to Wolcott, paid upon its loans an annual interest of eight per cent., the highest that had then ever been paid except by England to her bank upon the loan obtained from it on its first establishment.

Upon Jefferson's accession to power he denounced a public debt, in his message to Congress, as a "moral canker," and invoked the aid of the legislature for its extinction at the earliest practicable period. The Committee of Ways and Means, with John Randolph at its head (his brightest period of public usefulness), entered upon the subject "con amore." They called upon the Secretary of the Treasury for a thorough exposition of the state of the public debt, and for his opinion in regard to the best mode of dealing with it. Mr. Gallatin's reply, which may be found in the publication of American State Papers,—title "Finance," Vol. I.,—gave a full statement of the then condition of the debt, and pointed out the defects through which the Act of March 3, 1795, had been rendered inadequate to the accomplishment of all the objects for which it was designed. I will refer to but one of them, which consisted in its limiting the appropriation for the redemption of the public debt, beyond that which had been funded, to "surpluses which shall remain at the end of every calendar year, and which, during the session of Congress next thereafter, shall not be otherwise specially appropriated or reserved by law." Our experience of the action of Congress has been too full to make it necessary to speak of the extreme improbability of any considerable surpluses being left by that body acting under no more specific restraint than that which is here provided, and upon examination of the books of the treasury it was found that so far from there having been any such surpluses from the establishment of the present Government in 1789 till the close of the year 1799, the appropriations charged upon the revenue by Congress had exceeded, by nearly a million of dollars, the whole amount of such revenue, whether collected or outstanding.

To remedy results so unfavorable to the accomplishment of the object in view, the Secretary advised specific appropriations of such sums as, upon a fair estimate of the wants and resources of the country, ought in the opinion of Congress to be applied to the payment of the public debt, and to make such appropriations irrevocable and their application mandatory on the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund. The committee adopted the suggestion with alacrity as one which, in addition to securing the early performance of a sacred duty, could not in their opinion fail to induce economy on the part of Congress in its disposition of the public funds. They therefore reported a bill, which became a law, appropriating annually to the Sinking Fund seven millions three hundred thousand dollars for the payment of the public debt. This sum was increased to eight millions in consequence of the purchase of Louisiana. During the administration of Mr. Madison the annual appropriation was increased to ten millions, besides an additional appropriation of nine millions, and one of four millions if the Secretary of the Treasury should deem it expedient; and all of these appropriations were made irrevocable and compulsory as respected the action of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund.

The consequences of this change in the action of the Government upon the subject of the public debt and of this liberality of appropriations under Democratic administrations, were the discharge of thirty-three millions of the principal of the debt, besides the payment of interest on the whole, during the Presidency of Mr. Jefferson, and its final extinguishment under President Jackson, notwithstanding the intervention of a war with England commenced at a period of the greatest financial embarrassment.

I have been induced to take so extended a notice of this matter as well by the circumstance, to which I have before referred, that it presented a leading subject of party divisions in this country, as because of the influence which it and its adjuncts the Bank of the United States and the Protective System have exerted upon our politics. It has been seen that the Funding System, however, preceded the bank in its establishment, and it became also an "obsolete idea" many years before the latter was declared to be such by its most devoted advocate and reckless supporter, Daniel Webster. That the bank did not share that fate at a much earlier period was because Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, both disciples of the old Republican school,—the former one of the ablest among the opponents of the revival of the bank in 1811,—tempted by the political allurements of the day in 1815, advocated the establishment of a new bank, and because that pure man and patriot, James Madison, under mistaken impressions in respect to the absolute necessity of such an institution, gave his assent to its incorporation.

No public question was ever longer or more severely agitated in any country than that of the existence of a national bank has been in this. Madison acquired enduring honor by his unanswerable speech against its constitutionality. It divided the cabinet of President Washington, and contributed with other causes to give birth to a political party which kept his administration at bay, overthrew that of his successor, has sustained itself in power ever since (with brief and easily explained interruptions), and is now, after the lapse of nearly seventy years, in full possession of the Federal Government. It gave position in 1811 to Henry Clay as one of the strong minds of the country, derived from his speech against rechartering the bank, by far the best speech he ever made and nearly equal to that of Madison in 1790, and it enabled that venerable revolutionary patriot, George Clinton, to add new laurels to his already great fame by his casting vote against the passage of the bill for its re-incorporation. Whilst in 1815 it marred forever the political fortunes of Clay and Calhoun, then standing at the head of the rising Republican statesmen of the country, in 1830 it made memorable and glorious the civil career of Andrew Jackson through his celebrated veto—a noble step in that fearful issue between the respective powers of the Government and the Bank, on the trial of which that institution justified and confirmed Jefferson's gloomy forebodings at its first establishment by spreading recklessly and wantonly (as is now well understood) panic in the public mind and convulsions in the business affairs of the people, through which incalculable injury was inflicted upon the country, and by wasting its entire capital of thirty millions in wild speculation and in corrupt squandering upon parasites and political backers. It did not however prove too strong for the Government, as Mr. Jefferson apprehended, but was itself overwhelmed in utter defeat and disgrace. So thorough has been its annihilation that its books and papers were a few months since sold by auction, in Philadelphia, by the ton, as waste paper!

Who can call to mind without amazement the extent to which the impression was fastened on the public judgment that a national bank was of vital necessity to the healthful action of the Federal Government, indispensable to the collection of its revenues, to the management of its finances, to the transfer of its funds from point to point, and, above all, to the execution and support of domestic exchanges, without which the most important business of the country would be unavoidably suspended, and now see that all this was sheer delusion; or who can reflect upon the bold and profligate action taken by the bank to force a compliance with its application, without acknowledging and admiring the wisdom of the Federal Convention in refusing, as it did almost in terms, to confer upon Congress the power to establish such an institution, so inefficient for good and so potent for mischief, or without applauding the true conservatism and patriotic spirit of the Democratic party during a forty years' struggle to expel from our system so dangerous an abuse, or without rejoicing that that great object was finally achieved and blessing the memory of the brave old man to whom the achievement is mainly to be credited.

The Protective System was another of the important measures brought forward at the commencement of the Government, and had its origin in the prolific mind of Hamilton. Efforts have been made to trace its commencement to the legislation of the first Congress, but they have not been successful. The idea of protection, beyond that which is incidental to a tariff for revenue and could be effected without losing sight of the revenue point, was not, at that time, broached in Congress or inferable from the character of the duties imposed. It was in Hamilton's masterpiece—his elaborate report, nominally upon manufactures, but embracing in its range every pursuit of human industry susceptible of encouragement under an unlimited government—that the subject was first brought to the notice and recommended to the favorable consideration of Congress.

I have already described, more fully, perhaps, than might on first impression be thought necessary, the length and breadth of that famous document, the boldness and extravagance of its ultra-latitudinarian pretensions to power in the Federal Government, including unlimited authority to raise money by taxes and an equally unlimited power to spend it in any way which Congress might think would be conducive to the general welfare. The vehement denunciation of its character by Mr. Jefferson and his friends, with continually increasing indications of popular discontent, prevented Hamilton from attempting any measures worthy of notice to carry into effect his recommendations—and no assumptions, beyond the revenue standard, were acted upon by the administrations of either Washington or Adams.

The enforcement of Hamilton's recommendations was reserved for the close of the War of 1812, a period of which I have already spoken as one which brought on the political stage a new class of Presidential aspirants, members of a succeeding generation and unknown to revolutionary fame. Among the most prominent of these stood Crawford, Clay, Calhoun, Adams, Webster, and Lowndes,—the latter, perhaps, the most likely to have succeeded, if his useful life had not been brought to a premature close.

In the same year, 1815, was revived the idea of a national bank, and no fitter associate could have been devised for it than the Protective System. They had a common origin, even in their political aspects, were designed for a common effect, and were moreover alike adapted to the immediate policy of two of the Presidential aspirants of the Republican stamp, Clay and Calhoun,—that of conciliating the good-will of those who still clung to the wreck of the Federal party, which having been shattered and disabled by its course in the war, was at the moment drifting upon the political seas. Henry Clay, with better qualifications for success than his not less ambitious rival, seized the prize in view, and after long competition from the latter, and against perpetual, though sometimes concealed opposition from Webster, attached the mass of the Federal party to his fortunes, and held them there to the close of his remarkable life. Shouldering a large share of responsibility for the reintroduction of a national bank, he added to his programme the Protective System, stopping in the first instance at a protective tariff, but willing, as was clearly seen, to embrace Hamilton's entire scheme, and superadding to these a system of internal improvements by the Federal Government, in respect to which he went, on the point of constitutional power, beyond his great prototype. These were the elements out of which he constructed his famous "American System." A convert to theories and measures hostile to the earliest and most cherished principles of the old Republican party, he of course soon lost his position in its ranks, and was in due season installed as the leader of that with which all its wars have been waged. Possessing certain qualities eminently adapted to attract the popular admiration, and which could not have failed to elevate him to the Presidency if he had remained in the Democratic party and had adhered to its principles, he infused into the torpid body of the Federal party elements of strength, of which it had always stood in need; besides bringing to it a leader of fascinating manners and brilliant talents, he gave a new and more captivating form to the platform of principles and policy in support of which its original members and their descendants had been trained, excepting only the Funding System, which had not only been tabooed by the good sense of our people, but as to which England was yet uttering warnings to other nations of too fearful import to allow its revival here to be for a moment contemplated even by a politician so bold and too often reckless as Clay. Thus reinvigorated and backed by the money-power of the country, during a quarter of a century, and with never quailing spirit, he conducted that party, under various names but striving always under the banner of the same "American System," through a succession of political campaigns which left their injurious traces upon the country.

The fruits of this warfare against the Democratic party and its principles are familiar to politicians and observers of our times. The Bank of the United States, after filling the country with distress and ruin, itself perished; the proposed system of internal improvements by the Federal Government was happily broken down by his opponents before it involved the country in inextricable embarrassments, and the Protective System, after being finally overthrown in England, from which country we had copied it, was abandoned here also, and consigned by the judgment of the people to the same oblivion with its kindred delusions.

The promotion of internal improvements by the General Government was an assumption of power by Congress, against which, from its first inception till its substantial overthrow, the Democratic party interposed a steady, persevering, and inflexible resistance. The general character of the abuse, its origin, progress, and extirpation through Democratic agencies, are fully presented in another part of this work.[40] Here the probable effect upon the national treasury of arresting the practice will alone be noticed.

In his annual message to Congress, December, 1834, President Jackson says:—

"When the bill authorizing a subscription on the part of the United States for stock in the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike Companies passed the two Houses, there had been reported, by the committees of internal improvements, bills containing appropriations for such objects, exclusive of those for the Cumberland Road and for harbors and light-houses, to the amount of about one hundred and six millions of dollars. In this amount was included authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to subscribe to the stock of different companies to a great extent, and the residue was principally for the direct construction of roads by this Government. In addition to those projects, which had been presented to the two Houses, under the sanction and recommendation of their respective committees on internal improvements, there were then still pending before the committees, and in memorials to Congress, presented but not referred, different projects for works of a similar character, the expense of which cannot be estimated with certainty but must have exceeded one hundred millions of dollars."

The same message contained also the following suggestions:—

"From attempts to appropriate the national funds to objects which are confessedly of a local character, we cannot I trust have any thing further to apprehend. My views in regard to the expediency of making appropriations for works which are claimed to be of a national character, and prosecuted under State authority, assuming that Congress have the right to do so, were stated in my annual message to Congress in 1830, and also in that containing my objections to the Maysville Road Bill.

"So thoroughly convinced am I that no such appropriations ought to be made by Congress, until a suitable constitutional provision is made upon the subject, and so essential do I regard the point to the highest interests of our country, that I could not consider myself as discharging my duty to my constituents in giving the executive sanction to any bill containing such an appropriation. If the people of the United States desire that the public treasury shall be resorted to for the means to prosecute such works, they will concur in an amendment of the Constitution prescribing a rule by which the national character of the works is to be tested, and by which the greatest practicable equality of benefits may be secured to each member of the Confederacy. The effects of such a regulation would be most salutary in preventing unprofitable expenditures, in securing our legislation from the pernicious consequences of a scramble for the favors of Government, and in repressing the spirit of discontent which must inevitably arise from an unequal distribution of treasures which belong alike to all."

These declarations of President Jackson that he would approve no bill containing appropriations even for objects of a national character, until an amendment of the Constitution was adopted placing such expenditures upon an equal footing towards all the States, were reiterated in his Maysville veto. My election to the Presidency, and the knowledge that I cordially approved, and was determined to sustain, the ground taken in those two state papers upon the subject of internal improvements, with the large Democratic vote in Congress, always opposed upon principle to such grants, effectually closed the doors of the national treasury against them for seven years.

All similar applications, save for harbor and river appropriations, were thus driven, as was anticipated, to the State legislatures. The money expended for such improvements, when authorized by the States, were chargeable upon the treasuries of the States, to be collected by direct taxation. When made by incorporated companies under authority derived from the States they were at the expense of their stockholders. All must be sensible of the salutary check which these circumstances are calculated to exert by increasing the circumspection and prudence with which such expenses are incurred; and yet what immense amounts of money have been irrecoverably sunk upon such works, and what widespread embarrassments have they at times created in the financial affairs of the country, through the headlong enterprise and adventurous spirit of our people!

We have only to imagine a transfer of the seat of these operations to the halls of Congress to estimate the sums that would have been drawn out of the National Treasury and carried to the States to be, for the most part, expended upon local objects,—the scenes of log-rolling and intrigue to which such scrambles would have given rise, and the utter unscrupulousness of the applications that would thus have been produced. What millions upon millions of the public funds would have been worse than uselessly expended during the twenty-seven years that have elapsed since the Democratic party, through their venerable and fearless President, took the first effectual step to break up the practice! The one hundred millions for which bills had been reported, and the other hundred millions of applications pending before Congress when the Maysville veto was interposed, according to the President's message, furnish ample data upon which to found our calculations. No sum would seem to be too large at which to place the probable amount of our national debt if the plans of their political opponents had in this regard been crowned with complete success. In view of such an event who will be bold enough, with the subsequent experience of the country before him, to place even a conjectural estimate upon that amount or upon the extent to which valuable improvements, through individual enterprise or under State authority, would have been postponed or arrested forever by a further prosecution of the policy into which such persevering efforts were made to lead the Federal Government. For preservation from such prodigality and debt, and from the corruptions that would have followed in their train, we are plainly and undeniably indebted to the successful enforcement of the principles of the Democratic party.

[A space was here reserved in the original Manuscript for an intended notice of the advantages derived to the country from the establishment of the Independent Treasury; a measure proposed by Mr. Van Buren in the first year of his Presidency and in his first communication to Congress, and supported by the Democratic party.

In consequence, however, of the interruptions to which this work was subjected (and which are referred to in the Introduction), the contemplated addition to it was never supplied.—Editors.]

The measures of which I have spoken as the cherished policy of the old Federal party and its successors taken as a whole were justly described by Jefferson, in his much-abused letter to Mazzei, as "a contrivance invented for the purpose of corruption and for assimilating us in all respects to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British Constitution." A persuasion of their practical usefulness in some respects entered more or less into the motives of the leaders on the occasions both of their creation and of their attempted resuscitation; but that they were by both regarded principally as elements of political strength, and adopted as means by which to build up and sustain an overshadowing money power in the country, through which the Democratic spirit of the people might be kept in check, is at least equally certain. Doubtless both of those political leaders honestly believed such a check to be necessary to the public good. With Hamilton this faith had from the beginning constituted an integral part of his political system. Clay had been, in his youth, too much a man of the people to avow such a belief, but that he became a convert to it in after-life I have no doubt. But the Democratic spirit of the country did not stand in need of any such restraint as that which they designed to place upon its course.

I have thus adverted to some of the advantages the country has derived from the action of the Democratic party, to which must be added the benefits conferred on the States by an extension of kindred principles to the administration of the local governments. If its opponents are asked for a statement of their contributions to the public welfare when in power and by their efforts to defeat the measures of the Democratic party, or to name a great measure of which they were the authors and which has stood the test of experience, or one in the establishment of which they have been prevented by factious or partisan opposition, but which would now be received with favor by the people, or a principle advocated by them for the administration of the Government, in which they have been defeated but which would now be so received, or an unsound one set up by their opponents which they have successfully resisted,—what must be the replies to questions so simple yet so comprehensive and important! Can it, on the other hand, be now denied that notwithstanding the conceded capacities of their leaders, and their possession of superior facilities for the acquisition and favorable exercise of political power, their time and their resources have been mainly employed in efforts to establish principles and build up systems which have been to all appearance irrevocably condemned by the people, and in unavailing efforts to defeat measures and principles which, after a full experience, have proved acceptable to them, and through the influence and operation of which the country has been gradually raised to great power and unexampled prosperity.

The course of events to which I have referred has had the effect of breaking up as a national organization the party so long opposed to the Democratic party, leaving the latter the only political association co-extensive in its power and influence with the Union,—and the sole survivor of all its national competitors. Of the eleven Presidents elected since its accession to power in the Federal Government, including the one in whose election it achieved its first national triumph, nine were avowed supporters of the cause it sustained, and eight its exclusive candidates. During the sixty years which will, at the end of the present Presidential term, have passed away since the occurrence of that great event, the chief magistracy of this country has been in the hands of professed supporters of its principles, with the exception only of four years and one month.

Born of the spirit which impelled our early colonists to forsake the abodes of civilization to establish among savages and in the wilderness the sacred right of opinion, which encouraged and sustained them in all their wanderings and sufferings and perils, and which finally conducted the survivors through a long and bloody war to liberty and independence, and representing the feelings and opinions of a majority of the people, it has labored zealously and, in the main, successfully, to give effect to those by which that momentous struggle was produced, to realize its promises, to maintain the sanctity of the Constitution, and to uphold "that equality of political rights" which Hamilton, though he could not find it in his judgment to favor, yet truly described as "the foundation of pure Republicanism."

For the signal success of its beneficent and glorious mission the country is indebted to the virtue and intelligence of the men of whom this great party has from time to time been composed,—much to the ability, industry, and devoted patriotism of James Madison; largely to the iron will, fearlessness, and uprightness of Andrew Jackson; and more conspicuously still to the genius, the honest and firm heart, and spirit-stirring pen of its founder, Thomas Jefferson, who stands, in my estimation, as a faithful republican, pure patriot, and wise and accomplished statesman, unequaled in the history of man. His opinions deliberately formed on important public questions, do not appear to have undergone material change or modification, except perhaps in the case of the issue raised in respect to the necessity of an amendment of the Constitution to justify the admission of Louisiana into the Union. Certain it is that he never entertained one which he could justly be accused of having concealed or recanted to propitiate power or to promote his own popularity, or which he was not on all suitable occasions prompt to avow and to defend. The presence of this noble spirit, and a readiness to encounter any sacrifice necessary to its free indulgence, were manifest in every crisis of his eventful life; nor were his last moments on earth without an impressive exhibition of its continued ascendency, even when reason and sense were passing away.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Vol. II. p. 119.

[40] Referring to the Memoirs of the writer. See [Introduction].—Eds.

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