American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

The Missouri Compromise.

The second session of the 17th Congress opened on the 4th day of March, 1820, with James Monroe at the head of the Executive Department of the Government, and the Democratic party in the majority in both branches of the Federal Legislature. The Cabinet at that time was composed of the most brilliant minds of the country, indeed as most justly remarked by Senator Thomas H. Benton in his published review of the events of that period, it would be difficult to find in any government, in any country, at any time, more talent and experience, more dignity and decorum, more purity of private life, a larger mass of information, and more addiction to business, than was comprised in the list of celebrated names then constituting the executive department of the government. The legislative department was equally impressive. The exciting and agitating question then pending before Congress was on the admission of the State of Missouri into the Federal Union, the subject of the issue being the attempted tacking on of conditions restricting slavery within her limits. She was admitted without conditions under the so-called compromise, which abolished it in certain portions of the then province of Louisiana. In this controversy, the compromise was sustained and carried entirely by the Democratic Senators and members from the Southern and slaveholding States aided and sanctioned by the Executive, and it was opposed by fifteen Senators from non-slaveholding States, who represented the opposite side on the political questions of the day. It passed the House by a close vote of 86 to 82. It has been seriously questioned since whether this act was constitutional. The real struggle was political, and for the balance of power. For a while it threatened the total overthrow of all political parties upon principle, and the substitution of geographical parties discriminated by the slave line, and thus destroying the proper action of the Federal government, and leading to a separation of the States. It was a federal movement, accruing to the benefit of that party, and at first carried all the Northern democracy in its current, giving the supremacy to their adversaries. When this effect was perceived, democrats from the northern non-slaveholding States took early opportunity to prevent their own overthrow, by voting for the admission of the States on any terms, and thus prevent the eventual separation of the States in the establishment of geographical parties divided by a slavery and anti-slavery line.

The year 1820 marked a period of financial distress in the country, which soon became that of the government. The army was reduced, and the general expenses of the departments cut down, despite which measures of economy the Congress deemed it necessary to authorize the President to contract for a loan of five million dollars. Distress was the cry of the day; relief the general demand, the chief demand coming from debtors to the Government for public lands purchased under the then credit system, this debt at that time aggregating twenty-three millions of dollars. The banks failed, money vanished, instalments were coming due which could not be met; and the opening of Congress in November, 1820, was saluted by the arrival of memorials from all the new States praying for the relief to the purchaser of the public lands. The President referred to it in his annual message of that year, and Congress passed a measure of relief by changing the system to cash sales instead of credit, reducing the price of the lands, and allowing present debtors to apply payments already made to portions of the land purchased, relinquishing the remainder. Applications were made at that time for the establishment of the preemptive system, but without effect; the new States continued to press the question and finally prevailed, so that now the preemptive principle has become a fixed part of our land system, permanently incorporated with it, and to the equal advantage of the settler and the government.

The session of 1820–21, is remarkable as being the first at which any proposition was made in Congress for the occupation and settlement of our territory on the Columbia river—the only part then owned by the United States on the Pacific coast. It was made by Dr. Floyd, a representative from Virginia, who argued that the establishment of a civilized power on the American coast of the Pacific could not fail to produce great and wonderful benefits not only to our own country, but to the people of Eastern Asia, China and Japan on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean, and that the valley of the Columbia might become the granary of China and Japan. This movement suggested to Senator Benton, to move, for the first time publicly in the United States, a resolution to send ministers to the Oriental States.

At this time treaties with Mexico and Spain were ratified, by which the United States acquired Florida and ceded Texas; these treaties, together with the Missouri compromise—a measure contemporaneous with them—extinguished slave soil in all the United States territory west of the Mississippi, except in that portion which was to constitute the State of Arkansas; and, including the extinction in Texas consequent upon its cession to a non-slaveholding power, constituted the largest territorial abolition of slavery that was ever up to that period effected by any political power of any nation.

The outside view of the slave question in the United States, at this time, is that the extension of slavery was then arrested, circumscribed, and confined within narrow territorial limits, while free States were permitted an almost unlimited expansion.

In 1822 a law passed Congress abolishing the Indian factory system, which had been established during Washington’s administration, in 1796, under which the Government acted as a factor or agent for the sale of supplies to the Indians and the purchase of furs from them; this branch of the service then belonged to the department of the Secretary of War. The abuses discovered in it led to the discontinuance of that system.

The Presidential election of 1824 was approaching, the candidates were in the field, their respective friends active and busy, and popular topics for the canvass in earnest requisition. Congress was full of projects for different objects of internal improvement, mainly in roads and canals, and the friends of each candidate exerted themselves in rivalry of each other, under the supposition that their opinions would stand for those of their principals. An act for the preservation of the Cumberland Road, which passed both houses of Congress, met with a veto from President Monroe, accompanied by a state paper in exposition of his opinions upon the whole subject of Federal interference in matters of inter state commerce and roads and canals. He discussed the measure in all its bearings, and plainly showed it to be unconstitutional. After stating the question, he examined it under every head of constitutional derivation under which its advocates claimed the power, and found it to be granted by no one of them and virtually prohibited by some of them. This was then and has since been considered to be the most elaborate and thoroughly considered opinion upon the general question which has ever been delivered by any American statesman. This great state paper, delivered at a time when internal improvement by the federal government had become an issue in the canvass for the Presidency and was ardently advocated by three of the candidates and qualified by two others, had an immense current in its power, carrying with it many of the old strict constructionists.

The revision of the tariff, with a view to the protection of home industry, and to the establishment of what was then called “The American System,” was one of the large subjects before Congress at the session of 1823–24, and was the regular commencement of the heated debates on that question which afterwards ripened into a serious difficulty between the federal government and some of the Southern States. The presidential election being then depending, the subject became tinctured with party politics, in which so far as that ingredient was concerned, and was not controlled by other considerations, members divided pretty much on the line which always divided them on a question of constructive powers. The protection of domestic industry not being among the powers granted, was looked for in the incidental; and denied by the strict constructionists to be a substantive term, to be exercised for the direct purpose of protection; but admitted by all at that time and ever since the first tariff act of 1789, to be an incident to the revenue raising power, and an incident to be regarded in the exercise of that power. Revenue the object, protection the incident, had been the rule in the earlier tariffs; now that rule was sought to be reversed, and to make protection the object of the law, and revenue the incident. Mr. Henry Clay was the leader in the proposed revision and the champion of the American system; he was ably supported in the House by many able and effective speakers; who based their argument on the general distress then alleged to be prevalent in the country. Mr. Daniel Webster was the leading speaker on the other side, and disputed the universality of the distress which had been described; and contested the propriety of high or prohibitory duties, in the present active and intelligent state of the world, to stimulate industry and manufacturing enterprise.

The bill was carried by a close vote in both Houses. Though brought forward avowedly for the protection of domestic manufactures, it was not entirely supported on that ground; an increase of revenue being the motive with some, the public debt then being nearly ninety millions. An increased protection to the products of several States, as lead in Missouri and Illinois, hemp in Kentucky, iron in Pennsylvania, wool in Ohio and New York, commanded many votes for the bill; and the impending presidential election had its influence in its favor.

Two of the candidates, Messrs. Adams and Clay, voted for and avowedly supported General Jackson, who voted for the bill, was for it, as tending to give a home supply of the articles necessary in time of war, and as raising revenue to pay the public debt; Mr. Crawford was opposed to it, and Mr. Calhoun had withdrawn as a Presidential candidate. The Southern planting States were dissatisfied, believing that the new burdens upon imports which it imposed, fell upon the producers of the exports, and tended to enrich one section of the Union at the expense of another. The attack and support of the bill took much of a sectional aspect; Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, and some others, being unanimous against it. Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky being unanimous for it. Massachusetts, which up to this time had no small influence in commerce, voted, with all, except one member, against it. With this sectional aspect, a tariff for protection, also began to assume a political aspect, being taken under the care of the party, afterwards denominated as Whig. The bill was approved by President Monroe; a proof that that careful and strict constructionist of the constitution did not consider it as deprived of its revenue character by the degree of protection which it extended.

A subject which at the present time is exciting much criticism, viz: proposed amendments to the constitution relative to the election of President and Vice-President, had its origin in movements in that direction taken by leading Democrats during the campaign of 1824. The electoral college has never been since the early elections, an independent body free to select a President and Vice-President; though in theory they have been vested with such powers, in practice they have no such practical power over the elections, and have had none since their institution. In every case the elector has been an instrument, bound to obey a particular impulsion, and disobedience to which would be attended with infamy, and with every penalty which public indignation could inflict. From the beginning they have stood pledged to vote for the candidate indicated by the public will; and have proved not only to be useless, but an inconvenient intervention between the people and the object of their choice. Mr. McDuffie in the House of Representatives and Mr. Benton in the Senate, proposed amendments; the mode of taking the direct vote to be in districts, and the persons receiving the greatest number of votes for President or Vice-President in any district, to count one vote for such office respectively which is nothing but substituting the candidates themselves for their electoral representatives.

In the election of 1824 four candidates were before the people for the office of President, General Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. None of them received a majority of the 261 electoral votes, and the election devolved upon the House of Representatives. John C. Calhoun had a majority of the electoral votes for the office of Vice-President, and was elected. Mr. Adams was elected President by the House of Representatives, although General Jackson was the choice of the people, having received the greatest number of votes at the general election. The election of Mr. Adams was perfectly constitutional, and as such fully submitted to by the people; but it was a violation of the demos krateo principle; and that violation was equally rebuked. All the representatives who voted against the will of their constituents, lost their favor, and disappeared from public life. The representation in the House of Representatives was largely changed at the first general election, and presented a full opposition to the new President. Mr. Adams himself was injured by it, and at the ensuing presidential election was beaten by General Jackson more than two to one.

Mr. Clay, who took the lead in the House for Mr. Adams, and afterwards took upon himself the mission of reconciling the people to his election in a series of public speeches, was himself crippled in the effort, lost his place in the democratic party, and joined the Whigs (then called the national republicans). The democratic principle was victor over the theory of the Constitution, and beneficial results ensued. It vindicated the people in their right and their power. It re-established parties upon the basis of principle, and drew anew party lines, then almost obliterated under the fusion of parties during the “era of good feeling,” and the efforts of leading men to make personal parties for themselves. It showed the conservative power of our government to lie in the people, more than in its constituted authorities. It showed that they were capable of exercising the function of self-government, and lastly, it assumed the supremacy of the democracy for a long time, and until lost by causes to be referred to hereafter. The Presidential election of 1824 is remarkable under another aspect—its results cautioned all public men against future attempts to govern presidential elections in the House of Representatives; and it put an end to the practice of caucus nominations for the Presidency by members of Congress. This mode of concentrating public opinion began to be practiced as the eminent men of the Revolution, to whom public opinion awarded a preference, were passing away, and when new men, of more equal pretensions, were coming upon the stage. It was tried several times with success and general approbation, because public sentiment was followed—not led—by the caucus. It was attempted in 1824 and failed; all the opponents of Mr. Crawford, by their joint efforts, succeeded, and justly in the fact though not in the motive, in rendering these Congress caucus nominations odious to the people, and broke them down. They were dropped, and a different mode adopted—that of party nominations by conventions of delegates from the States.

The administration of Mr. Adams commenced with his inaugural address, in which the chief topic was that of internal national improvement by the federal government. This declared policy of the administration furnished a ground of opposition against Mr. Adams, and went to the reconstruction of parties on the old line of strict, or latitudinous, construction of the Constitution. It was clear from the beginning that the new administration was to have a settled and strong opposition, and that founded in principles of government—the same principles, under different forms, which had discriminated parties at the commencement of the federal government. Men of the old school—survivors of the contest of the Adams and Jefferson times, with some exceptions, divided accordingly—the federalists going for Mr. Adams, the republicans against him, with the mass of the younger generation. The Senate by a decided majority, and the House by a strong minority, were opposed to the policy of the new President.

In 1826 occurred the famous debates in the Senate and the House, on the proposed Congress of American States, to contract alliances to guard against and prevent the establishment of any future European colony within its borders. The mission though sanctioned was never acted upon or carried out. It was authorized by very nearly a party vote, the democracy as a party being against it. The President, Mr. Adams, stated the objects of the Congress to be as follows: “An agreement between all the parties represented at the meeting, that each will guard, by its own means, against the establishment of any future European colony within its own borders, may be advisable. This was, more than two years since, announced by my predecessor to the world, as a principle resulting from the emancipation of both the American continents. It may be so developed to the new southern nations, that they may feel it as an essential appendage to their independence.”

Mr. Adams had been a member of Mr. Monroe’s cabinet, filling the department from which the doctrine would emanate. The enunciation by him as above of this “Monroe Doctrine,” as it is called, is very different from what it has of late been supposed to be, as binding the United States to guard all the territory of the New World from European colonization. The message above quoted was written at a time when the doctrine as enunciated by the former President through the then Secretary was fresh in the mind of the latter, and when he himself in a communication to the American Senate was laying it down for the adoption of all the American nations in a general congress of their deputies. According to President Adams, this “Monroe Doctrine” (according to which it has been of late believed that the United States were to stand guard over the two Americas, and repulse all intrusive colonists from their shores), was entirely confined to our own borders; that it was only proposed to get the other States of the New World to agree that, each for itself, and by its own means, should guard its own territories; and, consequently, that the United States, so far from extending gratuitous protection to the territories of other States, would neither give, nor receive, aid in any such enterprise, but that each should use its own means, within its own borders, for its own exemption from European colonial intrusion.

No question in its day excited more intemperate discussion, excitement, and feeling between the Executive and the Senate, and none died out so quickly, than this, relative to the proposed congress of American nations. The chief advantage to be derived from its retrospect—and it is a real one—is a view of the firmness with which the minority maintained the old policy of the United States, to avoid entangling alliances and interference with the affairs of other nations; and the exposition, by one so competent as Mr. Adams, of the true scope and meaning of the Monroe doctrine.

At the session of 1825–26 attempt was again made to procure an amendment to the Constitution, in relation to the mode of election of President and Vice-President, so as to do away with all intermediate agencies, and give the election to the direct vote of the people. In the Senate the matter was referred to a committee who reported amendments dispensing with electors, providing for districts equal in number to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State was entitled in Congress, and obviating all excuses for caucuses and conventions to concentrate public opinion by providing that in the event of no one receiving a majority of the whole number of district votes cast, that a second election should be held limited to the two persons receiving the highest number of votes; and in case of an equal division of votes on the second election then the House of Representatives shall choose one of them for President, as is prescribed by the Constitution. The idea being that the first election, if not resulting in any candidate receiving a majority, should stand for a popular nomination—a nomination by the people themselves, out of which the election is almost sure to be made on the second trial. The same plan was suggested for choosing a Vice-President, except that the Senate was to finally elect, in case of failure to choose at first and second elections. The amendments did not receive the requisite support of two-thirds of either the Senate or the House. This movement was not of a partisan character; it was equally supported and opposed respectively by Senators and Representatives of both parties. Substantially the same plan was recommended by President Jackson in his first annual message to Congress, December 8, 1829.

It is interesting to note that at this Session of 1825 and ’26, attempt was made by the Democrats to pass a tenure of office bill, as applicable to government employees and office-holders; it provided “that in all nominations made by the President to the Senate, to fill vacancies occasioned by an exercise of the President’s power to remove from office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to the Senate at the same time that the nomination is made, with a statement of the reasons for which such officer may have been removed.” It was also sought at the same time to amend the Constitution to prohibit the appointment of any member of Congress to any federal office of trust or profit, during the period for which he was elected; the design being to make the members wholly independent of the Executive, and not subservient to the latter, and incapable of receiving favors in the form of bestowals of official patronage.

The tariff of 1828 is an era in our political legislation; from it the doctrine of “nullification” originated, and from that date began a serious division between the North and the South. This tariff law was projected in the interest of the woolen manufacturers, but ended by including all manufacturing interests. The passage of this measure was brought about not because it was favored by a majority, but because of political exigencies. In the then approaching presidential election, Mr. Adams, who was in favor of the “American System,” supported by Mr. Clay (his Secretary of State) was opposed by General Jackson. This tariff was made an administration measure, and became an issue in the canvass. The New England States, which had formerly favored free trade, on account of their commercial interests, changed their policy, and, led by Mr. Webster, became advocates of the protective system. The question of protective tariff had now not only become political, but sectional. The Southern States as a section, were arrayed against the system, though prior to 1816 had favored it, not merely as an incident to revenue, but as a substantive object. In fact these tariff bills, each exceeding the other in its degree of protection, had become a regular appendage of our presidential elections—carrying round in every cycle of four years, with that returning event; starting in 1816 and followed up in 1820–24, and now in 1828; with successive augmentations of duties; the last being often pushed as a party measure, and with the visible purpose of influencing the presidential election. General Jackson was elected, having received 178 electoral votes to 83 received by John Quincy Adams. Mr. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, who was on the ticket with Mr. Adams, was defeated for the office of Vice-President, and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was elected to that office.

The election of General Jackson was a triumph of democratic principle, and an assertion of the people’s right to govern themselves. That principle had been violated in the presidential election in the House of Representatives in the session of 1824–25; and the sanction, or rebuke, of that violation was a leading question in the whole canvass. It was also a triumph over the high protective policy, and the federal internal improvement policy, and the latitudinous construction of the Constitution; and of the democracy over the federalists, then called national republicans; and was the re-establishment of parties on principle, according to the landmarks of the early years of the government. For although Mr. Adams had received confidence and office from Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, and had classed with the democratic party during the “era of good feeling,” yet he had previously been federal; and on the re-establishment of old party lines which began to take place after the election of Mr. Adams in the House of Representatives, his affinities and policy became those of his former party; and as a party, with many individual exceptions, they became his supporters and his strength. General Jackson, on the contrary, had always been democratic, so classing when he was a Senator in Congress under the administration of the first Mr. Adams; and when party lines were most straightly drawn, and upon principle, and as such now receiving the support of men and States which took this political position at that time, and maintained it for years afterwards; among the latter, notably the States of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The short session of 1829–30 was rendered famous by the long and earnest debates in the Senate on the doctrine of nullification, as it was then called. It started by a resolution of inquiry introduced by Mr. Foot of Connecticut; it was united with a proposition to limit the sales of the public lands to those then in the market—to suspend the surveys of the public lands—and to abolish the office of Surveyor-General. The effect of such a resolution, if sanctioned upon inquiry and carried into legislative effect, would have been to check emigration to the new States in the West, and to check the growth and settlement of these States and Territories. It was warmly opposed by Western members. The debate spread and took an acrimonious turn, and sectional, imputing to the quarter of the Union from which it came an old and early policy to check the growth of the West at the outset by proposing to limit the sale of the Western lands, by selling no tract in advance until all in the rear was sold out; and during the debate Mr. Webster referred to the famous ordinance of 1787 for the government of the northwestern territory, and especially the anti-slavery clause which it contained.

Closely connected with this subject to which Mr. Webster’s remarks, during the debate, related, was another which excited some warm discussion—the topic of slavery—and the effect of its existence or non-existence in different States. Kentucky and Ohio were taken for examples, and the superior improvement and population of Ohio were attributed to its exemption from the evils of slavery. This was an excitable subject, and the more so because the wounds of the Missouri controversy in which the North was the undisputed aggressor, were still tender. Mr. Hayne from South Carolina answered with warmth and resented as a reflection upon the Slave States this disadvantageous comparison. Mr. Benton of Missouri followed on the same side, and in the course of his remarks said, “I regard with admiration, that is to say, with wonder, the sublime morality of those who cannot bear the abstract contemplation of slavery, at the distance of five hundred or a thousand miles off.” This allusion to the Missouri controversy, and invective against the free States for their part in it, by Messrs. Hayne and Benton, brought a reply from Mr. Webster, showing what their conduct had been at the first introduction of the slavery topic in the Congress of the United States, and that they totally refused to interfere between master and slave in any way whatever. But the topic which became the leading feature of the whole debate, and gave it an interest which cannot die, was that of nullification—the assumed right of a State to annul an act of Congress—then first broached in the Senate—and in the discussion of which Mr. Webster and Mr. Hayne were the champion speakers on opposite sides—the latter voicing the sentiments of the Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun. This turn in the debate was brought about, by Mr. Hayne having made allusion to the course of New England during the war of 1812, and especially to the assemblage known as the Hartford Convention, and to which designs unfriendly to the Union had been attributed. This gave Mr. Webster an opportunity to retaliate, and he referred to the public meetings which had just then taken place in South Carolina on the subject of the tariff, and at which resolves were passed, and propositions adopted significant of resistance to the act; and consequently of disloyalty to the Union. He drew Mr. Hayne into their defence and into an avowal of what has since obtained the current name of “Nullification.” He said, “I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to maintain, that it is a right of the State Legislature to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws,*** that the States may lawfully decide for themselves, and each State for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the general government transcends its powers,*** that if the exigency of the case, in the opinion of any State government require it, such State government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government, which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional.” Mr. Hayne was evidently unprepared to admit, or fully deny, the propositions as so laid down, but contented himself with stating the words of the Virginia Resolution of 1798, as follows: “That this assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.”

This resolution came to be understood by Mr. Hayne and others on that side of the debate, in the same sense that Mr. Webster stated, as above, he understood the gentleman from the South to interpret it. On the other side of the question, he argued that the doctrine had no foundation either in the Constitution, or on the Virginia resolutions—that the Constitution makes the federal government act upon citizens within the States, and not upon the States themselves, as in the old confederation: that within their Constitutional limits the laws of Congress were supreme—and that it was treasonable to resist them with force: and that the question of their constitutionality was to be decided by the Supreme Court: with respect to the Virginia resolutions, on which Mr. Hayne relied, Mr. Webster disputed the interpretation put upon them—claimed for them an innocent and justifiable meaning—and exempted Mr. Madison from the suspicion of having framed a resolution asserting the right of a State legislature to annul an Act of Congress, and thereby putting it in the power of one State to destroy a form of government which he had just labored so hard to establish.

Mr. Hayne on his part gave (as the practical part of his doctrine) the pledge of forcible resistance to any attempt to enforce unconstitutional laws. He said, “The gentleman has called upon us to carry out our scheme practically. Now, sir, if I am correct in my view of this matter, then it follows, of course, that the right of a State being established, the federal government is bound to acquiesce in a solemn decision of a State, acting in its sovereign capacity, at least so far as to make an appeal to the people for an amendment to the Constitution. This solemn decision of a State binds the federal government, under the highest constitutional obligation, not to resort to any means of coercion against the citizens of the dissenting State.*** Suppose Congress should pass an agrarian law, or a law emancipating our slaves, or should commit any other gross violation of our constitutional rights, will any gentlemen contend that the decision of every branch of the federal government, in favor of such laws, could prevent the States from declaring them null and void, and protecting their citizens from their operation?*** Let me assure the gentlemen that, whenever any attempt shall be made from any quarter, to enforce unconstitutional laws, clearly violating our essential rights, our leaders (whoever they may be) will not be found reading black letter from the musty pages of old law books. They will look to the Constitution, and when called upon by the sovereign authority of the State, to preserve and protect the rights secured to them by the charter of their liberties, they will succeed in defending them, or ‘perish in the last ditch.’”

These words of Mr. Hayne seem almost prophetic in view of the events of thirty years later. No one then believed in anything serious in the new interpretation given to the Virginia resolutions—nor in anything practical from nullification—nor in forcible resistance to the tariff laws from South Carolina—nor in any scheme of disunion.

Mr. Webster’s closing reply was a fine piece of rhetoric, delivered in an elaborate and artistic style, and in an apparent spirit of deep seriousness. He concluded thus—“When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and disfigured fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing in all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”

President Jackson in his first annual message to Congress called attention to the fact of expiration in 1836 of the charter of incorporation granted by the Federal government to a moneyed institution called The Bank of the United States, which was originally designed to assist the government in establishing and maintaining a uniform and sound currency. He seriously doubted the constitutionality and expediency of the law creating the bank, and was opposed to a renewal of the charter. His view of the matter was that if such an institution was deemed a necessity it should be made a national one, in the sense of being founded on the credit of the government and its revenues, and not a corporation independent from and not a part of the government. The House of Representatives was strongly in favor of the renewal of the charter, and several of its committees made elaborate, ample and argumentative reports upon the subject. These reports were the subject of newspaper and pamphlet publication; and lauded for their power and excellence, and triumphant refutation of all the President’s opinions. Thus was the “war of the Bank” commenced at once in Congress, and in the public press; and openly at the instance of the Bank itself, which, forgetting its position as an institution of the government, for the convenience of the government, set itself up as a power, and struggled for continued existence, by demand for renewal of its charter. It allied itself at the same time to the political power opposed to the President, joined in all their schemes of protective tariff, and national internal improvement, and became the head of the American system. Its moneyed and political power, numerous interested affiliations, and control over other banks and fiscal institutions, was truly great and extensive, and a power which was exercised and made to be felt during the struggle to such a degree that it threatened a danger to the country and the government almost amounting to a national calamity.

The subject of renewal of the charter was agitated at every succeeding session of Congress down to 1836, and many able speeches made for and against it.

In the month of December, 1831, the National Republicans, as the party was then called which afterward took the name of “whig,” held its convention in Baltimore, and nominated candidates for President and Vice-President, to be voted for at the election in the autumn of the ensuing year. Henry Clay was the candidate for the office of President, and John Sergeant for that of Vice-President. The platform or address to the people presented the party issues which were to be settled at the ensuing election, the chief subjects being the tariff, internal improvement, removal of the Cherokee Indians, and the renewal of the United States Bank charter. Thus the bank question was fully presented as an issue in the election by that part of its friends who classed politically against President Jackson. But it had also Democratic friends without whose aid the re-charter could not be got through Congress, and they labored assiduously for it. The first Bank of the United States, chartered in 1791, was a federal measure, favored by General Hamilton, opposed by Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and the Republican party; and became a great landmark of party, not merely for the bank itself, but for the latitudinarian construction of the constitution in which it was founded, and the precedent it established that Congress might in its discretion do what it pleased, under the plea of being “necessary” to carry into effect some granted power. The non-renewal of the charter in 1811, was the act of the Republican party, then in possession of the government, and taking the opportunity to terminate, upon its own limitation, the existence of an institution whose creation they had not been able to prevent. The charter of the second bank, in 1816, was the act of the Republican party, and to aid them in the administration of the government, and, as such, was opposed by the Federal party—not seeming then to understand that, by its instincts, a great moneyed corporation was in sympathy with their own party, and would soon be with it in action—which the bank soon was—and now struggled for a continuation of its existence under the lead of those who had opposed its creation and against the party which effected it. Mr. Webster was a Federal leader on both occasions—against the charter in 1816; for the re-charter in 1832. The bill passed the Senate after a long and arduous contest; and afterwards passed the House, quickly and with little or no contest at all.

It was sent to the President, and vetoed by him July 10, 1832; the message stating his objections being an elaborate review of the subject; the veto being based mainly on the unconstitutionality of the measure. The veto was sustained. Following this the President after the adjournment removed from the bank the government deposits, and referred to that fact in his next annual message on the second day of December, 1833, at the opening of the first session of the twenty-third Congress. Accompanying it was the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. Roger B. Taney, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, giving the reasons of the government for the withdrawal of the public funds. Long and bitter was the contest between the President on the one side and the Bank and its supporters in the Senate on the other side. The conduct of the Bank produced distress throughout the country, and was so intended to coerce the President. Distress petitions flooded Congress, and the Senate even passed resolutions of censure of the President. The latter, however, held firm in his position. A committee of investigation was appointed by the House of Representatives to inquire into the causes of the commercial embarrassment and the public distress complained of in the numerous distress memorials presented to the two Houses during the session; and whether the Bank had been instrumental, through its management of money, in producing the distress and embarrassment of which so much complaint was made; to inquire whether the charter of the Bank had been violated, and what corruptions and abuses, if any, existed in its management; and to inquire whether the Bank had used its corporate power or money to control the press, to interpose in politics, or to influence elections. The committee were granted ample powers for the execution of these inquiries. It was treated with disdain and contempt by the Bank management; refused access to the books and papers, and the directors and president refused to be sworn and testify. The committee at the next session made report of their proceedings, and asked for warrants to be issued against the managers to bring them before the Bar of the House to answer for contempt; but the friends of the Bank in the House were able to check the proceedings and prevent action being taken. In the Senate, the President was sought to be punished by a declination by that body to confirm the President’s nomination of the four government directors of the Bank, who had served the previous year; and their re-nomination after that rejection again met with a similar fate. In like manner his re-nomination of Roger B. Taney to be Secretary of the Treasury was rejected, for the action of the latter in his support of the President and the removal of the public deposits. The Bank had lost much ground in the public estimation by resisting the investigation ordered and attempted by the House of Representatives, and in consequence the Finance Committee of the Senate made an investigation, with so weak an attempt to varnish over the affairs and acts of the corporation that the odious appellation of “white-washing committee” was fastened upon it. The downfall of the Bank speedily followed; it soon afterwards became a total financial wreck, and its assets and property were seized on executions. With its financial failure it vanished from public view, and public interest in it and concern with it died out.

About the beginning of March, 1831, a pamphlet was issued in Washington, by Mr. John C. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and addressed to the people of the United States, explaining the cause of a difference which had taken place between himself and the President, General Jackson, instigated as the pamphlet alleged, by Mr. Van Buren, and intended to make trouble between the first and second officers of the government, and to effect the political destruction of himself (Mr. Calhoun) for the benefit of the contriver of the quarrel, the then Secretary of State, and indicated as a candidate for the presidential succession upon the termination of Jackson’s term. The differences grew out of certain charges against General Jackson respecting his conduct during the Seminole war which occurred in the administration of President Monroe. The President justified himself in published correspondence, but the inevitable result followed—a rupture between the President and Vice-President—which was quickly followed by a breaking up and reconstructing the Cabinet. Some of its members classed as the political friends of Mr. Calhoun, and could hardly be expected to remain as ministers to the President. Mr. Van Buren resigned; a new Cabinet was appointed and confirmed. This change in the Cabinet made a great figure in the party politics of the day, and filled all the opposition newspapers, and had many sinister reasons assigned to it—all to the prejudice of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren.

It is interesting to note here that during the administration of President Jackson,—in the year 1833,—the Congress of the United States, as the consequence of the earnest efforts in that behalf, of Col. R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, aided by the recommendation and support of the President, passed the first laws, abolishing imprisonment for debt, under process from the Courts of the United States: the only extent to which an act of Congress could go, by force of its enactments; but by force of example and influence, has led to the cessation of the practice of imprisoning debtors, in all, or nearly all, of the States and Territories of the Union; and without the evil consequences which had been dreaded from the loss of this remedy over the person. The act was a total abolition of the practice, leaving in full force all the remedies against fraudulent evasions of debt.

The American system, and especially its prominent feature of a high protective tariff was put in issue, in the Presidential canvass of 1832; and the friends of that system labored diligently in Congress in presenting its best points to the greatest advantage; and staking its fate upon the issue of the election. It was lost; not only by the result of the main contest, but by that of the congressional election which took place simultaneously with it. All the States dissatisfied with that system, were satisfied with the view of its speedy and regular extinction, under the legislation of the approaching session of Congress, excepting only South Carolina. She has held aloof from the Presidential contest, and cast her electoral votes for persons who were not candidates—doing nothing to aid the election of General Jackson, with whom her interests were apparently identified. On the 24th November, 1832, two weeks after the election which decided the fate of the tariff, that State issued an “Ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities.” It declared that the Congress had exceeded its constitutional powers in imposing high and excessive duties on the theory of “protection,” had unjustly discriminated in favor of one class or employment, at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals; that said laws were in consequence not binding on the State and its citizens; and declaring its right and purpose to enact laws to prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of said acts and parts of the acts of the Congress of the United States within the limits of that State after the first day of February following. This ordinance placed the State in the attitude of forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to take effect on the first day of February next ensuing—a date prior to the meeting of the next Congress, which the country naturally expected would take some action in reference to the tariff laws complained of. The ordinance further provided that if, in the meantime, any attempt was made by the federal government to enforce the obnoxious laws, except through the tribunals, all the officers of which were sworn against them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the continuance of South Carolina in the Union—to absolve her from all connection with the federal government—and to establish her as a separate government, wholly unconnected with the United States or any State. The ordinance of nullification was certified by the Governor of South Carolina to the President of the United States, and reached him in December of the same year; in consequence of which he immediately issued a proclamation, exhorting the people of South Carolina to obey the laws of Congress; pointing out and explaining the illegality of the procedure; stating clearly and distinctly his firm determination to enforce the laws as became him as Executive, even by resort to force if necessary. As a state paper, it is important as it contains the views of General Jackson regarding the nature and character of our federal government, expressed in the following language: “The people of the United States formed the constitution, acting through the State Legislatures in making the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in the constitution show it to be a government in which the people of all the States collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. * * * The people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch. * * * In the House of Representatives the members are all representatives of the United States, not representatives of the particular States from which they come. They are paid by the United States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act done in the performance of their legislative functions. * * *

“The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by a compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States—they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State, having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other States, a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of the nation, and any injury to that unity, is not only a breach which could result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offence.”

Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, the President in his annual message, merely adverted to the attitude of the State, and proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the powers he already possessed. The proceedings in South Carolina not ceasing, and taking daily a more aggravated form in the organization of troops, the collection of arms and of munitions of war, and in declarations hostile to the Union, he found it necessary early in January to report the facts to Congress in a special message, and ask for extraordinary powers. Bills for the reduction of the tariff were early in the Session introduced into both houses, while at the same time the President, though not relaxing his efforts towards a peaceful settlement of the difficulty, made steady preparations for enforcing the law. The result of the bills offered in the two Houses of Congress, was the passage of Mr. Clay’s “compromise” bill on the 12th of February 1833, which radically changed the whole tariff system.

The President in his message on the South Carolina proceedings had recommended to Congress the revival of some acts, heretofore in force, to enable him to execute the laws in that State; and the Senate’s committee on the judiciary had reported a bill accordingly early in the session. It was immediately assailed by several members as violent and unconstitutional, tending to civil war, and denounced as “the bloody bill”—the “force bill,” &c. The bill was vindicated in the Senate, by its author, who showed that it contained no novel principle; was substantially a revival of laws previously in force; with the authority superadded to remove the office of customs from one building or place to another in case of need. The bill was vehemently opposed, and every effort made to render it odious to the people, and even extend the odium to the President, and to every person urging or aiding in its passage. Mr. Webster justly rebuked all this vituperation, and justified the bill, both for the equity of its provisions, and the necessity for enacting them. He said, that an unlawful combination threatened the integrity of the Union; that the crisis called for a mild, temperate, forbearing but inflexibly firm execution of the laws; and finally, that public opinion sets with an irresistible force in favor of the Union, in favor of the measures recommended by the President, and against the new doctrines which threatened the dissolution of the Union. The support which Mr. Webster gave to these measures was the regular result of the principles which he laid down in his first speeches against nullification in the debate with Mr. Hayne, and he could not have done less without being derelict to his own principles then avowed. He supported with transcendent ability, the cause of the constitution and of the country, in the person of a President to whom he was politically opposed, whose gratitude and admiration he earned for his patriotic endeavors. The country, without distinction of party, felt the same; and the universality of the feeling was one of the grateful instances of popular applause and justice when great talents are seen exerting themselves for the good of the country. He was the colossal figure on the political stage during that eventful time; and his labors, splendid in their day, survive for the benefit of distant posterity.

During the discussion over the re-charter of the Bank of the United States, which as before mentioned, occupied the attention of Congress for several years, the country suffered from a money panic, and a general financial depression and distress was generally prevalent. In 1834 a measure was introduced into the House, for equalizing the value of gold and silver, and legalizing the tender of foreign coin, of both metals. The good effects of the bill were immediately seen. Gold began to flow into the country through all the channels of commerce, foreign and domestic; the mint was busy; and specie payment, which had been suspended in the country for thirty years, was resumed, and gold and silver became the currency of the land; inspiring confidence in all the pursuits of industry.

As indicative of the position of the democratic party at that date, on the subject of the kind of money authorized by the Constitution, Mr. Benton’s speech in the Senate is of interest. He said: “In the first place, he was one of those who believed that the government of the United States was intended to be a hard-money government; that it was the intention and the declaration of the Constitution of the United States, that the federal currency should consist of gold and silver, and that there is no power in Congress to issue, or to authorize any company of individuals to issue, any species of federal paper currency whatsoever. Every clause in the Constitution (said Mr. B.) which bears upon the subject of money—every early statute of Congress which interprets the meaning of these clauses—and every historic recollection which refers to them, go hand in hand in giving to that instrument the meaning which this proposition ascribes to it. The power granted to Congress to coin money is an authority to stamp metallic money, and is not an authority for emitting slips of paper containing promises to pay money. The authority granted to Congress to regulate the value of coin, is an authority to regulate the value of the metallic money, not of paper. The prohibition upon the States against making anything but gold and silver a legal tender, is a moral prohibition, founded in virtue and honesty, and is just as binding upon the Federal Government as upon the State Governments; and that without a written prohibition; for the difference in the nature of the two governments is such, that the States may do all things which they are not forbid to do; and the Federal Government can do nothing which it is not authorized by the Constitution to do. The framers of the Constitution (said Mr. B.) created a hard-money government. They intended the new government to recognize nothing for money but gold and silver; and every word admitted into the Constitution, upon the subject of money, defines and establishes that sacred intention.

Legislative enactment came quickly to the aid of constitutional intention and historic recollection. The fifth statute passed at the first session of the first Congress that ever sat under the present Constitution was full and explicit on this head. It declared, “that the fees and duties payable to the federal government shall be received in gold and silver coin only.” It was under General Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, in 1791, that the policy of the government underwent a change. In the act constituting the Bank of the United States, he brought forward his celebrated plan for the support of the public credit—that plan which unfolded the entire scheme of the paper system and immediately developed the great political line between the federalists and the republicans. The establishment of a national bank was the leading and predominant feature of that plan; and the original report of the secretary, in favor of establishing the bank, contained this fatal and deplorable recommendation: “The bills and notes of the bank, originally made payable, or which shall have become payable, on demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be receivable in all payments to the United States.” From the moment of the adoption of this policy, the moneyed character of the government stood changed and reversed. Federal bank notes took the place of hard-money; and the whole edifice of the government slid, at once, from the solid rock of gold and silver money, on which its framers had placed it, into the troubled and tempestuous ocean of paper currency.

The first session of the 35th Congress opened December 1835. Mr. James K. Polk was elected Speaker of the House by a large majority over Mr. John Bell, the previous Speaker; the former being supported by the administration party, and the latter having become identified with those who, on siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a candidate for the presidency, were considered as having divided from the democratic party. The chief subject of the President’s message was the relations of our country with France relative to the continued non-payment of the stipulated indemnity provided for in the treaty of 1831 for French spoliations of American shipping. The obligation to pay was admitted, and the money even voted for that purpose; but offense was taken at the President’s message, and payment refused until an apology should be made. The President commented on this in his message, and the Senate had under consideration measures authorizing reprisals on French shipping. At this point Great Britain offered her services as mediator between the nations, and as a result the indemnity was shortly afterwards paid.

Agitation of the slavery question in the United States really began about this time. Evil-disposed persons had largely circulated through the Southern states, pamphlets and circulars tending to stir up strife and insurrection; and this had become so intolerable that it was referred to by the President in his message. Congress at the session of 1836 was flooded with petitions and memorials urging federal interference to abolish slavery in the States; beginning with the petition of the Society of Friends of Philadelphia, urging the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. These petitions were referred to Committees after an acrimonious debate as to whether they should be received or not. The position of the government at that time is embodied in the following resolution which was adopted in the House of Representatives as early as 1790, and substantially reaffirmed in 1836, as follows: “That Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the States; it remaining with the several States to provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy may require.”

In the Summer preceding the Presidential election of 1836, a measure was introduced into Congress, which became very nearly a party measure, and which in its results proved disastrous to the Democratic party in after years. It was a plan for distributing the public land money among the States either in the shape of credit distribution, or in the disguise of a deposit of surplus revenue; and this for the purpose of enhancing the value of the State stocks held by the United States Bank, which institution, aided by the party which it favored, led by Mr. Clay, was the prime mover in the plan. That gentleman was the author of the scheme, and great calculations were made by the party which favored the distribution upon its effect in adding to their popularity. The Bill passed the Senate in its original form, but met with less favor in the House where it was found necessary. To effectuate substantially the same end, a Senate Bill was introduced to regulate the keeping of the public money in the deposit banks, and this was turned into distribution of the surplus public moneys with the States, in proportion to their representation in Congress, to be returned when Congress should call for it; and this was called a deposit with the States, and the faith of the States pledged for a return of the money. It was stigmatized by its opponents in Congress, as a distribution in disguise—as a deposit never to be reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the Constitution; as an attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as plundering instead of defending the country. The Bill passed both houses, mainly by the efforts of a half dozen aspirants to the Presidency, who sought to thus increase their popularity. They were doomed to disappointment in this respect. Politically, it was no advantage to its numerous and emulous supporters, and of no disservice to its few determined opponents. It was a most unfortunate act, a plain evasion of the Constitution for a bad purpose; and it soon gave a sad overthrow to the democracy and disappointed every calculation made upon it. To the States it was no advantage, raising expectations which were not fulfilled, and upon which many of them acted as realities. The Bill was signed by the President, but it is simple justice to him to say that he did it with a repugnance of feeling, and a recoil of judgment, which it required great efforts of his friends to overcome, and with a regret for it afterwards which he often and publicly expressed. In a party point of view, the passage of this measure was the commencement of calamities, being an efficient cause in that general suspension of specie payments, which quickly occurred, and brought so much embarrassment on the Van Buren administration, ending in the great democratic defeat of 1840.

The presidential election of 1836 resulted in the choice of the democratic candidate, Mr. Van Buren, who was elected by 170 electoral votes; his opponent, General Harrison, receiving seventy-three electoral votes. Scattering votes were given for Mr. Webster, Mr. Mangum, and Mr. Hugh L. White, the last named representing a fragment of the democracy who, in a spirit of disaffection, attempted to divide the democratic party and defeat Mr. Van Buren. At the opening of the second session of the twenty-fourth Congress, December, 1836, President Jackson delivered his last annual message, under circumstances exceedingly gratifying to him. The powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he had the satisfaction of seeing full majorities of ardent and tried friends in each House. The country was in peace and friendship with all the world; all exciting questions quieted at home; industry in all its branches prosperous, and the revenue abundant. And as a happy sequence of this state of affairs, the Senate on the 16th of March, 1837, expunged from the Journal the resolution, adopted three years previously, censuring the President for ordering the removal of the deposits of public money in the United States Bank. He retired from the presidency with high honors, and died eight years afterwards at his home, the celebrated “Hermitage,” in Tennessee, in full possession of all his faculties, and strong to the last in the ruling passion of his soul—love of country.

The 4th of March, 1837, ushered in another Democratic administration—the beginning of the term of Martin Van Buren as President of the United States. In his inaugural address he commented on the prosperous condition of the country, and declared it to be his policy to strictly abide by the Constitution as written—no latitudinarian constructions permitted, or doubtful powers assumed; that his political chart should be the doctrines of the democratic school, as understood at the original formation of parties.

The President, however, was scarcely settled in his new office when a financial panic struck the country with irresistible force. A general suspension of the banks, a depreciated currency, and insolvency of the federal treasury were at hand. The public money had been placed in the custody of the local banks, and the notes of all these banks, and of all others in the country, were received in payment of public dues. On the 10th of May, 1837, the banks throughout the country suspended specie payments. The stoppage of the deposit banks was the stoppage of the Treasury. Non-payment by the government was an excuse for non-payment by others. The suspension was now complete; and it was evident, and as good as admitted by those who had made it, that it was the effect of contrivance on the part of politicians and the so-called Bank of the United States (which, after the expiration of its national charter, had become a State corporation chartered by the Legislature of Pennsylvania in January, 1836) for the purpose of restoring themselves to power. The whole proceeding became clear to those who could see nothing while it was in progress. Even those of the democratic party whose votes had helped to do the mischief, could now see that the attempt to deposit forty millions with the States was destruction to the deposit banks; that the repeal of President Jackson’s order, known as the “specie circular”—requiring payment for public lands to be in coin—was to fill the treasury with paper money, to be found useless when wanted; that distress was purposely created to throw blame of it upon the party in power; that the promptitude with which the Bank of the United States had been brought forward as a remedy for the distress, showed that it had been held in reserve for that purpose; and the delight with which the whig party saluted the general calamity, showed that they considered it their own passport to power. Financial embarrassment and general stagnation of business diminished the current receipts from lands and customs, and actually caused an absolute deficit in the public treasury. In consequence, the President found it an inexorable necessity to issue his proclamation convening Congress in extra session.

The first session of the twenty-fifth Congress met in extra session, at the call of the President, on the first Monday of September, 1837. The message was a review of the events and causes which had brought about the panic; a defense of the policy of the “specie circular,” and a recommendation to break off all connection with any bank of issue in any form; looking to the establishment of an Independent Treasury, and that the Government provide for the deficit in the treasury by the issue of treasury notes and by withholding the deposit due to the States under the act then in force. The message and its recommendations were violently assailed both in the Senate and House by able and effective speakers, notably by Messrs. Clay and Webster, and also by Mr. Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, who made a formal and elaborate reply to the whole document under thirty-two distinct heads, and reciting therein all the points of accusation against the democratic policy from the beginning of the government down to that day. The result was that the measures proposed by the Executive were in substance enacted; and their passage marks an era in our financial history—making a total and complete separation of Bank and State, and firmly establishing the principle that the government revenues should be receivable in coin only.

The measures of consequence discussed and adopted at this session, were the graduation of price of public lands under the pre-emption system, which was adopted; the bill to create an independent Treasury, which passed the Senate, but failed in the House; and the question of the re-charter of the district banks, the proportion for reserve, and the establishment of such institutions on a specie basis. The slavery question was again agitated in consequence of petitions from citizens and societies in the Northern States, and a memorial from the General Assembly of Vermont, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and territories, and for the exclusion of future slave states from the Union. These petitions and memorials were disposed of adversely; and Mr. Calhoun, representing the ultra-Southern interest, in several able speeches, approved of the Missouri compromise, he urged and obtained of the Senate several resolutions declaring that the federal government had no power to interfere with slavery in the States; and that it would be inexpedient and impolitic to interfere, abolish or control it in the District of Columbia and the territories. These movements for and against slavery in the session of 1837–38 deserve to be noticed, as of disturbing effect at the time, and as having acquired new importance from subsequent events.

The first session of the twenty-sixth Congress opened December, 1839. The organization of the House was delayed by a closely and earnestly contested election from the State of New Jersey. Five Democrats claiming seats as against an equal number of Whigs. Neither set was admitted until after the election of Speaker, which resulted in the choice of Robert M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, the Whig candidate, who was elected by the full Whig vote with the aid of a few democrats—friends of Mr. Calhoun, who had for several previous sessions been acting with the Whigs on several occasions. The House excluding the five contested seats from New Jersey, was really Democratic; having 122 members, and the Whigs 113 members. The contest for the Speakership was long and arduous, neither party adhering to its original caucus candidate. Twenty scattering votes, eleven of whom were classed as Whigs, and nine as Democrats, prevented a choice on the earlier ballots, and it was really Mr. Calhoun’s Democratic friends uniting with a solid Whig vote on the final ballot that gained that party the election. The issue involved was a vital party question as involving the organization of the House. The chief measure, of public importance, adopted at this session of Congress was an act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, and disbursing of the public money. It practically revolutionized the system previously in force, and was a complete and effectual separation of the federal treasury and the Government, from the banks and moneyed corporations of the States. It was violently opposed by the Whig members, led by Mr. Clay, and supported by Mr. Cushing, but was finally passed in both Houses by a close vote.

At this time, and in the House of Representatives, was exhibited for the first time in the history of Congress, the present practice of members “pairing off,” as it is called; that is to say, two members of opposite political parties, or of opposite views on any particular subject, agreeing to absent themselves from the duties of the House, for the time being. The practice was condemned on the floor of the House by Mr. John Quincy Adams, who introduced a resolution: “That the practice, first openly avowed at the present session of Congress, of pairing off, involves, on the part of the members resorting to it, the violation of the Constitution of the United States, of an express rule of this House, and of the duties of both parties in the transaction, to their immediate constituents, to this House, and to their country.” This resolution was placed in the calendar to take its turn, but not being reached during the session, was not voted on. That was the first instance of this justly condemned practice, fifty years after the establishment of the Government; but since then it has become common, even inveterate, and is now carried to great lengths.

The last session of the twenty-sixth Congress was barren of measures, and necessarily so, as being the last of our administration superseded by the popular voice, and soon to expire; and therefore restricted by a sense of propriety, during the brief remainder of its existence, to the details of business and the routine of service. The cause of this was the result of the presidential election of 1840. The same candidates who fought the battle of 1836 were again in the field. Mr. Van Buren was the Democratic candidate. His administration had been satisfactory to his party, and his nomination for a second term was commended by the party in the different States in appointing their delegates; so that the proceedings of the convention which nominated him were entirely harmonious and formal in their nature. Mr. Richard M. Johnson, the actual Vice-President, was also nominated for Vice-President.

On the Whig ticket, General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was the candidate for President, and Mr. John Tyler, of Virginia, for Vice-President. The leading statesmen of the Whig party were again put aside, to make way for a military man, prompted by the example in the nomination of General Jackson, the men who managed presidential elections believing then as now that military renown was a passport to popularity and rendered a candidate more sure of election. Availability—for the purpose—was the only ability asked for. Mr. Clay, the most prominent Whig in the country, and the acknowledged head of the party, was not deemed available; and though Mr. Clay was a candidate before the convention, the proceedings were so regulated that his nomination was referred to a committee, ingeniously devised and directed for the afterwards avowed purpose of preventing his nomination and securing that of General Harrison; and of producing the intended result without showing the design, and without leaving a trace behind to show what was done. The scheme (a modification of which has since been applied to subsequent national conventions, and out of which many bitter dissensions have again and again arisen) is embodied and was executed in and by means of the following resolution adopted by the convention: “Ordered, That the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and appoint a committee, not exceeding three in number, to receive the views and opinions of such delegation, and communicate the same to the assembled committees of all the delegations, to be by them respectively reported to their principals; and that thereupon the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and ballot for candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President, and having done so, to commit the ballot designating the votes of each candidate, and by whom given, to its committee, and thereupon all the committees shall assemble and compare the several ballots, and report the result of the same to their several delegations, together with such facts as may bear upon the nomination; and said delegation shall forthwith reassemble and ballot again for candidates for the above offices, and again commit the result to the above committees, and if it shall appear that a majority of the ballots are for any one man for candidate for President, said committee shall report the result to the convention for its consideration; but if there shall be no such majority, then the delegation shall repeat the balloting until such a majority shall be obtained, and then report the same to the convention for its consideration. That the vote of a majority of each delegation shall be reported as the vote of that State; and each State represented here shall vote its full electoral vote by such delegation in the committee.” This was a sum in political algebra, whose quotient was known, but the quantity unknown except to those who planned it; and the result was—for General Scott, 16 votes; for Mr. Clay, 90 votes; for General Harrison, 148 votes. And as the law of the convention impliedly requires the absorption of all minorities, the 106 votes were swallowed up by the 148 votes and made to count for General Harrison, presenting him as the unanimity candidate of the convention, and the defeated candidates and all their friends bound to join in his support. And in this way the election of 1840 was effected—a process certainly not within the purview of those framers of the constitution who supposed they were giving to the nation the choice of its own chief magistrate.

The contest before the people was a long and bitter one, the severest ever known in the country, up to that time, and scarcely equalled since. The whole Whig party and the large league of suspended banks, headed by the Bank of the United States making its last struggle for a new national charter in the effort to elect a President friendly to it, were arrayed against the Democrats, whose hard-money policy and independent treasury schemes, met with little favor in the then depressed condition of the country. Meetings were held in every State, county and town; the people thoroughly aroused; and every argument made in favor of the respective candidates and parties, which could possibly have any effect upon the voters. The canvass was a thorough one, and the election was carried for the Whig candidates, who received 234 electoral votes coming from 19 States. The remaining 60 electoral votes of the other 9 States, were given to the Democratic candidate; though the popular vote was not so unevenly divided; the actual figures being 1,275,611 for the Whig ticket, against 1,135,761 for the Democratic ticket. It was a complete rout of the Democratic party, but without the moral effect of victory.

On March 4, 1841, was inaugurated as President, Gen’l Wm. H. Harrison, the first Chief Magistrate elected by the Whig party, and the first President who was not a Democrat, since the installation of Gen’l Jackson, March 4, 1829. His term was a short one. He issued a call for a special session of Congress to convene the 31st of May following, to consider the condition of the revenue and finances of the country, but did not live to meet it. Taken ill with a fatal malady during the last days of March, he died on the 4th of April following, having been in office just one month. He was succeeded by the Vice-President, John Tyler. Then, for the first time in our history as a government, the person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the constitution, had devolved upon him the Presidential office.

The twenty-seventh Congress opened in extra session at the call of the late President, May 31, 1841. A Whig member—Mr. White of Kentucky—was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Whigs had a majority of forty-seven in the House and of seven in the Senate, and with the President and Cabinet of the same political party presented a harmony of aspect frequently wanting during the three previous administrations. The first measure of the new dominant party was the repeal of the independent treasury act passed at the previous session; and the next in order were bills to establish a system of bankruptcy, and for distribution of public land revenue. The former was more than a bankrupt law; it was practically an insolvent law for the abolition of debts at the will of the debtor. It applied to all persons in debt, allowed them to institute the proceedings in the district where the petitioner resided, allowed constructive notices to creditors in newspapers—declared the abolition of the debt where effects were surrendered and fraud not proved; and gave exclusive jurisdiction to the federal courts, at the will of the debtor. It was framed upon the model of the English insolvent debtors’ act of George the Fourth, and embodied most of the provisions of that act, but substituting a release from the debt instead of a release from imprisonment. The bill passed by a close vote in both Houses.

The land revenue distribution bill of this session had its origin in the fact that the States and corporations owed about two hundred millions to creditors in Europe. These debts were in stocks, much depreciated by the failure in many instances to pay the accruing interest—in some instances failure to provide for the principal. These creditors, becoming uneasy, wished the federal government to assume their debts. The suggestion was made as early as 1838, renewed in 1839, and in 1840 became a regular question mixed up with the Presidential election of that year, and openly engaging the active exertions of foreigners. Direct assumption was not urged; indirect by giving the public land revenue to the States was the mode pursued, and the one recommended in the message of President Tyler. Mr. Calhoun spoke against the measure with more than usual force and clearness, claiming that it was unconstitutional and without warrant. Mr. Benton on the same side called it a squandering of the public patrimony, and pointed out its inexpediency in the depleted state of the treasury, apart from its other objectionable features. It passed by a party vote.

This session is remarkable for the institution of the hour rule in the House of Representatives—a very great limitation upon the freedom of debate. It was a Whig measure, adopted to prevent delay in the enactment of pending bills. It was a rigorous limitation, frequently acting as a bar to profitable debate and checking members in speeches which really impart information valuable to the House and the country. No doubt the license of debate has been frequently abused in Congress, as in all other deliberative assemblies, but the incessant use of the previous question, which cuts off all debate, added to the hour rule which limits a speech to sixty minutes (constantly reduced by interruptions) frequently results in the transaction of business in ignorance of what they are about by those who are doing it.

The rule worked so well in the House, for the purpose for which it was devised—made the majority absolute master of the body—that Mr. Clay undertook to have the same rule adopted in the Senate; but the determined opposition to it, both by his political opponents and friends, led to the abandonment of the attempt in that chamber.

Much discussion took place at this session, over the bill offered in the House of Representatives, for the relief of the widow of the late President—General Harrison—appropriating one year’s salary. It was strenuously opposed by the Democratic members, as unconstitutional, on account of its principle, as creating a private pension list, and as a dangerous precedent. Many able speeches were made against the bill, both in the Senate and House; among others, the following extract from the speech of an able Senator contains some interesting facts. He said: “Look at the case of Mr. Jefferson, a man than whom no one that ever existed on God’s earth were the human family more indebted to. His furniture and his estate were sold to satisfy his creditors. His posterity was driven from house and home, and his bones now lay in soil owned by a stranger. His family are scattered: some of his descendants are married in foreign lands. Look at Monroe—the able, the patriotic Monroe, whose services were revolutionary, whose blood was spilt in the war of Independence, whose life was worn out in civil service, and whose estate has been sold for debt, his family scattered, and his daughter buried in a foreign land. Look at Madison, the model of every virtue, public or private, and he would only mention in connection with this subject, his love of order, his economy, and his systematic regularity in all his habits of business. He, when his term of eight years had expired, sent a letter to a gentleman (a son of whom is now on this floor) [Mr. Preston], enclosing a note of five thousand dollars, which he requested him to endorse, and raise the money in Virginia, so as to enable him to leave this city, and return to his modest retreat—his patrimonial inheritance—in that State. General Jackson drew upon the consignee of his cotton crop in New Orleans for six thousand dollars to enable him to leave the seat of government without leaving creditors behind him. These were honored leaders of the republican party. They had all been Presidents. They had made great sacrifices, and left the presidency deeply embarrassed; and yet the republican party who had the power and the strongest disposition to relieve their necessities, felt they had no right to do so by appropriating money from the public Treasury. Democracy would not do this. It was left for the era of federal rule and federal supremacy—who are now rushing the country with steam power into all the abuses and corruptions of a monarchy, with its pensioned aristocracy—and to entail upon the country a civil pension list.”

There was an impatient majority in the House in favor of the passage of the bill. The circumstances were averse to deliberation—a victorious party, come into power after a heated election, seeing their elected candidate dying on the threshold of his administration, poor and beloved: it was a case for feeling more than of judgment, especially with the political friends of the deceased—but few of whom could follow the counsels of the head against the impulsions of the heart.

The bill passed, and was approved; and as predicted, it established a precedent which has since been followed in every similar case.

The subject of naval pensions received more than usual consideration at this session. The question arose on the discussion of the appropriation bill for that purpose. A difference about a navy—on the point of how much and what kind—had always been a point of difference between the two great political parties of the Union, which, under whatsoever names, are always the same, each preserving its identity in principles and policy, but here the two parties divided upon an abuse which no one could deny or defend. A navy pension fund had been established under the act of 1832, which was a just and proper law, but on the 3d of March, 1837, an act was passed entitled “An act for the more equitable distribution of the Navy Pension Fund.” That act provided: I. That Invalid naval pensions should commence and date back to the time of receiving the inability, instead of completing the proof. II. It extended the pensions for death to all cases of death, whether incurred in the line of duty or not. III. It extended the widow’s pensions for life, when five years had been the law both in the army and navy. IV. It adopted the English system of pensioning children of deceased marines until they attained their majority.

The effect of this law was to absorb and bankrupt the navy pension fund, a meritorious fund created out of the government share of prize money, relinquished for that purpose, and to throw the pensions, arrears as well as current and future, upon the public treasury, where it was never intended they were to be. It was to repeal this act, that an amendment was introduced at this session on the bringing forward of the annual appropriation bill for navy pensions, and long and earnest were the debates upon it. The amendment was lost, the Senate dividing on party lines, the Whigs against and the Democrats for the amendment. The subject is instructive, as then was practically ratified and re-enacted the pernicious practice authorized by the act of 1837, of granting pensions to date from the time of injury and not from the time of proof; and has grown up to such proportions in recent years that the last act of Congress appropriating money for arrears of pensions, provided for the payment of such an enormous sum of money that it would have appalled the original projectors of the act of 1837 could they have seen to what their system has led.

Again, at this session, the object of the tariff occupied the attention of Congress. The compromise act, as it was called, of 1833, which was composed of two parts—one to last nine years, for the benefit of manufactures; the other to last for ever, for the benefit of the planting and consuming interest—was passed, as hereinbefore stated, in pursuance of an agreement between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun and their respective friends, at the time the former was urging the necessity for a continuance of high tariff for protection and revenue, and the latter was presenting and justifying before Congress the nullification ordinance adopted by the Legislature of South Carolina. To Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun it was a political necessity, one to get rid of a stumbling-block (which protective tariff had become); the other to escape a personal peril which his nullifying ordinance had brought upon him, and with both, it was a piece of policy, to enable them to combine against Mr. Van Buren, by postponing their own contention; and a device on the part of its author (Mr. Clayton, of Delaware) and Mr. Clay to preserve the protective system. It provided for a reduction of a certain per centage each year, on the duties for the ensuing nine years, until the revenue was reduced to 20 per cent. ad valorem on all articles imported into the country. In consequence the revenue was so reduced that in the last year, there was little more than half what the exigencies of the government required, and different modes, by loans and otherwise, were suggested to meet the deficiency. The Secretary of the Treasury had declared the necessity of loans and taxes to carry on the government; a loan bill for twelve millions had been passed; a tariff bill to raise fourteen millions was depending; and the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Millard Fillmore, defended its necessity in an able speech. His bill proposed twenty per cent. additional to the existing duty on certain specified articles, sufficient to make up the amount wanted. This encroachment on a measure so much vaunted when passed, and which had been kept inviolate while operating in favor of one of the parties to it, naturally excited complaint and opposition from the other, and Mr. Gilmer, of Virginia, in a speech against the new bill, said: “In referring to the compromise act, the true characteristics of that act which recommended it strongly to him, were that it contemplated that duties were to be levied for revenue only, and in the next place to the amount only necessary to the supply of the economical wants of the government. He begged leave to call the attention of the committee to the principle recognized as the language of the compromise, a principle which ought to be recognized in all time to come by every department of the government. It is, that duties to be raised for revenue are to be raised to such an amount only as is necessary for an economical administration of the government. Some incidental protection must necessarily be given, and he, for one, coming from an anti-tariff portion of the country, would not object to it.”

The bill went to the Senate where it found Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun in positions very different from what they occupied when the compromise act was passed—then united, now divided—then concurrent, now antagonistic, and the antagonism general, upon all measures, was to be special upon this one. Their connection with the subject made it their function to lead off in its consideration; and their antagonist positions promised sharp encounters, which did not fail to come. Mr. Clay said that he “observed that the Senator from South Carolina based his abstractions on the theories of books on English authorities, and on the arguments urged in favor of free trade by a certain party in the British Parliament. Now he, (Mr. Clay,) and his friends would not admit of these authorities being entitled to as much weight as the universal practice of nations, which in all parts of the world was found to be in favor of protecting home manufactures to an extent sufficient to keep them in a flourishing condition. This was the whole difference. The Senator was in favor of book theory and abstractions: he (Mr. Clay) and his friends, were in favor of the universal practice of nations, and the wholesome and necessary protection of domestic manufactures.”

Mr. Calhoun in reply, referring to his allusion to the success in the late election of the tory party in England, said: “The interests, objects, and aims of the tory party there and the whig party here, are identical. The identity of the two parties is remarkable. The tory party are the patrons of corporate monopolies; and are not you? They are advocates of a high tariff; and are not you? They are supporters of a national bank; and are not you? They are for corn laws—laws oppressive to the masses of the people, and favorable to their own power; and are not you? Witness this bill.*** The success of that party in England, and of the whig party here, is the success of the great money power, which concentrates the interests of the two parties, and identifies their principles.”

The bill was passed by a large majority, upon the general ground that the government must have revenue.

The chief measure of the session, and the great object of the whig party—the one for which it had labored for ten years—was for the re-charter of a national bank. Without this all other measures would be deemed to be incomplete, and the victorious election itself but little better than a defeat. The President, while a member of the Democratic party, had been opposed to the United States Bank; and to overcome any objections he might have the bill was carefully prepared, and studiously contrived to avoid the President’s objections, and save his consistency—a point upon which he was exceedingly sensitive. The democratic members resisted strenuously, in order to make the measure odious, but successful resistance was impossible. It passed both houses by a close vote; and contrary to all expectation the President disapproved the act, but with such expressions of readiness to approve another bill which should be free from the objections which he named, as still to keep his party together, and to prevent the resignation of his cabinet. In his veto message the President fell back upon his early opinions against the constitutionality of a national bank, so often and so publicly expressed.

The veto caused consternation among the whig members; and Mr. Clay openly gave expression to his dissatisfaction, in the debate on the veto message, in terms to assert that President Tyler had violated his faith to the whig party, and had been led off from them by new associations. He said: “And why should not President Tyler have suffered the bill to become a law without his signature? Without meaning the slightest possible disrespect to him (nothing is further from my heart than the exhibition of any such feeling towards that distinguished citizen, long my personal friend), it cannot be forgotten that he came into his present office under peculiar circumstances. The people did not foresee the contingency which has happened. They voted for him as Vice-President. They did not, therefore, scrutinize his opinions with the care which they probably ought to have done, and would have done, if they could have looked into futurity. If the present state of the fact could have been anticipated—if at Harrisburg, or at the polls, it had been foreseen that General Harrison would die in one short month after the commencement of his administration; so that Vice-President Tyler would be elevated to the presidential chair; that a bill passed by decisive majorities of the first whig Congress, chartering a national bank, would be presented for his sanction; and that he would veto the bill, do I hazard anything when I express the conviction that he would not have received a solitary vote in the nominating convention, nor one solitary electoral vote in any State in the Union?”

The vote was taken on the bill over again, as required by the constitution, and so far from receiving a two-thirds vote, it received only a bare majority, and was returned to the House with a message stating his objections to it, where it gave rise to some violent speaking, more directed to the personal conduct of the President than to the objections to the bill stated in his message. The veto was sustained; and so ended the second attempt to resuscitate the old United States Bank under a new name. This second movement to establish the bank has a secret history. It almost caused the establishment of a new party, with Mr. Tyler as its head; earnest efforts having been made in that behalf by many prominent Whigs and Democrats. The entire cabinet, with the exception of Mr. Webster, resigned within a few days after the second veto. It was a natural thing for them to do, and was not unexpected. Indeed Mr. Webster had resolved to tender his resignation also, but on reconsideration determined to remain and publish his reasons therefor in a letter to the National Intelligencer, in the following words:

“Lest any misapprehension should exist, as to the reasons which led me to differ from the course pursued by my late colleagues, I wish to say that I remain in my place, first, because I have seen no sufficient reasons for the dissolution of the late Cabinet, by the voluntary act of its own members. I am perfectly persuaded of the absolute necessity of an institution, under the authority of Congress, to aid revenue and financial operations, and to give the country the blessings of a good currency and cheap exchanges. Notwithstanding what has passed, I have confidence that the President will co-operate with the legislature in overcoming all difficulties in the attainment of these objects; and it is to the union of the Whig party—by which I mean the whole party, the Whig President, the Whig Congress, and the Whig people—that I look for a realization of our wishes. I can look nowhere else. In the second place if I had seen reasons to resign my office, I should not have done so, without giving the President reasonable notice, and affording him time to select the hands to which he should confide the delicate and important affairs now pending in this department.”

The conduct of the President in the matter of the vetoes of the two bank bills produced revolt against him in the party; and the Whigs of the two Houses of Congress held several formal meetings to consider what they should do in the new condition of affairs. An address to the people of the United States was resolved upon. The rejection of the bank bill gave great vexation to one side, and equal exultation to the other. The subject was not permitted to rest, however; a national bank was the life—the vital principle—of the Whig party, without which it could not live as a party; it was the power which was to give them power and the political and financial control of the Union. A second attempt was made, four days after the veto, to accomplish the end by amendments to a bill relating to the currency, which had been introduced early in the session. Mr. Sargeant of Pennsylvania, moved to strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert his amendments, which were substantially the same as the vetoed bill, except changing the amount of capital and prohibiting discounts on notes other than bills of exchange. The bill was pushed to a vote with astonishing rapidity, and passed by a decided majority. In the Senate the bill went to a select committee which reported it back without alteration, as had been foreseen, the committee consisting entirely of friends of the measure; and there was a majority for it on final passage. Concurred in by the Senate without alteration, it was returned to the House, and thence referred to the President for his approval or disapproval. It was disapproved and it was promulgated in language intended to mean a repudiation of the President, a permanent separation of the Whig party from him, and to wash their hands of all accountability for his acts. An opening paragraph of the address set forth that, for twelve years the Whigs had carried on a contest for the regulation of the currency, the equalization of exchanges, the economical administration of the finances, and the advancement of industry—all to be accomplished by means of a national bank—declaring these objects to be misunderstood by no one and the bank itself held to be secured in the Presidential election, and its establishment the main object of the extra session. The address then proceeds to state how these plans were frustrated:

“It is with profound and poignant regret that we find ourselves called upon to invoke your attention to this point. Upon the great and leading measure touching this question, our anxious endeavors to respond to the earnest prayers of the nation have been frustrated by an act as unlooked for as it is to be lamented. We grieve to say to you that by the exercise of that power in the constitution which has ever been regarded with suspicion, and often with odium, by the people—a power which we had hoped was never to be exhibited on this subject, by a Whig President—we have been defeated in two attempts to create a fiscal agent, which the wants of the country had demonstrated to us, in the most absolute form of proof to be eminently necessary and proper in the present emergency. Twice have we with the utmost diligence and deliberation matured a plan for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of the public moneys through the agency of a corporation adapted to that end, and twice has it been our fate to encounter the opposition of the President, through the application of the veto power.*** We are constrained to say that we find no ground to justify us in the conviction that the veto of the President has been interposed on this question solely upon conscientious and well-considered opinions of constitutional scruple as to his duty in the case presented. On the contrary, too many proofs have been forced upon our observation to leave us free from the apprehension that the President has permitted himself to be beguiled into an opinion that by this exhibition of his prerogative he might be able to divert the policy of his administration into a channel which should lead to new political combinations, and accomplish results which must overthrow the present divisions of party in the country; and finally produce a state of things which those who elected him, at least, have never contemplated.

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“In this state of things, the Whigs will naturally look with anxiety to the future, and inquire what are the actual relations between the President and those who brought him into power; and what, in the opinion of their friends in Congress, should be their course hereafter.*** The President by his withdrawal of confidence from his real friends in Congress and from the members of his cabinet; by his bestowal of it upon others notwithstanding their notorious opposition to leading measures of his administrations has voluntarily separated himself from those by whose exertions and suffrage he was elevated to that office through which he has reached his present exalted station.*** The consequence is, that those who brought the President into power can be no longer, in any manner or degree, justly held responsible or blamed for the administration of the executive branch of the government; and the President and his advisers should be exclusively hereafter deemed accountable.*** The conduct of the President has occasioned bitter mortification and deep regret. Shall the party, therefore, yielding to sentiments of despair, abandon its duty, and submit to defeat and disgrace? Far from suffering such dishonorable consequences, the very disappointment which it has unfortunately experienced should serve only to redouble its exertions, and to inspire it with fresh courage to persevere with a spirit unsubdued and a resolution unshaken, until the prosperity of the country is fully re-established, and its liberties firmly secured against all danger from the abuses, encroachments or usurpations of the executive department of the government.”

This was the manifesto, so far as it concerns the repudiation of President Tyler, which Whig members of Congress put forth: it was answered (under the name of an address to his constituents) by Mr. Cushing, in a counter special plea—counter to it on all points—especially on the main question of which party the President was to belong to; the manifesto of the Whigs assigning him to the democracy—the address of Mr. Cushing, claiming him for the Whigs. It was especially severe on Mr. Clay, as setting up a caucus dictatorship to coerce the President; and charged that the address emanated from this caucus, and did not embody or represent the sentiments of all Whig leaders; and referred to Mr. Webster’s letter, and his remaining in the cabinet as proof of this. But it was without avail against the concurrent statements of the retiring senators, and the confirmatory statements of many members of Congress. The Whig party recoiled from the President, and instead of the unity predicted by Mr. Webster, there was diversity and widespread dissension. The Whig party remained with Mr. Clay; Mr. Webster retired, Mr. Cushing was sent on a foreign mission, and the President, seeking to enter the democratic ranks, was refused by them, and left to seek consolation in privacy, for his political errors and omissions.

The extra session, called by President Harrison, held under Mr. Tyler, dominated by Mr. Clay, commenced May 31, and ended Sept. 13, 1841—and was replete with disappointed calculations, and nearly barren of permanent results. The purposes for which it was called into being, failed. The first annual message of President Tyler, at the opening of the regular session in December, 1841, coming in so soon after the termination of the extra session, was brief and meagre of topics, with few points of interest.

In the month of March, 1842, Mr. Henry Clay resigned his place in the Senate, and delivered a valedictory address to that body. He had intended this step upon the close of the previous presidential campaign, but had postponed it to take personal charge of the several measures which would be brought before Congress at the special session—the calling of which he foresaw would be necessary. He resigned not on account of age, or infirmity, or disinclination for public life; but out of disgust—profound and inextinguishable. He had been basely defeated for the Presidential nomination, against the wishes of the Whig party, of which he was the acknowledged head—he had seen his leading measures vetoed by the President whom his party had elected—the downfall of the Bank for which he had so often pledged himself—and the insolent attacks of the petty adherents of the administration in the two Houses: all these causes acting on his proud and lofty spirit, induced this withdrawal from public life for which he was so well fitted.

The address opened with a retrospect of his early entrance into the Senate, and a grand encomium upon its powers and dignity as he had found it, and left it. Memory went back to that early year, 1806, when just past thirty years of age, he entered the United States Senate, and commenced his high career—a wide and luminous horizon before him, and will and talent to fill it. He said: “From the year 1806, the period of my entering upon this noble theatre of my public service, with but short intervals, down to the present time, I have been engaged in the service of my country. Of the nature and value of those services, which I may have rendered during my long career of public life, it does not become me to speak. History, if she deigns to notice me, and posterity—if a recollection of any humble service which I may have rendered, shall be transmitted to posterity—will be the best, truest, and most impartial judges; and to them I defer for a decision upon their value. But, upon one subject, I may be allowed to speak. As to my public acts and public conduct, they are for the judgment of my fellow-citizens; but my private motives of action—that which prompted me to take the part which I may have done, upon great measures during their progress in the national councils, can be known only to the Great Searcher of the human heart and myself; and I trust I shall be pardoned for repeating again a declaration which I made thirty years ago: that whatever error I may have committed—and doubtless I have committed many during my public service—I may appeal to the Divine Searcher of hearts for the truth of the declaration which I now make, with pride and confidence, that I have been actuated by no personal motives—that I have sought no personal aggrandizement—no promotion from the advocacy of those various measures on which I have been called to act—that I have had an eye, a single eye, a heart, a single heart, ever devoted to what appeared to be the best interests of the country.”

Mr. Clay led a great party, and for a long time, whether he dictated to it or not, and kept it well bound together, without the usual means of forming and leading parties. It was surprising that, without power and patronage, he was able so long and so undividedly to keep so great a party together, and lead it so unresistingly. He had great talents, but not equal to some whom he led. He had eloquence—superior in popular effect, but not equal in high oratory to that of some others. But his temperament was fervid, his will was strong, and his courage daring; and these qualities, added to his talents, gave him the lead and supremacy in his party, where he was always dominant. The farewell address made a deep impression upon the Senators present; and after its close, Mr. Preston brought the ceremony to a conclusion, by moving an adjournment, which was agreed to.

Again at this session was the subject of the tariff considered, but this time, as a matter of absolute necessity, to provide a revenue. Never before were the coffers and the credit of the treasury at so low an ebb. A deficit of fourteen millions in the treasury—a total inability to borrow, either at home or abroad, the amount of the loan of twelve millions authorized the year before—the treasury notes below par, and the revenues from imports inadequate and decreasing.

The compromise act of 1833 in reducing the duties gradually through nine years, to a fixed low rate; the act of 1837 in distributing the surplus revenue; and the continual and continued distribution of the land revenue, had brought about this condition of things. The remedy was sought in a bill increasing the tariff, and suspending the land revenue distribution. Two such bills were passed in a single month, and both vetoed by the President. It was now near the end of August. Congress had been in session for an unprecedentedly long time. Adjournment could not be deferred, and could not take place without providing for the Treasury. The compromise act and the land distribution were the stumbling-blocks: it was resolved to sacrifice them together; and a bill was introduced raising the duties above the fixed rate of twenty per cent., and that breach of the mutual assurance in relation to the compromise, immediately in terms of the assurance, suspended the land revenue distribution—to continue it suspended while duties above the compromise limit continued to be levied. And as that has been the case ever since, the distribution of the land revenue has been suspended ever since. The bill was passed, and approved by the President, and Congress thereupon adjourned.

The subject of the navy was also under consideration at this session. The naval policy of the United States was a question of party division from the origin of parties in the early years of the government—the Federal party favoring a strong and splendid navy, the Republican a moderate establishment, adapted to the purposes of defense more than of offense. And this line of division has continued. Under the Whig regime the policy for a great navy developed itself. The Secretary of the Navy recommended a large increase of ships, seamen and officers, involving a heavy expense, though the government was not in a condition to warrant any such expenditure, and no emergency required an increase in that branch of the public service. The vote was taken upon the increase proposed by the Secretary of the Navy, and recommended by the President; and it was carried, the yeas and nays being well defined by the party line.

The first session of the twenty-eighth Congress, which convened December 1843, exhibited in its political complexion, serious losses in the Whig following. The Democratic candidate for Speaker of the House of Representatives, was elected over the Whig candidate—the vote standing 128 to 59. Thus an adverse majority of more than two to one was the result to the Whig party at the first election after the extra session of 1841. The President’s message referred to the treaty which had lately been concluded with Great Britain relative to the northwestern territory extending to the Columbia river, including Oregon and settling the boundary lines; and also to a pending treaty with Texas for her annexation to the United States; and concluded with a recommendation for the establishment of a paper currency to be issued and controlled by the Federal government.

For more than a year before the meeting of the Democratic Presidential Convention in Baltimore, in May 1844, it was evident to leading Democrats that Martin Van Buren was the choice of the party. To overcome this popular current and turn the tide in favor of Mr. Calhoun, who desired the nomination, resort was had to the pending question of the annexation of Texas. Mr. Van Buren was known to be against it, and Mr. Calhoun for it. To gain time, the meeting of the convention was postponed from December previous, which had been the usual time for holding such elections, until the following May. The convention met, and consisted of two hundred and sixty-six delegates, a decided majority of whom were for Mr. Van Buren, and cast their votes accordingly on the first ballot. But a chairman had been selected, who was adverse to his nomination; and aided by a rule adopted by the convention, which required a concurrence of two-thirds to effect a nomination, the opponents of Mr. Van Buren were able to accomplish his defeat. Mr. Calhoun had, before the meeting of the convention, made known his determination, in a public address, not to suffer his name to go before that assemblage as a candidate for the presidency, and stated his reasons for so doing, which were founded mainly on the manner in which the convention was constituted; his objections being to the mode of choosing delegates, and the manner of their giving in their votes—he contending for district elections, and the delegates to vote individually. South Carolina was not represented in the convention. After the first ballot Mr. Van Buren’s vote sensibly decreased, until finally, Mr. James K. Polk, who was a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, was brought forward and nominated unanimously for the chief office. Mr. Geo. M. Dallas was chosen as his colleague for the Vice-Presidency. The nomination of these gentlemen, neither of whom had been mentioned until late in the proceedings of the convention, for the offices for which they were finally nominated, was a genuine surprise to the country. No voice in favor of it had been heard; and no visible sign in the political horizon had announced it.

The Whig convention nominated Henry Clay, for President; and Theodore Frelinghuysen for Vice-President.

The main issues in the election which ensued, were mainly the party ones of Whig and Democrat, modified by the tariff and Texas questions. It resulted in the choice of the Democratic candidates, who received 170 electoral votes as against 105 for their opponents; the popular majority for the Democrats being 238,284, in a total vote of 2,834,108. Mr. Clay received a larger popular vote than had been given at the previous election for the Whig candidate, showing that he would have been elected had he then been the nominee of his party; though the popular vote at this election was largely increased over that of 1840. It is conceded that the 36 electoral votes of New York State gave the election to Mr. Polk. It was carried by a bare majority; due entirely to the Gubernatorial candidacy of Mr. Silas Wright, who had been mentioned for the vice-presidential nomination in connection with Mr. Van Buren, but who declined it after the sacrifice of his friend and colleague; and resigning his seat in the Senate, became a candidate for Governor of New York. The election being held at the same time as that for president, his name and popularity brought to the presidential ticket more than enough votes to make the majority that gave the electoral vote of the State to the Democrats.

President Tyler’s annual and last message to Congress, in December 1844, contained, (as did that of the previous year) an elaborate paragraph on the subject of Texas and Mexico; the idea being the annexation of the former to the Union, and the assumption of her causes of grievance against the latter; and a treaty was pending to accomplish these objects. The scheme for the annexation of Texas was framed with a double aspect—one looking to the then pending presidential election, the other to the separation of the Southern States; and as soon as the rejection of the treaty was foreseen, and the nominating convention had acted, the disunion aspect manifested itself over many of the Southern States—beginning with South Carolina. Before the end of May, a great meeting took place at Ashley, in that State, to combine the slave States in a convention to unite the Southern States to Texas, if Texas should not be received into the Union; and to invite the President to convene Congress to arrange the terms of the dissolution of the Union if the rejection of the annexation should be persevered in. Responsive resolutions were adopted in several States, and meetings held. The opposition manifested, brought the movement to a stand, and suppressed the disunion scheme for the time being—only to lie in wait for future occasions. But it was not before the people only that this scheme for a Southern convention with a view to the secession of the slave States was a matter of discussion; it was the subject of debate in the Senate; and there it was further disclosed that the design of the secessionists was to extend the new Southern republic to the Californias.

The treaty of annexation was supported by all the power of the administration, but failed; and it was rejected by the Senate by a two-thirds vote against it. Following this, a joint resolution was early brought into the House of Representatives for the admission of Texas as a State of the Union, by legislative action; it passed the House by a fair majority, but met with opposition in the Senate unless coupled with a proviso for negotiation and treaty, as a condition precedent. A bill authorizing the President and a commissioner to be appointed to agree upon the terms and conditions of said admission, the question of slavery within its limits, its debts, the fixing of boundaries, and the cession of territory, was coupled or united with the resolution; and in this shape it was finally agreed to, and became a law, with the concurrence of the President, March 3, 1845. Texas was then in a state of war with Mexico, though at that precise point of time an armistice had been agreed upon, looking to a treaty of peace. The House resolution was for an unqualified admission of the State; the Senate amendment or bill was for negotiation; and the bill actually passed would not have been concurred in except on the understanding that the incoming President (whose term began March 4, 1845, and who was favorable to negotiation) would act under the bill, and appoint commissioners accordingly.

Contrary to all expectation, the outgoing President, on the last day of his term, at the instigation of his Secretary of State, Mr. Calhoun, assumed the execution of the act providing for the admission of Texas—adopted the legislative clause—and sent out a special messenger with instructions. The danger of this had been foreseen, and suggested in the Senate; but close friends of Mr. Calhoun, speaking for the administration, and replying to the suggestion, indignantly denied it for them, and declared that they would not have the “audacity” to so violate the spirit and intent of the act, or so encroach upon the rights of the new President. These statements from the friends of the Secretary and President that the plan by negotiation would be adopted, quieted the apprehension of those Senators opposed to legislative annexation or admission, and thus secured their votes, without which the bill would have failed of a majority. Thus was Texas incorporated into the Union. The legislative proposition sent by Mr. Tyler was accepted: Texas became incorporated with the United States, and in consequence the state of war was established between the United States and Mexico; it only being a question of time and chance when the armistice should end and hostilities begin. Although Mr. Calhoun was not in favor of war with Mexico—he believing that a money payment would settle the differences with that country—the admission of Texas into the Union under the legislative annexation clause of the statute, was really his act and not that of the President’s; and he was, in consequence, afterwards openly charged in the Senate with being the real author of the war which followed.

The administration of President Polk opened March 4, 1845; and on the same day, the Senate being convened for the purpose, the cabinet ministers were nominated and confirmed. In December following the 29th Congress was organized. The House of Representatives, being largely Democratic, elected the Speaker, by a vote of 120, against 70 for the Whig candidate. At this session the “American” party—a new political organization—first made its appearance in the National councils, having elected six members of the House of Representatives, four from New York and two from Pennsylvania. The President’s first annual message had for its chief topic, the admission of Texas, then accomplished, and the consequent dissatisfaction of Mexico; and referring to the preparations on the part of the latter with the apparent intention of declaring war on the United States, either by an open declaration, or by invading Texas. The message also stated causes which would justify this government in taking the initiative in declaring war—mainly the non-compliance by Mexico with the terms of the treaty of indemnity of April 11, 1839, entered into between that State and this government relative to injuries to American citizens during the previous eight years. He also referred to the fact of a minister having been sent to Mexico to endeavor to bring about a settlement of the differences between the nations, without a resort to hostilities. The message concluded with a reference to the negotiations with Great Britain relative to the Oregon boundary; a statement of the finances and the public debt, showing the latter to be slightly in excess of seventeen millions; and a recommendation for a revision of the tariff, with a view to revenue as the object, with protection to home industry as the incident.

At this session of Congress, the States of Florida and Iowa were admitted into the Union; the former permitting slavery within its borders, the latter denying it. Long before this, the free and the slave States were equal in number, and the practice had grown up—from a feeling of jealousy and policy to keep them evenly balanced—of admitting one State of each character at the same time. Numerically the free and the slave States were thus kept even: in political power a vast inequality was going on—the increase of population being so much greater in the northern than in the southern region.

The Ashburton treaty of 1842 omitted to define the boundary line, and permitted, or rather did not prohibit, the joint occupation of Oregon by British and American settlers. This had been a subject of dispute for many years. The country on the Columbia River had been claimed by both. Under previous treaties the American northern boundary extended “to the latitude of 49 degrees north of the equator, and along that parallel indefinitely to the west.” Attempts were made in 1842 and continuing since to 1846, to settle this boundary line, by treaty with Great Britain. It had been assumed that we had a dividing line, made by previous treaty, along the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes from the sea to the Rocky mountains. The subject so much absorbed public attention, that the Democratic National convention of 1844 in its platform of principles declared for that boundary line, or war as the consequence. It became known as the 54–40 plank, and was a canon of political faith. The negotiations between the governments were resumed in August, 1844. The Secretary of State, Mr. Calhoun, proposed a line along the parallel of 49 degrees of north latitude to the summit of the Rocky mountains and continuing that line thence to the Pacific Ocean; and he made this proposition notwithstanding the fact that the Democratic party—to which he belonged—were then in a high state of exultation for the boundary of 54 degrees 40 minutes, and the presidential canvass, on the Democratic side, was raging upon that cry.

The British Minister declined this proposition in the part that carried the line to the ocean, but offered to continue it from the summit of the mountains to the Columbia River, a distance of some three hundred miles, and then follow the river to the ocean. This was declined by Mr. Calhoun. The President had declared in his inaugural address in favor of the 54–40 line. He was in a dilemma; to maintain that position meant war with Great Britain; to recede from it seemed impossible. The proposition for the line of 49 degrees having been withdrawn by the American government on its non-acceptance by the British, had appeased the Democratic storm which had been raised against the President. Congress had come together under the loud cry of war, in which Mr. Cass was the leader, but followed by the body of the democracy, and backed and cheered by the whole democratic newspaper press. Under the authority and order of Congress notice had been served on Great Britain which was to abrogate the joint occupation of the country by the citizens of the two powers. It was finally resolved by the British Government to propose the line of 49 degrees, continuing to the ocean, as originally offered by Mr. Calhoun; and though the President was favorable to its acceptance, he could not, consistently with his previous acts, accept and make a treaty, on that basis. The Senate, with whom lies the power, under the constitution, of confirming or restricting all treaties, being favorable to it, without respect to party lines, resort was had, as in the early practice of the Government, to the President, asking the advice of the Senate upon the articles of a treaty before negotiation. A message was accordingly sent to the Senate, by the President, stating the proposition, and asking its advice, thus shifting the responsibility upon that body, and making the issue of peace or war depend upon its answer. The Senate advised the acceptance of the proposition, and the treaty was concluded.

The conduct of the Whig Senators, without whose votes the advice would not have been given nor the treaty made, was patriotic in preferring their country to their party—in preventing a war with Great Britain—and saving the administration from itself and its party friends.

The second session of the 29th Congress was opened in December, 1847. The President’s message was chiefly in relation to the war with Mexico, which had been declared by almost a unanimous vote in Congress. Mr. Calhoun spoke against the declaration in the Senate, but did not vote upon it. He was sincerely opposed to the war, although his conduct had produced it. Had he remained in the cabinet, to do which he had not concealed his wish, he would, no doubt, have labored earnestly to have prevented it. Many members of Congress, of the same party with the administration, were extremely averse to the war, and had interviews with the President, to see if it was inevitable, before it was declared. Members were under the impression that the war could not last above three months.

The reason for these impressions was that an intrigue was laid, with the knowledge of the Executive, for a peace, even before the war was declared, and a special agent dispatched to bring about a return to Mexico of its exiled President, General Santa Anna, and conclude a treaty of peace with him, on terms favorable to the United States. And for this purpose Congress granted an appropriation of three millions of dollars to be placed at the disposal of the President, for negotiating for a boundary which should give the United States additional territory.

While this matter was pending in Congress, Mr. Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced and moved a proviso, “that no part of the territory to be acquired should be open to the introduction of slavery.” It was a proposition not necessary for the purpose of excluding slavery, as the only territory to be acquired was that of New Mexico and California, where slavery was already prohibited by the Mexican laws and constitution. The proviso was therefore nugatory, and only served to bring on a slavery agitation in the United States. For this purpose it was seized upon by Mr. Calhoun and declared to be an outrage upon and menace to the slaveholding States. It occupied the attention of Congress for two sessions, and became the subject of debate in the State Legislatures, several of which passed disunion resolutions. It became the watchword of party—the synonym of civil war, and the dissolution of the Union. Neither party really had anything to fear or to hope from the adoption of the proviso—the soil was free, and the Democrats were not in a position to make slave territory of it, because it had just enunciated as one of its cardinal principles, that there was “no power in Congress to legislate upon slavery in Territories.” Never did two political parties contend more furiously about nothing. Close observers, who had been watching the progress of the slavery agitation since its inauguration in Congress in 1835, knew it to be the means of keeping up an agitation for the benefit of the political parties—the abolitionists on one side and the disunionists or nullifiers on the other—to accomplish their own purposes. This was the celebrated Wilmot Proviso, which for so long a time convulsed the Union; assisted in forcing the issue between the North and South on the slavery question, and almost caused a dissolution of the Union. The proviso was defeated; that chance of the nullifiers to force the issue was lost; another had to be made, which was speedily done, by the introduction into the Senate on the 19th February, 1847, by Mr. Calhoun of his new slavery resolutions, declaring the Territories to be the common property of the several States; denying the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, or to pass any law which would have the effect to deprive the citizens of any slave State from emigrating with his property (slaves) into such Territory. The introduction of the resolutions was prefaced by an elaborate speech by Mr. Calhoun, who demanded an immediate vote upon them. They never came to a vote; they were evidently introduced for the mere purpose of carrying a question to the slave States on which they could be formed into a unit against the free States; and so began the agitation which finally led to the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line, and arrayed the States of one section against those of the other.

The Thirtieth Congress, which assembled for its first session in December, 1847, was found, so far as respects the House of Representatives, to be politically adverse to the administration. The Whigs were in the majority, and elected the Speaker; Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, being chosen. The President’s message contained a full report of the progress of the war with Mexico; the success of the American arms in that conflict; the victory of Cerro Gordo, and the capture of the City of Mexico; and that negotiations were then pending for a treaty of peace. The message concluded with a reference to the excellent results from the independent treasury system.

The war with Mexico was ended by the signing of a treaty of peace, in February, 1848, by the terms of which New Mexico and Upper California were ceded to the United States, and the lower Rio Grande, from its mouth to El Paso, taken for the boundary of Texas. For the territory thus acquired, the United States agreed to pay to Mexico the sum of fifteen million dollars, in five annual installments; and besides that, assumed the claims of American citizens against Mexico, limited to three and a quarter million dollars, out of and on account of which claims the war ostensibly originated. The victories achieved by the American commanders, Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, during that war, won for them national reputations, by means of which they were brought prominently forward for the Presidential succession.

The question of the power of Congress to legislate on the subject of slavery in the Territories, was again raised, at this session, on the bill for the establishment of the Oregon territorial government. An amendment was offered to insert a provision for the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean; which line thus extended was intended by the amendment to be permanent, and to apply to all future territories established in the West. This amendment was lost, but the bill was finally passed with an amendment incorporating into it the anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of 1787. Mr. Calhoun, in the Senate, declared that the exclusion of slavery from any territory was a subversion of the Union; openly proclaimed the strife between the North and South to be ended, and the separation of the States accomplished. His speech was an open invocation to disunion, and from that time forth, the efforts were regular to obtain a meeting of the members from the slave States, to unite in a call for a convention of the slave States to redress themselves. He said: “The great strife between the North and the South is ended. The North is determined to exclude the property of the slaveholder, and, of course, the slaveholder himself, from its territory. On this point there seems to be no division in the North. In the South, he regretted to say, there was some division of sentiment. The effect of this determination of the North was to convert all the Southern population into slaves; and he would never consent to entail that disgrace on his posterity. He denounced any Southern man who would not take the same course. Gentlemen were greatly mistaken if they supposed the Presidential question in the South would override this more important one. The separation of the North and the South is completed. The South has now a most solemn obligation to perform—to herself—to the constitution—to the Union. She is bound to come to a decision not to permit this to go on any further, but to show that, dearly as she prizes the Union, there are questions which she regards as of greater importance than the Union. This is not a question of territorial government, but a question involving the continuance of the Union.” The President, in approving the Oregon bill, took occasion to send in a special message, pointing out the danger to the Union from the progress of the slavery agitation, and urged an adherence to the principles of the ordinance of 1787—the terms of the Missouri compromise of 1820—as also that involved and declared in the Texas case in 1845, as the means of averting that danger.

The Presidential election of 1848 was coming on. The Democratic convention met in Baltimore in May of that year; each State being represented in the convention by the number of delegates equal to the number of electoral votes it was entitled to; saving only New York, which sent two sets of delegates, and both were excluded. The delegates were, for the most part, members of Congress and office-holders. The two-thirds rule, adopted by the previous convention, was again made a law of the convention. The main question which arose upon the formation of the platform for the campaign, was the doctrine advanced by the Southern members of non-interference with slavery in the States or in the Territories. The candidates of the party were, Lewis Cass, of Michigan, for President, and General Wm. O. Butler, of Kentucky, for Vice-President.

The Whig convention, taking advantage of the popularity of Genl. Zachary Taylor, for his military achievements in the Mexican war, then just ended; and his consequent availability as a candidate, nominated him for the Presidency, over Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster and General Scott, who were his competitors before the convention. Millard Fillmore was selected as the Vice-presidential candidate.

A third convention was held, consisting of the disaffected Democrats from New York who had been excluded from the Baltimore convention. They met at Utica, New York, and nominated Martin Van Buren for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The principles of its platform, were, that Congress should abolish slavery wherever it constitutionally had the power to do so—[which was intended to apply to the District of Columbia]—that it should not interfere with it in the slave States—and that it should prohibit it in the Territories. This party became known as “Free-soilers,” from their doctrines thus enumerated, and their party cry of “free-soil, free-speech, free-labor, free-men.” The result of the election, as might have been foreseen, was to lose New York State to the Baltimore candidate, and give it to the Whigs, who were triumphant in the reception of 163 electoral votes for their candidates, against 127 for the democrats; and none for the free-soilers.

The last message of President Polk, in December following, gave him the opportunity to again urge upon Congress the necessity for some measure to quiet the slavery agitation, and he recommended the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, passing through the new Territories of California and New Mexico, as a fair adjustment, to meet as far as possible the views of all parties. The President referred also to the state of the finances; the excellent condition of the public treasury; government loans, commanding a high premium; gold and silver the established currency; and the business interests of the country in a prosperous condition. And this was the state of affairs, only one year after emergency from a foreign war. It would be unfair not to give credit to the President and to Senator Benton and others equally prominent and courageous, who at that time had to battle against the bank theory and national paper money currency, as strongly urged and advocated, and to prove eventually that the money of the Constitution—gold and silver—was the only currency to ensure a successful financial working of the government, and prosperity to the people.

The new President, General Zachary Taylor, was inaugurated March 4, 1849. The Senate being convened, as usual, in extra session, for the purpose, the Vice-President elect, Millard Fillmore, was duly installed; and the Whig cabinet officers nominated by the President, promptly confirmed. An additional member of the Cabinet was appointed by this administration to preside over the new “Home Department” since called the “Interior,” created at the previous session of Congress.

The following December Congress met in regular session—the 31st since the organization of the federal government. The Senate consisted of sixty members, among whom were Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. Clay, who had returned to public life. The House had 230 members; and although the Whigs had a small majority, the House was so divided on the slavery question in its various phases, that the election for Speaker resulted in the choice of the Democratic candidate, Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, by a majority of three votes. The annual message of the President plainly showed that he comprehended the dangers to the Union from a continuance of sectional feeling on the slavery question, and he averred his determination to stand by the Union to the full extent of his obligations and powers. At the previous session Congress had spent six months in endeavoring to frame a satisfactory bill providing territorial governments for California and New Mexico, and had adjourned finally without accomplishing it, in consequence of inability to agree upon whether the Missouri compromise line should be carried to the ocean, or the territories be permitted to remain as they were—slavery prohibited under the laws of Mexico. Mr. Calhoun brought forward, in the debate, a new doctrine—extending the Constitution to the territory, and arguing that as that instrument recognized the existence of slavery, the settlers in such territory should be permitted to hold their slave property taken there, and be protected. Mr. Webster’s answer to this was that the Constitution was made for States, not territories; that it cannot operate anywhere, not even in the States for which it was made, without acts of Congress to enforce it. The proposed extension of the constitution to territories, with a view to its transportation of slavery along with it, was futile and nugatory without the act of Congress to vitalize slavery under it. The early part of the year had witnessed ominous movements—nightly meetings of large numbers of members from the slave States, led by Mr. Calhoun, to consider the state of things between the North and the South. They appointed committees who prepared an address to the people. It was in this condition of things, that President Taylor expressed his opinion, in his message, of the remedies required. California, New Mexico and Utah, had been left without governments. For California, he recommended that having a sufficient population and having framed a constitution, she be admitted as a State into the Union; and for New Mexico and Utah, without mixing the slavery question with their territorial governments, they be left to ripen into States, and settle the slavery question for themselves in their State constitutions.

With a view to meet the wishes of all parties, and arrive at some definite and permanent adjustment of the slavery question, Mr. Clay early in the session introduced compromise resolutions which were practically a tacking together of the several bills then on the calendar, providing for the admission of California—the territorial government for Utah and New Mexico—the settlement of the Texas boundary—slavery in the District of Columbia—and for a fugitive slave law. It was seriously and earnestly opposed by many, as being a concession to the spirit of disunion—a capitulation under threat of secession; and as likely to become the source of more contentions than it proposed to quiet.

The resolutions were referred to a special committee, who promptly reported a bill embracing the comprehensive plan of compromise which Mr. Clay proposed. Among the resolutions offered, was the following: “Resolved, that as slavery does not exist by law and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired by the United States from the Republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its introduction into or exclusion from any part of the said territory; and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be established by Congress in all of the said territory, and assigned as the boundaries of the proposed State of California, without the adoption of any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery.” Mr. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, objected that the measure gave nothing to the South in the settlement of the question; and he required the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean as the least that he would be willing to take, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of their owner.

Mr. Clay in reply, said: “Coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line.*** If the citizens of those territories choose to establish slavery, and if they come here with constitutions establishing slavery, I am for admitting them with such provisions in their constitutions; but then it will be their own work, and not ours, and their posterity will have to reproach them, and not us, for forming constitutions allowing the institution of slavery to exist among them.”

Mr. Seward of New York, proposed a renewal of the Wilmot Proviso, in the following resolution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than by conviction for crime, shall ever be allowed in either of said territories of Utah and New Mexico;” but his resolution was rejected in the Senate by a vote of 23 yeas to 33 nays. Following this, Mr. Calhoun had read for him in the Senate, by his friend James M. Mason of Virginia, his last speech. It embodied the points covered by the address to the people, prepared by him the previous year; the probability of a dissolution of the Union, and presenting a case to justify it. The tenor of the speech is shown by the following extracts from it: “I have, Senators, believed from the first, that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of each of the two great parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a period when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have had forced upon you the greatest and gravest question that can ever come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?*** Instead of being weaker, all the elements in favor of agitation are stronger now than they were in 1835, when it first commenced, while all the elements of influence on the part of the South are weaker. Unless something decisive is done, I again ask what is to stop this agitation, before the great and final object at which it aims—the abolition of slavery in the States—is consummated? Is it, then, not certain that if something decisive is not now done to arrest it, the South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession? Indeed as events are now moving, it will not require the South to secede to dissolve the Union.*** If the agitation goes on, nothing will be left to hold the States together except force.” He answered the question, How can the Union be saved? with which his speech opened, by suggesting: “To provide for the insertion of a provision in the constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the South in substance the power she possessed of protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of the government.” He did not state of what the amendment should consist, but later on, it was ascertained from reliable sources that his idea was a dual executive—one President from the free, and one from the slave States, the consent of both of whom should be required to all acts of Congress before they become laws. This speech of Mr. Calhoun’s, is important as explaining many of his previous actions; and as furnishing a guide to those who ten years afterwards attempted to carry out practically the suggestions thrown out by him.

Mr. Clay’s compromise bill was rejected. It was evident that no compromise of any kind whatever on the subject of slavery, under any one of its aspects separately, much less under all put together, could possibly be made. There was no spirit of concession manifested. The numerous measures put together in Mr. Clay’s bill were disconnected and separated. Each measure received a separate and independent consideration, and with a result which showed the injustice of the attempted conjunction; for no two of them were passed by the same vote, even of the members of the committee which had even unanimously reported favorably upon them as a whole.

Mr. Calhoun died in the spring of 1850; before the separate bill for the admission of California was taken up. His death took place at Washington, he having reached the age of 68 years. A eulogy upon him was delivered in the Senate by his colleague, Mr. Butler, of South Carolina. Mr. Calhoun was the first great advocate of the doctrine of secession. He was the author of the nullification doctrine, and an advocate of the extreme doctrine of States Rights. He was an eloquent speaker—a man of strong intellect. His speeches were plain, strong, concise, sometimes impassioned, and always severe. Daniel Webster said of him, that “he had the basis, the indispensable basis of all high characters, and that was unspotted integrity, unimpeached honor and character!”

In July of this year an event took place which threw a gloom over the country. The President, General Taylor, contracted a fever from exposure to the hot sun at a celebration of Independence Day, from which he died four days afterwards. He was a man of irreproachable private character, undoubted patriotism, and established reputation for judgment and firmness. His brief career showed no deficiency of political wisdom nor want of political training. His administration was beset with difficulties, with momentous questions pending, and he met the crisis with firmness and determination, resolved to maintain the Federal Union at all hazards. His first and only annual message, the leading points of which have been stated, evinces a spirit to do what was right among all the States. His death was a public calamity. No man could have been more devoted to the Union nor more opposed to the slavery agitation; and his position as a Southern man and a slaveholder—his military reputation, and his election by a majority of the people as well as of the States, would have given him a power in the settlement of the pending questions of the day which no President without these qualifications could have possessed.

In accordance with the Constitution, the office of President thus devolved upon the Vice-President, Mr. Millard Fillmore, who was duly inaugurated July 10, 1850. The new cabinet, with Daniel Webster as Secretary of State, was duly appointed and confirmed by the Senate.

The bill for the admission of California as a State in the Union, was called up in the Senate and sought to be amended by extending the Missouri Compromise line through it, to the Pacific Ocean, so as to authorize slavery in the State below that line. The amendment was introduced and pressed by Southern friends of the late Mr. Calhoun, and made a test question. It was lost, and the bill passed by a two-third vote; whereupon ten Southern Senators offered a written protest, the concluding clause of which was: “We dissent from this bill, and solemnly protest against its passage, because in sanctioning measures so contrary to former precedents, to obvious policy, to the spirit and intent of the constitution of the United States, for the purpose of excluding the slaveholding States from the territory thus to be erected into a State, this government in effect declares that the exclusion of slavery from the territory of the United States is an object so high and important as to justify a disregard not only of all the principles of sound policy, but also of the constitution itself. Against this conclusion we must now and for ever protest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to the peace and equality of the States which we represent, and must lead, if persisted in, to the dissolution of that confederacy, in which the slaveholding States have never sought more than equality, and in which they will not be content to remain with less.” On objection being made, followed by debate, the Senate refused to receive the protest, or permit it to be entered on the Journal. The bill went to the House of Representatives, was readily passed, and promptly approved by the President. Thus was virtually accomplished the abrogation of the Missouri compromise line; and the extension or non-extension of slavery was then made to form a foundation for future political parties.

The year 1850 was prolific with disunion movements in the Southern States. The Senators who had joined with Mr. Calhoun in the address to the people, in 1849, united with their adherents in establishing at Washington a newspaper entitled “The Southern Press,” devoted to the agitation of the slavery question; to presenting the advantages of disunion, and the organization of a confederacy of Southern States to be called the “United States South.” Its constant aim was to influence the South against the North, and advocated concert of action by the States of the former section. It was aided in its efforts by newspapers published in the South, more especially in South Carolina and Mississippi. A disunion convention was actually held, in Nashville, Tennessee, and invited the assembly of a Southern Congress. Two States, South Carolina and Mississippi responded to the appeal; passed laws to carry it into effect, and the former went so far as to elect its quota of Representatives to the proposed new Southern Congress. These occurrences are referred to as showing the spirit that prevailed, and the extraordinary and unjustifiable means used by the leaders to mislead and exasperate the people. The assembling of a Southern “Congress” was a turning point in the progress of disunion. Georgia refused to join; and her weight as a great Southern State was sufficient to cause the failure of the scheme. But the seeds of discord were sown, and had taken root, only to spring up at a future time when circumstances should be more favorable to the accomplishment of the object.

Although the Congress of the United States had in 1790 and again in 1836 formally declared the policy of the government to be non-interference with the States in respect to the matter of slavery within the limits of the respective States, the subject continued to be agitated in consequence of petitions to Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which was under the exclusive control of the federal government; and of movements throughout the United States to limit, and finally abolish it. The subject first made its appearance in national politics in 1840, when a presidential ticket was nominated by a party then formed favoring the abolition of slavery; it had a very slight following which was increased tenfold at the election of 1844 when the same party again put a ticket in the field with James G. Birney of Michigan, as its candidate for the Presidency; who received 62,140 votes. The efforts of the leaders of that faction were continued, and persisted in to such an extent, that when in 1848 it nominated a ticket with Gerritt Smith for President, against the Democratic candidate, Martin Van Buren, the former received 296,232 votes. In the presidential contest of 1852 the abolition party again nominated a ticket, with John P. Hale as its candidate for President, and polled 157,926 votes. This large following was increased from time to time, until uniting with a new party then formed, called the Republican party, which latter adopted a platform endorsing the views and sentiments of the abolitionists, the great and decisive battle for the principles involved, was fought in the ensuing presidential contest of 1856; when the candidate of the Republican party, John C. Fremont, supported by the entire abolition party, polled 1,341,812 votes. The first national platform of the Abolition party, upon which it went into the contest of 1840, favored the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and Territories; the inter-state slave trade, and a general opposition to slavery to the full extent of constitutional power.

Following the discussion of the subject of slavery, in the Senate and House of Representatives, brought about by the presentation of petitions and memorials, and the passage of the resolutions in 1836 rejecting such petitions, the question was again raised by the presentation in the House, by Mr. Slade of Vermont, on the 20th December 1837, of two memorials praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and moving that they be referred to a select committee. Great excitement prevailed in the chamber, and of the many attempts by the Southern members an adjournment was had. The next day a resolution was offered that thereafter all such petitions and memorials touching the abolition of slavery should, when presented, be laid on the table; which resolution was adopted by a large vote. During the 24th Congress, the Senate pursued the course of laying on the table the motion to receive all abolition petitions; and both Houses during the 25th Congress continued the same course of conduct; when finally on the 25th of January 1840, the House adopted by a vote of 114 to 108, an amendment to the rules, called the 21st Rule, which provided:—“that no petition, memorial or resolution, or other paper, praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any state or territory, or the slave-trade between the States or territories of the United States, in which it now exists, shall be received by this House, or entertained in any way whatever.” This rule was afterwards, on the 3d of December, 1844, rescinded by the House, on motion of Mr. J. Quincy Adams, by a vote of 108 to 80; and a motion to re-instate it, on the 1st of December 1845, was rejected by a vote of 84 to 121. Within five years afterwards—on the 17th September 1850,—the Congress of the United States enacted a law, which was approved by the President, abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.

On the 25th of February, 1850, there was presented in the House of Representatives, two petitions from citizens of Pennsylvania and Delaware, setting forth that slavery, and the constitution which permits it, violates the Divine law; is inconsistent with republican principles; that its existence has brought evil upon the country; and that no union can exist with States which tolerate that institution; and asking that some plan be devised for the immediate, peaceful dissolution of the Union. The House refused to receive and consider the petitions; as did also the Senate when the same petitions were presented the same month.

The presidential election of 1852 was the last campaign in which the Whig party appeared in National politics. It nominated a ticket with General Winfield Scott as its candidate for President. His opponent on the Democratic ticket was General Franklin Pierce. A third ticket was placed in the field by the Abolition party, with John P. Hale as its candidate for President. The platform and declaration of principles of the Whig party was in substance a ratification and endorsement of the several measures embraced in Mr. Clay’s compromise resolutions of the previous session of Congress, before referred to; and the policy of a revenue for the economical administration of the government, to be derived mainly from duties on imports, and by these means to afford protection to American industry. The main plank of the platform of the Abolition party (or Independent Democrats, as they were called) was for the non-extension and gradual extinction of slavery. The Democratic party equally adhered to the compromise measure. The election resulted in the choice of Franklin Pierce, by a popular vote of 1,601,474, and 254 electoral votes, against a popular aggregate vote of 1,542,403 (of which the abolitionists polled 157,926) and 42 electoral votes, for the Whig and Abolition candidates. Mr. Pierce was duly inaugurated as President, March 4, 1853.

The first political parties in the United States, from the establishment of the federal government and for many years afterwards, were denominated Federalists and Democrats, or Democratic-Republicans. The former was an anti-alien party. The latter was made up to a large extent of naturalized foreigners; refugees from England, Ireland and Scotland, driven from home for hostility to the government or for attachment to France. Naturally, aliens sought alliance with the Democratic party, which favored the war against Great Britain. The early party contests were based on the naturalization laws; the first of which, approved March 26, 1790, required only two years’ residence in this country; a few years afterwards the time was extended to five years; and in 1798 the Federalists taking advantage of the war fever against France, and then being in power, extended the time to fourteen years. (See Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798). Jefferson’s election and Democratic victory of 1800, brought the period back to five years in 1802, and reinforced the Democratic party. The city of New York, especially, from time to time became filled with foreigners; thus naturalized; brought into the Democratic ranks; and crowded out native Federalists from control of the city government, and to meet this condition of affairs, the first attempt at a Native American organization was made. Beginning in 1835; ending in failure in election of Mayor in 1837, it was revived in April, 1844, when the Native American organization carried New York city for its Mayoralty candidate by a good majority. The success of the movement there, caused it to spread to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia, it was desperately opposed by the Democratic, Irish and Roman Catholic element, and so furiously, that it resulted in riots, in which two Romish Churches were burned and destroyed. The adherents of the American organization were not confined to Federalists or Whigs, but largely of native Democrats; and the Whigs openly voted with Democratic Natives in order to secure their vote for Henry Clay for the Presidency; but when in November, 1844, New York and Philadelphia both gave Native majorities, and so sapped the Whig vote, that both places gave majorities for the Democratic Presidential electors, the Whigs drew off. In 1845, at the April election in New York, the natives were defeated, and the new party disappeared there. As a result of the autumn election of 1844, the 29th Congress, which organized in December, 1845, had six Native Representatives; four from New York and two from Pennsylvania. In the 30th Congress, Pennsylvania had one. Thereafter for some years, with the exception of a small vote in Pennsylvania and New York, Nativism disappeared. An able writer of that day—Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, of Virginia—published under the nom-de-plume of “Madison” several letters in vindication of the American party (revived in 1852,) in which he said: “The vital principle of the American party is Americanism—developing itself in a deep-rooted attachment to our own country—its constitution, its union, and its laws—to American men, and American measures, and American interests—or, in other words, a fervent patriotism—which, rejecting the transcendental philanthropy of abolitionists, and that kindred batch of wild enthusiasts, who would seek to embroil us with foreign countries, in righting the wrongs of Ireland, or Hungary, or Cuba—would guard with vestal vigilance American institutions and American interests against the baneful effects of foreign influence.”

About 1852, when the question of slavery in the territories, and its extension or its abolition in the States, was agitated and causing sectional differences in the country, many Whigs and Democrats forsook their parties, and took sides on the questions of the day. This was aggravated by the large number of alien naturalized citizens constantly added to the ranks of voters, who took sides with the Democrats and against the Whigs. Nativism then re-appeared, but in a new form—that of a secret fraternity. Its real name and objects were not revealed—even to its members, until they reached a high degree in the order; and the answer of members on being questioned on these subjects was, “I don’t know”—which gave it the popular name, by which it is yet known, of “Know-nothing.” Its moving causes were the growing power and designs of the Roman Catholic Church in America; the sudden influx of aliens; and the greed and incapacity of naturalized citizens for office. Its cardinal principle was: “Americans must rule America”; and its countersign was the order of General Washington on a critical occasion during the war: “Put none but Americans on guard to-night.” Its early nominations were not made public, but were made by select committees and conventions of delegates. At first these nominations were confined to selections of the best Whig or best Democrat on the respective tickets; and the choice not being made known, but quietly voted for by all the members of the order, the effect was only visible after election, and threw all calculation into chaos. For a while it was really the arbiter of elections.

On February 8, 1853, a bill passed the House of Representatives providing a territorial government for Nebraska, embracing all of what is now Kansas and Nebraska. It was silent on the subject of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The bill was tabled in the Senate; to be revived at the following session. In the Senate it was amended, on motion of Mr. Douglas, to read: “That so much of the 8th section of an act approved March 6, 1820, (the Missouri compromise) *** which, being inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislature of 1850, commonly called the Compromise measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.” It was further amended, on motion of Senator Clayton, to prohibit “alien suffrage.” In the House this amendment was not agreed to; and the bill finally passed without it, on the 25th May, 1854.

So far as Nebraska was concerned, no excitement of any kind marked the initiation of her territorial existence. The persons who emigrated there seemed to regard the pursuits of business as of more interest than the discussion of slavery. Kansas was less fortunate. Her territory became at once the battle-field of a fierce political conflict between the advocates of slavery, and the free soil men from the North who went there to resist the establishment of that institution in the territory. Differences arose between the Legislature and the Governor, brought about by antagonisms between the Pro-slavery party and the Free State party; and the condition of affairs in Kansas assumed so frightful a mien in January, 1856, that the President sent a special message to Congress on the subject, January 24, 1856; followed by a Proclamation, February 11, 1856, “warning all unlawful combinations (in the territory) to retire peaceably to their respective abodes, or he would use the power of the local militia, and the available forces of the United States to disperse them.”

Several applications were made to Congress for several successive years, for the admission of Kansas as a state in the Union; upon the basis of three separate and distinct constitutions, all differing as to the main questions at issue between the contending factions. The name of Kansas was for some years synonymous with all that is lawless and anarchical. Elections became mere farces, and the officers thus fraudulently placed in power, used their authority only for their own or their party’s interest. The party opposed to slavery at length triumphed; a constitution excluding slavery was adopted in 1859, and Kansas was admitted into the Union January 29, 1861.

Under the fugitive slave law, which was passed by Congress at the session of 1850, as one of the Compromise measures, introduced by Mr. Clay, a long and exciting litigation occurred to test the validity and constitutionality of the act, and the several laws on which it depended. The suit was instituted by Dred Scott, a negro slave, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Missouri, in April Term, 1854, against John F. A. Sanford, his alleged owner, for trespass vi et armis, in holding the plaintiff and his wife and daughters in slavery in said District of Missouri, where by law slavery was prohibited; they having been previously lawfully held in slavery by a former owner—Dr. Emerson—in the State of Illinois, from whence they were taken by him to Missouri, and sold to the defendant, Sanford. The case went up on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, and was clearly and elaborately argued. The majority opinion, delivered by Chief Justice Taney, as also the dissenting opinions, are reported in full in Howard’s U. S. Supreme Court Reports, Volume 19, page 393. In respect to the territories the Constitution grants to Congress the power “to make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territory and other property belonging to the United States.” The Court was of opinion that the clause of the Constitution applies only to the territory within the original States at the time the Constitution was adopted, and that it did not apply to future territory acquired by treaty or conquest from foreign nations. They were also of opinion that the power of Congress over such future territorial acquisitions was not unlimited, that the citizens of the States migrating to a territory were not to be regarded as colonists, subject to absolute power in Congress, but as citizens of the United States, with all the rights of citizenship guarantied by the Constitution, and that no legislation was constitutional which attempted to deprive a citizen of his property on his becoming a resident of a territory. This question in the case arose under the act of Congress prohibiting slavery in the territory of upper Louisiana, (acquired from France, afterwards the State), and of which the territory of Missouri was formed. Any obscurity as to what constitutes citizenship, will be removed by attending to the distinction between local rights of citizenship of the United States according to the Constitution. Citizenship at large in the sense of the Constitution can be conferred on a foreigner only by the naturalization laws of Congress. But each State, in the exercise of its local and reserved sovereignty, may place foreigners or other persons on a footing with its own citizens, as to political rights and privileges to be enjoyed within its own dominion. But State regulations of this character do not make the persons on whom such rights are conferred citizens of the United States or entitle them to the privileges and immunities of citizens in another State. See 5 Wheaton, (U. S. Supreme Court Reports), page 49.

The Court said in The Dred Scott case, above referred to, that:—“The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it like the ordinary article of merchandise and property was guarantied to the citizens of the United States, in every State that might desire it for twenty years, and the government in express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words—too plain to be misunderstood, and no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave property, or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than the property of any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights. Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the Act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.” The abolition of slavery by the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States ratified and adopted December 18, 1865, has put an end to these discussions formerly so numerous.

As early as 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska controversy on the territorial government bill, resulted in a division of the Whig party in the North. Those not sufficiently opposed to slavery to enter the new Republican party, then in its incipiency, allied themselves with the Know-Nothing order, which now accepting the name of American party established a separate and independent political existence. The party had no hold in the West; it was entirely Middle State at this time, and polled a large vote in Massachusetts, Delaware and New York. In the State elections of 1855 the American party made a stride Southward. In 1855, the absence of naturalized citizens was universal in the South, and even so late as 1881 the proportion of foreign born population in the Southern States, with the exception of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas was under two per cent. At the early date—1855—the nativist feeling among the Whigs of that section, made it easy to transfer them to the American party, which thus secured in both the Eastern and Southern States, the election of Governor and Legislature in the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, California and Kentucky; and also elected part of its State ticket in Maryland, and Texas; and only lost the States of Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by small majorities against it.

The order began preparations for a campaign as a National party, in 1856. It aimed to introduce opposition to aliens and Roman Catholicism as a national question. On the 21st of February, 1856, the National Council held a session at Philadelphia, and proceeded to formulate a declaration of principles, and make a platform, which were as follows:

“An humble acknowledgement to the Supreme Being, for his protecting care vouchsafed to our fathers in their successful Revolutionary struggle, and hitherto manifested to us, their descendants, in the preservation of the liberties, the independence, and the union of these States.

2d. The perpetuation of the Federal Union, as the palladium of our civil and religious liberties, and the only sure Bulwark of American independence.

3d. Americans must rule America, and to this end, native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal, and municipal offices or government employment, in preference to all others; nevertheless,

4th. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily abroad, should be entitled to all the rights of native-born citizens; but,

5th. No person shall be selected for political station (whether of native or foreign birth), who recognizes any allegiance or obligation, of any description, to any foreign prince, potentate, or power, or who refuses to recognize the Federal and State constitutions (each within its sphere) as paramount to all other laws, as rules of political action.

6th. The unqualified recognition and maintenance of the reserved rights of the several States, and the cultivation of harmony and fraternal good will, between the citizens of the several States, and to this end, non-interference by congress with questions appertaining solely to the individual States, and non-intervention by each State with the affairs of any other State.

7th. The recognition of the right of the native-born and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in any territory thereof, to frame their constitution and laws, and to regulate their domestic and social affairs in their own mode, subject only to the provisions of the Federal Constitution, with the privilege of admission into the Union, whenever they have the requisite population for one representative in Congress.—Provided always, that none but those who are citizens of the United States, under the Constitution and laws thereof, and who have a fixed residence in any such territory, ought to participate in the formation of the Constitution, or in the enactment of laws for said Territory or State.

8th. An enforcement of the principle that no State or Territory ought to admit others than citizens of the United States to the right of suffrage, or of holding political office.

9th. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not hereinbefore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.

10th. Opposition to any union between Church and State; no interference with religious faith, or worship, and no test oaths for office.

11th. Free and thorough investigation into any and all alleged abuses of public functionaries, and a strict economy in public expenditures.

12th. The maintenance and enforcement of all laws constitutionally enacted, until said laws shall be repealed, or shall be declared null and void by competent judicial authority.

The American Ritual, or Constitution, rules, regulations, and ordinances of the Order were as follows:—

AMERICAN RITUAL.

Constitution of the National Council of the United States of North America.

Art. 1st. This organization shall be known by the name and title of The National Council of the United States of North America, and its jurisdiction and power shall extend to all the states, districts, and territories of the United States of North America.

Art. 2d. The object of this organization shall be to protect every American citizen in the legal and proper exercise of all his civil and religious rights and privileges; to resist the insidious policy of the Church of Rome, and all other foreign influence against our republican institutions in all lawful ways; to place in all offices of honor, trust, or profit, in the gift of the people, or by appointment, none but native-born Protestant citizens, and to protect, preserve, and uphold the union of these states and the constitution of the same.

Art. 3d. Sec. 1.—A person to become a member of any subordinate council must be twenty-one years of age; he must believe in the existence of a Supreme Being as the Creator and preserver of the universe. He must be a native-born citizen; a Protestant, either born of Protestant parents, or reared under Protestant influence; and not united in marriage with a Roman Catholic; provided, nevertheless, that in this last respect, the state, district, or territorial councils shall be authorized to so construct their respective constitutions as shall best promote the interests of the American cause in their several jurisdictions; and provided, moreover, that no member who may have a Roman Catholic wife shall be eligible to office in this order; and provided, further, should any state, district, or territorial council prefer the words “Roman Catholic” as a disqualification to membership, in place of “Protestant” as a qualification, they may so consider this constitution and govern their action accordingly.

Sec. 2.—There shall be an interval of three weeks between the conferring of the first and second degrees; and of three months between the conferring of the second and third degrees—provided, that this restriction shall not apply to those who may have received the second degree previous to the first day of December next; and provided, further, that the presidents of state, district, and territorial councils may grant dispensations for initiating in all the degrees, officers of new councils.

Sec. 3.—The national council shall hold its annual meetings on the first Tuesday in the month of June, at such place as may be designated by the national council at the previous annual meeting, and it may adjourn from time to time. Special meetings may be called by the President, on the written request of five delegations representing five state councils; provided, that sixty days’ notice shall be given to the state councils previous to said meeting.

Sec. 4.—The national council shall be composed of seven delegates from each state, to be chosen by the state councils; and each district or territory where a district or territorial council shall exist, shall be entitled to send two delegates, to be chosen from said council—provided that in the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, and each state shall be entitled to cast the same number of votes as they shall have members in both houses of Congress. In all sessions of the national council, thirty-two delegates, representing thirteen states, territories, or districts, shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.

Sec. 5.—The national council shall be vested with the following powers and privileges:

It shall be the head of the organization for the United States of North America, and shall fix and establish all signs, grips, pass-words, and such other secret work, as may seem to it necessary.

It shall have the power to decide all matters appertaining to national politics.

It shall have the power to exact from the state councils, quarterly or annual statements as to the number of members under their jurisdictions, and in relation to all other matters necessary for its information.

It shall have the power to form state, territorial, or district councils, and to grant dispensations for the formation of such bodies, when five subordinate councils shall have been put in operation in any state, territory, or district, and application made.

It shall have the power to determine upon a mode of punishment in case of any dereliction of duty on the part of its members or officers.

It shall have the power to adopt cabalistic characters for the purpose of writing or telegraphing. Said characters to be communicated to the presidents of the state councils, and by them to the presidents of the subordinate councils.

It shall have the power to adopt any and every measure it may deem necessary to secure the success of the organization; provided that nothing shall be done by the said national council in violation of the constitution; and provided further, that in all political matters, its members may be instructed by the state councils, and if so instructed, shall carry out such instructions of the state councils which they represent until overruled by a majority of the national council.

Art. 4. The President shall always preside over the national council when present, and in his absence the Vice-President shall preside, and in the absence of both the national council shall appoint a president pro tempore; and the presiding officers may at all times call a member to the chair, but such appointment shall not extend beyond one sitting of the national council.

Art. 5. Sec. 1.—The officers of the National Council shall be a President, Vice-President, Chaplain, Corresponding Secretary, Recording Secretary, Treasurer, and two Sentinels, with such other officers as the national council may see fit to appoint from time to time; and the secretaries and sentinels may receive such compensation as the national council shall determine.

Sec. 2.—The duties of the several officers created by this constitution shall be such as the work of this organization prescribes.

Art. 6. Sec. 1.—All officers provided for by this constitution, except the sentinels, shall be elected annually by ballot. The president may appoint sentinels from time to time.

Sec. 2.—A majority of all the votes cast shall be requisite to an election for an office.

Sec. 3.—All officers and delegates of this council, and of all state, district, territorial, and subordinate councils, must be invested with all the degrees of this order.

Sec. 4.—All vacancies in the elective offices shall be filled by a vote of the national council, and only for the unexpired term of the said vacancy.

Art. 7. Sec. 1.—The national council shall entertain and decide all cases of appeal, and it shall establish a form of appeal.

Sec. 2.—The national council shall levy a tax upon the state, district, or territorial councils, for the support of the national council, to be paid in such manner and at such times as the national council shall determine.

Art. 8.—This national council may alter and amend this constitution at its regular annual meeting in June next, by a vote of the majority of the whole number of the members present. (Cincinnati, Nov. 24, 1854.)

RULES AND REGULATIONS.

Rule 1.—Each State, District, or Territory, in which there may exist five or more subordinate councils working under dispensations from the National Council of the United States of North America, or under regular dispensations from some State, District, or Territory, are duly empowered to establish themselves into a State, District, or Territorial council, and when so established, to form for themselves constitutions and by-laws for their government, in pursuance of, and in consonance with the Constitution of the National Council of the United States; provided, however, that all State, District, or Territorial constitutions shall be subject to the approval of the National Council of the United States. (June, 1854.)

Rule 2.—All State, District, or Territorial councils, when established, shall have full power and authority to establish all subordinate councils within their respective limits; and the constitutions and by-laws of all such subordinate councils must be approved by their respective State, District, or Territorial councils. (June, 1854.)

Rule 3.—All State, District, or Territorial councils, when established and until the formation of constitutions, shall work under the constitution of the National Council of the United States. (June, 1854.)

Rule 4.—In all cases where, for the convenience of the organization, two State or Territorial councils may be established, the two councils together shall be entitled to but thirteen delegates[^[3]] in the National Council of the United States—the proportioned number of delegates to depend on the number of members in the organizations; provided, that no State shall be allowed to have more than one State council, without the consent of the National Council of the United States. (June, 1854.)

Rule 5.—In any State, District, or Territory, where there may be more than one organization working on the same basis, (to wit, the lodges and “councils,”) the same shall be required to combine; the officers of each organization shall resign and new officers be elected; and thereafter these bodies shall be known as State councils, and subordinate councils, and new charters shall be granted to them by the national council. (June, 1854.)

Rule 6.—It shall be considered a penal offence for any brother not an officer of a subordinate council, to make use of the sign or summons adopted for public notification, except by direction of the President; or for officers of a council to post the same at any other time than from midnight to one hour before daybreak, and this rule shall be incorporated into the by-laws of the State, District, and Territorial councils. (June, 1854.)

Rule 7.—The determination of the necessity and mode of issuing the posters for public notification shall be intrusted to the State, District, or Territorial councils. (June, 1854.)

Rule 8.—The respective State, District, or Territorial councils shall be required to make statements of the number of members within their respective limits, at the next meeting of this national council, and annually thereafter, at the regular annual meeting. (June, 1854.)

Rule 9.—The delegates to the National Council of the United States of North America shall be entitled to three dollars per day for their attendance upon the national council, and for each day that may be necessary in going and returning from the same; and five cents per mile for every mile they may necessarily travel in going to, and returning from the place of meeting of the national council; to be computed by the nearest mail route: which shall be paid out of the treasury of the national council. (November, 1854.)

Rule 10.—Each State, District, or Territorial council shall be taxed four cents per annum for every member in good standing belonging to each subordinate council under its jurisdiction on the first day of April, which shall be reported to the national council, and paid into the national treasury, on or before the first day of the annual session, to be held in June; and on the same day in each succeeding year. And the first fiscal year shall be considered as commencing on the first day of December, 1854, and ending on the fifteenth day of May, 1855. (November, 1854.)

Rule 11.—The following shall be the key to determine and ascertain the purport of any communication that may be addressed to the President of a State, District, or Territorial council by the President of the national council, who is hereby instructed to communicate a knowledge of the same to said officers:

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M
1	7	13	19	25	2	8	14	20	26	3	9	15
N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
21	4	10	16	22	5	11	17	23	6	12	18	24

Rule 12.—The clause of the article of the constitution relative to belief in the Supreme Being is obligatory upon every State and subordinate council, as well as upon each individual member. (June, 1854.)

Rule 13.—The following shall be the compensation of the officers of this council:

1st. The Corresponding Secretary shall be paid two thousand dollars per annum, from the 17th day of June, 1854.

2d. The Treasurer shall be paid five hundred dollars per annum, from the 17th day of June, 1854.

3d. The Sentinels shall be paid five dollars for every day they may be in attendance on the sittings of the national council.

4th. The Chaplain shall be paid one hundred dollars per annum, from the 17th day of June, 1854.

5th. The Recording Secretary shall be paid five hundred dollars per annum, from the 17th day of June, 1854.

6th. The Assistant Secretary shall be paid five dollars per day, for every day he may be in attendance on the sitting of the national council. All of which is to be paid out of the national treasury, on the draft of the President. (November, 1854.)

SPECIAL VOTING.

Vote 1st.—This national council hereby grants to the State of Virginia two State councils, the one to be located in Eastern and the other in Western Virginia, the Blue Ridge Mountains being the geographical line between the two jurisdictions. (June, 1854.)

Vote 2d.—The President shall have power, till the next session of the national council, to grant dispensations for the formation of State, District, or Territorial councils, in form most agreeable to his own discretion, upon proper application being made. (June, 1854.)

Vote 3d.—The seats of all delegates to and members of the present national council shall be vacated on the first Tuesday in June, 1855, at the hour of six o’clock in the forenoon; and the national council convening in annual session upon that day, shall be composed exclusively of delegates elected under and in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, as amended at the present session of this national council; provided, that this resolution shall not apply to the officers of the national council. (November, 1854.)

Vote 4th.—The Corresponding Secretary of this council is authorized to have printed the names of the delegates to this national council; also, those of the Presidents of the several State, District, and Territorial councils, together with their address, and to forward a copy of the same to each person named; and further, the Corresponding Secretaries of each State, District, and Territory are requested to forward a copy of their several constitutions to each other. (November, 1854.)

Vote 5th.—In the publication of the constitution and the ritual, under the direction of the committee—brothers Deshler, Damrell, and Stephens—the name, signs, grips, and pass-words of the order shall be indicated by [* * *], and a copy of the same shall be furnished to each State, District, and Territorial council, and to each member of that body. (November, 1854.)

Vote 6th.—A copy of the constitution of each State, District, and Territorial council, shall be submitted to this council for examination. (November, 1854.)

Vote 7th.—It shall be the duty of the Treasurer, at each annual meeting of this body, to make a report of all moneys received or expended in the interval. (November, 1854.)

Vote 8th.—Messrs. Gifford of Pa., Barker of N. Y., Deshler of N. J., Williamson of Va., and Stephens of Md., are appointed a committee to confer with similar committees that have been appointed for the purpose of consolidating the various American orders, with power to make the necessary arrangement for such consolidation—subject to the approval of this national council, at its next session. (November, 1854.)

Vote 9th.—On receipt of the new ritual by the members of this national council who have received the third degree, they or any of them may, and they are hereby empowered to, confer the third degree upon members of this body in their respective states, districts, and territories, and upon the presidents and other officers of their state, district, and territorial councils. And further, the presidents of the state, district, and territorial councils shall in the first instance confer the third degree upon as many of the presidents and officers of their subordinate councils as can be assembled together in their respective localities; and afterwards the same may be conferred upon officers of other subordinate councils, by any presiding officer of a council who shall have previously received it under the provisions of the constitution. (November, 1854.)

Vote 10th.—To entitle any delegate to a seat in this national council, at its annual session in June next, he must present a properly authenticated certificate that he was duly elected as a delegate to the same, or appointed a substitute in accordance with the requirements of the constitutions of state, territorial, or district councils. And no delegate shall be received from any state, district, or territorial council which has not adopted the constitution and ritual of this national council. (November, 1854.)

Vote 11th.—The committee on printing the constitution and ritual is authorized to have a sufficient number of the same printed for the use of the order. And no state, district, or territorial council shall be allowed to reprint the same. (November, 1854.)

Vote 12th.—The right to establish all subordinate councils in any of the states, districts, and territories represented in this national council, shall be confined to the state, district, and territorial councils which they represent. (November, 1854.)

Constitution for the Government of Subordinate Councils.

Art. I. Sec. 1.—Each subordinate council shall be composed of not less than thirteen members, all of whom shall have received all the degrees of the order, and shall be known and recognised as —— Council, No. ——, of the —— of the county of ——, and State of North Carolina.

Sec. 2.—No person shall be a member of any subordinate council in this state, unless he possesses all the qualifications, and comes up to all the requirements laid down in the constitution of the national council, and whose wife (if he has one), is not a Roman Catholic.

Sec. 3. No application for membership shall be received and acted on from a person residing out of the state, or resides in a county where there is a council in existence, unless upon special cause to be stated to the council, to be judged of by the same; and such person, if the reasons be considered sufficient, may be initiated the same night he is proposed, provided he resides five miles or more from the place where the council is located. But no person can vote in any council, except the one of which he is a member.

Sec. 4. Every person applying for membership, shall be voted for by ballot, in open council, if a ballot is requested by a single member. If one-third of the votes cast be against the applicant, he shall be rejected. If any applicant be rejected, he shall not be again proposed within six months thereafter. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent the initiation of applicants privately, by those empowered to do so, in localities where there are no councils within a convenient distance.

Sec. 5. Any member of one subordinate council wishing to change his membership to another council, shall apply to the council to which he belongs, either in writing or orally through another member, and the question shall be decided by the council. If a majority are in favor of granting him an honorable dismission, he shall receive the same in writing, to be signed by the president and countersigned by the secretary. But until a member thus receiving an honorable dismission has actually been admitted to membership in another council, he shall be held subject to the discipline of the council from which he has received the dismission, to be dealt with by the same, for any violation of the requirements of the order. Before being received in the council to which he wishes to transfer his membership, he shall present said certificate of honorable dismission, and shall be received as new members are.

Sec. 6. Applications for the second degree shall not be received except in second degree councils, and voted on by second and third degree members only, and applications for the third degree shall be received in third degree councils, and voted on by third degree members only.

Art. II.—Each subordinate council shall fix on its own time and place for meeting: and shall meet at least once a month, but where not very inconvenient, it is recommended that they meet once a week. Thirteen members shall form a quorum for the transaction of business. Special meetings may be called by the president at any time, at the request of four members of the order.

Art. III.—Sec. 1. The members of each subordinate council shall consist of a president, vice-president, instructor, secretary, treasurer, marshal, inside and outside sentinel, and shall hold their offices for the term of six months, or until their successors are elected and installed.

Sec. 2. The officers of each subordinate council (except the sentinels, who shall be appointed by the president), shall be elected at the first regular meetings in January and July, separately, and by ballot; and each shall receive a majority of all the votes cast to entitle him to an election. No member shall be elected to any office, unless he be present and signify his assent thereto at the time of his election. Any vacancy which may occur by death, resignation, or otherwise, shall be filled at the next meeting thereafter, in the manner and form above described.

Sec. 3. The President.—It shall be the duty of the president of each subordinate council, to preside in the council, and enforce a due observance of the constitution and rules of the order, and a proper respect for the state council and the national council; to have sole and exclusive charge of the charter and the constitution and ritual of the order, which he must always have with him when his council is in session, to see that all officers perform their respective duties; to announce all ballotings to the council; to decide all questions of order; to give the casting vote in all cases of a tie; to convene special meetings when deemed expedient; to draw warrants on the treasurer for all sums, the payment of which is ordered by the council; and to perform such other duties as are demanded of him by the Constitutions and ritual of the order.

Sec. 4. The vice-president of each subordinate council shall assist the president in the discharge of his duties, whilst his council is in session; and, in his absence, shall perform all the duties of the president.

Sec. 5. The instructor shall perform the duties of the president in the absence of the president and vice-president, and shall, under the direction of the president, perform such duties as may be assigned to him by the ritual.

Sec. 6. The secretary shall keep an accurate record of the proceedings of the council. He shall write all communications, fill all notices, attest all warrants drawn by the president for the payment of money; he shall keep a correct roll of all the members of the council, together with their age, residence, and occupation, in the order in which they have been admitted; he shall, at the expiration of every three months, make out a report of all work done during that time, which report he shall forward to the secretary of the state council; and when superseded in his office shall deliver all books, papers, &c., in his hands to his successor.

Sec. 7. The treasurer shall hold all moneys raised exclusively for the use of the state council, which he shall pay over to the secretary of the state council at its regular sessions, or whenever called upon by the president of the state council. He shall receive all moneys for the use of the subordinate council, and pay all amounts drawn for on him, by the president of the subordinate council, if attested by the secretary.

Sec. 8. The marshal shall perform such duties, under the direction of the president, as may be required of him by the ritual.

Sec. 9. The inside sentinel shall have charge of the inner door, and act under the directions of the president. He shall admit no person, unless he can prove himself a member of this order, and of the same degree in which the council is opened, or by order of the president, or is satisfactorily vouched for.

Sec. 10. The outside sentinel shall have charge of the outer door, and act in accordance with the orders of the president. He shall permit no person to enter the outer door unless he give the pass-word of the degree in which the council is at work, or is properly vouched for.

Sec. 11. The secretary, treasurer, and sentinels, shall receive such compensation as the subordinate councils may each conclude to allow.

Sec. 12. Each subordinate council may levy its own fees for initiation, to raise a fund to pay its dues to the state council, and to defray its own expenses. Each council may, also, at its discretion, initiate without charging the usual fee, those it considers unable to pay the same.

Sec. 13. The president shall keep in his possession the constitution and ritual of the order. He shall not suffer the same to go out of his possession under any pretence whatever, unless in case of absence, when he may put them in the hands of the vice-president or instructor, or whilst the council is in session, for the information of a member wishing to see it, for the purpose of initiation, or conferring of degrees.

Art. IV. Each subordinate council shall have power to adopt such by-laws, rules, and regulations, for its own government, as it may think proper, not inconsistent with the constitutions of the national and state councils.

Form of Application for a Charter to Organize a new Council.

Post Office —— county,

Date ——.

To ——

President of the State Council of North Carolina:—

We, the undersigned, members of the Third Degree, being desirous of extending the influence and usefulness of our organization, do hereby ask for a warrant of dispensation, instituting and organizing us as a subordinate branch of the order, under the jurisdiction of the State Council of the State of North Carolina, to be known and hailed as Council No. ——, and to be located at ——, in the county of ——, State of North Carolina.

And we do hereby pledge ourselves to be governed by the Constitution of the State Council of the State of North Carolina, and of the Grand Council of the U. S. N. A., and that we will in all things conform to the rules and usages of the order.

Names.      Residences.

FORM OF DISMISSION FROM ONE COUNCIL TO ANOTHER.

This is to certify that Brother ——, a member of —— Council, No. ——, having made an application to change his membership from this council to that of —— Council, No. ——, at ——, in the county of ——, I do hereby declare, that said brother has received an honorable dismission from this council, and is hereby recommended for membership in —— Council, No. ——, in the county of ——, N. C.; provided, however, that until Brother —— has been admitted to membership in said council, he is to be considered subject to the discipline of this council, to be dealt with by the same for any violation of the requirements of the order. This the —— day of ——, 185—, and the —— year of American Independence.

—— President, —— Council,

No. ——.

—— Secretary.

FORM OF CERTIFICATE FOR DELEGATES TO THE STATE COUNCIL.

—— Council, No. ——,

—— county of ——, N. C.

This is to certify that —— and —— were at the regular meeting of this council, held on the ——, 185—, duly elected delegates to represent this council in the next annual meeting of the state council, to be held in ——, on the 3d Monday in November next. And by virtue of the authority in me reposed, I do hereby declare the said —— and —— to be invested with all the rights, powers, and privileges of the delegates as aforesaid. This being the —— day of ——, 185—, and the —— year of our national independence.

—— —— President of

—— Council, No. ——

—— —— Secretary.

FORM OF NOTICE

From the Subordinate Council to the State Council, whenever any Member of a Subordinate Council is expelled.

—— Council, No. ——,

—— county of ——, N. C.

To the President of the State Council of North Carolina:

Sir:—This is to inform you that at a meeting of this council, held on the —— day of ——, 185—, —— —— was duly expelled from membership in said council, and thus deprived of all the privileges, rights, and benefits of this organization.

In accordance with the provisions of the constitution of the state council, you are hereby duly notified of the same, that you may officially notify all the subordinate councils of the state to be upon their guard against the said ——, as one unworthy to associate with patriotic and good men, and (if expelled for violating his obligation) as a perjurer to God and his country. The said —— is about —— years of age, and is by livelihood a ——.

Duly certified, this the —— day of —— 185—, and in the —— year of our national independence.

—— —— President of

—— Council, No. ——.

—— Secretary.

First Degree Council.

To be admitted to membership in this order, the applicant shall be—

1st. Proposed and found acceptable.

2nd. Introduced and examined under the guarantee of secrecy.

3rd. Placed under the obligation which the order imposes.

4th. Required to enrol his name and place of residence.

5th. Instructed in the forms and usages and ceremonies of the order.

6th. Solemnly charged as to the objects to be obtained, and his duties.

[A recommendation of a candidate to this order shall be received only from a brother of approved integrity. It shall be accompanied by minute particulars as to name, age, calling, and residence, and by an explicit voucher for his qualifications, and a personal pledge for his fidelity. These particulars shall be recorded by the secretary in a book kept for that purpose. The recommendation may be referred, and the ballot taken at such time and in such a manner as the state council may prescribe; but no communication shall be made to the candidate until the ballot has been declared in his favor. Candidates shall be received in the ante-room by the marshal and secretary.]

OUTSIDE.

Marshal.—Do you believe in a Supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver of the universe?

Ans.—I do.

Marshal.—Before proceeding further, we require a solemn obligation of secrecy and truth. If you will take such an obligation, you will lay your right hand upon the Holy Bible and cross.

(When it is known that the applicant is a Protestant, the cross may be omitted, or affirmation may be allowed.)

OBLIGATION.

You do solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will never reveal anything said or done in this room, the names of any persons present, nor the existence of this society, whether found worthy to proceed or not, and that all your declarations shall be true, so help you God?

Ans.—“I do.”

Marshal.—Where were you born?

Marshal.—Where is your permanent residence?

(If born out of the jurisdiction of the United States, the answer shall be written, the candidate dismissed with an admonition of secrecy, and the brother vouching for him suspended from all the privileges of the order, unless upon satisfactory proof that he has been misinformed.)

Marshal.—Are you twenty-one years of age?

Ans.—“I am.”

Marshal.—Were you born of Protestant parents, or were you reared under Protestant influence?

Ans.—“Yes.”

Marshal.—If married, is your wife a Roman Catholic?

(“No” or “Yes”—the answer to be valued as the Constitution of the State Council shall provide.)

Marshal.—Are you willing to use your influence and vote only for native-born American citizens for all offices of honor, trust, or profit in the gift of the people, to the exclusion of all foreigners and aliens, and Roman Catholics in particular, and without regard to party predilections?

Ans.—“I am.”

INSIDE.

(The marshal shall then repair to the council in session, and present the written list of names, vouchers, and answers to the president, who shall cause them to be read aloud, and a vote of the council to be taken on each name, in such manner as prescribed by its by-laws. If doubts arise in the ante-room, they shall be referred to the council. If a candidate be dismissed, he shall be admonished to secrecy. The candidates declared elected shall be conducted to seats within the council, apart from the brethren. When all are present the president by one blow of the gavel, shall call to order and say:)

President.—Brother marshal, introduce the candidates to the vice-president.

Marshal.—Worthy Vice-President, I present to you these candidates, who have duly answered all questions.

Vice-President, rising in his place.—Gentlemen, it is my office to welcome you as friends. When you shall have assumed the patriotic vow by which we are all bound, we will embrace you as brothers. I am authorized to declare that our obligations enjoin nothing which is inconsistent with the duty which every good man owes to his Creator, his country, his family, or himself. We do not compel you, against your convictions, to act with us in our good work; but should you at any time wish to withdraw, it will be our duty to grant you a dismissal in good faith. If satisfied with this assurance, you will rise upon your feet (pausing till they do so), place the left hand upon the breast, and raise the right hand towards heaven.

(The brethren to remain seated till called up.)

OBLIGATION.

In the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, you do solemnly promise and swear, that you will never betray any of the secrets of this society, nor communicate them even to proper candidates, except within a lawful council of the order; that you never will permit any of the secrets of this society to be written, or in any other manner made legible, except for the purpose of official instruction; that you will not vote, nor give your influence for any man for any office in the gift of the people, unless he be an American born citizen, in favor of Americans ruling America, nor if he be a Roman Catholic; that you will in all political matters, so far as this order is concerned, comply with the will of the majority, though it may conflict with your personal preference, so long as it does not conflict with the Constitution of the United States of America, or that of the state in which you reside; that you will not, under any circumstances whatever, knowingly recommend an unworthy person for initiation, nor suffer it to be done, if in your power to prevent it; that you will not, under any circumstances, expose the name of any member of this order, nor reveal the existence of such an association; that you will answer an imperative notice issued by the proper authority; obey the command of the state council, president, or his deputy, while assembled by such notice, and respond to the claim of a sign or cry of the order, unless it be physically impossible; and that you will acknowledge the State Council of —— as the legislative head, the ruling authority, and the supreme tribunal of the order in the state of ——, acting under the jurisdiction of the National Council of the United States of North America.

Binding yourself in the penalty of excommunication from the order, the forfeiture of all intercourse with its members, and being denounced in all the societies of the same, as a wilful traitor to your God and your country.

(The president shall call up every person present, by three blows of the gavel, when the candidates shall all repeat after the vice-president in concert:)

All this I voluntarily and sincerely promise, with a full understanding of the solemn sanctions and penalties.

Vice-President.—You have now taken solemn oaths, and made as sacred promises as man can make, that you will keep all our secrets inviolate; and we wish you distinctly to understand that he that takes these oaths and makes these promises, and then violates them, leaves the foul, the deep and blighting stain of perjury resting on his soul.

President.—(Having seated all by one blow of the gavel.)—Brother Instructor, these new brothers having complied with the demand of the order, are entitled to the secrets and privileges of the same. You will, therefore, invest them with everything appertaining to the first degree.

Instructor.—Brothers: the practices and proceedings in our order are as follows:

We have pass-words necessary to be used to obtain admission to our councils; forms for our conduct while there; means of recognizing each other when abroad; means of mutual protection; and methods for giving notices to members.

At the outer door you will[^[4]] (make any ordinary alarm to attract the attention of the outside sentinel).

When the wicket is opened you will pronounce the (words—what’s the pass), in a whisper. The outside sentinel will reply (Give it), when you will give the term pass-word and be admitted to the ante-room. You will then proceed to the inner door and give (one rap). When the wicket is opened, give your name, the number of, and location of your council, the explanation of the term pass, and the degree pass-word.

If these be found correct, you will be admitted; if not, your name will be reported to the vice president, and must be properly vouched for before you can gain admission to the council. You will then proceed to the centre of the room and address the (President) with the countersign, which is performed thus (placing the right hand diagonally across the mouth). When this salutation is recognized, you will quietly take your seat.

This sign is peculiar to this degree, and is never to be used outside the council room, nor during the conferring of this degree. When retiring, you will address the (Vice-President) in the same manner, and also give the degree pass-word to the inside sentinel.

The “term pass-word” is (We are).

(The pass-word and explanation is to be established by each State Council for its respective subordinates.)

The “explanation” of the “term pass,” to be used at the inner door, is (our country’s hope).

The “degree pass-word” is (Native).

The “traveling pass-word” is (The memory of our pilgrim fathers).

(This word is changed annually by the President of the National Council of the United States, and is to be made and used only when the brother is traveling beyond the jurisdiction of his own state, district, or territory. It and all other pass-words must be communicated in a whisper, and no brother is entitled to communicate them to another, without authority from the presiding officer.)

“The sign of recognition” is (grasping the right lappel of the coat with the right hand, the fore finger being extended inwards).

The “answer” is given by (a similar action with the left hand).

The “grip” is given by (an ordinary shake of the hand).

The person challenging shall (then draw the fore finger along the palm of the hand). The answer will be given by (a similar action forming a link by hooking together the ends of the fore finger); when the following conversation ensues—the challenging party first saying (is that yours?). The answer, (it is). Then the response (how did you get it?), followed by the rejoinder (it is my birthright).

Public notice for a meeting is given by means of a (piece of white paper the shape of a heart).

(In cities[^[5]] the *** of the *** where the meeting is to be held, will be written legibly upon the notice; and upon the election day said *** will denote the *** where your presence is needed. This notice will never be passed, but will be *** or thrown upon the sidewalk with a *** in the centre.)

If information is wanting of the object of the gathering, or of the place, &c., the inquirer will ask of an undoubted brother (where’s when?) The brother will give the information if possessed of it; if not it will be yours and his duty to continue the inquiry, and thus disseminate the call throughout the brotherhood.

If the color of the paper (be red), it will denote actual trouble, which requires that you come prepared to meet it.

The “cry of distress”—to be used only in time of danger, or where the American interest requires an immediate assemblage of the brethren—is (oh, oh, oh). The response is (hio, hio, h-i-o).

The “sign of caution”—to be given when a brother is speaking unguardedly before a stranger—is (drawing the fore finger and thumb together across the eyes, the rest of the hand being closed), which signifies “keep dark.”

Brothers, you are now initiated into and made acquainted with the work and organization of a council of this degree of the order; and the marshal will present you to the worthy president for admonition.

President.—It has no doubt, been long apparent to you, brothers, that foreign influence and Roman Catholicism have been making steady and alarming progress in our country. You cannot have failed to observe the significant transition of the foreigner and Romanist from a character quiet, retiring, and even abject, to one bold, threatening, turbulent, and despotic in its appearance and assumptions. You must have become alarmed at the systematic and rapidly augmenting power of these dangerous and unnatural elements of our national condition. So it is, brothers, with others beside yourselves in every state of the Union. A sense of danger has struck the great heart of the nation. In every city, town, and hamlet, the danger has been seen and the alarm sounded. And hence true men have devised this order as a means of disseminating patriotic principles, of keeping alive the fire of national virtue, of fostering the national intelligence, and of advancing America and the American interest on the one side, and on the other of checking the strides of the foreigner or alien, or thwarting the machinations and subverting the deadly plans of the papist and Jesuit.

Note.—The President shall impress upon the initiates the importance of secrecy, the manner of proceeding in recommending candidates for initiation, and the responsibility of the duties which they have assumed.

Second Degree Council.

Marshal.—Worthy President: These brothers have been duly elected to the second degree of this order. I present them to you for obligation.

President.—Brothers: You will place your left hand upon your right breast, and extend your right hand towards the flag of our country, preparatory to obligation. (Each council room should have a neat American flag festooned over the platform of the President.)

OBLIGATION.

You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, your left hand resting upon your right breast, and your right hand extended to the flag of your country, do solemnly and sincerely swear, that you will not under any circumstances disclose in any manner, nor suffer it to be done by others, if in your power to prevent it, the name, signs, pass-words, or other secrets of this degree, except in open council for the purpose of instruction; that you will in all things conform to all the rules and regulations of this order, and to the constitution and by-laws of this or any other council to which you may be attached, so long as they do not conflict with the Constitution of the United States, nor that of the State in which you reside; that you will under all circumstances, if in your power so to do, attend to all regular signs or summons that may be thrown or sent to you by a brother of this or any other degree of this order; that you will support in all political matters, for all political offices, members of this order in preference to other persons; that if it may be done legally, you will, when elected or appointed to any official station conferring on you the power to do so remove all foreigners, aliens, or Roman Catholics from office or place, and that you will in no case appoint such to any office or place in your gift. You do also promise and swear that this and all other obligations which you have previously taken in this order shall ever be kept through life sacred and inviolate. All this you promise and declare, as Americans, to sustain and abide by, without any hesitation or mental reservation whatever. So help you God and keep you steadfast.

(Each will answer “I do.”)

President.—Brother Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the instructor for instructions in the second degree of the order.

Marshal.—Brother Instructor, by direction of our worthy president, I present these brothers before you that you may instruct them in the secrets and mysteries of the second degree of the order.

Instructor.—Brothers, in this degree we have an entering sign and a countersign. At the outer door proceed (as in the first degree). At the inner door you will make (two raps), and proceed as in the first degree, giving the second degree pass-word, which is American, instead of that of the first degree. If found to be correct, you will then be admitted, and proceed (to the centre of the room), giving the countersign, which is made thus (extending the right arm to the national flag over the president, the palm of the hand being upwards).

The sign of recognition in this degree is the same as in the first degree, with the addition of (the middle finger), and the response to be made in a (similar manner).

Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the worthy president for admonition.

Marshal.—Worthy President, I now present these candidates to you for admonition.

President.—Brothers, you are now duly initiated into the second degree of this order. Renewing the congratulations which we extended to you upon your admission to the first degree, we admonish you by every tie that may nerve patriots, to aid us in our efforts to restore the political institutions of our country to their original purity. Begin with the youth of our land. Instil into their minds the lessons of our country’s history—the glorious battles and the brilliant deeds of patriotism of our fathers, through which we received the inestimable blessings of civil and religious liberty. Point them to the example of the sages and the statesmen who founded our government. Implant in their bosoms an ardent love for the Union. Above all else, keep alive in their bosoms the memory, the maxims, and the deathless example of our illustrious Washington.

Brothers, recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have severally taken in this and the first degree, I now pronounce you entitled to all the privileges of membership in this the second degree of our order.

Third Degree Council.

Marshal.—Worthy President, these brothers having been duly elected to the third degree of this order, I present them before you for obligation.

President.—Brothers, you will place yourselves in a circle around me, each one crossing your arms upon your breasts, and grasping firmly each other’s hands, holding the right hand of the brother on the right and the left hand of the brother on the left, so as to form a circle, symbolical of the links of an unbroken chain, and of a ring which has no end.

Note.—This degree is to be conferred with the national flag elevated in the centre of the circle, by the side of the president or instructor, and not on less than five at any one time, in order to give it solemnity, and also for the formation of the circle—except in the first instance of conferring it on the officers of the state and subordinate councils, that they may be empowered to progress with the work.

The obligation and charge in this degree may be given by the president or instructor, as the president may prefer.

OBLIGATION.

You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, with your hands joined in token of that fraternal affection which should ever bind together the States of this Union—forming a ring, in token of your determination that, so far as your efforts can avail, this Union shall have no end—do solemnly and sincerely swear [or affirm] that you will not under any circumstances disclose in any manner, nor suffer it to be done by others if in your power to prevent it, the name, signs, pass-words, or other secrets of this degree, except to those to whom you may prove on trial to be brothers of the same degree, or in open council, for the purpose of instruction; that you do hereby solemnly declare your devotion to the Union of these States; that in the discharge of your duties as American citizens, you will uphold, maintain, and defend it; that you will discourage and discountenance any and every attempt, coming from any and every quarter, which you believe to be designed or calculated to destroy or subvert it, or to weaken its bonds; and that you will use your influence, so far as in your power, in endeavoring to procure an amicable and equitable adjustment of all political discontents or differences which may threaten its injury or overthrow. You further promise and swear [or affirm] that you will not vote for any one to fill any office of honor, profit or trust of a political character, whom you know or believe to be in favor of a dissolution of the Union of these States, or who is endeavoring to produce that result; that you will vote for and support for all political offices, third or union degree members of this order in preference to all others; that if it may be done consistently with the constitution and laws of the land, you will, when elected or appointed to any official station which may confer on you the power to do so, remove from office or place all persons whom you know or believe to be in favor of a dissolution of the Union, or who are endeavoring to produce that result; and that you will in no case appoint such person to any political office or place whatever. All this you promise and swear [or affirm] upon your honor as American citizens and friends of the American Union, to sustain and abide by without any hesitation or mental reservation whatever. You also promise and swear [or affirm] that this and all other obligations which you have previously taken in this order, shall ever be kept sacred and inviolate. To all this you pledge your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honors. So help you God and keep you steadfast.

(Each one shall answer, “I do.”)

President.—Brother Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the instructor for final instruction in this third degree of the order.

Marshal.—Instructor, by direction of our worthy president, I present these brothers before you that you may instruct them in the secrets and mysteries of this the third degree of our order.

Instructor.—Brothers, in this degree as in the second, we have an entering pass-word, a degree pass-word, and a token of salutation. At the outer door (make any ordinary alarm. The outside sentinel will say U; you say ni; the sentinel will rejoin on). This will admit you to the inner door. At the inner door you will make (three) distinct (raps), Then announce your name, with the number (or name) and location of the council to which you belong, giving the explanation to the pass-word, which is (safe). If found correct, you will then be admitted, when you will proceed to the centre of the room, and placing the (hands on the breast with the fingers interlocked), give the token of salutation, which is (by bowing to the president). You will then quietly take your seat.

The sign of recognition is made by the same action as in the second degree, with the addition of (the third finger), and the response is made by (a similar action with the left hand).

(The grip is given by taking hold of the hand in the usual way, and then by slipping the finger around on the top of the thumb; then extending the little finger and pressing the inside of the wrist. The person challenging shall say, do you know what that is? The answer is yes. The challenging party shall say, further, what is it? The answer is, Union.)

[The instructor will here give the grip of this degree, with explanations, and also the true pass-word of this degree, which is (Union).]

CHARGE.

To be given by the president.

Brothers, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate you upon your advancement to the third degree of our order. The responsibilities you have now assumed, are more serious and weighty than those which preceded, and are committed to such only as have been tried and found worthy. Our obligations are intended as solemn avowals of our duty to the land that gave us birth; to the memories of our fathers; and to the happiness and welfare of our children. Consecrating to your country a spirit unselfish and a fidelity like that which distinguished the patriots of the Revolution, you have pledged your aid in cementing the bonds of a Union which we trust will endure for ever. Your deportment since your initiation has attested your devotion to the principles we desire to establish, and has inspired a confidence in your patriotism, of which we can give no higher proof than your reception here.

The dangers which threaten American liberty arise from foes without and from enemies within. The first degree pointed out the source and nature of our most imminent peril, and indicated the first measure of safety. The second degree defined the next means by which, in coming time, such assaults may be rendered harmless. The third degree, which you have just received, not only reiterates the lessons of the other two, but it is intended to avoid and provide for a more remote, but no less terrible danger, from domestic enemies to our free institutions.

Our object is briefly this:—to perfect an organization modeled after that of the Constitution of the United States, and coextensive with the confederacy. Its object and principles, in all matters of national concern, to be uniform and identical whilst in all local matters the component parts shall remain independent and sovereign within their respective limits.

The great result to be attained—the only one which can secure a perfect guarantee as to our future—is UNION; permanent, enduring, fraternal UNION! Allow me, then, to impress upon your minds and memories the touching sentiments of the Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address:—

“The unity of government which constitutes you one people,” says Washington, “is justly dear to you, for it is the main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, of your peace abroad, of your safety, your prosperity—even that liberty you so justly prize.

“* * * It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your National Union, to your collective and individual happiness. You should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it, as the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now bind together the various parts.”

Let these words of paternal advice and warning, from the greatest man that ever lived, sink deep into your hearts. Cherish them, and teach your children to reverence them, as you cherish and reverence the memory of Washington himself. The Union of these states is the great conservator of that liberty so dear to the American heart. Without it, our greatness as a nation would disappear, and our boasted self-government prove a signal failure. The very name of liberty, and the hopes of struggling freedom throughout the world, must perish in the wreck of this Union. Devote yourselves, then, to its maintenance, as our fathers did to the cause of independence; consecrating to its support, as you have sworn to do, your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honors.

Brothers: Recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have severally taken in this and the preceding degrees, I now pronounce you entitled to all the privileges of membership in this organization, and take pleasure in informing you that you are now members of the order of (the American Union.)