It appeared to me, that our western members were more eloquent on the Oregon question than the eastern members, and that the eastern members beat the western ones on the tariff question all hollow. The eastern members were learned, eloquent and sensible whenever they spoke of manufactures, commerce or trade. These speeches, properly digested, would make an instructive and useful volume, that would be read by every body.
I took an interest in the army bill, and contrived to hear a great deal of its discussion. M’Cay, Cave Johnson and Black of Carolina never spoke a word in vain. Mr. Black deserves a great deal of credit for his exertions to reform the abuses of the patronage of the government. The mad ravings of the pets against him are recommendations of him to his constituent, as their faithful sentinel in Congress. He represents a hardy, patriotic race of men, whose ancesters fought bravely and well for their country in the war of the revolution. The Cowpens, King’s mountain, and all that country round about them are immortalised by deeds of arms; and by patriotic devotion to the interests and the glory of our common country. The nation owes that people a debt of gratitude.
I spent an evening with Mr. Black and Mr. Simpson, of Pendleton, S. Carolina, at their lodgings in the old capitol, kept by Mrs. Hill. They are excellent members of Congress, honest, capable and faithful representatives—none better. They are friendly to Mr. Calhoun. Mr. Black was born near Mr. Calhoun, that is within five miles of him, and Mr. Simpson lives where Mr. Calhoun does, and is his near neighbor. He thinks highly of Mr. Calhoun’s family and says that it is the happiest and the best one he ever knew. If my memory serves me, I think there is a sort of relationship by marriage between Mr. Simpson and Mr. Calhoun.
In the Senate are a great many good speakers. I heard Allen, Tappan, Choate, Benton, Woodbury, Buchanan, Crittenden, Upham, Morehead and several others, who spoke well and argued clearly, distinctly and to the purpose. I have not room for a criticism on their manner and matter, but I was pleased to hear them speak so well on all occasions. I wished to hear Rives and Archer, but did not get an opportunity to hear them, or even become personally acquainted with them. As a Senate, we need not be ashamed of that body, but the reverse in all respects. M’Duffie appears to be out of health, and I fear that he is in a decline that will carry him off before many years. I should have been glad to hear Bayard of Delaware, to ascertain whether he inherits his father’s talents, but I never heard him. Foster of Tennessee, I know to be a man of talents and an excellent senator, but I had not the pleasure to hear him. He stands high at the bar as a lawyer, and no one is more beloved than I know him to be by his neighbors in Nashville, where he lives when at home. Talented, learned and good, Tennessee may well be proud of her beloved son.
General King has gone to Russia, and Lewis has taken his place. General King, like his friend Buchanan, is a bachelor; so he can go abroad, having no family to detain him here.
A Digression.
The influence of the Christian religion, it appears to me, begins to operate beneficially on our legislative assemblies, and it is to be hoped that it will in the end melt down in its crucible our whole people. That religion is the great fountain-head of republics. It teaches us that our Creator is our Father, and that we are all brethren. In some respects, there is a falling off from the practices of our fathers—for instance, family government is not what it once was. In former days we had infancy, youth and age, but by the present generation youth is struck out of human life altogether. A boy or a girl five years old, assumes the dress, the manners and the airs of a young gentleman or a young lady. Last January, at my room, in the Broadstreet Hotel, in New York, after hearing their youngest child read to me, (she was only about four years old) I inquired of her, if her sister never curled her hair? which hung in beautiful ringlets on her head. She replied, that “her sister Sarah would, within a few days, curl her hair, and then she was to have a beau!” The remark pleased me greatly, because it was so characteristic of these times. No sooner is the hippen laid aside, than the pantaloons, and the boots, and the cocked-up hat follow, as the dress of the boy—and the girl, is dressed like a young lady. Her locks are curled, and she looks around her for a beau! Of these things we mean not to complain, but we merely note them as a change effected in our manners, since the last age, whether for better or for worse, we do not say. The days of our fathers are gone by, and this generation assumes to be wiser than the former one was, but whether a better one, on the whole, is at best doubtful with me.
We prefer Old Virginia, with her old principles to all her new fangled ideas. In some things she may be behind the age, but that does not convince me that she is the worse on that account. I prefer the principles of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Marshall and Upshur, to those of Aaron Burr and the spoilers. The former are pure gold, in my estimation, and the latter are mere dross. The sons, and the descendants generally of the Randolphs, the Lees, the Masons, and a long list of Pendletons and other revolutionary patriots are true to the principles of their ancesters and the republic. Long may such men and such principles shed a lustre on the Old Dominion. Rives and Archer represent Virginian interest and principles in the Senate of the United States. In the other house I am ignorant, wholly, as to their representatives, and so I say nothing of them. Gilmer was quite popular in the House, but he is no more. Summers is a western Virginian—so western that he is exactly like an Ohioan in his manners and feelings. He lives on the Kenhawa, and truly and efficiently represents the people who send him to Congress.
From our digression we come back to say, on the subject of the tariff, that the eastern members appeared to us to have the better arguments. They said, in substance, that the tariff of 1842 had injured no interest of our country; that agriculture was more prosperous than before; that manufactures were more flourishing; that our navigation was more active; public and private credit was restored, both at home and abroad. These members then enquired, whether it was wise, prudent and statesmanlike to change a law that worked so well? They contended that the experience of all nations proved that sudden and frequent changes in the laws of any country, were highly injurious to all classes of people. We do not use the very words, but we give the sum and the substance of what fell from the lips of many friends of the present tariff law. It appeared to me that those who wished a new tariff, took a very narrow view of the subject. They looked at what they considered the interest of their several districts of country, without looking further around them on the whole Union. It is a matter of opinion, and feeling as I certainly did, coolly and calmly, I made up a deliberate judgement, as disinterested as it could be. We in Ohio are an agricultural, manufacturing and commercial people. These interests are in reality the same; they prosper or fall together. Mr. Jefferson, by his embargoes and restrictive measures, made the people of New England a manufacturing people, against their wills at first, but following his advice, they became a manufacturing as well as a commercial people. Their industry, perseverance and energy made them prosperous and rich. The change in their pursuits ruined thousands of them at the time, but as soon as their prosperity was everywhere apparent, there were not wanting those, who envied and wished to ruin that prosperity by frequent changes in our tariff laws. Those who wished to check their prosperity, remind us of a private soldier in the revolutionary war, while he was suffering corporeal punishment. When the lash fell upon his shoulders, he cried out, “strike lower, strike lower!” but when the lash struck his loins, he cried out, “strike higher.” Strike where the corporal would, the culprit was not at all satisfied with the blows, nor pleased with the corporal himself. Could all our people be willing “to live and let live,” it appears to us that we should all be happier and better off, and in that way become an united people in the bonds of mutual interest and mutual affection.
All laws calculated to affect a whole nation should never be changed for slight causes, nor changed without giving the people, and the whole people, time to duly reflect upon such changes, in all their bearings on the whole people. Such are our ideas of that republican form of government, which was erected by our fathers, to promote the happiness of the people, aye, of the whole people. Keeping this great object in view, the laws should be plain, simple and few, and be changed as seldom as possible, otherwise no man in any business can make any safe calculations as to the course he should pursue—what plans he should form, or how he can execute them. There is an union of interests, not always duly considered. The farmer, the mechanic, the manufacturer, the merchant and the mariner have precisely the same interests in the prosperity of all the great interests of all our people. Destroy or greatly injure any one class of people, and the whole body politic feels the wound and suffers by the injury. One class may feel it first, but in the end, all feel it.