[46]. Joshua Bates, Esq., long the American partner of the house of Baring Brothers & Co., and for many years its head.
[47]. General Jackson’s first term extended from March 4th, 1829, to March 4th, 1833. His second term ended March 4th, 1837.
[48]. Upon this vexed question of instruction there is perhaps no more important distinction than that which was drawn by Mr. Webster in his celebrated speech of March 7, 1850: namely, that where a State has an interest of her own, not adverse to the general interest of the country, a Senator is bound to follow the direction which he receives from the legislature; but if the question be one which affects her interests, and at the same time affects equally the interests of all the other States, the Senator is not bound to obey the will of the State, because he is in the position of an arbitrator or referee. The first proposition seems evident enough, but of course it embraces none but a limited class of questions. It is in the far more numerous cases which fall under the second proposition that the difficulty inherent in the doctrine of instruction arises. Mr. Buchanan, it will be seen hereafter, consistently acted upon the view with which he began his senatorial career.
[49]. General Jackson himself continued, during his Presidency and after his retirement, in his correspondence to apply to his party the term “Republican.”
[50]. John Sargent of Pennsylvania was the Whig candidate for the Vice-Presidency along with Mr. Clay, and he received the same electoral vote.
[51]. The secret history of such collisions between governments not infrequently throws an unexpected light upon their public aspects. When General Jackson was preparing his annual message of December, 1834, some of his friends in Washington were very anxious that it should not be too peremptory on the subject of the French payment. At their request, Mr. Justice Catron, of the Supreme Court, waited upon the President, and advised a moderate tone. The President took from his drawer an autograph letter from King Louis Philippe, and handed it to the judge to read. In this letter the king represented that a war between the United States and France would be especially disastrous to the wine-growing districts, and that the interests of those provinces could be relied upon to oppose it; but that it was necessary that the alternative of war should be distinctly presented as certain to follow a final refusal of the Chambers to make the payment demanded. The king therefore urged General Jackson to adopt a very decided tone in his message, being confident that, if he did so, the opposition would give way and war would be avoided.
Another anecdote concerning this message was communicated to the writer from an entirely authentic source. After the message had been written, some of its expressions were softened by a member of the Cabinet, before the MS. was sent to the printer, without the President’s knowledge. When it was in type, the confidential proof-reader of the Globe office took the proof-sheets to the President; and he afterwards, said that he never before knew what profane swearing was. General Jackson promptly restored his own language to the proof-sheets.
[52]. Mr. Ticknor, writing from Paris, February, 1836, said: “One thing, however, has done us much honor. General Jackson’s message, as far as France is concerned,—for they know nothing about the rest of it,—has been applauded to the skies. The day it arrived I happened to dine with the Russian minister here, in a party of about thirty persons, and I assure you it seemed to me as if nine-and-twenty of them came up to me with congratulations. I was really made to feel awkward at last; but this has been the tone all over the Continent, where they have been confoundedly afraid we might begin a war which would end no prophecy could tell where.” (Life, &c., of George Ticknor, I. 480.) Count Pozzo di Borgo’s company would not be likely to be composed of persons sympathizing with the French opposition.
[53]. The writer has had occasion to treat of this occurrence more at length in his Life of Mr. Webster. He has there expressed the opinion that if the friends of the President, when they obtained a majority in the Senate, had contented themselves with adopting a resolution exonerating him from the censure passed in 1834, no one could have complained. Probably they would have done so, if the circumstances attending the adoption of Mr. Clay’s resolution had not provoked them to devise what they regarded as an imposing form of stigmatizing that act. All that is of any consequence now, in relation to this proceeding, turns upon the contradiction between the constitutional requirement to “keep” a legislative journal, and a subsequent obliteration or cancellation of any part of it, by any means whatever. On this subject, see the protest read in the Senate by Mr. Webster, in his Life, by the present writer, vol. I, p. 545, et seq.
[54]. Dr. Parrish, Wm. Wharton, Joseph Foulke.