“The gentleman from Maine seems to apprehend great danger to the navy from the passage of this bill. He appears to think it will fall with so much oppression upon our navigation and fisheries, that these nurseries of seamen for the navy may be greatly injured, if not altogether destroyed.
“In regard to the value and importance of a navy to this country, I cordially agree with the gentleman from Maine. Every prejudice of my youth was enlisted in its favor, and the judgment of riper years has strengthened and confirmed those early impressions. It is the surest bond of our Union. The Western States have a right to demand from this government that the mouth of the Mississippi shall be kept open, both in war and in peace. If you should not afford them a free passage to the ocean, you cannot expect to retain them in the Union; they are, therefore, as much, if not more, interested in cherishing the navy than any other portion of the Republic. The feeling in its favor contains in it nothing sectional—it is general. We are all interested in its preservation and extension. Unlike standing armies, a navy never did, nor ever will, destroy the liberties of any country. It is our most efficient and least dangerous arm of defence.
“To what, then, does the argument of the gentleman lead? Although iron, and hemp, and flax, and their manufactures, are essential to the very existence of a navy, yet he would make us dependent for them upon the will of the Emperor of Russia, or the King of Sweden. A statesman would as soon think of being dependent on a foreign nation for gunpowder, or cannon, or cannon-balls, or muskets, as he would for the supply of iron, or flax, or hemp, for our navy. Even if these articles could not be produced as cheaply in this as in other countries, upon great national principles, then domestic production ought to be encouraged, even if it did tax the community. They are absolutely necessary for our defence. Without them, what would become of you, if engaged in war with a great naval power? You would then be as helpless as if you were deprived of gunpowder or of cannon. Without them, your navy would be perfectly useless. Shall we, then, in a country calculated by nature above all others for their production, refuse to lend them a helping hand? I trust not.
“The gentleman from Maine has said much about our fisheries, and the injurious effects which the present bill will have upon them. From this argument, I was induced again to read the bill, supposing that it might possibly contain some latent provision, hostile to the fisheries, which I had not been able to detect. Indeed, one might have supposed, judging merely from the remarks of the gentleman, without a reference to the bill, that it aimed a deadly blow against this valuable branch of our national industry. I could find nothing in it, which even touched the fisheries. They have ever been special favorites of our legislation. I shall not pretend to enumerate, because the task might seem invidious, the different acts of Congress affording them protection. They are numerous. The gentleman has, in my opinion, been very unfortunate in his complaints that they have not been sufficiently protected. From the origin of this government, they have been cherished, in every possible manner, by our legislation. For their benefit we have adopted a system of prohibitions, of drawbacks, and of bounties, unknown to our laws in relation to any other subject. They have grown into national importance, and have become a great interest of the country. They should continue to be cherished, because they are the best nurseries of our seamen. I would not withdraw from them an atom of the protection which they have received; on the contrary, I should cheerfully vote them new bounties, if new bounties were necessary to sustain them. They are the very last interest in the country which ought to complain.
“The gentleman, whilst he strenuously opposed any additional protection to domestic iron, and domestic hemp, surely could not have remembered, that the productions of the fisheries enjoy a monopoly of the home market. The duties in their favor are so high as to exclude foreign competition. We do not ask such prohibitory duties upon foreign iron, flax, or hemp. We demand but a moderate increase; and yet the fisheries, which are protected by prohibitory duties, meet us and deny to us this reasonable request.”[request.”]
That Mr. Buchanan’s opposition to the administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams was not carried on in the spirit of a partisan is evinced by his action on an appropriation asked for to enable the Executive to continue and complete a system of surveys, preparatory to a general plan of internal improvements. There was much opposition to this appropriation, especially on the part of those who denied the power of the General Government to make such public works as were then classed as “internal improvements.” Mr. Buchanan met their objections as follows:
Mr. Buchanan expressed his dissent from the opinions avowed by the two gentlemen who had preceded him. The true question ought to be distinctly stated. The act of 1824 sanctioned the policy, not of immediately entering upon a plan of internal improvement, but of preparing for it, by obtaining surveys, plans, and estimates in relation to the various roads and canals that were required throughout the country. The sum of $30,000 had been appropriated, not for a single year, but for a specific purpose, which purpose had not yet been accomplished. Many surveys were now in progress, which were not more than half completed, and the question was whether the House would withdraw the means of completing them. A discussion of the general policy of the plan was out of place on an appropriation bill. Whatever might be decided as to carrying such a system of internal improvement into effect, these surveys were of great advantage to the American people. Should that system never be adopted, this mass of information could not fail to be useful. The constitutional question of power did not fairly arise on a proposal to employ the engineers already at the disposal of the War Department, in a particular manner.
Should the time ever arrive when we have more in the Treasury than we know what to do with, the argument of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Barbour] might have some force. But the question now was, whether the House would arrest these surveys? Mr. B., for one, would not do it. He would give the administration the sum now asked, and would hold them responsible for its application.
There is no more interesting part of Mr. Buchanan’s early Congressional career than his course on the subject of the Cumberland Road. We have seen that when he first had occasion to act on this subject as a member of Congress, he was inclined to accept the doctrine that Congress had power to establish this road, and to levy tolls for its support. But he had not then closely examined this subject. Mr. Monroe’s message vetoing the Cumberland Road bill of 1822 produced in Mr. Buchanan’s mind a decided change. At a subsequent session, he endeavored, but without success, to have the road retroceded to the States through which it passed, on condition that they would support it by levying tolls.[[24]] In 1828–29 he renewed this effort, and on the 29th of January, 1829, he made an elaborate speech upon the whole subject, which is of sufficient interest and importance to warrant its reproduction entire. As a constitutional argument it is valuable; and for its independent attitude towards the people of his own State, it is exceedingly creditable to him as a public man.
Mr. Buchanan said that the bill and the amendment now before the committee presented a subject for discussion of the deepest interest to the American people. It is not a question (said Mr. B.) whether we shall keep the road in repair by appropriations; nor whether we shall expend other millions in constructing other Cumberland roads—these would be comparatively unimportant; but it is a question upon the determination of which, in my humble judgment, depend the continued existence of the Federal Constitution in anything like its native purity. Let it once be established that the Federal Government can enter the dominion of the States; interfere with their domestic concerns; erect toll-gates over all the military, commercial, and post-roads within their territories, and define and punish, by laws of Congress, in the courts of the United States, offences committed upon these roads,—and the barriers which were erected by our ancestors with so much care, between Federal and State power, are entirely prostrated. This single act would, in itself, be a longer stride towards consolidation than the Federal Government have ever made; and it would be a precedent for establishing a construction for the Federal Constitution so vague and so indefinite, that it might be made to mean anything or nothing.