| The passage of the Tariff Bill. |
Calhoun was in his thirty-fifth year when he advanced these views. The sentiments which they revealed cannot, therefore, be ascribed to the enthusiasm of youth and inexperience. They rested upon the settled convictions of a mature man. They stand in need of no comment. They speak for themselves. We shall search the reports of the debate in vain for anything wiser, nobler, or more patriotic. In comparison with them the views pronounced by the New Englanders upon the subject appear narrow and selfish. They were willing to sacrifice the industrial independence of the nation to their own interests in the carrying trade upon the sea. Even the name of Webster is not to be found among those who voted for the final passage of the bill. The majority in its favor was, however, nearly two to one. In the Senate, the vote was nearly four to one for it. Though Southern in its immediate origin, it certainly had the support of the nation, and was regarded as a great measure of national independence. The opposition made to it by Randolph and Telfair, and by the remnant of the New England Federalists, was regarded as unnational and unpatriotic. It contributed to the complete disappearance of the Federal party from the arena of national politics.
| The Army and Navy Bills. |
This Congress gave, however, an even surer test of the growth of the national spirit among the people than either the Bank Act or the Tariff Act. It was the series of acts for the increase of the Army and the Navy, and for their thorough reorganization. The Republican doctrine of 1800 was, that there was no need of a national army; that the militias of the Commonwealths were a sufficient military force; and that a standing army was dangerous to liberty. By the Act of March 16th, 1802, Congress fixed the peace establishment at two regiments of infantry, and one regiment of artillerists, not more than thirty-five hundred men. No increase of this force had been permitted between 1802 and 1812.
During the War of 1812-15, the Commonwealths of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut taught the nation how much, or rather how little, reliance was to be placed upon the militias of the Commonwealths in the defence of the country against foreign attack. In spite of the plain provision of the Constitution, and the Act of Congress in accordance therewith, empowering the President to call the militias of the Commonwealths into the service of the United States, the Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut disputed the President's authority in this respect and refused compliance with his orders. Well might the President complain that, even upon this most essential point, the military organization, the United States was not a nation. With such an experience as this, Congress and the people were thoroughly converted from the particularistic doctrinism of 1800, and now manifested their strong national spirit in the willingness to place a large standing military force in the hands of the central Government in times of peace.
By the Act of March 3rd, 1816, Congress fixed the peace footing of the Army at ten thousand men, excluding the corps of engineers; and by the Act of April 24th, of the same year, it reorganized, or rather re-created, the general staff, upon the principle that the staff should be as complete in time of peace as in time of war.
The Navy received similar attention and favor. By the Act of April 29th, 1816, Congress appropriated eight millions of dollars for the construction of nine seventy-four-gun ships, twelve forty-four-gun ships, and three steam batteries.
Evidently the fear that the President would, by virtue of his power as commander-in-chief of a large standing army and navy, declare himself emperor, and make the military and naval officers his dukes and counts, had vanished in the smoke of the burned Capitol, and, in place of this silly terror of crowns and diadems, a thoroughgoing confidence in the national Government had established itself in the brain and heart of the people and of their leaders.