The federal constitution differs in its nature—and differs fundamentally from those of the States. The States, being original sovereignties, may do what they are not prohibited from doing; the federal government, being derivative, and carved out of the States, is like a corporation, the creature of the act which creates it, and can only do what it can show a grant for doing. Now the moneyed power of the federal government is contained in a grant from the States, and that grant authorizes money to be raised either by loans, duties or taxes, for the purpose of paying the debts, supporting the government, and providing for the common defence of the Union. These are the objects to which money may be applied, and this grant to Mrs. Harrison can come within neither of them.
But, gentlemen say this is no pension—it is not an annual payment, but a payment in hand. I say so, too, and that it is so much the more objectionable on that account. A pension must have some rule to go by—so much a month—and generally a small sum, the highest on our pension roll being thirty dollars—and it terminates in a reasonable time, usually five years, and at most for life. A pension granted to Mrs. Harrison on this principle, could amount to no great sum—to a mere fraction, at most, of these twenty-five thousand dollars. It is not a pension, then, but a gift—a gratuity—a large present—a national recompense; and the more objectionable for being so. Neither our constitution, nor the genius of our government, admits of such benefactions. National recompenses are high rewards, and require express powers to grant them in every limited government. The French Consular Constitution of the year 1799, authorized such recompenses; ours does not, and it has not yet been attempted, even in military cases. We have not yet voted a fortune to an officer's or a soldier's family, to lift them from poverty to wealth. These recompenses are worse than pensions: they are equally unfounded in the constitution, more incapable of being governed by any rule, and more susceptible of great and dangerous abuse. We have no rule to go by in fixing the amount. Every one goes by feeling—by his personal or political feeling—or by a cry got up at home, and sent here to act upon him. Hence the diversity of the opinions as to the proper sum to be given. Some gentlemen are for the amount in the bill; some are for double that amount; and some are for nothing. This diversity itself is an argument against the measure. It shows that it has no natural foundation—nothing to rest upon—nothing to go by; no rule, no measure, no standard, by which to compute or compare it. It is all guess-work—the work of the passions or policy—of faction or of party.
By our constitution, the persons who fill offices are to receive a compensation for their services; and, in many cases, this compensation is neither to be increased nor diminished during the period for which the person shall have been elected; and in some there is a prohibition against receiving presents either from foreign States, or from the United States, or from the States of the Union. The office of President comes under all these restrictions, and shows how jealous the framers of the constitution were, of any moneyed influence being brought to bear upon the Chief Magistrate of the Union. All these limitations are for obvious and wise reasons. The President's salary is not to be diminished during the time for which he was elected, lest his enemies, if they get the upper hand of him in Congress, should deprive him of his support, and starve him out of office. It is not to be increased, lest his friends, if they get the upper hand, should enrich him at the public expense; and he is not to receive "any other emolument," lest the provision against an increase of salary should be evaded by the grant of gross sums. These are the constitutional provisions; but to what effect are they, if the sums can be granted to the officer's family, which cannot be granted to himself?—if his widow—his wife—his children can receive what he cannot? In this case, the term for which General Harrison was elected, is not out. It has not expired; and Congress cannot touch his salary or bestow upon him or his, any emolument without a breach of the constitution.
It is in vain to look to general clauses of the constitution. Besides the general spirit of the instrument, there is a specific clause upon the subject of the President's salary and emoluments. It forbids him any compensation, except at stated times, for services rendered; it forbids increase or diminution; and it forbids all emolument. To give salary or emolument to his family, is a mere evasion of this clause. His family is himself—so far as property is concerned, a man's family is himself. And many persons would prefer to have money or property conveyed to his family, or some member of it, because it would then receive the destination which his will would give it, and would be free from the claims or contingencies to which his own property—that in his own name—would be subject. There is nothing in the constitution to warrant this proceeding, and there is much in it to condemn it. It is condemned by all the clauses which relate to the levy, and the application of money; and it is specially condemned by the precise clause which regulates the compensation of the President, and which clause would control any other part of the constitution which might come in conflict with it. Condemned upon the constitutional test, how stands this bill on the question of policy and expediency? It is condemned—utterly condemned, and reprobated, upon that test! The view which I have already presented of the difference between military and naval services (and I always include the naval when I speak of the military) shows that the former are proper subjects for pensions—the latter not. The very nature of the service makes the difference. Differing in principle, as the military and civil pensions do, they differ quite as much when you come to details, and undertake to administer the two classes of rewards. The military has something to go by—some limit to it—and provides for classes of individuals—not for families or for individuals—one by one. Though subject to great abuse, yet the military pensions have some limit—some boundary—to their amount placed upon them. They are limited at least to the amount of armies, and the number of wars. Our armies are small, and our wars few and far between. We have had but two with a civilized power in sixty years. Our navy, also, is limited; and compared to the mass of the population, the army and navy must be always small. Confined to their proper subjects, and military and naval pensions have limits and boundaries which confine them within some bounds; and then the law is the same for all persons of the same rank. The military and naval pensioners are not provided for individually, and therefore do not become a subject of favoritism, of party, or of faction. Not so with civil pensions. There is no limit upon them. They may apply to the family of every person civilly employed—that is, to almost every body—and this without intermission of time; for civil services go on in peace and war, and the claims for them will be eternal when once begun. Then again civil pensions and grants of money are given individually, and not by classes, and every case is governed by the feeling of the moment, and the predominance of the party to which the individual belonged. Every case is the sport of party, of faction, of favoritism; and of feelings excited and got up for the occasion. Thus it is in England, and thus it will be here. The English civil pension list is dreadful, both for the amount paid, and the nature of the services rewarded; but it required centuries for England to ripen her system. Are we to begin it in the first half century of our existence? and begin it without rule or principle to go by? Every thing to be left to impulse and favor—by the politics of the individual, his party affinities, and the political complexion of the party in power.
Gentlemen refuse to commit themselves on the record; but they have reasons; and we have heard enough, here and elsewhere, to have a glimpse of what they are. First, poverty: as if that was any reason for voting a fortune to a family, even if it was true! If it was a reason, one half of the community might be packed upon the backs of the other. Most of our public men die poor; many of them use up their patrimonial inheritances in the public service; yet, until now, the reparation of ruined fortune has not been attempted out of the public Treasury. Poverty would not do, if it was true, but here it is not true: the lady in question has a fine estate, and certainly has not applied for this money. No petition of hers is here! No letter, even, that we have heard of! So far as we know, she is ignorant of the proceeding! Certain it is, she has not applied for this grant, either on the score of poverty, or any thing else. Next, election expenses are mentioned; but that would seem to be a burlesque upon the character of our republican institutions. Certainly no candidate for the presidency ought to electioneer for it—spend money for it—and if he did, the public Treasury ought not to indemnify him. Travelling expenses coming on to the seat of government, are next mentioned; but these could be but a trifle, even if the President elect came at his own expense. But we know to the contrary. We know that the contest is for the honor of bringing him; that conveyances and entertainments are prepared; and that friends dispute for precedence in the race of lifting and helping along, and ministering to every want of the man who is so soon to be the dispenser of honor and fortune in the shape of office and contracts. Such a man cannot travel at his own expense. Finally, the fire in the roof of the west wing of the North Bend mansion has been mentioned; but Jackson had the whole Hermitage burnt to the ground when he was President, and would have scorned a gift from the public Treasury to rebuild it. Such are the reasons mentioned in debate, or elsewhere, for this grant. Their futility is apparent on their face, and is proved by the unwillingness of gentlemen to state them in a report, or a preamble, or in the body of the bill itself.
[CHAPTER LXXII.]
ABUSE OF THE NAVAL PENSION SYSTEM: VAIN ATTEMPT TO CORRECT IT.
The annual bill for these pensions being on its passage, an attempt was made to correct the abuse introduced by the act of 1837. That act had done four things:—1. It had carried back the commencement of invalid naval pensions to the time of receiving the inability, instead of the time of completing the proof. 2. It extended the pensions for death to all cases of death, whether incurred in the line of duty or not. 3. It extended the widows' pensions for life, when five years had been the law both in the army and the navy. 4. It pensioned children until twenty-one years of age, thereby adopting the English pension system. The effects of these changes were 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, the previous as well as the future, upon the public treasury—where it was never intended they were to be. This act, so novel in its character—so plundering in its effects—and introducing such fatal principles into the naval pension system, and which it has been found so difficult to get rid of—was one of the deplorable instances of midnight legislation, on the last night of the session; when, in the absence of many, the haste of all, the sleepiness of some, and a pervading inattention, an enterprising member can get almost any thing passed through—and especially as an amendment. It was at a time like this that this pension act was passed, the night of March 3d, 1837—its false and deceptive title ("An act for the more equitable administration of the Navy Pension Fund") being probably as much of it as was heard by the few members who heard any thing about it; and the word "equitable," so untruly and deceptiously inserted, probably the only part of it which lodged on their minds. And in that way was passed an act which instantly pillaged a sacred fund of one million two hundred thousand dollars—which has thrown the naval pensioners upon the Treasury, instead of the old navy pension fund, for their support—which introduced the English pension system—which was so hard to repeal; and which has still all its burdens on our finances, and some of its principles in our laws. It is instructive to learn the history of such legislation, and to see its power (a power inherent in the very nature of an abuse, and the greater in proportion to the greatness of the abuse) to resist correction: and with this view the brief debate on an ineffectual attempt in the Senate to repeal the act of this session is here given—Mr. Reuel Williams, of Maine, having the honor to commence the movement.
"The naval pension appropriation bill being under consideration, Mr. Williams offered an amendment, providing for the repeal of the act of 1837; and went at some length into the reasons in favor of the adoption of the amendment. He said all admitted the injurious tendency of the act of 1837, by which the fund which had been provided by the bravery of our gallant sailors for the relief of the widows and orphans of those who had been killed in battle, or had died from wounds which had been received while in the line of their duty, had been utterly exhausted; and his amendment went to the repeal of that law."
"Mr. Mangum hoped the amendment would not be adopted—that the system would be allowed to remain as it was until the next session. It was a subject of great complexity, and if this amendment passed it would be equivalent to the repeal of all the naval pension acts."
"Mr. Williams understood the senator from North Carolina as saying, that if they passed this amendment, and thus repealed the act of 1837, they repeal all acts which grant a pension for disability."
"Mr. Mangum had said, if they repealed the law of '37, they would cut off every widow and orphan now on the pension list, and leave none except the seamen, officers, and marines, entitled to pensions under the act of 1800."
"Mr. Williams said the senator was entirely mistaken; and read the law of 1813, which was still in full force, and could not be affected by the repeal of the law of 1837. The law of 1813 gives a pension to the widows and orphans of all who are killed in battle, or who die from wounds received in battle; and also gives pensions to those who are disabled while in the line of their duty. This law was now in force. The additional provisions of the law of 1837 were to carry back the pensions to the time when the disability was incurred, and to extend it to the widows and children of those who died, no matter from what cause, while they were in the naval service. Thus, if an officer or seaman died from intoxication, or even committed suicide, his widow received a pension for life, and his children received pensions until they were twenty-one years of age.
"Again: if officers or seamen received a wound which did not disable them they continued in the service, receiving their full pay for years. When they thought proper they retired from the service, and applied for a pension for disability, which, by the law of 1837, they were authorized to have carried back to the time the disability was incurred, though they had, during the whole series of years subsequent to receiving the disability, and prior to the application for a pension, been receiving their full pay as officers or seamen. It was to prevent the continuance of such abuses, that the amendment was offered."
"Mr. Walker must vote against this amendment, repealing the act of 1837, because an amendment which had been offered by him and adopted, provided for certain pensions under this very act, and which ought, in justice, to be given."
"Mr. Williams thought differently, as the specific provision in the amendment of the senator from Mississippi, would except the cases included in it from the operation of the repealing clause."
"Mr. Evans opposed the amendment, on the ground that it cut off all the amendments adopted, and brought back again the law of 1800."