Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2) / or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850

by Thomas Hart Benton

"1. That it is expedient for the whigs of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States to publish an address to the people of the United States, containing a succinct exposition of the prominent proceedings of the extra session of Congress, of the measures that have been adopted, and those in which they have failed, and the causes of such failure; together with such other matters as may exhibit truly the condition of the whig party and whig prospects.

"2. That a committee of three on the part of the Senate, and five on the part of the House, be appointed to prepare such address, and submit it to a meeting of the whigs on Monday morning next, the 13th inst., at half past 8 o'clock."

Both resolutions were unanimously adopted, and Messrs. Berrien of Georgia, Tallmadge of New York, and Smith of Indiana were appointed on the part of the Senate; and Messrs. Everett of Vermont, Mason of Ohio, Kennedy of Maryland, John C. Clark of New York, and Rayner of North Carolina, on the part of the House.

At the appointed time the meeting reassembled, and the committee made their report. Much of it was taken up with views and recommendations in relation to the general policy of the party: it is only of what relates to the repudiation of Mr. Tyler that this history intends to speak: for government with us is a struggle of parties: and it is necessary to know how parties are put up, and put down, in order to understand how the government is managed. An opening paragraph of the address set forth that, for twelve years the whigs had carried on a contest for the regulation of the currency, the equalization of exchanges, the economical administration of the finances, and the advancement of industry—all to be accomplished by means of a national bank—declaring these objects to be misunderstood by no one—and the bank itself held to be secured in the presidential election, and its establishment the main object of the extra session. The address then goes on to tell how these cherished hopes were frustrated:

"It is with profound and poignant regret that we find ourselves called upon to invoke your attention to this point. Upon the great and leading measure touching this question, our anxious endeavors to respond to the earnest prayer of the nation have been frustrated by an act as unlooked for as it is to be lamented. We grieve to say to you that by the exercise of that power in the constitution which has ever been regarded with suspicion, and often with odium, by the people—a power which we had hoped was never to be exhibited on this subject, by a whig President—we have been defeated in two attempts to create a fiscal agent, which the wants of the country had demonstrated to us, in the most absolute form of proof, to be eminently necessary and proper in the present emergency. Twice have we, with the utmost diligence and deliberation, matured a plan for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of the public moneys through the agency of a corporation adapted to that end, and twice has it been our fate to encounter the opposition of the President, through the application of the veto power. The character of that veto in each case, the circumstances in which it was administered, and the grounds upon which it has met the decided disapprobation of your friends in Congress, are sufficiently apparent in the public documents and the debates relating to it. This subject has acquired a painful interest with us, and will doubtless acquire it with you, from the unhappy developments with which it is accompanied. We are constrained to say, that we find no ground to justify us in the conviction that the veto of the President has been interposed on this question solely upon conscientious and well-considered opinions of constitutional scruple as to his duty in the case presented. On the contrary, too many proofs have been forced upon our observation to leave us free from the apprehension, that the President has permitted himself to be beguiled into an opinion that, by this exhibition of his prerogative, he might be able to divert the policy of his administration into a channel which should lead to new political combinations, and accomplish results which must overthrow the present divisions of party in the country; and finally produce a state of things which those who elected him, at least, have never contemplated. We have seen from an early period of the session, that the whig party did not enjoy the confidence of the President. With mortification we have observed that his associations more sedulously aimed at a free communion with those who have been busy to prostrate our purposes, rather than those whose principles seemed to be most identified with the power by which he was elected. We have reason to believe that he has permitted himself to be approached, counselled and influenced by those who have manifested least interest in the success of whig measures. What were represented to be his opinions and designs have been freely and even insolently put forth in certain portions, and those not the most reputable, of the public press, in a manner that ought to be deemed offensive to his honor, as it certainly was to the feelings of those who were believed to be his friends. In the earnest endeavor manifested by the members of the whig party in Congress to ascertain specifically the President's notions in reference to the details of such a bill relating to a fiscal agent as would be likely to meet his approbation, the frequent changes of his opinion, and the singular want of consistency in his views, have baffled his best friends, and rendered the hope of adjustment with him impossible."

"The plan of an exchange bank, such as was reported after the first veto, the President is understood by more than one member of Congress to whom he expressed his opinion, to have regarded as a favorite measure. It was in view of this opinion, suggested as it is in his first veto, and after using every proper effort to ascertain his precise views upon it, that the committee of the House of Representatives reported their second bill. It made provision for a bank without the privilege of local discounting, and was adapted as closely as possible to that class of mercantile operations which the first veto message describes with approbation, and which that paper specifically illustrates by reference to the 'dealings in the exchanges' of the Bank of the United States in 1833, which the President affirms 'amounted to upwards of one hundred millions of dollars.' Yet this plan, when it was submitted to him, was objected to on a new ground. The last veto has narrowed the question of a bank down to the basis of the sub-treasury scheme, and it is obvious from the opinions of that message that the country is not to expect any thing better than the exploded sub-treasury, or some measure of the same character, from Mr. Tyler. In the midst of all these varieties of opinion, an impenetrable mystery seemed to hang over the whole question. There was no such frank interchange of sentiment as ought to characterize the intercourse of a President and his friends, and the last persons in the government who would seem to have been intrusted with his confidence on those embarrassing topics were the constitutional advisers which the laws had provided for him. In this review of the position into which the late events have thrown the whig party, it is with profound sorrow we look to the course pursued by the President. He has wrested from us one of the best fruits of a long and painful struggle, and the consummation of a glorious victory; he has even perhaps thrown us once more upon the field of political strife, not weakened in numbers, nor shorn of the support of the country, but stripped of the arms which success had placed in our hands, and left again to rely upon that high patriotism which for twelve years sustained us in a conflict of unequalled asperity, and which finally brought us to the fulfilment of those brilliant hopes which he has done so much to destroy."

Having thus shown the loss, by the conduct of the President, of all the main fruits of a great victory after a twelve years' contest, the address goes on to look to the future, and to inquire what is to be the conduct of the party in such unexpected and disastrous circumstances? and the first answer to that inquiry is, to establish a permanent separation of the whig party from Mr. Tyler, and to wash their hands of all accountability for his acts.

"In this state of things, the whigs will naturally look with anxiety to the future, and inquire what are the actual relations between the President and those who brought him into power; and what, in the opinion of their friends in Congress, should be their course hereafter. On both of these questions we feel it to be our duty to address you in perfect frankness and without reserve, but, at the same time, with due respect to others. In regard to the first, we are constrained to say that the President, by the course he has adopted in respect to the application of the veto power to two successive bank charters, each of which there was just reason to believe would meet his approbation; by his withdrawal of confidence from his real friends in Congress and from the members of his cabinet; by his bestowal of it upon others notwithstanding their notorious opposition to leading measures of his administration, has voluntarily separated himself from those by whose exertions and suffrages he was elevated to that office through which he reached his present exalted station. The existence of this unnatural relation is as extraordinary as the annunciation of it is painful and mortifying. What are the consequences and duties which grow out of it? The first consequence is, that those who brought the President into power can be no longer, in any manner or degree, justly held responsible or blamed for the administration of the executive branch of the government; and that the President and his advisers should be exclusively hereafter deemed accountable."

Then comes the consideration of what they are to do? and after inculcating, in the ancient form, the laudable policy of supporting their obnoxious President when he was 'right,' and opposing him when he was 'wrong'—phrases repeated by all parties, to be complied with by none—they go on to recommend courage and unity to their discomfited ranks—to promise a new victory at the next election; and with it the establishment of all their measures, crowned by a national bank.

"The conduct of the President has occasioned bitter mortification and deep regret. Shall the party, therefore, yielding to sentiments of despair, abandon its duty, and submit to defeat and disgrace? Far from suffering such dishonorable consequences, the very disappointment which it has unfortunately experienced should serve only to redouble its exertions, and to inspire it with fresh courage to persevere with a spirit unsubdued and a resolution unshaken, until the prosperity of the country is fully re-established, and its liberties firmly secured against all danger from the abuses, encroachments or usurpations of the executive department of the government."

This was the manifesto, so far as it concerns the repudiation of Mr. Tyler, which the whig members of Congress put forth: it was answered (under the name of an address to his constituents) by Mr. Cushing, in what may be called a counter manifesto: for it was on the same subject as the other, and counter to it at all points—especially on the fundamental point of, which party the President was to belong to! the manifesto of the whig members assigning him to the democracy—the counter manifesto claiming him for the whigs! In this, Mr. Cushing followed the lead of Mr. Webster in his letter of resignation: and, in fact, the whole of his pleading (for such it was) was an amplification of Mr. Webster's letter to the editors of the National Intelligencer, and of the one to Messrs. Bates and Choate, and of another to Mr. Ketchum, of New York. The first part of the address of Mr. Cushing, is to justify the President for changing his course on the fiscal corporation bill; and this attempted in a thrust at Mr Clay thus:

"A caucus dictatorship has been set up in Congress, which, not satisfied with ruling that body to the extinguishment of individual freedom of opinion, seeks to control the President in his proper sphere of duty, denounces him before you for refusing to surrender his independence and his conscience to its decree, and proposes, through subversion of the fundamental provisions and principles of the constitution, to usurp the command of the government. It is a question, therefore, in fact, not of legislative measures, but of revolution. What is the visible, and the only professed, origin of these extraordinary movements? The whig party in Congress have been extremely desirous to cause a law to be enacted at the late session, incorporating a national bank. Encountering, in the veto of the President, a constitutional obstacle to the enactment of such a law at the late session, a certain portion of the whig party, represented by the caucus dictatorship, proceeds then, in the beginning, to denounce the President. Will you concur in this denunciation of the President?"