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

This measure was immediately commenced in the House of Representatives, and pressed with vigor to its conclusion. Mr. Everett, of Vermont, brought in the repeal bill on leave, and after a strenuous contest from a tenacious minority, it was passed by the unexpected vote of two to one—to be precise—140 to 72. In the Senate it had the same success, and greater, being passed by nearly three to one—34 to 13: and the repealing act being carried to Mr. Tyler, he signed it as promptly as he had signed the bankrupt act itself. This was a splendid victory for the minority who had resisted the passage of the bill, and for the people who had condemned it. The same members, sitting in the same chairs, who a year and a half before, passed the act, now repealed it. The same President who had recommended it in a message, and signed the act as soon as it passed, now signed the act which put an end to its existence. A vicious and criminal law, corruptly passed, and made the means of passing two other odious measures, was itself now brought to judgment, condemned, and struck from the statute-book; and this great result was the work of the people. All the authorities—legislative, executive, and judicial—had sustained the act. Only one judge in the whole United States (R. W. Wells, Esq., United States district judge for Missouri), condemned it as unconstitutional. All the rest sustained it, and he was overruled. But the intuitive sense of honor and justice in the people revolted at it. They rose against it in masses, and condemned it in every form—in public meetings, in legislative resolves, in the press, in memorials to Congress, and in elections. The tables of the two Houses were loaded with petitions and remonstrances, demanding the repeal, and the members were simply the organs of the people in pronouncing it. Never had the popular voice been more effective—never more meritoriously raised. The odious act was not only repealed, but its authors rebuked, and compelled to pronounce the rebuke upon themselves. It was a proud and triumphant instance of the innate, upright sentiment of the people, rising above all the learning and wisdom of the constituted authorities. Nor was it the only instance. The bankrupt act of forty years before, though strictly a bankrupt act as known to the legislation of all commercial countries, was repealed within two years after its passage—and that by the democratic administration of Mr. Jefferson: this of 1841, a bankrupt act only in name—an act for the abolition of debts at the will of the debtor in reality—had a still shorter course, and a still more ignominious death. Two such condemnations of acts for getting rid of debts, are honorable to the people, and bespeak a high degree of reverence for the sacred obligations between debtor and creditor; and while credit is due to many of the party discriminated as federal in 1800, and as whig in 1840 (but always the same), for their assistance in condemning these acts, yet as party measures, the honor of resisting their passage and conducting their repeal, in both instances, belongs to the democracy.

The repeal of this act, though carried by such large majorities, and so fully in accordance with the will of the people, was a bitter mortification to the administration. It was their measure, and one of their measures of "relief" to the country. Mr. Webster had drawn the bill, and made the main speech for it in the Senate, before he went into the cabinet. Mr. Tyler had recommended it in a special message, and promptly gave it his approving signature. To have to sign a repeal bill, so soon, condemning what he had recommended and approved, was most unpalatable: to see a measure intended for the "relief" of the people repulsed by those it was intended to relieve, was a most unwelcome vision. From the beginning the repeal was resisted, and by a species of argument, not addressed to the merits of the measure, but to the state of parties, the conduct of men, and the means of getting the government carried on. Mr. Caleb Cushing was the organ of the President, and of the Secretary of State in the House; and, identifying himself with these two in his attacks and defences, he presented a sort of triumvirate in which he became the spokesman of the others. In this character he spoke often, and with a zeal which outran discretion, and brought him into much collision with the House, and kept him much occupied in defending himself, and the two eminent personages who were not in a position to speak for themselves. A few passages from these speeches, from both sides, will be given to show the state of men and parties at that time, and how much personal considerations had to do with transacting the business of Congress. Thus:

"Mr. Cushing, who was entitled to the floor, addressed the House at length, in reply to the remarks made by various gentlemen, during the last three weeks, in relation to the present administration. He commenced by remarking that the President of the United States was accused of obstructing the passage of whig measures of relief, and was charged with uncertainty and vacillation of purpose. As these charges had been made against the President, he felt it to be his duty to ask the country who was chargeable with vacillation and uncertainty of purpose, and the destruction of measures of relief? Who were they who, with sacrilegious hands, were seeking to expunge the last measure of the 'ill-starred' extra session from the statute-books? Forty-seven whigs, he answered, associated with the democratic party in the House, and formed a coalition to blot out that measure. He repeated it: forty-seven whigs formed a coalition with the democrats to expunge all the remains of the extra session which existed. For three weeks past, there had been constantly poured forth the most eloquent denunciations of the President, of the Secretary of State, and of himself. He might imagine, as was said by Warren Hastings when such torrents of denunciation were poured out upon him, that there was some foundation for the imputation of the orators. He should inquire into the merits of the political questions, and into the accusations made against him. He was told that he had thrown a firebrand into the House—that he had brought a tomahawk here. He denied it. He had done no such thing. It was not true that he commenced the debate which was carried on; and when gentlemen said that he had volunteered remarks out of the regular order, in reply to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Arnold], he told them that they were not judges. His mode of defence was counter-attack, and it was for him to judge of the argument. If he carried the war into the enemy's camp, the responsibility was with those who commenced the attack."

Mr. Clay, though retiring from Congress, and not a member of the House of Representatives, was brought into the debate, and accused of setting up a dictatorship, and baffling or controlling the constitutional administration:

"The position of the two great parties, and those few who stood here to defend the acts of the administration, was peculiar. Our government was now undergoing a test in a new particular. This was the first time that the administration of the government had ever devolved upon the Vice-President. Now, he had called upon the people and the House to adapt themselves to that contingency, and support the constitution; for with the 'constitutional fact' was associated the party fact; and whilst the President was not a party chief, there was a party chief of the party in power. The question was, whether there could be two administrations—one, a constitutional administration, by the President; and the other a party administration, exercised by a party chief in the capitol? With this issue before him—whether the President, or the party leader—the chief in the White House, or the chief in the capitol—should carry on the administration—he felt it to be a duty which he owed to the government of his country to give his aid to the constitutional chief. That was the real question which had pervaded all our contests thus far."

Such an unparliamentary reference to Mr. Clay, a member of a different House, could not pass without reply in a place where he could not speak for himself, but where his friends were abundant. Mr. Garret Davis, of Kentucky, performed that office, and found in the fifteen years' support of Mr. Clay by Mr. Cushing (previous to his sudden adhesion to Mr. Tyler at the extra session), matter of personal recrimination:

"Mr. Garret Davis replied to the portion of the speech of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Cushing] relating to the alleged dictation of the ex-senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay]. The gentleman from Massachusetts declared that there were but two alternatives—one, a constitutional administration, under the lead of the President; and the other, a faction, under the lead of the senator from Kentucky. Such remarks were no more nor less than calumnies on that distinguished man; and he would ask the gentleman what principle Mr. Clay had changed, by which he had obtained the ill-will of the gentleman, after having had his support for fifteen years previous to the extra session? He asked, Did the senator from Kentucky bring forward any new measure at the extra session? Did he enter upon any untrodden path, in order to embarrass the path of John Tyler? No, was the answer."

Reverting to the attacks on the administration, Mr. Cushing considered them as the impotent blows of a faction, beating its brains out against the immovable rock of the Tyler government:

"It was now nearly two years since, in accordance with a vote of the people, a change took place in the administration of the government. Since that time, an internecine war had arisen in the dominant party. The war had now been pursued for about one year and a half; but, in the midst of it, the federal government, with its fixed constitution, had stood, like the god Terminus, defying the progress of those who were rushing against it. The country had seen one party throw itself against the immovable rock of the constitution. What had been the consequence? The party thus hurling itself against the constitutional rock was dashed to atoms."

Mr. Cushing did not confine his attempts to gain adherents to Mr. Tyler, to the terrors of denunciations and anathemas: he superadded the seductive arguments of persuasion and enticement, and carried his overtures so far as to be charged with putting up the administration favor to auction, and soliciting bidders. He had said: