On March 4, 1841, was inaugurated as President, Gen’l Wm. H. Harrison, the first Chief Magistrate elected by the Whig party, and the first President who was not a Democrat, since the installation of Gen’l Jackson, March 4, 1829. His term was a short one. He issued a call for a special session of Congress to convene the 31st of May following, to consider the condition of the revenue and finances of the country, but did not live to meet it. Taken ill with a fatal malady during the last days of March, he died on the 4th of April following, having been in office just one month. He was succeeded by the Vice-President, John Tyler. Then, for the first time in our history as a government, the person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the constitution, had devolved upon him the Presidential office.
The twenty-seventh Congress opened in extra session at the call of the late President, May 31, 1841. A Whig member—Mr. White of Kentucky—was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Whigs had a majority of forty-seven in the House and of seven in the Senate, and with the President and Cabinet of the same political party presented a harmony of aspect frequently wanting during the three previous administrations. The first measure of the new dominant party was the repeal of the independent treasury act passed at the previous session; and the next in order were bills to establish a system of bankruptcy, and for distribution of public land revenue. The former was more than a bankrupt law; it was practically an insolvent law for the abolition of debts at the will of the debtor. It applied to all persons in debt, allowed them to institute the proceedings in the district where the petitioner resided, allowed constructive notices to creditors in newspapers—declared the abolition of the debt where effects were surrendered and fraud not proved; and gave exclusive jurisdiction to the federal courts, at the will of the debtor. It was framed upon the model of the English insolvent debtors’ act of George the Fourth, and embodied most of the provisions of that act, but substituting a release from the debt instead of a release from imprisonment. The bill passed by a close vote in both Houses.
The land revenue distribution bill of this session had its origin in the fact that the States and corporations owed about two hundred millions to creditors in Europe. These debts were in stocks, much depreciated by the failure in many instances to pay the accruing interest—in some instances failure to provide for the principal. These creditors, becoming uneasy, wished the federal government to assume their debts. The suggestion was made as early as 1838, renewed in 1839, and in 1840 became a regular question mixed up with the Presidential election of that year, and openly engaging the active exertions of foreigners. Direct assumption was not urged; indirect by giving the public land revenue to the States was the mode pursued, and the one recommended in the message of President Tyler. Mr. Calhoun spoke against the measure with more than usual force and clearness, claiming that it was unconstitutional and without warrant. Mr. Benton on the same side called it a squandering of the public patrimony, and pointed out its inexpediency in the depleted state of the treasury, apart from its other objectionable features. It passed by a party vote.
This session is remarkable for the institution of the hour rule in the House of Representatives—a very great limitation upon the freedom of debate. It was a Whig measure, adopted to prevent delay in the enactment of pending bills. It was a rigorous limitation, frequently acting as a bar to profitable debate and checking members in speeches which really impart information valuable to the House and the country. No doubt the license of debate has been frequently abused in Congress, as in all other deliberative assemblies, but the incessant use of the previous question, which cuts off all debate, added to the hour rule which limits a speech to sixty minutes (constantly reduced by interruptions) frequently results in the transaction of business in ignorance of what they are about by those who are doing it.
The rule worked so well in the House, for the purpose for which it was devised—made the majority absolute master of the body—that Mr. Clay undertook to have the same rule adopted in the Senate; but the determined opposition to it, both by his political opponents and friends, led to the abandonment of the attempt in that chamber.
Much discussion took place at this session, over the bill offered in the House of Representatives, for the relief of the widow of the late President—General Harrison—appropriating one year’s salary. It was strenuously opposed by the Democratic members, as unconstitutional, on account of its principle, as creating a private pension list, and as a dangerous precedent. Many able speeches were made against the bill, both in the Senate and House; among others, the following extract from the speech of an able Senator contains some interesting facts. He said: “Look at the case of Mr. Jefferson, a man than whom no one that ever existed on God’s earth were the human family more indebted to. His furniture and his estate were sold to satisfy his creditors. His posterity was driven from house and home, and his bones now lay in soil owned by a stranger. His family are scattered: some of his descendants are married in foreign lands. Look at Monroe—the able, the patriotic Monroe, whose services were revolutionary, whose blood was spilt in the war of Independence, whose life was worn out in civil service, and whose estate has been sold for debt, his family scattered, and his daughter buried in a foreign land. Look at Madison, the model of every virtue, public or private, and he would only mention in connection with this subject, his love of order, his economy, and his systematic regularity in all his habits of business. He, when his term of eight years had expired, sent a letter to a gentleman (a son of whom is now on this floor) [Mr. Preston], enclosing a note of five thousand dollars, which he requested him to endorse, and raise the money in Virginia, so as to enable him to leave this city, and return to his modest retreat—his patrimonial inheritance—in that State. General Jackson drew upon the consignee of his cotton crop in New Orleans for six thousand dollars to enable him to leave the seat of government without leaving creditors behind him. These were honored leaders of the republican party. They had all been Presidents. They had made great sacrifices, and left the presidency deeply embarrassed; and yet the republican party who had the power and the strongest disposition to relieve their necessities, felt they had no right to do so by appropriating money from the public Treasury. Democracy would not do this. It was left for the era of federal rule and federal supremacy—who are now rushing the country with steam power into all the abuses and corruptions of a monarchy, with its pensioned aristocracy—and to entail upon the country a civil pension list.”
There was an impatient majority in the House in favor of the passage of the bill. The circumstances were averse to deliberation—a victorious party, come into power after a heated election, seeing their elected candidate dying on the threshold of his administration, poor and beloved: it was a case for feeling more than of judgment, especially with the political friends of the deceased—but few of whom could follow the counsels of the head against the impulsions of the heart.
The bill passed, and was approved; and as predicted, it established a precedent which has since been followed in every similar case.
The subject of naval pensions received more than usual consideration at this session. The question arose on the discussion of the appropriation bill for that purpose. A difference about a navy—on the point of how much and what kind—had always been a point of difference between the two great political parties of the Union, which, under whatsoever names, are always the same, each preserving its identity in principles and policy, but here the two parties divided upon an abuse which no one could deny or defend. A navy pension fund had been established under the act of 1832, which was a just and proper law, but on the 3d of March, 1837, an act was passed entitled “An act for the more equitable distribution of the Navy Pension Fund.” That act provided: I. That Invalid naval pensions should commence and date back to the time of receiving the inability, instead of completing the proof. II. It extended the pensions for death to all cases of death, whether incurred in the line of duty or not. III. It extended the widow’s pensions for life, when five years had been the law both in the army and navy. IV. It adopted the English system of pensioning children of deceased marines until they attained their majority.
The effect of this law was 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, arrears as well as current and future, upon the public treasury, where it was never intended they were to be. It was to repeal this act, that an amendment was introduced at this session on the bringing forward of the annual appropriation bill for navy pensions, and long and earnest were the debates upon it. The amendment was lost, the Senate dividing on party lines, the Whigs against and the Democrats for the amendment. The subject is instructive, as then was practically ratified and re-enacted the pernicious practice authorized by the act of 1837, of granting pensions to date from the time of injury and not from the time of proof; and has grown up to such proportions in recent years that the last act of Congress appropriating money for arrears of pensions, provided for the payment of such an enormous sum of money that it would have appalled the original projectors of the act of 1837 could they have seen to what their system has led.