American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

Sir, does political consistency consist in always giving negative votes? Does it require of a public man to refuse to concur in amending laws because they passed against his consent? Having voted against the tariff originally, does consistency demand that I should do all in my power to maintain an unequal tariff, burdensome to my own constituents, in many respects,—favorable in none? To consistency of that sort I lay no claim; and there is another sort to which I lay as little—and that is, a kind of consistency by which persons feel themselves as much bound to oppose a proposition after it has become the law of the land as before.

The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to the single object in which the tariff of 1824 had manifestly failed in its effects, passed the House of Representatives, but was lost here. We had then the act of 1828. I need not recur to the history of a measure so recent. Its enemies spiced it with whatsoever they thought would render it distasteful; its friends took it, drugged as it was. Vast amounts of property, many millions, had been invested in manufactures, under the inducements of the act of 1824. Events called loudly, I thought, for further regulations to secure the degree of protection intended by that act. I was disposed to vote for such regulations and desired nothing more; but certainly was not to be bantered out of my purpose by a threatened augmentation of duty on molasses, put into the bill for the avowed purpose of making it obnoxious. The vote may have been right or wrong, wise or unwise; but it is a little less than absurd to allege against it an inconsistency with opposition to the former law.

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little now to say. Another opportunity may be presented. I remarked, the other day, that this policy did not begin with us in New England; and yet, sir, New England is charged with vehemence as being favorable, or charged with equal vehemence as being unfavorable, to the tariff policy, just as best suits the time, place, and occasion for making some charge against her. The credulity of the public has been put to its extreme capacity of false impression relative to her conduct in this particular. Through all the south, during the late contest, it was New England policy, and a New England administration, that was inflicting the country with a tariff policy beyond all endurance, while on the other side of the Alleghany, even the act of 1828 itself—the very sublimated essence of oppression, according to southern opinions—was pronounced to be one of those blessings for which the west was indebted to the “generous south.”

With large investments in manufacturing establishments, and various interests connected with and dependent on them, it is not to be expected that New England, any more than other portions of the country, will now consent to any measures destructive or highly dangerous. The duty of the government, at the present moment, would seem to be to preserve, not to destroy; to maintain the position which it has assumed; and for one, I shall feel it an indispensable obligation to hold it steady, as far as in my power, to that degree of protection which it has undertaken to bestow. No more of the tariff.

Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge made by me against South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, has taken up a new crusade against New England. Leaving altogether the subject of the public lands, in which his success, perhaps, had been neither distinguished nor satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the topic of the tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault on the opinions, politics, and parties of New England, as they have been exhibited in the last thirty years. This is natural. The “narrow policy” of the public lands had proved a legal settlement in South Carolina, and was not to be removed. The “accursed policy” of the tariff, also, had established the fact of its birth and parentage in the same state. No wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished to carry the war, as he expressed it, into the enemy’s country. Prudently willing to quit these subjects, he was doubtless desirous of fastening others, which could not be transferred south of Mason and Dixon’s line. The politics of New England became his theme; and it was in this part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me with such sore discomfiture.

Discomfiture! why, sir, when he attacks anything which I maintain, and overthrows it; when he turns the right or left of any position which I take up; when he drives me from any ground I choose to occupy, he may then talk of discomfiture, but not till that distant day. What has he done? Has he maintained his own charges? Has he proved what he alleged? Has he sustained himself in his attack on the government, and on the history of the north, in the matter of the public lands? Has he disproved a fact, refuted a proposition, weakened an argument maintained by me? Has he come within beat of drum of any position of mine? O, no; but he has “carried the war into the enemy’s country!” Carried the war into the enemy’s country! Yes, sir, and what sort of a war has he made of it? Why, sir, he has stretched a dragnet over the whole surface of perished pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy paragraphs, and fuming popular addresses; over whatever the pulpit in its moments of alarm, the press in its heats, and parties in their extravagances, have severally thrown off, in times of general excitement and violence. He has thus swept together a mass of such things, as, but they are not now old, the public health would have required him rather to leave in their state of dispersion.

For a good long hour or two, we had the unbroken pleasure of listening to the honorable member, while he recited, with his usual grace and spirit, and with evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, addresses, and all that et ceteras of the political press, such as warm heads produce in warm times, and such as it would be “discomfiture” indeed for any one, whose taste did not delight in that sort of reading, to be obliged to peruse. This is his war. This is to carry the war into the enemy’s country. It is in an invasion of this sort that he flatters himself with the expectation of gaining laurels fit to adorn a senator’s brow.

Mr. President, I shall not, it will, I trust, not be expected that I should, either now or at any time, separate this farrago into parts, and answer and examine its components. I shall hardly bestow upon it all a general remark or two. In the run of forty years, sir, under this constitution, we have experienced sundry successive violent party contests. Party arose, indeed, with the constitution itself, and in some form or other has attended through the greater part of its history.

Whether any other constitution than the old articles of confederation was desirable, was itself, a question on which parties divided; if a new constitution was framed, what powers should be given to it was another question; and when it had been formed, what was, in fact, the just extent of the powers actually conferred was a third. Parties, as we know, existed under the first administration, as distinctly marked as those which manifested themselves at any subsequent period.

The contest immediately preceding the political change in 1801, and that, again, which existed at the commencement of the late war, are other instances of party excitement, of something more than usual strength and intensity. In all these conflicts there was, no doubt, much of violence on both and all sides. It would be impossible, if one had a fancy for such employment, to adjust the relative quantum of violence between these two contending parties. There was enough in each, as must always be expected in popular governments. With a great deal of proper and decorous discussion there was mingled a great deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimination, and abuse.