A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky / Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.

by Unknown

If the system proposed cannot be continued, let us try some intermediate system, before we think of any other dreadful alternative. Sir, it will be said, on the other hand—for the objections are made by the friends of protection, principally—that the time is too long; that the intermediate reductions are too inconsiderable, and that there is no guarantee that, at the end of the time stipulated, the reduction proposed would be allowed to take effect. Inthe first place should be recollected the diversified interests of the country; the measures of the government which preceded the establishment of manufactures; the public faith in some degree pledged for their security; and the ruin in which rash and hasty legislation would involve them. I will not dispute about terms. It would not, in a court of justice, be maintained that the public faith is pledged for the protection of manufactures; but there are other pledges which men of honor are bound by, besides those of which the law can take cognizance.

If we excite, in our neighbor, a reasonable expectation which induces him to take a particular course of business, we are in honor bound to redeem the pledge thus tacitly given. Can any man doubt that a large portion of our citizens believed that the system would be permanent? The whole country expected it. The security against any change of the system proposed by the bill, is in the character of the bill, as a compromise between two conflicting parties. If the bill should be taken by common consent, as we hope it will be, the history of the revenue will be a guarantee of its permanence. The circumstances under which it was passed will be known and recorded; and no one will disturb a system which was adopted with a view to give peace and tranquillity to the country.

The descending gradations by which I propose to arrive at the minimum of duties, must be gradual. I never would consent to any precipitate operation to bring distress and ruin on the community.

Now, viewing it in this light, it appears that there are eight years and a half, and nine years and a half, taking the ultimate time, which would be an efficient protection, the remaining duties will be withdrawn by a biennial reduction. The protective principle must be said to be, in some measure, relinquished at the end of eight years and a half. This period cannot appear unreasonable, and I think that no member of the senate, or any portion of the country, ought to make the slightest objection. It now remains for me to consider the other objection—the want of guarantee to there being an ulterior continuance of the duties imposed by the bill, on the expiration of the term which it prescribes. The best guarantee will be found in the circumstances under which the measure would be passed. If it passes by common consent; if it is passed with the assent of a portion—a considerable portion of those who have directly hitherto supported this system, and by a considerable portion of those who opposed it—if they declare their satisfaction with the measure, I have no doubt the rate of duties guarantied, will be continued after the expiration of the term, if the country continues at peace. And, at the end of the term, when the experiment will have been made of the efficiency of the mode of protection fixed by the bill, while the constitutional question has beensuffered to lie dormant, if war should render it necessary, protection might be carried up to prohibition; while if the country should remain at peace, and this measure go into full operation, the duties will be gradually lowered down to the revenue standard, which has been so earnestly wished for.

But suppose that I am wrong in all these views, for there are no guarantees, in one sense of the term, of human infallibility. Suppose a different state of things in the south; that this senate, from causes which I shall not dwell upon now, but which are obvious to every reflecting man in this country—causes which have operated for years past, and which continue to operate—suppose, for a moment, that there should be a majority in the senate in favor of the southern views, and that they should repeal the whole system at once, what guarantee would we have that the repealing of the law would not destroy those great interests which it is so important to preserve? What guarantee will you have that the thunders of those powerful manufactures will not be directed against your capitol, because of this abandonment of their interests, and because you have given them no protection against foreign legislation. Sir, if you carry your measure of repeal without the consent, at least, of a portion of those who are interested in the preservation of manufactures, you have no security, no guarantee, no certainty, that any protection will be continued. But if the measure should be carried by the common consent of both parties, we shall have all security; history will faithfully record the transaction; narrate under what circumstances the bill was passed; that it was a pacifying measure; that it was as oil poured from the vessel of the union to restore peace and harmony to the country. When all this was known, what congress, what legislature, would mar the guarantee? What man who is entitled to deserve the character of an American statesman, would stand up in his place in either house of congress, and disturb this treaty of peace and amity?

Sir, I will not say that it may not be disturbed. All that I say is, that here is all the reasonable security that can be desired by those on the one side of the question, and much more than those on the other would have by any unfortunate concurrence of circumstances. Such a repeal of the whole system should be brought about as would be cheerfully acquiesced in by all parties in this country. All parties may find in this measure some reasons for objection. And what human measure is there which is free from objectionable qualities? It has been remarked, and justly remarked, by the great father of our country himself, that if that great work which is the charter of our liberties, and under which we have so long flourished, had been submitted, article by article, to all the different states composing this union, that the whole would have been rejected; and yet when the whole was presented together, it was accepted as a whole. I will admit that my friends do not getall they could wish for; and the gentlemen on the other side do not obtain all they might desire; but both will gain all that in my humble opinion is proper to be given in the present condition of this country. It may be true that there will be loss and gain in this measure. But how is this loss and gain distributed? Among our countrymen. What we lose, no foreign land gains; and what we gain, will be no loss to any foreign power. It is among ourselves the distribution takes place. The distribution is founded on that great principle of compromise and concession which lies at the bottom of our institutions, which gave birth to the constitution itself, and which has continued to regulate us in our onward march, and conducted the nation to glory and renown.

It remains for me now to touch another topic. Objections have been made to all legislation at this session of congress, resulting from the attitude of one of the states of this confederacy. I confess that I felt a very strong repugnance to any legislation at all on this subject at the commencement of the session, principally because I misconceived the purposes, as I have found from subsequent observation, which that state has in view. Under the influence of more accurate information, I must say that the aspect of things since the commencement of the session has, in my opinion, greatly changed. When I came to take my seat on this floor, I had supposed that a member of this union had taken an attitude of defiance and hostility against the authority of the general government. I had imagined that she had arrogantly required that we should abandon at once a system which had long been the settled policy of this country. Supposing that she had manifested this feeling, and taken up this position, I had, in consequence, felt a disposition to hurl defiance back again, and to impress upon her the necessity of the performance of her duties as a member of this union. But since my arrival here, I find that South Carolina does not contemplate force, for it is denied and denounced by that state. She disclaims it; and asserts that she is merely making an experiment. That experiment is this: by a course of state legislation, and by a change in her fundamental laws, she is endeavoring by her civil tribunals to prevent the general government from carrying the laws of the United States into operation within her limits. That she has professed to be her object. Her appeal is not to arms, but to another power; not to the sword, but to the law. I must say, and I will say it with no intention of disparaging that state, or any other of the states, it is a feeling unworthy of her. As the purpose of South Carolina is not that of force, this at once disarms, divests legislation of one principal objection, which it appears to me existed against it at the commencement of this session. Her purposes are all of a civil nature. She thinks she can oust the United States from her limits; and unquestionably she has taken good care to prepare her judges beforehand by swearing them to decidein her favor. If we submitted to her, we should thus stand but a poor chance of obtaining justice. She disclaims any intention of resorting to force unless we should find it indispensable to execute the laws of the union by applying force to her. It seems to me the aspect of the attitude of South Carolina has changed; or rather, the new light which I have obtained, enables me to see her in a different attitude; and I have not truly understood her until she passed her laws, by which it was intended to carry her ordinance into effect. Now, I venture to predict that the state to which I have referred must ultimately fail in her attempt. I disclaim any intention of saying anything to the disparagement of that state. Far from it. I think that she has been rash, intemperate, and greatly in error; and, to use the language of one of her own writers, made up an issue unworthy of her. From one end to the other of this continent, by acclamation, as it were, nullification has been put down, and put down in a manner more effectually than by a thousand wars or a thousand armies—by the irresistible force, by the mighty influence of public opinion. Not a voice beyond the single state of South Carolina has been heard in favor of the principle of nullification, which she has asserted by her own ordinance; and I will say, that she must fail in her lawsuit. I will express two opinions; the first of which is, that it is not possible for the ingenuity of man to devise a system of state legislation to defeat the execution of the laws of the United States, which cannot be countervailed by federal legislation.

A state might take it upon herself to throw obstructions in the way of the execution of the laws of the federal government; but federal legislation can follow at her heel quickly, and successfully counteract the course of state legislation. The framers of the constitution foresaw this, and the constitution has guarded against it. What has it said? It is declared, in the clause enumerating the powers of this government, that congress shall have all power to carry into effect all the powers granted by the constitution, in any branch of the government under the sweeping clause; for they have not specified contingencies, because they could not see what was to happen; but whatever powers were necessary, all, all are given to this government by the fundamental law, necessary to carry into effect those powers which are vested by that constitution in the federal government. That is one reason. The other is, that it is not possible for any state, provided this government is administered with prudence and propriety, so to shape its laws as to throw upon the general government the responsibility of first resorting to the employment of force; but, if force at all is employed, it must be by state legislation, and not federal legislation; and the responsibility of employing that force must rest with, and attach to, the state itself.

I shall not go into the details of this bill. I merely throw outthese sentiments for the purpose of showing you, that South Carolina, having declared her purpose to be this, to make an experiment whether, by a course of legislation, in a conventional form, or a legislative form of enactment, she can defeat the execution of certain laws of the United States, I for one, will express my opinion, that I believe it is utterly impracticable, whatever course of legislation she may choose to adopt, for her to succeed. I am ready, for one, to give the tribunals and the executive of the country, whether that executive has or has not my confidence, the necessary measures of power and authority to execute the laws of the union. But I would not go a hair’s breadth further than what was necessary for those purposes. Up to that point I would go, and cheerfully go; for it is my sworn duty, as I regard it, to go to that point.

Again; taking this view of the subject, South Carolina is doing nothing more, except that she is doing it with more rashness, than some other states have done—that respectable state, Ohio, and, if I am not mistaken, the state of Virginia also. An opinion prevailed some years ago, that if you put the laws of a state into a penal form, you could oust federal jurisdiction out of the limits of that state, because the state tribunals had an exclusive jurisdiction over penalties and crimes, and it was inferred that no federal court could wrest the authority from them. According to that principle, the state of Ohio passed the laws taxing the branch of the United States bank, and high penalties were to be enforced against every person who should attempt to defeat her taxation. The question was tried. It happened to be my lot to be counsel at law to bring the suit against the state, and to maintain the federal authority. The trial took place in the state of Ohio; and it is one of the many circumstances which redounds to the honor of that patriotic state, that she submitted to the federal force. I went to the office of the public treasury myself, to which was taken the money of the bank of the United States, it having remained there in sequestration until it was peaceably rendered, in obedience to the decision of the court, without any appeal to arms. In a building which I had to pass in order to reach the treasury, I saw the most brilliant display of arms and musketry that I ever saw in my life; but not one was raised, or threatened to be raised, against the due execution of the laws of the United States, when they were then enforced. In Virginia, (but I am not sure that I am correct in the history of it,) there was a case of this kind. Persons were liable to penalties for selling lottery tickets. It was contended that the state tribunals had an exclusive jurisdiction over the subject. The case was brought before the supreme court; the parties were a Mr. Myers and somebody else, and it decided, as it must always decide, no matter what obstruction, no matter what the state law may be, the constitutional laws of the United States must follow and defeat it,in its attempt to arrest the federal arm in the exercise of its lawful authority. South Carolina has attempted, and, I repeat it, in a much more offensive way attempted, to defeat the execution of the laws of the United States. But it seems, that, under all the circumstances of the case, she has, for the present, determined to stop here, in order that, by our legislation, we may prevent the necessity of her advancing any further. But there are other reasons for the expediency of legislation at this time. Although I came here impressed with a different opinion, my mind has now become reconciled.