[A man in the crowd here cried out, ‘tell us of Van Buren’s battles!’]
Ah! said Mr. Clay, I will have to use my colleague’s language, and tell you of Mr. Van Buren’s three great battles! He says that he fought general commerce, and conquered him; that he fought general currency, and conquered him; and that, with his Cuba allies, he fought the Seminoles, and got conquered!
Mr. Clay referred, with great good humor, to the seventeen thousand whig majority of Kentucky, and asked, if generous, chivalric Tennessee would not enter the lists of competition with her? He doubted not she would make a gallant effort to not only run up alongside, but to come out ahead of her!
THE REPEAL OF THE SUB-TREASURY LAW.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 15, 1840.
[AT the session of congress after the election of general Harrison as president, his opponents being in a majority in both houses, Mr. Clay submitted the following resolution, to test the disposition of the Van Buren party to conform to the expression of public opinion, namely, by repealing the sub-treasury law.
Resolved, that the act entitled ‘an act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, transfer, and disbursement of the public revenues,’ ought to be forthwith repealed, and that the committee on finance be instructed to report a bill accordingly. In support of this resolution he addressed the senate as follows.]
MR. Clay said it had never been his purpose, in offering this resolution, to invite or partake in an argument on the great measure to which the resolution related, nor was it his purpose now. He would as lief argue to the convicted criminal, when the rope was round his neck, and the cart was about to remove from under his body, to persuade him to escape from the gallows, as to argue now to prove that this measure of the sub-treasury ought to be abandoned. But Mr. Clay had offered the proposition which he wished to submit as a resolution, and it was now due to the senate that he should say why he had presented it in that shape.
It was the ordinary course in repealing laws, either to move a resolution for an inquiry by a committee on the subject of repeal, or else ask leave to bring in a bill to repeal the measure which they wished to be rid of. But there were occasions when these ordinary forms might be and ought to be dispensed with. And if they should look for examples to the only period which bore any analogy to this, that was the time when Mr. Jefferson came into power, but under circumstances far different from those attending the accession of the resident of North Bend. If at that time the alien law had not been limited in time, but had been made permanent as to its duration, would it not have been supposed ridiculous to have moved a resolution of inquiry as to the expediency of repealing that most odious measure? Besides, the sub-treasury had now been three years and three months the subject of incessant and reiterated arguments; a term longer than that of the duration of the last war. Under these circumstances, a discussion of the measure would be both unnecessary and misapplied. It was sufficient that the nation now willed and commanded the repeal of the measure, and that the senators of nineteen states had beeninstructed to repeal it. It might, indeed, be contended that the presidential election had decided this or that measure, when there might well be a dispute about it. Gentlemen on the other side had said, that such and such an election had decided this or that measure, one instance of which related to a bank of the United States, and about them all there might well have been controversy. But on one point there could not be a diversity of opinion; and that was, that this nation, by a tremendous majority, had decided against the sub-treasury measure. And, when the nation speaks, and wills, and commands, what was to be done? There was no necessity of the forms of sending to a committee for a slow process of inquiry; but there was a necessity of doing what the country required, and to reform what senators had been instructed to reform. The only question now was, who would act against the will of the nineteen states; and Mr. Clay thought gentlemen who professed to be guided by the popular sentiment could have no hesitation to comply with it now.