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

But the senator from New York has exhibited a most formidable account against the public domain, tending to show, if it be correct, that what has been heretofore regarded, at home and abroad, as a source of great national wealth, has been a constant charge upon the treasury, and a great loss to the country. The credit side, according to his statement, was, I believe, one hundred and twenty millions, but the debit side was much larger.

It is scarcely necessary to remark, that it is easy to state an account presenting a balance on the one side or the other, as may suit the taste or views of the person making it up. This may be done by making charges that have no foundation, or omitting credits that ought to be allowed, or by both. The most certain operation is the latter, and the senator, who is a pretty thoroughgoing gentleman, has adopted it.

The first item that I shall notice, with which, I think, he improperly debits the public lands, is a charge of eighty odd millions of dollars for the expense of conducting our Indian relations. Now, if this single item can be satisfactorily expunged, no more need be done to turn a large balance in favor of the public lands. I ask, then, with what color of propriety can the public lands be charged with the entire expense incident to our Indian relations? If the government did not own an acre of public lands, this expense would have been incurred. The aborigines are here; our fathers found them in possession of this land, these woods, and these waters. The preservation of peace with them; the fulfilment of the duties of humanity towards them; their civilization, education,conversion to christianity, friendly and commercial intercourse; these are the causes of the chief expenditure on their account, and they are quite distinct from the fact of our possessing the public domain. When every acre of that domain has gone from you, the Indian tribes, if not in the mean time extinct, may yet remain, imploring you, for charity’s sake, to assist them, and to share with them those blessings, of which, by the weakness of their nature, or the cruelty of your policy, they have been stripped. Why, especially, should the public lands be chargeable with that large portion of the eighty odd millions of dollars, arising from the removal of the Indians from the east to the west side of the Mississippi? They protested against it. They entreated you to allow them to remain at the homes and by the sides of the graves of their ancestors; but your stern and rigorous policy would not allow you to listen to their supplication. The public domain, instead of being justly chargeable with the expense of their removal, is entitled to a large credit for the vast territorial districts beyond the Mississippi, which it furnished for the settlement of the emigrant Indians.

I feel that I have not strength to go through all the items of the senator’s account, nor need I. The deduction of this single item will leave a net balance in favor of the public lands of between sixty and seventy millions of dollars.

What, after all, is the senator’s mode of stating the account with the public lands? Has he taken any other than a mere counting-house view of them? Has he exhibited any thing more than any sub-accountant or clerk might make out in any of the departments, as probably it was prepared, cut and dry, to the senator’s hands? Are there no higher or more statesman-like views to be taken of the public lands, and of the acquisitions of Louisiana and Florida, than the account of dollars and cents which the senator has presented? I have said that the senator, by the double process of erroneous insertion, and unjust suppression of items, has shaped an account to suit his argument, which presents any thing but a full and fair statement of the case. And is it not so? Louisiana cost fifteen millions of dollars. And if you had the power of selling, how many hundred millions of dollars would you now ask for the states of Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas—people, land, and all? Is the sovereignty which you acquired of the two provinces of Louisiana and Florida nothing? Are the public buildings, and works, the fortifications, cannon, and other arms, independent of the public lands, nothing? Is the navigation of the great father of waters, which you secured from the head to the mouth, on both sides of the river, by the purchase of Louisiana, to the total exclusion of all foreign powers, not worthy of being taken into the senator’s estimate of the advantages of the acquisition? Who, at all acquainted with the history and geography of thiscontinent, does not know that the Mississippi could not have remained in the hands, and its navigation continued subject to the control, of a foreign power, without imminent danger to the stability of the union? Is the cost of the public domain undeserving of any credit on account of the vast sums which, during the greater part of this century, you have been receiving into the public treasury from the custom-houses of New Orleans and Mobile? Or on account of the augmentation of the revenue of the government, from the consumption of dutiable articles by the population within the boundaries of the two former provinces? The national benefits and advantages accruing from their possession have been so various and immense, that it would be impossible to make any mere pecuniary estimate of them. In any aspect of the subject, the senator’s petty items of Indian annuities must appear contemptible in comparison with these splendid national acquisitions.

But the public lands are redeemed. They have long been redeemed. President Jackson announced, more than eight years ago, an incontestable truth, when he stated, that they might be considered as relieved from the pledge which had been made of them, the object having been accomplished for which they were ceded, and that it was in the discretion of congress to dispose of them in such way as best to conduce to the quiet, harmony, and general interest of the American people. That which congress has the power to do, by an express grant of authority in the constitution, it is, in my humble opinion, imperatively bound to do by the terms of the deed of cession. Distribution, and only distribution, of the proceeds of the public lands, among the states, upon the principles proposed, will conform to the spirit, and execute the trust, created in the deeds of cession. Each state, upon grounds of strict justice, as well as equity, has a right to demand its distributive share of those proceeds. It is a debt which this government owes to every state—a debt, payment of which might be enforced by process of law, if there were any forum, before which the United States could be brought.

And are there not, sir, existing at this moment the most urgent and powerful motives for this dispensation of justice to the states at the hands of the general government? A stranger listening to the argument of the senator from New York, would conclude that we were not one united people, but that there were two separate and distinct nations; one acted upon by the general government, and the other by the state governments. But is that a fair representation of the case? Are we not one and the same people, acted upon, it is true, by two systems of government, two sets of public agents; the one established for general, and the other for local purposes? The constituency is identical, although it is doubly governed. It is the bounden duty of those who are charged with the administration of each system, so to administer it asto do as much good and as little harm as possible, within the scope of their respective powers. They should also each take into view the defects in the powers, or defects in the administration of the powers, of the other, and endeavor to supply them, as far as its legitimate authority extends, and the wants or necessities of the people require. For, if distress, adversity, and ruin come upon our constituents from any quarter, should they not have our active exertions to relieve them, as well as all our sympathies and our deepest regrets? It would be but a poor consolation to the general government, if such were the fact, that this unhappy state of things was produced by the measures and operation of the state governments, and not by its own. And if the general government, by a seasonable and legitimate exercise of its authority, could relieve the people, and would not relieve them, the reproaches due to it would be quite as great as if that government itself, and not the state governments, had brought these distresses upon the people.

The powers of taxation possessed by the general government are unlimited. The most fruitful and the least burdensome modes of taxation are confided to this government exclusive of the states. The power of laying duties on foreign imports is entirely monopolized by the federal government. The states have only the power of direct or internal taxation. They have none to impose duties on imports, not even luxuries; we have. And what is their condition at this moment? Some of them are greatly in debt, at a loss even to raise means to pay the interest upon their bonds. These debts were contracted under the joint encouragement of the recommendation of this government and prosperous times, in the prosecution of the laudable object of internal improvements. They may have pushed, in some instances, their schemes too far; but it was in a good cause, and it is easy to make reproaches when things turn out ill.

And here let me say, that, looking to the patriotic object of these state debts, and the circumstances under which they were contracted, I saw with astonished and indignant feelings a resolution submitted to the senate, at the last session, declaring that the general government would not assume the payment of them. A more wicked, malignant, Danton-like proposition was never offered to the consideration of any deliberative assembly. It was a negative proposition, not a negative of any affirmative resolution presented to the senate; for no such affirmative resolution was offered by any one, nor do I believe was ever thought or dreamed of by any one. When, where, by whom, was the extravagant idea ever entertained, of an assumption of the state debts by the general government? There was not a solitary voice raised in favor of such a measure in this senate. Would it not have been time enough to have denounced assumption when it was seriously proposed? Yet, ata moment when the states were greatly embarrassed, when their credit was sinking, at this critical moment, was a measure brought forward, unnecessarily, wantonly, and gratuitously, made the subject of an elaborate report, and exciting a protracted debate, the inevitable effect of all which must have been to create abroad distrust in the ability and good faith of the debtor states. Can it be doubted, that a serious injury was inflicted upon them by this unprecedented proceeding? Nothing is more delicate than credit or character. Their credit cannot fail to have suffered in the only place where capital could be obtained, and where at that very time some of the agents of the states were negotiating with foreign bankers. About that period, one of the senators of this body had in person gone abroad for the purpose of obtaining advances of money on Illinois stock.

The senator from New York said, that the European capitalists had fixed the value of the state bonds of this country at fifty per centum; and therefore it was a matter of no consequence what might be said about the credit of the states here. But the senator is mistaken, or I have been entirely misinformed. I understand that some bankers have limited their advances upon the amount of state bonds, prior to their actual sale, to fifty per centum, in like manner as commission merchants will advance on the goods consigned to them, prior to their sale. But in such an operation it is manifestly for the interest of the states, as well as the bankers, that the bonds should command in the market as much as possible above the fifty per centum; and any proceeding which impairs the value of the bonds must be injurious to both. In any event, the loss would fall upon the states; and that this loss was aggravated by what occurred here, on the resolution to which I have referred, no one, at all acquainted with the sensitiveness of credit and of capitalists, can hesitate to believe. My friends and I made the most strenuous opposition to the resolution, but it was all unavailing, and a majority of the senate adopted the report of the committee, to which the resolution had been referred. We urged the impolicy and injustice of the proceeding; that no man in his senses would ever propose the assumption of the state debts; that no such proposal had, in fact, been made; that the debts of the states were unequal in amount, contracted by states of unequal population, and that some states were not in debt at all. How, then, was it possible to think of a general assumption of state debts? Who could conceive of such a proposal? But there is a vast difference between our paying their debts for them, and paying our own debts to them, in conformity with the trusts arising out of the public domain, which the general government is bound to execute.