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.

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Which gives us an average per year of thirty-five million, six hundred and forty thousand, four hundred and eighty-six dollars, and thirty-eight cents.

The sum I have proposed is only twenty-two millions, which deducted from thirty-five, as above, leaves a reduction of thirteenmillion, six hundred and forty thousand dollars—being a sum greater than the whole average expenditure of the extravagant and profligate administration of Mr. Adams, which they told us was so enormous that it must be reduced by a great ‘retrenchment and reform.’

I am not here going to inquire into the items which composed the large expenditures of the four years of Mr. Van Buren’s administration. I know what has been said, and will again be said, on that subject—that there were many items of extra expenditure, which may never occur again. Be it so; but do we not know that every administration has its extras, and that these may be expected to arise, and will and must arise, under every administration beneath the sun? But take this also into view in looking at the expenses of that administration: that less was expended on the national defence, less in the construction or repair of fortifications, less for the navy, and less for other means of repelling a foreign attack, than, perhaps, ought to have been expended. At present we are all animated with a common zeal and determination on the subject of defence; all feel the necessity of some adequate plan of defence, as well upon the ocean as the land, and especially of putting our navy and our fortifications in a better state to defend the honor and protect the rights of the nation. We feel this necessity, although we all trust that the calamity of a war may be averted. This calls for a greater amount of money for these purposes than was appropriated under Mr. Van Buren’s administration; beside which, in the progress of affairs, unforeseen exigencies may arise, and do constantly occur, calling for other appropriations needed, which no man can anticipate. Every ministry in every government, every administration of our own government, has its extraordinaries and its contingencies; and it is no apology for Mr. Van Buren’s administration to say, that the circumstances which occasioned its expenditures were extraordinary and peculiar. Making all the allowances which its warmest friends can ask for the expenses of the inglorious war in Florida—a contest which has profusely wasted not only the resources of the treasury, but the best blood of the nation—making the amplest allowance for this and for all other extras whatever, the sum expended by the last administration still remains to be far, far beyond what is proposed in these resolutions, as sufficient for the present, and for years to come. It must, in candor, be conceded that this is a very great diminution of the national expenditure; and such, if nothing else were done, would redeem the pledge of the whig party.

But let us now consider the subject in another light. Thirteen millions was the average annual amount of expenditure under Mr. Adams’s administration, which terminated thirteen years ago. I should be authorized, therefore, to take the commencement of his administration, in 1825, being a period of seventeen years, inmaking a comparison of the progressive increase of the national expenditures; or, at all events, adding one half of Mr. Adams’s term, to take the period as running fifteen years back; but I shall not avail myself of this perfectly fair calculation; and I will therefore say, that at the end of thirteen years, from the time when the expenditures were thirteen millions, I propose that they be raised to twenty-two millions. And is this an extraordinary increase for such a period, in a country of such rapid increase and development as this is? What has occurred during this lapse of time? The army has been doubled, or nearly so; it has increased from a little over six thousand men to twelve thousand. We have built six, eight, or ten ships of the line; (I do not recollect the precise number;) two or three new states have been added to the union; and two periodical enumerations have been made to the national population; besides which, there have been, and yet are to be, vast expenditures, on works of fortification and national defence. Now, when we look at the increase in the number of members in both houses of congress, and consider the necessary and inevitable progress and growth of the nation, is it, I ask, an extraordinary thing, that, at the end of a period of thirteen years, our expenditures should increase from thirteen to twenty-two millions? If we take the period at seventeen years, (as we fairly may,) or at but fifteen years, the increase of expenses will be found not to go beyond the proportional increase of our population within the same period. That increase is found to be about four per centum annually; and the increase of government expenditures, at the rate above stated, will not exceed that. This is independent of any augmentation of the army or navy, of the addition of new states and territories, or the enlargement of the numbers in congress. Taking the addition, at the end of thirteen years, to be nine millions of dollars, it will give an annual average increase of about seven hundred thousand dollars. And I think that the government of no people, young, free, and growing, as is this nation, can, under circumstances like ours, be justly charged with rashness, recklessness, or extravagance, if its expenses increase but at the rate of seven hundred thousand dollars per annum. If our posterity, after their numbers shall have swelled to one hundred millions, shall find that their expenses have augmented in no greater ratio than this, they will have no cause of complaint of the profuseness or extravagance of their government.

But, it should be recollected, that while I have fixed the rate of expenditure at the sum I have mentioned, namely, twenty-two millions, this does not preclude further reductions, if they shall be found practicable, after existing abuses have been explored, and all useless or unnecessary expenditures have been lopped off.

The honorable senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) has favored us, on more occasions than one, with an account of the reforms he effected, when at the head of the war department of thisgovernment; and no man, certainly, can be less disposed than I am to deprive him of a single feather which he thinks he put in his cap by that operation. But what does he tell us was his experience in this business of retrenchment? He tells us what we all know to be true—what every father, every householder, especially finds to be true in his own case—that it is much easier to plunge into extravagance than to reduce expenses; and it is preëminently true of a nation. Every nation finds it far easier to rush into an extravagant expenditure of the money entrusted to its public agents, than to bring down the public expenditures from a profuse and reckless to an economical standard. All useful and salutary reforms must be made with care and circumspection. The gentleman from South Carolina admits, that the reforms he accomplished took him four years to bring about. It was not till after four years of constant exertion that he was enabled to establish a system of just accountability, and to bring down the expenses of the army to that average per man, to which they were at length reduced. And now, with all his personal knowledge of the difficulties of such a task, was it kind in him, was it kind or fair in his associates, to taunt us, as they have done, by already asking, ‘where are the reforms you promised to accomplish when you were out of power?’

[Mr. Calhoun here rose to explain, and observed, that what he had again and again said, on the subject of reforms, was no more than this, that it was time the promised reforms should begin, it was time they should begin; and that was all he now asked.]

Very well; if that is all he asks, the gentleman will not be disappointed. We could not begin at the extra session; it could not then reasonably be expected of us; for what is the duty of a new administration, when it first comes into the possession of power? Its immediate and pressing care is to carry on the government; to become acquainted with the machine; to look how it acts in various parts, and to take care that it shall not work injuriously to the public interest. They cannot, at once, look back at the past abuses; it is not practicable to do so; it must have time to look into the pigeon-holes of the various bureaux, to find out what has been done, and what is doing. Its first great duty is to keep the machine of government in regular motion. It could not, therefore, be expected that congress would go into a thorough process of reform at the extra session. Its peculiar object then was to adopt measures of immediate and indispensable relief to the people, and to the government. Besides which, the subsequent misfortunes of the whig party were well known. President Harrison occupied the chair of state but for a single month; and the members of his cabinet left it under circumstances which, let me here say, do them the highest honor. I do not enter upon the inquiry whether the state of things, which they supposed to exist did actually exist or not; but, believing it to exist, as they did, their resignation presentsone of the most signal examples of the sacrifice of the honors and emoluments of high station, at great expense and personal inconvenience, and of noble adherence to honor and good faith, which the history of any country can show. But I may justly claim, not only on behalf of the retiring secretaries, but for the whole whig party, a stern adherence to principle, in utter disregard of the spoils doctrine, and of all those baser motives and considerations which address themselves to some men with so great a power. I say, then, that the late extra session was no time to achieve a great, and extensive, and difficult reform throughout the departments of the government; a process like that can be attempted only during a regular session of congress; and do not gentlemen know that it is now in progress, by the faithful hands to which it has here and elsewhere in congress been committed? and that an extraordinary committee has been raised in this body, insomuch that, to effect it, the senate has somewhat shot from its usual and appropriate orbit, by establishing a standing committee of retrenchment? If the honorable senator from South Carolina took four years to bring down the expenses of the war department, when under his own immediate superintendence, I may surely, with confidence, make my appeal to his sense of justice and liberality, to allow us, at least, two years, before he reproaches us with a failure in a work so much more extensive.

I will now say, that, in suggesting the propriety of fixing the annual average expenditure of this government at twenty-two millions of dollars, from this time, and for some years to come, it is not my purpose to preclude any further reductions of expense, by the dismissal of useless officers, the abolition of useless institutions, and the reduction of unnecessary or extravagant expenditures. No man is more desirous than I am of seeing this government administered at the smallest possible expense consistent with the duties intrusted to us, in the management of our public interests, both at home and abroad. None will rejoice more, if it shall be found practicable to reduce our expenses to eighteen, to fifteen, or even to thirteen millions. None, I repeat it, will rejoice in such a triumph of economy more heartily than I. None, none.

But now allow me to proceed to state by what process I have reached the sum of twenty-two millions, as proposed in the resolution I have offered.