This committee reported in favor of the five administration candidates. A minority report was at the same time presented, which was ordered to lie on the table.
On the 10th of March, a resolution was introduced by Mr. Petriken, declaring the five persons who had brought no legal certificates, entitled to their seats, and directing the speaker to qualify them.
The previous question being moved by the author of the resolutions, debate was suppressed, and the vote taken, and the resolution adopted by a vote of one hundred and eleven to eighty-one; several whig members refusing to vote.
To a portion of the American people, no act could have appeared morearbitrary and unjust, however right and proper it might have seemed to the party in power; nor could many divest themselves of the impression, that this course was adopted to secure certain objects, which the administration had in view.
The opposition to Mr. Van Buren’s administration, growing out of his views and his course in relation to the currency, and augmented and heightened by the commercial revulsions which the country had experienced, and the pecuniary embarrassments under which it had been laboring for years, was now fast approaching to its crisis. On the 4th of December, 1839, a Whig National Convention, composed of delegates from the different states assembled at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of nominating candidates for president and vice-president of the United States. The convention remained in session between two and three days, when having selected William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, as candidate for president, and John Tyler, of Virginia, as candidate for vice-president, and with great unanimity of feeling, resolved to support them, it adjourned.
The nomination thus made was unexpected to a considerable portion of the whig party. For a long time, their attention had been turned towards Henry Clay, and an anxious wish prevailed on the part of his special friends, that he should be put in nomination. They confidently expected it. But antecedently to the meeting of the convention, it had been the general, and even the universal opinion, that when that body should assemble and an interchange of views had been made, the man should be selected, who, it was thought, would concentrate the greatest strength against the existing administration. Preferences were, therefore, to be surrendered at the shrine of the country’s good—while, therefore, it was at first with painful emotions that the friends of Mr. Clay yielded, it was done with great unanimity and even cheerfulness, when it was perceived that by the nomination of Gen. Harrison other influences and interests would be secured, which were likely to result in his election.
From this time, General Harrison was distinctly before the people of the United States, as the candidate of the whig party for the presidency. With unexampled unanimity they rallied about him; and from this time the two great parties took the field, and never since the adoption of the constitution, did political enthusiasm rise higher, or were greater efforts made to elect the candidates, which each party proposed. The powers of the press were called into requisition, conventions, mass-meetings, varying from one thousand to twenty-five thousand, were assembled in various sections of the country; clubs were formed—log cabins erected, and the excitement and enthusiasm rolled up and were prolonged by the long and patriotic appeals of many of the first orators and statesmen in the country. The entire country was moved; the common business of men was visibly neglected and forgotten; the one all-absorbing theme was the approaching election and its issue. On that issue thousands were staked, and as men had thousands depending, their efforts were correspondingly vigorous and varied. Happy would the historian feel, if he could in truth exempt either party from the imputation of unfairness in every political transaction connected with the presidential election. Which party was the most censurable, we shall not attempt to decide. Individuals belonging to both were in some transactions sufficiently wrong.
On the 21st of July, 1840, the twenty-sixth congress adjourned. Twoacts only of a public character are worthy of notice. The one providing “for taking the sixth census of the United States,” and the other “for the collection, safe-keeping, transfer, and disbursement of the public revenues.”
The act, viz., that for the collection, &c., of the public revenue, usually denominated the sub-treasury system, may be regarded as the great financial measure of Mr. Van Buren’s administration. It was early proposed by him, and in every subsequent message was urged upon the consideration of congress, as the best scheme which could be devised, by which the public revenue could be collected, safely kept, transferred, and disbursed. The debates on this system, by the supporters and opposers of the administration during the several sessions in which it was agitated, would fill volumes. By the President and his friends, it was eulogized and warmly recommended; by the opposition party, it was pointedly resisted and condemned. On this measure, and others, of a financial character connected with it, perhaps more than any other Mr. Van Buren staked his political fortune. With this, he entered into the election as a candidate for the presidency a second term.
On the 7th of December, 1840, the second session of the twenty-sixth congress commenced. Mr. Van Buren presented his last annual message; in which, after representing the foreign relations of the country as amicable, he proceeded to express his pleasure, that notwithstanding the various embarrassments which the government had to encounter; the great increase of public expenditure by reason of the Florida war; the difficulty of collecting moneys still due from certain banks, and the diminution of the revenue, &c., the business of the government had been carried on without the creation of a national debt.