MR. RIVES having concluded his remarks,
Mr. Clay rose in rejoinder. I have no desire, said he, to prolong this
unpleasant discussion; but I must say that I heard with great surprise
and regret the closing remark, especially, of the honorable gentleman
from Virginia, as, indeed, I did many of those which preceded it. That
gentleman stands in a peculiar situation. I found him several years ago
in the half-way house, where he seems afraid to remain, and from which
he is yet unwilling to go. I had thought, after the thorough riddling
which the roof of the house had received in the breaking up of the
pet-bank system, he would have fled somewhere else for refuge; but
there he still stands, solitary and alone, shivering and pelted by the
pitiless storm. The sub-treasury is repealed; the pet-bank system is
abandoned; the United States bank bill is vetoed; and now, when there
is as complete and perfect a reunion of the purse and the sword in
the hands of the executive as ever there was under general Jackson
or Mr. Van Buren, the senator is for doing nothing! The senator is
for going home, leaving the treasury and the country in their lawless
condition! Yet no man has heretofore, more than he has, deplored and
deprecated a state of things so utterly unsafe, and repugnant to all
just precautions, indicated alike by sound theory and experience in
free governments. And the senator talks to us about applying to the
wisdom of practical men, in respect to banking, and advises further
deliberation! Why, I should suppose that we are at present in the very
best situation to act upon the subject. Besides the many painful years
we have had for deliberation, we have been near three months almost
exclusively engrossed with the very subject itself. We have heard all
manner of facts, statements, and arguments in any way connected with
it. We understand, it seems to me, all we ever can learn or comprehend
about a national bank. And we have, at least, some conception too of
what sort of one will be acceptable at the other end of the avenue.
Yet now, with a vast majority of the people of the entire country
crying out to us for a bank; with the people throughout the whole
valley of the Mississippi rising in their majesty, and demanding it as
indispensable to their well-being, and pointing to their losses, their
sacrifices, and their sufferings, for the want of such an institution;
in such a state of things, we are gravely and coldly told by the
honorable senator from Virginia, that we had best go home, leaving the
purse and the sword in the uncontrolled possession of the president,
and, above all things, never to make a party bank! Why sir, does he,
with all his knowledge of the conflicting opinions which prevail here,
and have prevailed, believe that we ever can make a bank but by the
votes of one party who are in favor of it, in opposition to the votes
of another party against it? I deprecate this expression of opinion
from that gentleman the more, because, although the honorable senator
professes not to know the opinions of the president, it certainly does
turn out in the sequel, that there is a most remarkable coincidence
between those opinions and his own; and he has, on the present occasion,
defended the motives and the course of the president with all the
solicitude and all the fervent zeal of a member of his _privy council_.
There is a rumor abroad, that a cabal exists――a new sort of kitchen
cabinet――whose object is the dissolution of the regular cabinet, the
dissolution of the whig party, the dispersion of congress without
accomplishing any of the great purposes of the extra session, and
a total change, in fact, in the whole face of our political affairs.
I hope, and I persuade myself, that the honorable senator is not,
cannot be, one of the component members of such a cabal; but I must
say, that there has been displayed by the honorable senator to-day a
predisposition, astonishing and inexplicable, to misconceive almost all
of what I have said, and a perseverance, after repeated corrections,
in misunderstanding――for I will not charge him with wilfully and
intentionally misrepresenting――the whole spirit and character of the
address which, as a man of honor, and as a senator, I felt myself bound
in duty to make to this body.
The senator begins with saying that I charge the president with
‘perfidy!’ Did I use any such language? I appeal to every gentleman who
heard me, to say whether I have in a single instance gone beyond a fair
and legitimate examination of the executive objections to the bill. Yet
he has charged me with ‘arraigning’ the president, with indicting him
in various counts, and with imputing to him motives such as I never
even intimated or dreamed; and that, when I was constantly expressing,
over and over, my personal respect and regard for president Tyler, for
whom I have cherished an intimate personal friendship of twenty years’
standing, and while I expressly said, that if that friendship should
now be interrupted, it should not be my fault! Why, sir, what possible,
what conceivable motive can I have to quarrel with the president, or to
break up the whig party? What earthly motive can impel me to wish for
any other result than that that party shall remain in perfect harmony,
undivided, and shall move undismayed boldly and unitedly forward to
the accomplishment of the all-important public objects which it has
avowed to be its aim? What imaginable interest or feeling can I have
other than the success, the triumph, the glory of the whig party? But
that there may be designs and purposes on the part of certain other
individuals to place me in inimical relations with the president,
and to represent me as personally opposed to him, I can well
imagine――individuals who are beating up for recruits, and endeavoring
to form a third party with materials so scanty as to be wholly
insufficient to compose a decent corporal’s guard. I fear there are
such individuals, though I do not charge the senator as being himself
one of them. What a spectacle has been presented to this nation
during this entire session of congress! That of the cherished and
confidential friends of John Tyler, persons who boast and claim to be,
_par excellence_, his exclusive and genuine friends, being the bitter,
systematic, determined, uncompromising opponents of every leading
measure of John Tyler’s administration! Was there ever before such
an example presented, in this or any other age, in this or any other
country? I have myself known the president too long, and cherish toward
him too sincere a friendship, to allow my feelings to be affected or
alienated by any thing which has passed here to-day. If the president
chooses――which I am sure he cannot, unless falsehood has been whispered
into his ears or poison poured into his heart――to detach himself from
me, I shall deeply regret it, for the sake of our common friendship,
and our common country. I now repeat, what I before said, that, of all
the measures of relief which the American people have called upon us
for, that of a national bank, and a sound and uniform currency, has
been the most loudly and importunately demanded. The senator says, that
the question of a bank was not the issue made before the people at the
late election. I can say, for one, my own conviction is diametrically
the contrary. What may have been the character of the canvass in
Virginia, I will not say; probably gentlemen on both sides were, every
where, governed in some degree by considerations of local policy. What
issues may, therefore, have been presented to the people of Virginia,
either above or below tidewater, I am not prepared to say. The great
error, however, of the honorable senator is, in thinking, that the
sentiments of a particular party in Virginia are always a fair exponent
of the sentiments of the whole union. I can tell that senator, that
wherever I was, in the great valley of the Mississippi, in Kentucky, in
Tennessee, in Maryland――in all the circles in which I moved――everywhere,
‘bank or no bank’ was the great, the leading, the vital question.
At Hanover, in Virginia, during the last summer, at one of the most
remarkable, and respectable, and gratifying assemblages that I ever
attended, I distinctly announced my conviction, that a bank of the
United States was indispensable. As to the opinions of general Harrison,
I know that, like many others, he had entertained doubts as to the
constitutionality of a bank; but I also know that, as the election
approached, his opinions turned more in favor of a national bank; and
I speak from my own personal knowledge of his opinions, when I say that
I have no more doubt he would have signed that bill, than that you,
Mr. President, now occupy that chair, or that I am addressing you.
I rose not to say one word which should wound the feelings of President
Tyler. The senator says that, if placed in like circumstances, I would
have been the last man to avoid putting a direct veto upon the bill,
had it met my disapprobation; and he does me the honor to attribute
to me high qualities of stern and unbending intrepidity. I hope, that
in all that relates to personal firmness, all that concerns a just
appreciation of the insignificance of human life――whatever may be
attempted to threaten or alarm a soul not easily swayed by opposition,
or awed or intimidated by menace――a stout heart and a steady eye, that
can survey, unmoved and undaunted, any mere personal perils that assail
this poor, transient, perishing frame, I may, without disparagement,
compare with other men. But there is a sort of courage, which, I
frankly confess it, I do not possess, a boldness to which I dare not
aspire, a valor which I cannot covet. I cannot lay myself down in the
way of the welfare and happiness of my country. That I cannot, I have
not the courage to do. I cannot interpose the power with which I may
be invested, a power conferred not for my personal benefit, nor for my
aggrandizement, but for my country’s good, to check her onward march
to greatness and glory. I have not courage enough, I am too cowardly
for that. I would not, I dare not, in the exercise of such a trust,
lie down, and place my body across the path that leads my country to
prosperity and happiness. This is a sort of courage widely different
from that which a man may display in his private conduct and personal
relations. Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that
higher and nobler courage which prompts the patriot to offer himself
a voluntary sacrifice to his country’s good.
Nor did I say, as the senator represents, that the president should
have resigned. I intimated no personal wish or desire that he should
resign. I referred to the fact of a memorable resignation in his
public life. And what I did say was, that there were other alternatives
before him besides vetoing the bill; and that it was worthy of his
consideration whether consistency did not require that the example
which he had set when he had a constituency of one state, should not be
followed when he had a constituency commensurate with the whole union.
Another alternative was to suffer the bill, without his signature, to
pass into a law under the provisions of the constitution. And I must
confess I see, in this, no such escaping by the back door, no such
jumping out of the window, as the senator talks about. Apprehensions
of the imputation of the want of firmness sometimes impel us to
perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It is the greatest courage to be
able to bear the imputation of the want of courage. But pride, vanity,
egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private life, are vices which
partake of the character of crimes in the conduct of public affairs.
The unfortunate victim of these passions cannot see beyond the
little, petty, contemptible circle of his own personal interests.
All his thoughts are withdrawn from his country, and concentrated on
his consistency, his firmness, himself. The high, the exalted, the
sublime emotions of a patriotism, which, soaring towards heaven, rises
far above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one
soul-transporting thought of the good and the glory of one’s country,
are never felt in his impenetrable bosom. That patriotism which,
catching its inspirations from the immortal God, and leaving at an
immeasurable distance below all lesser, grovelling, personal interests
and feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor,
of devotion, and of death itself――that is public virtue; that is the
noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues!
I said nothing of any obligation on the part of the president
to conform his judgment to the opinions of the senate and house
of representatives, although the senator argued as if I had, and
persevered in so arguing, after repeated corrections. I said no such
thing. I know and respect the perfect independence of each department,
acting within its proper sphere, of other departments. But I referred
to the majorities in the two houses of congress as further and strong
evidence of the opinion of the people of the United States in favor of
the establishment of a bank of the United States. And I contended that,
according to the doctrine of instructions which prevailed in Virginia,
and of which the president is a disciple, and, in pursuance of the
example already cited, he ought not to have rejected the bill.
I have heard that, on his arrival at the seat of the general government,
to enter upon the duties of the office of vice-president, in March last,
when interrogated how far he meant to conform, in his new station, to
certain peculiar opinions which were held in Virginia, he made this
patriotic and noble reply: ‘I am vice-president of the United States,
and not of the state of Virginia; and I shall be governed by the wishes
and opinions of my constituents.’ When I heard of this encouraging and
satisfactory reply, believing, as I most religiously do, that a large
majority of the people of the United States are in favor of a national
bank, (and gentlemen may shut their eyes to the fact, deny or dispute,
or reason it away as they please, but it is my conscientious conviction
that two-thirds, if not more, of the people of the United States desire
such an institution,) I thought I beheld a sure and certain guarantee
for the fulfilment of the wishes of the people of the United States.
I thought it impossible, that the wants and wishes of a great people,
who had bestowed such unbounded and generous confidence, and conferred
on him, such exalted honors, should be disregarded and disappointed. It
did not enter into my imagination to conceive, that one, who had shown
so much deference and respect to the presumed sentiments of a single
state, should display less towards the sentiments of the whole nation.
I hope, Mr. President, that, in performing the painful duty which had
devolved on me, I have not transcended the limits of legitimate debate.
I repeat, in all truth and sincerity, the assurance to the senate and
to the country, that nothing but a stern, reluctant, and indispensable
sense of honor and of duty could have forced from me the response which
I have made to the president’s objections. But, instead of yielding
without restraint to the feelings of disappointment and mortification
excited by the perusal of his message, I have anxiously endeavored
to temper the notice of it, which I have been compelled to take, by
the respect due to the office of chief magistrate, and by the personal
regard and esteem which I have ever entertained for its present
incumbent.