DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND REVENUE.
"The great loss of the bank has been in the depreciation of the
securities; and the only way to regain a capital is to restore their
value. A large portion of them consists of State stocks, which are
so far below their intrinsic worth that the present prices could
not have been anticipated by any reasonable man. No doubt can be
entertained of their ultimate payment. The States themselves,
unaided, can satisfy every claim against them; they will do it
speedily, if Congress adopt the measures contemplated for their
relief. A division of the public lands among the States, which would
enable them all to pay their debts--or a pledge of the proceeds
of sales for that purpose--would be abundant security. Either of
these acts would inspire confidence, and enhance the value of all
kinds of property." This paragraph appeared in the Philadelphia
National Gazette, was attributed to Mr. Biddle, President of the
Bank of the United States; and connects that institution with all
the plans for distributing the public land money among the States,
either in the shape of a direct distribution, or in the disguise
of a deposit of the surplus revenue; and this for the purpose of
enhancing the value of the State stocks held by it. That institution
was known to have interfered in the federal legislation, to promote
or to baffle the passage of laws, as deemed to be favorable or
otherwise to her interests; and this resort to the land revenue
through an act of Congress was an eminent instance of the spirit of
interference. This distribution had become, very nearly, a party
measure; and of the party of which the bank was a member, and Mr.
Clay the chief. He was the author of the scheme--had introduced it
at several sessions--and now renewed it. Mr. Webster also made a
proposition to the same effect at this session. It was the summer
of the presidential election; and great calculations were made by
the party which favored the distribution upon its effect in adding
to their popularity. Mr. Clay limited his plan of distribution to
five years; but the limitation was justly considered as nothing--as
a mere means of beginning the system of these distributions--which
once began, would go on of themselves, while our presidential
elections continued, and any thing to divide could be found in the
treasury. Mr. Benton opposed the whole scheme, and confronted it
with a proposition to devote the surplus revenue to the purposes
of national defence; thereby making an issue, as he declared,
between the plunder of the country and the defence of the country.
He introduced an antagonistic bill, as he termed it, devoting the
surplus moneys to the public defences; and showing by reports from
the war and navy departments that seven millions a year for fifteen
years would be required for the completion of the naval defences,
and thirty millions to complete the military defences; of which nine
millions per annum could be beneficially expended; and then went on
to say:
"That the reports from which he had read, taken together,
presented a complete system of preparation for the national
defence; every arm and branch of defence was to be provided
for; an increase of the navy, including steamships; appropriate
fortifications, including steam batteries; armories, foundries,
arsenals, with ample supplies of arms and munitions of war; an
increase of troops for the West and Northwest; a line of posts
and a military road from the Red River to the Wisconsin, in
the rear of the settlements, and mounted dragoons to scour the
country; every thing was considered; all was reduced to system,
and a general, adequate, and appropriate plan of national
defence was presented, sufficient to absorb all the surplus
revenue, and wanting nothing but the vote of Congress to carry
it into effect. In this great system of national defence the
whole Union was equally interested; for the country, in all
that concerned its defences, was but a unit, and every section
was interested in the defence of every other section, and every
individual citizen was interested in the defence of the whole
population. It was in vain to say that the navy was on the sea,
and the fortifications on the seaboard, and that the citizens
in the interior States, or in the valley of the Mississippi,
had no interest in these remote defences. Such an idea was
mistaken and delusive. The inhabitant of Missouri and of Indiana
had a direct interest in keeping open the mouths of the rivers,
defending the seaport towns, and preserving a naval force that
would protect the produce of his labor in crossing the ocean,
and arriving safely in foreign markets. All the forts at the
mouth of the Mississippi were just as much for the benefit of
the western States, as if those States were down at the mouth
of that river. So of all the forts on the Gulf of Mexico. Five
forts are completed in the delta of the Mississippi; two are
completed on the Florida or Alabama coast; and seven or eight
more are projected; all calculated to give security to western
commerce in passing through the Gulf of Mexico. Much had been
done for that frontier, but more remained to be done; and
among the great works contemplated in that quarter were large
establishments at Pensacola, Key West, or the Dry Tortugas.
Large military and naval stations were contemplated at these
points, and no expenditure or preparations could exceed in
amount the magnitude of the interests to be protected. On the
Atlantic board the commerce of the States found its way to
the ocean through many outlets, from Maine to Florida; in the
West, on the contrary, the whole commerce of the valley of
the Mississippi, all that of the Alabama, of western Florida,
and some part of Georgia, passes through a single outlet,
and reaches the ocean by passing between Key West and Cuba.
Here, then, is an immense commerce collected into one channel,
compressed into one line, and passing, as it were, through one
gate. This gives to Key West and the Dry Tortugas an importance
hardly possessed by any point on the globe; for, besides
commanding the commerce of the entire West, it will also command
that of Mexico, of the West Indies, of the Caribbean sea, and
of South America down to the middle of that continent at its
most eastern projection, Cape Roque. To understand the cause of
all this (Mr. B. said), it was necessary to look to the trade
winds, which, blowing across the Atlantic between the tropics,
strike the South American continent at Cape Roque, follow the
retreating coast of that continent up to the Caribbean sea, and
to the Gulf of Mexico, creating the gulf stream as they go,
and by the combined effect of a current in the air and in the
water, sweeping all vessels from this side Cape Roque into its
stream, carrying them round west of Cuba and bringing them out
between Key West and the Havana. These two positions, then,
constitute the gate through which every thing must pass that
comes from the valley of the Mississippi, from Mexico, and from
South America as low down as Cape Roque. As the masters of the
Mississippi, we should be able to predominate in the Gulf of
Mexico; and, to do so, we must have great establishments at Key
West and Pensacola. Such establishments are now proposed; and
every citizen of the West should look upon them as the guardians
of his own immediate interests, the indispensable safeguard
to his own commerce; and to him the highest, most sacred,
and most beneficial object to which surplus revenue could be
applied. The Gulf of Mexico should be considered as the estuary
of the Mississippi. A naval and military supremacy should be
established in that gulf, cost what it might; for without that
supremacy the commerce of the entire West would lie at the mercy
of the fleets and privateers of inimical powers.
"Mr. B. returned to the immediate object of his remarks--to the
object of showing that the defences of the country would absorb
every surplus dollar that would ever be found in the treasury.
He recapitulated the aggregates of those heads of expenditure;
for the navy, about forty millions of dollars, embracing the
increase of the navy, navy yards, ordnance, and repairs of
vessels for a series of years; for fortifications, about thirty
millions, reported by the engineer department; and which sum,
after reducing the size of some of the largest class of forts,
not yet commenced, would still be large enough, with the sum
reported by the ordnance department, amounting to near thirty
millions, to make a totality not much less than one hundred
millions; and far more than sufficient to swallow up all the
surpluses which will ever be found to exist in the treasury.
Even after deducting much from these estimates, the remainder
will still go beyond any surplus that will actually be found.
Every person knows that the present year is no criterion for
estimating the revenue; excess of paper issues has inflated all
business, and led to excess in all branches of the revenue; next
year it will be down, and soon fall as much below the usual
level as it now is above it. More than that; what is now called
a surplus in the treasury is no surplus, but a mere accumulation
for want of passing the appropriation bills. The whole of it is
pledged to the bills which are piled upon our tables, and which
we cannot get passed; for the opposition is strong enough to
arrest the appropriations, to dam up the money in the treasury;
and then call that a surplus which would now be in a course
of expenditure, if the necessary appropriation bills could be
passed.
"The public defences will require near one hundred millions of
dollars; the annual amount required for these defences alone
amount to thirteen or fourteen millions. The engineer department
answers explicitly that it can beneficially expend six millions
of dollars annually; the ordnance that it can beneficially
expend three millions; the navy that it can beneficially expend
several millions; and all this for a series of years. This
distribution bill has five years to run, and in that time, if
the money is applied to defence instead of distribution, the
great work of national defence will be so far completed as to
place the United States in condition to cause her rights and her
interests, her flag and her soil, to be honored and respected by
the whole world."
The bill was passed in the Senate, though by a vote somewhat
close--25 to 20. The yeas were:
Messrs. Black, Buchanan, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing
of Ohio, Goldsborough, Hendricks, Kent, Knight, Leigh, McKean,
Mangum, Naudain, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins,
Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Webster White.
NAYS.--Messrs. Benton, Calhoun, Cuthbert, Ewing of Illinois,
Grundy, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Linn,
Moore, Morris, Niles, Rives, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley,
Tallmadge, Walker, Wright.
Being sent to the House for concurrence it became evident that it
could not pass that body; and then the friends of distribution in
the Senate fell upon a new mode to effect their object, and in a
form to gain the votes of many members who held distribution to be
a violation of the constitution--among them Mr. Calhoun;--who took
the lead in the movement. There was a bill before the Senate to
regulate the keeping of the public moneys in the deposit banks; and
this was turned into distribution of the surplus public moneys with
the States, in proportion to their representation in Congress, to
be returned when Congress should call for it: and this was called
a deposit with the States; and the faith of the States pledged for
returning the money. The deposit was defended on the same argument
on which Mr. Calhoun had proposed to amend the constitution two
years before; namely that there was no other way to get rid of
the surplus. And to a suggestion from Mr. Wright that the moneys,
when once so deposited might never be got back again, Mr. Calhoun
answered:
"But the senator from New-York objects to the measure, that
it would, in effect, amount to a distribution, on the ground,
as he conceives, that the States would never refund. He does
not doubt but that they would, if called on to refund by the
government; but he says that Congress will in fact never make
the call. He rests this conclusion on the supposition that there
would be a majority of the States opposed to it. He admits, in
case the revenue should become deficient, that the southern or
staple States would prefer to refund their quota, rather than to
raise the imposts to meet the deficit; but he insists that the
contrary would be the case with the manufacturing States, which
would prefer to increase the imposts to refunding their quota,
on the ground that the increase of the duties would promote the
interests of manufactures. I cannot agree with the senator that
those States would assume a position so utterly untenable as to
refuse to refund a deposit which their faith would be plighted
to return, and rest the refusal on the ground of preferring
to lay a tax, because it would be a bounty to them, and would
consequently throw the whole burden of the tax on the other
States. But, be this as it may, I can tell the senator that, if
they should take a course so unjust and monstrous, he may be
assured that the other States would most unquestionably resist
the increase of the imposts; so that the government would have
to take its choice, either to go without the money, or call on
the States to refund the deposits."
Mr. Benton took an objection to this scheme of deposit, that it
was a distribution under a false name, making a double disposition
of the same money; that the land money was to be distributed under
the bill already passed by the Senate: and he moved an amendment
to except that money from the operation of the deposit to be made
with the States. He said it was hardly to be supposed that, in the
nineteenth century, a grave legislative body would pass two bills
for dividing the same money; and it was to save the Senate from the
ridicule of such a blunder that he called their attention to it,
and proposed the amendment. Mr. Calhoun said there was a remedy for
it in a few words, by adding a proviso of exception, if the land
distribution bill became a law. Mr. Benton was utterly opposed to
such a proviso--a proviso to take effect if the same thing did not
become law in another bill. Mr. Morris also wished to know if the
Senate was about to make a double distribution of the same money? As
far it respected the action of the Senate the land bill was, to all
intents and purposes, a law. It had passed the Senate, and they were
done with it. It had changed its title from "bill" to "act." It was
now the act of the Senate, and they could not know what disposition
the House would make of it. Mr. Webster believed the land bill could
not pass the House; that it was put to rest there; and therefore
he had no objection to voting for the second one: thus admitting
that, under the name of "distribution" the act could not pass the
House, and that a change of name was indispensable. Mr. Wright made
a speech of statements and facts to show that there would be no
surplus; and taking up that idea, Mr. Benton spoke thus:
"About this time two years ago, the Senate was engaged in
proclaiming the danger of a bankrupt Treasury, and in proving
to the people that utter ruin must ensue from the removal
of the deposits from the Bank of the United States. The same
Senate, nothing abated in confidence from the failure of former
predictions, is now engaged in celebrating the prosperity of
the country, and proclaiming a surplus of forty, and fifty,
and sixty millions of dollars in that same Treasury, which
so short a time since they thought was going to be bankrupt.
Both occupations are equally unfortunate. Our Treasury is in
no more danger of bursting from distension now, than it was
of collapsing from depletion then. The ghost of the panic was
driven from this chamber in May, 1834, by the report of Mr.
Taney, showing that all the sources of the national revenue were
in their usual rich and bountiful condition; and that there was
no danger of bankruptcy. The speech and statement, so brief and
perspicuous, just delivered by the senator from New York [Mr.
Wright], will perform the same office upon the distribution
spirit, by showing that the appropriations of the session will
require nearly as much money as the public Treasury will be
found to contain. The present exaggerations about the surplus
will have their day, as the panic about an empty Treasury had
its day; and time, which corrects all things, will show the
enormity of these errors which excite the public mind, and
stimulate the public appetite, for a division of forty, fifty,
and sixty millions of surplus treasure."
The bill being ordered to a third reading, with only six dissenting
votes, the author of this View could not consent to let it pass
without an attempt to stigmatize it, and render it odious to the
people, as a distribution in disguise--as a deposit never to be
reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the constitution; as an
attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as plundering
instead of defending the country; as a cheat that would only last
till the presidential election was over; for there would be no
money to deposit after the first or second quarter;--and as having
the inevitable effect, if not the intention, to break the deposit
banks; and, finally, as disappointing its authors in their schemes
of popularity: in which he was prophetic; as, out of half a dozen
aspirants to the presidency, who voted for it, no one of them ever
attained that place. The following are parts of his speech:
"I now come, Mr. President (continued Mr. B.), to the second
subject in the bill--the distribution feature--and to which
the objections are, not of detail, but of principle; but which
objections are so strong, in the mind of myself and some
friends, that, far from shrinking from the contest, and sneaking
away in our little minority of six, where we were left last
evening, we come forward with unabated resolution to renew our
opposition, and to signalize our dissent; anxious to have it
known that we contended to the last against the seductions of a
measure, specious to the view, and tempting to the taste, but
fraught with mischief and fearful consequences to the character
of this government, and to the stability and harmony of this
confederacy.
"Stripping this enactment of statutory verbiage, and collecting
the provisions of the section into a single view, they seem
to be these: 1. The public moneys, above a specific sum, are
to be deposited with the States, in a specified ratio; 2. The
States are to give certificates of deposit, payable to the
United States; but no time, or contingency, is fixed for the
payment; 3. The Secretary of the Treasury is to sell and assign
the certificates, limited to a ratable proportion of each,
when necessary to meet appropriations made by Congress; 4.
The certificates so assigned are to bear an interest of five
per cent., payable half yearly; 5. To bear no interest before
assignment; 6. The principal to be payable at the pleasure of
the State.
"This, Mr. President, is the enactment; and what is such an
enactment? Sir, I will tell you what it is. It is, in name, a
deposit; in form, a loan; in essence and design, a distribution.
Names cannot alter things; and it is as idle to call a gift a
deposit, as it would be to call a stab of the dagger a kiss of
the lips. It is a distribution of the revenues, under the name
of a deposit, and under the form of a loan. It is known to be
so, and is intended to be so; and all this verbiage about a
deposit is nothing but the device and contrivance of those who
have been for years endeavoring to distribute the revenues,
sometimes by the land bill, sometimes by direct propositions,
and sometimes by proposed amendments to the constitution.
Finding all these modes of accomplishing the object met and
frustrated by the constitution, they fall upon this invention
of a deposit, and exult in the success of an old scheme under a
new name. That it is no deposit, but a free gift, and a regular
distribution, is clear and demonstrable, not only from the
avowed principles, declared intentions, and systematic purposes
of those who conduct the bill, but also from the means devised
to effect their object. Names are nothing. The thing done gives
character to the transaction; and the imposition of an erroneous
name cannot change that character. This is no deposit. It has
no feature, no attribute, no characteristic no quality of a
deposit. A deposit is a trust requiring the consent of two
parties, leaving to one the rights of ownership, and imposing
on the other the duties of trustee. The depositor retains the
right of property, and reserves the privilege of resumption; the
depositary is bound to restore. But here the right of property
is parted with; the privilege of resumption is surrendered; the
obligation to render back is not imposed. On the contrary, our
money is put where we cannot reach it. Our treasury warrant
cannot pursue it. The States are to keep the money, free of
interest, until it is needed to meet appropriations; and then
the Secretary of the Treasury is--to do what?--call upon the
State? No! but to sell and assign the certificate; and the
State is to pay the assignee an interest half yearly, and the
principal when it pleases. Now, these appropriations will never
be made. The members of Congress are not yet born--the race of
representatives is not yet known--who will vote appropriations
for national objects, to be paid out of their own State
treasuries. Sooner will the tariff be revived, or the price of
public land be raised. Sooner will the assignability of the
certificate be repealed by law. The contingency will never
arrive, on which the Secretary is to assign: so the deposit
will stand as a loan for ever, without interest. At the end
of some years, the nominal transaction will be rescinded; the
certificates will all be cancelled by one general, unanimous,
harmonious vote in Congress. The disguise of a deposit, like the
mask after a play, will be thrown aside; and the delivery of
the money will turn out to be, what it is now intended to be,
a gift from the beginning. This will be the end of the first
chapter. And now, how unbecoming in the Senate to practise this
indirection, and to do by a false name what cannot be done by
its true one. The constitution, by the acknowledgment of many
who conduct this bill, will not admit of a distribution of the
revenues. Not further back than the last session, and again at
the commencement of the present session, a proposition was made
to amend the constitution, to permit this identical distribution
to be made. That proposition is now upon our calendar, for the
action of Congress. All at once, it is discovered that a change
of names will do as well as a change of the constitution. Strike
out the word 'distribute,' and insert the word 'deposit;' and,
incontinently, the impediment is removed: the constitution
difficulty is surmounted; the division of the money can be
made. This, at least, is quick work. It looks magical, though
not the exploit of the magician. It commits nobody, though
not the invention of the non-committal school. After all, it
must be admitted to be a very compendious mode of amending the
constitution, and such a one as the framers of that instrument
never happened to think of. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Are we
legislating, or amusing ourselves with phantasmagoria? Can we
forget that we now have upon the calendar a proposition to amend
the constitution, to effect this very distribution, and that
the only difference between that resolution and this thirteenth
section, is in substituting the word 'deposit' for the word
'distribute?'
"Having shown this pretended deposit to be a distribution in
disguise, and to be a mere evasion of the constitution, Mr.
B. proceeded to examine its effects, and to trace its ruinous
consequences upon the federal government and the States. It is
brought forward as a temporary measure, as a single operation,
as a thing to be done but once; but what career, either for good
or for evil, ever stopped with the first step? It is the first
step which costs the difficulty; that taken, the second becomes
easy, and repetition habitual. Let this distribution, in this
disguise, take effect; and future distribution will be common
and regular. Every presidential election will bring them, and
larger each time; as the consular elections in Rome, commencing
with distributions of grain from the public granaries, went on
to the exhibitions of games and shows, the remission of debts,
largesses in money, lands, and provisions; until the rival
candidates openly bid against each other, and the diadem of
empire was put up at auction, and knocked down to the last and
highest bidder. The purity of elections may not yet be affected
in our young and vigorous country; but how long will it be
before voters will look to the candidates for the magnitude
of their distributions, instead of looking to them for the
qualifications which the presidential office requires?
"The bad consequences of this distribution of money to the
States are palpable and frightful. It is complicating the
federal and State systems, and multiplying their points of
contact and hazards of collision. Take it as ostensibly
presented; that of a deposit or loan, to be repaid at some
future time; then it is establishing the relation of debtor and
creditor between them: a relation critical between friends,
embarrassing between a State and its citizens; and eminently
dangerous between confederate States and their common head.
It is a relation always deprecated in our federal system. The
land credit system was abolished by Congress, fifteen years
ago, to get rid of the relation of debtor and creditor between
the federal government and the citizens of the States; and
seven or eight millions of debt, principal and interest, was
then surrendered. The collection of a large debt from numerous
individual debtors, was found to he almost impossible. How much
worse if the State itself becomes the debtor! and more, if all
the States become indebted together! Any attempt to collect
the debt would be attended, first with ill blood, then with
cancellation. It must be the representatives of the States who
are to enforce the collection of the debt. This they would not
do. They would stand together against the creditor. No member
of Congress could vote to tax his State to raise money for
the general purposes of the confederacy. No one could vote an
appropriation which was to become a charge on his own State
treasury. Taxation would first be resorted to, and the tariff
and the public lands would become the fountain of supply to the
federal government. Taken as a real transaction--as a deposit
with the States, or a loan to the States--as this measure
professes to be, and it is fraught with consequences adverse to
the harmony of the federal system, and fraught with new burdens
upon the customs, and upon the lands; taken as a fiction to
avoid the constitution, as a John Doe and Richard Roe invention
to convey a gift under the name of a deposit, and to effect a
distribution under the disguise of a loan, and it is an artifice
which makes derision of the constitution, lets down the Senate
from its lofty station; and provides a facile way for doing any
thing that any Congress may choose to do in all time to come. It
is only to depose one word and instal another--it is merely to
change a name--and the frowning constitution immediately smiles
on the late forbidden attempt.
"To the federal government the consequences of these
distributions must be deplorable and destructive. It must be
remitted to the helpless condition of the old confederacy,
depending for its supplies upon the voluntary contributions
of the States. Worse than depending upon the voluntary
contributions, it will be left to the gratuitous leavings, to
the eleemosynary crumbs, which remain upon the table after the
feast of the States is over. God grant they may not prove to be
the feasts of the Lapithæ and Centaurs! But the States will be
served first; and what remains may go to the objects of common
defence and national concern for which the confederacy was
framed, and for which the power of raising money was confided
to Congress. The distribution bills will be passed first, and
the appropriation bills afterwards; and every appropriation
will be cut down to the lowest point, and kept off to the last
moment. To stave off as long as possible, to reduce as low as
possible, to defeat whenever possible, will be the tactics of
federal legislation; and when at last some object of national
expenditure has miraculously run the gauntlet of all these
assaults, and escaped the perils of these multiplied dangers,
behold the enemy still ahead, and the recapture which awaits
the devoted appropriation, in the shape of an unexpended
balance, on the first day of January then next ensuing. Thus
it is already; distribution has occupied us all the session. A
proposition to amend the constitution, to enable us to make the
division, was brought in in the first month of the session. The
land bill followed, and engrossed months, to the exclusion of
national defence. Then came the deposit scheme, which absorbs
the remainder of the session. For nearly seven months we have
been occupied with distribution, and the Senate has actually
passed two bills to effect the same object, and to divide the
same identical money. Two bills to divide money, while one
bill cannot be got through for the great objects of national
defence named in the constitution. We are now near the end of
the seventh month of the session. The day named by the Senate
for the termination of the session is long passed by; the day
fixed by the two Houses is close at hand. The year is half gone,
and the season for labor largely lost; yet what is the state
of the general, national, and most essential appropriations?
Not a shilling is yet voted for fortifications; not a shilling
for the ordnance; nothing for filling the empty ranks of the
skeleton army; nothing for the new Indian treaties; nothing for
the continuation of the Cumberland road; nothing for rebuilding
the burnt-down Treasury; nothing for the custom-house in New
Orleans; nothing for extinguishing the rights of private
corporators in the Louisville canal, and making that great
thoroughfare free to the commerce of the West; nothing for the
western armory, and arsenals in the States which have none;
nothing for the extension of the circuit court system to the
new States of the West and Southwest; nothing for improving
the mint machinery; nothing for keeping the mints regularly
supplied with metals for coining; nothing for the new marine
hospitals; nothing for the expenses of the visitors now gone to
the Military Academy; nothing for the chain of posts and the
military road along the Western and Northwestern frontier. All
these, and a long list of other objects, remain without a cent
to this day; and those who have kept them off now coolly turn
upon us, and say the money cannot be expended if appropriated,
and that, on the first of January, it must fall into the
surplus fund to be divided. Of the bills passed, many of the
most essential character have been delayed for months, to the
great injury of individuals and of the public service. Clerks
and salaried officers have been borrowing money at usury to
support their families, while we, wholly absorbed with dividing
surpluses, were withholding from them their stipulated wages.
Laborers at Harper's Ferry Armory have been without money to go
to market for their families, and some have lived three weeks
without meat, because we must attend to the distribution bills
before we can attend to the pay bills. Disbursing officers
have raised money on their own account, to supply the want of
appropriations. Even the annual Indian Annuity Bill has but
just got through; the Indians even--the poor Indians, as they
were wont to be called--even they have had to wait, in want and
misery, for the annual stipends solemnly guarantied by treaties.
All this has already taken place under the deplorable influence
of the distribution spirit.
"The progress which the distribution spirit has made in
advancing beyond its own pretensions, is a striking feature in
the history of the case, and ominous of what may be expected
from its future exactions. Originally the proposition was to
divide the surplus. It was the surplus, and nothing but the
surplus, which was to be taken; that bona fide and inevitable
surplus which remained after all the defences were provided
for, and all needed appropriations fully made. Now the defences
are postponed and decried; the needful appropriations are
rejected, stinted, and deferred, till they cannot be used;
and, instead of the surplus, it is the integral revenue, it
is the money in the Treasury, it is the money appropriated by
law, which is to be seized upon and divided out. It is the
unexpended balances which are now the object of all desire and
the prize of meditated distribution. The word surplus is not
in the bill! that word, which has figured in so many speeches,
which has been the subject of so much speculation, which has
been the cause of so much delusion in the public mind, and
of so much excited hope; that word is not in the bill! It is
carefully, studiously, systematically excluded, and a form of
expression is adopted to cover all the money in the Treasury,
a small sum excepted, although appropriated by law to the most
sacred and necessary objects. A recapture of the appropriated
money is intended; and thus the very identical money which we
appropriate at this session is to be seized upon on the first
day of January, torn away from the objects to which it was
dedicated, and absorbed in the fund for general distribution.
And why? because the cormorant appetite of distribution grows
as it feeds, and becomes more ravenous as it gorges. It set out
for the surplus; now it takes the unexpended balances, save five
millions; next year it will take all. But it is sufficient to
contemplate the thing as it is; it is sufficient to contemplate
this bill as seizing upon the unexpended balances on the first
day of January, regardless of the objects to which they are
appropriated; and to witness its effect upon the laws, the
policy, and the existence of the federal government.
"Such, then, is the progress of the distribution spirit;
a cormorant appetite, growing as it feeds, ravening as it
gorges; seizing the appropriated moneys, and leaving the
federal government to starve upon crumbs, and to die of
inanition. But this appetite is not the sole cause for this
seizure. There is another reason for it, connected with the
movements in this chamber, and founded in the deep-seated law
of self-preservation. For six months the public mind has been
stimulated with the story of sixty millions of surplus money in
the Treasury; and two months ago, the grave Senate of the United
States carried the rash joke of that illusory asseveration so
far as to pass a bill to commence the distribution of that vast
sum. It was the land bill which was to do it, commencing its
swelling dividends on the 1st day of July, dealing them out
every ninety days, and completing the splendid distribution of
prizes, in the sixty-four million lottery, in eighteen months
from the commencement of the drawing. It was two months ago that
we passed this bill; and all attempts then made to convince the
people that they were deluded, were vain and useless. Sixty-four
millions they were promised, sixty-four millions they were to
have, sixty-four millions they began to want; and slates and
pencils were just as busy then in figuring out the dividends
of the sixty-four millions, to begin on the 1st of July, as
they now are in figuring out the dividends under the forty,
fifty, and sixty millions, which are to begin on the 1st of
January next. And now behold the end of the first chapter.
The 1st of July is come, but the sixty-four millions are not
in the Treasury! It is not there; and any attempt to commence
the distribution of that sum, according to the terms of the
land bill, would bankrupt the Treasury, stop the government,
and cause Congress to be called together, to levy taxes or make
loans. So much for the land bill, which two months ago received
all the praises which are now bestowed upon the deposit bill.
So the drawing had to be postponed, the performance had to
be adjourned, and the 1st of January was substituted for the
1st of July. This gives six months to go upon, and defers the
catastrophe of the mountain in labor until the presidential
election is over. Still the first of January must come; and the
ridicule would be too great, if there was nothing, or next to
nothing, to divide. And nothing, or next to nothing, there would
be, if the appropriations were fairly made, and made in time,
and if nothing but a surplus was left to divide. There would be
no more in the deposit bank, in that event, than has usually
been in the Bank of the United States--say ten, or twelve, or
fourteen, or sixteen millions; and from which, in the hands
of a single bank, none of those dangers to the country were
then seen which are now discovered in like sums in three dozen
unconnected and independent banks. Even after all the delays
and reductions in the appropriations, the surplus will now be
but a trifle--such a trifle as must expose to ridicule, or
something worse, all those who have tantalized the public with
the expectation of forty, fifty, or sixty millions to divide.
To avoid this fate, and to make up something for distribution,
then, the unexpended balances have been fallen upon; the law of
1795 is nullified; the fiscal year is changed; the policy of
the government subverted; reason, justice, propriety outraged;
all contracts, labor, service, salaries cut off, interrupted,
or reduced; appropriations recaptured, and the government
paralyzed. Sir, the people are deceived; they are made to
believe that a surplus only, an unavoidable surplus, is to be
divided, when the fact is that appropriated moneys are to be
seized.
"Sir, I am opposed to the whole policy of this measure. I am
opposed to it as going to sap the foundations of the Federal
Government, and to undo the constitution, and that by evasion,
in the very point for which the constitution was made. What
is that point? A Treasury! a Treasury! a Treasury of its own,
unconnected with, and independent of the States. It was for
this that wise and patriotic men wrote, and spoke, and prayed
for the fourteen years that intervened from the declaration of
independence, in 1776, to the formation of the constitution in
1789. It was for this that so many appeals were made, so many
efforts exerted, so many fruitless attempts so long repeated,
to obtain from the States the power of raising revenue from
imports. It was for this that the convention of 1787 met, and
but for this they never would have met. The formation of a
federal treasury, unconnected with the States, and independent
of the States, was the cause of the meeting of that convention;
it was the great object of its labors; it was the point to which
all its exertions tended, and it was the point at which failure
would have been the failure of the whole object of the meeting,
of the whole frame of the general government, and of the whole
design of the constitution. With infinite labor, pains, and
difficulty, they succeeded in erecting the edifice of the
federal treasury; we, not builders, but destroyers, "architects
of ruin," undo in a night what they accomplished in many
years. We expunge the federal treasury; we throw the federal
government back upon States for supplies; we unhinge and undo
the constitution; and we effect our purpose by an artifice which
derides, mocks, ridicules that sacred instrument, and opens the
way to its perpetual evasion by every paltry performer that is
able to dethrone one word, and exalt another in its place.
"I object to the time for another reason. There is no necessity
to act at all upon this subject, at this session of Congress.
The distribution is not to take effect until after we are in
session again, and when the true state of the treasury shall
be known. Its true state cannot be known now; but enough
is known to make it questionable whether there will be any
surplus, requiring a specific disposition, over and beyond the
wants of the country. Many appropriations are yet behind; two
Indian wars are yet to be finished; when the wars are over,
the vanquished Indians are to be removed to the West; and when
there, either the Federal Government or the States must raise
a force to protect the people from them. Twenty-five thousand
Creeks, seven thousand Seminoles, eighteen thousand Cherokees,
and others, making a totality of seventy-two thousand, are
to be removed; and the expenses of removal, and the year's
subsistence afterwards, is close upon seventy dollars per
head. It is a problem whether there will be any surplus worth
disposing of. The surplus party themselves admit there will
be a disappointment unless they go beyond the surplus, and
seize the appropriated moneys. The Senator from New-York [Mr.
Wright], has made an exposition, as candid and perspicuous as
it is patriotic and unanswerable, showing that there will be
an excess of appropriations over the money in the treasury on
the day that we adjourn; and that we shall have to depend upon
the accruing revenue of the remainder of the year to meet the
demands which we authorize. This is the state of the surplus
question: problematical, debatable; the weight of the evidence
and the strength of the argument entirely against it; time
enough to ascertain the truth, and yet a determination to reject
all evidence, refuse all time, rush on to the object, and
divide the money, cost what it may to the constitution, the
government, the good of the States, and the purity of elections.
The catastrophe of the land bill project ought certainly to be a
warning to us. Two months ago it was pushed through, as the only
means of saving the country, as the blessed act which was to
save the republic. It was to commence on the first day of July
its magnificent operations of distributing sixty four millions;
now it lies a corpse in the House of Representatives, a monument
of haste and folly, its very authors endeavoring to supersede
it by another measure, because it could not take effect without
ruining the country; and, what is equally important to them,
ruining themselves.
"Admitting that the year produces more revenue than is wanting,
is it wise, is it statesmanlike, is it consonant with our
experience, to take fright at the event, and throw the money
away? Did we not have forty millions of income in the year
1817? and did we not have an empty treasury in 1819? Instead of
taking fright and throwing the money away, the statesman should
look into the cause of things; he should take for his motto the
prayer of Virgil: _Cognoscere causa rerum_. Let me know the
cause of things; and, learning this cause, act accordingly.
If the redundant supply is accidental and transient, it will
quickly correct itself; if founded in laws, alter them. This
is the part not merely of wisdom, but of common sense: it was
the conduct of 1817, when the excessive supply was seen to be
the effect of transient causes--termination of the war and
efflorescence of the paper system--and left to correct itself,
which it did in two years. It should be the conduct now, when
the excessive income is seen to be the effect of the laws and
the paper system combined, and when legislation or regulation is
necessary to correct it. Reduction of the tariff; reduction of
the price of land to actual settlers; rejection of bank paper
from universal receivability for public dues; these are the
remedies. After all, the whole evil may be found in a single
cause, and the whole remedy may be seen in a single measure.
The public lands are exchangeable for paper. Seven hundred and
fifty machines are at work striking off paper; that paper is
performing the grand rounds, from the banks to the public lands,
and from the lands to the banks. Every body, especially a public
man, may take as much as his trunks can carry. The public domain
is changing into paper; the public treasury is filling up with
paper; the new States are deluged with paper; the currency is
ruining with paper; farmers, settlers, cultivators, are outbid,
deprived of their selected homes, or made to pay double for
them, by public men loaded, not like Philip's ass, with bags of
gold, but like bank advocates, with bales of paper. Sir, the
evil is in the unbridled state of the paper system, and in the
unchecked receivability of paper for federal dues. Here is the
evil. Banks are our masters; not one, but seven hundred and
fifty! and this splendid federal Congress, like a chained and
chastised slave, lies helpless and powerless at their feet.
"Sir, I can see nothing but evil, turn on which side I may,
from this fatal scheme of dividing money; not surplus money,
but appropriated funds; not by an amendment, but by a derisory
evasion of the constitution. Where is it to end? History shows
us that those who begin revolutions never end them; that those
who commence innovations never limit them. Here is a great
innovation, constituting in reality--not in figure of speech,
but in reality--a revolution in the form of our government.
We set out to divide the surplus; we are now dividing the
appropriated funds. To prevent all appropriations except to the
powerful States, will be the next step; and the small States,
in self-defence, must oppose all appropriations, and go for
a division of the whole. They will have to stand together in
the Senate, and oppose all appropriations. It will not do for
the large States to take all the appropriations first, and the
bulk of the distribution afterwards; and there will be no way
to prevent it but to refuse all appropriations, divide out
the money among the States, and let each State lay it out for
itself. A new surplus party will supersede the present surplus
party, as successive factions supersede each other in chaotic
revolutions. They will make Congress the _quæstor_ of provinces,
to collect money for the States to administer. This will be
their argument: the States know best what they need, and can lay
out the money to the best advantage, and to suit themselves.
One State will want roads and no canals; another canals and no
roads; one will want forts, another troops; one wants ships,
another steam-cars; one wants high schools, another low schools;
one is for the useful arts, another is for the fine arts, for
lyceums, athenæums, museums, arts, statuary, painting, music;
and the paper State will want all for banks. Thus will things
go on, and Congress will have no appropriation to make, except
to the President, and his head clerks, and their under clerks.
Even our own pay, like it was under the confederation, may be
remitted to our own States. The eight dollars a day may be voted
to them, and supported by the argument that they can get better
men for four dollars a day; and so save half the money, and
have the work better done. Such is the progress in this road to
ruin. Sir, I say of this measure, as I said of its progenitor,
the land bill: if I could be willing to let evil pass, that
good might come of it, I should be willing to let this bill
pass. A recoil, a reaction, a revulsion must take place. This
confederacy cannot go to ruin. This Union has a place in the
hearts of the people which will save it from nullification
in disguise, as well as from nullification in arms. One word
of myself. It is now ten years since schemes of distribution
were broached upon this floor. They began with a senator from
New Jersey, now Secretary of the navy (Mr. Dickerson). They
were denounced by many, for their unconstitutionality, their
corrupting tendencies, and their fatal effects upon the federal
and State governments. I took my position then, have stood
upon it during all the modifications of the original scheme;
and continue standing upon it now. My answer then was, pay the
public debt and reduce the taxes; my answer now is, provide for
the public defences, reduce the taxes, and bridle the paper
system. On this ground I have stood--on this I stand; and never
did I feel more satisfaction and more exultation in my vote,
when triumphant in numbers, than I now do in a minority of six."
The bill went to the House, and was concurred in by a large
majority--one hundred and fifty-five to thirty-eight--although,
under the name of distribution, there was no chance for it to pass
that House. Deeming the opposition of this small minority courageous
as well as meritorious, and deserving to be held in honorable
remembrance, their names are here set down; to wit:
Messrs. Michael W. Ash, James M. H. Beale, Benning M. Bean,
Andrew Beaumont, John W. Brown, Robert Burns, John F. H.
Claiborne, Walter Coles, Samuel Cushman, George C. Dromgoole,
John Fairfield, William K. Fuller, Ransom H. Gillet, Joseph
Hall, Thomas L. Hamer, Leonard Jarvis, Cave Johnson, Gerrit Y.
Lansing, Gideon Lee, George Loyall, Abijah Mann, jr., John Y.
Mason, James J. McKay, John McKeon, Isaac McKim, Gorham Parks,
Franklin Pierce, Henry L. Pinckney, John Roane, James Rogers,
Nicholas Sickles, William Taylor, Francis Thomas, Joel Turrill,
Aaron Vanderpoel, Aaron Ward, Daniel Wardwell, Henry A. Wise.
The bill passed the House, and was approved by the President, but
with a repugnance of feeling, and a recoil of judgment, which it
required great efforts of friends to overcome; and with a regret for
it afterwards which he often and publicly expressed. It was a grief
that his name was seen to such an act. It was a most unfortunate
act, a plain evasion of the constitution for a bad purpose--soon
gave a sad overthrow to the democracy--and disappointed every
calculation made upon it. Politically, it was no advantage to
its numerous and emulous supporters--of no disservice to its few
determined opponents--only four in number, in the Senate, the two
senators from Mississippi voting against it, for reasons found
in the constitution of their State. To the States, it was of no
advantage, raising expectations which were not fulfilled, and upon
which many of them acted as realities, and commenced enterprises to
which they were inadequate. It was understood that some of Mr. Van
Buren's friends favored the President's approval, and recommended
him to sign it--induced by the supposed effect which its rejection
might have on the democratic party in the election. The opponents
of the bill did not visit the President to give him their opinions,
nor had he heard their arguments. If they had seen him, their
opinions concurring with his own feelings and judgment, his conduct
might have been different, and the approval of the act withheld. It
might not have prevented the act from becoming a law, as two thirds
in each House might have been found to support it; but it would
have deprived the bill of the odor of his name, and saved himself
from subsequent regrets. In a party point of view, it was the
commencement of calamities, being an efficient cause in that general
suspension of specie payments, which quickly occurred, and brought
so much embarrassment on the Van Buren administration, ending in the
great democratic defeat of 1840. But of this hereafter.