The Secretary read the resolution, as follows:--

"Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire

and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within each

State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain

period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have

heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the

minimum price. And, also, whether the office of Surveyor-General, and

some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the

public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten

the sales and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands."

We have thus heard, Sir, what the resolution is which is actually

before us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one,

that it is almost the only subject about which something has not been

said in the speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has

been entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in

the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present,--every

thing, general or local, whether belonging to national politics or

party politics,--seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable

member's attention, save only the resolution before the Senate. He has

spoken of every thing but the public lands; they have escaped his

notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even

the cold respect of a passing glance.

When this debate, Sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so

happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The

honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to

another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to

discharge it. That shot, Sir, which he thus kindly informed us was

coming, that we might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to

fall by it and die with decency, has now been received. Under all

advantages, and with expectation awakened by the tone which preceded

it, it has been discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me

to say no more of its effect, than that, if nobody is found, after all,

either killed or wounded, it is not the first time, in the history of

human affairs, that the vigor and success of the war have not quite

come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto. [2]

The gentleman, Sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the

Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was

something rankling _here_, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. Hayne rose,

and disclaimed having used the word _rankling_.] It would not, Mr.

President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around

him, upon the question whether he did in fact make use of that word.

But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that

he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular

word, he had yet something _here_, he said, of which he wished to rid

himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, Sir, I have a great

advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing _here_, Sir,

which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor

that which is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness

of having been in the wrong. There is nothing, either originating

_here_, or now received _here_ by the gentleman's shot. Nothing

originating here, for I had not the slightest feeling of unkindness

towards the honorable member. Some passages, it is true, had occurred

since our acquaintance in this body, which I could have wished might

have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy and forgotten them. I

paid the honorable member the attention of listening with respect to

his first speech; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must

even say astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from

my intention than to commence any personal warfare. Through the whole

of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and

carefully, every thing which I thought possible to be construed into

disrespect. And, Sir, while there is thus nothing originating _here_

which I have wished at any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must

repeat, also, that nothing has been received _here_ which _rankles_, or

in any way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member

of violating the rules of civilized war; I will not say, that he

poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped

in that which would have caused rankling if they had reached their

destination, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in

the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to gather up

those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found

fixed and quivering in the object at which they were aimed. [3]

The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. I must

have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member

sat down, his friend from Missouri rose, [4] and, with much honeyed

commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had

produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other

sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should

adjourn. Would it have been quite amiable in me, Sir, to interrupt this

excellent good feeling? Must I not have been absolutely malicious, is;

I could have thrust myself forward, to destroy sensations thus

pleasing? Was it not much better and kinder, both to sleep upon them

myself, and to allow others also the pleasure of sleeping upon them?

But if it be meant, by sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to

prepare a reply to it, it is quite a mistake. Owing to other

engagements, I could not employ even the interval between the

adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the next morning, in

attention to the subject of this debate. [5] Nevertheless, Sir, the

mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true. I did sleep on the gentleman's

speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his speech of

yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite possible that in

this respect, also, I possess some advantage over the honorable member,

attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part; for, in

truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well.

But the gentleman inquires why _he_ was made the object of such a

reply. Why was _he_ singled out? If an attack has been made on the

East, he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman

from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I

happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to

that speech, which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce

injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original

drawer of the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it

was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just

responsibility, without delay. But, Sir, this interrogatory of the

honorable member was only introductory to another. He proceeded to ask

me whether I had turned upon him, in this debate, from the

consciousness that I should find an overmatch, if I ventured on a

contest with his friend from Missouri. If, Sir, the honorable member,

_modestiae gratia_, had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay

him a compliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would

have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not

at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, Sir, who

esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or more

serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as so much

unjustly withholden from themselves. But the tone and manner of the

gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at

liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend.

It had an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the loftiness of

asserted superiority, which does not allow me to pass it over without

notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it

were difficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from

Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems to me, Sir,

that this is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone, for the

discussions of this body.

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than

here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman

seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate, a Senate of

equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of

absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators.

This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for

the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, Sir, as a match for no

man; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, Sir,

since the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls

for an answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him, that, holding

myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in

the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the

arm of _his_ friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from

espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating

whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see

fit to say, on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of

commendation or compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the

honorable member might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any

pretensions of my own. But when put to me as matter of taunt, I throw

it back, and say to the gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing

less [6] likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal

character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from intentional

irony, which otherwise, probably, would have been its general

acceptation. But, Sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual quotation

and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of

the drama, assigning to each his part, to one the attack, to another

the cry of onset; or if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt

of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here; if it be

imagined, especially, that any or all these things will shake any

purpose of mine,--I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that

he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose temper

and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself,

on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into any loss

of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into

crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may perhaps find,

that, in that contest, there will be blows to take as well as blows to

give; that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as

his own, and that his impunity may possibly demand of him whatever

powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent

husbandry of his resources.

But, Sir, the Coalition! [7] The Coalition! Ay, "the murdered

Coalition!" The gentleman asks, if I were led or frighted into this

debate by the spectre of the Coalition. "Was it the ghost of the

murdered Coalition," he exclaims, "which haunted the member from

Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?"

"The murdered Coalition!" Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference

to the late administration, is not original with the honorable member.

It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument,

or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from

a very low origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of

the thousand calumnies with which the press teemed, during an excited

political canvass. It was a charge, of which there was not only no

proof or probability, but which was in itself wholly impossible to be

true. No man of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet

it was of that class of falsehoods, which, by continued repetition,

through all the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of

misleading those who are already far misled, and of further fanning

passion already kindling into flame. Doubtless it served in its day,

and in greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having done

that, it has sunk into the general mass of stale and loathed calumnies.

It is the very cast-off slough of a polluted and shameless press.

Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and

despised. It is not now, Sir, in the power of the honorable member to

give it dignity or decency, by attempting to elevate it, and to

introduce it into the Senate. He cannot change it from what it is, an

object of general disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if

he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, down, to the

place where it lies itself.

But, Sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, entirely

happy in his allusion to the story of Banquo's murder and Banquo's

ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the

murdered Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not _down_. The

honorable gentleman is fresh in his reading of the English classics,

and can put me right if I am wrong; but, according to my poor

recollection, it was at those who had begun with caresses and ended

with foul and treacherous murder that the gory locks were shaken. The

ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed

no innocent man. It knew where its appearance would strike terror, and

who would cry out, A ghost! It made itself visible in the right

quarter, and compelled the guilty and the conscience-smitten, and none

others, to start, with,

"Pr'ythee, see there! behold!--look! lo,

If I stand here, I saw him!"

Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, Sir?) who had thought to

shield themselves by concealing their own hand, and laying the

imputation of the crime on a low and hireling agency in wickedness; who

had vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own coward

consciences by ejaculating through white lips and chattering teeth,

"Thou canst not say I did it!" I have misread the great poet if those

who had no way partaken in the deed of the death, either found that

they were, or _feared that they should be_, pushed from their stools by

the ghost of the slain, or exclaimed to a spectre created by their own

fears and their own remorse, "Avaunt! and quit our sight!"

There is another particular, Sir, in which the honorable member's quick

perception of resemblances might, I should think, have seen something

in the story of Banquo, making it not altogether a subject of the most

pleasant contemplation. Those who murdered Banquo, what did they win by

it? Substantial good? Permanent power? Or disappointment, rather, and

sore mortification,--dust and ashes, the common fate of vaulting

ambition overleaping itself? Did not even-handed justice erelong

commend the poisoned chalice to their own lips? Did they not soon find

that for another they had "filed their mind"? that their ambition,

though apparently for the moment successful, had but put a barren

sceptre in their grasp? [8] Ay, Sir,

"a barren sceptre in their gripe,

_Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,

No son of theirs succeeding_."

Sir, I need pursue the allusion no farther. I leave the honorable

gentleman to run it out at his leisure, and to derive from it all the

gratification it is calculated to administer. If he finds himself

pleased with the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied,

though the parallel should be entirely completed, I had almost said, I

am satisfied also; but that I shall think of. Yes, Sir, I will think of

that.

In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. President, I paid a

passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane of

Massachusetts. It so happened that he drew the Ordinance of 1787, for

the government of the Northwestern Territory. A man of so much ability,

and so little pretence; of so great a capacity to do good, and so

unmixed a disposition to do it for its own sake; a gentleman who had

acted an important part, forty years ago, in a measure the influence of

which is still deeply felt in the very matter which was the subject of

debate,--might, I thought, receive from me a commendatory recognition.

But the honorable member was inclined to be facetious on the subject.

He was rather disposed to make it matter of ridicule, that I had

introduced into the debate the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he

assures us he had never before heard. Sir, if the honorable member had

never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry for it. It shows him less

acquainted with the public men of the country than I had supposed. Let

me tell him, however, that a sneer from him at the mention of the name

of Mr. Dane is in bad taste. It may well be a high mark of ambition,

Sir, either with the honorable gentleman or myself, to accomplish as

much to make our names known to advantage, and remembered with

gratitude, as Mr. Dane has accomplished. But the truth is, Sir, I

suspect, that Mr. Dane lives a little too far north. He is of

Massachusetts, and too near the north star to be reached by the

honorable gentleman's telescope. If his sphere had happened to range

south of Mason and Dixon's line, he might, probably, have come within

the scope of his vision.

I spoke, Sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibits slavery, in all

future times, northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and

foresight, and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and

permanent consequences. I supposed that, on this point, no two

gentlemen in the Senate could entertain different opinions. But the

simple expression of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only

into a labored defence of slavery, in the abstract, and on principle,

but also into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the

system of domestic slavery now existing in the Southern States. For all

this, there was not the slightest foundation, in anything said or

intimated by me. I did not utter a single word which any ingenuity

could torture into an attack on the slavery of the South. I said, only,

that it was highly wise and useful, in legislating for the Northwestern

country while it was yet a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of

slaves; and I added, that I presumed there was no reflecting and

intelligent person, in the neighboring State of Kentucky, who would

doubt that, if the same prohibition had been extended, at the same

early period, over that commonwealth, her strength and population

would, at this day, have been far greater than they are. If these

opinions be thought doubtful, they are nevertheless, I trust, neither

extraordinary nor disrespectful. They attack nobody and menace nobody.

And yet, Sir, the gentleman's optics have discovered, even in the mere

expression of this sentiment, what he calls the very spirit of the

Missouri question! [9] He represents me as making an onset on the whole

South, and manifesting a spirit which would interfere with, and

disturb, their domestic condition!

Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me, than as it is committed

here, and committed without the slightest pretence of ground for it. I

say it only surprises me as being done here; for I know full well, that

it is, and has been, the settled policy of some persons in the South,

for years, to represent the people of the North as disposed to

interfere with them in their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. This

is a delicate and sensitive point in Southern feeling; and of late

years it has always been touched, and generally with effect, whenever

the object has been to unite the whole South against Northern men or

Northern measures. This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and

maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection,

is a lever of great power in our political machine. It moves vast

bodies, and gives to them one and the same direction. But it is without

adequate cause, and the suspicion which exists is wholly groundless.

There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the North to

interfere with these interests of the South. Such interference has

never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it

been in any way attempted. The slavery of the South has always been

regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left with the States

themselves, and with which the Federal government had nothing to do.

Certainly, Sir, I am, and ever have been, of that opinion. The

gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil.

Most assuredly I need not say I differ with him, altogether and most

widely, on that point. I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest

evils, both moral and political. But whether it be a malady, and

whether it be curable, and if so, by what means; or, on the other hand,

whether it be the _vulnus immedicabile_ of the social system, I leave

it to those whose right and duty it is to inquire and to decide. And

this I believe, Sir, is, and uniformly has been, the sentiment of the

North.

When it became necessary, or was thought so, by some political persons,

to find an unvarying ground for the exclusion of Northern men from

confidence and from lead in the affairs of the republic, then, and not

till then, the cry was raised, and the feeling industriously excited,

that the influence of Northern men in the public counsels would

endanger the relation of master and slave. For myself, I claim no other

merit than that this gross and enormous injustice towards the whole

North has not wrought upon me to change my opinions or my political

conduct. I hope I am above violating my principles, even under the

smart of injury and false imputations. Unjust suspicions and undeserved

reproach, whatever pain I may experience from them, will not induce me,

I trust, to overstep the limits of constitutional duty, or to encroach

on the rights of others. The domestic slavery of the Southern States I

leave where I find it,--in the hands of their own governments. It is

their affair, not mine. Nor do I complain of the peculiar effect which

the magnitude of that population has had in the distribution of power

under this Federal government. We know, Sir, that the representation of

the States in the other house is not equal. We know that great

advantage in that respect is enjoyed by the slave-holding States; and

we know, too, that the intended equivalent for that advantage, that is

to say, the imposition of direct taxes in the same ratio, has become

merely nominal, the habit of the government being almost invariably to

collect its revenue from other sources and in other modes.

Nevertheless, I do not complain; nor would I countenance any movement

to alter this arrangement of representation. It is the original

bargain, the compact; let it stand; let the advantage of it be fully

enjoyed. The Union itself is too full of benefit to be hazarded in

propositions for changing its original basis. I go for the Constitution

as it is, and for the Union as it is. But I am resolved not to submit

in silence to accusations, either against myself individually or

against the North, wholly unfounded and unjust,--accusations which

impute to us a disposition to evade the constitutional compact, and to

extend the power of the government over the internal laws and domestic

condition of the States. All such accusations, wherever and whenever

made, all insinuations of the existence of any such purposes, I know

and feel to be groundless and injurious. And we must confide in

Southern gentlemen themselves; we must trust to those whose integrity

of heart and magnanimity of feeling will lead them to a desire to

maintain and disseminate truth, and who possess the means of its

diffusion with the Southern public; we must leave it to them to

disabuse that public of its prejudices. But in the mean time, for my

own part, I shall continue to act justly, whether those towards whom

justice is exercised receive it with candor or with contumely.

Having had occasion to recur to the Ordinance of 1787, in order to

defend myself against the inferences which the honorable member has

chosen to draw from my former observations on that subject, I am not

willing now entirely to take leave of it without another remark. It

need hardly be said, that that paper expresses just sentiments on the

great subject of civil and religious liberty. Such sentiments were

common, and abound in all our state papers of that day. But this

Ordinance did that which was not so common, and which is not even now

universal; that is, it set forth and declared it to be a high and

binding duty of government itself to support schools and advance the

means of education, on the plain reason that religion, morality, and

knowledge are necessary to good government, and to the happiness of

mankind. One observation further. The important provision incorporated

into the Constitution of the United States, and into several of those

of the States, and recently, as we have seen, adopted into the reformed

constitution of Virginia, restraining legislative power in questions of

private right, and from impairing the obligation of contracts, is first

introduced and established, as far as I am informed, as matter of

express written constitutional law, in this Ordinance of 1787. And I

must add, also, in regard to the author of the Ordinance, who has not

had the happiness to attract the gentleman's notice heretofore, nor to

avoid his sarcasm now, that he was chairman of that select committee of

the old Congress, whose report first expressed the strong sense of that

body, that the old Confederation was not adequate to the exigencies of

the country, and recommended to the States to send delegates to the

convention which formed the present Constitution.

An attempt has been made to transfer from the North to the South the

honor of this exclusion of slavery from the Northwestern Territory. The

journal, without argument or comment, refutes such attempts. The

cession by Virginia was made in March, 1784. On the 19th of April

following, a committee, consisting of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase, and

Howell, reported a plan for a temporary government of the territory, in

which was this article: "That, after the year 1800, there shall be

neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States,

otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have

been convicted." Mr. Spaight of North Carolina moved to strike out this

paragraph. The question was put, according to the form then practised,

"Shall these words stand as a part of the plan?" New Hampshire,

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and

Pennsylvania, seven States, voted in the affirmative; Maryland,

Virginia, and South Carolina, in the negative. North Carolina was

divided. As the consent of nine States was necessary, the words could

not stand, and were struck out accordingly. Mr. Jefferson voted for the

clause, but was overruled by his colleagues.

In March of the next year (1785), Mr. King of Massachusetts, seconded

by Mr. Ellery of Rhode Island, proposed the formerly rejected article,

with this addition: "And that this regulation shall be an article of

compact, and remain a fundamental principle of the constitutions

between the thirteen original States, and each of the States described

in the resolve." On this clause, which provided the adequate and

thorough security, the eight Northern States at that time voted

affirmatively, and the four Southern States negatively. The votes of

nine States were not yet obtained, and thus the provision was again

rejected by the Southern States. The perseverance of the North held

out, and two years afterwards the object was attained. It is no

derogation from the credit, whatever that may be, of drawing the

Ordinance, that its principles had before been prepared and discussed,

in the form of resolutions. If one should reason in that way, what

would become of the distinguished honor of the author of the

Declaration of Independence? There is not a sentiment in that paper

which had not been voted and resolved in the assemblies, and other

popular bodies in the country, over and over again.

But the honorable member has now found out that this gentleman, Mr.

Dane, was a member of the Hartford Convention. [10] However uninformed

the honorable member may be of characters and occurrences at the North,

it would seem that he has at his elbow, on this occasion, some

highminded and lofty spirit, some magnanimous and true-hearted monitor,

possessing the means of local knowledge, and ready to supply the

honorable member with every thing, down even to forgotten and

moth-eaten two-penny pamphlets, which may be used to the disadvantage

of his own country. But as to the Hartford Convention, Sir, allow me to

say, that the proceedings of that body seem now to be less read and

studied in New England than farther South. They appear to be looked to,

not in New England, but elsewhere, for the purpose of seeing how far

they may serve as a precedent. But they will not answer the purpose,

they are quite too tame. The latitude in which they originated was too

cold. Other conventions, of more recent existence, have gone a whole

bar's length beyond it. The learned doctors of Colleton and Abbeville

have pushed their commentaries on the Hartford collect so far, that the

original text-writers are thrown entirely into the shade. I have

nothing to do, Sir, with the Hartford Convention. Its journal, which

the gentleman has quoted, I never read. So far as the honorable member

may discover in its proceedings a spirit in any degree resembling that

which was avowed and justified in those other conventions to which I

have alluded, or so far as those proceedings can be shown to be

disloyal to the Constitution, or tending to disunion, as far I shall be

as ready as any one to bestow on them reprehension and censure.

Having dwelt long on this convention, and other occurrences of that

day, in the hope, probably, (which will not be gratified), that I

should leave the course of this debate to follow him at length in those

excursions, the honorable member returned, and attempted another

object. He referred to a speech of mine in the other house, the same

which I had occasion to allude to myself, the other day; and has quoted

a passage or two from it, with a bold, though uneasy and laboring, air

of confidence, as if he had detected in me an inconsistency. Judging

from the gentleman's manner, a stranger to the course of the debate and

to the point in discussion would have imagined, from so triumphant a

tone, that the honorable member was about to overwhelm me with a

manifest contradiction. Any one who heard him, and who had not heard

what I had, in fact, previously said, must have thought me routed and

discomfited, as the gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath blows all

this triumph away. There is not the slightest difference in the purport

of my remarks on the two occasions. What I said here on Wednesday is in

exact accordance with the opinion expressed by me in the other house in

1825. Though the gentleman had the metaphysics of Hudibras, though he

were able

"to sever and divide

A hair 'twixt north and northwest side,"

he could yet not insert his metaphysical scissors between the fair

reading of my remarks in 1825, and what I said here last week. There is

not only no contradiction, no difference, but, in truth, too exact a

similarity, both in thought and language, to be entirely in just taste.

I had myself quoted the same speech; had recurred to it, and spoke with

it open before me; and much of what I said was little more than a

repetition from it.

I need not repeat at large the general topics of the honorable

gentleman's speech. When he said yesterday that he did not attack the

Eastern States, he certainly must have forgotten, not only particular

remarks, but the whole drift and tenor of his speech; unless he means

by not attacking, that he did not commence hostilities, but that

another had preceded him in the attack. He, in the first place,

disapproved of the whole course of the government, for forty years, in

regard to its disposition of the public lands; and then, turning

northward and eastward, and fancying he had found a cause for alleged

narrowness and niggardliness in the "accursed policy" of the tariff, to

which he represented the people of New England as wedded, he went on

for a full hour with remarks, the whole scope of which was to exhibit

the results of this policy, in feelings and in measures unfavorable to

the West. I thought his opinions unfounded and erroneous, as to the

general course of the government, and ventured to reply to them.

The gentleman had remarked on the analogy of other cases, and quoted

the conduct of European governments towards their own subjects settling

on this continent, as in point, to show that we had been harsh and

rigid in selling, when we should have given the public lands to

settlers without price. I thought the honorable member had suffered his

judgment to be betrayed by a false analogy; that he was struck with an

appearance of resemblance where there was no real similitude. I think

so still. The first settlers of North America were enterprising

spirits, engaged in private adventure, or fleeing from tyranny at home.

When arrived here, they were forgotten by the mother country, or

remembered only to be oppressed. Carried away again by the appearance

of anology, or struck with the eloquence of the passage, the honorable

member yesterday observed, that the conduct of government towards the

Western emigrants, or my representation of it, brought to his mind a

celebrated speech in the British Parliament. It was, Sir, the speech of

Colonel Barre. On the question of the stamp act, or tea tax, I forget

which, Colonel Barre had heard a member on the treasury bench argue,

that the people of the United States, being British colonists, planted

by the maternal care, nourished by the indulgence, and protected by the

arms of England, would not grudge their mite to relieve the mother

country from the heavy burden under which she groaned. The language of

Colonel Barre, in reply to this, was: "They planted by your care? Your

oppression planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny, and

grew by your neglect of them. So soon as you began to care for them,

you showed your care by sending persons to spy out their liberties,

misrepresent their character, prey upon them, and eat out their

substance."

And how does the honorable gentleman mean to maintain, that language

like this is applicable to the conduct of the government of the United

States towards the Western emigrants, or to any representation given by

me of that conduct? Were the settlers in the West driven thither by our

oppression? Have they flourished only by our neglect of them? Has the

government done nothing but prey upon them, and eat out their

substance? Sir, this fervid eloquence of the British speaker, just when

and where it was uttered, and fit to remain an exercise for the

schools, is not a little out of place, when it is brought thence to be

applied here to the conduct of our own country towards her own

citizens. From America to England, it may be true; from Americans to

their own government, it would be strange language. Let us leave it, to

be recited and declaimed by our boys against a foreign nation; not

introduce it here, to recite and declaim ourselves against our own.

But I come to the point of the alleged contradiction. In my remarks on

Wednesday, I contended that we could not give away gratuitously all the

public lands; that we held them in trust; that the government had

solemnly pledged itself to dispose of them as a common fund for the

common benefit, and to sell and settle them as its discretion should

dictate. Now, Sir, what contradiction does the gentleman find to this

sentiment in the speech of 1825? He quotes me as having then said, that

we ought not to hug these lands as a very great treasure. Very well,

Sir, supposing me to be accurately reported in that expression, what is

the contradiction? I have not now said, that we should hug these lands

as a favorite source of pecuniary income. No such thing. It is not my

view. What I have said, and what I do say, is, that they are a common

fund, to be disposed of for the common benefit, to be sold at low

prices for the accommodation of settlers, keeping the object of

settling the lands as much in view as that of raising money from them.

This I say now, and this I have always said. Is this hugging them as a

favorite treasure? Is there no difference between hugging and hoarding

this fund, on the one hand, as a great treasure, and, on the other, of

disposing of it at low prices, placing the proceeds in the general

treasury of the Union? My opinion is, that as much is to be made of the

land as fairly and reasonably may be, selling it all the while at such

rates as to give the fullest effect to settlement. This is not giving

it all away to the States, as the gentleman would propose; nor is it

hugging the fund closely and tenaciously, as a favorite treasure; but

it is, in my judgment, a just and wise policy, perfectly according with

all the various duties which rest on government. So much for my

contradiction. And what is it? Where is the ground of the gentleman's

triumph? What inconsistency in word or doctrine has he been able to

detect? Sir, if this be a sample of that discomfiture with which the

honorable gentleman threatened me, commend me to the word

_discomfiture_ for the rest of my life.

We approach, at length, Sir, to a more important part of the honorable

gentleman's observations. Since it does not accord with my views of

justice and policy to give away the public lands altogether, as a mere

matter of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentleman on what

ground it is that I consent to vote them away in particular instances.

How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments, my

support of measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular

roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular

institutions of education in the West? This leads, Sir, to the real and

wide difference in political opinion between the honorable gentleman

and myself. On my part, I look upon all these objects as connected with

the common good, fairly embraced in its object and its terms; he, on

the contrary, deems them all, if good at all, only local good. This is

our difference. The interrogatory which he proceeded to put at once

explains this difference. "What interest," asks he, "has South Carolina

in a canal in Ohio?" Sir, this very question is full of significance.

It develops the gentleman's whole political system; and its answer

expounds mine. Here we differ. I look upon a road over the Alleghenies,

a canal round the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the

Atlantic to the Western waters, as being an object large and extensive

enough to be fairly said to be for the common benefit. The gentleman

thinks otherwise, and this is the key to his construction of the powers

of the government. He may well ask what interest has South Carolina in

a canal in Ohio. On his system, it is true, she has no interest. On

that system, Ohio and Carolina are different governments, and different

countries; connected here, it is true, by some slight and ill-defined

bond of union, but in all main respects separate and diverse. On that

system, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in

Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, only follows out his own principles;

he does no more than arrive at the natural conclusions of his own

doctrines; he only announces the true results of that creed which he

has adopted himself, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus

declares that South Carolina has no interest in a public work in Ohio.

Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. Our

_notion_ of things is entirely different. We look upon the States, not

as separated, but as united. We love to dwell on that union, and on the

mutual happiness which it has so much promoted, and the common renown

which it has so greatly contributed to acquire. In our contemplation,

Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country; States, united under

the same general government, having interests, common, associated,

intermingled. In whatever is within the proper sphere of the

constitutional power of this government, we look upon the States as

one. We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or

regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude,

to find boundaries, beyond which public improvements do not benefit us.

We who come here, as agents and representatives of these narrow-minded

and selfish men of New England, consider ourselves as bound to regard

with an equal eye the good of the whole, in whatever is within our

powers of legislation. Sir, if a railroad or canal beginning in South

Carolina and ending in South Carolina, appeared to me to be of national

importance and national magnitude, believing, as I do, that the power

of government extends to the encouragement of works of that

description, if I were to stand up here and ask, What interest has

Massachusetts in a railroad in South Carolina? I should not be willing

to face my constituents. [11] These same narrow-minded men would tell

me, that they had sent me to act for the whole country, and that one

who possessed too little comprehension, either of intellect or feeling,

one one who was not large enough, both in mind and in heart, to embrace

the whole, was not fit to be intrusted with the interest of any part.

Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the government by

unjustifiable construction, nor to exercise any not within a fair

interpretation. But when it is believed that a power does exist, then

it is, in my judgment, to be exercised for the general benefit of the

whole. So far as respects the exercise of such a. power, the States are

one. It was the very object of the Constitution to create unity of

interests to the extent of the powers of the general government. In war

and peace we are one; in commerce, one; because the authority of the

general government reaches to war and peace, and to the regulation of

commerce. I have never seen any more difficulty in erecting

light-houses on the lakes, than on the ocean; in improving the harbors

of inland seas, than if they were within the ebb and flow of the tide;

or in removing obstructions in the vast streams of the West, more than

in any work to facilitate commerce on the Atlantic coast. If there be

any power for one, there is power also for the other; and they are all

and equally for the common good of the country.

There are other objects, apparently more local, or the benefit of which

is less general, towards which, nevertheless, I have concurred with

others, to give aid by donations of land. It is proposed to construct a

road, in or through one of the new States, in which this government

possesses large quantities of land. Have the United States no right,

or, as a great and untaxed proprietor, are they under no obligation to

contribute to an object thus calculated to promote the common good of

all the proprietors, themselves included? And even with respect to

education, which is the extreme case, let the question be considered.

In the first place, as we have seen, it was made matter of compact with

these States, that they should do their part to promote education. In

the next place, our whole system of land laws proceeds on the idea that

education is for the common good; because, in every division, a certain

portion is uniformly reserved and appropriated for the use of schools.

And, finally, have not these new States singularly strong claims,

founded on the ground already stated, that the government is a great

untaxed proprietor, in the ownership of the soil? It is a consideration

of great importance, that probably there is in no part of the country,

or of the world, so great call for the means of education, as in these

new States, owing to the vast number's of persons within those ages in

which education and instruction are usually received, if received at

all. This is the natural consequence of recency of settlement and rapid

increase. The census of these States shows how great a proportion of

the whole population occupies the classes between infancy and manhood.

These are the wide fields, and here is the deep and quick soil for the

seeds of knowledge and virtue; and this is the favored season, the very

spring-time for sowing them. Let them be disseminated without stint.

Let them be scattered with a bountiful hand, broadcast. Whatever the

government can fairly do towards these objects, in my opinion, ought to

be done.

These, Sir, are the grounds, succinctly stated, on which my votes for

grants of lands for particular objects rest; while I maintain, at the

same time, that it is all a common fund, for the common benefit. And

reasons like these, I presume, have influenced the votes of other

gentlemen from New England. Those who have a different view of the

powers of the government, of course, come to different conclusions, on

these, as on other questions. I observed, when speaking on this subject

before, that if we looked to any measure, whether for a road, a canal,

or any thing else, intended for the improvement of the West, it would

be found that, if the New England _ayes_ were struck out of the lists

of votes, the Southern _noes_ would always have rejected the measure.

The truth of this has not been denied, and cannot be denied. In stating

this, I thought it just to ascribe it to the constitutional scruples of

the South, rather than to any other less favorable or less charitable

cause. But no sooner had I done this, than the honorable gentleman asks

if I reproach him and his friends with their constitutional scruples.

Sir, I reproach nobody. I stated a fact, and gave the most respectful

reason for it that occurred to me. The gentleman cannot deny the fact;

he may, if he choose, disclaim the reason. It is not long since I had

occasion, in presenting a petition from his own State, to account for

its being intrusted to my hands, by saying, that the constitutional

opinions of the gentleman and his worthy colleague prevented them from

supporting it. Sir, did I state this as matter of reproach? Far from

it. Did I attempt to find any other cause than an honest one for these

scruples? Sir, I did not. It did not become me to doubt or to insinuate

that the gentleman had either changed his sentiments, or that he had

made up a set of constitutional opinions accommodated to any particular

combination of political occurrences. Had I done so, I should have

felt, that, while I was entitled to little credit in thus questioning

other people's motives, I justified the whole world in suspecting my

own. But how has the gentleman returned this respect for others'

opinions? His own candor and justice, how have they been exhibited

towards the motives of others, while he has been at so much pains to

maintain, what nobody has disputed, the purity of his own? Why, Sir, he

has asked _when_, and _how_, and _why_ New England votes were found

going for measures favorable to the West. He has demanded to be

informed whether all this did not begin in 1825, and while the election

of President was still pending.

Sir, to these questions retort would be justified; and it is both

cogent and at hand. Nevertheless, I will answer the inquiry, not by

retort, but by facts. I will tell the gentleman when, and how, and why

New England has supported measures favorable to the West. I have

already referred to the early history of the government, to the first

acquisition of the lands, to the original laws for disposing of them,

and for governing the territories where they lie; and have shown the

influence of New England men and New England principles in all these

leading measures. I should not be pardoned were I to go over that

ground again. Coming to more recent times, and to measures of a less

general character, I have endeavored to prove that every thing of this

kind, designed for Western improvement, has depended on the votes of

New England; all this is true beyond the power of contradiction. And

now, Sir, there are two measures to which I will refer, not so ancient

as to belong to the early history of the public lands, and not so

recent as to be on this side of the period when the gentleman

charitably imagines a new direction may have been given to New England

feeling and New England votes. These measures, and the New England

votes in support of them, may be taken as samples and specimens of all

the rest.

In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820) the people of the West

besought Congress for a reduction in the price of lands. In favor of

that reduction, New England, with a delegation of forty members in the

other house, gave thirty-three votes, and one only against it. The four

Southern States, with more than fifty members, gave thirty-two votes

for it, and seven against it. Again, in 1821, (observe again, Sir, the

time,) the law passed for the relief of the purchasers of the public

lands. This was a measure of vital importance to the West, and more

especially to the Southwest. It authorized the relinquishment of

contracts for lands which had been entered into at high prices, and a

reduction in other cases of not less than thirty-seven and a half per

cent on the purchase-money. Many millions of dollars, six or seven, I

believe, probably much more, were relinquished by this law. On this

bill, New England, with her forty members, gave more affirmative votes

than the four Southern States, with their fifty-two or fifty-three

members. These two are far the most important general measures

respecting the public lands which have been adopted within the last

twenty years. They took place in 1820 and 1821. That is the time _when_.

As to the manner _how_, the gentleman already sees that it was by

voting in solid column for the required relief; and, lastly, as to the

cause _why_, I tell the gentleman it was because the members from New

England thought the measures just and salutary; because they

entertained towards the West neither envy, hatred, nor malice; because

they deemed it becoming them, as just and enlightened public men, to

meet the exigency which had arisen in the West with the appropriate

measure of relief; because they felt it due to their own characters,

and the characters of their New England predecessors in this

government, to act towards the new States in the spirit of a liberal,

patronizing, magnanimous policy. So much, Sir, for the cause _why_; and

I hope that by this time, Sir, the honorable gentleman is satisfied; if

not, I do not know _when_, or _how_, or _why_ he ever will be. Having

recurred to these two important measures, in answer to the gentleman's

inquiries, I must now beg permission to go back to a period somewhat

earlier, for the purpose of still further showing how much, or rather

how little, reason there is for the gentleman's insinuation that

political hopes or fears, or party associations, were the grounds of

these New England votes. And after what has been said, I hope it may be

forgiven me if I allude to some political opinions and votes of my own,

of very little public importance certainly, but which, from the time at

which they were given and expressed, may pass for good witnesses on

this occasion.

This government, Mr. President, from its origin to the peace of 1815,

had been too much engrossed with various other important concerns to be

able to turn its thoughts inward, and look to the development of its

vast internal resources. In the early part of President Washington's

administration, it was fully occupied with completing its own

organization, providing for the public debt, defending the frontiers,

and maintaining domestic peace. Before the termination of that

administration, the fires of the French Revolution blazed forth, as

from a new-opened volcano, and the whole breadth of the ocean did not

secure us from its effects. The smoke and the cinders reached us,

though not the burning lava. Difficult and agitating questions,

embarrassing to government and dividing public opinion, sprung out of

the new state of our foreign relations, and were succeeded by others,

and yet again by others, equally embarrassing and equally exciting

division and discord, through the long series of twenty years, till

they finally issued in the war with England. Down to the close of that

war, no distinct, marked, and deliberate attention had been given, or

could have been given, to the internal condition of the country, its

capacities of improvement, or the constitutional power of the

government in regard to objects connected with such improvement.

The peace, Mr. President, brought about an entirely new and a most

interesting state of things; it opened to us other prospects and

suggested other duties. We ourselves were changed, and the whole world

was changed. The pacification of Europe, after June, 1815, assumed a

firm and permanent aspect. The nations evidently manifested that they

were disposed for peace. Some agitation of the waves might be expected,

even after the storm had subsided; but the tendency was, strongly and

rapidly, towards settled repose.

It so happened, Sir, that I was at that time a member of Congress, and,

like others, naturally turned my thoughts to the contemplation of the

recently altered condition of the country and of the world. It appeared

plainly enough to me, as well as to wiser and more experienced men,

that the policy of the government would naturally take a start in a new

direction; because new directions would necessarily be given to the

pursuits and occupations of the people. We had pushed our commerce far

and fast, under the advantage of a neutral flag. But there were now no

longer flags, either neutral or belligerent. The harvest of neutrality

had been great, but we had gathered it all. With the peace of Europe,

it was obvious there would spring up in her circle of nations a revived

and invigorated spirit of trade, and a new activity in all the business

and objects of civilized life. Hereafter, our commercial gains were to

be earned only by success in a close and intense competition. Other

nations would produce for themselves, and carry for themselves, and

manufacture for themselves, to the full extent of their abilities. The

crops of our plains would no longer sustain European armies, nor our

ships longer supply those whom war had rendered unable to supply

themselves. It was obvious, that, under these circumstances, the

country would begin to survey itself, and to estimate its own capacity

of improvement.

And this improvement,--how was it to be accomplished, and who was to

accomplish it? We were ten or twelve millions of people, spread over

almost half a world. We were more than twenty States, some stretching

along the same seaboard, some along the same line of inland frontier,

and others on opposite banks of the same vast rivers. Two

considerations at once presented themselves with great force, in

looking at this state of things. One was, that that great branch of

improvement which consisted in furnishing new facilities of intercourse

necessarily ran into different States in every leading instance, and

would benefit the citizens of all such States. No one State, therefore,

in such cases, would assume the whole expense, nor was the co-operation

of several States to be expected. Take the instance of the Delaware

breakwater. It will cost several millions of money. Would Pennsylvania

alone ever have constructed it? Certainly never, while this Union

lasts, because it is not for her sole benefit. Would Pennsylvania, New

Jersey, and Delaware have united to accomplish it at their joint

expense? Certainly not, for the same reason. It could not be done,

therefore, but by the general government. The same may be said of the

large inland undertakings, except that, in them, government, instead of

bearing the whole expense, co-operates with others who bear a part. The

other consideration is, that the United States have the means. They

enjoy the revenues derived from commerce, and the States have no

abundant and easy sources of public income. The custom-houses fill the

general treasury, while the States have scanty resources, except by

resort to heavy direct taxes.

Under this view of things, I thought it necessary to settle, at least

for myself, some definite notions with respect to the powers of the

government in regard to internal affairs. It may not savor too much of

self-commendation to remark, that, with this object, I considered the

Constitution, its judicial construction, its contemporaneous

exposition, and the whole history of the legislation of Congress under

it; and I arrived at the conclusion, that government had power to

accomplish sundry objects, or aid in their accomplishment, which are

now commonly spoken of as INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. That conclusion, Sir,

may have been right, or it may have been wrong. I am not about to argue

the grounds of it at large. I say only, that it was adopted and acted

on even so early as in 1816. Yes, Mr. President, I made up my opinion,

and determined on my intended course of political conduct, on these

subjects, in the Fourteenth Congress, in 1816. And now, Mr. President,

I have further to say, that I made up these opinions, and entered on

this course of political conduct, _Teucro duce_. [12] Yes, Sir, I

pursued in all this a South Carolina track on the doctrines of internal

improvement. South Carolina, as she was then represented in the other

house, set forth in 1816 under a fresh and leading breeze, and I was

among the followers. But if my leader sees new lights and turns a sharp

corner, unless I see new lights also, I keep straight on in the same

path. I repeat, that leading gentlemen from South Carolina were first

and foremost in behalf of the doctrines of internal improvements, when

those doctrines came first to be considered and acted upon in Congress.

The debate on the bank question, on the tariff of 1816, and on the

direct tax, will show who was who, and what was what, at that time.

The tariff of 1816, (one of the plain cases of oppression and

usurpation, from which, if the government does not recede, individual

States may justly secede from the government,) is, Sir, in truth, a

South Carolina tariff, supported by South Carolina votes. But for those

votes, it could not have passed in the form in which it did pass;

whereas, if it had depended on Massachusetts votes, it would have been

lost. Does not the honorable gentleman well know all this? There are

certainly those who do, full well, know it all. I do not say this to

reproach South Carolina. I only state the fact; and I think it will

appear to be true, that among the earliest and boldest advocates of the

tariff, as a measure of protection, and on the express ground of

protection, were leading gentlemen of South Carolina in Congress. I did

not then, and cannot now, understand their language in any other sense.

While this tariff of 1816 was under discussion in the House of

Representatives, an honorable gentleman from Georgia, [13] now of this

house, moved to reduce the proposed duty on cotton. He failed, by four

votes, South Carolina giving three votes (enough to have turned the

scale) against his motion. The act, Sir, then passed, and received on

its passage the support of a majority of the Representatives of South

Carolina present and voting. This act is the first in the order of

those now denounced as plain usurpations. We see it daily in the list,

by the side of those of 1824 and 1828, as a case of manifest

oppression, justifying disunion. I put it home to the honorable member

from South Carolina, that his own State was not only "art and part" in

this measure, but the _causa causans_. Without her aid, this seminal

principle of mischief, this root of Upas, could not have been planted.

I have already said, and it is true, that this act proceeded on the

ground of protection. It interfered directly with existing interests of

great value and amount. It cut up the Calcutta cotton trade by the

roots; but it passed, nevertheless, and it passed on the principle of

protecting manufactures, on the principle against free trade, on the

principle opposed to that _which lets us alone_. [14]

Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of important and leading

gentlemen from South Carolina, on the subject of internal improvement,

in 1816. I went out of Congress the next year, and, returning again in

1823, thought I found South Carolina where I had left her. I really

supposed that all things remained as they were, and that the South

Carolina doctrine of internal improvements would be defended by the

same eloquent voices, and the same strong arms, as formerly. In the

lapse of these six years, it is true, political associations had

assumed a new aspect and new divisions. A strong party had arisen in

the South hostile to the doctrine of internal improvements.

Anti-consolidation was the flag under which this party fought; and its

supporters inveighed against internal improvements, much after the

manner in which the honorable gentleman has now inveighed against them,

as part and parcel of the system of consolidation. Whether this party

arose in South Carolina itself, or in the neighborhood, is more than I

know. I think the latter. However that may have been, there were those

found in South Carolina ready to make war upon it, and who did make

intrepid war upon it. Names being regarded as things in such

controversies, they bestowed on the anti-improvement gentlemen the

appellation of Radicals. Yes, Sir, the appellation of Radicals, as a

term of distinction applicable and applied to those who denied the

liberal doctrines of internal improvement, originated, according to the

best of my recollection, somewhere between North Carolina and Georgia.

Well, Sir, these mischievous Radicals were to be put down, and the

strong arm of South Carolina was stretched out to put them down. About

this time I returned to Congress. The battle with the Radicals had been

fought, and our South Carolina champions of the doctrines of internal

improvement had nobly maintained their ground, and were understood to

have achieved a victory. We looked upon them as conquerors. They had

driven back the enemy with discomfiture, a thing, by the way, Sir,

which is not always performed when it is promised. A gentleman to whom

I have already referred in this debate had come into Congress, during

my absence from it, from South Carolina, and had brought with him a

high reputation for ability. He came from a school with which we had

been acquainted, _et noscitur a sociis_. I hold in my hand, Sir, a

printed speech of this distinguished gentleman,[15] "ON INTERNAL

IMPROVEMENTS," delivered about the period to which I now refer, and

printed with a few introductory remarks upon _consolidation_; in which,

Sir, I think he quite consolidated the arguments of his opponents, the

Radicals, if to _crush_ be to consolidate. I give you a short but

significant quotation from these remarks. He is speaking of a pamphlet,

then recently published, entitled "Consolidation"; and, having alluded

to the question of renewing the charter of the former Bank of the

United States, he says:--

"Moreover, in the early history of parties, and when Mr. Crawford

advocated a renewal of the old charter, it was considered a Federal

measure; which internal improvement never was, as this author

erroneously states. This latter measure originated in the

administration of Mr. Jefferson, with the appropriation for the

Cumberland Road; and was first proposed, _as a system_, by Mr. Calhoun,

and carried through the House of Representatives by a large majority of

the Republicans, including almost every one of the leading men who

carried us through the late war."

So, then, internal improvement is not one of the Federal heresies.

When I took my seat there as a member from Massachusetts in 1823, we

had a bill before us, and passed it in that house, entitled, "An Act to

procure the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates upon the subject of

roads and canals." It authorized the President to cause surveys and

estimates to be made of the routes of such roads and canals as he might

deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view,

or for the transportation of the mail, and appropriated thirty thousand

dollars out of the treasury to defray the expense. This act, though

preliminary in its nature, covered the whole ground. It took for

granted the complete power of internal improvement, as far as any of

its advocates had ever contended for it. Having passed the other house,

the bill came up to the Senate, and was here considered and debated in

April, 1824. The honorable member from South Carolina was a member of

the Senate at that time. While the bill was under consideration here, a

motion was made to add the following proviso: "_Provided_, That nothing

herein contained shall be construed to affirm _or admit_ a power in

Congress, on their own authority, to make roads or canals within any of

the States of the Union." The yeas and nays were taken on this proviso,

and the honorable member voted _in the negative!_ The proviso failed.

A motion was then made to add this proviso, viz.: "_Provided_, That the

faith of the United States is hereby pledged, that no money shall ever

be expended for roads or canals, except it shall be among the several

States, and in the same proportion as direct taxes are laid and

assessed by the provisions of the Constitution." The honorable member

voted _against this proviso_ also, and it failed. The bill was then put

on its passage, and the honorable member voted _for it_, and it passed,

and became a law.

Now, it strikes me, Sir, that there is no maintaining these votes, but

upon the power of internal improvement, in its broadest sense. In

truth, these bills for surveys and estimates have always been

considered as test questions; they show who is for and who against

internal improvement. This law itself went the whole length, and

assumed the full and complete power. The gentleman's votes sustained

that power, in every form in which the various propositions to amend

presented it. He went for the entire and unrestrained authority,

without consulting the States, and without agreeing to any

proportionate distribution. And now suffer me to remind you, Mr.

President, that it is this very same power, thus sanctioned, in every

form, by the gentleman's own opinion, which is so plain and manifest a

usurpation, that the State of South Carolina is supposed to be

justified in refusing submission to any laws carrying the power into

effect. Truly, Sir, is not this a little too hard? May we not crave

some mercy, under favor and protection of the gentleman's own

authority? Admitting that a road, or a canal, must be written down flat

usurpation as was ever committed, may we find no mitigation in our

respect for his place, and his vote, as one that knows the law?

The tariff, which South Carolina had an efficient hand in establishing,

in 1816, and this asserted power of internal improvement, advanced by

her in the same year, and, as we have seen, approved and sanctioned by

her Representatives in 1824,--these two measures are the great grounds

on which she is now thought to be justified in breaking up the Union,

if she sees fit to break it up!

I may now safely say, I think, that we have had the authority of

leading and distinguished gentlemen from South Carolina in support of

the doctrine of internal improvement. I repeat, that, up to 1824, I for

one followed South Carolina; but when that star, in its ascension,

veered off in an unexpected direction, I relied on its light no longer.

I have thus, Sir, perhaps not without some tediousness of detail,

shown, if I am in error on the subject of internal improvement, how,

and in what company, I fell into that error. If I am wrong, it is

apparent who misled me.

I go to other remarks of the honorable member; and I have to complain

of an entire misapprehension of what I said on the subject of the

national debt, though I can hardly perceive how any one could

misunderstand me. What I said was, not that I wished to put off the

payment of the debt, but, on the contrary, that I had always voted for

every measure for its reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman himself.

He seems to claim the exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce the

public charge. I do not allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am for

paying it, because it is a charge on our finances, and on the industry

of the country. But I observed, that I thought I perceived a morbid

fervor on that subject, an excessive anxiety to pay off the debt, not

so much because it is a debt simply, as because, while it lasts, it

furnishes one objection to disunion. It is, while it continues, a tie

of common interest. I did not impute such motives to the honorable

member himself, but that there is such an opinion in existence I have

not a particle of doubt. The most I said was, that, if one effect of

the debt was to strengthen our Union, that effect itself was not

regretted by me, however much others might regret it. The gentleman has

not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have

advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing.

Others, I must hope, will find much less difficulty in understanding

me. I distinctly and pointedly cautioned the honorable member not to

understand me as expressing an opinion favorable to the continuance of

the debt. I repeated this caution, and repeated it more than once; but

it was thrown away.

On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misunderstood. The

gentleman had harangued against "consolidation." I told him, in reply,

that there was one kind of consolidation to which I was attached, and

that was the consolidation of our Union; that this was precisely that

consolidation to which I feared others were not attached, and that such

consolidation was the very end of the Constitution, the leading object,

as they had informed us themselves, which its framers had kept in view.

I turned to their communication,[16] and read their very words, "the

consolidation of the Union," and expressed my devotion to this sort of

consolidation. I said, in terms, that I wished not in the slightest

degree to augment the powers of this government; that my object was to

preserve, not to enlarge; and that by consolidating the Union I

understood no more than the strengthening of the Union, and

perpetuating it. Having been thus explicit, having thus read from the

printed book the precise words which I adopted, as expressing my own

sentiments, it passes comprehension how any man could understand me as

contending for an extension of the powers of the government, or for

consolidation in that odious sense in which it means an accumulation,

in the federal government, of the powers properly belonging to the

States.

I repeat, Sir, that, in adopting the sentiment of the framers of the

Constitution, I read their language audibly, and word for word; and I

pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I have now done, between

the consolidation of the Union and that other obnoxious consolidation

which I disclaimed. And yet the honorable member misunderstood me. The

gentleman had said that he wished for no fixed revenue,--not a

shilling. If by a word he could convert the Capitol into gold, he would

not do it. Why all this fear of revenue? Why, Sir, because, as the

gentleman told us, it tends to consolidation. Now this can mean neither

more nor less than, that a common revenue is a common interest, and

that all common interests tend to preserve the union of the States. I

confess I like that tendency; if the gentleman dislikes it, he is right

in deprecating a shilling of fixed revenue. So much, Sir, for

consolidation.

As well as I recollect the course of his remarks, the honorable

gentleman next recurred to the subject of the tariff. He did not doubt

the word must be of unpleasant sound to me, and proceeded, with an

effort neither new nor attended with new success, to involve me and my

votes in inconsistency and contradiction. I am happy the honorable

gentleman has furnished me an opportunity of a timely remark or two on

that subject. I was glad he approached it, for it is a question I enter

upon without fear from anybody. The strenuous toil of the gentleman has

been to raise an inconsistency between my dissent to the tariff in

1824, and my vote in 1828. It is labor lost. He pays undeserved

compliment to my speech in 1824; but this is to raise me high, that my

fall, as he would have it, in 1828, may be more signal. Sir, there was

no fall. Between the ground I stood on in 1824 and that I took in 1828,

there was not only no precipice, but no declivity. It was a change of

position to meet new circumstances, but on the same level. A plain tale

explains the whole matter. In 1816 I had not acquiesced in the tariff,

then supported by South Carolina. To some parts of it, especially, I

felt and expressed great repugnance. I held the same opinions in 1820,

at the meeting in Faneuil Hall, to which the gentleman has alluded.

With a great majority of the Representatives of Massachusetts, I voted

against the tariff of 1824.[17] My reasons were then given, and I will

not now repeat them. But, notwithstanding our dissent, the great States

of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky went for the bill, in

almost unbroken column, and it passed. Congress and the President

sanctioned it, and it became the law of the land. What, then, were we

to do? Our only option was, either to fall in with this settled course

of public policy, and accommodate ourselves to it as well as we could,

or to embrace the South Carolina doctrine, and talk of nullifying the

statute by State interference.

This last alternative did not suit our principles, and of course we

adopted the former. In 1827, the subject came again before Congress, on

a proposition to afford some relief to the branch of wool and woollens.

We looked upon the system of protection as being fixed and settled. The

law of 1824 remained. It had gone into full operation, and, in regard

to some objects intended by it, perhaps most of them, had produced all

its expected effects. No man proposed to repeal it; no man attempted to

renew the general contest on its principle. But, owing to subsequent

and unforeseen occurrences, the benefit intended by it to wool and

woollen fabrics had not been realized. Events not known here when the

law passed had taken place, which defeated its object in that

particular respect. A measure was accordingly brought forward to meet

this precise deficiency, to remedy this particular defect. It was

limited to wool and woollens. Was ever anything more reasonable? If the

policy of the tariff laws had become established in principle, as the

permanent policy of the government, should they not be revised and

amended, and made equal, like other laws, as exigencies should arise,

or justice require? Because we had doubted about adopting the system,

were we to refuse to cure its manifest defects, after it had been

adopted, and when no one attempted its repeal? And this, Sir, is the

inconsistency so much bruited. I had voted against the tariff of 1824,

but it passed; and in 1827 and 1828 I voted to amend it, in a point

essential to the interest of my constituents. Where is the

inconsistency? Could I do otherwise? Sir, does political consistency

consist in always giving negative votes? Does it require of a public

man to refuse to concur in amending laws, because they passed against

his consent? Having voted against the tariff originally, does

consistency demand that I should do all in my power to maintain an

unequal tariff, burdensome to my own constituents in many respects,

favorable in none? To consistency of that sort, I lay no claim. And

there is another sort to which I lay as little, and that is, a kind of

consistency by which persons feel themselves as much bound to oppose a

proposition after it has become a law of the land as before.

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little now to say.

Another opportunity may be presented. I remarked the other day, that

this policy did not begin with us in New England; and yet, Sir, New

England is charged with vehemence as being favorable, or charged with

equal vehemence as being unfavorable, to the tariff policy, just as

best suits the time, place, and occasion for making some charge against

her. The credulity of the public has been put to its extreme capacity

of false impression relative to her conduct in this particular. Through

all the South, during the late contest, it was New England policy and a

New England administration that were afflicting the country with a

tariff beyond all endurance; while on the other side of the Alleghanies

even the act of 1828 itself, the very sublimated essence of oppression,

according to Southern opinions, was pronounced to be one of those

blessings for which the West was indebted to the "generous South."

With large investments in manufacturing establishments, and many and

various interests connected with and dependent on them, it is not to be

expected that New England, any more than other portions of the country,

will now consent to any measure destructive or highly dangerous. The

duty of the government, at the present moment, would seem to be to

preserve, not to destroy; to maintain the position which it has

assumed; and, for one, I shall feel it an indispensable obligation to

hold it steady, as far as in my power, to that degree of protection

which it has undertaken to bestow. No more of the tariff.

Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge made by

me against South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, has

taken up a new crusade against New England. Leaving altogether the

subject of the public lands, in which his success, perhaps, had been

neither distinguished nor satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the

topic of the tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault on the

opinions, politics, and parties of New England, as they have been

exhibited in the last thirty years. This is natural. The "narrow

policy" of the public lands had proved a legal settlement in South

Carolina, and was not to be removed. The "accursed policy" of the

tariff, also, had established the fact of its birth and parentage in

the same State. No wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished to carry the

war, as he expressed it, into the enemy's country. Prudently willing to

quit these subjects, he was, doubtless, desirous of fastening on

others, which could not be transferred south of Mason and Dixon's line.

The politics of New England became his theme; and it was in this part

of his speech, I think, that he menaced me with such sore discomfiture.

Discomfiture! Why, Sir, when he attacks anything which I maintain, and

overthrows it, when he turns the right or left of any position which I

take up, when he drives me from any ground I choose to occupy, he may

then talk of discomfiture, but not till that distant day. What has he

done? Has he maintained his own charges? Has he proved what he alleged?

Has he sustained himself in his attack on the government, and on the

history of the North, in the matter of the public lands? Has he

disproved a fact, refuted a proposition, weakened an argument,

maintained by me? Has he come within beat of drum of any position of

mine? O, no; but he has "carried the war into the enemy's country"!

Carried the war into the enemy's country! Yes, Sir, and what sort of a

war has he made of it? Why, Sir, he has stretched a drag-net over the

whole surface of perished pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy

paragraphs, and fuming popular addresses,--over whatever the pulpit in

its moments of alarm, the press in its heats, and parties in their

extravagance, have severally thrown off in times of general excitement

and violence. He has thus swept together a mass of such things as, but

that they are now old and cold, the public health would have required

him rather to leave in their state of dispersion. For a good long hour

or two, we had the unbroken pleasure of listening to the honorable

member, while he recited with his usual grace and spirit, and with

evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, addresses, and all the _et

caeteras_ of the political press, such as warm heads produce in warm

times; and such as it would be "discomfiture" indeed for any one, whose

taste did not delight in that sort of reading, to be obliged to peruse.

This is his war. This it is to carry the war into the enemy's country.

It is in an invasion of this sort, that he flatters himself with the

expectation of gaining laurels fit to adorn a Senator's brow!

Mr. President, I shall not, it will not, I trust, be expected that I

should, either now or at any time, separate this farrago into parts,

and answer and examine its components. I shall barely bestow upon it

all a general remark or two. In the run of forty years, Sir, under this

Constitution, we have experienced sundry successive violent party

contests. Party arose, indeed, with the Constitution itself, and, in

some form or other, has attended it through the greater part of its

history. Whether any other constitution than the old Articles of

Confederation was desirable, was itself a question on which parties

divided; if a new constitution were framed, what powers should be given

to it was another question; and when it had been formed, what was, in

fact, the just extent of the powers actually conferred was a third.

Parties, as we know, existed under the first administration, as

distinctly marked as those which have manifested themselves at any

subsequent period. The contest immediately preceding the political

change in 1801, and that, again, which existed at the commencement of

the late war, are other instances of party excitement, of something

more than usual strength and intensity. In all these conflicts there

was, no doubt, much of violence on both and all sides. It would be

impossible, if one had a fancy for such employment, to adjust the

relative _quantum_ of violence between these contending parties. There

was enough in each, as must always be expected in popular governments.

With a great deal of popular and decorous discussion, there was mingled

a great deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimination, and abuse.

In regard to any party, probably, at one of the leading epochs in the

history of parties, enough may be found to make out another inflamed

exhibition, not unlike that with which the honorable member has edified

us. For myself, Sir, I shall not rake among the rubbish of bygone

times, to see what I can find, or whether I cannot find something by

which I can fix a blot on the escutcheon of any State, any party, or

any part of the country. General Washington's administration was

steadily and zealously maintained, as we all know, by New England. It

was violently opposed elsewhere. We know in what quarter he had the

most earnest, constant, and persevering support, in all his great and

leading measures. We know where his private and personal character was

held in the highest degree of attachment and veneration; and we know,

too, where his measures were opposed, his services slighted, and his

character vilified. We know, or we might know, if we turned to the

journals, who expressed respect, gratitude, and regret, when he retired

from the chief magistracy, and who refused to express either respect,

gratitude, or regret. I shall not open those journals. Publications

more abusive or scurrilous never saw the light, than were sent forth

against Washington, and all his leading measures, from presses south of

New England. But I shall not look them up. I employ no scavengers, no

one is in attendance on me, furnishing such means of retaliation; and

if there were, with an ass's load of them, with a bulk as huge as that

which the gentleman himself has produced, I would not touch one of

them. I see enough of the violence of our own times, to be no way

anxious to rescue from forgetfulness the extravagances of times past.

Besides, what is all this to the present purpose? It has nothing to do

with the public lands, in regard to which the attack was begun; and it

has nothing to do with those sentiments and opinions which, I have

thought, tend to disunion and all of which the honorable member seems

to have adopted himself, and undertaken to defend. New England has, at

times, so argues the gentleman, held opinions as dangerous as those

which he now holds. Suppose this were so; why should _he_ therefore

abuse New England? If he finds himself countenanced by acts of hers,

how is it that, while he relies on these acts, he covers, or seeks to

cover, their authors with reproach? But, Sir, if, in the course of

forty years, there have been undue effervescences of party in New

England, has the same thing happened nowhere else? Party animosity and

party outrage, not in New England, but elsewhere, denounced President

Washington, not only as a Federalist, but as a Tory, a British agent, a

man who, in his high office, sanctioned corruption. But does the

honorable member suppose, if I had a tender here who should put such an

effusion of wickedness and folly into my hand, that I would stand up

and read it against the South? Parties ran into great heats again in

1799 and 1800. What was said, Sir, or rather what was not said, in

those years, against John Adams, one of the committee that drafted the

Declaration of Independence, and its admitted ablest defender on the

floor of Congress? If the gentleman wishes to increase his stores of

party abuse and frothy violence, if he has a determined proclivity to

such pursuits, there are treasures of that sort south of the Potomac,

much to his taste, yet untouched. I shall not touch them.

The parties which divided the country at the commencement of the late

war were violent. But then there was violence on both sides, and

violence in every State. Minorities and majorities were equally

violent. There was no more violence against the war in New England,

than in other States; nor any more appearance of violence, except that,

owing to a dense population, greater facility of assembling, and more

presses, there may have been more in quantity spoken and printed there

than in some other places. In the article of sermons, too, New England

is somewhat more abundant than South Carolina; and for that reason the

chance of finding here and there an exceptionable one may be greater. I

hope, too, there are more good ones. Opposition may have been more

formidable in New England, as it embraced a larger portion of the whole

population; but it was no more unrestrained in principle, or violent in

manner. The minorities dealt quite as harshly with their own State

governments as the majorities dealt with the administration here. There

were presses on both sides, popular meetings on both sides, ay, and

pulpits on both sides also. The gentleman's purveyors have only catered

for him among the productions of one side. I certainly shall not supply

the deficiency by furnishing samples of the other. I leave to him, and

to them, the whole concern.

It is enough for me to say, that if, in any part of this their grateful

occupation, if, in all their researches, they find anything in the

history of Massachusetts, or New England, or in the proceedings of any

legislative or other public body, disloyal to the Union, speaking

slightingly of its value, proposing to break it up, or recommending

non-intercourse with neighboring States, on account of difference of

political opinion, then, Sir, I give them all up to the honorable

gentleman's unrestrained rebuke; expecting, however, that he will

extend his buffetings in like manner _to all similar proceedings,

wherever else found_.

The gentleman, Sir, has spoken at large of former parties, now no

longer in being, by their received appellations, and has undertaken to

instruct us, not only in the knowledge of their principles, but of

their respective pedigrees also. He has ascended to their origin, and

run out their genealogies. With most exemplary modesty, he speaks of

the party to which he professes to have himself belonged, as the true

Pure, the only honest, patriotic party, derived by regular descent,

from father to son, from the time of the virtuous Romans! Spreading

before us the _family tree_ of political parties, he takes especial

care to show himself snugly perched on a popular bough! He is wakeful

to the expediency of adopting such rules of descent as shall bring him

in, to the exclusion of others, as an heir to the inheritance of all

public virtue, and all true political principle. His party and his

opinions are sure to be orthodox; heterodoxy is confined to his

opponents. He spoke, Sir, of the Federalists, and I thought I saw some

eyes begin to open and stare a little, when he ventured on that ground.

I expected he would draw his sketches rather lightly, when he looked on

the circle round him, and especially if he should cast his thoughts to

the high places out of the Senate. [18] Nevertheless, he went back to

Rome, _ad annum urbis condita_, and found the fathers of the

Federalists in the primeval aristocrats of that renowned--city! He

traced the flow of Federal blood down through successive ages and

centuries, till he brought it into the veins of the American Tories, of

whom, by the way, there were twenty in the Carolinas for one in

Massachusetts. From the Tories he followed it to the Federalists; and,

as the Federal party was broken up, and there was no possibility of

transmitting it further on this side the Atlantic, he seems to have

discovered that it has gone off collaterally, though against all the

canons of descent, into the Ultras of France, and finally become

extinguished, like exploded gas, among the adherents of Don Miguel! [19]