The debates of Congress have been accruing for near seventy years, and
fill more than an hundred volumes, and cannot be purchased for less than
$500, nor advantageously used, on account of the quantity of superfluous
matter which they contain. They are printed in full by Congress, and
ought to be so, and a small distribution is made among the members; but
this distribution cannot reach the community, and would be nearly
useless if it did, from the quantity of obsolete, local and transient
matter which overloads them. In the mean time, these debates contain the
history of the working of our Government from its foundation--preserve
and hand down to posterity the wisdom of ages--show what has been done,
and how it was done--and shed light upon the study of all impending
questions; for there is not a question of the day, and will not be while
the Government continues, which will not be illustrated by something
previously said in these debates.
All works consisting of periodical accumulations require periodical
abridgment, in which, being relieved of what is superfluous, the
residuum becomes more valuable from the disencumbrance--of easier use to
the reader--and more accessible to the community, from the diminution of
price and quantity. Even the reports of the Supreme Court of the United
States, though comparatively free from redundant or obsolete matter,
have undergone abridgment--three volumes reduced to one--and become more
valuable from the reduction. The same may be done with these debates,
and with a far greater license of reduction, from the very nature of
popular debating. Some fifteen or sixteen octavo volumes, double
columns, are expected to contain all that retains a surviving interest
in the (more than) one hundred volumes, now surcharged with the full
debates.
The abridgment will not be restricted to the speeches of the celebrated
orators, but extend to those of the business men, and to the plainest
speakers--who are often the members who give the most useful
information. Full speeches are not expected to be given, there being
none, after a short time, which do not contain much matter that has lost
its interest. Many entire heads of reported proceedings and discussions
would be omitted: as--The morning presentation of petitions, often the
same for ten or twenty years, and presented in both Houses at the same
time: discussion on private bills, which have no general interest: mere
personalities: the endless repetition of yeas and nays, sometimes
recorded an hundred times in contests about the same bill, when three or
four sets would be sufficient to show the opinion of every member upon
every material point: repetitions of speeches, for it is impossible that
a member speaking for ten or twenty sessions on the same subject,
(tariff, internal improvement, national bank, &c.) should not repeat the
same thing over and over again.
The work is intended to be national, such as would commend itself to the
study, and come within the reach, of all who aspire to a share in the
public affairs, either State or Federal; or who wish to understand the
history and working of their own Government. It is the only way in which
the wisdom of the earlier generation of our statesmen who put the
Government into operation--the Madisons, Gallatins, John Marshalls,
William B. Giles, the Fisher Ames, Roger Shermans, &c.--can be made
known to the present or future ages; and it is the best way in which the
speeches of those who have lived in our own day, even the most eminent,
can be diffused. For the speeches of no one, published in mass and
alone, can have more than a local circulation; while judicious
selections from a whole debate, enlivened by the vivacity of contention,
going into a general work of this kind, must have a general circulation,
and carry the name of the speaker, and the best of his speaking, into
every part of the Union.
Some notes, or commentaries, will be added by the author, discriminated
from the text, to mark great starting, or turning points, in our
legislative history, with a view to assist the reader in making the
practical applications which give utility to knowledge. For example: At
the beginning of the first tariff debate in the first session of the
first Congress, he will show that Mr. Madison compressed into twenty-two
short lines, of eight or nine words each, all the principles of impost
and tonnage duties which have governed all wise legislation upon the two
subjects from that time to the present--namely: Specific duties the
rule--_ad valorems_ the exception: revenue the object--incidental
encouragement to home industry the incident: specifics on all the
leading and staple articles--_ad valorems_ on the inferior remainder:
discrimination between articles of luxury and necessity, so as to put
the burthen on the former--and between articles made, or not made, at
home, so as to give encouragement to the home article: and all these
duties moderate, so as not to shackle trade or agriculture. These were
his principles on impost duties. Those on tonnage consisted of
discriminations in favor of our own ships, and in favor of nations
having treaties of commerce with us, so as to encourage our own
ship-building and navigation, and also to stimulate all nations to make
commercial treaties with us. And thus, every object of impost
legislation was provided for:--revenue for the Government, encouragement
to home industry, exemption from burthen to trade and agriculture.
Then, at the end of that debate, (which began in April, and ended in
May,) it will be shown that a rate of duties was established,
corresponding with these principles--all moderate, and adapted each to
its object: five per centum on the lowest class of _ad valorems_, seven
and a half on the next, and fifteen for the highest, and it of luxuries.
The specific duties, applicable to the mass of the importations, at the
same low rate; and this low rate, on the small importation of that time,
and with the economy of that time, producing seven times the amount of
revenue necessary for the "_support_" of the Government! leaving six
sevenths to go to the public debt and Indian wars. The same rates of
duty, with the same economy, ought to be equally sufficient now upon a
sevenfold importation of dutiable goods.
The Emperor Justinian, in compiling his Institutes, commended their
study to the liberal-minded youth of the empire who aspired to
employment in the government; for that emperor, although a great and
victorious general, yet placed the arts of peace and government above
the exploits of war, and wished to see law and order, more than arms,
studied and cultivated in his dominion. The great Emperor Napoleon had
the same appreciation of legal and civil studies; and hence the Four
Codes, at the digest of which he personally assisted, and the
conception and execution of which do so much honor to his memory. In our
own government the career of public employment is open to all, and
should be prepared for by all who aspire to enter it. Of elementary
political works we have many, and excellent; but most of them only teach
principles, and that abstractly, without practice. Practical works are
wanted to complete the study, and of these the most ample and least
ungrateful may be a well-considered and impartial abridgment of the
Debates of Congress.
And here the Author discharges an obligation of gratitude and justice to
the earlier generation of our statesmen. He owes what he is to them. His
political principles were learnt in their school--his knowledge obtained
from their works--his patriotism confirmed by their example--his love of
the Union exalted by their teaching.