A RAPID REVIEW OF ONE YEAR--WHAT THE AUTHOR IS COMPELLED TO
PRETERMIT--THE PRESIDENT'S "SOBER SECONDTHOUGHT" MESSAGE
RECEIVED AT QUODLIBET WITH GREAT REJOICING--THE AUTHOR
COMMUNES WITH HIS READER TOUCHING NEW-LIGHT
PRINCIPLES--ILLUSTRATIONS OF THEM--REMARKABLE DEXTERITY OF
THE SECRETARY--INTERESTING LETTER FROM THE HON. MIDDLETON
FLAM--DAWNING OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS--THE NORTHERN MAN
WITH SOUTHERN PRINCIPLES AND HIS MANNIKIN.
Time held his course. Another year went by, and brought us to the sixth
since the Removal. The year which I pass over was marked by many public
and domestic incidents worthy of note in the history of Quodlibet.
Gladly would I have tarried to entertain my reader with some of these;
but I am admonished of the necessity of bringing these desultory annals
to a close. Especially might I find much to interest many of those who
will peruse these pages, in the private and personal affairs of the
Borough; some of the events of the bygone year being of a nature to
kindle up pathetic emotions in their bosoms. The blank despair of
Agamemnon Flag when he first heard of the flight of Nicodemus Handy; his
melancholy visits of consolation to the bereaved family; the
disinterested avowal of his long-smothered and smouldering love to the
heiress apparent; and his offer of his hand and fortune--consisting of a
new suit of clothes, and a horse and gig, purchased on credit--to this
dejected lady; his still blanker despair, his disappointment and vows of
revenge when, after listening to his suit, he found it announced that
she had sailed without him, to make the grand tour of Europe; and
finally, the stoical philosophy with which he renounced all claim to the
reversionary interest in the one hundred and sixty thousand dollars
taken from the bank, as well as the net proceeds of Handy Place, and the
rows of buildings, finished and unfinished, in Quodlibet--these
incidents would furnish an episode of tenderness and passion without a
parallel since the Medea of Euripides.
But these excursions are foreign from the purpose of this book, and I am
sure would be disallowed by the respectable committee at whose instance
I have entered upon this task. Indeed, they have explicitly enjoined
that I divulge nothing under their sanction, touching the concerns of
Quodlibet which in any manner borders upon the romantic. Upon these
subjects their caution is, Nulli tacuisse nocet, tutum silentii praemium.
I must, therefore, reluctantly pretermit all such matter--reserving for
some other occasion the gratification of the public curiosity therein.
In looking back upon the public events of this interval, I deem it
necessary, in passing, merely to notice the fact that the New Lights
were greatly rejoiced to find in Mr. Van Buren's message to Congress a
complete justification of the Secretary's promise to Mr. Flam, the
import of which was to assure our representative that the President had
made up his mind, after the rejection of that measure, to carry the
Independent Treasury in spite of the people. Our uncompromising,
fearless, and _unshakable_ Quods, true to the dictates of their creed,
were, I repeat, greatly rejoiced at the manly perseverance and
unquenchable self-will with which the President delivered over that
question to the "Sober Secondthoughts" (a pest upon the unlucky
coincidence of that phrase with my patronymic!--it hath given license to
the tongues of the wags, to my annoyance) of the people. Every good
New-Light Democrat in the land understood the hint--and a presidential
hint is no small matter to a Democrat now-a-days. Truly delightful was
it to see how it acted upon the New Lights. Not a man among them who had
hitherto halted on a scruple of conscience, but became thereupon, in the
twinkling of an eye, a devoted champion of the Independent Treasury; and
that, too, without knowing, or caring to know, what it was. It was
hoisted in capitals, at the head of Eliphalet Fox's Weekly, and became
forthwith, as it were, a word written on our banner. We were, one and
all, converted into milites subsignani, and became the Maccabees of this
new kind of Independent Treasury.
It has doubtless often occurred to the reader of this irregular
history to inquire how it comes to pass that the historian has ventured
to relate with such composure, nay, with such complacency, what
superficial thinkers, at least, might deem to be the _changes_ in the
political principles of the New Lights. Superficial is a good word, and
truly explains the case. Our _principles_, as every one who is gifted
with sufficient astuteness could not fail to have observed throughout
this narrative--and as, in fact, we have more than once insinuated--are
much deeper than the _measures_ we, from time to time, find it
convenient to adopt. We hold a change of measures, a change of opinions,
a change of doctrine, and even a change of established facts, as
nothing. But a change of men we totally abhor; a change of office,
unless in the way of promotion, we utterly discountenance; and a change
from a majority to a minority we execrate as wholly abominable,
detestable, and in nowise to be endured. Now, in our creed, men,
officers, and majorities make up the complex idea of what we denominate
_principle_. The whole scope of the New-Light philosophy is, by the
vigor of this thing _principle_, as I have defined it, to keep the Whigs
down and our modern school of New-Light Democrats up. We proudly appeal
to our past history to sustain our consistency in this pursuit. Let any
dispassionate observer trace our meanderings through the last ten years:
he will see the efficacy of our system manifested in the wonderful, the
almost miraculous conversion of Old Blue-Light Federalists, and
Federalists of every hue, into the Born Veterans of Democracy, and in
investing these worthy relics of ancient patriotism with the most
profitable offices in the gift of the government. He will see it in the
merciless war--bellum ad internecionem--waged by our forces in the name
of the people, against credit, commerce, and industry: he will remark
how abundantly, and, as it were, by magic, it has fed the nation upon
the economical, and therefore republican food of promises, relating to a
sound currency--especially those referring to the gold and silver, while
it was stealing along into the cheap and convenient system of a
government paper in the shape of Treasury notes; and he will observe,
with unfeigned surprise and redoubled admiration, how effectually it has
secured to us the services and the money of the most opulent individuals
in the land, and of the largest corporations created by the States--in a
most signal degree those concerned in public works--while it preaches
against wealth, chartered privileges and monopolies, and, by its zeal
against them, has enlisted almost every penniless man, every wasted
bankrupt, and every cracked reputation in the Union upon our side. But
we have a still more illustrious exemplification of the practical value
of our philosophy in the address with which affairs are managed by the
head of the Treasury.
The letter of directions to the Hon. Middleton Flam, with which my
readers have been favored in a previous chapter, it will be remembered,
required the New Lights to support the Independent Treasury, and as
necessary thereto, to take ground against the State banks, as altogether
unsafe depositories of the public money. It further intimated, supposing
we might be diffident about this, that the Secretary of the Treasury had
already furnished evidence of this fact, and would, at the proper time,
make it manifest that the Government had lost more money by the banks
than by any other agents it had ever trusted. Our club had never before
been aware that the Secretary had reversed his old opinions on this
grave question, and we, therefore, lost no time in making a call upon
our member for information. Great anxiety was felt to possess the
Secretary's views. A substantial vindication of the Independent Treasury
in this aspect, by the overthrow of the banks on the authority of the
man who had built them up, was a desideratum which we all acknowledged;
and its success we were prepared to regard as the greatest triumph of
the New-Light principle, to be accomplished through the influence of
that matchless Secretary, "whose mind," as Theodore Fog once remarked,
"was endued with a radiating faculty sufficiently intense to light up
the bottom of a bog, impart a vitreous translucency to the home of the
frog, and illuminate the abode of the bat with a luster more brilliant
than that which glittered through the boudoirs of the palace of
Aladdin." We were aware that in 1834 his duty required him to prove that
the State banks, while unmolested by the vexatious presence of a bank of
the United States, were the safest of all possible custodiaries
of the people's money; and that it was the Monster Bank alone
which incapacitated them to fulfill their engagements to the
Government--thence deducing the fact, that when the monster was dead,
the public funds could be no otherwise than safe in their keeping. We
were aware that at that time it was more particularly his duty to praise
the State banks, because the unprincipled Whigs denied the fact of their
safety, and opposed the scheme of giving them the public treasure, on
the very ground that the Government had been a heavy loser by them from
the period of the war up to the date of the charter of the bank. We had
read carefully his report of the 12th of December in that year, and
remembered these words:--
"It is a remarkable fact connected with this inquiry, though often
represented otherwise, that not a single selected State bank failed
between the expiration of the old charter and the grant of the new
one; and that none of our losses included in our unavailable funds
happened until some time in 1817, after the United States Bank was
in operation."
This, and some other facts culled from the same report, constituted the
armory of weapons by which our club so manfully fought and prostrated
the croaking and factious Whigs of Quodlibet, when, in their ravings,
they predicted loss from our employment of the pet banks. But the New
Lights being now ordered to take another tack, and being promised a good
fabrication of facts to fortify our position, we rested on our arms like
soldiers confident in the talents of their general to intrench them in
their new camp, secure against every charge of the enemy. Mr. Flam lost
no time in providing us with the Secretary's report of February
27th, 1838. That officer did not deceive our hopes. This luminous
paper carried demonstration on its wings and refutation in its
footsteps. Prodigious man! Enormous functionary! Brightest of
ministers! Samson of the New Lights! Aaron and Moses both in one, of
our Democratic, Quodlibetarian, Golden-calf-worshiping Israelites, (I
speak symbolically, and not in derogation of the anxiously-looked-for
and long-desired Bentonian coin.) He but touched the rock of New-Light
faith, and forth gushed the facts like water--yea, and arguments like
milk and water. With what gratulation did we read,--
"The loss to the Treasury by taking depreciated notes, in 1814,
'15, '16, and '17, is estimated at quite five millions five hundred
thousand dollars; and there is now on hand of such notes then
received and never paid away, or collected, about eighty thousand
dollars more."
There was a conclusive argument to all that the Whigs might have urged
in favor of the safety of State banks, if they had thought proper to
defend them; and, in truth, it was some little mortification to us that
our adversaries did not come out in favor of the banks, when we were so
well provided with facts to put them down. But they, with that
remarkable obstinacy which has ever characterized them, and which is
altogether behind the age, stuck to their old opinions, and left us
without anything to controvert, except, indeed, our own facts of 1834.
This instance, however, serves to show with what majestic bounds the
New Lights have passed over the broad field of measures, and with what
facile and graceful dexterity they have refuted that antiquated and
vulgar adage which stigmatizes facts as stubborn things. Thus the beauty
of this unrivaled philosophy consists in the harmony with which it
reconciles past times with the present, with which it dovetails
discordant principles, with which it brings into brotherhood elements
the most repulsive, facts the most antagonistical, men the most variant,
and contingencies the most impossible; which converts every man
into a Janus, every highway into a labyrinth, every beacon into a
lighthouse--giving to falsehood the value of truth, to shadow the
usefulness of substance, and to concealment the estimation of candor.
Truly is it the great discovery of modern times! My reader, I trust,
will not, now that I have opened his understanding to the perception of
this sublime spell-working philosophy, allow himself henceforth to
question the laudable sentiment of approbation with which I have
developed the practical operation of this theory in the history of
Quodlibet.
There was another matter worthy of remark in the events of the year,
which I must cursorily notice before I proceed to the era with which I
propose presently to occupy my readers. The Presidential election was
now in view, and received that grave consideration from the members of
Congress which they are in the habit of giving to everything in
Washington except the trifling business of making laws. Our diligent and
watchful representative, some time before the close of the short
session, wrote to our club a letter full of important advice for our
guidance in the affairs of the approaching canvass for the Presidency.
Among other valuable disclosures, "the Whigs," said he, "are to hold a
Convention at Harrisburg. Harry Clay, or, as they term him, Harry of the
West, is to be their man;--at least, so we suspect. Whoever he be, we
have made up our minds as to our course--_he is to be run down in the
South as an Abolitionist_. Abolition is the best hobby we have had since
the death of the Monster. We have already broken ground; and if Kendall
and Blair can't prove Clay or anybody else to be an abolitionist, the
deuce is in it: their right hand will have forgotten its cunning. The
Globe is full of the matter already. Tell Eliphalet Fox to begin at once
and bark in the same key:--all the little dogs are expected to yelp
after the old hound--or, as Pickens calls him, the Galvanized Corpse:
many of them are at it lustily now. In 1836, Van's principles were
luckily Northern;--so we have resolved to let them have full swing
beyond the Potomac, and to put him in masquerade for the South. We rely
implicitly on the stolidity of Pennsylvania; and shall secure New York
by a concession to her banks, which for the time we mean to treat
amiably. Our chief aim is the South. Van, being thoroughly imbued with
the New-Light Quodlibetarian Democracy, has consented, for the benefit
of our cause south of Potomac, to be dubbed 'The Northern man with
Southern principles'--remember that, and tell Fox to ring the changes on
it in every paper. We have hired a New Hampshire man to play clown
to Van; and he somersets when his master does. This has a most
striking effect. We call him the mannikin of the North with Southern
principles--Van's mignonette. Our contract required him to bring in the
anti-abolition resolutions touching the petitions; and although he could
not venture against _the reception_, he has bolted down all the rest,
_totidem verbis et syllabis_, as we wrote them for him;--_the reception_
we struck out to accommodate the Democratic abolitionism of his
district. The effect of this coup d'etat was magical; and having gagged
Wise and the rest of the Whigs with the Previous Question, we have left
them in a state of unnatural retention which threatens to prove fatal.
It is universally considered here a most lucky hit--Van and the
Mannikin; and we shall, with these performers, play 'The Northern man
with Southern Principles,' to crowded houses. Keep it going!--and don't
forget, Clay is an Abolitionist. If the Harrisburg convention nominates
anybody else--the same paragraphs will suit _him_;--Mutato nomine de te
fabula narretur. Get the Secretary to translate that. Be discreet, and
show this letter only to the faithful."
It may readily be imagined that our club was thrown into ecstacy by this
confidential missive. Being the custodiary of the letter, I have
ventured, without the permission of the club, to incorporate it in these
annals; taking upon myself the risk of their displeasure rather
than withhold so fine a specimen of the New-Light Quodlibetarian
Democracy;--and indeed I can see no reason why the world shouldn't have
it. We have no secrets among the New Lights.
I proceed now to the Fourth Era in these annals.