THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SURPLUS.
Benton was supremely self-satisfied with the part he had played in the
struggle with the Bank. But very few thinking men would now admit that
his actions, as a whole, on the occasion in question, were to his
credit, although in the matter of the branch drafts he was perfectly
right, and in that of the re-charter at least occupied defensible
ground. His general views on monetary matters, however, were sound, and
on some of the financial questions that shortly arose he occupied a
rather lonely pre-eminence of good sense among his fellow senators; such
being particularly the case as regards the various mischievous schemes
in relation to disposing of the public lands, and of the money drawn
from their sale. The revenue derived from all sources, including these
sales of public lands, had for some years been much in excess of the
governmental expenses, and a surplus had accumulated in the treasury.
This surplus worked more damage than any deficit would have done.
There were gold mines in the Southern States, which had been growing
more and more productive; and, as the cost of freighting the bullion was
excessive, a bill was introduced to establish branch mints at New
Orleans and in the gold regions of Georgia and North Carolina. Benton
advocated this strongly, as a constitutional right of the South and
West, and as greatly in the interest of those two sections; and also as
being another move in favor of a hard-money currency as opposed to one
of paper. There was strong opposition to the bill; many of the Whigs
having been carried so far by their heated devotion to the United States
Bank in its quarrel that they had become paper-money men. But the vote
was neither sectional nor partisan in its character. Clay led the
opposition, while Webster supported Benton.
Before this time propositions to distribute among the states the revenue
from the public lands had become common; and they were succeeded by
propositions to distribute the lands themselves, and then by others to
distribute all the surplus revenue. Calhoun finally introduced an
amendment to the Constitution to enable the surplus in the treasury
during the next eight years to be distributed among the various states;
the estimate being that for the time mentioned there would be about nine
millions surplus annually. Benton attacked the proposal very ably,
showing the viciousness of a scheme which would degrade every state
government into the position of a mendicant, and would allow money to be
collected from the citizens with one hand in order to be given back to
them with the other; and also denying that the surplus would reach
anything like the dimensions indicated. He ridiculed the idea of making
a constitutional amendment to cover so short a period of time; and
stated that he would greatly prefer to see the price paid for public
lands by incoming settlers reduced, and what surplus there was expended
on strengthening the defenses of the United States against foreign
powers. This last proposition was eminently proper. We were then, as
always, in our chronic state of utter defenselessness against any
hostile attack, and yet were in imminent danger of getting embroiled
with at least one great power--France. Our danger is always that we
shall spend too little, and not too much, in keeping ourselves prepared
for foreign war. Calhoun's resolution was a total failure, and was never
even brought to a vote.
Benton's proposed method of using the surplus came in with peculiar
propriety on account of the conduct of the Whigs and Nullifiers in
joining to oppose the appropriation of three millions of dollars for
purposes of defense, which was provided for in the general fortification
bill. The House passed this bill by a great majority. It was eminently
proper that we should at once take steps to provide for the very
possible contingency of a war with France, as the relations with that
power were growing more threatening every day; but the opposition of the
anti-Jackson men to the administration and to all its measures had
become so embittered that they were willing to run the risk of seriously
damaging the national credit and honor, if they could thereby score a
point against their political adversaries. Accordingly, under the lead
of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, they defeated the bill in the Senate, in
spite of all that could be done to save it by Benton, who, whatever his
faults, was always patriotic. The appropriation had been very irregular
in form, and under ordinary circumstances there would have been good
justification for inquiring into it before permitting its passage; but
under the circumstances its defeat at the moment was most unfortunate.
For the president had been pressing France, even to the point of
tolerably plain threats, in order to induce or compel her to fulfill the
conditions of the recent treaty by which she had bound herself to pay a
considerable indemnity, long owing by her to the United States for
depredations on our commerce. Now she menaced war, avowedly on the
ground that we were unprepared to resist her; and this vote in the
Senate naturally led the French government to suppose that Jackson was
not sustained by the country in the vigorous position which he had
assumed. In speaking on the message of the president which alluded to
this state of affairs, Benton strongly advocated our standing firmly for
our rights, making a good speech, which showed much historical learning.
He severely reproached the anti-administration senators for their
previous conduct in causing the loss of the defense appropriation bill,
and for preferring to do worse than waste the surplus by distributing it
among the different states instead of applying it according to the
provisions of that wise measure.
This brought on a bitter wrangle, in which Benton certainly had the best
of it. Calhoun was in favor of humiliating non-resistance; he never
advocated warlike measures when the dignity of the nation was at stake,
fond though he was of threatening violence on behalf of slavery or that
form of secession known as nullification. Benton quoted from speeches in
the French Chamber of Deputies to show that the French were encouraged
to take the position that they did on account of the action of the
Senate, and the disposition shown by a majority among the senators
rather to pull down the president in a party struggle than to uphold him
in his efforts to save the national honor in a contest with France. A
curious feature of his speech was that in which he warned the latter
power that, in the event of a conflict, it would have to do with a
branch of the same race which, "from the days of Agincourt and Crecy, of
Blenheim and Ramillies, down to the days of Salamanca and Waterloo, has
always known perfectly well how to deal with the impetuous and fiery
courage of the French." This sudden out-cropping of what, in Bentonian
English, might be called Pan-Anglo-Saxon sentiment was all the more
surprising inasmuch as both Benton himself and the party to which he
belonged were strongly anti-English in their way of looking at our
foreign policy, at least so far as North America was concerned. In the
end France yielded, though trying to maintain her dignity by stating
that she had not done so, and the United States received what was due
them.
Benton strongly opposed the payment by the United States of the private
claims of its citizens for damages arising from the French spoliations
at the end of the last century. He pointed out that the effort to pay
such claims, scores of years after the time of their accruing, rarely
benefits any of the parties originally in interest, and can only do real
service to dishonest speculators. His speech on this matter would not be
bad reading for some of the pension-jobbing congressmen of the present
day, and their supporters; but as concerned these French claims he could
have been easily answered.
In the controversy over the bill introduced by Clay, to distribute the
revenue derived from the public lands among the states for the next five
years, Benton showed to great advantage compared both to the introducer
of the bill himself, and to Webster, his supporter. He had all along
taken the view of the land question that would be natural to a
far-seeing Western statesman desirous of encouraging immigration. He
wished the public lands to be sold in small parcels to actual settlers,
at prices that would allow any poor man who was thrifty to take up a
claim. He had already introduced a bill to sell them at graduated
prices, the minimum being established at a dollar and twenty-five cents
an acre; but if land remained unsold at this rate for three years it was
then to be sold for what it would bring in the market. This bill passed
the Senate, but failed in the House.
In opposing Clay's distribution scheme Benton again brought forward his
plan of using the surplus to provide for the national defenses; and in
his speech showed the strongly national turn of his mind, saying:--
In this great system of national defense the whole Union is equally
interested; for the country, in all that concerns its defenses, is
but a unit, and every section is interested in the defense of every
other section, and every individual citizen is interested in the
defense of the whole population. It is in vain to say that the navy
is on the sea, and the fortifications on the sea-board, and that the
citizens in the interior states, or in the valley of the
Mississippi, have no interest in these remote defenses. Such an idea
is mistaken and delusive; the inhabitant of Missouri or of Indiana
has a direct interest in keeping open the mouths of the rivers,
defending the sea-port towns, and preserving a naval force that will
protect the produce of his labor in crossing the ocean and arriving
safely in foreign markets.
Benton's patriotism always included the whole country in spite of the
strength of his local sympathies.
The bill passed the Senate by a rather close vote, and went to the
House, where it soon become evident that it was doomed to failure. There
was another bill, practically of much the same import, before the
Senate, providing for the distribution of the surplus among the states
in proportion to their electoral votes, but omitting the excellent
proviso concerning the defenses. To suit the views of Calhoun and the
sticklers for strict construction generally, the form of this rival bill
was changed, so that the "distribution" purported to be a "deposit"
merely; the money being nominally only loaned to the states, who pledged
their faith to return it when Congress should call for it. As it was of
course evident that such a loan would never be repaid, the substitution
of "deposit" for "distribution" can only be regarded as a verbal change
to give the doctrinaires a loop-hole for escape from their previous
position; they all took advantage of it, and the bill received
overwhelming support, and was passed by both houses.
Benton, however, stood out against it to the last, and in a very
powerful speech foretold the evils which the plan would surely work. He
scornfully exposed the way in which some of the members were trying, by
a trick of wording, to hide the nature of the bill they were enacting
into a law, and thus to seem to justify themselves for the support they
were giving it. "It is in name a deposit; in form, a loan; in essence
and design, a distribution," said Benton. He ridiculed the attitude of
the hair-splitting strict constructionists, like Calhoun, who had
always pretended most scrupulously to respect the exact wording of the
Constitution, and who had previously refused to vote for distribution on
the ground that it was unconstitutional:--
At the commencement of the present session a proposition was made
[by Calhoun] to amend the Constitution, to permit this identical
distribution to be made. That proposition is now upon our calendar,
for the action of Congress. All at once it is discovered that a
change of name will do as well as a change of the Constitution.
Strike out the word "distribute" and insert the word "deposit," and
incontinently the impediment is removed; the constitutional
difficulty is surmounted, and the distribution can be made.
He showed that to the states themselves the moneys distributed would
either be useless, or else--and much more probably--they would be
fruitful sources of corruption and political debauchery. He was quite
right. It would have been very much better to have destroyed the surplus
than to have distributed it as was actually done. None of the states
gained any real benefit by the transaction; most were seriously harmed.
At the best, the money was squandered in the rage for public
improvements that then possessed the whole people; often it was stolen
outright, or never accounted for. In the one case, it was an incentive
to extravagance; in the other, it was a corruption fund. Yet the
popular feeling was strongly in favor of the measure at the time, and
Benton was almost the only public man of note who dared to resist it. On
this occasion, as in the closing act of the struggle with the
Nullifiers, he showed more backbone than did his great chief; for
Jackson signed the bill, although criticising it most forcibly and
pungently.
The success of this measure naturally encouraged the presentation of
others. Clay attempted to revive his land-money distribution bill, but
was defeated, mainly through Benton's efforts. Three or four other
similar schemes, including one of Calhoun's, also failed. Finally a
clause providing for a further "deposit" of surplus moneys with the
states was tacked to a bill appropriating money for defenses, thereby
loading it down so that it was eventually lost. In the Senate the
"deposit" amendment was finally struck out, in spite of the opposition
of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. Throughout the whole discussion of the
distribution of the surplus Benton certainly shines by comparison with
any one of his three great senatorial rivals.
He shows to equally great advantage compared to them in the part taken
by him in reference to Jackson's so-called specie circulars. The craze
for speculation had affected the sales of public lands, which were
increasing at an extraordinary rate, nearly twenty-five million dollars'
worth being sold in 1836. As a rule, the payments were made in the notes
of irresponsible banks, gotten up in many cases by the land speculators
themselves. The sales were running up to five millions a month, with
prospect of a boundless increase, so that all the public land bade fair
to be converted into inconvertible paper. Benton had foreseen the evil
results attending such a change, and, though well aware that he was
opposing powerful interests in his own section of the country, had
already tried to put a stop to it by law. In his speech he had stated
that the unprecedented increase in the sale of public lands was due to
the accommodations received by speculators from worthless banks, whose
notes in small denominations would be taken to some distant part of the
country, whence it would be a long time before they were returned and
presented for payment. The speculators, with paper of which the real
value was much below par, could outbid settlers and cultivators who
could only offer specie, or notes that were its equivalent. He went on
to say that "the effect was equally injurious to every interest
concerned--except the banks and the speculators: it was injurious to the
treasury, which was filling up with paper; to the new states, which
were flooded with paper; and to settlers and cultivators, who were
outbid by speculators loaded with this borrowed paper. A return to
specie payments for lands was the remedy for all these evils."
Benton's reasoning was perfectly sound. The effects on settlers, on the
new states, and on the government itself were precisely such as he
described, and the proposed remedy was the right one. But his bill
failed; for the Whigs, including even Webster, had by this time worked
themselves up until they were fairly crazy at the mere mention of
paper-money banks.
Jackson, however, not daunted by the fate of the bill, got Benton to
draw up a treasury order, and had it issued. This served the same
purpose, as it forbade the land-offices to receive anything but gold and
silver in payment for land. It was not issued until Congress had
adjourned, for fear that body might counteract it by a law; and this was
precisely what was attempted at the next session, when a joint
resolution was passed rescinding the order, and practically endeavoring
to impose the worthless paper currency of the states upon the federal
government. Benton stood almost alone in the fight he made against this
resolution, although the right of the matter was so plainly on his
side. In his speech he foretold clearly the coming of the great
financial crisis that was then near at hand. The resolution, however,
amounted to nothing, as it turned out, for it was passed so late in the
session that the president, by simply withholding his signature from it,
was enabled to prevent it from having effect.