FIRST MESSAGE OF MR. TYLER TO CONGRESS, AND MR. CLAY'S PROGRAMME
OF BUSINESS.
The first paragraph in the message related to the death of President
Harrison, and after a proper expression of respect and regret, it
went on to recommend a grant of money to his family, grounded on the
consideration of his expenses in removing to the seat of government,
and the limited means of his private fortune:
"With this public bereavement are connected other considerations
which will not escape the attention of Congress. The
preparations necessary for his removal to the seat of
government, in view of a residence of four years, must have
devolved upon the late President heavy expenditures, which,
if permitted to burden the limited resources of his private
fortune, may tend to the serious embarrassment of his surviving
family; and it is therefore respectfully submitted to Congress,
whether the ordinary principles of justice would not dictate the
propriety of its legislative interposition."
This recommendation was considered by many as being without the
pale of the constitution, and of dangerous precedent. With respect
to the limited means of which he spoke, the fact was alike true
and honorable to the late President. In public employment from
early life and during the greatest part of his life, no pecuniary
benefit had resulted to him. In situations to afford opportunities
for emolument, he availed himself of none. With immense amounts
of public money passing through his hands, it all went, not only
faithfully to its objects, but without leaving any profit behind
from its use. He lived upon his salaries, liberally dispensing
hospitality and charities, and with simplicity and economy in all
his habits. He used all that he received, and came out of office as
he entered it, and died poor. This, among the ancient Romans was a
commendable issue of a public career, to be mentioned with honor
at the funeral of an illustrious man: and should be so held by all
republican people.
The message showed that President Tyler would not have convoked the
Congress in extra session had it not been done by his predecessor;
but being convoked he would not disturb the arrangement; and was
most happy to find himself so soon surrounded by the national
representation:
"In entering upon the duties of this office, I did not feel that
it would be becoming in me to disturb what had been ordered by
my lamented predecessor. Whatever, therefore, may have been my
opinion originally as to the propriety of convening Congress at
so early a day from that of its late adjournment, I found a new
and controlling inducement not to interfere with the patriotic
desires of the late President, in the novelty of the situation
in which I was so unexpectedly placed. My first wish, under such
circumstances, would necessarily have been to have called to my
aid in the administration of public affairs, the combined wisdom
of the two Houses of Congress, in order to take their counsel
and advice as to the best mode of extricating the government and
the country from the embarrassments weighing heavily on both. I
am then most happy in finding myself so soon, after my accession
to the presidency, surrounded by the immediate representatives
of the States and people."
The state of our foreign relations claimed but a brief paragraph.
The message stated that no important change had taken place in them
since the last session of Congress, and that the President saw
nothing to make him doubt the continuance of the peace with which
the country was blessed. He passed to home affairs:
"In order to supply the wants of the government, an intelligent
constituency, in view of their best interests, will without
hesitation, submit to all necessary burdens. But it is,
nevertheless, important so to impose them as to avoid defeating
the just expectations of the country growing out of pre-existing
laws. The act of the 2d March, 1833, commonly called the
compromise act, should not be altered, except under urgent
necessities, which are not believed at this time to exist.
One year only remains to complete the series of reductions
provided for by that law, at which time provisions made by the
same, and which law then will be brought actively in aid of the
manufacturing interest of the Union, will not fail to produce
the most beneficial results."
This compromise act of 1833, was drawing towards the close of its
career, and was proving itself to have been a complete illusion in
all the good it had promised, and a sad reality in all the ill that
had been predicted of it. It had been framed on the principle of
helping manufactures for nine years, and then to be a free trade
measure for ever after. The first part succeeded, and so well,
in keeping up high duties as to raise far more revenue than the
government needed: the second part left the government without
revenue for its current uses, and under the necessity of giving
up that uniform twenty per centum duty on the value of imports,
which was to have been the permanent law of our tariff; and which
never became law at all. In the meanwhile, the compromise having
provided for periodical reductions in the duties on imported sugars
and molasses, made no provision for proportionate reductions of
the drawback upon these articles when exported in the changed
shape of rum and refined sugars: and enormous sums were drawn from
the treasury by this omission in the compromise act--the great
refiners and rum distillers driving an immense capital into their
business for the mere purpose of getting the gratuitous drawbacks.
The author of this View endeavored to supply the omission at the
time, and repeatedly afterwards; but these efforts were resisted
by the advocates of the compromise until these gratuities becoming
enormous, rising from $2,000 per annum, to hundreds of thousands
per annum, and finally reaching five hundred thousand, they roused
the alarm of the government, and sunk under the enormity of their
abuse. Yet it was this compromise which was held too sacred to have
its palpable defects corrected, and the inviolability of which was
recommended to be preserved, that in addition to its other faults,
was making an annual present of some hundreds of thousands of
dollars to two classes of manufacturers.
A bank of some kind was recommended, under the name of fiscal agent,
as necessary to facilitate the operations of the Treasury, to
promote the collection and disbursement of the public revenue, and
to supply a currency of uniform value. The message said:
"In intimate connection with the question of revenue, is that
which makes provision for a suitable fiscal agent, capable of
adding increased facilities in the collection and disbursement
of the public revenues, rendering more secure their custody,
and consulting a true economy in the great multiplied and
delicate operations of the Treasury department. Upon such an
agent depends in an eminent degree, the establishment of a
currency of uniform value, which is of so great importance to
all the essential interests of society; and on the wisdom to be
manifested in its creation, much depends."
These are the reasons which General Hamilton gave for asking the
establishment of the first national bank, in 1791, and which have
been given ever since, no matter with what variation of phraseology,
for the creation of a similar institution. This preference for
a bank, under a new name, was confirmed by the rejection of the
sub-treasury and hard-money currency, assumed by the message to
have been condemned by the people in the result of the presidential
election. Speaking of this system, it said: "_If carried through
all the stages of its transmutation, from paper and specie to
nothing but the precious metals, to say nothing of the insecurity
of the public moneys its injurious effects have been anticipated
by the country, in its unqualified condemnation._" The justice and
wisdom of this condemnation, thus inferred from the issue of the
presidential election, and carried as that election was (and as has
been described), has been tested by the experience of many years,
without finding that insecurity of the public moneys, and those
injurious effects which the message assumed. On the contrary those
moneys have been safely kept, and the public prosperity never as
great as under the Independent Treasury and the gold and silver
currency of the federal government: and long has it been since any
politician has allowed himself to be supposed to be against them.
Up to the date of that message then--up to the first day of the
extra session, 1841--Mr. Tyler may be considered as in favor of a
national bank, with its paper currency, and opposed to the gold
and silver currency, and the sub-treasury. A distribution of the
proceeds of the sales of the public lands was recommended as a
means of assisting the States in the payment of their debts, and
raising the price of their stocks in foreign markets. Repudiating
as unconstitutional, the federal assumption of the State debts, he
still recommended a grant of money from the public funds to enable
them to meet these debts. In this sense the message said:
"And while I must repudiate, as a measure founded in error, and
wanting constitutional sanction, the slightest approach to an
assumption by this government of the debts of the States, yet I
can see in the distribution adverted to much to recommend it.
The compacts between the proprietor States and this government
expressly guarantee to the States all the benefits which may
arise from the sales. The mode by which this is to be effected
addresses itself to the discretion of Congress as the trustee
for the States, and its exercise, after the most beneficial
manner, is restrained by nothing in the grants or in the
constitution so long as Congress shall consult that equality
in the distribution which the compacts require. In the present
condition of some of the States, the question of distribution
may be regarded as substantially a question between direct and
indirect taxation. If the distribution be not made in some
form or other, the necessity will daily become more urgent
with the debtor States for a resort to an oppressive system
of direct taxation, or their credit, and necessarily their
power and influence, will be greatly diminished. The payment
of taxes, often the most inconvenient and oppressive mode,
will be exacted in place of contributions for the most part
voluntarily made, and therefore comparatively unoppressive. The
States are emphatically the constituents of this government, and
we should be entirely regardless of the objects held in view
by them, in the creation of this government, if we could be
indifferent to their good. The happy effects of such a measure
upon all the States, would immediately be manifested. With the
debtor States it would effect the relief to a great extent of
the citizens from a heavy burden of direct taxation, which
presses with severity on the laboring classes, and eminently
assist in restoring the general prosperity. An immediate advance
would take place in the price of the State securities, and the
attitudes of the States would become once more, as it should
ever be, lofty and erect. Whether such distribution should be
made directly to the States in the proceeds of the sales, or
in the form of profits by virtue of the operations of any
fiscal agency having those proceeds as its basis, should such
measure be contemplated by Congress, would well deserve its
consideration."
Mr. Tyler, while a member of the democratic party, had been one of
the most strict in the construction of the constitution, and one of
the most vigilant and inflexible in bringing proposed measures to
the test of that instrument--repulsing the most insignificant if
they could not stand it. He had been one of the foremost against
the constitutionality of a national bank, and voting for a _scire
facias_ to vacate the charter of the last one soon after it was
established. Now, in recommending the grant of money to the family
of General Harrison--in recommending a bank under the name of fiscal
agent--in preferring a national paper currency--in condemning the
currency of the constitution--in proposing a distribution of the
land revenue--in providing for the payment of the State debts:
in all these recommendations he seemed to have gone far beyond
any other President, however latitudinarian. Add to this, he had
instituted an inquisition to sit upon the conduct of officers, to
hear and adjudge in secret; to the encouragement of informers and
debaters, and to the infringement of the liberty of speech, and the
freedom of opinion in the subordinates of the government. In view of
all this, the author of this work immediately exclaimed:
"What times we have fallen upon! what wonders we witness! how
strange are the scenes of the day! We have a President, who has been
the foremost in the defence of the constitution, and in support of
the rights of the States--whose walk has been on the outward wall of
the constitution--his post in the front line of its defenders--his
seat on the topmost branches of the democratic tree. I will not
disparage the President by saying that he fought side by side with
me in defence of the constitution and the States, and against the
latitudinarians. It would be to wrong him to place him by my side.
His position, as guard of the constitution, was far ahead, and far
above mine. He was always in the advance--on the look-out--listening
and watching--snuffing danger in the first tainted breeze, and
making anticipated battle against the still invisible invader.
Hardly any thing was constitutional enough for him. This was but
a few brief years ago. Now we see the measures brought forward
in the very bud and first blossom of this administration, which
leave all former unconstitutional measures far in the rear--which
add subterfuge and evasion to open violence, and aim more deadly
wounds at the constitution than the fifty previous years of its
existence had brought upon it. I know not the sentiment of the
President upon these measures, except as disclosed by himself, and
say nothing to reach him; but I know the measures themselves--their
desperate character, and fatal issues: and I am free to say, if
such things can come to pass--if they can survive the double ordeal
of the House and the Senate--then there is an end of all that our
fathers contended for in the formation of the federal government.
To be sure, the machinery of government would still stand. We
should still have President, Congress, and a Judiciary--an army, a
navy--a taxing power, the tax-payers, the tax-gatherers, and the
tax-consumers. But, if such measures as these are to pass--a bill
to lavish the public lands on the (indebted) States in order to pay
their debts, supply their taxes, and raise the market price of their
stock--a contrivance to defraud the constitution, and to smuggle and
bribe a bank, though a national bank, through Congress, under the
_alius dictus_ of fiscal agent--the bill to commence the career of
civil pensions and family gratuities--the inquisitorial committee,
modelled on the plan of Sir Robert Walpole's committees of secrecy,
now sitting in the custom-house of New York, the terror of the
honest and the hope of the corrupt--the _ex post facto_ edict for
the creation of political offences, to be punished on suspicion in
_exparte_ trials--the schemes for the infringement of the liberty of
speech, and for the suppression of freedom of opinion, and for the
encouragement and reward of debaters and informers: if such schemes
and measures as these are to come to pass, then do I say that all
the guards and limitations upon our government are broken down!
that our limited government is gone! and a new, wild, and boundless
authority, substituted in its place. The new triumvirate--Bank,
Congress, and President--will then be supreme. Fraud and corruption,
more odious than arms and force, will rule the land. The
constitution will be covered with a black veil: and that derided and
violated instrument will never be referred to, except for the mock
sanction of a fraudulent interpretation, or the insulting ceremony
of a derisory adjuration."
Mr. Tyler had delivered a message: Mr. Clay virtually delivered
another. In the first week of the session, he submitted a programme
of measures, in the form of a resolve, to be adopted by the Senate,
enumerating and declaring the particular subjects, to which he
thought the attention of Congress should be limited at this extra
session. The following was his programme:
"_Resolved, as the opinion of the Senate_, That at the present
session of Congress, no business ought to be transacted, but
such as being of an important or urgent nature, may be supposed
to have influenced the extraordinary convention of Congress,
or such as that the postponement of it might be materially
detrimental to the public interest.
"_Resolved, therefore, as the opinion of the Senate_, That the
following subjects ought first, if not exclusively, to engage
the deliberation of Congress, at the present session--
"1st. The repeal of the sub-treasury.
"2d. The incorporation of a bank adapted to the wants of the
people and of the government.
"3d. The provision of an adequate revenue for the government by
the imposition of duties, and including an authority to contract
a temporary loan to cover the public debt created by the last
administration.
"4th. The prospective distribution of the proceeds of the public
lands.
"5th. The passage of necessary appropriation bills; and
"6th. Some modification of the banking system of the District of
Columbia, for the benefit of the people of the District.
"_Resolved_, That it is expedient to distribute the business
proper to be done this session, between the Senate and House of
Representatives, so as to avoid both Houses acting on the same
subject, and at the same time."
It was, probably, to this assumption over the business of
Congress--this recommendation of measures which Mr. Clay thought
ought to be adopted--that Mr. Cushing alluded in the House, when, in
urging the instant repeal of the sub-treasury act, he made occasion
to say that he recognized no administration but that of John Tyler.
As for the "public debt," here mentioned as being "created by the
last administration," it consisted of the treasury notes and loans
resorted to to supply the place of the revenue lost under the
descending scale of the compromise, and the amount taken from the
Treasury to bestow upon the States, under the fraudulent name of a
deposit.