it is of no account, and little less than poison. Here is what the
old doctor says of this strange difference:

     "We wish it understood, because it is the _absolute truth_,
     that S. P. Townsend's article and Old Dr. Jacob Townsend's
     sarsaparilla are _heaven-wide apart, and infinitely dissimilar_;
     that they are unlike in every particular, having not one single
     thing in common."

And accounts for the difference thus:

     "The sarsaparilla root, it is well known to medical men,
     contains many medicinal properties, and some properties which
     are inert or useless, and others which, if retained in preparing
     it for use, produce _fermentation and acid_, which is injurious
     to the system. Some of the properties of sarsaparilla are
     so _volatile_ that they entirely evaporate, and are lost in
     the preparation, if they are not preserved by a _scientific
     process_, known only to the experienced in its manufacture.
     Moreover, those _volatile principles_, which fly off in vapor,
     or as an exhalation, under heat, are the very _essential medical
     properties_ of the root, which give to it all its value."

Now, all this is perfectly intelligible to me. I understand it
exactly. It shows me precisely how the same root is either to be
a poison or a medicine, as it happens to be in the hands of the
old or the young doctor. This may be the case with these bills. To
me it looks like a clue to the mystery; but I decide nothing, and
wait patiently for the solution which the senator from Kentucky may
give when he comes to answer this part of my speech. The old doctor
winds up in requiring particular attention to his name labelled
on the bottle, to wit, "Old Doctor Jacob Townsend," and not Young
Doctor Samuel Townsend. This shows that there is virtue in a name
when applied to the extract of sarsaparilla root; and there may be
equal virtue in it when applied to a compromise bill. If so, it
may show how these self-same bills are of no force or virtue in
the hands of the young senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglass), and
become omnipotently efficacious in the hands of the old senator from
Kentucky.

This is the end of the grand committee's work--five old bills
tacked together, and presented as a remedy for evils which have no
existence, and required to be accepted under a penalty--the penalty
of being gazetted as enemies of compromise, and played at by the
organs! The old one, to be sure, is dreadfully out of tune--the
strings all broken, and the screws all loose, and discoursing
most woful music, and still requiring us to dance to it! And such
dancing it would be!--nothing but turn round, cross over, set-to,
and back out! Sir, there was once a musician--we have all read of
him--who had power with his lyre (but his instrument was spelt
_l y r e_)--not only over men, but over wild beasts also, and
even over stones, which he could make dance into their places when
the walls of Ilion were built. But our old organist was none of that
sort, even in his best day; and since the injury to his instrument
in playing the grand national symphony of the four F's--the
fifty-four forty or fight--it is so out of tune that its music will
be much more apt to scare off tame men than to charm wild beasts or
stones.

No, sir! no more slavery compromises. Stick to those we have in
the constitution, and they will be stuck to! Look at the four
votes--those four on the propositions which I submitted. No
abolition of slavery in the States: none in the forts, arsenals,
navy-yards, and dock-yards: none in the District of Columbia: no
interference with the slave trade between the States. These are
the votes given on this floor, and which are above all Congress
compromises, because they abide the compromises of the constitution.

The committee, besides the ordinary purpose of legislation, that
of making laws for the government of the people, propose another
object of a different kind, that of acting the part of national
benefactors, and giving peace and happiness to a miserable and
distracted people--_innuendo_, the people of the United States.
They propose this object as the grand result and crowning mercy of
their multifarious labors. The gravity with which the chairman of
the committee has brought forward this object in his report, and
the pathetic manner in which he has enforced it in his speech, and
the exact enumeration he has made of the public calamities upon his
fingers' ends, preclude the idea, as I have heretofore intimated, of
any intentional joke to be practised upon us by that distinguished
senator; otherwise I might have been tempted to believe that the
eminent senator, unbending from his serious occupations, had
condescended to amuse himself at our expense. Certain it is that
the conception of this restoration of peace and happiness is most
jocose. In the first place, there is no contention to be reconciled,
no distraction to be composed, no misery to be assuaged, no lost
harmony to be restored, no lost happiness to be recovered! And,
if there was, the committee is not the party to give us these
blessings. Their example and precept do not agree. They preach
concord, and practise discord. They recommend harmony to others,
and disagree among themselves. They propose the fraternal kiss to
us, and give themselves rude rebuffs. They set us a sad example.
Scarcely is the healing report read, and the anodyne bills, or
pills, laid on our tables, than fierce contention breaks out in the
ranks of the committee itself. They attack each other. They give and
take fierce licks. The great peacemaker himself fares badly--stuck
all over with arrows, like the man on the first leaf of the almanac.
Here, in our presence, in the very act of consummating the marriage
of California with Utah, New Mexico, Texas, the fugacious slaves
of the States, and the marketable slaves of this District--in this
very act of consummation, as in a certain wedding feast of old, the
feast becomes a fight--the festival a combat--and the amiable guests
pummel each other.

When his committee was formed, and himself safely installed at the
head of it, conqueror and pacificator, the senator from Kentucky
appeared to be the happiest of mankind. We all remember that night.
He seemed to ache with pleasure. It was too great for continence. It
burst forth. In the fulness of his joy, and the overflowing of his
heart, he entered upon that series of congratulations which we all
remember so well, and which seemed to me to be rather premature, and
in disregard of the sage maxim which admonishes the traveller never
to halloo till he is out of the woods. I thought so then. I was
forcibly reminded of it on Saturday last, when I saw that senator,
after vain efforts to compose his friends, and even reminding them
of what they were "threatened" with this day--_innuendo_, this poor
speech of mine--gather up his beaver and quit the chamber, in a
way that seemed to say, the Lord have mercy upon you all, for I am
done with you! But the senator was happy that night--supremely so.
All his plans had succeeded--Committee of Thirteen appointed--he
himself its chairman--all power put into their hands--their own
hands untied, and the hands of the Senate tied--and the parties
just ready to be bound together for ever. It was an ecstatic moment
for the senator, something like that of the heroic Pirithous
when he surveyed the preparations for the nuptial feast--saw the
company all present, the lapithæ on couches, the centaurs on their
haunches--heard the _Io hymen_ beginning to resound, and saw the
beauteous Hippodamia, about as beauteous I suppose as California,
come "glittering like a star," and take her stand on his left hand.
It was a happy moment for Pirithous! and in the fulness of his
feelings he might have given vent to his joy in congratulations to
all the company present, to all the lapithæ and to all the centaurs,
to all mankind, and to all horsekind, on the auspicious event.
But, oh! the deceitfulness of human felicity. In an instant the
scene was changed! the feast a fight--the wedding festival a mortal
combat--the table itself supplying the implements of war!

                 "At first a medley flight,
       Of bowls and jars supply the fight;
       Once implements of feasts, but now of fate."

You know how it ended. The fight broke up the feast. The wedding
was postponed. And so may it be with this attempted conjunction of
California with the many ill-suited spouses which the Committee of
Thirteen have provided for her.

Mr. President, it is time to be done with this comedy of errors.
California is suffering for want of admission. New Mexico is
suffering for want of protection. The public business is suffering
for want of attention. The character of Congress is suffering for
want of progress in business. It is time to put an end to so many
evils; and I have made the motion intended to terminate them, by
moving the indefinite postponement of this unmanageable mass of
incongruous bills, each an impediment to the other, that they may be
taken up one by one, in their proper order, to receive the decision
which their respective merits require.




CHAPTER CXCIII.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.


He died in the second year of his presidency, suddenly, and
unexpectedly, of violent fever, brought on by long exposure to
the burning heat of a fourth of July sun--noted as the warmest of
the season. He attended the ceremonies of the day, sitting out
the speeches, and omitting no attention which he believed the
decorum of his station required. It cost him his life. The ceremony
took place on Friday: on the Tuesday following, he was dead--the
violent attack commencing soon after his return to the presidential
mansion. He was the first President elected upon a reputation purely
military. He had been in the regular army from early youth. Far from
having ever exercised civil office, he had never even voted at an
election, and was a major-general in the service, at the time of
his election. Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena
Vista, were his titles to popular favor--backed by irreproachable
private character, undoubted patriotism, and established reputation
for judgment and firmness. His brief career showed no deficiency
of political wisdom for want of previous political training. He
came into the administration at a time of great difficulty, and
acted up to the emergency of his position. The slavery agitation
was raging; the Southern manifesto had been issued: California,
New Mexico, Utah, were without governments: a Southern Congress
was in process of being called, the very name of which implied
disunion: a Southern convention was actually called, and met, to
consult upon disunion. He met the whole crisis firmly, determined
to do what was right among all the States, and to maintain the
Federal Union at all hazards. His first, and only annual message,
marked out his course. The admission of California as a State was
recommended by him, and would avoid all questions about slavery.
Leaving Utah and New Mexico to ripen into State governments, and
then decide the question for themselves, also avoided the question
in those territories where slavery was then extinct under the laws
of the country from which they came to the United States. Texas had
an unsettled boundary on the side of New Mexico. President Taylor
considered that question to be one between the United States and New
Mexico, and not between New Mexico and Texas; and to be settled by
the United States in some legal and amicable way--as, by compact,
by mutual legislation, or judicial decision. Some ardent spirits
in Texas proposed to take possession of one half of New Mexico, in
virtue of a naked pretension to it, founded in their own laws and
constitution. President Taylor would have resisted that pretension,
and protected New Mexico in its ancient actual possession until the
question of boundary should have been settled in a legal way. His
death was a public calamity. No man could have been more devoted
to the Union, or more opposed to the slavery agitation; and his
position as a Southern man, and a slave-holder--his military
reputation, and his election by a majority of the people and of the
States--would have given him a power in the settlement of these
questions which no President without these qualifications could have
possessed. In the political division he classed with the whig party,
but his administration, as far as it went, was applauded by the
democracy, and promised to be so to the end of his official term.
Dying at the head of the government, a national lamentation bewailed
his departure from life and power, and embalmed his memory in the
affections of his country.




ADMINISTRATION OF MILLARD FILLMORE.




CHAPTER CXCIV.

INAUGURATION AND CABINET OF MR. FILLMORE.


Wednesday, July the tenth, witnessed the inauguration of Mr.
Fillmore, Vice-President of the United States, become President
by the death of President Taylor. It took place in the Hall of
the House of Representatives, in the presence of both Houses
of Congress, in conformity to the wish of the new President,
communicated in a message. The constitution requires nothing of
the President elect, before entering on the duties of his station,
except to take the oath of office, _faithfully to execute his
duties, and do his best to preserve, protect, and defend the
constitution_; and that oath might be taken any where, and before
any magistrate having power to administer oaths, and then filed in
the department of State; but propriety and custom have made it a
ceremony to be publicly performed, and impressively conducted. A
place on the great eastern portico of the Capitol, where tens of
thousands could witness it, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States to administer the oath, have always
been the place and the magistrate for this ceremony, in the case
of Presidents elected to the office--giving the utmost display to
it--and very suitably as in such cases there is always a feeling
of general gratification and exultation. Mr. Fillmore, with great
propriety, reduced the ceremony of his inauguration to an official
act, impressively done in Congress, and to be marked by solemnity
without joy. A committee of the two Houses attended him--Messrs.
Soulé, of Louisiana, Davis, of Massachusetts, and Underwood,
of Kentucky, on the part of the Senate; Messrs. Winthrop, of
Massachusetts, Morse, of Louisiana, and Morehead, of Kentucky, on
the part of the House; and he was accompanied by all the members of
the late President's cabinet. The Chief Justice of the Circuit Court
of the District of Columbia, the venerable William Cranch, appointed
fifty years before, by President John Adams, administered the oath;
which being done, the President, without any inaugural address,
bowed, and retired; and the ceremony was at an end.

The first official act of the new President was an immediate message
to the two Houses, recommending suitable measures to be taken by
them for the funeral of the deceased President--saying:

     "A great man has fallen among us, and a whole country is called
     to an occasion of unexpected, deep, and general mourning.

     "I recommend to the two Houses of Congress to adopt such
     measures as in their discretion they may deem proper, to
     perform with due solemnities the funeral obsequies of ZACHARY
     TAYLOR, late President of the United States; and thereby to
     signify the great and affectionate regard of the American
     people for the memory of one whose life has been devoted to the
     public service; whose career in arms has not been surpassed in
     usefulness or brilliancy; who has been so recently raised by the
     unsolicited voice of the people to the highest civil authority
     in the government--which he administered with so much honor and
     advantage to his country; and by whose sudden death, so many
     hopes of future usefulness have been blighted for ever.

     "To you, senators and representatives of a nation in tears,
     I can say nothing which can alleviate the sorrow with which
     you are oppressed. I appeal to you to aid me, under the
     trying circumstances which surround me, in the discharge of
     the duties, from which, however much I may be oppressed by
     them, I dare not shrink; and I rely upon Him, who holds in his
     hands the destinies of nations, to endow me with the requisite
     strength for the task, and to avert from our country the evils
     apprehended from the heavy calamity which has befallen us.

     "I shall most readily concur in whatever measures the wisdom of
     the two Houses may suggest, as befitting this deeply melancholy
     occasion."

The two Houses readily complied with this recommendation, and a
solemn public funeral was unanimously voted, and in due time,
impressively performed. All the members of the late President's
cabinet gave in their resignations immediately, but were requested
by President Fillmore to retain their places until successors
could be appointed; which they did. In due time, the new cabinet
was constituted: Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, Secretary of
State; Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Alexander
H. H. Stuart, of Virginia, Secretary of the Interior; Charles M.
Conrad, of Louisiana, Secretary at War; William A. Graham, of North
Carolina, Secretary of the Navy (succeeded by John P. Kennedy,
of Maryland); John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, Attorney-General;
Nathan K. Hall, of New York (succeeded by Samuel D. Hubbard, of
Connecticut).




CHAPTER CXCV.

REJECTION OF MR. CLAY'S PLAN OF COMPROMISE.


The Committee of Thirteen had reported in favor of Mr. Clay's plan.
It was a committee so numerous, almost a quarter of the Senate, that
its recommendation would seem to insure the senatorial concurrence.
Not so the fact. The incongruities were too obvious and glaring to
admit of conjunction. The subjects were too different to admit of
one vote--yea or nay--upon all of them together. The injustice of
mixing up the admission of California, a State which had rejected
slavery for itself, with all the vexations of the slave question in
the territories, was too apparent to subject her to the degradation
of such an association. It was evident that no compromise, of any
kind whatever, on the subject of slavery, under any one of its
aspects separately, much less under all put together, could possibly
be made. There was no spirit of concession--no spirit in which
there could be giving and taking--in which a compromise could be
made. Whatever was to be done, it was evident would be done in the
ordinary spirit of legislation, in which the majority gives law to
the minority. The only case in which there was even forbearance, was
in that of rejecting the Wilmot proviso. That measure was rejected
again as heretofore, and by the votes of those who were opposed to
extending slavery into the territories, because it was unnecessary
and inoperative--irritating to the slave States without benefit to
the free States--a mere work of supererogation, of which the only
fruit was to be discontent. It was rejected, not on the principle of
non-intervention--not on the principle of leaving to the territories
to do as they pleased on the question; but because there had been
intervention! because Mexican law and constitution had intervened!
had abolished slavery by law in those dominions! which law would
remain in force, until repealed by Congress. All that the opponents
to the extension of slavery had to do then, was to do nothing. And
they did nothing.

The numerous measures put together in Mr. Clay's bill were
disconnected and separated. Each measure received a separate and
independent consideration, and with a result which showed the
injustice of the attempted conjunction. United, they had received
the support of the majority of the committee: separated, and no two
were passed by the same vote: and only four members of the whole
grand committee that voted alike on each of the measures.




CHAPTER CXCVI.

THE ADMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA: PROTEST OF SOUTHERN
SENATORS: REMARKS UPON IT BY MR. BENTON.


This became the "_test_" question in the great slavery agitation
which disturbed Congress and the Union, and as such was impressively
presented by Mr. Calhoun in the last and most intensely considered
speech of his life--read for him in the Senate by Mr. Mason of
Virginia. In that speech, and at the conclusion of it, and as the
resulting consequence of the whole of it, he said:

     "It is time, senators, that there should be an open and manly
     avowal on all sides, as to what is intended to be done. If the
     question is not now settled, it is uncertain whether it ever can
     hereafter be; and we, as the representatives of the States of
     this Union, regarded as governments, should come to a distinct
     understanding as to our respective views, in order to ascertain
     whether the great questions at issue can be settled or not. If
     you, who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle
     them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and
     let the States we both represent agree to separate and part
     in peace. If you are unwilling that we should part in peace,
     tell us so, and we shall know what to do, when you reduce the
     question to submission or resistance. If you remain silent, you
     will compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that
     case, California will become the _test_ question. If you admit
     her, under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you
     compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole
     of the acquired territories, with the intention of destroying
     irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. We
     would be blind not to perceive, in that case, that your real
     objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act
     accordingly."

Mr. Calhoun died before the bill for the admission of California
was taken up: but his principles did not die with him: and the test
question which he had proclaimed remained a legacy to his friends.
As such they took it up, and cherished it. The bill was taken up
in the Senate, and many motions made to amend, of which the most
material was by Mr. Turney of Tennessee, to limit the southern
boundary of the State to the latitude of 36° 30', and to extend
the Missouri line through to the Pacific, so as to authorize the
existence of slavery in all the territory south of that latitude. On
this motion the yeas and nays were:

     "YEAS--Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Barnwell, Bell, Berrien,
     Butler, Clemens, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Downs, Foote,
     Houston, Hunter, King, Mangum, Mason, Morton, Pearce, Pratt,
     Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney, and Yulee--24.

     "NAYS--Messrs. Baldwin, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Clarke,
     Cooper, Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dickinson, Dodge of
     Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Douglass, Ewing, Felch, Greene, Hale,
     Hamlin, Jones, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance,
     Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, and
     Winthrop--32."

The amendments having all been disposed of, the question was taken
upon the passage of the bill, and resulted in its favor, 34 yeas to
18 nays. The vote was:

     "YEAS--Messrs. Baldwin, Bell, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass,
     Chase, Cooper, Davis of Massachusetts, Dickinson, Dodge of
     Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Douglass, Ewing, Felch, Greene, Hale,
     Hamlin, Houston, Jones, Miller, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields,
     Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, Wales, Walker,
     Whitcomb, and Winthrop--34.

     "NAYS--Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Berrien, Butler, Clemens,
     Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Foote, Hunter, King, Mason,
     Morton, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney, and Yulee--18."

Immediately upon the passage of the bill through the Senate, ten
of the senators opposed to it offered a protest against it, which
was read at the secretary's table, of which the leading points were
these:

     "We, the undersigned senators, deeply impressed with the
     importance of the occasion, and with a solemn sense of the
     responsibility under which we are acting, respectfully submit
     the following protest against the bill admitting California as a
     State into this Union, and request that it may be entered upon
     the Journal of the Senate. We feel that it is not enough to
     have resisted in debate alone a bill so fraught with mischief
     to the Union and the States which we represent, with all the
     resources of argument which we possessed; but that it is also
     due to ourselves, the people whose interest have been intrusted
     to our care, and to posterity, which even in its most distant
     generations may feel its consequences, to leave in whatever form
     may be most solemn and enduring, a memorial of the opposition
     which we have made to this measure, and of the reasons by which
     we have been governed, upon the pages of a journal which the
     constitution requires to be kept so long as the Senate may have
     an existence. We desire to place the reasons upon which we are
     willing to be judged by generations living and yet to come, for
     our opposition to a bill whose consequences may be so durable
     and portentous as to make it an object of deep interest to all
     who may come after us.

     "We have dissented from this bill because it gives the sanction
     of law, and thus imparts validity to the unauthorized action of
     a portion of the inhabitants of California, by which an odious
     discrimination is made against the property of the fifteen
     slaveholding States of the Union, who are thus deprived of
     that position of equality which the constitution so manifestly
     designs, and which constitutes the only sure and stable
     foundation on which this Union can repose.

     "Because the right of the slaveholding States to a common
     and equal enjoyment of the territory of the Union has been
     defeated by a system of measures which, without the authority
     of precedent, of law, or of the constitution, were manifestly
     contrived for that purpose, and which Congress must sanction and
     adopt, should this bill become a law.

     "Because to vote for a bill passed under such circumstances
     would be to agree to a principle, which may exclude for ever
     hereafter, as it does now, the States which we represent from
     all enjoyment of the common territory of the Union; a principle
     which destroys the equal rights of their constituents, the
     equality of their States in the Confederacy, the equal dignity
     of those whom they represent as men and as citizens in the eye
     of the law, and their equal title to the protection of the
     government and the constitution.

     "Because all the propositions have been rejected which have
     been made to obtain either a recognition of the rights of the
     slaveholding States to a common enjoyment of all the territory
     of the United States, or to a fair division of that territory
     between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States of the
     Union--every effort having failed which has been made to obtain
     a fair division of the territory proposed to be brought in as
     the State of California.

     "But, lastly, we dissent from this bill, and solemnly protest
     against its passage, because, in sanctioning measures so
     contrary to former precedent, to obvious policy, to the spirit
     and intent of the constitution of the United States, for the
     purpose of excluding the slaveholding States from the territory
     thus to be erected into a State, this government in effect
     declares, that the exclusion of slavery from the territory
     of the United States is an object so high and important as
     to justify a disregard not only of all the principles of
     sound policy, but also of the constitution itself. Against
     this conclusion we must now and for ever protest, as it is
     destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose rights
     have been committed to our care, fatal to the peace and
     _equality_ of the States which we represent, and must lead, if
     persisted in, to the _dissolution_ of that confederacy, in which
     the slaveholding States have never sought more than _equality_,
     and in which they will not be content to _remain_ with less."

This protest was signed by Messrs. Mason and Hunter, senators from
Virginia; Messrs. Butler and Barnwell, senators from South Carolina;
Mr. Turney, senator from Tennessee; Mr. Pierre Soulé, senator from
Louisiana; Mr. Jefferson Davis, senator from Mississippi; Mr.
Atchison, senator from Missouri; and Messrs. Morton and Yulee,
senators from Florida. It is remarkable that this protest is not
on account of any power exercised by Congress over the subject of
slavery in a territory, but for the non-exercise of such power, and
especially for not extending the Missouri compromise line to the
Pacific Ocean; and which non-extension of that line was then cause
for the dissolution of the Union.

Mr. Winthrop, newly appointed senator from Massachusetts, in place
of Mr. Webster, appointed Secretary of State, immediately raised
the question of reception upon this protest, for the purpose of
preventing it from going upon the Journal, where, he alleged, the
only protest that could be entered by a senator (and that was a
sufficient one) was his peremptory "no:" and then said:

     "Sir, does my honorable friend from Virginia (Mr. Hunter), know
     that there is but one parliamentary body in the world--so far
     as my own knowledge, certainly, goes--which acknowledges an
     inherent right in its members to enter their protests upon the
     Journals? That body is the British House of Lords. It is the
     privilege of every peer, as I understand it, to enter upon the
     Journals his protest against any measure which may have been
     passed contrary to his own individual views or wishes. But what
     has been the practice in our own country? You, yourself, Mr.
     President, have read to us an authority upon this subject. It
     seems that in the earliest days of our history, when there may
     have been something more of a disposition than I hope prevails
     among us now, to copy the precedents of the British government,
     a rule was introduced into this body for the purpose of securing
     to the senators of the several States this privilege which
     belongs to the peers of the British Parliament. That proposition
     was negatived. I know not by what majority, for you did not
     read the record; I know not by whose votes; but that rule was
     rejected. It was thus declared in the early days of our history
     that this body should not be assimilated to the British House of
     Lords in this respect, however it may be in any other; and that
     individual senators should not be allowed this privilege which
     belongs to British peers, of spreading upon the Journals the
     reasons which may have influenced their votes."

Mr. Benton spoke against the reception of the protest, denying the
right of senators to file any reasons upon the Journal for their
vote; and said:

     "In the British House of Lords, Mr. President, this right
     prevails, but not in the House of Commons; and I will show you
     before I have done that the attempt to introduce it into the
     House of Commons gave rise to altercation, well-nigh led to
     bloodshed on the floor of the House, and caused the member who
     attempted to introduce it, though he asked leave to do so, to
     be committed to the Tower for his presumption. And I will show
     that we begin the practice here at a point at which the British
     Parliament had arrived, long after they commenced the business
     of entering the dissents. It will be my business to show that,
     notwithstanding the British House of Lords in the beginning
     entered the protestor's name under the word 'dissent,' precisely
     as our names are entered here under the word 'nay,' it went on
     until something very different took place, and which ended in
     authorizing any member who pleased to arraign the sense of the
     House, and to reproach the House whenever he pleased. Now, how
     came the lords to possess this right? It is because every lord
     is a power within himself. He is his own constituent body. He
     represents himself; and in virtue of that representation of
     himself, he can constitute a representative, and can give a
     proxy to any lord to vote for him on any measure not judicial.
     Members of the House of Commons cannot do it, because they
     are themselves nothing but proxies and representatives of the
     people. The House of Lords, then, who have this privilege and
     right of entering their dissent, have it by virtue of being
     themselves, each one, a power within himself, a constituent body
     to himself, having inherent rights which he derives from nobody,
     but which belong to him by virtue of being a peer of the realm;
     and by virtue of that he enters his protest on the Journal, if
     he pleases. It is a privilege belonging to every lord, each for
     himself, and is an absolute privilege; and although the form is
     to ask leave of the House, yet the House is bound to grant the
     leave."

Mr. Benton showed that there was no right of protest in the
members of the British House of Commons--that the only time it was
attempted there was during the strifes of Charles the First with the
Parliament, and by Mr. Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon), who was
committed prisoner to the Tower for presuming to insult the House,
by proposing to set up his judgment against the act of the House
after the House had acted. Having spoken against the right of the
senators to enter a protest on the Journal against an act of the
Senate, Mr. Benton proceeded to speak against the protest itself,
and especially the concluding part of it, in which a dissolution
of the Union was hypothetically predicated upon the admission of
California.

     "I now pass over what relates to the body or matter of the
     protest, and come to the concluding sentence, where, sir, I
     see a word which I am sorry to see, or hear used even in the
     heat of debate in this chamber. It is one which I believe I
     have not pronounced this session, not even hypothetically or
     historically, in speaking of every thing which has taken place.
     But I find it here, and I am sorry to see it. It is qualified,
     it is true; yet I am sorry to see it any where, and especially
     in a paper of such solemn import. It is in the concluding
     sentence:

     'Against this conclusion we must now and for ever _protest_, as
     it is destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose
     rights have been committed to our care, fatal to the peace and
     _equality_ of the States which we represent, and must lead,
     if persisted in, to the _dissolution_ of that confederacy in
     which the slaveholding States have never sought more than an
     _equality_, and in which they will not be content to _remain_
     with less.'

     "I grieve to see these words used with this deliberation; still
     more do I grieve to see an application made to enter them on
     the Journal of the Senate. Hypothetically they use the words;
     but we all know what this word "if" is--a great peacemaker,
     the poet tells us, between individuals, but, as we all know,
     a most convenient introduction to a positive conclusion. The
     language here is used solemnly, and the word protest is one of
     serious import. Protest is a word known to the law, and always
     implies authority, and one which is rarely used by individuals
     at all. It is a word of grave and authoritative import in the
     English language, which implies the testification of the truth!
     and a right to testify to it! and which is far above any other
     mode of asseveration. It comes from the Latin--_testari_, to be
     a witness--_protestari_, to be a public witness, to publish,
     avouch, and testify the truth; and can be only used on legal or
     on the most solemn occasions. It has given a name to a great
     division of the Christian family, who took the title from the
     fact of their '_protesting_' against the imperial edicts of
     Charles V., which put on a level with the Holy Scriptures the
     traditions of the church and the opinions of the commentators.
     It was a great act of _protesting_, and an act of conscience and
     duty. It was a proper occasion to use the word _protest_; and it
     was used in the face of power, and maintained through oceans
     and seas of blood, until it has found an immortality in the name
     of one division of the Christian family.

     "I have read to you from British history--history of 1640--the
     most eventful in the British annals--to show the first attempt
     to introduce a protest in the House of Commons--to show you how
     the men of that day--men in whose bosoms the love of liberty
     rose higher than love of self--the Puritans whose sacrifices
     for liberty were only equalled by their sacrifices to their
     religion--these men, from whom we learned so much, refused to
     suffer themselves to be arraigned by a minority--refused to
     suffer an indictment to be placed on their own Journals against
     themselves. I have shown you that a body in which were such
     men as Hampden, and Cromwell, and Pym, and Sir Harry Vane,
     would not allow themselves to be arraigned by a minority, or
     to be impeached before the people, and that they sent the man
     to the Tower who even asked leave to do it. This period of
     British history is that of the civil wars which deluged Great
     Britain with blood; and, sir, may there be no analogy to it in
     our history!--may there be no omen in this proceeding--nothing
     ominous in this attempted imitation of one of the scenes which
     preceded the outbreak of civil war in Great Britain. Sir, this
     protest is treated by some senators as a harmless and innocent
     matter; but I cannot so consider it. It is a novelty, but a
     portentous one, and connects itself with other novelties,
     equally portentous. The Senate must bear with me for a moment.
     I have refrained hitherto from alluding to the painful subject,
     and would not now do it if it was not brought forward in such
     a manner as to compel me. This is a novelty, and it connects
     itself with other novelties of a most important character. We
     have seen lately what we have never before seen in the history
     of the country--sectional meetings of members of Congress,
     sectional declarations by legislative bodies, sectional meetings
     of conventions, sectional establishment of a press here! and
     now the introduction of this protest, also sectional, and not
     only connecting itself in time and circumstances, but connecting
     itself by its arguments, by its facts, and by its conclusions,
     with all these sectional movements to which I have referred. It
     is a sectional protest.

     "All of these sectional movements are based upon the hypothesis,
     that, if a certain state of things is continued, there is to be
     a dissolution of the Union. The Wilmot proviso, to be sure, is
     now dropped, or is not referred to in the protest. That cause of
     dissolution is dead; but the California bill comes in its place,
     and the system of measures of which it is said to be a part. Of
     these, the admission of California is now made the prominent,
     the salient point in that whole system, which hypothetically it
     is assumed may lead to a dissolution of the Union. Sir, I cannot
     help looking upon this protest as belonging to the series of
     novelties to which I have referred. I cannot help considering
     it as part of a system--as a link in a chain of measures all
     looking to one result, hypothetically, to be sure, but all
     still looking to the same result--that of a dissolution of the
     Union. It is afflicting enough to witness such things out of
     doors; but to enter a solemn protest on our Journals, looking
     to the contingent dissolution of the Union, and that for our
     own acts--for the acts of a majority--to call upon us of the
     majority to receive our own indictment, and enter it, without
     answer, upon our own Journals--is certainly going beyond all the
     other signs of the times, and taking a most alarming step in
     the progress which seems to be making in leading to a dreadful
     catastrophe. '_Dissolution_' to be entered on our Journal! What
     would our ancestors have thought of it? The paper contains
     an enumeration of what it characterizes as unconstitutional,
     unjust, and oppressive conduct on the part of Congress against
     the South, which, if persisted in, must lead to a dissolution of
     the Union, and names the admission of California as one of the
     worst of these measures. I cannot consent to place that paper
     on our Journals. I protest against it--protest in the name of
     my constituents. I have made a stand against it. It took me by
     surprise; but my spirit rose and fought. I deem it my sacred
     duty to resist it--to resist the entrance upon our Journal of
     a paper hypothetically justifying disunion. If defeated, and
     the paper goes on the Journal, I still wish the present age and
     posterity to see that it was not without a struggle--not without
     a stand against the portentous measure--a stand which should
     mark one of those eras in the history of nations from which
     calamitous events flow."

The reception of the protest was refused, and the bill sent to
the House of Representatives, and readily passed; and immediately
receiving the approval of the President, the senators elect from
California, who had been long waiting (Messrs. William M. Gwinn
and John Charles Frémont), were admitted to their seats; but not
without further and strenuous resistance. Their credentials being
presented, Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, moved to refer them to the
Committee on the Judiciary, to report on the law and the facts of
the case; which motion led to a discussion, terminated by a call
for the yeas and nays. The yeas were 12 in number; to wit: Messrs.
Atchison, Barnwell, Berrien, Butler, Davis of Mississippi, Hunter,
Mason, Morton, Pratt, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney. Only 12 voting for
the reference, and 36 against it; the two senators elect were then
sworn in, and took their seats.




CHAPTER CXCVII.

FUGITIVE SLAVES--ORDINANCE OF 1787: THE CONSTITUTION: ACT OF 1793:
ACT OF 1850.


It is of record proof that the anti-slavery clause in the ordinance
of 1787, could not be passed until the fugitive slave recovery
clause was added to it. That anti-slavery clause, first prepared
in the Congress of the confederation by Mr. Jefferson in 1784,
and rejected, remained rejected for three years--until 1787; when
receiving the additional clause for the recovery of fugitives,
it was unanimously passed. This is clear proof that the first
clause, prohibiting slavery in the Northwest territory, could not
be obtained without the second, authorizing the recovery of slaves
which should take refuge in that territory. It was a compromise
between the slave States and the free States, unanimously agreed
to by both parties, and founded on a valuable consideration--one
preventing the spread of slavery over a vast extent of territory,
the other retaining the right of property in the slaves which might
flee to it. Simultaneously with the adoption of this article in
the ordinance of 1787 was the formation of the constitution of
the United States--both formed at the same time, in neighboring
cities, and (it may be said) by the same men. The Congress sat in
New York--the Federal Convention in Philadelphia--and, while the
most active members of both were members of each, as Madison and
Hamilton, yet, from constant interchange of opinion, the members
of both bodies may be assumed to have worked together for a
common object. The right to recover fugitive slaves went into the
constitution, as it went into the ordinance, simultaneously and
unanimously; and it may be assumed upon the facts of the case, and
all the evidence of the day, that the constitution, no more than
the ordinance, could have been formed without the fugitive slave
recovery clause contained in it. A right to recover slaves is not
only authorized by the constitution, but it is a right without which
there would have been no constitution, and also no anti-slavery
ordinance.

One of the early acts of Congress, as early as February, '93, was
a statute to carry into effect the clause in the constitution for
the reclamation of fugitives from justice, and fugitives from labor;
and that statute, made by the men who made the constitution, may
be assumed to be the meaning of the constitution, as interpreted
by men who had a right to know its meaning. That act consisted of
four sections, all brief and clear, and the first two of which
exclusively applied to fugitives from justice. The third and fourth
applied to fugitives from labor, embracing apprentices as well as
slaves, and applying the same rights and remedies in each case:
and of these two, the third alone contains the whole provision for
reclaiming the fugitive--the fourth merely containing penalties for
the obstruction of that right. The third section, then, is the only
one essential to the object of this chapter, and is in these words:

     "That when a person held to labor in any of the United
     States, or in either of the territories on the north-west,
     or south of Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into
     any other of said States or territories, the person to whom
     such labor is due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered
     to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him
     or her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of
     the United States, residing or being within the State, or
     before any magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate,
     wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof
     to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by
     oral testimony, or affidavit taken before and certified by a
     magistrate of any such State or territory, that the person
     so seized and arrested, doth under the laws of the State or
     territory from which he or she fled, owe service to the person
     claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or
     magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant,
     his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for
     removing the said fugitive from labor, to the State or territory
     from which he or she fled."

This act was passed on the recommendation of President Washington,
in consequence of a case having arisen between Pennsylvania and
Virginia, which showed the want of an act of Congress to carry the
clause in the constitution into effect. It may be held to be a fair
interpretation of the constitution, and by it the party claiming the
service of the fugitive in any State or territory, had the right
to seize his slave wherever he saw him, and to carry him before
a judicial authority in the State; and upon affidavit, or oral
testimony, showing his right, he was to receive a certificate to
that effect, by virtue of which he might carry him back to the State
from which he had fled. This act, thus fully recognizing the right
of the claimant to seize his slave by mere virtue of ownership, and
then to carry him out of the State upon a certificate, and without
a trial, was passed as good as unanimously by the second Congress
which sat under the constitution--the proceedings of the Senate
showing no division, and in the House only seven voting against
the bill, there being no separate vote on the two parts of it, and
two of these seven from slave States (Virginia and Maryland). It
does not appear to what part these seven objected--whether to the
fugitive slave sections, or those which applied to fugitives from
justice. Such unanimity in its passage, by those who helped to make
the constitution, was high evidence in its favor: the conduct of the
States, and both judiciaries, State and federal, were to the same
effect. The act was continually enforced, and the courts decided
that this right of the owner to seize his slave, was just as large
in the free State to which he had fled as in the slave State from
which he had run away--that he might seize, by night as well as
by day, of Sundays as well as other days; and, also, in a house,
provided no breach of the peace was committed. The penal section
in the bill was clear and heavy, and went upon the ground of the
absolute right of the master to seize his slave by his own authority
wherever he saw him, and the criminality of any obstruction or
resistance in the exercise of that right. It was in these words:

     "That any person who shall knowingly and wilfully obstruct or
     hinder such claimant, his agent or attorney, in so seizing
     or arresting such fugitive from labor, or shall rescue such
     fugitive from such claimant, his agent or attorney, when so
     arrested pursuant to the authority herein given or declared; or
     shall harbor or conceal such person after notice that he or she
     was a fugitive from labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of the
     said offences, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars.
     Which penalty may be recovered by and for the benefit of such
     claimant, by action of debt in any court proper to try the same,
     saving moreover to the person claiming such labor or service
     his right of action for or on account of the said injuries, or
     either of them."

State officers, the magistrates and judges, though not bound to act
under the law of Congress, yet did so; and State jails, though not
obligatory under a federal law, were freely used for the custody
of the re-captured fugitive. This continued till a late day in
most of the free States--in all of them until after the Congress
of the United States engaged in the slavery agitation--and in the
great State of Pennsylvania until the 20th of March, 1847: that is
to say, until a month after the time that Mr. Calhoun brought into
the Senate the slavery resolutions, stigmatized by Mr. Benton as
"fire-brand," at the moment of their introduction, and which are
since involving the Union in conflagration. Then Pennsylvania passed
the act forbidding her judicial authorities to take cognizance of
any fugitive slave case--granted a habeas corpus remedy to any
fugitive arrested--denying the use of her jails to confine any
one--and repealing the six months' slave sojourning law of 1780.

Some years before the passage of this harsh act, and before the
slavery agitation had commenced in Congress, to wit, 1826 (which was
nine years before the commencement of the agitation), Pennsylvania
had passed a most liberal law of her own, done upon the request of
Maryland, to aid the recovery of fugitive slaves. It was entitled,
"_An act to give effect to the Constitution of the United States
in reclaiming fugitives from justice_." Such had been the just and
generous conduct of Pennsylvania towards the slave States until up
to the time of passing the harsh act of 1847. Her legal right to
pass that act is admitted; her magistrates were not bound to act
under the federal law--her jails were not liable to be used for
federal purposes. The sojourning law of 1780 was her own, and she
had a right to repeal it. But the whole act of '47 was the exercise
of a mere right, against the comity which is due to States united
under a common head, against moral and social duty, against high
national policy, against the spirit in which the constitution
was made, against her own previous conduct for sixty years; and
injurious and irritating to the people of the slave States, and
parts of it unconstitutional. The denial of the intervention of
her judicial officers, and the use of her prisons, though an
inconvenience, was not insurmountable, and might be remedied by
Congress; the repeal of the act of 1780 was the radical injury and
for which there was no remedy in federal legislation.

That act was passed before the adoption of the constitution, and
while the feelings of conciliation, good will, and entire justice,
prevailed among the States; it was allowed to continue in force near
sixty years after the constitution was made; and was a proof of good
feeling towards all during that time. By the terms of this act, a
discrimination was established between sojourners and permanent
residents, and the element of time--the most obvious and easy of all
arbiters--was taken for the rule of discrimination. Six months was
the time allowed to discriminate a sojourner from a resident; and
during that time the rights of the owner remained complete in his
slave; after the lapse of that time, his ownership ceased. This six
months was equally in favor of all persons; but there was a further
and indefinite provision in favor of members of Congress, and of
the federal government, all of whom, coming from slave States,
were allowed to retain their ownership as long as their federal
duties required them to remain in the State. Such an act was just
and wise, and in accordance with the spirit of comity which should
prevail among States formed into a Union, having a common general
government, and reciprocating the rights of citizenship. It is to be
deplored that any event ever arose to occasion the repeal of that
act. It is to be wished that a spirit would arise to re-enact it;
and that others of the free States should follow the example. For
there were others, and several which had similar acts, and which
have repealed them in like manner, as Pennsylvania--under the same
unhappy influences, and with the same baleful consequences. New
York, for example--her law of discrimination between the sojourner
and the resident, being the same in principle, and still more
liberal in detail, than that of Pennsylvania--allowing nine months
instead of six, to determine that character.

This act of New York, like that of Pennsylvania, continued
undisturbed in the State, until the slavery agitation took root
in Congress; and was even so well established in the good opinion
of the people of that State, as late as thirteen years after the
commencement of that agitation, as to be boldly sustained by the
candidates for the highest offices. Of this an eminent instance
will be given in the canvass for the governorship of the State,
in the year 1838. In that year Mr. Marcy and Mr. Seward were the
opposing candidates, and an anti-slavery meeting, held at Utica,
passed a resolve to have them interrogated (among other things) on
the point of repealing the slave sojournment act. Messrs. Gerritt
Smith, and William Jay, were nominated a committee for that purpose,
and fulfilled their mission so zealously as rather to overstate the
terms of the act, using the word "importation" as applied to the
coming of these slaves with their owners, thus: "Are you in favor of
the repeal of the law which now authorizes the importation of slaves
into this State, and their detention here as such for the time of
nine months?" Objecting to the substitution of the term importation,
and stating the act correctly, both the candidates answered fully in
the negative, and with reasons for their opinion. The act was first
quoted in its own terms, as follows:

     "Any person, not being an inhabitant of this State, who shall
     be travelling to or from, or passing through this State, may
     bring with him any person lawfully held by him in slavery, and
     may take such person with him from this State; but the person so
     held in slavery shall not reside or continue in this State more
     than nine months; and if such residence be continued beyond that
     time, such person shall be free."

Replying to the interrogatory, Mr. Marcy then proceeds to give his
opinion and reasons in favor of sustaining the act, which he does
unreservedly:

     "By comparing this law with your interrogatory, you will
     perceive at once that the latter implies much more than the
     former expresses. The discrepancy between them is so great, that
     I suspected, at first, that you had reference to some other
     enactment which had escaped general notice. As none, however,
     can be found but the foregoing, to which the question is in
     any respect applicable, there will be no mistake, I presume,
     in assuming it to be the one you had in view. The deviation,
     in putting the question, from what would seem to be the plain
     and obvious course of directing the attention to the particular
     law under consideration, by referring to it in the very terms
     in which it is expressed, or at least in language showing its
     objects and limitations, I do not impute to an intention to
     create an erroneous impression as to the law, or to ascribe to
     it a character of odiousness which it does not deserve; yet I
     think that it must be conceded that your question will induce
     those who are not particularly acquainted with the section of
     the statute to which it refers, to believe that there is a law
     of this State which allows a free importation of slaves into it,
     without restrictions as to object, and without limitation as
     to the persons who may do so; yet this is very far from being
     true. This law does not permit any inhabitant of this State to
     bring into it any person held in slavery, under any pretence
     or for any object whatsoever; nor does it allow any person of
     any other State or country to do so, except such person is
     actually travelling to or from, or passing through this State.
     This law, in its operation and effect, only allows persons
     belonging to States or nations where domestic slavery exists,
     who happen to be travelling in this State, to be attended by
     their servants whom they lawfully hold in slavery when at home,
     provided they do not remain within our territories longer than
     nine months. The difference between it and the one implied by
     your interrogatory is so manifest, that it is perhaps fair to
     presume, that if those by whose appointment you act in this
     matter had not misapprehended its character, they would not
     have instructed you to make it the subject of one of your
     questions. It is so restricted in its object, and that is so
     unexceptionable, that it can scarcely be regarded as obnoxious
     to well-founded objections when viewed in its true light. Its
     repeal would, I apprehend, have an injurious effect upon our
     intercourse with some of the other States, and particularly
     upon their business connection with our commercial emporium. In
     addition to this, the repeal would have a tendency to disturb
     the political harmony among the members of our confederacy,
     without producing any beneficial results to compensate for these
     evils. I am not therefore in favor of it."

This is an explicit answer, meeting the interrogatory with a full
negative, and impliedly rebuking the phrase "importation," by
supposing it would not have been used if the Utica convention had
understood the act. Mr. Seward answered in the same spirit, and
to the same effect, only giving a little more amplitude to his
excellent reasons. He says:

     "Does not your inquiry give too broad a meaning to the section?
     It certainly does not confer upon any citizen of a State, or of
     any other country, or any citizen of any other State, except
     the owner of slaves in another State by virtue of the laws
     thereof, the right to bring slaves into this State or detain
     them here under any circumstances as such. I understand your
     inquiry, therefore to mean, whether I am in favor of a repeal
     of the law which declares, in substance, that any person from
     the southern or south-western States, who may be travelling to
     or from or passing thrugh the State, may bring with him and
     take with him any person lawfully held by him in slavery in the
     State from whence he came, provided such slaves do not remain
     here more than nine months. The article of the constitution
     of the United States which bears upon the present question,
     declares that no person held to service or labor in one State,
     under the laws thereof, escaping to another State, shall, in
     consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged
     from such service or labor, but such persons shall be delivered
     up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be
     due. I understand that, in the State of Massachusetts, this
     provision of the constitution has been decided by the courts
     not to include the case of a slave brought by his master into
     the State, and escaping thence. But the courts of law in this
     State have uniformly given a different construction to the same
     article of the constitution, and have always decided that it
     does embrace the case of a slave brought by his master into
     this State, and escaping from him here. Consequently, under
     this judicial construction of the constitution, and without,
     and in defiance of any law or regulation of this State, if the
     slave escape from his master in this State, he must be restored
     to him, when claimed at any time during his master's temporary
     sojournment within the State, whether that sojournment be six
     months, nine months, or longer. It is not for me to say that
     this decision is erroneous, nor is it for our legislature.
     Acting under its authority, they passed the law to which you
     object, for the purpose, not of conferring new powers or
     privileges on the slave-owner, but to prevent his abuse of that
     which the constitution of the United States, thus expounded,
     secures to him. The law, as I understand it, was intended to
     fix a period of time as a test of transient passage through, or
     temporary residence in the State, within the provisions of the
     constitution. The duration of nine months is not material in the
     question, and if it be unnecessarily long, may and ought to be
     abridged. But, if no such law existed, the right of the master
     (under the construction of the constitution before mentioned)
     would be indefinite, and the slave must be surrendered to him
     in all cases of travelling through, or passage to or from the
     State. If I have correctly apprehended the subject, this law
     is not one conferring a right upon any person to import slaves
     into the State, and hold them here as such; but is an attempt
     at restriction upon the constitutional right of the master; a
     qualification, or at least a definition of it, and is in favor
     of the slave. Its repeal, therefore, would have the effect
     to put in greater jeopardy the class of persons you propose
     to benefit by it. While the construction of the constitution
     adopted here is maintained, the law, it would seem, ought to
     remain upon our statute book, not as an encroachment upon the
     rights of man, but a protection for them.

     "But, gentlemen, being desirous to be entirely candid in
     this communication, it is proper I should add, that I am not
     convinced it would be either wise, expedient or humane, to
     declare to our fellow-citizens of the southern and south-western
     States, that if they travel to or from, or pass through the
     State of New York, they shall not bring with them the attendants
     whom custom, or education, or habit, may have rendered necessary
     to them. I have not been able to discover any good object to
     be attained by such an act of inhospitality. It certainly can
     work no injury to us, nor can it be injurious to the unfortunate
     beings held in bondage, to permit them, once perhaps in their
     lives, and at most, on occasions few and far between, to
     visit a country where slavery is unknown. I can even conceive
     of benefits to the great cause of human liberty, from the
     cultivation of this intercourse with the South. I can imagine
     but one ground of objection, which is, that it may be regarded
     as an implication that this State sanctions slavery. If this
     objection were well grounded, I should at once condemn the law.
     But, in truth, the law does not imply any such sanction. The
     same statute which, in necessary obedience to the constitution
     of the United States as expounded, declares the exception,
     condemns, in the most clear and definite terms, all human
     bondage. I will not press the considerations flowing from the
     nature of our Union, and the mutual concessions on which it
     was founded, against the propriety of such an exclusion as
     your question contemplates, apparently for the purpose only
     of avoiding an implication not founded in fact, and which the
     history of our State so nobly contradicts. It is sufficient
     to say that such an exclusion could have no good effect
     practically, and would accomplish nothing in the great cause of
     human liberty."

These answers do not seem to have affected the election in any way.
Mr. Seward was elected, each candidate receiving the full vote of
his party. Since that time the act has been repealed, and no voice
has yet been raised to restore it. Just and meritorious as were
the answers of Messrs. Marcy and Seward in favor of sustaining
the sojourning act, their voice in favor of its restoration would
be still more so now. It was a measure in the very spirit of the
constitution, and in the very nature of a union, and in full harmony
with the spirit of concession, deference and good-will in which
the constitution was founded. Several other States had acts to the
same effect, and the temper of the people in all the free States
was accordant. It was not until after the slavery question became
a subject of _political_ agitation, in the national legislature,
that these acts were repealed, and this spirit destroyed. Political
agitation has done all the mischief.

The act of Pennsylvania, of March 3d, 1847, besides repealing the
slave sojournment act of 1780--(an act made in the time of Dr.
Franklin, and which had been on her statute-book near seventy
years), besides repealing her recent act of 1826, and besides
forbidding the use of her prisons, and the intervention of her
officers in the recovery of fugitive slaves--besides all this, went
on to make positive enactments to prevent the exercise of the rights
of forcible recaption of fugitive slaves, as regulated by the act of
Congress, under the clause in the constitution; and for that purpose
contained this section:

     "That if any person or persons claiming any negro or mulatto,
     as fugitive from servitude or labor, shall, under any pretence
     of authority whatever, violently and tumultuously seize upon
     and carry away in a riotous, violent, and tumultuous manner,
     and so as to disturb and endanger the public peace, any negro
     or mulatto within this commonwealth, either with or without the
     intention of taking such negro or mulatto before any district
     or circuit judge, the person or persons so offending against
     the peace of this commonwealth, shall be deemed guilty of a
     misdemeanor; and on conviction thereof, shall be sentenced
     to pay a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than two
     thousand dollars; and, further, be confined in the county jail
     for any period not exceeding three months, at the discretion of
     the court."

The granting of the _habeas corpus_ writ to any fugitive slave
completed the enactments of this statute, which thus carried out, to
the full, the ample intimations contained in its title, to wit: "_An
act to prevent kidnapping, preserve the public peace, prohibit the
exercise of certain powers heretofore exercised by judges, justices
of the peace, aldermen, and jailers in this commonwealth; and, to
repeal certain slave laws._" This act made a new starting-point in
the anti-slavery movements North, as the resolutions of Mr. Calhoun,
of the previous month, made a new starting-point in the pro-slavery
movements in the South. The first led to the new fugitive slave
recovery act of 1850--the other has led to the abrogation of the
Missouri Compromise line; and, between the two, the state of things
has been produced which now afflicts and distracts the country, and
is working a sectional divorce of the States.

A citizen of Maryland, acting under the federal law of '93, in
recapturing his slave in Pennsylvania, was prosecuted under the
State act of 1826--convicted--and sentenced to its penalties.
The constitutionality of this enactment was in vain plead in
the Pennsylvania court; but her authorities acted in the spirit
of deference and respect to the authorities of the Union, and
concurred in an "_agreed case_," to be carried before the Supreme
Court of the United States, to test the constitutionality of the
Pennsylvania law. That court decided fully and promptly all the
points in the case, and to the full vindication of all the rights of
a slaveholder, under the recaption clause in the constitution. The
points decided cover the whole ground, and, besides, show precisely
in what particular the act of 1793 required to be amended, to make
it work out its complete effect under the constitution, independent
of all extrinsic aid. The points were these:

     "The provisions of the act of 12th of February, 1793, relative
     to fugitive slaves, is clearly constitutional in all its leading
     provisions, and, indeed, with the exception of that part which
     confers authority on State magistrates, is free from reasonable
     doubt or difficulty. As to the authority so conferred on State
     magistrates, while a difference of opinion exists, and may exist
     on this point, in different States, whether State magistrates
     are bound to act under it, none is entertained by the court,
     that State magistrates may, if they choose, exercise that
     authority, unless forbid by State legislation." "The power of
     legislation in relation to fugitives from labor is exclusive
     in the national legislature." "The right to seize and retake
     fugitive slaves, and the duty to deliver them up, in whatever
     State of the Union they may be found, is under the constitution
     recognized as an absolute, positive right and duty, pervading
     the whole Union with an equal and supreme force, uncontrolled
     and uncontrollable by State sovereignty or State legislation.
     The right and duty are co-extensive and uniform in remedy
     and operation throughout the whole Union. The owner has the
     same exemption from State regulations and control, through
     however many States he may pass with the fugitive slaves in
     his possession _in transitu_ to his domicil." "The act of the
     legislature of Pennsylvania, on which the indictment against
     Edward Prigg was founded, for carrying away a fugitive slave,
     is unconstitutional and void. It purports to punish, as a
     public offence against the State, the very act of seizing and
     removing a slave by his master, which the constitution of
     the United States was designed to justify and uphold." "The
     constitutionality of the act of Congress (1793), relating to
     fugitives from labor, has been affirmed by the adjudications of
     the State tribunals, and by those of the courts of the United
     States."

This decision of the Supreme Court--so clear and full--was further
valuable in making visible to the legislative authority what was
wanting to give efficacy to the act of 1793; it was nothing but to
substitute federal commissioners for the State officers forbidden
to act under it; and that substitution might have been accomplished
in an amendatory bill of three or four lines--leaving all the rest
of the act as it was. Unfortunately Congress did not limit itself
to an amendment of the act of 1793; it made a new law--long and
complex--and striking the public mind as a novelty. It was early in
the session of 1849-'50 that the Judiciary Committee of the Senate
reported a bill on the subject; it was a bill long and complex, and
distasteful to all sides of the chamber, and lay upon the table
six months untouched. It was taken up in the last weeks of a nine
months' session, and substituted by another bill, still longer and
more complex. This bill also was very distasteful to the Senate
(the majority), and had the singular fate of being supported in
its details, and passed into law, with less than a quorum of the
body in its favor, and without ever receiving the full senatorial
vote of the slave States. The material votes upon it, before it was
passed, were on propositions to give the fugitive a jury trial, if
he desired it, upon the question of his condition--free or slave;
and upon the question of giving him the benefit of the writ of
_habeas corpus_. The first of these propositions originated with
Mr. Webster, but was offered in his absence by Mr. Dayton, of New
Jersey. He (Mr. Webster) drew up a brief bill early in the session,
to supply the defect found in the working of the act of '93; it was
short and simple; but it contained a proviso in favor of a jury
trial when the fugitive denied his servitude. That would have been
about always; and this jury trial, besides being incompatible with
the constitution, and contradictory to all cases of proceeding
against fugitives, would have been pretty sure to have been fatal to
the pursuer's claim; and certainly both expensive and troublesome to
him. It was contrary to the act of 1793, and contrary to the whole
established course of reclaiming fugitives, which is always to carry
them back to the place from which they fled to be tried. Thus,
if a man commits an offence in one country, and flies to another,
he is carried back; so, if he flies from one State to another;
and so in all the extradition treaties between foreign nations.
All are carried back to the place from which they fled, the only
condition being to establish the flight and the probable cause; and
that in the case of fugitives from labor, as well as from justice,
both of which classes are put together in the constitution of the
United States, and in the fugitive act of 1793. The proposition
was rejected by a vote of eleven to twenty-seven. The yeas were:
Messrs. Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dodge of Wisconsin, Greene,
Hamlin, Phelps, Smith, Upham, Walker of Wisconsin, and Winthrop.
The nays were: Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Barnwell, Bell, Benton,
Berrien, Butler, Cass, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Dodge of Iowa,
Downs, Houston, Jones of Iowa, King, Mangum, Mason, Morton, Pratt
of Maryland, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Sturgeon, Turney, Underwood,
Wales, Yulee. The motion in favor of granting the benefit of the
writ of habeas corpus to the fugitive was made by Mr. Winthrop, and
rejected by the same vote of eleven yeas and twenty-seven nays.
Other amendments were offered and disposed of, and the question
coming on the passing of the bill, Mr. Cass, in speaking his own
sentiments in favor of merely amending the act of 1793, also spoke
the sentiments of many others, saying:

     "When this subject was before the compromise committee, there
     was a general wish, and in that I fully concurred, that the
     main features of the act of 1793 upon this subject, so far
     as they were applicable, should be preserved, and that such
     changes as experience has shown to be necessary to a fair and
     just enforcement of the provisions of the constitution for the
     surrender of fugitive slaves, should be introduced by way of
     amendment. That law was approved by Washington, and has now been
     in force for sixty years, and lays down, among others, four
     general principles, to which I am prepared to adhere: 1. The
     right of the master to arrest his fugitive slave wherever he
     may find him. 2. His duty to carry him before a magistrate in
     the State where he is arrested, and that claim may be adjudged
     by him. 3. The duty of the magistrate to examine the claim, and
     to decide it, like other examining magistrates, without a jury,
     and then to commit him to the custody of the master. 4. The
     right of the master then to remove the slave to his residence.
     At the time this law was passed, every justice of the peace
     throughout the Union was required to execute the duties under
     it. Since then, as we all know, the Supreme Court has decided
     that justices of the peace cannot be called upon to execute
     this law, and the consequence is, that they have almost every
     where refused to do so. The master seeking his slave found his
     remedy a good one at the time, but now very ineffectual; and
     this defect is one that imperiously requires a remedy. And this
     remedy I am willing to provide, fairly and honestly, and to make
     such other provisions as may be proper and necessary. But I
     desire for myself that the original act should remain upon the
     statute book, and that the changes shown to be necessary should
     be made by way of amendment."

The vote on the passing of the bill was 27 to 12, the yeas being:
Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Barnwell, Bell, Berrien, Butler, Davis
of Miss., Dawson, Dodge of Iowa, Downs, Foote, Houston, Hunter,
Jones of Iowa, King, Mangum, Mason, Pearce, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé,
Spruance, Sturgeon, Turney, Underwood, Wales, and Yulee. The nays
were: Messrs. Baldwin, Bradbury, Cooper, Davis of Mass., Dayton,
Dodge of Wisconsin, Greene of Rhode Island, Smith, Upham, Walker,
and Winthrop. Above twenty senators did not vote at all upon the
bill, of whom Mr. Benton was one. Nearly the whole of these twenty
would have voted for an amendment to the act of 1793, supplying
federal officers in place of the State officers who were to assist
in its execution. Some three or four lines would have done that;
but instead of this brief enactment to give effect to an ancient
and well-known law, there was a long bill of ten sections, giving
the aspect of a new law; and with such multiplied and complex
provisions as to render the act inexecutable, except at a cost and
trouble which would render the recovery of little or no value;
and to be attended with an array and machinery which would excite
disturbance, and scenes of force and violence, and render the law
odious. It passed the House, and became a law, and has verified all
the objections taken to it.

Mr. Benton did not speak upon this bill at the time of its passage;
he had done that before, in a previous stage of the question, and
when Mr. Clay proposed to make it a part of his compromise measures.
He (Mr. Benton) was opposed to confounding an old subject of
constitutional obligation with new and questionable subjects, and
was ready to give the subject an independent consideration, and to
vote for any bill that should be efficient and satisfactory. He said:

     "We have a bill now--an independent one--for the recovery of
     these slaves. It is one of the oldest on the calendar, and
     warmly pressed at the commencement of the session. It must be
     about ripe for decision by this time. I am ready to vote upon
     it, and to vote any thing under the constitution which will be
     efficient and satisfactory. It is the only point, in my opinion,
     at which any of the non-slaveholding States, as States, have
     given just cause of complaint to the slaveholding States. I
     leave out individuals and societies, and speak of States in
     their corporate capacity; and say, this affair of the runaway
     slaves is the only case in which any of the non-slaveholding
     States, in my opinion, have given just cause of complaint to
     the slaveholding States. But, how is it here? Any refusal on
     the part of the northern members to legislate the remedy? We
     have heard many of them declare their opinions; and I see no
     line of east and west dividing the north from the south in these
     opinions. I see no geographical boundary dividing northern and
     southern opinions. I see no diversity of opinion but such as
     occurs in ordinary measures before Congress. For one, I am ready
     to vote at once for the passage of a fugitive slavery recovery
     bill; but it must be as a separate and independent measure."

Mr. Benton voted upon the amendments, and to make the bill efficient
and satisfactory; but failed to make it either, and would neither
vote for it nor against it. It has been worth but little to the
slave States in recovering their property, and has been annoying to
the free States from the manner of its execution, and is considered
a new act, though founded upon that of '93, which is lost and hid
under it. The wonder is how such an act came to pass, even by so
lean a vote as it received--for it was voted for by less than the
number of senators from the slave States alone. It is a wonder how
it passed at all, and the wonder increases on knowing that, of the
small number that voted for it, many were against it, and merely
went along with those who had constituted themselves the particular
guardians of the rights of the slave States, and claimed a lead in
all that concerned them.

Those self-constituted guardians were permitted to have their own
way; some voting with them unwillingly, others not voting at all.
It was a part of the plan of "compromise and pacification," which
was then deemed essential to save the Union: and under the fear of
danger to the Union on one hand, and the charms of pacification
and compromise on the other, a few heated spirits got the control,
and had things their own way. Under other circumstances--in any
season of quiet and tranquillity--the vote of Congress would have
been almost general against the complex, cumbersome, expensive,
annoying, and ineffective bill that was passed, and in favor of the
act (with the necessary amendment) which Washington recommended and
signed--which State and Federal judiciaries had sanctioned--which
the people had lived under for nearly sixty years, and against
which there was no complaint until slavery agitation had become a
political game to be played at by parties from both sides of the
Union. All public men disavow that game. All profess patriotism.
All applaud the patriotic spirit of our ancestors. Then imitate
that spirit. Do as these patriotic fathers did--the free States
by reviving the sojournment laws which gave safety to the slave
property of their fellow-citizens of other States passing through
them--the slave States by acting in the spirit of those who enacted
the anti-slavery ordinance of 1787, and the Missouri Compromise line
of 1820. New York and Pennsylvania are the States to begin, and to
revive the sojournment laws which were in force within them for
half a century. The man who would stand up in each of these States
and propose the revival of these acts, for the same reasons that
Messrs. Marcy and Seward opposed their repeal, would give a proof of
patriotism which would entitle him to be classed with our patriotic
ancestors.




CHAPTER CXCVIII.

DISUNION MOVEMENTS: SOUTHERN PRESS AT WASHINGTON: SOUTHERN
CONVENTION AT NASHVILLE: SOUTHERN CONGRESS CALLED FOR BY SOUTH
CAROLINA AND MISSISSIPPI.


     "_When the future historian shall address himself to the task
     of portraying the rise, progress, and decline of the American
     Union, the year 1850 will arrest his attention, as denoting and
     presenting the first marshalling and arraying of those hostile
     forces and opposing elements which resulted in dissolution; and
     the world will have another illustration of the great truth,
     that forms and modes of government_, _however correct in
     theory, are only valuable as they conduce to the great ends of
     all government--the peace, quiet, and conscious security of the
     governed._"

So wrote a leading South Carolina paper on the first day of January,
1850--and not without a knowledge of what it was saying. All that
was said was attempted, and the catastrophe alone was wanting to
complete the task assigned to the future historian.

The manifesto of the forty-two members from the slave States,
issued in 1849, was not a _brutum fulmen_, nor intended to be so.
It was intended for action, and was the commencement of action;
and regular steps for the separation of the slave from the free
States immediately began under it. An organ of disunion, entitled
"The Southern Press," was set up at Washington, established upon a
contribution of $30,000 from the signers to the Southern manifesto,
and their ardent adherents--its daily occupation to inculcate the
advantages of disunion, to promote it by inflaming the South against
the North, and to prepare it by organizing a Southern concert of
action. Southern cities were to recover their colonial superiority
in a state of sectional independence; the ships of all nations were
to crowd their ports to carry off their rich staples, and bring back
ample returns; Great Britain was to be the ally of the new "United
States South;" all the slave States were expected to join, but the
new confederacy to begin with the South Atlantic States, or even a
part of them; and military preparation was to be made to maintain by
force what a Southern convention should decree. That convention was
called--the same which had been designated in the first manifesto,
entitled THE CRISIS, published in the Charleston Mercury in 1835;
and the same which had been repulsed from Nashville in 1844. Fifteen
years of assiduous labor produced what could not be started in
1835, and what had been repulsed in 1844. A disunion convention met
at Nashville! met at the home of Jackson, but after the grave had
become his home.

This convention (assuming to represent seven States) took the
decisive step, so far as it depended upon itself, towards a
separation of the States. It invited the assembling of a "Southern
Congress." Two States alone responded to that appeal--South Carolina
and Mississippi; and the legislatures of these two passed solemn
acts to carry it into effect--South Carolina absolutely, by electing
her quota of representatives to the proposed congress; Mississippi
provisionally, by subjecting her law to the approval of the people.
Of course, each State gave a reason, or motive for its action. South
Carolina simply asserted the "aggressions" of the slaveholding
States to be the cause, without stating what these aggressions were;
and, in fact, there were none to be stated. For even the repeal
of the slave sojournment law in some of them, and the refusal to
permit the State prisons to be used for the detention of fugitives
from service, or State officers to assist in their arrest, though
acts of unfriendly import, and a breach of the comity due to sister
States, and inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution, were
still acts which the States, as sovereign within their limits upon
the subjects to which they refer, had a right to pass. Besides,
Congress had readily passed the fugitive slave recovery bill, just
as these Southern members wished it; and left them without complaint
against the national legislature on that score. All other matters of
complaint which had successively appeared against the free States
were gone--Wilmot Proviso, and all. The act of Mississippi gave two
reasons for its action:

     "_First_. That the legislation of Congress, at the last session,
     was controlled by a dominant majority regardless of the
     constitutional rights of the slaveholding States: and,

     "_Secondly_. That the legislation of Congress, such as it was,
     affords alarming evidence of a settled purpose on the part of
     said majority to destroy the institution of slavery, not only
     in the State of Mississippi, but in her sister States, and to
     subvert the sovereign power of that and other slaveholding
     States."

Waiving the question whether these reasons, if true, would be
sufficient to justify this abrupt attempt to break up the Union,
an issue of fact can well be taken on their truth: and first, of
the dominant majority of the last session, ending September 1850:
that majority, in every instance, was helped out by votes from the
slave States, and generally by a majority of them. The admission of
California, which was the act of the session most complained of,
most resisted, and declared to be a "test" question, was supported
by a majority of the members from the slave States: so that reason
falls upon the trial of an issue of fact. The second set of reasons
have for their point, an assertion that the majority in Congress
have a settled purpose to destroy the institution of slavery in the
State of Mississippi, and in the other slave States, and to subvert
the sovereignty of all the slave States. It is the duty of history
to deal with this assertion, thus solemnly put in a legislative
act as a cause for the secession of a State from the Union--and to
say, that it was an assertion without evidence, and contrary to
the evidence, and contrary to the fact. There was no such settled
purpose in the majority of Congress, nor in a minority of Congress,
nor in any half-dozen members of Congress--if in any one at all.
It was a most deplorable assertion of a most alarming design,
calculated to mislead and inflame the ignorant, and make them fly to
disunion as the refuge against such an appalling catastrophe. But it
was not a new declaration. It was part and parcel of the original
agitation of slavery commenced in 1835, and continued ever since.
To destroy slavery in the States has been the design attributed to
the Northern States from that day to this, and is necessary to be
kept up in order to keep alive the slavery agitation in the slave
States. It has received its constant and authoritative contradiction
in the conduct of those States at home, and in the acts of their
representatives in Congress, year in and year out; and continues
to receive that contradiction, continually; but without having the
least effect upon its repetition and incessant reiteration. In the
mean time there is a fact visible in all the slave States, which
shows that, notwithstanding these twenty years' repetition of the
same assertion, there is no danger to slavery in any slave State.
Property is timid! and slave property above all: and the market is
the test of safety and danger to all property. Nobody gives full
price for anything that is insecure, either in title or possession.
All property, in danger from either cause, sinks in price when
brought to that infallible test. Now, how is it with slave property,
tried by this unerring standard? Has it been sinking in price
since the year 1835? since the year of the first alarm manifesto
in South Carolina, and the first of Mr. Calhoun's twenty years'
alarm speeches in the Senate? On the contrary, the price has been
constantly rising the whole time--and is still rising, although it
has attained a height incredible to have been predicted twenty
years ago.

But, although the slavery alarm does not act on property, yet
it acts on the feelings and passions of the people, and excites
sectional animosity, hatred for the Union, and desire for
separation. The Nashville convention, and the call for the Southern
Congress, were natural occasions to call out these feelings;
and most copiously did they flow. Some specimens, taken from
the considered language of men in high authority, and speaking
advisedly, and for action, will show the temper of the whole--the
names withheld, because the design is to show a danger, and not to
expose individuals.

In the South Carolina Legislature, a speaker declared:

     "We must secede from a Union perverted from its original
     purpose, and which has now become an engine of oppression to the
     South. He thought our proper course was for this legislature
     to proceed directly to the election of delegates to a Southern
     Congress. He thought we should not await the action of all the
     Southern States; but it is prudent for us to await the action
     of such States as Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida;
     because these States have requested us to wait. If we can get
     but one State to unite with us, then we must act. Once being
     independent, we would have a strong ally in England. But we must
     prepare for secession."

Another:

     "The friends of the Southern movement in the other States look
     to the action of South Carolina; and he would make the issue in
     a reasonable time, and the only way to do so is by secession.
     There would be no concert among the Southern States until a blow
     is struck. And if we are sincere in our determination to resist,
     we must give the South some guarantee that we are in earnest.
     He could not concur with the gentleman from Greenville in his
     expressions of attachment to the Union. He hated and detested
     the Union, and was in favor of cutting the connection. He avowed
     himself a disunionist--a disunionist _per se_. If he had the
     power, he would crush this Union to-morrow."

Another:

     "Denied the right or the power of the general government to
     coerce the State in case of secession. This State is sovereign
     and independent, so soon as she sees proper to assert that
     sovereignty. And when can we be stronger than we are now? If
     we intend to wait until we become superior to the federal
     government in numerical strength, we will wait for ever. In the
     event of an attempt to coerce her, sacrifices might be made,
     but we are willing and ready to make those sacrifices. But he
     did not believe one gun would be fired in this contest. South
     Carolina would achieve a bloodless victory. But, should there be
     a war, all the nations of Europe would be desirous of preserving
     their commercial intercourse with the Southern States, and would
     make the effort to do so. He thought there never would be a
     union of the South until this State strikes the blow, and makes
     the issue."

Another:

     "Would not recapitulate the evils which had been perpetrated
     upon the South. Great as they have been, they are comparatively
     unimportant, when compared with the evils to which they would
     inevitably lead. We must not consider what we have borne, but
     what we must bear hereafter. There is no remedy for these evils
     in the government; we have no alternative left us, then, but to
     come out of the government."

Another:

     "He was opposed to calling a convention, because he thought
     it would impede the action of this State on the questions now
     before the country. He thought it would impede our progress
     towards disunion. All his objections to a convention of
     the people applied only to the proposition to call it now.
     He thought conventions dangerous things, except when the
     necessities of the country absolutely demand them. He said that
     he had adopted the course he had taken on these weighty matters
     simply and entirely with the view of hastening the dissolution
     of this Union."

Another:

     "Would sustain the bill for electing delegates to a Southern
     Congress, because he thought it would bring about a more speedy
     dissolution of the Union."

In the Nashville convention a delegate said:

     "I shall enumerate no more of the wrongs that we have suffered,
     or the dangers with which we are threatened. If these, so
     enormous and so atrocious, are not sufficient to arouse the
     Southern mind, our case is desperate. But, supposing that we
     shall be roused, and that we shall act like freemen, and,
     knowing our rights and our wrongs, shall be prepared to sustain
     the one and redress the other, what is the remedy? I answer
     secession--united secession of the slaveholding States, or a
     large number of them. Nothing else will be wise--nothing else
     will be practicable. The Rubicon is passed. The Union is already
     dissolved. Instead of wishing the perpetuity of any government
     over such vast boundaries, the rational lover of liberty should
     wish for its speedy dissolution, as dangerous to all just and
     free rule. Is not all this exemplified in our own case? In nine
     months, in one session of Congress, by a great _coup d'etat_,
     our constitution has been completely and for ever subverted.
     Instead of a well balanced government, all power is vested
     in one section of the country, which is in bitter hostility
     with the other. And this is the glorious Union which we are to
     support, for whose eternal duration we are to pray, and before
     which the once proud Southron is to bow down. He ought to perish
     rather."

     "They have not, however, been satisfied with taking all (the
     territory). They have made that all a wicked instrument for
     the abolition of the constitution, and of every safeguard of
     our property and our lives. I have said they have made the
     appropriation of this territory an instrument to abolish the
     constitution. There is no doubt that they have abolished the
     constitution. The carcass may remain, but the spirit has left
     it. It is now a fetid mass, generating disease and death. It
     stinks in our nostrils."

     "A constitution means _ex vi termini_, a guarantee of the
     rights, liberty, and security of a free people, and can never
     survive in the shape of dead formalities. It is a thing of life,
     and just and fair proportions; not the _caput mortuum_ which the
     so-called Constitution of the United States has now become. Is
     there a Southern man who bears a soul within his ribs, who will
     consent to be governed by this vulgar tyranny," &c.

From public addresses:

     "Under the operation of causes beyond the scan of man, we are
     rapidly approaching a great and important crisis in our history.
     The shadow of the sun has gone back upon the dial of American
     liberty, and we are rapidly hastening towards the troubled sea
     of revolution. A dissolution of the Union is our inevitable
     destiny, and it is idle for man to raise his puny arm to stem
     the tide of events," &c.

Another:

     "We must form a separate government. The slaveholding States
     must all yet see that their only salvation consists in uniting,
     and that promptly too, in organizing a Southern confederacy.
     Should we be wise enough thus to unite, all California, with her
     exhaustless treasures, would be ours; all New Mexico also, and
     the sun would never shine upon a country so rich, so great and
     so powerful, as would be our Southern republic."

Another:

     "By our physical power," said one of the foremost of those
     leaders, in a late speech to his constituents, "we can protect
     ourselves against foreign nations, whilst by our productions we
     can command their peace or support. The keys of their wealth
     and commerce are in our hands, which we will freely offer to
     them by a system of free trade, making our prosperity their
     interest--our security their care. The lingering or decaying
     cities of the South, which before our Revolution carried on all
     their foreign commerce, buoyant with prosperity and wealth, but
     which now are only provincial towns, sluggish suburbs of Boston
     and New York, will rise up to their natural destiny, and again
     enfold in their embraces the richest commerce of the world.
     Wealth, honor, and power, and one of the most glorious destinies
     which ever crowned a great and happy people, awaits the South,
     if she but control her own fate; but, controlled by another
     people, what pen shall paint the infamous and bloody catastrophe
     which must mark her fall?"

From fourth of July toasts:

     "The Union: A splendid failure of the first modern attempt,
     by people of different institutions, to live under the same
     government.

     "The Union: For it we have endured much; for it we have
     sacrificed much. Let us beware lest we endure too much; lest we
     sacrifice too much.

     "Disunion rather than degradation.

     "South Carolina: She struck for the Union when it was a
     blessing; when it becomes a curse, she will strike for herself.

     "The Compromise: 'The best the South can get.' A cowardly banner
     held out by the _spoilsman_ that would sell his country for a
     mess of pottage.

     "The American Eagle: In the event of a dissolution of the Union,
     the South claims as her portion, the heart of the noble bird; to
     the Yankees we leave the feathers and carcass.

     "The South: Fortified by right, she considers neither threats
     nor consequences.

     "The Union: Once a holy alliance, now an accursed bond."

Among the multitude of publications most numerous in South Carolina
and Mississippi, but also appearing in other slave States, all
advocating disunion, there were some (like Mr. Calhoun's letter to
the Alabama member which feared the chance might be lost which the
Wilmot Proviso furnished) also that feared agitation would stop
in Congress, and deprive the Southern politicians of the means of
uniting the slave States in a separate confederacy. Of this class of
publications here is one from a leading paper:

     "The object of South Carolina is undoubtedly to dissolve this
     Union, and form a confederacy of slaveholding States. Should it
     be impossible to form this confederacy, then her purpose is, we
     believe conscientiously, to disconnect herself from the Union,
     and set up for an independent Power. Will delay bring to our
     assistance the slaveholding States? If the slavery agitation,
     its tendencies and objects, were of recent origin, and not fully
     disclosed to the people of the South, delay might unite us in
     concerted action. We have no indication that Congress will soon
     pass obnoxious measures, restricting or crippling directly the
     institution of slavery. Every indication makes us fear that a
     pause in fanaticism is about to follow, to allow the government
     time to consolidate her late acquisitions and usurpations of
     power. Then the storm will be again let loose to gather its
     fury, and burst upon our heads. We have no hopes that the
     agitation in Congress, this or next year, will bring about the
     union of the South."

Enough to show the spirit that prevailed, and the extraordinary and
unjustifiable means used by the leaders to mislead and exasperate
the people. The great effort was to get a "Southern Congress"
to assemble, according to the call of the Nashville convention.
The assembling of that "Congress" was a turning point in the
progress of disunion. It failed. At the head of the States which
had the merit of stopping it, was Georgia--the greatest of the
South-eastern Atlantic States. At the head of the presses which did
most for the Union, was the National Intelligencer at Washington
City, long edited by Messrs. Gales & Seaton, and now as earnest
against Southern disunion in 1850 as they were against the Hartford
convention disunion of 1814. The Nashville convention, the Southern
Congress, and the Southern Press established at Washington, were the
sequence and interpretation (so far as its disunion-design needed
interpretation), of the Southern address drawn by Mr. Calhoun. His
last speech, so far as it might need interpretation, received it
soon after his death in a posthumous publication of his political
writings, abounding with passages to show that the Union was a
mistake--the Southern States ought not to have entered into it, and
should not now re-enter it, if out of it, and that its continuance
was impossible as things stood: Thus:

     "All this has brought about a state of things hostile to the
     continuance of this Union, and the duration of the government.
     Alienation is succeeding to attachment, and hostile feelings to
     alienation; and these, in turn, will be followed by revolution,
     or a disruption of the Union, unless timely prevented. But this
     cannot be done by restoring the government to its _federal_
     character--however necessary that may be as a first step. What
     has been done cannot be undone. The equilibrium between the
     two sections has been permanently destroyed by the measures
     above stated. The Northern section, in consequence, will ever
     concentrate within itself the two majorities of which the
     government is composed; and should the Southern be excluded
     from all the territories, now acquired, _or to be hereafter
     acquired_, it will soon have so decided a preponderance in
     the government and the Union, as to be able to mould the
     constitution to its pleasure. Against this the restoration
     of the _federal_ character of the government can furnish no
     remedy. So long as it continues there can be no safety for
     the weaker section. It places in the hands of the stronger
     and the _hostile_ section, the power to crush her and her
     _institutions_; and leaves no alternative but to _resist_,
     or sink down into a colonial condition. This must be the
     consequence, if some effectual and appropriate remedy is not
     applied.

     "The nature of the disease is such, that nothing can reach it,
     short of some organic change--a change which will so modify
     the constitution as to give to the weaker section, in some one
     form or another, a _negative_ on the action of the government.
     Nothing short of this can protect the weaker, and restore
     harmony and tranquillity to the Union by arresting effectually
     the tendency of the dominant section to oppress the weaker.
     When the constitution was formed, the impression was strong
     that the tendency to conflict would be between the larger and
     smaller States; and effectual provisions were accordingly made
     to guard against it. But experience has proved this to be a
     mistake; and that instead of being as was then supposed, the
     conflict is between the two great sections which are so strongly
     distinguished by their institutions, geographical character,
     productions and pursuits. Had this been then as clearly
     perceived as it now is, the same jealousy which so vigilantly
     watched and guarded against the danger of the larger States
     oppressing the smaller, would have taken equal precaution to
     guard against the same danger between the two sections. It is
     for _us_, who see and feel it, to do, what the framers of the
     constitution would have done, had they possessed the knowledge,
     in this respect, which experience has given to us; that is, to
     provide against the dangers which the system has practically
     developed; and which, had they been foreseen at the time, and
     left without guard, would undoubtedly have _prevented_ the
     States forming the _Southern_ section of the confederacy, from
     ever _agreeing_ to the constitution; and which, under like
     circumstances, were they now out of, would for ever _prevent_
     them _entering_ into the Union. How the constitution could
     best be modified, so as to effect the object, can only be
     authoritatively determined by the amending power. It may be
     done in various ways. Among others, it might be effected
     through a re-organization of the Executive Department; so
     that its powers, instead of being vested, as they now are, in
     a single officer, should be vested in two, to be so elected,
     as that the two should be constituted the special organs and
     representatives of the respective sections in the Executive
     Department of the government; and requiring each to _approve_
     of all the acts of Congress before they become laws. One might
     be charged with the administration of matters connected with
     the foreign relations of the country; and the other, of such as
     were connected with its domestic institutions: the selection
     to be decided by lot. Indeed it may be doubted, whether the
     framers of the constitution did not commit a great _mistake_, in
     constituting a single, instead of a plural executive. Nay, it
     may even be doubted whether a single magistrate, invested with
     all the powers properly appertaining to the Executive Department
     of the government, as is the President, is compatible with the
     _permanence_ of a popular government; especially in a wealthy
     and populous community, with a large revenue, and a numerous
     body of officers and employées. Certain it is, that there is
     no instance of a popular government so constituted which has
     long endured. Even ours, thus far, furnishes no evidence in
     its favor, and not a little against it: for, to it the present
     disturbed and dangerous state of things, which threaten the
     country with _monarchy_ or _disunion_, may be justly attributed."

The observing reader, who may have looked over the two volumes of
this View, in noting the progress of the slavery agitation, and its
successive alleged causes for disunion, must have been struck with
the celerity with which these causes, each in its turn, as soon
as removed, has been succeeded by another, of a different kind;
until, at last, they terminate in a cause which ignores them all,
and find a new reason for disunion in the constitution itself! in
that constitution, the protection of which had been invoked as
sufficient, during the whole period of the alleged "aggressions and
encroachments." In 1835, when the first agitation manifesto and
call for a Southern convention, and invocation to unity and concert
of action, came forth in the Charleston Mercury, entitled "_The
Crisis_," the cause of disunion was then in the abolition societies
established in some of the free States, and which these States were
required to suppress. Then came the abolition petitions presented
in Congress; then the mail transmission of incendiary publications;
then the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; then
the abolition of the slave trade between the States; then the
exclusion of slavery from Oregon; then the Wilmot Proviso; then the
admission of California with a free constitution. Each of these,
in its day, was a cause of disunion, to be effected through the
instrumentality of a Southern convention, forming a sub-confederacy,
in flagrant violation of the constitution, and effecting the
disunion by establishing a commercial non-intercourse with the free
States. After twenty years' agitation upon these points, they are
all given up. The constitution, and the Union, were found to be
a "mistake" from the beginning--an error in their origin, and an
impossibility in their future existence, and to be amended into
another impossibility, or broken up at once.

The regular inauguration of this slavery agitation dates from
the year 1835; but it had commenced two years before, and in
this way: nullification and disunion had commenced in 1830 upon
complaint against protective tariff. That being put down in 1833
under President Jackson's proclamation and energetic measures, was
immediately substituted by the slavery agitation. Mr. Calhoun, when
he went home from Congress in the spring of that year, told his
friends, _That the South could never be united against the North on
the tariff question--that the sugar interest of Louisiana would keep
her out--and that the basis of Southern union must be shifted to the
slave question._ Then all the papers in his interest, and especially
the one at Washington, published by Mr. Duff Green, dropped tariff
agitation, and commenced upon slavery; and, in two years, had the
agitation ripe for inauguration on the slavery question. And, in
tracing this agitation to its present stage, and to comprehend its
rationale, it is not to be forgotten that it is a mere continuation
of old tariff disunion; and preferred because more available.

In June, 1833, at the first transfer of Southern agitation from
tariff to slavery, Mr. Madison wrote to Mr. Clay:

     "_It is painful to see the unceasing efforts to alarm the
     South, by imputations against the North of unconstitutional
     designs on the subject of slavery. You are right, I have no
     doubt, in believing that no such intermeddling disposition
     exists in the body of our Northern brethren. Their good faith
     is sufficiently guaranteed by the interest they have as
     merchants, as ship-owners, and as manufacturers in preserving
     a union with the slaveholding States. On the other hand, what
     madness in the South to look for greater safety in disunion.
     It would be worse than jumping into the fire for fear of the
     frying-pan. The danger from the alarms is, that pride and
     resentment excited by them may be an overmatch for the dictates
     of prudence; and favor the project of a Southern convention,
     insidiously revived, as promising by its counsels the best
     security against grievances of every kind from the North._"

Nullification, secession, and disunion were considered by Mr.
Madison as Synonymous terms, dangerous to the Union as fire to
powder, and the danger increasing in all the Southern States, even
Virginia. "_Look at Virginia herself, and read in the Gazettes,
and in the proceedings of popular meetings, the figure which the
anarchical principle now makes, in contrast with the scouting
reception given to it but a short time ago._" Mr. Madison solaced
himself with the belief that this heresy would not reach a majority
of the States; but he had his misgivings, and wrote them down in
the same paper, entitled, "Memorandum on nullification," written in
his last days and published after his death. "_But a susceptibility
of the contagion in the Southern States is visible, and the danger
not to be concealed, that the sympathy arising from known causes,
and the inculcated impression of a permanent incompatibility of
interests between the North and the South, may put it in the power
of popular leaders, aspiring to the highest stations, to unite
the South on some critical occasion, in a course that will end in
creating a theatre of great though inferior extent. In pursuing this
course, the first and most obvious step is nullification--the next,
secession--and the last, a farewell separation. How near has this
course been lately exemplified! and the danger of its recurrence,
in the same or some other quarter, may be increased by an increase
of restless aspirants, and by the increasing impracticability of
retaining in the Union a large and cemented section against its
will._"--So wrote Mr. Madison in the year 1836, in the 86th year
of his age, and the last of his life. He wrote with the pen of
inspiration, and the heart of a patriot, and with a soul which
filled the Union, and could not be imprisoned in one half of it.
He was a Southern man! but his Southern home could not blind his
mental vision to the origin, design, and consequences of the slavery
agitation. He gives to that agitation, a Southern origin--to that
design, a disunion end--to that end, disastrous consequences both to
the South and the North.

Mr. Calhoun is dead. Peace to his manes. But he has left his
disciples who do not admit of peace! who "_rush in_" where their
master "_feared to tread_." He recoiled from the disturbance of the
Missouri compromise: they expunge it. He shuddered at the thought of
bloodshed in civil strife: they demand three millions of dollars to
prepare arms for civil war.




CHAPTER CXCIX.

THE SUPREME COURT: ITS JUDGES, CLERK, ATTORNEY-GENERALS, REPORTERS
AND MARSHALS DURING THE PERIOD TREATED OF IN THIS VOLUME.


CHIEF JUSTICE:--Roger Brooke Taney, of Maryland, appointed in 1836:
continues, 1850.

JUSTICES:--Joseph Story, of Massachusetts, appointed, 1811:
died 1845.--John McLean, of Ohio, appointed, 1829: continues,
1850.--James M. Wayne, of Georgia, appointed, 1835: continues,
1850.--John Catron, of Tennessee, appointed, 1837: continues,
1850.--Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, appointed, 1845: continues,
1850.--Robert C. Grier, of Pennsylvania, appointed, 1846: continues,
1850.

ATTORNEY-GENERALS:--Henry D. Gilpin, of Pennsylvania, appointed,
1840.--John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, appointed, 1841.--Hugh
S. Legare, of South Carolina, appointed, 1841.--John Nelson, of
Maryland, appointed, 1843.--John Y. Mason, of Virginia, appointed,
1846.--Nathan Clifford, of Maine, appointed, 1846.--Isaac Toucey,
of Connecticut, appointed, 1848.--Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland,
appointed, 1849.--John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, appointed, 1850.

CLERK:--William Thomas Carroll, of the District of Columbia,
appointed, 1827: continues, 1850.

REPORTERS OF DECISIONS:--Richard Peters, jr., of Pennsylvania,
appointed, 1828.--Benjamin C. Howard, appointed, 1843: continues,
1850.

MARSHALS:--Alexander Hunter, appointed, 1834.--Robert Wallace,
appointed, 1848.--Richard Wallach, appointed, 1849.




CHAPTER CC.

CONCLUSION.


I have finished the View which I proposed to take of the Thirty
Years' working of the federal government during the time that I was
a part of it--a task undertaken for a useful purpose and faithfully
executed, whether the object of the undertaking has been attained or
not. The preservation of what good and wise men gave us, has been
the object; and for that purpose it has been a duty of necessity to
show the evil, as well as the good, that I have seen, both of men
and measures. The good, I have exultingly exhibited! happy to show
it, for the admiration and imitation of posterity: the evil, I have
stintedly exposed, only for correction, and for the warning example.

I have seen the capacity of the people for self-government tried at
many points, and always found equal to the demands of the occasion.
Two other trials, now going on, remain to be decided to settle the
question of that capacity. 1. The election of President! and whether
that election is to be governed by the virtue and intelligence of
the people, or to become the spoil of intrigue and corruption? 2.
The sentiment of political nationality! and whether it is to remain
co-extensive with the Union, leading to harmony and fraternity; or,
divide into sectionalism, ending in hate, alienation, separation and
civil war?

An irresponsible body (chiefly self-constituted, and mainly
dominated by professional office-seekers and office-holders) have
usurped the election of President (for the nomination is the
election, so far as the party is concerned); and always making
it with a view to their own profit in the monopoly of office and
plunder.

A sectional question now divides the Union, arraying one-half
against the other, becoming more exasperated daily--which has
already destroyed the benefits of the Union, and which, unless
checked, will also destroy its form.

Confederate republics are short-lived--the shortest in the whole
family of governments. Two diseases beset them--corrupt election
of the chief magistrate, when elective; sectional contention, when
interest or ambition are at issue. Our confederacy is now laboring
under both diseases: and the body of the people, now as always,
honest in sentiment and patriotic in design, remain unconscious
of the danger--and even become instruments in the hands of their
destroyers.

If what is written in these chapters shall contribute to open their
eyes to these dangers, and rouse them to the resumption of their
electoral privileges and the suppression of sectional contention,
then this View will not have been written in vain. If not, the
writer will still have one consolation--the knowledge of the fact
that he has labored in his day and generation, to preserve and
perpetuate the blessings of that Union and self-government which
wise and good men gave us.


THE END.




INDEX TO VOL. II.


A

  ADAMS, JOHN Q., on the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison, 258;
    on the origin of the Pension act of 1837, 269;
    defends the administration in the McLeod affair, 289;
    on the protest of President Tyler, 418;
    relative to the Chinese mission, 511;
    on the Home squadron, 575;
    decease of, 707;
    manner of his death, 707;
    House and Senate adjourn, 707;
    Senator Benton requested to second the motion of funeral honors in
          the Senate, 707;
    reflections, 707;
    eloquent remarks of McDowell, 708;
    eulogium of Senator Benton, 708, 709.--_See Index_, vol. 1.

  ADAMS, CHARLES F., candidate for Vice President, 723.

  ALLEN, WILLIAM, on the Oregon question, 663, 664.

  ALISON, the historian, remark on the war of 1812, 573.

  _Amendment of the Constitution._--Speech of Mr. Benton, 626;
    the plan proposed, 626;
    object and principle of the amendment to dispense with all other
          intermediate bodies, and keep the election wholly in the
          hands of the people, 626;
    liberty would be ruined by providing any kind of substitute but
          popular elections, 627;
    at present, the will of the people was liable to be frustrated in
          the election of their chief officers, by the intervention of
          small bodies of men between themselves and the object of
          their choice, 627;
    details of the proposed amendment, 627;
    its efficiency and practicability in preserving the rights of the
          people, maintaining the purity of elections, 628;
    a copy of the proposition, 628. _See Index_, vol. 1.

  ANDERSON, ALEXANDER, Eulogium on Hugh L. White, 185.

  _Anti-Duelling Act._--Death of Cilley, 148;
    penalties of the duelling act, 148;
    the act did not look to the assassinations under the pretext of
          self-defence, which were to rise up in the place of the
          regular duel, 148;
    contrast, 148;
    the act did not suppress the passions in which duels
          originate, 149;
    the law was also mistaken in the nature of its penalties, 149;
    defective in not pursuing the homicidal offence into all the new
          forms it might assume, 149.

  ARCHER, WILLIAM S., on the charge of a privy council of President
        Tyler's, 327. _See Index_, vol. 1.

  _Ashburton, Lord, his mission.--See British Treaty._

  _Assumption of State Debts._--Amount of these debts, 171;
    Sidney Smith, 171;
    assumption sought by a class of the bondholders as more
          substantial security, 171;
    London Bankers' Circular, 171;
    resolutions against the constitutionality, the justice, and the
          policy of any such measure, 171;
    attempt to reverse their import by obtaining a direct vote of the
          Senate in favor of distributing the land revenue to aid the
          States, 172;
    proposition rejected, 172.

  Speech of Mr. Benton, 172;
     extracts, 172;
     "this movement been long going on, 172;
    steps taken in the road to assumption, 172;
    time for enemies of assumption to take the field and to act, 173;
    disguised assumption in the form of land revenue distribution is
          the shape in which we shall have to meet the danger, 173;
    we have had one assumption in this country, 173;
    intense excitement, 173;
    statement of Mr. Jefferson, 174;
    the picture presented, 174;
    these stocks of the States are now greatly depreciated, 174;
    what more unwise or unjust to contract debts on long time as some
          of the States have done, 175;
    the evils of foreign influence, 175;
    the constitution itself contains a special canon directed against
          them, 175;
    to what purpose all this precaution if we invite foreign
          influence?" 175.


  B

  BADGER, GEORGE E., Secretary of the Navy, 209;
    reasons for resigning his seat in President Tyler's Cabinet, 354.

  BANCROFT, GEORGE, Secretary of the Navy, 650.

  _Bank, National, First Bill._--This the great measure of the session
        and the great object of the whig party, 317;
    all others complete without it, 317;
    kept in the background during the canvass, 318;
    call upon the secretary for a plan, 318;
    objections of the President, 318;
    its title, 318;
    its course in the Senate, 318;
    passed in both Houses, 318;
    views of the democracy, 318;
    light dawning upon them, 318;
    veto, 318;
    remarks of Mr. Clay, 318;
    "circumstances under which Mr. Tyler became President, 319;
    his address, 319;
    interpretation of one passage, 319;
    most confident and buoyant hopes entertained, 319;
    fears that the President's address had been misunderstood, 319;
    name of the proposed bank," 319;
    Mr. Tyler's early opinions on a bank, 320;
    extract, 320;
    remarks of Mr. Clay on the passage, 320;
    the course which the President might have taken and saved his
          consistency, 321;
    retaining the bill ten days, 321;
    a third course to resign the Presidency, 321;
    the propriety of the step enforced by Mr. Clay, 321;
    remarks of Mr. Clay, 321;
    his allusion to the rumor that the President was proposing a
          suitable bill, 321;
    remarks of Mr. Rives in defence of the President, 322;
    a bank not an issue in the election, 323;
    the imputation of perfidy repelled, 323;
    General Harrison would have disproved the same bill, 323;
    the conditions upon which he would sign a bill for a bank, 323;
    reasons to believe he would have signed a bill, 323;
    reply of Mr. Clay, 323;
    Mr. Rives at "the half way house," 323;
    Mr. Tyler's inner circle of advisers, 324;
    caustic remarks of Mr. Clay thereon, 324;
    rumor of a design to make a third party, 324;
    remarks of Mr. Clay upon it, 324;
    the bank was the great issue, 324;
    apostrophe of Mr. Clay, 325;
    reply of Mr. Rives to the imputed cabal--the privy council, 325;
    remarks on sojourning in the half way house, 326;
    rumor of a dictatorship installed in the capitol, 326;
    disclaimer of Mr. Clay, 326;
    conversational debate between Mr. Archer and Mr. Clay, 326, 327;
    vote, 328.

  Effects of the rejection, 328;
    hisses in the Senate and outrages at the President's house, 328;
    an inquiry into the extent of the disturbances moved, 328;
    proceedings dropped, 328;
    visit of Senators to the President, 328;
    remarks of Mr. Clay on this visit, 328;
    further remarks, 329;
    Buchanan in reply pictures scenes that might have happened on the
          same night at the other end of the avenue, 330;
    a motion made to amend the Fiscal bill, so as to prevent members
          of Congress from borrowing money from the institution, 330;
    remarks of Mr. Pierce, 330;
    "incorruptibility of members of Congress, 330;
    what did history teach in relation to the course of members of
          Congress," 331;
    reference to the bank report by Mr. Tyler, 331;
    the vote, 331;
    its significance, 331.

  Two histories to the second attempt at a fiscal bill, 331;
    one public, the other secret, 331;
    bill reported from a select committee on the currency early in the
          session, 332;
    move to strike out all after the enacting clause and insert a new
          bill, 332;
    remarks of Mr. Sargeant on the proposed new bill, 332;
    the bill before committee, 332;
    sharp practice, 332;
    objections to rapid legislation, 333;
    debate on the bill, 333;
    bill passed, 333;
    its title, 333;
    remarks of Mr. Benton in ridicule of the bill, 333;
    referred to a committee, 335;
    a one-sided committee, 335;
    remarks of Mr. King upon the appointment of this committee, 335;
    rule of Jefferson's Manual quoted in justification, 336;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 336;
    remarks of Mr. Buchanan, 337;
    bill reported by the chairman with remarks upon the favorable
          views of the President, 337;
    amendments offered by Mr. Benton, 338;
    objection to the exchange dealings authorized, 339;
    operation of a bill as a discount, 339;
    this exposed by Senator Tappan, 339;
    amendment requiring all the stockholders to be citizens of the
          United States, 340;
    none but citizens allowed to take the original stock would not
          prevent foreigners owning it, 340;
    the bill designed to resurrect by smuggling the United States
          Bank, 340;
    same amendment moved in a different form, 340;
    debate, 340;
    vote, 341;
    the bill compared with the old bank charter, 341;
    bill passed and sent to the President and disapproved, 341;
    violent speaking excited by the veto, 341;
    the speakers, 341;
    nays on the returned bill, 341.

  Secret history of the returned bank bill, 342;
    conversation between Mr. Gilmer and a whig member of the
          House, 342;
    change in Mr. Tyler, 342;
    effect on the whigs, 343;
    newspapers in the President's interest, 343;
    no information given to the cabinet respecting the first veto
          message, 343;
    slight to his cabinet, 343;
    readiness of the President for a second bill as stated by Mr.
          Ewing, 343;
    Mr. Bell's account, 343;
    statement of Mr. A. H. Stuart, 344;
    was the President sincere in his professions, or were they only
          phrases to deceive the whigs and
    calm the commotion which raged in their camp, 344;
    a cabinet meeting on the new bill and proceedings, 345;
    statement of Mr. Ewing, 345;
    the sixteenth fundamental article, 345;
    every part of the bill made to suit the President, 346;
    further exposition, 346;
    statement of Mr. Bell, 346;
    proceedings of the members of the Cabinet under instructions to
          prepare a majority of each House for the passage of the
          second bill, 346;
    grounds of the veto, and the explanations and careful preparation
          of the point on which it turned, 347;
    reason for Mr. Berrien's motion to postpone the consideration of
          the veto and take up the bank bill, 347;
    statement of Mr. A. H. Stuart, 347;
    another side to this statement that the President was in favor of
          the second bill, 348;
    signs and facts which show against it from the beginning, 348;
    letter of Mr. Webster, 349;
    letter of Mr. Botts noticed, 349;
    "Head him or die," 349;
    how the phrase was intended and how interpreted, 349;
    solution of the views of Mr. Tyler, 350;
    he would have signed no bank bill under any name after the eighth
          or ninth day of the session, 350.

    Reception of the veto message in the Senate, 350;
    hisses and applause in the galleries, 350;
    Mr. Benton moves that the Sergeant-at-Arms take into custody those
          who hissed, 351;
    debate on the amount of the disorderly proceedings, 351, 352.
    _See Tyler's Administration._

  _Bank of the United States._--Changes to a State institution, 23;
    history since the expiration of her charter, 23;
    the bill reported in the Assembly of Pennsylvania, 24;
    the tail to a bill to repeal a tax and make roads and canals, 24;
    its reception in the House, 24;
    an explanation demanded, 24;
    letter of Mr. Biddle to J. Q. Adams, 24;
    the first step in the movement, 24;
    how managed, 24;
    the bonus, 24;
    passage of the bill through the legislature, 25;
    indignation of the people, 25;
    investigation of the next legislature, 25;
    remarks, 25.

    Refuses to cease its operations after its legal existence had
          expired, 67;
    its proviso charter made no difference in its condition, 67;
    its use of the defunct notes of the expired institution, 68;
    statement of its conduct by Mr. Buchanan, 68;
    remarks of Calhoun on the right of Congress to pass a bill on this
          subject, 69;
    it rests on the general power of legislation, 69;
    character of the bill, 69;
    this the last question between the bank and the Federal
          government, 69.

  _Resumption by the Pennsylvania U. S. Bank._--Effect of resumption
        by the New York banks, 94;
    convention called in Philadelphia, 94;
    result of its deliberations, 94;
    resumption, 94;
    speedy failure again and forever of the U. S. Bank foretold, 94.

    Exposition of its affairs, 157;
    resignation of Mr. Biddle, 157;
    prediction of Senator Benton, 157;
    suspension, 157;
    its effects, 157;
    another statement of her condition, 158.

    Silence in Congress on this institution, 365;
    her condition, 365;
    report of the affairs to the stockholders, 365;
    the exhibition of waste and destruction, 365;
    proceedings of the bank during the period of the application for a
          recharter, 366;
    its loans, 366;
    to whom made, 366;
    manner in which they were made, 366;
    extract from the report on this point, 366;
    its foreign agencies, 367;
    business of these stock speculations, 367;
    extract, 367;
    losses by the cotton agency, 368;
    extracts from the report, 368;
    the way of the bank in guaranteeing the individual contracts of
          Mr. Biddle, 369;
    unintelligible accounts of large amounts, 369;
    parties concerned refuse to give an explanation, 369;
    entertainments to members of Congress at immense expense, 369;
    losses of stockholders, 369;
    statement of the London Bankers' Circular, 370;
    the credit of the bank and the prices of its stock kept up by
          delusive statements of profits, 370;
    operations to make the second suspension begin in New York, 370;
    extent of the ruin, 371;
    the case of London bankers and their punishment, 371;
    remarks of the Judge on passing sentence, 372. _See Index_,
          vol. 1.

  _Bankrupt Act against the Banks._--Recommended by the President, 43;
    reasons, 43;
    framers of the constitution hard-money men, 43;
    operation of the constitution had nullified this intention, 44;
    a question whether the fault was in the instrument or in the
          administrators, 44;
    remedy now proposed, 44;
    all that was wanted was a Congress to back the President, 44;
    the array against it, 44;
    opposition of Mr. Webster, 44;
    right of Congress questioned, 44;
    doubtless sanctioned by the whole cabinet, 45;
    speech of Mr. Benton, 45;
    "a bankrupt law authorized by the constitution," 45;
    signification of the word bankruptcy, 45;
    what is this grant of power, and does the country require its
          exercise, 45;
    Congress is not confined to English statutory decisions for the
          construction of phrases used in the constitution, 45;
    the term is not of English but Roman origin, 46;
    it is said, we must confine our legislation to the usual objects,
          the usual subjects, and the usual purposes of bankrupt laws
          in England, 46;
    on what act of English legislation can an example be fixed? 46;
    the acts passed on this subject, 47;
    affirmative definitions of the classes liable to bankruptcy in
          England, 47;
    the negative, 47;
    cut off from improvement since the adoption of our constitution,
          48;
    in this view we must find one of two things--a case in point or a
          general authority, 48;
    these considered, 48;
    a case in point, 48;
    the general practice of the British Parliament for five hundred
          years, over the whole subject of bankruptcy, 49;
    it is asked if bankrupt laws ordinarily extend to moneyed
          corporations, 49;
    No; Why? 49;
    the question of corporation unreliability in England, 49;
    do such law ordinarily extend to corporations at all? 50;
    history of our first bankrupt law, 51;
    the bill of 1827, 51;
    it is said, the object of bankrupt laws has no relation to
          currency, 51;
    what says history? 51;
    effect of the application of bankrupt laws in England twofold,
          51;
    recommendation of the President, 51;
    the British bankrupt code as it relates to bank notes, 52;
    all our acts and bills have applied to bankers, 53;
    and why not to banks? 53;
    why this distinction? 53;
    banks of circulation are the fittest subjects of a bankrupt
          law, 53;
    the opinion that there can be no resumption of specie payments
          until the Bank of the United States is rechartered, 54;
    as bankrupts, the Federal authority extends to all the banks, 54;
    other great purposes to be attained by the application of a
          bankrupt law to banks, 54;
    every form of government has something in it to excite the pride
          and to rouse the devotion of its citizens, 55;
    we are called upon to have mercy on the banks, the prayer should
          be to them to have mercy on the citizens, 55;
    Jefferson's legacy is never to suffer the government to fall under
          the control of unauthorized or self-created institutions, 55;
    it is said that bankruptcy is a severe remedy to apply to banks, 56;
    three things for which the banks have no excuse, and which should
          forever weigh against their claims to favor, 56.

    Congress convened at the urgent instance of Mr. Clay, 229;
    a bankrupt act not in the programme of Mr. Clay or the message of
          President Tyler, 229;
    parties nearly balanced in the Senate, 229;
    one member obtains leave to bring in a bill on bankruptcy, 229;
    manner of its passage, 229;
    the bank bill and the land bill made to pass it through both
          Houses, 230;
    its passage through the House, 230;
    amendment, 230;
    proceedings in the Senate to get up the amendment, 230, 231;
    remark of White, of Indiana, 231;
    remark of Senator Benton, 231, remark of Senator Linn, 231;
    bankrupt bill reported as passed the House, 232;
    remarks of Mr. King, 232;
    distribution bill laid on the table and the bankrupt bill taken
          up, 232;
    remarks of Mr. Walker, 232;
    the bank distribution and bankrupt bills travel together, 232;
    remarks on the amendment to the bankrupt bill, 233;
    passed, 233;
    remarks on the nature of the bankrupt bill, 233, 234.

    Speech of Mr. Benton on the bankrupt bill, 234;
    "this is not a bankrupt system but an insolvent law, perverted to
          a discharge from debts, instead of a discharge from
          imprisonment," 234;
    it is framed from the English insolvent debtor act, 234;
    the English acts, 234;
    how came such a bill to be introduced here? 235;
    it is an insolvent bill, 235;
    defended by insisting that insolvency and bankruptcy are the same
          thing, a mere inability to pay debts, 235;
    extracts from Webster's remarks, 235;
    no foundation for confounding bankruptcy and insolvency, 235;
    Blackstone's definition of a bankrupt, 235;
    ability and fraud the basis of the system, 235;
    _cessio bonorum_, 236;
    laws of Scotland, 236;
    _cessio_ examined, 236;
    bankruptcy defined by the laws of Scotland, 237;
    the Code Napoleon, 238;
    the civil law, 238;
    comparison of sections of the bill with the English law, 239;
    voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy under the bill, 240.

  _An attempt to Repeal._--Repeal commenced at the outset of the
       session, 395;
    passed the House and lost in the Senate, 395;
    repealed at the next session, 396;
    the fate of the confederate bills, 396.

  _Repeal._--A repeal of a great act of legislation by the same
        Congress that passed it, 463;
    a homage to the will of the people, 463;
    remarks of Mr. Benton on offering a petition from the State of
          Vermont for the repeal of the act, 463;
    "the act unconstitutional in abolishing debts with the consent of
          a given majority of the creditors, 463;
    principles of the act of 1800, 464;
    forms which the wisdom of the law provided for executing
          itself, 464;
    an invasion of the rights of the States over the ordinary
          relations of debtor and creditor within their own
          limits," 465;
    the passage of the act has been a reproach to Congress, its repeal
          should do them honor, and still more the people under whose
          will it was done, 465;
    a bankrupt act has never been favored by the American people, 465;
    the system has been nearly intolerable in England, 466;
    further remarks, 466.

    An act to repeal promptly passed both houses, 503;
    a splendid victory for the minority, who had resisted the passage
          of the original bill, 503;
    all the authorities had sustained the act, 503;
    sense of the people revolted against it, 503;
    former act repealed in two years, 503;
    its repeal a bitter mortification to the administration, 503;
    Cushing in defence of the act, 504;
    extract, 504;
    an unparliamentary reference to Mr. Clay, 504;
    reply by Mr. Davis, 504;
    Cushing upon the impotent attacks on the administration, 504;
    extracts, 505;
    the seductive arguments of persuasion and enticement used to gain
          adherents to the new administration, 505;
    appeals to the democratic party, 505;
    reply of Mr. Thompson, 505;
    Cushing states that there are persons connected with the
          administration who will yet be heard of for the Presidency,
          505;
    indignant reply of Mr. Thompson, 505;
    reproaches cast upon Cushing, 506;
    Davis upon the charges of Cushing, 506;
    his versatility in defending vetoes, 507.

  _Banks, Suspension of Payment by._--Deranged finances and broken up
        treasury awaited the nascent administration, 9;
    two parties at work to accomplish it, 9;
    condition of the banks, 9;
    remarks of Senator Benton on the prospect, 9;
    do on rescinding the specie circular, 10;
    desperate condition of the deposit banks, 10;
    proper amount of specie to be retained by the banks, 10;
    amount retained by the Bank of England, 10;
    amount retained by the deposit banks, 10;
    conference between Senator Benton and Mr. Van Buren, 10;
    remark of the latter, 10;
    Senator Benton miffed, 10;
    silence, 10;
    course which might have been taken, 11;
    benefits, 11.

  _Preparations for the Distress and Suspension._--Characteristic
        letter of Mr. Biddle, 11;
    picture of ruin presented, alarm given out, and the Federal
          government the cause, 11;
    extracts, 11;
    course followed in and out of Congress, 12;
    reception of Mr. Webster in New York, 12;
    the public meeting, 12;
    cause of this demonstration, 12;
    his speech a manifesto against Jackson's administration, a protest
          against its continuation in the person of his successor, and
          an invocation to a general combination against it, 13;
    the ominous sentence of the speech, 13;
    extract relating to the general distress, 13;
    conclusion of the speech, 13;
    its vehement appeal, 14;
    the specie circular, 14;
    the original draft, 14;
    the rescinding bill, 15;
    President Jackson's action, 15;
    an experiment on the nerves of the President resolved on, 15.

    Consequences of Webster's speech, 16;
    an immense meeting, 16;
    its resolves, 16;
    the word "experiment," 16;
    a committee of fifty to wait on the President, 17;
    to call another meeting on their return, 17;
    co-operation of other cities invited, 17;
    state of feeling as characterized by the press, 17;
    visit of the committee to the President, 18;
    extract from their addresses, 18;
    a written answer of complete refusal, 18;
    their return, 18;
    visit of Mr. Biddle to the President, 19;
    a second meeting in New York, 19;
    report, 19;
    resolutions adopted, 19;
    list of grievances, 19;
    remarks, 20.

  _Actual Suspension._--Suspension not recommended at any public
        meeting, 20;
    the suspension, 20;
    proceedings, 20;
    act of self-defence on the part of the deposit banks, 21;
    course of the United States Bank, 21;
    letter of Mr. Biddle, 21;
    extracts, 21;
    Webster's tour at the West and his speeches, 22;
    first speech at Wheeling, 22;
    extract, 22;
    the time when the suspension was to take place, 22;
    Bank of the United States to be the remedy, 23;
    the contrivance of politicians now exposed, 23.

  _Effects of the Suspension._--Disturbance in the business of the
        country, 26;
    depreciation of bank notes, 26;
    disappearance of small specie, 26;
    "better currency," 26;
    "the whole hog," 26;
    inflammatory publications of the press, 26;
    extracts, 26;
    government payments, 27;
    the medium, 27;
    condition of the administration, 27;
    payment of the Tennessee volunteers, 27;
    its effect, 27;
    visit of the agent to Washington, 27;
    extra session of Congress necessary, 28.

  _Attempted Resumption._--Declaration of the Bank of the United
        States of its ability to continue paying specie, 43;
    resumption commenced in New York, 43;
    resolution, 43;
    committee of correspondence, 43;
    opposition of the Philadelphia interest, 43;
    the explanation, 43.

  _Resumption of Specie Payments by the New York Banks._--The proposed
        convention, 83;
    frustrated by the United States Bank, 83;
    Philadelphia banks refuse to co-operate, 83;
    letter from Mr. Biddle to John Q. Adams, 83;
    a characteristic sentence, 83;
    his threat against the New York banks, 83;
    a general bank convention, 83;
    vote on resumption, 83;
    reasons for the vote, 84;
    resumption by the New York banks, 84;
    resumption general, 84;
    the United States Bank, 84;
    her stock, 84;
    her power, 84;
    speech of Mr. Webster, expressing her wishes, 84;
    her friends come to the rescue for the last time, 85;
    Mr. Benton's remarks, 85.

    "Two periods working the termination of a national bank charter,
          each full of lessons, 85;
    the two compared, 85;
    the quantity of the currency, 86;
    its solidity, 86;
    it is said, there is no specie, 86;
    the cause of the non-resumption is plain and undeniable, 87;
    what say the New York City banks? 87;
    extract from their report, 87;
    the reasons, 87;
    it is said there can be no resumption until Congress act on the
          currency, 88;
    conduct of the leading banks, 88;
    the honest commercial banks have resumed or mean to resume, 89;
    politicians propose to compel the government to receive paper
          money for its dues, 89;
    the pretext is to aid the banks in resuming, 89;
    an enemy lies in wait for the banks, 89;
    power of the United States Bank over others, 90;
    the contrast between former and the present bank stoppages, 90;
    justice to the men of this day," 91.

  _Mr. Clay's Resolution in favor of Resuming Banks._--Proposed to
        make the notes of resuming banks receivable in payment of
        all dues to the Federal government, 91;
    render assistance to the banks, 92.

    No power can prevent the solvent banks from resuming, 92;
    every solvent one in the country will resume in a few months, 92;
    Congress cannot prevent them if it tried, 92;
    the most revolting proposition ever made in Congress, 93;
    proposition lost, 93.

  _Divorce of Bank and State._--The bill is to declare the divorce and
        the amendment is to exclude their notes from revenue
        payments, 56;
    this change to be made gradually, 56;
    it will restore the currency of the constitution and re-establish
          the great acts of 1789 and 1800, 56;
    great evils--pecuniary, political, and moral--have flowed from
          this departure from our constitution, 57;
    loss to the government from the banks, 57;
    losses from the local banks, 57;
    comparison with steamboats, 57;
    the case with the banks, 58;
    the epoch of resumption is to be a perilous crisis to many, 58;
    they fell in time of peace and prosperity, 58;
    banks of circulation are banks of hazard and of failure, 58;
    the power of a few banks over the whole presents a new feature in
          our system, 58;
    they have all become links of one chain, 59;
    the government and its creditors must continue to sustain losses
          if they continue to use such depositories and to receive
          such paper, 59;
    in an instant every disbursing officer in the Union was stripped
          of the money he was going to pay out, 59;
    it was tantamount to a disbandment of the entire government, 59;
    it is a danger we have just escaped, 60;
    the same danger may be seen again if we use them, 60;
    what excuse have we for abandoning the precise advantage for which
          the constitution was formed? 60;
    the moral view of this question not examined, 60;
    the government required to retrace its steps and to return to first
          principles, 61;
    what is the obstacle to the adoption of this course, 61;
    the message recommends four things, 61;
    the right and obligation of the government to keep its own moneys
          in its own hands results from the law of self-preservation,
          61;
    England trusts none of her banks with the collection, keeping, and
           disbursement of her public money, 62;
    what were the "continental treasurers" of the confederation, 62;
    bill reported by the Finance Committee, 62;
    taunted with these treasury notes, 62;
    the case of France on the occasion of the First Consul, 63;
    French currency is the best in the world, 63;
    Congress has a sacred duty to perform in reforming the finances
          and the currency, 64;
    this is a measure of reform worthy to be called a reformation, 65.

    Destined to be carried into effect at this session, 164;
    opposition to it, 164;
    remarks of Mr. Clay, 164;
    bill passed the Senate, 165;
    passed the House under the previous question, 165;
    the title of the bill, 165;
    form in which opposition appeared, 165;
    proceedings in the House, 166;
    title passed by the operation of the previous question, 167.

  _Banks, Specie basis for._--A point of great moment, 128;
    well understood in England, 128;
    vice of the banking system of this country, 128;
    the motion intended to require the bank to keep a certain amount
          of specie, 128;
    testimony of Horsley Palmer, 128;
    requirement on the Bank of England, 129;
    the proportion in England is one-third, 129;
    first object when a bank stops payment, 129;
    the issuing of currency is the prerogative of sovereignty, 130;
    proportion required of the deposit banks, 130;
    effect of the Treasury order of 1836 upon them, 130.

  _Bank Notes, Tax on._--Motion for leave to bring in a bill to tax
        the circulation of banks, bankers, and all corporations
        issuing paper money, 179;
    nothing more just than that this interest should contribute to the
          support of government, 179;
    in other countries it was subject to taxation, 179;
    has formerly been taxed in our country, 179;
    manner of levying the bank tax in Great Britain, 180;
    taxation of the Bank of England, 180;
    equity of the tax, its simplicity, and large product, 180;
    unknown how the banking interest would relish the proposition,
          181;
    petition of Stephen Girard, 181;
    objects of the bill, 181.

  _Banks, District, Re-charter of._--Amendment proposed to the bill
        prohibiting the issue of bills less than five dollars, &c.,
        273;
    "the design is to suppress two evils of banking--that of small
          notes and that of banks combining to sustain each other in
          a state of suspension," 273;
    shall notes banish gold and silver from the country? 274;
    one a curse to the public, 274;
    why are banks so fond of issuing these small notes? 274;
    counterfeiting is of small notes, 274;
    an Insurance Company of St. Louis, 275;
    a proper opportunity to bring before the people the question
          whether they should have an exclusive paper currency or
          not, 275;
    some merchants think there is no living without banks, 275.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  BARBOUR, PHILIP P., decease of, 202;
    his mess, 202;
    his character, 203;
    intellect, 203;
    death, 203;
    instance of self-denial and fidelity to party, 203;
    position in Virginia, 203.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  BARROW, SENATOR, decease of, 706;
    early life, 706;
    his character, 706;
    his intellect 706;
    youth, 706.

  BATES, ISAAC C., on exempting salt from duty, 315.

  BAYARD, R. H., on the slavery resolutions, 139.

  BELL, JOHN, candidate for Speaker, 160;
    Secretary at War, 209;
    on the readiness of President Tyler to sign a second bank bill,
          343, 346;
    his reasons for resigning his seat in President Tyler's cabinet,
          355.

  BENTON, THOMAS H., on the bankrupt act for banks, 45;
    on the divorce of bank and State, 56;
    on the Florida war, 72;
    on bank resumption, 85;
    on the graduation bill, 126;
    on the armed occupation of Florida, 167;
    on the assumption of State debts, 172;
    on the salt tax, 176;
    on the tax on bank notes, 179;
    on the drawback on refined sugar, 190;
    on fishing bounties and allowances, 194;
    on the bankrupt bill, 234;
    on the nature and effect of the previous question, 253;
    on the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison, 262;
    on the issue of small bills, 273;
    on the action of the administration in the McLeod affair, 291;
    on the repeal of the tariff compromise, 312;
    on the committee on the bank bill, 336;
    offers amendment to the second bank bill, 338;
    moves to arrest the persons who hissed in the Senate gallery, 351;
    against the Fiscal plan of Mr. Tyler, 375, 376;
    on paper money payments, 406;
    on the merits of the British treaty, 426;
    on the North-eastern boundary, 438;
    on the North-western boundary, 441;
    on the expenses of the Navy, 456;
    on the Oregon bill, 474;
    eulogy on Linn, 485;
    on the Chinese mission, 512;
    on the annexation of Texas, 619;
    on the authorship of the war with Mexico, 689;
    on the Oregon question, 667;
    his plan for conducting the Mexican war, 678;
    designed for the appointment of Lieutenant-General, 678;
    on the expedition of Col. Doniphan, 684;
    advice relative to the conduct of the war against the northern
          frontiers of Mexico, 687;
    advises with the President relative to the prosecution of the war,
          693;
    his reply to Calhoun's question respecting his support of the
          latter's resolutions, 697;
    on the cause that may dissolve the Union, 715;
    on Clay's compromise plan, 749;
    on the protest of Southern Senators, 771.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  BIBB, GEORGE M., Secretary of the Treasury, 569.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  BIDDLE, NICHOLAS, his letters, 11, 24;
    visits the President, 19;
    his letter to J. Q. Adams, 83;
    decease of, 567;

  BLACK, Mr., on the appropriation for the Military Academy, 468.

  BLAIR, FRANCIS P., statement of the declaration of Mr. Polk relative
        to the mode of Texas annexation, 637.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  BOTTS, JOHN M., on the protest of President Tyler, 419.

  BREDON, Mr., on the nomination of Van Buren, 593.

  BREWSTER, Mr., on the nomination of Van Buren, 592.

  _Brig Somers_, Mutiny on board. _See Somers._

  _British Treaty._--The Maine boundary still unsettled, 420;
    particulars of the case, 420;
    subject referred to the King of the Netherlands, 420;
    his award rejected, 420;
    Ashburton appointed on a special mission, 420;
    professing to come to settle all questions--only such were settled
          as suited Great Britain, 421;
    points embraced in the treaty, 421;
    points omitted, 421;
    return of Ashburton, 421;
    thanks of Parliament to him, 421;
    discussion in Parliament, 422;
    the map having the original line of the North-eastern boundary
          hidden from Lord Ashburton's, 422;
    remark of Brougham, 422;
    his speech when charged with a want of frankness to this country,
          422;
    extract, 422;
    sport in the British Parliament, 422;
    map shown to Mr. Everett, 423;
    statement of the result of the treaty on this point by an English
          speaker, 423;
    manner of conducting the negotiations, 423;
    no instructions given to the Secretary of State, 423;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 423;
    the action of certain Senators forestalled, 424;
    the treaty or war was the constant alternative presented, 424;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 424;
    extract, 424;
    his remarks on the unsettled points of difficulty, 425.

    Mr. Benton's remarks on the merits of the treaty, 426;
    "four subjects omitted--the Columbia River and valley,
          impressment, the outrage on the Caroline, and the liberation
          of American slaves, 426.

    "The Oregon territory, 426;
    remark on the President's message relative to its omission from
          the negotiation, 426;
    the American title to the Columbia River and its valley stated,
          426, 427;
    the treaty of 1818, 427;
    its great fault, 428;
    another fault was in admitting a claim on the part of Great
          Britain to any portion of these territories, 428;
    our title under the Nootka Sound treaty, 428;
    Sir Alexander McKenzie, 429;
    the British title to the Columbia, 429;
    it is asked, what do we want of this country so far off from
          us? 430;
    the value and extent of the country, 430.

    "Impressment is another of the omitted subjects, 430;
    correspondence upon it, 431;
    manner in which it was treated, 431;
    how different this holiday scene from the firm and virile language
          of Mr. Jefferson, 432;
    if this treaty is ratified, we must begin where we were in 1806,
          432.

    "The case of the liberated slaves of the Creole is another of the
          omitted subjects, 432;
    only one of a number of cases recently occurred, 432;
    peculiarity of these cases, 433;
    each of these vessels should have been received with the
          hospitality due to misfortune, and allowed to depart with
          all convenient dispatch and with all her contents, of
          persons and property, 433;
    remarks of the President's message, 433;
    the grounds taken by the Government and the engagements entered
          into by the British Minister, examined, 433;
    Lord Ashburton proposes London as the best place to consider this
          subject, 434.

    "The burning of the Caroline, another of the omitted subjects,
          434;
    this case is now near four years old, 435;
    the note of Lord Ashburton sent to us by the President, 435;
    it is said there is a certain amount of gullibility in the public
          mind which must be provided for, 436;
    the letter of our Secretary, 436;
    the whole negotiation has been one of shame and injury, but this
          catastrophe of the Caroline puts the finishing hand to our
          disgrace, 437;
    the timing of this negotiation after the retirement of Mr. Van
          Buren, and when the Government was in more pliable hands, 437;
    further remarks, 437."

  _The North-eastern Boundary Article._--Remarks of Mr. Benton. The
        establishment of the low land boundary in place of the
        mountain boundary, and parallel to it, 438;
    contrived for the purpose of weakening our boundary and retiring
          it further from Quebec, 438;
    character of this line, 438;
    remarks, 438;
    a palliation attempted, 439;
    letters on the subject, 439;
    plea of Ashburton, 440;
    to mitigate the enormity of this barefaced sacrifice, a
          description of the soil given, 440;
    report of Mr. Buchanan and the resolution of the Senate, 440;
    the award of the King of the Netherlands infinitely better for
          us, 441.

  _North-western Boundary._--"The line from the Lake of the Woods to
        the Mississippi, was disputable, 441;
    that from Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods described, 442;
    proposition of a British traveller to turn the line down from
          Isle-Royale near two hundred miles to St. Louis River, 442;
    reasons, 442;
    words of Ashburton, 443;
    what he claimed, he got, 443;
    the value of the concession, 443;
    the Secretary put himself to the trouble to hunt testimony to
          justify his surrender of the northern route to the British,
          443;
    his letter, 443;
    answer of Mr. Ferguson, 444;
    do. of Mr. Delafield, 444;
    the answers refused to follow the lead of the questions, asked,"
          444.

  _Extradition Article._--"It stipulates for the mutual surrender of
        fugitive criminals, 444;
    no light on the origin, progress, and formation of this article,
          445;
    this is a subject long since considered in our country, 445;
    Jefferson's views, 445;
    these surrenders could only be under three limitations, 445;
    his proposition, 445;
    compared with the article of the treaty, 445;
    it is said to be copied from the article in Jay's treaty, 446;
    the two articles, 446;
    difference between them, 446;
    another essential difference, which nullifies the article in its
          material bearing, 447;
    words of the message relative to this article, 448;
    nothing can be more deceptive and fallacious than its
          recommendation, 448;
    what offences are embraced, and what excluded," 448.

  _African Squadron for the Suppression of the Slave Trade._--Nothing
        in relation to the subject in the shape
    of negotiation is communicated to us, 449;
    the immediate and practical effects which lie within our view, and
          display the enormous expediency of the measure, 449;
    the expense in money, 449;
    in what circumstances do we undertake all this fine work? 450;
    Great Britain is not the country to read us a lesson upon the
          atrocity of the slave trade, or to stimulate our exertions
          to suppress it, 450;
    these articles of the treaty bind us in this alliance with Great
          Britain, 451;
    the papers communicated do not show at whose instance these
          articles were inserted, 451.

  BROUGHAM, LORD, speech relative to the Ashburton treaty, 422.

  BROWN, CHARLES, on the coast survey, 488.

  BUCHANAN, JAMES, his proposition relative to the deposit fund, 37;
    on the slavery resolutions, 138;
    on the committee on the bank bill, 337;
    on the disorder in the Senate gallery, 351;
    on the Missouri Compromise line, 633;
    Secretary of State, 650.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  BUTLER, BENJAMIN F., Attorney-General, 9;
    resigns, 9;
    on the adoption of the two-thirds rule in the democratic
          convention, 591.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  BUTLER, WILLIAM O., on the action of the administration in the
        McLeod affair, 291;
    nominated for the Vice-Presidency, 722.


  C

  CALHOUN, JOHN C., debate with Clay, 97;
    justifies his resolutions, 139;
    resolution relative to the liberation of slaves in British
          colonial ports, 182;
    in opposition to the war rule, 250;
    against the previous question, 255;
    on the passage of the bill declaring war in 1812, 256;
    passage with Clay, 257;
    on the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison, 260;
    on the naval pension act, 267;
    on the repeal of the compromise, 311, 312, 313;
    on exempting salt from duty, 316;
    on expenditures, 397;
    on naval expenditures, 452;
    on the Oregon settlement bill, 471;
    appointed Secretary of State, 569;
    opens negotiations on Oregon, 661;
    offers resolutions relative to slavery, 696;
    in relation to the Oregon territorial bill, 711, 714;
    on the dissolution of the Union, 715;
    on extending the constitution to territories, 730;
    his last speech, 744, 769.

    Decease of, 747;
    eulogium by Senator Butler, 747;
    birth, 747;
    student, 747;
    a member of Congress, 747;
    his fellow-members, 747;
    his political career, 748;
    rank as a parliamentary speaker, 748.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  _California, Admission of._--The test question in the great slavery
        agitation, 769;
    remarks of Calhoun in his last speech, 769;
    passage of the bill, 769;
    protest of ten Senators opposed to it, 769;
    extract, 769;
    the signers, 770;
    question of reception raised, 770;
    remarks of Senator Benton, 771;
    reception refused, 772.

  _Caroline_, a steamboat, her destruction, 278.

  CASS, LEWIS, on the fugitive slave bill, 779;
    nominated for the Presidency, 722.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  CATRON, JOHN, Judge of the Supreme Court, 9.

  _Cessio bonorum_, the law of, 236.

  _Chinese Mission._--Bill reported to provide the means of opening
        future intercourse between the United States and China, 510;
    extract from the bill, 510;
    objectionable features of the bill, 510;
    the act of 1790, 510;
    moved to strike out the restrictions to the use of the money, 510;
    remarks of Mr. Merriweather in opposition to the amendment, 511;
    further debate, 511;
    McKeon in opposition to the whole scheme, 511;
    amendment adopted, 512;
    bill passed, 512.

    Mr. Cushing takes no part in the discussion, 518;
    bill called up in the Senate at midnight on the last day, 512;
    Mr. Benton's remarks against the mission, 512;
    "no necessity for a treaty with China, 512;
    the outfit, 512;
    ill framed after the act of 1790," 513;
    further debate, 513;
    amendment carried, that no agent be appointed without the consent
          of the Senate, 514;
    no nomination made before the adjournment, 514;
    Mr. Cushing appointed in the recess, 514;
    remarks, 514;
    outfit of the minister, 515;
    his embarkation, 515;
    arrival, 515;
    address to the Governor-General of Canton, 515;
    reply, 515;
    correspondence, 515;
    no necessity for a treaty of commerce on the part of the United
          States, 515;
    remarks, 516;
    Mr. Cushing objects to delay to send to Pekin, 516;
    extracts, 516, 517;
    threats, &c., 517;
    remonstrance of the Governor, 517;
    a salute to the ship demanded, 518;
    remonstrance of the Governor, 518;
    threats of war to China, 518;
    reply of the Governor, 519;
    rejoinder of Mr. Cushing, 519;
    further complaints from Mr. Cushing, 519;
    answer from the Emperor, 520;
    arrival of a commissioner to treat, 520;
    difficulty, 520;
    justification for not going to Pekin, 521;
    remarks, 521;
    effect of the publication of the correspondence, 522.

  CLARK, J. C., in the Chinese mission, 501.

  CLAY AND CALHOUN--_Debate between_.--Calhoun's co-operation with
        Clay and Webster, 97;
    co-operates with the democrats, 97;
    feelings of the opposition, 97;
    a feeling of personal resentment against Calhoun, 97;
    Clay's talent for philippic, 97;
    bursting of the storm, 97;
    Calhoun's speech in favor of the Independent Treasury, 97;
    answer of Mr. Clay, 97;
    time for preparation, 98;
    the attack on Calhoun, 98;
    his reply, 98;
    rejoinder of Mr. Clay, 99;
    rejoinders, 99;
    attempted excuse of Clay for making the attack, 99;
    the Edgefield letter, 99;
    character of this contest between two eminent men, and of their
          oratory, 99;
    Fox and Burke, 100;
    remarkable passages in the speeches of each, 100;
    remarks, 100;
    Mr. Clay's speech, 101.

    "Who are most conspicuous of those pressing this bill upon
          Congress and the American people? 101;
    its endorser the Senator from South Carolina, 101;
    intimated that my course in opposing the bill was unpatriotic,
          101;
    the arduous contest in which we were so long engaged was about to
          terminate in a glorious victory, 102;
    at this critical moment the Senator left us, 102;
    the speech of the Senator, 102;
    the alternatives presented, 102;
    if we denounced the pet bank system, must we take a system
          infinitely worse? 103;
    attack upon the whole banking system of the United States, 103;
    the doctrine of 1816, 103;
    we concur in nothing now," 103.

    Reply of Mr. Calhoun, 103;
    "he has not even attempted to answer a large and not the least
          weighty portion of my remarks, 104;
    the introduction of personal remarks, which cannot pass unnoticed,
          104;
    no shadow of a pretext for this attack, 104;
    what can be his motive? 104;
    the weakness of his cause has led him to personalities, 104;
    the leading charge is that I have left his side and joined the
          other, 105;
    three questions involved in the present issue, 105;
    remarks four years ago, 105;
    another reference to the record, 105;
    the measure of renewing the charter of the bank, 106;
    relations with Mr. Webster, 106;
    statement of his past course by further reference to speeches,
          107;
    the charge of desertion falls prostrate to the ground, 107;
    the first fruits of union in the attack would have been a national
          bank, 108;
    explanation of views expressed in the Edgefield letter, 108;
    further explanation of views entertained, 109;
    present political position, 110;
    the attack on my intellectual faculties, 110;
    qualities wanting in Clay's mind, 110;
    commencement of Calhoun's public life, 111;
    support of the Navy, 111;
    the restrictive system opposed, 111;
    the bank proposed in 1814, 111;
    administration of the War Department, 112;
    the Vice-President's chair," 112.

    Rejoinder of Mr. Clay, 112;
    "anxious to avoid all personal controversy, 112;
    a painful duty, 112;
    ever anxious to think well of Calhoun, 112;
    the Edgefield letter, 112;
    extract, 113;
    nullification overthrew the protective policy! 113;
    it sanctioned the constitutional power it had so strongly
          controverted, 113;
    no one ever supposed the protective policy would be perpetual,
          113;
    further extract from the Edgefield letter, 114;
    he has left no party and joined no party, 114;
    charges me with going over on some occasion, 114;
    the stale calumny of George Kremer, 114;
    who went in 1825, 115;
    charges me with always riding some hobby, 115;
    he is free from all reproach of sticking to hobbies," 115.

    Rejoinder of Mr. Calhoun, 116;
    "the Senator tells us that he is among the most constant men in
          this world, 116;
    his speech remarkable both for its omissions and mistakes," 116.

    Rejoinder of Mr. Clay, 116;
    "he says, if I have not changed principles, I have at least got
          into strange company, 117;
    extract from his speeches, 117;
    the dispute about the protection of cotton manufacture," 117.

    Rejoinders, 118;
    conclusion, 118;
    reconciliation of Calhoun with Van Buren, 118;
    sinister motives charged, 119;
    further taunts of Mr. Clay, 119;
    the change of Clay to the side of Adams, 119;
    expositions of the compromise of 1833, 119;
    bargain charged between Clay and Adams, 120;
    remarks, 120;
    Calhoun for the succession, 120;
    Calhoun and Van Buren, 120;
    source of the real disorders of the country, 121;
    Adams and Clay, 121;
    the threat of Gen. Jackson, 120;
    the compromise measure, 122;
    Webster on the side of Jackson at the time of nullification, 122;
    "he my master," 123;
    further remarks, 123.

  CLAY, HENRY, on the slavery resolutions, 138;
    offers a programme of measures for Tyler's administration, 219;
    proposes to introduce the hour rule in the Senate, 250;
    on exempting salt from duty, 316;
    on the veto of the bank by President Tyler, 318;
    his feelings on the veto of the bank bill by President Tyler, 356.

    _Retirement of._--Resigns his seat in the Senate, and delivers a
          valedictory address, 398;
    reasons, 398;
    formally announces his retirement, 399;
    extract, 399;
    period at which he had formed the design of retiring, 399;
    time when the design was really formed, 399;
    could have been elected when Harrison was, 399;
    that triumph a fruitless one, 399;
    reasons for not resigning at the time intended, 400;
    reasons for appearing at the regular session, 400;
    the formation of a new cabinet wholly hostile to him, and the
          attempt to take the whig party from him, 400;
    the failure of his measures, 400;
    review of the past, 401;
    extract, 401;
    thanks to his friends, 401;
    notice of foes, 401;
    imputation of the dictatorship, 402;
    extract, 402;
    secret of Clay's leadership, 402;
    forgiveness implored for offences, 402;
    a tribute to Crittenden, 403;
    a motion to adjourn, 403;
    the criticism of Senators on the valedictory, 403.

    Candidate for the Presidency in 1844, 625.

    His plan for a compromise, 742;
    all measures to be settled in one bill, 742;
    the manner, 742;
    failure, 742.

    Resolution respecting slavery in New Mexico, 743;
    Davis advocates the extension of the Missouri Compromise to the
          Pacific, 743;
    reply of Mr. Clay, 743;
    vote 744;
    Senator Benton's speech against it, 749;
    a bill of thirty-nine sections pressed upon us as a remedy for the
          national calamities, 749;
    no political distress, 749;
    a parcel of old bills which might each have been passed by itself
          long ago, 750;
    how did the committee get possession of these bills? 750;
    the California bill made the scape-goat of all, 750;
    reasons for urging the conjunction of the State and Territories,
          751;
    the territorial government bills are now the object, and put with
          the California bill to make them more certain, 752;
    all the evils of incongruous conjunctions here exemplified, 753;
    the compensation to California, 754;
    the reasons of the committee present grave errors in law, both
          constitutional and municipal, and of geography and history,
          754;
    features of the Texas bill, 755;
    division line of New Mexico and Texas, 756;
    the possession of New Mexico continuous, &c., 757;
    further remarks on the original territory of New Mexico, 758;
    question of large emancipation, 759;
    grounds for refusal to extend slavery into New Mexico, 760;
    the point of the true objection to the extension of slavery
          mistaken, 760;
    fugitive slave bill and slave trade suppression in the District of
          Columbia, 761;
    no parties to the compromise, 762;
    Dr. Jacob Townsend and Dr. Samuel Townsend, 763;
    further remarks, 764, 765;
    rejection of Clay's plan, 768.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  CLAYTON, JOHN M., Secretary of State, 737.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  _Coast Survey._--Its origin, 487;
    growth and importance, 487;
    become a civil department almost, 487;
    efforts to restore the naval superintendence, 488;
    movement for its re-organization, 488;
    remarks of Mr. B. Mallory in support of it, 488;
    proposition to reduce the appropriation and to transfer the work
          from the Treasury to the Navy Department, to be done by army
          and naval officers, 488;
    an examination of the laws on the subject, 482, 490;
    proposition rejected, 491;
    another made and rejected, 491.

    Belongs to the Navy Department, 726;
    manner of its execution in Great Britain, 727;
    the great cost of the survey, 727;
    the Navy should do the whole and get the credit, 728;
    our Bureau of Hydrography has only a divided and subordinate part
          of the survey, 728;
    our officers not incompetent, 728;
    our Navy large and nearly idle, 729.

  COBB, HOWELL C., chosen Speaker, 740.

  COLLAMER, JACOB, Postmaster General, 737.

  _Committee_ of fifty to wait on the President, 17.

  _Congress_, extra session, 28;
    its members, 28;
    their character, 29;
    first session of the twenty-sixth convenes, 158;
    its members, 158;
    New Jersey contested election, 159;
    first session of twenty-seventh, 213;
    its members, 213;
    difficulty of organization, 215;
    first session of twenty-eighth, 563;
    its members, 563;
    organization of the House, 565;
    twenty-ninth convenes, 655;
    list of members, 655;
    election of Speaker, 656;
    meeting of the second session of the twenty-ninth, 677;
    first session of the thirtieth, 702;
    its members, 702, 703;
    first session of thirty-first, 738;
    its members, 738, 739;
    numerous ballots for Speaker, 740.

  CONRAD, CHARLES M., Secretary at War, 768.

  _Contested Election of New Jersey._--Two sets of members, 159;
    one set holding the certificates, the other claiming to have
          received a majority of the votes, 159;
    both referred to the committee of contested elections, 159;
    House organize, 159;
    issue put on the rights of the voters, 159;
    the result, 160;
    the contest in the House for Speaker, 160;
    its result, 160;
    its causes, 160.

  CORWIN, THOMAS, Secretary of the Treasury, 768.

  CRAWFORD, GEORGE W., Secretary at War, 737.

  CRAWFORD, WILLIAM H., decease of, 562;
    a great man, who became greater as he was closely examined, 562;
    his appearance in 1821, 563;
    a formidable candidate for the Presidency, 563;
    pulled down in 1824, 563;
    service in the Senate, 563;
    talents, 563;
    Minister to France, 563;
    Secretary of the Treasury, 563;
    a dauntless foe to nullification, 563.

  _Creole, the American brig._--A case of slaves liberated by British
        authorities while on the voyage from one American port to
        another, 409;
    brig bound from Richmond to New Orleans, mutiny and massacre by
          the slaves, 409;
    affidavit of the master at Nassau, N. P.--proceedings at Nassau,
          410, 411;
    this was the fifth of such outrages, 411;
    the Caroline affair still unatoned for, 411;
    call upon the President for information, 411;
    remarks of Mr. Calhoun on moving a reference to the Committee on
          Foreign relations, 411;
    despatch of the Secretary of State, 412;
    approved in the Senate, 413;
    allusion to the mission of Lord Ashburton, 413.

  CRITTENDEN, JOHN J., on the slavery resolutions, 138;
    Attorney General, 209;
    reasons for resigning his seat in President Tyler's Cabinet, 356;
    eulogy on Dean, 487;
    Attorney General, 768.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  CUSHING, CALEB, attack on the President's message, 33;
    on the organization of the House, 215;
    defends the Administration in the McLeod affair, 289;
    opposes the reduction of certain missions, 305;
    replies to the Whig manifesto against Mr. Tyler, 359;
    report on the third fiscal agent, 394;
    in defence of the Bankrupt Act, 504;
    his nomination rejected in the Senate, 629.


  D

  DALLAS, GEORGE M., elected Vice-President, 625.

  _Danish Sound Dues._--Report of Mr. Webster, 362;
    "the right of Denmark to levy these dues, 362;
    recognized by European governments in several treaties, 362;
    the tariff of 1645 never been revised, 362;
    other charges, 363;
    American commerce," 363;
    negotiations to obtain the benefit of all reductions recommended,
          363;
    remarks, 364;
    success of these recommendations, 364;
    commerce of different nations through the Sound, 364.

  DAVIS, G., reply to Mr. Cushing, 504, 506.

  DAVIS JOHN W., chosen Speaker, 656.

  DEAN, EZRA, on the home squadron, 577.

  _Democratic Convention._--A motley assemblage, 591;
    almost all under instructions for Mr. Van Buren, 591;
    Van Buren to be nominated on the first ballot, unless a movement
          made, 591;
    motion to adopt the two-thirds rule, 591;
    objected to as in violation of a fundamental principle, 591;
    remarks of Morton, 591;
    Butler enforces the majority rule, 591;
    remarks, 591;
    adoption of the rule, 592;
    the ballotings, 592;
    moved that Mr. Van Buren, having received a majority, be declared
          nominated, 592;
    violent debate, 592;
    division in the Pennsylvania delegation, 593;
    Van Buren withdrawn and Polk nominated, 594;
    a surprise and a marvel to the country, 594;
    nomination and declining of Silas Wright for the Vice-Presidency,
          594;
    object of stating these facts, 595.

  _Refusal of Mr. Calhoun to submit his name._--His objections, 596;
    the mode of choosing the delegates, and the manner of their
          giving their votes, 596;
    extract, 596;
    the convention not constituted in conformity to the fundamental
          articles of the republican creed, 596;
    the working of the constitution on an election, 596;
    Congressional presidential caucuses put down by the will of the
          people, 597;
    convention system more objectionable than the Congressional
          caucus, 597;
    the objection to the convention system that States voted which
          could not aid in the election, 598;
    extract, 598;
    the danger of centralizing the nomination in the hands of a few
          States by the present mode, 598;
    danger of throwing the nomination into the meshes of a train-band
          of office-holders and office-seekers, 598;
    any President may now nominate his successor, 599;
    remarks, 599.

  _Deposits with the States, retention of._--Terms of the deposit, 36;
    amounts deposited, 36;
    wants of the Treasury, 36;
    the cheat of the bill, 36;
    bill to postpone the fourth instalment, 36;
    its reception, 36;
    remarks of Webster, 36;
    of others, 36;
    proposition of Mr. Buchanan, 37;
    remarks of Mr. Niles, 37;
    proposition carried, 37;
    principle of the deposit act reversed, 37;
    a disposition in the House to treat the act as a contract, and to
          enforce it, 37;
    remarks of Cushing on this point, 37;
    remarks, 38;
    carried, 38;
    reconsidered and postponed to January 1st, 1839, 38;
    fourth instalment finally relinquished, 38;
    end of this scheme, 39;
    remarks, 39.

  DICKERSON, MAHLON, Secretary of the Navy, 9.

  _Dictatorship_ charged upon Mr. Clay, 359.

  _Distribution of the Public Lands Revenue._--Two hundred millions
        due from states and corporations to Europe, 240;
    indirect assumption by giving the public lands revenue recommended
          by President Tyler, 241;
    a violation of the constitution, 241;
    remarks of Calhoun, 241;
    what a time for squandering this patrimony, 241;
    indebtedness, 241;
    state of the national defences, 242;
    picture of taxation in England, 242;
    an open exertion of a foreign interest to influence our
          legislation manifested, 243;
    remarks of Fernando Wood, 243;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 243;
    the bill denounced as unconstitutional, 244;
    the constitution was not made to divide money, 244;
    bill bound to pass, 245;
    its features, 245;
    supposed this scheme would be popular, 245;
    passed, 245;
    the course of these distribution bills, 246;
    remarks, 247.

  _Disunion movements._--Extract from a South Carolina paper, 780;
    an organ of disunion established at Washington, 781;
    disunion convention at Nashville, 781;
    reasons given by the States for their action, 781;
    an issue of fact taken on their truth, 781;
    declarations of speakers in the South Carolina Legislature, 782,
          783;
    extracts from public addresses, 783;
    Fourth of July toasts, 784;
    failure of a Southern Congress, 784;
    interpretation of Calhoun's last speech, 784;
    changes in the causes ascribed for disunion, 785;
    inauguration of the slavery agitation, how it was done, 786;
    views of Mr. Madison, 786.

  DOUGLAS, STEPHEN A., moves to extend the Missouri Compromise line
        to the Pacific, 711.

  DREW, CAPTAIN, his report of the capture of the Caroline, 279.


  E

  _Electric Telegraph._--Concerted signals for communicating
        intelligence, 578;
    first telegraphs, 578;
    idea of using electricity first broached by Dr. Franklin, 578;
    Prof. Morse gave practical application to the idea, 578;
    his progress in the invention, 578;
    application to Congress, 578;
    results as relates to public defence, 578.

  EWING, THOMAS, Secretary of the Treasury, 209;
    states the readiness of President Tyler to sign a second bank
          bill, 343-345;
    reasons for resigning his seat in President Tyler's cabinet, 354;
    Secretary of the Home Department, 737.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  _Exchequer Board._--The plan for a bank proposed by President Tyler,
        376;
    Mr. Benton's speech against it, 376;
    "we have gone back beyond the times of Hamilton, 376;
    to those of Walpole and Queen Anne, 376;
    the administration of Walpole, the fountain-head of British woes,
          377;
    extract from Smollett's continuation of Hume, 377;
    corporations brought into existence by him, 377;
    further extract, 378;
    contrast with those in the United States, 378;
    corporation credit ruined by the explosions of banks and companies
          in both countries, 379;
    the origin of our exchequer scheme, 379;
    the manner in which this exchequer system has worked in England,
          and from its workings there we may judge of its workings
          here, 380;
    amount of exchequer bills issued, 380;
    the rapid growth and dangerous perversion of such issues, 381;
    the British debt is the fruit of the exchequer system in Great
          Britain, the same that we are now urged to adopt and under
          the same circumstances, 381;
    let no one say the exchequer and funding system will not work in
          the same way in this country, 382;
    if there were a thousand constitutional provisions in favor of
          paper money, I should still be against it on account of its
          own inherent baseness and vice, 383;
    remarks of Webster on hard money in 1816, 383;
    felicitation of the Senator from Virginia over these exchequer
          bills, 384;
    remark of Hamilton against Government paper money, 385;
    division of the Whigs, 385;
    the Tyler-Webster Whigs for Government banking, 385;
    what are the pretexts for this flagrant attempt? 385;
    distress still the staple of all whig speeches made here, 386;
    action of the Biddle King Bank, 386;
    was not all distress to cease when the democracy were turned out?
          387;
    the cry is distress! and the remedy a national poultice of
          lamp-black and rags;
    a national currency of uniform value, and universal circulation is
          what modern whigs demand, meaning all the while a national
          currency of paper money, 388;
    specie acquisitions during the last twenty years, 388;
    Gallatin on the quantity of gold and silver in Europe and America,
          388;
    points upon which the statesman's attention should be fixed, 388;
    the quantity of paper money per head which any nation can use,
          389;
    the facility with which any industrious country can supply itself
          with a hard money currency, 390;
    the currency of Cuba, 390;
    Holland and Cuba have the best currencies in the world, 391;
    no abundant currency, low interest, and facility of loans except
          in hard money countries, 391;
    the soldiers of Mark Antony, 391;
    people believe the old continental bills are to be revived and
          restored to circulation by the Federal Government, 392;
    proposition to supply the administration with these old bills,
          instead of putting out a new emission, 393;
    advantages of the old bills," 393.

    The measure immediately taken up in either branch of Congress,
          394;
    a select committee of the House, 394;
    report, 394;
    extracts, 394;
    the measure recommended for adoption, 394;
    the bill, 395;
    died a natural death, 395;
    committee of the Senate discharged from the consideration of the
          measure, 395.

  _Expenditures of the Government._--Tendency of all governments to
        increase their expenses, and it should be the care of all
        statesmen to restrain them, 198;
    economy a principle in the political faith of the Republican
          party, 198;
    gradual increase, 198;
    report of the Secretary on the ordinary and extraordinary payments
          and the public debts, 199;
    three branches of public expenditure, 199;
    evils of extravagance, 199;
    room for reduction, 199;
    speech of Senator Benton, 200;
    "character and contents of the tables reported by the Secretary of
          the Treasury, 200;
    expenses of 1824 and of 1839 compared, 200;
    expenses of 1824, 201;
    expenses of 1889, 201;
    further remarks on the statements," 202.

    The civil list, its expenditures, 397;
    extract from Calhoun's speech, 397;
    "the contingent expenses of the two Houses of Congress, 398;
    increased expense of collecting the duties on imports," 398;
    facts to be gleaned from these statements, 398.

  _Expense of the Navy._--The naval policy of the United States a
        question of party division from the origin of parties, 452;
    the policy of a great navy developed with great vigor under Mr.
          Tyler, 452;
    recommendations of the new Secretary, 452;
    remarks of Mr. Calhoun, 452;
    "aggregate expense of the British navy in 1840, 452;
    its force, 453; force of our navy, 453;
    the great increase proposed in the navy over last year is at the
          head of the objects of retrenchment, 453;
    expenses of the government of three classes, 453;
    estimates," 453;
    remarks of Mr. Woodbury, 454;
    extract, 454;
    present naval establishment a war rate, 455;
    limitations of the act of 1806, 455;
    increase carried, 455;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 456.

    "The attempt made in 1822 to limit and fix a naval peace
          establishment, 456;
    actual state of the navy in 1841 and 1842, 456;
    extract from Bayard's report, 456;
    examine the plan in its parts, and see the enormity of its
          proportions, 457;
    the cost of each gun afloat, and the number of men to work it,
          457;
    I am asked how I get at these $9,000 cost for each gun afloat,
          458;
    correctness of the statement, 458;
    Clay's resolutions, 459;
    it is an obligation of imperious duty on Congress to arrest the
          present state of things, to turn back the establishment to
          what it was a year ago," 459.

    Remarks of Mr. Merriweather, 482;
    no hostility to the service led to a desire to reduce the pay of
          the navy, 482;
    pay at different periods, 482, 483;
    fifty thousand dollars required to defray the expenses of
          court-martials the present year, 483;
    further points on which reduction can be made, stated, 484.

    Annual appropriation considered, 507;
    amendment moved to reduce number of master-mates, 507;
    remarks of Cave Johnson, 507;
    "should have a peace establishment for the navy as well as the
          army, 507;
    table of the British service, 507;
    expenditures, 508;
    squadrons," 508.

    Principle of a naval force establishment nowhere developed, 508;
    the amount of danger must be considered to measure the amount of
          a naval peace establishment, 508;
    remarks of Mr. Hamlin on abuses in the navy, 509;
    enormous increase in the number of officers of the navy, 509;
    items of extravagance, 509;
    Hale's remarks on the abuses in the navy expenditures, and the
          irresponsibility of officers, 509;
    excess of navy-yards, 509;
    no results attended the movement, 509.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  "_Experiment_," the staple word of distress oratory, 16.

  _Explosion of the Great Gun._--Excursion on board the Princeton,
        567;
    the company, 567;
    the day, 567;
    the guns of the vessel, 567;
    trip down the Potomac, 567;
    the firing, 568;
    the President called back as he was about to witness it, 568;
    the explosion, 568;
    the fatal results, 568;
    the effect on Col. Benton of the concussion, 569.


  F

  FEATHERSTONHAUGH, Mr., remarks on the results of the Ashburton
        Treaty, 423.

  FICKLIN, ORLANDO, on the appropriation for the military academy,
        468.

  FILLMORE, MILLARD, on the veto of the provisional tariff, 415;
    candidate for Vice-President, 722;
    elected, 723;
    his inauguration as President, 767;
    first official act, 767;
    public funeral of Gen. Taylor, 763.

  _Florida Armed Occupation Bill._--Armed occupation, with land to the
        occupant, is the true way of settling and holding a conquered
        country, 167;
    fashion to depreciate the services of the troops in Florida, 168;
    besides their military labors, our troops have done an immensity
          of service of a different kind, 168;
    the military have done their duty, and deserved well of their
          country, 169;
    the massacre on the banks of the Calvosahatchee, 169;
    the plan of Congress has been tried and ended disastrously, 169;
    we have to choose between granting the means, or doing nothing,
          170;
    Florida cannot be abandoned, 170;
    it is the armed settler alone whose presence announces dominion,
          170;
    this is the most efficient remedy, 171;
    the peninsula is a desolation, 171.

  _Florida Indian War._--See _Indian War_.

  _Florida and Iowa_, admission of, 660;
    admitted by a single bill, 660;
    arose from the antagonistic provisions on the subject of Slavery,
          660;
    free and slave States thus numerically even, 660.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  _Foreign Missions, Reduction of._--Moved to strike from the
        appropriation bill the salaries of some missions, 305;
    question how far the House had a right to interfere with these
          missions, and control them by withholding compensation, 305;
    "the appointment of ministers gives them certain vested rights,"
          305;
    idea of vested rights scouted, 306;
    time to inquire into their propriety when voting the salaries,
          306;
    remarks of Mr. Ingersoll, 306;
    resolution of Mr. Adams to reduce the expenditures by reducing
          the number of ministers, 306;
    the subject should be pursued, and the object accomplished, 306;
    many branches belong to the inquiry, 306.

  FORSYTH, JOHN, Secretary of State, 9;
    decease of, 659;
    career of honor, 659;
    connection with Crawford, 659;
    rank as a debater, 659;
    in social life, 659.

  FORWARD, WALTER, Secretary of the Treasury, 356.

  FRANKLIN, WALTER S., elected Clerk, 29.

  FRAZER, Mr., on the nomination of Van Buren, 593.

  FRELINGHUYSEN, THEODORE, candidate for the Vice-Presidency in 1844,
        625.

  FRENCH, B. B., chosen Clerk of the House, 656;
    chosen clerk, 703.

  FREMONT, JOHN C.--His first expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 478;
    how it came about, 478;
    Senator Linn moves the printing of the report of this expedition,
          478;
    remarks upon the objects and results of the expedition 478-479.

    _Second Expedition._--Its grand results, 579;
    not an offspring of the Government, 579;
    countermanded after it began, 579;
    his wife retains the countermanding order, and the expedition goes
          forward, 579;
    her conduct approved by her father, 579;
    occasion of countermanding the expedition, 579;
    object of the expedition, 580;
    maps up to that time, 580;
    crossing the mountains, 580;
    progress south, 581;
    discoveries, 581;
    return of Fremont, 581.

    _Third Expedition._--When commenced, 688;
    the line of observation, 688;
    start for Oregon, 689;
    overtaken by two men, 689;
    a messenger from the Government, 689;
    turns towards California, 689;
    the night of the interview, 690;
    attack of savages, 690;
    succeeding events, 690;
    arrival in the Valley of Sacramento, 691;
    three great operations going on, 691;
    deputation of American settlers, 691;
    approach of Castro, 691;
    California secured as an independent country, 691;
    efforts of Great Britain to secure the country, 692;
    how the prize escaped them, 692;
    remarks, 692.

    _Court Martialled._--Brought home a prisoner from his third
          expedition, 715;
    speech of Lieut. Emory, 715;
    his offence in the eyes of officers of the army, 716;
    specifications of mutiny, 716;
    justice to Gen. Kearney, 716;
    the gravamen of the charge, 717;
    proof of his innocence derived from the journals of Kearney's
          officers, 717;
    statement of Carson, 718;
    result of the trial, 718;
    course of the President, 719;
    resignation of Fremont, 719.

    _Fourth Expedition._--Undertaken at his own expense, 719;
    the line of exploration, 719;
    the march on foot, 719;
    error of the guide, 720;
    terrors of their situation, 720;
    extricated by the aid of Indians, 720;
    a new outfit obtained, 721;
    march, 721;
    meeting hostile Indians, 721;
    subsequent explorations, 721.


  G

  GALLATIN, ALBERT, on the quantity of gold and silver in Europe and
        America, 388.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  GARDINER, Mr., killed on board the Princeton, 568.

  GILMER, THOMAS W., against the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison,
        258;
    against the abrogation of the compromise, 309;
    killed on board the Princeton, 568;
    his letter relative to Texas, 581.

  GILPIN, HENRY D., Attorney General, 9.

  GIRARD, STEPHEN, memorial of, 181.

  _Globe Newspaper superseded._--A visit to Mr. Polk, 651;
    condition on which he could receive the vote of South Carolina,
          651;
    Mr. Blair and the Globe were to be given up, 651;
    to whom obnoxious, 651;
    position of Mr. Tyler, 651;
    withdraws, 651;
    reason, 651;
    $50,000 transferred from a bank in Philadelphia to a village bank
          in the interior of Pennsylvania, 651;
    letters to Andrew Jackson Donnelson, 651;
    proposition of Mr. Polk to Mr. Blair, 652;
    letter of General Jackson to Mr. Blair, 652;
    the Globe sold, 654;
    letter of Mr. Van Buren to Mr. Rives, 654;
    payment for the Globe, 655;
    _see Index_, vol. I.

  GOUGE, WILLIAM, on the quantity of gold and silver, 389.

  GRAHAM, WILLIAM A., Secretary of the Navy, 768.

  GRUNDY, FELIX, Attorney-General, 9.

  GRANGER, FRANCIS, Postmaster General, 209;
    on the course of Mr. Cushing, 514.


  H

  HALE, JOHN P., on abuses in the navy, 509;
    on the home squadron, 575-576.

  HALL, NATHAN K., Postmaster General, 768.

  HAMLIN, HANNIBAL, on abuses in the navy, 509.

  HANNEGAN, EDWARD A., on the Oregon question, 663-664.

  HARALSON, H. A., on the appropriation for the military academy, 468.

  HARRISON, WILLIAM H., candidate for the Presidency, 204;
    meeting of the Senate, 209;
    oath administered to the Vice-President, 209;
    scene in the chamber, 209;
    the eastern portico, 209;
    the inaugural, 209;
    the oath administered, 209;
    cabinet nominations confirmed, 209;
    proclamation convoking an extra session of Congress, 209;
    sickness of Harrison, 210;
    death, 210;
    character, 210;
    public manifestations, 210;
    origin of the family, 210;
    Benton's remarks on Harrison, 210;
    his fidelity to public trust, 216.

  HARRISON, Mrs., widow of President H.--Bill for the relief of,
        introduced, 257;
    to indemnify the President for his expenses in the Presidential
          election, and in removing to the seat of government, 257;
    words of the bill, 257;
    motives on which the bill had been founded, explained by J. Q.
          Adams, 258;
    vehement opposition to the principle of the bill, 258;
    reasons of Mr. Payne, of Ala., for voting against the bill, 258;
    a precedent which might hereafter be strained and tortured, 259;
    remarks of Mr. Underwood, 259;
    passage of the bill in the House, 259.

    In the Senate, remarks of Mr. Calhoun on the bill, 259,
    "this is no new thing, 260;
    the enormous pension-list of the government, 260;
    no part of the constitution authorizes such an appropriation,"
          260;
    remarks of Senator Woodbury, 260;
    first application of a pension to a civil officer likely to
          succeed, 260;
    protest against any legislation based upon our sympathies, 260;
    claim did not come from the family of General Harrison, but from
          persons who had advanced money for the purposes stated in
          the bill, 260;
    moved to recommit the bill, 260;
    amendments proposed so as to secure the money to the widow, 260;
    motion to recommit lost, 261;
    Benton's remarks in reply to the argument founded on the alleged
          poverty of General Harrison, 261;
    the poverty of Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, 261;
    bill passed, 262.

    Speech of Senator Benton on the bill, 262;
    a bill to make a grant of money, 262;
    first case of the kind on the statute-book, 262;
    it was said at the last session that a new set of books was to be
          opened, 263;
    the federal constitution differs fundamentally from those of the
          States, 263;
    it is said this is a payment in hand, 263;
    by the constitution, the persons who fill offices are to receive a
          compensation for their services, 264;
    it is in vain to look to general clauses of the constitution, 264;
    gentlemen refuse to commit themselves on the record, 265.

  HAYNE, ROBERT Y., his gifts, 186;
    appearance, 186;
    mental qualities, 186;
    talents, 186;
    exemplary morals, 186;
    habits, 186;
    position in South Carolina, 187;
    marriage, 187;
    becomes member of Congress, 187;
    associates, 187;
    estimate put upon him, 187;
    his debate with Webster, 187;
    remarks, 187;
    assistance of Mr. Calhoun, 188;
    retires from the Senate, 188;
    subsequent occupation, 188.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  HAYWOOD, WILLIAM H., on the Oregon question, 662.

  HENSHAW, DAVID, nomination rejected in the Senate, 630.

  HICKMAN, Mr., on the nomination of Van Buren, 592.

  _Home Squadron and Aid to Private Steam Lines._--Reasons for the
        home squadron of Great Britain, 271;
    United States has no need of a home squadron, 271;
    Great Britain had one, therefore we must, 271;
    bill passed, 271;
    reasons given for it, 271;
    appropriation made in gross, 272;
    objected to, 272;
    contrary to democratic practice, which required specific
          appropriations, 272;
    an increase of the navy in disguise, 272;
    comparative statement of expenses of the navy, 272;
    statement of the French and British navies, 273;
    the railroad and electric telegraph have opened a new era in
          defensive war, 273;
    bill passed in the house almost unanimously, 273;
    recommendation relative to ocean steamers, 273;
    a useless waste of money, 273.

    Resolution to inquire into the origin, use and expense of the
          home squadron, 575;
    remarks of Mr. Hale, 575;
    "indebted to the present administration for a home squadron, 575;
    said to be necessary for protecting the coasting trade, 575;
    we need not such a navy as Great Britain," 575;
    remarks of Mr. J. Ingersoll, 575;
    in favor of retrenchment and economy, but the process ought to
          begin in the civil and diplomatic department, 575;
    the army and the navy the two great objects of wasteful
          expenditure, 575;
    reply of Mr. Hale to those who, without offering a word in favor
          of this domestic squadron, were endeavoring to keep it up,
          576;
    no result followed, 576;
    remarks of Mr. Dean on this item in the appropriation bill, 577;
    more ships built and building than can be used, and three times
          as many officers as can be employed, 577;
    remarks of Mr. McKay, 577;
    the illegality and wastefulness admitted, 577;
    but the money has been earned by work and labor, 577;
    the abuse sanctioned, 577;
    a powerful combined interest pushes forward an augmented navy
          without regard to any object but its own interest, 577.

  _Hour Rule in the House._--Institution of, 247;
    permanent injury done in order to get rid of temporary annoyance,
          247;
    such an anomaly never seen in a deliberative assembly, 248;
    the English remedy for license in debate, 248;
    the first instance of enforcing this new rule, 248;
    described, 248;
    same thing undertaken in the Senate, 249;
    reason, 249;
    numerous amendments offered to bills, 249;
    the opposition speakers, 249;
    Clay's remark on the anxiety of the country for action, 250;
    sharp reply of Calhoun, 250;
    a succession of contradictory asseverations, 250;
    question asked of Clay if he meant to apply to the Senate the "gag
          law," 251;
    resolution of the democratic Senators, 251;
    taunts of Calhoun, 251;
    determination of Clay, 251;
    remarks of Senator Linn, 252;
    subject dropped and revived again, 252.

    Another measure to be introduced, 252;
    the previous question, 253;
    issue made up, to introduce and to oppose it, 253;
    remarks of Mr. Benton on the effect of the previous question, 253;
    the previous question annihilates legislation, 254;
    the previous question and the old sedition law are measures of the
          same character, 254;
    change of tone in Mr. Clay, 255;
    intimation of going into executive session, 255;
    hesitation, 255;
    friends of the measure dared by Mr. Calhoun, 255;
    remarks of Senator Linn on the words of Mr. Clay, 256;
    executive session, 256;
    an explanation by Mr. Calhoun relative to the declaration of war,
          in 1812, 256;
    further taunts, 257;
    loan bill taken up, 257.

  HUBBARD, SAMUEL D., Postmaster General, 768.

  HUNTER, R. M. T., elected Speaker, 160.

  HUNTINGTON, JABEZ W., on making salt free of duty, 315.


  I

  _Independent Treasury._--The crowning measure of the extra session,
        39;
    vehement opposition, 39;
    the divorce of bank and state, 39;
    attitude of Mr. Calhoun, 40;
    taunts upon him, 40;
    his reply, 40;
    proposes to discontinue the use of bank paper in the receipts and
          disbursements of the government, 40;
    his remarks, 40;
    divorce of bank and state treated as a divorce of the bank from
          the people, 41;
    Webster's main argument for a bank, 41;
    regulator of the currency and the domestic exchanges, 41;
    the founders of the bank never thought of such arguments for its
          establishment, 41;
    the discussion, 41;
    remarks, 42.

    Consists of two distinct parts, 124;
    1st, keeping the public money--2d, the hard money currency in
          which they were to be paid, 124;
    a bill reported, 124;
    hard money section added to the bill, 124;
    struck out, 124;
    bill opposed by Mr. Calhoun, 124;
    reasons, 124;
    passed the Senate and lost in the House, 125.

    Repeal of, 219;
    No. 1 in the list of bills, 219;
    no substitute provided, 219;
    motion to exclude the bank of the U.S., 220; vote, 220;
    speech of Senator Benton, 220;
    "artifices used against the independent treasury," 220;
    French explanation of the vote, 221;
    artifices exposed, 221;
    what constitutes the independent treasury system, 221;
    the advocate of British systems, 222;
    history of our fiscal agents, 222;
    proved by experience to be the safest, cheapest, and best mode of
          collecting, keeping, and disbursing the revenue, 223;
    no other system provided in its place, 223;
    who demands the repeal of this system, 224;
    this system was established by the will of the people, 225;
    the spirit which pursues the measure, 225;
    the deposits may go to the bank of the United States, 226;
    laudations of Biddle, 227;
    the State charter made no difference in the character or
          management of the bank, 227;
    the conduct of those who refused a re-charter was wise and
          prudent, 228;
    further remarks, 228.

    Good effects of a gold and silver currency during the war, 726;
    Government bills above par and every loan taken at a premium, 726;
    triumph of the gold currency, 726.

  _Indian War in Florida._--One of the most troublesome, expensive,
        and unmanageable of Indian wars, 70;
    its continuance and cost, 70;
    its origin, 70;
    one of flagrant and cruel aggression on the part of the Indians,
          70;
    the murder by a party under Osceola, 70;
    other massacres, 70;
    escape of a soldier of Dade's command, 70;
    the struggle, 70;
    the slaughter, 71;
    misrepresentation of the origin and conduct of the war, 72;
    speech of Mr. Benton, 72.

    Charged that a fraud was committed on the Indians in the treaty
          negotiated with them for their removal, 72;
    affixed to the Payne's Landing treaty, 72;
    afterwards transferred to the Fort Gibson treaty, 72;
    the posts, 72, 73;
    pretexts and excuses of the Indians for not removing, 73;
    their real object, 73;
    the agreement with the Creeks, 73;
    article four of the treaty, 73;
    extract from the treaty at Fort Gibson, 74;
    how stands the accusation? 74;
    every thing was done that was stipulated for, done by the persons
          who were to do it, and done in the exact manner agreed upon,
          74;
    proved that no fraud was practised upon the Indians, 75;
    moderation with which the United States acted, 75;
    statement of Lieut. Harris, 75;
    hostile proceedings not expected by the Government, 75;
    the prime mover in all this mischief, 76;
    our sympathies particularly invoked for him, 76;
    statements tending to disparage the troops, answered, 76;
    great error and great injustice in these imputations, 76;
    reason why the same feats are not performed in Florida as in
          Canada, 77;
    eight months in the year military exertions are impossible, 77;
    conduct of the army in Florida, 77;
    charges of inefficiency against Gen. Jesup, 78;
    of imbecility, 78;
    with how much truth and justice is this charge made? 78;
    his vindication, 78;
    a specific accusation against the honor of this officer, 79;
    justification of the seizure of Osceola, 79;
    he had broken his parole, 79;
    he had violated an order in coming in, with a view to return to
          the hostiles, 79;
    he had broken a truce, 79;
    the expediency of having detained him, 80;
    complaint of the length of time Gen. Jesup has consumed without
          bringing the war to a conclusion, 80;
    his essential policy, 81;
    the little said to be expected by his large force, 81;
    false information given to the Indians, 81;
    remarks respecting his predecessors, 81;
    the expenses of the war, 82;
    concluding remarks, 82.

  INGERSOLL, CHARLES J., on the administration in the McLeod case,
        287;
    moves the reduction of certain missions, 305;
    on the repeal of the compromise tariff, 310;
    on the home squadron, 575.

  _Iowa and Florida_, admission of, 660.


  J

  JACKSON, GEN., _refunding his fine_.--Fined at New Orleans in the
        winter of 1814-'15 for contempt of court, 499;
    paid under protest, 499;
    Senator Linn brings in a bill for refunding the fine, 499;
    letter of Gen. Jackson to him on receiving notice of the bill,
          500;
    Jackson would only receive it on the ground of an illegal
          exaction, 500;
    the recourse to martial law vindicated, 500;
    the measures could not be relaxed which a sense of danger had
          dictated, 501;
    reasons given at the time against the fine, 501;
    proceedings of the court, 502;
    bill passed both Houses, 502.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  JEFFERSON, THOMAs, his views on the surrender of fugitive
        criminals, 445.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  JESUP, GEN., conduct of, the Florida war, 78.

  JOHNSON, R. M., a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, 204.

  JOHNSON, CAVE, on the appropriation for the military academy, 567;
    on naval expenditures, 507;
    Postmaster General, 650.

  JOHNSON, REVERDY, on the Oregon question, 665;
    Attorney General, 737.

  JONES, JOHN W., candidate for Speaker, 160;
    chosen Speaker, 565.


  K

  KENDALL, AMOS, Postmaster General, 9.

  KENNEDY, JOHN P., Secretary of the Navy, 768.

  KENNON, COMMODORE, killed on board the Princeton, 568.

  KING, THOMAS B., on the previous question, 253;
    reports a bill for a home squadron, 271;
    on exempting salt from duty, 315;
    on the committee on the bank bill, 335.


  L

  LEGARE, HUGH S., Attorney General, 356.

  LINN, LOUIS F., opposition to the hour rule, 252, 256;
    on the disturbance in the Senate galleries, 352;
    in favor of the Oregon settlement bill, 472.

    Remarks on his decease by Senator Benton, 485;
    birth, 485;
    parentage, 485;
    education, 485;
    honors, 484;
    character, 486;
    talents, 486;
    amiable qualities, 486;
    character in party times, 486;
    remarks of Senator Crittenden, 487;
    introduces a bill to refund the fine of Gen. Jackson, 500.

  _London Bankers' Circular._--On assumption of State debts, 171.


  M

  MADISON, JAMES, on the dangers to the Union, 132;
    his views on the subject of disunion, 786.

  MAGOFFIN, JAMES, conducts Gen. Kearney and troops to New Mexico,
        683.

  MALLORY, FRANCIS, on the coast survey, 488.

  MANGUM, WILLIE P., opposes the repeal of the pension act of 1837,
        266.

  _Map of_ the original North-eastern boundary, 423.

  MARCY, WILLIAM L., Secretary of War, 650;
    answer to the interrogatories of an anti-slavery meeting, 775.

  MASON, JOHN G., Secretary of the Navy, 569;
   Attorney General, 650.

  MAXEY, VIRGIL, killed on board the Princeton, 568.

  MCDOWELL, JAMES, remarks on the decease of John Quincy Adams, 708.

  MCDUFFIE, JAMES, on the Oregon country, 471.

  MCKAY, JAMES J., on the appropriation for the home squadron, 272;
    on the appropriation for the military academy, 467.

  MCKEON, JOHN, on the Chinese Mission, 511.

  MCKINLEY, JOHN, Judge of the Supreme Court, 9.

  MCLEAN, JOHN, declines the secretaryship of war, 356.

  MCLEOD, the case of, 282.

  MEREDITH, WILLIAM M., Secretary of the Treasury, 737.

  MERRICK, WILLIAM D., on the disturbance in the Senate gallery, 352.

  MERRIWEATHER, JAMES A., on reduction of navy pay and expenses, 482;
    on the Chinese mission, 511.

  _Military Department._--The progress of expenses of the army, 404;
    comparative view presented by Mr. Calhoun, 404;
    extract, 404;
    cost of each man, at different periods, in the service, 405;
    Adams proposes retrenchment in the army and navy, 405;
    extract, 405.

  _Military Academy._--The instincts of the people have been against
        this academy ever since it took its present form, 466;
    all efforts to abolish it are instantly met by Washington's
          recommendation of it, 466;
    Washington never saw such an institution as shelters under his
          name, 466;
    attack upon the institution by moving to strike out the
    appropriation for its support, 467;
    remarks of Mr. McKay in defence of it, 467;
    points shown by him, 467;
    remarks of Mr. Johnson against the bill, 467;
    remarks of Mr. Haralson in favor, 468;
    remarks of Mr. Ficklin against it, 468;
    Mr. Black proposes an amendment that the cadets be compelled to
          serve ten years, 468.
    _See Index_, vol. I.

  MILLER, Mr., moves the nomination of Van Buren, 592.

  _Missouri Compromise._--Message of President Polk, 712.

  MORTON, MARCUS, on the adoption of the two-thirds rule in the
        democratic convention, 591.

  MUTINY on board the brig Somers.
    _See Somers._


  N

  NAPOLEON, his ideas of the art of war, 572.

  _Naval Academy._--Remarks, 571;
    instructions of Virginia to her Senators in 1799, 572;
    the Great Emperor's idea of the whole art of war, 572;
    remark of Alison the historian, 573;
    the lesson taught by the war of 1812, 573;
    officers now made in schools, whether they have any vocation for
          the service or not, 573;
    the finest naval officers the world over saw were bred in the
          merchant service, 574;
    no naval victory of Great Britain over France had the least effect
          on the war, 574;
    commerce wants no protection from men-of-war, except from
          piratical nations, 574.

  _Naval Pension System._--Annual bill for these pensions on its
        passage, 265;
    abuse introduced by the act of 1837, 265;
    four things done by that act, 265;
    absorbed and bankrupted the fund, 266;
    manner of the passage of this act, 266;
    its power to resist correction, 266;
    amendment moved to repeal the act of 1837, 266;
    debate, 266;
    lost, 267;
    character of the vote, 267;
    difference in the two parties always the same without regard to
          their name, 267.

    Calhoun's remarks on confining all future pensioners to the act of
          1800, &c., 267;
    "the act of 1837 was not only inexpedient, but something much
          worse, 267;
    it is proposed to introduce new and extraordinary principles into
          our pension list, 268;
    object of the amendment to correct a monstrous abuse," 268;
    remarks of Mr. Pierce on the abuses to which the pension law gave
          rise, 168.

    Adams asks who were the authors of the act of 1837, 269;
    reply of Mr. Thomas, 269;
    manner in which the bill passed the House, 269;
    losses sustained by the action of the House, 270;
    the debates show in what manner legislation can be carried on
          under the silencing process of the previous question, 270;
    no branch of the public service requires the reforming and
    retrenching hand of Congress more than the naval, 270;
    its cost, 270;
    fallen chiefly under the management of members from the sea-coast,
          270;
    compared with Great Britain, 271.

  NELSON, JOHN, Attorney General, 569.

  NILES, JOHN M., on the surrender of the deposits, 36.

  _North and South._--The working of the government on the two great
        Atlantic sections, 131;
    complained of as unequal and oppressive, 131;
    history of the complaint, 131;
    commercial conventions at Augusta and Charleston, 131;
    distribution of foreign imports before the Revolutionary war, 131;
    in 1821, 131;
    the difference, 131;
    effects, 132;
    points of complaint, 131;
    foundation for them, 132;
    remark of Madison, 132;
    remedy proposed by the conventions, 133;
    the point on which Southern discontent arose, 133;
    separation as a remedy, 133.

  O

  _Oregon._--Carrying and planting the Anglo-Saxon race on the shores
        of the Pacific took place at this time, 468;
    an act of the people going forward without government aid or
          countenance, 469;
    the action of the government was to endanger our title, 469;
    first step of the treaty of joint occupation in 1818, 469;
    the second false step, the extension of the treaty, 469;
    third blunder, in omitting to settle it in the Ashburton treaty,
          469;
    fourth blunder, the recommendations of President Tyler to
          discountenance emigration by withholding land from the
          emigrants, 469;
    the people saved the title thus endangered, 469;
    a thousand emigrants in 1842, 469;
    government attempts to discourage and Western members to encourage
          it, 469;
    Senator Linn introduces a bill for the purpose, 469;
    its provisions, 469;
    remarks, 470;
    McDuffie's remarks to show the worthlessness of the country, 471;
    Calhoun opposes it on the ground of infractions of the treaty and
          danger of war--the difficulty and danger of defending a
          possession so remote, 471;
    his course when Secretary of War, 472.

    Senator Linn's remarks in reply, 472;
    the effect of temporizing in Maine, 473;
    losses of our citizens by ravages of Indians, 473;
    backwardness to protect our own citizens contrasted with the
          readiness to expend untold amounts to protect our citizens
          engaged in foreign commerce, or to guard the freedom of the
          African negro, 473;
    it is asked, why not give notice to terminate the treaty? 474.

    Remarks of Mr. Benton on the clause allotting land, 474;
    actual colonization going on at Columbia river, attended by every
          circumstance that indicated ownership and the design of a
          permanent settlement, 474;
    our title, 475;
    answer of the President to the call for the "informal conferences"
          which had taken place on the subject, 476;
    the north bank of the Columbia river, the object of the British,
          476;
    bill passed, 477;
    bill sent to the House, 477;
    the effect intended to encourage settlers produced, 477;
    a colony planted and grew up, 477;
    it saved the territory, 477.

    All agree that the title is in the United States, 479;
    a division on the point of giving offence to England by granting
          the land to our settlers, 479;
    has she a right to take offence? 479;
    the fear of Great Britain is pressed upon us at the same time her
          pacific disposition is enforced and insisted on, 480;
    remarks of Ashburton, showing a want of inclination in the British
          Government to settle the Creole case, 480;
    the objection of distance examined, 481;
    also that of expense examined, 481;
    another objection, the land clause, 481;
    time is invoked as the agent which is to help us, 481;
    time and negotiation have been bad agents for us in our
          controversies with Great Britain, 482.

    Conventions of 1818 and 1828 provided for the joint occupation
          of the countries, 624;
    impropriety of such engagements, 624;
    motion to give notice to terminate the joint occupation, 625;
    arguments in opposition, 625;
    the talk of war alarmed the commercial interest, and
    looked upon the delivery of the notice as the signal for a
          disastrous depression of foreign trade, 625;
    motion for the notice lost, 625;
    omitted in the Ashburton treaty, 660;
    references to the subject, 660;
    taken up by Mr. Calhoun, and conducted in the only safe way of
          conducting negotiations, 661;
    the negotiations come to a stand, 661;
    declaration of the President's message, 661;
    feeling in England, 661;
    negotiations recommended by us as a means of avoiding war, 662;
    the offer of 49°;
    withdrawn, 662;
    meeting of Congress and debate on the subject, 662.

    Speech of Mr. Hayward on the line of 49° as the correct line, 662;
    "the course pursued by the President in his offer, 662;
    nothing improper in his repeating it, 662;
    under no necessity to refuse the line of 49° if offered," 663;
    his speech expressive of the sentiments of the President, 663;
    a demand made of him if he expressed the views of the President,
          663;
    a call to order, 664;
    remarks on the President's position from the extreme members,
        665;
    advantages of concurring in the line of 49° if offered, 665;
    the merits of the question discussed, 666.

    Speech of Mr. Benton, 667;
    "the true extent and nature of our territorial claims beyond the
          Rocky Mountains," 667;
    the assumption that we have a dividing line with Russia is a great
          mistake, 667;
    circumstances of the convention of 1824, 667;
    Great Britain and ourselves treated separately with Russia and
          with each other, 668;
    we proposed that fifty-four forty should be the northern
          boundary for Great Britain, 668;
    the line of Utrecht, 669;
    items of testimony, 669, 670;
    _note_, containing a letter of Edward Everett, 671;
    Frazer's River, 671;
    Harmon's Journal, 671;
    New Caledonia, 671;
    ground taken by Mr. Monroe, 672;
    their action, 672;
    notice to terminate the joint occupation voted, 673;
    amended in the Senate, 674;
    character of the vote, 674.

    Negotiations renewed, 674;
    49° offered by England, 674;
    quandary of the administration, 674;
    advice of the Senate asked, 674;
    a message with a _projet_ of a treaty, sent in upon the advice of
          Senator Benton, 675;
    extract, 675;
    treaty or no treaty depended on the Senate, 676;
    advice of the Senate given in favor of 49°, 676;
    treaty sent in, 676;
    ratified, 667;
    daily attack of the organ upon the Senators who were accomplishing
          the wishes of the President, 676;
    Mr. Benton assailed, 677;
    remarks, 677.

    On the bill for the Oregon territorial government, Mr. Calhoun
          makes trial of his new doctrine, 711;
    proofs of his support of the Missouri Compromise, 711;
    motion of Mr. Hale, 711;
    motion of Mr. Douglas, 711;
    vote of Mr. Calhoun on it, 711;
    bill passes both Houses, 712;
    excitement of Mr. Calhoun, 712;
    invocation to disunion, 712;
    special message on the slavery agitation, 712;
    extract, 712.--_See slavery agitation._

  OSCEOLA, capture of, 79.


  P

  _Pairing off_, when first exhibited, 178;
    a breach of the rules of the House, 178;
    violation of the constitution, 178;
    rebuked by J. Q. Adams, 178;
    now a common practice, 178;
    the early practice, 178;
    leave always asked and obtained, 178.

  PALMERSTON, LORD, his boldness, 285.

  _Paper Money Payments._--Crisis in the struggle between paper money
        and gold, 406;
    recourse had to treasury notes reissuable, 406;
    the government paid two-thirds in these notes and one-third in
          specie, 406;
    Mr. Benton determines to resist, 406;
    has protested a check drawn for compensation for a few days as
          Senator, 406;
    his speech, 406;
    "time come when every citizen will have to decide for himself,
          407;
    Hampden's resistance of the payment of ship money, 407;
    there is no dispute about the fact, and the case is neither a
          first nor a solitary one, 407;
    a war upon the currency of the constitution has been going on for
          many years, 408;
    the remedy of the present disgraceful state of things is the point
          now to be attended to, 408;
    here is a forced payment of paper, money, 408;"
    offers a resolution, 408.

  PAYNE, Mr., against the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison, 258.

  PICKENS, F. W., on the repeal of the compromise tariff, 310.

  PIERCE, FRANKLIN, on the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison, 260;
    on the abuses of the Pension Act, 268.

  POINSETT, JOEL R., Secretary at War, 9.

  POLK, JAMES K., chosen Speaker of the House, 29;
    elected President, 625.

    _Administration_, the longest address of the kind yet delivered,
          649;
    our title to Oregon asserted as clear and indisputable, 649;
    the return voice from London equally positive on the other side,
          650;
    the cabinet, 650;
    neither Mr. Calhoun nor any of his friends would take office under
          the administration, 650;
    circumstances affecting the formation of the cabinet, 650;
    message, 657;
    Texas the leading topic, 657;
    position of Mexico and the United States, 657;
    causes of war against Mexico from injuries to our citizens, 657;
    treaty of indemnity never complied with, 658;
    the mission to Mexico, and the consequences of its failure, 658.

    Negotiations relative to Oregon had come to a dead stand, 658;
    state of the case, 658;
    the finances and public debt, 658;
    revision of the tariff recommended, 659;
    revenue the object and protection to home industry the incident,
          659.

    Message at second session of the twenty-ninth Congress, 677;
    greatly occupied with the Mexican war, 677;
    the real beginning of the war, 678;
    the conquered provinces governed under the law of nations, 678;
    Mr. Benton's plan of conducting the war adopted, 678;
    to carry the war straight to the city of Mexico, 678;
    a higher rank than Major-General required to execute this plan,
          678;
    negotiation a part of the plan, 678;
    Lieutenant-Generalship proposed, 678;
    defeated in the Senate by Marcy, Walker, and Buchanan, 679;
    overrules his cabinet relative to the conduct of the war with
          Mexico, 693.

    His message at first session of the thirteenth Congress, 703;
    gratifying intelligence to communicate, 703;
    commissioner sent with the army, 704;
    operations of a female to secure the absorption of Mexico and the
          assumption of her debts, 704;
    extract from the message relative thereto, 704;
    do. relative to the absorption of a part of Mexico, 704;
    return to the line rejected from the message at a former session,
          705;
    reason, 705;
    a wish of the slave interest, 705;
    expenses of the government, 705;
    the good working of the independent treasury system, 705;
    special message on the slavery agitation, 712;
    extract, 712.

    Last message, 724;
    extract relative to the Mexican war, 724;
    remarks, 724;
    extension of the Missouri Compromise recommended, 724;
    various parties on the subject, 725;
    finances, 725;
    expenditures, 725;
    decease of, 737;
    first President put on the people without previous indication,
          737;
    faults of the administration, the faults of his cabinet, 737;
    his will, 738;
    the Mexican war, 738;
    acquisition of Mexico, 738.

  PORTER, ALEXANDER.--Decease of, 569;
    eulogium by Col. Benton, 569;
    early life, 569;
    lawyer in lower Mississippi, 570;
    Senator, 570;
    his example, 570;
    remarks, 571.

  PORTER, COMMODORE.--Decease of, 491;
    his career--an illustration of the benefits of the cruising
          system, 491;
    ardor for the service, 492;
    the Essex frigate, 492;
    her cruise towards the Grand Banks, 492;
    capture of the Alert, 492;
    cruise to Brazil, 493;
    cruise in the Pacific Ocean, 493;
    Valparaiso, 493;
    prizes taken, 494, 495, 496;
    capture of the Essex, 497;
    end of the cruise, 498;
    incidents of Porter's personal history, 498;
    resignation, 498;
    cause, 498;
    features of his character, 499.

  PORTER, JAMES MADISON.--Secretary at war, 579.

  _Presidency._--Bold intrigue for. _See Texas annexation._

  _Presidential election of 1840._--The candidates, 204;
    availability sought for by the opposition, 204;
    Clay not available, 204;
    submits himself to a convention, 204;
    rule of the convention, 204;
    the process, 204;
    an embittered contest foreseen, 205;
    influence of the money power, 205;
    mode of operating, 205;
    inducements addressed to the people, 205;
    mass conventions, 205;
    one at Dayton, Ohio, 205;
    description, 206;
    election carried by storm, 206;
    result, 206;
    belief of fraudulent votes, 207.

    _of 1844._--The candidates, 625;
    the votes, 625;
    the popular vote, 625;
    causes of the difference in the popular vote, 626;
    aid of Silas Wright, 626;
    aid from the withdrawal of Mr. Tyler, 626.

    _of 1848._--Proceedings of the Baltimore convention, 722;
    difficulties in the convention, 722;
    the candidates, 722;
    a third convention at Buffalo, 723;
    three principles laid down, 723;
    remarks on the unfortunate acceptance of Van Buren, 723;
    result, 723;
    its moral, 724.

  _Public Lands._--New States bound by contract not to interfere with
        the primary disposition of the public lands, nor to tax them
        while remaining unsold, nor for five years thereafter, 125.

    _The Graduation Bill_, 126;
    proposed for twelve years, 126;
    reduction of price the principal feature, 126;
    favorable auspices under which the bill comes, 126;
    its original provisions, 126;
    a measure emphatically for the benefit of the agricultural
          interest, 126;
    bill passed in the Senate and failed in the House, 126.

    Pre-emptive system, 127;
    to secure the privilege of first purchase to the settler on any
          lands, 127;
    moved to exclude unnaturalized foreigners from its benefits, 127;
    remarks of Senator Benton, 127;
    it proposes to make a distinction between aliens and citizens in
          the acquisition of property, 127;
    who are the aliens it was proposed to affect, 127;
    motion rejected, 127;
    bill passed, 127.

    _Taxation of Public Land when sold._--Early sales on credit, 127;
    time of exemption from taxation, 128;
    change in 1821 to the cash system, 128;
    modifications proposed, 128;
    bill passed the Senate, 128.

  PRESTON, WILLIAM, on the annexation of Texas, 94;
    on the slavery resolutions, 139.

  PRESTON, WILLIAM B., Secretary of the Navy, 737.

  _Princeton Steamship_, explosion of her gun. (See explosion.)

  PROFFIT, GEORGE H., His nomination rejected in the Senate 630.


  R

  _Recess Committees, refusal of the House to allow._--The
        proposition, 304;
    adopted, 304;
    reconsideration moved, 304;
    carried, 304;
    laid on the table, 304;
    a modification attempted, 304;
    question raised on the words "to sit during recess," 305;
    no warrant found in the constitution, 305;
    practical reasons against it, 305;
    laid on the table finally, 305.

  _Revolt in Canada._--Its commencement, 276;
    and progress, 276;
    excitement on the border line, 276;
    steps taken by the President, 277;
    the fidelity and sternness with which all these lawless
          expeditions were suppressed by Van Buren, 277;
    he discharged all the duties required, 277;
    neutral relations preserved in the most trying circumstances,
          278;
    whole affair over, but the difficulty revived by an unexpected
          circumstance, 278;
    stand made by insurgents on Navy Island, 278;
    supplies carried by a small steamboat, 278;
    attacked and destroyed when moored to the American shore, 278;
    affidavit of the captain, 278;
    report of the British officer, 279;
    adds the crimes of impressment and abduction to all the other
          enormities, 279;
    state of the parties reversed, 279;
    part of the United States now to complain, 279;
    communication of Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Fox, 279;
    message of President Van Buren to Congress, 279;
    extracts, 279;
    feeling in Congress, 280;
    action of Congress, 280;
    British government refrains from assuming the act, 280;
    extract from Capt. Drew's report, 280;
    reply of McNab to the letter of District Attorney Rogers, 280;
    remarks of Mr. Fillmore on the reading of the letter, 281;
    answer to our demand for redress, 281;
    at near the close of Van Buren's administration the British
          government had not assumed the act of Capt. Drew, and had
          not answered for that act, 281;
    inquiries in the House of Commons relative to it, 282;
    an important event, 282;
    arrest of McLeod, 282;
    a demand from the British Minister for his release, 282;
    extract, 282;
    reply of the American Secretary, Mr. Forsyth, 283;
    extract, 283;
    British government takes its stand relative to the Caroline after
         the Presidential election of 1840, 283;
    queries in the House of Commons, 284;
    remarks of Mr. Hume, 284;
    admission of Palmerston, 284;
    testimony of McNab, 285;
    remarks, 285;
    triumph of Palmerston policy, 286;
    finale of the case, 286;
    proceedings in the case, 286;
    action of the administration, 286;
    discussion in the House on this action, 287;
    remarks of Mr. Ingersoll, 287;
    "this in its national aspect is precisely the same as if it had
          been perpetrated in a house," 287;
    demand of the British, 287;
    Mr. Fox's letter is a threatening one, 287;
    a deplorable lapse from the position Mr. Webster first assumed,
          288;
    our position is false, lamentably false, 288;
    never did man lose a greater occasion than Mr. Webster cast away,
          288.

    Success of the British Ministry in this experiment, 289;
    another trial, 289;
    Mr. Adams in defence of the administration, 289;
    Mr. Cushing on the same side, 289;
    remarks on their speeches, 290;
    the case of the Poles and of the Hungarians, 290;
    Butler's reply to Cushing, 290;
    the fashion of the friends of Webster, 291.

    Speech of Senator Benton, 291;
    "the history of our country full of warning to those who take the
          side of a foreign country against their own, 291;
    humiliating to see Senators of eminent ability consulting books to
          find passages to justify an outrage upon their own country,
          292;
    what is the case before us? 293;
    a statement, 293;
    further statement, 294;
    a conclusive point settled, 294;
    position of the British Ministry known on March 4th, 295;
    action of the new administration, 295;
    letter of Mr. Fox, 295;
    instructions of Mr. Webster to the Attorney General, 295;
    extract, 295;
    proceedings of the Attorney General, 296;
    duties of the Attorney General, 296;
    the correctness and propriety of the answer given to Mr. Fox the
          main point in the case, 297;
    the instructions erroneous in point of law, derogatory to us in
          point of character, and tending to the degradation of the
          republic, 298;
    the law of nations, 298;
    derogatory to our character, 299;
    example of Walpole's foreign policy, 300;
    the instructions to the Attorney General most unfortunate and
          deplorable, 300;
    the letter to Mr. Fox from the Secretary of State, 301;
    an unfortunate production, 301;
    its faults fundamental and radical, 302;
    abandonment of our claim, 302;
    further remarks," 303, 304.

  RIVES, WILLIAM C., in defence of the veto of the bank bill, 322;
    on the disorder in the Senate gallery, 351-352.

  RODGERS, COMMODORE, _decease of_.--His appearance, 144;
    hero, by nature, 144;
    sketch of his life, 144;
    American cruisers in the last war, 145;
    views of the Government on the employment of the public vessels,
          145;
    Rodgers opinion, 146;
    his naval exploits, 146;
    his humanity, 147;
    feelings at the death of Decatur, 147;
    death, 148.


  S

  _Salt._--Speech of Mr. Benton, 176;
    perhaps the most abundant substance of the earth, 176;
    the universality of the tax on it, 177;
    a salt tax was not only politically, but morally wrong, 177;
    a tax upon the entire economy of nature and art, 177;
    determination to effect its repeal, 178.

  SANTA ANNA.--His remark relative to Commander McKenzie.

    _His downfall._--His return expected to secure a peace with
          Mexico, 709;
    the sword, and not the olive branch, returned to Mexico, 709;
    capture of Mexico put an end to his career, 710;
    in three months, the treaty signed, 710;
    the acquisitions, 710;
    the payments, 710;
    a singular conclusion of the war, 710;
    the treaty a fortunate event, 710;
    manner in which those who served the Government fared, 711.

  SAUNDERS, ROMULUS M., moves the adoption of the two-thirds rule in
        the democratic convention, 591.

  SCHLOSSER, Harbor of the steamboat Caroline, 278.

  SEWARD'S, WILLIAM H., answer to the interrogatories of an
        anti-slavery meeting, 776.

  SLADE, WILLIAM, on abolition petitions, 150.

  _Slavery agitation, progress of._--Movements for and against
        slavery, in the session of 1837-'38, 134;
    memorial from Vermont against the annexation of Texas, and for the
          abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 134;
    petitions, &c., 134;
    little excuse, 134;
    state of the case, 134;
    residence of the petitioners, 134;
    subject of the petitions disagreeable, 134;
    leading to an inevitable separation of the States, 134;
    remarks of Mr. Calhoun, 134;
    question on the most judicious mode of treating these memorials,
          135;
    the course adopted, to lay the question of reception on the
          table, 135;
    Calhoun endeavors to obtain, from the Senate, declarations which
          should cover all the questions of federal power over the
          institution of slavery, 135;
    his resolutions, 135;
    the fifth, 135;
    the dogma of "no power in Congress to legislate upon the existence
          of slavery in territories," had not then been invented, 135;
    reference to the Missouri Compromise line, 136;
    Calhoun's remarks on this compromise, 136;
    remarks, 136;
    Clay's substitute, 137;
    further proceedings, 137;
    repugnance of the Senate to the movement, 138;
    remarks of senators on the tendency of the resolutions to
          aggravate the excitement, 138;
    justification of Calhoun, 139;
    action of the Senate and the House, 140;
    the important part of the debate, 140;
    remarks on Calhoun's views of the Missouri Compromise, 140.

    Remarks of Calhoun on the ordinance of 1787, in the Oregon bill,
          141;
    three propositions laid down by him, 141;
    their conflict with the power exercised by Congress,
    in the establishment of the Missouri Compromise, 141;
    his views in the Cabinet, 141;
    old writings produced, 141;
    denial of Mr. Calhoun that Monroe's Cabinet was consulted on the
          subject, 142;
    circumstances favoring the denial, 142;
    views of Calhoun in 1820, in 1837-'38, and in 1847-'48, 142;
    changes in his opinions on the constitutional power of Congress,
          143;
    remarks, 143;
    records of the Department of State, 143.

    In the House, a most angry and portentous debate, 150;
    motion on the subject of petitions and memorials, 150;
    manner in which it is advocated, 150;
    course of Mr. Slade, 150;
    suggestion of Legare, 150;
    excited action of the House, 150;
    further excitement, Wise requests his colleagues to retire with
          him, 151;
    the invitation renewed by Rhett, 151;
    McKay interposes the objection that heads Slade, 151;
    question on leave taken, 152;
    adjournment moved and carried, 152.

    Invitation to Southern members to meet together, 152;
    the meeting, 152;
    result, 153;
    amendment of the rules, 153;
    vote, 153;
    remarks, 154;
    prominent members for the petitions, 154.

    _Abolitionists classified by Mr. Clay._--Speech of Mr. Clay, 154;
    "the most judicious course to be pursued with abolition petitions,
          154;
    difference in the form of proceeding, 155;
    three classes of persons opposed to the continued existence of
          slavery, 155;
    the attempt to array one section of the Union against another, 155;
    the means employed for the end, 156;
    the spirit of abolitionism has displayed itself at three epochs of
          our history, 156;
    further remarks, 156."

    Calhoun's resolutions, 696;
    the real point of complaint, 696;
    speech of Mr. Calhoun, 696;
    extract, 696;
    never voted upon, 697;
    "firebrand," 697;
    commencement of the slavery agitation founded upon the dogma of
          "no power in Congress to legislate upon slavery in the
          territories," 697;
    position of Mr. Calhoun up to this time, 697;
    further remarks, 697;
    the resolutions characterized
    as nullification, 697.

    _Disunion_ letter of Mr. Calhoun to a member of the Alabama
          Legislature, 698;
    disavows the design of a dissolution of the Union, and at the
          same time proves it, 698;
    opening paragraph, 698;
    "_to force_ the issue," 698;
    notices the act of the Pennsylvania Legislature, 698;
    his secret views of the Wilmot proviso, 699;
    measures of retaliation suggested, 699; further extracts, 700;
    a further feature in the plan of forcing the issue, 700;
    a Southern Convention, 700;
    the letter furnishes the key to unlock Calhoun's whole system of
          slavery agitation, 700.

    Special message of President Polk, 712;
    a delusive calculation, 713;
    a new dogma invented, 713;
    the slavery part of the Constitution extends itself to
          territories, 713;
    broached by Mr. Calhoun, 713;
    remarks, 714;
    remarks of Mr. Calhoun on the Missouri case, 714;
    his error exposed, 714;
    passed by the South, 714;
    remarks of Mr. Calhoun on the dissolution of the Union, 715;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 715.

    _Extension of the Constitution._--The territories without a
          government, 729;
    motion of Mr. Walker of Wisconsin as an amendment to the
          appropriation bill, 729;
    a disorderly motion, 729;
    an amendment inserting an extension of the Constitution, 729;
    remarks of Mr. Webster, 729;
    reply of Mr. Calhoun, 730;
    the Constitution made for States, not Territories, 731;
    examination of Calhoun's position, 731;
    debate takes a slavery turn, 732;
    bill passed after midnight on the last day of the session, 732;
    declining to vote, 732;
    remarks, 732;
    "forcing the issue," 733.

    Nightly meetings of members from the slave States, 733;
    Calhoun at the bottom of the movement, 733;
    his manifesto superseded by a new address in the grand committee,
          733;
    replaced, 733;
    changed from the original draft, 734;
    saluted as the second Declaration of Independence, 734;
    remarks, 734;
    extracts, 734;
    emancipation held to be certain, if not prevented, 735;
    the means of prevention, 735;
    takes the attitude of self-defence, 735;
    further contents of the manifesto, 736;
    last speech of Mr. Calhoun, 744;
    read by Mr. Mason, 744;
    first cause of the slavery disease, the ordinance of 1787, 744;
    the second, the Missouri Compromise, 744;
    third, slavery agitation, 744;
    history of the agitation, 744;
    process of disruption going on, 745;
    successive blows required to snap the cords asunder, 745;
    extract, 745;
    the last cord, 746;
    extracts, 746;
    the remedy, 746.

  _Slaves, American, liberation of in British Colonies._--Three
         instances of this kind had occurred, 182;
    details of each, 182;
    redress obtained from Great Britain in the first two cases, 182;
    resolution offered on the subject by Mr. Calhoun, 182;
    can a municipal regulation of Great Britain alter the law of
          nations? 183;
    Calhoun's argument, 183;
    referred, 183.

  _Slaves, Fugitive._--History of the slave recovery clause, 773;
    act of 1793, 773;
    third section, 773;
    a fair interpretation of the Constitution, 773;
    the penal section, 774;
    the law of Pennsylvania, 774, 777;
    the act of New York, 775;
    Marcy's reply to an anti-slavery meeting, 775;
    Seward's reply to the interrogatories of the same meeting, 776;
    sentence on a citizen of Maryland for recapturing his slave in
          Pennsylvania, 778;
    decision of the Supreme Court, 778;
    a bill reported on the subject of fugitive slaves, 778;
    proviso in favor of a jury trial rejected, 779;
    sentiments of Mr. Cass, 779;
    further remarks, 780.

  SMITH, GEN. SAMUEL, decease of, 176;
    forty years in Congress, 176;
    industry, 176;
    punctuality, 176;
    characteristics, 176;
    long life and service, 176.

  SMITH, WILLIAM, declines the appointment of Judge of the Supreme
        Court, 9.

  _Somers, Brig, alleged Mutiny on Board._--Manner of entering the
        harbor of New York, 523;
    astonishment of the public at the news, 523;
    the vessel and her crew, 523;
    how first communicated, 523;
    ridicule the only answer first given, 524;
    further relative to the first discovery, 524, 525;
    means for arrest of the suspected, 525;
    the arrest, 516;
    treatment, 526;
    evidences sought for, 527;
    further arrests, 528;
    the turning point of the case, 529;
    suspicious circumstances, 530;
    interrogatories, 530;
    facts, 531;
    treatment of the prisoners, 532;
    the handspike sign, 532;
    missing their muster, 533;
    the African knife, 533;
    the battle-axe alarm, 534;
    letter of the commander to the officers, 534;
    council of officers, 535;
    testimony before the council, 535;
    incidental circumstances, 536;
    new arrests, 537;
    the way in which three men were doomed to death, 537;
    trial of Governor Wall at Old Bailey, 537;
    further proceedings, 538, 539;
    informing the prisoners of their fate, 540;
    their conduct, 540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545;
    the executions, 546;
    report of the confessions false upon its face, 547;
    the cases of Small and Cromwell, 548;
    death and innocence of the men, 549;
    conclusion of the execution, 549;
    speech of the commander, 550;
    speech on the Sunday following, 551;
    the letter in the Bible, 551;
    four men in irons, 551;
    interval after the execution, 552;
    evidence of Gansevoort, 552;
    conclusion of the report, 553;
    the purser's steward, 554;
    Sergeant Garty, 555;
    the commander's clerk, 556;
    recommendations for reward and promotion, 556;
    proceedings of the court-martial, 557;
    precipitation, 557;
    the reason, 557;
    the composition of the court, 558;
    end of the prosecutions, 559.

    The real design of Spencer, 559;
    the case of Lieut. Col. Wall of the British service, 560;
    subsequent career of Commander Mackenzie, 561;
    remark of Santa Anna, 561;
    the work of fourteen years, 561.

  _South Sea scheme_, its origin, and pretensions, 378.

  _Specie circular_, its issue, 14.

  SPENCER, JOHN C., Secretary of War, 356;
    Secretary of the Treasury, 569.

  STRANGE, ROBERT, on the slavery resolutions, 139.

  STUART, A. H., on the veto of the provisional tariff, 415; Secretary
        of the Interior, 768.

  _Supreme Court._--Its Judges, Clerk, Attorney Generals, Reporters,
        and Marshals, during the period from 1820, to 1850, 787.


  T

  TAPPAN, BENJAMIN, vindicates the martial law at New Orleans, 500;
    statement of the declarations of Mr. Polk, relative to the mode of
          Texas annexation, 636.

  _Tariff, specific duties abolished by the Compromise._--Distinction
        between specific and ad valorem duties, 189;
    statements relative to the practical operation of the ad valorem
          system, 189;
    examples of injurious operation, 189;
    losses in four years on three classes of staple goods, 189.

    _Sugar and Rum drawbacks, their abuse._--Motion for leave to bring
          in a bill to reduce the drawbacks allowed on sugar and rum,
          190;
    Benton's objections to the act of 1833, 190;
    facts relative to the drawback on sugar, 191;
    operation of the act on the sugar duties, 191;
    tables, 191, 192;
    effect of the compromise act on the article of rum, 193.

    _Fishing Bounties and their allowance._--Motion for leave to
          introduce a bill to reduce the fishing bounties, &c., 194;
    it is asked whether these allowances are founded on the salt duty,
          and should rise or fall with it, 194;
    proofs,--;
    the original petition and acts of Congress, 194;
    numerous acts referred to, 194, 195;
    defects of the compromise act, 196;
    mischiefs resulting from the act, 197;
    the whole revenue of sugar, salt, and molasses, is delivered over
          annually to a few persons in the United States, 197;
    amount taken under these bounties, 198.

  _Tariff Compromise, infringement of._--Errors of opinions respecting
        the act of 1833, 307;
    agency of John M. Clayton and Robert P. Letcher, 307;
    composed of two parts, 307;
    neither lived out its allotted time, 307;
    regulation of the tariff taken out of the hands of the Government
          by a coalition between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun, and a bill
          concocted as vicious in principle as it was selfish and
          unparliamentary in its conception and execution, 308;
    foresight of the results, 308;
    a cry of danger to the Union carried it, 308;
    calls of the Secretary of the Treasury for loans, 308;
    revenue expected under the reduced duties of the compromise on
          half what was needed, 308;
    statement of Mr. Fillmore, 308;
    proposed to abrogate the compromise, 309;
    complaints of the opposition, 309;
    remarks of Mr. Gilmer, 309;
    the compromise contemplated only revenue duties, 309;
    it is said the law is not binding, 309;
    wait until sufficient information is obtained to enable us to act
          judiciously, 309;
    Ingersoll's sarcastic taunts of the two chiefs of the compromise,
          310;
    Pickens' remarks against the abrogation of the compromise, 310;
    passage of the new bill through the House, 311;
    cost of collecting ad valorem duties, 311.

    Bill in the Senate, 311;
    Clay proposes to go on with the bill, 311;
    Calhoun proposes to delay a few days, 311;
    remarks, 311, 312;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 312;
    the present occasion illustrated the vicious and debauching
          distribution schemes, 312;
    motion to include sumach in the dutiable articles, 312;
    remarks of Clay, 313;
    reply of Calhoun, 313;
    origin of the term Whig in this country, 314;
    duty imposed on sumach, 315.

    Proposed to make salt a free article, 315;
    annihilate the American works engaged in the manufacture, 315;
    affects two great portions of the community in a very different
          manner, 315;
    the consumers of the domestic and the imported article, 315;
    amount of revenue collected from salt, 316;
    the whole system will have to be revised, 316;
    the universality of its use is a reason for its taxation, 316;
    vote on, 316;
    a combination of interests
    has kept up the tax, 316;
    amount of revenue from the duty, 316.

    Moved to exempt tea and coffee, 316;
    carried, 316;
    bill passed on the general ground that the Government must have
          revenue, 316;
    defect of the compromise in making no provision for the reduction
          of drawbacks on sugars, &c., 316;
    attempts to amend and failure, 317;
    carried in the present bill, 317;
    the bounty to the fisheries claimed as a right, 317;
    further remarks, 317.

    Low state of the treasury and the credit of the Government, 413;
    the result of three measures forced upon the previous
          administration by the opposition, and the aid of temporizing
          friends, 413;
    these measures, the compromise act, the distribution of the
          surplus revenue, and the surrender of the land revenue to
          the States, 413;
    remarks, 413;
    a retributive justice in this calamitous visitation, 413;
    it fell upon the authors of the measure, 413;
    a _provisional_ tariff passed, 414;
    vetoed, 414;
    reasons, 414;
    remarks, 414;
    deplorable condition of the administration, 414;
    remarks of Fillmore on the endeavor of the President to get back,
          even temporarily, the land revenue, 415;
    Stuart asserts that the land distribution bill was an intended
          part of the compromise from the beginning, 415;
    extract, 415;
    remarks of Carruthers, 416;
    second bill, similar to the first, passed and vetoed, 416;
    veto referred to a Committee of Thirteen, 416;
    three reports, 416;
    extract, 416;
    the compromise and the land distribution were the
          stumbling-blocks, 417;
    both sacrificed together, 417;
    manner in which it was done, 417.

  TAYLOR, ZACHARY, candidate for President, 722;
    elected, 723;
    his inauguration, 737;
    his cabinet,--; his message, 740;
    dangers of the Union, 740;
    the claim of Texas, 740;
    governments for the territories, 741;
    reference to 741;
    remark of Calhoun, 741;
    Cuba, 741;
    denunciation of unlawful expeditions, 741.

    Decease of, 765;
    occasion of his death, 765;
    first President elected on a reputation purely military, 765;
    deficiency of political wisdom, 765;
    the Texas boundary, 765;
    his death a public calamity, 765.

  _Texas, proposed annexation of._--Application of that republic, 94;
    an insuperable objection, 94;
    Texas was at war with Mexico, and to annex her was to annex the
          war, 94;
    resolution for a legislative expression in favor of the measure,
          as a basis for a tripartite treaty, 94;
    remarks of Mr. Preston, 94;
    "the lead taken by Texas, 95;
    all hostile purposes and ill-temper towards Mexico disavowed, 95;
    the treaty of 1819 a great oversight, 95;
    a mistake of the committee, 95;
    it is supposed there is a sort of political impossibility
          resulting from the nature of things to effect the proposed
          union, 96;
    there is no point of view in which any proposition for annexation
          can be considered, that any serious obstacle in point of
          form presents itself," 96;
    resolution laid on the table, 97.

    _Presidential Intrigue._--Letter of Mr. Gilmer, in a Baltimore
          newspaper, urging immediate annexation as necessary to
          forestall the designs of Great Britain, 581;
    these alleged designs, 581;
    no signs, 581;
    nothing in the position of Mr. Gilmer to make him a prime mover,
          581;
    a counterpart of the movement of Mr. Calhoun in the Senate of
          1836, 582;
    finger of Mr. Calhoun suspected, 582;
    its progress, 582;
    Webster inflexibly opposed, accosting of Aaron V. Brown, 582;
    reply of Senator Benton, 582.

    Letter from General Jackson in the Richmond Enquirer, 583;
    history of this letter, 583;
    Calhoun a candidate for the Presidency in 1841-2, 583;
    annexation the issue, 583;
    importance of the favor of General Jackson to secure the success
          of the scheme, 583;
    manner of approaching him, 583;
    its success, 584;
    mediums of transmission of Gilmer's letter, 584;
    Jackson's answer sent to Brown, 584;
    delivered to Gilmer, 584;
    his expressions in the capitol, 584;
    the state of the game, 584;
    object now to gain time before the meeting of the convention, 585;
    the Whigs induced to postpone their convention, 585;
    discovery of the movements, 586;
    denounced, 586;
    explosion of the great gun on board the Princeton, 586;
    the publication of Jackson's letter with change of date, 587;
    interrogation of the candidates, 587;
    reply of Van Buren, 587;
    position of Calhoun, 587;
    position of Mr. Clay, 587;
    steps taken to obtain Van Buren's answer, 588;
    necessity to obtain something from London to bolster up the
          accusation of that formidable abolition plot which Great
          Britain was hatching, 589;
    the manner in which it was accomplished, 589;
    Calhoun's letter to Lord Aberdeen, 589;
    annexation conducted with a double aspect, 590;
    failure of the annexation intrigue for the Presidency, 590;
    further developments, 590;
    position of the candidates, 590.
    _See Democratic Convention._

    _Secret Negotiation._--A paragraph in the President's message,
          599;
    intended to break the way for the production of a treaty of
          annexation covertly conceived and carried on with all the
          features of an intrigue, 600;
    its adoption to be forced for the purpose of increasing the area
          of slavery, or to make its rejection a cause of disunion,
          600;
    the scheme presents one of the most instructive lessons of the
          workings of our government, 600;
    early views of Mr. Calhoun contrasted with his later ones, 600.

    Speech of Senator Benton, 600;
    "a map and memoir sent to the Senate, 600;
    let us look at our new and important proposed acquisitions, 601;
    the treaty in all that relates to the Rio Grande is an act of
          unparalleled outrage on Mexico, 602;
    the President says we have acquired a title by his signature to
          the treaty, wanting only the action of the Senate to
          perfect it, 602;
    war with Mexico is a design and an object with it from the
          beginning, 602;
    another evidence the letter of the present Secretary of State to
          Mr. Green, 602;
    the war is begun, 603;
    and by orders issued from the President, 603;
    the unconstitutionally of the war with Mexico, 603;
    its injustice, 603;
    this movement founded on a weak and groundless pretext, 604;
    resolution relative to the author of a private letter, 605;
    the letter of the Secretary of State to Mr. Murphy, 605;
    commencement of the plan, 606;
    details in its progress, 606, 607;
    treaty sent to the Senate and delayed forty days, 608;
    reasons, 608;
    the messenger to Mexico, 609;
    instructions, 609, 610;
    disavowal of Great Britain of all designs against slavery in
          Texas, 611;
    Southern men deprived us of Texas and made it
          non-slaveholding in 1819, 612;
    object of Mr. Tyler," 613.

    _Texas or Disunion._--The projected convention at Nashville, 613;
    a strange collection anticipated, 613;
    what if disunion should appear there, 613;
    nullification and disunion are revived, and revived under
          circumstances which menace more danger than ever, 614;
    intrigue and speculation co-operate, but disunion is at the
          bottom, 614;
    secession is the more cunning method of dissolving the Union,
          614;
    the intrigue for the Presidency was the first act of the drama,
          the dissolution of the Union the second, 615;
    the rejected treaty compared to the slain Cæsar, 615;
    the lesson of history, 615;
    all elective governments must fail unless elections can be taken
          out of the hands of politicians and restored to the people,
          616.

    _Violent Demonstrations in the South._--Soon as the treaty was
          rejected and the nominating convention had acted, the
          disunion aspect manifested itself, 616;
    the meeting at Ashley, in Barnwell district, 616;
    views of the meeting, 616;
    resolutions, 617;
    meeting at Beaufort, 617;
    resolutions, 617;
    meeting in Williamsburg district, S. C., 617;
    Texas or disunion the standing toast, 617;
    general convention at Richmond and at Nashville spoken of, 617;
    repelled by citizens of those cities, 617;
    counter meeting at Nashville, 617;
    resolutions, 618;
    the movement brought to a stand, its leaders paralyzed, and the
          disunion scheme suppressed for the time, 618.

    _Rejection of the Treaty._--Rejected by a vote of two to one
          against it, 619;
    the vote, 619;
    annexation desirable, 619;
    bill introduced by Mr. Benton to authorize the President to open
          negotiations with Mexico and Texas, 619;
    speech, 619;
    an honest mass desire to get back Texas, 620;
    the wantonness of getting up a quarrel with Great Britain exposed,
          620;
    the course of Mr. Calhoun, 621;
    the folly of any apprehension shown by the interest which Great
          Britain has in the commerce of Mexico, 621;
    the magnitude and importance of our growing trade with Mexico, the
          certainty that her carrying trade will fall into our hands,
          &c., are reasons for the cultivation of peace with her, 621;
    political and social considerations and a regard for the character
          of republican government, were solid reasons for the
          annexation without breaking peace with Mexico, 622;
    remarks on the course of annexation, 623;
    resolutions offered by Mr. Benton, 623, 624.

    _Legislative admission of._--Words of the joint resolution, 632;
    the anomaly presenting free and slave territory in the same State,
          632;
    passed, 633;
    members from both sections voted for these resolutions, and
          thereby asserted the right of Congress to legislate on
          slavery in territories, 633;
    resolutions sent to the Senate, 633;
    gratification of Mr. Buchanan with them, 633;
    his remarks, 633;
    the Missouri Compromise line, 633;
    solid ground upon which the Union rested, 634;
    Mr. Benton's bill, 634;
    his remarks on the bill, 634;
    the joint resolution from the House and the bill of the Senate
          combined, and the President authorized to act under them
          as he thought best, 635;
    Missouri Compromise reaffirmed, 636;
    astonishment of Congress to hear that Tyler had undertaken the
          execution of the act, 636;
    views and purposes of President Polk, 636;
    statement of Mr. Tappan, 636;
    statement of Mr. Blair, 637;
    the possibility that Mr. Calhoun would cause Mr. Tyler to
          undertake the execution of the act repulsed as an impossible
          infamy, 638;
    remarks of Senators, 638;
    the results, 638.

  _Thirty Years' View._--Concluding remarks, 787.

  THOMAS, FRANCIS, on the Pension act of 1837, 269.

  THOMPSON, R. W., reply to Mr. Cushing, 505.

  TRIST, NICHOLAS P., Commissioner to Mexico, 704.

  TYLER, JOHN, candidate for the Vice-Presidency, 204.

    _Administration._--His absence in Virginia, 211;
    interregnum in the government, 211;
    repairs to Washington, takes the oath and reappoints the Cabinet,
          211;
    address in the nature of an inaugural issued, 211;
    remarks on his predecessor, 211;
    two blemishes seen in the paragraph, 212;
    other points of bad taste, 212;
    another extract, 212;
    remarks, 212;
    extract relative to a bank, 212;
    circumstances and declarations which led to an inference of his
          opinion relative to a bank, 213.

    Message, 215;
    grant of money to President Harrison's family recommended, 215;
    considered without the pale of the constitution and of dangerous
          precedent, 215;
    Harrison's fidelity, 216;
    Congress would not have been called by President Tyler, 216;
    compromise of 1833, 216;
    remarks, 216;
    fiscal agent recommended, 217;
    Hamilton's reasons for a national bank, 217;
    a grant of money to the States recommended, 217;
    extract, 217;
    the President's early views on the constitution, 218;
    change, 218;
    remarks, 218;
    programme of measures in the form of a resolve offered by Mr.
          Clay, 219;
    remark of Mr. Cushing, 219.

    _Resignation of the Cabinet._--Occurred two days after the
          second veto message, 353;
    the impelling circumstance a letter, 353;
    allusion to this letter by Mr. Ewing, 354;
    reasons of the resignation, 354;
    statement of Mr. Ewing, 354;
    statement of Mr. Badger, 354;
    statement of Mr. Bell, 355;
    statement of Mr. Crittenden, 356;
    Webster's reasons for not resigning his seat in President Tyler's
          Cabinet, 356;
    influences upon Webster, 356;
    new Cabinet, 356.

    _Repudiated by the Whig Party._--Denounced in both Houses of
          Congress, 357;
    formal meeting of the Whigs, 357;
    resolutions, 357;
    report of Committee, 357;
    how cherished hopes were frustrated, 357;
    extract, 357;
    loss by the conduct of the President, 358;
    what is to be the conduct of the party in such unexpected and
          disastrous circumstances? 358;
    establish a permanent separation of the Whig party from Mr. Tyler,
          359;
    course recommended to be pursued, 359;
    a new victory promised at the next election, 359;
    manifesto announced by Mr. Cushing by a counter manifesto, 359;
    justification of the President for changing his course on the
          fiscal corporation bill, 359;
    thrust at Mr. Clay, 359;
    the design, 360;
    relations of Clay and Webster, 360;
    extracts from Cushing's manifesto, 360;
    interest of the President in the second bill, 361;
    further details, 361;
    the results, 362.

    _End and results of the Extra Session._--Replete with disappointed
          expectations and nearly barren of permanent results, 372;
    defection of Mr. Tyler not foreseen, 373;
    repealability the only remedy thought of, for the law creating a
          bank, 373;
    other acts of the session, 373;
    three only remain, 377;
    a triumphant session to the democracy, 373.

    _First Annual Message._--Acquittal of McLeod the first subject
          mentioned, 373;
    remarks on the Caroline, 374:
    condition of the finances, 374;
    new plan of a fiscality, 374;
    remarks of Mr. Benton on this plan, 375;
    reference to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 376.

    _Separation from the Whig Party._--Effort to detach the Whig
          party from Mr. Clay, 417;
    its failure, 418;
    impeachment suggested, 418;
    the protest of Mr. Tyler, 418;
    difference from the case of General Jackson, 418;
    remarks of Mr. Adams, 418;
    remarks of Mr. Botts, 419;
    introduces resolutions of the Senate in 1834 on the case of
          President Jackson, 419;
    passage in the House, 419.

    _Message at the Session 1842-3._--The treaty with Great Britain
          the prominent topic of the forepart of it, 460;
    in public opinion it was really a British treaty, 460;
    important subjects omitted, 460;
    the Oregon Territory, 460;
    excuses in the Message for omitting to settle it, 460;
    extract, 460;
    the excuse lame and insufficient, 460;
    termination of the Florida war, 461;
    a government bank a prominent object and engrossing feature, 461;
    its features, 461;
    impossible to carry a passion for paper money farther than
          President Tyler did, 461;
    the low state of the public credit, the impossibility of making a
          loan, and the empty state of the Treasury, were the next
          topics, 462;
    extract, 462;
    the low and miserable condition to which the public credit had
          sunk at home and abroad, 462;
    remarks, 463.

    Second Annual Message, 565;
    remarks on the Oregon territorial boundary, 565;
    error of the Message in saying the United States had always
          contended for 54° 40' as the limit, 565;
    always offered the parallel of 49°, 566;
    prospective war with Mexico shadowed forth, 566;
    reference to the exchequer scheme, 566;
    regret at its rejection, 566;
    extract, 566;
    his sighings and longings for a national paper currency, 567;
    reconstruction of his Cabinet, 569.

    _The President and Senate._--Mr. Tyler without a party, 629;
    incessant rejection of his nominations by the Senate, and the
          pertinacity of their renewal, 629;
    case of Mr. Cushing, 629;
    the case of Mr. Wise, 630;
    the case of George H. Proffit, 630;
    case of David Henshaw, 630.

    _His last message._--Texas was the prominent topic of this
          message, 631;
    Mr. Calhoun the master-spirit, 631;
    speculations gave the spirit in which the Texas movement was
          conducted, 631;
    conduct and aspect towards Mexico, 631.


  U

  UNDERWOOD, JOSEPH R., on the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison,
        259.

  UPSHUR, ABEL P., Secretary of the Navy, 356;
    Secretary of State, 562;
    killed on board the Princeton, 568.


  V

  _Van Buren's Administration._--Inauguration, 7;
    subjects of his address, 7;
    extract relative to the foreign policy of the country, 7;
    remarks, 7;
    the subject of slavery, 8;
    remarks of the inaugural upon, 8;
    declaration to sanction no bill which proposed to interfere with
          Slavery in the States, or to abolish it in the District of
          Columbia while it existed in the adjacent States, 9;
    the only point of fear at this time, 9;
    the Cabinet, 9;
    extra session of Congress, 29;
    the Message, 29;
    good effects of the specie order, 30;
    objections to any bank of the United States, 30;
    total and perpetual dissolution of the government from all
          connection with banks, 30;
    remarks on the recent failure of all the banks, 30;
    the foundation of the Independent Treasury, 31;
    recommended to subject the banks to the process of bankruptcy,
          31;
    four cardinal recommendations, 31;
    cause of the extra session stated, 31;
    recommendation, 31.

    _Attacks on the Message._--The answers to Messages in former days,
          32;
    the change when made, 32;
    its effects, 32;
    assaults upon the message under thirty-two heads, equal to the
          points of the compass, 33;
    assailants, 33;
    defenders of the administration, 33;
    the treasury note bill, 33;
    remarks of Mr. Webster, 33;
    paper money, 33;
    remarks of Mr. Benton, 34;
    extracts, 34;
    neither a paper money bill nor a bill to lay the foundation for a
          national debt, 34;
    treasury notes for circulation and treasury notes for investment,
          34;
    their distinctive features, 34;
    such issues of dangerous tendency, 34;
    passed the Senate, 35;
    in the House notes reduced to $50, 35;
    in the Senate motion to restore amount to $100, remarks of Mr.
          Clay in favor, 35;
    charged as being a government bank, 35;
    remarks of Mr. Webster, 36;
    motion lost, 36.

    First regular session, 65;
    the message, 65;
    confined to home affairs, 65;
    resurrection notes, 65;
    extract from the message on this point, 66;
    graduated prices recommended for the public lands, 66;
    a prospective pre-emption act, 66;
    extract, 66;
    subsequently adopted, 67.

    Message at first session of the twenty-sixth Congress, 162;
    extracts, 162;
    other motives than a want of confidence under which the banks seek
          to justify themselves, 162;
    dangerous nature of the whole banking system, from its chain of
          mutual dependence and connection, 162;
    a financial crisis commencing in London extends immediately to our
          great Atlantic cities, 162;
    extracts, 163;
    the disconnection produced by the delinquencies of the banks, 163;
    beneficial operation of the pre-emption system, 163;
    effect of renewed negotiations with the Florida Indians, 164.

    Conclusion, 207;
    measures of his administration, and their effect, 207;
    general harmony, 207;
    no offence given to North or South, 207;
    bank suspensions, 207;
    insurrection in Canada, 207;
    case of the Caroline, 208;
    increase of votes in his favor over the first election, 208;
    candidate for the Presidency, 203;
    candidate for President, 723.

    _Vote_ on the hard money clause of the independent treasury bill,
          124;
    do. on the bill, 125;
    on Clay's substitute slavery resolution, 137;
    on the rule relative to abolition petitions, 153;
    on the Speaker, 161;
    relative to distribution of the land revenue, 172;
    on the repeal of the Sub-treasury, 220;
    on the bankrupt bill, 229;
    on the distribution bill, 245, 246;
    on the hour rule in the House, 247;
    on the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison, 259-262;
    on the motion to repeal the pension act of 1837, 267;
    on the action of the Administration in the McLeod affair, 291;
    on making salt free, 316; on the vetoed bank bill, 328;
    on the amendments to the second bill, 338, 339, 340;
    on short exchange bills, 341;
    on the resolutions of the Senate on the protest of Gen. Jackson as
          applied to the protest of President Tyler, 419;
    on the increase of the navy, 455;
    on the Oregon settlement bill, 477;
    on the motion to give notice to terminate the joint occupation of
          Oregon, 625;
    on the resolution admitting Texas, 635;
    to terminate the joint occupation of Oregon, 674;
    of the Senate on the request of the President, for advice relative
          to Oregon, 676;
    on the Oregon treaty, 676;
    on Douglass's motion to extend the Missouri compromise line, 711;
    on the resolution of Mr. Clay relative to New Mexico, 744;
    on the admission of California, 769.


  W

  WALKER, PERCY, on the disturbance in the Senate gallery, 352.

  WALKER, ROBERT J., Secretary of the Treasury, 650.

  _War with Mexico: its cause._--Calhoun the author of the war, 639;
    the Senator from South Carolina in his effort to throw the blame
          of the war upon the President, goes no further back in
          search for causes than the march on the Rio Grande, 640;
    the cession of Texas to Spain is the beginning point in the chain
          of causes that led to this war, 640;
    direct proofs of the Senator's authorship of the war, 641;
    ten years ago he was for plunging us in instant war, 641;
    the peace of the country was then saved, but it was a respite
          only, 641;
    Congress of 1836 would not admit Texas, 642;
    the letter of the Texan minister reveals the true state of the
          Texan question in January, 1844, and the conduct of all
          parties in relation to it, 642;
    the promise was clear and explicit to lend the army and navy to
          the President of Texas to fight the Mexicans, while they
          were at peace with us, 643;
    detachments sent to the frontier, 643;
    honor required us to fight for Texas if we intrigued her into a
          war, 643;
    the treaty of annexation was signed, and in signing it the
          Secretary knew that he had made war with Mexico, 644;
    the alternative resolutions adopted by Congress in the last days
          of the session of 1844-45, and in the last moments of Mr.
          Tyler's administration, 645;
    instructions to newspapers, 647;
    authorship of the war, 647;
    further remarks, 649.

    Commencement of hostilities, 679;
    effect of the hostilities, 679;
    country fired for war, 679;
    Calhoun opposed to the war, although his conduct had produced it,
          679;
    claims upon Mexico and speculations in Texas land scrip were a
          motive with some to urge on a war, 680;
    it was said the war would close in ninety or one hundred and
          twenty days, 680;
    an intrigue laid for peace before the war was declared, 680;
    the return of the exiled chief Santa Anna, 680;
    a secret that leaked out, 680;
    the manner, 680;
    explanation of the President, 681;
    two millions asked of Congress as a means to terminate the war,
          681;
    extract from the confidential message, 681;
    this intrigue for peace a part of the war, 682;
    an infinitely silly conception, 682;
    consequences of Santa Anna's return, 682.

    _Conquest of New Mexico._--Conquered without firing a gun, 683;
    how it was done, 683;
    details, 683;
    the after-clap, 683;
    cause and results of the insurrection, 683;
    career of Magaffin, 683;
    his services and final escape, 684;
    his reward, and the manner of obtaining it, 684.

    _Doniphan's Expedition._--Address of Col. Benton to the returning
          volunteers, 684;
    the wonderful march, 685;
    meeting and parting with savage tribes, 685;
    the march upon Chihuahua, 685;
    its capture, 686;
    the starting point of a new expedition, 686;
    the march to Monterey, 686;
    the march to Matamoras, 687;
    the expedition made without Government orders, 687;
    advice of
    Senator Benton to the President, 687;
    not a regular bred officer among them, 688.

    Senator Benton looks over the President's message at the latter's
          request, 693;
    objects to the recommendation to cease the active prosecution of
          the war, 693;
    reasons of the objection, 693;
    the project had been adopted in the cabinet, 693;
    Mr. Benton meets with the cabinet, 693;
    cabinet obstinate, 693;
    the President overrules them, 693;
    reading of the message in the Senate, 694;
    Mr. Calhoun mystified, 694;
    Mr. Calhoun's proposed line of occupation, 694.

  WEBSTER, DANIEL, his reception in New York, 12;
    his speech at New York, 13;
    on the Treasury note bill, 33;
    on the deposit act, 36;
    on bank resumption, 84;
    Secretary of State, 209;
    his letter to Senators Choate and Bates respecting President
          Tyler's views of the second bank bill, 348;
    reasons for not resigning his seat in President Tyler's Cabinet,
          356;
    retires from Tyler's Cabinet, 562;
    the progress of the scheme for the annexation of Texas, 562;
    Webster an obstacle to the negotiation, 562;
    a middle course fallen upon to get rid of him, 562;
    resigns, 562;
    on extending the constitution to territories, 730, 731;
    Secretary of State, 768.

  WHITE, HUGH LAWSON, his resignation, 184;
    occasion, 184;
    birth and career, 184;
    closing of his career, 184;
    his death, 184;
    eulogium, 185;
    reason of his losing favor at home, 185;
    influence upon Mrs. White, 185;
    remark of a member of Congress, 185;
    remarks, 185.

  _Whig._--Adoption of the name by a party in this country, 314;
    manifesto against Mr. Tyler, 357.

  WICKLIFFE, CHARLES A., Postmaster, 356;
    Postmaster General, 569.

  WILKINS, WILLIAM, Secretary at War, 569.

  WILLIAMS, LEWIS, decease of, 396;
    character, 396;
    Adams's motion of funeral honors to his memory, 396;
    Clay's motion of funeral honors to his memory in the Senate, 396;
    the father of the House, 397.

  WILLIAMS, RUEL, moves to repeal the pension act of 1837, 266.

  _Wilmot Proviso._--Measures taken to obtain peace with Mexico, 694;
    three millions asked for to negotiate a boundary and acquire
          additional territory, 694;
    Wilmot proviso moved, 695;
    an unnecessary measure, 695;
    answer no purpose but to bring on a slavery agitation, 695;
    seized upon by Mr. Calhoun, 695;
    slavery agitation a game played by the abolitionists on one side,
          and disunionists on the other, 695;
    letter of Mr. Calhoun, 695;
    proviso not passed, 696.

  WINTHROP, ROBERT C., chosen Speaker, 703;
    raises the question of reception of the protest of Southern
    Senators on the admission of California, 770.

  WISE, HENRY A., his nomination rejected in the Senate, 630.

  WOODBURY, LEVI, Secretary of the Treasury, 9;
    on the bill for the relief of Mrs. Harrison, 260;
    on naval expenditures, 454.

  WRIGHT, SILAS, a sacrifice of feeling to become Governor, 626;
    refuses a seat in the Cabinet, 650.

    Decease of, 700;
    its suddenness, 701;
    his career of honor, 701;
    his mind, 701;
    his port in debate, 701;
    his prominent trait, 701;
    his candor, 701;
    his integrity, 701;
    temper, 702;
    manners, 702;
    mode of life, 702.


  Y

  YOUNG, WILLIAM, on the nomination of Van Buren, 598.




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Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as
printed.

Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where
the missing quote should be placed.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the
transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Page 131: Missing closing bracket was supplied: "conviction that the
South (in its great staples) furnished the basis for these imports;"