3AO i637T42i Glass. Book-^Jt tidily. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH HON. LINN BOYD, OF KENTUCKY, PRESENT SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES. BY A VIRGINIAN, * WASHINGTON: PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 1855. A FEOM THE RICHMOND ENQUIRER. Mr. Speaker B^yd.— We devote most of our space this morning — and we cannot fliore appropriately do so — to the interesting, well written, and spirited biography of Iff Speaker Boyc, from the graceful and ready pen of an able Virginian. The sketch is rich in historical allusions, points a moral for the rising generation, and, by pre- senting a noble example to the honest masses, must aid in inciting a virtuous and honorable emulation in the path of duty, ft sets forth the beauty and success of a fearless and unwavering devotion to the great principles of the Democratic party, and appeals loudly for union, energy, and enthusiasm at this deeply interesting crisis of affairs . ! I , Washington, D. C, February 14, 1852. To the Editor of vk Enquirer: 111 health and jhe inclemency of the season having confined my intercourse, and compelled me to and my enjoyments in avocations of the mind, as a means of private relief, and a duty to the public and our party, I prepared a short biography of Speaker Boyd. In pursiing the subject, it struck me forcibly that the private life of the man, his principles as a politician, his conduct as a statesman, and his intimate connection with the history of the Democratic party, through a long period of time, formed, not/ only an appropriate reason, but, at this time, a necessary inducement for its publica- tion. It is example — it is history — it is principles imbodied into action; and those who have seen f hat I have seen of the things and the influences at work, will feel the necessity of filling every channel of the Democratic heart full of all the best impulses and principles derivable from the conduct of our public men and the party. This life wasbrepared under the circumstances stated. Its publication may possibly be attributed tofother motives; this cannot be avoided except by its suppression, which a very natural (desire and a sense of duty will not permit. If it contributes to the purification of pur party; if it affords an example to my younger friends; if it restores the strength of the party, by reviving recollections of the past; if it diffuses correct notions of theframe-work and action of our* Government; if it tends to elevate the standard of party morals; if it teaches any lesson of personal integrity and moral firm- ness and dealing with great popular questions; if it saves a great oarty from becoming the instrument and the victim of an organized corruption; if it shall contribute, from all or any of these causes, to our success now, and the permanence of our principles hereafter, I atfi content. The cause and the motive, in any one or all these results, will be vindicated. T. BIOGRAPHY. Look upon the portraiture of Linn Boyd! — strong, frank, fearless, honest, and sincere. To the constant and vigilant inquirer of Nature she njever lies, and as the eye so is the whole face the index of his soul. Gentle in his strength, modest in his frankness, unobtrusive in his honesty, conciliating, yet firm, in his sincerity, Linn Boyd, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, stands forth prominently as one of the best models of an American republican, and of whom it may be well said: st A rarer spirit never Did steer humanity." Mr. Boyd now occupies the highest postion in this country, next to that of the Presidency. Just below the President in the power, influence, and honor of the sta- tion, he is, like the President, chosen by an electoral college delegated directly by the people; and deriving his official position, thus mediately, from this sovereign source of popular authority, he is the chief representative of that mighty power of the masses, which, under constitutional restrictions, is maintaining freedom, extending civilization, and diffusing democratic tendencies, under moral and legislative restraints. He is a fair exponent of that popular creed, delivered by Mr. Jefferson, which claims humanity enough to embrace the human race, and of that honest and necessary conservatism which defends the rights of the people and the sovereignty of the States. And in these times of trial, when the Union must be preserved, when the conservative elements of the Democratic party must bewailed into full play and energy, to guide us safely through all extremes that may skirt our flanks; when its great aim and purposes are to be pursued in the spirit of a lofty patriotism, and the Constitution of the country and the glory of the people be perpetuated and increased, that people, contending against every element brought to oppose them, have, by an overwhelming election, filled the popular branch of Congress with Democratic Representatives; and these, to guide them through surrounding dangers, have elected Linn Boyd, of Kentucky, their Speaker. It is now his solemn duty to preside over diverse — it may be, discordant, materials. By all the requisite advantages and qualifications which a long public service can give to a man with his natural endowments of clear good sense, sterling integrity, and plain, downright patriotism, he is well fitted for the station and the duty; and, in advance, we pledge his honesty of purpose, his impartiality of conduct, his love of order, and his fidelity to the laws and the Constitution, for the adornment of that sta- tion and the discharge of that duty. He is a Democrat, thoroughly imbued with the spirit and the principles of his party, as imbodied in its soundest and noblest examples; yet his political opponents may well say of him, and they will say it, when there is no motive to swerve: " He, in a general, honest thought, Jlnd common good to all, made one of them; His life was gentle; and the elements So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, < This is a man ." » James Boyd, the grandfather, a Virginian by birth, movea* to the State of South 4 BIOGRAPHY OF LINN BOYD. Carolina, where he was an active and vigilant friend of his country, and a determined asserter of its independence. Constant and unyielding in the support of the war of the Revolution, he and his family suffered severely for their well-tried patriotism. Twice their habitation was burnt to the ground by the Tories; twice their hearth was made desolate; and as he and his family went forth without shelter and without rai- ment, they never lost faith in God and the good cause of their country. The grand- father and his three sons were soldiers of that war. One son (Samuel) was shot diagonally through the eye and the temple; another son, of the tender age of sixteen years, bore arms by the side of that father and brothers in the war of freedom. Of that son we will now speak. Abraham Boyd — the father — was a native of Virginia. In quite early life he accom- panied his father — James Boyd — to South Carolina, where, as we have stated, at the unripe age of sixteen, he entered the service of his country in the revolutionary war, in company with his father and brothers. He stood upon the ashes of his humble homestead, and saw the work of vengeance thus wreaked upon all he loved for their fidelity to a sacred cause; he saw his mother without food, or raiment, or shelter; and this the act of men opposed to the freedom and independence of the country he loved, and for which he was devoting his service, and, if needs be, ready to make the sacrifice of his life. The love of country in him — passing through this fiery ordeal — like Jack- son's, with whom he subsequently became associated and intimate, acquired intensity and edge, as the temper to iron makes the Damascus steel. After the close of the revolutionary war, an4 about the year 1788, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Boyd crossed the mountains into Tennessee, with no fortunes but'their clear heads and strong hearts, and no friends but the good God above, and the great country around them, which they had aided to save from despotism. They both located at Nashville, and though subsequently separated, and occupying different spheres, they were through life, without interruption, ardent and devoted friends. Various instances and anecdotes of their mutual friendship might be related, did our limits permit. . The Boyds were closely related by blood to the great bard of Scotland, Robert Burns, who was a representative man, imbodying in his undying songs the hopes, wishes, feelings, and aspirations of the laboring and untitled peasantry and yeomanry of the world. Like Robert Burns, Abraham Boyd was without education, and he overcame the disadvantages and difficulties which surrounded his early life, and proved himself a man. The blood of Burns would vindicate itself; and the history of the elder Boyds, as that of the son, shows that " The rank is but the guinea's stamp ; The man's the gowd for a' that." At an early period the elder Boyd settled at Nashville, in the State of Tennessee, where his son, Linn Boyd, (named from his mother,*) was born on the 22d of Novem- ber, in the year 1800. Poor and unfriended, the father moved with his family, in 1803, to Christian (now Trigg) county, in the State of Kentucky, and settled on the east bank of the Cumberland river, where he lived until the time of his death, a few years ago, when, after a long life of exertion and usefulness, he descended to the tomb, arnid the regrets and with the regards of an entire community. The elder Boyd learned to spell, read, and write after he had grown to man's estate, and, as evidence of the moral purpose and inflexible pursuit of knowledge which characterized him, it should be stated, for the example and incitement of others, his time for learning his arithmetic was frequently the pause in the labors of the field, when horse and man were both weary and willing to rest, and his slate was the dust of the mould hoard of his plow. Let our farmers and their sons, our mechanics in their workshops, and our poor •and meritorious young men everywhere, look on this picture, contemplate it well, and, in the success of father and son, see the sure footprints, by following which they, too, may succeed. The father, with his unfailing industry of body and mind, proceeded by one laborious step after another, maintaining his family in the style of a frontier settler, and steadily advancing until he established the reputation of a well-read histo- rian, a man of unerring judgment, inflexible private and public integrity, and, as such, .an able and efficient member for many years of the Legislature of Kentucky. There was the success of the genius and the energy of Burns, united to the practical wisdom and sagacity of an American frontiersman. It is a life where democratic simplicity and republican integrity have insured success — man's noblest triumph — the success -which follows merit. *Mre. Boyd was of Irish descent. BIOGRAPHY OF LINN, BOYD. 5 The hand of hard necessity was on young Boyd; but he never faltered or failed in the discharge of the labors or duties assigned him. In the heat of the day he steadily and constantly pursued the labors of the forest, the field, and the mill; the night and the inclement days of winter found him poring over the few books and the limited routine of instruction furnished by the occasional schools of that day. This was all that the wealth, it may be, the wholesome adversity of circumstance, could do for the early education of Linn Boyd; but in this, as in every situation and trial of life, as a true man and an honest one, he made the best of it. With the same assiduous devo- tion and characteristic energy with which his father accompanied the grandsire in the dangers and toils of war, he aided in all the domestic and laborious duties of life made honorable and ennobling by the sentiment of filial respect and manly deference to paternal wishes and authority. These constitute the groundwork of every true man; and the father who is a good citizen, enforcing by precept and example the principles and the life of republican simplicity and pursuit of useful objects which guided this family so signally, will gain the rich reward of an honest and honorable posterity, illustrating the lesson of religion as well as of experience; while those* who run the course of ostentatious folly and profligate idleness will bitterly learn that they who " sow to the winds will reap the whirlwind." In the preparation of this biographical notice, it so happens that this is the eighth day of January, 1852 — an anniversary of a day memorable, in itself, in the history of our many brilliant achievements in arms: still more memorable in its consequences, by the moral power and political influences with which it surrounded and identified the hero of its battle-field, as the only and true leader in the great contest of ideas and polity which subsequently followed, and which convulsed the civilized world, and is revolu- tionizing and reconstructing, upon the free principles of the age, the commercial system of the nations. In' the history of the extraordinary man to whom these remarks refer, it was his duty, as commissioner of the United States, in 1819, to treat with the Chick- asaw Indians, for their valuable domain lying east of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. By this treaty, secured by the foresight, and concluded by the judgment of Andrew Jackson, all that fertile and beautiful country stretching from the Tennessee river across the State of Tennessee, and extending down into Mississippi, was surrendered to the improvement and civilization of the white man. This purchase included that fertile country, washed on two sides, by the Tennessee and the Ohio, and bounded on the south by the line of the adjoining State, and long known to the solitary traveler through the wilderness, and in the tradition of the country to the children of the present day, as the beautiful hunting grounds of Minke Pi. These lands filled rapidly with a frugal, industrious, and hospitable population, and were soon divided into four counties, having one Representative in the State Legislature. The Tennessee river divides the county of Trigg from Calloway. Mr. Linn Boyd having now arrived at man's estate, and pressed forward by those generous impulses and principles which harmoniously regulate each other, in that state of society, where mutual dependence begets a desire and a moral necessity for reciprocal kindness, left the paternal roof, and, in the year 1826, located in the adjoining county of Calloway. The footsteps of Minke Pi no longer followed in the chase over his native hills, and the red man no more startled the wiid deer from the tangled brake; the hardy pioneers were there — many who wanted homes; those who survived the wars of their country, and whose fortunes had been neglected or ruined in their devotion to its cause, and those who had braved the dangers of the early border life, flocked to this land of promise. These were the elements of which this portion of the Kentucky character was formed — similar and alike, in all its nobler traits to the general qualities which distinguish the people of that State. The Boyd family had grown up with the country; they had been there so long, that scarcely any knew but what they had been indigenous to the land, did not their Saxon blood and republican principles at once indicate their origin and their character. Mr. Linn Boyd, now of the county of Calloway, mixed freely with the people, and engaged boldly and decisively in the conversations and discussions relative to the appropriation and settlement of those lands. So early and entirely did he gain the confidence of that community, scattered over those four large counties, and having such a deep interest in a wise and just disposal of those lands, that in 1827 he waa returned as their member to the Representative branch of the Legislature. The contest was a most spirited one, and, animating as the contest proved, it was creditable to Mr. Boyd and highly honorable to all the parties engaged. Judge James, a very influential citizen, who for more than twenty years has been honored by that people with being their Representative, was triumphantly defeated by this young opponent. Subse- 6 BIOGRAPHY OF LINN BOYD. quently Calloway formed an election district, and for the two succeeding years Mr. Boyd was elected to the same station, from this large and populous county, by a vote of two to one over popular men who became candidates in opposition. What is remarkable is, that, in all his career, he never made personal enemies of his opponents; and with his competitors through life, they and their descendants, there has ever existed a sincere and confiding friendship. There is in these facts evidence of a lofty bearing and a force of moral dignity, the imitation of which carfnot be too strongly enforced on the consideration of young men becoming politicians or aspiring to statesmanship; but the possession of the solid virtues is better than their gilding. From 1827 to ]830 — three sessions — Mr. Boyd represented the district aforesaid; the county of Trigg during that time, for two sessions, was represented by his father, Abraham Boyd. During this period Mr. Boyd, in conjunction with other gentlemen, brought forward a system which proved peculiarly applicable for the appropriation and settlement of those lands. A somewhat similar system in relation to the public lands of the Union is now rapidly rising in popular favor, and politicians and presi- dential aspirants are grasping after golden opinions as authors or promoters of the scheme, substantially the same, which, in twenty-five years, under the guidance of a yeoman statesman, has made an industrious and frugal yet hospitable people independ- ent and happy. This judicious system protected the settler on the one hand, and the legitimate interest of the State on the other, and consisted mainly in the provision granting to the actual settlers the right to enter one hundred and sixty acres of land, embracing their homes, at one half the sum required from others. By this stroke of forest statesmanship, the settler uniformly secures a home for his wife and' children, unmolested by that bane of all new countries, the insatiate land-jobber. And an enlarged and wholesome patriotism will anticipate the time when the public land of the Union may be made to yield as rich a harvest for the general good, by a well-ordered system of appropriation and settlement, when all the interests connected with commerce? manufactures, and mechanics, will receive a new impulse from the improved condition, multiplied wants, and expanding resources, and intelligence of this portion of our population. During his period of service, he secured two members in the Legislature for his con- stituency, and he and Judge James were the delegates returned, by whose actual and constantly united cooperation many advantages were secured to the people they repre- sented. Having served the people of the Calloway district three sessions, which expired in 1830, he returned to his paternal roof in the county of Trigg. In 1831, at the earnest solicitation of the people, which he was not permitted to resist, he became a candidate again, on a new field, and was elected over a gentleman of high character, and com- manding influence, of opposing political principles, and this, by the largest majority ever polled in the county. As in the contest of Calloway it was alleged against him that he was a young man, without any fixed residence, so in the canvass in Trigg, he was called the " traveling candidate" — that he would go into any county and be elected wherever he went. The result made the intended reproach a signal compliment. " A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees." [Psalm 74.] This was the language of the inspired writer, when, in his clear vision of the .past, in the simplicity of the early manners and virtues, he beheld most dis- tinctly the glory of his nation. And precisely, as a people revive the spirit which animated their first struggle, and reproduce and reincorporate into their private conduct and public policy, the fundamental principles of their institution, or, more properly, their installation among the nations of the earth, so do they perpetuate that youth and vigor, which alone can preserve to them the freedom and the virtue of their early existence. And men are always arising from the bosom of the masses, with the inher- ent simplicity of manners, native strength of intellect, common sympathies with the race, and enlightened and just regard for the interests of the whole people, whose public conduct and administration of official duties make the words of the Psalmist, in the sense in which he used them, a living truth in any age which will adopt its ' wisdom. " A man is famous according as he has lifted up axes upon the thick trees." At the end of the session for which he was elected, from the county of Trigg, Mr. Boyd retired for a'season, from public life, contrary to the wishes and very earnest solicitations of his fellow-citizens. The people felt they had a claim on his services, which he had no right to withhold; and his refusal to be a candidate occasioned much dissatisfaction among his old friends. He was not rich, and he felt that he must pay some attention to his private fortune. On the 20th of October, 1832, he married Alice BIOGRAPHY OP LINN BOYD. 7 D. Bennett, of his own county, whose father was originally a plain, substantial, Vir- ginia farmer— a lady of sterling sense and noble qualities. Happy in his new relation to society, and proud of* his honest possessions,* with his accustomed energy and love of employment, he devoted himself to the improvement and cultivation of his little Sabine farm of one hundred and thirty acres; and there, like Cincinnatus, whose exampl|^xnd virtues Washington desired to r'evive and perpetuate in this country, he might nave been constantly found in the work around his homestead, running the fence, plowing the field, reaping the harvest, gathering the corn, or *' lifting his axe on the thick trees." In a feverish and restless mind there is a constant irritation in scenes of quietude, and a yearning after notoriety and the bustle of streets, clubs, cabels, or factions; and in a robust and healthy mind there is a moral necessity of nature which impels it to useful and honorable exertion. And had Mr. Boyd no wish or motive of his own to return again to public life, and in a more exalted sphere, he could not have well resisted the importunities of his many ardent friends. Colonel C. Lyon was the incumbent in Congress, and, the impression prevailing that he would decline at the end of the term, Mr. Boyd consented to be a candidate. It, however, so happened that Mr. Lyon wished to be returned again. Mr. Boyd could not retire from the field, in deference to the many friends who called him forth; he could not make a warm and excited contest, from the high regard for his opponent, who was his personal friend — and the election went against him by his own default, by a small majority. In 1835 he was chosen a member to Congress, and at once, by the ancient family friendship which had existed unbroken, and by concurrence of general views and principles of policy, he became identified with the administration of President Jackson, and the policy which he was giving to the country. The separation of parties were marked and decided. The spirit of Jefferson was •revived, and again animated the Democratic party. The recollection of the struggles of '98 and '99 came back upon the minds of the people with the distinctness and vivid- ness of a transaction of youth, which in after times thrills and mysteriously excites an aged man. The young caught their enthusiasm from the old, and the old , in the renewed conflict of their struggles, sought to bequeath to posterity the fruits of a victory, in which they had not been altogether unsuccessful. The Democratic party revived the doctrines of '98 and '99 — freedom of speech; freedom of trades from bounties and oppressive tariffs; freedom from the tyranny and exhausting exactions of the bank; freedom from national debt; freedom of the States from consolidation; freedom of in- dustry in all its branches of art, trade, and commerce; the constitutional freedom, in all its integrity, of the people, who claim the continent as the center-point of deployment and a world for a theater of action, for the pursuit of their legitimate interests and the development of their destiny. This freedom it is reaching in the domain of mind. But at the time Mr. Boyd entered Congress, this was all chaos and contest. The Dem- ocratic party had bitter reflections of the past, and memories of tyranny which grated harshly on the mind. Among these memories and reflections were the punishments under the " alien and sedition law," and the belief that in these inflictions the Con- stitution of the land had been invaded, and the rights of the citizens violated. And to vindicate the citizen who suffered, and the high law which had been disregarded, a solemn reversal of these monstrous judgments was demanded by the temper of the times and a sense of justice. • The case of Matthew Lyon, the intelligent and manly mechanic, presented an appropriate opportunity. He had dared — in defense of his own rights, in defense of the right of all citizsns, and for the freedom of speech and action guarantied to him and to all by the Constitution — he had dared, in a firm, manly, and patriotic manner, to arraign those laws and their authors at the bar of public opinion, and he was condemned to the loss of a fine and illustrious infamy of an imprisonment. In 1835, Mr. Boyd brought forward the bill to refund this fine and interest to his heirs; and this tardy act of justice, yet significant in its meaning, was consummated in 1839. Thus was rebuked and reversed the judgment of an obsequious court, always consol- idating and aristocratic in its tendencies, and in that case administering an unconstitu- tional law, and imposing on an humble citizen a punishment for exercising the freedom of speech, in exposing the tyranny of rulers and the injustice of their laws. This was a public judgment of reversal and attaint passed upon an Administration eminent for its ability, yet infamous for the measures it espoused, and the laws which, for a while * The third of the three wishes of the early Greeks, before they had started on their early career of profligacy, effeminacy, and folly, was •' to be richly honestly." 8 BIOGRAPHY OF LINN BOYD. it imposed upon the country. Such waa Mr. Boyd's introduction on the theater of national politics. How wonderfully extremes meet— as if by contrast Providence was presenting these extremes to teach the examples of patriotism and the limits of law and power ! Lyon was feed because he exercised a private individual right; the victorious General at New Orleans was fined because, from the necessity of position, he was compelled to assume the highest sovereign power which the Constitution can warrant, or the supre- macy of the laws permit. And to affirm the right of the one and defend the constitu- tional necessity of the other became the grave and solemn duty of public judgment; and the rights of the mechanic-patriot, representing the rights of all citizens, and the fame of the hero from his victorious battle-field, were alike maintained by the same great party, rendering its judgments on the page of history; and in the records of the present biog- raphy, we find the same man steadily pursuing his purposes, and maintaining great principles. Mr. Boyd came into Congress on the top of the wave. The flood-tide of a fallacious and transitory prosperity was bearing everything on its swelling bosom: the Bank of the United States, at one time contracting the supply to the channels of commerce and trade until the region through which they passed was an arid and barren waste; at another time, as then, it overflowed the country until the harvest and tilth of future years was destroyed by the excessive floods poured forth from failing sources of supply. General Jackson 's administration closed when all the sources of this false prosperity were pouring their floods upon the country. The presidential contest of 1836 came on, and in its result was staked, boldly and manfully, the success of the Democratic principles on the one hand, and the union of Bank and State on the other. The Democratic masses, impelled by the instincts of their common humanities, and guided by sound constitu- tional principles, mustered in the field of contest and won the laurels of a noble victory. But the bank party, stronger in its adversity, most powerful in the crash of its stupend- ous ruins, most dangerous in the collected will and vindictive purpose of a dying struggle and a last revenge, made one more effort. Confidence was annihilated ; moral cohesions were destroyed in the infection of the times; legal obligations were disavowed, and the privileges of incorporated companies were converted into powers for the resistance and overthrow of the laws. The Bank of the United States, standing on the tremendous precipice of its own ruin, suspended specie payments. The world was amazed; the convulsion and the terror spread over the country; bank followed bank; and the monetary power, in the very ruin which it had created, was omnipotent ! It is well to revive the recollection of this catastrophe, and the frenzy which accompanied it and produced bitter consequences, as a lesson of warning at this moment, when another expansion of the paper circulation is tending rapidly to the same dangerous — nay, destructive — results, and, in combination with political elements and personal and party intrigues, may injure the industry and labor of the people and destroy the public morals — these the only solid foundations of our Republic ! The swelling waves are gathering around us again. In this hour of seeming peril and real frenzy, Mr. Van Buren convoked Congress. His proclamation conveyed no definite information, and proposed no system of policy. In this state of popular alarm and uncertain policy, the election for members of Con- gress came on, and Mr. Boyd found himself opposed by a Democratic candidate, con- tending for a Bank of the United States and urging upon the people its necessity; and that the circumstances of the times and the experience of the past had compelled the Administration to call an extraordinary session of Congress, in order to restore this giant power to its enthronement above the laws and the Constitution. Without any knowledge of the purposes of the Administration — without counsel to consult, except his own republican principles — without power to aid, except his own inflexibility of purpose and the integrity of the people, and pressed by the phrenzied fanaticism of party, and the surrounding terror of the convulsion — he boldly, in advance of the politi- cians of the time, planted himself in defense of the mutilated and abandoned Consti- tution of his country. He urged that the system of Hamilton should be overthrown; he maintained that the time had come for a final and irrevocable divorce of Bank from the State, and that the country could only be safe from the rocking convulsions of a constantly contracting and expanding currency by being firmly and durably based on the solid metal in the iron chest. The malady of the times was infectious; the moral co- hesion of the Democratic party was to some extent dissolved, and the banner of a real friend and gallant leader was trailed in the dust of defeat. The Bank of the United States, stimulating speculation, fostering extravagance, sys- BIOGRAPHY OF LINN BOYD. 9 tematizing venality, and spreading its fatal corruptions into domestic circles, and legis- lative councils, had laid the foundation for a bankruptcy, individual in its effects, but national in its character. It helped to ruin as it was ruined. Victims were found in cities, towns, and hamlets; and its desolations, like the sack of a city, involved the guilty and the guiltless. Society could only be relieved by means more injurious than the cause it affected to remove; for the legislative decree of bankruptcy which was passed by Congress involved a disregard for constitutional restraints and the morale of personal responsibility. To vindicate the former by a timely declaration, and to avenge the later by a historical stigma on the doers and the deed, a Democratic Congress repealed the bankrupt act, and the final struggle, after many days of contest and legislative evasions and delays, was terminated by the imperative motion of Mr. Boyd, on the 15th of January, 1842, instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to report a bill instanter for the repeal of the bankrupt act ! The grand drama which opened with the splendors of the bank, and through many acts maintained the pageants of stocks, ex- changes, speculations, profligacy, and venal vice, in the last scene closed with the stifled murmurs and low wailings of the bankrupt act. A man who was a victircyn its prog- ress for an hour appeared in the end as a vindicator of an age. Although defeated by a small majority, as stated, yet the sagacity and foresight of Mr. Boyd, in planting himself on the independent treasury and the constitutional currency, in advance of the statesmen of that day, was remembered and faithfully vindicated, and rewarded by a triumphant election in 1839, over his competitor of 1837. He was reelected in 1841 and '43, over political opponents; in 1845 was returned without opposition; in 1847 by a majority of thirty -two hundred; no opposition in 1849; and by a majority of twenty-nine hundred in 1851, against a Whig and Democrat, both in the field. Who will doubt the virtue of the people? Who will distrust their good sense and judgment? Let such a one become a trimmer, a sycophant, a super- serviceable slave, and traitor, by weakness or venality, to his cause; but he who has confidence in the right, and in public integrity, will stand firm on his great platform, and the swelling surges will dash on it in vain, and will recede when the calm shall return, and play around his feet. Representing the firmness and stability of his own district, and the general tendencies and constitutional views of his party, Mr. Boyd is now the Speaker of that House in which he never attempted any flourish of sounding phrases or startling movements of a political charlatan. His election was a just tribute to the soundness of his judgment, to his impartiality of conduct, to the solid virtues of the man, and the integrity of his public life. The records of political biography may be safely challenged for a parallel to the life of Linn Boyd, in consistency, in moderation, avoiding all violent extremes, in firmness, in foresight as to results and consequences, and sagacity as to the perma- nent wishes and welfare of the people. He has never, in an enlarged sense, been too fast; he has never been too slow: and a short review of his public life clearly manifests that this did not arise from servility to popular favor, a trimming of sails to catch the breeze, but sprang intuitively from the proprieties and justness of each occasion. On the 26th of January, 1837, upon a call from the House for information in reference to Texas, President Jackson communicated a message to that body. General Howard, of Maryland, moved its reference to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Boyd moved to amend, " with instructions to report a resolution acknowledging the inde- pendence of Texas." On the 18th of February following, that committee, through General Howard, reported a resolution " that the independence of Texas ought to be recognized." The subject of Texas never ceased to form a prominent subject of interest for the public mind, and undoubtedly influenced materially the presidential election of 1844. In his annual message of that year, Mr. Tyler called the attention of Congress to the subject of the reannexation of Texas, by the joint action of the legislative departments. Mexico, threatening to reconquer, was hanging on the rear of Texas with her legions; England was tampering v/ith her interests, and the people of the United States, from affinity of blood, and community of purpose and character, were pressing for her union with our Confederation. To effectuate this, various propositions were brought forward by gentlemen of the two great parties of the country. None were satisfactory. A meeting of the Demo- cratic party in caucus took place, at which all the various projets were brought forward or discussed. A motion was made to refer all the plans (so they were called) to a committee of gentlemen of that party who had proposed any plan. This motion was not successful, and by a vote, almost unanimously given, Mr. Linn Boyd was appointed 10 BIOGRAPHY OF LINN BOYD. a committee of one to prepare a plan; and on the 21st of January, 1845, it was intro- duced and accepted by Mr. Douglas (now of the Senate) as " a modification of, or a substitute for, his amendment to the amendment." On the 25th of the same month the resolution of Mr. Milton Brown, with an accepted amendment of Mr. Douglas to the same, the whole constituting the identical resolutions, in substance, from the Democratic caucus committee of one — passed the House, and were sent to the Senate. On the third day of March, 1845, a message from the President announced that he had il approved and signed certain joint resolutions for annexing Texas to the Union," and " a loud burst of plaudits pealed through the House," heralding a new star rising with our constellation. That the reannexation of Texas (for I always believed it to be ours, politically and geographically) might lead to war, might be safely admitted, and yet not weaken- but rather strengthen — the argument for the measure. Without recurring to the ques- tion in detail, or adducing the official opinions of President Jackson, it is all summed up in the announcement of that policy which has become a historical fact, that by it " our country has obtained indemnity for the past and security for the future." The commission which has now closed its labors, in awarding to our citizens their just demands, indicates the first, and our strong position on the Gulf and the Pacific insures the latter. But the questions connected with the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, were not without their intrinsic difficulties; and those difficulties were rendered, at all times, in every step of the progress of events, more perplexing and embarrassing, by the tactics of a party that combined in its elements of opposition every phase of the human mind, and every incentive to action — talents and cunning, patriotism and ambition, boldness and duplicity, philanthropy and false sentimentality, integrity and venality — and all subservient to, and concentrated upon, the success of party. Official dispatches of the advance of the Mexican forces had reached our cap- ital, and their contents had become known to the whole country. On the 26th of April, 1845, a dispatch from General Taylor, sent by express, made known the fact officially " that Arista had taken the command of the Mexican army, and had signified 1 to him that hostilities had commenced; that a party that General Taylor had sent two * days before had been cut off; that he had called on the Governors of Texas and Loui- ' siana for volunteers — a large auxiliary force of five thousand men; and asking to have * a law passed authorizing the President to raise volunteers." The italics are placed here because it is the official language of General Taylor, and communicated on the 11th of May by the President to Congress. The effect was electrical; the positive and negative powers of party were excited at once; the positive measures of the Demo- cratic party were for their country, and their brave army surrounded by dangers; the negative conduct of the Opposition would have permitted tha,t country to have been circumscribed in its limits, and that army driven back to any boundary that did not affect their existence as a party. The Committee on Military Affairs, on the morning of the 11th of May, simply proposed to take up its stale bill of the 27th of January, which had been brought forward, pending the Oregon controversy. This was the fact, as intended, and as stated in conversation preceding the session of the House. When so announced, Mr. Boyd, with decisive energy, scouted the measure as unjust, feeble, and temporizing, and, sitting down in his seat, promptly drew up the preamble and first section of the bill which subsequently became so conspicuous and beneficial in the progress of the war; and the declaration which it contained, that " by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war existed between that Government and the United States," crippled the Whig party through the whole subsequent action of Congress on this subject. Mr. Boyd prepared this at the moment, and it was shown to several members, one of whom, reading it with care two or three times, drew up a similar formula, embracing the language in part, and the idea throughout, of Mr. Boyd, and, getting the floor, offered it to the house. On the presentation, however, of Mr. Boyd's, it was adopted, and made the basis of all the subsequent movements of the Democratic party, and of the action of the House on this subject. The history of that war is written in letters of effulgence. The statesmen who guided and the soldiers who won the battles, by their heroic bearing, have achieved fame for themselves and important benefits for their country and the world at large. The end, perhaps, might have been accomplished at less sacrifice of treasure and of life, had not the laurel-blossoms of ambition required more crimson to give them a deeper and more gorgeous dye. The administration of Mr. Polk was an eventful and illustrious era in our history. While he strictly sustained the creed of his party, unlike General Jackson he had not that personal character and commanding influence which concentrated the energies of § BIOGRAPHY OF LINN BOYD* U that party on his measures; and while this was felt in carrying on the war with Mexico, it had been previously visible in the difficulties which surrounded the negotiations of the Government and the legislation of Congress on the Oregon controversy. There has never been a question of more domestic interest than the settlement of the title and boundary of Oregon. A party which conceived that an important measure, in some degree, had been abandoned; a people — the population of the West — who thought their rights had been surrendered; a country that felt the daring of battle and the confidence of victory over an ancient foe, and felt its spirit insulted and its pride offended; and a large commercial influence, which always fears and shuns the disastrous effects of war — all these passions, prejudices, and interests, combining with party views and national considerations, made the delieate question more complex and difficult of solution. In the diversity of views and variety of propositions which were presented, the public mind became bewildered, and Congress seemed incapable. of any conclusion. The thread which led from the intricate mazes of this labyrinth was spun by' the hand of Linn Boyd; and without giving the prolix details of the congressional contest, it will suffice to make an extract from "Wheeler's History of Congress, (vol. 1. p. 105, Life of Senator Douglas:) "The joint resolution, in the form in which it finally passed the House, was offered as an amendment by Mr. Linn Boyd, of Kentucky, a gentleman whose unusually quiescent course challenges but little of public observation, but whose influence over his party, in regard to some of the late and most important measures of its policy, has been exemplified in a manner not less signal than complimentary. He seems to pos- sess an effective, but unpretending, faculty of uniting discordant opinions, and concen- trating them upon a general result, not surpassed by that of any member in the ranks of the Democratic party." A compliment most justly earned by the exhibition of those very qualities in the Texan question, the Mexican war controversy, the»Oregon difficulty, and last, not least, in the Compromise, on which the Union now stands solid and secure. The contest between the Democratic party and the Whig party has unquestionably on each side two principal phases. On the Democratic side, the protection of individual rights, and the preservation of the sovereignty of States; on the other, the aggrandize- ment of individuals and the consolidation of the central power. These prominent features will strike the general attention, upon any impartial review of our political history; and on either side these respective subdivisions find their historical associa- tions, their own true and powerful ally. They are cognate, and they will live and per- ish together, and the ruin of the States will be the destruction of individualism. But the contest between State sovereignty and consolidation has most deeply swayed the public feelings and aroused their fiercest energies. The contest of 1798 was renewed in 1848. A lapse of half a century reproduced its ancient struggle, warning the new generations that a recurrence to fundamental principles and the early sentiments of freedom is necessary to the perpetuity of the Republic. The fundamental principle of the Democratic party — viz: a strict construction of the Constitution of the United States — is common, as stated, to both branches of tha> party. The individual rights of the northern consumer, whether mechanic, farmer, or citizen in moderate circum- stances, can only, by this principle, be preserved against the aggrandizing and central- izing power of national banks, protective tariffs, partial construction of roads, railroads, or canals, departmental bureaus, (not recognized by the fundamental law,) strength- ening and consolidating power with an army of office holders, and an unceasing flow of corrupting influences; against an uncontrolled paper circulation, without any con- stitutional currency to hold in check its profligate expansions and its criminal contrac- tions, and against corrupt legislation and venal party combinations, whether of fund- mongers under Hamilton, stockholders under Biddle, or the present dynasty of Wall street brokers, now, on either side, managing presidential nominations, subsidizing the press, and surrounding the Capitol with their corruptions, and against all which no salutary check can be opposed, save only in the supremacy of the Democratic princi- ples, swayed by the moral and political power of the veto in the hands of an honest man. : The same principles and practical arrangement of the power would protect the sover- eignty of the States. These would be the sustaining and controlling forces of our now stupendous system of independent and mutually dependent States — the General Gov- ernment, " In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other," 12 BIOGRAPHY OF LINN BOYD. restrained by the same laws of order by which it restrains and is supported. Never in the history of the country was there a greater necessity for the equal exercise of these vital principles than on the first Monday of December, 1849. The unbalanced powers seemed to give up theircohesions, and, for the moment, surprise with some, and terror in others, prevented any certain observation of the great laws which regulate our system. Congress had assembled; no organization could be made; for more than forty days the strife of parties, and the convulsions of the country, were continued for the control of the House; the chief result was the election of a republican Speaker, and an imperceptible preponderance of the popular influences in favor ofthe Democracy. Yet the struggle, from the equipoise of parties and the confusion of certain other notions, foreign to the settled policy of both parties, and which were made to act a conspicuous, though temporary, part, was continued through successive months, crowded with excitement, and gloomy with danger. We must pass over the detail of these momen- tous months/ President Taylor and his Cabinet had pursued a policy with respect to California, New Mexico, and Texas, which did not command the approbation and support of his own partisans; ye.t those who were opposed to this policy were never in a majority, and the compromise measures, as an aggregate, were the success of a minority. At no time, as a whole, could they have probably commanded a majority, and yet, if they had not been united in some of their important details they would not have been passed, great evils would have been without remedy, important principles would have been trodden down, certain constitutional guarantees would have been left without sanction, and the ship of State, instead of being tossed by the stormy winds of declamation, might have floated on a sea of blood. Yet the Administration pressed its hopeless and dangerous policy: California must be admitted, and Texas be partitioned by Executive judgment and military execution. The decree of dismemberment was placed in the hands of a military leader, and Colonel Monroe, substituting the peal of the