LETTER 
 
 OP 
 
 HON. WILLIAM ALLEN, OF OHIO, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 YOUNG MEN’S DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, 
 
 HELD 
 
 AT COLUMBUS, OHIO, 
 
 JULY 28, 1842. 
 
 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 PRINTED AT THE GLOBE OFFICE 
 
 1842. 
 

 I 
 
 ( 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 *1 
 
 i 
 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 
LETTER. 
 
 Extract from the proceedings of the Young Men's 
 Democratic Convention, held at Columbus, on the 
 28 th July, 1842. 
 
 By consent of the convention, 
 
 Mr. Morgan presented and read the following: 
 letter, addressed to that body from Senator Allen, 
 of Ohio, which was ordered to be published in the 
 general proceedings: 
 
 Washington City, July 23, 1842. 
 My Dear Sir: Your obliging letter of the 8th 
 instant came to me several days since; and would 
 have been immediately answered, but for the pres¬ 
 sure of business with which I could not dispense. 
 
 I should be gratified, I assure you, were it in my 
 power to attend, as you invite me, the Young 
 Men’s State Convention on the 28th mst. I should 
 be gratified for other reasons; but especially so, that 
 I might there be able to take once more by the 
 hand hundreds of the noble spirits whom it is my 
 pride to call personal, as well as political friends; 
 and with many of whom I became first acquainted 
 when traversing the State, to offer my little aid in 
 the contest of 1838, and in the more terrible strug 
 gle of 1840 But the madness of the dominant 
 majority seems likely to make this session of Con¬ 
 gress as long, as it has already made it odious; and 
 I have, therefore, no prospect ©f being present in 
 person. In soul and in sentiment, however, I shall 
 be with the Democracy then, and always, whilst I 
 have reason enough left to appreciate the value of 
 freedom. 
 
 When the convention meets, it will find the Fed¬ 
 eral Government,, for the first time, brought down 
 by its own acts, in sixteen months of the profound- 
 est peace, to a point of distress as low and as 
 humiliating as could well have resulted from the 
 most protrac ed and disasirous war. This great 
 calamity is the first-born offspring of Federalism, 
 since it assumed the name of Wbigery, and em¬ 
 bodied its principles and its passions in the form of 
 a National Administration. 
 
 For many years prior to 1840, the leaders of 
 that party bad been busily collecting into a com¬ 
 mon focus all the diseased elements of society. In 
 that year they found the public mind frettul and 
 restless. They found thousands discontented, whom 
 the reaction of their own system of currency and 
 credit had ruined. They found banks, bankrupt¬ 
 cy, indolence, avarice, rapacity, impudence, venali¬ 
 ty, proiigacy, cupidity, and fraud, all standing 
 ready to league with ambition for the power and 
 plunder of the country. The league was formed, 
 and every feeling of the human heart, that lay 
 within the reach of terror or corruption, was then 
 stimulated into revolt against the Democratic party. 
 The prices of all things were suddenly reduced, be¬ 
 cause the politicians had prompted the banks thus 
 
 to aggravate the public distresses, by the reduction 
 of their discounts and circulation. The people 
 were openly treated with contempt, by the brutality 
 of the appeals made to their senses. Fraud and 
 folly, the most criminal and ridiculous, were em¬ 
 ployed to distract their attention, bewilder their 
 minds, and mislead their action. To affect their 
 imaginations, everything, from the gorgeous en- 
 sien of the Republic, with its stars and stripes 
 streaming from its halyards, down to the skin of 
 the most loathsome skunk, was displayed to the 
 popular eye. Globes and cabins, banners and 
 bushes, barrels and brutes, harangue and mu¬ 
 sic, revelry and feasting, the song and the bottle, 
 imprecations, blasphemy, badges, and buffoonery— 
 all things that could minister to confusion, were 
 made to chime in the general din. R.eason was 
 silenced in the turmoil, and truth, for once in 
 our country, yielded its empire to falsehood, 
 fraud, and frivolity. If these leaders condescend¬ 
 ed, for a moment, to speak seriously to the peo¬ 
 ple, it was but to denounce things as abuses which 
 did not exist, and to make pledges of reform they 
 never intended to fulfil. They deplored the scar¬ 
 city of money they had themselves occasioned, 
 and promised abundance on their accession to 
 power. They condemned removal from office for 
 the sake of opinion, and invoked Heaven to wit¬ 
 ness that this practice should cease. They prom¬ 
 ised the unfortunate a reparation of his fortunes— 
 tLe laborer an increase of his wages—the farmer 
 an addition to his prices—the hopeless of every de¬ 
 scription the grat.fication of being soon surprised 
 in their despondency by the timely bounty of Gov¬ 
 ernment, to be distributed among them. To the 
 nation at large, they promised opulence and con¬ 
 tentment, the restoration of law and order, the 
 healing of all wounds, the restitution of a 1 rights, 
 the reparation of all wrongs, the cure of all illsl 
 the remedy of all disorders, the observance of al, 
 obligations, the reduction of all burdens, economy 
 in all things, security, plenty and happiness to all 
 men. Thus was excited every passion of our na¬ 
 ture, to its extremest limit, by all the means which 
 the joint energies of ambition and rapacity could 
 employ. Thus was the public heart torn and la¬ 
 cerated—the public mind slung and goaded ; and 
 thus was an Administration, conducted by men of 
 honor, ability, and patriotism, undermined and 
 overthrown by the most stupendous conspiracy 
 that ever yet was levelled against the liberties of a 
 free people. 
 
 What has been the result? 
 
 On the 4th of March, 1841, the whole power of 
 the country changed hand ; Mr. Van Buren aid 
 his friends retired without a murmur, and gave 
 place to General Harrison and his. Toe event of 
 the contest had for months been known; and, from 
 
4 
 
 that moment, proscription for opinion ceased to be 
 a crime. Throughout the land, one wild and uni¬ 
 versal cry was heard for the blood and bread of the 
 Democrats in office. Before he had left the banks 
 of the Ohio, the President-elect was beset by in¬ 
 truders without number, and importunities beyond 
 the power of gratification. On his arrival in the 
 capital, he found it already besieged by thousands, 
 who had trooped together from all parts of the 
 Union, to demand of him the spoils of a conquered 
 country. There was an impatient ferocity in their 
 looks, like that of a rapacious soldiery when re¬ 
 strained for a moment from the sack and plunder 
 of a subjugated city. He was a man scarred with 
 the infirmities of age—of a heart, I believe, that 
 found no pleasure in the passion of revenge; and, 
 therefore, when left to himself, was disinclined to 
 inflict, without cause, upon so many men, the mis¬ 
 eries of a general removal. But, neither his in¬ 
 firmities nor his feelings were respected by his vic¬ 
 torious parti?ans; and, on the very first day of his 
 power—within ten minutes after the official oath 
 was administered, and whilst he was yet descend¬ 
 ing the eastern portico of the Capitol—his friends 
 in the Senate admonished him of the haste he was 
 expected to make in the execution of vengeance, 
 and the distribution of spoil, by submitting in that 
 body the follo wing resolution: 
 
 Resolved , That Blair and Rives be dismissed as printers to 
 the Senate for the twenty-seventh Congress. 
 
 On the seventh day after, this resolution was 
 passed; and thus were these defenceless citizens— 
 without a crime, or even a charge against them, 
 but that of their opinions—deprived of their con¬ 
 tract solemnly made with the Senate, their bond 
 annulled, and all the expenses they had incurred 
 to execute the work, thrown as a dead loss upon 
 them. Here was an example the President was 
 expected to follow; and from that day, to the day 
 of his final affliction, whether in his mansion or in 
 bis walks, in public or in private, under all cir¬ 
 cumstances, and at all times, the office-seekers still 
 clustered around him. It was not the plea of his 
 infirmities, or that of his arduous duties; nor was 
 it the lifting of his time-withered hand with a ges¬ 
 ture to retire, that could remove the dense mass 
 who pursued and importuned him. In spite of all 
 these, they followed him up, swarming upon him 
 still thicker every hour, until, at last, like hornets, 
 they stung him to the death. Nor were the terrors 
 of a death-bed, or the solemn condition of an ex¬ 
 piring man, sufficient to silence their clamors, or 
 stay, for an instant, the removals his subordinates 
 were making in his name. For, upon the authori¬ 
 ty of that name, though insensible himself, and 
 sinking to the grave, the more cruel of his counsel¬ 
 lors continued to swing the axe of execution, as if 
 determined that the last mortal sound which broke 
 upon the ear of the dying President should be—not 
 the sound of prayer, or the filial sob, but the dis 
 tressful scream of a victim, struck dowu in his 
 presence. And, even after his death, and the 
 translation of his remains from the capital to the 
 West, Democrats were spurned from office, upon 
 the sole allegation that he, in his life, had intended 
 their removal. 
 
 Such was the first result; and what was the 
 next? 
 
 They had declared the country rained by Demo¬ 
 cratic councils. They had declared the single ob¬ 
 ject of their own advent to be, its immediate re¬ 
 demption. Yet, notwithstanding this, no sooner 
 did they find themselves all-powerful, and the peo¬ 
 ple all-powerless, than they began to disclose 
 other objects, far different from that—objects, in 
 their tendency, ruinous to every interest they had 
 promised to foster, save the interests of the few 
 against the rights of the many; and blasting to all 
 the hopes they had labored to excite, save the hopes 
 of the rapacious, for the plunder of the Govern¬ 
 ment. But to disclose such objects, was danger¬ 
 ous, if their execution was delayed. It was im- 
 poitant, therefore, (and well they knew it,) to forge 
 and rivet their system of measures upon the coun¬ 
 try, whilst the public mind was yet feverish and 
 flighty, from the inflammation of the recent strug¬ 
 gle. Strike whilst the iron is het, was the signal 
 passed to his followers, by him who spoke for the 
 whole, and whom all obeyed. Let not the people 
 cool down; but now, while the glow and giddiness 
 of triumph are upon them, let us rush to the capi¬ 
 tal, and there, in the midst of the general glee, 
 bind and clinch our system on the nation. 
 
 This, it seems, was the policy which prompted 
 the convention of Congress, in extraordinary ses¬ 
 sion, on the 31st of May, 1841. 
 
 On that day, the extra session commenced; and 
 then it was that those measures were proposed, 
 which express the real motives of the leaders, and 
 which have brought the Government and the coun¬ 
 try to their present condition. They were then 
 victors over the whole field of power. With the 
 Executive—with a majority overwhelming, in both 
 branches of Congress, there was nothing to restrain 
 the full sway of their pleasure or their principles. 
 This they knew, and this they felt; and therefore 
 it was, that their chief in the Senate, with all the 
 swaggering indelicacy of one unaccustomed to suc¬ 
 cess, openly proclaimed to the Democracy of the 
 body, that we had been condemned by the judg¬ 
 ment of the people—had been brought together 
 only for execution; and that all we uttered was to 
 be heard as nothing but the complaints of male¬ 
 factors on their way to the scaffold. Such was 
 the delirium of meritless triumph and vulgar re¬ 
 venge with which the Federalists began their 
 work; who, without preparing anything in its stead, 
 laid hold upon the sub-treasury, and tore it to the 
 ground. Thus did these infatuated men—they 
 who had most falsely charged the Democratic party 
 with having committed the public treasure to the 
 sole custody of the Executive; with having united 
 in his person both the sword and the purse—thus 
 did they, among the very first acts of their power, 
 do, themselves, the very same thing so unjustly as¬ 
 cribed to others, by the repeal offthe only law 
 which placed the money of the nation out of the 
 reach of the President. No bank, no law, no reso¬ 
 lution, had they passed, to take the place of the act 
 repealed. Nor is there, to this day, any such pro¬ 
 vision, or any such likely to be, while the present 
 Congress remains. 
 
 And why is this? If the majority cannot get the 
 fiscality they desire, can they not pass an act to se¬ 
 cure the revenue? or do they intend to leave it, as 
 it is, exposed to the hazard of official pillage, in 
 
5 
 
 order to try, once more, the coercion of the people 
 into a national bank? 
 
 These men came into power, as we were told, 
 upon the holy mission of guarding the sanctity of 
 the Constitution, the law, and all human obliga¬ 
 tions. So pious was their reverence for the ob¬ 
 servance of contracts, that some of their number 
 were willing that this Government, though penny¬ 
 less itself, and plunging in debt, should assume the 
 debts of the States, rather than witness their repu¬ 
 diation. Nevertheless, these very same men, the 
 chosen and the anointed guardians of all things 
 sacred, by one general act, with the name of bank¬ 
 ruptcy for its caption, repudiated the debts of the 
 larger debtors throughout the entire nation. By his 
 single oath, they allowed the interested party, if his 
 debts were large and his means considerable, to 
 cancel his bond; and thus to ruin the friend or the 
 neighbor, who, as creditor or security, had confided 
 in his honor. I say, if the debts were large; be¬ 
 cause, if small, and the debtor poor, the expense of 
 the process makes the law unavailable, and, there¬ 
 fore, a nullity to him. To execute the act, the 
 Federal judiciary passes over the Constitution, 
 usurps the rightful jurisdiction of the local courts, 
 defies and spurns the sovereignty of the States. 
 But no matter for that—the greater bankrupts, the 
 magnificent millioniares of the paper system, were 
 brought to bankruptcy—not by misfortune in legiti¬ 
 mate trade—not by accident beyond the power of 
 discretion, but by the eagerness of an avarice seek¬ 
 ing to gratify itself in the gamblings of speculation, 
 and then wasting, in splendid profusion, all that the 
 fortune of the hazard placed within its reach. As 
 men already ruined and desperate, they had enter¬ 
 ed the contest of 1840, with the pledge of the 
 Federalists, that their debts should be treated as 
 gambling obligations, and sponged by the law and 
 an oath. And this pledge alone, of the many 
 made, has Federalism faithfully fulfilled. 
 
 Economy, let it be remembered, had been prom¬ 
 ised as a policy proper in itself, and especially so 
 in the then necessitous state of tbe treasury. Ana 
 yet, by this very convention of Congress, at a time 
 not appointed by the law, three hundred and nine¬ 
 ty-one thousand dollars were wasted in the pay¬ 
 ment of its members, and other expenses of the 
 session. 
 
 Twenty-five thousand dollars were next bestowed 
 as a gratuity upon the widow of the late President; 
 and this, without any request from her, or neces¬ 
 sity found in her pecuniary circumstances. So far 
 from any such necessity then existing, or likely to 
 exist, it was a fact well known and declared at the 
 time, that the private fortune of that respectable 
 lady placed her above the humility of asking such 
 favors, from any quarter whatever. Still, the 
 money was voted from the treasury, as if taxes 
 were nothing to the people, and waste the duty of 
 the Government. 
 
 At its last session, which closed on the 4th of 
 March, 1841, the preceding Congress had made 
 all the usual and needful appropriations, and 
 provided the means for the public service of the 
 ensuing year. But, regardless of this—regardless 
 alike of the condition of the country and of their 
 own promises, so solemnly given, the ruling ma¬ 
 jority in the present Congress proceeded but three 
 
 months after, and before one-third of those ap¬ 
 propriations were expended, to appropriate, for the 
 service of the very same year, an addition of five 
 million and forty-three thousand dollars. The name 
 of economy was no longer heard, but when pro¬ 
 nounced by the Democrats, to remind the Federal¬ 
 ists of what they had pledged, and to rebuke them 
 'or what they were about. Heedless of this, the 
 eaders, who projected these measures, seemed but 
 the more diligent to discover every excuse for ex¬ 
 travagance, that could find impunity in the general 
 pretext of the public good. 
 
 But those who expend, must also accumulate ; 
 and, in the case of Government, taxes and loans 
 are the chief sources of supply. Hence it was that 
 after, by this additional expenditure, they had ef¬ 
 fectually picked the very bones of the treasury, 
 they next turned their attention to the increase of 
 the taxes. Here was a nerve to be touched, that 
 ran through the body of the people; and, therefore, 
 it was important to prepare them for the shock, by 
 the soothing process of distribution. They had 
 left in the coffers of the Government not an unap¬ 
 propriated dollar. The ordinary income was short 
 of the extraordinary outlay. Taxes, had they been 
 sufficient in amount, came in too tardily to meet 
 the rapidity of expenditure ; and to borrow, be¬ 
 came, consequently, the only immediate resource. 
 This state of things was known and acknowledged, 
 because brought about by the ruling majority. 
 What then did they do? In aggravation of these 
 evils, and as if fatally bent upon the utter bank¬ 
 ruptcy and ruin of the Government confided to 
 their care, they proceeded to snatch every dollar 
 accruing to the treasury from the public domain, 
 and to cast it away in pittances to the States. No 
 consciousness of its folly, no barrier in the Con¬ 
 stitution, no “beggarly account of empty boxes” 
 from the Treasury Department, no terrors of a 
 national debt, could possibly arrest them in this. 
 Nor was the injustice of augmenting taxes, when 
 
 the means of the people to pay were diminishing, 
 sufficient to retard, much less to prevent, this prot- 
 
 ligate waste of the nation’s resources. Distribute 
 they would; and that, too, at the hazard of the pub¬ 
 lic execration. They confided in the craft of the 
 scheme, and were willing to risk its exposure. One 
 dollar was to be given by the Government, through 
 the States, to the people; and for that, three paid back, 
 by the people, through the custom-house, to the 
 Government. The people would see, and might 
 be tempted, by the amount they received; that 
 which they paid, was to be taken from them, in the 
 dark and at a distance. The first process was to 
 be direct and visible—the second, circuitous and 
 obscure; and it was upon this obscurity that the 
 Federalists relied for impunity against detection in 
 the imposture. The act of distribution was there¬ 
 fore passed; and then, in an instant after, the same 
 men who passed it, urged that very act, by which 
 the land revenue was thus excluded from the treas¬ 
 ury, as an additional reason why the taxes upon the 
 people should be immediately increased. A tax of 
 six millions of dollars was accordingly added, in the 
 form of tariff duties, to the burdens before im¬ 
 posed upon the nation. 
 
 But, in view of the lost revenue distributed, the 
 vast appropriations already made, and those intend- 
 
6 
 
 ed for the future, even this increase of taxes would 
 prove inadequate. A loan of twelve millions of 
 dollars was, therefore, authorized upon the credit of 
 the people, and the pledge of their farms and work¬ 
 shops, for its payment, principal and interest. This, 
 it was supposed, would, together with the taxes and 
 treasury notes already afloat, afford a fund suffi¬ 
 cient to feed, for the present, even the extravagance 
 of the ruling power. A national debt would, it 
 was true, with all its evils, be the inevitable con¬ 
 sequence. So much the better; for such a debt, in¬ 
 stead of being a reason with Federalists why they 
 should economise the public income, has ever been, 
 and yet is, wiih them, of all reasons, the very 
 strongest for the most boundless prodigality of ex 
 penditure. And therefore, with this infatuated af¬ 
 fection for a public debt, they were not to be satis¬ 
 fied with the twelve million loan as a beginning; but, 
 on the contrary, they proceeded immediately to add 
 sixteen millions to that—the last being intended as 
 the basement stock of the fiscality—a national bank 
 more hideous, infinitely, in all its features, than 
 was the former institution, whose conduct, decay, 
 and dissolution, have appalled the world; have 
 doomed to penury so many families, and imparted 
 so much impurity to the social and political morals 
 of the country. 
 
 Nature never abandons men absolutely to their 
 own indiscretions; for, even in the gross confusion 
 of public affairs, she often interposes her silent au¬ 
 thority to check the dominant power in a State, 
 whenever it threatens to inflict a degree of misery 
 she never intended mankind should endure. Out 
 of the bosom of the Whig party, therefore, the veto 
 sprung, to strike down the forthcoming monster, 
 whilst yet in its foetus condition. The presiding 
 magistrate had received the sceptre from the hands 
 of that party, but not upon tbe condition of perjury 
 and dishonor. He felt that he owed some alle¬ 
 giance to the Constitution of his country; and as it 
 was the constitutional veto which alone intercepted 
 
 tbe bank and the debt the majority desired, they re¬ 
 solved ie> tmaob die CuusiliuiKm H&elf, ohQ iIjc Pitra> 
 
 ident who had dared to support it. Thus far, upon 
 that point he snll stands firm. How long the Con¬ 
 stitution shall stand, remains lor the people and 
 the States to determine. It is enough that the na¬ 
 tion now knows full well the des gns of the Fede¬ 
 ral leaders, their principles, their measures—the 
 measuieof their ambi'iun and profligacy, as thus 
 displayed, in an extra session of three months and 
 fourteen days Ouranon, and which closed its memo 
 rable labors on the 13 h of September, 1841. 
 
 Congress commenced its present session on the 
 6th of December, 1841, and, up to the date of this 
 letter, has continued, without intermission, for 
 seven months and seventeen days. It will adjourn 
 some time or other—but not, I presume, until the 
 master majority sh^ 11 have more effectually (if that 
 be possible) exhausted their own passions and the 
 patience of the people, as well as the resources and 
 credit of the G vernment. When they assembled, 
 that silent but thorough revolution, which is now 
 perfected in the public mir.d, had then greatly ad¬ 
 vanced, as was visible in the popular elections. 
 Upon almost every battle-field where, in 1840, 
 they triumphed, they have since been routed 
 by a people indignant at having been so sheme- 
 
 fully betrayed. Full one-half of their numbers, 
 both in the Senate and in the House, now find 
 themselves unsupported—their principles and their 
 measures sternly condemned by the States and 
 districts that sent them here. In Federali>m, how¬ 
 ever, this has produced no change. From the be¬ 
 ginning of the present, it has continued the policy 
 of the extra session; and yet continues to pursue 
 that policy, with all the preternatural energy of 
 desdair—as though resolved, during the brief futu¬ 
 rity of its power, to stamp upon the country, as 
 deeply as possible, the dark impress of its baleful 
 genius. With these views, the party have proceed¬ 
 ed. They have authorized an additional loan of 
 five millions of dollars. They have added five mil - 
 lions more to the treasury notes previously issued. 
 But these, with those of the extra session, are still 
 not enough; and, therefore, another tariff has pass¬ 
 ed the House, and will as certainly pass the Sen¬ 
 ate, imposing thirteen millions more of taxes upon 
 the country. Thus, every article from abroad 
 —all things that minister to the wants of men— 
 tea, coffee, whatever is most needful to the poor¬ 
 est citizen—each one and all, now yields its trib¬ 
 ute, to fill yet fuller the already distended maw of 
 insatia’e power. 
 
 And yet, after all this—loans, taxes, and treasu¬ 
 ry notes—how stands the treasury itsell? Still 
 empty ! How stands the public credit—the credit 
 of this great Government—the credit that never 
 once was sullied when Democracy presided—now 
 stands it now? Down; and still hopelessly sinking 
 down lower, by far, than that of any respectable 
 farmer in Ohio—treasury notes, if not at interest, 
 depreciated, with no prospect of rising—the Gov¬ 
 ernment drafts daily protested and dishonored—its 
 bonds hawked about in tbe market, and returned 
 without a bidder; and the Government everywhere, 
 and in all forms, treated as an insolvent. 
 
 Appropriations, nevertheless, go on as profusely 
 as ever—quite as much so, as though the treasury 
 were full, and absolutely exhaustless. For, from the 
 amuuul already passed, and that pending with the 
 
 certainty of passage, it is manifest that this will, 
 at tbe end of the session, bear its full and just pro¬ 
 portion to all the other limbs of their monstrous 
 system. 
 
 Claims—some the most base, and others the most 
 baseless—are now presented against the Govern¬ 
 ment, and treated with the serious respect due only 
 to tbe just demands of the honest citizen. The 
 holders of such claims seem to have discovered a 
 mutual sympathy between the majority of this 
 Congress and themselves. They repair to the Cap¬ 
 itol with the instinct that directs the vulture to the 
 carcass. 
 
 The mi!i f ia of Massachusetts—they, the very same 
 who, during the late war, when the country was in¬ 
 vaded, and they ordered by the President into the pub¬ 
 lic service, positively refused obedience—refused 
 to pass tbe line of their State—refused to pull a 
 'rigger in the defence of the Republic—they who, 
 by that very refusal, encouraged the British, allow¬ 
 ed them a lodgment in a Massachusetts seaport— 
 they who trafficked with, instead of fighting, the 
 public enemy—they have, nevertheless, lived long 
 enough to laugh in secret at an American Senate 
 for having, twenty-nine years after, voted to them 
 
[7 
 
 the third of a million from the national treasury, for 
 these their services in the late war. These men, who 
 in any other country would have been treated as 
 traitors, are, in this, about to be paid in money for 
 their treason, by the very Government they be¬ 
 trayed. 
 
 Next come the heirs of Gen. Hull, with their 
 demand for the salary of their father, as Governor 
 of the Territory of Michigan, during the very time , 
 and for no other time, that the Territory was in pos¬ 
 session of the British—surrendered to them by Hull 
 himself,, together with the gallant army from Ohio— 
 a crime for which he was then under arrest, and 
 afterwards condemned by the law to death, as a 
 traitor. Yet this claim, the very presentation of 
 which was an outrage to every American citizen, 
 and especially so to the citizens of Ohio, whose he¬ 
 roic people had thus been, by this very man, so 
 basely surrendered to the enemy as prisoners of 
 war—this claim found favor in a Whig committee 
 in the Senate, was advocated upon the floor, and 
 defeated only because some of that party, and all 
 the Democrats, were ashamed to dishonor the body 
 by its passage. 
 
 But economy and justice—Federal economy and 
 justice—were, with that very same committee, 
 found a sufficient bar to the repayment of the fine 
 imposed by a vindictive judge on Andrew Jack- 
 son, for having expelled traitors from his camp 
 during his glorious defence of New Orleans. 
 
 If these things were not on record, no individual 
 should state them, as the word of no man would 
 alone be deemed, by the country, conclusive of 
 facts so derogatory to the character of the Ameri¬ 
 can Congress. Yet facts they are—and that of rec¬ 
 ord, too—whosoever may be injared by them. 
 
 Amidst the systematic policy of public ruin which 
 this Congress has pursued, it has introduced, for the 
 first time, a practice in the highest degree danger¬ 
 ous to the liberties of the people. I allude to the 
 practice of the House in gagging the minoritv: and 
 that of the Senate in veiling from the public eye 
 the real condition of the Government. In both, the 
 Democratic minorities are powerless. The Federal 
 majorities direct all action—hurry or retard all 
 business, at pleasure. It is in the House that the 
 great money bills chiefly originate. There, they 
 have been studiously kept back for month after 
 month. In the mean time, as an excuse for delay, 
 debate has been encouraged on matters of indiffer¬ 
 ence. Then, all thing? being ready, those great 
 measures have been suddenly brought up; and, al¬ 
 ter the most trivial discussion, the gag applied, and 
 the voice silenced, under the ridiculous pretext of a 
 want of time. On such occasions the Democracy 
 are bushed, not by the previous question, but a 
 stern resolution which seals the lips, and forces 
 through the measure without consideration, how¬ 
 ever important its provisions, and without the ex¬ 
 posure of its enormities, though destructive it may 
 be to the best interests of the country. Thus have 
 millions been appropriated, and taxes by the mil¬ 
 lion voted in the very last month of our seven 
 months’ session, without one single man of the mi¬ 
 nority in the House having had time enough al¬ 
 lowed him to expose the impolicy or enormity of 
 
 such measures. But in matters of no moment, no 
 gag is applied, because in these the freedom of 
 speech endangers neither corruption nor despotism. 
 To silence the representative, is to spike the ears of 
 the people. It is both their right and bis that he 
 should speak. It is theirs, because it is their busi¬ 
 ness he is doing. It is his, because he is responsi¬ 
 ble for what he does. Their safety consists in ma¬ 
 king him explain the reason of his votes—his, in 
 being able to do so. Silence and secrecy are to 
 despotism, as are speech and publicity to freedom; 
 the two strongest elements of its power, and only 
 guardians of its safety. It is for these reasons that 
 [ regret the closing of its doors, by the Senate, 
 in the matter of nominations—a practice indefensi¬ 
 ble by argument, and excused only by its antiquity. 
 But to suppress resolutions of inquiry, seeking 
 from the Treasury Department the facts of its ac¬ 
 tual condition—and that, too, at a time when mo¬ 
 ney-measures of the first moment—tax, loan, and 
 appropriation bills are all pending, and all relating 
 directly to those very facts;—to suppress such reso¬ 
 lutions, as did the Federal majority in the Senate, 
 is nothing less than to compel men to legislate ia 
 the absence of all reasons for the votes they give, 
 and to withhold from the people things of the most 
 serious import to them. Those who hide, will ex 
 cite suspicion; and this practice of suppressing 
 facts, had it been adopted by any other Congress, 
 would have attracted the attention and incurred 
 the frown of the country. But so many are the 
 objects of just alarm with which this Congress has 
 filled the public mind, that the people very natural¬ 
 ly feel the more solicitude to see its session brought 
 to a close, and the evils it still threatens thus ar¬ 
 rested, and to recount those which it has already 
 irretrievably inflicted upon the nation. 
 
 There are three great measures—two of Con¬ 
 gress and one of the Executive—the “appor¬ 
 tionment bill”—that for “remedial justice”—and 
 the interposition in the affairs of Rhode Island; 
 
 each, as I believe, infracting the Constitution ia 
 several particwlars, ana invaaing aiiire me sov¬ 
 ereignty of the States and of the people. They 
 are measures of vast magnitude, and threaten to 
 their authors a terrible futurity. They are the iron 
 frame of a despotic system, never before set up 
 in this country—a system which, if allowed to 
 stand, will prove a Bastile to the liberties of the 
 nation. But such measures excite reflections that 
 swell beyond the limits of a letter; and I therefore 
 name, only to mark them for the future. 
 
 For sixteen months and nineteen days has this Gov¬ 
 ernment been confided to the Federal party. Du¬ 
 ring every hour of that time, (save five months and 
 nineteen days,) has a Federal Congress been in ses¬ 
 sion—and here still it is, moping and feeling about, 
 amid the ruins itself has made, to find some other 
 object of waste or destruction. In the mean time, 
 the Democratic minorities in the two Houses have 
 done all that men could do, who were in the power 
 of others, to mitigate the evils the majority were 
 entailing upon the country. But, being powerless 
 as to numbers, they could effect but little, by argu¬ 
 ment or remonstrance, addtessed to men who 
 would listen to neither reason nor experience. 
 
8 
 
 You must, my dear sir, excuse the length of this 
 letter, and be assured that I am, in great sincerity, 
 Your friend, 
 
 W. ALLEN. 
 
 Maj. T. J. Morgan, Chairman of the Young 
 Men’s State Central Committee. 
 
 Mr. Brough presented and read the following 
 letter from Senator Tappan; which was also, on 
 motion, ordered to be published: 
 
 Washington City, July 15, 1842. 
 
 Dear Sir: In declining to accept your kind in¬ 
 vitation to attend the proposed convention of the 
 Democratic young men of Ohio, at Columbu', on 
 the 28th instant, I assure you that it would give 
 me great pleasure to be with you, and that I would 
 not hesitate to join you on that occasion, if a due 
 regard to my duties here would permit so long an 
 absence from my post at this most interesting pe¬ 
 riod of the session. 
 
 I look with strong hope and faith to the young 
 men of the nation, and foremost to the young men of 
 Ohio, to carry forward those improvements now 
 in progress in our social organization—improve¬ 
 ments which shall secure for the future perfect 
 equality of rights and privileges to every citizen. 
 A community may be free from foreign dominion, 
 and yet suffer all the evils of domestic tyranny and 
 oppression, if they permit privileged orders to ex¬ 
 
 ist among them; for exclusive advantages in Gov¬ 
 ernment cannot be conceded to the few, without 
 taking from the many their just rights; and all hav¬ 
 ing an equal right, by the laws of nature, to seek 
 the means of happiness in the acquisition or pursuit 
 of wealth or fame, or civil distinction, it would be 
 hostile to the soundest principles of social order for 
 the law to interfere in such pursuits, in favor of 
 any class or section of the community. 
 
 Hitherto, much of individual selfishness has gov¬ 
 erned the legislation of States; but a brighter day 
 seems dawning in Ohio, and her young men are 
 now invited, by every consideration of benevolence 
 and patriotism, to make their native Siate a more 
 perfect example of freedom and equality than the 
 world has yet seen. I pray you let us old men, 
 as we shake off this mortal coil, have the well- 
 founded belief that we are leaving the principles 
 of enlightened freedom in safe and better hands; 
 that legislation is ceasing to be the instrument of 
 individual cupidity, and is becoming the nursing 
 mother of equality and justice., 
 
 That your meeting may be satisfactory to your¬ 
 selves, in advancing the permanent welfare and 
 honor of the State, is the wish of 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 BENJ. TAPPAN. 
 
 Thomas J. Morgan, esq. Chairman, &c.