Volume 2 — SPEECHES. (continued 12)

Mr. President, it is at this alarming stage of the proceedings of the ultra-abolitionists, that I would seriously invite every considerate man in the country solemnly to pause, and deliberately to reflect, not merely on our existing posture, but upon that dreadful precipice down which they would hurry us. It is because these ultra-abolitionists have ceased to employ the instruments of reason and persuasion, have made their cause political, and have appealed to the ballot-box, that I am induced, upon this occasion, to address you.

There have been three epochs in the history of our country, at which the spirit of abolition displayed itself. The first was immediately after the formation of the present federal government. When the constitution was about going into operation, its powers were not well understood by the community at large, and remained to be accurately interpreted and defined. At that period numerous abolition societies were formed, comprising not merely the society of Friends, but many other good men. Petitions were presented to congress, praying for the abolition of slavery. They were received without serious opposition, referred, and reported upon by a committee. The report stated, that the general government had no power to abolish slavery, as it existed in the several states, and that these states themselves had exclusive jurisdiction over the subject. The report was generally acquiesced in, and satisfaction and tranquillity ensued; the abolition societies thereafter limiting their exertions, in respect to the black population, to offices of humanity within the scope of existing laws.

The next period when the subject of slavery, and abolition incidentally, was brought into notice and discussion, was that on the memorable occasion of the admission of the state of Missouri into the union. The struggle was long, strenuous, and fearful. It is too recent to make it necessary to do more than merely advert to it, and to say, that it was finally composed by one of those compromises characteristic of our institutions, and of which the constitution itself is the most signal instance.

The third is that in which we now find ourselves. Various causes, Mr. President, have contributed to produce the existing excitement on the subject of abolition. The principal one, perhaps, is the example of British emancipation of the slaves in the islands adjacent to our country. Such is the similarity in laws, in language, in institutions, and in common origin, between Great Britain and the United States, that no great measure of national policy can be adopted in the one country without producing a considerable degree of influence in the other. Confounding the totally different cases together, of the powers of the British parliament and those of the congress of the United States, and the totally different situations of the British West India islands, and the slaves in the sovereign and independent states of this confederacy, superficial men have inferred, from the undecided British experiment, the practicability of the abolition of slavery in these states. The powers of the British parliament are unlimited, and are often described to be omnipotent. The powers of the American congress, on the contrary, are few, cautiously limited, scrupulously excluding all that are not granted, and, above all, carefully and absolutely excluding all power over the existence or continuance of slavery in the several states. The slaves, too, upon which British legislation operated, were not in the bosom of the kingdom, but in remote and feeble colonies having no voice in parliament. The West India slave-holder was neither represented nor representative in that parliament. And whilst I most fervently wish complete success to the British experiment of West India emancipation, I confess, that I have fearful forebodings of a disastrous termination of it. Whatever it may be, I think it must be admitted, that, if the British parliament treated the West India slaves as freemen, it also treated the West India freemen as slaves. If, instead of these slaves being separated by a wide ocean from the parent country, three or four millions of African negro slaves had been dispersed over England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and their owners had been members of the British parliament—a case which would have presented some analogy to that of our own country—does any one believe that it would have been expedient or practicable to have emancipated them, leaving them to remain, with all their embittered feelings, in the united kingdom, boundless as the powers of the British parliament are?

Other causes have conspired with the British example to produce the existing excitement from abolition. I say it with profound regret, but with no intention to occasion irritation here or elsewhere, that there are persons in both parts of the union who have sought to mingle abolition with politics, and to array one portion of the union against the other. It is the misfortune in free countries, that, in high party times, a disposition too often prevails to seize hold of every thing which can strengthen the one side or weaken the other. Charges of fostering abolition designs have been heedlessly and unjustly made by one party against the other. Prior to the late election of the present president of the United States, he was charged with being an abolitionist, and abolition designs were imputed to many of his supporters. Much as I was opposed to his election, and am to his administration, I neither shared in making nor believing the truth of the charge. He was scarcely installed in office before the same charge was directed against those who opposed his election.

Mr. President, it is not true, and I rejoice that it is not true, that either of the two great parties in this country has any designs or aim at abolition. I should deeply lament if it were true. I should consider, if it were true, that the danger to the stability of our system would be infinitely greater than any which does, I hope, actually exist. Whilst neither party can be, I think, justly accused of any abolition tendency or purpose, both have profited, and both have been injured, in particular localities, by the accession or abstraction of abolition support. If the account were fairly stated, I believe the party to which I am opposed has profited much more, and been injured much less, than that to which I belong. But I am far, for that reason, from being disposed to accuse our adversaries of being abolitionists.

And now, Mr. President, allow me to consider the several cases, in which the authority of congress is invoked by these abolition petitioners upon the subject of domestic slavery. The first relates to it as it exists in the District of Columbia. The following is the provision of the constitution of the United States in reference to that matter.

‘To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district, (not exceeding ten miles square,) as may by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of congress, become the seat of government of the United States.’

This provision preceded, in point of time, the actual cessions which were made by the states of Maryland and Virginia. The object of the cession was, to establish a seat of government of the United States; and the grant in the constitution, of exclusive legislation, must be understood, and should be always interpreted, as having relation to the object of the cession. It was with a full knowledge of this clause in the constitution, that those two states ceded to the general government the ten miles square, constituting the District of Columbia. In making the cession, they supposed that it was to be applied, and applied solely, to the purposes of a seat of government, for which it was asked. When it was made, slavery existed in both those commonwealths, and in the ceded territory, as it now continues to exist in all of them. Neither Maryland nor Virginia could have anticipated, that, whilst the institution remained within their respective limits, its abolition would be attempted by congress without their consent. Neither of them would probably have made an unconditional cession, if they could have anticipated such a result.

From the nature of the provision in the constitution, and the avowed object of the acquisition of the territory, two duties arise on the part of congress. The first is, to render the district available, comfortable, and convenient, as a seat of government of the whole union; the other is, to govern the people within the district, so as best to promote their happiness and prosperity. These objects are totally distinct in their nature, and, in interpreting and exercising the grant of the power of exclusive legislation, that distinction should be constantly borne in mind. Is it necessary, in order to render this place a comfortable seat of the general government, to abolish slavery within its limits? No one can or will advance such a proposition. The government has remained here near forty years without the slightest inconvenience from the presence of domestic slavery. Is it necessary to the well-being of the people of the district, that slavery should be abolished from amongst them? They not only neither ask nor desire, but are almost unanimously opposed to it. It exists here in the mildest and most mitigated form. In a population of thirty-nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, there were, at the last enumeration of the population of the United States, but six thousand one hundred and ten slaves. The number has not probably much increased since. They are dispersed over the ten miles square, engaged in the quiet pursuits of husbandry, or in menial offices in domestic life. If it were necessary to the efficiency of this place as a seat of the general government to abolish slavery, which is utterly denied, the abolition should be confined to the necessity which prompts it, that is, to the limits of the city of Washington itself. Beyond those limits, persons concerned in the government of the United States have no more to do with the inhabitants of the district than they have with the inhabitants of the adjacent counties of Maryland and Virginia, which lie beyond the district.

To abolish slavery within the District of Columbia, whilst it remains in Virginia and Maryland, situated, as that district is, within the very heart of those states, would expose them to great practical inconvenience and annoyance. The district would become a place of refuge and escape for fugitive slaves from the two states, and a place from which a spirit of discontent, insubordination, and insurrection, might be fostered and encouraged in the two states. Suppose, as was at one time under consideration, Pennsylvania had granted ten miles square within its limits for the purpose of a seat of the general government; could congress, without a violation of good faith, have introduced and established slavery within the bosom of that commonwealth, in the ceded territory, after she had abolished it so long ago as the year 1780? Yet the inconvenience to Pennsylvania in the case supposed would have been much less than that to Virginia and Maryland in the case we are arguing.

It was upon this view of the subject, that the senate, at its last session, solemnly declared that it would be a violation of implied faith, resulting from the transaction of the cession, to abolish slavery within the District of Columbia. And would it not be? By implied faith is meant, that when a grant is made for one avowed and declared purpose, known to the parties, the grant should not be perverted to another purpose, unavowed, and undeclared, and injurious to the grantor. The grant, in the case we are considering, of the territory of Columbia, was for a seat of government. Whatever power is necessary to accomplish that object is carried along by the grant. But the abolition of slavery is not necessary to the enjoyment of this site as a seat of the general government. The grant in the constitution, of exclusive power of legislation over the district, was made to insure the exercise of an exclusive authority of the general government, to render this place a safe and secure seat of government, and to promote the well-being of the inhabitants of the district. The power granted ought to be interpreted and exercised solely to the end for which it was granted. The language of the grant was necessarily broad, comprehensive, and exclusive, because all the exigencies which might arise to render this a secure seat of the general government could not have been foreseen and provided for. The language may possibly be sufficiently comprehensive to include a power of abolition, but it would not at all thence follow, that the power could be rightfully exercised. The case may be resembled to that of a plenipotentiary invested with a plenary power, but who, at the same time, has positive instructions from his government as to the kind of treaty which he is to negotiate and conclude. If he violates those instructions, and concludes a different treaty, this government is not bound by it. And if the foreign government is aware of the violation, it acts in bad faith. Or it may be illustrated by an example drawn from private life. I am an endorser for my friend on a note discounted in bank. He applies to me to endorse another to renew it, which I do in blank. Now, this gives him power to make any other use of my note which he pleases. But if, instead of applying it to the intended purpose, he goes to a broker and sells it, thereby doubling my responsibility for him, he commits a breach of trust, and a violation of the good faith implied in the whole transaction.

But, Mr. President, if this reasoning were as erroneous as I believe it to be correct and conclusive, is the affair of the liberation of six thousand negro slaves in this district, disconnected with the three millions of slaves in the United States, of sufficient magnitude to agitate, distract, and embitter this great confederacy?

The next case in which the petitioners ask the exercise of the power of congress, relates to slavery in the territory of Florida.

Florida is the extreme southern portion of the United States. It is bounded on all its land sides by slave states, and is several hundred miles from the nearest free state. It almost extends within the tropics, and the nearest important island to it, on the water side, is Cuba, a slave island. This simple statement of its geographical position should of itself decide the question. When, by the treaty of 1819 with Spain, it was ceded to the United States, slavery existed within it. By the terms of that treaty, the effects and property of the inhabitants are secured to them, and they are allowed to remove and take them away, if they think proper to do so, without limitation as to time. If it were expedient, therefore, to abolish slavery in it, it could not be done consistently with the treaty, without granting to the ancient inhabitants a reasonable time to remove their slaves. But further. By the compromise which took place on the passage of the act for the admission of Missouri into the union, in the year 1820, it was agreed and understood, that the line of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes of north latitude, should mark the boundary between the free states and the slave states, to be created in the territories of the United States, ceded by the treaty of Louisiana; those situated south of it being slave states, and those north of it, free states. But Florida is south of that line, and consequently, according to the spirit of the understanding which prevailed at the period alluded to, should be a slave state. It may be true, that the compromise does not in terms embrace Florida, and that it is not absolutely binding and obligatory; but all candid and impartial men must agree, that it ought not to be disregarded without the most weighty considerations, and that nothing could be more to be deprecated than to open anew the bleeding wounds which were happily bound up and healed by that compromise. Florida is the only remaining territory to be admitted into the union with the institution of domestic slavery, while Wisconsin and Iowa are now nearly ripe for admission without it.

The next instance in which the exercise of the power of congress is solicited, is that of prohibiting what is denominated by the petitioners the slave-trade between the states, or, as it is described in abolition petitions, the traffic in human beings between the states. This exercise of the power of congress is claimed under that clause of the constitution which invests it with authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes. The power to regulate commerce among the several states, like other powers in the constitution, has hitherto remained dormant in respect to the interior trade by land between the states. It was a power granted, like all the other powers of the general government, to secure peace and harmony among the states. Hitherto it has not been necessary to exercise it. All the cases in which, during the progress of time, it may become expedient to exert the general authority to regulate commerce between the states, cannot be conceived. We may easily imagine, however, contingencies which, if they were to happen, might require the interposition of the common authority. If, for example, the state of Ohio were, by law, to prohibit any vessel entering the port of Cincinnati, from the port of Louisville, in Kentucky, if that case be not already provided for by the laws which regulate our coasting trade, it would be competent to the general government to annul the prohibition emanating from state authority. Or if the state of Kentucky were to prohibit the introduction, within its limits, of any articles of trade, the production of the industry of the inhabitants of the state of Ohio, the general government might, by its authority, supersede the state enactment. But I deny that the general government has any authority, whatever, from the constitution, to abolish what is called the slave trade, or, in other words, to prohibit the removal of slaves from one slave state to another slave state.

The grant in the constitution is of a power of regulation, and not prohibition. It is conservative, not destructive. Regulation ex vi termini implies the continued existence or prosecution of the thing regulated. Prohibition implies total discontinuance or annihilation. The regulation intended was designed to facilitate and accommodate, not to obstruct and incommode the commerce to be regulated. Can it be pretended that, under this power to regulate commerce among the states, congress has the power to prohibit the transportation of live stock, which, in countless numbers, are daily passing from the western and interior states, to the southern, southwestern, and Atlantic states? The moment the incontestable fact is admitted, that negro slaves are property, the law of movable property irresistibly attaches itself to them, and secures the right of carrying them from one to another state, where they are recognised as property, without any hindrance whatever from congress.

But, Mr. President, I will not detain the senate longer on the subject of slavery within the district and in Florida, and of the right of congress to prohibit the removal of slaves from one state to another. These, as I have already intimated, with ultra-abolitionists, are but so many masked batteries, concealing the real and ultimate point of attack. That point of attack is the institution of domestic slavery, as it exists in these states. It is to liberate three millions of slaves held in bondage within them. And now allow me, sir, to glance at the insurmountable obstacles which lie in the way of the accomplishment of this end, and at some of the consequences which would ensue if it were possible to attain it.

The first impediment is the utter and absolute want of all power on the part of the general government to effect the purpose. The constitution of the United States creates a limited government, comprising comparatively few powers, and leaving the residuary mass of political power in the possession of the several states. It is well known, that the subject of slavery interposed one of the greatest difficulties in the formation of the constitution. It was happily compromised and adjusted in a spirit of harmony and patriotism. According to that compromise, no power whatever was granted to the general government in respect to domestic slavery, but that which relates to taxation and representation, and the power to restore fugitive slaves to their lawful owners. All other power in regard to the institution of slavery was retained exclusively by the states, to be exercised by them severally, according to their respective views of their own peculiar interest. The constitution of the United States never could have been formed upon the principle of investing the general government with authority to abolish the institution at its pleasure. It never can be continued for a single day, if the exercise of such a power be assumed or usurped.

But it may be contended by these ultra-abolitionists, that their object is, not to stimulate the action of the general government, but to operate upon the states themselves, in which the institution of domestic slavery exists. If that be their object, why are these abolition societies and movements all confined to the free states? Why are the slave states wantonly and cruelly assailed? Why do the abolition presses teem with publications tending to excite hatred and animosity, on the part of the inhabitants of the free states, against those of the slave states? Why is congress petitioned? The free states have no more power or right to interfere with institutions in the slave states, confided to the exclusive jurisdiction of those states, than they would have to interfere with institutions existing in any foreign country. What would be thought of the formation of societies in Great Britain, the issue of numerous inflammatory publications, and the sending out of lecturers throughout the kingdom, denouncing and aiming at the destruction of any of the institutions of France? Would they be regarded as proceedings warranted by good neighborhood? Or what would be thought of the formation of societies in the slave states, the issuing of violent and inflammatory tracts, and the deputation of missionaries, pouring out impassioned denunciations against institutions under the exclusive control of the free states? Is their purpose to appeal to our understandings, and to actuate our humanity? And do they expect to accomplish that purpose by holding us up to the scorn, and contempt, and detestation of the people of the free states and the whole civilized world? The slavery which exists amongst us is our affair, not theirs; and they have no more just concern with it than they have with slavery as it exists throughout the world. Why not leave it to us, as the common constitution of our country has left it, to be dealt with, under the guidance of Providence, as best we may or can?

The next obstacle in the way of abolition, arises out of the fact of the presence in the slave states of three millions of slaves. They are there, dispersed throughout the land, part and parcel of our population. They were brought into the country originally under the authority of the parent government, whilst we were colonies, and their importation was continued, in spite of all the remonstrances of our ancestors. If the question were an original question, whether, there being no slaves within the country, we should introduce them, and incorporate them into our society, that would be a totally different question. Few, if any, of the citizens of the United States, would be found to favor their introduction. No man in it would oppose, upon that supposition, their admission with more determined resolution and conscientious repugnance than I should. But that is not the question. The slaves are here; no practical scheme for their removal or separation from us has been yet devised or proposed; and the true inquiry is, what is best to be done with them. In human affairs we are often constrained, by the force of circumstances and the actual state of things, to do what we would not do, if that state of things did not exist. The slaves are here, and here must remain, in some condition; and, I repeat, how are they to be best governed? What is best to be done for their happiness and our own? In the slave states the alternative is, that the white man must govern the black, or the black govern the white. In several of those states, the number of the slaves is greater than that of the white population. An immediate abolition of slavery in them, as these ultra abolitionists propose, would be followed by a desperate struggle for immediate ascendency of the black race over the white race, or rather it would be followed by instantaneous collisions between the two races, which would break out into a civil war, that would end in the extermination or subjugation of the one race or the other. In such an alternative, who can hesitate? Is it not better for both parties that the existing state of things should be preserved, instead of exposing them to the horrible strifes and contests which would inevitably attend an immediate abolition? This is our true ground of defence, for the continued existence of slavery in our country It is that which our revolutionary ancestors assumed. It is that which, in my opinion, forms our justification in the eyes of all christendom.

A third impediment to immediate abolition is to be found in the immense amount of capital which is invested in slave property. The total number of slaves in the United States, according to the last enumeration of the population, was a little upwards of two millions. Assuming their increase at a ratio, which it probably is, of five per centum per annum, their present number would be three millions. The average value of slaves at this time, is stated by persons well informed, to be as high as five hundred dollars each. To be certainly within the mark, let us suppose that it is only four hundred dollars. The total value, then, by that estimate, of the slave property in the United States, is twelve hundred millions of dollars. This property is diffused throughout all classes and conditions of society. It is owned by widows and orphans, by the aged and infirm, as well as the sound and vigorous. It is the subject of mortgages, deeds of trust, and family settlements. It has been made the basis of numerous debts contracted upon its faith, and is the sole reliance, in many instances, of creditors, within and without the slave states, for the payment of the debts due to them. And now it is rashly proposed, by a single fiat of legislation, to annihilate this immense amount of property! To annihilate it without indemnity and without compensation to its owners! Does any considerate man believe it to be possible to effect such an object, without convulsion, revolution, and bloodshed?

I know that there is a visionary dogma, which holds that negro slaves cannot be the subject of property. I shall not dwell long on this speculative abstraction. That is property which the law declares to be property. Two hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property. Under all the forms of government which have existed upon this continent during that long space of time—under the British government—under the colonial government—under all the state constitutions and governments—and under the federal government itself—they have been deliberately and solemnly recognised as the legitimate subjects of property. To the wild speculations of theorists and innovators, stands opposed the fact, that in an uninterrupted period of two hundred years’ duration, under every form of human legislation, and by all the departments of human government, African negro slaves have been held and respected, have descended and been transferred, as lawful and indisputable property. They were treated as property in the very British example which is so triumphantly appealed to as worthy of our imitation. Although the West India planters had no voice in the united parliament of the British isles, an irresistible sense of justice extorted from that legislature the grant of twenty millions of pounds sterling, to compensate the colonists for their loss of property.

If, therefore, these ultra abolitionists are seriously determined to pursue their immediate scheme of abolition, they should at once set about raising a fund of twelve hundred millions of dollars, to indemnify the owners of slave property. And the taxes to raise that enormous amount can only be justly assessed upon themselves or upon the free states, if they can persuade them to assent to such an assessment; for it would be a mockery of all justice, and an outrage against all equity, to levy any portion of the tax upon the slave states to pay for their own unquestioned property.

If the considerations to which I have already adverted, are not sufficient to dissuade the abolitionists from further perseverance in their designs, the interest of the very cause which they profess to espouse, ought to check their career. Instead of advancing, by their efforts, that cause, they have thrown back for half a century, the prospect of any species of emancipation of the African race, gradual or immediate in any of the states. They have done more; they have increased the rigors of legislation against slaves in most, if not all, of the slave states. Forty years ago, the question was agitated in the state of Kentucky, of a gradual emancipation of the slaves within its limits. By gradual emancipation, I mean that slow but safe and cautious liberation of slaves, which was first adopted in Pennsylvania, at the instance of Dr. Franklin,24 in the year 1780, and, according to which, the generation in being were to remain in slavery, but all their offspring born after a specified day, were to be free at the age of twenty-eight, and, in the mean time, were to receive preparatory instruction to qualify them for the enjoyment of freedom. That was the species of emancipation which, at the epoch to which I allude, was discussed in Kentucky. No one was rash enough to propose or think of immediate abolition. No one was rash enough to think of throwing loose upon the community, ignorant and unprepared, the untutored slaves of the state. Many thought, and I amongst them, that as each of the slave states had a right exclusively to judge for itself, in respect to the institution of domestic slavery, the proportion of slaves, compared with the white population in that state, at that time, was so inconsiderable that a system of gradual emancipation might have been safely adopted, without any hazard to the security and interests of the commonwealth. And I still think that the question of such emancipation in the farming states is one whose solution depends upon the relative numbers of the two races in any given state. If I had been a citizen of the state of Pennsylvania, when Franklin’s plan was adopted, I should have voted for it, because by no possibility could the black race ever acquire the ascendency in that state. But if I had been then, or were now, a citizen of any of the planting states—the southern or southwestern states—I should have opposed, and would continue to oppose, any scheme whatever of emancipation, gradual or immediate, because of the danger of an ultimate ascendency of the black race, or of a civil contest which might terminate in the extinction of one race or the other.

The proposition in Kentucky for a gradual emancipation, did not prevail, but it was sustained by a large and respectable minority. That minority had increased, and was increasing, until the abolitionists commenced their operations. The effect has been to dissipate all prospects whatever, for the present, of any scheme of gradual or other emancipation. The people of that state have become shocked and alarmed by these abolition movements, and the number who would now favor a system even of gradual emancipation is probably less than it was in the years 1798–9. At the session of the legislature held in 1837–8, the question of calling a convention was submitted to the consideration of the people by a law passed in conformity with the constitution of the state. Many motives existed for the passage of the law, and among them that of emancipation had its influence. When the question was passed upon by the people at their last annual election, only about one fourth of the whole voters of the state supported a call of a convention. The apprehension of the danger of abolition was the leading consideration amongst the people for opposing the call. But for that, but for the agitation of the question of abolition in states whose population had no right, in the opinion of the people of Kentucky, to interfere in the matter, the vote for a convention would have been much larger, if it had not been carried. I felt myself constrained to take immediate, bold, and decided ground against it.

Prior to the agitation of this subject of abolition, there was a progressive melioration in the condition of slaves throughout all the slave states. In some of them, schools of instruction were opened by humane and religious persons. These are all now checked, and a spirit of insubordination having shown itself in some localities, traceable, it is believed, to abolition movements and exertions, the legislative authority has found it expedient to infuse fresh vigor into the police, and laws which regulate the conduct of the slaves.

And now, Mr. President, if it were possible to overcome the insurmountable obstacles which lie in the way of immediate abolition, let us briefly contemplate some of the consequences which would inevitably ensue. One of these has been occasionally alluded to in the progress of these remarks. It is the struggle which would instantaneously arise between the two races in most of the southern and southwestern states. And what a dreadful struggle would it not be! Embittered by all the recollections of the past, by the unconquerable prejudices which would prevail between the two races, and stimulated by all the hopes and fears of the future, it would be a contest in which the extermination of the blacks, or their ascendency over the whites, would be the sole alternative. Prior to the conclusion, or during the progress of such a contest, vast numbers, probably, of the black race would migrate into the free states; and what effect would such a migration have upon the laboring classes in those states!

Now the distribution of labor in the United States is geographical; the free laborers occupying one side of the line, and the slave laborers the other; each class pursuing its own avocations almost altogether unmixed with the other. But on the supposition of immediate abolition, the black class, migrating into the free states, would enter into competition with the white class, diminishing the wages of their labor, and augmenting the hardships of their condition.

This is not all. The abolitionists strenuously oppose all separation of the two races. I confess to you, sir, that I have seen with regret, grief, and astonishment, their resolute opposition to the project of colonization. No scheme was ever presented to the acceptance of man, which, whether it be entirely practicable or not, is characterized by more unmixed humanity and benevolence, than that of transporting, with their own consent, the free people of color in the United States to the land of their ancestors. It has the powerful recommendation, that whatever it does, is good; and, if it effects nothing, it inflicts no one evil or mischief upon any portion of our society. There is no necessary hostility between the objects of colonization and abolition. Colonization deals only with the free man of color, and that with his own free voluntary consent. It has nothing to do with slavery. It disturbs no man’s property, seeks to impair no power in the slave states, nor to attribute any to the general government. All its action and all its ways and means are voluntary, depending upon the blessing of Providence, which hitherto has graciously smiled upon it. And yet, beneficent and harmless as colonization is, no portion of the people of the United States denounces it with so much persevering zeal, and such unmixed bitterness, as do the abolitionists.

They put themselves in direct opposition to any separation whatever between the two races. They would keep them for ever pent up together within the same limits, perpetuating their animosities and constantly endangering the peace of the community. They proclaim, indeed, that color is nothing; that the organic and characteristic differences between the two races ought to be entirely overlooked and disregarded. And, elevating themselves to a sublime but impracticable philosophy, they would teach us to eradicate all the repugnances of our nature, and to take to our bosoms and our boards, the black man as we do the white, on the same footing of equal social condition. Do they not perceive that in thus confounding all the distinctions which God himself has made, they arraign the wisdom and goodness of Providence itself? It has been his divine pleasure to make the black man black, and the white man white, and to distinguish them by other repulsive constitutional differences. It is not necessary for me to maintain, nor shall I endeavor to prove, that it was any part of his divine intention that the one race should be held in perpetual bondage by the other; but this I will say, that those whom he has created different, and has declared, by their physical structure and color, ought to be kept asunder, should not be brought together by any process whatever of unnatural amalgamation.

But if the dangers of the civil contest which I have supposed could be avoided, separation or amalgamation is the only peaceful alternative, if it were possible to effectuate the project of abolition. The abolitionists oppose all colonization, and it irresistibly follows, whatever they may protest or declare, that they are in favor of amalgamation. And who are to bring about this amalgamation? I have heard of none of these ultra-abolitionists furnishing in their own families or persons examples of intermarriage. Who is to begin it? Is it their purpose not only to create a pinching competition between black labor and white labor, but do they intend also to contaminate the industrious and laborious classes of society at the north by a revolting admixture of the black element?

It is frequently asked, what is to become of the African race among us? Are they for ever to remain in bondage? That question was asked more than a half a century ago. It has been answered by fifty years of prosperity but little checkered from this cause. It will be repeated fifty or a hundred years hence. The true answer is, that the same Providence who has hitherto guided and governed us, and averted all serious evils from the existing relation between the two races, will guide and govern our posterity. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof. We have hitherto, with that blessing, taken care of ourselves. Posterity will find the means of its own preservation and prosperity. It is only in the most direful event which can befall this people, that this great interest, and all other of our greatest interests, would be put in jeopardy. Although in particular districts, the black population is gaining upon the white, it only constitutes one fifth of the whole population of the United States. And taking the aggregate of the two races, the European is constantly, though slowly, gaining upon the African portion. This fact is demonstrated by the periodical returns of our population. Let us cease, then, to indulge in gloomy forebodings about the impenetrable future. But, if we may attempt to lift the veil, and contemplate what lies beyond it, I too, have ventured on a speculative theory, with which I will now trouble you, but which has been published to the world. According to that, in the progress of time, some one hundred and fifty or two hundred years hence, but few vestiges of the black race will remain among our posterity.

Mr. President, at the period of the formation of our constitution, and afterwards, our patriotic ancestors, apprehended danger to the union from two causes. One was, the Alleghany mountains, dividing the waters which flow into the Atlantic ocean from those which found their outlet in the Gulf of Mexico. They seemed to present a natural separation. That danger has vanished before the noble achievements of the spirit of internal improvement, and the immortal genius of Fulton. And now, nowhere is found a more loyal attachment to the union, than among those very western people, who, it was apprehended, would be the first to burst its ties.

The other cause, domestic slavery, happily the sole remaining cause which is likely to disturb our harmony, continues to exist. It was this, which created the greatest obstacle, and the most anxious solicitude in the deliberations of the convention that adopted the general constitution. And it is this subject that has ever been regarded with the deepest anxiety by all who are sincerely desirous of the permanency of our union. The father of his country, in his last affecting and solemn appeal to his fellow-citizens, deprecated, as a most calamitous event, the geographical divisions which it might produce. The convention wisely left to the several states the power over the institution of slavery, as a power not necessary to the plan of union which it devised, and as one with which the general government could not be invested without planting the seeds of certain destruction. There let it remain undisturbed by any unhallowed hand.

Sir, I am not in the habit of speaking lightly of the possibility of dissolving this happy union. The senate knows that I have deprecated allusions, on ordinary occasions, to that direful event. The country will testify, that, if there be any thing in the history of my public career worthy of recollection, it is the truth and sincerity of my ardent devotion to its lasting preservation. But we should be false in our allegiance to it, if we did not discriminate between the imaginary and real dangers by which it may be assailed. Abolition should no longer be regarded as an imaginary danger. The abolitionists, let me suppose, succeed in their present aim of uniting the inhabitants of the free states, as one man, against the inhabitants of the slave states. Union on the one side will beget union on the other. And this process of reciprocal consolidation will be attended with all the violent prejudices, embittered passions, and implacable animosities, which ever degraded or deformed human nature. A virtual dissolution of the union will have taken place, whilst the forms of its existence remain. The most valuable element of union, mutual kindness, the feelings of sympathy, the fraternal bonds, which now happily unite us, will have been extinguished for ever. One section will stand in menacing and hostile array against the other. The collision of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms. I will not attempt to describe scenes which now happily lie concealed from our view. Abolitionists themselves would shrink back in dismay and horror at the contemplation of desolated fields, conflagrated cities, murdered inhabitants, and the overthrow of the fairest fabric of human government that ever rose to animate the hopes of civilized man. Nor should these abolitionists flatter themselves that, if they can succeed in their object of uniting the people of the free states, they will enter the contest with a numerical superiority that must insure victory. All history and experience proves the hazard and uncertainty of war. And we are admonished by holy writ, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But if they were to conquer, whom would they conquer? A foreign foe; one who had insulted our flag, invaded our shores, and laid our country waste? No, sir; no, sir. It would be a conquest without laurels, without glory; a self, a suicidal conquest; a conquest of brothers over brothers, achieved by one over another portion of the descendants of common ancestors, who, nobly pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, had fought and bled, side by side, in many a hard battle on land and ocean, severed our country from the British crown, and established our national independence.

The inhabitants of the slave states are sometimes accused by their northern brethren with displaying too much rashness and sensibility to the operations and proceedings of abolitionists. But, before they can be rightly judged, there should be a reversal of conditions. Let me suppose that the people of the slave states were to form societies, subsidize presses, make large pecuniary contributions, send forth numerous missionaries throughout all their own borders, and enter into machinations to burn the beautiful capitals, destroy the productive manufactories, and sink in the ocean the gallant ships of the northern states. Would these incendiary proceedings be regarded as neighborly and friendly, and consistent with the fraternal sentiments which should ever be cherished by one portion of the union towards another? Would they excite no emotion? occasion no manifestations of dissatisfaction, nor lead to any acts of retaliatory violence? But the supposed case falls far short of the actual one in a most essential circumstance. In no contingency could these capitals, manufactories, and ships, rise in rebellion, and massacre inhabitants of the northern states.

I am, Mr. President, no friend of slavery. The searcher of all hearts knows that every pulsation of mine beats high and strong in the cause of civil liberty. Wherever it is safe and practicable, I desire to see every portion of the human family in the enjoyment of it. But I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of any other people; and the liberty of my own race to that of any other race. The liberty of the descendants of Africa in the United States is incompatible with the safety and liberty of the European descendants. There slavery forms an exception—an exception resulting from a stern and inexorable necessity—to the general liberty in the United States. We did not originate, nor are we responsible for this necessity. Their liberty, if it were possible, could only be established by violating the incontestable powers of the states, and subverting the union. And beneath the ruins of the union would be buried, sooner or later, the liberty of both races.

But if one dark spot exists on our political horizon, is it not obscured by the bright and effulgent and cheering light that beams all around us? Was ever a people before so blessed as we are, if true to ourselves? Did ever any other nation contain within its bosom so many elements of prosperity, of greatness, and of glory? Our only real danger lies ahead, conspicuous, elevated, and visible. It was clearly discerned at the commencement, and distinctly seen throughout our whole career. Shall we wantonly run upon it, and destroy all the glorious anticipations of the high destiny that awaits us? I beseech the abolitionists themselves, solemnly to pause in their mad and fatal course. Amidst the infinite variety of objects of humanity and benevolence which invite the employment of their energies, let them select some one more harmless, that does not threaten to deluge our country in blood. I call upon that small portion of the clergy, which has lent itself to these wild and ruinous schemes, not to forget the holy nature of the divine mission of the founder of our religion, and to profit by his peaceful examples. I entreat that portion of my country women who have given their countenance to abolition, to remember, that they are ever most loved and honored when moving in their own appropriate and delightful sphere; and to reflect that the ink which they shed in subscribing with their fair hands abolition petitions, may prove but the prelude to the shedding of the blood of their brethren. I adjure all the inhabitants of the free states to rebuke and discountenance, by their opinion and their example, measures which must inevitably lead to the most calamitous consequences. And let us all, as countrymen, as friends, and as brothers, cherish, in unfading memory, the motto which bore our ancestors triumphantly through all the trials of the revolution, as, if adhered to, it will conduct their posterity through all that may, in the dispensations of Providence, be reserved for them.

SPEECH AT BUFFALO, NEW YORK.

JULY 17, 1839.

[IN the summer of 1839, Mr. Clay made a visit to the country on the Lakes, Canada, and the state of New York. At the city of Buffalo, he yielded to the request of his friends, to address the people on the state of public affairs, and in the following remarks, he alludes to the course of the administration of Mr. Van Buren, and shows the importance of the adoption of wise measures to promote the prosperity of the country, without regard to local prejudices, or party considerations.]

MR. RECORDER and fellow citizens, the journey which has brought me in the midst of you, was undertaken to afford me an opportunity which I had long desired, but never before enjoyed, of viewing some of the lakes, the country bordering upon them, the wonderful cataract in your neighborhood, and the Canadas. I had no wish, during its performance, to attract public attention, or to be the object of any public demonstrations. I expected, indeed, to meet, and I take great pleasure in acknowledging, that I have every where met with individual kindness, personal respect, and friendly consideration. But, although it is my wish to pass on quietly, without display or parade, I am penetrated with sentiments of gratitude, for the manifestations of attachment and confidence with which I am honored in this beautiful city of the lakes. I thank you, most cordially thank you, for them all.

I am happy to learn that the public measures, to which, in the national councils, I have rendered my humble support, here have commanded your approbation. The first of these, in time and importance, was the last war with Great Britain. Upon its causes, and upon its results, we may look back with entire satisfaction. In surveying this theatre of gallant deeds, upon the lakes, and upon their shores, I have felt my bosom swell with patriotic pride. Nor can any one fail to recollect the names of Brown, and Scott, and Porter, and Harrison, and Shelby, and Perry, and their brave comrades, who so nobly sustained the honor, and added to the glory of our country. And it is most gratifying to behold the immense augmentation, on this frontier, of its military strength and security, since the last war. The satisfaction which is derived from witnessing the tranquillity which now prevails on our border, would be complete, if we were not forced to recollect that the violation of our territorial jurisdiction, in the case of the Caroline, remains to be satisfactorily atoned for.

During the progress of that war, as in the war of the revolution, cut off from the usual supplies of European fabrics, our armies, and our population generally, were subjected to extreme privations and sufferings. It appeared to me, upon its termination, that the wisdom of government was called upon to guard against the recurrence of the evil, and to place the security and prosperity of the country upon a sure basis. Hence, I concurred most heartily in the policy of protecting American manufactures, for a limited time, against foreign competition. Whatever diversity of opinion may have existed as to the propriety of that policy originally, I think that all candid men must now admit, that it has placed this country at least half a century in advance of the position in which it would have been, without its adoption. The value of a home, as well as of a foreign market, is incalculable. It may be illustrated by a single example. Suppose the three hundred thousand bales of cotton now manufactured in the United States, were thrown into the glutted markets of Europe, who can estimate the reduction in the price of that great staple, which would be the inevitable consequence? The compromise of the tariff was proposed to preserve our manufactures from impending ruin, menaced by the administration of general Jackson, and which would have been inflicted at the succeeding session, and to avert from the union the threatened danger of civil war. If the compromise be inviolably maintained, as I think it ought to be, I trust that the rate of duty for which it provides, in conjunction with the stipulations for cash duties, home valuation, and the long list of free articles, inserted for the benefit of the manufacturing interest, will insure it reasonable and adequate protection.

Intimately connected with the strength, the prosperity, and the union of our country, was that policy of internal improvements, of which you have expressed approbation. The national road, and the great canal, projected or executed by your Clinton, both having the same object of connecting the eastern and western portion of the union, have diffused a spirit throughout the land which has impelled the several states to undertake the accomplishment of most of the works which ought to be performed by the present generation. And after the distribution of the large surplus recently made from the common treasury, but little now remains for the general government directly to do, on this great subject, except those works which are intended to provide, on navigable waters, for the security of commerce and navigation, and the completion of the Cumberland road. I have been very glad, during my voyage upon this lake, to find that an erroneous impression had existed in my mind, as to the improvement of harbors. I had feared that the expenditure of public money had been often wasteful and unnecessary, upon works on the lake shores. There are, probably, a few instances in which it might have been properly avoided; but I am now fully persuaded that, in the general, the expenditure has been necessary, wise, and salutary.

In sustaining the great systems of policy to which I have just adverted, I was actuated by the paramount desire which has influenced me throughout my whole public career, of reserving, in all its integrity and vigor, our happy union. In it is comprehended peace, safety, free institutions, and all that constitutes the pride and hope of our country. If we lift the veil beyond it, we must start back with horror at the scenes of disorder, anarchy, war, and despotism, which rise up before us.

But if it be most proper and expedient to leave the case to the several states, those internal improvements within their respective limits, which the wants of society require, there is one great and lasting resource to which I think them fairly entitled. The public domain has accomplished the object to which it was dedicated by our revolutionary fathers, in satisfying the land bounties which were granted to the officers and soldiers of the war of independence, and contributing to the extinction of the national debt. It is in danger of being totally lost, by loose and improvident legislation; and, under the plausible pretext of benefiting the poor, of laying, in the hands of speculators, the foundations of principalities. I have thought that the net products of the public domain should be equitably divided among all the states. In their hands, the fund would assist in the execution of those great and costly works which many of them have undertaken, and some find it difficult to complete. The withdrawal of the fund from the danger to which it is exposed, and the corrupting influences which it exerts, fluctuating as the fund does from year to year, would scarcely be felt by the general government in its legitimate operations, and would serve to impress upon it the performance of the necessary duty of economy, and strict accountability.

This is not a suitable occasion, and, perhaps, I am not a fit person, to expatiate here, on the condition of our public affairs; but I trust that I shall be excused for saying a few words to those who concur in opinion with me, without intending the slightest offence to any present, if there be any present, from whom it is my misfortune to differ. We believe that there is a radical mal-administration of the government; that great interests of the country are trodden down; that new and dangerous principles and practices have been introduced and continued; that a fearful conjunction of the purse and the sword, in the same hands, already alarmingly strong, is perseveringly attempted; that the constitution has been grossly violated; and that, by the vast accumulation of executive power, actual and meditated, our system is rapidly tending towards an elective monarchy. These are our convictions, honestly and sincerely entertained. They prescribe to us the duties which we have to perform towards our country. To correct past evils, and to avert impending dangers, we see no effectual remedy, but in a change of our rulers. The opposition constitutes the majority—unquestionably the majority—of the nation. A great responsibility, therefore, attaches to it. If defeated, it will be defeated by its own divisions, and not by the merits of the principles of its opponents. These divisions are at the same time our weakness and his strength.

Are we not then called upon, Mr. Recorder and fellow citizens, by the highest duties to our country, to its free institutions, to posterity, and to the world, to rise above all local prejudices, and personal partialities, to discard all collateral questions, to disregard every subordinate point, and, in a genuine spirit of compromise and concession, uniting heart and hand to preserve for ourselves the blessings of a free government, wisely, honestly, and faithfully administered, and as we received them from our fathers, to transmit them to our children? Should we not justly subject ourselves to eternal reproach, if we permitted our differences about mere men, to bring defeat and disaster upon our cause? Our principles are imperishable, but men have but a fleeting existence, and are themselves liable to change and corruption during its brief continuance.

If my name creates any obstacle to cordial union and harmony, away with it, and concentrate upon some individual more acceptable to all branches of the opposition. What is a public man worth, who is not ever ready to sacrifice himself for the good of his country? I have unaffectedly desired retirement; I yet desire it, when, consistently with the duties and obligations which I owe, I can honorably retire. No veteran soldier, covered with scars and wounds, inflicted in many severe battles, and hard campaigns ever received his discharge with more pleasure, than I should mine. But I think that like him, without presumption, I am entitled to an honorable discharge.

In conclusion, Mr. Recorder, allow me to express to the city government, through you, my respectful and especial acknowledgments, for its liberal tender of the hospitalities of the city; and to you, my thanks, for the friendly and flattering manner in which you have communicated it.

LAND BILL PROPOSED BY MR. CALHOUN.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 3, 1840.

[MR. CALHOUN, of South Carolina, having been opposed to the measure introduced by Mr. Clay, to distribute the proceeds of the sales of public lands among the several states, brought into the senate a bill of his own, by which he proposed to cede all of the public lands belonging to the United States, to the states in which they were situated, on certain conditions. A similar project had been recommended by general Jackson. On this occasion a debate of some warmth took place between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun, the substance of which is given below.]

AGREEABLY to notice given on Tuesday last, Mr. Calhoun asked leave, and introduced a bill to cede the public lands to the states in which they are respectively situated. The bill was read by its title, and, on motion of Mr. Calhoun, referred to the committee on the public lands soon after.

Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, having given notice of his intention to move to introduce the copy-right bill, stated, that he regretted that he was detained by indisposition this morning, and prevented from being present when the bill was introduced by the senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) for ceding the public lands to certain states, within which they are situated. He had wished to suggest some other reference of it than to the committee on the public lands, but unless some senator would move a reconsideration of the order of reference to that committee, he could not offer the suggestion which he wished to make.

[Mr. Southard moved the reconsideration, and Mr. Calhoun objecting to it without some satisfactory reason,]

Mr. Clay went on to observe, that as the committee was constituted, four of its five members were from new states. He meant to offer no disrespect to them; but he must say, that this was a measure which, disguised as it may be, and colorable as its provisions were, was, in effect, a donation of upwards of one hundred millions of acres of the common property of all the states of this union to particular states. He did not think it right that such a measure should be committed in the hands of senators exclusively representing the donees. He thought that a committee ought to be constituted, in which the old states should have a fuller and fairer representation. We should preserve, whatever we may do, the decorum of legislation, and not violate the decencies of justice. Whilst up, Mr. Clay would be glad if any senator would inform him, whether the administration is in favor of or against this measure, or stands neutral and uncommitted. This inquiry he should not make, if the recent relations between the senator who introduced this bill, and the head of that administration continued to exist; but rumors, of which the city, the circles, and the press are full, assert that these relations are entirely changed, and have, within a few days, been substituted by others of an intimate, friendly, and confidential nature. And shortly after the time when this new state of things is alleged to have taken place, the senator gave notice of his intention to move to introduce this bill. Whether this motion has or has not any connection with that adjustment of former differences, the public would, he had no doubt, be glad to know. At all events, it is important to know in what relation of support, opposition, or neutrality the administration actually stands to this momentous measure; and he, (Mr. Clay,) supposed that the senator from South Carolina, or some other senator, could communicate the desired information.

Mr. Clay said, he had understood the senator as felicitating himself on the opportunity which had been now afforded him, by Mr. Clay, of defining, once more, his political position; and Mr. Clay must say, that he had now defined it very clearly, and had apparently given it a new definition. The senator now declared that all the leading measures of the present administration had met his approbation, and should receive his support, it turned out, then, that the rumor to which Mr. Clay had alluded, was true, and that the senator from South Carolina might be hereafter regarded as a supporter of this administration, since he had declared that all its leading measures were approved by him, and should have his support.

Also, to the allusion which the senator from South Carolina had made, in regard to Mr. Clay’s support of the head of another administration, (Mr. Adams,) it occasioned Mr. Clay no pain whatever. It was an old story, which had long been sunk in oblivion, except when the senator and a few others thought proper to bring it up. But what were the facts of that case. Mr. Clay was then a member of the house of representatives, to whom three persons had been returned, from whom, it was the duty of the house to make a selection for the presidency. As to one of those three candidates, he was known to be in an unfortunate condition, in which no one sympathized with him more than did Mr. Clay. Certainly the senator from South Carolina did not. That gentleman was, therefore, out of the question as a candidate for the chief magistracy; and Mr. Clay had, consequently, the only alternative of the illustrious individual at the hermitage, or of the man who was now distinguished in the house of representatives, and who had held so many public places with honor to himself and benefit to the country; and, if there was any truth in history, the choice which Mr. Clay then made, was precisely the choice which the senator from South Carolina had urged upon his friends. The senator himself had declared his preference of Adams to Jackson, Mr. Clay made the same choice, and experience had approved it from that day to this, and would to eternity. History would ratify and approve it. Let the senator from South Carolina make any thing out of that part of Mr. Clay’s public career if he could. Mr. Clay defied him.

The senator had alluded to Mr. Clay as the advocate of compromise. Certainly he was. This government itself, to a great extent, was founded and rested on compromise; and, in the particular compromise to which allusion had been made, Mr. Clay thought no man ought to be more grateful for it than the senator from South Carolina. But for that compromise, Mr. Clay was not all confident that he would have now had the honor to meet that senator face to face in this national capitol.

The senator had said, that his own position was that of state rights. But what was the character of this bill? It was a bill to strip seventeen of the states of their rightful inheritance; to sell it for a mess of pottage, to surrender it for a trifle—a mere nominal sum. The bill was, in effect, an attempt to strip and rob seventeen states of this union of their property, and to assign it over to some eight or nine of the states. If this was what the senator called vindicating the rights of the states, Mr. Clay prayed God to deliver us from all such rights, and all such advocates.

I am sorry to be obliged to prolong this discussion; but I made no allusion to compromise, till it was done by the senator himself. I made no reference to the event of 1825, till he had made it; and I did not, in the most distant manner, allude to nullification; and it is extraordinary that the senator himself should have introduced it, especially at a moment when he is uniting with the authors of the force bill, and of those measures which put down nullification.

The senator says, I was flat on my back, and that he was my master. Sir, I would not own him as my slave. He my master! and I compelled by him! And, as if it were impossible to go far enough in one paragraph, he refers to certain letters of his own, to prove that I was flat on my back! and that I was not only on my back, but another senator and the president had robbed me! I was flat on my back, and unable to do any thing but what the senator from South Carolina permitted me to do!

Sir, what was the case? I introduced the compromise in spite of the opposition of the gentleman who is said to have robbed me of the manufacturers. It met his uncompromising opposition. That measure had, on my part, nothing personal in it. But I saw the condition of the senator from South Carolina and his friends. They had reduced South Carolina by that unwise measure, (of nullification,) to a state of war; and I, therefore, wished to save the effusion of human blood, and especially the blood of our fellow-citizens. That was one motive with me; and another was a regard for that very interest which the senator says I helped to destroy. I saw that this great interest had so got in the power of the chief magistrate, that it was evident that, at the next session of congress, the whole protective system would be swept by the board. I therefore desired to give it, at least, a lease of years; and for that purpose, I, in concert with others, brought forward that measure, which was necessary to save that interest from total annihilation.

But, to display still further the circumstances in which the senator is placed, he says, from that very day of the compromise, all obligations were cancelled that could, on account of it, rest on him, on South Carolina, and on the south. Sir, what right has he to speak in the name of the whole south? or even of South Carolina itself? For, if history is to be called upon, if we may judge of the future from the past, the time will come when the senator cannot propose to be the organ even of the chivalrous and enlightened people of South Carolina.

Sir, I am not one of those who are looking out for what may ensue to themselves. My course is nearly run; it is so by nature, and so in the progress of political events. I have nothing to ask of the senator of the south, nor of South Carolina, nor yet of the country at large. But I will go, when I do go, or when I choose to go, into retirement, with the undying conviction, that, for a quarter of a century, I have endeavored to serve and to save the country, faithfully and honorably, without a view to my own interest, or my own aggrandizement; and of that delightful conviction and consciousness no human being, nor all mankind, can ever deprive me.

One word—does not the senator feel that he himself brings his political character into debate? I simply made the inquiry, (and I put it to the senators to say if such was the fact,) to know whether this measure, which involves, in all, about a thousand millions of the public lands—whether this measure had the sanction of the administration or not. I did it in no way for the purpose of offence; and, by the way, I referred to a rumor which is afloat, of new relations, public and political, with the head of the administration, and stated, that I would not have made the inquiry but for that fact. And is it not right, in regard to a great measure, to know whether or not it has the support of the administration? He would at once have put an end to the discussion if he had simply said he knew nothing of the views of the administration, but had introduced this measure independently. But instead of this, he gets in a passion because I referred to this rumor, and concludes by saying, that the greater part of the measures of the present administration are approved, and they will be supported by him.

ON THE SUB-TREASURY BILL.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 20, 1840.

[THE independent, or sub-treasury scheme, (or a plan for the collection of the revenue in specie,) being again pressed upon congress at this session by the president, (Van Buren,) Mr. Clay, notwithstanding his previous participation in the discussion of the subject when it was before congress, in the following lucid and elaborate speech sets forth the pernicious effects of the proposed measure to be produced upon the currency, commerce, and industry of the nation. The bill, however, passed the senate by a vote of twenty-four to eighteen, and after a long contest, also in the house of representatives, in July, 1840, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-four to one hundred and seven. It was repealed in August, 1841.]

I HAVE been desirous, Mr. President, before the passage of this bill, not to make a speech, but to say a few words about it. I have come to the senate to-day unaffectedly indisposed, from a serious cold, and in no condition to address this body; but I regard this bill as so pregnant with injurious, and dangerous, and direful consequences, that I cannot reconcile it to a sense of duty to allow it finally to pass without one last, although unavailing effort against it. I am aware that the decree for its passage has gone forth; a decree of urgency, too; so urgent that a short postponement of the consideration of the measure, to admit of the filling of vacant seats in the senate by legislative bodies now in session—seats which have remained vacant, not by the fault of the people, but from the inability of those bodies to agree in the choice of senators—has been refused by the vote of the senate; refused, scornfully refused, although, whether the bill be transmitted two or three weeks sooner or later to the house of representatives, owing to its unorganized condition, and its known habits of business, will not expedite its passage a single hour! Refused by the concurrence of senators who, not representing on this subject the present sentiments and opinions of their respective states, seem unwilling to allow the arrival of those who would fully and fairly represent them!

It is remarkable, sir, that, judging from the vote on the engrossment of the bill for a third reading, it is to be hurried through the senate by less than a majority of the body. And if the two senators from Tennessee had clung to their seats with the same tenacity with which other senators adhere to theirs, who would have been instructed to vote against the bill, and are violating their instructions; and if the senate were full, the vacant seats being filled, as we have every reason to believe they will be filled; there would be a clear majority against the passage of the bill. Thus is this momentous measure, which both its friends and foes unite in thinking will exert a tremendous, if not revolutionary influence upon the business and concerns of the country—a measure which has so long and so greatly distracted and divided our councils, and against which the people have so often and so signally pronounced their judgment—to be forced through the senate of the United States.

Mr. President, it is no less the duty of the statesman than of the physician to ascertain the exact state of the body to which he is to minister before he ventures to prescribe any healing remedy. It is with no pleasure, but with profound regret, that I survey the present condition of our country. I have rarely, I think never, known a period of such universal and intense interest. The general government is in debt, and its existing revenue is inadequate to meet its ordinary expenditure. The states are in debt, some of them largely in debt, insomuch that they have been compelled to resort to the ruinous expedient of contracting new loans to meet the interest on prior loans; and the people are surrounded with difficulties, greatly embarrassed, and involved in debt. Whilst this is, unfortunately, the general state of the country, the means of extinguishing this vast mass of debt are in constant diminution. Property is falling in value; all the great staples of the country are declining in price, and destined, I fear, to further decline. The certain tendency of this very measure is to reduce prices. The banks are rapidly decreasing the amount of their circulation. About one half of them, extending from New Jersey to the extreme southwest, have suspended specie payments, presenting an image of a paralytic, one moiety of whose body is stricken with palsy. The banks are without a head; and instead of union, concert, and coöperation between them, we behold jealousy, distrust, and enmity. We have no currency whatever possessing uniform value throughout the whole country. That which we have, consisting almost entirely of the issues of banks, is in a state of the utmost disorder, insomuch that it varies, in comparison with the specie standard, from par to fifty per centum discount. Exchanges, too, are in the greatest possible confusion; not merely between distant parts of the union, but between cities and places in the same neighborhood; that between our great commercial marts of New York and Philadelphia, within five or six hours of each other, vacillating between seven and ten per centum. The products of our agricultural industry are unable to find their way to market from the want of means in the hands of traders to purchase them, or from the want of confidence in the stability of things; many of our manufactories stopped or stopping, especially in the important branch of woollens; and a vast accumulation of their fabrics on hand, owing to the destruction of confidence, and the wretched state of exchange between different sections of the union.

Such is the unexaggerated picture of our present condition; and amidst the dark and dense cloud that surrounds us, I perceive not one gleam of light. It gives me nothing but pain to sketch the picture. But duty and truth require that existing diseases should be fearlessly examined and probed to the bottom. We shall otherwise be utterly incapable of conceiving or applying appropriate remedies. If the present unhappy state of our country had been brought upon the people by their folly and extravagance, it ought to be borne with fortitude, and without complaint, and without reproach. But it is my deliberate judgment that it has not been; that the people are not to blame, and that the principal causes of existing embarrassments are not to be traced to them. Sir, it is not my purpose to waste the time or excite the feelings of members of the senate by dwelling long on what I suppose to be those causes. My object is a better, a higher, and I hope a more acceptable one—to consider the remedies proposed for the present exigency. Still, I should not fulfil my whole duty if I did not briefly say, that, in my conscience, I believe our pecuniary distresses have mainly sprung from the refusal to recharter the late bank of the United States; the removal of the public deposits from that institution; the multiplication of state banks in consequence, and the treasury stimulus given to them to extend their operations; the bungling manner in which the law depositing the surplus treasure with the states was executed; the treasury circular; and, although last, perhaps not least, the exercise of the power of the veto on the bill for distributing among the states the net proceeds of the sale of the public lands.

What, Mr. President, is needed, at the present crisis, to restore the prosperity of the people? A sound local currency, mixed with a currency possessing uniform value throughout the whole country, a reëstablishment of regular exchanges between different parts of the union, and a revival of general confidence. The people want, in short, good government at Washington, the abandonment of rash and ruinous experiments, the practice here of economy, and the pursuit of the safe lights of experience. Give us these, and the growth of our population, the enterprise of our people, and the abundance, variety, and richness of the products of our soil, and of our industry, with the blessing of Providence, will carry us triumphantly through all our complicated embarrassments. Deny these, persevere in a mal-administration of government, and it is in vain that the bounties of heaven are profusely scattered around us.

There is one man, and I lament to say, from the current of events and the progress of executive and party power, but one man at present in the country, who can bring relief to it, and bind up the bleeding wounds of the people. He, of all men in the nation, ought to feel as a parent should feel, most sensibly, the distresses and sufferings of his family. But looking to his public course, and his official acts, I am constrained to say, that he surveys unconcerned the wide-spread ruin, and bankruptcy, and wretchedness before him, without emotion and without sympathy. Whilst all the elements of destruction are at work, and the storm is raging, the chief magistrate, standing in the midst of his unprotected fellow-citizens, on the distinguished position of honor and confidence to which their suffrages have devoted him, deliberately wraps around himself the folds of his India-rubber cloak, and lifting his umbrella over his head, tells them, drenched and shivering as they are under the beating rain and hail and snow falling upon them, that he means to take care of himself and the official corps, and that they are in the habit of expecting too much from government, and must look out for their own shelter, and security, and salvation!

And now allow me to examine, and carefully and candidly consider the remedy which this bill offers to a suffering people, for the unparalleled distresses under which they are writhing. I will first analyse and investigate it, as its friends and advocates represent it. What is it? What is this measure which has so long and so deeply agitated this country, under the various denominations of sub-treasury, independent treasury, and divorce of the state from banks? What is it? Let us define it truly and clearly. Its whole principle consists in an exaction from the people of specie, in the payment of all their dues to government, and disbursement of specie by the government in the payment of all salaries, and of all the creditors of the government. This is its simple and entire principle. Divest the bill under consideration of all its drapery and paraphernalia, this is its naked, unvarnished, and unexaggerated principle, according to its own friends. This exclusive use of specie, in all receipts and payments of the government, it is true, is not to be instantaneously enforced; but that is the direct and avowed aim and object of the measure, to be accomplished gradually, but in the short space of a little more than three years. The twenty-eight sections of the bill, with all its safes, and vaults, and bars, and bolts, and receivers-general, and examiners, have nothing more nor less in view than the exaction of specie from the people, and the subsequent distribution of that specie among the officers of the government, and the creditors of the government. It does not touch, nor profess to touch, the actual currency of the country. It leaves the local banks where it found them, unreformed, uncontrolled, unchecked in all their operations. It is a narrow, selfish, heartless measure. It turns away from the people, and abandons them to their hard and inexorable fate; leaving them exposed to all the pernicious consequences of an unsound currency, utterly irregular and disordered exchanges, and the greatest derangement in all business. It is worse; it aggravates and perpetuates the very evils which the government will not redress: for, by going into the market and creating a new and additional demand for specie, it cripples and disables the state banks, and renders them incapable of furnishing that relief to the people which a parental government is bound to exert all its energies and powers to afford. The divorce of the state from banks, of which its friends boast, is not the only separation which it makes; it is a separation of the government from the constituency; a disunion of the interests of the servants of the people, from the interests of the people.

This bill, then, is wholly incommensurate with the evils under which the country is suffering. It leaves them not only altogether unprovided for, but aggravates them. It carries no word of cheering hope or encouragement to a depressed people. It leaves their languishing business in the same state of hopeless discouragement.

But its supporters argue that such a system of convertible paper as this country has so long had is radically wrong; that all our evils are to be traced to the banks; and that the sooner they are put down, and a currency exclusively metallic is established, the better. They further argue, that such a metallic currency will reduce inflated prices, lower the wages of labor, enable us to manufacture cheaper, and thereby admit our manufacturers to maintain a successful competition with foreigners. And all these results, at some future time or other, are to be brought about by the operation of this measure.

Mr. President, in my opinion, a currency purely metallic, is neither desirable, in the present state of the commercial world, nor, if it were, is it practicable, or possible to be attained in this country. And if it were possible, it could not be brought about without the most frightful and disastrous consequences, creating convulsion, if not revolution.

Of all conditions of society, that is most prosperous in which there is a gradual and regular increase of the circulating medium, and a gradual, but not too rapid increase in the value of property, and the price of commodities. In such a state of things, business of all kinds is active and animated, every department of it flourishes, and labor is liberally rewarded. No sacrifices are made of property, and debtors find, without difficulty, the means of discharging promptly their debts. Men hold on to what they have, without the apprehension of loss, and we behold no glutted markets. Of all conditions of society, that is most adverse in which there is a constant and rapid diminution of the amount of the circulating medium. Debtors become unable to pay their debts, property falls, the market is glutted, business declines, and labor is thrown out of employment. In such a state of things, the imagination goes ahead of the reality. Sellers become numerous, from the apprehension that their property, now falling, will fall still lower; and purchasers scarce, from an unwillingness to make investments with the hazard of almost certain loss.

Have gentlemen reflected upon the consequences of their system of depletion? I have already stated, that the country is borne down by a weight of debt. If the currency be greatly diminished, as beyond all example it has been, how is this debt to be extinguished? Property, the resource on which the debtor relied for his payment, will decline in value, and it may happen that a man, who honestly contracted debt, on the faith of property which had a value at the time fully adequate to warrant the debt, will find himself stripped of all his property, and his debt remain unextinguished. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Buchanan,) has put the case of two nations, in one of which the amount of its currency shall be double what it is in the other, and, as he contends, the prices of all property will be doubled in the former nation of what they are in the latter. If this be true of two nations, it must be equally true of one, whose circulating medium is at one period double what it is at another. Now, as the friends of the bill argue, we have been, and yet are in this inflated state; our currency has been double, or, in something like that proportion, of what was necessary, and we must come down to the lowest standard. Do they not perceive that inevitable ruin to thousands must be the necessary consequence? A man, for example, owning property to the value of five thousand dollars, contracts a debt for five thousand dollars. By the reduction of one half of the currency of the country, his property in effect becomes reduced to the value of two thousand five hundred dollars. But his debt undergoes no corresponding reduction. He gives up all his property, and remains still in debt two thousand five hundred dollars. Thus this measure will operate on the debtor class of the nation, always the weaker class, and that which, for that reason, most needs the protection of government.

But if the effect of this hard-money policy upon the debtor class be injurious, it is still more disastrous, if possible, on the laboring classes. Enterprise will be checked or stopped, employment will become difficult, and the poorer classes will be subject to the greatest privations and distresses. Heretofore it has been one of the pretensions and boasts of the dominant party, that they sought to elevate the poor by depriving the rich of undue advantages. Now their policy is, to reduce the wages of labor, and this is openly avowed; and it is argued by them, that it is necessary to reduce the wages of American labor to the low standard of European labor, in order to enable the American manufacturer to enter into a successful competition with the European manufacturer in the sale of their respective fabrics. Thus is this dominant party perpetually changing, one day cajoling the poor, and fulminating against the rich; and the next, cajoling the rich, and fulminating against the poor. It was but yesterday that we heard that all who were trading on borrowed capital, ought to break. It was but yesterday we heard denounced the long established policy of the country, by which, it was alleged, the poor were made poorer, and the rich were made richer.

Mr. President, of all the subjects of national policy, not one ought to be touched with so much delicacy as that of the wages, in other words, the bread, of the poor man. In dwelling, as I have often done, with inexpressible satisfaction upon the many advantages of our country, there is not one that has given me more delight than the high price of manual labor. There is not one which indicates more clearly the prosperity of the mass of the community. In all the features of human society, there are none, I think, which more decisively display the general welfare, than a permanent high rate of wages, and a permanent high rate of interest. Of course, I do not mean those excessive high rates, of temporary existence, which result from sudden and unexpected demands for labor or capital, and which may, and generally do, evince some unnatural and extraordinary state of things; but I mean a settled, steady, and durable high rate of wages of labor, and interest upon money. Such a state demonstrates activity and profits in all the departments of business. It proves that the employer can afford to give high wages to the laborer, in consequence of the profits of his business, and the borrower high interest to the lender, in consequence of the gain which he makes by the use of capital. On the contrary, in countries where business is dull and languishing, and all the walks of society are full, the small profits that are made will not justify high interest or high wages.

Wages of labor will be low where there is no business, and of course, but little or no demand for labor; or where, from a density of population, the competition for employment is great, and the demand for labor is not equal to the supply. Similar causes will tend to the reduction of the rate of interest. Our vast unpeopled regions in the west, protect us against the evils of a too crowded population. In our country, such is the variety of profitable business and pursuits, that there is scarcely any in which one can engage with diligence, integrity, and ordinary skill, in regular and ordinary times, that he is not sure of being amply rewarded. Surveying our happy condition in this respect, it was, during the last war, remarked by the present lord Jeffries, that America was the heaven of the poor man, and the hell of the rich. There was extravagance in the observation, mixed with some truth. It would have been more accurate to have said, that, with good government, it was an earthly heaven, both of the rich and poor.

It is contended, however, that the reduction of wages would be only nominal; that an exclusive specie currency being established, the prices of all commodities would fall; and that the laborer would be able to command as many of the necessaries of life with his low wages, as he can at present.

The great error of senators on the other side is, that they do not sufficiently regard the existing structure of society, the habits and usages which prevail; in short, the actual state of things. All wise legislation should be founded upon the condition of society as it is, and even where reform is necessary, it should be introduced slowly, cautiously, and with a careful and vigilant attention to all consequences. But gentlemen seem disposed to consider themselves at liberty to legislate for a new people, just sprung into existence, and commencing its career—one for which they may, without reference to what they see all around them, speculate and theorize at pleasure. Now if we were such a people, and were deliberating on the question of what was the best medium of circulation to represent the property, and transact the business of the country, it is far from being certain that it would be deemed wisest to adopt an exclusive specie standard. But when we glance at society as it actually exists, with all its relations and ramifications, its engagements, debts, wants, habits, customs, nothing can be more unwise, it seems to me, than to attempt so radical a change as that which is contemplated.

I cannot admit that the laborer, with his low wages, would be in as eligible a situation as he now is; the argument excludes all consideration of his condition, during the transition from the paper, to the specie medium. In the descending process, from an abundant to a scarce circulation, there would be nothing before him but distress and wretchedness; and he would be in the greatest danger of starvation, before the El Dorado of gentlemen was reached. The adjustment of prices to the state of the currency, is not so sudden a work as is imagined. Long after the specie standard should be established, the old prices of many articles would remain; and all foreign productions, which enter into the consumption of the poor man, would continue unaffected by our domestic currency, if it be true, that there would be no alteration in the condition of the laborer, if he would really get as much, in value, in the new state of things as in the old, how is that of the capitalist, engaged in manufactures, to be improved? Would not his situation also remain unaltered? The assumption, that an exclusive hard money circulation is best for the laborer, best for the manufacturer, best for the country, is against all the experience of the world. Beyond all doubt, England is the most prosperous of all the nations of the old world, and England is the greatest paper money country that exists. Her manufactures find a market in every portion of the globe; her operatives and laborers are paid better, and fed better, than any in Europe. Have the manufactures of the hard money countries of the continent, prevailed over those of England, and driven them out of the markets, in fair competition? Far from it. Their policy is to exclude, by prohibitions and heavy duties, the entry of British goods into their ports. England has sought to make treaties with them all, and especially with France, upon the basis of free trade, and France has replied, that her manufactures are too much behind those of England to admit of their being placed upon a footing of equality. Paper money, inflated England, manufactures about two thirds of all the cotton exported from the United States; and her cotton manufacture alone, is probably greater than that of all the rest of Europe.