[38] The italics are mine.
Nor did the Chief Justice stand alone in that position among his judicial brethren. He had occupied a distinguished place in the Federal ranks to an advanced period in his professional life; he had acquired an enviable fame at the Bar, and had left it, as most old lawyers do, with feelings of admiration and respect not only for his professional brethren but for the Bench, in the influence and power of which they seldom fail to take the deepest interest. It was hardly to be expected that he should, on taking his seat, have proved insensible to the _esprit du corps_ which had long prevailed in and around that high tribunal, and which, directed by the plastic hand of John Marshall, had charmed minds as strong as his own, even although professing opposite political principles. Story and Thompson, who had been stars of considerable magnitude in the old Republican party, were in succession subdued by Marshall"s magnetic influence to conditions in this regard favorable to the acceptance of almost any extension of the doctrine of the supremacy of the Supreme Court.
Although the master-mind which gave it life and by which it was installed has departed, the proceedings now the subject of our review give us abundant reason to apprehend that the spirit has retained its place and power. In respect to many hardly contested issues brought before the Court, occurring vacancies and new appointments have doubtless worked important changes in its opinions; but on that of the supremacy of the judicial over the other departments of the Government in const.i.tutional questions, there are yet, it is to be feared, few dissentients on the Bench, and least of all on the question from which opposition to the decision in the Dred Scott case proceeded. That decision was therefore p.r.o.nounced under the full persuasion that, in addition to its quieting effect upon the public mind, it, of right, ought to have a controlling influence over the action of the other departments of the Government; that it ought to influence the action of Congress in particular, and that, if an attempt should be made to revive the condemned act, it would guide the course of the Executive. Judge Daniel, in the modest, hesitating terms in which he expressed his concurrence in the farther proceedings, which he admitted to be unnecessary, seems to have thought it due to the political school in which he had been reared to put some qualification upon the power of the court to settle the conflicting views upon the subject that prevailed out of doors and might find place in the other departments of the Government. But my worthy friend, Judge Wayne, had no such reserve. He thought that the case, in addition to private rights of great value, involved "const.i.tutional principles of the highest importance, about which there had become such a difference of opinion that the peace and harmony of the country required the settlement of them by judicial decision."
The Chief Justice was too circ.u.mspect not to content himself with action, and not to avoid expressions open to unfavorable criticism. I cannot suffer the allusions I have made to circ.u.mstances in the previous career of this excellent man to pa.s.s without a disclaimer of the slightest intention to impeach his motives in any thing. I have known him long and well. We stood shoulder to shoulder by the side of General Jackson at the most eventful period of his second term of office, and did all we could do to sustain him by our cooperation and advice. I do not know that we differed on any point; and I do know that there could not have been a more upright and vigilant public officer than he was; nor could any man have had a more faithful or a more efficient friend than he proved to that n.o.ble old man. I witnessed from beginning to end the virulent and violent persecutions he experienced at the hands of his old Federal and Whig friends, and was deeply affected by the steady, self-possessed and manly spirit with which he endured them. This impressed me with a respect for his character and a personal attachment which no after-occurrence has weakened. He was my choice as the candidate of the Democratic party for the Presidency in 1852, and there has been no time since at which I would not have rejoiced to see him at the head of the Government. I would have expected to find in him some defects, which being bred in the bone would come out in the flesh, but that never was with me, as was known to my familiar a.s.sociates in political life, an objection to the elevation to office of gentlemen whose political _status_ was similar to his own. I took them _c.u.m onere_, and sometimes, though certainly not always, gained by the experiment. He was a man of innate as well as cultivated integrity in sentiment and action, and the longer we live the higher value we learn to place on this quality in a public man. Conscious of the importance of sincerity and truthfulness in all the movements of Government, whose office it is to enforce the observance of moral obligation, men of this character can never be induced to countenance public measures unless they are not only pure in themselves, but supported by pure means. Such a man was Roger B. Taney, and such men I never suspect of unworthy motives in any thing they say or do. Neither have I the slightest doubt of the good intentions by which his a.s.sociates on the bench were influenced in the proceedings of which I am speaking. Yet I cannot but think that in going beyond the necessities of the case they made a grievous mistake. The question, which the court undertook to settle, was political, and had a.s.sumed a partisan character of great virulence.
There are two cla.s.ses in every community whose interference in politics is always and very naturally distasteful to sincere republicans, and those are judges and clergymen. Their want of sympathy, as a general rule, for popular rights, is known throughout the world, and in this country that repugnance received an enduring impulse from the unanimity with which a vast majority of both cla.s.ses banded themselves on the side of power, in the stormy time of the first Adams, and from the bitterness with which they railed from the bench and the pulpit at the public-spirited and patriotic men, who sought to relieve the country from misrule. Both were again called to the political field, though on different sides, during our recent troubles; yet the circ.u.mstance that the judges took part with a majority of those who const.i.tuted the Democratic party of the United States was not sufficient to neutralize the dislike to their interference in politics which was seated in the Democratic mind. To add a deeper shade to this trespa.s.s upon the time-honored creed of the Democratic party, the anti-Democratic doctrine was conveyed to the public in a form professing to be a necessary adjudication in the regular course of the administration of justice, whilst it is, to a considerable extent at least, exposed to the imputation of having in truth been an extrajudicial opinion, voluntarily and not necessarily delivered,--a mode of bringing before the country the opinions of the supreme bench, formerly much in use, but which, since the case of Marbury and Madison, has been peculiarly repulsive to Democrats, and which Mr. Jefferson spent much time in holding up to odium.
To do full justice to Mr. Buchanan in respect to the extent to which this action of the Supreme Court received his sanction, it becomes necessary to state with more precision than might otherwise be deemed requisite, in connection with admitted facts, his avowals on the subject, which are contained in his inaugural address.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was designed to settle, as far as an act of Congress could do so, two points, viz.--1st, that Congress possessed no power to legislate upon the subject of slavery in the Territories, and therefore it repealed the Missouri Compromise Act; and 2d, that it belongs to the majority of the people of the Territory to decide whether slavery shall or shall not exist within its bounds.
President Buchanan treated every point which the Kansas Act professed to settle as removed from the scope of partisan warfare, and congratulated the country on the happy conception through which the Congress had accomplished results so desirable.
That body recognized in the fullest manner the power and the right of a majority of the people of Kansas to decide upon their domestic inst.i.tutions, including the subject of slavery, but was silent as to the period when that right should be exercised. That was, therefore, left an open question, and the President expressed his views in regard to it in the following words: "A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the time when the people of a Territory shall decide this question for themselves. This is happily a matter of little practical importance, and besides it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be, though it has been my individual opinion," etc.
It is not necessary for the purpose of this reference to inquire either how far that question was decided by the Supreme Court, in the case referred to, or whether the President does justice to its importance. In respect to the latter point it is well known that a contrary opinion is extensively entertained. It will not be denied that the case he speaks of was that of Dred Scott, and that the questions to be decided in it related only to the personal rights and interests of the parties to the suit. It is in the settlement of such only that the Supreme Court could exercise jurisdiction upon such a subject, and all will admit that if it belongs to a Territory to determine the question of the toleration of slavery there, the occasion of the formation of its State const.i.tution will be a proper time for the settlement of that question, if a majority consent that the decision shall be so long deferred. The question in regard to the true time can, therefore, only arise, when a majority wish to act upon the subject at an earlier period. If such an attempt be made, the most extreme advocates for judicial supremacy would not pretend that it would be competent for the Supreme Court to arrest the proceedings by injunction or writ of prohibition, or any other process.
It could, therefore, only be in cases involving individual interests, which might be supposed to be affected by such a proceeding on the part of the Territory, that the judicial tribunals could interfere, and it was to such a case that the President was understood to refer. It was of an expected decision of the court in a case in law, brought for the settlement of private rights, that the President spoke, when he said that, though he had an opinion of his own, he would, notwithstanding, submit to the decision of the court upon the point, whatever that might be. By this declaration he announced to his const.i.tuents that in the exercise of the executive power upon the subject, whenever that might become necessary, he would take notice of the decision of the Supreme Court in the case he referred to as then pending, and would feel it to be his duty to maintain the rule it should lay down in respect to the particular question of which he spoke, and _a fortiori_ in respect to the main question, the right of the Territory to act upon the matter, and that he would do so because the court had so decided without reference to his individual opinion in the premises--the consequence of which would be, that if his official sanction or cooperation should become necessary to a settlement of the question of slavery by the people of the Territory, he would give it if the people had acted conformably to the rule prescribed by the court, or withhold it if they had acted contrary thereto; and that if Congress should undertake to legislate upon any part of the subject against the decision of the Supreme Court, in respect to its const.i.tutional powers, he would withhold his a.s.sent from any bill of that character which the two houses might pa.s.s.
It is our duty, and must be our aim, to interpret the language employed by the President according to what we, in good faith, believe to have been his intention. Attempts to pervert the sense of what is said by a man placed in his situation and acting under his grave responsibilities, would not injure him, and could not fail to recoil upon their author.
If, dealing with his avowals in that spirit, we are yet bound to believe that the declaration which I have described is the legitimate interpretation and effect of his language, it is not only our right but our duty to speak of it as we conscientiously think it deserves. It can be scarcely necessary to say that those who regard the Republican principles of government applicable to the question before us, as they have been set forth in this work, as the true and only principles of the Const.i.tution, must either abandon the tenets of their predecessors and their own convictions, or treat the declaration of Mr. Buchanan as a voluntary and seemingly a ready sacrifice of a most cherished principle of the Democratic faith--the reciprocal independence of the great departments of government; a principle the importance of which was apparent to and insisted on by the friends of liberty long before the establishment of our independence, and for the practical enforcement of which the American Revolution was regarded as presenting the best opportunity ever offered. For the security of this principle the fathers of our political school made the greatest efforts, and the invasion of it was met by Mr. Jefferson, at the commencement of his administration, with characteristic firmness, and was the subject of his anxious watchfulness during the closing scenes of his life.
The recent action of the Democratic party upon this subject must be considered with many grains of allowance. The long-continued support of a majority of the people,--the only test of political merit in a Republic,--has secured a preference for its principles of which it may well be proud; and the general fidelity of its members to the faith they profess is creditably ill.u.s.trated by the fact that after all the changes to which its organization has been exposed, its ranks, whatever may be the case as to some of its leaders, are mainly composed of men with like dispositions with those by whom that organization was effected; yet its best friends set up in its behalf no claim to infallibility, nor do they pretend that its members have never failed in their duty to the cause.
They know that men do not escape from their liability to err by uniting with a political a.s.sociation. Circ.u.mstances of the gravest character have besides put the adherence of its members to the principles of their party, in the matter under consideration, to a severer test than any to which they have hitherto been exposed. For the first time since its ascent to power in the Federal Government, two of the three great departments, the Executive and the Judicial, are presided over by gentlemen who, though raised to their places by its favor, had not been bred in its ranks but joined them at comparatively advanced periods in their lives, with opinions formed and matured in an antagonist school.
The motives by which these gentlemen were led to enlist under the Democratic banner were, beyond question, of the purest character, and the high position to which they have been raised by their new friends shows that they were appreciated as they deserved. Most of the principles and opinions they formed in the ranks of the adversary have doubtless been changed, and ours adopted in their stead, but, unfortunately, that which is the subject of our present remark appears not to have been among the number.
Several of the members of the President"s cabinet and of the bench of the Supreme Court, perhaps a majority of each, stand in the same category. In Congress the state of things is not materially different; when we look at the gentlemen who have been most prominent in the Kansas embroilment, on the side of the administration, we find an unprecedented number of the same cla.s.s. It is most proper to avoid referring unnecessarily to names in a work of this character, especially when such reference is not for particular commendation, but the innocence of the motive in this case will excuse a slight departure from the rule. Among the most prominent of those who have taken the lead on the Democratic side in the two houses of Congress in respect to the affairs of Kansas, will be found the names of Toombs, of the Senate, and Stephens, of the House--both from Georgia, and both, for aught I know or have ever known, honorable men, doubtless actuated by good motives. I know neither personally, and never heard of either particularly, save as extreme partisans in the ranks of our opponents. I will not vouch for precise accuracy as to dates, but I am persuaded I will not err materially in saying that neither professed to belong to the Democratic party until after their appointment and election to their present posts. All of these gentlemen not merely believe, as it is very natural that they should, in this supremacy of the judicial power in such matters,--an idea always heretofore scouted by the Democracy of the land,--but they maintain it before the country, under circ.u.mstances rendered very imposing by their high official positions, as a test of party fidelity.
The Executive, whose elevation to power cost the Democracy so fearful a struggle, and from whose success so much was and still is expected, has done this clearly and undisguisedly in respect to the support of Lecompton, and virtually in respect to the question of judicial supremacy. Mr. Stephens offered a resolution declaring the support of the Lecompton Act, a measure closely interwoven with the principle of which we are speaking, as a test question in the Democratic caucus over which presided Mr. Cochran,--a promising young man from New York, descended from a family as thoroughly imbued with Hamiltonian Federalism as any this State has produced (one of them Hamilton"s brother-in-law), brought up till he arrived at man"s estate among the straightest of the sect, and on that account ent.i.tled to greater credit for throwing himself with becoming zeal into the Democratic ranks, but for the same reason less likely to embrace their creed in its full extent, and less qualified to instruct them in the principles of their faith.
But there is an obstacle to an adherence on the part of the Democratic party to their ancient faith, in respect to these proceedings of the court, far more potent than those to which I have referred. This arises from the circ.u.mstance that those proceedings had their origin mainly in a sincere belief that they were necessary to protect a paramount and absorbing interest in nearly half the States of the Confederacy, with the security and quiet of which the citizens of those States believe their happiness and welfare to be inseparably involved. These are also the States in which the Democratic party possesses comparatively its greatest influence, and in some of which the true principles of the Const.i.tution have in general, and especially at earlier periods in our history, been sought after with great avidity, and in which that under consideration found its earliest, ablest, and most persevering supporters. I need not speak of the control which this belief is capable of exerting over most of those who are by their position brought within the range of its practical operation. Minds thus excited find no insuperable difficulty in placing the object of their solicitude upon the footing of the _salus populi_, or in looking upon any measure that tends to its security as justifiable, because it is in execution of the _suprema lex_. Before such a feeling, so widely diffused, const.i.tutional objections and all the principles which on ordinary occasions bind the consciences and influence the actions of men, are seldom, if ever, of much avail.
Neither will full justice have been done to the subject, notwithstanding this formidable array of hindrances in the path of duty, if I omit to refer to the inducement, always so strong with political parties, to avail themselves of every opportunity that presents or seems to present itself to "_commend the poisoned chalice_" to the lips of their opponents--a temptation they find it hard to resist, however much their own hands or consciences may have to be soiled in the operation. Few of the present generation who have made themselves at all conversant with the course of public affairs, need to be told how constant and openly professed has been the faith of the old Federalists and their political successors in the infallibility and omnipotence of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon const.i.tutional questions. The complaints of the old Republicans and their successors upon that head have been both loud and long continued. When they made the country ring with them in respect to the unconst.i.tutionality and tyrannical character of the Alien and Sedition Laws, the ready and only reply of their opponents was, that it belonged to the judicial power to decide upon their const.i.tutionality, and that their expediency was a matter to be solved in the breast of Congress. In more modern times, when its unconst.i.tutionality was objected to the second Bank of the United States, the decision of the Supreme Court in favor of the power of Congress to establish it was the equally ready and confident answer to all complaints on that ground. Other and similar instances might be referred to, but it is unnecessary. For the first time since the formation of the present Government the supreme bench, considerably changed in the political complexion of its members and tempted, doubtless more or less under the pressure of an all-absorbing popular influence at the South, to borrow a leaf from the book of our political opponents, has undertaken to control, adversely to the views of those opponents, a great political question by an extrajudicial decision of the court. As one of the consequences, a hue and cry has been raised against that august tribunal, hitherto revered by them as the only political sanctuary; trusted as the ark of safety;--a clamor reaching to a demand for the reorganization of the court itself;--a point never even approached by the Democracy when their displeasure has been raised to the greatest height by its unauthorized a.s.sumptions of political power.
It is not then surprising that portions of the Democratic party should have been led to give the qualified a.s.sent which they have given to the Federal principle under consideration. I say qualified, for the guarded manner in which those who so a.s.sent have urged the influence which the decision of the court ought to have upon the question, must have been apparent to all; and this has been very much to their credit, especially in the slaveholding States. The references which have been made to the doings of the judiciary, in most instances, have savored more of what is known in the law as a _plea of estoppel_ than of a claim of right,--a plea by which the truth or falsity of any matter brought forward by one party is waived, and its admission resisted on the ground that the party relying upon it has precluded himself from introducing it by some act or concession appearing upon the record, or established _aliunde_. If the doctrine of estoppel could be applied to politicians, it would certainly not be difficult to show that the Federal party and its successors are very clearly estopped from objecting to the action of the Supreme Court of which we have been speaking.
It may, under such circ.u.mstances, be safely a.s.sumed that the Democratic party has not committed itself to a departure from its professed principles upon this subject to an extent which it cannot be relieved from without a sacrifice of self-respect on the part of its members, or without serious prejudice to its well-earned t.i.tle to the confidence of the country. That it will so relieve itself its past good sense and active patriotism forbid us to doubt. Let us hope that the protecting care of a kind Providence, which has. .h.i.therto carried our country in safety through so many perils, will in His own good time afford us a breathing spell at least, from the baleful excitements attendant upon slavery agitation. When that happy period arrives ... besides the incalculable advantage it will bring to the highest interests of all parties and all sections of our country, the Democrats in the slaveholding States will not fail to see the folly of asking their political coadjutors in the free States to cooperate in the support of measures and principles in sustaining which they cannot be sustained at home. The hair-breadth escape of their common party from destruction at the last Presidential election, and the deplorable condition to which the Democratic party has been reduced in the non-slaveholding States, by a past disregard of that consideration, will then be allowed their proper admonitory effect. All will then acknowledge that in the steps which have recently been taken, having their origin in the same bitter and deplorable source, the Democratic party, always before the able and zealous defender of the Const.i.tution against similar inroads, had entered upon a path which leads directly and inevitably to a revolution of the Government in the most important of its functions--a revolution which would in time subst.i.tute for the present healthful and beneficial action of public opinion the selfish and contracted rule of a judicial oligarchy, which, sympathizing in feeling and acting in concert with the money power, would a.s.suredly subvert the best features of a political system that needs only to be honestly administered to enable it to realize those antic.i.p.ations of our country"s greatness which now warm the hearts and animate the patriotism and nerve the arms of her faithful sons.
CHAPTER IX.
Effects of our Leading Party Conflicts in the Light of Seventy Years" Experience--Contest as to the Relative Powers of the State and General Governments--Merits and Faults of the Parties to that Contest--The Credit of settling the Struggle upon right Grounds due to Jefferson"s Administration--Attempt of the Federalists to give undue Supremacy to the Judicial Department and Failure of that Attempt--Hamilton"s Funding System--History of its Establishment, Continuance, and Overthrow--The National Bank Struggle--The Protective System--Clay"s American System--Internal Improvements by the General Government--Overthrow of these Measures the beneficent Work of the Democratic Party--No such Contributions to the Public Welfare made by the Opponents of that Party--The Debt of Grat.i.tude due from the Country to Madison, to Jackson, and especially to Jefferson.
It will not be deemed inappropriate to close this review of the rise and progress of our political parties, and of the principles upon which they have acted, with a fuller notice of the advantages and disadvantages which have resulted to the country from their conflicting acts and pretensions during an experience of more than seventy years. In deciding the character of parties by their works we will but follow the dictates of unerring wisdom, by which we are taught to judge the tree by its fruit.
A great question, and naturally the first that arose in the formation of our political system, related to the power that should be reserved to, and the treatment that should be extended towards, the State governments. Rivalries between them and the Federal head could not be prevented. To mitigate the evil by dealing justly and wisely with the State authorities, was all that could be done. Each of the great parties which have divided the country had, from the beginning, its own, and they were conflicting opinions, in respect to the spirit in which this important subject should be dealt with. These, and the acts and sayings they gave rise to, have been herein freely spoken of, and what has been said need not be repeated. The facts and circ.u.mstances brought into view, consisting in a considerable degree of the reiterated declarations of the parties themselves, with a ma.s.s of others supplied by contemporaneous history, fully justify the belief that if Hamilton and Morris, and the influential men of the party of which the former was through life the almost absolute leader, could have had their way, the State governments would have been reduced to conditions in regard to power and dignity which would not only have destroyed their usefulness, but from which they must have sunk into insignificance and contempt; to which state it was the avowed wish of those leaders to depress them.
This desire was frustrated in the Federal Convention, not so much through favorable feeling towards the State authorities as by a conviction on the part of a majority--a conviction which could neither be disguised nor suppressed--that the old Anti-Federal party would be sufficiently strengthened by a plan of the Const.i.tution, against which a design clearly hostile to the State governments could be fairly charged, to enable that party to prevent its ratification. John Quincy Adams, to his declaration that the "Const.i.tution was extorted from the grinding necessity of a reluctant nation," might have added, with equal truth, that the Const.i.tution, in the form it bore on this point, was extorted from the Convention by a necessity not less effectual. Hamilton"s design to attain the object he had failed to accomplish in the Convention, by "_administrating_" the Const.i.tution, in the language of Madison, into a thing very different from what they both knew it was intended to be, was defeated by the old Republican party.
The lowest point to which the State governments would have been reduced, if the influence that was exerted to lessen their power had not been defeated in the way I have described, must of necessity be matter of speculation only. Hamilton, as we have seen, declared candidly that he knew of no reason why he did not advocate their total overthrow other than the manifest strong desire of the people for their retention; whilst Morris, with equal openness, said that if they could not abolish them altogether, it was nevertheless desirable to pull the teeth of the serpents.
There can be but little doubt that a complete triumph of the Federal policy would have resulted in a decline of the State governments, if they escaped extinguishment, from the condition which they occupied at the period of the recognition of our Independence to mere munic.i.p.al authorities, without sufficient power to render them extensively useful--fit theatres only for the exercise and enjoyment of the patronage of the Federal government.
The Anti-Federalists, like their opponents, could only look with favor on one side of this great question. I do not complain of their partiality for the State governments, for it was in them a natural and inherited feeling, one which had been cherished with equal ardor from a remote period in our history by men whose places they filled and whom they most resembled. Their fault was the exclusiveness of their preference. They could not and did not deny that a general government of some sort was indispensable, and they should therefore have stood ready to confer upon it such powers as were necessary to enable it to sustain itself and to qualify it for the successful performance of the duties to be a.s.signed to it. This they would not do. They, on the contrary, allowed their local prejudices and their suspicious, in some instances well founded but unwisely indulged, to lead them to persistent refusals to concede to the Federal head means which a sufficient experience had shown to be absolutely necessary to good government. Public and private interests suffered from that cause, and they were justly held responsible for the consequences. Their conduct was as unjustifiable and as suicidal as was the unmitigated warfare waged by leading Federalists against the State governments; and no political course adopted by public men or political parties, of which it could be said that it was intentionally wrong, has. .h.i.therto, to their honor be it spoken, long escaped rebuke from the American people.
The Anti-Federal party by their pertinacious, nay morbid perseverance in a wrong course, exposed themselves to the same penalty which was at a later period inflicted upon their old opponents--as a party they were overthrown and ruined.
The merit of discouraging and finally extinguishing this unnatural, unprofitable, and unnecessary struggle between the friends of the General and State governments, and of vindicating the Federal Const.i.tution, by placing the peculiar principle it sought to establish for the government to be const.i.tuted under its authority, that of an _imperium in imperio_, upon a practicable and safe footing, was reserved for the administration of Thomas Jefferson. For the evils arising from the pernicious rivalry between agencies, upon the harmonious cooperation of which the framers of the Const.i.tution relied for the success of that instrument, the remedy recommended by Mr. Jefferson in his inaugural address, as expressed in his own inimitable language, was "the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwark against anti-republican tendencies: the preservation of the General Government in its whole const.i.tutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad." These propositions, so simple, so natural, and so plainly in accord with the spirit of the Const.i.tution, though, in common with other suggestions from the same source designed by their author to give repose to an over-agitated community, received at the time with indifference by incensed partisans, met with a cordial welcome from the great body of the people. Their fitness and probable efficacy could not be successfully controverted, and although they did not escape factious opposition, a majority of the people, tired of the unavailing agitation which the subject had undergone, and more and more satisfied of Mr. Jefferson"s sincere desire to advance the general interest, embraced them with constantly increasing earnestness, and sustained them until they became the successful as well as settled policy of the Government. Angry pa.s.sions, having their origin in this prolific source of partisan strife, which swept over and convulsed the country during the Government of the Confederation, and for at least twenty years after the adoption of the new Const.i.tution, have been subdued. The State governments, increased in number from thirteen to more than thirty, with no other powers than those reserved to them by the undisputed provisions of the Const.i.tution, have advanced to a degree of dignity and usefulness which has enabled them to extend to their citizens seven eighths of the aid and protection for which they look to government, either State or national, and has also removed from their representatives all fear of the encroachments of the Federal Government; whilst the latter, having proven itself able to sustain itself without the aid of constructive powers, and to perform with prompt.i.tude and success all the duties a.s.signed to it, is no longer disturbed by apprehensions of the factious spirit and grasping designs once so freely charged upon the State authorities.
For this auspicious state of things we are beyond all doubt indebted, more than to any other cause, to the conservative character of Democratic principles and the unwavering fidelity of the party that sustains them.
To understand truly the advantages which the country has derived from the success of this policy, and the defeat of that to which it was opposed, we have only to picture to ourselves what the condition of the State governments must have been if the latter had triumphed, and to compare it with the actual state of things. a.s.suming that the desire to divest them of the authority which they had gradually acquired, as occasions for its exercise were developed by the necessities of the public service, at one time so strong with leading Federalists and as we have seen so openly avowed, had been limited to what was actually proposed, viz., to give to the General Government the power to appoint their governors, and through them the most important of their minor officers, including those of the militia, with an absolute veto upon all State laws,--what, judging according to the experience we have had, would now have been the character and condition of those governments?
Without the authority required to make themselves useful, or respectability sufficient to excite the ambition of individuals to be honorably employed in their service, and thus to divide their attention and regard between the Federal and State governments, they would have sunk gradually into feeble, unimportant, characterless establishments--mere places for the sinecure appointments of the former.
Contrast inst.i.tutions like these--and only such could have been possible under the policy advocated by the leading Federalists--with the galaxy of independent governments of which we now boast, such as no confederation, ancient or modern, possessed, vested with authority and dignity, and filling the States respectively with monuments of their wisdom, enterprise, usefulness, and philanthropy; and contrast the Federal Government, resting as it now does on these tried and ample foundations, with one based on establishments like those to which it was proposed to degrade the States, and we will have some idea of the dangers that the people of the United States have escaped, and the advantages they have secured by the wisdom of their course and the patriotism of those who advised it. If the Democratic party of Jefferson"s time, and under his lead, had effected nothing else for the country, they would have done enough in this to deserve the perpetual respect and grat.i.tude of the whole people.
Yet this was but the beginning of their usefulness, subsequent to the adoption of the present Const.i.tution.
No sooner had the efforts of the leaders of the Federal party to break down the power and influence of the State governments been arrested through the triumph of the Democratic party in the great contest of 1800, which was to a great extent carried on in their defense, than an attempt was set on foot to rescue a portion of the political power lost by the former, by raising the judicial power--the dispensers of which were to a man on their side--above the executive and legislative departments of the Federal Government. Of this enterprise, its origin, progress, and present condition, I have taken the notice which I thought was demanded by its importance. That it was unsuccessful, and that the balance of power between those departments, so necessary to the security of liberty and to the preservation of the Government, has not been destroyed, is altogether due to the persevering opposition of the Democratic party under the same bold and capable leader.
Where the points in issue between political parties have been of so grave a character as those in the United States, it is not an easy matter to decide on their relative importance, or in which the right and the wrong was most apparent. Whilst some have resolved themselves mainly into questions of expediency, in respect to which errors may be committed without incurable injury to our inst.i.tutions, there have been others striking at their roots, which would, if differently decided, have ended in their inevitable destruction. The two to which I have referred were emphatically of the latter character, and hence the inestimable value of the successful resistance that was made on the Democratic side.
Hamilton"s funding system, though involving in respect to the a.s.sumption of the State debts a grave const.i.tutional question, was in its princ.i.p.al features one of expediency. Yet it was an important one, by reason of the serious consequences that were apprehended from its a.s.sumed tendency, and produced impressions upon the public scarcely less marked than were made by any public question which had before or has since arisen in this country. The character of that system, and the injuries that were antic.i.p.ated from its establishment, have been spoken of in a previous part of this essay. Only a slight consideration of the operations of a similar system elsewhere will be sufficient to show how greatly the welfare of nations has been affected by their course in respect to it.
Of these, England, from her present condition in regard to her public debt, compared with that in which it is believed she might have stood if her course in that respect had been guided by wiser counsels, presents the most instructive example. Ours derives interest scarcely less impressive from the evils we have avoided by abandoning, whilst that was yet in our power, the further imitation of her example after we had fully begun to imitate it. That the system was established here with much _eclat_, and under explanations and circ.u.mstances indicative of a determination on the part of the men in power to adhere to it as long as and whenever a public debt existed, all know. It is also known that the practice of funding the public debt, for which it furnished the plan, has long been discontinued. Through what agency and upon what inducements that discontinuance has been brought about, and who is ent.i.tled to the credit of protecting the country from the evils flowing from the practice elsewhere, can only be ascertained by an impartial examination of its further history. To bestow that attention upon the subject is perhaps not necessary for instruction or example, as a national bank has not become more completely an "obsolete idea" amongst us, or more thoroughly condemned in public opinion than a funding system. Still there are many considerations which render such an examination an object of curiosity certainly, and one not dest.i.tute of higher interest. If the change which was effected in the policy and action of the Government in this regard has been as advantageous as with the light which experience has thrown upon the subject cannot be longer doubted, it is highly proper that those who brought about the reform should have the credit of it.
No important transaction upon which patriotism of such an order and intellects of such caliber as distinguished the public men of that day were earnestly employed, can be without interest to inquiring minds of this. It is so long since the whole affair has pa.s.sed from public attention as to make it an unfamiliar subject to most of us. I confess it was so to me, and those who read these sheets will not complain if the interest I have taken in following it to its termination shall at least save them from some of the trouble that would otherwise have been necessary to master its details.
Strongly excited by the first appearance of the project at the head of Hamilton"s programme, as well described by Madison in his interesting statement to Mr. Trist, the old Republicans in and out of Congress, with Jefferson as their adviser and at their head, rallied promptly in earnest and unyielding opposition to its consummation. Overborne by a large majority in the first Congress, devoted as it was to Hamilton and his measures, they could not defeat the bill for its establishment, and were obliged to content themselves in the first instance with efforts to expose its objectionable features to the people, in the hope of rendering it too odious to be persisted in. They also resorted, as they often afterwards did on similar occasions, to the State legislatures for advice and cooperation. That of Virginia, the President"s native State, as well as the place of his residence, denounced the scheme very soon after its introduction, in resolutions of much power, touching the subject upon the points in respect to which it was most exceptionable.
Its opponents in Congress also kept a watchful eye upon the steps taken by the Secretary towards its execution, and followed every important movement by calls for information and by pertinent resolutions. These calls were generally upon the Secretary, occasionally on the President himself. As early as 1792, the Republicans caused the introduction of, and gave efficient support to, a resolution that "measures ought to be taken for the redemption of so much of the public debt as by the act making provision for the debts of the United States, they have the right to redeem." In this resolution, which was adopted by the House, a provision was inserted, against the votes of the old Republicans, to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare the plan for the contemplated redemption. Those who were opposed to its preparation by that officer desired to have it done by a committee, and apprehended obstacles on his part to an efficient prosecution of the reform they supported.
The resolution, though not expressly such in its terms, was obviously designed as a side-blow at the funding system. That the Secretary so regarded it was sufficiently apparent from the graceful notice, in his report, of the circ.u.mstance that "the House had predetermined the question in regard to the expediency of the proposed redemption, and only submitted to his consideration the best mode of carrying it into effect." He then proceeded to state the different ways in which the object in view might be accomplished, designated that which he thought most expedient, pointed out the increased burdens on the people it would require, and specified the taxes the imposition of which he thought would be necessary. His report was drawn up with his accustomed skill and ability, but the measure was no further prosecuted at that time.
The President was subsequently called upon, at the instance of the Republicans, for copies of the commissions and instructions under which Hamilton had borrowed some twelve millions of dollars in Europe in virtue of a provision of the act establishing the funding system, and a call was at the same time made upon Hamilton for an account of the manner in which the money had been applied. These calls brought from the President copies of the commission and instructions, the latter of which were very precise and in strict conformity, in every respect, to the law, and from Hamilton an elaborate report, drawn with a degree of care and power unusual even with him. He appears to have antic.i.p.ated a storm, and to have prepared himself for every contingency, as far as his conduct could be sustained by the facts. Those who derive pleasure from the intellectual efforts of great minds, however remote the occasion that called them forth, will not begrudge the time spent in reading his report.
A series of resolutions introduced into the House by Giles of Virginia, charged the Secretary with having violated both the law and the President"s instructions, by the manner in which he had executed the authority confided to him. These resolutions, after a long and animated debate, were thrown out by strong votes, of the composition of which Mr.
Jefferson undertakes to give an account in his annals. But no unprejudiced mind can read Madison"s unanswerable speech, which will be found in the first volume of "Benton"s Abridgment of the Debates of Congress," p. 431, without being convinced that the truth of both charges was established. He proves by the Secretary"s own letters that on the very day of the receipt of the President"s instructions he commenced arrangements, which he, notwithstanding, carried into effect, for an application of the funds diametrically opposite to that which the President had directed him to make.
Mr. Randall, in his "Life of Thomas Jefferson,"[39] has accidentally fallen into a singular mistake in saying that "Mr. Madison voted with the majority on every division" on that occasion, and on that a.s.sumption proceeds to show "that Jefferson put a less charitable construction on the motives of the majority," by giving the following entry in his "Ana": "March the 2d, 1793. See, in the papers of this date, Mr. Giles"s Resolutions. He and one or two others were sanguine enough to believe that the palpableness of these resolutions rendered it impossible the House could reject them. Those who knew the composition of the House,--1. Of bank directors; 2. Holders of bank stock; 3.
Stock-jobbers; 4. Blind devotees; 5. Ignorant persons who did not comprehend them; 6. Lazy and good-humored persons, who comprehended and acknowledged them, yet were too lazy to examine or unwilling to p.r.o.nounce censure,--the persons who knew these characters foresaw that the three first descriptions making one third of the House, the three latter would make one half of the residue; and of course that they would be rejected by a majority of two to one. But they thought that even this rejection would do good, by showing the public the desperate and abandoned dispositions with which their affairs were conducted. The resolutions were proposed, and nothing spared to present them in the fullness of demonstration. There were not more than three or four who voted otherwise than had been expected."
[39] Vol. II. p. 119.
Mr. Madison voted with the minority on every division, and so far was he from acting otherwise that William Smith, of South Carolina, the devoted friend of Hamilton, charged him with saying after the vote that "the opinion of the House on the preceding resolutions would not change the truth of facts, and that the public would ultimately decide whether the Secretary"s conduct was criminal or not."
The character of this debate and the open disregard of the President"s instructions by the Secretary, which it established, were not likely to pa.s.s unheeded or even lightly regarded through the proud and sensitive mind of Washington.
Other circ.u.mstances may be referred to which show quite clearly that the latter was not at ease upon the subject of the finances. Among these is one of a very striking character, not known at the time, and only recently disclosed through the publication of the "Hamilton Papers" by order of Congress. I allude to the correspondence between him and Washington, to which I have before referred for another purpose, and which will be found in the fourth volume of "Hamilton"s Works,"
commencing at page 510. The committee appointed by Congress to examine the state of the treasury preparatory to Hamilton"s resignation, then expected but postponed for a season, were charged by that body to "inquire into the authorities, from the President to the Secretary of the Treasury, respecting the making and disbursing of the loans" which were the subject of the debate and proceedings above referred to.