The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster Part 49

Gentlemen, I hold this disturbance of the measure of value, and the means of payment and exchange, this derangement, and, if I may so say, this violation of the currency, to be one of the most unpardonable of political faults. He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread. He panders, indeed, to greedy capital, which is keen-sighted, and may shift for itself; but he beggars labor, which is honest, unsuspecting, and too busy with the present to calculate for the future.

The prosperity of the working cla.s.ses lives, moves, and has its being in established credit, and a steady medium of payment. All sudden changes destroy it. Honest industry never comes in for any part of the spoils in that scramble which takes place when the currency of a country is disordered. Did wild schemes and projects ever benefit the industrious?

Did irredeemable bank paper ever enrich the laborious? Did violent fluctuations ever do good to him who depends on his daily labor for his daily bread? Certainly never. All these things may gratify greediness for sudden gain, or the rashness of daring speculation; but they can bring nothing but injury and distress to the homes of patient industry and honest labor. Who are they that profit by the present state of things? They are not the many, but the few. They are speculators, brokers, dealers in money, and lenders of money at exorbitant interest.

Small capitalists are crushed, and, their means being dispersed, as usual, in various parts of the country, and this miserable policy having destroyed exchanges, they have no longer either money or credit. And all cla.s.ses of labor partake, and must partake, in the same calamity. And what consolation for all this is it, that the public lands are paid for in specie? that, whatever embarra.s.sment and distress pervade the country, the Western wilderness is thickly sprinkled over with eagles and dollars? that gold goes weekly from Milwaukie and Chicago to Detroit, and back again from Detroit to Milwaukie and Chicago, and performs similar feats of egress and regress, in many other instances, in the Western States? It is remarkable enough, that, with all this sacrifice of general convenience, with all this sky-rending clamor for government payments in specie, government, after all, never gets a dollar. So far as I know, the United States have not now a single specie dollar in the world. If they have, where is it? The gold and silver collected at the land offices is sent to the deposit banks; it is there placed to the credit of the government, and thereby becomes the property of the bank. The whole revenue of the government, therefore, after all, consists in mere bank credits; that very sort of security which the friends of the administration have so much denounced.

Remember, Gentlemen, in the midst of this deafening din against all banks, that, if it shall create such a panic as shall shut up the banks, it will shut up the treasury of the United States also.

Gentlemen, I would not willingly be a prophet of ill. I most devoutly wish to see a better state of things; and I believe the repeal of the treasury order would tend very much to bring about that better state of things. And I am of opinion, that, sooner or later, the order will be repealed. I think it must be repealed. I think the East, West, North, and South will demand its repeal. But, Gentlemen, I feel it my duty to say, that, if I should be disappointed in this expectation, I see no immediate relief to the distresses of the community. I greatly fear, even, that the worst is not yet.[2] I look for severer distresses; for extreme difficulties in exchange, for far greater inconveniences in remittance, and for a sudden fall in prices. Our condition is one which is not to be tampered with, and the repeal of the treasury order, being something which government can do, and which will do good, the public voice is right in demanding that repeal. It is true, if repealed now, the relief will come late. Nevertheless its repeal or abrogation is a thing to be insisted on, and pursued, till it shall be accomplished.

This executive control over the currency, this power of discriminating, by treasury order, between one man's debt and another man's debt, is a thing not to be endured in a free country; and it should be the constant, persisting demand of all true Whigs, "Rescind the illegal treasury order, restore the rule of the law, place all branches of the revenue on the same grounds, make men's rights equal, and leave the government of the country where the Const.i.tution leaves it, in the hands of the representatives of the people in Congress." This point should never be surrendered or compromised. Whatever is established, let it be equal, and let it be legal. Let men know, to-day, what money may be required of them to-morrow. Let the rule be open and public, on the pages of the statute-book, not a secret, in the executive breast.

Gentlemen, in the session which has now just closed, I have done my utmost to effect a direct and immediate repeal of the treasury order.

I have voted for a bill antic.i.p.ating the payment of the French and Neapolitan indemnities by an advance from the treasury.

I have voted with great satisfaction for the restoration of duties on goods destroyed in the great conflagration in this city.

I have voted for a deposit with the States of the surplus which may be in the treasury at the end of the year. All these measures have failed; and it is for you, and for our fellow-citizens throughout the country, to decide whether the public interest would, or would not, have been promoted by their success.

But I find, Gentlemen, that I am committing an unpardonable trespa.s.s on your indulgent patience. I will pursue these remarks no further. And yet I cannot persuade myself to take leave of you without reminding you, with the utmost deference and respect, of the important part a.s.signed to you in the political concerns of your country, and of the great influence of your opinions, your example, and your efforts upon the general prosperity and happiness.

Whigs of New York! Patriotic citizens of this great metropolis! Lovers of const.i.tutional liberty, bound by interest and by affection to the inst.i.tutions of your country, Americans in heart and in principle!--you are ready, I am sure, to fulfil all the duties imposed upon you by your situation, and demanded of you by your country. You have a central position; your city is the point from which intelligence emanates, and spreads in all directions over the whole land. Every hour carries reports of your sentiments and opinions to the verge of the Union. You cannot escape the responsibility which circ.u.mstances have thrown upon you. You must live and act, on a broad and conspicuous theatre, either for good or for evil to your country. You cannot shrink from your public duties; you cannot obscure yourselves, nor bury your talent. In the common welfare, in the common prosperity, in the common glory of Americans, you have a stake of value not to be calculated. You have an interest in the preservation of the Union, of the Const.i.tution, and of the true principles of the government, which no man can estimate. You act for yourselves, and for the generations that are to come after you; and those who ages hence shall bear your names, and partake your blood, will feel, in their political and social condition, the consequences of the manner in which you discharge your political duties.

Having fulfilled, then, on your part and on mine, though feebly and imperfectly on mine, the offices of kindness and mutual regard required by this occasion, shall we not use it to a higher and n.o.bler purpose?

Shall we not, by this friendly meeting, refresh our patriotism, rekindle our love of const.i.tutional liberty, and strengthen our resolutions of public duty? Shall we not, in all honesty and sincerity, with pure and disinterested love of country, as Americans, looking back to the renown of our ancestors, and looking forward to the interests of our posterity, here, to-night, pledge our mutual faith to hold on to the last to our professed principles, to the doctrines of true liberty, and to the Const.i.tution of the country, let who will prove true, or who will prove recreant? Whigs of New York! I meet you in advance, and give you my pledge for my own performance of these duties, without qualification and without reserve. Whether in public life or in private life, in the Capitol or at home, I mean never to desert them. I mean never to forget that I have a country, to which I am bound by a thousand ties; and the stone which is to lie on the ground that shall cover me, shall not bear the name of a son ungrateful to his native land.

[Footnote 1: President Jackson.]

[Footnote 2: On the 10th of June following the delivery of this speech, all the banks in the city of New York, by common consent, suspended the payment of their notes in specie. On the next day, the same step was taken by the banks of Boston and the vicinity, and the example was followed by all the banks south of New York, as they received intelligence of the suspension of specie payments in that city. On the 15th of June, (just three months from the day this speech was delivered,) President Van Buren issued his proclamation calling an extra session of Congress for the first Monday of September.]

SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

REMARKS MADE IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 10TH OF JANUARY, 1838, UPON A RESOLUTION MOVED BY MR. CLAY AS A SUBSt.i.tUTE FOR THE RESOLUTION OFFERED BY MR. CALHOUN ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

[On the 27th of December, 1837, a series of resolutions was moved in the Senate by Mr. Calhoun, on the subject of slavery. The fifth of the series was expressed in the following terms:--

"_Resolved_, That the intermeddling of any State, or States, or their citizens, to abolish slavery in this District, or any of the Territories, on the ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful, or the pa.s.sage of any act or measure of Congress with that view, would be a direct and dangerous attack on the inst.i.tutions of all the slave-holding States."

These resolutions were taken up for discussion on several successive days. On the 10th of January, 1838, Mr. Clay moved the following resolution, as a subst.i.tute for the fifth of Mr. Calhoun's series:--

"_Resolved_, That the interference, by the citizens of any of the States, with the view to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress, designed to abolish slavery in this District, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slave-holding States, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union."

On the subject of this amendment, Mr. Webster addressed the Senate as follows.]

Mr. President,--I cannot concur in this resolution. I do not know any matter of fact, or any ground of argument, on which this affirmation of plighted faith can be sustained. I see nothing by which Congress has tied up its hands, either directly or indirectly, so as to put its clear const.i.tutional power beyond the exercise of its own discretion. I have carefully examined the acts of cession by the States, the act of Congress, the proceedings and history of the times, and I find nothing to lead me to doubt that it was the intention of all parties to leave this, like other subjects belonging to legislation for the ceded territory, entirely to the discretion and wisdom of Congress. The words of the Const.i.tution are clear and plain. None could be clearer or plainer. Congress, by that instrument, has power to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the ceded territory, in all cases whatsoever. The acts of cession contain no limitation, condition, or qualification whatever, except that, out of abundant caution, there is inserted a _proviso_ that nothing in the acts contained shall be construed to vest in the United States any right of property in the soil, so as to affect the rights of individuals therein, otherwise than as such individuals might themselves transfer their right of soil to the United States. The acts of cession declare, that the tract of country "is for ever ceded and relinquished to Congress and to the government of the United States, in full and absolute right and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil as of persons residing or to reside therein, pursuant to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first article of the Const.i.tution of the United States."

Now, that section, to which reference is thus expressly made in these deeds of cession, declares, that Congress shall have power "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."

Nothing, therefore, as it seems to me, can be clearer, than that the States making the cession expected Congress to exercise over the District precisely that power, and neither more nor less, which the Const.i.tution had conferred upon it. I do not know how the provision, or the intention, either of the Const.i.tution in granting the power, or of the States in making the cession, could be expressed in a manner more absolutely free from all doubt or ambiguity.

I see, therefore, nothing in the act of cession, and nothing in the Const.i.tution, and nothing in the history of this transaction, and nothing in any other transaction, implying any limitation upon the authority of Congress.

If the a.s.sertion contained in this resolution be true, a very strange result, as it seems to me, must follow. The resolution affirms that the faith of Congress is pledged, indefinitely. It makes no limitation of time or circ.u.mstance. If this be so, then it is an obligation that binds us for ever, as much as if it were one of the prohibitions of the Const.i.tution itself. And at all times hereafter, even if, in the course of their history, availing themselves of events, or changing their views of policy, the States themselves should make provision for the emanc.i.p.ation of their slaves, the existing state of things could not be changed, nevertheless, in this District. It does really seem to me, that, if this resolution, in its terms, be true, though slavery in every other part of the world may be abolished, yet in the metropolis of this great republic it is established in perpetuity. This appears to me to be the result of the doctrine of plighted faith, as stated in the resolution.

In reply to Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Webster said:--#/

The words of the resolution speak for themselves. They require no comment. They express an unlimited plighted faith. The honorable member will so see if he will look at those words. The gentleman asks whether those who made the cession could have expected that Congress would ever exercise such a power. To this I answer, that I see no reason to doubt that the parties to the cession were as willing to leave this as to leave other powers to the discretion of Congress. I see not the slightest evidence of any especial fear, or any especial care or concern, on the part of the ceding States, in regard to this particular part of the jurisdiction ceded to Congress. And I think I can ask, on the other side, a very important question for the consideration of the gentleman himself, and for that of the Senate and the country; and that is, Would Congress have accepted the cession with any such restraint upon its const.i.tutional power, either express or understood to be implied? I think not. Looking back to the state of things then existing, and especially to what Congress had so recently done, when it accepted the cession of the Northwestern Territory, I entertain no doubt whatever that Congress would have refused the cession altogether, if offered with any condition or understanding that its const.i.tutional authority to exercise exclusive legislation over the District in all cases whatsoever should be abridged.

The Senate will observe that I am speaking solely to the point of plighted faith. Upon other parts of the resolution, and upon many other things connected with it, I have said nothing. I only resist the imposition of new obligations, or a new prohibition, not to be found, as I think, either in the Const.i.tution or any act of Congress. I have said nothing on the expediency of abolition, immediate or gradual, or the reasons which ought to weigh with Congress should that question be proposed. I can, however, well conceive what would, as I think, be a natural and fair mode of reasoning on such an occasion.

When it is said, for instance, by way of argument, that Congress, although it have the power, ought not to take a lead in the business of abolition, considering that the interest which the United States have in the whole subject is vastly less than that which States have in it, I can understand the propriety and pertinency of the observation. It is, as far as it goes, a pertinent and appropriate argument, and I shall always be ready to give it the full weight belonging to it. When it is argued that, in a case so vital to the States, the States themselves should be allowed to maintain their own policy, and that the government of the United States ought not to do any thing which shall, directly or indirectly, shake or disturb that policy, this is a line of argument which I can understand, whatever weight I may be disposed to give to it; for I have always not only admitted, but insisted, that slavery within the States is a subject belonging absolutely and exclusively to the States themselves.

But the present is not an attempt to establish any such course of reasoning as this. The attempt is to set up a pledge of the public faith, to do the same office that a const.i.tutional prohibition in terms would do; that is, to set up a direct bar, precluding all exercise of the discretion of Congress over the subject. It has been often said, in this debate, and I believe it is true, that a decided majority of the Senate do believe that Congress has a clear const.i.tutional power over slavery in this District. But while this const.i.tutional right is admitted, it is at the same moment attempted effectually to counteract, overthrow, and do away with it, by the affirmation of plighted faith, as a.s.serted in the resolution before us.

Now, I have already said I know of nothing to support this affirmation.

Neither in the acts of cession, nor in the act of Congress accepting it, nor in any other doc.u.ment, history, publication, or transaction, do I know of a single fact or suggestion supporting this proposition, or tending to support it. Nor has any gentleman, so far as I know, pointed out, or attempted to point out, any such fact, doc.u.ment, transaction, or other evidence. All is left to the general and repeated statement, that such a condition must have been intended by the States. Of all this I see no proof whatever. I see no evidence of any desire on the part of the States thus to limit the power of Congress, or thus to require a pledge against its exercise. And, indeed, if this were made out, the intention of Congress, as well as that of the States, must be inquired into. Nothing short of a clear and manifest intention of both parties, proved by proper evidence, can amount to plighted faith. The expectation or intent of one party, founded on something not provided for nor hinted at in the transaction itself, cannot plight the faith of the other party.

In short, I am altogether unable to see any ground for supposing that either party to the cession had any mental reservation, any unexpressed expectation, or relied on any implied, but unmentioned and unsuggested pledge, whatever. By the Const.i.tution, if a district should be ceded to it for the seat of government, Congress was to have a right, in express terms, to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever. The cession was made and accepted in pursuance of this power. Both parties knew well what they were doing. Both parties knew that by the cession the States surrendered all jurisdiction, and Congress acquired all jurisdiction; and this is the whole transaction.

As to any provision in the acts of cession stipulating for the security of property, there is none, excepting only what I have already stated; the condition, namely, that no right of individuals to the soil should be construed to be transferred, but only the jurisdiction. But, no doubt, all rights of property ought to be duly respected by Congress, and all other legislatures.

And since the subject of compensation to the owners of emanc.i.p.ated slaves has been referred to, I take occasion to say, that if Congress should think that a wise, just, and politic legislation for this District required it to make compensation for slaves emanc.i.p.ated here, it has the same const.i.tutional authority to make such compensation as to make grants for roads and bridges, almshouses, penitentiaries, and other similar objects, in the District. A general and absolute power of legislation carries with it all the necessary and just incidents belonging to such legislation.

Mr. Clay having made some remarks in reply, Mr. Webster rejoined:--#/

The honorable member from Kentucky asks the Senate to suppose the opposite case; to suppose that the seat of government had been fixed in a free State, Pennsylvania, for example; and that Congress had attempted to establish slavery in a district over which, as here, it had thus exclusive legislation. He asks whether, in that case, Congress could establish slavery in such a place. This mode of changing the question does not, I think, vary the argument; and I answer, at once, that, however improbable or improper such an act might be, yet, if the power were universal, absolute, and without restriction, it might unquestionably be so exercised. No limitation being expressed or intimated in the grant itself, or any other proceeding of the parties, none could be implied.

And in the other cases, of forts, a.r.s.enals, and dock-yards, if Congress has exclusive and absolute legislative power, it must, of course, have the power, if it could be supposed to be guilty of such folly, whether proposed to be exercised in a district within a free State, to establish slavery, or in a district in a slave State, to abolish or regulate it.

If it be a district over which Congress has, as it has in this District, unlimited power of legislation, it seems to me that whatever would stay the exercise of this power, in either case, must be drawn from discretion, from reasons of justice and true policy, from those high considerations which ought to influence Congress in questions of such extreme delicacy and importance; and to all these considerations I am willing, and always shall be willing, I trust, to give full weight. But I cannot, in conscience, say that the power so clearly conferred on Congress by the Const.i.tution, as a power to be exercised, like others, at its own discretion, is immediately taken away again by an implied faith that it shall not be exercised at all.

THE CREDIT SYSTEM AND THE LABOR OF THE UNITED STATES.

FROM THE SECOND SPEECH ON THE SUB-TREASURY, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 12th OF MARCH, 1838.

Now, Mr. President, what I understand by the credit system is, that which thus connects labor and capital, by giving to labor the use of capital. In other words, intelligence, good character, and good morals bestow on those who have not capital a power, a trust, a confidence, which enables them to obtain it, and to employ it usefully for themselves and others. These active men of business build their hopes of success on their attentiveness, their economy, and their integrity. A wider theatre for useful activity is under their feet, and around them, than was ever open to the young and enterprising generations of men, on any other spot enlightened by the sun. Before them is the ocean. Every thing in that direction invites them to efforts of enterprise and industry in the pursuits of commerce and the fisheries. Around them, on all hands, are thriving and prosperous manufactures, an improving agriculture, and the daily presentation of new objects of internal improvement; while behind them is almost half a continent of the richest land, at the cheapest prices, under healthful climates, and washed by the most magnificent rivers that on any part of the globe pay their homage to the sea. In the midst of all these glowing and glorious prospects, they are neither restrained by ignorance, nor smitten down by the penury of personal circ.u.mstances. They are not compelled to contemplate, in hopelessness and despair, all the advantages thus bestowed on their condition by Providence. Capital they may have little or none, but CREDIT supplies its place; not as the refuge of the prodigal and the reckless; not as gratifying present wants with the certainty of future absolute ruin; but as the genius of honorable trust and confidence; as the blessing voluntarily offered to good character and to good conduct as the beneficent agent, which a.s.sists honesty and enterprise in obtaining comfort and independence.

Mr. President, take away this credit, and what remains? I do not ask what remains to the few, but to the many? Take away this system of credit, and then tell me what is left for labor and industry, but mere manual toil and daily drudgery? If we adopt a system that withdraws capital from active employment, do we not diminish the rate of wages? If we curtail the general business of society, does not every laboring man find his condition grow daily worse? In the politics of the day, Sir, we hear much said about divorcing the government from the banks; but when we abolish credit, we shall divorce labor from capital; and depend upon it, Sir, when we divorce labor from capital, capital is h.o.a.rded, and labor starves.

The declaration so often quoted, that "all who trade on borrowed capital ought to break," is the most aristocratic sentiment ever uttered in this country. It is a sentiment which, if carried out by political arrangement, would condemn the great majority of mankind to the perpetual condition of mere day-laborers. It tends to take away from them all that solace and hope which arise from possessing something which they can call their own. A man loves his own; it is fit and natural that he should do so; and he will love his country and its inst.i.tutions, if he have some stake in that country, although it be but a very small part of the general ma.s.s of property. If it be but a cottage, an acre, a garden, its possession raises him, gives him self-respect, and strengthens his attachment to his native land. It is our happy condition, by the blessing of Providence, that almost every man of sound health, industrious habits, and good morals, can ordinarily attain, at least, to this degree of comfort and respectability; and it is a result devoutly to be wished, both for its individual and its general consequences.

But even to this degree of acquisition that credit of which I have already said so much is highly important, since its general effect is to raise the price of wages, and render industry productive. There is no condition so low, if it be attended with industry and economy, that it is not benefited by credit, as any one will find, if he will examine and follow out its operations.