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states that we represent; above all, worthy of the name of American freemen! Let us pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,' to rescue our beloved country from all impending dangers. And, amidst the general gloom and darkness which prevail, let us continue to present one unextinguished light, steadily burning, in the cause of the people, of the constitution, and of civil liberty.

ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAY 21, 1834.

[THE agitation of the public mind on the subject of the removal of the deposits from the bank of the United States, continued during the session of congress in 1834, and memorials were constantly presented to that body, asking for relief to the people from the pecuniary pressure occasioned by the arbitrary measures of president Jackson. On presenting one of these memorials, Mr. Clay made the following brief remarks.]

(From the National Intelligencer of May 22.)

MR. CLAY took occasion, yesterday, in presenting to the senate some memorials, and especially one from Doylestown, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, to animadvert seriously for the most part, but in part playfully, to the present state of the country. Among the opinions expressed by the memorialists is one which Mr. Clay said he most decidedly entertained in common with them, that, after the vote by one branch of congress, that the removal of the deposits by the secretary of the treasury was unjustifiable and unconstitutional, it was the duty of the secretary of the treasury instantly to have restored the deposits to the place from which they had been illegally taken; and such, he said, would have been the course of any secretary of the treasury who entertained a proper sense of the fallibility of his own judgment, and of the respect which was due to the deliberate opinion of the senate, or of the house of representatives, on such a question as this, when it came in conflict with his own. Mr. Clay added, that if there was, in either house of congress, a single individual whose private judgment approved of the removal of the deposits as an original act, independently of party considerations or posterior circumstances, he had yet to meet with that man.

As to the question yesterday addressed by the senator from Massachusetts, to those who hold the power, whether they meant to adjourn without taking any measure to relieve the country from its present suffering, Mr. Clay said, he verily believed that they do not know what to do; they are afraid to stay, and afraid to return; they are between two fires afraid of Jackson if they remain, and of their constituents if they go home. If, however, they mean to do nothing to recover possession of the public treasure; if they mean to do nothing to relieve the distress which pervades the

country, Mr. Clay said he was himself ready to concur with them in fixing the earliest practicable day for adjournment, after passing the bills necessary to carry on the government.

What would be the consequence of such contempt, by those in power, of the successive evidences of public opinion, presented from day to day, and from week to week, it was easy to foresee. Already, he said, the whole 'party' was crumbling away; sinking, like the banks of the Mississippi undermined by the torrent, whole acres at a time. Why, (said Mr. Clay,) I am told that the whole regency of New York, taking the alarm, has fled from Albany, and taken refuge in this city. Whether they would or would not be redemanded by governor Marcy, under the laws in such cases made and provided, he could not say; but if they remained, he hoped they would be allowed the benefit of all the rights of hospitality due to such distinguished strangers. For himself, he condoled with the gentlemen, in this the trying time of their misfortunes, and trusted that they would be able to bear them with manly fortitude and christian resignation.

If any one who heard this part of Mr. Clay's speech was able to look grave upon it, thank heaven, it was not we.

In the course of Wednesday's debate, Mr. Clay having denounced, as contrary to the spirit of the constitution, the omission of the president of the United States to nominate to the senate, for confirmation or rejection, the present secretary of the treasury and other officers, though the senate has been now nearly six months in session; Mr. Webster rose, for the purpose of showing the views of this subject entertained by the great first president of the United States, and practiced upon by every administration in this government, up to the beginning of the present. For this purpose, Mr. Webster quoted from the record the following:

Message from the president of the United States to the senate of the United States.

GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE,

United States, February 9, 1790.

Among the persons appointed, during the last session, to offices under the national government, there were some who declined serving. Their names and offices are specified in the first column of the foregoing list. I supplied these vacancies, agreeably to the constitution, by temporary appointments, which you will find mentioned in the second column of the list. These appointments will expire with your present session, and indeed OUGHT NOT TO

ENDURE LONGER THAN UNTIL OTHERS CAN BE REGULARLY MADE.

For that purpose, I now nominate to you the persons named in the third column of the list, as being in my opinion qualified to fill the offices opposite to their names in the first.

G. WASHINGTON.

ON OUR RELATIONS WITH FRANCE.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 14, 1835.

[IN his annual message to congress, in December, 1834, president Jackson recommended that a law should be passed, authorizing reprisals upon French property, in case provision should not be made for the payment of the claims of the United States, for aggressions upon our commerce, by France, between the years 1800 and 1817. A treaty had been concluded between the two governments, at Paris, in 1831, by which the French had agreed to pay the United States twenty-five millions of francs, for spoliations on the commerce of the latter, but the French chambers had refused to vote the necessary appropriation to execute the treaty. The president, therefore, proposed extreme measures to congress, which, if they had been approved of, by that body, would, in all human probability, have involved the two nations in war. Clay, as chairman of the committee on foreign relations, it will be seen by the following, disapproved of such a course. The controversy was finally settled through the intervention of William the fourth, king of England.

Mr.

Mr. Clay, from the committee on foreign relations, reported the following

resolution:

Resolved, that it is inexpedient, at this time, to pass any law vesting in the president authority for making reprisals upon French property, in the contingency of provision not being made for paying to the United States the indemnity stipulated by the treaty of 1831, during the present session of the French chambers.

The question being on agreeing to this resolution, Mr. CLAY said :]

Ir is not my purpose, at the present stage of consideration of this resolution, and I hope it will not be necessary at any stage, to say much with the view of enforcing the arguments in its favor, which are contained in the report of the committee. In the present posture of our relations with France, the course which has appeared to me and to the committee most expedient being to await the issue of those deliberations in the French chambers which may even at this moment be going on, it would not be proper to enter at large, at the present time, into all the particulars touched upon in the report. On all questions connected with the foreign affairs of the country, differences of opinion will arise, which will finally terminate in whatever way the opinion of the people of this country may so tend as to influence their representatives. But, whenever the course of things shall be such that a rupture shall unfortunately take place between this country and any foreign country, (whether France or any other, ) I take this opportunity of saying, that, from that moment, whatever of energy or ability, whatever of influence I may possess in my country, shall be devoted to the carrying on of

that war with the utmost vigor which the arms and resources of the United States can give to it. I will not anticipate, however, such a state of things; nay, I feel very confident that such a rupture will not occur between the United States and France.

With respect to the justice of our claim upon France for payment of the indemnity stipulated by the treaty, the report of the committee is in entire concurrence with the executive. The opinion of the committee is, that the claims stipulated to be paid are founded in justice; that we must pursue them; that we must finally obtain satisfaction for them, and to do so, must, if necessary, employ such means as the law of nations justifies and the constitution has placed within our power. On these points there is no diversity of sentiment between the committee and the president; there could be no diversity between either the committee or the president and any American citizen.

In all that the president has said of the obligation of the French government to make the stipulated provision for the claims, the committee entirely concur. If the president, in his message, after making his statement of the case, had stopped there, and abstained from the recommendation of any specific measure, there could not have been possibly any diversity of opinion on the subject between him and any portion of the country. But, when he declares the confidence which he entertains in the French government; when he expresses his conviction that the executive branch of that government is honest and sincere in its professions, and recites the promise by it of a renewed effort to obtain the passage of a bill of appropriation by the French chambers, it did appear to the committee inconsistent with these professions of confidence, that they should be accompanied by the recommendation of a measure which could only be authorized by the conviction that no confidence, or, at least, not entire confidence, could be placed in the declaration and professions of the French government. Confidence and distrust are unnatural allies. If we profess confidence any where, especially if that confidence be but for a limited period, it should be unaccompanied with any indication whatever of distrust; a confidence full, free, frank. But to say, as the president, through our minister, has said, that he will await the issue of the deliberations of the chambers, confiding in the sincerity of the king, and this, too, after hearing of the rejection of the first bill of appropriation by the chambers, and now, at the very moment when the chambers are about deliberating on the subject, to throw out in a message to congress what the president himself considered might possibly be viewed as a menace, appeared to the committee, with all due deference to the executive, and to the high and patriotic purposes which may be supposed to have induced the recommendation, to be inconsistent to such a degree as not to be seconded by the action of congress. It also appeared to the committee, after