authorizing the cities, at their own request, to run in debt for a further sum, which has been expended on the canal; and they boldly insist that Congress is bound in honor to pay their debts.

If we search for the causes of the present misery of this devoted District, much of them may be traced to the fact that they (and especially the city of Washington) are thrown directly on the public treasury. The people here look so anxiously for the distribution of the public funds, they rely so exclusively on the treasury and so little on themselves, that there is no room left for prosperity in any kind of useful business. More than three millions of the public money are annually disbursed here; and yet there is no part of the country where there is actually so much pecuniary suffering, according to the number of inhabitants, as there is here. For the internal improvement of the District, Congress has given outright, not the million to the canal alone: it has paid the interest which this city owes on the Dutch debt; it has paid large sums for improvements, among other things $130,000 for Macadamizing the Pennsylvania avenue, $150,000 and upwards for building a bridge over the Potomac river, and large sums for various other items. Yet, with all this feeding, the pecuniary condition of the District is daily growing worse. Gladly would they retrace their steps in the internal improvement mania; but they have gone too far to recede, and they have not the power to go forward. Their last resort is to induce Congress to purchase their valuable stock, to pay their Dutch debt, to relieve the corporation of Washington of another debt of great magnitude; and, as our comfort, we are told that Congress is bound in honor, as the sole and exclusive legislators for this District, to take the money of the people of the United States and contribute at once so much as may be necessary for these purposes!

The miseries of a generous distribution of the public money in the District of Columbia are but a foretaste of the evils that will follow a distribution of an amount equal to all the sales of the public lands among the States. There is, however, this difference between the distribution in the District and the corrupting distribution proposed by the bill: for the money expended in the District, the people of the District were never taxed; for the money distributed among the States, the people themselves are to be heavily taxed, and in some of them the amount of one dollar is taken from the people's pockets for every fifty cents that shall be brought into the State coffers.

I cannot, Mr. President, speak of such a corrupting system as the bill proposes with any feelings of complacency. The title of the bill, "to appropriate for a limited time the proceeds of the sales of the public lands of the United States, and for granting land to certain States," is scarcely less a misnomer than is the title of the bill which has been forced by the vilest corruption through the Legislature of Pennsylvania, entitled "an act to repeal the State tax on real and personal property, and to continue and extend the improvements of the State by railroads and canals, and for other purposes." The last bill bribes the people of Pennsylvania with a bonus, much larger than the bank was to give Congress in the bill vetoed by the President, to be expended on internal improvements. The land bill is a bribe offered to the States from money paid into the treasury by severe taxation on the people, under the idea of being the proceeds of the sales of the public lands; when, in truth and in fact, the public lands have not yet paid, and cannot for twenty years to come, pay back the expense which the people have incurred on

their account.

The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CLAY] yields to the opinion that it is unconstitutional to tax the people

[MARCH 17, 1836.

of the United States by Congress, for the purpose of distributing the money among the several States. How easy to evade the constitution will it be at any time, when Congress shall choose, if the fact be not conceded, that all money coming to the treasury is derived, either directly or indirectly, from taxation upon the people. Millions of dollars have come to or passed through the treasury on account of restitution for spoliations of the property of individuals; and although every dollar of it has been paid back for the benefit of those individuals, whenever there is a surplus in the treasury, we have only to suppose the amount, and to say this money was paid, not by the people of the United States, but by foreign Governments, and that Congress has the power to appropriate it to be divided among the several States. The fallacy in this case would be no more striking than is the fallacy of appropriating for the same purpose money in the treasury as proceeds of the sales of public lands, when not a dollar of it can properly be considered as money derived from such sales.

it.

It is hardly possible to conceive a condition more degrading than that to which the high-minded States of the Union will be thrown by the passage of this bill. The Government of the State which I have the honor here in part to represent is supported by a direct tax upon the people; every citizen there knows what is his annual proportion of tax for the support of the Government of the State, of the county, and of the town in which he resides. Paying the money directly from his own pocket, a vigilant eye is kept upon those who expend If it be not made to produce its equivalent, the agent is called to account, and is at once dismissed. The consequence is, that the money is generally well expended, for the most salutary and useful purposes of Government, the burdens of the people comparatively light. If they were obliged to pay as much in proportion for these as they do for the few objects for which the general Government is instituted, they would groan under an oppression which would be scarcely tolerable. It is my belief that, if the national funds were derived from direct instead of indirect taxes, the public agents would be held to a more strict accountability; that one dollar would not be wasted where ten dollars now are; and that every kind of service performed for the Government would be better done than it now is. degrading to the people of a State must it be, that numerous salaried agents shall be added to her without her consent, which salaried agents are dependent on the breath of Congress for their existence! How degrading, that so long as the State shall retain the good graces of Congress, she shall have thrown upon her an annual stipend, to be scrambled for, and seized by that portion of her citizens who shall have received the highest instruction in the arts of chicanery, and made themselves most adroit in the business of log-rolling! How degrading, that she is to be annually called up, like a beast to the stall, to feed out the proportion which shall be dealt out to her; that, like the noble ox who works for his master, it is to be considered as a favor that the one half of what she has earned is to be dealt out for a daily allowance!

How

The gentlemen of the Senate, composing the usual political majority, and the party with which they act, consider this bill as a measure which is to do them great credit; and the senior Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CLAY, ] from the top of Pisgah, views the fair Canaan on the other side of Jordan, the " land flowing with milk and honey," as dating its prosperity, its blooming verdure, its rapid growth in wealth, its fairy enchantment of cities, and towns, and splendid edifices, and beautiful cottages, its canals and its railroads-from the consummation of this, his favorite project of dividing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands! "If," (said he,) "I can be

now so full and plethoric, that Dr. Sangrado prescribes depletion from profuse bleeding, and is anxious to draw blood from every vein from the top of the head to the end of the toes. He says it is physically impossible to make any impression upon the treasury by any appropriation you can make on the works of fortifications and defence. You may appropriate money, but it will not, cannot, be expended. This is a truly new state of things. When was it ever before known that a nation had so much money that it was a greater curse than a nation's utmost poverty? There are many hundred gentlemen, political friends of the Senator from Ohio, (politial as well as civil engineers,) who are looking with wistful eye and anxious heart to the surplus in the treasury. The head of the engineer corps, (Gratiot,) who is a man of all administrations, and the best friend of him who will vote most money for objects of internal improvement; the head of this corps, whom the Senator has quoted as last year demonstrating that there was not a sufficient number of his subalterns to spend the little amount that has been heretofore appropriated, this year proves it out and out that, even without an addition to his corps, he can take care of at least five millions of your surplus. It was only a few days since we were told that a large appropriation must be made for the Cumberland road, (and the Senator from Ohio voted for the highest amount proposed,) because if that amount was not appropriated the engineers must stand still while their expense was going on. I will confess that I have not so much confidence in this engineering bureau as some gentlemen have. It appears to me that the calculations of the bureau are generally based on the wishes of the officer who wants employment, rather than on the public interest. If the object be to increase the corps, we are told that the public interest suffers for want of them, while there is a little army of West Point gentlemen dancing attendance in this city. If it be to induce Congress to commence some new work, the cost of that work is underestimated; and, after twice as much has been expended as was first called for, still larger appropriations are called for, lest the engineers should stand still for want of employment. On the whole, I should consider the public expenditures on works of any kind more safe in the hands of practical men, than in those of young men just merging from West Point, who have had no practice in the useful affairs of life beyond what they have been there taught.

All I wish to say in relation to the enormous amount of ten to fifteen millions to be received for a series of years every year from the sales of the public lands, which the Senator anticipates, would be, that such anticipation furnishes the best argument in the world for an immediate reduction of the taxes on imports to the scale of 1792. Seven per cent. duty will give a better protection to all interests than thirty, fifty, or one hundred per cent. The article of silk, paying no duty, was imported into the country, in the year 1835, to the amount of $14,984,584, while only $267,035 of free silks was exported during that year. The India and sewing silks paying duty, imported in the same time, were valued at $1,513,399; and of these $470,474 were exported. Now, if any branch of the cotton manufacture had been made duty free, so that $15,000,000 in that same manufacture had been imported, it is my opinion that such reduction would not have more injuriously affected the cotton manufacturing interest, than would the introduction of $15,000,000 worth of silks free of duty. The cotton grower must consider the extensive substitution of silks for cotton, resulting from the one being free of duty, and the other subject to high duty, as peculiarly injuri

See report of the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives, No. 297, 24th Congress, 1st session.

[MARCH 17, 1836.

ous to his interests. The present flourishing state of cotton growing and cotton manufacturing, under the great discouragement which the introduction of silks free of duty presents, must convince every manufacturing and producing man in the country that his interest has more to fear from a high than from a moderate duty. Of consequence, there can be no objection to the immediate reduction of taxation on imports to any amount that shall not leave the treasury bare.

The Senator says the money should be divided, because it will not be possible to procure laborers to work upon the fortifications to the extent that may be needed. If the money shall go to the several State treasuries, the bill provides that it shall by the States be expended on internal improvements. Can the States find laborers where the United States cannot find them? If neither can find them, will the money waste faster in the United States than in the State treasuries?

It seems, Mr. President, that we have arrived at another crisis. We have had a "crisis" of some sort as often as once in every two years, for the last quarter of a century. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WEBSTER] is alarmed on account of the enormous amount of deposites in the selected State banks, and the amount of issues by those banks. I could wish that we might have had a similar alarm sounded by that gentleman years ago, when another single institution (the United States Bank) was making greater issues than all the pet banks are together at this time. If the money be not safe where it is, I will go as far as he who goes farthest in taking all proper measures not only to secure the public money, but to prevent extraordinary issues of paper by those banks. The Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] has said, truly, that when a great bank issues paper to a large amount, all the little banks follow suit; and when the great bank hauls up and contracts, all the little banks are obliged to do the same thing. The only way to correct the business of panic-making by the banks is for the Legislatures, both State and national, to take steps for the introduction of a specie foundation in the place of the paper circulation, which is as unstable and uncertain as the wind. The great 66 paper crisis" anticipated by the Senators who have spoken this day must be met as every other crisis has been met, until the mania for banking and paper currency, generated by the gambling propensity of the Bank of the United States, shall be repressed by the prudence of our Legislatures. Certain it is that the present distribution of the surplus money cannot lessen the chances of panic and pressure, or the explosions of

a paper currency.

If it should be asked, what would I do with the surplus in the treasury? I would answer, that it should not be expended in erecting roads, bridges, or canals, under the superintendence of incompetent engineers and overseers; it should not be expended to pay the raised compensation of officers of the army or navy, when in a time of almost profound peace many of those officers are doing no service; it should not be expended in erecting fortifications like those of the Rip Raps and the Pea Patch under former administrations, where millions of money were thrown away, because incompetent or dishonest agents were employed to conduct the work; it should not be expended on an increased civil list, where the officers receive more pay than their services are worth; it should not be expended in manufacturing pieces of ordnance which would burst at the first trial of their strength; it should not be expended in finishing works that ought to be permanent with such perishable materials as will scarcely last a single year; it should not be expended to create an army of officers, who shall remain idle because they have no rank and file of sol diers to follow them.

I would, of the present surplus, always keep on hand some eight or ten millions of dollars, to be used in any exigency; that sum, even though it lie still in the treasury, will better subserve the public interest than to be expended on projects which have neither true science nor experience to recommend them. I would of the remainder expend every dollar that is necessary to make permanent the works of defence at important points on the seaboard, to arm those works so that in case of a sudden emergency their defence may be entered on at once. I would take measures for the security of our naval stations; build more ships of war, if necessary; build at least one steam vessel, carrying guns of the heaviest caliber, as the most effectual means of defence, in each of our important harbors; and purchase and keep on hand all the material necessary for ship building. I would erect an arsenal in each considerable State that has none, and continue to furnish rifles, guns, and bayonets, for the use of that "surest arm of our defence," the militia. I would manufacture a sufficient quantity of heavy artillery to supply every fort of the country, so soon as competent science and skill could be brought to the aid of such manufacture.

Having taken measures to complete the defences of the country, and to enable the Government to cause the American flag to be respected in every clime, if a surplus still remained in the treasury, I would bestow something on the purchasers of the public domain, as à premium for a given number of acres brought into profitable cultivation within a given date from the day of purchase. I would give a bounty to the agriculturist who should furnish evidence of having raised for exportation, either to a sister State or to a foreign nation, a given quantity of sugar, of cotton, of tobacco, of wheat and flour, of beef and pork, or other material profitable to the country, as articles for exportation; I would pay bounties on the production of iron, or other minerals, including salt and coal, which shall be exported; in like manner I would protect the various manufactures that would be made for exportation. Further reducing the duties on importation, such bounty on exportation would have a most salutary effect on all the great interests of the country. With a treasury by no means redundant, the pockets of the people would be full of money; other occupations than those to be sought for under the patronage of the 'Treasury would be universally preferred, because they would present more decided advantages. Instead of passing through the public coffers of either of the States or the nation, where money can be of no more advantage to the people at large than in the hands of any wealthy individual who makes use of it, the people, being almost entirely relieved from taxation, will flourish under that state of things, presenting no wants that cannot be immediately gratified. Make such use of the surplus in the treasury as I have described, or even keep it locked up where it now is; but I beseech Senators never to send any surplus money to the treasuries of the several States, to whom it must prove in fact, what the wise man has called it, "the root of all evil."

The Secretary of the Treasury, an officer whose ability is everywhere acknowledged, whose application and perseverance in whatever he undertakes is proverbial to all who know him, whose answers to inquiries are as prompt as the calls made upon him, whose knowledge of details was never exceeded by any public officer of this Government; the Secretary of the Treasury has been reproached, on the floor of the Senate, for having anticipated, somewhat wide from the fact, the receipts into the treasury during the last quarter of the year ending December 31, 1835. Those receipts were by him estimated at $4,950,000, when, in fact, they have turned out to be $11,149,000. The report of the Com

[SENATE.

mittee on the Public Lands also raps that officer over the knuckles for the same alleged fault. The anticipation of the Secretary was mere conjecture, and that conjecture made at a time when he could avail himself of no official information indicating the truth. It is well known that the speculations in land during the past year have exceeded all precedent. As those speculations had been kept up to a great extent during the first three quarters of the year, and as there was a supposed change in the money market, it was natural that the Secretary should base his calculations on a lower estimate than the ascertained amounts of the first three quarters. He judged as every man of sense would judge, but he did not judge correctly; instead of falling off, the spirit of speculation in lands increased, and the receipts of the last quarter for lands much exceeded any former quarter. So an anticipated rupture with France forced into the country during that quarter an unprecedented amount of goods paying duties. From both sources the amount received was double what the most astute calculator would have fixed on. Slight changes in events transpiring, or even in public opinion, would have altered the state of things entirely. No greater change in the spirit of speculation than frequently takes place in a single week might have reduced the land receipts seventy-five in the hundred dollars; and a knowledge of the facts which have since been developed-a certainty that no war with France will take place-would probably have lessened the receipts of the customs at least one half. Who can calculate with any certainty within one half of what will be the receipts of the public lands for the year to come? Take the last year for a standard, and we may conjecture either that the amount will be doubled, or that it will not be so great by one half; and events of a seemingly trivial character may tend to one or the other result.

Not more in error was the Secretary, in his anticipation of the revenue of the last quarter of 1835, than were gentlemen of this Senate two years ago, in their anticipation of what was to follow from the withdrawal of the deposites from the Bank of the United States. Then, according to some gentlemen, the whole people were to be overwhelmed in ruin, and the treasury was to be bankrupt. "The canals were to become a solitude, and the lakes a desert waste of waters." The anticipations were not verified. I am heartily glad that in both instances our fortune has been turned to the brighter side. This may not always be so; indeed, in the majority of cases, the tables are turned a different way. This fact should teach us to husband our present abundant resources, that we may be duly and truly prepared, when "the evil day shall come upon us." I think, however, the Senator from Ohio [Mr. EwING] was not more in error in predicting ruin two years ago, than he is now in the confident anticipation that there will be a surplus of forty millions of dollars in the treasury during the present year.

But, Mr. President, the more recent attack upon the Secretary of the Treasury on this floor by the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] demands a passing notice. That attack, from its violence and its asperity of terms, preceded as it was by assaults made at former sessions from the same quarter, evinces that there might have rankled some personality in the bosom of the assailant. "What secret griefs he has, alas! I know not." Might it be that the Secretary would not embark in the same ship with the honorable Senator in a controversy which terminated in the dismissal of the first cabinet of President Jackson? Might it be that the Secretary, then a Senator on this floor, refused to take his stand with others, who consummated their political ruin by serving the interests of a future aspirant to the presidency, rather than by assisting the Chief