Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ being satisfied that it could be, he should vote for the bill. Mr. Brown, of Ohio (Ethan A.), was very glad to hear such sentiments from the Senator from Maryland, and hoped that a reciprocal good feeling would always prevail between different sections of the Union. He thought there could be no objection to the bill, and approved the policy of getting the road upon Mexican territory with the consent of the Mexican government. The bill passed the Senate by a large vote – 30 to 12; and these are the names of the Senators voting for and against it:

      Yeas. – Messrs. Barton, Benton, Bouligny, Brown, D'Wolf, Eaton, Edwards, Elliott, Holmes of Miss., Jackson (the General), Johnson of Kentucky, Johnston of Lou., Kelly, Knight, Lanman, Lloyd of Mass., Lowrie, McIlvaine, McLean, Noble, Palmer, Parrott, Ruggles, Seymour, Smith, Talbot, Taylor, Thomas, Van Buren, Van Dyke – 30.

      Nays. – Messrs. Branch, Chandler, Clayton, Cobb, Gaillard, Hayne, Holmes of Maine, King of Ala., King of N. Y., Macon, Tazewell, Williams – 12.

      It passed the House of Representatives by a majority of thirty – received the approving signature of Mr. Monroe, among the last acts of his public life – was carried into effect by his successor, Mr. John Quincy Adams – and this road has remained a thoroughfare of commerce between Missouri and New Mexico, and all the western internal provinces ever since.

      CHAPTER XVII.

      PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGES

      Four candidates were before the people for the office of President – General Jackson, Mr. John Quincy Adams, Mr. William H. Crawford, and Mr. Henry Clay. Mr. Crawford had been nominated in a caucus of democratic members of Congress; but being a minority of the members, and the nomination not in accordance with public opinion, it carried no authority along with it, and was of no service to the object of its choice. General Jackson was the candidate of the people, brought forward by the masses. Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay were brought forward by bodies of their friends in different States. The whole number of electoral votes was 261 of which it required 131 to make an election. No one had that number. General Jackson was the highest on the list, and had 99 votes; Mr. Adams 84; Mr. Crawford 41; Mr. Clay 37. No one having a majority of the whole of electors, the election devolved upon the House of Representatives; of which an account will be given in a separate chapter.

      In the vice-presidential election it was different. Mr. John C. Calhoun (who in the beginning of the canvass had been a candidate for the Presidency, but had been withdrawn by his friends in Pennsylvania, and put forward for Vice-President), received 182 votes in the electoral college, and was elected. Mr. Nathan Sandford, Senator in Congress from New-York, had been placed on the ticket with Mr. Clay, and received 30 votes. The 24 votes of Virginia were given to Mr. Macon, as a compliment, he not being a candidate, and having refused to become one. The nine votes of Georgia were given to Mr. Van Buren, also as a compliment, he not being on the list of candidates. Mr. Albert Gallatin had been nominated in the Congress caucus with Mr. Crawford, but finding the proceedings of that caucus unacceptable to the people he had withdrawn from the canvass. Mr. Calhoun was the only substantive vice-presidential candidate before the people, and his election was an evidence of good feeling in the North towards southern men – he receiving the main part of his votes from that quarter – 114 votes from the non-slaveholding States, and only 68 from the slaveholding. A southern man, and a slaveholder, Mr. Calhoun was indebted to northern men and non-slaveholders, for the honorable distinction of an election in the electoral colleges – the only one in the electoral colleges – the only one on all the lists of presidential and vice-presidential candidates who had that honor. Surely there was no disposition in the free States at that time to be unjust, or unkind to the South.

      CHAPTER XVIII.

      DEATH OF JOHN TAYLOR, OF CAROLINE

      For by that designation was discriminated, in his own State, the eminent republican statesman of Virginia, who was a Senator in Congress in the first term of General Washington's administration, and in the last term of Mr. Monroe – and who, having voluntarily withdrawn himself from that high station during the intermediate thirty years, devoted himself to the noble pursuits of agriculture, literature, the study of political economy, and the service of his State or county when called by his fellow-citizens. Personally I knew him but slightly, our meeting in the Senate being our first acquaintance, and our senatorial association limited to the single session of which he was a member – 1823-24; – at the end of which he died. But all my observation of him, and his whole appearance and deportment, went to confirm the reputation of his individuality of character, and high qualities of the head and the heart. I can hardly figure to myself the ideal of a republican statesman more perfect and complete than he was in reality: – plain and solid, a wise counsellor, a ready and vigorous debater, acute and comprehensive, ripe in all historical and political knowledge, innately republican – modest, courteous, benevolent, hospitable – a skilful, practical farmer, giving his time to his farm and his books, when not called by an emergency to the public service – and returning to his books and his farm when the emergency was over. His whole character was announced in his looks and deportment, and in his uniform (senatorial) dress – the coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons of the same "London brown," and in the cut of a former fashion – beaver hat with ample brim – fine white linen – and a gold-headed cane, carried not for show, but for use and support when walking and bending under the heaviness of years. He seemed to have been cast in the same mould with Mr. Macon, and it was pleasant to see them together, looking like two Grecian sages, and showing that regard for each other which every one felt for them both. He belonged to that constellation of great men which shone so brightly in Virginia in his day, and the light of which was not limited to Virginia, or our America, but spread through the bounds of the civilized world. He was the author of several works, political and agricultural, of which his Arator in one class, and his Construction Construed in another, were the principal – one adorning and exalting the plough with the attributes of science; the other exploring the confines of the federal and the State governments, and presenting a mine of constitutional law very profitably to be examined by the political student who will not be repulsed from a banquet of rich ideas, by the quaint Sir Edward Coke style – (the only point of resemblance between the republican statesman, and the crown officer of Elizabeth and James) – in which it is dressed. Devotion to State rights was the ruling feature of his policy; and to keep both governments, State and federal, within their respective constitutional orbits, was the labor of his political life.

      In the years 1798 and '99, Mr. Taylor was a member of the General Assembly of his State, called into service by the circumstances of the times; and was selected on account of the dignity and gravity of his character, his power and readiness in debate, and his signal devotion to the rights of the States, to bring forward those celebrated resolutions which Mr. Jefferson conceived, which his friends sanctioned, which Mr. Madison drew up, and which "John Taylor, of Caroline," presented; – which are a perfect exposition of the principles of our duplicate form of government, and of the limitations upon the power of the federal government; – and which, in their declaration of the unconstitutionality of the alien and sedition laws, and appeal to other States for their co-operation, had nothing in view but to initiate a State movement by two-thirds of the States (the number required by the fifth article of the federal constitution), to amend, or authoritatively expound the constitution; – the idea of forcible resistance to the execution of any act of Congress being expressly disclaimed at the time.

      CHAPTER XIX.

      PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

      It has already been shown that the theory of the constitution, and its practical working, was entirely different in the election of President and Vice-President – that by the theory, the people were only to choose electors, to whose superior intelligence the choice of fit persons for these high stations was entirely committed – and that, in practice, this theory had entirely failed from the beginning. From the very first election the electors were made subordinate to the people, having no choice of their own, and pledged СКАЧАТЬ