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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ all in their voluntary or tax contributions – to the independence of their country when they were thus despoiled of their property. They depended upon these slaves to support their families while they were supporting their country. They were in debt to British merchants, and relied upon compensation for these slaves to pay those debts, at the very moment when compensation was abandoned by the same treaty which enforced the payment of the debts. They had a treaty obligation for indemnity, express in its terms, and since shown to be valid, when deprived of this stipulation by another treaty, in order to obtain general advantages for the whole Union. This is something like taking private property for public use. Three thousand slaves, the property of ascertained individuals, protected by a treaty stipulation, and afterwards abandoned by another treaty, against the entreaties and remonstrances of the owners, in order to obtain the British commercial treaty of '94, and its supplement of '96: such is the case which this revolutionary spoliation of slave property presents, and which puts it immeasurably ahead of the French spoliation claims prior to 1800. There is but four years' difference in their ages – in the dates of the two treaties by which they were respectively surrendered – and every other difference between the two cases is an argument of preference in favor of the losers under the treaty of 1796. Yet I am against both, and each, separately or together; and put them in contrast to make one stand as an argument against the other. But the primary reason for introducing the slave spoliation case of 1783, and comparing its less fortunate issue with that of 1812, was to show that Northern men will do justice to the South; that Northern men obtained for the South an indemnity and security in our day which a Southern Administration, with Washington at its head, had not been able to obtain in the days of our fathers.

      CHAPTER XXXIII.

      MEETING OF THE FIRST CONGRESS ELECTED UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF MR. ADAMS

      The nineteenth Congress, commencing its legal existence, March the 4th, 1825, had been chiefly elected at the time that Mr. Adams' administration commenced, and the two Houses stood divided with respect to him – the majority of the Representatives being favorable to him, while the majority of the Senate was in opposition. The elections for the twentieth Congress – the first under his administration – were looked to with great interest, both as showing whether the new President was supported by the country, and his election by the House sanctioned, and also as an index to the issue of the ensuing presidential election. For, simultaneously with the election in the House of Representatives did the canvass for the succeeding election begin – General Jackson being the announced candidate on one side, and Mr. Adams on the other; and the event involving not only the question of merits between the parties, but also the question of approved or disapproved conduct on the part of the representatives who elected Mr. Adams. The elections took place, and resulted in placing an opposition majority in the House of Representatives, and increasing the strength of the opposition majority in the Senate. The state of parties in the House was immediately tested by the election of speaker, Mr. John W. Taylor, of New-York, the administration candidate, being defeated by Mr. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, in the opposition. The appointment of the majority of members on all the committees, and their chairmen, in both Houses adverse to the administration, was a regular consequence of the inflamed state of parties, although the proper conducting of the public business would demand for the administration the chairman of several important committees, as enabling it to place its measures fairly before the House. The speaker (Mr. Stevenson) could only yield to this just sense of propriety in the case of one of the committees, that of foreign relations, to which Mr. Edward Everett, classing as the political and personal friend of the President, was appointed chairman. In other committees, and in both Houses, the stern spirit of the times prevailed; and the organization of the whole Congress was adverse to the administration.

      The presidential message contained no new recommendations, but referred to those previously made, and not yet acted upon; among which internal improvement, and the encouragement of home industry, were most prominent. It gave an account of the failure of the proposed congress of Panama; and, consequently, of the inutility of all our exertions to be represented there. And, as in this final and valedictory notice by Mr. Adams of that once far-famed congress, he took occasion to disclaim some views attributed to him, I deem it just to give him the benefit of his own words, both in making the disclaimer, and in giving the account of the abortion of an impracticable scheme which had so lately been prosecuted, and opposed, with so much heat and violence in our own country. He said of it:

      "Disclaiming alike all right and all intention of interfering in those concerns which it is the prerogative of their independence to regulate as to them shall seem fit, we hail with joy every indication of their prosperity, of their harmony, of their persevering and inflexible homage to those principles of freedom and of equal rights, which are alone suited to the genius and temper of the American nations. It has been therefore with some concern that we have observed indications of intestine divisions in some of the republics of the South, and appearances of less union with one another, than we believe to be the interest of all. Among the results of this state of things has been that the treaties concluded at Panama do not appear to have been ratified by the contracting parties, and that the meeting of the Congress at Tacubaya has been indefinitely postponed. In accepting the invitations to be represented at this Congress, while a manifestation was intended on the part of the United States, of the most friendly disposition towards the Southern republics by whom it had been proposed, it was hoped that it would furnish an opportunity for bringing all the nations of this hemisphere to the common acknowledgment and adoption of the principles, in the regulation of their international relations, which would have secured a lasting peace and harmony between them, and have promoted the cause of mutual benevolence throughout the globe. But as obstacles appear to have arisen to the reassembling of the Congress, one of the two ministers commissioned on the part of the United States has returned to the bosom of his country, while the minister charged with the ordinary mission to Mexico remains authorized to attend at the conferences of the Congress whenever they may be resumed."

      This is the last that was heard of that so much vaunted Congress of American nations, and in the manner in which it died out of itself, among those who proposed it, without ever having been reached by a minister from the United States, we have the highest confirmation of the soundness of the objections taken to it by the opposition members of the two Houses of our Congress.

      In stating the condition of the finances, the message, without intending it, gave proof of the paradoxical proposition, first, I believe, broached by myself, that an annual revenue to the extent of a fourth or a fifth below the annual expenditure, is sufficient to meet that annual expenditure; and consequently that there is no necessity to levy as much as is expended, or to provide by law for keeping a certain amount in the treasury when the receipts are equal, or superior to the expenditure. He said:

      "The balance in the treasury on the first of January last was six millions three hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars and eighteen cents. The receipts from that day to the 30th of September last, as near as the returns of them yet received can show, amount to sixteen millions eight hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-one dollars and thirty-two cents. The receipts of the present quarter, estimated at four millions five hundred and fifteen thousand, added to the above, form an aggregate of twenty-one millions four hundred thousand dollars of receipts. The expenditures of the year may perhaps amount to twenty-two millions three hundred thousand dollars, presenting a small excess over the receipts. But of these twenty-two millions, upwards of six have been applied to the discharge of the principal of the public debt; the whole amount of which, approaching seventy-four millions on the first of January last, will on the first day of next year fall short of sixty-seven millions and a half. The balance in the treasury on the first of January next, it is expected, will exceed five millions four hundred and fifty thousand dollars; a sum exceeding that of the first of January, 1825, though falling short of that exhibited on the first of January last."

      In this statement the expenditures of the year are shown to exceed the income, and yet to leave a balance, about equal to one fourth of the whole in the treasury at the end of the year; also that the balance was larger at the end of the preceding year, and nearly СКАЧАТЬ