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"I voted, in 1821, to acknowledge the absolute independence of Mexico; I vote now to recognize the contingent and expected independence of Texas. In both cases, the vote is given upon the same principle – upon the principle of disjunction where conjunction is impossible or disastrous. The Union of Mexico and Spain had become impossible; that of Mexico and Texas is no longer desirable or possible. A more fatal present could not be made than that of the future incorporation of the Texas of La Salle with the ancient empire of Montezuma. They could not live together, and extermination is not the genius of the age; and, besides, is more easily talked of than done. Bloodshed only could be the fruit of their conjunction; and every drop of that blood would be the dragon's teeth sown upon the earth. No wise Mexican should wish to have this Trojan horse shut up within their walls."

CHAPTER CXLVI.
THE SPECIE CIRCULAR

The issue of the Treasury order, known as the "Specie Circular," was one of the events which marked the foresight, the decision, and the invincible firmness of General Jackson. It was issued immediately after the adjournment of Congress, and would have been issued before the adjournment, except for the fear that Congress would counteract it by law. It was an order to all the land-offices to reject paper money, and receive nothing but gold and silver in payment of the public lands; and was issued under the authority of the resolution of the year 1816 which, in giving the Secretary of the Treasury discretionary authority to receive the notes of specie paying banks in revenue payments, gave him also the right to reject them. The number of these banks had now become so great, the quantity of notes issued so enormous, the facility of obtaining loans so universal, and the temptation to converting shadowy paper into real estate, so tempting, that the rising streams of paper from seven hundred and fifty banks took their course towards the new States, seat of the public domain – discharging in accumulated volume there collected torrents upon the different land-offices. The sales were running up to five millions a month, with the prospect of unbounded increase after the rise of Congress; and it was this increase from the land sales which made that surplus which the constitution had been burlesqued to divide among the States. And there was no limit to this conversion of public land into inconvertible paper. In the custom-house branch of the revenue there was a limit in the amount to be received – limited by the amount of duties to be paid: but in the land-office branch there was no limit. It was therefore at that point that the remedy was wanted; and, for that reason, the "Specie Circular" was limited in its application to the land-offices; and totally forbade the sale of the public lands for any thing but hard money. It was an order of incalculable value to the United States, and issued by President Jackson in known disregard of the will both of the majority of Congress and of his cabinet.

Before the adjournment of Congress, and in concert with the President, the author of this View had attempted to get an act of Congress to stop the evil; and in support of his motion to that effect gave his opinion of the evil itself, and of the benefits which would result from its suppression. He said:

"He was able to inform the Senate how it happened that the sales of the public lands had deceived all calculations, and run up from four millions a year to five millions a quarter; it was this: speculators went to banks, borrowed five, ten, twenty, fifty thousand dollars in paper, in small notes, usually under twenty dollars, and engaged to carry off these notes to a great distance, sometimes five hundred or a thousand miles; and there laid them out for public lands. Being land-office money, they would circulate in the country; many of these small notes would never return at all, and their loss would be a clear gain to the bank; others would not return for a long time; and the bank would draw interest on them for years before they had to redeem them. Thus speculators, loaded with paper, would outbid settlers and cultivators, who had no undue accommodations from banks, and who had nothing but specie to give for lands, or the notes which were its real equivalent. Mr. B. said that, living in a new State, it came within his knowledge that such accommodations as he had mentioned were the main cause of the excessive sales which had taken place in the public lands, and that the effect was equally injurious to every interest concerned – except the banks and the speculators: it was injurious to the treasury, which was filling up with paper; to the new States, which were flooded with paper; and to settlers and cultivators, who were outbid by speculators, loaded with this borrowed paper. A return to specie payments for lands is the remedy for all these evils."

Having exposed the evil, and that to the country generally as well as to the federal treasury, Mr. B. went on to give his opinion of the benefits of suppressing it; and said:

"It would put an end to every complaint now connected with the subject, and have a beneficial effect upon every public and private interest. Upon the federal government its effect would be to check the unnatural sale of the public lands to speculators for paper; it would throw the speculators out of market, limit the sales to settlers and cultivators, stop the swelling increases of paper surpluses in the treasury, put an end to all projects for disposing of surpluses; and relieve all anxiety for the fate of the public moneys in the deposit banks. Upon the new States, where the public lands are situated, its effects would be most auspicious. It would stop the flood of paper with which they are inundated, and bring in a steady stream of gold and silver in its place. It would give them a hard-money currency, and especially a share of the gold currency; for every emigrant could then carry gold to the country. Upon the settler and cultivator who wished to purchase land its effect would be peculiarly advantageous. He would be relieved from the competition of speculators; he would not have to contend with those who received undue accommodations at banks, and came to the land-offices loaded with bales of bank notes which they had borrowed upon condition of carrying them far away, and turning them loose where many would be lost, and never get back to the bank that issued them. All these and many other good effects would thus be produced, and no hardship or evil of any kind could accrue to the meritorious part of the country; for the settler and cultivator who wishes to buy land for use, or for a settlement for his children, or to increase his farm, would have no difficulty in getting hard money to make his purchase. He has no undue accommodations from banks. He has no paper but what is good; such as he can readily convert into specie. To him the exaction of specie payments from all purchasers would be a rule of equality, which would enable him to purchase what he needs without competition with fictitious and borrowed capital."

Mr. B. gave a view of the actual condition of the paper currency, which he described as hideous and appalling, doomed to a catastrophe; and he advised every prudent man, as well as the government, to fly from its embrace. His voice, and his warning, answered no purpose. He got no support for his motion. A few friends were willing to stand by him, but the opposition senators stood out in unbroken front against it, reinforced largely by the friends of the administration: but it is in vain to attribute the whole opposition to the measure merely to the mistaken opinions of friends, and the resentful policy of foes. There was another cause operating to the same effect; and the truth of history requires it to be told. There were many members of Congress engaged in these land speculations, upon loans of bank paper; and who were unwilling to see a sudden termination of so profitable a game. The rejection of the bill it was thought would be sufficient; and on the news of it the speculation redoubled its activity. But there was a remedy in reserve for the cure of the evil which they had not foreseen, and which was applied the moment that Congress was gone. Jackson was still President! and he had the nerve which the occasion required. He saw the public lands fleeting away – saw that Congress would not interfere – and knew the majority of his cabinet to be against his interference. He did as he had often done in councils of war – called the council together to hear a decision. He summoned his cabinet – laid the case before them – heard the majority of adverse opinions: – and directed the order to issue. His private Secretary, Mr. Donelson, was directed to prepare a draught of the order. The author of this View was all the while in the office of this private Secretary. Mr. Donelson came to him, with the President's decision, and requested him to draw up the order. It was done – the rough draught carried back to the council – put into official form – signed – issued. It was a second edition of the removal of the deposits scene, and made an immense sensation. The disappointed speculators raged. Congress was considered insulted, the cabinet defied, the banks disgraced. But the vindication of the measure soon came, in the discovery of the fact, that some tens of millions of this bank paper was on its way to the land-offices to be changed into land – when overtaken by this fatal "Specie Circular," and turned back to the sources from which it came.

CHAPTER CXLVII.
DEATH OF MR. MADISON, FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

He died in the last year of the second term of the presidency of General Jackson, at the advanced age of eighty-six, his mind clear and active to the last, and greatly occupied with solicitous concern for the safety of the Union which he had contributed so much to establish. He was a patriot from the beginning. "When the first blood was shed in the streets of Boston, he was a student in the process of his education at Princeton College, where the next year, he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was even then so highly distinguished by the power of application and the rapidity of progress, that he performed all the exercises of the two senior collegiate years in one – while at the same time his deportment was so exemplary, that Dr. Witherspoon, then at the head of the college, and afterwards himself one of the most eminent patriots and sages of our revolution, always delighted in bearing testimony to the excellency of his character at that early stage of his career; and said to Thomas Jefferson long afterwards, when they were all colleagues in the revolutionary Congress, that in the whole career of Mr. Madison at Princeton, he had never known him say, or do, an indiscreet thing." So wrote Mr. John Quincy Adams in his discourse upon the "Life of James Madison," written at the request of the two Houses of Congress: and in this germ of manhood is to be seen all the qualities of head and heart which mature age, and great events, so fully developed, and which so nobly went into the formation of national character while constituting his own: the same quick intellect, the same laborious application, the same purity of morals, the same decorum of deportment. He had a rare combination of talent – a speaker, a writer, a counsellor. In these qualities of the mind he classed with General Hamilton; and was, perhaps, the only eminent public man of his day who so classed, and so equally contended in three of the fields of intellectual action. Mr. Jefferson was accustomed to say he was the only man that could answer Hamilton. Perspicuity, precision, closeness of reasoning, and strict adherence to the unity of his subject, were the characteristics of his style; and his speeches in Congress, and his dispatches from the State Department, may be equally studied as models of style, diplomatic and parliamentary as sources of information, as examples of integrity in conducting public questions: and as illustrations of the amenity with which the most earnest debate, and the most critical correspondence, can be conducted by good sense, good taste, and good temper. Mr. Madison was one of the great founders of our present united federal government, equally efficient in the working convention which framed the constitution and the written labors which secured its adoption. Co-laborer with General Hamilton in the convention and in the Federalist – both members of the old Congress and of the convention at the same time, and working together in both bodies for the attainment of the same end, until the division of parties in Washington's time began to estrange old friends, and to array against each other former cordial political co-laborers. As the first writer of one party, General Hamilton wrote some leading papers, which, as the first writer of the other party, Mr. Madison was called upon to answer: but without forgetting on the part of either their previous relations, their decorum of character, and their mutual respect for each other. Nothing that either said could give an unpleasant personal feeling to the other; and, though writing under borrowed names, their productions were equally known to each other and the public; for none but themselves could imitate themselves. Purity, modesty, decorum – a moderation, temperance, and virtue in everything – were the characteristics of Mr. Madison's life and manners; and it is grateful to look back upon such elevation and beauty of personal character in the illustrious and venerated founders of our Republic, leaving such virtuous private characters to be admired, as well as such great works to be preserved. The offer of this tribute to the memory of one of the purest of public men is the more gratefully rendered, private reasons mixing with considerations of public duty. Mr. Madison is the only President from whom he ever asked a favor, and who granted immediately all that was asked – a lieutenant-colonelcy in the army of the United States in the late war with Great Britain.

CHAPTER CXLVIII.
DEATH OF MR. MONROE, FIFTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

He died during the first term of the administration of President Jackson, and is appropriately noticed in this work next after Mr. Madison, with whom he had been so long and so intimately associated, both in public and in private life; and whose successor he had been in successive high posts, including that of the presidency itself. He is one of our eminent public characters which have not attained their due place in history; nor has any one attempted to give him that place but one – Mr. John Quincy Adams – in his discourse upon the life of Mr. Monroe. Mr. Adams, and who could be a more competent judge? places him in the first line of American statesmen, and contributing, during the fifty years of his connection with the public affairs, a full share in the aggrandisement and advancement of his country. His parts were not shining, but solid. He lacked genius, but he possessed judgment: and it was the remark of Dean Swift, well illustrated in his own case and that of his associate friends, Harley and Bolingbroke (three of the rarest geniuses that ever acted together, and whose cause went to ruin notwithstanding their wit and eloquence), that genius was not necessary to the conducting of the affairs of state: that judgment, diligence, knowledge, good intentions, and will, were sufficient. Mr. Monroe was an instance of the soundness of this remark, as well as the three brilliant geniuses of Queen Anne's time, and on the opposite side of it. Mr. Monroe had none of the mental qualities which dazzle and astonish mankind; but he had a discretion which seldom committed a mistake – an integrity that always looked to the public good – a firmness of will which carried him resolutely upon his object – a diligence that mastered every subject – and a perseverance that yielded to no obstacle or reverse. He began his patriotic career in the military service, at the commencement of the war of the revolution – went into the general assembly of his native State at an early age – and thence, while still young, into the continental Congress. There he showed his character, and laid the foundation of his future political fortunes in his uncompromising opposition to the plan of a treaty with Spain by which the navigation of the Mississippi was to be given up for twenty-five years in return for commercial privileges. It was the qualities of judgment, and perseverance, which he displayed on that occasion, which brought him those calls to diplomacy in which he was afterwards so much employed with three of the then greatest European powers – France, Spain, Great Britain. And it was in allusion to this circumstance that President Jefferson afterwards, when the right of deposit at New Orleans had been violated by Spain, and when a minister was wanted to recover it, said, "Monroe is the man: the defence of the Mississippi belongs to him." And under this appointment he had the felicity to put his name to the treaty which secured the Mississippi, its navigation and all the territory drained by its western waters, to the United States for ever. Several times in his life he seemed to miscarry, and to fall from the top to the bottom of the political ladder: but always to reascend as high, or higher than ever. Recalled by Washington from the French mission, to which he had been appointed from the Senate of the United States, he returned to the starting point of his early career – the general assembly of his State – served as a member from his county – was elected Governor; and from that post restored by Jefferson to the French mission, soon to be followed by the embassies to Spain and England. Becoming estranged from Mr. Madison about the time of that gentleman's first election to the presidency, and having returned from his missions a little mortified that Mr. Jefferson had rejected his British treaty without sending it to the Senate, he was again at the foot of the political ladder, and apparently out of favor with those who were at its top. Nothing despairing, he went back to the old starting point – served again in the Virginia general assembly – was again elected Governor: and from that post was called to the cabinet of Mr. Madison, to be his double Secretary of State and War. He was the effective power in the declaration of war against Great Britain. His residence abroad had shown him that unavenged British wrongs was lowering our character with Europe, and that war with the "mistress of the seas" was as necessary to our respectability in the eyes of the world, as to the security of our citizens and commerce upon the ocean. He brought up Mr. Madison to the war point. He drew the war report which the committee on foreign relations presented to the House – that report which the absence of Mr. Peter B. Porter, the chairman, and the hesitancy of Mr. Grundy, the second on the committee, threw into the hands of Mr. Calhoun, the third on the list and the youngest of the committee; and the presentation of which immediately gave him a national reputation. Prime mover of the war, he was also one of its most efficient supporters, taking upon himself, when adversity pressed, the actual duties of war minister, financier, and foreign secretary at the same time. He was an enemy to all extravagance, to all intrigue, to all indirection in the conduct of business. Mr. Jefferson's comprehensive and compendious eulogium upon him, as brief as true, was the faithful description of the man – "honest and brave." He was an enemy to nepotism, and no consideration or entreaty – no need of the support which an office would give, or intercession from friends – could ever induce him to appoint a relative to any place under the government. He had opposed the adoption of the constitution until amendments were obtained; but these had, he became one of its firmest supporters, and labored faithfully, anxiously and devotedly, to administer it in its purity. He was the first President under whom the author of this View served, commencing his first senatorial term with the commencement of the second presidential term of this last of the men of the revolution who were spared to fill the office in the great Republic which they had founded.