CHAPTER CXLIX.
DEATH OF CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL
He died in the middle of the second term of General Jackson's presidency, having been chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States full thirty-five years, presiding all the while (to use the inimitable language of Mr. Randolph), "with native dignity and unpretending grace." He was supremely fitted for high judicial station: – a solid judgment, great reasoning powers, acute and penetrating mind: with manners and habits to suit the purity and the paucity of the ermine: – attentive, patient, laborious: grave on the bench, social in the intercourse of life: simple in his tastes, and inexorably just. Seen by a stranger come into a room, and he would be taken for a modest country gentleman, without claims to attention, and ready to take the lowest place in company, or at table, and to act his part without trouble to any body. Spoken to, and closely observed, he would be seen to be a gentleman of finished breeding, of winning and prepossessing talk, and just as much mind as the occasion required him to show. Coming to man's estate at the beginning of the revolution he followed the current into which so many young men, destined to become eminent, so ardently entered; and served in the army, and with notice and observation, under the eyes of Washington. Elected to Congress at an early age he served in the House of Representatives in the time of the elder Mr. Adams, and found in one of the prominent questions of the day a subject entirely fitted to his acute and logical turn of mind – the case of the famous Jonathan Robbins, claiming to be an American citizen, reclaimed by the British government as a deserter, delivered up, and hanged at the yard-arm of an English man-of-war. Party spirit took up the case, and it was one to inflame that spirit. Mr. Marshall spoke in defence of the administration, and made the master speech of the day, when there were such master speakers in Congress as Madison, Gallatin, William B. Giles, Edward Livingston, John Randolph. It was a judicial subject, adapted to the legal mind of Mr. Marshall, requiring a legal pleading: and well did he plead it. Mr. Randolph has often been heard to say that it distanced competition – leaving all associates and opponents far behind, and carrying the case. Seldom has one speech brought so much fame, and high appointment to any one man. When he had delivered it his reputation was in the zenith: in less than nine brief months thereafter he was Secretary at War, Secretary of State, Minister to France, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Politically, he classed with the federal party, and was one of those high-minded and patriotic men of that party, who, acting on principle, commanded the respect of those even who deemed them wrong.
CHAPTER CL.
DEATH OF COL. BURR, THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
He was one of the few who, entering the war of independence with ardor and brilliant prospects, disappointed the expectations he had created, dishonored the cause he had espoused, and ended in shame the career which he had opened with splendor. He was in the adventurous expedition of Arnold through the wilderness to Quebec, went ahead in the disguise of a priest to give intelligence of the approach of aid to General Montgomery, arrived safely through many dangers, captivated the General by the courage and address which he had shown, was received by him into his military family; and was at his side when he was killed. Returning to the seat of war in the Northern States he was invited by Washington, captivated like Montgomery by the soldierly and intellectual qualities he had shown, to his headquarters, with a view to placing him on his staff; but he soon perceived that the brilliant young man lacked principle; and quietly got rid of him. The after part of his life was such as to justify the opinion which Washington had formed of him; but such was his address and talent as to rise to high political distinction: Attorney General of New-York, Senator in Congress, and Vice-President of the United States. At the close of the presidential election of 1800, he stood equal with Mr. Jefferson in the vote which he received, and his undoubted successor at the end of Mr. Jefferson's term. But there his honors came to a stand, and took a downward turn, nor ceased descending until he was landed in the abyss of shame, misery, and desolation. He intrigued with the federalists to supplant Mr. Jefferson – to get the place of President, for which he had not received a single vote – was suspected, detected, baffled – lost the respect of his party, and was thrown upon crimes to recover a position, or to avenge his losses. The treasonable attempt in the West, and the killing of General Hamilton, ended his career in the United States. But although he had deceived the masses, and reached the second office of the government, with the certainty of attaining the first if he only remained still, yet there were some close observers whom he never deceived. The early mistrust of Washington has been mentioned: it became stronger as Burr mounted higher in the public favor; and in 1794, when a senator in Congress, and when the republican party had taken him for their choice for the French mission in the place of Mr. Monroe recalled, and had sent a committee of which Mr. Madison was chief to ask his nomination from Washington, that wise and virtuous man peremptorily refused it, giving as a categorical reason, that his rule was invariable, never to appoint an immoral man to any office. Mr. Jefferson had the same ill opinion of him, and, notwithstanding his party zeal, always considered him in market when the federalists had any high office to bestow. But General Hamilton was most thoroughly imbued with a sense of his unworthiness, and deemed it due to his country to balk his election over Jefferson; and did so. His letters to the federal members of Congress painted Burr in his true character, and dashed far from his grasp, and for ever, the gilded prize his hand was touching. For that frustration of his hopes, four years afterwards, he killed Hamilton in a duel, having on the part of Burr the spirit of an assassination – cold-blooded, calculated, revengeful, and falsely-pretexted. He alleged some trivial and recent matter for the challenge, such as would not justify it in any code of honor; and went to the ground to kill upon an old grudge which he was ashamed to avow. Hard was the fate of Hamilton – losing his life at the early age of forty-two for having done justice to his country in the person of the man to whom he stood most politically opposed, and the chief of the party by which he had been constrained to retire from the scene of public life at the age of thirty-four – the age at which most others begin it – he having accomplished gigantic works. He was the man most eminently and variously endowed of all the eminent men of his day – at once soldier and statesman, with a head to conceive, and a hand to execute: a writer, an orator, a jurist: an organizing mind, able to grasp the greatest system; and administrative, to execute the smallest details: wholly turned to the practical business of life, and with a capacity for application and production which teemed with gigantic labors, each worthy to be the sole product of a single master intellect; but lavished in litters from the ever teeming fecundity of his prolific genius. Hard his fate, when, withdrawing from public life at the age of thirty-four, he felt himself constrained to appeal to posterity for that justice which contemporaries withheld from him. And the appeal was not in vain. Statues rise to his memory: history embalms his name: posterity will do justice to the man who at the age of twenty was "the principal and most confidential aid of Washington," who retained the love and confidence of the Father of his country to the last; and to whom honorable opponents, while opposing his systems of policy, accorded honor, and patriotism, and social affections, and transcendental abilities. – This chapter was commenced to write a notice of the character of Colonel Burr; but that subject will not remain under the pen. At the appearance of that name, the spirit of Hamilton starts up to rebuke the intrusion – to drive back the foul apparition to its gloomy abode – and to concentrate all generous feeling on itself.
CHAPTER CLI.
DEATH OF WILLIAM B. GILES, OF VIRGINIA
He also died under the presidency of General Jackson. He was one of the eminent public men coming upon the stage of action with the establishment of the new constitution – with the change from a League to a Union; from the confederation to the unity of the States – and was one of the most conspicuous in the early annals of our Congress. He had that kind of speaking talent which is most effective in legislative bodies, and which is so different from set-speaking. He was a debater; and was considered by Mr. Randolph to be, in our House of Representatives, what Charles Fox was admitted to be in the British House of Commons: the most accomplished debater which his country had ever seen. But their acquired advantages were very different, and their schools of practice very opposite. Mr. Fox perfected himself in the House, speaking on every subject; Mr. Giles out of the House, talking to every body. Mr. Fox, a ripe scholar, addicted to literature, and imbued with all the learning of all the classics in all time; Mr. Giles neither read nor studied, but talked incessantly with able men, rather debating with them all the while: and drew from this source of information, and from the ready powers of his mind, the ample means of speaking on every subject with the fulness which the occasion required, the quickness which confounds an adversary, and the effect which a lick in time always produces. He had the kind of talent which was necessary to complete the circle of all sorts of ability which sustained the administration of Mr. Jefferson. Macon was wise, Randolph brilliant, Gallatin and Madison able in argument; but Giles was the ready champion, always ripe for the combat – always furnished with the ready change to meet every bill. He was long a member of the House; then senator, and governor; and died at an advanced age, like Patrick Henry, without doing justice to his genius in the transmission of his labors to posterity; because, like Henry, he had been deficient in education and in reading. He was the intimate friend of all the eminent men of his day, which sufficiently bespeaks him a gentleman of manners and heart, as well as a statesman of head and tongue.
CHAPTER CLII.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1836
Mr. Van Buren was the candidate of the democratic party; General Harrison the candidate of the opposition; and Mr. Hugh L. White that of a fragment of the democracy. Mr. Van Buren was elected, receiving one hundred and seventy electoral votes, to seventy-three given to General Harrison, and twenty-six given to Mr. White. The States voting for each, were: – Mr. Van Buren: Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Michigan, Arkansas. For General Harrison: Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana. For Mr. White: Georgia and Tennessee. Massachusetts complimented Mr. Webster by bestowing her fourteen votes upon him; and South Carolina, as in the two preceding elections, threw her vote away upon a citizen not a candidate, and not a child of her soil – Mr. Mangum of North Carolina – disappointing the expectations of Mr. White's friends, whose standing for the presidency had been instigated by Mr. Calhoun, to divide the democratic party and defeat Mr. Van Buren. Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was the democratic candidate for the vice-presidency, and received one hundred and forty-seven votes, which, not being a majority of the whole number of votes given, the election was referred to the Senate, to choose between the two highest on the list; and that body being largely democratic, he was duly elected: receiving thirty-three out of forty-nine senatorial votes. The rest of the vice-presidential vote, in the electoral colleges, had been between Mr. Francis Granger, of New York, who received seventy-seven votes; Mr. John Tyler, of Virginia, who received forty-seven; and Mr. William Smith, of South Carolina, complimented by Virginia with her twenty-three votes. Mr. Granger, being the next highest on the list, after Colonel Johnson, was voted for as one of the two referred to the Senate; and received sixteen votes. A list of the senators voting for each will show the strength of the respective parties in the Senate, at the approaching end of President Jackson's administration; and how signally all the efforts intended to overthrow him had ended in the discomfiture of their authors, and converted an absolute majority of the whole Senate into a meagre minority of one third. The votes for Colonel Johnson were: Mr. Benton of Missouri; Mr. Black of Mississippi; Mr. Bedford Brown of North Carolina; Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania; Mr. Cuthbert of Georgia; Mr. Dana of Maine; Mr. Ewing of Illinois; Mr. Fulton of Arkansas; Mr. Grundy of Tennessee; Mr. Hendricks of Indiana; Mr. Hubbard of Maine; Mr. William Rufus King of Alabama; Mr. John P. King of Georgia; Mr. Louis F. Linn of Missouri; Mr. Lucius Lyon of Michigan Mr. McKean of Pennsylvania; Mr. Gabriel Moore of Alabama; Mr. Morris of Ohio; Mr. Alexander Mouton of Louisiana; Mr. Wilson C. Nicholas of Louisiana; Mr. Niles of Connecticut; Mr. John Norvell of Michigan; Mr. John Page of New Hampshire; Mr. Richard E. Parker of Virginia; Mr. Rives of Virginia; Mr. John M. Robinson of Illinois; Mr. Ruggles of Maine; Mr. Ambrose H. Sevier of Arkansas; Mr. Peleg Sprague of Maine; Mr. Robert Strange of North Carolina; Mr. Nathaniel P. Talmadge of New York; Mr. Tipton of Indiana; Mr. Robert J. Walker of Mississippi; Mr. Silas Wright of New York. Those voting for Mr. Francis Granger were: Mr. Richard H. Bayard of Delaware; Mr. Clay; Mr. John M. Clayton of Delaware; Mr. John Crittenden of Kentucky; Mr. John Davis of Massachusetts; Mr. Thomas Ewing of Ohio; Mr. Kent of Maryland; Mr. Nehemiah Knight of Rhode Island; Mr. Prentiss of Vermont; Mr. Asher Robbins of Rhode Island; Mr. Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey; Mr. John S. Spence of Maryland; Mr. Swift of Vermont; Mr. Gideon Tomlinson of Connecticut; Mr. Wall of New Jersey; Mr. Webster. South Carolina did not vote, neither in the person of Mr. Calhoun nor in that of his colleague, Mr. Preston: an omission which could not be attributed to absence or accident, as both were present; nor fail to be remarked and considered ominous in the then temper of the State, and her refusal to vote in the three preceding presidential elections.
CHAPTER CLIII.
LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT JACKSON
At the opening of the second Session of the twenty-fourth Congress, President Jackson delivered his last Annual Message, and under circumstances to be grateful to his heart. The powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he saw full majorities of ardent and tried friends in each House. We were in peace and friendship with all the world, and all exciting questions quieted at home. Industry in all its branches was prosperous. The revenue was abundant – too much so. The people were happy. His message, of course, was first a recapitulation of this auspicious state of things, at home and abroad; and then a reference to the questions of domestic interest and policy which required attention, and might call for action. At the head of these measures stood the deposit act of the last session – the act which under the insidious and fabulous title of a deposit of a surplus of revenue with the States – made an actual distribution of that surplus; and was intended by its contrivers to do so. His notice of this measure went to two points – his own regrets for having signed the act, and his misgivings in relation to its future observation. He said:
"The consequences apprehended, when the deposit act of the last session received a reluctant approval, have been measurably realized. Though an act merely for the deposit of the surplus moneys of the United States in the State Treasuries, for safe keeping, until they may be wanted for the service of the general government, it has been extensively spoken of as an act to give the money to the several States, and they have been advised to use it as a gift, without regard to the means of refunding it when called for. Such a suggestion has doubtless been made without a due consideration of the obligation of the deposit act, and without a proper attention to the various principles and interests which are affected by it. It is manifest that the law itself cannot sanction such a suggestion, and that, as it now stands, the States have no more authority to receive and use these deposits without intending to return them, than any deposit bank, or any individual temporarily charged with the safe-keeping or application of the public money, would now have for converting the same to their private use, without the consent and against the will of the government. But, independently of the violation of public faith and moral obligation which are involved in this suggestion, when examined in reference to the terms of the present deposit act, it is believed that the considerations which should govern the future legislation of Congress on this subject, will be equally conclusive against the adoption of any measure recognizing the principles on which the suggestion has been made."
This misgiving was well founded. Before the session was over there was actually a motion to release the States from their obligation to restore the money – to lay which motion on the table there were seventy-three resisting votes – an astonishing number in itself, and the more so as given by the same members, sitting in the same seats, who had voted for the act as a deposit a few months before. Such a vote was ominous of the fate of the money; and that fate was not long delayed. Akin to this measure, and in fact the parent of which it was the bastard progeny, was distribution itself, under its own proper name; and which it was evident was soon to be openly attempted, encouraged as its advocates were by the success gained in the deposit act. The President, with his characteristic frankness and firmness, impugned that policy in advance; and deprecated its effects under every aspect of public and private justice, and of every consideration of a wise or just policy. He said:
"To collect revenue merely for distribution to the States, would seem to be highly impolitic, if not as dangerous as the proposition to retain it in the Treasury. The shortest reflection must satisfy every one that to require the people to pay taxes to the government merely that they may be paid back again, is sporting with the substantial interests of the country, and no system which produces such a result can be expected to receive the public countenance. Nothing could be gained by it, even if each individual who contributed a portion of the tax could receive back promptly the same portion. But it is apparent that no system of the kind can ever be enforced, which will not absorb a considerable portion of the money, to be distributed in salaries and commissions to the agents employed in the process, and in the various losses and depreciations which arise from other causes; and the practical effect of such an attempt must ever be to burden the people with taxes, not for purposes beneficial to them, but to swell the profits of deposit banks, and support a band of useless public officers. A distribution to the people is impracticable and unjust in other respects. It would be taking one man's property and giving it to another. Such would be the unavoidable result of a rule of equality (and none other is spoken of, or would be likely to be adopted), inasmuch as there is no mode by which the amount of the individual contributions of our citizens to the public revenue can be ascertained. We know that they contribute unequally, and a rule therefore that would distribute to them equally, would be liable to all the objections which apply to the principle of an equal division of property. To make the general government the instrument of carrying this odious principle into effect, would be at once to destroy the means of its usefulness, and change the character designed for it by the framers of the constitution."
There was another consideration connected with this policy of distribution which the President did not name, and could not, in the decorum and reserve of an official communication to Congress: it was the intended effect of these distributions – to debauch the people with their own money, and to gain presidential votes by lavishing upon them the spoils of their country. To the honor of the people this intended effect never occurred; no one of those contriving these distributions ever reaching the high object of their ambition. Instead of distribution – instead of raising money from the people to be returned to the people, with all the deductions which the double operation of collecting and dividing would incur, and with the losses which unfaithful agents might inflict – instead of that idle and wasteful process, which would have been childish if it had not been vicious, he recommended a reduction of taxes on the comforts and necessaries of life, and the levy of no more money than was necessary for the economical administration of the government; and said:
"In reducing the revenue to the wants of the government, your particular attention is invited to those articles which constitute the necessaries of life. The duty on salt was laid as a war tax, and was no doubt continued to assist in providing for the payment of the war debt. There is no article the release of which from taxation would be felt so generally and so beneficially. To this may be added all kinds of fuel and provisions. Justice and benevolence unite in favor of releasing the poor of our cities from burdens which are not necessary to the support of our government, and tend only to increase the wants of the destitute."
The issuance of the "Treasury Circular" naturally claimed a place in the President's message; and received it. The President gave his reason for the measure in the necessity of saving the public domain from being exchanged for bank paper money, which was not wanted, and might be of little value or use when wanted; and expressed himself thus:
"The effects of an extension of bank credits, and over-issues of bank paper, have been strikingly illustrated in the sales of the public lands. From the returns made by the various registers and receivers in the early part of last summer it was perceived that the receipts arising from the sales of the public lands, were increasing to an unprecedented amount. In effect, however, these receipts amounted to nothing more than credits in bank. The banks lent out their notes to speculators; they were paid to the receivers, and immediately returned to the banks, to be lent out again and again; being mere instruments to transfer to speculators the most valuable public land, and pay the government by a credit on the books of the banks. Those credits on the books of some of the western banks, usually called deposits, were already greatly beyond their immediate means of payment, and were rapidly increasing. Indeed each speculation furnished means for another; for no sooner had one individual or company paid in the notes, than they were immediately lent to another for a like purpose; and the banks were extending their business and their issues so largely, as to alarm considerate men, and render it doubtful whether these bank credits, if permitted to accumulate, would ultimately be of the least value to the government. The spirit of expansion and speculation was not confined to the deposit banks, but pervaded the whole multitude of banks throughout the Union, and was giving rise to new institutions to aggravate the evil. The safety of the public funds, and the interest of the people generally, required that these operations should be checked; and it became the duty of every branch of the general and State governments to adopt all legitimate and proper means to produce that salutary effect. Under this view of my duty, I directed the issuing of the order which will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury, requiring payment for the public lands sold to be made in specie, with an exception until the 15th of the present month, in favor of actual settlers. This measure has produced many salutary consequences. It checked the career of the Western banks, and gave them additional strength in anticipation of the pressure which has since pervaded our Eastern as well as the European commercial cities. By preventing the extension of the credit system, it measurably cut off the means of speculation, and retarded its progress in monopolizing the most valuable of the public lands. It has tended to save the new States from a non-resident proprietorship, one of the greatest obstacles to the advancement of a new country, and the prosperity of an old one. It has tended to keep open the public lands for the entry of emigrants at government prices, instead of their being compelled to purchase of speculators at double or treble prices. And it is conveying into the interior large sums in silver and gold, there to enter permanently into the currency of the country, and place it on a firmer foundation. It is confidently believed that the country will find in the motives which induced that order, and the happy consequences which will have ensued, much to commend and nothing to condemn."
The people were satisfied with the Treasury Circular; they saw its honesty and good effects; but the politicians were not satisfied with it. They thought they saw in it a new exercise of illegal power in the President – a new tampering with the currency – a new destruction of the public prosperity; and commenced an attack upon it the moment Congress met, very much in the style of the attack upon the order for the removal of the deposits; and with fresh hopes from the resentment of the "thousand banks," whose notes had been excluded, and from the discontent of many members of Congress whose schemes of speculation had been balked. And notwithstanding the democratic majorities in the two Houses, the attack upon the "Circular" had a great success, many members being interested in the excluded banks, and partners in schemes for monopolizing the lands. A bill intended to repeal the Circular was actually passed through both Houses; but not in direct terms. That would have been too flagrant. It was a bad thing, and could not be fairly done, and therefore gave rise to indirection and ambiguity of provisions, and complication of phrases, and a multiplication of amphibologies, which brought the bill to a very ridiculous conclusion when it got to the hands of General Jackson. But of this hereafter.
The intrusive efforts made by politicians and missionaries, first, to prevent treaties from being formed with the Indians to remove from the Southern States, and then to prevent the removal after the treaties were made, led to serious refusals on the part of some of these tribes to emigrate; and it became necessary to dispatch officers of high rank and reputation, with regular troops, to keep down outrages and induce peaceable removal. Major General Jesup was sent to the Creek nation, where he had a splendid success in a speedy and bloodless accomplishment of his object. Major General Scott was sent to the Cherokees, where a pertinacious resistance was long encountered, but eventually and peaceably overcome. The Seminole hostilities in Florida were just breaking out; and the President, in his message, thus notices all these events:
"The military movements rendered necessary by the aggressions of the hostile portions of the Seminole and Creek tribes of Indians, and by other circumstances, have required the active employment of nearly our whole regular force, including the marine corps, and of large bodies of militia and volunteers. With all these events, so far as they were known at the seat of government before the termination of your last session, you are already acquainted; and it is therefore only needful in this place to lay before you a brief summary of what has since occurred. The war with the Seminoles during the summer was, on our part, chiefly confined to the protection of our frontier settlements from the incursions of the enemy; and, as a necessary and important means for the accomplishment of that end, to the maintenance of the posts previously established. In the course of this duty several actions took place, in which the bravery and discipline of both officers and men were conspicuously displayed, and which I have deemed it proper to notice in respect to the former, by the granting of brevet rank for gallant services in the field. But as the force of the Indians was not so far weakened by these partial successes as to lead them to submit, and as their savage inroads were frequently repeated, early measures were taken for placing at the disposal of Governor Call, who, as commander-in-chief of the territorial militia, had been temporarily invested with the command, an ample force, for the purpose of resuming offensive operations in the most efficient manner, so soon as the season should permit. Major General Jesup was also directed, on the conclusion of his duties in the Creek country, to repair to Florida, and assume the command. Happily for the interests of humanity, the hostilities with the Creeks were brought to a close soon after your adjournment, without that effusion of blood, which at one time was apprehended as inevitable. The unconditional submission of the hostile party was followed by their speedy removal to the country assigned them west of the Mississippi. The inquiry as to the alleged frauds in the purchase of the reservations of these Indians, and the causes of their hostilities, requested by the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1st of July last to be made by the President, is now going on, through the agency of commissioners appointed for that purpose. Their report may be expected during your present session. The difficulties apprehended in the Cherokee country have been prevented, and the peace and safety of that region and its vicinity effectually secured, by the timely measures taken by the war department, and still continued."
The Bank of the United States was destined to receive another, and a parting notice from General Jackson, and greatly to its further discredit, brought upon it by its own lawless and dishonest course. Its charter had expired, and it had delayed to refund the stock paid for by the United States, or to pay the back dividend; and had transferred itself with all its effects, and all its subscribers except the United States, to a new corporation, under the same name, created by a proviso to a road bill in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, obtained by bribery, as subsequent legislative investigation proved. This transfer, or transmigration, was a new and most amazing procedure. The metempsychosis of a bank was a novelty which confounded and astounded the senses, and set the wits of Congress to work to find out how it could legally be done. The President, though a good lawyer and judge of law, did not trouble himself with legal subtleties and disquisitions. He took the broad, moral, practical, business view of the question; and pronounced it to be dishonest, unlawful, and irresponsible; and recommended to Congress to look after its stock. The message said: