[Here Mr. CAMBRELENG explained, and said that he meant the dutiable articles would not exceed that amount, but admitted that the importations would amount to $150,000,000.]

No,

Mr. PICKENS resumed, and said he did not so understand the gentleman before. But if the gentleman admits that our importations will equal $150,000,000, I am totally at a loss to perceive how he comes to the conclusion that our customs will then yield only $10,000,000. The system is biennial in its reduction, and then only amounting to ten per cent. If the whole importations are $150,000,000, unless the proportions vary entirely from what they have been heretofore, the dutiable articles must equal 66,000,000 of dollars, and this must yield a revenue of 17,000,000 of dollars, instead of $10,000,000. sir; with our increasing and wide-spreading popula tion, stretching itself over the exuberant valleys of the Mississippi-the vast schemes of internal improvements developing the resources of the interior-industry and enterprise, invigorating the remotest quarters of our land-all, all, proclaim the increasing means of a great people, with corresponding wants and demands. Under this prospect of things, I should be induced to think that in two years more our importations would reach 170,000,000 of dollars, and that our customs would yield $18,000,000. Your exports in cotton alone, for the year ending on the 1st of last October, sold for $73,000,000, and this year they will probably reach near $90,000,000. This was the article which, in the plenitude of your wisdom, you pronounced over-produced three years ago, when we raised less than ten hundred thousand bags, and sold it for less than nine cents, and you declared that production had then outrun demand. Last year we raised above 300,000 bags more, and sold it, notwithstanding your over-production, for sixteen cents. No man can foretell the developments of this country under a wise system of free trade. No man can foresee the immense increase of importations and exportations of a free and unrestrained people, with the freshness of the virgin wilderness before them.

The gentleman cannot make the surplus vanish by figures. Even if all the reasonable expenditures that have been officially asked for be made, we will have, on the 1st of January next, at least $46,000 000 of surplus in the Treasury, supposing the public lands to yield $17,000.000; and many put them as high as $25,000,000. Good faith and prudence demand that this should be deposited, not in the corporations of the States, but in the treasury of the separate States themselves, in proportion to their federal representation, they being respon sible for the payment. This would give us the faith and credit of the States instead of the banks. But of this, and of the gentleman's argument on the "land bill," I will say more on another occasion.

The gentleman, in his calculations to reduce the surplus, has placed $7,000,000 to be appropriated for Indian treaties, and in this I suppose he is correct. He also put down $5,000,000 for the Florida war. Mr. Chairman, I will not say that this is too much, but I will say that it is four times as much as it ought to have been. I will here take occasion also to say that this is one of the most disgraceful wars that has ever occurred-disgraceful in its origin, and of no credit to those who have had the termination of the first campaign. I am rather induced to believe that the gentleman from Vir ginia [Mr. WISE] has given us the true causes of this war. It is not improbable that it was engendered by iniquitous authority given to agents and others, who, under the vile pretext of seizing fugitive slaves and purchasing others before the emigration of the lawless savages could take place, attempted in some instances to seize even the children of their chiefs for bondage and sale, and then committed imposition and outrage until

[H. OF R.

suffering nature could bear it no longer. I forbear to say more at present, for I may be misinformed, and I trust, for humanity, and for the honor of our Government, that I may be. But I will say, that whatever may or may not have been the treatment of the Indians, I believe that many of those who have volunteered to defend your border have been, to say the least, treated with coldness and neglect. I do not stand here to complain for them. What they have suffered and borne, they have borne without a murmur, for the honor and character of their State. But representing, as I do, perhaps as many of these spirited men as any other gentleman, take occasion to say that they volunteered their services, not, as the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. ADAMS] sneeringly says, because it was to them "fat business," but to defend your exposed frontiers, after this Government, from neglect and injustice, had involved us in a cruel and merciless war of plunder and murder. These very men who have so honorably sustained your stars and your stripes, were from amongst those whom your Govern ment press here, and its pensioned bands, have denounced for the last two years as traitors to their country. And what has been the fact? While they have gone forth to encounter hardship and exposure in vindication of your honor and your power, those who, some years since, were so eager to exhibit their patriotism by volunteering in a civil war of extermination to be waged on their own brethren, have made no move in this recent war to let off the exuberance of their spirit, but have kept back in that silence which belongs to their servility. After all that our citizens have done in this unfortunate savage war, it ill becomes the officer you placed there to command them, considering that he had but recently come fresh from the fields of his triumph in manœuvring and strategy-I say it little becomes him to cast a sneer over them as "volunteers," and not "good troops."

But, sir, to return. The gentleman from New York, [Mr. CAMBRELENG,] to exhaust the surplus, has put down $10,000,000 for the war in which we will be involved with Mexico on our Southwestern borders.

Mr. Chairman, to say the least of it, this declaration, coming from one who bears such a relation to this House and country as the gentleman does, was as imprudent as any thing could well be. Every thing relating to the affairs of Texas involves questions of the deepest and most delicate interest, and it does not become us at present to say or do any thing that may lead to embarrassment. I trust there will be no war to which the gentleman alludes. Whatever may be the power or policy of those Governments that are in their nature unlimited, I hold that, under our constitution, which we are sworn to defend, with its limited trust powers conferred on us for the interest and benefit of this people, we have no right to go into a war except purely for self-defence. There are certain great moral obligations which should ever bind Governments as well as individuals, and which, particularly under our peculiar institutions, should never be forgotten on any occasion, no matter how tempting. A war with Mexico, for conquest, would lead to a con. flict with European Powers, the end of which it would not be casy to foretell. I have as much cause to feel sympathy as most gentlemen, for I had the companion of my boyhood-the friend of my maturer years-brave, chivalrous, and daring to the highest degree, inhumanly butchered in the fall of the Alamo. But I shall never suffer the feelings and sympathies of my heart to prompt me, under impulse, to do any thing calculated to involve others in consequences the most serious, unless under a case of clear justification.

But, sir, whatever may have been the calculations of gentlemen, the recent glorious and triumphant victory gained to the arms of Texas has entirely dispelled them.

I deprecated debate heretofore, because I feared that it might lead to consequences calculated to embarrass the negotiating power of this Government. I frankly avow that it is an object near and dear to my heart, to acquire Texas for this Union. Sir, I desire this, not, as has been said, to extend the boundaries of slavery, but for the purpose of extending the boundaries of liberty. Who is there so cold and heartless that he would desire to limit the confines of this great and growing republic? If even all the nations of Christendom were anxious to adopt our constitution, and cover themselves under its principles, is there a man here whose heart would not beat, and whose eye would not kindle with joy, at the anticipation of such an event? And who is there so nar. row and contracted that would not extend our union and protection to those who are our neighbors, who speak our language-identified with us as they are in interest and in feeling-who went from our fire-sides and from our altars, who are our own brethren and relatives? Who is there among us that would turn his hand upon the hardy enterprise of a brave and daring people?

Yes, sir! they are ours by position; ours by all the sympathies of our nature, ours by all the bonds of interest; ours by all the ties that can bind man to his fellowman. I desire their union, not because it would strengthen the slaveholding States-I scorn to place it upon any such narrow grounds-but because I desire to nurture with our fostering care a noble empire for the free, just now quickening into life; because I desire that our banner may float aloft, and that the whole race of civilized man shall sleep in peace under its broad and benignant folds.

Mr. Chairman, I come now to examine some of the abstract doctrines which fell from the gentleman from New York, [Mr. CAMBRELENG,] and which I heard with profound astonishment. The gentleman, after speaking of the triumphs of the democracy, proclaimed that he hoped the time was soon coming when the people would declare, in language not to be mistaken, "that no legis. lation should bind posterity." Sir, if this sentiment had been uttered only by the colleague of the gentleman on my extreme right, [Mr. MOORE,] it would have excited in me no attention, for I took that gentleman's wild declamation to be better suited for the "loco foco" party in the streets of New York than for the halls of legislation; but coming as it did from the chairman of the "Ways and Means," who from his years and experience may be supposed not to speak without reflection, it is a doctrine which deserves the most serious attention of this country. Lam aware that this doctrine claims for its origin high authority-authority which in my opinion has been looked to with full as much reverence as it deserves. I am aware that it has recently been promul. gated in an ingenious pamphlet from Ohio against all corporations, and that it is openly preached in the Northern and middle sections of this Union, where in all probability it will soon become the popular doctrine of the day.

What, sir! no legislation bind posterity! Push this doctrine to its consequences, and where does it lead to? What becomes of your public faith? What becomes of your national honor? Let it be known that those treaties which bind you in your intercourse with the nations of the earth are to be disregarded and defied by the whim, the interest, or the ambition, of the ascendant party of to-day, and we must then necessarily be excluded from civilized society. No legislation bind posterity! What bore us in glory and in triumph through the war of our Revolution, but that legislation which bound posterity to redeem the debt incurred to sustain your armies upon the field of battle? What sustained us through the second war of our independence, but the power to pledge the resources of this nation for the great purposes of self

[MAY 23, 1836.

preservation? Is this Congress to do nothing that can bind those who are to come after us? Go back at once and tear up your declaration of independence itself— scatter into a thousand pieces the parchment of your constitution, and substitute, in the place thereof, the shouts of a mob proclaiming their triumphs of to-day, or the power of a lawless multitude waving over a bloodstained land the sceptre of anarchy to-morrow. No legislation bind posterity! Where is faith? Where is honor? Where is public law? Where is public morality? Sir, this is a doctrine at war with peace, policy, and honor. It breaks down all that is venerable, virtuous, and consecrated, in the institutions of civilization itself. If this be the doctrine that the gentleman and the party with which he is identified intend practically to enforce in this country, I can tell him, that when he attempts it, a bundred thousand plumes will wave over a hundred thousand lances, couched to vindicate all those sacred rights which have been acquired under the plighted faith of this Government.

But, sir, the gentleman dropped another remark that struck me with peculiar force. He asserted that the time would soon come when the Government should sell the public lands to none but emigrants who were actual settlers. Where is the right under the constitution by which this Government would attempt to exclude any class of free citizens from purchases of the public do main? Where is the right by which you shall claim to distribute it amongst a particular class? If it be intended by this to feed the appetite and minister to the desires of that class who may have no peculiar ties or interests to bind them to the place of their nativity—if it be in. tended to catch that class who move through the land from one end to the other, having no home, and feeling for no country-then it is vile agrarianism. Has it come to this, that a man is to be excluded from the benefits and privileges under this Government because, by in. dustry, economy, or enterprise, he should be so fortunate as to accumulate property, or because he may hap pen to be associated with others who have? Are citizens whose ties and interests may bind them to reside in one State, to be excluded from holding a freehold in another? If this system of selling alone to a certain class be intended by the gentleman as an equal division of the public domain, then he should remember, that when the Roman people came to receive their distribution from the public granaries, they became prostituted and debased. When their conquering generals came loaded with the spoils of devastated provinces, and were enabled to deal out bread and bounties to this class or that class, then, through bribery and corruption, they bought their way to power over the prostrate liberties of their country.

But the gentleman made another declaration, which I confess filled my heart with the most gloomy forebodings for the future. After speaking of the bloated state of things in the country at present, he concluded by declaring that "the whole nation was now one common gambling house!" Considering the position he occupies in this House, and the relation he bears to the dom. inant party that now rules this confederacy-considering that, from his residence, he must be intimately acquainted with the secret springs of speculation and commerce--I confess I heard this solemn declaration with no ordinary emotions. This nation one common gambling house! And who made it so? Let those who hold the reins of Government answer this awful question. Mr. Chairman, next to the omnipotence and omnipresence of that superintend ing Providence that moves upon the affairs of the world, there is no power that exercises so great an influence over the feelings, the sentiments, and the very nature of man, as the Government that acts upon him, and those who administer its authority. Let an individual become

MAY 23, 1836.]

[H. OF R.

binding upon him, by all the principles of sound morality, as his pledged honor in private; and he who would wan. tonly disregard the one would violate the other. Those public men who notoriously set at defiance all the pledges that they have ever made, go very far to set an example well calculated to produce looseness of morality and general profligacy, all tending to make the nation a common "gambling-house," where falsehood and treachery hold a triumphant sway.

And, sir, when it is now announced that our "nation is one common gambling-house," let those who sit on the seats of power tremble for the future. They may pass through this world, and receive its applause; they may proclaim in triumph that they have received the approbation of their country, and when the gnawings of a guilty conscience shall be felt, they may pour upon it the sweet unction that rises from the huzzas of a passing mob; but when they shall have gone through these scenes, and shall come to that last sad day when the se. crets and recesses of the human heart shall be laid open before a tribunal that is never deceived and that never errs; when they rise before the searching eye of an avenging God, then let the question be asked, who made this nation one common gambling house; and, if I mistake not, you will see them quake and tremble as did Babylon's corrupt and revelling crew when they beheld upon the wall the handwriting that announced their guilt and proclaimed their destiny.

Mr. Chairman, I propose to examine, who “made us one common gambling-house." Another gentleman from New York [Mr. McKEON] took this occasion to pass a eulogy upon the present administration. He also exhibited the claims of the different candidates for the presidency, making all merely sectional, except one, who stood upon broad and enlarged principles, that embraced the whole Union-who stood pledged to carry out the principles of the present administration. And this gentleman, at the conclusion of his remarks, with quite as much modesty as discretion, thought proper to read us a lecture on parties, deprecating all party topics, as not to be drawn into discussion on this great bill of so much interest. Yes, sir, this Pharisaical party, who arrogate to themselves all virtue, and thank God that they are not as other men, have the effrontery to call upon us to hold our peace, while they stand pledged to carry out the principles of the present administration! Let us briefly look back and see what are these principles.

One of the first avowals of principle was the indirect pledge made by the President in his famous letter to the Tennessee Legislature, in which he laid it down that no member of Congress should be appointed to office during his membership, and for two years afterwards. The next great pledge made in the canvass was that no man should be dismissed from office for opinion's sake. This principle was indirectly avowed by the war made upon those who were supposed to have done so. Then came the celebrated inaugural, in which reform! reform! stood out in bold relief in every line. The "Augean stables were to be cleansed." Now, I hold that the public pledges which a man makes before the world are as VOL. XII.-243

What has been the fact with reference to the first pledge, to which I have alluded? More members of Congress have been appointed to office than under any three administrations since the commencement of the Government. And as to dismissals from office for political opinions, I have only to state the remarkable fact, that in all the administrations of this Government up to the present, all the dismissals together amount to only seventy-four, while in this administration there have been upwards of nine hundred; and two hundred and thirty of them important officers. Is this the principle the reform pledged in the inaugural, we have had it. This modern reform. has come over us, with all its blessings. True, there has been a change, but it has only been a change from those who were in office, to the vilest and most lawless crew that were ever raised up under the dispensations of Providence to scourge a degenerate and ungrateful people. Sycophancy and servility have taken the place of all the heroic and manly virtues. The rooks, together with obscene birds, have perched themselves in the high places of the land, and we sit here beneath, surrounded daily with their filth and putrified corruption. Office-holders (now become miserable dependants) and office-seekers infest every turn and corner; and let it be known that any man has influence, from his being the tool of those who have patronage to confer, and he is overwhelmed with the bowing and cringing of these slaves and beggars. Crowds of miserable hungry beings creep and crawl, in the darkness of midnight, through the hidden recesses and gloomy avenues that lead up to the throne of royal favor. These creatures, generated as they are in despotism, are pervading the country and becoming more loathsome than the creeping lice or "slimy frogs of Egypt" ever were in the days of God's judgments. This, sir, is the reform with which we are blessed.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot shut our eyes to what we see passing around us. The Government is virtually changed, and the people seem to be sinking into acquiescence. The dismissal of the first cabinet, upon the notorious principles involved, was an open avowal that arbitrary will should govern even in private circles. The war waged upon all the constituted authorities of the landupon the Supreme Court, upon the Senate, and even at first upon this House, because they were favorable to a recharter of the United States Bank, and then the ap peals constantly made to the people as one aggregate mass-all, all, announced, in language not to be mistaken, that the constitutional republic of States was to be broken down, and that a simple democracy of brutal numbers, with an elective and unlimited monarchy, was to be raised over the ruins.

The President has habitually, through flattery, appealed to the passions and prejudices of all that is ignoble and low in society, to sustain him in his reckless career upon the institutions of his country. In this he has pursued the course of all those who have intended to usurp the liberties of the people. Cæsar, when he crossed the Rubicon, did it to bless the people and preserve the laws. He refused the crown that was urged upon him, and then took royal power to please the people. By what authority is it that the President makes his appeals to the people, as contradistinguished from the

tance to the liberties of this country. It was then that the President, with the first officer of his cabinet, and the second officer of the Government, came into the dark recesses of this Capitol, and, through his vile minions and miserable tools, defeated a measure of vast importance, before this House, for the notorious purpose of waging a popular war upon the Senate. Cromwell went into the House of Commons, at the head of armed men, and ordered its dissolution. But here, sir, we have a President who comes not like a soldier, but at the head of his servile courtiers and sycophants, and practically asserts his ascendency over both branches of our Legislature by management and duplicity. Is this our independence under the constitution? Is this the check that we were designed to exercise by the provisions of that noble instrument? Where is the spirit of our forefathers? Better, far better for us to be "dogs, and bay the moon," or "toads, and feed on the vapor of a dungeon," than to hold our seats here only to disgrace the memory of those who have gone before us. I know that we are apt to become indifferent and callous under the habitual contemplation of evils which seem almost to forbid a remedy. And it is from this that liberty is lost. We sit here and see things which we have not the courage or manliness to resist.

What is now passing before this country in the history of the day? An attempt is now openly being made to expunge the constitution, and drag down the Senate in humble penitence before a master, for having dared to express an independent sentiment. If this succeeds, it will be the consummation of our downfal.

Sir, I am aware that under certain circumstances an individual may desire that his crimes should be expunged from the memory of man-I am aware that there are those who would desire to convert the whole earth into one universal pandemonium, only that they might become prominent from their very iniquity, and reign triumphant from their very guilt. But I am totally at a loss to understand the feelings that could prompt any human being to desire to see a whole body of men, intended by our ancestors to be exalted and independent, bowing around the throne of a lawless and reckless man, bearing in their hands the constitution to be burned, that the smoke thereof may rise to satiate his vengeance and appease his wrath. Sir, it is, it is the reign of Cæsar, and we are cowards, dastards, slaves, if we submit to this state of things, and shall deserve to have our children raise before us their little hands, and shake their manacles, saying, thou did it! thou did it!

Mr. Chairman, I have said that this is the reign of Cæsar. Sir, I have read the history of the Roman people to little advantage, if I am to be deceived at this late day in what I see passing around me. We are now where that people were when the empire was to be divided between Anthony, Octavius, and Lepidus. Cæsar had folded his robes and perished under the dagger of Brutus. And although we may have none at present with the fine talents and acquirements of Anthony, yet we have many with his private profligacy and abandoned principles. As to Lepidus, I need only point to the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. R. M. JOHNSON;] but, as he is a member of this House, I forbear to trace the parallel at present. The beardless Octavius had done nothing to identify himself with the glory and the honor of his country, but he became prominent from the fact that he was supposed to inherit the sympathy that was then running so strong in favor of the fallen Cæsar. Wary, artful, and sagacious, he saw his position, and made the most of it.

We too have a modern Octavius, who, winding his way under the robes of royal favor, proclaims himself the true and anointed successor, pledged to carry out the principles of his master. What other earthly claim

[H. OF R.

has the Vice President to his present position, except that he is supposed to be the chosen favorite of him who has trampled over the liberties of his country? The gentleman from New York [Mr. McKEON] has declared him to be the only candidate who has claims upon the whole Union.

For the present I pass by an investigation into his political principles, and shall only refer to one document, which speaks a language not to be mistaken, and develops the feelings and the nature of the man-which writes his history and his character more fully than all the volumes that can be composed by a flattering biographer. No man can read it without knowing its author. It is a letter written from London, in answer to a committee in New York, who condoled with him for his rejection as minister to the court of St. James. I will read from it the following extract in relation to General Jackson:

"In testimony to my public conduct, they are pleased to speak with eulogium of me, as contributing, while in the cabinet, to the success of the present administration. That signal success, I feel called upon to declare, is pre-eminently due to the political sagacity, unwearying industry, and upright, straight-forward course, of our present venerated chief. All the humble merit I can claim is, that of having exerted myself to the utmost to execute his patriotic and single-hearted views, and of having sacrificed all personal considerations to insure their success, when threatened with extraneous embarrassments. That my exertions were arduous, painful, and incessant, I may, without vanity, assert; whether my sacrifices have not been repaid with unmerited detraction and reproach, I leave to my countrymen to determine. Still I shall ever regard my situation in that cabinet as one of the most fortunate events of my life, placing, as it did, me in close and familiar relation with one who has well been described by Mr. Jefferson as "possessing more of the Roman in his character than any man living," and whose administration will be looked to, in future times, as a golden era in our history. To have served under such a chief, at such a time, and to have won his confidence and esteem, is a sufficient glory; and of that, thank God, my enemies cannot deprive me."

Mr. Chairman, I am perfectly aware that many a man might have uttered such sentiments without any extraor dinary degradation. If they had come from one who had forever retired into private life, it would have been of no great importance. If they had come from one who was humble and lowly, and had received private favors from a benefactor, it would have attracted no attention. But coming as they did from one who was artful and sagacious-who had fixed his eye on the first offices of his country, with an ambition that has never varied--who was gazing with eagerness for partisan support--I say, sir, that under all the circumstances of the case, they are base, vile, degraded, and degrading sentiments, which no freeman ever conceived in his heart, and none but a flatterer ever uttered. If I am to have a leader, in the name of all that is lofty and honorable, let him be one who has the feelings, the independence, the heart, of a man. If I am to follow, let it not be one who cringes before, and fawns upon, the hand of a master. Every feeling of my soul revolts with scorn and indignation at such sentiments.

But, sir, look around, and what is the glaring fact in the history of the day? These sentiments have had their weight. Is not the whole patronage and power of this Government, at this moment, wielded for the open purpose of rewarding their author? Is it to be disguised that the Baltimore convention assembled to nominate a successor under the dictation of the President? Is there a man, who has sagacity to perceive consequences, that