in the national convention to authorize Congress to construct canals. (3 Mad. Papers, 1516-7.) A scheme which, if carried out to the extent proposed, would have cost two hundred millions of dollars. The aristocratic and dangerous policy of this administration led to a second struggle between the two great parties, which resulted in another decisive victory of the democracy.

The result of this victory was most propitious to the welfare of the American people. Under the administration of Andrew Jackson, the corrupting and unconstitutional system of internal improvements, devised under the auspices of his predecessor, was arrested, and the attempt of the Bank of the United States to obtain a recharter was signally defeated. For the defeat of these ruinous measures, the country is indebted to the uncompromising, fearless and persevering opposition of Andrew Jackson. His Maysville road veto put an end to the internal improvement system, and his bank veto gave the national bank its quietus. Other schemes analogous to those advocated by the early federalists, were started by the modern federalists in Congress during the administrations of General Jackson and of Mr. Van Buren, viz. the distribution of the public lands among the states, although they were ceded as a common fund for the joint use and benefit of the United States, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever; a high tariff; the collection of a revenue for distribution; and an assumption of the state debts. The policy of the modern federalists is the same as that of their prototypes.

The party now self-styled whig, is the old federal party under a new name. Its identity with that party is proved by the principles it professes. The present whig party advocate a national bank; the construction of internal improvements by the general government without limitation; the collection of a revenue for distribution; high taxes by means of a high tariff; distribution of the public domain; and an assumption of the state debts. In fine, they advocate the exercise by the general government of every constructive power, advocated by the old federal party; and in humble imitation of that party, maintain practically the dangerous doctrine that "a na

tional debt is a national blessing." They are politically the legitimate and lineal descendants of the federalists of the Adams and Hamiltonian school. In many instances they have improved upon the aristocracy of their predecessors. Departing from the sound and strict construction of the constitution, and embarking upon the wide sea of latitudinarianism, the construe the constitution to mean any thing and every thing, which expediency or partisan interests may dictate. No limit can be assigned to the enlargement of the powers of the general government, under the ancient federal and present whig doctrine of construction. The amendment to the constitution, which reserves to the states or to the people all powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, has with these federal and whig politicians become a dead letter. Every new power with which the federal aristocracy may desire to fortify the general government, may by their dangerous doctrine of constructive powers, be brought within the constitutional authority of Congress. They have only to say that the new power is necessary and proper for carrying into execution" some enumerated power, (and the terms “ necessary" and "proper" they define to mean expedient, useful, or convenient,) and by their mode of reasoning they prove that the new power may be constitutionally exercised. In this manner the federal party maintains that a national bank is constitutional; that Congress has power to make roads and canals; to distribute the proceeds of the sales of the public lands and the public revenues among the states; to create a high tariff, for the purpose of raising revenue for distribution; to assume the state debts, thereby to apply the moneys of the whole people in payment of the individual debts of the several states.

The inevitable tendency of these doctrines is to a powerful, gigantic, consolidated government; that species of government which John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and all the early federalists sought to establish. Unless the power is arrested from the hands which now possess it, our government will ere long, under the malign rule of the federal aristocracy, cease to be a government of

limited powers; its republican character will be lost; and it will give place to the absolutism and corruption of a monarchy: we shall have the arbitrariness of the British model, accompanied by its venality and corruption; we shall have a centralization of all power in the federal head; an overthrow of the state sovereignties; state rights and the liberties of the people will be swallowed up in the great national reservoir of political power created by these descendants and servile imitators of the Hamiltonian federalists.

The present crisis is pregnant with the vital interests of the American people. The federal party having by fraud, corruption, deception, and misrepresentation, obtained the control in the councils of the nation, are preparing to make use of their short-lived supremacy in inflicting upon the people the most dangerous, as well as the most ruinous, of the ultra measures of ancient federalism. First in their affections, and first in its powers of mischief, stands the national bank. Twice since 1831 has the verdict of the American people been rendered against this dangerous institution. In defiance of this verdict, which stands unreversed; in defiance of the determined hostility of a great majority of the American people to this measure of the aristocracy; the present whig party are preparing to inflict this curse upon the country. During the recent election, the whigs refused to submit the question of a national bank to the decision of the grand inquest of the people. But now, having by unnatural and heterogeneous alliances, by concealment of principles, by misrepresentation, imposition and fraud, obtained the ascendency, they do not hesitate to fasten upon the country an institution condemned by the people, and one which Jefferson declared was "of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our constitution." And they are preparing to commit this great wrong with the example of the late Bank of the United States before their eyes, which, after waging war against the government and the people, purchasing presses and men like cattle in the market, making loans to members of Congress, gambling in state stocks, speculating in cotton, and demoralizing the community, at

length lays prostrate in bankruptcy and ruin, the victim of its own abuses. Nothing but the thunder tones of indignation from an injured and insulted people will save them from the dread calamity of the re-incorporation of a national bank. To enable the party in power to carry out their scheme of a national bank, it will be necessary for them to create a stock of the United States, to form a part of the capital of the bank. To do this, a national debt must be created. None now exists. The difficulty will no doubt be obviated by an assumption of the state debts. Here then we shall have two of the chief blessings of federalism, a national bank and a national debt, bestowed upon us by the whig party, into whose hands the government of the Union has fallen.

These are not the only federal blessings of which we are likely to be the victims. The good old democratic notions of economy in the public expenditures, of freedom from debt and taxation, of the importance of light burdens to the happiness, freedom, and prosperity of the people are all to be abandoned. We are to have a high tariff, which means high taxes, imposed indirectly upon teas, coffee, and other great articles of necessity, adding to their cost some twenty-five to thirty per cent., which will operate most oppressively upon the whole people, and especially upon the poor. The public lands, the common property of the whole Union, are to be divided among the states, at a time when their proceeds are wanted to meet the ordinary expenses of the government, to extend and repair our national defences, and to sustain our army and navy, and the deficiency in the revenue which this abstraction will produce is to be supplied by increasing the duties on imports, and thus adding to the burdens of the people. The gigantic system of internal improvement is to be revived and prosecuted under the new impulse,— and under the guidance of the federal principle that a national debt is a national blessing. The tendency of all these measures is (in the language of Jefferson) to a "consolidation by the federal government in itself of all power, foreign and domestic; and that too by constructions, which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power." The party now in power also threaten to repeal the act

establishing an independent treasury; that great democratic measure of Mr. Van Buren, which separated bank from state, and divorced the money from the political power; a measure which reflects infinite honor upon the late President, and has won for him the approbation and admiration of every true republican, and of every sincere lover of his country. Not content to give this measure a fair experiment, and intent upon reuniting bank and state, and reviving the corrupting and demoralizing influences of that meretricious connection, the whig party seems resolved to repeal the act establishing the independent treasury, and to substitute in its place, as the fiscal agent of the government, an overshadowing gigantic national bank.

As a further proof of the aristocratic character of the present whig party, of their contempt of the rights of the people, and of their innate hostility to free institutions, and the principle upon which they are founded, we may refer to the numerous frauds and acts of violence committed by them, in order to set aside the popular will, and to retain or acquire power. Witness the infamous determination of the Pennsylvania whigs in 1838, to treat the election of Gov. Porter and of the eight democratic members of assembly of the county of Philadelphia, as if it had not happened, and to declare Gov. Ritner elected. And witness the unscrupulous and traitorous attempt to maintain this usurpation by force of arms. And witness a similar attempt made by the same party in the House of Representatives of the United States, in December, 1839, to admit to seats in that body, five whigs who had been rejected by the people of New Jersey, but who had, notwithstanding that rejection, fraudulently obtained from the whig governor of that state a false certificate of their election. And witness also the fact that this foul fraud was sanctioned by the whig majority of the legislature of this state.

To these cases we may add, that of the importation of fraudulent voters from Philadelphia to the city of New York, in the fall of 1838, by which means, one senator, four members of Congress, and thirteen members of assembly were elected. In this nefarious transaction, men 33

VOL. II.