SPEECHES

OF

HENRY CLAY.

ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD BILL.

IN SENATE, FEBRUARY 11, 1835.

[THE Cumberland Road was always a pet enterprise with Mr. Clay. The first appropriation for this road was made in 1802, under Mr. Jefferson's administration. Its eastern terminus was Cumberland on the Potomac, from which it takes its name. Thence it was projected to Wheeling on the Ohio, crossing the Alleganies; from Wheeling to Columbus, Ohio; and thence westward through Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, to Jefferson, the capital of the latter State. It has never yet reached Indiana, and probably never will, as a national work. It is now, in a great measure, superseded by railroads. After Mr. Clay went to Congress in 1806, and while he was there, this great national work required and realized his constant attention and zealous advocacy. It was owing to his exertions chiefly that it ever reached Wheeling, and passed on so far into the State of Ohio. The last appropriations made for this road were in 1834 and 1835, with a view of repairing it, and giving it over to the States through which it passed, if they would accept it, and keep it in repair. It was on a bill for the last appropriation of three hundred and forty thousand dollars, that Mr. Clay made the following speech.]

MR. CLAY remarked, that he would not have said a word then, but for the introduction in this discussion of collateral matters, not immediately connected with it. He meant to vote for the appropriation contained in the bill, and he should do so with pleasure, because, under all the circumstances of the case, he felt himself called upon by a sense of imperative necessity to yield his assent to the appropriation. The road would be

abandoned, and all the expenditures which had heretofore been made upon it would have been entirely thrown away, unless they now succeeded in obtaining an appropriation to put the road in a state of repair. Now, he did not concur with the gentleman (Mr. Ewing), that Ohio could, as a matter of strict right, demand of the government to keep this road in repair. And why so? Because, by the terms of the compact, under the operation of which the road was made, there was a restricted and defined fund, set apart in order to accomplish that object. And that fund measured the obligation of the government. It had been, however, long since exhausted. There was no obligation, then, on the part of the government, to keep the road in repair. But he was free to admit, that considerations of policy would prompt it to adopt that course, in order that an opportunity should be presented to the States to take it into their own hands.

The honorable senator from Pennsylvania felicitated himself on having, at a very early epoch, discovered the unconstitutionality of the general government's erecting toll-gates upon this road, and he voted against the first measure to carry that object into execution. He (Mr. Clay) must say, that for himself, he thought the general government had a right to adopt that course which it deemed necessary for the preservation of a road which was made under its own authority. And as a legitimate consequence from the power of making a road, was derived the power of making an improvement on it. That was established; and, on that point he was sure the honorable gentleman did not differ from those who were in favor of establishing toll-gates at the period to which he had alluded. He would repeat, that, if the power to make a road were conceded, it followed, as a legitimate consequence from that power, that the general government had a right to preserve it. And, if the right to do so, there was no mode of preservation more fitting and suitable, than that which resulted from a moderate toll for keeping up the road, and thus continuing it for all time to come.

The opinion held by the honorable senator, at the period to which he had adverted, was not the general opinion. He would well remember that the power which he (Mr. Clay) contended, did exist, was sustained in the other branch of the Legislature by large majorities. And in that Senate, if he was not mistaken, there were but nine dissentients from the existence of it. If his recollection deceived him not, he had the pleasure of concurring with the distinguished individual who now presided over the deliberations of that body. He thought that he (the vice-president) in common with the majority of the Senate and House of Representatives, coincided in the belief, that a road, constructed under the orders of the general government, ought to be preserved by the authority which brought it into being. Now, that was his, (Mr. Clay's) opinion still. He was not one of those who, on this or any other great national subject, had changed his opinion in consequence of being wrought upon by various conflicting circumstances.

With regard to the general power of making internal improvements, as far as it existed in the opinions he had frequently expressed in both Houses,

his opinion was unaltered. But with respect to the expediency of exercising that power, at any period, it must depend upon the circumstances of the times. And, in his opinion, the power was to be found in the Constitution. This belief he had always entertained, and it remained unshaken. He could not coincide in the opinion expressed by the honorable senator from Pennsylvania and the honorable senator from Massachusetts, in regard to the disposition that was to be made of this road.

What, he would ask, had been stated on all hands? That the Cumberland road was a great national object in which all the people of the United States were interested and concerned; that we are interested in our corporate capacity, on account of the stake we possessed in the public domain, and that we were consequently benefited by that road; that the people of the West were interested in it; as a common thoroughfare to all places from one side of the country to the other. Now, what was the principle of the arrangement that had been entered into? It was this common object, this national object, this object in which the people of this country were interested; its care, its preservation, was to be confided to different States, having no special motive or interest in its preservation; and, therefore, not responsible for the consequences that might result. The people of Kentucky and Indiana, and of the States west of those States, as well as the people living on the eastern side of the mountains, were all interested in the use and occupation of this road, which, instead of being retained and kept under the control of that common government in which all had a share, their interest in it was to be confided to the local jurisdictions through which the road passed; and thus the States, generally, were to depend upon the manner in which they should perform their duties; upon those having no sympathy with them, having no regard for their interest, but left to do as they chose in regard to the preservation of this road.

He would say that the principle was fundamentally wrong. He protested against it; had done so from the first, and did so again now. It was a great national object, and they might as well give the care of the mint to Pennsylvania, the protection of the breakwater, or of the public vessels in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, to the respective Legislatures of the States in which that property was situated, as give the care of a great national road, in which the whole people of the United States were concerned, to the care of a few States which were acknowledged to have no particular interest in it-States having so little interest in that great work, that they would not repair it when offered to their hands.

But he said, he would vote for this appropriation; he was compelled to vote for it by the force of circumstances over which he had no control. He had seen, in reference to internal improvements, and other measures of a national character, not individuals, merely, but whole masses, entire communities, prostrating their own settled opinions, to which they had conformed for a half a century, wheel to the right or the left, march this way

or that, according as they saw high authority for it. And he saw that there was no way of preserving this great object, which afforded such vast facilities to the western States, no other mode of preserving it, but by a reluctant acquiescence in a course of policy, which all, at least, had not contributed to produce, but which was formed to operate on the country, and from which there lay no appeal.

Mr. Clay, in conclusion, again reiterated that he should vote for the appropriation in this bill, although very reluctantly, and with the protest, that the road in question, being the common property of the whole nation, and under the guardianship of the general government, ought not to be treacherously parted from by it, and put into the hands of the local governments, who felt no interest in the matter.

ON THE APPOINTING AND REMOVING POWER.

IN SENATE, FEBRUARY 18, 1835.

[GENERAL JACKSON inaugurated the system of removing from and appointing to office, in reward of those whom the incumbent of the presidential chair supposed had most contributed to his election, and to punish office-holders who had not been his zealous partisans. A bird's-eye survey will demonstrate the pernicious influence of the application of this principle, on the whole executive government of the country. It is not he who has best served his country, or who is best qualified to serve it, but he who has best served, and who promises best to serve, the incumbent of the presidential chair, that is entitled to office under that incumbent. Such had not been the rule previous to General Jackson's administration, but it was he who was best qualified. This was a revolution in the government, and one of the worst kind of revolutions, inciting men to the service of a candidate with that expectation, and constraining them to the same personal service of the successful candidate, for whatever object, after he is elected. In this way, a president of energetic character might destroy the liberties of the country by an army of a hundred thousand office-holders, who must do his will, or lose their places. It can not but be seen, that the introduction of this principle of government has been one of the greatest misfortunes, and that it is likely to be one of the greatest perils of the country.

Shocked and alarmed at this state of things, the Senate of the Twenty-fourth Congress had brought in a bill requiring the president, in cases of dismission from office, to communicate to the Senate the reasons; to which Mr. Clay proposed an amendment, “that, in all instances of appointment to office by the president, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, the power of removal shall be exercised only in concurrence with the Senate," etc. The bill and the amendment covered the whole ground, and if it had passed into law, it would have restored the