Kitabı oku: «Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)», sayfa 24

CHAPTER XLIII.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GLOBE NEWSPAPER

At a presidential levee in the winter of 1830-'31, Mr. Duff Green, editor of the Telegraph newspaper, addressed a person then and now a respectable resident of Washington city (Mr. J. M. Duncanson), and invited him to call at his house, as he had something to say to him which would require a confidential interview. The call was made, and the object of the interview disclosed, which was nothing less than to engage his (Mr. Duncanson's) assistance in the execution of a scheme in relation to the next presidential election, in which General Jackson should be prevented from becoming a candidate for re-election, and Mr. Calhoun should be brought forward in his place. He informed Mr. Duncanson that a rupture was impending between General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun; that a correspondence had taken place between them, brought about (as he alleged) by the intrigues of Mr. Van Buren; that the correspondence was then in print, but its publication delayed until certain arrangements could be made; that the democratic papers at the most prominent points in the States were to be first secured; and men well known to the people as democrats, but in the exclusive interest of Mr. Calhoun, placed in charge of them as editors; that as soon as the arrangements were complete, the Telegraph would startle the country with the announcement of the difficulty (between General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun), and the motive for it; and that all the secured presses, taking their cue from the Telegraph, would take sides with Mr. Calhoun, and cry out at the same time; and the storm would seem to be so universal, and the indignation against Mr. Van Buren would appear to be so great, that even General Jackson's popularity would be unable to save him.

Mr. Duncanson was then invited to take part in the execution of this scheme, and to take charge of the Frankfort (Kentucky) Argus; and flattering inducements held out to encourage him to do so. Mr. Duncanson expressed surprise and regret at all that he heard – declared himself the friend of General Jackson, and of his re-election – opposed to all schemes to prevent him from being a candidate again – a disbeliever in their success, if attempted – and made known his determination to reveal the scheme, if it was not abandoned. Mr. Green begged him not to do so – said that the plan was not fully agreed upon; and might not be carried out. This was the end of the first interview. A few days afterwards Mr. Green called on Mr. Duncanson, and informed him that a rupture was now determined upon, and renewed his proposition that he should take charge of some paper, either as proprietor, or as editor on a liberal salary – one that would tell on the farmers and mechanics of the country, and made so cheap as to go into every workshop and cabin. Mr. Duncanson was a practical printer – owned a good job office – was doing a large business, especially for the departments – and only wished to remain as he was. Mr. Green offered, in both interviews, to relieve him from that concern by purchasing it from him, and assured him that he would otherwise lose the printing of the departments, and be sacrificed. Mr. Duncanson again refused to have any thing to do with the scheme, consulted with some friends, and caused the whole to be communicated to General Jackson. The information did not take the General by surprise; it was only a confirmation of what he well suspected, and had been wisely providing against. The history of the movement in Mr. Monroe's cabinet, to bring him before a military court, for his invasion of Spanish territory during the Seminole war, had just come to his knowledge; the doctrine of nullification had just been broached in Congress; his own patriotic toast: "The Federal Union: it must be preserved" – had been delivered; his own intuitive sagacity told him all the rest – the breach with Mr. Calhoun, the defection of the Telegraph, and the necessity for a new paper at Washington, faithful, fearless and incorruptible.

The Telegraph had been the central metropolitan organ of his friends and of the democratic party, during the long and bitter canvass which ended in the election of General Jackson, in 1828. Its editor had been gratified with the first rich fruits of victory – the public printing of the two Houses of Congress, the executive patronage, and the organship of the administration. The paper was still (in 1830) in its columns, and to the public eye, the advocate and supporter of General Jackson; but he knew what was to happen, and quietly took his measures to meet an inevitable contingency. In the summer of 1830, a gentleman in one of the public offices showed him a paper, the Frankfort (Kentucky) Argus, containing a powerful and spirited review of a certain nullification speech in Congress. He inquired for the author, ascertained him to be Mr. Francis P. Blair – not the editor, but an occasional contributor to the Argus– and had him written to on the subject of taking charge of a paper in Washington. The application took Mr. Blair by surprise. He was not thinking of changing his residence and pursuits. He was well occupied where he was – clerk of the lucrative office of the State Circuit Court at the capital of the State, salaried president of the Commonwealth Bank (by the election of the legislature), and proprietor of a farm and slaves in that rich State. But he was devoted to General Jackson and his measures, and did not hesitate to relinquish his secure advantages at home to engage in the untried business of editor at Washington. He came – established the Globe newspaper – and soon after associated with John C. Rives, – a gentleman worthy of the association and of the confidence of General Jackson and of the democratic party: and under their management the paper became the efficient and faithful organ of the administration during the whole period of his service, and that of his successor, Mr. Van Buren. It was established in time, and just in time, to meet the advancing events at Washington City. All that General Jackson had foreseen in relation to the conduct of the Telegraph, and all that had been communicated to him through Mr. Duncanson, came to pass: and he found himself, early in the first term of his administration, engaged in a triple war – with nullification, the Bank of the United States, and the whig party: – and must have been without defence or support from the newspaper press at Washington had it not been for his foresight in establishing the Globe.

CHAPTER XLIV.
LIMITATION OF PUBLIC LAND SALES. SUSPENSION OF SURVEYS. ABOLITION OF THE OFFICE OF SURVEYOR GENERAL. ORIGIN OF THE UNITED STATES LAND SYSTEM. AUTHORSHIP OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY ORDINANCE OF 1778. SLAVERY CONTROVERSY. PROTECTIVE TARIFF. INCEPTION OF THE DOCTRINE OF NULLIFICATION

At the commencement of the session 1829-'30, Mr. Foot, of Connecticut, submitted in the Senate a resolution of inquiry which excited much feeling among the western members of that body. It was a proposition to inquire into the expediency of limiting the sales of the public lands to those then in market – to suspend the surveys of the public lands – and to abolish the office of Surveyor General. The effect of such a resolution, if sanctioned upon inquiry and carried into legislative effect, would have been to check emigration to the new States in the West – to check the growth and settlement of these States and territories – and to deliver up large portions of them to the dominion of wild beasts. In that sense it was immediately taken up by myself, and other western members, and treated as an injurious proposition – insulting as well as injurious – and not fit to be considered by a committee, much less to be reported upon and adopted. I opened the debate against it in a speech, of which the following is an extract:

"Mr. Benton disclaimed all intention of having anything to do with the motives of the mover of the resolution: he took it according to its effect and operation, and conceiving this to be eminently injurious to the rights and interests of the new States and Territories, he should justify the view which he had taken, and the vote he intended to give, by an exposition of facts and reasons which would show the disastrous nature of the practical effects of this resolution.

"On the first branch of these effects – checking emigration to the West – it is clear, that, if the sales are limited to the lands now in market, emigration will cease to flow; for these lands are not of a character to attract people at a distance. In Missouri they are the refuse of forty years picking under the Spanish Government, and twenty more under the Government of the United States. The character and value of this refuse had been shown, officially, in the reports of the Registers and Receivers, made in obedience to a call from the Senate. Other gentlemen would show what was said of it in their respective States; he would confine himself to his own, to the State of Missouri, and show it to be miserable indeed. The St. Louis District, containing two and a quarter millions of acres, was estimated at an average value of fifteen cents per acre; the Cape Girardeau District, containing four and a half millions of acres, was estimated at twelve and a half cents per acre; the Western District, containing one million and three quarters of acres, was estimated at sixty-two and a half cents; from the other two districts there was no intelligent or pertinent return; but assuming them to be equal to the Western District, and the average value of the lands they contain would be only one half the amount of the present minimum price. This being the state of the lands in Missouri which would be subject to sale under the operation of this resolution, no emigrants would be attracted to them. Persons who remove to new countries want new lands, first choices; and if they cannot get these, they have no sufficient inducement to move.

"The second ill effect to result from this resolution, supposing it to ripen into the measures which it implies to be necessary would be in limiting the settlements in the new States and Territories. This limitation of settlement would be the inevitable effect of confining the sales to the lands now in market. These lands in Missouri, only amount to one third of the State. By consequence, only one third could be settled. Two thirds of the State would remain without inhabitants; the resolution says, for 'a certain period,' and the gentlemen, in their speeches, expound this certain period to be seventy-two years. They say seventy-two millions of acres are now in market; that we sell but one million a year; therefore, we have enough to supply the demand for seventy-two years. It does not enter their heads to consider that, if the price was adapted to the value, all this seventy-two millions that is fit for cultivation would be sold immediately. They must go on at a million a year for seventy-two years, the Scripture term of the life of man – a long period in the age of a nation; the exact period of the Babylonish captivity – a long and sorrowful period in the history of the Jews; and not less long nor less sorrowful in the history of the West, if this resolution should take effect.

"The third point of objection is, that it would deliver up large portions of new States and Territories to the dominion of wild beasts. In Missouri, this surrender would be equal to two-thirds of the State, comprising about forty thousand square miles, covering the whole valley of the Osage River, besides many other parts, and approaching within a dozen miles of the centre and capital of the State. All this would be delivered up to wild beasts: for the Indian title is extinguished, and the Indians gone; the white people would be excluded from it; beasts alone would take it; and all this in violation of the Divine command to replenish the earth, to increase and multiply upon it, and to have dominion over the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, the fish in the waters, and the creeping things of the earth.

"The fourth point of objection is, in the removal of the land records – the natural effect of abolishing all the offices of the Surveyors General. These offices are five in number. It is proposed to abolish them all, and the reason assigned in debate is, that they are sinecures; that is to say, offices which have revenues and no employment. This is the description of a sinecure. We have one of these offices in Missouri, and I know something of it. The Surveyor General, Colonel McRee, in point of fidelity to his trust, belongs to the school of Nathaniel Macon; in point of science and intelligence, he belongs to the first order of men that Europe or America contains. He and his clerks carry labor and drudgery to the ultimate point of human exertion, and still fall short of the task before them; and this is an office which it is proposed to abolish under the notion of a sinecure, as an office with revenues, and without employment. The abolition of these offices would involve the necessity of removing all their records, and thus depriving the country of all the evidences of the foundations of all the land titles. This would be sweeping work; but the gentleman's plan would be incomplete without including the General Land Office in this city, the principal business of which is to superintend the five Surveyor General's offices, and for which there could be but little use after they were abolished.

"These are the practical effects of the resolution. Emigration to the new States checked their settlement limited; a large portion of their surface delivered up to the dominion of beasts; the land records removed. Such are the injuries to be inflicted upon the new States, and we, the senators from those States, are called upon to vote in favor of the resolution which proposes to inquire into the expediency of committing all these enormities! I, for one, will not do it. I will vote for no such inquiry. I would as soon vote for inquiries into the expediency of conflagrating cities, of devastating provinces, and of submerging fruitful lands under the waves of the ocean.

"I take my stand upon a great moral principle, that it is never right to inquire into the expediency of doing wrong.

"The proposed inquiry is to do wrong; to inflict unmixed, unmitigated evil upon the new States and Territories. Such inquiries are not to be tolerated. Courts of law will not sustain actions which have immoral foundations; legislative bodies should not sustain inquiries which have iniquitous conclusions. Courts of law make it an object to give public satisfaction in the administration of justice; legislative bodies should consult the public tranquillity in the prosecution of their measures. They should not alarm and agitate the country; yet, this inquiry, if it goes on, will give the greatest dissatisfaction to the new States in the West and South. It will alarm and agitate them, and ought to do it. It will connect itself with other inquiries going on elsewhere – in the other end of this building – in the House of Representatives – to make the new States a source of revenue to the old ones, to deliver them up to a new set of masters, to throw them as grapes into the wine press, to be trod and squeezed as long as one drop of juice could be pressed from their hulls. These measures will go together; and if that resolution passes, and this one passes, the transition will be easy and natural, from dividing the money after the lands are sold, to divide the lands before they are sold, and then to renting the land and drawing an annual income, instead of selling it for a price in hand. The signs are portentous; the crisis is alarming; it is time for the new States to wake up to their danger, and to prepare for a struggle which carries ruin and disgrace to them, if the issue is against them."

The debate spread, and took an acrimonious turn, and sectional, imputing to the quarter of the Union from which it came an old, and early policy to check the growth of the West at the outset by proposing to limit the sale of the western lands to a "clean riddance" as they went – selling no tract in advance until all in the rear was sold out. It so happened that the first ordinance reported for the sale and survey of western lands in the Congress of the Confederation, (1785,) contained a provision to this effect; and came from a committee strongly Northern – two to one, eight against four: and was struck out in the House on the motion of southern members, supported by the whole power of the South. I gave this account of the circumstance:

"The ordinance reported by the committee, contained the plan of surveying the public lands, which has since been followed. It adopted the scientific principle of ranges of townships, which has been continued ever since, and found so beneficial in a variety of ways to the country. The ranges began on the Pennsylvania line, and proceeded west to the Mississippi; and since the acquisition of Louisiana, they have proceeded west of that river; the townships began upon the Ohio River, and proceeded north to the Lakes. The townships were divided into sections of a mile square, six hundred and forty acres each; and the minimum price was fixed at one dollar per acre, and not less than a section to be sold together. This is the outline of the present plan of sales and surveys; and, with the modifications it has received, and may receive, in graduating the price of the land to the quality, the plan is excellent. But a principle was incorporated in the ordinance of the most fatal character. It was, that each township should be sold out complete before any land could offered in the next one! This was tantamount to a law that the lands should not be sold; that the country should not be settled: for it is certain that every township, or almost every one, would contain land unfit for cultivation, and for which no person would give six hundred and forty dollars for six hundred and forty acres. The effect of such a provision may be judged by the fact that above one hundred thousand acres remain to this day unsold in the first land district; the district of Steubenville, in Ohio, which included the first range and first township. If that provision had remained in the ordinance, the settlements would not yet have got out of sight of the Pennsylvania line. It was an unjust and preposterous provision. It required the people to take the country clean before them; buy all as they went; mountains, hills, and swamps; rocks, glens, and prairies. They were to make clean work, as the giant Polyphemus did when he ate up the companions of Ulysses:

'No entrails, blood, nor solid bone remains.'

Nothing could be more iniquitous than such a provision. It was like requiring your guest to eat all the bones on his plate before he should have more meat. To say that township No. 1 should be sold out complete before township No. 2 should be offered for sale, was like requiring the bones of the first turkey to be eat up before the breast of the second one should be touched. Yet such was the provision contained in the first ordinance for the sale of the public lands, reported by a committee of twelve, of which eight were from the north and four from the south side of the Potomac. How invincible must have been the determination of some politicians to prevent the settlement of the West, when they would thus counteract the sales of the lands which had just been obtained after years of importunity, for the payment of the public debt!

"When this ordinance was put upon its passage in Congress, two Virginians, whose names, for that act alone, would deserve the lasting gratitude of the West, levelled their blows against the obnoxious provision. Mr. Grayson moved to strike it out, and Mr. Monroe seconded him; and, after an animated and arduous contest, they succeeded. The whole South supported them; not one recreant arm from the South; many scattering members from the North also voted with the South, and in favor of the infant West; proving then, as now, and as it always has been, that the West has true supporters of her rights and interests – unhappily not enough of them – in that quarter of the Union from which the measures have originated that several times threatened to be fatal to her."

Still enlarging its circle, but as yet still confined to the sale and disposition of the public lands, the debate went on to discuss the propriety of selling them to settlers at auction prices, and at an arbitrary minimum for all qualities, and a refusal of donations; and in this hard policy the North was again considered as the exacting part of the Union – the South as the favorer of liberal terms, and the generous dispenser of gratuitous grants to the settlers in the new States and Territories. On this point, Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, thus expressed himself:

"The payment of 'a penny,' or a 'pepper corn,' was the stipulated price which our fathers along the whole Atlantic coast, now composing the old thirteen States, paid for their lands; and even when conditions, seemingly more substantial, were annexed to the grants; such for instance as 'settlement and cultivation;' these were considered as substantially complied with, by the cutting down a few trees and erecting a log cabin – the work of only a few days. Even these conditions very soon came to be considered as merely nominal, and were never required to be pursued, in order to vest in the grantee the fee simple of the soil. Such was the system under which this country was originally settled, and under which the thirteen colonies flourished and grew up to that early and vigorous manhood, which enabled them in a few years to achieve their independence; and I beg gentlemen to recollect, and note the fact, that, while they paid substantially nothing to the mother country, the whole profits of their industry were suffered to remain in their own hands. Now, what, let us inquire, was the reason which has induced all nations to adopt this system in the settlement of new countries? Can it be any other than this; that it affords the only certain means of building up in a wilderness, great and prosperous communities? Was not that policy founded on the universal belief, that the conquest of a new country, the driving out "the savage beasts and still more savage men," cutting down and subduing the forest, and encountering all the hardships and privations necessarily incident to the conversion of the wilderness into cultivated fields, was worth the fee simple of the soil? And was it not believed that the mother country found ample remuneration for the value of the land so granted, in the additions to her power and the new sources of commerce and of wealth, furnished by prosperous and populous States? Now, sir, I submit to the candid consideration of gentlemen, whether the policy so diametrically opposite to this, which has been invariably pursued by the United States towards the new States in the West has been quite so just and liberal, as we have been accustomed to believe. Certain it is, that the British colonies to the north of us, and the Spanish and French to the south and west, have been fostered and reared up under a very different system. Lands, which had been for fifty or a hundred years open to every settler, without any charge beyond the expense of the survey, were, the moment they fell into the hands of the United States, held up for sale at the highest price that a public auction, at the most favorable seasons, and not unfrequently a spirit of the wildest competition, could produce; with a limitation that they should never be sold below a certain minimum price; thus making it, as it would seem, the cardinal point of our policy, not to settle the country, and facilitate the formation of new States, but to fill our coffers by coining our lands into gold."

The debate was taking a turn which was foreign to the expectations of the mover of the resolution, and which, in leading to sectional criminations, would only inflame feelings without leading to any practical result. Mr. Webster saw this; and to get rid of the whole subject, moved its indefinite postponement; but in arguing his motion he delivered a speech which introduced new topics, and greatly enlarged the scope, and extended the length of the debate which he proposed to terminate. One of these new topics referred to the authorship, and the merit of passing the famous ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwestern Territory, and especially in relation to the antislavery clause which that ordinance contained. Mr. Webster claimed the merit of this authorship for Mr. Nathan Dane – an eminent jurist of Massachusetts, and avowed that "it was carried by the North, and by the North alone." I replied, claiming the authorship for Mr. Jefferson, and showing from the Journals that he (Mr. Jefferson) brought the measure into Congress in the year 1784 (the 19th of April of that year), as chairman of a committee, with the antislavery clause in it, which Mr. Speight, of North Carolina, moved to strike out; and it was struck out – the three Southern States present voting for the striking out, because the clause did not then contain the provision in favor of the recovery of fugitive slaves, which was afterwards ingrafted upon it. Mr. Webster says it was struck out because "nine States" did not vote for its retention. That is an error arising from confounding the powers of the confederation. Nine States were only required to concur in measures of the highest import, as declaring war, making peace, negotiating treaties, &c., – and in all ordinary legislation the concurrence of a bare majority (seven) was sufficient; and in this case there were only six States voting for the retention, New Jersey being erroneously counted by Mr. Webster to make seven. If she had voted the number would have been seven, and the clause would have stood. He was led into the error by seeing the name of Mr. Dick appearing in the call for New Jersey; but New Jersey was not present as a State, being represented by only one member, and it requiring two to constitute the presence of a State. Mr. Dick was indulged with putting his name on the Journal, but his vote was not counted. Mr. Webster says the ordinance reported by Mr. Jefferson in 1784 did not pass into a law. This is a mistake again. It did pass; and that within five days after the antislavery clause was struck out – and that without any attempt to renew that clause, although the competent number (seven) of non-slaveholding States were present – the colleague of Mr. Dick having joined him, and constituted the presence of New Jersey. Two years afterwards, in July 1787, the ordinance was passed over again, as it now stands, and was pre-eminently the work of the South. The ordinance, as it now stands, was reported by a committee of five members, of whom three were from slaveholding States, and two (and one of them the chairman) were from Virginia alone. It received its first reading the day it was reported – its second reading the next day, when one other State had appeared – the third reading on the day ensuing; going through all the forms of legislation, and becoming a law in three days – receiving the votes of the eight States present, and the vote of every member of each State, except one; and that one from a free State north of the Potomac. These details I verified by producing the Journals, and showed under the dates of July 11th, 1787, and July 12th and 13th, the votes actually given for the ordinance. The same vote repealed the ordinance (Mr. Jefferson's) of 1784. I read in the Senate the passages from the Journal of the Congress of the confederation, the passages which showed these votes, and incorporated into the speech which I published, the extract from the Journal which I produced; and now incorporate the same in this work, that the authorship of that ordinance of 1787, and its passage through the old Congress, may be known in all time to come as the indisputable work, both in its conception and consummation, of the South. This is the extract:

THE JOURNAL

Wednesday, July 11th, 1787

"Congress assembled: Present, the seven States above mentioned." (Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia – 7.)

"The Committee, consisting of Mr. Carrington (of Virginia), Mr. Dane (of Massachusetts), Mr. R. H. Lee (of Virginia), Mr. Kean (of South Carolina), and Mr. Smith (of New York), to whom was referred the report of a committee touching the temporary government of the Western Territory, reported an ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio; which was read a first time.

"Ordered, That to-morrow be assigned for the second reading."

"Thursday, July 12th, 1787

"Congress assembled: Present, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia – (8.)

"According to order, the ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, was read a second time.

"Ordered, That to-morrow be assigned for the third reading of said ordinance."

"Friday, July 13th, 1787

"Congress assembled: Present, as yesterday.

"According to order, the ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, was read a third time, and passed as follows."

[Here follows the whole ordinance, in the very words in which it now appears among the laws of the United States, with the non-slavery clause, the provisions in favor of schools and education, against impairing the obligation of contracts, laying the foundation and security of all these stipulations in compact, in favor of restoring fugitives from service, and repealing the ordinance of 23d of April, 1784 – the one reported by Mr. Jefferson.]

"On passing the above ordinance, the yeas and nays being required by Mr. Yates: