"3. That foreign interference and foreign influence, in all ages, and in all countries, have been the bane and curse of free governments; and that such interference and influence are far more dangerous, in the insidious intervention of the moneyed power, than in the forcible invasions of fleets and armies.
"4. That to close the door at once against all applications for such assumption, and to arrest at their source the vast tide of evils which would flow from it, it is necessary that the constituted authorities, without delay, shall RESOLVE and DECLARE their utter opposition to the proposal contained in the late London Bankers' Circular in relation to State debts, contracted for local and State purposes, and recommending to the Congress of the United States to assume, or guarantee, or provide for the ultimate payment of said debts."
In the course of the discussion of these resolutions an attempt was made to amend them, and to reverse their import, by obtaining a direct vote of the Senate in favor of distributing the public land revenue among the States to aid them in the payment of these debts. This proposition was submitted by Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky; and was in these words: "That it would be just and proper to distribute the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the several States in fair and ratable proportions; and that the condition of such of the States as have contracted debts is such, at the present moment of pressure and difficulty, as to render such distribution especially expedient and important." This proposition received a considerable support, and was rejected upon yeas and nays – 28 to 17. The yeas were Messrs. Betts of Connecticut, Clay of Kentucky, Crittenden, Davis of Massachusetts, Dixon of Rhode Island, Knight of Connecticut, Merrick of Maryland, Phelps of Vermont, Porter of Michigan, Prentiss of Vermont, Ruggles of Maine, Smith of Indiana, Southard of New Jersey, Spence of Maryland, Tallmadge, Webster, White of Indiana. The nays were: Messrs. Allen of Ohio, Anderson of Tennessee, Benton, Bedford Brown, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Alfred Cuthbert, Grundy, Henderson of Mississippi, Hubbard, King of Alabama, Linn of Missouri, Lumpkin of Georgia, Mouton, Nicholas of Louisiana, Norvell of Michigan, Pierce, Preston, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Strange, Sturgeon, Tappan of Ohio, Wall of New Jersey, Williams, Wright. As the mover of the resolutions Mr. Benton supported them in a speech, of which some extracts are given in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XLIV.
ASSUMPTION OF THE STATE DEBTS: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS
The assumption of the State debts contracted for State purposes has been for a long time a measure disguisedly, and now is a measure openly, pressed upon the public mind. The movement in favor of it has been long going on; opposing measures have not yet commenced. The assumption party have the start, and the advantage of conducting the case; and they have been conducting it for a long time, and in a way to avoid the name of assumption while accomplishing the thing itself. All the bills for distributing the public land revenue – all the propositions for dividing surplus revenue – all the refusals to abolish unnecessary taxes – all the refusals to go on with the necessary defences of the country – were so many steps taken in the road to assumption. I know very well that many who supported these measures had no idea of assumption, and would oppose it as soon as discovered; but that does not alter the nature of the measures they supported, and which were so many steps in the road to that assumption, then shrouded in mystery and futurity, now ripened into strength, and emboldened into a public disclosure of itself. Already the State legislatures are occupied with this subject, while we sit here, waiting its approach.
It is time for the enemies of assumption to take the field, and to act. It is a case in which they should give, and not receive, the attack. The President has led the way; he has shown his opinions. He has nobly done his duty. He has shown the evils of diverting the general funds from their proper objects – the mischiefs of our present connection with the paper system of England – and the dangers of foreign influence from any further connection with it. In this he has discharged a constitutional and a patriotic duty. Let the constituted authorities, each in their sphere, follow his example, and declare their opinions also. Let the Senate especially, as part of the legislative power – as the peculiar representative of the States in their sovereign capacity – let this body declare its sentiments, and, by its resolves and discussions, arrest the progress of the measure here, and awaken attention to it elsewhere. As one of the earliest opposers of this measure – as, in fact, the very earliest opposer of the whole family of measures of which it is the natural offspring – as having denounced the assumption in disguise in a letter to my constituents long before the London Bankers' letter revealed it to the public: as such early, steadfast, and first denouncer of this measure, I now come forward to oppose it in form, and to submit the resolves which may arrest it here, and carry its discussion to the forum of the people.
I come at once to the point, and say that disguised assumption, in the shape of land revenue distribution, is the form in which we shall have to meet the danger; and I meet it at once in that disguise. I say there is no authority in the constitution to raise money from any branch of the revenue for distribution among the States, or to distribute that which had been raised for other purposes. The power of Congress to raise money is not unlimited and arbitrary, but restricted, and directed to the national objects named in the constitution. The means, the amount, and the application, are all limited. The means are direct taxes – duties on imports – and the public lands; the objects are the support of the government – the common defence – and the payment of the debts of the Union: the amount to be raised is of course limited to the amount required for the accomplishment of these objects. Consonant to the words and the spirit of the constitution, is the title, the preamble and the tenor of all the early statutes for raising money; they all declare the object for which the money is wanted; they declare the object at the head of the act. Whether it be a loan, a direct tax, or a duty on imports, the object of the loan, the tax, or the duty, is stated in the preamble to the act; Congress thus excusing and justifying themselves for the demand in the very act of making it, and telling the people plainly what they wanted with the money. This was the way in all the early statutes; the books are full of examples; and it was only after money began to be levied for objects not known to the constitution, that this laudable and ancient practice was dropped. Among the enumerated objects for which money can be raised by Congress, is that of paying the debts of the Union; and is it not a manifest absurdity to suppose that, while it requires an express grant of power to enable us to pay the debts of the Union, we can pay those of the States by implication and by indirection? No, sir, no. There is no constitutional way to assume these State debts, or to pay them, or to indorse them, or to smuggle the money to the States for that purpose, under the pretext of dividing land revenue, or surplus revenue, among them. There is no way to do it. The whole thing is constitutionally impossible. It was never thought of by the framers of our constitution. They never dreamed of such a thing. There is not a word in their work to warrant it, and the whole idea of it is utterly repugnant and offensive to the objects and purposes for which the federal Union was framed.
We have had one assumption in our country and that in a case which was small in amount, and free from the impediment of a constitutional objection; but which was attended by such evils as should deter posterity from imitating the example. It was in the first year of the federal government; and although the assumed debts were only twenty millions, and were alleged to have been contracted for general purposes, yet the assumption was attended by circumstances of intrigue and corruption, which led to the most violent dissension in Congress, suspended the business of the two Houses, drove some of the States to the verge of secession, and menaced the Union with instant dissolution. Mr. Jefferson, who was a witness of the scene, and who was overpowered by General Hamilton, and by the actual dangers of the country, into its temporary support, thus describes it:
"This game was over (funding the soldiers' certificates), and another was on the carpet at the moment of my arrival; and to this I was most ignorantly and innocently made to hold the candle. This fiscal manœuvre is well known by the name of the assumption. Independently of the debts of Congress, the States had, during the war, contracted separate and heavy debts, &c. **** This money, whether wisely or foolishly spent, was pretended to have been spent for general purposes, and ought therefore to be paid from the general purse. But it was objected, that nobody knew what these debts were, what their amount, or what their