Physical Anthropology and Archaeology Canadian 4th Edition Ember Test Bank

Physical Anthropology and

Archaeology Canadian 4th Edition
Ember Test Bank
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Physical Anthropology and Archaeology Canadian 4th Edition Ember Test Bank

Physical Anthropology and Archaeology, Fourth Canadian Edition (Ember) Chapter 2

Uncovering the Past: Tools and Techniques

2.1 Multiple Choice Questions

1) The spatial distribution that archaeological remains have in relation to each other at a site is known as
A) stratigraphy.
B) relative dating.
C) site formation processes.
D) provenience.
E) absolute dating.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Ref: 38
Skill: R

2) Archaeologists conduct excavations and recover artifacts from where they were buried; thus, by its
very nature, archaeological excavation is
A) destructive -- the context of the artifacts is lost.
B) tiring -- archaeologists must work very hard during excavations.
C) profitable -- many of the artifacts recovered are priceless.
D) something that amateurs can easily master.
E) something that is usually conducted as quickly as possible.
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Ref: 27
Skill: R

3) Material culture -- objects that people have and make -- is

A) made up exclusively of archaeological artifacts.
B) a direct reflection of past culture.
C) made up exclusively of archaeological features.
D) perfectly preserved in the archaeological record.
E) not reflected in garbage middens.
Answer: B
Diff: 1
Type: MC
Page Ref: 27
Skill: R

4) Identify the best sequence below for conducting an archaeological excavation.

A) site prospection, site identification, excavation and recovery, dating
B) dating, site surveying, site identification, dating, excavation and recovery
C) site surveying, site prospection, site identification, dating, excavation and recovery
D) site identification, site prospection, site mapping, excavation and mapping of recoveries, dating
E) site mapping, site prospection, site identification, dating, excavation and recovery
Answer: D
Diff: 3
Type: MC
Page Ref: 34-38
Skill: A

5) A butchered seal bone is an example of a(n) ________.

A) zoonose

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B) grid
C) feature
D) datum
E) ecofact
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Type: MC
Page Ref: 33
Skill: A

6) The main difference between archaeological sites and fossil locales is

A) features are found only at fossil locales.
B) fossil locales only yield animal remains.
C) archaeological sites are younger than fossil sites.
D) human remains are always associated with archaeological sites.
E) artifacts are only found at archaeological sites.
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Ref: 30
Skill: A

7) Microscopic granules of silicon dioxide in plant cells are called ________.

A) ecofacts
B) phytoliths
C) features
D) datums
E) isotopes
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Ref: 38
Skill: R

8) Paleoanthropologists can infer the behaviour of ancient hominids by interpreting the fossilized skeletal
remains of ancient hominids; they can also infer the environment of these hominids from
A) the age of the rocks in which the fossils were found.
B) the type of sediments in which the remains were deposited.
C) the types of flora and fauna associated with the hominid fossils.
D) chemical analyses of the rocks in which the fossils were found.
E) the types of geological processes to which the remains have been subjected.
Answer: C
Diff: 3
Type: MC
Page Ref: 38
Skill: A

9) The study of the processes that affect the body of an animal following death is called
A) taphonomy.
B) fossilization.
C) paleontology.
D) paleoanthropology.
E) site prospection.
Answer: A
Diff: 1
Type: MC
Page Ref: 29
Skill: R

10) Sediment removed from an archaeological excavation unit may be

A) sifted to find any minute objects missed during excavation.
B) sifted to ensure it is clean and free of debris.
C) left near the unit to ensure provenience.
D) washed and dried.
Answer: A
Diff: 3
Type: MC
Page Ref: 37
Skill: A

11) Living floors are a type of

A) fossil.
B) feature.
C) ecofact.
D) artifact.
E) datum.
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Ref: 30
Skill: R

12) Relative dating methods

A) provide an age estimate for a specimen or deposit in relation to another specimen or deposit.
B) are the only way to determine a realistic age of a specimen or deposit.
C) provide the best age estimates for fossils of our relatives, the hominids.
D) are not of much use to either archaeologists or paleoanthropologists.
E) have been subject to significant advances over the last 50 years.
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Ref: 38
Skill: R

13) Which of the following is untrue of the law of superposition?

A) Stratigraphic analysis is fundamentally based on the law of superposition.
B) The law of superposition provides a framework for relative date estimates
C) The law of superposition provides a framework for absolute date determinations
D) The law of superposition states that younger layers overlay older layers
E) The law of superposition can be combined with analysis of faunal remains to arrive at relative date
estimates
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Ref: 38
Skill: R

14) AMS dating provides a number of advantages over tradition radiocarbon dating except
A) it can not be used on organic material.
B) it can not date objects more than 80,000 years old.
C) it needs a small sample of material.
D) it is very expensive.
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been violated, and what corruptions and abuses, if any, existed in its
management; and to inquire whether the Bank had used its
corporate power or money to control the press, to interpose in
politics, or to influence elections. The committee were granted ample
powers for the execution of these inquiries. It was treated with
disdain and contempt by the Bank management; refused access to
the books and papers, and the directors and president refused to be
sworn and testify. The committee at the next session made report of
their proceedings, and asked for warrants to be issued against the
managers to bring them before the Bar of the House to answer for
contempt; but the friends of the Bank in the House were able to
check the proceedings and prevent action being taken. In the Senate,
the President was sought to be punished by a declination by that
body to confirm the President’s nomination of the four government
directors of the Bank, who had served the previous year; and their re-
nomination after that rejection again met with a similar fate. In like
manner his re-nomination of Roger B. Taney to be Secretary of the
Treasury was rejected, for the action of the latter in his support of the
President and the removal of the public deposits. The Bank had lost
much ground in the public estimation by resisting the investigation
ordered and attempted by the House of Representatives, and in
consequence the Finance Committee of the Senate made an
investigation, with so weak an attempt to varnish over the affairs and
acts of the corporation that the odious appellation of “white-washing
committee” was fastened upon it. The downfall of the Bank speedily
followed; it soon afterwards became a total financial wreck, and its
assets and property were seized on executions. With its financial
failure it vanished from public view, and public interest in it and
concern with it died out.
About the beginning of March, 1831, a pamphlet was issued in
Washington, by Mr. John C. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and
addressed to the people of the United States, explaining the cause of
a difference which had taken place between himself and the
President, General Jackson, instigated as the pamphlet alleged, by
Mr. Van Buren, and intended to make trouble between the first and
second officers of the government, and to effect the political
destruction of himself (Mr. Calhoun) for the benefit of the contriver
of the quarrel, the then Secretary of State, and indicated as a
candidate for the presidential succession upon the termination of
Jackson’s term. The differences grew out of certain charges against
General Jackson respecting his conduct during the Seminole war
which occurred in the administration of President Monroe. The
President justified himself in published correspondence, but the
inevitable result followed—a rupture between the President and
Vice-President—which was quickly followed by a breaking up and
reconstructing the Cabinet. Some of its members classed as the
political friends of Mr. Calhoun, and could hardly be expected to
remain as ministers to the President. Mr. Van Buren resigned; a new
Cabinet was appointed and confirmed. This change in the Cabinet
made a great figure in the party politics of the day, and filled all the
opposition newspapers, and had many sinister reasons assigned to it
—all to the prejudice of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren.
It is interesting to note here that during the administration of
President Jackson,—in the year 1833,—the Congress of the United
States, as the consequence of the earnest efforts in that behalf, of Col.
R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, aided by the recommendation and
support of the President, passed the first laws, abolishing
imprisonment for debt, under process from the Courts of the United
States: the only extent to which an act of Congress could go, by force
of its enactments; but by force of example and influence, has led to
the cessation of the practice of imprisoning debtors, in all, or nearly
all, of the States and Territories of the Union; and without the evil
consequences which had been dreaded from the loss of this remedy
over the person. The act was a total abolition of the practice, leaving
in full force all the remedies against fraudulent evasions of debt.
The American system, and especially its prominent feature of a
high protective tariff was put in issue, in the Presidential canvass of
1832; and the friends of that system labored diligently in Congress in
presenting its best points to the greatest advantage; and staking its
fate upon the issue of the election. It was lost; not only by the result
of the main contest, but by that of the congressional election which
took place simultaneously with it. All the States dissatisfied with that
system, were satisfied with the view of its speedy and regular
extinction, under the legislation of the approaching session of
Congress, excepting only South Carolina. She has held aloof from the
Presidential contest, and cast her electoral votes for persons who
were not candidates—doing nothing to aid the election of General
Jackson, with whom her interests were apparently identified. On the
24th November, 1832, two weeks after the election which decided the
fate of the tariff, that State issued an “Ordinance to nullify certain
acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws
laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign
commodities.” It declared that the Congress had exceeded its
constitutional powers in imposing high and excessive duties on the
theory of “protection,” had unjustly discriminated in favor of one
class or employment, at the expense and to the injury and oppression
of other classes and individuals; that said laws were in consequence
not binding on the State and its citizens; and declaring its right and
purpose to enact laws to prevent the enforcement and arrest the
operation of said acts and parts of the acts of the Congress of the
United States within the limits of that State after the first day of
February following. This ordinance placed the State in the attitude of
forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to take effect on
the first day of February next ensuing—a date prior to the meeting of
the next Congress, which the country naturally expected would take
some action in reference to the tariff laws complained of. The
ordinance further provided that if, in the meantime, any attempt was
made by the federal government to enforce the obnoxious laws,
except through the tribunals, all the officers of which were sworn
against them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the
continuance of South Carolina in the Union—to absolve her from all
connection with the federal government—and to establish her as a
separate government, wholly unconnected with the United States or
any State. The ordinance of nullification was certified by the
Governor of South Carolina to the President of the United States, and
reached him in December of the same year; in consequence of which
he immediately issued a proclamation, exhorting the people of South
Carolina to obey the laws of Congress; pointing out and explaining
the illegality of the procedure; stating clearly and distinctly his firm
determination to enforce the laws as became him as Executive, even
by resort to force if necessary. As a state paper, it is important as it
contains the views of General Jackson regarding the nature and
character of our federal government, expressed in the following
language: “The people of the United States formed the constitution,
acting through the State Legislatures in making the compact, to meet
and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when
they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in the constitution
show it to be a government in which the people of all the States
collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of
President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency
than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. * * * The
people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive
branch. * * * In the House of Representatives the members are all
representatives of the United States, not representatives of the
particular States from which they come. They are paid by the United
States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act
done in the performance of their legislative functions. * * *
“The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government,
not a league; and whether it be formed by a compact between the
States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a
government in which all the people are represented, which operates
directly on the people individually, not upon the States—they
retained all the power they did not grant. But each State, having
expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with
the other States, a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess
any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league,
but destroys the unity of the nation, and any injury to that unity, is
not only a breach which could result from the contravention of a
compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say that any
State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the
United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to
contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with
the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any
offence.”
Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, the
President in his annual message, merely adverted to the attitude of
the State, and proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the
powers he already possessed. The proceedings in South Carolina not
ceasing, and taking daily a more aggravated form in the organization
of troops, the collection of arms and of munitions of war, and in
declarations hostile to the Union, he found it necessary early in
January to report the facts to Congress in a special message, and ask
for extraordinary powers. Bills for the reduction of the tariff were
early in the Session introduced into both houses, while at the same
time the President, though not relaxing his efforts towards a peaceful
settlement of the difficulty, made steady preparations for enforcing
the law. The result of the bills offered in the two Houses of Congress,
was the passage of Mr. Clay’s “compromise” bill on the 12th of
February 1833, which radically changed the whole tariff system.
The President in his message on the South Carolina proceedings
had recommended to Congress the revival of some acts, heretofore in
force, to enable him to execute the laws in that State; and the
Senate’s committee on the judiciary had reported a bill accordingly
early in the session. It was immediately assailed by several members
as violent and unconstitutional, tending to civil war, and denounced
as “the bloody bill”—the “force bill,” &c. The bill was vindicated in
the Senate, by its author, who showed that it contained no novel
principle; was substantially a revival of laws previously in force; with
the authority superadded to remove the office of customs from one
building or place to another in case of need. The bill was vehemently
opposed, and every effort made to render it odious to the people, and
even extend the odium to the President, and to every person urging
or aiding in its passage. Mr. Webster justly rebuked all this
vituperation, and justified the bill, both for the equity of its
provisions, and the necessity for enacting them. He said, that an
unlawful combination threatened the integrity of the Union; that the
crisis called for a mild, temperate, forbearing but inflexibly firm
execution of the laws; and finally, that public opinion sets with an
irresistible force in favor of the Union, in favor of the measures
recommended by the President, and against the new doctrines which
threatened the dissolution of the Union. The support which Mr.
Webster gave to these measures was the regular result of the
principles which he laid down in his first speeches against
nullification in the debate with Mr. Hayne, and he could not have
done less without being derelict to his own principles then avowed.
He supported with transcendent ability, the cause of the constitution
and of the country, in the person of a President to whom he was
politically opposed, whose gratitude and admiration he earned for
his patriotic endeavors. The country, without distinction of party, felt
the same; and the universality of the feeling was one of the grateful
instances of popular applause and justice when great talents are seen
exerting themselves for the good of the country. He was the colossal
figure on the political stage during that eventful time; and his labors,
splendid in their day, survive for the benefit of distant posterity.
During the discussion over the re-charter of the Bank of the United
States, which as before mentioned, occupied the attention of
Congress for several years, the country suffered from a money panic,
and a general financial depression and distress was generally
prevalent. In 1834 a measure was introduced into the House, for
equalizing the value of gold and silver, and legalizing the tender of
foreign coin, of both metals. The good effects of the bill were
immediately seen. Gold began to flow into the country through all
the channels of commerce, foreign and domestic; the mint was busy;
and specie payment, which had been suspended in the country for
thirty years, was resumed, and gold and silver became the currency
of the land; inspiring confidence in all the pursuits of industry.
As indicative of the position of the democratic party at that date,
on the subject of the kind of money authorized by the Constitution,
Mr. Benton’s speech in the Senate is of interest. He said: “In the first
place, he was one of those who believed that the government of the
United States was intended to be a hard-money government; that it
was the intention and the declaration of the Constitution of the
United States, that the federal currency should consist of gold and
silver, and that there is no power in Congress to issue, or to authorize
any company of individuals to issue, any species of federal paper
currency whatsoever. Every clause in the Constitution (said Mr. B.)
which bears upon the subject of money—every early statute of
Congress which interprets the meaning of these clauses—and every
historic recollection which refers to them, go hand in hand in giving
to that instrument the meaning which this proposition ascribes to it.
The power granted to Congress to coin money is an authority to
stamp metallic money, and is not an authority for emitting slips of
paper containing promises to pay money. The authority granted to
Congress to regulate the value of coin, is an authority to regulate the
value of the metallic money, not of paper. The prohibition upon the
States against making anything but gold and silver a legal tender, is a
moral prohibition, founded in virtue and honesty, and is just as
binding upon the Federal Government as upon the State
Governments; and that without a written prohibition; for the
difference in the nature of the two governments is such, that the
States may do all things which they are not forbid to do; and the
Federal Government can do nothing which it is not authorized by the
Constitution to do. The framers of the Constitution (said Mr. B.)
created a hard-money government. They intended the new
government to recognize nothing for money but gold and silver; and
every word admitted into the Constitution, upon the subject of
money, defines and establishes that sacred intention.
Legislative enactment came quickly to the aid of constitutional
intention and historic recollection. The fifth statute passed at the
first session of the first Congress that ever sat under the present
Constitution was full and explicit on this head. It declared, “that the
fees and duties payable to the federal government shall be received in
gold and silver coin only.” It was under General Hamilton, as
Secretary of the Treasury, in 1791, that the policy of the government
underwent a change. In the act constituting the Bank of the United
States, he brought forward his celebrated plan for the support of the
public credit—that plan which unfolded the entire scheme of the
paper system and immediately developed the great political line
between the federalists and the republicans. The establishment of a
national bank was the leading and predominant feature of that plan;
and the original report of the secretary, in favor of establishing the
bank, contained this fatal and deplorable recommendation: “The
bills and notes of the bank, originally made payable, or which shall
have become payable, on demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be
receivable in all payments to the United States.” From the moment of
the adoption of this policy, the moneyed character of the government
stood changed and reversed. Federal bank notes took the place of
hard-money; and the whole edifice of the government slid, at once,
from the solid rock of gold and silver money, on which its framers
had placed it, into the troubled and tempestuous ocean of paper
currency.
The first session of the 35th Congress opened December 1835. Mr.
James K. Polk was elected Speaker of the House by a large majority
over Mr. John Bell, the previous Speaker; the former being
supported by the administration party, and the latter having become
identified with those who, on siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a
candidate for the presidency, were considered as having divided from
the democratic party. The chief subject of the President’s message
was the relations of our country with France relative to the continued
non-payment of the stipulated indemnity provided for in the treaty
of 1831 for French spoliations of American shipping. The obligation
to pay was admitted, and the money even voted for that purpose; but
offense was taken at the President’s message, and payment refused
until an apology should be made. The President commented on this
in his message, and the Senate had under consideration measures
authorizing reprisals on French shipping. At this point Great Britain
offered her services as mediator between the nations, and as a result
the indemnity was shortly afterwards paid.
Agitation of the slavery question in the United States really began
about this time. Evil-disposed persons had largely circulated through
the Southern states, pamphlets and circulars tending to stir up strife
and insurrection; and this had become so intolerable that it was
referred to by the President in his message. Congress at the session
of 1836 was flooded with petitions and memorials urging federal
interference to abolish slavery in the States; beginning with the
petition of the Society of Friends of Philadelphia, urging the abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia. These petitions were referred
to Committees after an acrimonious debate as to whether they
should be received or not. The position of the government at that
time is embodied in the following resolution which was adopted in
the House of Representatives as early as 1790, and substantially
reaffirmed in 1836, as follows: “That Congress have no authority to
interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them
within any of the States; it remaining with the several States to
provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy may
require.”
In the Summer preceding the Presidential election of 1836, a
measure was introduced into Congress, which became very nearly a
party measure, and which in its results proved disastrous to the
Democratic party in after years. It was a plan for distributing the
public land money among the States either in the shape of credit
distribution, or in the disguise of a deposit of surplus revenue; and
this for the purpose of enhancing the value of the State stocks held by
the United States Bank, which institution, aided by the party which it
favored, led by Mr. Clay, was the prime mover in the plan. That
gentleman was the author of the scheme, and great calculations were
made by the party which favored the distribution upon its effect in
adding to their popularity. The Bill passed the Senate in its original
form, but met with less favor in the House where it was found
necessary. To effectuate substantially the same end, a Senate Bill was
introduced to regulate the keeping of the public money in the deposit
banks, and this was turned into distribution of the surplus public
moneys with the States, in proportion to their representation in
Congress, to be returned when Congress should call for it; and this
was called a deposit with the States, and the faith of the States
pledged for a return of the money. It was stigmatized by its
opponents in Congress, as a distribution in disguise—as a deposit
never to be reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the Constitution; as
an attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as
plundering instead of defending the country. The Bill passed both
houses, mainly by the efforts of a half dozen aspirants to the
Presidency, who sought to thus increase their popularity. They were
doomed to disappointment in this respect. Politically, it was no
advantage to its numerous and emulous supporters, and of no
disservice to its few determined opponents. It was a most
unfortunate act, a plain evasion of the Constitution for a bad
purpose; and it soon gave a sad overthrow to the democracy and
disappointed every calculation made upon it. To the States it was no
advantage, raising expectations which were not fulfilled, and upon
which many of them acted as realities. The Bill was signed by the
President, but it is simple justice to him to say that he did it with a
repugnance of feeling, and a recoil of judgment, which it required
great efforts of his friends to overcome, and with a regret for it
afterwards which he often and publicly expressed. In a party point of
view, the passage of this measure was the commencement of
calamities, being an efficient cause in that general suspension of
specie payments, which quickly occurred, and brought so much
embarrassment on the Van Buren administration, ending in the
great democratic defeat of 1840.
The presidential election of 1836 resulted in the choice of the
democratic candidate, Mr. Van Buren, who was elected by 170
electoral votes; his opponent, General Harrison, receiving seventy-
three electoral votes. Scattering votes were given for Mr. Webster,
Mr. Mangum, and Mr. Hugh L. White, the last named representing a
fragment of the democracy who, in a spirit of disaffection, attempted
to divide the democratic party and defeat Mr. Van Buren. At the
opening of the second session of the twenty-fourth Congress,
December, 1836, President Jackson delivered his last annual
message, under circumstances exceedingly gratifying to him. The
powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he had
the satisfaction of seeing full majorities of ardent and tried friends in
each House. The country was in peace and friendship with all the
world; all exciting questions quieted at home; industry in all its
branches prosperous, and the revenue abundant. And as a happy
sequence of this state of affairs, the Senate on the 16th of March,
1837, expunged from the Journal the resolution, adopted three years
previously, censuring the President for ordering the removal of the
deposits of public money in the United States Bank. He retired from
the presidency with high honors, and died eight years afterwards at
his home, the celebrated “Hermitage,” in Tennessee, in full
possession of all his faculties, and strong to the last in the ruling
passion of his soul—love of country.
The 4th of March, 1837, ushered in another Democratic
administration—the beginning of the term of Martin Van Buren as
President of the United States. In his inaugural address he
commented on the prosperous condition of the country, and declared
it to be his policy to strictly abide by the Constitution as written—no
latitudinarian constructions permitted, or doubtful powers assumed;
that his political chart should be the doctrines of the democratic
school, as understood at the original formation of parties.
The President, however, was scarcely settled in his new office
when a financial panic struck the country with irresistible force. A
general suspension of the banks, a depreciated currency, and
insolvency of the federal treasury were at hand. The public money
had been placed in the custody of the local banks, and the notes of all
these banks, and of all others in the country, were received in
payment of public dues. On the 10th of May, 1837, the banks
throughout the country suspended specie payments. The stoppage of
the deposit banks was the stoppage of the Treasury. Non-payment by
the government was an excuse for non-payment by others. The
suspension was now complete; and it was evident, and as good as
admitted by those who had made it, that it was the effect of
contrivance on the part of politicians and the so-called Bank of the
United States (which, after the expiration of its national charter, had
become a State corporation chartered by the Legislature of
Pennsylvania in January, 1836) for the purpose of restoring
themselves to power. The whole proceeding became clear to those
who could see nothing while it was in progress. Even those of the
democratic party whose votes had helped to do the mischief, could
now see that the attempt to deposit forty millions with the States was
destruction to the deposit banks; that the repeal of President
Jackson’s order, known as the “specie circular”—requiring payment
for public lands to be in coin—was to fill the treasury with paper
money, to be found useless when wanted; that distress was purposely
created to throw blame of it upon the party in power; that the
promptitude with which the Bank of the United States had been
brought forward as a remedy for the distress, showed that it had
been held in reserve for that purpose; and the delight with which the
whig party saluted the general calamity, showed that they considered
it their own passport to power. Financial embarrassment and general
stagnation of business diminished the current receipts from lands
and customs, and actually caused an absolute deficit in the public
treasury. In consequence, the President found it an inexorable
necessity to issue his proclamation convening Congress in extra
session.
The first session of the twenty-fifth Congress met in extra session,
at the call of the President, on the first Monday of September, 1837.
The message was a review of the events and causes which had
brought about the panic; a defense of the policy of the “specie
circular,” and a recommendation to break off all connection with any
bank of issue in any form; looking to the establishment of an
Independent Treasury, and that the Government provide for the
deficit in the treasury by the issue of treasury notes and by
withholding the deposit due to the States under the act then in force.
The message and its recommendations were violently assailed both
in the Senate and House by able and effective speakers, notably by
Messrs. Clay and Webster, and also by Mr. Caleb Cushing, of
Massachusetts, who made a formal and elaborate reply to the whole
document under thirty-two distinct heads, and reciting therein all
the points of accusation against the democratic policy from the
beginning of the government down to that day. The result was that
the measures proposed by the Executive were in substance enacted;
and their passage marks an era in our financial history—making a
total and complete separation of Bank and State, and firmly
establishing the principle that the government revenues should be
receivable in coin only.
The measures of consequence discussed and adopted at this
session, were the graduation of price of public lands under the pre-
emption system, which was adopted; the bill to create an
independent Treasury, which passed the Senate, but failed in the
House; and the question of the re-charter of the district banks, the
proportion for reserve, and the establishment of such institutions on
a specie basis. The slavery question was again agitated in
consequence of petitions from citizens and societies in the Northern
States, and a memorial from the General Assembly of Vermont,
praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and
territories, and for the exclusion of future slave states from the
Union. These petitions and memorials were disposed of adversely;
and Mr. Calhoun, representing the ultra-Southern interest, in several
able speeches, approved of the Missouri compromise, he urged and
obtained of the Senate several resolutions declaring that the federal
government had no power to interfere with slavery in the States; and
that it would be inexpedient and impolitic to interfere, abolish or
control it in the District of Columbia and the territories. These
movements for and against slavery in the session of 1837–38 deserve
to be noticed, as of disturbing effect at the time, and as having
acquired new importance from subsequent events.
The first session of the twenty-sixth Congress opened December,
1839. The organization of the House was delayed by a closely and
earnestly contested election from the State of New Jersey. Five
Democrats claiming seats as against an equal number of Whigs.
Neither set was admitted until after the election of Speaker, which
resulted in the choice of Robert M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, the Whig
candidate, who was elected by the full Whig vote with the aid of a few
democrats—friends of Mr. Calhoun, who had for several previous
sessions been acting with the Whigs on several occasions. The House
excluding the five contested seats from New Jersey, was really
Democratic; having 122 members, and the Whigs 113 members. The
contest for the Speakership was long and arduous, neither party
adhering to its original caucus candidate. Twenty scattering votes,
eleven of whom were classed as Whigs, and nine as Democrats,
prevented a choice on the earlier ballots, and it was really Mr.
Calhoun’s Democratic friends uniting with a solid Whig vote on the
final ballot that gained that party the election. The issue involved was
a vital party question as involving the organization of the House. The
chief measure, of public importance, adopted at this session of
Congress was an act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, and
disbursing of the public money. It practically revolutionized the
system previously in force, and was a complete and effectual
separation of the federal treasury and the Government, from the
banks and moneyed corporations of the States. It was violently
opposed by the Whig members, led by Mr. Clay, and supported by
Mr. Cushing, but was finally passed in both Houses by a close vote.
At this time, and in the House of Representatives, was exhibited
for the first time in the history of Congress, the present practice of
members “pairing off,” as it is called; that is to say, two members of
opposite political parties, or of opposite views on any particular
subject, agreeing to absent themselves from the duties of the House,
for the time being. The practice was condemned on the floor of the
House by Mr. John Quincy Adams, who introduced a resolution:
“That the practice, first openly avowed at the present session of
Congress, of pairing off, involves, on the part of the members
resorting to it, the violation of the Constitution of the United States,
of an express rule of this House, and of the duties of both parties in
the transaction, to their immediate constituents, to this House, and
to their country.” This resolution was placed in the calendar to take
its turn, but not being reached during the session, was not voted on.
That was the first instance of this justly condemned practice, fifty
years after the establishment of the Government; but since then it
has become common, even inveterate, and is now carried to great
lengths.
The last session of the twenty-sixth Congress was barren of
measures, and necessarily so, as being the last of our administration
superseded by the popular voice, and soon to expire; and therefore
restricted by a sense of propriety, during the brief remainder of its
existence, to the details of business and the routine of service. The
cause of this was the result of the presidential election of 1840. The
same candidates who fought the battle of 1836 were again in the
field. Mr. Van Buren was the Democratic candidate. His
administration had been satisfactory to his party, and his
nomination for a second term was commended by the party in the
different States in appointing their delegates; so that the proceedings
of the convention which nominated him were entirely harmonious
and formal in their nature. Mr. Richard M. Johnson, the actual Vice-
President, was also nominated for Vice-President.
On the Whig ticket, General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was
the candidate for President, and Mr. John Tyler, of Virginia, for Vice-
President. The leading statesmen of the Whig party were again put
aside, to make way for a military man, prompted by the example in
the nomination of General Jackson, the men who managed
presidential elections believing then as now that military renown was
a passport to popularity and rendered a candidate more sure of
election. Availability—for the purpose—was the only ability asked for.
Mr. Clay, the most prominent Whig in the country, and the
acknowledged head of the party, was not deemed available; and
though Mr. Clay was a candidate before the convention, the
proceedings were so regulated that his nomination was referred to a
committee, ingeniously devised and directed for the afterwards
avowed purpose of preventing his nomination and securing that of
General Harrison; and of producing the intended result without
showing the design, and without leaving a trace behind to show what
was done. The scheme (a modification of which has since been
applied to subsequent national conventions, and out of which many
bitter dissensions have again and again arisen) is embodied and was
executed in and by means of the following resolution adopted by the
convention: “Ordered, That the delegates from each State be
requested to assemble as a delegation, and appoint a committee, not
exceeding three in number, to receive the views and opinions of such
delegation, and communicate the same to the assembled committees
of all the delegations, to be by them respectively reported to their
principals; and that thereupon the delegates from each State be
requested to assemble as a delegation, and ballot for candidates for
the offices of President and Vice-President, and having done so, to
commit the ballot designating the votes of each candidate, and by
whom given, to its committee, and thereupon all the committees
shall assemble and compare the several ballots, and report the result
of the same to their several delegations, together with such facts as
may bear upon the nomination; and said delegation shall forthwith
reassemble and ballot again for candidates for the above offices, and
again commit the result to the above committees, and if it shall
appear that a majority of the ballots are for any one man for
candidate for President, said committee shall report the result to the
convention for its consideration; but if there shall be no such
majority, then the delegation shall repeat the balloting until such a
majority shall be obtained, and then report the same to the
convention for its consideration. That the vote of a majority of each
delegation shall be reported as the vote of that State; and each State
represented here shall vote its full electoral vote by such delegation
in the committee.” This was a sum in political algebra, whose
quotient was known, but the quantity unknown except to those who
planned it; and the result was—for General Scott, 16 votes; for Mr.
Clay, 90 votes; for General Harrison, 148 votes. And as the law of the
convention impliedly requires the absorption of all minorities, the
106 votes were swallowed up by the 148 votes and made to count for
General Harrison, presenting him as the unanimity candidate of the
convention, and the defeated candidates and all their friends bound
to join in his support. And in this way the election of 1840 was
effected—a process certainly not within the purview of those framers
of the constitution who supposed they were giving to the nation the
choice of its own chief magistrate.
The contest before the people was a long and bitter one, the
severest ever known in the country, up to that time, and scarcely
equalled since. The whole Whig party and the large league of
suspended banks, headed by the Bank of the United States making
its last struggle for a new national charter in the effort to elect a
President friendly to it, were arrayed against the Democrats, whose
hard-money policy and independent treasury schemes, met with
little favor in the then depressed condition of the country. Meetings
were held in every State, county and town; the people thoroughly
aroused; and every argument made in favor of the respective
candidates and parties, which could possibly have any effect upon
the voters. The canvass was a thorough one, and the election was
carried for the Whig candidates, who received 234 electoral votes
coming from 19 States. The remaining 60 electoral votes of the other
9 States, were given to the Democratic candidate; though the popular
vote was not so unevenly divided; the actual figures being 1,275,611
for the Whig ticket, against 1,135,761 for the Democratic ticket. It was
a complete rout of the Democratic party, but without the moral effect
of victory.
On March 4, 1841, was inaugurated as President, Gen’l Wm. H.
Harrison, the first Chief Magistrate elected by the Whig party, and
the first President who was not a Democrat, since the installation of
Gen’l Jackson, March 4, 1829. His term was a short one. He issued a
call for a special session of Congress to convene the 31st of May
following, to consider the condition of the revenue and finances of
the country, but did not live to meet it. Taken ill with a fatal malady
during the last days of March, he died on the 4th of April following,
having been in office just one month. He was succeeded by the Vice-
President, John Tyler. Then, for the first time in our history as a
government, the person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United
States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the
constitution, had devolved upon him the Presidential office.
The twenty-seventh Congress opened in extra session at the call of
the late President, May 31, 1841. A Whig member—Mr. White of
Kentucky—was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. The
Whigs had a majority of forty-seven in the House and of seven in the
Senate, and with the President and Cabinet of the same political
party presented a harmony of aspect frequently wanting during the
three previous administrations. The first measure of the new
dominant party was the repeal of the independent treasury act
passed at the previous session; and the next in order were bills to
establish a system of bankruptcy, and for distribution of public land
revenue. The former was more than a bankrupt law; it was practically
an insolvent law for the abolition of debts at the will of the debtor. It
applied to all persons in debt, allowed them to institute the
proceedings in the district where the petitioner resided, allowed
constructive notices to creditors in newspapers—declared the
abolition of the debt where effects were surrendered and fraud not
proved; and gave exclusive jurisdiction to the federal courts, at the
will of the debtor. It was framed upon the model of the English
insolvent debtors’ act of George the Fourth, and embodied most of
the provisions of that act, but substituting a release from the debt
instead of a release from imprisonment. The bill passed by a close
vote in both Houses.
 The land revenue distribution bill of this session had its origin in
the fact that the States and corporations owed about two hundred
millions to creditors in Europe. These debts were in stocks, much
depreciated by the failure in many instances to pay the accruing
interest—in some instances failure to provide for the principal. These
creditors, becoming uneasy, wished the federal government to
assume their debts. The suggestion was made as early as 1838,
renewed in 1839, and in 1840 became a regular question mixed up
with the Presidential election of that year, and openly engaging the
active exertions of foreigners. Direct assumption was not urged;
indirect by giving the public land revenue to the States was the mode
pursued, and the one recommended in the message of President
Tyler. Mr. Calhoun spoke against the measure with more than usual
force and clearness, claiming that it was unconstitutional and
without warrant. Mr. Benton on the same side called it a squandering
of the public patrimony, and pointed out its inexpediency in the
depleted state of the treasury, apart from its other objectionable
features. It passed by a party vote.
This session is remarkable for the institution of the hour rule in
the House of Representatives—a very great limitation upon the
freedom of debate. It was a Whig measure, adopted to prevent delay
in the enactment of pending bills. It was a rigorous limitation,
frequently acting as a bar to profitable debate and checking members
in speeches which really impart information valuable to the House
and the country. No doubt the license of debate has been frequently
abused in Congress, as in all other deliberative assemblies, but the
incessant use of the previous question, which cuts off all debate,
added to the hour rule which limits a speech to sixty minutes
(constantly reduced by interruptions) frequently results in the
transaction of business in ignorance of what they are about by those
who are doing it.
The rule worked so well in the House, for the purpose for which it
was devised—made the majority absolute master of the body—that
Mr. Clay undertook to have the same rule adopted in the Senate; but
the determined opposition to it, both by his political opponents and
friends, led to the abandonment of the attempt in that chamber.
Much discussion took place at this session, over the bill offered in
the House of Representatives, for the relief of the widow of the late
President—General Harrison—appropriating one year’s salary. It was
strenuously opposed by the Democratic members, as
unconstitutional, on account of its principle, as creating a private
pension list, and as a dangerous precedent. Many able speeches were
made against the bill, both in the Senate and House; among others,
the following extract from the speech of an able Senator contains
some interesting facts. He said: “Look at the case of Mr. Jefferson, a
man than whom no one that ever existed on God’s earth were the
human family more indebted to. His furniture and his estate were
sold to satisfy his creditors. His posterity was driven from house and
home, and his bones now lay in soil owned by a stranger. His family
are scattered: some of his descendants are married in foreign lands.
Look at Monroe—the able, the patriotic Monroe, whose services were
revolutionary, whose blood was spilt in the war of Independence,
whose life was worn out in civil service, and whose estate has been
sold for debt, his family scattered, and his daughter buried in a
foreign land. Look at Madison, the model of every virtue, public or
private, and he would only mention in connection with this subject,
his love of order, his economy, and his systematic regularity in all his
habits of business. He, when his term of eight years had expired, sent
a letter to a gentleman (a son of whom is now on this floor) [Mr.
Preston], enclosing a note of five thousand dollars, which he
requested him to endorse, and raise the money in Virginia, so as to
enable him to leave this city, and return to his modest retreat—his
patrimonial inheritance—in that State. General Jackson drew upon
the consignee of his cotton crop in New Orleans for six thousand
dollars to enable him to leave the seat of government without leaving
creditors behind him. These were honored leaders of the republican
party. They had all been Presidents. They had made great sacrifices,
and left the presidency deeply embarrassed; and yet the republican
party who had the power and the strongest disposition to relieve
their necessities, felt they had no right to do so by appropriating
money from the public Treasury. Democracy would not do this. It
was left for the era of federal rule and federal supremacy—who are
now rushing the country with steam power into all the abuses and
corruptions of a monarchy, with its pensioned aristocracy—and to
entail upon the country a civil pension list.”
There was an impatient majority in the House in favor of the
passage of the bill. The circumstances were averse to deliberation—a
victorious party, come into power after a heated election, seeing their
elected candidate dying on the threshold of his administration, poor
and beloved: it was a case for feeling more than of judgment,
especially with the political friends of the deceased—but few of whom
could follow the counsels of the head against the impulsions of the
heart.
The bill passed, and was approved; and as predicted, it established
a precedent which has since been followed in every similar case.
The subject of naval pensions received more than usual
consideration at this session. The question arose on the discussion of
the appropriation bill for that purpose. A difference about a navy—on
the point of how much and what kind—had always been a point of
difference between the two great political parties of the Union,
which, under whatsoever names, are always the same, each
preserving its identity in principles and policy, but here the two
parties divided upon an abuse which no one could deny or defend. A
navy pension fund had been established under the act of 1832, which
was a just and proper law, but on the 3d of March, 1837, an act was
passed entitled “An act for the more equitable distribution of the
Navy Pension Fund.” That act provided: I. That Invalid naval
pensions should commence and date back to the time of receiving
the inability, instead of completing the proof. II. It extended the
pensions for death to all cases of death, whether incurred in the line
of duty or not. III. It extended the widow’s pensions for life, when
five years had been the law both in the army and navy. IV. It adopted
the English system of pensioning children of deceased marines until
they attained their majority.
The effect of this law was to absorb and bankrupt the navy pension
fund, a meritorious fund created out of the government share of
prize money, relinquished for that purpose, and to throw the
pensions, arrears as well as current and future, upon the public
treasury, where it was never intended they were to be. It was to
repeal this act, that an amendment was introduced at this session on
the bringing forward of the annual appropriation bill for navy
pensions, and long and earnest were the debates upon it. The
amendment was lost, the Senate dividing on party lines, the Whigs
against and the Democrats for the amendment. The subject is
instructive, as then was practically ratified and re-enacted the
pernicious practice authorized by the act of 1837, of granting
pensions to date from the time of injury and not from the time of
proof; and has grown up to such proportions in recent years that the
last act of Congress appropriating money for arrears of pensions,
provided for the payment of such an enormous sum of money that it
would have appalled the original projectors of the act of 1837 could
they have seen to what their system has led.
Again, at this session, the object of the tariff occupied the attention
of Congress. The compromise act, as it was called, of 1833, which was
composed of two parts—one to last nine years, for the benefit of
manufactures; the other to last for ever, for the benefit of the
planting and consuming interest—was passed, as hereinbefore
stated, in pursuance of an agreement between Mr. Clay and Mr.
Calhoun and their respective friends, at the time the former was
urging the necessity for a continuance of high tariff for protection
and revenue, and the latter was presenting and justifying before
Congress the nullification ordinance adopted by the Legislature of
South Carolina. To Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun it was a political
necessity, one to get rid of a stumbling-block (which protective tariff
had become); the other to escape a personal peril which his
nullifying ordinance had brought upon him, and with both, it was a
piece of policy, to enable them to combine against Mr. Van Buren, by
postponing their own contention; and a device on the part of its
author (Mr. Clayton, of Delaware) and Mr. Clay to preserve the
protective system. It provided for a reduction of a certain per centage
each year, on the duties for the ensuing nine years, until the revenue
was reduced to 20 per cent. ad valorem on all articles imported into
the country. In consequence the revenue was so reduced that in the
last year, there was little more than half what the exigencies of the
government required, and different modes, by loans and otherwise,
were suggested to meet the deficiency. The Secretary of the Treasury
had declared the necessity of loans and taxes to carry on the
government; a loan bill for twelve millions had been passed; a tariff
bill to raise fourteen millions was depending; and the chairman of
the Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Millard Fillmore, defended
its necessity in an able speech. His bill proposed twenty per cent.
additional to the existing duty on certain specified articles, sufficient
to make up the amount wanted. This encroachment on a measure so
much vaunted when passed, and which had been kept inviolate while
operating in favor of one of the parties to it, naturally excited
complaint and opposition from the other, and Mr. Gilmer, of
Virginia, in a speech against the new bill, said: “In referring to the
compromise act, the true characteristics of that act which
recommended it strongly to him, were that it contemplated that
duties were to be levied for revenue only, and in the next place to the
amount only necessary to the supply of the economical wants of the
government. He begged leave to call the attention of the committee
to the principle recognized as the language of the compromise, a
principle which ought to be recognized in all time to come by every
department of the government. It is, that duties to be raised for
revenue are to be raised to such an amount only as is necessary for
an economical administration of the government. Some incidental
protection must necessarily be given, and he, for one, coming from
an anti-tariff portion of the country, would not object to it.”
The bill went to the Senate where it found Mr. Clay and Mr.
Calhoun in positions very different from what they occupied when
the compromise act was passed—then united, now divided—then
concurrent, now antagonistic, and the antagonism general, upon all
measures, was to be special upon this one. Their connection with the
subject made it their function to lead off in its consideration; and
their antagonist positions promised sharp encounters, which did not
fail to come. Mr. Clay said that he “observed that the Senator from
South Carolina based his abstractions on the theories of books on
English authorities, and on the arguments urged in favor of free
trade by a certain party in the British Parliament. Now he, (Mr.
Clay,) and his friends would not admit of these authorities being
entitled to as much weight as the universal practice of nations, which
in all parts of the world was found to be in favor of protecting home
manufactures to an extent sufficient to keep them in a flourishing
condition. This was the whole difference. The Senator was in favor of
book theory and abstractions: he (Mr. Clay) and his friends, were in
favor of the universal practice of nations, and the wholesome and
necessary protection of domestic manufactures.”
Mr. Calhoun in reply, referring to his allusion to the success in the
late election of the tory party in England, said: “The interests,
objects, and aims of the tory party there and the whig party here, are
identical. The identity of the two parties is remarkable. The tory
party are the patrons of corporate monopolies; and are not you?
They are advocates of a high tariff; and are not you? They are
supporters of a national bank; and are not you? They are for corn
laws—laws oppressive to the masses of the people, and favorable to
their own power; and are not you? Witness this bill.*** The success
of that party in England, and of the whig party here, is the success of
the great money power, which concentrates the interests of the two
parties, and identifies their principles.”
The bill was passed by a large majority, upon the general ground
that the government must have revenue.
The chief measure of the session, and the great object of the whig
party—the one for which it had labored for ten years—was for the re-
charter of a national bank. Without this all other measures would be
deemed to be incomplete, and the victorious election itself but little
better than a defeat. The President, while a member of the
Democratic party, had been opposed to the United States Bank; and
to overcome any objections he might have the bill was carefully
prepared, and studiously contrived to avoid the President’s
objections, and save his consistency—a point upon which he was
exceedingly sensitive. The democratic members resisted strenuously,
in order to make the measure odious, but successful resistance was
impossible. It passed both houses by a close vote; and contrary to all
expectation the President disapproved the act, but with such
expressions of readiness to approve another bill which should be free
from the objections which he named, as still to keep his party
together, and to prevent the resignation of his cabinet. In his veto
message the President fell back upon his early opinions against the
constitutionality of a national bank, so often and so publicly
expressed.
The veto caused consternation among the whig members; and Mr.
Clay openly gave expression to his dissatisfaction, in the debate on
the veto message, in terms to assert that President Tyler had violated
his faith to the whig party, and had been led off from them by new
associations. He said: “And why should not President Tyler have
suffered the bill to become a law without his signature? Without
meaning the slightest possible disrespect to him (nothing is further
from my heart than the exhibition of any such feeling towards that
distinguished citizen, long my personal friend), it cannot be
forgotten that he came into his present office under peculiar
circumstances. The people did not foresee the contingency which has
happened. They voted for him as Vice-President. They did not,
therefore, scrutinize his opinions with the care which they probably
ought to have done, and would have done, if they could have looked
into futurity. If the present state of the fact could have been
anticipated—if at Harrisburg, or at the polls, it had been foreseen
that General Harrison would die in one short month after the
commencement of his administration; so that Vice-President Tyler
would be elevated to the presidential chair; that a bill passed by
decisive majorities of the first whig Congress, chartering a national
bank, would be presented for his sanction; and that he would veto
the bill, do I hazard anything when I express the conviction that he
would not have received a solitary vote in the nominating
convention, nor one solitary electoral vote in any State in the
Union?”
The vote was taken on the bill over again, as required by the
constitution, and so far from receiving a two-thirds vote, it received
only a bare majority, and was returned to the House with a message
stating his objections to it, where it gave rise to some violent
speaking, more directed to the personal conduct of the President
than to the objections to the bill stated in his message. The veto was
sustained; and so ended the second attempt to resuscitate the old
United States Bank under a new name. This second movement to
establish the bank has a secret history. It almost caused the
establishment of a new party, with Mr. Tyler as its head; earnest
efforts having been made in that behalf by many prominent Whigs
and Democrats. The entire cabinet, with the exception of Mr.
Webster, resigned within a few days after the second veto. It was a
natural thing for them to do, and was not unexpected. Indeed Mr.
Webster had resolved to tender his resignation also, but on
reconsideration determined to remain and publish his reasons
therefor in a letter to the National Intelligencer, in the following
words:
“Lest any misapprehension should exist, as to the reasons which
led me to differ from the course pursued by my late colleagues, I wish
to say that I remain in my place, first, because I have seen no
sufficient reasons for the dissolution of the late Cabinet, by the
voluntary act of its own members. I am perfectly persuaded of the
absolute necessity of an institution, under the authority of Congress,
to aid revenue and financial operations, and to give the country the
blessings of a good currency and cheap exchanges. Notwithstanding
what has passed, I have confidence that the President will co-operate
with the legislature in overcoming all difficulties in the attainment of
these objects; and it is to the union of the Whig party—by which I
mean the whole party, the Whig President, the Whig Congress, and
the Whig people—that I look for a realization of our wishes. I can
look nowhere else. In the second place if I had seen reasons to resign
my office, I should not have done so, without giving the President
reasonable notice, and affording him time to select the hands to
which he should confide the delicate and important affairs now
pending in this department.”
The conduct of the President in the matter of the vetoes of the two
bank bills produced revolt against him in the party; and the Whigs of
the two Houses of Congress held several formal meetings to consider
what they should do in the new condition of affairs. An address to the
people of the United States was resolved upon. The rejection of the
bank bill gave great vexation to one side, and equal exultation to the
other. The subject was not permitted to rest, however; a national
bank was the life—the vital principle—of the Whig party, without
which it could not live as a party; it was the power which was to give
them power and the political and financial control of the Union. A
second attempt was made, four days after the veto, to accomplish the
end by amendments to a bill relating to the currency, which had been
introduced early in the session. Mr. Sargeant of Pennsylvania, moved
to strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert his amendments,
which were substantially the same as the vetoed bill, except changing
the amount of capital and prohibiting discounts on notes other than
bills of exchange. The bill was pushed to a vote with astonishing
rapidity, and passed by a decided majority. In the Senate the bill
went to a select committee which reported it back without alteration,
as had been foreseen, the committee consisting entirely of friends of
the measure; and there was a majority for it on final passage.
Concurred in by the Senate without alteration, it was returned to the
House, and thence referred to the President for his approval or
disapproval. It was disapproved and it was promulgated in language
intended to mean a repudiation of the President, a permanent
separation of the Whig party from him, and to wash their hands of all
accountability for his acts. An opening paragraph of the address set
forth that, for twelve years the Whigs had carried on a contest for the
regulation of the currency, the equalization of exchanges, the
economical administration of the finances, and the advancement of
industry—all to be accomplished by means of a national bank—
declaring these objects to be misunderstood by no one and the bank
itself held to be secured in the Presidential election, and its
establishment the main object of the extra session. The address then
proceeds to state how these plans were frustrated:
“It is with profound and poignant regret that we find ourselves
called upon to invoke your attention to this point. Upon the great
and leading measure touching this question, our anxious endeavors
to respond to the earnest prayers of the nation have been frustrated
by an act as unlooked for as it is to be lamented. We grieve to say to
you that by the exercise of that power in the constitution which has
ever been regarded with suspicion, and often with odium, by the
people—a power which we had hoped was never to be exhibited on
this subject, by a Whig President—we have been defeated in two
attempts to create a fiscal agent, which the wants of the country had
demonstrated to us, in the most absolute form of proof to be
eminently necessary and proper in the present emergency. Twice
have we with the utmost diligence and deliberation matured a plan
for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of the public moneys
through the agency of a corporation adapted to that end, and twice
has it been our fate to encounter the opposition of the President,
through the application of the veto power.*** We are constrained to
say that we find no ground to justify us in the conviction that the veto
of the President has been interposed on this question solely upon
conscientious and well-considered opinions of constitutional scruple
as to his duty in the case presented. On the contrary, too many proofs
have been forced upon our observation to leave us free from the
apprehension that the President has permitted himself to be beguiled
into an opinion that by this exhibition of his prerogative he might be
able to divert the policy of his administration into a channel which
should lead to new political combinations, and accomplish results
which must overthrow the present divisions of party in the country;
and finally produce a state of things which those who elected him, at
least, have never contemplated.
 “In this state of things, the Whigs will naturally look with anxiety
to the future, and inquire what are the actual relations between the
President and those who brought him into power; and what, in the
opinion of their friends in Congress, should be their course
hereafter.*** The President by his withdrawal of confidence from his
real friends in Congress and from the members of his cabinet; by his
bestowal of it upon others notwithstanding their notorious
opposition to leading measures of his administrations has voluntarily
separated himself from those by whose exertions and suffrage he was
elevated to that office through which he has reached his present
exalted station.*** The consequence is, that those who brought the
President into power can be no longer, in any manner or degree,
justly held responsible or blamed for the administration of the
executive branch of the government; and the President and his
advisers should be exclusively hereafter deemed accountable.*** The
conduct of the President has occasioned bitter mortification and
deep regret. Shall the party, therefore, yielding to sentiments of
despair, abandon its duty, and submit to defeat and disgrace? Far
from suffering such dishonorable consequences, the very
disappointment which it has unfortunately experienced should serve
only to redouble its exertions, and to inspire it with fresh courage to
persevere with a spirit unsubdued and a resolution unshaken, until
the prosperity of the country is fully re-established, and its liberties
firmly secured against all danger from the abuses, encroachments or
usurpations of the executive department of the government.”
This was the manifesto, so far as it concerns the repudiation of
President Tyler, which Whig members of Congress put forth: it was
answered (under the name of an address to his constituents) by Mr.
Cushing, in a counter special plea—counter to it on all points—
especially on the main question of which party the President was to
belong to; the manifesto of the Whigs assigning him to the
democracy—the address of Mr. Cushing, claiming him for the Whigs.
It was especially severe on Mr. Clay, as setting up a caucus
dictatorship to coerce the President; and charged that the address
emanated from this caucus, and did not embody or represent the
sentiments of all Whig leaders; and referred to Mr. Webster’s letter,
and his remaining in the cabinet as proof of this. But it was without
avail against the concurrent statements of the retiring senators, and
the confirmatory statements of many members of Congress. The
Whig party recoiled from the President, and instead of the unity
predicted by Mr. Webster, there was diversity and widespread
dissension. The Whig party remained with Mr. Clay; Mr. Webster
retired, Mr. Cushing was sent on a foreign mission, and the
President, seeking to enter the democratic ranks, was refused by
them, and left to seek consolation in privacy, for his political errors
and omissions.
The extra session, called by President Harrison, held under Mr.
Tyler, dominated by Mr. Clay, commenced May 31, and ended Sept.
13, 1841—and was replete with disappointed calculations, and nearly
barren of permanent results. The purposes for which it was called
into being, failed. The first annual message of President Tyler, at the
opening of the regular session in December, 1841, coming in so soon
after the termination of the extra session, was brief and meagre of
topics, with few points of interest.
In the month of March, 1842, Mr. Henry Clay resigned his place in
the Senate, and delivered a valedictory address to that body. He had
intended this step upon the close of the previous presidential
campaign, but had postponed it to take personal charge of the
several measures which would be brought before Congress at the
special session—the calling of which he foresaw would be necessary.
He resigned not on account of age, or infirmity, or disinclination for
public life; but out of disgust—profound and inextinguishable. He
had been basely defeated for the Presidential nomination, against the
wishes of the Whig party, of which he was the acknowledged head—
he had seen his leading measures vetoed by the President whom his
party had elected—the downfall of the Bank for which he had so
often pledged himself—and the insolent attacks of the petty
adherents of the administration in the two Houses: all these causes
acting on his proud and lofty spirit, induced this withdrawal from
public life for which he was so well fitted.
The address opened with a retrospect of his early entrance into the
Senate, and a grand encomium upon its powers and dignity as he
had found it, and left it. Memory went back to that early year, 1806,
when just past thirty years of age, he entered the United States
Senate, and commenced his high career—a wide and luminous
horizon before him, and will and talent to fill it. He said: “From the
year 1806, the period of my entering upon this noble theatre of my
public service, with but short intervals, down to the present time, I
have been engaged in the service of my country. Of the nature and
value of those services, which I may have rendered during my long
career of public life, it does not become me to speak. History, if she
deigns to notice me, and posterity—if a recollection of any humble
service which I may have rendered, shall be transmitted to posterity
—will be the best, truest, and most impartial judges; and to them I
defer for a decision upon their value. But, upon one subject, I may be
allowed to speak. As to my public acts and public conduct, they are
for the judgment of my fellow-citizens; but my private motives of
action—that which prompted me to take the part which I may have
done, upon great measures during their progress in the national
councils, can be known only to the Great Searcher of the human
heart and myself; and I trust I shall be pardoned for repeating again
a declaration which I made thirty years ago: that whatever error I
may have committed—and doubtless I have committed many during
my public service—I may appeal to the Divine Searcher of hearts for
the truth of the declaration which I now make, with pride and
confidence, that I have been actuated by no personal motives—that I
have sought no personal aggrandizement—no promotion from the
advocacy of those various measures on which I have been called to
act—that I have had an eye, a single eye, a heart, a single heart, ever
devoted to what appeared to be the best interests of the country.”
Mr. Clay led a great party, and for a long time, whether he dictated
to it or not, and kept it well bound together, without the usual means
of forming and leading parties. It was surprising that, without power
and patronage, he was able so long and so undividedly to keep so
great a party together, and lead it so unresistingly. He had great
talents, but not equal to some whom he led. He had eloquence—
superior in popular effect, but not equal in high oratory to that of
some others. But his temperament was fervid, his will was strong,
and his courage daring; and these qualities, added to his talents, gave
him the lead and supremacy in his party, where he was always
dominant. The farewell address made a deep impression upon the
Senators present; and after its close, Mr. Preston brought the
ceremony to a conclusion, by moving an adjournment, which was
agreed to.
 Again at this session was the subject of the tariff considered, but
this time, as a matter of absolute necessity, to provide a revenue.
Never before were the coffers and the credit of the treasury at so low
an ebb. A deficit of fourteen millions in the treasury—a total inability
to borrow, either at home or abroad, the amount of the loan of twelve
millions authorized the year before—the treasury notes below par,
and the revenues from imports inadequate and decreasing.
The compromise act of 1833 in reducing the duties gradually
through nine years, to a fixed low rate; the act of 1837 in distributing
the surplus revenue; and the continual and continued distribution of
the land revenue, had brought about this condition of things. The
remedy was sought in a bill increasing the tariff, and suspending the
land revenue distribution. Two such bills were passed in a single
month, and both vetoed by the President. It was now near the end of
August. Congress had been in session for an unprecedentedly long
time. Adjournment could not be deferred, and could not take place
without providing for the Treasury. The compromise act and the land
distribution were the stumbling-blocks: it was resolved to sacrifice
them together; and a bill was introduced raising the duties above the
fixed rate of twenty per cent., and that breach of the mutual
assurance in relation to the compromise, immediately in terms of the
assurance, suspended the land revenue distribution—to continue it
suspended while duties above the compromise limit continued to be
levied. And as that has been the case ever since, the distribution of
the land revenue has been suspended ever since. The bill was passed,
and approved by the President, and Congress thereupon adjourned.
The subject of the navy was also under consideration at this
session. The naval policy of the United States was a question of party
division from the origin of parties in the early years of the
government—the Federal party favoring a strong and splendid navy,
the Republican a moderate establishment, adapted to the purposes
of defense more than of offense. And this line of division has
continued. Under the Whig regime the policy for a great navy
developed itself. The Secretary of the Navy recommended a large
increase of ships, seamen and officers, involving a heavy expense,
though the government was not in a condition to warrant any such
expenditure, and no emergency required an increase in that branch
of the public service. The vote was taken upon the increase proposed
by the Secretary of the Navy, and recommended by the President;
and it was carried, the yeas and nays being well defined by the party
line.
The first session of the twenty-eighth Congress, which convened
December 1843, exhibited in its political complexion, serious losses
in the Whig following. The Democratic candidate for Speaker of the
House of Representatives, was elected over the Whig candidate—the
vote standing 128 to 59. Thus an adverse majority of more than two
to one was the result to the Whig party at the first election after the
extra session of 1841. The President’s message referred to the treaty
which had lately been concluded with Great Britain relative to the
northwestern territory extending to the Columbia river, including
Oregon and settling the boundary lines; and also to a pending treaty
with Texas for her annexation to the United States; and concluded
with a recommendation for the establishment of a paper currency to
be issued and controlled by the Federal government.
For more than a year before the meeting of the Democratic
Presidential Convention in Baltimore, in May 1844, it was evident to
leading Democrats that Martin Van Buren was the choice of the
party. To overcome this popular current and turn the tide in favor of
Mr. Calhoun, who desired the nomination, resort was had to the
pending question of the annexation of Texas. Mr. Van Buren was
known to be against it, and Mr. Calhoun for it. To gain time, the
meeting of the convention was postponed from December previous,
which had been the usual time for holding such elections, until the
following May. The convention met, and consisted of two hundred
and sixty-six delegates, a decided majority of whom were for Mr. Van
Buren, and cast their votes accordingly on the first ballot. But a
chairman had been selected, who was adverse to his nomination; and
aided by a rule adopted by the convention, which required a
concurrence of two-thirds to effect a nomination, the opponents of
Mr. Van Buren were able to accomplish his defeat. Mr. Calhoun had,
before the meeting of the convention, made known his
determination, in a public address, not to suffer his name to go
before that assemblage as a candidate for the presidency, and stated
his reasons for so doing, which were founded mainly on the manner
in which the convention was constituted; his objections being to the
mode of choosing delegates, and the manner of their giving in their