† One-half; Toledo, Ohio, $75,000. Reported for the first time as a separate bill. Transferred to immediate deficiency bill by amendment in the House. ** Pension deficiency added. OF MR. BELL, OF TENNESSEE, ON THE MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Delivered in the House of Representatives, December 26, 1838. The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, for the purpose of considering and referring the President's Message Mr. BELL said that the message of the President of the United States must always be an important document-one which would be looked to with interest, not only at home, but abroad-a paper which would be examined and carefully weighed, not only with reference to the casual and extraordinary topics which might engage the public mind for the moment, but in reference to subjects less fleeting and temporary-to the doctrines, the principles, and the practices, which appeared to be countenanced and propagated-doctrines and practices which were calculated to endure; which were fundamental; which related to the organic construction of our system: and he had risen to make some observations more in reference to these general and prominent topics touched upon in the Message, than to the exciting and absorbing subtreasury scheme, or the mode of collecting, safe keeping, and disbursing, the public revenue; and, taking the views he did, he should proceed at once to notice some passages in the Message, which, in his opinion, called for public scrutiny and animadversion. In treating of our system of government, and more particularly of the federal constitution, the President informs us that "It has proved amply sufficient for the various emergencies incident to our condition as a nation. A formidable foreign war; agitating collisions between domestic, and, in some respects, rival sovereignties; temptations to interfere in the intestine commotions of neighboring countries; the dangerous influences that arise in periods of excessive prosperity; and the anti-republican tendencies of associated wealth, these, with other trials not less formidable, have all been encountered, and thus far successfully resisted." Among the most prominent dangers to which our form of government is exposed, the President here enumerates "the anti-republican tendencies of associated wealth." I suppose (said Mr. B.) it will be said that he refers to the association of capital accumulated in the State banks; but, in the opinion of the community generally, this language will warrant a more extensive application-an application far more operative, and demanding more serious reflection. But, before we inquire into the true import and probable drift of this address to the American people on the subject of the "anti-republican tendencies of associated wealth," one remark occurs to me as proper to be made on what appears to be an omission in this part of the Message. I observe that no notice is taken of the danger to be apprehended from the concentration of power in the hands of one man, or of a few. Whatever may be said of the selfish, exclusive, grasping, monopolizing, and anti-republican tendencies of mere wealth, I will not deny; yet I will say that all these bad qualities and tendencies may, with as much truth, and far more reason, be affirmed of political power; and it must strike the mind of every watchful observer, that, in the enumeration of the many dangers to which our country and its peculiar institutions are exposed-an enumeration made in order to put the people on their guard-the President has omitted to mention the most formidable of all; one which is known to have existed in the experience and progress of every free Government, and in the progress of every civilized society, from the beginning of time. I mean concentrated power-associated official power. I mean (to speak practically) the concentration of power inthe executive branch of the Government of the United States. It is worthy of serious notice that in a paper emanating, as this does, from the President himself, and which professes to set forth to a free people the most prominent dangers which threaten their liberties, and to awaken their vigilance against those evil tendencies which lurk in the system, the one which has always proved the most fatal-the tendency of power to accumulate in the hands of one man, and the grasping and monopolizing tendency of that power-is altogether omitted. Why is this? Why not admonish the people, when speaking of the tendencies of wealth in banks or elsewhere, that there was another most formidable danger in this and in every other free Government, which united all the evils of mere wealth with the more fearful passion of ambition? I affirm, then, sir, that this enumeration of the perils to which our free institutions are exposed is not perfect. If, said Mr. B., this warning given to the people in relation to the "antirepublican tendency of associated wealth" is only intended to be a continuation of the attacks heretofore made with so much acrimony upon the banking institutions of the country, I will not undertake to answer it in my own language, or by any arguments of my own, for I have never felt disposed to become the champion of those institutions; but in the language and by the arguments of a man of far more weight and influence, both from the station which he fills, and the large share of respect and influence he has always enjoyed with the party in power-a man whose late political career was directly connected with the most extraordinary incidents of the late administration—a man who owes his present elevation to the hearty approval with which his party sustained him in the most questionable act of that administration; a man whose opinions upon the question now under review were then received as orthodox and incontrovertible. I allude to the Chief Justice of the United States, (Mr. Taney.) [Mr. B. read from a letter of Mr. Taney, while Secretary of the Treasury, to the Committee of Ways and Means, of the 13th of April, 1834, a few paragraphs strongly commendatory of the State banks, and asserting in very broad terms the indispensable agency in a country like ours of banks and a paper circulation founded on credit.] ་ But, Mr. Chairman, if I correctly understand the import of the passage now under consideration, it manifests a laxity of principle, a recklessness of consequences; such a spirit of desperation in the choice of means to sustain power as ought to receive the severest reprehension from every well-wisher to our free institutions. This covert denunciation of wealth and of the rich is, without doubt, intended to be understood by those whom it pleases as a proof that the author of it is a friend and champion of the poor, as distinguished from the rich. Viewing it in this light, it is a sort of argument-an electioneering cant, which, however shameful and indefensible, may be allowed in the public speeches of ordinary candidates for a seat in the Legislature, or for some office or station in a State, or even for a seat in this Hall of the Representatives of the nation; but in a Chief Magistrate it is wholly unworthy and detestable. The next passage I shall notice in this extraordinary paper is in these words: "Each successive change made in our local institutions has contributed to extend the right of suffrage, has increased the direct influence of the mass of the community, given greater freedom to individual exertion, and restricted more and more the powers of Government." In the remarks I propose to make on the sentiment here expressed, I would not be understood as finding fault with the extension of the right of suffrage. In the State of Tennessee, and the Southwest generally, the right of suffrage has long existed in the fullest extent; nor am I disposed to say aught against the policy of other States in this respect; but I have a word or two to say in reference to the conclusion which the President has drawn from this and other changes in our local institutions. He undertakes to announce to the world that the effect of these changes has been to "increase the direct influence of the mass of the community, and to restrict more and more the powers of Government." Now, sir, however true this may be, when affirmed of the influence of the mass of the community, in the several States alluded to, and upon their measures and policy, and the restrictions which may have followed upon the powers of the State Governments, if it is intended by inference to affirm that the direct influence of the mass of the community upon the measures and policy of the national Government has been increased, or that the powers of the General Government have been restricted by any changes which have been made in any quarter, I deny that such is the fact. I make the issue direct. I affirm that whatever improvements may have followed from the changes of any kind in the constitutions of the States-whatever restrictions may have followed upon the powers of the State Governments, no such beneficial consequences have been felt in the operations of the Federal Government; though we might have supposed that the benefits of the extension of the right of suffrage, or other change in the local institutions, would have been felt, in some small degree at least, in the action of the General Government. But, sir, at no anterior period in the history of this country has the influence, direct and indirect, of the mass of the community been so little felt in the conduct of our national affairs, nor have the powers of the Federal Government ever before been strained to so high a point, if we may judge of these powers by the practice of the late and present administrations. Never before were the mass of the community so powerless. Of late, they have substantially nothing to do, having neither part nor lot in the affairs of the Government or of the country, but to follow blindly, and give their sanction, when called upon for that purpose, to whatever schemes and measures of public policy the heads of the party, some three or four men at most, are pleased to dictate to them. Such is and has been the power of party discipline, such the despotic principle of party association for years, that the mass of the community have rather stood in the relation of subjects to be governed than the controlling elements of power. How this has been brought aboutby what artful means-by what powers of intimidation on the one hand, and of seduction on the other, the mass of the people have had so little actual influence in the affairs of Government of late-I have often described on this floor. I have repeatedly referred to this subject as the origin of all the evils which now afflict the country. I content myself, for the present, by repeating that the mass of the people have for years been degraded to the rank of mere machines in the hands of a few men who have had the talent and address to use them for their own purposes. Never before were a free people under such positive, such despotic control, as the people of the United States have |