produced a statement from those engaged in the trade, among others from Mr. Augustus Storrs, late of New Hampshire, then of Missouri-a gentleman of character and intelligence, very capable of relating things as they were, and incapable of relating them otherwise; and who had been personally engaged in the trade. In presenting his statement, and moving to have it printed for the use of the Senate, I said: "This gentleman had been one of a caravan of eighty persons, one hundred and fifty-six horses, and twenty-three wagons and carriages, which had made the expedition from Missouri to Santa Fé (of New Mexico), in the months of May and June last. His account was full of interest and novelty. It sounded like romance to hear of caravans of men, horses, and wagons, travers- | ing with their merchandise the vast plain which lies between the Mississippi and the Rio del Norte. The story seemed better adapted to Asia than to North America. But, romantic as it might seem, the reality had already exceeded the visions of the wildest imagination. The journey to New Mexico, but lately deemed a chimerical project, had become an affair of ordinary occurrence. Santa Fé, but lately the Ultima Thule of American enterprise, was now considered as a stage only in the progress, or rather, a new point of departure to our invincible citizens. Instead of turning back from that point, the caravans broke up there, and the subdivisions branched off in different directions in search of new theatres for their enterprise. Some proceeded down the river to the Paso del Norte; some to the mines of Chihuahua and Durango, in the province of New Biscay; some to Sonora and Sinaloa, on the Gulf of California; and some, seeking new lines of communication with the Pacific, had undertaken to descend the western slope of our continent, through the unexplored regions of the Colorado. The fruit of these enterprises, for the present year, amounted to $190,000 in gold and silver bullion, and coin, and precious furs; a sum considerable, in itself, in the commerce of an infant State, but chiefly deserving a statesman's notice, as an earnest of what might be expected from a regulated and protected trade. The principal article given in exchange, is that of which we have the greatest abundance, and which has the peculiar advantage of making the circuit of the Union before it departs from the territories of the republiccotton-which grows in the South, is manufactured in the North, and exported from the West❤ "That the trade will be beneficial to the inhabitants of the Internal Provinces, is a proposition too plain to be argued. They are a people among whom all the arts are lost-the ample catalogue of whose wants may be inferred from the lamentable details of Mr. Storrs. No books! no newspapers! iron a dollar a pound! cultivating the earth with wooden tools! and spinning upon a stick! Such is the picture of a people whose fathers wore the proud title of Conquerors;" whose ancestors, in the time of Charles the Fifth, were the pride, the terror, and the model of Europe; and such has been the power of civil and religious despotism in accomplishing the degradation of the human species! To a people thus abased, and so lately arrived at the possession of their liberties, a supply of merchandise, upon the cheapest terms, is the least of the benefits to be derived from a commerce with the people of the United States. The consolidation of their republican institutions, the improvement of their moral and social condition, the restoration of their lost arts, and the development of their national resources, are among the grand results which philanthropy anticipates from such a commerce. "To the Indians themselves, the opening of a road through their country is an object of vital importance. It is connected with the preservation and improvement of their race. For two hundred years the problem of Indian civilization has been successively presented to each generation of the Americans, and solved by each in the same way. Schools have been set up, colleges founded, and missions established; a wonderful success has attended the commencement of every undertaking; and, after some time, the schools, the colleges, the missions, and the Indians, have all disappeared together. In the south alone have we seen an exception. There the nations have preserved themselves, and have made a cheering progress in the arts of civilization. Their advance is the work of twenty years. It dates its commencement from the opening of roads through their country. Roads induced separate families to settle at the crossing of rivers, to establish themselves at the best springs and tracts of land, and to begin to sell grain and provisions to the travellers, whom, a few years before, they would kill and plunder. This imparted the idea of exclusive property in the soil, and created an attachment for a fixed residence. Gradually, fields were opened, houses built, orchards planted, flocks and herds acquired, and slaves bought. The acquisition of these comforts, relieving the body from the torturing wants of cold and hunger, placed the mind in a condition to pursue its improvement.-This, Mr. President, is the true secret of the happy advance which the southern tribes have made in acquiring the arts of civilization; this has fitted them for the reception of schools and missions and doubtless, the same cause will produce the same effects among the tribes beyond. which it has produced among the tribes on this side of the Mississippi. "The right of way is indispensable, and the committee have begun with directing a bill to be reported for that purpose. Happily, there are no constitutional objections to it. State rights are in no danger! The road which is contemplated will trespass upon the soil, or infringe upon the jurisdiction of no State whatsoever. It runs a course and a distance to avoid all that; for it begins upon the outside line of the outside State, and runs directly off towards the setting sunfar away from all the States. The Congress and the Indians are alone to be consulted, and the statute book is full of precedents. Protesting against the necessity of producing precedents for an act, in itself pregnant with propriety, I will yet name a few in order to illustrate the policy of the government, and show its readiness to make roads through Indian countries to facilitate the intercourse of its citizens, and even upon foreign territory to promote commerce and national communications." Precedents were then shown. 1. A road from Nashville, Tennessee, through the Chicasaw and Choctaw tribes, to Natchez, 1806; 2, a road through the Creek nations, from Athens, in Georgia, to the 31st degree of north latitude, in the direction to New Orleans, 1806, and continued by act of 1807, with the consent of the Spanish government, through the then Spanish territory of West Florida to New Orleans; 3, three roads through the Cherokee nation, to open an intercourse between Georgia, Tennessee, and the lower Mississippi; and more than twenty others upon the territory of the United States. But the precedent chiefly relied upon was that from Athens through the Creek Indian territory and the Spanish dominions to New Orleans. It was up to the exigency of the occasion in every particular-being both upon Indian territory within our dominions, and upon foreign territory beyond them. The road I wanted fell within the terms of both these qualifications. It was to pass through tribes within our own territory, until it reached the Arkansas River: there it met the foreign boundary established by the treaty of 1819, which gave away, not only Texas, but half the Arkansas besides; and the bill which I brought in provided for continuing the road, with the assent of Mexico, from this boundary to Santa Fé, on the Upper del Norte. I deemed it fair to give additional emphasis to this precedent, by showing that I had it from Mr. Jefferson, and said: He who can find himself in the presence of that and was not entirely covered by the precedent. The foreign part of the road was the difficulty, That was a road to our own city, and no other than through the Spanish province of West direct territorial way from the Southern States Florida: this was a road to be, not only on foreign territory, but to go to a foreign country. Some Senators, favorable to the bill, were startled at it, and Mr. Lloyd, of Massachusetts, moved to strike out the part of the section which provided for this ex-territorial national highway; but not in a spirit of hostility to the bill itself providing for protection to a branch of commerce. Mr. Lowrie, of Pennsylvania, could not admit the force of the objection, and held it to be only a modification of what was now done for the protection of commerce-the substitution of land for water; and instanced the the Mediterranean Sea, and in the most remote sums annually spent in maintaining a fleet in oceans for the same purpose. Mr. Van Buren, thought the government was bound to extend "For a knowledge of this precedent, I am in- the same protection to this branch of trade as debted to a conversation with Mr. Jefferson to any other; and the road upon the foreign himself. In a late excursion to Virginia, I availed myself of a broken day to call and pay territory was only to be marked out, not made. my respects to that patriarchal statesman. The Mr. Macon thought the question no great matindividual must manage badly, Mr. President, ter. Formerly Indian traders followed “traces:" with the consent of the Mexican government. The bill passed the Senate by a large vote-30 to 12; and these are the names of the Senators voting for and against it: YEAS. Messrs. Barton, Benton, Bouligny, Brown, D'Wolf, Eaton, Edwards, Elliott, Holmes of Miss., Jackson (the General), Johnson of Kentucky, Johnston of Lou., Kelly, Knight, Lanman, Lloyd of Mass., Lowrie, McIlvaine, McLean, Noble, Palmer, Parrott, Ruggles, Seymour, Smith, Talbot, Taylor, Thomas, Van Buren, Van Dyke―30. NAYS.-Messrs. Branch, Chandler, Clayton, Cobb, Gaillard, Hayne, Holmes of Maine, King of Ala., King of N. Y., Macon, Tazewell, Williams-12. It passed the House of Representatives by a majority of thirty-received the approving signature of Mr. Monroe, among the last acts of his public life-was carried into effect by his successor, Mr. John Quincy Adams-and this road has remained a thoroughfare of commerce between Missouri and New Mexico, and all the western internal provinces ever since. now they must have roads. He did not care for precedents: they are generally good or bad as they suit or cross our purposes. The case of the road made by Mr. Jefferson was different. That road was made among Indians comparatively civilized, and who had some notions of property. But the proposed road now to be marked out would pass through wild tribes who think of nothing but killing and robbing a white man the moment they see him, and would not be restrained by treaty obligations even if they entered into them. Col. Johnson, of Kentucky, had never hesitated to vote the money which was necessary to protect the lives or property of our sea-faring men, or for Atlantic fortifications, or to suppress piracies. We had, at this session voted $500,000 to suppress piracy in the West Indies. We build ships of war, erect lighthouses, spend annual millions for the protection of ocean commerce; and he could not suppose that the sum proposed in this bill for the protection of an inland branch of trade so valuable to the West could be denied. Mr. Kelly, of Alabama, said the great object of the bill was to cherish and foster a branch of commerce already in existence. It is carried on by land through several Indian tribes. To be safe, a road must be had-a right of way-"a trace," if you please. To answer its purpose, this road, or "trace," must pass the boundary of the United States, and extend several hundred miles through the PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESIDENTIAL ELECwilderness country, in the Mexican Republic to the settlements with which the traffic must be carried on. It may be well to remember that the Mexican government is in the germ of its existence, struggling with difficulties that we have long since surmounted, and may not feel it convenient to make the road, and that it is enough to permit us to mark it out upon her soil; which is all that this bill proposes to do within her limits. Mr. Smith, of Maryland, would vote for the bill. The only question with him was, whether commerce. could be carried on to advantage on the proposed route; and, being satisfied that it could be, he should vote for the bill. Mr. Brown, of Ohio (Ethan A.), was very glad to hear such sentiments from the Senator from Maryland, and hoped that a reciprocal good feeling would always prevail between different sections of the Union. He thought there could be no objection to the bill, and approved the policy of getting the road upon Mexican territory CHAPTER XVII. TION IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGES. FOUR candidates were before the people for the office of President-General Jackson, Mr. John Quincy Adams, Mr. William H. Crawford, and Mr. Henry Clay. Mr. Crawford had been nominated in a caucus of democratic members of Congress; but being a minority of the members, and the nomination not in accordance with public opinion, it carried no authority along with it, and was of no service to the object of its choice. General Jackson was the candidate of the people, brought forward by the masses. Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay were brought forward by bodies of their friends in different States. The whole number of electoral votes was 261; of which it required 131 to make an election. No one had that number. General Jackson was the highest on the list, and had 99 votes; Mr. Adams 84; Mr. Crawford 41; Mr. Clay 37. No one having a majority of the whole of electors, the election devolved upon the House of Representatives; of which an account will be from that high station during the intermediate given in a separate chapter. thirty years, devoted himself to the noble purIn the vice-presidential election it was dif- suits of agriculture, literature, the study of poferent. Mr. John C. Calhoun (who in the be- litical economy, and the service of his State or ginning of the canvass had been a candidate county when called by his fellow-citizens. Perfor the Presidency, but had been withdrawn by sonally I knew him but slightly, our meeting in his friends in Pennsylvania, and put forward the Senate being our first acquaintance, and our for Vice-President), received 182 votes in the senatorial association limited to the single seselectoral college, and was elected. Mr. Nathan sion of which he was a member-1823-24;-at Sandford, Senator in Congress from New-York, the end of which he died. But all my observahad been placed on the ticket with Mr. Clay, tion of him, and his whole appearance and deand received 30 votes. The 24 votes of Vir- portment, went to confirm the reputation of his ginia were given to Mr. Macon, as a compli- individuality of character, and high qualities ment, he not being a candidate, and having of the head and the heart. I can hardly figure refused to become one. The nine votes of to myself the ideal of a republican statesman Georgia were given to Mr. Van Buren, also as a more perfect and complete than he was in recompliment, he not being on the list of candi-ality:-plain and solid, a wise counsellor, a ready dates. Mr. Albert Gallatin had been nominated and vigorous debater, acute and comprehensive, in the Congress caucus with Mr. Crawford, ripe in all historical and political knowledge, inbut finding the proceedings of that caucus un-nately republican-modest, courteous, benevolent, acceptable to the people he had withdrawn from hospitable-a skilful, practical farmer, giving his the canvass. Mr. Calhoun was the only sub-time to his farm and his books, when not called stantive vice-presidential candidate before the by an emergency to the public service—and repeople, and his election was an evidence of good turning to his books and his farm when the feeling in the North towards southern men-he emergency was over. His whole character was receiving the main part of his votes from that announced in his looks and deportment, and in quarter-114 votes from the non-slaveholding his uniform (senatorial) dress-the coat, waistStates, and only 68 from the slaveholding. A coat, and pantaloons of the same "London southern man, and a slaveholder, Mr. Calhoun brown," and in the cut of a former fashionwas indebted to northern men and non-slave- beaver hat with ample brim-fine white linen holders, for the honorable distinction of an elec--and a gold-headed cane, carried not for show, tion in the electoral colleges-the only one in but for use and support when walking and the clectoral colleges-the only one on all the bending under the heaviness of years. He lists of presidential and vice-presidential candi- seemed to have been cast in the same mould dates who had that honor. Surely there was with Mr. Macon, and it was pleasant to see no disposition in the free States at that time to them together, looking like two Grecian sages, be unjust, or unkind to the South. and showing that regard for each other which every one felt for them both. He belonged to that constellation of great men which shone so brightly in Virginia in his day, and the light of which was not limited to Virginia, or our America, but spread through the bounds of the civilized world. He was the author of several works, political and agricultural, of which his Arator in one class, and his Construction Construed in another, were the principal-one FOR by that designation was discriminated, in adorning and exalting the plough with the attrihis own State, the eminent republican statesman butes of science; the other exploring the confines of Virginia, who was a Senator in Congress in of the federal and the State governments, and the first term of General Washington's adminis- presenting a mine of constitutional law very protration, and in the last term of Mr. Monroe-fitably to be examined by the political student and who, having voluntarily withdrawn himself who will not be repulsed from a banquet of rich CHAPTER XVIII. DEATH OF JOHN TAYLOR, OF CAROLINE. ideas, by the quaint Sir Edward Coke style (the only point of resemblance between the republican statesman, and the crown officer of Elizabeth and James)—in which it is dressed. Devotion to State rights was the ruling feature of his policy; and to keep both governments, State and federal, within their respective constitutional orbits, was the labor of his political life. In the years 1798 and '99, Mr. Taylor was a member of the General Assembly of his State, called into service by the circumstances of the times; and was selected on account of the dignity and gravity of his character, his power and readiness in debate, and his signal devotion to the rights of the States, to bring forward those celebrated resolutions which Mr. Jefferson conceived, which his friends sanctioned, which Mr. Madison drew up, and which "John Taylor, of Caroline," presented ;—which are a perfect exposition of the principles of our duplicate form of government, and of the limitations upon the power of the federal government; and which, in their declaration of the unconstitutionality of the alien and sedition laws, and appeal to other States for their co-operation, had nothing in view but to initiate a State movement by two-thirds of the States (the number required by the fifth article of the federal constitution), to amend, or authoritatively expound the constitution ;-the idea of forcible resistance to the execution of any act of Congress being expressly disclaimed at the time. CHAPTER XIX. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Ir has already been shown that the theory of the constitution, and its practical working, was entirely different in the election of President and Vice-President-that by the theory, the people were only to choose electors, to whose superior intelligence the choice of fit persons for these high stations was entirely committed-and that, in practice, this theory had entirely failed from the beginning. From the very first election the electors were made subordinate to the people, having no choice of their own, and pledged to deliver their votes for a particular person, according to the will of those who elected them. Thus the theory had failed in its application to the electoral college; but there might be a second or contingent election, and has been; and here the theory of the constitution has failed again. In the event of no choice being made by the electors, either for want of a majority of electoral votes being given to any one, or on account of an equal majority for two, the House of Representatives became an electoral college for the occasion, limited to a choice out of the five highest (before the constitution was amended), or the two highest having an equal majority. The President and Vice-President were not then voted for separately, or with any designation of their office. All appeared upon the record as presidential nominees-the highest on the list having a majority, to be President; the next highest, also having a majority, to be VicePresident; but the people, from the beginning, had discriminated between the persons for these respective places, always meaning one on their ticket for President, the other for Vice-President. But, by the theory of the constitution and its words, those intended Vice-Presidents might be elected President in the House of Representatives, either by being among the five highest when there was no majority, or being one of two in an equal majority. This theory failed in the House of Representatives from the first election, the demos krateo principle-the people to govern-prevailing there as in the electoral colleges, and overruling the constitutional design in each. The first election in the House of Representatives was that of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, in the session of 1800-1801. These gentlemen had each a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, and an equal majority -73 each -Mr. Burr being intended for Vice-President. One of the contingencies had then occurred in which the election went to the House of Representatives. The federalists had acted more wisely, one of their State electoral colleges (that of Rhode Island), having withheld a vote from the intended Vice-President on their side, Mr. Charles Colesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina; and so prevented an equality of votes between him and Mr. John Adams. It would have been entirely constitutional in the House of Representatives to have elected Mr. Burr President, but at the same time, a gross violation of the democratic principle, which requires the will of the majority to be complied with. |