was passed : and the amendments were afterward concurred in by the house.

Great excitement at the south, especially in South Carolina, was produced by the action of congress in 1827 and 1828, on the subject of protection. The popular indignation found vent through public meetings, legislatures, and the press, in terms of extreme violence. A faithful history of the times seems to require a record of some expressions of southern feeling and sentiment. With many it has been a question, whether the stand taken by the south on this subject was designed to frighten the people of the north from the position they had assumed, or whether it was induced by the belief that the protective policy really inflicted upon them the injury of which they so grievously complained.

A memorial to the state legislature was adopted by the citizens of Columbia and Richland, S. C., entreating that body to save them, if possible, from the conjoined grasp of usurpation and poverty.” They say:

“We exist as a member of the union merely as an object of taxation. The northern and middle states are to be enriched by the plunder of the south.” “ The citizens of South Carolina will be condemned to work as the tributaries of the northern and middle sections of the union. It is so now; and it is triumphantly determined to extend the system indefinitely."

In their memorial to congress, they declare “ that congress possess no power under the constitution to enact a system of protection"_" their honest earnings are legislated out of their pockets"--and the burdens imposed on them too heavy to be borne in silence any longer." In an address to the people of South Carolina, the citizens of Colleton

“Your remonstrances and your implorations have been in vain; and a tariff bill has passed, not, indeed, such as you apprehended, but tenfold worse." “The question whether congress can constitutionally do this or not, excites neither solicitude nor alarm, and appears unworthy of inquiry. Power seems to be right; and our representatives sit in desponding silence, under the conviction, that their voices could as easily move the capitol from its basis, as shake the purpose of interested cupidity. They protest, indeed, before they receive the blow.

“What course is left for us to pursue ? Our northern and western brethren are not, can not, be ignorant of the operation of the system they advocate, or of the powers they claim for the government. They full well know, because like us they must feel, that it lifts them to prosperity, while it sinks us into ruin. We have done by words all that words can do. To talk more must be a dastard's refuge.

“ If we have the common pride of men, or the determination of freemen, we must resist the impositions of this tariff.

. . In advising

are

district say:

a

an attitude of open resistance to the laws of the union, we deem it due to the occasion, and that we may not be misunderstood, distinctly, but briefly to state, without argument, our constitutional faith. For it is not enough that imposts laid for the protection of manufactures are oppressive, and transfer millions of our property to northern capitalists. If we have given them our bond, let them take our blood. Those who resist these imposts must deem them unconstitutional ; and the principle is abandoned by the payment of one cent, as much as ten inillions.”

Retaliatory measures were proposed. It was suggested by a citizen of South Carolina, in one of the papers, that the legislatures of the southern states prohibit the introduction of horses, mules, hogs, beef, cattle, bacon, and bagging, from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana; whiskey, beer, flour, cheese, &c., from New York and Pennsylvania; and also lay on these last named states “a municipal tax, amounting to prohibition, on all stock in trade, consisting of goods, wares, or merchandise, the produce of those states."

Another paper said: “The object of every agriculturist should be, in the first place, to devise means for the destruction of the manufacturing mania."

A Georgia paper called the tariff an "accursed chain to bind us victims to the idol mammon;" and said: “We must now turn ourselves to other means and other defenses, constitutional, indeed, but at the same time with spirit pushing resistance to the very bounds of the constitution. Let there be a wall raised between them and us; and let us say unto them as Abraham said unto Lot: 'Let there be no strife,' &e. "Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the . left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.'

“Let us lay upon ourselves the injunction which was through Moses laid upon the Israelites: 'And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city and all the spoil thereof: and there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand.'

“Let us govern ourselves by the advice of the apostle: 'Touch not, taste not, handle not, the unclean thing which is theirs.' And for this purpose we would recommend that a congress assemble from all the states opposed to a protecting tariff, in order to advise and recommend to the different legislatures and people, such measures, consistent with the constitution, as may seem best calculated to protect them from the operation of the tariff bill, and prevent the introduction and use of the tariffied articles in their respective states." [Note D.]

CHAPTER XXXII.

INTRODUCTION AND DISCUSSION OF RESOLUTIONS ON RETRENCIIMENT AND

REFORM.

Mr. Chilton, an opposition member from Kentucky, on the 22d of January, 1828, moved certain resolutions declaring the expediency of a speedy discharge of the national debt; and, in order to its accomplishment, the necessity of a general system of retrenchment; and instructing the committee of ways and means to report to the house what offices might be discontinued, and what salaries might be reduced, and such other means of retrenchment as to them might seem necessary.

These resolutions were the subject of daily debate until the 6th of February, when, after having been materially modified, they were referred to a select committee by a unanimous vote. Professing to concur in the principle of the resolutions, and to believe that the several departments of the government had been economically administered, the friends of the administration, although they considered the introduction of the resolutions as being intended for party effect, made no serious opposition to their reference. Reduction of expense in the departments of state, of the treasury, of the navy, of war, and of the post-office, were mentioned as particular objects of inquiry; as also the contingent funds of these departments, and the compensation of the members of congress. The debate was unusually discursive, embracing many topics having no relevancy to the general subject. It was marked by that strong party feeling which might be expected from speakers on one side who were fully bent on overthrowing the administration, and from those on the other, equally determined to sustain it.

The resolutions were founded upon alleged abuses and want of economy in the administration of the government. The specifications made by the mover were, that the navy list was crowded ; at West Point, a large number of cadets had been educated at the public expense, who were without employment; a fifth auditor had been appointed for a time which had passed away, and his services were no longer necessary; there was an unnecessary number of clerks in most of the public offices; the contingent fund had been improperly used; many salaries might be reduced, and the reduction should begin with the compensation and mileage of members of congress; and there was an unnecessary expenditure for printed documents.

Although the speakers of the opposition party concurred in the

object of the resolutions, there were points upon which they were not entirely unanimous. Messrs. Buchanan, Randolph, and M'Duffie, though they believed in the necessity of reform, did not think the present a favorable time, nor the manner proposed a proper one, to effect the object. Mr. Buchanan also differed with Mr. Chilton in respect to the office of fifth auditor, whose duties had been doubled since the office was created. Several members of the opposition also opposed a reduction of their compensation. Mr. Chilton subsequently said the fifth auditor was not the one whose office he wished discon. tinued. He believed, however, there were too many auditors.

The importance of a speedy payment of the public debt was urged in favor of the measure. Mr. Daniel, of Kentucky, suggested that the savings made by retrenchment might be divided among the states, to be expended in making roads and canals. There were, he said, more than 9,000 officers employed in the various departments. He believed the office of fourth auditor was useless ; and at least three of the auditors might be dispensed with. Laborers generally were required to work during the whole day, while the public officers attended in their offices only four or five hours, at extravagant salaries of $1,000 to $3,000. Let them perform a greater amount of labor, and their number might be greatly reduced.

Money, it was said, too, had been taken out of the treasury for wild and visionary projects. The operation of the government had not been confined to constitutional objects; but a new era had opened upon us, and we were about to feel the calamitous effects of the administration. The military academy at West Point was denounced as a monarchical institution, the benefits of which were confined to the sons of the rich and well-born. There were twenty young men, supernumerary ad lieutenants, who had been educated at the public expense, and who were now supported at their own homes at an annual cost of $15,000 annually.

Among the instances of the misapplication of money, was the appointment of Rufus King as minister to London, wbo was superannuated, and known to be incompetent to perform the duties of his mission; on account of which, we had lost the West India trade. Yet his mission had cost $30,000 or $40,000. Another minister (Mr. Gallatin) had been sent, who also had returned without having essentially benefitted the nation. It was alleged as an abuse, also, that our foreign ministers, in addition to their first year's salary of $9,000, were paid an equal sum as an outfit. And it was mentioned as an abuse of the contingent fund of the state department, that John A. King, secretary of legation, who had been left by his father as chargé d'affaires at London, had been paid a salary, or an outfit (4,500) and part of a salary, while he remained in England, in violation, it was believed, of a law of congress, which requires his appointment by the president and senate. John H. Pleasants had been paid $1,900 for carrying dispatches to one of our ministers in South America ; but instead of performing his mission, he had sailed to Europe. The Panama mission had cost $80,000 or $100,000, and resulted in no great benefit. Mr. Daniel mentioned other things which he considered abuses, and said he believed that many of the offices under the government were mere sinecures, of no manner of good to the public, and ought to be abolished. And the president, he said, was responsible for the whole, whether these offices existed before he came into power or not. He ought to have examined into them, and if any of them could be dispensed with, he ought to have pointed them out in his message to congress.

Mr. M’Duffie said he would neither inculpate nor exculpate the administration. He would say nothing that would have a bearing on the administration in one way or another. The question was not what the government had done—that was past—but this was a practical resolution, which had reference wholly to future reforms. Whether there were abuses or not—whether our ministers had been sent out too often, or changed without sufficient reason, were questions not involved in the resolution. Whether the Panama mission was expedient, or not, was not now before the house; that mission was at an end; why was it brought up here, and at this time? As bearing upon the administration these things had no business here.

In reference to the public debt, and the mode of its discharge, he said that subject was before the committee of ways and means; and he moved that so much of the resolution as referred to the public debt, be struck out. All the means which the country possessed of paying that debt, were by existing laws to be applied to that object; and no resolution would either hasten or retard its payment.

In the course of the debate the president was also censured for his having rewarded with office members of congress who had aided in his

He was accused of having proclaimed doctrines in relation to the powers of the general government, incompatible with every notion of a limited constitution, the rigbts of the states, and the liberties of the people. And having, by a lawless construction, extended the powers of the government, he had threatened a sovereign state (Georgia) with the military force of the nation.

Gentlemen on the other side expressed their willingness to institute the inquiry proposed by the resolutions. Mr. Wright, of Ohio, said the subject was not a new one. The president, in his message in December,