pose of protecting our commerce from the piratical hands of the Algerine cruisers. Upon the eve of the session steps were taken to re-establish our diplomatic relations with many of the European courts. Eustis was sent Minister to Holland, John Quincy Adams Minister to Great Britain, Gallatin to France, Bayard to St. Petersburg; the latter being then in Europe, hastened home but to close his eyes in death, and rest beneath the soil of that land which had ever been the object of his love, and with which his virtue and his fame are imperishably blended. Don Onis had at length been received as Minister from Spain, and Irving was sent to that country to renew our diplomatic relations, which for some time had been in entire abeyance. Dec. 4, 1815. In consequence of the late fire and destruction of the capitol, several private individuals had erected on Capitol Hill a temporary building, which, though indifferently adapted for the use of the National Legislature, had been leased to the Government; and here the Fourteenth Congress opened its session, charged with the heaviest and most important duties to the country. Clay, just returned from Europe and again a member of Congress, was elected Speaker by 82 votes out of 122 cast, on this occasion. Most of the members had been elected during the war, and the old party distinctions had nearly subsided. Out of 65 Federalists elected to Congress, only 10 were found to vote against the Administration candidate for the speakership. The return of peace had dissipated all ground of opposition to Madison, and the present aspect of the House exhibited the popularity of the Administration. In the Senate there were 24 Republicans to 12 Federalists, in which body the President was supported by some of the first men of the age, among whom is to be recognized Barbour, of Virginia, Macon, of North Carolina, and Campbell, of Tennessee; whilst of the 117 Democratic members in the House, were Taylor and Southard, Wright and Pinckney, Calhoun and Lowndes, Forsyth and Wilde, and many others of equal talent and influence. In opposition to the Administration, among the ablest may be considered Webster, John Randolph, Gaston, Cyrus King, Sargeant, and Grosvenor, of the House; with Dana and Harper, Mason and Gore, of the Senate. VOL. I.-27 We had just passed through a war with the most powerful nation on earth, and though waged successfully and ended honorably, it had not only involved the country in extreme suffering but had left the finances in considerable embarrassment and thrown confusion and discredit upon the currency; these were subjects of vast magnitude and vital interest. The war had wrought many new ideas, and, in some respects, a change in the policy of the Administration; the weapons of war were laid aside, and the arts of peace were revived. Manufactures which had necessarily sprung into existence during the war, were then in a condition requiring aid from the hands of Government, or they would sink, and with their fall ruin thousands of our energetic citizens. Commerce was again to unfold its silvery wing to every breeze, and agriculture to supply the domestic market and fill the granaries of Europe. Our citizens were restricted in many respects to the plainest and often a scanty supply of clothing, or subjected to the highest and most exorbitant prices; for a time, now that war had ceased, we would have to look to the foreign market for our supplies, which, unfortunately, created rather too strong a feeling for their protection. But to increase the gloom that gathered over us, our banks had suspended specie payments, and almost every dollar had gone to Europe to buy the necessaries of life at exorbitant rates, not one cent of which found its way back; whilst exchanges upon England stood at twenty and twenty-five per cent. above par; and if possible to heighten the distress of the mercantile community (which affects every relation of life and every person) the issue of the banks amounted to over one hundred millions of dollars, with an estimate of about fifteen millions of specie in the country. Such was the condition of the country over which Congress was now to legislate, and in its wisdom and discretion to provide adequate means for paying off the national debt. În a clear and concise Message, the President communicated to Congress the condition of public affairs. The embarrassments arising from the want of a uniform currency had not been diminished since the adjournment of the last Congress, which induced the President to recommend the establishment of a national bank, though he had vetoed a bill for that purpose at a very recent period. Some modification had also taken place in his opinions upon the tariff, and he did not hesitate to call the attention of Congress, "in adjusting the duties on imports to the objects of revenue," to the influence of a tariff on the domestic manufactures. Madison was not a protectionist in the most objectionable aspect of the term; nor had the principle at this day reached the extent that it ultimately attained. There were circumstances which had given a powerful impulse to domestic manufactures, under which many of our citizens had embarked with the investment of large capitals; if these establishments were left to contend with the influx of foreign articles when Europe was free from the distractions of war, the sudden fall of the price and the ultimate suspension from business would be inevitable ruin. It does not appear, however, that Madison favored a step beyond the "objects of revenue" in laying duties which might incidentally give protection to such articles as were subject to casual failures, and for which we were dependent "on foreign supplies." The subject of internal improvements was also recommended to Congress; but upon this point the Message was exceedingly vague and uncertain, being applied only to roads and canals, without further distinction or explanation. The receipts of the Treasury for nine months Dec. 1815. ending the 30th of September last, were estimated at twelve millions and a half of dollars; the issue of Treasury notes during the same period amounted to fourteen millions; and there was obtained upon loans nine millions; which, added to the million and a half in the Treasury on the 1st of January, and thirty-three millions paid up to the 1st of October, left a balance in the Treasury, according to the estimate of the President, of three millions. The national debt was ascertained to be, on the 1st of October, one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.* Notwithstanding the occurrence of peace, which would doubtlessly curtail the expenses of the Government, there were great demands upon the Treasury, and peculiarly embarrassing on account of any reliable currency with which to collect the public dues. The expenditures for the present year, according to the estimate of the Secretary of the Treasury, would not be less than fifty millions of dollars, whilst the expenses of 1816 would reach beyond forty-three millions, which could not be met under * Madison's Message, Dec. 5, 1815. 1815. the existing tariff, as the double duties would cease in February of that year. 1816. There was at this time new and great wants and interests springing up at home, throwing the former topic of dispute in the shade, and calling for the highest efforts of patriotism and statesmanship which the country possessed. Among those who stood boldly conspicuous for the brilliant and lasting service of their country, were Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Lowndes, and Cheves. It is a matter of interest to observe the little difference that existed among those distinguished characters at this time. No broad or general lines of party difference is discernible immediately after the assembling of the Fourteenth Congress, at which time, however, the great measures brought forward,—the bank, the tariff, and internal improvements,-were the subjects on which the members divided, without reference to previous party organization, from sectional considerations or individual convictions. On the bank and internal improvement questions, no systematic difference was disclosed between the Northern and Southern sections of the Union. In reference to the tariff it was perceived that the issue was upon protection to manufactures; a difference at once sprung up which has been continued with bitterness and angry discussion to a very recent period. John C. Calhoun reported a bill from the comJan. 13. mittee on the national currency, to incorporate the subscribers to the bank of the United States; annexed to which was a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, submitting an outline for this powerful institution, with a capital of thirty-five millions of dollars. The Bank-bill passed the House by a majority of nine votes and the Senate by a majority of ten, two members (Messrs. Bibb and Thompson) being absent on account of ill-health. On the 10th of April, the President signed the bill, though the bank did not commence operations until the next year. The sudden transition of the Republican party in the year 1816 from being opposed to the bank to the position of being its very father, surpasses all comprehension. Clay, the distinguished leader in the House, who formerly opposed with all his talent and energy the bill which Madison vetoed, because it was unconstitutional, now sustained with all his powers a similar bill, which, in a very short period, Madison found to be constitutional. Expediency is the practical code of most American statesmen; the doctrine of strict construction and constitutionality is but too frequently estimated by the standard of party predilection. The constitutional bearing of every question must be permanent, yet statesmen have but too often allowed the expediency doctrine to control all other questions. The bank gave no satisfaction to its friends in the first few years of its operation, and but little aid to the commercial community; an occasional loan, with the annual tribute of a million and a half bonus to the Government as a tax upon its life, may have been a temporary relief to the Government; but its future history will present an engine of dreadful commercial destruction, which will long be borne upon the memory of the American people. The first bank, which was incorporated in 1791, and ushered into existence under the auspices of the Federalists, was opposed by Jefferson; and the little Republican party, just struggling into existence, opposed it not only as inexpedient and dangerous, but as unconstitutional. In 1811, when the effort was made to recharter the bank, the Republican party, then in the majority, wisely defeated it; Clay was in the Senate, and the "vagrant power," which he called it, to establish a bank "had wandered throughout the whole Constitution in quest of some congenial spot whereon to fasten." Madison, who had been a member of the Convention that formed the Constitution, and author of the resolutions of 1798 and 1799, was remarkable for an adhesion to a strict construction of the Constitution, had opposed all previous authority and despised all precedent. Whilst the Republican party surrendered the Constitution upon the plea of necessity, Madison did it upon the ground of precedent. Some of the true and firm old Republicans opposed with great energy and bitterness not only the Bank-bill, but the lamentable giving way of James Madison on a point on which he had before shown the greatest firmness Among the most distinguished opponents of Madison at this time was John Randolph, who did not hesitate to charge this act of inconsistency to the weakness of old age, as he applied to him the well-known quotation "From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, |