"Although this plan has met with favour in some portions of the Union, it has also elicited objections which merit deliberate consideration. A brief notice of these objections here will not, therefore, I trust, be regarded as out of place.

"They rest, as far as they have come to my knowledge, on the following grounds 1st. An objection to the ratio of distribution; 2d. An apprehension that the existence of such a regulation would produce improvident and oppressive taxation to raise the funds for distribution; 3d. That the mode proposed would lead to the construction of works of a local nature, to the exclusion of such as are general, and as would, consequently, be of a more useful character; and, last, that it would create a discreditable and injurious dependance on the part of the state governments upon the Federal power. Of those who object to the ratio of representation as the basis of distribution, some insist that the importations of the respective states would constitute one that would be more equitable; and others, again, that the extent of their respective territories would furnish a standard which would be more expedient, and sufficiently equitable. The ratio of representation presented itself to my mind, and it still does, as one of obvious equity, because of its being the ratio of contribution, whether the funds to be distributed be derived from the customs or from direct taxation. It does not follow, however, that its adoption is indispensable to the establishment of the system proposed. There may be considerations appertaining to the subject which would render a departure, to some extent, from the rule of contribution proper. Nor is it absolutely necessary that the basis of distribution be confined to one ground. It may, if, in the judgment of those whose right it is to fix it, it be deemed politic and just to give it their character, have regard to several.

"In my first message, I stated it to be my opinion, that it is not probable that any adjustment of the tariff, upon principles satisfactory to the people of the Union, will, until a remote period, if ever, leave the government without a considerable surplus in the treasury beyond what may be required for its current service.' I have had no cause to change that opinion, but much to confirm it. Should these expectations be realized, a suitable fund would thus be produced for the plan under consideration to operate upon; and if there be no such fund, its adoption will, in my opinion, work no injury to any interest; for I cannot assent to the justness of the apprehension that the establishment of the proposed system would tend to the encouragement of improvident legislation of the character supposed. Whatever the proper authority, in the exercise of constitutional power, shall, at any time hereafter, decide to be for the general good, will in that, as in other respects, deserve and receive the acquiescence and support of the whole country; and we have ample security that every abuse of power in that regard, by agents of the people, will receive a speedy and effectual corrective at their hands. The views which I take of the future, founded on the obvious and increasing improvement of all classes of our fellow-citizens, in intelligence, and in public and private virtue, leave me without much apprehension on that head.

"I do not doubt that those who come after us will be as much alive as we are to the obligation upon all the trustees of political power to exempt those for whom they act from all unnecessary burdens; and as sensible of the great truth, that the resources of the nation beyond those required for immediate and necessary purposes of government, can nowhere be so well deposited as in the pockets of the people."]

Such, I repeat, were, unfortunately, the opinions which General Jackson entertained on this all-important question when he came into power. I saw the danger in its full extent, and did not hesitate to take an open and decided stand against the measure which he so earnestly recommended; and that was the first question on which we separated. In placing myself in opposition to him

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on a measure so vital, I was not ignorant of the hazard to which I exposed myself, but the sense of duty outweighed all other considerations. I clearly saw that there would be an increased surplus revenue after the final payment of the public debt, a period then rapidly approaching; and that, if it was once distributed to the states, it would rivet on the country the tariff of 1828, to be followed by countless disasters from the combined effects of the two measures. Had it been adopted, the last ray of hope of repealing or reducing that oppressive and ruinous measure would have vanished. It would, by its seductive influence, have drawn over to its support the very states whose prosperity it was crushing, not excepting South Carolina itself. The process is not difficult to explain.

For that purpose, I will take the case of South Carolina, and will assume that her citizens paid, under the tariff of 1828, four millions of dollars into the treasury of the Union, which is probably not far from the truth, and would have received back under the proposed distribution of the surplus but one fourth, making one million. The sum to be distributed, as has already been stated, would not have been returned to the people, but to the treasury of the state, to be disposed of by the Legislature; or, to speak more specifically, by the small portion which, for the time, would have had control over the dominant majority of the Legislature. All who have experience in the affairs of government, will readily understand that no disposition would have been made of it but what they, and their friends and supporters, would have had a full share of the profits and political advantages to be derived from its administration and expenditure. Thus an interest would be created on the part of the controlling influence in the state for the time, adverse to it-an interest to sustain the tariff, as the means of sustaining the distribution; and that for the plain reason, that they would receive more from the former than they would pay, as citizens, under the duties. Now, sir, when we reflect that the amount taken by the duties out of the pockets of the people was extracted in so round-about and concealed a manner, that no one-no, not the best informed and shrewdest calculator, could ascertain with precision what he paid, while that received back from distribution would have been seen and felt by those into whose hands it would have passed, it will be readily understood, not only how those who participated directly in its advantages, but the people themselves, would have been so deluded as to believe that they gained more by the distribution than what they lost by the tariff, especially when the dominant influence in the state would have been interested in creating and keeping up the delusion.

It is thus that the result of the scheme would have been to combine and unite into one compact mass the dominant interests of all the states, with the great dominant interest of the Union, to perpetuate a system of plundering the people of the products of their labour, especially the South, to be divided among those, with their partisans, who could control the politics of the country. It was against this daring and profligate scheme that South Carolina interposed her sovereign authority, and by that interposition, as I solemnly believe, saved the Constitution and the liberty of the country.

But that step, as bold and decisive as it was, could not accomplish all. To save the manufacturing interest, and avoid the hazard of reaction, it was necessary to reduce the duties on the protected articles gradually and slowly. The consequence was a continued overflow of the treasury, notwithstanding the duty on every article not produced in the country was repealed, amounting in val ue to one half of the whole, to such an enormous extent had the protective duties been raised. A remedy had to be applied to meet the corrupting and dangerous influence of this temporary surplus, till the gradual reduction of the protective duties under the Compromise Act would bring them to the ordinary wants of the government. There was but one remedy, and that was to take it from the treasury. The flow was too great for the most lavish expenditures to keep down. I saw, in advance, that such would be the case; and, with the design

of devising a remedy beforehand, moved for a special committee, with the view mainly of freeing the treasury of its surplus, as the great source of executive influence and power. The committee, concurring in that opinion, recommended that the Constitution should be so amended as to enable Congress to make a temporary distribution. The report fully explains the reasons for believing there would be a large and corrupting surplus, and why, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, the distribution as proposed was the only remedy. I have marked a portion of it that will show the opinion I then entertained in reference to distribution, and which I ask the secretary to read.

["Second Session, Twenty-third Congress.

"Your committee are fully aware of the many and fatal objections to the distribution of the surplus revenue among the states, considered as a part of the ordinary and regular system of this government. They admit them to be as great as can be well imagined. The proposition itself, that the government should collect money for the purpose of such distribution, or should distribute a surplus for the purpose of perpetuating taxes, is too absurd to require refutation; and yet what would be when applied, as supposed, so absurd and pernicious, is, in the opinion of your committee, in the present extraordinary and deeply disordered state of our affairs, not only useful and salutary, but indispensable to the restoration of the body politic to a sound condition; just as some potent medicine, which it would be dangerous and absurd to prescribe to the healthy, may, to the diseased, be the only means of arresting the hand of death. Distribution, as proposed, is not for the preposterous and dangerous purpose of raising a revenue for distribution, or of distributing the surplus as a means of perpetuating a system of duties or taxes, but a temporary measure to dispose of an unavoidable surplus while the revenue is in the course of reduction, and which cannot be otherwise disposed of without greatly aggravating a disease that threatens the most dangerous consequences, and which holds out the hope, not only of arresting its farther progress, but also of restoring the body politic to a state of health and vigour. The truth of this assertion a few observations will suffice to illustrate.

"It may, perhaps, be thought by some that the power which the distribution among the states would bring to bear against the expenditure, and its consequent tendency to retrench the disbursements of the government, would be so strong as not only to curtail useless or improper expenditure, but also the useful and necessary. Such, undoubtedly, would be the consequence, if the process were too long continued; but, in the present irregular and excessive action of the system, when its centripetal force threatens to concentrate all its powers in a single department, the fear that the action of this government will be too much reduced by the measure under consideration, in the short period to which it is proposed to limit its operation, is without just foundation. On the contrary, if the proposed measure should be applied in the present diseased state of the government, its effect would be like that of some powerful alterative medicine, operating just long enough to change the present morbid action, but not sufficiently long to superinduce another of an opposite character."]

The measure recommended was not adopted. It was denied, and violently denied, that there would be a surplus, and I left it to time to decide which opinion was correct. A year rolled round, and conclusively decided the point. Instead of overrating, experience proved I had greatly under-estimated the surplus, as I felt confident at the time I had. It more than doubled even my calculation. I again revived the measure; but before it could be acted on, instructions from state legislatures, with intervening elections, turned the majority in the Senate, which had been opposed to the administration, into a minority. I ac

quiesced, and gave notice that I would not press the measure I had introduced, and would leave the responsibility with the majority, to devise a remedy for what was at last acknowledged to be a great and dangerous evil. All felt that something must be done, and that promptly. In the greatly expanded state of the currency, the enormous surplus had flowed off in the direction of the public lands, and, by a sort of rotary motion, from the deposite banks to the speculators, and from them to the receivers, and back again to the banks, to perform the same round again, rapidly absorbing every acre of the public lands. No one saw more clearly than the senator from New-York (Mr. Wright), that an effectual and speedy remedy was indispensable to prevent an overwhelming catastrophe; and he promptly proposed to vest the surplus in the stocks of the states, to which I moved an amendment to deposite it in their treasuries, as being more equal and appropriate. These were acknowledged to be the only alternatives to leaving it in the deposite banks. Mine succeeded, and the passage of the Deposite Act, which is now unjustly denounced in a certain quarter as distribution, and not as deposite, as it really is, followed.

As far as I am concerned, the denunciation is utterly unfounded. I regarded it then, and still do, as simply a deposite-a deposite, to say the least, as constitutional as that in state banks, or state stocks held by speculators and stock-jobbers on both sides of the Atlantic, and far more just and appropriate than either. But while I regard it as a deposite, I did then, and now do, believe that it should never be withdrawn but in the event of war, when it would be found a valuable resource.

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But had it been in reality a distribution, it would be, in my opinion, if not altogether, in a great measure justified, under the peculiar circumstances of the case. The surplus was not lawfully collected. Congress has no right to take a cent from the people but for the just and constitutional wants of the country. To take more, or for other purposes, as in this case, is neither more nor less than robbery-more criminal for being perpetrated by a trustee appointed to guard their interest. It in fact belonged to those from whom it was unjustly plundered; and if the individuals, and the share of each, could have been ascertained, it ought, on every principle of justice, to have been returned to them. But as that was impossible, the nearest practicable approach to justice was to return it proportionably, as it was, to the states, as a deposite, till wanted for the use of the people from whom it was unjustly taken, instead of leaving it with the banks, for their use, which had no claims whatever to it, or vesting it in state stocks, for the benefit of speculators and stock-jobbers.

As brief as this narrative is, I trust it is sufficient to show that the advocates of this amendment can find nothing in my former opinion or course to weaken my resistance to it, or to form the show of a precedent for the extraordinary measure which it proposes. So far from it, the Deposite Act, whether viewed in the causes which led to it, or its object and effect, stands in direct contrast with it.

We stand, sir, in the midst of a remarkable juncture in our affairs; the most remarkable, in many respects, that has occurred since the foundation of the gov ernment; nor is it probable that a similar one will ever again occur. This gov. ernment is now left as free to shape its policy, unembarrassed by existing engagements or past legislation, as it was when it first went into operation, and even more so. The entire system of policy originating in the Federal consolidation school has fallen prostrate. We have now no funded debt, no National Bank, no connexion with the banking system, no protective tariff. In a word, the paper sys tem, with all its corrupt and corrupting progeny, has, as far as this government is concerned, vanished, leaving nothing but its bitter fruits behind. The great and solemn question now to be decided is, Shall we again return and repeat the same system of policy, with all its disastrous effects before us, and under which the country is now suffering, to be again followed with tenfold aggravation;

or, profiting by past experience, seize the precious opportunity to take the only course which can save the Constitution and liberty of the country-that of the old State Rights Republican policy of 1798? Such is the question submitted for our decision at this deeply important juncture; and on that decision hangs the destiny of our country. A few years must determine. Much, very much will depend on the President elect. If he should rest his policy on the broad and solid principles maintained by his native state, in her purest and proudest days, his name will go down to posterity as one of the distinguished benefactors of the country; but, on the contrary, if he should adopt the policy indicated by the amendment, and advocated by his prominent supporters in this chamber, and attempt to erect anew the fallen temple of consolidation, his overthrow, or that of his country, must be the inevitable consequence.

XXIX.

SPEECH IN REPLY TO THE SPEECHES OF MR. WEBSTER AND MR. CLAY, ON MR. CRITTENDEN'S AMENDMENT TO THE PRE-EMPTION BILL, JANUARY 30, 1841.

MR. CALHOUN said: No one who had attended to this debate could doubt that the cession of Virginia, on which the right to distribute the revenue from the public lands had heretofore been placed, was altogether too narrow to support that measure. The portion of the public domain ceded by her is small in amount when compared with the whole, and by far the better portion of it had already been disposed of, leaving a residue altogether too inconsiderable to effect the object intended by the distribution. The other, and much the larger portion of the public domain, consisting of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and the entire region west of the Mississippi River, was purchased out of the common fund of the Union, and no construction which could be put on the deed of cession from Virginia could possibly apply to it. This was seen and felt by the two leading advocates of this amendment on the other side of the chamber (Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster), and they, accordingly, endeavoured to find some other ground on which to place the right, broad enough to support the whole; and found it, as they supposed, in the provision of the Constitution which gives to Congress the power to dispose of the territories and other property belonging to the United States. In this they both concurred, so far as the revenue derived from the lands was concerned. But the senator from Massachusetts, with bolder views than his associate, extended the right of distributing, as I understood him, to the entire revenue-comprehending as well that received from taxes as from lands.

[Mr. Webster interposed, and denied that he had said so.]

I stand corrected, and am happy to hear the denial of the gentleman. I had so understood him, and am gratified that he had so restricted the right as to exclude the revenue from taxes. But I cannot be mistaken in asserting that both of the senators concur in regarding the power conferred, in the provision referred to, as having no limitation whatever but the discretion of Congress. If such be the true construction, it would, of course, give the right of making the proposed distribution; which presents the question, Has Congress the right of disposing of the public domain, and all the other property belonging to the Union, and the revenue derived therefrom, as it pleases, without any constitutional restrictions whatever?

Before I proceed to discuss that question, it will be well to ascertain what is the extent and value of the property embraced. The public domain, as has been frequently stated in the course of the debate, embraces more than one thousand millions of acres; and the other property includes the public build