The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 13

[Sidenote: Van Buren's resolution against internal improvements.]

The question of internal improvements was a better issue, from this point of view. In his first annual message President Adams took high national ground upon this subject. He seemed to attribute to the general Government unlimited power to construct roads and ca.n.a.ls, establish universities and observatories, and to do any and every thing conducive to the improvement of the people. Clay himself, it is said, was a little staggered by the exceeding broadness of Mr. Adams'

ideas. While Mr. Van Buren, the leader of the opposition in the Senate, offered a resolution in that body, a fortnight after the message, which declared that Congress did not possess the power to make roads and ca.n.a.ls within the respective Commonwealths, and proposed the formation of an amendment to the Const.i.tution, which should prescribe the powers that the general Government should have over the subject of internal improvements.

[Sidenote: The practices of the Adams Administration in respect to internal improvements.]

Mr. Adams seems to have yielded before the opposition in this matter, and to have thus avoided making it a further issue. In his subsequent messages he confined himself chiefly to observations upon the work done by the engineers appointed under the Congressional Act of April 30th, 1824, for making surveys, plans, {156} and estimates for national routes. The Administration and Congress simply put into practice the Monroe ideas upon the subject. Money was appropriated by Congress for the construction and repair of roads, and was expended under the supervision of the President, and stock was taken by the Government in private corporations, organized under Commonwealth law, and subject to Commonwealth jurisdiction, for the construction of ca.n.a.ls; but no jurisdiction and no administrative powers were exercised or a.s.serted by the general Government over such improvements, except, perhaps, the power of eminent domain.

The opposition, however, which had been excited at first by Mr. Adams'

proposition to make a large advance upon Mr. Monroe's principles, was not satisfied with his return in practice to those principles. They professed to entertain the fear that the Administration had a settled policy of encroachment upon the reserved rights and powers of the Commonwealths, and they now began to watch and combat the movements of the Administration chiefly from this point of view. This att.i.tude must not yet, however, be ascribed wholly or chiefly to the conscious influences of the slavery interest. Factional hostility to the Administration, and the general settling back into the "States'

rights" view of the Const.i.tution, which manifests itself all through the history of the United States as a reaction from the tension of war and the enthusiasm of strong national exertion, did more to determine it than the views of the slaveholders in regard to the interests of their peculiar inst.i.tution.

[Sidenote: The chief practical difficulty in the way of a national system of internal improvements.]

The great practical difficulty in regard to the subject was in making such determinations as to the national or local character of the proposed improvements as would be satisfactory to the ma.s.s of the people. {157} Naturally every Congressman considered the roads of his district as matters of national concern; and, in spite of the law of 1824 vesting in the President and his board of engineers the laying out of such routes as the President might decide to be required by the general welfare, the scramble for national money to be expended for local purposes increased from one session to another.

It was the question of the tariff which showed more clearly than anything else the influence of the interests of slavery in the att.i.tude which the slaveholders would finally take toward the industrial policies of the nation, and which would contribute more than anything else to the division of the Republican party from the point of view of principle.

[Sidenote: The Tariff of 1824 a failure.]

The great purpose of the Tariff of 1824 was to give the American manufacturers of coa.r.s.e woollens a substantial control of the home markets. In two years of trial this result had not been realized. A vast amount of capital had been transferred from other enterprises to build new woollen mills, and the markets were so glutted with their fabrics that sale for them could only be found by virtually excluding foreign goods of the same material and grade. It was claimed that the foreign goods were sold upon foreign account, and not by _bona fide_ American merchants, and that the goods were thus undervalued by the fict.i.tious parties to the importation, and the duty thus so largely avoided as to make the importation practically free. It was, therefore, contended that the agent of the foreign manufacturer or merchant was ruining the American manufacturer, on the one hand, and the American merchant, on the other. President Adams himself, in his message of December 5th, 1826, referred to the frauds thus committed on the revenue. The {158} manufacturers of woollens in New England and Pennsylvania memorialized Congress, during the latter part of the year 1826, representing themselves to be in dire distress and praying for aid. These memorials were referred to the Committee on Manufactures of the House of Representatives for report. On January 10th, 1827, the chairman of this committee, Mr. Mallary, of Vermont, introduced a bill to meet the difficulties above described.

[Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1827.]

This bill proposed to introduce a system of minimal valuations at the custom-house instead of taking the foreign invoice as the basis for the levy of the duty, as was the existing practice, and it placed the valuation of coa.r.s.e woollens so high as practically to prohibit their importation. The bill proposed, however, to raise the tariff on wool to such a rate as would deprive the manufacturers very largely of the benefit to be secured by the system of minimal valuations. It was questionable whether the manufacturers would get any very material aid out of this bill, which contained so high a rate of duty upon the raw material, but it was necessary to incorporate the provision in order to secure the support of the West to the measure.

[Sidenote: Development of the industrial ant.i.thesis between the North and the South.]

The industrial ant.i.thesis between the North and the South became more exactly organized under the issue presented by this bill.

Ma.s.sachusetts joined the high protection ranks, and Kentucky went over to the side of the South. Missouri, however, still voted for the tariff, while New York City still preserved its att.i.tude of opposition, and Maine's Representatives were evenly divided in the final vote on the bill. The protection phalanx from Pennsylvania was broken, too, by the defection of her two most important Representatives, Ingham and Buchanan. The att.i.tude of {159} Buchanan was a matter of especial note. He held that the const.i.tutionality of the tariff and the policy of a moderate protection had been completely settled by the founders of the Const.i.tution and by the uniform practice of the Government, but that so high a tariff as the one now proposed on woollens was impolitic, from the point of view of the general welfare, and unjust, from that of an equal distribution of the burdens of taxation. Mr. Buchanan owed much of his subsequent success to the moderate views which he advanced and adhered to at this juncture.

[Sidenote: The bill pa.s.sed by the House of Representatives.]

It will be seen, however, that the support of, and the opposition to, the tariff respectively had not yet become entirely sectional, though an advance had been made since 1824 toward that result. The bill pa.s.sed the House on February 10th, 1827, but the Senate did not reach its consideration before the conclusion of the session.

[Sidenote: Hostility to the measure in South Carolina.]

It had the effect, however, of arousing most intense excitement and bitter opposition in South Carolina. In fact, it is from this date and issue that we must trace the history of nullification in South Carolina. In the summer following the Congressional session of 1826-27 the chief personages of the Commonwealth a.s.sembled at Columbia. The Governor, Mr. Taylor, presided, and the princ.i.p.al orator of the occasion was the President of the College of the Commonwealth, Dr.

Cooper, a man of rare powers and great learning, an Englishman by birth and education, a free-trader in his political economy, and a "States' rights" man in his political science. In his speech he suggested disunion as preferable to submission to the tariff legislation of Congress. The resolutions pa.s.sed by the a.s.sembly were not so inflammatory as the Doctor's speech, but they declared that such legislation {160} was calculated to give rise to the inquiry whether the Union was of any benefit, under such conditions, to the Southern Commonwealths.

[Sidenote: The bill neglected by the Senate.]

Copies of these resolutions were sent to the legislative bodies of the several Southern Commonwealths, but they evoked no response whatsoever. The proposed tariff had, by the inaction of the Senate, been virtually abandoned, and it was therefore unnecessary to protest against its pa.s.sage as law, or make threats against its execution.

[Sidenote: The Tariff of 1828.]

At the beginning of the next session of Congress, that of 1827-28, the committee on Manufactures brought in another bill. It advanced the duty on iron by from ten to fifteen per centum; it advanced the duty on wool by from about fifty to more than one hundred per centum, imposing both a specific and an _ad valorem_ duty upon it. It changed the duty upon woollen goods costing less than $2.50 a square yard from an _ad valorem_ to a specific duty, and increased the duty by about twenty per centum. It retained the _ad valorem_ duty on woollens costing more than $2.50 a square yard, and increased the same by about twenty per centum, and in addition thereto it imposed a minimum valuation of $4 a square yard upon all such goods costing between $2.50 and $4 a square yard, which would effect an additional increase of duty of about fifty per centum on the average. It finally increased the duty on hemp by about twenty-five per centum immediately, and by about eighty per centum in three years.

This was a far more moderate protection upon woollen fabrics than that proposed at the previous session, on account of the fact that the duty on the raw material was so greatly increased. It was at least questionable whether the manufacturers would receive any substantial benefit out of the measure. Mr. Mallary, the {161} chairman of the committee, felt so dubious about this that he dissented from the committee's report in regard to woollen fabrics, and offered an amendment to the bill for the purpose of curing this defect. He could not, however, bring the House to accept his proposition, but his opposition to the committee's report opened the way for some modification of the bill to the advantage of the manufacturers. It was still, however, no great boon to the manufacturers. It was about as much a wool- and hemp-grower's bill as a manufacturer's bill. n.o.body could tell whether it would be more beneficial to the manufacturers than to the wool- and hemp-growers.

One thing alone was certain, and that was, that the cotton-planters and those engaged in foreign commerce would have no direct share in the benefits of the measure. And it was also very difficult to figure out any indirect benefits for them. It would not widen the domestic market for raw cotton. It would increase the price of woollen fabrics.

It would increase the domestic demand for the products of Western agriculture, and thereby increase the price of these products to the Southern consumers of them. And it would discourage the importation of woollen goods. These were all the results easily discernible, and every one of them bore hard upon the planting and s.h.i.+pping interests.

The representatives from the Southern Commonwealths pointed out these things, but they were told to establish manufactures themselves, and then they would be tributary to n.o.body.

[Sidenote: The Southerners not yet agreed that slave labor could not be employed in manufacture.]

Some of the Southerners, like Colonel Hayne, frankly replied that they could not establish manufactures with slave labor; while others, like Mr. McDuffie, threatened ruin to the Northern manufacturers if they succeeded in having the duties raised so high as to drive the South, with its cheap slave labor, into manufactures.

{162} [Sidenote: The character of the bill as reflected in the a.n.a.lysis of the vote upon it.]

The vote in the House of Representatives reflects quite perfectly the character of the bill. The members from the wool- and hemp-growing sections supported the bill; those from the manufacturing section were indifferent; those from the s.h.i.+pping and commercial sections opposed it; and those from the planting section opposed it unanimously.

In the Senate, amendments were made to the bill which altered it in the direction of a slightly increased protection to the manufacturers.

Still, Mr. Webster, who had become a champion of protection since his section had become a manufacturing section, claimed that the bill was of little worth to the manufacturers, while the increased duty on hemp would bear heavily on the s.h.i.+pping interests of New England. He voted for the bill, however, while his colleague, Mr. Silsbee, voted against it. The vote in the Senate differed only slightly, as regards sectional distribution, from that in the House. It was finally pa.s.sed by both Houses as amended by the Senate, and was signed by the President on the nineteenth day of May, 1828; and opposition to it thereafter must take on the form of pet.i.tion for its repeal, or that of resistance to its execution. Before it could come to the latter, however, three things must be accomplished. The first was the invention of the morale of such resistance. The second was the creation of the party of resistance. And the last was the capture of some existing governmental organization by that party.

[Sidenote: The Tariff of 1828 not a complete party measure.]

While thus it cannot be said that the "Jackson men" voted against this bill and the Administration men for it, still there was something which looked like an approach toward this relation. Certainly the Southern wing of the Jacksonians, or of the Democratic party, as the Jacksonians now called {163} themselves in distinction from the National Republicans, opposed the measure with something like unanimity. Many of Jackson's Northern supporters, however, voted for the bill, and it may be said that the Democratic party of the North was then in favor of moderate protection to all the interests of the country.

The party divisions of 1828 were still largely dominated by considerations of personal partisans.h.i.+p, and the organization of the two parties, which had now emerged from the all-comprehending Republican party, upon the basis of different political creeds, still lacked much of completion.

[Sidenote: The presidential campaign of 1828 still dominated by personal considerations.]

The campaign of 1828 was not fought upon the issues of any well established differences in political and economic policies. Jackson and his followers simply appealed to the ma.s.s of the people, especially to the lower cla.s.ses, "to turn the rascals out," on the ground that the "Old Hero," the friend of the people, had been cheated, by a corrupt bargain between the two chiefs of the Administration, out of his rights in 1824, and that the whole pack of officials serving under them had been corrupted by the venality of their superiors. The people must take possession of their Government and send the wicked aristocracy of office holders to the right about, was the chief demand of the Democracy of 1828, and it was with the empty phrases, with which they rang the changes upon this demand, that they won the battle.

[Sidenote: Election of Jackson.]

Jackson and Calhoun were elected by an electoral vote of more than two to one. Every Commonwealth west of the Alleghanies, and every one south of Mason and Dixon's line, except Delaware and Maryland, gave its electoral vote entire to Jackson and Calhoun; and in addition thereto Pennsylvania {164} gave them its entire vote, New York gave them twenty of its thirty-six votes, Maine one of its nine, and Maryland five of its eleven.

[Sidenote: Advent of the parvenus.]

It was a tremendous _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_. The mob of malcontents had gotten together, had pulled together, and had accomplished their purpose. The old ruling cla.s.s in American society was driven from place and power, and a new, untried, and inexperienced set of men seized the reins of Government. It looked something like a combination of the South and West against the East. They had, however, secured the two most important Eastern Commonwealths through Van Buren's activity in New York and Jackson's own popularity in Pennsylvania. It was not yet, however, a socialistic uprising against the wealth of the East.

It was a political uprising against the monopoly of office-holding by the old official aristocracy. It was the introduction of a new cla.s.s of eligibles into the official positions. Whether the subsequent effects of this change would be a modification of the structure of the Union or the policies of the Government remained to be seen.

[Sidenote: Foreign affairs under Jackson's Administration.]

Jackson placed Van Buren at the head of the Department of State, and under the influence of this most astute politician started out upon his presidential career. The foreign diplomacy of the Administration was naturally successful. The disputes with Great Britain in regard to the northeast boundary of the United States, and in regard to trade between the United States and the British colonies, and the dispute with France in regard to indemnity for the spoliations committed by the French upon American commerce in the first years of the century, were successfully dealt with, by a judicious admixture of shrewdness, conciliatoriness, and firmness. These questions were not, however, of sufficient importance to {165} turn the attention from the internal questions of const.i.tutional interpretation and governmental policies.

[Sidenote: The Democratic party and its divisions.]

The Jackson party, or the Democratic party, must make its creed, both political and economic, and it must adjust that creed both to the Const.i.tution and to the working of the Government. The party was composed of three tolerably distinct divisions, which may be termed the Southern, the Western, and the Eastern divisions. Of these, the Western division alone was a real democracy. The Southern and Eastern divisions were rather aristocracies. The Southern division was emphatically so. And when it came to policies, the Western division favored internal improvements, and the Eastern and Southern divisions opposed them; the Western division favored a tariff on wool and hemp, the Eastern favored moderate protection of manufactures, and the Southern division wanted as nearly free trade as the revenues of the Government would allow. It was a great task for the Administration to maintain the combination, and keep a reliable majority in Congress.

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CHAPTER VIII.