American Institutions and Their Influence Part 40

The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the contract; for their safety is then dependant upon their union. When, in 1790, the most populous of the American republics did not contain 500,000 inhabitants,[266] each of them felt its own insignificance as an independent people, and this feeling rendered compliance with the federal authority more easy. But when one of the confederate states reckons, like the State of New York, two millions of inhabitants, and covers an extent of territory equal in surface to a quarter of France,[267] it feels its own strength; and although it may continue to support the Union as advantageous to its prosperity, it no longer regards that body as necessary to its existence; and, as it continues to belong to the federal compact, it soon aims at preponderance in the federal a.s.semblies. The probable unanimity of the states is diminished as their number increases. At present the interests of the different parts of the Union are not at variance; but who is able to foresee the multifarious changes of the future, in a country in which towns are founded from day to day, and states almost from year to year?

Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive no causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of the Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before that s.p.a.ce of time has elapsed, I believe that the territories and dependencies of the United States will be covered by more than a hundred millions of inhabitants, and divided into forty states.[268] I admit that these hundred millions of men have no hostile interests; I suppose, on the contrary, that they are all equally interested in the maintenance of the Union; but I am still of opinion, that where there are a hundred millions of men, and forty distinct nations unequally strong, the continuance of the federal government can only be a fortunate accident.

Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man until human nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together forty different peoples, disseminated over a territory equal to one-half of Europe in extent; to avoid all rivalry, ambition, and struggles, between them; and to direct their independent activity to the accomplishment of the same designs.

But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its increase, arises from the continual changes which take place in the position of its internal strength. The distance from Lake Superior to the gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of lat.i.tude, a distance of more than twelve hundred miles, as the bird flies. The frontier of the United States winds along the whole of this immense line; sometimes falling within its limits, but more frequently extending far beyond it, into the waste. It has been calculated that the whites advance a mean distance of seventeen miles along the whole of this vast boundary.[269]

Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a lake, or an Indian nation unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with. The advancing column then halts for a while; its two extremities fall back upon themselves, and as soon as they are reunited they proceed onward. This gradual and continuous progress of the European race toward the Rocky mountains, has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of G.o.d.

Within this first line of conquering settlers, towns are built, and vast states founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at the present day these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in the whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly four millions.[270] The city of Was.h.i.+ngton was founded in 1800, in the very centre of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken place, that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the delegates of the most remote western states are already obliged to perform a journey as long as that from Vienna to Paris.[271]

All the states are borne onward at the same time in the path of fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper in the same proportion. In the north of the Union detached branches of the Allegany chain, extending as far as the Atlantic ocean, form s.p.a.cious roads and ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels of the greatest burden. But from the Potomac to the mouth of the Mississippi, the coast is sandy and flat. In this part of the Union the mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed; and the few harbors which exist among these lagunes, afford much shallower water to vessels, and much fewer commercial advantages than those of the north.

This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another cause proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that slavery, which is abolished in the north, still exists in the south; and I have pointed out its fatal consequences upon the prosperity of the planter himself.

The north is therefore superior to the south both in commerce[272] and manufacture; the natural consequence of which is the more rapid increase of population and of wealth within its borders. The states situated upon the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic ocean are already half-peopled. Most of the land is held by an owner; and these districts cannot therefore receive so many emigrants as the western states, where a boundless field is still open to their exertions. The valley of the Mississippi is far more fertile than the coast of the Atlantic ocean. This reason, added to all the others, contributes to drive the Europeans westward--a fact which may be rigorously demonstrated by figures. It is found that the sum total of the population of all the United States has about tripled in the course of forty years. But in the recent states adjacent to the Mississippi, the population has increased thirty-one fold within the same s.p.a.ce of time.[273]

The relative position of the central federal power is continually displaced. Forty years ago the majority of the citizens of the Union was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in the environs of the spot upon which Was.h.i.+ngton now stands; but the great body of the people is now advancing inland and to the north, so that in twenty years the majority will unquestionably be on the western side of the Alleganies.

If the Union goes on to subsist, the basin of the Mississippi is evidently marked out, by its fertility and its extent, as the future centre of the federal government. In thirty or forty years, that tract of country will have a.s.sumed the rank which naturally belongs to it. It is easy to calculate that its population, compared to that of the coast of the Atlantic, will be, in round numbers, as 40 to 11. In a few years the states which founded the Union will lose the direction of its policy, and the population of the valleys of the Mississippi will preponderate in the federal a.s.semblies.

This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence toward the northwest, is shown every ten years, when a general census of the population is made, and the number of delegates which each state sends to congress is settled afresh.[274] In 1790 Virginia had nineteen representatives in congress. This number continued to increase until the year 1813, when it reached to twenty-three: from that time it began to decrease, and in 1833, Virginia elected only twenty-one representatives.[275] During the same period the state of New York advanced in the contrary direction; in 1790, it had ten representatives in congress; in 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823, thirty-four; and in 1833, forty. The state of Ohio had only one representative in 1803, and in 1833, it had already nineteen.

It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is rich and strong, with one which is poor and weak, and if it were proved that the strength and wealth of the one are not the causes of the weakness and poverty of the other. But union is still move difficult to maintain at a time at which one party is losing strength, and the other is gaining it.

This rapid and disproportionate increase of certain states threatens the independence of the others. New York might, perhaps, succeed with its two millions of inhabitants and its forty representatives, in dictating to the other states in congress. But even if the more powerful states make no attempt to bear down the lesser ones, the danger still exists; for there is almost as much in the possibility of the act as in the act itself. The weak generally mistrusts the justice and the reason of the strong. The states which increase less rapidily than the others, look upon those which are more favored by fortune, with envy and suspicion.

Hence arise the deep-seated uneasiness and ill-defined agitation which are observable in the south, and which form so striking a contrast to the confidence and prosperity which are common to other parts of the Union. I am inclined to think that the hostile measures taken by the southern provinces upon a recent occasion, are attributable to no other cause. The inhabitants of the southern states are, of all the Americans, those who are most interested in the maintenance of the Union; they would a.s.suredly suffer most from being left to themselves; and yet they are the only citizens who threaten to break the tie of confederation.

But it is easy to perceive that the south, which has given four presidents, Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, to the Union; which perceives that it is losing its federal influence, and that the number of its representatives in congress is diminis.h.i.+ng from year to year while those of the northern and western states are increasing; the south, which is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is becoming more and more irritated and alarmed. The citizens reflect upon their present position and remember their past influence, with the melancholy uneasiness of men who suspect oppression: if they discover a law of the Union which is not unequivocally favorable to their interests, they protest against it as an abuse of force; and if their ardent remonstrances are not listened to, they threaten to quit an a.s.sociation which loads them with burdens while it deprives them of their due profits. "The tariff," said the inhabitants of Carolina in 1832, "enriches the north, and ruins the south; for if this were not the case, to what can we attribute the continually increasing power and wealth of the north, with its inclement skies and arid soil; while the south, which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly declining."[276]

If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that each generation at least might have time to disappear with the order of things under which it had lived, the danger would be less: but the progress of society in America is precipitate, and almost revolutionary.

The same citizen may have lived to see his state take the lead in the Union, and afterward become powerless in the federal a.s.semblies; and an Anglo-American republic has been known to grow as rapidly as a man, pa.s.sing from birth and infancy to maturity in the course of thirty years. It must not be imagined, however, that the states which lose their preponderance, also lose their population or their riches; no stop is put to their prosperity, and they even go on to increase more rapidly than any kingdom in Europe.[277] But they believe themselves to be impoverished because their wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbors; and they think that their power is lost, because they suddenly come into collision with a power greater than their own.[278]

Thus they are more hurt in their feelings and their pa.s.sions, than in their interests. But this is amply sufficient to endanger the maintenance of the Union. If kings and peoples had only had their true interests in view, ever since the beginning of the world, the name of war would scarcely be known among mankind.

Thus the prosperity of the United States is the source of the most serious dangers that threaten them, since it tends to create in some of the confederate states that over-excitement which accompanies a rapid increase of fortune; and to awaken in others those feelings of envy, mistrust, and regret, which usually attend upon the loss of it. The Americans contemplate this extraordinary and hasty progress with exultation; but they would be wiser to consider it with sorrow and alarm. The Americans of the United States must inevitably become one of the greatest nations in the world; their offset will cover almost the whole of North America; the continent which they inhabit is their dominion, and it cannot escape them. What urges them to take possession of it so soon? Riches, power, and renown, cannot fail to be theirs at some future time; but they rush upon their fortune as if but a moment remained for them to make it their own.

I think I have demonstrated, that the existence of the present confederation depends entirely on the continued a.s.sent of all the confederates; and, starting from this principle, I have inquired into the causes which may induce any of the states to separate from the others. The Union may, however, perish in two different ways: one of the confederate states may choose to retire from the compact, and so forcibly sever the federal tie; and it is to this supposition that most of the remarks which I have made apply: or the authority of the federal government may be progressively intrenched on by the simultaneous tendency of the united republics to resume their independence. The central power, successively stripped of all its prerogatives, and reduced to impotence by tacit consent, would become incompetent to fulfil its purpose; and the second Union would perish, like the first, by a sort of senile inapt.i.tude. The gradual weakening of the federal tie, which may finally lead to the dissolution of the Union, is a distinct circ.u.mstance, that may produce a variety of minor consequences before it operates so violent a change. The confederation might still subsist, although its government were reduced to such a degree of inanition as to paralyze the nation, to cause internal anarchy, and to check the general prosperity of the country.

After having investigated the causes which may induce the Anglo-Americans to disunite, it is important to inquire whether, if the Union continues to subsist, their government will extend or contract its sphere of action, and whether it will become more energetic or more weak.

The Americans are evidently disposed to look upon their future condition with alarm. They perceive that in most of the nations of the world, the exercise of the rights of sovereignty tends to fall under the control of a few individuals, and they are dismayed by the idea that such will also be the case in their own country. Even the statesmen feel, or affect to feel, these fears; for, in America, centralization is by no means popular, and there is no surer means of courting the majority, than by inveighing against the encroachments of the central power. The Americans do not perceive that the countries in which this alarming tendency to centralization exists, are inhabited by a single people; while the fact of the Union being composed of different confederate communities, is sufficient to baffle all the inferences which might be drawn from a.n.a.logous circ.u.mstances. I confess that I am inclined to consider the fears of a great number of Americans as purely imaginary; and far from partic.i.p.ating in their dread of the consolidation of power in the hands of the Union, I think that the federal government is visibly losing strength.

To prove this a.s.sertion I shall not have recourse to any remote occurrences, but to circ.u.mstances which I have myself observed, and which belong to our own time.

An attentive examination of what is going on in the United States, will easily convince us that two opposite tendencies exist in that country, like two distinct currents flowing in contrary directions in the same channel. The Union has now existed for forty-five years, and in the course of that time a vast number of provincial prejudices, which were at first hostile to its power, have died away. The patriotic feeling which attached each of the Americans to his own native state is become less exclusive; and the different parts of the Union have become more intimately connected the better they have become acquainted with each other. The post,[279] that great instrument of intellectual intercourse, now reaches into the backwoods; and steamboats have established daily means of communication between the different points of the coast. An inland navigation of unexampled rapidity conveys commodities up and down the rivers of the country.[280] And to these facilities of nature and art may be added those restless cravings, that busymindedness, and love of self, which are constantly urging the American into active life, and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He crosses the country in every direction; he visits all the various populations of the land; and there is not a province in France, in which the natives are so well known to each other as the thirteen millions of men who cover the territory of the United States.

But while the Americans intermingle, they grow in resemblance of each other; the differences resulting from their climate, their origin, and their inst.i.tutions diminish; and they all draw nearer and nearer to the common type. Every year, thousands of men leave the north to settle in different parts of the Union; they bring with them their faith, their opinions, and their manners; and as they are more enlightened than the men among whom they are about to dwell, they soon rise to the head of affairs and they adapt society to their own advantage. This continual emigration of the north to the south is peculiarly favorable to the fusion of all the different provincial characters into one national character. The civilisation of the north appears to be the common standard, to which the whole nation will one day be a.s.similated.

The commercial ties which unite the confederate states are strengthened by the increasing manufactures of the Americans; and the union which began to exist in their opinions, gradually forms a part of their habits: the course of time has swept away the bugbear thoughts which haunted the imaginations of the citizens in 1789. The federal power is not become oppressive; it has not destroyed the independence of the states; it has not subjected the confederates to monarchical inst.i.tutions; and the Union has not rendered the lesser states dependant upon the larger ones; but the confederation has continued to increase in population, in wealth, and in power. I am therefore convinced that the natural obstacles to the continuance of the American Union are not so powerful at the present time as they were in 1789; and that the enemies of the Union are not so numerous.

Nevertheless, a careful examination of the history of the United States for the last forty-five years, will readily convince us that the federal power is declining; nor is it difficult to explain the causes of this phenomenon. When the const.i.tution of 1789 was promulgated, the nation was a prey to anarchy; the Union, which succeeded this confusion, excited much dread and much animosity; but it was warmly supported because it satisfied an imperious want. Thus, although it was more attacked than it is now, the federal power soon reached the maximum of its authority, as is usually the case with a government which triumphs after having braced its strength by the struggle. At that time the interpretation of the const.i.tution seemed to extend rather than to repress, the federal sovereignty; and the Union offered, in several respects, the appearance of a single and undivided people, directed in its foreign and internal policy by a single government. But to attain this point the people had risen, to a certain extent, above itself.

The const.i.tution had not destroyed the distinct sovereignty of the states; and all communities, of whatever nature they may be, are impelled by a secret propensity to a.s.sert their independence. This propensity is still more decided in a country like America, in which every village forms a sort of republic accustomed to conduct its own affairs. It therefore cost the states an effort to submit to the federal supremacy; and all efforts, however successful they may be, necessarily subside with the causes in which they originated.

As the federal government consolidated its authority, America resumed its rank among the nations, peace returned to its frontiers, and public credit was restored; confusion was succeeded by a fixed state of things which was favorable to the full and free exercise of industrious enterprise. It was this very prosperity which made the Americans forget the cause to which it was attributable; and when once the danger was pa.s.sed, the energy and the patriotism which had enabled them to brave it, disappeared from among them. No sooner were they delivered from the cares which oppressed them, than they easily returned to their ordinary habits, and gave themselves up without resistance to their natural inclinations. When a powerful government no longer appeared to be necessary, they once more began to think it irksome. The Union encouraged a general prosperity, and the states were not inclined to abandon the Union; but they desired to render the action of the power which represented that body as light as possible. The general principle of union was adopted, but in every minor detail there was an actual tendency to independence. The principle of confederation was every day more easily admitted and more rarely applied; so that the federal government brought about its own decline, while it was creating order and peace.

As soon as this tendency of public opinion began to be manifested externally, the leaders of parties, who live by the pa.s.sions of the people, began to work it to their own advantage. The position of the federal government then became exceedingly critical. Its enemies were in possession of the popular favor; and they obtained the right of conducting its policy by pledging themselves to lessen its influence.

From that time forward, the government of the Union has invariably been obliged to recede, as often as it has attempted to enter the lists with the government of the states. And whenever an interpretation of the terms of the federal const.i.tution has been called for, that interpretation has most frequently been opposed to the Union, and favorable to the states.

The const.i.tution invested the federal government with the right of providing for the interests of the nation; and it has been held that no other authority was so fit to superintend the "internal improvements"

which affected the prosperity of the whole Union; such, for instance, as the cutting of ca.n.a.ls. But the states were alarmed at a power, distinct from their own, which could thus dispose of a portion of their territory, and they were afraid that the central government would, by this means, acquire a formidable extent of patronage within their own confines, and exercise a degree of influence which they intended to reserve exclusively to their own agents. The democratic party, which has constantly been opposed to the increase of the federal authority, then accused the congress of usurpation, and the chief magistrate of ambition. The central government was intimidated by the opposition; and it soon acknowledged its error, promising exactly to confine its influence, for the future, within the circle which was prescribed to it.

The const.i.tution confers upon the Union the right of treating with foreign nations. The Indian tribes, which border upon the frontiers of the United States, have usually been regarded in this light. As long as these savages consented to retire before the civilized settlers, the federal right was not contested; but as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its dwelling upon a given spot, the adjacent states claimed possession of the lands and the rights of sovereignty over the natives. The central government soon recognized both these claims; and after it had concluded treaties with the Indians as independent nations, it gave them up as subjects to the legislative tyranny of the states.[281]

Some of the states which had been founded upon the coast of the Atlantic, extended indefinitely to the west, into wild regions, where no European had ever penetrated. The states whose confines were irrevocably fixed, looked with a jealous eye upon the unbounded regions which the future would enable their neighbors to explore. The latter then agreed, with a view to conciliate the others, and to facilitate the act of union, to lay down their own boundaries, and to abandon all the territory which lay beyond those limits to the confederation at large.[282] Thenceforward the federal government became the owner of all the uncultivated lands which lie beyond the borders of the thirteen states first confederated. It was invested with the right of parcelling and selling them, and the sums derived from this source were exclusively reserved to the public treasury of the Union, in order to furnish supplies for purchasing tracts of country from the Indians, for opening roads to the remote settlements, and for accelerating the increase of civilisation as much as possible. New states have, however, been formed in the course of time, in the midst of those wilds which were formerly ceded by the inhabitants of the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic. Congress has gone on to sell, for the profit of the nation at large, the uncultivated lands which those new states contained. But the latter at length a.s.serted that, as they were now fully const.i.tuted, they ought to enjoy the exclusive right of converting the produce of these sales to their own use. As their remonstrances became more and more threatening, congress thought fit to deprive the Union of a portion of the privileges which it had hitherto enjoyed; and at the end of 1832 it pa.s.sed a law by which the greatest part of the revenue derived from the sale of lands was made over to the new western republics, although the lands themselves were not ceded to them.[283]

[The remark of the author, that "whenever an interpretation of the terms of the federal const.i.tution has been called for, that interpretation has most frequently been opposed to the Union, and favorable to the states"

requires considerable qualification. The instances which the author cites, are those of _legislative_ interpretations, not those made by the judiciary. It may be questioned whether any of those cited by him are fair instances of _interpretation_. Although the then president and many of his friends doubted or denied the power of congress over many of the subjects mentioned by the author, yet the omission to exercise the power thus questioned, did not proceed wholly from doubts of the const.i.tutional authority. It must be remembered that all these questions affected local interests of the states or districts represented in congress, and the author has elsewhere shown the tendency of the local feeling to overcome all regard for the abstract interest of the Union.

Hence many members have voted on these questions without reference to the const.i.tutional question, and indeed without entertaining any doubt of their power. These instances may afford proof that the federal power is declining, as the author contends, but they do not prove any actual interpretation of the const.i.tution. And so numerous and various are the circ.u.mstances to influence the decision of a legislative body like the congress of the United States, that the people do not regard them as sound and authoritative expositions of the true sense of the const.i.tution, except perhaps in those very few cases, where there has been a constant and uninterrupted practice from the organization of the government. The judiciary is looked to as the only authentic expounder of the const.i.tution, and until a law of congress has pa.s.sed that ordeal, its const.i.tutionality is open to question: of which our history furnishes many examples ... There are errors in some of the instances given by our author, which would materially mislead, if not corrected.

That in relation to the Indians proceeds upon the a.s.sumption that the United States claimed some rights over Indians or the territory occupied by them, inconsistent with the claims of the states. But this is a mistake. As to their lands, the United States never pretended to any right in them, except such as was granted by the cessions of the states.

The principle universally acknowledged in the courts of the United States and of the several states, is, that by the treaty with Great Britain in which the independence of the colonies was acknowledged, the states became severally and individually independent, and as such succeeded to the rights of the crown of England to and over the lands within the boundaries of the respective states. The right of the crown in these lands was the absolute owners.h.i.+p, subject only to the rights of occupancy by the Indians so long as they remained a tribe. This right devolved to each state by the treaty which established their independence, and the United States have never questioned it. See 6th Cranch, 87; 8th Wheaton, 502, 884; 17th Johnson's Reports, 231. On the other hand, the right of holding treaties with the Indians has universally been conceded to the United States. The right of a state to the lands occupied by the Indians, within the boundaries of such state, does not in the least conflict with the right of holding treaties on national subjects by the United States with those Indians. With respect to Indians residing in any territory _without_ the boundaries of any state, or on lands ceded to the United States, the case is different; the United States are in such cases the proprietors of the soil, subject to the Indian right of occupancy, and when that right is extinguished the proprietors.h.i.+p becomes absolute. It will be seen, then, that in relation to the Indians and their lands, no question could arise respecting the interpretation of the const.i.tution. The observation that "as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its dwelling upon a given spot, the adjacent states claimed possession of the lands, and the rights of sovereignty over the natives"--is a strange compound of error and of truth. As above remarked, the Indian right of occupancy has ever been recognized by the states, with the exception of the case referred to by the author, in which Georgia claimed the right to possess certain lands occupied by the Cherokees. This was anomalous, and grew out of treaties and cessions, the details of which are too numerous and complicated for the limits of a note. But in no other cases have the states ever claimed the possession of lands occupied by Indians, without having previously extinguished their right by purchase.

As to the rights of sovereignty over the natives, the principle admitted in the United States is that all persons within the territorial limits of a state are and of necessity must be, subject to the jurisdiction of its laws. While the Indian tribes were numerous, distinct, and separate from the whites, and possessed a government of their own, the state authorities, from considerations of policy, abstained from the exercise of criminal jurisdiction for offences committed by the Indians among themselves, although for offences against the whites they were subjected to the operation of the state laws. But as these tribes diminished in numbers, as those who remained among them became enervated by bad habits, and ceased to exercise any effectual government, humanity demanded that the power of the states should be interposed to protect the miserable remnants from the violence and outrage of each other. The first recorded instance of interposition in such a case was in 1821, when an Indian of the Seneca tribe in the state of New York was tried and convicted of murder on a squaw of the tribe. The courts declared their competency to take cognizance of such offences, and the legislature confirmed the declaration by a law.--Another instance of what the author calls interpretation of the const.i.tution against the general government, is given by him in the proposed act of 1832, which pa.s.sed both houses of congress, but was vetoed by the president, by which, as he says, "the greatest part of the revenue derived from the sale of lands, was made over to the new western republics." But this act was not founded on any doubt of the t.i.tle of the United States to the lands in question, or of its const.i.tutional power over them, and cannot be cited as any evidence of the interpretation of the const.i.tution. An error of fact in this statement ought to be corrected. The bill to which the author refers, is doubtless that usually called Mr. Clay's land bill. Instead of making over the greatest part of the revenue to the new states, it appropriated twelve and a half per cent. to them, in addition to five per cent. which had been originally granted for the purpose of making roads. See Niles's Register, vol. 42, p. 355.--_American Editor._]

The slightest observation in the United States enables one to appreciate the advantages which the country derives from the bank. These advantages are of several kinds, but one of them is peculiarly striking to the stranger. The bank-notes of the United States are taken upon the borders of the desert for the same value as at Philadelphia, where the bank conducts its operations.[284]

The bank of the United States is nevertheless an object of great animosity. Its directors have proclaimed their hostility to the president; and they are accused, not without some show of probability, of having abused their influence to thwart his election. The president therefore attacks the establishment which they represent, with all the warmth of personal enmity; and he is encouraged in the pursuit of his revenge by the conviction that he is supported by the secret propensities of the majority. The bank may be regarded as the great monetary tie of the Union, just as congress is the great legislative tie; and the same pa.s.sions which tend to render the states independent of the central power, contribute to the overthrow of the bank.

The bank of the United States always holds a great number of the notes issued by the provincial banks, which it can at any time oblige them to convert into cash. It has itself nothing to fear from a similar demand, as the extent of its resources enables it to meet all claims. But the existence of the provincial banks is thus threatened, and their operations are restricted, since they are only able to issue a quant.i.ty of notes duly proportioned to their capital. They submit with impatience to this salutary control. The newspapers which they have bought over, and the president, whose interest renders him their instrument, attack the bank with the greatest vehemence. They rouse the local pa.s.sions, and the blind democratic instinct of the country to aid their cause; and they a.s.sert that the bank-directors form a permanent aristocratic body, whose influence must ultimately be felt in the government, and must affect those principles of equality upon which society rests in America.

The contest between the bank and its opponents is only an incident in the great struggle which is going on in America between the provinces and the central power; between the spirit of democratic independence, and the spirit of gradation and subordination. I do not mean that the enemies of the bank are identically the same individuals, who, on other points, attack the federal government; but I a.s.sert that the attacks directed against the bank of the United States originate in the propensities which militate against the federal government; and that the very numerous opponents of the former afford a deplorable symptom of the decreasing support of the latter.

The Union has never displayed so much weakness as in the celebrated question of the tariff.[285] The wars of the French revolution and of 1812 had created manufacturing establishments in the north of the Union, by cutting off all free communication between America and Europe. When peace was concluded, and the channel of intercourse reopened by which the produce of Europe was transmitted to the New World, the Americans thought fit to establish a system of import duties, for the twofold purpose of protecting their incipient manufactures, and of paying off the amount of the debt contracted during the war. The southern states, which have no manufactures to encourage, and which are exclusively agricultural, soon complained of this measure. Such were the simple facts, and I do not pretend to examine in this place whether their complaints were well founded or unjust.

As early as the year 1820, South Carolina declared, in a pet.i.tion to Congress, that the tariff was "unconst.i.tutional, oppressive, and unjust." And the states of Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, subsequently remonstrated against it with more or less vigor. But Congress, far from lending an ear to these complaints, raised the scale of tariff duties in the years 1824 and 1828, and recognized anew the principle on which it was founded. A doctrine was then proclaimed, or rather revived, in the south, which took the name of nullification.

I have shown in the proper place that the object of the federal const.i.tution was not to form a league, but to create a national government. The Americans of the United States form a sole and undivided people, in all the cases which are specified by that const.i.tution; and upon these points the will of the nation is expressed, as it is in all const.i.tutional nations, by the voice of the majority. When the majority has p.r.o.nounced its decision, it is the duty of the minority to submit.

Such is the sound legal doctrine, and the only one which agrees with the text of the const.i.tution, and the known intention of those who framed it.

The partisans of nullification in the south maintain, on the contrary, that the intention of the Americans in uniting was not to reduce themselves to the condition of one and the same people; that they meant to const.i.tute a league of independent states; and that each state, consequently, retains its entire sovereignty, if not _de facto_, at least _de jure_; and has the right of putting its own construction upon the laws of congress, and of suspending their execution within the limits of its own territory, if they are held to be unconst.i.tutional or unjust.

The entire doctrine of nullification is comprised in a sentence uttered by Vice-President Calhoun, the head of that party in the south, before the senate of the United States, in the year 1833: "The const.i.tution is a compact to which the states were parties in their sovereign capacity; now, whenever a contract is entered into by parties which acknowledge no tribunal above their authority to decide in the last resort, each of them has a right to judge for himself in relation to the nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument." It is evident that a similar doctrine destroys the very basis of the federal const.i.tution, and brings back all the evils of the old confederation, from which the Americans were supposed to have had a safe deliverance.

When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf ear to its remonstrances, it threatened to apply the doctrine of nullification to the federal tariff bill. Congress persisted in its former system; and at length the storm broke out. In the course of 1832 the citizens of South Carolina[286] named a national [state] convention, to consult upon the extraordinary measures which they were called upon to take; and on the 24th November of the same year, this convention promulgated a law, under the form of a decree, which annulled the federal law of the tariff, forbade the levy of the imposts which that law commands, and refused to recognize the appeal which might be made to the federal courts of law.[287] This decree was only to be put into execution in the ensuing month of February, and it was intimated, that if Congress modified the tariff before that period, South Carolina might be induced to proceed no farther with her menaces; and a vague desire was afterward expressed of submitting the question to an extraordinary a.s.sembly of all the confederate states.

In the meantime South Carolina armed her militia, and prepared for war.

But congress, which had slighted its suppliant subjects, listened to their complaints as soon as they were found to have taken up arms.[288]

A law was pa.s.sed, by which the tariff duties were to be progressively reduced for ten years, until they were brought so low as not to exceed the amount of supplies necessary to the government.[289] Thus congress completely abandoned the principle of the tariff; and subst.i.tuted a mere fiscal impost for a system of protective duties.[290] The government of the Union, in order to conceal its defeat, had recourse to an expedient which is very much in vogue with feeble governments. It yielded the point _de facto_, but it remained inflexible upon the principles in question; and while congress was altering the tariff law, it pa.s.sed another bill, by which the president was invested with extraordinary powers, enabling him to overcome by force a resistance which was then no longer to be apprehended.

But South Carolina did not consent to leave the Union in the enjoyment of these scanty trophies of success: the same national [state]

convention which annulled the tariff bill, met again, and accepted the proffered concession: but at the same time it declared its unabated perseverance in the doctrine of nullification; and to prove what it said, it annulled the law investing the president with extraordinary powers, although it was very certain that the clauses of that law would never be carried into effect.

Almost all the controversies of which I have been speaking have taken place under the presidency of General Jackson; and it cannot be denied that in the question of the tariff he has supported the claims of the Union with vigor and with skill. I am however of opinion that the conduct of the individual who now represents the federal government, may be reckoned as one of the dangers which threaten its continuance.