H. OF R.] THURSDAY, JANUARY 5. Public Lands. The House resumed the consideration of the following resolution, offered on yesterday by Mr. CHILTON ALLAN: "Be it resolved, That a select committee of one member from each State be appointed, whose duty it shall be to inquire into the justice and expediency of making to each of the thirteen original American States, together with each of the States of Vermont, Maine, Kentucky, and Tennessee, such grants of the public lands, for the purposes of education, as will correspond in a just proportion with those heretofore made in favor of the firstnamed States and Territories, and that said committee have leave to report by bill or otherwise. But, to avoid the objection of one State holding land in another, the committee is directed to insert a clause in the bill which they may report, providing that the grants to be made thereby shall be subject to sale under the laws of the General Government now in force, and that the proceeds arising therefrom shall be paid over to the States entitled to the same." To which the following amendments were pending: "Resolved, That said committee be further instructed to inquire into the expediency of inserting a clause in said bill to pay said new States the value of the improve. ments made by them on the public lands, or to pay to them the amount the public lands would have been assessed for taxes, if they had been private property.' By Mr. CLAIBORNE, of Mississippi, to amend the amendment by adding thereto the following: "And provided that no such grant shall interfere with or be located on the claim or improvement of any actual settler on the public lands." Mr. A. G. HARRISON said, that when the gentleman from Kentucky introduced his resolution on yesterday, he was at first inclined to think that it would be improper then to go into a discussion of the merits of the question, and felt willing that the resolution should be referred without debate; but maturer reflection had convinced him that he was in an error, and that it was proper a full discussion should be had, and the subject thoroughly understood, in order that the House might indicate, by its present movements, its future disposition of the subject. Sir, said Mr. H., the subject of the public lands, their future disposition by Congress, is one vitally interesting to the people I represent; and the change contemplated by the resolutions under consideration is of so extraordinary a character that I feel constrained, however un prepared, to submit a few a remarks before the question is taken. Sir, the statement of the gentleman in his preamble, in relation to the amount of the public lands that had been given to the new States, in the way of grants, is wholly deceptive. It assumes the position, and is anxious to produce the impression, that these grants, on the part of the General Government, were a gratuity; that the new States had rendered no equivalent, and that no valuable consideration had passed. Never, sir, was there any thing more untrue. Sir, we paid a high price, the highest possible price which freemen can pay, for the grants that were made to us, and for the privilege of comin ginto this Union. We gave up a portion of our sacred rights as a free and sovereign people; of those rights, Mr. Speaker, which you and your State enjoys-which all of the old States of this Union possess, but which are prohibited to us. We gave up the right of taxing lands lying within our own limits, one of the highest attributes of sovereignty. Sir, it is the living principle of sovereignty-the self-existing spring of all free Governments. It was this, sir, that we gave [JAN. 5, 1837. up; this is the price that we paid for the lands that we got from the General Government by express stipulation, and which the gentleman is pleased to denominate dona. tions. What are these donations, and how came the General Government to give and the States to receive them? I will explain it. Upon the admission of the new States into the Union, there were always stipulations submitted by the General Government to the States wish ing to enter into the Union, to which they were obliged to agree before coming in. Examine all the various ordinances that were passed by Congress upon the several new States coming into the Union, and it will be invariably found that the lands which the gentleman bas paraded before the world as donations were given to the States for specified purposes, as an equivalent for that part of sovereignty which they had surrendered-not to tax the public lands, nor the lands sold at private sale, for five years after the sale. In the admission of Ohio into the Union, the General Government submits three propositions to her, which she was to have upon her complying with the conditions imposed; and these propositions were, 1st, That Ohio should have every sixteenth section for school purposes; 2d, That the salt springs, with the sections of land which include them, should be given to her; and, 3d, That one twentieth part of the nett proceeds of the lands lying within the said State, after deducting all expenses, should be applied to the laying out and making public roads, &c., on the conditions that the convention of said State shall provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent of the United States, that every and each tract of land sold after a certain day shall be and remain exempt from any tax paid by order or under the authority of the State, for the space of five years, &c. Such, sir, were the conditions imposed by the General Government upon all of the new States; and such is the price, with the additional imposition that we should not tax the public lands, which we have paid for the lands that were given to us for the purpose, dictated to us, of erecting common schools and seminaries of learning. These were the conditions required of us, and which we had quietly to submit to, and take as an equivalent for the birthright we gave up; and they were imposed upon us at a time when we could not refuse, and exacted by one whose power we could not control, and whose injustice we could neither escape nor avert. I deny, sir, that my State has received one acre more than she was entitled to under the bond. It is true the gentleman has brought an account against her of 1,181,248 acres, when, in fact, it is but the mess of pottage. Over and above that which became our own according to and under the stipulations offered us, and which we agreed to, because we had no other alternative but to submit, we have never received any thing; no, not an acre. And, sir, shall we permit the charge to go out to the world that we have received this amount as gratuitous donations, when it is altogether false? Never. I willingly admit that donations of land have been made to several of the States. But for these they have paid you, more than doubly paid you, by their labor and the improvement of the country. Their roads and their canals, their industry and enterprise, have more than paid you in the enhancement of the value of the public lands. As was justly and unanswerably said on yesterday by the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. VINTON,] the roads that have been made by the people of the new States, under the greatest disadvantages; under the disadvantages a sparse population, and of nine tenths of the country being owned by foreigners or by the Government; and the fields that have been cleared, and the improvements that have been made, have given to your lands almost all the value which they possess. Sir, it is the fearless of enterprise, the boldness and the daring of the Western man, in rescuing your lands from the savage and the beasts of the forest, that has given them value. In this they have paid you, and more than paid you, for all the donations you have made them. The difficulties incident to the settling of a new country, the Western man has met and surmounted; and after he has converted the haunts of wild beasts into abodes for civilized men, and the untamed forests into peaceful habitations, and made the country desirable and valuable by his labor, he is now to be taunted with the charge of having received exclusive benefits from his Government in the way of donations, which, if ever made, he has long since paid for. But, sir, in the consideration of this question, I take another and a higher ground. I deny the power of this Government to make the grants contemplated by the resolutions. The gentleman, in framing his resolution, saw this difficulty before him, and has endeavored to escape it by the subterfuge of making the General Government the go-between between the States who were to receive and the power that was to make the grants. The resolution reads: "But, to avoid the objection of one State holding land in another, the committee is directed to insert a clause in the bill which they may report, providing that the grants to be made thereby shall be subject to sale under the laws of the General Government now in force, and that the proceeds arising therefrom shall be paid over to the States entitled to the same." Here be attempts to make the General Government a trustee for the benefit of the States, and, in doing this, runs into the difficulty of the old question, long since settled, of dividing among the States the proceeds arising from the sales of the public lands. The gentleman, in his resolution, endeavors to occupy ground from which he can shift at pleasure, whenever it may suit his purpose. you charge him with a proposition to give to one State lands which lie in another, he will attempt to escape from this difficulty by replying, "but the General Government is to sell the lands and pay over the proceeds.' If you then charge him with a proposition, under disguise, to divide the proceeds arising from the sales of the public lands, he again replies that his resolutions were to give to the old States "such grants of the public lands, for the purposes of education, as will correspond, in a just proportion, with those heretofore made in favor of the new States." Sir, the object, the moving cause of these resolutions, is to grant away the public lands to the different States of this Union, and I shall in that way consider them. If During the revolutionary war, and immediately subsequent to it, Congress, owing to growing jealousies, and open complaints of those States which had no public domain, appealed to those which had, and besought them, for the purpose of harmony and the general good, to cede their lands to the Federal Government; and, as an inducement towards this end, Congress solemnly promised that new States should be formed out of the territory that might be ceded, and that these new States, in coming into the Union, should be as free, sovereign, and independent, as the old States. Here, sir, is a resolution on this subject, passed in October, 1780: "Resolved, That the unappropriated lands that may be ceded or relinquished to the United States, by any particular State, pursuant to the recommendation of Congress of the 6th day of September last, shall be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which shall become members of the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the other States." Now, sir, if these States, in coming into the Union, have "the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the other States," VOL. XIII-80 [H. or R. what earthly power is there that can grant away to another lands lying within their limits? Such a grant would not only be against this express promise of Congress, and against the constitution of the United States, but it would be against the terms of the bond which you exacted from us. It was never contemplated in the agree ments made by the States, that you should have this power; it did not enter into the understanding, it formed no part of the contract. And even had any convention been wild enough to give away this high attribute of sovereignty, the grant would have been void, because it is a power which they, about to assume the station of a free and a sovereign people, could not have parted with. It would have destroyed the object in view, and been against not only the principles of the Government, but the constitution of the country. The agreement, therefore, between the States and the Federal Government, extended only to an acknowledgment of the right of the General Government to the public domain lying within the limits of the new States, and their right to dispose of the same. The General Government, therefore, has no more right to grant away these lands to another State than they have to a foreign Power beyond the Atlantic; for, if we are free, sovereign, and independent at all, we are so to every intent and purpose, except so far as a portion of our power has been vested in the General Government for specified purposes. It was not the object of the States, in ceding these lands, that such a power should be conferred upon the General Government, nor did the General Government ever ask for these cessions upon any other considerations than those of producing harmony among the States, and of paying the debt which we had incurred by the Revolution. This is shown beyond contradiction by the resolution of Congress passed in April, 1784. I will read it: "Resolved, That the same subject [that of ceding the public lands] be again presented to the attention of said States; that they be urged to consider that the war being now brought to a happy termination by the personal services of our soldiers, the supplies of property by our citizens, and loans of money from them as well as from foreigners, these several creditors have a right to expect that funds shall be provided, on which they may rely for indemnification; that Congress still think vacant territory as an important resource; and that, therefore, the said States be earnestly pressed, by immediate and liberal cessions, to forward these necessary ends, and to promote the harmony of the Union." Here, sir, are the objects for which these lands were ceded, and these alone are the objects which led to the cessions. Such a monstrous and overwhelming power as that claimed by the resolutions was neither asked for nor given. The holy purposes of producing harmony in the Union, and paying the debt incurred by the Revolution, were the only considerations which prompted the States to cede their lands; and nowhere else, since the cessions were made, has this power been given; and no where can it be found, neither in the statute book, nor in the constitution, nor in the principles of the Government. These resolutions, should they pass, would entirely revolutionize the whole land system. They would produce a new state of things, the effects of which, their bearing upon the prosperity and growth of the new States, no man can tell. No one can tell how far they would sour and irritate the feelings of the people of the new States, and impair that harmony which is the life and vigor of the Union. Already do the new States look upon your measures in relation to the public lands as rigorous and severe beyond any argument of necessity or propriety. They feel that they have been oppressed; and I would say, sir, let them not learn from your acts that this is your settled determination. It is not wise to aggravate and bear down upon the chafed and worried spirit. We are weak, and we know it; you are strong, and we feel it. The balance of political power is against us, and you can exercise it for our advancement or destruction. Let me beseech you to listen to our voice, and not to disregard our warnings. We know what we have done for the General Government. We know what services we have rendered you, what price we have paid for all the supposed or real benefits you have conferred upon us. We know that it is the axe and the rifle of the Western man that have been the means of filling your Treasury with our gold-that it is the roads we have worked, the farms we have cleared, the improvements we have made, the mills and the bridges we have erected, that have rendered your lands valuable, and made them a source of national wealth; and we claim to be heard when the subject of disposing of the public lands is agitated. We expect that our opinions and wishes shall be respected, when we, of all others, are the most deeply interested, and must be supposed to be the best acquainted with the subject. What will be the consequences, if these resolutions, addressed to the worst passions of the human heart, should be passed? Avarice that has no sympathy, and cupidity that knows no satiety, will rule the destinies of the new States. Instead of one, as at present, we shall have seventeen or eighteen masters, who, governed by a spirit of selfishness, will overlook our most sacred rights, and check our onward march to wealth and greatness, by finding an argument for the general good in every measure which will redound to their own individual interest. What can we hope for, sir, in the way of internal improvements, in the way of liberal measures, calculated to advance us in wealth and population, when we should have to convince the judgment and obtain the consent of seventeen or eighteen masters, in relation to all measures which we know would not only promote our own prosperity, but would enhance that of the whole country? Now, sir, at this time, we that are called free and sovereign States, and by your statute books are said to have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and in dependence, as the other States, cannot make a road in our country without being trespassers, and subject to the penalties of your laws. Yes, Missouri, the free and Sovereign State of Missouri, cannot make a road without violating the laws of this Union; for it is scarcely possible for her to make one, without running it over the public lands. Her Legislature, if desirous of engaging in the system of internal improvements, and about to construct great and important works, before she dare embark in it, although sovereign and free-yes, sir, sovereign and free, for so your statute book says, and which is responded to by the letter and spirit of the constitution-she must come bere, and humbly supplicate this body to permit her to run her roads over the public lands! There is not a county tribunal in my State that does not, every time it sits, commit a trespass in the roads which they order to be laid out, and subject themselves to damages. And yet we are free and sovereign! What mockery! what insult! This is bad enough. But what could we expect, if the States of this Union were to have a direct interest in your public lands? We should be as lambs under the hands of the shearer. Our fate would be that of unhappy Poland, parcelled out and distributed, without sympathy or mercy, among those with whom power and right are convertible terms, and whose only spring of action, whose only views of justice, and whose only principle of right, is the cold and merciless principle of selfishness, which looks to no other beacon for its guide but the one which lights the pathway to its own aggrand izement. But the gentleman who introduced these resolutions says his object is that justice, equal justice, shall be done [JAN. 5, 1837. to all the other States in relation to these lands. Sir, these things come with a bad grace from that gentle. man. What right has Kentucky to make this demand? What right has she to talk of equal justice in distributing the public lands, when she is swollen with the wealth acquired from the lands that she claimed and sold within her own limits? How came she by these lands' What just right had she to the lands within her limits more than the other States? Sir, she came into this Union untrammelled; we came in bound hand and foot. The bond we gave was exacted from us under duresse. But, I ask again, what right has Kentucky to appear here with "justice" in her mouth, when she is gorged with unrighteous wealth acquired from lands she has sold? She has had and sold her millions of acres; and to whom did she ever propose a division? When did she ever offer to be "just?" Sir, unless the gentleman's ideas of justice are altogether one-sided, I hope he will accept as a modification the resolution which I shall offer as such. But if he will not accept it, I give notice that I will offer it as soon as an opportunity occurs. In offering it, sir, I am prompted by a sense of strict justice, and also by a principle which we act upon in the West, to fight fire with fire, when the fire has seized upon and is con suming our large and extensive prairies. When its dev astating flames, in rolling volumes of terrific grandeur, are rushing upon us and about to consume all that we are worth--all that we prize as sacred and hold dearthe family hearth and the cherished home--'tis then that self-preservation teaches us to burn against the raging element. The resolution which I hold in my hand is of fered upon the same principle; I ask that the Clerk may read it." The resolution is as follows: Resolved, That such States as have heretofore appro priated lands to their own use, whether within their own limits or not, and sold the same for their own benefit, shall, before being entitled to receive any thing contem plated by these resolutions, account to the other States for the amount of money which they have so received for the sale of such lands; and, also, for such lands as still remain unsold, at the prices for which they are respectively sold in said States. Mr. HANNEGAN was of opinion no practical good was to be obtained by the continuance of the discussion, and moved to lay the whole subject on the table. Mr. C. ALLAN called for the yeas and nays on that motion, which were ordered; and, being taken, were: Yeas 95, nays 99, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Ash, Ashley, Barton, Beale, Bean, Beaumont, Black, Bockee, Bond, Boon, Bovee, Boyd, Brown, Cambreleng, Carr, Casey, Chapman, Chapin, J. F. H. Claiborne, Cleveland, Coles, Craig, Cramer, Cushman, Davis, Dawson, Doubleday, Dromgoole, Dun lap, Efner, Fry, Fuller, Galbraith, J. Garland, R. Gar land, Gillet, Grantland, Haley, J. Hall, Hamer, Hannegan, A. G. Harrison, Haynes, Holt, Howard, Hubley, Huntington, Ingham, Jarvis, Cave Johnson, H. Johnson, B. Jones, Kilgore, Lane, Lansing, Lawler, G. Lee, J. Lee, Leonard, Loyall, Lyon, A. Mann, J. Mann, W. Mason, McCarty, McLene, Miller, Morgan, Muhlenberg, Page, Parks, Patterson, F. Pierce, Phelps, Pinckney, John Reynolds, Joseph Reynolds, Rogers, Seymour, Shields, Sickles, Smith, Storer, J. Thomson, Toucey, Turrill, Vanderpoel, Vinton, Ward, Wardwell, Webster, Weeks, E. Whittlesey, T. T. Whittlesey, Yell-95. NAYS-Messrs. Adams, C. Allan, H. Allen, Bailey, Bell, Borden, Bouldin, Briggs, Buchanan, Bunch, J. Cal hoon, W. B. Calhoun, Carter, G. Chambers, J. Chambers, Chetwood, N. II. Claiborne, Clark, Connor, Corwin, Crane, Darlington, Deberry, Denny, Elmore, Evans, Ev erett, Fowler, French, Graham, Graves, Grayson, Griffin, H. Hall, Hard, Harlan, Harper, S. S. Harrison, Hiester, Hoar, Holsey, Hopkins, Howell, Hunt, Huntsman, Ingersoll, Janes, Jenifer, Joseph Johnson, Kennon, Laporte, Lawrence, Lay, L. Lea, Lincoln, Love, S. Mason, Maury, McComas, McKay, McKennan, McKim, Milligan, Montgomery, Owens, Parker, D. J. Pearce, J. A. Pearce, Pearson, Pettigrew, Peyton, Phillips, Pickens, Potts, Reed, Rencher, Richardson, Robertson, Russell, Schenck, W. B. Shepard, A. H. Shepperd, Shinn, Slade, Sloan, Sprague, Standefer, Steele, Taliaferro, Thomas, W. Thompson, Turner, Underwood, Wagener, Washington, White, L. Williams, S. Williams, Young-99. So the motion to lay on the table was disagreed to. Mr. LANE obtained the floor, but gave way to Mr. GARLAND, of Virginia, on whose motion the House proceeded to the orders of the day. EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION. [H. OF R. sequences; and should they be found otherwise, it was due to the country, to those who had been deceived, to the venerable Chief Magistrate, against whom he believed no man had ever yet directed the charge of corruption, dishonor, or dishonesty, that the guilt should be exposed, and the guilty brought to punishment. With the honorable mover of the resolution, he was willing to go every length in pursuit of the peculator and the plunder. er. The cry that such were abroad, that they were fattening on the public crib, that they were hidden in the recesses of the departments, had been resounding through the hall every day since the commencement of the present, and indeed during the greater part of the last session. The public mind was constantly turned by gentlemen here to this one theme; and it seemed to him high time that all this corruption, none of which, however, he had yet heard specified, should be looked into, probed, corrected. There was an individual, too, connected with this busi The House resumed the consideration of the resolution heretofore offered by Mr. WISE, together with the pend-ness, whose name, from its frequent repetition by honoring amendment of Mr. D. J. PEARCE, providing for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the administration of the executive departments. Mr. ROBERTSON concluded his remarks, as given entire in preceding pages. Mr. HANNEGAN said: No gentleman disliked more than himself to occupy the time of the House in debate; none felt more highly the value of that time to the country at a period like the present, when, as all knew it to be, the mass of business was so accumulated and immense. For this reason, his observations would be brief. It was due to himself, however, that the occasion should not pass, that the vote he intended to give on the resolution under discussion should not be recorded, without an explanation of his reasons, to go with that vote to the constituents whose generous confidence he so deeply ap. preciated. Sir, (said Mr. H.,) I shall vote for the resolution, as proposed by my friend from Virginia, [Mr. WISE.] The vote, however, will not be given for the same reasons assigned a day or two since by the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. PICKENS,] or for those given in the main by the gentleman from Virginia who had just resumed his seat, [Mr. ROBERTSON.] So far as the latter gentleman's assignment was based upon the spirit of inquiry, or the right and power of this House to investigate fully and freely, and at any moment, the affairs of the different departments and bureaus of the Government, he concurred with him to the uttermost. It was a right upon which might emphatically be said to hang the pu rity of the Government and the liberties of the people; a right for the exercise of which he bad ever contended, in its fullest and broadest sense, and which he could not now surrender; a power which, when denied by the Bank of the United States, and its friends on that floor and elsewhere, he should, to the last hour of his life, consider as a denial of the essential principle of popular Government. So far, however, as the gentleman's argument concerned the existence of corruption, and the practice of abuses in the different departments, the improper or unjust exercise of executive or other official influence on the politics of the day or the recent elections, and the necessity of the proposed investigation for these purposes, he differed with him in the widest sense of the word. Neither abuses nor corruption would, as Mr. H. believed, be found existing in any of the departments; and the fuller and more open the investigations should be, the more complete, in his opinion, would be the vindication of those against whom the charges are to be levelled. That vindication was what no correct man could feel inclined to deny, if based upon justice and innocence. Regarding them in that light, he had no fears of the con able gentlemen in their places, the very parrots themselves, had they been present, would have learned to utter ere this, an individual whom he knew in private life, and knew there without reproach, yet whose name here was daily connected with the worst practices. This individual, common justice entitled at least to trial, before condemnation. Mr. H., as every body would understand, alluded to Reuben M. Whitney, the sum and substance of the charge against whom, so far as specifications went, amounted to the fact that he was employed as an agent by some of the deposite banks, his em. ployment as an agent of the Government being presumed solely from the appearance of his name affixed to a sign before one of the rooms in the building occupied by the Treasury Department. This fact alone might, with a jury predetermined to hang both him and Mr. Woodbury, be sufficient proof; but certainly, if no such prior determination existed, it could not be construed into proof positive of a knowledge on either part that the other existed. Justice to this individual himself, to his family, to the country, demanded an exposé of the attitude which he occupied officially towards the Government. To the amendment proposed by the gentleman from Rhode Island [Mr. PEARCE] he could not accede, because in so doing the appearance might be conveyed to the malicious portion of the world, that the friends of the administration had something to dread from the broad, open scrutiny proposed by the main resolution. The effect of each, even their meaning, might be sub. stantially the same; yet, to those who felt inclined to blacken and distort, he wished no pretext furnished for the gratification of such passions. The amendment might with some plausibility be represented as an evasion of the direct question in issue; and, for his own part, throughout life he had never sought by sinuous movements the accomplishment of any object. He could not seek by indirection that which could be attained directly. The honorable gentleman from Rhode Island had advanced, in the course of his remarks, a constitutional opinion on the powers conferred by the resolution, from which Mr. H. must beg leave to dissent-the opinion that the resolution would violate the article in the amendments to the constitution protecting the people against unreasonable searches and seizures. To that article, in the opinion of Mr. H., but one meaning could be attached, and that so simple and plain that a misunderstanding was impossible. It applied to the people generally, in the capacity of citizens, and related only to their personal and private affairs. The contents of the executive departments were literally the property of Congress, by whose act, as the agent of the people, every thing they contained could be thrown open, and exposed to public investigation. [JAN. 5, 1837. stood to his support when menaced by an insulting foe from abroad, or when threatened by the insidious power of a far more dangerous enemy at home; the power of a serpent nursed to terrible maturity in the very bosom of the people, who learned, almost too late, the venom and the poison which lay hid beneath the quiet and beauti surface. In replying to some of the remarks that had fallen from the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. PICKENS,] he could not forbear to say, that however erroneous he might consider that gentleman's opinions, or whatever difference of sentiment existed between them on political sub-ful jects, there was a manliness in his tone, a fearlessness in his expression, that must command respect, even where it failed to produce conviction. He was glad to hear the explanation given by that honorable gentleman to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. ROBERTSON] of the denunciation, or rather the declaration of uncompromising war, which he had also understood him to make against the coming administration. He was rejoiced at it, for even at the time of the expression from which he had drawn the inference, it was regarded in his mind as an expression springing from the heat of the moment, in the excitement of debate, and not as the settled purpose of his heart. The gentleman from South Carolina, in deploring what be conceives to be the fallen condition of the country, has alluded to the condition of this House, as affording ample proofs of the approaches making to despotism; the fact that the party supporting the administration has had the ascendency here, and that their measures have been contrary to that gentleman's notions of correct policy, he has ascribed to a feeling of servility on the part of the majority towards the Executive. In his own language, the House, for the last four years, has been used as a mere registry for the royal edicts. That is, for the last four years, the majority here have done nothing but obey the will and study the wish of the President. Sir, let us inquire bow far the facts sustain this broad assertion. Without enumerating the many instances in which bills, particularly those covering appropriations, have passed both this body and the other during the period mentioned, and to some of which the President, as is well known, has reluctantly affixed his signature, to others has absolutely denied his assent; without the his tory of all these, if the gentleman will but look back to the last session, he will find a case strong enough to convince all of the jaundiced view he has taken in this instance. The case referred to is the deposite act; a measure second in its importance only to the recharter of the United States Bank, and which, by an overwhelming majority, passed both Houses at the last session. Had this body been such as the gentleman would describe, holding the hall as a mere registry of the royal edicts, that bill never could have become a law; for, as all knew, the President's opinions were openly adverse to the principles of that bill; and but for the amendment of this House to the bill of the Senate, by which the constitutional objection was removed, it never would have received his signature. The removal of this objection, although sufficient to avoid all collision with that high instrument, did not by any means vary the substantial principles of the bill; they still remained, and the President's opposition to the policy thus temporarily about to be established was no secret here, either with friends or foes. Yet, after all, what was the result? It was, sir, that more than three fourths of his most decided friends in this House voted for the bill, and sustained it in every Mr. H. said he would not have alluded to this stage. particular instance, or attempted any defence of the party with which he acted, against this charge of the gentleman from South Carolina, but for the striking ref. utation it gave to all charges of the kind, charges of subserviency to executive will, against those who believed that Executive not immaculate, but who did believe him honest, wise, and patriotic; striving to serve his country and to preserve the purity of her institutions; and who, so believing, had sustained his measures, and Mr. H. said, throughout the period of this session, there was one thing he had observed with pain; a course which he believed had no precedent in the past history of the country, and the memory of which he hoped might be buried forever at the termination of this Con gress. He alluded to the fact of the determined spirit of animosity, the same relentless opposition which, during the past seven years, had been exhibited in the House against the President, continuing to evince itself up to the hour when he was retiring finally from the public stage. Whatever might have been the rancor of party, he believed, from all the information he had, that the last session of an Executive had hitherto been permitted to pass, if not entirely in calmness and peace, shorn, at least, of the virulence and rancor of cherished hate. He presumed not to be a conscience-keeper for others, nor would he dictate any man's course; but were he now the enemy of the venerable man who had so long occupied a distinguished place in the eyes of his own country and the world, he could not find it in his heart, at this period, to imbitter a single breath of his allotted existence. Whatever feelings of hostility he might have cherished against the Executive himself, the policy and propriety of his administration, he would at this hour stand silently by, and permit the curtain to drop quietly and decently over the last scene. What, he asked, was that scene, and who the great actor that the curtain was about to fall upon? It was the last retiring view which the world could have of a man whose eventful life had furnished a whole, a heavy volume for the history of his country; of a man whose imperishable deeds were to be written in other languages, and read in other tongues, and never read in any land, under any sky where human liberty had a votary, without the heartfelt tribute of glowing admiration; a man upen whom his country, almost with acclamation, had delighted to bestow the highest honors of the State, and who wore those honors as became them both, his only sim her glory, her prosperity, her happiness, her liberty, Let the records of his renown be sought where they may, whether emanating from the closet or achieved in the field, they will be found alike stamped with the im press of a mighty mind, a patriotic and devoted heart. No matter in what manner he may be talked of here, what obloquy may be cast upon his acts, it will turn to nothing in the end. The glories of New Orleans, of Talladega, of the Horseshoe, cannot be stricken from the annals of American history. Posterity will read; and, in aftertimes, when patriots war for liberty, amid the strife, the hurry, and the carnage, the name of Andrew Jackson shall be the talisman, "To stir the hearts of men As though 'twere the battle drum." Long hence, when the rank grass shall have grown, and withered again and again, over the whole "animated warm motion" now filling this ball, when perhaps none will be found to tell where most of us lie; in this very hall, if liberty and union remain, the name he had just uttered would be heard resounding, as the preserver, in a trying hour, of his country's political freedom and the pure principles of her constitution. Mr. H. said he was not speaking with a courtier's tongue, for such a language he had yet to learn, or such a feeling to cherish, towards created man. It was not the part he had played in his intercourse with the Presi dent; but whenever, as had sometimes been the case, a |