ploy armies of laborers in consuming rather than raising crops, and should prices thus continue in many cases to be unnaturally inflated, as they have been of late years, in the face of a contracting currency, the effect of it on our finances would be still more to lessen exports, and, consequently, the prosperity and revenue of our foreign trade." He is for turning off from the public works these "armies of laborers," who consume without producing crops, and thus bring down prices, both of crops and labor. Diminish the mouths that consume, and multiply the arms that produce, and you have the Treasury prescription for mitigating distress and raising prices! How would that operate in this great State? You have, perhaps, some fifteen thousand men employed on your public works-works of the kind that the Secretary calls "unproductive;" and, even with such a demand as they must produce for provisions, prices are very low. The Secretary's remedy is to set them to raise provisions themselves, and thus augment the supply, while they diminish the demand. In this way, the wages of labor are to be reduced, as well as the prices of agricultural productions. But this is not all. I have in my hand an extract from a speech in the House of Representatives of a zealous supporter, as it appears, of the administration, who maintains that, other things being reduced in proportion, you may reduce the wages of labor, without evil consequences. And where does he seek this example? On the shores of the Mediterranean. He fixes upon Corsica and Sardinia. But what is the Corsican laborer, that he should be the model upon which American labor is to be formed? Does he know any thing himself? Has he any education, or does he give any to his children? Has he a home, a freehold, and the comforts of life around him? No: with a crust of bread and a handful of olives, his daily wants are satisfied. And yet, from such a state of society, the laborer of New England, the laborer of the United States, is to be taught submission to low wages. The extract before me states that the wages of Corsica are, "For the male laborer, 24 cents a day; both, I presume, finding their own food. And the honorable gentleman argues that, owing to the greater cheapness of other articles, this is relatively as much as the American laborer gets; and he illustrates the fact by this bill of clothing for a Corsican laborer: Eight francs are equal to one dollar and sixty cents, and five francs to one dollar. Now, what say you, my friends? What will the farmer of New York, of Pennsylvania, and New England, say to the idea of walking on Sunday to church, at the head of his family, in his jacket two years old? What will the young man say, when, his work ended, he desires to visit the families of his neighbors, to the one pair of pantaloons, not quite two years old, indeed, but, as the farmers say of a colt, "coming two next grass," and which, for eighteen months, have every day done yeoman's service? Away with it all! Away with this plan for humbling and degrading the free, intelligent, well-educated, and well-paid laborer of the United States to the level of the almost brutal laborer of Europe! There is not much danger that schemes and doctrines such as these shall find favor with the people. They understand their own interest too well for that. Gentlemen, I am a farmer, on the seashore, and have, of course, occasion to employ some degree of agricultural labor. I am sometimes also rowed out to sea, being, like other New England men, fond of occasionally catching a fish, and finding health and recreation, in warm weather, from the air of the ocean. For the few months during which I am able to enjoy this retreat from labor, public or professional, I do not often trouble my neighbors, or they me, with conversation on politics. It happened, however, about three weeks ago, that, on such an excursion as I have mentioned, with one man only with me, I mentioned this doctrine of the reduction of prices, and asked him his opinion of it. He said he did not like it. I replied, "The wages of labor, it is true, are reduced; but then flour and beef, and perhaps clothing, all of which you buy, are reduced also. What, then, can be your objections?" "Why," said he, "it is true that flour is now low; but then it is an article that may rise suddenly, by means of a scanty crop in England, or at home; and, if it should rise from five dollars to ten, I do not know for certain that it would fetch the price of my labor up with it. But while wages are high, then I am safe; and if produce chances to fall, so much the better for me. But there is another thing. I have but one thing to sell — that is, my labor; but I must buy many things-not only flour, and meat, and clothing, but also some articles that come from other countries - a little sugar, a little coffee, a little tea, a little of the common spices, and such like. Now, I do not see how these foreign articles will be brought down by reducing wages at home; and before the price is brought down of the only thing I have to sell, I want to be sure that the prices will fall, also, not of a part, but of all the things which I must buy." Now, gentlemen, though he will be astonished, or amused, that I should tell the story before such a vast and respectable assemblage as this, I will place this argument of Seth Peterson, sometimes farm er and sometimes fisherman on the coast of Massachusetts, stated to me while pulling an oar with each hand, and with the sleeves of his red shirt rolled up above his elbows, against the arguments, the theories, and the speeches, of the administration and all its friends, in or out of Congress, and take the verdict of the country, and of the civilized world, whether he has not the best side of the question. Since I have adverted to this conversation, gentlemen, allow me to say that this neighbor of mine is a man fifty years of age, one of several sons of a poor man; that by his labor he has obtained some few acres, his own unencumbered freehold; has a comfortable dwelling, and plenty of the poor man's blessings. Of these, I have known six, decently and cleanly clad, each with the book, the slate, and the map, proper to its age, all going at the same time daily to enjoy the blessing of that which is the great glory of New England, the common free school. Who can contemplate this, and thousands of other cases like it, not as pictures, but as common facts, without feeling how much our free institutions, and the policy hitherto pursued, have done for the comfort and happiness of the great mass of our citizens? Where in Europe, where in any part of the world out of our own country, shall we find labor thus rewarded, and the general condition of the people so good? Nowhere; nowhere! Away, then, with the injustice and the folly of reducing the cost of productions with us to what is called the common standard of the world! Away, then, away at once and forever, with the miserable policy, which would bring the condition of a laborer in the United States to that of laborer in Russia or Sweden, in France or Germany, in Italy or Corsica! Instead of following these examples, let us hold up our own, which all nations may well envy, and which, unhappily, in most parts of the earth, it is easier to envy than to imitate. But it is the cry and effort of the times to stimulate those who are called poor against those who are called rich; and yet, among those who urge this cry, and seek to profit by it, there is betrayed sometimes an occasional sneer at whatever savors of humble life. Witness the reproach against a candidate now before the people for their highest honors, that a log cabin, with plenty of hard cider, is good enough for him! It appears to some persons, that a great deal too much use is made of the symbol of the log cabin. No man of sense supposes, certainly, that the having lived in a log cabin is any further proof of qualification for the Presidency, than as it creates a presumption that any one who, from humble condition, or under unfavorable circumstances, has been able to attract a considerable degree of public attention, is possessed of reputable qualities, moral and intellectual. But it is to be remembered, that this matter of the log cabin originated, not with the friends of the Whig candidate, but with his enemies. Soon after his nomination at Harrisburg, a writer for one of the leading administration papers spoke of his "log cabin," and his use of "hard cider," by way of sneer and reproach. As might have been expected, (for pretenders are generally false,) this taunt at humble life proceeded from the party which claims for itself the character of the purest democracy. The whole party appeared to enjoy it, or, at least, they countenanced it by silent acquiescence; for I do not know that, to this day, any eminent individual, or any leading newspaper attached to the administration, has rebuked this scornful jeering at the supposed humble condition or circumstances in life, past or present, of a worthy man and a war-worn soldier. But it touched a tender point in the public feeling. It naturally roused indignation. What was intended as reproach, was immediately seized on as merit. "Be it so! Be it so!" was the instant burst of the public voice. "Let him be the log cabin candidate. What you say in scorn, we will shout with all our lungs. From this day forward, we have our cry of rally; and we shall see whether he, who has dwelt in one of the rude abodes of the West, may not become the best house in the country!" All this is natural, and springs from sources of just feeling. Other things, gentlemen, have had a similar origin. We all know that the term " Whig" was bestowed in derision, two hundred years ago, on those who were thought too fond of liberty; and our national air of "Yankee Doodle" was composed by British officers, in ridicule of the American troops. Yet, erelong, the last of the British armies laid down its arms at Yorktown, while this same air was playing in the ears of officers and men. Gentlemen, it is only shallow-minded pretenders, who either make distinguished origin matter of personal merit, or obscure origin matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life, affect nobody in this country, but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man who is not ashamed of himself, needs not be ashamed of his early condition. Gentlemen, it did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early as, that. when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents, which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for HIM who reared it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory of mankind! [Mr. WEBSTER then reviewed the expenditures of the Government; but just at the last moment we find, with regret, that the sheet containing this portion of the speech has been mislaid or lost. We supply, therefore, from memory, a very brief, and, we are aware, a very inadequate outline of the argument.] The expenditures of this administration have been eminently wasteful and extravagant. Over and above the ordinary revenue of the country, Mr. Van Buren has spent more than twenty millions that reached the Treasury from other sources. I specifyReserved under the Deposit Act, Fourth Instalment of Surplus, kept back, Payment by the Bank of United States on its Bonds, 6,000,000 9,000,000 5,000,000 $20,000,000 But even this has been found insufficient for the prodigality of the administration; and we had not been long assembled in Congress before a demand was made upon it, notwithstanding the flattering representations of the Message and the Treasury Report, for authority to issue five millions more of Treasury notes; and this, we were assured, if Congress would only keep within the estimates submitted by the Departments, would be ample. Congress did keep within the estimates; and yet, before we broke up, intimations came from the Treasury that they must have authority to borrow, or issue Treasury notes for four and a half millions more ! This time, even the friends of the administration demurred, and, finally, refused to grant this new aid; and what then was the alternative? Why, after having voted appropriations for the various branches of the public service, all within the estimates, and all of which, they were told, were indispensable, Congress conferred on the President, by a special section, authority to withhold these appropriations from such objects as he pleased, and out of certain classes, to select, at his discretion, those upon which money should be expended. Entire authority was thus given to the President over all these expenditures, in evasion, as it seems to me, of that provision of the Constitution forbidding all expenditure, except by virtue of appropriations-which, if it mean any thing, must mean the specification of distinct sums for distinct purposes. PP |