study, a professional, a scientific study; and who have compared and contrasted their respective and peculiar advantages. Other ports have some of the advantages in equal degree; but, in the aggregate of advantages, none can stand in competition with that port. This is not the time nor place for the particular detail, comparison, and contrast, proper for a full illustration of this fact; but a few of its prominent and more peculiar and pre-eminent advantages may now be indicated. None, then, can compare with it for depth and safety of its waters; safely ensured by the boldness of its shores, its freedom from shoals and sunken rocks, its excellence of anchorage ground, all combined with facility of ingress and egress to and from the ocean, and that, too, to the largest ships of the line; a facility always existing, at all times existing, never to be impeded by the obstructions of ice; and never to be denied to that, as it is to all other ports on our coast during the prevalence of certain winds, and those the most tempestuous and disastrous of all others to navigation on our coast, and most imperiously demanding the protection of some harbor. Look at New York, for instance, and in comparison; her waters only admit the ingress and egress of frigates, and not frigates of the largest class at all times of tide; these must wait its high flood. Her bars interpose delays to their egress and ingress; delays always injurious, and, under given circumstances, would be disastrousmight be fatal. It is a port, then, incommodious as a station for frigates; for our ships of the line it cannot be a station, nor a harbor to fly to for refuge. In the last war one of our frigates got a wound in passing those bars that crippled her for the cruise, and disappointed all her expectations. Yet, what immense sums have been expended for our naval establishment at New York, while nothing has been expended for one at Rhode Island--a place, nationally considered, so much more important; as if we had forgotten to remember that New York, though important, is not the country. Those Narragansett waters are at a point, too, in relation to the whole Atlantic frontier, which gives it a decided advantage over every other for sending expeditions to sea for the protection or relief of any part of the coast, or for naval war on the ocean. It is the vantage ground for commanding and ruling all the operations of naval warfare. Then it is susceptible of defences that will render it impregnable; giving safety to all within its waters against any assailing force. The plan of defences projected under the administration of a gentleman now an honorable member of this body, if completed, would give it this security. This safety to our fleets while within those waters is combined with this singular advantage, that they could not be shut in and confined there by blockade; for it is incapable of being blockaded by any fleet, however superior. Add to all this, that these waters abound with sites for every species of naval establishment, and of naval preparation; placed in that happy medium between the extremes of heat and cold, as to be, of all others in the world, the most favorable throughout the year to health and to labor. On a smaller scale, it is another gean sea, with islands as beautiful, though not as celebrated; and here let my partiality add, with daughters vying in beauty with Ionian maids. In saying all I have said in favor of that station, and in giving it a preference to all others for a naval establishment, I but say after our most skilful naval engineers; I but repeat what I have learned from their reports, and from our most eminent naval men, with whom I have frequently conversed on this subject. I but express their opinion; their settled, their undivided, their unanimous opinion; an opinion enlightened by professional science, and matured by experience, by observation, by frequent comparison, and [SENATE. by long reflection; an opinion in which truth herself must be presumed to speak. It is true the Secretary of War, a mere military man; eminent, if you please, as a military man; eminent, I know, for other merits, but still a mere military man, stepping out of his own appropriate province into the province of the navy, dissents from this opinion; and for reasons that show how little entitled he is to revise their opinion, to rejudge their judgment, and to overrule it. The Secretary represents that the enemy might find at Gardner's Island, in Long Island Sound, or at Buzzard's Bay, in the Vineyard Sound, an equivalent substitute, as a station, for the waters of Rhode Island; an idea that never in all time has once entered into the head of any one naval man of our country, or of any other. I venture to say that, to every naval man of our country, or of any other, acquainted with these waters, the idea would appear preposterous. I must doubt whether the Secretary has ever seen the waters of his substitutes; or, if so, whether he is at all advised of the requisites of a secure station for fleets with their line-ofbattle ships. The waters of Rhode Island would be a station permanently secure, year in and year out, for the largest fleets with their line-of-battle ships. Can this be predicated of Gardner's Island or Buzzard's Bay? Those places may, and do, afford a temporary summer station for single frigates or small squadrons; but did either ship or squadron ever attempt, or dare attempt, to winter at either? Never. As a permanent station for fleets, with their line-of-battle ships, such an idea never has, and never would, enter into the head of any naval commander. Again, the Secretary represents that if the enemy took possession of Rhode Island with a superior fleet, he might easily be driven off by the land forces that might be concentrated and rapidly brought to bear upon that point. But what do our naval engineers and naval men say on this point? They say: "If Narragansett bay was left in its existing state as to defence, an enemy would seize it without difficulty, and, by the aid of his naval supremacy, form an establishment in Rhode Island for the war. For this purpose, it would be sufficient for him to occupy the position of Tiverton Heights, opposite Hawland's ferry, which is of narrow front, easy to secure, impossible to turn. He might then defy all the powers of the eastern States." Never was more strikingly displayed the difference between writing de arte, which any body can do, but which is of very little value when done, and writing ex arte, which only the artist can do; but who only can give the true lesson, the lesson to be trusted to, the lesson to be guided by; than is displayed by the communication of the Secretary of War, and the reports of our naval engineers. I can write concerning statuary; so can you, so can any one else; but it is only the artist who can give the true lecture upon the art. What should we think of his sense who should adopt my crude ideas for his guide and his government, and reject those of a master statuary? Our folly would be scarcely less to take the ideas of a mere military man for our guide and our government, as to naval engineering and tactics, as to naval desiderata, and naval capabilities to supply them; in a word, as to all resources for a naval warfare, who has never made a study of either, and to reject the instructions of men who have made these things the study and business of their lives, whose profession they are, and who are pre-eminent in their profession. The true way of testing the value of the Secretary's ideas would be to suppose them addressed to one of our eminent naval engineers, versed in naval tactics, and intimately acquainted with all our waters, and all our naval capacities, and to see how they would strike his mind. I SENATE.] Defence of Narragansett Bay. [JUNE 17, 1836. in some position where he could have a secure rendezvous for his fleet; and whence he could command our whole commerce--strike where he pleased and when he he pleased; and keep our whole immense extent of seaboard in one continual turmoil of alarm. Now Rhode Island, beyond all other places, would be exactly this position, and he would bend all his efforts to possess himself of it, and to intrench himself there. From that moment we should carry on the war under every disadvantage. He would compel us to multiply our land forces so enormously as to make the burden intoler fancy he would feel very much as Hannibal did when he heard the eloquent Grecian sophist harangue before him on the art of war; displaying, no doubt, all those common sense plausibilities on the subject, of which my honorable friend from Virginia [Mr. RIVES] seems to think so highly, while he undervalues and speaks so dispar. agingly of the lessons of professional and practical wis dom. All the audience were in raptures with the eloquent oration, and loud in its praises-all except Hannibal; he was mute; but, being pressed for his opinion, he at length said: "Why, gentlemen, I have seen fools before, and heard them speak, but I never before listen-able; or to leave our seaboard a prey to his predatory ined to any thing quite so foolish." Our naval engineers might be too courteous to speak out as Hannibal did; but secretly, I have no doubt, he would feel exactly as Hannibal did, especially as to this part of the Secretary's report. Here I cannot forbear saying that his gen eral ideas as to a system of naval preparations proper for this country to adopt, appear to me to have been hastily taken up-to want comprehension; in a word, that his sketches, meant for an outline of a system, appear to me not to be the sketches of a master mind; at least not of a master mind exerted on this subject. His system looks only to the operations of defensive war; not to the operations of offensive war as well as the defensive. And as to defensive war, his system looks primarily to that of particular cities, and not primarily, as it ought, to that of the whole country; in which case that of the particular cities would of course be included. Such a system as this for this country must be essentially defective; far from what it ought to be, far from what a perfect system would be. Surely this country ought to possess herself of the means of concentrating at will the whole force of her naval marine at some commanding point, and of thence directing at will that force in all its operations; and, further, she ought to make it impossible for the enemy to deprive her of these means. Though this object is attainable, demonstrably so, yet the Secretary's scheme aspires to nothing of the kind; on the contrary, he would leave the country in such a state as would give to the enemy an opportunity to possess herself of such means, and to turn them against the country. Giving credit to the Secretary for talents, as I do, I repeat that I think he must have taken up his ideas on this subject hastily, from a superficial acquaintance with naval subjects, contenting himself with the common sense views which present themselves to a mind not enlightened by naval science, nor improved, nor seeking to be improved, by the lessons of professional and practical wisdom-ideas which, I am persuaded, he himself, on better information and further reflection, will renounce as unworthy of his high reputation. if that day is to arrive when we are to have a great naval war, to assert rights or redress wrongs, as so many predict, and which is but too probable, from the conAicting claims and unsettled rights of nations on the ocean; and from the selfishness of arrogant power, making itself its own arbiter of contested rights, and deciding, almost invariably, in its own favorit is, I say, but too probable that we are to have such a war. How soon, we must leave to the revelations of the unknown future. But, admonished by recent events, when another brand added to the fuel might have kindled into such a war, it would be fatuity to blind ourselves to the danger involved in the future, or to be unprepared for it when it does come. In the event of such a war, when the question is probably to be settled, whether we are to have our equal share of the equal dominion of the ocean, or to yield its supremacy to another Power--who can imagine that in this great contest the enemy will content himself with hovering on our coasts with his fleets, and thence making his predatory incursions on our shores? No; he would, if he could, plant himself on our coasts, cursions. In one campaign he would make the difference of the expense of the war to us more than tenfold the cost of securing that Gibraltar to ourselves. With its possession, and secured to us as it may be, we should carry on the war with every advantage. With that Gibraltar in our hands, our fleets would do more towards the protection of our coast and our commerce than an army of a hundred thousand men, however judiciously placed on our seaboard. All the European commerce to the American seas, which, on its return, must pass along our coast, with that Gibraltar in our hands, would be peculiarly exposed to the enterprises of our naval marine. There and thence we should let slip the dogs of war, almost in sight of the congregated and passing game, to course it down and make it their prey. With that Gibraltar in our hands, no fleet of the enemy could live long upon our coast. For, at times, all fleets must find a refuge somewhere from the perils of the ocean; and those waters, too, as before remarked, afford the only port that can be made during the preva lence of certain winds, and these the most tempestuous and the most disastrous of all others to vessels on our coast; and, to crown all, those waters are incapable of being blockaded. All the fleets in the world could not blockade them. Now, what would it cost to make and secure to ourselves the possession of that Gibraltar? About a million and a half of dollars. The honorable gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] says the expense of the works begun there has already exceeded the esti mate, viz: $750,000. But the estimate he refers to was the conjectural estimate made without data, but the estimate made upon data was $1,600,000; and there is every probability that to complete these works will not exceed that amount of expense, $1,600,000! Why, it is but a drop to the ocean, compared to the power it would give us for the war upon the enemy, or the power it would give the enemy, if in his hands, for the war against ourselves. If all these States were but one country, with but one head, looking to the whole, and only to the whole, and that head intelligent and thoroughly instructed in all his faculties and means of maritime power and defence, I hesitate not to say he would not lose one moment in making the waters of Narragansett bay the headquarters of all his naval preparations and operations. Why, then, has this great national concern been neglected by the nation so far as it has been neglected? From the combined influence of two causes: First, because the great and peculiar natural advantages of this point have not been fully appreciated, from not having been generally understood; and, secondly, because sectional interest has prevailed over the general interest. Points of minor im. portance to the whole country have carried it by the force of this sectional interest against the whole country. This should not be so. Why should the great West, for instance, and especially those who have a common interest in the maritime power and defences of the whole country, and only that common in. terest, throw their weight into the scale of any sectional interest on the Atlantic border, in opposition to the gen. eral interest? Why should they injure themselves by injuring the common country, to benefit, in particular, any one of the Atlantic States? The squabbles of the Atlantic States for preference in naval establishments and appropriations are nothing to them; and, instead of being parties to them, you ought, ye men of the West, to act as umpires, to decide between the contending States, and to decide always and only in reference to the common good. If our country herself would speak to her family of States, I believe she would say: "Hushed be the voice of every State pleading for herself and her separate interest, and listen to mine. My interest is your interest, collectively; and, whatever you may think to the contrary, your interest individually. My great danger lies in the East, and is to come when it does come, from that quarter and on my seaboard. The ocean is to be my battle-field; the navy to be my strong arm to fight with and to strike down the enemy. Would you have that arm crippled, and its blows enfeebled? Then give to the enemy the superiority, by giv. ing to him the means to acquire it. Give him, by your neglect, an opportunity to acquire a secure station for his fleets in the Narragansett waters, and thus a bridlehold upon the country. But if you would give to that arm irresistible strength; if you would clothe it with the energy of the thunders whose bolt nothing can resist, and whose voice quails the world, you will make those waters the headquarters of your naval preparations, you will make that a Gibraltar, and will make it your own forever." Mr. R. concluded by submitting to the Senate the following resolution: Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the commissioners of the navy board be, and are hereby, authorized and directed to report to the next session of Congress a plan for a navy establishment in the waters of Narragansett bay, Rhode Island, with all such works, and at such points, as are proper therefor, to make it one of the principal naval establishments of the United States; and also to report an estimate of the expense thereof. [The resolution came up for consideration on the following day, and was agreed to.] PUBLIC DEPOSITES. The engrossed bill to regulate the deposites of the public money, &c., was read a third time; and the question being on its passage, Mr. WRIGHT said his connexion with the subject generally, and with the bill under consideration more especially, had compelled him to take a more active part in the discussion than had been pleasant to him, or agreeable to the Senate; that he had refrained from any interference with this important matter until any further movement upon it had been expressly abandoned by the honorable Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] who had first, and upon one of the first days of the session, introduced a bill to regulate the deposites in the banks; that, after that abandonment, he had called up the bill, and proposed a substitute; that he had connected with that substitute propositions for the temporary in vestment of any surplus, beyond the probable wants of the Treasury, which should be found in the banks t the commencement of each quarter of each year; that, subsequently to the offer of these propositions, he had concluded that the terms of investment were not sufficiently restricted, and he had modified his provisions so as to allow investments in the stocks issued by the States only, and not in any other description of stocks whatsoever; that, subsequently to this time, the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. CALHOUS] had seemed to resume his interest in his original bill, and had offered modificaVOL. XII.-113 [SENATE. tions of a character calculated and intended to distribute among the several States, in a proportion regulated by their respective representations, not in the House of Representatives, but in the Senate and House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, all the moneys which might remain in the Treasury upon a given day beyond a sum to be fixed as the amount in the Treasury for that day. Subsequently to that time, various propositions were laid before the Senate, by different members of the body, some of them containing new provisions, and others amendments of those which had been previously submitted. The question was one of the first importance to the public and to the Treasury, as well as to the general interests of the whole community. The currency of the country, the accommodations from the local banks, and consequently the prosperity of the commercial interests, were directly involved in our action. Under these circumstances, the discussion upon the great question of a regulation of the deposites of the public money by law commenced. At the opening of that discussion (Mr. W. said) he had given his general views upon the whole subject. His subsequent duties in the Senate, and as a member of one of its important committees, together with the accumulated duties devolved upon him, connected with this bill, had prevented him from being yet able to present those views to the public; but he was now conscious that relief was at hand, and he should soon find it in his power to discharge that labor. Upon the views then expressed by him, he should rest himself for his general justification in the course he had taken. It had been found, however, that a great diversity of opinion prevailed in the Senate as to the details of any bill, and that a recommittal would be indispensable, to so far incorporate the various propositions that the whole body could act upon them with any facility. After two days' discussion, that course had been suggested by himself, and concurred in upon all sides of the Senate. A select committee was therefore appointed, and the bill and all the amendments were referred to it, and the Senate had done him the distinguished honor, upon an election by ballot, to place his name at the head of the committee as its chairman. The standing and character and talents of the members of that committee had caused him to doubt, at every step, the soundness of his views and the propriety of his course, and the more especially so, as, upon every question of difference of opinion in the committee, he had found himself in the minority, and, upon some of the most important questions of difference, in a small minority. He was most happy, however, to be able to say, that every question had been decided without passion or personal feeling, and that, so far as hecould judge, all were disposed to frame a bill which would meet the approbation of the Senate. A single question had excited peculiar interest with him. He had been most anxious to agree upon a bill to regulate the deposites of the public money in the banks; and when he found that no proposition for the disposition of any surplus, if surplus there should be, to which he could give his assent, could command the support of the majority of the committee, he had urged the separation of the two subjects, and the report of two separate bills; the one to regulate the deposites in the banks, and the other to provide for a more permanent disposition of the surplus. In this he was unsuccessful, as the majority of the committee preferred that the two subjects should be connected in the same bill. Since the report of the committee of the Senate, he had made every proper effort in his power to produce that separation, and he could not but congratulate him. self upon the fact that his first effort was successful; that SENATE.] Public Deposites. [JUNE 17, 1836. Would it be said that this was not a proposed distribution of this money to the people of the States, but a mere investment of it? Why then any reference to the the first vote of the Senate sustained the propriety of his views, and directed the separation of the two subjects, (which he must say he considered in their nature and character entirely separate,) and the report of independ-representation of the States in either branch of Conent bills for each. er. A reconsideration, however, had been proposed, and, after a night's deliberation, it was carried. The motion to recommit was then lost; and the determination of the Senate thus expressed that the two subjects should be coupled in the same bill, and should stand or fall togethFrom that time (Mr. W. said) he had felt himself relieved from all responsibility as to a deposite bill prop er. He had found that no such bill could be passed in the Senate, without incorporating with it a perfectly separate and most important provision for giving the moneys in the Treasury to the States, under the name of a deposite. Such a provision contained principles to which he could not, for any consideration, give his assent; and after that vote, therefore, the bill to him had lost its value. He had been still disposed, however, to adhere to it, and to make further trial to so modify its provisions as to enable him to give it his support. With this view he had again offered his propositions, which directed an investment of the surplus in the Treasury in State stocks, bearing an interest, and transferable at the pleasure of the holder, with authority in the Secretary of the Treasury to transfer them, when the wants of the Treasury should require money for the stocks. As against a proposition to loan the money to the States without interest, this proposition had met with little favor. He believed it had received but four votes in a full Senate. The reasons for a different disposition had appeared to him to be, that the money was the property of the people of the States, and, if not wanted for the uses of this Government, ought to be given to them without interest, instead of being invested upon interest. He was willing to admit that some force attached to this argument; but his mind had embraced the argument as relating to, and growing out of, the representative rights of the people of the States, and as referrible to their tax able liabilities. If the money belonged to the people of the States, and they had the right to use it without interest, it was because it had been accumulated by taxations upon them, as drawn from a common fund, in which they possessed a common interest. This he believed was the position assumed by the friends of the bill. Would any member of the body, then, blame him for the surprise he had experienced when he found a principle of distribution incorporated in the bill entirely at variance with the rights of the people of the States, as resulting from the rate of representation or taxation established by our common constitution of government, when he found this body made an element in the rule of distribution of that money which had been drawn from the people of the States, to be returned to them, as the pretence was, because it was not wanted for the purposes of this Government? What was the rule of representation of the States here? A perfect equality. What was the representation of the people of the States, and the liabilities for taxation, in the other branch of this Legislature? There were sixteen States which would gain by the rule of distribution in the bill, which sixteen States were represented in the popular branch of Congress by eighty-one members; while there were eight States which would lose by the incorporation of the Senate as an element in the rule of distribution; which eight States were represented in the same branch of Congress by one hundred and fifty-nine members. The constitutional rules of taxation and representation were the same; were both based upon the federal members; and in neither was the representation in the Senate an element. gress? And much more emphatically, why this reference to both, while a simple investment in securities of the same character, without reference to the principle of distribution, receives but four votes in the whole body? Surely no one will have the hardihood to say, in answer to these inquiries, that the disposition intended is not a distribution to the States according toa rule which is intended to be defended as just and equal. In this sense, could the rule of distribution be defended as just, as equal, as constitutional? He would leave the answers to these questions to those who supported the bill with this provision contained in it. For himself, he was ready and willing to say that, in his judgment, if a power exist. ed to return the money to the people at all, the exercise of that power must follow the rule which raised the money from the people by taxation, or from that fund which they held in common, and in the same proportions which govern their liability to taxation. Having thus explained himself as to the provisions and progress of the bill, he was content to rest upon the record of the proceedings upon the bill, which the journal of the Senate would show. If, in resisting this division of the moneys of the nation, he had misrepresented his immediate constituents, he desired that they should know the fact, and especially at this time, when it would so soon be in their power, without his consent, to fill the place he occupied with a better man. If, in refusing to yield to a rule of distribution which does them great injustice, he had been less liberal of their strict rights than they would wish him to be, he was equally anxious that they should be advised of his action, and thus have it in their power to redress themselves if they have been aggrieved. He Mr. W. said there was yet a question which he had not considered, but which must claim his principal attention. He had hitherto spoken of the progress of this bill, and of the rule of distribution adopted by it. had not spoken, nor did he intend even yet to speak, of the constitutional power of Congress to use its taxing power to collect money from the people of the States, not to give back to the people who pay the taxes, but to place in the treasuries of the States without interest. This was a great question, which he hoped the people of the States would decide without argument from him, and to their decision he would most cheerfully submit. He was aware he might be answered that Congress could not use its taxing power under the constitution to raise moneys for distribution to the States, and that the fact that the money was in the Treasury had raised a necessity from which this power of distribution was assumed. When those who should use the argument would show him how it was to be ascertained that the money now in the Treasury was not raised for distribution, and how it was hereafter to be shown that any money in the Treasury was not raised for distribution, he would enter upon a further argument of the points; until then he would content himself with saying that Congress could possess no greater and no less powers for raising revenue than it had possessed from the adoption of the Constitution to the present time, unless the provisions of that instrument, upon that subject, should be contracted or enlarged. The question to which he referred, and to the examination of which he asked the candid and unprejudiced attention of the Senate, was, how much money would remain in the Treasury on the 1st of January next, which could properly be termed "surplus," not required to answer the wants of this Government, and, therefore, to be given away to the States? He had taken some pains to inform himself upon this point, and the best information he could obtain should be given to the Senate. By a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, made to the Senate on the 6th day of June instant, the amount of money in the Treasury on that day, subject to draft, was $33,563,654; and in consequence of the late passage of the appropriation bills, and the rapid payments from the Treasury under them, that amount, over and above the current receipts, is now reduced to less than $33,000,000. For the present (Mr. W. said) he would examine the charges now existing, and likely to be made, upon this sum; and what were they? 1. Balance of outstanding appropriations of the last year, 2. Permanent appropriations chargeable up on 1836, viz: $5,170,000 225,000 2,998,000 $6,276,312 - 2,767,981 [SENATE. 6,179,772 - 1,800,000 $4,379,772 A bill was pending before the House to provide for continuing the work upon the existing fortifications, and proposing to appropriate for that object about A bill for the continuation of the Cumberland road had been sent from the Senate to the House, proposing appropriations for that object to the amount of. Bills were before the two Houses, and most of them had passed the one House or the other, for the improvement of roads in the Territories, amounting to about A bill had come from the House to the Senate to provide for constructing a frontier road along the western frontier of the United States, and appropriating for that object Two bills which usually met the favorable action of Congress at every session, and more especially at the long session, the one for the improvement of harbors and rivers, and the other for the erection of lighthouses, lightboats, beacons buoys, &c., are before the House, proposing to appropri ate for these objects Provision has been made annually, and it is presumed will be made this year, for the compensation of custom-house officers, which calls for an expenditure of about A bill is now before the House to provide for the increased expenditures at the mints, and proposes to appropriate Further appropriations must be made for the Seminole and Creek wars, and the least sum estimated to be necessary is The estimated amount of appropriations by private and local bills not enumerated above, and beyond the $100,000 included in the first statement, is This presents an aggregate of appropriations to be made, all of which are supposed 1,100,000 2,250,000 600,000 150,000 100,000 1,500,000 200,000 50,000 3,000,000 1,450,000 |
