I Cornell University 
 W Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924032761565 
 
Cornell University Library 
 c3o7 .B2i 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 032 761 565 
 
Martin Van Buren 
 
 TO THE END 
 
 OF HIS PUBLIC CAREER 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT* 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 1889 
 

 / 
 
 Copyright, 1889, by George Bancroft. 
 
 All right)! reaerved. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Many years ago Silas Wright, then United 
 States Senator from the State of New York, re- 
 quested me to write a life of Martin Van Buren. 
 I answered that I did not possess adequate ma- 
 terials for the undertaking. At a later day he 
 brought me a singularly complete collection of 
 manuscripts, including letters and papers extend- 
 ing to the end of Van Buren's public career. 
 From these and other sources I prepared a con- 
 cise record of the events of his life. The manu- 
 script was seen by Van Buren, who pronounced 
 it, as a record of facts relating to himself, au- 
 thentic and true. 
 
 At the time of its preparation the public mind 
 was grievously agitated by party divisions on 
 public affairs and on public men ; the manuscript 
 was, therefore, put aside for publication in times 
 more favorable to a fairness of judgment on the 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 character and career of Van Buren. In my re- 
 cent revision of the original manuscript I have 
 made no change that could affect Van Buren's 
 approval of it as thoroughly correct. 
 
 September 2, iSSg. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early Life of Martin Van Buren: 1782-1812.. i 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Eight Years in the Legislature of New York: 
 1 81 2-1 820 21 
 
 CHAPTER HL 
 
 The State of New York in Convention: 1821 62 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Eight Years in the Senate of the United 
 States : 1 821-1829 no 
 
 CHAPTER 'V. 
 
 Van Buren as Secretary of State, as Minis- 
 ter, and as Vice-president : 1829-1837 158 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Van Buren as President of the United 
 States: March 4, 1837— March 4, 1841 192 
 
LIFE OF MARTIN VAN BUREN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF MARTIN VAN BUREN: 
 I782-1812. 
 
 Public life in America opens the widest 
 avenue for the promulgation of truth. The 
 millions, through the statesmen of their 
 choice, give utterance to their aspirations, 
 and write the ripened results of their ex- 
 perience and reflection in the statute book 
 of the country. ;No career is more honor- 
 able than that of the man who, alike in 
 private life and in public station, consist- 
 ently and earnestly cherishes the princi- 
 ples and promotes the measures which ad- 
 vance the culture and power of the people. 
 Such services, in the State of New York, 
 
2 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 have most frequently sprung from the 
 homes of the smaller freeholders. The 
 proprietors, whose manorial estates had en- 
 joyed the right of representation, declared 
 for American independence ; and one of 
 them, Robert R. Livingston, drafted the res- 
 olutions by which the American Congress 
 proclaimed its adhesion to what Washing- 
 ton called " the modern " code of maritime 
 law; but the principles of our Revolution 
 would not have been safe in the custody 
 of landlords alone ; and, happily, by the 
 side of their vast estates lay the more 
 numerous small freeholds, on which the 
 plough was in the hands of the owner. 
 
 At one of these freeholds in Kinder- 
 hook, on the fifth day of December, 1 782, 
 just as the American war for independence 
 was drawing to a close, Martin Van Buren 
 first saw the light. His mother, who lived 
 to see her son on the sure path to dis- 
 tinction, was a woman of exemplary piety ; 
 his father was a descendant of one of the 
 
Early Life: I'j82-i8i2. 3 
 
 families which first emigrated from Hol- 
 land to America. Owning the modest 
 farm which he cultivated, neither debt nor 
 rent-day troubled him. A patriot of the 
 Revolution, he loved the soil which held 
 the graves of his forefathers for several 
 generations, and of which he had assisted 
 to achieve the independence, and with 
 hearty assent he embraced the principles 
 on which that independence was made to 
 rest. 
 
 In the seclusion of his native village, of 
 which the fertile soil well rewarded labor, 
 the boyhood of Van Buren passed away 
 in work on his father's farm, and in study 
 at the new academy in his native village. 
 On all sides and in all things the active 
 mind finds education. The country was 
 ringing with the great principles of indepen- 
 dence and freedom ; the Hudson that flowed 
 by him passes among the most exciting 
 scenes of the struggle for independence ; 
 and the fresh traditions of the Revolution 
 
4 Life of Martin Van Bure7i. 
 
 trained his mind to the love of country 
 and the principles of civil freedom. From 
 earliest years he demanded reasons for 
 opinions, questioned authority, and sought 
 for general principles as the guides to con- 
 victions. Thus he grew up, without the 
 benefits and without the prejudices of tra- 
 ditional learning, depending on the ideas 
 and principles of American life as his 
 guides. Early habits of industry and self- 
 command formed themselves in the healthy 
 moral atmosphere of the farmer's house- 
 hold, under the eye of an affectionate fa- 
 ther, and of a religious and devoted mother. 
 Much of his future celebrity may be traced 
 to the unpretending virtues which pervade 
 the families of our agricultural class, and 
 give to their sons natural dignity and self- 
 reliance. 
 
 The possession of the elective franchise 
 insures the political education of the peo- 
 ple. Truth, though it may be not unmixed 
 with error, is diffused by rival parties, and 
 
Early Life: 1282-1812. 5 
 
 the questions that interest the civilized 
 world are brought to the home of every 
 citizen. He that has the elective franchise 
 has influence on his own nation and in 
 his degree on the destiny of humanity. 
 
 In the year 1 796, at the age of fourteen, 
 Van Buren, whose activity of mind gave 
 his parents early hope of his success in 
 life, began the study of law, still remaining 
 under his father's roof. It was the period 
 when America, having achieved its inde- 
 pendence and adopted its constitution, was 
 framing commercial connections with the 
 civilized world. Everywhere jealousy was 
 excited lest European intercourse should 
 introduce the political maxims of the Eu- 
 ropean policy of that day. The treaty with 
 England, which divided the republic into 
 parties, had been negotiated by John Jay, 
 a citizen of New York; and from Robert 
 R. Livingston of the same State it had en- 
 countered the severest strictures for its vio- 
 lation of the principles of maritime law. 
 
6 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 Livingston, as he inveighed against the self- 
 ish commercial code of England of that 
 day, asked : " What is the law of nations ? 
 Is it not a rule of justice which reason 
 prescribes as arising out of the existing 
 state of civilized nations ? Is not this 
 varied as civilization improves ? The law 
 of nations among cannibals justifies eating 
 their prisoners. Greeks, Romans, and Car- 
 thaginians condemned captives in war and 
 their families to perpetual slavery. Will 
 any one say this is still the law of nations } 
 The principles of the armed neutrality are 
 consonant with the rights of neutral na- 
 tions, and any independent people may jus- 
 tify a war in their support." 
 
 The members of the Republican party of 
 New York, at its first organization, blend- 
 ing liberal commercial principles with faith 
 in the people, joined in the support of 
 Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia civilian, for 
 the Presidency. Their zeal so kindled the 
 youthful mind of Van Buren that, in 1800, 
 
Early Life: i'/82-i8i2. 7 
 
 in his eighteenth year, the RepubHcan party 
 of his vicinity sent him as their delegate to 
 a Republican convention of the counties of 
 Columbia and Rensselaer. 
 
 Near the end of 1802, Van Buren, still a 
 student of law, repaired to New York, and 
 in that city a year of close application 
 was devoted by him to legal studies. His 
 powers were tested and developed by dis- 
 cussions in an association of young men, 
 who, like himself, were preparing to be 
 counsellors and advocates. At the close 
 of 1803 he was admitted to the bar of 
 the Supreme Court of the State of New 
 York, and returned to his native village 
 to engage in his profession. And now 
 came the happy period of early activity and 
 the rapid gain of distinction. Van Buren's 
 ability and industry, his integrity and kind- 
 ly frankness, rapidly won for him profes- 
 sional eminence, and led to friendships as 
 enduring as life. Eight years flowed on in 
 the serene happiness of domestic life and 
 
8 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the increase of business, popularity, and 
 fame. 
 
 His professional career called all his 
 faculties into exercise, disciplined him in 
 self-reliance, and laid the foundation of re- 
 ciprocal confidence between himself and 
 the great body of people of his own neigh- 
 borhood. The soil of New York in the 
 time of its colonial dependency, and under 
 its royal governors, had been lavishly con- 
 veyed by royal patents, which squandered 
 away hundreds of thousands of acres. These 
 grants, which were usually made without a 
 previous survey, and with no more definite 
 boundaries than a reference to some un- 
 certain brooks or hills, defined only by their 
 Indian names, included large parts of Ver- 
 mont and of Berkshire County in Massa- 
 chusetts, as well as tracts on the water-shed 
 of the Hudson, and from their imperfect 
 description opened the way to incessant 
 litigation. When Van Buren entered on 
 his profession he found that some of the 
 
Early Life: i'/82-i8i2. 9 
 
 heirs of these indefinite patents, stimulated 
 by the rapid increase of the population in 
 that part of New York, applied the larg- 
 est interpretation to their grants, and were 
 then encroaching on a humble class of free- 
 holders. The three distinguished lawyers 
 of the vicinity, Abraham Van Vechten, Eli- 
 sha Williams, and William Van Ness, were 
 generally retained by the claimants under 
 ancient warrants ; the small freeholders 
 looked to Van Buren, beseeching him to 
 investigate their titles and defend their 
 rights of possession. The tenantry, too, 
 came to him to learn the nature and ex- 
 tent of the reciprocal obligations imposed 
 by their leases. In defending their rights 
 against encroachments. Van Buren stood 
 alone, resisting analogies drawn from the 
 English courts, and having the ablest of his 
 seniors at the bar arrayed against him. By 
 nature intrepid, he had the caution which 
 is the rightful companion of courage. In 
 his contests at the bar he relied on the 
 
lo Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 clearness of his narrative and of his exposi- 
 tion of the law. Unskilled in appeals to 
 passion, yet gifted with a rapid eloquence, 
 he excelled in calmness and urbanity; and 
 by the trust of the body of the people, the 
 farmer's son of Kinderhook from very early 
 life was borne onward in his professional ca- 
 reer. Coming to encounter the best minds 
 at the New York bar, he was roused by 
 every generous incentive to make the ef- 
 forts which gained him the respect and 
 confidence of the soundest lawyers of his 
 State. At a very early period of his life 
 the desire grew up for his appointment to 
 a high judicial station. 
 
 On his removal to Hudson in 1809, he 
 continued to live in friendship with the 
 people. When the defence of a cause re- 
 quired fearless regard for right, combined 
 with superiority to influence, the popular 
 opinion inclined to advise a resort to Van 
 Buren. With equal frankness and resolute- 
 ness. Van Buren was interested in the rights 
 
Early Life: ry 82-1812. 11 
 
 and honor of his country. Living in a feder- 
 al county, with the avenue to public life 
 apparently barred against him, he stood in 
 the front rank of Republicanism, ready at 
 the polls, in conversation, at public meet- 
 ings, in conventions, to assert the great 
 principles of maritime freedom and popular 
 rights. It was the period of long-continued 
 aggressions upon our commerce and our 
 mariners by Great Britain, who had as- 
 sumed the dominion of the sea. America 
 gave to mankind an example of a renuncia- 
 tion of the benefits of foreign trade, rather 
 than to submit to the usurpation. Ameri- 
 can statesmen of that day had been actors 
 in the Revolution, and the embargo and 
 the system of non - intercourse were but 
 new forms of old measures of protection 
 and defence. 
 
 During this period Van Buren was fore- 
 most in Columbia County in the defence of 
 the principles which America was left al- 
 most alone among nations to keep alive. 
 
1 2 Life of Martin Va?t Buren. 
 
 His support of the administrations of Jef- 
 ferson and of Madison was zealous, able, 
 and persistent, and all the more weighty 
 from the trust in his natural caution. In 
 Columbia County, the Federalists seized the 
 years of gloom to mislead the people ; and, 
 sustained by the influence of large landed 
 proprietors over their tenants, they held 
 public meetings to excite discontent and 
 disturbance. On the instance of Van Buren, 
 counter-meetings were immediately called; 
 and at Hudson, in February, 1809, he led 
 the unanimous resolves that " war, submis- 
 sion to European despots, or prohibition of 
 commerce " were our only alternatives, and 
 proclaimed it "the duty of every friend to the 
 United States to come forward and express 
 his determination to support the laws and 
 constituted authorities of his country against 
 every opponent, and to any extremity." A 
 county meeting was summoned by a strong 
 appeal from Van Buren, then chairman of 
 the Republican committee in Hudson ; and 
 
Early Life: 1^82-1812. 13 
 
 in that month, while Thomas Jefferson was 
 President of the nation, he, with dignity and 
 impressiveness, explained the wrongs in- 
 flicted on our country by the belligerent 
 powers, defending the Government and its 
 supporters against the calumny of being 
 " enemies to commerce," urged that opposi- 
 tion to the administration which was the 
 choice of the people would prove a derelic- 
 tion of patriotic duty, and closed by offer- 
 ing, among others, the following resolutions : 
 
 "Jiesolved, As the sense of this meeting, that the 
 decrees and orders of France and England are the 
 real cause of the interruptions to our commerce and 
 the consequent embarrassment of our citizens ; and 
 that our Government, by submitting to these decrees 
 and orders, would have destroyed the independence 
 and surrendered the sovereignty of the American 
 nation. 
 
 "Resolved, That the members of this meeting, en- 
 tertaining a high undiminished regard for the con- 
 stituted authorities of our country, and warmly and 
 fervently devoted to its honor and interests, do solemn- 
 ly engage to support the Government in measures to 
 
14 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 obtain redress for our national injuries, and protec- 
 tion to our national rights ; that they never will be 
 driven from a fair and manly support of this resolu- 
 tion by the power of our enemies or the threats of 
 factions, and that, should Government be forced to 
 abandon the pacific policy it has pursued and un- 
 sheathe the sword, they will be found at their posts 
 ready and willing to sacrifice their lives and fortunes 
 in their country's cause." 
 
 In April, 1 8 lo, the Republicans of Hudson 
 came together to respond to the nomination 
 of Daniel D. Tompkins for Governor ; and 
 Van Buren, as their chairman, renewed to 
 committees of other towns expressions of 
 indignation at " the flagrant violation of our 
 neutral rights." "We applaud" — such were 
 his words — "we applaud the wisdom and 
 the integrity which have been evinced by 
 the American Government in resisting and 
 repelling those violations. We observe on 
 our part an administration impelled to ac- 
 tion by principles of the purest patriotism ; 
 recognizing in their intercourse with other 
 nations the fundamental rules of national 
 
Early Life: iy82-i8i2. 15 
 
 justice; demanding nothing wrong, but firm 
 in the maintainment of our rights. And 
 we feel ourselves bound, by every tie which 
 connects us to our country, publicly to ex- 
 press our unaltered determination to sup- 
 port the government of our choice, and at 
 every hazard to stand or fall with our 
 national independence." 
 
 The next year, at a similar meeting, Van 
 Buren, by the general voice, was charged to 
 draft resolutions ; and on the evening of 
 the nth of April, 181 1, he reported a series, 
 of which the following is the first : 
 
 '■'■Resolved, That we still entertain undiminished 
 confidence in the integrity, wisdom, and patriotism 
 of James Madison, President of the United States ; 
 that we have fully realized in his administration what 
 we formerly anticipated before his election ; and that 
 he is eminently entitled to the esteem and veneration 
 of every consistent Republican." 
 
 Other questions of moment mingled in 
 New York with the great contest for mari- 
 time freedom. The first bank of the United 
 
1 6 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 States drew near its end. A bill for the 
 renewal of its charter passed the House of 
 National Representatives and came to the 
 Senate, where, on the 20th of February, 
 181 1, it was rejected by the casting vote of 
 George Clinton, a veteran of the War of the 
 Revolution, once the Democratic Governor 
 of New York and at that time the Vice- 
 president of the United States. In this 
 manner the question was specially brought 
 home to the Democracy of Hudson River. 
 This vote of George Clinton met with the 
 hearty approbation of Van Buren. 
 
 The Democracy of New York had been 
 resisting the intrusion of the moneyed influ- 
 ence into the public halls of his own State. 
 The Bank of Manhattan was charged with 
 obtaining its charter surreptitiously. A 
 powerful association, on the certainty of the 
 discontinuance of the United States Bank, 
 strode boldly into the State Legislature, 
 with petitions in one hand and bribes in 
 the other; and by the offer of a bonus of 
 
Early Life: I'j82-i8i2. 17 
 
 four hundred thousand dollars and a loan 
 to the State of two millions, attempted to 
 extort a charter for a national bank of six 
 millions. The establishment of this bank 
 was opposed by some, because the moneyed 
 interest intruded itself corruptly into the 
 General Assembly ; by others, for this rea- 
 son, and further, because, in itself, the bank 
 would form but a substitute for the Bank 
 of the United States, and would exert the 
 same baleful influence. For these consid- 
 erations, the venerable George Clinton was 
 opposed to it; and Van Buren, in private 
 life a resident of a county where the so- 
 called Federal party was in the ascendent, 
 stepped forth to rally public opinion against 
 corruption in its incipient stages. To a 
 convention in Columbia County, which he 
 had united in calling, he pledged himself 
 against the recharter of the bank and 
 against the system from which it sprung. 
 
 Yet, such was the influence of the ap- 
 plicants, such the systematic favor of a part 
 
1 8 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 of the Legislature, such the force of corrup- 
 tion, that the Assembly, in the spring of 
 1812, manifested a readiness to grant the 
 proposed charter. 
 
 At this crisis, Daniel D. Tompkins, then 
 Governor of New York, resolute to secure 
 to the people an opportunity for its inter- 
 position, by an act of executive power that 
 was sanctioned by the old constitution, which 
 permitted a prorogation of the Legislature 
 by the Executive, but not the veto of en- 
 actments, prorogued the Legislature from 
 March 27th to May 21st. 
 
 This bold act threw the Federalists of 
 New York into a frenzy; and at this mo- 
 ment the Democracy of the district sum- 
 moned the lawyer who had been the frank 
 supporter of Jefferson and of Madison to 
 be their candidate for the Senate. 
 
 The visible approach of war, the defeat 
 of the Bank of the United States, and the 
 arrest of cupidity in the Legislature of New 
 York by its prorogation, inflamed party 
 
Early Life: 1^82-1812. 19 
 
 spirit to its intensest fury. The interest of 
 the election was concentrated in the mid- 
 dle senatorial district of the State, where 
 Van Buren was the candidate. His com- 
 parative youth, his want of powerful family 
 connections, the hostility of the seekers of 
 privileges from the State Legislature, all 
 conspired to raise up against him the most 
 determined opposition. In one of the coun- 
 ties the Democratic vote was largely dimin- 
 ished by the united efforts of the manorial 
 interests, of which the influence had former- 
 ly been divided. The news was brought rap- 
 idly of the defection in that county. The 
 Federalists were sure of success. Their 
 principal lawyers were descending the Hud- 
 son River in the same boat with Van Buren 
 to attend the courts at New York, and could 
 not suppress their exultations. Every mo- 
 ment brought news of the deep excitement 
 that had pervaded the country. As the 
 boat passed one of the towns on the river, a 
 messenger came on board with a letter which 
 
20 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 announced the vote of Orange County, 
 Van Buren was elected, though by a major- 
 ity of less than two hundred out of more 
 than thirty thousand votes ; and, although 
 that steamboat was freighted with the re- 
 sults of the various elections throughout 
 the State on which depended the Council 
 of Appointment and the large patronage at 
 its disposal, the first question that proceed- 
 ed from the crowd that was waiting her 
 arrival on the dock at New York was : 
 How ended the senatorial election in the 
 middle district? 
 
 So earnestly contested an election had 
 hardly been known, as this by which Van 
 Buren, while not yet thirty years old, was 
 elected to the Senate of his native State 
 for the period of four years from the 4th 
 of July, 181 2. 
 
In the Legislature: i8 12-1820. 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EIGHT YEARS IN THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW 
 
 YORK: 1812-1820. 
 
 On the i8th of June, 181 2, war against 
 Great Britain was enacted by Congress. 
 In the condition of the frontier of New 
 York on the side of Canada, this transi- 
 tion from restrictive measures to the tak- 
 ing up of arms preceded adequate prepa- 
 rations for war. From boyhood Van Buren 
 had held that the defence of mutual rights 
 would justify a resort to arms, and war 
 having " been declared," says William L. 
 Stone, a political adversary, long a resident 
 of Columbia County, " no public man in 
 the State supported it more thoroughly, 
 heartily, and zealously throughout than 
 Van Buren." The Legislature to which 
 he had been chosen was specially con- 
 
2 2 Life of Martm Van Buren. 
 
 vened in November. Van Buren was the 
 youngest man in the Senate, the youngest 
 ever elected to that body. But the friends 
 of the national administration, all who were 
 resolved to sustain the war, with one voice 
 accepted him as their leader. Not a week 
 had he been in the Legislature, when in 
 November, 1812, he proposed by an ad- 
 dress to assure the Government that " the 
 Senate will cheerfully and firmly unite their 
 exertions with those of the other depart- 
 ments of the Government, to apply the en- 
 ergies of the State to a vigorous prosecu- 
 tion of the war until the necessity of its 
 continuance shall be superseded by an hon- 
 orable peace." 
 
 Then followed the vehement debate in 
 which the young senator acquitted himself 
 with superior ability, triumphantly sustained 
 the address, and was himself deputed to 
 lead the Democratic Senate in a body in 
 pledging to the Democratic Governor its ad- 
 hesion to the measures of President Madison. 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 23 
 
 At that extra session, Presidential Elec- 
 tors were to be chosen. In January, 181 2, 
 the Republican members of the Legisla- 
 ture of Virginia assembled in caucus, nom- 
 inated Madison for President, and select- 
 ed an electoral ticket of men who were 
 pledged to his support. In March of the 
 same year, the Republican members of the 
 Legislature of Pennsylvania came together 
 and made a like decision ; and these nomi- 
 nations were affirmed by the acts of Dem- 
 ocratic members of Congress. In May, 
 18 1 2, six months before Van Buren's sen- 
 atorial term began, the Republican mem- 
 bers of the State Legislature of New York, 
 who, by the party usage of that time, were 
 held to act for the Democracy of the State, 
 assembled in like manner, and, at a very 
 full meeting, eighty-seven out of ninety- 
 seven being present, unanimously made a 
 nomination of De Witt Clinton. A com- 
 mittee was immediately appointed to in- 
 form him of his nomination, which he 
 
24 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 forthwith and unconditionally accepted. 
 The members who made this selection 
 were moved by admiration of his talents ; 
 by confidence in his most vehemently ex- 
 pressed opposition to the Federal party; 
 by the feeling of State pride ; by his popu- 
 larity, derived in some degree from his 
 friend and kinsman, the venerable George 
 Clinton ; and by the belief that the most 
 efficient war President would be a citizen 
 of the State whose commerce had been 
 most injured and whose frontier was the 
 most exposed. 
 
 The same Democratic senators who had 
 united in this nomination of De Witt Clin- 
 ton, the day after the declaration of war 
 but before the news reached Albany, re- 
 solved that " the existing state of the coun- 
 try demanded an unequivocal expression 
 of sentiment from every member of the 
 Union; and that, under this impression, 
 the Senate pledge themselves to support 
 such measures as shall be adopted by the 
 
In the Legislature: i8 12-1820. 25 
 
 General Government for the vindication 
 of our violated rights and honor." To a 
 man, they voted against an amendment 
 proposed by Judge Piatt, a leading Fed- 
 eralist, and supported by the seven Fed- 
 eralists of the Senate, asserting that " nei- 
 ther the honor nor the interests of the 
 United States require that a war should 
 be declared against either of the belliger- 
 ent nations of Europe ; and that the sys- 
 tem of non-intercourse and embargo, as 
 lately practised by the Government of the 
 United States, is hostile to the best inter- 
 ests of our country." A copy of the adopt- 
 ed resolution was sent to President Mad- 
 ison. 
 
 In the nomination of De Witt Clinton, 
 thus officially made, tendered, and accept- 
 ed. Van Buren had no agency ; but coming 
 into the Legislature which in November 
 was to choose electors, he united with ma- 
 jorities of Republican members of each 
 branch in the appointment of the regularly 
 
26 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 nominated ticket of electors known to be 
 in favor of Clinton. In the efforts of the 
 friends of Clinton to advance his preten- 
 sions in other States, Van Buren took no 
 share, nor were his relations with the 
 Federal party for a moment changed from 
 that of the uncompromising opposition, by 
 which they had been before and were after- 
 wards distinguished. He left no opening 
 for doubt as to his purpose of supporting 
 with his utmost ability the Democratic ad- 
 ministration. At the meeting of the Leg- 
 islature in 1813, the political relations be- 
 tween Van Buren and Clinton were dis- 
 solved and were never renewed ; and Van 
 Buren led the Democracy in its support of 
 the war and of the measures of Madison. 
 
 The Senate had a majority of Republi- 
 cans ; the House had a still larger majority 
 of Federalists; yet, never dispirited. Van 
 Buren was eager to devise means for in- 
 suring success to the conduct of the war. 
 It is the beauty of our federal system, 
 
hi the Legislahire : 1812-1820. 27 
 
 that in addition to the resources of the 
 General Government, each State has power 
 to minister to the public wants. It was 
 resolved by the Democracy in these hours 
 of danger to bring the credit of the State 
 in aid of the credit of the Federal Govern- 
 ment; and John Taylor, of Albany, offered 
 a resolve, directing the comptroller to sub- 
 scribe four hundred thousand dollars to 
 the United States loan of sixteen millions. 
 Van Buren spoke in behalf of the measure, 
 and on the 12th of March it passed the 
 Senate by a vote of fifteen to eleven. The 
 Assembly, which was controlled by the Fed- 
 eral party, would do nothing. 
 
 " The war," said Josiah Ogden Hoffman, 
 in the debate, " was unnecessarily and un- 
 justly commenced. All the alleged causes 
 of the war, in comparison with the evils 
 necessarily arising from this unhappy con- 
 test, sink into utter insignificance." 
 
 " I," cried Elisha Williams, " will not fur- 
 nish the administration with the means for 
 
28 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 carrying on this war; I would starve then 
 into peace with all my heart. The Go\ 
 ernment dare not impose taxes, becaus 
 they are conscious that the war is unjus 
 and unnecessary. They know, and w 
 know, that the people will not bear taxe 
 for such a cause." 
 
 Such was the temper of New York Fee 
 eralism in the first year of the wai 
 Against it the New York Democracy re 
 lied on the tongue and pen of Van Burer 
 An address from the Democracy of th 
 Legislature to their cor^stituents, ever 
 word of which was written •- by Van Burer 
 aimed at convincing every honest man " c 
 the high justice and indispensable necess 
 ty of the attitude which our^ Governmen 
 had taken, of the sacred duty of every rcc 
 American to support it in that attitude 
 and of the parricidal views of those wh 
 refused to do so." 
 
 In glowing language he made a summar 
 of the causes of the war ; and of the prelim 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820, 29 
 
 nary efforts at redress by means of the em- 
 bargo and non-intercourse ; he described the 
 British Orders in Council as "a direct attack 
 upon the sovereignty of the American peo- 
 ple, to which a submission involved a sur- 
 render of independence." He recounted 
 the breach of faith on the part of England 
 in disavowing the treaty with Erskine for 
 the revocation of the Orders in Council. 
 
 " When the feeHngs of the American 
 people," he continued, " were at the highest 
 pitch of irritation in consequence of the 
 perfidious disavowal, a minister was sent, 
 not to extenuate the conduct of his prede- 
 cessor, but to fling contumely and reproach 
 in the face of the Executive of the Amer- 
 ican nation, in the presence of the Amer- 
 ican people. . . . 
 
 " To fill up the measure of our wrong, 
 she resolved to persist in another measure, 
 surpassed by none in flagrant enormity — 
 a measure which, of itself, was adequate 
 cause of war ; a measure which had excited 
 
30 Life of Martm Van Buren. 
 
 the liveliest solicitude and received the 
 unremitted attention of every administra- 
 tion of our government from the time of 
 Washington to the present day — the wick- 
 ed, the odious, the detestable practice of 
 impressing American seamen into her ships 
 of war; compelling them to waste their lives 
 and spill their blood in the service of a for- 
 eign government ; a practice which subject- 
 ed every brave American tar to the violence 
 and petty tyranny of a British midshipman, 
 and many of them to a life of the most gall- 
 ing servitude; a practice which never can 
 be submitted to by a nation professing a 
 claim to freedom ; which never can be ac- 
 quiesced in by Government without rescind- 
 ing the great article of our safety — the rec- 
 iprocity of obedience and protection. . . . 
 
 " Under such accumulated circumstances 
 of insult and injury, we ask again. What 
 was your Government to do ? Was she 
 basely and ingloriously to abandon the 
 rights for which you and your fathers had 
 
In the Legislature: i8 12-18 20. 31 
 
 fought and bled ? Was she so early to 
 cower to the nation who had sought to 
 strangle us in our infancy, and who has 
 never ceased to retard our approach to 
 manhood ? No ; we will not for a moment 
 doubt that every man who is in truth and 
 fact an American will say that war was our 
 only refuge from national degradation, our 
 only course to prosperity." 
 
 In the midst of these scenes, the Assem- 
 bly yielded to the subtle influence of men 
 eager to grow rich by the use of credit, 
 and not sufficiently considering that coin 
 is money, and paper is only the promise 
 of money, prepared to go largely into the 
 chartering of banks of emission. They 
 would have no war for maritime rights ; 
 but they were ready to risk the establish- 
 ment of American industry and trade on a 
 paper currency. 
 
 When, early in 18 13, a bill was brought 
 into the Senate to charter the Bank of On- 
 tario, Van Buren, in this first winter of his 
 
32 Life of Martin Vaii Burcn. 
 
 legislative career, moved that the bill be 
 rejected, and his motion received thirteen 
 votes against thirteen ; so that the bill 
 would have been defeated but for the cast- 
 ing vote of the chairman. 
 
 Immediately a new effort was made to 
 charter the Catskill Bank. Again, without 
 the full adhesion of his party, Van Buren 
 moved the rejection of the bill, and sup- 
 ported the motion by an elaborate argu- 
 ment. 
 
 " It is," said he, " but the creation of a 
 fictitious capital, the substitution of a repre- 
 sentative of money for money itself. From 
 the very nature of the business, it is subject 
 to danger; and the fictitious character of 
 the capital subjects the realities of the 
 country to an irresponsible fund. 
 
 " Confidence can alone be sustained by 
 the belief that it is, what it purports to be, 
 a representative of specie, and redeemable 
 as such ; and by the reliance on the virtue 
 and integrity of the agents who emit it. 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 33 
 
 The destruction of either of these sources 
 of confidence takes away the value of the 
 paper; and our actual situation and the 
 extension of banks must destroy both. 
 
 " Such is the proportion between the spe- 
 cie in the Union and the paper authorized 
 to be issued, the behef in the ability of 
 banks to redeem their paper, should any 
 cause drive it to its source, is already, and 
 must be, abandoned. The very manner in 
 which our banks go into operation, on what 
 is called foreign paper, shows that the idea 
 of redemption by specie is not even in- 
 dulged in at their very inception. 
 
 " Equally certain is the want of confi- 
 dence in the agents. At the commence- 
 ment of banking business, it was confined 
 to men of high notions of credit ; confi- 
 dence must of necessity be destroyed by 
 throwing the management of it, with char- 
 tered privileges, into the hands of every- 
 body. 
 
 " Meantime, what is the situation of the 
 3 
 
34 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 State ? First, specie is driven out of cir- 
 culation ; next, trade becomes extensive in 
 the proportion in which the amount of sup- 
 posed cash has been extended. But the 
 value of everything bears a proportion to 
 the value of your money. The good-sense 
 of the community must ultimately impair 
 confidence in bank paper ; the failure of a 
 single bank, would consummate it. And 
 when paper-money is all the money we can 
 depend upon to answer the purposes of 
 trade, a depreciation in its value not only 
 produces a like depreciation in the value 
 of property, but an entire stagnation in 
 business. 
 
 "Against only the sources of danger thus 
 far delineated, what are the inducements to 
 continue the accumulation of banks .? Can 
 any one doubt but that the increase of 
 banks must, some time or other, lead to 
 their destruction ? Can any one say or ex- 
 pect that there will be a more fit opportu- 
 nity to stop than now .''" 
 
In the Legislature: i8 12-1820. 35 
 
 He then recapitulated the history of the 
 New York banks from the first Bank of 
 New York ; he did not omit one ; and he 
 analyzed the influence of each under the 
 false system of privilege in hastening their 
 general bankruptcy. He dwelt on the dan- 
 ger that was joined with the qualified bene- 
 fits which merchants derived from them ; 
 he drew " a contrast between the merchants 
 of this day and of former times, when there 
 were no banks"; he showed the relation of 
 " farmers " to banks, and gave " the reasons 
 why bank accommodations are to them the 
 deadliest usury." 
 
 Passing from general consideration, he 
 dwelt on the imminent danger resulting 
 from the manner in which banks were con- 
 ducted, and the nature of their loans ; he 
 appealed to patriotism, and drew arguments 
 for a sound currency from the existence of 
 " the war" ; he dwelt on the extreme " so- 
 licitude of the public," and justified that 
 solicitude. 
 
36 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 Finally, he met the argument of those 
 who looked for the safety of the public in 
 the supervising power of the State Govern- 
 ment. " What," he exclaimed, " the banks 
 under the control of the Legislature ! The 
 mistaken idea !" And he pointed out at 
 least four several instances, fresh in the 
 knowledge of his hearers, where the Legis- 
 lature, far from exercising control, had 
 bowed its neck to the most subtle of exter- 
 nal influences. 
 
 These views on banking, its abuses and 
 its dangers, were expressed by Van Buren 
 in the first year of his public life. The 
 majority of that day was deaf to his ap- 
 peals; but he never ceased to renew them. 
 At the same session, on the question of 
 chartering the Bank of Lansingburg, Van 
 Buren seconded the motion for the ayes 
 and noes, and voted against the bill through- 
 out all its stages. He combated the bill 
 for the Bank of Orange County in every 
 stage of the proceedings, and obtained the 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 37 
 
 rejection of its first section ; but the bank 
 party rallied, and reconsidered the vote. 
 Still he persisted ; and the charter for a 
 bank at Schenectady was rejected on his 
 motion. 
 
 Meantime, a new form of corruption re- 
 quired to be resisted. The City Bank of 
 New York had obtained a charter at a 
 previous session ; it now solicited relief 
 from an onerous condition, and a bill was 
 reported for that purpose. At once Van 
 Buren moved and urged its rejection. The 
 Bank of America came into the Legislature 
 with a similar request. For that, too, a bill 
 was reported ; and Van Buren exerted ev- 
 ery nerve to effect its defeat, pursued the 
 subject from day to day, thrice demanded 
 the ayes and noes, and continued his de- 
 termined resistance to the last. And when, 
 in the same session of 18 13, the Bank of 
 Columbia asked authority to establish a 
 branch at Athens, Van Buren moved the 
 rejection of the bill. 
 
38 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 But not all the efforts requisite to rouse 
 the people to the support of the war, and 
 to expose the insidious inroads of evil in- 
 fluences in legislation, could prevent Van 
 Buren from thinking of private misfortune. 
 As a senator, he was a member of the 
 Court of Errors, and took part in the ju- 
 dicial interpretation of the laws. The ap- 
 plication of an act for the relief of debtors 
 had, by the lower court, been confined with- 
 in the narrowest range. Van Buren con- 
 tended that a merciful law should have 
 mercy for its interpreter. " This statute," 
 he urged in March, 181 3, "has been passed 
 for humane purposes ; it was among the 
 first concessions which were made by the 
 inflexible spirit, which has hitherto main- 
 tained its hold upon society, authorizing 
 imprisonment for debt. Coeval with the 
 authority of imprisonment for debt have 
 been the exertions of men of intelligence, 
 reflection, and philanthropy to mitigate its 
 rigor." And now the young senator gave 
 
In the Legislature : 1S12-1820. 39 
 
 pledges for his- future action by stigmatiz- 
 ing the practice as ruthlessly criminal and 
 " fundamentally wrong." 
 
 Van Buren, in his first legislative year, 
 sustained the war, foreshadowed the evils 
 of privileged banking, and protested against 
 imprisonment for debt. 
 
 The fervid appeal from his pen to the 
 people of New York was not made in vain. 
 In April, 1813, Tompkins, the supporter of 
 the war and of Madison, was elected gov- 
 ernor by a majority of three thousand five 
 hundred votes. The Federalists still re- 
 tained a majority, though a diminished one, 
 in the Assembly. The State of New York, 
 more exposed than any other, with a patri- 
 otic Senate and a governor not shunning 
 responsibility, was still arrested in its ef- 
 forts at energetic self-defence by the nega- 
 tive of the Assembly ; and the legislative 
 session of 181 3-14 passed away with inef- 
 fective struggles for the vigorous conduct 
 of the war. Sometimxes public conferences 
 
40 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 were adopted as an expedient of concilia- 
 tion. At these, Van Buren appeared as 
 the principal speaker on the part of the 
 Senate. Reasoning accurately, ever self- 
 possessed, having his mind kindled but not 
 disturbed by a just indignation, his words 
 fell upon enthusiastic auditories that came 
 in crowds to the Capitol. On one occa- 
 sion, the great audience was so moved that 
 at the close of his speech the venerable 
 Judge Hager, Senator from Schoharie, who, 
 himself a patriot of the Revolution, bore 
 with him the living recollection of the 
 ravages with which the British and the 
 Tories had scourged that section of the 
 State, was so thrilled with a speech of Van 
 Buren as to step forward from his place at 
 the moment of its conclusion and embrace 
 and salute him in the presence of the mul- 
 titude. 
 
 But Van Buren did not rest satisfied 
 with addresses to a stubborn opposition. 
 Bafifled as yet in the Legislature, he ap- 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 41 
 
 pealed to the people. At his instance, near 
 the close of the regular session of 18 14, in 
 the moment of gloomiest forebodings, a 
 public meeting was convened at Albany, 
 consisting of the Democratic members of 
 the Legislature and citizens from various 
 parts of the State. This general meeting 
 was held on the 14th of April, 18 14, and 
 addressed by him at length and with great 
 effect. He then submitted a series of com- 
 prehensive resolutions, which were adopted 
 with enthusiasm. His hopefulness and un- 
 questioning reliance on the people inspired 
 confidence, and from that meeting there 
 went forth an appeal to which the citizens 
 of the State responded. In the midst of 
 defeats in the field, New York rose up ra- 
 diant with trust in its own energies, and 
 gave a total overthrow to "the anti-Ameri- 
 can spirit " which had so long enervated its 
 power of decision. 
 
 This result was hailed everywhere by the 
 friends of the Union, as "the triumph of 
 
42 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 principle," with an exultation and joy scarce- 
 ly inferior to that with which the news of 
 the victory of New Orleans was received at 
 Washington. The war had triumphed in 
 the national opinion, which became the sure 
 presage of victories in the field. " The 
 election in the great and powerful State of 
 New York," said the National Intelligencer 
 of May 5, 1814, "resulting in the complete 
 success of the Republican party, has at once 
 overthrown the prospects of disorganizers 
 and the hopes of the Opposition. New York 
 is with the Government, and its colossal 
 power and influence will give vigor to its 
 operation by coincidences of action, instead 
 of lending its aid, as the Jacobins of the 
 East vainly hoped and predicted it would, 
 in a moral and physical effort to stop the 
 wheels of government. ... If our enemies 
 please it, we shall have an honorable peace, 
 an event we should greet with heart-felt 
 pleasure ; but if they persist in their wrongs, 
 the result of the New York election proves 
 
In the Legislature : 1812-1820. 43 
 
 that the people will support the Government 
 in a vigorous war." 
 
 Van Buren, on entering the Legislature, 
 took the lead in support of the war, and 
 pursued it earnestly through two almost 
 fruitless sessions ; had for two successive 
 years led the way in appeals to the peo- 
 ple ; and now he stood before the country 
 the most conspicuous member of a Legis- 
 lature in which his friends were a majority. 
 Would he display intrepidity in council and 
 vigor as a man of action .? 
 
 The city of Washington had been seized, 
 but from Baltimore the enemy had been re- 
 pelled with grievous loss ; the Niagara fron- 
 tier had witnessed brilliant actions; on Lake 
 Champlain, McDonough had won the high- 
 est honors for the American flag; while a 
 small body of regulars, and an inconsider- 
 able gathering of volunteers and militia 
 of Vermont and New York, acting under 
 an exigency which "admitted of no delay," 
 discomfited the British land troops at 
 
44 Life of Martin Van Bui'en. 
 
 Plattsburg, and drove them to a precipi- 
 tate flight. 
 
 An extra session of the Legislature was 
 'convened by Governor Tompkins on the 
 twenty-seventh day of September, 1814. To 
 his eloquent address Van Buren replied on 
 behalf of the Senate in most impressive 
 words, at a time when every act was of mo- 
 mentous interest. Immediately, by a mes- 
 sage on the last day of September, the Leg- 
 islature was invited to proceed to active 
 preparations. 
 
 The Federal members of the Legislature 
 of New York had issued a circular calling 
 the Federalists of that State to a convention, 
 which was held at Albany on the fifth day 
 of October. There the propriety of send- 
 ing members to the proposed convention 
 at Hartford was considered, and rejected 
 with unanimity. This decision appalled the 
 disaffected. Meanwhile, Van Buren pro- 
 posed, matured, brought forward, and car- 
 ried through, what Thomas H. Benton has 
 
In the Legislature: i8 12-1820. 45 
 
 described as " the most energetic war meas- 
 ure ever adopted in this country." It au- 
 thorized the Governor to raise an army of 
 twelve thousand men for two years, and to 
 place them at the disposal of the General 
 Government. In raising this army, the sys- 
 tem of an equal classification, acting on 
 property as well as on persons, was to be 
 followed ; the men were to be paid, clothed, 
 and subsisted by the United States, and 
 were intended as a more permanent force 
 to relieve the militia. By this means the 
 undoubted superiority in the field was as- 
 sured to America; and New York, which, 
 by its Legislature, in a resolution which 
 Van Buren introduced, advised the rejec- 
 tion of the arrogant British proposals for 
 peace, and prepared to have in service an 
 army of twenty thousand men. 
 
 The measure met with determined oppo- 
 sition. For two days the Senate of New 
 York debated whether troops should be 
 raised by voluntary enlistments, or by clas- 
 
46 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 sification. On the twelfth day of October, 
 the principle of classification prevailed by 
 a vote of twenty to eight. On the 14th 
 the bill passed the Senate ; and having re- 
 ceived the sanction of the Assembly, on the 
 24th, just five days after Massachusetts 
 elected delegates to the Hartford Conven- 
 tion, Van Buren's bill, " authorizing the 
 raising of troops for the defence of the 
 State," received the signature of the Gov- 
 ernor. The original draft, in the handwrit- 
 ing of its author, may be seen among the 
 archives of the Senate. 
 
 This measure, after becoming the law of 
 New York, was still the subject of discus- 
 sion; and in the public journals the patri- 
 otic Samuel Young came forth to its defence 
 on principles of public law. Voices from 
 various parts of the Union approved it as 
 worthy " of the best times of the Revolution, 
 and as having exalted New York to the first 
 rank in patriotism." 
 
 By degrees America learned the wealth 
 
In the Legislahire : 1812-1820. 47 
 
 of her own resources ; the news from Lake 
 Champlain and from Albany quickened ne- 
 gotiations ; England receded from its ab- 
 surd demands, and a treaty of peace was ne- 
 gotiated. Yet the news of the negotiation 
 did not reach America until after the glori- 
 ous repulse of the enemy from the country 
 had been perfected at New Orleans. It 
 then fell to the lot of Van Buren to suggest 
 to the Legislature of his own State those 
 " rewards of public service which are ever 
 due to the brave, the virtuous, and the wise"; 
 and to draft resolutions expressing the ap- 
 plause and gratitude of New York for the 
 successful heroism of Andrew Jackson. Lit- 
 tle was it then foreseen that these two men 
 as statesmen would be connected in the 
 closest bonds of friendship, founded on 
 common convictions, generous courage, and 
 success in the administration of public af- 
 fairs. 
 
 The messenger bringing from Europe 
 the news of peace, found Van Buren in the 
 
48 Life of Martin Van Bureti. 
 
 committee-room engaged in devising amend- 
 ments to his bill for the classification of all 
 persons liable to military service, with a 
 view to the more easy and certain execution 
 of the law. In the financial embarrassment 
 of the country, the militia called into the 
 public service were without pay ; Van Buren 
 recommended a loan by the State to the 
 General Government for the prompt pay- 
 ment of " the brave men who met and suc- 
 cessfully resisted the veterans of the enemy 
 on the banks of the Saranac ; to those who 
 performed tedious services at Sackett's Har- 
 bor, and on the western frontier ; to that dis- 
 tinguished band who, under the gallant Por- 
 ter, stamped an indelible record of American 
 valor on the shores of the Niagara." 
 
 " The war," wrote Van Buren for the Sen- 
 ate in 18 1 6, one year after its close, "was 
 not only righteous in its origin and suc- 
 cessful in its prosecution, but our country 
 has arisen from the contest with renovated 
 strength and increased glory. To the na- 
 
Ill the Legislature : 1812-1820. 49 
 
 tion the elevation of our national charac- 
 ter is wealth, strength, and the source of 
 happiness ; confidence in the efficiency and 
 stability of our political institutions is the 
 sheet-anchor of their hopes, and the palla- 
 dium of their liberties." This is the part 
 which Van Buren took in the great war of 
 America for maritime freedom and equality 
 among the nations, or, as Edward Everett 
 named it, " our second war for indepen- 
 dence." 
 
 In February, 1815, Van Buren, with uni- 
 versal approbation, was appointed Attorney- 
 general of the State. This advancement 
 led to his removal to Albany ; but the peo- 
 ple still retained him in the Senate. 
 
 The war had involved the national finan- 
 ces in embarrassment. Among the resolu- 
 tions of the House of Representatives at 
 Washington, in 18 14, was one declaring it 
 " expedient to charter a Bank of the United 
 States, with branches in every State." But 
 though the season of trial had come, when 
 
 4 
 
50 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 with great reluctance, yielding to what 
 seemed a necessity, wise and patriotic 
 statesmen indulged the delusive hope of 
 improving the national finances by the 
 charter of a bank. Van Buren, still a mem- 
 ber of the State Legislature, inflexibly re- 
 sisted the concession. 
 
 In the Legislature of 1814 the bill to 
 confer banking powers on the New York 
 Coal Company was opposed by him, and 
 rejected. The Wool Deposit and Wool 
 Stapling Bank shared the same ambitions 
 and met the same fate. The Assembly had 
 chartered the North American Coal Com- 
 pany with banking powers ; the clause con- 
 ferring these powers was stricken out in 
 the Senate ; a conference ensued between 
 the two houses, with Van Buren as chair- 
 man on behalf of the Senate, and on his 
 motion the Senate adhered to its amend- 
 ment. 
 
 The bill from the Assembly to establish 
 the Dutchess County Bank was rejected in 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 51 
 
 the Senate, Van Buren voting against it, 
 and seconding the demand for the ayes 
 and nays. 
 
 At the extra session of 18 14 Van Buren 
 persevered in his resistance, and his vote 
 stands recorded against the Bank of Ge- 
 neva, the Bank of Plattsburg, the Bank of 
 Albany. 
 
 In 18 1 6 the Jefferson County Bank met 
 with his opposition. 
 
 In 181 8 the Cherry Valley Bank was re- 
 jected in committee. Van Buren being in the 
 chair and giving the casting vote against 
 it. The same opposition was made by him 
 to the branch of the Bank of Orange at 
 Binghamton, to the Catskill Aqueduct 
 Association, to the Utica Insurance Com- 
 pany, to the Franklin Bank, to the New 
 York Interest Bank, to the North Amer- 
 ican Coal Company, and to the Greenwich 
 Bank; and in 1819 to the Exchange Bank. 
 He that will turn to the records of the 
 New York Senate will find Van Buren op- 
 
52 Life of Martin Van Bure7t. 
 
 posing steadily the whole system of bank- 
 ing of that day, giving his vote and using 
 his voice against at least thirty bills for 
 bank charters; and only in the single in- 
 stance when the homeless inhabitants of 
 Buffalo, pointing to the ashes of their town 
 that had been burned by the enemy, de- 
 clared that, desperate as might be the rem- 
 edy, they must employ credit to rebuild it, 
 he omitted to oppose the prayer of misfort- 
 une, though he would never yield to the 
 importunities of avarice. But in that one 
 exception to his uniform opposition, he 
 gave a warning that the hope of benefit 
 would prove delusive. 
 
 Nor did Van Buren content himself with 
 warning against the system in detail. He 
 attacked it in its stronghold. He saw the 
 great evil and temptation that lay in the 
 character of monopoly. Finding it impos- 
 sible to arrest this spirit of legislation as 
 long as the restraining law which prohib- 
 ited unincorporated banking was in force, 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 53 
 
 he, as early as 181 7, struck a blow at the 
 principle of privilege, and introduced a bill 
 to repeal that statute, and to authorize un- 
 incorporated associations to carry on the 
 business of banking under the regulation 
 of general laws. The bill contained the 
 provision of individual liability, and also a 
 provision to punish frauds in the conduct of 
 banks by the ignominy of the penitentiary. 
 After repeated efforts, the persistency of 
 Van Buren won for his measure a majority 
 in the Senate ; it was lost in the Assembly. 
 
 This was the preparatory career, on the 
 subject of banks, of the statesman who, on 
 his participating in the Federal Government 
 at the hottest moment of the controversy, 
 avowed most publicly " uncompromising 
 hostility to a Bank of the United States." 
 
 Van Buren was, from the commencement 
 of his legislative career, active in his efforts 
 to do away with the unnatural lien which, 
 under the old laws, the creditor possessed 
 on the body of his debtor. 
 
54 Life of Martin Van Bur en. 
 
 As early as April, 1813, he introduced 
 into the New York Senate, on leave, " A 
 Bill for the Relief of Small Debtors." The 
 journals of the same body show that during 
 the sessions of 18 17, 18 18, and 1820 he 
 was actively engaged upon the subject of 
 imprisonment for debt, and that in 181 8 
 he reported the " Bill to Abolish Imprison- 
 ment for Debt, and to Punish Frauds," and 
 carried it through the Senate by the strong 
 vote of twenty-one to five. 
 
 Nor was Van Buren unmindful of the 
 great interests ot his State in the develop- 
 ment of its internal resources. The Erie 
 and Champlain canals, from their novelty 
 and grandeur of design, excited the admira- 
 tion of the country, and seemed like dreams 
 of marvel. Should New York, it was asked 
 by the timid, attempt the anticipation of a 
 century, and at an incalculable expense 
 plunge into what might prove an impracti- 
 cable adventure ? 
 
 The project was moving forward under 
 
In the Legislature: i8 12-1820. 55 
 
 the particular auspices of De Witt Clinton, 
 between whom and Van Buren there exist- 
 ed at the time the most decided political 
 antagonism. Moreover, many of Van Bu- 
 ren's warmest friends in various parts of 
 the State, honestly doubting the success of 
 the undertaking, and many believing that, 
 even if successful, their part of the country 
 would suffer by it, had arrayed themselves 
 in opposition to the measure. None of 
 these considerations affected his resolute 
 mind. Having in 181 3, in the first year 
 of his senatorial term, voted against the re- 
 peal of the act further to provide for the 
 internal navigation of the State, by which 
 a board of commissioners had been estab- 
 lished to prepare the way for this magnifi- 
 cent enterprise by examinations and sur- 
 veys, he, from the beginning to the end of 
 his senatorial career, gave to its accomplish- 
 ment an unvarying and most efficient sup- 
 port. 
 
 During the winter of 18 16 the commis- 
 
56 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 sioners made a report to the Legislature. 
 Their labors had been interrupted by the 
 war ; their surveys were as yet incomplete, 
 their estimates inexact, and in their report 
 they did not recommend "preliminary meas- 
 ures." Near the close of the session, a bill 
 for the immediate commencement of a por- 
 tion of the work passed the House, though 
 a strong friend to the canal had moved to 
 wait for more exact surveys and estimates. 
 On the sixteenth day of April, but two days 
 before the adjournment, the bill reached the 
 Senate for debate. There was danger of 
 the total loss of the measure. Van Buren 
 stepped forward to save it by postponing 
 the immediate commencement of the work, 
 and confining the bill to obtaining more ac- 
 curate surveys and estimates. The Legis- 
 lature did not, as yet, possess such informa- 
 tion as would avert the charge of hasty and 
 inconsiderate legislation. 
 
 In April of the following year, after the 
 mature exercise of the public judgment, a 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 57 
 
 bill for beginning the great enterprise passed 
 the House. The Senate seemed hostile to 
 the measure. It was then, when the deci- 
 sion was wavering — nay, when it seemed cer- 
 tainly adverse — that Van Buren rose to de- 
 fend the bill. He reviewed the preparatory 
 measures of the State ; he dwelt on the 
 more accurate calculations which were now 
 before the Legislature. "We are arrived," 
 said he, "at the point where, if this bill does 
 not pass, the project must for many years 
 be abandoned;" and he pleaded for com- 
 mencing the work at once, from motives 
 relating alike to " the honor and to the in- 
 terest of the State." With a just sentiment 
 of pride and regard to the Constitution, he 
 observed, " In no part of the business have 
 we looked to individual States, or to the 
 United States, for assistance." He pointed 
 out the means for meeting the vast expendi- 
 ture, being unwilling to incur debt without 
 indisputably adequate resources. 
 
 " The vote I am to give," he added, " I 
 
58 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 esteem the most important vote I have ever 
 given in my life. The project, if executed, 
 will raise the State to the highest possible 
 condition of fame and grandeur." 
 
 "His speech" — so writes William L.Stone, 
 a political adversary then present — " his 
 speech was indeed a masterly effort. I took 
 notes, but his manner was on that occasion 
 too interesting to allow a reporter to keep 
 his eyes upon his paper." When Van Bu- 
 ren resumed his seat, De Witt Qinton, who 
 had been an attentive listener, breaking 
 through the reserve which political colli- 
 sions had created, approached him, and in 
 terms the most honoring joined the general 
 voice of admiration. 
 
 Long afterwards that eventful day was 
 remembered ; and Hosack, in his memoir 
 of Clinton, pays a just tribute to Van Buren 
 and his friends, as having " signalized them- 
 selves by rescuing the bill from a state of 
 jeopardy, even when it had been to a cer- 
 tain degree abandoned by its friends." " By 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 59 
 
 their personal and," he adds, "almost miracu- 
 lous exertions, it was resuscitated, and again 
 restored to the approbation of the two 
 Houses of the Legislature." 
 
 But not only did Van Buren save the 
 measure from defeat — he made it feasible. 
 The bill, as it passed in the Assembly, au- 
 thorized loans on the security of the canal 
 fund only, and that was the best form in 
 which, in the first instance, it could be car- 
 ried through that body. The vital impor- 
 tance of extending the security was at the 
 time fully appreciated, and soon demon- 
 strated by experience. It was on the motion 
 of Van Buren that the State pledged its 
 faith for the repayment of the loans neces- 
 sary to the construction of the canals. 
 
 Once more a crisis occurred in the prog- 
 ress of this grand enterprise. In 18 19 
 there were not wanting timid politicians 
 who desired to arrest the canal at the Sen- 
 eca River on the one side, and midway in 
 the Mohawk River on the other. Van Bu- 
 
6o Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 ren resisted both these impairments o£ the 
 great design, and the clause for construct- 
 ing the canal from Seneca River to Buffalo 
 was at last, through his unwearied exertions, 
 retained in the bill, though by the small ma- 
 jority of four. 
 
 Nothing better illustrates Van Buren's 
 character than his conduct on these occa- 
 sions. For a wise project he was the daring 
 and unwearied advocate, steadfastly sustain- 
 ing it in its proper proportions and gran- 
 deur. And all the while De Witt Clinton 
 was reaping the fruits of the measure which 
 Van Buren rescued, and, by means of popu- 
 larity growing out of the success of the 
 canals, attained the highest station which it 
 was in the power of the State to confer. 
 
 Such was Van Buren, in the service of 
 New York, as a senator and as its chief law 
 officer. "He is a very eloquent speaker" — 
 this is the testimony of an able opponent; 
 — "his manner is graceful and animated 
 when occasion requires, or impassioned 
 
In the Legislature: 1812-1820. 61 
 
 when engaged upon an inspiring theme. 
 He has a happy command of language, but 
 his utterance is too rapid. With manners af- 
 fable and insinuating, he inspires his friends 
 with the strongest attachment known to po- 
 litical ties ; and, though self-educated, his 
 professional knowledge is such as to have 
 placed him in the front rank at the bar." 
 
62 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE STATE OF NEW YORK IN CONVENTION : 
 182I. 
 
 At this time Van Buren was become 
 the acknowledged leader of the Democrat- 
 ic party of New York. They had trust in 
 his fidelity to principle and his wisdom 
 in conduct. Through their confidence, a 
 wider sphere of action was opening before 
 him. But one great duty remained to be 
 performed at home. 
 
 The fathers of our country, as they in- 
 stituted popular government, had not as 
 yet the lights of experience as guides. In 
 New York, " a germ of aristocracy had 
 mingled with the seeds of liberty which 
 they planted ; and it began to produce bit- 
 ter fruit." By the constitutional charter, 
 formed in 1777, all but freeholders and 
 
New York hi Convention: 182 1. 63 
 
 actual tenants were disfranchised, and the 
 freeholders themselves were divided into 
 two classes. Those of twenty pounds, New 
 York currency — that is, of fifty dollars — 
 could vote for representatives to the As- 
 sembly ; but to vote for governor or sena- 
 tors required the possession of an unencum- 
 bered freehold of the value of one hundred 
 pounds ; that is, of two hundred and fifty 
 dollars. 
 
 Van Buren, with his friends, proposed 
 nothing less than to transfer the sovereign- 
 ty of New York from the freeholders to 
 the inhabitants of the State. " It was one 
 of Van Buren's maxims," writes Hammond, 
 in relation to this subject, " that that which 
 ought to be done should be done quick- 
 ly." And Van Buren himself, on another 
 occasion, expressed his rule of conduct in 
 these words : " Whatever is determined to 
 be done, should be done at once. Delib- 
 eration, if it supply the place of action, is 
 not less fatal than precipitation. To hesi- 
 
64 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 tate and permit occasions to pass away 
 which can never be recalled, partakes of 
 the character of weakness, and detracts 
 from the reputation of any man, whether 
 in the Cabinet or in the field." In No- 
 vember, 1820, a special session of the New 
 York Legislature was convened. Both 
 branches were Democratic ; the flow of 
 popular opinion was for the government 
 of all by all. At once a bill was matured, 
 and passed the two branches of the Legis- 
 lature, for calling together an unrestricted 
 convention of the people. The Council of 
 Revision was divided, and Governor Clin- 
 ton, to universal surprise, negatived the 
 bill. At the regular session in the follow- 
 ing January the question was reviewed 
 under the swelling impulse of a decided 
 popular will, and a law was enacted re- 
 quiring that the question of calling a con- 
 stituent convention should, at the election 
 of April, 1 82 1, be laid before the people 
 for their decision. If the people concurred 
 
New York in Convention : 182 1. 65 
 
 with the Legislature, delegates to a con- 
 stituent convention should be elected in 
 June of that year, and the meeting of the 
 convention should take place in the follow- 
 ing August. 
 
 At the polls in April the people, with 
 great unanimity, proclaimed their desire 
 for a convention, to which the members 
 should be elected by a greatly enlarged 
 constituency. 
 
 In June, the men charged to lay anew 
 the political edifice of New York were chos- 
 en. The county of Albany, in which Van 
 Buren then resided, was of the so-called 
 Federal party, and elected his political op- 
 ponents, Kent, Spencer, Van Rensselaer, 
 and Van Vechten. But the Democracy 
 of Otsego County, as they afterwards af- 
 firmed with pride and gratitude, confiding 
 in his fidelity to principle, without any 
 previous communication, direct or indirect, 
 selected Martin Van Buren, though a resi- 
 dent of another and remote county, and 
 
66 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 personally unknown to them, to represent 
 them in the convention. 
 
 On the twenty-eighth day of August the 
 great assembly came together, charged to 
 decide for New York, with the consent of 
 the people, the persons who were to partic- 
 ipate in the sovereignty and how it should 
 be exercised. The talent assembled in the 
 convention corresponded with the impor- 
 tance of the problems which it was to 
 solve. There were Kent, then Chancellor 
 of the State, Spencer, the Chief-justice, and 
 Van Ness and Piatt, Associate Justices 
 of the Supreme Court, with General Van 
 Rensselaer, Abraham Van Vechten, Elisha 
 Williams, and others, commissioned to im- 
 pede the onward movement to a govern- 
 ment of all men by all men. There, too, 
 were sent by the Republican party. Van 
 Buren, Tompkins, Samuel Young, and 
 many others of like vigor ; and some who 
 in later times fainted by the way. Tomp- 
 kins being elected president, the topics for 
 
New York in Convention : 1821. 67 
 
 consideration were at once assigned to ap- 
 propriate committees. 
 
 The chief purpose of the convention was 
 the reformation of the franchise, to which 
 Van Buren had ah-eady directed pubUc at- 
 tention. Presiding at a festival in Albany, 
 on the fourth day of July, 182 1, he had 
 given as the leading sentiment for the day, 
 " The elective franchise : Existing restric- 
 tions have proved to be as impolitic as they 
 are unjust; it is the office of wisdom to 
 correct what experience condemns." But 
 it behooved him to move warily. The 
 State of New York had for many years 
 oscillated between the two great parties. 
 At that moment the Democratic party was 
 in the ascendent, and Van Buren saw him- 
 self in the convention surrounded by a great 
 majority of his friends ; but still the political 
 character of the majority of the people was 
 uncertain. From the first moment of the 
 assembling of the convention his mind was 
 full of solicitude for the result. " If," said 
 
68 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 he, " we would effect those wise and salu- 
 tary amendments which the public voice 
 and the public interest demand, we should 
 beware of vibrating to extremes." This was 
 his counsel given in the first great debate, 
 and adhered to throughout the session. On 
 various occasions he directed attention to 
 the feuds and bitter controversies which 
 would inevitably grow out of the loss of the 
 amendments to be adopted by the conven- 
 tion. 
 
 The first earnest discussion related to the 
 veto power which the New York Constitu- 
 tion of 1777 conferred on the majority in a 
 council of revision, composed of the Gov- 
 ernor, the Chancellor, and the Judges of the 
 Supreme Court. Thus the veto resided es- 
 sentially in the permanent judiciary, who 
 were irresponsible to the people for its use. 
 That there should exist a veto power on the 
 Legislature is the true theory of govern- 
 ment by the people, which makes the exec- 
 utive dependent on the people for its exist- 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 69 
 
 ence and its continuance, and in its own 
 behalf intrusts to that executive a tribuni- 
 tial power to arrest acts of legislation that 
 spring from precipitancy, corruption, or ill 
 judgment. The veto, thus conferred, can 
 but bring its appeal solemnly before the tri- 
 bunal of the whole people, presenting for its 
 decision a question between the Legislature 
 which may represent a combination of local 
 interests, and the executive which repre- 
 sents the whole. 
 
 In the course of an argument marked by 
 manliness and good-sense Van Buren justly 
 observes : "Legislative bodies are subject 
 to passions, and sometimes to improper in- 
 fluence. Their acts are frequently so detri- 
 mental to the public interest that the united 
 voice of the people calls for their repeal ;" 
 hence " the necessity of a controlling power. 
 What is the consequence of requiring two- 
 thirds of the Legislature to pass a bill which 
 may have been returned ? It may prevent 
 the passage of a bad law, but never can de- 
 
yo Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 feat a good one. If a good law be returned 
 with objections, it will at the next election 
 come before the people; they will pronounce 
 upon it, and return a representative who will 
 insist upon its passage. If it be a bad one, 
 the revising power will be justified. An in- 
 stance of the abuse of power, thus confided, 
 has never existed where it did not defeat 
 the very object for which it was abused. . . . 
 The legislative department is by far the 
 strongest, and is constantly inclined to en- 
 croach upon the weaker branches of gov- 
 ernment and upon individual rights. ... I 
 object to the Council of Revision as being 
 composed of the judiciary, who are not di- 
 rectly responsible to the people ; I object to 
 it because it inevitably connects the judici- 
 ary with the intrigues and collisions of party 
 strife ; because it tends to make our judges 
 politicians. . . . The community expect an 
 alteration of the legislative check, but not 
 an abandonment of the principle." 
 
 The veto power, thus supported, was 
 
Nezc York in Convention : 182 1. 7 1 
 
 adopted by an immense majority. Upon 
 this increase of the power of the Executive, 
 Van Buren immediately demanded an in- 
 crease of his responsibility to the people. 
 " We have given him," said he, " the exclu- 
 sive vote. As we increase the power of 
 the Governor, we should also increase his 
 responsibility. We should bring him more 
 frequently before the people. In the exer- 
 cise of the veto, which will only take place 
 on important occasions, he will be support- 
 ed, if he shall have acted manifestly for the 
 public good. As we have vastly increased 
 the power of the Executive, I concur in 
 the desire to abridge his term. But how 
 abridge it t We wish the people to have 
 an opportunity of testing their governor's 
 conduct, not by the feelings of tempora- 
 ry excitement, but by that sober second 
 thought which is never wrong." And 
 against triennial and annual elections he 
 argued successfully for the term of two 
 years. 
 
72 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 The old Council of Revision, composed 
 of the Supreme Judges and the Chancellor, 
 had negatived the first bill for this conven- 
 tion ; four or five men could ill resist the 
 people, and the convention was resolved 
 upon removing them from office. The gen- 
 erous nature of Van Buren was satisfied 
 with taking from the judges the veto on 
 legislative power. He pleaded against 
 ejecting them from office. He pleaded 
 that there existed no public reasons for the 
 measure. 
 
 " Why, then, are we to adopt it 1 Cer- 
 tainly not from personal feelings. If per- 
 sonal feelings could or ought to influence 
 us against the individual who would prob- 
 ably be most affected by the adoption of 
 this amendment" (the reference was to 
 William W. Van Ness), " I, above all others, 
 should be excused for indulging them. 
 Through my whole life I have been assail- 
 ed from that quarter with hostility— polit- 
 ical, professional, and personal ; hostility 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. y^ 
 
 which has been the most keen, active, and 
 unyielding. But, sir, am I to avail myself 
 of my situation as a representative of the 
 people, sent here to make a constitution 
 for them and their posterity, to indulge my 
 individual resentments in the prostration 
 of my private and political adversary? I 
 trust it is unnecessary for me to say that I 
 should forever despise myself if I could be 
 capable of such conduct." 
 
 This freedom from passion won a tem- 
 porary triumph over the opinion of the 
 Assembly ; on that day the opinion of Van 
 Buren was sustained by a large majority ; 
 nor were the judges displaced till the entire 
 reorganization of the system. 
 
 Another important subject on which the 
 convention was called to act was the Coun- 
 cil of Appointment. By the old system, 
 the Assembly elected from the Senate a 
 council of appointment ; in the hands of 
 this council and the Governor all the ap- 
 pointing power was centralized. Against 
 
74 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 this mighty engine of party centralization 
 Van Buren brought in a report, opposing 
 its renewal and every substitute for it. He 
 desired to transfer the appointing power, 
 in a great part, directly to the people, and 
 to leave the nomination of justices of the 
 peace to officers in the respective counties. 
 On the inquiry whether sheriffs and jus- 
 tices of the peace might be directly elected 
 by the people. Van Buren doubted. 
 
 " We do not deny," said he, " the com- 
 petency of the people to make a proper 
 choice. This argument has been unfairly 
 and untruly stated. Those who oppose the 
 election of justices, do not do so because 
 they have any distrust of the people ; but 
 the officer elected would of necessity be ac- 
 quainted with all who opposed and all who 
 supported him. This would more or less 
 bias his mind in favor of those to whom he 
 owed his election ; and even if it did not, 
 it would excite jealousy and suspicion of 
 unfairness prejudicial to the public peace." 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 75 
 
 The views of Van Buren were, for the 
 most part, adopted ; the convention pro- 
 vided for the election of sheriffs by the peo- 
 ple ; but the appointment of justices of the 
 peace was lodged for a time with the super- 
 visors and county courts. A later amend- 
 ment secured to the people of the several 
 towns the immediate election of their own 
 masiistrates. 
 
 On political influence to be derived from 
 the appointing power itself, few public men 
 have relied so little as Van Buren. During 
 the period when one of his warmest friends 
 held the office of governor for more terms 
 than one, I have the authority of that friend 
 for saying that he never once made an 
 application to him on the subject of appoint- 
 ments. His opinion was ever that patron- 
 age should as little as possible be concen- 
 trated at the seat of government, whether 
 in the State or Nation ; and referring to his 
 conduct in the New York Convention, he, at 
 a later day, in a letter to a convention in 
 
76 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 Indiana, renewed the expression of his opin- 
 ion. " When we cannot dispense with the 
 offices,'' he writes, "we must distribute as 
 widely as possible the power of appointing 
 to them. It is wise to reserve the selection 
 of public officers, as far as is practicable 
 and convenient, to the people themselves." 
 
 On the nineteenth day of September the 
 convention entered upon the reform of the 
 elective franchise. For this end the Repub- 
 lican party of New York had desired the 
 call of the convention ; for this end the 
 Democratic farmers of Otsego had adopted 
 Van Buren as their representative in that 
 body; for this end Van Buren, at Albany, 
 on the 4th of July, had sounded the key- 
 note for those who demanded a govern- 
 ment of all by all. 
 
 At that time more than one-half of the 
 inhabitants of New York were excluded 
 from full suffrage, and the popular mind 
 demanded its extension ; yet in electing the 
 members of the convention, no one district 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 77 
 
 demanded from its candidate a pledge to 
 support the introduction of absolute univer- 
 sal suffrage. That subject was further em- 
 barrassed by the fact that slavery had not 
 as yet wholly disappeared from the State 
 of New York ; that the process of emanci- 
 pation was going forward under a general 
 law ; and that of colored people in the 
 State there were about fifty thousand, of 
 whom many were but just emerging from 
 slavery. 
 
 The report from the Committee on Suf- 
 frage, as modified by the first vote of the 
 convention, proposed to abolish the prop- 
 erty qualification, and, after six months' 
 residence, to confer the right of voting on 
 every man who paid a tax, or served in the 
 militia, or worked on the highway. "The 
 scheme," said Sanford, " will embrace almost 
 the whole male population of the State." 
 None knew better than Van Buren how 
 much opposition this radical measure would 
 meet, alike within the convention and with- 
 
78 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 out it; and he watched the issue with ap- 
 prehension. 
 
 Stephen Van Rensselaer, one of the com- 
 mittee on the elective franchise, a moderate 
 Federalist and most estimable man, dissent- 
 ed from the report, desiring to confine the 
 suffrage to tax-payers who had been longer 
 resident in the State. 
 
 James Fairlie, another of the committee, 
 though a Republican, likewise dissented, 
 and was unwilling to extend the right of 
 suffrage to service in the militia and work 
 on the roads. 
 
 Ambrose Spencer spoke vehemently in 
 opposition to the report ; he would not ex- 
 tend the franchise to " those who work in 
 factories, and are employed by wealthy in- 
 dividuals in the capacity of laborers. Un- 
 der the notion that there is a call for ex- 
 tending the right of suffrage, this report 
 goes to the most extravagant length." 
 
 Erastus Root objected to the report : 
 " There is danger of extending the right of 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 79 
 
 suffrage too far;" and moved the restriction 
 which, on a subsequent day, he defended. 
 " I do not desire," said he, " any strolling 
 voters nor any broomstick voters. I only 
 want those who may contribute to the de- 
 fence of the country. They should be arm- 
 ed and equipped according to law, before 
 they should be privileged to vote. . . . Those 
 excluded will be a very small proportion, 
 and not of the description of people who 
 are of any value." 
 
 The opponents of abolishing freehold re- 
 strictions took encouragement ; and on the 
 2 2d of September, Ambrose Spencer, in di- 
 rect antagonism to Van Buren, proposed by 
 an amendment to retain, in the election of 
 the Senate, the old property distinction. 
 " The sober sense of the community," he 
 insisted, had not demanded " deep and dan- 
 gerous innovation." "Are we jealous," con- 
 tinued he, " of property, that we should leave 
 it unprotected ? To the beneficence and 
 liberality of those who have property we 
 
8o Life of Martin Van Bur en. 
 
 owe all the embellishments and the com- 
 forts and blessings of life. Who build our 
 churches ? Who erect our hospitals ? Who 
 raise our school-houses ? Those who have 
 property. And are they not entitled to the 
 regard and fostering protection of our laws 
 and Constitution ? . . . Let us take care, 
 whilst we nominally give the right of voting 
 to a particular description of our citizens, 
 that we do not in reality give it to their em- 
 ployers. The man who feeds, clothes, and 
 lodges another has a real and absolute con- 
 trol over his will. Say what we may, the 
 man who is dependent upon another for his 
 subsistence is not an independent man, and 
 he will vote in subservience to his dictation." 
 
 The debate continued through several 
 days. 
 
 James Kent, the venerable chancellor, 
 lent the influence of his endowments, his 
 weight of character, and the personal quali- 
 ties which made him the delight of private 
 life, to the side of restriction. " The Sen- 
 
New York in Convention : 182 1. 8 1 
 
 ate," said he, " should continue, as hereto- 
 fore, the representative of the landed inter- 
 est, and exempted from the control of uni- 
 versal suffrage. ... By the report before us, 
 we propose to annihilate at one stroke all 
 those property distinctions, and to bovi^ be- 
 fore the idol of universal suffrage. That 
 extreme democratic principle, when applied 
 to the legislative and executive departments 
 of government, has been regarded with ter- 
 ror by the wise men of every age. ... If we 
 are like other races of men, with similar 
 follies and vices, then I greatly fear that our 
 posterity will have reason to deplore in 
 sackcloth and ashes the delusion of the 
 day. ... I wish to preserve our Senate as 
 the representative of the landed interest. . . . 
 I wish them to be always enabled to say that 
 their freeholders cannot be taxed without 
 their consent. . . . The apprehended danger 
 from the experiment of universal suffrage, 
 applied to the whole legislative department, 
 is no dream of the imagination ; it is too 
 6 
 
82 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 mighty an excitement for the moral consti- 
 tution of men to endure. The tendency of 
 universal suffrage is to jeopard the rights of 
 property and the principles of liberty. . . . 
 The growth of the city of New York is 
 enough to startle and awaken those who are 
 pursuing the ignis fatuus of universal suf- 
 frage. . . . We are destined to become a 
 great manufacturing as well as commercial 
 State. We have already numerous and 
 prosperous factories of one kind or anoth- 
 er; and one master-capitalist, with his one 
 hundred apprentices and journeymen and 
 agents and dependants, will bear down at 
 the polls an equal number of farmers of 
 small estates in his vicinity, who cannot 
 safely unite for their common defence. 
 Large manufacturing and mechanical estab- 
 lishments can act in an instant, with the 
 unity and efificacy of disciplined troops. It 
 is against such combinations, among others, 
 that I think we ought to give to the free- 
 holders, or those who have interest in land, 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 83 
 
 one branch of the Legislature for their asy- 
 lum and their comfort. Universal suffrage, 
 once granted, can never be recalled. There 
 is no retrograde step in the rear of democ- 
 racy. However mischievous the precedent 
 may be in its consequences, or however fa- 
 tal in its effects, universal suffrage never can 
 be recalled or checked but by the strength 
 of the bayonet. We stand, therefore, at this 
 moment on the brink of fate, on the very 
 edge of the precipice. If we let go our 
 present hold on the Senate, we commit our 
 proudest hopes and our most precious in- 
 terests to the waves." 
 
 Van Vechten argued that property must 
 be privileged, or it never would be secure. 
 
 Tompkins, the Democratic president of 
 the convention, replied : " Property, when 
 compared with our other essential rights, is 
 insignificant and trifling. Life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness, not of property, 
 are set forth in the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence as cardinal objects. . . . How was 
 
84 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the late war sustained? Who filled the 
 ranks of your armies ? Not the priesthood, 
 not the men of wealth, not the speculators. 
 The former were preaching sedition, and 
 the latter decrying the credit of the Govern- 
 ment to fatten on its spoil. And yet the 
 very men who were led on to battle had no 
 vote to give for their commander-in-chief. . . . 
 We give to property too much influence. It 
 is not that which mostly gives independence. 
 Independence consists more in the structure 
 of the mind and in the qualities of the heart. 
 We should look to the protection of him 
 who has personal security and personal lib- 
 erty at stake." 
 
 Elisha Williams, in a long speech, ad- 
 vocated the property qualification. "And 
 who are these people," he demanded, " who 
 are to aid the freeholders in electing their 
 Senate ? . . . Sir, they are the ring-streaked 
 and speckled population of our large towns 
 and cities, comprising people of every kin- 
 dred and tongue. They bring with them 
 
Nczo York ill Convention: 182 1. 85 
 
 the habits, vices, political creeds, and nation- 
 alities of every section of the globe; they 
 have fled from oppression, if you please, and 
 have habitually regarded sovereignty and 
 tyranny as identified ; they are men whose 
 wants, if not whose vices, have sent them 
 from other States and countries, to seek 
 bread by service, if not by plunder ; whose 
 means and habits, whose best kind of am- 
 bition, and only sort of industry, all forbid 
 their purchasing in the country and tiUing 
 the soil." 
 
 The 25th of September was the memora- 
 ble day on which the essential question of 
 free suffrage was to be decided. On that 
 morning Van Buren rose to speak for the 
 government of all by all. The whole as- 
 sembly listened intently, and the gravity of 
 a subject which affected the rights of more 
 than half the men of New York gave so- 
 lemnity to the scene. 
 
 His first words were employed to allay 
 the panic which it had been attempted to 
 
86 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 raise. He paid a just tribute "to the known 
 candor and purity of character " of Chancel- 
 lor Kent, but calmly put aside his unfound- 
 ed fears and apprehensions. " If a stranger," 
 said Van Buren, " had heard the discussions 
 on this subject, and had been unacquainted 
 with the character of our people, and the 
 character and standing of those who find it 
 their duty to oppose this measure, he might 
 well have supposed that we were on the 
 point of prostrating with lawless violence 
 one of the fairest and firmest pillars of the 
 Government." 
 
 Appealing to the institutions of other 
 States, especially of New England and Ohio, 
 he proved the security of industry and prop- 
 erty, of civil and of religious liberty, without 
 freehold representation. 
 
 He next treated the question as it affect- 
 ed property and as it affected freedom. The 
 personal property in the State which was 
 the subject of taxation was about one hun- 
 dred and fifty millions of dollars; the real 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 87 
 
 estate was valued at two hundred and fifty- 
 six millions. Would the advocates for a 
 representation of property exclude their per- 
 sonal property from representation in the 
 Senate ? 
 
 " By the census of 1814," he continued, 
 " it appeared that of one hundred and sixty- 
 three thousand electors, seventy-five thou- 
 sand are freeholders under two hundred and 
 fifty dollars, and all of them householders. . . . 
 Shall this class of men, composed of mechan- 
 ics, professional men, and small land-holders, 
 be excluded entirely from all representation 
 in that branch of the Legislature which has 
 equal power to originate all bills, a negative 
 on all laws, and, as a court of last resort, is 
 intrusted with the life, liberty, and property 
 of every one of our citizens } This is the 
 grievance under which so great a portion of 
 the people of this State have hitherto la- 
 bored. It is to relieve them from this in- 
 justice and this oppression that the conven- 
 tion has been called. 
 
88 Life of Martin Van Bur en. 
 
 " There are two words which came into 
 common use with our Revolutionary strug- 
 gle ; words which contain an abridgment 
 of our political rights ; words which, at the 
 day, had a talismanic effect; which led our 
 fathers from the bosom of their families to 
 the tented field; which, for seven long years 
 of toil and suffering, kept them to their 
 arms, and finally conducted them to a glo- 
 rious triumph. They are, taxation and rep- 
 resentation. Nor did they lose their influ- 
 ence with the close of that struggle. They 
 are never heard in our halls of legislation 
 without bringing to our recollections the 
 consecrated feelings of those who won our 
 liberties. 
 
 " Apply for a moment the principles they 
 inculcate to the question under considera- 
 tion. Are those of your citizens represent- 
 ed whose voices are never heard in your 
 Senate ? Are those citizens in any degree 
 represented or heard in the formation of 
 your courts of justice, from the highest to 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 89 
 
 the lowest ? Is, then, representation in one 
 branch of the Legislature, which by itself can 
 do nothing, anything more than a shadow? 
 Is it not emphatically keeping the word 
 of promise to the ear and breaking it to 
 the hope ? Is it not even less than the virt- 
 ual representation with which our fathers 
 were attempted to be appeased by their 
 oppressors ? It is even so ; and if so, can 
 we, as long as this distinction is retained, 
 hold up our heads, and, without blushing, 
 pretend to be the advocates for that special 
 canon of political rights, that taxation and 
 representation are, and ever should be, in- 
 dissoluble ? I think not. 
 
 " In whose name and for whose benefit 
 are we called upon to disappoint the just 
 expectations of our constituents, and to 
 persevere in what I cannot but regard as a 
 violation of principle ? In the name and for 
 the security of farmers ! This is, indeed, 
 acting in an imposing name, and they who 
 use it know full well that it is so ! It is 
 
go Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the boast, the pride, and the security of this 
 nation that she has in her bosom a body 
 of men who, for sobriety, integrity, indus- 
 try, and patriotism, are unequalled by the 
 cultivators of the earth in any other part 
 of the known world. Nay, more : to com- 
 pare them with men of similar pursuits in 
 other countries is to degrade them. And 
 woful must be our degeneracy before any- 
 thing which may be supposed to affect the 
 interests of the farmers of this country can 
 be listened to with indifference by those 
 who govern us. 
 
 " I yield to no man in respect for this 
 invaluable class of our citizens, or in zeal 
 for their support ; but is the allegation that 
 we are violating the wishes and tampering 
 with the security of the farmers founded in 
 fact? Who have hitherto constituted the 
 majority of the voters of the State .? The 
 farmers. Who called for and insisted upon 
 the convention .? Farmers and freeholders. 
 Who passed the law admitting those who 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 91 
 
 were, not electors to a free participation in 
 the decision of the question of convention 
 or no convention ? and also in the choice 
 of delegates to this body ? A Legislature 
 a majority of whom were farmers, and prob- 
 ably every one of them freeholders of the 
 value of two hundred and fifty dollars and 
 upwards ! The farmers of this State have, by 
 an overwhelming majority, admitted those 
 who were not freeholders to a full partici- 
 pation with themselves in every stage of 
 this great effort to amend our Constitution 
 and to ameliorate the condition of the peo- 
 ple. Ought I, then, to be told that they 
 will be disappointed in their expectations 
 when they find that, by the provisions of 
 the Constitution, as amended, a great pro- 
 portion of their fellow-citizens are enfran- 
 chised and released from fetters which they 
 themselves had done all in their power to 
 loosen ? I do not believe it. 
 
 " The farmers look for such an event. 
 They earnestly desire it. Whatever rav- 
 
92 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 ages the possession of power may have 
 made in the breasts of others, the farmers, 
 at least, have shown that they can feel 
 power without forgetting right. If anything 
 can render this invaluable class of men 
 dearer and more estimable than they were, 
 it is this magnanimous sacrifice which they 
 make on the altar of principle, by consent- 
 ing to admit their fellow-citizens, not so 
 highly favored as themselves by fortune, to 
 an equal participation in the blessings of a 
 free government." 
 
 Turning from freeholders, he next ad- 
 dressed himself to " the men of property," 
 and, expressing his determination neither 
 to hamper the rich nor tread upon the 
 poor, he dropped the distinction made be- 
 tween real and personal estate, and pro- 
 ceeded to demonstrate that the proposed 
 restriction on suffrage offered no new se- 
 curity to property; that the principles of 
 order and good government in the people, 
 and the sense in legislators of their imme- 
 
New York in Convention : 182 1. 93 
 
 diate responsibility to the people, are the 
 securities against agrarian laws, extrava- 
 gance, and unequal taxation ; that every 
 effort at procuring a representation of in- 
 dividual property, or of the property of sec- 
 tions of the State, has been, and from the 
 nature of the case ever will be, delusive. 
 
 To the argument derived from precedent 
 and the theoretic opinion of the men of 
 the Revolution, he replied that Constitutions 
 develop themselves with the growing opin- 
 ion of a nation, as a tree shapes itself from 
 its inherent life. " A full and perfect ex- 
 perience has proved the fallacy of the fear- 
 ful forebodings of the patriots who made 
 our Constitution ; and we are now called 
 upon to adopt the exploded notion, and on 
 that ground to disfranchise nearly a moie- 
 ty, if not a majority, of our citizens." In 
 the spirit of hope he alluded to the fears 
 which hung round the venerable Franklin, 
 the lamented Hamilton, and even Madison 
 — fears of which experience has proved the 
 
94 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 fallacy. " Having the records of experi- 
 ence before me," he continued, " I will be 
 governed by them." 
 
 After demonstrating that the attempted 
 representation of property in the Senate 
 vi^ould be delusive, he proved that " sound 
 policy dictated the abandonment of it by 
 the possessors of property themselves." 
 
 Williams, of Columbia, who had insulted 
 the name of Jefferson, he rebuked for re- 
 taining prejudices that seemed immortal, 
 against " the man who had done his coun- 
 try the greatest service, and who at that 
 moment occupied more space in the public 
 mind than any other private citizen in the 
 world." 
 
 Chief-justice Spencer, who pleaded for 
 disfranchising persons employed in manu- 
 factories, because they would be influenced 
 by their employers, he caught on the horns 
 of this dilemma : " If they are so influenced, 
 they will be enlisted on the side of proper- 
 ty which you propose to promote ; if they 
 
New York in Convention : 182 1, 95 
 
 are independent of their employers, they 
 will be safe depositaries of the right." 
 
 And as the same speaker had foreboded, 
 from an extended suffrage, the introduc- 
 tion into America of the corruption of rot- 
 ten boroughs. Van Buren answered, " The 
 cause of those corruptions is this : the rep- 
 resentation of Great Britain is a representa- 
 tion of territory, and not of men." 
 
 To Chancellor Kent his words were : " If 
 I could possibly believe that from an ex- 
 tended suffrage there could result any por- 
 tion of the calamitous consequences which 
 have been so feelingly portrayed, I would 
 be the last man in society to vote for it. 
 But believing, as I conscientiously do, that 
 those fears are altogether unfounded, hop- 
 ing and expecting the happiest results from 
 the abolition of the freehold qualification, 
 and hoping, too, that caution and circum- 
 spection will preside over the settlement of 
 the general right of suffrage which is here- 
 after to be made, and knowing, besides. 
 
96 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 that this State, in aboHshing the freehold 
 quahfications, will be but uniting herself in 
 the march of principle which has already- 
 prevailed in every State of the Union, ex- 
 cept two or three, including the royal char- 
 ter of Rhode Island, I shall cheerfully re- 
 cord my vote against the amendment." 
 
 It is related by Hammond, the historian 
 of New York, that " the speech of Van Bu- 
 ren was greatly superior to any other which 
 was made on that vitally important ques- 
 tion ; it was a dignified, philosophical, states- 
 manlike view of the subject ; logical and 
 eloquent." " Had this been the only public 
 service of Van Buren," adds the same his- 
 torian, " this single argument would have 
 entitled him to take rank among the most 
 shining orators and able statesmen of the 
 age." I have been assured by those who 
 well recollect the circumstances, that the 
 effect of this powerful and well-reasoned 
 speech upon the convention was conceived 
 to be decisive of the question ; yet Van 
 
New York in Convention : 182 1. 97 
 
 Ness rose, and in the course of his remarks 
 spoke as follows : " What is the character 
 of the poor ? Generally speaking, vice and 
 poverty go hand in hand. By an irresisti- 
 ble decree of Providence, it is pronounced, 
 'The poor ye have always with you'; peo- 
 ple who have no interest in your institu- 
 tions, no fixedness of habitation, no proper- 
 ty to defend ;" and he insisted on limiting 
 the franchise to freeholders. 
 
 " The poor!" retorted Samuel Young; "I 
 say, and that, too, with emphasis, that they 
 ought not to be excluded. They are the 
 soundest, the most honest, and most incor- 
 ruptible part of your population." 
 
 The vote was taken. Van Buren found 
 himself, on that happy day, one of a hun- 
 dred, while his adversaries counted but 
 nineteen. Well has it been said, Peace has 
 its victories. The progress of civilization 
 is fast diminishing the frequency of wars ; 
 the harvest of glory is now to be gathered 
 on the battle-field of thought ; and when, 
 
 7 
 
98 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 1 
 within the great central State, has a might- 
 ier battle been fought or a more momen- 
 tous victory won, than on the day which 
 saw the freeholders of the State of New 
 York abdicate their privilege with hearty 
 good-will, and the full, undivided sovereign- 
 ty was transferred from the territory of 
 New York to its men ? 
 
 The consequences of this example are 
 not yet fully developed. New York City 
 has risen to be one of the three most opu- 
 lent and populous cities on the globe ; and 
 the interior of the State has developed such 
 greatness that few of the States in the 
 cultivated world surpass her in resources. 
 Her population increases ; schools and col- 
 leges are fostered ; highways, railroads, and 
 canals intersect the country ; public credit 
 is sacredly maintained ; a river turned from 
 its source assists to supply her chief city 
 with water ; a humane system of prison dis- 
 cipline has made her the teacher of kings 
 and nations ; the spirit of philanthropy soft- 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 99 
 
 ens the old penal code. Her ships go 
 round the world ; and wherever they go 
 they carry evidence of the safety of proper- 
 ty, the increase of wealth, the security of 
 rights, the multiplication of comforts, the 
 diffusion of happiness, the progress of let- 
 ters. And when the nations gaze with as- 
 tonishment, and ask under what institution 
 men have been quickened to achieve these 
 results, New York answers with a voice 
 that every year is more and more listened 
 to through the world, that they are due to 
 the all- pervading genius of universal suf- 
 frage. 
 
 Immediately after the decision of the con- 
 vention against a property qualification for 
 the exercise of the suffrage, a seemingly 
 strange result followed. No mode of de- 
 feating free suffrage remained, except by 
 giving to the amendments a character which 
 should offend the people. Columbia Coun- 
 ty had sent to the convention William W. 
 Van Ness and Elisha Williams, the former 
 
lOO Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 then a judge of the Supreme Court, and the 
 other an eminent lawyer — two of the ablest 
 men of the State. They represented Van 
 Buren's native county in that body, and had 
 been from his youth his competitors and 
 rivals in every form. No two members of 
 the convention were more bitterly hostile 
 to every extension of the suffrage. But of 
 a sudden they and others, who, with them, 
 had vehemently sustained the freehold qual- 
 ification of the voter, urged the convention 
 in debate, though not by their votes, to go 
 to the extreme on the other side ; and when 
 New York was just abolishing slavery. Judge 
 Van Ness favored a motion that would give 
 the right of voting to all residents of three 
 years, without distinction of color, even to 
 the slave on the moment of his emancipa- 
 tion. The number of negro votes that would 
 have thus been created was computed at 
 many thousands. Van Buren, who knew 
 most thoroughly the character and opinions 
 of his antagonists, grew more cautious than 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. loi 
 
 ever. " He believed," writes Hammond, 
 " that Mr. Williams and the gentleman with 
 whom Mr. Williams acted were desirous of 
 defeating all alterations in the Constitution, 
 and he suspected that their object was to 
 encourage General Root and his friends to 
 push their notions of enlarging the right of 
 suffrage to such an extent as would induce 
 the people to condemn the whole of the pro- 
 ceedings of the convention. Was there not 
 danger," adds the same disinterested wit- 
 ness, " that by a union of action of the ul- 
 tras of both parties, a result might be pro- 
 duced of which the people at that time 
 would not approve ?" Van Burdn put the 
 convention on their guard against such " a 
 course of action." '' The gentleman from 
 Columbia," said he, referring to Elisha Will- 
 iams, and giving warning to the convention, 
 " is not perhaps so much interested in the 
 amendment as myself, since that gentleman 
 expressed a belief, a few days ago, that we 
 have already made the Constitution worse ; 
 
I02 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 and he probably would not regret to see us 
 go so far as to have all the amendments re- 
 jected by the people." And while he advo- 
 cated an easy and simple method by which 
 future amendments could be made, he 
 avowed himself satisfied with what was cer- 
 tainly gained, and was willing, for the time, 
 if by such forbearance he could concili- 
 ate unanimity, to extend the franchise no 
 further than to all who paid any tax, how- 
 ever small, or performed military service, 
 or, being householders, had worked on the 
 highway. He would not consent to bestow 
 suffrage " on every one, black or white " ; 
 and in the debate on the amendment which 
 gave the right of voting to all residents, 
 including the numerous negro population. 
 Van Buren spoke against such extension. 
 " We are hazarding everything," were his 
 words,- " by going to such lengths in the 
 amendments. The people will never sanc- 
 tion them." 
 
 The convention, finding itself embar- 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 103 
 
 rassed in its opinions, referred the whole 
 subject to a select committee of thirteen, 
 and Samuel Young, as its chairman, soon 
 made a report. 
 
 To the black man the committee extend- 
 ed the suffrage if he possessed a freehold 
 of the clear value of two hundred and fifty 
 dollars ; otherwise he was exempted from 
 taxation and had no vote. Kent was un- 
 willing to see the blacks disfranchised, and 
 the door eternally barred against them. 
 " The proviso," said he, though for another 
 cause he voted against it, " will not cut them 
 off from all hope. . . . The prospect of par- 
 ticipating in the right of suffrage will have 
 a tendency to make them industrious and 
 frugal." Van Buren gave his support to the 
 restriction on negro suffrage. " I voted," 
 said he, " against a total and unqualified 
 exclusion ; for I would not draw a revenue 
 from them, and yet deny to them the right 
 of suffrage. But this proviso meets my ap- 
 probation. It exempts them from taxation 
 
I04 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 until they have qualified themselves to vote, 
 and holds out inducements to industry." 
 " The proviso," said Young, " is the result 
 of compromise. ... If it is rejected, I shall 
 move to exclude the blacks altogether." 
 The proviso was sustained by a great ma- 
 jority v\^ithin the convention, and quieted 
 agitation throughout the State. 
 
 Little difificulty remained in establishing 
 the right of suffrage for the whites. The 
 qualification of military service, omitted by 
 the committee, was supported by Van Bu- 
 ren, and prevailed. An effort was made 
 by Jacob R. Van Rensselaer, of Columbia 
 County, to require from a voter the pos- 
 session of property, real and personal, to 
 the amount of fifty dollars. He wished 
 " to exclude those who ma): feel, perhaps, 
 too strong a desire to violate private rights 
 for the justification of their cupidity." 
 
 Up rose Olney Briggs, a plain and up- 
 right patriot from Schoharie. "We have 
 come," said he, " to universal suffrage, sir. 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 105 
 
 and I want we should fix it in the face of 
 the instrument, sir. Gentlemen wish to get 
 away from it ; they endeavor to evade it, 
 sir. This distinction will help to weaken 
 the breach. When we get to such a popu- 
 lation as the gentlemen have described, our 
 Constitution will be good for nothing, sir. 
 We must carry the strong arm of the law 
 to the cradle, sir, and let the rising genera- 
 tion know that we have established the 
 principle of universal suffrage, sir, that they 
 may prepare themselves accordingly, and 
 qualify themselves to live under it, sir." 
 
 Van Buren, Fairlie, and others, spoke on 
 the same side, but not at length; they said 
 that " the question had been fully settled 
 several days ago," and Van Rensselaer's 
 motion was promptly voted down. 
 
 Ezekiel Bacon, of Oneida, who was a 
 friend to freehold qualification, and had yet 
 afterwards voted to bestow the franchise on 
 all residents, except actual paupers, wheth- 
 er white or black, if twenty-one years of 
 
io6 Life of Martin Vmi Buren. 
 
 age, now opposed the highway qualification. 
 Van Buren, who, for conciliation, had at 
 first been willing to limit that qualification 
 to householders and had carried the con- 
 vention with him for that limitation, once 
 more exposed the former conduct of Bacon 
 and Van Ness, in vibrating from one extreme 
 to the other, and would now listen to no 
 compromise whatever. " Under all circum- 
 stances," said he, " I shall be well satisfied 
 with the right of suffrage as it will now be 
 established, and will give it my zealous sup- 
 port, as well in my capacity of delegate as 
 in that of citizen." And the Republican 
 party, with great unanimity, joined in ex- 
 tending the suffrage to every male citi- 
 zen of twenty-one years who had resided 
 within the State for one year, within the 
 county six months, and had paid a tax or 
 done military duty, or performed labor on 
 the highways. Four or five years after- 
 wards, with Van Buren's approbation, his 
 political friends, being a majority of the 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 107 
 
 people, made the vote still more simple, re- 
 quiring only residence. The amendments 
 proposed by the convention were adopted 
 by the people at the polls almost by accla- 
 mation. In one short year this momentous 
 revolution was conceived and consummated, 
 so warily as not to excite astonishment or 
 alarm, so thoroughly as to stand forth an 
 example to the human race. So frequently 
 are great things done in America for free- 
 dom, that we almost cease to applaud, even 
 where the highest benefits are conferred, 
 under the blessed influences of tranquillity 
 and law. 
 
 The enemies of all extension of suffrage, 
 nourishing their spleen by insulated words 
 taken down by a reporter who declared 
 Van Buren's utterance so rapid that it was 
 impossible to do him justice, have had the 
 nicest feelings of most sensitive regrets for 
 his good name as a Republican, because 
 he did not hazard everything by language 
 which might have generated alarm and 
 
io8 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 helped them in their attempt to defeat all 
 amendments. Nothing in his public career 
 so much endeared Van Buren to his party in 
 New York as his conduct in this convention. 
 Eighteen years afterwards he made a jour- 
 ney through the State, and William L. Mar- 
 cy, then its governor, recounted it publicly 
 among the causes " of the kind reception 
 which everywhere awaited him." At Bata- 
 via he was greeted with heartiest hospitality 
 for the various measures which he had pro- 
 posed and supported ; above all, for the meas- 
 ures which enfranchised " the great mass of 
 inhabitants of those western counties." 
 
 In Otsego, the county of his constituents, 
 thousands gathered around him to greet 
 his presence. " Of the most consequential 
 acts of your public life," said their appoint- 
 ed speaker, " one is too important to be 
 omitted. I refer to your support and ad- 
 vocacy of the principle of universal suffrage 
 in the convention which formed our pres- 
 ent Constitution." And amid cheers of 
 
New York in Convention: 182 1. 109 
 
 approbation from the assembled multitude, 
 in the name of the " rich, as well as of the 
 thousands of enfranchised poor," he tender- 
 ed the thanks. of all classes to their former 
 representative for his services in doing away 
 with " exclusive rights " and " abolishing a 
 distinction opposed to liberal principles." 
 
no Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 eight years in the senate of the united 
 states: 1821-1829. 
 
 On the sixth day of February, 1821, the 
 Democratic Legislature which initiated con- 
 stitutional reform in the State of New York 
 elected Van Buren to the Senate of the 
 United States. He took his seat in that 
 body, sustained by the confiding attachment 
 of his constituents. 
 
 The Government, under the apparent ex- 
 tinction of party spirit, had been verging 
 from the simplicity of republican policy. 
 The next eight years ripened the public 
 opinion which afterwards guided the admin- 
 istration of the country. In free govern- 
 ments the enlightened conviction of the 
 people is the source, the condition, and the 
 guarantee of permanency to just legisla- 
 
In the U. S. Senate : 1821-182^. 1 1 1 
 
 tion, and he that assists in forming a right 
 national opinion renders his country the 
 truest service. 
 
 On entering the Senate, Van Buren was 
 made a member of the Finance Committee, 
 as well as of the Committee on the Judici- 
 ary. Of the latter he was soon elected 
 chairman. He retained that post during 
 his service in Congress, and took a leading 
 part in all questions which involved the in- 
 terpretation of the Constitution. 
 
 At that time the strict construction of 
 the Constitution was giving way to arbi- 
 trary interpretation ; the subject of internal 
 improvements was the constant theme of 
 political discussion, and upon that question 
 hinged the politics of the country. The 
 opinion was openly and formally avowed, 
 that " it is unwise and impolitic for the Gov- 
 ernment to hasten the payment of the pub- 
 lic debt"; that "any surplus in the Treas- 
 ury would be more usefully employed in 
 the internal improvement of the country." 
 
1 1 2 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 To this impulse Monroe began to yield, 
 and a thinly settled Western territory look- 
 ed to the General Government for means 
 of communication with their old homes. 
 Friends of the Union favored grants to 
 promote domestic intercourse. The most 
 discreet of our retired statesmen watched 
 with lively interest the progress of national 
 roads and canals, and Madison, beholding 
 in them bonds of union, was fond of re- 
 marking that they "dovetailed the States." 
 The manufacturers and merchants required 
 lines of communication between the two 
 great oceans ; the farmers needed better 
 avenues to the great markets of the world ; 
 public opinion became impatient of consti- 
 tutional scruples and clamored for action. 
 
 The opportunity of winning the favor of 
 States tempted ambition, and schemes were 
 rapidly formed to thread the mountain pass- 
 es, to form lines of connection and internal 
 navigation from the ports on the Atlantic 
 coast. Nor were projects of grandeur and 
 
In the U. S. Senate : i82i-i82g. 1 1 3 
 
 truly national importance alone brought 
 forward. Whenever a canal was planned 
 the aid of the General Government was in- 
 voked ; and even turnpikes beginning and 
 ending within a State, under the notion that 
 they might be travelled upon by men pass- 
 ing through one State to another, were 
 claimed to have a national character, and a 
 right to solicit the General Government to 
 become a share-holder in the risks and prof- 
 its of their construction. Every grant was 
 sure to generate a brood of new demands ; 
 and members of Congress favored projects 
 which, from their number and extent, would 
 have required an outlay of hundreds of mill- 
 ions of dollars. 
 
 The vast expenditure in which this sys- 
 tem would have involved the nation was the 
 least objection to it. If the national Gov- 
 ernment should construct the roads and 
 canals throughout the Union, an excess of 
 centralized power would ensue; the freedom 
 of our States, which is the happiest achieve- 
 
114 ^^f^ of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 merit of modern civilization in the method 
 of government, would be crushed in central 
 confusion. But centralization is akin to 
 despotism. Within the State it is the free- 
 dom of the individual that makes possible 
 the government of all by all; vi^ithin the 
 federal system the individuality and free- 
 dom of each State can alone restrain the 
 General Government from the assumption 
 of arbitrary power. To confine the system 
 of internal improvements by the General 
 Government within the bounds of the Con- 
 stitution was therefore demanded of those 
 who desired and labored to insure the suc- 
 cess of the American experiment. 
 
 The assumption by the General Govern- 
 ment of a universal scheme of internal im- 
 provements would have corrupted our Con- 
 stitution in the very sources of its life. It 
 would have fastened upon us that brand of 
 monopoly, the restrictive system, and de- 
 layed infinitely the approximation to the ' 
 liberal commercial policy which springs nat- 
 
In the U. S. Senate : 1821-182^. 1 1 5 
 
 urally out of republican institutions, and 
 which America, from regard. to itself, inde- 
 pendent of all external influences, should 
 desire to establish. 
 
 It would have involved the country in new 
 debts, and so have entailed on it the financial 
 policy that belongs to public indebtment. 
 
 It would have opened opportunities for 
 lavish expenditures, corruption, and favor- 
 itism, and have increased public patronage 
 to an unbounded extent. 
 
 It would have diminished the power of 
 the people ; for the nearer a subject is kept 
 to the people, the more easily can it be con- 
 trolled ; but when the turnpike before the 
 farmer's door depends on Congress or the 
 Cabinet at Washington, the opportunity of 
 local supervision is lost. 
 
 The progress of this dangerous policy 
 was already exciting alarm, and even Jeffer- 
 son suffered his serene mind, though but 
 for a moment, to be clouded with gloomy 
 forebodings. 
 
ii6 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 Against this system Van Buren assisted 
 to form public opinion at the North. In 
 the Legislature of New York he had won 
 for himself honor as the advocate of inter- 
 nal improvements within his native State 
 by its own authority and resources. His 
 devotion to the cause of internal improve- 
 ments under their proper auspices singled 
 him out to lead debate, and to guide opin- 
 ion in favor of a strict construction of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 In January, 1824, Van Buren invoked the 
 attention of the Senate to the tendency of 
 the National Legislature, by its own con- 
 struction, to enlarge its powers over this 
 subject; he reviewed the conflict of opin- 
 ion between the executive and legislative 
 departments, and proposed amendments to 
 the Constitution, for the purpose of defin- 
 ing powers and setting an impassable bar- 
 rier to encroachments. 
 
 In December, 1825, he renewed the dis- 
 cussion, and proposed the resolution, " that 
 
In the U. S. Senate : iS2i~i83g, 117 
 
 Congress does not possess the power to 
 make roads and canals within the respec- 
 tive States ;" nor would he assent to the 
 exercise of any such power till it should be 
 defined by an amendment of the Constitu- 
 tion. His movement on this subject called 
 forth the applause of the venerable Macon, 
 the Senator from North Carolina, whose 
 eyes would fill with tears when he viewed 
 the rapid change which the character of 
 the Government had undergone in the in- 
 terval between his entrance on public life 
 and his old age. It was a new era. The 
 State that had been the home of Alexander 
 Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris, present- 
 ed itself on the floor of the Senate as the 
 advocate of the restraining principles of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 In April, 1S26, on a question of an ap- 
 propriation for a canal. Van Buren said : 
 "The aid of this Government can only be 
 afforded to these objects of improvement 
 in three ways : by making a road or canal 
 
1 1 8 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 and assuming jurisdiction ; by leaving juris- 
 diction to the respective States ; or by mak- 
 ing an appropriation without doing either. 
 In my opinion, the General Government 
 have no ris:ht to do either." 
 
 Congress was urged to subscribe to the 
 Dismal Swamp Canal. 
 
 " I will not vote for the bill," said Van 
 Buren, in May, 1826, "for I do not believe 
 that this Government possesses the consti- 
 tutional power to make these canals, or to 
 grant money to make them." And then, 
 branching off into the general question of 
 subscription on the part of Government to 
 canals, he uttered a warning, not then lis- 
 tened to, saying: "Even where the power 
 exists, the mode of aiding by a Government 
 subscription for stock is the last one to be 
 adopted ; abuses would creep in, and, in 
 nine cases out of ten, deception be prac- 
 tised." " In the State of New York," he in- 
 cidentally added, " we have had full expe- 
 rience of this in the application for charters 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 119 
 
 for banks. Plausible pretences were set ^ 
 up that- the State would thereb)' be bene- / 
 fited ; but, in the end, public opinion is 
 decidedly against these practices, and the 
 last Legislature, to their honor, has refused 
 all applications of this description." 
 
 When it was urged against him that the 
 repeated action of Congress had settled the 
 constitutionality of the practice, he entered 
 his protest against the admission of the 
 doctrine, insisting that repeated action can 
 never sanctify a wrong interpretation of an 
 instrument of which Congress has no power 
 to change even a word. 
 
 And when an accidental majority pro- 
 posed to commit the country irrevocably, 
 by making the United States a joint-stock 
 partner in canals, with permanent liabiHties, 
 he, in May, 1826, made the general declara- 
 tion of his own creed, which was the true 
 creed of republicanism. 
 
 " I shall resist to all intents and purposes 
 the idea that the acts of this Congress are 
 
I20 Life of Martm Van Buren. 
 
 to bind me and my constituents forever 
 hereafter. The power of repeal cannot be 
 wrested by one Congress from all its suc- 
 cessors." 
 
 The majority in the Senate was against 
 him ; but Van Buren persevered. His ef- 
 fort was not followed by immediate action ; 
 but it assisted in the formation of public 
 opinion. In a few short years he had the 
 satisfaction, being in the Cabinet, to find 
 the opinions he had maintained in the Sen- 
 ate adopted by Andrew Jackson, and un- 
 folded, and enforced, and carried through 
 the country to the convictions of the people 
 by the Maysville veto. 
 
 The same hostility to centralization had 
 uniformly dictated Van Buren's opinions 
 on the subject of the disposition of the na- 
 tional domain. To facilitate actual settle- 
 ment and to withdraw the land-offices were 
 always his leading objects. " The subject of 
 the public lands," said he, in May, 1826, "is 
 becoming daily more and more interesting ; 
 
Ill the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 121 
 
 it extends the patronage of the Government 
 over the States in which they are situated 
 to a great extent ; it subjects them to an 
 unwise and unprofitable dependence on the 
 Federal Government. . . . No man can ren- 
 der the country a greater service than he 
 who should devise some plan by which the 
 United States may be relieved from the 
 ownership of this property by some equita- 
 ble mode. I will vote for a proposition to 
 vest the lands in the States in which they 
 stand, on some just and equitable terms 
 as relate to the other States in the confed- 
 eracy. I hope that, after having full infor- 
 mation on the subject, we shall be able to 
 effect that great object. I believe that if 
 those lands were disposed of at once to 
 the several States it would be satisfactory 
 to all." 
 
 Van Buren struggled to secure to the 
 people alone the election of their chief 
 magistrate. He desired to take from Con- 
 gress, and preserve inviolably and exclu- 
 
122 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 sively to the people themselves, the right 
 of electing their President and Vice-presi- 
 dent. To this end he proposed an amend- 
 ment of the Constitution, by which the elec- 
 tion should never come to the House of 
 Representatives, but, in case of division on 
 the first ballot, be referred again to the in- 
 corruptible millions. 
 
 The proposed method is eminently dem- 
 ocratic. Cabals and factions may hereafter 
 succeed in bringing before the people many 
 names, and often, on the first ballot, there 
 may be a division of votes. Factions are 
 composed of men drawn together by inter- 
 ests, and their interests may be several, and 
 may in a degree be antagonistic. But the 
 government of all by all, resting on princi- 
 ciple and truth, is adverse to division, be- 
 cause truth is the same always and every- 
 where. The government of all by all, there- 
 fore, desires always the opportunity for 
 popular union. Again, it is the nature of 
 the party of the few to wish to contract as 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 123 
 
 much as possible the numbers of those on 
 whose counsel it depends ; the government 
 of all by all, on the contrary, desires to gather 
 its decision from the largest and most com- 
 prehensive expression of the popular intel- 
 ligence. As the friend to popular power, 
 and as the friend to union. Van Buren was 
 desirous, in case of a failure of an attempt 
 at an election of President, to refer the sub- 
 ject again to the people, and to keep the 
 decision within their will. 
 
 Equally friendly to the government of 
 all by all was the mode by which this was 
 to be accomplished. " I have," said he, 
 " prepared a resolution which requires the 
 contemplated division of the States into disr 
 tricts, to be coextensive with the number 
 of electors." And on the eighth day of May, 
 1826, pledging himself to persistency in 
 urging the proposed reform, he added : 
 " There is no one point on which the peo- 
 ple of the United States are more perfectly 
 united than upon the propriety, not to say 
 
1 24 Life of Martin Van Bureti. 
 
 indispensable necessity, of taking the elec- 
 tion of President from the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. The experience under the Con- 
 stitution as it stands, as well formerly as 
 recently, has produced that impression, and 
 I consider the vote of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives as the strongest manifestation 
 of its existence. In that respect it will be 
 of value, but beyond that it can produce no 
 results. Although it can, I think, be satis- 
 factorily shown that the small States would, 
 if nothing more was done, be better off than 
 they are under the Constitution as it stands, 
 still all experience has shown that they do 
 not think so. There is no reason to believe 
 that they will ever consent to give up the 
 power they now have without an equivalent; 
 without a resort to the principle upon which 
 the Constitution was founded — that of com- 
 promise. The equivalent with which they 
 would be satisfied, with which they ought 
 to be satisfied, is the breaking up of the 
 consolidated strength of the large States 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 125 
 
 by the establishment of the district sys- 
 tem." 
 
 Thus did Van Buren, the representative 
 of the largest and most commercial State 
 in the Union, raise his voice in favor of 
 electing the President by the district sys- 
 tem. In case of no election on the first 
 ballot, his plan proposed that the people 
 themselves, in the districts, should on a sec- 
 ond trial make an election between the two 
 highest candidates. 
 
 The amendment cuts up by the roots all 
 combinations between the great States ; it 
 divides the whole Union into single elec- 
 toral districts, thus giving to the minorities 
 in the several States the greatest possible 
 chance of being represented. 
 
 In the course of the discussion of this 
 subject Van Buren gave strong utterance 
 to his abhorrence of every tendency in our 
 government to centralization, raising his 
 voice against " a completely consolidated 
 government," which the fathers of the coun- 
 
126 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 try had so much dreaded, and which, if ef- 
 fected, coming generations would so much 
 deplore. " However ardent," he added, " my 
 attachment to the Federal Government, and 
 however anxious I may be to sustain it in 
 the exercise of the powers given to it by 
 the Constitution — and in that respect I will 
 go as far as any man ought to go — I am 
 unwilling to destroy, or even to release, its 
 dependence on the State governments. . . . 
 That quaHfied dependence of the Federal 
 Government is their strong arm of defence 
 to protect them against future abuses." 
 
 Thus did Van Buren vindicate the prin- 
 ciple of the union of Free States, giving 
 in his adhesion to the federative principle 
 which, like that of democratic power, is, let 
 us hope, destined to make the tour of the 
 globe. Federative States, federative gov- 
 ernment; the nation to be formed by the 
 free union of separate integral parts that 
 in their union preserve individuality and 
 local sovereignty — this is the rule of mod- 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 127 
 
 ern civilization which the cultivated nations 
 of the world are slowly learning, but which, 
 as surely as the principles of inductive rea- 
 son shall be applied universally to public 
 affairs, will make a conquest of nations, and 
 carry to the Old World, as well as diffuse 
 throughout the New, the well-ordered sys- 
 tem of federal republics — of people individ- 
 ually free, having life and organization in 
 all their parts, and combining separate liv- 
 ing States in the higher life of a confeder- 
 ated people. 
 
 The same care was present to Van Buren 
 in arranging the changes to be adopted in 
 the judiciary system in consequence of the 
 very rapid increase of the country. The 
 Constitution of the United States forbids 
 each State to pass laws impairing the obli- 
 gation of contracts. The object of this pro- 
 hibition was a special one ; a construction 
 has been given to it which brings before 
 the General Government questions relating 
 to a free bridge and the monopoly of a 
 
128 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 ferry, to trust funds for local purposes, ex- 
 tending the jurisdiction of the national 
 courts so far that, unless the tendency is 
 arrested, the channel of justice with federal 
 courts must become choked up by the mul- 
 tiplicity of business, and the designs of its 
 creation be defeated. Good-sense, therefore, 
 requires that the spirit of centralization 
 should, above all places, not find its abode 
 in the supreme judicial court; and the 
 very nature of popular justice imperatively 
 demands that every question should, as far 
 as possible, be decided by the nearest tri- 
 bunal — by juries and courts of the vicinage. 
 The disinclination which democracy enter- 
 tains of the too great extension of the pow- 
 ers of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States must, with the increase of our coun- 
 try, prevail even in the minds of those who 
 will yield their desires for such extension 
 with unmingled reluctance. 
 
 On this subject the views of Van Buren, 
 as expressed in the Senate of the United 
 
In the U. S. Senate: i82i-i82g. 129 
 
 States in April, 1826, convey the judgment 
 and the apprehensions of his constituents. 
 
 " It has been justly observed elsewhere 
 that there exists not upon earth, and there 
 never did exist, a judicial tribunal clothed 
 with powers so various and so important as 
 the Supreme Court. . . . 
 
 " Not only are the acts of the National 
 Legislature subject to its review, but it 
 stands as the umpire between the conflict- 
 ing powers of the General and State gov- 
 ernments. That wide field of debatable 
 ground between those rival joowers is 
 claimed to be subject to the exclusive and 
 absolute dominion of the Supreme Court. 
 The discharge of this solemn duty has not 
 been unfrequent, and certainly not unin- 
 teresting. In virtue of this power, we have 
 seen it holding for naught the statutes of 
 powerful States, which had received the 
 deliberate sanction not only of their Legis- 
 latures, but of their highest judicatories, 
 composed of men venerable in years, of un- 
 9 
 
130 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 sullied purity and unrivalled talents — stat- 
 utes on the faith of which immense estates 
 had been invested, and the inheritance of 
 the widow and the orphan was suspended. 
 You have seen such statutes abrogated b)'' 
 the decision of this court, and those who 
 had confided in the wisdom and power of 
 the State authorities plunged in irreme- 
 diable ruin — decisions final in their effect, 
 and ruinous in their consequences. . . . 
 
 " By the Constitution of the United 
 States, the States are prohibited from pass- 
 ing ' any law impairing the obligation of 
 contracts.' This brief provision has given 
 the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court a 
 tremendous sweep. . . . 
 
 " I must not be understood as complain- 
 ing of the exercise of this jurisdiction by 
 the Supreme Court, or to pass upon the 
 correctness of their decisions. The author- 
 ity has been given to them, and this is not 
 the place to question its exercise. But this 
 I will say, that if the question of conferring 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 131 
 
 it was now presented for the first time, I 
 should unhesitatingly say that the people 
 of the States might with safety be left to 
 their own Legislatures and the protection 
 of their own courts. . . . 
 
 " There are those — and they are neither 
 small in number nor light in character — 
 who think that the uniform tendency of the 
 political decisions of the Supreme Court 
 has been to strengthen the arm of the 
 General Government and to weaken the 
 States. . . . 
 
 " This has become a subject on which it 
 is difficult to speak without unpleasantly 
 encountering the strong opinions entertain- 
 ed on different sides of the question. On 
 the one hand, expressions of distrust and 
 dissatisfaction are heard, of a character so 
 strongly marked as to defeat their object 
 and recoil upon their authors ; on the other, 
 a sentiment, I had almost said of idolatry 
 for the Supreme Court, has grown up, which 
 claims for its members an almost entire ex- 
 
132 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 emption from the fallibilities of our nature, 
 and arraigns with unsparing bitterness the 
 motives of all who have the temerity to look 
 with inquisitive eyes into this consecrated 
 sanctuary of the law. So powerful has this 
 sentiment become, such strong hold has it 
 taken upon the press of this country, that 
 it requires not a little share of firmness in 
 a public man, however imperious may be 
 his duty, to express sentiments that conflict 
 with it. It is, nevertheless, correct that in 
 this, as in almost every other case, the truth 
 is to be found in a just medium of the sub- 
 ject. But to the sentiment which claims 
 for the judges so great a share of exemp- 
 tion from the feelings that govern the con- 
 duct of other men, and for the court the 
 character of being the safest depository of 
 political power, I do not subscribe. I have 
 been brought up in an opposite faith, and 
 all my experience has confirmed me in its 
 correctness. In my legislation upon this 
 subject I will act in conformity to those 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 133 
 
 opinions. I believe the judges of the Su- 
 preme Court (great and good men as I 
 cheerfully concede them to be) are subject 
 to the same infirmities, influenced by the 
 same passions, and operated upon by the 
 same causes that good and great men are 
 in other situations. I believe they have as 
 much of the esprit de corps as other men; 
 those who think otherwise form an erro- 
 neous estimate of human nature ; and if 
 they act upon that estimate will, soon or 
 late, become sensible of their delusion. . . . 
 
 " With feelings for the General Govern- 
 ment, as I humbly hope, purely catholic, I 
 firmly believe, and my daily experience con- 
 firms that conviction, that much, very much 
 of the present prosperity of the country and 
 its institutions depends upon the successful 
 action of the State governments, and that 
 the preservation of their rightful powers is 
 the sine qua non of our future welfare. I 
 will not, therefore, give my assent to any 
 measure which may still further disqualify 
 
1 34 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the States to sustain themselves in those 
 collisions of power which are unavoidable, 
 and in which the situation of the parties is 
 already so unequal. I believe a different 
 disposition of the judges of the Supreme 
 Court from that provided by this bill would 
 have such effect, and I am, therefore, most 
 decidedly opposed to it." 
 
 In like manner. Van Buren endeavored 
 to confine the subject of prospective insol- 
 vent laws exclusively to the States. 
 
 Against imprisonment for debt, which he 
 had brought the Senate of New York to 
 condemn as a relic of a barbarous age and 
 at war with all improvement, he had con- 
 tinued his warfare in the Senate of the Unit- 
 ed States, desiring to concentrate against 
 the enormity the legislation and the opinion 
 of the united country. In January, 1823, 
 at a time when many regarded the dictates 
 of humanity as the clamor of dishonesty for 
 security, Van Buren, to remove all objections 
 to the measure, offered various amendments 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 135 
 
 to protect the creditor against the fraudulent 
 conceahnent of property. Having guard- 
 ed against reasonable objections, in March, 
 1825, he pleaded earnestly, eloquently, and, 
 as it proved, successfully, for the passage of 
 the bill. 
 
 But when, in 1827, it was attempted, in a 
 section of a proposed bankrupt law, to es- 
 tablish universally for the country a system 
 of insolvency and transfer the jurisdiction 
 to the Court of the United States, Van 
 Buren opposed it. 
 
 " The ninety-third section of this bill," he 
 said, " is upon any definition that may be 
 given of the different terms, an insolvent 
 law. If Congress has the constitutional 
 power to pass it, the States have no right to 
 pass any law upon the subject of insolvency; 
 not even to authorize the discharge of im- 
 prisoned debtors upon a process issuing 
 out of their own courts, otherwise than as 
 it may suit the pleasure or convenience of 
 Congress to permit. There is no middle 
 
136 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 ground. If the partition wall between bank- 
 ruptcy and insolvency is once broken down, 
 all State legislation will be subjected to the 
 absolute and arbitrary supervision of Con- 
 gress. I do not believe that such was the 
 design of the framers of the Constitution; 
 I do not believe that such is the Constitu- 
 tion ; I therefore object to the constitu- 
 tional power of Congress to pass the section 
 referred to. In my judgment, the provi- 
 sion contained in the ninety-third section 
 is not within the reasons which induced 
 the framers of the Constitution to vest in 
 Congress this power of establishing uniform 
 laws on the subject of bankruptcies ; it is a 
 power which never ought to have been or 
 to be vested in Congress ; it can only be 
 well and successfully executed by the States, 
 where those who made the Constitution 
 have left it ; its exercise would operate most 
 injuriously upon the system which governs 
 the Union and the States separately. Those 
 mischiefs will, among other things, consist 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 137 
 
 in an injurious extension of the patronage 
 of the Federal Government, and an insup- 
 portable enlargement of the range of its 
 judicial power." 
 
 The same view of the duties of the Gen- 
 eral Government, with regard to foreign 
 powers, dictated the opposition of Van Bu- 
 ren to the design of sending envoys to the 
 Congress of American Nations, invited by 
 Bolivar to assemble at Panama. " Would 
 it be wise in us," he demanded, vainly op- 
 posing the nomination of a minister from 
 the United States to that body, " would it 
 be wise in us to change our established pol- 
 icy upon the subject of political connec- 
 tions with foreign States ?" With an accu- 
 rate knowledge of the state of the question 
 and the warnings to be derived from our 
 own experience, he discussed the general 
 principle of avoiding all entangling alliances 
 on which our country stands alone among 
 the nations; and he argued that the con- 
 dition of the Spanish-American States was 
 
138 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 such as not to exempt them from the appli- 
 cation of the rule. 
 
 " I yield to no man," said he, " in my anx- 
 ious wishes for the success of the Spanish- 
 American States. I will go as far as I 
 think any American citizen ought to go 
 to secure to them the blessings of free gov- 
 ernment. I commend the solicitude which 
 has been manifested by our Government 
 upon this subject, and have, of course, no 
 desire to discourage it. But I am against 
 all alliances, against all armed confederacies, 
 or confederacies of any sort; come in what 
 shape they may, I care not how specious or 
 how disguised, I oppose them. The States 
 in question have the power and the means, 
 if united and true to their principles, to re- 
 sist any force that Europe can send against 
 them. It is only by being recreant to the 
 principles upon which their revolution is 
 founded, by suffering foreign influence to 
 distract and divide them, that their indepen- 
 dence can be endangered. But, happen 
 
In the U. S. Senate: i82i-i82g. 139 
 
 what may, our course should be left to our 
 choice, whenever occasion for acting shall 
 occur. 
 
 " We require neither alliance nor agree- 
 ment to compel us to perform whatever 
 our duty enjoins. Our national character 
 is our best and should be our only pledge. 
 Meanwhile, let us bestow upon our neigh- 
 bors, the young republics of the South, the 
 moral aid of a good example. To make 
 that example more salutary, let it exhibit 
 our moderation in success, our firmness in 
 adversity, our devotion to our country and 
 its institutions, and, above all, that sine qua 
 non to the existence of our republican gov- 
 ernment — our fidelity to a written Constitu- 
 tion. 'The moral aid of a good example' 
 — that is the proper manner in which our 
 republic is to exercise its influence on the 
 world. America practises the lessons of 
 freedom and inculcates them by her exam- 
 ple. She has not the eager haste of that 
 fanatical and ill-grounded conviction which 
 
140 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 cannot rest satisfied without proselytes. 
 She knows that humanity is all bound to- 
 gether as one ; and waits willingly for the 
 mysterious but certain influence, by which a 
 truth that has become the property of the 
 human mind, radiating in every direction, 
 gradually and certainly becomes the prop- 
 erty of the whole race. Let her career be 
 such that the nations of the earth will look 
 to her as a guide. To an eager and active 
 philanthropy the rule may seem marked 
 with coldness and restraint; yet it is the 
 only one which will win the friendship of 
 the world, and calmly insinuate the princi- 
 ples of popular reform into the affections 
 of the whole family of man, and into the 
 governments of the earth." 
 
 The same rule swayed Van Buren in his 
 judgment on questions of a purely domes- 
 tic character. The subject of slavery had 
 not forced its way into the councils of the 
 nation till after Van Buren retired from 
 the Senate. Yet, when a knowledge of his 
 
In the U. S. Senate: i82i-i82g. 141 
 
 opinion on the subject of any attempt on 
 the part of the people of the North, through 
 the exercise of pohtical powers or political 
 interests, to affect the relation of master 
 and slave was desired, he adhered to the 
 strict instruction of the fundamental law, 
 and avowed with the utmost frankness that 
 " without a change in the Constitution he 
 did not see in what authority the General 
 Government could interfere, even at the in- 
 stance of either or of all the slave-holding 
 States." 
 
 The spirit of a generous philanthropy is 
 not always cautious in its efforts. Eagerly 
 bent on achieving good, it is sometimes 
 tempted to overstep the boundaries of law, 
 and sometimes to make ravages in the de- 
 fence of liberty. The assertion of the free- 
 dom of the seas was, from the formation of 
 our Government, so mingled with our in- 
 stitutions that it cannot be abandoned 
 without a wound upon the very life of our 
 liberties. The slave-trade, against which, in 
 
142 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 a greater or less degree, Virginia had for 
 a century protested, was justly the object of 
 American reprobation. America took the 
 lead in reprobating the traffic, and by her 
 laws made it piracy. The eagerness of phi- 
 lanthropy now proposes that all the world 
 should, as it were, be invited to join in ex- 
 ecuting our municipal law, and, as a conse- 
 quence, should give to the assumption of 
 the power to search a new and unheard-of 
 latitude. 
 
 "From 1794 to 1808," said Van Buren, 
 in the course of the debate on the Panama 
 mission, " when the constitutional inhibition 
 upon Congress in relation to the slave-trade 
 expired, a system of wise and, as far as the 
 power of the Government extended, efficient 
 legislation was adopted for the suppression 
 of that detestable traffic. From the latter 
 period to the year 181 9 our legislation as- 
 sumed a wider range and a still more effi- 
 cient character, until finally the offence was 
 denounced as piracy, the punishment due 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182C). 143 
 
 to that crime prescribed, and the Executive 
 clothed with power and means fully ade- 
 quate to the execution of the law and the 
 suppression of the trade, so far, at least, as 
 our commerce is concerned. The measures 
 then adopted effected the purpose for which 
 they were designed. They did more : they 
 extorted from England, who, next to the 
 United States, has recently been foremost 
 in the adoption of means to this end, the 
 unqualified admission, not only that the 
 United States had been the first, but also 
 the most successful laborers in the cause 
 of humanity." 
 
 To these measures Van Buren gave his 
 hearty approbation. But as to any stipula- 
 tion with England, "yielding, under certain 
 modifications, the right of search, and au- 
 thorizing a foreign power to enforce our 
 own laws upon our own citizens," he gave 
 a warning against it as "ill-advised," and 
 having necessarily for "its results conten- 
 tion at home and dissatisfaction abroad." 
 
144 ^^/^ of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 He opposed every attempt to surrender the 
 " control of our conduct in the support of 
 our rights, or the discharge of our duties to 
 foreign associations." 
 
 The people of the whole Union are wiser 
 than the people of any individual State, for 
 it includes the intelligence of that State 
 with the wisdom of all the rest. The ad- 
 vancement of a senator of New York to a 
 foremost place among the Democratic sen- 
 ators of the Union had an influence in elim- 
 inating errors in the opinion of the Democ- 
 I'acy of New York. In the course of the 
 year, 1827, this became apparent. 
 
 The industry of the country was advan- 
 cing with such rapidity that the country 
 gazed with astonishment at the immense 
 production of its own labor, and all voices 
 united to cheer the euterprise and industry 
 of our people. Men forgot that they pros- 
 pered under the genial influences of institu- 
 tions which gave a free career to activity, 
 and stimulated the vigorous mind in the 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 145 
 
 workshop to unfold all its inventive powers. 
 They longed to hasten the development of 
 industry by protection. 
 
 This feeling was strengthened by political 
 recollections. The promotion of American 
 manufactures had in their infancy been the 
 test of patriotism. The desire of a common 
 regulation of commerce had assisted to form 
 the Union. The necessity of enforcing neu- 
 tral rights had hastened the development of 
 American manufactures. The embargo, the 
 interruption of commerce with Great Brit- 
 ain, had compelled their increase ; the war 
 raised a demand for the domestic manufact- 
 ure of all that was necessary for national 
 defence. The war, too, occasioned a debt 
 which required a large revenue for its dis- 
 charge. Hence American statesmen, after 
 the war, joined to promote the mining of 
 iron, the growth of cotton and of wool, and 
 the manufacture of them all, by heavy du- 
 ties on their importation from abroad. 
 
 In 1824 Van Buren, in obedience to the 
 10 
 
146 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 known wishes of his constituents, gave a 
 silent vote for the tariff of that year ; but 
 political aspirants of all parts of the coun- 
 try became aware of the rising zeal for fos- 
 tering its own productions, and sought to 
 avail themselves of the generous and deep- 
 ly seated regard for the industry of America 
 in its competition with Great Britain. 
 
 Van Buren was one of the first to per- 
 ceive that the great interests of America 
 were thus to be jeoparded by the eager self- 
 ishness of ambitious politicians ; and when, 
 in 1827, the country was convulsed with the 
 effort to excite a universal ferment, and by 
 means of it to win the way to political pow- 
 er. Van Buren, whose "personal feelings," as 
 I have been informed by one of his most in- 
 timate friends, " have been at all times ad- 
 verse to the high tariff policy," calmly and 
 temperately opposed the movement. At a 
 moment when all New York seemed carried 
 away with a passionate desire to foster the 
 nation's industry by national legislation, 
 
In the U. S. Senate: i82i-i82g. 147 
 
 when his warm friends wavered, and a cur- 
 rent was setting against the more Hberal 
 views, Van Buren repaired to Albany, and 
 by his healing counsels restored confidence 
 and harmony.* This was one of the mo- 
 ments of his life where his self-possession 
 was most commanding. He appeared among 
 those who had been led to believe a doubt 
 on the subject of a high tariff to be fatal ; 
 and almost, as it were, the first eminent 
 member of Congress from the north of the 
 Potomac, in July, 1827, he pointed to the 
 danger of subjecting the industry of the 
 country to the fluctuations of party success, 
 and gave his warning against " a measure 
 proceeding more from the closet of the pol- 
 itician than from the workshop of the man- 
 ufacturer." His ara;ument was addressed 
 
 * These facts of Van Buren's appearance and speech 
 at Albany, and the great effect that his self-possession 
 and calmness had over the Democratic party, which, 
 till he came, was yielding to despondency, were given 
 me by Governor Marcy. 
 
148 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 to the agriculturalist of the country, as the 
 safe umpire in the dispute. 
 
 His own intrepidity preserved the confi- 
 dence and cheered the spirits of his friends ; 
 it could not at once break down wrong 
 maxims in political economy, which the ma- 
 jority of the country had in some meas- 
 ure connected with the pride of nationality. 
 But this was the moment when the flood of 
 opinion at the North in favor of a high 
 tariff received a check. 
 
 The elections of 1827 passed over, and 
 the Democracy of New York, and generally 
 of the other States, had triumphed. Every 
 omen promised the approaching success of 
 the Democratic party in the Union. Van 
 Buren had been re-elected to the American 
 Senate by a great majority ; and when, in 
 December, he repaired to Washington to 
 enter on his second period of service, his 
 own honorable fame gave assurances that 
 new scenes of activity would open before 
 him. He began the winter's career, his last 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 149 
 
 as a senator, with renewed vigor and brill- 
 iancy. A tardy justice had not yet made 
 provision for the declining years of the offi- 
 cers of the Revolution. A distrust of a sys- 
 tem of pensions and other causes united to 
 make the provision for them doubtful. The 
 bill reported for that end seemed to many 
 on the point of being lost. In January, 
 1828, just as the discussion was coming to 
 an end. Van Buren rose for its support, and 
 throwing his heart into his theme, without 
 premeditation, spoke generous words with 
 persuasive power. A new and more favor- 
 able complexion was put upon the subject 
 by his speech, which led to a compromise 
 of conflicting opinions and the passage of 
 the bill in a modified form. 
 
 During the busy activity of the session, 
 and the most earnest strife in the Senate on 
 questions agitating the country, De Witt 
 Clinton, then Governor of New York, in the 
 height of his fame, suddenly expired at Al- 
 bany. When the news of his death reached 
 
150 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 Washington, the members from New York, 
 without distinction of party, held a meeting 
 to pay a tribute to his memory. 
 
 " The triumph of his talents and patriot- 
 ism," said Van Buren, " cannot fail to be- 
 come monuments of high and enduring 
 fame. We cannot, indeed, but remember 
 that in our public career collisions of opin- 
 ion and action, at once extensive, earnest, 
 and enduring, have arisen between the de- 
 ceased and many of us. For myself, sir, 
 it gives me a deep-felt satisfaction to know, 
 and more so to be conscious that the de- 
 ceased also felt and acknowledged, that our 
 political differences have been wholly free 
 from that most venomous and corroding of 
 all poisons, personal hatred. 
 
 " But in other respects it is now imma- 
 terial what was the character of those colli- 
 sions. They have been turned to nothing, 
 and less than nothing, by the event we de- 
 plore ; and I doubt not that we will, with 
 one voice and one heart, yield to his mem- 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 151 
 
 ory the well-deserved tribute of our respect 
 for his name, and our warmest gratitude for 
 his great and signal services. For myself, 
 sir, so strong, so sincere, and so engrossing 
 is that feeling, that I, who, while living, 
 never, no, never, envied him anything, now 
 that he has fallen, am greatly tempted to 
 envy him his grave with its honors." 
 
 In the winter of 1828 a tariff bill reached 
 the Senate, of a character which the wisdom 
 of the country soon afterwards essentially 
 modified. Public opinion in New York 
 had not yet fully learned to respect that 
 freedom of trade which can furnish to our 
 looms wool from flocks that pasture at the 
 antipodes, and supply the inland provinces 
 of China with tea-chests from the mines of 
 Wisconsin. The Legislature of New York 
 took the subject into consideration, and, 
 with the concurrence of all parties in the 
 Legislature, by a unanimous vote on the 
 main question in the Senate, by a vote of 
 ninety-eight to three in the House, the sen- 
 
152 Life of Martin Van Buren, 
 
 ators of New York in Congress were in- 
 structed to vote for the bill. Van Buren, 
 holding obedience to instructions a cardinal 
 doctrine of Democracy, overcame his own 
 repugnance to the provisions of the tariff 
 act of 1828, and gave to it a reluctant as- 
 sent, " in obedience," said Senator Benton, 
 " to a principle which we both hold sacred." 
 But Van Buren, whose career in Congress 
 was now to close, did not leave the Senate 
 without most decidedly expressing his own 
 views on the fountain of evil from which the 
 errors in our administration had sprung. 
 
 A resolution had been proposed in the 
 Senate, tending to attribute to the Vice- 
 President by inference and independent of 
 established rules, an inherent, irresponsible 
 power to restrain debate. How dangerous 
 such a power would be, in the hands of an 
 officer not elected by the Senate, and not 
 responsible to it, is apparent; but beyond 
 that lay the fact that such a construction 
 of the Constitution would change the char- 
 
In the U. S. Senate: i82i-i82g. 153 
 
 acter of the Union. Van Buren regarded 
 this question as one of the forms under 
 which the difference of parties may be stated. 
 The party of the past desire governments 
 like those of the past, centraHzed, and hav- 
 ing authority ; the party of the future look 
 to the boundless expanse of our country, 
 and labor to build up a system of constitu- 
 tional law suited to an ever-increasing land. 
 Van Buren arose to defend that construc- 
 tion of the Constitution which should least 
 interfere with the appropriate action of the 
 States and with the freedom of individual 
 industry ; and he spoke on the collision be- 
 tween the rights of the few and the many 
 — those never-ceasing conflicts between the 
 advocates of the enlargement and concen- 
 tration of power on the one hand, and its 
 limitation and distribution on the other. 
 " The division of the country into the two 
 great political parties is mainly to be as- 
 cribed," said Van Buren, " to the struggle 
 between the two great opposing principles 
 
154 Life of Martin Van Bur en. 
 
 which have been in active operation in this 
 country from the closing scenes of the Rev- 
 olutionary War to the present day." " The 
 former," he argued, " has grown out of a 
 deep and settled distrust of the people and 
 of the States; the antagonistic principle has 
 its origin in a jealousy of power, justified by 
 all human experience." He insisted that 
 from the moment of the adoption of the 
 Constitution, " the advocates of a strong 
 government had been at work to obtain, 
 by construction, what was not intended to 
 be included in the grant ;" and as a senator 
 from New York, the foremost commercial 
 State in the Union, he took part in forming 
 an organized opposition to the system of 
 centralization. 
 
 The incorporation of the Bank of the 
 United States he denounced as " the great 
 pioneer of constitutional encroachments." 
 " By the civil revolution of 1800," he further 
 said, " the public sentiment was improved, 
 our public councils purified, the spirit of 
 
In the U. S. Senate: i82/-i82g. 155 
 
 encroachment severely rebuked, and, it was 
 then hoped, extinguished forever. During 
 Jefferson's administration, and with a single 
 exception, that of Madison, the Government 
 was administered upon the principles which 
 the framers of the Constitution avowed, and 
 which their constituents had ratified, and 
 the people once and again had confirmed. 
 After a hard struggle the charter of the 
 Bank of the United States was suffered to 
 expire ; and the conceded and well-under- 
 stood powers of the Government were found 
 amply sufficient to enable it to perform the 
 great functions for which it was instituted. 
 During a large portion of the time, the coun- 
 try was blessed with a degree of prosperity 
 and happiness without a parallel in the 
 world. At the close of Madison's adminis- 
 tration, a new bank was incorporated, and 
 received his reluctant assent. It will be 
 shutting our eyes to the truth to deny, or 
 attempt to conceal the fact, that that assent, 
 coming from the quarter that it did, has had 
 
156 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 a most powerful and far from salutary influ- 
 ence on the subsequent course of the Gov- 
 ernment. Its author had himself, on a for- 
 mer occasion, demonstrated the want of 
 power in the Federal Government to in- 
 corporate a bank ; and his assent was now 
 placed on the express ground, that the rec- 
 ognition of the authority of the Government 
 in relation to the old bank by the State 
 governments and the courts as well as the 
 people, had precluded the question of its 
 constitutionality. In this way the power in 
 question had become a successful interpo- 
 lation upon the text of the Constitution. 
 
 " The time," he continued, " is not far dis- 
 tant when the interpolations which have 
 been made on the Constitution, with the 
 sophisms by which they were supported, 
 will be subjects of severe reprehension." 
 
 He roused public attention against the 
 Bank of the United States. With all the 
 weight to be derived from his position, as 
 the chosen leader of the Democracy of New 
 
In the U. S. Senate: 1821-182^. 157 
 
 York, with the confidence of the Democracy 
 of the Union, soon to be named Governor 
 of his native State, and designated by uni- 
 versal opinion for the highest place in the 
 Cabinet if Democracy in the nation should 
 be successful. Van Buren invited the coun- 
 try to an issue against the institution, which 
 in his opinion had been an abundant source 
 of corrupting influences, and "the pioneer 
 of encroachment on the Constitution." 
 
 New York, by the hand of George Clin- 
 ton, gave the casting vote against renewing 
 the old Bank of the United States; New 
 York, by the voice of Van Buren, opposed 
 the continuance of its successor, and made 
 it the dividing question in the conflict of 
 parties. 
 
158 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 VAN BUREN AS SECRETARY OF STATE, AS MIN- 
 ISTER, AND AS VICE-PRESIDENT: 1829-1837. 
 
 Van Buren retired from the Senate of 
 the United States, after serving in that body 
 for more than seven years. His uniform 
 courtesy of manner disarmed political hatred 
 of its bitterness ; and his private life was 
 marked by the decorum and purity which 
 leave no occasion for concealments, apolo- 
 gies, or denials. The discussions in which 
 he engaged called the nation to active in- 
 quiry, and the spirit of party was summoned 
 on the one side and on the other to plead 
 before the high tribunal of the people. 
 
 Meanwhile the calm circumspection and 
 the union which marked the movements of 
 the Democracy of New York, conciliated for 
 it the confidence of that State. In the au- 
 
Secretary of State, etc.: i82g-i8jy. 159 
 
 tumn of 1828, on the eve of the Presiden- 
 tial election, Van Buren, by the acclama- 
 tion of his party, was named its candidate 
 for governor. He was opposed by Smith 
 Thompson, one of the judges of the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States, a states- 
 man and lawyer known throughout the 
 Union, of an eminence which made him a 
 worthy antagonist. In the midst of highest 
 excitement, a majority of the districts gave 
 their vote for Jackson ; the Legislature was 
 in both branches most decidedly Democratic. 
 Van Buren received about thirty thousand 
 votes more than his opponent, and by this 
 vast plurality was, on the first day of Janu- 
 ary, 1829, borne to the highest office in the 
 gift of the people of New York. 
 
 In the few weeks of his service as the 
 chief magistrate of a commonwealth first 
 in commerce, in internal improvements, in 
 wealth, in numbers, in freedom of fran- 
 chises, and in boundless promises from fu- 
 turity, he distinguished himself by provi- 
 
i6o Life of Martin Van Bure^i. 
 
 dent care for the people and by hatred of 
 monopoly. 
 
 In New York, sales at auction of import- 
 ed goods had been restricted to officers ap- 
 pointed by the Government; in his message 
 to the Legislature, Van Buren rebuked the 
 monopoly, and it was abolished. 
 
 He proposed stringent enactments to 
 prevent the use of money in elections, and 
 to leave elections free to the unbiassed ac- 
 tion of the popular mind. 
 
 Another important and humane measure 
 was the establishment of the Safety Fund. 
 Millions of bank-notes were constantly in 
 circulation without adequate means for their 
 redemption ; and the unwary, and those least 
 connected with banks, those who wei"e in no 
 manner benefited by banks, were the most 
 exposed to suffer loss. 
 
 Who, that has not seen, can describe the 
 anguish of the emigrant of those days when, 
 arriving at the land-office, he found the bank- 
 notes in which he had hoarded the fruits of 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : r82p-i8j/. 1 6 1 
 
 a life of toil, or the modest proceeds of his 
 patrimony, had suddenly lost their value 
 before the end of his journey ? Who can 
 recount the misery and widely spread woe 
 at the farmer's fireside as he finds the fruit 
 of all his toil, exchanged for bank-notes, 
 melting away from him through the mis- 
 chiefs of a depreciating currency? Many 
 a heart-rending scene has been witnessed 
 in the years that are but recently gone by, 
 when fraudulent issues of paper have held 
 the bitter cup of poverty to the lips of fam- 
 ilies whose industry and frugality entitled 
 them to competence. And these issues of 
 paper were authorized by State Legislatures; 
 so that the frauds seemed to have arrayed 
 themselves in the reflected character of pub- 
 lic obligations. 
 
 The evils of our banking system, more 
 overwhelmingly apparent in the disastrous 
 reverses at the great centres of commercial 
 business, carried untold sorrow to the abodes 
 of humble industry. Van Buren was aware 
 1 1 
 
i62 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 of the cruel wrongs from which the less 
 wealthy, the soberly industrious, were suffer- 
 ing ; he saw and avowed that it was as yet 
 beyond his power to remedy the evil in its 
 source ; but at least care might be taken 
 that the laborer and the farmer and those 
 who are ignorant of the ways of banks 
 should be protected against loss from cor- 
 porations which the Legislature of the State 
 lent its authority to establish. To that end 
 he resolved on raising a reserved fund for 
 the security of holders of notes issued by 
 the banks of New York. To the banks, 
 which, from their daily business, well knew 
 the condition, character, and solvency of 
 each other, power was given, through com- 
 missioners and the Chancery Court, season- 
 ably to enjoin any bank, and arrest its is- 
 sues ; and, to protect the community fully, 
 a fund, raised by a tax of one-half per cent, 
 on all banks included within the law, was 
 set apart for the immediate redemption of 
 the bills in circulation, issued by a bank 
 
Secretary of State, etc.: i82g-i8jy. 163 
 
 which should be thus forced into liquida- 
 tion. In this way the notes of banks in the 
 State of New York were never to become a 
 loss to the holder; and although the im- 
 providence of legislation still permitted the 
 fluctuations incident to the use of paper for 
 money, a guarantee was at least secured that 
 the laborer should not be cursed with a 
 worthless currency. The plan, for a season 
 at least, accomplished that end. It was pro- 
 posed only as a dike to protect holders of 
 notes against rashness and frauds which di- 
 rectors of banks could foresee, but which 
 most men could learn only after their con- 
 summation. 
 
 On the 4th of March, 1829, Andrew Jack- 
 son was inaugurated as President of the 
 United States ; and he immediately sum- 
 moned Van Buren to take the highest sta- 
 tion in his Cabinet. Amid the applause of 
 his friends and with the express approbation 
 of the Legislature of his own State, which 
 was proud of his advancement, he resigned 
 
164 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the post of Governor of New York, and en- 
 tered into the service of the United States 
 as the counsellor of Jackson in conducting 
 the foreign relations of his country. He re- 
 paired to Washington with the full and af- 
 fectionate confidence of the Democracy of 
 his native State, and the best hopes of the 
 Democracy of the country. " I called him 
 to the Department of State," said Andrew 
 Jackson, " influenced by the general wish 
 and expectation of the Republican party 
 throughout the Union." 
 
 His position in the Cabinet was peculiar. 
 No one of the other members of the admin- 
 istration had ever before occupied a similar 
 executive post ; but of Van Buren the school 
 of preparation had been a long career of 
 service in the Senate, and the President re- 
 posed in him special confidence, not from 
 personal and political friendship only, but 
 from trust in his practical judgment and ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Placed in a position that gave him oppor- 
 
Secretary of State, etc.: i82g-i8jy. 165 
 
 tunity of counsel in the distribution of pat- 
 ronage, it may surprise the incredulous to 
 learn that he always refused to incline its 
 exercise to the furtherance of his own ul- 
 terior advancement; and his nearest per- 
 sonal friends, in like manner, refused every 
 request to bias the appointing power, being 
 resolved to support the administration of 
 Jackson with single-minded fidelity. For 
 long years Van Buren, in the Senate, had 
 struggled, against an obstinate majority, to 
 define the just principles of the construction 
 of the Constitution. When summoned to 
 give counsel in the Cabinet on the Mays- 
 ville veto, he had the pleasure of seeing 
 the exact views he had urged as a senator 
 enforced by the Executive, and made the 
 property of the country by the decision of 
 Andrew Jackson. How do our institutions 
 effect the education of the people! De- 
 bates had assisted to develop just views of 
 national policy; and now, by the appropri- 
 ate exercise of the grand tribunitial power 
 
1 66 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 with which the President is invested, those 
 views reached every home, knocked for en- 
 trance at every heart, and summoned every 
 citizen in the Union to give deliberate judg- 
 ment between the legislative branches of the 
 Government and the President. "You will 
 ruin your party and your own prospects," 
 they said to the old hero. " Providence," an- 
 swered Andrew Jackson, " will take care of 
 me." Nothing could turn aside his resolve 
 to exercise the veto, and never, in the end, 
 was a public act more universally approved. 
 The conspicuous subject in our foreign 
 relations was the interruption of direct com- 
 merce with the British colonies. This in- 
 terruption was most deeply involved in that 
 restrictive system which European nations, 
 in their system of colonization, rigorously 
 adopted. America, while dependent, had 
 keenly felt the injustice of admitting Eng- 
 land to all its ports and all its territories, 
 and being restricted in its commerce with 
 a large part of the British dominions. 
 
Secretary of State, eic: i82g-i8j'/. 167 
 
 From the first moment of conversation 
 with FrankUn for peace, this discrepancy 
 had been pointed out; and the justice of 
 genuine reciprocity in intercourse between 
 all American territory and all the posses- 
 sions of Great Britain had been maintained. 
 It was certain that it would one day be 
 maintained successfully. The administra- 
 tion of 1824 at first formally made the de- 
 mand, but withdrew it, thinking correctly 
 that the time for it was not come. Great 
 Britain offered a conditional liberty of traffic 
 with her colonies, if accepted within a limited 
 period. The period expired without a com- 
 munication from America. Afterwards, the 
 administration of Quincy Adams proposed 
 to accept the conditional right of traffic, 
 but Great Britain haughtily refused the 
 renewal of the offer of what she pretend- 
 ed to consider " a boon." He that will 
 gain a view of the question, without refer- 
 ence to party, should read Van Buren's 
 speech, in which he urged upon Congress 
 
1 68 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 to strengthen the arm of the administra- 
 tion by energetically arraying its whole in- 
 fluence on the side of our Government. 
 
 " Conflicting opinions," he had said, 
 " should be confined to subjects which 
 concern ourselves. In the collisions which 
 may arise between the United States and a 
 foreign power, it is our duty to present an 
 unbroken front ; domestic differences, if 
 they tend to give encouragement to unjust 
 pretensions, should be extinguished or de- 
 ferred ; and the cause of our Government 
 must be considered as the cause of our 
 country. . . . 
 
 " Our acts should be firm, and, however 
 mild and conciliatory, should exhibit neither 
 fickleness nor irresolution. If, retracing 
 our steps, we abandon the principle which 
 alone prevented an amicable adjustment 
 in 1824, the act announcing the fact should 
 also proclaim our unalterable determination, 
 should our views not be met in a concilia- 
 tory spirit, to accept of nothing less than 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : iS2p-iSj/. 1 69 
 
 that which justice demands. We have to 
 contend with an adversary deeply versed in 
 the arts of diplomacy, and every way com- 
 petent to discern the intentions of those 
 whose interests may come in competition 
 with their own. By deferring the operation 
 of the act until Congress again meet, you 
 will awaken some doubt of your ultimate 
 intention, and perhaps a hope may arise 
 that you are not now prepared to renounce 
 a trade in which you are not permitted to 
 participate on equitable terms. With such 
 an alternative before us, there is no one in 
 this Senate — I trust there is no one in this 
 nation — who would hesitate one moment in 
 his choice. In giving utterance to this uni- 
 versal sentiment, let your act be explicit 
 and your determination final. Leave noth- 
 ing to be accomplished by a future Con- 
 gress ; and, in the act which you may pass, 
 present to the British Government your ul- 
 timatum, in the terms which she has herself 
 proposed. In this there will neither be men- 
 
170 Life of Martin Van Btiren. 
 
 ace nor an offensive display. It is precise- 
 ly the course which she pursued when the 
 situation of parties was reversed. If it be 
 the intention of Great Britain to place this 
 trade upon the footing of just reciprocity, 
 she will not be moved from her purpose by 
 mere questions of form ; but if, influenced 
 by any change in her views or policy, she is 
 resolved to reject our liberal propositions, 
 no phraseology, however courteous, will pro- 
 duce a different determination. Be this de- 
 termination what it may, we shall have per- 
 formed our duty, and may rely upon the 
 support of the American people." 
 
 In conducting the foreign relations of the 
 country. Van Buren carried these views into 
 effect. England refused to abide by the 
 terms which she first offered, because the 
 former American administration had de- 
 layed to accept her proposition within a 
 stipulated time. Two successive ministers 
 had, by the previous administration, solicit- 
 ed the liberties once offered, but had so- 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : i82^-/Sj/. 1 7 1 
 
 licited them in vain. Van Buren saw the 
 necessity of making the subject a national 
 question. He insisted that the misunder- 
 standing which had arisen must be tran- 
 sient ; that if Great Britain persevered in 
 withholding what she had offered, it must 
 be considered as an offence to the whole 
 country. 
 
 This representation was successful; and 
 the colonial question, which had bafHed the 
 country for several years, and of which the 
 settlement had been vainly attempted by 
 Gallatin and by Barbour, was promptly set- 
 tled on the terms which the previous ad- 
 ministration had sought from Great Britain. 
 
 Other negotiations were conducted with 
 equal success. The election of Andrew 
 Jackson had produced a strong effect on 
 the civilized world. The European nations, 
 weary of the ancient formal round of diplo- 
 macy, saw with delight an energetic states- 
 man at the head of the American Govern- 
 ment. As Secretary of State, Van Buren 
 
172 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 seized the opportunity with promptness and 
 untiring diligence. 
 
 The treaty for indemnity was begun with 
 France; Denmark adjusted the demands of 
 American citizens ; Spain made compensa- 
 tion for her wrong-doings, and relaxed her 
 restrictive regulations to our advantage ; 
 Portugal gave indemnity; Austria and Tur- 
 key were brought into commercial relations 
 with the young republic of the west. With 
 Russia an opening was made for similar 
 agreements. In America the relations with 
 Mexico and with Colombia were relieved of 
 embarrassments. The two years of Van 
 Buren's service as Secretary of State were 
 distinguished by his effective industry. 
 
 His position could not be contemplated 
 without envy. Divisions entered the Cabi- 
 net. Van Buren, who, as secretary, had 
 steadfastly, pursued the good of the coun- 
 try, and had on all occasions forborne by 
 the influence of patronage to advance his 
 personal pretensions, now formed the hon- 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : iSzg-iSjy. 173 
 
 orable design of securing tranquillity to the 
 administration of General Jackson by retir- 
 ing from his post, and in June, 1831, re- 
 signed his office. The President, justly es- 
 teeming his fidelity and experience, named 
 him Minister to Great Britain. His politi- 
 cal friends, who hoped to see him one day 
 elevated to the Presidency, urged him not 
 to accept the appointment. They warned 
 him against withdrawing himself from his 
 country at such a moment ; how entirely 
 he would be removed from the immediate 
 eye of his countrymen ; how certainly his 
 absence, though in the public service, would 
 delay or prevent his advancement in popu- 
 lar affection at home. But Van Buren had 
 always separated himself from intrigue, and 
 wished to be separated from even the ap- 
 pearance of it; and in honorable self-reli- 
 ance accepting the appointment, he, in Au- 
 gust, 1 83 1, repaired to Great Britain. From 
 his long career in the Senate and in the 
 Cabinet, he was thoroughly acquainted with 
 
1 74 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the state of our relations with Great Britain. 
 No man more enjoyed the confidence of the 
 President and of the country. Every omen 
 promised auspicious results from his mis- 
 sion. 
 
 His political friends had entreated Van 
 Buren not to accept this appointment. They 
 had held up to him the HI influence his ab- 
 sence from the country might exercise on 
 his future advancement ; that public service 
 abroad would remove him from the imme- 
 diate eye of the people. What his friends 
 vainly desired to accomplish, his enemies 
 achieved. 
 
 Against a man who had been for twenty 
 years in public life — whose private integri- 
 ty, purity of life, and political consistency 
 were unimpeachable — it was difficult to find 
 cause of censure. They charged him with 
 intrigue ; but, keeping far aloof from the 
 strifes of connections and factions and par- 
 ties, he had voluntarily left the country. 
 
 The ground finally assigned for the re- 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : i82g-i8j'j, 1 75 
 
 jection of Van Buren as Minister to Great 
 Britain was found in an instruction to Mc- 
 Lane, which Andrew Jackson claimed to 
 have dictated. Van Buren had said in the 
 Senate that the strife with England must 
 be, on the part of the United States, a na- 
 tional one, not interfered with by any local 
 party strife. The ministry of Great Britain, 
 having taken back the offer made to a 
 former administration to open her West In- 
 dia ports to the United States because that 
 administration had neglected a compliance 
 with a form, was now summoned to continue 
 her offer, or to place her refusal on some 
 other ground than the acts of the late ad- 
 ministration ; and clothing remonstrance in 
 the mildest form. Van Buren added that 
 otherwise the ministry of Great Britain 
 "would not fail to excite the deepest sensi- 
 bility of the people." 
 
 His words were perverted, as though he 
 invited England to be a party to our strifes 
 — he who had summoned the whole country 
 
1 76 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 to a united expression of opinion and united 
 assertion of American rights. A majority 
 of the Senate, assuming that their instruc- 
 tions were an invitation to European govern- 
 ments to participate in our domestic strifes, 
 rejected his nomination by a party vote, and 
 thus compelled the diplomacy of all Europe 
 to watch the verdict of the American peo- 
 ple on this vote of an accidental majority 
 of their Senate. 
 
 From the people of the Union there rose 
 a general murmur of disapprobation. The 
 Legislature of New York unanimously ad- 
 dressed a letter to the President of the 
 United States, bearing testimony to the 
 high respect of their State for the personal 
 and public merit of its proscribed states- 
 man ; the Democracy of the Union imme- 
 diately placed him in nomination for the 
 Vice -presidency; and the people, by the 
 vote of two hundred and eighty-six electors 
 against one hundred and eighty-nine, elected 
 him to preside over the body which had re- 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : /82g-/Sjy. 1 77 
 
 jected him. The speech with which he en- 
 tered on his official duties won universal 
 applause for its propriety and dignity. The 
 Senate, at a later day, by a unanimous vote, 
 made a declaration "of the impartiality, dig- 
 nity, and ability with which he presided 
 over their deliberations, and of their entire 
 approbation of his conduct as President of 
 the Senate." 
 
 Elevated to the second highest office in 
 our land, his sympathies remained, as they 
 had ever been, with the class from which he 
 had sprung and by which he had been ele- 
 vated — the more numerous and less wealthy. 
 In May, 1833, the unenfranchised mechan- 
 ics of Rhode Island addressed him to obtain 
 his mature opinion on the subject of general 
 suffrage, and he did not hesitate to lend all 
 the weight of his station and of his judg- 
 ment, enlightened and confirmed as it had 
 been by experience in his own State, in 
 favor of enfranchising the mechanic and the 
 laborer. He modestly recapitulated the his- 
 12 
 
1 78 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 tory of the settlement of the franchise in 
 New York. " In acting upon this subject," 
 he added, " my own course has never been 
 influenced by any apprehension that it would 
 be dangerous to the rights of property to ex- 
 tend the right of voting to those who were 
 without property. Our experience has, I 
 think, fully demonstrated that in a commu- 
 nity like that which composes a great ma- 
 jority in every State in our confederacy, 
 there is no reason for alarm in this respect. 
 
 "At an earlier period of my public life I 
 was not entirely free from apprehensions of 
 the influence of wealth upon so extended a 
 suffrage as that which is now possessed in 
 New York. Upon this head, however, we 
 are now able to speak from full and satis- 
 factory experience. It has given me the 
 highest gratification to be convinced that 
 my fears were without adequate founda- 
 tion." 
 
 As Vice-president, Van Buren was at the 
 side of Jackson during his second term as 
 
Secretary of Siaie, etc. : /82g-/Sj/. 1 79 
 
 President. It was the period of the first ex- 
 periment in producing panics ; of reckless 
 expansions of the currency ; of extravagant 
 speculation; of an accumulating surplus rev- 
 enue ; of the last struggles of the Bank of 
 the United States for the continuance of its 
 powers. There was not a difficult question 
 on which Jackson did not open his mind to 
 the Vice-president with complete and affec- 
 tionate confidence. He has often been heard 
 to narrate incidents illustrating the prompt 
 decision and bold judgment of his younger 
 friend ; and in those days of vehement con- 
 flicts between the power of the people and 
 interests embodied against that power, the 
 daring energy of the one was well united 
 with the more tranquil intrepidity of the 
 other. 
 
 How fully this was recognized by the 
 people appears from the action of the Dem- 
 ocratic party of the Union. In May, 1835, 
 it assembled in convention at Baltimore, 
 and by a unanimous vote placed Van Bu- 
 
i8o Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 ren in nomination as their candidate for the 
 Presidency. 
 
 His opponents, whose fears gave assur- 
 ances of his rapid advancement, had never 
 ceased to calumniate him as an adept in 
 management and intrigue. The hearty 
 unanimity of the convention refuted the 
 suggestion ; for intrigue and management 
 always generate jealousy and division. To 
 the official letter communicating his nomi- 
 nation, he sent a memorable reply. 
 
 " The nomination," he wrote, " you have 
 been deputed to announce to me presents 
 the only contingency upon the occurrence 
 of which I could consent to become a can- 
 didate for the high office of President of 
 the United States. When my name was 
 first associated with the question of General 
 Jackson's successor, more through the ill- 
 will of opponents than the partiality of 
 friends, I determined to wait for the devel- 
 opment of the views of the Republicans of 
 the Union, and to pursue that course only 
 
Secretary of State, etc.: i82g-i8j'/. i8i 
 
 which their unbiassed judgment should 
 finally recommend. I deemed that course 
 to be due to the administration of which I 
 was a member, to the best interests of the 
 country, and to the indivisibility of a polit- 
 ical party, by the original organization of 
 which the overthrow of republican princi- 
 ples in the United States was prevented, 
 and upon the ascendency of which we can 
 alone depend for their preservation. To the 
 offers of support which were at that period 
 occasionally made to me from different quar- 
 ters of the Union, I respectfully replied that 
 the public good required the services of 
 General Jackson for a second term ; that 
 the agitation of the question of his succes- 
 sor, at that early period, must of necessity 
 embarrass the administration ; and that it 
 was my desire that my name should not be 
 connected with the subject. From that time 
 to the present I have neither solicited the 
 aid, nor sought the support, of any man in 
 reference to the high office for which I have 
 
1 82 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 been nominated (unless my replies to inter- 
 rogatories from my fellow-citizens upon pub- 
 lic questions, and my sincere endeavors to 
 make myself worthy of the respect and con- 
 fidence of the American people, are liable 
 to that construction). For the truth of this 
 declaration I can safely appeal to the hun- 
 dreds of honorable men who composed the 
 recent convention ; to the numerous editors 
 and politicians throughout the Union who 
 have distinguished me by their preference ; 
 and to my private correspondents and in- 
 timate friends, not excepting the consid- 
 erable number of persons, once my friends 
 and associates, whom the fluctuations of 
 political life have converted into oppo- 
 nents. In none of these classes, or in any 
 other of our community, is there a man 
 who can truly say that I have solicited 
 his political support, or that I have entered, 
 or sought to enter, with him into any ar- 
 rangement to bring about the nomination 
 which I have now received, or to secure 
 
Secretary of State, etc.: i82g-i8jj. 183 
 
 my elevation to the Chief Magistracy of 
 my country. 
 
 " The liberal men of all parties, I trust, 
 and you and those you represent, I am sure 
 will pardon me for having thus spoken of 
 my own conduct in reference to a point 
 upon which I have been the silent object of 
 attack, as causeless as it has been violent 
 and unremitted ; especially as I alone can 
 answer for it in relation to all my country- 
 men, although thousands may be ready to 
 answer in relation to themselves." 
 
 It should be added that not the violence 
 of party spirit, not the perversion of malice, 
 not the voice of calumny, ever insinuated in 
 any one instance a denial of this unquali- 
 fied assertion ; nor have the years which 
 followed, the events of which changed so 
 many who had once been Van Buren's 
 friends into implacable opponents, called 
 forth a single individual to question the ex- 
 act accuracy of his statement. Those who 
 knew him most intimately have made known 
 
184 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 how remote were his character and habits 
 of thought and action from management, 
 intrigue, or concealment. 
 
 Yet at this period of his Hfe there were 
 not wanting those who mistook his modera- 
 tion for want of frankness, and, on public 
 questions of deepest interest, believed him 
 secret and uncommunicative. In a long ca- 
 reer in the Senate, where he never shunned 
 taking part in the discussion of any ques- 
 tion, his opinions had been avowed in de- 
 bate, and by his votes made a matter of 
 record in the public journals. His life had 
 been a struggle against the enemies of pop- 
 ular power ; he had ever been ready to re- 
 pel their aggressions, yet without sharing 
 their passions. Once, in the spring of 1826, 
 at a moment when, in the Senate Chamber 
 in Washington, Van Buren was earnestly 
 engaged in the most hearty and open con- 
 flict with the friends of John Quincy Adams 
 and Henry Clay, the Argus, an able and 
 cautious Democratic journal at Albany, for 
 
Secretary of State, etc.: i82g-i8j'/. 185 
 
 a time and solely from local causes, proposed 
 " to let the national politics alone." The 
 silence of the editor was attributed to the 
 influence of Van Buren ; but accident has 
 placed within my reach the certain evidence 
 that the course which was then for a very 
 short period deliberately adopted, was adopt- 
 ed without his knowledge and to his sur- 
 prise. For himself, he had not disguised 
 his preferences, yet the impression remained, 
 and many, mistaking the good-temper and 
 careful precision with which he had express- 
 ed himself for want of vigor, believed, or 
 pretended to believe, that he kept himself 
 uncommitted on public questions. Deceived 
 by this prejudice, in April, 1836, Sherrod 
 Williams, of Kentucky, a member of Con- 
 gress, a vehement political opponent of Van 
 Buren, and a friend of Henry Clay, was put 
 forward to play the part of an inquisitor. 
 " I done so in good faith," wrote Sherrod 
 Williams, as if in reply to those who smiled 
 at his indecorum ; and he again asked for 
 
1 86 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the views of the Democratic " candidate " 
 for the Presidency, on topics like that of 
 distributing portions of the national reve- 
 nue, and of chartering a national bank. 
 Van Buren seized the occasion of reaffirm- 
 ing his well-known opinions, and thus re- 
 plied : 
 
 " It is my firm conviction that any systern 
 by which a distribution is made among the 
 States, of moneys collected by the Federal 
 Government, would introduce vices into the 
 legislation of both governments, productive 
 of the most injurious effects, as well upon 
 the best interests of the country as upon the 
 perpetuity of our political institutions. . . . 
 
 " It is now for the majority of the people 
 to decide whether the distribution of the 
 public deposits shall be the parent and fore- 
 runner of future distributions of the public 
 revenue. I hope and believe that the public 
 voice will demand that this species of legis- 
 lation shall terminate with the emergency 
 that produced it. . . . 
 
Secretary of State, etc.: i82g-i8j'j. 187 
 
 " The public of the United States have a 
 greater interest in an early settlement and 
 substantial improvement of the public lands 
 than in the amount of revenue which may 
 be derived from them. ... 
 
 " I am of the opinion that the avails of 
 the public lands will be more equitably and 
 faithfully applied ' to the common benefit of 
 the United States,' by their continued appli- 
 cation to the general wants of the Treasury, 
 than by any other mode that has yet been 
 suggested; and that such an appropriation 
 is in every respect preferable to the distribu- 
 tion thereof among the States. Entertain- 
 ing these views, I cannot give you any 
 encouragement that I will, in the event of 
 my election to the Presidency, favor that 
 policy. . . . My opposition to the establish- 
 ment of a United States Bank in any of the 
 States is placed on the want of constitu- 
 tional power in Congress to establish one ; 
 and I am not only willing, but desirous, that 
 the people of the United States should be 
 
1 88 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 fully informed of the precise ground I oc- 
 cupy upon this subject. I desire more espe- 
 cially that they should know it now, when 
 an opportunity, the best our form of govern- 
 ment affords, will soon be presented to ex- 
 press their opinion of its propriety. If they 
 are in favor of a national bank as a perma- 
 nent branch of their institutions, or if they 
 desire a chief magistrate who will consider 
 it his duty to watch the course of events, 
 and give or withhold his assent to such an 
 institution according to the degree of neces- 
 sity for it that may in his opinion arise from 
 the considerations to which your question 
 refers, they will see that my co-operation in 
 the promotion of either of these views can- 
 not be expected. If, on the other hand, 
 with this seasonable, explicit, and published 
 avowal before them, a majority of the peo- 
 ple of the United States shall, nevertheless, 
 bestow upon me their suffrages for the of- 
 fice of President, scepticism itself must cease 
 to doubt, and admit their will to be, that 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : i82g-i8jy. 189 
 
 there shall not be any Bank of the United 
 States until the people, in the exercise of 
 their sovereign authority, see fit to give to 
 Congress the right to establish one. . . . 
 
 " Even if there was not a single bank. 
 State or national, in the country, it would 
 nevertheless be quite easy to place its do- 
 mestic exchanges upon an advantageous 
 and safe footing, so long as there is a suffi- 
 ciency of solid capital to be employed in the 
 business. From the nature of the thing 
 itself, and from the experience of Europe, 
 we may be assured that the profits and ne- 
 cessities of trade would invite and obtain 
 ample facilities for the business of exchange 
 from other sources, so long as the commer- 
 cial community with one accord desire to 
 see it successfully carried on, and assist in 
 good faith in effecting it. . . . 
 
 " Gold and silver should constitute a much 
 greater proportion of the circulating medium 
 of the country than they now do. To pro- 
 tect the working - classes (who, generally 
 
I go Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 speaking, have no control over a paper cur- 
 rency, and derive no profit from bank stock) 
 against losses arising from depreciation, by- 
 securing a metallic currency sufficient at 
 least for all minor dealings — including the 
 payment of labor, the most important as 
 well as the most pressing use there is for 
 money — to furnish a more substantial specie 
 basis for that part of the currency which 
 consists of paper, and thereby save the whole 
 community from loss in consequence of any 
 sudden withdrawal of confidence — should be 
 our ' first object,' as it is our imperative 
 duty. . . . 
 
 " There are, in my opinion, objections to 
 the re-establishment of a national bank, of 
 a character not inferior to any that I have 
 stated. The supremacy of the popular will 
 is the foundation of our government." 
 
 The Democracy of the Union supported 
 Van Buren with entire unanimity. Out of 
 two hundred and eighty-six electoral votes 
 he received one hundred and seventy ; and, 
 
Secretary of State, etc. : i82g-i8j'j. 1 9 1 
 
 for the first time, the Democracy of the 
 North saw itself represented in the Pres- 
 idential chair. Electoral votes were given 
 for Van Buren without regard to geograph- 
 ical divisions : New York and Alabama, 
 Missouri and Maine, Virginia and Connec- 
 ticut, were found standing together. His 
 election seemed friendly to the harmony and 
 the perpetuity of the Union. 
 
192 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 van buren as president of the united 
 states: march 4, 1837 — march 4, 1841. 
 
 On the 4th of March, 1837, Van Buren 
 took the oath of office as President of the 
 United States, to which station he had been 
 raised by the Democratic party of America. 
 For the country he invoked days of pleas- 
 antness and paths of peace ; but during his 
 administration he was called to a more se- 
 vere struggle in behalf of popular power 
 than the legislative history of the country 
 had ever known. 
 
 For eight years Van Buren had, within 
 his own State of New York, possessed the 
 support of the Democracy, and general suf- 
 frage was introduced. 
 
 For nearly eight years he defended in the 
 Senate the strict construction of the Consti- 
 tution. 
 
President of the United States. 1 93 
 
 For eight years more he had co-operated 
 with Andrew Jackson in his devotedness to 
 the same cause, which now found support 
 in the Executive. But as in mechanics op- 
 posing forces produce sideway motions, so, 
 in the immense colHsion between the pop- 
 ular judgment and the moneyed interest, 
 the decision, though a victory for the peo- 
 ple, sometimes resulted in a measure that 
 was not in itself the adequate expression of 
 the intended policy of the administration. 
 Thus, in the struggle with the United States 
 Bank, there still remained in the expedient 
 of deposit banks something of the same 
 perverse influence and interest, though no 
 longer united in a single gigantic corpora- 
 tion. In like manner, the struggle against 
 internal improvements by the National Gov- 
 ernment, and the accumulating revenue con- 
 sequent on the complete payment of the na- 
 tional debt, led both branches of Congress 
 to distribute among the States the proceeds 
 of the public lands, and afterwards to de- 
 13 
 
194 -^l/^ of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 posit with them the accumulating excess of 
 national revenue. 
 
 The career of speculation had led to vast 
 purchases of public lands by moneys which 
 were borrowed of the deposit banks and 
 expended at the land-offices. These sums 
 the land-offices promptly redeposited in the 
 banks from which they had been momenta- 
 rily withdrawn, and were loaned out again as 
 fast as they were received, to be again em- 
 ployed in the same purposes of speculation 
 by the acquisition of public lands. Andrew 
 Jackson, then President of the United States, 
 rightly doubting the solvency of some of the 
 deposit banks, by a circular letter emanating 
 from the executive branch of the Govern- 
 ment, commanded the price of public lands 
 to be paid in specie, the only legal tender 
 of the Constitution, but without any prepar- 
 atory act of Congress which as yet had re- 
 fused to share his distrust. The Treasury 
 order, therefore, which might have been a 
 wholesome check and admonition, served 
 
President of the United States. 1 95 
 
 for the moment to irritate and increase the 
 excitement. 
 
 This was the condition of the country 
 when Van Buren, who had no halo of miU 
 tary glory or Revolutionary service to con- 
 ciliate popularity, was called upon to stand 
 out against the beneficiaries of bank-paper, 
 organized as a political party. 
 
 This movement in the world of industry 
 led, from two causes, towards a diminution 
 of prices. Long years of nearly universal 
 peace had increased the productive power. 
 In the price of nearly every great article 
 of production there was a marked tenden- 
 cy to a decline, resulting also from another 
 fact — that the business to be transacted 
 increased faster than the supplies of gold 
 and silver, which were the measures of 
 value. 
 
 To check the action of these two causes 
 there had been a general resort to the use 
 of credit, till its expansion became out of 
 proportion to its resources. In commerce, 
 
196 .Life of Martin Van Bure^i. 
 
 as elsewhere, general laws ultimately pre- 
 vailed, and the result was inevitable. 
 
 In America, where prices had attained an 
 unnatural elevation, this unavoidable result 
 of a diminution of prices was heightened by 
 an accumulation of reverses, all tending to 
 a sudden explosion at the very period when 
 Van Buren began to administer the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 In addition to the long-continued efforts 
 of the business world to maintain high 
 prices came the peculiar fact that the Bank 
 of the United States, for the purpose of pro- 
 ducing the greatest political effect and ex- 
 torting new powers from the country, had 
 expanded its discounts, and that the hun- 
 dreds of State banks had followed its exam- 
 ple. The spirit of speculation grew wild, 
 and, excited by the increasing opulence and 
 numbers of the country, pursued its game 
 with an unreasoning determination to real- 
 ize at once the profits that could only spring 
 from the industry of future millions. The 
 
President of the United States. 197 
 
 delusion grew to an astonishing height, 
 nursed by the immense increase of the popr 
 ulation, by the wild hopes of inflamed imag- 
 inations, and by an inflated currency. 
 
 The increase of the circulation had ex- 
 panded prices, and, as a consequence, pro- 
 moted enormous importations of foreign 
 goods, and creating a balance against us to 
 foreigners of thirty to sixty millions of dol- 
 lars. 
 
 While high prices were followed by an 
 excess of importations, many State Leg- 
 islatures, sharing in some measure a gen- 
 eral impulse, had simultaneously incurred 
 debts abroad for money to be lavished on 
 internal improvements. The money thus 
 raised in Europe was remitted by shipments 
 of merchandise that were sold in the mar- 
 ket at home. 
 
 Free institutions won confidence. For- 
 eign capitalists loaned money readily to 
 new States, whose industry as yet produced 
 little for the foreign market but wheat. 
 
198 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 England was willing to lend millions, while 
 she excluded from her market the only 
 product of the soil which could furnish 
 means of payment. To individuals open 
 credits were freely extended, and often with- 
 out limitation as to time. 
 
 The crisis was at hand just as Van Buren 
 entered on his administration, and its dan- 
 gers and difficulties had been immensely in- 
 creased by unwise legislation. 
 
 The high tariff, which hastened the pay- 
 ment of the national debt, raised too much 
 revenue after the debt was discharged, and 
 was only gradually reduced, the reduction 
 proceeding too slowly, and extending ulti- 
 mately too far. A large surplus revenue 
 had accumulated, and this revenue, by an 
 act of June, 1836, was to be deposited — so 
 the act of distribution was called — among the 
 States ; and this surplus revenue, amounting 
 to six-and-thirty millions, was in the process 
 of distribution among the States at the mo- 
 ment of Van Buren's inauguration. This 
 
President of the United. States. 1 99 
 
 proved the most grievous and injurious act 
 of the whole. 
 
 But the Congress which had nearly ex- 
 hausted the Treasury by distribution did, 
 also, in its second session, make most unu- 
 sually large appropriations, the opponents 
 of Van Buren demanding and advocating 
 them with great unanimity. 
 
 Every financial evil at once gathered 
 round the administration of Van Buren. 
 The contraction of the banks, the deprecia- 
 tion of all kinds of property, the paralysis 
 of business, cut off the public resources. 
 
 The effects of the revulsion were first 
 visible in New York. Debts in Great Brit- 
 ain had been contracted beyond the ability 
 of merchants to pay ; large and unavailable 
 credits had been extended to traders in the 
 interior of the country. Men were more 
 and more startled as, by degrees, the amount 
 of indebtment to England became known. 
 The moneys of the Government, according 
 to the law of 1836, enacted under an anti- 
 
200 Life of Mariin Van Buren. 
 
 Democratic bias, were, in the process of dis- 
 tribution, deranging, with convulsive ener- 
 gy, the whole system of the deposit banks. 
 All joined to hurry the curtailment of the 
 currency; prices fell far below their natural 
 level. The tempest broke on the wise and 
 the unwise, on the fraudulent and on the 
 honest. The whole community was in- 
 volved in the great disaster. 
 
 The merchants of New York, unwilling 
 to confess over-trading; the speculators, re- 
 fusing to condemn themselves for yielding 
 to the bad counsels of eager cupidity ; the 
 laborers, on whose innocent heads the storm 
 had burst, all sent their committees to the 
 General Government for relief. 
 
 But what could the Government do ? 
 The revenue was collected by bonds, of 
 which Congress might postpone the day of 
 payment. The revenue of the country had, 
 through the deposit banks, already been 
 loaned. Holding in their hands the bor- 
 rowed revenues of the Government, what 
 
President of the United States. 201 
 
 relief could be granted ? The Treasury 
 order, which directed the land -offices to 
 sell no land but for real money, arrested 
 the exchange of lands for the worthless is- 
 sues of insolvent banks. Deeply sensible 
 of the sufferings of the community, and too 
 careful an observer to be ignorant of their 
 sources, Van Buren adopted the only meas- 
 ure of relief within the power of the Gov- 
 ernment, by directing a delay in putting 
 merchants' bonds in suit. But the clamor 
 of discontent was not hushed by the lenient 
 interposition. Many were angry because 
 the specie circular was not suddenly re- 
 called, as if the rescinding of an order now 
 practically inoperative would have given 
 solidity to fictitious credits, or would have 
 arrested the downfall of prices, which the 
 inevitable laws of trade were effecting in 
 every part of the cultivated world. 
 
 The month of May, 1837, saw the fatal 
 consummation of the American paper sys- 
 tem. The banks in the city of New York 
 
202 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 could no longer meet their engagements, 
 and suspended payment of their notes. 
 The same causes produced the same re- 
 sult throughout the country. The deposit 
 banks yielded, in many cases, most eagerly 
 to the example, and, at a time when the na- 
 tional funds were abundant, their faithless- 
 ness deprived the Government of the use 
 of its revenues. The people had paid taxes 
 for the support of their institutions, and the 
 parties to whose custody those taxes, after 
 collection, had been intrusted, had placed 
 them beyond their own control and beyond 
 \ the reach of the Government, 
 
 According to existing laws, the universal 
 suspension by the banks of specie payments 
 made it necessary to collect the revenue in 
 gold and silver only. For that end no sud- 
 den act of legislation was needed ; but the 
 condition of the Treasury demanded that 
 the system of distributing the surplus rev- 
 enue, by which seven-and-twenty millions of 
 dollars had already been deposited with the 
 
President of the United States. 203 
 
 States, should be arrested before the first 
 day of October, when a fourth instalment of 
 nine millions was to be paid. The Presi- 
 dent, under the pressure of necessity, re- 
 luctantly resolved to call an extra session 
 of Congress in September. 
 
 The months that intervened were a peri- 
 od of passionate excitement in one part of 
 the community, of earnest reflection in an- 
 other. Public bodies addressed the Presi- 
 dent ; sincere friends in the various parts of 
 the Union gave him the most opposite ad- 
 vice. The opinion of the party in power 
 had not yet formed itself, and timid advis- 
 ers, taking advantage of the public irresolu- 
 tion, urged on Van Buren a relaxation of his 
 political system, promising to concessions 
 unbounded popularity. He could only re- 
 ply by repeating his adhesion to the policy 
 which his whole public life had sustained, 
 which his election had pledged him to up- 
 hold, and which every event since his inau- 
 guration had but riveted in his convictions. 
 
204 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 The President had been, as it were, a pu- 
 pil of the public mind, educated in the great 
 school of the nation, a practical statesman, 
 desirous always of being guided by the 
 lights of experience. But now public opin- 
 ion was silent; it had not yet solved the 
 mystery of the disease, nor formed its the- 
 ory of a remedy. So suddenly had the cri- 
 sis come, so appalling was its nature, and 
 so difficult its treatment, that the whole 
 country hung in suspense, watching what 
 remedy the calm sagacity of the President 
 would devise. 
 
 x,Van Buren saw the elements of strife 
 multiplying about him, and he met the 
 storm at its height. Rejecting every nar- 
 row measure of present expediency, he took 
 principle for his guide and pushed out bold- 
 ly upon the deep. He saw that the Govern- 
 ment must occupy a new position. He saw 
 that for the moment his party might be 
 doomed to find itself in a minority. He 
 saw that he himself might, perhaps, for a 
 
President of the United States. 205 
 
 time, forfeit public favor. He resolved to 
 meet the crisis in all its difficulties. " We 
 cannot know how the immediate convulsion 
 may result for us," he observed to a near 
 friend, as he was planning his communica- 
 tion to Congress at the extra session ; " but 
 the people will at all events come right, 
 and posterity will do me justice. Be the 
 present issue for good or evil, it is for pos- 
 terity that I will write this message." And, i 
 anxious to rest the cause of Democracy on ' 
 measures and principles which would make i 
 its expected defeat but a transient one, he 
 recommended to Congress a system which 
 not one public man in America had ever 
 before ventured to propose. - 
 
 The system was a strict recurrence to the 
 principles of the Constitution and to the 
 general laws that regulate commerce. He\ 
 advised to collect only revenue enough for 
 the wants of the Government ; to collect 
 that revenue not in uncertain promises, but 
 in real money, and to keep such revenue 
 
 X 
 
2o6 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 under public responsibilities for public pur- 
 poses. 
 
 How deeply seated must have been the 
 disease, when such remedies were esteemed 
 extreme ! How entirely had the moneyed 
 interest allowed itself to be guided by a per- 
 verse influence, when a proposition to place 
 our republic above dependence on banks 
 and bankers seemed the most daring act of 
 financial legislation ever recommended in 
 our country! 
 
 The message of the President to the 
 Twenty-fifth Congress, at its first session, 
 in September, 1837, is written with vigor 
 and sound philosophy, having nothing to 
 be spared, nothing to be modified; its teach- 
 ings so wisely stated that they cannot be 
 misconstrued, so ably reasoned that they 
 carry conviction ; being the harmonious and 
 consistent result of a long career of public 
 service. 
 
 All Americans who connected their am- 
 bition with the old European restrictive and 
 
President of the United States. 207 
 
 financial systems heard in the message the 
 knell of that system. If the country could, 
 in its finances, follow sound general princi- 
 ple, and avoid interfering with commercial 
 pursuits, class legislation must come to an 
 end. The moneyed interest had compelled 
 the Government to be its servant, to loan 
 to them its revenue, to connect itself with 
 commercial exchanges. The principle of in- 
 dependence would separate the Government 
 from the hierarchy of moneyed institutions, 
 and arrest, at its source, the baneful influ- 
 ence of monopoly. 
 
 On the other hand, a new era was open- 
 ing. The legislation of our country, which 
 is the chief representation of the democra- 
 cy of the world, had grown out of British 
 legislation after its aristocratic revolution of 
 1688; and our statute-books showed the 
 anomaly of democratic freedom and laws 
 imitated from the codes of European aris- 
 tocracies. The message to Congress in its 
 extra session excited a hope that America 
 
2o8 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 was now to enter on a course of legislation 
 as pure as her principles, to escape from the 
 control or the bias of interests which had 
 connected her with the restrictive system. 
 They saw in the proposed plans something 
 more than a provision for a temporary and 
 transient inconvenience. They saw a sys- 
 tem wisely founded on enduring principles. 
 The Government was to separate itself 
 from the business of the country. It was 
 no more to attempt the impossible scheme 
 of controlling seven or eight hundred banks, 
 chartered by six-and- twenty separate sov- 
 ereignties ; it was no more to disturb ex- 
 changes by pretending to regulate them ; 
 and, if it did this, there was hope that the 
 same wisdom would frown on favoritism of 
 every kind, would more and more simplify 
 the operations of the Government, and lead 
 it to abandon the illiberal purpose of con- 
 trolling industry by legislative interference. 
 It was cheering to see that message kin- 
 dling hope, suppressing rivalries, eradicat- 
 
President of the United States. 209 
 
 ing feuds, bringing together men whose 
 friendships had too long been severed ; 
 winning to its support the energy and com- 
 pact logic of Calhoun, the integrity and 
 manly consistency of Brown of North Car- 
 olina, of Roane of Virginia, of Niles of Con- 
 necticut, and so many others ; the massive 
 strength of Benton, the persuasive prudence 
 of Buchanan. And it called forth voices of 
 applause from private life ; from Jefferson's 
 grandson, the pure-minded Randolph ; from 
 men whose voices had long been silent ; 
 from Tazewell of Virginia, and the inde- 
 pendent, eloquent McDufEe. Alas ! that 
 any should have wavered and stepped aside 
 as the party in power entered upon the 
 strict path of duty. 
 
 In the general gloom, it was with calm 
 intrepidity that the measure was discussed ; 
 and the Senate of the United States be- 
 came the scene of debates hardly surpassed 
 in any former deliberate assembly. 
 
 At the extra session one important meas- 
 14 
 
2IO Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 ure was achieved. The process of distribu- 
 tion of the nation's surplus revenue among 
 the States was checked. To relieve the 
 community, time was granted to the depos- 
 it banks to pay their dues to the public ; 
 and to the merchants who had given bonds 
 at the custom-house for duties, an exten- 
 sion of their bonds. But the great measure 
 which Van Buren recommended, though ap- 
 proved by the Senate, could not win for it- 
 self a majority in the House. 
 
 As yet Van Buren appeared as the stand- 
 ard-bearer, who had gone in advance of the 
 army, and surpmoned the country to move 
 forward and sustain him. As yet he was 
 not sustained, and severer trials awaited 
 him. At the autumn elections Van Buren 
 was in a minority in the State of New York. 
 
 The winter session of 1837 approached. 
 Unappalled, Van Buren met the crisis. In 
 the defeats of the autumn he saw only a 
 means to measure the extent of the disease, 
 not an interpreter of the rightful remedy. 
 
President of the United States. 2 1 1 
 
 The people had uttered no oracles ; the 
 seven hundred banks, the business classes, 
 roused to spasmodic effort, succeeded where 
 it was not usual ; but the facts and princi- 
 ples remained unchanged, and Van Buren 
 persevered in recommending an entire sep- 
 aration of the national treasury from the 
 banks, while the opposition was much in- 
 spirited, and with passionate vigor persisted 
 in a desperate fight, with the confident ex- 
 pectation of victory. 
 
 The bill for the independent treasury was 
 introduced, but by a combination of conserv- 
 atives with the anti-democratic opposition, 
 the essential clause that the revenue should 
 be collected in specie could not be carried. 
 
 Flushed by appearances that seemed to 
 promise a triumph, and eager in the pursuit 
 of an advantage, Henry Clay, Senator from 
 Kentucky, presented a resolution, which, at 
 his own instance, on the 2d of May, 1838, 
 was read a second time. The resolution 
 directed : 
 
212 Life of Martin Van Biiren. 
 
 ■ " That no discrimination shall be made as 
 to the currency or medium of payment in 
 the several branches of the public revenue, 
 or in debts or dues to the Government; and 
 that, until otherwise ordered by Congress, 
 the notes of sound banks which are payable 
 and paid on demand in the legal currency 
 of the United States, under suitable restric- 
 tions to be forthwith prescribed and pro- 
 mulgated by the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 shall be received in payment of the revenue 
 and of debts and dues to the Government, 
 and shall be sut^equently disbursed, in 
 course of puL»lic eJJ'penditure, to all public 
 creditors who are willing to receive them." 
 
 At once, Silas Wright, of New York, a 
 statesman and a friend ever to be relied 
 upon, of an unpretending modesty sur- 
 passed only by his merit, moved the refer- 
 ence of the resolution to the Committee on 
 Finance, of which he was the chairman, 
 
 Henry, Clay answered: "The resolution, 
 or some measure like it, is not only called 
 
President of the United States. 213 
 
 for by the situation of the country, but its 
 adoption would be attended by the most 
 practical benefits. It contains two princi- 
 ples — first, to do away with all discrimina- 
 tion in the payment of the revenue, wheth- 
 er derived from lands or the customs ; and 
 as on that subject the Senate has already 
 expressed its opinion by an almost unani- 
 mous vote, I cannot see the necessity of a 
 reference to it. The second provision is, 
 that, until otherwise ordered by Congress, 
 the notes of sound and specie-paying banks 
 shall be received and paid out in the re. 
 ceipts and expenditures of the Government. 
 Now, that principle appears to me so sim- 
 ple that every senator can comprehend it, 
 and therefore there is no necessity for re- 
 ferring it. I am only anxious for a speedy 
 action on the subject." 
 
 " How far is it designed," said Silas 
 Wright, " by this resolution to repeal all 
 former legislation without saying so in 
 terms, I do not know; but an inquiry to see 
 
214 -^^/"^ of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 how far the resolution conflicts with exist- 
 ing laws is highly necessary. In proposing 
 the reference, I do not wish to delay the ac- 
 tion of the Senate on the resolution." 
 
 Still Clay denied the propriety of the ref- 
 erence, and argued for the expediency of 
 passing the resolution. " Now," said he, " is 
 the accepted time to act." He promised 
 great benefits to New York from the meas- 
 ure, and concluded by expressing the opin- 
 ion that nothing but the establishment of a 
 national bank would, effectually remedy the 
 evils of a disordered currency. 
 
 "A reunion with the banks, as- proposed 
 by the resolution," said John, C. Calhoun, of 
 South Carolina, " would at no distant day 
 be followed by another shock still more ter- 
 rific than that of May last. ... A national 
 bank is out of the question ; and if it were 
 not, would prove one of the greatest calam- 
 ities that could befall the country." 
 
 "What is this resolution?" cried Thomas 
 H. Benton, of Missouri. " It is a paper- 
 
President of the United States. 215 
 
 money and shinplaster resolution, the adop- 
 tion of which would fill the Treasury with 
 notes which could never be redeemed. . . . 
 I warn the country of the impending mis- 
 chief. . . . The only way to save the banks 
 is to hold them down to specie payments. 
 . . . The resolution is such a proposition as 
 ought to be discussed, and will be discussed. 
 It is a proposition to fix the attention of a 
 continent. It goes to fundamental princi- 
 ples, and presents the fairest occasion for 
 the array of parties which has yet been seen 
 in Congress. It is paper-money and bank 
 government to the backbone. I am for 
 bringing on the debate with all due speed." 
 
 Henry Clay, rising to reply to a ^remark 
 from the Senator from South Carolina, add- 
 ed: "I am for a Bank of the United States, 
 and wish it so pronounced and so under- 
 stood that every man, woman, and child 
 should know it." 
 
 " There are but two measures," rejoined 
 Calhoun, " that can possibly prevent the rep- 
 
2i6 Life of Marthi Van Buren. 
 
 etition of the explosion which it is now con- 
 tended on all sides must follow, without the 
 application of some effectual remedy — a 
 complete and an entire divorce from the 
 whole system of banks, or the establishment 
 of a national bank ; and of the two, I con- 
 sider the former as by far the most safe and, 
 effectual." 
 
 It was referred to the Committee on Fi- 
 nance; and on the sixteenth day of May, Silas 
 Wright, of New York, submitted a report, 
 which, for its lucid and accurate statements 
 presented in the most unpretending man- 
 ner, won universal admiration, and will be 
 remembered alike for its intrinsic excellence 
 and for having achieved one of the most 
 memorable victories that ever was gained 
 in the American Senate. 
 
 While the subject was still under consid- 
 eration, on the occasion of presenting a pe- 
 tition, Henry Clay more fully expressed his 
 abiding wish to establish a new national 
 bank. " The capital," he said, enumerating 
 
President of the United States. 217 
 
 its objects, "should not be extravagantly 
 large ; I suppose that about fifty millions 
 would answer. The constitutional power 
 ought no longer to be regarded as an open 
 question. There ought to be some bounds 
 to human controversy." And appealing 
 from the actual Congress and the adminis- 
 tration, he proposed to make up an issue 
 for future elections. 
 
 "A fifty million bank!" said Benton, in 
 the debate on the whole subject : " it cannot 
 be established now, nor until the Democ- 
 racy of the Union shall have fought their 
 battles of Chseronea and Pharsalia." 
 
 After a very long debate. Clay himself, 
 compelled by the irresistible force of argu- 
 ment in the report of Silas Wright, was 
 obliged to retire from his position ; and to 
 avoid a worse defeat, on his own motion, the 
 most exceptional part of his resolution was 
 rejected by a vote of forty-four to one. All 
 that rernained of an improper nature was, 
 OB motion of the Senator from New York, 
 
2i8 Life of Martm Van Buren. 
 
 stricken out by a vote of twenty-eight to 
 nineteen. 
 
 The Twenty-fifth Congress came to an 
 end ; its successor, the Twenty-sixth, was 
 chosen with the question of the currency 
 before tlie people. In the room of men 
 who were wiUing to aid in defeating meas- 
 ures of reform, the House of Representa- 
 tives in the Twenty-sixth Congress was 
 found to contain a majority of those on 
 whom the country could rely. 
 
 Following the urgent advice of the Pres- 
 ident, they entered on the consideration of 
 the independent treasury. They refused 
 to consider it as an insulated question, but 
 upheld it as a measure including a system 
 of policy. The contest between a Bank of 
 the United States and a total separation 
 from the banks involved the question, wheth- 
 er the industry of the country should be 
 left to its natural development, or subjected 
 to artificial and selfish legislation. 
 \ At last, on the fourth day of July, 1840, 
 
President of the United States. 2 1 g 
 
 Van Buren had the happiness of setting his 
 name to the law which estabHshed the in- 
 dependent treasury. 
 
 That law was demanded by the princi- 
 ples of the party of strict construction, for 
 without it a national bank, "the pioneer of 
 encroachments," would' return. 
 
 It separated the Government from all in- 
 terference with the credit of individuals and 
 the credit of States, and so favored entirely 
 the system which tolerates no restrictions 
 on industry, or interference of the Govern- 
 ment with private.' pursuits. Abolishing 
 privileges, and conferring favors on none, 
 it was thevsymbol. of opposition to monop- 
 oly of all kinds. 
 
 In harmoily viith advancing civilization, 
 it broke up the partnership between the 
 Government and the credit system, by which 
 the credit and revenue of the Government 
 had been subjected to the accidents of the 
 % business of the country. 
 'i It removed the Government from that 
 
 ■^ 
 
2 20 Life of Martin,' Van Buren. 
 
 foreign influence which the credit system, 
 by means of its wide ramifications, was sure 
 to exercise. ' 
 
 It complied with the Constitution, which 
 nowhere permits a loan of the public rev- 
 enue. 
 
 It gave to no set of banks advantages 
 over the rest, but left them all to the em- 
 ployment of their own resources on a sys- 
 tem of the utmost impartiality. 
 
 It tended to make the flow of credit steady; 
 not adding, in seasons of ardent speculation, 
 new fuel to the flame by throwing the na- 
 tional revenue into banks of deposit to be 
 loaned out for the gain of the banks ; but, 
 by withholding the fatal stimulant, to re- 
 strain excesses and consequent exhaustion, 
 and to make the flow of credit steady and 
 equable; like a good mill-stream, which nev- 
 er rages with fury, and never fails even in 
 the heat of summer. 
 
 It was faithful to the people, taking from 
 them money only for public purposes, saving 
 
President of the United States. 221 
 
 that money undiminished by losses from in- 
 solvent banks, and sacredly keeping it to be 
 used according to the laws for the general 
 good. 
 
 It simplified the action of the Treasury, 
 and so made its operations plain to the com- 
 mon mind. 
 
 By forbidding loans of public money, it 
 diminished the patronage of the General 
 Government, which no longer could select 
 from among eight hundred banks its few 
 favored ones. 
 
 It promoted economy in the public ex- 
 penditures by relieving the class of borrow- 
 ers from deposit banks and from a United 
 States Bank from every temptation to favor 
 an exorbitant revenue. 
 
 It prevented utterly the political union 
 of stock-jobbers and opulent merchants and 
 corporations with the Government, and thus 
 favored the purity and permanency of our 
 institutions. 
 
 It was faithful to the country ; it did not 
 
222 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 allow the people's revenue to be wrested 
 from the people's Government, and placed 
 where at any time, in war or in peace, the 
 use of it for public wants would not be ex- 
 posed to obstruction from the indiscretions, 
 the necessities, or the malevolence of banks 
 of deposit. 
 
 It benefited the credit system by holding 
 over it the gentlest and most certain, the 
 least oppressive and ever-active, ever-efficient 
 check. 
 
 It gave stability to contracts by main- 
 taining the standard of value unimpaired 
 in every part of the Union, preserving as 
 the measure of value those precious metals 
 which, being the product of industry, are 
 themselves of intrinsic value, and thus, with- 
 out professing to regulate exchanges, it 
 equalized them throughout the Union. 
 
 It gave to manufactures proper protection 
 by demanding revenue to be paid promptly 
 on importation, and in specie, and by refus- 
 ing to make the revenue serve, by means of 
 
President of the United States. 223 
 
 loans, as a capital for new importations ; at 
 the same time it emancipated the question 
 of the tariff from the influence of deposit 
 banks, which might look to exorbitant du- 
 ties as a source of profit to themselves. 
 
 It checked speculation and tended to keep 
 the money market even. In case of too 
 heavy importations, it gently admonished 
 importers by a tendency to scarcity. The 
 paper system, by its elasticity, expands with 
 rising prices and contracts with descending 
 ones ; thus stimulating speculation when it 
 needs a check, and increasing the severity 
 of every pressure. The independent treas- 
 ury checked importations just when they 
 needed a check; and, in case of falling prices, 
 tended to alleviate the money market by 
 the disbursements of Government, continu- 
 ing under a diminishing revenue from its 
 previous collections. 
 
 It gave a treasury truly independent — 
 independent of foreign sway, independent 
 of the fluctuations of business, independent 
 
2 24 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 of bankers and corporations, independent of 
 coi-rupt influences, independent of all but 
 the will of the people as expressed in the 
 Constitution and the laws. 
 
 Such was the independent treasury — a 
 system in harmony with American institu- 
 tions, based on justice, and productive only 
 of good. It was happy for Van Buren that 
 he was permitted first among our statesmen 
 to propose it, and to set his name to the 
 act consummating its establishment. 
 
 Nor did this measure engross exclusively 
 the attention of Van Buren. Great Britain 
 encroached on our north-eastern frontier. 
 Congress placed the resources of the coun- 
 try at his disposition to repel the encroach- 
 ments ; and he succeeded, without the effu- 
 sion of blood, in driving the English to a 
 position which left the ultimate recognition 
 of the American rights in their full extent a 
 necessary consequence of their concessions. 
 
 Nor was attention limited to the North- 
 east. The Cabinet of Van Buren turned 
 
President of the United States. 225 
 
 its care to our immense possessions in the 
 North-west, and in preparing for its occu- 
 pation the Department of War planned a 
 line of military communication extending 
 to the shores of the Pacific ; for they knew 
 that it was the duty of our republic to light 
 from its own hearths the fires of republican 
 freedom in the vast region of the Oregon. 
 Our system, which reserves to each indi- 
 vidual State the right of development ac- 
 cording to its capacities, thus insures di- 
 versity, and fearlessly extends the federa- 
 tive system over most extensive territory; 
 for it knows that its principle of local self- 
 government for States will insure, in the 
 midst of union, that diversity of character 
 and pursuit and interest which is essential 
 to the full development of national charac- 
 ter and power. 
 
 Our foreign affairs were conducted with 
 dignity and success. Indemnities exceed- 
 ing in amount six millions of dollars were 
 obtained from various nations for injuries 
 
 15 
 
2 26 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 to our commerce. With Mexico we became 
 bound more closely by a just and honorable 
 treaty. Texas and Holland paid indemni- 
 ties ; treaties were matured with nations of 
 South America on the west and on the 
 east; Sardinia and Belgium sought our 
 commerce ; and at Athens peaceful inter- 
 course was begun with the government 
 that ruled the now united land of Solon 
 and Lycurgus, of Miltiades and Leonidas. 
 
 The removal of the Indian tribes, who, 
 according to previous treaties and acts of 
 legislation, were to find new places of abode 
 beyond the Mississippi, was conducted by 
 the General Government with tenderness 
 and humanity; and more than forty thou- 
 sand of these emigrants found, on their new 
 and most fertile territory, ample provision 
 for their comfort, their pursuit of agricult- 
 ure, and their civilization and instruction. 
 
 The evils of arbitrary power in the navy 
 had multiplied from neglect. They were 
 alleviated and circumscribed ; and as far as 
 
President of the United States. 227 
 
 depended on the President, by an order in 
 March, 1839, the sailor before the mast was 
 protected against the lash, except as a pun- 
 ishment ordered by a court. This wise hu- 
 manity received at a later day still further 
 development, but not while Van Buren was 
 President. 
 
 To save the public lands from specula^ 
 tors and secure them to actual emigrants. 
 Van Buren was the first among our Presi- 
 dents to recommend a pre-emption law, thus 
 adopting it as the system of the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 From Henry Clay, of Kentucky, the pro- 
 posed measure, in 1838, met with earnest 
 and uncompromising opposition in Con- 
 gress. The men for whose benefit it was 
 designed he characterized as a lawless rab- 
 ble of intruders, as a clkss entitled to no 
 consideration. He ridiculed the idea of the 
 " moral sense " of these " club-law" men, and 
 was in favor of removing them by force 
 from the lands which they assumed to hold 
 
2 28 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 without any color of legal or equitable right. 
 The abuses of the system, he said, out- 
 weighed the legitimate benefit which it 
 might afford to honest industry. 
 
 There were not wanting eloquent mem- 
 bers from the West to vindicate the charac- 
 ter of the men thus assailed, as being as 
 honest, industrious, hospitable, peaceable, 
 and law-abiding a population as was to be 
 found in any portion of the Union. On this 
 occasion, Webster, differing from Clay, de- 
 fended the policy of Van Buren. 
 
 Merrick, of Maryland, desired to exclude 
 foreigners from the benefit of the bill, 
 and Henry Clay avowed the pleasure with 
 which he should sustain the amendment; 
 but Walker, Benton, and Buchanan protest- 
 ed against it as illiberal in spirit and for- 
 eign to the policy of the New World. The 
 amendment was lost; the measure recom- 
 mended by Van Buren won majorities in 
 Congress, and the prompt signature of the 
 President made it the law of the land. 
 
President of the United States. 229 
 
 In May, 1840, the Democracy of the 
 Union came together in convention at Bal- 
 timore ; twenty-one States were ably repre- 
 sented, and the voice of the convention was 
 given heartily and unanimously for the nom- 
 ination of Van Buren as the Democratic 
 candidate for the Presidency. 
 
 Never before had the country known a 
 struggle at a Presidential election like that 
 which ensued. The party opposed to Van 
 Buren sought to win the vote of the South 
 by a coalition. They repeated the nomina- 
 tion of William Henry Harrison, who in the 
 previous election had been their candidate 
 for the Presidency. He was by birth a Vir- 
 ginian, the son of one of her statesmen who 
 had been most deeply imbued with the po- 
 litical system which rested on the rights of 
 the States. In 1791 he himself had en- 
 tered public life as an ensign in the army 
 of the United States, in which he rose to 
 the rank of captain. In 1797 he passed 
 from the army into the office of Secretary 
 
230 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 of the North-west Territory, and afterwards 
 served in the Sixth Congress as its delegate. 
 In 181 1, taking the command of a body of 
 volunteers, he attacked and defeated the 
 British and Indians at Tippecanoe. He 
 took part in the virar with Great Britain, 
 and after its close he retired from the army, 
 inade his residence in Ohio, was elected to 
 the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congress of 
 the United States, and afterwards, by the 
 anti-Democratic majority in that State, was 
 sent to the Senate of the United States. 
 He served in that body from December 5, 
 1825, to May, 1828, when he accepted a 
 commission as Minister of the United States 
 to Colombia. Soon after the inausfuration 
 of Andrew Jackson, in 1829, he returned 
 from his mission, and living for more than 
 ten years in retirement a little below Cin- 
 cinnati, on the banks of the Ohio, had al- 
 ready reached the verge of old age. In his 
 civil career he had, by his unassuming mod- 
 eration, escaped the inconveniences of noto- 
 
President of the United States, 231 
 
 riety and bitter strife; and while the manu- 
 facturers of New England received from 
 him satisfactory assurances of his devoted- 
 ness to their interests, he united in himself 
 many of the traditions of Virginia and had 
 never been at variance with its statesmen. 
 
 But to make sure of success, it was neces- 
 sary for the opponents of Van Buren to gain 
 the votes of Southern States which were 
 opposed to their mode of interpretation of 
 the Constitution and their protective system, 
 and for that purpose they selected John 
 Tyler, of Virginia. While representing Vir- 
 ginia in the Senate of the United States, 
 Tyler had fallen into conflict with Andrew 
 Jackson, the President. Jackson's motto 
 was, " The Union must be preserved." Ty- 
 ler was of the class of statesmen who feared 
 infringement by the General Government 
 on local self-government, and whose ruling 
 maxim was the sovereignty of the States. 
 Hence, Tyler had separated himself from 
 the standard-bearers of the party which for 
 
232 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 the time made Jackson their leader ; and as 
 the candidate of the coalition for the Vice- 
 presidency, he never during the campaign 
 renounced his life-long convictions. His 
 silence was not censured by any of his sup- 
 porters at the North, for it strengthened 
 their chances of winning votes in the South; 
 but Webster, immediately on the nomination 
 of Harrison as candidate for the Presidency, 
 denounced it as " a nomination not fit to be 
 made." 
 
 The public mind was at the time excited 
 alike by the pecuniary distress from which 
 the country had not fully recovered, and 
 from the intense interest attached to the 
 questions at issue before the people. The 
 one party, in a season of general suffering, 
 prodigal of unbounded promises and of mis- 
 representations, appealed to the sentiment 
 of sympathy and to the desire of change; 
 the other addressed itself to the sober rea- 
 son of the people. Men gathered every- 
 where in crowds to listen to discussions. 
 
President of the United States. 233 
 
 The leading doctrines of political economy 
 became subjects of reflection in every vil- 
 lage. But it was observable then, as al- 
 ways, that the feelings may be approached 
 more suddenly than the intellect; besides, 
 the speculations which had pervaded the 
 land had, directly or through ties of friend- 
 ship, spread their influence into almost ev- 
 ery household, and a lurking hope remained 
 that the laws of trade themselves would yield 
 to a change of administration. Yet the mill- 
 ions were excited to a degree never before 
 known. Far greater numbers in prop>ortion 
 to population appeared for the Democratic 
 candidate at the polls than ever before ; and 
 the hundreds of thousands who took part 
 did so from conviction ; and before long the 
 great and ever -increasing majority, apply- 
 ing alike the tests of science and of ex- 
 perience to the questions of revenue, were 
 converted to their principles and adopted 
 their financial policy ; but at the time their 
 candidate was defeated. 
 
2 34 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 One thing more was needed to test the 
 character of Van Buren. Would he bear 
 defeat with dignity ? 
 
 His last annual message is one of the 
 ablest and best-written documents that had 
 been addressed to Congress by an American 
 Chief Magistrate. Faithful to his principles 
 and free from repining, he did his utmost 
 to prepare the way for his successor. The 
 finances, of which he had received the care 
 under circumstances the most adverse, were 
 left in the exactest order and in ample suf- 
 ficiency. Every act of legislation was con- 
 certed in such a manner as to save his suc- 
 cessor from any embarrassment. 
 
 Retiring from public life, he left behind 
 him a clear exposition of his financial poli- 
 cy as a beacon-light to the nation. 
 
 Returning to his native State as a private 
 man, the city of New York, which sustained 
 Van Buren to the last, poured out its tens 
 of thousands to welcome him, and by the 
 sincerity of their approbation made the mo- 
 
President of (he Untied States. 235 
 
 ment of his retiring a happy era of his life. 
 At Hudson, as the boat stopped, an old 
 man pressed forward eagerly to pay his 
 tribute to the retired President, who in his 
 younger days had rescued his land from the 
 encroachment of large proprietors. At Kin- 
 derhook he was met with an affection which 
 ever increased. 
 
 After that period Van Buren enjoyed a 
 quiet tour through the country, not unat- 
 tended with honors. On public topics his 
 opinions were freely given. When the veto 
 power was endangered by a proposed man- 
 gling of the Constitution under pretence of 
 amendment, he defended the preservation 
 of that power. 
 
 For Ireland, he expressed the unanimous 
 wish of America — that she may recover the 
 inalienably rightful possession of local self- 
 government and legislation. 
 
 To a Convention of Indiana he expressed 
 himself freely on the tariff, pleading for the 
 constitutional right of discrimination, yet 
 
236 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 finding the limit to duties in the needed 
 amount of revenue. 
 
 To remedy the evil of official patronage, 
 he proposed for the United States what he 
 had successfully proposed to New York — a 
 transfer of patronage, when possible, from 
 the Central Government to the people. 
 
 The characteristics of Van Buren as a 
 statesman were a firm reliance on principle 
 and, in the darkest hour, a bright and invig- 
 orating hopefulness. 
 
 When thoughtful leaders of his party 
 were appalled, Van Buren knew how to dis- 
 pel apprehension by his serene presence 
 and addresses. Few statesmen have relied 
 less on patronage, and few public men were 
 ever more free from personal intrigue. This 
 I know from his friends, and have had op- 
 portunity to observe. 
 
 His course was that of a statesman de- 
 voted to principle and studying the lessons 
 of experience. Hence, as a statesman, he 
 was the pupil of the public mind of his 
 
President of the United States. 237 
 
 time, deciding questions, as they arose, in 
 favor of liberty. 
 
 He avowed that the public mind was 
 ever his study. Against it he would never 
 rise in rebellion. If the majority erred, he 
 knew no appeal to arms against its will; 
 but, acknowledging that the works of hu- 
 man hands and the thoughts of human 
 minds are inadequate and imperfect, rec- 
 ognizing no higher earthly tribunal than 
 the common mind of the American people, 
 he admitted of no appeal but from the pas- 
 sions of the present hour to the wisdom of 
 the next, from the enlightened judgment of 
 to-day to the more enlightened " sober sec- 
 ond thought " of to-morrow. 
 
 Thus far in his career he pursued a sys- 
 tem of progressive legislation, not rejecting 
 the past, but, with moderation and avoiding 
 glaring transitions, he sought to improve 
 and reform the past. 
 
 This restraining caution and moderation 
 of character his opponents called non-com- 
 
238 Life of Martin Van Buren. 
 
 mittal, thinking his opinions undecided be- 
 cause he did not share their passions. 
 
 The private life of Van Buren was un- 
 blemished and unblamed. In youth he op- 
 posed the old United States Bank, and its 
 substitute, the Bank of America. With con- 
 sistency and vigilance he resisted the en- 
 croachments of the banking power, and with 
 early and almost solitary sagacity, predicted 
 the evil consequences of the prevailing sys- 
 tem of corporate banks. In the Senate of 
 New York and of the United States he 
 led the way in abolishing imprisonment for 
 debt; he opposed the spirit of monopoly in 
 all its forms, and would never become a 
 share-holder in a corporation established by 
 the Legislature of which he was a mem- 
 ber. He assisted to overthrow property re- 
 strictions on the elective franchise, and to 
 achieve for the people of New York general 
 suffrage. As President, he was the first to 
 recommend grants of pre-emption rights to 
 settlers. By his especial direction, a public 
 
President of the United States. 239 
 
 ordinance secured to the laborers on public 
 works opportunity for due domestic enjoy- 
 ment and repose. Those who knew him 
 longest and most intimately used to chal- 
 lenge his most inveterate opponents to point 
 to one instance in his political career of 
 more than thirty years, where the conflict 
 was between the assumptions of the few 
 and the rights of the many, between the 
 pretensions of privilege and the just liber- 
 ties of the masses, in which he was not 
 found sustaining the latter and battling for 
 human rights. 
 
 THE END.