these consultations I expressed an earnest desire so to shape my action as to protect the interest of our State. I pledged myself, in case the caucus would agree upon rates of specific duties upon iron, to oppose the bill unless they were adopted by the House. Some two or three of them, I believed, favored this plan, but a large majority would agree to nothing. They would stand by the tariff of 1842 in all its details, agreeing to no modification whatever. I well recollect that Dr. Leeds of Columbia, and Brodhead, declared they would not vote for any change whatever, even if in the new bill the duties on iron and coal were allowed to stand, or raised above the rates provided in the act of 1842. fact, was the position of many of the delegation.

Such, in

I was pledged to a modification of the act of 1842; yet was intensely anxious that our interests should not be put in jeopardy. I said and did all in my power to protect those interests. I made no concealment nor disguise whatever of my anxiety in this respect, and repeatedly declared to the friends of the bill, that if I held its fate in my hands, it should not pass, until a more just and liberal protection was afforded to the interests of our State. I went so far as to see and talk with Mr. Dallas, while the measure was pending in the Senate, and urged him in case he should hold the fate of the bill in his vote, to force its friends to a more liberal regard to our great interests. I did not wish to defeat the billof this there was no danger-but to compel its friends so to change it as to make the interests of our State secure.

Indeed, so anxious

was I to bring about this result that I voted against concurring in a Senate amendment of trifling importance. It is because of this vote that the Washington Union and Pennsylvanian have charged me with a desire to defeat the bill in the final and trying hour of its fate. The charge is untrue-I gave the vote in the hope of forcing the bill into a committee of conference, where I understood it would be open to general amendment and thus affording one more chance of so amending the bill as to secure the interests of the State.

I am of the firm belief, that if six democrats from Pennsylvania would have acted with me, instead of adhering immovably to the act of 1842, our State would have obtained all that reasonably could have been asked, and her great interests placed on a satisfactory and permanent basis. In the early stages of the bill, be

fore its friends had counted and marshaled their forces, we could, in my judgment, have secured adequate specific duties. In this I may be mistaken, but think not. It is certain that we could have obtained 50 per cent ad valorem. Even in the latter stages of the bill, and when its passage was certain without any of our votes, so anxious were its friends to secure Pennsylvania's support (from party considerations) that McKay, who had charge of the bill as chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, offered to move 40 per cent on iron if half the democrats from our State would then vote for the bill. It always seemed to me strange when the passage of the bill was certain, that our men would not make sure of all they could get. They, however, were pledged to the tariff of 1842, and it was easier to stand by their pledges, than to explain to their constituents the reason for a departure from them, however good their reasons might have been. I was pledged to a modification of the act of 1842, and after exhausting every effort to secure the interests of our State, redeemed that pledge; declaring at the time I did so, that if the bill depended on my vote, I would withhold it until a larger measure of justice was meted out to our State.

CHAPTER VII

THE $2,000,000 BILL AND THE WILMOT PROVISO

THERE is something dramatic in the staging of Wilmot's first session in Congress, which held the greatest situation in suspense almost to the close of the scene, and then swiftly raised the tension to a climax just in time for the curtain.

The hour for adjournment, fixed in advance by joint resolution of Senate and House, was noon of Monday, August 10, 1846. On Saturday, August 8, shortly before the afternoon recess and at an hour when the House was in the fitful fever of rounding up unfinished business, including such matters as the multitudinous amendments to the General Appropriation Bill, the Speaker laid before the members a message from the President of the United States, stating in substance that it was his sincere desire to terminate, as it had been originally to avoid, the war with Mexico; and that it was probable that the chief difficulty would be the adjustment of the boundary between the two republics. In the adjustment of this boundary, he said, "we ought to pay a fair equivalent for any concessions which may be made by Mexico." Under these circumstances, he deemed it important "that a sum of money should be placed under the control of the Executive, to be advanced, if need be," to the Mexican government upon their ratification of a treaty. This installment, he explained, would avoid the inconvenience and possibly even the fatal obstacle which might be met if all payments must be delayed until the Senate should approve a treaty and appropriation could be made for the whole amount that might be involved. Precedent existed, Mr. Polk pointed out, in a similar appropriation made under Jefferson's administration, in 1803,1 to the extent of $2,000,000 for Ex

1 This was on account of the Louisiana Purchase.

ecutive use in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations. The President, therefore, recommended the passage of a law appropriating an equal sum for the purpose he had indicated. In the meantime, to prevent any misapprehension, he assured Congress of the continued prosecution of the war with the utmost vigor until a treaty should be signed and ratified by the Mexican republic.

Under the language of the Executive communication, could be easily detected the outlines of a new and grandiose project for territorial extension. As Charles H. Carroll, of New York, bluntly phrased it, "it looked very much as if the money was wanted to purchase California, and a large part of Mexico to boot." The camp of the opposition was stirred to action, and the first parliamentary manoeuver was a motion to refer the President's message to the Committee of Ways and Means. Rescued from this limbo by its friends, it was referred instead to the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, into which the House proceeded to resolve itself, and the message was taken up in connection with a bill (evidently prepared in advance) by James J. McKay, of North Carolina, appropriating $2,000,000 "for the purpose of defraying any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations. . . to be applied under the direction of the President of the United States, who shall cause an account of the expenditure thereof to be laid before Congress as soon as may be."

The House, sitting as Committee of the Whole, then plunged into a confused parliamentary scrimmage, the sponsor for the bill seeking to limit the debate first to "three o'clock," then to "two o'clock," and its opponents, including Wilmot, voting to table all such resolutions. The tangle became so involved that not even the Chair seemed to be quite sure what question was before the Committee. Finally the situation cleared into an agreement to allow two hours for debate, to begin at five o'clock, after the recess; and the Committee resumed the con

sideration of miscellaneous business until the recess hour of three o'clock arrived.

It was during this recess period, Wilmot says in his Albany speech delivered a few months afterward-a speech characterized by himself as the best account of the origin of the Proviso he could give-that he conceived and declared the purpose of moving "an amendment to the effect that slavery should be excluded from any territory acquired by virtue of such an appropriation." His immediate associates were of divided counsel, some approving his resolution and some objecting, Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, discouraging it to the extent of declaring the intention to speak against Wilmot's amendment on the floor, if it were offered.

At five o'clock, the House resumed its session in Committee of the Whole, but as only "a very small portion of a quorum" was present, the Committee rose temporarily to let the House. dispose of various Senate bills. This business finished, the Committee returned to the President's message and the bill introduced by Mr. McKay, chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, under a resolution limiting the time of each member to ten minutes and the whole debate to two hours.

Hugh White, of New York, who was first to obtain the floor, expressed great distrust of the purpose inspiring the President's request, and great unwillingness to sanction the appropriation unless "the other side" would offer, as evidence of good faith, some amendment precluding the possibility of the extension of slavery. Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, followed in the same strain, deploring the former dilemma which had forced him to vote for the Mexican War, and this new one which threatened to compel him to "another of these abhorrent votes." Ingersoll "hailed the rainbow of peace, from whatever quarter it came," and was in favor of giving the President what he asked. Henry Grider, of Kentucky, had always believed the war unnecessary, but he should vote for a measure which looked toward peace; he knew there was a well