sir, the appellation of radicals, as a term of distinction, applicable and applied to those who denied the liberal doctrines of internal improvements, originated, according to the best of my recollection, somewhere between North Carolina and Georgia. Well, sir, these mischievous radicals were to be put down, and the strong arm of South Carolina was stretched out to put them down. About this time, sir, I returned to Congress. The battle with the radicals had been fought, and our South Carolina champions of the doctrines of internal improvement had nobly maintained their ground, and were understood to have achieved a victory. We looked upon them as conquerors. They had driven back the enemy with discomfiture-a thing, by the way, sir, which is not always performed when it is promised. A gentleman, to whom I have already referred in this debate, had come into Congress, during my absence from it, from South Carolina, and had brought with him a high reputation for ability. He came from a school with which we had been acquainted, “et noscitur a sociis." I hold in my hand, sir, a printed speech of this distinguished gentleman [Mr. McDuffie]" on internal improvements," delivered about the period to which I now refer, and printed with a few introductory remarks upon consolidation; in which, sir, I think he quite consolidated the arguments of his opponents, the radicals, if to crush be to consolidate. I give you a short but substantive quotation from these remarks. He is speaking of a pamphlet, then recently published, entitled "Consolidation"; and having alluded to the question of renewing the charter of the former Bank of the United States, he says: " Moreover, in the early history of parties, and when Mr. Crawford advocated a renewal of the old charter, it was considered a federal measure; which internal improvements never was, as this author erroneously states. This latter measure originated in the administration of Mr. Jefferson, with the appropriation for the Cumberland road; and was first proposed, as a system, by Mr. Calhoun, and carried through the House of Representatives by a large majority of the republicans, including almost every one of the leading men who carried us through the late war."

So, then, internal improvement is not one of the federal heresies. One paragraph more, sir:

"The author in question, not content with denouncing as federalists, General Jackson, Mr. Adams, Mr. Calhoun, and the

majority of the South Carolina delegation in Congress, modestly extends the denunciation to Mr. Monroe, and the whole republican party. Here are his words: During the administration of Mr. Monroe much has passed which the republican party would be glad to approve if they could!! But the principal feature, and that which has chiefly elicited these observations, is the renewal of the system of internal improvements.' Now this measure was adopted by a vote of 115 to 86, of a republican Congress, and sanctioned by a republican President. Who, then, is this author-who assumes the high prerogative of denouncing, in the name of the republican party, the republican administration of the country? A denunciation including within its sweep, Calhoun, Lowndes, and Cheves-men who will be regarded as the brightest ornaments of South Carolina, and the strongest pillars of the republican party, as long as the late war shall be remembered, and talents and patriotism shall be regarded as the proper objects of the admiration and gratitude of a free people!!"

Such are the opinions, sir, which were maintained by South Carolina gentlemen, in the House of Representatives, on the subject of internal improvements, when I took my seat there as a member from Massachusetts, in 1823. But this is not all. We had a bill before us, and passed it in that House, entitled "An act to procure the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates upon the subject of roads and canals." It authorized the President to cause surveys and estimates to be made of the routes of such roads and canals as he might deem of national importance, in a commercial or military point of view, or for the transportation of the mail, and appropriated thirty thousand dollars, out of the treasury, to defray the expense. This act, though preliminary in its nature, covered the whole ground. It took for granted the complete power of internal improvement, as far as any of its advocates had ever contended for it. Having passed the other House, the bill came up to the Senate, and was here considered and debated in April, 1824. The honorable member from South Carolina was a member of the Senate at that time. While the bill was under consideration here, a motion was made to add the following proviso:

"Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to affirm or admit a power in Congress, on their own authority, to make roads or canals, within any of the States of the Union."

The yeas and nays were taken on this proviso, and the honorable member voted in the negative! The proviso failed.

A motion was then made to add this proviso, viz.:

"Provided, That the faith of the United States is hereby pledged, that no money shall ever be expended for roads or canals, except it shall be among the several States, and in the same proportion as direct taxes are laid and assessed by the provisions of the constitution."

The honorable member voted against this proviso, also, and it failed. The bill was then put on its passage, and the honorable member voted for it, and it passed, and became a law.

Now, it strikes me, sir, that there is no maintaining these votes, but upon the power of internal improvement, in its broadest sense. In truth, these bills for surveys and estimates have always been considered as test questions-they show who is for and who against internal improvement. This law itself went the whole length, and assumed the full and complete power. The gentleman's votes sustained that power, in every form in which the various propositions to amend presented it. He went for the entire and unrestrained authority, without consulting the States, and without agreeing to any proportionate distribution. And now suffer me to remind you, Mr. President, that it is this very same power, thus sanctioned, in every form, by the gentleman's own opinion, that is so plain and manifest a usurpation, that the State of South Carolina is supposed to be justified in refusing submission to any laws carrying the power into effect. Truly, sir, is not this a little too hard? May we not crave some mercy, under favor and protection of the gentleman's own authority? Admitting that a road, or a canal, must be written down flat usurpation as was ever committed, may we find no mitigation in our respect for his place, and his vote, as one that knows the law?

The tariff, which South Carolina had an efficient hand in establishing, in 1816, and this asserted power of internal improvement, advanced by her in the same year, and, as we have seen, approved and sanctioned by her representatives in 1824, these two measures are the great grounds on which she is now thought to be justified in breaking up the Union, if she sees fit to break it up!

I may now safely say, I think, that we have had the authority

of leading and distinguished gentlemen from South Carolina, in support of the doctrine of internal improvement. I repeat, that, up to 1824, I, for one, followed South Carolina; but, when that star, in its ascension, veered off, in an unexpected direction, I relied on its light no longer.

[Here, Mr. Calhoun, the Vice-President, said: "Does the chair understand the gentleman from Massachusetts to say that the person now occupying the chair of the Senate has changed his opinions on the subject of internal improvements?"]

From nothing ever said to me, sir, have I had reason to know of any change in the opinions of the person filling the chair of the Senate. If such change has taken place, I regret it. I speak generally of the State of South Carolina. Individuals, we know there are, who hold opinions favorable to the power. An application for its exercise, in behalf of a public work in South Carolina itself, is now pending, I believe, in the other House, presented by members from that State.

I have thus, sir, perhaps, not without some tediousness of detail, shown that if I am in error, on the subject of internal improvement, how, and in what company, I fell into that error. If I am wrong, it is apparent who misled me.

I go to other remarks of the honorable member: and I have to complain of an entire misapprehension of what I said on the subject of the national debt, though I can hardly perceive how anyone could misunderstand me. What I said was, not that I wished to put off the payment of the debt, but, on the contrary, that I had always voted for every measure for its reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman himself. He seems to claim the exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce the public charge. I do not allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am for paying it, because it is a charge on our finances, and on the industry of the country. But I observed that I thought I perceived a morbid fervor on that subject-an excessive anxiety to pay off the debt, not so much because it is a debt simply, as because, while it lasts, it furnishes one objection to disunion. It is a tie of common interest, while it continues. I did not impute such motives to the honorable member himself, but that there is such a feeling in existence, I have not a particle of doubt. The most I said was, that if one effect of the debt was to strengthen our Union, that effect itself was not regretted by me, however much

others might regret it. The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing. Others, I must hope, will find much less difficulty in understanding me. I distinctly and pointedly cautioned the honorable member not to understand me as expressing an opinion favorable to the continuance of the debt. I repeated this caution, and repeated it more than once; but it was thrown away.

On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misunderstood. The gentleman had harangued against "consolidation." I told him, in reply, that there was one kind of consolidation to which I was attached, and that was, the consolidation of our Union; and that this was precisely that consolidation to which I feared others were not attached. That such consolidation was the very end of the constitution-the leading object, as they had informed us themselves, which its framers had kept in view. I turned to their communication, and read their very words" the consolidation of the Union "-and expressed my devotion to this sort of consolidation. I said in terms, that I wished not, in the slightest degree, to augment the powers of this government; that my object was to preserve, not to enlarge; and that by consolidating the Union, I understood no more than the strengthening of the Union, and perpetuating it. Having been thus explicit; having thus read from the printed book the precise words which I adopted, as expressing my own sentiments, it passes comprehension how any man could understand me as contending for an extension of the powers of the government, or for consolidation, in that odious sense, in which it means an accumulation, in the federal government, of the powers properly belonging to the States.

I repeat, sir, that in adopting the sentiment of the framers of the constitution, I read their language audibly, and word for word; and I pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I have done now, between the consolidation of the Union and that other obnoxious consolidation which I disclaimed. And yet the honorable member misunderstood me. The gentleman had said that he wished for no fixed revenue-not a shilling. If, by a word, he could convert the capitol into gold, he would not do it. Why all this fear of revenue? Why, sir, because, as the gentleman told us, it tends to consolidation. Now,