and last distribution schemes, and predicted their disastrous results. He was faithful in his support of all Democratic measures. The offer to place our army under his general direction during the Mexican War was wisely declined. The post of his greatest usefulness was elsewhere, while, if at the head of the army, it was liable soon to become disorganized and diminished in energy and usefulness.

Colonel Benton took strong ground against nullification, and made some of his greatest efforts to sustain the cause of the Union against that heresy. His steel was so much felt by Mr. Calhoun, that he never forgave or afterward associated with him. Having, at an early day, examined our rights to Oregon and their extent, when the question of its boundary arose, he took ground for the line of 49° instead of 54° 40', and carried the country with him. He took strong ground against what he called the "trick," in the annexation of Texas, and firmly opposed Mr. Douglas's amended bill, repealing the Missouri Compromise. He predicted where the matter would end. Colonel Benton was honest, sincere, and fearless in his political views, always regretting a difference of opinion with friends. The great efforts of his life were designed to secure to the masses that protection and independence which the Constitution intended to secure to them. His invectives against those who sought to use the Government as a machine to make money, or promote private ends, were terrible. He believed in and defended equality of rights and burdens, and always set his face like steel against class legislation, so often pressed for the benefit of the few. To defend the right, there was no hazard too great for him to run. He was most efficient in his efforts to restore and continue gold as a currency, and the country was indebted to him more than to any other man for our having enjoyed this constitutional measure of values for a quarter of a century. He was a firm opponent of sectionalism, from the time it sought to prevent Missouri coming into the Union to the end of his life. He always feared it would end in destroying the Union. The memory of Colonel Benton will ever be cherished as one of the most firm, consistent, and useful Democrats of his day. Christening him as "Old Bullion" tends to strengthen the attachment of the Democracy for him.

76.-DISTRIBUTION OF THE PUBLIC LANDS, AND LAND SALES.

Since the establishment of the Government there has seldom been a time when some politician, or political party, has not been engaged in fostering or executing plans to secure improved position by the use or management of our public resources. It is a strong element among the anti-democratic principles. From the organization of the Western States, down to near the present time, there have been large bodies of public lands within their limits; while, at the same time, these States have exercised an important, if not a preponderant influence in presidential elections. Hence, whoever secured the support of these States, entered the presidential contest with a respectable capital. It will, therefore, disappoint no one to learn that there have been numerous efforts made to secure their good-will. During the last year of General Jackson's administration, Mr. Calhoun brought forward a plan for the cession of all the public lands to the States in which they lay, to be sold by them at graduated prices, extending over a term of thirty-five years-the States to bear the expenses, and to pay over to the General Government a third of their receipts. This proposition was denounced by the friends of General Jackson as a palpable bid for Western and Southern support for the presidency, and, on coming to a vote, received only the vote of Mr. Calhoun and five others.

When the Whigs brought forward their measure for distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, Mr. Calhoun again brought forward his measure of ceding the public lands to the States in which they lay, to be sold, and a portion of the proceeds paid over to the national Government, but without success.

The general distribution of 1836 having proved so unfortunate, a different one was proposed by the Whigs, based upon the same motives concerning the vote of the Western States that had been manifested by Mr. Calhoun. It was for the Federal Government to sell the public lands, and pay over to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Michigan ten per cent. of the net proceeds, and the residue to be divided among all the States, including these. These provisions

became a law at the session called by the President, during the first year of the Harrison-Tyler administration, on the 4th of September, 1841. This new distribution was strongly opposed by Democratic Senators and members, but, being in a minority, their efforts proved ineffectual to defeat it.

Like its predecessor, this measure proved fatal to the public interests, and had to be suspended, and virtually repealed in less than a year from its enactment. The compromise Tariff Act of 1833 provided for the biennial diminution of duties at the rate of ten per cent., in all cases where they exceeded twenty per cent., and all duties were reduced to twenty per cent. on the 30th of June, 1842. It was apparent to all, that twenty per cent. on our importations would not pay the necessary expenses of the Government. From the peculiar manner of enacting, amending, and repealing laws by Congress, it became a question, in the minds of some, whether the collection of any duties at all could be enforced. The Government almost came to a stand-still. remedial provisions were necessary to put it in motion—to abrogate the land distribution and increase the tariff-both of which received the sanction of Congress in August, 1842. It was mortifying to those who carried this land distribution to see it perish so early-too early to affect a single presidential election, and especially to see every one of the States, except Ohio, to whom this great temptation was held out, vote for and secure the election of James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate.

Two

In this distribution act there was a clear wrong and a palpable violation of the Constitution. The sales of the public lands produced "revenue," both in the literal and popular sense of the term. It is equally revenue, whether derived from duties, imposts, excises, or the sale of property. They all equally produce funds for the Government Treasury-they are, as stated in the best law dictionary, "what is returned." Under the Constitution, all revenues must be devoted to paying national debts, and providing for the common defence and general welfare. It cannot lawfully be applied to any other purpose. A great wrong was attempted. Its failure was not owing to a disposition to renounce the wrong and correct the error, but to the consequences of the previous

wrong in the distribution of 1836, and in the want of statesmanship in those in power, in not providing revenue equal to the necessities of the Government, instead of unlawfully distributing it. These distributions were in conflict with democratic principles, which forbid any such disposition of our public moneys.

77.-DISUNION IN ITS EARLY STAGES.

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Washington was a careful observer of passing events. doubtedly saw specks as well as clouds of disunion before he prepared his Farewell Address. In it he cautions the American people to be on their guard against both, and to repress them when seen arising. Sectionalism is one of the instrumentalities of disunion, if not the father of it. The very year in which the Farcwell Address was issued, the Hartford Courant published a carefully-prepared series of papers urging a dissolution of the Union. Washington wrote with a knowledge of these in his mind. Among other things this writer said:

"The Northern States can subsist as a nation, as a republic, without any connection with the Southern. It cannot be contested, that if the Southern States were possessed of the same political ideas, a union would be still more desirable than a separation. But when it becomes a serious question, whether we shall give up our government, or part with the States south of the Potomac, no man north of that river, whose heart is not thoroughly democratic, can hesitate what decision to make. I shall, in future papers, consider some of the great events which will lead to a separation of the United States; show the importance of retaining their present Constitution, even at the expense of a separation; endeavor to prove the impossibility of a union for any long period in future, both from moral and political habits of the citizens of the Southern States; and, finally, examine carefully to see whether we have not already approached the era when they must be divided."

Among the charges made against the South, the following, which has been a thousand times repeated since, without the slightest foundation to rest upon, would do credit to the abolitionists of the present generation:

"Negroes are, in all respects, except in regard to life and death, the cattle of the citizens of the Southern States. If they were good for food, the probability is, that even the power of destroying their lives would be enjoyed by their owners, as fully as it is over the lives of their cattle. It cannot be that their laws prohibit owners from killing their slaves, because those slaves are human beings, or because it is a moral evil to destroy them. If that were the case, how can they justify their being treated in all other respects like brutes? for it is in this point of view alone that negroes in the Southern States are considered in fact as different from cattle. They are bought and sold-they are fed or kept hungry-they are clothed or reduced to nakedness-they are beaten, turned out to the fury of the elements, and torn from their dearest connections, with as little remorse as if they were beasts of the field."

We have given elsewhere the testimony of Mr. John Quincy Adams and Governor Plummer on this subject. Their evidence covers a period of some ten years after the purchase of Louisiana. This evidence is full, clear, and irresistible. It involves the names of Timothy Pickering, James Hillhouse, Roger Griswold, Samuel Hunt, Aaron Burr, Uriah Tracy, and others.

No one who knew them will question the veracity of Mr. Adams or Governor Plummer. They fasten upon the Federal party the avowed intention, in Jefferson's time, to dissolve the Union, and Mr. Adams says it continued until the catastrophe of the Hartford Convention. No one has ever pretended to connect the Democratic party with it. The plan of operations was through the State Legislatures, in which Southern secession followed their plan. The difference between them was, the one countenanced and intended treason, and the other acted it—many of them by compulsion and against their will. The ghost that Pickering said haunted Washington, seems to have revelled in New England with the Federal party, and then appeared open on the stage in the land of Dixie, with helmet, shield, and bludgeon, and then disappeared when the shrill notes of the American eagle were triumphantly sound ed. Disunion still lurks in the hearts of descendants of these old Federalists in New England to the present time, and occasionally sounds