The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 757
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Jan. 1844.
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
757
28th Cong 1st Sess.
Improvement of the Western -waters—Mr. Stewart.
H. of Reps.
on feeling. 1 am glad to see the whole nation xeassembling,
as it were—the West giving up, the South holding not back
—reassembling on the vast and high table land of the
Union! To the senator from Georgia, [Mr. BerrtenJ and
to the senator from Virginia, [Mr. Kivks,] who have so con-
spicuously contributed to this great result, I could almost
presume to counsel, persevere as you have begun.
Sic vobis itur ad astra!
"That way"—in the vindication of this policy, in the spread
of this light, in the enforcement of this truth—"that way,
glory lies."
SPEECH OF MR. STEWART,
OF PENNSYLVANIA,
In the House oj Repttsenlulives, January 16, 1844—In favor
of western improvements.
Mr. STEWART, of Pa. said, that although he was not
from a western State, yet the State from which he came
was as deeply interested in the improvement ol the naviga-
tion of the western waters as any State in the Union. These
great rivers were, in fact, but extensive feeders of those
gyBat' Hn.es of improvement connecting the Atlantic and
•western States, made by Pennsylvania and* Maryland at an
pxpense of some fifty millions of dollars, constituting a debt
which now rested, with mountain weight, upon their peo-
ple. These State works-were alike national in their charac-
ter and their benefits, and ought to have been made by na-
tional means, and would have been so made, with all thg
other great works of internal improvement which had in-
volved the States of this Union in a foreign debt of two hun-
dred millions of dollars, had that great "American system"
of policy been continued, which had just been denounced m
such emphatic terms as "an imposition—an exploded hum-
bug," by the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr, Jameson,] Mr
Kfnptedy, of Indiana, and Mr. Ficklin, of Illinois, and over
the "explosion" of which they had exulted in so much tri-
umph. True, it had been exploded, and the prosperity of
this country from its deepest foundations had been involved
in the explosion. It had thrown back this great nation a
century from the point where it would have now been, had
that "explosion" not occurred; and had involved the States
(and among the rest the States represented by these gentle-
men) in debts and embarrassments from which (if this de-
nounced system was not speedily restored) they would not •
recover for a century ta come.
The effect of the Van Buren system on the interior and
. western States.
Mr. S. affirmed, and could demonstrate, that "by adopting
Mr. Van Buren's system, the whole of the great interior and
western States would be now, henceforth, and forever, ex-
cluded from all participation m the benefits of the disburse-
ment^ the ampXe revenues of this government, amounting
to some twenty or thirty millions, a year. Without the
power of internal improvements, (a power which Mr. Yan
Buren expressly denied,) where, he would ask these gentle-
men, is the object? He called on them to point their finger
to a single one in the interior and western States on which
any portion of the national revenue could be constitution-
ally expended. Look at the great heads of appropriation.
Where is your navy and army, for which seventeen mil-
lions is this year required? Where your forts and fortifica-
tions; your light-houses, .buoys, and beacons; your sea-
walls, breakwaters, and harbors; your custom-houses, for-
eign intercourse, surveying and Indian departments? Were
any of these in the interior? None—not one. These were
the objects on which the revenues of the government had
been expended, poured out like water; and, without this
power, must .contiuue to be expended, now and forever.
The people of the great interior and the West were thus
doomed to be tax-payers, "hewers of wood and draweis of
water;" as they had been for the seaboard. Their money,
like their vast rivers, might continue to flow -in ample
streams to the Atlantic; and by denying this beneficent pow-
er, you blot "out the sun which alone could exhale and carry
back, in refreshing showers, any portion of these vast con-
tributions to the interior sources from which they come.
Draw a line five miles from the seaboard, the external
boundary of the United States, and he believed he would be
safe in saying that there had not been expended, out of three
hundred millions, as much within this-circle since the ex-
plosion of "the whig system" by the Maysville and Wabash
river vetoes, as had been Expended, first and last, in the
erection of these-buildings for the accommodation of Con-
gress;'and even that a'mount, small as it was, must (accord-
ing to Mr. Van Buren) have been expended in violation of
the constitution.
How gentlemen who advocated these appropriations, and
represented the interior and western States, so deeply in-
terested^ the policy of internal improvements, could, con-
sistently with "their principles," support Mr. Van Buren,
who expressly denied their constitutionality, he was at a>
loss to imagine. (Here Mr. Wentworth inquired by what
authority Mr. S. charged Mr Van Buren with denying this
power) Mr. S. said on the authority cf his own signature,
not once, but lepeatediv, and, for the .gentleman's informa-
tion he would read a paragraph from Mr. Buren's letter of
the 4th October, 1832, to a committee at the Shocco springs,
North Caiohna, where, in answer to a request-for his opin-
ion on the subject of internal improvements he says: "The
broadest and best defined division is that which distinguish-
es between the direct construction of works ot internal im-
provements by the general government, and pecuniary as-
sistance given by it to such as are undertaken by others
"The federal government," says Mr. "Van Buren, "does
not, in my opinion, possess the power first specified; nor
can it derive it from the assent of the States in which such
works are to be constructed." He afterwards expressly ap-
proved the veto of the bill subscribing stock to the Mays-
ville road, which was of the second class of vorks specified
above, and he also approved of the veto of the bill for the
improvement of the navigation of the Wabash river; and,
upon the same principles, were he now President, he would
be bound by his oath to veto this very appropriation. Yet
gentlemen advocate this measure with great zeal and abil-
ity and he fully concurred in-all they said in- its favor; but
how couid they, at the same time, and in the same breath,
advocate the election of Mr. Van Buren to an office in which
he would be obliged to vetp this appropriation if it passed7
This was the dilema. The gentleman from Missouri [Mr.
Jameson] has told us that the whigs are "a party without
principles," and that his party had principles, and that they
will "stand or fall by them." Now, the gentleman must
giv^up his man or",his principles—he cannot support both;
they are antipodes Which will he do? He says they will
stand by their principles—very welH this they may do;
but with the man, they are sure to fall. The whigs, the
gentleman says, are the the "fag ends of all parties;" they
live in "glass houses." He has talked very learnedly about
"coons, hard cider, cider barrels," &c.,«and informs us that
the whigs have been weighed in the balance and found
wanting—a small mistake. It was Mr. Van Bureii who was.
in 1340, weighed m the balance and found wanting; and he
would now predict that, in 1S44, he \V0uld be found much
lighter than he was then, because the effects of his princi-
ples and measures had been severely felt, and were now
better understood by the people. But these were small
matters. He would now give his attention to something
more important. Whilst denouncing the "American sys-
tem," which had been called the Clay system, reference had
beenmade to the antagonist system—the VanBurensystem,
winch, in 1830, had been established oil its ruins This was
a great question; it lay at the very foundation of the nation-
al prosperity, and he was glad of the opportunity now pre-
sented of calling public attention to it.
The Van Buren and wki% system contrasted.
"What were these two opposite systems of national policy''
and what had been their effects on the country7 To under-
derstand this, it was necessary to refer to a.few historical |
facts, which he would do very briefly. ,
The great object of the American system was the protec-
tion of American against foreign industry by a protective
tariff, and the disbuisement of the surplus revenue (which
always had, and always would, result irom such a tanfl) for
the improvement of the internal condition of the country
The collection of revenue for one great objcct—national-
protection, and its disbursement for another equally import-
ant object—national improvements. In ten years this sys-
tem had paid off'more'than one hundred and twenty-five
millions of war debt, and left, in 1832, when that d&'bt w&s
discharged, an annual surplus of about eighteen millions of
dollars. Now, was it not manifest, that if this policy had
been continued, and the surplus.annually applied to internal
improvements by direct appropriations and subscriptions of
stock to works of a national character, made under State au-
thority. the amount expended since 1832 (allowing no in-
crease of revenue from the increase of wealth and popula-
tion) would have now amounted in the aggregate to more
than two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and would
have accomplished all, and more than all, the States have
since done, without involving this government or the States
in one dollar of debt!—promoting, at the same time, a just
and equal Expenditure of revenue in the interior and west-
ern States, in the execution of a great system of improve-
ments, which, for defence in war. would be vastly superior
to forts and fortifications, by promoting rapid concentration
and movement'' And if war never occurred, these improve-
ments were worth all they cost for the peaceful purposes of
facilitating and cheapening intercourse among the States—
the transportation of the mails, and of uniting and binding
together the distant parts of our extended county- in the
strong and enduring bonis of interest and intercourse.
Such would have been some of the happy fruits of this "ex-
ploded American system " He well remembered that, in
1824, the Committee on Roads and Canals, of which he was
then a member, seeing the period of the final payment of
the public debt rapidly approaching, when a large surplus
revenue would be left unemployed in the treasury to crush
the tariff and destroy the country, with a view to prepare
for that event in time, a bill was reported laying .the founda-
tion of a system of internal improvement coextensive with
the whole country, to absorb this surplus of eighteen mil-
lions a year, after the payment of the public debt, by orga-
nizing a board of internal improvement to survey all the
great lines of internal communication, and have maps and
plans of the whole, with estimates of their costs, in readi-
ness, when the debt was paid, on which to expend this sur-
plus This bill was passed with the powerful aid of the dis-
tinguished senator from South Carolina, [Mr McDuffif.j]
and six years thereafter, when these surveys and estimates,
under the direction of Mr. Calhoun, were nearly completed,
and the public debt nearly discharged a bill for the sub-
scription of stock in the Maysville road—a link in a great
chain of communication proposed to connect the Ohio river
with the Gulf of Mexico—was passed, and this was the oc-
casion seized onby Mr Van Buren, as he would show, to
break down this whole system, and thus force back upon
the treasury this enormous surplus, -which could be in no
other wise expended, and thereby break down the tariff', de-
stroy our manufactures, ruin agriculture and the mechanic
arts, inundate the country with foreign goods, "and export
all the hard money in tho country, to pay for them, and
throw upon the States the burden of making these works of
internal.improvementwhich' they were moreover tempted
to undertake by the promise of the distribution among them
of this annual surplus of eighteen millions of dollars But
the first distribution of forty-five millions had not yet been
paid over, when Mr Van Buren was elected President, who
immediately called an extra session of Congress, recom-
mended the repeal of the law, and withheld from the States
more than nine millions of dollars, the fourth instalment of
the first distribution. The States thus tempted having com-
menced their systems of improvement, were obliged to go
on, still hoping for the promised aid until they found them-
selves involved m a debt of two hundred millions, which
this government was bound in good faith to pay out of the
proceeds of the public lands, or the surplus revenue, which
would again result from a protective tariff, if that policy
were agdiii adopted and adhered to.
Now, was it nnt clear that if the whig system had been
maintained, and the annual surplus of eighteen millions had
been applied to internal improvement since the payment of
the debt in 1832, all the works made by the States would
have been accomplished, and much more without debtor
embarrassment of any kind"? He would now prove, that
Mr. Van Buren had himself contrived the whole plan of
breaking down this system, which would, ere now, have
elevated this country to a point of prosperity and power
without a parallel, and substituted his own destructive sys-
tem, which had crushed this great nation, m spite of all its
youthful energies, down to that degraded condition, strug-
gling amid bankruptcies, and repudiation, State, national,
ana individual, in which it was (5wmd, when the last whig
Confess assembled, and from which that Congresshad
succeeded impartially relieving it by passing the tart# of
1842, and thus restoring the protective policy. prove
that Mr. Van Buren tfSs, in fact, the author of all this mis-
chief, he referred to his letter to. gherrod Williams, of Ken-
tucky, dated at Albany, the gth ftf August 1S38, m which
he says, that although he doubted Sb« constitutional P<™e^
of Congress to distribute the surplus tevenue aroon^ the
ment, ■ uiat wcueitu ; >
and he had accordingly recommended this pfcn of <U«nDu
tiun—nut in one. but in two mesrages, in which all t&eoD-
Section* now urged by Mr. Van Buren's friends, against it
were fully and satisfactorily answered; and he would con!-
mend this message to the attention of gentlemen .now op-
posed to distribution. They would find this policy most
ably advocated and defended in General Jackson s annua!
message, dated 7th December, 1830, m which the fear was
expressed that Congress would appropriate the ™01?ey ™
local objects; <tad, to avoid this, he recommended that it lie
given to the Statet, that they might appropriate it to national
objects.
Comparative expenditures of (Hi Buren and ivhig
administrationst
When Mr. Van Buren came into po wer, he
treasurj with a surplus of $438,748,463; from . .
unavailable funds and amount deposited with tn6.s *°f ^
it still left an available surplus of upwards 01 sixu *
lions of dollars; to which add proceeds of bank 1s50cit'1®"',7
sold, upwards of eight and-a-hulf millions, making a)
twenty-five millions of dollars of surplus funds: yet W"*1
all tliis, and more than thirty-one millions a year ol revenue,
he left the treasury more than eight millions of dollars in
debt, besides outstanding claims and debts amountmgto sev-
eral millions more. On the other hand, Mr. Adams, when
this exploded and denounced American system was in ope-
ration, with six millions a year less revenue, paid on m lour
years upwards of forty-five millions of dollars ofthe war debt,
and left a surplus of about sis millions in the treasury when
he retired During Mr. Adams's administration, when like
appropriations were made for internal improvements, the
whole expenses of government amounted, on an average,
to about twelve and-a-half millions a year, while, during
Mr. Van Buren's administration, they were increased to an
average of more than thirty millions per year, and in one
year to more than thirty-seven millions, nearly t«r®f times
the amount expended by Mr. Adams. This was the ' econo-
my and reform" of Jvjr. Van Buren's administration, and
was the benefits and blessings of this system gentlemen
Seem so anxious to have restored. (Order, order,from DQtn
sides.) These were "spoils" w orth having; and no wonder
they were somewhat impatient to have them again-, these
were facts which he was prepared to establish by official
documents; and such was the difference between the Van
Buren and the American or whig systems'? (Here was a
general call to order, and much confusion) As this seemed
to be an unpleasant topic, Mr. S. said he would turn his at-
tention to something else.
What the last Whig Congress had done for the country.
Several gentlemen had inquired what the last Congress—
the Whig Congress- had done for the country, if in order
he would tell them: they had restored the national prospe*
rity by resorting the protective policy. The beneficial
effects of the whig tariff' of 1S42 were alieady been, felt,
and acknowledged throughout this country; it had revived ~
manufactures, created new markets for the farmers, and had
given employment to laborers everywhere; it had turned
the balance of foreign trade from about twenty millions, the
average balance for the last ten years, against us, to a very
large balance in onr,favor, (with Great Britain alone the bal-
ance last year was $13,604,000 in our favor,) resulting in the
importation of twenty-two millions of specie, which had
found its way into the banks, enabling them to resume
specie payment; thus restoring a sound currency, and re-
ducing the rates of interest from 4 or 5 per cent, per month,
to 4 or 5 per cent, per annum. And whilst it had conferred
all these benefits, and many more upon the country, it had at
the same time increased the revenue from customs, as ap-
peared by the late treasury report, from $12,496,834 in 1840,
to-$18,176,720 in 1842, and an estimated revenue from cus-
toms of twenty millions, for the current year, (and he had
no doubt it would exceed by three or four millions this
estimate.) making an increase of revenue in 1842. over the
year 1840, of more than six millions and a half of dollars.
Yet the Globe and Mr. Van Buren's friends here are crying
out, "reduce the tariff to increase the revenue;" when we
had too much revenue, the cry was, "reduce the tariff to
reduce the revenue " Co, whether we have too much or too
little, the remedy was the same; reduce the tanfl'1. reduce
the tariff'!' This was the great panacea, the Van Buren
nostrum, to cure all diseases. Here was another general
call to order.) Mr. S. said he was but answering the inqui-
ry—"what had the late whig Congress done for the coun-
try7" He was showing the important fact, that they had
done more for the country than had been done for the last
fourteen years—that they had lifted the country up from the
degraded and prostrate condition in which Mr. Van Buren
had left it; and if gentlemen did not wish this question an-
swered, they ought not to have asked it.
But this was not all the whig Congress had done for the
country. By the introduction of economy and retrench
ment, they had reduced the expenditures of government
from $26,394,343 the amount appropriated for 1841, to about
twenty-two millions last year. It had revived the policy,
(wholly abandoned by Mr. Van Buren) of improving the
navigation of the western waters, and had appropriated
$150,0i>0 to these objects. (Ilere Mr. S. was interrupted by
the inquiry, where 4s the evidence that Mr. Van Buren had
abandoned this policy7 Where is the evidence? Here in thp
records of this House. In the last two years of Mr- v^u
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session, book, 1844; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2368/m1/767/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.