Committee of Manufactures in the Senate, at the late session of Congress. This was a legislative movement, calculated to throw on Mr. Clay, who was acting a leading part on the subject of the Tariff, and the reduction of duties, a new and delicate responsibility. From this responsibility, however, Mr. Clay did not shrink. He took up the subject, and his report upon it, and his speech delivered afterwards, in defence of the Report, are, in my opinion, among the very ablest of the efforts which have distinguished his long public life. I desire to commend their perusal to every citizen of Massachusetts. They will shew him the deep interest of all the States, his own among the rest, in the security, and proper management and disposal of the public domain. Founded on the Report of the Committee, Mr. Clay introduced a Bill, providing for the distribution, among all the States, according to numbers, of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, for* five years; first making a deduction of a considerable per centage in favor of the new States; the sums thus received by the States to be disposed of by them, in favor of Education, Internal Improvement, or Colonization, as each State might choose for itself. This Bill passed the Senate. It was vigorously opposed in the House of Representatives, by the main body of the friends of the Administration, and finally lost by a small majority. By the provisions of the Bill, Massachusetts would have received, as her dividend, one hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars a year.

I am free to confess, sir, that I had hoped to see some unobjectionable way of disposing of this subject, with the observance of justice towards all the States, by the Government of the United States itself, without a distribution, through the intervention of the State Governments. Such way, however, I have not discovered. I therefore voted for the bill of the last session.

Mr. President, let me remind the meeting of the great extent of this public property.

Only twenty millions of acres have been, as yet, sold, from the commencement of the Government. One hundred and twenty millions, or about that quantity, are now cleared from the Indian title, all surveyed into townships, ranges, and sections, and now in the market for sale. I think, sir, the whole surface of Massachusetts embraces about six millions of acres; so that the United States have a body of land, now surveyed, and

in market, equal to twenty States, each of the size of Massachusetts. But this is but a very small portion of the whole domain; much the greater part being yet unsurveyed, and much, too, subject to the original Indian title. The income to the revenue from the sales of land is estimated at three millions of dollars a year. The meeting will thus see, sir, how important a subject this is, and how highly it becomes the country to guard this vast property against perversion, and bad manage

ment.

Mr. President, among the Bills which failed, at the last session, for want of the President's approval, was one, in which this State had a great pecuniary interest. It was the bill for the payment of interest to the States, on the funds advanced by them during the war, the principal of which had been paid, or assumed, by the Government of the United States. Some sessions ago, a Bill was introduced into the Senate, by my worthy colleague, and passed into a law, for paying a large part of the principal sum, advanced by Massachusetts, for militia expenses, for defence of the country. This has been paid. The residue of the claim is in the proper course of examination, and such parts of it as ought to be allowed will doubtless be paid hereafter, Vetos being out of the way, be it always understood. In the late Bill it was proposed that interest should be paid to the States, on these advances, in cases where it had not been already paid. It passed both Houses. I recollect no opposition to it in the Senate, nor do I remember to have heard of any considerable objection in the House of Representatives. The argument for it lay in its own obvious justice; a justice too apparent, as it seems to me, to be denied by any one. I left Congress, sir, a day or two before its adjournment, and meeting some friends, in this village, on my way home, we exchanged congratulations on this additional act of justice, thus rendered to Massachusetts, as well as other States. But I had hardly reached Framingham, before I learned that our congratulations were premature. The President's signature had been refused, and the Bill was not a law! The only reason which I have ever heard for this refusal, is, that Congress had not been in the practice of allowing interest on claims. This is not true, as a universal rule; but if it were, might not Congress be trusted with the maintenance of its own ru es? Might it not make exceptions to them, for good cause? There is no doubt that, in regard to old and long neglected claims, it has

been customary not to allow interest; but the Massachusetts claim was not of this character, nor the claims of other States. None of them had remained unpaid, for want of presentment. The Executive and Legislature of this Commonwealth had never omitted to press her demand for justice, and her Delegates in Congress have endeavored to discharge their duty by supporting that demand. It has been already decided, in repeated instances, as well in regard to States as to individuals, that when money has been actually borrowed, for objects for which the General Government ought to provide, interest paid on such borrowed money, shall be refunded by the United States. Now, Sir, would it not be a distinction without a difference to allow interest in such a case, and yet refuse it in another, in which the State had not borrowed the money, and paid interest for it, but had raised it by taxation, or, as I believe was the case with Massachusetts, by the sale of valuable stocks, bearing interest? Is it not apparent, that in her case, as clearly as in that of a borrowing State, she has actually lost the interest? Can any man maintain that, between these two cases, there is any sound distinction, in law, in equity, or in morals? The refusal to sign this bill has deprived Massachusetts and Maine of a very large sum of money, justly due to them. It is now fifteen or sixteen years since the money was advanced, and it was advanced for the most necessary and praiseworthy public purposes. The interest on the sum aleady refunded, and on that which may reasonably be expected to be hereafter refunded, is not less than five hundred thousand dollars. But for the President's refusal, in this unusual mode, to give his approbation to a bill which had passed Congress almost unanimously, these two States would already have been in the receipt of a very considerable portion of this money; and made sure of the residue in due season.

Mr. President, I do not desire to raise mere pecuniary interests to an undue importance, in political matters. I admit, there are principles and objects of paramount obligation and importance. I would not oppose the President, merely because he has refused to the State what I thought her entitled to, in a matter of money, provided he had made known his reasons, and they had appeared to be such as might fairly influence an intelligent and honest mind. But where a State has so direct and so heavy an interest, where the justice of the case is so plain, that men agree in it who agree in hardly any thing else,

where her claim has passed Congress, without considerable opposition in either House, a refusal to approve the bill without giving the slightest reason,-the taking advantage of the rising of Congress to give it a silent go-by, is an act that may well awaken the attention of the People in the States concerned. It is an act, requiring close examination. It is an act, which calls loudly for justification by its author. And now, sir, I will close what I have to say on this particular subject by stating, that on the 22d of March, 1832, the President did actually approve and sign a bill, in favor of SouthCarolina, by which it was enacted that her claim for interest upon money actually expended by her for military stores, during the late war, should be settled and paid; the money so expended having been drawn by the State from a fund upon which she was receiving interest. Now this, sir, was precisely the case of Massachusetts.

Mr. President, I now approach an inquiry of a far more deep and affecting interest. Are the principles and measures of the Administration dangerous to the Constitution, and to the Union of the States? Sir, I believe them to be so; and I shall state the grounds of that belief.

In the first place, any Administration is dangerous to the Constitution, and to the Union of the States, which denies the essential powers of the Constitution, and thus strips it of the capacity to do the good intended by it.

The principles embraced by the Administration, and expressed in the VETO Message, are evidently hostile to the whole system of protection, by duties of impost, on constitutional grounds. Here, then, is one great power struck at once out of the Constitution; and one great end of its adoption defeated. And while this power is thus struck out of the Constitution, it is clear that it exists no where else; since the Constitution expressly takes it away from all the States.

The Veto Message denies the constitutional power of creating or continuing such an Institution as our whole experience has approved, for maintaining a sound, uniform, national currency, and for the safe collection of revenue. Here is another power, long used, but now lopped off. And this power, too, thus lopped off from the Constitution, is evidently not within the power of any of the individual States. of the individual States. No State can maintain a national currency; no State Institution can render to the revenue the services performed by a National Institution.

The principles of the Administration are hostile to Internal Improvements. Here is another power, heretofore exercised in many instances, now denied. The Administration denies the power, except with qualifications, which cast an air of ridicule. over the whole subject; being founded on such distinctions as between salt water and fresh water, places above Custom Houses and places below; and others equally extraordinary.

Now, sir, in all these respects, as well as in others, I think the principles of the Administration are at war with the true principles of the Constitution; and that by the zeal and industry which it exerts to support its own principles, it does daily weaken the Constitution, and does put in doubt its long continuance. The inroad of to-day opens the way for an easier inroad to-morrow. When any one essential part is rent away, or, what is nearer the truth, when many essential parts are rent away, who is there to tell us how long any other part is to remain?

Sir, our condition is singularly paradoxical. We have an Administration opposed to the Constitution; we have an Opposition which is the main support of the Government and the laws. We have an Administration which denies, to the very Government which it administers, powers which it has exercised for forty years; it denies the protecting power, the bank power, and the power of internal improvement. The great and leading measures of the national legislature are all resisted by it. These, strange as it may seem, depend on the Opposition for support. We have in truth, an Opposition without which it would be difficult for the Government to get along at all. I appeal to every member of Congress present (and I am happy to see many here) to say, what would now become of the Government, if all the members of the Opposition were withdrawn from Congress. For myself, I declare my own conviction that its continuance might proba bly be very short. Take away the Opposition from Congress, and let us see what would probably be done the first session. The TARIFF would be entirely repealed. Every enactment having protection by duties as its main object would be struck from the statute book. Every work of internal improvement would be stopped. This would follow, as matter of course. The bank would go down, and a treasury money agency would take its place. The Judiciary act of 1789 would be repealed, so that the Supreme Court should exercise no power of revision over State decisions. And who would resist the doc