USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
" Mr. President, how strikingly all things, and every passing hour, illustrate the wisdom of those great men, who looked to the Union ; the Union under a general Government, for the preservation of peace at home and abroad, between us and the world, among the States, and in each State. Turn your eyes eastward and northward, and see how this last, but restrained and parental eentral power, holds at rest a thousand spirits, a thousand elements of strife! There is Maine. How long would it be if she were independent, before her hardy and gallant children would pour themselves over the disputed territory, like the flakes of her own snow-storms? How long, if New York were so, before that tumultuous frontier would blaze with 10,000 ' bale fires ?' Our own beautiful and beloved Rhode Island herself, with which the Senator rebukes you for interfering; is it not happy even for her, that her star instead of shining alone and apart in the sky, blends its light with so many kindred rays, whose influence may save it from shooting madly from its sphere ?
" The aspect which our united America turns upon foreign nations - the aspect which the Constitution designs she shall turn on them,-the guardian of our honor, the guardian of our peace, -- is after all, her grandest and finest aspeet. We have a right to be proud, when we
237
RUFUS CHOATE.
look on that happy and free empress-mother of States ; themselves free unagitated by the passions, unmoved by the dissensions of any one of them, she watches the rights and fame of all; and reposing, secure and serene among the mountain summits of her freedom, she holds in one hand the fair olive-branch of peace; and in the other the thunder- bolt and meteor flag of reluctant and rightful war. There may she sit forever ; the stars of Union upon her brow, the rock of independ- ence beneath her feet."
1
238 1
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
LEWIS F. LINN.
THE State of Missouri was ably represented in the Senate by Thomas H. Benton and Lewis F. Linn. Senator Linn being the junior from the State, near my own age, and having a great deal of business before the Committee on Public Lands, of which I was chairman, we became intimately acquainted. The more I saw, heard and knew him, the more I became attached to him. In person, he was about the medium hight ; strongly made, broad, deep chest, full breast, expanded lungs, round head, black hair, beautifully curled over his head and around his forehead ; features perfect ; white, beautiful teeth ; eyes coal-black. Ile was a ripe scholar. He always dressed tastefully. One morning he came into the Senate with a pair of light cheek pantaloons on. I remarked, " That is a new style." " Why don't you know, Mr. Smith, that I am just from England ? While there, I was in the House of Lords, and was introduced to the Duke of Wellington ; he had cheek pantaloons on ; they looked so comfort- able that I raised these." " I thought you would be the last man that would pattern after the English dukes." He laughed, and I passed on my way.
As a speaker. he was plain, direet, and intelligent ; imparting to his subject a high degree of interest ; he made no pretensions to that kind of cloquence that exeites the Senate and fills the galleries, still he was always listened to with attention by the Senate. The mind of Senator Linn was West, and while his own Missouri was never absent from him, the still further West, the great slope between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, was ever present with him ; the Territory of Oregon, the country on the Columbia River, the valley of the Wil- lamette, were cherished objects of his Senatorial regards.
It gives me pleasure to present to the reader an extract from one of his beautiful speeches, in answer to Mr. M'Duffie, on his favorite Oregon question. This extraet gives Senator Linn's style, and will be read with interest as his views at that early day. The swelling tide of population has since spread over that great slope of our continent, including California, without a parallel in the history of our country. The infant Oregon then, will soou be one of the States of the Union. The unknown Washington Territory then, will, in a few years, add another star to our national galaxy. California then belonged to Mexico, her golden sands barely known to the explorer, her rich quartz a part of her Nevada eliffs, her empire city a village of fisher- mens' huts on the sands of the Pacific, her shipping a few Indian canoes, and now and then a clumsy junk from the neighboring
239
LEWIS F. LINN.
Islands. Look at California now ! one of the most flourishing States in the Union, soon to rival our Eastern empire States in population and wealth. See her great city, San Francisco, with its teeming thousands, its astonishing growth, its shipping filling its capacious harbor with the commerce of every nation and every clime.
MR. LINN, OF MISSOURI, IN REPLY TO MR. M'DUFFIE ON THE OREGON BILL.
" These are the views of those who look only to the earthly rewards of hazardous enterprise. But the Eastern States furnish others, whom a sacred call has led to trace the pathless wilderness, careless of all human protection ; who, in the true spirit of Christian philan- thropy, have braved every privation and danger to carry to the vallies of the Oregon and the Willamette the light of the Gospel, and its attendant, civilization ; accomplishing there by their devotedness, those noble benefits which it was your part to have performed. The Christian spirit of men has outstripped the tardy policy and goodness of the Government, and these Gospel-bearers have at once formed a paradise, where your statesmen imagine nothing but sterile sands, or a surface blackened by volcanic fires.
" Of the horrors of such a sojourn, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. M'Duffie), seems to have formed a particularly lively conception, and has conveyed it (as was to be expected) in a very powerful form. Had he (he said) an honest or deserving son, who desired to immigrate thither, he would say to him, 'Don't go ; stay where you are.' But had he one fit for a convict-ship or Botany Bay, he would tell him without hesitation, 'Go, by all means.' Now, for the Senator's information, I beg to read a few well-authenticated descriptions of this blasted land of his. The reports of the missionaries, and the narra- tives of Capt. Wilkes and of Mr. Peale, the naturalist, give a very different picture. They agree that for picturesque beauty, for exube- rant fertility, and for salubrity of climate, no region of the earth, of equal extent, surpasses the vales and the table-lands of the Oregon. There, too, they tell you, instead of the dissoluteness of such a popu- lation as the Senator thinks it only fit for, are seen gentleness, piety, intelligence, and peace, which seem to have their chosen seat in the beautiful valley of the Willamette. They are law-abiding and law- loving ; they are active, yet quiet ; no strifes or broils, suicides or murders. No compulsion of the law is needed to make them pay their debts-a contrast, on this verge of civilization, as the Senator supposes it, at which a portion of his constituents, not to say my own,
240
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
might well blush. He is not less mistaken as to the mercenary motives which, he thinks, can alone have led these wanderers so far. Was it such that brought our sturdy ancestors to the rock of Ply- mouth ? May not their descendants speed to this furthest West with like visions of some noble futurity to be realized ? There is a fasei- nation in these half-real dreams which I have witnessed and felt ; and had I wealth to pay, or could such things be bought, I know not what I would give to have felt the wild and strange rapture with which Boone must have gazed, for the first time, from the summit of the Cumberland Mountains over the matchless plain of Kentucky; or, yet, again, when he had passed through that Eden-like wilderness, and, from the top of one of the mounds of a departed raee, look, in bewild- ered delight, over the magnificent banks and streams of the Ohio. These, sir, are sensations not to be purchased. There is in them no touch of any thing mercenary ; and they animate men to ventures which no gain can repay, but which surely, in finding or founding empires for us, deserve encouragement and protection, as much as any labors of that more sordid kind which seek and make themselves, in safety, rewards at home. There are men who go forth to the wilder- ness like our first parents, when God sent them forth from the garden of Eden to subdue the earth. Such feelings, to our own immediate ancestors, shed an ideal beauty over the barren rock of Plymouth ; one day, under their all-subduing spirit, to blossom like the rose. The same impulse yet animates their race, and will bear them across deserts, as of old across the deep,-give them only the protection of your laws and the countenance of the Government. I recolleet, Mr. President, at the last session of Congress, to have heard a venerable and respected lady say that, when she removed, at the close of the Revolution, from Annapolis to Cumberland, in Maryland, she was looked upon as having gone out of the world, and as about to become a semi-savage. In such a light were your forefathers (Mr. Bates, of Massachusetts, in the chair) viewed when, in their forlorn search for freedom, they abandoned the ease of civilized life, and, for freer homes, braved the dangers of the deep and the terrors of a savage shore. They but obeyed the instinct of our peculiar race-that inviueible longing for liberty and space which impels those of Anglo-Saxon descent to trace the rudest traets, the wildest seas, rauge the Atlantie and Indian waste of waters, explore the vast Pacifie, and break through the iey barriers of the Polar oceans. With a spirit renewed from our virgin soil, and from Nature itself in this untamed continent, it looks back to the land of our forefathers half ready to spread there the regeneration which constantly agitates itself. Other nations may
.
241
LEWIS F. LINN.
enlarge themselves by physical conquests; but we (I thank God for it !) can subdue only by the dominion of mind, the moral empire of institutions. If neighboring countries are, at any future time, to be added to our Union, it will be they who will have sought the blessings of our free institutions ; not we who will have coveted the enlargement of our territory by conquering fleets and armies.
" Sir, I confess that this wealth of the surface, and the still vaster natural treasures that lie beneath, unmined but not unknown, have awakened in me, and seem to me to justify, the expectations which the Senator considers so visionary. Over such a region, the passage from the richest valley in the world,-that of the Mississippi-to a new and wide commercial empire, that must presently start up on the Pacific, I can not think railroads and canals mere day-dreams. The wonders which have within the last twenty years been achieved in these things, may well excuse those who look upon the results I have mentioned as possible, even within the compass of the present genera- tion. All predictions, even the most sanguine, have in this country been so distanced by the actual progress of its prosperity, that gentle- men who fortell the other way should beware of the error of the Mil- lerites, and not lay the accomplishment of their prophecies too close at hand. Even in the faith of the bold enthusiasts who landed at Plymouth Rock, was there one ardent enough to imagine that their descendants would, in five centuries, perform what has been effected in two ? It was said by Gen. Cass, in his discourse before the Histo- rieal Society of this eity, ' That he had conversed with those who had talked with the children of the pilgrims.' In that small space of time, what amazing changes ! What an empire has risen up, like an exha- lation from the earth ! A new people has been added to the great house- hold of nations, and is already among the first in the world. There are those among us who have talked with Daniel Boone, that overland Columbus who first explored the recesses of that immense wilderness in which we now count many States, teeming with population and wealth, and glad with all the gifts of civilization. What imagination has yet outstripped the gigantic pace at which improvement marches among us? Sir, I can well conceive the tumult of delight which must have swelled the bosom of Clarke, when from the bluff he had gained, he first heard the roar of the great ocean, and saw the surges. of the Pacific bathing the territory he had explored. In the vision of that moment, he saw through the dim vista of the future, rising States of his country, men spreading along that shore, and the white sails of their commerce wafting along the bosom of that peaceful sea. the barbaric wealth of the East, in return for the more solid fruits of
16
242
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
our own industry. One can not read the warm and striking descrip- tion of what he saw and felt, without sharing in his enthusiasm. Some of us now here have shaken hands with Boone, with Clarke, and with Cass, who have often conversed with a relative, a cotempo- rary, of the first-born of the Pilgrim Fathers. What a picture does this present for the contemplation of the statesman and philosopher ! The chain is complete from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans-from the first-born of Massachusetts to Clarke on the borders of the western occan.
243
ROBERT J. WALKER.
ROBERT J. WALKER.
THERE are few men, now living who have filled a larger space in the public eye, than Robert J. Walker, at this time Governor of Kansas. I found Mr. Walker at the head of the Land Committee in the Senate of the United States, when I entered that body in 1837, and became passingly acquainted with him. In 1841 I was selected as the chairman of that committee, and elected by the party vote over Mr. Walker, who remained a member of the committee, during the balance of my term; we consequently became intimate. In person Mr. Walker was the lightest man in the Senate. Some five feet six inches high, rather stooping as he walked, small bones, little flesh, narrow chest, large head for the size of his body, bald to behind the crown, high, retreating forehead, large nose, wide mouth, projecting chin. Weight some hundred pounds before he visited Cuba for his health, rather heavier after his return. Still I never saw him, that his health did not appear to be very delicate. So much so, that it was a matter of surprise with me that he could perform the immense labors that were thrown upon him, as Secretary of the Treasury, and in his other public professional positions. Mr. Walker was a good speaker, his voice rather shrill to be pleasant. He was argumentative and very formidable in debate. To say that he stood among the first of his party, would be doing him only justice, and I am incapable of doing him less. Mr. Walker spoke perhaps as often on important subjects as any other Senator, indeed he scarcely ever let a question escape from the Senate without hearing from him. I see Mr. Benton in his "Thirty Years," speaking of the Bankrupt Law states truly : " This measure, then, which had no place in the President's Message, or in Mr. Clay's schedule, and to which he was averse, took precedence on the calendar of the vital measures for which the extra session was called." So far I agree with Col. Benton, but when he puts Mr. Henderson in advance of Mr. Walker in support of that measure, I totally disagree with him. I was there, I saw every movement, and I heard every argument. The truth is and let it go to posterity as the truth, of that part of history, the Bankrupt bill never could have passed the Senate but for the great exertions of Robert J. Walker, and Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, the Representatives of Mississippi and New York. Mr. Walker was more than himself upon that bill. He met every argument against it with all his power, and when he touched the poor debtor, and his family, in the hands of the inexorable creditor, he moistened many eyes. The bill was on its passage. Mr. Buchanan had closed a powerful speech against it that seemed almost to seal its
214
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
fate. I turned my eye to Mr. Walker, he rose, addressed the Chair in a low tone of voice, and turning to Mr. Buchanan who sat near me, as the Congressional Globe of the 25th of July, 1841, in giving a mere epitome of his speechi, says : .
" Mr. Walker replied to Mr. Buchanan's arguments contending for the principles of the bill and its details. He pointed to the Bank- rupt law of Pennsylvania, the great complaint against which was that it was compulsory and partial in its bearing ; and that was why it had been repealed. IIe denied that the passage of this bill could have a tendency to expand credit ; but, on the contrary, would have a reverse action. He thanked the Senator for the sympathy he had expressed for unfortunate debtors ; but he would rather have his vote than his sympathy ; and he should have respected that sympathy much more if the Senator had not made the powerful speech he did against the bill. If this law was not passed the thousands of unfortunate debtors in this country would either have to wear the chains of the slave, or become exiles from their native land. The argument that the law could not be executed, was an argument against the Constitu- tion of the United States. There was no difficulty whatever in the execution of the law, all the details were left to commissioners, as to the testimony of witnesses at a distance, depositions could be taken. . As to the law of 1800, on the repeal of which so much stress was laid, the principal cause of objection against it was that it was a com- pulsory law. As to the Philadelphia law of 1812, it conferred a privilege on the citizens of Philadelphia, in the discharge of their obligations, which was denied to the citizens of the interior of the State, and this privilege was considered so odious as to lead to the repeal of the law. Instead of being a stimulus to excessive speculation he contended that its operation would be precisely the reverse. In stating the unequal operation of State laws, which released debtors in some States, while they who were equally honest, and equally unfortunate, re- mained bound in others, the strongest argument was adduced in favor of the passage of a General Bankrupt Law uniform in its operation. No man could doubt that Congress has the power to grant the relief so loudly called for, and the States had not the power."
He closed, the bill passed by a very close vote. Mr. Walker as Governor of Kansas will have need of all his judgment, discretion and firmness. As his personal friend, I tremble for him, so many have so signally failed, but I hope and trust that he may discharge his duty faithfully to his own credit, and the best interest of the people he governs.
245
JOHN. C. CALHOUN.
JOHN C. CALHOUN.
AMONG the eminent men of the United States, John C. Calhoun, the great Cotton commoner of the Sonth, will ever stand high and distinguished. I had the pleasure of an acquaintance with him in the Senate of the United States, during the time I served in that body. Had Mr. Calhoun lived north of the Cotton States, his great mind would unquestionably have been more national than it was. I have read the most of his speeches. I have heard every speech he made in the Senate, openly before the world, and in executive session, inelnding that on the Ashburton treaty, placing our line npon the 49th parallel of latitude. I could distinctly see that the great cotton interest was the main idea in them all. Was the question Internal Improvements by the General Government, States Rights, Tariff, Protection, Revenue, Commerce, Mannfactures, Navy, Finances, Public lands, Assumption of State Debts, Banks, Annexation, Peace, War, the election of Presi- dent, triumph of Party, consistency of himself,-Cotton, Cotton, the interest of the Planter, prompted to action, and controlled the mind of Mr. Calhoun. Negro Slavery, with him, was secondary, merely instrumental in the success of his darling cotton interest. The strug- gle only terminated with his life, between his patriotism and his beloved cotton interest, as was evident to his friends and ardent admi- rers, as his Presidential aspirations received check after check, blow after blow, from the great parties to which he connected himself. His great mind became less and less attached to the Union, and more and more prepared for a separate Cotton confederacy, to be composed exclu- sively of States holding slaves, which Mr. Calhoun always maintained as essential to eminent success of the cotton planter. No leading poli- tician in the nation ever changed position with less compunction than Mr. Calhoun. Still he was remarkably sensitive on that point, and would labor for days to prove the consistency of his political life. I recollect on one occasion in the Senate, after he had separated from Mr. Clay, a reference to his Fort Hill letter, brought on an interesting personal contest between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay. Mr. Webster ultimately took part, in which Mr. Calhoun maintained to his own satisfaction, the consistency of his whole life, against fearful odds of facts ; indeed, in the face of facts brought against him by those able Senators, that seemed to me incontrovertible at the time. While pre- paring this sketch, I accidentally met one from the pen of a writer unknown to me, from which I make some extracts agreeing substan- tially with my own recollection of the scenes as I witnessed them from my seat near Mr. Clay at the time.
946
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
The struggle between the two champions was no holiday pastime. The blows exchanged were such as only giants could give, and such as only giants could withstand. The contest was like that described by Milton between the superhuman spirits, who picked up hills for missiles, but found even such weapons unavailing. Mr. Clay led off in a speech that we thought must inevitably crush Mr. Calhoun. He spoke of the contest which for years Mr. Calhoun and himself had, side by side, been waging against the " usurpations " of that "extra- ordinary man," Gen. Jackson. He told how the "boding fancies " of " my qnondam friend " could in the various stages of that struggle see nothing but gloom in the future-nothing but tremendous and fast-coming disaster to the country. The blows which he struck were. in consequence, given with the energy of despair, rather than the ani- mation of hope. He, Mr. Clay, had preferred to look upon the brighter side of things. He had even sought in their many interviews and consultations, to administer comfort to his gallant comrade in arms; but, like Rachel of old, he refused to be comforted .- Kind fortunes, however, had smiled upon their good cause. The battle was bravely fought. The victory was already won, and was in their grasp. The patriotic heart was beating high ; rejoicings began to swell up all over the land. The consummation long labored for had been almost reached. Executive usurpation was under the frown of an indignant people, and the country was almost safe.
Where now was his gallant friend from South Carolina? Where was he in this moment of triumph, when a few more brave efforts would have finished the work in which for years he had been toiling ? Was he exchanging congratulations with his comrades? Was he cheering on his followers ? Alas! no. Instead of the proud battle-cry which he was wont to utter, suddenly he sounded a retreat ! In that auspicious, long-prayed-for, that critical moment, he called to his legions, and bade them retreat from the field ? Aye, more ; he bade then follow him to the enemy !
He, Mr. Clay, heard the news with deep alarm. He well knew the commanding and the deserved influence of the gentleman .- He knew the multitudes that followed him as faithfully as ever clan followed chieftain, and he trembled lest the weakened ranks of the Whig army should no longer be able to cope with the disciplined and strengthened forces of the administration. He had waited, therefore, with much anxiety to see the extent of the defection. The rolling of the retreat- drum finally ceased ; the dust raised by the retiring squadrons cleared away-the company led off by the gentleman from South Carolina became visible. "He himself, sir, constituted horse, foot and dra-
247
JOHN C. CALHOUN.
goons ! In the language of his late principal opponent, but now his most distinguished ally (Col. Benton), " he went over sol-i-ta-ry and A-LONE." He went over, sir, and left to posterity to discover his motives.
While Mr. Clay was speaking, Mr. Calhoun was generally in motion - walking much of the time in the lobby, in the rear of the presiding officer's chair. He listened attentively, but did not interrupt the speaker. When Mr. Clay concluded the Senate adjourned.
Two weeks afterward Mr. Calhoun replied. He had studiedly arranged his argument, and his pathway was a stream of light. He reviewed his political career ; showed how the charges of inconsistency brought against him by weak minds grew, in fact, out of his very consisteney, a consistency which would abandon party before principle. He said he had always been ready to co-operate with those who would act with him, in achieving a public good ; that such an object was the only bond of party union which he recognized ; that with this view he had co-operated with the Whigs, with the majority of whom he disagreed on important political questions, for the purpose of break- ing down the dangerous nsurpations of executive power. That object was now accomplished, and the alliance ended with its purpose. Further co-operation with the Whigs would, by placing them in power, install principles to which he had ever been opposed; for the State Rights portion of the Whigs, being the weaker wing, could not expect the advantages of victory to inure to the benefit of their principles. This was what he meant by that remark in which the Senator, prompted from within, sees a longing after the vile spoils of office, instead of a laudable patriotie sentiment.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.