USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Lives of the eminent dead and biographical notices of prominent living citizens of Montgomery County, Pa. > Part 8
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Secretary Gallatin had early been called upon for a war project of revenue. He promptly complied, and included all the items which he thought would yield revenue beyond the expense of col- lection. Every specification pinched somewhere. It had become obvious that Congress could not be kept together to digest so intri- cate a matter as the Secretary proposed. The responsibility of ad- ourning without levying taxes adequate to the emergency of war rested on the House as the revenue-originating branch. With Dr.
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Bibb, of Georgia, Mr. Roberts called upon Mr. Gallatin and sub- mitted to the latter the question of imposing internal taxes before ·Congress arose, or of adjourning action thereon until Congress again .assembled. Mr. G. said he had very much desired those taxes pro- vided for, but thought it was impossible to then obtain them. He went on to show that delay might not work such evil as at an ear- lier period might have been justly apprehended. He said the late date when the declaration of war took effect would give larger re- ceipts of ordinary revenue, and the slow progress of embodying an army would absorb an amount less than the estimates. Dr. Bibb then wished to know if Mr. Gallatin would be willing to embody those ideas in a report to the House. This he decidedly declined to do. Dr. Bibb was intent on his project to have him do so. Mr. Rob- erts took the ground that Mr. Gallatin ought not to issue such a re- port, and claimed that it was for the House to transact its business independent of the suggestions of the Secretary of the Treasury.
As the motion to postpone action upon the pending bills was likely to prove unpopular, there was much reluctance on the part of members to make that motion. Satisfied of the wisdom, if not of the necessity of that course, Mr. Roberts promptly made the mo- tion, and the bills were postponed.
The elections were all depending and Congressional districts were all arranged under a new census; therefore, the result must necessarily be more or less uncertain. Montgomery and Chester ·counties were formed into one district, and Mr. Roberts was nomi- nated by the Republicans for re-election. In the canvass which followed the opposition in Chester county cited Mr. Roberts' mo- tion to postpone action upon the tax bills, and denounced the war measures and his whole course in Congress. He was, however, re- elected by a handsome majority.
On his return to Washington Mr. Roberts' relations with Mr. Gallatin were such that he came to be regarded as his representa- tive on the floor of the House. His relations with President Madi- :son also were hardly less confidential and friendly. Congress had adjourned on the 6th of July to meet early in November. Not- ·withstanding his non-militant principles, he being a member of the society of Friends, Mr. Roberts took an active and prominent part in enacting the measures to which the Government resorted in the war that followed. He was appointed a member of the Committee of Ways and Means, of which Langdon Cheves was chairman. Im- mense importations had followed the recall or modification of the
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British Orders in Council. Those importations arrived subject to forfeiture. The cargoes were accordingly libelled, but released by the District Courts on bond. They were in no case entered at their selling value, but generally very much below it. Every Judge acteď on his own discretion, and the bonds varied in every district. In all cases the profits were immense-often three hundred per cent., caused by low valuation and the greedy demand of an exhausted market. The Secretary of the Treasury thought the bonds might be sued out, and still leave the importers very unusual profits. Committees of merchants from many of the maritime ports ap- peared before the Committee of Ways and Means, which took down a large volume of testimony from their statements. The considera- tion of that information was referred to Mr. Cheves and Mr. Rob- erts as a sub-committee. Mr. Cheves, although a Southern Feder- alist, had voted for the declaration of war, but was opposed to the forfeiture of the bonded importations.
After a protracted inquiry the Committee of Ways and Means re- ported for forfeiture, Dr. Bibb, Richard M. Johnson and Mr. Rob- erts voting in the affirmative, and Messrs. Cheves and Coxe against it. In the debate which followed upon the report, Mr. Roberts took a very prominent part, and made a speech which consumed more than one session of the House. This speech is still extant, and displays a degree of ability and thorough knowledge of public affairs which fully justified the high estimation in which he was held by the foremost statesmen of that eventful epoch. It can be truly said of that speech that it would have been most difficult to con- dense more argument and information in so little space had it been written and not delivered extemporaneously, as it was. The de- bate was protracted until enough strength had been gained to de- feat the measure. Had the result been different the resort to taxa- tion would then have been avoided. The latter measure became: absolutely necessary, and Mr. Gallatin pressed for its adoption with all possible earnestness. Some of the Congressional elections were still pending, and this made many of the members reluctant to act on so unpopular a measure. Loans were at all events necessary, but to obtain money upon them could only be secured on a basis of ade- quate taxation to insure a regular payment of interest.
A loan bill to raise $25,000,000, however, was passed; but Mr. Gallatin saw that even if taxes had been levied, such a sum could hardly be raised then. Without those taxes he deemed it impossi- ble to obtain the loan. The event proved this.
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The new Congress was called by President Madison to meet on the 19th of May, 1813. Mr. Roberts still retained his place as a member of the Committee of Ways and Means. In the short re- cess between the rising of the old and the meeting of the new Con- gress, Russia had offered her mediation, and it had been accepted by the belligerent powers, Gottenburg having been selected for the seat of negotiations. Gallatin went as Commissioner of Peace from our Government, and was not again at home during the remainder of the war.
The next year, 1814, military operations still being crippled for want of funds, and during the pendency of a new loan, forty-one new banks were proposed to be chartered in Pennsylvania by the Legislature. The Government's best hope for a loan was in Phila- delphia, and if the Governor should sign the bill chartering those banks the Secretary of the Treasury knew they would absorb all the ready money awaiting investment. He therefore requested Mr. Roberts to go to Harrisburg and acquaint Governor Snyder with the evil that law might work. He reached there without delay, to find that the Governor had negatived the Bank bill, which, how- ever, was afterwards carried over the veto.
The war was progressing with varying fortune, and negotiations for peace were pending. The anti-war party seemed to be trying the expediency of not provoking the enemy with too hard blows. Mr. Roberts was among the most active advocates of a vigorous bel- ligerent policy as the shortest road to peace. The seat of negotia- tions was changed to Ghent, and the United States mission was strengthened with two or three additional members, one of whom was Mr. Clay, who had been Speaker of the House. At that time Mr. Roberts had attained a prominence that ranked him among the first and ablest members of the House .*
About that time he made the acquaintance of the lady whom he subsequently married, Miss Eliza H. Bushby. She was the eldest child of Mrs. Mary Bushby, a widow lady, who kept a boarding- house in Washington, on Capitol Hill. Miss Bushby was then in her twenty-first year. She was the main dependence of her mother, and conducted the business of the establishment for her. Her pa- trons were principally members of Congress and military and naval officers. It was while boarding in Mrs. Bushby's family that Mr. Roberts became aware of the rare endowments of the daughter. He
*He was soon after elected to the United States Senate, and resigned his seat in the House to take that of Senator from Pennsylvania, which he did on the 28th of February, 1814, being a handsome vindication of his course in the House.
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had been, up to that time, so absorbed with his domestic relations at home and public affairs abroad that he had not seriously thought of matrimony, although he had then reached his fortieth year. They were married two days after the adjournment of Congress, in 1813, and at once proceeded to his home in Upper Merion. Up to that time Mr. Roberts and his elder brother Mathew continued to hold the land bequeathed to them by their father, and such additional lands as had been subsequently purchased by them, as tenants in com- mon. They then amicably divided the lands, and Mr. Roberts and his wife went to reside at the place where they continued to dwell until the time of his death. This property is still owned by their second surviving son, Jonathan M. Roberts.
Between the adjournment and the next meeting of Congress the British forces captured the city of Washington, and, vandal-like, destroyed the public archives and buildings. The excuse for that unparalleled act of barbarism by a civilized power was that a New York militia General had burned the village of New Ark, in Can- ada, contrary to or without orders from our Government. The most active spirit in the latter outrage was a Colonel Wilcox, a Canadian-Irish refugee, who sought to make a severance of the English colonies from the mother country indispensable to a return to peace.
When Congress again met the violent feelings of the opposition had abated nothing of virulence. Though the campaign presented no signal advantages, the arms of the United States, on land and water, had sustained a high character. The visit to Washington was all of which the enemy could boast, as they had been repulsed from Baltimore with the loss of their commander. The hope of the opposition of rising to power now seemed to rest upon looked-for disasters to our arms. Things were grossly mismanaged both by the War and Treasury departments. Under this aspect of affairs every resource of the opposition was exerted to embarrass the Gov- ernment. So confident of gaining their purpose had they become that on the death of Mr. Gerry they avowed a wish to put Mr. King into the chair of the Senate, with a view of requiring Mr. Madison to resign on the plea that he could not effect a peace. The oppo- sition, however, were in a minority in the House, and no one gave way to aid them in their schemes. Peace did come, nevertheless, and through President Madison, thus effectually destroying the last hope of his opposers to obtain control of the Government. In the legislative proceedings which were had during this most gloomy
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period of the war, Mr. Roberts took a very prominent part, and defended the administration against its unpatriotic assailants. He was in almost daily intercourse with Mr. Madison, whom he re- garded as a most able and capable executive and a man of tran- scendent virtue. President Madison's great equanimity under the most trying discouragements caused him to be censured as apathetic even by some who were politically friendly to him. He was nobly sustained, however, by Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, through all his arduous responsibilities, who brought into requisition every resource of his mind, putting aside all considerations but the one of sustaining his country. He shared with Mr. Madison the laurels of victory, to obtain which they had labored like father and son; for however the immediate results of the last war with Great Britain may be regarded, it has resulted in an unbroken peace with that nation which has lasted now for sixty-four years. Who can now say how far the lesson which was then taught that haughty power by the War of 1812 may not have contributed to prevent her active support of the late slaveholders' rebellion against the American Union ?
On the conclusion of peace it became the duty of Congress to regulate the imposts for the changed state of the country and to protect our home industries against foreign competition. In this Mr. Roberts took quite an active part, as he did in all the legisla- tion that followed the close of the war. It was during that session that the House passed and sent to the Senate a bill giving fifteen hundred dollars to members of Congress for each year's service, in- stead of a daily allowance. Small as was that increase of compen- sation (not more than three hundred dollars), the measure was very unpopular ; but acting, as he did in all matters, from a sense of jus- tice and right, Mr. Roberts not only voted for but publicly advo- cated the measure. This fearless independence lost him the appro- bation of many of his warmest political friends.
One of the most important subjects which came up during the administration of President Monroe was the acquisition of Florida. So important was that measure regarded, that General Jackson, who was in command of the United States troops in a war with the In- dians on the frontiers of Georgia and Alabama, determined to take forcible possession of it. This could only be done in violation of international law. General Jackson, on setting out with that in- tention, wrote a private letter to President Monroe urging the ex- pediency of the measure, stating that if the latter concurred with
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him he might signify it in an unofficial way, and that he (Jackson). would himself assume the responsibility. On the receipt of that letter Monroe was too sick to read it, and handed it to Mr. Cal- houn, then Secretary of State, who called upon him soon after it had been received. It being a private letter, Mr. Calhoun, as: Secretary, declined to reply to it, and it was laid aside unanswered. Jackson, without awaiting the approval of President Monroe, marched into Florida and captured St. Marks, Pensacola, and the Barancas Fort, little or no defence being made. He organized a. civil government, appointed a collector, and reported his exploit to. the War department. The President now became alarmed at the reckless course of Jackson, and called his Cabinet together. At that council it was decided that the hostile acts of Jackson should be disclaimed, and the captured places restored to the proper repre- sentatives of the Spanish Government. This was virtually a cen- sure of General Jackson's high-handed proceedings, and aroused in' that iron-willed man the most determined purpose to maintain the position he had taken. He was then trying Arbuthnot and Am- brister, and having secured their conviction soon after executed: them, certainly without color of law, to say the least. These arbi- trary proceedings, if not approved by the President and his advisers, were overlooked by them, and no action taken to call Jackson to account. Up to that time Mr. Roberts had been the warm friend and supporter of President Monroe; and, indeed, with his fellow- Senator from Pennsylvania, Abner Leacock, he had been largely instrumental in making him President. The plea of necessity, which was set up by the administration to justify its course in the Florida matter, was not approved by Mr. Roberts, and his relations, with the President became reserved and not cordial.
Men were then straining for popularity; but, notwithstanding ;- committees in both houses of Congress were instructed to investi- gate the facts relating to Jackson's conduct in the capture of Florida. In the House that duty was assigned to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and the case of Arbuthnot and Ambrister to the Com -- mittee on Military Affairs. The latter committee reported in favorr of censure; the former dropped the inquiry. The investigation in the House, notwithstanding the brilliant arraignment of Jackson by- Henry Clay, having failed, Mr. Leacock, in the Senate, moved for. a committee of inquiry. After a thorough investigation by Mr .. Leacock's committee a series of enormous wrongs were uncovered, and the chairman prepared a report setting forth the facts. This
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report was adopted by the committee and submitted to the Senate. "This greatly exasperated General Jackson, and he declared ven- geance against all who had had anything to do with the public ex- posure of his unwarranted proceedings. Mr. Roberts, although not a member of the committee having the matter in charge, but as the colleague of Mr. Leacock, the chairman, was in constant con- sultation with the latter, and co-operated with him in making the inquiry. This was well understood by the members of President Monroe's Cabinet, who were then much disposed to shield Jackson from the consequences of his impetuous conduct. The session closed without taking action on the report of the committee. The re- port detailed a series of acts that were in flagrant disregard of law and just authority. General Jackson, when he learned the nature of the report, was geatly enraged, and immediately hurried back to Washington, breathing fury against the committee, and declaring ·it to be his purpose to chastise those who had favored the condemna- tion of his public conduct. He was, however, deterred or restrained from carrying out his threats.
At the session of Congress in the winter of 1819-20, the House of Representatives passed a bill for the "admission of Maine into the Union on an equal footing with the original States." It was sent to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, who reported it with .an amendment embracing the provision for authorizing also the people of the Territory of Missouri to form a convention, etc., pre paratory to its admission into the Union as a State. The bill, to- gether with the amendment, coming up, Mr. Roberts arose and said he felt it his duty to try the merits of these two subjects by a pre- liminary motion to this effect : " That the bill for the admission of the State of Maine into the Union, and the amendment thereto re- ported, be recommitted to the Judiciary Committee with instruc- tions so to modify its provisions as to admit the State of Maine into the Union divested of the amendment embracing Missouri." In the published reports of the debates in Congress Mr. Roberts is re- ported to have said: "The question reported in the amendment by the Judiciary Committee would probably excite much feeling. For himself, however, he was determined to prepare to meet it with the temper and moderation which were due to it. But he wished, in entering upon it, that there should be the most perfect regularity and the fullest opportunity for discussion. The question of the ad- mission of Maine into the Union was one thing; that of the admis- sion of Missouri another; and that uniting the two in one bill was
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itself a distinct question, for the purpose of obtaining an unembar- rassed decision on which he had submitted the present motion." Mr. R. adverted to the progress in the Senate of the proposition for the admission of Maine into the Union. Very early in the session, he said, a communication had been received from a regular source that a convention of the people of Maine, duly authorized thereto by an act of the Legislature of Massachusetts, had met and formed a constitution of State government. A bill had been duly reported by a committee for the admission of the State of Maine into the Union, and made the order for a particular day. Then, and on successive following days, it was postponed for various reasons on account of the absence of members from different sections of the Union. At that time Mr. R. said he had no idea there was an in- tention to connect the two subjects of Maine and Missouri until a member from Virginia, in moving a further postponement of the bill, stated that he had some notion of endeavoring to connect the two questions. This proceeding, on comparing it with the usual order of proceedings in this house, struck him as a little curious, to say the least of it, though he did not mention it as a matter for censure but as a mere statement of facts. "On the 29th of December," said he, " we find a memorial from the Legislature of Missouri is taken from the files of the House and referred to the Judiciary Commit- tee. Some days afterwards a message is received from the House of Representatives, transmitting a bill for the admission of Maine into the Union, which is referred to the Judiciary Committee, and the two subjects being thus before the same committee they reported the bill for the admission of Missouri by way of a rider to the bill which came from the other house for the admission of Maine. This," Mr. R. said, " was an extraordinary mode of proceeding, which ought to be met at the threshold." He knew not how it could be more directly met than by the motion he had submitted .* "'The motion to recommit," he admitted, " was a regular motion, but not to be made except in extraordinary cases." This was a case of that description. He appealed to gentlemen whether it was regu- lar or even justifiable to connect in one bill two subjects totally dis- tinct, as these in reality were. "Maine," he said, " was a part of the old territory of the United States. Her Constitution was al- ready formed, with the consent of the State from which she was to be separated. There was no dispute about her limits, which were
*This was the commencement of the system of counterbalancing the admission of free States by those permitting slavery, which continued till the admission of California in 1850 broke the rule.
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defined, nor about the justice of her claim to admission, which was admitted. There were many doubts about Missouri witli respect to her extent, boundaries and population, without regard to other ques- tions which might arise respecting her Constitution, etc. The cases of Kentucky and Vermont had been cited as a precedent for this proceeding, " but," Mr. R. said, " they were admitted by sepa- rate bills, passed at different periods of the session." He said for his part he had no objection that the two bills for the admission of Maine and Missouri should pass on the same day, but they ought to pass separately and independent of each other. Standing, as they did, on different grounds, they ought to be decided on their own merits.
The motion of Mr. Roberts was further debated by Senators Wil- liam Smith of South Carolina, Edward Lloyd of Maryland, James Barbour of Virginia, Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, and Wil- liam Logan of Kentucky, in opposition to the motion ; and by Sena- tors Prentiss Mellen of Massachusetts, James Burrill of Rhode Is- land, Gray Otis of Massachusetts, and Samuel W. Dana of Con- necticut, in favor of the motion. It was lost by the following vote : Yeas-Burrill, Dana, Dickerson, Horsey, Hunter, Lauman, Lowrie, Mellen, Morrill, Noble, Otis, Roberts, Ruggles, Sandford, Tiche- nor, Trimble, Van Dyke, and Wilson-18. Of these all were Senators from non-slaveholding States except Horsey and Van Dyke from Delaware. Nays-Barbour, Brown, Eaton, Edwards, Elliot, Gaillard, Johnson of Kentucky, Johnson of Louisiana, King, Leake, Lloyd, Logan, Macon, Palmer, Parrott, Pinkney, Pleasants, Smith, Stokes, Taylor, Thomas, Walker of Alabama, Walker of Georgia, Williams of Mississippi, and Williams of Tennessee-25. All these were Senators from slaveholding States except Edwards and Thomas of Illinois, King of New York, Palmer of Vermont, Parrott of New Hampshire, and Taylor of Indiana.
So Mr. Roberts' motion was negatived by 18 to 25, the Senate thus refusing to separate the conjunction of the two States of Maine and Missouri. The Senate adjourned to the next Monday, when it resumed the consideration of the admission of the State of Maine into the Union as proposed to be amended by the annexation of Missouri. And the said proposed amendment being under consid- eration, Mr. Edwards, of Illinois, offered an amendment having in view the principle of compromise by the exclusion of slavery from the other Territories of the United States, but subsequently with- drew it to give an opportunity for the following motion.
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Mr. Roberts moved to add to the amendment, whereby Missouri is proposed to be admitted to form a Constitution, the following proviso: "Provided, that the further introduction into said State o persons to be held to slavery or involuntary servitude within the samef shall be absolutely and irrevocably prohibited."
This amendment having been read, Mr. Roberts said :
" My objection to the order followed in the introduction of this bill was a serious one. Irregularity in legislative proceedings ought always to be avoided, but more especially on a question laying the foundations of a great community. I have thought, and still think, with deference to the decision had, it has been an unfortunate course, and that this will be more apparent as we progress. Many remarks which fell from the gentlemen in the discussion hitherto had now invite reply. I have taken some care to arrange my thoughts for that purpose, but I have determined to withhold them at this time. The subject we are entering upon is one of great magnitude, claim- ing the coolest exercise of the faculties of the understanding and the absence from the mind of all sorts of passion. I very much desire to avoid touching any and every subject, however pertinent, calculated to awaken impatience or dissatisfaction, or to use lan- guage which may be justly excepted to as incompatible with this de- claration.
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