USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee from the earliest time to the present : together with an historical and a biographical sketch of from twenty-five to thirty counties of east Tennessee, V.2 > Part 37
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Gov. William Hall served out the unexpired term of Gov. Houston, when he was succeeded by William Carroll, who was again governor for six years by successive re-elections. During these three terms of Gov. Carroll occurred events second in importance to none that occurred in the history of this country previous to the civil war. During the years 1$31 and 1832, there was great excitement throughout the country, and especially in Tennessee, over the nomination of the President for a second term. When the time came for nominating a candidate Jack-on was re-nominated, and when the time for the election came he was triumph- antly re-elected by a majority of the popular and electoral votes surpris- ing even to the most sanguine of his friends -- the people giving him 687,502 votes to 530.159 for Mr. Clay, and the Electoral College giving him 219 votes to 49 for his opponent.
The gravest question with which the Government of the United States had to deal previous to the secession of the Southern States in 1860-61. was that of nullification in South Carolina in 1832. Nullification was the result of the tariff law of 1525, which most of the Southern States thought unequal and unjust to them in many respects, but which all, except South Carolina, were resolved to obey until it should be modified or repealed. South Carolina boldly proclaimed in her "Ordinance to Nullify Certain Acts of the Congress of the United States." that certain laws imposing duties on imports were "unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and were null, void and no law, nor binding on this State, its offi- cers or citizens:" and she farther ordained " that it shall not be lawful for any of the constituted authorities, whether of this State or of the United
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States, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by said acts within the limits of this State."
President Jackson's views on the constitutionality of the tariff laws. were diametrically opposed to those above expressed. The following is his language: "The States have delegated their whole authority over im- ports to the General Government, without limitation or restriction, saving the very inconsiderable reservation relating to their inspection laws. This authority having thus entirely passed from the States, the right to exercise it for the purpose of protection does not exist in them, and con- sequently if it be not possessed by the General Government it must be extinct. Our political system would thus present the anomaly of a peo- ple stripped of a right to foster their own industries and to counteract the most selfish and destructive policy which might be adopted by foreign nations. This surely can not be the case. This indispensable power. thus surrendered by the States, must be, within the scope of the authority on this subject, expressly delegated to Congress.
" While the chief object of duties should be revenue, they may be so adjusted as to encourage manufactures. In this adjustment. however. it is the duty of the Government to be guided by the general good. Objects of national importance ought to be protected. Of these, the productions of our soil, our mines, and our workshops, essential to our national de- fense, occupy the first ranks. Whatever other species of domestic indus- try, having the importance to which I have referred, may be enabled, after temporary protection, to compete with foreign labor on equal terms, merit the same attention in a subordinate degree."
The State of Tennessee, through her Legislature, expressed her views and stated her position at considerable length, in the latter part of the year 1832, on the three great questions then uppermost in the minds of the people-the tariff, internal improvements, and nullification. Follow- ing is the series of resolutions submitted to the Senate October 20, 183~ by a majority of the joint select committee to which they had been ferred:
Believing that a crisis has arrived which renders it important that Tennessee $ deelare to the world her opinion upon the subject of the relative power of the Feder State Governments, this General Assembly, that no misapprehension may exi: what are their political principles, do declare that they regard the resolutions adi the Legislature of Virginia in the year 1708, and the report of Mr. Madison ther true and safe exposition of the principles of the Federal constitution: yet. as the ers of nullification claim to be adherents of the same doctrines. it becomes the d General Assembly distinctly to declare it as their opinion, that nullification is a more dangerous as it professes to rest upon the basis of the doctrines of 1799.
Riscleed by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That we're trine that a State under the constitution, either by its Legislature or by a the people of the State, has the power to render inoperative a law of Cor
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limits of the State, as unwarranted by the Federal constitution and dangerous to the ex . istence of the Union.
Resolved, That we regard nullification by either of these means as destructive of the principles of the government, and, under the guise of a peaceful and constitutional rem- edy, calculated to precipitate the country into civil war.
Resolved That the doctrine, that the State has the right, under the constitution, to re- sist or render inoperative within her limits an act of Congress, whenever the same may be declared unconstitutional by a legislative, or, in its highest political attitude, a convention of the people of the State, is wholly unwarranted by the constitution, dangerous to the ex- istence of the Union, and inconsistent with the preservation of the Federal Government. und tending directly, under the guise of a peaceful remedy, to bring upon our country all the horrors of a civil war.
With reference to the tariff acts of Congress, while a minority of the people of Tennessee thought that the General Government had usurped the right of regulating by law the labor of a portion of the people, by imposing unequal and heavy burdens upon a portion of the States in the form of duties, not for the payment of the public debt, but in order to protect the manufactures of another portion of the States; yet the ma- jority, while they believed these tariff acts unequal, unjust and extremely oppressive, still considered them constitutional, and hence thought that no authority had been usurped by Congress in their passage.
In the same year that these subjects were being discussed, the State was re-districted for members of Congress, the Legislature having been informed on the 3d of September, 1832, that Tennessee had become entitled to thirteen representatives in the lower house of the National Legislature. On the 14th of the samemonth an act was passed dividing the State into fifteen districts for electors of President and Vice-Presi- dent of the United States, and providing that one elector, aud no more, should reside in any one district, and that every voter should be entitled o vote for fifteen electors resident as aforesaid.
About this time also Tennessee, in common with many other States of the Union, abolished a practice, which had become odious to public timent almost everywhere-namely, imprisonment for debt. The law passed December 14, 1831. Following is the preamble, showing estimate in which the old law was then held, and a portion of the act :
TEREAS, Liberty of person, like liberty of conscience, should not be restrained by sary legal provisions, and as independence of thought and freedom of action are he most inestimable of our political tights, it is alike unjust. inhuman and oppres- imprisonment for debt, which is a hateful remnant of ancient barbarism, should o disgrace our statute books, except in cases of fraud, and that it is repugnant al sense of the community to imprison a woman for debt under any circum- ?refore
ated, etc., That no female defendant in any civil action shall be imprisoned te of mesne or final process, etc., and that at all civil actions at law to be any debt or contract made after the Ist of March next, in court. of record
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or before justices of the peace, the original process shall be a summons to the defendant to appear and answer to plaintiff's action, upon which the defendant shall be notified, as is now practiced where ball is not required; nor shall special or appearance bail be re- quired.
On January 24, 1840, it was enacted t. teven in cases of frand the defendant should have the privilege of release from imprisonment upon habeas corpus, and when the plaintiff had sworn falsely the defendant was discharged from imprisonment altogether. Since then imprisonment for debt has been entirely swept from the statute books, and there remains no vestige of it in Tennessee.
Tho gubernatorial election of 1835 was of a peculiar nature. It was the ____: election for governor under the new constitution. The candi- dates were Go . Carroll, Newton Cannon and West H. Humphreys. Gov. Carroll had theu served six consecutive years, and those opposed to him objected to his re-election on this ground, and also on the ground of his alleged ineligibility to re-election under the new constitution. He was also considered the Van Buren candidate, which, to some extent, militated against his success. Hi- neligibilit- was affirmed upon the strength of the language of Articl_ III., Section 4, . " the new constitution :
The governor shall hold his office for two years, and until his successor shall be elect- i and qualified. He shall not be eligible more than six years in any terin of eight.
The most weighty argument against him, however, in the popular mind, was the fact that he had already held the office during two periods, of six years each, or twelve years altogether, and to re-elect him under such circumstances would have been to violate all the precedents in the State's previous history. Yet, notwithstanding that all these considera- tions served to defeat him, his popularity was so great that he received 35,247 of the popular vote, to 42,795 cast for Newton Cannon, and 9,433 for West H. Humphreys. Newton Cannon having been thus duly elect- ed. Gov. Carroll's eligibility nover came to a test.
It will be remembered that in 1825 Hugh L. White was elected to the United States Senate, to fill a vacancy caused by ~ ~ resignation of Gen. Jackson. In 1829 he was re-elected to the same position, and in the winter of 1832-33, upon the resignation of John C. Calhoun as pres- ident of the Senate, Mr. White was elected to preside over the delibera- tions of that august body, and in the performance of the duties of his of- fice was so just and impartial as to receive the commendations of Mr. Clay, a political oppone at. In 1834 Mr. White commenced to be named as a possible successor to President Jackson in 1837, and in 1935 he was brought prominently forward as a candidate. Alabama, by a large ma- jority of her Legislature, nonunoted him for that office, and soon citizens' conventions in numerous counties and many newspapers in Tennessee an-
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nounced him as their choice. The newspapers stated that Judge White's claims to the Presidency "would not be submitted to a packed jury. des- ignated by the name of a National Convention," but to the impartial do- cision of a free people. Thomas H. Benton, in his "Thirty Years' View," says that Judge White's candidacy was instigated by John C. Calhoun, in order to divide the Democratic party, and thus defeat Martin Van Buren. Mr. Van Buren, as was expected and foreseen, became the nom- inee of the Baltimore Convention, receiving the entire number of votes. 265, and Richard M. Johnson was nominated for Vice-President, receiv- ing, with the aid of 15 votes unauthorizedly cast for Tennessee ( which State sent no delegates to the convention), by Edmund Rucker, who hap- pened to be in Baltimore at that time, in the capacity of a private eiti- zen, 178 votes, to 97 for W. C. Rives, just 1 vote more than the neces- sary two-thirds. In Tennessee the course of Mr. Rucker was regarded as a remarkable episode.
John Bell, one of the most able and distinguished men ever produced in this country, and the Hon. Bailie Peyton, were ardently devoted to Judge White, while Felix Grundy, James K. Polk, Cave Johnson, and J. N. Catron were in favor of Mr. Van Buren, as was also President Jackson himself, whose "preference." however, which was so much talked of at the time, did not prevent Judge White's receiving the popular and electoral vote of Tennessee.
The spirit of the movement in favor of Judge White is sufficiently shown in John Bell's famous Vauxhall's speech, delivered May 23, 1535. A few words only from the peroration of this speech can be here introduced:
I have already said that party is the only source whence destruction awaits our sys- tem. I am so fully and solemnly impressed with this truth that were I asked what I con- sider the first great duty of an American statesman at this time, I would say guard against the excesses of party. If I were asked what I consider the second duty, I would say. guard against the excesses of party; and were I asked the third, I would still say, guard against the excesses of party. * When the spirit of party shall receive an organic existence, thus giving rise to a system within a system, not subordinate but superior to and designed to control the natural operation of the regular, lawful, and constitutional government of the country, when the sacred obligations of truth and justice are required to be yielded up a sacrifice to the unity of such a party, then I proclaim to you and to the world that the spirit of evil which is in the party is predominant. Those who would pre- serve the public liberty and our free institutions from pollution and overthrow must range themselves under a different standard. When party is the watchword and the ensign of those who debt for the spoils, the warning voice of patriotism says to every freeman, every white min, inscribe your country on your banner, and in hoe signo vince
The campaign was conducted with vigor on both sides until the elec- tion in November, 1536, when it was found that Mr. Van Buren had re- ceived 170 electoral votes: Gen. Harrison, 73; Judge White. 20 ( Ten- nessee's 15 and Georgia's 11): Daniel Webster, 14, and Willie P
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Mangum, South Carolina's, 11. Tennessee's choice for Vice-President was John Tyler. The popular vote received in Tennessee by Judge White was 35,962, while Van Buren received 28,120. The defeat of Judge White for the presidency led him and his supporters mainly to unite with the Whigs. They had become unalterably opposed to the leading meas- ures of the administration of President Jackson, and perceived as they thought the liberties of the people surely being absorbed by the executive of the nation. The policy of Mr. Van Buren being in the main but a con- tinuance of that of his predecessor, the Whigs were equally opposed to it. However, in the gubernatorial election of 1539, in which Gov. Newton Cannon was the Whig candidate, and James K. Polk the Democratic candidate, the latter gentleman was elected by a vote of 51, 680 to 32.114 cast for Gov. Canon, and thus the custom, so long followed, of honoring the governor with three successive terms, was departed from, and has not since been renewed. The issues before the people for some years previ- ous to Mr. Polk's election pertained almost wholly to the banks and to the currency. President Jackson had vetoed the bill re-chartering the United States Bank, and the country became dependent upon State banks. The panic of 1537 was attributed by the Whigs to the "experi- ments" of the executive, as is shown by the following extract from Gov. Cannon's message to the Legislature, October 4, 1837:
It has fallen to out lot to taste the bitter fruits of an experiment upon the currency. which in the midst of the highest state of prosperity has brought upon us a strong revul- sion and total derangement of the monetary concerns of the country. How long and to what extent we may be doomed to suffer under this state of things must mainly depend upon the action of the General Government, by whose mistaken action and unwise policy this calamity has been inflicted upon us.
The Whigs were generally in favor of the re-establishment of the United States Bank, and opposed to the State Bank system, while the Democrats were in favor of the State Bank and opposed to the United States Bank. Ephraim H. Foster and Hugh L. White were the two sen ?- tors in Congress, both of whom had been elected by the Whigs and were opposed to the policy of the administration in several important partie- ulars. In 1939 the Legislature of Tennessee had changed its complexion, a majority of the members being then Democratic. This Legislature. in the plentitude of its wisdom, deemed it proper to change the character of the United States Senate, so far as lay within its power, by instructing Messrs. Foster and White to pursue a course with regard to certain spe- cific measures different from that they would naturally pursue if permitted to be guided by their own judgment alone. The Legislature said they availed themselves of the power which legitimately, and in conformity with long established Republican usage throughout the Union, belonged
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to them of instructing their senators and requesting their representatives in Congress to carry out their declared wishes: and
WHEREAS, The extraordinary circumstances which have existed for the last few years in the financial and commercial interests of the United States, remain unabated, and under causes of increased excitement and difficulty originating as we believe in the same vast source of public mischief; and
WHEREAS, We do solemnly believe that to that source, the late United States Bank, is in a great degree to be attributed the oppressive calamities under which we have sufferedl. and through which we are now actually passing, etc., etc. Therefore, bo it
Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested to vote against the chartering by Congress of a national bank:
To vote for and to use all fair and proper exertions to procure the passage of the sub-treasury bill, or independent treasury bill;
To vote against Mr. Crittenden's or any similar bill to secure the freedom of elections: To vote against the distribution among the States of the sales of the public lands;
To vote for a bill repealing the duties on imported salt; and
To heartily support the lending measures aud policy and administrations of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.
These were named and aro known as the "Instructing Resolutions." and were passed by the Senato November 8, 1839, and by the House of Representatives November 14. On the 15th Mr. Foster, in an exceedingly able Jetter, covering all the points of the instructing resolutions, resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States. Felix Grundy was elected to fill the vacancy, and resigned, not being constitutionally eligible at the time of this election, but was re-elected December 14, 1839. Mr. Grundy died December 19, 1840, and was succeeded in the Senate by A. O. P. Nicholson, appointed by Gov. Polk.
Senator White, like Senator Foster, unable conscientiously to obey the instructions contained in the resolutions, resigned his seat in the Senate in a letter dated January 11, 1840. His letter was shorter, more pointed, but perhaps not less able than that of Mr. Foster. It contained :this remarkable passage:
After your resolutions shall have performed their wonted office and my resignation shall have been received. before electing my successor, I hope in your wisdom you will either rescind or expunge the sixth resolution. Our common constituents, the free and chivalrous citizens of Tennessee, I hope will ever be represented in the Senate by those whose principles and feelings are in accordance with their own; and while this resolution is suffered to remain, no man can accept that high station but one who is himself en- slaved, and fit only to represent those in the like condition with himself.
With reference to this same sixth resolution Mr. Foster, in his letter of resignation, had said: "I would as soon be the servant of the Presi- dent as his senator." Thus did those two distinguished men emphatically protest against the "long-established Republican usage throughout the Union" of instructing senators in Congress. Alexander Anderson, of Knox County, was elected to succeed Hugh L. Whito in the Senate of the United States for the unexpired term.
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Considerable difficulty was experienced in electing senators to regu- larly succeed Mr. Foster and Judge White. The State was very nearly equally divided in sentiment between the two great political parties --- Democratie and Whig. Mr. Polk had been elected governor of the State in 1539 by only 2,500 majority in a total vote of 106.834, and in 1811 James C. Jones, the Whig candidate, was elected by a majority of 3,218 over Gov. Polk, in a total voto of 103.929; though in the meantime, in November, 1840, Gen. Harrison, the Whig candidate for the Presidency. had received in Tennessee a majority of 12,102 in a total vote of 108,680. This Presidential election was perhaps as nearly devoid of issues as any that has occurred since the formation of the Government, the principal ones being the re-establishment of the United States bank and the turn- ing out of office of the appointees of Jackson and Van Buren. After the success of Gen. Harrison was assured, the Whig papers, es might have been expected, announced that the victory was a triumph, not only of party, but the firm and conclusive assertion of moral right and sound policy over Executive misrule.
In 1841 the equally balanced condition of the two parties was further shown by the election of members to the Legislature, there being chosen to the Senate 12 Whigs and 13 Democrats, and to the House of Repre- sentatives, 39 Whigs and 36 Democrais, giving the Whigs a majority on joint ballot of only two. The Legislature convened October 4, and on the 22d Lewis Renean introduced into the Senate a resolution that the Senate meet the House of Representatives in the Representative Hall on the first Monday of November, 1541, for the purpose of electing two senators, one to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Felix Grundy, and the other to succeed Judge White, whose term had expired on the previous 4th of March. This resolution was laid on the table, and after numerous attempts to take it up and go into convention with the House, such attempts being uniformly defeated by the Democratic members, either by an adjournment or by a direct vote. On the 16th of November a message was received from the House urging upon the Senate the im- mediate necessity of filling the vacancies in the Senate of the United States, not only on the ground of the interests of the State, but also upon those of policy and constitutional obligation. It was observed in this message that each member of the Legislature had taken an oath to sup- port the Constitution of the United States, which instrument made it in- cumbent upon State Legislatures to fill vacancies in the United States Senate, and that a failure to do so would be disorganizing and revolution- ary, and tend to the destruction of the Government of the United States, for if Tennessee had the right to refuse to eleet Senators all the other
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States had the same right, and if all should exercise it at the same time there would be no United States Senate, and the result would be the dis- solution of the Federal compact.
After the reading of this message, one of its preambles was so amend- ed as to read in effect that it would promote and advance the public in- terest by keeping E. H. Foster and Spencer Jarnagin out of office for the next four and six years, respectively, these two gentlemen being the Whig candidates for the vacant seats. The amendment was strongly protested against as being indicative of contempt for the whole Whig party in the Legislature. It was evident from the first, if the two Houses should go into joint convention that two Whig senators would be elected, and this the Democratic members were determined to prevent by refusing to go into convention. It was their desire, in view of the nearly equal division in publie sentiment in the State on the subject of national politics to choose ono Democratie and one Whig senator, and they would be satis- fied with nothing less. This position they justified on the grounds that the thirteen Democratic senators represented 62,000 qualified voters, while the twelve Whig senators represented only 58,000 qualified voters; that if the popular will of the counties of Humphreys and Benton were faith- fully represented the strength of both political parties would be equally balanced in any attempt to elect senators to Congress, by a joint vote of the two houses; that a change of four votes in one representative district, and of fifteen in another, would in each case have sent a Democrat in- stead of a Whig to the House of Representatives, and thus in either case have produced a tie, and they were determined to compel the Whig ma- jority in joint convention in case they should go into it, to grant them the benefits they could have commanded if a tie in the joint convention had been the result of the popular election. The attempt to elect two senators was finally abandoned by the convention, and the Legislature adjourned February 7, 1842.
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