the bill.

The President did not leave the nation long in doubt, as he sent his veto message to Congress on September 9th, and Congress adjourned on the 13th.

The rupture between the President and the Whig party was now complete. On September 11th all the members of the Cabinet, except Mr. Webster, resigned; and Ewing, Bell and Badger published statements giving the reasons which had actuated them in taking this action.' Mr. Webster continued a member of the Cabinet until May, 1843, when he resigned. His position had become uncomfortable, and there was little in common between him and his colleagues. The course of Mr. Webster in remaining in the Cabinet was sharply criticized by the Whigs, but it was understood that he remained to complete the Webster-Ashburton treaty, although he held his office long after the treaty had been ratified.

1"The Statesman's Manual," Vol. 2, p. 1415. At page 1408 will be found the letter of John Minor Botts, addressed to the Coffee House at Richmond, not intended for publication, however, which created a great sensation in Washington and doubtless contributed to the veto of the bill, although Mr. Botts was heartily in favor of its passage.

CHAPTER VI

ADAMS OFFERS ABOLITION PETITIONS PROVISIONAL TARIFF BILL PASSED AND VETOED - MR. STUART SPEAKS ON VETO MESSAGE AND ON SECOND

TARIFF BILL

HE second session of the Twenty-Seventh Congress met in December, 1841, and continued until August, 1842.

On the 24th day of January, Mr. Adams offered in the House a large number of petitions asking for the abolition of slavery, and one from forty-six citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying for the dissolution of the Union. This provoked a running debate full of bitterness. Mr. Gilmer of Virginia offered a resolution declaring that the member from Massachusetts had justly incurred the censure of the House. Mr. Marshall offered a substitute that Mr. Adams might well be held to merit expulsion from the house. The subject was discussed daily by Mr. Marshall, Mr. Gilmer, Mr. Wise and others until the 7th of February, when upon motion the subject of censure was laid on the table and the House refused to receive the petitions by a vote of 40 yeas to 166 nays.

During this session a very dramatic scene occurred in the Senate. On March 31, 1842, Mr. Clay resigned his seat in that body. It was known that he was to take leave of the senate on that day and the galleries were filled with spectators eager to hear him. His address, delivered in his best style, was one of intense pathos and eloquence. Every eye was fixed upon him and the audience was moved to tears. Mr. Stuart in a letter to Judge Briscoe G. Baldwin, written a few days after the speech was delivered, thus describes the scene:

"The valedictory of Mr. Clay presented the most august scene I ever witnessed in my life. The abdication of Charles V was nothing to it in moral sublimity. Every senator was in his seat, every nook and corner in the galleries, the lobbies and the avenues was crowded to suffocation, and every eye was riveted on the Old Dictator. He spoke in the most solemn and impressive manner, evidently under the influence of the deepest feeling, and the rich mellow tones of his organ voice reached every heart.

"When he spoke of Kentucky you might observe a convulsive working of his face which arrested his utterance, the tears gushed from his eyes, which he covered with his hand, and he was compelled to stand for several seconds in that still and solemn crowd without being able to articulate a syllable. But when he did speak his words gushed from the pure fountain of his heart, and scarcely an eye was dry in the whole audience. Many of the senators wept bitterly, and when he was done, Calhoun, who had been sitting on the opposite side of the hall listening with the most profound attention, came around to Mr. Clay, seized his handpressed it most affectionately; and they, the two great champions of so many hard-fought contests, who had not spoken for years, embraced and shed tears in each others arms. Not a word was spoken by either for their emotion was too strong for expression."

Few public men of eminence were ever more abused and slandered then Mr. Clay. Among other things he was charged with great fondness for the gambling table. From an article written by Mr. Stuart the following extract is made:

"While speaking of Mr. Clay and his reputed fondness. for the gambling table, I will add that from 1841 to the date of his death I saw a great deal of Mr. Clay in private and social life, and I can say I recall but one occasion on which I saw him play a game of cards, and that was at the house of John Quincy Adams in Washington City. When Lord Ashburton came as Minister Plenipotentiary to the

United States to negotiate the Treaty of Washington, Mr. Adams gave an elegant entertainment at which I was one of the guests, in honor of the distinguished visitor, and among other means of entertaining him, he had caused a whist table to be set out in his library. In the course of the evening a party consisting of Lord Ashburton, Mr. Bodisco, the Russian Minister, Mr. Clay and Mr. Crittenden assembled to have a game of whist. In cutting for partners, Lord Ashburton and Mr. Crittenden fell together, and Mr. Clay and Mr. Bodisco. As Mr. Clay held the cards in his hands preparatory to commencing the game, he bowed gracefully to Lord Ashburton and asked what the stake should be. Lord Ashburton replied that Mr. Clay must name it. Mr. Clay declined, but as Lord Ashburton insisted, Mr. Clay finally yielded, with a courteous inclination of his head, and said, 'Then in deference to her Gracious Majesty, let it be a Sovereign.'"

A provisional tariff bill was passed "to extend for a limited period the present laws for laying and collecting duties on imports" and was vetoed by the President. Mr. Stuart delivered a speech on the veto message in which he took sharp issue with the President on the objections he made to the bill, and declared "that it was the first occasion upon which a President of the United States had ventured to veto a bill on the ground of expediency alone, where there were no constitutional objections, that the subject of taxation belonged peculiarly to the immediate representatives of the people and was the last with which the Executive ought to intermeddle. If the President could at his mere will and pleasure, interfere with the exercise of the most delicate function of the House of Representatives, and dictate to them the mode and manner in which they should tax their own constituents, it would be a complete inversion of the principles of the Constitution on the subject of taxation, which provided that all bills for imposing taxes on the people should originate in the House of Representatives. If the President had the right to recommend what laws should be

passed, and the unqualified power to forbid by his veto, the passage of any that did not conform to his recommendations, then he would be invested with absolute legislative authority and the veto power would be perverted from its legitimate purpose. Instead of being a negative power, it would become a positive power. Instead of being used to prevent hasty, or mischievous legislation, it would be employed to produce legislative action, and to compel conformity to Executive dictation."

The bill failed to receive the two-thirds majority and was defeated.

The financial condition of the country was so depressed that it was imperative that Congress should do something to relieve the situation. Another tariff bill was, therefore, immediately prepared and on July 7th Mr. Stuart addressed the House on the subject. He stated that it was simply a revenue bill and not in the ordinary acceptance of the term a bill for protection. It proposed to raise just so much money as would be necessary to defray the expenses of the Government with all practicable economy; and subordinate to that primary consideration, it proposed incidently to afford protection to the great agricultural and manufacturing and commercial interests of the country. In discussing the constitutional right of Congress to pass the bill, with incidental protection, he appealed to the opinions of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Monroe and eminent statesmen who followed them, to sustain his position. He next proceeded to meet some of the objections to the protective power drawn from considerations of expediency. On this branch of the subject he took a brave and patriotic view and said:

"Many gentlemen have treated this subject as if it were a mere sectional question-a struggle between the North and the South. For my part, I look upon it in a very different aspect. I regard it as a national question-an American question-one which belongs to the whole country. It is true, there may be partial and temporary inequalities result