Thomas Benton - Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

"I go back to the commencement of my public life, the war session, as it was usually called, of 1812, when I first took my seat in the other House, a young man, without experience to guide me, and I shall select, as the first instance, the Navy. At that time the administration and the party to which I was strongly attached were decidedly opposed to this important arm of service. It was considered anti-republican to support it; but acting with my then distinguished colleague, Mr. Cheves, who led the way, I did not hesitate to give it my hearty support, regardless of party ties. Does this instance sustain the charge of the senator?

"The next I shall select is the restrictive system of that day, the embargo, the non-importation and non-intercourse acts. This, too, was a party measure which had been long and warmly contested, and of course the lines of party well drawn. Young and inexperienced as I was, I saw its defects, and resolutely opposed it, almost alone of my party. The second or third speech I made, after I took my seat, was in open denunciation of the system; and I may refer to the grounds I then assumed, the truth of which have been confirmed by time and experience, with pride and confidence. This will scarcely be selected by the senator to make good his charge.

"I pass over other instances, and come to Mr. Dallas's bank of 1814-15. That, too, was a party measure. Banking was then comparatively but little understood, and it may seem astonishing, at this time, that such a project should ever have received any countenance or support. It proposed to create a bank of $50,000,000, to consist almost entirely of what was called then the war stocks; that is, the public debt created in carrying on the then war. It was provided that the bank should not pay specie during the war, and for three years after its termination, for carrying on which it was to lend the government the funds. In plain language, the government was to borrow back its own credit from the bank, and pay to the institution six per cent. for its use. I had scarcely ever before seriously thought of banks or banking, but I clearly saw through the operation, and the danger to the government and country; and, regardless of party ties or denunciations, I opposed and defeated it in the manner I explained at the extra session. I then subjected myself to the very charge which the senator now makes; but time has done me justice, as it will in the present instance.

"Passing the intervening instances, I come down to my administration of the War Department, where I acted on my own judgment and responsibility. It is known to all, that the department, at that time, was perfectly disorganized, with not much less than $50,000,000 of outstanding and unsettled accounts; and the greatest confusion in every branch of service. Though without experience, I prepared, shortly after I went in, the bill for its organization, and on its passage I drew up the body of rules for carrying the act into execution; both of which remain substantially unchanged to this day. After reducing the outstanding accounts to a few millions, and introducing order and accountability in every branch of service, and bringing down the expenditure of the army from four to two and a half millions annually, without subtracting a single comfort from either officer or soldier, I left the department in a condition that might well be compared to the best in any country. If I am deficient in the qualities which the senator attributes to me, here in this mass of details and business it ought to be discovered. Will he look to this to make good his charge?

"From the war department I was transferred to the Chair which you now occupy. How I acquitted myself in the discharge of its duties, I leave it to the body to decide, without adding a word. The station, from its leisure, gave me a good opportunity to study the genius of the prominent measure of the day, called then the American system; of which I profited. I soon perceived where its errors lay, and how it would operate. I clearly saw its desolating effects in one section, and corrupting influence in the other; and when I saw that it could not be arrested here, I fell back on my own State, and a blow was given to a system destined to destroy our institutions, if not overthrown, which brought it to the ground. This brings me down to the present times, and where passions and prejudices are yet too strong to make an appeal, with any prospect of a fair and impartial verdict. I then transfer this, and all my subsequent acts, including the present, to the tribunal of posterity; with a perfect confidence that nothing will be found, in what I have said or done, to impeach my integrity or understanding.

"I have now, senators, repelled the attacks on me. I have settled the account and cancelled the debt between me and my accuser. I have not sought this controversy, nor have I shunned it when forced on me. I have acted on the defensive, and if it is to continue, which rests with the senator, I shall throughout continue so to act. I know too well the advantage of my position to surrender it. The senator commenced the controversy, and it is but right that he should be responsible for the direction it shall hereafter take. Be his determination what it may, I stand prepared to meet him."

Mr. Clay: – "As to the personal part of the speech of the senator from South Carolina, I must take the occasion to say that no man is more sincerely anxious to avoid all personal controversy than myself. And I may confidently appeal to the whole course of my life for the confirmation of that disposition. No man cherishes less than I do feelings of resentment; none forgets or forgives an injury sooner than I do. The duty which I had to perform in animadverting upon the public conduct and course of the senator from South Carolina was painful in the extreme; but it was, nevertheless, a public duty; and I shrink from the performance of no duty required at my hands by my country. It was painful, because I had long served in the public councils with the senator from South Carolina, admired his genius, and for a great while had been upon terms of intimacy with him. Throughout my whole acquaintance with him, I have constantly struggled to think well of him, and to ascribe to him public virtues. Even after his famous summerset at the extra session, on more than one occasion I defended his motives when he was assailed; and insisted that it was uncharitable to attribute to him others than those which he himself avowed. This I continued to do, until I read this most extraordinary and exceptionable letter: [Here Mr. Clay held up and exhibited to the Senate the Edgefield letter, dated at Fort Hill, November 3, 1837:] a letter of which I cannot speak in merited terms, without a departure from the respect which I owe to the Senate and to myself. When I read that letter, sir, its unblushing avowals, and its unjust reproaches cast upon my friends and myself, I was most reluctantly compelled to change my opinion of the honorable senator from South Carolina. One so distinguished as he is, cannot expect to be indulged with speaking as he pleases of others, without a reciprocal privilege. He cannot suppose that he may set to the right or the left, cut in and out, and chasse , among principles and parties as often as he pleases, without animadversion. I did, indeed, understand the senator to say, in his former speech, that we, the whigs, were unwise and unpatriotic in not uniting with him in supporting the bill under consideration. But in that Edgefield letter, among the motives which he assigns for leaving us, I understand him to declare that he could not 'back and sustain those in such opposition, in whose wisdom, firmness, and patriotism, I have no reason to confide.'

"After having written and published to the world such a letter as that, and after what has fallen from the senator, in the progress of this debate, towards my political friends, does he imagine that he can persuade himself and the country that he really occupies, on this occasion, a defensive attitude? In that letter he says: