During the session Mr. Hardin was, as usual, an active member,
taking part in all important debates. A great fire in New York city,
involving a loss of many millions of dollars, was the pretext for a bill to
make loans to the suffering merchants of that city, which Mr. Hardin
opposed. He took part in the debate relating to the contested election
of Graham and Newland, of North Carolina. Among other things
he opposed a contestant being allowed counsel to represent him on
the floor of the House. He favored paying the expenses of an unsuc-
cessful contest where made in good faith. He was in favor of civiliz-
ing the Indians, but if troops were sent to punish them, he regarded
the militia better and cheaper than regulars for that purpose. Con-
gress at that period began extending its bounty to railroads, a policy
]\Ir. Hardin opposed. The Pensacola and Perdido railroad and canal
company sought a grant of the right of way through public lands for
several hundred miles sixty yards wide. Mr. Hardin objected to this
width, and moved an amendment reducing it to eighty feet, though he
thought twenty feet quite wide enough.
He was one of a committee to report on abolition. Mr. Pinckney
(of South Carolina), the chairman thereof, offered an extended report.
* Allen's History of Kentucky, page 274.
RELATIONS WITH FRANXE.
255
*' Believing from the first," said Mr. Hardin, "that he had been
placed on this committee to make up the notable number of nine, he
had declined to attend its meetings or take part in its proceedings.
There was one part of the report from which he entirely dissented.
He understood it to be set forth that the abolitionists were few and
their efforts insignificant. In this he did not concur and must enter
his protest against it. He believed there were large numbers of abo-
litionists, and that the purpose of this report was to suppress the fact."
An extended discussion followed, in which many southern members
took part, by whom Mr. Pinckney and the report made by him were
condemned in unmeasured terms. These were the distant muttering-s
of the storm that burst forth in all its fury a quarter of a century later.
The most interesting debate of the session arose concerning the
relations between the American Government and France. During the
time of Napoleon Bonaparte he had undertaken, by certain decrees, to
forbid maritime intercourse on the part of other nations with Great
Britain, with which he was then at war. For violation of these
decrees American vessels were seized by France and confiscated. For
losses thus sustained the American Government demanded reparation,
but not until the year 183 1 was a settlement reached. In that year a
treaty was concluded between King Louis Philippe and the United
States, whereby France agreed to pay an indemnity of twenty-five
million francs, in six annual installments. These installments, it so
happened, were not paid at maturity.
A bill of exchange, drawn by the secretary of the treasury on the
French Government for one of them, had been protested for non-pay-
ment. The explanation made by the French king was that the Cham-
bers had failed to make the necessary appropriations, but he hoped that
after some delay necessary provisions would be made. President Jack-
son was an impatient creditor. In his messages he made frequent and
lengthy allusions to the subject. To the second session of the Twent}'-
third Congress he had submitted whether further action of the French
Chambers should be awaited, or whether Congress should ' ' adopt
such provisional measures as it might deem necessary and best adapted
to protect the rights and maintain the honor of the country." The
relations with France were the subject of long and heated discussion
by Congress. The tenor of this debate may be judged by a question
of Albert G. Havves, of Kentucky, in the House. He asked "if there
was already a French and American party in the House ? If so, it was
high time the people of Kentucky knew it ; and he should feel it his
or (5 BEN HARDIN.
duty to go home and acquaint his constituents of the fact. They
were accustomed to rally under the flag of their country." John
Ouincy Adams offered and spoke for the following resolution:
^'Resolved, that in the opinion of this House the treaty of the 4th of
July, 1 83 1, should be maintained and its execution insisted on at all
hazardsr This resolution was opposed by Mr. Hardin and others
adverse to the administration. They regarded the resolution as an
insulting menace to France, and imperiling the peace of the two
countries.
Mr Hardin spoke on the subject at great length:
" He entered into an examination of the foundations of these claims under
the treaty. They had arisen from spoliations made by Napoleon Bonaparte,
who had always refused to make any indemnity. Both Louis XVIII. and
Charles X. had also refused to enter uito it, and it was only on the elevadon
of Louis Philippe to the throne of France tliat these twenty-five millions had
been acknowledged. To this king we owed the treaty, and he had omitted
nothing within liis power to secure its passage. Mr. Hardin also contended
that the French Chambers, as the popular branch, had the same right to reject
a treaty involving an appropriation as the House of Representatives in Con-
gress had. Besides, the French had the po\ver of making their own laws
and their own constitution, and they had the right of putting their interpreta-
tion upon them. With these views, he thought it cowardly, he thought it
dastardly, for this nation to threaten war. He could see no treachery, no
backsliding in tlie king or his ministers. That king was surrounded with dif-
ficulties, and had made himself responsible for injuries done twenty-five years
ago. What should we go to war for? A paltry sum of five millions. A war
would cost us in one year not less than ten or fifteen millions of dollars, and
would sweep from the ocean at least fifty millions of our commerce. And
upon whom would the expense fall? Upon the hard-working, industrious
farmer almost exclusively. Besides, Mr. Hardin had no feeling for a French
war. He remembered when we had only two millions and a half of people,
when we were overwhelmed with debt, and our litde band of hardy patriots
without arms or clothing, that France shed her blood and expended her treas-
ure for us. Should we forget this ? She stood by us when all the nations of
the earth stood aloof from us."
Subsequently Mr. Adams suffered his resolution to be amended
by striking out the last words, " at all hazards," and thereupon it was
unanimously adopted.
This occurred the last day but one of the second session of the
preceding Congress. On the last day the fortification bill was amended
in the House, setting apart three millions of dollars, to be expended by
MR. ADAMS RESOLUTION. 25/
the President in defense of the country, should necessity arise, before
the next meeting of Congress. This amendment was not agreed to in
the Senate, and a committee of conference was thereupon appointed
by the two Houses. That committee decided that the House should
recede from its amendment, and this fact was reported to the Senate
during the evening, but not to the House until after midnight, so
nothing was done and no appropriation for fortifications made.
At the present session, Mr. Adams introduced a resolution of
inquiry as to the cause of the failure of the appropriation for fortifica-
tions at the previous session. He advocated the resolution in an
impassioned speech. He insisted that the Senate, not the House, was
responsible. He ridiculed some of the reasons given in the Senate
for voting against the three million appropriation.
" One of them was that the House inserted the appropriation in the bill
without a recommendation from the executive. This, sir," said he, "was
the great basis upon which was founded that burst of patriotic indignation
and eloquence which would rather have seen an enemy ' battering down the
walls of this capital ' than have agreed to this appropriation for the defense
of the country. Sir, only one step more was necessary, and an easy step it
was, for men who would refuse an appropriation, even in the terms and
under the specifications in which that was proposed, if the enemy were at
the gates of the capital, I say, there was only one step more, and that a nat-
ural and easy one, to join the enemy in battering down these walls.
" At this stage of Mr. Adams' remarks (says the reporter), there was a
loud burst of applause from every part of the House. The speaker called upon
the House to aid him in the preservation of order, and remarked that such
an innovation of the rules and dignity of the House had not been known for
the last ten years."
Mr. Hardin arose to say something during the speech of Mr.
Adams, but members called loudly for order and Speaker Polk decided
him out of order. " Oh ! very well, Mr. Speaker, but I will be heard
some time yet," rejoined Mr. Hardin.
A few days afterward the House resumed the consideration of Mr.
Adams' resolution, or, as it was styled, " last year's fortification bill,"
and Mr. Hardin obtained the floor. The following extracts from his
speech happily illustrate some of the peculiar characteristics of his
oratory, and at the same time furnish a vivid portraiture of the politics
and politicians of that day:
"Mr. Speaker, it was either my good or ill fortune (for, at this time, I
know not in which point of view to consider it) to obtain the floor last even-
ing. To have consulted my own feelings and wishes on the subject, I ought
17
258
BEN HARDIN.
instantly to have proceeded with what I had to say. It was late, and, to
accommodate some gentlemen around me, I moved for the House to adjourn,
which motion was agreed to. Gentlemen in more remote parts of the hall
voted for it, as a favor accorded to me. I owe and now tender to them my
most profound acknowledgments for their kindness manifested on that occa-
sion.
"Sir, the time, manner of presenting, and the subject-matter of the reso-
lution now under consideration seem to be a phenomenon in legislation. To
review our proceedings for some meetings past is neither pleasant nor instruct-
ive. They contain nothing to feed our pride, flatter our vanity, or redound
to the honor of this House. There is something in them so strange, so unac-
countable to an ordinary observer, nevertheless so much in character with
some of the leading members of the administration party in this House, that
I hope to be indulged until I recapitulate them.
" The appropriation bills have been reported to this House, and, put them
all together, amount to something like ten millions more than for the same
objects was appropriated last year, and near that amount more than an aver-
age year since the commencement of the administration of General Jackson.
This excess may be considered by this House as a war measure, and will be
oO viewed by the nation and the world.
" These bills were, by an order of the House, at the instance of the chair-
man of the committee of ways and means, made the special order of each
day until they are disposed of. This first bill taken up was that appropriat-
ing money for the navy ; the House went into committee of the whole on
the state of the Union for consideration of that bill. A war speech was
made by the chairman of the committee of ways and means (Mr. Cam-
breleng), in his usual Inistling, swelling manner. Several other speeches
followed, and, toward evening, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Bynum) commenced a warm, animated, and eloquent speech in favor of the
bill, in a high-tone war spirit. The speech was about half finished, when
the gentleman gave place for a motion for the committee to rise, as it was
late in ilie evening. Next day, the whole House came prepared to enter
with spirit into the discussion of our relations with France, and all the
measures which were about to be taken connected therewith. The party of
the little Kinderhook hero (Mr. Van Buren) seemed brimful of fight. We
had been denounced, the evening befi)re, by the gentleman from North Car-
olina, as the French party, which he declared now existed in this nation.
The imputation we considered as unmerited, and intended to vindicate our-
selves from so foul an accusation. Never did this House assemble in a
' higher state of excitement than was manifested oxi the next day. It was
expected that the debate would progress with increased animation, and that
many a parliamentary lance would be hurled, broken, and shivered into
pieces. The galleries were crowded at an earlv hour. When the time
SPEECH ON RELATIONS WITH FRANCE. 259
arrived for the House again to go into committee of the whole on the state
of the Union on the navy bill, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Cam-
breleng) moved to dispense with the orders of the day, to take up the bill to
relieve the sufferers by fire in New York The motion prevailed, the orders
of the day were dispensed with, the navy bill was laid down, and the bill to
relieve the sufferers by fire in New York taken up. Some progress was made
in that bill, but, before it was finished, nay, hardly commenced, the House
adjourned.
"The next day, was the House permitted to begin where it had stopped ?
No; what then was the course of business? That very same gentleman
from New York (Mr. Cambreleng), who is the leader of the Jackson-Van
Buren party in this House, or, if not the leader, is put in a position by the
speaker to lead, got up, addressed the House, and then read or alluded to a
paragraph in a newspaper, which he said had attacked him personally ; as
if this House had anything to do with the newspaper controversies of the
honorable gentleman. As usual, he pompously commenced a vindication
of himself; but, before he had uttered more than one or two sentences,
wound up by saying that the source from which the alleged slander came
was beneath his notice and unworthy of him. I beg the House not to for-
get that, at the same time, he intimated that the subject referred to in the
paper would be brought before the House in another shape, by the gentleman
from Massachusetts (Mr. Adams), who instantly took the floor with the res-
olution now under debate in his hand, already cut out and made up to order.
The rules of the House were again dispensed with, the gentleman from New
York voting for it, and the present resolution was offered. T will not say
that there was a secret understanding between those two gentlemen that the
resolution should be brought before the House in this very extraordinary
and unprecedented manner. The reason I will not aver that to be the fact
is, because I do not know it; yet, there seemed to me to be something inex-
plicable in the matter, if there was no such understanding. Why did he
rise, allude to the paragraph, and stop short, without proceeding with his
vindication? He was too well acquainted with the rules of this House not
to know that he was out of order.
" I have asked, and again repeat it, why, after he had commenced his
defense, did he stop ? and why did he intimate that the gentleman from
Massachusetts would bring that subject before the House in another form ?
They must have conferred together, and the whole was a maneuver to ena-
ble the gentleman from Massachusetts to exhibit his resolution; which I
consider an indictment, with one count against the members in this House
who voted against the three million appropriation last session, another count
against the majority in the Senate; but these two counts are only nominal;
the real intent and meaning of the whole is to reach two of the honorable
senators (Messrs, White and Webster), who are now before the people as
25o BEN HARDIN.
candidates for the presidency. It looks like a Van Buren trick; the hand of
the mao-ician is surely in this whole matter. If the gentleman from Massa-
chusetts is capable of blushing or feeling one sensation of shame, that blush
or sensation ought to be exhibited upon the present occasion. I call upon
him to review his past life, the high and dignified offices he has filled, during
a space of fifty years, with so much credit to himself and honor to the nation ;
and now but to behold his present fallen condition ; the instrument of a vile
intrigue. Self-debasement and degradation is a fatality which frequently
awaits the inordinate ambition of an old man — that ambition which outlives
his faculties.
" Mr. Speaker, I hope the House will pardon me for this short digression.
I will proceed with the history of this resolution and its progress in the House
up to the present time. The gentleman from Massachusetts^ in support of it,
addressed the House for nearly three hours in a most elaborate speech, alike
famous for its length, violence, and vituperation of his former political friends,
filled to overflowing with the bitterest invective. Some of his remarks I
intend to notice hereafter. He was followed by the honorable gentleman
from Virginia (Mr. Wise), who addressed the House at length on the oppo-
site side, and who in his speech exhibited great industry, research, and tal-
ents. But the ability he displayed, although very great, did not so much
attract my admiration as the bold and manly bearing in delivering his senti-
ments. He forcibly reminded me of what that stern republican Roman said,
that
'* ' A day, an hour of virtuous lilierty
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.'
"When the gentleman from Virginia resumed his seat, the honorable
chairman of the committee of ways and means (Mr. Cambreleng), with
great pomp and parade, took the floor and announced what he intended to
do when he should address the House. He said it was too late to proceed
that evening, but, before he moved an adjournment, with great arrogance
declared he would not reply to the gentleman from Virginia ; that he intended
to encounter a champion niore worthy of his steel, alluding to Mr. Webster,
of the Senate. I admired his courage, and felicitated myself that my eyes,
at least once in my life, would be gratified by a sight of the battle of the
giants. There was something to command my admiration in his high
resolves. It was a laudable ambition, even if he perished in the conflict.
I love to see men matched fairly. Let footmen fight with footmen, squire
with squire, knight couch the lance and spur the fiery steed against knight.
Fingal never left his rock and mixed in the strife of heroes until Lathmon
was in the field.
"When the gentleman took the floor yesterday, I expected efforts com-
mensurate with the undertaking; I listened to hear Jupiter thundering from
Olympus' cloudy toi)s, or, if not the thundt r of Jove, at least the music of the
SPEECH ON RELATIONS WITH FRANCE. 26 1
spheres. But was there ever a man so disappointed ! Instead of the grand-
eur, magnificence, and subUmity of thunder roUing along and shaking the
earth from pole to pole, my ears were grated with the miserable sound of a
wretched performer on a Jew's harp ! If an enlightened stranger were to
visit this city during the sitting of Congress, and attend the debates in the
Senate and here, how this House would suffer in comparison ! If he should
chance to hear the chairman of the committee on finance in the Senate
(Mr. Webster) developing, in his usual lucid manner, complicated questions
of finance, and unfolding the almost exhaustless, although somewhat hidden,
resources of this nation ; and, after that, come into this hall and hear the
chairman of the committee of ways and means on the same subject; whether
the efforts of the great moneyed officer of this House would most excite his
laughter or contempt, I can not tell ; the sublime and ludicrous are so nearly
allied. His feelings would be not unlike those of an amateur of the great
and awful workings of nature, who had just been a spectator of Vesuvius or
yEtna in the appalling grandeur of a tremendous eruption, and then turning
on the plain below, and seeing a mole or ant hill emitting a pale smoke, and
occasionally a feeble and sickly blaze.
" Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of this House or the Legislature
of Kentucky for nearly twenty-five years. I do not profess to have an inti-
mate acquaintance with the rules and regulations which govern, or, rather,
ought to govern, i)arliamentary bodies ; yet I do profess to know enough of
the order of proceedings as will enable me to do, and understand how to
transact, the business confided to me, either by my constituents or this
House. I never made more of the rules my study than was needful for the
doing of business. My ambitious aspirations have never been directed
toward the speaker's chair. I can not give in to the modern doctrine, that,
if the force of party, or the desire to propitiate the White House, should take
a man from among us who is not above the mediocrity of this House, and
make him speaker, he thereby becomes one of the wise men of this land; it
is the man who is to do honor to the chair, and not the chair to do honor to
the man ; if he does not fill it, his littleness, by his elevation, only becomes
more visible and striking. If the sMme man, when in the chair, should select
a man below mediocrity in this House, and put him at the head of the most
important committee, I am equally disinclined to believe that he thereby
becomes 'a very Daniel of a man.' Sir, since Elijah went to Heaven in a
chariot of fire, and cast his mantle on Elisha, and he thereby became a
prophet, God has not vouchsafed for any other man on this earth to be thus
gifted.
" Mr. Speaker, I declare to the House that such a resolution as the pres-
ent I never before saw. Does it propose anything for the action of this
House? It does not. We are to raise a committee in this House to inquire
and report why a certain bill, which was before Congress at the last session,
252 BEN HARDIN.
did not pass. Let the committee report as it may, no action of this House
can be based thereon or grow out of it. Can we impeach the members of
the Senate, or of the last House of Representatives, who voted against the
three million appropriation ? Every man in this House knows we can not.
"One of the main objects of this resolution is to raise the committee.
Will that committee examine witnesses ? No. The gentleman from Massa-
chusetts will draught a report, based upon his distorted view of the transac-
tion, for well I know the part he took in it last session. It will be filled
with bitter denunciations of his former political friends and associates, to
conciliate the opposite party, and make his peace at the palace. I have
no doubt the report will not exhibit any one fact exactly as it took place.
To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is far from the
object of the gentlemen concerned in this matter. A war is to be made on
the senators to cheapen and lessen their standing with the people of the
United States. Messrs. Webster and White are to be assailed without
mercy in the report, and food furnished for all the administration presses in
the Union, next summer, to abuse those who voted against the appropriation
in either House. I ask, does it become the dignity of this august assembly,
the wisest and freest on earth, to degrade itself for such a vile purpose, the
inglorious one of becoming panderers to collect and embody slander for the
office-holders and office-hunters, some of whom are now feeding, and others
expect shortly to feed, upon the 'spoils' of this nation, as if we were a
conquered enemy, and who are the only self-styled, self-created democracy
of the country, a word justly dear to a Republican, and only used in these
degenerate days, by designing knaves, to flatter and deceive the people ?
" I boldly and fearlessly pronounce the resolution to be unparliamentary,
unprecedented, and disgraceful to those concerned in it. No man can mis-
understand its object. It is an inquisition of entitling for Van Buren. If,
Mr. Speaker, I had no other reasons than those I have just this moment
assigned, I would vote against the resolution. If the gendeman from Massa-
chusetts (Mr. Adams) wishes to cut a somersault, let him do it as a clown in
the pit. Do not give him a spring-plank to leap from. I want to see him
turn a somersault as a ground, not a lofty, tumbler. He is not unaccustomed
to these things. He has frecjuently done it before, without the aid of a com-
mittee, and let him do it again.
;i; <~ ^ ;!;;}; ^ ^ >\i ^'fi
" The gentleman from Massachusetts attempts to throw the loss of the bill
upon those who believed the House to be constitutionally dissolved at twelve