Читать книгу Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2) - Benton Thomas Hart - Страница 49

The anniversary of the birthday of Mr. Jefferson (April 13th) was celebrated this year by a numerous company at Washington City. Among the invited guests present were the President and Vice-President of the United States, three of the Secretaries of departments – Messrs. Van Buren, Eaton and Branch – and the Postmaster-General, Mr. Barry – and numerously attended by members of both Houses of Congress, and by citizens. It was a subscription dinner; and as the paper imported, to do honor to the memory of Mr. Jefferson as the founder of the political school to which the subscribers belonged. In that sense I was a subscriber to the dinner and attended it; and have no doubt that the mass of the subscribers acted under the same feeling. There was a full assemblage when I arrived, and I observed gentlemen standing about in clusters in the ante-rooms, and talking with animation on something apparently serious, and which seemed to engross their thoughts. I soon discovered what it was – that it came from the promulgation of the twenty-four regular toasts, which savored of the new doctrine of nullification; and which, acting on some previous misgivings, began to spread the feeling, that the dinner was got up to inaugurate that doctrine, and to make Mr. Jefferson its father. Many persons broke off, and refused to attend further; but the company was still numerous, and ardent, as was proved by the number of volunteer votes given – above eighty – in addition to the twenty-four regulars; and the numerous and animated speeches delivered – the report of the whole proceedings filling eleven newspaper columns. When the regular toasts were over, the President was called upon for a volunteer, and gave it – the one which electrified the country, and has become historical: "Our Federal Union: It must be preserved." This brief and simple sentiment, receiving emphasis and interpretation from all the attendant circumstances, and from the feeling which had been spreading since the time of Mr. Webster's speech, was received by the public as a proclamation from the President, to announce a plot against the Union, and to summon the people to its defence. Mr. Calhoun gave the next toast; and it did not at all allay the suspicions which were crowding every bosom. It was this: "The Union: next to our Liberty the most dear: may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefit and burthen of the Union." This toast touched all the tender parts of the new question – liberty before union —only to be preserved —State rights– inequality of burthens and benefits. These phrases, connecting themselves with Mr. Hayne's speech, and with proceedings and publications in South Carolina, unveiled NULLIFICATION, as a new and distinct doctrine in the United States, with Mr. Calhoun for its apostle, and a new party in the field of which he was the leader. The proceedings of the day put an end to all doubt about the justice of Mr. Webster's grand peroration, and revealed to the public mind the fact of an actual design tending to dissolve the Union.

Mr. Jefferson was dead at that time, and could not defend himself from the use which the new party made of his name – endeavoring to make him its founder; – and putting words in his mouth for that purpose which he never spoke. He happened to have written in his lifetime, and without the least suspicion of its future great materiality, the facts in relation to his concern in the famous resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky, and which absolve him from the accusation brought against him since his death. He counselled the resolutions of the Virginia General Assembly; and the word nullify, or nullification, is not in them, or any equivalent word: he drew the Kentucky resolutions of 1798: and they are equally destitute of the same phrases. He had nothing to do with the Kentucky resolutions of 1799, in which the word "nullification," and as the "rightful remedy," is found; and upon which the South Carolina school relied as their main argument – and from which their doctrine took its name. Well, he had nothing to do with it! and so wrote (as a mere matter of information, and without foreseeing its future use), in a letter to William C. Cabell shortly before his death. This letter is in Volume III., page 429, of his published correspondence. Thus, he left enough to vindicate himself, without knowing that a vindication would be necessary, and without recurring to the argumentative demonstration of the peaceful and constitutional remedies which the resolutions which he did write, alone contemplated. But he left a friend to stand up for him when he was laid low in his grave – one qualified by his long and intimate association to be his compurgator, and entitled from his character to the absolute credence of all mankind. I speak of Mr. Madison, who, in various letters published in a quarto volume by Mr. J. C. McGuire, of Washington City, has given the proofs which I have already used, and added others equally conclusive. He fully overthrows and justly resents the attempt "of the nullifiers to make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal of their colossal heresy." (Page 286: letter to Mr. N. P. Trist.) And he left behind him a State also to come to the rescue of his assailed integrity – his own native State of Virginia – whose legislature almost unanimously, immediately after the attempt to make Mr. Jefferson "the pedestal of this colossal heresy," passed resolves repulsing the imputation, and declaring that there was nothing in the Virginia resolutions '98 '99, to support South Carolina in her doctrine of nullification. These testimonies absolve Mr. Jefferson: but the nullifiers killed his birthday celebrations! Instead of being renewed annually, in all time, as his sincere disciples then intended, they have never been heard of since! and the memory of a great man – benefactor of his species – has lost an honor which grateful posterity intended to pay it, and which the preservation and dissemination of his principles require to be paid.