TO HIS EXCELLENCY MARCUS MORTON. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY, THE WHIG MAJORITY of the LEGISLATURE of Massachusetts, listened with regret and disappointment to your Excellency's Inaugural Address to the Convention of the two Houses;-regret, that sentiments which had before been used as the mere stratagems of party, should now be heard from the Chair of State,-and disappointment, that they should have proceeded from one, whose dignified and impartial conduct in another high office seemed a pledge of a more independent course. In reading the Address more deliberately, our regret increased, and our disappointment became surprise, until, upon mature reflection, we have felt it our duty to make to it a Public Answer. This we should have done, according to the time-honored custom of our Fathers, in the name and with the authority of the Legislature, but for the conviction that the Minority, who support your Excellency in the two Branches, would have insisted upon a protracted debate, at great expense to the Commonwealth, but which your Excellency will perceive, by counting the names subscribed to this Answer, would have been wholly unavailing. More desirous of saving the money of the people than of talking long and loudly about economy, we have readily yielded to that consideration the advantage of giving to this Reply, in form, the authority which really belongs to it, as the Answer of the Legislature to the Address of the Executive. Your Excellency at the commencement of the Address, after announcing yourself as the 'SUPREME EXECUTIVE MAGISTRATE,'-a title which, though authorized by the Constitution, has heretofore been waived for the more simple one of Chief Magistrate,'-proceeds to characterize the purpose' of those, by whose 'unsought suffrages' you have at length attained to that dignity, after having been for fifteen years an unsuccessful candidate. And this purpose your Excellency states to have been higher and holier' than that of 'personal preference,' and by necessary inference higher and holier than that of your opponents. It might be considered under any circumstances, a delicate task for a Chief Magistrate to institute such a comparison between the purposes of two portions of his fellow citizens, who happen to be as exactly balanced as possible, short of absolute equality; but the comparison seems peculiarly unfortunate in this case, when it is considered that the result of the late election was brought about by a union of persons on a single point, who differ widely upon most political questions. Whether the 51,034 citizens whose support was given to your Excellency under such circumstances, were actuated by higher and holier' motives than the 51,032 who cast their votes for other candidates, were better left to a higher than human wisdom. Your Excellency has described this peculiar purpose of your own supporters, as 'the better establishment and more perfect development of the democratic principle.' If your Excellency means by this, any other democracy than that of the Constitution, particularly that new democracy which evaporates in professions of regard for the people, while it is undermining, for selfish purposes, the foundations of the great compact which alone protects popular rights from anarchy, we shall not dispute with your Excellency's party their exclusive claim to its honors and its profits. But if your Excellency means the true democracy of the Constitution, it will probably be new information to the people of this Commonwealth, that the elevation of your Excellency, by a bare majority of votes, aided by an unfortunate division among your opponents, manifests any new desire for its better establishment or more perfect development.' It had been until now believed, that the true democratic principle was sufficiently defined and guarded in the Constitution and Bill of Rights of Massachusetts; and it was left to your Excellency, and your political advisers, to discover that such a fortuitous election could impart to that principle new vigor, or greater security. It would be a melancholy indication of the instability of our institutions, if, after sixty years' experience of the blessings of liberty, equality, and prosperity, which we have so eminently enjoyed, and which we have attributed to a Constitution, supposed to contain within itself the true principle and sufficient defences of democratic liberty, we are now to learn, that their establishment and development depend upon the individual, whom the temper of the times, or the mutations of public opinion upon temporary topics, may have placed in the chair. If your Excellency had described the democratic principle' of which you have been thus thought worthy to be the representative,' as consisting in any peculiar views of civil polity, or opinions on the - leading topics of the day, the comparison drawn between the higher and holier purpose' of your supporters, and that of your opponents, would have been less offensive. But your Excellency has, in the Address, placed yourself before the people as having been adjudged by their votes the more worthy representative of all the acknowledged principles of civil liberty, founded upon all the Christian virtues,-of a principle founded in humanity, guided by benevolence, and looking to the ever progressing improvement and happiness of the whole human family-which ever seeks to protect the weak, to elevate the depressed, and to secure the just and equal rights of all,-a principle which is in harmony with pure religion, that establishes the love of God as the first law of morality,-a principle which, by listening to the voice of reason as it breathes through the people, bows reverently before the dictates of justice, while it spurns at the despotism of man, -a principle which gives the highest security to property, by giving security also to labor in the enjoyment of the fruits of its own industry, a principle which is free from envy and narrow jealousy, and cheerfully acknowledges the benefits of cultivated intelligence, and of experience, while it respects, as the paramount fountain of freedom and order, the collective will that includes all the intelligence of the community-the will of the people.' This is the 'principle' assumed by your Excellency as the standard and criterion by which you have been successfully compared with your distinguished predecessor,' and these are the peculiar civil and Christian graces that separate your Excellency's supporters from those who have shown a disregard of them by voting for other candidates. It will be indeed fortunate for the people, if their Supreme Executive Magistrate' shall justify a choice made upon such principles, by an administration of corresponding excellence; but we cannot think it a happy augury of its success, that those advisers, to whose more perfect acquaintance with the exigencies of the party your Excellency must in this particular have yielded your own better sense of propriety, should have judged it necessary thus to begin by flattering one-half of your fellow citizens at the expense of the other. Your Excellency proceeds to the discussion of some of the most important political questions of the day, commencing with the Currency; and your Excellency remarks that, there is no branch of the sovereign power more important or more difficult to be exercised than the regulation of the currency;' that it extends to all the relations of life, and reaches the personal interest of every man in the community; and that the great and leading object of Government should be, to establish and maintain a uniform and unchangeable measure of value.' To these sound and seasonable opinions we entirely ssent; and if there ever was a country so extensive as ours, where, under popular institutions, a more uniform measure of value prevailed than in the United States, when President Jackson began to develope his financial policy, it has escaped our knowledge. We possessed then a convertible paper, with which a man might travel from Maine to Louisiana; and the rate of exchange between the very remotest extremities of the country rarely exceeded one per cent. Let this state of things be compared by any practical man with that now existing, after the promises of the National Administration for six years past to give the country a better currency.' Let him consider, that under the operation of that policy, the exchange between distant parts of the Union has become so enormous, as to cut off almost all business between them which requires the transmission of funds-thus striking a deadly blow at the great interest of manufactures, and seriously impairing those of commerce and agriculture within the Commonwealth. For every dollar that was paid by the manufacturer in Massachusetts, to get home the proceeds of his sales in the great market of the South and West, while the United States' Bank was in operation and held the public deposites, he pays now from five to twenty-five times` as much, if he attempts to sell at all against such a ruinous discount. This effect began from the moment that the Bank of the U. S. was deprived by Gen. Jackson of the power of regulating the currency and exchanges of the country; and it has gone on from bad to worse, under the miserable, imbecile administration of those who, in succeeding to his power, seem only to have inherited his capacity for mischief. Most heartily do we agree with your Excellency, that the great and leading object of Government should be to establish a uniform and unchangeable measure of value.' We rejoice that your Excellency, disdaining the feeble subterfuge of the dominant party at Washington, admits that it is the duty of Government to regulate the currency,— and we should have rejoiced still more, had your Excellency followed up the admission with the proper censure of that party, for so grossly neglecting its duty and denying its power. We should have expected, from one holding upon this point so sound a theory, the most indignant denunciation, instead of the most obsequious approval, of the policy of the National Administration upon this subject—a policy founded in the assumption, that the regulation of the currency is not within the province of the General Government. This is the new doctrine of the party upon this subject. When the deposits were removed from the United States' Bank, where they had been the efficient instrument of that regulation, it was not on the ground that the General Government had no power or right over the subject, but that the State Banks, if made the depositaries of the public funds, would furnish the country 'a better currency.' It was only when this system exploded, and scattered dismay and ruin through the land-when, by the failure of the Pet Banks, (whose irresponsible officers had been tempted first to speculation, and then to plunder, by the possession of the public moneys,) widows and orphans and public charities saw their property swept into the gulf of party profligacy-when the hard working fisherman, and the worn out pensioner, had received, the one his bounty, and the other his annual stipend, in the worthless rags of these first Independent Treasuries,-then it was, that the new doctrine was put forth, that the Government had no right nor power to regulate the currency, and that its action was limited to provision for the safe keeping of the public funds. Against this new doctrine, we most earnestly remonstrate. It has no foundation in the Constitution. We agree with your Excellency, that 'twenty-six Sovereignties, acting independently of each other, under very little restraint from the common Government, and influenced by different interests and circumstances,' can hardly be expected on this subject to act with unity of purpose, and harmony of measures," and that these complicated difficulties were understood and fully appreciated, by the patriotic statesmen who formed our federal constitution,' and that they supposed that they had invested the General Government with all the necessary authority to the proper administration of this branch of sovereign power;'-and mainly do we agree with your Excellency, when we consider the course of the General Government for the last six years, that' in the practical construction and operation of these provisions, all the benefits which were expected from them have not been realised;' but we probably differ from your Excellency in the conviction, that these provisions of the Constitution have failed to produce those benefits, only because the General Government, supported by the (self styled) Democratic party, have wilfully neglected to make use of them. The practical construction' of these provisions by the Administration is, that they were adopted and ordained by the people, only that they might be neglected and repudiated by the Government. And in the opinion of the Majority of the Legislature of Massachusetts, never did the Government of a free people more grossly betray their trust, than in this refusal even to attempt to discharge this great duty to the country. Denying as well as neglecting it, a plan for the mere custody of the public funds is now again proposed to Congress, under the name of the Independent Treasury; and if any thing were needed to show the total inappropriateness of the description of the democratic principle,' in the opening of the Address, as the distinguishing test of your Excellency's party, it would be the striking fact, that on this most important measure, that party has within the last five years entertained opinions, and pursued a course, diametrically opposite. The |
