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cessity of action on the general appropriation bills, and arguing that it was not fair for a majority to press bills of this nature just at the close of the session. The fact that the Senate had wasted time in the discussion of other measures was cited by him to prove that no time remained for the consideration of this. Mr. Focte, of Mississippi, declaimed against reckless legislation, saying:

"I should deem myself criminal in the highest degree, if I did not use all the means within my reach, of preventing hasty legislation upon such a subject."

Messrs. Butler, Gwin, and Bradbury, also evinced a determination to persist in the tactics whereby the passage of the bill had hitherto been impeded. Mr. Rusk, of Texas, however, took a different view, which we will present in his own words :

"Mr. President, I desire to say only a very few words, and not with view of delaying action on this bill. If we were within the last hour of the session, instead of within the last twenty-four, believing, as I do, that there is a majority of the Senate in favor of this bill, I would not obstruct its passage. Four years ago, I laid down the principles upon which I intend to act. When I find that there is a clear and express majority in favor of any measure, however much I may condemn it—and, by the way, the objects of this bill I do not condemn-I will not vote to do indirectly what I can not constitutionally do directly. If the majority choose to assume the responsibility of passing what I conceive to be a mischievous measure, upon them let it rest. But I must say, with great deference to older Senators who have moved in this matter, that I think they have taken the wrong course.

Having listened to the objections of Senators, Mr. Clay said:

:

"I at least will not be guilty of losing this or any other measure by speaking to-day. I have risen simply to call for the Yeas and Nays on the motion, and if there be really a majority against the bill in its present shape, hope they will lay it on the table."

The Yeas and Nays were ordered: the River and Harbor bill was again taken up-Yeas 30, Nays 25--and the fire of opposition, under the guise of propositions of amendment, recommenced. All were voted down, as was a proposition by Mr. Foote to lay the bill on the table. A proviso moved by Mr. Bradbury, modified by Mr. Cass, which would have virtually nullified the bill, was offered in the following words :

"And it is hereby expressly provided that the appropriations in this bill ecntained shall take effect upon, and authorize the expenditure of only such

P

surplus or excess, as shall remain in the Treasury of the United States, after deducting from the public revenues the sums necessary to meet the appropriations that have been or shall be made by Congress, to execute existing laws, and liquidate private claims."

This proposition was defeated by a tie vote, as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Atchison, Berrien, Bradbury, Bright, Butler, Cass, Clemens, Jefferson Davis of Miss., Dawson, Dickinson, Douglas, Downs, Felch, Foote, Gwin, Hamlin, Houston, Hunter, Wm. R. King, Mason, Morton, Norris, Rhett, Rusk, Soulé, Sturgeon, Turney, Whitcomb and Yulee-29.

NAYS-Messrs. Badger, Baldwin, Bell, Borland, Chase, Clarke, Clay, Cooper, John Davis of Mass., Dodge of Wis., Dodge of Iowa, Ewing, Greene, Hale, Jones, Mangum, Miller, Pearce, Pratt, Rantoul, Sebastian, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Underwood, Upham, Wales, and Walker-29.

Thus it will be seen that while a decided majority of the Senate were professedly favorable to the bill, some of them through a salutary fear of their constituents, yet one-half of all the members present were ready to paralyze its operation by voting in a proviso which would have precluded any action under it during the ensuing fiscal year; since it could not possibly be determined, until the close of the year, whether there would, or would not, be the requisite surplus in the Treasury.

But the bill just escaped this side-blow, and the game of proposing amendments to hang speeches upon and waste time, was resumed. An attempt to take a recess for dinner was made and defeated; a clause in the bill appropriating $25,700 “for the removal of the obstructions in the Rio Grande river, Texas," was desperately assailed as an encroachment on the joint sovereignty of Mexico over the snags, reefs, and sandbanks, to be found in that river. But the Senate refused to amend. About 8 P. M. of this last night of the session, Mr. Soulé, of Louisiana, moved to insert as follows:

"For deepening the passes of the mouth of the Mississippi river, $130,000;"

And on this, after making a speech, he sent to the clerk's desk an elaborate report of a survey of the mouths of the Mississippi, which he insisted on having read; and on this an hour of precious time was consumed with a manifest intent of wearing out the patience of the Senate. Finally, Mr. Phelps, of Vermont, moved to dispense with the further reading, and on this an hour more was wasted, in the course of which Mr. Clay said:

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"I came to the Senate this morning, and I said that I would move to take up the bill now under consideration; but that if the minority who oppose the bill would say that, in the exercise of their parliamentary rights, they intended to resist to the utmost its passage, I would not insist upon it. I wanted an avowal; no such avowal was made. We have gone on to this time, and in what manner, the journal of our proceedings will show. The question which this day's proceedings presents is, whether the majority or the minority shall govern. No one has attempted to deprive the minority of any rights appertaining to them. I hope the other portion of this body, the majority, have their rights also, and the great question, that question which lies at the bottom of all free institutions is, whether the majority or the minority shall govern? Upon the issue of that question, I, for one, am ready to go before the country and abide their decision."

The debate still went on, another motion to lay the bill on the table was defeated by a vote of 33 to 23; and finally the question of stopping the farther reading of Mr. Soulé's report was reached and decided in the affirmative-Yeas 27, Nays 19. Then more speeches, and another proposition to postpone, which was voted down; and more speeches again, of which the burthen was the tyranny of the majority in not allowing any amendments to prevail, though every Senator knew that any amendment, however trifling, would defeat the bill; as its adoption would send it back to the House, where one-third could arrest it by objecting to a suspension of the rules in favor of taking it up.

Thus, with more speeches and more amendments, the time was worried away until midnight. That hour afforded a pretext for a new discussion as to the right of the Senate to sit longer, and the validity of its acts in case it should do so, in which another hour was consumed. This interlude closed, as every one knew it must, by the Senate resolving that each Congress has a right to sit and act until noon on the 4th of March, or for two full years from the commencement of its legal powers; but by this time Mr. Clay, bending beneath the weight of years, and worn out with severe and protracted labor, perceiving that the bill was inevitably lost, had left the Senate for the night. Finally, after dragging on till four o'clock in the morning, and the minority successfully resisting every effort to reach a decisive vote, the bill was postponed (Yeas 29, Nays 19) to 8 o'clock, in order to take up and pass the appropriation bills.

At the hour of eight, Mr. Clay was in his seat, ready for action, though many younger and stronger men were absent. But so much time was consumed in the passage of the appropriation

bills that the River and Harbor bill could not be taken up. It lay dead on the table, having been defeated by the most unscrupulous exercise of the power granted to minorities in legislative bodies for the protection of their right of discussion, with no intent that the will of a majority should thereby be frustrated. And yet, in this case, for the sake of screening three or four Democratic aspirants to the Presidency from voting on a measure with regard to which the dogmas of the South and the inerests of the West came in direct collision; the precious time of the Senate was recklessly wasted, and other measures of vital importance either wholly defeated, or driven through with a haste which precluded even their reading in the Senate, though millions were voted away by them.

The effort to pass the River and Harbor bill was the last earnest Legislative struggle in which Mr. Clay was ever engaged. Though seventy-four years of age and not a member of the Committee by which the bill was reported, he took his place naturally, and by sheer force of character, at the head of the majority in that memorable though fruitless struggle. His eye was not dim, neither was his natural force abated;' and the spectator could not fail to admire the chivalry of nature and gallantry of bearing wherewith he led the charge against the strong abattis of parliamentary privilege wherewith the minority had so formidably entrenched themselves. Though the Whig party num-bered far less than half the Senate, yet on this question a clear majority were constrained to range themselves under his banner; and there was something impressive in the manner wherewith Mr. Clay spoke of "We of the majority" desiring such and such action, and exhorted "you of the minority" to desist from unmanly bush-fighting, and allow the majority to pass the bill. I doubt whether there ever was an intelligent and independent legislative assembly whereof Mr. Clay, being a member, would not in time have won a majority to his side-not, perhaps, in party designation, but in substance and practice. He led because he instinctively perceived and chose the right path, in which the greater number could not choose but follow. And it was well that the last determined effort of the Great Commoner should be made in behalf of that cause which had so warmly enlisted his

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youthful energies, and in whose advocacy he had first become known to the Nation. More than forty years had now elapsed since the then youthful Senator from Kentucky had proposed a deliberate, persistent, and systematic devotion of a portion of the Federal Revenues to the beneficent work of internal improvement; and it was fit that the last echo of his trumpet voice should resound through that same chamber in unwavering, undying devotion to that same great and good cause. The stag, long hunted, had returned to his native heath to die; and the baying hounds cowered before the glance of his flashing eye until it closed in death.

X X X V.

RESPONSE TO KOSSUTH-ILLNESS AND DEATH.

A BRIEF Called Session of the Senate was held from and after the close of the regular Session of Congress to dispose of a large amount of executive business which had accumulated during the regular Session, and been left over at its close unacted on. For attending this Called Session, twenty-four of the Senators received what is termed Constructive Mileage,' or the legal allowance for traveling expenses as though they had severally repaired to their distant homes and returned again to Washington, between the close of the Regular Session on the 3d of ・ March, and the opening of the Called Session on the following day. The amount thus abstracted from the Treasury, as for a service never rendered, an expense never incurred, was in all about $40,000, of which over $5,000 fell to the share of Senator Gwin, of California, while other Senators from the remoter States received from Fifteen Hundred to Three Thousand dollars each. Mr. King, of Alabama, who, as President of the Senate, certified the correctness of these accounts did not himself accept the Constructive Mileage.

Mr. Clay, it need hardly be said, utterly and disdainfully refused it, as did about half of the Senators holding over. Ever since the practice of charging Constructive Mileage had existed, Mr. Clay had been open and thorough in his denunciations of