among the states. Many of these improvements are a full quid pro quo for the debts. Those of New York are sufficiently valuable for a liquidation of the costs; those of Pennsylvania, properly managed, will pay part of the interest, and the benefit to the state will more than make up the complement of interest, so that, under a proper administration, they ought to be regarded as good stock. The state stocks of Ohio are undoubtedly good; those of Maryland, in the prospect of completing the canal to Cumberland, will also be good. There are few of the states, if any, which could not preserve the credit of their stocks with tolerable ease, apart from the baleful influence of party politics, which too often, almost universally, make a hobby of a financial policy, and keep public credit in a state of constant fluctuation.

The adoption of Mr. Clay's land policy, as a permanent system, would rescue and shield the states from these hazards. By that the public domain would be pledged for the state debts, the quota of each state for its own debts severally so long and so far as there should be any; or such a pledge might be made a condition of distribution. It would at least be naturally adopted as the policy of each state, if such a condition should be deemed inconsistent with sovereignty. The public lands, worth a billion of money, are an abundant security for two hundred millions. The history of the Commonwealth Bank of Kentucky, the credit of which rested chiefly on the public lands of the states, shows that such a basis can not easily be shaken. Not that lands are a proper foundation for banking. The operation and result in Kentucky, prove that they are not. But they are a firm basis of credit, and it was that alone, apparently, which saved the Commonwealth Bank of Kentucky from a total wreck, and enabled it to wind up with a paper nearly or quite at par, though it had been depressed some fifty per cent. by a panic.

The evidence given in this chapter of the judicial right of the states to the avails of the public lands, must be left to speak for itself. That they were never designed for the ordinary purposes of national revenue, seems to be admitted on all sides. Such is the undoubted import of the passages before cited from General Jackson's messages, and he appears to have been in favor of distribution. Mr. Van Buren also, in 1826, expressed himself in favor of distribution: "He believed if these lands were disposed of at once to the SEVERAL states, it would be satisfactory to all." In his letter to Sherrod Williams, 1836, notwithstanding he affected

opposition to a specific plan of distribution, he said: "I need only observe, that I regard the public domain as a TRUST fund, belonging to ALL the states, to be disposed of for their common benefit." This expression is part of a quotation from a former letter to his constituents in the state of New York, without repudiation in this place of course with sanction by its iteration. These authorities ought reasonably to have weight with all the supporters of these two men while at the head of the government. The principle of distribution seems to have been clearly advocated by them, and the first act of distribution was passed in the last year of General Jackson's administration, and sanctioned by his official signature.

The difficulty on this subject between the two great parties of the country, seems to have been in their antagonistical views regarding the protective policy. The advocates of free trade go for depriving the states of the proceeds of the public lands, because, while flowing into the national treasury, and employed for federal objects, they constitute a considerable fraction of the federal expenditures, and consequently relieve a revenue tariff so far as it is protective, and diminish the amount of protection. Adinitting that the advocates of free trade are right in their theory, they are unjust in practice, when, to accomplish their end, they deprive the states of their right to the proceeds of the public lands. They want these proceeds for federal purposes, in order to reduce and keep down a protective tariff; whereas, their opponents not only assert the right of the states to these proceeds, but they maintain the right of the people to that amount of protection, which alone would raise a sufficient revenue for the ordinary purposes of the general government. There can be no question as to the right of the states to the proceeds of the lands; and admitting that the object of the free trade party is legitimate, it can not be right to do a wrong, to accomplish that object. But there is a question as to the justice of the free-trade system, and its opponents believe it is unjust in its operations on the people of the country-that the people are entitled to protection. If this difficulty were out of the way, there would be no controversy about the public lands. It all turns on the discordant views about a protective policy. One party will not consent to distribution, although it is proved to be a right, because it tends to increase protection. The other party claim distribution as a right, and protection as a right.

POLITICAL CHARACTER OF MR. CLAY'S TIMES. 485

CHAPTER XXI.

POLITICAL CHARacter of Mr. ClaY'S TIMES.--Mr. Clay a Jeffersonian Democrat.— Democratic and Regal Power of the Constitution.-Influence of Names in Politics.-The Government of the United States a Democracy.-Who are the True Democrats.-The effect of the Alien and Sedition Laws in rousing the Democracy. Mr. Clay's Claims to Democracy.-His Denial of Democracy to his Opponents. Jefferson not the Father of Democracy.-Democracy the Genius of the American People.-Reign of Democracy from Jefferson to J. Q. Adams, inclusive.-Regal Power rose with General Jackson. Mr. Clay's Great Struggles against Regal Power, and for the Defence of Democracy.

MR. CLAY opened his political career in the ascendency of the star of Thomas Jefferson, and was a Jeffersonian DEMOCRAT; and the most remarkable feature of the political character of the times in which he has lived, has been a STRUGGLE between the democratic and regal powers of the constitution. That there are two such elements in the constitution of the United States, it is not supposed there can be any question. But to avoid misapprehension, it is here stated, that, by the democratic power of the constitution, is meant popular influence, and by the regal power, executive influence. The measure of the former is that amount of influence which the constitution intended should be wielded by the legislative branch of the government, as the immediate and direct representative of the people, speaking and acting in their behalf; and the measure of the latter is that power which the constitution has given to the president.

AS NAMES in politics are SUBSTANTIVE POWERS, in their social and moral influence, it is of no small importance that they should be properly applied. The question has been often mooted, and among grammarians will probably be always debatable, whether the government of the United States is a DEMOCRACY? With those who choose to make it a question, it should be regarded as merely a GRAMMATICAL one; but for the practical objects of politicians and statesmen, the gravity of the issues depending, requires, that they should take far higher ground, and not hold this question

in debate for a moment. If it be allowed-as doubtless it will be -that the design of the framers of the federal and of the state constitutions, was, that the will of the people should prevail; and if it be an admitted principle, that all the powers of government, originate with the people, and revert to them in the provisions of fundamental law; then the government of the United States, and of the states respectively, is a DEMOCRACY, in the most common, and in the historical, sense of the term. For all practical purposes, this question can not profitably be extended further, than to arrive at the distinction between monarchy and democracy-between a government, which in its origin and structure, is independ ent of the people, and one which is dependent upon them. That being settled, it is also determined, whether any particular government be democratic or not. The government of the United States, by this rule, is a DEMOCRACY. Notwithstanding, it is not the less true, that there is a regal power in the constitution, than that there is a democratic power. Regal power is essential to all governments wielded by a head, or chief magistrate. In other words, the proposition is a mere truism.

The rise, progress, and triumph of Jeffersonian democracy, derived its impulse and vitality immediately from the alien and sedition laws of 1799; though the democratic feeling, which started so suddenly into powerful activity, and so soon wielded an energetic sway over the mind of the country, was pre-existent, and only waited to be invoked. It is the prevalent feeling of the American people, and always has been, since the achievement of their independence. It is even older than that, and was the parent of independence.

A charitable view of the designs of the alien and sedition laws, founded on the history which suggested and prompted them, would probably allow, that they were misinterpreted by opponents. But they were alarming, and in the hands of worse men than those who originated and enacted them, might have proved destructive of freedom. The design of the government of the United States was not to bestow dangerous powers, and these were of that class. The feeling of the country took alarm; they were denounced; Thomas Jefferson was at the head of the opposition; and Henry Clay, in the west, then a youth of twenty-two or three, rose on the tide, and spread his sails to the breeze, for the first time, on the ocean of political strife, except, perhaps, he had commenced his labors in the cause of emancipation for the prospective revision of

the constitution of Kentucky. But he thundered forth, in eloquent and indignant tones, his denunciations of the alien and sedition laws, and was the leading democrat of the west, in that sudden and energetic popular movement, which ushered in the administration of Thomas Jefferson.

From that day to this, it will be found, not only that Mr. Clay has been a democrat of the same school, but that he has claimed it for himself. In a speech delivered at Lexington, May 16, 1829, after Mr. Clay's retirement from the department of state, under Mr. Adams, he says: "In a republic all power and authority, and all public offices and honors, emanate from the people, and are exercised and held for their benefit. In a monarchy, all power and authority, all offices and honors, proceed from the monarch. His interests, his caprices, and his passions, influence and control the destinies of the kingdom. In a republic, the people are everything, and a particular individual nothing. In a monarchy, the monarch is everything, and the people nothing.'

While the sub-treasury bill was under debate in the senate, Mr. Calhoun cast some reflection on Mr. Clay, as having on his side members of the federal party.

"Sir," said Mr. Clay, addressing the president of that body, "I am ready to go into an examination with the honorable senator at any time, and then we shall see if there be not more meinbers of that same old federal party among those whom the senator has recently joined, than on our side of the house. The plain truth is, that it is the old federal party with whom he is now acting. For all the former grounds of difference, which distinguished that party, and were the subjects of contention between them and the republicans, have ceased, from lapse of time and change of circumstances, with the exception of ONE, and that is the maintenance and increase of executive power. This was a leading policy of the federal party. A strong, powerful, and energetic executive, was its favorite tenet. . I can tell the gentleman, that he will find the true old democratic party, who were for resisting the encroachments of power, and limiting executive patronage, on OUR side of the senate, and not with his new allies, the Jackson-Van-Buren democratic party, whose leading principle is to sustain the executive, and deny all power to the legislature, and which does not hold a solitary principle in common with the republican party of 1798."

In a speech delivered in Hanover county, Virginia, June 27, 1840, on the state of the country, speaking of the enormous increase of executive power, Mr. Clay says:

"And yet the partisans of this tremendous executive power ar