The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1842-08-11
From the ". Y. Union.
THE HON. N. P. TALLMADGE, SENATOR
IN CONGRESS FROM NEW YORK.


IN CONGRESS FROM NEW YORK.
Sir 1t is always symptom of an alarming crisis
when the busy citizen is disturbed from his labor to
inquire into the administration of public affairs. II
such crisis that leaving the plough in the half
finished turrow demanded the aid at Bunker Hill OF
the snewy hand that held it. The sober farmer, the
active merchant the ingenious artisan and the indus
trous of all classes content to leave the affairs OF
Government to the guidance of ambitious and wordy
politicians long they do not seriously disturb
the general prosperity and do not materially interfere
with individual interests But when trade stagnates;
when the hand of industry is paralyzed; when pro-
perty to be valuable and life ITSELF under in
cessant evils, becomes intolerable BURDEN when,
too, remonstrance has followed complaint, and indig
nation has followed both, without any perceptibe eff
feet upon the councils of the nation natural that
the people should abandon for time their fruit
| less avocatons, and call to account the servants
who have wasted their substance.
1t is Lord Bongbroke, think, who says ssthat the
party which maintains distinctions, where there is
difference of principle, be party and be-
comes faction National interests are sacr ifced
and made subordinate personal considerations d.
visions fomented for the worst designs either to
invade the liberties of the people, which is the utmost
iniquy or distract the movements of the various
branches of government which is the utmost folly"
Whether parties in this country have thus degraded
themselves into factions and whether you from whom
the country had right to expect, heretofore
they have received, magnanimousy, different exam
ton, leave for public opinion and your con-
science to decide The characteristics of faction
are that disregards the public good it bears every
evil it causes without an attempt at remedy it is
absorbed in It's mad passion 10 be Indifferent
even the spoiIs, which the ruin If the country
throws in lis way, and is either blind to that ruin,
or iusies it upon the ground Of mutual hatred and
revenge. You, sir, while this ruin has fallen, and
continued upon u.s. whether caused by factions not
while your country bleeding at every pore, while
fha of he nj
crushed the DUST have folded your Senatorial robes
around you, and have looked with your feow-Sena-
tors, and the members of the other House, for
months, upon the work of destruction that has been
going with at least apparent indifference am
sure you do not wish to escape individual responsible
ty and the country holds all to fearful retribulon
who have forgotten that they have country
rather than passion to pamper and public good to
promote rather than private position to maintain.
In addressing you do not mean to imply that you
are peculiarly censurabe; on the contrary, it is
belief inspired by your enlightened and patriotic
duct on former occasions, that leads to select
you as open than most politicians to the
victions of duty when coming in conflict with the
prejudices of party, with strong hope of impress
ing you, and fainter hope of impressing others,
with some sense of dcrclioton of duty in the
| present crisis of public affairs.
The Wing party came into power with over
whelming majority, procured by promises and stimu
lated by expectations, beyond the reach Of human
energy to fulfil. The country, reduced by misrule
to the utmost extremity of distress, relied sudden
relief; several important measures, which need not
| specify introduced into Congress for this pur-
| nose and one of them was so modified-with what
motive will not stop to inqureas not to meet with
the sanction of the President. The question of the
currency therefore, remained and still remains I'M
settled but the misfortune is that this disagreement
on this and some other trhng points between the
ordinate branches of the government has put all the
elements of party discord into violent commotion,
forced them into new combinations, and, while the
| furious and vindictive spirit thus engendered Is
raging and those branches are continually making
points with each other the country and its suffering
are lost sight of-the army and navy, with all their
| thousand dependencies, allowed to langush-the
channels of the currency which should float the pro-
auctions Of prosperous Millions permitted to dry
up-and the revenue, whose only burden should be
to carry the public credit, is made packhorse for
local and temporary projects And, sir, what is most
appang this state of things is sustained by St. lady
maiority-small it is true but not the less pertina
cious-in the representatives of the people, against
their interests and in violation Of their repeated re-
monstrances. Sir, fear majorities, when they re-
present parties that have degeneraed into factions
Their tyranny is bitter than that OF the most
absolute despotsm; for it proscrbes the person
though it may spare the life and it sacrifices nte-
rests though it may not conscate property and the
citizen-victm may sorrowfully exclaim with the dis
| consulate Jew
| You take my life
| When YOU do take the means whereby live"
This tyranny is the more to be dreaded because it
affects masses rather than individuals and surely
| that oppression which sends an offending individual
to the deserts of Siberia less disastrous in its eff
fects than that which converts whole country into
such desert 1t is this tyranny that has made the
South American republics the worst despotisms in
the world, and has desolated those countries while
Russia hourishes under the government of an ndiv-
dual despot 1t against this tyranny that Washing
ton has warned and is this the evils of which JEFF
ferson foresaw and it the fear of it that induced
the States this Union to retain their soveregntes
guard against consolidation, and to make their Con-
! stt,ltion a compact From the first organization of
the Cove nment down to the present day, a success
sion of enlightened statesmen and patriots have fore
seen tendency to this evil and raised their warn
ing voice in time to prevent the contamination of our
ruin and, indeed, never have its dangers been more
wildly portrayed, nor the checks provided in the
Constitution against them been distinctly point
ed out the consequences Of yielding to them been
more eloquently described than by eminent mod
ern statesman now at the head of one Of most
important Executive departments. allude to Judge
Upshur Secretary Of the Navy In his very able
work. entitled "a brief inquiry into the noue and
character of Federal Government" work which
evinces the clearest knowledge of the spirit of
Government, and breathes throughout the Hottest pa
trotism speaking of the tendency of institutions
to consolidation and to the tyranny of an rresponsi-
BILE majority, the eloquent writer remarks " If that
majority find, either in the pursuit of their own
peculiar interests or in the offices and emouments
that flow from the patronage of the Government, an
interest distinct from that of the minority they will
pursue that interest, and nothing will be left to the
minority but the poor privilege of complaining
Thus the government becomes tyrannous and OPP
pressive, and instead of the enlarged and general in
erest which should check and restrain it, peculiar
interest enlisted to extend its powers and sustain its
abuses Public virtue and intelligence avail littIe
in such condition Of things as this; that virtue
falls before the temptations of interest which you
present to it, and that intelligence thus deprived of its
encouraging hopes, serves only to point out new OBJ
jecs of unlawful pursuit. and suggest and baser
methods of attaining them" Again. ''under such
system this, it is cruel mockery to talk of the
rights Of the minority. If they possess rights they