The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1842-08-13

per money schs1ye, with its concomitant maIversa
tons and attendant vices and corruptions.
This public debt that we rapidly increasing
for poserty to pay of piece with the impolicy OF
distributing among the States the surplus revenue
surplus paper money it should have been called
That measure was deprecated by every who took
the trouble to reflect the consequences, and some
would have deemed it wiser act to have sunk it in
the Atlantic. And the results have exposed the fall
lacy ofthe plot whatever else it might be called
But the spirit that imposed that wretche4
the country was not satisfeddid not sleep until it
conjured up and forced upon US another device of
similar nature-the division of the proceeds of the
public domain among the States. On this last, Mr..
Chairman, have much to say but it would require
more time than the resolution abridging the freedom
of speech will permit. | could show that this Dis
tribution is violation Of the Constitution, viO
laton of the Peoples equal rights; violation Of the
States equal rights violation OF the rightful use OF
the taxing power; increase oftax upon labor;
wise temptation to the State Governments TO become
beggars and depenannts the General Government,
a concentration of power in the General Govern
ment an unjust unplausble unnecessary, demoraiz-
ing measure-a measure that puts hundred dollars
into pocket and takes hundred and twenty-five
of the other of the working people of the Union
measure that sells the land to divide among the
States and extracts increased indirect of TWEEN
ty-fve per cent. from the labor of the country-a
measure that cheats the public Treasury out of its
Dues for nine-tenths of the lands to be sold
bought by revenue taken out of the Treasury-a
proposed in this bill, of SO to $50 per cent upon tea,
Coffee sugar. spices, and salt seven-eighths of
it to be paid by labor and only one-eghth by capital
"a measure supported by those who call themselves
the peculiar friends of the slave thereby advocating
bounty for the breeding of slaves, the planter
ceivng three shares of the proceeds of the lands for
every five slaves, the more slaves he breeds the
shares he gets, but we must do the Southern Demo-
Gratis the justice to acknowledge that they utterly
opposed to the distrbution) and taxing white labor
through communion to n !
An improvement British policy this by our friends
of the slave for Britain taxed the labor of her
ing white subjects at home twenty millions ster-
ling pay the capitalist slave owners in her West
India colonies for the emancipation Of their blacks
while at the same time she improves and Celebrates
on the bondage of her hundred millions of serfs ia
her East India possessions What striking evil
dence, among ourselves well ia England, of the
disparity between profession and practice in human
| nature What strange propensity in Governments
to Cypress labor and aggrandize capital to abstract
from the many who work, and give to the few who
| scheme to steal the power from the producer and
concentrate it on the producer thereby perpetu-
aiing the dominancy of the latter over the former
And such is the insidous positive tendency of dsc
mnating indirect taxation of duties on imports.
All these assertive propositions could pass through
dfusivey, and establish their soundness beyond
troversy, if were permitted the time but my con-
stituents shall yet have all if the law should not be
repealed in its full elucidatory form, to Judge for
themselves of the expansive enforcement of the
truth.
We have had on this floor, Mr. Chairman, since
these debates commenced occasional murmurngs and
grumblings about utraism and radicalism, and abb
stractonism, by way of interlude, perhaps or is
hoped that by using them as reproachfu epithets,
the march of pure free principles may be retarded or
suppressed? suspect we are rather behind the age
in making the attempt, and the people will make us
understand ourselves little better by and by. Man.
in the Northern hemisphere of this side of the Allan
tic, is investigating every thing under the at this
moment and do we expect to stop this healthy
of searching inquiry by crying out ultrasm and radi
calism and abstractonism? We had better give up
such childish folly be the motive to it what il NAV
for most certainly it will not retard stay the nqui
ny that is going on into the nature of popular right
and free Government; we may as well make merit
of necessity and enter into its extent at once be our
position what it may, for the bewdering night of err
ror that has clouded the equal rights Of the people
has passed over, and the balmy, rosy-tinted morn
OF truth is beamlng upon us in its cheering eff
whether the lights be called ultra and radi-
| cal not. People are beginning to suspect, per-
haps that the peculiar sensitiveness of those who
are thus attempting to stop the salutary of in
vestigation into first principles of Democracy caus
ed by fear of the People enlightening themselves
more than could be wished on their rightful power
and true interests. Hence the craft of attracting and
diverng their attention to mere sound, to words in
stead of ruthsinstead of facts and the investigation
Of motive Hence the Fictitious faint or indifference
attempted to be attached to the terms ultra radical
and abstraction all to mslead the People. But the
denuncatory tone OF partisan charlaanry cannot alter
the true meaning depreciate the high value of their
political application. In such application what do
these terms belong to? Why they so intimately
related that they approach each other closely within
the same circumstances. If you are ultra YOU are
more less radical and if RADICAL or less ultra
In the general they belong to the extreme remote e
gitimate, original or fundamental, deep-rooted Demo-
cratic prncipe-to the extreme purity of equal right
among the People. And as to abstractonism we NAV
say with TRUTH that truth is sometimes an abstraction
rather hard to cach-a little taste of practice among
the profusion of profession, particularly when
| the whole good of the whole Union is concerned
Why the Universe, created by the fiat of Omnipo-
| tence, from the most remote star to more remote
still, on, and on, and on the nconceivabe might
ness of utraism The efugent light of Divine
Goodness, in its boundless immensely, is radical Ma
ture in all her works, displays ultrasm and radical
ism; the infnitude of Almighty power is their pure
sence. The system to which planet belongs pre-
sents the glorious spectacle of radical ultra direction
in every aspect. The farmers themselves who have
the heaviest taxes to pay, and who invoke to take
into their grave consideration the oppressive, partial
provisions of this remorseless tax bill are ultra rad
cal in the exercise of their husbandry they cultivate
the ultra earth the action of the radical sweat that
exudes from their brows. And one reason Mr..
Chairman why | appeal more particularly to the
working people to come to the aid of their country
at this moment of peril to her welfare is because my
constituents took of their radical caste from
between the handles of the plough in reality, not fig
1 uratvey, to represent them and do their will on
this floor; to ascertain, perhaps, for once, whether
any could better understand the interests and happiness
of the working people, or more intimately sympathse
with them than practical workng-man himself
How far their farmer representative has sustained
their character radically practically and faithfully
they will judge impartially Can we be too radical
and ultra in constructing the Constitution and equal
rights of People and States' tell me hat And more
do trust and hope that the People will permit none
to represent them either in State Federal Govern
ment, but those who purely radical in their whole
legislative action, combining themselves strictly to the
rule of truth in all its pristine purity, knowing and