Carroll free press. [volume] (Carrollton [Ohio]) 1834-1861, 1846-08-21
From the Neo York Tribune.
CLOSE OF THE Session.


CLOSE OF THE SESSION.
Eight htweary months and more have rolled a.
way-about six-and-thirty weeks-since a Con-
gress strongly Locoloco in both branches assem-
bed at Washington TO cooperate with Mr.. Polk
in carrying on the Government. They found
the country enjoying peace and prosperity-its la
Dor comparatively well employed and fairly re-
warded-the products of its diversified and ex-
panding industry commanding fair prices in near
ly every epartment-building, improving, &C.,
every where active or checked only by The appre-
hension of what this same Congress might do
the revenue confessedly abundant (toO abundant,
the Executive journals apprehended,) and the
public debt created during the last experiment at
depriving of protection our great industrial inter-
ests, rapidly diminishing and about to be extin-
guished, while the Treasury boasted daily in
creasing surplus of ten millions. Eight months
of uncurbed Locofoco rule have sutliced tochange
entirely the aspect of things-to substitute war
for peace, and most shameful, cowardly, guilty
war at that-to palsy in great degree the arm of
useful labor and to draw away thousands from the
plow and the workshop to shed the blood of our
innocent fellow men on the distant plains of Mex
ico-tO render tame and distasteful to thousands
the peaceful walks and achievements of honest
toil-to open wide the suices of the Treasury
and drain it at the rate of at least one million of
dollars weekly; to render necessary the issue of
ten millions of Treasury shinplasters, to be nev-
itably followed by millions on millions more; and
at last we had message from Mr.. Polk asking
for special two millions to make peace with af-
ter spending many millions fruitlessly and wick
edly in making war. Such are some of the lea
ding achievements of the last eight months.
Long as the session has been, few will COM
plain that it has effected too little very few, we
think will say that it has effected what it ought.
The Tariff of 1842 has been repealed and a
wholly ad raIOrem and professedly Revenue Tar
if' enacted in its stead-a measure balefully Y mis-
taken in principle and dsastrously bungling in de-
tails-atariff which discriminatesi in repeated and
important instances against the industry of our
f own people and in favor of that of foreigners
an act which sets aside one that did provide ample
revenue in favor of one that assuredly will not
an act which virtually allows Importers TO assess
the duties on the goods they import, contrary to
all right reason and the example of every en-
lightened nation.
Having Involved the country in a most expen-
sive war, and destroyed the tariff which would
have provided good part of the revenue requi.
TGu u SuSldlll lt-lldNllS CAlduSteu ln6 Treasury
and ordered the issuing of reams of shinpasters
to fill 1.-THE next step was naturally to pass the
I sub-Treasury act, by which the Government de-
clares itself afraid to trust and too pure to deal
with specie-paying Banks, in order to give the is
sues of its own gigantic rag-mill a reader circu
lation. True, these are redeemable in nothing
except at the pleasure of the Government, or as
received by it for dues like the GROCERY shin
plaster "Good for siXpence at the Bar" but nc
matter" Hurrah for free trade and hard money!
When the Government had millions on deposit i
had them kept transferred and dsbursed withou
cost or trouble, now that it has run close ashore
it will soon have lot Of sub-Treasurers at two
to four thousand dollars each per annum with {
retinue of clerks, etc. to see that the cash is Ia
ken care of. Its money was very we'll kept by
: banks, but its evidences of its own raggedness
! must be specially guarded with costly rigor.-
Such is the restoration of the constitutional cur
rency-such is Legislative wisdom in the nine
teenth century.
Thetwo best measures of thesession were bias
ted by the Presidential Veto. The River anC
Harbor bill proposed to abstract little over one
million of dollars from the general wreck anC
spend it so that our free laborers would get tht
money and our country enduringly reap substan
tial benefit from the expenditure. This is royal
ly forbidden--we need so much money where
with to do evil that we can spare none to be EN-
It ployed in doing good So in the other case:-
+ We invade Mexico, shut upherports, capture he
l.. towns and butcher herpeople professedy becaus
she does not pay us for certain Spoliatons com
5 mitted on our citizens a few years since, though
6 she has admitted the debt, paid it in part, say
e she has paid our agent still more, for which sh,
e holds his receipt; yet like claims for French Spo
! liations assumed by and justly due from our owl
Government are forbidden to be paid at all! Mr.
u Polk complains that the debt is old, as if pas
IS faithlessness were not reason for signal promp
n titude instead of farther delay; the sum is to-
small, as if that though good reason for givin,
more, were any reason at all for not paying this
' and that the payment is to be made in land, as i
G that again were not the claimants misfortune
J. which Congress at any future day may correct
by simply Withholding the scrip (Which cannot b.
issued at any rate under two or three years) ant
. paying money instead. He alleges doubts abou
l' the Justice of the debt, when he every day sign
II claim-bills which he has never even read in tn
c justifabe conviction that in deciding merely tha
sum is due and should be paid, Congress may
safely be trusted. No Veto on similar ground
was ever before interposed between an act of tar
/ dy and partial national justice and band of Ion,
l. suffering widows and children We rejoice a