The age-herald., 1897-10-03

pocket" The debate in theshouse was aIbler and more earnest even that called out by the debt assumption and United States Bank question in 1791, and covered the fundamensal principles of govern merit under the constitution. On the federalist side the chief speakers were Smith and Harper. of South Carolina, and AmeS, of Massachusetts, while the strongest presentation Of the republican position was made by Madison and Giles, of Virginia, and Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania, d1lsn serving his first term in congress. and laying the foundation of the fame which came to him subse- quently. By this time the commercial and general business element had raliisd TO the federalists' support, and brought victory, for on the sober second thought the treaty began to commend itself to thoughtful persons.
 Nevertheless the contest was close, and 1t is supposed Ghe decisive factor was Ames' speech, which was one of the few ever delivered in. congress that got into the school books. Suffering from mal- ady which threatened to be fatal at any moment, and scarcely able to talk or s.and when 1lo began, Ames gathered S.ISISln dS HC NAth iitiHA eloquence the strain on the national homo which the denial of the appropria- tfon and notification of the treaty would involve and the horrors of the war wl'h England and her Indian allies when he apprehended as a result Even the minutes I haKe spsD: in expostulatlon have their value" warned he in closing, "because they protract the crisis and the short period in which alone we may re- solve to escape it. Yet, l have perhaps as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, believe, TO member who will no; take his charces to be a witness Of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass 10 reject, and spirit should rise, as it will, with the public disorders to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as my hold on life Gs, may outlive the govern
 ner. and constitution of my country
 This carried the day for the treaty. The republicans, fearful of the effeo- or the
 speech secured an adjournment of the house, but on tho final vote two days later, April 3O 1796, the treaty won by a vote of AS to fl. New England was all most sohdly for the appropriation, ard the south was as strongly against it. The middle states turned the scale.
 Gallatin's speeches against the treaty were the most powerful delivered on that side. One of them, on resolution asking Washington to give the house the Jay correspondence, a request with which Washington refused Ito comply, called out high praise from Jefferson, who, in a letter to Madison, dated March 27 1796, said it was worthy of being printed at the end of the Federal ist as the only rational commentary on the part of the constitution to which it relates" In the same letter Jefferson, speaking of the 'incompr5 hensible ac- quiescence of the only honest man who has assented to it," meaning the treaty which Washington signed, added: T wish that his honesty and his political errors may not furnish second occas- ion to exclaim, Curse on his virtu=s, they have undone his countryr"
 James Tallamadge served only one term in congress, that of 1S17-19, but in that time he secured a permanent place in American history. He did this by his slavery exclusion amendment to the Missouri admission bill. This amend ment precipitated a contest in congress which, in one phase and another, lasted about two years, convulsed the country, brought trade disturbance which for few months amounted almost to finan- cial panic, and elicited from many of the southern members of congress, and some of the northern, threats of disun- ion and civil war. That contest reveal ed. for the first tlme the strength of the anti-slavery sentiment of the country led to an adjustment by which half of the territory acquired from France in 1903 was secured for freedom, and put off for generation the inevitable con- fict between the sections
 Tallmadge, who was in congress only two years in all, remained in it less than a month after his amendment was pro- posed, for that was brought forward on February 13. 1879. and th4 congress ex- pired on March 4, but he made one notably great speech in favor of his re- striction. Ames served four congresses
 but he was in his last term when he made ths speech upon which his fame as an orator rests Like Ames, Tall magde was in poor health at the crisis in his career, and, supposing he had only short time to live, he refused a second nomination. A far. longer life, however, was before him than he imag- ined. Ames, though he thought himself to be on the verge of the grave when he made the Jay treaty spe :ch, lived twelve years afterward. Tallmadge's death did net take place until 1853, thir- ty-four years after the Missouri contest which he precipitated. At his death he was 75 years of age. After he left con- gress he was prominent in the social affairs of his state, New York, took an active interest in politics and filled some state and local offisc, but he never held a national post after he stepped out of congress in 1919. He left the democrats in 1884, joined the whig party, which was founded in that year, remained in that organization until its surrender to slavery, and then went to the Free Soil party at its birth in 1S4S. Less than four months after Tallmadge's death in Sentember 1S53 DOup1as baited bv n;v