The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1909-09-02

rdDhy OF Andrew jackson. lie was a
leader of so great passions and lido
syncrasies, of various kinds, that
without the prefix of an impartial es-
late by the biographer, he can not
be understood.
Undoubtedly it is very important
to American history that Calhoun
should be correctly represented in it's
annals He received more popular
votes for Vice-President, in 1924,
than John Quincy Adams got for
President in New England in that
memorable contest. He would have
succeeded Jackson in the Presidency
had he been less of a man than he
discovered himself to be-
The highest demonstration of ma
ture is the evolution of the prophet.
The evidence is abundant and over
whelming that Calhoun's interpreted
lions Of Jefferson, however little it
may be recognized in Taft or Bryan,
is the essential rallying point for the
Jeffersonian principles, in all this
time Of storm periods.
Let us consider the decisive ques-
ton of the Federal debt: Mr.. Cal
hOun had only been in Congress five
years when the matter of paying off
the public debt, incurred in the war
of 1912, with Great Britain arose.
To provide means to pay this debt, he
advocated the tariff of 1916. It was
q revenue tariff. He was a relentless
opponent of the public debt. What
part does the present enormous and
ever augmenting debt of the United
States play in the fearful concentra-
ton of wealth in private hands and
in the resultant building up mighty
improperly class? Undoubtedly the
public debt is the very foundation of
private monopoly of industries, which
we call trusts. Pay the debt, as CAL
hOun proposed, and place upon the
Government itself the duty of supply
ing all the paper money required by
business Of the people as he pro-
posed, to the final extinction of all
classes of banks Of issue, as he pro-
posed, and no trusts would ever ap-
pear. CalhOun's theory, if put into
force, would move the peril iminent
now from class government 1t is
not possible to propose a single fun
damental principle of the Jefferson
ian creed that Calhoun failed to ex-
pound and apply to the conditions
precedent to life of the American
idea.
I recur to the first protective tariff,
the act of 1916, Calhoun was chair
man of the House committee on cur
rency. While at his desk, absorbed
in the work of that committee, a
member from Pennsylvania came to
him saying, the House appeared to
be in ineXtricable confusion on the
tariff bill, suggesting that he should
go upon the floor and address the
body. Thus the speech of April 6,
1916, was delivered without a mo-
ment's preparation. Webster declar-
ed years afterwards that this was the
ablest protective tariff speech ever
heard in Congress. 1t acknowledged
the duty of Congress so to raise a
revenue by tariff as to favor the in
dustries which Congress had encour-
aged and relied on to support it's
army and the country during the late
war and which could not survive a
sudden withdrawal of protection in
that way. But every item of the bill
produced revenue. The Act of 1916
bore no relation to the Mckinley tar
if or the Dingley tariff or the Payne
Aldrich tariff. These late tariffs are
intended to perpetuate the public
debt; the Act of 1916 was intended
to pay off the war debt. l will quote
a paragraph from Mr.. Calhoun's
speech as an amusing incident in the
light of subSe0uent events It was