1ST
Tavhorough, (Edgecombe County, X. C.J Tuesday, October 30, 1832.
Vol. IX No 10.
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BY REORGE IIOWAUD,
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Mil. VAN HU REN'S LETTER.
The following is Mr. Van Huron's reply to
to the Committee of the Shocco meeting:
Oicasco, Cayuga Co. Oct. 4, 1S32.
Gentlemen: Your letter of the 25th
August found me at this place. I regret
extremely that the delay in its reception,
occasioned by my absence, has prevented
an earlier attention toils contents.
By the resolutions which you have
been appointed to communicate to me, I
am advised that those by whom ihey were
adopted, desire to be informed of my sen
timents "on the subjects of the Protec
tive System and iis proper adjustment,
Internal Improvement, the Bank of the
United States, and Nullification."
The right of those you represent, to be
informed of my opinions upon these in
teresting subjects, as derived from the
position in which the favor of my fellow
citizens has placed me, is undoubted; and
in cheerfully complying with their re
justice, would furnish the best guarantee
for the true interests of all. If, as has
been supposed, those views have contri
buted in any degree to produce a state of
feeling so much to be desired, I have rea
son to be gratified with the result.
The approaching, and if the policy of
the present Executive is allowed to pre
vail, the certain and speedy extinguish
ment of the national debt, has presented
an opportunity for a more equitable ad
justment of the tariff, which has already
been embraced by the adoption of a con
ciliatory measure, the spirit of which will,
I doubt not, continue to be cherished 'by
all who are not desirous of advancing
their private interests at the sacrifice of
those of the public, and who place a just
value upon the peace and harmony of
the Union.
The Protective System and its proper
adjustment, became a subject of frequent
and necessary consideration, whilst I for
med a part of the cabinet; and the man
ner in which the President proposed to
carry into effect the policy in relation to
imposts, recommended in his previous
messages, has since been avowed with
that frankness which belongs to his cha
racter. To this end, he recommended
"a modification of the tariff, which should
produce a reduction of the revenue to the
wants of the government, and an adjust
ment of the duty upon imports, with a
view to equal justice in relation lo all our
national intere.-ts, and to the counterac
tion of foreign policy, so far as it may be
injurious to those interests."
In these sentiments I folly concur: and
II have been thus explicit in the statement
quest, I have only to regret, that the in-j of them, that there may be no room for
convenience of the situation in which it misapprehension as to my own views up
finds me, consequent upon the hurry and on the subject. A sincere and faithful
confusion attending the further prosecu
tion of my journey, and the importance,
to the fulfilment of the objects of your
constituents, of as little delay as possible
in the transmission of the communica
tion, preclude anything like an elaborate
discussion of the subjects under consid
eration, if indeed such a course would,
under more favorable circumstances, be
desirable to you. The regret, however,
which I might otherwise experience on
this account, is relieved by the hope, that
my fellow citizens of North Carolina, pre
ferring, with characteristic good sense,
results to speculations, will be as well sa
tisfied, and as effectually aided in the in
telligent bestowment of their suffrages,
by a brief but explicit avowal of my opi
nions, as they would be by an elaborate
dissertation upon subjects which have
been so thoroughly and diffusively debated.
Although mv official acts in relation to
the Protective System, might well be re
garded as rendering the avowal unne
cessary, I think it, nevertheless, proper
to say, that I believe the establishment of
commercial regulations, with a view to
the encouragement of domestic products,
to be within the constitutional power of
Congress. Whilst, however, I have en
tertained this opinion, it has never been
my wish to see the power in question ex
ercised with an oppressive inequality up
application of these principles to our le
gislation, unwurped by private interest or
political design; a restriction of the wants
of the government to a simple and eco
nomical administration of its affairs the
only administration which is consistent
with the purity and stability of the repub
lican system; a preference in encourage
ment given, to such manufactures as are
essential to the national defence, and its
extension :o others in proportion as they
are adapted to our country, and of which
the raw material is produced by our
selves; with a proper respect for the rule
which demands that all taxes should be
imposed in proportion to the ability and
condition of the contributors; would, I
am convinced, give ultimate satisfaction
to a vast majority of the people of the
United States, and arrest that spirit of
discontent which is now unhappily so
prevalent, and which threatens such ex
tensive injury to the institutions of our
country. .
Internal Improvements are so diversi
(ied in their nature, and the possible a
gency of the federal government in their
construction, so variable in its character
and degree, as to render it not a little dif
ficult to lay down any precise rule that
will embrace the whole subject. The
broadest and best defined division, is that
which distinguishes between the direct
on any portion of our citizens, or for the: construction of works of internal im
advantage of one section of the Union at
the expense of another. On the contra
ry, I have at all times believed it to be
the sacred duty of those who are entrust
ed with the administration of the federal
government, to direct its operations in
the manner best calculated to distribute
as equally as possible its burthens and
blessings amongst the several States and
the people. My views upon this subject
were several years ago spread before the
people of this Slate, and have since been
widely diffused through the medium of
the public press. My object at that time
was to invito the attention of my immedi
ate constituents to a dispassionate consi
deration of the subject in its various bea
rings; being well assured, that such an
investigation would bring them to a stan-
provement by the general government,
and pecuniary assistance given by it to
such as are undertaken by others. In
the former, are included the right to make
and establish roads and canals within
the States, and the assumption of as
much jurisdiction over the territory they
may occupy, as is necessary to their pre
servation and use: the latter is restricted
to simple grants of money, in aid of such
works, when made under State authority.
The federal government does not, in
my opinion, possess the power first spe
cified; nor can it derive it from the assent
of the State in which such works are to
be constructed. The money power, as it
is called, is not so free from difficulty.
Various rules have from time to time
been suggested by those who properly ap-
dard, which, from its moderation and preciate Ihe importance of precision and
certainty in the operations of the federal
power; but they have been so frequently
infringed upon by the apparently unavoid
able action of the government, that a final
and satisfactory settlement of the ques
tion has been prevented. The wide dif
ference between a definition of the power
in question upon paper, and its practical
application to the operations of govern
ment, has been sensibly felt by all who
have been entrusted with the management
of public affairs. The whole subject was
reviewed in the President's Maysville
message. Sincerely believing that the
best interests of the whole country, the
quiet, not to say the stability, of the Uni
on, and the preservation of that moral
force which perhaps as much as any olh
er holds it together, imperiously required
that the destructive course of legislation
upon that subject, then prevalent, should,
in some proper and constitutional way,
be arrested, I throughout gave to the
measure of which that document was an
exposition, my active, zealous and anx
ious support. j
The opinions declared by the Presi
dent in the Maysville and his succeeding!
annual message, as I understand them,
are as follows: 1st. That Congress does
not possess the power to make or estab
lish a road or canal within a State, with
a right of jurisdiction to the extent I have
stated; and that if it is the wish of the peo
ple that the construction of such works
should be undertaken by the federal go
vernment, a previous amendment of the
Constitution, conferring that power, and
defining and restricting its exercise, with
reference to the sovereignty of the States
is indispensable. 2d. An intimation of
his belief that the right to make appropri
ations in aid of such internal improve
ments as arc of a national character, has
been so generally acted upon, and so long
acquiesced in by the federal and Stale
governments, and the constituents of
each, as to justify its exercise; but, that it
is nevertheless highly expedient that even
such appropriations should, with the ex
ception of such as relate to light-houses,
beacons, buoys, public piers and other
improvements, in the harbors and navi
gable rivers of the United States, for the
security and facility of our foreign com
merce, be deferred at least until the na
tional debt is paid. 3d. That if it is the
wish of the people that the agency of the
federal government should bo restricted
to the appropriation of money, and ex
tended in that form, in aid of such under
takings, when carried on by State autho
rity, then the occasion, the manner and
the extent of the appropriation, should be
made the subject of constitutional regu
lation. In these views I concurred; and I like
wise participated in the difficulties which
were encountered, and expressed by the
President, in adopting the principle which
concedes to the federal government the
right to make appropriations in aid of
works which might be regarded as of a
national character difficulties which a
rose as well from the danger of consider
ingmerc usage the foundation of the right,
as from the extreme uncertainty and con
sequent insecurity of the best rule that
had ever been adopted, or that could, in
the absence of a positive constitutional
provision, be established. The reasons
on which these objections were founded,
are so fully stated in the document refer
red to, and have been so extensively pro
mulgated that it is unnecessary for me to
repeat them here. Subsequent reflection
and experience have confirmed my ap
prehensions of the injurious consequen
ces which would probably flow from the
usurpation of appropriations for internal
improvements, with no better rule for the
government of Congress than that of
which 1 have spoken; and I do not hesi
tate to express it as my opinion, that the
general and true interests of the country
would be best consulted by withholding
them, ivit.li the oxceptions I have alroady
referred to, until some constitutional re
gulation upon the subject has been made.
In this avowal, 1 am certainly not influ
enced by feelings of indifference, much
less of hostility, to internal improve
ments. As such, they can have no ene
mies. I have never omitted to give them
all the proper aid in my power; for which,
by the way, I claim no particular merit, as
I do not believe there is an honest and
sane man in the country who does not
wish to see them prosper. But their
construction, and the manner in which
and the means by which they are to be
effected, are quite different questions.
Rather than again expose our.legislation
to all the corrupting influences of those
scrambles and combinations in Congress,
winch have been heretofore witnessed.
and the other affairs of the country to the
injurious elieels unavoidably resulting
from them, it would, in mv opinion, be
infinitely preferable to leave works of the.
character spoken of, and not embraced im
the exception which has been pointed
out, for the present, to the supporlupon
which they have reposed with so much
success for the last two years, viz: State
tlorts and private enterprise. If the
great body of the people become convin
ced that the progress of these works
should be accelerated by the federal arm,
they will not refuse to come to some pro
per constitutional arrangement upon the
subject. The supposition that an equita
ble .rule, which pays a proper respect to
the interests and condition of the differ
ent States, could fail to receive, ultimate
ly, the constitutional sanction, would be
doing injustice to the intelligence of the
country. By such a settlement of the
question, our political system, in addition
to the other advantages derived from it,
would, in relation to this subject at least,
be relieved from those dangerous shocks
which spring from diversities of opinion
upon constitutional points of deep inte
rest; and, in the mean time, the resources
of the country would be best husbanded
by being left in the hands of those by
whose labor they are produced.
I am unreservedly opposed to a renew
al of the charter of the United States
Bank, and approve of the refusal of the
President to sign the bill, passed for that
purpose, at the last session of Congress.
as well on account of the unconstitution
ality, as the impolicy of its provisions.
1 am equally opposed to the nrinrinle
of Nullification, as it is called. Willi
whatever "sincerity that doctrine may be
entertained hy otners, i believe that it 13
entirely destitute of constitutional autho
rity, and that it could not be adopted.
without drawing after it the ultimate but
certain destruction of the confederacy.
j nai inese views win ne universally ac
ceptable to those who have called them
torth, 1 do not allow myself to expect.
He who thinks in a country, the interests
of which are so diversified as ours, and in
respect to the Constitution of which, con
struction is made to perform so great a
part, that the purest intentions, or the
most profound reflections, can enablo
him so to shape his political tenets as to
meet the approbation of all; or who is so
unreasonable as to require that those of
the public servants should, in all respects,
correspond with his own, must expect to
make up his account with disappointment
or deception. For myself, I cherish no
such hope. All I ask, is a fair confidence
in the sincerity of the principles I have
avowed, and in the fidelity with which
they will be maintained. It is not possi
ble that any nomination could have been
more entirely unsolicited, by word or
deed, than that which has been bestowed
upon me. Had it not been for the event
to which, as I have before said, I feel my
self principally indebted for it, I should
not have hesitated to decline, however
highly distinguished the honor intended
for me is felt to be. And 1 beg my fel
low citizens of North Carolina to believe,
that, notwithstanding the deep sense