Senator bentonSalmon P. Chase to Edward S. Hamlin, December 17, 1849

Washington, Dec^r. 17, 1849.

My Dear Hamlin, I have just comedown from the Capitol. In the Senate we had a brief Executive Session — nothing done. Today we were to have elected Committees but the Old Line Caucus had not arranged matters to suit them, & the elections were put off till tomorrow. You know that in the Senate the Majority party selects in Caucus the majorities of such committees as they think fit so to organize & minorities on the others, & the minority party in caucus selects the balance. The committees thus selected have been hitherto adopted by common consent. What will be done tomorrow I cannot say. There was trouble yesterday between the friends of Benton & Calhoun in Caucus. I have not been invited to the Democratic Caucus. I do not think I should attend, as matters now stand, if I was: but it is not impossible that both Hale and I shall go in before the session closes. To a democratic Senator who spoke to me on the subject I answered that I thought that having been elected exclusively by Democratic & free democratic votes I ought to be invited; but whether I wd. attend or not I was not prepared to say. There was a discussion or conversation about inviting me; but of what character I dont know.

In the House they have been balloting, or rather voting for Speaker. Since the menaces of the Southern men the other day and their insolent proscription of every man, as unfit to receive their votes, except slavery extensionists the northern democrats have got their backs up and so many of them now refuse to vote for any extensionist that it seems impossible to elect any man whom the slaveholding democrats' will support, except by a coalition between these last, aided by the doughfaced democrats & the slaveholding Whigs. Rumors of such a coalition have been rife for a day or two; but the candidate of the extensionists, Lynn Boyd, has not yet received votes enough to enable those Southern Whigs who are willing to go for him, to effect his election. I am glad to be able to say that the Ohio delegation is firm on the side of the Free States, with two exceptions Miller & Hoagland. Until today I hoped that Col. Hoagland would abide with the body of the Ohio democrats; but he gave way today & voted for Boyd. This is the more to be regretted as Boyd was, as I hear, one of the foremost in clapping & applauding Toombs's insolent disunion speech the other day; and after he had closed his harrangue went to him & clapped him on the back in the most fraternizing manner.

Who, then, can be speaker? you will ask. To which I can only reply, I really cannot say. At present it seems as if the contest must be determined final by the Extensionists against the Anti Extensionists without reference to old party lines. An attempt was made today at a bargain between the Hunker Whigs & Hunker Democrats. A Kentucky member offered a resolution that Withrop should be Speaker; Forney, Clerk; & somebody, I can not say who, Sargeant at arms. The democrats voted almost unanimously to lay this resolution on the table — the Whigs, in great numbers, voted against this disposition of it. This looks well for those Hunkers who affect such a holy horror of bargains.

With these facts before you, you can form, better than I can, an idea of the probable shape of things in the future. To me it seems as if the process of reorganization was going on pretty rapidly in the northern democracy. I am much mistaken, if any candidate who will not take the ground assumed in my letter to Breslin, can obtain the support of the Democracy of the North or of the Country.

We are all looking with much interest to Ohio. Mr. Carter has received several letters urging him to be a candidate for Governor: but he will not consent except as a matter of necessity. He is a true man here, and so, above most, is Amos E. Wood. Judge Myers would be a very acceptable candidate to the Free Democracy:—  so, also, I should think would be Dimmock. My own regard for Dimmock is very strong. Judge Wood would encounter, I learn, some opposition from the friends of Tod, and his decisions in some slavery cases would be brought up against him especially with Beaver for an opponent. Still, in many respects, he wd. be a very strong man. After all it is chiefly important that the resolutions of the Convention should be of the right stamp & that the candidate should place himself unreservedly upon them.

As to the Free Democratic State Convention, — I think it desirable on many accounts that one should be held; and that it be known soon that one is to be held. I do not think it expedient to call it expressly to nominate, but rather to consider the expediency of nomination & promote, generally the cause of Free Democracy.

I have written to Pugh urging the adoption by the House, if the Senate is not organized, of resolutions sustaining their members in Congress. I think much good would be done by resolutions to this effect.

Resolved, That the determination evinced by many slave state members of Congress, claiming to be Whigs & Democrats, to support for the office of Speaker no known & decided opponent of Slavery Extension, and indeed no man who will not, in the exercise of his official powers, constitute the Committees of the House of Representatives so as to promote actively or by inaction the extension of slavery, is an affront & indignity to the whole people of the Free States, nearly unanimous in opposition to such extension.

Resolved, That we cordially approve of the conduct of those representatives from Ohio who have, since the manifestation of this determination on the part of members for the Slave States, steadily refused to vote for any Slavery Extensionists; and pledge to them, on behalf of the State of Ohio, an earnest support & adequate maintenance.

I give these resolutions merely as specimens. They are not so strong as I would introduce. Perhaps, indeed, it will be thought best to introduce a resolution appropriating a specific sum to be applied to the support of the members here in case the continued failure to organize the House shall leave them without other resources.

The bare introduction of such resolutions into our Legislature would have the happiest effect. Can't you help this thing forward? I dont want these sample resolutions used in any way except as mere specimens & suggestions.

So far as developments have yet been made the Administration has no settled policy. In the present state of the country I confess I do not much fear Cuban annexation.

Write me often.

[SALMON P. CHASE.]

SOURCE: Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 189-92

Amos A. Lawrence to Congressman Thomas Hart Benton, January 2, 1855

Boston, January 2, 1855.

Dear Sir, — . . . It has been asserted that the emigrants have had their expenses paid to go to Kansas and vote. In your published speech you say that the same game may have been played on both sides.

As you love to know the truth and to defend it, I will state that not one man has gone from New England who has had his expenses paid, even in part. I am the treasurer and a trustee of the only New England society which has sent out settlers, and know that all the money collected has been spent in erecting school-houses, temporary huts, steam saw and grist mill, in purchasing a tavern in the town of Kansas, Mo., and for similar purposes, and for nothing worse.

In soliciting subscriptions or receiving them, it is usual to allow the subscriber to take and pay for it as stock, say $200, and to receive a certificate of it, as in any other stock company; or to give outright, for the same, $100. Many prefer to give the money; that is, they do not value the stock at half price. None has ever been sold, nor would it sell at over one half; nor do I believe that there is a stockholder who would not have taken three fourths of the cost the moment when he paid the money. It is what those who favor it call a “patriotic” movement, to bring into active and healthy life a new State, and to keep slavery out of it; to get good institutions in, and to keep a bad institution out. Those “sent out” have not been abolitionists; so far as we know, not one known to be of that stamp has gone in our parties. They are free to vote and to do as they please. The society has no agreement with them nor pledge, nor are they asked any questions; since it is presumed that all New England men think alike about the iniquity of the measure of the last session, and as you do.

Yours truly,

A. A. L.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 86-8

Our Financial Policy

Thomas H. Benton at the commencement of the Mexican war, condensed the method of sound national financiering into a single phrase: “Taxes first, loans next, and treasury paper last.”  Congress began at the second step last summer, and is now urged to take the third with perfect recklessness.  It is so much easier to stamp paper with showy pictures and delusive promises and call it money, than it is to draw real money by direct taxation from the pockets of the people, that our legislators have strong temptations to pursue the former course.  Debtors, who wish to pay off their obligations in a depreciated currency, speculators, who have stocks or goods to sell, and seek to obtain high prices under an inflated currency, foreign bankers, who wished to raise the rate of exchange and cause a flow of gold to Europe, and government contractors who, in the general unsettling of values, can charge the most exorbitant rates for supplies – all these classes desire an excessive issue of irredeemable paper money.  But there are strong symptoms that Congress will shut down on “demand notes” after $50,000,000 are issued, and will leave no article untaxed which is capable of yielding a revenue.  The House committee of ways and means are diligently at work adjusting the details of new internal tax bills which will produce, it is thought, at least $200,000,000 per annum, with the tariff duties already levied on imports.  This is beginning at the right end.  The beneficial effects of such rumored action is seen in the decline of the premium on gold from 5 to 1½@2 per cent. during last week.  Loans can be easily obtained at fair rates of interest, if securely anchored on stiff taxes.  Treasury paper can be resorted to as a temporary expedient, while waiting for taxes or loans to come in.  But there should be no humbug about it, no leaning upon it exclusively.  Broken promises and worthless pledges should form no part of the currency of a rich and intelligent people.  Irredeemable paper money is “played out” as a financial resource.  It has ruined more people that war for the last 150 years and has disgraced governments more deeply that defeat.  Experiments with it have always ended in one way, and burned the fingers of both rulers and subjects.  Are we to learn nothing from history?  No matter if the “demand notes” should be ultimately redeemed, as we all believe the will be.  They have depreciated already, so that 5 per cent discount has been charged upon them at Washington, even for “drinks.”  Increase the quantity, expand the general circulation with these notes, and they depreciate still further by a law as inexorable as that which melts snow and ice in a warm day.  For they are not money, calling them money will not make them so, acts of Congress and official autographs will not hold them up.  Alchemy of lead and iron is an exploded old fogy idea, but alchemy of paper, though just as ridiculous and impossible has many advocates.  Gold and silver are the only recognized money of the world.  Paper currency, however well secured will not pass in our trade with other nations.  A huge volume of “demand notes” will assuredly drain us of gold to be sent abroad, for we cannot stop trading with the rest of mankind, and must pay them balances in gold, and see balances rapidly accumulate against us from the withdrawal of orders for produce, which an inflated currency will carry up to a pitch making it unprofitable to buy of us, in comparison with countries enjoying a stable currency.  It may be tiresome to repeat so many truisms, but the great importance of the subject, and the fanciful bubbles that are blown by serious journals and admired by dashing operators of the John Law and Jules Isaac Mires class will justify the continued discussion. – {Springfield Republican.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 1