Richmond Enquirer

Richmond, Thursday, Feb. 19.

MR. BENTON'S SPEECH.

The Tuesday's Globe contains Mr. Benton's Speech on Mr. Calhoun's Report. It is perhaps the most powerful speech which that distinguished Statesman ever delivered. He commences by saying, that "He concurred in the general purport, and in the general object, of the report, in showing the great increase which had taken place, in a short time, in the expenditures of the Government, and in the number of persons employed, or supported by it. The increase was great, but not so great as had been depicted; and out of proportion to the increase of the population and wealth of country for the same period, but not so inordinately as the report affirmed. It was the object of the report to reduce this too great expenditure, and to diminish the number of that vast multitude of persons now paid, or supported, out of the Federal Treasury. In all this he concurred with the report; but he regretted, deeply and sincerely regretted, that it had not fallen within the scope of the Chairman's view of his subject, to show the source and origin of these great increases; that the blame, if any, should fall upon the true authors, and the genius of reform should know where to apply her correcting hand."

He then proceeds to analyse the Report, in the most masterly style. He shows, that as to the expenses and patronage of Internal Improvement, Gen. Jackson is free from blame; and that "So far as diminution of patronage has resulted from the arrestation of the fatal and ruinous part of this system, he alone is entitled to the exclusive honor." He shows, that as to the wild increase of Revolutionary Pensions, it was not President Jackson who produced all this—"but the action of Congress, under Executive recommendations, commencing at a period with which the author of this Report must be most familiar, and carried on to the year 1820, when the system of pensioning received its climax in the law of that year, and in the production of consequences which astonish and afflict the country." He shows, that so far as the removal of the Indians, and the purchase of the Indian lands, had increased the expenditures of the Government, General Jackson is entitled to the highest honor.

"And shall the expense of these measures, the expense of freeing not only Mississippi, but the whole South, and the entire north-west from the encumbrance of an Indian population, be now set down, without explanation, in a grave Report on Executive Patronage, as one of the wasteful extravagancies of the day which portends the decline and fall of the Republic, and calls for the trenchant hand of cutting reform, and the indignant verdict of public reprobation?" Mr. B. concurs with the Report, in its general purport, "in the great and striking augmentation which it presented of money expended, and men employed or fed by the Federal Government; and the necessity for great and real retrenchment in both particulars; especially as many of the objects for which they were incurred were temporary in their nature, and evanescent in their existence."

But, "try these augmentations (says he), examine them in detail, and you will find the great expenditures for objects of questionable propriety originated with others, while those of real economy of beneficial object, and clear constitutional propriety, owed their origin to the Administration of President Jackson; and what should never be forgotten, it was the exercise of the Veto power by President Jackson, which checked these extravagant expenditures of questionable objects, for which he received unmeasured denunciation! And let the people now mark it! This same President is now blamed just as much for not stopping as he was blamed for stopping those wild expenditures."

He then scathes that part of the Report which affirms, that "the expense of this Government had doubled in nine years, from 1825 to 1833. Never was a wilder proposition presented to the intelligence of a rational people; not that the quantity of money paid out in the last of those two years, and that exclusive of the public debt in both instances, was not in reality double that of the former, but the fallacy and delusion lay in this, that those great additional payments were not for the expenses of the Government, not for ordinary, usual, current, and progressive expenditures, but for unusual, extraordinary, individual, isolated, and anomalous objects, occurring once, and but once, finished forever, when paid one time, some of them impossible, and others improbable to occur again; and, therefore, not fit to be held up among the current expenses, and progressive extravagance of the Government."

He demonstrates this proposition; and shows how disingenuously the Report had adopted the expenses of 1833 as the standard millions, which have been paid out during that year, which will not fall upon any other; such as, near $500,000 for the Black Hawk war; more than $700,000 refunded to importing merchants for duties; $663,000 paid to claimants under the Convention with Denmark; $735,000 for extraordinary Indian treaties, &c., &c. He examines the dismissions from office—and the enormous patronage said by the Report to have been acquired by the removal of the Deposites into the State Banks—but shows how astonishing it was, "that the President should be reproached with it in this Senate, by the author of this report, and the majority of the Committee from which it came. What is the fact? exclaimed Mr. B. Did not this Senate twice refuse, at their last session, to pass any law to regulate the Deposite Banks? Did not the majority of this committee twice refuse to pass a bill for that purpose? Did not the author of the Report twice refuse to attempt to regulate these Banks? Are not the votes of these refusals recorded in our journals, preserved in our memories, and known to the whole body of the American People?"

He comes next "to the proposition in the Report to amend the Constitution for eight years, to enable Congress to make distribution among the States, Territories, and District of Columbia, of the annual surplus of public money. The surplus is carefully calculated at $9,000,000 per annum for eight years." He lashes the coalition in the Senate, for now asserting that there will be this large surplus, (making seventy-two millions in 8 years,) when but the session before, (the panic session,) they had attempted to deceive the country by pictures of unparalleled distress and absolute ruin! He attacks this proposition for distributing the surplus revenue. He incontrovertibly proves, 1st. That there will not be this alarming surplus to be divided: secondly. That there are ways of cutting down the revenue, if there was this surplus; 3d. That there are constitutional objects of general utility, (such as the necessary defence of the country,) and 4th, That there is no mode so efficient for poisoning and corrupting the whole body politic, as this very mode of distributing a large surplus revenue. This portion of the speech is sketched with a master's hand—it strips off Mr. Calhoun's arts and disguises. He winds up with the following just and eloquent denunciations:

"But the amendment is to be temporary. It is only to last 'till 1842. What an idea! a temporary alteration of a Constitution made for endless ages. But, let no one think it will be temporary, if once adopted. No! If the people once come to taste that blood; if they once bring themselves to the acceptance of money from the Treasury, they are gone forever. They will take that money in all time to come; and he that promises most receives most votes. The corruption of the Romans, the debauchment of the voters, the venality of elections, commenced with the Tribunitial distributions of corn out of the public granaries; it advanced to the distribution of the spoils of foreign nations, brought home to Rome, by victorious generals, and divided out among the people; it ended in bringing the spoils of the country into the canvass for the consulship, and in putting up the diadem of empire itself to be knocked down by the hammer of the auctioneer. In our America there can be no spoils of conquered nations to distribute. Her own treasury—her own lands—can alone furnish the fund. Begin it once, no matter how, or upon what; surplus revenue, the proceeds of the lands, or the lands themselves; no matter; the progress and the issue of the whole game, is as inevitable as it is obvious! Candidates bid, the voters listen; and a plundered and pillaged country—the empty skin of an immolated victim—is the prize, and the spoil of the last, and the highest bidder."

As Charles Gayarre, the newly-elected Republican Senator of Louisiana, expressed himself in the Speech which he delivered at the complimentary dinner given him at New Orleans on the 25th ult. "Who has crushed that system of bribery which meted out in Congress the public moneys to the different States, in proportion to the number of their votes and to their political importance? a system from which we have specially suffered. New York and Pennsylvania, with their thirty and forty votes swallowing up all the appropriations, and not leaving to Louisiana even the dregs of the cup. To whom do we owe, that the world has not witnessed, that most disgraceful of all scenes for national pride and patriotism, the States scrambling and squabbling for a pittance from the General Government, like so many beggarly clients at the door of a Roman Praetor?" Certainly not to Mr. Clay, in his Land Bill, nor to Mr. Calhoun, in his Retrenchment Report. And yet the "Constitutional Whig," of this city, re-echoes the compliment of the Washington Telegraph, "that the principles of Mr. Calhoun's Report will hereafter 'constitute the test of parties,' and by Col. Benton, that they will form 'a new era in our political discussion.'" Yes, says the Whig. "The true friends of liberty, the true opponents of one man's will, the true friends of State Rights, the enemies of corruption and corrupt management, will sustain them and make them the basis of the reform which they wish to introduce into the Federal Government."

We shall publish the whole of Mr. Benton's splendid Speech. Fame has not done it half justice.