"Mr. Hardin said he had heard a great deal since he came here about what is called the national glory. What it meant precisely he knew not. If the glory acquired in the late war was meant, he begged to distinguish Congress and the President from the sailors and the army who fought our battles. The latter had acquired glory by land and sea which would last until the history of these times shall be no more. As to the President and Congress we had better say nothing about the glory they have got. I know several gentlemen in Congress who obtained in the war imperishable fame, who carry about them honorable scars. But their merit does not attach to Congress. Congress met in October, 1811, to prepare for war. It was declared in June following, and their first troops, in a month after they went out, had to come back and beg for clothing from the ladies of Kentucky. How will Johnny Congress feel when the pen of history tells this fact? When the pen of the historian narrates the disgrace of the affair at Bladensburg, how will the President and Secretary of State feel? How will the members of the executive feel when it is recorded that men, drafted in August in Kentucky, sent down in November, were drawn up on the West bank of the Mississippi river, without arms? It was something like a crop he once heard of on a plantation: The overseer had a share and a half, and every other hand had a share but Jim, and he had none. He was afraid that Johnny Congress would come out about the glory of the war, as Jim did in the crop. He was astonished to hear the gentlemen talk about glory gained by the Government in the war. Many of our soldiers and sailors had acquired glory, and more than one member of this House had distinguished himself in a manner to do them honor, and make their children proud of their name to the third or fourth generation. But the Government had gained none. We had not, he said, gained any one point for which we went to war, and we lost a part of our fisheries, part of our tonnage, etc., and this is the amount of our gain. He differed from gentlemen in their views of national honor and glory. It did not consist, he said, in a standing army, but in the reduction of the national debt and the expenses of Government also, so as that every citizen should be enabled to enjoy the fruits of his own industry, and be ready on occasion to defend his own fireside. It seems we are to have national glory by opening great military roads from here to New Orleansone in this direction, one in that.

"Whenever a farmer in the country, said Mr. Hardin, purchases more than he can pay for, we suspect he is going to ruin, and that a commission of bankruptcy will soon issue against him. Whenever a Government lavishly disburses money, more than her income, it equally proves that the Government is going to ruin. Establish a moneyed aristocracy, separate and distinct from the body of the people--which will be the effect of your system—and in the course of a few years the ax will be laid to the root of the tree of liberty, and the last stage of freedom in this world, and when it falls,

it will fall with a mighty crash, never again to rise. Such will be the end of this mighty glory. How can we pay off the national debt, if we give in to these projects of invalid corps, military academies, turnpike roads, canals, etc, which are to consume so much money? The national glory consists in the pristine principles of this government, in the blessings of tranquillity and comfort at home and peace with all foreign powers."

The most important measure of the session, by far, was the bill introduced by Mr. Calhoun, for chartering a national bank. In 1811 a similar bill had been brought forward by the Federalists. In the House it had at that time been indefinitely postponed, and in the Senate was rejected by the casting vote of the presiding officer. Mr. Madison was then hostile to the measure, and that circumstance, in large degree, contributed to its defeat. The views of the President had, however, undergone a change. In the interval, a foreign war had been fought and honorably terminated. The financial exigencies of government had largely, increased. Crude systems of banking throughout the country had begotten great monetary derangement. At such a time reasons might well have operated that, under other circumstances, would have been powerless or insufficient.

Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay were the especial champions of the bank measure. Among their able allies were Forsyth, Lowndes, and Pinckney. Its opponents had also some bright names in their ranks: Gaston, Pickering, Randolph, and Webster. With the latter stood Mr. Hardin. Mr. Clay had opposed chartering the bank in 1811; so had Kentucky, and so had Mr. Hardin. The latter was, at the time, a member of the State Legislature, and that body had instructed the Kentucky Senators at Washington to vote against the charter, because of its unconstitutionality. Unconstitutionality was the ground of Mr. Clay's opposition at that time. He charged that the friends of the measure sought for some vagrant power in the Constitution to authorize it"—a form of expression retorted upon him in the debates of 1816. Mr. Clay, like Mr. Madison, had, in 1816, changed his opinion, but Mr. Hardin had not. The latter made a speech during the session on the subject, but it was never reported. Twenty years later, when Mr. Hardin had also modified his views, and was advocating the re-charter of the bank, Francis P. Blair, editor of the Globe, glided into the House "looking," said Mr. Hardin, "like the ghost of famine," and threatened that he would republish the speech of 1816. Doubtless he would have done so, had a copy existed. The allusions in this speech to Mr. Clay, as preserved by

tradition, were exceedingly caustic. Mr. Clay's inconsistency afforded an opportunity which the most unaggressive would have let slip with reluctance. To Mr. Hardin it was irresistible. In what manner the occasion was improved is left to conjecture. The report says little more than that he "delivered his views at length." Randolph not only endorsed the speaker's views, but having an antipathy to Clay, Hardin's assault on the latter was far from disagreeable.

"Hardin is like a kitchen-knife whetted on a brick," said Randolph, "he cuts roughly, but cuts deep." The bill passed, but the majority in the House, on its final passage, was only nine. The Kentucky delegation were evenly divided.

Says General Preston:

"I once asked Mr. Hardin which he considered the best speech of his life. He said that, so far as he could himself be a judge on such a subject, it was one he made in reply to Mr. Clay in the House of Representatives. Against the measure chartering the United States Bank Mr. Hardin had spoken and voted in opposition to his party friends who followed Mr. Clay, who favored it. After the vote, Mr. Clay indulged in a heated phillipic against Mr. Hardin, charging him with desertion of his party friends. This charge of Mr. Clay produced a great effect on the House, and he determined to give the speech such a reply as it deserved. He said he feigned to be more humiliated and pained than language could express, and indulged, when he came to speak, in many apologies that he did not feel; and having thus propitiated the House and obtained its pity-which he said was necessary to get a good foothold against Clay, not for purposes of invective, but of ridicule— having achieved this, he then went into the question by what right Mr. Clay constituted himself the speaker's censor or that of any other member of the House. He said that if that were a just title perhaps the Pinckneys, the Randolphs, and others might claim precedence over the fiddler of the Hanover slashes.* He might doubt, in case of contest, whether he ought to award precedence to the member of the Fayette district. At this point both sides of the House broke into laughter, to Mr. Clay's intense astonish

ment.

"Finding that he had obtained the favor of the House, he advanced further, and then acknowledged that Mr. Clay was the head man of both Houses of Congress. He made this acknowledgment, he said, in order to place his loyalty beyond doubt. He then approached the central question, which was whether the measure pending was a test of party fidelity. This he treated in a free and bold way, citing Mr. Clay's invocations to independence of thought in acting upon the highest measures. He spoke of how much he admired Mr. Clay for his courage on many occasions, alluding among other things to his mission to England and his course in regard to the Newfound

Mr. Clay was an accomplished performer on the violin.

land fisheries and the mouths of the Mississippi, and then he left it to the sense of justice of the House if one who was as devoted as himself, who, with the rest of his followers from Kentucky, knew nothing but to vote on all cardinal questions as Mr. Clay dictated, might not claim the right to vote as he thought fit on a matter not involving party principles without having his loyalty questioned. He would not appeal to the justice of the House alone, but to that magnanimity for which the gentlemen had always been distinguished, to allow him a little cooling time until the next day, at least, and he hoped that Mr. Clay would then ask a reconsideration of the matter, so as to allow him a chance to still prove himself loyal by changing his vote.*

"He had a great ovation at the end of his speech, particularly from the opposite party; but his friends advised him not to allow his remarks to be published, and they were accordingly suppressed. Mr. Clay became so enraged that he left the house."

The chief

There was a bill introduced by Colonel R. M. Johnson this session, commonly known afterward as the "Compensation Law." Theretofore members of Congress had received for their services, besides mileage, six dollars per diem. The bill referred to changed this mode of compensation to fifteen hundred dollars per annum. argument for the bill was that six dollars per day were inadequate, yet where the session was protracted members were charged with doing so to obtain their per diem. The measure met with but little outspoken opposition, and was made a law. All the Kentucky delegation voted for it save Mr. Desha, who voted nay. This simple story, like many another, has a sequel which will be related in another chapter.

*This is not meant for a substantial report, but merely a specimen of the tone of his remarks.

CHAPTER VII.

AN OLD-TIME SALARY GRAB.

EW congressmen were ever more active, efficient, and influential, during their first session, than had been Mr. Hardin. He had not been restrained by unfamiliarity with parliamentary rules. While not indulging long speeches, he had expressed his views on all proper occasions forcibly and perspicuously. He had acted on the principle that it was his right and duty to promote good, and defeat bad legislation, and that he should be no mute or idle spectator of its progress. He had made himself felt by Clay as an opponent-by Randolph as a friend. He had demonstrated signal ability in the business of legislation, and had taken high rank in Congress when that body, according to Mr. Webster, was at its best in the way of talent.*

The first session of the Fourteenth Congress adjourned April 30, 1816. Mr. Hardin journeyed homeward, conscious that he had made a faithful effort to do his whole duty. The newspapers had reported congressional proceedings, as the session progressed, and reports showed he had been active. He had been accustomed to professional success, and, thus far, his brief political career had been fortunate. Under these circumstances, it was but natural that he should have anticipated the welcome and approving plaudits of his constituents. Indeed, he felt entitled to no less. But, alas! for human hopes, this reasonable expectation was dismally disappointed. On his arrival at home, Mr. Hardin found Kentucky, in common with the whole country, suffering from a fit of consuming wrath, over the passage of the Compensation Law. The center of this excitement was Kentucky. George D. Prentice said the "demagogues" had stirred this tempest. Doubtless, they had contributed their mite, but it was denounced everywhere, and by all classes. It was the topic of conversation in private circles, and the theme of harangue in popular assemblies. The argument went nem. con. The feeling grew from day to day, and from week to week, until, at length, popular exasperation arose to such a height (if we may trust the hyperbole of Mr. Prentice) that the "habitual and long-cherished reverence for their Daniel Webster, by Henry Cabot Lodge, page 64.