UNIVER

C

RARY

MR. HARDIN IN CONGRESS.

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his father emigrated to Mercer county, Kentucky. Scholastic advantages were limited at that day. Young Talbot, however, attended the best schools in Harrodsburg. Without the aid of teachers he acquired an extensive knowledge of the languages, ancient and modern. Studying law with Colonel George Nicholas, he commenced practice at Versailles. Soon afterward he removed to Frankfort and attained the first rank in the profession. He was elected to the State Senate in 1812, and to the United States Senate in 1815 as successor of Jesse Bledsoe. His term expiring, he was re-elected and continued in office until March 4, 1825. He died at Melrose, his residence, near Frankfort, September 21, 1837. He was an accomplished lawyer and eloquent orator. His rapidity of utterance was extraordinary. He once argued a case before the Supreme Court four hours. His speech was marked by impassioned eloquence, but his words flowed like a torrent. After adjournment of court Senator Talbot's velocity of speech became the topic of conversation with the judges. Judge Washington wittily observed that "a person of moderate wishes could hardly desire to live longer than the time it would take to repeat deliberately that four-hour speech of Mr. Talbot." Mr. Hardin's kinsman, Martin D. Hardin, succeeded Major Barry in the Senate in 1816. Of his further career it may be of interest to say that he became secretary of State in 1820 under Governor John Adair. He published a volume of decisions of the Appellate Court in 1808 that bears his name. He took honorable part in the war of 1812. He ranked high at the bar and enjoyed a large practice. He had inherited the sterling integrity of his father to which he had added the graces of a liberal scholarship. He died in 1823, widely regretted.

The standing committees of the House were appointed December 6th. Mr. Hardin did not take his seat until the 12th, so that in their arrangement he was omitted. He was afterward appointed on two select committees: "On soldiers, widows, and orphans," and "on changing the Western line of Indiana territory." During the session Mr. Forsyth, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, reported a bill to carry into effect the stipulations of the treaty of commerce lately concluded with Great Britain. It was opposed on the ground that it was but an echo of the treaty itself, that the treaty was the law of the land without the approval of Congress, and that Congress transgressed its powers in undertaking to give it force or restrain its operation. The debate to which it gave rise was protracted and vigorous. Among those who spoke for the bill were

Forsyth, of Georgia; Clay, of Kentucky; P. P. Barbour, of Virginia; John W. Taylor, of New York; and Randolph, of Roanoke. In the opposition, among others, were Gaston, of North Carolina; Tucker, of Virginia; Pinkney, of Maryland; Pickering, of Massachusetts; Calhoun, of South Carolina; and Mr. Hardin. Mr. Hardin made his debut on this question, and the following is taken from the report of the debates:

"Mr. Hardin appealed to the plain common sense and intelligence of the House, whether the bill upon which they were lavishing so much of their time and exertions was not entirely superfluous and nugatory. Here was a treaty, a contract, fairly and with full deliberation, concluded between the lawful sovereignties of this country and Great Britain, ratified as the constitutional law of the country directed, by the President, with the advice of two-thirds of the Senate, and by the President proclaimed to the people as the law of the land, with an injunction for the due observance of it-containing nothing that interfered with the municipal laws of the country-no regulation that might not be carried into immediate effect without legislative interference-involving no call whatsoever for money, and yet tenaciously held up as an object of legislation, and made the subject of a bill which did little more than re-echo it.

"He was as much aware as the gentleman who supported the measure that the treaty-making power could not, by a treaty, lawfully make war or impose taxes or encroach upon those powers the Constitution had deposited in Congress; but it was no less true that the Constitution declares in unequivocal terms that the President may make treaties, and that no restriction or limitation whatsoever, to his power in that respect, is specified in that instrument, which is sufficiently declaratory of the extent of the power, inasmuch as it says that treaties made in the form and with the authorities already mentioned shall be the law of the land.

"Some of those honorable gentlemen, by way of smoothing the passage of the bill through the House, had argued that it was so far at least unobjectionable, that it could do no hurt; that if it did no good it could do no harm; but Mr. Hardin reminded the House of the eminence on which it stood, that it was composed of the assembled representatives of the nation, sent there to deliberate and to resolve upon its most important concerns, and he therefore deprecated, as it would be a dereliction of the high character of such an august assembly, their gravely deliberating upon nothing.

"He respected the dignity of the body too much to give his assent to their entertaining a measure for no better reason than because it was harmless. Besides, that act which now appeared so harmless, might ultimately turn out to be very mischievous as a precedent; and this violation of the Constitution in a thing, no matter how trifling, might hereafter be made the

ground of more daring encroachment. On this point he warned the House to be cautious, to guard, not only the main body, but the outposts; and to reflect in due time that some twenty or thirty years to come this precedent might be brought forward to the incalculable injury, perhaps to the ruin, of the Constitution.

"Gentlemen had said that, on a commercial subject, no treaty could be obligatory, because the Constitution had assigned to Congress the regulation of commerce. Where, then, said he, will gentlemen stop? To Congress, say they, is delegated the exclusive jurisdiction over everything. According to their construction, therefore, the treaty-making power was impotent, a nullity, it could do nothing; it could not make peace, because peace repels war, the right of making which is delegated to Congress; and it could not form alliances for the same reason. But gentlemen, he observed, seemed not to recollect the old maxim, that he who proves too much, proves nothing. The President, say they, can not repeal the excise! No, but the President can make a peace without the concurrence of that House, and fortunate it was that he could do so.

"We now, said Mr. Hardin, feel the happy effects of that power, and conceive that a treaty of peace has been accomplished without any encroachments or pretended encroachments on our congressional acts. The power

to treat generally, he said, was vested in the President by the Constitution, but to the law of nations it was left to determine the limitations of that power. If it be true, said Mr. Hardin, that, by the terms of the Constitution of the United States, this treaty is already the law of the land, then is the treaty guaranteed by that Constitution, and yet, gentlemen insist that it is not valid, and that this House ought to be consulted. By the Constitution, we are forbidden to be heard on the subject, yet they will have it otherwise, and, by this species of indirection, this left-handed course, bring the treaty under our legislative cognizance. Sir, I say we can not do indirectly that which we are forbidden to do directly. Treaties might be made, no doubt, he said, for the execution of which it might be necessary to call upon the House to make laws-offensive and defensive treaties, for instance, which could not otherwise be carried into effect-but when, as in the present case, the treaty was complete, and capable of executing itself, nothing of the kind was necessary.

"As to the instances which had been adduced of Congress being called upɔn to enact laws for carrying treaties into effect, he believed that there was not one of them similar to this. The case of Jay's treaty was not. The Federalists supported that on two grounds--one that it was a good treaty, the other that, whether good or bad, it would not be consistent with the honor of the country to reject it--but it never was brought forward as this is, a re echo of itself in the shape of a bill. And, as to the cases taken from the proceedings of the British records, the organization of that Government

was, in all respects, so different from ours, that it was impossible to argue fairly or conclusively from the one to the other."

Mr. Hardin participated in the debate in relation to the revenue, and urged tax reductions. He was ranked with the opponents of the administration of President Madison on this and other questions. In his speech on the bill for repeal of the direct tax, he freely criticised the administration and its modes. In the same speech, he made sarcastic allusions to Mr. Clay, which the latter, with some temper, resented. Mr. Clay was a friend of the administration. He, perhaps,

did what he could in his capacity of speaker to discourage and embarrass Hardin in his attempts against it. Hardin made more than one effort to get the floor before he succeeded. On the occasion of one of his failures, when ruled not in order, he retorted that, "being a new member, he knew little of what was called order in the House, and did not mean to violate it; he had heard a great deal about it, but had seen very little of it since he had taken his seat." On January 24th, on his motion to declare the repeal of the direct-tax expedient, he made a speech from which the following is taken:

"Mr. Hardin said that on Saturday last he had notified the House that in some shape or other he intended to bring the question before them as to the expediency of repealing the direct tax; that on that day he had made one or two efforts to bring the question directly before the House when in Committee of the Whole, but every attempt failed, because, as alleged by the Chair, it was not in order.

"It ought not to have been a matter of importance to the Chair, in his endeavors on that day to present the question for consideration, whether he was or was not exactly in trim order, because, if a man be entitled to admission, his bowing at the door like a Frenchman or an Englishman, a beau or a clown, as long as he behaved decently, did not add to or diminish his right. Nor did he believe that this want of a little ceremony deemed important by the Chair ought to have prevented him from being heard upon a great national question when he was solicitous to address the House on the subject, or because he had at that time the complaint so common to some gentlemen in this House, to-wit: the speech-making fever. Mr. Hardin said that the amendment to the resolution of the Committee of Ways and Means having been offered by him, it laid him under some obligations to the House to assign the reasons which had induced him to do it.

"Mr. Hardin said he approached the subject with great diffidence and reluctance. Diffident he was, because he distrusted his own capacity to do the subject justice; and reluctant he was, because to his great regret he had witnessed in that House an unconquerable indisposition to alter, change, or

modify anything reported by any one of the standing committees of the House. He said the manner in which the legislative business was conducted destroyed the freedom of legislation altogether. The President signified his will to the heads of departments. They made their annual report to the House, recommending the adoption of certain measures. It was pretty well understood that what they recommended was the will of the Executive. The reports of heads of departments were referred to the standing committees, a majority of whom were followers of the Executive. They kept in secret conclave for a month or two, until the House became all anxiety, and solicitude was on tiptoe. Each day an inquiry would be made when they would

report.

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Not ready yet, would be the answer. The members of the committee looked grave, pensive, and melancholy, as if oppressed with a mighty weight of thought. At last they had burst upon the House with their report; and what was it when made? A mere echo, a mere response to executive will, with small and immaterial variations, intended for the purpose of inducing the House to believe that they had matured the subject well, when, perhaps, they had never thought about it; pre-determined from the first, to re-echo back in substance the Presidential will, and when the report thus made finds its way into the House, it is fixed. Right or wrong, it must not be altered. Each member of the committee adheres to it, each hanger-on applauds it, and all, as the poet says, 'Who live and never think,' support it. Mr. Hardin said that independent of the disadvantages he labored under as above stated, he also felt a little chagrined at the manner in which these questions respecting the taxes, direct and indirect, are brought before the House. Each item of taxation being separately discussed, each wheel of the machinery is separately presented, and we are admonished not to touch it, because the whole work will be stopped if you touch one of the wheels. I have heard of many maneuvers in military and naval tactics. This, sir, may, for what I know, be a system of legislative maneuvers, and it is a most admirable one to answer the object intended. I know of many who would gladly make alterations in the system, but do not attempt it for fear of breaking up its foundation. The committee have had it under consideration for a month or two, and we ought not to meddle with it. Mr. Hardin said the task was too herculean for him to believe that he could effect and procure the adoption of the amendment proposed by him. Hence arises, said Mr. Hardin, my reluctance, Mr. Chairman, to address at this time this honorable committee; but as I pledged myself to the House on Saturday last I would make this effort to repeal the direct tax, I now proceed to redeem that pledge -to perform that promise.

"It is contended by those in favor of the continuation of the direct tax, among whom I am sorry to see my colleague, the honorable Speaker, first, that the direct tax is necessary, in aid of the present and prospective receipts