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Rh fidence of President Monroe ; and Rufus King was re-elected with practical unanimity at a time when he was fresh from the hot debate in the U. S. sen- ate against the admission of Missouri without a re- striction on slavery. His anti-slavery views on that question were held by Van Buren to " conceal no plot" against the Republicans, who, he engaged, would give " a true direction " to that momentous issue. What the "true direction" was to be he did not say, except as it might be inferred from his concurrence in a resolution of the legislature of New York instructing the senators of that state " to oppose the admission, as a state in the Union, of any territory not comprised within the original boundaries of the United States without making the prohibition of slavery therein an indispensable condition of admission." In that Republican reso- lution of 1820 " the Wilmot proviso of 1847 ap- peared above our political horizon, but soon van- ished from sight on the passage of the Missouri compromise in 1821.

On 6 Feb., 1821, Van Buren was elected U. S. senator, receiving in both houses of the legislature a majority of twenty-five over Nathan Sanford, the Clintonian candidate, for whom the Federalists also voted. In the same year he was chosen from Otsego county as a member of the convention to revise the constitution of the state. In that con- vention he met in debate Chancellor Kent, Chief- Justice Ambrose Spencer, and others. Against in- novations his attitude was here conservative. He advocated the executive veto. He opposed manhood suffrage, seeking to limit the elective franchise to householders, that this " invaluable right " might not be " cheapened " and that the rural districts might not be overborne by the cities. He favored negro suffrage if negroes were taxed. With of- fence to party friends, he vehemently resisted the eviction by constitutional change of the existing supreme court, though its members were his bitter political enemies, fie opposed an elective judici- ary and the choice of minor offices by the people, as swamping the right it pretended to exalt.

He took his seat in the U. S. senate, 3 Dec, 1821. and was at once made a member of its committees on the judiciary and finance. For many years he was chairman of the former. In March, 1822, he voted, on the bill to provide a territorial govern- ment for Florida, that no slave should be directly or indirectly imported into that territory " except by a citizen removing into it for actual settlement and being at the time a bona-fide owner of such slave." Van Buren voted with the northern sena- tors for the retention of this clause ; but its exclu- sion by the vote of the southern senators did not import any countenance to the introduction of slaves into Florida from abroad, as such introduc- tion was already prohibited by a Federal statute which in another part of the bill was extended to Florida. Always averse to imprisonment for debt as the result of misfortune, Van Buren took an early opportunity to advocate its abolition as a feature of Federal jurisprudence. He opposed in 1824 the ratification of the convention with England for the suppression of the slave-trade (perhaps because a qualified right of search was annexed to it), though the convention was urgently pressed on the senate by President Monroe. He supported William H. Crawford for the presidency in 1824, both in the congressional caucus and before the people. He voted for the protective tariff of 1824 and for that of 1828, though he took no part in the discussion of the economic principles underlying either. He voted for the latter under instructions, maintain- ing a politic silence as to his personal opinions, which seem to have favored a revenue tariff with incidental protection. He vainly advocated an amendment of the constitution for the election of president by the intervention of an electoral col- lege to be specially chosen from as many separate districts as would comprise the whole country while rep- resenting the elec- toral power of all the states. The measure was de- signed to appease the jealousy of the small states by practically wiping out state lines in presidential elec- tions and at the same time pro- posed to guard against elections by the house of rep- resentatives, as in case of no choice at a first scrutiny the electoral colleges were to be reconvened. After voting for a few " internal improvements," he op- posed them as unconstitutional in the shape then given to them, and proposed in 1824 and again in to bring them within the power of congress by a constitutional amendment that should pro- tect the "sovereignty of the states" while equally distributing these benefits of the government. In a debate on the Federal judiciary in 1826 he took high ground in favor of "state rights" as against the umpirage of the supreme court on political questions, and deplored the power of that court to arraign sovereign states at its bar for the passage of laws alleged to impair "the obligation of con- tracts." He confessed admiration for the Republi- cans of 1802 who had repealed "the midnight judi- ciary act." He opposed the Panama mission, and reduced the "Monroe doctrine" to its true histori- cal proportions as a caveat and not a "pledge." On all questions he was strenuous for a "strict construction of the constitution." He favored in the passage of a general bankrupt law, but, in opposing the pending measure, sharply accentuated the technical distinction of English law between "bankrupt" and "insolvent" acts — a distinction which, in the complexity of modern business trans- actions, Chief-Justice Marshall had pronounced to be more metaphysical than real, but which to Van Buren was vital because the constitution says nothing about " insolvent laws."

He was re-elected to the senatain 1827, but soon resigned his seat to accept the office of governor of New York, to which he was elected in 1828. As governor he opposed free banking and advocated the " safety-fund system," making all the banks of the state mutual insurers of each other's soundness. He vainly recommended the policy of separating state from Federal elections. After entering on the office of governor he never resumed the practice of law. Van Buren was a zealous supporter of Andrew Jackson in the presidential election of 1828, and was called in 1829 to be the premier of the new administration. As secretary of state he brought to a favorable close the long-standing feud between the United States and England with regard to the West India trade. Having an eye to the presidential succession after Jackson's second term, and not wishing meanwhile to compromise the ad- ministration or himself, he resigned his secretary-