Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/78

54 engaged also in ' domestic industry ' in their dif- ferent pursuits. The joint labors of all these classes constitute the aggregate of the ' domestic industry 'of the nation, and they are equally en- titled to the nation's 'protection.' No one of them can justly claim to be the exclusive recipients of ' protection,' which can only be afforded by inc-tva ing burdens on the domestic industry ' of others." In accordance with the president's views, a bill providing for a purely revenue tariff, and based on a plan prepared by Sec. Walker, was introduced in the house of representatives on 15 June. After an unusually able discussion, a vote was reached on 3 July, when tin- inea-ure was adopted by 114 ayes to 95 nays. But it was nearly defeated in the senate, where the vote was tied, and only the decision of Vice-President Dallas in its favor saved the bill. The occasion was memorable, party spirit ran high, and a crowded senate-chamber hung on the lips of that official as he announced the reasons for his course. In conclusion he said : If by thus acting it be my misfortune to offend any portion of those who honored me with their suffrages. I have only to say to them, and to my whole country, that I prefer the deepest obscurity of private life, with an unwounded conscience, to the glare of official emi- nence spotted by a sense of moral delinquency ! "

Regarding the question of internal improvements, Mr. Folk's administration was signalized by the struggle between the advocates of that policy and the executive. A large majority in both houses of congress, including members of both parties, were in favor of a laHi expenditure of the public money. On 24 July. ls4(j, the senate passed the bill known as the river-and-harbor im- provement bill precisely as it had passed the house the previous March, but it was vetoed by the presi- dent in a message of unusual power. The authority of the general government to make internal improvements within the states was thoroughly examined, and reference was made to the corrup- tions of the system that expended money in par- ticular sections, leaving other parts of the country without government assistance. Undaunted by the opposition of the executive, the house of representa- tives, on 20 Feb., 1847, passed, by a vote of 89 to 72, a second bill making appropriations amounting to 600,000 for the same purpose. It was carried through the senate on the last day of the second session. Although the president could have de- feated the objectionable measure by a " pocket veto," in spite of the denunciations with which he was assailed by the politicians and the press, he again boldly met the i|iie-tion, and sent in a message that, for thoroughness of investigation, breadth of thought, clearness and cogency of argument, far excels any of the state papers to which he has put his name.

The conflict between the friends and opponents of slavery was also a prominent feature of Presi- dent Folk's administration, and was being con- Maul ly waged on the floor of congress. During the second session of the 39th congress the house attached the Wilmot proviso to a bill appropriat- ing $3,000,000 for the purchase of territory from Mexico, as it had been appended to one appro- priating .$2,000,000 for the same purpose at the pre inus session. The senate passed the bill with- out the amendment, and the house was compelled to concur. A bill to organize the territory of Ore- gon, with the proviso attached, passed by the latter body .was not acted upon by the senate. A nn >i ion made in the house of representatives by a southern member to extend the Missouri compromise-line of 30 30' to the Pacific was lost by a sectional vote, north against south, 81 to 104. A treaty of peace having been signed with Mexico, 2 Feb., 1848, after a series of victories, a bill was passed by the senate during the first session of the 30th congress, establishing territorial governments in Oregon. New Mexico, and California, with a pro- vi-ii Hi that all questions concerning slavery in those territories should be referred to the U. S. supreme court for decision. It received the votes of the members from the slave-states, but was lost in the house. A bill was finally passed organizing the territory of Oregon without slavery. During the second session a bill to organize the territories of New Mexico and California with the Wilmot proviso was passed by the house, but the senate refused to consider it. Late in the session the latter body attached a bill permitting such organi- zation with slavery to the general appropriation bill as a " rider." but, as the house objected, was compelled to strike it off. In his message to con- fress approving the Oregon territorial bill Mr. oik said : " 1 have an abiding confidence that the sober reflection and sound patriotism of all the states will bring them to the conclusion that the dictate of wisdom is to follow the example of those who have gone before us. and settle this dangerous qiie-non on the Missouri compromise or some other equitable compromise which would respect the rights of all. and prove satisfactory to the different portions of the L nion." President Polk was not a slavery propagandist, and consequently had no pro-slavery policy. On the contrary, in the settle- ment of the Oregon question, he did all in his power to secure the exclusion of slavery from that territory, and, although the final vote was not taken until within a few days after his retirement, the battle was fought and the decision virtually reached during his administration.

Mr. Polk, in a letter dated 19 May, 1848, reiterated his decision not to become a candidate again for the presidency, and retired at the close of his term of office to his home in Nashville with the intention not to re-enter public life. His health, never robust, had been seriously impaired by the unavoidable cares of office and his habit of devoting too much time and strength to the execution of details. Within a few weeks after his permanent return to Tennessee he fell a prey to a disease that would probably have only slightly affected a man in ordinary health, and a few hours sufficed to bring the attack to a fatal termination. Thus ended the life of one of whose pul lie career it may still be too soon to judge with entire impartiality. Some of the questions on which he was called upon to act are still, nearly forty years after his death, party issues. Mr. Polk evidently believed with Mr. Clay that a Union all slave or all free was an impossible Utopia, and that there was no good reason why the north and the south should not continue to live f. >r many years to corneas they had lived since the adoption of the constitution. He deprecated agitation of the slavery i|Ue~tion by the Abolitionists, and believed that the safetj of the commonwealth lay in respecting the compro- mises that had hitherto furnished a moilii.t rivunli between the slave and the free states. As to the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, his policy was undoubtedly the result of comietion. sincerity, and good faith. He believed, with John ii>uiney Adams and Andrew Jackson, that Texas had been uiiw i-ely eeded to Spain ill 1S10. and that it was desirable, from a geographical point of view, thai il should be iv-amiexed, seeing that it formed a most valuable part of the valley of the Mississippi. He was also of opinion that in a military