Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/230

220 yet risen from their paralysis. The government found itself in a pitiable condition. During the year the public debt increased from $6,700,000 to $15,000,000. The public credit was so bad that a loan of twelve millions, authorized by Congress, could be placed only slowly and with great difficulty. The treasury had sometimes not money enough for the pay of the army and navy, and the salaries of the civil service. The expenditures were constantly and largely outrunning the regular revenues. This was the situation the twenty-seventh Congress had to deal with when it met in December, 1841, for its second session. President Tyler in his message recommended a revision of the tariff “with a view to discriminate as to the articles on which the duty shall be laid, as well as the amount,” the rates of duty not to exceed the amount fixed in the compromise act of 1833. As to the regulation of the currency and of domestic exchanges, he proposed an “exchequer system,” which, however, did not find serious consideration in Congress. The Secretary of the Treasury, Walter Forward of Pennsylvania, suggested in his report that the public interest would, as to the tariff, scarcely permit a strict adherence to the terms of the compromise act of 1833.

It was no longer as the leader of a majority party, hopeful of carrying all his favorite measures, that Clay stepped upon the scene in December, 1841. He was now fully determined to retire from the Senate. “I want rest, and my private