CHAPTER XVII.
SLAVERY.
The opening of the twenty-fourth Congress in December, 1835, found Clay greatly afflicted by the death of a favorite daughter. But he turned resolutely to his public duties. Early in the session he introduced his land bill again, which, as we have seen, had once passed Congress, but had been prevented from becoming a law by President Jackson's disapproval. Again he protested that the proposition to distribute the proceeds of the land sales among the states was “not founded upon any notion of a power in Congress to lay and collect taxes, and distribute the amount among the several states.” The bill passed the Senate again later in the session, but failed in the House of Representatives.
But a bill did pass which carried into effect the worst feature of Clay's land bill, — providing that the money in the treasury on January 1, 1837, excepting $5,000,000, should be “deposited” with the several states in proportion to their representation in Congress, in four quarterly installments, to be returned on the call of Congress. This bill President Jackson signed, “reluctantly,” he said, and we shall see the outcome of it.
