veto upon the Maysville Road Bill closed the wasteful drain, from the public treasury for internal improvements. The principle of reducing the taxes to the wants of the government has been fully recognized. The national debt has been extinguished; the spoiler has been called to his reckoning, and compelled to pay for his robberies. The character of the country has been elevated in the eyes of the whole civilized world; and every American abroad moves in more safety, and is treated with more respect. The moneyed monster, with its hydra heads, which designed to crush and strangle our liberties in its venomous folds, has been prostrated by the blow of this modern Hercules. But its heads are not yet seared. The attention of the people has been aroused to the enormities of the paper-system,- to the evils of an excess of credit currency; and, under the auspices of this administration, they are enlarging the specie basis, and resuming the use of hard money. Gold, which for a generation had disappeared from view, which had never met the eye of the younger portion of the community,-is now getting into circulation. Gen. Jackson has done more than any man living to bring back the government to the republican path, to protect our commerce and extend its bounds, to elevate the national character abroad, to restore the rights of the people at home, to confine the action of the national government to its legitimate objects, and to keep it within the prescribed limits of the constitution. His administration will occupy the brightest page of American history. He will illustrate the age in which he lives. His fame will commingle with the fame of Washington, and after time will rank them together, as the fathers of their country, the benefactors of the human race."

David Henshaw was born at Henshaw Place, in Leicester, April 2, 1791. His grandfather, David, was the son of Daniel Henshaw, who married Elizabeth Bass; and was born at Boston, August 19, 1744, in Rainsford-lane, now Harrison-avenue, in the house adjoining the birthplace of Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin. His father was the youngest of fourteen children, and settled at Leicester, where he died, May 22, 1808, aged sixty-three years. David, the father of the subject of this outline, was married, by his father, Daniel Henshaw, Esq., to Mary, daughter of Nathan Sargent, Feb. 17, 1773. Their fifth son, David, was educated at Leicester Academy, when he was apprenticed, in Boston, to the house of Dix & Brinley, druggists. During this period, he devoted his leisure to the acquirement of useful knowledge, perfecting his mind in science and several languages. In 1814 he became a

In 1826

partner in this business with his brothers and David Rice. Mr. Henshaw was elected to the State Senate, for Suffolk. In 1828 the Legislature created a board of internal improvement; and Mr. Henshaw, though not of the dominant party, was elected to that board. He was one of the earliest advocates for the establishment of railroads, and was highly efficient in forwarding the Worcester Railroad, viewing it as the pioneer of the line to Albany, over which the western trade would roll to Boston. He continued of this board until it was dissolved. He was elected a director of the Worcester Railroad from its foundation until this period.

In 1830 Mr. Henshaw was appointed, by President Jackson, to the collectorship of the port of Boston; and was a director, also, of the United States Bank. He resigned the office of collector in 1836; but, at the request of the president, it was withdrawn. He again resigned it, on the accession of President Van Buren; but, on request, he retained the station until he was succeeded by George Bancroft. On retiring from this office, the officers of the revenue presented him a chastely wrought silver pitcher, after a model of one taken from Herculaneum, by Jones, of Boston, with a silver stand, or salver, on which was inscribed, "To David Henshaw: From the officers of the revenue. associated with him while Collector of the port of Boston. A token of their esteem. Feb. 3, 1838." A very flattering letter was also sent, signed by John Crowningshield and fifty-two others. In that year he retired to the paternal estate at Leicester. In 1839 he was elected representative by his native town. It is related that he made a powerful argument in favor of a liberal construction in all cases of contested election. He was a tenacious advocate for the annexation of Texas. On the accession of John Tyler to the presidency, Mr. Henshaw was appointed the Secretary of the Navy.

Mr. Henshaw has invariably been a tenacious advocate of the Democratic party. In 1839 he was invited to attend the celebration of national independence at Abington; and, in a letter of acceptance, he remarked, "I consider myself, in some degree, an 'Old Colony' man, having descended, in one branch of my ancestry, from John Alden, one of the Pilgrims who arrived in the Mayflower, in 1620." The following toast was given, by the committee of arrangements, at the festival: "Hon. David Henshaw, a Hercules in intellect, and a Democrat in principle: We are proud to learn that he is a descendant from the Old Colony."

This Democratic Hercules, whose club is as a broken lance to the invulnerable buckler of the vigorous Webster, submitted to a wider sweep of indiscriminate proscription, while at the head of the Boston custom-house, than any of his predecessors, when it was wished the Democracy were conveniently small, as numerous factions were rushing into their ranks, hungry for office. But the removals were immediate, and the contention in the political hive shortly ceased. Mr. Henshaw's oration in Faneuil Hall, at the head of this article, is a manifesto of Democratic principles, in a manly tone. In the opinion of the opponents of David Henshaw, the letters of Henry Orne, over the signature of Columbus, published in the Boston Bulletin, in 1819, and gathered in a pamphlet of eighty-four pages, as also Derby's Sketch of the Origin and History of the Statesman Party of Boston, comprising one hundred and seventy-two pages, are material aids to our political history, excepting a few mistakes naturally arising from the ebullition of party rancor,-- revealing a system of management and intrigue unprecedented in the annals of New England, ever to be had ju remembrance as a beacon to posterity. We readily concede to Javid Henshaw great native capacity and political integrity; but the raciation of the satellites around him, like the halo encircling the moon, ever indicated a storm. It was in allusion to this period that the venerable Harrison Gray Otis remarked, within a few weeks of his death, as follows: "I regard the administration of Gen. Jackson as the fountain of all the subsequent abuses, and refer every Whig to his own knowledge and recollection of the inroads made upon the constitution by that iron-willed oppressor." It has been further stated, that President Jackson was more independent and more daring in his character than President Jefferson; and, therefore, at times, the more arbitrary, and the more dangerous as the ruler of this republic.

In December, 1827, Mr. Henshaw published, in the Boston Statesman, a series of articles, entitled Observations occasioned by the Remarks on the Character of Napoleon, etc., in the Christian Examiner; which severely repel the opinions of its author, the Rev. Dr. Channing, who viewed Napoleon as the greatest despot of modern history. A political opponent said of this production, that it was a Quixotic attack on one of the greatest writers of the age, which resembles, in more than one point, the scene of the windmill. In 1831 Mr. Henshaw published Remarks on the Bank of the United States, the object of which was to exhibit the futility of objections to the establishment of

a national bank, founded on the resources of government,- opinions which he afterwards modified. He was one of the originators and directors of the Commonwealth Insurance Company, created in 1824, the most of which stock was invested in the Commonwealth Bank, and ended in a total ruin, on the failure of the bank, in 1835. Judge Hubbard's Report, relating to the failure of the bank, with the testimony of witnesses examined by the legislative committee, February, 1838, is an interesting relic of banking operations. Mr. Henshaw was also a director of the Warren Association of Stockholders in South Boston real estate, of which the Mount Washington House was a portion. In 1839 he published letters on the internal improvement and commerce of the west, a production that will ever redound to his credit.

Mr. Henshaw has the reputation of having prompted President Jackson, when at the Tremont House, in Boston, June, 1833, to issue the order for the removal of the government deposits from the United States Bank. On the failure of certain favored banks at the west, to which deposits were removed, President Jackson vented bitter maledictions against certain injudicious advisers, and out of this arose the subtreasury measure of Martin Van Buren. Mr. Henshaw was opposed to a strong protective tariff; and said, at a public dinner, in 1832, that "the political tariffites, like the mistletoe of the majestic oak, fastened upon the manufacturing interest, absorbing its power and paralyzing its health." In 1844 there was published a refutation, by his friends, of the calumnies against David Henshaw, in relation to the failure of the Commonwealth Bank, and the transfer of South Boston lands to the United States. It was comprised in a pamphlet of sixty pages.

We cannot close the sketch of this leader of New England Democracy, before relating his case at law against Samuel H. Foster, warden, and the inspectors of ward No. 7, in Boston, for refusing to receive his printed vote for a representative to the General Court, presented May 11, 1829, believing it not to be a legal vote, because it was a printed one; and they rejected it solely on that account. In the decision of Chief Justice Parker, the authority of Livingston was cited, who contended that wherever the contrary does not appear from the context, writing not only means words traced with a pen, or stamped, but printed, or engraved, or made legible by any other device. The practice had been to elect many town officers by hand vote, and, probably, in some instances, representatives had been so chosen. It became nec

essary, therefore, to prescribe that the choice should be made by ballot; but even the word ballot itself is ambiguous, and therefore it was required that representatives shall be elected by written votes. Now, if writing was "to express by letters" according to the chirographers, which may as well and better be done by writing with types than in manuscript, no inference can be drawn, from the terms employed, against the use of printed votes. Suppose one manuscript vote, and others copied from it by machinery,-- would these latter be legal votes? Suppose lithographic votes, which was said to be the character of the one tendered by the plaintiff. The supposed inconveniences, from the substitution of printed for manuscript votes, are probably, in a great degree, imaginary. It is said it may be the means of introducing earicatures, or libellous pictures, upon the ticket; but is it not quite as easy now? The picture may be stamped, and names of candidates written over or under it, and the vote will be legal. It has been done, and probably will be done again, in times of fervid struggle. In the common and statute law of this commonwealth and Great Britain, both now and at the time of making the constitution, the use of the word writing, to express instruments generally printed, was familiar. Thus, a bond is a writing obligatory, though printed; a promise in writing, to avoid the statute of frauds, may be printed. The statute of Anne, respecting promissory notes, speaks of notes in writing, and yet nothing is more common than to see them in print. Justice Parker rendered judgment against the defendants.

EDWARD CRUFT, JR.

JULY 4, 1837. FOR THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY.

WAS born at Boston, May 7, 1811; entered the Latin School in 1821, and graduated at Harvard College in 1831; was a counsellorat-law, and of the city Council in 1834-35. He settled at St. Louis; was never married; and practised law in the office of the Hon. Judge Crum, author of the Missouri Justice, who remarks, in the preface to that work, that he "is greatly indebted to the learning and professional skill of Edward Cruft, Jr., Esq., of the St. Louis bar, to whose accurate and critical supervision these subjects, in their course of preparation, were especially committed." He died at St. Louis, Apr. 22, 1847.