A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin Verplanck | Page 7

much
interest now as when it was first written.
Mr. Verplanck was elected in 1820 a member of the New York House
of Assembly, but I do not learn that he particularly distinguished
himself while in that body. In the year following he was appointed, in
the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, Professor
of the Evidences of Revealed Religion and Moral Science in its

relations to Theology. For four years he performed the duties of this
Professorship, with what ability is shown by his Treatise on the
Evidences of Christianity, the fruit of his studies during this interval. It
is principally a clear and impressive view of that class of proofs of the
Christian religion which have a direct relation to the intellectual and
moral wants of mankind. For he was a devout believer in the Christian
gospel, and cherished religious convictions for the sake of their
influence on the character and the life. This work was published in
1824, about the time that he resigned his Professorship.
It was in 1824, that, on a visit to New York, I first became acquainted
with Verplanck. On the appearance of a small volume of poems of
mine, containing one or two which have been the most favorably
received, he wrote, in 1822, some account of them for the New York
American, a daily paper which not long before had been established by
his cousin, Johnson Verplanck, in conjunction with the late Dr. Charles
King. He spoke of them at considerable length and in the kindest
manner. As I was then an unknown literary adventurer, I could not but
be grateful to the hand that was so cordially held out to welcome me,
and when I came to live in New York, in 1825, an intimacy began in
which I suspect the advantage was all on my side.
It was in 1825 that he published his Essay on the Doctrine of Contracts,
in which he maintained that the transaction between the buyer and
seller of a commodity should be one of perfect frankness and an entire
absence of concealment; that the seller should be held to disclose
everything within his knowledge which would affect the price of what
he offered for sale, and that the maxim which is compressed into the
two Latin words, caveat emptor--the maxim that the buyer takes the
risk of a bad bargain--is not only a selfish but a knavish and immoral
rule of conduct, and should not be recognized by the tribunals. The
question is ably argued on the grounds of an elevated morality--but I
have heard jurists object to the doctrine of this essay, that if it were to
prevail it would greatly multiply the number of lawsuits.
In 1825, Mr Verplanck was elected one of the three Representatives in
Congress, to which this city was then entitled. He immediately

distinguished himself as a working member. This appellation is given
in Congress to members who labor faithfully in Committees, consider
petitions and report upon them, investigate claims, inquire into matters
referred to their judgment, frame bills and present them through their
Chairman. Besides these, there are the talking members who take part
in every debate, often without knowing anything of the question, save
what they learn while the debate is proceeding, and the idle members,
who do nothing but vote--generally I believe, without knowing
anything of the question whatever; but to neither of these classes did
Verplanck belong. He was a diligent, useful, and valued member of the
Committee of Ways and Means, and at an important period of our
political history was its Chairman.
Then arose the great controversy concerning the right of a State to
refuse obedience at pleasure to any law of Congress, a right contended
for under the name of nullification by some of the most eminent men of
the South, whose ability, political influence, and power of putting a
plausible face on their heresy, gave their cause at first an appearance of
great strength, and seemed to threaten the very existence of the Union.
With their denial of the binding force of any law of Congress which a
State might think proper to set aside, these men combined another
argument. They denied the power of Congress, under the Constitution,
to levy duties on imported merchandize, for the purpose of favoring the
home manufacturer, and maintained that it could only lay duties for the
sake of raising a revenue. Mr. Verplanck favored neither this view nor
their theory of nullification. He held that the power to lay duties being
given to Congress, without reservation by the Constitution, the end or
motive of laying them was left to the discretion of the Legislature. He
showed also that the power to regulate commerce given to that body in
the Constitution, was, from an early