THIRTY YEARS' VIEW. CHAPTER XCIX. MR. CLAY'S SPEECH AGAINST PRESIDENT JACK- TRACTS. "MR. CLAY addressed the Senate as follows: We are, said he, in the midst of a revolution, hitherto bloodless, but rapidly tending towards a total change of the pure republican character of the government, and to the concentration of all power in the hands of one man. of Congress are paralyzed, except when exerted The powers in conformity with his will, by frequent and an extraordinary exercise of the executive veto, not anticipated by the founders of the constitution, and not practised by any of the predecessors of the present Chief Magistrate. them still more, a new expedient is springing And, to cramp into use, of withholding altogether bills which have received the sanction of both Houses of Congress, thereby cutting off all opportunity of passing them, even if, after their return, the members should be unanimous in their favor. The constitutional participation of the Senate in the appointing power is virtually abolished, by the constant use of the power of removal from office without any known cause, and by the appointment of the same individual to the same office, after his rejection by the Senate. How often have we, senators, felt that the check of the Senate, instead of being, as the constitution intended, a salutary control, was an idle ceremony? How often, when acting on the case of the nominated successor, have we felt the injustice of the removal? How often have we said to each other, well, what can we do? the office cannot remain vacant without prejudice to the public interests; and, if we reject the proposed substitute, we cannot restore the displaced, and perhaps some more unworthy man may be nominated. tection of American industry was snatched from impending destruction at the last session; but we are now coolly told by the Secretary of the Treasury, without a blush, 'that it is understood protection merely is to be finally abandoned.' to be conceded on all hands that a tariff for By the 3d of March, 1837, if the progress of innovation continue, there will be scarcely a vesas they existed prior to the 3d of March, 1829. tige remaining of the government and its policy, In a term of years, a little more than equal to that which was required to establish our liberties, the government will have been transformed into an elective monarchy-the worst of all forms of government. "Such is a melancholy but faithful picture of is not sketched or exhibited to excite, here or the present condition of our public affairs. It elsewhere, irritated feeling; I have no such purpose. I would, on the contrary, implore the prejudice, and to look calmly but resolutely Senate and the people to discard all passion and upon the actual state of the constitution and the country. Although I bring into the Senate the same unabated spirit, and the same firm determination, which have ever guided me in the support of civil liberty, and the defence of our constitution, I contemplate the prospect before us with feelings of deep humiliation and profound mortification. toms of the times, that a large proportion of "It is not among the least unfortunate sympthe good and enlightened men of the Union, of all parties, are yielding to sentiments of despondency. trust and insecurity pervading the community. There is, unhappily, a feeling of disMany of our best citizens entertain serious apprehensions that our Union and our institutions are destined to a speedy overthrow. trust that the hopes and confidence of the country will revive. There is much occasion for Sir, I manly independence and patriotic vigor, but none for despair. Thank God, we are yet free; and, if we put on the chains which are forging "The judiciary has not been exempted from them. We should never despair of the repubfor us, it will be because we deserve to wear the prevailing rage for innovation. Decisions lic. If our ancestors had been capable of surof the tribunals, deliberately pronounced, have rendering themselves to such ignoble sentibeen contemptuously disregarded, and the sanc-ments, our independence and our liberties tity of numerous treaties openly violated. Our would never have been achieved. The winter Indian relations, coeval with the existence of of 1776-77, was one of the gloomiest periods the government, and recognized and established of our revolution; but on this day, fifty-seven by numerous laws and treaties, have been sub- years ago, the father of his country achieved a verted; the rights of the helpless and unfortu- glorious victory, which diffused joy, and gladnate aborigines trampled in the dust, and they ness, and animation throughout the States. brought under subjection to unknown laws, in Let us cherish the hope that, since he has gone which they have no voice, promulgated in an from among us, Providence, in the dispensation unknown language. The most extensive and of his mercies, has near at hand, in reserve for most valuable public domain that ever fell to us, though yet unseen by us, some sure and the lot of one nation is threatened with a total happy deliverance from all impending dangers. sacrifice. The general currency of the country, the life-blood of all its business, is in the most imminent danger of universal disorder and confusion. The power of internal improvement lies crushed beneath the veto. The system of pro full of dreadful forebodings. On the one hand, a little more than a year ago to investigate its ability. He reported to the Executive that it was perfectly safe. His apprehensions of its solidity were communicated by the President to Congress, and a committee was appointed to examine the subject; they, also, reported in favor of its security. And, finally, among the last acts of the House of Representatives, prior to the close of the last session, was the adoption of a resolution, manifesting its entire con Union. On the other, a cherished system of policy, essential to the successful prosecution of the industry of our countrymen, was exposed to imminent danger of destruction. Means were happily applied by Congress to avert both calamities, the country was reconciled, and our Union once more became a band of friends and brothers. And I shall be greatly disappointed, if we do not find those who were denounced as being unfriendly to the continuance of our confederacy, among the foremost to fly to its pre-fidence in the ability and solidity of the bank. servation, and to resist all executive encroach ments. "Mr. President, when Congress adjourned at the termination of the last session, there was one remnant of its powers-that over the purse -left untouched. The two most important powers of civil government are those of the sword and purse; the first, with some restrictions, is confided by the constitution to the Executive, and the last to the legislative department. If they are separate, and exercised by different responsible departments, civil liberty is safe; but if they are united in the hands of the same individual, it is gone. That clearsighted and revolutionary orator and patriot, Patrick Henry, justly said, in the Virginia convention, in reply to one of his opponents, 'Let him candidly tell me where and when did freedom exist, when the sword and purse were given up from the people? Unless a miracle in human affairs interposed, no nation ever retained its liberty after the loss of the sword and the purse. Can you prove, by any argumentative deduction, that it is possible to be safe without one of them? If you give them up, you are gone.' "Up to the period of the termination of the last session of Congress, the exclusive constitutional power of Congress over the treasury of the United States had never been contested. Among its earliest acts was one to establish the treasury department, which provided for the appointment of a treasurer, who was required to give bond and security, in a very large amount, to receive and keep the money's of the United States, and disburse the same upon warrants drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury, countersigned by the Comptroller, recorded by the Register, and not otherwise.' Prior to the establishment of the present Bank of the United States, no treasury or place had been provided or designated by law for the safe keeping of the public moneys, but the treasurer was left to his own discretion and responsibility. When the existing bank was established, it was provided that the public moneys should be deposited with it, and, consequently, that bank became the treasury of the United States; for, whatever place is designated by law for the keeping of the public money of the United States, under the care of the treasurer of the United States, is, for the time being, the treasury. Its safety was drawn in question by the Chief Magistrate, and an agent was appointed "After all these testimonies to the perfect safety of the public moneys in the place appointed by Congress, who could have supposed that the place would have been changed? Who could have imagined that, within sixty days of the meeting of Congress, and, as it were, in utter contempt of its authority, the change should have been ordered? Who would have dreamed that the treasurer should have thrown away the single key to the treasury, over which Congress held ample control, and accepted, in lieu of it, some dozens of keys, over which neither Congress nor he has any adequate control? Yet, sir, all this has been done; and it is now our solemn duty to inquire, 1st. By whose authority it has been ordered; and, 2d. Whether the order has been given in conformity with the constitution and laws of the United States. "I agree, sir, and I am very happy whenever I can agree with the President, as to the immense importance of these questions. He says, in the paper which I hold in my hand, that he looks upon the pending question as involving higher considerations than the 'mere transfer of a sum of money from one bank to another. Its decision may affect the character of our government for ages to come.' And, with him, I view it as 'of transcendent importance, both in the principles and the consequences it involves.' It is a question of all time, for posterity as well as for us-of constitutional government or monarchy-of liberty or slavery. As I regard it, I hold the bank as nothing, as perfectly insignificant, faithful as it has been in the performance of all its duties. I hold a sound currency as nothing, essential as it is to the prosperity of every branch of business, and to all conditions of society, and efficient as the agency of the bank has been in providing the country with a currency as sound as ever existed, and unsurpassed by any in Christendom. I consider even the public faith, sacred and inviolable as it ever should be, as comparatively nothing. All these questions are merged in the greater and mightier question of the constitutional distribution of the powers of the government, as affected by the recent executive innovation. The real inquiry is, shall all the barriers which have been erected by the caution and wisdom of our ancestors, for the preservation of civil liberty, be prostrated and trodden under foot, and the sword and the purse be at once united in the hands of one man? Shall the public treasury. Has he any by the con- "The question is, by virtue of whose will, power, dictation, was the removal of the deposits effected? By whose authority and determination were they transferred from the Bank of the United States, where they were required by the law to be placed, and put in banks which the law had never designated? And I tell gentlemen opposed to me, that I am not to be answered by the exhibition of a formal order bearing the signature of R. B. Taney, or any one else. I want to know, not the amanuensis or clerk who prepared or sign-independent of a system in which power has ed the official form, but the authority or the individual who dictated or commanded it; not the hangman who executes the culprit, but the tribunal which pronounced the sentence. I want to know that power in the government, that original and controlling authority, which required and commanded the removal of the deposits. And, I repeat the question, is there a senator, or intelligent man in the whole country, who entertains a solitary doubt? Hear what the President himself says in his manifesto read to his cabinet: The Presi- | dent deems it his duty to communicate in this manner to his cabinet the final conclusions of his own mind, and the reasons on which they are founded.' And, at the conclusion of this paper, what does he say? The President again repeats that he begs his cabinet to consider the proposed measure as his own, in the support of which he shall require no one of them to make a sacrifice of opinion or principle. Its responsibility has been assumed, after the most mature deliberation and reflection, as necessary to preserve the morals of the people, the freedom of the press, and the purity of the elective franchise, without which all will unite in saying that the blood and treasure expended by our forefathers, in the establishment of our happy system of government, will have been vain and fruitless. Under these convictions, he feels that a measure so important to the American people cannot be commenced too soon; and he therefore names the 1st day of October next as a period proper for the change of the deposits, or sooner, provided the necessary arrangements with the State banks can be made.' Sir, is there a senator here who will now tell me that the removal was not the measure and the act of the President? "Thus is it evident that the President, neither by the act creating the treasury department, nor by the bank charter, has any power over been most carefully separated, and distributed between three separate and independent departments. We have been told a thousand times, and all experience assures us, that such a division is indispensable to the existence and preservation of freedom. We have established and designated offices, and appointed officers in each of those departments, to execute the duties respectively allotted to them. The President, it is true, presides over the whole; specific duties are often assigned by particular laws to him alone, or to other officers under his superintendence. His parental eye is presumed to survey the whole extent of the system in all its movements; but has he power to come into Congress, and to say such laws only shall you pass; to go into the courts, and prescribe the decisions which they may pronounce; or even to enter the offices of administration, and, where duties are specifically confided to those officers, to substitute his will to their duty? Or, has he a right, when those functionaries, deliberating upon their own solemn obligations to the people, have moved forward in their assigned spheres, to arrest their lawful progress, because they have dared to act contrary to his pleasure? No, sir; no, sir. His is a high and glorious station, but it is one of observation and superintendence. It is to see that obstructions in the forward movement of government, unlawfully interposed, shall be abated by legitimate and competent means. "Such are the powers on which the President relies to justify his seizure of the treasury of the United States. I have examined them, one by one, and they all fail, utterly fail, to bear out the act. We are brought irresistibly to the conclusions, 1st, That the invasion of the public treasury has been perpetrated by the removal of one Secretary of the Treasury, who would not violate his conscientious obligations, and by the appointment of another, who stood ready ANNO 1833. ANDREW JACKSON, PRESIDENT. to subscribe his name to the orders of the President; and, 2dly, That the President has no color of authority in the constitution or laws for the act which he has thus caused to be performed. the commencement of the present session of "Finding the city in a more settled condition "And now let us glance at some of the tre- than he expected, and many senators there, he mendous consequences which may ensue from addressed them in a mild and gracious manner If the President [as the President addressed his late Secretary of this high-handed measure. may, in a case in which the law has assigned a the Treasury], and desired them to send depuspecific duty exclusively to a designated officer, ties to Pompey with an offer of honorable terms command it to be executed, contrary to his own of peace,' &c. As Metellus, the tribune, opposed judgment, under the penalty of an expulsion his taking money out of the public treasury, and from office, and, upon his refusal, may appoint cited some laws against it-[such, Sir, I suppose, some obsequious tool to perform the required as I have endeavored to cite on this occasion]act, where is the limit to his authority? Has Cæsar said 'Arms and laws do not flourish tohe not the same right to interfere in every other gether. If you are not pleased at what I am case, and remove from office all that he can re- about, you have only to withdraw. [Leave the move, who hesitate or refuse to do his bidding office, Mr. Duane !] War, indeed, will not tolecontrary to their own solemn convictions of rate much liberty of speech. When I say this, their duty? There is no resisting this inevit- I am renouncing my own right; for you, and able conclusion. Well, then, how stands the all those whom I have found exciting a spirit of matter of the public treasury? It has been seen faction against me, are at my disposal.' Having that the issue of warrants upon the treasury is said this, he approached the doors of the treaguarded by four independent and hitherto res-sury, and, as the keys were not produced, he ponsible checks, each controlling every other, sent for workmen to break them open. Metellus and all bound by the law, but all holding their again opposed him, and gained credit with some offices, according to the existing practice of the for his firmness; but Cæsar, with an elevated 'And you know very government, at the pleasure of the President. voice, threatened to put him to death if he gave The Secretary signs, the Comptroller counter-him any further trouble. signs, the Register records, and the Treasurer well, young man,' said he, ' that this is harder for We have seen that the me to say than to do.' Metellus, terrified by pays the warrant. President has gone to the first and highest link the menace, retired; and Cæsar was afterwards in the chain, and coerced a conformity to his easily and readily supplied with every thing will. What is to prevent, whenever he desires necessary for that war. to draw money from the public treasury, his applying the same penalty of expulsion, under which Mr. Duane suffered, to every link of the chain, from the Secretary of the Treasury down, and thus to obtain whatever he demands? What is to prevent a more compendious accomplishment of his object, by the agency of transfer drafts, drawn on the sole authority of the Secretary, and placing the money at once wherever, or in whatsoever hands, the President pleases? "What security have the people against the lawless conduct of any President? Where is the boundary to the tremendous power which he has assumed? Sir, every barrier around the public treasury is broken down and annihilated. From the moment that the President pronounced the words, "This measure is my own; I take upon myself the responsibility of it,' every safeguard around the treasury was prostrated, and henceforward it might as well be at the Hermitage. The measure adopted by the President is without precedent. I beg pardon-there is one but we must go down for it to the commenceIt will be recollected ment of the Christian era. by those who are conversant with Roman history, that, after Pompey was compelled to retire to Brundusium, Cæsar, who had been anxious to give him battle, returned to Rome, 'having reduced Italy,' says the venerable biographer, 'in sixty days-[the exact period between the day of the removal of the deposits and that of "Mr. President (said Mr. C.) the people of the United States are indebted to the President for the boldness of this movement; and as one, among the humblest of them, I profess my obligations to him. He has told the Senate, in his message refusing an official copy of his cabinet paper, that it has been published for the information of the people. As a part of the people, the In that extraordinary paper Senate, if not in their official character, have a right to its use. he has proclaimed that the measure is his own and that he has taken upon himself the responsibility of it. In plain English, he has proclaimed an open, palpable and daring usurpation! "For more than fifteen years, Mr. President, I have been struggling to avoid the present state of things. I thought I perceived, in some procecdings, during the conduct of the Seminole war, a spirit of defiance to the constitution and to all law. With what sincerity and truthwith what earnestness and devotion to civil ; liberty, I have struggled, the Searcher of all human hearts best knows. With what fortune, the bleeding constitution of my country now fatally attests. "I have, nevertheless, persevered; and, under every discouragement, during the short time that I expect to remain in the public councils, I will persevere. And if a bountiful Providence would allow an unworthy sinner to approach the throne of grace, I would beseech Him, as the greatest favor He could grant to me here below, to spare me until I live to behold the people, rising in their majesty, with a peaceful and constitutional exercise of their power, to expel the Goths from Rome; to rescue the public treasury from pillage, to preserve the constitution of the United States; to uphold the Union against the danger of the concentration and consolidation of all power in the hands of the Executive; and to sustain the liberties of the people of this country against the imminent perils to which they now stand exposed. CHAPTER C. MR. BENTON'S SPEECH IN REPLY TO MR. CLAY— EXTRACTS. MR. CLAY had spoken on three successive days, being the last days of the year 1833. Mr. Benton followed him,-and seeing the advantage which was presented in the character of the resolve, and that of the speech in support of it, all bearing the impress of a criminal proceeding, with "And now, Mr. President, what, under all these circumstances, is it our duty to do? Is there a senator who can hesitate to affirm, in the language of the resolutions, that the Pres-out other result than to procure a sentence of conident has assumed a dangerous power over the demnation against the President for violating the treasury of the United States, not granted to him by the constitution and the laws; and that laws and the constitution, endangering the pubthe reasons assigned for the act by the Secre- lic liberty and establishing a tyranny,―he took tary of the Treasury are insufficient and unsa- up the proceeding in that sense; and immeditisfactory? ately turned all the charges against the resolu "The eyes and the hopes of the American people are anxiously turned to Congress. They feel that they have been deceived and insulted; their confidence abused; their interests betrayed; and their liberties in danger. They see a rapid and alarming concentration of all power in one man's hands. They see that, by the exercise of the positive authority of the Executive, and his negative power exerted over Congress, the will of one man alone prevails, and governs the republic. The question is no longer what laws will Congress pass, but what will the Executive not veto ? The President, and not Congress, is addressed for legislative action. We have seen a corporation, charged with the execution of a great national work, dismiss an experienced, faithful, and zealous president, afterwards testify to his ability by a voluntary resolution, and reward his extraordinary services by a large gratuity, and appoint in his place an executive favorite, totally inexperienced and incompetent, to propitiate the President. We behold the usual incidents of approaching tyranny. The land is filled with spies and informers, and detraction and denunciation are the orders of the day. People, especially official incumbents in this place, no longer dare speak in the fearless tones of manly freemen, but in the cautious whispers of trembling slaves. The premonitory symptoms of despotism are upon us; and if Congress do not apply an instantaneous and effective remedy, the fatal collapse will soon come on, and we shall die-ignobly die-base, mean, and abject slaves; the scorn and contempt of mankind; unpitied, unwept, unmourned!" tion itself and its mover, as a usurpation of the rights of the House of Representatives in originating an impeachment, and a violation of law and constitution in trying it ex parte; and said: "The first of these resolutions contained impeachable matter, and was in fact, though not in form, a direct impeachment of the President of the United States. He recited the constitutional provision, that the President might be impeached-1st, for treason; 2d, for bribery; 3d, for high crimes; 4th, for misdemeanors; and said that the first resolution charged both a high crime and a misdemeanor upon the Presi dent; a high crime, in violating the laws and constitution, to obtain a power over the public treasure, to the danger of the liberties of the people; and a misdemeanor, in dismissing the late Secretary of the Treasury from office. Mr. B. said that the terms of the resolution were sufficiently explicit to define a high crime, within the meaning of the constitution, without having recourse to the arguments and declarations used by the mover in illustration of his meaning; but, if any doubt remained on that head, it would be removed by the whole tenor of the argument, and especially that part of it which compared the President's conduct to that of Cæsar, in seizing the public treasure, to aid him in putting an end to the liberties of his country; and every senator, in voting upon it, would vote as directly upon the guilt or innocence of the President, as if he was responding to the question of guilty or not guilty, in the concluding sentence of a formal impeachment. "We are, then, said Mr. B., trying an impeachment! But how? The constitution gives to the House of Representatives the sole power to originate impeachments; yet we originate this impeachment ourselves. The constitution gives the accused a right to be present; but he |