House, and the lobbies and galleries filled to the people. It is no such thing. We all know their utmost capacity by visitors and spectators, how these legislative returns have been obtained. the scene became grand and impressive. A few It is by dictation from the White House. The President himself, with that vast mass of patronspoke on the side of the resolution-chiefly age which he wields, and the thousand expectaRives, Buchanan, Niles - and with an air of tions he is able to hold up, has obtained these ease and satisfaction that bespoke a quiet deter-votes of the State Legislatures; and this, formination, and a consciousness of victory. The committee room had been resorted to in parties of four and six at a time, always leaving enough on watch and not resorted to by one side alone. The opposition were invited to a full participa

sooth, is said to be the voice of the people. The voice of the people! Sir, can we forget the scene which was exhibited in this chamber when that expunging resolution was first introduced here? Have we forgotten the universal giving way of conscience, so that the senator from Missouri was left alone? I see before me setion-an invitation of which those who were nators who could not swallow that resolution; able to maintain their good temper readily avail- and has its nature changed since then? Is it ed themselves; but the greater part were not in any more constitutional now than it was then? a humor to eat any thing-especially at such a Not at all. But executive power has interposfeast. The night was wearing away: the ex-sir. It is the combination of patronage and ed. Talk to me of the voice of the people! No, pungers were in full force-masters of the cham- power to coerce this body into a gross and palber-happy-and visibly determined to remain. pable violation of the constitution. Some indiIt became evident to the great opposition leaders viduals, I perceive, think to escape through the that the inevitable hour had come: that the particular form in which this act is to be perpetrated. They tell us that the resolution on damnable deed was to be done that night: and your records is not to be expunged, but is only that the dignity of silence was no longer to them to be endorsed 'Expunged.' Really, sir, I do a tenable position. The battle was going against not know how to argue against such contemptithem, and they must go into it, without being able ble sophistry. The occasion is too solemn for to re-establish it. In the beginning, they had violate the constitution, and you get rid of the an argument of this sort. You are going to not considered the expunging movement a seri-infamy by a falsehood. You yourselves say that ous proceeding: as it advanced they still expected it to miscarry on some point: now the reality of the thing stood before them, confronting their presence, and refusing to "down at any command. They broke silence, and gave vent to language which bespoke the agony of their feelings, and betrayed the revulsion of stomach with which they approached the odious subject. Mr. Calhoun said:

"No one, not blinded by party zeal, can possibly be insensible that the measure proposed is a violation of the constitution. The constitution requires the Senate to keep a journal; this resolution goes to expunge the journal. If you may expunge a part, you may expunge the whole; and if it is expunged, how is it kept? The constitution says the journal shall be kept; this resolution says it shall be destroyed. It does the very thing which the constitution declares shall not be done. That is the argument, the whole argument. There is none other. Talk of precedents? and precedents drawn from a foreign country? They don't apply. No, sir. This is to be done, not in consequence of argument, but in spite of argument. I understand the case. I know perfectly well the gentlemen have no liberty to vote otherwise. They are coerced by an exterior power. They try, indeed, to comfort their conscience by saying that it is the will of the people, and the voice of

the resolution is expunged by your order. Yet
you say it is not expunged. You put your act
round and deny it.
express words. You record it, and then turn

in

"But why do I waste my breath? I know it is all utterly vain. The day is gone; night approaches, and night is suitable to the dark deed we meditate. There is a sort of destiny in this thing. The act must be performed; and it is an act which will tell on the political history of this country for ever. Other preceding violations of the constitution (and they have been many and great) filled my bosom with indignation, but this fills it only with grief. Others were done in the heat of party. Power was, as it were, compelled to support itself by seizing upon new instruments of influence and patronage; and there were ambitious and able men to direct the process. Such was the removal of the deposits, which the President seized upon by a new and unprecedented act of arbitrary power; an act which gave him ample means of rewarding friends and punishing enemies. Something may, perhaps, be pardoned to him in this matter, on the old apology of tyrants-the plea of necessity. But here there can be no such apology. Here no necessity can so much as be pretended. This act originates in pure, unmixed, personal idolatry. It is the melancholy evidence of a broken spirit, ready to bow at the feet of power. The former act was such a one as might have been perpetrated in the days of Pompey or Cæsar; but an act like

this could never have been consummated by a Roman Senate until the times of Caligula and Nero."

Mr. Calhoun was right in his taunt about the universal giving way when the resolution was first introduced-the solitude in which the mover was then left-and in which solitude he would have been left to the end, had it not been for his courage in reinstating the word expunge, and appealing to the people.

Mr. Clay commenced with showing that he had never believed in the reality of the proceeding until now; that he had considered the resolution as a thing to be taken up for a speech, and laid down when the speech was delivered; and that the last laying down, at the previous session, was the end of the matter. He said:

cessary powers of the Senate, and repugnant to the constitution of the United States, the manner in which it is proposed to accomplish this dark deed is also highly exceptionable. The expunging resolution, which is to blot out or enshroud the four or five lines in which the the recitals by which it is preceded, are spun resolution of 1834 stands recorded, or rather out into a thread of enormous length. It runs, whereas, and whereas, and whereas, and whereas, and whereas, &c., into a formidable array of

nine several whereases. One who should have the courage to begin to read them, unaware of what was to be their termination, would think that at the end of such a tremendous display he must find the very devil."

And then coming to the conclusion, he concentrated his wrath and grief in an apostrophizing peroration, which lacked nothing but verisimilitude to have been grand and affecting. Thus:

"Considering that he was the mover of the resolution of March, 1834, and the consequent "But why should I detain the Senate, or relation in which he stood to the majority of needlessly waste my breath in fruitless exerthe Senate by whose vote it was adopted, he tions. Ths decree has gone forth. It is one of had felt it to be his duty to say something urgency, too. The deed is to be done-that foul on this expunging resolution; and he had deed which, like the blood-stained hands of the always intended to do so when he should be guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will never persuaded that there existed a settled purpose wash out. Proceed, then, with the noble work of pressing it to a final decision. But it had which lies. before you, and, like other skilful been so taken up and put down at the last ses-executioners, do it quickly. And when you have sion-taken up one day, when a speech was perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell prepared for delivery, and put down when it was them what glorious honors you have achieved pronounced that he had really doubted whe- for our common country. Tell them that you ther there existed any serious intention of ever have extinguished one of the brightest and putting it to the vote. At the very close of the purest lights that ever burnt at the altar of last session, it will be recollected that the reso- civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced lution came up, and in several quarters of the one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered Senate a disposition was manifested to come to in defence of the constitution, and bravely spiked a definitive decision. On that occasion he had the cannon. Tell them that, henceforward, no offered to waive his right to address the Senate, matter what daring or outrageous act any Presiand silently to vote upon the resolution; but it dent may perform, you have for ever hermetiwas again laid upon the table; and laid there for cally sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell ever, as the country supposed, and as he be- them that he may fearlessly assume what powlieved. It is, however, now revived; and, sun-ers he pleases, snatch from its lawful custody dry changes having taken place in the members of this body, it would seem that the present design is to bring the resolution to an absolute conclusion."

Then, after an argument against the expurgation, which, of necessity, was obliged to be a recapitulation of the argument in favor of the original condemnation of the President, he went on to give vent to his feelings in expressions not less bitter and denunciatory of the President and his friends than those used by Mr. Calhoun, saying:

"But if the matter of expunction be contrary to the truth of the case, reproachful for its base subserviency, derogatory from the just and ne

the public purse, command a military detach-
ment to enter the halls of the capitol, overawe
Congress, trample down the constitution, and
raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the
Senate must stand mute, in silent submission,
and not dare to raise its opposing voice. That
it must wait until a House of Representatives,
humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority
shall prefer articles of impeachment. Tell them,
of it composed of the partisans of the President,
finally, that you have restored the glorious doc-
trines of passive obedience and non-resistance.
And, if the people do not pour out their indig-
nation and imprecations, I have to learn the
yet
character of American freemen."

Mr. Webster spoke last, and after a pause in the debate which seemed to indicate its concl

sion; and only rose, and that slowly, as the question was about to be put. Having no personal griefs in relation to General Jackson like Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay, and with a temperament less ardent, he delivered himself with com-site side, who had been best able to maintain their parative moderation, confining himself to a brief protest against the act; and concluding, in measured and considered language, with expressing his grief and mortification at what he was to behold; thus:

in the great circular gallery, looking down upon immediately over his head, and had evidently the Senate, though sullen and menacing in their collected into that place. His motion was agreed looks, had made no manifestation of feeling; to. The order to clear the galleries was revoked; and it was doubtless not the intention of Mr. the order to seize the disturbers was given, and Webster to excite that manifestation when he immediately executed by the energetic sergeantreferred to their numbers, and expressed his ig-at-arms, Mr. John Shackford, and his assistants. norance of the feeling with which they would The ringleader was seized, and brought to the see the deed done which he so much deprecated. bar. This sudden example intimidated the rest; Doubtless no one intended to excite that crowd, mainly composed, as of usual since the bank question began, of friends of that institution; but its appearance became such that Senator Linn, colleague of Senator Benton, Mr. George W. Jones, since senator from Iowa, and others sent out and brought in arms; other friends gathered about him; among them Mrs. Benton, who, remembering what had happened to General Jackson, and knowing that, after him, her husband was most obnoxious to the bank party, had her anxiety sufficiently excited to wish to be near him in this concluding scene of a seven years' contest with that great moneyed power. Things were in this state when the Secretary of the Senate began to perform the expunging process on the manuscript journal. Instantly a storm of hisses, groans, and vociferations arose from the left wing of the circular gallery, over the head of Senator Benton. The presiding officer promptly gave the order, which the rules prescribe in such cases, to clear the gallery. Mr. Benton opposed the order, saying:

Let

"I hope the galleries will not be cleared, as many innocent persons will be excluded, who have been guilty of no violation of order. the ruffians who have made the disturbance alone be punished: let them be apprehended. I hope the sergeant-at-arms will be directed to enter the gallery, and seize the ruffians, ascertaining who they are in the best way he can. Let him apprehend them and bring them to the bar of the Senate. Let him seize the bank ruffians. I hope that they will not now be suffered to insult the Senate, as they did when it was under the power of the Bank of the United States, when ruffians, with arms upon them, insulted us with impunity. Let them be taken and brought to the bar of the Senate. Here is one just above me, that may easily be identified-the bank ruffians!"

Mr. Benton knew that he was the object of this outrage, and that the way to treat these subaltern wretches was to defy and seize them, and have them dragged as criminals to the bar of the Senate. They were congregated

and the expunging process was performed in quiet. The whole scene was impressive; but no part of it so much so as to see the great leaders who, for seven long years had warred upon General Jackson, and a thousand times pronounced him ruined, each rising in his place, with pain and reluctance, to confess themselves vanquished—to admit his power, and their weakness-and to exhale their griefs in unavailing reproaches, and impotent deprecations. It was a tribute to his invincibility which cast into the shade all the eulogiums of his friends. The gratification of General Jackson was extreme. He gave a grand dinner to the expungers (as they were called) and their wives; and being too weak to sit at the table, he only met the company, placed the "head-expunger" in his chair, and withdrew to his sick chamber. That expurgation! it was the "crowning mercy" of his civil, as New Orleans had been of his military, life!

CHAPTER CLXII.

THE SUPREME COURT JUDGES AND OFFICERS.

THE death of Chief Justice Marshall had vacated that high office, and Roger B. Taney, Esq., was nominated to fill it. He still encountered opposition in the Senate; but only enough to show how much that opposition had declined since the time when he was rejected as Secretary of the Treasury. The vote against his confirmation was reduced to fifteen; namely: Messrs. Black of Mississippi; Calhoun, Clay, Crittenden; Ewing of Ohio; Leigh of Virginia; Mangum ; Naudain of Delaware; Porter of Louisiana; Preston; Robbins of Rhode Island; Southard, Tomlinson, Webster, White of Tennessee.

Among the Justices of the Supreme Court, these changes took place from the commence

ment of this View to the end of General Jack-General Jackson had to confront it as a present, son's administration: Smith Thompson, Esq., actual, subsisting danger; and said:

The Marshals of the District, during the same period, were: Henry Ashton, of the District of Columbia, appointed, in 1831, in place of Tench Ringgold; Alexander Hunter, of the same District, in place of Henry Ashton; Robertproaches may in time create mutual hostility; Wallace, in 1848 in place of Alexander Hunter, deceased; Richard Wallach, in 1849, in place of Robert Wallace; and Jonah D. Hoover, in 1853, in place of Richard Wallach.

FAREWELL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT JACKSON- tried in fields of battle, and determined by the