THE NATURAL HATRED OF THE POOR TO THE RICH.
FROM A SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 31st 1834, ON
"THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS."
Sir, there is one other subject on which I wish to raise my voice. There is a topic which I perceive is to become the general war-cry of party, on which I take the liberty to warn the country against delusion. Sir, the cry is to be raised that this is a question between the poor and the rich. I know, Sir, it has been proclaimed, that one thing was certain, that there was always a hatred on the part of the poor toward the rich; and that this hatred would support the late measures, and the putting down of the bank. Sir, I will not be silent at the threat of such a detestable fraud on public opinion. If but ten men, or one man, in the nation will hear my voice, I will still warn them against this attempted imposition.
Mr. President, this is an eventful moment. On the great questions which occupy us, we all look for some decisive movement of public opinion. As I wish that movement to be free, intelligent, and unbiassed, the true manifestation of the public will, I desire to prepare the country for another appeal, which I perceive is about to be made to popular prejudice, another attempt to obscure all distinct views of the public good, to overwhelm all patriotism and all enlightened self-interest, by loud cries against false danger, and by exciting the passions of one class against another. I am not mistaken in the omen; I see the magazine whence the weapons of this warfare are to be drawn. I hear already the din of the hammering of arms preparatory to the combat. They may be such arms, perhaps, as reason, and justice, and honest patriotism cannot resist. Every effort at resistance, it is possible, may be feeble and powerless; but, for one, I shall make an effort,—an effort to be begun now, and to be carried on and continued, with untiring zeal, till the end of the contest.
Sir, I see, in those vehicles which carry to the people sentiments from high places, plain declarations that the present controversy is but a strife between one part of the community and another. I hear it boasted as the unfailing security, the solid ground, never to be shaken, on which recent measures rest, that the poor naturally hate the rich. I know that, under the cover of the roofs of the Capitol, within the last twenty-four hours, among men sent here to devise means for the public safety and the public good, it has been vaunted forth, as matter of boast and triumph, that one cause existed powerful enough to support every thing and to defend every thing; and that was, the natural hatred of the poor to the rich.
Sir, I pronounce the author of such sentiments to be guilty of attempting a detestable fraud on the community; a double fraud; a fraud which is to cheat men out of their property, and out of the earnings of their labor, by first cheating them out of their understandings.
"The natural hatred of the poor to the rich!" Sir, it shall not be till the last moment of my existence,—it shall be only when I am drawn to the verge of oblivion, when I shall cease to have respect or affection for any thing on earth,—that I will believe the people of the United States capable of being effectually deluded, cajoled, and driven about in herds, by such abominable frauds as this. If they shall sink to that point, if they so far cease to be men, thinking men, intelligent men, as to yield to such pretences and such clamor, they will be slaves already; slaves to their own passions, slaves to the fraud and knavery of pretended friends. They will deserve to be blotted out of all the records of freedom; they ought not to dishonor the cause of self-government, by attempting any longer to exercise it; they ought to keep their unworthy hands entirely off from the cause of republican liberty, if they are capable of being the victims of artifices so shallow, of tricks so stale, so threadbare, so often practised, so much worn out, on serfs and slaves.
"The natural hatred of the poor against the rich!" "The danger of a moneyed aristocracy!" "A power as great and dangerous as that resisted by the Revolution!" "A call to a new declaration of independence!" Sir, I admonish the people against the object of outcries like these. I admonish every industrious laborer in the country to be on his guard against such delusion. I tell him the attempt is to play off his passions against his interests, and to prevail on him, in the name of liberty, to destroy all the fruits of liberty; in the name of patriotism, to injure and afflict his country; and in the name of his own independence, to destroy that very independence, and make him a beggar and a slave. Has he a dollar? He is advised to do that which will destroy half its value. Has he hands to labor? Let him rather fold them, and sit still, than be pushed on, by fraud and artifice, to support measures which will render his labor useless and hopeless.
Sir, the very man, of all others, who has the deepest interest in a sound currency, and who suffers most by mischievous legislation in money matters, is the man who earns his daily bread by his daily toil. A depreciated currency, sudden changes of prices, paper money, falling between morning and noon, and falling still lower between noon and night,—these things constitute the very harvest-time of speculators, and of the whole race of those who are at once idle and crafty; and of that other race, too, the Catilines of all times, marked, so as to be known for ever by one stroke of the historian's pen, those greedy of other men's property and prodigal of their own. Capitalists, too, may outlive such times. They may either prey on the earnings of labor, by their cent. per cent., or they may hoard. But the laboring man, what can he hoard? Preying on nobody, he becomes the prey of all. His property is in his hands. His reliance, his fund, his productive freehold, his all, is his labor. Whether he work on his own small capital, or another's, his living is still earned by his industry; and when the money of the country becomes depreciated and debased, whether it be adulterated coin or paper without credit, that industry is robbed of its reward. He then labors for a country whose laws cheat him out of his bread. I would say to every owner of every quarter-section of land in the West, I would say to every man in the East who follows his own plough, and to every mechanic, artisan, and laborer in every city in the country,—I would say to every man, everywhere, who wishes by honest means to gain an honest living, "Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. Whoever attempts, under whatever popular cry, to shake the stability of the public currency, bring on distress in money matters, and drive the country into the use of paper money, stabs your interest and your happiness to the heart."
The herd of hungry wolves who live on other men's earnings will rejoice in such a state of things. A system which absorbs into their pockets the fruits of other men's industry is the very system for them. A government that produces or countenances uncertainty, fluctuations, violent risings and fallings in prices, and, finally, paper money, is a government exactly after their own heart. Hence these men are always for change. They will never let well enough alone. A condition of public affairs in which property is safe, industry certain of its reward, and every man secure in his own hard-earned gains, is no paradise for them. Give them just the reverse of this state of things; bring on change, and change after change; let it not be known to-day what will be the value of property to-morrow; let no man be able to say whether the money in his pockets at night will be money or worthless rags in the morning; and depress labor till double work shall earn but half a living,—give them this state of things, and you give them the consummation of their earthly bliss.
Sir, the great interest of this great country, the producing cause of all its prosperity, is labor! labor! labor! We are a laboring community. A vast majority of us all live by industry and actual employment in some of their forms. The Constitution was made to protect this industry, to give it both encouragement and security; but, above all, security. To that very end, with that precise object in view, power was given to Congress over the currency, and over the money system of the country. In forty years' experience, we have found nothing at all adequate to the beneficial execution of this trust but a well-conducted national bank. That has been tried, returned to, tried again, and always found successful. If it be not the proper thing for us, let it be soberly argued against; let something better be proposed; let the country examine the matter coolly, and decide for itself. But whoever shall attempt to carry a question of this kind by clamor, and violence, and prejudice; whoever would rouse the people by appeals, false and fraudulent appeals, to their love of independence, to resist the establishment of a useful institution, because it is a bank, and deals in money, and who artfully urges these appeals wherever he thinks there is more of honest feeling than of enlightened judgment,—means nothing but deception. And whoever has the wickedness to conceive, and the hardihood to avow, a purpose to break down what has been found, in forty years' experience, essential to the protection of all interests, by arraying one class against another, and by acting on such a principle as that the poor always hate the rich, shows himself the reckless enemy of all. An enemy to his whole country, to all classes, and to every man in it, he deserves to be marked especially as the poor man's curse!
A REDEEMABLE PAPER CURRENCY.
FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 22D OF FEBRUARY, 1834.
Mr. President,—The honorable member from Georgia stated yesterday, more distinctly than I have before learned it, what that experiment is which the government is now trying on the revenues and the currency, and, I may add, on the commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of this country. If I rightly apprehend him, this experiment is an attempt to return to an exclusive specie currency, first, by employing the State banks as a substitute for the Bank of the United States; and then by dispensing with the use of the State banks themselves.
This, Sir, is the experiment. I thank the gentleman for thus stating its character. He has done his duty, and dealt fairly with the people, by this exhibition of what the views of the executive government are, at this interesting moment. It is certainly most proper that the people should see distinctly to what end or for what object it is that so much suffering is already upon them, and so much more already in visible and near prospect.
And now, Sir, is it possible,—is it possible that twelve millions of intelligent people can be expected voluntarily to subject themselves to severe distress, of unknown duration, for the purpose of making trial of an experiment like this? Will a nation that is intelligent, well informed of its own interest, enlightened, and capable of self-government, submit to suffer embarrassment in all its pursuits, loss of capital, loss of employment, and a sudden and dead stop in its onward movement in the path of prosperity and wealth, until it shall be ascertained whether this new-hatched theory shall answer the hopes of those who have devised it? Is the country to be persuaded to bear every thing, and bear patiently, until the operation of such an experiment, adopted for such an avowed object, and adopted, too, without the co-operation or consent of Congress, and by the executive power alone, shall exhibit its results?
In the name of the hundreds of thousands of our suffering fellow-citizens, I ask, for what reasonable end is this experiment to be tried? What great and good object, worth so much cost, is it to accomplish? What enormous evil is to be remedied by all this inconvenience and all this suffering? What great calamity is to be averted? Have the people thronged our doors, and loaded our tables with petitions for relief against the pressure of some political mischief, some notorious misrule, which this experiment is to redress? Has it been resorted to in an hour of misfortune, calamity, or peril, to save the state? Is it a measure of remedy, yielded to the importunate cries of an agitated and distressed nation? Far, Sir, very far from all this. There was no calamity, there was no suffering, there was no peril, when these measures began. At the moment when this experiment was entered upon, these twelve millions of people were prosperous and happy, not only beyond the example of all others, but even beyond their own example in times past.
There was no pressure of public or private distress throughout the whole land. All business was prosperous, all industry was rewarded, and cheerfulness and content universally prevailed. Yet, in the midst of all this enjoyment, with so much to heighten and so little to mar it, this experiment comes upon us, to harass and oppress us at present, and to affright us for the future. Sir, it is incredible; the world abroad will not believe it; it is difficult even for us to credit, who see it with our own eyes, that the country, at such a moment, should put itself upon an experiment fraught with such immediate and overwhelming evils, and threatening the property and the employments of the people, and all their social and political blessings, with severe and long-enduring future inflictions.
And this experiment, with all its cost, is to be tried, for what? Why, simply, Sir, to enable us to try another "experiment"; and that other experiment is, to see whether an exclusive specie currency may not be better than a currency partly specie and partly bank paper! The object which it is hoped we may effect, by patiently treading this path of endurance, is to banish all bank paper, of all kinds, and to have coined money, and coined money only, as the actual currency of the country!
Now, Sir, I altogether deny that such an object is at all desirable, even if it could be attained. I know, indeed, that all paper ought to circulate on a specie basis; that all bank-notes, to be safe, must be convertible into gold and silver at the will of the holder; and I admit, too, that the issuing of very small notes by many of the State banks has too much reduced the amount of specie actually circulating. It may be remembered that I called the attention of Congress to this subject in 1832, and that the bill which then passed both houses for renewing the bank charter contained a provision designed to produce some restraint on the circulation of very small notes. I admit there are conveniences in making small payments in specie; and I have always, not only admitted, but contended, that, if all issues of bank-notes under five dollars were discontinued, much more specie would be retained in the country, and in the circulation; and that great security would result from this. But we are now debating about an exclusive specie currency; and I deny that an exclusive specie currency is the best currency for any highly commercial country; and I deny, especially, that such a currency would be best suited to the condition and circumstances of the United States. With the enlightened writers and practical statesmen of all commercial communities in modern times, I have supposed it to be admitted that a well regulated, properly restrained, safely limited paper currency, circulating on an adequate specie basis, was a thing to be desired, a political public advantage to be obtained, if it might be obtained; and, more especially, I have supposed that in a new country, with resources not yet half developed, with a rapidly increasing population and a constant demand for more and more capital,—that is to say, in just such a country as the United States are, I have supposed that it was admitted that there are particular and extraordinary advantages in a safe and well regulated paper currency; because in such a country well regulated bank paper not only supplies a convenient medium of payments and of exchange, but also, by the expansion of that medium in a reasonable and safe degree, the amount of circulation is kept more nearly commensurate with the constantly increasing amount of property; and an extended capital, in the shape of credit, comes to the aid of the enterprising and the industrious. It is precisely on this credit, created by reasonable expansion of the currency in a new country, that men of small capital carry on their business. It is exactly by means of this, that industry and enterprise are stimulated. If we were driven back to an exclusively metallic currency, the necessary and inevitable consequence would be, that all trade would fall into the hands of large capitalists. This is so plain, that no man of reflection can doubt it. I know not, therefore, in what words to express my astonishment, when I hear it said that the present measures of government are intended for the good of the many instead of the few, for the benefit of the poor, and against the rich; and when I hear it proposed, at the same moment, to do away with the whole system of credit, and place all trade and commerce, therefore, in the hands of those who have adequate capital to carry them on without the use of any credit at all. This, Sir, would be dividing society, by a precise, distinct, and well-defined line, into two classes; first, the small class, who have competent capital for trade, when credit is out of the question; and, secondly, the vastly numerous class of those whose living must become, in such a state of things, a mere manual occupation, without the use of capital or of any substitute for it.
Now, Sir, it is the effect of a well-regulated system of paper credit to break in upon this line thus dividing the many from the few, and to enable more or less of the more numerous class to pass over it, and to participate in the profits of capital by means of a safe and convenient substitute for capital; and thus to diffuse far more widely the general earnings, and therefore the general prosperity and happiness, of society. Every man of observation must have witnessed, in this country, that men of heavy capital have constantly complained of bank circulation, and a consequent credit system, as injurious to the rights of capital. They undoubtedly feel its effects. All that is gained by the use of credit is just so much subtracted from the amount of their own accumulations, and so much the more has gone to the benefit of those who bestow their own labor and industry on capital in small amounts. To the great majority, this has been of incalculable benefit in the United States; and therefore, Sir, whoever attempts the entire overthrow of the system of bank credit aims a deadly blow at the interest of that great and industrious class, who, having some capital, cannot, nevertheless, transact business without some credit. He can mean nothing else, if he have any intelligible meaning at all, than to turn all such persons over to the long list of mere manual laborers. What else can they do, with not enough of absolute capital, and with no credit? This, Sir, this is the true tendency and the unavoidable result of these measures, which have been undertaken with the patriotic object of assisting the poor against the rich!
I am well aware that bank credit may be abused. I know that there is another extreme, exactly the opposite of that of which I have now been speaking, and no less sedulously to be avoided. I know that the issue of bank paper may become excessive; that depreciation will then follow; and that the evils, the losses, and the frauds consequent on a disordered currency fall on the rich and the poor together, but with especial weight of ruin on the poor. I know that the system of bank credit must always rest on a specie basis, and that it constantly needs to be strictly guarded and properly restrained; and it may be so guarded and restrained. We need not give up the good which belongs to it, through fear of the evils which may follow from its abuse. We have the power to take security against these evils. It is our business, as statesmen, to adopt that security; it is our business not to prostrate, or attempt to prostrate, the system, but to use those means of precaution, restraint, and correction which experience has sanctioned, and which are ready at our hands.
It would be to our everlasting reproach, it would be placing us below the general level of the intelligence of civilized states, to admit that we cannot contrive means to enjoy the benefits of bank circulation, and of avoiding, at the same time, its dangers. Indeed, Sir, no contrivance is necessary. It is contrivance, and the love of contrivance, that spoil all. We are destroying ourselves by a remedy which no evil called for. We are ruining perfect health by nostrums and quackery. We have lived hitherto under a well constructed, practical, and beneficial system; a system not surpassed by any in the world; and it seems to me to be presuming largely, largely indeed, on the credulity and self-denial of the people, to rush with such sudden and impetuous haste into new schemes and new theories, to overturn and annihilate all that we have so long found useful.
Our system has hitherto been one in which paper has been circulating on the strength of a specie basis; that is to say, when every bank-note was convertible into specie at the will of the holder. This has been our guard against excess. While banks are bound to redeem their bills by paying gold and silver on demand, and are at all times able to do this, the currency is safe and convenient. Such a currency is not paper money, in its odious sense. It is not like the Continental paper of Revolutionary times; it is not like the worthless bills of banks which have suspended specie payments. On the contrary, it is the representative of gold and silver, and convertible into gold and silver on demand, and therefore answers the purposes of gold and silver; and so long as its credit is in this way sustained, it is the cheapest, the best, and the most convenient circulating medium. I have already endeavored to warn the country against irredeemable paper; against the paper of banks which do not pay specie for their own notes; against that miserable, abominable, and fraudulent policy, which attempts to give value to any paper, of any bank, one single moment longer than such paper is redeemable on demand in gold and silver. I wish most solemnly and earnestly to repeat that warning. I see danger of that state of things ahead. I see imminent danger that a portion of the State banks will stop specie payments. The late measure of the Secretary, and the infatuation with which it seems to be supported, tend directly and strongly to that result. Under pretence, then, of a design to return to a currency which shall be all specie, we are likely to have a currency in which there shall be no specie at all. We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, and a ruined people. This, I fear, Sir, may be the consequence, already alarmingly near, of this attempt, unwise if it be real, and grossly fraudulent if it be only pretended, of establishing an exclusively hard-money currency.
But, Sir, if this shock could be avoided, and if we could reach the object of an exclusive metallic circulation, we should find in that very success serious and insurmountable inconveniences. We require neither irredeemable paper, nor yet exclusively hard money. We require a mixed system. We require specie, and we require, too, good bank paper, founded on specie, representing specie, and convertible into specie on demand. We require, in short, just such a currency as we have long enjoyed, and the advantages of which we seem now, with unaccountable rashness, about to throw away.
I avow myself, therefore, decidedly against the object of a return to an exclusive specie currency. I find great difficulty, I confess, in believing any man serious in avowing such an object. It seems to me rather a subject for ridicule, at this age of the world, than for sober argument. But if it be true that any are serious for the return of the gold and silver age, I am seriously against it.
Let us, Sir, anticipate, in imagination, the accomplishment of this grand experiment. Let us suppose that, at this moment, all bank paper were out of existence, and the country full of specie. Where, Sir, should we put it, and what should we do with it? Should we ship it, by cargoes, every day, from New York to New Orleans, and from New Orleans back to New York? Should we encumber the turnpikes, the railroads, and the steamboats with it, whenever purchases and sales were to be made in one place of articles to be transported to another? The carriage of the money would, in some cases, cost half as much as the carriage of the goods. Sir, the very first day, under such a state of things, we should set ourselves about the creation of banks. This would immediately become necessary and unavoidable. We may assure ourselves, therefore, without danger of mistake, that the idea of an exclusively metallic currency is totally incompatible, in the existing state of the world, with an active and extensive commerce. It is inconsistent, too, with the greatest good of the greatest number; and therefore I oppose it.
But, Sir, how are we to get through the first experiment, so as to be able to try that which is to be final and ultimate, that is to say, how are we to get rid of the State banks? How is this to be accomplished? Of the Bank of the United States, indeed, we may free ourselves readily; but how are we to annihilate the State banks? We did not speak them into being; we cannot speak them out of being. They did not originate in any exercise of our power; nor do they owe their continuance to our indulgence. They are responsible to the States; to us they are irresponsible. We cannot act upon them; we can only act with them; and the expectation, as it would appear, is, that, by zealously co-operating with the government in carrying into operation its new theory, they may disprove the necessity of their own existence, and fairly work themselves out of the world! Sir, I ask once more, Is a great and intelligent community to endure patiently all sorts of suffering for fantasies like these? How charmingly practicable, how delightfully probable, all this looks!
I find it impossible, Mr. President, to believe that the removal of the deposits arose in any such purpose as is now avowed. I believe all this to be an after-thought. The removal was resolved on as a strong measure against the bank; and now that it has been attended with consequences not at all apprehended from it, instead of being promptly retracted, as it should have been, it is to be justified on the ground of a grand experiment, above the reach of common sagacity, and dropped down, as it were, from the clouds, "to witch the world with noble policy." It is not credible, not possible, Sir, that, six months ago, the administration suddenly started off to astonish mankind with its new inventions in politics, and that it then began its magnificent project by removing the deposits as its first operation. No, Sir, no such thing. The removal of the deposits was a blow at the bank, and nothing more; and if it had succeeded, we should have heard nothing of any project for the final putting down of all State banks. No, Sir, not one word. We should have heard, on the contrary, only of their usefulness, their excellence, and their exact adaptation to the uses and necessities of this government. But the experiment of making successful use of State banks having failed, completely failed, in this the very first endeavor; the State banks having already proved themselves not able to fill the place and perform the duties of a national bank, although highly useful in their appropriate sphere; and the disastrous consequences of the measures of government coming thick and fast upon us, the professed object of the whole movement is at once changed, and the cry now is, Down with all the State banks! Down with all the State banks! and let us return to our embraces of solid gold and solid silver!
THE PRESIDENTIAL PROTEST.
A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 7th OF
MAY, 1834, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S PROTEST AGAINST THE
RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE OF THE 28TH OF MARCH.
Mr. President,—I feel the magnitude of this question. We are coming to a vote which cannot fail to produce important effects on the character of the Senate, and the character of the government.
Unhappily, Sir, the Senate finds itself involved in a controversy with the President of the United States; a man who has rendered most distinguished services to his country, who has hitherto possessed a degree of popular favor perhaps never exceeded, and whose honesty of motive and integrity of purpose are still admitted by those who maintain that his administration has fallen into lamentable errors.
On some of the interesting questions in regard to which the President and Senate hold opposite opinions, the more popular branch of the legislature concurs with the executive. It is not to be concealed that the Senate is engaged against imposing odds. It can sustain itself only by its own prudence and the justice of its cause. It has no patronage by which to secure friends; it can raise up no advocates through the dispensation of favors, for it has no favors to dispense. Its very constitution, as a body whose members are elected for a long term, is capable of being rendered obnoxious, and is daily made the subject of opprobrious remark. It is already denounced as independent of the people, and aristocratic. Nor is it, like the other house, powerful in its numbers; not being, like that, so large as that its members come constantly in direct and extensive contact with the whole people. Under these disadvantages, Sir, which, we may be assured, will be pressed and urged to the utmost length, there is but one course for us. The Senate must stand on its rendered reasons. It must put forth the grounds of its proceedings, and it must then rely on the intelligence and patriotism of the people to carry it through the contest.
As an individual member of the Senate, it gives me great pain to be engaged in such a conflict with the executive government. The occurrences of the last session are fresh in the recollection of all of us; and having felt it to be my duty, at that time, to give my cordial support to highly important measures of the administration, I ardently hoped that nothing might occur to place me afterwards in an attitude of opposition. In all respects, and in every way, it would have been far more agreeable to me to find nothing in the measures of the executive government which I could not cheerfully support. The present occasion of difference has not been sought or made by me. It is thrust upon me, in opposition to strong opinions and wishes, on my part not concealed. The interference with the public deposits dispelled all hope of continued concurrence with the administration, and was a measure so uncalled for, so unnecessary, and, in my judgment, so illegal and indefensible, that, with whatever reluctance it might be opposed by me, opposition was unavoidable.
The paper before us has grown out of this interference. It is a paper which cannot be treated with indifference. The doctrines which it advances, the circumstances which have attended its transmission to the Senate, and the manner in which the Senate may now dispose of it, will form a memorable era in the history of the government. We are either to enter it on our journals, concur in its sentiments, and submit to its rebuke, or we must answer it, with the respect due to the chief magistrate, but with such animadversion on its doctrines as they deserve, and with the firmness imposed upon us by our public duties.
I shall proceed, then, Sir, to consider the circumstances which gave rise to this Protest; to examine the principles which it attempts to establish; and to compare those principles with the Constitution and the laws.
On the 28th day of March, the Senate adopted a resolution declaring that, "in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, the President had assumed a power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both." In that resolution I concurred.
It is not a direct question, now again before us, whether the President really had assumed such illegal power; that point is decided, so far as the Senate ever can decide it. But the Protest denies that, supposing the President to have assumed such illegal power, the Senate could properly pass the resolution; or, what is the same thing, it denies that the Senate could, in this way, express any opinion about it. It denies that the Senate has any right, by resolution, in this or any other case, to express disapprobation of the President's conduct, let that conduct be what it may; and this, one of the leading doctrines of the Protest, I propose to consider. But as I concurred in the resolution of the 28th of March, and did not trouble the Senate, at that time, with any statement of my own reasons, I will avail myself of this opportunity to explain, shortly, what those reasons were.
In the first place, then, I have to say, that I did not vote for the resolution on the mere ground of the removal of Mr. Duane from the office of Secretary of the Treasury. Although I disapprove of the removal altogether, yet the power of removal does exist in the President, according to the established construction of the Constitution; and therefore, although in a particular case it may be abused, and, in my opinion, was abused in this case, yet its exercise cannot be justly said to be an assumption or usurpation. We must all agree that Mr. Duane is out of office. He has, therefore, been removed by a power constitutionally competent to remove him, whatever may be thought of the exercise of that power under the circumstances of the case.
If, then, the act of removing the Secretary be not the assumption of power which the resolution declares, in what is that assumption found? Before giving a precise answer to this inquiry, allow me to recur to some of the principal previous events.
At the end of the last session of Congress, the public moneys of the United States were still in their proper place. That place was fixed by the law of the land, and no power of change was conferred on any other human being than the Secretary of the Treasury. On him the power of change was conferred, to be exercised by himself, if emergency should arise, and to be exercised for reasons which he was bound to lay before Congress. No other officer of the government had the slightest pretence of authority to lay his hand on these moneys for the purpose of changing the place of their custody. All the other heads of departments together could not touch them. The President could not touch them. The power of change was a trust confided to the discretion of the Secretary, and to his discretion alone. The President had no more authority to take upon himself this duty, thus assigned expressly by law to the Secretary, than he had to make the annual report to Congress, or the annual commercial statements, or to perform any other service which the law specially requires of the Secretary. He might just as well sign the warrants for moneys, in the ordinary daily disbursements of government, instead of the Secretary. The statute had assigned the especial duty of removing the deposits, if removed at all, to the Secretary of the Treasury, and to him alone. The consideration of the propriety or necessity of removal must be the consideration of the Secretary; the decision to remove, his decision; and the act of removal, his act.
Now, Sir, on the 18th day of September last, a resolution was taken to remove these deposits from their legislative, that is to say, their legal custody. Whose resolution was this? On the 1st of October, they were removed. By whose power was this done? The papers necessary to accomplish the removal (that is, the orders and drafts) are, it is true, signed by the Secretary. The President's name is not subscribed to them; nor does the Secretary, in any of them, recite or declare that he does the act by direction of the President, or on the President's responsibility. In form, the whole proceeding is the proceeding of the Secretary, and, as such, had the legal effect. The deposits were removed. But whose act was it, in truth and reality? Whose will accomplished it? On whose responsibility was it adopted?
These questions are all explicitly answered by the President himself, in the paper, under his own hand, read to the Cabinet on the 18th of September, and published by his authority. In this paper the President declares, in so many words, that he begs his Cabinet to consider the proposed measure as his own; that its responsibility has been assumed by him; and that he names the first day of October as a period proper for its execution.
Now, Sir, it is precisely this which I deem an assumption of power not conferred by the Constitution and laws. I think the law did not give this authority to the President, nor impose on him the responsibility of its exercise. It is evident that, in this removal, the Secretary was in reality nothing but the scribe; he was the pen in the President's hand, and no more. Nothing depended on his discretion, his judgment, or his responsibility. The removal, indeed, has been admitted and defended in the Senate, as the direct act of the President himself. This, Sir, is what I call assumption of power. If the President had issued an order for the removal of the deposits in his own name, and under his own hand, it would have been an illegal order, and the bank would not have been at liberty to obey it. For the same reason, if the Secretary's order had recited that it was issued by the President's direction, and on the President's authority, it would have shown on its face that it was illegal and invalid. No one can doubt that. The act of removal, to be lawful, must be the bonâ fide act of the Secretary; his judgment, the result of his deliberations, the volition of his mind. All are able to see the difference between the power to remove the Secretary from office, and the power to control him, in all or any of his duties, while in office. The law charges the officer, whoever he may be, with the performance of certain duties. The President, with the consent of the Senate, appoints an individual to be such officer; and this individual he may remove, if he so please; but, until removed, he is the officer, and remains charged with the duties of his station, duties which nobody else can perform, and for the neglect or violation of which he is liable to be impeached.
The distinction is visible and broad between the power of removal and the power to control an officer not removed. The President, it is true, may terminate his political life; but he cannot control his powers and functions, and act upon him as a mere machine, while he is allowed to live. The power of control and direction, nowhere given, certainly, by any express provision of the Constitution or laws, is derived, by those who maintain it, from the right of removal; that is to say, it is a constructive power; it has no express warrant in the Constitution. A very important power, then, is raised by construction in the first place; and being thus raised, it becomes a fountain out of which other important powers, raised also by construction, are to be supplied. There is no little danger that such a mode of reasoning may be carried too far. It cannot be maintained that the power of direct control necessarily flows from the power of removal. Suppose it had been decided in 1789, when the question was debated, that the President does not possess the power of removal; will it be contended, that, in that case, his right of interference with the acts and duties of executive officers would be less than it now is? The reason of the thing would seem to be the other way. If the President may remove an incumbent when he becomes satisfied of his unfaithfulness and incapacity, there would appear to be less necessity to give him also a right of control, than there would be if he could not remove him.
We may try this question by supposing it to arise in a judicial proceeding. If the Secretary of the Treasury were impeached for removing the deposits, could he justify himself by saying that he did it by the President's direction? If he could, then no executive officer could ever be impeached who obeys the President; and the whole notion of making such officers impeachable at all would be farcical. If he could not so justify himself, (and all will allow he could not,) the reason can only be that the act of removal is his own act; the power, a power confided to him, for the just exercise of which the law looks to his discretion, his honesty, and his direct responsibility.
Now, Sir, the President wishes the world to understand that he himself decided on the question of the removal of the deposits; that he took the whole responsibility of the measure upon himself; that he wished it to be considered his own act; that he not only himself decided that the thing should be done, but regulated its details also, and named the day for carrying it into effect.
I have always entertained a very erroneous view of the partition of powers, and of the true nature of official responsibility under our Constitution, if this be not a plain case of the assumption of power.
The legislature had fixed a place, by law, for the keeping of the public money. They had, at the same time and by the same law, created and conferred a power of removal, to be exercised contingently. This power they had vested in the Secretary, by express words. The law did not say that the deposits should be made in the bank, unless the President should order otherwise; but it did say that they should be made there, unless the Secretary of the Treasury should order otherwise. I put it to the plain sense and common candor of all men, whether the discretion thus to be exercised over the subject was not the Secretary's own personal discretion; and whether, therefore, the interposition of the authority of another, acting directly and conclusively on the subject, deciding the whole question, even in its particulars and details, be not an assumption of power?
The Senate regarded this interposition as an encroachment by the executive on other branches of the government; as an interference with the legislative disposition of the public treasure. It was strongly and forcibly urged, yesterday, by the honorable member from South Carolina, that the true and only mode of preserving any balance of power, in mixed governments, is to keep an exact balance. This is very true, and to this end encroachment must be resisted at the first step. The question is, therefore, whether, upon the true principles of the Constitution, this exercise of power by the President can be justified. Whether the consequences be prejudicial or not, if there be an illegal exercise of power, it is to be resisted in the proper manner. Even if no harm or inconvenience result from transgressing the boundary, the intrusion is not to be suffered to pass unnoticed. Every encroachment, great or small, is important enough to awaken the attention of those who are intrusted with the preservation of a constitutional government. We are not to wait till great public mischiefs come, till the government is overthrown, or liberty itself put into extreme jeopardy. We should not be worthy sons of our fathers were we so to regard great questions affecting the general freedom. Those fathers accomplished the Revolution on a strict question of principle. The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the Colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty; and that was, in their eyes, enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactments, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They poured out their treasures and their blood like water, in a contest against an assertion which those less sagacious and not so well schooled in the principles of civil liberty would have regarded as barren phraseology, or mere parade of words. They saw in the claim of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power; they detected it, dragged it forth from underneath its plausible disguises, struck at it; nor did it elude either their steady eye or their well-directed blow till they had extirpated and destroyed it, to the smallest fibre. On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power, to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.
The necessity of holding strictly to the principle upon which free governments are constructed, and to those precise lines which fix the partitions of power between different branches, is as plain, if not as cogent, as that of resisting, as our fathers did, the strides of the parent country against the rights of the Colonies; because, whether the power which exceeds its just limits be foreign or domestic, whether it be the encroachment of all branches on the rights of the people, or that of one branch on the rights of others, in either case the balanced and well-adjusted machinery of free government is disturbed, and, if the derangement go on, the whole system must fall.
But the case before us is not a case of merely theoretic infringement; nor is it one of trifling importance. Far otherwise. It respects one of the highest and most important of all the powers of government; that is to say, the custody and control of the public money. The act of removing the deposits, which I now consider as the President's act, and which his friends on this floor defend as his act, took the national purse from beneath the security and guardianship of the law, and disposed of its contents, in parcels, in such places of deposit as he chose to select. At this very moment, every dollar of the public treasure is subject, so far as respects its custody and safe-keeping, to his unlimited control. We know not where it is to-day; still less do we know where it may be to-morrow.
But, Mr. President, this is not all. There is another part of the case, which has not been so much discussed, but which appears to me to be still more indefensible in its character. It is something which may well teach us the tendency of power to move forward with accelerated pace, if it be allowed to take the first step. The Bank of the United States, in addition to the services rendered to the treasury, gave for its charter, and for the use of the public deposits, a bonus or outright sum of one million and a half of dollars. This sum was paid by the bank into the treasury soon after the commencement of its charter. In the act which passed both houses for renewing the charter, in 1832, it was provided that the bank, for the same consideration, should pay two hundred thousand dollars a year during the period for which it was proposed to renew it. A similar provision is in the bill which I asked leave to introduce some weeks ago. Now, Sir, this shows that the custody of the deposits is a benefit for which a bank may well afford to pay a large annual sum. The banks which now hold the deposits pay nothing to the public; they give no bonus, they pay no annuity. But this loss of so much money is not the worst part of the case, nor that which ought most to alarm us. Although they pay nothing to the public, they do pay, nevertheless, such sums, and for such uses, as may be agreed upon between themselves and the executive government. We are officially informed that an officer is appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to inspect or superintend these selected banks; and this officer is compensated by a salary fixed by the executive, agreed to by the banks, and paid by them. I ask, Sir, if there can be a more irregular or a more illegal transaction than this? Whose money is it out of which this salary is paid? Is it not money justly due to the United States, and paid, because it is so due, for the advantage of holding the deposits? If a dollar is received on that account, is not its only true destination into the general treasury of the government? And who has authority, without law, to create an office, to fix a salary, and to pay that salary out of this money? Here is an inspector or supervisor of the deposit banks. But what law has provided for such an officer? What commission has he received? Who concurred in his appointment? What oath does he take? How is he to be punished or impeached if he colludes with any of these banks to embezzle the public money or defraud the government? The value of the use of this public money to the deposit banks is probably two hundred thousand dollars a year; or, if less than that, it is yet, certainly, a very great sum. May the President appoint whatever officers he pleases, with whatever duties he pleases, and pay them as much as he pleases, out of the moneys thus paid by the banks, for the sake of having the deposits?
Mr. President, the executive claim of power is exactly this, that the President may keep the money of the public in whatever banks he chooses, on whatever terms he chooses, and apply the sums which these banks are willing to pay for its use to whatever purposes he chooses. These sums are not to come into the general treasury. They are to be appropriated before they get there; they are never to be brought under the control of Congress; they are to be paid to officers and agents not known to the law, not nominated to the Senate, and responsible to nobody but the executive itself. I ask gentlemen if all this be lawful. Are they prepared to defend it? Will they stand up and justify it? In my opinion, Sir, it is a clear and most dangerous assumption of power. It is the creation of office without law; the appointment to office without consulting the Senate; the establishment of a salary without law; and the payment of that salary out of a fund which itself is derived from the use of the public treasures. This, Sir, is my other reason for concurring in the vote of the 28th of March; and on these grounds I leave the propriety of that vote, so far as I am concerned with it, to be judged of by the country.
But, Sir, the President denies the power of the Senate to pass any such resolution, on any ground whatever. Suppose the declaration contained in the resolution to be true; suppose the President had, in fact, assumed powers not granted to him; does the Senate possess the right to declare its opinion, affirming this fact, or does it not? I maintain that the Senate does possess such a power; the President denies it.
Mr. President, we need not look far, nor search deep, for the foundation of this right in the Senate. It is close at hand, and clearly visible. In the first place, it is the right of self-defence. In the second place, it is a right founded on the duty of representative bodies, in a free government, to defend the public liberty against encroachment. We must presume that the Senate honestly entertained the opinion expressed in the resolution of the 28th of March; and, entertaining that opinion, its right to express it is but the necessary consequence of its right to defend its own constitutional authority, as one branch of the government. This is its clear right, and this, too, is its imperative duty.
If one or both the other branches of the government happen to do that which appears to us inconsistent with the constitutional rights of the Senate, will any one say that the Senate is yet bound to be passive, and to be silent? to do nothing, and to say nothing? Or, if one branch appears to encroach on the rights of the other two, have these two no power of remonstrance, complaint, or resistance? Sir, the question may be put in a still more striking form. Has the Senate a right to have an opinion in a case of this kind? If it may have an opinion, how is that opinion to be ascertained but by resolution and vote? The objection must go the whole length; it must maintain that the Senate has not only no right to express opinions, but no right to form opinions, on the conduct of the executive government, though in matters intimately affecting the powers and duties of the Senate itself. It is not possible, Sir, that such a doctrine can be maintained for a single moment. All political bodies resist what they deem encroachments by resolutions expressive of their sentiments, and their purpose to resist such encroachments. When such a resolution is presented for its consideration, the question is, whether it be true; not whether the body has authority to pass it, admitting it to be true. The Senate, like other public bodies, is perfectly justifiable in defending, in this mode, either its legislative or executive authority. The usages of Parliament, the practice in our State legislatures and assemblies, both before and since the Revolution, and precedents in the Senate itself, fully maintain this right. The case of the Panama mission is in point. In that case, Mr. Branch, from North Carolina, introduced a resolution, which, after reciting that the President, in his annual message and in his communication to the Senate, had asserted that he possessed an authority to make certain appointments, although the appointments had not been made, went on to declare that "a silent acquiescence on the part of this body may, at some future time, be drawn into dangerous precedent"; and to resolve, therefore, that the President does not possess the right or power said to be claimed by him. This resolution was discussed, and finally laid on the table. But the question discussed was, whether the resolution was correct, in fact and principle; not whether the Senate had any right to pass such resolution. So far as I remember, no one pretended that, if the President had exceeded his authority, the Senate might not so declare by resolution. No one ventured to contend that, whether the rights of the Senate were invaded or not, the Senate must hold its peace.
The Protest labors strenuously to show that the Senate adopted the resolution of the 28th of March, under its judicial authority. The reason of this attempt is obvious enough. If the Senate, in its judicial character, has been trying the President, then he has not had a regular and formal trial; and, on that ground, it is hoped the public sympathy may be moved. But the Senate has acted not in its judicial, but in its legislative capacity. As a legislative body, it has defended its own just authority, and the authority of the other branch of the legislature. Whatever attacks our own rights and privileges, or whatever encroaches on the power of both houses, we may oppose and resist, by declaration, resolution, or other similar proceedings. If we look to the books of precedents, if we examine the journals of legislative bodies, we find everywhere instances of such proceedings.
It is to be observed, Sir, that the Protest imposes silence on the House of Representatives as well as on the Senate. It declares that no power is conferred on either branch of the legislature, to consider or decide upon official acts of the executive, for the purpose of censure, and without a view to legislation or impeachment. This, I think, Sir, is pretty high-toned pretension. According to this doctrine, neither house could assert its own rights, however the executive might assail them; neither house could point out the danger to the people, however fast executive encroachment might be extending itself, or whatever danger it might threaten to the public liberties. If the two houses of Congress may not express an opinion of executive conduct by resolution, there is the same reason why they should not express it in any other form, or by any other mode of proceeding. Indeed, the Protest limits both houses, expressly, to the case of impeachment. If the House of Representatives are not about to impeach the President, they have nothing to say of his measures or of his conduct; and unless the Senate are engaged in trying an impeachment, their mouths, too, are stopped. It is the practice of the President to send us an annual message, in which he rehearses the general proceedings of the executive for the past year. This message we refer to our committees for consideration. But, according to the doctrine of the Protest, they can express no opinion upon any executive proceeding upon which it gives information. Suppose the President had told us, in his last annual message, what he had previously told us in his cabinet paper, that the removal of the deposits was his act, done on his responsibility; and that the Secretary of the Treasury had exercised no discretion, formed no judgment, presumed to have no opinion whatever, on the subject. This part of the message would have been referred to the committee on finance; but what could they say? They think it shows a plain violation of the Constitution and the laws; but the President is not impeached; therefore they can express no censure. They think it a direct invasion of legislative power, but they must not say so. They may, indeed, commend, if they can. The grateful business of praise is lawful to them; but if, instead of commendation and applause, they find cause for disapprobation, censure, or alarm, the Protest enjoins upon them absolute silence.
Formerly, Sir, it was a practice for the President to meet both houses, at the opening of the session, and deliver a speech, as is still the usage of some of the State legislatures. To this speech there was an answer from each house$ and those answers expressed, freely, the sentiments of the house upon all the merits and faults of the administration. The discussion of the topics contained in the speech, and the debate on the answers, usually drew out the whole force of parties, and lasted sometimes a week. President Washington's conduct, in every year of his administration, was thus freely and publicly canvassed. He did not complain of it; he did not doubt that both houses had a perfect right to comment, with the utmost latitude, consistent with decorum, upon all his measures. Answers, or amendments to answers, were not unfrequently proposed, very hostile to his own course of public policy, if not sometimes bordering on disrespect. And when they did express respect and regard, there were votes ready to be recorded against the expression of those sentiments. To all this President Washington took no exception; for he well knew that these, and similar proceedings, belonged to the power of popular bodies. But if the President were now to meet us with a speech, and should inform us of measures, adopted by himself in the recess, which should appear to us the most plain, palpable, and dangerous violations of the Constitution, we must, nevertheless, either keep respectful silence, or fill our answer merely with courtly phrases of approbation.
Mr. President, I know not who wrote this Protest, but I confess I am astonished, truly astonished, as well at the want of knowledge which it displays of constitutional law, as at the high and dangerous pretensions which it puts forth. Neither branch of the legislature can express censure upon the President's conduct! Suppose, Sir, that we should see him enlisting troops and raising an army, can we say nothing, and do nothing? Suppose he were to declare war against a foreign power, and put the army and the fleet in action; are we still to be silent? Suppose we should see him borrowing money on the credit of the United States; are we yet to wait for impeachment? Indeed, Sir, in regard to this borrowing money on the credit of the United States, I wish to call the attention of the Senate, not only to what might happen, but to what has actually happened. We are informed that the Post-Office Department, a department over which the President claims the same control as over the rest, has actually borrowed near half a million of money on the credit of the United States.
Mr. President, the first power granted to Congress by the Constitution is the power to lay taxes; the second, the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. Now, Sir, where does the executive find its authority, in or through any department, to borrow money without authority of Congress? This proceeding appears to me wholly illegal, and reprehensible in a very high degree. It may be said that it is not true that this money is borrowed on the credit of the United States, but that it is borrowed on the credit of the Post-Office Department. But that would be mere evasion. The department is but a name. It is an office, and nothing more. The banks have not lent this money to any officer. If Congress should abolish the whole department to-morrow, would the banks not expect the United States to replace this borrowed money? The money, then, is borrowed on the credit of the United States, an act which Congress alone is competent to authorize. If the Post-Office Department may borrow money, so may the War Department and the Navy Department. If half a million may be borrowed, ten millions may be borrowed. What, then, if this transaction shall be justified, is to hinder the executive from borrowing money to maintain fleets and armies, or for any other purpose, at his pleasure, without any authority of law? Yet even this, according to the doctrine of the Protest, we have no right to complain of. We have no right to declare that an executive department has violated the Constitution and broken the law, by borrowing money on the credit of the United States. Nor could we make a similar declaration, if we were to see the executive, by means of this borrowed money, enlisting armies and equipping fleets. And yet, Sir, the President has found no difficulty, heretofore, in expressing his opinions, in a paper not called for by the exercise of any official duty, upon the conduct and proceedings of the two houses of Congress. At the commencement of this session, he sent us a message, commenting on the land bill which the two houses passed at the end of the last session. That bill he had not approved, nor had he returned it with objections. Congress was dissolved; and the bill, therefore, was completely dead, and could not be revived. No communication from him could have the least possible effect as an official act. Yet he saw fit to send a message on the subject, and in that message he very freely declares his opinion that the bill which had passed both houses began with an entire subversion of every one of the compacts by which the United States became possessed of their Western domain; that one of its provisions was in direct and undisguised violation of the pledge given by Congress to the States; that the Constitution provides that these compacts shall be untouched by the legislative power, which can only make needful rules and regulations; and that all beyond that is an assumption of undelegated power.
These are the terms in which the President speaks of an act of the two houses; not in an official paper, not in a communication which it was necessary for him to make to them; but in a message, adopted only as a mode through which to make public these opinions. After this, it would seem too late to enjoin on the houses of Congress a total forbearance from all comment on the measures of the executive.
Not only is it the right of both houses, or of either, to resist, by vote, declaration, or resolution, whatever it may deem an encroachment of executive power, but it is also undoubtedly the right of either house to oppose, in like manner, any encroachment by the other. The two houses have each its own appropriate powers and authorities, which it is bound to preserve. They have, too, different constituents. The members of the Senate are representatives of States; and it is in the Senate alone that the four-and-twenty States, as political bodies, have a direct influence in the legislative and executive powers of this government. He is a strange advocate of State rights, who maintains that this body, thus representing the States, and thus being the strictly federal branch of the legislature, may not assert and maintain all and singular its own powers and privileges, against either or both of the other branches.
If any thing be done or threatened derogatory to the rights of the States, as secured by the organization of the Senate, may we not lift up our voices against it? Suppose the House of Representatives should vote that the Senate ought not to propose amendments to revenue bills; would it be the duty of the Senate to take no notice of such proceeding? Or, if we were to see the President issuing commissions to office to persons who had never been nominated to the Senate, are we not to remonstrate?
Sir, there is no end of cases, no end of illustrations. The doctrines of the Protest, in this respect, cannot stand the slightest scrutiny; they are blown away by the first breath of discussion.
And yet, Sir, it is easy to perceive why this right of declaring its sentiments respecting the conduct of the executive is denied to either house, in its legislative capacity. It is merely that the Senate might be presented in the odious light of trying the President, judicially, without regular accusation or hearing. The Protest declares that the President is charged with a crime, and, without hearing or trial, found guilty and condemned. This is evidently an attempt to appeal to popular feeling, and to represent the President as unjustly treated and unfairly tried. Sir, it is a false appeal. The President has not been tried at all; he has not been accused; he has not been charged with crime; he has not been condemned. Accusation, trial, and sentence are terms belonging to judicial proceedings. But the Senate has been engaged in no such proceeding. The resolution of the 28th of March was not an exercise of judicial power, either in form, in substance, or in intent. Everybody knows that the Senate can exercise no judicial power until articles of impeachment are brought before it. It is then to proceed, by accusation and answer, hearing, trial, and judgment. But there has been no impeachment, no answer, no hearing, no judgment. All that the Senate did was to pass a resolution, in legislative form, declaring its opinion of certain acts of the executive. This resolution imputed no crime; it charged no corrupt motive; it proposed no punishment. It was directed, not against the President personally, but against the act; and that act it declared to be, in its judgment, an assumption of authority not warranted by the Constitution.
It is in vain that the Protest attempts to shift the resolution to the judicial character of the Senate. The case is too plain for such an argument to be plausible. But, in order to lay some foundation for it, the Protest, as I have already said, contends that neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives can express its opinions on the conduct of the President, except in some form connected with impeachment; so that if the power of impeachment did not exist, these two houses, though they be representative bodies, though one of them be filled by the immediate representatives of the people, though they be constituted like other popular and representative bodies, could not utter a syllable, although they saw the executive either trampling on their own rights and privileges, or grasping at absolute authority and dominion over the liberties of the country! Sir, I hardly know how to speak of such claims of impunity for executive encroachment. I am amazed that any American citizen should draw up a paper containing such lofty pretensions; pretensions which would have been met with scorn in England, at any time since the Revolution of 1688. A man who should stand up, in either house of the British Parliament, to maintain that the house could not, by vote or resolution, maintain its own rights and privileges, would make even the Tory benches hang their heads for very shame.
There was, indeed, a time when such proceedings were not allowed. Some of the kings of the Stuart race would not tolerate them. A signal instance of royal displeasure with the proceedings of Parliament occurred in the latter part of the reign of James the First. The House of Commons had spoken, on some occasion, "of its own undoubted rights and privileges." The king thereupon sent them a letter, declaring that he would not allow that they had any undoubted rights; but that what they enjoyed they might still hold by his own royal grace and permission. Sir Edward Coke and Mr. Granville were not satisfied with this title to their privileges; and, under their lead, the house entered on its journals a resolution asserting its privileges, as its own undoubted right, and manifesting a determination to maintain them as such. This, says the historian, so enraged his Majesty, that he sent for the journal, had it brought into the Council, and there, in the presence of his lords and great officers of state, tore out the offensive resolution with his own royal hand. He then dissolved Parliament, and sent its most refractory members to the Tower. I have no fear, certainly, Sir, that this English example will be followed, on this occasion, to its full extent; nor would I insinuate that any thing outrageous has been thought of, or intended, except outrageous pretensions; but such pretensions I must impute to the author of this Protest, whoever that author may be.
When this and the other house shall lose the freedom of speech and debate; when they shall surrender the rights of publicly and freely canvassing all important measures of the executive; when they shall not be allowed to maintain their own authority and their own privileges by vote, declaration, or resolution,—they will then be no longer free representatives of a free people, but slaves themselves, and fit instruments to make slaves of others.
The Protest, Mr. President, concedes what it doubtless regards as a liberal right of discussion to the people themselves. But its language, even in acknowledging this right of the people to discuss the conduct of their servants, is qualified and peculiar. The free people of the United States, it declares, have an undoubted right to discuss the official conduct of the President in such language and form as they may think proper, "subject only to the restraints of truth and justice." But, then, who is to be judge of this truth and justice? Are the people to judge for themselves, or are others to judge for them? The Protest is here speaking of political rights, and not moral rights; and if restraints are imposed on political rights, it must follow, of course, that others are to decide whenever the case arises whether these restraints have been violated. It is strange that the writer of the Protest did not perceive that, by using this language, he was pushing the President into a direct avowal of the doctrines of 1798. The text of the Protest and the text of the obnoxious act[1] of that year are nearly identical.
But, Sir, if the people have a right to discuss the official conduct of the executive, so have their representatives. We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty. Is he to be blind, though visible danger approaches? Is he to be deaf, though sounds of peril fill the air? Is he to be dumb, while a thousand duties impel him to raise the cry of alarm? Is he not, rather, to catch the lowest whisper which breathes intention or purpose of encroachment on the public liberties, and to give his voice breath and utterance at the first appearance of danger? Is not his eye to traverse the whole horizon with the keen and eager vision of an unhooded hawk, detecting, through all disguises, every enemy advancing, in any form, towards the citadel which he guards? Sir, this watchfulness for public liberty; this duty of foreseeing danger and proclaiming it; this promptitude and boldness in resisting attacks on the Constitution from any quarter; this defence of established landmarks; this fearless resistance of whatever would transcend or remove them,—all belong to the representative character, are interwoven with its very nature. If deprived of them, an active, intelligent, faithful agent of the people will be converted into an unresisting and passive instrument of power. A representative body, which gives up these rights and duties, gives itself up. It is a representative body no longer. It has broken the tie between itself and its constituents, and henceforth is fit only to be regarded as an inert, self-sacrificed mass, from which all appropriate principle of vitality has departed for ever.
I have thus endeavored to vindicate the right of the Senate to pass the resolution of the 28th of March, notwithstanding the denial of that right in the Protest.
But there are other sentiments and opinions expressed in the Protest, of the very highest importance, and which demand nothing less than our utmost attention.
The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty; and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights. In other words, they must be subject to rule and regulation. This is the very essence of free political institutions. The spirit of liberty is, indeed, a bold and fearless spirit; but it is also a sharp-sighted spirit, it is a cautious, sagacious, discriminating, far-seeing intelligence; it is jealous of encroachment, jealous of power, jealous of man. It demands checks; it seeks for guards; it insists on securities; it intrenches itself behind strong defences, and fortifies itself with all possible care against the assaults of ambition and passion. It does not trust the amiable weaknesses of human nature, and therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though benevolence, good intent, and patriotic purpose come along with it. Neither does it satisfy itself with flashy and temporary resistance to illegal authority. Far otherwise. It seeks for duration and permanence. It looks before and after; and, building on the experience of ages which are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages to come. This is the nature of constitutional liberty; and this is our liberty, if we will rightly understand and preserve it. Every free government is necessarily complicated, because all such governments establish restraints, as well on the power of government itself as on that of individuals. If we will abolish the distinction of branches, and have but one branch; if we will abolish jury trials, and leave all to the judge; if we will then ordain that the legislator shall himself be that judge; and if we will place the executive power in the same hands, we may readily simplify government. We may easily bring it to the simplest of all possible forms, a pure despotism. But a separation of departments, so far as practicable, and the preservation of clear lines of division between them, is the fundamental idea in the creation of all our constitutions; and, doubtless, the continuance of regulated liberty depends on maintaining these boundaries.
In the progress, Sir, of the governments of the United States, we seem exposed to two classes of dangers or disturbances; one external, the other internal. It may happen that collisions arise between this government and the governments of the States. That case belongs to the first class. A memorable instance of this kind occurred last year. It was my conscientious opinion, on that occasion, that the authority claimed by an individual State[2] was subversive of the just powers of this government, and, indeed, incompatible with its existence. I gave a hearty co-operation, therefore, to measures which the crisis seemed to require. We have now before us what appears, to my judgment, to be an instance of the latter kind. A contest has arisen between different branches of the same government, interrupting their harmony, and threatening to disturb their balance. It is of the highest importance, therefore, to examine the question carefully, and to decide it justly.