American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) by Various

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But to return from this digression to the consideration of the bill.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist upon other points, there is one
on which I should suppose there can be none; that this bill rests upon
principles which, if carried out, will ride over State sovereignties,
and that it will be idle for any advocates hereafter to talk of State
rights. The Senator from Virginia (Mr. Rives) says that he is the
advocate of State rights; but he must permit me to tell him that,
although he may differ in premises from the other gentlemen with whom he
acts on this occasion, yet, in supporting this bill, he obliterates
every vestige of distinction between him and them, saving only that,
professing the principles of '98, his example will be more pernicious
than that of the most open and bitter opponent of the rights of the
States. I will also add, what I am compelled to say, that I must
consider him (Mr. Rives) as less consistent than our old opponents,
whose conclusions were fairly drawn from their premises, while his
premises ought to have led him to opposite conclusions. The gentleman
has told us that the new-fangled doctrines, as he chooses to call them,
have brought State rights into disrepute. I must tell him, in reply,
that what he calls new-fangled are but the doctrines of '98; and that it
is he (Mr. Rives), and others with him, who, professing these doctrines,
have degraded them by explaining away their meaning and efficacy. He
(Mr. R.) has disclaimed, in behalf of Virginia, the authorship of
nullification. I will not dispute that point. If Virginia chooses to
throw away one of her brightest ornaments, she must not hereafter
complain that it has become the property of another. But while I have,
as a representative of Carolina, no right to complain of the disavowal
of the Senator from Virginia, I must believe that he (Mr. R.) has done
his native State great injustice by declaring on this floor, that when
she gravely resolved, in '98, that "in cases of deliberate and dangerous
infractions of the Constitution, the States, as parties to the compact,
have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose to arrest the
progress of the evil, and to maintain within their respective limits the
authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them," she meant no
more than to proclaim the right to protest and to remonstrate. To
suppose that, in putting forth so solemn a declaration, which she
afterward sustained by so able and elaborate an argument, she meant no
more than to assert what no one had ever denied, would be to suppose
that the State had been guilty of the most egregious trifling that ever
was exhibited on so solemn an occasion.

THOMAS H. BENTON, OF MISSOURI. (BORN 1782, DIED 1858.)

ON THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION

--UNITED STATES SENATE, JANUARY 12, 1837

MR. PRESIDENT:

It is now near three years since the resolve was adopted by the Senate,
which it is my present motion to expunge from the journal. At the moment
that this resolve was adopted, I gave notice of my intention to move to
expunge it; and then expressed my confident belief that the motion would
eventually prevail. That expression of confidence was not an ebullition
of vanity, or a presumptuous calculation, intended to accelerate the
event it affected to foretell. It was not a vain boast, or an idle
assumption, but was the result of a deep conviction of the injustice
done President Jackson, and a thorough reliance upon the justice of the
American people. I felt that the President had been wronged; and my
heart told me that this wrong would be redressed! The event proves that
I was not mistaken. The question of expunging this resolution has been
carried to the people, and their decision has been had upon it. They
decide in favor of the expurgation; and their decision has been both
made and manifested, and communicated to us in a great variety of ways.
A great number of States have expressly instructed their senators to
vote for this expurgation. A very great majority of the States have
elected senators and representatives to Congress, upon the express
ground of favoring this expurgation. The Bank of the United States,
which took the initiative in the accusation against the President, and
furnished the material, and worked the machinery which was used against
him, and which was then so powerful on this floor, has become more and
more odious to the public mind, and musters now but a slender phalanx of
friends in the two Houses of Congress. The late Presidential election
furnishes additional evidence of public sentiment. The candidate who was
the friend of President Jackson, the supporter of his administration,
and the avowed advocate for the expurgation, has received a large
majority of the suffrages of the whole Union, and that after an express
declaration of his sentiments on this precise point. The evidence of the
public will, exhibited in all these forms, is too manifest to be
mistaken, too explicit to require illustration, and too imperative to be
disregarded. Omitting details and specific enumeration of proofs, I
refer to our own files for the instructions to expunge,--to the
complexion of the two Houses for the temper of the people,--to the
denationalized condition of the Bank of the United States for the fate
of the imperious accuser,--and to the issue of the Presidential election
for the answer of the Union.

All these are pregnant proofs of the public will, and the last
preeminently so: because, both the question of the expurgation, and the
form of the process, were directly put in issue upon it. * * *

Assuming, then, that we have ascertained the will of the people on this
great question, the inquiry presents itself, how far the expression of
that will ought to be conclusive of our action here. I hold that it
ought to be binding and obligatory upon us; and that, not only upon the
principles of representative government, which requires obedience to the
known will of the people, but also in conformity to the principles upon
which the proceeding against President Jackson was conducted when the
sentence against him was adopted. Then everything was done with especial
reference to the will of the people. Their impulsion was assumed to be
the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate verdict was
expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and pressure--every
engine of political and moneyed power--was put in motion, and worked for
many months, to excite the people against the President; and to stir up
meetings, memorials, petitions, travelling committees, and distress
deputations against him; and each symptom of popular discontent was
hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted here as proof that the
people demanded the condemnation of the President. Not only legislative
assemblies, and memorials from large assemblies, were then produced here
as evidence of public opinion, but the petitions of boys under age, the
remonstrances of a few signers, and the results of the most
inconsiderable elections were ostentatiously paraded and magnified, as
the evidence of the sovereign will of our constituents. Thus, sir, the
public voice was everything, while that voice, partially obtained
through political and pecuniary machinations, was adverse to the
President. Then the popular will was the shrine at which all worshipped.
Now, when that will is regularly, soberly, repeatedly, and almost
universally expressed through the ballot-boxes, at the various
elections, and turns out to be in favor of the President, certainly no
one can disregard it, nor otherwise look at it than as the solemn
verdict of the competent and ultimate tribunal upon an issue fairly made
up, fully argued, and duly submitted for decision. As such verdict, I
receive it. As the deliberate verdict of the sovereign people, I bow to
it. I am content. I do not mean to reopen the case nor to re-commence
the argument. I leave that work to others, if any others choose to
perform it. For myself, I am content; and, dispensing with further
argument, I shall call for judgment, and ask to have execution done,
upon that unhappy journal, which the verdict of millions of freemen
finds guilty of bearing on its face an untrue, illegal, and
unconstitutional sentence of condemnation against the approved President
of the Republic.

But, while declining to reopen the argument of this question, and
refusing to tread over again the ground already traversed, there is
another and a different task to perform; one which the approaching
termination of President Jackson's administration makes peculiarly
proper at this time, and which it is my privilege, and perhaps my duty,
to execute, as being the suitable conclusion to the arduous contest in
which we have been so long engaged. I allude to the general tenor of his
administration, and to its effect, for good or for evil, upon the
condition of his country. This is the proper time for such a view to be
taken. The political existence of this great man now draws to a close.
In little more than forty days he ceases to be an object of political
hope to any, and should cease to be an object of political hate, or
envy, to all. Whatever of motive the servile and time-serving might have
found in his exalted station for raising the altar of adulation, and
burning the incense of praise before him, that motive can no longer
exist. The dispenser of the patronage of an empire, the chief of this
great confederacy of States, is soon to be a private individual,
stripped of all power to reward, or to punish. His own thoughts, as he
has shown us in the concluding paragraph of that message which is to be
the last of its kind that we shall ever receive from him, are directed
to that beloved retirement from which he was drawn by the voice of
millions of freemen, and to which he now looks for that interval of
repose which age and infirmities require. Under these circumstances, he
ceases to be a subject for the ebullition of the passions, and passes
into a character for the contemplation of history. Historically, then,
shall I view him; and limiting this view to his civil administration, I
demand, where is there a chief magistrate of whom so much evil has been
predicted, and from whom so much good has come? Never has any man
entered upon the chief magistracy of a country under such appalling
predictions of ruin and woe! never has any one been so pursued with
direful prognostications! never has any one been so beset and impeded by
a powerful combination of political and moneyed confederates! never has
any one in any country where the administration of justice has risen
above the knife or the bowstring, been so lawlessly and shamelessly
tried and condemned by rivals and enemies, without hearing, without
defence, without the forms of law and justice! History has been
ransacked to find examples of tyrants sufficiently odious to illustrate
him by comparison. Language has been tortured to find epithets
sufficiently strong to paint him in description. Imagination has been
exhausted in her efforts to deck him with revolting and inhuman
attributes. Tyrant, despot, usurper; destroyer of the liberties of his
country; rash, ignorant, imbecile; endangering the public peace with all
foreign nations; destroying domestic prosperity at home; ruining all
industry, all commerce, all manufactures; annihilating confidence
between man and man; delivering up the streets of populous cities to
grass and weeds, and the wharves of commercial towns to the encumbrance
of decaying vessels; depriving labor of all reward; depriving industry
of all employment; destroying the currency; plunging an innocent and
happy people from the summit of felicity to the depths of misery, want,
and despair. Such is the faint outline, followed up by actual
condemnation, of the appalling denunciations daily uttered against this
one MAN, from the moment he became an object of political competition,
down to the concluding moment of his political existence.

The sacred voice of inspiration has told us that there is a time for all
things. There certainly has been a time for every evil that human nature
admits of to be vaticinated of President Jackson's administration;
equally certain the time has now come for all rational and well-disposed
people to compare the predictions with the facts, and to ask themselves
if these calamitous prognostications have been verified by events? Have
we peace, or war, with foreign nations? Certainly, we have peace with
all the world! peace with all its benign, and felicitous, and
beneficent influences! Are we respected, or despised abroad? Certainly
the American name never was more honored throughout the four quarters of
the globe than in this very moment. Do we hear of indignity or outrage
in any quarter? of merchants robbed in foreign ports? of vessels
searched on the high seas? of American citizens impressed into foreign
service? of the national flag insulted anywhere? On the contrary, we see
former wrongs repaired; no new ones inflicted. France pays twenty-five
millions of francs for spoliations committed thirty years ago; Naples
pays two millions one hundred thousand ducats for wrongs of the same
date; Denmark pays six hundred and fifty thousand rix-dollars for wrongs
done a quarter of a century ago; Spain engages to pay twelve millions of
reals vellon for injuries of fifteen years' date; and Portugal, the last
in the list of former aggressors, admits her liability and only waits
the adjustment of details to close her account by adequate indemnity. So
far from war, insult, contempt, and spoliation from abroad, this
denounced administration has been the season of peace and good will and
the auspicious era of universal reparation. So far from suffering injury
at the hands of foreign powers, our merchants have received indemnities
for all former injuries. It has been the day of accounting, of
settlement, and of retribution. The total list of arrearages, extending
through four successive previous administrations, has been closed and
settled up. The wrongs done to commerce for thirty years back, and under
so many different Presidents, and indemnities withheld from all, have
been repaired and paid over under the beneficent and glorious
administration of President Jackson. But one single instance of outrage
has occurred, and that at the extremities of the world, and by a
piratical horde, amenable to no law but the law of force. The Malays of
Sumatra committed a robbery and massacre upon an American vessel.
Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of the
United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial of
treating with robbers and assassins, was to hold back the arm of
justice. Commodore Downes went out. His cannon and his bayonets struck
the outlaws in their den. They paid in terror and in blood for the
outrage which was committed; and the great lesson was taught to these
distant pirates--to our antipodes themselves,--that not even the entire
diameter of this globe could protect them, and that the name of American
citizen, like that of Roman citizen in the great days of the Republic
and of the empire, was to be the inviolable passport of all that wore it
throughout the whole extent of the habitable world. * * *

From President Jackson, the country has first learned the true theory
and practical intent of the Constitution, in giving to the Executive a
qualified negative on the legislative power of Congress. Far from being
an odious, dangerous, or kingly prerogative, this power, as vested in
the President, is nothing but a qualified copy of the famous veto power
vested in the tribunes of the people among the Romans, and intended to
suspend the passage of a law until the people themselves should have
time to consider it? The qualified veto of the President destroys
nothing; it only delays the passage of a law, and refers it to the
people for their consideration and decision. It is the reference of a
law, not to a committee of the House, or of the whole House, but to the
committee of the whole Union. It is a recommitment of the bill to the
people, for them to examine and consider; and if, upon this examination,
they are content to pass it, it will pass at the next session. The delay
of a few months is the only effect of a veto, in a case where the people
shall ultimately approve a law; where they do not approve it, the
interposition of the veto is the barrier which saves them the adoption
of a law, the repeal of which might afterwards be almost impossible. The
qualified negative is, therefore, a beneficent power, intended as
General Hamilton expressly declares in the Federalist, to protect,
first, the executive department from the encroachments of the
legislative department; and, secondly, to preserve the people from
hasty, dangerous, or criminal legislation on the part of their
representatives. This is the design and intention of the veto power; and
the fear expressed by General Hamilton was, that Presidents, so far from
exercising it too often, would not exercise it as often as the safety of
the people required; that they might lack the moral courage to stake
themselves in opposition to a favorite measure of the majority of the
two Houses of Congress; and thus deprive the people, in many instances,
of their right to pass upon a bill before it becomes a final law. The
cases in which President Jackson has exercised the veto power have shown
the soundness of these observations. No ordinary President would have
staked himself against the Bank of the United States and the two Houses
of Congress in 1832. It required President Jackson to confront that
power--to stem that torrent--to stay the progress of that charter, and
to refer it to the people for their decision. His moral courage was
equal to the crisis. He arrested the charter until it could be got to
the people, and they have arrested it forever. Had he not done so, the
charter would have become law, and its repeal almost impossible. The
people of the whole Union would now have been in the condition of the
people of Pennsylvania, bestrode by the monster, in daily conflict with
him, and maintaining a doubtful contest for supremacy between the
government of a State and the directory of a moneyed corporation.

Sir, I think it right, in approaching the termination of this great
question, to present this faint and rapid sketch of the brilliant,
beneficent, and glorious administration of President Jackson. It is not
for me to attempt to do it justice; it is not for ordinary men to
attempt its history. His military life, resplendent with dazzling
events, will demand the pen of a nervous writer; his civil
administration, replete with scenes which have called into action so
many and such various passions of the human heart, and which has given
to native sagacity so many victories over practised politicians, will
require the profound, luminous, and philosophical conceptions of a Livy,
a Plutarch, or a Sallust. This history is not to be written in our day.
The contemporaries of such events are not the hands to describe them.
Time must first do its office--must silence the passions, remove the
actors, develop consequences, and canonize all that is sacred to honor,
patriotism, and glory. In after ages the historic genius of our America
shall produce the writers which the subject demands--men far removed
from the contests of this day, who will know how to estimate this great
epoch, and how to acquire an immortality for their own names by
painting, with a master's hand, the immortal events of the patriot
President's life.

And now, sir, I finish the task which, three years ago, I imposed on
myself. Solitary and alone, and amidst the jeers and taunts of my
opponents, I put this ball in motion. The people have taken it up, and
rolled it forward, and I am no longer anything but a unit in the vast
mass which now propels it. In the name of that mass I speak. I demand
the execution of the edict of the people; I demand the expurgation of
that sentence which the voice of a few senators, and the power of their
confederate, the Bank of the United States, has caused to be placed on
the journal of the Senate; and which the voice of millions of freemen
has ordered to be expunged from it.

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