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Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)
"[Mr. Benton. I never will, so help me God.]
"He thought it better, far better, that they proceed to the important business before them, under the consideration that they should not be disturbed hereafter; and if they were, he would go as far as the senator from Missouri in immediately arresting it. He would much rather go on with the business in hand.
"Mr. Linn reminded the Senate that when the bank bill had passed the Senate there was a loud manifestation of approbation in the gallery, of which no notice was taken. He believed on the present occasion there was approbation as well as hisses; but both were instantly suppressed. He had distinctly heard both. No doubt it was the promptness with which his colleague had got up to check the disturbance, which had prevented it from going further. He had no doubt some law ought to be passed making it punishable to commit any outrage of this kind on either House of Congress.
"Mr. Merrick thought with the senator from Pennsylvania, that this was a very solemn occasion. There had been tokens of assent and dissent. The President of the Senate at the moment rapped very hard till order was restored. The disorder was but momentary. He trusted some allowance would be made for the excitement so natural on the occasion.
"Mr. King suggested the difficulty that might arise out of pursuing the matter further. He had witnessed something of the kind once before, and when the offender was brought to the bar, great embarrassment was created by not knowing how to get rid of him. He thought it would be better to pass over the matter and proceed to the consideration of the message, or to the appointment of a time for its consideration.
"The Chair explained that having heard some noise, without considering whether it was approbation or disapprobation, he had called the Senate to order; but could not say that he had or had not heard hisses.
"Mr. Rives explained that he did not mean to say the senator from Missouri did not hear the hisses, but that he himself did not hear them, and he believed many gentlemen around him did not hear any. But as the senator from Missouri had avowedly come prepared to hear them, no doubt he did, more sensitively than others. He would ask the senator to be satisfied with the crush which the mother of monsters had got, and not to bear too hard on the solitary bank ruffian, to use his own expression, who had disapproved of the monster's fate. He hoped the senator would withdraw the motion.
"Mr. Linn observed that the senator from Virginia, by his own remarks, doubting that there were any hisses, had forced the senator from Missouri to persist in having the proof. However, he now understood that point was settled; and the object being accomplished, he hoped his colleague would withdraw the motion.
"Mr. Preston again expressed his concurrence in the propriety of the motion, and hoped effectual steps would be taken to prevent the recurrence of such a scene.
"Mr. Allen made some appropriate remarks, and concluded by stating that he understood the offender was in custody, and expressed his sorrow for having done what he was not at the time aware was an offence; as, therefore, all the ends had been accomplished which his friend had in view when he refused to withdraw his motion, he hoped he would now withdraw it.
"Mr. Walker said, when the senator from Missouri [Mr. Benton] pledged himself not to withdraw his motion to arrest the individual who had insulted the Senate and the country by hissing the message of the President of the United States, that pledge arose from the doubt expressed by the senator from Virginia [Mr. Rives] whether the hissing had taken place. That doubt was now solved. When the senator from Missouri appealed to his friends as to the truth of the fact stated by him, he [Mr. Walker] had risen, and pointed to that portion of the gallery from which the hissing proceeded. Our assistant Sergeant-at-Arms had proceeded to that quarter of the gallery designated by him [Mr. W.], and this officer had now in his possession one of the offenders, who acknowledged his indecent conduct, and who was prepared to point out many of those who had joined him. The object of the senator was, therefore, now accomplished; the fact of the indecorum was established, and the offender, as moved by the senator from Missouri, was now in custody. This, Mr. W. hoped, would be sufficient punishment, especially as Mr. W. understood the offender expressed his penitence for the act, as one of sudden impulse. As, then, the formal trial of this individual would occupy much time, Mr. W. hoped the matter would be dropped here, and let us proceed, as required by the Constitution, to consider the message of the President returning the bank bill, with his objections. This message, Mr. W. said, he regarded as the most important which ever emanated from an American President, and under circumstances the most solemn and imposing. The President, in perfect and glorious consistency with a long life of usefulness and honor, has placed his veto upon the charter of a National Bank, and, Mr. W. said, his heart was too full of gratitude to the Giver of all good for this salvation of the country, and rescue of the Constitution, to engage in the business of inflicting punishment upon an individual, said to be respectable, and who had in part atoned for his offence by the expression of his repentance. Let him go, then, and sin no more, and let us proceed to the consideration of that Veto Message, which he, Mr. W. had confidently predicted at the very commencement of this session, and recorded that opinion at its date in the journals of the day. Many then doubted the correctness of this prediction, but, he, Mr. W. whilst he stated at the time that he was not authorized to speak for the President of the United States, based his conviction upon his knowledge of Mr. Tyler as a man and a senator, and upon his long and consistent opposition to the creation of any such bank, as was now proposed to be established.
"Mr. Benton said he had been informed by one of the officers of the Senate [Mr. Beale] that one of the persons who made the disorder in the gallery had been seized by him, and was now in custody and in the room of the Sergeant-at-Arms. This the officers had very properly done of their own motion, and without waiting for the Senate's order. They had done their duty, and his motion had thus been executed. His motion was to seize the disorderly, and bring them to the bar of the Senate. One had been seized; he was in custody in an adjoining room; and if he was still acting contemptuously to the Senate, he should move to bring him to the bar; but that was not the case. He was penitent and contrite. He expressed his sorrow for what he had done, and said he had acted without ill design, and from no feelings of contempt to the President or Senate. Under these circumstances, all was accomplished that his motion intended. The man is in custody and repentant. This is sufficient. Let him be discharged, and there is an end of the affair. His motion now was that the President direct him to be discharged. Mr. B. said he had acted from reflection, and not from impulse, in this whole affair. He expected the President to be insulted: it was incident to the legislation on national bank charters. When they were on the carpet, the Senate, the President, and the American people must all be insulted if the bank myrmidons are disappointed. He told his family before he left home, that the Senate and the President would be insulted by hisses in the gallery this day, and that he would not let it pass – that it would be an insult, not merely to the President and Senate, but to the whole American people, and to their form of government – and that it should not pass. He came here determined to nip this business in the bud – and to prevent an insult to the President in this chamber from being made a precedent for it elsewhere. We all know the insolence of the national bank party – we know the insolence of their myrmidons – we know that President Tyler, who has signed this veto message, is subject to their insults – beginning here, and following him wherever he goes. He [Mr. B.] was determined to protect him here, and, in doing so, to set the example which would be elsewhere followed. He repeated: an insult to the President for an official act, was not an insult to the man, but to the whole American people, and to their form of government. Would these bank myrmidons insult a king, surrounded by his guards? Not at all. Then they should not insult an American President with impunity whenever he was present. In the Senate or out of it, he would defend the President from personal outrage and indignity. As to the numerous and respectable auditory now present, his motion did not reach them. He had not moved to clear the galleries; for that would send out the respectable audience, who had conducted themselves with propriety. The rule of order was "to clear the galleries;" but he had purposely avoided that motion, because the disorder came from a few, and the respectable part of the audience ought not to suffer for an offence in which they had no share. Mr. B. said the man being in custody, his motion was executed and superseded; its object was accomplished, and, he being contrite, he would move to discharge him.
"The President of the Senate ordered him to be discharged."
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
RESIGNATION OF MR. TYLER'S CABINET
This event, with the exception of Mr. Webster who was prevailed upon to remain, took place on the 11th day of September – being two days after the second veto message – the one on the fiscal corporation bill – had been sent to the House of Representatives. It was a thing to take place in consequence of the President's conduct in relation to that bill; but the immediate cause, or rather, the circumstance which gave impulse to the other causes, was the appearance of a letter from Washington city in the New York Herald in which the cabinet was much vituperated – accused of remaining in their places contrary to the will of the President, and in spite of the neglects and slights which he put upon them with a view to make them resign. Appearing in that paper, which had come to be considered as the familiar of the President, and the part in relation to the slights and neglects being felt to be true, it could not escape the serious attention of those to whom it referred. But there was something else in it which seemed to carry its origin directly to the President himself. There was an account of a cabinet meeting in it, in which things were told which were strictly confidential between the President and his ministers – which had actually occurred; and which no one but themselves or the President could have communicated. They conferred together: the conviction was unanimous that the President had licensed this communication: and this circumstance authorized them to consider the whole letter as his, of course by subaltern hand. To this letter Mr. Ewing alluded in his letter of resignation when he said to the President: "The very secrets of our cabinet councils made their appearance in an infamous paper, printed in a neighboring city, the columns of which were daily charged with flattery of yourself and foul abuse of your cabinet." There was no exception in the letter in favor of any one. All were equally included: all took their resolutions together (Mr. Granger excepted who was not present), and determined to resign at once, and in a body, and to publish their reasons – the circumstances under which they acted justifying, in their opinion, this abrupt and unceremonious separation from their chief. All carried this resolve into effect, except Mr. Webster, who was induced to re-consider his determination, and to remain. The reasons for this act should be given, so far as they are essential, in the words of the retiring ministers themselves: and, accordingly here they are; and first from Mr. Ewing:
"This bill, framed and fashioned according to your own suggestions, in the initiation of which I and another member of your cabinet were made by you the agents and negotiators, was passed by large majorities through the two Houses of Congress, and sent to you, and you rejected it. Important as was the part which I had taken, at your request, in the origination of this bill, and deeply as I was committed for your action upon it, you never consulted me on the subject of the veto message. You did not even refer to it in conversation, and the first notice I had of its contents was derived from rumor. And to me, at least, you have done nothing to wipe away the personal indignity arising out of the act. I gathered, it is true, from your conversation, shortly after the bill had passed the House, that you had a strong purpose to reject it; but nothing was said like softening or apology to me, either in reference to myself or to those with whom I had communicated at your request, and who had acted themselves and induced the two Houses to act upon the faith of that communication. And, strange as it may seem, the veto message attacks in an especial manner the very provisions which were inserted at your request; and even the name of the corporation, which was not only agreed to by you, but especially changed to meet your expressed wishes, is made the subject of your criticism. Different men might view this transaction in different points of light, but, under these circumstances, as a matter of personal honor, it would be hard for me to remain of your counsel, to seal my lips and leave unexplained and undisclosed where lies in this transaction the departure from straightforwardness and candor. So far indeed from admitting the encouragement which you gave to this bill in its inception, and explaining and excusing your sudden and violent hostility towards it, you throw into your veto message an interrogatory equivalent to an assertion that it was such a bill as you had already declared could not receive your sanction. Such is the obvious effect of the first interrogatory clause on the second page. It has all the force of an assertion without its open fairness. I have met and refuted this, the necessary inference from your language, in my preceding statement, the correctness of which you I am sure will not call in question."
Of the cause assigned for the President's change in relation to the bill, namely Mr. Botts' letter, Mr. Ewing thus expresses himself:
"And no doubt was thrown out on the subject (veto of the fiscal corporation bill) by you, in my hearing, or within my knowledge, until the letter of Mr. Botts came to your hands. Soon after the reading of that letter, you threw out strong intimations that you would veto the bill if it were not postponed. That letter I did and do most unequivocally condemn, but it did not effect the constitutionality of the bill, or justify you in rejecting it on that ground; it could affect only the expediency of your action; and, whatever you may now believe as to the scruples existing in your mind, in this and in a kindred source there is strong ground to believe they have their origin."
Mr. Badger, Secretary of the Navy:
"At the cabinet meeting held on the 18th of August last (the attorney-general and the postmaster-general being absent), the subject of an exchange bank, or institution, was brought forward by the President himself, and was fully considered. Into the particulars of what passed I do not propose now to enter. It will be sufficient to say that it was then distinctly stated and understood that such an institution met the approbation of the President, and was deemed by him free of constitutional objections; that he desired (if Congress should deem it necessary to act upon the subject during the session) that such an institution should be adopted by that body, and that the members of his cabinet would aid in bringing about that result; and Messrs. Webster and Ewing were specially requested by the President to have a communication upon the subject with certain members of Congress. In consequence of what passed at this meeting, I saw such friends in Congress as I deemed it proper to approach, and urged upon them the passage of a bill to establish such an institution, assuring them that I did not doubt it would receive the approbation of the President. The bill was passed, as the public know, and was met by the veto. Now, if the President, after the meeting of the 18th August, had changed his mind as to the constitutional power of Congress, and had come to doubt or deny what he had admitted in that meeting (which is the most favorable interpretation that can be put upon his conduct), it was, in my opinion, a plain duty on his part to have made known to the gentlemen concerned this change of sentiment – to have offered them an apology for the unpleasant situation in which they were placed by his agency – or, at least, to have softened, by a full explanation of his motives, his intended veto of a measure in promoting the success of which they, at his request, had rendered their assistance. But this the President did not do. Never, from the moment of my leaving his house on the 18th, did he open his lips to me on the subject. It was only from the newspapers, from rumor, from hearsay, I learned that he had denied the constitutionality of the proposed institution, and had made the most solemn asseverations that he would never approve a measure which I knew was suggested by himself, and which had been, at his own instance, introduced into Congress. It is scarcely necessary to say that I have not supposed, and do not now suppose, that a difference merely between the President and his cabinet, either as to the constitutionality or the expediency of a bank, necessarily interposes any obstacles to a full and cordial co-operation between them in the general conduct of his administration; and therefore deeply as I regretted the veto of the first bill, I did not feel myself at liberty to retire on that account from my situation. But the facts attending the initiation and disapproval of the last bill made a case totally different from that – one it is believed without a parallel in the history of our cabinets; presenting, to say nothing more, a measure embraced and then repudiated – efforts prompted and then disowned – services rendered and then treated with scorn or neglect. Such a case required, in my judgment, upon considerations, private and public, that the official relations subsisting between the President and myself should be immediately dissolved."
Mr. Bell, Secretary at War.
"I called to see the President on official business on the morning (Monday, 16th August) before the first veto message was sent in. I found him reading the message to the Secretary of the Treasury. He did me the honor to read the material passages to me. Upon reading that part of it which treats of the superior importance and value of the business done by the late bank of the United States in furnishing exchanges between the different States and sections of the Union, I was so strongly impressed with the idea that he meant to intimate that he would have no objection to a bank which should be restricted in dealing in exchanges, that I interrupted him in the reading, and asked if I was to understand, by what he had just read, that he was prepared to give his assent to a bank in the District of Columbia, with offices or agencies in the States, having the privilege, without their assent, to deal in exchanges between them, and in foreign bills. He promptly replied that he thought experience had shown the necessity of such a power in the government. I could not restrain the immediate expression of my gratification upon hearing this avowal. I said to the President at once, that what I had feared would lead to fatal dissension among our friends, I now regarded as rather fortunate than otherwise; that his veto of the bill then before him (the first one), would lead to the adoption of a much better one. I also congratulated him upon the happy circumstance of the delay which had taken place in sending in his veto message. The heat and violence which might have been expected if the veto had been sent in immediately upon the passage of the bill, would now be avoided. Time had been given for cool reflection, and as the message did not exclude the idea of a bank in some form, no unpleasant consequences would be likely to follow. He expressed his great surprise that there should be so much excitement upon the subject; said that he had had his mind made up on the bill before him from the first, but had delayed his message that there should be time for the excitement to wear off; that nothing could be more easy than to pass a bill which would answer all necessary purposes; that it could be done in three days. The next day, having occasion to see the President again, he requested me to furnish him with such information as the war department afforded of the embarrassments attending the transfer and disbursement of the public revenue to distant points on the frontier, in Florida, &c. He at the same time requested me to draw up a brief statement of my views upon the subject, showing the practical advantages and necessity of such a fiscal institution as he had thought of proposing. Such information as I could hastily collect from the heads of the principal disbursing bureaus of the department I handed to him on the evening of the same day, knowing that time was of the utmost importance in the state in which the question then was. He received the statements I gave him with manifest indifference, and alarmed me by remarking that he began to doubt whether he would give his assent (as I understood him) to any bank."
This was Mr. Bell's first knowledge of the second bill – all got from the President himself, and while he was under nervous apprehension of the storm which was to burst upon him. He goes on to detail the subsequent consultations with his cabinet, and especially with Mr. Webster, as heretofore given; and concludes with expressing the impossibility of his remaining longer in the cabinet.
Mr. Crittenden, the attorney-general, resigned in a brief and general letter, only stating that circumstances chiefly connected with the fiscal agent bills, made it his duty to do so. His reserve was supposed to be induced by the close friendly relation in which he stood with respect to Mr. Clay. Palliation for Mr. Tyler's conduct was attempted to be found by some of his friends in the alleged hostility of Mr. Clay to him, and desire to brow-beat him, and embarrass him. No doubt Mr. Clay was indignant, and justly so, at the first veto, well knowing the cause of it as he showed in his replies to Mr. Rives and Mr. Archer: but that was after the veto. But even then the expression of his indignation was greatly restrained, and he yielded to his friends in twice putting off his speech on that first veto, that he might not disturb Mr. Tyler in his preparation of the second bill. The interest at stake was too great – no less than the loss of the main fruits of the presidential election – for him to break voluntarily with Mr. Tyler. He restrained himself, and only ceased his self-restraint, when temporizing would no longer answer any purpose; and only denounced Mr. Tyler when he knew that he had gone into the embraces of a third party – taken his stand against any national bank as a means of reconciling himself to the democracy – and substituted "a secret cabal" (which he stigmatized as "a kitchen cabinet") in place of his constitutional advisers.
Two days after the appearance of those letters of resignation, the whole of which came out in the National Intelligencer, Mr. Webster published his reasons for not joining in that act with his colleagues: and justice to him requires this paper to be given in his own words. It is dated September 13th, and addressed to Messrs. Gales and Seaton, the well reliable whig editors in Washington.
"Lest any misapprehension should exist, as to the reasons which have led me to differ from the course pursued by my late colleagues, I wish to say that I remain in my place, first, because I have seen no sufficient reasons for the dissolution of the late cabinet, by the voluntary act of its own members. I am perfectly persuaded of the absolute necessity of an institution, under the authority of Congress, to aid revenue and financial operations, and to give the country the blessings of a good currency and cheap exchanges. Notwithstanding what has passed, I have confidence that the President will co-operate with the legislature in overcoming all difficulties in the attainment of these objects; and it is to the union of the whig party – by which I mean the whole party, the whig President, the whig Congress, and the whig people – that I look for a realization of our wishes. I can look nowhere else. In the second place, if I had seen reasons to resign my office, I should not have done so, without giving the President reasonable notice, and affording him time to select the hands to which he should confide the delicate and important affairs now pending in this department."