Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. Webster were now all united against General Jackson, with all their friends, and the Bank of the United States. The two former had their private griefs: Mr. Clay in the results of the election, and Mr. Calhoun in the quarrel growing out of the discovery of his conduct in Mr. Monroe's cabinet, and it would have been difficult so to have conducted their opposition, and attack, as to have avoided the imputation of a personal motive. But they so conducted it as to authorize and suggest that imputation. Their movements all took a personal and vindictive, instead of a legislative and remedial, nature. Mr. Taney's reasons for removing the deposits were declared to be "unsatisfactory and insufficient" – being words of reproach, and no remedy; nor was the remedy of restoration proposed until driven into it. The resolution, in relation to Gen. Jackson, was still more objectionable. The Senate had nothing to do with him personally, yet a resolve was proposed, against him entirely personal, charging him with violating the laws and the constitution; and proposing no remedy for this imputed violation, nor for the act of which it was the subject. It was purely and simply a personal censure – a personal condemnation that was proposed; and, to aggravate the proposition, it came from the suggestion of the bank directors' memorial to Congress.

The combination was formidable. The bank itself was a great power, and was able to carry distress into all the business departments of the country; the political array against the President was unprecedented in point of number, and great in point of ability. Besides the three eminent chiefs, there were, in the Senate: Messrs. Bibb of Kentucky; Ezekiel Chambers of Maryland; Clayton of Delaware; Ewing of Ohio; Frelinghuysen of New Jersey; Watkins Leigh of Virginia; Mangum of North Carolina; Poindexter of Mississippi; Alexander Porter of Louisiana; William C. Preston of South Carolina; Southard of New Jersey; Tyler of Virginia. In the House of Representatives, besides the ex-President, Mr. Adams, and the eminent jurist from Pennsylvania, Mr. Horace Binney, there was a long catalogue of able speakers: Messrs. Archer of Virginia; Bell of Tennessee; Burgess of Rhode Island; Rufus Choate of Massachusetts; Corwin of Ohio; Warren R. Davis of South Carolina; John Davis of Massachusetts; Edward Everett of Massachusetts; Millard Fillmore of New-York, afterwards President; Robert P. Letcher of Kentucky; Benjamin Hardin of Kentucky; McDuffie of South Carolina; Peyton of Tennessee; Vance of Ohio; Wilde of Georgia; Wise of Virginia: in all, above thirty able speakers, many of whom spoke many times; besides many others of good ability, but without extensive national reputations. The business of the combination was divided – distress and panic the object – and the parts distributed, and separately cast to produce the effect. The bank was to make the distress – a thing easy for it to do, from its own moneyed power, and its power over other moneyed institutions and money dealers; also to get up distress meetings and memorials, and to lead the public press: the politicians were to make the panic, by the alarms which they created for the safety of the laws, of the constitution, the public liberty, and the public money: and most zealously did each division of the combination perform its part, and for the long period of three full months. The decision of the resolution condemning General Jackson, on which all this machinery of distress and panic was hung, required no part of that time. There was the same majority to vote it the first day as the last; but the time was wanted to get up the alarm and the distress; and the vote, when taken, was not from any exhaustion of the means of terrifying and agonizing the country, but for the purpose of having the sentence of condemnation ready for the Virginia elections – ready for spreading over Virginia at the approach of the April elections. The end proposed to themselves by the combined parties, was, for the bank, a recharter and the restoration of the deposits; for the politicians, an ascent to power upon the overthrow of Jackson.

The friends of General Jackson saw the advantages which were presented to them in the unhallowed combination between the moneyed and a political power – in the personal and vindictive character which they gave to the proceedings – the private griefs of the leading assailants – the unworthy objects to be attained – and the cruel means to be used for their attainment. These friends were also numerous, zealous, able, determined; and animated by the consciousness that they were on the side of their country. They were, in the Senate: – Messrs. Forsyth of Georgia; Grundy of Tennessee; Hill of New Hampshire; Kane of Illinois; King of Alabama; Rives of Virginia; Nathaniel Tallmadge of New York; Hugh L. White of Tennessee; Wilkins of Pennsylvania; Silas Wright of New-York; and the author of this Thirty Years' View. In the House, were: – Messrs. Beardsley of New-York; Cambreleng of New-York; Clay of Alabama; Gillett of New-York; Hubbard of New Hampshire; McKay of North Carolina; Polk of Tennessee; Francis Thomas of Maryland; Vanderpoel of New-York; and Wayne of Georgia.

Mr. Clay opened the debate in a prepared speech, commencing in the style which the rhetoricians call ex abruptu– being the style of opening which the occasion required – that of rousing and alarming the passions. It will be found (its essential parts) in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XCIX.

MR. CLAY'S SPEECH AGAINST PRESIDENT JACKSON ON THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS – EXTRACTS

"Mr. Clay addressed the Senate as follows: We are, said he, in the midst of a revolution, hitherto bloodless, but rapidly tending towards a total change of the pure republican character of the government, and to the concentration of all power in the hands of one man. The powers of Congress are paralyzed, except when exerted in conformity with his will, by frequent and an extraordinary exercise of the executive veto, not anticipated by the founders of the constitution, and not practised by any of the predecessors of the present Chief Magistrate. And, to cramp them still more, a new expedient is springing into use, of withholding altogether bills which have received the sanction of both Houses of Congress, thereby cutting off all opportunity of passing them, even if, after their return, the members should be unanimous in their favor. The constitutional participation of the Senate in the appointing power is virtually abolished, by the constant use of the power of removal from office without any known cause, and by the appointment of the same individual to the same office, after his rejection by the Senate. How often have we, senators, felt that the check of the Senate, instead of being, as the constitution intended, a salutary control, was an idle ceremony? How often, when acting on the case of the nominated successor, have we felt the injustice of the removal? How often have we said to each other, well, what can we do? the office cannot remain vacant without prejudice to the public interests; and, if we reject the proposed substitute, we cannot restore the displaced, and perhaps some more unworthy man may be nominated.

"The judiciary has not been exempted from the prevailing rage for innovation. Decisions of the tribunals, deliberately pronounced, have been contemptuously disregarded, and the sanctity of numerous treaties openly violated. Our Indian relations, coeval with the existence of the government, and recognized and established by numerous laws and treaties, have been subverted; the rights of the helpless and unfortunate aborigines trampled in the dust, and they brought under subjection to unknown laws, in which they have no voice, promulgated in an unknown language. The most extensive and most valuable public domain that ever fell to the lot of one nation is threatened with a total sacrifice. The general currency of the country, the life-blood of all its business, is in the most imminent danger of universal disorder and confusion. The power of internal improvement lies crushed beneath the veto. The system of protection of American industry was snatched from impending destruction at the last session; but we are now coolly told by the Secretary of the Treasury, without a blush, 'that it is understood to be conceded on all hands that a tariff for protection merely is to be finally abandoned.' By the 3d of March, 1837, if the progress of innovation continue, there will be scarcely a vestige remaining of the government and its policy as they existed prior to the 3d of March, 1829. In a term of years, a little more than equal to that which was required to establish our liberties, the government will have been transformed into an elective monarchy – the worst of all forms of government.

"Such is a melancholy but faithful picture of the present condition of our public affairs. It is not sketched or exhibited to excite, here or elsewhere, irritated feeling; I have no such purpose. I would, on the contrary, implore the Senate and the people to discard all passion and prejudice, and to look calmly but resolutely upon the actual state of the constitution and the country. Although I bring into the Senate the same unabated spirit, and the same firm determination, which have ever guided me in the support of civil liberty, and the defence of our constitution, I contemplate the prospect before us with feelings of deep humiliation and profound mortification.

"It is not among the least unfortunate symptoms of the times, that a large proportion of the good and enlightened men of the Union, of all parties, are yielding to sentiments of despondency. There is, unhappily, a feeling of distrust and insecurity pervading the community. Many of our best citizens entertain serious apprehensions that our Union and our institutions are destined to a speedy overthrow. Sir, I trust that the hopes and confidence of the country will revive. There is much occasion for manly independence and patriotic vigor, but none for despair. Thank God, we are yet free; and, if we put on the chains which are forging for us, it will be because we deserve to wear them. We should never despair of the republic. If our ancestors had been capable of surrendering themselves to such ignoble sentiments, our independence and our liberties would never have been achieved. The winter of 1776-'77, was one of the gloomiest periods of our revolution; but on this day, fifty-seven years ago, the father of his country achieved a glorious victory, which diffused joy, and gladness, and animation throughout the States. Let us cherish the hope that, since he has gone from among us, Providence, in the dispensation of his mercies, has near at hand, in reserve for us, though yet unseen by us, some sure and happy deliverance from all impending dangers.

"When we assembled here last year, we were full of dreadful forebodings. On the one hand, we were menaced with a civil war, which, lighting up in a single State, might spread its flames throughout one of the largest sections of the Union. On the other, a cherished system of policy, essential to the successful prosecution of the industry of our countrymen, was exposed to imminent danger of destruction. Means were happily applied by Congress to avert both calamities, the country was reconciled, and our Union once more became a band of friends and brothers. And I shall be greatly disappointed, if we do not find those who were denounced as being unfriendly to the continuance of our confederacy, among the foremost to fly to its preservation, and to resist all executive encroachments.

"Mr. President, when Congress adjourned at the termination of the last session, there was one remnant of its powers – that over the purse – left untouched. The two most important powers of civil government are those of the sword and purse; the first, with some restrictions, is confided by the constitution to the Executive, and the last to the legislative department. If they are separate, and exercised by different responsible departments, civil liberty is safe; but if they are united in the hands of the same individual, it is gone. That clear-sighted and revolutionary orator and patriot, Patrick Henry, justly said, in the Virginia convention, in reply to one of his opponents, 'Let him candidly tell me where and when did freedom exist, when the sword and purse were given up from the people? Unless a miracle in human affairs interposed, no nation ever retained its liberty after the loss of the sword and the purse. Can you prove, by any argumentative deduction, that it is possible to be safe without one of them? If you give them up, you are gone.'

"Up to the period of the termination of the last session of Congress, the exclusive constitutional power of Congress over the treasury of the United States had never been contested. Among its earliest acts was one to establish the treasury department, which provided for the appointment of a treasurer, who was required to give bond and security, in a very large amount, 'to receive and keep the moneys of the United States, and disburse the same upon warrants drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury, countersigned by the Comptroller, recorded by the Register, and not otherwise.' Prior to the establishment of the present Bank of the United States, no treasury or place had been provided or designated by law for the safe keeping of the public moneys, but the treasurer was left to his own discretion and responsibility. When the existing bank was established, it was provided that the public moneys should be deposited with it, and, consequently, that bank became the treasury of the United States; for, whatever place is designated by law for the keeping of the public money of the United States, under the care of the treasurer of the United States, is, for the time being, the treasury. Its safety was drawn in question by the Chief Magistrate, and an agent was appointed a little more than a year ago to investigate its ability. He reported to the Executive that it was perfectly safe. His apprehensions of its solidity were communicated by the President to Congress, and a committee was appointed to examine the subject; they, also, reported in favor of its security. And, finally, among the last acts of the House of Representatives, prior to the close of the last session, was the adoption of a resolution, manifesting its entire confidence in the ability and solidity of the bank.

"After all these testimonies to the perfect safety of the public moneys in the place appointed by Congress, who could have supposed that the place would have been changed? Who could have imagined that, within sixty days of the meeting of Congress, and, as it were, in utter contempt of its authority, the change should have been ordered? Who would have dreamed that the treasurer should have thrown away the single key to the treasury, over which Congress held ample control, and accepted, in lieu of it, some dozens of keys, over which neither Congress nor he has any adequate control? Yet, sir, all this has been done; and it is now our solemn duty to inquire, 1st. By whose authority it has been ordered; and, 2d. Whether the order has been given in conformity with the constitution and laws of the United States.

"I agree, sir, and I am very happy whenever I can agree with the President, as to the immense importance of these questions. He says, in the paper which I hold in my hand, that he looks upon the pending question as involving higher considerations than the 'mere transfer of a sum of money from one bank to another. Its decision may affect the character of our government for ages to come.' And, with him. I view it as 'of transcendent importance, both in the principles and the consequences it involves.' It is a question of all time, for posterity as well as for us – of constitutional government or monarchy – of liberty or slavery. As I regard it, I hold the bank as nothing, as perfectly insignificant, faithful as it has been in the performance of all its duties. I hold a sound currency as nothing, essential as it is to the prosperity of every branch of business, and to all conditions of society, and efficient as the agency of the bank has been in providing the country with a currency as sound as ever existed, and unsurpassed by any in Christendom. I consider even the public faith, sacred and inviolable as it ever should be, as comparatively nothing. All these questions are merged in the greater and mightier question of the constitutional distribution of the powers of the government, as affected by the recent executive innovation. The real inquiry is, shall all the barriers which have been erected by the caution and wisdom of our ancestors, for the preservation of civil liberty, be prostrated and trodden under foot, and the sword and the purse be at once united in the hands of one man? Shall the power of Congress over the treasury of the United States, hitherto never contested, be wrested from its possession, and be henceforward wielded by the Chief Magistrate? Entertaining these views of the magnitude of the question before us, I shall not, at least to-day, examine the reasons which the President has assigned for his act. If he has no power to perform it, no reasons, however cogent, can justify the deed. None can sanctify an illegal or unconstitutional act.

"The question is, by virtue of whose will, power, dictation, was the removal of the deposits effected? By whose authority and determination were they transferred from the Bank of the United States, where they were required by the law to be placed, and put in banks which the law had never designated? And I tell gentlemen opposed to me, that I am not to be answered by the exhibition of a formal order bearing the signature of R. B. Taney, or any one else. I want to know, not the amanuensis or clerk who prepared or signed the official form, but the authority or the individual who dictated or commanded it; not the hangman who executes the culprit, but the tribunal which pronounced the sentence. I want to know that power in the government, that original and controlling authority, which required and commanded the removal of the deposits. And, I repeat the question, is there a senator, or intelligent man in the whole country, who entertains a solitary doubt?

"Hear what the President himself says in his manifesto read to his cabinet: 'The President deems it his duty to communicate in this manner to his cabinet the final conclusions of his own mind, and the reasons on which they are founded.' And, at the conclusion of this paper, what does he say? 'The President again repeats that he begs his cabinet to consider the proposed measure as his own, in the support of which he shall require no one of them to make a sacrifice of opinion or principle. Its responsibility has been assumed, after the most mature deliberation and reflection, as necessary to preserve the morals of the people, the freedom of the press, and the purity of the elective franchise, without which all will unite in saying that the blood and treasure expended by our forefathers, in the establishment of our happy system of government, will have been vain and fruitless. Under these convictions, he feels that a measure so important to the American people cannot be commenced too soon; and he therefore names the 1st day of October next as a period proper for the change of the deposits, or sooner, provided the necessary arrangements with the State banks can be made.' Sir, is there a senator here who will now tell me that the removal was not the measure and the act of the President?

"Thus is it evident that the President, neither by the act creating the treasury department, nor by the bank charter, has any power over the public treasury. Has he any by the constitution? None, none. We have already seen that the constitution positively forbids any money from being drawn from the treasury but in virtue of a previous act of appropriation. But the President himself says that 'upon him has been devolved, by the constitution, and the suffrages of the American people, the duty of superintending the operation of the executive departments of the government, and seeing that the laws are faithfully executed.' If there existed any such double source of executive power, it has been seen that the treasury department is not an executive department; but that, in all that concerns the public treasury, the Secretary is the agent or representative of Congress, acting in obedience to their will, and maintaining a direct intercourse with them. By what authority does the President derive power from the mere result of an election? In another part of this same cabinet paper he refers to the suffrages of the people as a source of power independent of a system in which power has been most carefully separated, and distributed between three separate and independent departments. We have been told a thousand times, and all experience assures us, that such a division is indispensable to the existence and preservation of freedom. We have established and designated offices, and appointed officers in each of those departments, to execute the duties respectively allotted to them. The President, it is true, presides over the whole; specific duties are often assigned by particular laws to him alone, or to other officers under his superintendence. His parental eye is presumed to survey the whole extent of the system in all its movements; but has he power to come into Congress, and to say such laws only shall you pass; to go into the courts, and prescribe the decisions which they may pronounce; or even to enter the offices of administration, and, where duties are specifically confided to those officers, to substitute his will to their duty? Or, has he a right, when those functionaries, deliberating upon their own solemn obligations to the people, have moved forward in their assigned spheres, to arrest their lawful progress, because they have dared to act contrary to his pleasure? No, sir; no, sir. His is a high and glorious station, but it is one of observation and superintendence. It is to see that obstructions in the forward movement of government, unlawfully interposed, shall be abated by legitimate and competent means.

"Such are the powers on which the President relies to justify his seizure of the treasury of the United States. I have examined them, one by one, and they all fail, utterly fail, to bear out the act. We are brought irresistibly to the conclusions, 1st, That the invasion of the public treasury has been perpetrated by the removal of one Secretary of the Treasury, who would not violate his conscientious obligations, and by the appointment of another, who stood ready to subscribe his name to the orders of the President; and, 2dly, That the President has no color of authority in the constitution or laws for the act which he has thus caused to be performed.

"And now let us glance at some of the tremendous consequences which may ensue from this high-handed measure. If the President may, in a case in which the law has assigned a specific duty exclusively to a designated officer, command it to be executed, contrary to his own judgment, under the penalty of an expulsion from office, and, upon his refusal, may appoint some obsequious tool to perform the required act, where is the limit to his authority? Has he not the same right to interfere in every other case, and remove from office all that he can remove, who hesitate or refuse to do his bidding contrary to their own solemn convictions of their duty? There is no resisting this inevitable conclusion. Well, then, how stands the matter of the public treasury? It has been seen that the issue of warrants upon the treasury is guarded by four independent and hitherto responsible checks, each controlling every other, and all bound by the law, but all holding their offices, according to the existing practice of the government, at the pleasure of the President. The Secretary signs, the Comptroller countersigns, the Register records, and the Treasurer pays the warrant. We have seen that the President has gone to the first and highest link in the chain, and coerced a conformity to his will. What is to prevent, whenever he desires to draw money from the public treasury, his applying the same penalty of expulsion, under which Mr. Duane suffered, to every link of the chain, from the Secretary of the Treasury down, and thus to obtain whatever he demands? What is to prevent a more compendious accomplishment of his object, by the agency of transfer drafts, drawn on the sole authority of the Secretary, and placing the money at once wherever, or in whatsoever hands, the President pleases?