Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

During all the progress of this proceeding – while a phalanx of orators and speakers were daily fulminating against him – while many hundred newspapers incessantly assailed him – while public meetings were held in all parts, and men of all sorts, even beardless youths, harangued against him as if he had been a Nero – while a stream of committees was pouring upon him (as they were called), and whom he soon refused to receive in that character; during the hundred days that all this was going on, and to judge from the imposing appearance which the crowds made that came to Washington to bring up the "distress," and to give countenance to the Senate, and emphasis to its proceedings, and to fill the daily gallery, applauding the speakers against the President – saluting with noise and confusion those who spoke on his side: during all this time, and when a nation seemed to be in arms, and the earth in commotion against him, he was tranquil and quiet, confident of eventual victory, and firmly relying upon God and the people to set all right. I was accustomed to see him often during that time, always in the night (for I had no time to quit my seat during the day); and never saw him appear more truly heroic and grand than at this time. He was perfectly mild in his language, cheerful in his temper, firm in his conviction; and confident in his reliance on the power in which he put his trust. I have seen him in a great many situations of peril, and even of desperation, both civil and military, and always saw him firmly relying upon the success of the right through God and the people; and never saw that confidence more firm and steady than now. After giving him an account of the day's proceedings, talking over the state of the contest, and ready to return to sleep a little, and prepare much, for the combats of the next day, he would usually say: "We shall whip them yet. The people will take it up after a while." But he also had good defenders present, and in both Houses, and men who did not confine themselves to the defensive – did not limit themselves to returning blow for blow – but assailed the assailants – boldly charging upon them their own illegal conduct – exposing the rottenness of their ally, the bank – showing its corruption in conciliating politicians, and its criminality in distressing the people – and the unholiness of the combination which, to attain political power and secure a bank charter, were seducing the venal, terrifying the timid, disturbing the country, destroying business and property, and falsely accusing the President of great crimes and misdemeanors; because, faithful and fearless, he stood sole obstacle to the success of the combined powers. Our labors were great and incessant, for we had superior numbers, and great ability to contend against. I spoke myself above thirty times; others as often; all many times; and all strained to the utmost; for we felt, that the cause of Jackson was that of the country – his defeat that of the people – and the success of the combination, the delivering up of the government to the domination of a moneyed power which knew no mode of government but that of corruption and oppression. We contended strenuously in both Houses; and as courageously in the Senate against a fixed majority as if we had some chance for success; but our exertions were not for the Senate, but for the people – not to change senatorial votes, but to rouse the masses throughout the land; and while borne down by a majority of ten in the Senate, we looked with pride to the other end of the building; and derived confidence from the contemplation of a majority of fifty, fresh from the elections of the people, and strong in their good cause. It was a scene for Mons. De Tocqueville to have looked on to have learnt which way the difference lay between the men of the direct vote of the people, and those of the indirect vote of the General Assembly, "filtrated" through the "refining" process of an intermediate body.

But although fictitious and forged, yet the distress was real, and did an immensity of mischief. Vast numbers of individuals were ruined, or crippled in their affairs; a great many banks were broken – a run being made upon all that would not come into the system of the national bank. The deposit banks above all were selected for pressure. Several of them were driven to suspension – some to give up the deposits – and the bank in Washington, in which the treasury did its business, was only saved from closing its doors by running wagons with specie through mud and mire from the mint in Philadelphia to the bank in Washington, to supply the place of what was hauled from the bank in Washington to the national bank in Philadelphia – the two sets of wagons, one going and one coming, often passing each other on the road. But, while ruin was going on upon others, the great corporation in Philadelphia was doing well. The distress of the country was its harvest; and its monthly returns showed constant increases of specie.

When all was over, and the Senate's sentence had been sent out to do its office among the people, General Jackson felt that the time had come for him to speak; and did so in a "Protest," addressed to the Senate, and remarkable for the temperance and moderation of its language. He had considered the proceeding against him, from the beginning, as illegal and void – as having no legislative aim or object – as being intended merely for censure; and, therefore, not coming within any power or duty of the Senate. He deemed it extra-judicial and unparliamentary, legally no more than the act of a town meeting, while invested with the forms of a legal proceeding; and intended to act upon the public mind with the force of a sentence of conviction on an impeachment, while in reality but a personal act against him in his personal, and not in his official character. This idea he prominently put forth in his "Protest;" from which some passages are here given:

"The resolution in question was introduced, discussed, and passed, not as a joint, but as a separate resolution. It asserts no legislative power, proposes no legislative action; and neither possesses the form nor any of the attributes of a legislative measure. It does not appear to have been entertained or passed, with any view or expectation of its issuing in a law or joint resolution, or in the repeal of any law or joint resolution, or in any other legislative action.

"Whilst wanting both the form and substance of a legislative measure, it is equally manifest, that the resolution was not justified by any of the executive powers conferred on the Senate. These powers relate exclusively to the consideration of treaties and nominations to office; and they are exercised in secret session, and with closed doors. This resolution does not apply to any treaty or nomination, and was passed in a public session.

"Nor does this proceeding in any way belong to that class of incidental resolutions which relate to the officers of the Senate, to their chamber, and other appurtenances, or to subjects of order, and other matters of the like nature – in all which either House may lawfully proceed without any co-operation with the other, or with the President.

"On the contrary the whole phraseology and sense of the resolution seem to be judicial. Its essence, true character, and only practical effect, are to be found in the conduct which it charges upon the President, and in the judgment which it pronounces on that conduct. The resolution, therefore, though discussed and adopted by the Senate in its legislative capacity, is, in its office, and in all its characteristics, essentially judicial.

"That the Senate possesses a high judicial power, and that instances may occur in which the President of the United States will be amenable to it, is undeniable. But under the provisions of the constitution, it would seem to be equally plain that neither the President nor any other officer can be rightfully subjected to the operation of the judicial power of the Senate except in the cases and under the forms prescribed by the constitution.

"The constitution declares that 'the President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors' – that the House of Representatives 'shall have the sole power of impeachment' – that the Senate 'shall have the sole power to try all impeachments' – that 'when sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation' – that 'when the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside' – that no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present' – and that 'judgment shall not extend further than to remove from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit, under the United States.'

"The resolution above quoted, charges in substance that in certain proceedings relating to the public revenue, the President has usurped authority and power not conferred upon him by the constitution and laws, and that in doing so he violated both. Any such act constitutes a high crime – one of the highest, indeed, which the President can commit – a crime which justly exposes him to impeachment by the House of Representatives, and upon due conviction, to removal from office, and to the complete and immutable disfranchisement prescribed by the constitution.

"The resolution, then, was in substance an impeachment of the President; and in its passage amounts to a declaration by a majority of the Senate, that he is guilty of an impeachable offence. As such it is spread upon the journals of the Senate – published to the nation and to the world – made part of our enduring archives – and incorporated in the history of the age. The punishment of removal from office and future disqualification, does not, it is true, follow this decision; nor would it have followed the like decision, if the regular forms of proceeding had been pursued, because the requisite number did not concur in the result. But the moral influence of a solemn declaration, by a majority of the Senate, that the accused is guilty of the offence charged upon him, has been as effectually secured, as if the like declaration had been made upon an impeachment expressed in the same terms. Indeed, a greater practical effect has been gained, because the votes given for the resolution, though not sufficient to authorize a judgment of guilty on an impeachment, were numerous enough to carry that resolution.

"That the resolution does not expressly allege that the assumption of power and authority, which it condemns, was intentional and corrupt, is no answer to the preceding view of its character and effect. The act thus condemned, necessarily implies volition and design in the individual to whom it is imputed, and being unlawful in its character, the legal conclusion is, that it was prompted by improper motives, and committed with an unlawful intent. The charge is not of a mistake in the exercise of supposed powers, but of the assumption of powers not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both, and nothing is suggested to excuse or palliate the turpitude of the act. In the absence of any such excuse, or palliation, there is room only for one inference; and that is, that the intent was unlawful and corrupt. Besides, the resolution not only contains no mitigating suggestion, but on the contrary, it holds up the act complained of as justly obnoxious to censure and reprobation; and thus as distinctly stamps it with impurity of motive, as if the strongest epithets had been used.

"The President of the United States, therefore, has been by a majority of his constitutional triers, accused and found guilty of an impeachable offence; but in no part of this proceeding have the directions of the constitution been observed.

"The impeachment, instead of being preferred and prosecuted by the House of Representatives, originated in the Senate, and was prosecuted without the aid or concurrence of the other House. The oath or affirmation prescribed by the constitution, was not taken by the senators; the Chief Justice did not preside; no notice of the charge was given to the accused; and no opportunity afforded him to respond to the accusation, to meet his accusers face to face, to cross-examine the witnesses, to procure counteracting testimony, or to be heard in his defence. The safeguards and formalities which the constitution has connected with the power of impeachment, were doubtless supposed by the framers of that instrument, to be essential to the protection of the public servant, to the attainment of justice, and to the order, impartiality, and dignity of the procedure. These safeguards and formalities were not only practically disregarded, in the commencement and conduct of these proceedings, but in their result, I find myself convicted by less than two-thirds of the members present, of an impeachable offence."

Having thus shown the proceedings of the Senate to have been extra-judicial and the mere fulmination of a censure, such as might come from a "mass meeting," and finding no warrant in any right or duty of the body, and intended for nothing but to operate upon him personally, he then showed that senators from three States had voted contrary to the sense of their respective State legislatures. On this point he said:

"There are also some other circumstances connected with the discussion and passage of the resolution, to which I feel it to be, not only my right, but my duty to refer. It appears by the journal of the Senate, that among the twenty-six senators who voted for the resolution on its final passage, and who had supported it in debate, in its original form, were one of the senators from the State of Maine, the two senators from New Jersey, and one of the senators from Ohio. It also appears by the same journal, and by the files of the Senate, that the legislatures of these States had severally expressed their opinions in respect to the Executive proceedings drawn in question before the Senate.

"It is thus seen that four senators have declared by their votes that the President, in the late Executive proceedings in relation to the revenue, had been guilty of the impeachable offence of 'assuming upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both,' whilst the legislatures of their respective States had deliberately approved those very proceedings, as consistent with the constitution, and demanded by the public good. If these four votes had been given in accordance with the sentiments of the legislatures, as above expressed, there would have been but twenty-four votes out of forty-six for censuring the President, and the unprecedented record of his conviction could not have been placed upon the journals of the Senate.

"In thus referring to the resolutions and instructions of State legislatures, I disclaim and repudiate all authority or design to interfere with the responsibility due from members of the Senate to their own consciences, their constituents and their country. The facts now stated belong to the history of these proceedings, and are important to the just development of the principles and interests involved in them, as well as to the proper vindication of the Executive department, and with that view, and that view only, are they here made the topic of remark."

The President then entered his solemn protest against the Senate's proceedings in these words:

"With this view, and for the reasons which have been stated, I do hereby solemnly protest against the aforementioned proceedings of the Senate, as unauthorized by the constitution; contrary to its spirit and to several of its express provisions; subversive of that distribution of the powers of government which it has ordained and established; destructive of the checks and safeguards by which those powers were intended, on the one hand, to be controlled, and, on the other, to be protected; and calculated, by their immediate and collateral effects, by their character and tendency, to concentrate in the hands of a body not directly amenable to the people, a degree of influence and power dangerous to their liberties, and fatal to the constitution of their choice."

And it concluded with an affecting appeal to his private history for the patriotism and integrity of his life, and the illustration of his conduct in relation to the bank, and showed his reliance on God and the People to sustain him; and looked with confidence to the place which justice would assign him on the page of history. This moving peroration was in these words:

"The resolution of the Senate contains an imputation upon my private as well as upon my public character; and as it must stand for ever on their journals, I cannot close this substitute for that defence which I have not been allowed to present in the ordinary form, without remarking, that I have lived in vain, if it be necessary to enter into a formal vindication of my character and purposes from such an imputation. In vain do I bear upon my person, enduring memorials of that contest in which American liberty was purchased; in vain have I since perilled property, fame, and life, in defence of the rights and privileges so dearly bought: in vain am I now, without a personal aspiration, or the hope of individual advantage, encountering responsibilities and dangers, from which, by mere inactivity in relation to a single point, I might have been exempt – if any serious doubts can be entertained as to the purity of my purposes and motives. If I had been ambitious, I should have sought an alliance with that powerful institution, which even now aspires to no divided empire. If I had been venal, I should have sold myself to its designs. Had I preferred personal comfort and official ease to the performance of my arduous duty, I should have ceased to molest it. In the history of conquerors and usurpers, never, in the fire of youth, nor in the vigor of manhood, could I find an attraction to lure me from the path of duty; and now, I shall scarcely find an inducement to commence the career of ambition, when gray hairs and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, call me to the contemplation of other worlds, where conquerors cease to be honored, and usurpers expiate their crimes. The only ambition I can feel, is to acquit myself to Him to whom I must soon render an account of my stewardship, to serve my fellow-men, and live respected and honored in the history of my country. No; the ambition which leads me on, is an anxious desire and a fixed determination, to return to the people, unimpaired, the sacred trust they have confided to my charge – to heal the wounds of the constitution and preserve it from further violation; to persuade my countrymen, so far as I may, that it is not in a splendid government, supported by powerful monopolies and aristocratical establishments, that they will find happiness, or their liberties protected, but in a plain system, void of pomp – protecting all, and granting favors to none – dispensing its blessings like the dews of heaven, unseen and unfelt, save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It is such a government that the genius of our people requires – such a one only under which our States may remain for ages to come, united, prosperous, and free. If the Almighty Being who has hitherto sustained and protected me, will but vouchsafe to make my feeble powers instrumental to such a result, I shall anticipate with pleasure the place to be assigned me in the history of my country, and die contented with the belief, that I have contributed in some small degree, to increase the value and prolong the duration of American liberty.

"To the end that the resolution of the Senate may not be hereafter drawn into precedent, with the authority of silent acquiescence on the part of the Executive department; and to the end, also, that my motives and views in the Executive proceeding denounced in that resolution may be known to my fellow-citizens, to the world, and to all posterity, I respectfully request that this message and protest may be entered at length on the journals of the Senate."

No sooner was this Protest read in the Senate than it gave rise to a scene of the greatest excitement. Mr. Poindexter, of Mississippi, immediately assailed it as a breach of the privileges of the Senate, and unfit to be received by the body. He said: "I will not dignify this paper by considering it in the light of an Executive message: it is no such thing. I regard it simply as a paper, with the signature of Andrew Jackson; and, should the Senate refuse to receive it, it will not be the first paper with the same signature which has been refused a hearing in this body, on the ground of the abusive and vituperative language which it contained. This effort to denounce and overawe the deliberations of the Senate may properly be regarded as capping the climax of that systematic plan of operations which had for several years been in progress, designed to bring this body into disrepute among the people, and thereby remove the only existing barrier to the arbitrary encroachments and usurpations of Executive power: " – and he moved that the paper, as he called it, should not be received. Mr. Benton deemed this a proper occasion to give notice of his intention to move a strong measure which he contemplated – an expunging resolution against the sentence of the Senate: – a determination to which he had come from his own convictions of right, and which he now announced without consultation with any of his friends. He deemed this movement too bold to be submitted to a council of friends – too daring to expect their concurrence; – and believed it was better to proceed without their knowledge, than against their decision. He, therefore, delivered his notice ex abruptu, accompanied by an earnest invective against the conduct of the Senate; and committed himself irrevocably to the prosecution of the "expunging resolution" until he should succeed in the effort, or terminate his political life: He said:

"The public mind was now to be occupied with a question of the very first moment and importance, and identical in all its features with the great question growing out of the famous resolutions of the English House of Commons in the case of the Middlesex election in the year 1768; and which engrossed the attention of the British empire for fourteen years before it was settled. That question was one in which the House of Commons was judged, and condemned, for adopting a resolution which was held by the subjects of the British crown to be a violation of their constitution, and a subversion of the rights of Englishmen: the question now before the Senate, and which will go before the American people, grows out of a resolution in which he (Mr. B.) believed that the constitution had been violated – the privileges of the House of Representatives invaded – and the rights of an American citizen, in the person of the President, subverted. The resolution of the House of Commons, after fourteen years of annual motions, was expunged from the Journal of the House; and he pledged himself to the American people to commence a similar series of motions with respect to this resolution of the Senate. He had made up his mind to do so without consultation with any human being, and without deigning to calculate the chances or the time of success. He rested under the firm conviction that the resolution of the Senate, which had drawn from the President the calm, temperate, and dignified protest, which had been read at the table, was a resolution which ought to be expunged from the Journal of the Senate; and if any thing was necessary to stimulate his sense of duty in making a motion to that effect, and in encouraging others after he was gone, in following up that motion to success, it would be found in the history and termination of the similar motion which was made in the English House of Commons to which he had referred. That motion was renewed for fourteen years – from 1768 to 1782 – before it was successful. For the first seven years, the lofty and indignant majority did not condescend to reply to the motion. They sunk it under a dead vote as often as presented. The second seven years they replied; and at the end of the term, and on the assembling of a new Parliament, the veteran motion was carried by more than two to one; and the gratifying spectacle was beheld of a public expurgation, in the face of the assembled Commons of England, of the obnoxious resolution from the Journal of the House. The elections in England were septennial, and it took two terms of seven years, or two general elections, to bring the sense of the kingdom to bear upon their representatives. The elections of the Senate were sexennial, with intercalary exits and entrances, and it might take a less, or a longer period, he would not presume to say which, to bring the sense of the American people to bear upon an act of the American Senate. Of that, he would make no calculation; but the final success of the motion in the English House of Commons, after fourteen years' perseverance, was a sufficient encouragement for him to begin, and doubtless would encourage others to continue, until the good work should be crowned with success; and the only atonement made which it was in the Senate's power to make, to the violated majesty of the constitution, the invaded privileges of the House of Representatives and the subverted rights of an American citizen.