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lawyer. We gave you yesterday the ex-attorney of the State of New Hampshire; there surely you would have had the best of law, but he has declined to serve. I believe another gentleman, who was also excused yesterday (Mr. Hubley), is a sound lawyer. What, then, do you want?

"The other day a gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fry) quoted from a speech of mine, made in my own State, a passage in which I had said that the party in power had no leaders of distinguished ability in this House. This was a rash and unadvised assertion, and I take it back. When I made it I had not heard the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Besides, I hear from the gentleman of New York there are twenty members of the party who tower by head and shoulders above the others. All I have to say is to bring them out, show us your gems, and we will set them in this committee, where they shall shine before men, and their light shall no longer be hidden by their own modesty or by our perversity.”

Again, on December 28, 1838 (p. 74, Third Session, Twentyfifth Congress), on the resolution to print extra copies of the documents relating to defaulters of the public funds. Mr. Menefee, of Kentucky, having just spoken in favor of the measure, Mr. Prentiss arose and said,

"Mr. Speaker, I am as well, pleased as the gentleman who has just taken his seat at witnessing the sensation in certain parts of this House at every fresh haul of truth from the great deep of this administration's secrets. The great oyster-bed has not been disturbed for years. Now I do not doubt that another grab will bring above water larger and fatter oysters than any that have yet been opened. Yes, there were other fine fish below which had not yet been hooked up or speared. I am for trying all the ways to get at them, lines, nets, spears, harpoons; any means and all means I am for trying, so that by some means the fish may be made to appear above water. I am happy to perceive, from some compunctions of conscience on the other side, that the party is not as yet desperately wicked'; they were not judicially hardened, there was some little nucleus of moral principle around which better feelings might yet cluster, so as to leave a hope that they might still be snatched as brands from the burning. I had begun to think that the skin of this administration was like that of the rhinoceros, insensible to all attacks and proof against the keenest dart, but I now begin to have a better hope. The Globe may admonish, warn, and entreat, but it was in vain. The Globe could not stop this debate on corruption. It would go on. The nation would hear it. Gentlemen did not like this word 'corruption,' but if I thought their ears were not callous I would buy a starling and have it taught to cry nothing but corruption. I would find the administration when asleep, and in its ear I would halloo Corruption !' Corruption!' Corruption!' I would not, according to the advice of the gentleman of New York over the way (Mr. Cambre

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ling), have the anatomical dissection confined to dead subjects. No, there were plenty of living ones whose imposthumes needed the knife. I trust these documents will be published. I want them for two purposes,—first for lessons of morality, and then as models of king's English. My friend (Mr. Menefee) had said they would cut like a two-edged sword; ay, like a three-edged one."

The last speech which Prentiss made in Congress was on the resolution of thanks to the Speaker. It must be evident to the reader that he had no great admiration for that gentleman, and did not care to conceal his feelings.

At about the close of the session, March 3, 1839, Mr. Elmore, of South Carolina, moved the following resolution: "That the thanks of this House be presented to the Hon. James K. Polk for the able, impartial, and dignified manner in which he has presided over its deliberations and performed the arduous and important duties of the chair."

The question was immediately raised as to whether it could be acted on without a suspension of the rules. Mr. Bell (of Tennessee) hoped no technical objection would be made. Mr. Elmore quoted authority to show it was in order. Mr. Prentiss (of Mississippi) arose and said, "I will not object to the offering of the resolution, but I wish to offer an amendment to it." Mr. Elmore reminded him that the question of order had to be settled first. This, after a little parleying, was withdrawn, and Mr. Elmore said that in offering the resolution he had only followed out a practice of the House which had prevailed from the beginning of the government. Courtesy had always dictated to the members of the House to accord to the Speaker that meed of thanks which was due to his services, etc. Mr. Prentiss said,

"I came to the House prepared to expect the offering of such a resolution. I have seen indications of its coming, and I have come prepared to offer an amendment to the resolution and to sustain it, which I shall do, if left to sustain it alone. I move to amend the resolution by striking from it the word 'impartial.' I am unwilling at this hour, when we are about so shortly to leave this hall, to allude to anything which might excite unpleasant reminiscences. I consider this resolution as not a mere matter of form. It had been claimed as a mere act of parting courtesy usual at the termination of every Congress. If it were that, and nothing more than that; if it were the mere touching of the cap and extending the hand to the Speaker who was retiring from office, I would not oppose or object to

it. I am for encouraging the courtesies of life, and we have seen quite enough during the present session to convince us of the necessity of doing 80. But this is a peculiar case, to which the rules of mere courtesy do not apply. I cannot consent to praise the Speaker for having been impartial in the discharge of the duties of the chair, simply because it is not true that he has been impartial. It might be said that this was a very small matter, a customary compliment merely. But, as every gentleman knows, in politics it might become a very great thing. A mere thread may be seized upon and by party management may be woven at last into a cable by which to lead bodies of men and to control the Legislatures of States. The present resolution was one which presented facilities for being so availed of. I have no objection to uttering a courteous farewell to the Speaker as a gentleman and wishing him a pleasant journey home, but I believe this vote of thanks is to be used as so much political capital, to do political business upon, and I for one am not disposed to furnish it.

"I say, sir, that the Speaker has not been impartial; the House did not so consider him. In proof of this it would be sufficient to refer to the vote of the House refusing to him on that very ground the appointment of the members of an investigating committee to examine into the defalcations of his own party. And though the debate on that subject had rushed and raged through the House like an uncaged tiger leaping in all directions, yet this was a point, and the only point from which it had never departed; here it had fixed its fangs with a determined and deadly hold. Trust the Speaker with that appointment the IIouse would not. And now to pass a solemn vote that the Speaker had discharged his duties in an impartial manner it would be to declare a lie. I never will vote for such a declaration. I never will say what I do not believe, nor record the assertion that the Speaker had been impartial when the House had recorded its own vote to the contrary. I have here in my pocket a little document which would speak very intelligibly as to this Speaker's impartiality. I well know what this resolution of thanks is worth under existing circumstances. I speak out plainly and explicitly, as I am wont to do. I know that the incumbent of the chair is playing a political game in which the smallest amount of capital would be useful to him. In that game I am opposed to him, and I will not by voting this resolution throw it into my own teeth. I would not send that gentleman into his electioneering field with this certificate in his pocket; I would not certify to the people of the United States a positive lie which was to be used against myself and others with whom I act; I would say to the whole country that in the formation of the committees of the House-and what act is of deeper importance?the Speaker has not been impartial. I would not be understood as saying that it was unusual or improper that the Speaker of that House in appointing standing and other committees should place upon them a majority of those who corresponded with him in political sentiment; of this I do not complain. But I do believe there is not a legislative body on the

globe where political parties being so nearly balanced the disparity of those parties in the committees of that body were so enormous. I would deal in no loose or general assertions on this subject; I will put my finger upon the facts,-facts which if the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Elmore) is able to swallow, his powers of deglutition must be very different from those of mine.

"To begin with the Committee of Foreign Affairs. There were six administration men to three of the opposition. Is this, I put it to the gentleman, a fair representation of the balance of parties in the House itself? Then there was the Committee of Ways and Means; every one admitted its importance as standing at the head of the finances, and how was it constituted? Here again it was six to three. But what was the constitution of the Committee of Elections? Everybody knew that a place on that committee had been no sinecure in this Congress. So far from it, the acts and reports from that committee had shaken the pillars of this government as the blind Samson shook the pillars of Dagon's temple; if they had not been absolutely thrown down they had at least been shaken to their foundations. It was a committee in which above all others the strictest impartiality was demanded, for there it was that the demon of party was most likely to rear its hydra head. And how did this committee-a committee of judges-how did it stand? Seven to two? Yes, that was the Speaker's impartiality. Well, how stood the case with the Judiciary Committee? Here, again, it was seven to two, if the distinguished gentleman from Virginia was to be ranked with the administration; but as a change had taken place since the constitution of the committee, it stood on the most favorable statement of six to three. Here, then, under the action of this most impartial Speaker the four most important committees of the House were so constituted as to give the administration party, as its very smallest majority, two to one, and the most important of them all, in a political point of view, had seven on the one side and but two on the other. I don't wish to be understood as derogating in the slightest degree from the character or reflecting on the conduct of the members of these committees; far from it. They acted, no doubt, according to their own views of public duty. I speak only of the balance of political power in those committees collectively.

"But how stands the matter in those committees which exert no party or political influence? Oh, there I find quite a different state of things. The Committee of Manufactures contained eight Whigs to one administration man. Now if their duty had been to manufacture politics, does any man believe that such a proportion would have been observed? Oh, no, the balance would have been far different. Then there came the Committee on Roads and Canals, a committee which, however useful and important, exerted no political influence, and it contained seven Whigs. Here the proportion was seven to two. So in the Committee on Revisals and Unfinished Business, seven to two. In the little Committee on Ex

penditures in the various departments it was still larger; some of these were all Whigs. Now, did not this show design? Was there not a reason for so great a contrast? It showed a deliberately adopted principle of action, followed out through the whole selection, and this by a Speaker on whose election to the chair the House had been so equally divided that his election had been carried by thirteen votes only out of two hundred and forty-seven. After this can I vote to declare that this officer had been impartial in exercising his great and responsible power?

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"This was in the appointment of committees; and then as to the other cases where the House had been equally divided and the casting vote of the chair decided the question in one way or the other, would any gentleman point me to a single instance, whether of greater or minor importance, whether the decision swept away the whole political rights of a State or recognized the official claims of the Globe newspaper, or settled the smallest question, where the vote had not been invariably given in one direction? "I do not deny the capacity of the Speaker, his despatch of business, or his full and thorough knowledge of parliamentary law. I concede all this; but it is the facts I have just quoted upon which I take my stand, and deny utterly the impartiality of the chair, and I never will, out of mere courtesy, endorse a tool of the Executive or a tool of the party. A more perfectly party Speaker, one who would be more disposed to bend the rules of the House to meet the purposes of his own side in politics, never had pressed the soft and ample cushions of that gorgeous chair. To say that he had been impartial in the duties of his high office would be but flattery; it would be certifying to what was not true, and I have too often seen the effects of certificates not to be cautious how I give them. I am willing to make the Speaker a courteous parting bow, but I will not consent to let him sit there and do all his party work and then march out with the honors of war. The duties of the chair were too important for this. The presiding officer of that House in effect cut out all the business of that House. It was he who placed before it all its material for action and decided who should work it up. Through the standing committees of that House his power extended to the utmost bounds of the nation. It was in some respects beyond that of the President himself. Such an officer ought not to be the high-priest of party, that Moloch before whose altars were daily immolated the dearest rights of this republic.

"The present Speaker was, as the House well knew, a candidate at this time for the chief magistracy of his own State, and in the canvass there and throughout all the West this vote would be referred to as an undeniable proof that he had exercised the utmost impartiality while in that chair; and yet the House itself had utterly refused to trust him. When that damning fact should be brought by his opponents what more would he have to do, should this resolve pass, than to tear from the records of the House the leaf which contained it, and, holding it up to the sun, pronounce all these representations to be unfounded calumnies?

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