due degree of vivacity and deliberation. The same idea may be supposed to be carried out in our institutions, though the requisite attributes may not be insured by the same means. In claiming, sir, for this body the attribute of deliberation, I do not mean to say that we are by contradistinction the sober body. The constitution which has established this system of government was the peaceable and deliberate work of the people. It was not, sir, the result of accident, or of a struggle for political power between different orders of society. To find fault, then, with the Senate is to impeach the wisdom and intelligence of the people themselves. It is they who, in adopting the federal constitution, have said that the Senate shall be organized as we find it, have prescribed the mode of its election, and given to it the character of greater permanency. But sir, I ask again, what is the meaning of this sentiment? Are we to be prepared for reducing the Government to a unit, as we have been told that the cabinet should be one? Is it intended to blot out the component parts of this system, and reduce the Government to the simple relation of the President and the people? In the message of 1832 the Supreme Court was assailed, and its authority, as the interpreter of the constitution, denied; and now, sir, we are told by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] that the President has corrected and repealed the decision of that court in relation to the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States; and that, in his opinion, all that remains to be done is to issue an audita querella to ascer tain the fact, have it entered on the record, and the judg. ment reversed. Here is at once a new attribute of power, and a most extraordinary mode of proceeding. On the other hand, we are told by the Senator from Virginia that the Senate is the citadel of that aristocratic spirit which seeks to ride on the necks of the people. If the Senator merely means that this language is descriptive of himself and his friends, be it so. I cannot quarrel with what he may deem just and proper as to them, though I should have been backward myself in so characterizing them; but, sir, I utterly deny its justice and propriety as applicable to my self, or those with whom I have the honor and the happiness to act. lation to this Government, I and my immediate constituents, and I believe a great majority of the American people, are conservatives. We go for the Government as it is. We wish to preserve the system of Federal and State Governments as it was established by the wisdom of our ancestors. "We ask no change, and, least of all, such changes as they would bring us." In this system we live, and move, and have our being; and as we were the first to adopt the constitution, we shall be the last to abandon it. We have heard much about the policy of the Executive, and have even been advised to look to that source for the initiative of certain measures. To my mind, all this is of a piece with that exaggerated and false conception of executive power and consequence which has characterized the present Chief Magistrate and his advisers. The executive power which represents the common force of society is, in every just the ory, and in the nature of things, inferior to the legislative power, which is the representative of the common intelligence and the common will, and that, too, precisely in the degree in which brute force is inferior to reason. It is the business of the President to execute the laws, not to make them. The policy of the Executive! Who charged the President with the care of the general welfare? What business has he with any policy distinct from the policy of the law? The prosperity of a great and civilized people depends on the laws, and not on the will of the Executive. Sir, I regret to hear such opinions expressed. I trust in God they will not prevail in this country; for, to my mind, they are in direct hostility with that tone of manly and independ In re [SENATE. ent feeling which should characterize a nation of free men. In opening the subject of this expunging resolution, the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] has seen fit to entertain us with a magnificent eulogy on the merits of the President. This, no doubt, was a very fit introduction to the measure which is proposed, and may perhaps serve to indicate its ultimate aim and purpose. He has been described at one time as teaching the saucy Britons a lesson of humility from behind the cotton bags of New Orleans, and at another rebuking with the thunder of American cannon the savages of the Pacific ocean, "bestriding the narrow world like a Colossus." Not content with this plenitude of military fame, he has been endued with all civic virtues and superhuman sagacity. While listening to this strain of adulation, every sober. minded individual must have involuntarily exclaimed, with Cassius, "Now, in the names of all the gods at once, upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, that he is grown so great? Sir, I am not disposed to deny his real merits, or to withhold my gratitude for his real ser vices. He has, sir, rendered good service to his coun. try, and well has that country repaid him for it. But that service was in a military, not in a civil capacity. Much has, as usual, been said about the people, and the people's friends, and an impression is attempted to be given that those who support this administration are alone the friends of the people. Who are they that thus arrogantly talk about the people, as if they belonged to some superior order? The people's friends, indeed! The people, sir, stand in need of no friends; they are the sovereigns; it is they who dispense their smiles and their favors; and it would be much more becoming and seemly to speak of the people as being one's friend than of one's self as being the friend of the people. There is, to be sure, one point of view in which the supporters of this administration, I mean those in office, may be considered the friends of the people. It is the same in which the licentiate, in Gil Blas, is termed and consid ered himself the friend of the poor, and who proved his friendship by consuming their revenues. The aid of public opinion has been invoked in relation to this measure, and we are told by the Senator from Missouri that the people have rendered their verdict, and he demands judgment and execution. When and how, sir, was the issue made up? The resolution of March, 1834, was adopted after the last presidential election; but this notion of a verdict is gathered from the fact of the continued ascendency of the party and the resolves of some State Legislatures. Can any thing be more preposterous than the assumption that a majority of the people, liking the man, in yielding to him their support, are to be understood as approving of every thing that he says and does, and disapproving of every thing that is said or done against him? As well might it be contended, on the same ground, that because General Jackson smokes a pipe, the verdict of the people has established that it is right and proper to use tobacco, and that the legitimate mode of doing so is by smoking it in an earthen pipe. But all this, sir, is apart from the main question. We are called upon to expunge a resolution from our journal, to suppress the evidence of a fact, to falsify a record! If the right to do so were a matter of doubt merely, it would be the part of a prudent and conscien. tious man to pause. Let not, I pray, sir, the excite ment of party spirit hurry this body to an act which is a clear infraction of the constitution; be satisfied with & counter-resolution, expressing in as strong terms as you please your approbation of the President's conduct, and your repugnance to the resolution of the 28th of March, 1834, but do not let us inflict another wound upon the great charter of our Union. Rely upon it, sir, that if the frenzy of party spirit, or any other motive, shall lead you to do this deed, you will find yourselves in the condition of a homicide, who, having exhausted his malice in a deed of violence, recoils with horror and remorse from the victim of his passion. When Mr. BAYARD had concluded, It Mr. HENDRICKS rose and said that, at this late hour of the day, it would be out of place to attempt an argument or a speech to the Senate; and such was not his purpose, in the few words he had at present to say. had been his intention, some time ago, to have troubled the Senate with his views somewhat at large on the subject; but he would content himself now with saying a very few words; and this was perhaps necessary, owing to the peculiar position he occupied in relation to the proposition before the Senate. It would be recollected that he had voted against the resolution of 1834, so much complained of, the resolution which it was now proposed to expunge from the journals of the Senate. He did so for many of the reasons contained in the preamble to the resolution now on our tables. In some of the reasons, however, contained in that preamble, he did not concur, and of course could not vote for it. For some of the reasons contained in it he could most cheerfully vote. No member of the Senate more than himself (said Mr. H.) regretted the passage of that resolution. No one could have been more opposed to it. He viewed it as an apple of discord set in motion; a firebrand thrown into the community, calculated to do more harm than any other measure proposed at that eventful session; and he now believed that it had done more harm in exciting party spirit to its present dangerous height than any other measure which could have been proposed. The danger apprehended to the constitution by this act of expunging (said Mr. H.) is a natural consequence of the measure of 1834; as much so as that one act of violence should succeed another. A party in power to-day, and who shall use that power indiscreetly, will be sure to meet with retaliation, as soon as the opposite party shall triumph. Hence violent measures of this kind are as sure to succeed each other, in the mutations of party power, as ef fect is to follow cause. Much, however, as he was opposed to the resolution of 1834, he could not vote to expunge it from the journals. That was a question, in his opinion, having nothing to do with the merits or demerits of the original proposition. The question before the Senate was one of power to expunge the journal, no matter what journal it might be. He thought no such power existed in the Senate, nor any where else; and his oath to support the constitution of the United States was imperative, and prohibited him from giving any such vote, whatever may have been his opinion of the resolution proposed to be expunged. It was, in his view of the constitution, as much a duty to keep and preserve the journals of unconstitutional proceedings, if such there be, as of any other. Our constituents have as much right to know our bad acts as our good ones; because it is for these they will call us to account; and it would be strange doctrine, that we could shield ourselves from responsibility by expunging the journals. The argument, then, of the Senator from Pennsylvania, that the resolution of 1834 was unconstitutional, and therefore ought to be expunged, did not in the least relieve his mind. He understood, too, that this was the basis of the votes of other members of the Senate in favor of expunging. Much as he disapproved of the resolution of 1834, he believed that it was constitutional, and that it was such a proposition as the Senate might entertain and adopt. He saw nothing unconstitutional about it. It might, or it might not, be considered an abstract proposition. It had, indeed, remained as a mere declaratory expression of the Senate, but it might have been the basis of legislation. Whether [JAN. 16, 1837. it be true or false is a matter of opinion. Those who voted for it unquestionably believed its affirmations to be true. They believed that the President had, in relation to the revenue, exercised authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in dero. gation of both. He, who voted against it, believed that the authority and power exercised by the President was not in derogation of the constitution and laws; and, however much he dissented on the ground of expediency from that which had been done, he never doubted the constitutional and legal power of the President to do what he did. It had been said (continued Mr. H.) that the resolu tion of 1834 contains impeachable matter against the President, and that, on this account, it is not entitled to a place on the journals. He did not think, however, that it contained any impeachable matter. It charged no evil or corrupt intention, which was the essential ingredient of impeachable matter. He referred to the case of Peck's trial before the Senate, and stated that the absence of proof of corrupt intention was the basis of his acquittal by the Senate. This had been the reason of his own vote of acquittal; and this, he had good reason to be lieve, was the basis of votes of acquittal generally. In voting against expunging, he did not vote to affirm the truth of the resolution of 1834. He had already stated the reverse. He believed that the President had the power, whatever he might think of its exercise, under the circumstances of that case. But his opinion that the resolution proposed to be expunged was and is untrue, had nothing to do with bis duty in the present case, and could not, in any degree, influence his vote. The Senate had no power to expunge the journals. He could, without the least difficulty, vote upon the journals of the present session a resolution to rescind that of 1834, or to affirm a contrary proposition. This, while it would clearly assert the opinion of the Senate in relation to the proceedings of 1834, would not obliterate the journals of that day, and would have all the effect of the mode proposed. Mr. H. here referred to the constitution, which says that "each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their opinion require secrecy," and said that the obligations of his oath to support the con stitution of the United States made, in his conscience and judgment, his duty on the present occasion clear and imperative. The constitution required the journal to be kept. He could not vote to destroy, or expunge, or ob literate it. But it is contended (said Mr. H.) that the black lines proposed to be drawn around the journal of 1834 will not expunge it in reality; that they will take nothing away from it. It will not, however, be contended that writing the words required to be written across the face of it will not deface, and, to a certain extent, obliterate it. But suppose these black lines and this writing upon the journal of 1834 takes nothing away from that journal, it will surely not be denied that a material addition will be made to it. The constitution requires the journal to be published, but how was this to be published? Could it be published as the journal of 1834 No. That had been published three years ago. There were in that publication no black lines; no writing across the face of the record. If you publish it as the journal of 1834, you falsify the former publication. You cannot publish it as the journal of 1837, because it is the journal of 1834. There, and there only, are the black lines and labellous writing to be found. No page of the journal of 1837 contains any thing like it. In what shape, or form, or manner, then, will you obey the injunction of the constitution, in publishing the journal of these proceedings? The truth is, (said Mr. H.,) the more we look at this thing, the more difficulty we must see in it; the more certainly will it appear to be a proceeding not contemplated by the constitution, but incompatible with it. It makes a case which, in the simple publication of the journals, the constitution will not warrant or defend. Mr. STRANGE said: I am not unconscious of the disadvantages under which I labor, in addressing the Senate at this late period; but it has been properly remarked, in the course of this debate, that we are engaged in no ephemeral transaction; that this night's work is not to pass away with the occasion; it is not to be consigned at once to the tomb of the Capulets," with things unworthy of remembrance. All connected with the matter under consideration are doomed to immortality, for good or for evil; and as it is my destiny and my purpose to ap. propriate a humble leaf from this fadeless wreath, to rescue from oblivion a name which would otherwise be forgotten when the individual who bears it shall cease to breathe, I wish to say a few words in explanation of my course, not with the vain hope of their being as immortal as the act they accompany, but merely for the temporary satisfaction of my personal acquaintances. aware that this subject has been treated with singular ability on both sides of this hall, and may, perhaps, be thought exhausted; but as, in some respects, my views differ considerably from any I have heretofore heard advanced, I take the liberty of offering them. It is the more proper I should do so, as, in a motion I shall take occasion to make before I sit down, I might otherwise subject myself to the misapprehension both of friends and foes, (without meaning, however, to use the latter term in its most offensive sense.) I am The Senator from South Carolina, who discoursed so eloquently upon this subject the other day, was pleased to say, facetiously, that those who vote for this expunging resolution will be placed on "a bad eminence," damned to a fame like that of Eratostratus, who destroyed by fire one of the seven wonders of the world, the Ephesian temple of Diana; and doubtless the same wild fancy which led him to this conclusion has pictured for himself and his associates a classic reputation like that of the celebrated Roman conspirators, who slew a Cæsar in the Capitol. Happily, however, the latter parallel fails in most important particulars; for the ancients actually wrought the physical death of a usurper, while the moderns have only attempted the moral death of a patriot. I regret that those who framed the preamble affixed to this resolution have thought proper to make it so long, not on account of its having furnished a subject of wit to the Senator from Kentucky, but because it has already thrown difficulties in the way of some, and is still likely to throw difficulties in the way of myself, and others friendly to the resolution itself. That delicate machine, the human mind, formed by an invisible hand, is exceedingly subtile in its operations, and like the watches which occupied the attention of that great monarch, Charles V, of Germany, after his retirement from the cares of empire, no two will operate precisely alike. Many minds may come to a similar conclusion; but in the processes by which they arrive at it will probably all vary in a greater or less degree. This is found to be the case in the most simple and familiar matters, and still more so in those of complication and rare occurrence. I wish some reference could have been had, in framing | this preamble, to the advice of a celebrated statesman, to a judge then recently appointed to one of the British provinces. "Decide," said he, "according to your judgment of what is right, but give no reasons for your decision. Thousands may approve the one, who will not concur with you in the other." Regardless of this prudent counsel, many reasons are offered in this preamble for the ultimate conclusion that it is right to expunge from the journal of the Senate the obnoxious resolution [SENATE. of March, 1834; and among them it is stated that the said resolution was unconstitutional. In this reason I cannot concur, because I do not unite in the opinion that it is founded in fact. I cannot, therefore, conscientiously put it forth in this formal manner, as constituting a portion of the basis of an important action in which I am desirous to unite. An act, according to my understanding, is unconstitutional, which is prohibited, in express terms, by the constitution, or which is done in substantial omission of something commanded by it. Now, I do not find in the constitution any prohibition upon the Senate from uttering an opinion, collectively or individually, upon any subject whatsoever. I agree that the constitution only expressly authorizes them to perform certain legislative, executive and judicial functions, and prescribes the mode, to a certain extent, in which they shall perform them, and that a performance of these acts in any substantial disregard of this prescription would be unconstitutional, while all acts done, not mentioned or distinctly referred to in the constitution, are done without its warrant. But, then, the constitution has not taken away, so far as the matter under consideration is concerned, that right which, in a state of nature, all men derived from the God who made them, to utter their thoughts, as individuals or collectively, however assembled, upon things in general. Restrictions upon this privilege are certainly to be found in the Divine law itself, and in the many maxims of propriety which society has, from time to time, and in various ways, laid down for the government of its members. But I deny that the constitution of the United States has laid down any rcstriction applicable to the present case, and would in vain ask for its production. I know that, in disputing the soundness of this reason set forth in the preamble, I encounter the opinions of many wise men, for whom I have the profoundest respect. But, while this furnishes me with a strong and only reason for doub ing the soundness of my own view, it will not justify me in asserting that as a truth of which I am not convinced; and still less that to which my own faculties altogether refuse their assent. When a man undertakes to assert any thing deliberately, he must do so upon his own conviction, and not upon the mere opinions of others. Those who insist upon the unconstitutionality of the resolution of 1834, treat it as an actual impeachment of the President, without having waited for the accusation constitutionally preferred by the House of Representatives. If I could admit or perceive the fact that the resolution of 1834 was an impeachnent of the President, in the technical sense of that word, I should have no difficulty in uniting in the conclusion that it was a palpable violation of the constitution. But impeachment, as used in the constitution, is a technical term, and all that enters into the technical idea embraced in the term must exist to make it applicable. A number of unauthorized persons may pronounce a man guilty of an offence, but no one for that reason would say that he had been tried. If a judge goes into court, and, without the finding of an indictment, or any other formal accusation against a person, directs an entry to be made upon the record that he is guilty of a certain of fence, it could not be said that he had been tried. The substantial part of an impeachment or trial is the punishment consequent upon being found guilty; and no matter by what name a proceeding may be called, it does not meet the idea embraced in these expressions, either in laws or constitutions, if conviction upon it does not involve punishment as a regular consequence. In the proceeding referred to in the Senate there was condemnation, but it was not a condemnation which drew after it punishment, or in pursuance of which punishment could have been inflicted. In matters of this sort names are things; and whenever we suffer ourselves to be drawn away from their accepted significations, we cast our SENATE.] Expunging Resolution. [JAN. 16, 1837. selves upon a wide ocean of uncertainty, and our minds, like a vessel, however richly freighted, without compass or polar star, can never calculate on ultimately reaching any place of security. To say that the Senate impeached the President in the resolution of 1834 is, in my judgment, a pure assumption; and if the resolution was not an impeachment, no one contends, I believe, that it was a literal violation of the constitution. But it is insisted that, if not a literal violation of the constitution, the resolution of 1834 was a violation of its spirit. I belong, Mr. President, to a class of politicians, and I am proud to say so, who deny that the constitution has any spirit. Like Shylock's bond, we hold that whatever is not found in it cannot be claimed under it; its grants and its prohibi-person charged is to be tried. What volume contains a tions are such, as that he who reads may perceive them, and no artful constructionist is at liberty to stretch it to his purposes, or to hammer it cut, like gold leaf, until it covers the universe. Believing, then, that the Senate was exercising no constitutional function in their vote of censure upon the President; and that in all other matters the constitution leaves to them, unimpaired, all their natural rights of expressing their opinions, in whatever way assembled, and upon any subject, I cannot concur in the reason assigned for expunging the resolution of 1834, that it was an unconstitutional act. But in thus differing with my friends, and making this concession to the opposition, I think I am very far from weakening the cause of the former, and am presenting the latter with a Trojan horse; in admitting that their act was not unconstitutional, I sweep away at a breath the whole superstructure behind which the opposers of expunction have, as they seem to conceive, securely ensconced themselves. But of this by and by Although the resolution of 1834 be not unconstitutional, nor in violation of the spirit of the constitution, it may yet invade a spirit and violate an authority even superior to the constitution, and abundant reasons may remain for its expunction; and it is my purpose to show that it ought to be expunged for its impropriety, its dangerous tendency, its injustice, and its falsehood. And here allow me to apologize for the strong language I must occasionally use, during the progress of these remarks, although feeling, as I do, great deference for those whose acts I am condemning, and conscious that I am myself as prone to infirmity as any man. But I must speak plainly, and therefore I say, in the first place, that the resolution of 1834 was, in my judgment, the most flagrant violation of propriety ever perpetrated by a high, honorable, and dignified body. To recur to an illustration already used, suppose a judge arrives at a certain place, where he is to hold a court of criminal jurisdiction, and, among other things, he learns that a particular individual is charged with some capital offence; he hears the ex parle statements of rumor, and makes up his opinion that the person is guilty. Not satisfied with this, when he enters the court-house, he calls upon the clerk solemnly to declare upon the record that such a person is, in the opinion of the presiding judge, certainly guilty of such a specific offence. It is true the grand jury have found no bill, the alleged offender has not even been apprehended, no voice has been heard in his defence, and no punishment could follow the prejudication. Yet would it not be an act of the grossest and most flagrant violation of judicial propriety? Would not public execration overwhelm the wretch who had perpetrated it, and hurl him from the station he had degraded? In the case of the single judge, every one is struck at once with the glaring impropriety of his conduct. And is that impropriety at all diminished because perpetrated by numbers? Are there not, in fact, features in the principal case even more oppressive than in the one by which I have attempted to illustrate it? In the case of the judge, he tries the culprit by a rigid, well-defined law, and can make nothing a subject of punishment which the law has not expressly declared so; and, in the application of facts to the law, is dependent on a jury for the finding of those facts, and can assume nothing which the jury do not expressly find. Mental bias, therefore, or prejudication on his part, it would seem, could not be attended with any great degree of mischief. And yet the common sense, and, I may add, the common principles of mankind, revolt at the slightest indication of such bias or prejudication. But the Sen ate of the United States are judges both of law and fact; nay, to a great extent, they make the law by which the recital of the acts for which the President of the United States, or any other public officer, is subject to im peachment? There is no such volume. Any misde meanor in office will warrant impeachment and conviction; and what is such misdemeanor is left to the mere discretion of the Senate, and they promulge the law at the very moment that they pronounce the guilt of its infraction? It is only necessary for the House of Rep. resentatives to charge the offence, and the Senate have then the uncontrolled right to decide the two questions, whether the facts exist; and if so, whether they are the subjects of punishment. Surely, a tribunal so con. stituted ought, of all others, to keep its faculties uninfluenced by rashly expressed opinions. But the worst feature of impropriety yet remains to be considered. It is a general principle, that no man can be a judge in a cause where he has an interest; but some tribunals are so constituted that this wholesome principle cannot always be applied. In such a case, it would seem that a judge so situated would, above all others, feel most powerful ly restrained from allowing himself any indulgence in previous expressions of opinions which might prejudice the person charged, or from prematurely evincing the strength of his own bias. And yet the Senate of the United States, the constitutional tribunal for the trial of the President for unconstitutional acts, prejudges him in a matter in which individual Senators have a person. al interest. I do not mean to say that their personal interest was enlisted by golden bribes, received in the shape of fees, or otherwise, from the United States Bank; although such things have been said, I, for one, do not believe them. I do not think that such was the interest they felt in the question. No; a nobler passion blinded them to the impropriety of the act they were committing; a passion which has been called the vice of great minds; a passion planted in the human breast for the wisest purposes; but one of the most dangerous and desolating where it gains unhallowed mastery. A great political strife had been waging for years, and talent and wealth, and every other engine of human power, had been employed in its progress. No machine had been so powerful as the United States Bank in con ducing to the spread of opinions upon whose success the party to which these Senators belonged believed its own triumph, and the welfare of the nation, to depend. To these opinions Senators had subscribed in the most decided and public manner, and upon them had staked their hopes of renown and worldly distinction. They were opposed by the administration, and a stern, unyield. ing front presented by it to their advance. For this the President had been strongly denounced, and Senators themselves had not been backward in breathing upon the waves of opposition, and stirring them into rage; and, finally, in the tumult of this excitement, forgetful of the high, honorable and delicate propriety which, as men and individuals, has ever characterized them, and their elevated standing as the constitutional triers of the President, they commanded his guilt to be recorded before any legal accuser had come forward, and indig. nantly refused to hear his defence. Am I not warranted, under these circumstances, in pronouncing the act one of gross and flagrant impropriety? "One [SENATE. But this objection to the resolution of 1834 depends altogether for support upon another, which I come now to consider, embracing, in fact, the pith of this contro versy; and that is, as I have said, its falsehood. And here, again, I must apologize for the harshness of the term used, from the necessity I am under to speak plainly, not meaning for a moment to apply it to the individual veracity of those who voted for that resolution. There may be falsehood in a legal conclusion, however sincere the man who arrives at it; and whenever one comes to the conclusion that certain acts are unconstitutional, all who differ with him must believe his conclusion false, whatever terms they may adopt to express their dissent. About the acts done by the President, in reference to which this resolution was adopted, there is no controversy; but that those acts were unconstitutional is, in my judgment, most falsely asserted by the resolution; the position is so false, so gross a perversion of the constitution, that it ought never to have been taken; such a dangerous misrepresentation of that sacred instrument, that it ought, as far as possible, to be annihilated, and treated as though it had never been. It is so palpa But I have said it is an act dangerous in its tendency as a precedent, and for that reason ought to be expunged. The constitution has pointed out the mode in which the different branches of the Government are mutually to check and balance each other, and no where is this informal mode of expressing disapprobation adverted to as one of them. Crimination invariably leads to recrimination. The beginning of strife has been aptly compared in the scriptures to the letting out of waters; the natural result is, that every thing valuable within its reach is carried away in its desolating sweep. word," in homely adage, "brings on another;" and whether the strife of tongues begins between two old wives at the fish market, or the President and Senate, anger quickly subdues all the nobler faculties of the mind, and unnatural and cruel warfare is the probable result. A practical illustration of this idea is furnished in the civil wars of England, already alluded to by the Senator from Connecticut. A strife in which all the ties of family and kindred were dissolved, and the near-bly erroneous, that I cannot persuade myself that any est and the dearest brought to quench a savage thirst in each other's blood, originated in an undignified war of words between the King and the Parliament. If the principle be established that it is proper for one branch of the Government, assembled as such, (but in a manner so informal as to leave it a matter of contest whether it is an official act or not,) to condemn the acts of another, the most fearful consequences must be apprehended. If the Senate may informally condemn the President, so it may the House of Representatives, and the House of Representatives the Senate. Scenes must then originate which, if carried out far into practice, would degrade the nation in the eyes of strangers, and add much to the uncertainty of the tenure by which do mestic quiet is retained. The principle is therefore dangerous in the extreme, and ought to be most promptly discountenanced. I urge, as a third reason for expunging the resolution of 1834, that it is unjust. It is true the then President of the United States still retains his office, and no removal can take place in consequence of the condemnation therein expressed; yet its obvious and designed tendency must have been to degrade the Chief Magistrate in the eyes of the country. Want of principle, or want of capacity, is the alternative left to him in the estimation of all who believe this accusation to be true. They must either pronounce him a sacrilegious violator of the constitution of his country, or a very incompetent judge of its provisions. "Surely, "it would be said by all whose knowledge of affairs did not induce them to look beyond the mere surface of this transaction, "the Senate would not have thus harshly condemned the President for some slight oversight, for some small misapprehension of duty, into which any man might have fallen. No! no! it is some grave matter, in which the constitution has been so grossly violated that none but a rash, headstrong, unprincipled man, who heeded not, or an ignoramus, too dull to perceive, could have been the actor." This is the natu ral conclusion; and what a dilemma for one to be reduced to in this land, where popular opinion is to a public man the breath of his nostrils! That the Senate, availing itself of its usually just title to public confidence, should denounce a man, uncited and unheard, as a violator of the constitution of bis country, whom the popular voice had pronounced most worthy among the millions of American citizens to fill the most dignified and responsible trust, is to my apprehens on the grossest insult to the public sense of justice I have ever witnessed. Very few, but the very individual against whom it was directed, who would not have sunk beneath it. Ru man of common sense or common honesty, whose mind In 1800, but a few years after this constitution was formed, and its original plan and design was fresh in the memory of all, the unity of the Executive is distinctly recognised, in a paper drawn up with great care and deliberation, for the express purpose of staying the waves of federal power. I mean Mr. Madison's celebrated report, in which it is stated, "According to the particular |