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 appropriate 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. I am 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 dif. fer 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.)

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 assem. bled, 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 restriction 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 doubting 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 impeachment 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 em. braced 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 offence, 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 in. volve punishment as a regular consequence. In the proceeding referred to in the Senate there was condemna

tion, 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

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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 resoJution 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 out, 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 Tro. jan 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 parte 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 Senate 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 impeachment? There is no such volume. Any misdemeanor 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 constituted ought, of all others, to keep its faculties unin fluenced 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 powerfully 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 unconstitutional acts, prejudges him in a matter in which individual Senators have a personal 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 conducing 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, unyielding 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?

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. "One 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 nearest 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 his 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 apprehension 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.

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[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 controversy; 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 unconstitu

Ru

tional, 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 palpably erroneous, that I cannot persuade myself that any man of common sense or common honesty, whose mind was perfectly free from previous bias, could for a moment countenance it. But when, as I believe, under the impulse of excited feelings, and in the blindness of party strife, it has received the sanction of the Senate, I am unwilling it should remain, to shed its deceptive light upon future ages, and mislead others to their ruin. At the time this resolution was adopted I had not the honor of a seat in this body; but I was a lover of my country, and felt a deep solicitude for every thing connected with its interests. I then believed, and do still believe, its Senate a body surpassed by none on earth in dignity, and my eye was turned anxiously upon its movements. mor had given out that this resolution was to be brought forward; I was not ignorant of the obscuring effects of passion upon the clearest intellect; and yet I did think the constitutionality of the President's action so obvious that it was impossible to blink it. I confess, when I first heard the removal of the deposites announced, I was startled by the boldness of the measure, but I did not for a moment doubt the constitutionality of the act. I was apprehensive that the President had so far outrun public opinion, it would never overtake him; and his administration, deprived of that essential support, would no longer be useful to the country. This was the extent of my alarm. Contrary to my expectation, however, the Senate has pronounced the act unconstitutional, and it is not sufficient for us to make a mere negation, without reasoning the matter a little. I am well aware, sir, that the idea of the unity of the Executive has not been opposed only, but has been actually turned into ridicule. But the day has gone by when ridicule was the acknowledged test of truth; it has been found to level its shafts with equal success against subjects the lightest and the gravest-against the phantoms of falsehood, and the most solemn realities. Of the unity of the executive branch of the Government of the United States we need look no farther for evidence than the constitution itself, which declares "the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." He is in fact the only executive officer created by the constitution, all others owing their existence to the legislative power of Congress.

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

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Expunging Resolution.

[JAN. 16, 1837.

operated in the same way, and precisely the same process was necessary to place a single dollar in the actual grasp of any person whatsoever. But it has been urged, in reference to the public as well as the bank, that the only ground upon which removal was proper was the security of the public money. To this I reply, as before, nothing of the kind is mentioned in the condition of the clause which forms the only restriction in connexion with this subject upon the general executive power and duty to act in all things for the promotion of the great purposes of the Federal Government. If, then, the Presi dent perceived that for any reason the public good re quired that the public money should no longer remain in the vaults of the United States Bank, it was not only his privilege but his duty to direct the proper officer to remove it. Should he turn out to be mistaken in his notions of expediency, however reprehensible for want of ability in the discharge of his high functions, there could be no pretence for the charge of unconstitutionality. And here, perhaps, I have said all that is necessary for the maintenance of my position, that the resolution of 1834 was false in asserting the act of the President to be unconstitutional. But I assume for the President still higher ground, and insist that his act was not only legal and constitutional, but that it was in the highest degree expedient; that it was a stroke of generalship which causes the laure Is of New rleans to look pale and withered. We have already had occasion to glance slightly at the history of the times connected with the transaction under consideration. At the close of the war of 1812'15, the nation was deeply involved in debt, and the national coffers were empty; ingenuity and patriotism were taxed to contrive expedients for meeting the difficult exigency; our recent foes abroad, and malecontents st home, were mocking at our distress, and the political

organization of the constitution, its legislative powers are vested in the Congress; its executive powers in the President, and its judicial powers in a supreme and inferior tribunals. The union of any two of these powers," it proceeds," and still more, of all three, in any one of these departments, must consequently subvert the constitutional organization of them." The other officers provided by law are mere agents, through whom he is to fulfil the great trust confided to him by the constitution; and whenever the duties prescribed for them from time to time are not, according to his judgment, so performed as best to promote the public good, it is not only his right but his duty to change them. His right of removal being thus unquestionable, no charge of uncon stitutionality can rest upon him for the mere exercise of a discretion confided to him by the constitution. But it is not denied by the President or his friends, that the removal of the deposites was, in fact, his own act; and for whatever of unconstitutionality or illegality may be in it he is responsible. It is true the charter of the United States Bank declares that bank to be the place of deposite for the public moneys, and that they shall only be removed from thence at the will of the Secretary of the Treasury. Whenever, therefore, that will is expressed, the condition is performed, and the right of the bank to retain the moneys under their charter, viewing it as a contract, expires, and the law of the land regulating the disposal of the public treasure is fulfilled. It is not denied that Mr. Duane, the then Secretary of the Treasury, did not choose so to exercise his will, and refused to order the removal of the deposites; but he was himself removed, and another, quite as wise and as honest, appointed in his stead, who, without hesitation, dissolved the spell by which the bank retained the public moneys, and ordered them to be removed. It is contended that this condition was imposed upon the bank in the retention of the pub-party whose firmness and genius, aided by the valor of lic deposites, altogether in reference to their security, and it was a violation of the compact to remove them for any other reason than insecurity. But are those the terms of the condition? Is any reference made in that condition to the motives upon which the Secretary should exercise the power intrusted to him of putting an end to the depository character of the bank? No such reference, no such intimation, is to be found. Had the bank applied to him for his reasons, he might and ought to have treated the application as an impertinent demand. But reasons he was bound to give to Congress, and he did give them. These reasons could not have been asked for in reference to the rights of the bank, for, so far as she is concerned, a naked trust has been exercised, and there is an end of the matter; but simply to enable Congress, as the guardian of the public treasure, to exercise that supervision over what had been done, its management during the recess, which it ought of right to do. A disingenuous clamor has been raised for the purpose of throwing the true questions in this investigation into obscurity, that the act of removal produced a union of the purse and the sword; but did Congress believe that such would be the consequence, when it expressly authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to make the removal whenever, in his judgment, it should be expedient? And the matter has been treated as if the President had with his own hand made the removal of the deposites. If such were the fact, where was the necessity of removing one Secretary, and putting in another? If the President's purpose was, by actual and lawless force, to seize the money in the Treasury, he might as well have passed by one Secretary as another. But the truth is, as is well known to every intelligentions. and candid man, the money in the Treasury was just as inaccessible to the personal contact of the President after the removal as it was before; all the fiscal machinery provided by law for preserving the personal honesty of all having any thing to do with the public money

our army and navy, had brought to a glorious termination a most unequal war, saw bankruptcy and disgrace ready to overwhelm them. Under these circumstances, as the plank in the shipwreck, the expedient of a United States Bank was seized upon, and some, as I am informed, who doubted its constitutionality, and some even who believed it unconstitutional, were driven by the apparent necessity of the case to give the measure their support. The bank was chartered, performed its functions, and the term of its existence was drawing to a close. Application was made for a renewal of its charter, and having made many friends with "the mammon of unrighteousness," a willing ear was lent to its applica tion. Some believed the question of unconstitutionality put to rest by precedent and adjudication, and no longer open as an available cause of opposition. For various reasons, however, its prayer for a continuance of its existence was granted by the Senate and House of Repre sentatives. But the concurrence of another branch of the Government was necessary to the completion of its hopes, and its application there was answered by a veto which waked up, as by a trumpet-call sound, republican doctrines long since supposed to have sunk into a slum ber from whence they would never awake. With a force and clearness which astounded the legions of feder alism, and infused new vigor into the republican ranks, the unconstitutionality and inexpediency of rechartering the United States Bank was demonstrated. From that hour, every political engine was set to work to prostrate the only man who could withstand the might of this mammoth institution, and all who entertained like opin

Presses were subsidized--in various ways the talents of the nation were enlisted in its behalf--and by violent and sudden expansions and contractions, now the hopes and now the fears of the populace were appealed to. Here was a new feature of inexpediency for the rechar ter of the United States Bank, presented to the startled

In our

[SENATE.

consideration of every lover of his country. voice of the people has commanded it to be done, and land, where the popular voice controls and directs every that is a voice which public men in our country dare not thing, nothing is so important as that that voice should disregard. Even those who least regard it in practice dare itself be directed by the hearts of the pure and the free. not openly proclaim their contempt. They may speak of The power and the willingness of this institution to cor- it slightingly in the private circle, and in their hearts derupt was alarmingly demonstrated; and it was seen that, spise it, and endeavor to explain away its unpleasant reunder whatever pretences, it would, if rechartered, get quirements; but when forced to encounter its unequivopossession of the public mind, and wield it to its own pur- cal declarations, they must tremble and obey; they dare poses, either for good or for evil. From the commanding not disregard it. That voice has spoken in general elevation held by the President, he surveyed the field of terms throughout the nation; but it has spoken to some combat--he beheld the nature of the strife going on--he of us as it were by name, and through the appropriate perceived that it was a vital one to his beloved country-- medium, and commanded us to act. It has not spoken le found that the monster's power of mischief lay in the to me personally, but it has spoken to my predecessor; deposites, and he determined to remove them. Like a and, standing in the position I now occupy, hear the skilful surgeon, he saw that the bank, like a vast can- sound still ringing in my years. It is a command which cer, was striking its fibres in every direction, until but seconds my own wishes. I came here anticipating it would finally become so incorporated with the system, the most cheerful compliance; and I yet hope to yield it, that it could only be removed at the expense of the if my own friends do not throw obstacles in the way of patient's life. Anticipating this horrible event, he de- my obedience. Yet I will not deny that there is some termined with a bold hand to cut it off, while the by- personal reference to the present Chief Magistrate himstanders looked on in amazement. Yes, sir, it was a self in the act we desire to perform. The period is at master-stroke, and the bank and its partisans felt that it hand when he who rescued your daughters from the was mortal to her, that her vitals were wounded beyond ruffian pollution of a foreign soldiery, and your soil recovery. Among the many caricatures to which a from the foot of the invader, will be deaf to the strains spirit I am by no means disposed to commend has of gratitude, pressed by the earth he once defended. given rise in modern times, one illustrative of this That he whose voice was loudest in the battles of his idea struck me as being the best. The bank is rep-country shall be hushed into silence; that he who now resented as a huge old woman, extended upon a holds the sceptre of command will have passed away not bed, in the throes of an emetic operation; beside only from office, but from life itself, and have joined the the bed are various vessels, labelled with the names spirits of men that have been. Is not the fame of her of the several deposite banks, into which are falling sons dear to a nation? IIas she no pleasure in the glory the ejected contents of her stomach, consisting of vaof her best and her bravest? Has she no interest in prerious gold and silver coins. At her head, in a kindly venting the mantle of infamy from wrapping the remains effort to sustain it, is seated the president of that institu- of him who should sleep in the robe of honor? In this tion, to whom in her agony she exclaims, "Oh! dear view of the subject, I had fondly hoped that the gentlemen Nick, I am very sick." He promptly replies, "It is all of the opposition would have united with us in this act the effect of that last prescription of Dr. Jackson." Yes, of retribution. That in contemplation of this interesting sir, that last prescription was fatal to the bank, or at least crisis, the party crust which has heretofore encircled their as nearly so as any thing has yet been; and for that cause hearts would have given way, and a flood of tenderness mainly has he who framed it been so strongly denounced spontaneously gushed forth. That with one generous imin the resolution of 1834. But it was a measure adopt- pulse they would have been the first to rush forward, ed in strict accordance with all the forms of law and and pluck off the disgraceful sigma their own hands had constitution, and not in derogation of either. A meas- affixed, in an hour of passionate excitement. But in ure for which, through all time, the patriot who reviews this we have been disappointed, and are left alone, in his country's history, will revere the memory of him who behalf of our country, to make this tardy retribution, to saved by it the perishing constitution; while, with the wipe out this new argument for the ingratitude of remen of the present generation, he can hardly determine publics. which most challenges his admiration, the wisdom that But we are not even so fortunate as to be simply left planned or the firmness that executed it. Having thus, as alone in the performance of our melancholy task; diffiI think, shown that this resolution was grossly improp-culties are thrown in the way of its execution. You caner, dangerous in its tendency, unjust in its operation, and untrue in its assertion, I come next to consider the motives upon which we are called upon to expunge it. The fancy of gentlemen has represented us as ignobly bending at the footstool of power, and licking the dust be neath the monarch's tread. As smoothing the rough mane of the lion, and endeavoring to quiet his frightful roar. Even the car of Juggernaut has been made to roll through this hall, and our garments have been sprinkled with the blood, and our ears stunned with the cries of the victims crushing beneath its wheels, But these are mere pictures of the fancy, and fancy may paint what she pleases; she does not confine her sketches to the copies of even things that might be, and still less to things that are. Sober reason must perceive that we have nothing to expect from the throne, as it has been called, or from him who fills it; that if the mane of the lion is rough, or his roar is angry, it is not against us that his fury is directed. That reasons enough are found for the expunction of the resolution of 1834, in the opinions we have expressed concerning it. But some of us have a strong and urgent reason to perform this act, in a desire to obey those whom we serve. The VOL. XIII.-31

not, it is said, expunge any thing from the journals of the Senate. You may rescind, repeal, but you cannot expunge. The constitution requires that you shall keep a journal. A journal of what? I ask. Surely the constitution does not require us to keep a journal of things respecting which it has given us no authority to act. It has commanded us to keep a journal of our legislative, executive, and judicial proceedings, and to publish such parts of it as may not, in our judgment, require secrecy. But it has not commanded us, in matters of mere voluntary action, unauthorized by the constitution, to make a record. A few days ago, on the melancholy annunciation of the decease of one of its members, this body resolved to adopt an appropriate badge of sorrow. body contend that such a resolve must necessarily have been committed to the journal, or, being there, that there is no power to take it off. The consequences to which such a position would lead are of themselves sufficient to show its unsoundness, Let us suppose,

Does any

what I admit is very improbable, that this body, in some very inauspicious moment, were to consist exclusively of atheists, and should record, as a resolution, upon its journal, "There is no God;" when sense and reason re.