ON THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE, RETURNING

THE PUBLIC LAND BILL.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 5, 1833.

[THE bill to distribute the proceeds of the public lands, introduced by Mr. Clay, passed both houses of congress on the first of March, 1832, one day before the adjournment, and the term of the twenty-second congress expired on Sunday, the third of March, 1832. The majorities were so large in favor of the bill, that it was believed if the president had immediately returned the bill with his objections, on the second of March, it would have been passed by the constitutional majority of two thirds of the members present in each house, and thus have become a law, notwithstanding the objections of president Jackson. But the president adopted the unprecedented course of retaining the bill until the next session of congress. In December, 1833, the twenty-third congress assembled, and the president sent a message to the senate, returning the land bill which had been passed by the previous congress, with his objections to the same, and stating that for want of time he had not pursued the usual course. The message of the president, assigning his reasons for the return of the bill, having been read, Mr. Clay rose and made the following remarks.]

THIS measure had been first introduced into congress at the session before the last, under circumstances which must be within the recollection of every member of the senate. Its object was, to dispose of the proceeds of the public lands for a limited time. The subject had been greatly discussed not only in congress, but throughout the country. The principles and provisions of the bill were well and generally understood. The subject had attracted the attention of the chief magistrate himself, and this bill was made the subject of commentary in his message at the commencement of the last session of congress. It must, therefore, be considered as a subject perfectly well understood by the president, for it was not to be supposed that he would have commented upon it, and recommended it to the attention of congress, if it had not been understood. During the last session, this bill, which had previously been before the house, was introduced in this body, and was passed, and sent to the other house, whence it was returned with a slight amendment, taking away the discretion which had been vested in the state. legislatures as to the disposal of the proceeds. This bill, which had been before congress the session before the last, which had passed at the last session, having been before the country for a

whole year, when it passed the two houses, was placed before the executive, with a number of other measures, just before the close of the last congress. As the subject had been before the president for consideration so long previously to the passage of the bill, and he had reflected upon it, it was not to have been expected that he would take advantage of the shortness of the session to retain the bill until this time. Yet such had been the fact, and a proceeding had taken place which was unprecedented and alarming, and which, unless the people of this country were lost to all sense of what was due to the legislative branch of the government, to themselves, and to those principles of liberty which had been transmitted to them from the revolution, they would not tolerate. It was at least due to the legislature, that the president should have sent a few lines, courteously informing them, that when his own mind was made up he would communicate the result. But, without deigning to make known his intention, or to impart the reasons which influenced him, he despotically kept silence, and retained the bill. He begged leave to congratulate the senate on the return of the bill. The question which now presented itself was, whether the bill was dead, in consequence of the non-action of the president, or whether it had become an existing law. He was not now about to discuss that question; but he had felt himself called on to make a few observations on the extraordinary course, and to say that it was due to congress, to the people, and to the executive himself, to have informed the last congress in reference to this subject, concerning which he must have made up his mind. He would now move to lay this bill on the table, and would afterwards give notice of a day when he should ask leave to bring in a bill in order to submit it again to the action of the senate.

Mr. Kane wished to know if it was the intention of the senator from Kentucky that the bill should lie permanently on the table, or only to be called up at an early day.

Mr. Clay replied that the only alternative was to consider the bill as defunct, or as an existing law. If the gentleman from Illinois could point out any other course, he had read some clause in the constitution which he (Mr. Clay) had never been so fortunate as to find.

Mr. Benton said he would wish to make a remark; and, if he was precluded by the pressing of this question, he would find some other opportunity of making it.

The question was then taken on the motion to lay the bill upon the table, and decided in the affirmative—ays nineteen.

Mr. Benton then moved to take up the message for consideration. After further discussion, Mr. Clay said, he did not rise to reply to any one who had felt himself called upon to rise in the senate to vindicate the president. If there were any such member, he did not wish to disturb him in his office of vindicator of the president, or to affect the complacency with which he might regard his vindi

cation. But he (Mr. Clay) stood here to sustain his own course, to vindicate the constitution, and to vindicate the rights of congress under it. And he must repeat, that the withholding of the land bill, at the last session, under the circumstances of the case, was a violation of the constitution, and disrespectful to the senate. What were the circumstances?

At two different sessions of congress, the land subject was before it. At that which preceded the last, a bill had been introduced to distribute among the states the proceeds of the public lands. The whole subject, by the bill and by reports of committees, was laid before congress and spread before the country. A copy of the bill, when it was first introduced, according to the constant practice of congress, was sent to the president. He was thus, as well as the country generally, put in entire possession of the matter. attracted great public attention. It engaged that of the president. And, accordingly, at the commencement of the last session, in his annual message, he adverted to it, in a manner which evidently showed that the writer of the message fully understood it, and all the views which had been developed about it.

It

[Here Mr. Clay read the message of the last session, so far as it related to the public lands, to show that the president had himself invited the attention of congress to it, as one of urgent and pressing importance; that the discretion of congress to make any disposition of the public lands, which they might deem best for the harmony, union, and interest of the United States, was uncontrolled; that the question ought speedily to be settled; and that the president had considered, but objected to the bill of the previous session, proposing, as a substitute, a plan of his own, which, while the message on the table argued that the public lands belonged to all the states, proposed to give the unsold lands to some of them.]

Thus was congress, at the commencement of the last session, officially invited to act, and to act speedily, respecting the public lands; and thus did the president manifest his knowledge of the provisions of the bill of the previous session. Well, sir, congress again took up the question. The identical bill of the previous session was again introduced, and again, prior to its passage, placed before the president, along with the other printed documents, according to standing usage. And it was passed by both houses, substantially in the shape in which at the previous session it was passed by the senate, except that the restriction as to the power of the states to apply the sum to be distributed among the several states, after the deduction of the twelve and a half per centum first set apart for the new states, was stricken out.

In this form, the bill was laid before the president on the second day of March last. It was no stranger, but an old acquaintance. He had seen it repeatedly before; and he must have been well informed as to its progress in congress. He had commented on the very project contained in the bill, when he had brought forward his own in his message, at the opening of the session. Without deigning to communicate to congress what disposition he had made,

or meant to make of it, he permitted the body to rise, in utter ignorance of his intentions.

It may be true, that there was a great press of business on the president on the second of March, and that he may have acted upon some ninety or one hundred bills. But this is what occurs with every president on the day before the termination of the short session of congress. With most of those bills the president must have been less acquainted than he was with the land bill. Of some of them he probably had never heard at all. Not one of them possessed the importance of the land bill. How did it happen that the president could find time to decide on so many new bills, and yet had not time to examine and dispose of one which had long been before him and the public; one embracing a subject which he thought the union, harmony, and interests of the states required should be speedily adjusted; one which he himself had pronounced his judgment upon at the commencement of the session? By withholding the bill, the president took upon himself a responsibility beyond the exercise of the veto. He deprived congress altogether of its constitutional right to act upon the bill, and to pass it, his negative notwithstanding.

The president is, by the constitution, secured time to consider bills which shall have passed both branches of congress. is congress equally secured the right to act upon bills which they have passed, and which the president may have thought proper to reject. If he exercises his veto, and returns the bill, two thirds may pass it. But if he withholds the bill, it cannot become a law, even although the two houses should be unaniinously in its favor. Mr. Clay denied that the constitution gave to the president ten days to consider bills, except at the long session. At that session, the period of its termination is uncertain, and dependent upon the will of congress. To guard against a sudden adjournment, by which the president might be deprived of due time to deliberate on an important bill, the constitution provides for ten days at that session. But, at the short session, it is not an adjournment but a dissolution of congress, on the third of March, and the day of that dissolution is fixed in the constitution itself, and known to all.

Mr. Clay contended, therefore, that the act of withholding the bill was arbitrary and unconstitutional, by which congress, and the senate especially, in which the bill originated, were deprived of their constitutional right of passing on the bill, after the president had exercised his powers. Respect to congress required of the president, if he really had not time to form a judgment on the bill, or, having formed it, had not time to lay his reasons before the body, a communication to that effect. But, without condescending to transmit one word upon the subject to congress, he suffered the session to terminate, and the members to go home destitute of all information, until this day, of his intentions.

Mr. Benton then withdrew his motion to take up the bill.

ON THE REMOVAL OF THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS FROM

THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.

IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, DECEMBER 26, 1833.

[THE house of representatives, on the second of March, 1533, adopted, by a vote of one hundred and ten to forty-six, the following resolution: that the government deposits may, in the opinion of the house, be safely continued in the bank of the United States. Notwithstanding this resolution, the president of the United States, (general Jackson,) in September following, read a paper to his cabinet, declaring his intention to cause the deposits to be removed from the bank. He then removed the secretary of the treasury, Mr. Duane, from office, in consequence of his refusal to comply with the president's orders in this respect, and appointed Mr. Taney secretary in his place; who removed the deposits from the United States bank, on the first of October, 1833, and placed them in sundry state banks. At the ensuing session of congress, the secretary of the treasury, Mr. Taney, having made his report on that transaction, the subject came up for consideration in the senate, when Mr. Clay submitted the following resolutions, which he accompanied with the subjoined speech.]

RESOLVED, that by dismissing the late secretary of the treasury, because he would not, contrary to his sense of his own duty, remove the money of the United States in deposit with the bank of the United States and its branches, in conformity with the president's opinion; and by appointing his successor to effect such removal, which has been done, the president has assumed the exercise of a power over the treasury of the United States not granted to him by the constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people.

Resolved, that the reasons assigned by the secretary of the treasury for the removal of the money of the United States, deposited in the bank of the United States and its branches, communicated to congress on the third of December, 1833, are unsatisfactory and insufficient.

WE are in the midst of a revolution, hitherto bloodless, but rapidly tending towards a total change of the pure republican character of the government, and to the concentration of all power in the hands of one man. The powers of congress are paralysed, except when exerted in conformity with his will, by frequent and an extraordinary exercise of the executive veto, not anticipated by the founders of our constitution, and not practiced by any of the predecessors of the present chief magistrate. And, to cramp them still more, a new expedient is springing into use, of withholding