FEBRUARY, 1835.] Expunging Resolution. [SENATE. pecuniary interests of the people of the United on the same journal. In each case the Senate States." keeps a journal of its proceedings. It is objected, also, that we have no right to destroy a part of the journal; and that to expunge is to destroy and to prevent the expunged part from being known in future. Not so the fact, said Mr. B. The matter expunged is not destroyed. It is incorporated in the expunging resolution, and lives as long as that lives; the only effect of the expurgation being to express, in the most emphatic manner, the opinion that such matter ought never to have been put in the journal. Mr. BENTON said that the resolution which he had offered, though resolved upon, as he had heretofore stated, without consultation with any person, was not resolved upon without great deliberation in his own mind. The criminating resolution, which it was his object to expunge, was presented to the Senate, December 26th, 1833. The Senator from Kentucky who introduced it (Mr. CLAY) commenced a discussion of it on that day, which was continued through the months of January and Mr. B. said he would support these positions February, and to the end, nearly, of the month by authority, the authority of eminent examof March. The vote was taken upon the 28th ples; and would cite two cases, out of a multiof March; and about a fortnight thereafter he tude that might be adduced, to show that exannounced to the Senate his intention to com-punging was the proper course, the parliamence a series of motions for expunging the mentary course, in such a case as the one now resolution from the journal. Here, then, were before the Senate, and that the expunged matter nearly four months for consideration; for the was incorporated and preserved in the expungdecision was expected; and he had very anx-ing resolution. iously considered, during that period, all the difficulties, and all the proprieties, of the step which he meditated. Was the intended motion to clear the journal of the resolution right in itself? The convictions of his judgment told him that it was. Was expurgation the proper mode? Yes; he was thoroughly satisfied that that was the proper mode of proceeding in this case. For the criminating resolution which he wished to get rid of combined all the characteristics of a case which required erasure, obliteration, blotting out; for it was a case, as he believed, of the exercise of power without authority, without even jurisdiction; illegal, irregular, and unjust. Other modes of annulling the resolution, as rescinding, reversing, repealing, could not be proper in such a case; for they would imply rightful jurisdiction, a lawful authority, a legal action, though an erroneous judgment. All that he denied. He denied the authority of the Senate to pass such a resolution at all; and he affirmed that it was unjust, and contrary to the truth, as well as contrary to law. This being his view of the resolution, he held that the true and proper course, the parliamentary course of proceeding in such a case, was to expunge it. Mr. B. then read, from a volume of British Parliamentary History, the celebrated case of the Middlesex election, in which the resolution to expel the famous John Wilkes was expunged from the journal, but preserved in the expurgatory resolution, so as to be just as well read now as if it had never been blotted out from the journals of the British House of Commons. The resolution ran in these words: "That the resolution of the House of the 17th February, 1769, 'that John Wilkes, Esq., having been, in this session of Parliament, expelled this House, was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in the present Parliament,' be expunged from the journals of this House, as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom." Such, said Mr. B., were the terms of the expunging resolution in the case of the Middlesex election, as it was annually introduced from 1769 to 1782, when it was finally passed by a vote of near three to one, and the clause ordered to be expunged was blotted out of the journal, and obliterated, by the clerk at the table, in the presence of the whole House, which remained silent, and all business suspended until the obliteration was complete. Yet the history of the case is not lost. Though blotted out of one part of the journal, it is saved in another; and here, at the distance of half a century, and some thousand miles from London, the whole case is read as fully as if no such operation had ever been performed upon it. But, said Mr. B., it is objected that the Senate has no right to expunge any thing from its journal; that it is required by the constitution to keep a journal; and, being so required, could not destroy any part of it. This, said Mr. B., is sticking in the bark, and in the thinnest bark in which a shot, even the smallest, was ever Mr. B. said there was another objection to lodged. Various are the meanings of the word his motion which he would notice, because it keep, used as a verb. To keep a journal is to went to the substance of his proceeding; it write down, daily, the history of what you do. was the objection brought forward some weeks For the Senate to keep a journal is to cause to ago at the presentation of the Alabama instrucbe written down, every day, the account of its tions to her Senators on the subject of this proceedings; and, having done that, the consti- motion, and which took it up as a question of tutional injunction is satisfied. The constitu- dignity to the Senate. It seemed to be contion was satisfied by entering this criminating sidered as an attack upon the dignity of the resolution on the journal; it will be equally Senate. Not so the fact. The motion is not satisfied by entering the expunging resolution intended to degrade the Senate; not intended to impair its dignity; nor will such be the effect, but the contrary. True dignity is best consulted in correcting errors, and in listening calmly to the voice which undertakes to show the existence of errors which require correction. True dignity requires this Senate to listen to this motion with calmness and patience, as the British House of Commons listened to the motions to expunge the famous Middlesex resolutions from their journals, and as the Massachusetts Senate listened to the motion to expunge from their journals the resolutions adopted in a season of great excitement, and which a season of calmness made all feel ought never to have been put there. This is what true dignity required from the Senate, and he trusted it was what the Senate would be found to exhibit. [FEBRUARY, 1835. resolutions, and the deference which was paid to it by the House, and by members who had, until then, opposed the motion to expunge. He read first from Mr. Wilkes's opening speech, on renewing his annual motion for the fourteenth time, as follows: "If the people of England, sir, have at any time explicitly and fully declared an opinion respecting a momentous constitutional question, it has been in regard to the Middlesex election in 1768." * * "Their voice was never heard in a more clear and distinct manner than on this point of the first magnitude for all the electors of the kingdom, and I trust will now be heard favorably." He then read from Mr. Fox's speech. Mr. Fox had heretofore opposed the expunging resolution, but now yielded to it in obedience to the voice of the people. * * * * A year ago, said Mr. B., the Senate tried "He (Mr. Fox) had turned the question often in President Jackson; now the Senate itself is on his mind, and he was still of opinion that the resolutrial nominally before itself; but in reality tion which gentlemen wanted to expunge was foundbefore America, Europe, and posterity. Weed on proper principles." * Though shall give our voices in our own case; we shall he opposed the motion, he felt very little anxiety for vote for or against this motion, and the entry the event of the question; for when he found the upon the record will be according to the ma- voice of the people was against the privilege, as he jority of voices. But that is not the end, but believed was the case at present, he would not pre"The people the beginning of our trial. We shall be judged serve the privilege." by others; by the public, by the present age, had associated, they had declared their sentiments to and by all posterity! The proceedings of this Parliament, and had taught Parliament to listen to case, and of this day, will not be limited to the the voice of their constituents." present age; they will go down to posterity, and to the latest ages. President Jackson is not a character to be forgotten in history. His name is not to be confined to the dry catalogue and official nomenclature of mere American Presidents. Like the great Romans who attained the consulship, not by the paltry arts of electioneering, but through a series of illustrious deeds, his name will live, not for the offices he filled, but for the deeds which he performed. He is the first President that has ever received the condemnation of the Senate for the violation of the laws and the constitution, the first whose name is borne upon the journals of the American Senate for the violation of that constitution which he is sworn to observe, and of those laws which he is bound to see faithfully executed. Such a condemnation cannot escape the observation of history. It will be read, considered, judged! when the men of this day, and the passions of this hour, shall have passed to eternal repose. Before he proceeded to the exposition of the case which he intended to make, he wished to avail himself of an argument which had been conclusive elsewhere, and which he trusted could not be without effect in this Senate. It was the argument of public opinion. In the case of the Middlesex election, it had been decisive with the British House of Commons. Mr. B. then took up a volume of British Parliamentary History for the year 1782, the 224 volume, and read various passages from pages 1407, 1408, 1410, 1411, to show the stress which had been laid on the argument of public opinion in favor of expunging the Middlesex Having read these passages, Mr. B. said they Mr. B. then proceeded to the argument of his motion. He moved to expunge the resolution of March 28, 1834, from the journals of the Senate, because it was illegal and unjust; vague and indefinite; a criminal charge without specification; unwarranted by the constitution and laws; subversive of the rights of defence which belong to an accused and impeachable officer; of evil example, and adopted at a time and under circumstances to involve the political rights and the pecuniary interests of the people of the United States in peculiar danger and serious injury. These reasons for expunging the criminating resolution from the journals, Mr. B. said, were not phrases collected and paraded for effect, or strung together for harmony of sound. They were each, separately and individually, substantive reasons; every word an allegation of fact, or of law. Without going fully into the argument now, he would make an exposition which would lay open his meaning, and enable each allegation, whether of law or of fact, to be fully understood, and replied to in the sense intended. [SENATE. people than were the representatives of a mo- | but to execute the sentence they had passed; narchical House of Commons? and that they could not do. Penal justice was the consequence of the resolution; and a judgment of penalties could not be attempted on such an irregular proceeding. The only kind of penal justice which the Senate could inflict was that of public opinion; it was to ostracise the President, and to expose him to public odium, as a violator of the laws and constitution of his country. Having shown the resolution to be illegal, Mr. B. would pronounce it to be unjust; for he affirmed the resolution to be untrue; he maintained that the President had violated no law, no part of the constitution, in dismissing Mr. Duane from the Treasury, appointing Mr. Taney, or causing the deposits to be removed; for these were the specifications contained in the original resolution, also in the second modification of the resolution, and intended in the third modification, when stripped of specifications, and reduced to a vague and general charge. It was in this shape of a general charge that the resolution passed. No new specifications were even suggested in debate. The alterations were made voluntarily, by the friends of the resolution, at the last moment of the debate, and just when the vote was to be taken. And why were the specifications then dropped? Because no majority could be found to agree in them? or because it was thought prudent to drop the name of the Bank of the United States? or for both these reasons together? Be that as it may, (said Mr. B.,) the condemnation of the President, and the support of the bank, were connected in the resolution, and will be indissolubly connected in the public mind; and the President was unjustly condemned in the same resolution that befriended and sustained the cause of the bank. He held the condemnation to be untrue in point of fact, and therefore unjust; for he maintained that there was no breach of the laws and constitution in any thing that President Jackson did, in removing Mr. Duane, or in appointing Mr. Taney, or in causing the deposits to be removed. There was no violation of law, or constitution, in any part of these proceedings; on the contrary, the whole country, and the Government itself, was redeemed from the dominion of a great and daring moneyed corporation, by the wisdom and energy of these very proceedings. 1. Illegal and unjust.-These were the first heads under which Mr. B. would develop his objections, he would say the outline of his objections, to the resolution proposed to be expunged. He held it to be illegal, because it contained a criminal charge, on which the President might be impeached, and for which he might be tried by the Senate. The resolution adopted by the Senate is precisely the first step taken in the House of Representatives to bring on an impeachment. It was a resolution offered by a member in his place, containing a criminal charge against an impeachable officer, debated for a hundred days, and then voted upon by the Senate, and the officer voted to be guilty. This is the precise mode of bringing on an impeachment in the House of Representatives; and, to prove it, Mr. B. would read from a work of approved authority on parliamentary practice; it was from Mr. Jefferson's Manual. Mr. B. then read from the Manual, under the section entitled impeachment, and from that head of the section entitled accusation. The writer was giving the British Parliamentary practice, to which our own constitution is conformable. "The Commons, as the grand inquest of the nation, became suitors for penal justice. The general course is to pass a resolution containing a criminal charge against the supposed delinquent, and then to direct some members to impeach him by oral accusation at the bar of the House of Lords, in the name of the Commons." 2. Vague and indefinite; a criminal charge without specification.-Such was the resolution, Mr. B. said, when it passed the Senate; but such it was not when first introduced, nor even when first altered; in its first and second forms it contained specifications, and these specifications identified the condemnation of the President with the defence of the bank; in its Repeating a clause of what he had read, third form these specifications were omitted, and Mr. B. said the general course is to pass a no others were substituted; the bank and the rescriminal charge against the supposed delinquent.olution stood disconnected on the record, but as This is exactly what the Senate did; and what did it do next? Nothing. And why nothing? Because there was nothing to be done by them much connected in fact as ever. The resolution was reduced to a vague and indefinite form on purpose, and in that circumstance acquired a new SENATE.] Expunging Resolution. character of injustice to President Jackson. His accusers should have specified the law, and the clause in the constitution which was violated; they should have specified the acts which constituted the violation. This was due to the accused, that he might know on what points to defend himself; it was due to the public, that they might know on what points to hold the accusers to their responsibility, and to make them accountable for an unjust accusation. To sustain this position, Mr. B. had recourse to history and example, and produced the case of Mr. Giles's accusation of General Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, in the year 1793. Mr. Giles, he said, proceeded in a manly, responsible manner. He specified the law and the alleged violations of the law, so that the friends of General Hamilton could see what to defend, and so as to make himself accountable for the accusation. He specified the law, which he believed to be violated, by its date and its title; and he specified the two instances in which he held that law to have been infringed. For the purpose of exposing the studied vagueness of the resolution as passed, detecting its connection with the Bank of the United States, demonstrating its criminal character in twice retaining the criminal averment, "dangerous to the liberties of the people," and showing the progressive changes it had to undergo before it could conciliate a majority of the votes, Mr. B. would exhibit all three of the resolutions, and read them side by side of each other, as they appeared before the Senate in the first, second, and third forms which they were made to wear. They appeared first in their embryo, or primordial form; then they assumed their aurelia, or chrysalis state; in the third stage, they reached the ulitmate perfection of their imperfect nature. [The three different forms of the sentence were here read.] Having exhibited the original resolution, with its variations, Mr. B. would leave it to others to explain the reasons of such extraordinary metamorphoses. Whether to get rid of the bank association, or to get rid of the impeachment clause, or to conciliate the votes of all who were willing to condemn the President, but could not tell for what, it was not for him to say; but one thing he would venture to say, that the majority who agreed in passing a general resolution, containing a criminal charge against President Jackson, for violating the laws and the constitution, cannot now agree in naming the law or the clause in the constitution violated, or in specifying any act constituting such violation. And here Mr. B. paused, and offered to give way to the gentlemen of the opposition, if they would now undertake to specify any act which President Jackson had done in violation of law or constitution. [No answer was made.] [FEBRUARY, 1835. The condemnation of the President is indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank! The first form of the resolution exhibited the connection; the second form did also; every speech did the same; for every speech in condemnation of the President was in justification of the bank; every speech in justification of the President was in condemnation of the bank; and thus the two objects were identical and reciprocal. The attack of one was a defence of the other; the defence of one was the attack of the other. And thus it continued for the long protracted period of nearly one hundred days-from December 26th, 1833, to March 28th, 1834-when, for reasons not explained to the Senate, upon a private consultation among the friends of the resolution, the mover of it came forward to the Secretary's table, and voluntarily made the alterations which cut the connection between the bank and the resolution! but it stood upon the record, by striking out every thing relative to the dismissal of Mr. Duane, the appointment of Mr. Taney, and the removal of the deposits. But the alteration was made in the record only. The connection still subsisted in fact, now lives in memory, and shall live in history. Yes, sir, said Mr. B., addressing himself to the President of the Senate; yes, sir, the condemnation of the President was indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank, with the removal of the deposits, the renewal of the charter, the restoration of the deposits, the vindication of Mr. Duane, the rejection of Mr. Taney, the fate of elections, the overthrow of Jackson's administration, the fall of prices, the distress meetings, the distress memorials, the distress committees, the distress speeches; and all the long list of hapless measures which astonished, terrified, afflicted, and deeply injured the country during the long and agonized protraction of the famous panic session. All these things are connected, said Mr. B., and it became his duty to place a part of the proof which established the connection before the Senate and the people. Mr. B. then took up the appendix to the report made by the Senate's Committee of Finance on the bank, commonly called Mr. Tyler's report, and read extracts from instructions sent to two-and-twenty branches of the bank, contemporaneously with the progress of object and effect of which, and their connec the debate on the criminating resolutions; the tion with the debate in the Senate, would be quickly seen. Premising that the bank had despatched orders to the same branches in the month of August, and had curtailed $4,066,000, and again in the month of October to curtail $5,825,000, and to increase the rates of their exchange, and had expressly stated in a circular on the 17th of that month, that this reduction would place the branches in a position of entire security, Mr. B. invoked attention to the shower of orders, and their dates, which he was about to read. He read passages from page 77 to 82, inclusive. They were all extracts of letters from the president of the bank in person, to the presidents of the branches; for Mr. B. said it must be remembered, as one of the peculiar features of the bank attack upon the country last winter, that the whole business of conducting this curtailment, and raising exchanges, and doing whatever it pleased with the commerce, currency, and business of the country, was withdrawn from the board of directors, and confided to one of those convenient committees of which the president is ex officio member and creator; and which, in this case, was expressly absolved from reporting to the board of directors! The letters, then, are all from Nicholas Biddle, president, and not from Samuel Jaudon, cashier, and are addressed direct to the presidents of the branch banks. [Here Mr. B. read the instructions to the two-andtwenty branch banks, all dated in January, when the business of panic-making had commenced in Congress, ordering a third large curtailment, and an increased rate of exchange-this new and heavy curtailment being ordered to meet new measures of hostility understood to be in contemplation against the bank." This "contemplated measure of hostility" was shown to be a mere falsehood, none such being intended or done; and the money thus extorted from the distressed debtors being sent to London, to lie there for a rise in foreign exchange; and the curious spectacle being presented that the bank was making the distress on one pretext, that of a new contemplated measure; while its friends in Congress were justifying it on another, that of a removal of the deposits.] Mr. B. then took six positions, which he enumerated, and undertook to demonstrate to be true. They were: 1. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there were any new measures in contemplation, or action, to destroy the bank. 2. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that the President harbored hostile and revengeful designs against the existence of the bank. 3. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there was any necessity for this third curtailment, which was ordered the last of January. 4. That there was no excuse, justification, or apology for the conduct of the bank in relation to domestic exchange, in doubling its rates, breaking it up between the five western branches, turning the collection of bills upon the principal commercial cities, and forbidding the branch at New Orleans to purchase bills on any part of the West. 5. That this curtailment and these exchange regulations in January were political and revolutionary, and connected themselves with the resolution in the Senate for the condemnation of President Jackson. [SENATE. 6. That the distress of the country was occasioned by the Bank of the United States and the Senate of the United States, and not by the removal of the deposits. Having stated his positions, Mr. B. proceeded to demonstrate them. Mr. B. returned to the resolution which it was proposed to expunge. He said it ought to go. It was the root of the evil, the father of the mischief, the source of the injury, the box of Pandora, which had filled the land with calamity and consternation for six long months. It was that resolution, far more than the conduct of the bank, which raised the panic, sunk the price of propertxy, crushed many merchants, impressed the country with the terror of an impending revolution, and frightened so many good people out of the rational exercise of their elective franchise at the spring elections. All these evils have now passed away. The panic has subsided; the price of produce and property has recovered from its depression, and risen beyond its former bounds. The country is tranquil, prosperous, and happy. The States which had been frightened from their propriety at the spring elections, have regained their selfcommand. Now, with the total vanishing of its effects, let the cause vanish also. Let this resolution for the condemnation of President Senate! Let it be effaced, erased, blotted out, Jackson be expunged from the journal of the obliterated from the face of that page on which it should never have been written! Would to God it could be expunged from the page of all history, and from the memory of all mankind. of the whole existing generation should be Would that, so far as it is concerned, the minds dipped in the fabulous and oblivious waters of the river Lethe. But these wishes are vain. The resolution must survive and live. History will record it; memory will retain it; tradition will hand it down. In the very act of expurgation it lives; for what is taken from one page is placed on another. All atonement for the unfortunate calamitous act of the Senate is imperfect and inadequate. Expunge, if we can, still the only effect will be to express our solemn convictions, by that obliteration, that such a resolution ought never to have soiled the pages of our journal. This is all that we can do; and this much we are bound to do, by every obligation of justice to the President, whose name has been attainted; by every consideration of duty to the country, whose voice demands this reparation; by our regard to the constitution, which has been trampled under foot; by respect to the House of Representatives, whose function has been usurped; by self-respect, which requires the Senate to vindicate its justice, to correct its errors, and re-establish its high name for equity, dignity, and moderation. To err is human; not to err is divine; to correct error is the work of supereminent and also superhuman moral excellence, and this exalted work it now remains for the Senate to perform. |