Chapter I: HAVE been desirous, Mr. President, before the passage of this bill, (2)

In process of time, it will be seen, as was observed with respect to the bank of Amsterdam, that there is a much larger amount of specie in deposit with the receivers-general, than is likely to be called for by the paper representing it in circulation, in the common transactions of the business and commerce of the country; and what has been done before, will be done again. Government in a time of necessity, will be tempted to increase its paper issues upon the credit of this dormant specie capital. It will be tempted again and again to resort to this expedient, since it is easier to make emissions of paper, than to lay the burden of taxation on the people. The history of American paper money, during the revolution, of French assignats, and of government banks, throughout the world, tells the whole tale, and gives you the denouement.

But we shall be informed, as has been insisted, that this bill cautiously guards against the degeneracy of the system into a government bank, by the provision contained in the twenty-third section, enjoining the secretary of the treasury ‘to issue and publish regulations to enforce the speedy presentation of all government drafts for payment at the places where payable; and to prescribe the time, according to the different distances of the depositaries from the seat of government, within which all drafts upon them respectively, shall be presented for payment; and in default of such presentation, to direct any other mode and place of payment which _he may deem proper_.’

Then it is to depend upon the secretary of the treasury whether we have a government bank or not! We are delivered over to the tender mercies of his legislation, in the form of the regulations which he may choose to issue and publish! And the extraordinary power is vested in him, if any dare violate _his_ regulations, of denouncing the severe penalty of receiving payment ‘in any _other mode_ and place which he may deem proper.’ Now, sir, between a draft on the receivers-general at St. Louis, and at New York, there will be a difference at all times of at least two per centum; and at some periods a much greater difference. Is it fitting; is it in accordance with the genius of free institutions, with the spirit of a country of laws, to confide such a power to a mere secretary of the treasury? What a power is it not to reward political friends or punish political enemies.

But, sir, I look at the matter of this restriction in a higher point of view. You cannot maintain it; why should you? You have provided all the means, as you profess to believe, of perfect security for the custody of the public money in these public depositories. Why should you require the holder of a government draft, often ignorant of the legislation of the secretary of the treasury, to present it for payment by a given day, under a severe penalty depending upon his _discretion_? Will not the inconvenience to the community, of a precise day and a short day, for the presentation of the draft, be vastly greater than that of the public in retaining the money for an indefinite day, until it suits the holder’s convenience to demand payment? And will you not be tempted to keep possession of the specie for the incidental advantages which it affords? Ah! sir; are we to overlook the possible uses to which, in corrupt days of the republic, this dormant specie maybe applied in the crisis of a political election, or the crisis of the existence of a party in power? Congress will be called upon, imperatively called upon, by the people, to abolish all restrictions which the secretary of the treasury may promulgate for the _speedy_ presentation for payment of government drafts. The wants of the people, and the necessity of the country for a paper medium, possessing a uniform value, and capable of general circulation, will demand it at your hands, and you will be most ready to grant the required boon. We should regard the system according to its true and inherent character, and not be deceived by provisions, inevitably temporary in their nature, which the policy or the prudence of its authors may throw around it. The greatest want of this country, at the present period, in its circulating medium, is some convertible paper, which, at every extremity of the union, will command the confidence of the public, and circulate without depreciation. Such a paper will be supplied in the form of these government drafts.

But if the restriction which I have been considering could be enforced and continued, it would not alter the bank character of this measure. Bank or no bank, is a question not depending upon the duration of time which its issues remain out, but upon the _office_ which they perform whilst _out_. The notes of the bank of the United States of Pennsylvania are not deprived of their character of composing a part of the circulating medium of the country, although they might be returned to the bank in some ten or twenty days after their issue.

I know that it has been argued, and will be argued again, that at all times, since the commencement of the government, the practice of the treasury has been, to issue its drafts upon the public depositaries; that these drafts have not heretofore circulated as money; and that if they now do, it is an incident which attaches no blame to the government.

But heretofore these drafts were issued upon banks, and the holders of them passed to their credit with the banks or received payment in bank notes. The habit of the country――and habit was a great thing――was to use bank notes. Moreover, there were bank notes of every kind in use; those which were local and those which were general in their credit and circulation. Now, having no bank of the United States in existence, there are no bank notes which maintain the same value, and command the public confidence, throughout the union. You create, therefore, an inexorable necessity for the use of government drafts as a medium of general circulation, and argue from a state of things when no such necessity existed!

The protestation of the friends of the bill in this chamber, the denunciations of its opponents, and the just horror which the people entertain of a government bank, may prompt the secretary of the treasury, slowly and slyly, to lift the veil which masks its true features. A government bank may not suddenly burst upon us, but _there_ it is, embodied in _this_ bill; and it is not the least objection to the measure that it depends upon the discretion of a secretary of the treasury to retard or accelerate the commencement of its operation at his pleasure. Let the reëlection of the present chief magistrate be secured, and you will soon see the bank disclosing its genuine character. But, thanks be to God, there is a day of reckoning at hand. All the signs of the times clearly indicate its approach; and on the fourth day of March, in the year of our Lord 1841, I trust that the long account of the abuses and corruptions of this administration, in which this measure will be a conspicuous item, will be finally and for ever adjusted.

Mr. President, who is to have the absolute control of this government bank? We have seen, within a few years past, a most extraordinary power asserted and exercised. We have seen in a free, representative, republican government, the power claimed by the executive, and it is now daily enforced, of dismissing all officers of the government without any other cause than a mere difference of opinion. No matter what may be the merits of the officer; no matter how long and how faithfully he may have served the public; no matter what sacrifices he may have made; no matter how incompetent from age and poverty, he may be to gain a subsistence for himself and family, he is driven out to indigence and want for no other reason than that he differs in opinion with the president on the sub-treasury, or some other of the various experiments upon the prosperity of this people. But this is not all; if you call upon the president to state the reasons which induced him, in any particular instance, to exercise this tremendous power of dismission, wrapping himself up in all the dignity and arrogance of royal majesty, he refuses to assign any reason whatever, and tells you it is his prerogative! that you have no right to interrogate him as to the motives which have prompted him in the exercise of any of his constitutional powers! Nay, more; if you apply to a subordinate――a mere minion of power――to inform you why _he_ has dismissed any of _his_ subordinates, he replies, that he will not communicate the grounds of his action. I have understood that in more cases than one, the person acting as postmaster-general, has refused, this session, to inform members of congress of the grounds on which _he_ has dismissed deputy postmasters. We have witnessed the application of this power to a treasurer of the United States recently, without the pretence of his failure to discharge his public duties, all of which he performed with scrupulous exactness, honor, and probity.

And what, sir, is the consequence of a power so claimed, and so exercised? The first is, that, in a country of constitution and laws, the basis and genius of which are, that there is and should be the most perfect responsibility on the part of every, even the highest functionary, here is a vast power, daily exercised with the most perfect impunity, and without the possibility of arraigning a guilty chief magistrate. For how can he be impeached or brought to trial if he will not disclose, and you have no adequate means of ascertaining the grounds on which he has acted?

The next consequence is, that as all the officers of government, who hold their offices by the tenure to which I allude, hold them at the president’s mercy, and without the possibility of finding any redress, if they are dismissed without cause, they become his pliant creatures, and feel that they are bound implicitly to obey his will.

Now, sir, put this government bank into operation, and who are to be charged with the administration of its operations? The secretary of the treasury, the treasurer of the United States, the register and comptroller of the treasury, and the receivers-general, and so forth; every one of them holding his office at the pleasure and mercy of the president; every one of them, perhaps, depending for his bread upon the will of the president; every one of them taught, by sad experience, to know that his safest course is to mould his opinions, and shape his conduct, so as to please the president; every one of them knowing perfectly, that, if dismissed, he is without the possibility of any remedy or redress whatever. In such a deplorable state of things, this government bank will be the mere bank of the president of the United States. He will be the _president, cashier, and teller_. Yes, sir, this complete subjection of all the subordinate officers of the government to the will of the president, will make him sole director, president, cashier, and teller of this government bank. The so much dreaded union of the purse and the sword will at last be consummated, and the usurpation, by which the public deposits, in 1837, were removed by the advancement of the one, and the removal of another secretary of the treasury, will not only be finally legalized and sanctioned, but the enormity of the danger of that precedent will be transcended by a deliberate act of the congress of the United States!

Mr. President, for ten long years we have been warring against the alarming growth of executive power; but, although we have been occasionally cheered, it has been constantly advancing, and never receding. You may talk as you please about bank expansions. There has been no pernicious expansion in this country like that of executive power; and, unlike the operations of banks, this power never has any periods of contraction. You may denounce, as you please, the usurpations of congress. There has been no usurpation but that of the executive, which has been both of the powers of other coördinate departments of this government, and upon the states. There scarcely remains any power in this government but that of the president. He suggests, originates, controls, checks every thing. The insatiable spirit of the Stuarts, for power and prerogative, was brought upon our American throne on the fourth of March, 1829. It came under all the usual false and hypocritical pretences and disguises, of love of the people, desire of reform, and diffidence of power. The Scotch dynasty still continues. We have had Charles the first, and now we have Charles the second. But I again thank God, that our deliverance is not distant; and that, on the fourth of March, 1841, a great and glorious revolution, without blood and without convulsion, will be achieved.

AT THE WHIG NATIONAL CONVENTION OF YOUNG MEN.

AT BALTIMORE, MAY 4, 1840.

[A NATIONAL convention of whig young men assembled at Baltimore
in May, 1840, to take measures to promote the election of
general Harrison, as president of the United States. On this
occasion, an immense assemblage of delegates from the different
states of the union attended, and the convention was addressed
by various distinguished citizens, particularly by members
of congress, which body was then in session, at Washington.
Mr. Clay being present, was called upon to address the multitude,
to which he responded briefly as follows.]

MR. CLAY commenced by a reference to the northwest wind, which blew almost a gale, and compared it happily to the popular voice of the immense multitude who were present. Difficult as it was to be heard by such a throng, he said he could not refrain from obeying the general summons, and responding to the call. He was truly grateful for the honor conferred upon him. This, said he, is no time to argue; the time for discussion has passed, the nation has already pronounced its sentence. I behold here the advanced guard. A revolution, by the grace of God and the will of the people, will be achieved. William Henry Harrison will be elected president of the United States.

We behold, continued Mr. Clay, in his emphatic and eloquent manner, the ravages brought upon our country under the revolutionary administrations of the present and the past. We see them in a disturbed country, in broken hopes, in deranged exchanges, in the mutilation of the highest constitutional records of the country. All these are the fruits of the party in power, and a part of that revolution which has been in progress for the last ten years. But this party, Mr. Clay thought he could say, had been, or was demolished. As it had demolished the institutions of the country, so it had fallen itself. As institution after institution had fallen by it, and with them interest after interest, until a general and wide-spread ruin had come upon the country, so now the revolution was to end in the destruction of the party and the principles which had been instrumental in our national sufferings.

This, said Mr. Clay, is a proud day for the patriot. It animated his own bosom with hope, and I, he added, am here to mingle my hopes with yours, my heart with yours, and my exertions with your exertions. Our enemies hope to conquer us, but they are deluded, and doomed to disappointment.

Mr. Clay then alluded most happily, and amid the cheers of all around him, to the union of the whigs. We are, said he, all whigs, we are all Harrison men. _We are united._ We must triumph.

One word of myself, he said, referring to the national convention which met at Harrisburgh in December last. That convention was composed of as enlightened and as respectable a body of men as were ever assembled in the country. They met, deliberated, and after a full and impartial deliberation, decided that William Henry Harrison was the man best calculated to unite the whigs of the union against the present executive. General Harrison was nominated, and cheerfully, and without a moment’s hesitation, I gave my hearty concurrence in that nomination. From that moment to the present, I have had but one wish, one object, one desire, and that is, to secure the election of the distinguished citizen who received the suffrages of the convention.

Allow me here to say, continued Mr. Clay, that his election is certain. This I say, not in any boasting or over confident sense, far from it. But I feel sure, almost, that there are twenty states who will give their votes for Harrison. Do not the glories of this day authorize the anticipation of such a victory? I behold before me more than twenty thousand freemen, and is it anticipating too much to say that such an assembly as this is a sign ominous of triumph.

Mr. Clay then warned his friends of two great errors in political warfare――too much confidence, and too much despondency. Both were to be feared. There should be no relaxation. The enemy were yet powerful in numbers, and strong in organization. It became the whigs, therefore, to abstain from no laudable exertion necessary to success. Should we fail, he added, should Mr. Van Buren be reëlected, which calamity God avert, though he would be the last man to despair of the republic, he believed the struggle of restoring the country to its former glory would be almost a hopeless one. That calamity, however, or the alternative, was left with the twenty thousand whigs here assembled.

We received our liberty, said Mr. Clay, in conclusion, from our revolutionary ancestors, and we are bound in all honor, to transfer it unimpaired to our posterity. The breeze which this day blows from the right quarter, is the promise of that popular breeze which will defeat our adversaries, and make William Henry Harrison the president of the United States.

ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY UNDER
MR. VAN BUREN’S ADMINISTRATION.

AT HANOVER COUNTY, VIRGINIA, JUNE 27, 1840.

[MR. CLAY, having accepted an invitation to visit his friends
in his native county of Hanover, Virginia, met them at a public
entertainment given him at Taylorsville, in that county, on the
above day, and, in accordance with their wishes and expectations,
he addressed them in the following elaborate remarks on topics
of great interest, which then particularly engaged the public
mind. Reviewing the measures of Mr. Van Buren’s administration,
preceded by those of general Jackson’s, he gives his views
of the measures necessary to be adopted to restore public
prosperity, and concludes with an exhortation to his whig
friends to do their duty in the then forthcoming election, which
resulted in the success of their candidate, general Harrison.]

THE sentiment in compliment to Mr. Clay was received with a long-continued applause. That gentleman rose and addressed the company substantially as follows.

I think, friends and fellow-citizens, that, availing myself of the privilege of my long service in the public councils, just adverted to, the resolution, which I have adopted, is not unreasonable, of leaving to younger men, generally, the performance of the duty, and the enjoyment of the pleasure, of addressing the people in their primary assemblies. After the event which occurred last winter at the capitol of Pennsylvania, I believed it due to myself, to the whig cause, and to the country, to announce to the public, with perfect truth and sincerity, and without any reserve, my fixed determination heartily to support the nomination of William Henry Harrison there made. To put down all misrepresentations, I have, on suitable occasions, repeated this annunciation; and now declare my solemn conviction, that the purity and security of our free institutions, and the prosperity of the country, imperatively demand the election of that citizen to the office of chief magistrate of the United States.

But the occasion forms an exception from the rule which I have prescribed to myself. I have come here to the county of my nativity in the spirit of a pilgrim, to meet, perhaps for the last time, the companions, and the descendants of the companions, of my youth. Wherever we roam, in whatever climate or land we are cast by the accidents of human life, beyond the mountains or beyond the ocean, in the legislative halls of the capitol, or in the retreats and shades of private life, our hearts turn with an irresistible instinct to the cherished spot which ushered us into existence. And we dwell with delightful associations on the recollection of the streams in which, during our boyish days, we bathed, the fountains at which we drank, the piny fields, the hills and the valleys where we sported, and the friends who shared these enjoyments with us. Alas! too many of these friends of mine have gone whither we must all shortly go, and the presence here of the small remnant left behind, attests both our loss and our early attachment. I would greatly prefer, my friends, to employ the time which this visit affords in friendly and familiar conversation on the virtues of our departed companions, and on the scenes and adventures of our younger days; but the expectation which prevails, the awful state of our beloved country, and the opportunities which I have enjoyed in its public councils, impose on me the obligation of touching on topics less congenial with the feelings of my heart, but possessing higher public interest. I assure you, fellow-citizens, however, that I present myself before you for no purpose of exciting prejudices or inflaming passions, but to speak to you in all soberness and truth, and to testify to the things which I know, or the convictions which I entertain, as an ancient friend, who has lived long, and whose career is rapidly drawing to a close. Throughout an arduous life, I have endeavored to make truth and the good of our country the guides of my public conduct; but in Hanover county, for which I cherish sentiments of respect, gratitude, and veneration, above all other places, would I avoid saying any thing that I did not sincerely and truly believe.

Why is the plough deserted, the tools of the mechanic laid aside, and all are seen rushing to gatherings of the people? What occasions those vast and unusual assemblages, which we behold in every state, and in almost every neighborhood? Why those conventions of the people, at a common centre, from all the extremities of this vast union, to consult together upon the sufferings of the community, and to deliberate on the means of deliverance? Why this rabid appetite for public discussions? What is the solution of the phenomenon, which we observe, of a great nation agitated upon its whole surface, and at its lowest depths, like the ocean when convulsed by some terrible storm? There must be a cause, and no ordinary cause.

It has been truly said, in the most memorable document that ever issued from the pen of man, that ‘all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.’ The recent history of our people furnishes confirmation of that truth. They are active, enterprising, and intelligent; but are not prone to make groundless complaints against public servants. If we now every where behold them in motion, it is because they feel that the grievances under which they are writhing can be no longer tolerated. They feel the absolute necessity of a change, that no change can render their condition worse, and that any change must better it. This is the judgment to which they have come; this the brief and compendious logic which we daily hear. They know that, in all the dispensations of Providence, they have reason to be thankful and grateful; and if they had not, they would be borne with fortitude and resignation. But there is a prevailing conviction and persuasion, that, in the administration of government, there has been something wrong, radically wrong, and that the vessel of state has been in the hands of selfish, faithless, and unskilful pilots, who have conducted it amidst the breakers.

In my deliberate opinion, the present distressed and distracted state of the country may be traced to the single cause of the action, the encroachments, and the usurpations of the executive branch of the government. I have not time here to exhibit and to dwell upon all the instances of these, as they have occurred in succession, during the last twelve years. They have been again and again exposed, on other more fit occasions. But I have thought this a proper opportunity to point out the enormity of the pretensions, principles, and practices of that department, as they have been, from time to time, disclosed, in these late years, and to show the rapid progress which has been made in the fulfilment of the remarkable language of our illustrious countryman, that the federal executive had an awful squinting towards monarchy. Here, in the county of his birth, surrounded by sons, some of whose sires with him were the first to raise their arms in defence of American liberty against a foreign monarch, is an appropriate place to expose the impending danger of creating a domestic monarch. And may I not, without presumption, indulge the hope, that the warning voice of another, although far humbler, son of Hanover, may not pass unheeded?

The late president of the United States advanced certain new and alarming pretensions for the executive department of the government, the effect of which, if established and recognised by the people, must inevitably convert it into a monarchy. The first of these, and it was a favorite principle with him, was, that the executive department should be regarded as a unit. By this principle of unity, he meant and intended, that all the executive officers of government should be bound to obey the commands and execute the orders of the president of the United States, and that they should be amenable to him, and he be responsible for them. Prior to his administration, it had been considered that they were bound to observe and obey the constitution and laws, subject only to the general superintendence of the president, and responsible by impeachment, and to the tribunals of justice, for injuries inflicted on private citizens.

But the annunciation of this new and extraordinary principle was not of itself sufficient for the purpose of president Jackson; it was essential that the subjection to his will, which was its object, should be secured by some adequate sanction. That he sought to effect by an extension of another principle, that of dismission from office, beyond all precedent, and to cases and under circumstances which would have furnished just grounds of his impeachment, according to the solemn opinion of Mr. Madison, and other members of the first congress, under the present constitution.

Now, if the whole official corps, subordinate to the president of the United States, are made to know and to feel that they hold their respective offices by the tenure of conformity and obedience to his will, it is manifest, that they must look to that will, and not to the constitution and laws, as the guide of their official conduct. The weakness of human nature, the love and emoluments of office, perhaps the bread necessary to the support of their families, would make this result absolutely certain.

The development of this new character to the power of dismission, would have fallen short of the aims in view, without the exercise of it were held to be a prerogative, for which the president was to be wholly irresponsible. If he were compelled to expose the grounds and reasons upon which he acted, in dismissals from office, the apprehension of public censure would temper the arbitrary nature of the power, and throw some protection around the subordinate officer. Hence the new and monstrous pretension has been advanced, that, although the concurrence of the senate is necessary by the constitution, to the confirmation of an appointment, the president may subsequently dismiss the person appointed, not only without communicating the grounds on which he has acted to the senate, but without any such communication to the people themselves, for whose benefit all offices are created! And so bold and daring has the executive branch of the government become, that one of its cabinet ministers, himself a subordinate officer, has contemptuously refused, to members of the house of representatives, to disclose the grounds on which he has undertaken to dismiss from office persons acting as deputy postmasters in his department!

As to the gratuitous assumption, by president Jackson, of responsibility for all the subordinate executive officers, it is the merest mockery that was ever put forth. They will escape punishment by pleading his orders, and he, by alleging the hardship of being punished, not for his own acts, but for theirs. We have a practical exposition of this principle in the case of the two hundred thousand militia. The secretary of war comes out to screen the president, by testifying that he never saw what he strongly recommended; and the president reciprocates that favor by retaining the secretary in place, notwithstanding he has proposed a plan for organizing the militia, which is acknowledged to be unconstitutional. If the president is not to be held responsible for a cabinet minister, in daily intercourse with him, how is he to be rendered so for a receiver; in Wisconsin or Iowa? To concentrate all responsibility in the president, is to annihilate all responsibility. For who ever expects to see the day arrive when a president of the United States will be impeached; or, if impeached, when he cannot command more than one third of the senate to defeat the impeachment?

But to construct the scheme of practical despotism, whilst all the forms of free government remained, it was necessary to take one further step. By the constitution, the president is enjoined to take care that the laws be executed. This injunction was merely intended to impose on him the duty of a general superintendence; to see that offices were filled; officers at their respective posts, in the discharge of their official functions; and all obstructions to the enforcement of the laws were removed, and, when necessary for that purpose, to call out the militia. No one ever imagined, prior to the administration of president Jackson, that a president of the United States was to occupy himself with supervising and attending to the execution of all the minute details of every one of the hosts of offices in the United States.

Under the constitutional injunction just mentioned, the late president put forward that most extraordinary pretension that the constitution and laws of the United States were to be executed _as he understood them_; and this pretension was attempted to be sustained, by an argument equally extraordinary, that the president, being a sworn officer, must carry them into effect, according to _his_ sense of their meaning. The constitution and laws were to be executed, not according to their import, as handed down to us by our ancestors, as interpreted by contemporaneous expositions, as expounded by concurrent judicial decisions, as fixed by an uninterrupted course of congressional legislation, but in _that sense_ in which a president of the United States happened to understand them!

To complete this executive usurpation, one further object remained. By the constitution, the command of the army and the navy is conferred on the president. If he could unite the purse with the sword, nothing would be left to gratify the insatiable thirst for power. In 1838 the president seized the treasury of the United States, and from that day to this, it has continued substantially under his control. The seizure was effected by the removal of one secretary of the treasury, understood to be opposed to the measure, and by the dismissal of another, who refused to violate the law of the land upon the orders of the president.

It is, indeed, said, that not a dollar in the treasury can be touched without a previous appropriation by law, nor drawn out of the treasury, without the concurrence and signature of the secretary, the treasurer, the register, and the comptroller. But are not all these pretended securities idle and unavailing forms? We have seen, that by the operation of the irresponsible power of dismission, all those officers are reduced to mere automata, absolutely subjected to the will of the president. What resistance would any of them make, with the penalty of dismission suspended over their heads, to any orders of the president, to pour out the treasure of the United States, whether an act of appropriation existed or not? Do not mock us with the vain assurance of the honor and probity of a president, nor remind us of the confidence which we ought to repose in his imagined virtues. The pervading principles of our system of governments――of all free government――is not merely the possibility, but the absolute certainty of infidelity and treachery, with even the highest functionary of the state; and hence all the restrictions, securities, and guarantees, which the wisdom of our ancestors or the sad experience of history had inculcated, have been devised and thrown around the chief magistrate.

Here, friends and fellow-citizens, let us pause and contemplate this stupendous structure of executive machinery and despotism, which has been reared in our young republic. The executive branch of the government is a unit; throughout all its arteries and veins, there is to be but one heart, one head, one will. The number of the subordinate executive officers and dependents in the United States has been estimated, in an official report, founded on public documents, made by a senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) at one hundred thousand. Whatever it may be, all of them, wherever they are situated, are bound implicitly to obey the orders of the president. And absolute obedience to his will is secured and enforced, by the power of dismissing them, at his pleasure, from their respective places. To make this terrible power of dismission more certain and efficacious, its exercise is covered up in mysterious secrecy, without exposure, without the smallest responsibility. The constitution and laws of the United States are to be executed in the sense in which the president understands them, although that sense may be at variance with the understanding of every other man in the United States. It follows, as a necessary consequence, from the principles deduced by the president from the constitutional injunction as to the execution of the laws, that, if an act of congress be passed, in _his opinion_, contrary to the constitution, or if a decision be pronounced by the courts, in his opinion, contrary to the constitution or the laws, that act or that decision the president is not obliged to enforce, and he could not cause it to be enforced, without a violation, as is pretended, of his official oath. Candor requires the admission that the principle has not yet been pushed in practice in these cases; but it manifestly comprehends them; and who doubts that, if the spirit of usurpation is not arrested and rebuked, they will be finally reached? The march of power is ever onward. As times and seasons admonished, it openly and boldly, in broad day, makes its progress; or, if alarm be excited by the enormity of its pretensions, it silently and secretly, in the dark of the night, steals its devious way. It now storms and mounts the ramparts of the fortress of liberty; it now saps and undermines its foundations. Finally, the command of the army and navy being already in the president, and having acquired a perfect control over the treasury of the United States, he has consummated that frightful union of purse and sword, so long, so much, so earnestly deprecated by all true lovers of civil liberty. And our present chief magistrate stands solemnly and voluntarily pledged, in the face of the whole world, to follow in the footsteps, and carry out the measures and the principles, of his illustrious predecessor!

The sum of the whole is, that there is but one power, one control, one will, in the state. All is concentrated in the president. He directs, orders, commands, the whole machinery of the state. Through the official agencies, scattered throughout the land, and absolutely subjected to his will, he executes, according to his pleasure or caprice, the whole power of the commonwealth, which has been absorbed and engrossed by him. And one sole will predominates in, and animates the whole of, this vast community. If this be not practical despotism, I am incapable of conceiving or defining it. Names are nothing. The existence or non-existence of arbitrary government does not depend upon the title or denomination bestowed on the chief of the state, but upon the quantum of power which he possesses and wields. Autocrat, sultan, emperor, dictator, king, doge, president, are all mere names, in which the power respectively possessed by them is not to be found, but is to be looked for in the constitution, or the established usages and practices, of the several states which they govern and control. If the autocrat of Russia were called president of all the Russias, the actual power remaining unchanged, his authority, under his new denomination, would continue undiminished; and if the president of the United States were to receive the title of autocrat of the United States, the amount of his authority would not be increased, without an alteration of the constitution.

General Jackson was a bold and fearless reaper, carrying a wide row, but he did not gather the whole harvest; he left some gleanings to his faithful successor, and he seems resolved to sweep clean the field of power. The duty of inculcating on the official corps the active exertion of their personal and official influence, was left by him to be enforced by Mr. Van Buren, in all popular elections. It was not sufficient that the official corps was bound implicitly to obey the will of the president. It was not sufficient that this obedience was coerced by the tremendous power of dismission. It soon became apparent, that this corps might be beneficially employed, to promote, in other matters than the business of their offices, the views and interest of the president and his party. They are far more efficient than any standing army of equal numbers. A standing army would be separated, and stand out from the people, would be an object of jealousy and suspicion; and, being always in corps, or in detachments, could exert no influence on popular elections. But the official corps is dispersed throughout the country, in every town, village, and city, mixing with the people, attending their meetings and conventions, becoming chairmen and members of committees, and urging and stimulating partisans to active and vigorous exertion. Acting in concert, and, throughout the whole union, obeying orders issued from the centre, their influence, aided by executive patronage, by the post-office department, and all the vast other means of the executive, is almost irresistible.

To correct this procedure, and to restrain the subordinates of the executive from all interference with popular elections, my colleague, (Mr. Crittenden,) now present, introduced a bill in the senate. He had the weight of Mr. Jefferson’s opinion, who issued a circular to restrain federal officers from intermeddling in popular elections. He had before him the British example, according to which, place-men and pensioners were not only forbidden to interfere, but were not, some of them, even allowed to vote at popular elections. But his bill left them free to exercise the elective franchise, prohibiting only the use of their official influence. And how was this bill received in the senate? Passed, by those who profess to admire the character, and to pursue the principles of Mr. Jefferson? No such thing. It was denounced as a sedition bill. And the just odium of that sedition bill, which was intended to protect office-holders against the people, was successfully used to defeat a measure of protection of the people against the office-holders! Not only were they left unrestrained, but they were urged and stimulated by an official report, to employ their influence in behalf of the administration, at the elections of the people.

Hitherto, the army and the navy have remained unaffected by the power of dismission, and they have not been called into the political service of the executive. But no attentive observer of the principles and proceedings of the men in power could fail to see that the day was not distant, when they, too, would be required to perform the partisan offices of the president. Accordingly, the process of converting them into executive instruments has commenced in a court-martial assembled at Baltimore. Two officers of the army of the United States have been there put upon their solemn trial, on the charge of prejudicing the democratic party, by making purchases for the supply of the army, from members of the whig party! It is not pretended that the United States were prejudiced by those purchases; on the contrary, it was, I believe, established that they were cheaper than could have been made from the supporters of the administration. But the charge was, that the purchase at all from the opponents, instead of the friends, of the administration, was an injury to the democratic party, which required that the offenders should be put upon their trial, before a court-martial! And this trial was commenced at the instance of a committee of a democratic convention, and conducted and prosecuted by them! The scandalous spectacle is presented to an enlightened world, of the chief magistrate of a great people executing the orders of a self-created power, organized within the bosom of the state; and, upon such an accusation, arraigning before a military tribunal, gallant men, who are charged with the defence of the honor and the interest of their country, and with bearing its eagles in the presence of an enemy!

But the army and navy are too small, and, in composition, are too patriotic to subserve all the purposes of this administration. Hence, the recent proposition of the secretary of war, strongly recommended by the president, under color of a new organization of the militia, to create a standing force of two hundred thousand men, an amount which no conceivable foreign exigency can ever make necessary. It is not my purpose now to enter upon an examination of that alarming and most dangerous plan of the executive department of the federal government. It has justly excited a burst of general indignation; and nowhere has the disapprobation of it been more emphatically expressed than in this ancient and venerable commonwealth.

The monstrous project may be described in a few words. It proposes to create the force by breaking down Mason and Dixon’s line, expunging the boundaries of states; melting them up in a confluent mass, to be subsequently cut up into ten military parts, alienates the militia from its natural association, withdraws it from the authority and command and sympathy of its constitutional officers, appointed by the states, puts it under the command of the president, authorises him to cause it to be trained, in palpable violation of the constitution, and subjects it to be called out from remote and distant places, at his pleasure, and on occasions not warranted by the constitution!

Indefensible as this project is, fellow-citizens, do not be deceived, by supposing that it has been or will be abandoned. It is a principle of those who are now in power, that an election or a reëlection of the president implies the sanction of the people to all the measures which he had proposed, and all the opinions which, he had expressed, on public affairs, prior to that event. We have seen this principle applied on various occasions. Let Mr. Van Buren be reëlected in November next, and it will be claimed that the people have thereby approved of this plan of the secretary of war. All entertain the opinion, that it is important to train the militia, and render it effective; and it will be insisted, in the contingency mentioned, that the people have demonstrated that they approve of that specific plan. There is more reason to apprehend such a consequence, from the fact that a committee of the senate, to which this subject was referred, instead of denouncing the scheme as unconstitutional, and dangerous to liberty, presented a labored apologetic report, and the administration majority in that body ordered twenty thousand copies of the apology to be printed, for circulation among the people. I take pleasure in testifying, that one administration senator had the manly independence to denounce, in his place, the project as unconstitutional. That senator was from your own state.

I have thus, fellow-citizens, exhibited to you a true and faithful picture of executive power, as it has been enlarged and expanded within the last few years, and as it has been proposed further to extend it. It overshadows every other branch of the government. The source of legislative power is no longer to be found in the capitol, but in the palace of the president. In assuming to be a part of the legislative power, as the president recently did, contrary to the constitution, he would have been nearer the actual fact if he had alleged that he was the sole legislative power of the union. How is it possible for public liberty to be preserved, and the constitutional distributions of power, among the departments of government, to be maintained, unless the executive career be checked and restrained?

It may be urged that two securities exist; first, that the presidential term is of short duration; and, second, the elective franchise. But it has been already shown, that whether a depository of power be arbitrary or compatible with liberty, does not depend upon the duration of the official term, but upon the amount of power invested. The dictatorship in Rome, was an office of brief existence, generally shorter than the presidential term. Whether the elective franchise be an adequate security or not, is a problem to be solved next November. I hope and believe it _yet_ is. But if Mr. Van Buren should be reëlected, the power already acquired by the executive be retained, and that which is in progress be added to that department, it is my deliberate judgment that there will be no hope remaining for the continuance of the liberties of the country.

And yet the partisans of this tremendous executive power arrogate to themselves the name of democrats, and bestow upon us, who are opposed to it, the denomination of federalists! In the senate of the United States, there are five gentlemen who were members of the federal party, and four of them have been suddenly transformed into democrats, and are now warm supporters of this administration, whilst I, who had exerted the utmost of my humble abilities to arouse the nation to a vindication of its insulted honor, and its violated rights, and to the vigorous prosecution of the war against Great Britain, to which they were violently opposed, find myself, by a sort of magical influence, converted into a federalist! The only American citizen that I ever met with, who was an avowed monarchist, was a supporter of the administration of general Jackson; and he acknowledged to me, that his motive was to bring about the system of monarchy, which his judgment preferred.

There were other points of difference between the federalists and the democratic, or rather republican party, of 1798, but the great, leading, prominent discrimination between them, related to the constitution of the executive department of the government. The federalists believed that, in its structure, it was too weak, and was in danger of being crushed by the preponderating weight of the legislative branch. Hence they rallied around the executive, and sought to give to it strength and energy. A strong government, an energetic executive was, among them, the common language and the great object of that day. The republicans, on the contrary, believed that the real danger lay on the side of the executive; that, having a continuous and uninterrupted existence, it was always on the alert, ready to defend the power it had, and prompt in acquiring more; and that the experience of history demonstrated that it was the encroaching and usurping department. They, therefore, rallied around the people and the legislature.

What are the positions of the two great parties of the present day? Modern democracy has reduced the federal theory of a strong and energetic executive to practical operation. It has turned from the people, the natural ally of _genuine_ democracy, to the executive, and, instead of vigilance, jealousy, and distrust, has given to that department all its confidence, and made to it a virtual surrender of all the powers of government. The recognised maxim of royal infallibility is transplanted from the British monarchy into modern American democracy, and the president can do no wrong! This new school adopts, modifies, changes, renounces, renews, opinions at the pleasure of the executive. Is the bank of the United States a useful and valuable institution? Yes, unanimously pronounces the democratic legislature of Pennsylvania. The president vetoes it as a pernicious and dangerous establishment. The democratic majority in the same legislature pronounce it to be pernicious and dangerous. The democratic majority of the house of representatives of the United States, declare the deposits of the public money in the bank of the United States to be safe. The president says they are unsafe, and removes them. The democracy say they are unsafe, and approve the removal. The president says that a scheme of a sub-treasury is revolutionary and disorganizing. The democracy say it is revolutionary and disorganizing. The president says it is wise and salutary. The democracy say it is wise and salutary.

The whigs of 1840 stand where the republicans of 1798 stood, and where the whigs of the revolution were, battling for liberty, for the people, for free institutions, against power, against corruption, against executive encroachments, against monarchy.

We are reproached with struggling for offices and their emoluments. If we acted on the avowed and acknowledged principle of our opponents, ‘that the spoils belong to the victors,’ we should indeed be unworthy of the support of the people. No! fellow-citizens; higher, nobler, more patriotic motives actuate the whig party. Their object is the restoration of the constitution, the preservation of liberty, and rescue of the country. If they were governed by the sordid and selfish motives acted upon by their opponents, and unjustly imputed to them, to acquire office and emolument, they have only to change their names, and enter the presidential palace. The gate is always wide open, and the path is no narrow one which leads through it. The last comer, too, often fares best.

On a resurvey of the few past years we behold enough to sicken and sadden the hearts of true patriots. Executive encroachment has quickly followed upon executive encroachment; persons honored by public confidence, and from whom nothing but grateful and parental measures should have flowed, have inflicted stunning blow after blow, in such rapid succession, that, before the people could recover from the reeling effects of one, another has fallen heavily upon them. Had either of various instances of executive misrule stood out separate and alone, so that its enormity might have been seen and dwelt upon with composure, the condemnation of the executive would have long since been pronounced; but it has hitherto found safety and impunity in the bewildering effects of the multitude of its misdeeds. The nation has been in the condition of a man who, having gone to bed after his barn has been consumed by fire, is aroused in the morning to witness his dwelling-house wrapped in flames. So bold and presumptuous had the executive become, that, penetrating in its influence the hall of a coördinate branch of the government, by means of a submissive or instructed majority of the senate, it has caused a record of the country to be effaced and expunged, the inviolability of which was guarantied by a solemn injunction of the constitution! And that memorable and scandalous scene was enacted only because the offensive record contained an expression of disapprobation of an executive proceeding.