Chapter XIV (1)

1837–1840.

BILL TO PREVENT THE INTERFERENCE OF FEDERAL OFFICERS WITH
ELECTIONS—DEVOTION OF THE FOLLOWERS OF JACKSON—THE WHIG PARTY LESS
COMPACT IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE RIVALRY BETWEEN MR. CLAY AND MR.
WEBSTER—RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW OF THE BANK QUESTION—THE SPECIE
CIRCULAR—GREAT FINANCIAL DISASTERS.

Toward the close of General Jackson’s administration a bill was pending in the Senate to prevent the interference of certain federal officers with elections; a subject which has not yet lost its interest. On this bill, on the 14th of February, 1839, Mr. Buchanan made the following speech:

MR. PRESIDENT: The question raised for discussion by the bill now before the Senate, is very simple in its character. This bill proposes to punish, by a fine of five hundred dollars—the one moiety payable to the informer, and the other to the United States—and by a perpetual disability to hold office under the United States, any officer of this Government, below the rank of a district attorney, who “shall, by word, message, or writing, or in any other manner whatsoever, endeavor to persuade any elector to give, or dissuade any elector from giving, his vote for the choice of any person to be elector of President and Vice President of the United States,” or to be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or to be a governor or lieutenant-governor, or senator or representative, within any State of the Union, “or for the choice of any person to serve in any public office established by the law of any of the States.” The officers of the United States against whom the penalties of this bill are denounced, consist of marshals and their deputies, postmasters and their deputies, receivers and registers of land offices, and their deputies and clerks; surveyors general of the public lands, and their deputies and assistants; collectors, surveyors, naval officers, weighers, gaugers, appraisers, or other officers or persons concerned or employed in the charging, collecting, levying or managing the customs, or any branch thereof; and engineers, officers, or agents, employed or concerned in the execution or superintendence of any of the public works.

The Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden), before he commenced his remarks, moved to amend the bill by striking from it the pecuniary penalty and perpetual disability against these officers, and substituting, in their stead, the penalty of a removal from office by the President, upon the production of evidence satisfactory to him that any of them had been guilty of the offence.

Now, for myself (said Mr. B.), I shall not vote for this amendment. I will not take advantage of the amiable weakness of my friend from Kentucky, in yielding to the solicitation of others that which his own judgment approved. I will more especially not give such a vote, because the proposed amendment makes no change in the principle of the bill. There is a beautiful harmony and consistency in its provisions as it came fresh from its author which ought to be preserved. I shall not assist in marring any of its fair proportions. Let it remain in its perfect original form, and let its friends upon this floor come up to the baptismal font, and act as its sponsors; and let its avowed principles be recognized as the established doctrines of the political church to which they are all devoted. No, sir, no; if a village postmaster should dare to exercise the freedom of speech, guarantied to him by an antiquated instrument, called the Constitution of the United States, and have the audacity “to endeavor to persuade any elector” to vote for Martin Van Buren, or what would be a much more aggravated offence, dissuade any good Whig from voting for the other distinguished Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. Clay), a mere forfeiture of his office would bear no just proportion to the enormity of the crime. Let such a daring criminal be fined five hundred dollars; let him be disqualified forever from holding any office under the Government; and let him be pointed at as a man of blasted reputation all the days of his life. With honest Dogberry, in the play of “Much ado about Nothing,” I pronounce the offence to be “flat burglary as ever was committed.”

There is another reason why I shall vote against the amendment. An issue has been fairly made between the Senator from Kentucky and my friend from New Jersey, (Mr. Wall), who, from what we have heard in the course of this debate, has but a few shattered planks left on which he can escape from a total shipwreck of his fair fame. In mercy to him I would not remove any of them. Let him have a chance for his life. He has dared to make a report against the bill in its original form, as it was referred to the committee of which he is the chairman; and for this cause has encountered all the withering denunciations of the Senators from Kentucky and Virginia, (Messrs. Crittenden and Rives). In justice to him, the aspect of the question should not now be changed. Let us, then, have the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill, against which his report was directed.

It would seem almost unnecessary to discuss the question whether this bill be constitutional or not; as the Senator from Kentucky, throughout the whole course of his argument, never once attempted to point to any clause of the Constitution on which it could be supported. It is true that he did cite some precedents in our legislation, which he supposes have a bearing on the subject; but which, I shall undertake to prove, hereafter, are wholly inapplicable. The Senator from Virginia (Mr. Rives) has gone further into the argument, and has attempted to prove that this bill is constitutional. At the proper time, I shall endeavor to furnish the proper answer to his remarks. By-the-by, this Constitution is a terrible bugbear. Whilst a member of the other House, I once heard an old gentleman exclaim, when it was cited against one of his favorite measures, “what a vast deal of good it prevents us from doing!” After this bill shall have passed, it will be a bugbear no longer, so far as the freedom of speech or the press is concerned. It will not then alarm even political children.

The gentlemen have a precedent for their bill. Yes, sir, they have a precedent in the sedition law; but it does not go far enough for their purpose. That law, which is the only true precedent on which this bill can be founded, and on which alone it can be sustained, permitted every man to write and to publish what he pleased concerning public men and public measures, and only held him responsible in case his charges should prove to be false. But this bill is a gag law. It goes to the fountain at once, and prohibits the officer not only from writing, but from speaking anything good, bad, or indifferent, whether true or false, on any subject whatever which may affect any pending election from that of a President down to a constable. It has a much broader sweep than the sedition law, which did not interfere with the liberty of speech, however much it may have abridged the freedom of the press. Indeed, among the more enlightened despotisms of Europe, I know not one which prohibits the freedom of speech on all public subjects; it is only in free and enlightened America that we propose actually to insert the gag. The sedition law was bad enough, God knows; but it extended only to the use of the pen, not to that of the tongue. There is, therefore, no parallel between the two cases.

Had it not been for the existence of the sedition law, I should have supposed it to be impossible that there could have been two opinions in regard to the utter unconstitutionality of this bill. The Constitution, in language so plain as to leave no room for misconstruction, declares that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” The rule is universal. There is no exception. This bill proposes not only to abridge, but utterly to destroy the freedom of speech, and of the press; to interdict their use altogether to the enumerated officers, on all questions touching the election of any officer of the Federal or State Government. A plain man would naturally suppose that, barely to state the contradiction between the Constitution and this bill was to decide the question. Not so. An ingenious and astute lawyer, in favor of a liberal construction of that instrument, can, by inference and ingenuity, confer powers upon Congress in direct violation both of its letter and its spirit, and of which its framers never once dreamed. Such was the power to pass the sedition law. That law engrafted one limitation upon the freedom of the press. It, in effect, changed the meaning of the general terms “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” and excepted from their operation any law which might be passed to punish libels against the President, the Government, or either House of Congress. The present bill, in principle at least, proceeds much further. It excepts from the general prohibition of the Constitution the power of punishing all persons holding offices under the Government of the United States who shall dare either to speak or to write at all on questions which may affect the result of any election. This interpolation must be inserted, before gentlemen can show any power to pass the present bill. They cannot advance one step in their argument without it. This Constitution can never be construed according to the meaning of its framers but by men of plain, well-informed, and practical judgment. Common sense is its best expounder. Ingenious men, disposed to raise one implication upon another in favor of Federal power, and to make each previous precedent the foundation on which to proceed another step in the march toward consolidation, may soon make it mean anything or nothing. The liberties of this country can only be preserved by a strict construction of the enumerated powers granted by the States to Congress.

Before I proceed further in my argument against the constitutionality of this bill, it will be proper that I should develop some of its latent beauties. I desire to delineate a little more precisely its character—to present some of its striking features, and to show what it is in principle, and what it will prove to be in practice.

There are twenty-six sovereign States in this Confederacy, united by a Federal compact, called the Constitution of the United States. Each individual elector in this country sustains two distinct characters. He is a citizen of some one of the States, and he is also a citizen of the United States. Now, what does this bill propose? In the older States of this Confederacy, all the Federal officers which we have in the interior are postmasters. It is true that at our ports of entry there are custom-house officers; but in Pennsylvania, for example, from the Schuylkill to the Ohio and to Lake Erie, our people scarcely feel their connection with the General Government except through the medium of the Post Office Department. These postmasters are very numerous. They are planted in every village and at every cross road. They are agents for disseminating information throughout the country. I might probably say that in nine instances out of ten the office is scarcely worth holding on account of its pecuniary emoluments. In most cases, the postmaster accepts it for the accommodation of his neighbors.

Now this postmaster is generally a man of property and of character, having a deep stake in the community and in the faithful administration and execution of the laws. Two candidates are presented to the people for office; say that of a justice of the peace. If one of these village postmasters should, in the exercise of his unquestionable rights as a citizen of Pennsylvania, advise his neighbor to vote for one of these candidates, and against the other, this bill dooms him to a fine of five hundred dollars, and to a perpetual disqualification from ever holding any office under the Government of the United States. No matter whether the merits which he may have ascribed to one of the candidates be true as holy writ, and the delinquencies which he may have charged against the other may be susceptible of the clearest proof, this will not arrest the vengeance of the bill. He is doomed to remain mute, although his dearest interests may be involved, or incur its penalties. A gag is to be put into his mouth, and he is to be punished if he dare to express a preference for one candidate over the other. And let me tell the gentleman, these postmasters hold all sorts of political opinions. In my own State a considerable proportion of their number are Whigs and Antimasons, opposed to the present Administration. I might cite other examples to depict the enormity of this bill, but I consider it wholly unnecessary. I might ascend from the justice of the peace or the constable, through all the gradations of elective office, State and Federal, to the President of the United States, and show, that at each ascending grade, the violation of the rights of the citizen becomes more and more outrageous. I might enumerate the weighers and the gaugers, and the other proscribed classes of inferior office holders, and paint the mad and wanton injustice which this bill would inflict upon them. But enough.

The man who would accept office upon such terms, must forfeit all self-respect, and would become at once a fit tool for corruption and for despotism. He must be degraded in his own eyes, and degraded in the eyes of his fellow-citizens below the rank of a freeman. If you desire to depreciate the Government itself under which we live, you cannot do it more effectually than by placing such a stigma on its officers.

Why, sir, you could not, by any possibility, carry such a law into execution. If it should pass to-morrow, it would fall a dead letter upon your statute book. I would not advocate a forcible resistance to any law, and do not believe that such was the intention of my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Wall), when he spoke of resistance; but does not the Senator from Virginia know that laws may be passed of a character so odious, that nobody could be found to carry them into execution? Such are all laws which are entirely opposed to the spirit of the age, and the united and overwhelming current of public opinion. I firmly believe this to be the character of the present bill.

But suppose me to be mistaken in this opinion, and that the law could be carried into execution, what would be the consequences? The doomed officer, the postmaster, the weigher or the gauger, is placed in the midst of a thinking, acting, busy population. Everything around him is proceeding with the impetuosity of steam. Public opinion is marching onward with giant strides. The officer is talked at and talked to, daily and hourly, by the surrounding multitude, whilst the law compels him to close his lips in silence. Under such circumstances, it would be impossible for human nature long to refrain. What then? If he utters a syllable on any of the exciting political topics of the day, and these are all involved in the perpetual canvass which is proceeding for offices, high and low, he is at once seized upon by some harpy of an informer. This bill offers a most tempting bribe to such eavesdroppers. It would soon call into existence such a race, to dog and surround each officer, and to catch up every incautious word which might be construed into an endeavor to persuade or to dissuade an elector. Each individual in society is stimulated by this bill to become a common informer, by the tempting offer of a bribe of two hundred and fifty dollars in each particular case. The proscribed officer thus becomes his prey, and, in most cases, will be glad to compromise with him for the payment of a great part, or the whole, of the penalty of five hundred dollars, in order to avoid the stigma of perpetual disability to hold any office under this Government.

There is another remark which I desire to make on this branch of the subject. Whenever you attempt to violate the plain letter and spirit of the Constitution, a thousand evils, of which you have never dreamed, present themselves in the perspective. This law can alone be executed by the courts of the United States. Where are they situated? In the large States, such as Pennsylvania or Virginia, they are held at great distances from each other. A postmaster in either of these States, the income of whose office does not exceed fifty dollars per annum, may be dragged from home, a distance of one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles, to stand his trial under this bill before a federal court. The expense would be enormous, whilst he is obliged to appear before a tribunal far from the place where his character, and that of his prosecutor, are known and appreciated. Under such circumstances, he would almost be certain to become the victim of the common informer, under this most unjust and unconstitutional law. He would either be convicted, or compelled to buy his peace at almost any price.

In conferring the powers enumerated in the Constitution on the Federal Government, the States expressly reserved to themselves respectively, or to their people, all the powers not delegated by it to the United States, or prohibited by it to the States. Now, I would ask the Senator from Kentucky when, or where, or how has the State of Pennsylvania surrendered to Congress the right of depriving any of her citizens, who may accept office under the General Government, of the freedom of speech or of the press? Where is it declared by the Constitution, either in express terms, or from what clause can it fairly be inferred, that Congress may make a forfeiture of the dearest of all political rights, an indispensable condition of office? Each one of the people of Pennsylvania, under her constitution and laws, is secured in the inalienable right of speaking his thoughts. The State, as well as each individual citizen, has the deepest interest in the preservation of this right. I ask the gentleman to lay his finger on the clause of the Constitution by which it has been surrendered. Where is it declared, or from what can it be inferred, that because the States have yielded to the Federal Government their citizens to execute public trusts under the General Government, that, therefore, they have yielded the rights of those citizens to express their opinions freely concerning public men and public measures? The proposition appears to me to be full of absurdity. In regard to the qualifications of electors, the States have granted no power whatever to the United States. This subject they have expressly reserved from federal control. The legislatures of the States, and they alone, under the Constitution, possess the power of prescribing the qualifications of the electors of members of the House of Representatives in Congress. They have reserved the same power to themselves in regard to voters for the choice of electors of President and Vice President. What, then, does this bill attempt? To separate two things which reason and the Almighty himself have united beyond all power of separation. You might as well attempt, by arbitrary laws, to separate human life from the power of breathing the vital air, as to detach the elective franchise from freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press. In this atmosphere alone can it live, and move, and have its being. To speak his thoughts is every free elector’s inalienable right. Freedom of speech and of the press are both the sword and shield of our Republican institutions. To declare that when the citizens of a State accept office from the General Government, they thereby forfeit this right to express an opinion in relation to the public concerns of their own State and of the nation, is palpable tyranny. In the language referred to in the report, “it puts bridles into their mouths and saddles upon their backs,” and degrades them from the rank of a reasoning animal. The English precedent of the Senator was wiser, much wiser, in depriving these officers of the right of suffrage altogether. It does not attempt to separate by the power of man two things which Heaven itself has indissolubly united.

If, therefore, the Constitution contained no express provision whatever prohibiting Congress from passing any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, I think I have shown conclusively that the power to pass this bill could not be inferred from any of its express grants of power. But the Constitution is not silent on the subject. Before its adoption by the States, it was dreaded by the jealous patriots of the day, that the Federal Government might usurp the liberties of the people by attacking the liberty of speech and of the press. They, therefore, insisted upon the insertion of an express provision, as an amendment, which, in all time to come, would prevent Congress from interfering with these inestimable rights. The amendment to which I have often referred was adopted, and these rights were expressly excepted from the powers of the Federal Government. And yet, in the very face of this express negative of federal power, we find the Senator from Kentucky coming forward with his bill declaring direct war against any exercise of the freedom of speech and of the press by those citizens of the States who happen to be office holders under the General Government.

But, says the Senator from Virginia, Congress possess, and have exercised, the unquestionable power of creating offices under the Constitution; and they may, therefore, annex to the holding of those offices such a condition as that prescribed by the bill, or rather the amendment of the Senator from Kentucky. Now, sir, what is this but to say that Congress may declare that any citizen of Pennsylvania, who accepts a federal office, shall take it upon condition that it shall be forfeited the moment he exercises the dearest political right guarantied to him and every other citizen, by the Constitution of the United States? Can Congress impose any such condition upon an office? If they can, they can repeal the most solemn provision of the Constitution, and render it a dead letter in regard to every person in the employment of the General Government. All mankind may then speak and publish what they please, except those individuals who have been selected, I hope, generally, for their integrity and ability, to execute the important public trusts of the country.

The Senator from Kentucky has adduced several precedents to prove that similar powers have been already exercised by Congress in other cases. Let us examine them for a moment. Congress, says he, has declared that an Indian agent who shall himself trade with the Indians, shall be punished for this act. But why? It is because this agent is vested with the power of granting to our citizens licenses to trade with the Indians, and thus to take care that they shall not be imposed upon and cheated. To allow him, therefore, to trade with them himself, would be to make him a judge in his own cause, and to withdraw from them that protection which the law intended. Besides, Congress have received from the States, by the Constitution, the power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes. The whole subject is thus placed under their control. What, then, is this precedent worth? Is not the trading of an Indian agent with the Indians an express and palpable violation of a duty necessarily involved in his office? Can any thing be clearer than the power and the duty of Congress to punish him for this offence? But what interference can there be between the performance of the duties required by law from a postmaster, or from any other of the proscribed officers, and his expression of an opinion to his neighbor, either for or against any candidate for public office? If the postmaster, for example, performs his whole official duty, if he receives and delivers the letters entrusted to his care, and regularly settles his accounts with the department, what human power can arbitrarily place a gag in his mouth, and declare that he shall be punished for exercising the freedom of speech and of the press, upon the pretext that the exercise of these rights of a freeman are inconsistent with the duties of his office? You might just as well punish him or deprive him of his office for speaking or writing on natural philosophy, or mathematics, or any other scientific subject. You would have the same power to violate that clause in the Constitution conferring upon every man the free exercise of religion, and punish him for expressing his opinion on religious subjects, for attending prayer meetings or bible societies, or for endeavoring to persuade or dissuade any member of the religious society to which he belongs in relation to the choice of its pastor. The principle is precisely the same in both cases. Your power hath this extent, no more. You can punish the officer for neglecting or for violating the duties which appropriately belong to his office. You can not repeal the Constitution by declaring it to be an official duty that he shall abandon the constitutional right of speaking his thoughts upon any subject whatsoever, whether religious, scientific, or political. In other words, you have no right to declare that he shall become a slave when he becomes an officer.

A similar answer, if it were necessary, might be given to the Senator’s other precedents. Officers of the customs are prohibited from owning any vessel or cargo under a pecuniary penalty. And why? Because they themselves are to direct and superintend the entry of vessels and cargoes belonging to other persons and the collection of duties; and to allow them to transact this business for themselves, would be to make them judges in their own cause. It would be an evident violation of the duty naturally attached to their office. But will any one contend that their constitutional freedom of speech, in regard to candidates for office, is incompatible with the proper entry or unloading of vessels engaged either in foreign commerce or the coasting trade?

So the register of a land office is prohibited from entering lands in his own name, or, in other words, from selling lands to himself.

Such are the precedents which the Senator has cited to justify himself in depriving the officers embraced by his bill of the right of freedom of speech and of the press.

But I do not mean even to rest the constitutional question here. From the very nature of the Constitution itself, two great political parties must ever exist in this country. You may call them by what names you will, their principles must ever continue to be the same. The one, dreading federal power, will ever be friendly to a strict construction of the powers delegated to the Federal Government and to State rights. The other equally dreading federal weakness, will ever advocate such a liberal construction of the Constitution as will confer upon the General Government as much power as possible, consistently with a free interpretation of the terms of the instrument. The one party is alarmed at the danger of consolidation; the other at that of disunion. In the days of the elder Adams the party friendly to a liberal construction of the Constitution got into power. And what did they do? Among other things, in the very face of that clause of the Constitution which prohibited Congress from passing any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, they passed the sedition law. What were its provisions? It punished false, scandalous, and malicious libels against the Government of the United States, either House of Congress, or the President, by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars and imprisonment not exceeding two years.

At the present day, it would be useless to waste the time of the Senate in proving that this law was a violation of the Constitution. It is now admitted that Congress, in passing it, had transcended their powers. If any principle has been established beyond a doubt by the almost unanimous opinion of the people of the United States, it is, that the sedition law was unconstitutional. Such is the strong and universal feeling against it, that if it could now be revived, the authors would probably meet a similar fate with those deluded and desperate men in France who have themselves lately fallen victims upon the same altar on which they had determined to sacrifice the liberty of the press.

The popular odium which followed this law was not so much excited by its particular provisions, as by the fact, that any law upon the subject was a violation of the Constitution, and would establish a precedent for giving such a construction to it as would swallow up the rights of the States and of their people in the gulf of federal power.

The Constitution had declared that “Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Its framers well knew that, under the laws of each of the States composing this Union, libels were punishable. They, therefore, left the character of all officers created under the Constitution and laws of the United States to be protected by the laws of the several States. They were afraid to give this Government any authority over the subject of libels, lest its colossal power might be wielded against the liberty of the press. Congress were, therefore, prohibited from passing any law upon the subject, whether good or bad. It was not merely because the law was unjust in itself, though it was bad enough, Heaven knows, that the indignant Republicans of that day rose against it; but it was because it violated the Constitution. It expired by its own limitation in March, 1801; but not until it had utterly prostrated the political party which gave it birth.

Now, sir, I shall say a few words concerning the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798; although the Senator from Virginia may consider it sacrilege in me to discuss this subject. I have at all times, ever since I read and understood these resolutions, held to the political doctrines which they inculcate; and I can assure the Senator I have studied them with care. I will read a few extracts from the Virginia resolutions:

The General Assembly, in the third resolution, “doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact—and as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact;” and in the fourth resolution, they express their deep regret, “that a spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the Federal Government, to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them.” In regard to the sedition law, they declare that its passage was the exercise of “a power not delegated by the Constitution; but, on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a power, which, more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm; because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.”

Now, sir, what is the essence, what is the root of all these resolutions? It consists of one plain, clear, fundamental principle, from which all others proceed as branches. It is this, that patriotism—that the permanence of our institutions—that all the principles of correct construction require, that the Federal Government shall be limited to the express powers granted to it by the States, and that no implied powers shall ever be exercised, except such as are evidently and plainly necessary to carry the express powers into effect. This is the foundation, the corner stone, the vital principle of all the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. It was because the sedition law violated this principle, that the Republican statesmen of Virginia and Kentucky opposed it with such a determined spirit. It was, as Mr. Madison says in his report, because such a loose construction of the Constitution as would bring this law within its pale, would lay the foundation from which the friends of a strong central government might proceed to rob the States and the people of their liberties, and establish a consolidated government. It was the first stride towards a limited monarchy.

The Federalists of that day honestly believed that the Government should be strengthened at the centre, and that the pulsations of the heart were not powerful enough to extend a wholesome circulation to the extremities. They, therefore, used every effort to enlarge the powers of the Federal Government by construction. This was the touchstone which then divided parties, and which will continue to divide them until, which God forbid, the Government shall cease to exist.

Now, sir, if I have correctly stated the principle which runs through all the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, I would ask whether the bill now before the Senate is not a more palpable violation of this principle than the sedition law. I shall now proceed to establish this position.

In the first place, then, the sedition law did not interfere with the freedom of speech. The citizen might speak what he thought and say what he pleased without subjecting himself to its penalties. Under the despotisms of Europe there is a strict censorship over the press. Everything written for publication must undergo the supervision and correction of a Government censor before it can be published. In the most despotic countries, however, some indulgence is granted to the liberty of speech on political questions. The bill establishes more than a universal censorship over the freedom of speech. It compels the officer to be silent altogether on political questions. He dare not utter a word without incurring its penalties. In this country, every public question connects itself with our elections. If there be two candidates for any State Legislature, and the election should turn upon internal improvements, or the division of a county, the officer is as much exposed to the universal sweep of this bill, in case he utters a word in favor of the one or against the other, as though it were the Presidential election. He is equally doomed to silence in the one case as in the other. Such tyranny is unknown to the sedition law.

Whilst I was abroad some years ago, I heard an anecdote highly creditable to the King of Prussia, who, although a despot, is, by his subjects, called a Democratic King. The revolutionary war of Poland against Russia was then raging, and the Polish subjects of the Prussian king were highly excited in favor of their brethren under the dominion of Russia. They talked very freely in favor of taking part in the contest; of casting off the Prussian yoke, and uniting with their brethren in re-establishing the independence of Poland. The counsellors of the king advised him to prohibit and to punish this freedom of speech. He answered that he would do no such thing; that he would suffer them to express their opinions, and that there was less danger that they would rise against his government than if they remained silent. This was the remark of a liberal and a wise man, who had been instructed in the school of adversity.

But, in this favored land of liberty, in the nineteenth century, we are about to deny to our citizens the privilege of speaking their thoughts. This is the first attempt which I have ever known or read of, either in England or in this country, to punish the expression of opinions relative to candidates for office as a crime. If ever this was done in England, even in the reigns of the Tudors or the Stuarts, it must have been a Star Chamber offence. In the more enlightened despotisms of Europe, they will learn, with astonishment, that a bill has been introduced into the Senate of the United States, proposing to punish a postmaster for expressing his opinion in favor of a candidate for office, as if this were an enormous crime, with a fine of five hundred dollars, and a perpetual disability to hold any other office under the Government. Even under the common law of England, oral slander is not punishable as a crime. The party injured by it is left to his private remedy.

In the second place, the sedition law, although it did abridge, did not, like this bill, totally destroy the freedom of the press. The sedition law deprived no man of the right or the power, in the first instance, to write and publish to the world any strictures upon the Government which he might think proper. To be sure, if in exercising this privilege he violated the truth, he was made responsible to its penalties. This bill reaches the very fountains of thought. Its object is to prevent its victims from speaking or writing at all. No matter how innocent, or praiseworthy, or true, may be the conversation or the publication, still if it can be construed into an endeavor to persuade any elector to give his vote for a particular candidate, he is doomed to a fine of five hundred dollars, and a perpetual disability to hold office.

Again: under the sedition law, the accused was permitted to protect himself against its penalties, by giving the truth of his charge in evidence. Any individual who had accused the President of the United States of being a bad and dangerous man, who was aiming a blow at the liberties of his country, and desired to usurp the powers of the Government by a latitudinarian construction of the Constitution, was protected by this law from all responsibility, provided he could prove the truth of these allegations to the satisfaction of a court and jury of his countrymen. Not so the present bill. If a postmaster, or a land officer, or a weigher, or a gauger, should endeavor to dissuade any elector from voting for a particular candidate, and should say that this candidate has been guilty of a crime, and therefore his election would be dangerous to the country, and is brought before a court and jury for trial under this bill, he must be convicted, although he may be able to prove the truth of his charge by evidence as clear as a sunbeam. The old English maxim, “the greater the truth the greater the libel,” is again revived, with some show of reason; because the language of truth would be more powerful in persuading or dissuading an elector than that of falsehood. Although every member of the court and the jury might personally know that what the accused had uttered was the truth, yet, under the provisions of this bill, they would be bound to convict and sentence him to suffer its penalties.

I think I have thus established my position that this bill is worse, and more glaringly unconstitutional, than the sedition law.

I now approach the argument of the Senator from Virginia in favor of the constitutionality of this bill. The old argument in favor of the sedition law, as stated by Mr. Madison in his report, was that the general phrases in the preamble and one clause of the Constitution were sufficiently powerful to extend the limited grants of power contained in the body of the instrument, and to confer upon Congress the authority to enact any law they might think proper for the common defence and the general welfare. This doctrine has long since been exploded, and was not adverted to by the Senator from Virginia. We are informed by the same authority, that another argument used, was, that all the State Legislatures had passed laws for the punishment of libels; and that, therefore, the same power belonged to the Government of the United States. A similar argument could not be urged by the Senator in support of this bill; because no State Legislature ever has, and I will venture to say no State Legislature ever will pass such a bill as that now before the Senate. To what argument then did the Senator resort? I shall endeavor to state it fairly. He asks if a judge were to use the freedom of speech or of the press, in canvassing the merits of a cause before the people, which it would become his duty afterwards to decide, would it be an abridgment of this freedom to punish him for such conduct? I answer, certainly not. But does not the gentleman perceive that the offence in this case is substantive and independent, and amounts to a total violation of his official duty, for which he ought to be impeached? The language, oral or printed, which he has used, is the mere agent which he has employed in the commission of the offence. This argument is a begging of the question; for it assumes that, under the Constitution, Congress possess the power to punish one citizen for persuading another, by fair argument, to give his vote for or against any candidate for office. This is the very principle to be established. Again he asks, suppose one of the officers embraced by the bill were to use the freedom of speech or of the press, in saying to an elector, if you will give your vote for such a candidate, I will procure you an office, would not such an officer be punishable? I answer, certainly he would under the State laws; because this would be an attempt to procure a vote by corrupt and improper means. It is a distinct offence, the punishment of which in no manner interferes with the liberty of speech or the press when exercised to accomplish constitutional purposes. A similar answer might be given to his interrogatory in regard to giving a challenge, by word or by writing, to fight a duel. The last question, which capped the climax of his argument, was, if a man be guilty of a false and malicious libel against an innocent person, may you not punish him, under the Constitution, without invading the freedom of speech or of the press—because it is not the words he may use which you punish, but the falsehood of the charge, the evil intention, and the injury inflicted? I ask the Senator if this argument is not a justification of the sedition law to the fullest extent? I have taken down the Senator’s words, and cannot be mistaken in their meaning. What did the sedition law declare? That the authors of “false, scandalous and malicious” libels, with the evil intentions enumerated in the act, should incur its penalties. It was not the mere words published that were punished, but it was their falsehood, their malice, and their evil intentions. The constitutionality of the sedition law is, therefore, embraced not only within the spirit, but within the very words, of the Senator’s argument. Has he not, however unconsciously, defended the sedition law? This argument, to my knowledge, never occurred to those who passed that law; but it is one which, if well founded, would give us the power to-morrow to pass another sedition law.

Do not Senators perceive that the passage of this bill would utterly disfranchise a large and respectable class of our people? Under it, what would be the condition of all the editors of your political journals, whose business and whose duty it is to enlighten public opinion in regard to the merits or demerits of candidates for office? Pass this law, and you declare that no editor of a public paper, of either party, is capable or worthy of holding any of the proscribed offices. He must at once either abandon his paper, and with it the means of supporting himself and his family, or he must surrender any little office which he may hold under the Government.

And yet this bill is supported by my friend from Virginia, who, to use his own language, “has been imbued with the principles of Democracy, and a regard for State rights, from his earliest youth.” If such a charge should ever be made against him hereafter, his speech and his vote in favor of this bill, will acquit him before any court in Christendom, where the truth may be given in evidence. I yet trust that he may never vote for its passage.

Every measure of this kind betrays a want of confidence in the intelligence and patriotism of the American people. It is founded on a distrust of their judgment and integrity. Do you suppose that when a man is appointed a collector or a postmaster, he acquires any more influence over the people than he had before? No, sir! On the contrary, his influence is often diminished, instead of being increased. The people of this country are abundantly capable of judging whether he is more influenced by love of country or love of office. If they should determine that his motives are purely mercenary for supporting a political party, this will destroy his influence. If he be a noisy, violent, and meddling politician, he will do the administration under which he has been appointed, much more harm than good. Let me assure gentlemen that the people are able to take care of themselves. They do not require the interposition of Congress to prevent them from being deceived and led astray by the influence of office holders. Whilst this is my fixed opinion, I think the number of federal officers ought to be strictly limited to the actual necessities of the Government. Pursue this course, and, my life for it, all the land officers, and postmasters, and weighers, and gaugers, which you shall send abroad over the country, can never influence the people to betray their own cause. For my own part, I entertain the most perfect confidence in their intelligence as well as integrity.

That office holders possess comparatively but little influence over the people, will conclusively appear from the brief history of the last two years, the period during which this dreaded man, Mr. Van Buren, has been in office. What has all this alarming influence of the office holders effected at the only points where they are to be found in any considerable number? In the city of Philadelphia, notwithstanding all the influence of the custom-house, the post-office, and the mint, the majority at the last election against the administration was tremendous, being, I believe, upwards of four thousand. The Prætorian guards, as they have been called, performed but little service on that day in that city. On the other hand, look at the interior of Pennsylvania. There the governor, whose patronage within the limits of the State was as great, under the old Constitution, as that of the King of England, had filled every office with enemies of the present administration. Of this I do not complain; for, whether right or wrong, it has been the long established practice of both parties. It is true that many of the postmasters were friendly to the administration; but it is equally certain, that a large proportion of them warmly espoused the cause of the opposition. What was the result? Those wielding the vast patronage were entirely routed, notwithstanding the exertions of the office holders. Gentlemen may quiet their alarms, and be assured that the people cannot be persuaded to abandon their principles by the influence of men in office.

Again: let us look at the State of New York for another example. There the Albany regency were seated in power. The Democratic party was well drilled. All the office holders of the State and of the city were friendly to the administration. Besides, in my opinion, they fought in the righteous cause; and this same abused Albany regency who were their leaders, was composed of as able and as honest men as were ever at the head of any State government. What was the result there? With all this official power and patronage, both of the State and Federal Governments, we were beaten, horse, foot and dragoons. There is not the least necessity for passing an unconstitutional law, to save the people from the influence of the office holders.

Have we not been beaten in all the large cities of the Union, where only there are federal officers in any considerable number? What has been our fate in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and New Orleans? We have been vanquished in all of them. The hobgoblins and chimeras dire respecting the influence of office holders, which terrify gentlemen, exist only in their own imagination. The people of this country are not the tame and servile creatures who can be seduced from their purpose by the persuasion of the office holders. It is true that in 1828 I did say that the office holders were the enlisted soldiers of that administration by which they were sustained. This was too strong an expression. But admit them to be enlisted soldiers; and whilst I do not deny them some influence, there is no danger to be apprehended from it, as long as there is virtue and intelligence among our people.

And here I hope the Senator from Kentucky will pardon me for suggesting to him an amendment to his bill. He has, I think, made one or two mistakes in the classification of his officers; though, in the general, it is sufficiently perfect. The principle would seem to have been to separate what may be called the aristocracy of office holders from the plebeians. Those of the elevated class are still permitted to enjoy the freedom of speech and of the press, whilst the hard-working operatives among them are denied this privilege. The heads of departments and bureaus, the officers of the army and navy, the superintendents and officers of our mints, and our district attorneys are not affected by this bill. These gentlemen are privileged by their elevation. They are too high to be reached by its provisions. Who, then, ought to care whether weighers and gaugers, and village postmasters, and hard-handed draymen, and such inferior people shall be permitted to express their thoughts on public affairs? I would suggest, however, that the collectors of our principal seaports, the marshals of our extensive judicial districts, and the post-masters in our principal cities receive compensation sufficient to enable them to figure in “good society.” They ought to rank with the district attorneys, and should be elevated from the plebeian to the patrician rank of office holders. They ought to be allowed the freedom of speech and of the press. As to the subordinate officers, they are not worth the trouble of a thought.

To be sure there is one palpable absurdity on the face of the bill. Its avowed purpose is to prevent office holders from exercising an influence in elections. Why, then, except from its operation all those office holders, who, from their station in society, can exercise the most extensive influence, and confine its provisions to the humbler, but not less meritorious class, whose opinions can have but a limited influence over their fellow-men? The district attorney, for example, is excepted—the very man of all others, who, from his position and talents, has the best opportunity of exerting an extensive influence. He may ride over his district, and make political speeches to secure the election of his favorite candidate. He is too high a mark for the gentleman’s bill. But if the subordinates of the custom-house, or the petty postmaster at the cross-roads with an income of fifty dollars per annum, shall dare, even in private conversation, to persuade an elector to vote for or against any candidate, he is to be punished by a fine of five hundred dollars, and a perpetual disability to hold any office under the Government. Was there ever a bill more unequal or more unjust?

Now, sir, I might here, with great propriety, and very much to the relief both of my audience and myself, leave this subject; but there are still some other observations which I conceive it to be my duty to add to what I have already said. Most of them will be elicited by the very strong remarks of my friend from Virginia; for I trust that I may still be permitted to call him by that name.