The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster Part 43

Let us pause, Sir, and consider this most strange proposition. The President is the chief executive magistrate. He is commander-in-chief of the army and navy; nominates all persons to office; claims a right to remove all at will, and to control all, while yet in office; dispenses all favors; and wields the whole patronage of the government. And the proposition is, that the duty of defending the integrity of the Const.i.tution against the representatives of the States and against the representatives of the people, _results to him from the very nature of his office_; and that the founders of our republic have given to this duty, thus confided to him, peculiar solemnity and force!

Mr. President, the contest, for ages, has been to rescue Liberty from the grasp of executive power. Whoever has engaged in her sacred cause, from the days of the downfall of those great aristocracies which had stood between the king and the people to the time of our own independence, has struggled for the accomplishment of that single object. On the long list of the champions of human freedom, there is not one name dimmed by the reproach of advocating the extension of executive authority; on the contrary, the uniform and steady purpose of all such champions has been to limit and restrain it. To this end the spirit of liberty, growing more and more enlightened and more and more vigorous from age to age, has been battering, for centuries, against the solid butments of the feudal system. To this end, all that could be gained from the imprudence, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the weakness, or wrung from the necessities of crowned heads, has been carefully gathered up, secured, and h.o.a.rded, as the rich treasures, the very jewels of liberty. To this end, popular and representative right has kept up its warfare against prerogative, with various success; sometimes writing the history of a whole age in blood, sometimes witnessing the martyrdom of Sidneys and Russells, often baffled and repulsed, but still gaining, on the whole, and holding what it gained with a grasp which nothing but the complete extinction of its own being could compel it to relinquish. At length, the great conquest over executive power, in the leading western states of Europe, has been accomplished. The feudal system, like other stupendous fabrics of past ages, is known only by the rubbish which it has left behind it. Crowned heads have been compelled to submit to the restraints of law, and the PEOPLE, with that intelligence and that spirit which make their voice resistless, have been able to say to prerogative, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther." I need hardly say, Sir, that into the full enjoyment of all which Europe has reached only through such slow and painful steps we sprang at once, by the Declaration of Independence, and by the establishment of free representative governments; governments borrowing more or less from the models of other free states, but strengthened, secured, improved in their symmetry, and deepened in their foundation, by those great men of our own country whose names will be as familiar to future times as if they were written on the arch of the sky.

Through all this history of the contest for liberty, executive power has been regarded as a lion which must be caged. So far from being the object of enlightened popular trust, so far from being considered the natural protector of popular right, it has been dreaded, uniformly, always dreaded, as the great source of its danger.

And now, Sir, who is he, so ignorant of the history of liberty, at home and abroad; who is he, yet dwelling in his contemplations among the principles and dogmas of the Middle Ages; who is he, from whose bosom all original infusion of American spirit has become so entirely evaporated and exhaled, that he shall put into the mouth of the President of the United States the doctrine that the defence of liberty _naturally results to_ executive power, and is its peculiar duty? Who is he, that, generous and confiding towards power where it is most dangerous, and jealous only of those who can restrain it,--who is he, that, reversing the order of the state, and upheaving the base, would poise the pyramid of the political system upon its apex? Who is he, that, overlooking with contempt the guardians.h.i.+p of the representatives of the people, and with equal contempt the higher guardians.h.i.+p of the people themselves,--who is he that declares to us, through the President's lips, that the security for freedom rests in executive authority? Who is he that belies the blood and libels the fame of his own ancestors, by declaring that _they_, with solemnity of form, and force of manner, have invoked the executive power to come to the protection of liberty? Who is he that thus charges them with the insanity, or the recklessness, of putting the lamb beneath the lion's paw? No, Sir. No, Sir. Our security is in our watchfulness of executive power. It was the const.i.tution of this department which was infinitely the most difficult part in the great work of creating our present government. To give to the executive department such power as should make it useful, and yet not such as should render it dangerous; to make it efficient, independent, and strong, and yet to prevent it from sweeping away every thing by its union of military and civil authority, by the influence of patronage, and office, and favor,--this, indeed, was difficult. They who had the work to do saw the difficulty, and we see it; and if we would maintain our system, we shall act wisely to that end, by preserving every restraint and every guard which the Const.i.tution has provided. And when we, and those who come after us, have done all that we can do, and all that they can do, it will be well for us and for them, if some popular executive, by the power of patronage and party, and the power, too, of that very popularity, shall not hereafter prove an overmatch for all other branches of the government.

I do not wish, Sir, to impair the power of the President, as it stands written down in the Const.i.tution, and as great and good men have hitherto exercised it. In this, as in other respects, I am for the Const.i.tution as it is. But I will not acquiesce in the reversal of all just ideas of government; I will not degrade the character of popular representation; I will not blindly confide, where all experience admonishes me to be jealous; I will not trust executive power, vested in the hands of a single magistrate, to be the guardian of liberty.

Having claimed for the executive the especial guardians.h.i.+p of the Const.i.tution, the Protest proceeds to present a summary view of the powers which are supposed to be conferred on the executive by that instrument. And it is to this part of the message, Sir, that I would, more than to all others, call the particular attention of the Senate. I confess that it was only upon careful reperusal of the paper that I perceived the extent to which its a.s.sertions of power reach. I do not speak now of the President's claims of power as opposed to legislative authority, but of his opinions as to his own authority, duty, and responsibility, as connected with all other officers under the government. He is of opinion that the whole executive power is vested in him, and that he is responsible for its entire exercise; that among the duties imposed on him is that of "taking care that the laws be faithfully executed"; and that, "being thus made responsible for the entire action of the executive department, it is but reasonable that the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws, a power in its nature executive, should remain in his hands. It is, therefore, not only his right, but the Const.i.tution makes it his duty, to 'nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint,' all 'officers of the United States whose appointments are not in the Const.i.tution otherwise provided for,' with a proviso that the appointment of inferior officers may be vested in the President alone, in the courts of justice, or in the heads of departments."

The first proposition, then, which the Protest a.s.serts, in regard to the President's powers as executive magistrate, is, that, the general duty being imposed on him by the Const.i.tution of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, _he thereby becomes himself responsible for the conduct of every person employed in the government_; "for the entire action," as the paper expresses it, "of the executive department." This, Sir, is very dangerous logic. I reject the inference altogether. No such responsibility, nor any thing like it, follows from the general provision of the Const.i.tution making it his duty to see the laws executed. If it did, we should have, in fact, but one officer in the whole government. The President would be everybody. And the Protest a.s.sumes to the President this whole responsibility for every other officer, for the very purpose of making the President everybody, of annihilating every thing like independence, responsibility, or _character_, in all other public agents. The whole responsibility is a.s.sumed, in order that it may be more plausibly argued that all officers of government are not agents of the law, but the President's agents, and therefore responsible to him alone. If he be responsible for the conduct of all officers, and they be responsible to him only, then it may be maintained that such officers are but his own agents, his subst.i.tutes, his deputies. The first thing to be done, therefore, is to a.s.sume the responsibility for all; and this you will perceive, Sir, is done, in the fullest manner, in the pa.s.sages which I have read. Having thus a.s.sumed for the President the entire responsibility of the whole government, the Protest advances boldly to its conclusion, and claims, at once, absolute power over all individuals in office, as being merely the President's agents. This is the language: "The whole executive power being vested in the President, who is responsible for its exercise, it is a necessary consequence that he should have a right to employ agents of his own choice to aid him in the performance of his duties, and to discharge them when he is no longer willing to be responsible for their acts."

This, Sir, completes the work. This handsomely rounds off the whole executive system of executive authority. First, the President has the whole responsibility; and then, being thus responsible for all, he has, and ought to have, the whole power. We have heard of political _units_, and our American executive, as here represented, is indeed a _unit_. We have a charmingly simple government! Instead of many officers, in different departments, each having appropriate duties, and each responsible for his own duties, we are so fortunate as to have to deal with but one officer. The President carries on the government; all the rest are but sub-contractors. Sir, whatever _name_ we give him, we have but ONE EXECUTIVE OFFICER. A Briareus sits in the centre of our system, and with his hundred hands touches every thing, moves every thing, controls every thing. I ask, Sir, Is this republicanism? Is this a government of laws? Is this legal responsibility?

According to the Protest, the very duties which every officer under the government performs are the duties of the President himself. It says that the President has a right to employ _agents_ of his _own choice_, to aid HIM in the performance of HIS duties.

Mr. President, if these doctrines be true, it is idle for us any longer to talk about any such thing as a government of laws. We have no government of laws, not even the semblance or shadow of it; we have no legal responsibility. We have an executive, consisting of one person, wielding all official power, and which is, to every effectual purpose, completely _irresponsible_. The President declares that he is "responsible for the entire action of the executive department."

Responsible? What does he mean by being "responsible"? Does he mean legal responsibility? Certainly not. No such thing. Legal responsibility signifies liability to punishment for misconduct or maladministration.

But the Protest does not mean that the President is liable to be impeached and punished if a secretary of state should commit treason, if a collector of the customs should be guilty of bribery, or if a treasurer should embezzle the public money. It does not mean, and cannot mean, that he should be answerable for any such crime or such delinquency. What then, is its notion of that _responsibility_ which it says the President is under for all officers, and which authorizes him to consider all officers as his own personal agents? Sir, it is merely responsibility to public opinion. It is a liability to be blamed; it is the chance of becoming unpopular, the danger of losing a re-election.

Nothing else is meant in the world. It is the hazard of failing in any attempt or enterprise of ambition. This is all the responsibility to which the doctrines of the Protest hold the President subject.

It is precisely the _responsibility_ under which Cromwell acted when he dispersed Parliament, telling its members, not in so many words, indeed, that they disobeyed the will of their const.i.tuents, but telling them that the people were sick of them, and that he drove them out "for the glory of G.o.d and the good of the nation." It is precisely the responsibility upon which Bonaparte broke up the popular a.s.sembly of France. I do not mean, Sir, certainly, by these ill.u.s.trations, to insinuate designs of violent usurpation against the President; far from it; but I do mean to maintain, that such responsibility as that with which the Protest clothes him is no legal responsibility, no const.i.tutional responsibility, no republican responsibility, but a mere liability to loss of office, loss of character, and loss of fame, if he shall choose to violate the laws and overturn the liberties of the country. It is such a responsibility as leaves every thing in his discretion and his pleasure.

Sir, it exceeds human belief that any man should put sentiments such as this paper contains into a public communication from the President to the Senate. They are sentiments which give us all one master. The Protest a.s.serts an absolute right to remove all persons from office at pleasure; and for what reason? Because they are incompetent? Because they are incapable? Because they are remiss, negligent, or inattentive?

No, Sir; these are not the reasons. But he may discharge them, one and all, simply because "he is no longer willing to be responsible for their acts"! It insists on an absolute right in the President to _direct and control_ every act of every officer of the government, except the judges. It a.s.serts this right of direct _control_ over and over again.

The President may go into the treasury, among the auditors and comptrollers, and _direct_ them how to settle every man's account; what abatements to make from one, what additions to another. He may go into the custom-house, among collectors and appraisers, and may _control_ estimates, reductions, and apprais.e.m.e.nts. It is true that these officers are sworn to discharge the duties of their respective offices honestly and fairly, according to their _own_ best abilities; it is true, that many of them are liable to indictment for official misconduct, and others responsible, in suits of individuals, for damages and penalties, if such official misconduct be proved; but notwithstanding all this, the Protest avers that all these officers are but the _President's agents_; that they are but aiding _him_ in the discharge of _his_ duties; that _he_ is responsible for their conduct, and that they are removable at his will and pleasure. And it is under this view of his own authority that the President calls the Secretaries _his_ Secretaries, not once only, but repeatedly. After half a century's administration of this government, Sir;--after we have endeavored, by statute upon statute, and by provision following provision, to define and limit official authority; to a.s.sign particular duties to particular public servants; to define those duties; to create penalties for their violation; to adjust accurately the responsibility of each agent with his own powers and his own duties; to establish the prevalence of equal rule; to make the law, as far as possible, every thing, and individual will, as far as possible, nothing;--after all this, the astounding a.s.sertion rings in our ears, that, throughout the whole range of official agency, in its smallest ramifications as well as in its larger ma.s.ses, there is but ONE RESPONSIBILITY, ONE DISCRETION, ONE WILL! True indeed is it, Sir, if these sentiments be maintained,--true indeed is it that a President of the United States may well repeat from Napoleon what he repeated from Louis the Fourteenth, "I am the state"!

The argument by which the writer of the Protest endeavors to establish the President's claim to this vast ma.s.s of acc.u.mulated authority, is founded on the provision of the Const.i.tution that the executive power shall be vested in the President. No doubt the executive power is vested in the President; but what and how much executive power, and how limited? To this question I should answer, "Look to the Const.i.tution, and see; examine the particulars of the grant, and learn what that executive power is which is given to the President, either by express words or by necessary implication." But so the writer of this Protest does not reason. He takes these words of the Const.i.tution as being, of themselves, a general original grant of all executive power to the President, subject only to such express limitations as the Const.i.tution prescribes. This is clearly the writer's view of the subject, unless, indeed, he goes behind the Const.i.tution altogether, as some expressions would intimate, to search elsewhere for sources of executive power.

Thus, the Protest says that it is not only the _right_ of the President, but that the Const.i.tution makes it his _duty_, to appoint persons to office; as if the _right_ existed before the Const.i.tution had created the _duty_. It speaks, too, of the power of removal, not as a power _granted_ by the Const.i.tution, but expressly as "an original executive power, _left_ unchecked by the Const.i.tution." How original? Coming from what source higher than the Const.i.tution? I should be glad to know how the President gets possession of any power by a t.i.tle earlier, or more _original_, than the grant of the Const.i.tution; or what is meant by an _original_ power, which the President possesses, and which the Const.i.tution has _left_ unchecked in his hands. The truth is, Sir, most a.s.suredly, that the writer of the Protest, in these pa.s.sages, was reasoning upon the British const.i.tution, and not upon the Const.i.tution of the United States. Indeed, he professes to found himself on authority drawn from the const.i.tution of England. I will read, Sir, the whole pa.s.sage. It is this:--

"In strict accordance with this principle, the power of removal, which, like that of appointment, is an original executive power, is left unchecked by the Const.i.tution in relation to all executive officers, for whose conduct the President is responsible; while it is taken from him in relation to judicial officers, for whose acts he is not responsible. _In the government from which many of the fundamental principles of our system are derived, the head of the executive department originally had power to appoint and remove at will all officers, executive and judicial._ It was to take the judges out of this general power of removal, and thus make them independent of the executive, that the tenure of their offices was changed to good behavior. Nor is it conceivable why they are placed, in our Const.i.tution, upon a tenure different from that of all other officers appointed by the executive, unless it be for the same purpose."

Mr. President, I do most solemnly protest (if I, too, may be permitted to make a protest) against this mode of reasoning. The a.n.a.logy between the British const.i.tution and ours, in this respect, is not close enough to guide us safely; it can only mislead us. It has entirely misled the writer of the Protest. The President is made to argue, upon this subject, as if he had some right _anterior_ to the Const.i.tution, which right is by that instrument checked, in some respects, and in other respects is left unchecked, but which, nevertheless, still derives its being from another source; just as the British king had, in the early ages of the monarchy, an uncontrolled right of appointing and removing all officers at pleasure, but which right, so far as it respects the judges, has since been checked and controlled by act of Parliament; the right being original and inherent, the _check_ only imposed by law. Sir, I distrust altogether British precedents, authorities, and a.n.a.logies, on such questions as this. We are not inquiring how far our Const.i.tution has imposed checks on a pre-existing authority. We are inquiring what extent of power that Const.i.tution has _granted_. The grant of power, the whole source of power, as well as the restrictions and limitations which are imposed on it, is made in and by the Const.i.tution. It has no other origin. And it is this, Sir, which distinguishes our system so very widely and materially from the systems of Europe. _Our_ governments are limited governments; limited in their origin, in their very creation; limited, because none but specific powers were ever granted, either to any department of government, or to the whole: _theirs_ are limited, whenever limited at all, by reason of restraints imposed at different times on governments originally unlimited and despotic. Our American questions, therefore, must be discussed, reasoned on, decided, and settled, on the appropriate principles of our own const.i.tutions, and not by inapplicable precedents and loose a.n.a.logies drawn from foreign states.

Mr. President, in one of the French comedies, as you know, in which the dulness and prolixity of legal argument is intended to be severely satirized, while the advocate is tediously groping among ancient lore having nothing to do with his case, the judge grows impatient, and at last cries out to him to _come down to the flood_! I really wish, Sir, that the writer of this Protest, since he was discussing matters of the highest importance to us as Americans, and which arise out of our own peculiar Const.i.tution, had kept himself, not only on this side the general deluge, but also on this side the Atlantic. I desire that the broad waves of that wide sea should continue to roll between us and the influence of those foreign principles and foreign precedents which he so eagerly adopts.

In a.s.serting power for an American President, I prefer that he should attempt to maintain his a.s.sertions on American reasons. I know not, Sir, who the writer was (I wish I did); but whoever he was, it is manifest that he argues this part of his case, throughout, on the principles of the const.i.tution of England. It is true, that, in England, the king is regarded as the original fountain of all honor and all office; and that anciently, indeed, he possessed all political power of every kind. It is true that this ma.s.s of authority, in the progress of that government, has been diminished, restrained, and controlled, by charters, by immunities, by grants, and by various modifications, which the friends of liberty have, at different periods, been able to obtain or to impose.

All liberty, as we know, all popular privileges, as indeed the word itself imports, were formerly considered as favors and concessions from the monarch. But whenever and wherever civil freedom could get a foothold, and could maintain itself, these favors were turned into rights. Before and during the reigns of the princes of the Stuart family, they were acknowledged only as favors or privileges graciously allowed, although, even then, whenever opportunity offered, as in the instance to which I alluded just now, they were contended for as rights; and by the Revolution of 1688 they were acknowledged as the rights of Englishmen, by the prince who then ascended the throne, and as the condition on which he was allowed to sit upon it. But with us there never was a time when we acknowledged original, unrestrained, sovereign power over us. Our const.i.tutions are not made to limit and restrain pre-existing authority. They are the instruments by which the people confer power on their own servants. If I may use a legal phrase, the people are grantors, not grantees. They give to the government, and to each branch of it, all the power it possesses, or can possess; and what is not given they retain. In England, before her revolution, and in the rest of Europe since, if we would know the extent of liberty or popular right, we must go to grants, to charters, to allowances and indulgences.

But with us, we go to grants and to const.i.tutions to learn the extent of the powers of government. No political power is more original than the Const.i.tution; none is possessed which is not there granted; and the grant, and the limitations in the grant, are in the same instrument.

The powers, therefore, belonging to any branch of our government, are to be construed and settled, not by remote a.n.a.logies drawn from other governments, but from the words of the grant itself, in their plain sense and necessary import, and according to an interpretation consistent with our own history and the spirit of our own inst.i.tutions.

I will never agree that a President of the United States holds the whole undivided power of office in his own hands, upon the theory that he is responsible for the entire action of the whole body of those engaged in carrying on the government and executing the laws. Such a responsibility is purely ideal, delusive, and vain. There is, there can be, no substantial responsibility, any further than every individual is answerable, not merely in his reputation, not merely in the opinion of mankind, but _to the law_, for the faithful discharge of his own appropriate duties. Again and again we hear it said that the President is responsible to the American people! that he is responsible to the bar of public opinion! For whatever he does, he a.s.sumes accountability to the American people! For whatever he omits, he expects to be brought to the high bar of public opinion! And this is thought enough for a limited, restrained, republican government! an undefined, undefinable, ideal responsibility to the public judgment!

Sir, if all this mean any thing, if it be not empty sound, it means no less than that the President may do any thing and every thing which he may expect to be tolerated in doing. He may go just so far as he thinks it safe to go; and Cromwell and Bonaparte went no farther. I ask again, Sir, is this legal responsibility? Is this the true nature of a government with written laws and limited powers? And allow me, Sir, to ask, too, if an executive magistrate, while professing to act under the Const.i.tution, is restrained only by this responsibility to public opinion, what prevents him, on the same responsibility, from proposing a change in that Const.i.tution? Why may he not say, "I am about to introduce new forms, new principles, and a new spirit; I am about to try a political experiment on a great scale; and when I get through with it, I shall be responsible to the American people, I shall be answerable to the bar of public opinion"?

Connected, Sir, with the idea of this airy and unreal responsibility to the public is another sentiment, which of late we hear frequently expressed; and that is, _that the President is the direct representative of the American people_. This is declared in the Protest in so many words. "The President," it says, "_is the direct representative of the American people_." Now, Sir, this is not the language of the Const.i.tution. The Const.i.tution nowhere calls him the representative of the American people; still less, their direct representative. It could not do so with the least propriety. He is not chosen directly by the people, but by a body of electors, some of whom are chosen by the people, and some of whom are appointed by the State legislatures. Where, then, is the authority for saying that the President is the _direct representative of the people_? The Const.i.tution calls the members of the other house Representatives, and declares that they shall be chosen by the people; and there are no other direct or immediate representatives of the people in this government. The Const.i.tution denominates the President simply the President of the United States; it points out the complex mode of electing him, defines his powers and duties, and imposes limits and restraints on his authority. With these powers and duties, and under these restraints, he becomes, when chosen, President of the United States. That is his character, and the denomination of his office. How is it, then, that, on this official character, thus cautiously created, limited, and defined, he is to engraft another and a very imposing character, namely, the character _of the direct representative of the American people_? I hold this, Sir, to be mere a.s.sumption, and dangerous a.s.sumption. If he is the representative of _all_ the American people, he is the only representative which they all have. n.o.body else presumes to represent all the people. And if he may be allowed to consider himself as the SOLE REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, and is to act under no other responsibility than such as I have already described, then I say, Sir, that the government (I will not say the people) has already a master. I deny the sentiment, therefore, and I protest against the language; neither the sentiment nor the language is to be found in the Const.i.tution of the country; and whoever is not satisfied to describe the powers of the President in the language of the Const.i.tution may be justly suspected of being as little satisfied with the powers themselves. The President is President. His office and his name of office are known, and both are fixed and described by law. Being commander of the army and navy, holding the power of nominating to office and removing from office, and being by these powers the fountain of all patronage and all favor, what does he not become if he be allowed to superadd to all this the character of single representative of the American people? Sir, he becomes what America has not been accustomed to see, what this Const.i.tution has never created, and what I cannot contemplate but with profound alarm. He who may call himself the single representative of a nation may speak in the name of the nation, may undertake to wield the power of the nation; and who shall gainsay him in whatsoever he chooses to p.r.o.nounce to be the nation's will?

I will now, Sir, ask leave to recapitulate the general doctrines of this Protest, and to present them together. They are,--

That neither branch of the legislature can take up, or consider, for the purpose of censure, any official act of the President, without some view to legislation or impeachment;

That not only the pa.s.sage, but the discussion, of the resolution of the Senate of the 28th of March, was unauthorized by the Const.i.tution, and repugnant to its provisions;

That the custody of the public treasury always must be intrusted to the executive; that Congress cannot take it out of his hands, nor place it anywhere under such superintendents and keepers as are appointed by him, responsible to him, and removable at his will;

That the whole executive power is in the President, and that therefore the duty of defending the integrity of the Const.i.tution _results to him from the very nature of his office_; and that the founders of our republic have attested their sense of the importance of this duty, and, by expressing it in his official oath, have given to it peculiar solemnity and force;

That, as he is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, he is thereby made responsible for the entire action of the executive department, with the power of appointing, overseeing, and _controlling_ those who execute the laws;

That the power of removal from office, like that of appointment, is an _original_ executive power, and is _left_ in his hands _unchecked_ by the Const.i.tution, except in the case of judges; that, being responsible for the exercise of the whole executive power, he has a right to employ agents of his own choice to a.s.sist _him_ in the performance of _his_ duties, and to discharge them when he is no longer willing to be responsible for their acts;

That the Secretaries are _his_ Secretaries, and all persons appointed to offices created by law, except the judges, _his_ agents, responsible to him, and removable at his pleasure;

And, finally, that he is the _direct representative of the American people_.

These, Sir, are some of the leading propositions contained in the Protest; and if they be true, then the government under which we live is an elective monarchy. It is not yet absolute; there are yet some checks and limitations in the Const.i.tution and laws; but, in its essential and prevailing character, it is an elective monarchy.

Mr. President, I have spoken freely of this Protest, and of the doctrines which it advances; but I have spoken deliberately. On these high questions of const.i.tutional law, respect for my own character, as well as a solemn and profound sense of duty, restrains me from giving utterance to a single sentiment which does not flow from entire conviction. I feel that I am not wrong. I feel that an inborn and inbred love of const.i.tutional liberty, and some study of our political inst.i.tutions, have not on this occasion misled me. But I have desired to say nothing that should give pain to the chief magistrate personally. I have not sought to fix arrows in his breast; but I believe him mistaken, altogether mistaken, in the sentiments which he has expressed; and I must concur with others in placing on the records of the Senate my disapprobation of those sentiments. On a vote which is to remain so long as any proceeding of the Senate shall last, and on a question which can never cease to be important while the Const.i.tution of the country endures, I have desired to make public my reasons. They will now be known, and I submit them to the judgment of the present and of after times. Sir, the occasion is full of interest. It cannot pa.s.s off without leaving strong impressions on the character of public men. A collision has taken place which I could have most anxiously wished to avoid; but it was not to be shunned. We have not sought this controversy; it has met us, and been forced upon us. In my judgment, the law has been disregarded, and the Const.i.tution transgressed; the fortress of liberty has been a.s.saulted, and circ.u.mstances have placed the Senate in the breach; and, although we may perish in it, I know we shall not fly from it. But I am fearless of consequences. We shall hold on, Sir, and hold out, till the people themselves come to its defence. We shall raise the alarm, and maintain the post, till they whose right it is shall decide whether the Senate be a faction, wantonly resisting lawful power, or whether it be opposing, with firmness and patriotism, violations of liberty and inroads upon the Const.i.tution.

[Footnote 1: Commonly called the Sedition Act, approved 14th July, 1798.]

[Footnote 2: South Carolina.]

THE APPOINTING AND REMOVING POWER.

DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1835, ON THE Pa.s.sAGE OF THE BILL, ENt.i.tLED "AN ACT TO REPEAL THE FIRST AND SECOND SECTIONS OF THE ACT TO LIMIT THE TERM OF SERVICE OF CERTAIN OFFICERS THEREIN NAMED."

Mr. President,--The professed object of this bill is the reduction of executive influence and patronage. I concur in the propriety of that object. Having no wish to diminish or to control, in the slightest degree, the const.i.tutional and legal authority of the presidential office, I yet think that the indirect and rapidly increasing influence which it possesses, and which arises from the power of bestowing office and of taking it away again at pleasure, and from the manner in which that power seems now to be systematically exercised, is productive of serious evils.

The extent of the patronage springing from this power of appointment and removal is so great, that it brings a dangerous ma.s.s of private and personal interest into operation in all great public elections and public questions. This is a mischief which has reached, already, an alarming height. The principle of republican governments, we are taught, is public virtue; and whatever tends either to corrupt this principle, to debase it, or to weaken its force, tends, in the same degree, to the final overthrow of such governments. Our representative systems suppose, that, in exercising the high right of suffrage, the greatest of all political rights, and in forming opinions on great public measures, men will act conscientiously, under the influence of public principle and patriotic duty; and that, in supporting or opposing men or measures, there will be a general prevalence of honest, intelligent judgment and manly independence. These presumptions lie at the foundation of all hope of maintaining governments entirely popular. Whenever personal, individual, or selfish motives influence the conduct of individuals on public questions, they affect the safety of the whole system. When these motives run deep and wide, and come in serious conflict with higher, purer, and more patriotic purposes, they greatly endanger that system; and all will admit that, if they become general and overwhelming, so that all public principle is lost sight of, and every election becomes a mere scramble for office, the system inevitably must fall. Every wise man, in and out of government, will endeavor, therefore, to promote the ascendency of public virtue and public principle, and to restrain as far as practicable, in the actual operation of our inst.i.tutions, the influence of selfish and private interests.

I concur with those who think, that, looking to the present, and looking also to the future, and regarding all the probabilities that await us in reference to the character and qualities of those who may fill the executive chair, it is important to the stability of government and the welfare of the people that there should be a check to the progress of official influence and patronage. The unlimited power to grant office, and to take it away, gives a command over the hopes and fears of a vast mult.i.tude of men. It is generally true, that he who controls another man's means of living controls his will. Where there are favors to be granted, there are usually enough to solicit for them; and when favors once granted may be withdrawn at pleasure, there is ordinarily little security for personal independence of character. The power of giving office thus affects the fears of all who are in, and the hopes of all who are out. Those who are _out_ endeavor to distinguish themselves by active political friends.h.i.+p, by warm personal devotion, by clamorous support of men in whose hands is the power of reward; while those who are _in_ ordinarily take care that others shall not surpa.s.s them in such qualities or such conduct as are most likely to secure favor. They resolve not to be outdone in any of the works of partisans.h.i.+p. The consequence of all this is obvious. A compet.i.tion ensues, not of patriotic labors; not of rough and severe toils for the public good; not of manliness, independence, and public spirit; but of complaisance, of indiscriminate support of executive measures, of pliant subserviency and gross adulation. All throng and rush together to the altar of man-wors.h.i.+p; and there they offer sacrifices, and pour out libations, till the thick fumes of their incense turn their own heads, and turn, also, the head of him who is the object of their idolatry.

The existence of parties in popular governments is not to be avoided; and if they are formed on const.i.tutional questions, or in regard to great measures of public policy, and do not run to excessive length, it may be admitted that, on the whole, they do no great harm. But the patronage of office, the power of bestowing place and emoluments, creates parties, not upon any principle or any measure, but upon the single ground of personal interest. Under the direct influence of this motive, they form round a leader, and they go for "the spoils of victory." And if the party chieftain becomes the national chieftain, he is still but too apt to consider all who have opposed him as enemies to be punished, and all who have supported him as friends to be rewarded.

Blind devotion to party, and to the head of a party, thus takes place of the sentiment of generous patriotism and a high and exalted sense of public duty.

Let it not be said, Sir, that the danger from executive patronage cannot be great, since the persons who hold office, or can hold office, const.i.tute so small a portion of the whole people.

In the first place, it is to be remembered that patronage acts, not only on those who actually possess office, but on those also who expect it, or hope for it; and in the next place, office-holders, by their very situation, their public station, their connection with the business of individuals, their activity, their ability to help or to hurt according to their pleasure, their acquaintance with public affairs, and their zeal and devotion, exercise a degree of influence out of all proportion to their numbers.

Sir, we cannot disregard our own experience. We cannot shut our eyes to what is around us and upon us. No candid man can deny that a great, a very great change has taken place, within a few years, in the practice of the executive government, which has produced a corresponding change in our political condition. No one can deny that office, of every kind, is now sought with extraordinary avidity, and that the condition, well understood to be attached to every officer, high or low, is indiscriminate support of executive measures and implicit obedience to executive will. For these reasons, Sir, I am for arresting the further progress of this executive patronage, if we can arrest it; I am for staying the further contagion of this plague.

The bill proposes two measures. One is to alter the duration of certain offices, now limited absolutely to four years; so that the limitation shall be qualified or conditional. If the officer is in default, if his accounts are not settled, if he retains or misapplies the public money, information is to be given thereof, and thereupon his commission is to cease. But if his accounts are all regularly settled, if he collects and disburses the public money faithfully, then he is to remain in office, unless, for some other cause, the President sees fit to remove him. This is the provision of the bill. It applies only to certain enumerated officers, who may be called accounting officers; that is to say, officers who receive and disburse the public money. Formerly, all these officers held their places at the pleasure of the President. If he saw no just cause for removing them, they continued in their situations, no fixed period being a.s.signed for the expiration of their commissions. But the act of 1820 limited the commissions of these officers to four years.