If this disqualification exist, it applies to all impeachable officers, and ought to have protected the late Postmaster General against the resolution, unanimously adopted by the Senate, declaring that he had borrowed money contrary to law. And it would disable the Senate from considering that treasury order, which has formed such a prominent subject of its deliberations during the present session. And how do Senators maintain this obligation of the Senate to remain silent and behold itself stript, one by one, of all constitutional powers, without resistance, and without murmur? Is it imposed by the language of the constitution? Has any part of that instrument been pointed to which expressly enjoins it? No, no, not a syllable. But it is attempted to be deduced by another far-fetched implication. Because the Senate is the body which is to try impeachments, therefore it is inferred the Senate can express no opinion on any matter which may form the subject of impeachment. The constitution does not say so. That is undeniable but Senators think so. The Senate acts in three characters, legislative, executive and judicial; and their importance is in the order enumerated. By far the most important of the three is its legislative. In that, almost every day that it has been in session from 1789 to the present time, some legislative business has been transacted; whilst in its judicial character, it has not sat more than three or four times in that whole period. Why should the judicial function limit and restrain the legislative function of the Senate more than the legislative should the judicial? If the degree of importance of the two should decide which ought to impose the restraint, in cases of conflict between them, none can doubt which it should be. But if the argument is sound, how is it possible for the Senate to perform its legislative duties? An act in violation of the constitution or laws is committed by the President or a subordinate executive officer, and it becomes necessary to correct it by the passage of a law. The very act of the President in question was under a law to which the Senate had given its concurrence. According to the argument, the correcting law cannot originate in the Senate, because it' would have to pass in judgment upon that act. Nay, more, it can not originate in the House and be sent to the Senate, for the same reason of incompetency in the Senate to pass upon it. Suppose the bill contained a preamble reciting the unconstitutional or illegal act, to which the legislative corrective is applied, according to the argument, the Senate must not think of passing it. Pushed to its legitimate consequence, the argument requires the House of Representatives itself cautiously to abstain from the expression of any opinion upon an executive act, except when it is acting as the grand inquest of the nation, and considering articles of impeachment. Assuming that the argument is well founded, the Senate is equally restrained from expressing any opinion which would imply the innocence or the guilt of an impeachable officer, unless it be maintained that it is lawful to express praise and approbation, but not censure or difference of opinion. Instances have occurred in our past history, (the case of the British minister, Jackson, was a memorable one,) and many others may arise in our future progress, when in reference to foreign powers, it may be important for Congress to approve what has been done by the executive, to present a firm and united front, and to pledge the country to stand by and support him. May it not do that? If the Senate dare not entertain and express any opinion upon an executive measure, how do those who support this expunging resolution justify the acquittal of the President which it proclaims? No Senator believed in 1834 that, whether the President merited impeachment or not, he ever would be impeached. In point of fact he has not been, and we have every reason to suppose that he never will be impeached. Was the majority of the Senate, in a case where it believed the constitution and laws to have been violated, and the liberties of the people to be endangered to remain silent, and to refrain from proclaiming the truth, because, against all human probability, the President might be impeached by a majority of his political friends in the House of Representatives ? If an impeachment had been actually voted by the House of Representatives, there is nothing in the constitution which enjoins silence on the part of the Senate. In such a case, it would have been a matter of propriety for the consideration of each Senator to avoid the expression of any opinion on a matter upon which, as a sworn judge, he would be called to act Hitherto I have considered the question on the supposition, that the resolution of March, 1834, implied such guilt in the President, that he would have been liable to conviction on a trial by impeachment before the Senate of the United States. But the resolution, in fact, imported no such guilt. It simply affirmed, that he had "assumed upon himself, authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both." It imputed no criminal motives. It did not profess to penetrate into the heart of the President. According to the phraseology of the resolution, the exceptionable act might have been performed with the purest and most patriotic intention. The resolution neither affirmed his innocence, nor pronounced his guilt. It amounts then, say his friends on this floor, to nothing. Not so. If the constitution be trampled upon, and the laws be violated, the injury may be equally great, whether it has been done with good or bad intentions. There may be a difference to the officer, none to the country. The country, as all experience demonstrates, has most reason to apprehend those encroachments which take place on plausible pretexts, and with good intentions. I put it, Mr. President, to the calm and deliberate consideration of the majority of the Senate, are you ready to pronounce, in the face of this enligtened community, for all time to come, and whoever may happen to be the President, that the Senate dare not, in language the most inoffensive and respectful, remonstrate against any executive usurpation, whatever may be its degree or danger? For one, I will not, I cannot. I believe the resolution of March, 1834, to have been true; and that it was competent to the Senate to proclaim the truth. And I solemly believe that the Senate would have been culpably neglectful of its duty to itself, to the constitution, and to the country, if it had not announced the truth. But let me suppose that in all this I am mistaken; that the act of the President, to which exception was made, was in conformity with the spirit of our free institutions, and the language of our constitution and laws; and that, whether it was or not, the Senate of 1834 had no authority to pass judgment upon it; what right has the Senate of 1837, a component part of another Congress, to pronounce judgment upon its predecessor? How can you who venture to impute to thos who have gone before you an unconstitutional proceeding, escape a similar imputation? What part of the constitution communicates to you any authority to assign and try your predecessors? In what article is contained your power to expunge what they have done? And may not the precedent lead to a perpetual code of defacement and restoration of the transactions of the Senate as consigned to the public records? Are you not only destitute of all authority, but positively forbidden to do what the expunging resolution proposes? The injunction of the constitution to keep a journal of our proceedings is clear, express and emphatic. It is free from ambiguity: no sophistry can pervert the explicit language of the instrument; no artful device can elude the force of the obligation which it imposes. If it were possible to make more manifest the duty which it requires to be performed, that was done by the able and eloquent speeches, at the last session, of the Senators from Virginia and Louisiana, (Messrs. Leigh and Porter) and at this of my colleague. I shall not repeat the argument. But I would ask, if there were no constitutional requirement to keep a journal, what constitutional right has the Senate of this Congress to pass in judgment upon the Senate of another Congress, and to expunge from its journal a deliberate act there recorded? Can an unconstitutional act of that Senate, supposing it to be so, justify you in performing another unconstitutional act? But, in lieu of any argument upon the point from me, I beg leave to cite for the consideration of the Senate two precedents: one drawn from the reign of the most despotic monarch in modern Europe, under the most despotic minister that ever bore sway over any people: and the other from the purest fountain of democracy in this country. I quote from the interesting life of the Cardinal Richelieu, written by that most admirable and popular author, Mr. James. The Duke of Orleans, the brother of Louis XIII. had been goaded into rebellion by the wary Richelieu. The king issued a decree declaring all the supporters of the duke guilty of high treason, and a copy of it was despatched to the Parliament at Paris, with an order to register it at The parliament demurred, and proceeded to what was called an arret de partage. once. "Richelieu, however, could bear no contradiction in the course which he had laid down for himself;" [how strong a resemblance does that feature of his character bear to one of an illustrious individual whom I will not further describe !] " and hurrying back to Paris with the king, he sent, in the monarch's name, a command for the members of the Parliament to present themselves at the Louvre in a body and on foot. He was obeyed immediately; and the king receiving them with great haughtiness, the keeper of the seals made them a speech, in which he declared that they had no authority to deliberate upon affairs of state: that the business of private individuals they might discuss, but that the will of the monarch in other matters they were alone called upon to register. The king then tore with his own hands the page of the register on which the arret de partage had been inscribed, and punished with suspension from their functions several of the members of the various courts composing the Parliament of Paris." How repeated acts of the exercise of arbitrary power are likely to subdue the spirit of liberty, and to render callous the public sensibility, and the fate which awaits us, if we had not been recently unhappily taught in this country, we may learn from the same author. "The finances of the State were exhausted, new impositions were devised, and a number of new offices created and sold. Against the last named abuse the Parliament ventured to remonstrate: but the government of the Cardinal had for its first principle despotism, and the refractory members were punished, some with exile, some with suspension of their functions. All were forced to comply with his will, and the Parliament, unable to resist, yielded, step by step, to his exactions." The other precedent is suspended by the archives of the democracy of Pennsylvania, in 1816, when it was genuine and unmixed with any other ingredient. The provisions of the constitution of the United States and of Pennsylvania, in regard to the obligation to keep a journal, are substantially the same. That of the United States requires that, "Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time pub lish the same, except such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of the members present, be entered on the journal." And that of Pennsylvania is : "Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and publish them weekly except such parts as require secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the members, on any question shall, at the desire of any two of them, be entered on the journals." Whatever inviolability, therefore, is attached to a journal, kept in conformity with the one constitution, must be equally stamped on that kept under the other. On the 10th of February, 1816, in the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, "the speaker informed the House that a constitutional question being involved in a decision by him yes |