constantly arising to affect the state of commerce, foreign and domestic, and, of consequence, the revenue levied upon it. The sales of the public domain in ordinary times are regulated by fixed laws which have their basis in a demand increasing only in the ratio of the increase of population. In recurring to the statistics connected with this subject it will be perceived that for a period of 10 years preceding 1834 the average amount of land sales did not exceed $2,000,000. For the increase which took place in 1834, 1835, and 1836 we are to look to that peculiar condition of the country which grew out of one of the most extraordinary excitements in business and speculation that has ever occurred in the history of commerce and currency. It was the fruit of a wild spirit of adventure engendered by a vicious system of credits, under the evils of which the country is still laboring, and which it is fondly hoped will not soon recur. Considering the vast amount of investments made by private individuals in the public lands during those 3 years, and which equaled $43,000,000 (equal to more than 20 years' purchase), taking the average of sales of the 10 preceding years, it may be safely asserted that the result of the publicland sales can hold out nothing to alarm the manufacturer with the idea of instability in the revenues and consequently in the course of the Government.

Under what appears to me, therefore, the soundest considerations of public policy, and in view of the interests of every branch of domestic industry, I return you the bill with these my objections to its becoming a law.

I take occasion emphatically to repeat my anxious desire to cooperate with Congress in the passing of a law which, while it shall assist in supplying the wants of the Treasury and reestablish public credit shall afford to the manufacturing interests of the country all the incidental protection they require.

After all, the effect of what I do is substantially to call on Congress to reconsider the subject. If on such reconsideration a majority of two-thirds of both Houses should be in favor of this measure, it will become a law notwithstanding my objections. In a case of clear and manifest error on the part of the President the presumption of the Constitution is that such majorities will be found. Should they be so found in this case, having conscientiously discharged my own duty, I shall cheerfully acquiesce in the result.

JOHN TYLER.

PROTEST.1

To the House of Representatives:

WASHINGTON, August 30, 1842.

By the Constitution of the United States it is provided that "every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall before it become a law be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large upon the Journal and proceed to reconsider it."

The House of Representatives ordered that it be not entered on the Journal.

In strict compliance with the positive obligation thus imposed upon me by the Constitution, not having been able to bring myself to approve a bill which originated in the House of Representatives entitled "An act to provide revenue from imports, and to change and modify existing laws imposing duties on imports, and for other purposes," I returned the same to the House with my objections to its becoming a law. These objections, which had entirely satisfied my own mind of the great impolicy, if not unconstitutionality, of the measure, were presented in the most respectful and even deferential terms. I would not have been so far forgetful of what was due from one department of the Government to another as to have intentionally employed in my official intercourse with the House any language that could be in the slightest degree offensive to those to whom it was addressed. If in assigning my objections to the bill I had so far forgotten what was due to the House of Representatives as to impugn its motives in passing the bill, I should owe, not only to that House, but to the country, the most profound apology. Such departure from propriety is, however, not complained of in any proceeding which the House has adopted. It has, on the contrary, been expressly made a subject of remark, and almost of complaint, that the language in which my dissent was couched was studiously guarded and cautious.

Such being the character of the official communication in question, I confess I was wholly unprepared for the course which has been pursued in regard to it. In the exercise of its power to regulate its own proceedings the House for the first time, it is believed, in the history of the Government thought proper to refer the message to a select committee of its own body for the purpose, as my respect for the House would have compelled me to infer, of deliberately weighing the objections urged against the bill by the Executive with a view to its own judgment upon the question of the final adoption or rejection of the

measure.

Of the temper and feelings in relation to myself of some of the members selected for the performance of this duty I have nothing to say. That was a matter entirely within the discretion of the House of Representatives. But that committee, taking a different view of its duty from that which I should have supposed had led to its creation, instead of confining itself to the objections urged against the bill availed itself of the occasion formally to arraign the motives of the President for others of his acts since his induction into office. In the absence of all proof and, as I am bound to declare, against all law or precedent in parliamentary proceedings, and at the same time in a manner which it would be difficult to reconcile with the comity hitherto sacredly observed in the intercourse between independent and coordinate departments of the Government, it has assailed my whole official conduct without the shadow of a pretext for such assault, and, stopping short of impeachment, has charged me, nevertheless, with offenses declared to deserve impeachment.

Had the extraordinary report which the committee thus made to the House been permitted to remain without the sanction of the latter, I should not have uttered a regret or complaint upon the subject. But unaccompanied as it is by any particle of testimony to support the charges it contains, without a deliberate examination, almost without any discussion, the House of Representatives has been pleased to adopt it as its own, and thereby to become my accuser before the

country and before the world. The high character of such an accuser, the gravity of the charges which have been made, and the judgment pronounced against me by the adoption of the report upon a distinct and separate vote of the House, leave me no alternative but to enter my solemn protest against this proceeding as unjust to myself as a man, as an invasion of my constitutional powers as Chief Magistrate of the American people, and as a violation in my person of rights secured to every citizen by the laws and the Constitution. That Constitution has intrusted to the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment. Such impeachment is required to be tried before the most august tribunal known to our institutions. The Senate of the United States, composed of the representatitives of the sovereignty of the States, is converted into a hall of justice, and in order to insure the strictest observance of the rules of evidence and of legal procedure the Chief Justice of the United States, the highest judicial functionary of the land, is required to preside over its deliberations. In the presence of such a judicatory the voice of faction is presumed to be silent, and the sentence of guilt or innocence is pronounced under the most solemn sanctions of religion, of honor, and of law. To such a tribunal does the Constitution authorize the House of Representatives to carry up its accusations against any chief of the executive department whom it may believe to be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Before that tribunal the accused is confronted with his accusers, and may demand the privilege, which the justice of the common law secures to the humblest citizen, of a full, patient, and impartial inquiry into the facts, upon the testimony of witnesses rigidly cross-examined and deposing in the face of day. If such a proceeding had been adopted toward me, unjust as I should certainly have regarded it, I should, I trust, have met with a becoming constancy a trial as painful as it would have been undeserved. I would have manifested by a profound submission to the laws of my country my perfect faith in her justice, and relying on the purity of my motives and the rectitude of my conduct, should have looked forward with confidence to a triumphant refutation in the presence of that country and by the solemn judgment of such a tribunal not only of whatever charges might have been formally preferred against me, but of all the calumnies of which I have hitherto been the unresisting victim. As it is I have been accused without evidence and condemned without a hearing. As far as such proceedings can accomplish it, I am deprived of public confidence in the administration of the Government and denied even the boast of a good name-a name transmitted to me from a patriot father, prized as my proudest inheritance, and carefully preserved for those who are to come after me as the most precious of all earthly possessions. I am not only subjected to imputations affecting my character as an individual, but am charged with offenses against the country so grave and so heinous as to deserve public disgrace and disfranchisement. I am charged with violating pledges which I never gave, and, because I execute what I believe to be the law, with usurping powers not conferred by law, and, above all, with using the powers conferred upon the President by the Constitution from corrupt motives and for unwarrantable ends. And these charges are made without any particle of evidence to sustain them, and, as I solemnly affirm, without any foundation in truth.

93066°-S. Doc. 21, 62-1-2

Why is a proceeding of this sort adopted at this time? Is the occasion for it found in the fact that having been elected to the second office under the Constitution by the free and voluntary suffrages of the people, I have succeeded to the first according to the express provisions of the fundamental law of the same people? It is true that the succession of the Vice President to the Chief Magistracy has never occurred before and that all prudent and patriotic minds have looked on this new trial of the wisdom and stability of our institutions with a somewhat anxious concern. I have been made to feel too sensibly the difficulties of my unprecedented position not to know all that is intended to be conveyed in the reproach cast upon a President without a party. But I found myself placed in this most responsible station by no usurpation or contrivance of my own. I was called to it under Providence, by the supreme law of the land, and the deliberately declared will of the people. It is by these that I have been clothed with the high powers which they have seen fit to confide to their Chief Executive and been charged with the solemn responsibility under which those powers are to be exercised. It is to them that I hold myself answerable as a moral agent for a free and conscientious discharge of the duties which they have imposed upon me. It is not as an individual merely that I am now called upon to resist the encroachments of unconstitutional power. I represent the executive authority of the people of the United States, and it is in their name, whose mere agent and servant I am, and whose will declared in their fundamental law I dare not, even were I inclined, to disobey, that I protest against every attempt to break down the undoubted constitutional power of this department without a solemn amendment of that fundamental law.

I am determined to uphold the Constitution in this as in other respects to the utmost of my ability and in defiance of all personal consequences. What may happen to an individual is of little importance; but the Constitution of the country, or any one of its great and clear principles and provisions, is too sacred to be surrendered under any circumstances whatever by those who are charged with its protection and defense. Least of all should he be held guiltless who, placed at the head of one of the great departments of the Government, should shrink from the exercise of its unquestionable authority on the most important occasions and should consent without a struggle to efface all the barriers so carefully erected by the people to control and circumscribe the powers confided to their various agents. It may be desirable, as the majority of the House of Representatives has declared it is, that no such checks upon the will of the Legislature should be suffered to continue. This is a matter for the people and States to decide, but until they shall have decided it I shall feel myself bound to execute, without fear or favor, the law as it has been written by our predecessors.

I protest against this whole proceeding of the House of Representatatives as ex parte and extrajudicial. I protest against it as subversive of the common right of all citizens to be condemned only upon a fair and impartial trial, according to law and evidence, before the country. I protest against it as destructive of all the comity of intercourse between the departments of this Government, and destined sooner or later to lead to conflicts fatal to the peace of the country and the integrity of the Constitution. I protest against it in the

name of that Constitution which is not only my own shield of protection and defense, but that of every American citizen. I protest against it in the name of the people, by whose will I stand where I do, by whose authority I exercised the power which I am charged with having usurped, and to whom I am responsible for a firm and faithful discharge according to my own convictions of duty of the high stewardship confided to me by them. I protest against it in the name of all regulated liberty and all limited government as a proceeding tending to the utter destruction of the checks and balances of the Constitution and the accumulating in the hands of the House of Representatives, or a bare majority of Congress for the time being, an uncontrolled and despotic power. And I respectfully ask that this my protest may be entered upon the Journal of the House of Representatives, as a solemn and formal declaration for all time to come, against the injustice and unconstitutionality of such a proceeding.

JOHN TYLER.

TARIFF LAW 1842,

AN ACT To provide revenue from imports, and to change and modify existing laws imposing duties on imports, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act, in lieu of the duties heretofore imposed by law on the articles hereinafter mentioned, and on such as may now be exempt from duty, there shall be levied, collected, and paid, the following duties, that is to say:

First. On coarse wool unmanufactured, the value whereof, at the last port or place whence exported to the United States, shall be seven cents or under per pound, there shall be levied a duty of five per centum ad valorem: and on all other unmanufactured wool, there shall be levied a duty of three cents per pound, and thirty per centum ad valorem: Provided, That when wool of different qualities of the same kind or sort is imported in the same bale, bag, or package, and the aggregate value of the contents of the bale, bag, or package, shall be appraised by the appraisers, at a rate exceeding seven cents per pound, it shall be charged with a duty in conformity to such appraisal: Provided further, That when wool of different qualities, and different kinds or sorts, is imported in the same bale, bag, or package, the contents of the bale, bag, or package, shall be appraised at the value of the finest or most valuable kind or sort, and a duty charged thereon accordingly: Provided further, That if bales of different qualities are embraced in the same invoice, at the same price, the value of the whole shall be appraised according to the value of the bale of the best quality: Provided further, That if any wool be imported having in it dirt, or any material or impurities, other than those naturally belonging to the fleece, and thus be reduced in value to seven cents per pound or under, the appraisers shall appraise said wool at such price, as in their opinion, it would have cost had it not been so mixed with such dirt or impurities, and a duty shall be charged thereon in conformity to such appraisal: Provided also, That wool imported on the skin shall be estimated as to weight and value as other wool.