VETO MESSAGES.
WASHINGTON, June 29, 1842.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I return the bill, which originated in the House of Representatives, entitled "An act to extend for a limited period the present laws for laying and collecting duties on imports," with the following objections:
It suspends—in other words, abrogates for the time—the provision of the act of 1833, commonly called the "compromise act." The only ground on which this departure from the solemn adjustment of a great and agitating question seems to have been regarded as expedient is the alleged necessity of establishing by legislative enactments rules and regulations for assessing the duties to be levied on imports after the 30th June according to the home valuation, and yet the bill expressly provides that "if before the 1st of August there be no further legislation upon the subject, the laws for laying and collecting duties shall be the same as though this act had not been passed." In other words, that the act of 1833, imperfect as it is considered, shall in that case continue to be and to be executed under such rules and regulations as previous statutes had prescribed or had enabled the executive department to prescribe for that purpose, leaving the supposed chasm in the revenue laws just as it was before.
I am certainly far from being disposed to deny that additional legislation upon the subject is very desirable; on the contrary, the necessity, as well as difficulty, of establishing uniformity in the appraisements to be made in conformity with the true intention of that act was brought to the notice of Congress in my message to Congress at the opening of its present session. But however sensible I may be of the embarrassments to which the Executive, in the absence of all aid from the superior wisdom of the Legislature, will be liable in the enforcement of the existing laws, I have not, with the sincerest wish to acquiesce in its expressed will, been able to persuade myself that the exigency of the occasion is so great as to justify me in signing the bill in question with my present views of its character and effects. The existing laws, as I am advised, are sufficient to authorize and enable the collecting officers, under the directions of the Secretary of the Treasury, to levy the duties imposed by the act of 1833.
That act was passed under peculiar circumstances, to which it is not necessary that I should do more than barely allude. Whatever maybe, in theory, its character, I have always regarded it as importing the highest moral obligation. It has now existed for nine years unchanged in any essential particular, with as general acquiescence, it is believed, of the whole country as that country has ever manifested for any of her wisely established institutions. It has insured to it the repose which always flows from truly wise and moderate counsels—a repose the more striking because of the long and angry agitations which preceded it. This salutary law proclaims in express terms the principle which, while it led to the abandonment of a scheme of indirect taxation founded on a false basis and pushed to dangerous excess, justifies any enlargement of duties that may be called for by the real exigencies of the public service. It provides "that duties shall be laid for the purpose of raising such revenue as may be necessary to an economical administration of the Government." It is therefore in the power of Congress to lay duties as high as its discretion may dictate for the necessary uses of the Government without infringing upon the objects of the act of 1833. I do not doubt that the exigencies of the Government do require an increase of the tariff of duties above 20 per cent, and I as little doubt that Congress may, above as well as below that rate, so discriminate as to give incidental protection to manufacturing industry, thus to make the burdens which it is compelled to impose upon the people for the purposes of Government productive of a double benefit. This most of the reasonable opponents of protective duties seem willing to concede, and, if we may judge from the manifestations of public opinion in all quarters, this is all that the manufacturing interests really require. I am happy in the persuasion that this double object can be most easily and effectually accomplished at the present juncture without any departure from the spirit and principle of the statute in question. The manufacturing classes have now an opportunity which may never occur again of permanently identifying their interests with those of the whole country, and making them, in the highest sense of the term, a national concern. The moment is propitious to the interests of the whole country in the introduction of harmony among all its parts and all its several interests. The same rate of imposts, and no more, as will most surely reestablish the public credit will secure to the manufacturer all the protection he ought to desire, with every prospect of permanence and stability which the hearty acquiescence of the whole country on a reasonable system can hold out to him.
But of this universal acquiescence, and the harmony and confidence and the many other benefits that will certainly result from it, I regard the suspension of the law for distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands as an indispensable condition. This measure is, in my judgment, called for by a large number, if not a great majority, of the people of the United States; by the state of the public credit and finances; by the critical posture of our various foreign relations; and, above all, by that most sacred of all duties—public faith. The act of September last, which provides for the distribution, couples it inseparably with the condition that it shall cease—first, in case of war; second, as soon and so long as the rate of duties shall for any reason whatever be raised above 20 per cent. Nothing can be more clear, express, or imperative than this language. It is in vain to allege that a deficit in the Treasury was known to exist and that means were taken to supply this deficit by loan when the act was passed. It is true that a loan was authorized at the same session during which the distribution law was passed, but the most sanguine of the friends of the two measures entertained no doubt but that the loan would be eagerly sought after and taken up by capitalists and speedily reimbursed by a country destined, as they hoped, soon to enjoy an overflowing prosperity. The very terms of the loan, making it redeemable in three years, demonstrate this beyond all cavil. Who at the time foresaw or imagined the possibility of the present real state of things, when a nation that has paid off her whole debt since the last peace, while all the other great powers have been increasing theirs, and whose resources, already so great, are yet but in the infancy of their development, should be compelled to haggle in the money market for a paltry sum not equal to one year's revenue upon her economical system? If the distribution law is to be indefinitely suspended, according not only to its own terms, but by universal consent, in the case of war, wherein are the actual exigencies of the country or the moral obligation to provide for them less under present circumstances than they could be were we actually involved in war? It appears to me to be the indispensable duty of all concerned in the administration of public affairs to see that a state of things so humiliating and so perilous should not last a moment longer than is absolutely unavoidable. Much less excusable should we be in parting with any portion of our available means, at least until the demands of the Treasury are fully supplied. But besides the urgency of such considerations, the fact is undeniable that the distribution act could not have become a law without the guaranty in the proviso of the act itself.
This connection, thus meant to be inseparable, is severed by the bill presented to me. The bill violates the principle of the acts of 1833 and September, 1841, by suspending the first and rendering for a time the last inoperative. Duties above 20 per cent are proposed to be levied, and yet the proviso in the distribution act is disregarded. The proceeds of the sales are to be distributed on the 1st of August, so that, while the duties proposed to be enacted exceed 20 per cent, no suspension of the distribution to the States is permitted to take place. To abandon the principle for a month is to open the way for its total abandonment. If such is not meant, why postpone at all? Why not let the distribution take place on the 1st of July if the law so directs (which, however, is regarded as questionable)? But why not have limited the provision to that effect? Is it for the accommodation of the Treasury? I see no reason to believe that the Treasury will be in better condition to meet the payment on the 1st of August than on the 1st of July.
The bill assumes that a distribution of the proceeds of the public lands is, by existing laws, to be made on the 1st day of July, 1842, notwithstanding there has been an imposition of duties on imports exceeding 20 per cent up to that day, and directs it to be made on the 1st of August next. It seems to me very clear that this conclusion is equally erroneous and dangerous, as it would divert from the Treasury a fund sacredly pledged for the general purposes of the Government in the event of a rate of duty above 20 per cent being found necessary for an economical administration of the Government.
The bill under consideration is designed only as a temporary measure; and thus a temporary measure, passed merely for the convenience of Congress, is made to affect the vital principle of an important act. If the proviso of the act of September, 1841, can be suspended for the whole period of a temporary law, why not for the whole period of a permanent law? In fact, a doubt may be well entertained, according to strict legal rules, whether the condition, having been thus expressly suspended by this bill and rendered inapplicable to a case where it would otherwise have clearly applied, will not be considered as ever after satisfied and gone. Without expressing any decided opinion on this point, I see enough in it to justify me in adhering to the law as it stands in preference to subjecting a condition so vitally affecting the peace of the country, and so solemnly enacted at a momentous crisis, and so steadfastly adhered to ever since, and so replete, if adhered to, with good to every interest of the country, to doubtful or captious interpretation.
In discharging the high duties thus imposed on me by the Constitution I repeat to the House my entire willingness to cooperate in all financial measures, constitutional and proper, which in its wisdom it may judge necessary and proper to reestablish the credit of the Government. I believe that the proceeds of the sales of the public lands being restored to the Treasury—or, more properly speaking, the proviso of the act of September, 1841, being permitted to remain in full force—a tariff of duties may easily be adjusted, which, while it will yield a revenue sufficient to maintain the Government in vigor by restoring its credit, will afford ample protection and infuse a new life into all our manufacturing establishments. The condition of the country calls for such legislation, and it will afford me the most sincere pleasure to cooperate in it.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, August 9, 1842.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
It is with unfeigned regret that I find myself under the necessity of returning to the House of Representatives with my objections a bill entitled "An act to provide revenue from imports, and to change and modify existing laws imposing duties on imports, and for other purposes." Nothing can be more painful to any individual called upon to perform the Chief Executive duties under our limited Constitution than to be constrained to withhold his assent from an important measure adopted by the Legislature. Yet he would neither fulfill the high purposes of his station nor consult the true interests or the solemn will of the people—the common constituents of both branches of the Government—by yielding his well-considered, most deeply fixed, and repeatedly declared opinions on matters of great public concernment to those of a coordinate department without requesting that department seriously to reexamine the subject of their difference. The exercise of some independence of judgment in regard to all acts of legislation is plainly implied in the responsibility of approving them. At all times a duty, it becomes a peculiarly solemn and imperative one when the subjects passed upon by Congress happen to involve, as in the present instance, the most momentous issues, to affect variously the various parts of a great country, and to have given rise in all quarters to such a conflict of opinion as to render it impossible to conjecture with any certainty on which side the majority really is. Surely if the pause for reflection intended by the wise authors of the Constitution by referring the subject back to Congress for reconsideration be ever expedient and necessary it is precisely such a case as the present.
On the subject of distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands in the existing state of the finances it has been my duty to make known my settled convictions on various occasions during the present session of Congress. At the opening of the extra session, upward of twelve months ago, sharing fully in the general hope of returning prosperity and credit, I recommended such a distribution, but that recommendation was even then expressly coupled with the condition that the duties on imports should not exceed the rate of 20 per cent provided by the compromise act of 1833. These hopes were not a little encouraged and these views strengthened by the report of Mr. Ewing, then Secretary of the Treasury, which was shortly thereafter laid before Congress, in which he recommended the imposition of duties at the rate of 20 per cent ad valorem on all free articles, with specified exceptions, and stated "if this measure be adopted there will be received in the Treasury from customs in the last quarter of the present year (1841) $5,300,000; in all of the year 1842, about $22,500,000; and in the year 1843, after the final reduction under the act of March 2, 1833, about $20,800,000;" and adds:
It is believed that after the heavy expenditures required by the public service in the present year shall have been provided for, the revenues which will accrue from that or a nearly approximate rate of duty will be sufficient to defray the expenses of the Government and leave a surplus to be annually applied to the gradual payment of the national debt, leaving the proceeds of the public lands to be disposed of as Congress shall see fit.
I was most happy that Congress at the time seemed entirely to concur in the recommendations of the Executive, and, anticipating the correctness of the Secretary's conclusions, and in view of an actual surplus, passed the distribution act of the 4th September last, wisely limiting its operation by two conditions having reference, both of them, to a possible state of the Treasury different from that which had been anticipated by the Secretary of the Treasury and to the paramount necessities of the public service. It ordained that "if at any time during the existence of that act there should be an imposition of duties on imports inconsistent with the provision of the act of the 2d March, 1833, and beyond the rate of duties fixed by that act, to wit, 20 per cent on the value of such imports or any of them, then the distribution should be suspended, and should continue so suspended until that cause should be removed," By a previous clause it had, in a like spirit of wise and cautious patriotism, provided for another case, in which all are even now agreed, that the proceeds of the sales of the public lands should be used for the defense of the country. It was enacted that the act should continue and be in force until otherwise provided by law, unless the United States should become involved in war with any foreign power, in which event, from the commencement of hostilities, the act should be suspended until the cessation of hostilities.
Not long after the opening of the present session of Congress the unprecedented and extraordinary difficulties that have recently embarrassed the finances of the country began to assume a serious aspect. It soon became quite evident that the hopes under which the act of 4th September was passed, and which alone justified it in the eyes either of Congress who imposed or of the Executive who approved, the first of the two conditions just recited were not destined to be fulfilled. Under the pressure, therefore, of the embarrassments which had thus unexpectedly arisen it appeared to me that the course to be pursued had been clearly marked out for the Government by that act itself. The condition contemplated in it as requiring a suspension of its operation had occurred. It became necessary in the opinions of all to raise the rate of duties upon imports above 20 per cent; and with a view both to provide available means to meet present exigencies and to lay the foundation for a successful negotiation of a loan, I felt it incumbent on me to urge upon Congress to raise the duties accordingly, imposing them in a spirit of a wise discrimination for the twofold object of affording ample revenue for the Government and incidental protection to the various branches of domestic industry. I also pressed, in the most emphatic but respectful language I could employ, the necessity of making the land sales available to the Treasury, as the basis of public credit. I did not think that I could stand excused, much less justified, before the people of the United States, nor could I reconcile it to myself to recommend the imposition of additional taxes upon them without at the same time urging the employment of all the legitimate means of the Government toward satisfying its wants. These opinions were communicated in advance of any definitive action of Congress on the subject either of the tariff or land sales, under a high sense of public duty and in compliance with an express injunction of the Constitution, so that if a collision, extremely to be deprecated, as such collisions always are, has seemingly arisen between the executive and legislative branches of the Government, it has assuredly not been owing to any capricious interference or to any want of a plain and frank declaration of opinion on the part of the former. Congress differed in its views with those of the Executive, as it had undoubtedly a right to do, and passed a bill virtually for a time repealing the proviso of the act of the 4th September, 1841. The bill was returned to the House in which it originated with my objections to its becoming a law. With a view to prevent, if possible, an open disagreement of opinion on a point so important, I took occasion to declare that I regarded it as an indispensable prerequisite to an increase of duties above 20 per cent that the act of the 4th September should remain unrepealed in its provisions. My reasons for that opinion were elaborately set forth in the message which accompanied the return of the bill, which no constitutional majority appears to have been found for passing into a law.
The bill which is now before me proposes in its twenty-seventh section the total repeal of one of the provisos in the act of September, and, while it increases the duties above 20 per cent, directs an unconditional distribution of the land proceeds. I am therefore subjected a second time in the period of a few days to the necessity of either giving my approval to a measure which, in my deliberate judgment, is in conflict with great public interests or of returning it to the House in which it originated with my objections. With all my anxiety for the passage of a law which would replenish an exhausted Treasury and furnish a sound and healthy encouragement to mechanical industry, I can not consent to do so at the sacrifice of the peace and harmony of the country and the clearest convictions of public duty.
For some of the reasons which have brought me to this conclusion I refer to my previous messages to Congress, and briefly subjoin the following:
1. The bill unites two subjects which, so far from having any affinity to one another, are wholly incongruous in their character. It is both a revenue and an appropriation bill. It thus imposes on the Executive, in the first place, the necessity of either approving that which he would reject or rejecting that which he might otherwise approve. This is a species of constraint to which the judgment of the Executive ought not, in my opinion, to be subjected. But that is not my only objection to the act in its present form. The union of subjects wholly dissimilar in their character in the same bill, if it grew into a practice, would not fail to lead to consequences destructive of all wise and conscientious legislation. Various measures, each agreeable only to a small minority, might by being thus united—and the more the greater chance of success—lead to the passing of laws of which no single provision could if standing alone command a majority in its favor.
2. While the Treasury is in a state of extreme embarrassment, requiring every dollar which it can make available, and when the Government has not only to lay additional taxes, but to borrow money to meet pressing demands, the bill proposes to give away a fruitful source of revenue—which is the same thing as raising money by loan and taxation—not to meet the wants of the Government, but for distribution—a proceeding which I must regard as highly impolitic, if not unconstitutional.
A brief review of the present condition of the public finances will serve to illustrate the true condition of the Treasury and exhibit its actual necessities:
| On the 5th of August (Friday last) there was in the Treasury, in round numbers | $2,150,000 | |
| Necessary to be retained to meet trust funds | $360,000 | |
| Interest on public debt due in October | 80,000 | |
| To redeem Treasury notes and pay the interest | 100,000 | |
| Land distribution under the act of the 4th of September, 1841 | 640,000 | |
| ________ | 1,180,000 | |
| __________ | ||
| Leaving an available amount of | 970,000 |
The Navy Department had drawn requisitions on the Treasury at that time to meet debts actually due, among which are bills under protest for $1,414,000, thus leaving an actual deficit of $444,000.
There was on hand about $100,000 of unissued Treasury notes, assisted by the accruing revenue (amounting to about $150,000 per week, exclusive of receipts on unpaid bonds), to meet requisitions for the Army and the demands of the civil list.
The withdrawal of the sum of $640,000 to be distributed among the States, so soon as the statements and accounts can be made up and completed, by virtue of the provisions of the act of the 4th of September last (of which nearly a moiety goes to a few States, and only about $383,000 is to be divided among all the States), while it adds materially to the embarrassments of the Treasury, affords to the States no decided relief.
No immediate relief from this state of things is anticipated unless (what would most deeply be deplored) the Government could be reconciled to the negotiation of loans already authorized by law at a rate of discount ruinous in itself and calculated most seriously to affect the public credit. So great is the depression of trade that even if the present bill were to become a law and prove to be productive some time would elapse before sufficient supplies would flow into the Treasury, while in the meantime its embarrassments would be continually augmented by the semiannual distribution of the land proceeds.
Indeed, there is but too much ground to apprehend that even if this bill were permitted to become a law—alienating, as it does, the proceeds of the land sales—an actual deficit in the Treasury would occur, which would more than probably involve the necessity of a resort to direct taxation.
Let it be also remarked that $5,500,000 of the public debt becomes redeemable in about two years and a half, which at any sacrifice must be met, while the Treasury is always liable to demands for the payment of outstanding Treasury notes. Such is the gloomy picture which our financial department now presents, and which calls for the exercise of a rigid economy in the public expenditures and the rendering available of all the means within the control of the Government. I most respectfully submit whether this is a time to give away the proceeds of the land sales when the public lands constitute a fund which of all others may be made most useful in sustaining the public credit. Can the Government be generous and munificent to others when every dollar it can command is necessary to supply its own wants? And if Congress would not hesitate to suffer the provisions of the act of 4th September last to remain unrepealed in case the country was involved in war, is not the necessity for such a course now just as imperative as it would be then?
3. A third objection remains to be urged, which would be sufficient in itself to induce me to return the bill to the House with my objections. By uniting two subjects so incongruous as tariff and distribution it inevitably makes the fate of the one dependent upon that of the other in future contests of party. Can anything be more fatal to the merchant or manufacturer than such an alliance? What they most of all require is a system of moderate duties so arranged as to withdraw the tariff question, as far as possible, completely from the arena of political contention. Their chief want is permanency and stability. Such an increase of the tariff I believe to be necessary in order to meet the economical expenditures of Government. Such an increase, made in the spirit of moderation and judicious discrimination, would, I have no doubt, be entirely satisfactory to the great majority of the American people. In the way of accomplishing a measure so salutary and so imperatively demanded by every public interest, the legislative department will meet with a cordial cooperation on the part of the Executive. This is all that the manufacturer can desire, and it would be a burden readily borne by the people. But I can not too earnestly repeat that in order to be beneficial it must be permanent, and in order to be permanent it must command general acquiescence. But can such permanency be justly hoped for if the tariff question be coupled with that of distribution, as to which a serious conflict of opinion exists among the States and the people, and which enlists in its support a bare majority, if, indeed, there be a majority, of the two Houses of Congress? What permanency or stability can attach to a measure which, warring upon itself, gives away a fruitful source of revenue at the moment it proposes a large increase of taxes on the people? Is the manufacturer prepared to stake himself and his interests upon such an issue?
I know that it is urged (but most erroneously, in my opinion) that instability is just as apt to be produced by retaining the public lands as a source of revenue as from any other cause, and this is ascribed to a constant fluctuation, as it is said, in the amount of sales. If there were anything in this objection, it equally applies to every imposition of duties on imports. The amount of revenue annually derived from duties is constantly liable to change. The regulations of foreign governments, the varying productiveness of other countries, periods of excitement in trade, and a great variety of other circumstances are 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 ten 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 three years, and which equaled $43,000,000 (equal to more than twenty years' purchase), taking the average of sales of the ten preceding years, it may be safely asserted that the result of the public-land 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.[79]
WASHINGTON, August 30, 1842.
To the House of Representatives:
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."
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 representatives 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.
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 Representatives 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.