First. The inquiry which it institutes is clearly judicial in character,—without, however, any judicial purpose, or looking to any judicial end. The committee is essentially a Tribunal, with power of denunciation, but without power of punishment,—sitting with closed doors, having the secrecy of the Inquisition or the Star Chamber, or, if you please, the Grand Jury,—with power to investigate facts involving the guilt of absent persons, and to denounce fellow-citizens as felons and traitors. If such a power is lodged anywhere outside of judicial tribunals, it must be in the House of Representatives, as the Grand Inquest of the Nation, with its power to impeach all civil officers, from the President down; but it cannot be in the Senate. Let me cite an illustration. The Constitution of Maryland provides expressly that “the House of Delegates may inquire, on the oath of witnesses, into all complaints, grievances, and offences, as the Grand Inquest of the State, and may commit any person for any crime to the public jail, there to remain until discharged by due course of law.” But I deny that the Senate of that neighbor State can erect itself into a Grand Inquest.
If the Senate of the United States have power to make the present inquiry, then, on any occasion of alleged crime, of whatever nature, whether of treason or murder or riot, it may rush to the assistance of the grand juries of the District, or, still further, it may rush to the assistance of the grand juries of Virginia; in short, it will be an inquest of commanding character, and with far-reaching, all-pervading process, supplementary and ancillary to the local inquest,—or, rather, so transcendent in powers, that by its side the local inquest will be dwarfed into insignificance. This cannot be proper or constitutional. But perhaps I am especially sensitive on this point; for, as a citizen of Massachusetts, I cannot forget that her Bill of Rights, originally the work of John Adams, provides expressly that the legislative department shall never exercise judicial powers, and the judicial department shall never exercise legislative powers,—“to the end,” as is solemnly declared, “it may be a government of laws, and not of men.”
But, assuming that the resolution is defective so far as it constitutes an inquest into crime, it may be said that the witness should be compelled to answer the other parts. Surely, the Senate will not resort to any such refinement in order to imprison a citizen.
Secondly. But there is a broader objection still: that, whatever may be the power of the Senate in judicial cases, it cannot compel the testimony of a witness in a proceeding of which the declared purpose is merely legislative. Officers of the Government communicate with Congress and its committees simply by letter. They are not summoned from distant posts, or even from their offices here. And I know not why a distant citizen, charged with no offence, and in every right the peer of any office-holder, should be treated with less consideration. If information be desired from him for any legislative purpose, let him communicate it in the way most convenient to himself, and most consistent with those rights of the citizen which all are bound to respect.
At all events, if this power is to be exercised, let it not be under a simple resolution of the Senate, but by virtue of a general law, passed by both Houses, and approved by the President, so that the citizen shall be surrounded with certain safeguards.
Mr. President, I confidently submit that a power so entirely without support, and also so obnoxious to criticism, at the same time that it is so vast, is not to be carelessly exercised. You cannot send the witness to prison without establishing a new precedent and commencing a new class of cases. You will declare that the Senate, at any time,—not merely in the performance of admitted judicial duties, but also in the performance of mere legislative duties,—may drag a citizen from the most distant village of the most distant State, and compel his testimony, involving the guilt or innocence of absent persons, or, it may be, of the witness himself. This is a fearful prerogative, and permit me to say, that, in assuming it, you liken yourselves to the Jesuits, at the period of their most hateful supremacy, when it was said that their power was a sword whose handle was at Rome and whose point was in the most distant places. You take into your hands a sword whose handle will be in this Chamber, to be clutched by a mere partisan majority, and whose point will be in every corner of the Republic.
If the present case were doubtful, which I do not admit, I feel that I cannot go wrong, when I lean to the side of Liberty. But, even admitting that you have the power, is this the occasion to use it? Is it, upon the whole, expedient? Is the object to be accomplished worth the sacrifice? It is well to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
For myself, Sir, I confess a feeling of gratitude to the witness, who, knowing nothing which he desires to conceal, and chiefly anxious that the liberties of all may not suffer through him, feeble in body and broken in health, hardly able to endure the fatigue of appearing at your bar, now braves the prison which you menace, and thrusts his arm as a bolt to arrest an unauthorized and arbitrary proceeding.
The resolutions were adopted March 12, 1860, and on the same day Mr. Hyatt was committed to the common jail of Washington.