In the first place, any administration is dangerous to the 256 Constitution and to the union of the States, which denies the essential powers of the Constitution, and thus strips it of the capacity to do the good intended by it.
The principles embraced by the administration, and expressed in the veto message, are evidently hostile to the whole system of protection by duties of impost, on constitutional grounds. Here, then, is one great power struck at once out of the Constitution, and one great end of its adoption defeated. And while this power is thus struck out of the Constitution, it is clear that it exists nowhere else, since the Constitution expressly takes it away from all the States.
The veto message denies the constitutional power of creating or continuing such an institution as our whole experience has approved, for maintaining a sound, uniform, national currency, and for the safe collection of revenue. Here is another power, long used, and now lopped off. And this power, too, thus lopped off from the Constitution, is evidently not within the power of any of the individual States. No State can maintain a national currency; no State institution can render to the revenue the services performed by a national institution.
The principles of the administration are hostile to internal improvements. Here is another power, heretofore exercised in many instances, now denied. The administration denies the power, except with qualifications which cast an air of ridicule over the whole subject; being founded on such distinctions as between salt water and fresh water, places above custom-houses and places below, and others equally extraordinary.
Now, Sir, in all these respects, as well as in others, I think the principles of the administration are at war with the true principles of the Constitution; and that, by the zeal and industry which it exerts to support its own principles, it does daily weaken the Constitution, and does put in doubt its long continuance. The inroad of to-day opens the way for an easier inroad to-morrow. When any one essential part is rent away, or, what is nearer the truth, when many essential parts are rent away, who is there to tell us how long any other part is to remain?
Sir, our condition is singularly paradoxical. We have an administration opposed to the Constitution; we have an opposition which is the main support of the government and the 257 laws. We have an administration denying to the very government which it administers powers that have been exercised for forty years; it denies the protective power, the bank power, and the power of internal improvement. The great and leading measures of the national legislature are all resisted by it. These, strange as it may seem, depend on the opposition for support. We have, in truth, an opposition, without which it would be difficult for the government to get along at all. I appeal to every member of Congress present, (and I am happy to see many here,) to say what would now become of the government, if all the members of the opposition were withdrawn from Congress. For myself, I declare my own conviction that its continuance would probably be very short. Take away the opposition from Congress, and let us see what would probably be done, the first session. The Tariff would be entirely repealed. Every enactment having protection by duties as its main object would be struck from the statute-book. This would be the first thing done. Every work of internal improvement would be stopped. This would follow, as matter of course. The bank would go down, and a treasury money agency would take its place. The Judiciary Act of 1789 would be repealed, so that the Supreme Court should exercise no power of revision over State decisions. And who would resist the doctrines of Nullification? Look, Sir, to the votes of Congress for the last three years, and you will see that each of these things would, in all human probability, take place at the next session, if the opposition were to be withdrawn. The Constitution is threatened, therefore, imminently threatened, by the very fact that those intrusted with its administration are hostile to its essential powers.
But, Sir, in my opinion, a yet greater danger threatens the Constitution and the government; and that is from the attempt to extend the power of the executive at the expense of all the other branches of the government, and of the people themselves. Whatever accustomed power is denied to the Constitution, whatever accustomed power is denied to Congress, or to the judiciary, none is denied to the executive. Here there is no retrenchment; here no apprehension is felt for the liberties of the people; here it is not thought necessary to erect barriers against corruption.
I begin, Sir, with the subject of removals from office for opinion’s sake, one of the most signal instances, as I think, of the attempt to extend executive power. This has been a leading measure, a cardinal point, in the course of the administration. It has proceeded, from the first, on a settled proscription for political opinions; and this system it has carried into operation to the full extent of its ability. The President has not only filled all vacancies with his own friends, generally those most distinguished as personal partisans, but he has turned out political opponents, and thus created vacancies, in order that he might fill them with his own friends. I think the number of removals and appointments is said to be two thousand. While the administration and its friends have been attempting to circumscribe and to decry the powers belonging to other branches, it has thus seized into its own hands a patronage most pernicious and corrupting, an authority over men’s means of living most tyrannical and odious, and a power to punish free men for political opinions altogether intolerable.
You will remember, Sir, that the Constitution says not one word about the President’s power of removal from office. It is a power raised entirely by construction. It is a constructive power, introduced at first to meet cases of extreme public necessity. It has now become coextensive with the executive will, calling for no necessity, requiring no exigency for its exercise; to be employed at all times, without control, without question, without responsibility. When the question of the President’s power of removal was debated in the first Congress, those who argued for it limited it to extreme cases. Cases, they said, might arise, in which it would be absolutely necessary to remove an officer before the Senate could be assembled. An officer might become insane; he might abscond; and from these and other supposable cases, it was said, the public service might materially suffer if the President could not remove the incumbent. And it was further said, that there was little or no danger of the abuse of the power for party or personal objects. No President, it was thought, would ever commit such an outrage on public opinion. Mr. Madison, who thought the power ought to exist, and to be exercised in cases of high necessity, declared, nevertheless, that if a President should resort to the power when not required by any public exigency, and merely for personal 259 objects, he would deserve to be impeached. By a very small majority,—I think, in the Senate, by the casting vote of the Vice-President,—Congress decided in favor of the existence of the power of removal, upon the grounds which I have mentioned; granting the power in a case of clear and absolute necessity, and denying its existence everywhere else.