Now, sir, I might here, with great propriety, and very much to the relief both of my audience and myself, leave this subject; but there are still some other observations which I conceive it to be my duty to add to what I have already said. Most of them will be elicited by the very strong remarks of my friend from Virginia; for I trust that I may still be permitted to call him by that name.
He and I entered the House of Representatives almost together. I believe he came into it but two years after myself. We soon formed a mutual friendship, which has ever since, I may say, on my part, with great sincerity, continued to exist. We fought shoulder to shoulder, and his great powers were united with my feeble efforts in prostrating the administration of the younger Adams. General Jackson came into power; and during the whole period of that administration he was the steady, unwavering supporter of all its leading measures, except the Specie Circular and his advocacy of the currency bill; and, on that bill, I stood by him, in opposition to the administration. Whilst this man of destiny was in power—this mail of the lion heart, whose will the Whigs declared was law, and whose roaring terrified all the other beasts of the forest, and subdued them into silence—where was then the Senator from Virginia? He was our chosen champion in the fight. Whilst General Jackson was exerting all this tremendous influence, and marshalling all his trained bands of office holders to do his bidding, according to the language of the opposition, these denunciations had no terror for the Senator from Virginia. Never in my life did I perform a duty of friendship with greater ardor than when, on one occasion, I came to his rescue from an unjust attack made against him by the Whigs in relation to a part of his conduct whilst minister in France. After holding out so long together, ought he not, at least, to have parted from us in peace, and bade us a kind adieu? In abandoning our camp, why did he shoot Parthian arrows behind him? In taking leave of us, I hope not forever, is it not too hard for us to hear ourselves denounced by the gentleman in the language which he has used? “He is amazed and bewildered with the scenes passing before him. Whither, he asks, will the mad dominion of party carry us? His mind is filled with despondency as to the fate of his country. Shall we emulate the servility of the senate and people of Rome? You already have your Prætorian bands in this city.” I might quote from his speech other phrases of a similar character; but these are sufficient. I do not believe that any of these expressions were aimed at me personally; yet they strike me with the mass of my political friends, and I feel bound to give them a passing notice.
And why, let me ask the Senator, why did he not sooner make the discovery of the appalling danger of executive influence? Is there more to be dreaded from that cause, under the present administration, than under that which is past? Is Martin Van Buren more formidable than General Jackson was? Let his favorite author, De Tocqueville, answer this question. He says, “the power of General Jackson perpetually increases, but that of the President declines; in his hands the Federal Government is strong, but it will pass enfeebled into the hands of his successor.” Do not all now know this to be the truth? Has not the Government passed enfeebled into the hands of his successor? We see it, and feel it, and know it, from every thing which is passing around us. The civilian has succeeded the conqueror; and, I must be permitted to say, has exercised his high powers with great moderation and purity of purpose. In what manner has he ever abused his patronage? In this particular, of what can the gentleman complain?
In February, 1828, I did say that the office holders were the enlisted soldiers of the administration. But did I then propose to gag them? Did I propose to deprive them of the freedom of speech and of the press? No, sir, no! Notwithstanding the number of them scattered over the country, I was not afraid of their influence. On the contrary, I commended the administration for adhering to its friends. I then used the following language:
“In my humble judgment, the present administration could not have proceeded a single year, with the least hope of re-election, but for their patronage. This patronage may have been used unwisely, as my friend from Kentucky [Mr. Letcher] (and I am still proud to call him my friend, notwithstanding our political opposition) has insinuated. I have never blamed them, I shall never blame them, for adhering to their friends. Be true to your friends and they will be true to you, is the dictate both of justice and of sound policy. I shall never participate in abusing the administration for remembering their friends. If you go too much abroad with this patronage, for the purpose of making new friends, you will offend your old ones, and make but very insincere converts.”
What was my opinion in 1828, when I was in the opposition, is still my opinion in 1839, when I am in the majority. I say now, that the administration which goes abroad with its patronage to make converts of its enemies, at the expense of its friends, acts both with ingratitude and injustice. Such an administration deserves to be prostrated. Although neither from principle nor from feeling am I a root and branch man, yet, in this respect, I adopt the opinion of General Washington, the first, the greatest, the wisest, and the best of our Presidents. I prefer him either to General Jackson or to the great apostle of American liberty. This opinion, however, may proceed from the relics of old Federalism. On this subject General Washington says: “I shall not, whilst I have the honor to administer the Government, bring a man into any office of consequence, knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the General Government is pursuing; for this, in my opinion, would be a sort of political suicide. That it would embarrass its movements is certain.”
Now, sir, if any freak of destiny should ever place me in one of these executive departments, and I feel very certain that it never will, I shall tell you the course I would pursue. I should not become an inquisitor of the political opinions of the subordinate office holders, who are receiving salaries of some eight hundred or a thousand dollars a year. For the higher and more responsible offices, however, I would select able, faithful, and well-tried political friends who felt a deep and devoted interest in the success of my measures. And this not for the purpose of concealment, for no public officer ought to be afraid of the scrutiny of the world; but that they might cheerfully co-operate with me in promoting what I believed to be the public interest. I would have no person around me, either to hold back in the traces, or to thwart and defeat my purposes. With General Washington I believe that any other course “would be a sort of political suicide.”
In executing the duties of a public office, I should act upon the same principles that would govern my conduct in regard to a private trust. If the Senator from Virginia were to constitute me his attorney, to transact any important business, I should never employ assistants whom I believed to be openly and avowedly hostile to his interests.
But says the Senator, you already have your Prætorian bands in this city. He doubtless alludes to the officeholders in the different departments of the Government; and, I ask, is Mr. Van Buren’s influence over them greatly to be dreaded? If, sir, the President relies upon such troops he will most certainly be defeated. These Prætorian bands are, to a great extent, on the side of the Senator from Kentucky and his political friends. I would now do them great injustice if I were to call them the enlisted soldiers of the administration. Whilst General Jackson was here they did keep tolerably quiet, but now I understand that many of these heads of bureaus and clerks use the freedom of speech and of the press without reserve against the measures of his successor. Of course I speak from common report. God forbid that I should become an inquisitor as to any man’s politics. It is generally understood that about one-half of them are open enemies of the present administration. I have some acquaintance with a few of those who are called its friends; and among this few I know several, who, although they declare they are in favor of the re-election of Mr. Van Buren, yet they are decidedly opposed to all his prominent measures. Surrounded by such Prætorian bands, what has this tyrant done? Nothing, literally nothing. I believe he is the very last man in the country who can justly be charged with using his official patronage to control the freedom of elections. His forbearance towards his political enemies in office will unquestionably injure him to some extent, and especially in those States where, under the common party law, no person dreams of being permitted to hold office from his political enemies. His liberality in this respect has been condemned by many of his friends, whilst he is accused by his enemies of using his official patronage for corrupt political purposes. This is a hard fate. The Senator must, therefore, pardon me, after having his own high authority in favor of General Jackson’s administration, if, under that of his successor, I cannot now see the dangers of executive patronage in a formidable light.
There was one charge made by the Senator from Virginia against the present administration, which I should have been the first man to sustain, had I believed it to be well founded. Had the President evinced a determination, in the face of all his principles and professions, to form a permanent connection in violation of law, between the Government and the Bank of the United States, or any other State bank, he should, in this particular, have encountered my unqualified opposition. In such an event, I should have been willing to serve under the command of the Senator against the administration; and hundreds and thousands of the unbought and incorruptible Democracy would have rallied to our standard. I am convinced, however, from the reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury and of War, and from the other lights which have been shed upon the subject, that “their poverty and not their will consented” to the partial and limited connection which resulted from the sale of the bond to the Bank of the United States. Such seems to have been the general opinion on this floor, because no Senator came to the aid of the gentleman from Virginia in sustaining this charge. “Where was Roderick then?” Why did not the Senator from Kentucky come to the rescue and sustain his friend from Virginia in the accusation against the administration of having again connected itself with the Bank of the United States?