The people of England are now struggling to make their institutions more free; and I trust in God they may succeed; yet their whole system is artificial, and without breaking it down altogether, I do not perceive how the condition of the mass of the people can be much ameliorated. In the present state of the world, no friend of the human race ought probably to desire its immediate destruction. We ought to regard it rather as a beacon to warn us than as a model for our imitation. We ought never, like England, to raise up by legislation any great interests or monopolies to oppress the people, which we cannot put down without crushing the Government itself. Such is now the condition of that country. I am no admirer of the British constitution, either in church or state, as it at present exists. I desire not a splendid government for this country.
The Senator from Virginia has quoted with approbation, and sustained by argument, a sentiment from De Tocqueville to which I can never subscribe. It is this: That there is greater danger, under a Government like ours, that the Chief Magistrate may abuse his power, than under a limited monarchy; because, being elected by the people, and their sympathies being strongly enlisted in his favor, he may go on to usurp the liberties of the country with their approbation.
[Here Mr. Rives rose and explained.]
Mr. Buchanan. From the gentleman’s explaination[explaination], I find that I did not misquote either his proposition or his argument. I am sorry he speaks under the dominion of so much feeling. I have none at all on the present occasion. I shall proceed, and, at the proper time, and, I trust, in the proper manner, give my answer to this proposition.
The Senator has introduced De Tocqueville as authority on this question; and, in order to give greater weight and lustre to this authority, has pronounced him superior to Montesquieu. Montesquieu was a profound thinker, and almost every sentence of his is an apothegm of wisdom. He has stood, and ever will stand, the test of time. I cannot compare De Tocqueville with Montesquieu. I think he himself would blush at such a comparison.
I may truly say that I have never met any Frenchman or Englishman who could understand the complicated relations existing between our Federal and State Governments. In this respect, De Tocqueville has not succeeded much better than the rest. I am disposed to quarrel with him for one thing, and that is, that he is opposed to the doctrines of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. He is one of those old Federalists, in the true acceptation of that term, who believe that the powers of the General Government are not sufficiently strong to protect it from the encroachment of the States. Hence one great object of his book is to prove that this Government is becoming weaker and weaker, whilst that of the States is growing stronger and stronger; and although he does not think the time near, yet the final catastrophe must be, that it will be dissolved by its own weakness, and the people at length, tired of the perpetual struggles of liberty, will finally seek repose in the arms of despotism. This result, in his opinion, is not to be brought about by the strength, but by the weakness, of the Federal Government. I might adduce many quotations to this effect from his book, but I shall trouble the Senate with but a few. He says, in summing up a long chapter on this subject, “I am strangely mistaken if the Federal Government of the United States be not constantly losing strength, retiring gradually from public affairs, and narrowing its circle of action more and more. It is naturally feeble, but it now abandons even its pretensions to strength. On the other hand, I thought that I remarked a more lively sense of independence, and a more decided attachment to provincial government, in the States. The Union is to subsist, but to subsist as a shadow; it is to be strong in certain cases, and weak in all others; in time of warfare it is to be able to concentrate all the forces of the nation, and all the resources of the country in its hands; and in time of peace its existence is to be scarcely perceptible, as if this alternate debility and vigor were natural or possible.”
“I do not foresee anything for the present which may be able to check this general impulse of public opinion; the causes in which it originated do not cease to operate with the same effect. The change will therefore go on, and it may be predicted that, unless some extraordinary event occurs, the Government of the Union will grow weaker and weaker every day.” Again: “So far is the Federal Government from acquiring strength and from threatening the sovereignty of the States, as it grows older, that I maintain it to be growing weaker and weaker, and that the sovereignty of the Union alone is in danger.” And again: “It may, however, be foreseen even now, that when the Americans lose their Republican institutions, they will speedily arrive at a despotic government, without a long interval of limited monarchy.”
Speaking of the power of the President, he says: “Hitherto no citizen has shown any disposition to expose his honor and his life, in order to become the President of the United States, because the power of that office is temporary, limited and subordinate. The prize of fortune must be great to encourage adventurers in so desperate a game. No candidate has as yet been able to arouse the dangerous enthusiasm or the passionate sympathies of the people in his favor, for the very simple reason, that when he is at the head of the Government he has but little power, but little wealth, and but little glory to share amongst his friends; and his influence in the State is too small for the success or the ruin of a faction to depend upon the elevation of an individual to power.”
Now, if this greater than Montesquieu is to be believed, and his authority is to be relied on by the Senator from Virginia, whence his terror and alarm lest the power of the President might be strengthened by the influence of the lower class of federal office holders at elections? Why should they be deprived of the freedom of speech and of the press, upon the principle that the power of Mr. Van Buren is dangerous to the liberties of his country? The gentleman’s lauded authority is entirely against his own position. Now, for my own part, I differ altogether from De Tocqueville. Although I do not believe that the power and patronage of the President can with any, even the least, justice be compared with that of the King of England, yet from the very nature of things, from the rapid increase of our population, from the number of new States, from our growing revenue and expenditures, from the additional number of officers necessary to conduct the affairs of the Government, and from many other causes which I might enumerate, I am convinced that the Federal Executive is becoming stronger and stronger. Rest assured he is not that feeble thing which De Tocqueville represents him to be. Federal power ought always to be watched with vigilant jealousy, not with unjust suspicion. It ought never to be extended by the creation of new offices, except they are absolutely necessary for the transaction of the public business.
The Whigs will be astonished to learn that, in the opinion of this author, General Jackson has greatly contributed, not to strengthen, but to weaken federal power. “Far from wishing to extend it,” says he; “the President belongs to the party which is desirous of limiting that power to the bare and precise letter of the Constitution, and which never puts a construction upon that act favorable to the Government of the Union; far from standing forth as the champion of centralization, General Jackson is the agent of all the jealousies of the States; and he was placed in the lofty situation he occupies by the passions of the people which are most opposed to the central Government.” He states the means adopted by this illustrious man for destroying his own power. They are: 1. Putting down internal improvements. 2. Abandoning the Indians to the legislative tyranny of the States. 3. Destroying the Bank of the United States. 4. Yielding up the tariff as a sacrifice to appease South Carolina. In this list, he mentions the abandonment by Congress of the proceeds of the sales of the public land to the new States to satisfy their importunity. These States will be astonished to learn that Mr. Clay’s land bill, to which they were so violently opposed, gave them the greatest part of the revenue derived from this source; and my friend from Missouri [Mr. Benton] will doubtless be much disappointed to hear that President Jackson had completely adopted the principles of this bill. De Tocqueville has communicated this information to us, and he is high authority. Hear him: “Congress,” says he, “has gone on to sell, for the profit of the nation at large, the uncultivated lands which those new States contained. But the latter at length asserted that, as they were now fully constituted, they ought to enjoy the exclusive right of converting the produce of these sales to their own use. As their remonstrances became more and more threatening, Congress thought fit to deprive the Union of a portion of the privileges which it had hitherto enjoyed; and, at the end of 1832, it passed a law by which the greatest part of the revenue derived from the sale of lands was made over to the new western republics, although the lands themselves were not ceded to them.” And, in a note to this passage, the author says: “It is true that the President refused his assent to this law; but he completely adopted it in principle. See message of 8th December, 1833.”