“I admit there may be extreme cases, in which this House would be justified in withholding such an appropriation. ‘The safety of the people is the supreme law.’ If, therefore, we should believe any mission to be dangerous, either to the existence or to the liberties of this country, necessity would justify us in breaking the letter to preserve the spirit of the Constitution. The same necessity would equally justify us in refusing to grant to the President his salary, in certain extreme cases, which might easily be imagined.

“But how far would your utmost power extend? Can you re-judge the determination of the President and Senate, and destroy the officers which they have created? Might not the President immediately send these Ministers to Panama; and, if he did, would not their acts be valid? It is certain, if they should go, they run the risk of never receiving a salary; but still they might act as Plenipotentiaries. By withholding the salary of the President, you cannot withhold from him the power; neither can you, by refusing to appropriate for this mission, deprive the Ministers of their authority. It is beyond your control to make them cease to be Ministers.

“The constitutional obligation to provide for a Minister, is equally strong as that to carry into effect a treaty. It is true, the evils which may flow from your refusal may be greater in the one case than the other. If you refuse to appropriate for a treaty, you violate the faith of the country to a foreign nation. You do no more, however, than omit to provide for the execution of an instrument which is declared by the Constitution to be the supreme law of the land. In the case which will be presented to you by the appropriation bill, is the nature of your obligation different? I think not. The power to create the Minister is contained in the same clause of the Constitution with that to make the treaty. They are powers of the same nature. The one is absolutely necessary to carry the other into effect. You cannot negotiate treaties without Ministers. They are the means by which the treaty-making power is brought into action. You are, therefore, under the same moral obligation to appropriate money to discharge the salary of a Minister, that you would be to carry a treaty into effect.

“If you ask me for authority to establish these principles, I can refer you to the opinion of the first President of the United States—the immortal Father of his Country—who, in my humble judgment, possessed more practical wisdom, more political foresight, and more useful constitutional knowledge, than all his successors.

“I have thus, I think, established the position, that gentlemen who vote for the amendments now before the committee, even if they should not prevail, may, without inconsistency, give their support to the appropriation bill.”

Sound as this was, it is a little remarkable that Mr. Buchanan should not have considered that the duty of voting the necessary appropriation precluded the House of Representatives from dictating what subjects the Ministers were to discuss or not to discuss. Those who favored the proposed amendments founded themselves on the legal maxim that he who has the power to give may annex to the gift whatever condition he chooses. This was well answered by Mr. Webster, that in making appropriations for such purposes the House did not make gifts, but performed a duty. The amendments were rejected on the 21st of April, and on the following day the Panama Appropriation Bill was passed, Mr. Buchanan voting with the majority.[[21]]

Some of the topics incidentally touched upon in the discursive debate on this Panama Mission are of little interest now. But one may be referred to, because it related to the dangerous topic of slavery. An apprehension was felt by those who were opposed to this measure, and by Mr. Buchanan, among others, that the Spanish-American Republics, more particularly Mexico and Colombia, might concert measures at this proposed Congress to seize the West India Islands, and raise there the standard of emancipation and social revolution. Those who entertained this apprehension, therefore, did not wish to see the moral and political influence of this proposed Congress increased by the participation of the United States in its proceedings. It may have been an unfounded fear; but in truth, excepting in so far as the objects of this assembly were understood and explained by the American Administration itself, very little was known of the purposes entertained by its original projectors. It was certainly not unnatural, in the then condition of our own country, and of the West Indies, in regard to the matter of slavery, that public men in the United States should have been cautious in regard to this exciting topic. At all events, it was introduced incidentally, in the discussion on the proposed Mission, and Mr. Buchanan thus expressed himself upon it:

“Permit me here, for a moment, to speak upon a subject to which I have never before adverted upon this floor, and to which, I trust, I may never again have occasion to advert. I mean the subject of slavery. I believe it to be a great political and a great moral evil. I thank God, my lot has been cast in a State where it does not exist. But, while I entertain these opinions, I know it is an evil at present without a remedy. It has been a curse entailed upon us by that nation which now makes it a subject of reproach to our institutions. It is, however, one of those moral evils, from which it is impossible for us to escape, without the introduction of evils infinitely greater. There are portions of this Union, in which, if you emancipate your slaves, they will become masters. There can be no middle course. Is there any man in this Union who could, for a moment, indulge in the horrible idea of abolishing slavery by the massacre of the high-minded, and the chivalrous race of men in the South. I trust there is not one. For my own part I would, without hesitation, buckle on my knapsack, and march in company with my friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Everett) in defence of their cause.”[[22]]

CHAPTER V.
1827–1829.

GREAT INCREASE OF GENERAL JACKSON’S POPULARITY—“RETRENCHMENT” MADE A POLITICAL CRY—DEBATE ON THE TARIFF—BUCHANAN ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS—THE INTERESTS OF NAVIGATION—THE CUMBERLAND ROAD AGAIN DISCUSSED—INELIGIBILITY OF A PRESIDENT.