The 20th Congress, which assembled in December, 1827, opened with a great increase in the forces of the opposition. The elections in the autumn of 1826 evinced an extraordinary growth of General Jackson’s popularity. Mr. Adams found himself in a minority in both branches of Congress. In the House, the opponents of his administration numbered 111 members, its friends 94. It is quite probable, however, that but for the indiscretion of certain members who have ranked as friends of the administration, the angry and criminating discussion of the subject of “retrenchment,” which was deprecated by the wisest men of the opposition, but into which they were forced, would not have occurred. It was precipitated by the defiant attitude of two or three members who should have allowed the cool leaders of the opposition to strangle it, as they were at first disposed to do. But once commenced, it drew into bitter strife the excited elements of party and personal warfare, and went on through nearly a whole session with little credit to some who participated in it, but in the end to the great and not altogether just damage of the administration.
It happened that on the 22d of January (1828) a member from Kentucky, Mr. Chilton, an earnest “Jackson man,” who had formerly been a clergyman but was now a politician, introduced in the House certain resolutions instructing the Committee of Ways and Means to report what offices could be abolished, what salaries reduced, and other modes of curtailing the expenses of the government. It is apparent that this could not have been a step taken by concert with the leaders of the opposition. A party that was daily growing in strength, and that was almost morally certain to overthrow the party of the administration, and to elect the next President, could have had no motive for shackling themselves with a legislative measure reducing the number of offices or the salaries of the officers that must be retained. They could not know in advance how they could carry on the government, and it would be mere folly for them to put laws on the statute-book framed while they were not charged with the duties of administration, and suggested only as a topic for exciting popular discontent against those who were responsible neither for the existing number of offices nor for the salaries paid to them. “Retrenchment,” as a popular cry, was not a movement which the leading men of the opposition in the House of Representatives either needed or desired to initiate. Mr. McDuffie, the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and a vehement opponent of the administration, objected to Mr. Chilton’s resolutions at the outset. So did Mr. Buchanan; and the latter often said, in subsequent years, that they would have been crushed out of all consideration, if the friends of the administration had left them in the hands of its opponents. They were moved by an inconsiderable member, who was one of the stragglers of the opposition forces, and they were met by administration members who were about equally inconsiderable, in a tone of challenge and defiance. In vain did Mr. McDuffie and Mr. Buchanan contend that the present was no time to discuss the expenditures of the government. In vain did the most considerable and important friends of the administration deprecate an unprofitable, intolerant, and useless debate. The mover of the resolutions would not be silenced, and the few indiscreet supporters of the administration, who demanded that their discussion should go on, would not permit them to receive their proper quietus by the application of “the previous question.” Never was a deliberative body drawn, in spite of the unwillingness of its best members on both sides, into a more unseemly and profitless discussion.
Among the friends of General Jackson who deprecated and endeavored to put a stop to this discussion was Mr. Edward Livingston of Louisiana, the oldest member of the House, and a person of great distinction. He made an earnest appeal to the House to end the whole matter by referring the resolutions to a committee without further debate. This was not acceded to by the friends of the administration, who wished to continue the discussion. Mr. Edward Everett, then a young member from Massachusetts, moved an adjournment after Mr. Livingston’s effort to terminate the whole discussion, in order to make a speech, which he delivered on the 1st of February. Mr. Buchanan said in reply to him: “This debate would have ended on Thursday last, after the solemn appeal for that purpose, which was made to the House by the venerable gentleman from Louisiana, had not the gentleman from Massachusetts himself prevented it by moving an adjournment. That gentleman ought to know that he can never throw himself into any debate without giving it fresh vigor and importance.”
In the course of this speech, Mr. Buchanan made some allusion to the alleged “bargain and corruption” by which Mr. Adams had been made President; and he thus touched upon the only important consideration that could be said to belong to the circumstances of that election:
“Before, however, I commence my reply to that gentleman, I beg leave to make a few observations on the last Presidential election. I shall purposely pass over every charge which has been made, that it was accomplished by bargain and sale or by actual corruption. If that were the case, I have no knowledge of the fact, and shall therefore say nothing about it. I shall argue this question as though no such charges had ever been made. So far as it regards the conduct which the people of the United States ought to pursue, at the approaching election, I agree entirely with the eloquent gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Randolph] (I cannot with propriety call him my friend), that it can make no difference whether a bargain existed or not. Nay, in some aspects in which the subject may be viewed, the danger to the people would be the greater, if no corruption had existed. It is true, that this circumstance ought greatly to influence our individual opinions of the men who now wield the destinies of the Republic; but yet the precedent would be at least equally dangerous in the one case as in the other. If flagrant and gross corruption had existed, every honest man would start from it with instinctive horror, and the people would indignantly hurl those men from the seats of power, who had thus betrayed their dearest interests. If the election were pure, there is, therefore, the greater danger in the precedent. I believe, in my soul, that the precedent which was established at the last Presidential election, ought to be reversed by the people, and this is one of my principal reasons for opposing the re-election of the present Chief Magistrate.
“Let us examine this subject more closely. General Jackson was returned by the people of this country to the House of Representatives, with a plurality of electoral votes. The distinguished individual who is now the Secretary of State, was then the Speaker of this House. It is perfectly well known, that, without his vote and influence, Mr. Adams could not have been elected President. After the election, we beheld that distinguished individual, and no man in the United States witnessed the spectacle with more regret than I did, descending—yes, Sir, I say descending—from the elevated station which you now occupy, into the cabinet of the President whom he had elected.
“‘Quantum mutatus ab illo.’
“In the midnight of danger, during the darkest period of the late war, ‘his thrilling trump had cheered the land.’ Although among the great men of that day there was no acknowledged leader upon this floor, yet I have been informed, upon the best authority, that he was ‘primus inter pares.’ I did wish, at a future time, to see him elevated still higher. I am one of the last men in the country who could triumph over his fallen fortunes. Should he ever return to what I believe to be correct political principles, I shall willingly fight in the same ranks with him as a companion—nay, after a short probation, I should willingly acknowledge him as a leader. What brilliant prospects has that man not sacrificed!
“This precedent, should it be confirmed by the people at the next election, will be one of most dangerous character to the Republic. The election of President must, I fear, often devolve upon this House. We have but little reason to expect that any amendment, in relation to this subject, will be made to the Constitution in our day. There are so many conflicting interests to reconcile, so many powers to balance, that, when we consider the large majority in each branch of Congress, and the still larger majority of States, required to amend the Constitution, the prospect of any change is almost hopeless. I believe it will long remain just as it is. What an example, then, will this precedent, in the pure age of the Republic, present to future times! The people owe it to themselves, if the election must devolve upon this House, never to sanction the principle that one of its members may accept, from the person whom he has elected, any high office, much less the highest in his gift. Such a principle, if once established, must, in the end, destroy the purity of this House, and convert it into a corrupt electoral vote. If the individual to whom I have alluded, could elect a President and receive from him the office of Secretary of State from the purest motives, other men may, and hereafter will, pursue the same policy from the most corrupt. ‘If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’
“This precedent will become a cover under which future bargains and corrupt combinations will be sanctioned, under which the spirit of the Constitution will be sacrificed to its letter.”