Here this irritating point rested for the day—and for three days, when it was revived by the reproaches and threats of Mr. Clay against the minority.
"The House (he said) had been treading on the heels of the Senate, and at last had got the start of it a long way in advance of the business of this session. The reason was obvious. The majority there is for action, and has secured it. Some change was called for in this chamber. The truth is that the minority here control the action of the Senate, and cause all the delay of the public business. They obstruct the majority in the dispatch of all business of importance to the country, and particularly those measures which the majority is bound to give to the country without further delay. Did not this reduce the majority to the necessity of adopting some measure which would place the control of the business of the session in their hands? It was impossible to do without it: it must be resorted to."
To this Mr. Calhoun replied:
"The senator from Kentucky tells the Senate the other House has got before it. How has the other House got before the Senate? By a despotic exercise of the power of a majority. By destroying the liberties of the people in gagging their representatives. By preventing the minority from its free exercise of its right of remonstrance. This is the way the House has got before the Senate. And now there was too much evidence to doubt that the Senate was to be made to keep up with the House by the same means."
Mr. Clay, finding such undaunted opposition to the hour rule, replied in a way to let it be seen that the threat of that rule was given up, and that a measure of a different kind, but equally effective, was to be proposed; and would be certainly adopted. He said:
"If he did not adopt the same means which had proved so beneficial in the other House, he would have something equally efficient to offer. He had no doubt of the cheerful adoption of such a measure when it should come before the Senate. So far from the rule being condemned, he would venture to say that it would be generally approved. It was the means of controlling the business, abridging long and unnecessary speeches, and would be every way hailed as one of the greatest improvements of the age."
This glimpse of another measure, confirmed the minority in the belief of what they had heard—that several whig senators had refused to go with Mr. Clay for the hour rule, and forced him to give it up; but they had agreed to go for the previous question, which he held to be equally effective; and was, in fact, more so—as it cut off debate at any moment. It was just as offensive as the other. Mr. King, of Alabama, was the first to meet the threat, under this new form, and the Register of Debates shows this scene:
"Mr. King said the senator from Kentucky complained of three weeks and a half having been lost in amendments to his bill. Was not the senator aware that it was himself and his friends had consumed most of that time? But now that the minority had to take it up, the Senate is told there must be a gag law. Did he understand that it was the intention of the senator to introduce that measure?
"Mr. Clay. I will, sir; I will!
"Mr. King. I tell the senator, then, that he may make his arrangements at his boarding-house for the winter.
"Mr. Clay. Very well, sir.
"Mr. King was truly sorry to see the honorable senator so far forgetting what is due to the Senate, as to talk of coercing it by any possible abridgment of its free action. The freedom of debate had never yet been abridged in that body, since the foundation of this government. Was it fit or becoming, after fifty years of unrestrained liberty, to threaten it with a gag law? He could tell the senator that, peaceable a man as he (Mr. King) was, whenever it was attempted to violate that sanctuary, he, for one, would resist that attempt even unto the death."
The issue was now made up, and the determination on both sides declared—on the part of Mr. Clay, speaking in the name of his party, to introduce the previous question in the Senate, for the purpose of cutting off debate and amendments; on the part of the minority, to resist the rule—not only its establishment, but its execution. This was a delicate step, and required justification before the public, before a scene of resistance to the execution—involving disorder, and possibly violence—should come on. The scheme had been denounced, and defied; but the ample reasons against it had not been fully stated; and it was deemed best that a solid foundation of justification for whatever might happen, should be laid beforehand in a reasoned and considered speech. The author of this View, was required to make that speech; and for that purpose followed Mr. King.
"Mr. Benton would take this opportunity to say a word on this menace, so often thrown out, of a design to stifle debate, and stop amendments to bills in this chamber. He should consider such an attempt as much a violation of the constitution, and of the privileges of the chamber, as it would be for a military usurper to enter upon us, at the head of his soldiery, and expel us from our seats.
"It is not in order, continued Mr. B.—it is not in order, and would be a breach of the privilege of the House of Representatives, to refer to any thing which may have taken place in that House. My business is with our own chamber, and with the threat which has so often been uttered on this floor, during this extra session, of stifling debate, and cutting off amendments, by the introduction of the previous question.
"With respect to debates, senators have a constitutional right to speak; and while they speak to the subject before the House, there is no power any where to stop them. It is a constitutional right. When a member departs from the question, he is to be stopped: it is the duty of the Chair—your duty, Mr. President, to stop him—and it is the duty of the Senate to sustain you in the discharge of this duty. We have rules for conducting the debates, and these rules only require to be enforced in order to make debates decent and instructive in their import, and brief and reasonable in their duration. The government has been in operation above fifty years, and the freedom of debate has been sometimes abused, especially during the last twelve years, when those out of power made the two houses of Congress the arena of political and electioneering combat against the democratic administration in power. The liberty of debate was abused during this time; but the democratic majority would not impose gags and muzzles on the mouths of the minority; they would not stop their speeches; considering, and justly considering, that the privilege of speech was inestimable and inattackable—that some abuse of it was inseparable from its enjoyment—and that it was better to endure a temporary abuse than to incur a total extinction of this great privilege.
"But, sir, debate is one thing, and amendments another. A long speech, wandering off from the bill, is a very different thing from a short amendment, directed to the texture of the bill itself, and intended to increase its beneficial, or to diminish its prejudicial action. These amendments are the point to which I now speak, and to the nature of which I particularly invoke the attention of the Senate.
"By the constitution of the United States, each bill is to receive three readings, and each reading represents a different stage of proceeding, and a different mode of action under it. The first reading is for information only; it is to let the House know what the bill is for, what its contents are; and then neither debate nor amendment is expected, and never occurs, except in extraordinary cases. The second reading is for amendments and debate, and this reading usually takes place in Committee of the Whole in the House of Representatives, and in quasi committee in the Senate. The third reading, after the bill is engrossed, is for passage; and then it cannot be amended, and is usually voted upon with little or no debate. Now, it is apparent that the second reading of the bill is the important one—that it is the legislative—the law-making—reading; the one at which the collective wisdom of the House is concentrated upon it, to free it from defects, and to improve it to the utmost—to illustrate its nature, and trace its consequences. The bill is drawn up in a committee; or it is received from a department in the form of a projet de loi, and reported by a committee; or it is the work of a single member, and introduced on leave. The bill, before perfected by amendments, is the work of a committee, or of a head of a department, or of a single member; and if amendments are prevented, then the legislative power of the House is annihilated; the edict of a secretary, of a committee, or of a member, becomes the law; and the collected and concentrated wisdom and experience of the House has never been brought to bear upon it.
"The previous question cuts off amendments; and, therefore, neither in England nor in the United States, until now, in the House of Representatives, has that question ever been applied to bills in Committee of the Whole, on the second reading. This question annihilates legislation, sets at nought the wisdom of the House, and expunges the minority. It is always an invidious question, but seldom enforced in England, and but little used in the earlier periods of our own government. It has never been used in the Senate at all, never at any stage of the bill; in the House of Representatives it has never been used on the second reading of a bill, in Committee of the Whole, until the present session—this session, so ominous in its call and commencement, and which gives daily proof of its alarming tendencies, and of its unconstitutional, dangerous, and corrupting measures. The previous question has never yet been applied in this chamber; and to apply it now, at this ominous session, when all the old federal measures of fifty years ago are to be conglomerated into one huge and frightful mass, and rushed through by one convulsive effort; to apply it now, under such circumstances, is to muzzle the mouths, to gag the jaws, and tie up the tongues of those whose speeches would expose the enormities which cannot endure the light, and present to the people these ruinous measures in the colors in which they ought to be seen.
"The opinion of the people is invoked—they are said to be opposed to long speeches, and in favor of action. But, do they want action without deliberation, without consideration, without knowing what we are doing? Do they want bills without amendments—without examination of details—without a knowledge of their effect and operation when they are passed? Certainly the people wish no such thing. They want nothing which will not bear discussion. The people are in favor of discussion, and never read our debates with more avidity than at this ominous and critical extraordinary session. But I can well conceive of those who are against those debates, and want them stifled. Old sedition law federalism is against them: the cormorants who are whetting their bills for the prey which the acts of this session are to give them, are against them: and the advocates of these acts, who cannot answer these arguments, and who shelter weakness under dignified silence, they are all weary, sick and tired of a contest which rages on one side only, and which exposes at once the badness of their cause and the defeat of its defenders. Sir, this call for action! action! action! (as it was well said yesterday), comes from those whose cry is, plunder! plunder! plunder!
"The previous question, and the old sedition law, are measures of the same character, and children of the same parents, and intended for the same purposes. They are to hide light—to enable those in power to work in darkness—to enable them to proceed unmolested—and to permit them to establish ruinous measures without stint, and without detection. The introduction of this previous question into this body, I shall resist as I would resist its conversion into a bed of justice—Lit de Justice—of the old French monarchy, for the registration of royal edicts. In these beds of justice—the Parliament formed into a bed of justice—the kings before the revolution, caused their edicts to be registered without debate, and without amendment. The king ordered it, and it was done—his word became law. On one occasion, when the Parliament was refractory, Louis XIV. entered the chamber, booted and spurred—a whip in his hand—a horsewhip in his hand—and stood on his feet until the edict was registered. This is what has been done in the way of passing bills without debate or amendment, in France. But, in extenuation of this conduct of Louis the XIV., it must be remembered that he was a very young man when he committed this indiscretion, more derogatory to himself than to the Parliament which was the subject of the indignity. He never repeated it in his riper age, for he was a gentleman as well as a king, and in a fifty years' reign never repeated that indiscretion of his youth. True, no whips may be brought into our legislative halls to enforce the gag and the muzzle, but I go against the things themselves—against the infringement of the right of speech—and against the annihilation of our legislative faculties by annihilating the right of making amendments. I go against these; and say that we shall be nothing but a bed of justice for the registration of presidential, or partisan, or civil chieftain edicts, when debates and amendments are suppressed in this body.
"Sir, when the previous question shall be brought into this chamber—when it shall be applied to our bills in our quasi committee—I am ready to see my legislative life terminated. I want no seat here when that shall be the case. As the Romans held their natural lives, so do I hold my political existence. The Roman carried his life on the point of his sword; and when that life ceased to be honorable to himself, or useful to his country, he fell upon his sword, and died. This made of that people the most warlike and heroic nation of the earth. What they did with their natural lives, I am willing to do with my legislative and political existence: I am willing to terminate it, either when it shall cease to be honorable to myself, or useful to my country; and that I feel would be the case when this chamber, stripped of its constitutional freedom, shall receive the gag and muzzle of the previous question."