Mr. Rutledge conceived this motion to be the same as to postpone the business. Further information was wanted, and that information could alone come from South Carolina. He wished the gentleman from Kentucky would read the resolution before he pressed his motion: he would find that the District Judge was not charged; no, it was only a charge against the Executive; there was not a word of irregularity of proceeding in the Court, but the Executive was seriously charged.
Mr. Davis explained. He said his objects were to have the record in order to see whether Robbins did produce a certificate that he was an American citizen; to see a copy of the warrant by which he was committed; and thirdly, to know what stratagem or what proceedings were used to take him out of the cognizance of the Court, where he must have remained, if the President had not interfered. These things he wished to ascertain, but that would be impossible without the court record.
Mr. Rutledge said, he conceived this to be the object, but he by no means thought that the gentleman would be satisfied on these points, were he to be possessed of the record. The gentleman might inquire the reasons for the Executive and Judicial conduct being as it was, but perhaps he would not receive the information. Every gentleman in the House would unite their vote to procure all the testimony within their reach, so as to enable the House to prosecute the business. We know, said Mr. R., what monstrous clamor has been raised about this business; we know that great pains have been taken to make the people believe that their fellow-citizen has been torn from his country; that he has been impressed into a foreign service; that the treaty has been violated; that their fellow-citizen has been taken to a foreign country, and there been tried in a summary manner and executed. We have been told for months past that this business would be inquired into; we wish not to avoid it; we will by all means in our power assist it; we have done it. Some time since papers were asked for, we agreed with gentlemen that they should be furnished; it was done, and they are now on your table. They have been there many days; so that gentlemen had sufficient time, long before this, to have known whether they were satisfied or not. The gentleman himself who brought forward the resolutions affected to be satisfied, but, in compliance with the wish of his friends, he now wishes to postpone it. We want to bring the matter to a decision, and so far as we can accommodate gentlemen and avoid delay we will do it.
Mr. Nicholson rose to correct what he considered a mistake in the gentleman last up, (Mr. Rutledge,) when he said that the Executive only was implicated in the resolutions; he conceived that the District Judge of South Carolina was implicated, and that the papers of that court were necessary to examine the conduct of that judge. He read the resolution, and contended that his deduction was accurate. Mr. N. said he wanted to know whether the District Judge of South Carolina had committed this man for trial; this would appear or be disproved by the warrant.
That the President of the United States was not to be considered as the servant of that House, he was willing to admit, but he did not think that the President might, with propriety, apply to the judge of the district for the documents of the court; and he did not believe that the President would object to make the application. However, the object he presumed was to procure the papers, no matter from whom; that being the object, he hoped the mover of the resolution would withdraw it, in order to accommodate it more to the feelings of some members in the House, by adopting something like the following:
Resolved, That the Speaker of the House of Representatives be requested to procure, from the Clerk of the District Court of South Carolina, copies, under seal, of the proceedings of that court, together with the evidence produced in the case relative to the requisition for Thomas Nash, alias Jonathan Robbins, who was delivered to His Britannic Majesty's Consul.
Mr. Davis withdrew his resolution, and Mr. Nicholas moved the substitute, which was now before the House.
Mr. Harper moved a postponement of this resolution to this day week. The object of the resolution which was before the Committee of the Whole was twofold—a charge on the President, and a charge on the District Judge. So much as related to the President of the United States, it was manifest that the testimony called for by this resolution could have no effect whatever upon him, because he left the whole to the judge. The President went no further than to declare that if it should appear that the acts committed by this man came within the purview of the British Treaty, the man ought to be delivered up conformably to that stipulation.
Mr. Nicholas thought, with the gentleman last up, that if the only inquiry was as to the conduct of the President, or if the inquiry was only to respect the judge, the papers might be dispensed with; but it was otherwise—the conduct of both was called forth to view by the resolutions, but how far the conduct of either may be reprehensible, depended on the testimony which might appear before the House. It was impossible to say what the President had done until the documents should be seen. If gentlemen refused the inquiry being made of the court in South Carolina, they, by that act, made the President answerable for every part of the facts, which he believed they would not pretend to do. He really believed it extremely important to know what steps had been taken in this very serious business, to know whether the man was in course for trial, and whether the President had acted in the hasty and premature manner which was stated, in delivering him up.
Mr. Gallatin could not help observing the disposition which gentlemen evinced of placing the opinions and sensations expressed by one gentleman to the account of others. To take a fair view of the resolutions, what did they amount to? Nothing more than the deductions which one man had drawn from the message sent to this House by the Executive: these deductions, in the form of a resolution, he had submitted to the consideration of the Committee of the Whole. Now, except it could be proved that that gentleman had made all the deductions of and acted for every gentleman, there could be no ground for saying that every gentleman would be satisfied, without the evidence which might be collected from the records of the District Court of South Carolina. Was any gentleman in the House bound to be satisfied, with the gentleman from New York, that all the facts necessary to be known were furnished? Was every gentleman in the House bound to confine himself solely to the resolutions before the House? Certainly not. It could not be denied that the evidence now required was essential to a full investigation of the conduct of the judge, who was the principal agent of the Executive in this case.