He should be satisfied to see what the court of inquiry would do in this business; and if they did not do what would satisfy the nation, he should be perfectly willing to proceed in the inquiry. He thought that then, feeling as his colleague (Mr. Rowan) must feel, it would come properly before the House. Mr. L. had long had a suspicion of this man, and his mind was much at variance on the subject. None of his feelings would induce him to surrender the right of the House to inquire, and if this were made a general ground of opposition to the motion, he should assuredly vote for it.
Mr. Taylor confessed that the importance of the subject was sufficient to claim his ardent attention, and from the consideration he had given it, he was opposed to the resolution, and felt it a duty not to give a silent vote on a measure, which by the terms of the resolution offered was not to inquire on a general subject, (which even on this subject unconnected with any individual, but as he might be incidentally concerned, might be excusable,) but to inquire about the conduct of a single individual; or in short and plain terms to denounce the man; a man, too, holding an office out of the immediate control of this House, amenable to other tribunals, and liable, if guilty of all that has been asserted against him, to the sentence of death, both by our civil and military courts.
This measure of denouncing an individual whom this House cannot impeach, said Mr. T., is then a new case, and one which, if adopted, will establish a precedent dangerous to this Government, dangerous to the life and liberty, the honor and reputation of the citizen, and calculated in its effects to put at hazard every institution and sacred provision in the constitution under which we profess to act.
We shall in the first place interfere with the Executive Department—with which department the constitution has expressly intrusted the care, the responsibility of watching over the army; and in respect to the inquiry proposed to be made by a committee of this House, when we have made it, we can pass no sentence, we can ground no impeachment against the denounced; we should then have to come back and acknowledge our imbecility, by asking, or requesting the President to do that which we found ourselves unable to perform.
We assume to ourselves the responsibility which properly attaches to that department. I rejoice that here the maxim is monstrous and exploded, that the Executive can do no wrong; that here the ministers are not liable for the acts of the superior, but the superior accountable for the acts of his ministers and agents. If General Wilkinson is the monster in iniquity his enemies state him to be, if the President has continued him in employment after he had evidence positive of his guilt, or if, as has been charged, he has turned a deaf ear to the proof about to be offered by an ardent, a disinterested friend to his country, why has not this blazing patriotism burst out in a direct and not an indirect impeachment of the Executive? But the sense of the nation is too well known to venture at this thing. No, say the advocates of the resolution, this has nothing to do with confidence in the Executive—and yet if the Executive has a spark of that patriotism which he ought to possess, if he is not the protector and upholder of a knowing traitor, would he dare to disregard the information, if legally substantiated, which the gentleman from Virginia and the delegate from Orleans had laid on your table? If confidence has nothing to do with this, why did not these gentlemen hand in to that department of the Government which had the constitutional cognizance and final control of this business, all the information they had on this subject? Why make this House the great gun from which to thunder their denunciations and fulminations against an individual, when there was a shorter and more easy way of getting at their object? A corrupt Executive would desire the very measure proposed. Interfere with his functions, assume his responsibility—what would be the result? You denounce the agent, the tool of such an Executive, (the Colonel Vernon of Cromwell, for example.) You order, or you request, that his conduct should be inquired into. Well, in obedience to your order, this corrupt Executive appoints a corrupt board of officers. The conduct is inquired into, and the accused comes out glossed over with an honorable acquittal from this court, and ready and more fitly prepared to execute the ambitious designs of his protector. Ask of the Executive why is this so? He answers, I have obeyed your orders, the responsibility is yours and not mine. This will be the effect of our travelling out of our defined orbit and taking upon ourselves what never was intrusted to us by the constitution under which we act—already, when gentlemen say that we are not to know that a court of inquiry is ordered in this case, but which every one does know, is now sitting—I say, already do they anticipate the result, and in a fore-handed way make it a theme of abuse against that Executive, with which they tell us confidence or diffidence has nothing to do in this question.
But to be done with these words, so offensive to the chaste ears of the supporters of this measure. Mr. T. said he would ask these gentlemen if they would allow their own judgment, views, and conduct to be judged of by those who by duty were compelled to decide upon the measures they proposed? They surely did not claim that infallibility which they denied to others. Well, then, said he, place them in one scale, with all their acts or with any particular act, and place the Executive in the other, with all or with any of his acts. Nay, sir, take the present subject only as a criterion. Let the nation hold the balance. I have no hesitation in saying that their scale would kick the beam. This I am compelled to say; I have more confidence in the present Administration than I have in those who brought forward and now support the presentation. I seek for nothing but truth—I would not kiss my hand for any thing that the Executive could do for me or mine. I am not one of those politicians who expect pay for doing nothing.
I come now, said Mr. T., to my second grand objection to this measure—that it will interfere also with the Judiciary Department of our Government. Treason and perjury have been alleged against this individual; by what tribunal are these crimes cognizable? Certainly by the courts of law. The constitution has guarantied to every citizen the right of a fair and impartial trial by his peers, a jury unbiased of his countrymen—will this right be preserved to General Wilkinson after the denunciatory speeches which have been uttered on this floor are published? Will this right be preserved to him, when the whole continent has been searched not only for all that Burr could collect, but for a new enlistment, a host of witnesses against this man? Your committee of denunciation collects the testimony, the committee makes report of the whole to this House, and it is published. I say, will not this be prejudging the man, and condemning him, before he has been brought before your judicial tribunal, to which he is amenable if guilty of all that has been urged against him on this floor? After such a procedure would there be a possibility of this man’s obtaining a fair trial, of his enjoying that right which is secured to him by the sacred provisions of the constitution, and which even in a country far less jealous of the liberties of the citizens than ours ought to be, he would have secured to him?
I come now, said Mr. T., to my third objection to this measure—and which is nearly allied to the last—and that is, that in our military courts too you deprive this man of a fair trial. Every observation I have made in respect to the right of a fair trial by jury, I contend applies equally strong to the trials in our military courts. But this man is a soldier, he is Commander-in-chief of your standing Army, therefore he is fair game—therefore we must hunt him down. Let us see what power the constitution gives us in this respect—we have the power of disbanding the Army at any time by denying the vote of supplies—we are forbid to part with that power for a longer term than for two years, we can then disband the Army, in its climax of misconduct and disaffection, in spite of the Executive. Mr. T. asked was this the object at present? If it was, why did the gentlemen make the terms of their resolution wide enough to embrace the whole Army? But he gave them the credit due to their candor—they drove openly and above board at the man.
There was another power given to the Legislature of the United States by our constitution—to pass laws for the regulation and government of the Army. Had this power been exercised? It had. Had the Legislature been restricted in the severity of the laws enacted for this body of men? They would see by looking over them. Mr. T. said he had looked over them. One hundred and one articles were contained in the statute book, every one of which (except about half a dozen) were distinct definitions of crimes. Of the statute book he wished to speak respectfully; the severity of this code might be necessary; but duty compelled him to speak of it as he found it. It would seem as if the Legislature in penning this law had borrowed the pen of Draco, dipped in blood. Every step they took, from article to article, was marked with blood, with scourges, and with death. No less than sixteen definitions were there contained of crimes capital and punishable with loss of life. After having armed the courts, which, said Mr. T., are appointed to sit in judgment on these soldiers, (and remember that not only the standing Army, but the militia also are at times subject to these rules,) with the power of life and death placed in their hands, the scourge, the halter, and the musket, for lacerating and destroying the infractors of these articles, the Legislature, with all this severity, tempered the whole with one divine, one beneficial principle. This box of Pandora contains hope—the hope of a fair, impartial, and unbiased trial, by their comrades, by their peers. But this hope, by your present resolution, is proposed to be destroyed: as if the gloom around the arrested soldier was not sufficiently dark, you now are about to establish a precedent, which whenever used will shut out every gleam of light. Would it be surprising that men thus proscribed, marked out as the fit objects on which to pour out your vials of wrath, should in time become disaffected, should turn their arms against their country? Yes, by the course proposed you prejudge a citizen—you mark your victim. What despotism can be worse than this? The pious Parliament of England who brought Cromwell into power did this very thing. They were not content with the uncertainty of the proceedings of the criminal courts of that day—they appointed a committee, (as is proposed now, sir,) a court of high commissions, to take care that the courts of law and the military courts should let none go whom they had marked for destruction. How did this business end? The very pious and country-loving Parliament, who were so intent upon the public good as to break down and trample on every opposing impediment either of law, religion, or morality, and all for the public safety, (the very motive we hear now urged,) were kicked out by Cromwell and that very army they had supported at one time and proscribed at another; and were sent, according to the language of that day, to seek the Lord elsewhere. And their degradation produced gratulations from every part of the Commonwealth to the Protector, and confirmed him in as absolute power as the Emperor of the French by similar means has at this day acquired.
Why should I go back, said he, to the days of Cromwell. The effects of the mistake in this respect of a gallant and infatuated nation now exist. History need not record it for our instruction; the fatal error happened in our time. It would be too painful to travel from step to step, and detail the whole of the misfortunes of this gallant people. I will take, I think, the most interesting incident in the French Revolution—the point of time which decided that France was not to be a Republic. The Girondists, who were the most enlightened, the most virtuous, perhaps the only real Republicans in France, denounced Marat. Marat and his friends made head against their opponents and in turn denounced them. Marat was destroyed by an enthusiast, but his party prevailed. Yes, from the rostrum in the conventional hall proceeded the poison, from the National Convention was administered the dose which annihilated all true Republicanism in that country—the system of prejudging the criminal before his trial. How was this denouncing system improved upon? At first, indeed, there was kept up the show of a trial in the courts below, but the victim was nevertheless as certainly marked, or certainly doomed to destruction. But the orators in the Convention, having a long session, and finding nothing better to employ themselves in, multiplied the victims so fast, that to be possessed of a handsome house or estate, a beautiful wife, sister, or daughter, was crime sufficient to incur denunciation—the courts became so crowded with victims, that to expedite the business, instead of formal trials, the courts condemned en masse: ten, twenty, or fifty, were delivered over to the public executioner, with only the ceremony of passing in review before the judge; a motion of his hand, or the waving of his bonnet rouge, was a sufficient signal for the executioners to lead the denounced to the guillotine.