A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky / Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.

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Government is a trust, and the officers of government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people. Official incumbents are bound, therefore, to administer the trust, not for their own private or individual benefits, but so as to promote the prosperity of the people. This is the vital principle of a republic. If a different principle prevail, and a government be so administered as to gratify the passions or to promote the interests of a particular individual, the forms of free institutions may remain, but that government is essentially a monarchy. The great difference between the two forms of government is, that in a republic all power and authority and all public offices and honors emanate from the people, and are exercised and held for theirbenefit. In a monarchy, all power and authority, all offices and honors, proceed from the monarch. His interests, his caprices and his passions, influence and control the destinies of the kingdom. In a republic, the people are every thing, and a particular individual nothing. In a monarchy, the monarch is every thing, and the people nothing. And the true character of the government is stamped, not by the forms of the appointment to office alone, but by its practical operation. If in one, nominally free, the chief magistrate, as soon as he is clothed with power, proceeds to exercise it, so as to minister to his passions, and to gratify his favorites, and systematically distributes his rewards and punishments, in the application of the power of patronage, with which he is invested for the good of the whole, upon the principle of devotion and attachment to him, and not according to the ability and fidelity with which the people are or may be served, that chief magistrate, for the time being, and within the scope of his discretionary powers, is in fact, if not in form, a monarch.

It was objected to the late administration, that it adopted and enforced a system of proscription. During the whole period of it, not a solitary officer of the government, from Maine to Louisiana, within my knowledge, was dismissed on account of his political opinions. It was well known to the late president, that many officers, who held their places subject to the power of dismission, were opposed to his reëlection, and were actively employed in behalf of his competitor. Yet not one was discharged from that cause. In the commencement and early part of his administration, appointments were promiscuously made from all the parties in the previous canvass. And this course was pursued until an opposition was organized, which denounced all appointments from its ranks as being made for impure purposes.

I am aware that it may be urged, that a change was made in some of the publishers of the laws. There are about eighty annually designated. Of these, during the four years of the late administration, about twelve or fifteen were changed. Some of the changes were made from geographical or other local considerations. In several instances one friend was substituted for another. In others, one opponent for another.

Several papers, among the most influential in the opposition, but otherwise conducted with decorum, were retained. Of the entire number of changes, not more than four or five were made because of the scurrilous character of their papers, and not on account of the political sentiments of the editors. It was deemed injurious to the respect and moral influence, which the laws should always command, that they should be promulgated in the columns of a public paper, parallel with which were other columns, in the same paper, of the grossest abuse of the government and its functionaries.

On this subject I can speak with certainty, and I embrace with pleasure this opportunity for explanation. The duty of designating the printers of the laws appertains to the office which I lately filled. The selection is usually made at the commencement of every session of congress. It was made by me, without any particular consultation with the president, or any member of his cabinet. In making it, I felt under no greater obligation to select the publisher of the laws of the previous year, than an individual feels himself bound to insert a succeeding advertisement in the same paper which published his last. The law does not require it, but leaves the secretary of state at liberty to make the selection according to his sense of propriety. A publisher of the laws is not an officer of the government. It has been judicially so decided. He holds no commission. The accuracy of the statement, therefore, that no officer of the government was dismissed by the late administration, in consequence of his political opinions, is not impaired by the few changes of publishers of the laws which were made.

But if they had been officers of government, who could have imagined that those who objected to the removal, would so soon have themselves put in practice a general and sweeping system of exclusion.

The president is invested with the tremendous power of dismission, to be exercised for the public good, and not to gratify any private passions or purposes. It was conferred to prevent the public from suffering through faithless or incompetent officers. It was made summary because, if the slow progress of trial before a judicial tribunal were resorted to, the public might be greatly injured during the progress and prior to the decision of the case. But it never was in the contemplation of congress, that the power would or could be applied to the removal of competent, diligent, and faithful officers. Such an application of it is an act of arbitrary power, and a great abuse.

I regret extremely that I feel constrained to notice the innovation upon the principles and practice of our institutions now in progress. I had most anxiously hoped, that I could heartily approve the acts and measures of the new administration. And I yet hope that it will pause, and hereafter pursue a course more in unison with the spirit of a free government. I entreat my friends and fellow-citizens, here and elsewhere, to be persuaded that I now perform a painful duty; and that it is far from my wish to say one word that can inflict any wound upon the feelings of any of them. I think, indeed, that it is the duty of all of them to exercise their judgments freely and independently on what is passing; and that none ought to feel themselves restrained, by false pride, or by any part which they took in the late election, from condemning what their hearts cannot approve.

Knowing the imputations to which I expose myself, I wouldremain silent if I did not solemnly believe that there was serious cause of alarm in the principle of removal, which has been recently acted on. Hitherto, the uniform practice of the government has been, where charges are preferred against public officers, foreign or domestic, to transmit to them a copy of the charges, for the purpose of refutation or explanation. This has been considered an equitable substitute to the more tedious and formal trials before judicial tribunals. But now, persons are dismissed, not only without trial of any sort, but without charge. And, as if the intention were to defy public opinion, and to give to the acts of power a higher degree of enormity, in some instances the persons dismissed have carried with them, in their pockets, the strongest testimonials to their ability and integrity, furnished by the very instruments employed to execute the purposes of oppression. If the new administration had found these discharged officers wanting in a zealous coöperation to execute the laws, in consequence of their preference at the preceding election, there would have been ground for their removal. But this has not been pretended; and to show that it formed no consideration, they have been dismissed among its first acts, without affording them an opportunity of manifesting that their sense of public duty was unaffected by the choice which they had at the preceding election.

I will not dwell on the injustice and individual distress which are the necessary consequences of these acts of authority. Men who accepted public employments entered on them with the implied understanding, that they would be retained as long as they continued to discharge their duties to the public honestly, ably, and assiduously. All their private arrangements are made accordingly. To be dismissed without fault, and without trial; to be expelled, with their families, without the means of support, and in some instances disqualified by age or by official habits from the pursuit of any other business, and all this to be done upon the will of one man, in a free government, was surely intolerable oppression.