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.

by Unknown

I HAVE some observations to submit on this question, which I would not trespass on the senate in offering, but that it has some command of leisure, in consequence of the conference which has been agreed upon, in respect to the tariff.

A bill to recharter the bank, has recently passed congress, after much deliberation. In this body, we know that there are members enough who entertain no constitutional scruples, to make, with the vote by which the bill was passed, a majority of two thirds. In the house of representatives, also, it is believed, there is a like majority in favor of the bill. Notwithstanding this state of things, the president has rejected the bill, and transmitted to the senate an elaborate message, communicating at large his objections. The constitution requires that we should reconsider the bill, and that the question of its passage, the president’s objections notwithstanding, shall be taken by ays and noes. Respect to him, as well as the injunctions of the constitution, require that we should deliberately examine his reasons, and reconsider the question.

The veto is an extraordinary power, which, though tolerated by the constitution, was not expected, by the convention, to be used in ordinary cases. It was designed for instances of precipitate legislation, in unguarded moments. Thus restricted, and it has been thus restricted by all former presidents, it might not be mischievous. During Mr. Madison’s administration of eight years, there occurred but two or three cases of its exercise. During thelast administration, I do not now recollect that it was once. In a period little upwards of three years, the present chief magistrate has employed the veto four times. We now hear quite frequently, in the progress of measures through congress, the statement that the president will veto them, urged as an objection to their passage.

The veto is hardly reconcilable with the genius of representative government. It is totally irreconcilable with it, if it is to be frequently employed in respect to the expediency of measures, as well as their constitutionality. It is a feature of our government, borrowed from a prerogative of the British king. And it is remarkable, that in England it has grown obsolete, not having been used for upwards of a century. At the commencement of the French revolution, in discussing the principles of their constitution, in national convention, the veto held a conspicuous figure. The gay, laughing population of Paris, bestowed on the king the appellation of monsieur Veto, and on the queen, that of madame Veto. The convention finally decreed, that if a measure rejected by the king, should obtain the sanction of two concurring legislatures, it should be a law, notwithstanding the veto. In the constitution of Kentucky, and perhaps in some other of the state constitutions, it is provided that if, after the rejection of a bill by the governor, it shall be passed by a majority of all the members elected to both houses, it shall become a law, notwithstanding the governor’s objections. As a coördinate branch of the government, the chief magistrate has great weight. If, after a respectful consideration of his objections urged against a bill, a majority of all the members elected to the legislature, shall still pass it, notwithstanding his official influence, and the force of his reasons, ought it not to become a law? Ought the opinion of one man to overrule that of a legislative body, twice deliberately expressed?

It cannot be imagined that the convention contemplated the application of the veto, to a question which has been so long, so often, and so thoroughly scrutinized, as that of the bank of the United States, by every department of the government, in almost every stage of its existence, and by the people, and by the state legislatures. Of all the controverted questions which have sprung up under our government, not one has been so fully investigated as that of its power to establish a bank of the United States. More than seventeen years ago, in January, 1815, Mr. Madison then said, in a message to the senate of the United States:

‘Waiving the question of the constitutional authority of the legislature to establish an incorporated bank, as being precluded, in my judgment, by repeated recognitions, under varied circumstances, of the validity of such an institution, in acts of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government, accompanied by indications, in different modes, of a concurrence of the general will of the nation.’

Mr. Madison, himself opposed to the first bank of the United States, yielded his own convictions to those of the nation, and allthe departments of the government thus often expressed. Subsequently to this true but strong statement of the case, the present bank of the United States was established, and numerous other acts, of all the departments of government, manifesting their settled sense of the power, have been added to those which existed prior to the date of Mr. Madison’s message.

No question has been more generally discussed, within the last two years, by the people at large, and in state legislatures, than that of the bank. And this consideration of it has been prompted by the president himself. In his first message to congress, (in December, 1829,) he brought the subject to the view of that body and the nation, and expressly declared, that it could not, for the interest of all concerned, be ‘too soon’ settled. In each of his subsequent annual messages, in 1830 and 1831, he again invited the attention of congress to the subject. Thus, after an interval of two years, and after the intervention of the election of a new congress, the president deliberately renews the chartering of the bank of the United States. And yet his friends now declare the agitation of the question to be premature! It was not premature in 1829 to present the question, but it is premature in 1832 to consider and decide it!

After the president had directed public attention to this question, it became not only a topic of popular conversation, but was discussed in the press, and employed as a theme in popular elections. I was myself interrogated, on more occasions than one, to make a public expression of my sentiments; and a friend of mine in Kentucky, a candidate for the state legislature, told me nearly two years ago, that he was surprised, in an obscure part of his county, (the hills of Benson,) where there was but little occasion for banks, to find himself questioned on the stump, as to the recharter of the bank of the United States. It seemed as if a sort of general order had gone out, from head-quarters, to the partisans of the administration, every where, to agitate and make the most of the question. They have done so, and their condition now reminds me of the fable invented by Dr. Franklin, of the eagle and the cat, to demonstrate that Æsop had not exhausted invention, in the construction of his memorable fables. The eagle, you know, Mr. President, pounced from his lofty flight in the air upon a cat, taking it to be a pig. Having borne off his prize, he quickly felt most painfully the paws of the cat, thrust deeply into his sides and body. Whilst flying, he held a parley with the supposed pig, and proposed to let go his hold, if the other would let him alone. No, says puss, you brought me from yonder earth below, and I will hold fast to you until you carry me back—a condition to which the eagle readily assented.

The friends of the president, who have been for nearly three years agitating this question, now turn round upon their opponents,who have supposed the president quite serious and in earnest, in presenting it for public consideration, and charge them with prematurely agitating it. And that for electioneering purposes! The other side understands perfectly, the policy of preferring an unjust charge, in order to avoid a well-founded accusation.