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

The morals of the people! What part of the constitution has given to the president any power over ‘the morals of the people?’ None. It does not give such power even over religion, the presiding and genial influence over every true system of morals. No, sir, it gives him no such power.

And what is the next step? To-day he claims a power as necessary to the morals of the people; to-morrow he will claim another, as still more indispensable to our religion. And the president might in this case as well have said that he went into the office of the secretary of the treasury, and controlled his free exercise of his authority as secretary, because it was necessary to preserve ‘the religion of the people!’ I ask for the authority. Will any one of those gentlemen here, who consider themselves as the vindicators of the executive, point me to any clause of the constitution which gives to the present president of the United States any power to preserve ‘the morals of the people?’

But ‘the freedom of the press,’ it seems, was another motive. Sir, I am not surprised that the present secretary of the treasury should feel a desire to revive this power over the press. He, I think, was a member of that party which passed the sedition law, under precisely the same pretext. I recollect it was said, that this bank, this monster of tyranny, was taking into its pay a countless number of papers, and by this means was destroying the fair fame of the president and his secretary, and all that sort of thing. Sir,it is sometimes useful to refer back to those old things—to the notions and the motives which induced men in former times to do certain acts which may not be altogether unlike some others in our own time.

The famous sedition act was passed, sir, in 1789; and it contained, among others, the following provision:

‘Section 2. That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, or shall, knowingly and willingly, assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings, against the government of the United States, or either house of the congress of the United States, or the president of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said congress, or the said president, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States: or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the president of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States; or to resist, oppose, or defeat, any such law or act; or to aid, encourage, or abet, any hostile designs of any foreign nation, against the United States, their people, or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.’

We have now, sir, in the reasons for the removal of the government deposits, the same motives avowed and acted upon. The abuse of the government, bringing it into disrepute, using contemptuous language to persons high in authority, constituted the motives for passing the sedition law; and what have we now but a repetition of the same complaints of abuses, disrespect, and so forth. As it is now, so it was then; for, says the next section of the same sedition act:

‘That if any person shall be prosecuted under this act for the writing or publishing of any libel aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in his defence, the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the cause, shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.’

It is only for the sake of the truth, said they who favored the passage of that law—for the sake of justice; as it is now said that it was necessary to remove the deposits, in order to preserve the purity of the press. That’s all, sir. But there is one part of this assumption of power by the president much more tyrannical than that act. Under that law, the offending party was to have a trial by jury; the benefit of witnesses and of counsel; and the right to have the truth of his alleged libels examined. But what is the case now under consideration? Why, sir, the president takes the whole matter in his own hands; he is at once the judge, the jury, and the executioner of the sentence, and utterly deprives the accused party of the opportunity of showing that the imputed libel is no libel at all, but founded in the clearest truth.

But ‘the purity of the elective franchise,’ also, the president has very much at heart. And here, again, I ask what part of the constitution gives him any power over that ‘franchise?’ Look, sir, at the nature of the exercise of this power! If it was really necessary that steps should be taken to preserve the purity of the press or the freedom of elections, what ought the president to have done? Taken the matter into his own hands? No, sir; it was his duty to recommend to congress the passage of laws for the purpose, under suitable sanctions; laws which the courts of the United States could execute. We could not have been worse off under such laws, (however exceptionable they might be,) than we are now. We could then, sir, have reviewed the laws, and seen whether congress or the president had properly any power over this matter; or whether the article of the constitution which forbids that the press shall be touched, and declares that religion shall be sacred from all the powers of legislation, applied in the case or not. This the president has undertaken to do of himself, without the shadow of authority, either in the constitution or the laws.

Suppose, sir, that this contumacious institution, which committed the great sin, in 1829, of not appointing a new president to a certain one of its branches—suppose that the bank should go on and vindicate itself against the calumnies poured out upon it—that it should continue to stand upon its defence; how inefficient will have been the exercise of power by the president! How inadequate to the end he had in view, of preserving the press from being made use of to defend the bank! Why, sir, if we had had the power, and the president had come to us, we could have laid Mr. Nicholas Biddle by the heels, if he should have undertaken to publish another report of general Smith or Mr. Duffie, or another speech of the eloquent gentleman near me, (Mr. Webster,) or any other such libels, tending to bring the president or his administration into disrepute. But the president of the United States, who thought he had the bank in his power, who thought he could stop it, who was induced to believe, by that ‘influence behind the throne, greater than itself,’ that he could break down the bank at a word, has only shown his want of power over the press, by his attempt to exercise it in the manner he has done. The bank has avowed and openly declared its purpose to defend itself on all suitable occasions. And, what is still more provoking, instead of being a bankrupt, as was expected, with its doors closed, and its vaults inaccessible, it has now, it seems, got more money than it knows what to do with; and this greatest of misers and hoarders, cruelly refuses to let out a dollar of its ten millions of specie, to relieve the sufferings of the banks to which the government deposits have been transferred.