It was a brilliant and signal triumph of the whigs. And they have assumed for themselves, and bestowed on their opponents, a demonstration which, according to all the analogy of history, is strictly correct. It deserves to be extended throughout the whole country. What was the origin, among our British ancestors, of those appellations? The tories were the supporters of executive power, of royal prerogative, of the maxim that the king could do no wrong, of the detestable doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance. The whigs were the champions of liberty, the friends of the people, and the defenders of the power of their representatives in the house of commons.
During our revolutionary war, the tories took sides with executive power and prerogative, and with the king, against liberty and independence. And the whigs, true to their principles, contended against royal executive power, and for freedom and independence.
And what is the present but the same contest in another form? The partisans of the present executive sustain his power in the most boundless extent. They claim for him all executive authority. They make his sole will the governing power. Every officer concerned in the administration, from the highest to the lowest, is to conform to his mandates. Even the public treasury, hitherto regarded as sacred, and beyond his reach, is placed by them under his entire direction and control. The whigs of the present day are opposing executive encroachment, and a most alarming extension of executive power and prerogative. They are ferreting out the abuses and corruptions of an administration, under a chief magistrate who is endeavoring to concentrate in his own person the whole powers of government. They are contending for the rights of the people, for civil liberty, for free institutions, for the supremacy of the constitution and the laws. The contest is an arduous one; but, although the struggle may be yet awhile prolonged, by the blessing of God, and the spirit of our ancestors, the issue cannot be doubtful.
The senate stands in the breach, ready to defend the constitution, and to relieve the distresses of the people. But, without the concurrence of another branch of congress, which ought to be the first to yield it, the senate alone can send forth no act of legislation. Unaided, it can do no positive good; but it has vast preventive power. It may avert and arrest evil, if it cannot rebuke usurpation. Senators, let us remain steadily by the constitution and the country, in this most portentous crisis; let us oppose, to all encroachments and to all corruption, a manly, resolute, and uncompromising resistance; let us adopt two rules, from which we will never deviate, in deliberating upon all nominations. In the first place, to preserve untarnished and unsuspected the purity of congress, let us negative the nominations of every member for any office, high or low, foreign or domestic, until the authority of the constitution and laws is fully restored. I know not that there is any member of either house capable of being influenced by the prospect of advancement or promotion; I would be the last to make such an insinuation; but suspicion is abroad, and it is best, in these times of trouble and revolution, to defend the integrity of the body against all possible imputations. For one, whatever others may do, I here deliberately avow my settled determination, whilst I retain a seat in this chamber, to act in conformity to that rule. In pursuing it, we but act in consonance with a principle proclaimed by the present chief magistrate himself, when out of power! But, alas! how little has he respected it in power! How little has he, in office, conformed to any of the principles which he announced when out of office!
And, in the next place, let us approve of the original nomination of no notorious brawling partisan and electioneerer; but, especially, of the reappointment of no officer presented to us, who shall have prostituted the influence of his office to partisan and electioneering purposes. Every incumbent has a clear right to exercise the elective franchise. I would be the last to controvert or deny it. But he has no right to employ the influence of his office, to exercise an agency which he holds in trust for the people, to promote his own selfish or party purposes. Here, also, we have the authority of the present chief magistrate for this rule; and the authority of Mr. Jefferson. The senator from Tennessee, (Mr. Grundy,) merits lasting praise for his open and manly condemnation of these practices of official incumbents. He was right, when he declared his suspicion and distrust of the purity of the motives of any officer whom he saw busily interfering in the elections of the people.
Senators! we have a highly responsible and arduous position; but the people are with us, and the path of duty lies clearly marked before us. Let us be firm, persevering, and unmoved. Let us perform our duty in a manner worthy of our ancestors; worthy of American senators; worthy of the dignity of the sovereignstates that we represent; above all, worthy of the name of American freemen! Let us ‘pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,’ to rescue our beloved country from all impending dangers. And, amidst the general gloom and darkness which prevail, let us continue to present one unextinguished light, steadily burning, in the cause of the people, of the constitution, and of civil liberty.
ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAY 21, 1834.
[THE agitation of the public mind on the subject of the removal of the deposits from the bank of the United States, continued during the session of congress in 1834, and memorials were constantly presented to that body, asking for relief to the people from the pecuniary pressure occasioned by the arbitrary measures of president Jackson. On presenting one of these memorials Mr. Clay made the following brief remarks.]