Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the First Session of the Twenty-Fourth Congress Page: 3,923

                                
3923
GALES & SEATON'S REGISTER
3924
H. of R-]
Fortification Bill.
[Mat 24, 1836.
see Legislature, but he has thought proper to reproduce
that letter; where General Jackson states, in substance,
that, if important appointments continue to devolve on
members of Congress, corruption will become the order
of the day. Since which time, as President, he has ap-
pointed such a large number of members of both Houses
to the highest offices, as to draw between five and six
hundred thousand dollars from the Treasury for their
salaries. This inconsistency between profession and
practice, being so glaring as to deter all other debaters
from attempting to reconcile them, did not in the least
stay the zeal of my colleague in his determination to de-
fend the administration at all points. And to get out of
the difficulty, he said:
"Suppose, Mr. Chairman, General Jackson, in that
letter, bad suggested to the Legislature of Tennessee an
amendment to the constitution, by which the President of
the United States should be deprived of having any voice
in the passage of laws by Congress, by which the power
that now makes it his duty to approve and sign bills pass-
ed by .Congress before they have the force of laws
should be taken away forever. Suppose, also, the Gen-
eral, after having given this opinion, had been elected
President of the United States, and that he had refused
to approve and sign bills passed by Congress, upon the
ground that he had given to the Legislature of Tennes-
see the opinion that the President ought not to have
such power. Sir, in the case supposed, the President
would have been impeached and removed from office, if
he had refused to approve and sign bills upon the ground
stated, when, by the constitution, it was his sworn duty
to do so; he would have deserved impeachment and re-
moval from office. What, then, I ask, is the difference
in principle between the case supposed and the case in
the letter? The amendment suggested in the letter has
never been made to the constitution."
Thus spoke my colleague; and if he really can see any
similitude between the case supposed and the profession
in the letter, f will not stop to reason with him, as it is
not probable that another person can be found who will
be able to discover the most remote resemblance.
The gentleman went on to say:
" By the constitution, members of Congress are eligi-
ble to executive appointments. The President is sworn
♦ to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution,' as it
is, not as he would have it to be. If, then, the President
had introduced in practice what would have been a vir-
tual amendment to the constitution itself, he would have
been guilty of the high crime of usurpation."
• is,t,rue the Pres>denl cannot appoint any one who is
ineligible; but I never heard before that eligibility
created any obligation on the President to appoint mem-
bers of Congress to office, and tbat his failure to do so
would amount to the high crime of usurpation, for which
he ought to be impeached and removed from office.
But as my friend is inthe secrets of the cabinet, and if
this constitutional interpretation is entertained there
and the President drew so largely on both Houses of
Congress and the Treasury under the terrors of impeach-
ment, it will certainly justify him in the eyes of my col-
league, and all others who understand the constitution
as he understands it.
The gentleman contends that the President could not,
with propriety, refuse to appoint members of Congress
to office until the constitution was changed so as to ren-
der them ineligible! The President was of ooinion that
the practice of appointing members of Congress to high
? "IT iU'0JIthe Pur'ty,and independence of the
Legislature, and make corruption the order of the dav
Kow my friend contends that the President was bound to
contmue a practice attended with those consequences
until be was prevented by a change of the constitution!
If every thing may with propriety be done to make
corruption the order of the day that is not prohibited by
the constitution, the administration has a broad field to
move in. It is probably the first time under the sun that
the introduction of corruption into the administration of
the Government was justified on the ground that it was
not prohibited by the constitution. The gentleman says
the President was sworn to support the constitution; and
as members of Congress were eligible to office under
that instrument, it would have been a dangerous assump-
tion of power on the part of the President to have ex-
cluded them. If every body is to have office who is
eligible, we shall have a goodly number of them. But I
suppose the gentleman confines his notion of eligibility
to '* his party." It was not at all unconstitutional to pro-
scribe and render ineligible every man in and out of Con-
gress in the United States who had not given in his ad-
hesion at the footstool of power; but it would have been
very unconstitutional for the President to have refused
to appoint partisan members of Congress to office. If
this be enforcing the constitution, the President has fully
administered, he has marched platoonsoutof both Houses
of Congress, as was once observed by the gentleman
from Ohio, [Mr. Coswijr.] There is something, no
doubt, very pleasant in this idea of administering the
constitution to a member of Congress of the right faith
who stands on the roll of promotion, for this kind of luck
goes round so fast that it will not take it long to reach
every one. And when it comes to the turn of my col-
league, I have no doubt that he will think it more con-
stitutional than ever.
The gentleman eulogizes the administration for the
vast sums of money which it has expended in works of
internal improvement since the year 1829. Sir, how will
the people of Kentucky feel when they know that a
member from that State rose upon ihis floor, and vaunt-
ed the praises of this administration for the profuse out-
pour of millions for works of internal improvement, of
all sorts, in all parts of the Union except Kentucky—
when they recollect that they were told, in the midst of
this profusion, that the pitiful sum of §150,000 could not
be spared for a Kentucky road until the national debt
was paid?
It is amusing to hear a controversy in this House be.
tween two of " the party" upon the much-agitated ques-
tion, "what are the principles of this administration?"
From parts of the Union where internal improvements
are unpopular, we hear gentlemen praising the adminis-
tration for having subverted the whole system; while
equal praise is bestowed from sections o'f the Union
where such works are in favor, upon the orthodox opin-
ions and lavish expenditures of the present administra-
tion in the advancement of the great cause of public im-
provements. I do not know which swelled the noie of
admiration to the highest key, the gentleman from Vir-
ginia, [Mr. Gamahd,] because the President had over-
thrown, or my colleague, because he had upheld, inter-
nal improvements.
[Mr. Gabland rose to explain, and said he did not in.
tend to convey the idea that the President had entirely
crushed internal improvements. He wished to be under-
stood as saying the President had done much to over-
throw such works, but that he had not gone the lull
length of the Virginia doctrine.]
Mr. Allan proceeded. Sir, the explanation does not
affect the sense of what I was saying. The gentleman
iiom Virginia exults that so much has been done to de-
stroy, while the gentleman from Kentucky exults that
so much has been done to build up, the system.
My colleague says that the vast sums which this ad-
ministration has expended "on woiks of internal im-
provement are not local, but national, in their character."
in the true spirit of non-committal, in which school, by
the way, he is not a very young scholar, mv colleague