which a daring editor might hurl against them individually. He believed that it was as requisite to maintain the privileges of the Senate as it was to support the liberty of the press; the Constitution secured the first as well as the last; and it became important in considering the subject in this point to ascertain the extent of the privilege on the present occasion. The Constitution declares several privileges to belong to the members of Congress, and these privileges are given in order to secure the execution of the public duties which are enjoined upon us; it is for the interest of the people, and not for our own peculiar advantage, that we enjoy these privileges, it is then proper that we should on their account maintain them; but, in defining what may be privilege, we must govern ourselves according to the original intention, which is the promotion of the general interests of the citizens, and here we can be guided only by sound discretion and common sense. In this point of view the subject becomes truly important. Will any gentleman contend that our privileges are restrained to this Chamber? No. Are there no other methods by which our deliberations may be interrupted? Certainly there are. Of course, then, our authority must extend to remedy the evil wherever we may meet it, or otherwise our authority is inadequate to protect itself. On the principle of self-preservation, which results to every public body of necessity and from the nature of the case, the right of self-preservation is vested in the Senate of the United States, as it is in your courts of justice and other public institutions. Suppose a printer was to say that one of the judges had received a bribe in a certain case, would not the court be competent to call him before them and punish him for the slander, if it was one? And shall a printer insinuate that members of this body are guilty of a similar crime, and they have no mode of giving redress? Is it not of as much importance that the laws be dictated from pure motives, as that they be executed from pure motives? If it is admitted that we have the right of protecting ourselves within these walls, from attacks made on us in our presence, it follows of course that we are not to be slandered and questioned elsewhere. Will gentlemen deny this? then there is no complete remedy; for the defamation and calumny of yesterday, circulated in the newspapers, out-travel the slow and tardy steps of truth; they have spread over the face of the country and entered every cottage, where the contradiction may never penetrate. Or shall the foul aspersions of an editor circulate till you can send to the attorney general to issue a writ, to the marshal to serve it, to the court and jury to bring it, before the contradiction can be published? This also would defeat the object. The Senate, being so long suspected, must have received a deep wound, and some of its members may have to be amputated before a right understanding is acquired. Mr. T. concluded with reiterating the idea that he did not mean to punish for publishing the transactions which took place in Senate, but to prevent misrepresentation and abuse; he did not wish the MARCH, 1800. punishment to be cruel or severe, but as mild and lenient as the case would admit. Mr. BLOODWORTH, of North Carolina, doubted the power of the Senate to take cognizance of the conduct of members in communicating with their constituents, much less to punish them for publishing circumstances respecting which no injunetion of secrecy had been imposed. He, however, assured the Senate that he had not given the editor of the Aurora any information on the subject before them, or indeed on any other, for the editor was a stranger to him; nor did he know that he ever called at that printing office more than once or twice in his life. He hoped that the business would be postponed for the present, and he should have no objection to its being taken up at a future day, when gentlemen might be better prepared to meet it. Mr. PAINE, of Vermont, declared himself against the postponement, nor did he think that the motion of Mr. PINCKNEY was so inconsistent with the motion before the House as to render a postponement necessary; he thought the committee might inquire, and although the gentleman would stop, by his proposition, from proceeding in case it turned out to be a fabrication of the editor of the Aurora, yet if it should be found not a fabrication of his, but that of a member or an officer of the House, it was admitted they might progress, without infringing the sacred liberty of the press. Suppose that some person in the gallery should have furnished this spurious matter-and that may possibly be the case-will the sacred liberty of the press be violated if we order the doorkeeper to turn him out, and refuse him access in future? He thought the resolutions might be amended so as to give greater satisfaction than they do at present; for his own part he was not willing to declare all at present which they contained. He thought the business would be simplified if the committee were directed to consider and report what measures would be proper to adopt in respect to a publication containing various untruths of the proceedings of the Senate, and if the question of postponement was lost he meant to move several amendments for that purpose. Mr. MASON, of Virginia, had no objection to meet the question at the present moment, but he thought it of such importance, both to the Senate and the citizens of the United States, that it should be taken up and discussed in a solemn and serious manner; not hastily and lightly, as some gentlemen seemed to think who were opposed to the postponement for a few days: if, however, the opposition to the postponement was persisted in, he had no doubt but the subject would prove itself well worth a discussion of several days, and that the ultimate decision would not be made till a period more remote than that moved for by his friend from South Carolina. He therefore recommended to gentlemen to explore well the ground which the motion of the gentleman from Connecticut had taken, and consider seriously of the consequences to which they would be led in pursuing their object. What was to be the course of their proceeding? What were the embarrasments likely to arise therein? He called the House to view the delicacy of the situation in which they would be involved while defining their newly discovered privileges and subverting the old acknowledged privileges of the liberty of the press; he said the delicacy of their situation, because he considered it a delicate one. for he was far from believing that the privileges of the Senate were as unlimited as the gentleman from Connecticut contended they were; if so, and they proceed to touch the liberty of the press, which they may discover in the end to be secured against the invasion, they will be compelled to retrace every step they are now taking, which will neither redound to their honor nor discernment. They should be careful how they expose themselves to popular scrutiny in cases respecting their own power, for the public mind had been already considerably agitated, at what many conceived to be an unconstitutional exercise of power. If,session after session, attempts were made to fetter the freedom of the press, the people of the United States would watch with anxious regard every movement of this body. A measure which originated in the Senate, and was subsequently acceded to by the other branch of the Legislature, had been just ground of alarm. It is no wonder that they watch our bills as well as our laws, for it must be recollected by many of the gentlemen who hear me, that the bill called the Sedition Bill was first introduced here, and that, instead of being what it afterwards became, it was a bill more particularly to define treason and sedition. The good sense of the House, during the time it was upon the table and undergoing a political dissection, cut off from it many of those monstrous excrescences which at first disfigured it, and at last trimmed it into a shapely form; but after all it was removed below stairs in a condition not fit to meet the eye of our constituents-even obliged to undergo a decapitation; the head or the title of it was struck off, and instead of being a bill defining treason-which is a thing totally out of our power, the Constitution having declared in what alone treason should consistinstead of being denominated a bill against sedition, it took the obnoxious head of being a bill to amend the law for punishing certain crimes against the United States. Nor, said Mr. M., do I think gentlemen do themselves much honor in the declarations they make on this floor, respecting the publication of the bill for deciding the disputes in the election of a President and Vice President; they seem to consider the publication of such a bill with a declaration of its having passed the Senate as a scandal on the Senate. Well, it might perhaps be a subject of scandal as to the Senate, if they had passed it; but is not this charging the committee who reported it, with reporting a bill which it would be a scandal perhaps to advocate but certainly a scandal to pass? According to this construction of the argument, the gentlemen certainly cast as gross a censure upon the committee who reported a bill which is unfit to be acted upon, as the publication is supposed to cast on the House for having agreed to it. With respect to the measures which are pursued and pursuing, is it unknown to the members on SENATE. this floor what effects they are producing; do they not know that the sedition bill as it is called, and which the present motion may be considered as supplementary to, has created a general alarm not only among our citizens, but in several of our State Legislatures? Will not this measure increase that alarm? Or is it supposed that you may call upon a printer and that he will answer, not knowing that by the Constitution no man can be called upon to give evidence against himself in criminal cases? He concluded with the remark that he did not mean to go into the subject fully, because the question before the House was confined to the postponement; but, if the postponement was refused, he should take the liberty of adding some further observations to enforce the ideas contained in the motion brought forward by his worthy friend from South Carolina. Mr. COCKE wished that gentlemen who were of the same sentiments with himself would acquiesce in his motion for throwing out the subject at once, so that they might hear no more of it. He was well convinced that the House had no powers to legislate in relation to publications in newspapers, notwithstanding all that the gentleman from Connecticut had said. It had been asked where the Senate had got the power, and it is replied, they got it by a necessary and natural inference from the Constitution. This idea of drawing powers by inference and construction had been stretched, on former occasions, much beyond what he considered a proper attention to its spirit would justify; but the doctrine on this point could not be inferred from that instrument, because the argument by inference is rebutted by the express declaration made in the amendments to the Constitution, wherein it is declared that all the powers which are not given to the United States are reserved either to the States or to the people; and again, it declares that every man shall be secured in his person and papers from unlawful searches and seizures; and further, no person shall be called upon in a criminal case to give testimony against himself. He supposed the resolutions considered the publications in the Aurora as criminal, otherwise they would not make this stir about them. Gentlemen have asked, are the newspapers to be permitted to go on and villify the members of the Legislature without punishment? He answered, the printers of papers published on their own responsibility, and if they had no authority for any scandalous assertions respecting the Senate, they could be punished in the way pointed out by law. But would the members wish to draw the printers before the House and assume the judiciary powers of the courts of justice? As they had not the advantage of grand juries from every vicinage, to present the libels as they arise in the various quarters of the Union, they would be forced to appoint another committee to remark the files of all the printers from Maine to Georgia, in order to procure a knowledge of the numerous calumnies and slanders on the Senate, which have been fabricated by them, or communicated by their friends. He thought this a business of considerable extent, and one which few gentlemen on the floor would be willing to labor through; he thought, moreover, when they erected themselves into Censors of the Press they would find no leisure from their office to attend to the performance of their ordinary duties of legislation or that portion of Executive business which the Constitution assigned to their care. He was confident it would give more general satisfaction to their immediate constituents, the State Legislatures, if members would attend to the business they were sent here to perform, than would be given by combining all powers of Government in their own body. It would certainly redound more to the honor of the Senate, if they left the courts to perform their duties in cases of libel, than to undertake, in their own behalf, the ungrateful office of judge and the ungraceful one of executioner; and all this either without law or by a resolution tantamount to an ex post facto law, directly in the face of the Constitution, which restricts Congress from passing an ex post facto law in all cases whatsoever. Mr. ANDERSON, of Tennessee, did not rise with an intention of entering into the merits of the general question, as to the extent of the privileges of the Senate, which he conceived to be of great moment, but merely to remark, as gentlemen alleged that the public mind was already agitated on the subject, the postponement would tend to increase the degree of agitation, which he conceived it was the wish of gentlemen on both sides to have allayed as soon as possible. He therefore concluded that it would be better to go on with the business and come as soon as possible to a decision. One gentleman had said it ought to go to the judicial courts, and that the Attorney General should be directed to prosecute: well, then, that gentleman should give his consent to send the business to a committee, in order to inquire whether the case would warrant this interference. Mr. REED, of South Carolina, would not oppose the motion of his honorable colleague for a postponement, if he had required it on his own account, or if its being negatived would prevent him from bringing forward the preamble and resolution he had read in his place, and at a proper time of having them discussed; but neither of these circumstances were urged; therefore, as his colleague neither required time for preparation nor would be prevented from offering and supporting the intended amendment, he should vote against the postponement. Mr. PINCKNEY, of South Carolina, supposed if the postponement was lost, that the House would proceed with the discussion on the Connecticut motion, which he conceived would be progressing in an unnatural mode towards a decision. As he firmly believed that the privileges of the Senate were limited and defined by the Constitution, he could not resist calling the House in the first place to consider of and decide this question. He had heard arguments which he imagined would satisfy them of the justness of the conclusions he had drawn, and which would demonstrate that the privileges of the members did not go out of the doors of their Chamber; and that this was not MARCH, 1800. only the actual ground on which they stood, but it was the proper, the dignified, and manly attitude for them to take. Every gentleman should be the guardian of his own honor; and here he would just remark, that, from the style and manner used in the Connecticut motion, it was to be expected that in general the idea would be entertained that this procedure took its rise from an application made to the House either by himself or some of his friends, as he was the only member named; and the committee are directed to inquire by what authority the editor published in the Aurora that he (Mr. P.) had never been consulted. Far be it from him to ask the protection of the House for any publication respecting himself; though few persons in the United States had been more abused or calumniated than himself in the modern newspapers, he had never complained; he either despised the abuse, or answered the charges, which served to draw down contempt upon the slanderer's head; and this was the line of conduct which he recommended to others, who should find themselves in a similar situation. He trusted after what he had formerly declared, that he never gave or sent the editor of the Aurora either the bill which he published of any of the information accompanying it, that it would be unnecessary for him to declare anything further. He had said that he was prepared to go into the discussion, but his indisposition would scarcely permit him to do the subject the justice which its merits deserved, and he therefore still hoped the motion for postponement till Tuesday next would be agreed to. Mr. DAYTON had the highest confidence in the honor of the gentleman from South Carolina. (Mr. PINCKNEY,) and he never suffered himself to doubt of the truth of the declaration which had been made. He thought the resolutions might be varied so as to get rid of the idea which the gentleman objected to, in respect to the motion having been brought forward at his instance; and might be amended as suggested by the gentleman from Vermont, (Mr. PAINE,) so as to reconcile it still more to the sentiments of the Senate. This being his view of the subject, he wished the business to proceed, and should therefore vote against the postponement. was now put, and the yeas and nays being called, The question on postponing till Tuesday next, stood yeas 9, nays 19, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Baldwin, Bloodworth, Brown, Cocke, Franklin, Langdon, Mason, Nicholas, and Pinckney. NAYS-Messrs. Anderson, Bingham, Chipman, Dayton, Foster, Goodhue, Greene, Gunn, Hillhouse, Laurance, Livermore, Lloyd, Paine, Read, Ross, Schureman, Tracy, Watson and Wells. So the motion was lost. Mr. NICHOLAS, of Virginia, wished to ask for information. Was it intended by this resolution to charge the committee with inquiring into a breach of privilege as it respected the majority of this body? For the resolution itself furnished no correct idea on this point. He wished also to know whether it was intended that the Senate should 93 MARCH, 1800. HISTORY OF CONGRESS. Breach of Privilege. declare that the publication was a breach of privilege? Mr. TRACY, of Connecticut, said that if the gentleman wished for information from him, he would He conceived it would be endeavor to give it. better to pursue the mode of inquiry in the first instance, through the intervention of a committee, and not make at once a decision whether the publication was or was not a breach of privilege; and further, that the committee should report to the Senate what other matters were the proper subjects for the Senate's inquiry. He would not undertake to say at this time whether there was a breach of privilege at all, or whether that breach was in respect to a majority of the House, or of the privilege of a single member. Mr. MARSHALL, of Kentucky, was of opinion that if the subject itself was a proper one to be inquired into, then the mode was well devised, and one liable to few or no objections; but there was another circumstance to which he begged permisHe obsion to call the attention of the Senate. served that the resolution pointed only to one object, and that was the publications in the Aurora; he did not think this went far enough, if it was intended to be anything more than a party manœuvre. If gentlemen meant to defend the honor of this body, they should avoid anything like partiality, and direct their inquiry to all breaches of privilege, by publications in newspapers, let their Believing that publishers be whom they might. the gentlemen were serious in the present undertaking, he wished them to give it the appearance of impartiality, without which, it would reflect disgrace on their proceedings. Gentlemen have complained of the slander and calumny thrown upon them by the publications in the Aurora, but, however detestable they might be, he held in his hand one still more vile and flagrant. He would read it, and then move to amend the resolution before the House by adding that the committee be directed to inquire who is the editor of the United States Gazette, and by what authority he published in that paper the following paragraphs: "The Democrats have at length completely carried their point with respect to the permanent army. It was resolved on Monday, in the Senate, that the bill, sent up from the House of Representatives, suspending the enlistments, should pass into a law; and no other reliance is now left us for the preservation of this bulwark of the public hope, from the effects of so ruinous a step, but the courage of his Excellency the President of the United States. The votes in the Senate on this momentous question, were as follows: For putting a stop to the enlistments: Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Bloodworth, Brown, Cocke, Foster Franklin, Langdon, Marshall, Mason, Nicholas, and Pinckney. SENATE. the manifest tendencies of this dreadful step, we cannot for a moment allow ourselves to doubt, that the measure will be nipped in the bud by the decided negative of the Executive. Never can there be an occasion more imperiously demanding that negative than the present. The President has expressly declared to both Houses of Congress, that a steady perseverance in a system of naAn advance therefore, on the part of Congress, towards tional defence is indispensable to our peace and safety. impairing the grounds on which his administration rests, and on which his particular measures are bottomed, can only be met on his part, by opposing a firm countenance to such attempts at the outset, or by recalling the steps themselves. The measure just adopted is more awful, I think, in whatever aspect viewed, than that proposed by the honorable member from Virginia. In the first place, as it was carried by federal votes; by gentlemen, who, under the influence of I know not what wretched calculations, advance into what they deem a neutral region, to embrace the enemy. This neutral country is full of concealed snares, and gins, and pitfalls: every step of it is mined, and fraught with devices for their destruction. They have been blown from it into the air more than fifty times, and yet they advance upon it again, with the most sovereign unconcern. In the second place, from the excess of evil there often arises some important goodFrom this benefit these their extremes do often meet. gentlemen have most kindly cut us off; and by the half measures they have adopted, left us exposed to all the mischiefs which could have resulted from the prevalence of the motion of Mr. Nicholas. Thirdly, the measure of stopping the recruiting service is worse than that of disbanding the army; because nearly all the expense still continues, while all the beneficial effect of that expense is perverted to our injury. A monarch without subout soldiers, are standing butts of the jest and ridicule jects, a general without an army, and an officer with of all mankind; and a surer mode could hardly have been devised for disgusting every military man in the country than this of depriving the officers of their troops, thereby making each of them a pompous effigy of dignity, a nomen et præterea nihil. These officers will not mutiny against their Government, because they are amongst the most respectable and patriotic of men. It is my pride to boast an acquaintance with many of them, who have laid aside professions which supported them in the rank of gentlemen, and with others who to join this army, this phalanx of federalism, these corelinquished every luxury and enjoyment of affluence, horts of justice and honor, against the infidel, rapacious, and sanguinary invaders of our rights, and their atrocious and unprincipled sectaries. I know they will not mutiny; but if it had been sought to devise a scheme to drive men to the extremest excess of disgust, I know not a more plausible one than this. The resolution proposed by Mr. Randolph ought now in all reason to be adopted. It is necessary in order to render this measure consistent with reason or common sense. The whole force of the mighty Twelve Regiments is then cut down to about three thousand men! Precious defence against the invasion of a foreign enemy, or the machinations of domestic treason! Why, McKean will turn out more than this number of well-armed well-orGentlemen who voted for preserving the army accord-ganized militia-men from the city and county of Philaing to the law by which it was established-Messrs. Chipman, Latimer, Laurance, Lloyd, Read, Schureman, Tracy, Watson, and Wells. Also Messrs. Bingham, Dexter, Goodhue, Greene, Impressed as we are with the most serious alarms at delphia alone. I do not think that the movements of that powerful Triumvirate, Jefferson, McKean, and Monroe, are by any means to be despised or disregarded. It is no longer a doubt that our unhappy country nour SENATE. Breach of Privilege. MARCH. 1800. tively considers the late events in France, will view that Republic as a more formidable enemy to America than ever-formidable in enmity, in fallacious peace still more so: Gallis fidem non habendam. Talleyrand, who was turned out of office by the old Government, for demandinstated in his former office by the new governors! And for what particular merit more probably, than for his care over the strong box of the Republic, to which Bonaparte appears to have a very single eye? With this polluted, ill-omened Apostolus Diaboli our mission must treat, if they be at all allowed to treat, which I deem very questionable. ishes in her bosom vipers who live but in the hope of inflicting a mortal sting. There is not a doubt, that there are men in America, and men too of powerful and operative force, who would prostrate without remorse every pillar of the public happiness, to found an hierarchy under which they might more securely aggrandize them-ing tributes and bribes of our Ministers, we behold reselves; I do not less doubt that these Capulets are abroad, that their hot blood is up and stirring towards this object. And is this a time for disbanding troops ? Is there not extant a danger to be guarded against quocunque modo? But there seems to be a system for repressing in the Federal cause all spirit worthy of the part which it is called to act. Sure never till now, were the counsels of Adonis relied on in affairs of State. When the reins of the steeds and the chariot of the Sun were entrusted to the guidance of Phaton, we read that the car was overthrown, and the presumptous youth submersed in the waves. True Americans will say, it is a vexatious suit that this man urges, when the truth is, that I have only to say vestra res agiture. They will exclaim, whence this abuse and illiberality against an economical and a conciliatory measure? It was by this cursed economy that the villain Neckar brought his monarch into all his troubles; and it was by conciliatory measures that the unhappy prince lost his head. Are these the auspices on which we are to rely for peace: this the crisis at which our wisdom disbands the only army the country has to boast of?" [NOTE. The above comprises all of the debate on this subject which the Compiler has been able to rethe "Aurora," will probably account for the meagerThe explanatory remarks by the Reporter for ness of the report.] cover. It was then moved to amend the motion, by inserting, between the words "Senate" and the word "and," in the fourth line from the end, these words: If the economy, and the squeamishness, and the pres- "And that the said committee be also directed to inent conciliatory disposition of Federalism endure much quire who is the editor of the newspaper, printed in said longer, its empire will pass away like a dream, or the sha-city, called the Gazette of the United States and Philadows of illumination; no figure will encompass it around: and its economy, and its conscientiousness, and its conciliation, and all its bitter delusions, will be atoned in one truly republican succession of fire and blood. The abuse of True Americans, half federalists, and conciliation men. I have long learnt to despise. I feel inexpressible and uncontrollable chagrin and indignation when I see measures pursued, under whatever calculations, so evidently tending to the ruin and subversion of the order and peace of this society, and so utterly militant against all usage and experience. Not having any gold to hug, like the poor, rich True Americans, and time-serving federalists and conciliators, I have no other object so near me as the success and prosperity of my much abused, sadly distressed country; and I will protest alike against the undivulged pretence of treasonous malice, and the more fatal cowardice and ignorance of the enemies to every establishment by which, in this day of distress and tribulation, the great ark of our safety might be preserved and maintained. I will dwell but for a moment on the hope that the President will interpose his veto between this alarming measure and its consequences, and then quit a subject on which there will be nothing more to say. The preservation of harmony between the different branches of the Government is undoubtedly desirable; at the same time when an important prerogative is entrusted to either department, and the exercise of that prerogative is demanded by motives of public safety, no considerations of this or any other nature ought to prevent the exertion of it. Nor do the reproaches of evilminded men on such occasions, merit the slightest regard. It is true that the newly enlightened citizens of France murdered their royal master on this pretence; but the people of America, however debauched by the introduction of the profligate principles of that hideous race, are not yet degenerated to so high a pitch of perfectibility, civilization, and refinement. In this one respect, at least, they are not yet the freest and most enlightened nation on earth. I think that whoever atten delphia Daily Advertiser,' and by what means the said editor became possessed of the votes in the Senate on the bill, sent from the House of Representatives, for suspending the enlistments of the twelve regiments, &c., as published in the said newspaper, bearing date the 13th of February (instant ;) and by what authority he published those votes particularly, and under the classification contained in the said newspaper; and, also, whether the said editor is the author, or not, and if not, who is the author of sundry assertions, observations, and reflections, immediately preceding and following the statement of the said votes, and published in the said paper, of, and concerning the Senate of the United States, and the members thereof, in their official capacity:" It passed in the negative-yeas 11, nays 16, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Bloodworth, Cocke, Franklin, Langdon, Lloyd, Marshall, Mason, Nicholas, and Pinckney. NAYS-Messrs. Bingham, Chipman, Dayton, Foster, Greene, Gunn, Hillhouse, Laurance, Livermore, Paine Read, Ross, Schureman, Tracy, Watson, and Wells THE JUDICIARY. Agreeably to notice given yesterday, Mr. PINCKNEY had leave to bring in a bill to amend the act, entitled "An act to establish the Judicial Courts * We are fortunately enabled to give a sketch of the proceedings| in the Senate of the United States on Mr. Tracy's resolution, re specting a publication in the Aurora of the 19th ult., a subject in termining the liberty of the press, in a more decisive manner than volving in it not only the privilege of members of Congress, but de either the Sedition law of the last Congress, or the judicial deci all its force under our Federal Constitution. We are sorry that our sion of the Chief Justice, that the common law of England exists in report is confined to a mere sketch, because the subject requires the fullest display, but the extreme inconvenience of the scanty us from hearing in some cases with the accuracy we wished, and gallery, which was crowded, in an uncommon manner, prevented limited our notes; we however trust that enough will be detailed to give a general idea of the motives, intentions and objects by which the members were respectively guided and influenced. Reporter for the Aurora. |