Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

to show that, on the last day of January, they had passed only sixteen bills; and although it was the short session, they passed one hundred and forty bills before the adjournment. Their whole experience showed that business could be done in less time than it usually was done. Mr. CLAYTON then renewed his motion; and the question was taken, and decided as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Benton, Calhoun, Clayton, Grundy, Kent, Morris, Rives, Robbins, Ruggles, Southard, Tallmadge-11.

NAYS-Messrs. Black, Buchanan, Clay, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Davis, Ewing of Ohio, Ewing of Illinois, Hendricks, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Knight, McKean, Mangum, Moore, Nicholas, Niles, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robinson, Shepley, Swift, Tomlinson, Walker, Wall, White, Wright-30.

The question was then taken on Mr. CRITTENDEN'S motion, and decided in the negative: Yeas 21, nays 21; the Chair voting in the negative:

[SENATE.

made upon it, trusting to the indulgence of the Senate, in a future stage of the discussion, to be permitted to present my views of the other highly important questions involved in the general subject. I propose thus to limit my remarks for the present, because the constitutional question is naturally and properly preliminary to all the rest, standing first in the order of discussion, as well as first in importance; for, however justly obnoxious I deem the resolution of March, 1834, to the various exceptions which have been taken to it, it certainly ought not to be expunged, unless, under the constitution, we have the rightful authority to do so. It seems proper to confine my remarks, for the present, to this single view of the subject, for the further reason that, as yet, the able and lucid arguments of the Senator from Missouri on the other branches of the discussion have remained without any answer, or even an attempt to answer them.

A free people, Mr. President, and especially the enlightened people of this country, are naturally and wisely jealous of the observance of their fundamental law, and acutely sensible to any violation, actual or

YEAS--Messrs. Black, Calhoun, Clay, Crittenden, Ewing of Illinois, Hill, Hubbard, King of Georgia, Knight, Leigh, McKean, Mangum, Moore, Morris, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robinson, South-meditated, of its provisions. Hence it is that, in the ard--21.

[blocks in formation]

Mr. CLAY then moved to amend the resolution by making the 23d of May the day of adjournment, which motion prevailed: Yeas 28, nays 14, as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Black, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing of Ohio, Ewing of Illinois, Hill, Hubbard, King of Georgia, Knight, Leigh, McKean, Mangum, Moore, Morris, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robinson, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Walker, Wall-28.

NAYS-Messrs. Benton, Buchanan, Cuthbert, Grundy, Hendricks, Kent, King of Alabama, Niles, Robbins, Ruggles, Shepley, Tallmadge, White, Wright--14.

The resolution, as amended, was then adopted: Yeas 34, nays 8, as follows:

YEAS--Messrs. Black, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Davis, Ewing of Ohio, Ewing of Illinois, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Knight Linn, Leigh, McKean, Mangum, Moore, Morris, Nicholas, Niles, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robinson, Shepley, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Walker, Wall, Wright-34.

NAYS-Messrs. Benton, Clayton, Grundy, Hendricks, Robbins, Ruggles, Tallmadge, White-8.

EXPUNGING RESOLUTION.

Mr. CLAYTON stated that as the expunging resolution had been laid on the table at his suggestion, he would now move to take it up for consideration, as the Senator from Virginia [Mr. LEIGH] was then in his seat.

The motion was agreed to, and the resolution being under consideration,

warfare of parties, appeals are so frequently made to this patriotic instinct in the public mind, and alarms, often groundless and artificial, attempted to be raised in regard to the security of the constitution. Hence it was, I presume, that in the memorable contest of which this chamber was the theatre two years ago, the President was denounced as a usurper of ungranted power, as a violator of the constitution and the laws of his country; when, if all that was alleged by his adversaries could be sustained, it would have made but a case of the misapplication or abuse of power granted both by the Constitution and the laws. Hence it is, too, I suppose, that, on the present occasion, a new panic is attempted to be raised, by holding up the image of mutilated records and a violated constitution, and that the exercise of a lawful discretionary power over their own journals and proceedings, which has been known and admitted since the origin of legislative bodies, and is familiar n parliamentary practice wherever such bodies exist, is represented as something monstrous, iniquitous, and even felonious. If gentlemen expect thus, by the use of strong language, bold assertion, and vehement denunciation, to carry the public judgment by storm, they will, in my humble opinion, find themselves wofully deceived. The public mind is, at this moment, calm, self-balanced, scrutinizing, inquisitive; and, instead of mere assertion and vague denunciation, it will require reason, argument, proof.

It is in this spirit, Mr. President, that I shall proceed to the examination of the objection which has been made to the proposition under consideration, on the ground that it demands an act to be done which is forbidden by the constitution. What, sir, is the argument of gentlemen on this subject, so far as argument has been attempted? It is, that as the constitution requires that "each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings," an entry once made upon that journal can never there

Mr. RIVES rose and addressed the Senate, in sub-after be, in any manner, touched, altered, or removed; stance, as follows:

If no other gentleman, Mr. President, be disposed to do so, I will avail myself of the opportunity afforded by the motion of the Senator from Delaware, to trouble the Senate with some remarks on the subject now under consideration. In doing so, I do not propose, at this time, to go into the wide field of diversified and interesting matter opened for discussion by the resolutions of the Senator from Missouri. My purpose will be to confine myself, at present, strictly to the constitutional question which has been raised as to the power of this body to expunge from its journal an entry heretofore

that, if we do so, we fail, from that moment, in the language of the constitution, to "keep a journal of our proceedings." The connexion between the premises and the conclusion in this reasoning is, I must confess, Mr. President, to my mind incomprehensible. If this body shall, by a formal resolution, entered on its jour nal, direct a previous entry, improvidently, wrongfully, or erroneously made, to be corrected or removed, does it follow from thence that we do not still keep a journal? On the contrary, this very proceeding, in being entered on the journal, and imbodying the whole history of the transaction, is itself a fulfilment of the constitu-.

[blocks in formation]

tional injunction in its true and well-understood sensethat of writing down, from day to day, our daily transactions as they transpire.

I

But it is not my intention, Mr. President, to discuss this question on the niceties of verbal criticism. choose rather to take it up on broad views of the common sense and practical meaning and operation of the constitution. While the constitution requires that each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, it does not direct how that journal is to be kept. The manner of keeping it, what is to be put upon it, what not; the nature, the form, the fulness of the entries, are all matters left for the regulation and control of the body whose duty it is to keep the journal. In these respects there is great diversity of usage among legislative bodies. By some, the entire bill presented for its action is spread on the journal, as was done during the first two Congresses under the present constitution by this body. By others, the title of the bill only is entered on the journal, as is now the practice both of this House and the other branch of Congress. By some, the reports of committees are entered in full on the journal, as was done by the old Congress under the articles of confederation, and is still practised, I believe, by the Legislature of Virginia. By others, the resolutions only, reported by committees, are admitted to a place on the journal. According to the rules and practice of some legislative bodies, as, for example, of this, proceedings in Committee of the Whole are entered on the journal; while in others, as in the House of Representatives, no notice whatever appears on the journal of what has been done in Committee of the Whole. I might mention, also, as illustrating the discretionary power which every legislative body possesses over its journal, the apparently anomalous practice, founded, however, on long usage, of both this House and the other, to enter on their respective journals the messages of the President, though not forming a part of their own "proceedings," of which only they are required to keep a journal.

It results from these considerations, that although each House of Congress is bound to keep a journal of its proceedings, yet that journal, as to the manner of keeping it, the nature and character of its contents, what is to be upon it, what not, is necessarily subjected to the control of the body whose duty it is to keep it. This control is an inseparable part of that self-governing power, in all matters of interior economy and parliamentary regime, which the constitution expressly delegates to either branch of the legislative department. Each House, by the constitution, is "to choose it own Speaker or Presi Ident, and other officers." "Each House, also, shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members." "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the concurrence of twothirds, expel a member." "Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and, from time to time, publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in their judgment, require secrecy." In regard to all these powers and functions, a very large discretion is necessarily left to either House, in the exercise of which abuses doubtless may be committed. But the possibility of abuse is no argument against the existence of a power. Congress has, by express and unequivocal grants in the constitution, power "to lay and collect taxes," &c., and "to raise and support armies." In the exercise of these powers, Congress might raise, even in time of profound peace, an army of half a million of men, and levy upon the people annually two or three hundred millions of dollars for their support, converting one half of the nation into soldiers, and the other half into paupers. There could be no grosser abuse; and yet the constitu tional power would still be indisputable. Where it has

[MARCH 28, 1836.

been deemed necessary and proper, for the public good, to vest any particular power in the Government, or a department of it, the constitution grants the power, and provides securities against its abuse in the structure and organization of the Government itself. The periodical election of the public functionaries by the people, and for the most part for short terms, their responsibility to their constituents, and the constant influence and control of public opinion, are relied upon in our system as conferring every reasonable security against the gross abuse of necessary powers.

The large discretionary power which the constitution has left to either House of Congress over its journals is strikingly exemplified in the provision respecting their publication. Each House is required by the constitution to publish its journal from time to time, excepting such parts as may, in their judgment, require secrecy. Now, under the terms of this provision, either House of Congress, if disposed to abuse the trust reposed in them, might suppress and withhold from the knowledge of the people the most important part, if not the whole, of their proceedings, under the plea that they were such as, in their judgment, required secrecy.

In the jealous apprehensions which were entertained at the time of the adoption of the constitution, of the encroachments and abuses of the new Government, this objection was strongly urged against the clause in question; but it was replied, and with success, that every legislative body must have the power of concealing im portant transactions, the publication of which might compromise the public interests; and, as it was impossible to foresee and enumerate all the cases in which such concealment might be necessary, they should be left to the sound discretion of the body itself, subject to the constitutional responsibility of members, and the other securities provided by the constitution against the abuse of power. These securities have hitherto been found sufficient, and, in point of fact, the journals of both Houses have been published from day to day, with such special and limited exceptions as have been universally approved by the public judgment.

This publication, when made, is the practical fulfilment and consummation of the design of the constitution in requiring a journal to be kept, by either House, of its proceedings. It is agreed, on all hands, that the great object for which a journal is required to be kept is, to give authentic information to our constituents of our proceedings; and that information is to be given, as the constitution provides, by means of a publication, from time to time, of the journal itself. The requisition to keep a journal, on which gentlemen have laid so much stress, is therefore merely introductory, or what the lawyers call matter of inducement only, to that which forms the life and substance of the provision, to wit, the publication, from time to time, of the journal. The whole structure and sequence of the sentence sustains this interpretation. "Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and, from time to time, publish the same." It is evident that the whole practical virtue and effect of the provision is in the latter member of the sentence, and that the former would have been implied and comprehended in it, though not expressed. It will be seen that the corresponding provision in the articles of confederation was founded explicitly on this idea; for, presupposing the keeping of a journal as a matter of course, it proceeded at once to require that "Congress shall publish the journal of their proceedings monthly, excepting such parts thereof, relating to treaties, alliances, or military operations, as, in their judgment, require secrecy.'

[ocr errors]

Nothing was said of keeping a journal, that being presupposed, and necessarily implied; but can any one doubt, though the articles of confederation were silent

[blocks in formation]

as to keeping a journal, that Congress was as much bound to keep a journal of their proceedings under that instrument, as each House is now bound to do under the existing constitution? How could they make the required monthly publication of their journal, unless a journal were kept by them? The requisition, therefore, in the present constitution, to keep a journal, is but an expression, for the sake of greater fulness, of what would otherwise have been implied, and serves only as a more formal introduction to the practical end and substance of the constitutional provision on the subject, and that with which it emphatically concludes, to wit, the publication, from time to time, of the journal. That publication once made, and the people put in possession of the authentic evidence of the proceedings of their agents, the purposes of the constitution are fulfilled, and the preservation of the original manuscript journal becomes thenceforward an official formality.

Even if the true and only meaning of the requisition to keep a journal were that which has been so much insisted on, that is, to preserve, do not gentlemen perceive that the preservation of the journal is fully and most surely accomplished in its publication? The thousand and ten copies which the Secretary has told us are reg ularly printed and distributed by order of the Senate to the members of Congress, to the various public functionaries, to the State Governments, to public institutions and societies throughout the Union, furnish a far better security for the preservation of the journal than the most scrupulous care and vestal guardianship of the original manuscript; which, in spite of every precaution, might yet be lost or destroyed by inevitable accident. These multiplied printed copies, while placing the preservation of the journal beyond the reach of contingency, are, at the same time, for every practical public use, whether of legal evidence or political accountability, on a footing of equal validity with the manuscript original.

The numerous parliamentary precedents in England, as to the power of legislative bodies over their journals, are not denied; but it is contended that those precedents should have no weight here, because the constitution of the United States expressly requires that each House of Congress shall keep a journal; while, in England, it is said no such requisition exists in regard to either House of Parliament. The requisition in the constitution of the United States, I have already shown, is but declaratory of the natural and pre-existing law of all legislative bodies, of whose organization and functions it is a necessary and invariable incident to keep a journal of their proceedings; and in this view I am borne out, not only by the example of the articles of confederation, but by that of several of the State constitutions, which, presupposing the keeping of a journal as a matter of course, provide only, after the manner of the articles of confederation, for the periodical publication of it from time to time. But, without dwelling farther on this

[SENATE.

view of the matter, it is altogether a mistake to say that there is no positive requisition that either House of Parliament in England shall keep a journal of their proceedings. I find the classic historian of that country stating that, in 1607, when the nascent pretensions of the Stuarts, and the spirit of the age, first made the House of Commons sensible both of its importance and responsibility as a guardian of the public liberty, that body entered a formal order for "the regular keeping of their journals." Subsequently, in 1621, as I learn from another authority not less authentic, (Hatsell,) an entry was made in the journal of the House of Commons, on the motion of Sir Edward Sackville, in these words: "That all our proceedings may be entered here, and kept as records." Now, sir, it is very remarkable that these two orders of the House of Commons contain the identical language of the constitution of the United States, to wit, that a journal shall be kept of their proceedings. In each of them, the magic word to keep, which seems to have exerted so potent a spell on the imaginations of gentlemen, is found; and yet we know it has never been held to be a violation of, or inconsistent with, this order to keep a journal of their proceedings, for the House of Commons, in certain cases, to apply an effectual corrective to wrongful or improvident entries previously made in it. It may be said, however, that this order, being made by the body itself, is not obligatory on its own action. To this I reply, that the rules prescribed by parliamentary bodies for their government are always binding upon them, till rescinded or repealed; and while a rule or order is retained, nothing inconsistent with it can be done, unless the rule be first suspended by a vote of the body. Such is the invariable practice, both of this and the other House of Congress, as of legislative bodies elsewhere.

But this matter stands on still higher ground. An act of Parliament, which all will admit is binding on the respective Houses, and which neither House can repeal or control by its separate action, virtually requires a journal to be kept by the House of Commons, in requiring certain entries to be made in it. I refer to the statute of 6 Henry VIII, which provides "that the license for members departing from their service shall be entered of record in the book of the Clerk of the Parliament, appointed, or to be appointed, for the Commons House." The book of the Clerk for the Commons House, here referred to, and in which certain things are required to be entered of record, is of course the journal of the House. But how can these entries be made in the journal unless a journal be kept? This act of Parliament, therefore, requires, and virtually commands, the keeping of a journal by the House of Commons; just as the articles of confederation, already referred to, in providing that Congress "shall publish the journal of its procecdings monthly," virtually requires Congress to keep a journal; for, otherwise, the required publication could not take place.

It is a remarkable fact, that there is no original man- The distinction, therefore, which has been relied upon uscript journal of the House of Representatives in exist- to justify the rejection of the British precedents on this ence from the date of the adoption of the constitution subject, is not founded in a just view of the constitutionto the 1st session of the 18th Congress, 1823-24. Asal or parliamentary history of that country. The two soon as the journal was printed and published, it was supposed there was no longer any practical motive for retaining the original manuscript journal, which was, therefore, never taken care of or preserved. Such was the practice during the whole period of the clerkship of the celebrated John Beckley, than whom there never was a more accomplished clerk, and but few abler men; and if there be propriety in the maxim, cuilibet in sua arte credendum est, such a practical construction of the constitution, in this regard, by a man so conversant with his business, must be admitted to be entitled to no slight consideration.-Note by Mr. R.

Houses of Parliament are, in fact, bound and required to keep a journal of their proceedings, as well as the two Houses of Congress. They are bound to do so by the very nature of their institution, by their own rules and orders, and by the virtual command of act of Parlia ment. If, therefore, a similarity or community of principle could, in any case, justify arguing from the institutions and usages of the one country to those of the other, it is certainly upon a question like the present. I find that much use was made, on another and recent occasion in this body, of British parliamentary precedents, by gentlemen who seem now inclined to disavow and reject

[blocks in formation]

them altogether. If I am not mistaken, the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] on the question which was so earnestly and ably debated here recently as to the right of either House to refuse to receive a pe. tition, introduced Hatsell's work, the great repository of British parliamentary proceedings, and drew largely from it in support of the position he maintained, that it would be no violation of the right of petitioning, as guarantied by the constitution, to refuse to receive a petition after presentation.

[Mr. CALHOUN here rose and explained, and was understood to say that gentlemen on the other side of the question in that discussion had referred to the English Jaws and doctrines on the subject of the right of petition, and that he made use of the parliamentary precedents from Hatsell to show that, in the British parliamentary practice, it was held no violation of the right of petition to refuse to receive a petition.]

Mr. RIVES said he had not the pleasure of hearing the speech of the gentleman from South Carolina, but he inferred from reading it that he considered the parliamentary practice of Great Britain as, at least, high authority in reference to the question then under discussion. I am not at all disposed (said Mr. R.) to question the propriety of the application then made by the Senator from South Carolina of precedents from the English parliamentary practice. I mean only to say that, however applicable they may have been on that occasion, they are at least as much so on the present.

[MARCH 28, 1836.

finally abandoned, by the act of expunging the judgment which was its fruit.

The other case to which I have alluded occurred in the proceedings on the recognition bill in 1690. A clause was introduced into that bill on the motion of the whig party of that day, and the friends of the revolution, declaring that the acts of the convention parliament, though assembled without the formality of a royal summons, were good and valid. This was strongly objected to by the tory lords, a number of whom, by the leave of the House, entered their protest againstit on the journal. The Senate well know that it is a distinctive and fundamental principle in the constitution of the House of Lords, that any member or number of members, dissenting from a measure which has passed that body, have the right, with the leave of the House, to enter a formal protest against it on the journal. In this case, the leave of the House was granted. The right of the protesting Lords became thereby vested and complete; and yet it appearing, on a subsequent examination of the protest, that the grounds of objection taken in it assailed, and were subversive of, the principles of the revolution and settlement of the Government just accomplished, the House ordered it to be expunged from their journal; which order was carried into execution, and gave rise to another protest for expunging the former protest.

But the precedents of parliamentary expunging are by no means confined to the land of our ancestors, from which we derive the model of our parliamentary institu tions and proceedings. Similar instances have occurred in our own country, both before and since our Revolu tion, subsequent as well as previous to the adoption of our present federal constitution, both in the State and in the national Legislatures. There is a case in the history of my own State, which, as there appears to have been singular misconceptions about it, the Senate will excuse me for mentioning somewhat in detail. I refer to the expunging of a resolution of Mr. Henry, which took place in the House of Burgesses of Virginia in 1765. This transaction has been referred to as an odi. ous and abortive attempt at expunging, made by the King's party in the House of Burgesses, which was defeated by the energy and talents of Mr. Henry. Such, sir, are not the facts, as transmitted to us by the most unquestionable contemporary testimony. The attempt to expunge was not defeated. The proposition, on the contrary, was carried. It was carried not by an odious King's party, but with the concurrence, as we are au thorized to believe from the only account extant of the transaction, of men who were, and who proved themselves to be, among the highest champions of American freedom and independence; such men as Peyton Ran

The precedents in the British parliamentary practice (which, it must be admitted, has furnished the model, and, to a great extent, the law of the proceedings of our legislative bodies here, and in every State of the Union) are, on the subject now under consideration, full, unequivocal, and conclusive. Some of them have been mentioned on this floor, and are familiar to the minds of gentlemen. I will not repeat them; but there are two cases which, I believe, have not attracted the notice of gentlemen, and which, from the peculiar grounds on which they stand, illustrate so forcibly the high supervisory and controlling power of parliamentary bodies over their journals, that I will take the liberty of detaining the Senate a few moments with their recital. In 1668, Skinner, an English merchant, presented a petition to the King, complaining of various wrongs and outrages he had sustained from the East India Company. The matter was considered not cognizable by the ordinary tribunals, and was referred by the King to the House of Lords. Strong objections were urged to the jurisdiction of the House of Lords; but they, nevertheless, took cognizance of the affair, and finally entered a judg ment in favor of Skinner against the East India Company, for 5,000l. damages. This proceeding was immedi.dolph, the President of the first American Congress, ately and earnestly resisted by the House of Commons, as contrary to the law of the land, and an invasion of the rights of the people. A violent and protracted controversy ensued between the two Houses; and the Lords being compelled at last, after a struggle of eighteen months, and repeated prorogations of both Houses, to yield their claim of jurisdiction, they expunged from their journal the judgment they had entered in favor of Skinner against the East India Company, and the whole of their proceedings connected with it; whereupon the Commons, in like manner, expunged from their journal the various resolutions and proceedings they had adopted. In this instance we see a proceeding, even of a judicial character, under which private rights might be claimed, expunged in virtue of the high discretionary authority of parliamentary bodies over their journals; and in such a case, perhaps, the expunction is admissible, mainly on the ground that the obnoxious proceeding took place in the exercise of an illegal jurisdiction, at last admitted to be such, and intended to be renounced, as in fact it was

George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, all of whom afterwards put their hands to the declaration of American independence, or bore a conspicuous part in the deliberations which led to and established it. The circumstances were these: Mr. Henry moved a series of resolutions, five in number, declaratory of the rights of the colonists. The four first of these resolutions merely reaffirmed what bad been earnestly asserted only six months before by the House of Burgesses in three several documents of the most solemn character-an address to the King, a memorial to the House of Lords, and a remonstrance to the Commons. The fifth resolution, however, went somewhat further, and seemed to tender at once an issue of force with the mother country. These resolutions were opposed by Messrs. Randolph, Bland, Pendleton, Wythe, and other gentlemen, as devoted and firm friends of the rights of America as any of the great statesmen and patriots of that day, but who deemed Mr. Henry's resolu tions inexpedient at that moment, inasmuch as the senti

[blocks in formation]

ments and principles they contained had already and very recently been expressed in other proceedings, to which the expected answers from the Government in England were not yet received. The fifth resolution was deemed especially inexpedient in the then feeble and defenceless condition of the colony, as it might provoke a conflict of force, for which time and forecast were necessary to prepare. The resolutions, however, under a powerful display of Mr. Henry's eloquence, were passed by one or two votes only; but on the following day, on a motion made for that purpose, and carried, the fifth resolution was expunged from the journal. These are the facts, as vouched by the testimony of Mr. Jefferson and the elder Judge Carrington, (both witnesses of the transaction,) and as recorded by the eloquent biographer of Mr. Henry himself. There was then no odious and abortive attempt to expunge, made by a King's party in the House of Burgesses. The attempt was not defeated, as has been said; on the contrary, the proposition to expunge was carried, and carried, as we are authorized to believe by the only authentic account which has reached us of the transaction, by the influence and with the concurrence of high-souled American patriots-of Peyton Randolph, President of the first Congress, Richard Bland, one of the chosen delegates of Virginia to that glorious assembly, Edmund Pendleton, another delegate, and George Wythe, whose name stands proudly at the head of the Virginia signatures to the declaration of independence. The two last-named gentlemen, Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Wythe, afterwards, and for a long period, respectively presided in and adorned the highest courts of law and equity in the State; and it will be no disparagement, I humbly conceive, to the pretensions of the highest here, to say that they understood as well, and felt as religiously, the sanctity of a record, as any gentleman on this floor.

Examples of the like character have occurred in the other States. In the Senate of Massachusetts, as is well known, a few years after the close of the late war with Great Britain, a resolution was triumphantly carried for expunging from its journal the anti-American sentiment which the baleful spirit of party had recorded there, in the very midst of the conflict-that it was unbecoming a moral and religious people to rejoice in the successes of our arms. At a more recent period, some seven or eight years ago, the Senate of another highly respectable State, (Tennessee,) as I learn from undoubted authority, directed a formal and important entry on its journal to be stricken out; which was done in the very manner proposed by the resolution on your table, by drawing a black line around the condemned entry. But without dwelling on these instances, let us descend to cases which come more immediately home to ourselves. The case which occurred in this body in 1806, and which has been already noticed by the Senator from Missouri, has been in vain attempted to be parried or evaded.*

*In that case, the following are the facts: On the 21st day of April, 1806, being the last day of the session, Mr. Adams presented two memorials, which are thus noticed on the journal:

"Mr. Adams communicated two memorials, one from Samuel G. Ogden, and the other from William S. Smith, stating that they are under a criminal prosecution for certain proceedings, into which they were led, by the circumstance that their purpose was fully known to, and approved by, the executive Government of the United States; that, on this prosecution, they have been treated by the judge of the district court of the United States at New York, Matthias B. Tallmadge, Esq., in such a manner that the same grand jury which found the bills against them made a presentment against the

[SENATE.

In that case, a formal entry, made on the journal in pursuance of the standing rules of the Senate, and in strict conformity to the truth of facts as they transpired, was ordered to be expunged, and actually expunged. The entry recited the substance of two memorials presented by a member of the Senate, containing grave and criminal insinuations against the Executive, and stated also the proceeding of the Senate, which took place on their presentation. This entry, as I have already remarked, was in strict pursuance of the standing rules of the Senate, the 32d article of which expressly requires that "a brief statement of the contents of each petition, memorial, or paper, presented to the Senate, shall be inserted on the journal;" and, in general, that "a true and accurate account of the proceedings of the Senate shall be entered on the journal.' Now, sir, how is the force of this precedent in the annals of our own body attempted to be parried? Why, sir, by the circumstance that the order for expunging the obnoxious entry was adopted on the same day (the last of the session) that the entry itself was made, it being contended that the journal is not complete till it is read over in the Senate, as it usually is the following morning, for the purpose of correcting any mistakes which may have been made in it; and that, till that ceremony has been gone through, it is under the perfect control of the Senate, and fully open to revision and correction. This is the argument of the honorable Senator from Louisiana, [Mr. PORTER.] It is obvious to remark upon it, in the first place, that it confounds two things entirely distinct in their nature, and wholly different in the principles on which they rest-the correction of mistakes in a journal, and the expunging of matter therefrom, in which there has been no mistake, but which is otherwise and intrinsically objectionable. The purpose for which the journal is ordinarily read over in the morning, after it is made up by the Secretary, is simply to correct any mistakes which may have been made in the entries upon it. This is explicitly declared by the standing rules of the Senate, the very first of which provides that the "President having taken the chair, and a quorum being pres ent, the journal of the preceding day shall be read, to the end that any mistake shall be corrected that shall be made in the entries."

Now, sir, in the precedent of 1806, there was no mistake in the entry which was ordered to be expunged. judge himself, for his conduct in taking the examination and deposition of the said Samuel G. Ogden. And the memorialists, considering Congress as the only power competent to relieve them, submit their case to the wisdom of Congress, and pray such relief as the laws and constitution of this country and the wisdom and goodness of Congress may afford them; and the memorials were read; and, on motion,

"Ordered, That the memorialists have leave to withdraw their memorials, respectively."

These memorials appear to have been presented in the morning. After disposing of them, and a variety of other business, the Senate took a recess, and met again a five o'clock P. M. The very last entry on the journal of the evening session is the following order, adopted on ayes and noes, for expunging every thing in the journal relative to the aforesaid memorials:

"On motion that every thing in the journal relative to the memorials of S. G. Ogden and Wm. S. Smith be expunged therefrom," it passed in the affirmative:

"Yeas-Messrs. Adair, Condict, Gilman, Kitchel, Logan, Mitchell, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Stone, Thruston, Worthington, Wright-12.

"Nays-Messrs. Adams, Baldwin, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of Ohio, Tracy, White-8."—Note by Mr. R.

« AnteriorContinuar »