A more grave and solemn question has rarely, if ever, been submitted to the Senate of the United States, than the one now under discussion. This Senate is now called upon to review its own decision, to rejudge its own justice, and to annihilate its own sentence, pronounced against the co-ordinate executive branch of this Government. On the 28th of March, 1834, the American Senate, in the face of the American people, in the face of the whole world, by a solemn resolution, pronounced the President of the United States to be a violator of the Constitution of his country—of that Constitution which he had solemnly sworn “to preserve, protect, and defend.” Whether we consider the exalted character of the tribunal which pronounced this condemnation, or the illustrious object against which it was directed, we ought to feel deeply impressed with the high and lasting importance of the present proceeding. It is in fact, if not in form, the trial of the Senate, for having unjustly and unconstitutionally tried and condemned the President; and their accusers are the American people. In this cause I am one of the judges. In some respects, it is a painful position for me to occupy. It is vain, however, to express unavailing regrets. I must, and shall, firmly and sternly, do my duty; although in the performance of it I may wound the feelings of gentlemen whom I respect and esteem. I shall proceed no farther than the occasion demands, and will, therefore, justify. Who was the President of the United States, against whom this sentence has been pronounced? Andrew Jackson—a name which every American mother, after the party strife which agitates us for the present moment shall have passed away, will, during all the generations which this Republic is destined to endure, teach her infant to lisp with that of the venerated name of Washington. The one was the founder, the other the preserver, of the liberties of his country. If President Jackson has been guilty of violating the Constitution of the United States, let impartial justice take its course. I admit that it is no justification for such a crime, that his long life has been more distinguished by acts of disinterested patriotism than that of any American citizen now living. It is no justification that the honesty of his heart and the purity of his intentions have become proverbial, even amongst his political enemies. It is no justification that in the hour of danger, and in the day of battle, he has been his country’s shield. If he has been guilty, let his name be “damned to everlasting fame,” with those of Cæsar and of Napoleon.