Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 2 (of 2)Curtis, George Ticknor
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Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 2 (of 2)
Curtis, George Ticknor
Buchanan, James, 1791-1868
But why has the abolishment of the Executive veto become an article of
Whig faith? Simply because General Jackson and Mr. Tyler each vetoed
bills to establish a Bank of the United States! “Still harping on my
daughter.” The Whigs have determined to destroy the veto power, which
has twice prevented them from creating an institution which they love
above all other political objects. The veto power has saved the
country from the corrupt and corrupting influence of a bank; and it is
this alone which has rendered it so odious to the Whig party.
This power is the least dangerous of all the great powers conferred by
the Constitution upon the President; because nothing but a strong
sense of public duty and a deep conviction that he will be sustained
by the people can ever induce him to array himself against a majority
of both Houses of Congress. It has been exercised but in comparatively
few instances since the origin of the Federal Government; and I am not
aware that it has ever been exercised in any case, which has not
called forth the approving voice of a large majority of the American
people. Confident I am, it is highly popular in Pennsylvania.
“Rotation in office” is the next head of General Scott’s letter.
Throughout the Presidential contest, which resulted in the election of
General Harrison, it was the fashion of the Whigs to proscribe
proscription; and to denounce Democratic Presidents for removing their
political enemies and appointing their political friends to office.
General Scott, in his letter, comes up to the Whig standard in this,
as in all other respects. In his profession of faith, he could not
even avoid a fling against the hero and the sage then in retirement at
the Hermitage. He says: “I speak on this head from what I witnessed in
1829-30 (the commencement of General Jackson’s administration), of the
cruel experiments on a large scale, then made upon the sensibilities
of the country, and the mischiefs to the public interests which early
ensued.”
But what was the Whig practice upon the subject after they had
obtained power? General Jackson was magnanimous, kind-hearted and
merciful, and to my own knowledge he retained a very large proportion
of Whig clerks in the public offices at Washington. I ask how many
Democrats now remain in those offices? Nay, the present administration
has even proscribed old widows whose husbands had been Democrats. In
the city of Lancaster, they removed from the post-office an old lady
of this character, who had performed her duties to the entire
satisfaction of the public of all parties, to make way for a political
(I admit a respectable political) friend. To the credit of General
Taylor’s memory be it spoken, he refused to make war upon this old
lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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