The Life of Abraham Lincoln, from His Birth to His Inauguration as PresidentLamon, Ward Hill
History
The Life of Abraham Lincoln, from His Birth to His Inauguration as President
Lamon, Ward Hill
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
But, after the nominations at Baltimore and Philadelphia, everybody
in either House of Congress who could compose any thing at all "on his
legs," or in the closet, felt it incumbent upon him to contribute at
least one electioneering speech to the political literature of the day.
At last, on the 27th of July, Mr. Lincoln found an opportunity to make
his. Few like it have ever been heard in either of those venerable
chambers. It is a common remark of those who know nothing of the
subject, that Mr. Lincoln was devoid of imagination; but the reader of
this speech will entertain a different opinion. It opens to us a mind
fertile in images sufficiently rare and striking, but of somewhat
questionable taste. It must have been heard in amazement by those
gentlemen of the House who had never known a Hanks, or seen a New Salem.
SPEECH ON THE PRESIDENCY AND GENERAL POLITICS.
DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE, JULY 27, 1848.
Mr. Speaker,--Our Democratic friends seem to be in great distress
because they think our candidate for the Presidency don't suit us. Most
of them cannot find out that Gen. Taylor has any principles at all;
some, however, have discovered that he has one, but that that one is
entirely wrong. This one principle is his position on the veto power.
The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Stanton), who has just taken his
seat, indeed, has said there is very little, if any, difference on this
question between Gen. Taylor and all the Presidents; and he seems to
think it sufficient detraction from Gen. Taylor's position on it, that
it has nothing new in it. But all others whom I have heard speak
assail it furiously. A new member from Kentucky (Mr. Clarke) of very
considerable ability, was in particular concern about it. He thought it
altogether novel and unprecedented for a President, or a Presidential
candidate, to think of approving bills whose constitutionality may not
be entirely clear to his own mind. He thinks the ark of our safety
is gone, unless Presidents shall always veto such bills as, in their
judgment, may be of doubtful constitutionality. However clear Congress
may be of their authority to pass any particular act, the gentleman from
Kentucky thinks the President must veto it if he has doubts about it.
Now, I have neither time nor inclination to argue with the gentleman
on the veto power as an original question; but I wish to show that Gen.
Taylor, and not he, agrees with the earliest statesmen on this question.
When the bill chartering the first Bank of the United States passed
Congress, its constitutionality was questioned; Mr. Madison, then in
the House of Representatives, as well as others, had opposed it on
that ground. Gen. Washington, as President, was called on to approve or
reject it. He sought and obtained, on the constitutional question, the
separate written opinions of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph;
they then being respectively Secretary of State, Secretary of the
Treasury, and Attorney-General.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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