Thomas Hart Benton's Remarks to the Senate on the Expunging ResolutionBenton, Thomas Hart
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Thomas Hart Benton's Remarks to the Senate on the Expunging Resolution
Benton, Thomas Hart
Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845; United States -- Politics and government -- 1837-1841
Assuming, then, that we have ascertained the will of the people on this
great question, the inquiry presents itself, how far the expression of
that will ought to be conclusive of our action here. I hold that it
ought to be binding and obligatory upon us; and that, not only upon the
principles of representative government, which require obedience to the
known will of the people, but also in conformity to the principles upon
which the proceeding against President Jackson was conducted when the
sentence against him was adopted. Then everything was done with
especial reference to the will of the people. Their impulsion was
assumed to be the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate
verdict was expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and
pressure--every engine of political and moneyed power--was put in
motion, and worked for many months, to excite the people against the
President; and to stir up meetings, memorials, petitions, travelling
committees, and distress deputations against him; and each symptom of
popular discontent was hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted
here as proof that the people demanded the condemnation of the
President. Not only legislative assemblies, and memorials from large
assemblies, were then produced here as evidence of public opinion, but
the petitions of boys under age, the remonstrances of a few signers,
and the results of the most inconsiderable elections were
ostentatiously paraded and magnified, as the evidence of the sovereign
will of our constituents. Thus, sir, the public voice was everything,
while that voice, partially obtained through political and pecuniary
machinations, was adverse to the President. Then the popular will was
the shrine at which all worshipped. Now, when that will is regularly,
soberly, repeatedly, and almost universally expressed through the
ballot-boxes, at the various elections, and turns out to be in favor of
the President, certainly no one can disregard it, nor otherwise look at
it than as the solemn verdict of the competent and ultimate tribunal
upon an issue fairly made up, fully argued, and duly submitted for
decision. As such verdict, I receive it. As the deliberate verdict of
the sovereign people, I bow to it. I am content. I do not mean to
reopen the case nor to recommence the argument. I leave that work to
others, if any others choose to perform it. For myself, I am content;
and, dispensing with further argument, I shall call for judgment, and
ask to have execution done, upon that unhappy journal, which the
verdict of millions of freemen finds guilty of bearing on its face an
untrue, illegal, and unconstitutional sentence of condemnation against
the approved President of the Republic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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