Imatges de pàgina
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140. "Every thing," he says, "depends on the selection of your ministry. In every selection, party and party feelings should be avoided. Now is the time to extirpate that monster, called party spirit. . By selecting characters most conspicuous for their probity, virtue, capacity and firmness, without any regard to party, you will go far to eradicate those feelings, which, on former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way of government, and, perhaps, have the pleasure and honour of uniting a people heretofore politically divided. The Chief Magistrate of a great and powerful nation should never indulge in party feelings; his conduct should be liberal and disinterested, always bearing in mind, that he acts for the whole and not a part of the community. By this course you will exalt the national character, and acquire for yourself, a fame as imperishable as monumental marble. Consult no party in your choice, pursue the dictates of that unerring judgment, which has so long and so often benefited our country, and rendered illustrious its rulers."

These highly moral and patriotic principles he seems to have maintained so late as May, 1824, when, in a letter to the Honorable George Kremer, he observed, "My advice to the President was, that he should act upon principles like these: Consider himself the head of the nation, not of a party; that he should have around him the best talent the country could afford, without regard to sectional divisions; and should, in his selections, seek after men of probity, virtue, capacity and firmness; and, in this way, he would go far to eradicate those feelings which, on former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way of government; and be enabled, perhaps; to unite a people heretofore politically divided.”

141. Had General Jackson, indeed, possessed the high, though uncultivated, intellect which his admirers ascribe to him, and the resolute honesty of purpose which he boasts, the present would have been the occasion for their exercise, from which he would have derived "a fame as imperishable as monumental marble." But, instead of the destroyer of the monster party, he became its tool, its very slave; and obeyed its voice with a ready submission which contrasts, oddly enough, with his restiveness under wholesome restraint upon other occasions, and with which we might have been surprised, had we not known that lowliness is oft ambition's ladder..

142. The voice of this party, begotten and born in corruption, resounded from all quarters, like the howlings of fam

ished dogs that had run down the chace and awaited the division of the spoil. In Congress the public business was neglected, while the members were engaged in intrigues for securing office to themselves or friends. The Senate refused to confirm nominations to office upon the general principle of the propriety of the occasion, and the qualifications of the nominees, but postponed the appointments avowedly on party grounds-and that the offices might be filled, not by the actual President, but by his successor. In this, adopting the doctrine of Mr. Van Buren, with which that artful politician had surprised the Senate soon after he gained a seat there, by declaring in the case of the appointment of a Marshall for the Western District of Pennsylvania, that the votes of the nominee for President should be the test of the propriety of his appointment. The City of Washington was crowded by hungry expectants, who claimed the removal from office of incumbents, upon the principle of rotation in office-of some who had supported the General, because they had grown rich; of others, of this class, because they might have grown wealthy, and had neglected the opportunity; of those who had not supported the General, because, they held the stations due to those who had toiled and sacrificed their time and money in the contest. The disgusting venality of the party was not only notorious, it was boastingly avowed. Thus exclaimed one print of New York, an organ of the party:

143. "The fact is, there is no classification in this business; it is a great national reform, which involves but two considerations one is embraced, in the principle of rotation in office; and the other, in the homely, but trite saying, that 'he who is not for us is against us.' We are a government of opinion-every man has a right to express his opinion freely, and after a great national election, distinguished for extraordinary warmth and activity, where man was opposed to man, and for nearly four years was the subject of daily discussion, how can a person holding a lucrative office hope to escape securely, by saying, 'I had no opinion.' The subject, it is true, is one of deliberation, and will, we think, be freely discussed, when the President shall be at leisure and surrounded by his cabinet; but it must be reduced at last, to principles and names.

"We can only say that a thorough reform is expected by the enemies as well as the friends of General Jackson."

The logic and morality of this extract, are alike contemptible. Reform! National Reform! to be effected by the removal

of the national officers, not for official malversation, not for difference of opinion on measures, governing the public weal, but for difference in opinion, on the qualifications of candidates for the first magistracy. A Reform which involved no other principle than the reward of the minions of the successful candidate. A more impudent avowal of venality, of the worst principles that can be applied to government, has never been made. But, that they were acceptable, is but too lamentably true; for, the editor, who, with so much effrontery, proclaimed them, was rewarded with one of the best offices in the New York custom house.

144. But such improvement of the press, sought by Mr. Van Buren, had been widely extended. Editors of newspapers, who "toiled hard and spent their money," in almost every State of the Union, preferred claims for remuneration, which were generally admitted, and discharged by a productive office. Thus, full fifty of the patriotic presses were improved, by the master spirit, who has directed their operations to aid his succession to the Presidency. Of the unconstitutionality of the power thus exercised by the President, we shall have occasion to speak fully hereafter. Of the manner in which the General was cheered and urged to its exercise, so destructive to public virtue, the following, from the pen of the same New York editor, is a fair specimen.

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Removals. The work goes bravely on; the friends of Mr. Adams are removed from office, and the friends of General Jackson are appointed. This course, indicating firmness and obedience to the public will, will give permu nency to any administration."

145. The reader will observe, that, there is not even a pretence of public utility urged for this proscription. It is admitted to have been made because the subjects are friends of Mr. Adams, and their substitutes the 'friends of General Jackson. The public offices are avowedly seized and distributed as spoils taken with the sword and the spear; and the administration is told, what indeed, it well knew, and what had induced the practice, that, the proscription would give permanency to its power. If, before the President left the Hermitage, his own temper had not prompted him to "reward his friends and punish his enemies," if the desire of vengeance had not caused him then, to forget or disregard the professions he had made to Mr. Monroe, it is certain, that before his inauguration he had been seduced by the hope of this permanency, to adopt the slang and the practice of reform:

in other words, to prostitute his official power to continue himself in office.

Nay, this proscription has been unblushingly defended in the United States Senate, by Mr. Marcy, the present Governor of New York. "When they," (the politicians) he exclaimed, "are contending for victory, they avow their intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated they expect to retire from office. If they are successful, they claim as a matter of right, the advantage of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule, that to the victor belongs the spoils of the enemy.'

146. We know not who prepared the President's inaugural address. From the careful non-committal, in many points, it savours of Mr. Van Buren, but it wants the gloss, with which that gentleman usually covers his doublings, and it is, therefore, probable, that it came from the unlettered soldier, rather than from the Machiavelian civilian. With foreign nations, the President proposed to preserve peace, and cultivate friendship: To the States, the sovereign members of the Union, he promised, not to confound the powers they had reserved, with those they had granted: In the management of the revenue, which is falsely assumed as an executive prerogative, he proposed strict and faithful economy, with a view to the payment of the public debt, and to counteract that tendency to public and private profligacy, which a profuse expenditure of money, by the Government, is but too apt to engender: In the selection of subjects for impost, he professed equal favour to agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; excepting from the rule the peculiar productions of either, which might be essential to national independence: Internal improvements, and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they could be promoted by constitutional acts, he deemed of high importance: He further promised, not to enlarge the army, nor regard the military other than as subordinate to the civil power; to increase the navy, gradually; to strengthen the militia; and to observe towards the Indian tribes a just and liberal policy.

147. Upon all the uncontested subjects of national polity, this profession of faith and practice offers nothing new. Upon the vexed questions of the tariff, and internal improvements, it is designedly and strikingly equivocal. In the promise to the States, South Carolina saw encouragement to nullification: In the strict and faithful economy, in the guarded remarks on the tariff and internal improvements, the enemies

of the American System found a pledge for its abandonment: And in the just and liberal policy towards the Indians, Georgia beheld the fruition of her designs upon the gold lands of the Cherokees. Yet the friends of domestic industry and internal improvements, notwithstanding their apprehensions, wouldsee in these plausible, indefinite expressions, only a disposition for their judicious regulation.

The duties on which we have commented, grew from the Constitution. But the new President found others which had a different origin. "The recent demonstrations of public sentiment," he says, "inscribes on the list of Executive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task of REFORM, (that is, rotation in office) which will require, particularly, the correction of those abuses that have brought the patronage of the Federal Government into conflict with the freedom of elections, and the counteraction of those causes which have disturbed the rightful course of appointment, and have placed, or continued power in unfaithful or incompetent hands."

"In the performance of a task thus generally delineated, I shall endeavour to select men whose diligence and talents will ensure, in their respective stations able and faithful cooperation-depending upon the advancement of the public more on the integrity and zeal of the public officers than on their numbers."

We had supposed, that, the President of the United States was the mere creature of the Constitution, that his powers were given and regulated by it, and that he had neither duties prescribed nor powers conferred from any other source. That in it he lived, moved, and had his being. We bow before the divinity of Public Sentiment, but it is in the temples which it has ordained, in halls of legislation and the courts of law. Legislators and Judges are its Priests and the expounders of its will, and the President is but their executor. But the President has assumed to be the high priest of this divinity, which he considers paramount to the Constitution and the law, and its responses are made by and through him alone. The demonstration of public sentiment to which he professes obedience, is not a mere figure of speech. He assigns it as authority for a Sylla-like proscription, in the attainment of power, and appeals to it, throughout his adminis tration, to justify violation of the best established rights.

148. From the following passage of the President's Message, of December, 1830, will be seen, the kind of worship

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