Mr. ROWAN moved to amend the resolution under consideration by striking
out all that part after the word “Resolved,” and inserting the following:
_Resolved_, That a special committee be appointed to inquire
into the conduct of Brigadier General James Wilkinson, in
relation to his having, at any time whilst in the service of
the United States, corruptly received money from the Government
of Spain or its agents, and that the said committee have
the power to send for persons and papers, and compel their
attendance and production--and that they report the result of
their inquiry to this House.
The SPEAKER declared the amendment to be a substitute, and of course not
in order.
Mr. RANDOLPH said he was decidedly of opinion that the gentleman from
Kentucky ought to have an opportunity of taking the sense of the House on
his motion: he therefore withdrew the resolution under consideration: when
Mr. ROWAN moved the resolution as above stated.
Mr. BACON said, notwithstanding the evidence which had just been read,
he would give the reasons why he could not yet vote for this House to
act in any manner on this subject, more especially as proposed by this
resolution. It was not to be concealed that the impressions made upon
his mind by the statement of the gentleman from New Orleans were very
considerable; but the impressions which that or any other statement were
calculated to make, were very different from the question of what it
was their duty to do in relation to it. He hoped that they would not be
so much impressed by it (for it contained a great deal he must confess)
as to suffer it to impel them into a path wide of their constitutional
limits. He did not mean to express a definite sentiment as to the guilt
or innocence of the officer involved.
He would not, under the privilege of his seat, on the one hand blazon
the merits of General Wilkinson to the world, nor on the other, declare
that he had sufficient evidence of his guilt. He would leave it to the
unbiased decision of the proper tribunal.
Mr. B. observed the other day, and would now repeat it, that it was not
within their power to adopt the resolution then under consideration,
or that now offered by the gentleman from Kentucky. He then and now
conceived that the offence with which General Wilkinson was charged,
might be cognizable by more than one department--certainly by the
Executive, from his being a military officer. He could say nothing about
the inquiry now instituted one way or the other; for if the constitution
did not authorize them to complete an inquiry, they had no right to
interfere with it, being the exclusive province of the Executive. It
struck him further, that if the facts in this statement should be proven
on a full examination to be true, (and he did not call its correctness
in question, for he had heard the same things from other people,) he
could not see why it was not a case cognizable by a judicial tribunal.
The constitution expressly forbade any person holding an office under
the United States to take a pension or donation from a foreign power.
The act of receiving money from a foreign power, therefore--the charge
made against General Wilkinson--was a crime against the supreme law
of the land, and cognizable by the judicial authority. If, therefore,
we could, as proposed, instruct, request, or in any manner interfere
with the Executive with respect to that portion of the inquiry which
appertains peculiarly to the Executive, as the only power competent to
remove this officer, why may we not in the same manner interfere with
the jurisdiction or cognizance of the Supreme Court? He could see no
difference; with equal justice they could interfere with one as with the
other.
Gentlemen who were in favor of an inquiry in this form, could not
have considered the subject so maturely as they ought. This was a
Government of distributive powers. One class had been delegated to
the Representative body, one to the Executive, and another to the
Judiciary. If they once began each to invade the other’s jurisdiction,
the distributive system was destroyed. It has been said that we are
the Representatives of the people; that it is our duty to see that
the Republic take no harm. This expression was calculated perhaps to
captivate the public ear, and acquire popularity, as well as to captivate
the House. But whatever they might think of what ought to have been
provided, they ought to consider what was. I do not think, because we may
on this, or any other occasion, suppose that we could do a great deal
of good, we ought to take any steps towards effecting an object until
we contemplate our particular powers in relation to that object. It has
been said that this House is the grand inquest of the nation. I do not
know what is meant by this expression; but if I understand the meaning of
the term, it conveys the same meaning as grand jury. Now, Mr. B. said,
he could not agree to any position that this House was legitimately,
on general subjects, the grand inquest of the nation. With respect to
impeachments, and in that case alone, were they the grand jury, for then
the two Houses acted in a judicial capacity--this House being the grand
inquest to inquire, and the Senate being the petit jury to judge of their
presentment. Now, if this House were the grand inquest to inquire into
this, or a similar case, in which an inquiry might seem to be conducive
to the interest of the nation, and were to present a result, where was
the jury to judge of the truth of their verdict? Was it to be tried by
the Senate? That was not pretended to be the course.
On all these accounts, therefore, whatever was the impression which the
paper this morning laid on the table might be calculated to produce
on their minds, he thought they ought sedulously to attend to the
constitutional limits of their duty, and not conclude, merely because
they might in any case act beneficially, that they had the power to act
in such case.
He had before observed, that he would not express an opinion; but he
would say that an inquiry ought to be had; it will, it must be had, and
it should be a full and impartial inquiry. If the inquiry which had
been instituted were but the semblance of an inquiry, for one it would
not satisfy him, or the people, or the nation; it ought not to satisfy
them. Gentlemen had said that a military court of inquiry would not be
competent. Mr. B. did not know what might be their particular power as
to sending for persons; but if that court had not sufficient power, it
was in the power of the House to clothe them with it. He thought they
might, though he would not say that they ought to do this. As a court
of inquiry might have been, or could be, clothed with this power; and,
adverting to what he had before said, that it was a case cognizable by a
judicial tribunal; and if so, that a judicial tribunal had all the power
that this House could exercise in any criminal case, and more than they
had in this, he should vote against every resolution going to express
a conviction that this House had any power or right whatever to act on
a subject solely within the constitutional right of the Executive or
Judiciary.
Mr. RANDOLPH said, if the gentleman who had just sat down had not given
his hasty impressions, but left his good understanding free to operate,
his objections to the resolution would have vanished. The great mistake
made by every gentleman who opposed this measure on constitutional
grounds, was this: that they looked upon an inquiry made by this House,
through the organ of one of its committees, as leading to the punishment
of the individual implicated, and that where this House was not competent
to inflict punishment, it was incompetent to make inquiry; this was the
great stumbling-block, which had impeded their apprehension. But he
would ask the gentleman from Massachusetts whether this House was not
competent to make an inquiry for its own legislative guidance? Was it not
competent, as well in its capacity of supervisor of the public peace, as
to obtain a guide for its own actions, to inquire into this matter? Was
not the House clothed with the power of disbanding the army? Now, suppose
a committee of the House, upon inquiry, were to report, perhaps, that not
only the Commander-in-chief, but the whole mass of the army, were tainted
with foreign corruption, or were abettors of domestic treason, could any
man assign to himself a stronger reason than this for breaking an army
on the spot? Did not the gentleman know, or rather did he not feel, that
this House had the right of refusing the supplies necessary for the army?
And could a stronger reason be given for a refusal to pass the military
appropriation bill than that they were nourishing an institution which
threatened our existence as a free and happy people? Let me, if it is
in order, ask the gentleman from Massachusetts to turn his attention to
the proceeding of which we have official notice in another branch of
the National Legislature, an inquiry into the conduct of one of its own
members. Did they not all know that that man’s offence was punishable
by a civil tribunal? But the inquiry was not there made with a view to
a trial, not to usurp the powers of the judiciary, but to direct that
body in the exercise of its acknowledged legislative functions. Inasmuch
as they possessed the power to expel one of their own members, to
amputate the diseased limb, they possessed the power, and exercised it,
to make an inquiry. Now, the gentleman from Kentucky had just as much
right to institute an inquiry which might lead to the exercise of the
legislative powers of this House, which might cause the disbanding of the
present army, the erection of another, or the refusal of supplies, as
to institute an inquiry into the conduct of a member with a view to his
expulsion, or of an Executive officer, with a view to impeach him before
the Senate.
Mr. R. therefore presumed that any inquiry which this House might choose
to make into the conduct of any officer, civil or military, was not
an interference with the powers of any of the co-ordinate branches of
Government; they were left free to move in their own orbits. If a crime
had been committed against the statute law of the United States by such
officer, the judiciary were as free to punish it as it was free to punish
a member of this House, into whose conduct, upon suspicion of treason or
misdemeanor, inquiry had been made, with a view to his expulsion. The
Executive likewise was left free to exercise his discretion; he was left
free to dismiss this officer, to inquire into his conduct himself, either
with his own eyes or ears, or by a military court; to applaud, or censure.
Did they take possession of the body of this officer by an inquiry into
his conduct? Did they interfere with the court of inquiry now on foot,
but totally incompetent to the object? Gentlemen, indeed, had said, that
if that court did not possess the power of compelling the attendance
of witnesses, we might clothe it with that power. In expressing this
opinion, the gentleman from Massachusetts had not been more considerate
than in expressing his first opinion. Could any one conceive a more
dreadful or terrible instrument of persecution than a military court,
clothed with the power to coerce the evidence, and the production of
papers of private citizens? Clothe them with this power, and there is not
a man in the United States who may not be compelled to go, at whatsoever
season, to the remotest garrison, on whatsoever trifling occasion, at
the will of a court martial, or a court of inquiry, leading to the
establishment of a court martial.
In the course of the present year, Mr. R. said it had been his lot to
receive, from no dubious or suspicious source, information touching,
not, to be sure, the immediate subject on which an inquiry had been
moved by the gentleman from Kentucky, but one intimately and closely
connected with it. He meant the project, through the instrumentality
of the Army of the United States, to dismember the Union; and he had no
hesitation in saying--and it had been the opinion of a large majority,
if not of every one of those of whom he had been a colleague--that the
Army of the United States was tainted with that disease; and that, so
far from the Army of the United States having the credit of suppressing
that project, the moment it was found that the courage of that Army
had failed, the project was abandoned by those who had undertaken it,
because the agency of the army was the whole pivot on which that plot had
turned! This was in evidence before the grand jury, who had the subject
in cognizance last spring. He said that these conspirators were caressed
at the different posts of the United States, in their way down the river,
and by officers of no small rank, that they received arms from them,
and the principal part of the arms these men had with them was taken
from the public stores; and under a knowledge of these circumstances,
was he not justified in the belief that the whole Army of the United
States was connected in the project? He did not mean every individual,
for there were some who could not be trusted, and some who were at posts
too far distant to be reached. That those who were confidants of the
Commander-in-chief were interested in the conspiracy, no man who knew any
thing of the circumstances could doubt. He, therefore, thought that the
resolution moved by the gentleman from Kentucky was every way reasonable.
Indeed, he did not know whether the resolution should not be so varied as
to embrace not only a charge of that nature, but all whatsoever.
Before he sat down, he should have it in his power to give to the House
something certainly very much resembling evidence in support of the
justice of his suspicions on this subject. On the 26th of January last,
the House would perceive by the Journals, a Message was received from
the President of the United States, “transmitting further information
touching an illegal combination,” &c., printed by order of the House, and
which he now held in his hand. In this Message is contained the following
affidavit:
“I, James Wilkinson, Brigadier General and Commander-in-chief
of the Army of the United States, to warrant the arrest of
Samuel Swartwout, James Alexander, Esq., and Peter V. Ogden,
on a charge of treason, misprision of treason, or such other
offence against the Government and laws of the United States,
as the following facts may legally charge them with, on the
honor of a soldier, and on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty
God, do declare and swear, that in the beginning of the month
of October last, when in command at Natchitoches, a stranger
was introduced to me by Colonel Cushing, by the name of
Swartwout, who, a few minutes after the Colonel retired from
the room, slipped into my hand a letter of formal introduction
from Colonel Burr, of which the following is a correct copy:
“‘PHILADELPHIA, 25th July, 1806.
“‘DEAR SIR: Mr. Swartwout, the brother of Colonel S., of New
York, being on his way down the Mississippi, and presuming
that he may pass you at some post on the river, has requested
of me a letter of introduction, which I give with pleasure, as
he is a most amiable young man, and highly respectable from
his character and connections. I pray you to afford him any
friendly offices which his situation may require, and beg you
to pardon the trouble which this may give you.
“‘With entire respect, your friend and obedient servant,