MR. TYLER AND THE WHIG PARTY: CONFIRMED SEPARATION.
At the close of the extra session, a vigorous effort was made to
detach the whig party from Mr. Clay. Mr. Webster in his published
letter, in justification of his course in remaining in the cabinet
when his colleagues left it, gave as a reason the expected unity
of the party under a new administration. "A whig president, a
whig Congress, and a whig people," was the vision that dazzled
and seduced him. Mr. Cushing published his address, convoking
the whigs to the support of Mr. Tyler. Mr. Clay was stigmatized
as a dictator, setting himself up against the real President.
Inducements as well as arguments were addressed to the whig ranks
to obtain recruits: all that came received high reward. The arrival
of the regular session was to show the fruit of these efforts, and
whether the whig party was to become a unity under Mr. Tyler, Mr.
Webster, and Mr. Cushing, or to remain embodied under Mr. Clay. It
remained so embodied. Only a few, and they chiefly who had served an
apprenticeship to party mutation in previous changes, were seen to
join him: the body of the party remained firm, and militant--angry
and armed; and giving to President Tyler incessant proofs of their
resentment. His legislative recommendations were thwarted, as most
of them deserved to be: his name was habitually vituperated or
ridiculed. Even reports of committees, and legislative votes, went
the length of grave censure and sharp rebuke. The select committee
of thirteen, to whom the consideration of the second tariff, in
a report signed by nine of its members, Mr. Adams at their head,
suggested impeachment as due to him:
"The majority of the committee believe that the case has
occurred, in the annals of our Union, contemplated by the
founders of the constitution by the grant to the House of
Representatives of the power to impeach the President of the
United States; but they are aware that the resort to that
expedient might, in the present condition of public affairs,
prove abortive. They see that the irreconcilable difference of
opinion and of action between the legislative and executive
departments of the government is but sympathetic with the same
discordant views and feelings among the people."
A rebuking resolve, and of a retributive nature, was adopted by the
House. It has been related (Vol. I.) that when President Jackson
sent to the Senate a protest against the senatorial condemnation
pronounced upon him in 1835, the Senate refused to receive it, and
adopted resolutions declaring the protest to be a breach of the
privileges of the body in interfering with the discharge of their
duties. The resolves so adopted were untrue, and the reverse of the
truth--the whole point of the protest being that the condemnation
was extra-judicial and void, coming under no division of power
which belonged to the Senate: not legislative, for it proposed
no act of legislation: not executive, for it applied to no treaty
or nomination: not judicial, for it was founded in no articles of
impeachment from the House, and without forming the Senate into
a court of impeachment. The protest considered the condemnatory
sentence, and justly, as the act of a town meeting, done in the
Senate-chamber, and by senators; but of no higher character than if
done by the same number of citizens in a voluntary town meeting.
This was the point, and whole complaint of the protest; but the
Senate, avoiding to meet it in that form, put a different face
upon it, as an interference with the constitutional action of
the Senate, attacking its independence; and, therefore, a breach
of its privileges. Irritated by the conduct of the House in its
reports upon his tariff-veto messages, Mr. Tyler sent in a protest
also, as President Jackson had done, but without attending to the
difference of the cases, and that, in its action upon the veto
messages, the House was clearly acting within its sphere--within
its constitutional legislative capacity; and, consequently, however
disagreeable to him this action might be, it was still legislative
and constitutional, and such as the House had a legal _right_ to
adopt, whether just or unjust. Overlooking this difference, Mr.
Tyler sent in his protest also: but the House took the distinction;
and applied legitimately to the conduct of Mr. Tyler what had been
illegally applied to General Jackson, with the aggravation of
turning against himself his own votes on that occasion--Mr. Tyler
being one of the senators who voted in favor of the three resolves
against President Jackson's protest. When this protest of Mr. Tyler
was read in the House, Mr. Adams stood up, and said:
"There seemed to be an expectation on the part of some gentlemen
that he should propose to the House some measure suitable to be
adopted on the present occasion. Mr. A. knew of no reason for
such an expectation, but the fact that he had been the mover of
the resolution for the appointment of the committee which had
made the report referred to in the message; had been appointed
by the Speaker, chairman of the committee; and that the report
against which the President of the United States had sent to
the House such a multitude of protests, was written by him. So
far as it had been so written, Mr. A. held himself responsible
to the House, to the country, to the world, and to posterity;
and, so far as he was the author of the report, he held himself
responsible to the President also. The President should hear
from him elsewhere than here on that subject. Mr. A. went on
to say that it was because the report had been adopted by the
House, and not because it had been written by him, that the
President had sent such a bundle of protests; and therefore Mr.
A. felt no necessity or obligation upon himself to propose what
measures the House ought to adopt for the vindication of its own
dignity and honor; and perhaps, from considerations of delicacy,
he was indeed the very last man in the House who should propose
any measure, under the circumstances."
Mr. Botts, of Virginia, a member of the committee which had made the
report, after some introductory remarks, went on to say:
"In 1834 the Senate had adopted certain resolutions, condemning
the course of President Jackson in the removal of the deposits
from the Bank of the United States to the State banks. In
consequence of this movement on the part of the Senate,
President Jackson sent to that body a _protest_ against the
right of the Senate to express any opinion censuring his public
course; and, what made the case then stronger than the present
case, was, that the Senate constituted the jury by whom he was
to be tried, should any impeachment be brought against him.
The Senate, after a long, elaborate discussion of the whole
matter, and the most eloquent and overpowering torrent of debate
that ever was listened to in this country, adopted the three
following resolutions:
'1. _Resolved_, That, while the Senate is, and ever will be,
ready to receive from the President all such messages and
communications as the constitution and laws, and the usual
course of business, authorize him to transmit to it; yet it
cannot recognize any right in him to make a formal protest
against votes and proceedings of the Senate, declaring such
votes and proceedings to be illegal and unconstitutional, and
requesting the Senate to enter such protests on its journal.'
"On this resolution the yeas and nays were taken; and it was
adopted, by a vote of 27 to 16: and, among the recorded votes in
its favor, stood the names of John Tyler, now acting President
of the United States, and Daniel Webster, now his prime minister.
"The second resolution was as follows:
'2. _Resolved_, That the aforesaid protest is a breach of the
privileges of the Senate, and that it be not entered on the
journal.'
"The same vote, numerically, was given in favor of this
resolution; and among the yeas stood the names of John Tyler,
now acting President of the United States, and of Daniel
Webster, now his prime minister.
"The third resolutions read as follows:
'3. _Resolved_, That the President of the United States has
no right to send a protest to the Senate against any of its
proceedings.'
"And in sanction of this resolution also, the record shows the
names of the same John Tyler and Daniel Webster."
Mr. Botts forbore to make any remarks of his own in support of
the adoption of these resolutions, but read copious extracts from
the speech of Mr. Webster in support of the same resolutions when
offered in the Senate; and, adopting them as his own, called for the
previous question; which call was sustained; and the main question
being put, and the vote taken on the resolutions separately, they
were all carried by large majorities. The yeas and nays on the first
resolve, were:
"YEAS--Messrs. Adams, Landaff W. Andrews, Arnold, Babcock,
Barnard, Birdseye, Blair, Boardman, Borden, Botts, Brockway,
Jeremiah Brown, Calhoun, William B. Campbell, Thomas J.
Campbell, Caruthers, Chittenden, John C. Clark, Cowen, Garrett
Davis, John Edwards, Everett, Fillmore, Gamble, Gentry, Graham,
Granger, Green, Habersham, Hall, Halsted, Howard, Hudson,
Joseph R. Ingersoll, Isaac D. Jones, John P. Kennedy, King,
Linn, McKennan, S. Mason, Mathiot, Mattocks, Maxwell, Maynard,
Mitchell, Moore, Morrow, Osborne, Owsley, Pope, Powell, Ramsey,
Benj. Randall, A. Randall, Randolph, Rayner, Ridgway, Rodney,
William Russell, James M. Russell, Saltonstall, Shepperd,
Simonton, Slade, Truman Smith, Sprigg, Stanly, Stratton,
Summers, Taliaferro, John B. Thompson, Richard W. Thompson,
Tillinghast, Toland, Tomlinson, Triplett, Trumbull, Underwood,
Van Rensselaer, Wallace, Warren, Washington, Thomas W. Williams,
Joseph L. Williams, Yorke, and Augustus Young--87.
"NAYS--Messrs. Arrington, Atherton, Black, Boyd, Aaron V. Brown,
Burke, Wm. O. Butler, P. C. Caldwell, Casey, Coles, Cross,
Cushing, Richard D. Davis, Dawson, Gordon, Harris, Hastings,
Hays, Hopkins, Hubbard, William W. Irwin, Cave Johnson, John
W. Jones, Abraham McClellan, Mallory, Medill, Newhard, Oliver,
Parmenter, Payne, Proffit, Read, Reding, Reynolds, Riggs,
Rogers, Shaw, Shields, Steenrod, Jacob Thompson, Van Buren,
Ward, Weller, James W. Williams, Wise, and Wood--46."
The other two resolves were adopted by, substantially, the same
vote--the whole body of the whigs voting for the adoption. And
this may be considered, so far as Congress was concerned, as the
authoritative answer to that idea of whig unity which had induced
Mr. Webster to remain in the cabinet. General Jackson was then
alive, and it must have looked to him like retributive justice to
see two of those (Mr. Tyler and Mr. Webster) who had voted his
protest to be a breach of privilege, when it was not, now receiving
the same vote from their own party; and that in a case where the
breach of privilege was real.