CLAY

ENRY CLAY was born near Richmond, Virginia, in 1777. The son of

HEN

a Baptist minister, who died when the boy was but five years old, he passed his youth in hardship, and for a time worked on a farm. At the age of fifteen he obtained employment in the office of the Clerk of the Court of Chancery, and having gained some influential friends, began in 1796 to study law. A year later he was admitted to the bar and began to practice in Lexington, Kentucky. Having taken a conspicuous part in the discussions concerning the Constitution to be adopted by the State of Kentucky, he was in 1803 chosen member of the Legislature. Three years later, although less than thirty years of age, he became for a few months member of the Senate of the United States. In the next year he again took a seat in the Legislature of Kentucky, of which in 1808 he was chosen Speaker. In 1811 he became a member of the Federal House of Representatives, and was at once elected Speaker, a position which he subsequently held four times. All his energies were now devoted to bringing about a war between the United States and Great Britain. At the end of the contest he was appointed one of the commissioners who were sent to Ghent to conclude a treaty of peace. In 1824 he allowed himself to be nominated for the Presidency, and when the election went to the House of Representatives, Clay gave his support to John Quincy Adams. In Adams' administration Clay held the post of Secretary of State. In 1832, and again in 1844, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency. After the last-named year he retired from public life, but in 1848 he was again sent to the Federal Senate from Kentucky, and in 1850 carried the compromise measures by which he sought to avert a rupture of the Union on the slavery question. He died on July 29, 1851.

DICTATORS IN AMERICAN POLITICS

DENOUNCING ANDREW JACKSON, DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, ON THE POINDEXTER RESOLUTION, APRIL 30, 1834

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EVER, Mr. President, have I known or read of an administration which expires with so much agony, and so little composure and resignation, as that which now unfortunately has the control of public affairs in this country. It exhibits a state of mind, feverish, fret

ful, and fidgety, bounding recklessly from one desperate expedient to another, without any sober or settled purpose. Ever since the dog days of last summer, it has been making a succession of the most extravagant plunges, of which the extraordinary Cabinet paper, a sort of appeal from a dissenting Cabinet to the people, was the first; and the protest, a direct appeal from the Senate to the people, is the last and the worst.

A new philosophy has sprung up within a few years past, called Phrenology. There is, I believe, something in it, but not quite as much as its ardent followers proclaim. According to its doctrines, the leading passion, propensity, and characteristics of every man are developed in his physi cal conformation, chiefly in the structure of his head. Gall and Spurzheim, its founders, or most eminent propagators, being dead, I regret that neither of them can examine the head of our illustrious Chief Magistrate. But, if it could be surveyed by Dr. Caldwell, of Transylvania University, I am persuaded that he would find the organ of destructiveness prominently developed. Except an enormous fabric of executive power for himself, the President has built up nothing, constructed nothing, and will leave no enduring monument of his administration. He goes for destruction, universal destruction; and it seems to be his greatest ambition to efface and obliterate every trace of the wisdom of his predecessors. He has displayed this remarkable trait throughout his whole life, whether in private walks or in the public service. He signally and gloriously exhibited that peculiar organ when contending against the enemies of his country, in the battle of New Orleans. For that brilliant exploit, no one has ever been more ready than myself to award him all due honor. At the head of our

armies was his appropriate position, and most unfortunate for his fame was the day when he entered on the career of administration as the chief executive officer. He lives by excitement, perpetual, agitating excitement, and would die. in a state of perfect repose and tranquillity. He has never been without some subject of attack, either in individuals, or in masses, or in institutions. I, myself, have been one of his favorites, and I do not know but that I have recently recommended myself to his special regard. During his administration this has been his constant course. The Indians and Indian policy, internal improvements, the colonial trade, the Supreme Court, Congress, the bank, have successively experienced the attacks of his haughty and imperious spirit. And if he tramples the bank in the dust, my word for it, we shall see him quickly in chase of some new subject of his vengeance. This is the genuine spirit of conquerors and of conquest. It is said by the biographer of Alexander the Great, that, after he had completed his Asiatic conquests, he seemed to sigh because there were no more worlds for him to subdue; and, finding himself without further employment for his valor or his arms, he turned within himself to search the means to gratify his insatiable thirst of glory. What sort of conquest he achieved of himself, the same biographer tragically records.

Already has the President singled out and designated, in the Senate of the United States, the new object of his hostile pursuit; and the protest, which I am now to consider, is his declaration of war. What has provoked it? The Senate, a component part of the Congress of the United States, at its last adjournment left the Treasury of the United States in the safe custody of the persons and places assigned by law to keep it. Upon reassembling, it found the treasure re

moved; some of its guardians displaced; all, remaining, brought under the immediate control of the President's sole will; and the President having free and unobstructed access to the public money. The Senate believes that the purse of the nation is, by the Constitution and laws, intrusted to the exclusive legislative care of Congress. It has dared to avow and express this opinion, in a resolution adopted on the twenty-eighth of March last. That resolution was preceded by a debate of three months' duration, in the progress of which the able and zealous supporters of the Executive in the Senate were attentively heard. Every argument which their ample resources, or those of the members of the Executive, could supply was listened to with respect, and duly weighed. After full deliberation, the Senate expressed its conviction that the Executive had violated the Constitution and laws. It cautiously refrained in the resolution from all examination into the motives or intention of the Executive; it ascribed no bad ones to him; it restricted itself to a simple declaration of its solemn belief that the Constitution and laws had been violated. This is the extent of the offence of the Senate. This is what it has done to excite the Executive indignation and to bring upon it the infliction of a denunciatory protest.

The President comes down upon the Senate and demands that it record upon its journal this protest. He recommends no measure-no legislation whatever. He proposes no executive proceeding on the part of the Senate. He requests the recording of his protest, and he requests nothing more nor less. The Senate has abstained from putting on its own record any vindication of the resolution of which the President complains. It has not asked of him to place it, where he says he has put his protest, in the archives of the

Executive. He desires, therefore, to be done for him, on the journal of the Senate, what has not been done for itself. The Senate keeps no recording office for protests, deeds, wills, or other instruments. The Constitution enjoins that "each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings." In conformity with this requirement, the Senate does keep a journal of its proceedings-not the proceedings of the Executive, or any other department of the government, except so far as they relate directly to the business of the Senate. The President sometimes professes to favor a strict construction of the Constitution, at least in regard to the powers of all the departments of the government other than that of which he is the chief. As to that, he is the greatest latitudinarian that has ever filled the office of President. Upon any fair construction of the Constitution, how can the Senate be called upon to record upon its journal any proceedings but its own? It is true that the ordinary messages of the President are usually inserted at large in the journal. Strictly speaking, it perhaps ought never to have been done; but they have been heretofore registered, because they relate to the general business of the Senate, either in its legislative or executive character, and have been the basis of subsequent proceedings. The protest. stands upon totally distinct ground.

The President professes to consider himself as charged by the resolution with "the high crime of violating the laws and Constitution of my country." He declares that "one of the most important branches of the government, in its official capacity, in a public manner, and by its recorded sentence, but without precedent, competent authority, or just cause, declares him guilty of a breach of the laws and Constitution." The protest further alleges that such an act