He desired to go into an examination of the matter, and if, as the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. GRUNDY] desires it to appear, it should be seen that there had only been negligence, and not malfeasance in the Department, he, for one, should be happy to adopt such a con. clusion. What might be the construction of the Senator from Missouri, as to the limited legislative powers of this body, had nothing to do with the question. Had they failed in an expression of their judgment?

As to the gentlemen on the other side, had they not voted for such a resolution precisely as he had called for? The Senate, at the last session, decided unanimously that the borrowing of money, by the Postmaster General, was unconstitutional and contrary to law. He (Mr. H.) was disposed then to think that there had been malfeasance in the Department. Now, what was the resolution which the committee then offered relative to the Post Office? [Mr. P. here read the resolution of last session.] And this appeared to have passed by a unanimous vote, and every name was put upon the yeas and nays, the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] standing at the head of the list.

Was there, he would ask, any thing extraordinary in his course, or any thing which demanded a connexion of this matter with the resolution of the Senator from Missouri? The honorable Senator had given him his authority for calling for a similar resolution now, by his course on a former occasion, precisely under the like circumstances. If he (Mr. P.) went a step further, and exercised the constitutional right of this body to censure public officers when guilty of misdemeanors, could he (Mr. P.) then desire any thing more to sustain him in his purpose than the resolution which he had just read? in which the Senator from Missouri, by his vote, censured the Department in strong terms, and declared that its acts had been illegal and void! In which the Benator himself had selected the head of the Department, individuated him, and declared his conduct to be unlawful, and his acts void! He was therefore sustained by the honorable Senator, and by none more strongly. Now, the gentleman, looking at his conduct on that occasion, could not differ with him (Mr. P.) on the present: it was impossible that he could do otherwise than support such a resolution relative to the Department, as le (Mr. P.) desired to see.

There had been a mal-administration of the office; a gross, wrong, and palpable mismanagement of it. Great blame rested somewhere. The honorable gentleman from Missouri had declared, last year, that it rested on the head of the Department. He (Mr. P.) should be glad to screen that officer, and not to hold him up to public vengeance; and it ought not to be imputed to him that he sought to denounce him, because be wished to see a different state of things from that which had been presented. But he desired to have some general expression of the Senate in regard to the Post Office. And he went on the broad and general principle, that the committee, having perfected a most laborious investigation into its affairs, it was due to them, to this body, and to the people, who ought to be enlightened on this important transaction, that there should be an expression of opinion made by the Senate. It was due to the Chief Executive of the United States that he should be informed, having the power to make an investigation and to correct the present state of things in the Post Office Department; and, therefore, he (Mr. P.) had come to the conclusion, in which he thought all would concur, that a resolution ought to be passed by the Senate. It had produced in his bosom a feeling of sincere regret, when the resolution of the last session was unanimously adopted, that the President had not thought proper to exercise his high constitutional prerogative, in the application of an effectual remedy for these evils.

[JAN. 28, 1835.

He (Mr. P.) had hoped that, when a matter of this kind was brought before the Senate, it would not be characterized as an ebullition of party feeling, but would meet with the unanimous opinion of the Senate, and that this unanimous expression would have induced the President to exercise his high power in the purification of this Department of the Government. He (Mr. P.) wished it and expected it. Gentlemen misapprehended him if they supposed he intended to throw any censure on the Executive, when he made allusion to the high prerogative claimed by the President. He (Mr. P.) disclaimed any such intention. He did, however, disagree with the President entirely on the right he had asserted to the Senate. He would not put his trust in any individual in this community. He would never, by his vote, whether with open or closed doors, sanction such extraordinary executive powers as were claimed by the Chief Magistrate. There were gentlemen who differed from him widely in this respect; but he (Mr. P.) felt compelled to take issue with the President as to his claim for power, when he proclaimed to the Senate that it belonged to his department of the Government to supervise all the other executive departments, and that all the executive powers were in his hands. He (Mr. P.) denied that they were. But was it not natural and absolutely necessary, that he should desire that the Senate should again reiterate to the President of the United States their deep sense of the injuries resulting to the country from this state of things? All we could do was to illuminate the people-we could only expose the evils; we were powerless; it was for the people to act. If there were errors, and it could not be doubted there were, they ought to be corrected. When evils existed, they ought to be exposed to view. The Senate, then, must interfere in some way or other to correct them. Now, he was satisfied there was not a single gentleman present (not taking into account the coloring which had been given to the transaction) but what must admit there had been malfeasance in the Department. If there was any individual there to whom these frauds and corruption were chargeable, let him be brought out and held up to the community as a branded criminal. He (Mr. P.) thought, if the resolution could be unanimously passed, marking the mal-administration of the of fice with the censure which it merited, that a corrective would be applied by the President-that a general "clearing out" would be the consequence.

Now, it was said that this was a "party question." A party question! They all knew the effect of an application of this term. The honorable Senator from Missouri, and those who acted with him, were under the persuasion that the Senate had indulged in party feeling when they passed the resolution, which was considered by some gentlemen very obnoxious-that it had done an act which, in their opinion, should be burnt out of the records of this body, for the purpose of their expurgation.

He would not pause to look into the policy of such an act as expunging matters of record from the journals of the Senate, whenever, in the changes of parties, the acts of one party became odious to another. Nor would he even pause to inquire as to the difference in degree between the heads of the Government and a mere subaltern, with the feeling, that

"A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.”

He indulged only those feelings which ought to actuate all honorable bosoms when he asserted that there ought to be an expression of the opinion of the Senate on these atrocious malversations.

It was true, he might have stated yesterday what might be deemed unpalatable to some of the gentlemen with whom he acted but he must repeat; that we were beaten down. It was true, the party with whom he act

ed were not yet a minority, but it was not to be concealed that the time was near when they would be, and when they, who now carried their measures, would be the weaker party. He would ask them, would it be fair and proper that every thing which they done which was disagreeable to the other side should be expunged from the records? Now he put this question, standing as he did in the majority. In his confidence in the intelligence of the people, he reposed his hopes. He believed that the party collisions of the day would pass away and leave no trace behind, and that this Government would not pass away, but that it would live long in the admiration of the universe.

Casting his eyes through the long vista before him, he could hardly conjecture the period when the principles he asserted, and the men with whom he had acted, were to be seated in power. Not less was he disposed to continue firm to these principles and coadjutors. He would struggle with them to the last, because he could never consent to relinquish the conviction that "great is truth and the truth would prevail."

Party feeling! What was to be gained by indulging party feeling on this occasion? What would avail his denunciation of the Post Office? Would it shake those who conduct the administration of the Government? Did any one expect that such power as was now held by the administration was to be shaken by these means? Could even such a damning exposure as this shake the popular opinion as to the present administration?

If there were other gentlemen who were so sanguine as to believe that an exposition of the rottenness which lay here in the administration could shake the magnificent structure of popularity on which the present Executive stands, he, at least, was not so sanguine in his expectations. They were ardent spirits (he was not one of those) who entertained the opinion that this affair of the Post Office would shake, in the slighest degree, the present power of the administration.

He did not believe, though he might be considered extravagant in the assertion, that, if the present administration were to adopt a course which would lead to corruptions of ten times deeper dye, it could shake its popularity. When it was presented to the people by the honorable member from Tennessee, as an admitted and naked fact, that one contractor had obtained $100,000 which was unaccounted for, and another $12,000, without having made any returns at all; that the flood-gates of that Department were hoisted up, and all that put themselves in the way should receive some of the droppings of the manna--if any thing could, that might shake the popularity of the administration. He must be permitted to hope that a resolution on the subject would be offered by the Senate, and he should find great pleasure in voting with the honorable Senator from Missouri, for a general expression of its opinion in regard to those matters. And he trusted, as a precedent had been found, a similar resolution having already been acted on, that this would share the same fate--be passed unanimously.

Mr. BENTON expressed the deepest regret that such was the extreme poverty of his speech, such the poorness of his ideas, as to render him incomprehensible to to those who sat near him; and if his language was so obscure as not to be comprehended by those near him, it might well be supposed so to those in a distant part of the chamber. Now, in all he had said yesterday and to-day, there was no intimatian of an intention to retaliate, nor one word of intimidation. When he saw, or thought he saw, an attempt made to bring the Senate to the action it had been brought to on a former occasion, (and having at the last session given notice of his intention to move that certain resolutions be expurgated from the jou: nal,) he saw, or thought that he saw, a fit

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occasion to renew that notice. Although the resolutions of last session, to which he now referred, were adopted in the dark, there was then no darkness on his mental vision. He plainly saw at the time, that two hooks were thrown out, in order to hang those of his party who did not agree with the majority of the Senate. If we voted, said Mr. B., one way, they were to have us on one hook, and if we voted another way, we were to be caught on the other hook. Such, it seemed, was to be the case now. A hook is thrown out, described on that floor, to be black and deep as hell, (and which a certain party, with whom he acted, could not help applying to themselves,) by which the Senator from South Carolina thought he could apply a test, to find out those who would dare to defend the deep and black damnation of that Post Office. The Senator had no right to presume, after hearing the report of the minority, that there were any on that floor who could be detected as the defenders of the corruptions he had denounced. He should give his vote, under his obligations as a Senator, without permitting himself to be considered in any such light.

He voted at the last session on a resolution which he then held to be unconstitutional; but he voted under his obligations as a Senator, and should continue so to vote, though he might protest against the unconstitutionality of his being required to do so, unless excused by the Senate. There were ten or twelve resolutions presented, on which he should have voted, some "ay," and some "no," and in order to qualify himself to do so, (though it might seem extraordinary to the Senate,) he had gone over a document of four or five hundred pages, between their adjournment in the evening and their meeting next morning. He was ready, at the last session, to have voted on these ten or twelve resolutions; but it was because he did not intend to be hung on the hooks again, that he had given his notice of yesterday. His notice, he repeated, was not given for the purpose of retaliation, nor for the purpose of intimidating him who could not be intimidated; but for the purpose of preventing any thing like judicial proceedings in that body, without the formality of an impeachment by the House of Representatives. Such was his sole intention, and he again expressed his regret at that poverty of ideas, and obscurity of language, which prevented him from being so understood by those who sat near him. He had only intended, in what he said yesterday, to give notice that, before any judicial proceedings were had in that body, without the previous sanction of the House of Representatives, there should be heard at least one argument on their constitutionality.

On one more point he wished to be understood before he sat down. He was not to be supposed as sanctioning any thing. He did not sanction; he would not be understood by implication, or by the new aspect given to the case by the Senator from South Carolina, as sanctioning any thing, of which, it was well known, he disapproved. No: let the resolutions called for from the Committee on the Post Office, and the proposition he would submit, to expunge the resolutions of the last session, come properly before the Senate, and he would give his votes on them according to the best dictates of his own judgment. Again, he would be understood, on one other point, and that was, that, in all the situations in which he might be placed, and under all circumstances, he had but one standard by which to measure both the Post Office and the Bank of the United States.

Mr. PRESTON said, if the honorable Senator supposed, for a moment, that he intended to throw out two hooks to catch him upon, he was entirely mistaken. He had not dreamt of such a thing. If the gentleman was to be hung, he had not prepared a hook for that purpose. He had merely in view, in the observations he

said, but that the depth of this corruption, which we alone then ventured to denounce, was greater than our strongest language had described it.

Among the things of that day with which memory now supplies me, sir, was a speech of the honorable member from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON, which was delivered immediately after I had (some time in February, 1831,) addressed the Senate on this very subject. He then defended this Department, denounced the inquiry in which we were engaged, and urged a Senator from Louisiana, our present minister to France, to play Cato in the American Senate, take upon himself the task of censor morum, and move to expunge from the journal the whole proceedings of the investigating committee. That, sir, was the origin in this body of this business of expunging from the journal. Now how changed is the course of the honorable member! He has just assured us that he had but one measure for the Post Office and the Bank of the United States, which he boasts has been put down. He can now see the corruption of the Post Office Department as clearly as we can, and feel it as deeply. Yet if, when he suggested it, the journal of the first proceedings on the Post Office had been expunged, and the Senate had thus degraded the investigation, not a syllable of these monstrous developments of fraud and falsehood in the officers of this Government would ever have been made. Still the member, as ardent against the resolution of the 27th of March last as he ever was against the Post Office inquiry, threatens us again with the expunging process. He will not learn from the past to defer in the slightest degree to the judgment of others; and now, to carry out a party triumph, he will himself assume the task of the censor, and deface our records, to disgrace the very body of which he is a member. May my eyes never witness such an act of self-degradation as that with which he threatens us. If attempted, it will make its authors supremely ridiculous. The memory of the fact that our resolution was passed will still live, and while thousands of printed copies of the journal are scattered thoughout the land which will remain untouched, the mutilation of the wretched scroll in the Secretary's office, like the vengeance of the savage on the dead carcass of his enemy, will only attest the imbecility and the folly of its

authors.

Mr. BENTON observed that, if the Senator from Delaware had pursued his narrative a little farther, he should not have found it necessary again to get on his feet. The objection that he made to the resolutions of that gentleman was, that they were either a criminal inquiry into the officers of the Post Office Department, or into that of the Postmaster himself. He objected on the ground that the charges contained in these resolutions were proper subjects for impeachment by the House of Representatives, the grand inquest of the nation. Now, as to whether he had two measures, one for the Post Office and the other for the Bank of the United States, let it be recollected that, during the eight years he had been lifting up his voice against the latter institution, he had never had a committee to investigate charges against it. There were periods of that time when a committee could not have been granted him for such purpose, even on parliamentary principles. He had never asked for a committee, because the House of Representatives, as the grand inquest of the nation, was the only impeaching power known to the constitution. Such was the reason why he had never asked for a committee, and never would, till driven to it by the course of the Senate. An objection had been raised to the resolutions of Alabama by the Senator from South Carolina and the Senator from Delaware, to which he would briefly reply. Need he refer those gentlemen to the course of their own reading? he would refer them to the case in a State contiguous to South Carolina, where cer

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tain proceedings of its Legislature were publicly burnt. Need he refer them to the case of Wilkes? where the British House of Commons expunged certain proceedings from their journal; expunged, not by the childish operation of sending out for every copy of the journal for the purpose of cutting out a leaf, but by a more effectual process. He would describe the modus operandi. There was a total suspension of the business of the House, and the clerk, taking the official journal, the original record of its proceedings, and reading the clause to be expunged, obliterated it, word after word, not by making a Saint Andrew's cross over the clause, as is sometimes done in old accounts, but by completely blotting out every letter.

Sir, said Mr. B., there is no system of tactics which can divert me from my course with regard to these proceedings of the last session referred to in the Alabama resolutions. He should move upon them with the certainty of a steam engine, and no system of tactics could prevent him from pursuing the course pointed out in the notice he had given yesterday. What he then said was in reference to the Senator from South Carolina who sat nearest him, [Mr. CALHOUN,] and in the remarks he made afterwards he would now explain that he ought not to have left out his colleague, [Mr. PRESTON.] The gentleman to whom he referred looked to a judicial procedure on that floor, and applied a test by which he could see what Senator would rise in his place and defend the enormous corruptions of the Post Office Department. It was to this he referred, and this had occasioned the notice he had given, with the remarks which had accompanied it.

Mr. CALHOUN denied that he was actuated by the motives or feelings attributed to him by the Senator from Missouri. He had but one simple object in view, and it was this: that he thought it due to the American people, in consequence of the extraordinary disclosures which had been made yesterday, in the voluminous reports in relation to the Post Office Department, and which not one man in a hundred had leisure to read, that this body ought to give their sentiments on it, in order to show that they had still some independence left; and that the vote ought to be a unanimous one, so that the citizens of this country would be then enabled rightly to judge what was the real condition of that Department of the Government. He regretted to say that it was sustained by the Chief Executive. The Senator from Missouri had said he would have the same measure for the Post Office and the bank. He had succeeded in enlisting the President against the bank; he would do well now to enlist him against the Post Office. The responsibility of the Post Office was with the President; and that of the bank with Congress. The President interfered between Senators and their duty, and he had done nothing in a most atrocious case towards arresting evils, where he might, had he been disposed to exercise the power which he claimed, of supervision over all the deMr. C. moved to lay partments of the Government. the resolution on the table.

The motion was agreed to. Mr. CLAY gave notice that he should prepare a resolution on this subject.

Mr. KING, of Alabama, moved that the resolutions be printed.

Mr. CALHOUN said he hoped they would not be printed.

Mr. KING, of Alabama, in reply, said that when the proper time arrived-and he should use his own time on his own responsibility-he would bring forward the res olution, of which the Senator from Missouri had given notice, if not prevented by the previous action of that gentleman. He had no doubt of the power of the Senate to repeal any resolution it had adopted. What! re