Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1853-12-30


right to exercise official influence or power to
procure the election or the defeat of any
candidate for any congressional office. To
each the exclusive right of choice is confded
by the Constitution; and he who, occupying
an executive position, uses its power or IN
luence to interfere with this exclusive right,
invades the sacred limits which that compact
has prescribed and strikes u blow at that which
he is sworn to support.
How dares the administration enter the lists
of either house with a champion, and browbeat
the timid. seduce the corrupt, and cajole the
fearless to have a candidate elected, against
the free and untrammelled choice of the repre-
sentatives of the sovereign States? Has it
come to this ? that Mr.. A must be speaker
Mr.. B must be clerk, Mr.. G.. must be printer to
the House of Representatives, because the
cabinet desires it-prefers them-and will
take any other selections us limitations Of OPP
position to his immaculate, indisputable, and
infallible policy? That the same thing must
occur with the grave and august assemblage
which represents the equal sovereignties of the
Union That on Blended knee senator's and
representatives must ask the men in authority
whom they viii please to name for the respec-
tive offices in their gift? And that they, with
cringing sycophancy, must return to register
or obey his mandate?
And who dares to say that Frank Pierce, the
selected chief of the democracy Of the Union,
the democratic President of this great confed-
eracy, has assumed so daring an attitude to.
wards the two houses of Congress? Has the
Sentinel? Never!
The Washington Union, who would feign be
what it is forced to deny, the organ to the
President-the Washington Union, which trum
pets the Pacific railroad as an administration
scheme, until the President denies (which
"bespatters with praise every official, upon
the idea that "who peppers the highest is
surest to please which avows itself cordial
supporter of the administration in contradis.
tinction to the idea of independent support
which thus confesses its readiness to praise
and condemn, without regard to consistency in
administration praises and condemns--which
sounds what stops, and grinds what tune will
best accord with the notes of the cabinet Or
chestra-this journal, edited in the capital of
this free confederacy protesting love for the
Constitution and devotion to democratic prin-
cipes, dares to annouce itself as the candidate
favored by the administration for printer to
both houses of Congress, and to threaten with
never-ending vengeance those who refused
to be obedient to the alleged wishes of the ex-
ecutive and to disregard its own behests Nine
Senators gibbeted upon the highway of the
democracy to satisfy the revenge Of the Wash
ington Union! Insatiate archer Would not
one suffice! Can any journal bring more dis
repute upon an administration than one which
processes thus to express its views and feelings?
We hesitate not to say, that if there be any
freedom left in the country, any independence
Of thought, prompting to untrammelled and
and bold action, with a knowledge or suspicion
that the executive had entered the field with a
candidate for printer, it was the duty of every
Senator and Representative to rebuke such in
reference by his voice, and by his ballot 1t
body of which he was member, as the repre-
sentation of the States--to the Constitution,
which he was sworn to support. 1t was this
duty of every democrat to the great party to
which he belonged-because in the division
of powers-in the independence of acton-in
the freedom of each from the interference of
all others, depends the harmonious operation
of all the departments of the government, to
the grand consummation of the liberty of the
people Of the States under their great Consti-
tuition. .....
We know that the election of Beverley Tucker
as printer to the Senate, except to himself and
his numerous personal friends, is matter of
small consequence in the country. We do not
desire to magnify it. We said all we designed
to say in this paper the day after his election
But the shrieks and groans of our neighbor-
unpacking his "heart with words" drowning
''the stagewi tears and clearing 'the general
ear with horrid speech'-its desperate efforts to
obtain sympathy by claiming itself to be VIC
tim of the hate of the iustrious "nine" to the
President. These things have been pushed so
far as to implicate General Pierce in an inter-
ference as indicate as it would be unconsti-
tutional in spirit and dangerous in principle.
We are not, have not been, and will not be, his
hatterer. As faithful Sentinel" we sound
to him. as the leader of the administration, the
alarm. We are not his enemy--we are his
friend--free, untrammelled disinterested. As
such, we say to him and to the country, we re-
quire better evidence than that furnished BY our
wounded and crying contemporary to make us
believe that the President had a candidate for
printer in either House, that he lent to the IN
cog. editor of the Union the thunderbolts of exc
cutive wrath to be hurled by that invisible Her
cules at the representatives of sovereign States.
Dare the Union say it speaks by authority in
this matter? We deny IT, ct II aver and