Date: 1982-03-15
Speaker: ROBERT C. BYRD (democrat)
Chamber: S

Mr. President. in its entire history the United States Senate has only once censured a President of the United States. and even then it later revoked its own action. We know that in 1868 the Senate sat as a court of impeachment on President Andrew Johnson. -acquitting him by only one vote. We know also that the Senate was preparing to sit as a court again for President Richard Nixon in 1974. prior to his resignation. But I refer here not to impeachment but to censure. The Senate over the years has censured eight of its own members. but only one president. and that was Andrew Jackson. on March 28. 1834. The dramatic story of how this censure came about. its equally dramatic conclusion. and its historical significance. will be the subject of my remarks today. in my continuing series of addresses on the history of the Senate. Incidentally. this is my 50th statement on the history of the -United States Senate. The censure of President Jackson was a momentous occasion in the birth of the Whig Party and the reuniting of three of the most famous United States Senators: Henry Clay of Kentucky. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. The issue behind the censure was the Bank of the United States. about which I spoke at length during my last address in this series. To recapitulate briefly. President Jackson had vetoed the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United Ftates in 1832. on the grounds that tIe Bank was unconstitutional. aristocratic. and had failed to establish a sound and uniform currency. The Senate attempted and failed to override Jacksons veto. Later that year the Bank issue played a leading part in the presidential election of 1832. In which President Jackson won a decisive victory in his reelection over the National Republican candidate. Henry Clay. After the election. in November 1832. the president met with his cabinet to discuss the governments deposits in the Bank. At that meeting Jackson announced that he believed the Bank to be insolvent and that the government should withdraw its fundsboth to protect the public money. and to prevent the Bank from using the funds in a lobbying attempt to influence Congress to override the presidential veto. Jackson asked Congress to Investigate the safety of the govern. ments deposits in the Bank. but when the House of Representatives conduct. ed such an investigation and reported back that the deposits were indeed safe. the president simply ignored \their unwanted conclusion. Since Treasury Secretary Louis M.:Lane opposed the transfer of government funds. on the grounds that Congress opposed the idea. Jackson appointed him Secretary of State and appointed a new Treasury Secretary. William J. Duane. a staunch antiBank man. But Jackson soon discovered that Duane. to. opposed removal of the governments deposits. because he believed the action would shake the publics confidence and cause an economic downswing. Thus. President Jackson. strongwilled as he was. removed a second Treasury Secretary. This time he appointed his trusted Attorney General. Roger Taney. who he was confident would carry out presidential orders. The government began to withdraw its funds from the national bank and deposit them in a variety of state banks. As Jackson and Taney were implementing this policy. the equally strongwilled president of the Bank of the United States was carrying on his own plan of economic sabotage. Nicholas Biddle conducted a policy of restricting credit and calling in the Banks loans. calculated to cause an economic contraction that would arouse the public against Jacksons program. At one time. historians attributed the depression that followed solely to the clash between Jackson and Biddle over the Bank. More recent studies have found the American depression of the 1830s to have been part of a worldwide depression. made all the worse in the United States by the political crises over the nations banking system.3 But whether Nicholas Biddle was a major cause of. or merely a contributor to. the economic collapse. certainly he and his political allies. Clay and Webster. believed that the hard times would work in their favor and to Jacksons detriment. President Jackson. for his part. refused to move an inch. "I never will charter the United States Bank. or sign a charter for any other bank. so long as my name is Andrew Jackson." he told one group of businessmen. When the Twentythird Congress met in December 1833. the Democrats had a comfortable majority of 147 members in the House. as opposed to 113 members representing the National Republicans. the AntiMasons. the Nullifiers. and the States Rights parties (all of which would soon loosely combine to make up the Whig Party). In the.Senate. however. the Clay. Calhoun. and Webster combination counted some twentyeight senators on their side. while the Democrats had only twenty. With this margin behind him. the masterful Henry Clay rose in the Senate to challenge Jackson on the bank issue. On December 10. 1833. Clay called his colleagues attention to "a subject perhaps exceeding in importance any other question likely to come before the present Congress." By this he meant Jacksons removal of the government deposits from the Bank. The time had now come. said Clay. for Congress to examine the Secretary of the Treasurys reasons for removing the funds. and to determine whether his stated reasons were fully justified. Clay then moved the following resolution: Resolved. That the President of the United States be requested to inform the Senate whether a paper. under the date of the 18th day of September. 1833. purporting to have been read by him to the heads of the several departments. relating to the deposits of the public money in the treasury of the United States. and alleged to have been published by his authority. be genuine or not. and. if it be genuine. that he be also requested to cause a copy of said paper to be laid before the Senate.4 Mr. President. on December 11. 1833. after a heated debate. the Senate adopted Clays resolution by a vote of 23 to 18. However. the next day President Jackson sent a message flatly declining to comply with the resolution. The Executive is a coordinate and Inde. pendent branch of the Government equally with the Senate. Jackson responded. and I have yet to learn under what constitutional authority that branch of the Legislature has a right to require of me an account of any communication. either. verbally or in writing. made to the heads of departments acting as a cabinet council.& Although Jackson did not use the phrase. he was invoking what we today would call "executive privilege." John Quincy Adams. former president and at that time a member of the House of Representatives. noted in his diary that there was "a tone of Insolence and insult" in Jacksons messages to Congress. particularly his response to the Senates resolution. and that this tone has increased since Jacksons reelection. The legislature. Adams noted. had never witnessed such a treatment. "The domineering tone has heretofore been usually on the side of the legislative bodies to the Executive. and Clay has not been sparing in the use of it. He is now paid in his own coin."8 Jacksons refusal led Clay to escalate his offensive. On the day after Christmas in 1833. Clay introduced two resolutions of censure against the president. One was based on his dismissal of Treasury Secretary Duane. and the other on the grounds that Jacksons stated reasons for withdrawing government deposits from the Bank were "unsatisfactory and insufficient."7 Clay defended these resolutions in one of the most famous of his Senate speeches. "We are." he said. "in the midst of a revolution. hitherto bloodless. but rapidly tending towards a total change of the pure republican character of the government. and to the coneentration of all power in the hands of one man." Jackson had "paralyzed" Congress by his unprecedented use of the veto. particularly of the pocket veto which did not permit a congressional override. Jackson was undermining the Senates authority to approve nominations by his constant removal of officers and by his reappointment of persons whom the Senate had already rejected. Worst of all. the president was seeking to seize Congress power of the purse. thus combining "the two most important powers of civil government". the sword and the purse. With wit. eloquence. logic. and appeals to reason and to passion. Clay verbally assaulted the president and his actions. Clays speech lasted three days and filled eighteen pages of the Register of Debates. The president had assumed a dangerous and unconstitutional power. said Clay. for which the Senate must censure him. The eyes and the hopes of the American people are anxiously turned to Congress ... The premonitory symptoms of despotism are upon us. and if Congress does not apply an instantaneous and effective remedy. the fatal collapse will soon come on. and we shall dieignobly diebase. mean. and abject slaves. the scorn and contempt of mankind. unpitled. unwept. unmourned! With these words. Clay concluded his speech. and the Register of Debates reported that his words were followed "by such loud and repeated applause from the immense crowd which thronged the galleries and lobbies" that Vice President Van Buren ordered the galleries cleared.8 Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and other Jacksonian Democrats then rose to the presidents defense. The debate over the removal of the deposits and the censure of Jackson lasted for the remainder of the first session of the Twentythird Congress. from January through March 1834. This was the longest period the Senate had devoted itself to a single subject up to that time. Henry.Clay noted that "the period which has elapsed was long enough for a vessel to have passed the Cape of Good Hope. or to have made a return voyage from Europe."* Page after page of the Register of Debates are devoted entirely to the deposits issue. the Bank. and the "public distress" caused by the economic uncertainties. Memorials were received from states. citizens. and private interest groups. Senators on both sides lined up impressive and intricate statistics to buttress their arguments. Of the three Senate giants lined up against the president. Clay. Calhoun. and Webster. each had different reasons for supporting the resolutions. Henry Clay wanted to embarrass Jackson and Van Buren politically. and to set the stage for a new political coalition to challenge them. John C. Calhoun cared little about the Bank as an issue. He could just as well have supported Jacksons position. except for his total hostility to Jackson. In his speeches in the Senate. Calhoun used the Bank issue primarily as an example of the correctness of his own earlier break with Jackson over the Tariff and Nullification. Daniel Webster at first attempted to assume the statesmans role by seeking a compromise among Clay. Calhoun. and Jackson. Webster. as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. proposed a sixyear extension of the banks charter to allow it to wind up its business. and for the redepositing of government funds in the bank. Websters compromise. however. satisified neither side. Finally. Webster. too. chose sides with the anitJacksonians. and supported the censure resolution.10 Mr. President. the coming together of these three senators was the first step in the formation of a new Amerclan political party. the Whig Party. which would soon absorb the old National Republicans. the AntiMasons. and the States Righters. as well as a few Democratic converts. The title "Whig" came from British politics and was popular in America during the time of the Revolution. It signified opposition to the crown. and to the "Tories" who supported the Kingin this case "King Andrew." The Whigs. however. were reluctant to allow Jacksons supporters to claim a monopoly on the coveted title "Democrats." and at least until 1840. they called themselves "Democratic Whigs." But for the most part. after 1834. the American Political scene was divided between Democrats and Whigs. The Bank war and the depression that followed causcd American political leaders to choose sides between the two parties. Historian Michael Holt has pointed out that twentyeight of the fortyone Democrats who voted for rechartering of the Bank in 1832 had become Whigs by 1836. Even Jacksons trusted friends and lieutenants from Tennessee. such as John Overton. John Eaton. and Hugh Lawson White. split with the president on the issue of removing government deposits from the bank. North Carolina Democrat Willie P. Magnum. of whom the Senate recently acquired a handsome portrait which hangs in the corridor just outside this chamber. bolted from the Democratic Party over this issue and joined the Whigs. I That old Jacksonian. Thomas Hart Benton. commented on the uniting of "Mr. Clay. Mr. Calhoun. and Mr. Webster. . . with all their friends. and the Bank of the United States." against General Jackson. In a very shrewd analysis. Benton wrote that "Public men continue to attack their adversarles in power. and oppose their measures. while having private griefs of their own to redress. and personal ends of their own to accomplish." Clay. Benton pointed out. was responding to his defeat in the last presidential election to Jackson. Calhoun was still quarreling with the president over Jacksons discovery that Calhoun had sided against his raid of Florida during the Monroe Administration. "Their movements all took a personal and vindictive. instead of a legislative and remedial. nature." 1* Benton did not add Daniel Webster to this list. but we know that Webster also had "personal ends" to accomplish. At the very time that Senator Webster was chairing the Finance Committee and leading the struggle against Jacksons Bank plans. Webster was under retainer to the Bank of the United Statest In a letter to Nicholas Biddle on December 21. 1833. Webster reminded Biddle that his retainer had not been "renewed. or refreshed. as usual. If it is wished that my relation to the Bank should be continued. it may be well to send me the usual retainer." This surely was one of the most egregious breaches of ethics In the history of the Senate. and one which will ever stain the reputation of Daniel Webster. There was. indeed. a strange paradox about Daniel Websterthe "Godlike Daniel" whose speeches schoolboys of the nineteenth century memorized. and whose prodigious efforts helped hold this nation together in the perilous years before the great Civil War. and "Black Dan." whose personal weaknesses. particularly over money. kept him from the presidency he sought. The two sides of Daniel Webster have been admirably presented in Irving Bartletts recent biography. Daniel Webster. and in Senator John F. Kennedys stirring book. Profiles in Courage.Ia As Clay. Calhoun. and Webster flailed it Jackson. and Benton and other Democrats stood in his defense. another figurea surrogate for the presidentwatched the scene with some bemusement. This was Vice President Martin Van Buren. the "Little Magician" who had helped put together the Democratic coalition which elected Jackson. and who had succeeded Calhoun in the vice presidential chair. Jackson in his second March 15. 1982 . CO term was an old and ill man. who at that point was unlikely to run for a third term. Van Buren was then his probable successor. and Henry Clay went out of his way to draw Van Buren into the fray. At one point during the debate over Jacksons censure. Clay rose in the Senate and addressed himself directly to Van Buren. the presiding officer. Clay urged Van Buren to intercede with Jackson to persuade him to "abandon his fatal experiment." "Go to him." Clay implored. "and tell him. without exageration. but in the language of truth and sincerity. the actual condition of his bleeding country. Tell him it is nearly ruined and undone by the measures which he has been induced to put in operation." Clay was playing to the galleriesboth those present in the Senate Chamber and those who would read his speech reprinted in their newspapers. Indeed. there were loud sobbings heard from the ladies in the galleries by the time Clay had finished. We may assume that his object was to tie Van Buren more closely in the publics mind to Jacksons antiBank activities. and to have him share the blame for the existing economic crisis. Van Buren. clever politician that he was. clearly recognized what Clay was up to. According to Senator Bentons Thirty Years View. Van Buren "maintained the utmost decorum of countenance. looking respectfully. and even innocently at the speaker. all the while. as if treasuring up every word he said to be faithfully repeated to the President." But when Clay had finished. Van Buren motioned to another senator to take his seat as presiding officer. The vice president then approached Senator Clay. But instead of responding to his oratory. Van Buren merely asked for a pinch of Clays fine maccoby snuff. and having taken it. turned and nonchalantly walked away.14 Finally. on Friday. March 28. 1834. the Senate was ready to vote on Clays resolutions. Former President Adams. viewing the scene from the House. was greatly opposed to the censure of his nemesis and successor. Andrew Jackson. and lobbied with friends In the Senate against it. However. he noted.. they voted for the censure. "under the domineering influence of Mr. Clay."5 By a vote of 28 to 18 the Senate found the reasons given by the Secretary of the Treasury for removal of government funds from the Bank to be unsatisfactory. And then. by a vote of 26 to 20. the United States Senate resolved that "the President. in the last executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue. has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws. but in derogation of both." Clay. Calhoun. and Webster all voted in favor of censuring President Andrew Jackson.6 Senator Benton found this resolution to be "nothing but an empty fulminationa mere personal censurehaving no relation to any business or proceeding in the Senate." From the moment of its passage. Senator Benton vowed not only to repeal the offensive resolution. but also to have it striken from the Senate Journal. Vowing to keep the matter alive. Benton would bring the motion up at the start of each session of Congress. For his part. President Jackson rejected the resolution as illegal and unconstitutional. and refused to accept its rebuke or allow it to change his policies. On April 17 he sent the Senate a lengthy protest. filling ten pages of the Register of Debates. The Constitution. said Jackson. provided for the possible impeachment of a president by the House and conviction by the Senate. but not for his censure by a single body of Congress. "The resolution in question was introduced. discussed. and passed. not as a joint. but as a separate resolution." Jacksons protest went on. "It asserts no legislative power. proposes no legislative action. and neither possesses the form nor any of the attributes of a legislative measure." Is After defending his policies concerning the bank. Jackson concluded: "The resolution of the Senate contains an imputation upon my private as well as upon my public character. and as it must stand forever on their Journals. I cannot close this substitute for that defense which I have not been allowed to present in the ordinary form. without remarking. that I have lived in vain. if it be necessary to enter into a formal vindication of my character and purposes from such an imputation." Jackson scoffed at the charge that he was motivated by ambition. "No. the ambition which leads me on. Is an anxious desire and a fixed determination. to return to the people. unimpaired. the sacred trust they have confided to my chargeto heal the wounds of the Constitution and preserve it from further violation. to persuade my countrymen. so far as I may. that it is not in a splendid government. supported by powerful monopolies and aristocratic establishments. that they will find happiness. or their liberties protection. but in a plain system. void of pompprotecting all. and granting favors to nonedispersing its blessings like the dews of heaven. unseen and unfelt. save In the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce." 19 Immediately after Jacksons protest was read to the Senate. Senator George Poindexter of Mississippi stood up indignantly to denounce the message and to move that the Senate refuse to receive it. Thus. while one may find Jacksons protest In the Register of Debates. a forerunner of the Congressional Record. the Senate Journal states merely: "A message. in writing. from the President of the United States by Mr. Donelson. his Secretary. was communicated to the Senate. which. having been read. a motion was made by Mr. Leigh. the Senate adjourned." Four days later. the Senate again debated Poindexters motion. On this occasion the Senate voted to reject the message on the grounds that the president "assumes powers in relation to the Senate not authorized by the Constitution. and calculated In its consequences to destroy that harmony which ought to exist between the coordinate departments of the General Government. to interfere with the Senate in the discharge of its duties. to degrade it in the public opinion. and. finally. to destroy its independence. by subjecting its rights and duties to the determination and control of the Chief Magistrate."20 I think it is safe to say that never before in the history of the Unitcd States had relations between the president and the Senate sunk to such depths. and perhaps only during the impeachment trial of President. Andrew Johnson. thirtyfour years later. were executivelegislative relations strained to such a point of total alienation. The Hours of Representatives. with its solid Democratic majority. refused to endorse the Senates censure of the president. nor would it support Clays motion to restore government deposits to the bank. The congressional elections of 1834 also demonstrated that Henry Clay had misread the American mood. Instead of rallying to the support of the Whigs and driving the Jacksonians from power. the voters increased the Democratic margin in the House to 145 to 98. The Whigs also lost their majority in the Senate with only 25 senator to the Democrats 27. Even more significantly. several state legislatures which had elected Whig senators switched to Democratic control. These legislatures now voted to "Instruct" their senators to vote to expunge the censure resolution from the Senate Journal. This matter of instruction proved embarrassing to a number of Whigs who endorsed instruction as a matter of principle but who could not bring themselves to vote In Jacksons favor under any circumstance. It is important to remember that United States senators in the nineteenth century. and until the Seventeenth Amendment was passed in 1914. were elected by state legislatures -rather than directly by the people. Having appointed their senators. many of these legislatures then felt. they had a right to instruct them how to vote on certain issues. Some senators rejected the right of instruction. on the grounds that their offices were created by the federal Constitution and therefore not controlled by the state governments. The states. particularly those in the South. argued in the words of the Virginia legislature that "the people are acknowledged to be the only legitimate source of all legislation." and that instruction was the essence of representative government.21 The North Carolina legislature instructed its senators to vote to expunge the censure resolution. but Whig Senator Willie Mangum refused to comply with their instructions. The Virginia legislature also introduced its two senators. but William C. Rives and John Tyler resigned rather than comply. Tylerthe future President of the United Statesfelt he had no other choice but to resign. since his first political action had been to vote to censure Senator William Branch Giles for failing to follow the Virginia legislatures instructions. Tyler could not reverse himself now in good conscience.22 After Senator Rives resigned. the Virginia legislature elected Benjamin Watkins Leigh in his place. Leigh had been the principal author of the Virginia claim to instruct its senators. but ironically he was also strongly opposed to tampering with the Senate Journal. Leigh then informed the legislature that he would not obey their instruction because he believed expunging the Journal to be unconstitutionalhowever. after he stood his ground on this issue. he resigned from the Senate a few months later. Today. Mr. President. Benjamin Leigh is a little known United States senator from a distant past There has never been a published biography of his life. but we gain a colorful word picture of the man from an account by an eyewitness. Henry A. Wise. In his book. Seven Decades of the Union. Wise described Senator Leighs attack upon Thomas Hart Benton and his expunging resolution. in a Senate Speech which ended with the words: "And Mr. President. in that catechism which I learned at my mothers knee. I was taught to keepto keepto keep my hands from picking and stealing. and my tongue from evil speakingl" Wrote Wise: He was not a vehement orator in tone. but he was most earnest in utterance and manner. He had a soft. clear. flutelike voice. but it was not loud . . . He was a short man. yet in speaking seemed large. so elevated was he by his theme. and so gallant and game was his mien. He was lame. one leg shortened. and wore a cork sole on one of his boots. When about to be emphatic. he usually caught his left wrist in his right hand and sank beck on his lame leg. pausing to poise himself. and. as he rose to the climax of what he was about to utter. would bear upon his sound leg and rise on it with his hands free. Thus when Leigh launched into his attack on Benton. he dropped back on his lame leg. took his left wrist in his right hand. and gazed intensely at Benton. Senator Leigh began low. uttered softy as far as the word my mothers kneel raised his voice at the words I learned. and. pronouncing the words to keep three times. each time louder and louder. he rose upon his sound le. loosed his wrist. and putting forward both hands. exclaimed. My hands from picking and stealing. and my tongue from evil speaking. According to Wise a pin could have been heard to drop on the floor as Leigh spoke. Senator Benton sat back looking towards the wall. swinging his leg over his chair. and avoiding Leighs glare.2s With the Democrats in the majority in the Senate during the Twenty. fourth Congress. Benton was determined to have his way and strike out the censure of Jackson. This was not strictly a pro or antiJackson issue. Some senators opposed any changes made to the Senate Journal for any reason. Benton had lost a chance to expunge the Journal in 1835. when some Whig senators tried to soften his resolution to "rescind. reverse. make null and void" the censure rather than actually to remove it from the Journal. Benton had reluctantly gone along with his colleagues at first. but then Daniel Webster had risen to crow. "Men may change. opinions may change. power may change. but. thanks to the firmness of the Senate. the records of this body do not change." Webster charged that Benton had attempted to falsify the record and moved to have Bentons resolution tabled. which the Senate did by a vote of 27 to 20. Immediately. Benton was on his feet. "The exulting speech of Mr. Webster restored me to my courage." Benton later reported. "-made a man of me again." He submitted his resolution anew and once again pressed for ridding the record of the censure.2 Bentons long fight ended at the conclusion of the second session of the Twentyfourth Congress in 1837. On Saturday evening. January 14. 1837. the Democratic members of the Senate caucused at a Washington restaurant. Martin Van Buren had been elected president in November. defeating the Whig candidate. William Henry Harrison. Van Buren would be inaugurated on March 4. An old and ill Andrew Jackson was preparing to leave the White House to return to the Hermitage in Tenneasee. and the Senate Democrats were determined to allow "Old Hickory" to retire without the blot of censure upon his name. Their meeting that night. Benton reported. had an "air of convivial entertainment." Around midnight they decided upon a method of procedure. An oblong square of black lines would be drawn around the original censure in the Journal. with the words: "Expunged by order of the Senate." Each Democratic senator then pledged himself to support it. and agreed that there would be no adjournment of the Senate after the resolution was introduced until it was passed. Expecting a long and arduous session. the Democrats gave orders to have an ample supply of cold hams. turkeys. rounds of beef. pickles. wines. and cups of hot coffee ready in a committee room off the Senate floor. to last them through the debate." As could be expected. Clay. Calhoun. and Webster all spoke out against the measure. Webster reminded the Senate of its constitutional duty to keep a journal and insisted that "a record which is expunged. is not a record which is kept. any more than a record which is destroyed can be a record which is preserved." 2 Despite Websters eloquence. and his vehemence. the Democrats would not be moved. Democratic senators. knowing they had the votes to win. came and went from the Senate chamber during the proceedings. helping themselves to the feast they provided in the nearby committee room. and inviting their Whig colleagues to join them. The Whigs. it appears. had lost their appetites. By the time Webster had finished speaking it was near midnight. "The dense masses which filled every inch of the room in the lobbies and the galleries remained immovable." wrote Benton. "No one went out: no one could get in. The floor of the Senate was crammed with privileged persons. and it seemed that all Congress was there." 2 When Benton called for the yeas and nays. the vote was 24 to 19 to expunge the record. This was Bentons great moment of triumph and he arose from his seat to accept congratulations from those about him on the Senate floor. The mood of the Whigs and bank supporters was grim and the situation in the chamber was tense. Fearing for Bentons life. his colleague from Missouri. Lewis Linn. had brought pistols into the chamber to protect him. Bentons wife. also alarmed. stood at her husbands side. But the ebullient Benton pressed his way through the crowd. As Henry Wise. one of Bentons Whig opponent&. watched. Benton "was boisterously moving from man to man. reaching out his hand. until he came to the Honorable Baillie Peyton. of Tennessee. who waited his expected offer of a touch with such a countenance of contempt and detestation that he shrunk back. desisting from his gasconading. and resumed his seat." as The Senate Journal for the Twentythird Congress was carried into the Senate chamber and placed on the desk of Secretary of the Senate Asbury Dickins. just in front of the presiding officers desk. According to Henry Wise. the book "seemed to resist the opening. the back was stiff. and it shut together again. until pressed open wide. and the pages so held as to lay upon it the rule by the straight edge of which the black lines were to be drawn. We could not but imagine the book of the Journal as resisting the violation. It seemed like a living victim on the alter of sacrifice. and the scratch of the pen alone was heard in the awful silence which prevailed when the gall of party bitterness drew its lines in the blackness of darkness around the freedom and independence of the Senate." " Henry Wise. of course. was grossly exaggerating. but his words give testament to the bitterness which the Whigs felt about the incident. which symbolized their defeat in the Bank war. in the struggle with Jackson. and in the presidential election of 1836. No sooner had Secretary Dickins carried out the act. drawn the lines and expunged the censure. than the Senate chamber was thrown into turmoil and uproar. The Register of Debates records that "hisses. loud and repeated. were heard from various parts of the gallery." Senator William R. King of Alabama. then serving as presiding officer. ordered that the gallerles be cleared. But Senator penton wanted his supporters in the galleries to witness his triumph. and asked that they be permitted to remain while the "ruffians" who had caused the disturbance should be ejected. Benton pointed to a man in the galleries who had "cried aloud some disorderly response." and ordered the Sergeantat. Arms to seize him. "Here is one just above me. that may easily be identifiedthe bank ruffian!" Senator King revoked his order to clear the galleries. and had SergeantatArms John Shackford bring forth a tall. welldressed man in a black overcoat who seemed to be the "ringleader" among the hecklers in the galleries. After the man was brought to the well of the Senate. Senator Benton then said that "as this individual had been taken from the respectable audience in the gallery. and had been presented in this public manner. with all eyes fixed upon him. he had perhaps been sufficiently punished in his feelings." Benton then moved to discharge the man from custody. but several Whigs insisted that the man be permitted to speak in his own defense. "A citizen has been brought to the bar of the Senate.". said Senator Thomas Morris of Ohio. "and not informed for what reason. nor of what offense he stood charged. and now it was moved that. without a hearing. he be discharged from custody. Call you this the justice of the Senate of the United States?" Senator King. in the chair. however. pointed out that the man had been charged with disorderly conduct in the presence of the Senate. and that the Senate had the right to protect itself. through summary proceedings. against such disruptions. "on the evidence of its own senses." The Register reports at this time that "some confusion prevailed"-as well we might expect it would! The Senate finally took up Bentons motion to discharge the unruly visitor. and passed the motion by a vote of 23 to 1. But. instead of leaving. the Bank supporter advanced to the chair sijing: "Mr. President. am I not to be permitted to speak in my own defense?" The presiding officer had lost all patience by that time and shouted to the SergeantatArms: "Take him out!" s0 The Senate then adjourned after this momentous and tumultuous session. Through these proceedings. Henry Clay had been ostentatiously dressed entirely in black. to mark his mourning for the Constitution of the United States. Clay went so far as to refuse a pinch of snuff to one of the DemocratIc senators who was planning to vote to expunge. a breach of Senatorial courtesy that was rare for the Kentucky gentleman. Outside the Capitol. Senators Clay and Benton came face to face. The two men were political enemies but personal friends. and were even related by marriage. On the street they vented their steam in verbal abuse on each other until they calmed down. Senator Benton insisted on seeing Henry Clay home and then stayed in conversation until three in the morning.3 The next day. Thomas Hart Bentons son John arrived at the White House with a present for President Jackson: the pen which had stricken his censure from the Senate Journal Needless to say. Jackson was delighted and deeply touched. He kept the pen as a fond remembrance of his triumph. and in his last will and testament bequeathed the pen back to Benton "as an evidence of my high regard. and exalted opinion of your talents. virtue. and Patriotism." A few weeks later. Jackson gave a grand dinner at the White House for the "expungers" and their wives. Being too ill to attend the festivities for more than a short while. Jackson sat Thomas Hart Benton. the "headexpunger." In his chair at the head of the table.8s While Benton and the Democrats celebrated. Clay and the Whigs mourned their loss. "The Senate is no longer a place for any decent man." Henry Clay complained. His weariness in battle was also evident in another letter he wrote at what was to be the midpoint in a forty year career in the House and Senate: "I am truly sick of Congress." Clay. of course. did not abandon his career. and indeed was reelected to the Senate by the Kentucky state legislature in 1837. But he had suffered a long string of defeats. in his presidential campaign against Jackson. in the Bank war. and in his other legislative proposals for the sale of public lands. internal improvements. and a protective tariff.8 Mr. President. having recounted the story of the Senates censure of President Jackson. and of Thomas Hart Bentons triumphant expunging of that censure from the Journal. I think it only fitting to conclude my remarks with a few words about the remarkable Henry Clay and the Whig party which he built and with which his name was so closely associated. The Whigs are not well remembered in American history. They lasted less than thirty years. and were perhaps the unluckiest political party in our nations history. Although they often controlled one or both houses of Congress. they elected only two presidents. William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor. both of whom died early in their presidential terms. The party which could boast of such giants as Clay. Calhoun. and Webster. could elect none of them president. despite the prodigious efforts of all three of those men to achieve that honor. Some historians. notably Henry Adams. have dismissed the Whig party for being "feeble in ideas." but this is an unfair assessment of the party which rallied around Henry Clays "American System." The Whigs represented the new commercial and industrial interests of early nineteenth century America. While they opposed a strong presidency. they were not opposed to an active federal government. Indeed. during the Panic of 1837 we find the Jacksonian president. Martin Van Buren. complaining that the people "looked to the government for too much."-and have we heard that recentlyand the Whig Senator Henry Clay responding that the people were "entitled to the protecting care of a paternal government." and have we heard that recently. The Whigs thought of themselves as the moral party. Many Whigs were leaders in movements for temperance. public education. the abolition of slavery. and other social reforms. Senator Clay once introduced a resolution for a day of national "humiliation and prayer" in response to a cholera epidemic. but the Jacksonlans in the Senate blocked the resolution on the grounds that it violated the separation of church and state. There is obviously much to admire in the programs and principles of the Whig party. but we must balance this with the observation that the Whigs tended to be the party of big business and of the more. aristocratic forces in American society. Clays protective tariff would protect mostly the textile manufacturers of New England and the large plantations of the South which supplied their cotton. So also the Bank of the United States. and internal improvements. would benefit the producing class first and foremost. In his recent book on The Political Culture of the American Whigs. Professor Daniel Walker Howe of the University of California at Los Angeles. noted that "Whig policies did not have the object of redistributing wealth or diminishing the influence of the privileged . . . For all their innovations in economic policy. the Whigs usually thought of themselves as conservatives." 84 Thus while the Whigs represented the dominant groups in society. they failed to become the dominant party. They lost critical elections to the Jacksonian Democrats who had become more clearly identified with labor. small farmers. immigrants. and the "common folk." Mr. President. the Whig party. which was born in its opposition to President Andrew Jackson and his Bank policies. came together first in the efforts of the United States Senate to censure Jackson. The Whigs lasted for another thirty years. during which time its leaders struggled gallantly to hold this nation together against sectional tensions and powerful forces of disunity. When the Whig party finally collapsed It caused a major realignment in American politics and contributed to the coming of a terrible Civil War that divided this nation in two. But the events of this period between the birth and demise of the Whig party will be the subjects of my later addresses in this series. These were the turbulent years when the Senate would grow. in the words of the commemorative booklet on the Old Senate Chamber. "from a small council to the primary forum for the great national debates of the midnineteenth century." 0* Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent to include notes to "Censure Of Andrew Jackson. 18331837."