In this state of things, several members of the House of Representatives applied to the committee, and besought us to save the Academy by annexing the necessary appropriations for its support to the bill for civil and diplomatic service. We spoke to them, in reply, of the unfitness, the irregularity, the incongruity, of this forced union of such dissimilar subjects; but they told us it was a case of absolute necessity, and that, without resorting to this mode, the appropriation could not get through. We acquiesced, sir, in these suggestions. We went out of our way. We agreed to do an extraordinary and an irregular thing, in order to save the public business from miscarriage. By direction of the committee, I moved the Senate to add an appropriation for the Military Academy to the bill for defraying civil and diplomatic expenses. The bill was so amended; and in this form the appropriation was finally made.

But this was not all. This bill for the civil and diplomatic service being thus amended, by tacking the Military Academy upon it, was sent back by us to the House of Representatives, where its length of tail was to be still much further increased. That House had before it several subjects for provision, and for appropriation, upon which it had not passed any bill, before the time for passing bills to be sent to the Senate had elapsed. I was anxious that these things should, in some way, be provided for; and when the diplomatic bill came back, drawing the Military Academy after it, it was thought prudent to attach to it various of these other provisions. There were propositions to pave the streets in the city of Washington, to repair the Capitol, and various other things, which it was necessary to provide for; and they, therefore, were put into the same bill by way of amendment to an amendment; that is to say, Mr. President, we had been prevailed on to amend their bill for defraying the salary of our ministers abroad, by adding an appropriation for the Military Academy; and they proposed to amend this our amendment, by adding to it matter as germain to it, as it was to the original bill. There was also the President's gardener. His salary was unprovided for; and there was no way of remedying this important omission, but by giving him place in the diplomatic service bill, among chargès d'affaires, envoys extraordinary, and ministers plenipotentiary. In and among these ranks, therefore, he was formally introduced by the amendment of the House, and there he now stands, as you will readily see, by turning to the law.

Sir, I have not the pleasure to know this useful person; but, should I see him, some morning, overlooking the workmen in the lawns, walks, copses, and parterres which adorn the grounds around the President's residence, considering the company into which we have introduced him, I should expect to see, at least, a small diplomatic button on his working jacket.

VOL. III.

6

LIBRARY

THE PA D'ATE

D*

When these amendments came from the House, and were read at our table, though they caused a smile, they were yet adopted, and the law passed, almost with the rapidity of a comet, and with something like the same length of tail.

Now, sir, not one of these irregularities or incongruities, no part of this jumbling together of distinct and different subjects, was, in the slightest degree, occasioned by any thing done, or omitted to be done, on the part of the Senate. Their proceedings were all regular; their decision prompt, their despatch of the public business correct and reasonable. There was nothing of disorganization, nothing of procrastination, nothing evincive of a temper to embarrass or obstruct the public business. If the history which I have now truly given, shows that one thing was amended by another, which had no sort of connection with it, that unusual expedients were resorted to, and that the laws, instead of arrangement and symmetry, exhibit anomaly, confusion, and the most grotesque associations, it is, nevertheless, true, that no part of all this was made necessary by us. We deviated from the accustomed modes of legislation only when we were supplicated to do so, in order to supply bald and glaring deficiencies in measures which were before us.

But now, Mr. President, let me come to the Fortification Bill, the lost bill, which not only now, but on a graver occasion, has been lamented like the lost Pleiad.

This bill, sir, came from the House of Representatives to the Senate, in the usual way, and was referred to the Committee on Finance. Its appropriations were not large. Indeed, they appeared to the committee to be quite too small. It struck a majority of the committee at once that there were several fortifications on the coast, either not provided for at all, or not adequately provided for by this bill. The whole amount of its appropriations was 400,000 or 430,000 dollars. It contained no grant of three millions, and if the Senate had passed it the very day it came from the House, not only would there have been no appropriation of the three millions, but, sir, none of these other sums which the Senate did insert in the bill. Others, besides ourselves, saw the deficiencies of this bill. We had communications with and from the Departments, and we inserted in the bill every thing which any Department recommended to us. We took care to be sure that nothing else was coming. And we then reported the bill to the Senate with our proposed amendments. Among these amendments, there was a sum of $75,000 for Castle Island, in Boston, $100,000 for defences in Maryland, and so forth. These amendments were agreed to by the Senate, and one or two others added, on the motion of members; and the bill, being thus amended, was returned to the House.

And now, sir, it becomes important to ask when was this bill, thus amended, returned to the House of Representatives? Was it unduly detained here, so that the House was obliged afterwards to act upon it suddenly? This question is material to be asked, and material to be answered, too, and the Journal does satisfactorily answer it; for it appears by the Journal that the bill was returned to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, the 24th of February, one whole week before the close of the session. And from Tuesday, the 24th of February, to Tuesday, the 3d day of March, we heard not one word from this bill. Tuesday, the 3d day of March, was, of course, the last day of the session. We assembled here at 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning of that day, and sat until three in the afternoon, and still we were not informed whether the House had finally passed the bill. As it was an important matter, and belonged to that part of the public business which usually receives particular attention from the Committee on Finance, I bore the subject in my mind, and felt some solicitude about it, seeing that the session was drawing so near to a close. I took it for granted, however, as I had not heard any thing to the contrary, that the amendments of the Senate would not be objected to, and that when a convenient time should arrive for taking up the bill in the House, it would be passed at once into a law, and we should hear no more about it. Not the slightest intimation was given, either that the Executive wished for any larger appropriation, or that it was intended in the House to insert such larger appropriation. Not a syllable escaped from any body, and came to our knowledge, that any further alteration whatever was intended in the bill.

At 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the 3d of March, the Senate took its recess, as is usual in that period of the session, until 5. At 5, we again assembled, and proceeded with the business of the Senate until 8 o'clock in the evening; and, at 8 o'clock in the evening, and not before, the Clerk of the House appeared at our door, and announced that the House of Representatives had disagreed to one of the Senate's amendments, agreed to others; and to two of those amendments, viz. the 4th and 5th, it had agreed, with an amendment of its own.

Now, sir, these 4th and 5th amendments of ours were, one, a vote of $75,000 for the castle in Boston harbor, and the other, a vote of $100,000 for certain defences in Maryland. And what, sir, was the addition which the House of Representatives proposed to make, by way of " amendment" to a vote of $75,000 for repairing the works in Boston harbor? Here, sir, it is:

"And be it further enacted, That the sum of three millions of dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated, out of any money

in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be expended, in whole or in part, under the direction of the President of the United States, for the military and naval service, including fortifications and ordnance, and increase of the navy: Provided, such expenditures shall be rendered necessary for the defence of the country prior to the next meeting of Congress."

This proposition, sir, was thus unexpectedly and suddenly put to us, at eight o'clock in the evening of the last day of the session. Unusual, unprecedented, extraordinary, as it obviously is, on the face of it, the manner of presenting it was still more extraordinary. The President had asked for no such grant of money; no Department had recommended it; no estimate had suggested it; no reason whatever was given for it. No emergency had happened, and nothing new had occurred; every thing known to the Administration, at that hour, respecting our foreign relations, had certainly been known to it for days and weeks.

With what propriety, then, could the Senate be called on to sanction a proceeding so entirely irregular and anomalous? Sir, I recollect the occurrences of the moment very well, and I remember the impression which this vote of the House seemed to make all round the Senate. We had just come out of Executive session; the doors were but just opened; and I hardly remember whether there was a single spectator in the hall or the galleries. I had been at the Clerk's table, and had not reached my seat, when the message was read. All the Senators were in the chamber. I heard the message, certainly with great surprise and astonishment; and I immediately moved the Senate to disagree to this vote of the House. My relation to the subject, in consequence of my connection with the Committee on Finance, made it my duty to propose some course, and I had not a moment's doubt or hesitation what that course ought to be. I took upon myself, then, sir, the responsibility of moving that the Senate should disagree to this vote, and I now acknowledge that responsibility. It might be presumptuous to say that I took a leading part, but I certainly took an early part, a decided part, and an earnest part, in rejecting this broad grant of three millions of dollars, without limitation of purpose or specification of object; called for by no recommendation, founded on no estimate, made necessary by no state of things which was made known to us. Certainly, sir, I took a part in its rejection; and I stand here, in my place in the Senate, to-day, ready to defend the part so taken by me; or, rather, sir, I disclaim all defence, and all occasion of defence, and I assert it as meritorious to have been among those who arrested, at the earliest moment, this extraordinary departure from all settled usage, and, as I think, from plain constitutional injunction this indefinite voting of a vast sum

of money, to mere Executive discretion, without limit assigned, without object specified, without reason given, and without the least control under Heaven.

Sir, I am told, that, in opposing this grant, I spoke with warmth, and I suppose I may have done so. If I did, it was a warmth springing from as honest a conviction of duty as ever influenced a public man. It was spontaneous, unaffected, sincere. There had been among us, sir, no consultation, no concert. There could have been none. Between the reading of the message, and my motion to disagree, there was not time enough for any two members of the Senate to exchange five words on the subject. The proposition was sudden and perfectly unexpected. I resisted it, as irregular, as dangerous in itself, and dangerous in its precedent; as wholly unnecessary, and as violating the plain intention, if not the express words of the Constitution. Before the Senate, then, I avowed, and before the country I now avow, my part in this opposition. Whatsoever is to fall on those who sanctioned it, of that let me have my full share.

The Senate, sir, rejected this grant by a vote of TWENTY-NINE against nineteen. Those twenty-nine names are on the Journal; and whensoever the EXPUNGING process may commence, or how far soever it may be carried, I pray it, in mercy, not to erase mine from that record. I beseech it, in its sparing goodness, to leave me that proof of attachment to duty and to principle. It may draw around it, over it, or through it, black lines, or red lines, or any lines; it may mark it in any way which either the most prostrate and fantastical spirit of man-worship, or the most ingenious and elaborate study of self-degradation, may devise, if only it will leave it so that those who inherit my blood, or who may hereafter care for my reputation, shall be able to behold it where it now stands.

The House, sir, insisted on this amendment. The Senate adhered to its disagreement; the House asked a conference, to which request the Senate immediately acceded. The committees of conference met, and, in a very short time, came to an agreement. They agreed to recommend to their respective Houses, as a substitute for the vote proposed by the House, the following:

"As an additional appropriation for arming the fortifications of the United States, three hundred thousand dollars."

"As an additional appropriation for the repairs and equipment of ships of war of the United States, five hundred thousand dollars."

I immediately reported this agreement of the committees of conference to the Senate; but, inasmuch as the bill was in the House of Representatives, the Senate could not act further on the matter until the House should first have considered the report of