American Eloquence, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 227 pages of information about American Eloquence, Volume 1.

American Eloquence, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 227 pages of information about American Eloquence, Volume 1.

Assuming, then, that we have ascertained the will of the people on this great question, the inquiry presents itself, how far the expression of that will ought to be conclusive of our action here.  I hold that it ought to be binding and obligatory upon us; and that, not only upon the principles of representative government, which requires obedience to the known will of the people, but also in conformity to the principles upon which the proceeding against President Jackson was conducted when the sentence against him was adopted.  Then everything was done with especial reference to the will of the people.  Their impulsion was assumed to be the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate verdict was expressly referred.  The whole machinery of alarm and pressure—­every engine of political and moneyed power—­was put in motion, and worked for many months, to excite the people against the President; and to stir up meetings, memorials, petitions, travelling committees, and distress deputations against him; and each symptom of popular discontent was hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted here as proof that the people demanded the condemnation of the President.  Not only legislative assemblies, and memorials from large assemblies, were then produced here as evidence of public opinion, but the petitions of boys under age, the remonstrances of a few signers, and the results of the most inconsiderable elections were ostentatiously paraded and magnified, as the evidence of the sovereign will of our constituents.  Thus, sir, the public voice was everything, while that voice, partially obtained through political and pecuniary machinations, was adverse to the President.  Then the popular will was the shrine at which all worshipped.  Now, when that will is regularly, soberly, repeatedly, and almost universally expressed through the ballot-boxes, at the various elections, and turns out to be in favor of the President, certainly no one can disregard it, nor otherwise look at it than as the solemn verdict of the competent and ultimate tribunal upon an issue fairly made up, fully argued, and duly submitted for decision.  As such verdict, I receive it.  As the deliberate verdict of the sovereign people, I bow to it.  I am content.  I do not mean to reopen the case nor to re-commence the argument.  I leave that work to others, if any others choose to perform it.  For myself, I am content; and, dispensing with further argument, I shall call for judgment, and ask to have execution done, upon that unhappy journal, which the verdict of millions of freemen finds guilty of bearing on its face an untrue, illegal, and unconstitutional sentence of condemnation against the approved President of the Republic.

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American Eloquence, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.