ment. [SENATE. A surplus tariff coalition can never resist the mandate of the people's will. The tariff and surplus coalition will be more odious than any which have preceded it; it will be the union of sin and death; and both, both will be driven out together from the halls of Congress. Let me tell the manufacturing interest, in the spirit of truth and candor, that to them a union with the surplus party will be the embrace of death. By the surplus party I mean not those who voted to deposite with the States an already accumulated surplus, but I mean the party that wishes to legislate, or refuse to legislate, for the purpose of creating a surplus. Last year that party had perhaps an uncertain majority, or nearly a majority, in this chamber. Where is that majority now? Gone, swept away by the majesty of the people's will; and the anti-surplus, anti-distribution party now constitute a great majority in both Houses of Congress, and have carried the President elect. If, then, the manufacturing interest leans for support upon the surplus par agriculture, and manufactures, of the whole country. When money is invested, even from the old States, in lands for settlement and cultivation only, in the new States, the annual products of the soil increase the wealth and prosperity of the whole country, and soon give back to the old States, through the channels of trade and business, more than the amount of the purchase-money of the land. But if the citizens of a nation appropriate millions annually in the purchase of property yielding no income, the result is a great national loss. It is, then, the interest of the whole Union that those monopolies of the public lands should be arrested, and that capital should continually flow in the various channels of productive industry. If, among other causes, the exist ing embarrassments are now greatly attributable to the speculating investment of millions, during the past year, in wild lands, what will be the result if the system is permitted to continue for a series of years unabated? It is easy to foresee that the necessary consequence will be, increasing distress and embarrassment, or at least a dim-ty, it will lean upon a small and decreasing minority. inution of the national prosperity." Mr. W. asked, had not the predictions contained in this report been fully realized, and would it not have been well for the community if the bill then proposed by this committee for arresting these speculations had been adopted by Congress? And if we continue the existing system, will not these evils continue to augment from year to year, till the whole public domain, which is of any value, shall be swept within the vortex of speculating monopoly? Continue the existing system but a few years more, and the nation will awake, as it were, from a trance, and find itself despoiled, by speculators, of every acre of good land east of the river Mississippi. Nor will it stop there. No; it will roll on, it is rolling on, over the regions of the far West, reaching from the Ohio to the Missouri, and from near the sources of the great Mississippi to its outlet in the Gulf. In a few years more, and speculators will command an empire, and parcel it out at their pleasure; and yet we refuse to interpose, nay, we sustain and encourage this system, by which whole States and Territories will be placed beneath the degrading control of a few speculating monopolists. National interest and national honor alike prompt us to interpose. And what restrains us? Sir, it is the surplus, the fatal surplus spirit, that pushes onward this Government to the very verge of the precipice. It is this spirit which dares to demand from the people more revenue than is required for the wants of the Gov ernment; it is this spirit which must be gratified, and would soon sell, if it could, not only the land, but the people of the new States, for unnecessary revenue. But, God be thanked, this spirit has been rebuked by the people, and their decree has been proclaimed, that no more money shall be collected from them than is required for the wants of the Covernment, administered in spirit of republican economy, and within the strict limits of the constitution. This principle is becoming fundamental, and must be carried into full and practical effect. If you will not bring down the revenue to the wants of the Government, by confining to settlers or cultivators the sales of the public lands, reduce! reduce! repeal! repeal the tariff! will be the voice that will be echoed by the people through these walls. Already this voice is breaking upon us, and within the hall of the House of Representatives, demanding that the revenue from the tariff be reduced more than six millions of dollars. Has the manufacturing interest no eyes to see the difficulties which surround it? has it no ears to hear the voice of the people, demanding more and more loudly the reduction of the revenue to the wants of the Government? If the manufacturing interest now unites itself with the surplus party, it will be swept before the torrent of public senti Sir, (said Mr. W.,) I do not wish to renew the scenes of ceipts to the wants of the Government. The twenty-five millions of dollars alone received annually from the sales of the public lands to speculators, under the existing system, would be too great for the proper, regular, annual, expenditures of the Government. Any Senator, then, who is for the present system, is either for an annual revenue of nearly forty millions of dollars, for wild and extravagant expenditures, or for an annual distribution. Any Senator who votes to continue the present system, votes to create a surplus. Any Senator who votes against limiting to settlers or cultivators the sales of the public lands, votes to accumulate a surplus. This fact cannot be disguised from the people, and will constitute the true criterion between the surplus and anti-surplus party, unless, indeed, we almost entirely repeal the tariff. Under the system we propose, the public domain, exclusive of sales for settlement, will remain the property of the Government, and in case of war or any great emer gency we may sell again for revenue. There is no subject in regard to which so many erroneous estimates have been made, as the number of acres of public land required annually for settlement or cultivation. It is demonstrable that five millions of acres is the maximum required for these purposes. This is ascertained by the augmentation of population in the new States and Territories in a given term of years, and the correspondent amount of lands entered during the same period. The increase of population in the new States and Territories, from 1820 to 1830, was 1,070,998. The total amount of entries and purchases of the public lands, for all purposes, during the same period, was 8,216,858 acres. Thus, an annual increase of one million of population, in the new States and Territories, would require less than eight millions of acres for the purposes of settlement or cultivation. Now, the most extravagant estimate of the annual increase of population in the new States and Territories does not exceed two hundred thousand; at this rate, requiring annually only one million six hundred thousand acres. But suppose the quantity trebled, and the amount will not reach five millions of acres; thus making a difference in the revenue of nearly nineteen millions of dollars per annum, according to the receipts of the present year. As, then, a mere financial measure-as a measure to reduce the revenue to the wants of the Government-there is nothing proposed so important as this bill. Assuming these five millions of acres as the largest amount that would be sold annually under the system now proposed, and the maximum of revenue hereafter accruing annually from lands and customs would be as follows: The great difference between the years 1837 and 1838, in the above estimates, arises from the fact that, in any event, for a large portion of the year 1837, the sales must take place under the existing system. If we make a still further reduction, by the repeal of the duties on all articles now paying a less duty than twenty per cent. ad valorem, as authorized by the sixth section of the compromise act of 1833, we would probably strike off one million and a half annually from the taxes of the people, and the maximum of our annual revenue would be [JAN. 16, 1837. But it is to be hoped that there are some articles, particularly those of universal use or consumption by all classes, and especially by the poor, upon which we may be enabled to reduce the duties, though not embraced within the provisions of the sixth section of the compromise act, without reviving the strife and difficulties of 1832, so as not only to reduce the revenue to the wants of the Government, but to graduate our expenditures by a standard of republican economy in all our appropri ations. Such are the great principles of the bill, and the details are designed to promote the great object. Sales of the public lands at public auction, though not entirely abolished, are confined to those who purchase for settlement or cultivation. The speculator is excluded from the public sales, as he is from private entries. This is indispensable; for when the speculator is excluded only from private entries, but permitted to purchase at pub. lic auction, he would engross nearly all the lands offered at any future land sales. And what has the Govern ment gained by sales of its lands at public auction? Nothing deserving an estimate. Upon comparing the official records, the total number of acres sold, and the total price received, the following have been the results of the auction system: From the 1st of July, 1820, to the present period, we have received, from sales of the public lands, an average of three cents per acre over the minimum price; from 1796 to 1st July, 1820, nearly three cents per acre over the minimum price; from 1796 to the present period, three cents per acre over the minimum price; for the year 1835, one cent and a half per acre over the minimum price; for the year 1836, less than one cent per acre over the minimum price. Hence it is obvious that nothing is gained by the Government by continuing the auction system. Mr. W. here proceeded to explain to the Senate the details of the b ; the clause confining the sales to settlers or cultivators; the limitation to two sections; the authority to parents to purchase for their children, with a view to the establishment of farms; the pre-emption section; the privilege of purchasing in forty-acres lots; and, finally, the taxing power conceded to the States, by which they might raise a revenue from unoccupied lands, whether held by their own or non-resident speculators, and thus, to a certain extent, repress speculation. And Mr. W. concluded by returning his thanks to the Senate for the very general and indulgent attention with which they had received his remarks. Mr. CLAY said he was gratified to hear from the chairman of the Committee on Public Lands the assurance that the Treasury order of July, 1836, would, in some way, be dispensed with. He wished to ask of the chairman when the committee would probably report on this subject. Mr. WALKER could not certainly tell; but probably by Tuesday next. On motion of Mr. MORRIS, the bill, with the amendments, was postponed till Monday. The expunging resolution of Mr. BENTON now coming up for further consideration, and Mr. CLAY having the floor On motion of Mr. KENT, The Senate adjourned: Yeas 22, nays 18. MONDAY, JANUARY 16. EXPUNGING RESOLUTION. After disposing of the usual morning business, the Senate proceeded to the consideration of the special order, which was Mr. BENTON's resolution to expunge from the journal of the Senate the resolution of the 28th March, 1834, censuring the President for having removed the deposites from the Bank of the United States. Mr. CLAY rose and said that, considering that he was the mover of the resolution of March, 1834, and the consequent relation in which he stood to the majority of the Senate by whose vote it was adopted, he had felt it to be his duty to say something on this expunging resolution; and he had always intended to do so when he should be persuaded that there existed a settled purpose of pressing it to a final decision. But it had been so taken up and put down at the last session-taken up one day, when a speech was prepared for delivery, and put down when it was pronounced-that he had really doubted whether there existed any serious intention of ever putting it to the vote. At the very close of the last session, it will be recollected that the resolution came up, and in several quarters of the Senate a disposition was manifested to come to a definitive decision. On that occasion he had offered to waive his right to address the Senate, and silently to vote upon the resolution; but it was again laid upon the table, and laid there forever, as the country supposed, and as he believed. It is, however, now revived; and, sundry changes having taken place in the members of this body, it would seem that the present design is to bring the resolution to an absolute conclusion. I have not risen (continued Mr. C.) to repeat, at full length, the argument by which the friends of the resolution of March, 1834, sustained it. That argument is before the world, was unanswered at the time, and is unanswerable. And I here, in my place, in the presence of my country and of my God, after the fullest consideration and deliberation of which my mind is capa ble, reassert my solemn conviction of the truth of every proposition contained in that resolution. But, whilst it is not my intention to commit such an infliction upon the Senate as that would be of retracing the whole ground of argument formerly occupied, I desire to lay before it, at this time, a brief and true state of the case. Before the fatal step is taken of giving to the expunging resolution the sanction of the American Senate, I wish, by presenting a faithful outline of the real questions involved in the resolution of 1834, to make a last, even if it is to be an ineffectual, appeal to the sober judgments of Senators. I begin by reasserting the truth of that resolution. Our British ancestors understood perfectly well the immense importance of the money power in a representative Government. It is the great lever by which the Crown is touched, and made to conform its administration to the interests of the kingdom and the will of the people. Deprive Parliament of the power of freely granting or withholding supplies, and surrender to the King the purse of the nation, he instantly becomes an absolute monarch. Whatever may be the form of gov. ernment, elective or hereditary, democratic or despotic, that person who commands the force of the nation, and at the same time bas uncontrolled possession of the purse of the nation, has absolute power, whatever may be the official name by which he is called. Our immediate ancestors, profiting by the lessons on civil liberty which had been taught in the country from which we sprung, endeavored to encircle around the public purse, in the hands of Congress, every possible security against the intrusion of the Executive. With this view, Congress alone is invested, by the constitution, with the power to lay and collect the taxes. When collected, not a cent is to be drawn from the public Treasury but in virtue of an act of Congress. And among the first acts of this Government was the passage of a law establishing the Treasury Department, for the safe keeping and the legal and regular disbursement of the money so collected. By that act a Secretary of the Treasury is placed at the head of the Department; and, varying in this respect from all the other Departments, [SENATE. he is to report, not to the President, but directly to Congress, and is liable to be called to give information in person before Congress. It is impossible to examine dispassionately that act, without coming to the conclusion that he is emphatically the agent of Congress, in performing the duties assigned by the constitution to Congress. The act further provides that a Treasurer shall be appointed, to receive and keep the public money; and none can be drawn from his custody but under the authority of a law, and in virtue of a warrant drawr, by the Secretary of the Treasury, countersigned by the Comptroller, and recorded by the Register. Only when such a warrant is presented can the Treasurer lawfully pay one dollar from the public purse. Why was the concurrence of these four officers required in disbursements of the public money? Was it not for greater security? Was it not intended that each, exercising a separate and independent will, should be a check upon every other? Was it not the purpose of the law to consider each of these four officers, acting in his proper sphere, not as a mere automaton, but as an intellectual, intelligent, and responsible person, bound to observe the law, and to stop the warrant, or stop the money, if the authority of the law were wanting? Thus stood the Treasury from 1789 to 1816. During that long time no President had ever attempted to interfere with the custody of the public purse. It remained, where the law placed it, undisturbed, and every Chief Magistrate, including the Father of his Country, respected the law. In 1816 an act passed to establish the late Bank of the United States for the term of twenty years, and, by the 16th section of the act, it is enacted that the deposites of the money of the United States, in places in which the said bank and the branches thereof may be established, shall be made in said bank or branches thereof, unless the Secretary of the Treasury shall at any time otherwise order and direct; in which case, the Secretary of the Treasury shall immediately lay before Congress, if in session, and, if not, immediately after the commencement of the next session, the reasons of such order or direction." Thus it is perfectly manifes', from the express words of the law, that the power to make any order or direc tion for the removal of the public deposites is confided to the Secretary alone, to the absolute exclusion of the President, and all the world besides. And the law, proceeding upon the established principle that the Secretary of the Treasury, in all that concerns the public purse, acts as the direct agent of Congress, requires, in the event of his ordering or directing a removal of the deposites, that he shall immediately lay his reasons therefor before whom? The President? No; before Congress. So stood the public Treasury and the public deposites from the year 1816 to September, 1833. In all that period of seventeen years, running through or into four several administrations of the Government, the law had its uninterrupted operation, no Chief Magistrate having assumed upon himself the power of diverting the public purse from its lawful custody, or of substituting his will to that of the officer to whose care it was exclusively intrusted. In the session of Congress of 1832-'S an inquiry had been instituted by the House of Representatives into the condition of the Bank of the United States. It resulted in a conviction of its entire safety, and a declaration by the House, made only a short time before the adjourn ment of Congress, on the 4th of March, 1833, that the public deposites were perfectly secure. This declaration was probably made in consequence of suspicions then afloat of a design on the part of the Executive to remove the deposites. These suspicions were denied by the press friendly to the administration. Nevertheless, SENATE.] Expunging Resolution. the members had scarcely reached their respective homes before measures were commenced by the Executive to effect a removal of the deposites from that very place of safety which it was among the last acts of the House to declare existed in the Bank of the United States. In prosecution of this design, Mr. McLane, the Secretary of the Treasury, who was decidedly opposed to such a measure, was promoted to the Department of State, and Mr. Duane was appointed to succeed him. But Mr. Duane was equally convinced with his predecessor that he was forbidden by every consideration of duty to execute the power with which the law had intrusted the Secretary of the Treasury, and refused to remove the deposites; whereupon he was dismissed from office, a new Secretary of the Treasury was appointed, and, in September, 1833, by the command of the President, the measure was finally accomplished. That it was the President's act was never denied, but proclaimed, boasted, defended. It fell upon the country like a thunderbolt, agitating the Union from one extremity to the other. The stoutest adherents of the administration were alarmed; and all thinking men, not blinded by party prejudice, beheld in the act a bold and dangerous exercise of power; and no human sagacity can now foresee the tremendous consequences which will ensue. The measure was adopted not long before the approaching session of Congress; and, as the concurrence of both branches might be necessary to compel a restoration of the deposites, the object was to take the chance of a possible division between them, and thereby defeat the restoration. And where did the President find the power for this most extraordinary act? It has been seen that the constitution, jealous of all executive interference with the Treasury of the nation, has confided it to the exclusive care of Congress, by every precautionary guard, from the first imposition of the taxes to the final disbursement of the public money. It has been seen that the language of the 16th section of the law of 1816 is express and free from all ambiguity, and that the Secretary of the Treasury is the sole and exclusive depositary of the authority which it confers. Those who maintain the power of the President have to support it against the positive language of the constitution, against the explicit words of the statute, and against the genius and theory of all our institutions. And how do they surmount these insuperable obstacles? By a series of far-fetched implications, which, if every one of them were as true as they are believed to be incorrect or perverted, would stop far short of maintaining the power which was exercised. The first of these implied powers is, that of dismissal, which is claimed for the President. Of all the questioned powers ever exercised by this Government, this is the most questionable. From the first Congress down to the present administration, it had never been examined. It was carried then, in the Senate, by the casting vote of the Vice President. And those who, at that day, argued in behalf of the power, contended for it upon conditions which have been utterly disregarded by the present Chief Magistrate. The power of dismissal is nowhere in the constitution granted, in express terms, to the President. It is not a necessary incident to any granted power; and the friends of the power have never been able to agree among themselves as to the precise part of the constitution from which it springs. But if the power of dismissal was as incontestable as it is justly controvertible, we utterly deny the consequences deduced from it. The argument is, that the President has, by implication, the power of dismissal. From this first implication another is drawn; and that is, that the President has the power to control the officer, [JAN. 16, 1837. whom he may dismiss, in the discharge of his duties, in all cases whatever; and that this power of control is so comprehensive as to include even the case of a specific duty expressly assigned by law to the designated officer. Now, we deny these results from the dismissing pow. er. That power, if it exists, can daaw after it only a right of general superintendence. It cannot authorize the President to substitute his will to the will of the officer charged with the performance of official duties. Above all, it cannot justify such a substitution in a case where the law, as in the present instance, assigns to a designated officer exclusively the performance of a particular duty, and commands him to report, not to the President, but to Congress, in a case regarding the pub. lic purse of the nation, committed to the exclusive control of Congress. Such a consequence as that which I am contesting would concentrate in the hands of one man the entire executive power of the nation, uncontrolled and unchecked. And It would be utterly destructive of all official responsi bitity. Instead of each officer being responsible, in his own separate sphere, for his official acts, he would shelter himself behind the orders of the President. what tribunal, in heaven above or on earth below, could render judgment against any officer for an act, however atrocious, performed by the express command of the President, which, according to the argument, he was absolutely bound to obey? Whilst all official responsibility would be utterly annihilated in subordinate officers, there would be no prac tical or available responsibility in the President himself. But the case has been supposed, of a necessity for the removal of the deposites, and a refusal of the Secretary of the Treasury to remove them; and it is triumphantly asked if, in such a case, the President may not remove him, and command the deed to be done. That is an extreme case, which may be met by another. Suppose the President, without any necessity, orders the removal from a place of safety to a place of hazard? If there be danger that a Secretary may neglect his duty, there is equal danger that a President may abuse his authority. Infallibility is not a human attribute. And there is more security for the public in holding the Secretary of the Treasury to the strict performance of an official duty, specially assigned to him, under all his official responsibility, than to allow the President to wrest the work from his hands, annihilate his responsibility, and stand himself practically irresponsible. It is far better that millions should be lost by the neglect of a Secretary of the Treasury, than to establish the monstrous principle that all the checks and balances of the Executive Government shall be broken down, the whole power absorbed by one man, and his will become the supreme rule. The argument which I am` combating places the whole Treasury of the nation at the mercy of the Executive. It is in vain to talk of appropriations by law, and the formalities of warrants upon the Treasury. Assuming the argument to be correct, what is to prevent the execution of an order from the President to the Secretary of the Treasury to issue a warrant, without the sanction of a previous legal appropriation, to the Comptroller to countersign it, to the Register to register it, and to the Treasurer to pay it? What becomes of that quadruple security which the precaution of the law provided? Instead of four subtantive and independent wills, acting under legal obligations, all are merged in the executive vortex. But there was, in point of fact, no cause, none whatever, for the measure. Every fiscal consideration (and no other had the Secretary or the President a right to entertain) required the deposites to be left undisturbed in the place of perfect safety where by law they were. We told you so at the time. We asserted that the charges of insecurity and insolvency of the bank were without the slightest foundation. And time, that great arbiter of human controversies, has confirmed all that we said. The bank, from documents submitted to Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury at the present session, appears to be able not only to return every dollar of the stock held in its capital by the public, but an addition of eleven per cent. beyond it. Those who defend the executive act have to maintain not only that the President may assume upon himself the discharge of a duty specially assigned to the Secretary of the Treasury, but that he may remove that officer, arbitrarily, and without any cause, because he refused to remove the public deposites without cause. My mind conducts me to a totally different conclusion. I think, I solemnly believe, that the President "assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both," in the language of the resolution. I believed then in the truth of the resolution; and I now, in my place, and under all my responsibility, reavow my unshaken conviction of it. [SENATE. utive, and judicial-and their importance is in the order enumerated. By far the most important of the three is its legislative. In that, almost every day that it has been in session from 1789 to the present time, some legislative business has been transacted; whilst, in its judicial character, it has not sat more than three or four times in that whole period. Why should the judicial function limit and restrain the legislative function of the Senate, more than the legislative should the judicial? If the degree of importance of the two should decide which ought to impose the restraint, in case of conflict between them, none can doubt which it should be. Ac But if the argument is sound, how is it possible for the Senate to perform its legislative duties? An act in violation of the constitution or laws is committed by the President, or a subordinate executive officer, and it becomes necessary to correct it by the passage of a law. The very act of the President in question was under a law to which the Senate had given its concurrence. cording to the argument, the correcting law cannot originate in the Senate, because it would have to pass in judgment upon that act. Nay, more: it cannot originate in the House and be sent to the Senate, for the same reason of incompetency in the Senate to pass upon it. Suppose the bill contained a preamble reciting the unconstitutional or illegal act, to which the legislative corrective is applied: according to the argument, the Senate must not think of passing it. Pushed to its legitimate consequence, the argument requires the House of Representatives itself cautiously to abstain from the expression of any opinion upon an executive act, except when it is acting as the grand inquest of the nation, and consider But it has been contended on this occasion, as it was in the debate which preceded the adoption of the resolution of 1834, that the Senate has no right to express the truth on any question which, by possibility, may become a subject of impeachment. It is manifest that if it may, there is no more usual or appropriate form in which it may be done than that of resolutions, joint or separate, orders, or bills. In no other mode can the collective sense of the body be expressed. But Senators maintain that no matter what may be the executive encroachment upon the joint powers of the two Houses, or the separate authority of the Senate, it is bound to standing articles of impeachment. mute, and not breathe one word of complaint or remonstrance. According to the argument, the greater the violation of the constitution or the law, the greater the incompetency of the Senate to express any opinion upon it! Further, that this incompetency is not confined to the acts of the President only, but extends to those of every officer who is liable to impeachment under the constitution. Is this possible? Can it be true? Contrary to all the laws of nature, is the Senate the only being which has no power of self-preservation-no right to complain or to remonstrate against attacks upon its very existence? The argument is, that the Senate, being the constitutional tribunal to try all impeachments, is thereby precluded from the exercise of the right to express any opinion upon any official malfeasance, except when act ing in its judicial character. If this disqualification exist, it applies to all impeachable officers, and ought to have protected the late Postmaster General against the resolution, unanimously adopted by the Senate, declaring that he had borrowed money contrary to law. And it would disable the Senate from considering that Treasury order which has formed such a prominent subject of its deliberations during the present session. And how do Senators maintain this obligation of the Senate to remain silent and behold itself stript, one by one, of all its constitutional powers, without resistance, and without murmur? Is it imposed by the language of the constitution? Has any part of that instrument been pointed to which expressly enjoins it? No, no, not a syllable. But it is attempted to be deduced by another far-fetched implication. Because the Senate is the body which is to try impeachments, therefore it is inferred the Senate can express no opinion on any matter which may form the subject of impeachment. The constitu tion does not say so. That is undeniable; but Senators think so. Assuming that the argument is well founded, the Senate is equally restrained from expressing any opinion which would imply the innocence or the guilt of an impeachable officer, unless it be maintained that it is lawful to express praise and approbation, but not censure or difference of opinion. Instances have occurred in our past history, (the case of the British minister, Jackson, was a memorable one,) and many others may arise in our future progress, when, in reference to foreign Powers, it may be important for Congress to approve what has been done by the Executive, to present a firm and united front, and to pledge the country to stand by and support him. May it not do that? If the Senate dare not entertain and express any opinion upon an executive measure, how do those who support this expunging resolution justify the acquittal of the President which it proclaims? No Senator believed, in 1834, that, whether the President merited impeachment or not, he ever would be impeached. In point of fact he has not been, and we have every reason to suppose that he never will be, impeached. Was the majority of the Senate, in a case where it believed the constitution and laws to have been violated, and the liberties of the people to be endangered, to remain silent, and to refrain from proclaiming the truth, because, against all human probability, the President might be impeached by a majority of his political friends in the House of Representatives? If an impeachment had been actually voted by the House of Representatives, there is nothing in the constitution which enjoins silence on the part of the Senate. In such a case, it would have been a matter of propriety, for the consideration of each Senator, to avoid the expression of any opinion on a matter upon which, as a sworn judge, he would be called to act. Hitherto, I have considered the question on the supposition that the resolution of March, 1834, implied such guilt in the President that he would have been liable to conviction on a trial by impeachment before the Senate |