Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.). United States. Congress
that of the gentleman from New York. I consider it as neither leading to insurrection, rebellion, nor any such thing. I believe that the true principle of every modern democrat, is, that the law constitutionally made is supreme, and is to be obeyed; that it has nothing to do with riots, rebellion, and insurrection. I know very well, and shall not deny it, that there are times when insurrection is a holy thing, but it is not peculiarly attributable to democracy. With us, election puts every thing to rights; and on them every man of pure democratic principles depends. It is doubtful whether the question of the constitutionality of the sedition law can be settled in a more easy way, and in a mode less liable to irritation, than that proposed by my colleague. If the committee report as I wish, it is well; if not, it settles the question forever; and it is surely desirable that the question should be settled. However gentlemen may differ, as to the principle proposed to be investigated, they might with propriety vote for the inquiry, as it is the ordinary course of every day. I do not consider this as proposing to give a premium to violators of the laws. I know that much depends in this world on names; and that if you give any man or thing a bad name, whether merited or not, it is difficult to get rid of it. I hope the House will not be deterred from this inquiry by any name attempted to be given to it. It is proper that this question should be settled; and if considered now, it will be settled by a body which did not partake of the heats of those times, and when, to say the least of it, there is a little division in the great parties of the nation; and it seems to me that the gentleman who moved it has been fortunate in the selection of his time. Eight years have elapsed, a new President is just inducted, and the question is now brought up for our decision. I am sorry that any member of this House should make a motion with no other view but for procrastination. I do not believe that my colleague who made this motion is more in the habit of procrastinating the public business than other members of the House; and I was in hopes that there would have been no dissentient voice to his motion. He only asks of you to let the inquiry be made. He does not ask a single member of the House to commit himself upon the question, but merely asks that a committee may be permitted to inquire into it; and this, it seems to me, is no extraordinary request. I hope that the resolution, without being trammelled with any extraneous matter, will be passed.
Mr. Key said he should vote for indefinite postponement of the resolution. What good purpose could its adoption answer, unless the House had the power to take money from the Treasury of the United States for the purpose of remunerating any person who had suffered? Had Congress that power? He apprehended not. He could see no such power amongst those delegated to Congress. The gentleman from North Carolina admitted the House were under no obligation to remunerate the sufferers; and if the gentleman would turn to the rules laid down for the definition of the powers of Congress, he would see that there was no authority to draw money from the Treasury for this purpose. Under that view of the constitution, Mr. K. said he must vote for indefinite postponement.
Mr. Macon asked under what clause of the constitution Captain Murray and others had been remunerated? Under what clause money paid into the Treasury had been returned in various instances? The right to take, gave the right to return that which was taken. In many instances this principle had been practised on. There was no law to authorize the punishment of a man for robbing the mail; but it was derived from the power of establishing post roads. The power of refunding money was one which had been often exercised.
Mr. Gardenier was in favor of an inquiry. It was not only proper that an inquiry should be made, but it was the bounden duty of the House to make it. A member of the House in his place had stated facts which if true undoubtedly entitled him to their interference. Our duty (said Mr. G.) is imperative. The case of the gentleman does not rest upon the question whether the sedition law was constitutional or unconstitutional, but upon the fact that he was not a proper object for the exercise of that law. For, if the statement made be correct, he was punished for uttering a creed which would not be improper for every member of the House; and I will say that subsequent events have shown the sincerity with which the gentleman did make it; that he had kept his promise most religiously; that it was not applicable to those men, or that time, any more than to the present, but was a creed on which he practised before and ever since, so far as his political course is known to me. It is a case in which the privileges of the members of this House are materially concerned. If under the sedition law for a letter written by a member of this House to his constituents, giving his view of public measures, he has been punished, it concerns the safety of this House that complete and perfect remuneration should be made. It is as important that every member should be permitted to speak freely to his constituents, as that he should without restraint address the Chair of the House. It was a case, therefore, which never ought to have been the subject of a judicial investigation, much less considered as a crime. The gentleman at the time followed the dictates of his conscience. To his conscience and his God alone should he be responsible. Sir, should we refuse an inquiry into this case, when we know that the fine of James Thompson Callender, for one of the most atrocious libels ever written in the United States, was remitted? When we know that it was remitted by the President of the United States, after the money had been received by the proper receiving officer of the United States, when it had passed out of the hands of James Thompson Callender into the hands of the officer of Government, and was, to all intents and purposes, in the Treasury of the United States, because there is no such thing as a treasury in which money is actually deposited – for a libel, too, in which the great Father of his Country was treated with a shameless indignity, which could not but have gone to the heart of every man? When the President of the United States was in that libel called a hoary-headed incendiary, should that fine be returned, and shall a gentleman in this House be fined and imprisoned for that which was not even improper? Shall we not restore to him that which others have been suffered to retain, and for which we have not brought to question him who restored it after it was in possession of the receiving officer of the United States – in fact, after it was in the Treasury? Let us not be guilty of this inconsistency. If the sedition law has gone to the tomb of the Capulets, and I believe it has, I am not one who wishes to bear up against the people's voice; the Government is theirs, and when they speak we obey. If under that law the Government has received money for an act which really, if the statement of the gentleman be true, could scarcely be considered an offence within the purview of that law, will you not give it back to him? Either give back the money in the case, or take measures to recover that money which was given back in the other. I am not for making fish of one and flesh of another. Whilst on this subject I will declare that I never did consider the sedition law as unconstitutional. Congress were competent to pass it. But, that parties will sometimes in the ardor of their course exceed the limits of discretion, and do violence to the milder feeling of the community in which they live, has been proved in the Adams Administration, and in that which has lately disappeared; and when they have cooled down, it is but rendering justice to the sense of the country to acknowledge their errors. No, sir, I am satisfied that all prosecutions for libels on the Government should be at least very hesitatingly sustained. You cannot draw a precise line by which you shall limit the right of investigation. The two things are so blended together that you cannot separate them. You must either make the Government supreme or the people supreme. I am for the latter. As Dr. Johnson makes Lord Chesterfield say, liberty and licentiousness are blended like the colors in the rainbow; it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Licentiousness is a speck on the eye of the political body, which you can never touch without injuring the eye itself. I hope and trust that with this investigation will be connected an inquiry into the prosecutions at common law in Connecticut. I have seen in the State of New York, but not under the present Administration, a defendant coming into court, begging only to be permitted to prove that what he had said was true; I have seen also an Attorney-General rise to prevent it: I have seen the truth smothered on the trial by men who were as clamorous against the sedition law as any loud-mouthed patriot in the country. I have seen them bringing almost to the block the victim who may only wish to prove the truth of what he said – which was denied him. I mention this to show that where parties are contending against each other, where there is a majority on one hand and a minority on the other, that which appears on paper proper for the protection of the Government, turns out to be for the oppression of the minority. In the nature of parties it cannot be otherwise. Therefore, in my opinion, the Government of the United States cannot render a greater service than by declaring it will not be accessary to any diminution of the rights of the citizen; that free investigation shall in all cases be permitted.