For years, Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton tries to remove the resolution of censure by the United States Senate against President Andrew Jackson. The Senate, following Jackson’s removal of the federal government’s deposits, says that all fiscal matters must originate in the House of Representatives, votes 26 to 20 on March 28, 1834 to censure the president for his actions, saying, “Resolved that the President in the late 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.” Jackson, in a rage, sent a written dissent against it, which the Senate declined to accept.
Three years later, Thomas Hart Benton has the pledged votes to remove the censure and introduces legislation on the floor of the Senate to do so. The opponents of Benton move for adjournment before the vote is taken but are outvoted. Benton, the eyes and ears of the President in the Senate (despite being related to political rival Henry Clay by marriage [cousin of Lucretia Hart Clay]), is like a dog with a bone; he won’t let it go. Each session he introduces the expunging resolution but lacks the votes for passage.
The resolution of censure passes the Senate 26 to 20 but things change politically. Seldom do all three of the Great Triumvirate, Kentucky’s Henry Clay, South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun and Massachusetts’ Daniel Webster, vote the same way and rarely in a losing cause. Jackson’s popularity helps enough people get elected so when he calls in a favor, he gets the desired result. The President gets pretty much anything he wants from Congress, but this censure resolution is beyond his purview. This is one political fight he must leave to others. Jackson can indirectly make a difference and bring pressure to bear but can’t vote in the Senate; he can exert outward influence but not participate directly.
Benton’s resolution is introduced, with Benton saying, on the Senate floor, “It is now three years since the resolve was adopted by the Senate, which it is my present motion to expunge from the journal. At the moment that this resolve was adopted, I gave notice of my intention to expunge it… “
Opponents are quick to respond to Benton. South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun states, the constitution says, “A journal is to be kept.” By altering the journal, a true record of the Senate’s actions will not be reflected. Calhoun dislikes the President both personally and politically. “A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.”
Daniel Webster speaks next, saying about the Senate journal, “The Constitution solemnly declares a record shall be kept; the resolution before the Senate declares that this record shall be expunged.”
Henry Clay, speaking against Benton’s resolution, says, “What patriotic purpose is to be gained by this Expunging resolution?” He says before about Jackson and the military, “Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Caesar, England her Cromwell, France her Napoleon, and that if we would escape the rock on which they split, we must avoid their errors.”
But Benton is fairly confident he has the necessary votes to accomplish what he wants. The Triumvirate fears they are facing defeat from the outset. Theirs could be but an exercise in futility; no amount of speeches, no matter how eloquent or of exceptional delivery can alter the outcome.
Although all three members of the Triumvirate give stirring speeches, the outcome seems to be a foregone conclusion. The three simply no longer have the Senatorial votes to prevail. Benton has the required votes and knows it. John Tyler, representing Virginia in Congress, resigns rather than vote in favor of the expunging resolution, as directed by his state legislature. Several state governments convey instructions for their representatives in Congress to vote in favor of the expunging resolution. Every Senator in the chamber makes remarks about the resolution. James Buchanan, Senator from Pennsylvania, states that the Constitution says the Senate should “keep,” not “preserve,” a record of proceedings. Delaware Senator Richard Henry Bayard says the expunging of the journal is “a violation of the Constitution.”
But no matter how high-minded the tone, it falls to a party line vote; do Benton and the Democrats or Clay and the Whigs have the requisite votes? On January 16, 1837 debate comes to an end and a final vote on the expunging resolution is to be taken. Benton has food and drink brought in for the senators of his party so no one would take a break before the vote is taken. The Senate votes in favor of expunging, having the chamber’s secretary draw black lines around the original censure of 1834 and write “Expunged by order of the senate.”
Clay, dressed in black, as though at a funeral, intones, “The Senate is no longer a place for any decent man.” When he goes home to Ashland, his home in Lexington, Kentucky, he doesn’t say it, but anything of importance will be decided on a party line vote and he’s too old and impatient to be “the loyal opposition” any longer. That is a job for younger men for whom time is expendable. Of the available votes, he can only muster 19 or 20, not a majority.
The Triumvirate appears to be through, but they still have another major legislative battle to go…