The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 28

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APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
Jan. 1844.
28th Cong.....1st Sess.
Rules of the House—Mr. Hamlin.
Senate and H. of Reps.
for having removed the public depositee from the
United States Bank, the people res&lved that this
unjust imputation should he wiped from his name
ana memory; and while they demanded it should
be done, their officers insisted it until they them-
selves were overtaken and condemned by the public
judgment. And so, Mr. Chairman, it will be in
this ease. The people demand this measure of right
and justice; and gentlemen may as well play straws
against the storm, or lay their shoulders to the
Rocky Mountains to heave them from their base,
as to resist their demand. All efforts to deny or
avoid it will ultimately prove vain and ineffectual.
The only effect they can produce will be a tragedy
to themselves. Public opinion, as a mighty wave,
is in motion on this subject; and if gentlemen stand
in the way of it, they must be lost in its unfathoma-
ble depths. General Jackson is the incarnation of
the popular sentiments of the age. He speaks the
voice of the great nation in which he lives; and
past events prove that the people of this nation are
resolved that his name and fame shall be given to
posterity as bright and clear as the mirror of truth
and virtue. Time constitutes no limitation upon
what is due from gratitude. The fact that this
thing has been so long neglected, serves only to
strengthen the reason and propriety of attending
to it now. Debts of gratitude are not by statutes of
limitation.
But the gentleman from New York says this ques-
tion is intended for political effect, to operate on the
presidential election. The gentleman from Tennes-
see [Mr. Peyton] says the same, in effect. He
says it is a humbug, vamped to advance Mr. Van
Buren's prospects for the Presidency. Do these
gentlemen intend to charge this design upon seven-
teen of the twenty-six States of this Union? If so,
the eharge is absurd in itself. If all who are favor-
able to the object of this bill are for Mr. Van Buren
for the presidency, then there is no reason or ne-
cessity for resorting to humbugs and artifices to se-
cure his election. It stands guarantied to him by
the known and expressed preference of seventeen
States. Their political effect is not the object
sought, but justice; the emphatic assertion of the
gentleman from New York [Mr. Barnard] to the
contrary notwithstanding.
It occurs to me that the gentleman should be
careful how he denounces the friends of this meas-
ure? He has, in effect, imputed to a Whig majority
in the Legislature of Louisiana, political designs in-
consistent with their principles, and contrary to jus-
tice; for the Legislature of that State has called
for the restitution of this fine. Does he intend to
read the Whigs of Louisiana out of the Whig
ranks for disloyalty in this particular? It would be
impolitic for him to do so, as his ranks are already
thin, and much dismayed. But perhaps the gentle-
man, judging from recent events, thinks Louisiana
is already lost to his party, and that he will make a
virtue of necessity, and say to her now, Go, we do
not want you. Gentlemen are very unfortunate in
speaking of political humbugs, and more especially
in denouncing them—for if my judgment is not
mistaken, by so doing they denounce the very
means by which they have obtained, and now seek
to obtain, power. Without the aid of humbugs,
their gaunt and famished frames would not have
been fattened and glutted upon the spoils of office,
being the reward of their victory in the election of
1840. A perpetual Lent, the penalty of their political
heresies, would have been their doom.
A conspiracy levelled at the ark of our political
safety—the ballot-box—is the explanation of the de-
feat of the Democratic candidate for the presidency
in 1840; and not the "sober second thought of the
people." It was by the veriest humbugs that
were practised upon the credulity of a commu-
nity—-by a conspiracy commensurate, in its de-
signs and operations, with the limits of the
confederacy, aimed at the freedom and purity
of the elective franchise, that Mr.' Van Buren
was defeated. It was because the people were
cheated and deceived, that Democracy fell. But, sir,
it fell to rise again on a firmer basis, and ,in greater
loveliness and beauty, than ever before adorned and
endeared it in the eyes of freemen. The people will
recollect, in connexion with the events of 1840, that
to promise is not to perform; they will recollect
that the countless promises made to them during
that period; by the orators and essayists of the
Whig party,, have been broken and disregarded;
that they promised them "bread, and have given
them stones;" and they will.Bay to them, Go; you are
not of us: you deceived us once, that is your fault;'
if you should deceive us again, it will be burs. But
the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Peyton]
promises himself success, upon the ground that, as
Mr. Van Buren has been beaten once, he must
therefore be beaten again, in case he should be the
Democratic candidate. If he derives assurance from
this circumstance, how much greater must be his
assurance with regard to Mr. Clay? He has been
beaten three times. So that, if one defeat would
raise a presumption against the success of Mr. Van
Buren, three defeats would certainly make it sure
that Mr. Clay would be defeated. Or does not the
rule work both ways? Has Mr. Clay been beaten
so often and so long—has Mr. Clay and defeat be-
come so-hackneyed an identity, that the circumstances'
has lost all its novelty, and has failed to attract at-
tention? The argument of the gentleman seems to
be as curious as it is contradictory. While he
speaks against the measure, he says Let it pass; and
intimates, I infer, an intention to vote for it. Now,
if the argument is against the measure, then it ought
not to pass; nor would it be consistent to vote for it.
If it is right to pass it, then it should not be resisted.
So it seems to me, that the gentleman has involved
himself in a contradiction. But yet the gentleman
may be right, and I may be wrong. I impute
nothing improper to him.
Very hard things have been said by gentlemen on
the other side. The gentleman from New York [Mr.
Barnard] has said that he and his friends would be
recreant to their duty and to the country, if they
did not vote against the bill; for myself, I would say,
in answer to that gentleman, if I aid not vote for it,
I would consider myself as an abettor of treason—if
not by commission, at least by omission; as it is the
object of this bill to refund a fine imposed upon
General Jackson for the exercise of an authority,
ntended, in my opinion, to punish traitors and
suppress treason. He says the measure is so ob-
noxious that it cannot be "licked" into a palatable
shape. Sir, we will not put ourselves to the trouble
to please the taste of the gentleman. I am inclined
to think it is too naorbid to realize anything but bit-
terness m what is sweet.
It may be, however, that he wishes to claim
freater art in the process of licking than we possess,
f so, we will yield the point at once, without con-
troversy. There are those, sir, to whom right is al-
ways wrong, and wrong is always right.
It has been asked why martial law was not de-
clared at Washington during the late war? On this
point I cannot give any information; but this much 1
can say, that I would to God there had been martial
law, or any other kind of law, which recognised
American authority and honor, and not the law of
British bayonets and conquest. Yes, sir; General
Jackson was not here, nor was martial law here;
but Admiral Cockburn and General Ross were here;
and British rule and rapine were here.
"Murder bared his arm, and rampant war
Yoked the red dragons of his iron car."
Your President and Cabinet were put to flight;
your Government was broken up; your Capitol was
wrapped in flames; your colors—the proud ensign
of;the republic—were rudely snatched from their
height, and trampled in the dust; the monument
erected to the memory of the naval heroes who fell
at Tripoli was defaced and desecrated; your city
was sacked and plundered. Yes, what of all is the
most humiliating, the American eagle was the
plaything and sport of the British lion. All this
was here; and to this gentlemen would point
as an argument against General Jackson's mar-
tial law—against the suppression of treason, and
the recovery of our -glory and name in the brilliant
victory of New Orleans. Well has it been said,
"Look on this picture, aud on this."
A word or two, sir, with regard to the particular
offence alleged against General Jackson, and I have
done. Not to speak of the disparity which existed
between the British and American forces, the in-
feriority of the latter in point of discipline, numbers,
and arms, and the imminent danger to which the
city of New Orleans, and the entire trade of the
West, upon the Mississippi and through the Gulf,
was exposed, General Jackson was threatened with
internal enemies—ay, with treason in his camp. A
number of the French population of the country had
entered service under the general, and, from va-
rious causes, had become impatient of the service.
With this feeling, it became a habit to apply to the
French consul, Toussard, for certificates to exempt
them from military duty. This practice was con-
tinued) much to the detriment of the service. General
Jackson, therefore, on the 28th of February—martial
law being in force, and the city of New^ Orleans
his camp—issued an order to all persons holding these
certificates, countersigned by the commanding gen-
eral, to retire from the city into the interior of the
country. Louallier, a Frenchman, in a spirit of dis-
affection and insubordination, immediately upon the
issuing of this order published an article in the
"Louisiana Gazette," denouncing the order as tyran-
nical and unjust, and calling upon the French popula-
tion to flock to the standard of the French consul for
protection. The effect of such conduct was to increase
disaffection and to encourage treason in his camp.
He therefore caused Louallier to be arrested. Ap-
plication was made to Judge Hall, upon affidavit,
for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of Louallier,
which was issued and directed to the general, who
refused, upon demand made, to deliver the body of
Louallier. These are the main facts of the case, so
far as it relates to the failure of the general to com-
ply with the writ of habeas corpus—which is the
point most relied upon by those who object to this
bill. The question presented is simply this : was
the general, under those circumstances, bound to
obey the writ. Surely not; and for this reason—
New Orleans was his camp, and he had declared
martial law from the necessity of the case; martial
law was the paramount law for the time. The civil
authority, as far as it came in conflict with the rea-
sons of necessity from which it was declared, of
course yielded.
The effect of this writ would have been, as far as
it went, to defeat the object for which martial law
was declared; so, therefore, if General Jackson was
justified in declaring martial law, he was justified in
disobeying the writ. But it is insisted that he had
no right or power to declare martial law; that the
power is not conferred either by the Constitution or
laws; and, at the same time, it is insisted that Judge
Hall had the power to punish for contempts. In.
answer to this position, I have only to say that the
power is not so conferred upon the courts, to fine or
imprison for contempt; but that, as the right is in-
herent in the latter case, in order to the objects for
which courts are established—from the necessity of
the case—so is the right to declare martial law inhe-
rent in the general, in order to the objects for which
armies are intended, and from the necessity of the
case; for it is as necessary, in some cases, to resort
to martial law for the preservation of armies and
nations, as it is to resort to the power of punishing
for contempt, to preserve eourts. If the power is
conceded in one case, it must be in the other; and if
denied in one, so also must it be in the other; for in
both it stands upon the same paramount foundation
of necessity—the law of self-preservation, wfeich is
the law of nature.
But independent of this ground of defence, it ap-
pears, from facts appearing of record in this transac-
tion, that the writ was a nullity. This is adverted
to merely as a circumstance, but not as the main and
high ground upon which I rely for General Jack-
son's j ustification.
Here, then, is the issue: General Jackson and the
defence of the country on one side, and a British
judge, confederated with traitors, on the other.
Whether shall we vindicate the war-worn veteran
from an act of injustice, or whether shall we turn a
deaf ear to the voice of the country, and let him go
down to the grave wronged and injured in his good
name? The Democracy have taken their position;
Those who are opposed to them have taken theirs
also; and let the country judge between us.
REMARKS OF MR. HAMLIN,
OF MAINE,
In the House of Representatives, January 5, 1843—
Upon the motion of Mr. Dromgoole, of Virginia,
to recommit the rules reported to the House, and
the amendment offered by Mr. Black, of Georgia,
instructing the committee to include what lias
usually been called the 21st rule.
Mr. HAMLIN said he did not propose to occupy
much of the time of the House. He did not design
to discuss the merits of the question, but mainly to
state the principles by which he was directed and
controlled. He was opposed to the recommitment
and to the instructions offered by the gentleman
from Georgia. The time, he trusted, had gone by
(if it ever existed) when the galvanic starts and fits,
and deep intonations, of any gentleman could pro-
duce an impression in that hall. He should vote,
irrespective of all such influences, on this and on
every other question, according to the dictates of