The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 35

Jan. 1844.
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
28th Cong 1st Sess.
Fine on General Jackson—Mr. Belser.
H. ©f Reps.
or to paralyze their efforts. A treaty, it is true, had
bean probably signed, but yet it might not be rati-
fied. Its contents even had not transpired; so that
no reasonable conjecture could be formed whether
it would be acceptable; and the influence which the
account of its signature had oil the army was dele-
terious in the extreme, and showed a necessity for
increased energy, instead of a relaxation of discip-
line. Men who had shown themselves zealous in
the preceding part of the campaign, became luke-
warm in the service. Those whom no danger
could appal and no labor discourage, complained
of the hardships of the camp. When the enemy
was no longer immediately before them, they
thought themselves oppressed by being detained
in service. Wicked and weak men, who, from
their situation in life, ought to have furnished a
better example, secretly encouraged this spirit of
insubordination. They affected to pity the hard-
ships of those who were kept in the field; they fo-
mented discontent, by insinuating that the merits
of those to whom they addressed themselves had
not been sufficiently noticed or applauded; and to
so high a degree had the disorder at length arisen,
that, at one period, only fifteen men and one officer
were found out of '_a. whole regiment stationed to
guard the very avenue through which the enemy
had penetrated into the country. At another point,
equally important, a whole corps, on which the
greatest reliance had been placed, operated upon by
the acts of a foreign agent, had suddenly deserted
their post.
If, trusting to ail uncertain peace, the respond-
ent had revoked his proclamation, or ceased to
act under it, the fatal security by which we were
lulled might have destroyed all discipline, have
dissolved all its force, and left him without any
means of defending the country against an enemy
instructed by the traitors within our own bosom
of the time and place at which he might safely
make his attack. In such an event, his fife, which
would certainly have been offered up, would have
been but a feeble expiation for the disgrace and
misery into which, by his criminal negligence, he
had permitted the country to be plunged.
He thought the peace a probable, but by no
means a certain event. If it had really taken place,
a few days must bring us tile official advice of
it; and he thought it better to submit, during those
few days, to the salutary restraints which had
been imposed, than to put everything dear to our-
selves and to our country at risk on an uncertain
contingency. Admit the chances to have been,
a hundred or a thousand to one in favor of the
ratification, and against any renewed attempts of
the enemy; what should we say or think of the
prudence of the man who would stake his life,
his fortune, his country, and his honor, even with
such odds in his favor, against a few days' antici-
pation of the blessings of peace? The respond-
ent could not bring himself to play so deep a
hazard. Uninfluenced by the clamors of the ig-
norant and the designing, he continued the exer-
cise of that law which necessity had compelled
him to proclaim; and he still thinks himself jus-
tified, by the situation of affairs, for the course
which he adopted and pursued. Has he exer-
ciscd this power wantonly or improperly? If so,
he is liable—not, as he believes, to this honorable
court, for contempt; but to his Government, for
an abuse of power; and to those individuals whom
he has injured, iu damages proportioned to that ni-
jury.
About the period last described, the consul of
France (who appears, by Governor Claiborne's
letter, to have embarrassed the first drafts by his
claims in favor of pretended subjects of his king)
renewed his interference. His certificates were
given to men in the ranks of the army—to some
who had never applied for them; to others who
wished to use them as the means of obtaining an
inglorious exemption from danger and fatigue; to
many who had availed themselves of the privilege
by their residence, and acted as citizens of the
State. The immunity derived from these certifi-
cates not only thinned the ranks, by the withdrawal
of those to whom they were given; but produced
the desertion of others, who thought themselves
equally entitled to ii; and to this cause must be
traced the abandonment of the important post of
Chef Menteur, and the temporary refusal of a re-
lief ordered to occupy it.
Under these circumstanccs, to remove the force
of an example which had already occasioned such
dangerous consequcnces, and to piuush those who
were so unwilling to defend what they were so rea-
dy to enjoy, the respondent issued the general or-
der hereto annexed. It directed those French sub-
jects who had availed themselves of the consul's
certificates, to remove out of the lines of defence,
and far enough to avoid any temptation of inter-
course with our enemy, whom they were so scru-
pulous of opposing. This measure was resorted to
as the mildest mode of proceeding against an in-
creasing and most dangerous evil; and the respond-
ent had the less scruple of his power in this in-
stance, as it was not quite so strong as that which
Governor Claiborne had exercised before the inva-
sion, by the advice of his attorney general, in the
case of Colonel Coliel.
It created, however, some sensation; the consul
of France again interfered; discontents were again
fomented from the same source that had first pro-
duced them. Aliens arid strangers became the most
violent advocates of constitutional rights, and native
Americans were taught the value of their privileges
by those who formally disavowed any title to their
enjoyment. The order was particularly opposed in
an anonymous publication. In this, the author
deliberately and wickedly misrepresented the or-
der as subjecting to removal all Frenchmen what-
ever, even those who had gloriously fought in
defence of the country, and, after many dan-
gerous and unwarrantable declarations, he closes
by calling upon all Frenchmen to flock to the
standard of their consul; thus advising and pro-
ducing an act of mutiny and insubordination,
and publishing the evidence of our weakness
and discord to the enemy, who wrere still in our
vicinity, and no doubt anxious, before the cessation
of hostilities, to wipe away the late stain oil their
arms. To have silently looked on such an offence
without making any attempt to punish it, would
have been a formal surrender of all discipline, all
order, all personal dignity and public safety. This
could not be done; and the respondent immediately
ordered the arrest of the offender. A writ of ha-
beas corpus was directed to issue for his enlarge-
ment. The very case which had been foreseen, the
very contingency on which martial law was intend-
ed to operate, had now occurred. The civil magis-
trate seemed to think it his duty to enforce the en-
joyment of civil rights, although the consequences
which have "been described, would probably result.
Ail unbending sense of what he seemed to think the
conduct which his station required, might have in-
duced him to order the liberation of the prisoner.
This, under respondent's sense of duty, would have
produced a conflict, which it was his wish to avoid.
No other course remained, then, but to enforce the
principles which he had laid down as his guide,
and to suspend the exercise of this judicial power,
wherever it interfered with the necessary means of
defence. The only way effectually to do this, was
to place the Judge m a situation in which his inter-
ference could not counteract the measure of defence,
or give countenance to the mutinous disposition that
had shown itself in so alarming a degree. Merely
to have disobeyed the writ, would have but in-
creased the evil; and to have obeyed it, was wholly
repugnant to the respondent's ideas of the public
safety, and to his own sense of duty. The Judge
was, therefore, confined, and removed beyond the
lines of defence.
As to the paper mentioned in the rule—which
the respondent is charged with taking and detain-
ing—he, answers, that, when the said paper was
produced by the clerk of this honorable court, he
was questioned respecting the apparent alteration
in the date; that he then acknowledged it had been
made by Judge Hall, not in the presence of the
party who made the affidavit; and (contrary to his
statement in his precedent declaration) that the
date hadbien changed fiom the 5th (as it must evi-
dently have stood in the original) to the 6th. This
material alteration in a paper that concerned him
gave the respondent, as he thought, a right to re-
tain it for further investigation—which he accord-
ingly did; but gave a certified copy, and an ac-
knowledgement that the original was in his posses-
sion.
The respondent also avows, that lie considered
tins alteration m the date of the affidavit, as it was
then explained to him by the clerk, to be such evi-
dence of a persuiial, not judicial, uiteferenee and ac-
tivity in behalf of a man charged with the most
serious offence, as justified the idea then formed—
that he (the Judge) approved his conduct, and sup-
ported his attempts to excite disaffection among the
troops.
This was the conduct of the respondeat, and this
the motive which prompted it. They have been
fairly and openly exposed to .this tribunal and to
the world; and would not have been accompanied
by any exception or waiver of jurisdiction, if it had
been deemed expedient to give him that species of
trial which he thinks himself entitled to by the Con-
stitution of his country. The powers which the
exigency of the times forced him to assume, have
been exercised exclusively for the public good; and,
by the blessing of God, they hare been attended
with unparalleled success. They have saved the
country; and whatever may be the opinion of that
country, or the decrees of its courts, in relation to
the means he has used, he can never regret that he
employed them.
ANDREW JACKSON.
Maj. Gen. commanding 7th Military District.
Personally appeared before me, this twenty-
seventh day of March, 1815, the above-named An-
drew Jackson; who, being duly sworn, said that the
material facts stated in the above answer are true,
to the best of his knowledge and belief.
JOSHUA LEWIS,
Judge of the First District.
REMARKS OF MR. BELSER,
of alabama.
In the House of Representatives, Janrumj, 8, 1844—■
In Committee of the Whole, on the bill to refund
the fine imposed on General Jackson at New
Orleans.
The question being on the amendment offered by
Mr, Stephens, of Georgia, to the bill introduced by
Mr. C. J. Ixgeiisoli., of Pennsylvania, to refund
the fine of $1,000 assessed against General Jackson
in 1815, for an alledged contempt of the judicial au-
thority of Judge Hall—
Mr. BELSER, having obtained the floor, rose and
said: It would have afforded him some gratification to
have had an opportunity to discuss at length the
many objections which had been offered by certain
gentlemen who had preceded him in the debate,
against refunding to General Jackson the amount of
his fine, with interest thereon, as contemplated by
the original bill now under consideration. But as
the time allowed him by the resolution fixing the
hour at which this bill should be taken out of com-
mittee was drawing fast to a close, he was com-
pelled greatly to abridge the remarks which he
should otherwise have made on the occasion. He
came from a State, however, many of whose citi-
zens felt alive to this subject; many of whom had
served under the victorious general at Talladega and
Emuckfaw, and who bear the most unequivocal tes-
timony to his bravery as a soldier, and his humani-
ty as a man. Under these considerations, if he
were to allow the matter to pass by in silence, he
should not perform a duty which was expected of
him on that floor.
He (Mr. B.) was in hopes, when the bill was
first brought before the committee, that there would
have not been one word of dissent to it. The author,
as he believed, had presented it in the most unex-
ceptionable form; and he did not then think that there
would have been found a single member on that
floor who would not have been ready and willing to
do justice to a great public benefactor.
For one, he was in favor of leaving the issue be-
tween the deceased judge and the commanding
general to be settled by an impartial posterity; and
he wished it not to be understood that they who
had acted with him had drawn it into this dis-
cussion.
He (Mr. B.) insisted that it had been broughtinto
review by the amendment offered by the gentleman
from Georgia. Pass the bill as it was presented by
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and the House
would not be called on to express an opinion as to the
correctness of the conduct of either Jndge Hall or
General Jackson; they would be merely restoring to
the latter a large sum of money which he had paid
into the treasury of the nation, for a fine incurred
while gallantly defending his country in the hour of
her utmost need. And by doing so, they would be
but adhering to the precedents of this Government—
precedents which had received the sanction of most
of its departments, and which were in perfect ac-
cordance with the spirit and letter of the Constitu-
tion.
What (asked Mr. B.) was the character of the
amendment which had been proposed to the bill. In
his opinion, it was designed to cast an implied cen-
sure on General Jackson. .Adopt it, and this House