Thomas Hart Bentons Remarks to the Senate | Page 3

of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine
University" within the 60 days following each date you prepare (or
were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic)
tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?

The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This Etext prepared by Anthony J. Adam
Thomas Hart Benton, "On the Expunging Resolution." U.S. Senate,
January 12, 1837

Mr. President:
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
move to expunge it; and then expressed my confident belief that the
motion would eventually prevail. That expression of confidence was
not an ebullition of vanity, or a presumptuous calculation, intended to
accelerate the event it affected to foretell. It was not a vain boast, or an
idle assumption, but was the result of a deep conviction of the injustice
done President Jackson, and a thorough reliance upon the justice of the
American people. I felt that the President had been wronged; and my
heart told me that this wrong would be redressed! The event proves that
I was not mistaken. The question of expunging this resolution has been
carried to the people, and their decision has been had upon it. They
decide in favor of the expurgation; and their decision has been both
made and manifested, and communicated to us in a great variety of
ways. A great number of States have expressly instructed their Senators
to vote for this expurgation. A very great majority of the States have
elected Senators and Representatives to Congress, upon the express
ground of favoring this expurgation. The Bank of the United States,
which took the initiative in the accusation against the President, and
furnished the material, and worked the machinery which was used
against him, and which was then so powerful on this floor, has become

more and more odious to the public mind, and musters now but a
slender phalanx of friends in the two Houses of Congress. The late
Presidential election furnishes additional evidence of public sentiment.
The candidate who was the friend of President Jackson, the supporter
of his administration, and the avowed advocate for the expurgation, has
received a large majority of the suffrages of the whole Union, and that
after an express declaration of his sentiments on this precise point. The
evidence of the public will, exhibited in all these forms, is too manifest
to be mistaken, too explicit to require illustration, and too imperative to
be disregarded. Omitting details and specific enumeration of proofs, I
refer to our own files for the instructions to expunge--to the
complexion of the two Houses for the temper of the people--to the
denationalized condition of the Bank of the United States for the fate of
the imperious accuser--and to the issue of the Presidential election for
the answer of the Union.
All these are pregnant proofs of the public will, and the last
pre-eminently so: because, both the question of the expurgation, and
the form of the process, were directly put in issue upon it....
Assuming, then, that we have ascertained the will of the people on this
great question, the inquiry presents itself, how far the expression of that
will ought to be conclusive of our action here. I hold that it ought to be
binding and obligatory upon us; and that, not only upon the principles
of representative government, which require obedience to the known
will of the people, but also in conformity to the principles upon which
the proceeding against President Jackson was conducted when the
sentence against him was adopted. Then everything was done with
especial reference to the will of the people. Their impulsion was
assumed to be the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate
verdict was expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and
pressure--every engine of political and moneyed power--was put in
motion, and worked for many months, to excite the people against the
President; and to stir up meetings, memorials, petitions, travelling
committees, and distress deputations against him; and each symptom of
popular discontent was hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted
here as proof that the people demanded the condemnation of the
President. Not only legislative assemblies,