Thomas Hart Bentons Remarks to the Senate | Page 5

destroying the currency;
plunging an innocent and happy people from the summit of felicity to
the depths of misery, want, and despair. Such is the faint outline,
followed up by actual condemnation, of the appalling denunciations
daily uttered against this one MAN, from the moment he became an
object of political competition, down to the concluding moment of his

political existence.
The sacred voice of inspiration has told us that there is a time for all
things. There certainly has been a time for every evil that human nature
admits of to be vaticinated of President Jackson's administration;
equally certain the time has now come for all rational and
well-disposed people to compare the predictions with the facts, and to
ask themselves if these calamitous prognostications have been verified
by events? Have we peace, or war, with foreign nations? Certainly, we
have peace with all the world! peace with all its benign, and felicitous,
and beneficent influences! Are we respected, or despised abroad?
Certainly the American name never was more honored throughout the
four quarters of the globe than in this very moment. Do we hear of
indignity or outrage in any quarter? of merchants robbed in foreign
ports? of vessels searched on the high seas? of American citizens
impressed into foreign service? of the national flag insulted anywhere?
On the contrary, we see former wrongs repaired; no new ones inflicted.
France pays twenty-five millions of francs for spoliations committed
thirty years ago; Naples pays two millions one hundred thousand ducats
for wrongs of the same date; Denmark pays six hundred and fifty
thousand rix-dollars for wrongs done a quarter of a century ago; Spain
engages to pay twelve millions of reals vellon for injuries of fifteen
years' date; and Portugal, the last in the list of former aggressors,
admits her liability and only waits the adjustment of details to close her
account by adequate indemnity. So far from war, insult, contempt, and
spoliation from abroad, this denounced administration has been the
season of peace and goodwill and the auspicious era of universal
reparation. So far from suffering injury at the hands of foreign powers,
our merchants have received indemnities for all former injuries. It has
been the day of accounting, of settlement, and of retribution. The total
list of arrearages, extending through four successive previous
administrations, has been closed and settled up. The wrongs done to
commerce for thirty years back, and under so many different Presidents,
and indemnities withheld from all, have been repaired and paid over
under the beneficent and glorious administration of President Jackson.
But one single instance of outrage has occurred, and that at the
extremities of the world, and by a piratical horde, amenable to no law
but the law of force. The Malays of Sumatra committed a robbery and

massacre upon an American vessel. Wretches! they did not then know
that JACKSON was President of the United States! and that no distance,
no time, no idle ceremonial of treating with robbers and assassins, was
to hold back the arm of justice. Commodore Downes went out. His
cannon and his bayonets struck the outlaws in their den. They paid in
terror and blood for the outrage which was committed; and the great
lesson was taught to these distant pirates--to our antipodes themselves
--that not even the entire diameter of this globe could protect them, and
that the name of American citizen, like that of Roman citizen in the
great days of the Republic and of the empire, was to be the inviolable
passport of all that wore it throughout the whole extent of the habitable
world....
From President Jackson, the country has first learned the true theory
and practical intent of the Constitution, in giving to the Executive a
qualified negative on the legislative power of Congress. Far from being
an odious, dangerous, or kingly prerogative, this power, as vested in the
President, is nothing but a qualified copy of the famous veto power
vested in the tribunes of the people among the Romans, and intended to
suspend the passage of a law until the people themselves should have
time to consider it. The qualified veto of the President destroys nothing;
it only delays the passage of a law, and refers it to the people for their
consideration and decision. It is the reference of a law, not to a
committee of the House, or of the whole House, but to the committee
of the whole Union. It is a recommitment of the bill to the people, for
them to examine and consider; and if, upon this examination, they are
content to pass it, it will pass at the next session. The delay of a few
months is the only effect of a veto, in a case where the people shall
ultimately approve a law; where