known will of the legislatures who
appointed them. All this he claims as his right and his duty. And where
does he find any such right or any such duty? What right has he to send
a message to either house of Congress telling its members that they
disobey the will of their constituents? Has any English sovereign since
Cromwell's time dared to send such a message to Parliament? Sir, if he
can tell us that some of us disobey our constituents, he can tell us
that all do so; and if we consent to receive this language from him,
there is but one remaining step, and that is, that since we thus disobey
the will of our constituents, he should disperse us and send us home. In
my opinion, the first step in this process is as distinct a breach of
privilege as the last. If Cromwell's example shall be followed out, it
will not be more clear then than it is now that the privileges of the
Senate have been violated. There is yet something, Sir, which surpasses
all this; and that is, that, after this direct interference, after
pointing out those Senators whom he would represent as having disobeyed
the known will of their constituents, _he disclaims all design of
interfering at all_! Sir, who could be the writer of a message, which,
in the first place, makes the President assert such monstrous
pretensions, and, in the next line, affront the understanding of the
Senate by disavowing all right to do that very thing which he is doing?
If there be any thing, Sir, in this message, more likely than the rest
of it to move one from his equanimity, it is this disclaimer of all
design to interfere with the responsibility of members of the Senate to
their constituents, after such interference had already been made, in
the same paper, in the most objectionable and offensive form. If it were
not for the purpose of telling these Senators that they disobeyed the
will of the legislatures of the States they represent, _for what purpose
was it_ that the Protest has pointed out the four Senators, and paraded
against them the sentiments of their legislatures? There can be no other
purpose. The Protest says, indeed, that "these facts belong to the
history of these proceedings"! To the history of what proceedings? To
any proceeding to which the President was party? To any proceeding to
which the Senate was party? Have they any thing to do with the
resolution of the 28th of March? But it adds, that these facts _are
important to the just development of the principl