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, and memorials from large
assemblies, were then produced here as evidence of public opinion, b