NOTE. SINCE the above was prepared for the press, the publication of Mr. Tyler's "exposition," as it has been called, of his reasons for signing the Apportionment Bill, has so completely justified the analysis here made of his opinions, and contains so plain an avowal of those inconceivable doctrines, which he has hitherto only acted upon, that it has almost rendered such an analysis superfluous. The labor of convicting is thrown away by the frank confession of the person accused. Mr. Tyler is going on rapidly in the accomplishment of the destiny, I have assigned to him, of being the instrument for the overthrow of the veto power. One hardly knows whether to be most amused with the child-like simplicity, the innocent candor with which he proclaims principles, which embody the very essence of the most daring, extravagant, wholesale usurpations to be found in the history of the human race, or vexed that such a man should by any caprice of fortune become the Chief Magistrate of this country. Alas for the vanity of human distinctions! that such should be the result, even the accidental result, of the free choice of seventeen millions of intelligent freemen after a half-a-century's schooling in the practice of self-government. There is, however, one circumstance to be noted in this matter in favor of the intelligence of the American people, though not very flattering to Mr. Tyler, that although this caricature tyrant, for twelve mortal months, has been thus wearing the Despot's mask, and brandishing furiously the most formidable prerogative in the whole executive armory, threatening to demolish everything before him, he has not yet succeeded in alarming anybody. Nobody will be frightened. He produces no more effect in that way, than Tom Thumb on the stage with his very big sword. Although he roars so much louder, and in so much higher a key than a real lion, there more trembling than when Master Bottom, for the sake of not frightening the ladies, roared them as "gently as any sucking dove.” is no If Mr. Tyler had understood the purport of his own doctrines, doubtless he would have kept them as studiously out of sight, as others by whom they have been adopted. We may judge how little importance he attaches to them, from his having sent a document big with these portentous maxims to be stowed away in the archives of state, until some new "illustration of his conscience," to use again the humorous expression of Mr. Adams, should require them to be brought to light. According to the latest and most improved veto practice, it would seem to have become necessary to give a reason not only for not signing, but for signing a bill. "When I was a member of either house of Congress," says Mr. Tyler, "I acted under the conviction, that to doubt the constitutionality of a law was sufficient to induce me to give my vote against it; but I have not been able to bring myself to believe that a doubtful opinion of the Chief Magistrate ought to outweigh the solemnly pronounced will of the Representatives of the People and the States." Poor Mr. Tyler! He found great difficulty, it would seem, in seeing the difference between a veto and a vote. He tried, it seems, to think that a doubtful opinion of the Chief Magistrate ought to outweigh the solemnly pronounced will of the Representatives of the People and the States. But he was not able to bring himself to believe it. Really this was unfortunate. Had he succeeded, with his talent for beating up the syllabub of abstractions, he might very easily have raised a doubt upon almost every question, by which he could have made it a matter of conscience to have his own way in everything. If he came so near thinking, however, that a doubtful opinion of his was sufficient, he must be convinced, and indeed this is the necessary inference, that a decided opinion of the Chief Magistrate ought to outweigh the solemnly pronounced will of the Representatives of the People and the States. Here is, one would think, a pretty broad basis for absolute power. Doubtless it would have been more convenient, could he have persuaded himself of the sufficiency of a doubt for that purpose. He probably finds it difficult to have decided opinions. But men of his sort generally have this compensation, that even their doubtful opinions often appear to be very decided for a moment at least. In the case of the Bank Veto a great deal of doubting, of the most fluctuating, the most yielding nature, suddenly became hardened, by some process of moral chemistry, quite magical in its effects, into the most rigid inflexibility. It is true, that Mr. Tyler confines the doctrine here announced to constitutional questions. But we have had one example of the easy transition by which he applies the mode of reasoning, which he begins by confining to the Constitution, to obligations which have a different source. It may be very fairly indeed doubted, whether he knows the difference. In the second statement of this doctrine (which to avoid all suspicions that it might be a slip of the pen he makes in the same document) this limitation is no longer inserted. "In approving the Bill," he says, "I flatter myself that a disposition will be perceived on my part to concede to the opinions of Congress in a matter, which may conduce to the good of the country and the stability of its institutions, upon which my opinion is not clear and decided." Really this is too condescending! Can any body caricature this? Can any body misrepresent this to Mr. Tyler's disadvantage? Mr. Tyler defies caricature or misreprentation by going entirely beyond its reach. Let any one, who thinks that the Constitution is anything but words, that it has any spirit, that that spirit is the spirit in which it was conceived, and that there is any force in the intentions and purposes with which it was framed, read over the debates which took place in the Convention on the subject of the veto power, and imagine the faces of its members, could this document have been unrolled to them and authenticated as the doctrine of some future President. I ask for no better commentary upon the outrage it commits, upon the insult it offers to the spirit of that Constitution, which Mr. Tyler pretends to consider so sacred. own. Mr. Tyler need not, however, have outraged public opinion by declaring, or insinuating, that even in the grave case in which he selects, even in “ a matter which may conduce to the good of the country and the stability of its institutions," he would not concede to the opinions of Congress "a clear and decided" opinion of his For he has refused to make this sacrifice in just such a case. If there ever was a case in which a man, who really had the good of the country at heart, was justified, was called upon to sacrifice his own theories even temporarily, the case in which Mr. Tyler last refused to do so was the one. If Mr. Tyler was the least of a statesman, he would perceive that his executive are his paramount duties, that his chief obligation to the country is to see that the administration of the government goes on, and goes on uninterruptedly; 78 he would perceive that the present was a crisis when, for the sake of discharging that great duty, he should have waived something of his prerogative, he should have sacrificed some of his minor obligations, to avoid coming into a collision with the legislative power, which rendered that discharge of duty impossible. He should have got the best legislation he could, and endeavored to make it sufficient for the carrying on of the government. Instead of that, he has violated the Constitution for the sake of producing this very collision, and instead of making the best of bad and insufficient legislation, he has annulled a legislation every way sufficient and proper to enable him to carry on the government, because it was not exactly what he dictated. One can hardly conceive of a hardi hood of character not connected with some vast and all-absorbing design, one can hardly conceive of a hardihood of character founded on mere insensibility or ignorance, which can stand dallying with abstractions, while a whole country, goaded by the impatience of a real suffering, is clamoring impatiently to be away on a new enterprise after prosperity. it The doctrine then of this precedent, with the commentaries upon as it stands recorded at this present moment on the constitutional roll of the country, is, that in no case, however grave, can the Presiden yield his clear and decided opinion to the solemnly pronounced will the Representatives of the People and the States. The question be decided then is, Has not the practice of those appointed to a minister it yet given to this provision of the Constitution an effe which can no longer be tolerated, and which calls for immedia amendment? |