Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/49

Rh disturbances in the country were wholly owing to the malicious curtailment of bank accommodations by the “monster,” he met “distress delegations” which waited upon him, sometimes with cold courtesy, sometimes with explosions of wrath, telling them that, if they wanted money to set the business of the country moving again, they should go to Nicholas Biddle, who was treacherously shutting up millions upon millions in his bank. Clay's resolutions of censure, adopted by the Senate, he answered by sending, on April 17, 1834, a formal “protest,” which he demanded should be entered upon the journal.

It was an extraordinary document. He denounced not only the adoption, but also the discussion, of the resolutions by the Senate, as “unauthorized by the Constitution,” and in every respect improper, because it was, in his opinion, in the nature of an impeachment trial without the observance of any of the prescribed constitutional rules and forms. He censured particularly, for having supported the resolutions, the Senators from states whose legislatures had approved the conduct of the administration. He affirmed that the President was the “direct representative of the American people;” that he was responsible for the entire action of the executive department, and must therefore have a free choice of his agents and power to direct and control their doings; that it was his sworn duty to protect the Constitution, if it must be, for the people against the Senate;