Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/50

40 and that, if the people allowed “the practice by the Senate of the unconstitutional power of arraigning and censuring the official conduct of the executive,” it would “unsettle the foundations of the government,” and “the real power of the government would fall into the hands of a body holding their offices for long terms, not elected by the people, and not to them directly responsible.”

The protest was at once denounced as a gross breach of the privilege of the Senate, and a resolution pronouncing it to be such, and declaring that it should not be entered upon the journal of the Senate, was offered by Poindexter of Mississippi. Jackson, no doubt, believed in all sincerity that by destroying the United States Bank he was doing the American people a great service, and that he was fully warranted by the Constitution in all he had done. He therefore felt himself very much aggrieved by the resolution of censure adopted in the Senate. But the pretension set up in his protest, that the Senate, because it might have to sit as a judicial body in case of impeachment, had, as a legislative body, no constitutional right to express an unfavorable opinion about an act of the Executive, — nay, that neither House of Congress had such a right except in case of impeachment, — was altogether incompatible with the fundamental principles of representative government. The Constitution, indeed, authorizes the President to do certain things in his discretion; but this fact does certainly not take from the leg-