Page:Speech of Mr. Chas. Hudson, of Mass., on the Three Million Appropriation Bill - delivered in the House of Representatives of the U.S., Feb. 13, 1847 (IA speechofmrchashu00hudsrich).pdf/11

 withholding from him the means of carrying it on. And, by so doing, we violate no law. If any expense has been incurred by authority of law, the faith of the nation is pledged, and Congress have no moral right to withhold the appropriation. But. when they are called upon to make new grants of men and money, they have the right to exercise their own judgment, and to grantor withhold, as they may think proper. Besides, our ordinary appropriation bills are prospective in their character, and have reference solely to future operations.

But, Mr. Chairman, it has been more than insinuated on this floor, that we have no constitutional power to withhold supplies. No constitutional power! I would gladly ask in what department of the Government the law-making power is placed by the Constitution? Is it given exclusively to the Executive? Such must be the fact, if intimations thrown out here, are to be regarded as the fundamental law. But every man, who is but superficially acquainted with the structure of our Government, knows that the law-making power is vested in Congress—that the Senate and the House hold the men and the money in their hands, and can give or withhold them at their pleasure. This is a power inherent in every free government; and to say that we do not possess it, is to say that we are already under a military despotism. According to this doctrine, when war is once commenced, the President has absolute power, and may command the resources of the country to an unlimited extent. He may call out what force he pleases, and march them wherever his ambition shall dictate. Suppose, in the case before us, that Mexico should declare to us, and to the world, that she was disposed to treat with us on the most favorable terms-terms perfectly satisfactory to nine-tenths of our people— and that the President, mad with ambition, should spurn the offer, and declare that he would not desist from a vigorous prosecution of the war, until he had exterminated the whole race, and possessed their entire country; is there a man on this floor who would Dot feel himself called upon to arrest this mad scheme of Executive barbarity? There would, I trust, be but one opinion upon this subject. If the President was deaf to the voice of remonstrance, every member would feel himself impelled, by a sense of duty, by the dictates of humanity, by his constitutional obligations, to refuse to the Executive the means of prosecuting such a war. Now, this is yielding the whole principle. This, I allow, would be an extreme case; but, if Congress can withhold supplies in any case, it proves that, they have the power, and, being the sole judges of the exigency, they may exercise this power whenever they deem it expedient.

I know the distinction which some gentlemen take between a state of peace and a state of war. They will admit that we are not bound to com ply with the requests of the President, in ordinary cases, in times of peace; but when we are engaged in war, the President, being Commander-in-Chief, must be obeyed. I allow that he is Commander-in-Chief, but of what? Of the people in their civil capacity? Of Congress in their legislative character? This is the length to which some gentlemen would lead us; they would chain us to the conquering car of a military despot, and compel us to follow him in his mad career of aggression and conquest. Gentlemen, who boast of their democracy, and who are so fond of proclaiming the trite maxim, that the will of the people is the law of the land, may give themselves up to Executive dictation, and become the mere tools of their Commander-in-Chief; bull have other and higher duties to perform. I must exercise my own judgment, and fallow my own sense of duty, I admit