law, as one qualification of the tenure of office, that the incumbent shall remain in place till the President shall remove him, for reasons to be stated to the Senate. And I am of opinion that this qualification, mild and gentle as it is, will have some effect in arresting the evils which beset the progress of the government, and seriously threaten its future prosperity. These are the reasons for which I give my support to this bill. NOTE. THIS speech is singular among the speeches of Mr. Webster, as it exhibits him as a "Strict-Constructionist," and as a master of that peculiar kind of deductive reasoning which is commonly considered the special distinction of his great antagonist, Mr. Calhoun. In subtilty and refinement of argument it is fully the match of most of Mr. Calhoun's elaborate disquisitions. At the time of its delivery it excited the almost savage ire of John Quincy Adams, as will be seen by reference to the latter's "Diary." It was in connection with this speech that Mr. Adams speaks of “the rotten heart of Daniel Webster." How such a purely intellectual feat as this, one so entirely passionless and impersonal, should be referred to rottenness of heart, is one of the unexplained mysteries of the operations of Mr. Adams's understanding, when that understanding was misled by personal antipathy. ON THE LOSS OF THE FORTIFICATION BILL IN 1835. A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 14TH OF JANUARY, 1836, ON MR. BENTON'S RESOLUTIONS FOR APPROPRIATING THE SURPLUS REVENUE TO NATIONAL DEFENCE. be It is not my purpose, Mr. President, to make any remark on the state of our affairs with France. The time for that discussion has not come, and I wait. We are in daily expectation of a communication from the President, which will give us light; and we are authorized to expect a recommendation by him of such measures as he thinks it may necessary and proper for Congress to adopt. I do not anticipate him. In this most important and delicate business, it is the proper duty of the executive to go forward, and I, for one, do not intend either to be drawn or driven into the lead. When official information shall be before us, and when measures shall be recommended upon the proper responsibility, I shall endeavor to form the best judgment I can, and shall act according to its dictates. I rise, now, for another purpose. This resolution has drawn on a debate upon the general conduct of the Senate during the last session of Congress, and especially in regard to the proposed grant of the three millions to the President on the last night of the session. My main object is to tell the story of this transaction, and to exhibit the conduct of the Senate fairly to the public view. I owe this duty to the Senate. I owe it to the committee with which I am connected; and although whatever is personal to an individual is generally of too little importance to be made the subject of much remark, I hope I may be permitted to say a few words in defence of my own reputation, in reference to a matter which has been greatly misrepresented. This vote for the three millions was proposed by the House of Representatives as an amendment to the fortification bill; and the loss of that bill, three millions and all, is the charge which has been made upon the Senate, sounded over all the land, and now again renewed. I propose to give the true history of this bill, its origin, its progress, and its loss. Before attempting that, however, let me remark, for it is worthy to be remarked and remembered, that the business brought before the Senate last session, important and various as it was, and both public and private, was all gone through with most uncommon despatch and promptitude. No session has witnessed a more complete clearing off and finishing of the subjects before us. The communications from the other house, whether bills or whatever else, were especially attended to in a proper season, and with that ready respect which is due from one house to the other. I recollect nothing of any importance which came to us from the House of Representatives, which was neglected, overlooked, or disregarded by the Senate. On the other hand, it was the misfortune of the Senate, and, as I think, whe misfortune of the country, that, owing | gence or inattention of the members of this body. On the vote of the three millions of dollars, which was taken at about eight o'clock in the evening, forty eight votes were given, every member of the Senate being in his place and answering to his name. This is an instance of punctuality, diligence, and labor, continued to the very end of an arduous session, wholly without exam to the state of business in the House of THE POST-OFFICE REFORM BILL, which passed the Senate unanimously, and of the necessity for which the whole country is certainly now most abundantly satisfied; THE CUSTOM-HOUSE REGULATIONS BILL, which also passed nearly unanumously, after a very laborious preparation by the Committee on Commerce, and a full discussion in the Senate; THE JUDICIARY BILL, passed here by a majority of thirty-one to five, and which has again already passed the Senate at this session with only a single dissenting vote; THE BILL INDEMNIFYING CLAIMANTS FOR FRENCH SPOLIATIONS BEFORE 1800; THE BILL REGULATING THE DEPOSIT OF THE PUBLIC MONEY IN THE DEPOSIT BANKS; THE BILL RESPFTING THE TENURE OF CERTAIN OFFICES, AND THE POWER OF REMOVAL FROM OFFICE; which has now again been passed to be engrossed, in the Senate, by a decided majority. All these important measures, matured and passed in the Senate in the course of the session, and many others of less importance, were sent to the House of Representatives, and we never heard any thing more from them. They there found their graves. It is worthy of being remarked, also, that the attendance of members of the Senate was remarkably full, particularly toward the end of the session. On the last day, every Senator was in his place till very near the hour of adjournment, as the journal will show. We had no breaking up for want of a quorum; no delay, no calls of the Senate; nothing which was made necessary by the negli | The Senate, then, Sir, must stand, in the judgment of every man, fully ac quitted of all remissness, all negligence, all inattention, amidst the fatigue and exhaustion of the closing hours of Congress. Nothing passed unheeded, nothing was overlooked, nothing forgotten, and nothing slighted. And now, Sir, I would proceed immediately to give the history of the fortification bill, if it were not necessary, as introductory to that history, and as showing the circumstances under which the Senate was called on to transact the public business, first to refer to another bill which was before us, and to the proceedings which were had upon it. It is well known, Sir, that the annual appropriation bills always originate in the House of Representatives. This is so much a matter of course, that no one ever looks to see such a bill first brought forward in the Senate. It is also well known, Sir, that it has been usual, heretofore, to make the annual appropria tions for the Military Academy at West Point in the general bill which provides for the pay and support of the army. But last year the army bill did not contain any appropriation whatever for the support of West Point. I took notice of this singular omission when the bill was before the Senate, but presumed, and indeed understood, that the House would send us a separate bill for the Military Academy. The army bill, therefore, passed; but no bill for the Academy at West Point appeared. We waited for it from day to day, and from week to week, but waited in vain. At length, the time for sending bills from one house to the other, according to the joint rules of the two houses, expired, and no bill aad made its appearance for the support | the civil and diplomatic service, being of the Military Academy. These joint thus amended by tacking the Military rules, as is well known, are sometimes Academy to it, was sent back by us to suspended on the application of one the House of Representatives, where its house to the other, in favor of particular length of tail was to be still much furbilla, whose progress has been unexpect- ther increased. That house had before edly delayed, but which the public in- it several subjects for provision, and for terest requires to be passed. But the appropriation, upon which it had not House of Representatives sent us no re- passed any bill before the time for pass quest to suspend the rules in favor of ing bills to be sent to the Senate had bill for the support of the Military elapsed. I was anxious that these Academy, nor made any other proposi- things should, in some way, be provided tion to save the institution from imme- for; and when the diplomatic bill came diate dissolution. Notwithstanding all back, drawing the Military Academy the talk about a war, and the necessity after it, it was thought prudent to atof a vote for the three millions, the Mil- tach to it several of these other provisitary Academy, an institution cherished ions. There were propositions to pave so long, and at so much expense, was on the streets in the city of Washington, the very point of being entirely broken to repair the Capitol, and various other up. things, which it was necessary to provide for; and they, therefore, were put into the same bill, by way of amendment to an amendment; that is to say, Mr. President, we had been prevailed on to amend their bill for defraying the salary of our ministers abroad, by adding an appropriation for the Military Academy, and they proposed to amend this our amendment by adding matter as germane to it as it was itself to the original bill. There was also the President's gardener. His salary was unprovided for; and there was no way of remedying this important omission, but by giving him place in the diplomatic service bill, among chargés d'affaires, envoys extraordinary, and ministers plenipotentiary. In and among these ranks, therefore, he was formally introduced by the amendment of the House, and there he now stands, as you will readily see by turning to the law. Now it so happened, Sir, that at this time there was another appropriation bill which had come from the House of Representatives, and was before the Committee on Finance here. This bill was entitled" An Act making appropriations for the civil and diplomatic expenses of the government for the year 1835." In this state of things, several members of the House of Representatives applied to the committee, and besought us to save the Military Academy by annexing the necessary appropriations for its support to the bill for civil and diplomatic service. We spoke to them, in reply, of the unfitness, the irregularity, the incongruity, of this forced union of such dissimilar subjects; but they told us it was a case of absolute necessity, and that, without resorting to this mode, the appropriation could not get through. We acquiesced, Sir, in these suggestions. We went out of our way. We agreed to do an extraordinary and an irregular thing, in order to save the public business from miscarriage. By direction of the committee, I moved the Senate to add an appropriation for the Military Academy to the bill for defraying civil and diplomatic expenses. The bill was so amended; and in this form the ap propriation was finally made. Sir, I have not the pleasure to know this useful person; but should I see him, some morning, overlooking the workmen in the lawns, walks, copses, and parterres which adorn the grounds around the President's residence, considering the company into which we have introduced him, I should expect to see, at least, a small diplomatic button on his working jacket. When these amendments came from But this was not all. This bill for the House, and were read at our table, though they caused a smile, they were | propriation of the three million, but, yet adopted, and the law passed, almost with the rapidity of a comet, and with something like the same length of tail. Now, Sir, not one of these irregularities or incongruities, no part of this Jumbling together of distinct and different subjects, was in the slightest degree occasioned by any thing done, or omitted to be done, on the part of the Senate. Their proceedings were all regular; their decision was prompt, their despatch of the public business correct and reasonable. There was nothing of disorganization, nothing of procrastination, nothing evincive of a temper to embarrass or obstruct the public business. If the history which I have now truly given shows that one thing was amended by another, which had no sort of connection with it; that unusual expedients were resorted to; and that the laws, instead of arrangement and symmetry, exhibit anomaly, confusion, and the most grotesque associations, it is nevertheless true, that no part of all this was made necessary by us. We deviated from the accustomed modes of legislation only when we were supplicated to do so, in order to supply bald and glaring deficiencies in measures which were before us. But now, Mr. President, let me come to the fortification bill, the lost bill, which not only now, but on a graver occasion, has been lamented like the Jost Pleiad. This bill, Sir, came from the House of Representatives to the Senate in the usual way, and was referred to the Committee on Finance. Its appropriations were not large. Indeed, they appeared to the committee to be quite too small. It struck a majority of the committee at nce, that there were several fortificaions on the coast, either not provided for at all, or not adequately provided for, by this bill. The whole amount of its appropriations was four hundred or four hundred and thirty thousand dollars. It contained no grant of three millions, and if the Senate had passed it the very day it came from the House, not only would there have been no ap Sir, none of these other sums which the Senate did insert in the bill. Others besides ourselves saw the deficiencies of this bill. We had communications with and from the departments, and we inserted in the bill every thing which any department recommended to us. We took care to be sure that nothing else was coming. And we then reported the bill to the Senate with our proposed amendments. Among these amendments, there was a sum of $75,000 for Castle Island in Boston harbor, $100,000 for defences in Maryland, and so forth. These amendments were agreed to by the Senate, and one or two others added, on the motion of members; and the bill, as thus amended, was returned to the House. And now, Sir, it becomes important to ask, When was this bill, thus amended, returned to the House of Representatives? Was it unduly detained here, so that the House was obliged afterwards to act upon it suddenly? This question is material to be asked, and material to be answered, too, and the journal does satisfactorily answer it; for it appears by the journal that the bill was returned to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, the 24th of February, one whole week before the close of the session. And from Tuesday, the 24th of February, to Tuesday, the 3d day of March, we heard not one word from this bill. Tuesday, the 3d day of March, was, of course, the last day of the session. We assembled here at ten or eleven o'clock in the morning of that day, and sat until three in the afternoon, and still we were not informed whether the House had finally passed the bill. As it was an important matter, and belonged to that part of the public business which usually receives particular attention from the Committee on Finance, I bore the subject in my mind, and felt some solicitude about it, seeing that the session was drawing so near to a close. I took it for granted, however, as I had not heard any thing to the contrary, that the amendments of the Senate would not be objected to, and that, when a |