It is, if possible to make Senators themselves sensible of the danger which lurks under the precedent set in their resolution, and at any rate to perform my duty as the responsible head of one of the coequal departments of the Government, that I have been compelled to point out the consequences to which the discussion and passage of the resolution may lead if the tendency of the measure be not checked in its inception. It is due to high trust with which I am charged, to those who may be called to succeed me in it, to the representatives of the people whose constitutional perogative has been unlawfully assumed, to the people of the States, and to the Constitution they have established that I should not permit its provisions to be broken down by such an attack on the executive department without at least some effort to preserve, protect, and defend,' them. With this view, and for the reasons which have been stated, I do hereby solemnly protest against the aforementioned proceedings of the Senate as unauthorized by the Constitution, contrary to its spirit and to several of its express provisions, subversive of that distribution of the power of the Government which it has ordained and established, destructive of the checks and safeguards by which those powers were intended on the one hand to be controlled and on the other to be protected, and calculated by their immediate and collateral effects, by their character and tendency to concentrate in the hands of a body not directly amenable to the people, a degree of influence and power dangerous to their liberties and fatal to the Constitution of their choice.

"The resolution of the Senate contains an imputation upon my private as well as upon my public character, and as it must stand forever on their journals, I can not close this substitute for that defense which I have not been allowed to present in the ordinary form, without remarking that I have lived in vain if it be necessary to enter into a formal vindication of my character and purposes from such an imputation. In vain do I bear upon my person enduring memorials of that contest in which American liberty was purchased; in vain have I since periled property, fame, and life in defense of the rights and privileges so dearly bought; in vain am I now, without a personal aspiration or the hope of individual advantage, encounting responsibilities and dangers from which by mere inactivity in relation to a single point I might have been exempt, if any serious doubts can be entertained as to the purity of my purposes and motives. If I had been ambitious, I should have sought an alliance with that powerful institution which even now aspires to no divided empire. If I had been venal, I should have sold myself to its designs. Had I preferred personal comfort and official ease to the performance of my arduous duty, I should have ceased to molest it. In the history of conquerors and usurpers, never in the fire of youth nor in the vigor of manhood could I find an attraction to lure me from the path of duty, and now I shall scarcely find an inducement to commence their career of

ambition when gray hairs and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, call me to the contemplation of other worlds, where conquerors cease to be honored and usurpers expiate their crimes. The only ambition I can feel is to acquit myself to Him to whom I must soon render an account on my stewardship, to serve my fellow-men, and live respected and honored in the history of my country. No; the ambition which leads me on is an anxious desire and a fixed determination to return to the people unimpaired the sacred trust they have confided to my charge; to heal the wounds of the Constitution and preserve it from further violation; to persuade my countrymen, so far as I may, that it is not in a splendid government supported by powerful monoplies and aristocratical establishments that they will find happiness or their liberties protection, but in a plain system, void of pomp, protecting all and granting favors to none, dispensing its blessings, like the dews of heaven, unseen and unfelt save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It is such a government that a genius of our people requires; such an one only under which our states may remain for ages to come united, prosperous and free. If the Almighty Being who has hitherto sustained and protected me will but vouchsafe to make my feeble powers instrumental to such a result, I shall anticipate with pleasure the place to be assigned me in the history of my country, and die contented with the belief that I have contributed in some small degree to increase the value and prolong the duration of American liberty.

"To the end that the resolution of the Senate may not be hereafter drawn into precedent with the authority of silent acquiescence on the part of the executive department, and to the end also that my motives and views in Executive proceedings denounced in that resolution may be known to my fellow-citizens, to the world, and to all posterity, I respectfully request that this message and protest may be entered at length on the journals of the Senate."

United States Senator 1821-1828; Governor of New York, resigned March 12, 1829; Secetary of State in Jackson's first Cabinet 1829-1831; Minister to England but not confirmed by the Senate; Vice President 1833-1837; President 1837-1841.

CHAPTER 18.

Martin Van Buren and his Autobiography.

In 1919 the United States Government issued through its printing office an autobiography of Martin Van Buren which brings his life down to 1834. The existence of this autobiography was unknown to the general American public, but known to a limited number of students and historical writers.

Its "Prefatory Note" states that "the autobiography was presented to the Library of Congress by Mrs. Smith Thompson Van Buren, of Fishkill, New York, in 1905, and at the same time the Van Buren papers were presented to the Library by Mrs. Smith Thompson Van Buren and Dr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish Morris, of New York City. A Calendar of the papers was published by the Library in 1910.”

"The autobiography is the manuscript copy in seven folio volumes-1247 pages-made by Smith Thompson Van Buren, the son and literary executor of the President, from Van Buren original draft. Portions of volumes 6 and 7 are in another hand, and the last fifteen pages of the manuscript having many changes. and corrections by Van Buren himself.

"The autobiography is written with engaging frankness, and the insight it affords to the mental process of a master politician is deeply interesting. Van Buren's desire to be scrupulously fair in his estimates is evident, and if he did not always succeed, his failures are not discredible. Though the autobiography does not compel the revision of established historical judgments, it yet presents authority for much in our political history hereto somewhat conjectural, and records political motives and activities of the period in an illuminating and suggestive way. In analyzing men and measures, Van Buren, all unconsciously paints a picture of himself, and it is a truthful and worthy portrait."

This Prefatory Note was written by the Assistant Chief, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, and we agree with its statement that the autobiography as written affords an insight into the mental processes of a "master politician", but we dissent from its opinion that its apparent engaging frankness is a full and candid exposure by Mr. Van Buren of his own motives or of the incidents which he professes to relate.