wrought a change. Society can be regenerated, the human race can be advanced, only by moral principles diffused through the multitude.

And now let us take an opposite instance; let us see if amelioration follows when, in despite of tyranny, truth finds access to the common people. Christianity itself shall furnish me the example.

So completely was this greatest of all reforms carried forward in the vale of life, that the great moral revolution, the great step of God's providence in the education of the human race, was not observed by the Roman historians. Once, indeed, at this early period, the Christians are mentioned; for, in the reign of Nero, their purity being hateful to the corrupt, Nero abandoned them to persecution. In the darkness of midnight they were covered with pitch and set on fire to light the streets of Rome, and this singularity has been recorded. But their system of morals and religion, tho it was the new birth of the world, escaped all notice.

Paul, who was a Roman citizen, was beheaded just outside the walls of the eternal city; and Peter, who was a plebeian and could not claim the distinction of the ax and block, was executed on the cross, with his head downward to increase the pain of the indignity. Do you think the Roman emperor took notice of the names of these men when he signed their death-warrants? And yet, as they poured truth into the common mind, what series of kings, what lines of em

perors, can compare with them in their influence on the destinies of mankind.

The irresistible tendency of the human race is therefore to advancement, for absolute power has never succeeded and can never succeed in suppressing a single truth. An idea once revealed may find its admission into every living breast and live there. Like God, it becomes immortal and omnipresent. The movement of the species is upward, irresistibly upward. The individual is often lost; providence never disowns the race. No principle once promulgated has ever been forgotten. No "timely tramp" of a despot's foot ever trod out one idea. The world can not retrograde; the dark ages can not return. Dynasties perish, seeds are buried, nations have been victims to error, martyrs for right; humanity has always been on the advance, gaining maturity, universality, and power.

No truth can perish, no truth can pass away; the flame is undying, tho generations disappear. Wherever moral truth has struck into being, humanity claims and guards the greatest bequest. Each generation gathers together imperishable children of the past, and increases them by new sons of light alike radiant with immortality.

BENTON

1

ON THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION 1

(1837)

Born in 1782, died in 1858; United States Senator from Missouri, 1821-51; Representative in Congress, 1853-55; Author of "Thirty Years' View."

IT is now three years since the resolve was adopted by the Senate which it is my present motion to expunge from the journal; at the moment that this resolve was adopted I gave notice of my intention to move to expunge it, and then expressed my confident belief that the motion would eventually prevail. That expression of confidence was not an ebullition of vanity or a presumptuous calculation intended to accelerate the event it affected to foretell. It was not a vain boast, or an idle assumption, but was the result of a deep conviction of the injustice done President Jackson, and a thorough reliance upon the justice of the American people. I felt that the president had been wronged; and my heart told me that this wrong would be re

1 Delivered in the United States Senate January 12, 1837. Abridged Benton's Expunging Resolution provided that from the Journal of the Senate the censure passed on Jackson by the Senate in March, 1834, be erased. This censure related to Jackson's action with the United States Bank. Benton's motion was carried four days after he made this speech.

dressed. The event proves that I was not mistaken. The question of expunging this resolution has been carried to the people, and their decision has been had upon it.

Assuming that we have ascertained the will of the people on this great question, the inquiry presents itself how far the expression of that will ought to be conclusive of our action here. I hold that it ought to be binding and obligatory upon us; and that, not only upon the principles of representative government, which require obedience to the known will of the people, but also in conformity to the principles upon which the proceeding against President Jackson was conducted when the sentence against him was adopted. Then everything was done with especial reference to the will of the people. Their impulsion was assumed to be the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate verdict was expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and pressure every engine of political and moneyed power-was put in motion and worked for many months to excite the people against the president, and to stir up meetings, memorials, petitions, traveling committees, and distress deputations against him; and each symptom of popular discontent was hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted here as proof that the people demanded the condemnation of the president. Not only legislative assemblies, and memorials from large assemblies were then produced here as evidence of public

opinion, but the petitions of boys under age, the remonstrances of a few signers, and the results of the most inconsiderable elections were ostentatiously paraded and magnified as the evidence of the sovereign will of our stituents.

con

Thus, sir, the public voice was everything, while that voice, partially obtained through political and pecuniary machinations, was adverse to the president. Then the popular will was the shrine at which all worshiped. Now, when that will is regularly, soberly, repeatedly, and almost universally expressed through the ballotboxes at the various elections and turns out to be in favor of the president, certainly no one can disregard it, nor otherwise look at it than as the solemn verdict of the competent and ultimate tribunal upon an issue fairly made up, fully argued, and duly submitted for decision. As such verdict, I receive it. As the deliberate verdict of the sovereign people, I bow to it. I am content. I do not mean to reopen the case or to recommence the argument. I leave that work to others, if any others choose to perform it. For myself, I am content; and dispensing with further argument I shall call for judgment and ask to have execution done upon that unhappy journal which the verdict of millions of freemen finds guilty of bearing on its face an untrue, illegal, and unconstitutional sentence of condemnation against the approved president of the Republic.