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The Senate Reacts To Franklin Pierce's Veto
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| 100 | Mr. WELLER. I shall vote against the postponement to next Monday week. I think it is due to the President, it is due to ourselves, it is due to the country, that we should proceed at once to dispose of this question. I believe it was the design of the Constitution that we should proceed at once to reconsider a bill which is vetoed by the President. The effect of the veto is simply this: It is, in effect, a motion to reconsider, and that motion to reconsider puts the bill in a position where it requires a vote of two thirds to pass it. Does any body believe that two thirds of the Senate will ever vote to pass this bill? There is not a Senator here who believes it. Then why continue a long discussion on the question when no practical good can result from it, and when it is known in advance, that a majority of two thirds cannot be obtained in a full Senate for its passage ? I undertake to say, upon a nice calculation which has been made by a friend of mine, who is "strong" in figures, that there cannot be even a majority of this Senate in favor of this bill, and that upon a full vote there will be thirty-one Senators found recording themselves against it. Then, wherefore postpone it for two weeks, when you know in advance that the bill can never become a law? It is one which, in my judgment, ought never to become a law. I know, sir, that it is one upon which strong appeals have been made to the sympathies of Senators; but that is a very unsafe guide of action. A Senator had better always keep his eye upon the power of attorney under which he acts-that is, the Constitution. The people never intended that we should travel beyond the Constitution; but whenever we are in a charitable mood, let us feel in our own pockets, and not in Uncle Sam's. That is the way to show our charity and benevolence; not by a violation of the Constitution, not by transcending the authority vested in us by that written instrument which constitutes our power of attorney, but let us show it by applying our hands to our own purses to relieve the distressed and the indigent. | |
| 101 | Mr. President, I do not know whether, if the discussion is to be continued, I shall debate this question further. I have not much to say about it. I have not spoken now because I desired to hear myself speak, but because there were other Senators who had plunged into this debate, and I endeavored to show that we had better go on with it now. If we do go on with it now, and if my friend from North Carolina shall have the temerity to move an adjournment over, I give him notice now that I shall abandon him, and vote against the motion. | |
| 102 | Mr. GWIN. I will withdraw the resolution so that we may now take up the message. | |
| 103 | Mr. PETTIT. Then I move to postpone the further consideration of the subject until Monday week. | |
| 104 | The PRESIDENT. The Senator from Ohio has a proposition before the Senate. | |
| 105 | Mr. GWIN. I accepted the proposition of the Senator from Ohio, leaving the day blank, and therefore I can withdraw it. I withdraw it, because I wish the discussion to go on now, in order that we may devote next week to another subject. | |
| 106 | Mr. MALLORY. As I understand, the motion now before the Senate is to postpone the further consideration of the subject until Monday week. | |
| 107 | The PRESIDENT. There is no motion before the Senate, as the proposition of the Senator from California has been withdrawn. | |
| 108 | Mr. MALLORY. Then I move to postpone the further consideration of the subject until Monday next. | |
| 109 | The PRESIDENT. The question is upon that motion. | |
| 110 | Mr. MALLORY. Mr. President, yesterday upon a simple motion to print, which seemed to me a matter of course, a debate sprang up which involved the entire policy of the country upon the subject of the public lands. It involved a great many other things, and occupied the body throughout the remainder of the day. Now, upon a proposition to postpone, we are again discussing not only the principles upon which the public lands are and ought to be administered, but we are discussing the principles of bills which have already been passed and determined. I am in favor of going on with the discussion of this bill now, because we are discussing it, and will continue to discuss it. Every gentleman who rises upon the floor proclaims that he is not discussing it, but that the time for debate will come, and that he will be prepared, at that time, to debate the question fully. I think, therefore, we had better take it up now, and commence the regular discussion immediately. Though I have made a motion to postpone until Monday, I am in favor of going on with the discussion now, if we can; but I am for a postponement to Monday next, in preference to any other postponement which can be made. | |
| 111 | But, sir, one reason given for the postponement by the honorable Senator from Illinois, was that since the period when he fist became a member of this body, there never has been so favorable an opportunity for taking up and establishing a general system for the administration of the public lands, as the present. It is admitted upon all sides that no more important subject can come before this body than the establishment of some just and equal policy, satisfactory to all, in reference to the administration of the public lands. The honorable Senator from Kentucky -Mr. THOMPSON- depicted to us the other day, humorously, how this subject enters into almost every presidential canvass; and, as was said by him, every man who comes to these halls comes with some predisposed policy in reference to these lands, and yet he finds himself in opposition to a large number of his brother Senators and Representatives. | |
