to resist the nomination to fill a vacancy thus created.  We thought it our duty to oppose this proscription, when, and where, and as, we constitutionally could.  We besought the Senate to go with us, and to take a stand before the country on this great question.  We invoked them to try the deliberate sense of the people; to trust themselves before the tribunal of public opinion; to resist at first, to resist at last, to resist always, the introduction of this unsocial, this mischievous, this dangerous, this belligerent principle into the practice of the government.

Mr. President, as far as I know, there is no civilized country on earth, in which, on a change of rulers, there is such an inquisition for spoil as we have witnessed in this free republic.  The Inaugural Address of 1829 spoke of a searching operation of government.  The most searching operation, Sir, of the present administration, has been its search for office and place.  When, Sir, did any English minister, Whig or Tory, ever make such an inquest?  When did he ever go down to low-water mark, to make an ousting of tide-waiters?  When did he ever take away the daily bread of weighers, and gaugers, and measurers?  When did he ever go into the villages, to disturb the little post-offices, the mail contracts, and every thing else in the remotest degree connected with government?  Sir, a British minister who should do this, and should afterwards show his head in a British House of Commons, would be received by a universal hiss.

I have little to say of the selections made to fill vacancies thus created.  It is true, however, and it is a natural consequence of the system which has been acted on, that, within the last three years, more nominations have been rejected on the ground of unfitness, than in all the preceding forty years of the government.  And these nominations, you know, Sir, could not have been rejected but by votes of the President’s own friends.  The cases were too strong to be resisted.  Even party attachment could not stand them In some not a third of the Senate, in others not ten votes, and in others not a single vote, could be obtained; and this for no particular reason known only to the Senate, but on general grounds of the want of character and qualifications; on grounds known to everybody else, as well as to the Senate.  All this, Sir, is perfectly natural and consistent.  The same party selfishness which drives good men out of office will push bad men in.  Political proscription leads necessarily to the filling of offices with incompetent persons, and to a consequent malexecution of official duties.  And in my opinion, Sir, this principle of claiming a monopoly of office by the right of conquest, unless the public shall effectually rebuke and restrain it, will entirely change the character of our government.  It elevates party above country; it forgets the common weal in the pursuit of personal emolument; it tends to form, it does form, we see