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 redressed! 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. They
decide in favor of the expurgation; and their decision has been both
made and manifested, and communicated to us in a great variety of ways.
A great number of States have expressly instructed their senators to
vote for this expurgation. A very great majority of the States have
elected senators and representatives to Congress, upon the express
ground of favoring this expurgation. The Bank of the United States,
which took the initiative in the accusation against the President, and
furnished the material, and worked the machinery which was used against
him, and which was then so powerful on this floor, has become more and
more odious to the public mind, and musters now but a slender phalanx of
friends in the two Houses of Congress. The late Presidential election
furnishes additional evidence of public sentiment. The candidate who was
the friend of President Jackson, the supporter of his administration,
and the avowed advocate for the expurgation, has received a large
majority of the suffrages of the whole Union, and that after an express
declaration of his sentiments on this precise point. The evidence of the
public will, exhibited in all these forms, is too manifest to be
mistaken, too explicit to require illustration, and too imperative to be
disregarded. Omitting details and specific enumeration of proofs, I
refer to our own files for the instructions to expunge,--to the
complexion of the two Houses for the temper of the people,--to the
denationalized condition of the Bank of the United States for the fate
of the imperious accuser,--and to the issue of the Presidential election
for the answer of the Union.

All these are pregnant proofs of the public will, and the last
preeminently so: because, both the question of the expurgation, and the
form of the process, were directly put in issue upon it. * * *

Assuming, then, 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 th