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
pre-eminently 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
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