"
This startling proposition claimed that it was in the power
of the House of Representatives to control the entire legislation
of the country. It could, if the doctrine of Mr. Beck and
Mr. Thurman had prevailed, impose any condition upon an appropriation
for the Judges' salaries, for the salaries of all executive
officers, for carrying on the courts, and for all other functions
of the Government.
I made a careful study of this question and satisfied the
Senate,--and I think I satisfied Mr. Beck and Mr. Thurman,
--that the doctrine had no support in this country, and had
no support even in England. An examination of Parliamentary
history, which I studied carefully, afforded the material
for giving a narrative of every occasion when the Commons
exerted their power of withholding supplies as a means of
compelling a redress of grievances, from the Conquest to the
present hour. I did not undertake in a speech in the Senate
to recite the authorities in full. But I summed up the result
of the English and American doctrine in a few sentences, which
may be worth recording here.
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