The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

Legislature of Pennsylvania:

[The committee appointed to wait on Governor M'Kean, with the spirited answer of the Senate to his address, which appeared in this paper of the 6th inst. have presented the following reply:]

To the SENATE of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Gentlemen,

THE scurrility; the slight reference that it contains to the address to which it pretends to be an answer, --- and the distant period at which it is presented; are indications of a premeditated insult, that affect me infinitely more, on account of the apparent departure from the dignity of a Legislative body; than. on account of the injustice done to my political principles; or of the outrage offered to my personal feelings.

Regarding you, indeed, only in your representative character, I have thought it in some degree an official duty to suffer you to speak to me in terms which, as a private gentleman, I would not have consented to hear; and which, as private gentlemen, individually responsible, I still hope you would not have condescended to employ.

Thus an address, closing the solemn act of my introduction into office. with a declaration of my solicitude to promote the happiness of our constituents, and to preserve an harmonious intercourse between the departments of the government;. you have been pleased to convert into an opportunity to assume a censorship which the constitution does not recognize; to exhibit accusations which my conduct has not deserved; and to indulge a spirit of animosity which presents much to compassionate and deplore, but nothing to convince or to terrify.

It is obvious, I must repeat, gentlemen, that your proceedings on this occasion are not founded on any legislative duty ; and cannot, I think, produce any public advantage. As the Senate is the tribunal established to decide upon every charge of official misconduct, it would seem, in such cases, to be peculiarly incumbent on that body to abstain from effusions of passion, from asperity of animadversion, from the bias of prejudication. Even, therefore, if the transactions which you have denounced were of a criminal nature, you, who would eventually be the judges, ought not to have become the accusers; and if they were not of a criminal nature, it will be difficult to trace the political, moral, or intellectual pre-eminence, that authorizes you to arraign and condemn them.

Let us, with this view, for a moment consider the topics of your complaint: In a reply to the congratulations of my republican friends, upon the result of the late election, I candidly stated an opinion, that a combination was employed, in support of the adverse candidate, consisting of the enemies to the principles of the American revolution, the emissaries of foreign governments, and the dependants, or expectants of office, under the federal administration. Whether I review the circumstances to which I then referred, or contemplate the many other proofs of the existence of such a combination, in relation to more important objects, I find no reason to change or to retract the opinion that was then delivered: Yet, let me not again be misrepresented. Though my election was opposed by all those descriptions of persons. I never said; I never thought, that there was not likewise a numerous description of opponents, whose minds were actuated by the purest motives, and whose conduct had been equally decorous and independent. Free, therefore, from the perversion of party (a perversion which I did not expect the enlightened Senate of Pennsylvania would countenance or adopt) what is there in my sentiments or language, that your generosity should be exercised to forgive, or that my sense of justice should be anxious to obliterate?

Besides, it will be recollected. that the transaction. particularly alluded to. occurred before I was in office, and was unconnected with any object of the executive or legislative trust. If. then. the censorship of the Senate is warrantable, as applied to that act, it may with equal reason and authority be applied to every act of my life; and if the Senate may publish strictures upon the private conduct of the executive magistrate, what claim of privilege can shelter members of that body from retort and recrimination, but the claim, which I shall always promptly anticipate and allow, to pardon and oblivion ?

You have chosen, however, gentlemen, another topic for censure ; and, pursuing the very course which you have yourselves reprobated, you lament that the same spirit which dictated the answer to my republican friends. has marked my official conduct: you bestow the most opprobrious epithets on my arrangement of the subordinate offices of the state : and you ascribe to me the most wicked designs. But the constitution has conferred on the Governor the exclusive power of appointing or removing public officers; and although it is admitted, that for the legal exercise of that power he is responsible to the legislature, through the medium of impeachment, as for the discreet exercise of the power he is responsible to his constituents through the medium of election; I can no where discover the authority of the Senate, in the present form, to controul, regulate or interpose. The radical principle of the constitution, indeed, provides for the separation and independence of the principal departments of government; and can be of little importance, whether that principle is subverted by direct usurpation, or by the successful efforts of one department to overawe and influence another.: If likewise the Senate may, on any pretence, by an extra judicial process, investigate and arraign, disapprove and censure, the manner of discharging the executive functions: may not the executive magistrate, with as much propriety, invade the sanctuary of the Senate, deprecate the rage and acrimony of its parties, denounce the personal misconduct of its members, question their title to their seats, and brand them with corruption or imbecility? No, gentlemen, I will never encroach upon your jurisdiction; but I shall deem it equally a duty, with firmness and decency, to resist any attempts to encroach upon mine.

But it is not on this ground alone. that your proceedings appear to be erroneous: You have also erred in the unqualified assertion, that "a great number of respectable characters have been removed from office, against whom no other blame rests than the exercise of their right as freemen, in opposition to my wishes." -Before so gross an imputation was cast upon my conduct, you should, surely, possess (what you cannot have possessed) a perfect knowledge of the information and principles by which it is regulated,-It is true, that various changes in public offices have been made, and that others are contemplated; but was it not within the scope of a candid construction to assign a less odious cause for the measures I have pursued ? In a popular government, the principle of rotation in offices of honour and profit, might fairly have been suggested. A conviction of the unfitness of an officer for his particular station, would be reasonable ground for the exercise of executive discretion; and, much as I venerate the military merit of the revolution, I may be allowed to remark, that such merit does not necessarily imply a superior capacity for civil office. The deportment of officers, not in the exercise of their rights as freemen, but in the prostitution of official influence to party purposes; not in the maintenance of their own independence, but in the defamation of the executive magistrate, may also afford a proper cause of removal; for the confidence and cordiality which ought to subsist between the principal and subordinate officers of the state, being thus destroyed, the public interest alone would demand a separation. In short, gentlemen, let my appointments be judged by any impartial test; and I flatter myself that I am rather entitled to the approbation with which the House of Representatives has honoured me, in an answer to the same address, than to the denunciation of a small majority of the Senate.

You would then perceive, that many of the commissions issued by my predecessor have been renewed; that if any veteran of the American war has been displaced, after a long enjoyment of office, others of at least equal patriotism and talents have been brought from retirement into the public service; that, so far from acting on the impulse of an indiscriminate resentment, many of my most decisive and influential opponents have been re-appointed; and that without regard to any personal feeling, I have elected, and shall always deem it a duty to elect, for public stations, men who are tried and faithful friends to the genuine principles of our republican institutions.

Having now, gentlemen; endeavoured to evince the impropriety and injustice of the aspersions with which I have been assailed, permit me again to invite your co-operation in establishing and preserving the harmony of the Government: To the honour of the State, to the interest of our constituents, and to our own happiness, it is essential, that the spirit of political distrust and party feud should be effectually subdued. For a purpose so important and beneficial, an example may justly be expected from those, who are elevated to public stations : And, I repeat, that with the prosperity of the people as our sole object; with the constitution and laws as our constant guide; we may reasonably hope for success. For my part, be assured, that, notwithstanding every past unpleasant occurrence, I shall embrace every opportunity to manifest a profound respect for the Legislature, and to reciprocate marks of confidence and esteem with the individuals that compose it.

THOMAS M'Kean.

Lancaster, January 28, 1800.

DISSENT of the MINORITY.

Dissentient,

Because we consider the answer to the address of the Governor, as an useless interference on the part of the Senate, uncalled for by the contents of the address, and un sanctioned by former precedent.

Because the answer of the Senate is not in fact an answer to the address of the Governor, but consists of observations perfectly extraneous and irrelevant.

Because the answer of the Senate unwarrantably and unconstitutionally arraigns the Governor, for conduct pursued,' and language made use of (if at all) before he became the chief magistrate of this State, and completely without the cognizance and jurisdiction of the Senate.

Because the answer of the Senate is, in our opinion, a gross and unjustifiable interference with the discretionary powers vested in the Governor by the constitution. and calculated to infringe, in his person, on the right of the people at large, it being notorious that in the Governor, and in him only, in conformity with the powers consided to him by the people, rests the right of appreciating and appointing the officers alluded to in the answer of the Senate.

Because the address of the Governor, mild and conciliating in its sentiments, and expressed in language becoming the dignity of the situation he has been called upon to fill, does, not contain one single expression that could directly or indirectly provoke the acrimonious reply which the Senate has thought fit to adopt.

Because " we entertained a momentary hope; that by a manly and noble policy" (so laudably in our opinion held forth in the address of the Governor) " the spirit of party and political discontent, which, now divides our State, and threatens its peace, would be removed," by a cordial acceptance, on the part of the Senate, of the Governor's invitation.

We lament, as members of this body, that the answer in question has annihilated the hopes we had thus fondly cherished, and hoisted the signal of discord in return for proffers of conciliation and peace. We rejoice in this opportunity of expressing our profound dissent from the spirit which dictated the answer of the Senate.

Because we think the language of that answer is as insulting to the people in the person of their Governor, as it is degrading to the dignity of the Senate ; nor can we help remarking the strange inconsistency of that answer, which complains of opprobrious language, in language the most opprobrious. We respect the sovereignty of the people in their constituted authorities.

We personally respect the Governor, to whom this answer is addressed -we respect the decorum of our stations as Senators to Pennsylvania -and we respect ourselves as citizens. On all these accounts we cannot but dissent from the language as well as the matter of the answer in question,

Because we did not hear in the course of the debate any proof whatever of the accusations and insinuations contained in the answer. and we conceive it to have been adopted rather from the influence of disappointment and irritation; than from that decisive evidence peculiarly required when the interference itself was voluntary; unprecedented, and unnecessary:

Because we are individually persuaded in our own minds, that the charges in that answer contained against the Governor of Pennsylvania, are not supported by facts.

William Findlay,
John Hamilton,
Samuel Dale,
Thomas McWhorter,
Christian Lower,
Samuel Maclay.
John Kean,