Censure of Andrew Jackson

Censures A censure is a formal statement of disapproval issued by a group, such as a legislative body. Presidential censure is not explicitly provided for in the Constitution of the United States, which does not even use the term "censure". Article One Section 5 Clause 2 does permit that, "each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member," which can be seen as permitting for censure by the chambers of the United States Congress of their own members. However, nothing in the United States Constitution explicitly outlines the ability for such action to be taken by a chamber of the United States Congress against individuals not belonging to that chamber. Bank War Political conflict arose over the opposition of President Andrew Jackson to the existence of the Second Bank of the United States. In 1829, in his first annual message to the United States Congress, Jackson criticized the bank. Jackson believed that the bank was unconstitutional and worried about its centralization of financial influence. He believed it favored the elites over farmers and laborers. In 1832, he successfully vetoed a bill to recharter the bank. However, the bank still had a charter that would not expire until 1836. In 1833, Jackson had federal deposits withdrawn from the bank, causing great political controversy. In order to do this, on September 23, 1833, Jackson had dismissed Secretary of the Treasury William J. Duane, who had refused orders to do this, and in his place made the recess appointment of Roger Taney as secretary of the treasury. ==Censure vote==

In response to Jackson's actions, the Whig-controlled Senate expressed its disapproval by censuring him. The Congress reconvened in December 1833, at which point Henry Clay introduced a two-part resolution which, in its first part, asserted that Jackson had In its second part, this resolution asserted that Congress held a role in overseeing the nation's deposits and that the reason Taney had provided for removing federal deposits was "unsatisfactory and insufficient". It was debated over a period of ten weeks. Clay, leading the effort to censure, described Jackson as a "backwoods Caesar" and his administration a "military dictatorship". Jackson would retaliate by calling Clay as "reckless and as full of fury as a drunken man in a brothel". The Senate ultimately adopted a revised censure resolution on March 28, 1834, and Jackson was thereby officially censured for violating the Constitution in a vote of 26–20. The opposing parties accused each other of lacking credentials to represent the people. Jacksonian Democrats argued that the senators were beholden to the state legislatures that selected them; the Whigs pointed out that the president had been chosen by electors and not by direct election. On April 15, 1834, Jackson sent the Senate a lengthy message protesting his censure. In part, Jackson wrote, ==Expungement vote==

, rolling the expungement resolution uphill toward the U.S. Capitol building (hdl:loc.pnp/cph.3g02386) '' of the United States Senate with a notation indicating that the 1834 censure of President Jackson had been "expunged by the Senate" For years, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, an ally of Jackson, had attempted to have the motion expunged. However, this effort was to no avail until 1837, when the Democratic Party held a majority in the Senate. Benton first introduced a resolution to expunge the censure on June 30, 1834. He thereafter reintroduced it each new session of Congress. Thirteen consecutive hours of debate were held on the resolution before the Senate voted 25–19 to expunge the censure. Weeks after the expungement vote, the secretary of the Senate retrieved the original manuscript journal of the Senate and opened it to March 28, 1834, the day that the censure was applied. In accordance with the expungement resolution, he drew black lines around the text recording the censure and atop of the text wrote: "Expunged by order of the Senate, this sixteenth day of January in the year of our Lord, 1837". Thereafter, Jackson hosted a large dinner for the "expungers". Presidential historian Laura Ellyn Smith wrote of the decision to vote to expunge Jackson's censure, Clay expressed his deep disgust with the expungement vote, remarking, "The Senate is no longer a place for any decent man." The Senate Historical Office has written of the chaos that erupted in the Senate Chamber after the expungement vote passed, Despite this expungement vote, historians still regard Jackson to have been censured. ==Aftermath==

In 2023, historian Joshua Zeitz wrote that, In the early 2020s, the expungement vote was pointed to by some supporters of an effort by Republicans to have the United States House of Representatives hold a similar vote intended to "expunge" the two impeachments of Republican former president Donald Trump, with these supporters of that effort regarding it to be a precedent that supports the notion of supposedly-expunging a federal impeachment. ==See also==