Robert White, Plaintiff In Error v. William Nicholls, William Robinson, Otho Linthicum, Edward Linthicum, Raphael Semmes, Paul Stevens, and Charles Fulton, Defendants In Error Robert White, Plaintiff In Error v. Henry Addison, Defendant In Error
| Decision Date | 01 January 1845 |
| Citation | 44 U.S. 266,11 L.Ed. 591,3 How. 266 |
| Parties | ROBERT WHITE, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. WILLIAM S. NICHOLLS, WILLIAM ROBINSON, OTHO M. LINTHICUM, EDWARD M. LINTHICUM, RAPHAEL SEMMES, PAUL STEVENS, AND CHARLES C. FULTON, DEFENDANTS IN ERROR. ROBERT WHITE, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. HENRY ADDISON, DEFENDANT IN ERROR |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
THESE two cases depended upon the same facts and principles, and were argued together. They were brought up by writ of error from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, sitting for the county of Washington.
The facts were these:
On the 26th of June, 1841, the following letter was addressed to the President of the United States:
'Georgetown, June 26th, 1841.
'SIR:—We feel it to be proper to put you in possession of the grounds upon which the removal of Mr. Robert White, from the office of collector of customs of this port, is requested. You will recollect the humiliating and prostrate condition of the people of this district about a year ago, when the majority then in Congress determined to destroy our banks as a punishment upon us for having avowed and published our preference for the candidates of the great whig party. It was in that dark season that Mr. White determined to desert his own fellow-citizens, and to join in the war which was making upon their liberties and interests. Being then seeking office, he thought to recommend himself to the executive by getting up a memorial here, which was to be used as a sanction or approval, on the part of our own citizens, of the mad policy which had been adopted by their oppressors. He then joined with an assemblage of forty-eight persons in getting up a memorial, which none but themselves could be induced to sign. These memorialists, with about five exceptions, could not be identified by name or residence as citizens of Georgetown. Upon investigation, they proved to be apprentices and journeymen, holding a transient residence in the town. Being few in number, they were no doubt believed by Congress, and persons at a distance, to be a select body of experienced merchants and traders, who had some knowledge of the subject of their memorial. A copy of the memorial has been deposited with the Secretary of the Treasury.
'It is, perhaps, one of the vilest calumnies ever issued by a band of thoughtless and irresponsible individuals, many of whom would have shrunk from such a proceeding had they the necessary intelligence to comprehend its enormity. But not so with Mr. White. He knew the paper contained an unmitigated slander. He seemed to be willing to blacken the character of those of his fellow-citizens who had been intrusted with the charge of our banks, if that would only secure an appointment when all other methods had failed him for the preceding twelve years.
'We revolt at the idea of Mr. White being permitted to remain in an office whose emoluments flow from the labor and enterprise of the very men whose business and families he sought to involve in ruin.
'It is impossible that he can ever regain the confidence of men whom he abandoned and vilified in the darkest hour of their existence. His expulsion from office is no less demanded by his unpardonable conduct, than by justice to the wounded feelings of an injured community.
'About the same time, June, 1840, with the persons under his influence, and as is believed at the request of an office-holder of great political rancor, Mr. White procured Dr. Duncan, then a member of Congress from Ohio, to deliver a speech here in abuse of General Harrison. The speech was, perhaps, the very vilest that was ever delivered by that gentleman.
'It was so satisfactory to Mr. White, who acted as vicepresident on the occasion, that he immediately rose, and moved the doctor a vote of thanks, and a request that the speech be furnished for publication. The resolutions which were adopted unanimously on the occasion, were nearly as calumnious as the speech itself.
'We refer you to the Globe newspaper of the 3d July last, for an official account of the proceedings of the meeting. We will only trouble you with a few sentences, that you may have some idea of the character of those extraordinary proceedings. They denounced General Harrison as 'the nominee of the bank whig federalist, abolitionist and anti-masons,' 'an abolitionist of fraud and concealment,' as being guilty of pursuing a course 'grossly insulting to common sense, honesty, and decency, by shrouding himself in darkness,' 'of courting dangerous fanatics, and countenancing them (abolitionists) in their mad warfare upon our peace, our property and our lives,' and 'that he should be treated as an abolitionist.'
'Mr. White's was the place where the leading men of his party nightly assembled up to the close of the presidential election, and a respectable citizen declares, that since Mr. White's appointment he circulated 'bushels' of the 'Globe.' He declines to give his formal evidence in the case, upon the ground, that he being a near neighbor of Mr. W., he is unwilling to disturb the friendly personal relations existing between them.
'Such was Mr. White's general political violence, and the unhesitancy with which he descended to the lowest means to secure the favor of the late administration, that no one doubted here but that he would be dismissed when the present party came into power, and no one can be more astonished than Mr. White is himself at his retention to the present time.
'We will also take this opportunity to state, that we desire Mr. H. Addison to be appointed to the office of collector in Mr. White's place, whose abundant testimonials and recommendations of our business citizens are already on file with the Secretary of the Treasury.
PAUL STEVENS.
On some other day, which was not stated in the record, the following letter was addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury.
'HON. THOMAS EWING,
Secretary of the Treasury.
'SIR—Earnestly requesting, as we now do, the immediate removal of Mr. Robt. White from the office of collector of this port, we feel it proper to state candidly our insuperable objections to his continuance in that office.
'At a time when a remorseless and vindictive majority in Congress were making a ruinous war upon all the business interests of the country, by destroying confidence in its banking institutions, and when that majority were pursuing a most persecuting and ruinous course towards the defenceless and unoffending people of this District, Mr. White, for the mere purpose of evidencing his unscrupulous zeal in behalf of the late administration, and to secure its favor, did, under the most offensive circumstances, sign a violently abusive and insulting memorial to Congress, urging in the most decided manner the adoption of fatal measures toward the banks, by compelling them to continue specie payments, when all the institutions of Virginia and Maryland had suspended, and thereby to be compelled to pursue a destructive and burdensome policy towards their customers.
'The object of the memorial was to place something in the hands of our enemies, in the shape of an approval of their course, which was a gross deception.
'This offence becomes greatly aggravated, when it is known that Mr. White knew, so far as his acquaintance went with his co-signers, that they were too grossly ignorant of business and banking to be able to express any opinion upon such a subject. The other signers, with the exception of two or three, were so wholly unknown to our business community, that Mr. White would not be able to identify their persons or designate their residences. It is to be taken for granted that they were merely transient laborers, or persons so young as not then to have attracted the notice of our oldest and most observing citizens; some of them, indeed, were known to be small apprentices. So offensive and unpopular was the whole proceeding, that with the exception of, perhaps, two others, (from whom our community would look for nothing better,) Mr. White was the only respectable man of business who could be induced to put his name upon the paper. His own purpose could never have been detected, but for his appointment as collector, which so soon succeeded. Mr. White's experience in trade had taught him the indispensable necessity for banks in this District, and his intelligence and sense of justice were outraged by the declaration that our banks should be made to pay specie, when the banks of our neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland found it wholly impracticable so to do. He knew the gentlemen who had the management of our banks, directors as well as officers, and he knew they stood without reproach, and that it was wholly impossible that they could be influenced by the low and disreputable designs which his memorial so unscrupulously charged to them. It was a vile slander, put forth so as to evade the responsibility of a legal prosecution. We think he is the last man to hold an office, the value of which depends upon the enterprise and integrity of the very men whose families and business were alike to be overwhelmed with ruin at his special application.
'His removal from an office thus obtained would be doubly gratifying to us, when we know his family does not need its emoluments for support.
'It can be proved that at his store, in which the office of collector is kept, there were almost nightly assemblages of the principal party men who sustained the late administration, and particularly during the fall of 1840.
'A highly respectable man has stated that, during the latter part of the late canvass, he saw Mr. White...
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