Expunged Senate censure motion against President Andrew Jackson, January 16, 1837

National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. Senate

The Senate’s censure of President Jackson was approved 26 to 20 on March 28, 1834. For years, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, a supporter of President Jackson, tried to expunge the censure motion. By 1837 the Democratic Party controlled the Senate and Senator Benton once again moved to expunge the motion. This time the Democrats had the votes and the measure passed on January 16. After the vote, the Secretary of the Senate ceremoniously brought the Senate Legislative Journal into the chamber and, according to the directions in the resolutions, drew "black lines around the said resolve, and write across the face thereof, in strong letters, the following words: ‘Expunged by order of the Senate this Sixteenth day of January in the year of our Lord, 1837."